The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth about Economic Hit Men, Jackals & How to Change the World

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

Steve Coll · 704 pages

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein · 619 pages

**The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism** is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in some developed countries because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy". This centers on the exploitation of national crises (dis

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Jeremy Scahill · 464 pages

On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. This is the explosive story of a compan

Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order

Noam Chomsky · 231 pages

In Profit Over People Noam Chomsky takes on neoliberalism, the pro-corporate system of economic and political policies presently waging a form of class war worldwide. By examining the contradictions between the democratic and market principles proclaimed by those in power and those actually practiced, Chomsky critiques the tyranny of the few that restricts the public arena and enacts policies tha

Downsize This!

Michael Moore · 278 pages

Nothing but the truth is sacred in Michael Moore's hilarious screed on the state of America, Downsize This! With the same in-your-face tenacity that has made him everyman's hero, Moore gets under the skin of corporate giants, politicians, lobbyists, and the media - anyone who has made life tougher for the millions of Americans who are working longer hours for less pay and have had enough. Moore br

Revolution

Russell Brand · 299 pages

"Are you fed up with the status quo? Do you ask yourself why 1% of the world owns nearly half the wealth? Are you appalled that in a year of recession, banker's bonuses rose by around 64%? Does it anger you that multi-million dollar corporations pay hardly any tax? Do you trust your government? Always insightful, irreverent but funny, Russell Brand is asking the questions the public wants answered

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan · 450 pages

What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn't—which mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

Daniel Yergin · 885 pages

Chronicles the history of the oil industry and the forces that have shaped the modern world.

Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer · 341 pages

After spending much of his life shifting between various omnivore and herbivore eating habits, the author presents a thought provoking look at why and how humans choose their diets. Delivering the pros and cons of eating meat, he invites readers on an insightful exploration into the many facets of food. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and his own detective work,

Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans

Wendell Potter · 277 pages

In June 2009, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. This former senior VP of CIGNA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns designed to spread disinformat

Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

Neil Barofsky · 279 pages

In this account of his stranger-than-fiction baptism into the corrupted ways of Washington, Neil Barofsky offers an irrefutable indictment, from an insider of the Bush and Obama administrations, of the mishandling of the $700 billion TARP bailout fund. In behind-the-scenes detail, he reveals proof of the extreme degree to which our government officials bent over backward to serve the interests of

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Greg Palast · 383 pages

Investigative journalist Palast digs deep to unearth the ugly facts that few reporters working anywhere in the world today have the courage or ability to cover. From East Timor to Waco, he has exposed some of the most egregious cases of political corruption, corporate fraud, and financial manipulation in the US and abroad. This collection brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of t

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

William D. Cohan · 468 pages

'House of Cards' is a narrative about corporate greed on a truly epic scale. Cohan relates how the lack of foresight and regulation in an uncertain economy forced the government and Wall Street to take increasingly desperate and unprecedented measures to stop the carnage before the entire economy melted down.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It

Marcia Angell · 327 pages

During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless in

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

Elizabeth L. Cline · 258 pages

Evaluates the costs of low-priced clothing while tracing the author's own transformation to a conscientious shopper, a journey during which she visited a garment factory, learned to resole shoes, and shopped for local, sustainable clothing.

The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply

Marie-Monique Robin

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

Jane Mayer · 464 pages

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

Ellen Ruppel Shell · 296 pages

An Atlantic correspondent uncovers the true cost—in economic, political, and psychic terms—of our penchant for making and buying things as cheaply as possibleFrom the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt—and almost everywhere in between—America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is

Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy

Barry Ritholtz, Bill Fleckenstein, Aaron Task · 332 pages

An engaging look at what led to the financial turmoil we now find ourselves in Bailout Nation offers one of the clearest looks at the financial lenders, regulators, and politicians responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. Written by Barry Ritholtz, one of today's most popular economic bloggers and a well-established industry pundit, this book skillfully explores how the United States evolved

All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera · 389 pages

According to the authors, both business journalists, no one has put all the pieces of the financial crisis together. This title explores the motivations of everyone from CEOs and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers and Wall Street traders. It goes back more than twenty years to reveal, how Wall Street, the mortgage industry, and the government conspired to change the way Americans bought t

Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala

Stephen C. Schlesinger, Stephen Kinzer · 320 pages

The Corporation

Joel Bakan · 240 pages

A profile of the modern corporation theorizes that businesses are essentially pathological in nature and place profits above accountability, citing the flaws of such practices as deregulation and privatization.

The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business

Christopher Leonard · 384 pages

In The Meat Racket, investigative reporter Christopher Leonard delivers the first-ever account of how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply. He shows how they built a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, charges high prices to consumers, and returns the industry to the shape it had in the 1900s before the meat monopolists were broken up. At the dawn of the 21st

A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption & Death in Putin's Russia

Anna Politkovskaya · 323 pages

Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia's most fearless journalists, was gunned down in a contract killing in Moscow in the fall of 2006. Just before her death, Politkovskaya completed this searing, intimate record of life in Russia from the parliamentary elections of December 2003 to the grim summer of 2005, when the nation was still reeling from the horrors of the Beslan school siege. In A Russian Dia