Does market liberalization promote democracy? The accepted answer from scholars, pundits, and politicians alike has been yes. However, the contributors to this innovative study of market reforms and political change in Mexico and the People's Republic of China argue that this easy equation is not only empirically uncertain but methodologically flawed. Using comparative contextual analysis, the contributors carefully identify the elective affinities between these two very different polities...

**A #1 New York Times bestsellerA gripping expose that delves into the heart of Washington D.C., and the intersection of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity**Through the eyes of author Mark Leibovich, we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year; how political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city's most powerful and puzzled-over journalist;...

The #1 New York Times bestseller that charts America’s dangerous drift into a state of perpetual war.Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring Reagan's radica...

In the last decade, school shootings have decimated communities and terrified parents, teachers, and children in even the most "family friendly" American towns and suburbs. These tragedies appear to be the spontaneous acts of troubled, disconnected teens, but this important book argues that the roots of violence are deeply entwined in the communities themselves. Rampage challenges the "loner theory" of school violence, and shows why so many adults and students miss the warning signs that c...

From one of the most senior correspondents in the Canberra Press Gallery comes a rare account of life as a political insider. Born in a small village in Cyprus, Niki Savva spent her childhood in Melbournes working-class suburbs ­ frontiers where locals were suspicious of olive oil, and Greek kids spoke Gringlish to their parents. Only a few decades later, despite all the challenges of being a migrant woman in Australia, Savva had risen through the ranks of political journalism at The Austr...

One of our most prescient political observers provides a sobering account of how pitched battles over scarce resources will increasingly define American politics in the coming years—and how we might avoid, or at least mitigate, the damage from these ideological and economic battles.In a matter of just three years, a bitter struggle over limited resources has enveloped political discourse at every level in the United States. Fights between haves and have-nots over h...

What does it mean to be an American, and what can America be today?To answer these questions, celebrated philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy spent a year traveling throughout the country in the footsteps of another great Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America remains the most influential book ever written about our country.The result isAmerican Vertigo, a fascinating, wholly fresh look at a country we sometimes only think we know. From Rikers Island t...

The study of two great demagogues in American history--Huey P. Long, a first-term United States Senator from the red-clay, piney-woods country of nothern Louisiana; and Charles E. Coughlin, a Catholic priest from an industrial suburb near Detroit. Award-winning historian Alan Brinkely describes their modest origins and their parallel rise together in the early years of the Great Depression to become the two most successful leaders of national political dissidence of their era.

Understanding American Politics provides a unique introduction to the contemporary political landscape of the United States by using as its core organizing feature the idea of "American exceptionalism," a concept that is at least as old as Tocqueville's study of American democracy.The second edition of Understanding American Politics maintains the unique strengths of the first edition while offering improved coverage of political institutions. A single omnibus cha...

The Hill Times: Best Books of 2016An overview of the history of elections and voting in Canada, including minority governments, dynasties, and social movements.Dynasties and Interludes provides a comprehensive and unique overview of elections and voting in Canada from Confederation to the most recent election. Its principal argument is that the Canadian political landscape has consisted of long periods of hegemony of a single party and/or ...

"This is quite simply the best study of judicial independence that I have ever read; it is erudite, historically aware, and politically astute."-Malcolm M. Feeley, Claire Sanders Clements Dean's Professor, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley"Professor Geyh has written a wise and timely book that is informed by the author's broad and deep experience working with the judicial and legislative branches, by the insights of law, history and political sci...

A "succinct and well-written" look at how presidents use secrecy to protect the nation, foster diplomacy—and gain power ( The Wall Street Journal).Ever since the nation's most important secret meeting—the Constitutional Convention—presidents have struggled to balance open, accountable government with necessary secrecy in military affairs and negotiations. For the first one hundred and twenty years, a culture of open government persisted, but new threats an...