Knowledge = Power

Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962—1976

"Fascinating, shrewd . . . The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns of Chinese history."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times In  this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the  first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for  decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal  events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern  European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet  alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing.  With a new final chapter on the emerging superpower’s  twenty-first-century role in global politics and economics, On China provides historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of our time.

A primer on Democratic Socialism for those who are extremely skeptical of it. America is witnessing the rise of a new generation of socialist  activists. More young people support socialism now than at any time  since the labor movement of the 1920s. The Democratic Socialists of  America, a big-tent leftist organization, has just surpassed 50,000  members nationwide. In the fall of 2018, one of the most influential  congressmen in the Democratic Party lost a primary to Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old socialist who had never held office before.  But what does all this mean? Should we be worried about our country, or  should we join the march toward our bright socialist future? In Why You  Should Be a Socialist, Nathan J. Robinson will give listeners a primer  on 21st-century socialism: what it is, what it isn’t, and why everyone  should want to be a part of this exciting new chapter of American  politics. From the heyday of Occupy Wall Street through Bernie Sanders’ 2016  presidential campaign and beyond, young progressives have been  increasingly drawn to socialist ideas. However, the movement’s goals  need to be defined more sharply before it can effect real change on a  national scale. Likewise, liberals and conservatives will benefit from a  deeper understanding of the true nature of this ideology, whether they  agree with it or not. Robinson’s charming, accessible, and well-argued book will convince  even the most skeptical listeners of the merits of socialist thought.

In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter of a nobleman. All of them are unprepared for what lies ahead. Alongside their fellow compatriots - a catalog of enduring literary characters - Pierre, Andrew, and Natásha will be irrevocably torn between fate and free will. Through the bonds of love and family, and all that can break them, Tolstoy examines the effects of war on every strata of society in his masterwork of intimate - and epic - social history. Revised edition: Previously published as War and Peace, this edition of War and Peace (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions. Leo Tolstoy (Author), Louise Maude - translator (Author), Aylmer Maude - translator (Author), Edoardo Ballerini (Narrator), Brilliance Audio (Publisher)

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance. An exciting re-launch of the classic Earthsea Cycle, by fantasy literature legend Ursula K. Le Guin, winner of a Newbery Honor, the National Book Award, Pushcart Prize, and six Nebula Awards.

Basic Economics_A Citizen's Guide to the Economy - Thomas Sowell Black Rednecks and White Liberals - Thomas Sowell The Housing Boom and Bust

Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes  reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time—wood  to coal to oil to electricity and beyond. People have lived and  died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to  world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the  history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself. Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning  author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made  room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and  renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress,  through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I,  Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. In Energy,  Rhodes highlights the successes and failures that led to each  breakthrough in energy production; from animal and waterpower to the  steam engine, from internal-combustion to the electric motor. He  addresses how we learned from such challenges, mastered their  transitions, and capitalized on their opportunities. Rhodes also looks  at the current energy landscape, with a focus on how wind energy is  competing for dominance with cast supplies of coal and natural gas. He  also addresses the specter of global warming, and a population hurtling  towards ten billion by 2100. Human beings have confronted the  problem of how to draw life from raw material since the beginning of  time. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further  challenges, and through such transformations, we arrived at where we are  today. In Rhodes’s singular style, Energy details how this knowledge of our history can inform our way tomorrow.

Hidden deep within the daily workings of governments and civilizations is a secret world of mystery, danger, and intrigue. A world where deception is a form of art. Where people are never who they say they are. Where the tiniest observation has the power to save an empire or spark a global war. Welcome to the world of the spy—a world that most of us associate with popular fiction and film but the true story of which is more fascinating, surprising, and important than you could possibly imagine. For thousands of years, espionage and covert operations have been powerful but shadowy forces. Much of world history has been shaped by the dramatic exploits of men, women, and organizations devoted to the perilous tasks and undercover missions that are part of a spy's life. Consider that covert operations have played critical roles in epic conflicts such as the Trojan War, the Crusades, World War II, and the War on Terror; political upheavals such as the American, French, and Russian revolutions; and even cultural moments such as the quest to colonize the New World, the 19th-century expansion of empires, and race to build the world's first atomic bomb. Indeed, to truly comprehend the forces at work in international politics, whether at the dawn of civilization or among today's sophisticated world powers, one must understand the secret role of espionage and the shadowy world of covert operations. Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History is your chance to take a detailed and unforgettable tour of the millennia-long history and enduring legacy of this top-secret subject. Delivered by master historian and popular Great Courses Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, these 24 thrilling lectures survey how world powers have attempted to work in the shadows to gain secret information or subvert enemies behind the scenes. Filled with stories that are both marvelous and mysterious, and insights that will change the way you think about some of world history's most defining events, this course lets you peer inside a subject whose truths most people are unaware of.

The definitive history of nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. From the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan, Richard Rhodes’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans’ race to beat Hitler’s Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychology—from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence. From nuclear power’s earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story. Richard Rhodes’s ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful work.

“Nothing short of a masterpiece.”―NPR Books A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades,  award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the  origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review),  Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself―a  devotion to facts, proof, and evidence―at the center of the nation’s  history. The American experiment rests on three ideas―“these truths,”  Jefferson called them―political equality, natural rights, and the  sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself,  delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this  uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of  events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or  belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of  American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of  inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in  contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,”  Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is  part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.