Like other great figures of 20th-century American politics, Lyndon Johnson defies easy understanding. An unrivaled master of vote swapping, back room deals, and election-day skulduggery, he was nevertheless an outspoken New Dealer with a genuine commitment to the poor and the underprivileged. And he was also a representative figure. Johnson's career speaks volumes about American politics, foreign policy, and business in the forty years after 1930. As Charles de Gaulle said when he came to JFK's funeral: Kennedy was America's mask, but this man Johnson is the country's real face.In Lone Star Rising, Robert Dallek, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his study of Franklin D. Roosevelt, turns to this fascinating "sinner and saint" to offer a brilliant, definitive portrait of a great American politician. Based on seven years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this first book in a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood to his election as vice-president under Kennedy. We see Johnson, the twenty-three-year-old aide to a pampered millionaire Representative, become a de facto Congressman, and at age twenty-eight the country's best state director of the National Youth Administration. We see Johnson, the "human dynamo," first in the House and then in the Senate, whirl his way through sixteen- and eighteen-hour days, talking, urging, demanding, reaching for influence and power, in an uncommonly successful congressional career.Dallek pays full due to Johnson's failings--his obsession with being top dog, his willingness to cut corners, and worse, to get there--but he also illuminates Johnson's sheer brilliance as a politician, the high regard in which key members of the New Deal, including FDR, held him, and his genuine concern for minorities and the downtrodden.No president in American history is currently less admired than Lyndon Johnson. Bitter memories of Vietnam have sent Johnson's reputation into free fall, and recent biographies have painted him as a scoundrel who did more harm than good. Lone Star Rising attempts to strike a balance. It does not neglect the tawdry side of Johnson's political career, including much that is revealed for the first time. But it also reminds us that Lyndon Johnson was a man of exceptional vision, who from early in his career worked to bring the South into the mainstream of American economic and political life, to give the disadvantaged a decent chance, and to end racial segregation for the well-being of the nation.

The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances . The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch. Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business. So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets. Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

Publisher's description: Robert Rubin was sworn in as the seventieth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in January 1995 in a brisk ceremony attended only by his wife and a few colleagues. As soon as the ceremony was over, he began an emergency meeting with President Bill Clinton on the financial crisis in Mexico. This was not only a harbinger of things to come during what would prove to be a rocky period in the global economy; it also captured the essence of Rubin himself--short on formality, quick to get into the nitty-gritty. From his early years in the storied arbitrage department at Goldman Sachs to his current position as chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup, Robert Rubin has been a major figure at the center of the American financial system. He was a key player in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

Renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of history’s largest—and longest-running—financial fraud, “the scale of the deception…beggars belief” ( New York Post ). Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now. Richard Behar’s relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the conman. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviews—a level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoff’s, family members, school classmates, and others. The result is the final word on the criminal behind history’s most enduring fraud—and on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the fraud’s origins—decades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confession—but also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe. Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behar’s dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there aren’t many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanity’s most consistent weakness: greed.

A National Book Award Finalist from the bestselling Frederic Morton No family in the past two centuries has been as constantly at the center of Europe's great events, has featured such varied and spectacular personalities, has had anything close to the wealth of the Rothschilds. To this day they remain one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the world. In Frederic Morton's classic tale, the family is finely painted on the page and brought vividly to life. Here you'll meet Mayer, long-time adviser to Germany's princes, who broke through the barriers of a Frankfurt ghetto and placed his family on the road to wealth and power; Lord Alfred, who maintained a private train, private orchestra (which he conducted), and private circus (of which he was ringmaster); Baron Philippe, whose rarefied vintages bear labels that were created by great artists, among them Picasso, Dali, and Haring; and Kathleen Nica Rothschild de Koenigswarter, the "jazz baroness," in whose arms Charlie Parker died. The family itself has been at the center of some of the most crucial moments in history: the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the development of the Suez Canal, the introduction of Jews in the House of Lords. Through it all, the Rothschild name has continued to represent the family ideal, and no author has so nimbly captured the eccentric brilliance of blood as Frederic Morton.

Dick Cheney is the most powerful yet most unpopular vice president in American history. He has thrived alongside a president who, from day one, had little interest in policy and limited experience in the ways of Washington. Yet Cheney's relentless rise to prominence over three decades has happened almost by stealth. Now veteran reporters Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein reveal the disturbing truth about the man who has successfully co-opted executive control over the U.S. government, serving as the de facto 'shadow president' of the most dominant White House in a generation. Cheney has always been an astute politician. He survived the collapse of the Nixon presidency, finding a position of power in the administration of Gerald Ford. He was then elected to the House of Representatives and later served in the cabinet of the first Bush presidency. But when he became George W. Bush's running mate, Cheney reached a new level of influence. From the engineering of his own selection as vice president to his support of policies allowing torture as a permissible weapon in the 'war on terror', Cheney has consistently steered America to the right. With unique access to numerous first-hand sources, Vice provides an unprecedented expose of Cheney's career. Its startling revelations concern the war in Iraq, his relationship with the CIA and with big business, his involvement with Enron, his attitude towards Iran and his ruthless manoeuvering which today effectively puts him in charge of American policy at home and abroad. In the tradition of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's All the President's Men , this powerful work of investigative journalism takes us behind the scenes in Washington, into hitherto secret meetings and deep into the heart of political decision-making. Utterly gripping, Vice chronicles and exposes the hijacking of the American presidency and illustrates the arrogance of power as never before.

"London, 189-: The great city is brought to a standstill by a series of blizzards and Sherlock Holmes is bored to distraction. It would take a miracle to bring a case to the detective's door... What arrives is not promising: a landlady who complains her artist tenant is behind on rent. Not exactly the miracle for which Holmes was hoping. But, next thing you know, there are several corpses and Sherlock Holmes and his biographer, John H. Watson, MD, find themselves drawn into one of the most bizarre cases of the great detective's career. And into the cutthroat big business of Art, where chicanery and mendacity (and cut throats) proliferate. What makes a work of art worth killing for? Is it the artist, his mistress, his dealer, or his blackmailer? The cast of characters is large. But are they perpetrators, accomplices, or victims? And just who is Juliet Packwood, with whom Watson has become infatuated? Oh, and there's one other problem: Is this a genuine Holmes case or a clever forgery? Is this the real thing? If you can't tell the difference, what is the difference?"-- Provided by publisher.

Cat Bowman Smith and Sonia Levitin have teamed up again to bring the history of America's westward expansion to life in this fun, colorful picture book. Bored by cabin life in the sparse settlement, Amanada figures out how to bake a gooseberry pie in the family's crude wood stove. Soon prospectors are paying for her pies, and her business success spills over to the other folks who've decided to settle there.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana We need only to look back to Rwanda, and now to Darfur, to see that once again we are living the worst of times. Who better to guide our understanding and give us hope than Martin Gray--a man who survived the worst of times, flourished, and still managed to find joy in living? Martin has come full circle since his boyhood world was turned upside down by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Overnight, the teenage Martin and his family were immersed in the horrors of the Holocaust and held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a nightmare of brutality, starvation, and death. Martin became a clever smuggler to help his family survive--until the "butchers" of Treblinka took his mother and brothers. Against impossible odds, Martin survived and returned to fight in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As the Nazis incinerated the ghetto, he escaped to fight with the partisans, and then the Red Army. After the war, Martin made his way to New York. The cunning and skills he developed during the war enabled him to learn the language and create a successful business. At 35, he retired to France with a fortune and a beautiful Dutch wife, starting a family and living in happiness and peace. But his world was shattered once again by a forest fire that engulfed his fleeing family. In a tragic repeat of history, Martin alone survived. Martin Gray's past could be our future if we don't heed his call to be the change. In this 35th anniversary expanded edition of For Those I Loved, a book beloved by millions of readers worldwide, Martin reminds us that the past is connected to the present. Only we can ensure that history is not repeated.

"Winner of the Nike Prize, Poland's most prestigious literary award Joanna Olczak-Ronikier is one of Poland's most admired dramatists, screenwriters, and authors. In the Garden of Memory, her most acclaimed work, traces the lives of four generations of her own family-Polish Jews who were members of one of the country's most illustrious clans, noted for its achievements in business, politics, and culture-as they lived, struggled, and (mostly) survived through the turbulent twentieth century. Rich with tales of bravery as well as poignant, sometimes comic anecdotes of everyday life, the book follows the family members as they scattered around the world to European spas, tsarist prisons, Soviet war camps, and the Royal Air Force. Tracing their roots to a renowned Austrian rabbi, the family members included an array of amazing characters. One became an industrial magnate who founded the Citroën automobile company in France; another was a Communist revolutionary who ended up being arrested, tortured, and executed by Stalin's police. One worked as an undercover agent, another as a zoologist in France. One became a notable Polish publisher, another a leading Freudian psychiatrist. Inevitably, the tragic history of the Second World War and its catastrophic impact on European Jews looms darkly over the narrative, yet remarkably enough only two members of the clan were killed in the Holocaust. Today the survivors have continued the family journey around the world, including in the United States. Beautifully translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, In the Garden of Memory is ultimately the uplifting account of a family that never gave up hope and never gave in"--

After graduating from the University of Texas in 1965, Carol Schwartz, born in Mississippi and raised in Midland, Texas, visited Washington, D.C. She was due to be married in Austin in January and had a job teaching special education there. After a very tough childhood, a happier, less stressful life stood before her. But things changed--with Carol doing the changing. As she puts it, "A magnetic pull drew me to D.C." Carol began a journey that took her away from the familiar to D.C. and the dynamic world of local politics. Then a Republican in a city where Democrats made up nearly 80% of voters, she ran for Mayor and nearly beat Marion Barry in 1994 in the closest Mayoral election in the city's history. In Quite A Life: From Defeat to Defeat ... and Back, Carol talks about growing up on the poor side of the tracks in that small West Texas town, where she was made to work starting from age eight in the family store. There were only a few Jewish families and some prejudice. Carol was often responsible, beginning at age six, for caring for her beloved older brother and only sibling Johnny, who was intellectually disabled. And sadly, she was also the target of a brilliant but full-of-rage father. Carol describes life with her own family--her three kids and husband David, who suffered from severe depression. But despite that, he went from being a child of a limited-means family with student loans to becoming one of the more successful attorneys in a city made up of them. Depression, though, and Jack Daniels ultimately caused David's tragic death when the children were teenagers. Although wounded from her childhood, she leapt over ongoing insecurity and fear to run for the D.C. Board of Education in 1974, where she became an outspoken member and leader. Carol fought against the tide to help create Banneker Academic High School and usher in educational reforms 40 years ago when it was unfashionable and took lots of courage to do it--and which led to test scores increasing. On the D.C. Council starting in 1985, she was a lone voice against bloated budgets that eventually led the city to the financial brink. Carol became an ethical watchdog in a government that too often battled corruption. Spotting government sweetheart deals, she helped root them out as a guardian of taxpayer dollars. And she spearheaded the unanimous passage of sick and safe leave for private sector workers, making D.C. the second jurisdiction in the country to have it. In doing so, she went from being a best friend of business to being viciously targeted by that community. Her passion for the city and its residents inspired her to run for Mayor several times in spite of the odds. But she picked herself up after defeat--as her tough childhood had trained her to do--and kept on ... All the while she championed wins on behalf of the city and its residents in her continuing Council career. Community responsibility has been a lifelong clarion call for Carol. She has volunteered to battle for people with HIV/AIDS and other marginalized groups, and served for nearly two decades on the Board of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which was at the forefront of that crisis. She became the first woman president of the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Clubs in its 61-year history. Her volunteer work of 50 years has touched many people, animals and organizations, and continues. Now an Independent and always a straight-shooter, Carol talks about her life with characteristic candor and her opinions with unbridled honesty--and usually with humor. As Carol says, "If you want someone to give you a sugar-coated synopsis of a life, go elsewhere. But if you want an outspoken personal autobiography--with pictures galore--that also talks about the history of D.C. since Home Rule, gives you behind-the-scenes accounts of chaotic campaigns, as well as the inner-workings of government--all rolled together--come on this ride with me." It's a journey of wins and defeats, and coming back with hope.

Who is Matt Cvetic? Hero? Scoundrel? Mole? The man who loosely provided the inspiration for the B-Grade cult movie I Was a Communist for the FBI had a life that was marred by alcoholism, damaged expectations, and greed. Cvetic, at the request of the FBI, joined a Pittsburgh branch of the CPUSA in 1943. He became one of many plants in the Party during that decade and gained the nickname "Pennsylvania's most significant mole." However, because of his erratic behavior, the FBI fired him in 1950, at which time he surfaced and suddenly became a celebrity through his testimony before the HUAC hearing. Journalist Richard Rovere described Cvetic as a "kept witness," a term that fits those who "made a business of being witnesses," thereby "befouling due process." Cvetic was the subject of a multipart series in the Saturday Evening Post. The articles bordered on fiction, but they gave Cvetic the national exposure he needed to secure a screen deal. Warner Brothers bought the story, made the movie, and enhanced Cvetic's celebrity as pop icon. In the mid-1950s, Cvetic was discredited as a witness by the courts. His career ended and he found a new niche on the Radical Right, yet he died in 1962 after years of fighting to uphold his image with the media. Today Cvetic's image is dimly remembered as he continues to fight "the Red Menace" on late-night television. Leab juxtaposes Cvetic's real life with his reel life. He chronicles his fall from grace, yet admits that Cvetic's life offers fascinating and useful insights into the creation, merchandising, and distribution of a reckless professional witness. Leab also writes about Cvetic's life prior to his involvement with the FBI, his glory days, and shows that there is much to be learned from the story of an "anti-Communist icon."

The private letters of a statesman are always inviting material for historians and when he has claim to literary fame as well the correspondence assumes a double significance. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) belonged to an age that gave pride of place to the written word as an instrument of both business and pleasure. This volume includes 363 letters (many previously unpublished) from his school boy days to his establishment in the Tory camp under the patronage of Lord Lyndhurst. Most prominent are Disraeli's letters to his sister, Sarah, with whom he corresponded frequently over several decades. To her he confided his hopes, interspersed with his observations and descriptions of social, literary and political events. The letters to Sarah supply a skeleton around which Disraeli's young manhood can be reconstructed and shed valuable light on the remaining documents in the volume. The correspondence also includes accounts of his tour of the Low Countries and the Rhine in 1824, his adventurous trip to Spain, Greece, the Near East and Egypt in 1830, his tense negotiations with publishers and his campaign to shine as a member of aristocratic society and win political patronage. The letters demonstrate the fine eye for detail and the capacity for self-dramatization and literary conceits which mark his novels. With their annotations they also provide a remarkably detailed account of life in the upper reaches of English society as viewed from below, and of Disraeli's ambitions to enter that life.

"If a paternity test were done on South Africa's widely admired Constitution, whose DNA would come up? Is the Constitution just a beautiful piece of paper? If Oliver Tambo were alive today, walking around South Africa, would he be pleased with what he saw? In this riveting, direct account of the genesis of South Africa's Constitution, former Justice Albie Sachs answers these crucial questions. In Oliver Tambo's Dream, Sachs writes about the years he spent working under Tambo's leadership in exile preparing for a post-apartheid constitutional order in South Africa and about the extreme crises that were overcome during the post-1990 constitution-making process to arrive at the document we have today. Tackling the burning issues that face our country today, he argues that the Constitution is a framework for struggle and decolonization that can be used to bring about land reform and true equality"--

The book reprints a diary found in the Naval War College archives of Joseph K. Taussig, later a distinguished U.S. naval officer, kept when as a naval cadet (midshipman and junior officer) he participated in the Spanish-American War, Philippine Insurrection, and Boxer Rebellion. The text is supported by helpful editorial notes and introduction, as well as by numerous period photographs and the diarist's sketches of the scenes and events.

Walter Gordon was a born member of the Canadian Establishment, a senior partner in one of the country's major accounting firms, successful and powerful in the world of business. After considerable persuasion by his close friend Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Gordon left business for politics and became finance minister in the Liberal government in 1963. But Gordon was different from many of his associates--he had an abiding concern for Canada, and for ensuring the independence of its enconomy. He worked to enshrine this perspective in the Liberal Party, the Pearson government and in Canadian politics generally. Walter Gordon: A Political Memoir tells the story of a politician who put principles above personal ambition, who suffered disappointments and defeats, but who always stood out as a man who remained true to his beliefs.