Once the world’s bastion of liberal, democratic values, Europe is now having to confront demons it thought it had laid to rest. The old pathologies of anti-Semitism, populist nationalism, and territorial aggression are threatening to tear the European postwar consensus apart. In riveting dispatches from this unfolding tragedy, James Kirchick shows us the shallow disingenuousness of the leaders who pushed for “Brexit;” examines how a vast migrant wave is exacerbating tensions between Europeans and their Muslim minorities; explores the rising anti-Semitism that causes Jewish schools and synagogues in France and Germany to resemble armed bunkers; and describes how Russian imperial ambitions are destabilizing nations from Estonia to Ukraine. With President Trump now threatening to abandon America's traditional role as upholder of the liberal world order and guarantor of the continent's security, Europe may be alone in dealing with these unprecedented challenges. Based on extensive firsthand reporting, this book is a provocative, disturbing look at a continent in unexpected crisis.

The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age

History

Kirchick, James

Europe

Yale University Press

The disintegration of Europe’s post–Cold War consensus in the face of anti-Semitism, populist nationalism, and territorial aggression

Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington

The New York Times Bestseller 
A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 
Named one of Vanity Fair's “Best Books of 2022”\n“Not since Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history.” 
―George Stephanopoulos\nWashington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick’s Secret City.\nFor decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power.\nUtilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of “the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,” James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century.\nCultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War II–era gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a “homosexual ring” controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory.\nMagisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Holt Paperbacks

Once the world's bastion of liberal, democratic values, Europe is now having to confront demons it thought it had laid to rest. The old pathologies of anti-Semitism, populist nationalism, and territorial aggression are threatening to tear the European postwar consensus apart. In riveting dispatches from this unfolding tragedy, James Kirchick shows us the shallow disingenuousness of the leaders who pushed for �Brexit;� examines how a vast migrant wave is exacerbating tensions between Europeans and their Muslim minorities; explores the rising anti-Semitism that causes Jewish schools and synagogues in France and Germany to resemble armed bunkers; and describes how Russian imperial ambitions are destabilizing nations from Estonia to Ukraine. With President Trump now threatening to abandon America's traditional role as upholder of the liberal world order and guarantor of the contient's security, Europe may be alone in dealing with these unprecedented challenges. Based on extensive firsthand reporting, this book is a provocative, disturbing look at a continent in unexpected crisis.

Americas

Tantor Media, Inc.

Tantor Audio

Washington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick's Secret City. For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" paradoxically held enormous, terrifying power. Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of "the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States," award-winning journalist and author James Kirchick illuminates how the idea of homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration, impacting everything from the creation of America's earliest civilian intelligence agency to the rise and fall of McCarthyism, the struggle for African American civil rights, and the conservative movement. Celebrating the men and women who courageously decided that the source of their private shame could instead be galvanized for public pride, Kirchick offers a reinterpretation of American history told from the perspective of the citizens who lived in its shadows. Sweeping in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.

Henry Holt and Co.

Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics: Volume III, Issue 3

Lilla, Mark

Delbanco, Andrew

Walzer, Michael

Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi

BRENDEL, Alfred

Leffler, Melvyn P.

Hutchinson, Ishion

Abidor, Mitchell

Jacoby, Tamar

Macaulay, Alastair

Ryan, Declan

Lightweiss-Goff, Jennie

Psarapolous, John

Arts & Photography

Liberties Journal

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