1. AMERICAN EMPIRE: AN ACT OF COLLECTIVE MADNESS
2. CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
3. THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN HISTORY
4. THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY
5. THE ASSAULT ON REASON
B. BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR LOAN
1. Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire
by Walden Bello
The empire seems unassailable, but the empire is weak -- and precisely because of its imperial ambitions. So argues Walden Bello in his provocative new book, which systematically dissects the strategic, economic, and political dilemmas confronting America as a consequence of its quest for global domination.
2. TEXT: Dismantling the Empire
by Chalmers Johnson
From the author of the bestselling Blowback Trilogy, an urgent call to confront America's waning power.
3. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
by Andrew Bacevich
"Andrew Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who's in power, which may be why those of both the left and right listen to him."-Bill Moyers
4. The Sorrows of Empire Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
by Chalmers Johnson
From the author of the prophetic national bestseller Blowback, a startling look at militarism, American style, and its consequences abroad and at home.
5. Colossus: The rise and Fall of the American Empire
by Niall Ferguson
C. PERIODICALSby Chalmers Johnson
From the author of the bestselling Blowback Trilogy, an urgent call to confront America's waning power.
3. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
by Andrew Bacevich
"Andrew Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who's in power, which may be why those of both the left and right listen to him."-Bill Moyers
4. The Sorrows of Empire Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
by Chalmers Johnson
From the author of the prophetic national bestseller Blowback, a startling look at militarism, American style, and its consequences abroad and at home.
5. Colossus: The rise and Fall of the American Empire
by Niall Ferguson
Is America the new world empire?Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to George W Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson's brilliant and provocative book shows, the US is in many ways the greatest imperial power of all time. What's more, it always has been an empire, expanding westwards throughout the nineteenth century and rising to global dominance in the twentieth. But is today's American colossus really equipped to play Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders? The United States, Ferguson reveals, is an empire running on empty, weakened by chronic deficits of money, manpower and political will. When the New Rome falls, he warns, its collapse may well come from within.
13. 9/11 and American Empire
edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale ScottPractically from the moment the dust settled in New York and Washington after the attacks of September 11, a movement has grown of survivors, witnesses, and skeptics who have never quite been able to accept the official story. When theologian David Ray Griffin turned his attention to this topic in his book The New Pearl Harbor (2003), he helped give voice to a disquieting rumble of critiques and questions from many Americans and people around the world about the events of that day. Were the military and the FAA really that incompetent? Were our intelligence-gathering agencies really in the dark about such a possibility? In short, how could so much go wrong at once, in the world's strongest and most technologically sophisticated country?
6. The Best Democracy Money can Buy
by Greg PalastThis exciting collection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post exposé on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.
by Greg PalastThis exciting collection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post exposé on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.
7. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order by Noam Chomsky, Robert W. McChesney
In "Profit Over People," Noam Chomsky takes on neoliberalism: the pro-corporate system of economic and political policies presently waging a form of class war worldwide. By examining the contradictions between the democratic and market principles proclaimed by those in power and those actually practiced, Chomsky critiques the tyranny of the few that restricts the public arena and enacts policies that vastly increase private wealth, often with complete disregard for social and ecological consequences. Combining detailed historical examples and uncompromising criticism, Chomsky offers a profound sense of hope that social activism can reclaim people's rights as citizens rather than as consumers, redefining democracy as a global movement, not a global market. (less)
In "Profit Over People," Noam Chomsky takes on neoliberalism: the pro-corporate system of economic and political policies presently waging a form of class war worldwide. By examining the contradictions between the democratic and market principles proclaimed by those in power and those actually practiced, Chomsky critiques the tyranny of the few that restricts the public arena and enacts policies that vastly increase private wealth, often with complete disregard for social and ecological consequences. Combining detailed historical examples and uncompromising criticism, Chomsky offers a profound sense of hope that social activism can reclaim people's rights as citizens rather than as consumers, redefining democracy as a global movement, not a global market. (less)
8. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
by Richard Hofstadter
Anti-intellectualism in American Life was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction. It is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.
Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society from a virtue to a vice. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.
In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge.
Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of her colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. Anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were functions of American cultural heritage, not necessarily of democracy.(less)
by Richard Hofstadter
Anti-intellectualism in American Life was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction. It is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.
Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society from a virtue to a vice. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.
In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge.
Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of her colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. Anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were functions of American cultural heritage, not necessarily of democracy.(less)
9. Voices of a people's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove
Paralleling the twenty-four chapters of Zinn’s, People's History of the United States, it is the companion volume to the national bestseller. Zinn and Arnove have selected testimonies to living history — speeches, letters, poems, songs — left by the people who make history happen but who usually are left out of history books. Zinn has written short introductions to the texts, which range in length from letters or poems of less than a page to entire speeches and essays that run several pages. It is a symphony of our nation’s original voices, rich in ideas and actions, the embodiment of the power of civil disobedience and dissent wherein lies our nation’s true spirit of defiance and resilience.
by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove
Paralleling the twenty-four chapters of Zinn’s, People's History of the United States, it is the companion volume to the national bestseller. Zinn and Arnove have selected testimonies to living history — speeches, letters, poems, songs — left by the people who make history happen but who usually are left out of history books. Zinn has written short introductions to the texts, which range in length from letters or poems of less than a page to entire speeches and essays that run several pages. It is a symphony of our nation’s original voices, rich in ideas and actions, the embodiment of the power of civil disobedience and dissent wherein lies our nation’s true spirit of defiance and resilience.
10. Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
by Charles P Pierce
In the midst of a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, Charles Pierce had a defining moment at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where he observed a dinosaur. Wearing a saddle.... But worse than this was when the proprietor exclaimed to a cheering crowd, “We are taking the dinosaurs back from the evolutionists!” He knew then and there it was time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed.With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States, and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.With Idiot America, Pierce's thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.
by Charles P Pierce
In the midst of a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, Charles Pierce had a defining moment at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where he observed a dinosaur. Wearing a saddle.... But worse than this was when the proprietor exclaimed to a cheering crowd, “We are taking the dinosaurs back from the evolutionists!” He knew then and there it was time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed.With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States, and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.With Idiot America, Pierce's thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.
11. What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat
by Louise RichardsonHow can the most powerful country in the world feel so threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers on a bus or an airplane? In this important new book, groundbreaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the greatest challenge of our age.
After defining–once and for all–what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what’s to come, and what is to be done about it. Having grown up in rural Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican Army, Richardson knows from firsthand experience how terrorism can both unite and destroy a community. As a professor at Harvard, she has devoted her career to explaining terrorist movements throughout history and around the globe. From the biblical Zealots to the medieval Islamic Assassins to the anarchists who infiltrated the cities of Europe and North America at the turn of the last century, terrorists have struck at enemies far more powerful than themselves with targeted acts of violence. Yet Richardson understands that terrorists are neither insane nor immoral. Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way. What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often, the world.
Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was our response. She argues that the Bush administration’ s “global war on terror” was doomed to fail because of an ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist threat and cutting off its grassroots support.
by Louise RichardsonHow can the most powerful country in the world feel so threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers on a bus or an airplane? In this important new book, groundbreaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the greatest challenge of our age.
After defining–once and for all–what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what’s to come, and what is to be done about it. Having grown up in rural Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican Army, Richardson knows from firsthand experience how terrorism can both unite and destroy a community. As a professor at Harvard, she has devoted her career to explaining terrorist movements throughout history and around the globe. From the biblical Zealots to the medieval Islamic Assassins to the anarchists who infiltrated the cities of Europe and North America at the turn of the last century, terrorists have struck at enemies far more powerful than themselves with targeted acts of violence. Yet Richardson understands that terrorists are neither insane nor immoral. Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way. What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often, the world.
Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was our response. She argues that the Bush administration’ s “global war on terror” was doomed to fail because of an ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist threat and cutting off its grassroots support.
12. Two Faces Of American Freedom
by Aziz RanaHow can the most powerful country in the world feel so threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers on a bus or an airplane? In this important new book, groundbreaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the greatest challenge of our age.
by Aziz RanaHow can the most powerful country in the world feel so threatened by an enemy infinitely weaker than we are? How can loving parents and otherwise responsible citizens join terrorist movements? How can anyone possibly believe that the cause of Islam can be advanced by murdering passengers on a bus or an airplane? In this important new book, groundbreaking scholar Louise Richardson answers these questions and more, providing an indispensable guide to the greatest challenge of our age.
After defining–once and for all–what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what’s to come, and what is to be done about it. Having grown up in rural Ireland and watched her friends join the Irish Republican Army, Richardson knows from firsthand experience how terrorism can both unite and destroy a community. As a professor at Harvard, she has devoted her career to explaining terrorist movements throughout history and around the globe. From the biblical Zealots to the medieval Islamic Assassins to the anarchists who infiltrated the cities of Europe and North America at the turn of the last century, terrorists have struck at enemies far more powerful than themselves with targeted acts of violence. Yet Richardson understands that terrorists are neither insane nor immoral. Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way. What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often, the world.Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was our response. She argues that the Bush administration’ s “global war on terror” was doomed to fail because of an ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist threat and cutting off its grassroots support.
13. 9/11 and American Empire
edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale ScottPractically from the moment the dust settled in New York and Washington after the attacks of September 11, a movement has grown of survivors, witnesses, and skeptics who have never quite been able to accept the official story. When theologian David Ray Griffin turned his attention to this topic in his book The New Pearl Harbor (2003), he helped give voice to a disquieting rumble of critiques and questions from many Americans and people around the world about the events of that day. Were the military and the FAA really that incompetent? Were our intelligence-gathering agencies really in the dark about such a possibility? In short, how could so much go wrong at once, in the world's strongest and most technologically sophisticated country?
Both the government and the mainstream media have since tried to portray the 9/11 truth movement as led by people who can be dismissed as "conspiracy theorists" able to find an outlet for their ideas only on the internet. This volume, with essays by intellectuals from Europe and North America, shows this caricature to be untrue. Coming from different intellectual disciplines as well as from different parts of the world, these authors are united in the conviction that the official story about 9/11 is a huge deception manufactured to extend imperial control at home and abroad.
14. A Fighting Chance
by Elizabeth WarrenA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works—and really doesn’t—in A Fighting Chance As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher—an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but.
15. Masters of Mankind
by Noam Chomsky
In this collection of essays from 1969 to 2013, many in book form for the first time, Noam Chomsky examines the nature of state power, from the ideologies driving the Cold War to the War on Terror, and reintroduces the moral and legal questions that all too often go unheeded. With unrelenting logic, he holds the arguments of empire up to critical examination and shatters the myths of those who protect the power and privilege of the few against the interests and needs of the many. A new introduction by Marcus Raskin contextualizes Chomsky's place among some of the most influential thinkers of modern history.
16. Dark Ages: The Final Phase of Empire
by Morris Berman
In "Dark Ages America," the pundit Morris Berman argues that the nation has entered a dangerous phase in its historical development from which there is no return. As the corporate-consumerist juggernaut that now defines the nation rolls on, the very factors that once propelled America to greatness extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth are, paradoxically, the nails in our collective coffin. Within a few decades, Berman argues, the United States will be marginalized on the world stage, its hegemony replaced by China or the European Union. With the United States just one terrorist attack away from a police state, Berman's book is a controversial and illuminating look at our current society and its ills."
17. Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars and a Global Securtity State ..
by Tom Engelhardt
In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn't fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that "invisible government" has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.
18. After the Empire: The Breakdown of American Order
by Emmanuel Todd
In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn't fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that "invisible government" has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.
19. Empire Versus Democracy
by Carl Boggs
In Empire Versus Democracy, Carl Boggs traces the authoritarian trajectory of American politics since World War II, with emphasis on the growing concentration of corporate and military power that has accompanied the United States assumption of leading superpower on the world scene. The rise of the U.S. as unchallenged imperial nation has meant the steady expansion of a permanent war economy and security state that, working in tandem with large business interests, has led to proliferation of American armed-forces bases around the world, recurrent military interventions, swollen government bureaucracy, massive public expenditures, heavy reliance on surveillance and secrecy, and diminished resources for social infrastructure and social programs. Boggs shows that, as in the case of the Roman and other previous empires, enlargement of U.S. imperial power has resulted in a decline of civic engagement and local participation along with skewed priorities favoring the war economy and security state. Inevitably, this has meant a weakening of electoral and legislative politics, overwhelmed by the centers of enormous wealth and power.
20. War is a Lie
by David Swanson
WAR IS A LIE is a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those wars that have been most widely defended as just and good. This is a handbook of sorts, a manual to be used in debunking future lies before future wars have a chance to begin. For more information visit WarIsALie.org.
21. This USA is Lesterland
by Lawrence Lessig
Based upon his 2013 TED talk, now with more than a million views, this book tells the story of the system of corruption within our government, and how we might fix it. Cross-partisan, and incredibly hopeful, the book is a map for a democracy that we could reclaim.
22. Democracy by Other Means: The politics of Work, Leisure, and Environment
by John Buell
Does the end of the cold war signal the absolute triumph of American capitalism? Does it indeed suggest that a system of largely unregulated markets is the only engine that has driven post-cold war growth and democracy? Can capitalism-as now practiced-effectively serve the causes of social justice? The journalist John Buell answers these questions with a resounding 'no, ' reemphasizing the too often ignored point the economic forces and political realities cannot be separated.
23. Occupied Media
by Noam Chomsky
It is a good compilation of the lectures on Occupy events given by one of the most prominent academic and activist Noam Chomsky. It is a must read if you are interested in Occupy movements.
24.The New Empire of Debt (2nd edition)
by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin
by Martin Hart-Landsberg
"Globalization," surely one of the most used and abused buzzwords of recent decades, describes a phenomenon that is typically considered to be a neutral and inevitable expansion of market forces across the planet. Nearly all economists, politicians, business leaders, and mainstream journalists view globalization as the natural result of economic development, and a beneficial one at that. But, as noted economist Martin Hart-Landsberg argues, this perception does not match the reality of globalization. The rise of transnational corporations and their global production chains was the result of intentional and political acts, decisions made at the highest levels of power. Their aim - to increase profits by seeking the cheapest sources of labor and raw materials - was facilitated through policy-making at the national and international levels, and was largely successful. But workers in every nation have paid the costs, in the form of increased inequality and poverty, the destruction of social welfare provisions and labor unions, and an erratic global economy prone to bubbles, busts, and crises. This book examines the historical record of globalization and restores agency to the capitalists, policy-makers, and politicians who worked to craft a regime of world-wide exploitation. It demolishes their neoliberal ideology - already on shaky ground after the 2008 financial crisis - and picks apart the record of trade agreements like NAFTA and institutions like the WTO. But, crucially, Hart- Landsberg also discusses alternatives to capitalist globalization, looking to examples such as South America's Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) for clues on how to build an international economy based on solidarity, social development, and shared prosperity.
26. The Assault on Reason
by Al Gore
A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has
combined with the degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously
hostile to reason.
27. Dollarocracy: How Money and Media Media Election Complex is
Destroying America
by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney
“DOLLAROCRACY: HOW THE MONEY AND MEDIA ELECTION COMPLEX IS DESTROYING AMERICA provides a hard-hitting look at democracy and the connections between the electoral process and citizen control of leadership. It comes from two leading media experts who consider the forces that are stripping elections of their meaning, offering solid observations of the money/politics connections that are ruining American democratic processes…No political studies collection should be without.” – California Bookwatch
28. The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance and Hope
by Amy Goodman and Dennis Moynihan
In their new book, Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan provide a vivid record of the events, conflicts, and social movements shaping our society today. They give voice to ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power across the country and around the world. Their writing and daily work at the grassroots public TV/radio news hour Democracy Now!, carried on more than a thousand stations globally and at democracynow.org, casts in stark relief the stories of the silenced majority. These stories are set against the backdrop of the mainstream media’s abject failure, with its small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, attempting to explain the world to us and getting it so wrong.
29. War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
by Smedley T. Butler
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
30. Censored 2015: Inspiring We the People
by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff
Every year since 1976, Project Censored, our nation's oldest news-monitoring group—a university-wide project at Sonoma State University founded by Carl Jensen, directed for many years by Peter Phillips, and now under the leadership of Mickey Huff—has produced a Top-25 list of underreported news stories and a book, Censored, dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship.
A perennial favorite of booksellers, teachers, and readers everywhere, Censored is one of the strongest life-signs of our current collective desire to get the news we citizens need--despite what Big Media tells us.
by Elizabeth WarrenA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works—and really doesn’t—in A Fighting Chance As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher—an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but.
15. Masters of Mankind
by Noam Chomsky
In this collection of essays from 1969 to 2013, many in book form for the first time, Noam Chomsky examines the nature of state power, from the ideologies driving the Cold War to the War on Terror, and reintroduces the moral and legal questions that all too often go unheeded. With unrelenting logic, he holds the arguments of empire up to critical examination and shatters the myths of those who protect the power and privilege of the few against the interests and needs of the many. A new introduction by Marcus Raskin contextualizes Chomsky's place among some of the most influential thinkers of modern history.
16. Dark Ages: The Final Phase of Empire
by Morris Berman
In "Dark Ages America," the pundit Morris Berman argues that the nation has entered a dangerous phase in its historical development from which there is no return. As the corporate-consumerist juggernaut that now defines the nation rolls on, the very factors that once propelled America to greatness extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth are, paradoxically, the nails in our collective coffin. Within a few decades, Berman argues, the United States will be marginalized on the world stage, its hegemony replaced by China or the European Union. With the United States just one terrorist attack away from a police state, Berman's book is a controversial and illuminating look at our current society and its ills."
17. Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars and a Global Securtity State ..
by Tom Engelhardt
In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn't fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that "invisible government" has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.
18. After the Empire: The Breakdown of American Order
by Emmanuel Todd
In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn't fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that "invisible government" has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.
19. Empire Versus Democracy
by Carl Boggs
In Empire Versus Democracy, Carl Boggs traces the authoritarian trajectory of American politics since World War II, with emphasis on the growing concentration of corporate and military power that has accompanied the United States assumption of leading superpower on the world scene. The rise of the U.S. as unchallenged imperial nation has meant the steady expansion of a permanent war economy and security state that, working in tandem with large business interests, has led to proliferation of American armed-forces bases around the world, recurrent military interventions, swollen government bureaucracy, massive public expenditures, heavy reliance on surveillance and secrecy, and diminished resources for social infrastructure and social programs. Boggs shows that, as in the case of the Roman and other previous empires, enlargement of U.S. imperial power has resulted in a decline of civic engagement and local participation along with skewed priorities favoring the war economy and security state. Inevitably, this has meant a weakening of electoral and legislative politics, overwhelmed by the centers of enormous wealth and power.
20. War is a Lie
by David Swanson
WAR IS A LIE is a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those wars that have been most widely defended as just and good. This is a handbook of sorts, a manual to be used in debunking future lies before future wars have a chance to begin. For more information visit WarIsALie.org.
21. This USA is Lesterland
by Lawrence Lessig
Based upon his 2013 TED talk, now with more than a million views, this book tells the story of the system of corruption within our government, and how we might fix it. Cross-partisan, and incredibly hopeful, the book is a map for a democracy that we could reclaim.
22. Democracy by Other Means: The politics of Work, Leisure, and Environment
by John Buell
Does the end of the cold war signal the absolute triumph of American capitalism? Does it indeed suggest that a system of largely unregulated markets is the only engine that has driven post-cold war growth and democracy? Can capitalism-as now practiced-effectively serve the causes of social justice? The journalist John Buell answers these questions with a resounding 'no, ' reemphasizing the too often ignored point the economic forces and political realities cannot be separated.
23. Occupied Media
by Noam Chomsky
It is a good compilation of the lectures on Occupy events given by one of the most prominent academic and activist Noam Chomsky. It is a must read if you are interested in Occupy movements.
24.The New Empire of Debt (2nd edition)
by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin
In The New Empire of Debt, financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the financial crisis that has plagued the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire.
Throughout the book, the authors offer an updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil, and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system-combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption-has ravaged the business environment, devastated consumer confidence, and pushed the global economy to the brink. Along the way, Bonner and Wiggin cast a wide angle lens that looks back in history and ahead to the coming century: showing how dramatic changes in the economic power of the United States will inevitably impact every American.
- Reveals the financial realities the United States currently faces and what the ultimate outcome may be
- Weaves together the worlds of politics, economics, and personal finance in a way that underscores the severity of the situation
- Addresses the events leading up to the implosion of the U.S. financial system
- Looks ahead to help you avoid the pitfalls presented by a weaker United States
- Other titles by Bonner: Empire of Debt, Financial Reckoning Day, and Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets
- Other titles by Wiggin: I.O.U.S.A., Demise of the Dollar, and Financial Reckoning DayThe United States is heading down a difficult path. The New Empire of Debt clearly shows how this has happened and discusses what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.
by Martin Hart-Landsberg
"Globalization," surely one of the most used and abused buzzwords of recent decades, describes a phenomenon that is typically considered to be a neutral and inevitable expansion of market forces across the planet. Nearly all economists, politicians, business leaders, and mainstream journalists view globalization as the natural result of economic development, and a beneficial one at that. But, as noted economist Martin Hart-Landsberg argues, this perception does not match the reality of globalization. The rise of transnational corporations and their global production chains was the result of intentional and political acts, decisions made at the highest levels of power. Their aim - to increase profits by seeking the cheapest sources of labor and raw materials - was facilitated through policy-making at the national and international levels, and was largely successful. But workers in every nation have paid the costs, in the form of increased inequality and poverty, the destruction of social welfare provisions and labor unions, and an erratic global economy prone to bubbles, busts, and crises. This book examines the historical record of globalization and restores agency to the capitalists, policy-makers, and politicians who worked to craft a regime of world-wide exploitation. It demolishes their neoliberal ideology - already on shaky ground after the 2008 financial crisis - and picks apart the record of trade agreements like NAFTA and institutions like the WTO. But, crucially, Hart- Landsberg also discusses alternatives to capitalist globalization, looking to examples such as South America's Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) for clues on how to build an international economy based on solidarity, social development, and shared prosperity.
26. The Assault on Reason
by Al Gore
A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has
combined with the degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously
hostile to reason.
27. Dollarocracy: How Money and Media Media Election Complex is
Destroying America
by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney
“DOLLAROCRACY: HOW THE MONEY AND MEDIA ELECTION COMPLEX IS DESTROYING AMERICA provides a hard-hitting look at democracy and the connections between the electoral process and citizen control of leadership. It comes from two leading media experts who consider the forces that are stripping elections of their meaning, offering solid observations of the money/politics connections that are ruining American democratic processes…No political studies collection should be without.” – California Bookwatch
28. The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance and Hope
by Amy Goodman and Dennis Moynihan
In their new book, Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan provide a vivid record of the events, conflicts, and social movements shaping our society today. They give voice to ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power across the country and around the world. Their writing and daily work at the grassroots public TV/radio news hour Democracy Now!, carried on more than a thousand stations globally and at democracynow.org, casts in stark relief the stories of the silenced majority. These stories are set against the backdrop of the mainstream media’s abject failure, with its small circle of pundits who know so little about so much, attempting to explain the world to us and getting it so wrong.
29. War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
by Smedley T. Butler
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
30. Censored 2015: Inspiring We the People
by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff
Every year since 1976, Project Censored, our nation's oldest news-monitoring group—a university-wide project at Sonoma State University founded by Carl Jensen, directed for many years by Peter Phillips, and now under the leadership of Mickey Huff—has produced a Top-25 list of underreported news stories and a book, Censored, dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship.
A perennial favorite of booksellers, teachers, and readers everywhere, Censored is one of the strongest life-signs of our current collective desire to get the news we citizens need--despite what Big Media tells us.
1. The Progrssive
2. Extra
3. The Washington Spectator
4. Mother Jones
5. YES Magazine
6. The Skeptical Inquirer
7.The Essential Guide To Online Advocacy for Nonprofits
8. Media Activists Resource Guide
D. ARTICLES
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