A groundbreaking examination of how the Affordable Care Act built public trust, withstood opposition, and redefined civic engagement. Can a bold new social program cultivate a supportive constituency, even as it is buffeted by political turbulence? In Against All Odds, Lawrence Jacobs, Ling Zhu, and Suzanne Mettler track the improbable journey of the Affordable Care Act, from its launch and fraught implementation, through years of fiery resistance to today, when i...

The complexity of the American economy and polity has grown at an explosive rate in our era of globalization. Yet as the 2008 financial crisis revealed, the evolution of the American state has not proceeded apace. The crisis exposed the system's manifold political and economic dysfunctionalities. Featuring a cast of leading scholars working at the intersection of political science and American history, The Unsustainable American State is a historically informed account of the Amer...

An eye-opening analysis of the Federal Reserve's massive and unwarranted power in American life and how it favors the financial sector over everyone else. The Federal Reserve, created more than a century ago, is the most powerful central bank in the world. The Fed's power, which derives from its ability to alter the money supply and move interest rates, weighs heavily not only on the US economy, but on the world economy as well. Lawrence R. Jacobs and Desmond King's Fe...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama in March 2010 is a landmark in U.S. social legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the Act has ensured that it will remain the law of the land. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make th...

The Federal Reserve, created nearly a century ago, is the most powerful central bank in the world. The Fed's power, which derives from its ability to alter the money supply and move interest rates, weighs heavily not only on the US economy, but on the world economy as well. Not surprisingly, most scholarship on the Fed has focused on its economic role; however, the Fed's power isn't merely economic but is also political. Since its decisions benefit some economic sectors (and hence interest...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama in March 2010 is a landmark in U.S. social legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the Act has ensured that it will remain the law of the land. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make th...

The Federal Reserve, created nearly a century ago, is the most powerful central bank in the world. The Fed's power, which derives from its ability to alter the money supply and move interest rates, weighs heavily not only on the US economy, but on the world economy as well. Not surprisingly, most scholarship on the Fed has focused on its economic role; however, the Fed's power isn't merely economic but is also political. Since its decisions benefit some economic sectors (and hence interest...

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequali...

A brilliant new reading of the economic crisis—and a plan for dealing with the challenge of its aftermath—by one of our most trenchant and informed experts.When the nation’s economy foundered in 2008, blame was directed almost universally at Wall Street. But Robert B. Reich suggests a different reason for the meltdown, and for a perilous road ahead. He argues that the real problem is structural: it lies in the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top, and in a middl...

A call-to-arms from Nobel Prize–winning economist and best-selling author Paul Krugman.The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain."How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how...

America’s economy and democracy are working for the benefit of an ever-fewer privileged and powerful people. But rather than just complain about it or give up on the system, we must join together and make it work for all of us.In this timely book, Robert B. Reich argues that nothing good happens in Washington unless citizens are energized and organized to make sure Washington acts in the public good. The first step is to see the big picture. Beyond Outrage connects the dots, showin...

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.Rajan shows how the individual choi...