Born a Crime L/P

How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the Stateis the first book to give readers a front row seat to the inner workings of China. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts. When China’s army moved in, killing hundreds of students and other demonstrators, Zhao was placed under house arrest at his home in Beijing. China’s most promising advocate for change had been disgraced, along with the policies he stood for. The Premier spent the last 16 years of his life, up until his death in 2005, in seclusion. China scholars often lamented that Zhao never had his final say. As it turns out, Zhao did produce a memoir, in complete secrecy. He methodically recorded his thoughts and recollections on what had happened behind the scenes during many of modern China’s most critical moments. The tapes he produced were smuggled out of the country and form the basis for Prisoner of the State. In this audio journal, Zhao provides intimate details about the Tiananmen crackdown; he describes the ploys and double-crosses China’s top leaders use to gain advantage over one another; and he talks of the necessity for China to adopt democracy in order to achieve long-term stability. Author: Zhao Ziyang ISBN:9781439149393

The revealing story of the Trumps mirrors America’s transformation from a land of striving immigrants to a world in which the aura of wealth alone can guarantee a fortune. The Trumps begins with a portrait of President Trump’s immigrant grandfather, who as a young man built hotels for miners in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush. His son, Fred, took advantage of the New Deal, using government subsidies and loopholes to construct hugely successful housing developments in the 1940s and 1950s. The profits from Fred’s enterprises paved the way for President Trump’s roller-coaster ride through the 1980s and 1990s into the new century. With his talent for extravagant exaggeration—he calls it “truthful hyperbole”—President Trump turned the deal-making know-how of his forebears into an art form. By placing this much-publicized life within the context of family, Gwenda Blair adds a new dimension to the larger-than-life figure who ascended to the American Presidency. Author: Gwenda Blair & Almost Golden ISBN:9780743210799

Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president. He gives us a masterly account of the European war theater and Eisenhower’s magnificent leadership as Allied Supreme Commander. Ambrose’s recounting of Eisenhower’s presidency, the first of the Cold War, brings to life a man and a country struggling with issues as diverse as civil rights, atomic weapons, communism, and a new global role. Along the way, Ambrose follows the 34th President’s relations with the people closest to him, most of all Mamie, his son John, and Kay Summersby, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Harry Truman, Nixon, Dulles, Khrushchev, Joe McCarthy, and indeed, all the American and world leaders of his time. This superb interpretation of Eisenhower’s life confirms Stephen Ambrose’s position as one of our finest historians. Author: Stephen Ambrose ISBN:9780671747589