Public History

For millennia, the art of public speech has been used by powerful men and women to control, subjugate, and inspire the masses. In this audiobook, Scott Kinsman invites us to a journey in history that gives a fresh and unique perspective on oratory. From the Greek pioneers to cult leaders, dictators, and Oscar winning speeches, Public Speaking: Power over the Masses is a one-of-a-kind audiobook that you can’t miss!

No city can survive without water, and lots of it. Today we take the stuff for granted: turn a tap and it gushes out. But it wasn't always so. For centuries London, one of the largest and richest cities in the world, struggled to supply its citizens with reliable, clean water. The Mercenary River tells the story of that struggle from the Middle Ages to the present day. Based on new research, it tells a tale of remarkable technological, scientific and organisational breakthroughs, but also a story of greed and complacency, high finance and low politics.

SHADOWBOSSES unfolds like an organized crime novel, but it's actually a true story of how labor unions are infiltrating our government and corrupting our political process. This compelling and insightful book exposes how unions have organized federal, state, and local government employees without their consent, and how government employee unions are now a threat to our workers' freedoms, our free and fair elections, and even our American way of life.

Now an insider at The People vs. O. J. Simpson reveals the untold story of the most widely followed trial in American history and the indelible impact it has had on the judiciary, the media, and the public. As the Los Angeles Superior Court's media liaison, Jerrianne Hayslett had unprecedented access to the trial - and met with Judge Lance Ito daily - as she attempted, sometimes unsuccessfully, to mediate between the court and members of the media and to balance their interests.

In Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control, Dali L. Yang scrutinizes China's emergency response to the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, delving into the government's handling of epidemic information and the decisions that influenced the scale and scope of the outbreak. Yang's research reveals that China's health experts had an excellent head start when they implemented a health emergency action program to respond to the outbreak at the end of December 2019.

One hundred fifty years ago, the McCoy brothers of Springfield, Illinois, bet their fortunes on Abilene, Kansas, then just a slapdash way station. Instead of an endless horizon of prairie grasses, they saw a bustling outlet for hundreds of thousands of Texas longhorns coming up the Chisholm Trail. The Chisholm Trail follows the McCoys' vision and the effects of the Chisholm Trail from post-Civil War Texas and Kansas to the multimillion-dollar beef industry that remade the Great Plains, the American diet, and the national and international beef trade.

In one of the most timely political books in years, Gail Collins declares that "what happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas anymore." Gail Collins's fascination with Texas began rather abruptly in that distant spring of 2009 when she heard Governor Rick Perry - back to the wall, boots to the ground - address a Tea Party rally full of passionate Texans who seemed to be interested in seceding from the Union. "How long had this been going on?" she wondered, on behalf of the rest of the nation. "Was it something that we said?"

Published to mark the 30th anniversary of the financial revolution known as Big Bang, Crash Bang Wallop tells the gripping story of how the changes introduced in the 1980s in the City of London transformed our world. Attitudes to money and the way we measure value and status were completely reshaped by Big Bang, and it had an extraordinary impact on politics, on style, on technology, on the class system, on questions of public ownership, and on the geography of London.

What did 19th-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives follows the 19th-century Americans who used their noses to make sense of the sanitary challenges caused by rapid urban and industrial growth.

Nuclear terrorism is such a disturbing prospect that we shy away from its details. Yet, as a consequence, we fail to understand how best to defeat it. Michael Levi takes us inside nuclear terrorism and behind the decisions a terrorist leader would be faced with in pursuing a nuclear plot. Along the way, Levi identifies the many obstacles, large and small, that such a terrorist scheme might encounter, allowing him to discover a host of ways that any plan might be foiled.

A revelatory and entertaining book about the pitfalls of how we measure our economy and how to correct them, by an award-winning editor of The Financial Times. According to GDP, the economy is in a golden era: economic growth has risen steadily over the past 70 years and shows no sign of stopping. But if this is the case, why are we living in such fractured times, with global populism on the rise and wealth inequality as stark as ever?

Can one of the most divided nations on the planet become its next superpower? James Crabtree reveals the titans of politics and industry shaping India in a period of breakneck change from controversial prime minister Narendra Modi, victor in the largest election in history, to the leading lights of the country's burgeoning billionaire class. While King of the Good Times Vijay Mallya languishes in exile in Britain, other major Bollygarchs prosper at home despite a series of scandals.

The Appalachian Trail, a thin ribbon of wilderness running through the densely populated eastern United States, offers a refuge from modern society and a place apart from human ideas and institutions. But as environmental historian - and thru-hiker - Sarah Mittlefehldt argues, the trail is also a conduit for community engagement and a model for public-private cooperation and environmental stewardship. In Tangled Roots, Mittlefehldt tells the story of the trail’s creation.

The media ran exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, styling him as a Robin Hood figure. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, then director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger and his gang as his campaign platform to evolve the BOI into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, developing more sophisticated investigative techniques as weapons against organized crime.

An epic struggle over land, water, and power is erupting in the American West and the halls of Washington, DC. It began when a 4,000-square-mile area of Arizona desert called Black Mesa was divided between the Hopi and Navajo tribes. To the outside world, it was a land struggle between two fractious Indian tribes; to political insiders and energy corporations, it was a divide-and-conquer play for the 21 billion tons of coal beneath Black Mesa. Today, that coal powers cheap electricity for Los Angeles, a new water aqueduct into Phoenix, and the neon dazzle of Las Vegas.

Despite more than 50 years of research, however, our global society has yet to find real solutions to the problem of global warming. Why? In Behind the Curve, Joshua Howe attempts to answer this question. He explores the history of global warming from its roots as a scientific curiosity to its place at the center of international environmental politics. The audiobook follows the story of rising CO2 through a number of historical contexts, highlighting the relationships among scientists, environmentalists, and politicians as those relationships changed over time.

In Recapturing the Oval Office, leading historians and social scientists forge an agenda for returning the study of the presidency to the mainstream practice of history, and they chart how the study of the presidency can be integrated into historical narratives that combine rich analyses of political, social, and cultural history. The authors demonstrate how "bringing the presidency back in" can deepen understanding of crucial questions regarding race relations, religion, and political economy.

At the historic Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Anita Hill spoke out courageously about workplace sexual harassment. Now she turns to the topic of home. As our country reels from the subprime mortgage meltdown and the resulting devastation of so many families and communities, Hill takes us inside this “crisis of home” and exposes its deep roots in race and gender inequities, which continue to imperil every American’s ability to achieve the American Dream. In this period of recovery and its aftermath, what is at stake is the inclusive democracy the Constitution promises.

Our baffling new multipolar world grows ever more complex, desperately calling for new ways of thinking, particularly when it comes to political risk. To Dare More Boldly provides those ways, telling the story of the rise of political risk analysis, both as a discipline and a lucrative high-stakes industry that guides the strategic decisions of corporations and governments around the world. It assesses why recent predictions have gone so wrong and boldly puts forward 10 analytical commandments that can stand the test of time.

Unsettling Canada, a Canadian best seller, is built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders, Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ron Derrickson.Both men have served as chiefs of their bands in the B.C. interior and both have gone on to establish important national and international reputations. But the differences between them are in many ways even more interesting. Arthur Manuel is one of the most forceful advocates for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada and comes from the activist wing of the movement.