Labeling Political Activists as “Terrorists” Puts Everyone at Risk
There are plenty of discussions that need to be had about animal rights and environmental issues and about what tactics are appropriate, but in my lectures and in my book I don't devote much time to...
View ArticleWhy are Eco and Animal Activists the Top Domestic Terrorism Threat?
Green Is the New Red — Book Trailer from Will Potter on Vimeo In my book Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement under Siege, I investigate how the animal rights and...
View ArticleNick Gillespie and Matt Welch: The Powells.com Interview
In their new book, The Declaration of Independents, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch note with alarm: You have to go back to 1946, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, to find spending that equaled...
View ArticleThe Sadness of Michael Westen
Every episode except the pilot of the wonderful and troubling TV show Burn Notice begins with this image: Burn Notice was created by Matt Nix and stars Jeffrey Donovan as a spy who has been...
View ArticleKissing the Mask
Understatement isn't exactly characteristic of William T. Vollmann's writing. In his previous journalistic attempts to understand some of the more paradoxical and confusing aspects of the world, he has...
View ArticleThe Power of Derision
Of the many monopolies once and future Russian president Vladimir Putin has held over the years — on violence, on the media, on the gas industry — one of the most powerful has been a monopoly on the...
View ArticleRachel Maddow: The Powells.com Interview
Rachel Maddow's first book, Drift, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. This isn't terribly surprising. Not only is Maddow the host of the top-rated liberal television show in the...
View ArticleJoseph E. Stiglitz: The Powells.com Interview
After sitting on the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1995 to 1997, acting as Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, and winning the Nobel Prize for...
View ArticleSteven Johnson: The Powells.com Interview
In a 2003 TED Talk, Steven Johnson quipped: "Who decides that SoHo should have this personality and that the Latin Quarter should have that personality? There are some kind of executive decisions, but...
View ArticleThe Richard Avedon Cure for Your Civic Funk
I haven't yet been able to shake the civic funk I always find myself in around election time. The election roller coaster — an undulating set of peaks and valleys marked by anxiety, excitement,...
View ArticleThe Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
Ever since Tina Fey adapted a nonfiction book into the successful Mean Girls, a desperate Hollywood has been hard at play turning serious works of nonfiction into the next goofy romp. While the...
View ArticleThe Blood Telegram
One of the Financial Times picks for best political books of the year, The Blood Telegram is a horrifying and shocking story of the birth of Bangladesh and the terrible part that Nixon and Kissinger...
View ArticleThis Town
At the intersection of politics, media, and money, Leibovich's scathing, funny, and sometimes shocking tell-all offers an insider's glimpse of who's who in our nation's capital. You'll never look at...
View ArticleCountdown (staff pick)
We humans, despite our natural aptitude for mathematics, seem to have an arduous time making sense of concepts that involve very large numbers. Unfortunately, however, abstract notions have absolute...
View ArticleAnd So It Goes: Revisiting Iraq
Reading the newspaper these days feels a little like time traveling. After eight years of war in Iraq and (let's be honest) at least three years of societal amnesia, it's startling to wake up to...
View ArticleAmsterdam
Many Americans have a specific idea of the city of Amsterdam: they think of its front-and-center red light district or legal drugs or, for those less interested in vice, the Anne Frank House. But...
View ArticleBest Nonfiction of 2014
A lot is made of the romance of bookstores. The smell of paper! The joy of discovery! The ancient, cracking leather bindings of books with dated inscriptions! And it's true that bookstores are magical...
View ArticleBeyond the Headlines: How to Visit Cuba
Ever since President Obama's December announcement that the United States is resuming full diplomatic ties with Cuba, the Powell's buyers' office has been suffering from an epidemic of reverse island...
View ArticlePowell’s Q&A: Chris Hedges
Describe your latest book. Wages of Rebellion looks at the nature of rebellion, those who do it, why they do it, and the price they pay for being a rebel. There are interviews with great rebels, from...
View Article