New York Times bestselling author of Accidental Presidents explores what happens after the most powerful job in the world: President of the United States.
Former presidents have an unusual place in American life. King George III believed that George Washington's departure after two terms made him "the greatest character of the age." But Alexander Hamilton worried former presidents might "[wander] among the people like ghosts." They were both right.
Life After Power tells the stories of seven former presidents, from the Founding to today. Each changed history. Each offered lessons about how to decide what to do in the next chapter of life.
Thomas Jefferson was the first former president to accomplish great things after the White House, shaping public debates and founding the University of Virginia, an accomplishment he included on his tombstone, unlike his presidency. John Quincy Adams served in Congress and became a leading abolitionist, passing the torch to Abraham Lincoln. Grover Cleveland was the only president in American history to serve a nonconsecutive term. William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Herbert Hoover shaped the modern conservative movement, led relief efforts after World War II, reorganized the executive branch, and reconciled John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter had the longest post-presidency in American history, advancing humanitarian causes, human rights, and peace. George W. Bush made a clean break from politics, bringing back George Washington's precedent, and reminding the public that the institution of the presidency is bigger than any person.
Jared Cohen explores the untold stories in the final chapters of these presidents' lives, offering a gripping and illuminating account of how they went from President of the United States one day, to ordinary citizens the next. He tells how they handled very human problems of ego, finances, and questions about their legacy and mortality. He shows how these men made history after they left the White House.
Sailing Upwind is more than just another memoir of a distinguished former naval officer's highly diverse career. This book by Admiral James 'Sandy' Winnefeld is also intended to offer useful reflections regarding how he accepted and managed risk along the way, as well as a concise description of the qualities one must develop to become a successful leader. Winnefeld began his career as an F-14 fighter pilot and TOPGUN instructor, commanded an aircraft carrier, and then served in a variety of flag officer billets on the way to becoming the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This book describes in an entertaining and humble manner how that journey unfolded. The listener learns what it is like to become a Navy fighter pilot, and to fly, fight, and takeoff and land from an aircraft carrier-including a harrowing description of ejecting from an F-14 at night far from land. Winnefeld describes the culture of excellence at the real TOPGUN and the Navy's nuclear propulsion program. He recounts how he learned to lead the men and women who operate at every level of Navy operational command, from squadron to ship to fleet.
Finally, the author presents a behind-the-scenes look at how decisions are made at the highest levels of government regarding whether and how those forces will be used, and how they are acquired.
Lisa Bailey never considered a career working in death until she saw the FBI job posting for a forensic artist. The idea of using her artistic skill to help victims of crime was too compelling to pass up.
Soon she was documenting crime scenes, photographing charred corpses, and digitally retouching the disembodied heads of suicide bombers. But it was facial approximation-sculpting a face from the remnants of an unidentified victim's skull-that intrigued her the most. Bailey knew that if she could capture that person's likeness in clay, she just might help them be identified, and that might help law enforcement track down their killer.
Bailey worked on hundreds of cases and grew to become a subject matter expert in the field. It was the most challenging and fulfilling work she could have imagined, and she never thought of leaving. But her life changed when she became the target of sexual discrimination and harassment. She was stunned when FBI management protected the abusers and retaliated with threats, slander, and an arsenal of lawyers. Trapped in an increasingly hostile work environment, and infuriated at the hypocrisy of the FBI's tactics, Bailey decided to fight back. Clay and Bones is a memoir with a mission, and a fascinating exploration into the surreal and satisfying work of a forensic artist.
KEIR STARMER: The Biography is an authoritative study of a man who now stands on the brink of becoming Britain's next Prime Minister. If he succeeds, Starmer will be the first Labour leader in a generation to win power, even though most voters still say they don’t know much about him.
It not only tells Starmer’s story but also examines the paradox of a politician often uncomfortable with politics, someone who is both remarkably ordinary and capable of defying all efforts to define him.
Intended for publication in the foothills of a General Election campaign where all aspects of his life will come under the most intense scrutiny, the book is the result of more than a hundred hours of interviews with Starmer himself, his family, his closest friends, his most senior lieutenants, as well as opponents both from the Conservative Party and within his own.
The book offers readers a fuller picture of his working class family and education, the values that drove him on through a career as a lawyer and public prosecutor, as well as his record since entering politics.
It provides new detail about the role he played in bitter battles over Brexit and antisemitism, shows how he has transformed his party’s fortunes, and offers insight about the way he would govern if he enters Downing Street in what will be the most straitened circumstances facing any new Prime Minister since the end of the Second World War.
Fiorello LaGuardia was one of the twentieth century's most colorful politicians-on the New York and national stage. He was also quintessentially American: the son of Italian immigrants, who rose in society through sheer will and chutzpah. Almost one hundred years later, America is once again grappling with issues that would have been familiar to the Little Flower, as he was affectionately known. It's time to bring back LaGuardia, argues historian and journalist Terry Golway, to remind us all what an effective municipal officer (as he preferred to call himself) can achieve . . .
Golway examines LaGuardia's extraordinary career through four essential qualities: As a patriot, a dissenter, a leader, and a statesman. He needed them all when he stood against the nativism, religious and racial bigotry, and reactionary economic policies of the 1920s, and again when he faced the realities of Depression-era New York and the rise of fascism at home and abroad in the 1930s. Just before World War II, the Roosevelt administration formally apologized to the Nazis when LaGuardia referred to Hitler as a 'brown-shirted fanatic.'
There was nobody quite like Fiorello LaGuardia. In this immensely listenable book, as entertaining as the man himself, Terry Golway captures the enduring appeal of one of America's greatest leaders.
Over the course of the last half dozen years, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping has made extraordinary changes which have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China's relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi's rule, it is imperative that we know what Xi Jinping Thought is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.
In The Political Thought of Xi Jinping, Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung provide an authoritative overview of what 'Xi Jinping Thought' is and is not and what it means for both China and the world. Xi, now effectively leader for life, has worked to ensure that 'Xi Jinping Thought' becomes cemented as the new state ideology. Clearly inspired by the doctrine of 'Mao Zedong Thought,' which shaped the parameters of acceptable thinking for a quarter century, Xi wants his doctrine to define what he calls the 'China Dream of national rejuvenation' and serve the pathway to its fulfillment by 2050. Drawing from original research of Xi's speeches, writings, and policies, Tsang and Cheung conceptualize Xi's vision independently from interpretations provided by the Chinese Communist Party or other sources. They further examine and explain how Xi seeks to transform this vision into reality.
Trish spends her time hustling and cheating to score. Heroin, Dilaudids, whatever she can get.
Precisely plotting the slippery slope of a heroin addict's existence, The Hummingbird Kiss paints a bleak picture but still manages to offer a ray of hope. The '70s are young, and 18-year-old Trish is a newlywed. When a Florida judge sentences her junkie husband to ten years for stealing stereos, she immediately seeks out a fix, and before she knows it she's hooked. There follows a long sojourn as she and her friends work small scams to score, head to California in search of better highs, move back to Florida, shoot up and nod off every chance they get — until death gets some of them.
MacEnulty has constructed a gritty and sorrowful book about a young girl with an appetite for the damage done. Trish comes from a broken but still functional family. She's witty, articulate and street-smart enough to know better than to get caught up in this life of self destruction, but childhood abandonment and the ensuing self-loathing are too much for her to manage without medication. Her life unravels as her cross-country wanderings take her from drug dens to rehabs to prison, with a few bleary-eyed months spent scoring drugs in the Tijuana barrios.
The author spares us no detail of her sordid descent, but Trish remains an engaging voice whose innate grain of goodness and interest in humanity keeps the reader on her side. Trish declines to blame anyone for her calamitous state. All she wants is the 'hummingbird kiss of the needle' — the most wonderful experience she knows — until she inevitably winds up in prison and rediscovers the girl she once was.
'Searingly honest, often funny, always sordid story of a junkie’s life in the 1970s.'—Chauncey Mabe, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
How to Steal a City is the gripping insider account of this intervention, which lays bare how Nelson Mandela Bay metro was bled dry by criminal syndicates, and how factional politics within the ruling party abetted that corruption.
As a former senior state official and local government ‘fixer’, Crispian Olver was no stranger to dodgy politicians and broken organisations. Yet what he found in Nelson Mandela Bay went far beyond rigged contracts, blatant conflicts of interest and garden-variety kickbacks. The city’s administration had evolved into a sophisticated web of front companies, criminal syndicates and compromised local politicians and officials. The metro was effectively controlled by a criminal network closely allied to a dominant local ANC faction. What Olver found was complete state capture – a microcosm of what has taken place in national government.
Olver and his team initiated a clean-up of the administration, clearing out corrupt officials and rebuilding public trust. Then came the ANC’s doomed campaign for the August 2016 local government elections. Having lost its way in factional battles and corruption, the divided party went down to a humiliating defeat in its traditional heartland.
Olver paid a high price for his work in Nelson Mandela Bay. Intense political pressure and even threats to his personal safety took a toll on his mental and physical health. When his political support was withdrawn, he had to flee the city as the forces stacked against him took their revenge. This is his story.
Erich Mühsam war ein anarchistischer Dichter, den deutsche Nazis ermordeten und dessen Bücher sie verbrannten. Erich Mühsam war den Nazis, aber auch allen anderen Anhängern eines deutschen Obrigkeitsstaates als Jude, als Antifaschist, als Dichter des Klassenkampfes und als geistiger Anführer der Münchener Räterepublik verhasst. Vor allem war er ihnen jedoch verhasst, weil er bis zuletzt an der Utopie einer befreiten Menschheit festhielt. Und weil der Antisemitismus in Deutschland und in ganz Europa bis heute eine widerwärtige Zeiterscheinung ist, ist das Werk Erich Mühsams bis heute aktuell. Die Literatur Erich Mühsams ist Ausdruck einer unangepassten Lebensweise, die sich gegen die repressiven Normen und Werte einer patriarchalisch-autoritären Gesellschaft zur Wehr setzt.
Der Satiriker Henning Venske, Mitglied der Erich-Mühsam-Gesellschaft, liest Prosa, Lyrik und politische Texte von Erich Mühsam, die heute immer noch – und gerade wieder besonders – aktuell sind, eingebunden in die Erzählung vom wechselvollen Leben dieses unbeugsamen Anarchisten, Militaristen und Propagandisten eines besseren Lebens.
Bettina Görings Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer dunklen Familiengeschichte und dem verbrecherischen Erbe Ihres Großonkels, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring
Bettina Görings Name ist ihr Schicksal. Als Großnichte von Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring wächst sie im Schatten seiner Verbrechen auf. Früh rebelliert sie und entflieht der bedrückenden Verbindung in die Welt der Hippies und Freigeister.
Doch weder in der linken Kommune noch im Aschram in Poona kann sie ihrer Vergangenheit entkommen. Sie erkennt, dass auch sie falschen Führern hinterhergelaufen ist und dass allein die Auseinandersetzung mit der dunklen Seite ihrer Familie sie befreien kann. Bettina Göring gewährt einen sehr persönlichen Einblick in die Geschichte ihrer Familie und legt ein mutiges Zeugnis ab über den Umgang mit ihrem schwierigen Erbe.
Dieses Buch legt den Finger in die Wunde der deutschen Erinnerungskultur – und wird dabei aus einer persönlichen und erlebbaren Perspektive erzählt. Es ergründet die Frage, wie sich der Schatten unserer deutschen Vergangenheit bis heute auf uns auswirkt und damit gleichzeitig die Sinnfrage einer ganzen Generation in den Fokus.
Narrado por la autora
Prólogo de Ciro Gómez Leyva «A Rosario la clavaron en la cárcel para convertirla en un objeto de deshonra, en un símbolo de inagotable humillación. No lo consiguieron. Ya en libertad, sin el rencor como combustible, ha sabido resurgir fortalecida para rehacerse e incluso tratar de regresar a la vida pública.»
-Ciro Gómez Leyva
Estas líneas representan lo vivido en mil 101 días de cautiverio injusto, de lo aberrante que significa el abuso de la prisión preventiva en nuestro país, pues se convierte en una condena anticipada, una estigmatización, violatoria de la inocencia. Hoy tengo la oportunidad de contar mi verdad, que nunca será absoluta, lo que aprendí a un alto precio. De recordar pasajes de una lucha que no fue sencilla por no venir de una familia con pedigrí político, una clasemediera a la que le tocó, junto con otras compañeras de generación con convicciones semejantes, romper el techo de cristal en los ámbitos del poder. Hoy debo volver a batallar para señalar un hecho profundamente injusto: la operación que pretendió destrozar una carrera política de tantos años. En este libro se recogen también revelaciones simbólicas de quienes son privadas de su libertad, de sus tragedias personales; contiene recuerdos de los logros y aportaciones a favor de un país al que amo y que he recorrido de cabo a rabo. Es un testimonio —para cuando yo ya no esté— de la necesidad de dejar claro que sí se puede llegar alto a pesar de todos los intentos por destruir esa trayectoria. Estoy empeñada en que se recuerde que después del viacrucis siempre viene la resurrección. Rosario Robles
В творі (значною мірою автобіографічному) йдеться про трагічну долю сім'ї сільського коваля Якова Чумака, зокрема, його наймолодшого сина Андрія, про те, як люди зберігали гідність на межі буття і смерті.
«Сад Гетсиманський» — один з перших творів у світовій літературі, в якому з позиції учасника подій викрито злочини сталінського режиму.
Дія твору розгортається в Харкові, у в'язницях на Раднаркомівській та Холодній горі. Всі імена та прізвища в'язнів і співробітників НКВС в цій книзі правдиві.
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