Sen. Angus S. King Jr.--whether hosting a bipartisan barbecue as a U.S. Senator, traveling the country in his RV, riding the back roads of Maine on his Harley, or waxing poetically about his civil war hero Joshua Chamberlain--prides himself on having an eye and an ear for both the historic and the gloriously familiar. In recent years, he has regularly captured his work and daily adventures on his smartphone and shared those pictures on social media to provide a wonderful and rare insider's look at the workaday life of a senator, whether he is in D.C. or his home state. From the formality of the Capitol Rotunda to a glorious sunrise off the coast of Maine, A Senator's Eye: Celebrating Maine, Washington and the Joys of Scraping the Windshield is a fascinating collection of these informal photos, including King's personal insights and captions.

An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in February 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for 40 years, including 18 years in the U.S. Senate, she explained that Washington wasn’t solving the big problems anymore.In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in principled policy-making and bipartisan compromise. A leading moderate with a reputation for crossing the aisle, Senator Snowe will propose solutions for bridging the partisan divide in Washington, most notably through a citizens’ movement to hold elected officials accountable. Senator Snowe recounts how the tragedies and triumphs of her personal story helped shape her political approach. Born in Augusta, Maine, Senator Snowe was orphaned at nine, and raised by an aunt and uncle. When she was twenty-six, her husband, a Maine state representative, was killed in an auto accident. Already dedicated to public service, she ran for and won her husband’s seat.The book will include anecdotes from throughout her career, and address her working relationships with Presidents Reagan through Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy, Majority Leader Bob Dole, and many others. As a senior member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, the high-profile Commerce and Intelligence Committees, and the Senate Small Business Committee, Senator Snowe has been directly involved with the most talked-about legislative challenges of recent decades: the country’s response to 9/11; the 2008 financial crisis; the Affordable Healthcare Act; the debt ceiling debacle, and much more.Her new book will draw on the lessons she's learned as a policymaker, and the frustration she shares with the American people about the government’s dwindling productivity. Senator Snowe passionately argues that the government has now lost its way, shows how this happened, and proposes ways for the world’s greatest deliberative body to, once again, fulfill its mission.

"The potential interest in this book could be measured by the fact that for the past 3 years the online website for the Maine Sex Offender Registry has had 8 million hits each year. The Evil and the Innocent presents a real life and true inside look at the tragedies and suffering of the victims of sexual assault. Those who committed these crimes against the innocent are described and discussed in detail revealing the sadistic fantasies that swirl in the heads of child sex offenders and how these fantasies manifest themselves into reality with total disregard for the pain and suffering inflicted on the victims - the children. These real and actual cases expose heartbreaking and sometimes nauseating facts of sexual assaults and molestations. As difficult as it may be for the reader, these documented details are openly displayed in the book and will stay with the reader for a long time. Seeing the dead eyes and helpless faces of little children who suffered the onslaught of cruel and inhumane acts are necessary ingredients if change is to occur. The book may startle and sicken you because of the cold, hard, facts that until now have been hidden from you. Why? to protect you. Real life suffering must be brought to the light of day so the collective you demands that it stop - no matter the cost.'--Wheelers.co.nz.

Fifty percent of American voters define themselves as political moderates, two-thirds favor political solutions that come from the center of the political spectrum, and Independents outnumber both Democrats and Republicans. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each explicitly used Centrist strategies to win the White House—and twenty-first-century candidates will be compelled to do the same. Independent Nation documents the rich history of the defining political movement of our time. Organized as a series of short and colorful political biographies, it offers an insightful and engaging analysis of the successes and failures of key Centrist leaders throughout the twentieth century. In the process, it demonstrates that Centrism is not only a winning political strategy but an enlightened governing philosophy that best reflects the will of the people by putting patriotism ahead of partisanship and the national interest ahead of special interests.

The former Maine senator and Senate majority leader describes his career spent orchestrating peace and negotiations in Northern Ireland and the Middle East and investigating the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. --Publisher's description. "Reflections on an American life, from Maine to the U.S. Senate, from baseball to Disney, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East"--Jacket.

It was called "the dirtiest campaign in American history."

One of the most talented and influential American politicians of the nineteenth century, William Pitt Fessenden (1806--1869) helped devise Union grand strategy during the Civil War. A native of Maine and son of a fiery New England abolitionist, he served in the United States Senate as a member of the Whig Party during the Kansas-Nebraska crisis and played a formative role in the development of the Republican Party. In this richly textured and fast-paced biography, Robert J. Cook charts Fessenden's rise to power and probes the potent mix of political ambition and republican ideology which impelled him to seek a place in the U.S. Senate at a time of rising tension between North and South. A determined and self-disciplined man who fought, not always successfully, to keep his passions in check, Fessenden helped to spearhead Republican Party opposition to proslavery expansion during the strife-torn 1850s and led others to resist the cotton states' efforts to secede peaceably after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. During the Civil War, he chaired the Senate Finance Committee and served as President Lincoln's second head of the Treasury Department. In both positions, he fashioned and implemented wartime financial policy for the United States. In addition, Fessenden's multifaceted relationship with Lincoln helped to foster effective working relations between the president and congressional Republicans. Cook outlines Fessenden's many contributions to critical aspects of northern grand strategy and to the gradual shift to an effective total war policy against the Confederacy. Most notably, Cook shows, Fessenden helped craft congressional policy regarding the confiscation and emancipation of slaves. Cook also details Fessenden's tenure as chairman of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction after the war, during which he authored that committee's report. Although he sanctioned his party's break with Andrew Johnson less than a year after the war's end, Cook explains how Fessenden worked decisively to thwart attempts by Radical Republicans to revolutionize post-emancipation society in the defeated Confederacy. The first biography of Fessenden in over forty years, Civil War Senator reveals a significant but often sidelined historical figure and explains the central role played by party politics and partisanship in the coming of the Civil War, northern military victory, and the ultimate failure of postwar Reconstruction. Cook restores Fessenden to his place as one of the most important politicians of a troubled generation.