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.
The New York Times bestseller based on the Oscar nominated documentary film In June 1979, the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin embarked on a project to tell the story of America through the lives of three of his murdered friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. He died before it could be completed. In his documentary film, I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck imagines the book Baldwin never wrote, using his original words to create a radical, powerful and poetic work on race in the United States - then, and today. 'Thrilling . . . A portrait of one man's confrontation with a country that, murder by murder, as he once put it, "devastated my universe"' The New York Times 'Baldwin's voice speaks even more powerfully today . . . the prose-poet of our injustice and inhumanity . . . The times have caught up with his scalding eloquence' Variet y 'A cinematic seance . . . One of the best movies about the civil rights era ever made' Guardian ' I Am Not Your Negro turns James Baldwin into a prophet' Rolling Stone
The shocking first-hand account of one man''s remarkable fight for freedom; now an award-winning motion picture.
''Why had I not died in my young years - before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondsman''s chain was round me, and could not be shaken off.'' 1841: Solomon Northup is a successful violinist when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Taken from his family in New York State - with no hope of ever seeing them again - and forced to work on the cotton plantations in the Deep South, he spends the next twelve years in captivity until his eventual escape in 1853.
First published in 1853, this extraordinary true story proved to be a powerful voice in the debate over slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. It is a true-life testament of one man''s courage and conviction in the face of unfathomable injustice and brutality: its influence on the course of American history cannot be overstated.
**WINNER of the National Book Awards (Nonfiction)**br>New Books to Watch Out for in October, New York Timesbr>Best New Books to Read in October, TIMEbr>Best Books of Fall 2020, O, the Oprah Magazinebr>br>A landmark biography of one of the twentieth century''s most compelling figures,rewriting much of the known narrative.br>br>Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X - including siblings, classmates, friends, cellmates, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become hundreds of hours of interviews into a portrait that would separate fact from fiction.br>br>The result is this magisterial work that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his followers stir with purpose to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting his life not only within the political struggles of his day but also against the larger backdrop of American history, this remarkable masterpiece traces his path from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary.br>br>An author who saw Malcolm X speak and could not stand the phrase ''we may never know'', Payne writes cinematically from start to finish and delivers extraordinary revelations - from a hair-raising scene of Malcolm''s clandestine meeting with the KKK, to a minute-by-minute account of his murder in Harlem in 1965, in which he makes the case for the complicity of the American government.br>br>Introduced by Payne''s daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father''s death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle and the story of the twentieth century.>
In the summer of 1936, James Agee and Walker Evans set out on assignment for Fortune magazine to explore the daily lives of sharecroppers in the South. Their journey would prove an extraordinary collaboration and a watershed literary event when in 1941 LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN was first published to enormous critical acclaim. This unsparing record of place, of the people who shaped the land, and of the rhythm of their lives was called intensely moving and unrelentingly honest, and is "renowned for its fusion of social conscience and artistic radicality" (New York Times). Today it stands as a poetic tract of its time, recognized by the New York Public Library as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. With an elegant new design as well as a sixty-four-page photographic prologue of Evans's classic images, reproduced from archival negatives, this sixtieth anniversary edition reintroduces the legendary author and photographer to a new generation.
Réalisé à partir d'archives privées et mettant en avant des oeuvres contemporaines d'artistes qui revendiquent l'influence de l'expérience et de la politique d'Angela Davis, ce livre fournit un récit convaincant de son parcours à travers les jonctions de la race et du genre d'un point de vue politique et économique. Commençant en 1970 avec son arrestation, puis en passant par son procès et son acquittement, le livre retrace la vie et le travail de l'activiste au cours des décennies suivantes et sa carrière influente d'intellectuelle publique. Abondamment illustré avec des documents trouvés dans les archives, y compris des articles de presse, des photographies, des croquis de cour, des vidéos, de la musique, des écrits, de la correspondance et des écrits politiques d'Angela Davis, le livre comprend également des entretiens avec Angela Davis et Lisbet Tellefsen, l'archiviste qui a rassemblé et agencé tout ce matériel.
''Reads like a mashup of The Godfather and Chinatown, complete with gun battles, a ruthless kingpin and a mountain of cash. Except that it''s all true.'' Time In this thrilling panorama of real-life events, the bestselling author of Empire of Pain investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York''s Chinatown, managed a multimillion-dollar business smuggling people.
In The Snakehead, Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the inner workings of Cheng Chui Ping aka Sister Ping''s complex empire and recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way he paints a stunning portrait of a generation of undocumented immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them.
Grand in scope yet propulsive in narrative force, The Snakehead is both a kaleidoscopic crime story and a brilliant exploration of the ironies of immigration in America.
From New York Times Bestselling author Scott Galloway comes an urgent examination of the future of America and the reasons behind its current social and economic crisis In Adrift , Scott Galloway looks from the past to the present - from 1945 to the 2020s - to reveal how America has reached its current state of political, social and economic crisis. It is on the brink of massive change, change that will disrupt the working of its economy and drastically impact its financial backbone, the middle class. Telling America''s story through 100 charts, Galloway demonstrates how crises such as Jim Crow, World War II, and the Stock Market Crash of 2008, as well as the escalating power of technology, an entrenched white patriarchy, and the socio-economic effects of the pandemic, created today''s perfect storm. Adrift seeks to make sense of it all, and offers Galloway''s unique take on where America is headed and what it will become. It''s a vital guide for anyone who wants to understand the state the country is in and how and why its influence on the world has changed.
Malcolm Gaskill is Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. One of Britain's leading experts in the history of witchcraft, his works include the highly acclaimed Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Cent
The compelling story of Martin Luther King''s life and achievements has become simplified and domesticated in a way that fails to do full justice to his radical vision and importance. Now, in King , we get the most comprehensive and complete portrait ever written about this iconic figure. The first major new biography of Martin Luther King Jr in over 40 years, Jonathan Eig''s superb King is based on years of research, hundreds of interviews with those who knew him and many thousands of previously unreleased documents, including a huge cache from the FBI. Eig reveals King''s story to be more compelling and more complex than we knew. For too long, his radical vision for the future has been erased. The hope of his '' I have a dream '' message and the tragedy of his assassination at the age of 39 have overwhelmed the story of a brilliantly bold and complicated man, which obscures his real significance of today''s society and for the future. His vision went far beyond achieving equal treatment for black men and women, which was only a part of a much greater and more wide-ranging mission - something that has been forgotten by most. Eig''s fascinating biography not only shines new light on King''s remarkable career, but also humanises him so that he becomes more than a symbol of hope and defiance, but a man with flaws, a sense of humour, as a father and a husband. It''s an essential read for our times.
Elaine Brown is an American activist, writer, singer and former leader of the Black Panther Party. Born in 1943, Brown was raised in Philadelphia. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the music, and there became politicized
B>b>A comprehensive, sweeping history of Americas rise to global superpower--a follow up to the authors acclaimed first volume, from our nations earliest days to the dawn of the twentieth century./b>/b>br>br>At the turn of the twentieth century, America was at a tipping point: its population and wealth were growing rapidly, and the country had entered the world stage as a commanding political, economic, and military force. Would America retreat within their own relatively secure and geographically separate borders, or would it continue to expand its influence on an international scale?br> ;br> Beginning with the honorable Spanish American War and ending with the wreckage of World War II, Robert Kagan tracks how Americas desire to be an arbiter of peace as a young democracy has conflicted with its desire to stay neutral. Kagan shows how this moral high ground has led to mistakes and acts of ruthless ambition, but he also argues that Americas hesitation to intervene in foreign affairs has allowed fascism and tyranny to grow unchecked. Brilliant and insightful, Dangerous Nation, Vol. Two strips away any illusion that America can be an isolationist country, tracing the stunningly quick dissolution of European control and the emergence of a new world order with America at its helm.;br>;br>br>;
JAMES PATTERSON'S MASTERPIECE ________________________________ Kennedys were always taught to win at all costs. And they did - but the costs were unimaginable...
Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel. Their name is synonymous with American royalty. Their commitment to public service is legendary. But, for all the successes, the family has been blighted by assassinations, fatal accidents, drug and alcohol abuse and sex scandals.
To this day, the Kennedys occupy a unique, contradictory place in the world's imagination: at once familiar and unknowable; charmed and cursed. The Kennedy Curse is a revealing, fascinating account of America's most famous family, as told by the world's most trusted storyteller.
________________________________ 'When I wrote my first novel after several non-fiction works about politics, James Patterson lovingly lambasted me for infringing on his thriller territory. Now I know how he feels as he crosses into non-fiction politics with this juicy and entertaining look at a political family that continues to wield power and influence. He's too good - it isn't fair!' JAKE TAPPER, CNN anchor and author of The Hellfire Club
Completely revised and edited with an introduction and notes by Vincent Carretta An exciting and often terrifying adventure story, as well as an important precursor to such famous nineteenth-century slave narratives as Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative recounts his kidnapping in Africa at the age of ten, his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy, his ten years of labor on slave ships until he was able to purchase his freedom in 1766, and his life afterward as a leading and respected figure in the antislavery movement in England. A spirited autobiography, a tale of spiritual quest and fulfillment, and a sophisticated treatise on religion, politics, and economics, The Interesting Narrative is a work of enduring literary and historical value.
"A literary experience unlike any I've had in recent memory . . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?
Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work--images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more--to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics.
In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A New York Times Notable Book Named a best book of the year by Amazon, Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, NPR, Vogue, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle Times, Bloomberg, Lit Hub, and Slate From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
B>b>From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes;the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor./b>/b>br>br>Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Leeb> /b>betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He;was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old.br>br> In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.
Jefferson Cowie holds the James G. Stahlman chair in history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of three books, including Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, and his work has appeared in nu