In 1831, the then twenty-seven year old Alexis de Tocqueville, was sent with Gustave de Beaumont to America by the French Government to study and make a report on the American prison system. Over a period of nine months the two traveled all over America making notes not only on the prison systems but on all aspects of American society and government. From these notes, Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America", an exhaustive analysis of the successes...

"In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency--a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil."--

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (Bauer World Press) In his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine presents a compelling and erudite argument for the independence of the American colonies from the British Crown. With sagacious prose, Paine explicates the inherent injustices and impracticalities of the colonial system, and passionately advocates for the establishment of a new, independent nation. Pane's incisive logic addresses the economic,...

A history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict told from the Palestinian perspective, arguing the period since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 has amounted to a hundred years of colonial war against the Palestinians.

Part comedy, part adventure, part social commentary, this astonishing tale of tomorrow explores the essence of human nature Published in 1904, G. K. Chesterton's debut novel is set eighty years in the future. Technology and social mores remain the same, but the England of 1984 boasts a government in which ineffectual kings are selected at random from an otherwise apathetic populace that has "lost faith in revolutions." The political system hits a...

The 1968 U.S. 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. Playing With Fire represents...

Decentralized policy-making power in Japan had developed under the long reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In the1990s, institutional changes were introduced, fundamentally altering Japan's modern political landscape. Tomohito Shinoda tracks these slow yet steady changes to today in the operation of and tensions between Japan's political parties and the public's behavior in Japanese elections, as well as in the government's ability to coordinate...

Written in 1791 and 1792 this two-part declaration, Rights of Man, was in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Part One argued for political independence and social reform. This seminal work on freedom and equality, written by Thomas Paine, one of the most influential writers and reformers of his age, is considered to be a classic statement of faith in democracy and egalitarianism and is Paine's most widely read work....