Originally entitled Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (1905) is a classic of American political literature that records the candid, “plain talks” of George Washington Plunkitt, a powerful leader within New York City’s Tammany Hall political machine. Compiled by journalist William L. Riordon, the book is famous for its unapologetic defense of machine politics and its pragmatic “streetwise” philosophy. It’s a guide for how to steal money by manipulating the political machinery.Plunki...

An Apology for Idlers and Other EssaysJustifying his rejection of an established profession, in 1877 Stevenson offered An Apology for Idlers."A happy man or woman", he reasoned, "is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill" and a practical demonstration of "the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life". So that if they cannot be happy in the "handicap race for sixpenny pieces", let them take their...

The Curse of Demagogues: Lessons Learned from the Presidency of Donald J. Trump is a collection of 32 essays by 22 writers that make the case that the pathway back to a healthy American democracy is for citizens to understand demagogues and defend against them.More than any other book in print, The Curse of Demagogues makes the story of Donald Trump's rise to the White House coherent and understandable. Trump, a demagogue, gained ascendancy in a laissez-faire poli...

Boston is the novelized account of the Sacco and Vanzetti affair, which rocked the nation—and the world—in the 1920s. Two working-class Italian immigrants, both associated with radical political beliefs, stood accused of the murder of two armed guards during the commission of a payroll robbery.There was scant (and often conflicting) evidence of their guilt. However at that time the nation was racked with a heightened fear of the “Red Menace” in the wake of the rise of Soci...

William Dudley Haywood, nicknamed “Big Bill,” was an American labor organizer as well as founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (commonly referred to as the “Wobblies”). He was also a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America.During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike and other textile strikes in Massachu...

H. G. Wells, one of the 20th Century’s greatest writers—author of The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man—wrote The Open Conspiracy to express his ideas about how a peaceful and cooperative world community could bring happiness and prosperity to all the inhabitants of the earth. Wars would no longer be fought and hunger would not rear its ugly head. Writing shortly after World War One, he writes of the horrible waste of life and immense suffering that extreme nationalism bro...

America’s biggest financial institutions controlled vast sums of money used for the domination and manipulation of American financial markets, business and industry. The money was - by and large - the funds of depositors. It was Other People’s Money.‘Other People’s Money and How Bankers Used It’ was a seminal text in the Progressive Era, aligning with broader calls for reform in American society. The book contributed to the growing push for financial regulation, and its ideas influ...

The Metamorphosis is a novella by German author Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is one of Kafka's greatest works, both dark and accessible at the same time.The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". He initially considers the transformation to be temporary and slowly ponders the consequences of this metamorphosis. Unable to get up and leave the bed, Gregor reflects on his job as a traveling salesman and cloth ...

The Nature of the Judicial Process by Benjamin N. Cardozo is one of the most influential works on American jurisprudence. Written while Cardozo was a judge on the New York Court of Appeals (before joining the US Supreme Court), it explores how judges actually decide cases and the philosophy behind judicial decision-making.Cardozo asks, “What is it that I do when I decide a case?”He aims to uncover the principles—both conscious and unconscious—that guide judicial reasoning....

This is the 1927 book that years later inspired the movie of the same name. It is a book about criminal violence, corrupt politics and police, and illicit sex. The City of New York, from the late colonial period up to the early twentieth century, was a bustling hub of commerce, industry, and immigration. For many the city was the gateway to a new life in America, and for many others it was a place to steal a buck from their fellow New Yorkers and visitors to the city with thievery, fraud, ...

Stories of New York is a collection of five short stories by noted American authors of the late 19th century, published in 1893, which features the first work by Edith Wharton to appear in a bound book. All stories had been previously published in Scribner’s Magazine.The stories are all set in New York City and concern themselves with various facets of life in Gilded Age New York City—from the highest of high society to the commonest pensioner in less fashionable neighborhoods in b...

In 1914, the Great War was raging all around the globe. It was by far the largest and bloodiest conflagration the world had ever seen. The balance of vast imperial powers the world over was shifting in tectonic, unpredictable ways.During this maelstrom, in 1917, Russia underwent a revolution. Or rather, two.The abdication of Czar Nicholas II of The Russian Empire, in March of 1917, brought to an abrupt and brutal end the 300-year rule of the Romanoff Dynasty. The seat of po...