Way out There in the Blue or Downsize This

Way out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War

Author: Frances FitzGerald

Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan. Drawing on extensive research, FitzGerald shows how Reagan managed to get billions in funding for a program that was technologically impossible by exploiting the fears of the American public. The Reagan who emerges from FitzGerald's book was a gifted politician with a deep understanding of the national psyche, and an executive almost totally disengaged from the policies of his administration. Both appalling and funny, Way Out There in the Blue is the most penetrating study of Reagan's presidency to date.

The Onion AV Club - Scott Tobias

Considering the sweeping influence of his administration, Ronald Reagan remains a strangely elusive figure--so elusive, in fact, that his official biographer, Edmund Morris, opted to invent a fictionalized version of himself to sketch in the empty spaces. But Frances FitzGerald, who sorted through the cloudy intricacies of the Vietnam War in her previous book (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fire In The Lake), finds a more direct and illuminating route into his political mind with Way Out In The Blue, a sprawling history of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Better known by the more seductive name "Star Wars," SDI is the antiballistic missile system first introduced by Reagan during a notorious speech given in March 1983, when his presidency was at its lowest ebb. The idea of designing an "impregnable shield" in space to protect the country from nuclear holocaust was a fantasy that appealed to the general public, which feared any further escalation of the Cold War. But defense experts fumed, not least because such a system wasn't remotely plausible. Seventeen years later, SDI still isn't remotely plausible, yet congress recently allocated another $6.6 billion to a similar program, adding to the $60 billion already poured into the most expensive research project in American history. How could this happen? As FitzGerald argues, Star Wars is Reagan's greatest rhetorical triumph, an empty promise rooted in dubious science, mythology, and the movies, and carried out on the force of his charisma and imagination. Sorting through a dizzying array of personalities and technical jargon, FitzGerald investigates Reagan's detached, corporate-style approach to leadership and the tricky role SDI played in negotiations with the Soviets. Way Out There In The Blue rehashes a portrait of Reagan that's common to many left-leaning historical accounts, but by using Star Wars as an angle into his administration (and mystique), the author points to a disturbing legacy in which dreams and policy are virtually indistinguishable.

Publishers Weekly

Anyone who thinks that Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program is dead should read this shocking book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fitzgerald (Fire in the Lake, etc.). The former president's "Star Wars" plan--for laser weapons and space-based missiles intended to make the U.S. invulnerable to nuclear attack--was pure science fiction, writes Fitzgerald, and she notes that no technological breakthrough has occurred that would make Clinton's modified SDI program remotely feasible. Yet the U.S. has spent $3 to $4 billion a year on "Star Wars" in almost every single year since Reagan left office (and, as Fitzgerald observes, there has been almost no public discussion on this issue for several years). Why? The answer, suggests Fitzgerald in this painstakingly detailed study, lies partly in the way "Star Wars" was sold to the American public. By her reckoning, Reagan adroitly filled the role of mythic American Everyman endowed with homespun virtues. Prodded by the Republican right, by military hardliners such as limited-nuclear-war advocate Edward Teller and by deputy national security adviser Robert McFarlane (who, ironically, intended SDI primarily as a bargaining chip with the Soviets), Reagan wholeheartedly embraced the Star Wars concept for ideological reasons; he persuaded the people of its necessity by tapping into America's "civil religion" rooted in 19th-century Protestant beliefs in American exceptionalism and a desire to make the U.S. an invulnerable sanctuary. Part Reagan biography, part political analysis of "his greatest rhetorical triumph," Fitzgerald's study offers a withering behind-the-scenes look at the Iran arms-for-hostage crisis, the Iran-Contra scandals, Reagan's sparring with Gorbachev, arms-control talks such as the Reykjavik summit (at which both leaders almost negotiated away all their nuclear arms but were stalled over SDI) and the grinding of the wheels of the military-industrial establishment. Her book is sure to trigger debate. Agent, Robert Lescher. Author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Like Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, President Reagan, who viewed himself as Salesman-in-Chief, believed that a leader has to dream. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was Reagan's dream of an impenetrable shield located in space that would destroy any nuclear missiles launched at the United States, observes Fitzgerald, 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. This massive, impressively researched investigation of the SDI, or "Star Wars," defense, incorporates a fascinating portrayal of a president buffeted by Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and his faction of conservatives, and Secretary of State George Shultz, the leader of the moderates. Reagan's evolving relationship with Soviet president Gorbachev is vividly told through accounts of the Geneva and Reykjavik summits: Reagan is credited with promoting Gorbachev's plan for changing the Soviet Union from the "evil empire" to a modern capitalistic state. Caution: the lengthy, complicated discussions on SDI technology and missile diplomacy are not for the casual reader. Highly recommended for academic and specialized collections on foreign policy and strongly recommended for larger public libraries.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

The Christian Science Monitor - Walker

This well-written book packs a lot into its 500 pages. It has far more laugh-out-loud anecdotes than a reader has any right to expect from a tome as full of arms-control jargon as this one necessarily is. It even has chortlesome footnotes.

The New York Times Book Review - Alan Brinkley

What is perhaps most striking is how clearly, eloquently and engagingly FitzGerald manages to describe a set of obscure and complicated events . . . One of the best inner histories of the Reagan administration yet to appear.

The Boston Book Review - Scott Stossel

...by far the most comprehensive and readable treatment of the Readan Administration's approach to the Soviet Union yet written...

Book review: A Modern Horse Herbal or Love Your Looks

Downsize This!: Random Threats from an Unarmed American

Author: Michael Moor

Americans today are working harder, working longer and yet for most of us, in this time of ruthless downsizing and political cronyism, job security, a decent standard of living and a comfortable retirement are becoming harder and harder to find. In this brilliantly funny and right-on-target diatribe, irreverent everyman Michael Moore gives his own bold views on who's behind the fading of the American dream.

Whether issuing Corporate Crook trading cards, organizing a Rodney King Commemorative Riot, sending a donation to Pat Buchanan from the John Wayne Gacy fan club (which was accepted) or trying to commit former right-wing congressman Bob Dornan to a mental hospital, the in-your-face host of TV Nation and director/star of Roger & Me combines an expansive wit with biting social commentary to make you think and laugh at the same time.

In hardcover, Downsize This! stormed the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and others. Given Michael Moore's enormous -- and growing -- constituency, this trade paperback edition brings his unique perspective on the nation to an even greater audience.

Publishers Weekly

Moore, whose documentary film Roger & Me and television series TV Nation have a strong cult following, takes on corporations, politicians and Americana in general in a mordant satire that will leave both conservatives and liberals reeling with embarrassment. Moore tears into corporations and labor unions alike. Citing "economic terrorism," he goes after the "Big Welfare Mamas"the CEOsdetailing their cozy tax deals with federal and local government, which have added to the deficit. He attacks the unions in "Why Are Union Leaders So F#!@ing Stupid," citing how they have collaborated with corporations (while taking huge salaries) to slash jobs from their own memberships. No one is immune; Moore scrutinizes the President, Bob Dole, NAFTA, Cuban refugees and Pat Buchanan. A scathing, funny book packed with facts, it will appeal to those who loved Al Franken's Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. Photos. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.)

Library Journal

The man who brought you Roger & Me takes on the fat cats again.

Kirkus Reviews

The man behind the popular documentary Roger and Me and the short-lived series TV Nation takes a stab at authorship—and at every conservative sacred cow available.

Moore brings a uniformly predictable lefty perspective to a series of topics, including corporate downsizing of workforces, Bill Clinton's weakness in opposing the right wing, Congress's craven subjugation to special interests, NAFTA, white racism, anti-feminist hysteria, homophobia, and the demonization of welfare recipients. As in his film and video work, Moore is at his best when he leads the fuzzy-minded to the logical conclusions of their thought processes, for example, getting an anti-abortion activist to agree that male masturbation is a serious moral issue because life actually begins with the individual sperm. There is a good deal of useful political information spread through the book, including the names and deeds of a number of corporate executives and lobbyists whose power is seldom treated as critically as it should be by journalists. The humor is hit-and-miss, though, and readers who don't seethe along with Moore in his populist rage are likely to find the book as a whole tiresome. There's also a considerable amount of the nastiness that liberals decry among today's conservative polemicists, the low point being a suggestion to Bob Dole that he replace the pen with which he keeps his disabled right hand from closing in on itself with something more appropriate, such as a coathanger to symbolize his views on abortion.

Moore might consider, as he passes judgment on the hypocrisy of our time, that a writer who can muse on his frequent exasperation with limousine drivers should refer to the working class as something other than "we."

Table of Contents:

	The Etiquette of Downsizing	2
Ch. 1	Let's All Hop in a Ryder Truck	5
Ch. 2	Would Pat Buchanan Take a Check from Satan?	18
Ch. 3	"Don't Vote - It Only Encourages Them"	22
Ch. 4	Democrat? Republican? Can You Tell the Difference?	26
Ch. 5	Not on the Mayflower? Then Leave!	33
Ch. 6	Big Welfare Mamas	43
Ch. 7	Let's Dump on Orange County	56
Ch. 8	How to Conduct the Rodney King Commemorative Riot	62
Ch. 9	Pagan Babies	68
Ch. 10	Germany Still Hasn't Paid for Its Sins - and I Intend to Collect	76
Ch. 11	So You Want to Kill the President!	83
Ch. 12	Show Trials I'd Like to See	94
Ch. 13	If Clinton Had Balls ...	97
Ch. 14	Steve Forbes Was an Alien	104
Ch. 15	Corporate Crooks Trading Cards	108
Ch. 16	Why Are Union Leaders So F#!@ing Stupid?	127
Ch. 17	Balance the Budget? Balance My Checkbook!	136
Ch. 18	Mike's Penal Systems, Inc.	140
Ch. 19	Mandate? What Mandate?	147
Ch. 20	My Forbidden Love for Hillary	153
Ch. 21	A Sperm's Right to Life	161
Ch. 22	Let's Pick a New Enemy!	168
Ch. 23	Those Keystone Cubans	175
Ch. 24	What America Needs Is a Makeover	183
Ch. 25	O. J. Is Innocent	189
Ch. 26	The "Liddy Problem"	208
Ch. 27	I Try to Commit Bob Dornan	211
Ch. 28	Skip the Candidates - Vote for the Lobbyists!	221
Ch. 29	Harassing Gays for Extra Credit	229
Ch. 30	Take That Pen Out of Bob Dole's Hand	233
Ch. 31	Free Us, Nelson Mandela!	240
Ch. 32	NAFTA's Great! Let's Move Washington to Tijuana!	246
Ch. 33	Why Doesn't GM Sell Crack?	253
Ch. 34	I Want My Tax Break or I'm Leaving	258
Ch. 35	Mike's Militia	262
	Everyone Fired ... Wall Street Reacts Favorably	272
	Acknowledgments	274

Patrolling Baghdad or Andrew Jackson

Patrolling Baghdad: A Military Police Company and the War in Iraq

Author: Mark R Depu

For the 160 national guardsmen from America's heartland, Baghdad was more than just a long way from home. It also confronted the 233rd Military Police Company with America's most difficult challenge in Iraq: establishing security in a nation rife with religious, tribal, and sectarian conflict and violence. The first MP company assigned to patrol the heart of Baghdad, the 233rd (from Springfield, Illinois) was a key part of the American occupation forces from April 2003 to April 2004. Charged with helping rebuild the city's police force—not just reopening stations but training a new force to replace its corrupt and hated predecessors—these men and women waged a "military police war" while witnessing all of the larger conflict's central themes, from the shortcoming of prewar planning to ongoing security problems, from media coverage to humanitarian efforts. DePue recounts the 233rd's actions in the streets and alleyways of Baghdad and the inevitable clash of cultures, along with lootings, shootings, roadside and police station bombings, and the inevitable bureaucratic bumbling. Here are the horrors of firefights and summary executions and the drama of the UN bombing. Here too is the untold side of the war, as these volunteers on their own initiative reopened Baghdad schools and took under their wing a Catholic orphanage for handicapped children located in the heart of the city. Based on extensive interviews with the unit's members and others associated with their mission, DePue's eye-opening account also covers what it was like for the 26 women of the unit, how a romance blossomed between two MPs, and how support groups back home—with the help of theInternet—helped families cope with worry over loved ones.

Interesting book: Edible Ideologies or Gardeners Table

Andrew Jackson: Young Patriot (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)

Author: George E Stanley

Dear Reader:

The Childhood of Famous Americans series, seventy years old in 2002, chronicles the early years of famous American men and women in an accessible manner. Each book is faithful in spirit to the values and experiences that influenced the person's development. History is fleshed out with fictionalized details, and conversations have been added to make the stories come alive to today's reader, but every reasonable effort has been made to make the stories consistent with the events, ethics, and character of their subjects.

These books reaffirm the importance of our American heritage. We hope you learn to love the heroes and heroines who helped shape this great country. And by doing so, we hope you also develop a lasting love for the nation that gave them the opportunity to make their dreams come true. It will do the same for you.

Happy Reading!
The Editors

Marya Jansen-Gruber - Children's Literature

Andrew Jackson was the kind of boy who knew just he wanted to do. He knew that he did not want to have to continue going to the little local school, for one thing. After all, he knew more than the teacher did didn't he? What Andrew, or Andy, as he was called by those who knew him, wanted to do was to help his uncle drive the cattle to Charles Town. Later he wanted to help his fellow Patriots fight against the British. Andy felt very strongly that the British had no right telling his people, the Americans, how they should live their lives. Andy's widowed mother, however, was not in favor of him going off to war, and Andy did his best to do as his mother asked. But, there came a time when Andy had to defend his home and family. Still quite young, Andy found himself fighting against redcoat soldiers. The story of Andrew Jackson's youthful adventures is wonderfully told in this excellent addition to the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series. The author manages to capture Jackson's innocence at the beginning of the book, which, as the war takes its toll on the young boy, is lost by its close. We are able to understand the forces that shaped the boy and thus, what it was that made Andrew Jackson the kind of man he was. 2003, Aladdin Paperbacks,

English Civil War or Zionism Militarism and the Decline of US Power

English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers, and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain

Author: Diane Purkiss

In this compelling history of the violent struggle between the monarchy and Parliament that tore apart seventeenth-century England, a rising star among British historians sheds new light on the people who fought and died through those tumultuous years. Drawing on exciting new sources, including letters, memoirs, ballads, plays, illustrations, and even cookbooks, Diane Purkiss creates a rich and nuanced portrait of this turbulent era. The English Civil War's dramatic consequences-rejecting the divine right monarchy in favor of parliamentary rule-continue to influence our lives, and in this colorful narrative, Purkiss vividly brings to life the history that changed the course of Western government.

Publishers Weekly

There are many ways to approach the history of the 17th-century upheaval that beheaded a king and laid the foundations for democratic revolutions to come, and this absorbing, ungainly study tries them all. Oxford historian Purkiss (The Witch in History) draws a gallery of sharp biographical sketches of participants from Cromwell to ordinary soldiers, paying special attention to the oft-neglected doings of women, like aristocratic intriguer Lucy Hay and radical dissenter Anna Trapnel. She also slathers on plenty of social history, digressing on everything from contemporary housing to cookbooks. And she interweaves an avowedly disjointed, episodic kings-and-battles narrative of military campaigns and political maneuverings, replete with dramatic eyewitness accounts. Fixated on trees rather than the forest, Purkiss offers no clear overview of events or much coherent interpretation of the conflict, aside from some facile psychoanalysis ("Charles I's longing to make the monarchy independent of any hurtful criticism proceeded from the bullied child he was"). The book doesn't work as a general introduction, but readers who already know some of the history will find it full of colorful personalities and scenes and evocative period writings that bring to life the people, culture and violent turmoil of the age. Photos. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

New interesting textbook: One Nation Underground or American Made

Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power

Author: James Petras

From 9/11 to the present, the pro-Israel power configuration in the United States has broadened its definition of 'the areas of interest to Israel', and thus the issues on which it will intervene. During the 1940s to 1950s, the main focus of the Lobby was to secure US diplomatic support for Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Lobby's areas of interest to Israel extended to Israel's wars with Egypt and Syria in the 1960s and 1970s; to Lebanon and Iraq during the 1980s and 1990s; and to Iraq and Iran during the current decade. By defining the limits of action that the US President and Congress can take on issues relating to Israel, the Zionist Power Configuration now influences US policies toward the entire Middle East.

While it has been widely argued that the true reason for the US war on Iraq concerned oil, the influence of AIPAC and neoconservatives in the Bush administration acting on behalf of Israeli interests in the region has been largely ignored. Now, however, only pressure from the Lobby and the threat of pre-emptive attack by Israel can explain the current US aggressive posture (financial and economic sanctions, naval blockades) against Iran-all contrary to the interests of Big Oil, corporate America, and the weakened and overstretched US military.

In Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, Petras empirically demonstrates how the rigid structural parameters of Israeli politics are transmitted via the Zionist Power Configuration in the United States into the basic contradictory reality of US-Israeli relations-a tiny, isolated, militarized, settler-controlled state blocking economic transactions of a globalized imperial economy by forcing it intodisastrous military adventures and economic decline, with calamitous results for the world at large.

About the Author:
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York

Table of Contents:

Zionism and Us Militarism
How Zionist Power in the US Promotes US Wars in the Middle East     15
The True Cause of the War on Iraq: From Pretexts to Cover-ups     15
The War for Oil Argument     16
The National Security Argument     19
From Iraq War Cover-up to Iran War Propaganda     20
Israel, the ZPC and the Run-up to the Invasion of Iraq     22
War with Iran: The Highest Priority for the ZPC (and Israel)     25
Zionist Power in the United States     27
'Jewish Vote', 'Israel Lobby' or 'Zionist Power Configuration'?     29
War for Oil or for Israel: What the Public Record Reveals     31
Zionist Warmongering: Fear and Venom     34
From a Scratch to Gangrene: The Transition from Zionism to Zion-Fascism     35
Deflecting Peace Initiatives     37
The ZPC and Armenian Holocaust Denial: At the Service of Israel     39
Anti-Iraq War Democratic Presidential Candidates Pro-War on Iran     40
The Impact of Zionist Authoritarianism on American Democracy     42
War on Iran: The American Military versus the Israel Firsters     55
Introduction     55
Recent History of the Civilian Militarists versus Anti-War Movements     56
American Military Fights the ZPC over Middle EastWars     56
Israel-Firsters Win Round One     57
Round Two: American Military Resists War on Iran     58
Making the IAEA Report Safe for American Public Consumption     63
Fundamental Issues in Dispute by the US Military and Israel-Firsters     64
Military/Zion-Con: Punch and Counterpunch     68
Conclusion     69
Burying the National Intelligence Estimate     73
Introduction     73
Israel Rejects "the Intelligence Report from the Other Side of the Earth"     77
The "International Community" Climbs on Board     78
The Drumbeat Goes On     80
Provocations as Pretexts for Imperial War: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11     85
Provocation as Pretext for the US War Against Japan     86
Provocation as Pretext for the US War Against Korea     87
The US Indochina War: Johnson's Tonkin Pretext     89
Provocation as Pretext: 9/11 and the Afghan/Iraq Invasions     91
The Politics of Military Provocations     94
Military-Driven Empire Building: The Zionist Connection     96
The Terror Bombing: White House and Zionist Complicity     98
Provocations and Pretexts: The Israeli/US War Against Iran     99
Zion-Con Zelikow, the 2002 National Security Strategy and 9/11     102
Embracing the Israeli Modus Operandi of Endless War
The Palestinian Sewage Disaster: The Political Ecology of US/Israeli Responsibility in Microcosm     107
General Petraeus: From Surge to Purge to Dirge     111
Introduction     111
Petraeus' Phony Success in Northern Iraq     112
An Armchair Strategist     113
Madness in His Method: The Petraeus Manual     114
Petraeus' Double Discourse     118
Petraeus' Political Ambitions     119
Petraeus Panders to Israel's Fifth Column: "The Iran Threat"     120
Conclusion     121
Militarism and the Decline of Us Power
Military-Driven over Market-Driven Empire Building: 1950-2008     125
Introduction     125
Immediate Post-WWII: The Combination of Market and Military Roads to Empire     126
Divergence in the World Economy: US-Europe-Japan     127
Market Versus Military Empire Building in the 1990s     128
Historic Comparison of Market- and Military-Driven Imperialism     131
From the Gulf, to the Gulf and Back to the Gulf: 1990-2008 (and beyond)     132
Military-Driven Empire Building and Zionism     132
Imperial Wars, Social Revolutions and Capitalist Restorations      134
Was 'Socialism a Detour to Capitalism'?     135
Were 'Imperial Wars Necessary for Capitalist Expansion'?     136
Military-Driven Imperialism Today and the Newly Emerging Imperial Powers     138
Market-Driven Versus Militarist Alliances     138
Conclusion     141
US Militarism and the Expanding Israeli Agenda     145
Introduction     125
New Directions for US Policy: A Moderate Arab Agenda?     146
'New Facts' and the New Middle East Realities     147
The Iraq War: A Success for Israel     1149
Democrats Capitulate to the Pro-Israel Lobby on Bush War Powers     151
Israel-AIPAC-US Middle East Wars     152
Democratic House Majority Leader Serves as Israel's Messenger     154
Buying Israeli Permission for Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia     155
Democratic Party Presidential Candidates Truckle to the Lobby     156
The Lobby Versus Federal Prosecutors: The AIPAC Spy Trial     157
AIPAC Trial Inadvertently "Outs" Israel's Strategic Informant in the White House     158
Israel Pushes Islamo-Fascism Rhetoric     159
Re-arming Clients: The Washington/ZPC War Machine Rolls On     159
In Lebanon     160
In the Occupied Territories      160
In Iraq     161
In Somalia     162
Judeo-Centrism: From Ghetto Defense to Imperial Ambitions     163
Challenging the Lobby
American Jews on War and Peace: What the Polls Do and Don't Tell Us     169
Introduction     169
The Poll: A Re-Analysis     170
The Failure of Jewish Anti-Zionist Resistance     171
Israeli Anti-Arab/Muslim Racism     172
The Role of American Jews in the Peace Movement     173
Why Condemning Israel and the Zionist Lobby Is So Important     175
Introduction     175
ZPC Deniers: Phony Arguments for Fake Claims     175
The Careful Crafting of Critiques of Israel /the ZPC     177
The ZPC Lobbies For War     178
"Democratic" Israel Diminishes Democracy in the United States     179
Israeli Interests Trump US Interests     180
Social Opposition and Political Impotence     182
What Happened to the Peace Movement?     183
No Naming and Shaming for the Israel War Lobby     184
Why Confronting the Lobby Matters     185
Index     188

Community Service Learning or Shared Histories

Community Service-Learning: A Guide to Including Service in the Public School Curriculum

Author: Rahima Carol Wad

Service-learning, the integration of community service with academic course work, is a promising strategy for enhancing learning and developing active democratic citizens. This book responds to the many recent calls for youth involvement in service as part of the public school curriculum. While service- learning holds many benefits for students, teachers, and communities, there are also many challenges to effectively incorporatie it into the curriculum.

Each of the book's four parts provides a different scope and purpose. Part 1 addresses the components of quality service-learning programs; Part 2 introduces diverse models of service-learning programs at the elementary, middle, and high school levels; Part 3 allows students, agency members, and administrators to tell their own stories of service-learning involvement, to discuss issues with other individuals who share their roles, and to offer recommendations for effective action; and Part 4 asks readers to consider the future of service-learning in public schooling.

Community Service-Learning is a comprehensive resource that will be valuable for all those involved with K-12 service-learning programs: administrators, classroom teachers, students, program coordinators, and university teacher education programs.

Interesting textbook: Hamilton Adams Jefferson or To Perpetual Peace

Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue

Author: Paul Scham

There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli historical narrative speaks of Zionism as the Jewish national movement, of building a refuge from persecution, and of national regeneration. The Palestinian narrative speaks of invasion, expulsion, and oppression. Its no wonder peace remains elusive. This volume attempts to present both histories with parallel narratives of key points in the 19th and 20th centuries to 1948. The histories are presented by fourteen Israeli and Palestinian experts, joined by other historians, journalists, and activists, who then discuss the differences and similarities between their accounts. By creating an appreciation, understanding, and respect for the "other," the first steps can be made to foster a shared history of a shared land. The reader has the opportunity to witness first hand a respectful confrontation between the competing versions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Table of Contents:

1	Napoleon to Allenby : processes of change in Palestine, 1800-1918	13
	Continuity and change in Palestine : the late-Ottoman period, 1856-1918	23
	Discussion 1	30
2	The beginnings of Jewish settlement and Zionism, to World War I	62
	The prehistory of Palestinian nationalism	68
	Discussion 2	75
3	The Palestinian national movement, 1919-1939	92
	Zionist diplomacy, 1914-1939	101
	Discussion 3	109
4	The Holocaust, the establishment of Israel, and the shaping of Israeli society	135
	The Holocaust in the Palestinian perspective	148
	Discussion 4	154
5	The UN resolution of 1948 : why wasn't it implemented?	177
	The paradox of the UN 1947 partition plan	182
	Discussion 5	188
6	Israeli historiography of the 1948 War	205
	The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem in 1947-48	220
	Discussion	228
7	Holiness and conflict in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict	251
	Jerusalem refugees and property claims since the 1948 War	257
	Discussion	262

The Presidency of James Monroe or Manifest Destinys Underworld

The Presidency of James Monroe

Author: Noble E Cunningham

"Noble Cunningham's command of the material, his rich insights, and the vigorous flow of the narrative combine to make this the best work on Monroe ever written. Monroe's stature as statesman will certainly benefit from Cunningham's interpretation."—Robert Allen Rutland, author of The Presidency of James Madison

"This is a superb book by our most seasoned and judicious historian of the political life of the early Republic. It is well-informed, lucid, concise, and full of insights, surely the final word for our time on the last presidency of the Virginia dynasty."—Ralph Ketcham, author of Framed for Posterity: The Enduring Philosophy of the Constitution

Author Biography: Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., is the Curators' Professor of History at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His other books include In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, which was a Main Selection of the History Book Club and also offered by the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Times Literary Supplement

A splendid account. Few historians have succeeded so well in grasping the relationship between the constitutional structures of the United States and the ebb and flow of day-to-day politics.

Library Journal

Cunningham (In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, LJ 5/1/87) contributes another welcome reference in this latest volume in the University Press of Kansas's presidential series. Monroe was the last U.S. president to fight in the Revolution and the last of the Virginia presidential dynasty. Cunningham's portrait of Monroe emerges against a backdrop of the national drama that unfolded as power shifted. The author covers the major domestic and foreign policy issues of the two-term (1816-24) president: the First Seminole War, the Missouri Compromise, and the Monroe Doctrine. The treatment of the cabinet and the Congress especially will be welcomed by presidential scholars. The author portrays Monroe as a cautious politician without the education and intellect of Jefferson and Madison, but he views both terms as successful. This is a realistic picture of a slave-owning president who disliked political parties and who struggled with burdens imposed by demands of the presidency, personal financial stress, and an ill wife. Scholars and presidential buffs alike will find this a useful volume.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport

Booknews

A richly detailed biography of the president whose Monroe Doctrine continues to guide American policy to the present day. Cunningham (history, U. of Missouri) uses primary sources to portray Monroe, the last Revolutionary War hero to become president, as a cautious man whose policies helped to avoid disasters during the crises of his presidential term, including revolutions in Latin America, the Spanish possession of Florida, the 1819 depression, and Missouri's slavery controversies. The biography also highlights the inner workings of Monroe's cabinet, his relations with Congress, and the influences that future presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson exerted on Monroe's administration. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Table of Contents:

	List of Illustrations
	Foreword
	Preface
1	The Road to the Presidency	1
2	The Election of a President	15
3	First Months in Office	27
4	The New President and a New Congress	41
5	Andrew Jackson and the First Seminole War	55
6	Widening Horizons and Deepening Problems	71
7	The Missouri Compromise	87
8	Transition to a Second Term	105
9	Monroe as Chief Executive	115
10	Life in Monroe's Washington	133
11	The Monroe Doctrine	149
12	Domestic Concerns	165
13	Closing a Presidency	175
14	The End of an Era	185
	Notes	193
	Bibliographical Essay	231
	Index	237

New interesting book: Boomburbs or Your Money or Your Life

Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America

Author: Robert E May

In the first full history of 19th-century American filibusters, illegal invasions of foreign countries with whom the US was formally at peace, May explores what drew thousands of men to join these mercenary expeditions and considers the relationship between filibustering and broader issues of American imperialism.

James M. McPherson

The fullest, most detailed, most thoroughly researched book ever written on the antebellum filibuster movement. This book will become an essential reference work on its subject.