At last Betty Friedan herself speaks about her life and career. With the same unsparing frankness that made The Feminine Mystique one of the most influential books of our era, Friedan looks back and tells us what it took -- and what it cost -- to change the world. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, started the women's movement; it sold more than four million copies and was recently named one of the one hundred most important books of the century. In Life So Far, Friedan takes us on an intimate journey through her life -- a lonely childhood in Peoria, Illinois; salvation at Smith College; her days as a labor reporter for a union newspaper in New York (from which she was dismissed when she became pregnant); unfulfilling and painful years as a suburban housewife; finding great joy as a mother; and writing The Feminine Mystique, which grew out of a survey of her Smith classmates and started it all. Friedan chronicles the secret underground of women in Washington, D.C., who drafted her in the early 1960s to spearhead an "NAACP" for women, and recounts the courage of many, including some Catholic nuns who played a brave part in those early days of NOW, the National Organization for Women. Friedan's feminist thinking, a philosophy of evolution, is reflected throughout her book. She recognized early that the women's movement would falter if institutions did not change to reflect the new realities of women's lives, and she fought to keep the movement practical and free of extremism, including "man-hating." She describes candidly the movement's political infighting that brought her to the point of legal action and resulted in a long breach with fellow leaders Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. Friedan is frank about her twenty-two-year marriage to Carl Friedan, an advertising entrepreneur. She writes about the explosive cycle of drinking, arguing, and physical battering she endured and explores her prolonged inability to leave the marriage. (They are now friends and the grandparents of nine.) Friedan was not only pivotal in the founding of NOW, she was also the driving force behind the creation of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), and the First Women's Bank and Trust Company. She made history by introducing the issue of sex discrimination as an argument against the ratification of a Supreme Court nominee. She convinced the Secretary General of the United Nations to declare 1975 the International Year of the Woman. In this volume, Friedan brings to extraordinary life her bold and contentious leadership in the movement. She lectures, writes, leads think tanks, and organizes women and men to work together in political, legal, and social battles on behalf of women's rights. It is exactly this breadth of vision that makes Friedan's memoir an important and compelling work.

"This is a book for everyone who has developed an unexpected nostalgia for political 'norms' during the Trump years . . . Other books on the Trump White House expertly detail the mayhem inside; this book builds on those works to detail its consequences." —Carlos Lozada (one of twelve books to read "to understand what's going on") "Perhaps the most penetrating book to have been written about Trump in office." —Lawrence Douglas, The Times Literary Supplement The definitive account of how Donald Trump has wielded the powers of the American presidency The extraordinary authority of the U.S. presidency has no parallel in the democratic world. Today that authority resides in the hands of one man, Donald J. Trump. But rarely if ever has the nature of a president clashed more profoundly with the nature of the office. Unmaking the Presidency tells the story of the confrontation between a person and the institution he almost wholly embodies. From the moment of his inauguration, Trump has challenged our deepest expectations of the presidency. But what are those expectations, where did they come from, and how great is the damage? As editors of the “invaluable” ( The New York Times ) Lawfare website, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes have attracted a large audience to their hard-hitting and highly informed commentary on the controversies surrounding the Trump administration. In this book, they situate Trump-era scandals and outrages in the deeper context of the presidency itself. How should we understand the oath of office when it is taken by a man who may not know what it means to preserve, protect, and defend something other than himself? What aspects of Trump are radically different from past presidents and what aspects have historical antecedents? When has he simply built on his predecessors’ misdeeds, and when has he invented categories of misrule entirely his own? By setting Trump in the light of history, Hennessey and Wittes provide a crucial and durable account of a presidency like no other.

Saul Landau is an internationally known scholar, author, journalist, poet and activist. An Emmy-award-winning film maker, he does frequent radio and TV shows, and his work on human rights and Latin America have won him acclaim the world over. This, his latest book, is a scathing account of George W. Bush's world before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that will appeal to anyone who is disenchanted with the cynicism of Bush's government, and the blatant imperialism U.S. international policy -- or those who just want to learn about what's happening in US politics. Landau covers the topical and controversial issues -- from terrorism and US foreign policy to Bush's wondrous election victory; from Enron, Chile and Pinochet to Cuba, the Middle East, the IMF, the environment and sexual and cultural politics. He delves into the erosion of civil liberties and the proliferation of empire under the guise of pre-empting the scourge of terrorism. Landau reveals how Bush protects "his" terrorists -- those who perpetrate violence against Castro’s Cuba, and to whom he owes his presidency. He also examines how Bush has appointed former officials to high level posts in his cabinet despite their membership in a conspiracy to sell weapons of mass destruction to Iran in the 1980s. In "declassifying" Bush’s Empire, Landau dissects a post-9/11 world where deference to patriotism obliterates debate in Congress and the media. How can the notion of empire happily co-exist with the notion of a republic? In times like these, as dissenting voices are stifled and the public are denied access to the facts about their own security, Landau shows how democracy itself is under threat. He asks whether the already fragile world economy can survive in the new "security" culture of the post-9/11 world. This is an entertaining read from one of America's foremost cultural and political commentators. Above all, Landau makes a convincing case for the necessity of activism -- the book is not only funny but is also a ringing call for citizens to participate in making their own history.

The role, status, and treatment of women is one of the major issues confronting the military today. This volume provides a range of perspectives on the magnitude of concerns, the sources of problems, how issues might best be addressed, and the future for women in the armed services. It is based on a special issue of the journal Gender Issues , supplemented with additional contributions from leading scholars. Historical and theoretical perspectives are provided by Lorry M. Fenner and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Fenner focuses on the role of women in the military since 1940, and argues for broader inclusion of women as well as other groups that have previously been restricted from full participation. Elshtain analyzes the extraordinary ability of war to draw both women and men into civic life, and observes how it calls forth and establishes a sense of particular identity for both men and women. Critical views are provided by other scholars. Laura L. Miller examines the feminist movement's insistence on full participation in combat units. Former Army chaplain Marie deYoung provides qualitative and quantitative data on military readiness and unit cohesion in mixed gender units. Leading military scholars (Mady W. Segal, David R. Segal, Jerald G. Bachman, Peter Freedman-Doan, and Patrick M. O'Malley) review national surveys comparing male and female high school seniors' responses to surveys conducted on questions about their propensity to enlist. Male-female differences are also addressed by Judith Hicks Steihm, who looks at the opinions each group has about the capabilities and performance of women. She finds differences by rank on questions as to how hard female soldiers work as compared to male soldiers and whether women are ready for combat duty. Historically, the military has provided minorities equal opportunity. Brenda L. Moore and Schulyler C. Webb examine whether or not this is still perceived to be the case in today's Navy. They focus on different perceptions by women and men, and by African American women in particular. Finally, William O'Neill examines whether the post-cold war downsized military will find women soldiers more or less important. Drawing upon social science research, historical data, and contemporary opinion surveys, Women in the Military is a cutting-edge assessment of a major gender issue in the United States. It will be valuable to researchers in women's studies, as well as those teaching courses in sociology, history, and military studies. Rita James Simon is University Professor in the School of Public Affairs and the Washington College of Law at American University. She is the editor of Gender Issues and author of The American Jury, the Insanity Defense: A Critical Assessment of Law and Policy in the Post-Hinkley Era (with David Aaronson), Adoption, Race and Identity (with Howard Alstein), In the Golden Land: A Century of Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigration, Social Science Data and Supreme Court Decisions (with Rosemary Erickson), and Abortion: Statutes, Policies, and Public Attitudes the World Over.

"China's rise as a global superpower has completely reshaped the landscape of international politics. As the country's authoritarian regime becomes increasingly assertive on the world stage, the United States grows ever more hostile to its Asian rival. Repressive moves by China in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, military activities in the South China Sea and Western measures against Chinese companies have only exacerbated tensions. While the great powers of East and West battle over hegemony, the world is being led inexorably towards a new Cold War. During his time as a Cabinet minister attending National Security Council meetings, Oliver Letwin realised that there was no agreement among Western politicians and academics on how to conduct a peaceful long-term relationship with China. China vs America traces the contours of history, both ancient and modern, to explain how China has emerged as a challenger to American power in the twenty-first century and why this has created such uneasiness in the West. In this robust and controversial assessment, Letwin argues that the international rules-based order is completely ill-equipped to foster a positive relationship between China and the United States and that the global community must act now to correct the collision course these two behemoths are currently on before it's too late"--Publisher's description.

Father of the birth control pill, developer of antihistamines, founder of biomedical companies, teacher of world-class chemists, best-selling novelist.... As The Scientist notes, "Few can match Carl Djerassi's juggling act for success and longevity". Here is Djerassi's remarkable autobiography. Blending vivid descriptions of the lucrative world of drug development with controversial chapters on the politics of contraception and poignant disclosures about his personal life, this book tells the story of one of the most productive and socially conscious chemists working today. The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse tells how Djerassi, while still in his twenties and leading a small team in an obscure laboratory in Mexico City, used a locally grown yam first to synthesize cortisone and then, within twelve months, to create the first steroid effective as a birth control pill. Dubbed for this latter work "the father of the pill", a title he often shares with Gregory Pincus and John Rock, who performed the biological and clinical studies to confirm the pill's efficacy in humans, Djerassi has spent a lifetime thinking and rethinking, discussing and debating, the social, economic, and biological consequences of the changed attitudes toward contraception engendered by the pill. In two riveting chapters entitled "The Pill at Twenty" and "The Pill at Forty: What Now?" Djerassi recounts the fascinating history of the pill's journey from its first days in the laboratory to widespread public use--from being hailed as an agent of the sexual revolution to condemnation as an agent of the new promiscuity, to being accused of being an expression of the scientific community's sexism (Why was there no malebirth control pill?). And then, in a powerful consideration of where the politics of contraception have taken us, he discusses why so few innovations in contraception are being investigated today, and why even fewer are making their way to the public. The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse chronicles Djerassi's many successful careers in science, business, the academy, and the arts (he is a published poet and novelist, as well as the founder of an artists' colony). His growing appreciation for the soft side of science--its human and humane aspects--have long been reflected in the courses he teaches at Stanford, in the plot of his novel, Cantor's Dilemma, and in his decision to found one of the first environmentally aware pesticide companies. In this intellectually challenging book, the reader is let into the fertile mind and psyche of one of the few Renaissance men of twentieth-century science.

Every week on the public radio show On the Media , the award-winning journalist Brooke Gladstone analyzes the media and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. Now, from her front-row perch on the day’s events, Gladstone brings her genius for making insightful, unexpected connections to help us understand what she calls—and what so many of us can acknowledge having—“trouble with reality.” Reality, as she shows us, was never what we thought it was—there is always a bubble, people are always subjective and prey to stereotypes. And that makes reality actually more vulnerable than we ever thought. Enter Donald J. Trump and his team of advisors. For them, as she writes, lying is the point . The more blatant the lie, the easier it is to hijack reality and assert power over the truth. Drawing on writers as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Walter Lippmann, Philip K. Dick, and Jonathan Swift, she dissects this strategy, straight out of the authoritarian playbook, and shows how the Trump team mastered it, down to the five types of tweets that Trump uses to distort our notions of what’s real and what’s not. And she offers hope. There is meaningful action, a time-tested treatment for moral panic. And there is also the inevitable reckoning. History tells us we can count on it. Brief and bracing, The Trouble with Reality shows exactly why so many of us didn’t see it coming, and how we can recover both our belief in reality—and our sanity.

In the early 1980s, the National Basketball Association entered into an era of prominence that rivaled any in sports history. While the league had its share of stars, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dr. J, it was the arrival of two fresh-faced, talented kids - Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson - that infused new energy into the NBA at the beginning of the decade, sending the game into an upwards spiral that has made basketball the most exciting game in the world. The arrival of Bird and Johnson launched one of the greatest eras in the history of the sport, one that continues to this day. The game's popularity exploded, and its stars became household names throughout the world. Magic, Kareem, Larry, Dr. J and Michael became superstars, their images gracing the pages of magazines and the walls of adoring children. The game has everything: dynamic personalities, dramatic rivalries and the best athletes in the world. And its success is assured for years to come thanks to a new crop of superstars that includes Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill, Anfernee Hardaway and Chris Webber. NBA Hoop Shots captures this unprecedented era through the camera lens of NBA Senior Photographer Andrew D. Bernstein. From the efficiency of Kareem's skyhook, the precision of a Bird jumper and the jaw-dropping acrobatics of a Jordan slam, Bernstein's work will dazzle both the hard-core and casual fan with magical images of the game's greatest players. With a foreword by NBA Commissioner David Stern and an introduction by Magic Johnson, NBA Hoop Shots will take you to places of which you have only dreamed.

A riveting retelling of diplomatic history with praise from Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Bertie Ahern (Ireland), Tony Blair (UK), Ehud Olmert (Israel), and more. “A magisterial tome on the international negotiations that shaped modern American history.... Grand in scope and grounded in decades of experience, The Art of Diplomacy is a compelling work of political history aimed at the diplomatic negotiators of tomorrow.” -Foreword Reviews Commended by Kirkus Reviews , which says Eizenstat writes with "authority and clarity of experience." Inside the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E. Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Written from the perspective that only a participant in top level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation, the drama that took place around the table, and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics. Based on interviews with over 60 key figures in American diplomacy, including former presidents and secretaries of state, and major political figures abroad, Eizenstat provides an intimate view of diplomacy as today's history. The Art of Diplomacy will be an indispensable volume to understand American foreign policy and provide invaluable insights on the art of negotiation for anyone involved in government or business negotiations. The paperback edition adds a substantive afterword that presents the challenges and opportunities for the second Trump administration.

In Witness to Nuremberg , the chief interpreter for the American prosecution at the Nuremberg trials after World War II offers his insights into dealing directly with Hermann Goering, a leading member of the Nazi Party, as well as the story of his own colorful, eventful life before and after the trials. At age twenty-two, Richard Sonnenfeldt was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. His pretrial time spent with Hermann Goering reveals much about not only Goering, but Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and other high-ranking Nazis. Sonnenfeldt was the only American who talked with all the defendants. Here is his inimitable life in wonderful detail.

This first modern history of American public life after the Civil War is a work of magisterial sweep and sophisticated insight. It will be the standard work on the era for many years to come. Integrating political, legal, and administrative history on a scale not previously attempted, Morton Keller examines crosscurrents in American institutions during a key transitional period in American history—a period that began with the end of a bloody civil war and ended with the beginning of massive industrialization. At the same time, he vividly captures the energy and optimism of a young country about to burst into the twentieth century. Keller begins by reviewing the twin legacies of the Civil War: a strengthened belief in an active national government and a vigorous drive toward civil equality. He moves on to the postwar years when centralizing and reformist tendencies were evident everywhere, not only in the Reconstructed South but also in a renewed North. After the 1880s, however, the pendulum began to swing back, and Americans faced the social and economic upheavals of the last decades of the nineteenth century with deeply divided views—an uncertainty that persists in our own day.

Book by Zinn, Howard

"Presidential elections are the centerpiece of American democracy. Prior to the election of George Washington in 1789, no country had ever peacefully transferred power in a national election. Today, we often take this for granted, as American elections have become a model for the entire world. For more than 200 years, candidates have campaigned for the highest office in the land, debating the major issues facing the country, capturing the attention of voters, and reflecting the will of the people."--Page 4 of cover.

The last quarter century has been an extraordinary and turbulent period in the art world. It was a time of creative intensity during which a handful of artists, like Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, managed, in their different ways, to cross over from the rarefied world of high art into popular culture. It was also a time when other promising careers and even whole movements, like Graffiti, spurted to life and then just as suddenly disappeared. During the astonishing boom years of the 1980s, the newly vigorous art market transformed the role of dealers and collectors to give them unprecedented power as tastemakers and the dangerous glamour of Hollywood power agents. And then came the bust. Writer Anthony Haden-Guest has moved within the art world, known the players, and reported on the scene for this entire span of time. True Colors draws on two decades of reporting to deliver an authoritative and deliciously inside account of the contemporary art world that will be the most talked-about book on art since The Shock of the New. Haden-Guest gives vivid portraits of the art world's key players and dramatizes the pivotal moments in the always evolving scene. Skillfully conveying a sense of the intricate geography of the art world, he tells of its clashes of ambition, its intrigues, its power plays. This is how artists survive, or don't survive. True Colors is filled with telling anecdotes and expertly told stories that cohere to give a sense of how the art world works, its current state, and where it may be going.

Norman Mailer, Susan Mailer's father, was among the most celebrated, talented, and controversial writers of the 20th Century. The Naked and the Dead (1948), inspired by his experience in World War II, was a bestseller and made him famous at the age of 25. Notoriously combative and egotistical, her father enjoyed a good fight both physically and verbally. Whether cheered or booed, Mailer was front and center in America's cultural battles for more than 50 years. He married six times and was father to nine children. Susan, born in 1949, is the eldest. Susan's parents separated when she was a baby. She grew up shuttling between her mother's home in Mexico and New York. Later she would marry a Chilean activist, spending the majority of her adult life in Chile, where she is a practicing psychoanalyst. In Another Place tells the story of her intense and complex relationship with her father, her five stepmothers and nine siblings, and the joys and pains of being part of the large Mailer clan. It is a tale of separation, and of the rewards and struggles of living in two very different cultures. Of being someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, always longing for a life . . . In Another Place.

"Change is no stranger to us in the twenty-first century. All of us must constantly adjust to an evolving world, to transformation and innovation. But for many thousands of creative artists, a torrent of recent changes has made it all but impossible to earn a living. A persistent economic recession, social shifts, and technological change have combined to put our artists-from graphic designers to indie-rock musicians, from architects to booksellers-out of work. This important book looks deeply and broadly into the roots of the crisis of the creative class in America and tells us why it matters. Scott Timberg considers the human cost as well as the unintended consequences of shuttered record stores, decimated newspapers, music piracy, and a general attitude of indifference. He identifies social tensions and contradictions-most concerning the artist's place in society-that have plunged the creative class into a fight for survival. Timberg shows how America's now-collapsing middlebrow culture-a culture once derided by intellectuals like Dwight Macdonald-appears, from today's vantage point, to have been at least a Silver Age. Timberg's reporting is essential reading for anyone who works in the world of culture, knows someone who does, or cares about the work creative artists produce"--

In the course of his forty-year-career as one of America's most admired journalists, Robert Scheer's work has been praised by Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion, who deems him "one of the best reporters of our time." Now, Scheer brings a lifetime of wisdom and experience to one of the most overlooked and dangerous issues of our time - the destructive influence of America's military-industrial complex. Scheer examines the expansion of our military presence throughout the world, our insane nuclear strategy, the immorality of corporations profiting in Iraq, and the arrogance of our foreign policy. Although Scheer is a liberal, his view echoes that of former Republican president General Dwight Eisenhower, who, in his farewell speech to the American people, spoke prophetically about need to guard against the growing influence of the military-industrial complex. In George W. Bush's America, politicians like Ike and Richard Nixon seem like prudent centrists. The views of libertarians, liberals, and pacifists are often overlooked or ignored by America's mainstream media. The Pornography of Power is the culmination of a respected journalist's efforts to change the terms of debate. At a time when many are exploiting fears of terrorist attacks and only a few national leaders are willing to advocate cuts in defense spending, nuclear disarmament, and restrained use of American force, Robert Scheer has written a manifesto for enlightened reform.

The Case Against Donald Rumsfeld lays out the evidence that high–level officials of the Bush administration ordered, authorized, implemented, and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Using primary source documents ranging from Rumsfeld's "techniques chart" and Iraqi plaintiffs' statements to the testimony of whistleblowers and key pieces of reportage, the book sets forth evidence of a torture program that took place throughout the world: in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, secret CIA prisons, and other places unknown. The accused are accorded a defense drawn from their memos and public statements. Readers are allowed to judge whether the Bush administration has engaged in torture and whom among the administration to hold responsible. Reminiscent of Christopher Hitchens's bestselling The Trial of Henry Kissinger, The Case Against Donald Rumsfeld constitutes one of the only attempts to hold high–ranking Bush administration officials criminally responsible for their actions.

A memoir of a life in activism by one of the original defendants in the Trial of the Chicago 7, subject of the 2020 Oscar-nominated Aaron Sorkin film of the same name. In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. First dubbed the Conspiracy 8 and later the Chicago 7, the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. But it also included a little-known community activist and social worker from the South Side of Chicago named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was included in the indictment. The ensuing trial of the Chicago 7 became a media sensation, and it changed Weiner's life forever. In this irreverent, freewheeling memoir of an indelible moment in history--which Kirkus Reviews called a welcome addition to the library of the countercultural 1960s left--Conspiracy to Riot shows how a commitment to your ideals can change your destiny forever. With startling relevance to today's polarized political climate, Conspiracy to Riot is a book for anyone who hopes for a better, more just world, and offers a blueprint for how to make it happen.