Other books that might interest you

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  Summer in the City - John...

  Joseph P. Viteritti

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  “These first-rate essays provide a positive revaluation of [John Lindsay’s] mayoralty, a convincing defense of the progressive tradition he championed.” —Mike Wallace, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of Gotham 
   
  Summer in the City takes a clear look at John Lindsay’s tenure as mayor of New York City during the tumultuous 1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson launched his ambitious Great Society Program. Providing an even-handed reassessment of Lindsay’s legacy and the policies of the period, the essays in this volume skillfully dissect his kaleidoscope of progressive ideas and approach to leadership—all set in a perfect storm of huge demographic changes, growing fiscal stress, and an unprecedented commitment by the federal government to attain a more equal society. Compelling archival photos and a timeline give readers a window into the mythic 1960s, a period animated by civil rights marches, demands for black power, antiwar demonstrations, and a heroic intergovernmental effort to redistribute national resources more evenly. 
   
  Written by prize-winning authors and leading scholars, each chapter covers a distinct aspect of Lindsay’s mayoralty (politics, race relations, finance, public management, architecture, economic development, and the arts), while Joseph P. Viteritti’s introductory and concluding essays offer an honest and nuanced portrait of Lindsay and the prospects for shaping more balanced public priorities as New York City ushers in a new era of progressive leadership. 
   
  “Summer in the City artfully balances the interplay of leadership, ideas about urbanism that were prevalent at the time, and deep political, intergovernmental, demographic, and economic structural forces at play in the 1960s, producing the best volume about Mayor John Lindsay ever published.” —Richard Flanagan, City University of New York

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  Will He Go? - Trump and the...

  Lawrence Douglas

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  In advance of the 2020 election, legal scholar Lawrence Douglas prepares listeners for a less-than-peaceful transition of power. 
   
  It doesn't require a strong imagination to get a sense of the mayhem Trump will unleash if he loses a closely contested election. It is no less disturbing to imagine Trump still insisting that he is the rightful leader of the nation. With millions of diehard supporters firmly believing that their revered president has been toppled by malignant forces of the Deep State, Trump could remain a force of constitutional chaos for years to come. Will Trump Go? addresses such questions as:
  
  How might Trump engineer his refusal to acknowledge electoral defeat? What legal and extra-legal paths could he pursue in mobilizing a challenge to the electoral outcome?
  What legal, political, institutional, and popular mechanisms can be used to stop him?
  What would be the fallout of a failure to remove him from office? What would be the fallout of a successful effort to unseat him?
  Can our democracy snap back from Trump?
  
   
  Trump himself has essentially told the nation he will never accept electoral defeat. A book that prepares us for Trump's refusal to concede, then, is hardly speculative; it is a necessary precaution against a coming crisis.

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  In Defense of the Bush Doctrine

  Robert G. Kaufman

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  A foreign policy expert “presents a thoughtful, comprehensive case” for the War on Terror—a “historically powerful support of Mr. Bush and his doctrine” (Washington Times). 
   
  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, shattered the tranquil and prosperous optimism that had blossomed in the United States during the 1990s. President George W. Bush responded with a preemptive Global War on Terror. This controversial strategy led the nation into protracted conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and ignited passionate debate about America’s role in the world. 
   
  In Defense of the Bush Doctrine offers a vigorous argument for the principles of moral democratic realism that inspired the Bush administration's policy. Conservative columnist Robert G. Kaufman argues that the purpose of American foreign policy is to ensure the integrity and vitality of a free society and that America’s grand strategy must be guided by the cardinal virtue of prudence. 
   
  Kaufman provides a broad historical context for America’s post-9/11 foreign policy, connecting the Bush Doctrine and other issues, such as how the United States should deal with China, to the deeper tradition of American diplomacy. Drawing from positive lessons as well as cautionary tales from the past, Kaufman concludes that moral democratic realism offers the most prudent framework for expanding the democratic zone of peace and minimizing threats to the United States.

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  On Democracy

  E. B. White

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  “I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.”These words were written by E. B. White in 1947.Decades before our current political turmoil, White crafted eloquent yet practical political statements that continue to resonate. “There’s only one kind of press that’s any good,” he proclaimed, “a press free from any taint of the government.” He condemned the trend of defamation, arguing that “in doubtful, doubting days, national morality tends to slip and slide toward a condition in which the test of a man’s honor is his zeal for discovering dishonor in others”. And on the spread of fascism, he lamented, “fascism enjoys at the moment an almost perfect climate for growth — a world of fear and hunger.”Anchored by an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, this concise collection of essays, letters, and poems from one of this country’s most eminent literary voices offers much-needed historical context for our current state of the nation — and hope for the future of our society. Speaking to Americans at a time of uncertainty, when democracy itself has come under threat, he reminds us, “As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman...the scene is not desolate.”

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  Do Guns Make Us Free? -...

  Firmin DeBrabander

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  This study investigates the relationship between gun ownership and democracy, exposing the dubious claims of the NRA and other gun rights supporters. One of the most vital and polarizing debates in American society today concerns the Second Amendment of the Constitution and the rights of citizens to bear arms. The core argument of gun advocates like the National Rifle Association is that the proliferation of firearms is essential to maintaining freedom in America. They contend that access to guns gives private citizens a defense against possible government tyranny, thereby safeguarding all our other rights. But is this argument valid? Do guns indeed make us free?    Firmin DeBrabrander examines claims offered in favor of unchecked gun ownership in this insightful and eye-opening analysis. By exposing the contradictions and misinterpretations presented by gun rights supporters, DeBradander concludes that an armed society is not a free society but one that, in fact, actively hinders democratic participation.

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  Our Nations and Nationalisms

  Owen Dudley-Edwards

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  'Nationalism' is an increasingly unpopular word. Few would apply the label of 'nationalist' to themselves, and fewer still to any part of our history before the 1700s. But then, where does it come from? And what does it mean for us today?
  With one eye on the present as he unpicks the past, Owen Dudley Edwards finds nationalism to be older than recorded history and broader than modern geography. Our Nations and Nationalisms traces the phenomena back as far as the Old Testament and the works of Homer and Virgil, through the attempts of Shakespeare and James VI & I to found the first British Union, and into the Celtic legends that helped form the identities held in the UK today. 
  Taking wide-ranging examples from ancient to modern, from home and abroad, Dudley Edwards interrogates nationalism in action, asking what it really is and how it has impacted upon all of our lives, wherever we live or were born
  This demonised word, he argues, is a fact of human nature. It may take a variety of forms, but we are all, in some sense, 'nationalists'; it is incumbent upon each of us to find ways to use this fact in the interests of humanity, and not a single nation. 

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