Politics & Buddhism Books: February 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

International Relations Theories or Breaking Rank

International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity

Author: Tim Dunn

This cutting-edge textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to international relations theory. Arguing that theory is central to explaining the dynamics of world politics, it includes a wide variety of theoretical positions--from the historically dominant traditions to powerful critical voices since the 1980s. The editors have brought together a team of international contributors, each specializing in a different theory. The contributors explain the theoretical background to their positions before showing how and why their theories matter. The book opens up space for analysis and debate, allowing students to decide which theories they find most useful in explaining and understanding international relations.

Book about: Womens Health Solutions or The Organic Foods SourceBook

Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing

Author: Norm Stamper

Opening with a powerful letter to former Tacoma police chief David Brame, who shot his estranged wife before turning the gun on himself, Norm Stamper introduces us to the violent, secret world of domestic abuse that cops must not only navigate, but which some also perpetrate. Former chief of the Seattle police force, Stamper goes on to expose a troubling culture of racism, sexism, and homophobia that is still pervasive within the twenty-first-century force; then he explores how such prejudices can be addressed. He reveals the dangers and temptations that cops face, describing in gripping detail the split-second life-and-death decisions. Stamper draws on lessons learned to make powerful arguments for drug decriminalization, abolition of the death penalty, and radically revised approaches to prostitution and gun control. He offers penetrating insights into the "blue wall of silence," police undercover work, and what it means to kill a man. And, Stamper gives his personal account of the World Trade organization debacle of 1999, when protests he was in charge of controlling turned violent in the streets of Seattle. Breaking Rank reveals Norm Stamper as a brave man, a pioneering public servant whose extraordinary life has been dedicated to the service of his community.

Friday, February 20, 2009

The FBI or Women in Power

The FBI: A History

Author: Rhodri Jeffreys Jones

This fast-paced history of the FBI presents the first balanced and complete portrait of the vast, powerful, and sometimes bitterly criticized American institution. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a well-known expert on U.S. intelligence agencies, tells the bureau’s story in the context of American history. Along the way he challenges conventional understandings of that story and assesses the FBI’s strengths and weaknesses as an institution.

Common wisdom traces the origin of the bureau to 1908, but Jeffreys-Jones locates its true beginnings in the 1870s, when Congress acted in response to the Ku Klux Klan campaign of terror against black American voters. The character and significance of the FBI derive from this original mission, the author contends, and he traces the evolution of the mission into the twenty-first century.

The book makes a number of surprising observations: that the role of J. Edgar Hoover has been exaggerated and the importance of attorneys general underestimated, that splitting counterintelligence between the FBI and the CIA in 1947 was a mistake, and that xenophobia impaired the bureau’s preemptive anti-terrorist powers before and after 9/11. The author concludes with a fresh consideration of today’s FBI and the increasingly controversial nature of its responsibilities.

Daniel K. Blewett - Library Journal

Both a chronological narrative of major events and an examination of the important issues regarding the FBI's controversial operations and policies (e.g., its illegal harassment of organizations and its hiring of relatively few women and minorities), this book carries on a theme of Jeffreys-Jones's (American history, Edinburgh Univ.) Cloak and Dollarthat intelligence agencies are playing confidence games on the public, exaggerating threats to get more resources and fewer restrictions. Using both secondary sources and FBI case files, the author touches on how American politics and society have affected the organization and the executive branch's efforts to control it. In contrast to other books highlighting FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's prominence, this one gives more emphasis to the efforts of the attorneys-general to guide and reform the bureau. Interest in racial problems and suspicion of African Americans are common threads throughout, making this book a good supplement to Kenneth O'Reilly's Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972. Suitable for academic and large public libraries.

Book review: Power to Heal or Osteoporosis Handbook

Women in Power: The Personalities and Leadership Styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher

Author: Blema S Steinberg

In Women in Power, Blema S. Steinberg explores the personalities and leadership styles of three remarkable female leaders, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher to help us understand the ways in which personality impacts on leadership. The personality traits of each woman are examined using insights from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis, while their respective leadership styles draw upon measures developed by political scientists. Steinberg then tests the theoretical expectations concerning the relationship between different personality traits and leadership styles against the empirical evidence for each prime minister. The book concludes with a comparative analysis of her results.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Meltdown or Cuba Confidential

Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Author: Mike Chinoy

Advance Praise for Meltdown

"It's easy to demonize the North Koreans, not quite as easy to dismiss them; although the Bush administration has tried to do both. Mike Chinoy brilliantly and painstakingly reconstructs the faltering and dangerous dynamic by which Washington and Pyonyang misread one another's intentions. It's a path that could well lead to nuclear catastrophe and a story that's been told here with unblinking clarity."—Ted Koppel

“Mike Chinoy’s superbly written book tells the tragic story of how Washington’s unwillingness to engage in serious diplomacy with Pyongyang contributed to a new nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, alienating our South Korean allies in the process. He goes on to document the dramatic reversal of course that has seen the Bush administration drop its failed policy aimed at isolating and confronting North Korea, adopting instead a creative approach that, if North Korea acts wisely and rationally, could finally end the nuclear crisis, bring North Korea into the community of nations, and improve the lives of the North Korean people. This book, and the blunt, no-holds-barred comments it contains from many of the key protagonists of this period, is not to be missed.”—Evans Revere, president, The Korea Society

“The explosion of a nuclear warhead by North Korea in October 2006 was the single greatest failure in a decades-long effort to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mike Chinoy's Meltdown tells the tale of the tortured path that led to that failure, and the ongoing attempt to contain the fallout, with an authority and a wealth ofinsider detail that is unmatched. Meltdown is a diplomatic history that reads like a spy novel. It takes us inside the Washington wars that crippled the Bush administration's North Korea policy, and offers fresh insights into the view from Pyongyang, as well as from Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo. Meltdown will be the gold standard for reporting on the North Korean nuclear crisis for years to come."—Daniel Sneider, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein Asia–Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

The Washington Post - Glenn Kessler

a tour de force of reporting…Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.

Publishers Weekly

The Bush administration's bellicose but feckless attempts to quash North Korea's nuclear weapons program were the nadir of its famously maladroit diplomacy, to judge by this revealing blow-by-blow. Ex-CNN Pyongyang correspondent Chinoy details the rancorous infighting during which hardliners like John Bolton and Dick Cheney talked down State Department doves to impose an intransigent North Korea policy, replacing negotiations with Axis-of-Evil rhetoric and unilateral demands. Their approach backfired disastrously, he argues, as Pyongyang restarted and escalated its dormant nuclear initiative and finally tested an atom bomb while the U.S. fulminated helplessly-a needless outcome, he suggests, given the North Koreans' oft-expressed readiness to abandon their nuclear program in exchange for aid and normalized relations. Chinoy presents a lucid exposition of the issues along with a colorful account of diplomatic wrangling in which U.S. officials rivaled their North Korean counterparts in dogmatism and prickly sensitivity to niceties. (One joint statement was almost derailed when the Americans insisted on changing the phrase "peaceful coexistence" to "exist peacefully together.") His is a fine, insightful diplomatic history of a dire confrontation-and a hard-hitting critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Photos. (Aug. 7)

Kirkus Reviews

A knowledgeable chronicle of U.S.-North Korean negotiations during the Clinton and Bush White House years. Chinoy (China Live, 1997, etc.) formerly covered North and South Korea for CNN and now studies them from afar as a fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy. He shows that Kim Jong-Il is indeed a dictator who continues the repressive policies of his father. Unlike many other journalists and foreign-policy analysts, however, Chinoy analyzes U.S. and South Korean policymakers just as closely as the North Koreans, with China, Japan and other nations also figuring in the mix. This provides welcome context for North Korea's development of a nuclear arsenal. If Kim Jong-Il comes across as a villain driving an "Axis of Evil" nation, current President Bush is painted in colors just as dark. In scene after scene, meticulously sourced by Chinoy (though some of those sources insisted on and received anonymity), Bush and his chief foreign-policy advisors come across as ideologues at best, fools squandering an opportunity for nuclear disarmament at worst. The author does not appear to be a shrill, knee-jerk Bush administration critic, but a journalist taking the story where the facts have led him. The irony is that the Bush administration built its foreign policy around the desire to prevent countries like North Korea from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, but failed in part because of its inability to negotiate effectively. Chinoy's depiction of the visceral, personal hostility Bush developed for Kim Jong-Il is especially disturbing, because he shows a U.S. president making decisions based on emotion instead of reason. The only caveat to make about this splendid book is that itsdetail is so immense, the back and forth of diplomacy that it describes so lacking in rationality, that the narrative occasionally becomes overwhelming. A triumph of explanatory reporting about foreign policy. Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris Agency

Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana

Author: Ann Louise Bardach

"Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Diaz-Balart, the family of Elian Gonzalez, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents." Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we've ever been - and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel Gonzalez's kitchen table in Cardenas, from Guantanamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.

Publishers Weekly

The 2000 custody battle between little Eli n Gonz lez's father, acting, according to Bardach, as the surrogate for the Cuban government, and his exiled Miami relatives, the surrogate anti-Castro forces, became a relentless media event and international affair. The PEN award-winning investigative journalist uses the Elian story as a starting place to examine the larger issues that have roiled Cuba-U.S. politics for four decades. Relying on interviews with Castro, U.S. and Cuban government officials, relatives from both sides of Elian's family and members of the Cuban-exile community, she explores the sources of American enmity toward Cuba and the blood feuds (for example, the Florida congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart is the nephew of Castro's former wife) that inform anti-Castro sentiments among Cuban exiles. Along the way Bardach finds craven political opportunism (hoping to secure Cuban-exile support, Bush and Gore both backed keeping Elian in the U.S. during the 2000 presidential campaign), political corruption facilitated by the power of the Cuban-exile community in the Miami area, and a shocking tolerance, by post-September 11 standards at least, within the exile community and U.S. government for terrorism directed toward Cuba. Bardach's credibility is sometimes undermined by her failure to critically assess her informants' accusations-innuendoes about Florida governor Jeb Bush's philandering fall into this category-and her tendency to hint at political conspiracies everywhere. All in all, though, Bardach's muckraker is entertaining and disturbing, as it reflects on the power of the dubiously motivated Cuban-exile community. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. Agent, Tina Bennett. (On sale Oct. 1) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

A marvelous and evocative deconstruction of the incestuous relationships and hardball tactics that have kept Cuba firmly under Fidel Castro and U.S. policy toward Cuba paralyzed under the influence of Miami's Cuban Americans. Bardach pulls no punches here, making her book the most accessible account of this sorry tangle yet. She has talked to everyone: crooks, spooks, politicos, hired assassins, the inner circle of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and even the garrulous and manipulative Castro himself. This is a story of betrayal, suspicion, and conspiracies, with agents and counteragents immersed in an ongoing Caribbean Cold War where John Le Carre would feel very much at home. Bardach also documents the exile community as it shifted from favoring paramilitary strikes against Castro to launching a brilliantly successful lobbying effort within the American political system in the early 1980s, modeled on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. As one former Washington official put it, "The Israeli lobby buys Democrats and rents Republicans, the Cubans buy Republicans and rent Democrats." As Bardach makes clear, the power of this lobby in Congress and beyond remains very much alive for now — as does Castro.

Library Journal

The quagmire of the shattered Cuban family is the background for PEN Award-winning journalist Bardach's investigation of the tragic parallel universes in the two Cubas: the largest island in the Caribbean and the diverse, multifaceted exile community in Miami. Since 1959, Cuban families have suffered, driven apart by politics, geography, conflicting convictions, secrets, and the anguish of separation. Four decades of seething betrayal, suspicion, and conspiracies culminated in world media attention during the Eli n Gonz lez affair, the single most transforming event of Cuba-U.S. relations since the Bay of Pigs. Drawing on ten years of reporting on Cuba and its exiles, Bardach transitions effectively between profiles of aging patriarch and leader Fidel Castro and Cuban exiles seeking freedom but shunted into silence by hard-liners committed to revenge, retribution, and power. Designed for a general audience, this compact volume offers clear explanations of events, individuals, and dynamics since the Cuban Revolution, telling the story of the Gonz lez family and many others. Bibliographic citations incorporate bilingual print, online resources, and interviews. Highly recommended for purchase by large public and academic libraries and specialized contemporary Latin American studies collections.-Sylvia D. Hall-Ellis, LIS Program, Coll. of Education, Univ. of Denver Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An illuminating portrait, by a first-class investigative journalist, of the half-century-long civil war that has divided Cuban against itself. Drawing on ten years of reporting among south Florida's exile communities and in Cuba, Bardach (ed., Cuba: A Traveler's Literary Companion, p. 453) offers an extraordinarily complete view of the personal and political gulf that separates Cubans. Here are all sorts of revelations, few of them comforting. Florida's Cubans, 95% of them white, disdain their mixed-blood and black island compatriots, in good part on racial grounds, so that, as one Miami talk-radio host remarked, had Eliбn Gonzбlez been black, "he would have been tossed back into the sea." Castro (who lobbied hard for the Soviets to launch a nuclear attack on the US), cursed with an elephant's memory and a deep well of vengeance, has devoted much of his energy to punishing former enemies, like the boyhood rival who served 20 years for having once punched him in the face. (Castro's friend Gabriel Garc'a Mбrquez was once moved to remark, "I can't think of a worse loser than Fidel.") At once pawns and generals in the superpower struggle, Cubans in the US have enjoyed unusual privileges, from the "wet foot/dry foot" policy that "grants any Cuban who makes it to land the right to stay" to perks such as free private-school tuition and special loans from the Small Business Administration. Bardach writes with an awareness of the Big Picture-two of her best moments come in deconstructing the Eliбn affair and in tracing the influence of Cuban exiles in all branches of the Bush family-but her focus tends to stay on individual actors, from exiled terrorists who dream of assassinating Castro tofamilies whose members, for political reasons, haven't spoken to each other for 40 or more years. Were Castro to die tomorrow, Bardach suggests, the Cuban civil war would flame up again unabated. Powerful, evenhanded, thoroughly edifying. Author tour

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Guide to Participants in Peace Stability and Relief Operations or Class 11

Guide to Participants in Peace, Stability, and Relief Operations

Author: Robert M Perito

Peace, stability, and humanitarian operations typically involve the interaction of international organizations (IOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the U.S. government, and the U.S. military. The InstituteвЂ™s highly successful Guide to IGOs, NGOs and the Military in Peace and Relief Operations, which was based on peace operations in the Balkans following the Cold War, has been instrumental in facilitating interaction between IOs, NGOs, and the military. The revised Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability, and Relief Operations is updated to reflect lessons learned from operations that have occurred since 2000, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and areas affected by the 2004 Asian tsunami.

This invaluable guide provides short scenarios of typical international involvement in peace missions, natural disasters, and stability operations, as well as an introduction to the organizations that will be present when the international community responds to a crisis. Equally valuable are descriptions of the roles of the United Nations and other international institutions, NGOs, the U.S. military, and U.S. government civilian agencies, which were added because of their increased role in these operations.

Although the guide is particularly useful for those serving in the field because it is designed to fit easily into a pocket or backpack and has a durable cover, it will also help headquarters personnel to understand the structure and roles of other organizations. A unique educational resource, the guide will be useful for many who are not in the field, including military and agency trainees and university students.

Go to: Corporations and Other Business Associations or Human Value Management

Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class

Author: T J Waters

Written by one of its own graduates, Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class is a gripping insider's look at the first post-9/11 CIA training class--the most elite and secretive espionage training program in the country. Class 11 is a fascinating and moving portrait of an extraordinary group of Americans with the courage and resolve to make a difference in the war on terror.

The Washington Post - John Lehman

T.J. Waters has given us a very readable account of the first wave of this rebuilding in Class 11. Waters, now an intelligence consultant, was a member of the first post-9/11 class of recruits for the CIA's spy wing, and his book describes how very different it was from those preceding it … aters has done an excellent job recounting his experiences, and he and the CIA deserve much credit for a book that can only enhance the public's understanding of the importance of a rejuvenated clandestine service. This book should prove a useful recruiting tool.

Library Journal

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center spurred thousands of Americans to apply for service in the CIA in the days and weeks following 9/11. Waters, who had worked in a private firm specializing in intelligence collection and training prior to September 2001, was one of the chosen few who were accepted into the CIA's secret intelligence community. His class, dubbed "Class 11," reflected an assortment of individuals-pilots, bankers, single mothers, and others from backgrounds not usually associated with the spy game. Waters recounts his days as a student learning the espionage trade and provides many fascinating details about how contemporary spies are trained. Of course, since the CIA had to approve Waters's book, one is left wondering how much of his account is true and how much of it is manufactured by an agency that is expert at generating disinformation. Nevertheless, Waters's interesting look behind the curtain of the CIA should be of general interest to readers. For larger collections.-Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Listen up, recruits: CIA officers are officers, not agents. FBI agents are agents, and they're sissies. Suck it up, take out a bad guy for the team, be an American. There's a fair amount of cheerleading in Agent Waters's account of his time as a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service Training Program Class 11, "the volunteers who entered the CIA after the September 11 attacks-the largest training class in CIA history." Waters is rock-solid sure that he and his classmates are nothing less than "the best and the brightest the United States had to offer," which, if true, would be a welcome change from the past few slam-dunk, intelligence-light administrations of that august agency. Some of Waters's classmates are already in the CIA, moved to go over to the "Dark Side"-the Directorate of Operations-by the events of 9/11; one lost a spouse in the World Trade Center. Others are accountants, lawyers, former armed-forces personnel. In practice, whether conducting staged exercises or participating in real-world efforts to catch the DC sniper, Waters's squad looks very much like the cast of a World War II combat film brought up to date, with the wisecracker from Brooklyn, the deep thinker from the Midwest, the West Coast bohemian. And then, of course, there's the tough-as-nails drill instructor, even if she's now a she, and the white-coat types, even if they now enlist the Horse Whisperer in their quest to break the enemy's will. Collectively, they add up to "a new cadre of spy, an officer so versatile he or she defies stereotypes. Our enemies will never see us coming."Yet the agency is still the agency, which unaccountably attempted to block publication of this pleasant but, in the end,mild-mannered and rather unrevealing book. For the super-top-secret stuff-well, read Tom Clancy. Agent: Joe Veltre/Artists Literary Group

Monday, February 16, 2009

Introduction To Political Psychology or Slavery Capitalism and Politics in the AnteBellum Republic Volume 2

Introduction To Political Psychology

Author: Martha L Cottam

"The first comprehensive textbook on political psychology, this user friendly volume explores the psychological origins of political behavior. Using psychological concepts to explain types of political behavior, the authors introduce readers to a broad range of theories and cases of political activity to illustrate the behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors including leadership, group behavior, voting, race, ethnicity, nationalism, political extremism, terrorism, war, and genocide." "Introduction to political psychology explores some of the most horrific things people do to one another for political purposes as well as how to prevent and resolve conflict, and how to recover from it. The goal is to help the reader understand the enormous complexity of human behavior and the significant role political psychology can play in improving the human condition." Designed for upper division courses on political psychology or political behavior, no prerequisites are required to understand this textbook. This volume also contains material of interest to those in the policymaking community who may be surprised to discover the extent to which perceptions, personality, and group dynamics affect the policymaking arena.

	Preface
Ch. 1	An Introduction to Political Psychology	1
Ch. 2	Personality and Politics	13
Ch. 3	Cognition, Social Identity, Emotions, and Attitudes in Political Psychology	37
Ch. 4	The Political Psychology of Groups	63
Ch. 5	The Study of Political Leaders	97
Ch. 6	Voting, Role of the Media, and Tolerance	125
Ch. 7	The Political Psychology of Race and Ethnicity	153
Ch. 8	The Political Psychology of Nationalism	191
Ch. 9	The Political Psychology of Political Extremists	223
Ch. 10	The Political Psychology of International Security and Conflict	257
	Glossary	277
	References	287
	Author Index	333
	Subject Index	337

Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, Volume 2: The Coming of the Civil War, 1850-1861

Author: John Ashworth

This book asks why the United States experienced a civil war in 1861 and analyses the descent into war in the final decade of peace. The book systematically surveys southern extremists, Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, temperance advocates and Know Nothings. It advances a new and unique explanation of the origins of the Civil War, the most important event in the history of the most powerful country in the world.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

George Washington or Presidential Anecdotes

George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives Series)

Author: Paul Johnson

George Washington is by far the most important figure in the history of the United States. Against all military odds, he liberated the thirteen colonies from the superior forces of the British Empire and presided over the process to produce and ratify a Constitution that (suitably amended) has lasted for more than two hundred years. In two terms as president, he set that Constitution to work with such success that, by the time he finally retired, America was well on its way to becoming the richest and most powerful nation on earth.

Despite his importance, Washington remains today a distant figure to many Americans. Previous books about him are immensely long, multivolume, and complicated. Paul Johnson has now produced a brief life that presents a vivid portrait of the great man as young warrior, masterly commander-in-chief, patient Constitution maker, and exceptionally wise president. He also shows Washington as a farmer of unusual skill and an entrepreneur of foresight, patriarch of an extended family, and proprietor of one of the most beautiful homes in America, which he largely built and adorned.

Trenchant and original as ever, Johnson has given us a brilliant, sharply etched portrait of this iconic figure—both as a hero and as a man.

Publishers Weekly

In this masterful addition to the Eminent Lives series, acclaimed historian Johnson (A History of the Jews; Art: A New History) concisely yet vividly portrays the life and legacy of our first president. Johnson traces Washington's life from his early manhood as a surveyor falling in love with the uncharted territory west of Virginia to his later, cunning military exploits. More than anything, according to Johnson, Washington loved property and sought to expand the boundaries not only of the colonies but also of his own land holdings. Washington's skills as a surveyor and a manager established him as a military leader in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolution, and helped him establish a strong executive office and an enduring constitution for the new republic. Johnson points out that Washington's deep moral conviction about the rightness of the war helped him to defeat King George III, who lacked any moral passion about the lands he was supposed to protect. While books like Joseph Ellis's His Excellency offer more detail, Johnson captures the key images of Washington's life and work in this sharply focused snapshot. (June 2) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Steve Forbes - Forbes Magazine

Historian and FORBES columnist Paul Johnson has just penned, as part of HarperCollins' Eminent Lives series, an excellent, brief biography of America's first Commander-in-Chief. This wee volume quickly makes us appreciate again what an extraordinary man George Washington was. He had amazing self-discipline. He mastered surveying and geography, critical subjects for living in the frontier country that America was then. "Like Bonaparte, he became an expert map reader, an accomplishment few senior officers in any country possessed." Washington honed his military skills early in his career, fighting with the British against the French and their Indian allies. In fact, he helped precipitate the Seven Years War (1756-63) when he attacked an armed French camp near modern-day Pittsburgh. (17 Oct 2005)

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-This biography, written from the vantage point of a respected, conservative British historian, provides a new and fascinating picture of the first U.S. President. Johnson doesn't have Americans' natural inclination to deify Washington, but he does have a great deal of respect for his subject, delineating the man's merits and deficiencies. The author also brings the situation in Britain at the time-the backdrop against which Washington reached the heights of his fame-into perspective. These well-written and well-thought-out interpretations will benefit anyone interested in the man or his times.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A slender, interpretation-laden biography of the first president. George Washington poses certain contradictions for a historian, as the prolific Johnson (Art: A New History, 2003, etc.) very gamely allows. For one thing, though he kept virtually every scrap of paper that came under his eye, carting a sizable archive with him even in the thick of the Revolutionary War, and was as careful a self-chronicler as any subsequent chief executive, Washington was also famously guarded about what he revealed of himself. An august and confident leader, he was also responsible for a disastrous episode that led directly to the worldwide Seven Years War. He despised slavery but did not press the point while he was in a position to do so. Some of his contemporaries-his vice president, John Adams, among them-thought him thick and unpresidential, to which Johnson responds that Washington was a fine actor: he knew how to by-God a lieutenant into submission, and "he liked to play the Old Man card when needed." He professed a little false modesty, lived a little better than he could afford to and was perhaps a little too wedded to his time's what's-in-for-me ethic. But, Johnson writes, Washington was also indisputably if not entirely selflessly devoted to the cause of an independent American nation. Johnson is sometimes unconvincing when he confronts contradiction head-on and attempts to reconcile it; he notes, for instance, that Washington was a deist, disinclined to pay much attention to matters of God ("In his twenty volumes of correspondence there is not a single mention of Christ"), yet asserts, in keeping with his conservative bent, that "the notion that the First Amendment would be twisted into aninstrument to prohibit the traditional practices of Christianity would have horrified him"-though probably not to the point, given what we know of him, that Washington would have inserted an "under God" clause into the national pledge. Slight, sometimes debatable but thoroughly well written: a good starting point for those who want to brush up on why Washington matters all these years later.

Presidential Anecdotes

Author: Paul F Boller

This is a collection of humorous stories about U.S. Presidents throughout history. Originally published in 1981, this edition is updated to include anecdotes on George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Booknews

A collection of presidential anecdotes from Washington to Clinton revealing much about the character of each, their successes and failures, and the brilliant or silly ways in which they handled the office. Culled from autobiographies, letters, journals, and interviews with family and friends, the quips are both apocryphal and based on fact. Washington did hatch away at his father's cherry tree, but didn't actually cut it down, Harding had a way with words that made H.L. Mencken apoplectic, Eleanor Roosevelt appears funnier than Franklin D., and Reagan was, like Henny Youngman, the king of the one-liner. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Mighty Wurlitzer or Black Identities

The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

Author: Hugh Wilford

In 1967 the magazine Ramparts ran an exposé revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had been secretly funding and managing a wide range of citizen front groups intended to counter communist influence around the world. In addition to embarrassing prominent individuals caught up, wittingly or unwittingly, in the secret superpower struggle for hearts and minds, the revelations of 1967 were one of the worst operational disasters in the history of American intelligence and presaged a series of public scandals from which the CIA's reputation has arguably never recovered.

CIA official Frank Wisner called the operation his "mighty Wurlitzer," on which he could play any propaganda tune. In this illuminating book, Hugh Wilford provides the first comprehensive account of the clandestine relationship between the CIA and its front organizations. Using an unprecedented wealth of sources, he traces the rise and fall of America's Cold War front network from its origins in the 1940s to its Third World expansion during the 1950s and ultimate collapse in the 1960s.

Covering the intelligence officers who masterminded the CIA's fronts as well as the involved citizen groups—émigrés, labor, intellectuals, artists, students, women, Catholics, African Americans, and journalists—Wilford provides a surprising analysis of Cold War society that contains valuable lessons for our own age of global conflict.

The Washington Post - Michael Kazin

Wilford, who was educated in Britain and teaches history at California State University Long Beach, is hardly the first author to tell such tales. But no one has written a more comprehensive or sophisticated account of the pro-American fronts from their creation in the late 1940s to the investigative report 20 years later in Ramparts magazine that first exposed the CIA's cultural offensive and left people such as Steinem with a bit of explaining to do…Wilford writes with smoothness and wit.

The New York Times - Nathan Glazer

The Mighty Wurlitzer is fascinating, involving a surprising collection of well-known figures in American life…Wilford has consulted an astonishing number of scholarly and popular accounts, along with the papers and records of some of the central participants and organizations…Wilford has mastered an enormously complex tale in almost every detail.

Publishers Weekly

Well before the beginning of the Cold War, the Soviet Union achieved a series of propaganda successes by using "front" organizations that ostensibly served independent purposes but were orchestrated by Moscow. In the late 1940s, Frank Wisner, chief of political warfare for the newly created CIA, proposed a U.S. version: a "mighty Wurlitzer" that like its namesake would play the music America desired. California State-Long Beach professor Wilford describes the "Wurlitzer" as most successful in supporting Western Europe's noncommunist leftist unions, students and intellectuals during the 1950s. As the Cold War spread, the CIA organized programs in the Third World combining development with anticommunism. The CIA was more a source of funding and fine-tuning than the master player its organizers intended; few of its front groups were unaware of the connection. What made the system work was a shared, principled and intense anticommunism combined with trust in America's intentions and capabilities. As these eroded during the Vietnam era, the Wurlitzer's music grew discordant, then ceased altogether. Wilford's conclusion that winning hearts and minds is best left to overt processes and organizations is predictable and defensible. Still, Wisner's Wurlitzer helped level the playing field at a crucial period of the Cold War. (Jan.)

Peter Preston - The Observer

[An] elegantly written, diligently researched examination of the CIA's glory days...The fronts that Wisner built were more errors than terrors, shrill tunes on that tin whistle--which Hugh Wilford plays with sentient skill.

London Review of Books

The term "Mighty Wurlitzer" was coined by CIA agent Frank Wisner to describe the network of small organizations and magazines that the agency used to propagate its message during the Cold War. With meticulous research Hugh Wilford has unpicked the seams of CIA cultural influence, revealing a surprisingly complex picture of divided loyalties and tangled motives.

Nathan Glazer - New York Times Book Review

Remarkably detailed and researched...There were indeed fronts directly established by the C.I.A. for a particular goal, and the story Wilford tells of them in The Mighty Wurlitzer is fascinating, involving a surprising collection of well-known figures in American life...There is a great deal to be learned from this book. Wilford has consulted an astonishing number of scholarly and popular accounts, along with the papers and records of some of the central participants and organizations. He's done a remarkable job of research...Wilford has mastered an enormously complex tale in almost every detail.

Bookforum

Hugh Wilford has unearthed from archives the myriad links between the CIA and various citizen front groups attempting to counter communist influence in The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. Coming forty years after the magazine Ramparts exposed the CIA propaganda program, this book is sure to be relevant to our own era of "hearts and minds" campaigning.

Michael Kazin - Washington Post Book World

[A] brisk yet thorough narrative...No one has written a more comprehensive or sophisticated account of the pro-American fronts from their creation in the late 1940s to the investigative report 20 years later in Ramparts magazine that first exposed the CIA's cultural offensive and left people such as [Gloria] Steinem with a bit of explaining to do.

Times Higher Education Supplement

Wilford provides a comprehensive account of the clandestine relationship between the CIA and its front organizations, tracing the rise and fall of America's front network from its origins in the 1940s to its collapse in the 1960s.

Ronald Radosh - New York Sun

Hugh Wilford has given us the first comprehensive and thorough report of how the CIA--modeling its policies on the Comintern's creation of Communist front groups--created their own fronts, with recipients who included not only the white male writers and artists who made up much of the postwar cultural establishment, but women, African-Americans, students, the labor movement, Catholics, and journalists. Mr. Wilford undermines rather than bolsters the boast made by CIA man Frank Wisner, who called his agency a "Mighty Wurlitzer," a mass of information and intelligence capable of playing the tunes the rest of the world would dance to. The old view, that the Agency was composed of "puppet masters" and that its recipients were simple marionettes, is not only inaccurate, but highly misleading. Mr. Wilford carefully shows that in almost all the cases, those funded understood the high stakes of the Cold War with the Soviets. Rather than following CIA orders, most used whatever funds they received to carry on the work they had already started, and often discarded the advice of the Agency handlers...[A] first-rate book. It is doubtful whether another survey of this subject will ever be necessary. One can differ with his own conclusion that covert funding "stained the reputation" of America and still find the book of immeasurable merit.

Charles Trueheart - Bloomberg.com

[A] superb new account of the underground combat in ideas and checkbooks that unfolded in the 1950s and early '60s...One important insight Wilford brings to this history is that it wasn't necessarily ignoble to promote American values in the face of a menacing communist alternative in those two decades.

Will Podmore - Tribune Magazine

An astonishing account of the CIA's front operations in the United States during the Cold War.

Kirkus Reviews

By turns hilarious and horrifying, the story of the CIA's attempts to disseminate anticommunist propaganda through a variety of front organizations. Since the agency's inception in 1947, writes Wilford (History/California State Univ., Long Beach), its leaders envied communist-front organizations that (they believed) accepted KGB money, slavishly carried out its wishes and won hearts and minds throughout the world. To counteract this, the CIA began funneling funds to students, unions, women's groups, political parties, governments-in-exile, arts organizations and anticommunist left-wing periodicals. Readers' jaws will drop at the Who's Who of prominent Americans who took the agency's money: Richard Wright, Gloria Steinem, a young Henry Kissinger, AFL president George Meany and the UAW's Reuther brothers, among many others. Until the mid-1960s, if an international gathering of students, women, writers, blacks or journalists took place, the CIA probably footed the bill for the American delegation. This was not viewed as hypocritical in the way it would be today, argues Wilford, whose previous scholarly publications have also dealt with the complex relationships between government agencies and private organizations. Members of the cash-strapped avant-garde and activist groups funded by the CIA were usually idealists with admirable goals. More liberal than most government departments, the agency refused McCarthy's demand to fire ex-communists and homosexuals, and the beneficiaries of its largesse often ignored the suggestions that accompanied it. Amusing passages describe CIA fronts feuding with other CIA fronts and activists on CIA expense accounts who traveled the world denouncing U.S.policies. Everything unraveled in 1967, after a series of exposes sparked by a Ramparts magazine article converted chronic rumors into headlines and Congressional investigations. Those who accepted CIA money had always worried that revelation of this link would convert their good work into a public-relations catastrophe, and that is precisely what happened. Everyone now agrees it was a bad idea from the start. Unlike Tim Weiner's brilliant Legacy of Ashes, whose litany of disastrous covert operations makes for painful reading, this superb account will provide CIA aficionados with some welcome comic relief. Agent: Felicity Bryan/Felicity Bryan Literary Agency

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

Author: Mary C Waters

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is considered a great success. Many of these adoptive citizens have prospered, including General Colin Powell. But Mary Waters tells a very different story about immigrants from the West Indies, especially their children.

She finds that when the immigrants first arrive, their knowledge of English, their skills and contacts, their self-respect, and their optimistic assessment of American race relations facilitate their integration into the American economic structure. Over time, however, the realities of American race relations begin to swamp their positive cultural values. Persistent, blatant racial discrimination soon undermines the openness to whites the immigrants have when they first arrive. Discrimination in housing channels them into neighborhoods with inadequate city services and high crime rates. Inferior public schools undermine their hopes for their children's future. Low wages and poor working conditions are no longer attractive for their children, who use American and not Caribbean standards to measure success.

Ultimately, the values that gained these first-generation immigrants initial success—a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save—are undermined by the realities of life in the United States. In many families, the hard-won relative success of the parents is followed by the downward slide of their children. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Revisiting the Culture of the School and the Problem of Change or In Defense of Israel

Revisiting "the Culture of the School and the Problem of Change"

Author: Seymour B Sarason

Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change" provocatively and seamlessly joins Seymour Sarason's classic, landmark text on school change with his own insightful reflections on those same issues in the face of today's crisis in public schools. This is an extensive, monograph-length revisiting. Throughout, many of the major assumptions about change in institutions are challenged. Specific events and examples demonstrate that any attempt to implement change involves some existing regularity within the school. Dr. Sarason also takes a close look at government involvement in change efforts in schooling - and includes a detailed examination of current efforts to implement PL 94-142 into public schools. He presents compelling evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has largely been a failure. Also included are investigations into the purposes of schooling and how these purposes can be affected by change, and the process by which educators and administrators formulate intended outcomes of change efforts. Dr. Sarason is deeply concerned that the reform arena is being manipulated by forces that are at best untroubled by and at worst intent on the dismantling of the public school system. That, coupled with his fear that even the system's defenders are not focusing on the real issues, has infused Dr. Sarason's return to the topic of educational change with a great sense of urgency. The important things he has to say will be welcomed by all who truly care about the state of the public schools that America's children attend.

See also: Living Well or Juzen Taiho to

In Defense of Israel: The Bible's Mandate for Supporting the Jewish State

Author: John Hage

Pastor John Hagee exposes some of the common myths about the Jews and Israel as he: Uncovers the sins of the fathers-the true history of Christian anti-Semitism, Answers Christian and secular critics who oppose support of Israel and the Jews, Awakens the sleeping giant of the evangelical church: Christians United for Israel.

In September 1981, Pastor John Hagee organized the first Night to Honor Israel. The night was magical as Christians and Jews filled the auditorium in celebration of the Jewish contribution to Christianity. The historic event ended with a terrorist threat against the celebrants, and John Hagee's "defense of Israel" was born!

After twenty-six years of unconditional support of Israel and the Jewish people, Pastor Hagee called on over four hundred of America's foremost evangelical leaders to form Christians United for Israel. Today, CUFI is a national organization of millions who are standing in support of Israel and the Jewish people, fulfilling Isaiah 62:1 "For Zion's sake I will not be silent..." In Defense of Israel ignites the reader to share Pastor Hagee's passionate support of Israel and her people.

About the Author:
John Hagee is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church

Foreword   Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg     vii
It's 1938...Again     1
My Lifelong Love for Israel     9
Sins of the Fathers     17
"One Single Night" Becomes Many     37
The Peoples of the Middle East     49
The Religions of the Middle East     61
Revolution and Radical Islam     71
Our Debt to the Jewish People     91
Honoring Israel Brings God's Blessing     111
Answering Christian Critics     121
Answering Secular Critics     171
"Israel Lives!"     189
Notes     197
Index     202

Thursday, February 12, 2009

American Fascists or The Transformation of Governance

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

Author: Chris Hedges

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

Hedges, who grew up in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian pastor, attacks the movement as someone steeped in the Bible and Christian tradition. He points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have earned between 80 and 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. The movement's call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement's yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.

Publishers Weekly

The f-word crops up in the most respectable quarters these days. Yet if the provocative title of this expos by Hedges (War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning)-sounds an alarm, the former New York Times foreign correspondent takes care to employ his terms precisely and decisively. As a Harvard Divinity School graduate, his investigation of the Christian Right agenda is even more alarming given its lucidity. Citing the psychology and sociology of fascism and cults, including the work of German historian Fritz Stern, Hedges draws striking parallels between 20th-century totalitarian movements and the highly organized, well-funded "dominionist movement," an influential theocratic sect within the country's huge evangelical population. Rooted in a radical Calvinism, and wrapping its apocalyptic, vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric, dominionism seeks absolute power in a Christian state. Hedges's reportage profiles both former members and true believers, evoking the particular characteristics of this American variant of fascism. His argument against what he sees as a democratic society's suicidal tolerance for intolerant movements has its own paradoxes. But this urgent book forcefully illuminates what many across the political spectrum will recognize as a serious and growing threat to the very concept and practice of an open society. (Jan. 9) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

In this passionately argued and deeply felt but ultimately unconvincing book, the former "New York Times" foreign correspondent Hedges argues that the Christian right is a danger to U.S. democracy. At his best when pointing to examples of charlatanism, hypocrisy, and greed among the wackier televangelists, Hedges is less successful when he argues that the leadership of the Christian right is a powerful, centralized organization poised to impose a totalitarian dictatorship on the United States in the wake of either more terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 or a great economic depression. In fact, this leadership is a good deal less influential than Hedges supposes, and it faces strong opposition inside the world of conservative Christianity by far too many influential and respected figures to control conservative American Protestantism, much less to impose radical views on a society in which evangelicals of all descriptions remain a distinct minority. Hedges also appears not to have studied the history of religious revivals in American life. From the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century through the waves of religious enthusiasm that repeatedly washed over the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, religious movements have ultimately strengthened rather than undermined the democratic and pluralistic character of American society. That is not always what the religious leaders of the day intended or hoped, but the small-"d" democratic values of American popular religion are one of the most durable features of American life.

Faith     1
The Culture of Despair     37
Conversion     50
The Cult of Masculinity     73
Persecution     95
The War on Truth     113
The New Class     129
The Crusade     148
God: The Commercial     164
Apocalyptic Violence     182
Notes     209
Bibliography     223
Acknowledgments     233
Index     237

Book review: Realização de Êxito de Pós-fusão:o Guia do Depositário de dinheiro de apostas de Diligência Devida Cultural, Avaliação, e Integração

The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for Twenty-First Century America

Author: Donald F Kettl

The theory of public administration has long been based on the notions of hierarchy and authority. However, the way managers actually manage has increasingly become at odds with the theory. The growing gap between theory and practice poses enormous challenges for managers in determining how best to work -- and for American government in determining how best to hold public administrators accountable for effectively doing their jobs.

In the quest to improve the practice of public administration, Kettl explains, political scientists and other scholars have tried a number of approaches, including formal modeling, implementation studies, a public management perspective, and even institutional choice. This book offers a new framework for reconciling effective administration with the requirements of democratic government. Instead of thinking in terms of organizational structure and management, Kettl suggests, administrators and theorists need to focus on "governance,"or links between government and its broader environment -- political, social, and administrative. Government is the collection of institutions that act with authority and create formal obligations;governance is the set of processes and institutions, formal and informal, through which social action occurs. Linking government and governance, Kettl concludes, is the foundation for understanding the theory and practice of government in twenty-first century America -- for making public programs work better and for securing the values on which the American republic has been built.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President or Classics of Moral and Political Theory

Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President

Author: Louis Fisher

Nearly three decades after its initial publication, Louis Fisher's durable classic remains at the head of its class-a book that Congressional Quarterly called "as close to being indispensable as anything published in this field." This newly revised and updated fifth edition emphatically reinforces that sterling reputation.

Fisher dissects the crucial constitutional disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government from the Constitutional Convention through President Clinton's impeachment battles to the recent controversies over President Bush's conduct as commander in chief. He ventures beyond traditional discussions of Supreme Court decisions to examine the day-to-day working relationships between the president and Congress.

To scholars, this book offers a comprehensive examination of the institutions and issues of public law. For practitioners, general readers, and students of American government, it demonstrates how constitutional issues shape and define current events.

New material in this edition:
• Post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Military tribunals and NSA eavesdropping
• Kosovo war in 1999
• Impeachment of President Clinton
• Termination of ABM treaty
• Controversies over appointments and removals
• Disputes over executive orders and proclamations
• Presidential signing statements
• Developments with item veto and pocket veto
• Public access to intelligence budgets
• FBI search warrant of congressman's office
• State secrets privilege
• Presidential and vice-presidential immunity

Choice

The preeminent treatise on the separation of powers, Fisher's book is constitutional scholarship at its best.

Booknews

In this extensively revised edition of his classic study (originally published in 1978), Fisher examines this complex relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government from the Constitutional Convention through the beginning of the Bush administration, venturing beyond traditional discussions of Supreme Court decisions to examine the day-to-day working relationships between the president and Congress. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

	Preface
	Note on Citations
1	Constitutional Struggles	1
	The Elements of Constitutionalism	1
	The Doctrine of Separated Powers	6
	Implied Powers	14
	Custom and Acquiescence	18
2	Appointment Powers	22
	Basic Principles	22
	The Power to Nominate	26
	Senate Advice and Consent	32
	Recess Appointments	38
	Temporary Appointments	46
3	Theory in a Crucible: The Removal Power	49
	The "Decision of 1789"	50
	Controversies from Jackson to Cleveland	54
	Court Interpretations: 1789 to 1926	57
	The Myers Case and Its Progeny	60
	Disloyalty Dismissals and Procedural Safeguards	66
	Removal Actions from Nixon to Bush	72
	Clinton's Travelgate	77
	The Congressional Presence	83
4	Legislative Powers	87
	Delegation	88
	Checks on Delegated Power	98
	Nonstatutory Controls	103
	Administrative Legislation	106
5	Vetoes: Presidential and Legislative	119
	The Presidential Veto	119
	Pocket Vetoes	128
	The Item Veto	132
	The Legislative Veto	141
	Chadha and Beyond	152
6	Power over Knowledge: Seeking and Withholding Information	160
	Congressional Investigations	160
	The Speech or Debate Clause	172
	Presidential Immunity	175
	Impeachment	177
	Executive Privilege	181
7	The Power of the Purse	196
	Constitutional Limitations	196
	Presidential Responsibility for Estimates	199
	Congressional Revision of Estimates	201
	The Budget Act of 1974	207
	Secret Spending	212
	Combining Purse and Sword: The Iran-Contra Affair	219
8	Treaties and Executive Agreements	225
	Treaties	225
	The Role of the House	234
	Treaty Termination	242
	Treaty Reinterpretation	245
	Executive Agreements	248
9	The War Power	256
	Commander in Chief	256
	Executive Prerogative	259
	Life-and-Property Actions	266
	Delegated Emergency Powers	271
	The War Powers Resolution of 1973	274
	The Politics of Comity	292
10	Conclusions	295
	Appendix. The Constitution of the United States of America (Selections)	305
	Suggested Readings	315
	Index of Cases	325
	Subject Index	333

Classics of Moral and Political Theory

Author: Michael L Ed Morgan

The 4th edition of Classics of Moral and Political Theory widens the breadth, depth, and appeal of this collection by featuring Paul Woodruff's translation of Sophocles' Antigone, Rodney Livingstone's translation of Weber's "Politics as a Vocation," and selections from Mill's The Subjection of Women; in addition C.D.C. Reeve's new translations of Plato's Republic (rendered into direct dialogue), Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and the death scene from the Phaedo replace the translations of these works currently in use.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Whiskey Tango FoxTrot or Race Reform and Rebellion

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War

Author: Ashley Gilbertson

Arriving in Iraq on the eve of the U.S. invasion, unaffiliated with any newspaper and hoping to pick up assignments along the way, Ashley Gilbertson was one of the first photojournalists to cover the disintegration of America’s military triumph as looting and score settling convulsed Iraqi cities. Just twenty-five years old at the time, Gilbertson soon landed a contract with the New York Times, and his extraordinary images of life in occupied Iraq and of American troops in action began appearing in the paper regularly. Throughout his work, Gilbertson took great risks to document the risks taken by others, whether dodging sniper fire with American infantry, photographing an Iraqi bomb squad as they diffused IEDs, or following marines into the cauldron of urban combat.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot gathers the best of Gilbertson’s photographs, chronicling America’s early battles in Iraq, the initial occupation of Baghdad, the insurgency that erupted shortly afterward, the dramatic battle to overtake Falluja, and ultimately, the country’s first national elections. No Western photojournalist has done as much sustained work in occupied Iraq as Gilbertson, and this wide-ranging treatment of the war from the viewpoint of a photographer is the first of its kind. Accompanying each section of the book is a personal account of Gilbertson’s experiences covering the conflict. Throughout, he conveys the exhilaration and terror of photographing war, as well as the challenges of photojournalism in our age of embedded reporting. But ultimately, and just as importantly, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot tells the story of Gilbertson’s own journey fromhard-drinking bravado to the grave realism of a scarred survivor. Here he struggles with guilt over the death of a marine escort, tells candidly of his own experience with post-traumatic stress, and grapples with the reality that Iraq—despite the sacrifice in Iraqi and American lives—has descended into a civil war with no end in sight.

A searing account of the American experience in Iraq, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is sure to become one of the classic war photography books of our time.

Publishers Weekly

This collection of photographs and commentary presents a relentlessly tragic vision of the ongoing conflict in Iraq, where freelance and later New York Times photographer Gilbertson began working even before the U.S. invasion. Based in Iraqi Kurdistan, he missed much early fighting when Turkey refused passage to U.S. troops. Entering the northern city of Mosul, he was outraged to see newly liberated citizens engaged in an orgy of looting, quickly joined by the Kurdish troops whom he accompanied. Gilbertson's camera records chaos descending as the Kurds and Arabs (longtime enemies) sectioned off their neighborhoods and began arming themselves, even before Baghdad fell. In dozens of striking battle scenes, American soldiers go about their business with courage and discipline but show little affection for Iraq's civilians and positive contempt for its army. While plenty of dead and injured Iraqis are pictured, no dead Americans appear (because fellow soldiers forbid photographs), though captions in half a dozen name those later killed. The author rarely passes up the chance to record blood stains, ruined homes, flames and explosions as well as the sad stories behind them. Not yet 30, Gilbertson has clearly studied James Nachtwey, Robert Capa and David Douglas Duncan; this impressive book shows he has absorbed their lessons. (Nov. 1)

Look this: Hallucinations or Hypersomnia a Medical Dictionary Bibliography and Annotated Research Guide to Internet References

Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006, Third Edition

Author: Manning Marabl

Since its original publication in 1984, Manning Marable's Race, Reform, and Rebellion has become widely known as the most crucial political and social history of African Americans since World War II. Aimed at students of contemporary American politics and society and written by one of the most articulate and eloquent authorities on the movement for black freedom, this acclaimed study traces the divergent elements of political, social, and moral reform in nonwhite America since 1945.

This updated edition brings Marable's study into the twenty-first century, analyzing the effects of such factors as black neoconservatism, welfare reform, the Million Man March, the mainstreaming of hip-hop culture, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. Marable's work, brought into the present, remains one of the most dramatic, well-conceived, and provocative histories of the struggle for African American civil rights and equality.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, Marable follows the emergence of a powerful black working class, the successful effort to abolish racial segregation, the outbreak of Black Power, urban rebellion, and the renaissance of Black Nationalism. He explores the increased participation of blacks and other ethnic groups in governmental systems and the white reaction during the period he terms the Second Reconstruction. Race, Reform, and Rebellion illustrates how poverty, illegal drugs, unemployment, and a deteriorating urban infrastructure hammered the African American community in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The Third Edition provides:

Perspective on recent catastrophic events
Context on how 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina magnified persistent racialinjustice
Analysis of such devastating, long-term trends as urban decay, illegal drug use, and increased poverty
An up-to-date text from one of the nation's leading scholars

Manning Marable is professor of public affairs, history, political science, and African American studies at Columbia University and is the director of the university's Center for Contemporary Black History. He has written or edited twenty-two books, including Living Black History, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers (coedited with Myrlie Evers Williams), Freedom (coauthored with Leith P. Mullings), The Great Wells of Democracy, Black Leadership, and How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America.

Preface and Acknowledgments     vii
Prologue: The Legacy of the First Reconstruction     3
The Cold War in Black America, 1945-1954     12
The Demand for Reform, 1954-1960     38
We Shall Overcome 1960-1965     59
Black Power, 1965-1970     84
Black Rebellion: Zenith and Decline, 1970-1976     112
From Protest to Politics: The Retreat of the Second Reconstruction, 1976-1982     146
Reaction: Black Society and Politics during Reagan Conservatism, 1982-1990     182
Into the Wilderness: The Twilight of the Second Reconstruction, 1990-2001     216
The New Racial Domain: The Politics of Racial Inequality, 2001-2006     238
Notes     257
Bibliography     279
Index     301

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Our Common Future or First Along the River

Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development

Author: Oxford University Press Staff

In 1983, the U.N. General Assembly created the World Commission on Environment and Development, an independent committee of twenty-two members, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway. Designed to examine global environment and development to the year 2000 and beyond, the commission seeks to reassess critical problems, to formulate realistic proposals for solving them, and to raise the level of understanding and commitment to the issues of environment and development.
Rather than presenting a gloom and doom report about the destruction of natural resources, Our Common Future offers an agenda advocating the growth of economies based on policies that do not harm, and can even enhance, the environment. The commission recognizes that the time has come for a marriage of economy and ecology, in order to ensure the growth of human progress through development without bankrupting the resources of future generations.

Book review: Library Anns Cook Book or Cooking with Grains

First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement

Author: Benjamin Klin

First Along the River is the premier text that introduces students to the U.S. environmental movement. Concise, accessible, and informative, this third edition has been updated to include a new chapter addressing environmental issues in the post 9/11 world, policy shifts under the Bush administration, climate change, and the future of environmental movements.

Preface     vii
Introduction     1
Philosophical Foundations     3
Biblical Justification for Dominating Nature     3
Seeking New Land     5
Rational Nature of the World     8
Social and Political Thought in the Eighteenth Century     10
Conclusion     12
The 1400s through the 1700s: Inhabiting a New Land     13
Native Americans as Prototypical Environmentalists     14
Early Colonial Environmental Attitudes     17
Conclusion     21
The Early 1800s: Destroying the Frontier     23
Manifest Destiny     24
Domesticating the Wilderness     26
Final Conquest of the West     29
Renewed Interest in Nature     31
Conclusion     35
The Late 1880s: Building an Industrial Nation     37
Population Growth and Consumerism     37
Devastating the Land     40
Overconsumption of Natural Resources     42
Voices for Nature     46
Conclusion     49
The 1900s through the 1930s: Beginnings of the Conservation Movement     51
Conversation during the Progressive Era     52
Environmental Decay duringthe Roaring Twenties     60
Conversation Policies under Roosevelt's New Deal     64
Conclusion     67
The 1940s through the 1960s: Prelude to the Green Decade     70
Environmental Costs of Scientific Progress in the 1940s     70
The Conservative 1950s     72
Emerging Voices in the 1960s     73
The Environmental Movement Begins to Mobilize     77
Conclusion     82
The 1970s: The Conservation Movement Matures     84
Mainstream and Alternative Environmental Groups     84
New Environmental Legislation     92
Jimmy Carter and the Envirocrats     96
Conclusion     99
The 1980s: A Conservative Backlash     101
Ronald Reagan's Environmental Deregulation     101
George Bush as the Environmental President     104
Employment versus the Environment     107
Environmental Groups Actions and Reactions     109
International Environmental Concern     110
Conclusion     114
The Early 1990s: Government Retrenchment and Public Apathy     116
Environmental Optimism under Bill Clinton     116
A Growing Countermovement     118
A Green Revival      120
A Conservative Resurgence     125
Conclusion     131
The Late 1990s: The Institutionalization of the Environmental Movement     133
Clinton's Moderate Environmental Approach     133
Growing Public Concern     138
New Activism     141
Congressional Action and Inaction     144
The Global Future of the Environmental Movement     149
Conclusion     152
The Environmental Movement in the Post 9/11 World     155
The Presidential Election of 2000     155
The Post 9/11 World     159
Bush and Changing Regulations     163
The Debate and the Gamble     164
Conclusion     167
Conclusion     169
Glossary     174
Bibliography and Suggested Readings     188
Index     193

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice or The Founders and the Classics

Liberalism and the Limits of Justice

Author: Michael J Sandel

A liberal society seeks not to impose a single way of life, but to leave its citizens as free as possible to choose their own values and ends. It therefore must govern by principles of justice that do not presuppose any particular vision of the good life. But can any such principles be found? And if not, what are the consequences for justice as a moral and political ideal? These are the questions Michael Sandel takes up in this penetrating critique of contemporary liberalism. This new edition includes a new introduction and a new final chapter in which Professor Sandel responds to the later work of John Rawls.

	Preface to the Second Edition: The Limits of Communitarianism
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: Liberalism and the Primacy of Justice	1
1	Justice and the Moral Subject	15
	The Primacy of Justice and the Priority of the Self	15
	Liberalism without Metaphysics: The Original Position	24
	The Circumstances of Justice: Empiricist Objections	28
	The Circumstances of Justice: Deontological Rejoinder	40
	In Search of the Moral Subject	47
	The Self and the Other: The Priority of Plurality	50
	The Self and Its Ends: The Subject of Possession	54
	Individualism and the Claims of Community	60
2	Possession, Desert, and Distributive Justice	66
	Libertarianism to Egalitarianism	66
	Meritocracy versus the Difference Principle	72
	Defending Common Assets	77
	The Basis of Desert	82
	Individual and Social Claims: Who Owns What?	95
3	Contract Theory and Justification	104
	The Morality of Contract	105
	Contracts versus Contractarian Arguments	109
	Liberalism and the Priority of Procedure	113
	What Really Goes on behind the Veil of Ignorance	122
4	Justice and the Good	133
	The Unity of the Self	133
	The Case of Affirmative Action	135
	Three Conceptions of Community	147
	Agency and the Role of Reflection	154
	Agency and the Role of Choice	161
	The Status of the Good	165
	The Moral Epistemology of Justice	168
	Justice and Community	172
	Conclusion: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice	175
	A Response to Rawls' Political Liberalism	184
	Bibliography	219
	Index	227

See also: El Ciclo de Capital aventurado

The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment

Author: Carl J Richard

Is our Greek and Roman heritage merely allusive and illusory? Or were our founders, and so our republican beginnings, truly steeped in the stuff of antiquity? So far largely a matter of generalization and speculation, the influence of Greek and Roman authors on our American forefathers finally becomes clear in this fascinating book-the first comprehensive study of the founders' classical reading.

Carl J. Richard begins by examining how eighteenth-century social institutions in general and the educational system in particular conditioned the founders to venerate the classics. He then explores the founders' various uses of classical symbolism, models, "antimodels," mixed government theory, pastoralism, and philosophy, revealing in detail the formative influence exerted by the classics, both directly and through the mediation of Whig and American perspectives. In this analysis, we see how the classics not only supplied the principal basis for the U.S. Constitution but also contributed to the founders' conception of human nature, their understanding of virtue, and their sense of identity and purpose within a grand universal scheme. At the same time, we learn how the classics inspired obsessive fear of conspiracies against liberty, which poisoned relations between Federalists and Republicans.

The shrewd ancients who molded Western civilization still have much to teach us, Richard suggests. His account of the critical role they played in shaping our nation and our lives provides a valuable lesson in the transcendent power of the classics.

Library Journal

While it is well known that the Greek and Latin languages and literatures informed the educations and cultural vocabularies of 18th-century Americans, few studies have fully attempted to describe and explore the formative role of the classics for the leaders of the American Revolution and the framers of the Constitution. Providing abundant examples, historian Richard (Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana) argues compellingly that the classics played a definitive role in the minds of figures such as Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Washington, and many others, providing not only theories of constitutional government, human nature, and virtue but even models for emulation. Richard makes a strong case for the continued relevance of the study of the classics. A lucidly written and informative book; for informed lay readers and specialists.-- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.

Booknews

Richard begins by examining how 18th-century social institutions in general and the education system in particular conditioned the American founders to venerate the classics. He then explores the founders' various uses of classical symbolism, models, "antimodels," mixed government theory, pastoralism, and philosophy, revealing in detail the formative influence exerted by the classics, both directly and through the mediation of Whig and American perspectives. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ex Mex or Big Daddy

Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants

Author: Jorge G Castaneda

A fascinating and revealing look at the United States' largest, most controversial group of immigrants, by Mexico's former foreign minister.

In the wake of the massive, nationwide rally in support of immigrant rights in May 2006, which drew a record number of participants, one thing has become clear: in the United States today, no domestic issue sparks as much public debate or is as politicized as immigration, with the spotlight focused on Mexican immigrants above all others.

In Ex Mex, former Mexican foreign minister and well-known scholar Jorge G. Castañeda draws on his experience in both capacities to dispel some of the most widely held and mistaken ideas about the United States' largest immigrant population. Through Castañeda, we learn who the newest generation of immigrants from Mexico is, why they've chosen to live in the United States, where they work, and what they ultimately hope to achieve. Castañeda also offers an insider's account of the intricate and secret negotiations that took place between Mexico and the United States in 2001-2—contradicting some of the official versions published here—and the unilateral actions that were taken by his government to improve the conditions of Mexican migrants when talks between the two countries became stalemated.

This timely and authoritative book will be required reading for the debates about immigration that will soon be part of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

The Washington Post - Pamela Constable

A sharp-eyed student of American politics, Castaneda offers a trenchant if jargon-filled analysis of the recent congressional debacle over immigration reform. He echoes Fox's urgent call for bilateral action, but he warns more coolly that nothing, neither walls nor deportations, will stop poor Mexicans from crossing the Rio Grande until the region's severe economic imbalance begins to change.

Kirkus Reviews

A reasoned and reasonable view of Mexican immigration by former Mexican foreign minister Casta-eda (Politics and Latin American Studies/NYU; Perpetuating Power, 2000, etc.). In Mexico, writes the author, the current minimum wage is about $300 per month and the average wage about $500 per month. Approximately one-quarter of the Mexicans who arrive, legally or not, in the United States make more than $2,500 per month and send $400 home to Mexico, improving lives on both sides of the line. Given these considerations and the boost to the domestic economy-to say nothing of the absence of workers who might otherwise be unemployed-can one expect the Mexican government to make serious efforts to curtail the northward flight? Not likely, and the flight will doubtless only accelerate until Mexico creates enough jobs and enough wealth to satisfy the needs of its people-again, not likely. Mexico can impede the northward flow, Casta-eda notes, and has done so in the past. In the summer of 2001, for instance, President Vicente Fox sent armed military patrols into the desert to deter migrants, and the number of people attempting to cross dropped immediately. Yet this requires a political will, notes the author, that has not been seen since, and even if the traffic cannot be stopped completely, Mexico "certainly possesses the capacity to try." Fortified border or no, Casta-eda foresees an increase in Mexican arrivals-20 million in 2015, up from about 12 million today-until "they start to taper off through assimilation, creeping legalization, demographics, and economic growth in the south." Against nativist and isolationist alarmism, Casta-eda suggests that such a thing is not so bad. The notion that theillegals bring crime is gainsaid by the statistics, and there are, after all, jobs that need to be done and American employers eager to fill them. Casta-eda removes the shrillness from the immigration debate. His calming argument merits an audience, especially among the fence-builders in Congress.

New interesting book: Yoga Basics or Lung Cancer

Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics

Author: Bill Boyarsky

Revealing and frank, this highly engaging biography tells the story of an American original, California's Big Daddy, Jesse Unruh (1922-1987), a charismatic man whose power reached far beyond the offices he held. Unruh, who was born into Texas sharecropper poverty, became a larger-than-life figure and a principal architect and builder of modern California--first as an assemblyman, then as assembly speaker, and finally, as state treasurer. He was also a great character: a combination of intelligence, wit, idealism, cynicism, woman-chasing vulgarity, charm, drunken excess, and political skill all wrapped up in one big package. He dominated the California capitol and extended his influence to Washington and Wall Street. He was close to Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys, but closest to Robert Kennedy, and was in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen when Kennedy was shot. Bill Boyarsky gives a close-up look at this extraordinary political leader, a man who believed that politics was the art of the possible, and his era.

Acknowledgments     ix
Prologue     1
The Death of a Boss     6
The Road to California     18
The GI Bill of Rights     30
Hat in the Ring     43
The Education of a Rookie     58
Segregation and the Unruh Civil Rights Act     74
Fair Housing and White Backlash     90
Animal House     110
Backstabbing Democrats     129
Dirty Dealings and High Idealism     146
A Full-Time Legislature     163
Unruh, Robert Kennedy, and the Anti-War Movement     173
Unruh versus Reagan     191
The Man with the Money     207
Epilogue     221
Notes     225
Index     249

Saturday, February 21, 2009

International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity

Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing

Friday, February 20, 2009

The FBI: A History

Daniel K. Blewett - Library Journal

Women in Power: The Personalities and Leadership Styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher

Table of Contents:

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

The Washington Post - Glenn Kessler

Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents:

Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana

Publishers Weekly

Foreign Affairs

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Guide to Participants in Peace, Stability, and Relief Operations

Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class

The Washington Post - John Lehman

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Monday, February 16, 2009

Introduction To Political Psychology

Table of Contents:

Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, Volume 2: The Coming of the Civil War, 1850-1861

Sunday, February 15, 2009

George Washington: The Founding Father (Eminent Lives Series)

Publishers Weekly

Steve Forbes - Forbes Magazine

School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Presidential Anecdotes

Booknews

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America

The Washington Post - Michael Kazin

The New York Times - Nathan Glazer

Publishers Weekly

Peter Preston - The Observer

London Review of Books

Nathan Glazer - New York Times Book Review

Bookforum

Michael Kazin - Washington Post Book World

Times Higher Education Supplement

Ronald Radosh - New York Sun

Charles Trueheart - Bloomberg.com

Will Podmore - Tribune Magazine

Kirkus Reviews

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities

Table of Contents:

Friday, February 13, 2009

Revisiting "the Culture of the School and the Problem of Change"

In Defense of Israel: The Bible's Mandate for Supporting the Jewish State

Table of Contents:

Thursday, February 12, 2009

American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America

Publishers Weekly

Foreign Affairs

Table of Contents:

The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for Twenty-First Century America

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President

Choice

Booknews

Table of Contents:

Classics of Moral and Political Theory

Monday, February 9, 2009

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War

Publishers Weekly

Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006, Third Edition

Table of Contents:

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development

First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement

Table of Contents:

Saturday, February 7, 2009