Books about Socialist from Amazon.com

In this classic and prescient book, Joseph A. Schumpeter introduced the world to the concept of "creative destruction," which forever altered how global economics is approached and perceived. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand where the world economy is headed.

The biography of America's hottest political superstar—Barack Obama—from a journalist who has been covering Obama and his career since his successful run for U.S. Senate

Barack Obama's meteoric rise from Hawaii high schooler to exemplary Harvard Law School student to well-groomed politico is the stuff of legend, a political story that has captured the attention of virtually every American. Since his headline-grabbing speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama has come to represent the promise of unity among groups of all types—blacks and whites; Democrats, Republicans, and moderates; the young and the old; the upper, middle, and lower classes. In this first-of-a-kind, groundbreaking biography, veteran journalist and Obama chronicler David Mendell gives an in-depth, comprehensive portrait of the boy named Barry who took inspiration from his hardworking parents and became the eloquent, suave Obama—a man whose last name has become a catchphrase for hope in a politically jaded society desperate for a new star.

Mendell has covered Obama since the beginning of Obama's campaign for the Senate and as a result enjoys far-reaching access to the new senator. His research includes exclusive interviews with Obama's closest aides, mentors, political adversaries, and family—most notably his extremely charismatic wife, Michelle. Mendell reveals the surprising, cutthroat campaign tactics sanctioned by Obama—who has steeped his image and reputation with the ideals of clean politics and good government—to win his Senate seat by employing some of the most ruthless operatives in the business.

Eye-opening, well researched, and compulsively readable, Obama: From Promise to Power is a necessary look at the evolution of a politician from public servant to candidate-savior—a politician who has experienced fame, adulation, and criticism in equal parts and on a greater scale than the public eye has seen in quite some time.

In 1920, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs ran for president while serving a ten-year jail term for speaking against America’s role in World War I. Though many called Debs a traitor, others praised him as a prisoner of conscience, a martyr to the cause of free speech. Nearly a million Americans agreed, voting for a man whom the government had branded an enemy to his country.

In a beautifully crafted narrative, Ernest Freeberg shows that the campaign to send Debs from an Atlanta jailhouse to the White House was part of a wider national debate over the right to free speech in wartime. Debs was one of thousands of Americans arrested for speaking his mind during the war, while government censors were silencing dozens of newspapers and magazines. When peace was restored, however, a nationwide protest was unleashed against the government’s repression, demanding amnesty for Debs and his fellow political prisoners. Led by a coalition of the country’s most important intellectuals, writers, and labor leaders, this protest not only liberated Debs, but also launched the American Civil Liberties Union and changed the course of free speech in wartime.

The Debs case illuminates our own struggle to define the boundaries of permissible dissent as we continue to balance the right of free speech with the demands of national security. In this memorable story of democracy on trial, Freeberg excavates an extraordinary episode in the history of one of America’s most prized ideals.

The rise of China as a great power is one of the most important developments in the twenty-first century But despite dramatic economic progress, China’s prospects remain uncertain In a book sure to provoke debate, Minxin Pei examines the sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party’s reform strategy—pursuing pro-market economic policies under one-party rule.

Pei casts doubt on three central explanations for why China’s strategy works: sustained economic development will lead to political liberalization and democratization; gradualist economic transition is a strategy superior to the “shock therapy” prescribed for the former Soviet Union; and a neo-authoritarian developmental state is essential to economic take-off. Pei argues that because the Communist Party must retain significant economic control to ensure its political survival, gradualism will ultimately fail.

The lack of democratic reforms in China has led to pervasive corruption and a breakdown in political accountability. What has emerged is a decentralized predatory state in which local party bosses have effectively privatized the state’s authority. Collusive corruption is widespread and governance is deteriorating. Instead of evolving toward a full market economy, China is trapped in partial economic and political reforms.

Combining powerful insights with empirical research, China’s Trapped Transition offers a provocative assessment of China’s future as a great power.

The First Socialist Society is the compelling and often tragic history of what Soviet citizens have lived through from 1917 to the present, told with great sympathy and perception. It ranges over the changing lives of peasants, urban workers, and professionals; the interaction of Soviet autocrats with the people; the character and role of religion, law, education, and literature within Soviet society; and the significance and fate of various national groups. As the story unfolds, we come to understand how the ideas of Marxism have been changed, taking on almost unrecognizable forms by unique political and economic circumstances.

Hosking's analysis of this vast and complex country begins by asking how it was that the first socialist revolution took place in backward, autocratic Russia. Why were the Bolsheviks able to seize power and hold on to it? The core of the book lies in the years of Stalin's rule: how did he exercise such unlimited power, and how did the various strata of society survive and come to terms with his tyranny?

The later chapters recount Khrushchev's efforts to reform the worst features of Stalinism, and the unpredictable effects of his attempts within the East European satellite countries, bringing out elements of socialism that had been obscured or overlaid in the Soviet Union itself. And in the aftermath of the long Brezhnev years of stagnation and corruption, the question is posed: can Soviet society find a way to modify the rigidities inherited from the Stalinist past?

Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.-Eugene Debs in 1918

This moving biography presents the definitive story of the life and legacy of the most eloquent spokesperson and leader of the US labor and socialist movements. With a new introduction by Mike Davis.