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  Scotland's Shame - Why Lockerbie...

  John Ashton

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  The journalist reveals the scandal behind Scotland’s Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and the questionable conviction of a Libyan terror suspect. The Lockerbie bombing of 1988 remains one of the most notorious acts of terrorism to be perpetrated in the United Kingdom. Its political and foreign policy repercussions have been enormous. Decades later, debate still rages over the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as well as his controversial release in 2009 on compassionate grounds. In Scotland’s Shame, journalist and researcher John Ashton argues that the guilty verdict, delivered by some of Scotland's most senior judges, was perverse and irrational. He details how prosecutors withheld numerous items of evidence that were favorable to Megrahi. It accuses successive Scottish governments of turning their back on the scandal and pretending that the country's treasured independent criminal justice system remains untainted.

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  Out of Mao's Shadow - The...

  Philip P. Pan

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  Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China. The outcome of this dramatic, hidden struggle will shape China's rise to superpower status-and determine how it affects the rest of the world.From factories in the rusting industrial northeast to a tabloid newsroom in the booming south, from a small-town courtroom to the plush offices of the nation's wealthiest tycoons, Pan speaks with men and women fighting and sacrificing for change. An elderly surgeon exposes the government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic. A filmmaker investigates the execution of a student in the Cultural Revolution. A blind man is jailed for leading a crusade against forced abortions carried out under the one-child policy.Out of Mao's Shadow offers a startling perspective on China and its remarkable transformation, challenging conventional wisdom about the political apathy of the Chinese people and the notion that prosperity leads automatically to freedom. Like David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb, this is the moving story of a nation in transition, of a people coming to terms with their past.

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  King of the Lobby - The Life and...

  Kathryn Allamong Jacob

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  A biography of the “influential and engaging character” who courted Congress with food, wine, and gifts in the post-Civil War era (The Washington Post Book World). 
   
  King of the Lobby tells the story of how one man harnessed delicious food, fine wine, and good conversation to become the most influential lobbyist of the Gilded Age. 
   
  Scion of an old and honorable family, best friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and charming man-about-town, Sam Ward held his own in an era crowded with larger-than-life personalities. Living by the motto that the shortest route between a pending bill and a congressman’s “aye” was through his stomach, Ward elegantly entertained political elites in return for their votes. 
   
  At a time when waves of scandal washed over Washington, the popular press railed against the wickedness of the lobby, and self-righteous politicians predicted that special interests would cause the downfall of democratic government, Sam Ward still reigned supreme. By the early 1870s, he had earned the title “King of the Lobby,” cultivating an extraordinary network of prominent figures and a style that survives today in the form of expensive golf outings, extravagant dinners, and luxurious vacations. Kathryn Allamong Jacob’s account shows how the king earned his crown, and how this son of wealth and privilege helped to create a questionable profession in a city that then, as now, rested on power and influence. 
   
  “Her extensive research is reflected in her recounting of Ward’s life, successfully putting it into the context of the history of lobbying…will appeal to American history buffs.” —Publishers Weekly

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  The Prince

  Niccolo Machiavelli

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  The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. Harvey C. Mansfield’s brilliant translation of this classic work, along with the new materials added for this edition, make it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and those interested in the dark art of politics. 
   
  This revised edition of Mansfield’s acclaimed translation features an updated bibliography, a substantial glossary, an analytic introduction, a chronology of Machiavelli’s life, and a map of Italy in Machiavelli’s time. 
   
  “Of the other available [translations], that of Harvey C. Mansfield makes the necessary compromises between exactness and readability, as well as providing an excellent introduction and notes.”—Clifford Orwin, The Wall Street Journal 
   
  ”Mansfield’s work . . . is worth acquiring as the best combination of accuracy and readability.”—Choice 
   
  ”There is good reason to assert that Machiavelli has met his match in Mansfield. . . . [He] is ready to read Machiavelli as he demands to be read—plainly and boldly, but also cautiously.”—John Gueguen, The Sixteenth Century Journal

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  Dear Emmett Till - An Excerpt...

  Michael Eric Dyson

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  A letter to Emmett Till, an excerpt from Dyson's longer work, Long Time ComingHere is a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. As Dyson notes: "Rarely has the tragic fact of Black death been as urgently in need of interpretation and engagement as in this moment."

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  The Underdog in American...

  Karl G. Trautman

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  One major party in American politics, the Democrats, has consciously identified itself with underdogs. This book analyzes the relationship between the party and the main political ideology of its base, which is liberalism. It also analyzes culture and the enduring appeal of underdogs as well as specific Democratic presidential candidates, their campaigns and their presidencies. These include Thomas Jefferson, FDR, JFK, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean and Barack Obama.

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