Here are 31 books that Capitol Gains fans have personally recommended if you like
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Currently, I am a lecturer at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, teaching speech and writing at a perennial top ten business school in America. I also teach speech to business students as an adjunct professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. Before teaching became my calling and my fulltime vocation, I spent thirteen years working for the State of Indiana, and twenty years as a contract lobbyist in the Indiana Statehouse.
I had already been a lobbyist for a few years before I became aware of the satirical story about lobbying. And while the satire is entertainingly ridiculous, the individual components are not all that different from real life. Lobbyists are faced with moral dilemmas so often that the consequences often become unnoticeable.
The story is less about what is technically known as “lobbying” but, more broadly, a better term that has since become popular in the age of social media known as “influencing.” It raises the moral dilemma issues so well that I have taught the story in my advocacy classes at Indiana University.
Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies–in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of the original Puff Daddy?
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I was attracted to the study of interest groups for two main reasons. First, not too many scholars study interest groups and lobbying. This means I might have something to contribute. Second, interest groups are fascinating. Almost every interest you can think of has an interest group trying to affect (or retard) change. Every year, for example, I get to regale my students with stories about little-known interest groups such as the American Frozen Food Institute, the Pink Pistols (a pro-gun LGBTQ group), the California Prune Board, and Declassify UAP (an anti-UFO secrecy group). Talking and learning about interest groups is fun.
The late William Browne pioneered the study of interest group influence. His empirical studies noted that interest groups often get what they want from government because they ask for relatively small changes in policy to which no one objects.
In this book, he reflects on his work and that of others. He concludes that interest groups are an integral part of the American political system and that they seldom manage to strongarm the government into doing things that lots of ordinary Americans do not support.
This book is good because it is the rare academic piece that sings the praises of interest groups and acknowledges all the good they do. After all, most Americans, whether they believe it or not, identify with, support, or belong to some interest group.
And as Browne points out, interest groups have been integral to the adoption of some of the most important and beneficial…
Synthesizing theory, personal research, and prior studies on interest groups and other lobbies, William P. Browne offers a new, insightful overview of organized political interests and explains how and why they affect public policy. Drawing on his extensive experience researching interest groups, Browne assesses the impact that special interests have long had in shaping policy. He explains how they fit into the policymaking process and into society, how they exercise their influence, and how they adapt to changing circumstances. Browne describes the diversity of existing interests-associations, businesses, foundations, churches, and others-and explores the multidimensional tasks of lobbying, from disseminating information…
I was attracted to the study of interest groups for two main reasons. First, not too many scholars study interest groups and lobbying. This means I might have something to contribute. Second, interest groups are fascinating. Almost every interest you can think of has an interest group trying to affect (or retard) change. Every year, for example, I get to regale my students with stories about little-known interest groups such as the American Frozen Food Institute, the Pink Pistols (a pro-gun LGBTQ group), the California Prune Board, and Declassify UAP (an anti-UFO secrecy group). Talking and learning about interest groups is fun.
This is the preeminent academic study of interest group influence. The book is long, dense, and scholarly. The book is perhaps best known for its conclusion that money isn’t everything; groups with lots of money lose policy battles all the time.
Based on in-depth research on almost 100 issues before the federal government, the book's findings support my view that the answer to the question, “How influential are interest groups?” is, “It depends.” This conclusion is not satisfying to people who seek easy answers to complex questions. But it is undoubtedly true.
During the 2008 election season, politicians from both sides of the aisle promised to rid government of lobbyists' undue influence. For the authors of Lobbying and Policy Change, the most extensive study ever done on the topic, these promises ring hollow - not because politicians fail to keep them but because lobbies are far less influential than political rhetoric suggests. Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I first got interested in how markets really work when I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the “deregulation” movement in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. I quickly discovered that deregulation never happened in the literal sense. In most cases, governments had to increase regulation to enhance market competition. They needed more rules to get “freer” markets. This sounds paradoxical at first, but it really isn’t. It makes perfect sense once you realize that markets do not arise spontaneously but rather are crafted by the very visible hand of the government. So I took that insight and I have been running with it ever since.
Well for one thing, firms might prefer to collude rather than to compete, if given the choice. So we need antitrust policy to make them compete.
Philippon surveys developments over the past few decades, demonstrating how the United States has weakened antitrust policy and enforcement while Europe has strengthened it.
He also looks at particular sectors, with a particularly compelling chapter on how the U.S. financial sector has grown without delivering more value to consumers and investors.
A Financial Times Book of the Year A ProMarket Book of the Year
"Superbly argued and important...Donald Trump is in so many ways a product of the defective capitalism described in The Great Reversal. What the U.S. needs, instead, is another Teddy Roosevelt and his energetic trust-busting. Is that still imaginable? All believers in the virtues of competitive capitalism must hope so." -Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"In one industry after another...a few companies have grown so large that they have the power to keep prices high and wages low. It's great for those corporations-and bad for almost everyone else." -David…
Alex Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its President and CEO in 1997. A Cornell University graduate, Counts’s commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he trained under Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, and co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Since its modest beginnings, Grameen Foundation has grown to become a leading international humanitarian organization. Today he is an independent consultant to mission-driven organizations, a prolific writer, and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland who loves to teach nonprofit leadership and related subjects.
Daley-Harris chronicles his experience founding and leading RESULTS, a scrappy and highly effective anti-poverty advocacy organization, and later his work to embed his insights into other organizations working on other crucial issues such as climate change. His stories of citizens studying issues and then acting in concert with others to drive desperately-needed policy changes and divert hundreds of millions of dollars to effective programs are instructive as well as inspirational. In this edition, he helpfully breaks down his tactics for spurring unprecedented and highly successful citizen advocacy into bite-sized steps that any organization can adapt.
Most people see working to end global poverty and ensure a stable climate as a fool s errand. Add to that the Citizens United decision and the flood of money rushing into politics and the despair grows deeper. But activist and author Sam Daley-Harris has helped thousands of ordinary citizens transform from hopeless bystanders to powerful advocates.
This 20th anniversary edition has a new chapter on the groundbreaking work of Citizens Climate Lobby, an increasingly powerful new advocacy group following the RESULTS model, and another new chapter on the Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation, a new initiative focused on…
My father wanted to be an astrophysicist, and as a kid I caught his passion for the future from the many science fiction books he’d left throughout our house. As an adult, the advances in technology have brought the future envisioned in those books closer than ever. My passion for what awaits us led me to write The Price of Safety, which contains innovations that are right around the corner—and have already started to come true (which is freaky), between Elon Musk’s cranial implants to DNA tracking. The world we live in is becoming more like the world in my books. I hope we’re ready!
Peper’s novel is about how the technology available in the near future, which seems like a gift, can be used against you. (Sound familiar?)
In this instance, it is being used to potentially change humanity’s fate, and the main character has to decide what to do about it, if anything. The book stuck with me as it involves power, corruption, and the risks of relying too much on technology.
It’s a complex story, trying to encapsulate the threats our future holds, not only in terms of technology but the damage to our environment and how both could impact our survival.
There are elements of my novel in terms of having neural feeds, though the story explores how life would be experienced if you could capture every moment (not that I personally want to capture everything that happens in my own life).
A rising star at a preeminent political lobbying firm, Dag Calhoun represents the world's most powerful technology and energy executives. But when a close brush with death reveals that the influence he wields makes him a target, impossible cracks appear in his perfect, richly appointed life.
Like everyone else, Dag relies on his digital feed for everything-a feed that is as personal as it is pervasive, and may not be as private as it seems. As he struggles to make sense of the dark forces closing in on him, he discovers that activists are hijacking the feed to manipulate markets…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’ve loved biology and medicine since the fifth grade when I learned about white blood cells and their function. For thirty years, I worked in intensive care where adrenaline levels run high. A good thriller does the same. It keeps my heart beating fast and my attention completely focused. Yet also, I’m a mother of three boys, and I’ve always worked in pediatrics and neonatology. I love kids, and I love being a mom. The heart in these books makes them more than simply an adrenaline fix on the page. I find the blend of heart with page-turning intrigue makes for a perfect read.
I chose this book because it’s another one written for a female audience, in a big way–the author is female, the protagonist is female, the president of the United States in the story is a woman, and the greatest little detail I fully appreciate is when a man serves the coffee to a room full of important people, including the protagonist.
Another book with a great balance of medicine, intrigue, life and death urgency, and best of all, characters I could appreciate and root for.
The President's only child is dying. Terrorists claim to have the cure. When a private plane whisks CDC epidemiologist Madeline Hamilton to Washington D.C. for an urgent medical symposium, she knows something significant is underway—but she doesn't expect to face the most disturbing medical mystery of her career. A debilitating neurological toxin has stricken the children of several political families, and one of them is the son of U.S. President Anna Moreland.
With the lives of children on the line, Madeline assembles a team of medical experts. The investigation takes a horrifying turn when she starts receiving communications from the…
I have been fascinated with American Presidents since I was ten and visited the Hall of Presidents attraction at Disney World years ago. That one visit opened my mind to American History and sealed my fate as a collector of American History facts. Later in life, I turned into an author of middle grade and young adult, but I knew I’d have to write a book on Presidential facts. I am glad to say that it was a well-received book in libraries and schools and I encourage young readers and hopeful writers in schools to consider writing as a passion and to teach others in the written word about that one thing they are into more than anything else.
This book was written by a ten-year-old with a severe fascination with Presidential trivia and history. His author's voice is perfect for kids his age and should inspire any kid to write a book on any subject of their liking. It is a really fun book to read and he did his homework. I highly suggest this one for kids and libraries and schools.
“I want everyone to know about the history of the United States and about important political events and issues and how they work.” –Noah McCullough, age ten, 2032 presidential hopeful
Noah McCullough may just be this country’s youngest presidential historian ever–and in this delightful volume he gives us hours of entertainment with an illustrated tour of America’s forty-three presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush. The political whiz kid famed for his appearances on “The Tonight Show” offers up brief bios and fun facts about our nation’s leaders, as well as trivia questions such as
I love kids' books that humanize historical figures, including our former presidents and first ladies. Extra points for texts that have fresh approaches, lots of lesser-known facts, and a few sentences about social context! Children need a realistic, detailed view of our country’s past leaders and the times they lived in. Writing truthful, inspirational stories is my job, as an author of nonfiction for young people. My books have won several state and national awards, including the PEN Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing, the Jane Addams Book Award, and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction (Younger Readers).
This is an informal, entertaining, and eye-opening book that includes chapters on presidents who were either eccentric, unlucky, or corrupt. Some of our former leaders inherited major problems from previous administrations, some were highly unqualified, and some were successful but fallible wartime commanders-in-chief. I like how the book doesn’t shy away from political realities—the influence of big corporations, greed, and self-interest.
I think children will get a hoot out of reading about our presidents’ odd habits. Did you know that John Quincy Adams liked to swim nude in the Potomac?
From heroic George Washington to the dastardly Richard Nixon, the oval office has been occupied by larger-than-life personalities since 1789. The position comes with enormous power and responsibility, and every American president thus far has managed to achieve great things. However, the President of the United States is only human-and oftentimes far from perfect. While some men suffered through only minor mishaps during their time in office, others are famously remembered for leaving behind much bigger messes.
In the third installment of the Epic Fails series, authors Erik Slader and Ben Thompson, and artist Tim Foley, take readers on another…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I'm an author of more than twenty Christian fiction books. I write true romantic suspense with equal parts engaging romance and thrilling suspense. My debut novel was a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest, and many of my subsequent titles have reached bestseller status. I engage with readers through my blog, which is recognized as a top 25 Christian fiction blog on Feedspot, and my Facebook group, "Heartbeats and Hideaways."
I loved this book by Jessica R. Patch for its perfect blend of relentless suspense and second-chance romance. The mystery kept me guessing with its clever suspects and red herrings. Asa and Fiona, seasoned FBI agents with a complex history, drew me in with their dynamic and emotional depth.
The tension and anticipation throughout this thriller made it impossible to put down. Patch's ability to weave crime-solving with romance kept me hooked and eager for more. This book was an unforgettable read for me as someone who loves mystery with heart.
When a cold-case serial killer returns, FBI special agent Fiona Kelly has one last chance to stop him before he claims the prize he’s always wanted—her.
The sight of a goose feather at a murder scene modeled after a children’s poem is enough to make FBI special agent Fiona Kelly's blood turn to ice. Almost two decades ago, a feather was left with her sister's body—and with every subsequent victim of the Nursery Rhyme Killer. Now he's back. Only this time, his latest gruesome murder is a message to the only one who ever got away: Fiona.
