Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both Eastbloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations -- the Pugwash Movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War -- won Nobel peace prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. 'The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament.

The assassination of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, campus riots, Richard Nixon--the American dream was shattered in 1968. Prominent journalist Jules Witcover looks at the most pivotal year in modern American history, and its irrevocable consequences for today's society.

Uncovering the secrets behind the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, this is "a brutal, cautionary tale that serves as a painful reminder of the worst that can happen in war."—Chicago Tribune.

"The Long War" is a serious, radical critique of the poltical economy and recent history of El Salvador, set in the context of the troubled history of the entire Central Amercan region and detailing in full the extent of US intervention and its importancce as a destabilising factor.
With the addition of a postscript, this new edition brings the narrative fully up to date.

Acclaimed by Ebony magazine as "one of those rare publishing events that generate as much excitement in the cloistered confines of the academy as they do in the general public", The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. chronicles one of the twentieth century's most dynamic personalities and one of the nation's greatest social struggles. King's call for racial justice and his faith in the power of nonviolence to engender a major transformation of American society is movingly conveyed in this authoritative, multivolume edition.

With the Montgomery bus boycott at an end, King confronts the sudden demands of celebrity while trying to identify the next steps in the burgeoning struggle for equality. Anxious to duplicate the success of the boycott, he spends much of 1957 and 1958 establishing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. But advancing the movement in the face of dogged resistance proves disheartening for the young minister, and he finds that it is easier to inspire supporters with his potent oratory than to organize a mass movement for social change. Yet King remains committed: "The vast possibilities of a nonviolent, non-cooperative approach to the solution of the race problem are still challenging indeed. I would like to remain a part of the unfolding development of this approach for a few more years".

King's budding international prestige is affirmed in March 1957 when he attends the independence ceremonies in Ghana, West Africa. Two months later his first national address, at the "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom", is widely praised, and in June 1958, King's increasing prominence is recognized with a long-overdue White House meeting. During this period King also cultivatesalliances with the labor and pacifist movements, and international anticolonial organizations. As Volume IV closes King is enjoying the acclaim that greeted his first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, only to suffer a near-fatal stabbing in New York City.

In this new edition of his classic 1970 memoir about the notorious U-2 incident, pilot Francis Gary Powers reveals the full story of what actually happened in the most sensational espionage case in Cold War history. After surviving the shoot-down of his reconnaissance plane and his capture on May 1, 1960, Powers endured sixty-one days of rigorous interrogation by the KGB, a public trial, a conviction for espionage, and the start of a ten-year sentence. After nearly two years, the U.S. government obtained his release from prison in a dramatic exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel. The narrative is a tremendously exciting suspense story about a man who was labeled a traitor by many of his countrymen but who emerged a Cold War hero.

This is our moment. This is our time, Barack Obama declared in his victory speech on November 4, 2008. Such a moment is an opportunity to explore who we are, where we've been, and what the emergence of a leader like Obama can tell us about our culture, our politics, and our future. In "What Obama Means", Jabari Asim, author of the acclaimed "The N Word", provides the context needed to understand what the Obama presidency means to people of all backgrounds. Asim moves easily from the contemporary to the historical, showing how performers and athletes, such as Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan, laid the groundwork for Obama as much as did leaders such as Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, and Martin Luther King Jr. He examines the impact of Sidney Poitier (whose "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" could have been the story of the president's parents) and how the actor's navigation of Hollywood was a forerunner for Obama's own path in wooing America's white voters. Asim places Obama within the history of the black rhetorical tradition, alongside such figures as James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Barbara Jordan. He also describes how the 'Obama phenomenon' grew from the ground up, focusing on the people who caught on even before their leaders did. He demonstrates how Obama turned the old civil-rights model of African American leadership on its head, and shows that Obama's election is evidence of the progress that has been made in healing wounds and broadening America's concept of leadership and inspiration.

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.

A decade—and a president—that transformed America. During the Reagan years, Americans witnessed an extraordinary array of changes, from major technological advances to sweeping revisions of the tax code to the deregulation of major industries and the advent of the culture wars. America emerged from the decade completely transformed: political and social arrangements derived from post–World War II liberalism had given way to the highly competitive, fast-changing, technology-driven society we know today. In The Eighties, John Ehrman tracks this transformation in the context of Ronald Reagan’s policies and convictions and examines the broader trends that enabled Reagan to achieve so much of his agenda. At a time when most Americans remained fairly centrist in their political commitments, Reagan was able to shift policy toward the right by building support for a few key policies. His gradualist approach met with little opposition from Democrats, who failed to mount a coherent response. Based on a broad range of primary source material, The Eighties offers an accessible and balanced account of a watershed decade in American history.

Now, for the first time, Fox News political analyst and former Clinton adviser Dick Morris turns his sharp-eyed gaze on Hillary, the longtime First Lady, current New York senator, and bestselling author. For, as he argues, no politician in America today is better aligned to become president in 2008 -- and none would bring more baggage to the White House -- than Mrs. Clinton. In Rewriting History, Morris draws on his own long working relationship with the Clintons, as well as his trademark deep research and candid, nonpartisan analysis, to create a rebuttal to Hillary's bestselling autobiography, Living History. Morris documents how Hillary hides her true self behind a "HILLARY" brand that is chatty, charming, giggly, and warm -- but is far from her true personality. In Rewriting History, Morris pierces the mask to get at the truth behind the distortions and omissions of Hillary's memoir. Here we meet the real Hillary, both good and bad: the manager who makes the trains run on time, but also the paranoid who sees all those who disagree with her as personal enemies; the idealist, but also the "advice addict" easily misled by the guru of the moment. Morris describes Hillary's sense of entitlement, and warns that it may lead deep into financial scandal. And he demonstrates how Hillary dodges criticism by pretending that every attack is directed not just at her, but at every working woman in America. Ultimately, Morris argues, the Hillary Clinton of today is marketing a false front, obscuring both her wants and her assets behind the phoney facade of a domestic Everywoman. But as she pursues higher office, she also faces a choice. Will she, like Bobby Kennedy, see the error of her ruthless ways, and embrace the sincere idealism she professes? Or, like Richard Nixon, will she allow the darker angels of her nature to overcome her, jeopardizing herself and the country in the process? As Rewriting History suggests, we can only hope that Hillary Clinton's past performance is no guarantee of future results.

THIS IS OUR MOMENT

"This is our time--to put people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth--that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

-- President Barack Obama, Acceptance Speech; Chicago, IL; November 4, 2008

Born in the U.S.A., the son of an African father and an American mother, a boy who spent his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, Barack Obama is truly a citizen of the world. In kindergarten, he wrote an essay titled, "I Want to Become President," and now, with his fierce optimism, exuberant sense of purpose and determination, and above all, his belief that change "can" happen, Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, has made that dream come true.

Garen Thomas takes us through the life of Barack Obama, from his struggle to fit in with his classmates, and concern about not knowing his biological father, through his term as an Illinois senator, and the long campaign for president, to his historic victory.

Hurricane Katrina shredded one of the great cities of the South, and as levees failed and the federal relief effort proved lethally incompetent, a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe. As an editor of New Orleans' daily newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize--winning "Times-Picayune," Jed Horne has had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama of the city's collapse into chaos and its continuing struggle to survive.
As the Big One bore down, New Orleanians rich and poor, black and white, lurched from giddy revelry to mandatory evacuation. The thousands who couldn't or wouldn't leave initially congratulated themselves on once again riding out the storm. But then the unimaginable happened: Within a day 80 percent of the city was under water. The rising tides chased horrified men and women into snake-filled attics and onto the roofs of their houses. Heroes in swamp boats and helicopters braved wind and storm surge to bring survivors to dry ground. Mansions and shacks alike were swept away, and then a tidal wave of lawlessness inundated the Big Easy. Screams and gunshots echoed through the blacked-out Superdome. Police threw away their badges and joined in the looting. Corpses drifted in the streets for days, and buildings marinated for weeks in a witches' brew of toxic chemicals that, when the floodwaters finally were pumped out, had turned vast reaches of the city into a ghost town.
Horne takes readers into the private worlds and inner thoughts of storm victims from all walks of life to weave a tapestry as intricate and vivid as the city itself. Politicians, thieves, nurses, urban visionaries, grieving mothers, entrepreneurs with an eye for quick profit at public expense-all of these lives collide in a chronicle that is harrowing, angry, and often slyly ironic.
Even before stranded survivors had been plucked from their roofs, government officials embarked on a vicious blame game that further snarled the relief operation and bedeviled scientists striving to understand the massive levee failures and build New Orleans a foolproof flood defense. As Horne makes clear, this shameless politicization set the tone for the ongoing reconstruction effort, which has been haunted by racial and class tensions from the start.
Katrina was a catastrophe deeply rooted in the politics and culture of the city that care forgot and of a nation that forgot to care. In "Breach of Faith," Jed Horne has created a spellbinding epic of one of the worst disasters of our time.

"From the Hardcover edition."

How Barack Obama Won--by one of the most lauded political journalists of our time, and one of the most respected pollsters in the business--gives us not only the inside state-by-state guide to how Obama achieved his victory, but also the essential toolbox for understanding the political implications of the 2008 presidential election--where the country stands vis-a-vis Red and Blue states, where it currently is and is headed politically, and whether a political realignment has taken place.
The book features an introduction by Chuck Todd, putting the 2008 presidential election in political and demographic perspective, even as it reveals national trends. The final electoral map will appear in the front matter, as will unexpected "fun facts." The book is divided into four parts, each of which proceeds alphabetically state by state: Battleground States (e.g., Colorado, Florida, Idaho); Emerging Battleground States (e.g., Arizona, Georgia, Montana); Receding Battleground States (e.g., Michigan, Pennsylvania); Red and Blue States (e.g., Idaho and Mississippi, California and New York).
The votes in each state for Obama and McCain are broken down by percentage according to gender, age, race, party, religious affiliation, education, household income, size of city, and according to views about the most important issue (the economy, terrorism, Iraq, energy, healthcare), the future of the economy (worried, not worried) and the war in Iraq (approve, disapprove). Comparative figures for the 2004 Bush-Kerry election are provided. Each state profile is comprised of a table of numbers--with crucial lines highlighted--and analysis. From the book's treasury of facts you will learn about:
First Time Voters: The ratio of first-time to previous voters was identical to the 2004 split. Eleven percent (11%) of the electorate voted for the first time in 2004 and 2008. In 2008 70% voted for Obama whereas in 2004 only 53% voted for Kerry.
White Voters: Obama won the white vote in 18 states and the District of Columbia: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, ME, MA, MI, MN, NH, NY, OR, RI, WA, WI and VT. Obama received less than 35% of the white vote in 13 states, with Louisiana (14%), Mississippi (11%) and Alabama (10%) picking up the rear.
The Bush Factor: With the exception of Missouri (which barely went to McCain), Obama won every state where Bush's approval rating was below 35% in the exit polls; he lost every state where Bush's approval rating was above 35%. Bush's approval rating was highest in Utah (47%), which supported McCain by a 29 point margin, and lowest in Washington, D.C. (8%), where McCain received only 7% of the vote.
Florida: Votes for McCain were 25,000 fewer than for Bush in 2004; Obama's exceeded Kerry's by 540,000.
Ohio: Votes for Obama were 34,000 fewer than for Kerry in 2004; McCain's, however, were 350,000 short of Bush's.
By the way, since 1928 there has not been a winning Republican presidential/vice-presidential ticket without a Bush or Nixon.

Castro's Cuba is isolated; the guerrillas who once spread havoc through Uruguay and Argentina are dead, dispersed, or running for office as moderates. And in 1990, Nicaragua's Sandinistas were rejected at the polls by their own constituents. Are these symptoms of the fall of the Latin American left? Or are they merely temporary lulls in an ongoing revolution that may yet transform our hemisphere?

This perceptive and richly eventful study by one of Mexico's most distinguished political scientists tells the story behind the failed movements of the past thirty years while suggesting that the left has a continuing relevance in a continent that suffers from destitution and social inequality. Combining insider's accounts of intrigue and armed struggle with a clear-sighted analysis of the mechanisms of day-to-day power, Utopia Unarmed is an indispensable work of scholarship, reportage, and political prognosis.

This is a detailed study of nationalism in Argentina, a fundamentalist movement pledged to violence and dictatorship that came to a head in the notorious "disappearances" of the 1970s. This radical, right-wing movement has had a profound impact on almost all aspects of Argentinian life - art and literature, journalism, education, the church, and, of course, politics.;The text attempts to understand the politics and ideology behind the military-led repression of the 1970s and the resistance to democracy among extreme right-wing groups that led to several attempted coups between 1987 and 1990. It examines the origins of the nationalist movement, linking its contemporary manifestations to the authoritarian ideologies that prevailed in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Spain, Portugal, Mexico and Brazil.