Politics & Power

Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post Martin Baron · 2023 · read Sep 2026Baron's eight years as executive editor of the Washington Post were a squeeze from two sides. The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism Joe Conason · 2024 · read Sep 2026Conason's case is that Trump isn't where conservative grift began, only its largest example. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War Michael Dobbs · 2008 · read Sep 2026What nearly started a nuclear war in October 1962? Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds John Fugelsang · 2025 · read Aug 2026Fugelsang's argument is that the fight isn't religion versus secularism. America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System Steven Brill · 2015 · read Aug 2026The Affordable Care Act changed who gets covered and left what you get charged almost untouched. Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy Brian Tyler Cohen · 2024 · read Aug 2026Cohen's argument is that the gap between the Republican brand and Republican behavior isn't an accident. The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Craig Whitlock · 2021 · read Jul 2026Three administrations told you the war in Afghanistan was going well while saying privately that it was being lost. The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World Brian Tyler Cohen · 2026 · read Jul 2026The norms you're waiting to see restored after Trump aren't coming back, and Congress already runs like a parliamentary system… Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan · 2026 · read Jul 2026Picture a classified defense meeting derailed by someone arriving with stone samples for the Rose Garden. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court Jeffrey Toobin · 2007 · read Jun 2026For decades the conservative campaign to remake the Supreme Court kept running into moderates, above all Sandra Day O'Connor. Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History Yasmeen Abutaleb, Damian Paletta · 2021 · read Jun 2026Trump's idea of quarantining infected Americans at Guantanamo Bay, a scrapped plan to mail masks to households, white powder sent… The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court Jeffrey Toobin · 2012 · read Jun 2026Two Harvard Law Review alumni, and two opposite ideas of what the Court is for. True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump Jeffrey Toobin · 2020 · read Jun 2026Mueller's evidence didn't establish a criminal conspiracy with Russia. Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President Michael S. Schmidt · 2020 · read May 2026When Trump wanted Mueller fired, White House counsel Don McGahn refused, then spent more than 30 hours with Mueller's prosecutors. End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America Chris Jennings · 2026 · read Apr 2026Ruby Ridge usually gets told as a botched federal raid. Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind Jason Zengerle · 2026 · read Apr 2026What turned a talented, contrarian 1990s magazine writer into the most influential voice on the far right? Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland Salena Zito · 2025 · read Mar 2026Place explains how Americans vote better than the national press does, and small communities like Butler, not big cities, decided… Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America Robert B. Reich · 2025 · read Mar 2026Reich is still proud of family and medical leave and the expanded tax credits of the Clinton years. Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department Carol Leonnig · 2025 · read Feb 2026The Justice Department's independence was never written into law. Siege: Trump Under Fire Michael Wolff · 2019 · read Feb 2026How much of what you're reading is Steve Bannon's version? All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America Michael Wolff · 2025 · read Feb 2026Wolff's case is that the indictments didn't sink Trump, they fed him, as each courtroom fight brought in more endorsements and… Too Famous Michael Wolff · 2021 · read Feb 2026Wolff says up front that "almost everyone in this book is a determined social climber," and his case is that chasing attention… Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism Sarah Wynn-Williams · 2025 · read Feb 2026Facebook's senior leadership was warned about Myanmar again and again and declined to act, according to someone inside the room. Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction David Enrich · 2020 · read Feb 2026Deutsche Bank is best known as the bank that kept lending to Donald Trump. State of Denial Bob Woodward · 2006 · read Jan 2026Who pushed Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld? The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America David A. Graham · 2025 · read Jan 2026Strip away the 900-plus pages and Project 2025 is a coordinated, ideological plan to expand presidential power and remake… The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink Thom Hartmann · 2025 · read Jan 2026Hartmann's argument is that Trump is a symptom of a system that was already decaying, not its cause. Abundance Ezra Klein · 2025 · read Jan 2026If you've ever wondered why housing and clean energy take so long to build in America, Klein and Thompson's answer is rules. Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq Bob Woodward · 2004 · read Jan 2026Seventy-two days after 9/11, George W. Bush at War Bob Woodward · 2002 · read Dec 2025The Situation Room, the war cabinet, and roughly the first 100 days after September 11. All the President’s Men Carl Bernstein · 1974 · read Dec 2025A 1972 burglary at the Democratic National Committee, two young Washington Post reporters, and a source who would only meet in… Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber Andy Borowitz · 2022 · read Dec 2025Borowitz writes it as satire, jokes and all. Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency Joshua Green · 2017 · read Dec 2025The bargain in the title ran both ways: Bannon got a candidate who could win, and Trump got a strategist in August 2016, when his… After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made Ben Rhodes · 2021 · read Dec 2025If you've ever wondered what American democracy looks like from outside, Rhodes looks for the answer in Orbán's Hungary, Putin's… Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress Annie Karni · 2025 · read Dec 2025The 118th Congress enacted just 27 bills, the fewest since the Great Depression. Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America Jonathan Karl · 2025 · read Nov 2025The second Trump presidency is more radical than the first in Karl's account, going after enemies, the courts, anti-corruption… Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers John W. Dean · 2020 · read Nov 2025Why would evangelicals stay with Trump through sexual misconduct allegations, or working-class voters back policies that may hurt… The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir John Bolton · 2020 · read Oct 2025Bolton's case is that Trump ran foreign policy around his own interests and reelection rather than national security. 107 Days Kamala Harris · 2025 · read Oct 2025You have 107 days, from Biden dropping out on July 21, 2024 to Election Day, and the Secret Service calls you Pioneer. The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy Brian Klaas · 2017 · read Aug 2025Eroding a democracy starts with eroding the truth, and Klaas finds despots' tactics all through Trump's first year: attacks on… Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror Michael V. Hayden · 2016 · read Jun 2025Hayden's case is that spy agencies should work right up to the edge of what the law allows, and that your privacy, a value he… Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again Jake Tapper · 2025 · read May 2025If you watched the June 27, 2024 debate, you saw what Tapper and Thompson say Biden's inner circle had worked to hide. Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign Jonathan Allen · 2017 · read May 2025Why weren't working-class white voters with her? Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right Jane Mayer · 2016 · read Apr 2025By Mayer's count, 18 billionaires worth a combined $214 billion helped fund the opposition to the Obama administration. Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House Jonathan Allen · 2025 · read Apr 2025Biden's insistence on staying in the race after the June 27, 2024 debate split his party until he withdrew on July 21. Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy Katherine Stewart · 2025 · read Mar 2025America's antidemocratic right runs on three groups, in Stewart's reporting from its conferences, strategy meetings and religious… Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past Steve Benen · 2024 · read Feb 2025Benen's case is that rewriting the recent past has become Republican strategy rather than spin, and that a false version only… A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them Timothy Egan · 2023 · read Feb 2025Who brought down the 1920s Klan at the height of its power? Autocracy, Inc. Anne Applebaum · 2024 · read Jan 2025Communist states were tied together by ideology. Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College Jesse Wegman · 2020 · read Jan 2025If you don't live in a battleground state, winner-take-all rules make your presidential vote effectively irrelevant. Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Mary L. Trump · 2020 · read Jan 2025Mary Trump says plainly that she isn't making a formal diagnosis. The Showman Simon Shuster · 2024 · read Dec 2024Shuster was inside Volodymyr Zelensky's presidential compound in Kyiv as Russia's full-scale invasion unfolded, with extensive… The Death of Truth: How Social Media and the Internet Gave Snake Oil Salesmen and Demagogues the Weapons They Needed to Destroy Trust and Polarize the World – and What We Can Do About It Steven Brill · 2024 · read Dec 2024Follow the ad money behind a disinformation site and you can find a mainstream brand that never meant to fund it. A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times Mark T. Esper · 2022 · read Dec 2024During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Trump asked whether troops could just shoot protesters in the legs, according to Mark… Impeachment: An American History Jeffrey A. Engel · 2018 · read Dec 2024Three presidents, three case chapters, and one argument: impeachment runs on politics more than law, and it goes nowhere unless… The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis George Stephanopoulos · 2024 · read Nov 2024One room, twelve administrations, Kennedy to Biden. At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House H.R. McMaster · 2024 · read Nov 2024Run a structured national security process amid internal power struggles, leaks and partisan media: that was the task McMaster… Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church Hahrie Han · 2024 · read Oct 2024Han's case is that relationships, not corporate-style diversity training, can drive deeper change on race. Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Michael Cohen · 2020 · read Oct 2024Cohen admits he enabled crimes on Trump's behalf during more than a decade as his personal attorney and fixer, and the confession… Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty Daron Acemoğlu · 2012 · read Oct 2024Similar people, very different outcomes: North and South Korea are Acemoğlu and Robinson's central illustration. War Bob Woodward · 2024 · read Oct 2024Two wars at once, in Ukraine and Gaza, and a White House trying to keep either from becoming a wider or nuclear conflict. War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Powerbrokers Benjamin R. Teitelbaum · 2020 · read Oct 2024Traditionalism, an anti-modern spiritual school rooted in René Guénon and Julius Evola, has had a tiny following for a century. Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success Russ Buettner · 2024 · read Sep 2024Trump received more than $400 million from his father, in today's dollars, through loans never repaid, trust funds and interest… Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America Maggie Haberman · 2022 · read Sep 2024Haberman's case is that Trump governed with the same combative, transactional habits he built in New York real estate, tabloid… The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and his Spies are Undermining America and Dismantling the West Malcolm W. Nance · 2018 · read Sep 2024Voter databases hacked, Democratic officials' emails leaked, bots spreading pro-Trump disinformation: in Nance's account, 2016… White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy Thomas F. Schaller · 2024 · read Sep 2024Rural white Americans hold outsized electoral power and still face poor access to health care, failing infrastructure and lost… The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal Mary L. Trump · 2021 · read Sep 2024Genocide against Native Americans, slavery and systemic racism: Mary L. Fascism: A Warning Madeleine K. Albright · 2018 · read Sep 2024Fascism, for Albright, is less an ideology than a method for taking and keeping power. The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 Jonathan Lemire · 2022 · read Sep 2024The stolen-election claim didn't start after the 2020 vote. Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America Barbara McQuade · 2024 · read Sep 2024Disinformation works through emotion: it polarizes you, exploits the divisions you already have, undermines institutions and… What Happened Hillary Rodham Clinton · 2017 · read Sep 2024Who does Clinton blame for losing in 2016? Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Omarosa Manigault Newman · 2018 · read Aug 2024Manigault Newman's relationship with Trump ran about fifteen years, from the first season of The Apprentice through the 2016… A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership James B. Comey · 2018 · read Aug 2024Your loyalty belongs to lasting values like justice and truth, not to any one person. American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power Andrea Bernstein · 2020 · read Aug 2024It starts with two immigrant grandfathers, a Trump from Germany in 1885 and a Kushner from Poland after World War II, and runs… The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump Andrew G. McCabe · 2019 · read Aug 2024When you think about what the FBI protects you from, you picture mobsters and terrorists. The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It Robert B. Reich · 2020 · read Aug 2024Socialism for the rich and harsh market discipline for everyone else: that's how Robert Reich describes an economy where four… How Did We Get Here?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump Robert Dallek · 2020 · read Aug 2024Every president from Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan gets credit here for real strengths. They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency Malcolm W. Nance · 2022 · read Aug 2024TITUS, the Trump Insurgency in the United States: that's Nance's name for the movement around the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and… Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency Michael Wolff · 2021 · read Aug 2024The title is Trump's own word for an election he lost. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Michael Wolff · 2018 · read Aug 2024How much can you trust an account the White House denied and CNN's Jake Tapper urged skepticism about? The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi · 2024 · read Aug 2024From housewife and mother of five to the first woman Speaker of the House, Pelosi arranges her more than three decades in… I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year Carol Leonnig · 2021 · read Aug 2024Put your own political survival first through a pandemic, mass protests and a lost election, and you get the year Carol Leonnig… Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America Heather Cox Richardson · 2023 · read Jul 2024Richardson's argument is that America has always carried two traditions, one leaning toward authoritarianism and one reaching for… A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America Philip Rucker · 2020 · read Jul 2024Flash cards instead of written briefings, generals disparaged in public, advisers fired at will: that's how Trump governed his… Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis J.D. Vance · 2016 · read Jul 2024Deindustrialization hit Rust Belt towns hard, and Vance grants what that did. When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s John Ganz · 2024 · read Jul 2024The politics people blame on 2016 were already loose in the early 1990s. World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century Dmitri Alperovitch · 2024 · read Jun 2024Picture a Chinese invasion of Taiwan just after the 2028 US presidential election, which is where the book begins. Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy Jamie Raskin · 2022 · read Jan 2024A family's grief and a country's crisis, in about forty-five days. Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country Adam Kinzinger · 2023 · read Dec 2023Adam Kinzinger's vote to impeach Trump after January 6 effectively ended his House career. Peril Bob Woodward · 2021 · read Dec 2023Start with Gen. Rage Bob Woodward · 2020 · read Dec 2023"Trump is the wrong man for the job," Woodward concludes, a rare verdict from a reporter who has covered nine presidents. Fear: Trump in the White House Bob Woodward · 2018 · read Dec 2023How far can you trust a book built mostly on deep-background interviews? Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning Liz Cheney · 2023 · read Dec 2023Before anything else, Liz Cheney tells you that Trump must never return to the White House or any position of public trust. The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos Mark Chiusano · 2023 · read Dec 2023George Santos said he was a Wall Street high-flier from a wealthy family with Jewish ancestry. Pipeline to Power: The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court Vicky Ward · 2023 · read Nov 2023Pipeline to Power is an Audible Original, about four hours long, written and narrated by Vicky Ward. Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show Jonathan Karl · 2021 · read Nov 2023Trump would leave office, by escort if necessary, John Kelly told Jonathan Karl on January 6. Front Row at the Trump Show Jonathan Karl · 2020 · read Nov 2023The press is not the opposition party, and a president who treats it as one shows no grasp of the First Amendment. Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party Jonathan Karl · 2023 · read Nov 2023Trump's Republican rivals had an obvious case to make: two lost midterms and a lost presidential race. A Warning Anonymous · 2019 · read Sep 2023The author of A Warning was presented only as a senior Trump administration official, expanding a 2018 New York Times op-ed into… Blowback A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump Miles Taylor · 2023 · read Sep 2023In Miles Taylor's telling, the first Trump term's unfinished agendas show where a second one could go. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century Timothy Snyder · 2017 · read Sep 2023"Do not obey in advance" is one of Timothy Snyder's twenty lessons, and it captures the book's approach. Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could Adam Schiff · 2021 · read Aug 2023Between two scenes of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which he blames on Trump, Adam Schiff tells the story of the first… End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration Peter Turchin · 2023 · read Aug 2023What tips a society into crisis? Trump / Russia: A Definitive History Seth Hettena · 2018 · read Aug 2023Start with the collapse of Donald Trump's casino empire and follow his dealings with Russian money and power all the way to the… It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump Stuart Stevens · 2020 · read Jul 2023Trump didn't hijack the Republican Party, in Stuart Stevens's telling; he revealed it. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Jonathan Haidt · 2012 · read Jun 2023In Jonathan Haidt's picture, your moral judgments start as intuitions, and your reasoning mostly arrives afterward to justify… Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us Brian Klaas · 2021 · read May 2023Does power corrupt, or do corruptible people go looking for it? Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice David Enrich · 2022 · read Apr 2023Enrich's case is that giant corporate law firms now help powerful clients, Donald Trump among them, escape accountability. The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy Philip S. Gorski · 2022 · read Feb 2023White Christian nationalism is a distinct ideology fusing racial, religious and national identity, and Gorski and Perry trace it… How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future Steven Levitsky · 2018 · read Jan 2023Modern democracies rarely end in a coup. The January 6th Report Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol · 2022 · read Jan 2023The House select committee's final report is an answer to one question, what caused January 6, and its answer is one man, Donald… Blowout Rachel Maddow · 2019 · read Dec 2022What is Vladimir Putin doing at the 2003 opening of a Russian-owned gas station in New York City, next to Chuck Schumer? Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism Anne Applebaum · 2020 · read Oct 2022Why do educated, often prosperous people who once championed liberal democracy end up backing nationalists and would-be autocrats? The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Bob Woodward · 2022 · read Oct 2022Twenty interviews, one from the 2016 campaign and the rest from the presidency, in Donald Trump's own voice. The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017 - 2021 Peter Baker · 2022 · read Oct 2022Four years, told as one story, from the inauguration to January 6. American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump Tim Alberta · 2019 · read Oct 2022Trump didn't cause the Republican civil war. Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World Dorothy Roberts · 2022 · read Aug 2022The child welfare system is, in Dorothy Roberts's account, a family policing system that works alongside police and prisons to… The Tragedy of Rudy Giuliani Michael Wolff · 2020 · read Jul 2022From reviving New York City in the 1990s and leading the country after 9/11 to serving as Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy… The Original Watergate Stories The Washington Post · 2012 · read Jun 2022This collection opens with the Washington Post's 18 June 1972 story on burglars arrested at the Democratic National Committee… The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality Chris C. Mooney · 2007 · read May 2022Why do American conservatives more often reject mainstream findings on climate change, evolution, economics and history? A Promised Land Barack Obama · 2020 · read Nov 2021Starting from a childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, Barack Obama carries you to May 2011 and the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan,… It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the Politics of Extremism Thomas E. Mann · 2012The usual account of a broken Congress spreads the blame evenly between the parties. Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth Brian Stelter · 2020Fox News used the word hoax more than 900 times in the first half of 2020.