Trade Books for Courses :: Trade Books For Courses: Political Science Books

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Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet

The New Geopolitics of Energy

Michael T. Klare Holt Paperbacks

“If you want to understand the future of international relations, worry less about ideology and more about oil reserves. Michael Klare's superb new book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps, unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy in this country. As illuminating as it is unsettling.”—Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader

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The Shock Doctrine

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein Picador

“The Shock Doctrine is Klein’s ambitious look at the economic history of the last 50 years and the rise of free-market fundamentalism around the world . . . Klein provides a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries, and the human toll. She paints a disturbing portrait of hubris, not only on the part of Friedman but also of those who adopted his doctrines, sometimes to pursue more corporatist objectives. It is striking to be reminded how many of the people involved in the Iraq war were involved earlier in other shameless episodes in United States foreign policy history.”—Joseph E. Stiglitz, The New York Times Book Review

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Whose Freedom?

The Battle over America's Most Important Idea

George Lakoff Picador

"For Lakoff, [George W.] Bush's idea of freedom is deeply problematic—antithetical, in fact, to the 'progressive freedom' that Lakoff argues has defined America and made it great. This progressive definition of freedom—the more or less continuous expansion of rights, opportunity and citizen enfranchisement—stood unchallenged for many years. But now, that freedom is 'up for grabs,' and Lakoff is worried: 'To lose freedom is a terrible thing; to lose the idea of freedom is even worse' . . . In a series of chapters on economics, religion, foreign policy and personal freedom, Lakoff compares the implications of the liberal and conservative definitions of freedom . . . Lakoff is right to identify freedom as a concept that liberals need to think about more."— Michael Tomasky, The Washington Post Book World

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Thinking Points

Communicating Our American Values and Vision

George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

"George Lakoff serves progressives well by explaining how language and moral framing equals power in politics. Thinking Points helps leaders and activists alike to turn this knowledge into a compelling vision for society."—John Podesta, CEO and President, Center for American Progress

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The Atomic Bazaar

Dispatches from the Underground World of Nuclear Trafficking

William Langewiesche Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

“The Atomic Bazaar is an excellent introduction to this most discomfiting topic. It is remarkably comprehensive for a short book, especially given its pacy narrative. Through detailed reporting—from closed nuclear cities in the southern Urals to smuggler trails in Kurdistan—the author corrects many popular misunderstandings about the nuclear business.”—The Economist

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For the Soul of Mankind

The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War

Melvyn P. Leffler Hill and Wang

"With a keen eye for telling detail, a concern for the choices of individual leaders, and careful judgments, Leffler generates a narrative that carries the reader along as it develops important new ideas. This landmark study transcends many of our standard arguments about the Cold War to focus on what it was really about. Driving much of the maneuvering for security and advantage was the struggle over which political system could meet people’s needs and produce a better society."—Robert Jervis, Columbia University

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American Historical Association George Louis Beer Prize

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Awards

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Bella Abzug

How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied Against War and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way

Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

"Abzug was certainly a major player in our change in attitudes in the second part of the past century [and] Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom give us a fascinating glimpse into [an] inspirational but undeniably peculiar period that is receding, all too quickly, into the past."—Carolyn See, The Washington Post

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The Retail Revolution

How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business

Nelson Lichtenstein Metropolitan Books

"Nelson Lichtenstein has written the book on Wal-Mart. You can read it as a sober indictment of the rogue company that happens also to be the world’s largest corporation. Or you can read it as a brilliantly reported case study in what’s gone wrong with the American—and the global—economy. Either way, you will read it, as I did, with complete fascination."—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

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Soul of a Citizen

Living with Conviction in Challenging Times

Paul Rogat Loeb St. Martin's Griffin

“Soul of a Citizen has been a powerful resource to get thousands of students involved in their communities, giving them the opportunity to apply their learning in meaningful ways. This updated edition is both timely and exceptionally useful to campuses that want to reclaim higher education’s central role in educating responsible, democratic citizens.”—Carol Geary Schneider, President, American Association of Colleges and Universities

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The Challenge

How a Maverick Navy Officer and a Young Law Professor Risked Their Careers to Defend the Constitution--and Won

Jonathan Mahler Picador

"[The Challenge] tells the story of a captive who gave his name to a great constitutional decision; and it describes the personal struggles of his lawyers, their courage, and their faults . . . A work of rare drama."—Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books

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The Trouble with Islam Today

A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith

Irshad Manji St. Martin's Griffin

"Feels like a revelation . . . a raw nerve ending for the West—shocking, raw, but mercifully, joyously, still alive."—Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Book Review

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Readers Guides

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The Shape of Things to Come

Prophecy and the American Voice

Greil Marcus Picador

"A bold, brash book that reckons with the country’s genius for failure and seeks salvation in art, film, music and myth . . . Marcus finds hope and humor in the strangest places, as he’s done for more than 30 years as a fearless observer of scary America . . . Marcus willingly cedes center stage to his own authorial inventions and lets the prophesizing voices all around him do the talking."—Steven Jenkins, Green Cine.com

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Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

North Korea and the Kim Dynasty

Bradley K. Martin St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books

"As useful a set of insights into life in North Korea as can be found anywhere . . . Accumulates persuasive evidence about the indoctrination of children, the brutality of the gulags, and the persistent famine that began in the 1990s . . . [Kim Jong Il] may be a brutal despot presiding over a corrupt regime, but Martin is convinced that serious negotiations are possible."—Warren I. Cohen, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Crossing Over

A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail

Rubén Martínez Picador

"To read Crossing Over is to read not the history of the foreign other, but to read the story of America, to understand the dynamic that renews the strength and hope of the American Dream even as it reshapes it . . . He has depicted a deep, enduring commonality that may change the way we understand immigration."—Chicago Tribune

ALA Notable Books - Winner - Nonfiction

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Awards

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'What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?'

Jimmy Carter, America's 'Malaise,' and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country

Kevin Mattson Bloomsbury USA

“Boldly and with great style, Kevin Mattson captures the political, social, and cultural events that shaped Jimmy Carter's ‘malaise’ speech of July 15, 1979. He reveals how events abroad and at home—in the White House, at gas stations, on TV, and in learned books—shaped an opportunity to confront the energy problem, which the nation avoided at its own peril.”—Daniel Horowitz, professor of American Studies at Smith College and author of The Anxieties of Affluence

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Abraham Lincoln

The American Presidents Series: The 16th President, 1861-1865

The American Presidents

George S. McGovern; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Sean Wilentz, General Editors Times Books

"The greatness and imperfections of America's 16th president, captured by a former Democratic nominee for the White House. With considerable skill and insight, McGovern crafts a biography snappy, clear and comprehensive enough to please general readers, students and scholars alike. In eight short chapters, six of which deal with Lincoln's presidency, he nails the essential strengths, flaws, failures and achievements of America's most revered leader."—Kirkus Reviews

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Interviews

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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

"Political theorists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt show how the right to the pursuit of happiness presently enables foreign governments to exert adverse influence over foreign-policy questions of war and peace simply by coordinating the expression of private citizens' ostensible self-interest. Public-choice scholars and other curious individuals will relish the analysis and insights presented in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy."—James A. Montanye, The Independent Review

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America's Rasputin

Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War

David Milne Hill and Wang

“David Milne has given us an absorbing history of the rise to power of Walt Rostow and his disastrous impact on US foreign policy. The first civilian to advise Kennedy to deploy combat troops to South Vietnam and the first to urge bombing the North, Rostow was a true ideologue who believed an American version of democracy could be exported to other countries—if necessary by force . . . A book that vividly illuminates the dangers of ideology in foreign policy, America’s Rasputin could not be more timely.”—John Gray, author of Black Mass

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Temptations of the West

How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond

Pankaj Mishra Picador

"[A] fascinating, angry book about the impact of modernity on India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan and Tibet. Temptations of the West tells of the complex, often violent struggle of ancient societies to define themselves in the face of cultural, political and religious intrusions from outside . . . Mishra has a talent for discovering such extraordinary, even lurid characters to illuminate his account of dashed dreams, clashing religions, huge wealth, crushing poverty, corruption, oppression and, almost unbelievably, hope . . . This is not a gentle book, but it is a brave one—and, for anyone in the West able to look beyond clichés and rhetoric, an essential one."—Ben MacIntyre, The New York Times Book Review

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Human Cargo

A Journey Among Refugees

Caroline Moorehead Picador

"It is Moorehead's sensitivity to . . . historical circumstances and political contingencies—not to mention her considerable skills as a writer and storyteller—that makes her book such a vital contribution to debates over migration . . . She differs from those showy journalists of alarm who view the distress of others as an opportunity for overwrought prose and self-display . . . [S]he is devoted to the quiet narration of disquieting fact . . . If her brief is universal, her eye and ear are local, attuned and affixed to the toll of state policies and their historical context. Inevitably, she brings to mind the great Martha Gellhorn, the subject of her last biography, whose 'small, still voice' carried a 'barely contained fury and indignation at the injustice of fate and man against the poor, the weak, the dispossessed.'"—The Nation

ALA Notable Books - Winner - Nonfiction
National Books Critics Circle Awards - Nominee - Nonfiction

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Awards

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Blue Dixie

Awakening the South's Democratic Majority

Bob Moser Holt Paperbacks

“Through his revelatory reporting, Bob Moser illuminates the evolving political landscape of a new South that Democrats must engage—and respect—if they’re going to build a new progressive majority. Blue Dixie makes the most compelling case I’ve read for a why Democrats must not relinquish the South but, instead, compete hard for it s votes, hearts, and minds with a bracing message of economic fairness.”—Katrina Vanden Heuvel, author of The Dictionary of Republicanisms

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Dead Aid

Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Dambisa Moyo; Foreword by Niall Ferguson Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks

“An incendiary new book . . . Here is a refreshing voice . . . What makes Dead Aid so powerful is that it’s a double-barrelled shotgun of a book. With the first barrel, Moyo demolishes all the most cherished myths about aid being a good thing. But with the second, crucially, she goes on to explain what the West could be doing instead.”—Christopher Hart, The Daily Mail

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The Key to My Neighbor's House

Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda

Elizabeth Neuffer Picador

"Captures the human drama at the core of the [war crimes] trials . . . Neuffer manages to convey in intimate and sometimes painful detail the trauma of [the victims'] personal ordeals and the importance of their search for justice . . . Prodigious research and excellent reporting."—The New York Times Book Review

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Once Upon a Country

A Palestinian Life

Sari Nusseibeh with Anthony David Picador

“Mr. Nusseibeh’s very existence poses a challenge to many Israelis’ beliefs about themselves. But as Once Upon a Country, his fascinating and deeply intelligent memoir, makes clear, Mr. Nusseibeh is really an Israeli dream . . . Such refreshing self-deprecation—rare in Arab public writing—runs throughout this memoir, one of the best personal accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever written.”—Ethan Bronner, The New York Times

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