Political leaders and leadership Books

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Book SynopsisVolodymyr Zelensky captivated the world when his country was invaded by Russia in February 2022. His appearances were accompanied by countless inspiring statements. But there''s a single one that informs Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky: We are all simple people.Jessie Kanzer sees Zelensky as a Spiritual Leader for Our Times. As a Soviet refugee, she picks up on the deep philosophical ramifications behind his words. Rich and yet easy-to-read, the life lessons in Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky are accessible and wise, and are more about starting where you are than about war.Kanzer herself has a bit part in Zelensky''s life story, acting in one of his movies filmed in the States. She''s a self-described spiritual nerd who followed Zelensky long before he stood before a blue and yellow backdrop on the national stage. She writes, What is so incredible about our man Volodymyr is that his belief in himself stems not from seeing himself as special, but from

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Book SynopsisA New York Times Notable Book of the Year A major reassessment of Winston Churchill that examines his lasting influence in politics and culture.Trade Review"Few have argued the case as powerfully as Wheatcroft.…[He] is a skilled prosecutor with a rapier pen.…Wheatcroft’s could be the best single-volume indictment of Churchill yet written." -- Peter Baker - New York Times Book Review"Trenchant…Even readers sick of Churchill will find much to enjoy, partly because Wheatcroft is such a fluent and entertaining writer, but also because he has so many interesting and provocative things to say." -- Dominic Sandbrook - Sunday Times (UK)"A clear-eyed, incisive, and superbly balanced account of Churchill, the man and the myth. Wheatcroft shows how a deeply flawed character, with outdated views on empire and race even by the standards of his own time, but a ‘Rossini of rhetoric,’ caught a wave of history in 1940 and became the darling of the British and American Right. Much to think about in the twenty-first century." -- Robert Gildea, professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, and author of Empires of the Mind"Provocative, clear-sighted, richly textured, and wonderfully readable, this is the indispensable book on Churchill for the post–Brexit 2020s: of unmissable and sometimes uncomfortable relevance to both British exceptionalists and those who fail to understand the seductive allure of that exceptionalism." -- David Kynaston, author of Tales of a New Jerusalem"Hagiographers beware; Wheatcroft has skewered the cult of Churchill hero worship. This book reminds us that while Churchill was Britain’s savior in 1940, his views on race and empire, and his military debacles from the Dardanelles to Dieppe, make it unwise to revere him like a saint." -- Samir Puri, author of The Great Imperial Hangover"Invigorating.... An exhilarating reassessment that will appeal to Churchill buffs and newcomers alike." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review"Authoritative…Wheatcroft brings superior scholarship, controlled, intermittently witty prose, and warts-and-all admiration…A lively and rigorous deep dive into the ambiguous, still-relevant geopolitical odyssey that Churchill represents." -- Kirkus, starred review"A provocative reevaluation of an iconic figure." -- Booklist, starred review"Fans of history will find much value in this readable work." -- Library Journal

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Book SynopsisWinston Churchill is handed down the generations, reinvented in the process to suit current controversies. He has been many things: presently a talisman of the political right, a war-hero of conservative outlook who saved his country; on the left, he is a reactionary imperialist, a warmongering oppressor of the workers. Both sides would be surprised by a time trip to the sensation-filled years of 1910 and 1911. They would find a modernist progressive, cordially loathed by the Tories, carrying through programmes of social reform and making the prison system more humane: declaring to Parliament that even convicted offenders have rights and that how a state treats them determines the level of its civilisation. A long-serving Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office reckoned that Churchill's policies (which his successors continued) halved the prison population. During the last third of the twentieth century and into the next, rehabilitation has gone into reverse. Prison numbers have s

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of A. Lincoln, a major new biography of one of America’s greatest generals—and most misunderstood presidentsWinner of the William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography • Finalist for the Gilder-Lehrman Military History Book Prize In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the “Trinity of Great American Leaders.” But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. Based on seven years of research with primary documents—some of them never examined by previous Grant scholars—this is destined to become the Grant biography of our time. White, a biographer exceptionally skilled at

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Book Synopsis“Kirstin Downey’s lively, substantive and—dare I say—inspiring new biography of Perkins . . . not only illuminates Perkins’ career but also deepens the known contradictions of Roosevelt’s character.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.

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Book SynopsisWritten by contributors from across a range of academic disciplines, this Companion brings together traditional and cutting-edge scholarship to explore a figure of singular importance in American political, cultural, intellectual, and literary history.Trade Review“Readers will also appreciate the text’s comprehensive bibliography. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduates, researchers/faculty.” (Choice, 1 April 2012)Table of ContentsList of Figures x About the Contributors xi Introduction 1 David Waldstreicher Part I Biography 5 1 Franklin’s Boston Years, 1706–1723 7 Nian-Sheng Huang 2 The Philadelphia Years, 1723–1757 25 George W. Boudreau 3 The Making of a Patriot, 1757–1775 46 Sheila L. Skemp 4 Franklin Furioso, 1775–1790 65 Jonathan R. Dull Part II Franklin and Eighteenth-Century America 81 5 Benjamin Franklin and Colonial Society 83 Konstantin Dierks 6 Benjamin Franklin and Pennsylvania Politics 104 Alan Tully 7 Benjamin Franklin and Religion 129 John Fea 8 Benjamin Franklin and the Coming of the American Revolution 146 Benjamin L. Carp 9 Benjamin Franklin and Native Americans 164 Timothy J. Shannon 10 The Complexion of My Country: Benjamin Franklin and the Problem of Racial Diversity 183 Nicholas Guyatt 11 Benjamin Franklin, Capitalism, and Slavery 211 David Waldstreicher 12 Benjamin Franklin and Women 237 Susan E. Klepp Part III Franklin the Writer and Thinker 253 13 “The Manners and Situation of a Rising People”: Reading Franklin’s Autobiography 255 Ormond Seavey 14 Poor Richard’s Almanac 275 William Pencak 15 Benjamin Franklin and Journalism 290 David Paul Nord 16 Benjamin Franklin, the Science of Flow, and the Legacy of the Enlightenment 308 Laura Rigal 17 Benjamin Franklin, Associations, and Civil Society 335 Albrecht Koschnik 18 Empire and Nation 359 Eliga H. Gould 19 Franklin’s Pictorial Representations of British America 373 Lester C. Olson Part IV Franklin and the Categories of Inquiry 391 20 American Literature and American Studies 393 Edward Cahill 21 Benjamin Franklin’s Material Cultures 412 Megan E. Walsh 22 Benjamin Franklin and Political Theory 430 Jerry Weinberger 23 Benjamin Franklin and International Relations 463 Leonard J. Sadosky 24 Benjamin Franklin in Memory and Popular Culture 479 Andrew M. Schocket Bibliography 499 Index 536

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Book SynopsisHow Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders exemplified manhood and civic virtue. Below a Cuban sun so hot it stung their eyes, American troops hunkered low at the base of Kettle Hill. Spanish bullets zipped overhead, while enemy artillery shells landed all around them. Driving Spanish forces from the high ground would mean gaining control of Santiago, Cuba, and, soon enough, American victory in the Spanish-American War. No one doubted that enemy fire would claim a heavy toll, but these unusual citizen-soldiers and their unlikely commander39-year-old Colonel Theodore Roosevelthad volunteered for exactly this kind of mission. In Charging Up San Juan Hill, John R. Van Atta recounts that fateful day in 1898. Describing the battle's background and its ramifications for Roosevelt, both personal and political, Van Atta explains how Roosevelt's wartime experience prompted him to champion American involvement in world affairs. Tracking Roosevelt's rise to the presidency, this book argues tTrade ReviewVan Atta adeptly links Roosevelt's deep immersion in Western American culture to his investment in American imperialism in a readable cultural and military history. Van Atta's efforts to shine a light on the stories Roosevelt failed to tell about the Spanish-American War make the monograph particularly valuable and give a sense that this is not merely another laudatory biography of T.R. Charging Up San Juan Hill's greatest strength is its innovative thinking about old questions of empire . . . [it] would work well in undergraduate courses on American military history or the Gilded Age and Progressive Era . . . The text should prove a worthy addition to the shelves of Western historians.—Cecily N. Zander, Pennsylvania State University, Western Historical QuarterlyThe strength of Van Atta's work is its brisk and engrossing narrative of the causes of the Spanish-American War; of the formation, actions, and meaning of the Rough Riders; and of the political benefits that Colonel Roosevelt reaped from serving . . . This approachable work will be well received in an undergraduate course as an engaging introduction to the cultural factors of the Spanish-American War and how masculine regeneration and American imperialism intersected.—Kyle Anthony, University of Saint Mary, Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsPrologue: Old Values, New Challenges 1 Legacies 2 Jingo Doctrines 3 Teddy’s Terrors 4 Crowded Hour 5 New Empire Epilogue: Eclipse of Old Heroes Acknowledgments Notes Essay on Sources Index

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Book SynopsisBest-selling author Winston Groom tells the complex story of how Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin--the three iconic and vastly different Allied leaders--aligned to win World War II and created a new world order. By the end of World War II, 59 nations were arrayed against the axis powers, but three great Allied leaders--Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin--had emerged to control the war in Europe and the Pacific. Vastly different in upbringing and political beliefs, they were not always in agreement--or even on good terms. But in the end, these three men presided over a new world order. Best-selling historian Winston Groom returns to tell one of the biggest stories of the 20th century: The interwoven and remarkable tale, and a fascinating study of leadership styles, of three world leaders who fought the largest war in history.Trade Review"...one of America’s great storytellers, Winston Groom paints a vivid portrait of men caught between the vise jaws of military necessity and political reality. Anecdotes about their personal lives, such as Stalin’s tumultuous family relationships and FDR’s struggle with polio, bring color to leaders we remember through black-and white photographs and newsreels. Churchill is a character tailor-made for Mr. Groom’s style, and he captures the English lion’s genius for inspiration in bold, beautiful strokes... It is the writing that gives “The Allies” its elemental charm. At its best, Mr. Groom tells an enthralling story of three nations, each wary of the others, and of three men who set aside deep differences for a common cause." –The Wall Street Journal“Groom brings his experience as both novelist and historian to bear in this well-researched and fast-paced narrative of the complex relationship among the three statesmen who determined the outcome of WWII…This is an excellent history.” –Publishers Weekly “Novelist and historian Groom recounts the origins and fortunes of the grand alliance forged to battle the Axis powers in World War II.” –Kirkus "Military historian (The Generals) and fiction writer Groom (Forrest Gump) presents an accessible work about the “Big Three” of World War II: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin. According to the author, who cites well-regarded secondary sources throughout this readable history, it was the brutal international conflict that led to this triumvirate rather than the compatibility of their personalities." –Library Journal"Knowledge of the Second World War and an understanding of the role played by the dominant personalities who shaped the war are fading from memory. For some, the war and its leaders are ancient history. Winston Groom’s The Allies will hopefully help a new generation learn about the heroics, the horrors, and the tragedies of World War II." –NY Journal of Books"Groom delivers concise, brisk, biographical sketches of the three individuals, raised in three widely separate and culturally varied places." –Tuscaloosa News"Novelist and historian Groom recounts the origins and fortunes of the grand alliance forged to battle the Axis powers in World War II." –Crossville Chronicle, Tennessee“Groom excels at capturing the flow of influence to action.” –Birmingham News"A superb history of the three leaders who guided the world during WWII: Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Not only did these three political giants direct the strategy of the war, they contributed to the future direction of the world by decisions made at the war’s conclusion. Although I have read books and viewed movies that detailed specific battles and places, Groom did a lovely job weaving a story that pulled the events together into a broad perspective which I thoroughly enjoyed. And as I have come to expect in all his histories, the anecdotes were fascinating and I learned new details about the characters and the events in play. A powerful story!" –Page and Palette “That unholy marriage of convenience between the Americans and British and the Soviets against their common enemy, Nazi Germany, certainly changed the course of the war and all-but sealed Hitler’s fate. And it is a well-known one, which Groom tells well for a general audience.” –Vietnam Veterans of America "I particularly enjoyed how Groom presented the information in a nonchalant sort of way. He painted these figures as men, rather than mythical beings, with faults, and secrets, and personal agendas, which humanized them for me. Also, Groom really hits home the fact that the only reason these three men came together was to oppose fascism, given their clear political points of difference." - The Paperback Pilgrim “It reminded me of why I adore history so much.” –Instagram: @giuliland “Groom manages to bring his skill as a historian and his magical novelist powers together to create an astoundingly brilliant historical compilation of one of my personal favorite time periods.” –I Write in Books blog “I really appreciated the way this book was laid out. The book starts out describing each of the men's upbringings and childhoods. Then it goes on to describe how they came to power. Lastly, it describes how they came to become Allies…perfect for someone who wants to get an in-depth knowledge of these three men, but don't want to read separate books. I love reading historical fiction about WWII and this book really added to my knowledge base.” –Instagram: @crystal_clears_the_shelves “I was impressed with the level of detail and connections that were provided throughout this book. Groom has captured the spirit of a biography in the context of an event, and effectively knit three lives together in one book.” –Literary Quicksand “The author doesn’t just write history, he tells a story by giving us a history of each leader and what made them. Afterwards, the reader gets to learn how these three great personalities managed to synergy and find common ground (hating Nazis was a big one).” –Man of La Book

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Book SynopsisThis companion offers an overview of Richard M. Nixon s life, presidency, and legacy, as well as a detailed look at the evolution and current state, of Nixon scholarship.Trade Review"A singularly impressive achievement, particularly in the high quality of the scholarly essays, the international diversity of the contributors, and the comprehensiveness of its coverage. I predict that it will quickly become the essential guide to the historical study of the Nixon years.” (Expofairs, 22 February 2013)Table of ContentsList of Plates viii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction 1 Melvin Small Part I Pre-Presidential Years 5 1. Nixon Biographies 7 Iwan W. Morgan 2. The Pre-Political Years, 1913–1945 27 Joseph Dmohowski 3. Pat Nixon 49 Gil Troy 4. The Congressional Years 68 Anthony Rama Maravillas 5. The Alger Hiss Case 84 Athan G. Theoharis 6. The Richard Nixon Vice Presidency: Research Without the Nixon Manuscripts 102 Irwin F. Gellman 7. The Election of 1960 122 W. J. Rorabaugh Part II Domestic Policies 141 8. The Election of 1968 143 Melvin Small 9. The Election of 1972 164 Rick Perlstein 10. The Administrative Presidency 185 Karen M. Hult 11. Richard Nixon, the Great Society, and Social Reforms: A Lost Opportunity? 202 Romain Huret 12. Civil Rights Policy 212 Dean J. Kotlowski 13. Economic Policy 235 Nigel Bowles 14. Political Realignment 252 Robert Mason 15. Nixon and the Environment 270 Paul Charles Milazzo 16. Nixon and the Media 292 Tim Kiska 17. Nixon and Dissent 311 Katherine Scott 18. Nixon and Agnew 328 Justin P. Coffey Part III Foreign Policies 343 19. Foreign Policy Overview 345 Jussi M. Hanhimäki 20. Nixon and Kissinger 362 Robert D. Schulzinger 21. The Vietnam War 380 Jeffrey P. Kimball 22. Explorations of Détente 400 Keith L. Nelson 23. The China Card 425 Evelyn Goh 24. Nixon and Europe: Transatlantic Policy in the Shadow of Other Priorities 444 Luke A. Nichter 25. Latin America and the Quest for Stability 460 Mark Atwood Lawrence Part IV Post-Presidential Years 479 26. Watergate 481 Keith W. Olson 27. Nixon and Ford 499 John Robert Greene 28. Nixon’s Image: A Brief History 519 David Greenberg 29. The Nixon Tapes 546 Sahr Conway-Lanz Bibliography 563 Index 613

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Book SynopsisA Companion to Woodrow Wilson presents a compilation of essays contributed by various scholars in the field that cover all aspects of the life and career of America s 28th president.Trade Review"With this book Wiley-Blackwell add a notable figure to their growing library of presidential studies." (Reference Reviews, 1 June 2014) "A Companion to Woodrow Wilson shows how much can be learned from a conscientious bibliographic review. It is an impressive book that—through its best chapters—could teach valuable lessons to historians of many topics in addition to those studying Wilson." (Journal of American History, 1 March 2014)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Notes on Contributors x Introduction 1 Ross A. Kennedy Part I To the Presidency 7 1. Wilson the Man 9 Mark Benbow 2. Wilson’s Religious, Historical, and Political Thought 38 Malcolm D. Magee 3. Path to Power: Wilson as President of Princeton and Governor of New Jersey 55 Edmund D. Potter 4. Presidential Politics and the Election of 1912 71 William B. Murphy Part II National Progressivism and Wilson 89 5. Wilson as Chief Executive: Relations with Congress, the Cabinet, and Staff 91 Robert C. Hilderbrand 6. The New Freedom and its Evolution 106 W. Elliot Brownlee 7. Wilson and Race Relations 133 Jennifer D. Keene 8. Wilson’s Views on Immigration and Ethnicity 152 Kristofer Allerfeldt 9. The Election of 1916 173 Nicole M. Phelps Part III Foreign Relations: Western Hemisphere and Asia, 1913–1921 191 10. Wilson and Mexico 193 Benjamin T. Harrison 11. US Policies Toward Latin America 206 Michael E. Neagle 12. US Policies Toward China, Japan, and the Philippines 225 Anne L. Foster Part IV World War I: Neutrality to War 241 13. Neutrality Policy and the Decision for War 243 Justus D. Doenecke 14. Preparedness 270 Ross A. Kennedy Part V Wartime Progressivism, 1917–1921 287 15. Economic Mobilization 289 Mark R. Wilson 16. Propaganda: Wilson and the Committee on Public Information 308 Richard L. Hughes 17. Civil Liberties 323 Kathleen Kennedy 18. Wilson and Woman Suffrage 343 Barbara J. Steinson Part VI Fighting World War I 365 19. War Aims, 1917 to November 11, 1918 367 John A. Thompson 20. Policies Toward Russia and Intervention in the Russian Revolution 386 David S. Foglesong 21. Wilson’s Policies toward Eastern and Southeastern Europe, 1917–1919 406 M. B. B. Biskupski 22. Wilson and His Commanders 426 Jack McCallum Part VII Peacemaking: Paris and After 443 23. Negotiating Peace Terms for Germany 445 Klaus Schwabe 24. Wilson’s Project for a New World Order of Permanent Peace and Security 470 William R. Keylor 25. Wilson, Europe’s Colonial Empires, and the Issue of Imperialism 492 Priscilla Roberts 26. The League Fight 518 John Milton Cooper, Jr Part VIII Into the Twenties 529 27. Red Scare 531 Adam J. Hodges 28. The Election of 1920 551 Allan J. Lichtman Part IX Wilson’s Shadow 567 29. Legacy and Reputation 569 Lloyd E. Ambrosius Selected Bibliography 588 Index 635

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Book SynopsisWith 30 historiographical essays by established and rising scholars, this Companion is a comprehensive picture of the presidencies and legacies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors vii Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 Scott Kaufman 1 Détente’s Limits: Caught between Cooperation and Confrontation 5Vanessa Walker 2 Beyond Narcissism: Politics and Popular Culture in the Age of Malaise 27Bradford Martin 3 Gerald Ford: From Michigan to Washington 50Scott Kaufman 4 From Plains to Atlanta, 1924–1974 64E. Stanly Godbold, Jr. 5 The Presidency and the Pardon 80Andrew Downer Crain 6 Gerald R. Ford’s Domestic Policy 95Yanek Mieczkowski 7 US Intelligence Agencies during the Ford Years 114Kathryn S. Olmsted 8 Détente’s Disintegration, Neoconservatism, and the Ford Presidency 130Binoy Kampmark 9 Ford and the Armed Forces 149Ingo Trauschweizer 10 Gerald R. Ford: The Press, Popular Culture, and Politics 166Raymond Haberski, Jr. 11 Ford and Ford 181T. Alissa Warters 12 Just a Caretaker? 196Jason Friedman 13 Politics and the Public Mood in 1976 211Nicole L. Anslover 14 Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential Campaign: The Saint, the Sinner, and the Hopeless Dreamer 229Jeffrey Bloodworth 15 The Transition 251John P. Burke 16 Carter, the Soviet Union, Détente, and SALT II 272Jaclyn Stanke 17 Trilateralism 290Kristin L. Ahlberg 18 From East–West to North–South 312Andy DeRoche 19 Carter’s Domestic Dilemmas, 1977–1978 335Timothy Stanley 20 Mrs. President? 350Eryn Kane 21 President Carter and the Press 364Jeffrey Crouch and Elise Tollefson 22 Jimmy Carter, Congress, and the Supreme Court 379Leo P. Ribuffo 23 1979: Year of Crises 410Blake W. Jones 24 The Armed Forces during the Carter Years 430Robert T. Davis II and Scott Kaufman 25 The Center of the Carter Conundrum: Human Rights and Foreign Policy 451William Steding 26 The Election of 1980 470Andrew E. Busch 27 Get Carter: Assessing the Record of the Thirty-Ninth President 491Joe Renouard 28 The Post-Presidential Years of Gerald R. Ford 513Michael A. Davis 29 A Presidency Lost, a Life Gained: Jimmy Carter’s Post-Presidency 532Frances M. Jacobson 30 Agendas, Speakers, and Spokesmen 548John Dumbrell Index 567

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Book SynopsisAn inspiring and powerful memoir of surviving the Jonestown massacre and becoming a fearless voice against injustice and inequality by California congresswoman Jackie Speier. Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering from what would become one of the most harrowing tragedies in recent history, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? The choice to survive against unfathomable odds empowered her with a resolve to become a vocal proponent for human rights. From the formative nightmare that radically molded her perspective and instincts to the devastating personal and professional challenges that would follow, Undaunted reveals the perseverance of a determined force in American politics. Deeply rooted in Jackie’s experiences as a widow, a mother, a congresswoman, and a fighter, hers is a story of true resilience, one that will inspire other women to draw strength from adversity in order to do what is right—no matter the challenges ahead.Trade Review“Few people embody resilience like Jackie Speier. She faced unthinkable trauma with courage—and came through it with an unshakable sense of purpose. Undaunted is a remarkable story of survival and strength.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.org and OptionB.org “Jackie Speier embodies courage in every sense of the word. No matter the challenges that lay before her, she never stops putting her country and her constituents first. In Congress, I was proud to call Jackie my colleague—and I am even more proud to call her my friend. Jackie’s story of survival, hard work, and public service will be an inspiration for all who read it.” — Gabrielle Giffords, former congresswoman “Jackie Speier’s life has been nothing short of harrowing and triumphant. Undaunted will move women to persist and have their voices heard in government. It will inspire young women to be our future leaders who serve with conviction and compassion.” —Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club “Jackie Speier has lived an incredible life and has passionately dedicated much of it to public service. Undaunted is honest, eye-opening, and truly inspiring.” —Congressman John Lewis, civil rights leader “Once you open this, don’t have anything planned…Compelling.” —Dr. Phil McGraw

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Book SynopsisAn inspiring and powerful memoir of surviving the Jonestown massacre and becoming a fearless voice against injustice and inequality by California congresswoman Jackie Speier.Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan’s delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering from what would become one of the most harrowing tragedies in recent history, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? The choice to survive against unfathomable odds empowered her with a resolve to become a vocal proponent for human rights. From the formative nightmare that radically molded her perspective and instincts to the devastating personal and professional challenges that would follow, Undaunted reveals the perseverance of a determined force in American politics. Deeply rooted in Jackie’s experiences as a widow, a mother, a congresswoman, and a fighter, hers is a story of true resilience, one that will inspire other women to draw strength from adversity in order to do what is right—no matter the challenges ahead.

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Book SynopsisThe first ever comprehensive oral history of President Obama’s administration and the complex political machine that created and powered a landmark American presidency. In this candid oral history of a presidential tenure, author Brian Abrams reveals the behind-the-scenes stories that illuminate the eight years of the Obama White House through more than one hundred exclusive interviews. Among those given a voice in this extraordinary account are Obama’s cabinet secretaries; his teams of speechwriters, legal advisers, and campaign strategists; as well as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who fought for or against his agenda. They recall the early struggles of an idealistic outsider candidate and speak openly about the exacting work that led to cornerstone legislation. They share the failures and dissent that met Obama’s efforts and revisit the paths to his accomplishments. As eyewitnesses to history, their accounts combine to deliver an unfiltered view of Obama’s battle to deliver on his promise of hope and change. This provocative collage of anecdotes, personal reminiscences, and impressions from confidants and critics not only provides an authoritative window into the events that defined an era but also offers the first published account into the making of the forty-fourth president of the United States—one that history will soon not forget.

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Book SynopsisArthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, was the outstanding British individual of the nineteenth century. His victories at Seringapatam and Assaye extended British control in India and his famous campaign in Spain and Portugal helped to drive Napoleon into exile. Wellington is, of course, mostly remembered for defeating Napoleon at Waterloo and his prestige after that epoch-changing event saw him becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain on two occasions. These are the commonly-known facts about the Iron Duke, but in this remarkable investigation into the life of Britain's greatest general, we learn so much more about Wellington as a person, through the objects, large and small, that marked key episodes in his personal, military and public life. Renowned historian Gareth Glover details Wellington's family background in Ireland, his early military career, his one-and-only meeting with Nelson, his campaigns in Flanders, the Iberian Peninsula and Waterloo. What we also learn is of his difficult marriage - and his scandalous womanising, even bedding the same woman as Napoleon - and his strained relationship with his two boys. His political career was a controversial one, including his fight to pass the Catholic Emancipation Bill and of a period of three months when he ran the government by himself because he refused to appoint any Cabinet ministers! Packed with more than 200 full-colour photographs, _The Duke of Wellington in 100 Objects_ will show the world the objects he touched, or which touched him, in the life of one of the most outstanding characters Britain has ever produced.

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Book SynopsisWith his elfin poker face, receding short golden hair, diminutive but muscular body, and stiff clipped gait, Vladimir Putin is among the world's most recognizable leaders. He has tightly ruled Russia since 31 December 1999, and will firmly assert power from the Kremlin for the foreseeable future. Many fear and loath him for his brutality, for ordering opponents imprisoned on trumped up charges and even murdered. Yet most Russians adore him for rebuilding the economy, state authority, and national pride. What drives Putin? Much more than greed for money and power animates him. He is a zealous nationalist deadset to make Russia great again. He mourns the Soviet Union's breakup as the greatest political catastrophe of the twentieth century.' Putin's nostalgia is understandable. The Russian empire peaked in territory, population, military power, and prestige when it was called the Soviet Union. Putin has mastered the art of power. Depending on what is at stake, that involves the deft wielding of appropriate or smart' ingredients of hard' physical power like armoured divisions, multinational corporations, and assassins, and soft' psychological power like diplomats, honey-traps, cyber-trolls, and fake news factories to defeat threats and seize opportunities. Russian hackers penetrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's campaign organization, extracted tens of thousands of potentially embarrassing emails, and posted them on WikiLeaks. As the Kremlin's latest ruler Putin, like most of his predecessors, is as realistic as he is ruthless. He knows the limits of Russian hard and soft power while constantly trying to expand them. He is doing whatever he can to advance Russian national interests as he interprets them. In Putin's mind, Russia can rise only as far as the West can fall. And on multiple fronts he is methodically advancing to those ends. Putin's Virtual War reveals just how and why he does so, and the dire consequences for America, Europe, and the world beyond.

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Book SynopsisMany indeed, are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. But what was that influence and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country's ambitions? For the first time, Professor William Nestor has delved into the life and actions of Churchill to examine just how skillfully he manipulated events to placed him in positions of power. His thirst for power stirred political controversy wherever he intruded. Those who had to deal directly with him either loved or hated him. His enemies condemned him for being an egoist, publicity hound, double-dealer, and Machiavellian, accusations that his friends and even he himself could not deny. He could only serve Britain as a statesman and a reformer because he was a wily politician who won sixteen of twenty-one elections that he contested between 1899 and 1955. The House of Commons was Churchill's political temple where he exalted in the speeches and harangues on the floor and the backroom horse-trading and comradery. Most of his life he was a Cassandra, warning against the threats of Communism, Nazism, and nuclear Armageddon. With his ability to think beyond mental boxes and connect far-flung dots, he clearly foretold events to which virtually everyone else was oblivious. Yet he was certainly not always right and was at times spectacularly wrong. This is the first book that explores how Churchill understood and asserted the art of power, mostly through hundreds of his own insights expressed through his speeches and writings.

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Book SynopsisLong established as a leading introduction to the American presidency, Presidential Leadership, Thirteenth Edition, provides students with a comprehensive survey that addresses the capacity of chief executives to fulfill their tasks, exercise their powers, and utilize their organizational structures to affect the output of government. The authors examine all aspects of the presidency in rich detail, including the president’s powers, presidential history, and the institution of the presidency.Table of ContentsList of Tables, Figures, and PhotosPrefaceAbout the AuthorsChapter 1 – IntroductionChapter 2 – The Powers of the PresidencyChapter 3 – The Nomination ProcessChapter 4 – The Presidential ElectionChapter 5 – The President and the PublicChapter 6 – Leading the PublicChapter 7 – The President and the MediaChapter 8 – The Structure of the PresidencyChapter 9 – Presidential Decision MakingChapter 10 – The President and the ExecutiveChapter 11 – The President and CongressChapter 12 – The President and the JudiciaryChapter 13 – Domestic and Economic Policy MakingChapter 14 – Foreign and Defense PolicyAppendix A -- Methods for Studying the PresidencyAppendix B -- Nonelectoral Succession, Removal, and TenureAppendix C -- Provisions of the Constitution of the United States Relating to the PresidencyAppendix D -- 2020 Presidential Election ResultsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisAung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize Laureate, mother of two, and devout Buddhist, is one of the most inspiring examples of spiritually infused politics and fearless leadership that the world has ever seen. Daughter of the martyred Burmese national hero who negotiated Burma's independence from Britain in the 1940s, Aung San Suu Kyi led the pro-democracy movement in Burma in 1988. The movement was quickly and brutally crushed by the military junta, and Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.The Voice of Hope is a rare and intimate journey to the heart of her struggle. Over a period of nine months, Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma, met with Aung San Suu Kyi shortly after her release from her first house arrest in July 1995. With her trademark ability to speak directly and compellingly, she presents here her vision of engaged compassion and describes how she has managed to sustain her hope and optimism.

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Book SynopsisWhich president holds the record for the most vetoes? Which president had the largest shoe size? Who was the only president to serve in both World War I and World War II? Who was the tallest president? These questions and many, many more are answered in The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia, which has been fully updated to 2025 to include trivia question and answers about every US president to date.Divided into 11 chapters, The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia looks at every aspect of our heads of state and presidential history: Citizens, Officers, Heroes, and Saviors; Stumping: From Front Porch to Facebook; The Pledge and the Parties; Inside the Oval Office; The Perpetual Podium; Home, Hotel, Parlor, Playground; First Families; Impeachment, Controversy, Shame; Assassination; Death, and National Mourning; Presidents in the Popular Imagination; and The Quotable President.Many of the questions are accompanied with photographs of artifacts from the Smithsonian's collections. The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia is sure to puzzle the trivia buff and presidential expert alike!

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Book SynopsisA striking collection of presidential portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, this volume encapsulates the spirit of the most powerful office in the world.America's Presidents showcases the nation's largest collection of portraits of all the presidents beyond the White House's own, capturing the permanent exhibition that lies at the heart of the Portrait Gallery's mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it.The book explores presidential imagery through portraits ranging from the traditional, such as the iconic and newly restored Lansdowne portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, to the contemporary, such as Elaine de Kooning's colorful depiction of John F. Kennedy. Many of the featured portraits reveal much about the sitter, such as the intimate rendering of an informal George W. Bush by Robert Anderson and the fanciful, mosaic-like Chuck Close image of Bill Clinton. Some tell us more about the artist, such as the likeness of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that Douglas Chandor planned to include in a larger work about peace that would commemorate Roosevelt's Yalta meeting with wartime Allied leaders Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Works in other media, including sculptures and daguerreotypes, round out the presidential collection. Lively narratives accompany each piece, exploring the president's background and biography as well as the work's artistic and historical significance. Taken together, the portraits are a powerful visual exploration of the history of the highest office in the land and the diverse men who have held it.

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Book SynopsisSimultaneously with the release of a paperback edition of his acclaimed biography Washington: A Life (Penguin), Ron Chernow presents a revealing portrait of Washington through his own words. A young officer leading an attack that triggered a global struggle for empire. Commander of the ill-equipped and undermanned Continental Army in the War of Independence. Presiding delegate to the Constitutional Convention. First President of the United States. George Washington, the indispensable founder of the American republic, was at the heart of events of worldwide importance. He was also, as revealed in this selection introduced by his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, a writer of remarkable clarity, energy, force, and eloquence. This career- spanning selection includes detailed notes, an essay on the selection of texts, and a chronology of Washington's life.

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Book SynopsisGo beyond Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton and get to know the real Alexander Hamilton in this Library of America collection of the Founding Father’s own public and private writings. A brash immigrant who rose to become George Washington’s right-hand man. A fierce partisan whose nationalist vision made him Thomas Jefferson’s bitter rival. An unfaithful husband whose commitment to personal honor brought his life to a tragic early end. The amazing success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton has stoked an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant and divisive founder who profoundly shaped the American republic. Now, Library of America presents an unrivaled portrait of Hamilton in his own words, charting his meteoric rise, his controversial tenure as treasury secretary, and his scandalous final years—all culminating in his infamous duel with Aaron Burr. Selected and introduced by acclaimed historian Joanne B. Freeman, The Essential Hamilton is a reader’s edition of the Founding Father's public writings and private letters, plus the correspondence between Burr and Hamilton that led to their duel and two conflicting eyewitness accounts of their fatal encounter.

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Book SynopsisA guide to collaborative impact for leaders in industry, government, and social change networks Our world is facing unsustainable global trends—from climate change and water scarcity to energy insecurity, unfair labor practices, and growing inequality. Tackling these crises effectively requires a new form of leadership—a collective one. But, in a world of many silos, how do we get people to work together toward a common goal? That is one of the most important questions facing sustainability and social-change professionals around the world, and it is a question that Petra Kuenkel answers in The Art of Leading Collectively. Readers learn how to tackle system change for sustainable development, reimagine leadership as a collaborative endeavor, retrain leaders to work collectively, and manage diverse groups through a change process that has sustainability as a guiding focus. Drawing upon two decades of pioneering, internationally recognized work orchestrating multi-stakeholder initiatives, Kuenkel presents her chief tool, the Collective Leadership Compass, and shows others how to use it with large groups of diverse stakeholders to solve complex, urgent problems—particularly those that enmesh business activities, governance, human needs, and environmental impacts. The book offers many examples of collective leadership efforts involving corporate, public, and nonprofit sectors around the world. Readers learn about the processes that led to a sustainable textile alliance and set standards for sustainable cocoa and coffee production and trade, as well as those that helped nations rebound from war, develop sustainable infrastructure, and tackle resource conflicts with global businesses, to name a few. Kuenkel provides a clear roadmap for leaders from multinational companies involved in partnerships, international organizations engaged in cooperative development, public agencies, and interest groups—as well as for citizens seeking solutions to social and sustainability challengeTrade ReviewChoice- "The philosophical premise of this work is that global stakeholder collaboration leads to a human rights–based world that is economically and environmentally sustainable. Kuenkel (founder, Collective Leadership Institute) presents a simple four-step process for the complex activity of leading collectively: “Prepare for your journey into collaboration from the outset; Locate where you are, defining what is present and what’s missing; Map the path, adjust your strategies, and know what to shift, to strengthen, or to focus on; Convince your colleagues that leading collectively for sustainability can change the world.” The underlying change-management theory explored in this book closely follows the eight-stage process for leading change as first presented in John Kotter's Leading Change (1996) and incorporates many disciplines of the learning organization presented in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline (CH, Jan'07, 44-2797). References in this book to the three levels of the compass are reminiscent of Bill George's Finding Your True North (2008). This book follows up the author's earlier book Working with Stakeholder Dialogues (2011). It is an easy read and uses tables to guide readers through sometimes esoteric dialogue about collaborative endeavors. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers, undergraduates.”Library Journal- "Kuenkel, a full member of the Club of Rome as well as cofounder and executive director of the Collective Leadership ­Institute, an NGO (nongovernmental organization), has written extensively in the area of collective leadership in all sectors. With this title, the author attempts to alert people that the time for passive approaches to the many environmental problems besetting the world today is rapidly passing or has passed and explores how to make her way of thinking understood. She applies the shared actions that have led to a strengthening of the coffee production industry as her prime example. Her 'collective leadership compass' aims to design paths for society to follow and work together to implement unified strategies. The goal is to achieve knowledge in various fields using collaborative, sustainable, socially just methods that allow for corrective measures to assist leadership and stakeholder cooperation for the common good. VERDICT: This important book should be available in both academic and public venues.”“If we are serious about taking on the pressing challenges of our time, we need fresh ideas about the art of leadership, new approaches to practicing it, and courageous minds willing to make that journey. In the Art of Leading Collectively, Petra Kuenkel has given us an inspiring book that is also a vital roadmap for any and all who feel called to accelerate the great transition our world so urgently needs.”--Alan AtKisson, author of Believing Cassandra and The Sustainability Transformation“The Art of Leading Collectively is an amazing journey into taking diverse actors through collaborative change. Beautifully articulated with case studies in its implementation in individual to global change initiatives, this is an inspiring and invigorating read—most relevant to our complex, urgent, and interdependent world.”--Pavan Bakshi, CEO, Prime Meridian Consulting, India“In our complex world, strategies for harnessing collective intelligence and mobilizing collective leadership will be critical to achieving transformative change. Kuenkel eloquently champions an approach to leadership that is surprisingly under-explored in the literature, offering a clear conceptual framework to underpin her argument.”--Danny Burns, coauthor of Navigating Complexity in International Development“Corporations, governments, and NGOs alike will benefit from the shift in collaboration across sectors that will be opened with collective leadership. I highly recommend The Art of Leading Collectively to anyone interested in the future of leadership and anyone committed to systems transformation for sustainability and humanity.”--Kathrin Wieland, CEO, Save the Children Germany“Unleashing the potential of multi-stakeholder collaboration is paramount for achieving the 2030 development agenda. The Art of Leading Collectively is a powerful guide for change agents, from those in business to those in international organizations, who want to make change happen and address global challenges at scale. The beauty of this book lies in its appeal to thinkers and practitioners alike to embrace systems change, organizational development, and individual daring as key ingredients to collectively and decisively acting on creating a better world.”--Arjan Schuthof, Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation“The Collective Leadership Compass is a fascinating multi-dimensional framework that has the potential to open up new perspectives on systemic change from a complex systems perspective. This book should be read critically, but it should be read.”--Dave Snowden, Chief Scientific Officer, Cognitive Edge; creator, The Cynefin Framework"The Collective Leadership Compass, the tool elaborated on in The Art of Leading Collectively, enables people from very different backgrounds, perspectives, and beliefs to come together, meet as equals, and develop common ground and solutions that go beyond what each could have achieved individually. These solutions are truly carried by all members of the group and hence translated into action. Having had the privilege to experience the method firsthand, I know that its effects are profound and just what is needed to bring forth the kind and level of innovation we urgently need today.”--Bettina von Stamm, author of The Innovation Wave and Managing Innovation, Design and Creativity; founder, Innovation Leadership Forum “The complex challenges of our time call for systems-based, collaborative leadership. Petra Kuenkel shares her breadth of experience about developing this capacity, showing how leaders can use her approach to mobilize organizational, multinational, and multi-sectoral networks for sustainability. She reminds us that becoming a more effective collaborative leader is both an inner and outer journey, and that we can best realize our individual visions by accessing people’s collective humanity, power, and creativity.”--David Peter Stroh, author of Systems Thinking for Social Change“Implementing the seventeen global sustainable development goals successfully will require us to take collaboration between institutions, stakeholders, and nations to the next level. The Art of Leading Collectively prepares us for this journey.”--Cornelia Richter, management board member, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) “The level of complexity in development challenges requires new approaches and new forms of leadership. Persuasively and vividly laid out through both storytelling and deep analysis, Kuenkel provides the tools and understanding that are essential to the science and art of leading collectively.”--Darian Stibbe, executive director, The Partnering Initiative“Through rich examples of her own experience and that of others, Petra Kuenkel shows that co-creation is at the heart of our lives. Moreover, she gives invaluable material to help us co-create in more conscious, fulfilling, and effective ways. Her method is core to addressing critical challenges-come-opportunities that we face as individuals, in our work lives, and as increasingly interconnected citizens of planet Earth.”--Steve Waddell, author of Global Action Networks; principal, NetworkingAction

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive, fully up-to-date biography of Vladimir Putin, woven into the tumultuous saga of Russia over the last sixty years Vladimir Putin is the world's most dangerous man. Alone among world leaders, he has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He invades his neighbors, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections, and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. His regime is autocratic and deeply corrupt. But that is only half the story.Unflinching, hard-hitting, and objective, Philip Short's biography gives us the whole tale, up to the present day. To the fullest extent anyone has yet been able, Short cracks open the strongman's thick carapace to reveal the man underneath those bare-chested horseback rides. In this deeply researched account, readers meet the Putin who slept in the same room as his parents until he was twenty-five years old, who backed out of his wedding right beforehand, and who learned English in order to be able to talk to George W. Bush.Vladimir Putin is wreaking havoc in Europe, threatening global peace and stability and exposing his fellow citizens to devastating economic countermeasures. Yet puzzlingly many Russians continue to support him. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the many facets of the man behind the mask that Putin wears on the world stage.Drawing on almost two hundred interviews conducted over eight years in Russia, the United States, and Europe and on source material in more than a dozen languages, Putin will be the last word for years to come.

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Book SynopsisOvershadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as an aloof intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from defeat in 1828’s presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery. Award-winning historian William J. Cooper’s “balanced, wellsourced, and accessible work” (Publishers Weekly) demonstrates that Adams should be considered our lost Founding Father, his moral and political vision the final link to the visionaries who created our nation. With his heroic arguments in the Amistad trial forever memorialized, Adams stood strong against the expansion of slavery that would send the nation hurtling into war. This “well-crafted” (William McFeely) biography reveals Adams to be one of the most battered, but courageous and inspirational, politicians in American history.Trade Review"In this illuminating new look at John Quincy Adams, the distinguished historian William J. Cooper gives us a vivid and convincing account of one of the most significant—but too often overlooked—figures in our history. Long obscured by the towering shadow of his father’s generation on one side and by Andrew Jackson on the other, our sixth president merits more study and credit. In these pages, Cooper gives him both." -- Jon Meacham, author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power"There is a certain urgency to new studies of presidents of the republic. William Cooper’s well-crafted life of John Quincy Adams, a learned and well-trained president with a conscience touching the moral questions of his day, admirably fits that bill." -- William McFeely, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Grant: A Biography"John Quincy Adams was a world traveler and full-throated nationalist, primed from youth for a life in politics. His path to success was marred by a cold, forbidding character that he could not shake. The Lost Founding Father is as nimble and inviting to readers as its subject was dense and ill-disposed to company." -- Andrew Burstein, author of Jefferson’s Secrets and The Passions of Andrew Jackson"As he did in his prize-winning biography of Jefferson Davis, William J. Cooper here brilliantly balances a perceptive portrait of John Quincy Adams’s personal life and character…with an astute and compelling analysis of his decades-long public career. The result is another first-class performance." -- Michael Holt, author of The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party"Cooper’s balanced, well-sourced, and accessible work focuses on a rarely examined yet pivotal period in American history." -- Publisher's Weekly

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Book SynopsisIn the 1820s, two families, unknown to each other, worked on farms in the American wilderness. It seemed unlikely that the families would ever meet—and yet, they did. The son of one family, the famed actor John Wilkes Booth, killed the son of the other, President Abraham Lincoln, in the most significant assassination in American history. The murder, however, did not come without warning—in fact, it had been foretold. In the Houses of Their Dead is the first book of the many thousands written about Lincoln to focus on the president’s fascination with Spiritualism, and to demonstrate how it linked him, uncannily, to the man who would kill him. Abraham Lincoln is usually seen as a rational, empirically-minded man, yet as acclaimed scholar and biographer Terry Alford reveals, he was also deeply superstitious and drawn to the irrational. Like millions of other Americans, including the Booths, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, suffered repeated personal tragedies, and turned for solace to Spiritualism, a new practice sweeping the nation that held that the dead were nearby and could be contacted by the living. Remarkably, the Lincolns and the Booths even used the same mediums, including Charles Colchester, a specialist in “blood writing” whom Mary first brought to her husband, and who warned the president after listening to the ravings of another of his clients, John Wilkes Booth. Alford’s expansive, richly-textured chronicle follows the two families across the nineteenth century, uncovering new facts and stories about Abraham and Mary while drawing indelible portraits of the Booths—from patriarch Julius, a famous actor in his own right, to brother Edwin, the most talented member of the family and a man who feared peacock feathers, to their confidant Adam Badeau, who would become, strangely, the ghostwriter for President Ulysses S. Grant. At every turn, Alford shows that despite the progress of the age—the glass hypodermic syringe, electromagnetic induction, and much more—death remained ever-present, and thus it was only rational for millions of Americans, from the president on down, to cling to beliefs that seem anything but. A novelistic narrative of two exceptional American families set against the convulsions their times, In the Houses of Their Dead ultimately leads us to consider how ghost stories helped shape the nation.Trade Review"Absorbing... Alford does a fine job of describing the Booths and their circle... Alford’s revelation of this and other connections between the Booths and the Lincolns is what distinguishes In the Houses of Their Dead from previous studies of spiritualism in the Lincoln White House... Alford ranges widely into the personal backgrounds of Lincoln and the Booth family, opening new vistas on both. His book is made up of many interwoven threads—neglected biographical facts, events of the Civil War, and acting styles—connected in varied ways to superstition or the afterlife... Alford’s portrayal of John Wilkes Booth is interestingly complex... [and] gives vivid accounts of the murder in Ford’s Theatre and the manhunt for Booth." -- David S. Reynolds - New York Review of Books"[E]ntertaining . . . worth reading for its wealth of Ripley’s Believe It or Not characters and their foibles." -- Dennis Drabelle - Washington Post"A lively study of two wildly disparate clans." -- Leah Greenblatt - New York Times Book Review"[Alford] packs the narrative with intriguing if little-known historical figures and strange coincidences. This unusual portrait of two famously intertwined families fascinates." -- Publishers Weekly"Alford introduces readers to many spiritualist-devoted characters who held influential posts in both military and government. This may hold special appeal for fans of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), since it provides factual background for the popular novel." -- Mark Knoblauch - Booklist

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Book SynopsisFintan O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don’t Know Ourselves, O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary “backwater” to an almost totally open society—perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. Born to a working-class family in the Dublin suburbs, O’Toole served as an altar boy and attended a Christian Brothers school, much as his forebears did. He was enthralled by American Westerns suddenly appearing on Irish television, which were not that far from his own experience, given that Ireland’s main export was beef and it was still not unknown for herds of cattle to clatter down Dublin’s streets. Yet the Westerns were a sign of what was to come. O’Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish, women in particular. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism. In O’Toole’s telling, America became a lodestar, from John F. Kennedy’s 1963 visit, when the soon-to-be martyred American president was welcomed as a native son, to the emergence of the Irish technology sector in the late 1990s, driven by American corporations, which set Ireland on the path toward particular disaster during the 2008 financial crisis. A remarkably compassionate yet exacting observer, O’Toole in coruscating prose captures the peculiar Irish habit of “deliberate unknowing,” which allowed myths of national greatness to persist even as the foundations were crumbling. Forty years in the making, We Don’t Know Ourselves is a landmark work, a memoir and a national history that ultimately reveals how the two modes are entwined for all of us.Trade Review"O’Toole, a prolific essayist and critic, calls this inventive narrative 'a personal history of modern Ireland' — an ambitious project, but one he pulls off with élan. Charting six decades of Irish history against his own life, O’Toole manages to both deftly illustrate a country in drastic flux, and include a sly, self-deprecating biography that infuses his sociology with humor and pathos. You’ll be educated, yes — about increasing secularism, the Celtic tiger, human rights — but you’ll also be wildly, uproariously entertained by a gifted raconteur at the height of his powers." -- New York Times Book Review, 10 Best Books of 2022"In a book that is at once intimate and deeply reported—sharp in its judgments and its humor—Ireland’s finest journalist chronicles his country’s painful emergence into the modern world. Stand-alone chapters (on emigration, schools, television, contraception) form a coherent arc: from O’Toole’s childhood in working-class, tradition-bound Dublin to his reporting on Ireland’s overwhelming embrace of same-sex marriage by referendum. Two figures illustrate what Ireland has had to overcome. One is Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the fastidious, imperious prelate who controlled Catholic life from the 1940s up to the early 1970s. McQuaid turned a blind eye to the abuse of young children by priests (and was himself later accused of abuse), epitomizing a Church that, O’Toole writes, had “successfully disabled a society’s capacity to think for itself about right and wrong.” The other is Charles Haughey, the three-time taoiseach, or prime minister, first elected in the late 1970s. Deeply corrupt, loyal to his own hypocrisy, Haughey lived like “an Ascendancy squire” while pressing to maintain bans on abortion and divorce. Central to We Don’t Know Ourselves is the uneasy coexistence of opposites: of an inward-looking past and an outward-looking present, of knowledge and denial." -- The Atlantic, 10 Best Books of 2022"Amazing. It feels special to me." -- Ian McEwan"[O’Toole] develop[s] a narrative swagger as compelling as any novel’s. His working-class Dublin background — his father, Sammy, was a bus conductor and his mother, Mary, worked in a cigarette factory — opens onto a sort of narrative everywhere. The tiny grows epic. The local becomes universal. We skip from year to year, from story to story, from tile-piece to an eventual mosaic . . . O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase. . . . But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it." -- Colum McCann, New York Times Book Review, cover review"[L]ike reading a great tragicomic Irish novel, rich in memoir and record, calamity and critique. The book contains funny and terrible things, details and episodes so pungent that they must surely have been stolen from a fantastical artificer like Flann O’Brien . . . [O’Toole] beautifully tells the private story of his childhood and youth . . . His great gift is his extremely intelligent, mortally relentless critical examination, and here he studies nothing less than the past and the present of his own nation . . . James Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus promised to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race; less Parnassian than Dedalus but just as angry as Joyce, O’Toole tells the story of how his race, at last breaking the fetters of religion and superstition, created its own conscience." -- James Wood - The New Yorker"Splendid... Lively... An aversion to reality is, indeed, a poor prophylactic as Mr. O’Toole’s survey of six decades—1958 to 2018—demonstrates... All of which is elucidated with the acuity and sardonic wit that we might expect from this veteran journalist and critic... The overall tone is irreverent, yet never glib... Each episode is also cannily decoded thanks to Mr. O’Toole’s appetite for intricacies—personal, political and statistical—and his eye for idiosyncrasy.... For all its weight, this is a buoyant work. And the leavening agent is, to a large extent, Mr. O’Toole’s own story, which he relates with novelistic flair." -- Anna Mundow - Wall Street Journal"Masterful . . . O’Toole’s sweeping, intimate book covers a lifetime of Ireland’s history . . . Books about modern Ireland abound—the Irish love their words; isn’t that what people say? They include magisterial scholarship (the works of R. F. Foster), searing fiction (Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls, John McGahern’s The Dark), and episodic recollections with a sharpened edge (John Banville’s recent Time Pieces). O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is in a category all its own, a blend of reporting, history, analysis, and argument, explored through the lens of the author’s sensibility and experience . . . . We Don’t Know Ourselves is astonishing in its range. . . . The chapters move forward chronologically. What unites them all is O’Toole’s moral presence and literary voice: throughout, a sly, understated humor; when needed, passion and even anger. In the end, surveying what Ireland has become during his lifetime, he manages an optimistic note, one that is not merely asserted but earned. . . . I came away from We Don’t Know Ourselves seeing modern Ireland more convincingly portrayed and explained than ever before. I wish I understood modern America half as well." -- Cullen Murphy - The Atlantic"A landmark history.... Leavened by the brilliance of O'Toole's insights and wit, and by the story of his own life, which he expertly intertwines into a larger historical narrative... [He] sees the country's shift with an eye that is simultaneously critical and compassionate... O'Toole's is a wildly ambitious project, one that accounts for inevitable partiality precisely through this invocation of the personal. It is a winning gambit." -- Claire Messud - Harper's"Engrossing... With deep research, a journalistic eye for detail, and a series of revealing personal anecdotes, he paints a vivid and affecting portrait of Irish life, touching on politics, religion, economics, and pop culture. The result is a comprehensive work of social criticism that tells the story of a country that was once so fixated on maintaining an idealized vision of its past that it almost gave up on the prospect of a better future.... We Don’t Know Ourselves is a powerful book, not just for what it says about Ireland, but for what it has to teach us about national identity in general. It’s a lesson that feels particularly relevant in the United States today." -- Michael Patrick Brady - Boston Globe"[M]asterly, fascinating . . . O’Toole, a journalist, historian and academic, is Ireland’s pre-eminent public intellectual . . . We Don't Know Ourselves is surely his masterpiece, a long detailed and beautifully executed study . . . O’Toole has a marvelously sharp eye for the illuminating fact, the telling anecdote, the overlooked or forgotten piece of history; but he also has a poet's gift for figurative language." -- John Banville - Times Literary Supplement"[S]parkling . . . we encounter O’Toole as a Zelig-like figure with an amusingly personal chain of connections to the great events and characters . . . the quiet heroes of We Don’t Know Ourselves are the Irish people, who O’Toole shows to have been ahead of their political and spiritual leaders in being ready to face the contradictions that underpinned national life . . . an uplifting, almost playful read, with suggestive analysis lying beneath skillful vignettes." -- Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid - Financial Times"The centenary of Irish independence has inspired a flood of writing. Among the many traditional histories and current political commentaries, this book stands out. It charts the extraordinary economic, social, and political transformation of Ireland since 1958, the year the author was born... The author, perhaps Ireland’s foremost public intellectual, employs a unique combination of intimately personal narrative, piquant facts and figures, and sharp (often ironic) commentary to describe the experience of this transformation." -- Andrew Moravcsik - Foreign Affairs"This powerful book is a lucid, highly informative amalgam of memoir, national history, economic, social and cultural observation, and behind-the-scenes political intelligence. . . . [O’Toole’s] narrative has the color and movement of a novel, with subplots and villains aplenty." -- Katherine A. Powers - Minneapolis Star Tribune"Reading Fintan O’Toole’s transporting We Don’t Know Ourselves is an experience close to hunger; even at 600-plus pages, there is so much richness here you want to gulp it right down.... It’s an epic story that O’Toole tells through both sweeping narratives and intimate detail.... While O’Toole laces into some targets with icy sarcasm, he is overall a generous and sympathetic observer, with an appreciation for human inconsistency. If this was not the case, could he have written so eloquently about the totemic slab of cheese known as Riverdance?" -- Chris Barsanti - Popmatters"O’Toole unpacks this truth with passion and smouldering rage. Although set an ocean away, the book holds lessons, about national self-delusion and its repercussions, that are relevant here.... We Don’t Know Ourselves is a masterpiece of perceptive analysis, made accessible by personal anecdotes and clear, passionate prose.... This timely book reminds us how unknown knowns have a way of eventually becoming known knowns, how buried children often find a way to speak from the grave." -- David Dunne - Literary Review of Canada"Fintan O’Toole introduced me to a different Ireland in his masterful We Don’t Know Ourselves.... O’Toole demonstrates sharp writing and gifted story telling talents... He puts the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland into a nuanced context reserved for a skilled journalist with a keen, experienced eye.... O’Toole reinforces his insights with a wide range of reporting.... After reading We Don’t Know Ourselves, I placed it on my bookshelf with a deeper understanding of myself and my origins." -- James O'Shea - National Book Review

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Book SynopsisChristopher Fulton's journey began with the death of Evelyn Lincoln, late secretary to President John F. Kennedy. Through Lincoln, crucial evidence ended up in Christopher's hands—evidence that was going to be used to facilitate a new future for America. But the U.S. government's position was clear: that evidence had to be confiscated and classified, and the truth hidden away from the public. Christopher was sent to federal prison for years under a sealed warrant and indictment. The Inheritance, Christopher's personal narrative, shares insider information from his encounters with the Russian Government, President Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, the Clinton White House, the U.S. Justice Department, the Secret Service, and the Kennedy family themselves. It reveals the true intentions of Evelyn Lincoln and her secret promise to Robert Kennedy—and Christopher's secret promise to John F. Kennedy Jr. The Inheritance explodes with history-changing information and answers the questions Americans are still asking, while pulling them through a gauntlet of some of the worst prisons this country has to offer. This book thrillingly exposes the reality of American power, and sheds light on the dark corners of current corruption within the executive branch and the justice and prison systems.Trade Review"When Christopher Fulton buys a gold Cartier watch that belonged to JFK and was part of the original assassination materials, it sets in motion something he never saw coming. A real page-turner. This book and the information in it is simply explosive. It changes everything I thought I knew about this period in time of American history. It's shocking. A must read." -- Valerie Shampine, consumer reviewer"Christopher Fulton's personal story The Inheritance places the puzzle pieces of the Kennedy assassination in proper order, giving us all a clear mosaic. I didn't want to believe what is contained in the pages of The Inheritance , but Fulton's narrative has what most books published about the assassination of the 35th President of the United States do not: The solid Ring Of Truth." -- William Matson Law, William Law's decades of research on the Kennedy assassination has appeared in over 30 books, including Douglas Horne's Inside the Assassination Records Review Board . He has written, produced, directed, or consulted on documentaries and films like RFK, The Gathering, and Killing Kennedy"It is a page turner that rips the myth off America and shows you how desperate our government is to use lies to control us. I recommend this book. I highly recommend it. This is the best book of the year, as far as I am concerned." -- Ruth's Report, https://ruthsreport.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-inheritance-poisoned-fruit-of-jfks.html"I just finished reading this book. You should read it too. It's about how what went on then is still going on, but you don't know it until it happens to you." -- Daniel Hopsciker, author of "Barry and the Boys" and "Welcome to Terrorland""If the book, The Inheritance , is correct, then the JFK assassination was a American coup d'état -- under which we still live." -- Governor Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota, Professional Wrestler, Actor and Author

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