When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he had an unprecedented chance to do what no other recent president could: seize the nation's financial reins from the corporate elite and return them to the American people. Progressives everywhere held out hope that their new leader would take advantage of the economic crisis he stepped into and enact bold policies that would evoke real financial reforms-putting Main Street in front of Wall Street, at last. But that, writes Robert Kuttner, is not the way things turned out. Instead, America's best chance for radical financial reform turned into Wall Street's greatest victory. Obama filled his administration with allies of financial elites who were more interested in business as usual than in transformative change. As a consequence, Main Street remained mired in deep recession. Instead of being the instrument of economic renewal, Obama became the target of economic frustration. In this hard-hitting, incisive account, Kuttner shares his unique, insider view of how the Obama administration not only missed its moment to turn our economy around-but deepened Wall Street's risky grip on America's future. Carefully constructing a one-year history of the problem, the players, and the outcome, Kuttner gives readers an unparalleled account of the president's first year. More importantly, though, Kuttner shows how we could-with swift, decisive action-still enact real reforms. This is a book not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand exactly how Wall Street won, and how Main Street can still fight back.

The transition from President Donald J. Trump to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stands as one of the most dangerous periods in American history. But as #1 internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa reveal for the first time, it was far more than just a domestic political crisis. Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the center of the turmoil, resulting in more than 6,000 pages of transcripts—and a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink. This classic study of Washington takes readers deep inside the Trump White House, the Biden White House, the 2020 campaign, and the Pentagon and Congress, with eyewitness accounts of what really happened. Intimate scenes are supplemented with never-before-seen material from secret orders, transcripts of confidential calls, diaries, emails, meeting notes and other personal and government records, making Peril an unparalleled history. It is also the first inside look at Biden’s presidency as he began his presidency facing the challenges of a lifetime: the continuing deadly pandemic and millions of Americans facing soul-crushing economic pain, all the while navigating a bitter and disabling partisan divide, a world rife with threats, and the hovering, dark shadow of the former president.

This book examines the contact relationships between U.S. presidents and America's intellectuals since 1960.

Discover the inside story of life inside President Trump’s White House as only #1 internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward can tell it with this collection of Woodward’s most revealing and unprecedented works including Fear, Rage, and Peril. With authoritative reporting, internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward offers an exposing and riveting account of President Trump’s term in office—from the beginning to the final transfer of power to President Biden’s administration. In vivid detail, Woodward paints the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published in this complete trilogy following the Trump presidency. This collection includes: Fear: An “explosive” (The Washington Post) and “devastating” (The New Yorker) look at the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Fear is the inside story on President Trump as only Bob Woodward can tell it, drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files, and documents. Rage: An unprecedented and intimate tour de force of reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster, and racial unrest. In dramatic detail, Woodward has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. Peril: The book covers the end of the Trump presidency and the early months of the Biden presidency.

"It's history that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller." —Harlan Coben Daniel Stashower, the two-time Edgar award–winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, uncovers the riveting true story of the "Baltimore Plot," an audacious conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War in THE HOUR OF PERIL. In February of 1861, just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a "clear and fully-matured" threat of assassination as he traveled by train from Springfield to Washington for his inauguration. Over a period of thirteen days the legendary detective Allan Pinkerton worked feverishly to detect and thwart the plot, assisted by a captivating young widow named Kate Warne, America's first female private eye. As Lincoln's train rolled inexorably toward "the seat of danger," Pinkerton struggled to unravel the ever-changing details of the murder plot, even as he contended with the intractability of Lincoln and his advisors, who refused to believe that the danger was real. With time running out Pinkerton took a desperate gamble, staking Lincoln's life—and the future of the nation—on a "perilous feint" that seemed to offer the only chance that Lincoln would survive to become president. Shrouded in secrecy—and, later, mired in controversy—the story of the "Baltimore Plot" is one of the great untold tales of the Civil War era, and Stashower has crafted this spellbinding historical narrative with the pace and urgency of a race-against-the-clock thriller. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013 Winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Winner of the 2013 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Non-fiction Work Winner of the 2014 Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction

A sitting justice reflects upon the authority of the Supreme CourtÑhow that authority was gained and how measures to restructure the Court could undermine both the Court and the constitutional system of checks and balances that depends on it. A growing chorus of officials and commentators argues that the Supreme Court has become too political. On this view the confirmation process is just an exercise in partisan agenda-setting, and the jurists are no more than Òpoliticians in robesÓÑtheir ostensibly neutral judicial philosophies mere camouflage for conservative or liberal convictions. Stephen Breyer, drawing upon his experience as a Supreme Court justice, sounds a cautionary note. Mindful of the CourtÕs history, he suggests that the judiciaryÕs hard-won authority could be marred by reforms premised on the assumption of ideological bias. Having, as Hamilton observed, Òno influence over either the sword or the purse,Ó the Court earned its authority by making decisions that have, over time, increased the publicÕs trust. If public trust is now in decline, one part of the solution is to promote better understandings of how the judiciary actually works: how judges adhere to their oaths and how they try to avoid considerations of politics and popularity. Breyer warns that political intervention could itself further erode public trust. Without the publicÕs trust, the Court would no longer be able to act as a check on the other branches of government or as a guarantor of the rule of law, risking serious harm to our constitutional system.

America is being conquered. Our Declaration of Independence has been relegated to history courses. Lulled by passivity, we take our inalienable rights for granted. Recognizing this mass complacency, a certain group recently obtained power in America. Under the guise of a war on terror and national security they are systematically undermining democracy and scrapping our Constitution. 'America in Peril' puts together a pervasive pattern of intrigue and deception. Starting with the characters that wiggled their way into the White House and conjured up a crisis to rally the country behind a wartime president, Aldridge paints a disturbing picture, delving into the decay of civil rights and showing how the government is not only keeping tabs on the populace but also steadily eroding humanitarian law. Two possible outcomes are presented--the path to martial law and dictatorship or a worldview that can save this country if enough perceptive people put it in motion. America is indeed in peril. The test we all face is profound.

A Chicago crime reporter is out to stop a local hate group from assassinating President Truman in this historical crime thriller. Chicago, 1948. As President Harry Truman prepares to visit Chicago in the final tense days of his reelection campaign, police reporter Steve “Snap” Malek receives an ominous threat. An anti-Semitic group plans to assassinate the president for officially recognizing the new state of Israel. When Malek refuses the hate group’s demands for newspaper publicity, they begin killing Chicagoans—one a day, including a policeman and a fireman. As the so-called New Reich promises more of the same, Malek begins his dogged hunt to uncover their true identities. Along the way, he meets maverick automaker Preston Tucker, and even gets the chance to drive the revolutionary Tucker Torpedo. But when Truman arrives in Chicago for a parade, time is running out for Malek to stifle the deadly plot.

On December 18, 2019, Donald Trump became the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was later acquitted by the Senate. Earlier that summer, Trump held a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. An unknown whistleblower raised concerns about the call, claiming that Trump had improperly pressured Zelensky to get involved in US politics. Over the following months a dramatic impeachment inquiry unfolded. Fraught hearings played out on television while Democrats and Republicans traded interpretations, arguments, and even insults. Faced with suppressed information and conflicting accounts, the nation tried to discover the truth. In over two hundred years Congress has gathered only a handful of times to debate what makes an impeachable offense. What events led to Trump’s impeachment? How does the impeachment process work? What other presidents have been impeached, and why? Learn the history, mechanics, and milestone events behind impeachment, and discover how the most recent one may affect US politics for years to come.

Rage is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 international bestselling author of Fear: Trump in the White House, has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. In dramatic detail, Woodward takes readers into the Oval Office as Trump’s head pops up when he is told in January 2020 that the pandemic could reach the scale of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 675,000 Americans. In 17 on-the-record interviews with Woodward over seven volatile months—an utterly vivid window into Trump’s mind—the president provides a self-portrait that is part denial and part combative interchange mixed with surprising moments of doubt as he glimpses the perils in the presidency and what he calls the “dynamite behind every door.” At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump’s responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Revisiting the earliest days of the Trump presidency, Rage reveals how Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats struggled to keep the country safe as the president dismantled any semblance of collegial national security decision making. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 never-seen personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a “fantasy film.” Trump insists to Woodward he will triumph over Covid-19 and the economic calamity. “Don’t worry about it, Bob. Okay?” Trump told the author in July. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to do another book. You’ll find I was right.”