Books published by publisher The Free Press, New York

A leading member of the Senate Judiciary Committee “spells out, in considerable detail, the extent of corporate influence over a variety of issues” in national politics (The New Yorker) As a U.S. senator and former federal prosecutor, Sheldon Whitehouse has had a front-row seat for the spectacle of dark money in government. In his widely praised book Captured, he describes how corporations buy influence over our government— not only over representatives and senators, but over the very regulators directly responsible for enforcing the laws under which these corporations operate, and over the judges and prosecutors who are supposed to be vigilant about protecting the public interest. In a case study that shows these operations at work, Whitehouse reveals how fossil fuel companies have held any regulation related to climate change at bay. The problem is structural: as Kirkus Reviews wrote, “many of the ills it illuminates are bipartisan.” This paperback edition features a new preface by the author that reveals how corporate influence has taken advantage of Donald Trump’s presidency to advance its agenda—and what we can do about it.

“On the news at this time is the question of the hostages,” then vice president George Bush noted in his secret diary on November 5, 1986, two days after a Lebanese newspaper broke the first story of the Reagan administration’s efforts to trade arms for hostages with Iran. “I’m one of the few people that know fully the details,” Bush continued. “This is one operation that has been held very, very tight, and I hope it will not leak.” But the illicit arms-for-hostages deals did leak, and eventually U.S. citizens discovered that the Reagan administration had been selling munitions to Iran, using funds from those sales for an illicit operation to resupply the Nicaraguan Contras, and systematically deceiving Congress, the press, and the public about these actions. More than six years after the Iran-Contra operations were revealed, we continue to learn more about the scandal that rocked the Reagan White House and haunted George Bush’s presidency, and about its implications for our system of governance. The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History provides the 101 most important documents on the policy decisions, covert operations, and subsequent cover-up that created the most serious constitutional crisis of modern times. Drawing on up-to-date information such as the recently discovered Bush diaries, this reader features once top secret, code-word White House memoranda, minutes of presidential meetings, pages from Oliver North’s and Caspar Weinberger’s personal notebooks, back-channel cable traffic, and investigative records, among other extraordinary materials. To enhance this documentation, the editors provide contextual overviews of the complex components of the Iran-Contra operations, as well as glossaries of the key players, and a detailed chronology of events. The result is a unique guide to the inner workings of national security policy making and the shadowy world of clandestine operations—a singular resource for understanding the Iran-Contra affair and the gravity of the governmental crisis it spawned. The documents, writes noted Iran-Contra scholar Theodore Draper in the Foreword, give the reader “an intimate sense of how the president and his men manipulated the system and perverted its constitutional character.” This volume “allows the facts to speak for themselves.”

From the award-winning authors of Who Built America?, Freedom's Unfinished Revolution offers a ground-breaking presentation of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Filled with a wide array of original source materials including letters, speeches, excerpts from novels and newspapers, photographs, engravings, art and political cartoons, Freedom's Unfinished Revolution arose out of what the Teacher's Advisory Committee has called "the need and desire to create a textbook for high school students that would make the Reconstruction come alive".

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a novel by Mark Twain commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger", despite strong arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist.

Anita and Me, which has been compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, tells the story of Meena, the daughter of the only Punjabi family in the British village of Tollington. With great warmth and humor, Meera Syal brings to life a quirky, spirited 1960s mining town and creates in her protagonist what the Washington Post calls a “female Huck Finn.” The novel follows nine-year-old Meena through a year spiced with pilfered sweets and money, bad words, and compulsive, yet inventive, lies. Anita and Me offers a fresh, sassy look at a childhood caught between two cultures.

The sequel to the award-winning Remembering Slavery, a groundbreaking book-and-CD set of interviews about the segregation-era South. Remembering Jim Crow, the groundbreaking sequel to Remembering Slavery, is an extraordinary opportunity to read and hear the voices of black southerners who were firsthand witnesses to one of the most heartbreaking and troubling chapters in America's history. Based on interviews collected by the Behind the Veil project at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies, this remarkable book-and-CD set presents for the first time the most extensive oral history ever recorded of African American life in the racially segregated South. In vivid, compelling stories, men and women from all walks of life tell how their most ordinary activities were subjected to profound and unrelenting racial oppressionin the workplace, on street corners, and above all in the public facilities and institutions that systematically demeaned, disenfranchised, and disempowered black people, condemning them to second-class citizenship. At the same time, Remembering Jim Crow is a testament to how black southerners fought back against the system, raising children, building churches and schools, running businesses, and struggling for respect in a society that denied them the most basic rights. The result is a powerful story of survival enriched by vivid memories of individual, family, and community triumphs and tragedies. Remembering Jim Crow is accompanied by two one-hour compact discs of the companion radio documentary produced by American RadioWorks. A transcript of the audio programs is included in the book's appendix, and the book is illustrated with fifty rare segregation-era photographs collected from African American families who participated in the oral history project. Boxed set: hardcover book with 2 one-hour compact discs; 50 black-and-white photographs.

“This anthology of 38 addresses . . . offer[s] a means for visiting anew the lifework of an extraordinary American woman” (HistoryNet). A tie-in to the American RadioWorks® documentary—with audio and video content. Eleanor Roosevelt’s groundbreaking career as a professional radio broadcaster is almost entirely forgotten. As First Lady, she hosted a series of prime time programs that revolutionized how Americans related to their chief executive and his family. Now, The First Lady of Radio rescues these broadcasts from the archives, presenting a carefully curated sampling of transcripts of Roosevelt’s most famous and influential radio shows, including addresses on the bombing of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, V-E Day, and women’s issues of the times. Edited and set into context by award-winning author and radio producer Stephen Drury Smith—and with a foreword by Roosevelt’s famed biographer, historian Blanche Wiesen Cook—The First Lady of Radio is both a historical treasure and a fascinating window onto the power and the influence of a pioneering First Lady. “An intriguing glimpse into the social and political changes of the period.” —Publishers Weekly “[Eleanor Roosevelt] was terrified of speaking in public at first, and her high-pitched voice could sail off uncontrollably. Yet she became one of the most effective speakers of her time.” —David McCullough

The election and reelection of Barack Obama ushered in a litany of controversial perspectives about the contemporary state of American race relations. In this incisive volume, some of the country’s most celebrated and original thinkers on race—historians, sociologists, writers, scholars, and cultural critics—reexamine the familiar framework of the civil rights movement with an eye to redirecting our understanding of the politics of race.Through provocative and insightful essays, The New Black challenges contemporary images of black families, offers a contentious critique of the relevance of presidential politics, transforms ideas about real and perceived political power, defies commonly accepted notions of "blackness," and generally attempts to sketch the new boundaries of debates over race in America.Bringing a wealth of novel ideas and fresh perspectives to the public discourse, The New Black represents a major effort to address both persistent inequalities and the changing landscape of race in the new century.With contributions by:Elizabeth AlexanderJeannine BellPaul ButlerLuis Fuentes-RohwerLani GuinierJonathan Scott HollowayTaeku LeeGlenn C. LouryAngela Onwuachi-WilligOrlando PattersonCristina M. RodríguezGerald Torres