Waking The Giant

Argues that the rapid climate change will provoke geophysical events, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.

A New York Times Notable Book “Far more than just a political story or, for that matter, a story of Andrew Jackson, Reynolds’s book shines a bright light on the cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic currents buffeting the nation. . . . Reynolds is a thoughtful historian and Waking Giant is as engaging and insightful a narrative of this critical interregnum as any written in years.”—New York Times Book Review A brilliant, definitive history of America’s vibrant and tumultuous rise during the Jacksonian era, from the Bancroft Prize-winning author of Walt Whitman’s America America experienced unprecedented growth and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. It was an age when Andrew Jackson redefined the presidency and James K. Polk expanded the nation's territory. Historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America's worst social ills, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: violent mobs, P. T. Barnum's freaks, all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets, and rabble-rousing feminists. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.

Confronting the truths of Canada's Indian residential school system has been likened to waking a sleeping giant. In The Sleeping Giant Awakens, David B. MacDonald uses genocide as an analytical tool to better understand Canada's past and present relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. Starting with a discussion of how genocide is defined in domestic and international law, the book applies the concept to the forced transfer of Indigenous children to residential schools and the "Sixties Scoop," in which Indigenous children were taken from their communities and placed in foster homes or adopted. Based on archival research, extensive interviews with residential school Survivors, and officials at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, among others, The Sleeping Giant Awakens offers a unique and timely perspective on the prospects for conciliation after genocide, exploring the difficulties in moving forward in a context where many settlers know little of the residential schools and ongoing legacies of colonization and need to have a better conception of Indigenous rights. It provides a detailed analysis of how the TRC approached genocide in its deliberations and in its Final Report. Crucially, MacDonald engages critics who argue that the term genocide impedes understanding of the IRS system and imperils prospects for conciliation. By contrast, this book sees genocide recognition as an important basis for meaningful discussions of how to engage Indigenous-settler relations in respectful and proactive ways.

An analysis of the modern Soviet Union under Gorbachev, discussing his mandate for radical reform and the implications for Soviet citizens and for the West.

The New York Times bestselling master of military historical fiction tells the story of Pearl Harbor as only he can in the first novel of a gripping new series set in World War II’s Pacific theater. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt watches uneasily as the world heads rapidly down a dangerous path. The Japanese have waged an aggressive campaign against China, and they now begin to expand their ambitions to other parts of Asia. As their expansion efforts grow bolder, their enemies know that Japan’s ultimate goal is total conquest over the region, especially when the Japanese align themselves with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, who wage their own war of conquest across Europe. Meanwhile, the British stand nearly alone against Hitler, and there is pressure in Washington to transfer America’s powerful fleet of warships from Hawaii to the Atlantic to join the fight against German U-boats that are devastating shipping. But despite deep concerns about weakening the Pacific fleet, no one believes that the main base at Pearl Harbor is under any real threat. Told through the eyes of widely diverse characters, this story looks at all sides of the drama and puts the reader squarely in the middle. In Washington, Secretary of State Cordell Hull must balance his own concerns between President Roosevelt and the Japanese ambassador, Kichisaburo Nomura, who is little more than a puppet of his own government. In Japan, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto wins skeptical approval for his outrageous plans in the Pacific, yet he understands more than anyone that an attack on Pearl Harbor will start a war that Japan cannot win. In Hawaii, Commander Joseph Rochefort’s job as an accomplished intelligence officer is to decode radio signals and detect the location of the Japanese fleet, but when the airwaves suddenly go silent, no one has any idea why. And from a small Depression-ravaged town, nineteen-year-old Tommy Biggs sees the Navy as his chance to escape and happily accepts his assignment, every sailor’s dream: the battleship USS Arizona. With you-are-there immediacy, Shaara opens up the mysteries of just how Japan—a small, deeply militarist nation—could launch one of history’s most devastating surprise attacks. In this story of innocence, heroism, sacrifice, and unfathomable blindness, Shaara’s gift for storytelling uses these familiar wartime themes to shine a light on the personal, the painful, the tragic, and the thrilling—and on a crucial part of history we must never forget.

Winner of three 2020 International Photography Awards and named Photographer of the Year from the Tokyo International Awards, explorer Sebastian Copeland's stunning photography delivers unparalleled access to the least explored continent on Earth and galvanizes our awareness of the threats of global warming. Winner of three 2020 International Photography Awards and named Photographer of the Year from the Tokyo International Awards, explorer Sebastian Copeland's stunning photography delivers unparalleled access to the least explored continent on Earth and galvanizes our awareness of the threats of global warming. Antarctica's ice sheet is a powerful entity, alive and dynamic. It is up to three million years old; its mass is constantly and imperceptibly moving, finally calving to the sea. Deep in the heart of the continent is a barren desert of snow, while the coast teems with life: the dominion of whales, birds, penguins, and seals, which had previously evolved outside of human contact. Until recently, scientists thought Antarctica had remained mostly untouched by climate change. But now they have warned that the ice is indeed melting-- and quickly. "My research there gave me a deeper perspective of the subtle variations taking place at the hands of climate change," says Copeland. "The images I bring back tell the story of a changing envi- ronment that spells the oncoming redrawing of the world's map, and all that it implicates."

Mainstream America has for too long been the sleeping giant of American politics. As mainstream Americans, we mind our own business, take care of our own responsibilities, and play by the rules. We know that there is no quick path to personal success or to national prosperity. But the ruling class has come to see the mainstream as largely irrelevant as a political force, when we are the backbone that supports the body politic. We work, pay our taxes, and vote. Then we go back to work and hope that those in power will do the right thing. We have trusted the dogs of the political class to guard our lunch, and they have eaten it. Something needs to change. Before we can equip the sleeping giant for the struggle ahead of us, however, we need to wake that sleeping giant. Waking the Sleeping Giant exposes liberal techniques and teaches mainstream Americans how to counter them to take back the country that our forebears made great, and to make it great again.