Examines the history and operations of the IRS and discusses reform efforts

How the antitax fringe went mainstream—and now threatens America’s future The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity. Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a “second American Revolution,” setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy. In The Power to Destroy, Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems. In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails “the power to destroy.” But The Power to Destroy argues that tax opponents now wield this destructive power. Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America’s financial strength. The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric, and how—abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge"—it evolved into a mainstream political force. The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.

Andrew confirms in this groundbreaking exploration what many have suspected for a long time: that presidents, political appointees, and bureaucrats have attempted to use the Internal Revenue Service to punish their enemies.

Walmart. Coca-Cola. BP. Toyota. The world economy runs on the profits of transnational corporations. Politicians need their backing. Non-profit organizations rely on their philanthropy. People look to their brands for meaning. And their power continues to rise. Can these companies, as so many are now hoping, provide the solutions to end the mounting global environmental crisis? Absolutely, the CEOs of big business are telling us: the commitment to corporate social responsibility will ensure it happens voluntarily. Peter Dauvergne challenges this claim, arguing instead that corporations are still doing far more to destroy than protect our planet. Trusting big business to lead sustainability is, he cautions, unwise — perhaps even catastrophic. Planetary sustainability will require reining in the power of big business, starting now.

For years, the so-called better-war school of thought has argued that the United States built a legitimate and viable non-Communist state in South Vietnam in the latter years of the Vietnam War and that it was only the military abandonment of this state that brought down the Republic of Vietnam. But Andrew J. Gawthorpe, through a detailed and incisive analysis, shows that, in fact, the United States failed in its efforts at nation building and had not established a durable state in South Vietnam. Drawing on newly opened archival collections and previously unexamined oral histories with dozens of U.S. military officers and government officials, To Build as Well as Destroy demonstrates that the United States never came close to achieving victory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gawthorpe tells a story of policy aspirations and practical failures that stretches from Washington, D.C., to the Vietnamese villages in which the United States implemented its nationbuilding strategy through the Office of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support known as CORDS. Structural factors that could not have been overcome by the further application of military power thwarted U.S. efforts to build a viable set of non-Communist political, economic, and social institutions in South Vietnam. To Build as Well as Destroy provides the most comprehensive account yet of the largest and best-resourced nation-building program in U.S. history. Gawthorpe's analysis helps contemporary policy makers, diplomats, and military officers understand the reasons for this failure. At a moment in time when American strategists are grappling with military and political challenges in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, revisiting the historical lessons of Vietnam is a worthy endeavor.

The confidence, courage, and resolve in many of the greatest Bible heroes and world-changers are the result of a single, powerful, biblical principle. It's a principle woven into the very foundation of creation that, when applied, has the power to calm chaos, overcome obstacles, and win every battle. The secret? Activating the power of God's spoken Word.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature. In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.