From creeping capitalism to abortion to government corruption, these three books shed light on controversial topics that are too often left in the dark.Curated by NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, the Forbidden Bookshelf series resurrects books from America's repressed history. All touching on bold and debated topics, these three books are more relevant today than ever.Friendly Fascism: Bertram Gross, a presidential adviser in the New Deal era, exp...

A look at corporate authoritarianism that William Shirer called "the best thing I've ever seen on how America might go fascist democratically."In 1980, US capitalist politics wore a "nice-guy mask," a troubling disguise to cover up a creeping despotism in which the ultra-rich and corporate overseers were merging with a centralized state power in order to manage the populace. This immanent corporate authoritarianism threatened to subvert constitutional democracy. But...

Leading specialists and activists from Russia and the USA join, in this volume, to offer a searching assessment of human rights in their own countries and in the world at large. They reflect on past history, present problems associated with system breakdown and decline, and the obstacles and opportunities on the way to the realisation of human rights in this uncertain post-Cold War era and the millennium that is now dawning. The participants in the discussions detailed here include Yelena ...

"Demonstrates successfully how the concept of fascism has changed its meaning and its place in American political discourse." ― The NationFrom the time Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, Americans have been obsessed with the meaning of fascism and how it might migrate to the United States. Fascism Comes to America examines how we have viewed fascism overseas and its implications for our own country. Bruce Kuklick explores the ...

"The best, the liveliest and most illuminating" account of Rockefeller, Morgan, and the other men who seized American economic power after the Civil War ( The New Republic).John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick . . . their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to bank...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An urgent, topic-by-topic guide to Project 2025, with everything you need to know about how the second Trump administration is remaking America—from a go-to authority at The AtlanticWhen President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, news spread about his implementation of Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The debates—and anx...

In this definitive book on revenge, psychiatry researcher James Kimmel, Jr. exposes the unseen neurobiological cause of violence—a compulsive desire for retribution—and offers a profound new understanding of human behavior and breakthrough framework for making our lives and communities safer.**“This riveting, science-based exploration of why we feel pleasure from other people’s pain is a must-read.”—Anna Lembke, MD, author of Dopamine NationA Next ...

In his controversial book An Outline of Philosophy, first published in 1927, Bertrand Russell argues that humanity demands consideration solely as the instrument by which we acquire knowledge of the universe. From our inner-world to the outer-world, from our physical world to the universe, his argument separates modern scientific knowledge and our ‘seeming’ consciousness. These innovative perspectives on philosophy made a significant contribution to the discourse on the meaning, r...

Recognize the negative mental habits that derail conversations and destroy projects—and forge authentic, enduring, and productive connections.We live in conversations like fish live in water—we're in them all the time, so we don't think about them much. As a result, we can find ourselves stuck in cyclical patterns of unproductive behaviors. We listen half-heartedly, react emotionally, and respond habitually, like we're on autopilot.This is a practical guide f...

A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism revealing the complicity of the Vatican and the Swiss government in aiding Nazi war criminals' escape from Europe to Argentina - reissued with a new preface by Philippe Sands and additional materialAs Russian forces closed in on Berlin, and Hitler's premiership drew to a close, many Nazi officials fled Germany. In this startling, meticulously researched account, acclaimed journalist Uki Goni unravels the complex net...

The 'Defenestration of Prague', the coup d'etat staged by Protestant Bohemian nobles against officials of the Hapsburg Emperor triggered the Thirty Years War. When Habsburg Spain intervened in support of their Holy Roman Emperor relative, what had started as a localised political and religious dispute in Germany, transformed into a European and global conflict. In seeking to exploit the Bohemian revolt, Spanish Habsburg revanchist ambitions directed by the Spanish Count of Olivarez at the ...

What is power, and what is the crowd? How do the two relate to each other? Crowds and Power is a striking and unclassifiable study of how human beings behave in groups and how collective forces shape history. Rejecting conventional sociology, 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elias Canetti creates a unique framework that draws on anthropology, mythology, psychology, history, psychoanalysis and literature to explain why crowds form, how they act and what makes them so powerfu...