Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security. For sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world--when it did not succeed, it set out to change the world instead. Now Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA, based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence.--From publisher description.

From the Publisher: A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces-usually treated as separate entities-that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of "junk thought" that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion

Social analysts Alvin and Heidi Toffler turn their attention to the revolution in wealth now sweeping the planet. This book is about how tomorrow's wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But 21st-century wealth, they argue, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics. They write about everything from education and child rearing to Hollywood and China, from everyday truth and misconceptions to what they call our "third job"--the unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations. In earlier work, they coined the word "prosumer" for people who consume what they themselves produce. Here they expand the concept to reveal how many of our activities--parenting, volunteering, blogging, painting our house, improving our diet, organizing a neighborhood council--pump "free lunch" from the "hidden" non-money economy into the money economy that economists track.--From publisher description.

In this outrageous exposé of Canada's secrets, scandals, and occasional awkward lapses in proper etiquette, you'll discover Canada's bizarre history and shocking present. From whether Canadian cuisine and sexuality exist, to instructions on how to write Canadian literature, you'll discover some real stuff about Canada. Honestly. The authors didn't just copy and paste from Wikipedia. Ok, so there may be a few mistakes. But the idea is that this stuff is real. We think.

"Three Faces of Antisemitism examines the three primary forms of antisemitism as they emerged in modern and contemporary Germany, and then in other countries. Essays draw on the author's historical scholarship over the years on the form antisemitism assumed on the far right in Weimar and Nazi Germany, in the Communist regime in East Germany, and in the West German radical left, and in Islamist organizations during World War II and the Holocaust, and afterwards in the Middle East. The resurgence of antisemitism since the attacks of September 11, 2001 has origins in the ideas, events and circumstances in Europe and the Middle East in the half century from the 1920s to the 1970s. This book covers the period since 1945 when neo-Nazism was on the fringes of Western and world politics, and the persistence of antisemitism took place primarily when its leftist and Islamist forms combined antisemitism with anti-Zionism in attacks on the state of Israel. The collection includes recent essays of commentary that draw attention to the simultaneous presence of antisemitism's three faces. While scholarship on the antisemitism of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust remains crucial, the scholarly, intellectual and political effort to fight antisemitism in our times requires examination of antisemitism's leftist and Islamist forms as well. This book will be of interest to scholars researching antisemitism, racism, conspiracy theories, the far right, the far left, and Islamism"--

Traces four hundred years of Jewish history from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and discusses the anti-Semitism facing European Jews, the Jews of czarist Russia, their struggle for civil rights in the 1830s and 1840s, Jewish life in America, the effects of World War One and the Holocaust of World War Two, and much more.

Celebrated sports writer Roger Kahn casts his gaze on the golden age of baseball, an unforgettable time when the game thrived as America's unrivaled national sport. The Era begins in 1947 with Jackie Robinson changing major league baseball forever by taking the field for the Dodgers. Dazzling, momentous events characterize the decade that followed-Robinson's amazing accomplishments; the explosion on the national scene of such soon-to-be legends as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Bobby Thomson, Duke Snider, and Yogi Berra; Casey Stengel's crafty managing; the emergence of televised games; and the stunning success of the Yankees as they play in nine out of eleven World Series. The Era concludes with the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, a move that shook the sport to its very roots.

Examines the first episode in which American power and good intentions came face-to-face with a powerful Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations. As 1945 opened, America was on surprisingly congenial terms with China's Communist rebels--their soldiers treated their American counterparts as heroes, rescuing airmen shot down over enemy territory. Chinese leaders talked of a future in which American money and technology would help lift China out of poverty. Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries, vowing to them his intention of establishing an American-style democracy in China. By year's end, however, cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust. Chinese Communist soldiers were setting ambushes for American marines in north China; Communist newspapers were portraying the United States as an implacable imperialist enemy; civil war in China was erupting. The pattern was set for a quarter century of almost total Sino-American mistrust, with the devastating wars in Korea and Vietnam among the consequences. Richard Bernstein here tells the incredible story of that year's sea change, brilliantly analyzing its many components, from ferocious infighting among U.S. diplomats, military leaders, and opinion makers to the complex relations between Mao and his patron, Stalin.--From publisher description

, 468 pages, index at rear

The renowned economist discusses the impending global economic crisis and the eight-step program that America can begin in order to head it off

The many con men, gangsters, and drug lords portrayed in popular culture are examples of the dark side of the American dream. Viewers are fascinated by these twisted versions of heroic American archetypes, like the self-made man and the entrepreneur. Applying the critical skills he developed as a Shakespeare scholar, Paul A. Cantor finds new depth in familiar landmarks of popular culture. He invokes Shakespearean models to show that the concept of the tragic hero can help us understand why we are both repelled by and drawn to figures such as Vito and Michael Corleone or Walter White. Beginning with Huckleberry Finn and ending with The Walking Dead , Cantor also uncovers the link between the American dream and frontier life. In imaginative variants of a Wild West setting, popular culture has served up disturbing--and yet strangely compelling--images of what happens when people move beyond the borders of law and order. Cantor demonstrates that, at its best, popular culture raises thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.

"Jeremy Corbyn's rapid ascent to the leadership of the Labour Party, driven by a groundswell of popular support particularly among the young, was met at the time by a baffled media. Just where did Jeremy Corbyn come from? In Searching for Socialism, Leo Panitch and Colin Leys argue that it is only by understanding Corbyn's roots in the Bennite Labour New Left's long struggle to transcend the limits of 'parliamentary socialism' and democratise the party, as a precondition for democratising the state, can you understand his surge to become leader of the party. Closely analyzing the forces inside the party aligned against Corbyn's leadership, Panitch and Leys explain what happened between the validation of the Corbyn project in the 2017 election, while advancing an ambitious programme of democratic socialist measures unmatched anywhere since the 1970s, and the electoral defeat amidst the Brexit conjuncture of 2019. They argue that while this defeat marked the farthest point to which the generation formed in the 1970s was able to carry the Labour new left project, it seems unlikely that the new generation of activists will quickly see any other way forward than continuing the struggle inside the Labour Party, so as to fundamentally change it. In the face of the contradictions being generated by twenty-first-century capitalism, and the need for discovering and developing new political forms adequate to addressing them, this book is required reading for democratic socialists, not just in Britain but everywhere." --

A brilliant, alternative take on sixties swinging London, Jenny Diski offers radical reconsiderations of the social, political, and personal meaning of that turbulent era. What was Jenny Diski doing in the sixties? A lot: dropping out, taking drugs, buying clothes, having sex, demonstrating, and spending time in mental hospitals. Now, as Diski herself turns sixty years old, she examines what has been lost in the purple haze of nostalgia and selective memory of that era, what endures, and what has always been the same. From the vantage point of London, she takes stock of the Sexual Revolution, the fashion, the drug culture, and the psychiatric movements and education systems of the day. What she discovers is that the ideas of the sixties often paved the way for their antithesis, and that by confusing liberation and libertarianism, a new kind of radicalism would take over both in the UK and America. Witty, provocative, and gorgeously written, Jenny Diski promises to feed your head with new insights about everything that was, and is , the sixties.

"A detailed history and analysis of Arab-Israeli relations and the conflict between two peoples claiming the same land, exploring through firsthand experience how these relations have been shaped over the years and assessing the prospects for a peaceful future"--Provided by publisher.

In 1945, many Europeans still heated with coal, cooled their food with ice, and lacked indoor plumbing. This book presents an account of the extraordinary development of Europe's economy since the end of World War II. It argues that the continent's history has been critical to its economic performance.