The defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century is between China and the US. But is it avoidable? And if it happens, is the outcome already inevitable?China and America are world powers
A call-to-arms about the broken nature of artificial intelligence, and the powerful corporations that are turning the human-machine relationship on its head.We like to think that we are in control of
A few years ago Linda Kinstler discovered that a man fifty years dead – a former Nazi who belonged to the same killing unit as her grandfather – was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation in Latvia. The proceedings threatened to pardon his crimes. They put on the line hard-won facts about the Holocaust at the precise moment that the last living survivors – the last legal witnesses – were dying.Across the world, Second World War-era cases are winding their way through the courts. Survivors have been telling their stories for the better part of a century, and still judges ask for proof. Where do these stories end? What responsibilities attend their transmission, so many generations on? How many ghosts need to be put on trial for us to consider the crime scene of history closed?In this major non-fiction debut, Linda Kinstler investigates both her family story and the archives of ten nations to examine what it takes to prove history in our uncertain century. Probing and profound,
The Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow. In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB were both watching Karel Koecher closely―and they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. They were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War. Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan’s high life ― with cocaine, swinging and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer that relayed messages to Karel’s handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last. Using
A former US senator reveals a far-right plot to radically change the laws of our land, and articulates a plan for how to handle it.Over the last two decades, a hushed, far-right effort to change the constitution through a convention―the nation’s first ever―has inched through statehouses. And by most counts, activists only need to enlist a few more states to reach the constitutional requirement: two thirds of the states. A convention would be a watershed moment in American history. Just like Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin in Philadelphia over two centuries ago, delegates would exercise almost unfettered authority to draft amendments changing the contours of our fundamental law and civic life. Every contentious political and social issue could be on the table: limiting the powers of the federal government, creating or retiring constitutional rights and freedoms, and restructuring Congress or the Supreme Court.While the Framers considered the amendment power to be a cornerstone of our co
A Slate writer tries to make sense of his own obsession with Michigan football--not to mention America, politics, racism, and the burning question of whether head coach Jim Harbaugh will keep his job.On the field, modern college football is as thrilling and competitive as ever. But almost everywhere else it has come untethered from reality.While it presents itself as a proud American tradition of amateur scholar-athletes competing at a high level, this premise gives way under the slightest scrutiny. NCAA football makes hundreds of millions of dollars for its coaches, universities, sponsors, and gamblers--and nothing for its players. It bounces from one scandal to another, with a major program -- or two or three -- seemingly always under investigation, in court, or in the glare of public scrutiny. And this is to say nothing of the bizarre 2020 season, in which the league cut itself nearly in half over the twin questions of covid-19 safety and the players' desire to protest against
The true story of an untrue story-- how the murder of a DNC political staffer spawned conspiracy theories, fanned the culture wars, and pitted one family against a media empire. In the small hours of June 16th, gunshots rang out and a young man lay bleeding and fatally wounded on a downtown Washington, DC, street. But who killed Seth Rich? When he was buried in his hometown, his rabbi declared: “There are no answers for a young man gunned down in the prime of his life”. But the rabbi was wrong. There were in fact many answers, way too many.The police had a suspect but they could not find evidence to charge him, and into the void hurtled the howling mob. Within 36 hours Reddit had thrown up an explanation: “given his position & timing in politics … Seth Rich was murdered by corrupt politicians for knowing too much information on election fraud”. A month later Julian Assange hinted that Rich might have been the source for stolen DNC emails provided to Wikileaks and offered a $20,000 re
From the bestselling author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast comes the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equalityA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA #1 ABA INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE BESTSELLER Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a soldier, statesman, idealist, philanthropist, and abolitionist. As a teenager, Lafayette ran away from France to join the American Revolution. Returning home a national hero, he helped launch the French Revolution, eventually spending five years locked in dungeon prisons. After his release, Lafayette sparred with Napoleon, joined an underground conspiracy to overthrow King Louis XVIII, and became an international symbol of liberty. Finally, as a revered elder statesman, he was instrumental in the overthr
A moving and inspiring memoir by Afghanistan's youngest female mayor and campaigner for human rights.I am one of the lucky ones.I got out of Afghanistan alive when the Taliban retook the country. Millions of others did not - they are now living under one of the world's most repressive regimes, with any progress that was made for women over the past twenty years being brutally reversed.Every day, I yearn for my motherland. Now it is my duty to make sure that the world knows what is happening to women there, and what we must do tochange things for them.Zarifa Ghafari was three years old when the Taliban banned girls from schools, and she began her education in secret. She was seven when American airstrikes began. She was twenty-six when she became mayor - the only female mayor in the country - of Maidan Wardak, Kabul. An extremist mob barred her from her office; her male staff walked out in protest; assassins tried to kill her six times. Finally, they killed their father. Ghafari stood h
A new , important and pragmatic vision on what the job of the boss is in an age of lean/flat/agile organizations, self-organizing teams, and mass collaboration, .when bosses are expected to disappear, countering conventional wisdom of the media and management gurus.People in the business world are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing economy. Beset by transformational forces, managers are bombarded with a bewildering array of schemes for how to be a boss and make an organization tick. t’s easy to be seduced by futurist fantasies where every company has the culture of a startup, where employees in wacky, whimsical office settings champion the end of old-fashioned corporate hierarchy. Autonomous employees liberated from hierarchies and bosses that oppress people, we are told, are the foundation for breakthrough performance. Be careful what you wish for say Nicolai Foss and Peter Klein. In their important rethinking of the crucial nature of hierarchy and how to be a boss today, they
The future of finance – the way Wall Street operates and how individuals manage their money - is on the verge of upheaval. And the force underlying the change comes not from usual suspects such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, but China, where finance and technology are being merged into a system with consequences that resonate far beyond China’s border. The changes of this global revolution in finance and technology - fintech - will be as powerful as those wrought in social media, retailing and advertising by giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, which have overturned how we shop and communicate.China reinvented money with lightning speed, transforming a backward, antiquated cash-based finance system into one centered on super-apps created by technology giants Alibaba and Tencent. More powerful than anything available outside of China, they allow their billion users to pay, borrow, invest, buy goods and services, travel, chat (and far more) all fuse
In an era of deregulation when consumers have never been more vulnerable to corporate surveillance, unsafe food, and dangerously faulty products, the president and CEO of Consumer Reports gives us a playbook to put the power back in our hands.You've been getting ripped off. The rules that have protected consumers for decades are failing. Companies are spying on us. Many of the products we once trusted are dangerous and failing at alarming rates. Whether we are buying a crib, a small appliance, an iPhone app, or shopping for car insurance, it's become harder than ever to know whether the choices we make in the marketplace are putting us at risk-either from physical harm or the abuse of our personal data by hackers or corporations. This is intolerable. It's wrong. And we don't have to put up with it anymore. Marta L. Tellado, the president and CEO of Consumer Reports, has been an advocate for consumers for decades. In Buyer Aware, Tellado shows you the steps you can take to protect yours
Owen Ullmann’s intimate portrait of the heart and mind of Janet Yellen is the riveting story of one of the most remarkable careers of recent times. The ultimate glass-ceiling buster, Yellen is the first person to hold all three of America’s top economic policy positions. Currently Treasury Secretary (the first woman to hold the job), she has also been chair of the Federal Reserve and of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.As Ullmann vividly shows, empathy economics, the north star of Yellen’s work as researcher, analyst, and policymaker stems from her early family life. Yellen has pushed back against the cold, abstract quality of a male-dominated economics profession that all too often pushes policies that benefit the already well-to-do. She has strived to remake it as a tool for shaping compassionate programs that help people find remedies for financial plights that stem from a lack of economic opportunity because of poverty, unemployment or job discrimination.The trailblazi
The untold story of ever-growing wedge between the financial markets and the real economy, and the unprecedented crises it has caused. The 21st century has produced two major financial crises and many smaller ones in between. The fallout created chaos and disruption for people at all levels of the global economy. Nomi Prins examines the consequences of the unstable economy that caused what she calls the state of Permanent Distortion; a wedge between a funhouse financial realm that thrives even in times of social and political disorder, and a struggling economic one that does not adequately meet the needs of the general population. Through deep reporting and insightful analysis, Prins navigates the critical points in between the two polarities, including how the concept of "free markets" is dead, how a political power shift is bringing in a new world order, why trade wars have only just begun, and why we're in for more civil and social unrest, as a result.
