Showing titles in Politics & Activism

James Stuart was a gay man before the word homosexual even existed. He fell in love three times – with Sandie, Robert, and Steenie – and he was infatuated three more times – with Huntley, Ruthven, and Philip. We have so much on the six wives of Henry VIII, why not the six loves of James I? There has never been a biography of King James that looks honestly at the entirety of his private life, much less at the men he loved over the course of that life.

Mohandas Gandhi inspired the spiritual and political souls of millions of people. His concept of nonviolent resistance propelled numerous struggles throughout the world, including the civil rights movement in America. Written after his release from prison, first published in English in 1927, My Experiments with Truth is Gandhi's autobiography, documenting his spiritual journey amidst the political strife of his times.

The award-winning film biographer presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of the greatest movie actor of the 20th century, the elusive Marlon Brando, bringing his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before. The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances - most notably in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront - that are without parallel.

In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson Constantine, who stood third in line to her throne. In an eerie echo of her own story, Catherine selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg, aunt of the future Queen Victoria. Though Julie had everything a young bride could wish for, she was alone in a court dominated by an aging empress and riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip—not to mention her brute of a husband. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage, but her family in Germany refused to allow her to do so.

In the same vivid, eloquent style that earned Ronald Reagan the designation "the Great Communicator," Peggy Noonan delivers a candid portrait of the Reagan White House in this stylish, sensitive memoir that pursues the question, "Who's running things here anyway?"

What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander during World War II than he was as president? Why was Grant one of the best presidents of his day, if not in all of American history? What drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics? Find the surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more in this collection of new essays by great historians.

Nigel Hamilton's Mantle of Command, long-listed for the National Book Award, drew on years of archival research and interviews to portray FDR in a tight close-up as he determined Allied strategy in the crucial initial phases of World War II. Commander in Chief reveals the astonishing sequel - suppressed by Winston Churchill in his memoirs - of Roosevelt's battles with Churchill to maintain that strategy.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Kissinger: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson, read by Roy McMillan. No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Hailed by some as the 'indispensable man' whose advice has been sought by every president from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, Kissinger has also attracted immense hostility from critics who have cast him as an amoral Machiavellian - the ultimate cold-blooded 'realist'.

From the most unlikely person to end up as a senior official to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama comes a candid, incredible and inspiring story. Moved by the election of the country’s first Black president, Deesha Dyer applied for a White House internship in 2009 as a thirty-one-year-old part-time community college student, taking a leap that carried her through being hired in a full-time position, followed by two promotions landing her at the epicenter of politics.

On a March night in 2000, two deputy sheriffs serving a warrant were shot in Atlanta, Georgia. One was severely wounded while the other would die a day later. The shooting kicked off a large manhunt in search of the alleged cop killer. Four days later in Alabama, authorities found their man—Jamil Al-Amin. He was a Muslim leader with the title of Imam in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta. He was also the man formerly known as H. Rap Brown. He was a charismatic Black radical in the late '60s.

A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of Israel In this authoritative and empathetic biography, Pnina Lahav reexamines the life of Golda Meir (1898-1978) through a feminist lens, focusing on her recurring role as a woman standing alone among men. The Only Woman in the Room is the first book to contend with Meir’s full identity as a woman, Jew, Zionist leader, and one of the founders of Israel, providing a richer portrait of her persona and legacy.

In American Princess, Leslie Carroll provides context to Harry and Meghan’s romance by leading listeners through centuries of Britain’s rule-breaking royal marriages, as well as the love matches that were never permitted to make it to the altar; followed by a never-before-seen glimpse into the little-known life of the woman bringing the Royal Family into the 21st century; and her dazzling, thoroughly modern romance with Prince Harry.

In Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, Stanford University lecturer Bertrand M. Patenaude tells the dramatic story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico. Shedding new light on Trotsky's tumultuous friendship with painter Diego Rivera, his affair with Rivera’s wife Frida Kahlo, and his torment as his family and comrades become victims of the Great Terror, Trotsky: Downfall ofa Revolutionary brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most famous yet elusive figures.

There are few women in English history more famous or controversial than Queen Anne Boleyn. In this vivid and engaging account of the triumphant and harrowing final year of Queen Anne Boleyn's life, the author reveals a very human portrait of a brilliant, passionate, and complex woman.

The epic tale of the rise to power of Russia's current president—the only complete biography in English–that fully captures his emergence from shrouded obscurity and deprivation to become one of the most consequential and complicated leaders in modern history, by the former New York Times Moscow bureau chief.

Picking America's best presidents is easy. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt usually lead the list. But choosing the nation's worst presidents requires more thought. In Star-Spangled Men, respected presidential biographer Nathan Miller puts on display those leaders who were abject failures as chief executive. With pointed humor and a deft hand, he presents a rogues' gallery of the men who dropped the presidential ball, and sometimes their pants as well.

Shy but with a steely self-confidence; inscrutable despite ten decades in the public eye; unflappable; devout; indulgent; outwardly reserved, inwardly passionate; unsentimental; inquisitive; young at heart. All of these describe Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned through more seismic social change than any monarch since 1066. Robert Hardman has already examined the Queen as a modern monarch and her role as a stateswoman abroad. Now, he wraps up the full story of one of the undisputed greats in a thousand years of monarchy.

José Martí (1853–1895) was the founding hero of Cuban independence. In all of modern Latin American history, arguably only the “Great Liberator” Simón Bolívar rivals Martí in stature and legacy. Today he is revered by both the Castro regime and the Cuban exile community, whose shared veneration of the “apostle” of freedom has led to his virtual apotheosis as a national saint.

The lives of the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine are the stuff of legend. Her daughters, however, are less well known, and the fascinating personalities of her daughters-in-law have been almost entirely overlooked, as have those of the daughters she bore Louis VII of France. The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine redresses this balance and showcases the lives, travels, and careers of these ten very different women, who formed a great international network of political alliances that linked their parents, siblings, husbands, and children all across Europe and the Holy Land.

The 1968 US presidential election was the young Lawrence O'Donnell's political awakening, and in the decades since it has remained one of his abiding fascinations. For years he has deployed one of America's shrewdest political minds to understanding its dynamics, not just because it is fascinating in itself but because in it is contained the essence of what makes America different and how we got to where we are now.