Politics Audiobooks

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America’s first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. Not this one. This history is Black AF.  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, “a strikingly fresh cultural critic” (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between. Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society—state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, women’s rights post-Dobbs, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy—alongside more individually personalized matters: can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily 8 am meeting? In her role as a New York Times opinion section contributor and the publication’s “Work Friend” columnist, she reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights. Opinions is a collection of Roxane Gay’s best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years. Covering a wide range of topics—politics, feminism, the culture wars, civil rights, and much more—with an all-new introduction in which she reflects on the past decade in America, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Roxane Gay’s devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Cassidy Hutchinson’s desk was mere steps from the most controversial president in recent American history. Now, she provides a riveting account of her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman thrust into the middle of a national crisis, where she risked everything to tell the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington. Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House. Her life took a dramatic turn on January 6th, 2021, when, at twenty-four, she found herself in one of the most extraordinary and unprecedented calamities in modern political history. Hutchinson was faced with a choice between loyalty to the Trump administration or loyalty to the country by revealing what she saw and heard in the attempt to overthrow a democratic election. She bravely came forward to become the pivotal witness in the House January 6 investigations, as her testimony transfixed and stunned the nation. In her memoir, Hutchinson reveals the struggle between the pressures she confronted to toe the party line and the demands of the oath she swore to defend American democracy. Enough reaches far beyond the typical insider political account. It’s the saga of a woman whose fierce determination helped her overcome childhood challenges to get her dream job, only to face a crisis of conscience—one that more senior White House aides tried to evade—and, in the process, find her voice and herself. This is a portrait of how the courage of one person can change the course of history.

From a team of leading Ukrainian reporters, 77 Days of February is the bracingly powerful and intimate story of the early days of the Russian invasion of their thriving, independent nation. It brings to the world, in a way not seen before, the experiences of everyday Ukrainians whose lives have been forever torn apart by this brutal and illegal war, and celebrates their monumental strength and resilience. The twenty-four stories here, along with an introduction by Serhiy Zhadan, the internationally revered writer, musician, and activist, share the harrowing struggles of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and reveal compassion, sacrifice, and heroism at every turn. Written in real time, these reports bring the first days of Ukraine invasion viscerally to life. There is the man in Bucha who lost his entire family to the shelling and now gives interviews to journalists next to the graves of his wife and children, so that the world might better understand Russia’s crimes against humanity. There is the woman in Kharkiv, raped for a week by a Russian soldier who then shoots her ailing mother dead in front of her. The police patrol that collects bodies, victims of Russian rage. The fourteen-year-old boy who is taken by Russian soldiers to Belarus—one of thousands of such cases—and the remarkable campaign to bring about his return. The workers at the zoo in occupied Demydiv, near Kyiv, who endure near-constant threats of execution so that Archie the rhino, Lekha the camel, and 300 other animals have at least some chance of survival. The young Kharkiv family, moving from subway to basement to survive the bombing, until they have no choice but to make a daring escape from the city. The old man in the war-torn city of Irpin, alone and unable to walk—and the de-mining trainer who fights for days to reach the town, find him, starved and naked but alive, and rescue him…. These and so many other accounts of relentless courage amidst unspeakable violence make 77 Days of February an invaluable work of urgent, lived, history. The stories take place in the first 76 days of the war, between February 23 and May 9—two symbolic dates in Russian military ideology. On February 23, Russia celebrates Defender of the Fatherland Day; May 9 marks Victory Day over Nazi Germany. In contemporary Russia, under the influence of relentless  propaganda, these dates are used to reinforce the Kremlin’s superiority toward its neighbors and the world, as well as its determination to restore the Russian empire through military force. For the title of this book, the journalists of Reporters decided to add one more day, as a reminder that the war did not end on May 9 and continues still.   To read 77 Days of February is to be plunged into the lives of astonishing people joined by a shared determination to cope, resist, and persevere. It is a fiercely inspired work of journalism that may change the way you view not only this terrible war but the world and the heroes who live among us.

“One of the rare books on the topic that manages to be both entertaining and factually grounded.” —The Wall Street Journal From the bestselling author of Raven Rock, The Only Plane in the Sky, and Watergate (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history) comes the first comprehensive and eye-opening exploration of our government’s decades-long quest to solve one of humanity’s greatest mysteries: Are we alone in the universe? For as long as we have looked to the skies, the question of whether life on earth is the only life to exist has been at the core of the human experience, driving scientific debate and discovery, shaping spiritual belief, and prompting existential thought across borders and generations. It’s one of our culture’s favorite conversations, and yet, the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence has been largely banished to the realm of fantasy and conspiracy. Now, for the first time, the full story of our national obsession with UFOs—and the covert search by scientists, the United States military, and the CIA for proof of alien life—is told by bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff in a deeply reported and researched history. It begins in 1947, when two headline-making sightings of strange flying objects prompt the US Air Force’s newly formed Department of Defense to create a series of secret programs to determine how unidentified phenomena may pose a threat to national security. Over the next half-century, as the atomic age gives way to the space race and the Cold War, the mission continues, bringing together an unexpected group of astronomers, military officials, civilian contactees, and true believers who bring us closer, then further, then closer again, to answering one of our most enduring questions: What exactly is out there? Drawing from original archival research, declassified documents, and interviews with senior intelligence and military officials, Graff brings readers a story that’s “Loads of fun…[a] fascinating deep dive down the rabbit hole” (Publishers Weekly).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! In this illuminating and “scoop-rich biography…the tell-all tales rush forth” (Los Angeles Times) offering a “penetrating analysis of the ongoing Republican civil war through the eyes of one of its last embattled centrists” (Publishers Weekly). Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection. Despite these moments of public courage, Romney has shared very little about what he’s witnessed behind the scenes over his three decades in politics—in GOP cloakrooms and caucus lunches, in his private meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his dealings with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. Now, Romney provides a window to his most private thoughts. Based on dozens of interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals and private emails, this in-depth portrait by award-winning journalist McKay Coppins shows a public servant authentically wrestling with the choices he has made over his career. In lively, revelatory detail, the book traces Romney’s early life and rise through the ranks of a fast-transforming Republican Party and exposes how a trail of seemingly small compromises by political leaders has led to a crisis in democracy. “A rare feat in modern-day political reporting” (The New Yorker), Romney: A Reckoning is a redemptive story about a complex politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life.

An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today's great power rivalry-the struggle to control artificial intelligence. A new industrial revolution has begun. Like mechanization or electricity before it, artificial intelligence will touch every aspect of our lives-and cause profound disruptions in the balance of global power, especially among the AI superpowers: China, the United States, and Europe. Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre takes listeners inside the fierce competition to develop and implement this game-changing technology and dominate the future. Four Battlegrounds argues that four key elements define this struggle: data, computing power, talent, and institutions. Data is a vital resource like coal or oil, but it must be collected and refined. Advanced computer chips are the essence of computing power-control over chip supply chains grants leverage over rivals. Talent is about people: which country attracts the best researchers and most advanced technology companies? The fourth "battlefield" is maybe the most critical: the ultimate global leader in AI will have institutions that effectively incorporate AI into their economy, society, and especially their military.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography and leading geopolitics expert comes an “insightful, hopeful, and endlessly fascinating” (Daily Express) book on today’s space race—including the increasingly tense power struggle between the US, China, and Russia and what it means for all of us here on Earth. Spy satellites orbiting the moon. Space metals worth more than most countries’ GDP. People on Mars within the next ten years. This isn’t science fiction—it’s reality. Humans are venturing up and out, and we’re taking our competitive spirit with us. Soon, what happens in space will shape human history as much the mountains, rivers, and seas have impacted civilizations around the world. It’s no coincidence that Russia, China, and the USA are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics and the world order as we know it. In this must-read work, bestselling author Tim Marshall navigates the new astropolitical reality to show how we got here and where we’re heading. Extensively researched, “thought-provoking” (Popular Science), and drawing on the latest information from intelligence, government, and civilian institutions, this book provides a detailed, clear account of the new space race, the power rivalries, and how technology, economics, and war have a ripple effect on everyone across the globe. Written with all the insight and wit that have made Marshall one of the world’s most popular and trusted writer on geopolitics, The Future of Geography is an essential read about global power, politics, and the future of humanity.

A “galvanizing” (The Wall Street Journal) deep dive into cancel culture and its dangers to all Americans from the team that brought you Coddling of the American Mind. Cancel culture is a new phenomenon, and The Canceling of the American Mind is the first book to codify it and survey its effects, including hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and right both working to silence their enemies. The Canceling of the American Mind changes how you view cancel culture. Rather than a moral panic, we should consider it a dysfunctional part of how Americans battle for power, status, and dominance. Cancel culture is just one symptom of a much larger problem: the use of cheap rhetorical tactics to “win” arguments without actually winning arguments. After all, why bother refuting your opponents when you can just take away their platform or career? The good news is that we can beat back this threat to democracy through better citizenship. The Canceling of the American Mind offers concrete steps toward reclaiming a free speech culture, with materials specifically tailored for parents, teachers, business leaders, and everyone who uses social media. We can all show intellectual humility and promote the essential American principles of individuality, resilience, and open-mindedness.

Acclaimed journalist Simon Shuster gives us the first inside account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, who granted him unprecedented access. Time correspondent Simon Shuster chronicles the life and wartime leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky from the dressing rooms of his variety show in Ukraine to the muddy trenches of his war with Russia. Based on four years of reporting; extensive travels with President Zelensky to the front; and dozens of interviews with him, his wife, his friends and enemies, his advisers, ministers and military commanders, The Showman tells an intimate and eye-opening story of the President’s evolution from a slapstick actor to a symbol of resilience, revealing how he managed to rally the world’s democracies behind his cause. The book’s early chapters offer the first detailed account of Zelensky’s life in a nuclear bunker in the opening weeks of the invasion and the circumstances of his wife’s escape to safety with their children. Later, as the Russians retreat from Kyiv, we see Zelensky and his team emerge from the bunker and lead Ukraine in a series of crucial victories. The result is a riveting, up-close picture of the invasion as experienced by its number one target and improbable hero.  Clear-eyed about the President’s early failures as a peacemaker and his willingness to silence political dissent, the book offers a complex picture of a man struggling to break what he sees as a historical cycle of oppression that began generations before he was born. Even as the war drags on, Zelensky lays out his vision for its future course and, through his actions, demonstrates his strategy for countering the Russians and keeping the West on his side. The Showman, as a work of eyewitness journalism, provides an essential perspective on the war defining our age. As a study in leadership and human resolve, its appeal is timeless and universal.  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

An unprecedented look inside the global battle to power our lives from acclaimed Reuters reporter Ernest Scheyder. A new economic war for critical minerals has begun, and The War Below is an urgent dispatch from its front lines. To build electric vehicles, solar panels, cell phones, and millions of other devices means the world must dig more mines to extract lithium, copper, and other vital building blocks. But mines are deeply unpopular, even as they have a role to play in fighting climate change and powering crucial technologies. These tensions have sparked a worldwide reckoning over the sourcing of necessary materials, and no one understands the complexities of these issues better than Ernest Scheyder, whose exclusive access to sites around the globe has allowed him to gain unparalleled insights into a future without fossil fuels. The War Below reveals the explosive brawl among industry titans, conservationists, community groups, policymakers, and many others over whether some places are too special to mine or whether the habitats of rare plants, sensitive ecosystems, Indigenous holy sites, and other places should be dug up for their riches. With vivid and engaging writing, Scheyder shows the human toll of this war and explains why recycling and other newer technologies have struggled to gain widespread use. He also expertly chronicles Washington’s attempts to wean itself off supplies from China, the global leader in mineral production and processing. The War Below paints a powerfully honest and nuanced picture of what is at stake in this new fight for energy independence, revealing how America and the rest of the world’s hunt for the “new oil” directly affects us all.

An explosive, first-person account chronicling the rise of the MAGA movement from acclaimed political journalist Tina Nguyen, who began her career—and her education—on the ground levels of the conservative recruiting machine. Her very first job was working for a little-known journalist named Tucker Carlson. She’s chugged Mountain Dews with the first Breitbart writers, poured over conspiracy theories from COVID-19 deniers, and visited the apocalyptic Patriot Church deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The right is now a MAGA cult. And Tina Nguyen knows because she was raised by it, back when it wasn’t one. In 2008, in the weeks leading up to the election of Barack Obama, Nguyen was a history-loving, politics-obsessed college student at Claremont McKenna College, drawn there by a boyfriend—and a research institute called the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom. Swept up by pro-America rhetoric and promises of a career in journalism, Nguyen was drawn into the world of right-wing student activism, and the early days of the movement now known as MAGA. In The MAGA Diaries, she tells not only her story of loving and leaving the conservative movement (well before Trump), but the history of the right-wing, painting a shocking picture of how they recruit, train, and indoctrinate generations of young people in search of opportunity—think dinners with Peter Thiel, conventions that rival Coachella, and the ever-elusive promise of future job security—and shape them into the influential leaders and supporting cast of tomorrow’s Republican party. They are ruthless in building robust networks of power, even if it means demolishing entire civic institutions, from women’s rights to fair elections—and staging a coup when it doesn’t work out. In The MAGA Diaries, Nguyen pulls back the curtain on the conservative machine for the first time, shining a light on the systematized on-ramp for young Republicans. These are the new leaders of the right, and it’s urgent we start paying attention.

The strange tale of how one Jewish family-the Rothschilds-became a lightning rod for conspiracy theories over the course of the last two centuries . . . In 2018 Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media to share her suspicions that the California wildfires were started by 'space solar generators' which were funded by powerful, mysterious backers. Instantly, thousands of people rallied around her, blaming the fires on "Jewish space lasers" and, ultimately, the Rothschild family. For more than 200 years, the name "Rothschild" has been synonymous with two things: great wealth, and conspiracy theories about what they're "really doing" with it. Almost from the moment Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons emerged from the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt to revolutionize the banking world, the Rothschild family has been the target of myths, hoaxes, bizarre accusations, and constant, virulent antisemitism. Over the years, they have been blamed for everything from the sinking of the Titanic, to causing the Great Depression, and even creating the COVID-19 pandemic. Jewish Space Lasers is a deeply researched dive into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family.

Set against the extraordinary events of January 6, 2021, Aquilino Gonell’s inspirational memoir is rooted in the joys and struggles of the immigrant experience that have long defined the American experiment Aquilino Gonell came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young boy. Although he spoke no English, he dedicated himself to his adopted land, striving for the American dream. Determined to be a success story, he joined the army to pay for college. He saw action in Iraq and returned home with PTSD. Believing in the promise of our government, he focused on healing himself and supporting his family. His hard work paid off when he landed a coveted position with the United States Capitol Police and rose to the rank of sergeant. January 6, 2021, changed everything. When insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, Gonell bravely faced down the mob attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power. The brutal injuries he sustained that day would end his career in law enforcement. But when some of the very people he put his life on the line to protect downplayed or denied the truth of that day, he chose to speak out against the injustice done to him and the country. Chronicling what it means to live a life of conviction, one that adheres to the best ideas of our democracy, American Shield is a bold testament to the power of truth, justice, and accountability from a highly decorated officer and immigrant who exemplifies the greatest aspirations of a grateful nation.

Instant New York Times Bestseller One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year An Economist and Air Mail Best Book of the Year ""Brave and absorbing."" -- New York Times “Alberta is not just a thorough and responsible reporter but a vibrant writer, capable of rendering a farcical scene in vivid hues.” -- Washington Post “An astonishingly clear-eyed look at a murky movement.” -- Los Angeles Times Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal. For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is ""woke"" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD. Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing. Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?

The internationally bestselling author explores the revolutions—past and present—that define the chaotic, polarized, and unstable age in which we live. Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, geopolitical dangers, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk—the early decades of the 21st century may be one of the most revolutionary periods in modern history. But they are not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What makes an age a revolutionary one? And how do they end? In this major new work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates eras that have shattered and shaped humanity. Four such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in 17th-century Netherlands a series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world—and created modern politics as we know it today. The “Glorious Revolution” in Britain showed that major political change could happen peacefully. Next, the French Revolution, a dramatic decade and a half that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us to this day. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world. Against these paradigm-shifting historical eras, Zakaria describes our current situation, unpacking the four revolutions we are living through now; in globalization, technology, identity, and geopolitics. As few public intellectuals can, Zakaria combines intellectual range, deep historical insight, and uncanny prescience to reframe and illuminate a turbulent present.

GRIFTER [grif-ter] noun 1. a con or scam artist, a hustler or a sell-out After the Civil War, the pillars of Black Republicanism were a balanced critique of both political parties, civil rights for all Americans, reinventing an economy based on exploitation, and, most importantly, building thriving Black communities. How did Black Republicanism devolve from revolutionaries like Frederick Douglass to the puppets in the Trump era? Whether it’s radical conservatives like South Carolina Senator Tim Scott or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, they are consistently viral news and continuously uphold egregious laws at the expense of their Black brethren. Part history and part cultural analysis, The Grift chronicles the nuanced history of Black Republicans. Clay Cane lays out how Black Republicanism has been mangled by opportunists who are apologists for racism. Black faces in high places providing cover for explicit bigotry is one of the greatest threats to the liberation of Black and brown people. By studying these figures and their tactics, Cane exposes the grift and lays out a plan to emancipate our future.

Food is a conduit for connection; we envision smiling families gathered around a table-eating, happy, content. But what happens when poverty, mental illness, homelessness, and addiction claim a seat at that table? In The Meth Lunches, Kim Foster peers behind the polished visions of perfectly curated dinners and charming families to reveal the complex reality when poverty and food intersect. Whether it's heirloom vegetables or a block of neon-yellow government cheese, food is both a basic necessity and a nuanced litmus test: what and how we eat reflects our communities, our cultures, and our place in the world. The Meth Lunches gives a glimpse into the lives of people living in Foster's Las Vegas community-the grocery store cashier who feels safer surrounded by food after surviving a childhood of hunger; the inmate baking a birthday cake with coffee creamer and Sprite; the unhoused woman growing scallions in the slice of sunlight on her passenger seat. This is what food looks like in the lives of real people. The Meth Lunches reveals stories of dysfunction intertwined with hope, of the insurmountable obstacles and fierce determination all playing out on the plates of ordinary Americans. It's a bold invitation to pull up a chair and reconsider our responsibilities to the most vulnerable among us. Welcome to the table.

From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being-yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it's very hard to cure. But we aren't helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of "prebunking": inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives listeners practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion-whether at scale or around their own dinner table.

From the dogged Long Island reporter who has been on his trail since 2019, the bizarre, page-turning, and frankly hysterical story of America’s most outrageous grifter—former US Representative George Santos. America has grown used to larger-than-life politicians: Teflon Don, AOC, MTG, Dark Brandon, and all the rest have injected DC politics with an unmistakable edge of celebrity flair and tabloid intrigue. Yet in 2022, a new player on the national scene outshone them all. George Anthony Devolder Santos, and his revolving door of pseudonyms, shed glaring new light on how far we’d all let our politics slide as his claimed resume was shred to bits in the wake of a longshot run to office from New York’s 3rd Congressional District. From Wall Street gigs to an amateur volleyball career, from embellished claims of Jewish heritage to a fabricated 9/11 story involving his mother’s death, Santos’s legend continued to grow as his web of lies evaporated in real time. And the only thing wilder than this charlatan embedding himself in the warm, consequence-evading arms of our nation’s capital was the Queens con artist’s refusal to bow his head in shame. Newsday alum and PEN/Hemingway honoree Mark Chiusano tells the full (well, as full as can be given the subject) story of Santos here for the first time. From humble years spent in Brazil, to glamorous nights on the west side of Manhattan, to the stunning small-time scams employed to ease his slippery climb up the American society ladder, The Fabulist tells a story you’ll have to read for yourself to believe…and even then, it’s George Santos, so who’s to say for sure. Combining the very best of boots-on-the-ground journalism, dishy backroom dealings, and glittery details about Gold Coast mansions and bodice-baring drag shows that’d feel just as at home in your next summer beach read, The Fabulist is truly stranger than fiction.

An indelible exploration of the invisible scar that runs through the heart of Chinese society and the souls of its citizens. "It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution," Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as an absence; official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia. Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the stories of individuals who lived through the madness. Deftly exploring how this era defined a generation and continues to impact China today, Branigan asks: What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited, or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?

American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 presents the epic history of America’s most controversial weapon. In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s touted by soldiers in World War II. What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century. In American Gun, the veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity. How did the same gun represent the essence of freedom to millions of Americans and the essence of evil to millions more? To answer this question, McWhirter and Elinson follow Stoner—the American Kalashnikov—as he struggled mightily to win support for his invention, which under the name M16 would become standard equipment in Vietnam. Shunned by gun owners at first, the rifle’s popularity would take off thanks to a renegade band of small-time gun makers. And in the 2000s, it would become the weapon of choice for mass shooters, prompting widespread calls for proscription even as the gun industry embraced it as a financial savior. Writing with fairness and compassion, McWhirter and Elinson explore America’s gun culture, revealing the deep appeal of the AR-15, the awful havoc it wreaks, and the politics of reducing its toll. The result is a moral history of contemporary America’s love affair with technology, freedom, and weaponry. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

“Encouraging…Uplifting...Meeting apparently insurmountable goals requires thinking big…this will inspire.” —Publishers Weekly “Raj Shah has written a practical guide to making the world a better place. He knows what he’s talking about, because he’s done it himself. Anyone who wants to make a change in the world, or their own lives, will benefit from this book.” —Bill Gates, Cochair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Rajiv J. Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former administrator of President Barack Obama’s United States Agency for International Development, shares a dynamic new model for creating large scale change, inspired by his own involvements with some of the largest humanitarian projects of our time. Rajiv J. Shah is no stranger to pulling off the impossible, from helping vaccinate 900 million children at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to a high-pressure race against the clock to stop the spread of Ebola. His secret? A big bets philosophy—the idea that seeking to solve problems rather than make incremental improvements can attract the unlikely partners with the power and know-how to achieve transformational change. Part career sweeping memoir, part inspirational playbook, Big Bets offers a master class in decision-making, leadership, and changing the world one bet at a time. Shah animates his strategic insights with vivid behind-the-scenes stories, memorable conversations with household names that helped shape his approach to creating change, and his own personal growth as an Indian-American from an immigrant family looking for a way to belong. He distills his battle-tested strategies for creating change, arguing that big bets have a surprising advantage over cautious ones: a bold vision can attract support, collaborations, and fresh ideas from key players who might otherwise be resistant. Throughout the book, Shah traces his unlikely path to the Rockefeller Foundation across a changing world and through some of the most ambitious, dramatic global efforts to create a better world.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * How has a small nation of 9 million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and economic divides, proven resistant to so many of the societal ills plaguing other wealthy democracies? Why do Israelis have among the world’s highest life expectancies and lowest rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse? Why is Israel’s population young and growing while all other wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking? How can it be that Israel, according to a United Nations ranking, is the fourth happiest nation in the world? Why do Israelis tend to look to the future with hope, optimism, and purpose while the rest of the West struggles with an epidemic of loneliness, teen depression, and social decline? Dan Senor and Saul Singer, the writers behind the international bestseller Start-Up Nation, have long been students of the global innovation race. But as they spent time with Israel’s entrepreneurs and political leaders, soldiers and students, scientists and activists, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Tel Aviv techies, and Israeli Arabs, they realized that they had missed what really sets Israel apart. Moving from military commanders integrating at-risk youth and people who are neurodiverse into national service, to high performing companies making space for working parents, from dreamers and innovators launching a duct-taped spacecraft to the moon, to bringing better health solutions to people around the world, The Genius of Israel tells the story of a diverse people and society built around the values of service, solidarity, and belonging. Widely admired for having the world’s highest density of high-tech start-ups, Israel’s greatest innovation may not be a technology at all, but Israeli society itself. Understanding how a country facing so many challenges can be among the happiest provides surprising insights into how we can confront the crisis of community, human connectedness, and purpose in modern life. Bold, timely, and insightful, Senor and Singer’s latest work shines an important light on the impressive innovative distinctions of Israeli society—and what other communities and countries can learn.

New York Times Bestseller “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina “Michael Wolff’s books were my foundation and port of entry for working on Succession.” —Jeremy Strong (“Kendall Roy”) Meet the Murdochs and the disastrously dysfunctional family of Fox News. Until recently, they formed the most powerful media and political force in the land, for better or worse. Now their empire is cracking up and crashing down. For almost three decades, Fox News has not only made political careers (see: President Donald J. Trump) but also fundamentally altered the political landscape of the United States. It is a truism: as Fox goes, so goes the nation—into further divisiveness and awash in fake news, a gleefully polarizing company. But just as Fox has pushed America apart, now it too is coming apart. As is the family dynasty behind it. In his irresistible trilogy on the chaotic presidency of Donald Trump—Fire and Fury, Siege, and Landslide—the gadfly journalist Michael Wolff led readers deep into the twisted corridors of the White House. Now, drawing on years of unprecedented access to the Murdoch family and key players in the world of Fox, he plunges us behind the scenes of another empire of influence, and the result is astonishing and unforgettable. Here is Rupert Murdoch, the ninety-two-year-old Australian billionaire—a fading titan, concerned about his legacy but more concerned about profits. Here are his contentious progeny, jockeying to take over when the old man is gone. Here is star anchor Tucker Carlson, hiding out in his island homes, considering a run for the presidency while his bosses have other plans for him. Sean Hannity, the richest man in television, has his own plans: to put the former POTUS back in office, against the bosses’ wishes. Meanwhile, Laura Ingraham is just trying to survive in the last man’s man’s world. Empires fall. Kingdoms come to an end. As lawsuits pummel the financial bedrock and reputation of the network, anchors scramble, and the battling Murdoch heirs make the Roys of TV’s Succession seem downright Brady Bunch, Michael Wolff documents, in riveting and revelatory real time, the final days of Fox News.

An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its illiberal influence worldwide. Bethany Allen, the award-winning China reporter for Axios, shows that by tying profits to political acquiescence the Chinese Communist Party is forcing companies and governments around the world to accept its rules. The coronavirus pandemic marked the first time that the Party deployed its tool kit of economic coercion on an issue directly related to the health and well-being of quite literally every person in the world. But Western democracies aren’t helpless victims in Beijing’s game. The West created the conditions for the rise of authoritarian capitalism by divorcing political values from market structures. Written by one of the first American journalists to expose China's covert influence operations in the United States, Beijing Rules includes headline-making stories of Western institutions bowing to Beijing’s pressure—a glimpse of what America’s future may look like should liberal democracy come firmly under the thumb of authoritarian capitalism. Grounded in deep investigative reporting, it sounds the alarm about what we must do to prevent the loss of freedoms we now take for granted.  

MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few. American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation-the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth-and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility. In Attack from Within, legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country's hard-won democracy.

WINNER OF THE RABBI SACKS BOOK PRIZE A nuanced examination of the Israel’s past, present, and future, after reaching its seventy-fifth anniversary and enduring its most challenging year ever, from the two-time National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Israel. Revised and updated throughout for the paperback edition. In 1948, Israel’s founders sought a “national home for the Jewish people,” where Jewish life would be transformed. The state they ultimately made, says Daniel Gordis, is a place of extraordinary success and maddening disappointment, a story of both unprecedented human triumph and great suffering. When it marked its seventy-fifth anniversary, Israel was in the throes of its most dangerous internal rupture ever. Then it was attacked from the outside and plunged into existential uncertainty. In light of those first seventy-five years and the earthquakes of 2023 that shook the country to its core, Gordis asks: Has Israel fulfilled the dreams of its founders? Using Israel's Declaration of Independence as his measure, Gordis weighs Israel’s successes, critiques its failures, and acknowledges its inherent contradictions—ultimately suggesting that though it has often fallen short, the Jewish state is a success far beyond anything its founders could have imagined.

A brilliant, deeply reported narrative about religious extremism, radicalization, and the bonds of family: the story of an American woman who traveled to ISIS-controlled Syria with her two children and extremist husband and the sister back home who worked tirelessly to help her escape. Raised in a restrictive Jehovah’s Witness community in Arkansas, sisters Lori and Sam Sally spent their teens and twenties moving around the South and Midwest, working low-wage jobs and falling in and out of relationships. Caught in an eternal sibling rivalry—where younger, quieter Lori protected outgoing, reckless Sam—the two women eventually married a pair of brothers and settled down in Elkhart, Indiana, just around the corner from each other. And it was there that their lives totally diverged. While Lori was ultimately able to leave her violent marriage, Sam was drawn deeper into hers—and deeper into the control of a husband who slowly radicalized, via the internet, into a jihadist. With their daughter and Sam’s child from a previous relationship, the couple moved to Raqqa, Syria, where Moussa fought for ISIS and Sam, who never even converted to Islam, attempted to survive and protect her children from airstrikes, extremist indoctrination, and the brutality of the ISIS system. In Raqqa, Sam’s oldest son appeared in several Islamic State propaganda videos, and she participated in ISIS’s practice of enslaving Yezidi women and children. Sam says her husband coerced her to move, but Lori—who quit her job and worked tirelessly to try get Sam out of Syria—isn’t so sure. American Girls combines an in-depth examination of Sam and Lori's lives with on-the-ground reporting from Iraq, providing readers with a rare glimpse into the world of American women who join ISIS. Interweaving deeply reported narrative drama with expert analysis, the book explores how the subjugation and abuse experienced by women in the United States, women like Sam and Lori, are the same themes that enable the rise of patriarchal, extremist ideologies like the one espoused by ISIS. Fascinating, resonant, and moving, American Girls is an unforgettable journey—from small-town Arkansas to Raqqa, from domestic abuse to a militant terrorist organization—all told through the extraordinary story of two close, complicated sisters.

The history of NOW—its organization, trials, and revolutionary mission—told through the work of three members. In the summer of 1966, crammed into a DC hotel suite and passing paper cups of liquor, twenty-eight women hatched a revolutionary plan. Betty Friedan, the well-known author of The Feminine Mystique, and Pauli Murray, a lawyer at the front lines of the civil rights movement, had quietly pulled away attendees from the State Womens’ Commissions annual conference. Frustrated with government inertia, they laid out a vision for an organization to unite and advocate for all women. Inspired, challenged, skeptical, they debated the idea late into the night and the next day. By the end of the conference, the National Organization of Women was born. In The Women of NOW, the historian Katherine Turk chronicles the growth and influence of this foundational group through three relatively unknown core members: Aileen Hernandez, a federal official of Jamaican-American heritage; Mary Jean Collins, a working-class union organizer and Chicago Catholic; and Patricia Hill Burnett, a Michigan Republican and former beauty queen. From its inception in 1966 through the tumultuous training ground of the 1970s, NOW's feminism flooded the nation, shifted American culture and politics, and clashed with conservative forces, presaging our fractured national landscape. These women built an organization that was radical in its time, and built it to last. This is the first time anyone has told their story. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.