Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? --Publisher.

The investors -- Weaponizing philanthropy : the war on ideas, 1970-2008. Radicals : a Koch family history ; The hidden hand : Richard Mellon Scaife ; Beachheads : John M. Olin and the Bradley brothers ; The Koch method : free-market mayhem ; The Kochtopus : free-market machine -- Secret sponsors : covert operations, 2009-2010. Boots on the ground ; Tea time ; The fossils ; Money is speech : the long road to "Citizens United" ; The shellacking : dark money's midterm debut, 2010 -- Privatizing politics : total combat, 2011-2014. The spoils : plundering Congress ;Mother of all wars : the 2012 setback ; The States : gaining ground ; Selling the new Koch : a better battle plan.