The presidency of Barack Obama seeks a major transformation of American politics and policy. This new collection, edited by Steven E. Schier, examines the unusual combination of risk and ambition in Obama's presidency concerning popular politics, Washington politics, and economic and foreign policy. It also places the Obama presidency in historical perspective, noting the unusual circumstances of his election and the similarities and differences between presidential politics today and thos...

Revival 2.0 tells the dramatic inside story of how President Obama and his team have regained their footing and learned to fight for their political survival.Bestselling Obama biographer Richard Wolffe (author of Renegade and Revival) follows President Barack Obama and his inner circle (including Valerie Jarrett, David Plouffe, Hillary Clinton, David Axelrod, and Robert Gibbs), from the Democratic defeat in the 2010 midterm election throu...

The veteran political journalist presents "a compelling case that [Obama] was one of the most successful presidents of modern times" ( The Guardian ).Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking internat...

An expert on developing nations offers "accessible and very sensible analysis" of America's promotion of democracy abroad—and why it often fails ( Publishers Weekly).Oxford economist Paul Collier gives an eye-opening assessment of the corruption and political violence that plague developing nations across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. While many of these governments meet America's standards for democracy, Collier shows that they lack the essential infras...

Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America's two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established social and econom...

Through case studies on Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, and Ukraine, Pathways to Freedom explores the factors and choices that shaped eight transitions—some successful, others less so. Its concise historical analysis and forward-looking prescriptions offer an authoritative and accessible look at what countries must do to build durable and prosperous democracies—and what the United States and others can do to help.

From Wisconsin to Washington, DC, the claims are made: unions are responsible for budget deficits, and their members are overpaid and enjoy cushy benefits. The only way to save the American economy, pundits claim, is to weaken the labor movement, strip workers of collective bargaining rights, and champion private industry. In "They're Bankrupting Us!": And 20 Other Myths about Unions, labor leader Bill Fletcher Jr. makes sense of this debate as he unpacks the twenty-one myths most...

On the night of the 2008 presidential election, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel spoke for many: "For the first time in decades, electoral politics became a vehicle for raising expectations and spreading hope." But, she cautioned, "We progressives need to be as clear-eyed, tough, and pragmatic about Obama as he is about us."Where I Stand collects vanden Heuvel's commentaries and columns from the first years of the Obama administration, an era that has come to b...

Inspired by their popular USA Today column, conservative Cal Thomas and liberal Bob Beckel unmask the hypocrisy of the issues, organizations, and individuals that have created and deepened the partisan divide at the center of American politics, and make a strategic case for why this bickering must stop. Thomas and Beckel explain how bipartisanship and consensus politics are not only good for the day-to-day democratic process but also essential for our nation's future well-being. E...

America is at more than just a crossroads. She is at the brink. A future of freedom and prosperity can still be had should Americans show the will to chart such a path. But simply continuing with business as usual has literally brought us to the edge of destruction.In NOW OR NEVER, Senator DeMint stresses that the current political moment of widespread concern about massive debt and reckless spending is our last chance to rescue America from economic armageddon. This book is an inv...

The rhetoric of the 2012 presidential campaign exposed the deeply rooted sources of political polarization in American. One side celebrated individualism and divided the public into "makers and takers;" the other preached "better together" as the path forward. Both focused their efforts on the "base" not the middle. In Dangerous Convictions, former Democratic Congressman Tom Allen argues that what's really wrong with Congress is the widening, hardening conflict in worldviews that leaves th...

In a world experiencing increasing conflicts, terrorism and displacement, many people are wondering what the United Nations the organization established in 1945 to save future generations from the scourge of war should or could have done to prevent these disasters from escalating. UNsilenced shows that, in fact, the UN has remained a bystander in many of these conflicts and that peace-building efforts have not only been undermined by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, b...