From Oscar-winner Oliver Stone comes a first-hand look at one of the most important, powerful, and controversial leaders in the world: Vladimir Putin of Russia. The companion to the news-breaking television series, this edition has substantial material not included in the documentary. Academy Award winner Oliver Stone was able to secure what journalists, news organizations, and even other world leaders have long coveted: extended, unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Putin Interviews are culled from more than a dozen interviews with Putin over a two-year span-never before has the Russian leader spoken in such depth or at such length with a Western interviewer. No topics are off limits in the interviews, which first occurred during Stone's trips to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow and most recently after the election of President Donald Trump. Prodded by Stone, Putin discusses relations between the United States and Russia, allegations of interference in the US election, and Russia's involvement with conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere across the globe. Putin speaks about his rise to power and details his relationships with Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. The exchanges are personal, provocative, and at times surreal. At one point, Stone asks, "Why did Russia hack the election?"; at another, Stone introduces him to Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Cold War satire "Dr. Strangelove," which the two watch together. Stone has interviewed controversial world leaders before, including Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Benjamin Netanyahu. But The Putin Interviews, in its unmediated access to one of the most enigmatic and powerful men in the world, can only be compared to the series of conversations between David Frost and Richard Nixon we now refer to as "The Nixon Interviews" of 1977. The book will also contain references and sources that give readers a deeper understanding of the topics covered in the interviews and make for a more robust reading experience.

Based on firsthand reporting in Iran and the United States, "The Iran Agenda" explores the turbulent recent history between the two countries and shows how it has led to a showdown over nuclear technology.In addition to covering the political story, Erlich offers firsthand insights on Iran s domestic politics, popular culture, and diverse population He also interviews the former Shah s son, Reza Pahlavi, as well as the members of Southern California s large Iranian expatriate community and reports on their efforts to shape Iran s future."

Based on firsthand reporting in Iran and the United States, "The Iran Agenda" explores the turbulent recent history between the two countries and shows how it has led to a showdown over nuclear technology.In addition to covering the political story, Erlich offers firsthand insights on Iran s domestic politics, popular culture, and diverse population He also interviews the former Shah s son, Reza Pahlavi, as well as the members of Southern California s large Iranian expatriate community and reports on their efforts to shape Iran s future."

A Copublication of Seven Stories Press and Akashic Books

"The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq" is the first book to hold the president and his team accountable for the government's campaign of disinformation leading up to the war in Iraq. The administration repeatedly attested that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction and was close to using them; downplayed the cost and risk of the proposed invasion and occupation; shamelessly evoked the atrocious abuse of power of Hussein and his family while brooking no commitment to rebuild the country after the terrifying "shock and awe" campaign, or to do anything to improve the lot of the Iraqi people; and, most outrageously, provided substanceless theory linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks of September 11, thereby cynically manipulating the anger and sorrow of the American citizenry. The charade has culminated in the slow bloodletting of U.S. forces still stationed in Iraq, held there because it would not be politically expedient to admit the failure of "democratization."

While Bush II appears intent on conducting an unending global war against "evildoers," little public debate has gone into assessing the aims and strategies of such a broad campaign. In "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq," coauthors Christopher and Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry of the influential web magazine AlterNet.org have aggregated the hard questions that the purported leadership of the U.S. must answer.

Christopher Scheer is managing editor of AlterNet.org, the popular news and commentary website. Scheer has written screenplays for Oliver Stone and previously worked for the "San Francisco Examiner." Robert Scheer isthe author of six books, the host of NPR affiliate KCRW's "Left, Right, and Center," and a contributing editor to both the "Los Angeles Times" and "The Nation." Lakshmi Chaudhry is an editor at Alternet.org.

In the first week of June 2013, the American people discovered that for a decade, they had abjectly traded their individual privacy for the chimera of national security. The revelation that the federal government has full access to all phone records and the vast trove of presumably private personal data posted on the Internet has brought the threat of a surveillance society to the fore.But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government. Big business has long played a leading role in the hollowing out of personal freedoms. In this new book, Robert Scheer shows how our most intimate habits, from private correspondence, book pages read, and lists of friends and phone conversations have been seamlessly combined in order to create a detailed map of an individual's social and biological DNA.From wiretapping to lax social media security, from domestic spy drones to sophisticated biometrics, both the United States government and private corporate interests have dangerously undermined the delicate balance between national security and individual sovereignty. Without privacy, Scheer argues, there is neither freedom nor democracy. The freedom to be left alone embodies the most basic of human rights. Yet this freedom has been squandered in the name of national security and consumer convenience.The information revolution has exposed much of the world's population to a boundless world of universally shared information. But it has also stripped both passive and active participants of their every shred of privacy in ways most don't comprehend. No authoritarian regime ever could have hoped to gain the power to control the power and aspirations of their subjects that today's off-the-shelf information technology already provides. The technology of surveillance, Scheer warns, represents an existential threat to the liberation of the human spirit.

Robert Scheer's interviews with every US president over the past 40 years, and his profiles of them, have shaped journalistic history. Here he offers an insight into the presidential mind, analysing each US administration since Nixon including George W. Bush.

In "The Great American Stickup," celebrated journalist Robert Scheer uncovers the hidden story behind one of the greatest financial crimes of our time: the Wall Street financial crash of 2008 and the consequent global recession. Instead of going where other journalists have gone in search of this story--the board rooms and trading floors of the big Wall Street firms--Scheer goes back to Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, beginning in the 1980s, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal.
This is a story largely forgotten or overlooked by the mainstream media, who wasted more than two decades with their boosterish coverage of Wall Street. Scheer argues that the roots of the disaster go back to the free-market propaganda of the Reagan years and, most damagingly, to the bipartisan deregulation of the banking industry undertaken with the full support of "progressive" Bill Clinton.
In fact, if this debacle has a name, Scheer suggests, it is the "Clinton Bubble," that era when the administration let its friends on Wall Street write legislation that razed decades of robust financial regulation. It was Wall Street and Democratic Party darling Robert Rubin along with his clique of economist super-friends--Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, and a few others--who inflated a giant real estate bubble by purposely not regulating the derivatives market, resulting in the pain and hardship millions are experiencing now.
"The Great American Stickup" is both a brilliant telling of the story of the Clinton financial clique and the havoc it wrought--informed by whistleblowers such as Brooksley Born, who goes on the record for Scheer--and an unsparing anatomy of the American business and political class. It is also a cautionary tale: those who form the nucleus of the Clinton clique are now advising the Obama administration.

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.