“Uttering lines that send liberals into paroxysms of rage,otherwise known as ‘citing facts,’ is the spice of life. When I seethe hot spittle flying from their mouths and the veins bulging andpulsing above their eyes, well, that’s when I feel trulyalive.” So begins If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans, AnnCoulter’s funniest, most devastating, and, yes, most outrageousbook to date. Coulter has become the brightest star in the conservativefirmament thanks to her razor-sharp reasoning and biting wit. Ofcourse, practically any time she opens her mouth, liberal elitesdenounce Ann, insisting that “She’s gone too far!” and hopefullypredicting that this time it will bring a crashing end to hercareer. Now you can read all the quotes that have so outraged her enemiesand so delighted her legions of fans. More than just the definitivecollection of Coulterisms, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d BeRepublicans includes dozens of brand-new commentaries written byC

March 23, 2003: U.S. Marines from the Task Force Tarawa arecaught up in one of the most unexpected battles of the Iraq War.What started off as a routine maneuver to secure two key bridges inthe town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq degenerated into anightmarish twenty-four-hour urban clash in which eighteen youngMarines lost their lives and more than thirty-five others werewounded. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S.military during the initial combat phase of the war. On that fateful day, Marines came across the burned-out remains ofa U.S. Army convoy that had been ambushed by Saddam Hussein’sforces outside Nasiriyah. In an attempt to rescue the missingsoldiers and seize the bridges before the Iraqis could destroythem, the Marines decided to advance their attack on the city bytwenty-four hours. What happened next is a gripping and gruesometale of military blunders, tragedy, and heroism. Huge M1 tanks leading the attack were rendered ineffective whenthey became mired in an open sewer. Then a

"The letters provide a nostalgic timeline of American historytold through the words and feelings of Americans, from regularfolks to kings." —Star Gazette, Elmira, NY, Dec. '05 "There are more than 80 letters, reflecting both our history andour very American sense that when we speak, our president shouldlisten." —The Arizona Republic, Dec. '05 Drawn from the extensive holdings of the National Archives—whichincludes all of the Presidential libraries—these carefully chosenletters remind us that ours is a government "of the people, by thepeople, and for the people," which entitles us to make our viewsknown to our leaders. Most of the letters come from workingcitizens; others were written by notable figures: John Glenn, ElvisPresley, Walt Disney, Ho Chi Minh, Nikita Kruschev, Upton Sinclair,John Steinbeck, Robert Kennedy, and many more. Grouped thematically, the sections cover such topics as civilrights, the Cold War, physical fitness, joblessness, World War II,western expansion, and the space race. An

Using information and techniques gathered by the InternationalSpy Museum and an ex-CIA agent, this book shows how the tricks andmethods used by spies can be incorporated into everyday life, suchas how to hide valuables in your home or how to avoid carjacking orpickpockets.

Locked in the Cabinet is a close-up view of the way thingswork, and often don't work, at the highest levels ofgovernment--and a uniquely personal account by the man whose ideasinspired and animated much of the Clinton campaign of 1992 and whobecame the cabinet officer in charge of helping ordinary Americansget better jobs. Robert B. Reich, writer, teacher, socialcritic--and a friend of the Clintons since they were all in theirtwenties--came to be known as the "conscience of the Clintonadministration and one of the most successful Labor Secretaries inhistory. Here is his sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignantchronicle of trying to put ideas and ideals into practice. With wit, passion, and dead-aim honesty, Reich writes of those inWashington who possess hard heads and soft hearts, and those withexactly the opposite attributes. He introduces us to the careerbureaucrats who make Washington run and the politicians who, onoccasion, make it stop; to business tycoons and labor leaders whoclash by day an

It’s not an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americansare an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure,comfortable standard of living has become as outdated as an Edselwith an eight-track player. That the United States of Americais in danger of becoming a third world nation. The evidence is all around us: Our industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the kind of jobsthat have formed the backbone of our economy for more than acentury; our education system is in shambles, making it harder fortomorrow’s workforce to acquire the information and training itneeds to land good twenty-first century jobs; ourinfrastructure—our roads, our bridges, our sewage and water, ourtransportation and electrical systems—is crumbling; our economicsystem has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations GoneWild; our political system is broken, in thrall to a smallfinancial elite using the power of the checkbook to control bothparties. And America’s middle class, the

From an award-winning historian, a stirring (and timely)narrative history of American labor from the dawn of the industrialage to the present day. From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first realfactories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentiethcentury and their waning influence today, the con?test betweenlabor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped ournational experience. Philip Dray’s ambition is to show us the vitalaccomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate itscentral role in our social, political, economic, and culturalevolution. There Is Power in a Union is an epic, character-drivennarrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity inall its various settings: on picket lines and in union halls,jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the hallsof Congress, and the White House. The author demonstrates,viscerally and dramatically, the urgency of the fight for fairnessand economic democracy—a strugg

The political memoiras rousing adventure story—a sizzling account of a life lived inthe thick of every important struggle of the era. April 1973: snow falls thick and fast on the Badlands ofSouth Dakota. It has been more than five weeks since protestingSioux Indians seized their historic village of Wounded Knee, andthe FBI shows no signs of abandoning its siege. When Bill Zimmermanis asked to coordinate an airlift of desperately needed food andmedical supplies, he cannot refuse; flying through gunfire and amechanical malfunction, he carries out a daring dawn raid andsuccess?0?2fully parachutes 1,500 pounds of food into the village.The drop breaks the FBI siege, and assures an Indian victory. This was not the first—or last—time Bill Zimmerman put his life atrisk for the greater social good. In this extraordi?0?2nary memoir,Zimmerman takes us into the hearts and minds of those making thesocial revolution of the sixties. He writes about registering blackvoters in deepest, most racist Mississippi; marc

“This is a thriller, a page-turner, a probing look into theinner workings of the assassination squads that Israel mobilizedafter the Munich massacre.” –David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Arab andJew “Gratitude is due to Mr. Klein for his painstaking . . . book, thebest one could possibly hope for.” –Walter Lacquer, The Wall Street Journal Award-winning journalist Aaron J. Klein tells, for the firsttime, the complete story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre andthe Israeli counterterrorism operation it spawned. Withunprecedented access to Mossad agents and an nparalleled knowledgeof Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the layers of myth andmisinformation that have permeated previous books, films, andmagazine articles about the “shadow war” against Black Septemberand other related terrorist groups. In this riveting account,long-held secrets are finally revealed, including who was killedand who was not, how it was done, which targets were hit and whichwere m

Commemorating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln s birth, hereis his extraordinary story as only the Smithsonian could tell it,featuring the unpublished Lincoln collections at the NationalMuseum of American History. For the first time, the Smithsonian is publishing its unparalleledLincoln collection. Its many historical treasures include: Lincolns top hat, his gold pocket watch from his days as a Springfieldlawyer, the inkstand he used to draft the EmancipationProclamation, his patent model for lifting boats, one of MaryLincoln s White House gowns and jewelry, and prison hoods andshackles worn by the Lincoln conspirators. With more than 125 colorphotographs, Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life tells a new andintimate story of the life and legacy of this remarkable Americanicon.

The ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Boyd have transformedAmerican military policy and practice. A first-rate fighter pilotand a self-taught scholar, he wrote the first manual on jet aerialcombat; spearheaded the design of both of the Air Force's premierfighters, the F-15 and the F-16; and shaped the tactics that savedlives during the Vietnam War and the strategies that won the GulfWar. Many of America's best-known military and political leadersconsulted Boyd on matters of technology, strategy, andtheory. In The Mind of War, Grant T. Hammond offers the first completeportrait of John Boyd, his groundbreaking ideas, and his enduringlegacy. Based on extensive interviews with Boyd and those who knewhim as well as on a close analysis of Boyd's briefings, thisintellectual biography brings the work of an extraordinary thinkerto a broader public.

Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV adsand the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: a manwrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency,feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring outhow to win the biggest prize in politics. This book is the previously untold and epic story of how apolitical newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into theworld’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimateportrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the SecretService code name Renegade. Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate andpresident, as well as twenty-one months covering his campaign as ittraveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yetenduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he? Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail andbefore he ran for high office. It explains how the politician whoemerged in

Long before Rosa Parks became famous for resisting Jim Crowlaws, she was engaged in advocating for social justice for blackwomen who were the victims of sexual violence at the hands of whitemen. Historian McGuire aims to rewrite the history of the civilrights movement by highlighting sexual violence in the broadercontext of racial injustice and the fight for freedom. Parks workedas an investigator for the NAACP branch office in Montgomery,Alabama, specializing in cases involving black women who had beensexually assaulted by white men––cases that often went untried andwere the political opposite of the allegations of black men rapingwhite women ending in summary lynching with or without trials.McGuire traces the history of several rape cases that triggeredvehement resistance by the NAACP and other groups, including the1975 trial of Joan Little, who killed a white jailer who sexuallyassaulted her. Despite the long tradition of dismissing chargesbrought by blacks against whites, several of the cases e

Kindred spirits despite their profound differences inposition, Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman shared a vision of thedemocratic character. They had read or listened to each other’swords at crucial turning points in their lives, and both wereutterly transformed by the tragedy of the Civil War. In thisradiant book, poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein tracks theparallel lives of these two titans from the day that Lincoln firstread Leaves of Grass to the elegy Whitman composed after Lincoln’sassassination in 1865. Drawing on a rich trove of personal and newspaper accounts anddiary records, Epstein shows how the influence and reverence flowedbetween these two men–and brings to life the many friends andcontacts they shared. Epstein has written a masterful portrait oftwo great American figures and the era they shaped through wordsand deeds.

The Unexplored Connections Between Two of History’s GreatestLeaders Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill were true giants of thetwentieth century, but somehow historians have failed to notice themany similarities between these extraordinary leaders. Untilnow. In Greatness, Steven F. Hayward–who has written acclaimed studiesof both Reagan and Churchill–goes beneath superficial differencesto uncover the remarkable parallels between the two statesmen. Inexploring these connections, Hayward shines a light on the natureof political genius and the timeless aspects ofstatesmanship–critical lessons in this or any age.

If you follow politics or the news, America is a country ofculture wars and great divides, a partisan place of red states andblue states, of us against them. From pundits to politicians itseems that anyone with an audience sees a polarized country - acountry at war with itself. In a radical departure from this "conventional wisdom," CarlAnderson explores what the talking heads have missed: anoverwhelming American consensus on many of the country's seeminglymost divisive issues. If the debates are shrill in public, he says,there is a quiet consensus in private - one that America'sinstitutions ignore at their peril. From health care, to the roleof religion in America, to abortion, to the importance oftraditional ethics in business and society, Anderson uses freshpolling data and keen insight in BEYOND A HOUSE DIVIDED toshow that a surprising consensus has emerged despite these debates.He sheds light on what's been missing in the public and politicaldebates of the last several years: the consensus that isn't ha

On August 28, 1963, over a quarter-million people—two-thirdsblack and one-third white—held the greatest civil rightsdemonstration ever. In this major reinterpretation of the GreatDay—the peak of the movement—Charles Euchner brings back thetension and promise of the march. Building on countless interviews,archives, FBI files, and private recordings, this hour-by-houraccount offers intimate glimpses into the lives of those keyplayers and ordinary people who converged on the National Mall tofight for civil rights in the March on Washington.

Why did George W. Bush invade Iraq? What were the realmotives, the overarching policy decisions that drove events fromSeptember 11 until the war began?To a large extent, we still don’tknow. But by now we do know in some detail, as Thomas Powerscarefully explains in the essays collected here, how theadministration made its case for war, using faulty intelligence toargue that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction andposed a mounting threat to the Middle East. Once Iraq was occupiedand the weapons turned out not to exist, the case for war seemed todisappear as well. Bit by bit the evidence–the documents suggestingthat Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger, thealuminum tubes that the United States claimed were meant foruranium enrichment, the Iraqi defector code-named Curveball whoclaimed Saddam had mobile biological weapons labs–has been exposedas unreliable, misinterpreted, “cherry-picked,” exaggerated, orjust fake.But as faulty as the intelligence was, it was always

The Watergate scandal began with a break-in at the office ofthe Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel on June17, 1971, and ended when President Gerald Ford granted Richard M.Nixon a pardon on September 8, 1974, one month after Nixon resignedfrom office in disgrace. Effectively removed from the reach ofprosecutors, Nixon returned to California, uncontrite andunconvicted, convinced that time would exonerate him of anywrongdoing and certain that history would remember his greataccomplishments—the opening of China and the winding down of theVietnam War—and forget his “mistake,” the “pipsqueak thing” calledWatergate. In 1977, three years after his resignation, Nixon agreed to aseries of interviews with television personality David Frost.Conducted over twelve days, they resulted in twenty-eight hours oftaped material, which were aired on prime-time television andwatched by more than 50 million people worldwide. Nixon, a skilledlawyer by training, was paid $1 million for the i

On September 11, 2001, hours after the terrorist attacks onNew York and Washington, the eminent military historian VictorDavis Hanson wrote an article in which he asserted that the UnitedStates, like it or not, was now at war and had the moral right torespond with force. An Autumn of War , which opens with thatfirst essay, will stimulate readers across the political spectrumto think more deeply about the attacks, the war, and their lessonsfor all of us.

For nearly twenty years, Aaron David Miller has played acentral role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace as anadvisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national securityadvisors. Without partisanship or finger-pointing, Miller recordswhat went right, what went wrong, and how we got where we aretoday. Here is a look at the peace process from a place at thenegotiation table, filled with behind-the-scenes strategy, colorfulanecdotes and equally colorful characters, and new interviews withpresidents, secretaries of state, and key Arab and Israelileaders. Honest, critical, and often controversial, Miller’s insider’saccount offers a brilliant new analysis of the problem ofArab-Israeli peace and how it still might be solved.

In The Fatal Englishman, his first work of nonfiction,Sebastian Faulks explores the lives of three remarkable men. Eachhad the seeds of greatness; each was a beacon to his generation andleft something of value behind; yet each one died tragicallyyoung. Christopher Wood, only twenty-nine when he killed himself, was apainter who lived most of his short life in the beau monde of 1920sParis, where his charm, good looks, and the dissolute life thatfollowed them sometimes frustrated his ambition and achievement asan artist. Richard Hillary was a WWII fighter pilot who wrote a classicaccount of his experiences, The Last Enemy, but died in a mysterious trainingaccident while defying doctor’s orders to stay grounded afterhorrific burn injuries; he was twenty-three. Jeremy Wolfenden, hailed by his contemporaries as the brightestEnglishman of his generation, rejected the call of academia to become a hackjournalist in Cold War Moscow. A spy, alcoholic, and openhomosexual at a time when su