Politics Audiobooks | LoveReading

The Russian FSB: A Concise History of the Federal Security Service

Since its founding in 1995, the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, has regained the majority of the domestic security functions of the Soviet-era KGB. Under Vladimir Putin, who served as FSB director just before becoming president, the agency has grown to be one of the most powerful and favored organizations in Russia. The FSB not only conducts internal security but also has primacy in intelligence operations in former Soviet states. Their activities include anti-dissident operations at home and abroad, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, criminal investigations of crimes against the state, and guarding Russia's borders. In The Russian FSB, Kevin P. Riehle provides a brief history of the FSB's origins, placed within the context of Russian history, the government's power structure, and Russia's wider culture. He describes how the FSB's mindset and priorities show continuities from the tsarist regimes and the Soviet era. The book's chapters analyze origins, organizational structure, missions, leaders, international partners, and cultural representations such as the FSB in film and television. Based on both English and Russian sources, this book is a well-researched introduction to understanding the FSB and its central role in Putin's Russia.

Kevin P. Riehle (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

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American Tyrannies in the Long Age of Napoleon

What if the American experiment is twofold, encompassing both democracy and tyranny? That is the question at the core of this book, which traces some of ways that Americans across the nineteenth century understood the perversions tyranny introduced into both their polity and society. While some informed their thinking with reference to classical texts, which comprehensively consider tyranny's dangers, most drew on a more contemporary source-Napoleon Bonaparte, the century's most famous man and its most notorious tyrant. Because Napoleon defined tyranny around the nineteenth-century Atlantic world-its features and emergence, its relationship to democratic institutions, its effects on persons and peoples-he provides a way for nineteenth-century Americans to explore the parameters of tyranny and their complicity in its cruelties. Napoleon helps us see the decidedly plural forms of tyranny in the US, bringing their fictions into focus. At the same time, however, there are distinctly American modes of tyranny. From the tyrannical style of the American imagination to the usurping potential of American individualism, Elizabeth Duquette shows that tyranny is as American as democracy.

Elizabeth Duquette (Author), Diana Blue (Narrator)

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The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics

America's political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. The Hollow Parties takes listeners from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Today's parties, overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the Founding. Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld paint unforgettable portraits of figures such as Martin Van Buren, whose pioneering Democrats invented the machinery of the mass political party, and Abraham Lincoln and other heroic Republicans of that party's first generation who stood up to the Slave Power. And they show how today's fractious party politics arose from the ashes of the New Deal order in the 1970s. Activists in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention transformed presidential nominations but failed to lay the foundations for robust, movement-driven parties. Instead, modern American conservatism hollowed out the party system. Party hollowness lies at the heart of our democratic discontents. With historical sweep and political acuity, The Hollow Parties offers answers to pressing questions about how the nation's parties became so dysfunctional-and how they might yet realize their promise.

Daniel Schlozman, Sam Rosenfeld (Author), Tom Beyer (Narrator)

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The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism; A Memoir

From the former heir-apparent to white nationalism, The Klansman’s Son is an astonishing memoir of a childhood built on fear, of breaking from a community of hate. Derek Black was raised to take over the white nationalist movement in the United States. Their father, Don Black, was a former Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and started Stormfront, the internet’s first white supremacist website—Derek built the kids’ page. David Duke, was also their close family friend and mentor. Racist hatred, though often wrapped up in respectability, was all Derek knew. Then, while in college in 2013, Derek publicly renounced white nationalism and apologized for their actions and the suffering that they had caused. The majority of their family stopped speaking to them, and they disappeared into academia, convinced that they had done so much harm that there was no place for them in public life. But in 2016, as they watched the rise of Donald Trump, they immediately recognized what they were hearing—the spread and mainstreaming of the hate they had helped cultivate—and they knew that they couldn’t stay silent. This is a thoughtful, insightful, and moving account of a singular life, with important lessons for our troubled times. Derek can trace a uniquely insider account of the rise of white nationalism, and how a child indoctrinated with hate can become an anti-racist adult. Few understand the ideology, motivations, or tactics of the white nationalist movement like Derek, and few have ever made so profound a change. When coded language and creeping authoritarianism spread the ideas of white nationalists, this is an essential book with a powerful voice.

R. Derek Black (Author), R. Derek Black (Narrator)

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The United States and the Armenian Genocide: History, Memory, Politics

During the first World War, over a million Armenians were killed as Ottoman Turks embarked on a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing. Scholars have long described these massacres as genocide, one of Hitler's prime inspirations for the Holocaust, yet the United States did not officially recognize the Armenian Genocide until 2021. This is the first book to examine how and why the United States refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide until the early 2020s. Although the American government expressed sympathy towards the plight of the Armenians in the 1910s and 1920s, historian Julien Zarifian explores how, from the 1960s, a set of geopolitical and institutional factors soon led the United States to adopt a policy of genocide nonrecognition which it would cling to for over fifty years, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. He describes the forces on each side of this issue: activists from the US Armenian diaspora and their allies, challenging Cold War statesmen worried about alienating NATO ally Turkey and dealing with a widespread American reluctance to directly confront the horrors of the past. Drawing from congressional records, rare newspapers, and interviews with lobbyists and decision-makers, he reveals how genocide recognition became such a complex, politically sensitive issue.

Julien Zarifian (Author), Jonathan Todd Ross (Narrator)

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Ghosted: An American Story

A riveting look inside a life of poverty, success, and the inner circles of political influence--from the foothills of Appalachia all the way to the White House. New York Times bestselling ghostwriter Nancy French is coming out of the shadows to tell her own incredible story. Nancy's family hails from the foothills of the Appalachians, where life was dominated by coal mining, violence, abuse, and poverty. Longing for an adventure, she married a stranger, moved to New York, and dropped out of college. In spite of her lack of education, she found success as a ghostwriter for conservative political leaders. However, when she was unwilling to endorse an unsuitable president, her allies turned on her and she found herself spiritually adrift, politically confused, and occupationally unemployable. Republicans mocked her, white nationalists targeted her, and her church community alienated her. But in spite of death threats, sexual humiliation, and political ostracization, she learned the importance of finding her own voice--and that the people she thought were her enemies could be her closest friends. A poignant and engrossing memoir filled with humor and personal insights, Ghosted is a deeply American story of change, loss, and ultimately love.

Nancy French (Author), Nancy French, TBD (Narrator)

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The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family

Jesselyn Cook (Author), Jesselyn Cook, TBD (Narrator)

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New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West

A fast-paced account of America's plunge into simultaneous Cold Wars against two very different adversaries-Xi Jinping's China and Vladimir Putin's Russia-based on deep reporting from inside the White House, U.S. intelligence agencies, technology firms, and foreign governments. More than thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States finds itself in a volatile rivalry against the world's other two great nuclear powers. Yet this era bears very little resemblance to the old Cold War. As Putin and Xi increasingly threaten to team up, this moment grows far more complex-and undeniably more dangerous-than the world of a half century ago. New Cold Wars-the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon, David E. Sanger-tells the riveting story of America at a crossroads. At the turn of the millennium, the United States was confident that a democratic Russia and a newly wealthy China could gradually be pulled into the Western-led order. That proved a fantasy. By the time Washington emerged from the age of terrorism, the three nuclear powers were engaged in a new, high-stakes struggle for military, economic, and technological supremacy-with nations around the world forced to take sides. Based on a remarkable array of interviews with top officials in the United States, foreign leaders, andtech companies thrust onto the front lines, Sanger unfolds a riveting narrative spun around the era's critical questions: Will the mistakes Putin made in his ill-considered invasion of Ukraine prove his undoing, and will he reach for his nuclear arsenal? Will China strike back at the U.S. chip embargo, or seize Taiwan, the world's semiconductor capital? Taking readers from the battlefields of Ukraine-where trench warfare and cyberwarfare are fought side by side-to the back rooms and boardrooms where diplomats, spies, and tech executives jockey for geopolitical advantage, New Cold Wars is a remarkable first draft history chronicling America's return to superpower conflict, the choices that lie ahead, and what is at stake for the United States and the world.

David E. Sanger (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Miracle Century: Making Sense of the Cell Therapy Revolution

New York Times bestselling author and former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb provides a glimpse of a promising future that is quickly approaching: a world with cures for chronic illnesses and cancers. While traditional drugs mostly help us manage the effects of disease, cell therapies promise genuine cures for a broad range of intractable ailments, from Alzheimer’s to heart damage to cancer. They could even reverse the effects of aging. For the first time in history, on an unprecedented scale, we possess the power to modify the biology that gives rise to disease, ultimately restoring individuals to a state of normalcy and reversing debilitating ailments. In The Miracle Century, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb traces the scientific achievements that propelled progress in cell therapies. The birth of this medical revolution wasn’t a sudden event. Rather, it emerged from decades of steady, incremental progress in science. These concerted advances made cell therapies a reality. To forge a path for continued medical breakthroughs, Dr. Gottlieb meticulously traces this scientific journey, identifying lessons on how these achievements can be replicated. The MIracle Century is a look at the future of healthcare from one of the nation’s leading medical authorities. Scott Gottlieb explains how these new medicines are moving from the laboratory bench to the marketplace and tackles the issues that must be addressed to enable wide adoption of these treatments and transform as many lives as possible.

Scott Gottlieb (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solutions for a Sustainable Future

A young, conservative environmentalist provides an intrepid vision for both solving our climate crisis and prioritizing the American national interest. Politicians, pseudo-experts, and other partisans have led us to believe that there are only two approaches to climate change: doomerism or denial. Benji Backer, Founder and Executive Chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, argues that both are dead ends. In The Conservative Environmentalist, he delivers an entirely new strategy to take care of the planet while putting put the economic interest of the American people first. Backer makes the compelling case that conservative principles are the key to climate solutions that actually work. In this book, you'll visit the country's most diverse ecosystems and consequential manufacturing hubs-from Utah coal mines and Texas oil fields to Louisiana wetlands and Rhode Island offshore wind farms-witnessing the power of individual entrepreneurship and local problem-solving. You'll be inspired by groundbreaking efforts to strengthen earth's ecosystems (that Green New Dealers and other Big Government advocates would prefer to keep hidden), like partnerships between oil and gas companies and environmental nonprofits to preserve thousands of acres of wetlands. Drawing on cutting-edge science, a deep understanding of local community needs, and his experience rallying politicians on both sides of the aisle to take action, Backer offers hope for everyone who cares about the state of the great outdoors. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, The Conservative Environmentalist is the fresh, audacious approach needed to ensure a sustainable future, and particularly one that works for America.

Benji Backer (Author), Benji Backer, TBD (Narrator)

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The Age of Grievance

From bestselling author and longtime New York Times columnist Frank Bruni comes a lucid, powerful examination of the ways in which grievance has come to define our current culture and politics, on both the right and left. The twists and turns of American politics have become nearly impossible to predict, but the tone is a troubling given. It's one of grievance. A perilous share of Americans across the full breadth of the political spectrum respond to every big disappointment, every little frustration, every way in which the world doesn't hew precisely to their liking by deciding that they've been wronged, identifying the people responsible for that and raging at the injustice of it all. The blame game is the country's most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb. Grievance isn't always and necessarily bad. It has often done enormous good. The United States is a nation born of grievance, in the revolt of royal subjects unwilling to accept a bad deal, and across the nearly 250 years of our existence as a country, grievance has been the engine of morally urgent change. But what happens when all sorts of grievances—the greater ones, the lesser ones, the authentic, the invented—are jumbled together? When grievances become all-encompassing lenses, all-purpose reflexes, default settings? When people take their grievances to extreme and even violent lengths that they didn't before? A mob storms the US Capitol, rejecting the results of a presidential election and embracing the fiction that it was rigged. Conspiracy theories flourish. Politicians appeal not to our better angels but to our worst impulses, encouraging selfishness instead of selflessness, trading inspiration for retribution. Fox News, the country's most watched cable news network, and Tucker Carlson, its sneering star, knowingly peddle lies in the service of profit. The Supreme Court loses touch with the country, overturning Roe v. Wade and shrugging off Clarence Thomas's transgressions. College students chase away speakers and college administrators dismiss instructors for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock. And there's a potentially devastating erosion of the civility, common ground and compromise necessary for our democracy to survive. How did we get here? What does it say about us, and where does it leave us? Timely, important, and enlightening, The Age of Grievance examines these critical questions and charts a path forward for a nation that may be growing tired of outrage.

Frank Bruni (Author), Frank Bruni, TBD (Narrator)

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The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn’t and How We All Can Move Forward Now

The New York Times bestselling author of My Vanishing Country examines the modern political landscape and policies that are impacting Black families and communities and offers solutions for a better tomorrow. In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: “It’s just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell her? I’m raising a son. I have no idea what to tell him. It’s just—it’s hard being black in this country when your life is not valued and people are worried about the protesters and the looters. And it’s just people who are frustrated for far too long and not have their voices heard.” In this powerful and persuasive book, Sellers expands on the issues he addressed in his New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country, examining national politics and policies that deeply impact not only Black people in his home state of South Carolina but the lives of millions of African Americans in communities across the nation. Four years later, Sellers has an answer to the question he raised on CNN, offering much-needed prescriptions to help all Black American lives. Sellers explores inequities in healthcare, education, early childhood education, and policing, drawing on interviews with numerous thought leaders such as pioneering voting rights and poverty activist the Rev. William Barber, and Ben Crump, the civil rights legend who successfully uses the law to achieve justice for people of color in racially charged cases. He also shares his thoughts on conservative media and the forces and dark money behind firebrands such as Tucker Carlson. This thoughtful and practical work is a timely meditation on the state of our world today and how we can all play a part in making it better for tomorrow.

Bakari Sellers (Author), Bakari Sellers, Tbd (Narrator)

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