Random House New Releases - Political Science - Between November 29, 2008 and December 29, 2009.

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling by Anne E. Kornblut

2009-12-29T00:30:00-05:00

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win
Written by Anne E. Kornblut

In the presidential election of 2008 America seemed ready to elevate a woman to the presidency or vice presidency and—with Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin—was on the verge of actually doing so. Words like inevitable and phenomenon were in the air and the political and cultural stars seemed to be aligned.

Why didn’t it happen? What will it take to make it happen soon?

In a probing analysis sure to ignite controversy, acclaimed White House correspondent Anne Kornblut argues that the optimists are blind to formidable obstacles that still stand in the way of any woman who aims for America’s highest political offices. And she makes clear exactly which strategies and common assumptions will need to change if a woman intends to break through the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” of all. Delving deep inside the Clinton and Palin campaigns, Kornblut reveals:

• the strategists’ mishandling of their candidates as women by failing to strike the right balance between femininity and toughness

• Clinton’s weathering of a series of stinging gender-based attacks, until accusations of “pimping out” her daughter, Chelsea, finally brought her to tears

• that Barack Obama was celebrated for his “historic”win in Iowa, even though it was not the first time an African American had won a caucus, but few noticed when Clinton became the first woman to win a primary in New Hampshire

• that Palin was chosen solely by men, none of whom had experience in running women for office

Drawing from exclusive interviews with prominent women in both parties, Kornblut pinpoints where politically ambitious American women have gone wrong and what it will take to put them on track to the ultimate prize: the presidency. Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice asserts: “We crossed the bar on African Americans some time ago. I’m not quite sure we’ve crossed it on women.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarks on the “suit of armor” women must don to survive the sexism and viciousness of politics. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano confronts the false rumors that she is a lesbian and reveals what an invigorating “kick in the pants” it is to be in politics. And California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, the former head of eBay, compares politics to business: “It feels to me, thus far, as less of a meritocracy and more of a popularity contest. More of a little bit of an old boys’ club.”

Kornblut identifies the surprising realities of gender politics, such as the harsh treatment female candidates often receive from women voters, the gap between the United States and other countries when it comes to the electability of women, the “mommy penalty” that handicaps women candidates with young children, and the special appeal that women with law enforcement backgrounds have with voters.

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling reveals that the highly touted new era of gender-equal politics never got as far as was commonly perceived and is now in full retreat. It is essential reading for anyone who cares about politics and the limits for women that persist.

From the Hardcover edition.

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling by Anne E. Kornblut

2009-12-29T00:30:00-05:00

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win
Written by Anne E. Kornblut

One Man's America by George Will

2009-11-17T00:30:00-05:00

One Man's America The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
Written by George Will

In his provocative and compelling new book, America’s most widely read and most influential commentator casts his gimlet eye on our singular nation. Moving far beyond the strict confines of politics, George F. Will offers a fascinating look at the people, stories, and events–often unheralded–that make the American drama so endlessly entertaining and instructive.

With Will’s signature erudition and wry wit always on display, One Man’s America chronicles a spectacular, eclectic procession of figures who have shaped our cultural landscape–from Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., from Victorian poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from cotton picker— turned—country singer Buck Owens to actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan.

Will crisscrosses the country to illuminate what it is that makes America distinctive. He visits the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor and ponders its enduring links to the present. He travels to Milwaukee to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of an iconic brand, Harley-Davidson. In Los Angeles he finds the inspiring future of education, while in New York he confronts the dispiriting didacticism of the avant-garde. He ventures to the Civil War battlefields of Virginia to explore what we risk when we efface our own history. And on the outskirts of Chicago he investigates one of the darkest chapters in American history, only to discover a shining example of resilience and grace–the best the country has to offer.

Will’s wide lens takes in much more as well–everything from the “most emblematic novel of the 1930s” (and no, it is not about the Joads) to the cult of ESPN to Brooks Brothers and Ben & Jerry’s. And of course, One Man’s America would not be complete without the author’s insights on the national pastime, baseball–the icons and the cheats, the hapless and the greats.

Finally, in a personal and reflective turn, Will writes movingly of his thirty-five-year-old son Jon, born with Down syndrome, and pays loving and poignant tribute to his mother, who died at the age of ninety-eight after a long struggle with dementia.

The essays in One Man’s America, even when critiquing American culture, reflect Will’s deep affection and regard for our nation. After all, he notes, when America falls short, it does so only as compared to “the uniquely high standards it has set for itself.” In the end, this brilliantly informative and entertaining book reminds us of the enduring value of “the simple virtues and decencies that can make communities flourish and that have made America great and exemplary.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism by George Weigel

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism
Written by George Weigel

With an unsettled Middle East, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups actively plotting against America and its allies, and spillover from religious conflict in Muslim countries spreading instability and violence worldwide, George Weigel’s Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism is an acute analysis of one of the most dynamic forces in world politics today – Islamist jihadism. After tracing the complex historical and theological roots of the jihadist movement, Weigel offers a comprehensive strategy for defeating jihadism and supporting those forces within Islam that seek a Muslim accommodation with religious freedom, the separation of religious and political authority in the state, and other key accomplishments of political modernity. Above all, Weigel insists, the West must take seriously the religious origins and rationale of jihadism if it is to meet the challenge posed by men of violence who claim to act in the name of God.

Essential reading in a time of momentous political decisions, Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism is a clarion call for a new seriousness of debate and a new clarity of purpose in American public life.

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy by Susan Griffin

2009-11-10T00:30:00-05:00

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy On Being an American Citizen
Written by Susan Griffin

What does is it mean to be a citizen of the United States? Susan Griffin’s provocative investigation of that question takes us from the Declaration of Independence to the Iraq War, with many stops in between. Her conclusion: democracy is nothing less than a revolution of consciousness, and the revolution has just begun.

Defend the Realm by Christopher Andrew

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew

An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism. The book describes how MI5 has been managed, what its relationship has been with government, where it has triumphed, and where it has failed. In all of this no restriction has been placed on the judgments made by the author.

Defend the Realm also adds significantly to our knowledge of many celebrated events and notorious individuals and definitively lays to rest a number of persistent myths. Above all, it shows the place of this previously extremely secretive organization within the United Kingdom. Few books could make such an immediate and extraordinary increase to our understanding of British history over the past century.

Defend the Realm by Christopher Andrew

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm by Robin Sachs

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew
Read by Robin Sachs

Science as a Contact Sport by Tim Flannery

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate
Written by Stephen H. Schneider
Introduction by Tim Flannery

It’s been nearly four decades since scientists first realized that global warming posed a potential threat to our planet. Why, if we knew of the threats way back in the Carter Administration, can’t we act decisively to limit greenhouse gases, deforestation, and catastrophic warming trends? Why are we still addicted to fossil fuels? Have we all just been fiddling for 40 years as the world burns around us?

Schneider, part of the Nobel Prize–winning team that shared the accolade with Al Gore in 2007, had a front-row seat at this unfolding environmental meltdown. Piecing together events like a detective story, Schneider reveals that as expert consensus grew, well-informed activists warned of dangerous changes no one knew how to predict precisely—and special interests seized on that very uncertainty to block any effective response. He persuasively outlines a plan to avert the building threat and develop a positive, practical policy that will bring climate change back under our control, help the economy with a new generation of green energy jobs and productivity, and reduce the dependence on unreliable exporters of oil—and thus ensure a future for ourselves and our planet that’s as rich with promise as our past.

Science as a Contact Sport by Stephen H. Schneider

2009-11-03T00:30:00-05:00

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate
Written by Stephen H. Schneider

Hell or High Water by Paul Martin

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of Politics
Written by Paul Martin

National bestseller

Paul Martin was the Prime Minister we never really knew — in this memoir he emerges as a fascinating flesh and blood man, still working hard to make a better world.

“The next thing you know, I was in a jail cell.” (Chapter 2)

“From the moment I flipped his truck on the road home to Morinville…” (Chapter 3)

“When I came back into Aquin’s headquarters I had a broken nose.” (Chapter 4)

These are not lines that you expect in a prime ministerial memoir. But Paul Martin — who led the country from 2003 to 2006 — is full of surprises, and his book will reveal a very different man from the prime minister who had such a rough ride in the wake of the sponsorship scandal.

Although he grew up in Windsor and Ottawa as the son of the legendary Cabinet Minister Paul Martin, politics was not in his blood. As a kid he loved sports, and had summer jobs as a deckhand or a roustabout. As a young man he plunged into family life, and into the business world. After his years as a “corporate firefighter” for Power Corporation came the excitement of acquiring Canada Steamship Lines in Canada’s largest ever leveraged buy-out, “the most audacious gamble of my life.”

In 1988, however, he became a Liberal M.P., ran for the leadership in 1990 and in 1993 became Jean Chrétien’s minister of finance, with the country in a deep hole. The story of his years as perhaps our best finance minister ever leads to his account of the revolt against Chrétien, and his time in office.

Great events and world figures stud this book, which is firm but polite as it sets the record straight, and is full of wry humour and self-deprecating stories. Far from ending with his defeat in 2006, the book deals with his continuing passions, such as Canada’s aboriginals and the problems of Africa.

This is an idealistic, interesting book that reveals the Paul Martin we never knew. It’s a pleasure to meet him.

From the Hardcover edition.

Hell or High Water by Paul Martin

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of Politics
Written by Paul Martin

Revolution 1989 by Victor Sebestyen

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Revolution 1989 The Fall of the Soviet Empire
Written by Victor Sebestyen

From the author of Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution comes a revealing new account of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s European empire during months of largely peaceful revolution that profoundly changed the world.

At the start of 1989, six European nations were Soviet vassal states. By year’s end, they had all declared national independence, embarking on the road to democracy. How did it happen so quickly? Why did the USSR capitulate so readily? Victor Sebestyen, who was on the scene reporting for the London Evening Standard at the time, draws on his firsthand knowledge of the events of 1989, on scores of interviews with other witnesses and participants, and on newly uncovered archival material to answer these questions in unprecedented depth.

Sebestyen tells the story through the eyes of ordinary men and women, some of whom found themselves almost miraculously transformed: the furnace stoker who became the Czech foreign minister; the Romanian poet who, just freed from jail, was made vice president of the newly liberated nation. He shows how power was wielded or ceded by Mikhail Gorbachev, George H. W. Bush, Lech Walesa, Václav Havel, and Margaret Thatcher, among others; how the KGB helped bring down former allied regimes; how the United States tried to slow the process; and why the collapse of the Iron Curtain was the catalyst for the fall of the entire Soviet empire.

Authoritative, riveting in both its broad political sweep and its abundance of personal detail, this is an essential addition to the annals of contemporary history.

Shakedown by Ezra Levant

2009-10-27T00:30:00-05:00

Shakedown How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights
Written by Ezra Levant

Part memoir, part investigative journalism, this is a shocking and controversial look at the corruption of Canada’s human rights commissions.

“On January 11, 2008, I was summoned to a 90-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of “discrimination,” and made to appear before Alberta’s “human rights commission” for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons.”

As a result of this highly publicized event, Ezra Levant began investigating other instances in which innocent people have had their freedoms compromised by bureaucrats presuming to protect Canadians’ human rights. He discovered some disturbing and even bizarre cases, such as the tribunal ruling that an employee at a McDonald’s restaurant in Vancouver did not have to wash her hands at work. And the human rights complaint filed by a Calgary hair stylist against the women at a salon school who called him a “loser.” In another case that seemed stranger than fiction, an emotionally unstable transvestite fought for — and won — the right to counsel female rape victims, despite the anguished pleas of those same traumatized victims. Human rights commissions now monitor political opinions, fine people for expressing politically incorrect viewpoints, censor websites, and even ban people, permanently, from saying certain things.

The book is a result of Levant’s ordeal and the research it inspired. It shows how our concept of human rights has morphed into something dangerous and drastically different from its original meaning. Shakedown is a convincing plea to Canadians to reclaim their basic liberties.

From the Hardcover edition.

The Republican War Against Women by Tanya Melich

2009-10-21T00:30:00-05:00

The Republican War Against Women An Insider's Report from Behind the Lines
Written by Tanya Melich

Pushing Past the Night by Michael Moore

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms With Italy's Terrorist Past
Written by Mario Calabresi
Translated by Michael Moore

December 15, 1969, was the most important day of Mario Calabresi's life, although he would not be born for another year. On that date, the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli fell to his death from a window at the Milan police headquarters, where he was being questioned about his role in the Piazza Fontana massacre, the most infamous episode of domestic terrorism in Italy.
Police Inspector Luigi Calabresi, Mario's father, was in the building, though not in the room, at the time of the accident. This didn't stop the rumors that Pinelli had been killed by Calabresi. These suspicions kicked off "a ferocious lynching, albeit in slow motion"—as the Italian paper La Repubblica characterized it—that culminated in the murder of Luigi Calabresi outside his home one morning in 1972. Calabresi left behind his pregnant wife and two young sons.
In this memoir, Mario Calabresi explores the personal and political fallout of Italy's era of domestic terrorism in a poignant and very personal account. His grief at the murder of his father is balanced by a desire to overcome the divisions that still scar Italy today. This powerful book calls not only for accountability but also for redemption. As Mario Calabresi's mother always told him, you have to look to the future, stake your bets on life, and refuse to be a prisoner of hatred.

Pushing Past the Night by Roger Cohen

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms with Italy's Terrorist Past
Written by Mario Calabresi
Translated by Michael Moore
Introduction by Roger Cohen

Uncivil Society by Jan Gross

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment
Written by Stephen Kotkin
Contribution by Jan Gross

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. In one of modern history’s most miraculous occurrences, communism imploded–and not with a bang, but with a whimper. Now two of the foremost scholars of East European and Soviet affairs, Stephen Kotkin and Jan T. Gross, drawing upon two decades of reflection, revisit this crash. In a crisp, concise, unsentimental narrative, they employ three case studies–East Germany, Romania, and Poland–to illuminate what led Communist regimes to surrender, or to be swept away in political bank runs. This is less a story of dissidents, so-called civil society, than of the bankruptcy of a ruling class–communism’s establishment, or “uncivil society.” The Communists borrowed from the West like drunken sailors to buy mass consumer goods, then were unable to pay back the hard-currency debts and so borrowed even more. In Eastern Europe, communism came to resemble a Ponzi scheme, one whose implosion carries enduring lessons. From East Germany’s pseudotechnocracy to Romania’s megalomaniacal dystopia, from Communist Poland’s cult of Mary to the Kremlin’s surprise restraint, Kotkin and Gross pull back the curtain on the fraud and decadence that cashiered the would-be alternative to the market and democracy, an outcome that opened up to a deeper global integration that has proved destabilizing.

Uncivil Society by Jan Gross

2009-10-06T00:30:00-05:00

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment
Written by Stephen Kotkin
Contribution by Jan Gross

The Predictioneer's Game by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

2009-09-29T00:30:00-05:00

The Predictioneer's Game Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future
Written by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a master of game theory, which is a fancy label for a simple idea: People compete, and they always do what they think is in their own best interest. Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory and its insights into human behavior to predict and even engineer political, financial, and personal events. His forecasts, which have been employed by everyone from the CIA to major business firms, have an amazing 90 percent accuracy rate, and in this dazzling and revelatory book he shares his startling methods and lets you play along in a range of high-stakes negotiations and conflicts.

Revealing the origins of game theory and the advances made by John Nash, the Nobel Prize—winning scientist perhaps best known from A Beautiful Mind, Bueno de Mesquita details the controversial and cold-eyed system of calculation that he has since created, one that allows individuals to think strategically about what their opponents want, how much they want it, and how they might react to every move. From there, Bueno de Mesquita games such events as the North Korean disarmament talks and the Middle East peace process and recalls, among other cases, how he correctly predicted which corporate clients of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm were most likely engaged in fraudulent activity (hint: one of them started with an E). And looking as ever to the future, Bueno de Mesquita also demonstrates how game theory can provide successful strategies to combat both global warming (instead of relying on empty regulations, make nations compete in technology) and terror (figure out exactly how much U.S. aid will make Pakistan fight the Taliban).

But as Bueno de Mesquita shows, game theory isn’t just for saving the world. It can help you in your own life, whether you want to succeed in a lawsuit (lawyers argue too much the merits of the case and question too little the motives of their opponents), elect the CEO of your company (change the system of voting on your board to be more advantageous to your candidate), or even buy a car (start by knowing exactly what you want, call every dealer in a fifty-mile radius, and negotiate only over the phone).

Savvy, provocative, and shockingly effective, The Predictioneer’s Game will change how you understand the world and manage your future. Life’s a game, and how you play is whether you win or lose.

From the Hardcover edition.

Random House New Releases - Political Science - Between November 29, 2008 and December 29, 2009.

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling by Anne E. Kornblut

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to WinWritten by Anne E. Kornblut

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling by Anne E. Kornblut

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to WinWritten by Anne E. Kornblut

One Man's America by George Will

One Man's America The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular NationWritten by George Will

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism by George Weigel

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism Written by George Weigel

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy by Susan Griffin

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy On Being an American CitizenWritten by Susan Griffin

Defend the Realm by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5Written by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5Written by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm by Robin Sachs

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5Written by Christopher Andrew Read by Robin Sachs

Science as a Contact Sport by Tim Flannery

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's ClimateWritten by Stephen H. Schneider Introduction by Tim Flannery

Science as a Contact Sport by Stephen H. Schneider

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's ClimateWritten by Stephen H. Schneider

Hell or High Water by Paul Martin

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of PoliticsWritten by Paul Martin

Hell or High Water by Paul Martin

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of PoliticsWritten by Paul Martin

Revolution 1989 by Victor Sebestyen

Revolution 1989 The Fall of the Soviet EmpireWritten by Victor Sebestyen

Shakedown by Ezra Levant

Shakedown How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human RightsWritten by Ezra Levant

The Republican War Against Women by Tanya Melich

The Republican War Against Women An Insider's Report from Behind the LinesWritten by Tanya Melich

Pushing Past the Night by Michael Moore

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms With Italy's Terrorist PastWritten by Mario Calabresi Translated by Michael Moore

Pushing Past the Night by Roger Cohen

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms with Italy's Terrorist PastWritten by Mario Calabresi Translated by Michael Moore Introduction by Roger Cohen

Uncivil Society by Jan Gross

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist EstablishmentWritten by Stephen Kotkin Contribution by Jan Gross

Uncivil Society by Jan Gross

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist EstablishmentWritten by Stephen Kotkin Contribution by Jan Gross

The Predictioneer's Game by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

The Predictioneer's Game Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the FutureWritten by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win
Written by Anne E. Kornblut

Notes from the Cracked Ceiling Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and What It Will Take for a Woman to Win
Written by Anne E. Kornblut

One Man's America The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
Written by George Will

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism
Written by George Weigel

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy On Being an American Citizen
Written by Susan Griffin

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew

Defend the Realm The Authorized History of MI5
Written by Christopher Andrew
Read by Robin Sachs

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate
Written by Stephen H. Schneider
Introduction by Tim Flannery

Science as a Contact Sport Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate
Written by Stephen H. Schneider

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of Politics
Written by Paul Martin

Hell or High Water My Life in and out of Politics
Written by Paul Martin

Revolution 1989 The Fall of the Soviet Empire
Written by Victor Sebestyen

Shakedown How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights
Written by Ezra Levant

The Republican War Against Women An Insider's Report from Behind the Lines
Written by Tanya Melich

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms With Italy's Terrorist Past
Written by Mario Calabresi
Translated by Michael Moore

Pushing Past the Night Coming to Terms with Italy's Terrorist Past
Written by Mario Calabresi
Translated by Michael Moore
Introduction by Roger Cohen

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment
Written by Stephen Kotkin
Contribution by Jan Gross

Uncivil Society 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment
Written by Stephen Kotkin
Contribution by Jan Gross

The Predictioneer's Game Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future
Written by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita