Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 partly because he was a Washington outsider. But when he got to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that distinction turned out to be double-bladed. NBC's award-winning Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd draws upon his unprecedented inner-circle sources to create a gripping account of Obama's tumultuous first term and campaign to win another.

"In Era of Experimentation, Daniel Peart challenges the pervasive assumption that the present-day political system, organized around two competing parties, represents the logical fulfillment of participatory democracy. Recent accounts of 'the rise of American democracy' between the Revolution and the Civil War applaud political parties for opening up public life to mass participation and making government responsive to the people. Yet this celebratory...

"This book is my answer to Trump-the-question. Because Mr. Trump stirs up so much controversy, I knew that only hard evidence could keep me from being tossed about in his wake. So I have assembled a great quantity of data here, looking exhaustively at Trump's speeches, his press conferences, his debates, and his incessant tweets. But these data mean little by themselves. It is only when one compares them to what the press has written that one begins...

Overview: Russia is famous for its vodka, and its culture of extreme intoxication. But just as vodka is central to the lives of many Russians, it is also central to understanding Russian history and politics. In Vodka Politics, Mark Lawrence Schrad argues that debilitating societal alcoholism is not hard-wired into Russians' genetic code, but rather their autocratic political system, which has long wielded vodka as a tool of statecraft. Through a...

What role did manhood play in early American Politics? In A Republic of Men, Mark E. Kann argues that the American founders aspired to create a "republic of men" but feared that "disorderly men" threatened its birth, health, and longevity. Kann demonstrates how hegemonic norms of manhood-exemplified by "the Family Man," for instance--were deployed as a means of stigmatizing unworthy men, rewarding responsible men with citizenship, and empowering exceptional...