Why Nations Fail
The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Written by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Format: Hardcover, 544 pages
Publisher: Crown Business
On Sale: March 20, 2012
Price: $30.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-71921-8 (0-307-71921-9)

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?

Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are?

Simply... Read more >

The Mercury 13
The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight
Written by Martha Ackmann
Foreword by Lynn Sherr

Format: Trade Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: July 13, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75893-5 (0-375-75893-3)

In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America’s first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by... Read more >

The Revolt of the Cockroach People

Written by Oscar Zeta Acosta

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 28, 1989
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-72212-0 (0-679-72212-2)

Introduction by Hunter S. Thompson
Afterword by Marco Acosta.

In this exhilarating sequel to The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Oscar Zeta Acosta (the real life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo") takes readers behind the front lines of the militant Chicano movement of the late sixties and seventies. Before... Read more >

The Mystery of Flight 427
Inside a Crash Investigation
Written by Bill Adair

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: January 17, 2004
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-089-4 (1-58834-089-9)

The immediate human toll of the 1994 Flight 427 disaster was staggering: all 132 people aboard died on a Pennsylvania hillside. The subsequent investigation was a maze of politics, bizarre theories, and shrouded answers. Bill Adair, an award-winning journalist, was granted special access to the five-year inquiry by the National Transportation... Read more >

Anti-Capitalism

Written by Ezequiel Adamovsky
Illustrated by United Illustrators
Translated by Marie Trigona

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: May 3, 2011
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-60980-087-1 (1-60980-087-7)

In Anti-Capitalism, activist and scholar Ezequiel Adamovsky tells the story of the long-standing effort to build a better world, one without an abusive system at its heart. Backed up by arresting, lucid images from the radical artist group United Illustrators, Adamovsky details the struggle against rising corporate power, as that struggle... Read more >

The Education of Henry Adams
An Autobiography
Written by Henry Adams
Introduction by Edmund Morris

Format: Trade Paperback, 560 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: May 11, 1999
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-64010-3 (0-679-64010-X)

"I cannot remember when I was not fascinated by Henry Adams,"said Gore Vidal. "He was remarkably prescient about the coming horrors."

His political ideals shaped by two presidential ancestors—great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John Quincy Adams—Henry Adams was one of the most powerful and original minds to confront the American scene from... Read more >

Remembering Tomorrow
From SDS to Life After Capitalism: A Memoir
Written by Michael Albert

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: January 2, 2007
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-742-8 (1-58322-742-3)

In this lucid political memoir, veteran anti-capitalist activist Michael Albert offers an ardent defense of the project to transform global inequality. Albert, a uniquely visionary figure, recounts a life of uncompromising commitment to creating change one step at a time. Whether chronicling the battles against the Vietnam War, those waged on... Read more >

Uncovering Race
A Black Journalist's Story of Reporting and Reinvention
Written by Amy Alexander

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: October 11, 2011
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-6100-8 (0-8070-6100-X)

From an award-winning black journalist, a tough-minded look at the treatment of ethnic minorities both in newsrooms and in the reporting that comes out of them, within the changing media landscape.

Amy Alexander fell in love with journalism as a child in San Francisco during the tumultuous late 1960s. After landing her... Read more >

Circle in the Sand
The Bush Dynasty in Iraq
Written by Christian Alfonsi

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 9, 2007
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-9606-0 (1-4000-9606-5)

An important, massively researched and revelation-filled work of history that uncovers how decisions made by the first Bush White House preordained the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq.

“Is this a one-time thing, or should we foreshadow more to come?”

This was the prophetic question posed by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in... Read more >

America's Constitution
A Biography
Written by Akhil Reed Amar

Format: Trade Paperback, 672 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: September 12, 2006
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7272-6 (0-8129-7272-4)

In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution... Read more >

Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair

Written by Anthony Arthur

Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: June 6, 2006
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6151-8 (1-4000-6151-2)

Few American writers have revealed their private as well as their public selves so fully as Upton Sinclair, and virtually none over such a long lifetime (1878—1968). Sinclair’s writing, even at its most poignant or electrifying, blurred the line between politics and art–and, indeed, his life followed a similar arc. In... Read more >

Empowering Public Wisdom
A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics
Written by Tom Atlee

Format: Trade Paperback, 280 pages
Publisher: EVOLVER EDITIONS
On Sale: August 7, 2012
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-58394-500-1 (1-58394-500-8)

Beyond elections, public participation, and citizen input, democracy must produce wise public policy–or else the nation will find itself in real trouble. In Empowering Public Wisdom, lifelong activist Tom Atlee proposes innovative and practical ideas for collecting and distilling the wisdom of ordinary people in order to infuse the political process... Read more >

Powerful Medicines
The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs
Written by Jerry Avorn, M.D.

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 9, 2005
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3078-1 (1-4000-3078-1)

If you believe that the latest blockbuster medication is worth a premium price over your generic brand, or that doctors have access to all the information they need about a drug’s safety and effectiveness each time they write a prescription, Dr. Jerry Avorn has some sobering news. Drawing on more than... Read more >

Powerful Medicines
The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs
Written by Jerry Avorn, M.D.

Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: August 17, 2004
Price: $27.50
ISBN: 978-0-375-41483-1 (0-375-41483-5)

If you believe that the latest blockbuster medication is worth a premium price over your generic brand, or that doctors have access to all the information they need about a drug’s safety and effectiveness each time they write a prescription, Dr. Jerry Avorn has some sobering news. Drawing on more than... Read more >

Fugitive Days
Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist
Written by William Ayers

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: January 1, 2009
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-3277-0 (0-8070-3277-8)

Bill Ayers was born into privilege and is today a highly respected educator. In the late 1960s he was a young pacifist who helped to found one of the most radical political organizations in U.S. history, the Weather Underground. In a new era of antiwar activism and suppression of protest, his... Read more >

U.S. Constitution For Beginners

Written by Steve Bachmann
Illustrated by Jorge Diaz

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: For Beginners
On Sale: April 17, 2012
Price: $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-934389-62-1 (1-934389-62-5)

In a combination of witty text and crisp illustrations, U.S. Constitution For Beginners takes a tongue-in-cheek look at America’s most critical legal document. Author and lawyer Steve Bachmann has written a text that touches on the document’s history beginning all the way in 1215 AD with the Magna Carta. He then... Read more >

Illegal People
How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants
Written by David Bacon

Format: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 1, 2009
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-4230-4 (0-8070-4230-7)

For two decades David Bacon has documented the connections between labor, migration, and the global economy. In Illegal People he explains why our national policy produces even more displacement, migration, immigration raids, and an increasingly divided and polarized society. Arguing for a sea change in how we think, debate, and legislate... Read more >

See No Evil
The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Written by Robert Baer

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: January 7, 2003
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4684-3 (1-4000-4684-X)

In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA’s efforts to root out the world’s deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and... Read more >

Sleeping with the Devil
How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Written by Robert Baer

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: May 25, 2004
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5268-4 (1-4000-5268-8)

“Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state—a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can’t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global... Read more >

The New Media Monopoly
A Completely Revised and Updated Edition With Seven New Chapters
Written by Ben H. Bagdikian

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: May 15, 2004
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-6187-9 (0-8070-6187-5)

When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian’s warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation’s news “alarmist.” Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America’s daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers... Read more >

A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense

Written by Normand Baillargeon
Illustrated by Charb
Translated by Andrea Schmidt

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: February 5, 2008
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-765-7 (1-58322-765-2)

What is the relationship between democracy and critical thinking? What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? In A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, historian and educator Normand Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through the spin and jargon of everyday politics and... Read more >

To Begin the World Anew
The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders
Written by Bernard Bailyn

Format: Trade Paperback, 204 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 10, 2004
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-71308-8 (0-375-71308-5)

Two time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bernard Bailyn has distilled a lifetime of study into this brilliant illumination of the ideas and world of the Founding Fathers. In five succinct essays he reveals the origins, depth, and global impact of their extraordinary creativity.

The opening essay illuminates the central importance of America’s provincialism... Read more >

From the Closet to the Courtroom
Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation
Written by Carlos A. Ball and Michael Bronski

Format: Trade Paperback, 296 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: May 10, 2011
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0153-0 (0-8070-0153-8)

Selected as a 2011 University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries
•Rated G — General Audience

Engaging and largely untold, From the Closet to the Courtroom explores how five pivotal lawsuits have altered LGBT history. Beginning each case narrative at the center–with the litigants and their lawyers–law professor Carlos Ball follows... Read more >

Cancer in the Community
Class and Medical Authority
Written by Martha Balshem

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: August 17, 1993
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-251-7 (1-56098-251-9)

Focusing on deep conflicts between the medical establishment and the working class, Martha Balshem chronicles a health education project in “Tannerstown,” a pseudonym for a blue-collar neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia.

“Balshem conducted anthropological research as a means of exploring the limitations and possibilities of community-based approaches to cancer prevention. . . ... Read more >

Body of Secrets
Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency
Written by James Bamford

Format: Trade Paperback, 784 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 30, 2002
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49908-8 (0-385-49908-6)

The National Security Agency is the world’s most powerful, most far-reaching espionage. Now with a new afterword describing the security lapses that preceded the attacks of September 11, 2001, Body of Secrets takes us to the inner sanctum of America’s spy world. In the follow-up to his bestselling Puzzle Palace, James... Read more >