Books on Current Events

Blackwater

The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By Jeremy Scahill

Meet Blackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. With its own military base, a fleet of 20 aircraft, and 20,000 troops at the ready, Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the "global war on terror."

Jeremy Scahill has won the prestigious 2007 George Polk Book Award for this bestselling exposé. On September 21, Scahill testified before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on the use of private contractors in Iraq. Read the transcript here.

Blood of the Earth

The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources

By Dilip Hiro

There's No Jose Here

Following the Hidden Lives of Mexican Immigrants

By Gabriel Thompson

Target Iran

The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change

By Scott Ritter

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens

By Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper

Dictionary of Republicanisms

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel, celebrated editor of The Nation, asked her readers to help decipher Republican doublespeak. The result is Dictionary of Republicanisms, a grassroots groundswell of hilarious submissions.

101 People Who Are Really Screwing America

(And Bernard Goldberg is Only #73)

By Jack Huberman

From the bestselling author of The Bush-Hater's Handbook comes this hilarious riposte to Bernard Goldberg's absurd right-wing attack on American liberals. 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America names the real "crooks liars, and cheats" who undermine American democracy.

Breaking Rank

A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing

By Norm Stamper

"Stamper has written a tremendously important book, pulling no punches as he takes a searing look at law enforcement as it is - and as it should be.... Shocking, heartbreaking, hilarious and illuminating, Breaking Rank will attract both cops and 'civilians.' I loved it." --Ann Rule

Life Out of Context

By Walter Mosley

This powerful meditation by the bestselling author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries explores his evolution as an African-American writer and ends with a call to action.

The Big Empty

Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America

By Norman Mailer and John Buffalo Mailer

In this collection of conversations, John Buffalo Mailer poses a series of questions to his father, challenging the reflections and insights of the man who has dominated and defined much of American letters for the past sixty years.

Darfur Diaries

Stories of Survival

By Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro

In November 2004, three independent filmmakers traveled to eastern Chad and crept across the border into Darfur. Improvising as they went, they spoke with dozens of Darfurians, learning about their history, hopes, and fears, and the resilience and tragedy of their everyday lives.

Darfur Diaries was selected as a "Book of Conscience" by the American Booksellers Association and the Genocide Prevention Project to help commemorate April 2009 as Genocide Prevention Month.

Fighting Words

A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right

By Robin Morgan

Blackout

How the Electric Industry Exploits America

By Gordon L. Weil

Ever since Thomas Edison created the first electrical utility, the energy industry has cheated American customers with impunity. Blackout delves into the history of this increasingly monopolized--and corrupt--industry.

The Motherhood Manifesto

What America's Moms Want--And What to Do About It

By Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

The Motherhood Manifesto is a call to arms for working moms and a blueprint for radical change in the attitudes and policies that define parenting and work in the United States.

How To Steal An Election

The Inside Story of How George Bush's Brother and Fox Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Course of History

By David Moore

When Florida Governor Jeb Bush persuaded the Fox Network to call the presidential election for George W. Bush on Election Night 2000, the move triggered other news networks to make the same erroneous call, and Al Gore to concede the election.

Mission Unaccomplished

Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts & Dissenters

By Tom Engelhardt

Unnatural Disaster

The Nation on Hurricane Katrina

By Betsy Reed

In the months that followed Hurricane Katrina, The Nation published a series of articles and editorials documenting the gross negligence of the Bush administration, the failures of neoliberalism, and the heroic effort of community organizers and ordinary citizens to put New Orleans back together again.

Crimes of War: Iraq

By Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier and Robert Jay Lifton

From the same editorial team whose 1971 Crimes of War became one of the definitive Vietnam-era accounts of American war crimes comes this penetrating inquiry into the legal, historical, and psychological dimensions of the war in Iraq.

The Hijacking of Jesus

How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate

By Dan Wakefield

Millions of devout Christians like Dan Wakefield are appalled by the religious right's distortion of their faith.

Zioncheck for President

A True Story of Idealism and Madness in American Politics

By Phil Campbell

Zioncheck for President tells the true story of Grant Cogswell, Seattle poet, punk rock fan, anarchist, and grassroots activist who ran for city council in 2001. Unfolding in parallel is the tale of US representative Marion Anthony Zioncheck, a legendary boozer and forgotten lefty radical from the 1930s.

Letters from Young Activists

Today's Rebels Speak Out

By Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin , Kenyon Farrow and Bernardine Dohrn

In letters addressed to their parents, to past generations, to each other, to the youth of tomorrow and to their future selves, a bold new generation of activists--aged 10 to 31--articulate their vision for the world.

Inside the Resistance

The Iraqi Insurgency and the Future of the Middle East

By Zaki Chehab

While most Western journalists report from Iraq either from the safety of their hotel rooms or embedded with the US military, Zaki Chehab goes into the Sunni Triangle and other danger zones. The result is the first authoritative portrait of the insurgency in all its complexity.

Iraq Confidential

The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein

By Scott Ritter

New in Paperback

Scott Ritter is the straight-talking former marine officer whom the CIA wants to silence. After the 1991 Gulf War, Ritter helped lead the UN weapons inspections of Iraq. But, as Ritter reveals in this explosive book, Washington was only interested in inspections as a tool for its own agenda.

Steal This Vote:

Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America

By Andrew Gumbel

In Democracy's Shadow

The Secret World of National Security

By Marcus G. Raskin and A. Carl LeVan

This collection of groundbreaking essays by historians, lawyers, anthropologists and public scholars shows how the "National Security State" has shaped our government for at least a century. 9/11 and its aftermath invigorated the twin demons of American interventionism overseas and intolerance at home, but the editors of this book claim that these developments, though profound, are not radical departures.

Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror

By Terry Jones

Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror proves that in times of high political anxiety, humor and irony are most potent antidotes to the spin emanating from the White House and Downing Street. From the co-creator of Monty Python comes this bitingly hilarious collection of writing about the American and British responses to 9/11.

The Jonathan Schell Reader

On the United States at War, the Long Crisis of the American Republic, and the Fate of the Earth

By Jonathan Schell

Correspondent, commentator and political thinker, Jonathan Schell has selected the best of almost four decades of his work and woven it together into a coherent narrative about our fallen yet incontestably inspiring world. Selections are drawn from his bestselling book The Fate of the Earth, his famed reports in The New Yorker, Harper's and Newsday, among many other publications.

The Truth About Camp David

The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process

By Clayton E. Swisher

"Clayton E. Swisher is the first to research the mistakes and miscalculations made by the Clinton administration that led to the collapse of the Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Any future mediator will have to read this account before the start of any final-status negotiations." --Charles Enderlin, author of Shattered Dreams.

The Betrayal Of America

How The Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President

By Vincent Bugliosi

"It is a pathetic spectacle that Bugliosi beckons us to behold--this high, hallowed court and its revered majority sold out to Power." --Gerry Spence, from his Foreword

A Just Response

The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy and September 11, 2001

By Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jonathan Schell

In a series of thoughtful, informed and provocative essays written after September 11, some of the most respected figures on the progressive left analyzed the causes and consequences of the terrorist attacks, articulating a vision of what a just response to terrorism might look like.

Nothing Sacred

Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror

By Betsy Reed and Katha Pollitt

Long before the White House took notice of the Taliban's brutal treatment of Afghan women, feminists were sounding an alarm about the rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world and its deadly consequences for women. Yet women's voices have been conspicuously absent from the debate over the new war on terror. Nothing Sacred breaks this silence.

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

How We Got to Be So Hated

By Gore Vidal

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed unpublishable in this country until now), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following both September 11 and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City: These were simply the acts of "evil-doers."

Freedom Next Time

Resisting the Empire

By John Pilger

Waging Peace

The Art of War for the Anti-War Movement

By Scott Ritter

The Full Rudy

The Man, the Myth, the Mania

By Jack Newfield

New Edition

The GOP-Hater's Handbook

378 Reasons Never to Vote for the Party of Reagan, Nixon and Bush Again

By Jack Huberman

Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side

Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay

By Clive Stafford Smith

Read the author's testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in May 2008. Find out more about Clive Stafford Smith.

The Man Who Pushed America to War

The Extraordinary Life, Adventures and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi

By Aram Roston

Read an adaptation of the book.

Read a review in Congressional Quarterly.

Read more about Aram Roston and check out his website.

How to Rule The World

The Coming Battle over the Global Economy

By Mark Engler

The Samaritan's Dilemma

Should Government Help Your Neighbor?

By Deborah Stone

Read reviews of the book here and here.

Blackwater (paperback)

The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By Jeremy Scahill

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries opened fire in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians, among them women and children. In this fully revised and updated paperback, award-winning investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill reveals the explosive story of the company that has become the new face of the U.S. war machine.

Jeremy Scahill recently won the prestigious 2007 George Polk Book Award.

Collateral Damage

America's War Against Iraqi Civilians

By Laila Al-Arian and Chris Hedges

In this devastating exposé, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges and journalist Laila Al-Arian reveal the terrifying reality of daily civilian life in Iraq at the hands of U.S. troops. Collateral Damage is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with combat veterans who explain the tactics and operations that have turned many Iraqis against the U.S. military.

Michael Schwartz wrote on The Huffington Post that the book "offers the best account so far of what Hedges calls the 'vast enterprise of industrial slaughter unleashed in Iraq,' and its impact on the troops who are trained and ordered to administer it."

The Age of the Warrior

Selected Essays

By Robert Fisk

"Robert Fisk is one of the outstanding reporters of this generation. As a war correspondent he is unrivalled."
—Financial Times

Backstabbing for Beginners

My Crash Course in International Diplomacy

By Michael Soussan

The Wall Street Journal listed Backstabbing for Beginners as one of the 12 best books of 2008.

The Future's So Bright, I Can't Bear to Look

By Tom Tomorrow

"Hail Tom Tomorrow!"
—Michael Moore

Meltdown

How Greed and Corruption Shattered our Financial System and How We Can Recover

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

The Gods that Failed

How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future

By Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson

Halliburton's Army

How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War

By Pratap Chatterjee

Watch Pratap Chatterjee discuss Halliburton's Army on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

The Man Who Pushed America To War

The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi

By Aram Roston

The Silence and the Scorpion

The Coup Against Chávez and the Making of Modern Venezuela

By Brian A. Nelson

"The events of the April 2002 Venezuelan coup to oust President Hugo Chávez are brought to light here in unparalleled investigative reporting by Nelson...
His fascinating and harrowing account is part documentary, part eyewitness to history, yet always riveting...
At times reading like fiction, his enjoyable text is the definitive account of Chávez's ouster and return, devoid of loyal or opposition rhetoric...
Highly recommended."
—Library Journal

Collateral Damage (paperback)

America's War Against Iraqi Civilians

By Laila Al-Arian and Chris Hedges

In this devastating exposé, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges and journalist Laila Al-Arian reveal the terrifying reality of daily civilian life in Iraq at the hands of U.S. troops. Collateral Damage is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with combat veterans who explain the tactics and operations that have turned many Iraqis against the U.S. military.

Republican Gomorrah

Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party

By Max Blumenthal

Click here to see details of his book tour. Blumenthal's book is #15 on the New York Times bestseller list.

China Safari

On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa

By Serge Michel, Michel Beuret and Paolo Woods

China Safari tells the amazing—and largely unknown—story of the rise of China's economic empire in Africa and how it will change the 21st century and eclipse the role of the West in Africa. China is now Africa’s second largest business partner with trade now at more than $100 billion a year, and growing; it seems destined to succeed where the West has failed. But is China starting to repeat the imperial arrogance of earlier colonial powers? The authors try to answer this question, unearthing the extraordinary human stories underlying China's new ventures in Africa.

Empire of Illusion

The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

By Chris Hedges

Listen to the podcast of Hedges' October 7 talk here.

Working In The Shadows

A Year of Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do

By Gabriel Thompson

What is it like to do the back-breaking work of immigrants? To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent a year working alongside Latino immigrants who initially thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Thompson shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate U.S. citizens alike, forced to live with chronic back pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.

Watch Thompson on C-SPAN's Book TV on March 20-21.

Stripping Bare the Body

Politics Violence War

By Mark Danner

Stripping Bare the Body is a book of stories telling how politics–and its handmaidens: violence and war–is practiced in the brutal worlds of Iraq, the Balkans, Haiti, the "black sites" and Washington, D.C. It shows at close hand how terrorism works and how war looks and smells and feels. As a newly installed Haitian president told Mark Danner, then on assignment for The New Yorker in riot-torn Port-au-Prince, "Violence strips bare a society's body, the better to place the stethoscope and track the life beneath the skin."

"With this vivid and deeply disturbing book, Mark Danner affirms his standing as our preeminent guide to the world's broken places, littered with the detritus of American carelessness and delusions."
–Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

Soccernomics

Why England Loses, Why Germany And Brazil Win, And Why The U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey—And Even Iraq—Are Destined To Become The Kings Of The World's Most Popular Sport

By Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

"A brainteaser of a book for any beach-bound soccer fan."
—Bloomberg News' 50 Favorite Business Books

Soccernomics was featured in a major article in The New York Times about England's prospects in the World Cup.

Murder City

Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields

By Charles Bowden

Ciudad Juárez lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. A once-thriving border city, it now resembles a failed state—in 2008 alone, 1,607 people were murdered. In Murder City, award-winning author Charles Bowden has written an extraordinary account of what happens when a city collapses into violence.

Watch Bowden on Democracy Now! and listen to his interview on NPR's Morning Edition.

Halliburton's Army (paperback)

How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War

By Pratap Chatterjee

"A sordid tale of politics and profiteering... A report that deserves many readers, about matters that deserve many indictments."
—Kirkus

Beware of Small States

Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East

By David Hirst

In this magisterial history of Lebanon, from the end of the Ottoman rule to the Hizbullah and Hamas wars of today, David Hirst, the acclaimed and fiercely independent Middle East journalist and historian, charts with extraordinary skill and lucidity the intricate interplay between Lebanon and its geopolitical environment. This is also a history of the whole Middle East and above all, of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"A brilliant analytical mind."
—Robert Fisk

Newsweek reviewed Hirst's book in the "We Read it so You Don't Have to" section of their magazine.

Mohamed's Ghosts

An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland

By Stephan Salisbury

Mohamed Ghorab had no hint one late spring morning that when he dropped his daughter off at school, his life would change forever. Federal agents and police surrounded him, eventually deporting him. This was a fearful time in the life of America following 9/11; exploring these events, Salisbury was constantly reminded of similar incidents in his own past—the paranoia and police activity that surrounded his political involvement in the 1960s and the surveillance and informing that dogged his father, a well-known New York Times reporter and editor, for half a century. Salisbury weaves these strands together into a personal portrait of an America fracturing under the intense pressure of the war on terror—the homeland in the time of Osama.

Listen to Salisbury discuss his book on July 29, 2010 at NYPL's Mid-Manhattan location at 6.30 p.m.

Republican Gomorrah (Paperback)

Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party

By Max Blumenthal

An explosive bestseller, Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal, and crime from the movement that runs the Republican Party. A hard-hitting look at the people and beliefs behind the fringe wing of the Right in America, Republican Gomorrah finds that a culture of personal crisis and trauma has united conservatives—many of whom will stop at nothing to delegitimize the Obama presidency and radicalize the nation. With a new introduction and original reporting on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and the midterm elections.

"An irresistible combination of anthropology and psychopathology that exerts the queasy fascination of (let's face it) something very like pornography."
—Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker

Aftermath

Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World

By Nir Rosen

Nir Rosen's Aftermath is an extraordinary feat of reporting that follows the contagious spread of radicalism and sectarian violence that the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing civil war have unleashed in the Middle East. Taking us from Iraq to Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and finally Afghanistan, acclaimed journalist Rosen goes to the alleys, deserts, refugee camps, mosques, and battlefields of the post-invasion Muslim world to show how the American military has influenced Iraq and Afghanistan and how it has been influenced by its new theater of operations. Aftermath is an unsparing account of what America has wrought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Brilliantly reported and deeply humane."
—Andrew Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War