<b>From the author of聽<i>On Tyranny</i>聽comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America.</b><br /><br /><b>鈥淎 brilliant analysis of our time.鈥濃€擪arl Ove Knausgaard, <i>The New Yorker</i></b><br /><br />With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia, as Putin found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s, it has spread from east to west, aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the United States.聽 <br /><br />Russia found allies among nationalists, oligarchs, and radicals everywhere, and its drive to dissolve Western institutions, states, and values found resonance within the West itself.聽 The rise of populism, the British vote against the EU, and the election of Donald Trump were all Russian goals, but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies.<br /><br />In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, based on vast research as well as personal reporting, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see, and perhaps renew, the fundamental political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark choices before us--between equality or oligarchy, individuality or totality, truth and falsehood--Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life, offering a way forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.

<p>Disinformation is as old as humanity. When Satan told Eve nothing would happen if she bit the apple, that was disinformation. But the rise of social media has made disinformation even more pervasive and pernicious in our current era. In a disturbing turn of events, governments are increasingly using disinformation to create their own false narratives, and democracies are proving not to be very good at fighting it. <br /><br /><br /><br /></p><p>During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, the former editor of <i>Time</i> and an Under Secretary of State, was on the front lines of this new global information war. At the time, he was the single person in government tasked with unpacking, disproving, and combating both ISIS鈥檚 messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, in 2016, as the presidential election unfolded, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself, weaponizing the grievances of Americans who felt left out by modernism. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three players had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again; Putin tried to make Russia great again; and we all know about Trump. <br /><br /><br /><br /></p><p>In a narrative that is by turns dramatic and eye-opening, <i>Information Wars</i> walks readers through of this often frustrating battle. Stengel moves through Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and introduces characters from Putin to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mohamed bin Salman to show how disinformation is impacting our global society. He illustrates how ISIS terrorized the world using social media, and how the Russians launched a tsunami of disinformation around the annexation of Crimea 鈥?a scheme that became the model for their interference with the 2016 presidential election. An urgent book for our times, <i>Information Wars</i> stresses that we must find a way to combat this ever growing threat to democracy. <br /></p>

<b>The life of John Marshall, Founding Father and America's premier chief justice.</b> <br />In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the United States. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Supreme Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again. Through three decades of dramatic cases involving businessmen, scoundrels, Native Americans, and slaves, Marshall defended the federal government against unruly states, established the Supreme Court's right to rebuke Congress or the president, and unleashed the power of American commerce. For better and for worse, he made the Supreme Court a pillar of American life. <br />In <i>John Marshall</i>, award-winning biographer Richard Brookhiser vividly chronicles America's greatest judge and the world he made.

<p><b>#1聽<i>NEW YORK TIMES</i>聽BESTSELLER 鈥⒙燡ohn Grisham鈥檚 first work of nonfiction: a true crime story that will terrify anyone who believes in the presumption of innocence.</b><br /><b>聽</b><br /><b>NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY聽SERIES</b><br /><b>聽</b><br /><b>鈥淏oth an American tragedy and [Grisham鈥檚] strongest legal thriller yet, all the more gripping because it happens to be true.鈥濃€?lt;i>Entertainment Weekly</i></b><br />聽<br />In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the Big Leagues, Ron stumbled, his dreams broken by drinking, drugs, and women. Then, on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron鈥檚 home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was savagely murdered. The investigation led nowhere. Until, on the flimsiest evidence, it led to Ron Williamson. The washed-up small-town hero was charged, tried, and sentenced to death鈥攊n a trial littered with lying witnesses and tainted evidence that would shatter a man鈥檚 already broken life, and let a true killer go free.<br />聽<br />Impeccably researched, grippingly told, filled with eleventh-hour drama,聽<i>The Innocent Man</i>聽reads like a page-turning legal thriller. It is a book no American can afford to miss.<br />聽<br /><b>Praise for聽<i>The Innocent Man</i></b><br />聽<br />鈥淕risham has crafted a legal thriller every bit as suspenseful and fast-paced as his bestselling fiction.鈥?lt;b>鈥?lt;i>The</i>聽<i>Boston Globe</i></b><br />聽<br />鈥淎 gritty, harrowing true-crime story.鈥?lt;b>鈥?lt;i>Time</i></b><br /><i>聽</i><br />鈥淎 triumph.鈥?lt;b><i>鈥擳he Seattle Times</i></b><br /><br /><b>BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from John Grisham鈥檚 <i>The Litigators.</i></b></p>

<i>"Sam, could you do me a favor?"</i> Thus begins a story that has now become part of America鈥檚 true crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga聴the story of a young lawyer fresh from the Public Defender鈥檚 Office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation鈥檚 history. <br /><br /> Sam Amirante had just opened his first law practice when he got a phone call from his friend John Wayne Gacy, a well-known and well-liked community figure. Gacy was upset about what he called 聯police harassment鈥?and asked Amirante for help. With the police following his every move in connection with the disappearance of a local teenager, Gacy eventually gives a drunken, dramatic, early morning confession聴to his new lawyer. Gacy is eventually charged with murder and Amirante suddenly becomes the defense attorney for one of American鈥檚 most disturbing serial killers. It is his first case. This is a gripping narrative that reenacts the gruesome killings and the famous trial that shocked a nation.

<strong>Instant </strong><strong><em>New York Times</em></strong><strong> bestseller!</strong><br /><strong><em>A Washington Independent Review of Books</em></strong><strong> Favorite Book of 2018<br />A </strong><strong><em>Suspense Magazine</em></strong><strong> Best Book of 2018<br />A </strong><strong><em>Mental Floss</em></strong><strong> Best Book of 2018<br />A </strong><strong><em>USA Today</em></strong><strong> Top 10 Hot Book for Summer<br /><br />鈥淢akes you feel as if you are watching a live camera riveted on a courtroom more than 150 years ago.鈥?鈥擠iane Sawyer <br /><br />The true story of Abraham Lincoln鈥檚 last murder trial, a case in which he had a deep personal involvement鈥攁nd which played out in the nation鈥檚 newspapers as he began his presidential campaign</strong><br /><br />At the end of the summer of 1859, twenty-two-year-old Peachy Quinn Harrison went on trial for murder in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than three thousand cases鈥攊ncluding more than twenty-five murder trials鈥攄uring his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him. This was to be his last great case as a lawyer.<br /><br />What normally would have been a local case took on momentous meaning. Lincoln鈥檚 debates with Senator Stephen Douglas the previous fall had gained him a national following, transforming the little-known, self-taught lawyer into a respected politician. He was being urged to make a dark-horse run for the presidency in 1860. Taking this case involved great risk. His reputation was untarnished, but should he lose this trial, should Harrison be convicted of murder, the spotlight now focused so brightly on him might be dimmed. He had won his most recent murder trial with a daring and dramatic maneuver that had become a local legend, but another had ended with his client dangling from the end of a rope.<br /><br />The case posed painful personal challenges for Lincoln. The murder victim had trained for the law in his office, and Lincoln had been his friend and his mentor. His accused killer, the young man Lincoln would defend, was the son of a close friend and loyal supporter. And to win this trial he would have to form an unholy allegiance with a longtime enemy, a revivalist preacher he had twice run against for political office鈥攁nd who had bitterly slandered Lincoln as an 鈥渋nfidel鈥oo lacking in faith鈥?to be elected.<br /><br /><em>Lincoln鈥檚 Last Trial</em> captures the presidential hopeful鈥檚 dramatic courtroom confrontations in vivid detail as he fights for his client鈥攂ut also for his own blossoming political future. It is a moment in history that shines a light on our legal system, as in this case Lincoln fought a legal battle that remains incredibly relevant today.

One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue. This is the story of their triumph over incredible odds and corporate irresponsibility, as told by Gerald M. Stern, who as a young lawyer and took on the case and won.

<b>From the authors of the international bestseller聽<i>Why Nations Fail</i>, a crucial new big-picture framework that answers the question of how liberty flourishes in some states but falls to authoritarianism or anarchy in others--and explains how it can continue to thrive despite new threats.</b><br /><br /> In <i>Why Nations Fail</i>, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argued that countries rise and fall based not on culture, geography, or chance, but on the power of their institutions. In their new book, they build a new theory about liberty and how to achieve it, drawing a wealth of evidence from both current affairs and disparate threads of world history. 聽<br /><br /> Liberty is hardly the "natural" order of things. In most places and at most times, the strong have dominated the weak and human freedom has been quashed by force or by customs and norms. Either states have been too weak to protect individuals from these threats, or states have been too strong for people to protect themselves from despotism. Liberty emerges only when a delicate and precarious balance is struck between state and society.<br /><br /> There is a Western myth that political liberty is a durable construct, arrived at by a process of "enlightenment." This static view is a fantasy, the authors argue. In reality, the corridor to liberty is narrow and stays open only via a fundamental and incessant struggle between state and society: The authors look to the American Civil Rights Movement, Europe鈥檚 early and recent history, the Zapotec civilization circa 500 BCE, and Lagos鈥檚 efforts to uproot corruption and institute government accountability to illustrate what it takes to get and stay in the corridor. But they also examine Chinese imperial history, colonialism in the Pacific, India鈥檚 caste system, Saudi Arabia鈥檚 suffocating cage of norms, and the 鈥淧aper Leviathan鈥?of many Latin American and African nations to show how countries can drift away from it, and explain the feedback loops that make liberty harder to achieve. <br /><br /> Today we are in the midst of a time of wrenching destabilization. We need liberty more than ever, and yet the corridor to liberty is becoming narrower and more treacherous. The danger on the horizon is not "just" the loss of our political freedom, however grim that is in itself; it is also the disintegration of the prosperity and safety that critically depend on liberty. The opposite of the corridor of liberty is the road to ruin.

<p><strong>National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist<br /><br />National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist<br /><br />A <em>New York Times</em> Notable Book of the Year<br /><br />A <em>Washington Post</em> Notable Book of the Year<br /><br />A PBS 鈥淣ow Read This鈥?Book Club Selection<br /><br />Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the <em>Economist</em> and the <em>Boston Globe</em></strong></p><br /><p><strong>A landmark expos茅 and 鈥渄eeply engaging legal history鈥?of one of the most successful, yet least known, civil rights movements in American history (<em>Washington Post</em>).</strong></p><br /><p>In a revelatory work praised as 鈥渆xcellent and timely鈥?(<em>New York Times Book Review</em>, front page), Adam Winkler, author of <em>Gunfight</em>, once again makes sense of our fraught constitutional history in this incisive portrait of how American businesses seized political power, won 鈥渆qual rights,鈥?and transformed the Constitution to serve big business.</p><br /><p>Uncovering the deep roots of Citizens United, he repositions that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision as the capstone of a centuries-old battle for corporate personhood. 鈥淭ackling a topic that ought to be at the heart of political debate鈥?(<em>Economist</em>), Winkler surveys more than four hundred years of diverse cases鈥攁nd the contributions of such legendary legal figures as Daniel Webster, Roger Taney, Lewis Powell, and even Thurgood Marshall鈥攖o reveal that 鈥渢he history of corporate rights is replete with ironies鈥?(<em>Wall Street Journal</em>). <em>We the Corporations</em> is an uncompromising work of history to be read for years to come.</p>

<b>The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux鈥攖he creator of a frighteningly powerful Internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.</b><br /><br /><b><b>鈥淎 tour de force of shoe-leather reporting鈥攗ndertaken, amid threats and menacing, at considerable personal risk.鈥濃€?lt;i>Los Angeles Times</i></b><br /><br /></b>It all started as an online prescription drug network, supplying hundreds of millions of dollars鈥?worth of painkillers to American customers. It would not stop there. Before long, the business had turned into a sprawling multinational conglomerate engaged in almost every conceivable aspect of criminal mayhem. Yachts carrying $100 million in cocaine. Safe houses in Hong Kong filled with gold bars. Shipments of methamphetamine from North Korea. Weapons deals with Iran. Mercenary armies in Somalia. Teams of hit men in the Philippines. Encryption programs so advanced that the government could not break them.<br /><br /> The man behind it all, pulling the strings from a laptop in Manila, was Paul Calder Le Roux鈥攁 reclusive programmer turned criminal genius who could only exist in the networked world of the twenty-first century, and the kind of self-made crime boss that American law enforcement had never imagined.<br /><br /> For half a decade, DEA agents played a global game of cat-and-mouse with Le Roux as he left terror and chaos in his wake. Each time they came close, he would slip away. It would take relentless investigative work, and a shocking betrayal from within his organization, to catch him. And when he was finally caught, the story turned again, as Le Roux struck a deal to bring down his own organization and the people he had once employed.<br /><br /> Award-winning investigative journalist Evan Ratliff spent four years piecing together this intricate puzzle, chasing Le Roux鈥檚 empire and his shadowy henchmen around the world, conducting hundreds of interviews and uncovering thousands of documents. The result is a riveting, unprecedented account of a crime boss built by and for the digital age.<br /><br /><b>Praise for <i>The Mastermind<br /></i></b><br />鈥?lt;i>The Mastermind</i> is true crime at its most stark and vivid depiction. Evan Ratliff鈥檚 work is well done from beginning to end, paralleling his investigative work with the work of the many federal agents developing the case against LeRoux.鈥?lt;b>鈥?lt;i>San Francisco Book Review </i>(five stars)</b><br /><br />鈥淎 wholly engrossing story that joins the worlds of El Chapo and Edward Snowden; both disturbing and memorable.鈥?lt;b>鈥?lt;i>Kirkus Reviews聽</i>(starred review)</b>