An astonishing investigation into the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war – from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most serious geopolitical crisis since the Second World War – and yet at the heart of the conflict is a mystery. Vladimir Putin apparently lurched from a calculating, subtle master of opportunity to a reckless gambler, putting his regime – and Russia itself – at risk of destruction. Why?
Drawing on over 25 years’ experience as a correspondent in Moscow, as well as his own family ties to Russia and Ukraine, journalist Owen Matthews takes us through the poisoned historical roots of the conflict, into the Covid bubble where Putin conceived his invasion plans in a fog of paranoia about Western threats, and finally into the inner circle around Ukrainian president and unexpected war hero Volodimir Zelensky.
Using the accounts of current and former insiders from the Kremlin and its propaganda machine, the testimony of captured Russian soldiers and on-the-ground reporting from Russia and Ukraine, Overreach tells the story not only of the war’s causes but how the first six months unfolded.
With its panoramic view, Overreach is an authoritative, unmissable record of a conflict that shocked Europe to its core.
A prize-winning historian chronicles a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans' freedom to oppress others and their fight against the government that got in their way.
American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom-their freedom to dominate others.
In Freedom's Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace. In a land shaped by settler colonialism and chattel slavery, white people weaponized freedom to seize Native lands, champion secession, overthrow Reconstruction, question the New Deal, and fight against the civil rights movement.
A riveting history of the long-running clash between white people and federal authority, this book radically shifts our understanding of what freedom means in America.
Steve Phillips's first book, Brown Is the New White, helped shift the national conversation around race and electoral politics, earning a spot on the New York Times and Washington Post bestseller lists and launching Phillips into the upper ranks of trusted observers of the nation's changing demographics and their implications for our political future.
Now, in How We Win the Civil War, Phillips charts the way forward for progressives and people of color after four years of Trump, arguing that Democrats must recognize the nature of the fight we're in, which is a contest between democracy and white supremacy left unresolved after the Civil War. We will not overcome, Phillips writes, until we govern as though we are under attack-until we finally recognize that the time has come to finish the conquest of the Confederacy and all that it represents.
With his trademark blend of political analysis and historical argument, Phillips lays out razor-sharp prescriptions for 2022 and beyond, from increasing voter participation and demolishing racist immigration policies to reviving the Great Society programs of the 1960s-all of them geared toward strengthening a new multiracial democracy and ridding our politics of white supremacy, once and for all.
An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He documents how autistic self-advocacy and the neurodiversity movement upended views of those whose brains work differently. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture-from social media to high fashion, Hollywood to Broadway-showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change.
He also explores the movement's shortcomings, particularly the erasure of nonwhite and LGBTQIA+ people that helped give rise to Disability Justice. He delves into systemic ableism in health care, the right-to-die movement, institutionalization, and the scourge of subminimum-wage labor that some call legalized slavery. And he finds glimmers of hope in how disabled people never give up their fight for parity and fair play.
Beautifully written, without anger or pity, Disability Pride is a revealing account of an often misunderstood movement and identity, an inclusive reexamination of society's treatment of those it deems different.
Huey Newton was born on February 17, 1942. He was an African-American revolutionary, notable as the founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966.
The Black Panther Party founded over 60 community support programs including food banks, medical clinics, sickle cell anemia tests, prison busing for families of inmates, legal advice seminars, clothing banks, housing cooperatives, and their own ambulance service. The most famous of these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children program which fed thousands of impoverished children daily during the early 1970s. Newton also co-founded the Black Panther newspaper service, which became one of America's most widely distributed African-American newspapers.
In 1989, he was murdered in Oakland, California, by Tyrone Robinson, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family. Newton was known for being an advocate of self-defense and used his position as a leader within the Black Panther Party to welcome women and LGBT people into the party, holding the belief that homosexuals 'might be the most oppressed people'.
Huey Newton was never shy in talking to the media because after all the powerful movement he started with bobby Seale was all about communication and understanding leading to meaningful change.
What follows is a collection of interviews with the controversial charismatic leader commencing from his prison cell in 1968 right up until 1989 just weeks before his tragic death. Here is a chance to get to know and understand not only Huey the forward-thinking and intractable black rights advocate but also the sensitive and sensible intellectual ultimately compassionate and caring man.
A brave and timely proposal to name, investigate, and ultimately stop a new crime-the mass murder of millions of people for their faith.
Religion-related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, Religicide explores the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.
The authors tap into their decades of activism, interreligious engagement, and people-to-people diplomacy to delve into a gripping examination of contemporary religicides: the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, and the centuries-long efforts to wipe out Indigenous Americans. Yet, even in the face of these horrific atrocities, the authors resist despair. They amplify the voices of survivors and offer a blueprint for action, calling on government, business, civil society, and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.
Hatred is human and current. It is an intrinsic part of what can happen between people. Personal experiences can lead people to hate someone. In society and even on a global level, hatred is again and again the motor of misunderstanding and often also of violence between people. Sometimes hate smolders almost unconsciously; at other times he is furious and serves as a flag for serious violence.
Hatred has many faces and seems omnipresent, that much is clear. The term 'Erida complex,' after the Greek goddess of hate, symbolizes the common and deeply rooted nature of hatred. After examining the nature of hate, this book focuses a wide-angle lens on its many faces, in individuals and groups as well as peoples. Facing the negativity of hatred, this book presents constructive approaches to fostering relationships between people and peace.
The principles behind the Bill of Rights have helped elevate human civilization to a level of liberty never seen in history. The American experiment inspired the spread of written constitutions and declarations of rights throughout the world, which has raised billions out of poverty, chaos, and oppression. However, without understanding the principles behind the Bill of Rights, all nations, including our own, continue to struggle.
Behind the Bill of Rights uncovers the timeless principles that make the Bill of Rights tick. The authors reveal lost meanings, elaborate on new understandings, and bring to light many fundamentals that have been overlooked for decades.
You will discover hidden gems that will invigorate your mind. For example:
- The paradox of tolerance
- The mindset that leads to slavery
- The voting rights timeline you never knew
- Religious freedom: both sides are right-and wrong
- The Third Amendment is a pattern for all laws, not just the quartering of troops
- The fascinating history of the jury & how it protects us
- The lost meaning of the Ninth Amendment
- And much more
Knowing these principles will give you a profound appreciation for the genius of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and a greater ability to protect your own rights.
La primera historia documentada sobre el mayor atentado contra una dependencia policial en el mundo: la voladura del comedor de la Superintendencia de Seguridad de la Policía Federal en plena dictadura y el papel de Pepe Salgado, autor material del atentado, y Rodolfo Walsh, hombre clave de la Inteligencia montonera.
La bomba de Montoneros que explotó en el comedor de la Superintendencia de Seguridad Federal el 2 de julio de 1976, a cien días de instalada la dictadura militar, dejó veintitrés muertos y ciento diez heridos. Fue el atentado terrorista más sangriento de la historia argentina hasta la voladura de la AMIA y sigue siendo el mayor contra una dependencia policial en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, no ha despertado el interés de periodistas ni de historiadores; tampoco el de la Justicia, que cuarenta y cinco años después sigue sin haberlo investigado. Obra cumbre de la guerrilla, parece tratarse de una realidad incómoda para todos: contemporáneamente comportó una humillación poco digerible para la Policía y el gobierno de Videla; en perspectiva, constituye un hecho difícil de justificar para el relato hegemónico sobre los 70. Más aún a la hora de hacer nombres: si bien la bomba es colocada por un joven de clase media alta infiltrado en la institución, José María Salgado, el atentado lleva la firma del servicio de Inteligencia e Informaciones de Montoneros, cuyo hombre clave era Rodolfo Walsh. Este libro parte de la explosión y reconstruye el minuto a minuto de aquellos días, acudiendo a sus fuentes y protagonistas, desde deudos de las víctimas hasta familiares de Pepe Salgado. En ese gesto repone un capítulo interesadamente olvidado de nuestro pasado y tácitamente postula su argumento: la verdadera historia de los 70 es la historia de todas sus víctimas.
A riveting behind-the-scenes account of the new stars of the far right—and how they’ve partnered with billionaire donors, idealogues, and political insiders to build the most powerful youth movement the American right has ever seen
In the wake of the Obama presidency, a group of young charismatic conservatives catapulted onto the American political and cultural scenes, eager to thwart nationwide pushes for greater equity and inclusion. They dreamed of a cultural revolution—online and off—that would offer a forceful alternative to the progressive politics that were dominating American college campuses.
In Raising Them Right, a gripping, character-driven read and investigative tour de force, Kyle Spencer chronicles the people and organizations working to lure millions of unsuspecting young American voters into the far-right fold—revealing their highly successful efforts to harness social media in alarming ways and capitalize on the democratization of celebrity culture.
These power-hungry new faces may look and sound like antiestablishment renegades, but they are actually part of a tightly organized and heavily funded ultraconservative initiative to transform American youth culture and popularize fringe ideas. There is Charlie Kirk, the swashbuckling Trump insider and founder of the right-wing youth activist group Turning Point USA, who dreams of taking back the country’s soul from weak-kneed liberals and becoming a national powerbroker in his own right. There is the acid-tongued Candace Owens, a Black ultraconservative talk-show host and Fox News regular who is seeking to bring Black America to the GOP and her own celebritydom into the national forefront. And there is the young, rough-and-tumble libertarian Cliff Maloney, who built the Koch-affiliated organization Young Americans for Liberty into a political force to be reckoned with, while solidifying his own power and pull inside conservative circles.
Chock-full of original reporting and unprecedented access, Raising Them Right is a striking prism through which to view the extraordinary shifts that have taken place in the American political sphere over the last decade. It establishes Kyle Spencer as the premier authority on a new generation of young conservative communicators who are merging politics and pop culture, social media and social lives, to bring cruel economic philosophies, skeletal government, and dangerous antidemocratic ideals into the mainstream. Theirs is a crusade that is just beginning.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
