Biography & Autobiography - Political

"Politics makes for strange bedfellows," the old saying goes. Americans, however, often forget the obvious lesson underlying this adage: politics is about winning elections and governing once in office. Voters of all stripes seem put off by the rough-and-tumble horse-trading and deal-making of politics,...

Known in CIA circles as "the Elizabeth Taylor of the jihad" and among her cohorts as the "mother of Mohammed," Australia native Robyn (or Rabiah) Hutchinson lived for twenty years at the frontlines of the jihadist movement, after marrying first an Indonesian leader of...

The final volume of The Papers of Jefferson Davis follows the former president of the Confederacy through the completion of his two monumental works on the history of the Confederate States of America. In the first, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government...

A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775--1840) epitomized the "American democrat" who so famously fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the Old Southwest's greatest criminal...

Set in the twilight years of southern aristocracy, The Percys of Mississippi is a biography of a family in whose bloodline ran both a strong commitment to public service and an equally strong but more private dedication to literature. Following four generations of Percy...

In this exceptional biography, Canter Brown, Jr., removes Ossian Bingley Hart (1821-1874)--a Unionist, the principal founder of the Republican Party in Florida, and a Reconstruction-era governor of the state--from the shadows of history. Through an examination of Hart's life and career, Brown offers new...

R畴aga is the life story of Reynaldo Reyes, a Miskito Indian born in Nicaragua and a leader of the Miskito people in their struggle for political autonomy and cultural survival. Here Reyes tells of his childhood, his efforts to get an education, and his...

"Apartheid South Africa was on fire around me." So begins the memoir of Career Foreign Service Officer Edward J. Perkins, the first black United States ambassador to South Africa. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave him the unparalleled assignment: dismantle apartheid without violence. As...

This book examines how the spiritual longings of ordinary people have shaped the most progressive political and cultural movements of the twentieth century and given birth to a new postmodern perspective on existence that recoups the traditional religious verities on the far side of...

Vida Clandestina is the first U.S. publication of the dramatic memoir of an important Cuban revolutionary who led a dangerous double life from 1952 to1959. Educated at University of Miami, then a high-ranking manager and engineer for Shell Oil, Enrique Oltuski was also a...

For the first time, Wen Ho Lee speaks out: about his work at Los Alamos and his experiences with the FBI, about his arrest and imprisonment. In January of 1999, the arrest of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused...

Turmoil and Transition in Boston tells the personal and political story of Larry DiCara, the youngest person ever elected to the Boston City Council. DiCara's story is intimately woven into the fate of his hometown of Boston. Then a federal court order mandating busing...

First in-depth study of Manuell Castells pioneering work Traces Castells thought from his work on urban change in the 1970s to his recent theories of global social transformations Distills the central ideas in Castells work into an accessible and concise introduction for undergraduate students...

--- First biography of the political activist and acclaimed musician -- Sometimes described as 'the British Brecht', Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) was a major twentieth-century political artist. He became a communist at fourteen and spent six decades at the cultural forefront of numerous political struggles,...

Sylvia Pankhurst was a tireless activist for a variety of radical causes, including women's suffrage, labour movements and international solidarity campaigns. She made pioneering contributions to gender and class politics, revolutionary communist politics and the struggles against imperialism, racism and fascism. In addition, Pankhurst...

It was Betty Freidan herself, in Life So Far, who spoke about her life and career and told us what it was all like from the inside. With the unsparing frankness that made The Feminine Mystique one of the most influential books of the...

Author: Dorothy L. WakeISBN-10: 0738862452ISBN-13: 9780738862453Publisher: XlibrisLanguage: EnglishPublished: 12/01/2001Pages: 144Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.43lbsSize: 5.84h x 8.52w x 0.38d

Illinois women understand well that political currency is a delicate mix of connections, favors and power. They've also learned that the game is fixed, one that puts them, more often than not, in no-win situations. Award-winning journalist Kerry Lester collects the stories of harassment,...

A major figure in the history of twentieth-century American radicalism, William Z. Foster (1881-1961) fought his way out of the slums of turn-of-the-century Philadelphia to become a professional revolutionary as well as a notorious and feared labor agitator. Drawing on private family papers, FBI...

Let Them Tremble: Biographical Interventions Marking 100 Years of the Communist Party, USA is a collection of six biographies exploring unique and often neglected aspects of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA).Author: Tony PecinovskyISBN-10: 0717808491ISBN-13: 9780717808496Publisher: International PublishersLanguage: EnglishPublished: 11/21/2019Pages: 442Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.56lbsSize: 8.50h x...

Israeli Jews and Palestinians appear side by side for the first time in this remarkable book to share powerful feelings and reflections on growing up in one of the world's longest and most dangerous conflicts. Here, thirty-six men and women, boys and girls, tell...

Few books have so firmly established their place in American literature as The Education of Henry Adams. When it was first published in 1918, it became an instant bestseller and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. More than eighty years later, in an...

I didn't set out to be a terrorist. As a student activist, I moved from protesting the war in Vietnam to waging guerrilla warfare to overthrow the government. A bank robbery we undertook to finance this "revolution" resulted in the murder of Boston police...

A biography extending from Casement's Irish origins to his work in Africa and South America as British consul. Casement's official reports on the atrocities committed against the rubber gatherers brought him fame and led to reform of the rubber trade in the Congo and...

When Charles and Iola Medd left Thailand in June of 1957 they expected to return. For two years they had lived and worked together in the northeastern city of Nakhorn Rachisma for the United States Information Agency. Two for the price of one it...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our...

This is the first biography in ninety years of Reginald Pole (1500SH1558), one of the most important international figures of the sixteenth century. Pole's career is followed as prot g and then harshest critic of Henry VIII, as cardinal and papal diplomat, legate of...

Maximilien Robespierre is one of the greatest figures of European history but is at the same time one of the most reviled and revered. The essays in this volume seek to explain these contradictory views of Robespierre. They provide a balanced and up-to-date account...

One of the leading public intellectuals of twentieth-century America and a pioneering and brilliant social scientist, C. Wright Mills left a legacy of interdisciplinary and hard-hitting work including two books that changed the way many people viewed their lives and the structure of power...

Revealing and frank, this highly engaging biography tells the story of an American original, California's Big Daddy, Jesse Unruh (1922-1987), a charismatic man whose power reached far beyond the offices he held. Unruh, who was born into Texas sharecropper poverty, became a larger-than-life figure...

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only twentieth-century president consistently ranked by historians with the Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln. His leadership in the dark hours of the Depression and the Second World War has endowed him in the eyes of many with an aura...

As cultural revolutionary, media celebrity, Yippie, lost soul, and tragic suicide, Abbie Hoffman embodied the contradictions of his era. In this riveting new biography, Jonah Raskin draws on his own twenty-year relationship with Hoffman; hundreds of interviews with friends, family members, and former comrades;...

The story of Senator Joseph McCarthy's rise to unprecedented power and the decline of his influence is a dramatic one. Richard Rovere documents the process by which a clever, power hungry individual came to mislead and manipulate members of Congress and the American public...

Pioneering aviator, blackshirt leader, colonial governor, confidante and heir-apparent to Benito Mussolini, the dashing and charismatic Italo Balbo exemplified the ideals of Fascist Italy during the 1920s and 30s. He earned national notoriety after World War I as a ruthless squadrista whose blackshirt forces...

The untold story of Hamid Karzai's dramatic rise to the presidency of Afghanistan and the problems he and his country face In 2004, Hamid Karzai was elected president in Afghanistan's first-ever democratic election. Today, criticized for indecisiveness and targeted for assassination by extremists, President...

This authorized biography of Havel, based on unrestricted access to him, his circle, and even his enemies, is not only the first definitive account of one of the modern world's great moral and political leaders but also a vivid panorama of the tumultuous events...

Bismarck was arguably the most important figure in nineteenth-century European history after 1815. In this biography, Edgar Feuchtwanger reassesses Bismarck's significance as a historical figure. He traces his development from a typical Junker, a reactionary and conservative, into the so-called white revolutionary who recast...

This is a work of South Asian intellectual history written from a transnational perspective and based on the life and work of M.N. Roy, one of India's most formidable Marxist intellectuals. Swadeshi revolutionary, co-founder of the Mexican Communist Party, member of the Communist International...

Churchill examines the influential career of Winston Churchill, British Prime Minster during the Second World War and from 1951-55. It discusses his early career as Secretary of State for War and Air and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill as Warlord, and Churchill in opposition...

Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind provides the fullest view possible of the development of Kissinger's approach to foreign policy. It is essential reading for courses that deal with American foreign relations in the twentieth century.Author: Stephen R. GraubardISBN-10: 039309278XISBN-13: 9780393092783Publisher: W. W. Norton &...

Samuel Ward was the distinguished Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island in the period leading up to the Revolutionary War, a cause he famously supported. An able and efficient administrator, Ward would oversee Rhode Island during a period of both economic and social...

A rebel and risk-taker from childhood, John McCain--son and grandson of admirals--nevertheless chose to follow the traditional path marked out for him in the military. Nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison tested his resolve and proved his extraordinary resilience and will to...

The greatest political saga, the one that has it all, that gets to the real heart of American politics, is the John Edwards story... This isn't just politics, it's literature. It's the great American novel, the kind that isn't written anymore. --Michael Wolff on...

Fran輟is Mitterrand was a controversial politician with a contested strategy and a flawed character. In spite of being one of France's most detested political figures, he was also undoubtedly one of twentieth century Europe's most substantial, durable and statesmanlike leaders. From his much-disputed passages...

A firsthand observer weighs the achievements--and failures--of two fabled American presidents As a young White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years in Washington, D.C., Godfrey Hodgson had a ringside seat covering the last two great presidents of the United States, John F....

As a member of Salvador Allende's Personal Guards (GAP), Luz Arce worked with leaders of the Socialist Party during the Popular Unity Government from 1971 to1973. In the months following the coup, Arce served as a militant with others from the Left who opposed...

Playwright, journalist, and spectacularly successful governor, Carlos Lacerda was Brazil's foremost orator in the 20th century and its most controversial politician. He might have become president in the 1960s had not the military taken over. In the words of eminent historian José Honório Rodrigues,...

During the first half of the twentieth century, many young intellectuals and reformers sympathized with the aspirations of working people and supported the struggles of the labor movement. Powers Hapgood (1899-1949) was one of the most colorful and recognizable symbols of this crucial historical...