Security State

On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and Black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.

Profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr has become one of America's leading commentators on current events in the Middle East, admired and welcomed by both media and government for his "concise and coherent" analysis (Wall Street Journal). In this "smart, clear and timely" book (Washington Post), Nasr brilliantly dissects the political and theological antagonisms within Islam. He provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis, and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences—from the nuclear posturing of Iran's President Ahmadinejad to the recent U.S.-enabled shift toward Shia power in Iraq and Hezbollah's continued dominance in Lebanon.

"Bloody Sunday" - March 7, 1965 - was a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle. The national outrage generated by scenes of Alabama state troopers attacking peaceful demonstrators fueled the drive toward the passage of the Voting Rights Acts later that year. But why were hundreds of activists marching from Selma to Montgomery that afternoon?

Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

As the daughter of a billionaire business mogul, Stella Brookshire has always lived an easy life, until a suspicious accident ends her blossoming career as a professional cyclist. Determined to get back on the bike, Stella ignores her parents’ pleas to find a safer hobby to pursue. Her father, though, wants to ensure her safety, and hires a bodyguard to go out with Stella on her bike rides. The bodyguard doesn’t last long, though, and neither does the one after him. No one seems to be a match for Stella’s sharp tongue or her vicious wit. But that’s all about to change when Cole ...

To the outside world, Drew Parker appears to have it all—he’s the owner of a successful security company, he’s wealthy, and he’s devastatingly good-looking. He has an endless supply of first dates, and he even plays in a popular underground band. But what people don’t realize is how haunted Drew is after his sister’s disappearance almost two decades ago. Gwen Lillie is the niece of a charismatic religious cult leader who fled to San Francisco once she turned eighteen. She experienced a loss similar to Drew’s when she was young and has spent her entire adulthood trying to ...

Adam Russell Taylor reimagines a contemporary version of the beloved community that will inspire and unite Americans across generations, geographic and class divides, racial and gender differences, faith traditions, and ideological leanings. In the beloved community, neither privilege nor punishment is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status, and everyone is able to realize their full potential and thrive.

The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside Lyndon Johnson's White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually put into practice: Team of Rivals for LBJ. The personalities behind every burst of 1960s liberal reform - from civil rights and immigration reform, to Medicare and Head Start - and what we'll lose if those programs are dismantled.

In The Rise of the American Corporate Security State, Beatrice Edwards examines the real reasons to be afraid in twenty-first-century America, and outlines how we can address them. Our first steps in the right direction may be small, but they are important. They are based on the principle that we have a right to know what our government is doing and to speak openly about it.

Our surveillance state was born in the brain of Admiral John Poindexter in 1983. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser, realized that the United States might have prevented the terrorist massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut if only intelligence agencies had been able to analyze in real time data they had on the attackers. Poindexter poured government know-how and funds into his dream---a system that would sift reams of data for signs of terrorist activity.

The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change - still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet, of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the US military. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the US military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once.

Emmy’s a good girl who lives a quiet life and always does the right thing. Unlike her twin sister, Isa, a famous DJ who lives life on her own terms. But when Isa vanishes one night before a big show, Emmy’s orderly life is thrown into disarray as she embarks on a search to find out just what happened to her sister. Jason Armstrong is a security guard working at the club the night Isa disappears. As one of the last people to see her, he feels personally responsible. Jason is still trying to come to terms with a troubling incident that occurred a few years ago, something he has had ...

Andrew Marshall is a Pentagon legend. For more than four decades he has served as Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon's internal think tank, under 12 defense secretaries and eight administrations. Yet Marshall has been on the cutting edge of strategic thinking even longer than that. Covering some of the most pivotal episodes of the last half century and peopled with some of the era's most influential figures, The Last Warrior tells Marshall's story for the first time, in the process providing an unparalleled history of the evolution of the American defense establishment.

A singular international publishing event, Conversations with Myself draws on Mandela’s personal archive of never-before-seen materials to offer unique access to the private world of an incomparable world leader.

Mitchell Welles spent thirteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Exonerated, he returns to a world he no longer fully understands and the absence of the friends and family who once were the bedrock of his existence. For the first year, he is focused on the lawsuit he and his lawyers take out against the city and police department that put him in jail in the first place, but once that is settled, there is little to fill his days. Feeling lost without some kind of purpose, he allows his friend, Alyxis, to talk him into taking a job with new security firm, Two Bears Security.

Lena Curtis’s life is going pretty well. She’s thirty-four, has a successful career, her own house, and enjoys her time alone. She’s an independent woman who knows she doesn’t need a man to complete her life. In fact, finding a boyfriend is the last thing she’s really looking to do. All that changes when she meets Shep Parkington, an amateur MMA fighter who is trying to make it pro, all the while escaping the clutches of his ruthless and dangerous family. He isn’t really looking for a relationship either, but neither he nor Lena can deny that there is certainly some serious ...

Dixie Till was once a happy, go-lucky girl with her whole life in front of her. But life has a way of beating a person down. Her father’s death left her with few choices in life. She chose the Army, chose to do something honorable, but that took her into a nightmare that came very close to breaking her. She thought she was strong, thought she was well enough to help a boy who needed her, but she wasn’t. She failed him, and her entire community turned on her, accused her of unthinkable crimes against a boy she cared deeply for. When the boy’s body is found, Dixie finds herself in the ...

When the United States government passed the Bill of Rights in 1791, its uncompromising protection of speech and of the press were unlike anything the world had ever seen before. But by 1798, the once-dazzling young republic of the United States was on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, the First Amendment, which protected harsh commentary of the weak government, no longer seemed as practical. So that July, President John Adams and the Federalists in control of Congress passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticism of the government and its leaders a crime.

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors - every drop of blood spilled - might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.

New York Times best-selling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, revealing the minister's trials and tribulations - denunciations by the press, rejection from the president, dismissal by the country's Black middle class and militants, assaults on his character, ideology, and political tactics, to name a few - all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty, and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy.