Boston's late, revered mayor explains the power behind the city's dramatic success — and its lessons for Washington power brokers.When Thomas Menino stepped down from office as one of the longest-serving major-city mayors in the nation's history, he was among the most popular politicians in modern memory. In Mayor for a New America, Menino gives a play-by-play look at how he managed to wield political influence while staying fiercely loyal to the interests ...

A corrupt mayor runs his final campaign in this "remarkably intelligent, informed, well-conceived, and highly readable" classic novel ( Chicago Tribune)."We're living in a sensitive age, Cuke, and I'm not altogether sure you're fully attuned to it." So says Irish-American politician Frank Skeffington—a cynical, corrupt 1950s mayor, and also an old-school gentleman who looks after the constituents of his New England city and enjoys their unwavering loyalty i...

Big business has been the lever of big change over time in American life, change in economy, society, politics, and the envelope of existence--in work, mores, language, consciousness, and the pace and bite of time. Such is the pattern revealed by this historical mosaic.--From the PrefaceWeaving historical source material with his own incisive analysis, Jack Beatty traces the rise of the American corporation, from its beginnings in the 17th century through today, illustrating...

Age of Betrayal is a brilliant reconsideration of America's first Gilded Age, when war-born dreams of freedom and democracy died of their impossibility. Focusing on the alliance between government and railroads forged by bribes and campaign contributions, Jack Beatty details the corruption of American political culture that, in the words of Rutherford B. Hayes, transformed “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” into “a government by the corporations, of th...

In The Lost History of 1914, Jack Beatty examines the First World War and its causes, testing against fresh evidence the long-dominant assumption that it was inevitable. 'Most books set in 1914 map the path leading to war,' Beatty writes, 'this one maps the multiple paths that led away from it.' Radically challenging the standard account of the war's outbreak, Beatty presents the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand not as the catalyst of a war that would have broken out in a...

From Senator Al Franken - #1 bestselling author and beloved SNL alum -- comes the story of an award-winning comedian who decided to run for office and then discovered why award-winning comedians tend not to do that."Flips the classic born-in-a-shack rise to political office tale on its head. I skipped meals to read this book - also unusual - because every page was funny. It made me deliriously happy." -- Louise Erdrich, The New York Times This is ...

"Makes a reader feel like a time traveler plopped down among men who were by turns vicious and visionary."—The Christian Science MonitorThe modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet.A...

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton--two of the most influential Founding Fathers--were also fierce rivals with two opposing political philosophies and two radically different visions for America.While Jefferson is better remembered today, it is actually Hamilton’s political legacy that has triumphed--a legacy that has subverted the Constitution and transformed the federal government into the very leviathan state that our forefathers fought against in the Ameri...

THE TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE HBO SERIESThrough most of the 20th century, Atlantic City was controlled by a powerful partnership of local politicians and racketeers. Funded by payoffs from gambling rooms, bars, and brothels, this corrupt alliance reached full bloom during the reign of Enoch "Nucky" Johnson — the second of three bosses to head the Republican machine that dominated city politics and society.In Boardwalk Empire, Nucky Johnson, Louis "the Commodore"...

The definitive collection from an Irish literary icon, "one of the masters of the short story" ( Newsweek).In the words of W. B. Yeats, Frank O'Connor "did for Ireland what Chekhov did for Russia." Anne Tyler, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, described his tales as "encapsulated universes." This indispensable volume contains the best of his short fiction, from "Guests of the Nation" (adapted into an Obie Award–winning play) to "The Mad Lomasneys" ...

In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the firstmajor new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson'sBattle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have limned the waras a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatestfailure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelicalreligion into the public sphere. As the Second GreatAwakening surgedthrough America, political questions be...

This lively novel—the fifty-second in the award-winning 87th Precinct series—follows the exploits of Ed McBain's most beloved and foul-mouthed detective, Fat Ollie Weeks.All at once, Fat Ollie Weeks had a truly brilliant idea...But as any real writer could tell you, that's how inspiration strikes -- with the sudden force of a violent crime. Known more for his foul mouth and short temper than his way with words, Detective Weeks has written a novel. ...