Unprecedented

A critical and evidence-based account of the COVID-19 pandemic as a political–economic rupture, exposing underlying power struggles and social injustices. The dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic represented an exceptional interruption in the routines of work, financial markets, movement across borders and education. The policies introduced in response were said to be unprecedented—but the distribution of risks and rewards was anything but. While asset-owners, outsourcers, platforms and those in spacious homes prospered, others faced new hardships and dangers. Unprecedented? explores the events of 2020-21, as they afflicted the UK economy, as a means to grasp the underlying dynamics of contemporary capitalism, which are too often obscured from view. It traces the political and cultural contours of a "rentier nationalism," that was lurking prior to the pandemic, but was accelerated and illuminated by COVID-19. But it also pinpoints the contradictions and weaknesses of this capitalist model, and the new sources of opposition that it meets. An empirical, accessible and critical analysis of the COVID economy, Unprecedented? is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the political and economic turbulence of the pandemic’s first eighteen months.

Tells the story of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in photos and essays by CNN contributors.

Foreword by Randy E. Barnett In 2012, the United States Supreme Court became the center of the political world. In a dramatic and unexpected 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts voted on narrow grounds to save the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Unprecedented tells the inside story of how the challenge to Obamacare raced across all three branches of government, and narrowly avoided a constitutional collision between the Supreme Court and President Obama. On November 13, 2009, a group of Federalist Society lawyers met in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., to devise a legal challenge to the constitutionality of President Obama's "legacy" -- his healthcare reform. It seemed a very long shot, and was dismissed peremptorily by the White House, much of Congress, most legal scholars, and all of the media. Two years later the fight to overturn the Affordable Care Act became a political and legal firestorm. When, finally, the Supreme Court announced its ruling, the judgment was so surprising that two cable news channels misreported it and announced that the Act had been declared unconstitutional. Unprecedented offers unrivaled inside access to how key decisions were made in Washington, based on interviews with over one hundred of the people who lived this journey -- including the academics who began the challenge, the attorneys who litigated the case at all levels, and Obama administration attorneys who successfully defended the law. It reads like a political thriller, provides the definitive account of how the Supreme Court almost struck down President Obama's "unprecedented" law, and explains what this decision means for the future of the Constitution, the limits on federal power, and the Supreme Court.

A remarkable collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from 29 chief executives at iconic Canadian companies. Unprecedented is an extraordinary business book for extraordinary times: a collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from twenty-nine chief executives at Canada’s most iconic and largest companies. These are unforgettable accounts from senior leaders at companies on the front lines during the pandemic—nursing homes, grocery stores, airlines, hotels, pharmacies, shopping malls—along with valuable lessons on crisis management. The insights in Unprecedented are remarkable. Readers get a seat at the table when the CEO of Tim Hortons visits the White House to discuss financial relief initiatives for business. Canada Goose’s CEO tells of retooling the parka maker to turn out surgical gowns. The head of one of Canada’s largest paper producers reveals what happened when the country almost ran out of toilet paper. COVID-19 is a shared challenge, a crisis that touches everyone. Unprecedented captures that shared experience with personal essays that mix struggle and achievement, fear, humour, and compassion. At their heart, these are stories about overcoming adversity, a theme that resonates with managers, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students of business. Unprecedented gives us rare insight into how leaders navigated the pandemic and the social unrest and technological changes that marked this era—what was gained, what was lost, and what was learned that can help serve companies, employees, and customers better in an uncertain future. The authors’ net proceeds from the sales of Unprecedented are being donated to United Way Centraide Canada for COVID recovery across Canada.

These have not been normal times. The flaws of a nation were accentuated during the coronavirus pandemic. Hidden divisions over racism and abortion wounded civil discourse. Democracy was put at risk. History will not be kind about this era of “making America great again.” We will never be the same. These poems are unprecedented, as well as anything the president ever did. They were healthy outlets during the presidential pandemic between 2017–2021. Shamefully, we were entrapped in the literalism of shallow pursuits and the fear of critical thinking about higher values. Poetry can engage us in social transformation and pull us away from status quo thinking into a creative realm of higher values—a place of authenticity, openness, and peace. These unique poems caught the emotions in living through an era of impeachment and resistance. We have survived, learning lessons in going forward.

The Trump administration's attempted and actual violations of the Constitution and the law have surpassed our worst expectations again and again. Add to that the legal morass surrounding members of the Trump campaign staff, and the United States finds itself led by the most corrupt administration in modern American history. The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on 2016 election interference and obstruction of justice led to multiple indictments that boggle even the brightest legal minds. So how can the rest of us make sense of it all?' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' 'Sara Azari breaks down the investigations, evidence, criminal charges, and defenses involving an ever-expanding rogues' gallery of Trump associates and campaign members, as well as the president's own criminal conduct. Her docket also includes a comprehensive summary and expert analysis of the Mueller Report. Azari addresses the consequences of President Trump's conduct and considers whether the president of the United States is ever above the law.An essential nonpartisan guide, Unprecedented gives readers the tools they need to understand the legal issues engulfing Trump's campaign and presidency.' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '

This book combines (1) the most extensive treatment of the causes and phenomena of climate change in combination with (2) an extensive treatment of social obstacles and challenges (fossil-fuel funded denialism, media failure,political failure, and moral, religious, and economic challenges), (3) the most extensive treatment of the needed transition from fossil-fuel energy to clean energy, and (4) the most extensive treatment of mobilization. It provides the most complete, most up-to-date treatment of the various kinds of clean energy, and how they could combine to provide 70% clean energy by 2035 and 100% before 2050 (both U.S. and worldwide).

Our understanding of ourselves and the world as historical has drastically changed since the postwar period, yet this emerging historical sensibility has not been appropriately explained in a coherent theory of history. In this book, Zoltán Simon argues that instead of seeing the past, the present and the future together on a temporal continuum as history, we now expect unprecedented change to happen in the future (in visions of the future of technology, ecology and nuclear warfare) and we look at the past by assuming that such changes have already happened. This radical theory of history challenges narrative conceptualizations of history which assume a past potential of humanity unfolding over time to reach future fulfillment and seeks new ways of conceptualizing the altered socio-cultural concerns Western societies are currently facing. By creating a novel set of concepts to make sense of our altered historical condition regarding both history understood as the course of human affairs and historical writing, History in Times of Unprecedented Change offers a highly original and engaging take on the state of history and historical theory in the present and beyond.