America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann paves the way to saving our democracy.

In this powerful, sweeping history and analysis of American democracy, Thom Hartmann shows how democracy is the one form of governance most likely to produce peace and happiness among people.

With the violent exception of the Civil War, American democracy resisted the pressure to disintegrate into factionalism for nearly two centuries, and now our very system of democratic elections is at stake. So how do we save our democracy?

Hartmann's newest book in the celebrated Hidden History Series offers a clear call to action and a set of solutions with road maps for individuals and communities to follow to create a safer, more just society and a more equitable and prosperous economy.

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality.

"For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann.

Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan's single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States.

Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare.

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality.

"For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann.

Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan's single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States.

Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare.

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality.

“For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people-one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann. Taiwan's single-payer system enabled the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down its economy, resulting in just seven deaths, while in the United States more than 350,000 have died.

Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create some kind of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn-including Obamacare, which Hartmann regards as basically a sellout to the health insurance industry.

There is a simple solution: Medicare for all. Hartmann describes the extraordinary benefits it would provide the American people and economy and the steps we need to take to make it a reality. It is time for America to join every industrialized country in the world and make health a right, not a privilege.

Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America—and how we can win the latest round.

Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.

The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation's oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation's economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class.

Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America's founding to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point.

Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We've beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.

Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America—and how we can win the latest round.

Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.

The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation's oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation's economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class.

Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America's founding to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point.

Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We've beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.

Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America-and how we can win the latest round.


The history of America (and of all democracies) catalogues the dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. Oligarchy usually has the power and the resources, and for this reason democracy has had limited success historically. The most important “stabilizer” that a democracy can build into its own system is one that prevents an oligarchy from taking over-which was an original purpose of the Constitution.

Thom Hartmann traces the history of the struggle between oligarchy and democracy, from America's founding revolt against British aristocracy to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point as real and critical as those we hit in 1776, 1861, and 1932. Thankfully, Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, and return control of America to We the People.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how the government and corporate America misuse our personal data and shows how we can reclaim our privacy.

Most Americans are worried about how companies like Facebook invade their privacy and harvest their data, but many people don't fully understand the details of how their information is being adapted and misused. In this thought-provoking and accessible book, New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals exactly how the government and corporations are tracking our every online move and using our data to buy elections, employ social control, and score and monetize our lives.

Hartmann uses extensive, vivid examples to highlight the consequences of Big Data on all aspects of our lives. Along with tracing the history of surveillance, he shows how we got to where we are today, how China-with its new Social Credit System-serves as a warning, and how we can and must avoid a similarly dystopian future.

By delving into the Constitutional right to privacy, Hartmann reminds us of our civil right and shows how we can restore it.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how the government and corporate America misuse our personal data and shows how we can reclaim our privacy.

Most Americans are worried about how companies like Facebook invade their privacy and harvest their data, but many people don't fully understand the details of how their information is being adapted and misused. In this thought-provoking and accessible book, New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals exactly how the government and corporations are tracking our every online move and using our data to buy elections, employ social control, and score and monetize our lives.

Hartmann uses extensive, vivid examples to highlight the consequences of Big Data on all aspects of our lives. Along with tracing the history of surveillance, he shows how we got to where we are today, how China-with its new Social Credit System-serves as a warning, and how we can and must avoid a similarly dystopian future.

By delving into the Constitutional right to privacy, Hartmann reminds us of our civil right and shows how we can restore it.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how the government and corporate America misuse our personal data and shows how we can reclaim our privacy.

Most Americans are worried about how companies like Facebook invade their privacy and harvest their data, but many people don't fully understand the details of how their information is being adapted and misused. In this thought-provoking and accessible book, New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals exactly how the government and corporations are tracking our every online move and using our data to buy elections, employ social control, and score and monetize our lives.

Hartmann uses extensive, vivid examples to highlight the consequences of Big Data on all aspects of our lives. Along with tracing the history of surveillance, he shows how we got to where we are today, how China-with its new Social Credit System-serves as a warning, and how we can and must avoid a similarly dystopian future.

By delving into the Constitutional right to privacy, Hartmann reminds us of our civil right and shows how we can restore it.

“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist

Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann examines how guns have played important roles throughout American history, from early European settlement to the Revolutionary War and Manifest Destiny, through the use of Slave Patrols in the Deep South (which became the “well-regulated militias” so debated in 1787), to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recent school massacres.

Looking at the present, Hartmann documents how inequality in America and the number of people killed in mass shootings have grown together over the last fifty years. Finally, he identifies a handful of common-sense and powerful solutions that would address the issue at different levels: from getting money out of politics to get the National Rifle Association out of lobbying, to passing laws that would treat gun ownership like car ownership (title, license, insurance), to addressing the social despair and economic inequality that drive violent crime and mass shootings.

“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist

Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann examines how guns have played important roles throughout American history, from early European settlement to the Revolutionary War and Manifest Destiny, through the use of Slave Patrols in the Deep South (which became the “well-regulated militias” so debated in 1787), to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recent school massacres.

Looking at the present, Hartmann documents how inequality in America and the number of people killed in mass shootings have grown together over the last fifty years. Finally, he identifies a handful of common-sense and powerful solutions that would address the issue at different levels: from getting money out of politics to get the National Rifle Association out of lobbying, to passing laws that would treat gun ownership like car ownership (title, license, insurance), to addressing the social despair and economic inequality that drive violent crime and mass shootings.

“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” -Booklist

Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann examines how guns have played important roles throughout American history, from early European settlement to the Revolutionary War and Manifest Destiny, through the use of Slave Patrols in the Deep South (which became the “well-regulated militias” so debated in 1787), to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recent school massacres.

Looking at the present, Hartmann documents how inequality in America and the number of people killed in mass shootings have grown together over the last fifty years. Finally, he identifies a handful of common-sense and powerful solutions that would address the issue at different levels: from getting money out of politics to get the National Rifle Association out of lobbying, to passing laws that would treat gun ownership like car ownership (title, license, insurance), to addressing the social despair and economic inequality that drive violent crime and mass shootings.

“This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.”—from the foreword by Ralph Nader

American monopolies dominate, control, and consume most of the energy of our entire economic system; they function the same as cancer does in a body, and, like cancer, they weaken our systems while threatening to crash the entire body economic. American monopolies have also seized massive political power and use it to maintain their obscene profits and CEO salaries while crushing small competitors.

But Thom Hartmann, America's #1 progressive radio host, shows we've broken the control of behemoths like these before, and we can do it again.

Hartmann takes us from the birth of America as a revolt against monopoly (remember the Boston Tea Party?), to the largely successful efforts of both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other like-minded leaders to restrain corporations' monopolistic urges, to the massive changes in the rules of business starting during the “Reagan Revolution” that have brought us to the cancer stage of capitalism.

He shows the damage monopolies have done to so many industries: agriculture, healthcare, the media, and more. Individuals have taken a hit as well: the average American family pays a $5,000 a year “monopoly tax” in the form of higher prices for everything from pharmaceuticals to airfare to household goods and food. But Hartmann also describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take—such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics—to pry control of our country from the tentacles of the monopolists.

“This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.”—from the foreword by Ralph Nader

American monopolies dominate, control, and consume most of the energy of our entire economic system; they function the same as cancer does in a body, and, like cancer, they weaken our systems while threatening to crash the entire body economic. American monopolies have also seized massive political power and use it to maintain their obscene profits and CEO salaries while crushing small competitors.

But Thom Hartmann, America's #1 progressive radio host, shows we've broken the control of behemoths like these before, and we can do it again.

Hartmann takes us from the birth of America as a revolt against monopoly (remember the Boston Tea Party?), to the largely successful efforts of both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other like-minded leaders to restrain corporations' monopolistic urges, to the massive changes in the rules of business starting during the “Reagan Revolution” that have brought us to the cancer stage of capitalism.

He shows the damage monopolies have done to so many industries: agriculture, healthcare, the media, and more. Individuals have taken a hit as well: the average American family pays a $5,000 a year “monopoly tax” in the form of higher prices for everything from pharmaceuticals to airfare to household goods and food. But Hartmann also describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take—such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics—to pry control of our country from the tentacles of the monopolists.

“This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.”-from the foreword by Ralph Nader


The biggest problem facing America and the world right now is “bigness.” Our industrial and economic sectors-from tech, retail, and media to agriculture, food, and more-are so big that they're beyond the control of citizens, consumers, or the government (in fact, they've captured the latter). Similarly, the billionaire class has gotten so big in terms of wealth that its members have easily corrupted our politics to direct more and more of the nation's wealth and resources to themselves. But America was birthed in a revolt against a monopoly-remember the British East India Company and the Boston Tea Party? If Jefferson and Madison could see how government and business collude today, they'd weep. Hartmann explores how the intentions of the Founders were thwarted and describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take-such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics-to wrest control of our country from the monopolists.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why neoliberalism became so prevalent in the United States and why it's time for us to turn our backs to it.

While America is at a crossroads regarding its economic future, many of us don't fully understand how we got here. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and explains how we can use this pivotal point in time to create a more positive future.

This book traces the history of neoliberalism-which applies to a set of capitalistic philosophies favoring free trade, financial austerity, and deregulation-up to the present. Hartmann explains how neoliberalism was sold as a cure for wars and the Great Depression. He outlines the impact that it has had on America, looking at different sectors, including healthcare, unemployment, and education.

Hartmann highlights how America can go one of two ways: continue going down the road to neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by the GOP, or choose to return to FDR's Keynesian economics, raise taxes on the rich, reverse free trade, and create a more pluralistic society.

America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why neoliberalism became so prevalent in the United States and why it's time for us to turn our backs to it.

While America is at a crossroads regarding its economic future, many of us don't fully understand how we got here. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and explains how we can use this pivotal point in time to create a more positive future.

This book traces the history of neoliberalism-which applies to a set of capitalistic philosophies favoring free trade, financial austerity, and deregulation-up to the present. Hartmann explains how neoliberalism was sold as a cure for wars and the Great Depression. He outlines the impact that it has had on America, looking at different sectors, including healthcare, unemployment, and education.

Hartmann highlights how America can go one of two ways: continue going down the road to neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by the GOP, or choose to return to FDR's Keynesian economics, raise taxes on the rich, reverse free trade, and create a more pluralistic society.