Aside from the election of Donald Trump, the most surprising political development of the past few years has been the rapid rise of the Alt-Right—the white nationalist, anti-feminist, far-right movement that provided much of the ground-level energy for Trump’s campaign and has been a focus of international media attention ever since. Yet we still rarely get a clear sense of who and what the Alt-Right actually are, and what their long-term effect is likely to be.
            Journalist Mike Wendling knows. He’s been following the Alt-Right closely for years, and with this book he shares the deep knowledge he’s gleaned. Media accounts to the contrary, the Alt-Right didn’t just burst out of nowhere in 2016—rather, they have been building their network quietly for years, using bulletin boards and social media to spread a toxic hybrid of technological utopianism, reactionary philosophy, and racial hatred. Wendling traces clearly the rise of the movement and the evolution of its ideas, and he introduces us to some of its key figures—many of whom he interviewed personally for the book. He explores links between Alt-Right rhetoric and hate crimes and terrorism, showing that the evidence connecting them is undeniable. Ultimately, however, he builds a strong case that the movement’s lack of a coherent base and its contradictory tendencies are already sapping its strength and will lead to its downfall.
            A shocking exposé of a movement whose emergence stunned the world, Alt-Right presents a disturbing picture of our current political moment.
 

It takes more than an excellent candidate to win elections; it takes an outstanding campaign organization, too. Campaign Inc. is the story of how leadership and organization propelled Barack Obama to the White House. As the chief operating officer of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, Henry F. De Sio, Jr., was positioned to view this historic campaign as few others could. In this fascinating behind-the-scenes account, he whisks readers into Obama’s national election headquarters in Chicago to glimpse the decision-making processes and myriad details critical to running a successful and innovative presidential campaign. From the campaign’s early chaos to the jubilation and drama of winning the Iowa caucus, to the drawn-out Democratic nomination process, to Obama’s eventual election as president of the United States, De Sio guides readers through the challenges faced by the Obama for America campaign in its brief twenty-one-month lifespan.

De Sio shows readers that Obama himself was direct about his vision for the campaign when he instructed his staff to “run it like a business.” Thus, this is less the story of Barack Obama, candidate, and more the story of Barack Obama, CEO. Because campaigns are launched from scratch during every election cycle, they are the ultimate entrepreneurial experience. In the course of the election, the Obama campaign scaled up from a scrappy start-up to a nearly $1 billion operation, becoming a hothouse environment on which the glare of the media spotlight was permanently trained.

Campaign Inc. allows readers to peek behind the curtain at the underdog organization that brought down the Clinton campaign and later went on to defeat the Republican machine, while offering lessons in leadership and organization to innovators, executives, and entrepreneurs.

When Barack Obama entered the White House, he followed a long-standing precedent for the development and implementation of major policies by appointing administrators—so-called policy czars—charged with directing the response to the nation’s most pressing crises. Demonstrating that the creation of policy czars is a strategy for combating partisan polarization and navigating the federal government’s complexity, Vaughn and Villalobos offer a sober, empirical analysis of what precisely constitutes a czar and what role they have played in the modern presidency.

Koritha Mitchell analyzes canonical texts by and about African American women to lay bare the hostility these women face as they invest in traditional domesticity. Instead of the respectability and safety granted white homemakers, black women endure pejorative labels, racist governmental policies, attacks on their citizenship, and aggression meant to keep them in "their place."

Tracing how African Americans define and redefine success in a nation determined to deprive them of it, Mitchell plumbs the works of Frances Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, and others. These artists honor black homes from slavery and post-emancipation through the Civil Rights era to "post-racial" America. Mitchell follows black families asserting their citizenship in domestic settings while the larger society and culture marginalize and attack them, not because they are deviants or failures but because they meet American standards.

Powerful and provocative, From Slave Cabins to the White House illuminates the links between African American women's homemaking and citizenship in history and across literature.

The serious illness of three presidents—Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy—as well as the injury Ronald Reagan received in the assassination attempt upon him have revealed our woefully inadequate system for handling presidential incapacity. The authors believe that this flawed system poses a major threat to the nation, and they provide sobering reports on how the government functioned (or failed to function) during times of presidential impairment. The public was kept in the dark regarding the gravity of the presidential condition, often unaware that critical decisions were being made while the president was suffering from a severe illness.

Hidden Illness in the White House contains startling new information on the severity of Roosevelt’s illness during the crucial Yalta negotiations and the fact that Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease, a life-threatening illness, long before he was elected to the presidency. In each case the authors demonstrate that a largely successful effort was made to conceal the president’s true medical condition from the public.

This engaging collection of essays explores the lives and legacies of six Ohio-born First Ladies: Lucy Webb Hayes, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, Caroline Scott Harrison, Ida Saxton McKinley, Helen Herron Taft, and Florence Kling Harding. With contributions by leading scholars, the volume moves beyond traditional biography to examine how each woman’s Ohio roots shaped her public role and influenced her husband’s political career at both state and national levels. Connecting Ohio history to the broader narrative of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century US history, these essays draw on rich primary and secondary sources to illuminate the intersection of regional identity and national politics. Accessible and insightful, Ohio’s First Ladies invites readers of all backgrounds—from high school students to lifelong learners—to discover how the Midwest helped mold women who would leave their mark on the White House. Contributors Benjamin T. Arrington Jennifer Capps Annette B. Dunlap Kara M. French Michelle Gullion Katherine Jellison Katherine A. S. Sibley

Who was Theodore Roosevelt? Most of us think of him as one of America's greatest presidents, a champion of progressive politics, and a master statesman. But many feared the political power that Roosevelt wielded. Woodrow Wilson once called him "the most dangerous man of the age." Mark Twain thought him "clearly insane." William James scorned the "flood of bellicose emotion" he let loose during his presidency. Even his biographer, Edmund Morris, is astonished at Roosevelt's "irrational love of battle."

In this book, Sarah Watts probes this dark side of the Rough Rider, presenting a fascinating psychological portrait of a man whose personal obsession with masculinity profoundly influenced the fate of a nation. Drawing on his own writings and on media representations of him, Watts attributes the wide appeal of Roosevelt's style of manhood to the way it addressed the hopes and anxieties of men of his time. Like many of his contemporaries, Roosevelt struggled with what it meant to be a man in the modern era. He saw two foes within himself: a fragile weakling and a primitive beast. The weakling he punished and toughened with rigorous, manly pursuits such as hunting, horseback riding, and war. The beast he unleashed through brutal criticism of homosexuals, immigrants, pacifists, and sissies—anyone who might tarnish the nation's veneer of strength and vigor. With his unabashed paeans to violence and aggressive politics, Roosevelt ultimately offered American men a chance to project their longings and fears onto the nation and its policies. In this way he harnessed the primitive energy of men's desires to propel the march of American civilization—over the bodies of anyone who might stand in its way.

Written with passion and precision, this powerful revisioning of an American icon will forever alter the way we see Theodore Roosevelt and his political legacy.

"A superb scholarly study of how Roosevelt built his political base on the aspiration and fears of men in a rapidly changing nation and world."—Charles K. Piehl, Library Journal

"A thought-provoking and innovative study of the dark side of Roosevelt's personality. . . . [Watt's] arguments are clear, passionate, and thoroughly supported."—Elizabeth A. Bennion, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

As assistant press secretary to President Harry S. Truman, Eben A. Ayers brought with him twenty-six years of experience as a newspaperman.  He knew when he had a good story and knew how to record it.  His private diary, which he kept unbeknownst to his associates, tells the inside story of the Truman White House clearly, colorfully, and with an acute sense of history.