Political leaders and leadership

How Robespierre's career and legacy embody the dangerous contradictions of democracy.Maximilien Robespierre (17581794) is arguably the most controversial and contradictory figure of the French Revolution, inspiring passionate debate like no other...

Australia's official First World War correspondent, Charles Bean, saw more of theAustralian Imperial Force's actions and battleson the Western Front than anyone. Bean'sextensiveprivate wartime diaries, held by the Australian...

The never-before-told story of World War II escape artist extraordinaire, Johnny Peck. In August 1941, an eighteen-year-old Australian soldier made his first prison break an audacious night-time escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp in Crete...

Not Just For This Life is a salute and tribute to Gough Whitlam, commemorating what would have been his 100th birthday. Upon his death in October 2014 there was a national outpouring of grief and affectionate remembrances across the nation. This book...

Matriarch of the criminal underworld ... or the Robin Hood of inner Sydney?The legend of Kate Leigh, Sydney's famed brothel madam, sly grog seller and drug dealer, has loomed large in TV's Underbelly and every other account of Sydney's criminal history...

Pulitzer Prize Nominated Winner of the 1993 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award for Claudia Johnson's extraordinary efforts to restore banned literary classics from Florida classrooms. Part memoir, part courtroom drama, and part primer for advocates...

"Len tells his story as only he can: forthright, confident and witty. What emerges is a hard-hitting assessment of dramatic times, and a message of hope for the future." -Jeremy CorbynLen McCluskey is the standout trade unionist of his era. Head of the...

Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win tells the fascinating true story of an individual radical organizer turned independent Chicago city council member, and her forty year struggle for justice in Chicago.Helen Shiller went from radical anti-war activist in...

In a series of journal entries-some original passages, others revisited and expanded in retrospect-Cherri Moraga details her experiences with pregnancy, birth, and the early years of lesbian parenting.With the premature birth of her son-when HIV-related...

Walter Rodney was a scholar, working class militant, and revolutionary from Guyana. Strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, he remains central to radical Pan-Africanist thought for large numbers of activists' today. Rodney lived through the failed though...

This collection will be of interest to all who want to dive deeper into one of the 20th centuries most brilliant women revolutionaries, Rosa Luxemburg. Publication will coincide with the 100-year anniversary of her death in 1919. Renewed attention to the...

In his newest book, Daniel J. Mahoney offers refreshing historical antidotes to the displays of despotism in today's political arena."Abrilliantly written and researched tribute to the pantheon of classically trained and thinking men of action."-Victor...

John Quincy Adams is widely recognized as America's most distinguished diplomat, taking into account the length and breadth of his public service and his influence on American foreign policy. In the course of this remarkable journey, John Quincy...

M. Stanton Evans (d. 2015) was one of the unsung heroes and key figures of the modern conservativemovement, offering a model to be remembered and emulated in both thought and deed. A person ofextraordinary breadth, he combined the roles of journalist,...

Martin Duberman, one of the LGBTQ+ community's maverick thinkers and historians, looks back on ninety years of life, his history in the movement, and what he's learned.In the early Sixties, Martin Duberman published a path-breaking article defending the...

AKIRKUS REVIEWSBEST INDIE BOOK OF 2023From a divided Berlin to The Hague, the Reagan White House, the forests of Costa Rica, and more, Judge Charles N. Brower shares a personal history of a life spent at the forefront of international justice-and a case...

Fierce and funny, this memoir in essay and song is full of wonderful tales of art and protest. Leon Rosselson's Where Are the Elephants? is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of one of England's foremost songwriters. This clear-eyed...

Deeply personal, astutely political, Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War recounts the thirteen-year journey of Jonathan Melrod to harness working-class militancy and jump start a revolution on the shop floor of American Motors...

Margrit Schiller was an early member of the Red Army Faction, the West German urban guerrilla group. In 1971 she was captured and charged with a murder she did not commit, and upon her release she returned to the underground, being captured again in...

A monumental work, expansive in scope, covering the life, times, and culture of that most famous of the Wobblies-songwriter, poet, hobo, thinker, humorist, martyr-Joe Hill. It is a journey into the Wobbly culture that made Hill and the capitalist culture...

Jos Carlos Maritegui (1894-1930) is widely recognized across Latin America as one of the most important and innovative Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century. Yet his life and work are largely unknown to the English-speaking world. In this gripping...

Combining Young Lenin and On Lenin in one volume, this is a fascinating political biography by Lenin's fellow revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. Trotsky on Lenin brings together two long-out-of-print works in a single volume for the first time, providing an...

The Nixon Effect examines the 37th president's political legacy in broad-ranging ways that make clear, for the first time, the breadth and duration of his influence on American political life. The book argues that Nixon is the key political figure in...

Alan Turing, subject of the Oscar-winning 2014 film The Imitation Game, was the brilliant mathematician solicited by the British government to help decipher messages sent by Germany's Enigma machines during World War II. The work of...

This book looks at the period 2015-18 in French politics, a turbulent time that witnessed the apparent collapse of the old party system, the taming of populist and left-wing challenges to the Republic and the emergence of a new political order centred on...

A WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY, and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NATIONAL BESTSELLERNEW BOOK CLAIMS DONALD TRUMP WILL RUN AND WIN IN 2024!A riveting account of the HOAX that sent a presidential campaign chairman to solitary confinement because he wouldn't turn...

'This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. My husband is planning'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to makethe path clear for him to marry.' - Letter written by Princess Diana, late 1996 It is a...

'[D]emocracy isn't a spectator sport. America isn't about 'yes he will.' It's about 'yes we can.'' - Barack ObamaExperience the powerful oratory of the 44th president of the United States of America.An illuminating and eloquent...

A vibrant celebration of President Obama, this perfect souvenir book provides a valuable record of his historical presidency. Through stunning images by photographers from the White House and beyond-some never before seen-as well as notable...

The compelling biography of former British Columbia cabinet minister Bob Williams weaves his political and economical insights with the story of his unconventional life.In Using Power Well, former provincial politician Bob Williams tells his atypical...

Will the freedom struggle end in a bloodbath? Only two men can avert it.Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid hero and first leader of the new South Africa, is an international symbol of the power of a popular movement to fight structural racism. But that...

In 2014, Joko Widodo - popularly known as Jokowi - was elected the seventh president of the Republic of Indonesia, going on to win a second five-year term in 2019. Raised amid poverty in a riverside slum and with a background in the furniture export...

A penetrating and incisive study of the fanaticism and foibles of some of history's most illustrious names. From Assad to Nero, Gaddafi to Ivan the Terrible, this volume investigates the minds of some of the most powerful...

Drawing on collaborative research from a distinguished team at Harvard and Manchester universities, The age of Obama asks how two very different societies are responding to the tide of diversity that is being felt around the rich world. Guardian...

Leading historians provide perspective on Trump's four turbulent years in the White HouseThe Presidency of Donald J. Trump presents a first draft of history by offering needed perspective on one of the nation's most divisive presidencies. Acclaimed...

The untold story of the founding father's likely Jewish birth and upbringing-and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of...

A radical reinterpretation of Adam Smith that challenges economists, moral philosophers, political theorists, and intellectual historians to rethink him - and why he mattersAdam Smith has long been recognised as the father of modern economics. More...

A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of IsraelIn this authoritative and empathetic biography, Pnina Lahav reexamines the life of Golda Meir (18981978) through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing...

A colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative account of Machiavelli's life and thoughtThis is a colorful, comprehensive, and authoritative introduction to the life and work of the Florentine statesman, writer, and political philosopher Niccolo...

In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of...

Hanley shows how Smith set forth a vision of the worthy life that is uniquely suited to people today. Full of invaluable insights on topics ranging from happiness and moderation to love and friendship, Our Great Purpose enables modern readers to see...

Edmund Burke (1730-97) lived during one of the most extraordinary periods of world history. He grappled with the significance of the British Empire in India, fought for reconciliation with the American colonies, and was a vocal critic of national policy...

In 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French aristocrat would dedicate his life as a writer and...

How the conflict between political Islamists and secular nationalists has shaped the history of the modern Middle East In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically...

A definitive biography of the U.S. diplomat and prize-winning historian George F. Kennan.The diplomat and historian George F. Kennan (19042005) ranks as one of the most important figures in American foreign policy - and one of its most complex. Drawing...

In an era of stark racial injustice, Aaron Dixon dedicated his life to revolution, founding the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968 at age nineteen. In My People Are Rising, he traces the course of his own radicalization, and that of a...

I feel that I have been sleeping all my life and I have woken up and opened my eyes to the world. A beautiful world! But impossible to live in. These are the words of fifteen-year-old Hadiya, blogging from the city of Mosul, Iraq, to let the world know...

The Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro is one of the most written-about men in the world today. Most approaches to his life are either hagiographies in which he can do no wrong, or rants in which he is the dictator who has kept the island of Cuba under his...