Collection: Politics

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it's too late--from the authors of How Democracies Die

"[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny."--The Washington Post

ONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS' TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - A NEWSWEEK BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?

With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples--from 1930s France to present-day Thailand--to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies--from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand--have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.

In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It's a daunting task, but we have remade our country before--most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

TIME'S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR - A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - A "riveting" (The Atlantic) account of the Philippines' state-sanctioned killings of its citizens under President Rodrigo Duterte, hailed as "a journalistic masterpiece" (The New Yorker)

"Tragic, elegant, vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story."--Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Economist, Chicago Public Library, CrimeReads, The Mary Sue

"My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don't wait very long."

Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.

Some People Need Killing is Evangelista's meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines' drug war. For six years, Evangelista documented the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte's war on drugs--a crusade that has led to the slaughter of thousands--immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of terror created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.

The book takes its title from a vigilante, whose words demonstrated the psychological accommodation many across the country had made: "I'm really not a bad guy," he said. "I'm not all bad. Some people need killing."

A profound act of witness and a tour de force of literary journalism, Some People Need Killing is a brilliant dissection of the grammar of violence and an investigation into the human impulses to dominate and resist.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Adam Kinzinger captures one of the most transformative periods in recent political history in a riveting, personal account from inside Congress, including the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and his vote to impeach Donald Trump.

AN OPEN FIELD PUBLICATION FROM MARIA SHRIVER

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump incited a violent mob to storm the US Capitol in attempts to overturn the presidential election. It was a betrayal of our Constitution, and one of the darkest days in recent history. Yet to former congressman Adam Kinzinger it was also the culmination of a cultural and political rupture he'd long seen coming. Constructive criticism from within the Republican Party was no longer enough. It was time to stand up, even if it meant betraying his own party.

In Renegade, Kinzinger tells his story of faith, service, and political duty in a democracy under siege. From the small Illinois county board where he got his start, to his years in the Air Force flying tanker missions over Iraq, to his final tumultuous term in Congress as one of the few Republican members to vote to impeach Trump and join the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Kinzinger takes readers inside the most critical moments and pivotal decisions of the last years. The result is both a searing examination of the rise of extremism and the GOP's subsequent descent into a dysfunctional and destructive force, and a rousing call to return to unity.

Raw, provocative, and clear-eyed, Renegade captures one of the most transformative periods in recent American history.