Jonathan M. Katz

us.macmillan.com — A groundbreaking journey tracing America’s forgotten path to global power—and how its legacies shape our world today—told through the extraordinary life of a complicated Marine. Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time. Bestselling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Wherever the flag went, “The Fighting Quaker” went—serving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II. From his first days as a 16-year-old recruit at the newly seized Guantánamo Bay, he blazed a path for empire: helping annex the Philippines and the land for the Panama Canal, leading troops in China (twice), and helping invade and occupy Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Mexico, and more. Yet in retirement, Butler turned into a warrior against war, imperialism, and big business, declaring: “I was a racketeer for capitalism." Award-winning author Jonathan Myerson Katz traveled across the world—from China to Guantánamo, the mountains of Haiti to the Panama Canal—and pored over the personal letters of Butler, his fellow Marines, and his Quaker family on Philadelphia's Main Line. Along the way, Katz shows how the consequences of the Marines' actions are still very much alive: talking politics with a Sandinista commander in Nicaragua, getting a martial arts lesson from a devotee of the Boxer Rebellion in China, and getting cast as a P.O.W. extra in a Filipino movie about their American War. Tracing a path from the first wave of U.S. overseas expansionism to the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the crises of democracy in our own time, Gangsters of Capitalism tells an urgent story about a formative era most Americans have never learned about, but that the rest of the world cannot forget.

Palgrave Macmillan — On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle one. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral first-hand account, Katz takes readers inside the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and through the monumental--yet misbegotten--rescue effort that followed.

New York Times — CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - On the last day of Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha's life, it was too cold to run.

newrepublic.com — When Ban Ki-moon was a child, the United Nations saved his village from a war. Can he save the U.N. from irrelevancy?

The New Yorker — On Tuesday, Thom Tillis, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, held off a libertarian challenger backed by Rand Paul to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Tillis was widely considered the establishment candidate, though not because his politics were notably more moderate than his Tea Party rivals'. As House speaker, Tillis proudly blocked the expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina, and he oversaw a decidedly radical legislative agenda that included restrictions on abortion and voting rights. What marked Tillis as the candidate of the establishment was the source of his financial support, which included "nearly $2.5 million in television ads and mailers paid for by groups such as American Crossroads, the U.S.

The New Yorker — Russell Leon works under the cover of darkness as part of a small crew sworn to secrecy. He is a bayakou, a manual laborer who empties the cesspools that collect deep bogs of human waste under Haiti's back-yard latrines. In a country with no working sewers and roads that are often too ramshackle for tanker trucks, he is the sanitation infrastructure, charged with climbing down into concrete or earthen holes and scooping out the ordure with a plastic bucket. On the streets of Port-au-Prince, "bayakou" is often used as a hateful slur.

The New York Times Magazine — At the far southeastern tip of Haiti, just outside the border town of Anse-à-Pitres, there was a farm. When the farmer's grandfather bought the land years ago, he arrived with a cow that birthed twin calves. It was a sign of good fortune - a gift from God - so he named the land the "gift ranch," or Parc Cadeau. The property was delineated on the west by a partly paved road and on the east by the babbling Pedernales River, which marked the border with the Dominican Republic. In between was a grove of mesquite trees.

New York Times — SALISBURY, N.C. - With hymns and prayers for answers, family and friends gathered at a North Carolina church on Saturday to bid farewell to Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die of Ebola in the United States. Mr. Duncan's mother sat weeping with other relatives in the front row of the small, red-carpeted sanctuary of the church they attend here, Rowan International Church. About 30 other congregants stood and sang, "I must tell Jesus all of my trials," and, "We have a God who never fails." A slide show of photos of Mr. Duncan in Liberia played in a loop over the dais.

New York Times — RALEIGH, N.C. - Henry Lee McCollum had barely slept in days, terrified that his dream of 31 years - being released from North Carolina's death row - might not come true. But finally on Wednesday morning, after one more night of delays, he was driven out of the concertina-wire gates of the central prison here and to the waiting arms of his parents. "I just thank God I'm out of this place," Mr. McCollum, 50, said. "Now I want to eat, I want to sleep, and I want to wake up tomorrow and see that this is real."

Gawker — STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.- On October 30, the day after Superstorm Sandy soaked thousands of homes with a two-story surge of seawater, housewares, and sludge, America's would-be first lady tried to unite a nation her husband spent the previous year helping to divide. Sporting a fire-engine red windbreaker, flanked by election banners and carefully arranged FedEx boxes marked "storm relief," Ann Romney asked a room of swing-state campaign workers to put aside partisan allegiances and perform one "very easy" task: "What I've been tweeting out is to contact [the] American Red Cross," she instructed-either donating via text message, or dropping off blankets and water that would be sent to the national organization.

AP — On Jan. 12, 2010 Jonathan Katz was the only American reporter working full time in Haiti. One year after the devastating earthquake rocked Port Au Prince, Katz looks back at that day, at what has happened since and what the future holds. (Jan. 7)

AP — It began as a rumor that farmers saw waste from a U.N. peacekeeping base flow into a river. Within days of the talk, hundreds downstream had died from cholera. The mounting circumstantial evidence that U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera to Haiti was largely dismissed by U.N. officials. Haitians who asked about it were called political or paranoid. Foreigners were accused of playing "the blame game." The World Health Organization said the question was simply "not a priority." But this week, after anti-U.N. riots and inquiries from health experts, the top U.N. representative in Haiti said he is taking the allegations very seriously.

Slate — In Bursey's case, the government contended that on Oct. 24, 2002, the protected zone encompassed an intersection near the Columbia Metropolitan Airport where Brett Bursey was standing with a sign that read "No War for Oil." Bursey said that hundreds of Bush supporters stood around him, along with four other protesters, all awaiting the president. In a scene that has played itself out repeatedly during this campaign, most anti-Bush protesters that day were kept in a "free-speech zone" located three-quarters of a mile away-well out of ear- and camera-shot of the president.