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  ELECTORAL COLLEGE THE - A...

  Thomas E. Weaver

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  A timely look at how the Electoral College has changed US history and why it endures—told through the lenses of specific people who both influenced the process and were impacted by the results. 
   
   
   
  "Over the years, no feature of the Constitution has attracted more criticism than that strange creature called the Electoral College. Thomas E. Weaver has made that history into a story with an intriguing cast of characters, some familiar, several new to me. If you want to know why it is so hard to do away with this long-standing anachronism, Weaver's story will help you understand." —JOSEPH J. ELLIS, Professor Emeritus of History, Mount Holyoke College, author of Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation 
   
   
   
  "Those who think that throwing stones at political institutions is the same as reasoned debate should take some lessons from this carefully researched book. With a cast of colorful characters in tow, Weaver examines the long-standing controversies surrounding the EC and sets out numerous proposals for reform, which range from outright abolition to removing the "plus two" clause. Weaver brings a wealth of historical research to the task, writing with authority and clarity." —Kirkus

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  Espionage - A Concise History

  Kristie Macrakis

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  A concise introduction to the history and methods of espionage, illustrated by spy stories from antiquity to today's high-tech world. 
   
   
   
  Espionage is one of the most secret of human activities. It is also, as the popularity of spy stories suggests, one of the most intriguing. This book pulls the veil back on the real world of espionage, revealing how spying actually works. In a refreshingly clear, concise manner, Kristie Macrakis guides listeners through the shadowy world of espionage, from the language and practice of spycraft to its role in international politics, its bureaucratic underpinnings, and its transformation in light of modern technology. Espionage is a mirror of society and human foibles with the added cloak of secrecy and deception. Accordingly, Espionage traces spying all the way back to antiquity, while also moving beyond traditional accounts of military and diplomatic intelligence to shine a light on industrial espionage and the new techno-spy. As thorough—and thoroughly enjoyable—as it is compact, the book is an ideal introduction to the history and anatomy of espionage.

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  Creating the KGB and CIA: The...

  Editors Charles River

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  The KGB is one of the most famous abbreviations of the 20th century, and it has become synonymous with the shadowy and often violent actions of the Soviet Union’s secret police and internal security agencies. In fact, it is often used to refer to the Soviet state security agencies throughout its history, from the inception of the inception of the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission) in 1917 to the official elimination of the KGB in 1992. Whether it’s associated with the Russian Civil War’s excesses, Stalin’s purges, and even Vladimir Putin, the KGB has long been viewed as the West’s biggest bogeyman during the second half of the 20th century. However, the KGB did not appear out of thin air. Naturally, the earliest Soviet leaders utilized intelligence agencies that collected information both abroad and within the Soviet Union, targeting foreign opponents and domestic opponents alike. Lenin did not imagine the scale of the opposition he would have to face after the revolution, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "a special system of organized violence" must be created to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
  Though it might be hard to believe, the Americans did not have a covert operations organization when they joined World War II, and like the British, it took them some time to realize it could be a powerful tool. As a result, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was not established until June 13, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This would all chart a path for the early days of America’s most famous intelligence agency, the CIA. Although plagued by its own share of problems in its early existence during World War II and the early Cold War years, the agency’s early problems, smoothed over by a string of tenured presidents, paled in comparison to those it would face in the coming decades.

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  Minority Rule - The Right-Wing...

  Ari Berman

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  The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift. Ari Berman charts these efforts with sweeping historical research and incisive on-the-ground reporting, chronicling how a wide range of antidemocratic tactics interact with profound structural inequalities in institutions like the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to threaten the survival of representative government in America. 
   
   
   
  Some counter-majoritarian measures were built into the Constitution, which was designed in part to benefit a small propertied upper class, but they have metastasized to a degree that the Founding Fathers could never have anticipated, undermining the very notion of "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Chilling and revelatory, Minority Rule exposes the long history of the conflict between white supremacy and multiracial democracy that has reached a fever pitch today—while also telling the inspiring story of resistance to these regressive efforts.

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  Henry David Thoreau: On The Duty...

  Henry David Thoreau

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  "That government is best which governs least" is the famous opening line of this essay. The slavery crisis inflamed New England in the 1840s and 1850s. The environment became especially tense after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. A lifelong abolitionist, Thoreau delivered an impassioned speech which would later become Civil Disobedience in 1848, just months after leaving Walden Pond. The speech dealt with slavery, but at the same time excoriated American imperialism, particularly the Mexican–American War. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also.

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  The Secret Listener - An Ingenue...

  Yuan-Tsung Chen

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  The history of China in the twentieth century is comprised of a long series of shocks: the 1911 revolution, the civil war between the communists and the nationalists, the Japanese invasion, the revolution, the various catastrophic campaigns initiated by Chairman Mao between 1949 and 1976, its great opening to the world under Deng, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre. 
   
   
   
  Yuan-tsung Chen lived through most of it, and at certain points in close proximity to the seat of communist power. Born in Shanghai in 1929, she came to know Zhou En-Lai as a young girl while living in Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-Shek's government had relocated to, during the war against Japan. That connection to Zhou helped her save her husband's life in Cultural Revolution. After the communists took power, she obtained a job in one of the culture ministries. She frequently engaged with the upper echelon of the party and was a first-hand witness to some of the purges that the regime regularly initiated. Eventually, the commissar she worked under was denounced in 1957, and she barely escaped being purged herself. Later, during Cultural Revolution, she and her husband were purged and sent to live in a rough, poor area. They finally moved to Hong Kong, with Zhou's permission, in 1971. Chen gives a first-hand account of what life was like in the period before the revolution and in Mao's China.

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