Politics and Prose Presents

From critically acclaimed podcaster and bestselling author Aaron Mahnke comes this engrossing and macabre exploration of the folklore and early medical practices that led to the New England Vampire Panic in the 1890s.
What would drive a man to exhume the body of his daughter and remove her heart? That question has haunted Aaron Mahnke, creator and host of the award-winning podcast Lore. Fueled by a decade of research, Mahnke excavates the past to understand the hysteria that fueled the ghastly exhumation of Mercy Brown in 1892, who like her mother and sister before her, succumbed to “consumption” at the age of 19.
With Exhumed, Mahnke presents a unique history of the intersection of folklore and science, and how pop culture and both genuine medical advancements and pseudoscience of the time shaped the perspectives of people in 19th century America. From the death of George Washington to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, Mahnke leads reads on a fascinating journey through history, touching on methods of mummification, the multifaceted role of executioners, medicine made from corpses, European folklore that traveled across the Atlantic, and so much more. He reveals that as shocking as Brown’s exhumation might seem, it also reflected surprisingly common attitudes and beliefs about the relationship between the dead and the living, the nature of science and magic, and the fate of a human soul. It all builds to a revelatory understanding of human behavior that continues to this very day.
Possessing an irreverent view of science, history, and the human condition, Exhumed is perfect for fans of Mary Roach’s Stiff, as well as readers of forgotten American histories like Brad Meltzer’s New York Times-bestselling The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington.

Aaron Mahnke is the writer, host, and producer of the award-winning podcast Lore, which has been downloaded over half a billion times. His love of the mysterious and frightening has also led to a number of other chart-topping documentary podcasts. He lives in the historic Boston area—the heart of Lovecraft Country and the epicenter of the Salem Witch Trials.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9798894141817?ic_referral=5bnSFYSj3LjNyj-g0CKqFC6Mr4SKEtmY-YZzXHIPHtQwM1EAzd8NX0zwirO7LdFLJXSkT_rMju6kQLgA3glx2Wg3pnZsadQD0tGBUZ1o8kvlqaDYUPi2puxVK8ck5XW6bDP9Grs

The 2024 nomination of Donald Trump was both predictable and wildly unusual. Parties almost never nominate someone who has previously lost the presidency - let alone a candidate who helped organize a riot and faced dozens of criminal indictments. Why, then, did Republicans nominate Trump for a third time? In this fascinating follow-up to Learning from Loss, leading scholar and political analyst Seth Masket conducted surveys and interviews with local Republican leaders across the country between 2021 and 2024. He finds that most were deeply wary of nominating Trump again but had lost any control they once had over their party to a passionate core of voters. The Elephants in the Room captures a political party in the act of making a fateful decision; attempts to understand what has happened within the Republican Party in recent years by focusing on the people most critical to it; and looks at how the party has changed, what we should be learning from it, and how the US political system has changed as result.

• Uses Donald Trump's 2024 nomination as a lens for understanding how Republicans interpret election losses and adjust for future elections
• Illustrates that voters, not party leaders, are the ones really in charge of decision making in the current Republican party
• Shows that transformations in the Republican Party largely occurred before Trump ever ran for office

Seth Masket is a professor of political science at the University of Denver. He has written five books on political parties, including Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016–2020 (2020). He was the Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Vanderbilt University (2024–2025), and the Kluge Chair in American Law and Governance at the Library of Congress (2018). He writes regularly at his 'Tusk' newsletter.

Masket is in conversation with Hans Noel, a Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University. His research is on political coalitions, political parties and ideology, with a focus on the United States. He is the author or co-author of four books, including Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America and The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform (with Martin Cohen, David Karol and John Zaller) His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, among other journals. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2006.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781009601139?ic_referral=9khMlSAcdMpmbhlSJVI-jXS6TyKcjlrPK2SWUF4LUUMwMwFesiLT67_wshGqhXwR83q2-QV03Pcd9OT1N4Ylc7zXoRhVyzJQxwPdgxXFrgoT7ESNmuZajBWz66Av5p_KEXsIP1s

Reissued for the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, A Burning Hunger reveals how one family’s courage ignited resistance and forever changed South Africa.

If the Mandelas were the generals in the fight for black liberation, the Mashininis were the foot soldiers. Theirs is a story of exile, imprisonment, torture, and loss, but also of dignity, courage, and strength in the face of appalling adversity. Originally published in Great Britain to critical acclaim, A Burning Hunger: One Family’s Struggle Against Apartheid tells a deeply moving human story and is one of the seminal books about the struggle against apartheid.

This family, Joseph and Nomkhitha Mashinini and their thirteen children, became immersed in almost every facet of the liberation struggle—from guerrilla warfare to urban insurrection. Although Joseph and Nomkhitha were peaceful citizens who had never been involved in politics, five of their sons became leaders in the antiapartheid movement. When the students of Soweto rose up in 1976 to protest a new rule making Afrikaans the language of instruction, they were led by charismatic young Tsietsi Mashinini. Scores of students were shot down and hundreds were injured. Tsietsi’s actions on that day set in motion a chain of events that would forever change South Africa, define his family, and transform their lives.

A Burning Hunger shows the human catastrophe that plagued generations of black Africans in the powerful story of one religious and law-abiding Soweto family. Basing her narrative on extensive research and interviews, Lynda Schuster richly portrays this remarkable family and in so doing reveals black South Africa during a time of momentous change.

Lynda Schuster worked as a foreign correspondent for TheWall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor in Africa, Central and South America, and the Middle East. She is also the author of a memoir, Dirty Wars and Polished Silver:The Life and Times of a War Correspondent Turned Ambassatrix.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9780821416525?ic_referral=S_yKp9dysgtnxZI1IWiKZlA6C7OttXqoMI7WU572e6UwM7MVaWrZY57ZbCeheNG-enXfeld9mhtHd7-sPVSpPynDk99QTIH3ZyNEZKc-B9cPMDdiM12TO2WI27VR5Rkn1EZGDy0

A biography of iconic radical historian Howard Zinn, examining his life and work as a progressive icon and thought leader through the story of the times that shaped him as well as the United States of America.
From The Nation magazine columnist and New York Times bestselling author Dave Zirin, The People's Historian is a deeply researched biography of Howard Zinn, the beloved author of the classic national bestseller with more than four million copies sold, A People's History of the United States. 
With input from family and access to Zinn's personal papers, The People's Historian paints a picture of the man behind A People's History, examining his work and legacy in the broader context of the United States.

Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation magazine, their first sports editor in 160 years of existence. The author of eleven books on the politics of sports, including most recently The Kaepernick Effect and the NAACP Image Award nominated The John Carlos Story, Zirin has also worked as an advisor for filmmakers and documentarians such as Ang Lee and Ken Burns. Named one of UTNE Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World,” Zirin has been a frequent guest on ESPN, MSNBC, and CNN.

The Zinn Education Project provides free people's history lessons, classes, and study groups for teachers in all states and territories -- with a growing number of teachers each year committed to teaching outside the textbook.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593473658?ic_referral=wtxrv4LbVKb0tWL-UoZHNbzAqkk_aK7f79r2d9sZ_lwwM5E7Ob21gttjzHknlCUs-a-REZigH5LHRbjtnN0GKdKxeP6Cw_9KbedqeJNTDTJd7f3uxzs-miwCy2tziBbCVJqcx7s

A remarkable account of the kidney and the scientific, medical, and health evolution tied to our understanding of it.

The kidney is an extraordinary organ - in many ways the regulator, the metronome, the keeper of the human body's delicate equilibrium. On a given day, minute by minute, it purifies the body of toxins it encounters from diet, climate, activity, and injury. It allows us to be and to move in the world. And yet most of us know so very little about these extraordinary vessels nestled in our bodies - and indeed millions of us only really learn about them when they stop working. Nearly a million Americans every year have end stage kidney disease, about 37 million have some form of chronic kidney disease. And it is an incredibly common universe of challenge and ailment that, until relatively recently, would simply kill those afflicted with it.

Renowned nephrologist Dr. Paul Kimmel takes us on an eye-opening journey through the history of kidney disease, dialysis, and transplantation. Drawing on both his extensive research and decades of experience in the field, he explains the development of treatments, technologies, and medical practices that have advanced the care of patients with kidney disease. Kimmel illuminates the impact of medical advances on the lives of those suffering from this debilitating disease and offers a clear understanding of the challenges that remain.

The Body's Keepers also reveals the inequities and injustices at the heart of America's healthcare system. Filled with case studies, personal histories, and first-hand accounts, the book reveals the shocking truth about the exploitation of vulnerable populations in the pursuit of profit. Kimmel examines how disparities in access to care have led to life-threatening consequences for many Americans. He also looks at the ways in which the medical industry has profited from the suffering of others, and how the path to health equity is still far from being realized. With unflinching honesty and a passionate commitment to social justice, his book is an essential read for anyone looking to understand the complexities of modern healthcare.

Paul L. Kimmel, M.D., M.A.C.P., F.R.C.P., F.A.S.N. is Clinical Professor of Medicine Emeritus at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Born in Brooklyn, he was educated at Canarsie High School, Yale College, and New York University School of Medicine. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians in London. In 2019 he received the Belding H. Scribner Memorial Award from the American Society of Nephrology, for "outstanding contributions that have a direct impact on the care of patients with renal disorders or have substantially changed the practice of nephrology." He has taught medical students, housestaff and faculty over the last forty years at informal and invited lectures, nationally and internationally, and has cared for patients for more than thirty years. Kimmel is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and an editor of monographs on HIV-associated kidney diseases, nutrition in patients with kidney disease, psychosocial aspects of kidney disease and a textbook entitled Chronic Renal Disease.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9798887700304?ic_referral=o2qDcgdoa0Ns451cKc9ZZ6cz_FVTxxm-OgsgMLHA3jUwM7gwvQACAMOn-GTDaY8PDnbJ6djDYWBSRXdEBh5HSOHgXTyBTy3RZvNw21eD9FuhORVY1k5kZPB1ezhCoYcYfg4Oezo

From George Pelecanos, bestselling author and Emmy-nominated writer for HBO’s The Wire and Treme: private investigator Derek Strange returns, in a riveting drama about revenge, greed, and redemption.
He was curious. It was the cop in him. That flame was still alive.
The neon “Strange Investigations” sign may be flickering in disrepair outside his office, but private investigator Derek Strange is still accepting new cases. When a flashy drug lawyer hires him to prove an alibi for an accused murderer, Strange can’t help getting drawn into the darkness. In his hunt for answers, he stands his ground against some of Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous criminals, and a police department that doesn’t entirely welcome his interference. As the violence escalates and claims another victim, the raised stakes force Strange to question his own moves. Are his instincts still intact?
The Blue Flame is signature Pelecanos: tough, smart, rich with details of a time and place—and at its core, exposing the good and bad that exist side by side in so-called heroes and villains alike.

George Pelecanos is the bestselling author of twenty-three novels and story collections set in and around Washington, D.C.  He was a writer and producer on HBO’s The Wire, The Pacific, Treme, The Deuce, We Own This City, and the feature film D.C. Noir.  He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781538779101?ic_referral=BU-RbmuoEm5iH1RCd3yQ6xednc7OEVAPxcXVZMNOi5UwM_JMsJ_ef-LUZulpy4p72jbzEjagqtWxlX9XNuV4aW6OE_-WhOxNFbLgHxtkeKErBc88lUxpwV1URYtU4pwA6JCRaic

Shakespeare's most powerful female character, her historical inspiration, and her reinventions in performance through the centuries.

She is more violent than Lady Macbeth, more complex than Ophelia, more strategic than King Lear’s daughters. She is the only Shakespearean character, male or female, whose entire life—from youth to old age—appears on stage. She is a wealth of insight into Shakespeare’s understanding of, and influence on, ideas of gender and sexuality, and she speaks by far the most lines of any of his female characters. She has allowed the likes of Peggy Ashcroft, Helen Mirren, and Sophie Okonedo full range for their stunning talents. Yet today, most audiences have still never heard of Margaret of Anjou.

But who was Margaret? In the fifteenth century, she was a fourteen-year-old French princess married to an English king, soon thrust into command amid a bloody civil war. A hundred and fifty years later, she was resurrected on the Elizabethan stage in four of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 and Richard III.

And in every era since the Bard’s, actors, directors, and producers have recast their own Margaret, slicing, dicing, and rearranging the original Shakespeare to highlight or diminish Margaret’s role depending on the sensibilities of the time. It is this evolution of Margaret’s portrayal that Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern track in Shakespeare’s Margaret, from Elizabethan boy-actors in wigs enacting misogynist fears of witchy women to feminist celebrations of Margaret’s uninhibited grasp of power and clever commentaries on global politics and world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher. Her story, as it has changed over the centuries across the page and on the stage, brings to life the evolution of theatre and shows how Shakespeare’s plays have always been living collaborations among actors, directors, writers, critics, and history itself, still unfolding.

Charles O’Malley holds a doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama and has worked at theatres across the United States. He is the editor of Toward a Just Pedagogy of Performance.
Scott W. Stern is a scholar and critic. He is the author of The Trials of Nina McCall, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, and There Is a Deep Brooding in Arkansas, which the Times called “powerful new history.”

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324076551?ic_referral=Y4iarS7vG3qnIUygNHnFXVsPYGm2WVq66F_9Fem6XE8wM949is8hpt3O-Ielyx4tgLklMckiZgS0zqShrh__PCP6ekOa52mzAUynqtJAfLGAqxq4FCJ0MLhNW4utWsV4_xJfMGU

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare.
A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.
The fallout: mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other words: dystopia.
Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear bomb: There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result. 
This is what could happen; a ticking-clock roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.

Annie Jacobsen is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Nuclear War, Area 51, and Operation Paperclip, the Pulitzer Prize finalist in history The Pentagon’s Brain, First Platoon, and other books. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Boston Globe. Coverage has ranged from the New York Times to Joe Rogan’s podcast. Audiences have included the Vatican and the United Nations.

Jacobsen is in conversation with Shane Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic. He has written about intelligence, security, and foreign policy for more than two decades. Previously, he was a staff writer for The Washington Post, where he was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. For his work as a writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, he has received the James Beard Media Award, the Gerald R. Ford Prize, the George Polk Award, and an Emmy nomination. He is the author of two books, The Watchers and @War.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217046034?ic_referral=rMdRJ-6d8Pdym_Ei4xDjgqmgGiRkGz2x4JHJ5swcO1MwM-LBsljHy_U0oPQSKRpkejnhrfTe18PKF0Fwijby7BjjMy-BeHsT-H7Vx32M-696JynwdYHifQ_Y6HY9nEqJ5Uj0-O0

From an acclaimed historian, a revelatory account of the Declaration of Independence, centered not on the lofty preamble but on the specific grievances that make up the bulk of the document and that offer an entirely new view into the Revolutionary era.

We think of the Declaration of Independence as timeless. We know the sacred phrases: “all men are created equal,” “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” “self-evident truths,” “certain inalienable rights.” These are some of the most important words human beings have ever written. And they are all from the Declaration’s preamble, which has inspired people for centuries, including generations of revolutionaries all over the world.

But as historian Robert G. Parkinson points out, the Declaration was not written as a timeless statement of political philosophy. It was, rather, produced in the heat of a confusing, bloody, and desperate war. And in that moment, it wasn’t high ideals alone that drove the patriots forward. Parkinson’s great innovation is to allow us, 250 years on, to see the Declaration as its authors did. For them, the opening paragraphs were not the main event. It was the body of the Declaration—the twenty-seven grievances against King George—that formed the essential part. Even Thomas Jefferson would have been puzzled by history’s fixation on his opening sentences.

Parkinson takes us into the grievances, giving us stories of the Revolutionary era that are little known today but loomed large for the patriots. As the leaders of the Revolution saw it, they had been pushed to the breaking point by British officials who undermined colonial legislatures and courts, corrupted the judiciary, turned military power against civilians, inflamed slave revolts, forced colonists to fight one another—ultimately, waging war on their own people.

In his brilliantly original reading of the Declaration, Parkinson asks fundamental questions that have too often been overlooked: Why did the colonies declare independence when they did? What were their nonnegotiable demands? Who were the individuals whose actions made reconciliation impossible? By recovering the people and conflicts behind the Declaration’s grievances, Parkinson offers a strikingly new account of the American Revolution—and shows that the issues that most alarmed colonists in 1776 are urgent once again today.

Robert G. Parkinson is professor of history at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Common Cause, Thirteen Clocks, and Heart of American Darkness. He lives in Charles Town, West Virginia.

Parkinson is joined in conversation with Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a presidential historian and Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Dr. Chervinsky is the author of the award-winning books Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic and The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, and co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture. Dr. Chervinsky regularly writes for public audiences in publications like the Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and provides commentary and historical context for outlets like CBS News, C-SPAN, Face the Nation, the New York Times, and NPR.

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324124542?ic_referral=8EWddKrzaPe4ObQF9XKxhAHF8eqj9CT1-y0TKCPw56UwM1-Kg5g0cEWFAalPCqd-E_VPoBaZK5A9ePw9h9ln8Up7Tm3kpR2Yr0DQEpDedV327a_f_2BOL8ooNuM7zElhguE7_LA

In 1970s Ethiopia, 13-year-old Elen, determined to escape her arranged marriage, secretly abandons her tiny village hoping to find her aunt living in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Meanwhile, Girmai escapes his abusive stepmother after the death of his beloved father, only to end up homeless and starving on the streets of the city. Overcoming the odds, Elen and Girmai both grow up to be successful business owners, each with their own lives and families

When the Derg regime overthrows the government, they turn Asmara into a nightmare of roaming bands of soldiers, who torture and kill civilians with impunity. Refusing to accept the injustice and mass killings of the Red Terror campaign, Elen and Girmai join the Eritrean People's Liberation Front's (EPLF) underground network to fight for freedom.

The stakes rise as the horror of Derg-sanctioned torture leaks out of dissident detention centers. Elen and Girmai struggle to maintain their precarious fight for justice and a growing passion for each other. As they fall in love, they are faced with impossible choices, tragedy, and heroism in a cause much bigger than their own lives.

Based on a true story, Born at the End of the World is a powerful narrative of patriotism, love, camaraderie, and courage, no less uplifting or appalling than Schindler's List.

Donica Merhazion, born in the midst of Ethiopia's Red Terror, channels her family's experiences into her debut novel, Born at the End of the World. A former journalist and educator with degrees in journalism and education, she calls Eritrea, Zambia, and the United States home. Passionate about storytelling, she inspires her students to love learning and embrace their potential while finding time to write in her favorite quiet spots.

Merhazion is in conversation with Bsrat Mezghebe. Mezghebe received an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Paris Review, and the anthology Well–Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area. 

PURCHASE:

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781960803337?ic_referral=NaUCwsjtx3oQxs9ZjcNVGB3R0W8XigH8AbDFmKqU4tcwMyzstpA0_so7hPvWgO4DeQs5KXJTM5Qyr4ibq-hu3rUh0MSxqsJk_n9A1_kEidugvfK4LbEN7uwtXwhycw9fmpMcMxs