Recommended Reading

The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney

The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin

The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan

Giving by Bill Clinton

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

It's Getting Ugly Out There by Jack Cafferty

The Terror Presidency by Jack L. Goldsmith

House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger

American Fascists by Chris Hedges

Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris

God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast

Screwed by Thom Hartmann

Why the Religious Right Is Wrong Abou…

Nine Plays in Search of an Ending by Milton Matz

At the time George W. Bush ordered American forces to invade Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11. Voters in Ohio, when asked by pollsters to list what stuck in their minds about the campaign, most frequently named two Bush television ads that played to fears of terrorism.

We live in an age when the thirty-second television spot is the most powerful force shaping the electorate's thinking, and America is in the hands of an administration less interested than any previous administration in sharing the truth with the citizenry. Related to this and of even greater concern is this administration's disinterest in the process by which the truth is ascertained, the tenets of fact-based reasoning-first among them an embrace of open inquiry in which unexpected and even inconvenient facts can lead to unexpected conclusions.

How did we get here? How much damage has been done to the functioning of our democracy and its role as steward of our security? Never has there been a worse time for us to lose the capacity to face the reality of our long-term challenges, from national security to the economy, from issues of health and social welfare to the environment. As The Assault on Reason shows us, we have precious little time to waste.

Gore's larger goal in this book is to explain how the public sphere itself has evolved into a place hospitable to reason's enemies, to make us more aware of the forces at work on our own minds, and to lead us to an understanding of what we can do, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason and safeguard our future. Drawing on a life's work in politics as well as on the work of experts across a broad range of disciplines, Al Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.

Science has never been more crucial to deciding the political issues facing the country. Yet science and scientists have less influence with the federal government than at any time since the Eisenhower administration. In the White House and Congress today, findings are reported in a politicized manner; spun or distorted to fit the speaker's agenda; or, when they're too inconvenient, ignored entirely. On a broad array of issues-stem cell research, climate change, missile defense, abstinence education, product safety, environmental regulation, and many others-the Bush administration's positions fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. Federal science agencies, once fiercely independent under both Republican and Democratic presidents, are increasingly staffed by political appointees and fringe theorists who know industry lobbyists and evangelical activists far better than they know the science.

This is not unique to the Bush administration, but it is largely a Republican phenomenon, born of a conservative dislike of environmental, health, and safety regulation, and at the extremes, of evolution and legalized abortion. In The Republican War on Science, Chris Mooney ties together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling and frightening account of our government's increasing unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven pseudoscience.

After 9/11 Alan Greenspan knew, if he needed any further reinforcement, that we're living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even 20 years ago. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change.

Alan Greenspan shares the story of his life first simply with an eye toward doing justice to the extraordinary amount of history he has experienced and shaped. But his other goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they accrue a grasp of his own understanding of the underlying dynamics that drive world events. In the second half of the book, having brought us to the present and armed us with the conceptual tools to follow him forward, Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour de horizon of the global economy. He reveals the universals of economic growth, delves into the specific facts on the ground in each of the major countries and regions of the world, and explains what the trend-lines of globalization are from here. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.

"I’ve done my best in this book to demonstrate what I’ve seen firsthand through my Foundation's work in Africa and around the world: that all kinds of giving can make a profoundly positive difference," said President Clinton. "The amount of good that so many individuals and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been able to do has proven to me that almost everyone--regardless of income, available time, age, and skills--can do something useful for others and, in the process, strengthen the fabric of our shared humanity."

GIVING highlights the work of a number of extraordinary people and organizations--some famous, as well as many private citizens whom readers will be hearing about for the first time--all of whom represent a global floodtide of nongovernmental nonprofit activity. Their remarkable stories suggest that the act of giving takes many forms, and emphasizes that offerings of time, skills, objects, and ideas can be just as important as contributions of money.

Clinton writes about the life-changing aspect of giving---of men and women who traded in their corporate careers, and the fulfillment they now experience through their new efforts and associations. He also examines, in a chapter on organizing markets for the public good, progressive companies that do good work: going green; opening markets for the under-served in disadvantaged communities; hiring people who were once on welfare; and promoting fair wages and decent working conditions for all. Clinton addresses the role of government, suggesting that when it works well, citizen service can reinforce and supplement its efforts; when it doesn’t, citizens need to harness time, money, knowledge, and skills in an effort to change, improve, or protect government policy. He outlines what we as individuals can do, the steps we can all take, how much we should consider giving, and why our giving is so important.

"Bill Clinton’s actions and deeds during his post-presidential years, both directly and through his foundation, have had an extraordinary impact on the lives of millions," said Mehta. "His new book suggests that all of us can have a profound influence on the lives of others through acts of giving. I believe this book has the power to change both our outlook and our communities, and will make a real contribution towards turning the world into a better place."

The answer lies in a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher -- direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. To trace the amazing weave of Saud-Bush connections, Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more than one hundred other sources.His access to major players is unparalleled and often exclusive -- including executives at the Carlyle Group, the giant investment firm where the House of Bush and the House of Saud each has a major stake.

Like Bob Woodward's The Veil, Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud features unprecedented reportage; like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? Unger's book offers a political counter-narrative to official explanations; this deeply sourced account has already been cited by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and sets 9/11, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing Middle East crisis in a new context: What really happened when America's most powerful political family became seduced by its Saudi counterparts?

Hedges, who grew up in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian pastor, attacks the movement as someone steeped in the Bible and Christian tradition. He points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have earned between 80 and 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. The movement's call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement's yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.

Blackwater is the dark story of the rise of a powerful mercenary army, ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to rooftop firefights in Najaf to the hurricane-ravaged US gulf to Washington DC, where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on terror. This is an extraordinary exposé by one of America's most exciting young radical journalists.

So begins Letter to a Christian Nation...

The Challenge to Religious Dogma that has Sparked a National Debate!

"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."

In response to his award-winning bestseller "The End of Faith," Sam Harris received thousands of letters from Christians excoriating him for not believing in God. "Letter to A Christian Nation" is his courageous and controversial reply. Using rational argument, Harris offers a measured refutation of the beliefs that form the core of fundamentalist Christianity. Addressing current topics ranging from intelligent design and stem-cell research to the connections between religion and violence, "Letter to a Christian Nation" boldly challenges the influence that faith has on public life in our nation.

With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

A White House spokesman said, "We hate that sonovabitch." They're not alone: From corporate suites to Osama's cave, they fear what Britain's Guardian calls "investigations up there with Woodward and Bernstein-and a lot funnier." But Greg Palast's fanatic following (nearly two million readers of his Web column) has made him "a cult fave among progressives" (Village Voice) who can't wait for his next release.

Palast's old-style gum-shoe detective work to dig out the info on the War on Terror, greed-dripping schemes to seize little nations with lots of oil, the hidden program to steal the 2008 election, and the media biases that keep it unreported are the meat and bones of this BBC television reporter's new book. Armed Madhouse is illustrated with dozens of documents marked "secret" and "confidential" that have walked out of file cabinets and fallen into Palast's hands.

You won't find Palast in The New York Times (except its bestseller list), but you will read his reports on the hottest Web sites worldwide, hear him regularly on Air America and the Pacifica radio networks, and see his stories reappearing as the basis for Eminem's hit video "Mosh," Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, and sampled by a dozen of today's top platinum rock artists.

The American middle class is on its deathbed. People who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their children to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO, you're probably screwed. As Air America Radio host Thom Hartmann shows, this death is no accident. Like the founding fathers, patriots such as Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower knew that economic opportunity and democracy go hand-in-hand. They believed in maximizing the public good and they worked tirelessly to build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. But now, under the guise of "freeing the market," conservative and corporate forces are waging a covert war against the middle class, dismantling policies like Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws -- the very safeguards that foster economic opportunity and citizen engagement. The result is an economic system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich, the impending extinction of the middle class, and a very real, very dangerous, threat to democracy itself. By exposing the systematic efforts to destroy the middle class, Screwed empowers readers to stand up, speak out, and reclaim their democratic birthrights.

Is the separation of church and state a myth?

Was the United States founded as a "Christian nation"?

Religious Right organizations have launched a systematic propaganda war against the separation of church and state. Their aim is to convince the American public that church-state separation was never intended by our Founding Fathers and that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.

In this new, expanded edition, journalist Robert Boston challenges the zealots of the Religious Right and debunks their claims about church-state separation. Tracing the development of the church-state relations from the Middle Ages to the modern era, Boston shows how the principle protects religion and explains why America's founders were such ardent advocates of the idea.

Completely revised and updated, this second edition is packed with information to help activists defend church-state separation. It reviews the evolution of separation of church and state in the United States and explains, in simple and straightforward language, what the Supreme Court has really said about issues like religion in public schools, tax aid to religious institutions, and the limits of religious freedom. Boston concludes by giving readers clear strategies to defend church-state separation from Religious Right attacks.