Reader's Corner

What is the
relationship between the decline of democratic practices we took for granted over the years and the growth of Big Tech in what Mordecai Kurz calls the Second Gilded Age. That is what we will discuss this week on Readers Corner with some specific recommendations for how to help democracy and our market economy work in tandem for Americans.

The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds.
 
Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right.

The Return of the Oystercatcher by Scott Weidensau explores the recovery efforts that are not only preventing declines in bird population, but helping birds to thrive.

New York Times reporter and "Corner Office" columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that's wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs.

In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch's achievements didn't stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE's stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day.

Our Dear Friends in Moscow follows a group of young Russians, part of an idealistic
generation who came of age in Moscow at the end of the 20th century – the communist era had just imploded and an exciting and uncertain future lay ahead of them. Initially, the group enjoyed the freedoms of the new era, but the notion that Russia was destined to join the West, and Europe, in a new partnership began to fade.

For nearly eight decades, North Korea has marched defiantly to its own beat, shaking off its Soviet and Chinese sponsors to emerge as the world’s most enigmatic nation—a nuclear-armed state ruled by a dictatorial dynasty. Underpinning the state is a personality cult more soaked in religiosity than those constructed by Stalin or Mao—one that traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post–Civil War America.

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom is a 2023 non-fiction book by Ilyon Woo that examines the history of the escape of Ellen and William Craft, two 19th-century American abolitionists, from slavery.

The diversity principle – the idea that people with different backgrounds, identities, and viewpoints produce better
work – was a core tenet of the first modern research university and the inspiration for John Stuart Mill’s classic treatise, On Liberty. But as a war on diversity upends government, corporate, and education policies, the history of the idea of diversity has never been more important.

A priceless mask, a beautiful woman, a deadly secret, and a curse if it doesn’t fit

Philip Chandler, a small-town Idaho newspaper reporter and owner of the Fremont Herald, thought he landed a front-page scoop interviewing reclusive gun collector Ernest Hardy. Days later, Hardy is brutally murdered, and Chandler is pulled into a dangerous hunt.