The author, William Easterly, is a former World Bank research economist; his target should be people similar to himself and those currently in academia.

More than a secret agent, a reporter, a Communist, he was a friend to many people, a true internationalist and humanitarian. Historian Larry Beman's latest book, Perfect Spy, is a biography of Vietnam's greatest undercover operative, Pham Xuan An, multiply awarded as a hero of his country.

As suggested by its title, Thomas Mallon's most recent political novel, Fellow Travelers, is a story about the McCarthy-era and the assault on political dissent that dominated it.

It's a familiar story. Thousands of people rounded up – mostly immigrants, but some citizens. The people deemed a threat "looked" like purveyors of a foreign ideology intent on destroying us, our freedom, our way of life. Maybe they wrote a letter to the editor, or joined a club that was critical of the government.

With its ironic play on Herman Melville's classic opening line and its nod to the magical realists such as Marquez, Sherman Alexie's latest novel, Flight, walks the fine line between the nightmare of history and the possibility of hope.

In Michael Chabon's latest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Meyer Landsman is a member of the Yiddish Policemen's Union by virtue of being a homicide detective at Sitka Central, in the Provisional Jewish Settlement in Sitka, Alaska. And he's at the end of his rope.

n this nevertheless fascinating critique of the exploitative and cynical toy industry, author Eric Clark, unfortunately, seems to have been drawn into more than a little admiration for the ruthless bosses who make it to the "top."

In Freedom Next Time, Pilger explores five countries, exposing the contradictions between the actions viewed by the people of the land and the words of rationalization supplied by the politicians.

This is a wonderfully refreshing examination of Canada’s role, current and historic, as supporter of and participant in the American Empire.

In this book James Carroll traces the history of Christian anti-Semitism and the role of the Catholic Church, his Church, in its development. Despite his goal of portraying the responsibility of the Church in what became the holocaust, he ends up with a nuanced apologetic for his religion and dilutes Catholic responsibility by deflecting some of the blame to the Enlightenment, Luther and Marxism.

The mid 1980’s saw the implementation of neo-liberal policies in Mexico. Consequently, the country has witnessed devaluation in its currency, its markets flooded by cheap imports affecting local farmers, widespread unemployment...

Almost all of the recent books about Venezuela focus on the big changes at the top – the government of President Hugo Chavez and the new ministries and social programmes or the coups, sabotage and propaganda by local oligarchs and US imperialism.

Inequality isn't a matter of bad luck or misfortune. Social class and other socially significant categories like race and gender are the hidden hands that determine one's life chances, future prospects, and current living conditions.

Maniacal privatization has been the byword of U.S. imperialism of late, which is part and parcel of the ongoing attack on the public sector and the redistribution of wealth—upwards.

Although Neoconservatism suffered a setback in 2006 with the results of the midterm elections and the firing, resignation or indictment of several of the movement’s leading figures, the pernicious ideology that the Neocons espouse is by no means dead, nor even out of power.

Columnist Chris Stevenson ranks his recent favorite readings to keep you warm.

In the United States during the 1950s, Theodore W. Adorno was exploring the mental and social landscape favorable to implanting antidemocratic ideas.

The phrase Strange Liberators, as many may know, comes from Martin Luther King's famous speech against the U.S. invasion of Vietnam at the Riverside Church in New York in 1967.

Now as the 21st century dawns, the leading correspondent for London’s Financial Times has visited China and returned profoundly shaken, mumbling figuratively "I’ve seen the future and it is frightening." He is fearful that China’s rise spells ill for the destiny of imperialism worldwide.

Certainly, the author of the book at hand deserves to have his worthy work placed in this section for this is one of the more insightful explorations of the misrule that has characterized Washington of late.