Best Politics Books

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever.

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued.

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement.

Carl von Clausewitz's On War has been called, "not simply the greatest, but the only truly great book on war." It is an extraordinary attempt to construct an allembracing theory of how war works. Its coherence and ambition are unmatched by other military literature.

Winner of the NBCC Award for General NonfictionNamed on Amazon's Best Books of the Year 2015Michael Botticelli, U.S. Drug Czar (Politico) Favorite Book of the YearAngus Deaton, Nobel Prize Economics (Bloomberg/WSJ) Best Books of 2015Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky (WSJ) Books…

A richly detailed, narrative history that reads like an extended, character-driven chronicle: vivid scenes and biographical detail bring political events to life, making the book useful for readers who want immersive storytelling rather than quick summaries. What works best is the storytelling — layered anecdotes and close attention to personalities — while the main limitation is length and repetition; long stretches of background or dense political maneuvering can slow momentum and feel digressive. Expect a book that rewards patience but resists skimming.

Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019From worldrenowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it.Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other…

In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming.Technology, has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age government, political…

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution.

The Road to Wigan Pier authored by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an autobiographical novel by the author written in those days of his life that we say struggling days.

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering.

Few gave tiny Singapore much chance of survival when it was granted independence in 1965. How is it, then, that today the former British colonial trading post is a thriving Asian metropolis with not only the world's number one airline, best airport, and busiest port of trade,…

In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the “constrained” vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the “unconstrained” vision, in which human…

Reads like long-form investigative journalism: chapter openings drop you into tense scenes and the narrative ties individual actors to policy choices. Most useful when you want a readable, humanized chronology that makes complex events feel immediate and consequential. Main limitation is a tendency to linger on operational minutiae and a wide cast of characters, which can feel repetitive or overwhelming for readers seeking tight analysis or heavily footnoted academic prose.

Burnham delivers a compact, polemical account of political operators who act on interest and strategy rather than moral rhetoric. Short historical sketches and sharp generalizations move quickly; the prose favors argument over anecdote. Most useful as a concentrated vocabulary for debating elites and incentives, the book can feel doctrinal and repetitive, especially in the middle. Expect more analytic assertion than human detail or step-by-step guidance, and be prepared for a cool, often unsparing moral stance.

Grand strategist and founder of modern Singapore offers key insights and controversial opinions on globalization, geopolitics, economic growth, and democracy.When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen.

The international bestseller on the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and economic controls. New Foreword by the Authors; Index.

The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This book fills that need. Here, Philip E.

NO LOGO was an international bestseller and "a movement bible" (The New York Times). Naomi Klein's second book, The Shock Doctrine, was hailed as a "master narrative of our time," and has over a million copies in print worldwide.In the last decade, No Logo has become an…

Bryan Caplan makes a forceful case that ordinary voters' misconceptions — not just interest groups — drive poor economic policy. The book feels like a sequence of pointed essays: data, thought experiments, and blunt assertions piled to shock and provoke. Its useful part is a compact set of contestable claims you can carry into classroom debates or policy conversations. Its main limitation is tone: polemical and repetitive, with many chapters restating the same core argument rather than offering nuanced case studies.

A fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world. In an intriguing series of case studies, Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer,…

Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting…

NATIONAL BEST SELLERFor five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a singleengine prop airplane.

Johann Hari moves through countries and interviews in a narrative investigative travelogue about a century of drug prohibition. The most useful part is the human-scale case studies and side-by-side policy contrasts that make abstract debates tangible. The writing favors storytelling and moral argument over dense statistics, which helps readability but also means evidence is often anecdotal. Readers seeking a neutral, data-first policy manual will find the tone persuasive rather than dispassionate. Expect momentum early, then repetition where the author presses a particular viewpoint.

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on EarthBig Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take All Rachel Maddow’s Blowout offers a dark, serpentine, riveting tour of the unimaginably lucrative and corrupt oilandgas industry.

"No matter your politics or home country this will change how you think about the movement of people between poor and rich countries...one of the best books on immigration written in a generation." Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted The definitive chronicle of our new age of…

Readable and polemical, it argues automation threatens large swathes of work and centers Universal Basic Income as the primary policy response. Early chapters use concrete examples and anecdotes to show which sectors and roles may be vulnerable, which makes it easy to brief others or spark classroom debate. Mid sections list policy options and political strategy; those sections are useful for talking points but start to feel repetitive. Limitation: tone favors advocacy over careful economic nuance, so technical modelers or readers after step-by-step career moves will find it thin.

2019 BestOf Lists: 10 Best Science Books of the Year (Smithsonian Magazine) Best Science Books of the Year (NPR's Science Friday) Best Science and Technology, Books from 2019" (Library Journal) An astute and timely examination of the reemergence of scientific research into…

Brose writes with urgency, laying out how emerging technologies and slow procurement processes could hollow out military advantage. The book mixes narrative vignettes, policy reportage, and pointed prescriptions; reading it feels like sitting through a brisk policy briefing that keeps returning to one warning: adapt faster or lose relative advantage. Useful parts: concrete examples of procurement failure and argued priorities for shifting focus from single big platforms to systems thinking. Limitation: repeated alarms and prose that tilts toward advocacy make it feel one-sided to readers seeking balanced scholarship.

In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entrylevel prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana.

City of Quartz reads like a forensic excavation of Los Angeles: archival reportage, policy history and polemical analysis piled together to show who benefits from growth and who gets pushed aside. Its useful part is the dense catalog of examples — land deals, policing, urban renewal episodes — that tie local institutions to broader economic forces. Annoyances are the repeated rhetorical flourishes and a sometimes fierce, judgmental tone; readers seeking detached description or step-by-step policy prescriptions may find it unsatisfying.

Health care is the largest employer in America, one of the largest perceived drains on the budget of the Federal government, a system with the capacity to bankrupt entire state economies, and one of the areas of personal expenditure that gives individual American citizens most…

In the universally acclaimed and awardwinning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed stateshome to the poorest one billion people on Earthpose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century.

From the bestselling author of Public Enemies & The Big Rich , an account of the battle between the FBI & revolutionary movements of the '70s: Weathermen, The Symbionese Liberation Army, The FALN, The Black Liberation Army.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the deregulation of international financial markets in 1989, governments and entrepreneurs alike became intoxicated by dreams of newly opened markets.

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump—the key to understanding the rise of the altright, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in…

Klein, who is known for getting the inside scoop on everyone from the Kennedys to the Clintons, reveals neverbeforepublished details about the Obama administration's political inner workings, as well as Barack and Michelle's personal lives.

A stirring and incisive manifesto on America's slide away from truth and reason. Over the last three decades, Michiko Kakutani has been thinking and writing about the demise of objective truth in popular culture, academia, and contemporary politics.

I have learned that the story of a nations success, and the success of each one of us, is a slow awakening to the timeless value of the long game.In October 1984, a hardcharging Kentucky politician waited excitedly for President Ronald Reagan to arrive at a presidential rally in…

"The "political biography of our time, now available in a fourvolume hardcover set. Robert A. Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson is one of the richest, most intensive and most revealing examinations ever undertaken of an American president.

A major new history of the British appeasement of the Third Reich in the lead up to World War II On a September day in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepped off a plane and prepared to address the teeming crowd assembled on the airfield.

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly Who deserves to be called a misogynist How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist or increase even when sexist gender roles are waning This book is an exploration of…

From a preeminent presidential historian comes a groundbreaking and often surprising narrative of America’s wartime chief executives It sometimes seems, in retrospect, as if America has been almost continuously at war.

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century.

The Age of Reason represents the results of years of study and reflection by Thomas Paine on the place of religion in society.Paine wrote: "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live…

With his trademark blend of political history, social science, economics, and pop culture, twotime NYT bestselling author, syndicated columnist, National Review senior editor, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Jonah Goldberg makes the timely case that America and other…

This new collection of essays bears the unmistakable stamp of Theodore Dalrymple's bracingly clearsighted view of the human condition. In these twentysix pieces, Dr.

An Economist Best Book of the YearA Financial Times Best Economics Book of the YearA Fast Company "7 Books Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Says You Need to Lead Smarter"Between 1820 and 1990, the share of world income going to today's wealthy nations soared from twenty percent to…

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendshipsand how it influenced modern thoughtDavid Hume is arguably the most important philosopher ever to have written in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his religious skepticism and…

Bell Hooks delivers a concise primer that defines feminism in plain language and presses for its relevance to daily life and public concerns. The prose is direct, the chapters short, and the tone exhortatory rather than footnoted or academic. Its useful part is accessibility: it's easy to hand to someone new to feminist language and to spark conversation. Its main limitation is brevity and simplification; readers seeking deep historical analysis, dense theoretical work, or extensive citation will find the treatment light.

The founder ofBlackwater offers thegripping true storyof the world’s mostcontroversial militarycontractor.In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civiliansfor the riskiest security jobs in the world.