Social State

Paul Revere's midnight ride looms as an almost mythical event in American history - yet it has been largely ignored by scholars and left to patriotic writers and debunkers. In Paul Revere's Ride, David Hackett Fischer fashions an exciting narrative that offers deep insight into the outbreak of revolution and the emergence of the American republic. Beginning in the years before the eruption of war, Fischer illuminates the figure of Paul Revere.

More than a decade ago, the historian Tony Judt considered whether the behavior of Israel was becoming not only "bad for Israel itself" but also, on a wider scale, "bad for the Jews." Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, this issue has grown ever more urgent. In The State of Israel vs. the Jews, veteran journalist Sylvain Cypel addresses it in depth, exploring Israel's rightward shift on the international scene and with regard to the diaspora.

A generation of young Christians are weary of the political legacy they've inherited and are hungry for a better approach. They're tired of seeing their faith tied to political battles they didn't start, and they're frustrated with leaders they thought they could trust. Kaitlyn Schiess grew up in this landscape and understands it from the inside. In The Liturgy of Politics, Schiess shows that the church's politics are shaped by its habits and practices, even when it's unaware of them.

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....

This rather incoherent work by Russian anarchist philosopher Michael Bakunin is described in a way that he described his own life: a fragment. Rife with criticisms on Christianity and the technocracy, Bakunin presses communist values without fear of bordering extremism. Listening to this work is like walking through Bakunin’s disjointed mind; often cutting off and starting mid-sentence, including footnotes several paragraphs long as if his thoughts suddenly start to wander, as well as ending rather abruptly mid-sentence.

Many kids say the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school. But what does it mean and where did it come from? Francis Bellamy wrote it more than 100 years ago. Join Bellamy in The Pledge of Allegiance for more of the story.

Booker T. Washington fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, political shaper, and proponent of the "do-it-yourself" idea. In his autobiography, he describes his early life as a slave on a Virginia plantation, his steady rise during the Civil War, his struggle for education, his schooling at the Hampton Institute, and his years as founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which was devoted to helping minorities learn useful, marketable skills.

Josiah Henson (1789-1883) was born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland. He and his family escaped slavery in a long walk from Kentucky to Ohio. They were helped by Native Americans in the Ohio wilderness and sympathetic boatmen who carry them across Lake Erie to Buffalo, New York. In Canada, Henson organized the Afro-Canadian community and became involved in projects that emphasized independence from white patronage.

Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? Who wins the disputes of the day often turns on who decides them. And our acceptance of the resolution of those disputes often turns on who the decision maker is—because it reveals who governs us. Who Decides makes the case that Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and constitutions, together with the federal courts and constitution, in assessing the right balance of power among all branches of government.

Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?

Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried. This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer”, Cohen not only witnessed firsthand but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.

The Kennedys have always been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel, living by the dual family mottos: "To whom much is given, much is expected" and "Win at all costs". And they do - but at a price. Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have occupied a unique place in the American imagination: charmed, cursed, at once familiar and unknowable. The House of Kennedy is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most storied family, as told by America's most trusted storyteller.

Gone to Texas engagingly tells the story of the Lone Star State, from the arrival of humans in the Panhandle more than 10,000 years ago to the opening of the 21st Century. Focusing on the state's successive waves of immigrants, the audiobook offers an inclusive view of the vast array of Texans who, often in conflict with each other and always in a struggle with the land, created a history and an idea of Texas.

The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world.

From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal.

In Degrade and Destroy, the bestselling author and Wall Street Journal national security correspondent Michael R. Gordon reveals the strategy debates, diplomatic gambits, and military operations that shaped the struggle against the Islamic State. With extraordinary access to top U.S. officials and military commanders and to the forces on the battlefield, Gordon offers a riveting narrative that ferrets out some of the war’s most guarded secrets.

A fresh window on American history: the eye-opening truth about the government's secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil, even if the rest of us die - a road map that spans from the dawn of the nuclear age to today.

The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history of the nation's founding. Rising out of the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, Taylor's Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain's mainland colonies, fueled by local conditions, destructive, hard to quell.

Pat Buchanan is sounding the alarm. Since 9/11, more than four million illegal immigrants have crossed our borders, and there are more coming every day. Our leaders in Washington lack the political will to uphold the rule of law. The Melting Pot is broken beyond repair, and the future of our nation is at stake.