Biography & Autobiography - Political

This book is a mingling of history and autobiography, of long focus and close-up. Born in China during the last days of the empire, the author served as an American diplomat in the midst of the Chinese-Japanese conflict, acted as political adviser to General...

Richard L. Harris includes in this updated edition of Death of a Revolutionary new revelations about Che's revolutionary legacy and discusses the renewed interest in his revolutionary ideas stimulated by the election of leftist governments throughout Latin America. In response to this growing resurgence...

Drawing on new primary sources, this biography is the first to detail the influence of British history, literature, and culture--in particular, the ideas of Winston Churchill--on America's thirty-fifth president. For the first time we trace the friendships and forces that led to the White...

Beginning with his first foreign service post in 1927 and ending seven decades later, Kennan's account is rich with the insight of a major historical participant. Whether relating the perils of Hitler's Germany or revisiting Kennan's days as ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sketches...

Jean H. Baker tells the compelling story of four generations of an American family and its most celebrated member, the high-minded, eloquent, and perennial also-ran icon of liberal politics, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1900-1965). The Stevensons is also a book about the relationship of...

Nikolai Bukharin was one of the most eminent leaders and theoreticians of the Bolsheviks, a man who had become famous long before the Russian Revolution. He was idolized by the youth of Soviet Russia, who identified with him and drew much of their inspiration...

One of Europe's most important literary figures, Jonathan Swift was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, and a conscientious Anglican minister--as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satires of...

On a hot July afternoon in 1953, George F. Kennan descended the steps of the State Department building as a newly retired man. His career had been tumultuous: early postings in eastern Europe followed by Berlin in 1940-41 and Moscow in the last year...

Nelson Mandela's memoir, Long Road to Freedom, electrified the world in 1994 with the story of a solitary man who, despite unbelievable hardships, brought down one of the most-despised regimes in the world. Fifteen years after the publication of that classic work comes this...

A cautionary investigation into the role of Alan Greenspan in the 1990s stock-market bubble and collapse argues that his leadership decisions and political choices directly contributed to today's inflated housing prices and the nation's federal deficit. By the author of The Ministry.Author: Peter HartcherISBN-10:...

Zhores Medvedev, a Soviet biochemist and outspoken critic of the Soviet bureaucracy, who was railroaded into a mental hospital, and his brother, historian Roy Medvedev, who rallied the Soviet scientific and intellectual community in protest, together tell the story of "repression by psychiatry" in...

Based on hours of unprecedented interviews with members of the Bush family, The Bushes tells the inside story of the unique dynasty at the heart of American power. As well as laying out the secretive family's inner workings, this intimate and fascinating group portrait...

Jack Olsen's Last Man Standing is the gripping story of Geronimo Pratt, war hero and community leader, who was framed by the FBI in one of the greatest travesties of justice in American history. Geronimo Pratt did not commit the murder for which he...

A swashbuckling Texan, a teller of tall tales, a womanizer, and a renegade, Fred Cuny spent his life in countries rent by war, famine, and natural disasters, saving many thousands of lives through his innovative and sometimes controversial methods of relief work. Cuny earned...

Hailed as "America's finest realistic novelist" by the Boston Globe, Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road, garnered rare critical acclaim for his bracing, unsentimental portraits of middle-class American life. Disturbing the Peace is no exception. Haunting, troubling, and mesmerizing, it shines a brilliant, unwavering...

Never before has any biographer had such close access to Fidel Castro as did Tad Szule. The outcome of a long, direct relationship, this riveting portrait reveals astonishing and exclusive information about Cuba, the revolution, and the notorious, larger-than-life leader who has ruled his...

During the first Palestinian uprising in 1990, Jeffrey Goldberg - an American Jew - served as a guard at the largest prison camp in Israel. One of his prisoners was Rafiq, a rising leader in the PLO. Overcoming their fears and prejudices, the two...

George Orwell has had a profound influence on modern politics and culture. He is regularly invoked as an authority by journalists, commentators and politicians, and his works speak with increasing relevance to our polarised and media-saturated society.Stephen Ingle explores Orwell's character, his life and...

The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post. The United States went to Afghanistan on...

Robert Dallek, a luminary in the field of political biography--author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Nixon and Kissinger and the New York Times bestselling biography of John F. Kennedy--offers here a look at the life of William Dodd, an American diplomat stationed in Nazi...

Henry Kissinger dominated American foreign relations like no other figure in recent history. He negotiated an end to American involvement in the Vietnam War, opened relations with Communist China, and orchestrated d騁ente with the Soviet Union. Yet he is also the man behind the...

Through a close and critical reading of biblical texts, ancient history, and recent archeological discoveries, Steven L. McKenzie concludes that David was indeed a real person. This David was not the humble shepherd who slew Goliath and became king, however, but was a usurper,...

In this explosive book, Adolph Reed covers for the first time the full sweep and totality of W. E. B. Du Bois's political thought. Departing from existing scholarship, Reed locates the sources of Du Bois's thought in the cauldron of reform-minded intellectual life at...

Fostering the "pursuit of happiness" was an avowed purpose of the American Revolution, but what was the phrase to mean in practice? How would the new society being created achieve what Enlightenment egalitarians called the "common good"? In this dual biography of Benjamin Franklin...

A man who lived his life mostly in the shadows, Edward M. House is little known or remembered today; yet he was one of the most influential figures of the Wilson presidency. Wilson's chief political advisor, House played a key role in international diplomacy,...

Features topics such as environmental issues, historical facts, and culture. Full-color photographs, introductions, glossaries, and exercises enhance student reading and learning. Audio versions of selected titles provide great models of intonation and pronunciation of difficult words.Author: Rowena AkinyemiISBN-10: 0194233960ISBN-13: 9780194233965Publisher: Oxford University Press, USALanguage:...

A feminist, an outspoken activist, a woman without a college education, Midge Costanza was one of the unlikeliest of White House insiders. Yet in 1977 she became the first female Assistant to the President for Public Liaison under Jimmy Carter, emerging as a prominent...

Breytenbach's first visit to South Africa, after thirteen years in exile, is more than just a dazzling travelogue. He is searching for a "paradise" that coincides with the geography, mysticism, and mythologies of Africa, but in reality his homeland is an often hellish region...

South Africa heads toward majority rule, yet Breytenbach is far from optimistic about its future. He sees a civil war raging and the land awash in blood. "[This] book...is fueled by the sort of rage that produces great literature" (Washington Post). A New York...

A "candid, courageous, and unsparing memoir" (The New York Review of Books) of post-Cold War politics and global statecraft Written with eloquence and unprecedented candor, Interventions is the story of Kofi Annan's remarkable time at the center of the world stage. After forty years...

"Betancourt's riveting account...is an unforgettable epic of moral courage and human endurance." -Los Angeles Times In the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt traveled into a military-controlled region, where she was abducted by the FARC, a brutal terrorist...

An entertaining and eye-opening biography of America's most memorable first daughter From the moment Teddy Roosevelt's outrageous and charming teenage daughter strode into the White House--carrying a snake and dangling a cigarette--the outspoken Alice began to put her imprint on the whole of the...

A wildly entertaining biography of the trailblazing Washington columnist and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for commentary Before there was Maureen Dowd or Gail Collins or Molly Ivins, there was Mary McGrory. She was a trailblazing columnist who achieved national syndication...

This is a biography of mayor Richard J. Daley. It is the story of his rise from the working-class Irish neighbourhood of his childhood to his role as one of the most important figures in 20th century American politics.Author: Adam Cohen, Elizabeth TaylorISBN-10: 0316834033ISBN-13:...

This illustrated, first of its kind collection of excerpts from Eleanor Roosevelt's newspaper columns, radio talks, speeches, and correspondence speaks directly to the challenges we face today. Acclaimed for her roles in politics and diplomacy, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was also a prolific author,...

The third volume in Dumas Malone's distinguished study of Thomas Jefferson and his time includes the story of the final and most crucial phase of his secretaryship of state; his retirement to Monticello; his assumption of the leadership of the opposition party; and the...

The first-ever book to tell Nelson Mandela's life through the eyes of the grandson who was raised by him, chronicling Ndaba Mandela's life living with, and learning from, one of the greatest leaders and humanitarians the world has ever known. To the rest of...

Two-time New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly opens up about his remarkable life, taking us inside fifty years of law enforcement leadership, offering chilling stories of terrorist plots after 9/11, and sharing his candid insights into the challenges and controversies cops face today....

In spreading the message of freedom, equality, and human dignity, Nelson Mandela helped transform not only his own nation, but the entire world. Now his most important speeches are collected in a single volume. From the eve of his imprisonment to his release twenty-seven...

Gathers quotations by President Reagan about his childhood, education, political career, opinions on public issues, and perspectives on coping with illness and retirement.Author: Bill AdlerISBN-10: 0316056006ISBN-13: 9780316056007Publisher: Little Brown and CompanyLanguage: EnglishPublished: 07/01/1996Pages: 176Format: HardcoverWeight: 0.90lbsSize: 9.32h x 6.12w x 0.66d

Labor leader, social justice advocate, Chicano leader, and humanitarian are only some of the multifaceted renderings of C駸ar Ch疱ez. Ilan Stavans has compiled essays and first-person narratives that capture the multiple dimensions of this storied figure. To that end, Stavans's collection of timely articles...

Cesar Chavez, the labor organizer and founder of the United Farm Workers of America, was, perhaps, an unlikely hero. In this biography, his early life is shown to be fairly typical for a boy in a close-knit family of Mexican Americans who worked the...

Jesse Jackson, a powerful orator and indefatigable organizer, has been one of the most dynamic forces for social and political action in both the national and international arenas, campaigning for human rights and social justice. Through such social action projects as Operation Breadbasket, Operation...

A guide to the lives and careers of nearly 400 governors serving during the years 1607-1789, providing important genealogical and historical data.Author: John RaimoISBN-10: 0313281335ISBN-13: 9780313281334Publisher: GreenwoodLanguage: EnglishPublished: 12/31/1980Pages: 536Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.93lbsSize: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.13d

A memoir of growing up in mob-run Sin City from a casino heir-turned-governor who's seen two sides of every coin When Bob Miller arrived in Las Vegas as a boy, it was a small, dusty city, a far cry from the glamorous, exciting place...

A spectacular New York Times and Washington Post bestseller, My FBI is the definitive account of American law enforcement during the Clinton years and in the run-up to September 11. Louis Freeh is clear eyed, frank, the ultimate realist, and he offers resolute vision...

At the age of twenty-four, in 1913, Adolf Hitler was eking out a living as a painter of pictures for tourists in Munich. Nothing marked him in any way as exceptional, but he did possess certain distinguishing characteristics: a capacity to hate, an inability...

A major new biography, illuminating the great mystery of Benjamin Franklin's faith "Kidd vividly brings Franklin's spiritual quest to life throughout his book, and he provides a direct line from Franklin's beliefs to those we see around us today."--Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor Renowned...

An intimate new portrait of one of history's most controversial figures: heroic revolutionary or the first terrorist? For some historians and biographers, Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94) was a great revolutionary martyr who succeeded in leading the French Republic to safety in the face of overwhelming...

The first full-scale biography of one of the most important--and enigmatic--leaders in Israeli history This riveting biography is the first to provide a satisfactory answer to the question, Who was Menachem Begin? Based on wide-ranging research among archival documents and on testimonials and interviews...