A classic account of courage, integrity, and most of all, belonging In 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist in the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested by the KGB. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. Every day, Sharansky fought for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny, a struggle that would come to define the rest of his life. Never Alone reveals how Sharansky's years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. His story is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and from his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people. Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice, his own faith, and the people to whom he could belong.

A classic account of courage, integrity and most of all, belonging. In 1977, after serving as a leading activist for the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration from there, Natan Sharansky was arrested. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. In fact, Sharansky was fighting for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny, a struggle that would come to define the rest of his life. In Never Alone, Natan Sharansky and historian Gil Troy show how Sharansky's years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. Never a follower of tradition for tradition's sake, or someone who placed expediency or convenience ahead of consistent values, Sharansky was an often awkward political colleague but always visionary in his appreciation of where the real threats to freedom lay. Never Alone is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, along with his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people. Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice when it was denied him, his own faith and the people to whom he could belong.

In an era of extremist politics, Gil Troy argues, moderation and moderate leaders are needed more than ever. Challenges like managing the debt, preserving the environment, fighting terrorism, improving education—in short, protecting America today and building toward tomorrow—require the kind of consensus that can only come from leaders who seek the centre. As Troy reminds us, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 seemed to presage such a shift. Nearly four years later, however, political moderation remains as elusive as ever. Troy champions the presidencies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. They succeeded not because of their bold political visions, he argues, but because of their moderation. The great presidents of American history have always sought a golden mean—from George Washington, who brilliantly mediated between the competing visions of Jefferson and Hamilton; to Abraham Lincoln, who rescued the union with his principled pragmatism; to the two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin, who united millions of Americans with their powerful, affirmative, nationalist visions; to the bracing can-do optimism of Kennedy and Reagan. Troy explains how presidents can both hew to the center and address important political challenges. By his reckoning, the best presidents have exercised “muscular moderation.� In his afterword Troy cogently critiques President Obama’s fraught evolution from a “Magic Moderate� deeply committed to extending his election night civility as widely as possible to his gradual realisation that a much more muscular moderation would be required. Obama’s increasingly tough-minded and much less forgiving rhetoric might not immediately heal the scars from our polarised politics but might be necessary in the short run. Troy underscores in this new edition that moderation must be restored or greatness—for our presidents and our nation—will likely be denied. First time in paperback. Originally published as Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents.

It began with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. It accelerated with Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson became partners in office and Nancy and Ronnie seemed joined at the hip. Without question, the presidential couple has arrived as a force in politics. Yet surprisingly, the electorate is not happy about it.

The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America's postwar political history. Its citizens' reaction to the First Couple reflects the country's changing morality, its uncertain attitude toward feminism, and the increasing power of the media. Gil Troy traces these shifts through ten presidential marriages, from the homesick tensions between Harry and Bess Truman to the very public scandals endured by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Along the way, readers learn of Mamie Eisenhower's perseverance on her husband's campaign trail, Gerald Ford's embarrassment over Betty's outspoken honesty, and the amazing political success of Nancy and Ronald Reagan's partnership in office. With a new chapter devoted to Hillary and Bill Clinton's tainted partnership in office and to our present First Lady's senatorial ambitions, this edition of Gil Troy's Mr. and Mrs. President offers fresh insights into America's paradoxical expectations for its presidential wives and husbands.

"Troy argues that the rise of the First Couple is not simply a function of the women's movement, but reflects a mixture of factors, including the weakening of parties, the rise of personality politics, the increasing power of the Presidency and the Federal Government and perhaps, most important of all, the 'rise of the mass media and the new political culture it spawned.'"--"New York Times Book Review."

For most first ladies, their years in the White House are their sole claim to fame. For one-Hillary Rodham Clinton-that tenure was just another step in a remarkable political career. Neither a "hit job" nor a facile tribute, Gil Troy's lively and refreshingly nonsensational new book provides a revealing look at arguably the most polarizing First Lady in history and undoubtedly the most prominent American woman of our time.

Troy, named by History News Network one of America's Top 15 Young Historians, measures Clinton's historical footprint, tracing her activities during the turbulent decade that brought her to national prominence and examining her influence as a key player in her husband's administration. Covering her attempts to overhaul health care and redefine the first lady as co-president while she tried to cope with her husband's scandals and impeachment, he recounts how Hillary's rocky road had a mixed impact on the office, even as her ambitions illuminated the role's potential.

As the first feminist first lady, Hillary Clinton faced dilemmas typical of modern American women as she tried to be both a family-oriented, devoted wife and a career-focused, independent woman. Troy shows how she did her best to navigate this divide and breaks new ground in taking her seriously as a thinker. Delving into Hillary's speeches and writings, he uncovers a surprisingly more moderate, even conservative worldview. In fact, he finds some of her positions--such as her outspoken views on abortion--to be authentic expressions of a genuine Puritan/Methodist centrism rather than a mere political ploy.

Offering a mix of praise and censure that elevates to a more sophisticated level debates about her controversial career and presidential aspirations, Troy's book will enlighten and intrigue Hillary's passionate critics and staunch defenders alike. It will renew discussions of where she stands in the continuum of modern first ladies-and of where history will ultimately take her. Many of the book's key themes are effectively underscored by an entertainingly narrated photo essay, with provocative images drawn from the Clinton Presidential Library.

The most comprehensive Zionist collection ever published, The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow sheds light on the surprisingly diverse and shared visions for realizing Israel as a democratic Jewish state. Building on Arthur Hertzberg’s classic, The Zionist Idea, Gil Troy explores the backstories, dreams, and legacies of more than 170 passionate Jewish visionaries—quadruple Hertzberg’s original number, and now including women, mizrachim, and others—from the 1800s to today. Troy divides the thinkers into six Zionist schools of thought—Political, Revisionist, Labor, Religious, Cultural, and Diaspora Zionism—and reveals the breadth of the debate and surprising syntheses. He also presents the visionaries within three major stages of Zionist development, demonstrating the length and evolution of the conversation. Part 1 (pre-1948) introduces the pioneers who founded the Jewish state, such as Herzl, Gordon, Jabotinsky, Kook, Ha’am, and Szold. Part 2 (1948 to 2000) features builders who actualized and modernized the Zionist blueprints, such as Ben-Gurion, Berlin, Meir, Begin, Soloveitchik, Uris, and Kaplan. Part 3 showcases today’s torchbearers, including Barak, Grossman, Shaked, Lau, Yehoshua, and Sacks. This mosaic of voices will engage equally diverse readers in reinvigorating the Zionist conversation—weighing and developing the moral, social, and political character of the Jewish state of today and tomorrow.  

For most first ladies, their years in the White House are their sole claim to fame. For one-Hillary Rodham Clinton-that tenure was just another step in a remarkable political career. Neither a "hit job" nor a facile tribute, Gil Troy's lively and refreshingly nonsensational new book provides a revealing look at arguably the most polarizing First Lady in history and undoubtedly the most prominent American woman of our time.

Troy, named by History News Network one of America's Top 15 Young Historians, measures Clinton's historical footprint, tracing her activities during the turbulent decade that brought her to national prominence and examining her influence as a key player in her husband's administration. Covering her attempts to overhaul health care and redefine the first lady as co-president while she tried to cope with her husband's scandals and impeachment, he recounts how Hillary's rocky road had a mixed impact on the office, even as her ambitions illuminated the role's potential.

As the first feminist first lady, Hillary Clinton faced dilemmas typical of modern American women as she tried to be both a family-oriented, devoted wife and a career-focused, independent woman. Troy shows how she did her best to navigate this divide and breaks new ground in taking her seriously as a thinker. Delving into Hillary's speeches and writings, he uncovers a surprisingly more moderate, even conservative worldview. In fact, he finds some of her positions--such as her outspoken views on abortion--to be authentic expressions of a genuine Puritan/Methodist centrism rather than a mere political ploy.

Offering a mix of praise and censure that elevates to a more sophisticated level debates about her controversial career and presidential aspirations, Troy's book will enlighten and intrigue Hillary's passionate critics and staunch defenders alike. It will renew discussions of where she stands in the continuum of modern first ladies-and of where history will ultimately take her. Many of the book's key themes are effectively underscored by an entertainingly narrated photo essay, with provocative images drawn from the Clinton Presidential Library.

Did America's fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often "yes." In "Morning in America," Gil Troy argues that the Great Communicator was also the Great Conciliator. His pioneering and lively reassessment of Ronald Reagan's legacy takes us through the 1980s in ten year-by-year chapters, integrating the story of the Reagan presidency with stories of the decade's cultural icons and watershed moments-from personalities to popular television shows.

One such watershed moment was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. With the trauma of Vietnam fading, the triumph of America's 1983 invasion of tiny Grenada still fresh, and a reviving economy, Americans geared up for a festival of international harmony that-spurred on by an entertainment-focused news media, corporate sponsors, and the President himself-became a celebration of the good old U.S.A. At the Games' opening, Reagan presided over a thousand-voice choir, a 750-member marching band, and a 90,000-strong teary-eyed audience singing "America the Beautiful " while waving thousands of flags.

Reagan emerges more as happy warrior than angry ideologue, as a big-picture man better at setting America's mood than implementing his program. With a vigorous Democratic opposition, Reagan's own affability, and other limiting factors, the eighties were less counterrevolutionary than many believe. Many sixties' innovations went mainstream, from civil rights to feminism. Reagan fostered a political culture centered on individualism and consumption-finding common ground between the right and the left.

Written with verve, "Morning in America" is both a major new look at one of America's most influential modern-day presidents and the definitive story of a decade that continues to shape our times.

On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism. The move shocked millions, especially in the United States- the country largely responsible for founding the UN. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American Ambassador to the UN, denounced this attack on Israel as an anti-Semitic assault on democracy and stood up to the Soviet-backed alliance of Communist dictatorships and Third World autocracies that supported the resolution. His eloquent stand brought him celebrity in the U.S., but ultimately shortened his tenure at the UN by alienating American allies, adversaries, and much of the foreign policy establishment-including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Nevertheless, Moynihan's moment was a turning point: a harbinger of a shift in American culture and politics that would culminate in the Reagan Revolution. Moynihan paved the way for a more muscular, idealistic, neoconservative foreign policy and for a new style of defiant "cowboy" diplomacy. In this book, Gil Troy argues that America's idea of itself-still torn, in the mid-'70s, between post-Vietnam and -Watergate defeatism and a growing sense of optimism-changed with Moynihan, altering both the left and the right in ways that continue to play out in the 21st century. Much of the rhetoric of this era survives in domestic foreign policy debates and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, suggesting that Moynihan's struggle has much to reveal about American politics and its position on the world stage.

Some see the 1980s as a Golden Age, a "Morning in America" when Ronald Reagan revived America's economy, reoriented American politics, and restored Americans' faith in their country and in themselves. Others see the 1980s as a new "Gilded Age," an era that was selfish, superficial, glitzy, greedy, divisive, and destructive. This multifaceted exploration of the 1980s brings together a variety of voices from different political persuasions, generations, and vantage points. The volume features work by Reagan critics and Reagan fans (including one of President Reagan's closest aides, Ed Meese), by historians who think the 1980s were a disastrous time, those who think it was a glorious time, and those who see both the blessings and the curses of the decade. Their essays examine everything from multiculturalism, Southern conservatism, and Reaganomics, to music culture, religion, crime, AIDS, and the city. A complex, thoughtful account of a watershed in our recent history, this volume will engage anyone interested in this pivotal decade.

Some see the 1980s as a Golden Age, a "Morning in America" when Ronald Reagan revived America's economy, reoriented American politics, and restored Americans' faith in their country and in themselves. Others see the 1980s as a new "Gilded Age," an era that was selfish, superficial, glitzy, greedy, divisive, and destructive. This multifaceted exploration of the 1980s brings together a variety of voices from different political persuasions, generations, and vantage points. The volume features work by Reagan critics and Reagan fans (including one of President Reagan's closest aides, Ed Meese), by historians who think the 1980s were a disastrous time, those who think it was a glorious time, and those who see both the blessings and the curses of the decade. Their essays examine everything from multiculturalism, Southern conservatism, and Reaganomics, to music culture, religion, crime, AIDS, and the city. A complex, thoughtful account of a watershed in our recent history, this volume will engage anyone interested in this pivotal decade.

For more than 200 years, candidates have campaigned for the highest office in the land, debating the major issues facing the country, capturing the attention of the voters, and reflecting the will of the people. Presidential elections are the centerpiece of American democracy, as citizens go to the polls every four years to choose a new leader. Prior to the election of George Washington in 1789, no country in the world had ever peacefully transferred power in a national election. We often take this for granted, as American elections have become a model for the entire world. The presidential campaign of 2008 was the 56th in American history and culminated in the election of Barack Obama. It was the most significant event of the year and was seen as a major turning point in American history. History of American Presidential Elections: 1789-2008, Fourth Edition is an authoritative, completely up-to-date reference set featuring articles on every presidential election in American history, concluding with the groundbreaking election of 2008. All of the articles are written by distinguished historians and provide a solid history of the campaigns, conventions, and candidates. Edited by noted presidential historians Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Fred L. Israel, this comprehensive three-volume set includes complete voting returns by state, electoral maps, and additional statistical data covering all 56 presidential elections in U.S. history. Each article has been completely updated, and detailed chronologies and comprehensive overviews cover every election. With a wide assortment of outstanding articles and useful features, such as chronologies, overviews, and bibliographies, History of American Presidential Elections: 1789-2008, Fourth Edition is destined to become the definitive reference on the subject.<\p>