by John Perkins
John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four
times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the
project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his
former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston
strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10
years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail
foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to
American business.
by Gregory Desilet
Since the early 1960s the dispute concerning the effects of entertainment violence—
and especially the question of whether these effects are predominantly cathartic or
mimetic—has become a progressively more heated debate in response to which Our
Faith in Evil offers a timely and provocative re-analysis of the controversy while
also proposing a resolution based upon the distinction between melodramatic and
tragic models of drama and conflict.
by Saul K. Padover
This famous biography has been in print for more than 40 years and stands as
Jefferson's life story. It traces his life from his childhood as the son of a Virginia
planter, to his years as a lawyer, to the Revolutionary War and the early years of
the Union.
by Sean Wilentz
Wilentz, a Princeton history professor, explores the arduous process that led to
the creation of American democracy. Combining the traditional approach of focusing
on important political events with the modern tendency to examine social forces
and the role of ordinary people in shaping historical events, he traces the
development of democratic principles from Thomas Jefferson, who played a primary
role in establishing the terms of American democratic politics, to Abraham Lincoln,
who represented a shift in ideals of democracy at a critical period in the nation's
history.
by Bill Moyers
Award-winning journalist Moyers offers a thoughtful and caustic look at American
politics. Moyers powerfully and eloquently laments the increasing influence of the
wealthy at the expense of the poor. In other essays, Moyers recalls a more
progressive era in the U.S., when the government played an active role in
protecting citizens, and reporters were more vigilant in their scrutiny of corruption.
Human Rights
by Thom Hartmann
Unequal taxes, unequal accountability for crime, unequal influence, unequal privacy,
and unequal access to natural resources and our commons-- these inequalities and
more are the effects of corporations winning the rights of persons while
simultaneously being given the legal protections to avoid the responsibilities that
come with these rights. Hartmann tells the intriguing story of how it got this way--
from the colonists' rebellion against the commercial interests of the British elite to
the distorted application of the Fourteenth Amendment-- and how to get back to a
government of, by, and for the people.
Edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith
"Economic globalization," writes Jerry Mander, "involves arguably the most
fundamental redesign of the planet's political and economic arrangements since at
least the Industrial Revolution. Yet the profound implications of these fundamental
changes have barely been exposed to serious public scrutiny or debate. Despite the
scale of the global reordering, neither our elected officials nor our educational
institutions nor the mass media have made a credible effort to describe what is
being formulated or to explain its root philosophies."
by David Cay Johnston
Since he began writing about taxes for the New York Times in 1995, Johnston's
investigative reporting has earned two Pulitzers. The journalistic legwork informs
every page of this expose‚ of the ways in which, he says, America's taxation
system is stacked in favor of the wealthy. Johnston evades the imposing
abstractness of the tax code by keeping the story focused on individuals, from
working-class parents facing audits to Internal Revenue Service officials desperate
for the resources to revamp their procedures.
Job Creation
by Greg LeRoy
Founder and director of the nonprofit center Good Jobs First, LeRoy offers a
parade of damning case studies showing why communities should not woo
corporations with subsidies. Corporate tactics, he finds, include quickly shuttered
subsidized facilities, union busting and jobs that pay below the poverty line.
Rewritten tax codes, which focus on sales taxes but ignore payroll and property
taxes, as well as other tax abatements, undermine schools; most stadiums and
convention centers further bleed public monies.
Gene Roberts Editor in Chief
Leaving The Reader Behind: The Age Of Corporate Newspapering surveys a
generation of relentless "corporatization" that has radically transformed journalism
and newspaper publishing. Unprecedented in the 300 year history of American
newspapers, the blitz of buying, selling, and consolidation of newspapers has
effected the industry from small town weeklies to the nationally renowned dailies.
by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In this powerful and far-reaching indictment of George W. Bush's White House,
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country's most prominent environmental attorney,
charges that this administration has taken corporate cronyism to such
unprecedented heights that it now threatens our health, our national security, and
democracy as we know it. In a headlong pursuit of private profit and personal
power, Kennedy writes, George Bush and his administration have eviscerated the
laws that have protected our nation's air, water, public lands, and wildlife for the
past thirty years, enriching the president's political contributors while lowering the
quality of life for the rest of us.
