A devestating account of the inner workings of the George W. Bush administration, written with the extensive cooperation of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. As readers are taken to the very epicentre of government, this news-making book offers a definitive view of Bush and his closest advisers as they manage crucial domestic policies and global strategies within the most secretive White House of modern times.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020 A courageous and damning look at the destruction wrought by the arrogance, incompetence, and duplicity prevalent in the U.S. military-from the inside perspective of a West Point professor of law. Veneration for the military is a deeply embedded but fatal flaw in America's collective identity. In twenty years at West Point, whistleblower Tim Bakken has come to understand how unquestioned faith isolates the U.S. armed forces from civil society and leads to catastrophe. Pervaded by chronic deceit, the military's insular culture elevates blind loyalty above all other values. The consequences are undeniably grim: failure in every war since World War II, millions of lives lost around the globe, and trillions of dollars wasted. Bakken makes the case that the culture he has observed at West Point influences whether America starts wars and how it prosecutes them. Despite fabricated admissions data, rampant cheating, epidemics of sexual assault, archaic curriculums, and shoddy teaching, the military academies produce officers who maintain their privileges at any cost to the nation. Any dissenter is crushed. Bakken revisits all the major wars the United States has fought, from Korea to the current debacles in the Middle East, to show how the military culture produces one failure after another. The Cost of Loyalty is a powerful, multifaceted revelation about the United States and its singular source of pride. One of the few federal employees ever to win a whistleblowing case against the U.S. military, Bakken, in this brave, timely, and urgently necessary book, and at great personal risk, helps us understand why America loses wars.

When Manny moves on to Raleigh Middle School, he's relieved that he'll be with his other Latino friends from elementary school. Hanging out with his vatos is great; but before Manny knows it, kids are calling the clique the Emperors and saying that they are a gang. Gradually Alex, whose older brother is in prison, starts calling the shots; and the pressure is on Manny--first to shave his head and eventually to get drugs for the vatos. Close calls with the authorities become more and more frequent, and Manny can see where it's all headed. Does he have the guts to turn his back on his oldest friends so he can keep clean? This riveting novel about peer pressure and core values highlights a hot-button topic.

The Historian, witness of countless stories, comes upon one that may reveal something of his own. Aegon, a vile and eccentric old sorcerer, holds the key to a past the Historian has forgotten, but he's in no mood to share. Aegon is being hunted by the last of his own students, who have twisted their humanity in their thirst for power. Magic and madness are only pieces of the puzzle as the Historian moves to take control of the story, protect Aegon, and shift destiny itself. In his most personal story yet, the Historian finds that life, death, and love hang in the balance as he battles to save this story and find his own.

The revealing, often quaintly written Tory diaries, letters, and journals which animate this fascinating book provide what is probably the most comprehensive picture of Tory acts and attitudes to date.

Narration of a victim of the Samba Spy Scandal, in which a group of personnel of the Indian Army were imprisoned and tortured on false charges of espionage.

A witty, provocative, story-filled inquiry into the indispensable virtue of loyalty—a tricky ideal that gets tangled and compromised when loyalties collide (as they inevitably do), but a virtue the author, a prizewinning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says is as essential as it is impossible. Felten illustrates the push and pull of loyalties— from the ancient Greeks to Facebook—with stories and scenarios in which conflicting would-be moral trump cards trap the unlucky in painful ethical dilemmas. The foundation of our greatest satisfactions in life, loyalty also proves to be the root of much misery. Can we escape the excruciating predicaments when loyalties are at loggerheads? Can we avoid betraying and being betrayed? When looking for love and friendship—the things that make life worthwhile—we are looking for loyalty. Who can we count on? And who can count on us? These are the essential (and uncomfortable) questions loyalty poses. Loyalty and betrayal are the stuff of the great stories that move us: Agamemnon, Huck Finn, Brutus, Antigone, Judas. When is loyalty right, and when does the virtue become a vice? As Felten writes in his thoughtful and entertaining book, loyalty is vexing. It forces us to choose who and what counts most in our lives—from siding with one friend over another to favoring our own children over others. It forces us to confront the conflicting claims of fidelity to country, community, company, church, and even ourselves. Loyalty demands we make decisions that define who we are.