Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Noam Chomsky · 103 pages

"Chomsky's backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control has been updated and expanded into a two-section book, and redesigned following the acclaimed format of his Open Media anti-war bestseller, 9-11. The new edition of Media Control also includes 'The Journalist from Mars, ' Chomsky's 2002 talk on the media coverage of America's 'new war on terrorism.' Chomsky begins by asserting

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency

Joshua Green · 272 pages

The shocking elevation of Steve Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plo

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman · 412 pages

Discusses the ways in which the mass media are manipulated to present the news according to an underlying elite consenus which affects the manner in which similar events in different parts of the world are presented.

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Susan Faludi · 592 pages

*Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women's Rights* "Opting-out," "security moms," "desperate housewives," "the new baby fever"--the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is back in a fi

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Barbara Demick · 314 pages

A remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years--a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape most of us have nev

Hello Everybody!

Joris Luyendijk · 243 pages

Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry

John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton · 236 pages

Toxic sludge is good for you blows the lid off of today's multi-billion-dollar propaganda-for-hire PR industry, revealing how public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony "grassroots" front groups, spy on citizens and conspire with lobbyists and politicians. --Publisher.

Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion

Anthony Pratkanis, Elliot Aronson · 432 pages

Americans create 57% of the world's advertising while representing only 6% of its population; half of our waking hours are spent immersed in the mass media. Persuasion has always been integral to the democratic process, but increasingly, thoughtful discussion is being replaced with simplistic soundbites and manipulative messages. Drawing on the history of propaganda as well as on contemporary rese

Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood

Maureen Ryan · 348 pages

The Loudest Voice in the Room: How Roger Ailes and Fox News Remade American Politics

Gabriel Sherman · 568 pages

An inside account of Fox News offers insight into its operations and influence, covering the original launch of the cable news network by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch and the ways in which Fox has become a dominant force in American politics.

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay · 360 pages

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once l

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

Seth Mnookin · 429 pages

A searing account of how vaccine opponents have used the media to spread their message of panic, despite no scientific evidence to support them. In this searching exposé, the recent hysteria over childhood vaccinations and their alleged link to autism becomes a cautionary tale of bad science amplified by media sensationalism.

The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire

Tim Schwab · 496 pages

The Age of American Unreason

Susan Jacoby · 357 pages

Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon--one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, she surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Evan Osnos · 416 pages

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Owen Jones · 298 pages

"In this groundbreaking investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth'. Moving through Westminster 's lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones lays bare the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, and reveals a far more complex reality: the increasing poverty and desperation o

You Are Being Lied To

Russ Kick, Russell Kick · 399 pages

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Matt Taibbi · 432 pages

"Matt Taibbi's genius is in untangling complex stories and making us care about them by providing striking moral clarity and a genuine sense of outrage. He has become among the most read journalists in America, leading the dialogue with epic Rolling Stone pieces that offer an "almost startling reminder of the power of good writing" (Washington Post). In this new work, he once again takes readers i

Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success

Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig · 528 pages

"Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success" by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig is an investigative account of Donald Trump’s finances, drawing on decades of tax records, business documents, and insider testimony. The book argues that Trump’s public image as a self-made billionaire is largely a myth, built on vast financial support from his fa

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things

Barry Glassner · 279 pages

In this eye-opening examination of a pathology that has swept the country, sociologist Barry Glassner reveals why Americans are burdened with overblown fears. He exposes the people and organizations that manipulate our perceptions and profit from our anxieties: politicians who win elections by heightening concerns about crime and drug use even as both are declining; advocacy groups that raise mon

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

George Packer · 448 pages

Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond

Marc Lamont Hill · 272 pages

"Unarmed citizens shot by police. Drinking water turned to poison. Mass incarcerations. We've heard the individual stories. Now a leading public intellectual and acclaimed journalist offers a powerful, paradigm-shifting analysis of America's current state of emergency, finding in these events a larger and more troubling truth about race, class, and what it means to be "Nobody." Protests in Ferguso

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Barbara Ehrenreich · 240 pages

The author's experience holding low-wage jobs in three parts of the U.S. in the late 1990s.

Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class

Noam Scheiber · 384 pages