No Kings Library

Trump didn't break American democracy—he revealed how broken it already was.

In this urgent, deeply researched book, four-time Project Censored Award–winning, New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann argues that Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The real story is the ecosystem that built him: a childhood defined by cruelty, a mentor who weaponized shamelessness, a political party that sold its principles for power, and a donor class that used him to dismantle the guardrails on their own greed.

Inside, you'll find

• a psychological portrait of how Trump was made—not born;
• a clear-eyed account of how the Republican Party and billionaire networks enabled his rise;
• global comparisons to Hungary, Venezuela, and Weimar Germany—because this pattern has a name; and
• 7 proven, history-backed strategies for defeating authoritarianism before it becomes permanent.

This is not a book about despair. It is a book about recognition—and resistance.

For readers of How Democracies Die and On Tyranny who are ready to move from understanding the crisis to doing something about it.

The choice, as always, is ours.

How do we confront the ever-evolving economic hit man strategy—and China’s expanding global influence?

In this riveting third edition of the New York Times bestseller, former economic hit man (EHM) John Perkins exposes the next phase of a global power play that is reshaping nations and economies worldwide. With twelve explosive new chapters, Perkins reveals how China has adopted—and adapted—the EHM model, extending its reach across Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

Perkins delivers a rare insider account of a corrupt system that uses development loans and massive infrastructure deals to trap countries in crushing debt, extracting political leverage, strategic resources, and long-term control. Once associated primarily with US foreign policy, this strategy has entered a new era—one defined by intensifying global competition, staggering income inequality, and accelerating ecological destruction.

The result is what Perkins calls a “death economy”: a system that prioritizes short-term profits over people and planet.

But this book is not just an exposé—it’s a call to action. Perkins outlines a bold and practical path forward, urging a shift toward a “life economy” that values sustainability, shared prosperity, and genuine international cooperation. He challenges readers to recognize their own power in shaping a more just and regenerative global system.

The stakes have never been higher—and the opportunity for change has never been more urgent.

This second edition expands the provocative analysis of the racist colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance into other sectors and offers practical advice on how anyone can be a healer.

Though it seems counterintuitive, the $1 trillion philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures ultimately doing more harm than good. Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: white supremacy, savior complexes, and internalized oppression. In this critically important book, he shows how to make money a tool of love, to help us thrive rather than to hurt and divide us.

The second edition has two new chapters. “Medicine Beyond Money” relates inspiring examples of people using their resources to decolonize entertainment, museums, libraries, land ownership, and much more . “Story as Medicine” explains how sharing our stories is a vital part of that process.

Across history and to the present day, the accumulation of wealth is steeped in trauma. Drawing from Native traditions, Villanueva empowers individuals and institutions to acknowledge and begin to repair the damage done through his Seven Steps to Healing: Grieve, Apologize, Listen, Relate, Represent, Invest, and Repair. As Villanueva writes “Everyone has a role in the process of healing. All our suffering is mutual. All our healing is mutual. All our thriving is mutual.”

Bestselling author, therapist, lawyer, and mediator Bill Eddy describes how dangerous, high-conflict personalities have gained power in governments worldwide-and what citizens can do to keep these people out of office.

Democracy is under siege. The reason isn't politics. It's personalities: too many countries have come under the sway of high-conflict politicians (HCPs). Most of these HCPs have traits of narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial (i.e., sociopathic) personality disorder, or both. This is the first and only guide for identifying and thwarting HCPs.

Bill Eddy says the key to understanding HCPs is their use of what he calls the Fantasy Crisis Triad:
1. There's a terrible crisis!
2. It's caused by this evil person or group.
3. I'm the only person who can solve it and save you.

Using Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Berlusconi, Chavez, Nixon, Trump and others as case studies, Eddy shows how HCPs create or exacerbate conflict to manipulate our emotions and rise to power. But he also shows how we can spot HCPs early on (he includes a checklist of forty typical behaviors), respond to them effectively, and identify and give our support to genuine leaders.

This powerful analysis explains how the bias toward wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet and explores what the foundations of a new economy could be.

This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy-the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:

• The Myth of Maximizing-No amount of wealth is ever enough.
• The Myth of Fiduciary Duty-Corporate managers' most sacred duty is to expand capital.
• The Myth of Corporate Governance-Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
• The Myth of the Income Statement-Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
• The Myth of Materiality-Profit-that is, material gain-alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
• The Myth of Takings-The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
• The Myth of the Free Market-There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital.

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

A powerful, inspiring, and achievable vision of a society based on cooperation and community instead of competition and commodification.

This book counters the dominant and destructive story that we are polarized, violent, selfish, and destined to consume everything in sight. That is not who we are.

The challenge, Peter Block says, is that we are suffering under an economic theology that is based on scarcity, self-interest, competition, and infinite growth. We're told we can purchase and outsource all that matters. Block calls this the “business perspective narrative.” It dominates not only the economy but also architecture, faith communities, journalism, arts, neighborhoods, and much more.

Block offers an antidote: the “common good narrative.” It embodies the belief that we are basically communal and cooperative. And that we have the capacity to communally produce what we care most about: raising a child, safety, livelihood, health, and a clean and sustainable environment.

This book describes how shifts to the common good perspective could transform many areas, fostering journalism that reports on what works, architecture that designs habitable spaces creating connection, faith collectives that build community, a market that is restrained and local, and leadership and activism that build social capital by creating trust among citizens. With these shifts, we would fundamentally change the world we live in for the better.

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.

The first and only comprehensive resource designed to empower everyday people with insider knowledge on moving money for a more equitable economy.

The money myths end here.

We don't need to choose between creating meaningful wealth for ourselves and our families today, or supporting social movements creating a better tomorrow. We don't all need to become certified financial “experts” to be economically empowered and make a real difference in our communities. And we're far from powerless when it comes to changing the financial system, just because we don't happen to belong to the 1%. Quite the opposite.

Financial activism is how everyday people radically reimagine money as a tool for widespread well-being, instead of a weapon of absurdly increasing inequality. It's the antidote to traditional finance that evokes confusion, trauma, and (in the best-case scenario) straight-up boredom. It's how we-the underestimated-collectively resist systems that cause harm to people and the planet for the sake of profit, reclaim wealth that's been stolen, and redesign our relationships with capital and one another, in ways big and small.

Going beyond tried financial literacy, The Financial Activist Playbook offers eight accessible, actionable, “choose-your-own-adventure” strategies for readers to experiment with. Drawing on timely insider knowledge from the worlds of impact investing, social justice, and more, Rashid illuminates a treasure trove of stories: demonstrating how people power can flow big bucks out of extractive industries, and into the economy of care and abundance we deserve.

Playbook readers will be equipped to start visualizing and influencing the unique networks of wealth all around each of us, with strategies like

• Shifting collective budgets and bank dollars;
• Flexing our role as everyday philanthropists;
• Leveraging the magic of community investment;
• And so much more.

Laced with refreshing humor, empowering exercises, and a steadfast commitment to truth-telling, Rashid takes readers on an energizing ride of financial possibility and practicality that will reverberate for generations to come.

“Essential reading for anyone truly interested in saving democracy from the predations of kleptocracy and plutocracy.”
-Charles Davidson, The Journal of Democracy

This book expands our understanding of the financial secrecy system dominating capitalism today and shows how we can create accountability to restore our democracy.

Over the last half century, capitalism has created the means for trillions of dollars, euros, pounds, and other stores of wealth to move invisibly-beyond the control of central bankers, law enforcement agents, and international institutions. With an entire financial secrecy system now dominating capitalist operations, riches flow inexorably upward and accelerate economic inequality. And rising inequality is directly imperiling-weakening, obstructing, and degrading-democracy.

This book is not a screed against capitalism-it is a call for capitalism to return to its roots, reenergizing its synergies with democracy. Raymond Baker writes, “Democratic capitalism is, in my judgment, the best system yet devised in political economy, but dysfunctions within its capitalist component are undermining the two-part system.”

Baker explains the tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trusts, fake foundations, regulatory loopholes, money laundering techniques, and more that make up the financial secrecy system. But he goes beyond the “what” to the “why,” examining the motivations driving the system that generates and shelters trillions of dollars that could go toward spreading wealth, generating public goods, and protecting the environment.

Going deeper, Baker illustrates how these realities further corrode the commonwealth, with chapters devoted to the facilitating activities and impacts of banks, corporations, enabling lawyers and accountants, governments, and international institutions and concluding with the limiting role played in policy silos that are missing the bigger picture.

Finally, he provides specific, pragmatic measures to reset capitalism so that it once again contributes to shared prosperity and sustained democracy. This is a magisterial treatment of an issue that is at the root of so many problems that plague our nation and the world today.

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.

Discover a powerful methodology for bringing communities together to uncover hidden assets and transform deep-rooted challenges.

Veteran community organizer Paul Born's work has contributed to lowering cancer rates in Maine, improving mental health for young people in Florida, and reducing poverty rates in Canada by 20 percent. In this much-needed new book, he shares stories of how he was able to catalyze local communities and guide them to make significant progress on seemingly intractable community problems.

Born has found that the secret to success is to organize and unite around a common agenda. This is not a list of topics, like a meeting agenda, nor a strategic plan. He offers a process for bringing leaders from businesses, human service organizations, and governments together with people who have a lived experience of a specific community problem. A common agenda is a statement of shared aspirations, a map of the assets in the community, and a road map for how to work together to make those aspirations a reality.

Part I of this book describes how to identify your community's readiness for change; form leadership, action, and strategy teams; create a common agenda; and establish plans for community engagement. Part II presents the approaches and skill sets needed to do the work described in part I.

Remarkably, enormous systemic problems such as climate change, poverty, disease, racism, housing, and many more issues can be best addressed at the local level. Communities can develop solutions tailored to their unique circumstances and can collaborate at a magnitude that can result in a truly transformative impact. This book shows how to make change happen.

America has beaten oligarchy before, three times in fact, and this history-backed guide makes the case it can happen again.

Billionaire-funded politics, a captured judiciary, and consolidated media have brought American democracy to a genuine crisis point, and the 2020 pandemic made the scale of that looting impossible to ignore. But this isn't the first time concentrated wealth has threatened self-governance, and the historical record offers more than warning. It offers a roadmap.

Drawing on American history from the founding era through the present day, this book traces how ordinary citizens pushed back against oligarchy at three critical moments, and what those battles reveal about winning today.

What's inside:

• The full arc of oligarchic power from the British aristocracy the founders opposed, through the feudal Confederacy, to FDR's battles with “economic royalists” who tried to kill the New Deal
• How unlimited campaign contributions, media consolidation, and judicial capture work together as a system
• Concrete policy steps to break up media monopolies, limit political money, and reclaim stolen public wealth
• A practical framework for building a movement rooted in democratic history

For readers who want American history with purpose and a path forward, not just a diagnosis.

“Hartmann delivers a full-throated indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court in this punchy polemic." -Publishers Weekly


Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks, What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.

Hartmann argues it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the law is but rather the duty of the people themselves. He lays out the history of the Supreme Court of the United States, since Alexander Hamilton's defense to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers. The ultimate remedy to the Supreme Court's abuse of power is with the people-the ultimate arbiter of the law-using the ballot box. America does not belong to the kings and queens; it belongs to the people.

In this impassioned critique of America's growing disengagement from civic life and ideals, Drum Major Institute Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger dissects the forcible erosion of our youngest generation's capacity for inquiry and provides recommendations for restoring the social, educational and political infrastructures that are prerequisites for a healthy democracy.

National radio personality and bestselling author Thom Hartmann tells a compelling, can't-put-it-down story that tracks the history of the loss of democracy in America, culminating in the ultimate theft of human rights before the Supreme Court in 1886 the ascendance of "corporate personhood" in the US and worldwide by moneyed interests and the politicians they own.