Every American president, when faced with a crisis, longs to take bold and decisive action. When American lives or vital interests are at stake, the public-and especially the news media and political opponents-expect aggressive leadership. But, contrary to the dramatizations of Hollywood, rarely does a president have that option.In Presidents in Crisis, a former director of the Situation Room takes the reader inside the White House during seventeen grave international emer...

The White House Situation Room is arguably the most important facility in the most important building in the world. As the presidentÆs intelligence and alert center, it provides vital communication and crisis management capabilities to the chief executive and his advisers. It can also be ôan island of calm,ö as a top adviser for Vice President Al Gore once described it. So little is known about the Situation Room that, until the publication of Nerve Center, the American publicÆs knowledge of ...

Political speeches and public rhetoric paint the phenomena of terrorism with a black-and-white brush, presenting it as a clear-cut battle between evildoers and heroes. With The Achille Lauro Hijacking, Michael K. Bohn, who watched the incident unfold from the White House Situation Room, uses one of the most infamous terrorist incidents of the past twenty-five years to illuminate the folly of such oversimplified jingoisms. The 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship, the amazin...

You can't play Major League Baseball and bet on a game; just ask Pete Rose. Don't try running a betting ring in the NHL, either. Want the surest ticket out of NCAA sports? Betting's the way to do it. In stark contrast, however, the United States Golf Association officially sanctions betting among players during their games. And it's not just the pros who bet. Every man, out with his buddies, asks at the first tee, Shall we make this interesting? Yet there has never been a betting scandal in...

A handful of star athletes, along with their promoters and journalists, created America's sports entertainment industry during the 1920s, the Golden Age of American sports. The period had an extraordinary impact, profoundly changing individual sports, establishing the secular religion of sports and sports heroes, and helping bond disparate social and regional sectors of the country. It's when sports became a cornerstone of modern American life.Heroes and Ballyhoo profiles t...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! THIS NEW AND UPDATED EDITION FINALLY PROVES THE SHOCKING IDENTITY OF THE BLACK DAHLIA KILLER—AND THE POLICE CORRUPTION THAT CONCEALED IT FOR SO LONGIn 1947, the brutal, sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth Short led to the largest manhunt in LA history. The killer teased and taunted the police and public for weeks, but his identity stayed a mystery, and the murder remained the most tantalizing unsolved case of the ...

An award-winning historian on the transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics—for readers of Heather Cox Richardson.If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964—or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965—was the time when the sixties truly arrived. It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of “American,” with a great...

The complete rankings of our best -- and worst -- presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership.Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories -- their ability to persuade the public, their leadership skills, their moral authority, and more. The crucible of the presidency has forged some of the very best and very worst leaders in o...

Two-time Peabody Award-winning writer and producer Ira Rosen reveals the intimate, untold stories of his decades at America's most iconic news show. It's a 60 Minutes story on 60 Minutes itself.When producer Ira Rosen walked into the 60 Minutes offices in June 1980, he knew he was about to enter television history. His career catapulted him to the heights of TV journalism, breaking some of the most important stories in TV news. But behind ...

Travel back in time with Doctor Who, the Terminator, the X-Men, and all your favorite time travelers!Science fiction is the perfect window into the possibilities and perils of time travel. What would happen if you went back in time and killed your own grandparent? If you knew how to stop a presidential assassination, would time travel allow you to make your wish come true? Can we use time travel as a tool to escape the destiny of our future or mistakes of the past?...

The sensational true story of George Dinning, a freed slave, who in 1899 joined forces with a Confederate war hero in search of justice in the Jim Crow south. “Taut and tense. Inspiring and terrifying in its timelessness.”(Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad )Named a most anticipated book of 2021 by O, The Oprah MagazineNamed a "must-read" by the Chicago Review of Books

From the award-winning author of The Hole, a "Simmering" (New York Times Book Review) and "Compelling" (Wall Street Journal ) thriller—"A **mystery masterpiece . . . Hye-young Pyun at her best" (Books & Bao), named a "Best International Crime Novel of 2020" (****CrimeReads) and selected as one of "**Our 65 Favorite Books of the Year" (LitHub)The Law of Lines...