You know him as the founder of Microsoft; the philanthropic, kind-hearted billionaire who has donated endless funds to good causes around the world. But there’s another side to Bill Gates.

In this fearless, groundbreaking investigation, Tim Schwab offers readers a counter-narrative, one where Gates has used his monopolistic approach in business to amass a stunning level of control over public policy, scientific research and the news media. Whether he is pushing new educational standards in America, health reforms in India or industrialized agriculture in Africa, Gates’s unbridled social experimentation has shown itself to be not only undemocratic, but also ineffective.

All of which begs the question: why should the super rich be able to transform their wealth into political power, and just how far can they go?

Our country is in turmoil: political corruption at the highest levels of government; criminals able to walk out of prison at their convenience and live lives of luxury; and power blackouts for 12 hours a day.

But we South Africans also know how to make things work.

This book is a wealth of simple, cost-effective ideas that could immediately improve our nation:

• Want to know how to revitalize tourism in SA? There’s a way, and it’s free!
• Transform our policing system without breaking the bank.
• Upgrade our education and healthcare without adding a cent to the budget.
• Implement a sustainable alternative to the basic income grant while boosting the economy.
• Resolve the land issue without resorting to expropriation.

No matter who you vote for, get your politicians to drive these ideas.

An indelible exploration of the Cultural Revolution and how it shapes China today, Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the rarely heard stories of individuals who lived through Mao's decade of madness.

More than fifty years on, the Cultural Revolution's scar runs through the heart of Chinese society, and through the souls of its citizens. Stationed in Beijing for the Guardian, Tania Branigan came to realise that this brutal and turbulent decade continues to propel and shape China to this day. Yet official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia: it exists, for the most part, as an absence.

Red Memory explores the stories of those driven to confront the era, who fear or yearn for its return. What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?

In this incisive and razor-sharp analysis of one of the most important issues facing us today, leading Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw on their combined expertise of over 40 years to examine how dictators come to power, and how they help to foster a poisonous culture of polarisation, fear and suspicion that persists even after their time in power is over.

Using contemporary examples including the Capitol riots and voter suppression in the US, as well as global examples from history including post-1945 Germany and Brazil and Chile during the '60s and '70s, the authors dissect conservative resistance to pluralism and modern threats to multiracial democracy (including the unwillingness of political parties to adapt to modern times, and a growing disregard for constitutional norms and free and fair elections) while imploring readers to stand up in its defence.

Focusing on the forthcoming American election as an essential case study, Saving Democracy offers us imperative tools for implementing urgent democratic reform, brilliantly illuminating how we can respond to the political battles ahead.

Philippa Garson worked for the brave and upstart Weekly Mail during the early 1990s, where she covered the civil war between Inkatha and the ANC/ANC-aligned forces. Undeniable is an account of that period of her life, where she and colleagues Mondli Makhanya, Kevin Carter, Anton Harber and others tracked and discovered the involvement of a ‘third force’, which was fuelling the killing frenzy.

Several times Philippa escaped with her life. Many others did not, and here Philippa tells of the casualties, victims of war and colleagues, who did not. Her relationship across the colour line, drinking and carousing during the off-hours in an effort to diminish the pain of what she had witnessed, are all part of this brilliant account of this period of South Africa’s history. A period that has not been investigated sufficiently, and which escaped much scrutiny from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Rogues, lovers, journalists, warlords and victims are all part of Philippa’s story, and what it was like to investigate crimes which arose from apartheid, at the same time as examining her and her family’s white privilege.

A groundbreaking history of how the decades-long war on terror changed virtually every aspect of American life, from the erosion of citizenship down to the cars we bought and TV we watched.

For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. With all of the military violence occurring overseas even as the threat of sudden mass death permeated life at home, Americans found themselves living in two worlds at the same time. In one of them, soldiers fought overseas so that nothing at home would have to change at all. In the other, life in the United States took on all kinds of unfamiliar shapes, changing people’s sense of themselves, their neighbors, and the strangers they sat next to on airplanes. In Homeland, Richard Beck delivers a gripping exploration of how much the war changed life in the United States and explains why there is no going back.

Though much has been made of the damage that Donald Trump did to the American political system, Beck argues that it was the war on terror that made Trump’s presidency possible, fueling and exacerbating a series of crises that all came to a head with his rise to power. Homeland brilliantly isolates and explores four key issues: the militarism that swept through American politics and culture; the racism and xenophobia that boiled over in much of the country; an economic crisis that, Beck convincingly argues, connects the endurance of the war on terror to at least the end of the Second World War; and a lack of accountability that produced our “impunity culture”—the government-wide inability or refusal to face consequences that has transformed how the U.S. government relates to the people it governs.

To see American life through the lens of Homeland’s sweeping argument is to understand the roots of our current condition. In its startling analysis of how the war on terror hollowed out the very idea of citizenship in the United States, Beck gives the most compelling explanation yet offered for the ongoing disintegration of America’s social, political, and cultural fabric.

How pro-Israel lobbying groups influence the Middle East policies of Britain, the US and others.

In 1896, a Jewish state was a pipe dream. Today the overwhelming majority of Jews identify as Zionists. How did this happen?

Ilan Pappe unveils how over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East. Pro-Israel lobbies convinced British and American policymakers to condone Israel’s flagrant breaches of international law, grant Israel unprecedented military aid and deny Palestinians rights. Anyone who questioned unconditional support for Israel, even in the mildest terms, became the target of relentless smear campaigns.

Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic shows us how an unassailable consensus was built – and how it might be dismantled.

With unparalleled reporting, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter chronicles the clash between a president and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him.

Donald Trump v. The United States tells the dramatic, high-stakes story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power. Michael S. Schmidt takes readers inside the defining events of the presidency, chronicles them up close, and records the clash between an increasingly emboldened president and those around him, who find themselves trying to thwart the president they had pledged to serve, unsure whether he is acting in the interest of the country, his ego, his family business, or Russia. Through their eyes and ears, we observe an epic struggle.

Drawing on secret FBI and White House documents and confidential sources inside federal law enforcement and the West Wing, Donald Trump v. The United States is vital journalism from a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter that records the shocking reality of a presidency like no other. It is a riveting contemporary history and a lasting account of just how fragile and vulnerable the institutions of American democracy really are.

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell’s 1984, Neil’s Postman’s essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever.

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance.

Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.

Len Kalane, former editor of the newspaper, tells not only the story of City Press, but also a tale of the stories and events that shaped contemporary South Africa.

Kalane traces the birth of City Press in the 1950s and the early days of the newspaper, along with its iconic sister publication, Drum magazine. He details the role that Naspers, who bought the paper in the 1980s, and the erstwhile apartheid communication machinery played behind the scenes in an attempt to reconcile two constituencies – Afrikaner and black nationalist – and to move South Africa out of its political conundrum and towards a negotiated, peaceful settlement.

The book is in memory of author and journalist Percy Qoboza, and also incorporates a selection of his columns.

Nationalisation: Swear word for some, cure-all for others both within and outside the ruling party.

Tim Cohen, a senior journalist with many years experience in both political and business reporting, traces the emergence of calls for nationalisation in South African politics. It is a subject which has become the most fiercely argued and passionate economic debate of modern-day South African politics. This is particularly so since the call for nationalisation is so closely associated with the emergence of the controversial Julius Malema, although the policy also has strong support from within the trade union movement.

A Piece of the Pie offers a short, accessible overview of the political and economic debate surrounding nationalisation that emerged within the African National Congress after the 2010 general election. It traces the history of nationalisation and privatisation both locally and internationally and discusses the economic and political arguments that have made it such a topical and contentious issue in local politics. This book is an attempt to understand nationalisation more completely in order to enrich the ongoing debate.

The power of the presidential pardon has our national attention now more than ever before. In The Pardon, New York Times bestselling author and CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin provides a timely and compelling narrative of the most controversial presidential pardon in American history—Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, revealing the profound implications for our current political landscape, and how it is already affecting the legacies of both Presidents Biden and Trump.

In this deeply reported book, Toobin explores why the Founding Fathers gave the power of pardon to the President and recreates the behind-the-scenes political melodrama during the tumultuous period around Nixon’s resignation. The story features a rich cast of characters, including Alexander Haig, Nixon’s last chief of staff, who pushed for the pardon, and a young Justice Department lawyer named Antonin Scalia, who provided the legal justification.

Ford’s shocking decision to pardon Nixon was widely criticized at the time, yet it has since been reevaluated as a healing gesture for a divided country. But Toobin argues that Ford’s pardon was an unwise gift to an undeserving recipient and an unsettling political precedent. The Pardon explores those that followed: Jimmy Carter’s amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters, Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, and the extraordinary story of Trump’s unprecedented pardons at the end of his first term.

The Pardon is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the complex dynamics of power within the highest office in the nation, and the implications of presidential mercy.

Nearly two decades after he was anointed by Nelson Mandela as his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa has at last taken office as the president of South Africa. But the country Ramaphosa has inherited is very different from the rainbow nation that Mandela led in the 1990s.

The South Africa of 2018 is divided and caught in a web of state capture, corruption, poverty and despair. The Zuma years have left the country and its institutions battered and bruised.

Can Ramaphosa pull South Africa out of the quagmire and restore it to its former glory, as so many people desperately hope? Is his turn at the presidency really the beginning of a new dawn.

Ralph Mathekga answers these questions, and more, in this riveting book.

A groundbreaking and stunning investigation into the shocking and untimely death of Vincent Walker Foster Jr., the deputy counsel to the President of the United States—President Bill Clinton’s childhood friend and Hillary Clinton’s closest confidante.

Was it murder or suicide?

This is the book the Clintons and murder conspiracy peddlers do not want you to read.

On July 20, 1993, Foster was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head in Fort Marcy Park, McLean, Virginia. His passing was the highest ranking government official’s death since President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Foster’s mysterious death sparked a firestorm of controversy that engulfed the nation. Was it murder or suicide? The charges leveled against Hillary and Bill Clinton were serious: Foster knew too much. They had killed him. Clinton staffers removed evidence from his office. Must be a cover-up. Investigators never found the fatal bullet. It’s a conspiracy. On and on it went. But who was right?

Using new information exclusively obtained from the last person who officially saw Foster alive in the White House, and supported by the historical record documented in five official investigations that relied on the “available evidence,” investigative journalist Marinka Peschmann’s findings lead to a terrible conclusion.

American politics is corrupted, after reading Following Orders: The Death of Vince Foster, Clinton White House Lawyer, the sequel to The Whistleblower: How the Clinton White House Stayed in Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House and on the World Stage, no longer will Americans wonder how Washington became so broken when they see how those in power thwart the rule of law, obstruct justice, and are never held to account even at the deadly expense of long-time loyal friends and colleagues ... and it's happening again.

This is the book the Clinton's do not want you to read.

Who is the Whistleblower? It's not who you think it is.

The Whistleblower chronicles how Washington’s ruling elite have established a special justice system with special rights reserved for themselves. The story reveals a disturbing truth: the strategies and tactics that protected the Clinton White House from prosecution have reemerged and are being used today. These corrupting games played at the highest levels jeopardize the freedom of speech, and make a mockery out of the rule of law. Investigative journalist Marinka Peschmann has earned a devoted following because of her efforts to expose official corruption. She now fires a badly needed warning shot that puts the corrupt on notice and provides encouragement to those who expect and deserve better of their public servants.

Her work reads like a morality play—an allegory for our era offering a far greater message for America and a path to redemption for political systems through its often-surprising exposé of well-known and less-known characters of the Clinton era.

The Whistleblower begins before the indictments of the Clinton White House were abandoned as yesterday’s news and the legal resolve for convictions had been exhausted.