A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making - from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy.

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy.

Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective - the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

'Provocative, clear-sighted, richly textured and wonderfully readable, this is the indispensable biography of Churchill for the post-Brexit 2020s' David Kynaston In A.J.P. Taylor's words, Churchill was 'the saviour of his country' when he became prime minister in 1940. Yet he was also a deeply flawed character. Giving due credit to Churchill's achievements but making no secret of his failures, Geoffrey Wheatcroft takes a radically different approach to other biographies. Going far beyond a reappraisal of a life and a career, he reveals the complex shadow Churchill has cast over post-war British history and contemporary politics. Telling the story of Churchill's extraordinary life and the equally fascinating one of his legacy, Churchill's Shadow focuses on how we as a nation have been living in the grip of his self-written myth ever since his death. 'Wheatcroft is a skilled prosecutor with a rapier pen...this could be the best single-volume indictment of Churchill yet written' New York Times 'A clear-eyed, incisive and superbly balanced account of Churchill, the man and the myth' Robert Gildea

These new essays prepared to commemorate the centennial of the National Institute of Social Sciences have been carefully crafted to deal with an overriding concern of our time--those elements in political rule that go beyond legal rights and responsibilities into the moral requirements of effective governance. The principal theme of this book is presidential leadership. The presidency personifies government authority, including moral authority. In the first part of this book most of the essays argue that the moral authority of leaders depends on high personal standards as well as policy outcomes. The second segment on the rule of law and character raises considerations not limited to the presidency. Character and the authority that derives from it are demonstrated most effectively not by what someone does in his or her personal life, but in the moral values of the causes espoused and effectiveness in pursuing them. In the realm of international affairs, governmental leadership must wrestle with the moral and constitutional guidelines known as "reasons of state." Under what circumstances is it morally acceptable for a leader or government to practice deception upon the citizenry, to overthrow other governments, to bomb civilians? Many contributors raise the issue of what permits a government to take actions that would be immoral or illegal in individuals or groups. The final segment expands and deepens this theme by exploring the work and role of non-governmental agencies that influence both leaders and citizens in the public arena. In short, at a period that brings to a close a period in which the presidency has become more visible as well as more prominent, this collective effort sheds new light on classic themes. It will be an invaluable guide as we enter the new century. The contributors include an illustrious galaxy of public officials and political scientists, including Madeleine K. Albright, Judith A. Best, Betty Glad, C. Lowell Harriss, Travis Beal Jacobs, Ruth P. Morgan, Stanley A. Renshon, Donald L. Robinson and William vanden Heuvel.

This book analyses the rhetorical background and strategies of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) and those of Ronald Reagan in reference to the 1981 strike. Was firing 11,000 federal employees the only option, or the best option available?

A study of Jawaharlal Nehru, an Indian nationalists who led India to independence and served as Prime Minister from 1947 until his death.

As Prime Minister Nehru steered India through her early, formative years as one of the world's great nations. This is not his biography—though the biographical details are clearly set out—but instead is a study of Nehru as a figure of power. In it, Judith M. Brown explores a number of related themes. This account will reward anyone interested in the making of our modern world. One of its rewards is the general introduction it provides to the society and politics of India in the early and middle years of the century.

"The Final Days" is the classic, behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon's dramatic last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon's fall from office -- one of the gravest crises in presidential history.

La historia intima de las crisis, decisiones y retos que enfrento Hillary Rodham Clinton durante sus cuatro anos como sexagesima septima Secretaria de Estado de America, y de como esas experiencias motivan su vision del futuro.
"Todos afrontamos decisiones dificiles en la vida," escribe Hillary Rodham Clinton en las primeras paginas de esta cronica personal de sus anos en el epicentro de los eventos mundiales. "La vida consiste en tomar ese tipo de decisiones. Nuestras decisiones y la forma en que las manejamos moldean la persona en la cual nos convertimos."
En el periodo que siguio a su campana electoral de 2008, ella esperaba volver a representar el estado de Nueva York en el Senado de los Estados Unidos. Para sorpresa suya, su antiguo rival por la nominacion del Partido Democrata, el recien elegido Presidente Barack Obama, le solicito trabajar en su administracion como Secretaria de Estado. Estas memorias constituyen el recuento de los cuatro extraordinarios e historicos anos que siguieron y las decisiones dificiles a las que se enfrentaron ella y sus colegas.
La Secretaria Clinton y el Presidente Obama tuvieron que decidir como restaurar alianzas resquebrajadas, reducir paulatinamente dos guerras y lidiar con una crisis financiera a nivel mundial. Hicieron frente al creciente competidor que es China, a las crecientes amenazas de Iran y Corea del Norte y tambien a revoluciones en el Medio Oriente. Por el camino, lidiaron con algunos de los mas dificiles dilemas de la politica exterior de los Estados Unidos, en particular con la decision de enviar estadounidenses a situaciones de peligro, desde Afganistan hasta Libia y a la caza de Osama bin Laden.
Al finalizar su ejercicio en el cargo, la Secretaria Clinton habia visitado 112 paises, viajado casi un millon de millas y obtenido una verdadera perspectiva global de muchas de las principales tendencias que estaban remodelando el panorama del siglo veintiuno, las cuales abarcaban desde la desigualdad economica hasta el cambio climatico y a la revolucion en energia, comunicaciones y salud. Valiendose de sus conversaciones con numerosos lideres y expertos, la Secretaria Clinton ofrece sus puntos de vista sobre lo que los Estados Unidos necesitara para competir con exito en un mundo interdependiente. Defensora acerrima de los derechos humanos y de la participacion total de mujeres, ninas y jovenes, asi como de la comunidad LGBT en las sociedades, la Secretaria Clinton ha sido testigo presencial de decadas de cambio social, conoce la diferencia entre tendencias y titulares, y describe los avances que estan teniendo lugar en todo el mundo, dia tras dia.
Sus descripciones de conversaciones diplomaticas a los mas altos niveles ofrecen al lector una clase magistral de relaciones internacionales, al igual que su analisis de un mejor uso del "poder inteligente" para generar seguridad y prosperidad en un mundo tan rapidamente cambiante--uno en el cual los Estados Unidos de America sigue siendo la nacion indispensable.

The richly anecdotal story of an extraordinary life – when baby Mamphela was born to teacher parents in the rural village of Kranspoort, few would have predicted that she would become not only a medical doctor, but an international leader and the founder of not one but two new political movements. As a young woman, Mamphela was instrumental in creating the ideology of Black Consciousness with her partner, Steve Biko. As an accomplished and well-off businesswoman who had reached the pinnacle of success, this year she felt compelled to start Agang SA , to provide South African voters with an alternative to the inept and increasingly corrupt ANC.

In this very readable autobiography, Mamphela Ramphele vividly describes her rural childhood, her extended family, her first loves and losses – after the death of her firstborn, she nearly lost her and Steve’s baby after his death by torture – and her subsequent successes in both politics and business.

She exposes what went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the launch of Agang SA, discusses her relationship with a number of prominent South Africans, including Helen Zille, and she shares her vision for a future South Africa of which we can all be proud.

At the age of 87 Dirk Mudge now publishes his long-awaited autobiography. This remarkable man was involved full time in the politics of South West Africa, and later Namibia, for a period of 33 years. He entered the political arena in 1960 as a member of the Legislative Assembly of the National Party of South West Africa. Mudge describes how he initally supported the ideologies of the national Party, but gradually came to change his views and politics. This inevitably lead to his resignation from the National Party and to the establishment of his own party: The Pepublican Party. He had a personal involvement in the drawing up of the new Constitution of the Republic of Namiba and tries to give answers to questions about why it took Namibia so long to reach independance. He also explains the role South Africa and the international community played in this major event. Says Dr Piet Croucamp in his preface: “Mudge's memoir does not relive the past in times of modernity. The reader becomes displaced ? in a way ? to a familiar but awkward if not painful past. The narrative, conceived in stigma and shame, is presented with a “respectability” or even bizarre “reality” which once was “normal” to some and an abomination to others. Dirk Mudge has made a remarkable contribution with a text which merits both literary and scholarly value. The work was not intended as a comprehensive history of Namibia ? it is a memoir about the life and times of Dirk Mudge.”

The Biographic series presents an entirely new way of looking at the lives of the world's greatest thinkers and creative. It takes the 50 defining facts, dates, thoughts, habits and achievements of each subject, and uses infographics to convey all of them in vivid snapshots. Many people know that Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a British statesman and prime minister, a speechmaker who led Britain through the dark days of the Second World War. What, perhaps, they don't know is that he came under enemy fire over 50 times; took 36 bottles of wine, 18 of scotch and 6 of vintage brandy to the Boer War; painted over 600 works of art and won the Nobel Prize for Literature; and developed his taste for Havana cigars while working as a war correspondent in the Cuban War of Independence.

This essential book explores the early years of military rule following the Free Officers' coup of 1952. Enriched by interviews with actors in and observers of the events, Nasser's Blessed Movement shows how the officers' belief in a quick reformation by force was transformed into a vital, long-term process that changed the face of Egypt. Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the military regime launched an ambitious program of political, social, and economic reform. Egypt became a leader in Arab and non-aligned politics, as well as a model for political mobilization and national development throughout the Third World. Although Nasser exerted considerable personal influence over the course of events, his rise as a national and regional hero in the mid-1950s was preceded by a period in which he and his colleagues groped for direction, and in which many Egyptians disliked--even feared--them. Joel Gordon analyzes the goals, programs, successes, and failures of the young regime, providing the most comprehensive account of the Egyptian revolution to date. This edition includes a new Introduction that looks back at the post-1952 period from a post-2011 perspective.

This accessible, rigorously researched and highly revealing book lifts the lid on political party membership. It represents the first in-depth study of six of the UK's biggest parties - Labour, the Conservatives, the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, UK Independence Party and the Greens - carried out simultaneously, thereby providing invaluable new insights into members' social characteristics, attitudes, activities and campaigning, reasons for joining and leaving, and views on how their parties should be run and who should represent them. In short, at a time of great pressure on, and change across parties, this book helps us discover not only what members want out of their parties but what parties want out of their members. This text is essential reading for those interested in political parties, party membership, elections and campaigning, representation, and political participation, be they scholars and students of British and comparative politics, or politicians, journalists and party members - in short, anyone who cares about the future of representative democracy.

This book analyzes a range of new developments in various fields concerning the concepts of chaos and complexity theory. The proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Chaos, Complexity and Leadership feature newly developed concepts involving various research methodologies for identifying chaos and complexity in different fields of the sciences and leadership. In addition, it explores chaotic and complex systems from all fields of knowledge in order to stake a claim of prevalence of compatibility between knowledge fields. Particular emphasis is placed on exploring non-linearity in order to open a discussion on new approaches to and perspectives on chaos, complexity and leadership. Readers will find coverage of important events that have recently taken place in our world, regardless of whether they were social, political, economic or scientific in nature. The book explores diverse aspects of and issues related to the effects of chaos and complexity in the world; discusses the application of nonlinear dynamics in order to arrive at transformational policies; and offers projections of tomorrow's world using an interdisciplinary approach. Though primarily intended for readers with an interest in nonlinear science, thanks to its focus on the application of chaos and complexity to other disciplines, the book appeals to a broad readership.

One of the greatest American presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt built a coalition of labour, ethnic, urban, low-income and African American voters that underwrote the Democratic Party's national ascendancy from the 1930s to the 1980s. Over his four terms, he promoted the New Deal - the greatest reform programme in US history - to meet the challenges of the Great Depression, led the United States to the brink of victory in the Second World War, and established the modern presidency as the driving force of American politics and government. Iwan Morgan takes a fresh look at FDR, showing how his leadership enabled the United States of America to become the most successful country of the twentieth century. This astute and original assessment of a highly consequential presidency explains how Roosevelt enhanced the governing capacity of his office, promoted a constitutional revolution through his dealings with the Supreme Court, and forged a new intimacy between the president and the American people through his genius for political communication. It also demonstrates the significance of his organizational and strategic leadership as commander-in-chief in America's greatest foreign war, his role in holding together the US-British-Soviet Grand Alliance against the Axis powers, and his pioneering development of the national-security presidency that sought to promote a lasting post-war peace for the world. In fluid, immensely readable prose, Morgan focuses on the ways in which FDR transformed the presidency into an institution of domestic and international leadership to establish the modern ideal of the office as an assertive, democratic executive charged with meeting the challenges facing the US at home and abroad.

In December 1963, Kenya formally declared its independence yet it would take a year of intense negotiations for it to transform into a presidential republic, with Jomo Kenyatta as its first president. Archival records of the independence negotiations, however, reveal that neither the British colonial authorities nor the Kenyan political elite foresaw the formation of a presidential regime that granted one man almost limitless executive powers. Even fewer expected Jomo Kenyatta to remain president until his death in 1978. Power and the Presidency in Kenya reconstructs Kenyatta's political biography, exploring the links between his ability to emerge as an uncontested leader and the deeper colonial and postcolonial history of the country. In describing Kenyatta's presidential style as discreet and distant, Angelo shows how the burning issues of land decolonisation, the increasing centralisation of executive powers and the repression of political oppositions shaped Kenyatta's politics. Telling the story of state building through political biography, Angelo reveals how historical contingency and structural developments shaped both a man and an institution - the president and the presidency.

This revisionist history of caste politics in twentieth-century Bengal argues that the decline of this form of political mobilization in the region was as much the result of coercion as of consent. It traces this process through the political career of Jogendranath Mandal, the leader of the Dalit movement in eastern India and a prominent figure in the history of India and Pakistan, over the transition of Partition and Independence. Utilising Mandal's private papers, this study reveals both the strength and achievements of his movement for Dalit recognition, as well as the major challenges and constraints he encountered. Departing from analyses that have stressed the role of integration, Dwaipayan Sen demonstrates how a wide range of coercions shaped the eventual defeat of Dalit politics in Bengal. The region's acclaimed 'castelessness' was born of the historical refusal of Mandal's struggle to pose the caste question.

'The Quiet Before is a fascinating and important exploration of how ideas that change the world incubate and spread.' Steven Pinker 'Filled with insightful analysis and colourful storytelling... Rarely does a book give you a new way of looking at social change. This one does.' Walter Isaacson Why do some radical ideas make history? We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fuelling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can imagine alternate realities. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that they might soon go extinct. The Quiet Before is a grand panorama, stretching from the seventeenth-century correspondence that jump-started the scientific revolution to the encrypted apps used by epidemiologists fighting the pandemic in the shadow of an inept administration. Beckerman shows that defining social movements - from decolonization to feminism - thrive when they are given the time and space to gestate. Today, we are replacing these productive, private spaces with monolithic platforms. Why did the Arab Spring fall apart and Occupy Wall Street never gain traction? Has Black Lives Matter lived up to its full potential? Beckerman reveals what this new social media ecosystem still needs - from patience to focus - and offers a recipe for growing radical ideas again. Lyrical and profound, The Quiet Before looks to the past to help us imagine a different future.

A moving and compulsively readable look into the lives, loves, relationships, and rivalries among the three women at the heart of the British royal family today: Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and Kate Middleton--from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Good Son, These Few Precious Days, and The Day Diana Died. One has been famous longer than anyone on the planet--a dutiful daughter, a frustrated mother, a doting grandmother, a steel-willed taskmaster, a wily stateswoman, an enduring symbol of an institution that has lasted a thousand years, and a global icon who has not only been an eyewitness to history but a part of it. One is the great-granddaughter of a King's mistress and one of the most famous "other women" of the modern age--a woman who somehow survived a firestorm of scorn to ultimately marry the love of her life, and in the process replace her arch rival, one of the most beloved figures of the twentieth century. One is a beautiful commoner, the university-educated daughter of a flight attendant-turned-millionaire entrepreneur, a fashion scion the equal of her adored mother-in-law, and the first woman since King George V's wife, Queen Mary, to lay claim to being the daughter-in-law of one future king, the wife another, and the mother of yet another. Game of Crowns is an in-depth and exquisitely researched exploration of the lives of these three remarkable women and the striking and sometimes subtle ways in which their lives intersect and intertwine. Examining their surprising similarities and stark differences, Andersen travels beyond the royal palace walls to illustrate who these three women really are today--and how they will directly reshape the landscape of the monarchy.

This exciting book helps educators translate the concept of equity into the context of pedagogy in the K-12 classroom. Providing a practice-oriented framework for understanding what equity entails for both teachers and learners, this book clarifies the theoretical context for equity and shares rich teaching strategies across a range of content areas and age groups. Unpacking six themes to understand Culturally Responsive Education (CRE), this powerful book helps teachers incorporate equity into behaviors, environments, and meaningful learning opportunities. Culturally Responsive Education in the Classroom provides specific, practice-based examples to help readers develop a culturally responsive pedagogical mindset for closing equity gaps in student achievement.

Conventional wisdom suggests that partisanship has little impact on voter behavior in Brazil; what matters most is pork-barreling, incumbent performance, and candidates' charisma. This book shows that soon after redemocratization in the 1980s, over half of Brazilian voters expressed either a strong affinity or antipathy for or against a particular political party. In particular, that the contours of positive and negative partisanship in Brazil have mainly been shaped by how people feel about one party - the Workers' Party (PT). Voter behavior in Brazil has largely been structured around sentiment for or against this one party, and not any of Brazil's many others. The authors show how the PT managed to successfully cultivate widespread partisanship in a difficult environment, and also explain the emergence of anti-PT attitudes. They then reveal how positive and negative partisanship shape voters' attitudes about politics and policy, and how they shape their choices in the ballot booth.

Ilchman and Uphoff believe that political science has failed in the past to meet its own standards of rigor and cogency and does not meet standards of usefulness and relevance set by others. "The Political Economy of Change" attempts to remedy these shortcomings by expanding the limits of social science analysis to deal with problems of allocation and productivity in all spheres of public choice, not just the economic sphere.

This book aims to explain why some presidents are more successful than others in winning the support of legislators during periods of unified government. This book covers five presidential and semi-presidential systems such as France, Indonesia, Mexico, Taiwan, and the U.S. with a wide variety of institutional arrangements and political dynamics. This book elaborates on explaining how institutional factors such as confidence vote, electoral system, candidate nomination and presidential unilateral power influence the ability of presidents to pass their legislative agendas through comparisons across presidential and semi-presidential systems.

This book examines the politics of renewable electricity policy in democratic Spain. It provides the first comprehensive political analysis of how and why successive Spanish governments have increased or reduced support for renewable power, especially wind and solar. In particular, it identifies the key influences that have been brought to bear on decision making by the core executive as it has sought to determine the appropriate role of renewable sources in the country's electricity mix. Following the introduction, four chapters chart the dramatic rise, fall, and, most recently, renewed rise in support for utility-scale renewable power, from the early 1980s to the present. Another chapter details the decade-long political struggle over the regulation of small-scale distributed renewable electricity generation. The penultimate chapter explores the future prospects for renewable power in Spain, and the final chapter offers an overarching explanation of the patterns of policy outcomes observed.

This brief biography looks at one of the most influential writers from the francophone Caribbean. Aime Cesaire was a poet, playwright and politician, who, along with Leon-Gontran Damas from French Guiana and Leopold Senghor of Senegal, founded the Negritude movement in the 1930s. The men had come together as young black students in Paris at a time when the French capital had become the locus of ideas on black identity and pan-Africanism. The Negritude movement called for a cultural awakening of African heritage, a rejection of Western ideology that inherently saw blacks as inferior to whites, and a reclamation of what it meant to be black. Cesaire's first major and most famous poetic work, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to My Native Land), explored the contours of this African heritage and his complex identity as a black man born under French rule on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Throughout his long political career, which lasted for most of his life, Cesaire fought not only for his own people but for those who had been wronged by vestiges of colonial regimes. This book is an exploration of Cesaire's life in his never-ending decolonizing battle.