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Book The Last Politician

Download or read book The Last Politician written by Franklin Foer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller! Franklin Foer tells the definitive insider story of the first two years of the Biden presidency, with exclusive access to Biden’s longtime team of advisers, and presents a gripping portrait of a president during this momentous time in our nation’s history. "You might love Biden or you might hate Biden, but either way, if you want to understand him, you will want to buy this book." —Politico “A triumph of reporting.” — Geoff Bennett, PBS NewsHour “Deeply reported . . . a terrific read.” —Chuck Todd, Meet the Press “Fantastic . . . The first real insider account of the Biden White House and a fascinating read about Biden himself.” —Jon Favreau, Pod Save America On January 20, 2021, standing where only two weeks earlier police officers had battled with right-wing paramilitaries, Joe Biden took his oath of office. The American people were still sick with COVID-19, his economists were already warning him of an imminent financial crisis, and his party, the Democrats, had the barest of majorities in the Senate. Yet, faced with an unprecedented set of crises, Joe Biden decided he would not play defense. Instead, he set out to transform the nation. He proposed the most ambitious domestic spending bills since the 1960s and vowed to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, ending the nation’s longest war and reorienting it toward a looming competition with China. With unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades, Franklin Foer dramatizes in forensic detail the first two years of the Biden presidency, concluding with the historic midterm elections. The result is a gripping and high-definition portrait of a major president at a time when democracy itself seems imperiled. With his back to the wall, Biden resorted to old-fashioned politics: deal-making and compromise. It was a gamble that seemed at first disastrously anachronistic, as he struggled to rally even the support of his own party. Yet, as the midterms drew near, via a series of bills with banal names, Biden somehow found a way to invest trillions of dollars in clean energy, the domestic semiconductor industry, and new infrastructure. Had he done the impossible―breaking decisively with the old Washington consensus to achieve progressive goals? The Last Politician is a landmark work of political reporting—which includes thrilling, blow-by-blow insider reports of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the White House’s swift response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—that is destined to shape history’s view of a president in the eye of the storm.

Book Promises to Keep

Download or read book Promises to Keep written by Joe Biden and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-07-31 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • President Joe Biden, the author of Promise Me, Dad, tells the story of his extraordinary life and career prior to his emergence as Barack Obama’s beloved, influential vice president. “I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe that my chosen profession is a noble calling.”—Joe Biden Joe Biden has both witnessed and participated in a momentous epoch of American history. In Promises to Keep, Joe Biden reveals what these experiences taught him about himself, his colleagues, and the institutions of government. With his customary candor and wit, Biden movingly recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming personal tragedy, life-threatening illness, and career setbacks; his relationships with presidents, with world leaders, and with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees. Through these and other recollections, Biden shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life—to work to make people’s lives better; to honor family and faith; to value persistence, candor, and honesty—are the foundation on which he has based his life’s work as husband, father, and public servant. Promises to Keep is an intimate series of reflections from a public servant who surmounted numerous challenges to become one of our most effective leaders and who refuses to be cynical about politics. It is also a stirring testament to the promise of the United States. Praise for Promises to Keep “A ripping good read . . . Biden is a master storyteller and has stories worth telling.”—The Christian Science Monitor “A compelling personal story.”—The New York Times “Moving . . . [Biden’s] response to tragedy and near death [is] both admirable and likable.”—Salon

Book Joe Biden

    Book Details:
  • Author : Evan Osnos
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2021-05-27
  • ISBN : 1526635194
  • Pages : 191 pages

Download or read book Joe Biden written by Evan Osnos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise, brilliant and trenchant examination of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his lifelong quest for the presidency Former vice president Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest - fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses that he has suffered. Yet even as Biden's life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors and reversals of fortune. His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship - an essential quality as he addresses a nation at its most dire hour in decades. Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos illuminates Biden's life and captures the characters and meaning of an extraordinary presidential election. He draws on lengthy interviews with Biden and on revealing conversations with more than a hundred others, including President Barack Obama, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and a range of progressive activists, advisers, opponents, and Biden family members. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy - a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history.

Book Strangers in Their Own Land

Download or read book Strangers in Their Own Land written by Arlie Russell Hochschild and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump "A generous but disconcerting look at the Tea Party. . . . This is a smart, respectful and compelling book." —Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks and "masterly" by Atul Gawande, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others. The paperback edition features a new afterword by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and also includes a readers' group guide at the back of the book.

Book How Soccer Explains the World

Download or read book How Soccer Explains the World written by Franklin Foer and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about. . . . Bristles with anecdotes that are almost impossible to believe.” —New York Times Book Review “Terrific. . . . A travelogue full of important insights into both cultural change and persistence. . . . Foer’s soccer odyssey lends weight to the argument that a humane world order is possible.” — Washington Post Book World A groundbreaking work—named one of the five most influential sports books of the decade by Sports Illustrated—How Soccer Explains the World is a unique and brilliantly illuminating look at soccer, the world’s most popular sport, as a lens through which to view the pressing issues of our age, from the clash of civilizations to the global economy. From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical Islam—issues that now have an impact on all of us. Filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

Book The Bidens

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ben Schreckinger
  • Publisher : Hachette UK
  • Release : 2021-09-21
  • ISBN : 153873799X
  • Pages : 277 pages

Download or read book The Bidens written by Ben Schreckinger and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply reported exploration of Joe Biden as told through his extended family. Coming off of the 2020 election, THE BIDENS tells the Biden Family story in full, from the secrets lurking in the deep recesses of Joe's family tree to his son Hunter's foreign deal-making spree—and the Trump gang's ham-handed efforts to exploit it. ​On November 3, Americans did not just elect Joe Biden: They got a package deal. The tight-knit Biden family—siblings, children, in-laws, and beyond—is coming right along with him. They are sure to play a defining role in his presidency, just as they have in every other one of his endeavors. Inside, you’ll find these and other stories and revelations about the Biden family, including: Joe’s childhood, the stunning 1972 Senate upset engineered by his sister Valerie, and the car accident that took the lives of his first wife and infant daughter soon after Joe’s early years in the Senate and his role in the creation of the cozy “Delaware Way” of conducting politics The Biden brothers’ business escapades, including the ’70s rock club rivalry that pitted Jim Biden against Jill’s first husband and ended in a banking scandal The Delaware lawman who oversaw an FBI investigation into Joe’s 2007 campaign fundraising and now has Hunter in his sights Hunter’s surprisingly close friendship with his Fox News antagonist, Tucker Carlson What Steve Bannon really hoped to accomplish by giving the contents of “the Laptop from Hell” to the New York Post New evidence that sheds light on the authenticity of Hunter’s alleged computer files Like the Kennedys before them, the Bidens are a tight-knit, idealistic Irish Catholic clan with good looks, dynastic ambitions, and serious personal problems. As THE BIDENS reveals, the best way to understand Joe Biden—his values, fears, and motives—is to understand his family: Their Irish (and not-so-Irish) roots, their place in the Delaware pecking order, their dodgy business deals, and their personal struggles and triumphs alike.

Book Throw Them All Out

Download or read book Throw Them All Out written by Peter Schweizer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, discusses the state of government and the depths of its political corruption.

Book Surviving Autocracy

Download or read book Surviving Autocracy written by Masha Gessen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.

Book Jewish Jocks

Download or read book Jewish Jocks written by Franklin Foer and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays by today's preeminent writers on significant Jewish figures in sports, told with humor, heart, and an eye toward the ever elusive question of Jewish identity. Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame is a timeless collection of biographical musings, sociological riffs about assimilation, first-person reflections, and, above all, great writing on some of the most influential and unexpected pioneers in the world of sports. Featuring work by today's preeminent writers, these essays explore significant Jewish athletes, coaches, broadcasters, trainers, and even team owners (in the finite universe of Jewish Jocks, they count!). Contributors include some of today's most celebrated writers covering a vast assortment of topics, including David Remnick on the biggest mouth in sports, Howard Cosell; Jonathan Safran Foer on the prodigious and pugnacious Bobby Fischer; Man Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson writing elegantly on Marty Reisman, America's greatest ping-pong player and the sport's ultimate showman. Deborah Lipstadt examines the continuing legacy of the Munich Massacre, the fortieth anniversary of which coincided with the 2012 London Olympics. Jane Leavy reveals why Sandy Koufax agreed to attend her daughter's bat mitzvah. And we learn how Don Lerman single-handedly thrust competitive eating into the public eye with three pounds of butter and 120 jalapeño peppers. These essays are supplemented by a cover design and illustrations throughout by Mark Ulriksen. From settlement houses to stadiums and everywhere in between, Jewish Jock features men and women who do not always fit the standard athletic mold. Rather, they utilized talents long prized by a people of the book (and a people of commerce) to game these games to their advantage, in turn forcing the rest of the world to either copy their methods -- or be left in their dust.

Book The Book of Joe

Download or read book The Book of Joe written by Jeff Wilser and published by Crown. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ultimate guide to President Joe Biden, filled with all the fun, all the inspiration, and none of the malarkey. The aviators. The Amtrak. The bromance with Barack Obama. Few politicians are as iconic, or as beloved, as Joe Biden. Now, in The Book of Joe, Biden fans and political junkies alike have the ultimate look at America’s 46th president. Covering the key chapters in Biden’s life and career—and filled with classic Biden-isms, including “That’s a bunch of malarkey” and “I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid”—this entertaining blend of biography, advice, and muscle cars explores the moments that forged Joe Biden, and what they can teach us today. But along with this “Wisdom of Joe,” the book also reveals the inspirational story of a man whose life has been shaped by his father’s advice: Get back up. Time after time, Biden has bounced back from both personal heartbreaks and professional disappointments, and just like Joe, sometimes we all have to dust ourselves off and fight back. Packed with lessons we need now more than ever, The Book of Joe is both a celebration of a revered political figure and a testament to the power of a life filled with integrity, perseverance, and plenty of ice cream.

Book Everything You Think You Know About Politics   and Why You re Wrong

Download or read book Everything You Think You Know About Politics and Why You re Wrong written by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and published by . This book was released on 2000-06-23 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A media expert and network commentator examines the welter of misinformation--generated by politicians and the media alike--that surrounds political campaigns.

Book The Death of Politics

Download or read book The Death of Politics written by Peter Wehner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times opinion writer, media commentator, outspoken Republican and Christian critic of the Trump presidency offers a spirited defense of politics and its virtuous and critical role in maintaining our democracy and what we must do to save it before it is too late. “Any nation that elects Donald Trump to be its president has a remarkably low view of politics.” Frustrated and feeling betrayed, Americans have come to loathe politics with disastrous results, argues Peter Wehner. In this timely manifesto, the veteran of three Republican administrations and man of faith offers a reasoned and persuasive argument for restoring “politics” as a worthy calling to a cynical and disillusioned generation of Americans. Wehner has long been one of the leading conservative critics of Donald Trump and his effect on the Republican Party. In this impassioned book, he makes clear that unless we overcome the despair that has caused citizens to abandon hope in the primary means for improving our world—the political process—we will not only fall victim to despots but hasten the decline of what has truly made America great. Drawing on history and experience, he reminds us of the hard lessons we have learned about how we rule ourselves—why we have checks and balances, why no one is above the law, why we defend the rights of even those we disagree with. Wehner believes we can turn the country around, but only if we abandon our hatred and learn to appreciate and honor the unique and noble American tradition of doing “politics.” If we want the great American experiment to continue and to once again prosper, we must once more take up the responsibility each and every one of us as citizens share.

Book Yes We  Still  Can

Download or read book Yes We Still Can written by Dan Pfeiffer and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Obama's former communications director and current co-host of Pod Save America comes a colorful account of how politics, the media, and the Internet changed during the Obama presidency and how Democrats can fight back in the Trump era. On November 9th, 2016, Dan Pfeiffer woke up like most of the world wondering WTF just happened. How had Donald Trump won the White House? How was it that a decent and thoughtful president had been succeeded by a buffoonish reality star, and what do we do now? Instead of throwing away his phone and moving to another country (which were his first and second thoughts), Pfeiffer decided to tell this surreal story, recounting how Barack Obama navigated the insane political forces that created Trump, explaining why everyone got 2016 wrong, and offering a path for where Democrats go from here. Pfeiffer was one of Obama's first hires when he decided to run for president, and was at his side through two presidential campaigns and six years in the White House. Using never-before-heard stories and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Yes We (Still) Can examines how Obama succeeded despite Twitter trolls, Fox News (and their fake news), and a Republican Party that lost its collective mind. An irreverent, no-BS take on the crazy politics of our time, Yes We (Still) Can is a must-read for everyone who is disturbed by Trump, misses Obama, and is marching, calling, and hoping for a better future for the country.

Book The End of White Politics

Download or read book The End of White Politics written by Zerlina Maxwell and published by Legacy Lit. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An MSNBC political analyst and former Hillary Clinton staffer examines the past and present problems of the Left—and makes a compelling case for how to take back our government and secure a better future for America. In the entire history of the United States of America, we've never elected a woman as our president. And we've only had one president who was not a white man. After working on two presidential campaigns (for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), MSNBC political analyst and SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell gained first-hand knowledge of everything liberals have been doing right over the past few elections-and everything they are still doing wrong. Ultimately, these errors worked in President Donald Trump's favor in 2016; he effectively ran a campaign on white identity politics, successfully tapping into white male angst and resistance. In 2020, after the Democratic Party's most historically diverse pool of presidential candidates finally dwindled down to Joe Biden, once again an older white man, Maxwell has posed the ultimate question: what now, liberals? Fueled by Maxwell's trademark wit and candor, The End of White Politics dismantles the past and present problems of the Left, challenging everyone from scrappy, young "Bernie Bros" to seasoned power players in the "Billionaire Boys' Club." No topic is taboo; whether tackling the white privilege that enabled Mayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential run, the controversial #HashtagActivism of the Millennial generation, the massive individual donations that sway politicians toward maintaining the status quo of income inequality, or the lingering racism that debilitated some Democratic presidential contenders and cut their promising campaigns short, Maxwell pulls no punches in her fierce critique. However, underlying all of these individual issues, Maxwell argues that it's the "liberal-minded" party's struggle to engage women and communities of color-and its preoccupation with catering to the white, male working class—that threatens to be its most lethal shortfall. The times—and the demographics—are changing, and in order for progressive politics to prevail, we must acknowledge our shortcomings, take ownership of our flaws, and do everything in our power to level the playing field for all Americans. The End of White Politics shows exactly how and why progressives can lean into identity politics, empowering marginalized groups, and uniting under a common vision that will benefit us all. ***TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2020!*** "Witty and piercing." —TIME

Book Joe Biden

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jules Witcover
  • Publisher : Harper Collins
  • Release : 2010-10-05
  • ISBN : 0062014331
  • Pages : 724 pages

Download or read book Joe Biden written by Jules Witcover and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me . . . [my mother] sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down the street the next day."—Joe Biden In this, the first definitive biography of Vice President Joe Biden, renowned journalist Jules Witcover examines the fascinating life of a man who, with his tenacity, outspokenness, and charming smile, has shaped Washington politics for the past forty years and who now serves as the forty-seventh vice president of the United States. Raised in the working-class towns of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, and with lackluster grades in school and no particular goals other than to play sports or, fleetingly, to become a priest, Biden shocked the nation in 1972 when he became one of the youngest elected senators in U.S. history. From that point forward, he carved a legacy for himself as one of the most respected legislators in the country. Biden's record in Congress was impressive. He chaired three Senate committees, confronted Slobodan Miloševic head-on as a war criminal, and conducted the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices. After voting for the 2002 Senate resolution to use force in Iraq, he later called for its repeal and became an outspoken critic of the conduct of the war. Yet for all of Biden's achievements in the Senate, his life has been filled with tragedy and countless challenges. Within two months of being elected in 1972, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and his young daughter in a tragic accident—a loss that brought him to the nadir of despair and shook his resolve to stay in politics. And even after Biden vowed to continue his career, his tenure was marked by two brain aneurysms and career-threatening verbal gaffes. Then, after being considered among the front-runners in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden was accused of plagiarism for a speech he made at the Iowa State Fair. He dropped out of the race to the sounds of Washington pundits chattering that the presidency would never be his. Through it all, Biden survived and ran—and eventually dropped out—again in the 2008 primaries. But even with this defeat, Barack Obama recognized Biden's vast experience in domestic and foreign affairs, and selected him to be his running mate. Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption is based on exhaustive research by one of Washington's most prolific journalists. In drawing on numerous exclusive interviews with Biden's confidants and family members, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden, Witcover has gone beyond conventional biography to track the forces that have shaped a man who, with his plainspoken style and inspiring life story, has resonated with millions of Americans and whose work is now influencing the Obama-Biden administration and shaping America.

Book The White House Vice Presidency

Download or read book The White House Vice Presidency written by Joel K. Goldstein and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-03-03 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I am nothing, but I may be everything," John Adams, the first vice president, wrote of his office. And for most of American history, the "nothing" part of Adams's formulation accurately captured the importance of the vice presidency, at least as long as the president had a heartbeat. But a job that once was "not worth a bucket of warm spit," according to John Nance Garner, became, in the hands of the most recent vice presidents, critical to the governing of the country on an ongoing basis. It is this dramatic development of the nation's second office that Joel K. Goldstein traces and explains in The White House Vice Presidency. The rise of the vice presidency took a sharp upward trajectory with the vice presidency of Walter Mondale. In Goldstein's work we see how Mondale and Jimmy Carter designed and implemented a new model of the office that allowed the vice president to become a close presidential adviser and representative on missions that mattered. Goldstein takes us through the vice presidents from Mondale to Joe Biden, presenting the arrangements each had with his respective president, showing elements of continuity but also variations in the office, and describing the challenges each faced and the work each did. The book also examines the vice-presidential selection process and campaigns since 1976, and shows how those activities affect and/or are affected by the newly developed White House vice presidency. The book presents a comprehensive account of the vice presidency as the office has developed from Mondale to Biden. But The White House Vice Presidency is more than that; it also shows how a constitutional office can evolve through the repetition of accumulated precedents and demonstrates the critical role of political leadership in institutional development. In doing so, the book offers lessons that go far beyond the nation's second office, important as it now has become.

Book World Without Mind

Download or read book World Without Mind written by Franklin Foer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 • One of the best books of the year by The New York Times, LA Times, and NPR Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection—a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being coopted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science—from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stewart Brand and the hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley—Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They’re monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.