Other books that might interest you

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  Limitarianism - The Case Against...

  Ingrid Robeyns

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  How much money is too much? Is it ethical, and democratic, for an individual to amass a limitless amount of wealth, and then spend it however they choose? Many of us feel that the answer to that is no—but what can we do about it? Ingrid Robeyns has long written and argued for the principle she calls limitarianism—or the need to limit extreme wealth. This idea is gaining momentum in the mainstream—with calls to tax the rich and slogans like every billionaire is a policy failure—but what does it mean in practice? Robeyns explains the key reasons to support the case against extreme wealth: -It keeps the poor poor and inequalities growing. -It’s often dirty money. -It undermines democracy. -It’s one of the leading causes of climate change. -Nobody actually deserves to be a millionaire. -There are better things to do with excess money. -The rich will benefit too. This will be the first authoritative trade book to unpack the concept of a cap on wealth, where to draw the line, how to collect the excess, and what to do with the money. In the process, Robeyns ignites an urgent debate about wealth, one that calls into question the very forces we live by (capitalism and neoliberalism) and invites us to a radical reimagining of our world.

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  Shadow Government - Surveillance...

  Tom Engelhardt

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  “A book about secrets and surveillance . . . [from] one of the great forces on the side of clarity, democracy, openness, and really good writing” (Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark).   In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn’t fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that “invisible government” has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn’t have recognized.   “Tom Engelhardt is an iconoclast . . . Again and again, he goes to the heart of the matter, drawing on his awesomely wide reading, his knowledge of history, and his acute political radar system.” —Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Mirror at Midnight   “This collection, focused on the new Orwellianism, is some of the finest writing and finest public service gathered together in book form for your portable pleasure and outrage.” —Rebecca Solnit of Call Them by Their True Names   “Tom Engelhardt’s writing on the new forms of government surveillance is crucial because he has spent a lifetime studying the rise of the national security state.” —Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan

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  The Men and the Moment - The...

  Aram Goudsouzian

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  The presidential election of 1968 forever changed American politics. In this character-driven narrative history, Aram Goudsouzian portrays the key transformations that played out over that dramatic year. It was the last "Old Politics" campaign, where political machines and party bosses determined the major nominees, even as the "New Politics" of grassroots participation powered primary elections. It was an election that showed how candidates from both the Left and Right could seize on "hot-button" issues to alter the larger political dynamic. It showcased the power of television to "package" politicians and political ideas, and it played out against an extraordinary dramatic global tableau of chaos and conflict. More than anything else, it was a moment decided by a contest of political personalities, as a group of men battled for the presidency, with momentous implications for the nation's future.
   
  Well-paced, accessible, and engagingly written, Goudsouzian's book chronicles anew the characters and events of the 1968 campaign as an essential moment in American history, one with clear resonance in our contemporary political moment.

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  Deadly Deceits - My 25 Years in...

  Ralph W. McGehee

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  A veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency unmasks its culture of lethal lies in this devastating exposé, now with a new foreword by David MacMichael. Ralph W. McGehee was a patriot, dedicated to the American way of life and the international fight against Communism. Following his graduation with honors from Notre Dame, McGehee was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 and quickly became an able and enthusiastic cold warrior. Stationed in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s, he worked to stem the Communist tide that was sweeping through the region, first in Thailand and later in Vietnam. But despite his notable successes in reversing enemy influence among the local peasants and villagers, McGehee found himself increasingly alienated from a company culture built on deceit and wholesale manipulation of the truth. While his country was being pulled deeper and deeper into the Vietnam quagmire, McGehee awoke to a chilling reality: The CIA was not a gatherer of actual intelligence to be employed in a legitimate war against dangerous enemies, but a tool of the president’s foreign-policy staff designed solely to stifle the truth and fabricate “facts” that supported the agency’s often immoral agenda. With courage and candor, Ralph McGehee illuminates the CIA’s dark catalog of misdeeds in his stunning, no-holds-barred memoir of a life in the service of deception. Startling, eye-opening, and infuriating, Deadly Deceits is an honest and unflinching insider’s look at a toxic government agency that the author cogently argues has no useful purpose and no moral right to exist.

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  The Spy in Moscow Station - A...

  Eric Haseltine

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  The thrilling true story of the race to find a leak in the US embassy in Moscow — before more American assets are rounded up and killed.Foreword by Gen. Michael V. Hayden (Retd.), former director of NSA and CIA.In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist — those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy?Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know.Eric Haseltine's The Spy in Moscow Station tells of a time when — much like today — Russian spycraft had proven itself far beyond the best technology the United States had to offer. The perils of American arrogance mixed with bureaucratic infighting left the country unspeakably vulnerable to ultra-sophisticated Russian electronic surveillance and espionage.This is the true story of unorthodox underdog intelligence officers who fought an uphill battle against their own government to prove that the KGB had pulled off the most devastating penetration of US national security in history. If you think The Americans isn't riveting enough, you'll love this toe-curling nonfiction thriller.

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  A View from the Eye of the Storm...

  Haim Harari

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  In 2004, internationally known physicist Haim Harari was invited to address the advisory board of a major multinational corporation. In a short speech he offered a penetrating analysis of the components of terror, and presented a passionate call for a new era in the Middle East. The speech, entitled "A View from the Eye of the Storm," was not intended for publication, but when a copy was leaked and posted onto the Internet, it caused a worldwide sensation, eventually being translated into more than half a dozen languages. Now—as the modern era of Islamic terror continues to unfold—Harari reaches further, to offer this serious yet accessible survey of the landscape of Middle Eastern war and peace at this challenging crossroads in history.Moving beyond the sterile discourse of foreign affairs journals, Harari encourages the world to view the Middle East through the eyes of a "proverbial taxi driver," a man on the street whose wisdom (and sense of humor) outstrips that of the experts. And, as he observes, to anyone familiar with the Middle East from a taxi driver's perspective, the "persistent ugly storm" engulfing the Arab world is far more than a territorial battle with Israel: It is an "undeclared World War III" that rages from Bali to Madrid, from Nairobi to New York, from Buenos Aires to Istanbul, and from Tunis to Moscow. The sad result is that much of the Arab world has become an "unprecedented breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders, and general decline." And unless the free nations of the world mobilize to stop it, Harari argues, this new world war will continue to cause bloodshed on all continents.As a fifth-generation Israeli-born observer, Harari includes a thorough response to the conventional wisdom about Middle Eastern affairs, including a frank dissection of the media's lopsided portrait of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Drawing on his family's two centuries of life in the Middle East, he offers a compelling catalog of the steps necessary to reach a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians—steps, he writes, that are "inevitable—not because everybody accepts them today, but because all sides must accept them before peace can be achieved." And he urges the civilized world to combat terror by isolating its state sponsors, blocking its funding, and promoting education, women's equality, and human rights reform.Eloquent in its simplicity, written with passion, humor, and the directness of a scientist who has spent a lifetime explaining his work to the general public, A View from the Eye of the Storm is that rare book with the power to change hearts and minds.

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