Politics & Buddhism Books

Outsourcing Security or The Case of Abraham Lincoln

2009-12-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

Outsourcing Security: A Guide for Contracting Services

Author: John Stees

Outsourcing Security provides a complete management guide for contracting support services, particularly those associated with protective organizations. It helps security and facility managers through the quagmire of conceptual planning, proposal evaluation and contract negotiation, and helps them to realize cost savings, improve productivity, and elevate the quality level of the contracted service.

Outsourcing Security provides a complete management guide for contracting support services, particularly those associated with protective organizations. It helps security and facility managers through the quagmire of conceptual planning, proposal evaluation and contract negotiation, and helps them to realize cost savings, improve productivity, and elevate the quality level of the contracted service. This book:
-Defines successful methods to improve business efficiency and effectiveness through outsourcing,
-Helps managers achieve cost savings and enhance quality contract performance
-Emphasizes team concepts when evaluating outsourcing services

Defines successful methods to improve business efficiency and effectiveness through outsourcing,
Helps managers achieve cost savings and enhance quality contract performance
Emphasizes team concepts when evaluating outsourcing services

Booknews

Guides security and facility managers through the quagmire of conceptual planning, proposal evaluation, and contract negotiations. Highlights ways to save money, improve productivity, elevate the quality level of the contracted service, and reduce the risk of hiring a fox to guard the hen house. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President

Author: Julie M Fenster

In 1856, Abraham Lincoln was at a personal crossroads. Often despondent, he had grown bored with his work as a lawyer. He was beginning to see himself as just a former Congressman, without much of a future in politics. Later that year, the gruesome murder of a Springfield blacksmith provided the case that defined Lincoln's legal career. The string of lurid revelations that followed the crime became front page news across the country, putting Lincoln back in the national spotlight. The Anderson case reflected the spirit of the times: an inescapable, dark world, hidden within the optimism and innocence of the young city of Springfield. With the Anderson murder, Lincoln's legal skills as a defender were challenged as never before and he was finally able to prove himself as a man with a great destiny.

Acknowledgments
Maps of Illinois and Springfield
Foreword - Lincoln in His Element
by Dr. Douglas Brinkley
Chapter 1 - March, 1856
Like a Cathedral
Chapter 2 - April
At the Anvil
Chapter 3 - The Beginning of May
Stranger in the Yard
Chapter 4 - Early May
Something About Strychnine
Chapter 5 - May 15
The Old Man Went Out
Chapter 6 - Mid-May
Excitement in the City
Chapter 7 - Late May
An Old Battered Stovepipe Hat
Chapter 8 - May 29
Major's Hall
Chapter 9 - June
Summer Days
Chapter 10 - July and August
The March of the What-y'a-call-ems
Chapter 11 - September
Boarding Men
Chapter 12 - October and November
A Motive Equal to Murder
Chapter 13 - November and Early December, 1856
The Best Hope of the Nation
Afterword
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Voting the Gender Gap or The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement

2009-12-04T02:41:00.000-08:00

Voting the Gender Gap

Author: Lois Duke Whitaker

This book concentrates on the gender gap in voting--the difference in the proportion of women and men voting for the same candidate. Evident in every presidential election since 1980, this polling phenomenon reached a high of 11 percentage points in the 1996 election. The contributors discuss the history, complexity, and ways of analyzing the gender gap; the gender gap in relation to partisanship; motherhood, ethnicity, and the impact of parental status on the gender gap; and the gender gap in races involving female candidates. Voting the Gender Gap analyzes trends in voting while probing how women's political empowerment and gender affect American politics and the electoral process.

Contributors are Susan J. Carroll, Erin Cassese, Cal Clark, Janet M. Clark, M. Margaret Conway, Kathleen A. Dolan, Laurel Elder, Kathleen A. Frankovic, Steven Greene, Leonie Huddy, Mary-Kate Lizotte, Barbara Norrander, Margie Omero, and Lois Duke Whitaker.

Interesting book: Tear up This Book or Can You See What I See The Night Before Christmas

The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement

Author: Jeffrey R Brown

Dramatic advances in life expectancy mean that today's retirees must plan on living into their eighties, their nineties, and even beyond. Longer life expectancies are the symbol of a prosperous society, but this progress also means that some retirees will need to plan conservatively and cut back substantially on their living standards or risk living so long that they exhaust their resources. This book examines the role that life annuities can play in helping people protect themselves against such outcomes.

A life annuity is an insurance product that pays out a periodic amount for as long as the annuitant is alive, in exchange for a premium. The book begins with a history of life annuity markets during the twentieth century in the United States and elsewhere. It then explores recent trends in annuity pricing and money's worth, as well as the economic value generated for purchasers of these products. The book explains the potential importance of inflation-protected annuities and stock-market-linked variable annuities in providing more complete retirement security. The concluding chapters examine life annuities in various institutional settings and the tax treatment of annuity products.

1	Introduction and Overview	1
2	A Brief History of Annuity Markets	23
3	Private Annuity Markets in the United States: 1919-1984	57
4	New Evidence on the Money's Worth of Individual Annuities	71
5	The Role of Real Annuities and Indexed Bonds in an Individual Accounts Retirement Program	107
6	The Costs of Annuitizing Retirement Payouts from Individual Accounts	153
7	Taxing Retirement Income: Nonqualified Annuities and Distributions from Qualified Accounts	185
	Index	227

Founding Brothers or Imperial Leather

2009-12-02T21:29:00.000-08:00

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Author: Joseph J Ellis

An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.

During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive decade in our nation's history, the greatest statesmen of their generation--and perhaps any--came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries. Ellis focuses on six discrete moments that exemplify the most crucial issues facing the fragile new nation: Burr and Hamilton's deadly duel, and what may have really happened; Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's secret dinner, during which the seat of the permanent capital was determined in exchange for passage of Hamilton's financial plan; Franklin's petition to end the "peculiar institution" of slavery--his last public act--and Madison's efforts to quash it; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, announcing his retirement from public office and offering his country some final advice; Adams's difficult term as Washington's successor and his alleged scheme to pass the presidency on to his son; and finally, Adams and Jefferson's renewed correspondence at the end of their lives, in which they compared their different views of the Revolution and its legacy.

In a lively and engaging narrative, Ellis recounts the sometimes collaborative, sometimes archly antagonistic interactions between these men, and shows us the private characters behind the public personas: Adams, the ever-combative iconoclast, whose closest political collaborator was his wife, Abigail; Burr, crafty, smooth, and one of the most despisedpublic figures of his time; Hamilton, whose audacious manner and deep economic savvy masked his humble origins; Jefferson, renowned for his eloquence, but so reclusive and taciturn that he rarely spoke more than a few sentences in public; Madison, small, sickly, and paralyzingly shy, yet one of the most effective debaters of his generation; and the stiffly formal Washington, the ultimate realist, larger-than-life, and America's only truly indispensable figure.

Ellis argues that the checks and balances that permitted the infant American republic to endure were not primarily legal, constitutional, or institutional, but intensely personal, rooted in the dynamic interaction of leaders with quite different visions and values. Revisiting the old-fashioned idea that character matters, Founding Brothers informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.

Library Journal

Ellis holds the Ford Foundation Chair in American History at Mount Holyoke College and is the author of American Sphinx, a National Book Award-winning study of Thomas Jefferson. His new book contains six chapters on unconnected events in the formation of the American republic, featuring Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and George Washington as principal characters. Ellis is deeply steeped in the literature, and his style is crisp and full of subtle ironies. He brings fresh insights into such well-worn topics as the Hamilton-Burr duel and Jefferson's feelings about slavery. If there is a central theme that runs through the chapters, it concerns the fragility of the early years of the republic. Ellis calls the 1790s one long shouting match between those, like Hamilton, who championed the power of the central government and those, like Jefferson, who defended the rights of states and individuals. The question of slavery was so explosive that most Founding Fathers avoided discussing it at all. Ellis clearly admires the irascible John Adams. Perhaps surprisingly from the author of American Sphinx, however, the Founding Father who comes off least well here is Jefferson himself. Highly recommended for all academic and large public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/00.]--T.J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

New York Times Book Review - Michiko Kakutan

... as the historian Joseph J. Ellis points out in his compelling new book, the achievement of the American Revolution was considerably more improbable at the time....a lively and illuminating, if somewhat arbitrary book that leaves the reader with a visceral sense of a formative era in American life.

New York Times Book Review - Benson Bobrick

A splendid book -- humane, learned, written with flair and radiant with a calm intelligence and wit. Even those familiar with 'the Revolutionary generation' will [find much] to captivate and enlarge their understanding of our nation's fledgling years.

Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest

Author: Anne McClintock

Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.

Anne McClintock explores the sexualizing of the terra incognita, the imperial myth of the empty lands, the dirt fetish and the "civilizing mission", sexuality and labor, advertising and commodity racism, the Victorian invention of the idle woman, feminism and racial difference, and anti-apartheid culture in the current transformation of national power.

Using feminist, post-colonial, psychoanalytic and socialist theories, Imperial Leather argues that the categories of gender, race and class do not exist in isolation, but emerge in intimate relation to one another. Drawing on diverse cultural forms--novels, advertising, diaries, poetry oral history, and mass commodity spectacle--the book examines imperialism not only as a poetics of ambivalence, but as a politics of violence. Rejecting traditional binaries of self/other, man/woman, colonizer/colonized, Anne McClintock calls instead for a more informed and complex understanding of catgories of social power and identity.

Library Journal

McClintock (English, Columbia Univ.) interprets 19th-century British imperialism as the focal point for that era's major "disclosures," including feminism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. She describes Victorian urban spaceincluding advertisingas being oriented to exhibit imperial spectacle based on racism and sexism. In turn, the colonies become stages for exhibiting a reinvented patriarchy, with Westerners symbolizing power and indigenous peoples a subdued domesticity. The text is an exercise in demonstrating preconceptions. While some of McClintock's evidence is original, the argument as a whole is conventional bien-pensant wisdom unlikely to convince anyone not already committed to the thesis. The presentation is further burdened by its reliance on the clichs and jargon of feminism, deconstructionism, and other currently fashionable academic ideologies. Imperialism was at once a simpler and a more complex phenomenon than McClintock's perspective allows. For large academic collections only.D.E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs

Truth Imagined or Sea Ranch

2009-12-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

Truth Imagined

Author: Eric Hoffer

Blind as a child, Eric Hoffer--one of America's most important thinkers--regained his sight at the age of fifteen and became a voracious reader. At eighteen, fate would take his remaining family, sending him on the road with three hundred dollars and into the life of a Depression Era migrant worker, but his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--remained and became the basis for his insights on human nature. Filled with timeless aphorisms and entertaining stories, Truth Imagined tracks Hoffer's years on the road, which served as the breeding ground for his most fertile thoughts.

Book about: No Logo or 100 Years of Harley Davidson

Sea Ranch: Dwelling on the Edge

Author: Donlyn Lyndon

A hundred miles north of San Francisco on California Coast Highway 1, the Sonoma County coast meets the Pacific Ocean in a magnificent display of nature. Waves crash upon the rocks or wash up on beautiful stretches of sandy beaches. This is the location of The Sea Ranch, an area covering several thousand acres of large, open meadows and forested natural settings interspersed with award-winning architecture. When the area, a sheep ranch well into the last century, was rediscovered for its beauty in the 1960s, it came to be envisioned as a home community that harmonized with the environment.
Renowned landscape designer Lawrence Halprin's master plan for The Sea Ranch community accordingly incorporated a set of building guidelines that minimized the visual as well as physical impact upon the landscape. Subsequent buildings by architects such as Joseph Esherick, Charles Moore, William Turnbull, Obie Bowman, Donlyn Lyndon, and others have been recognized worldwide for environmentally sensitive planning and architecture. They sparked a generation of imitators that became part of what is known as "The Sea Ranch style," epitomizing what many people imagine when they think of Northern Californian architecture.
This beautiful monograph, lavishly illustrated with over 300 newly commissioned photographs and including maps, plans, detailed descriptions of the houses, and essays by Donald Canty and Lawrence Halprin, presents the definitive record of The Sea Ranch community.

Way out There in the Blue or Downsize This

2009-11-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

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."

	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

2009-11-29T05:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-28T00:30:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-11-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2009-11-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

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.

	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.

International Relations Theories or Breaking Rank

2009-02-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

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.

The FBI or Women in Power

2009-02-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Meltdown or Cuba Confidential

2009-02-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-02-18T03:28:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-02-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

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.

George Washington or Presidential Anecdotes

2009-02-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

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)

The Mighty Wurlitzer or Black Identities

2009-02-14T11:51:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2009-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

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

American Fascists or The Transformation of Governance

2009-02-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2009-02-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Whiskey Tango FoxTrot or Race Reform and Rebellion

2009-02-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

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

Our Common Future or First Along the River

2009-02-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-02-07T04:35:00.000-08:00

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)

Ex Mex or Big Daddy

2009-02-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

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.

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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

May 68 and Its Afterlives or Iran

2009-02-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

May '68 and Its Afterlives

Author: Kristin Ross

During May 1968, students and workers in France united in the biggest strike and the largest mass movement in French history. Protesting capitalism, American imperialism, and Gaullism, 9 million people from all walks of life, from shipbuilders to department store clerks, stopped working. The nation was paralyzed—no sector of the workplace was untouched. Yet, just thirty years later, the mainstream image of May '68 in France has become that of a mellow youth revolt, a cultural transformation stripped of its violence and profound sociopolitical implications.

Kristin Ross shows how the current official memory of May '68 came to serve a political agenda antithetical to the movement's aspirations. She examines the roles played by sociologists, repentant ex-student leaders, and the mainstream media in giving what was a political event a predominantly cultural and ethical meaning. Recovering the political language of May '68 through the tracts, pamphlets, and documentary film footage of the era, Ross reveals how the original movement, concerned above all with the question of equality, gained a new and counterfeit history, one that erased police violence and the deaths of participants, removed workers from the picture, and eliminated all traces of anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, and the influences of Algeria and Vietnam. May '68 and Its Afterlives is especially timely given the rise of a new mass political movement opposing global capitalism, from labor strikes and anti-McDonald's protests in France to the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

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Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution

Author: Michael M J Fischer

Unlike much of the instant analysis that appeared at the time of the Iranian revolution, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution is based upon extensive fieldwork carried out in Iran. Michael M. J. Fischer draws upon his rich experience with the mullahs and their students in the holy city of Qum, composing a picture of Iranian society from the inside—the lives of ordinary people, the way that each class interprets Islam, and the role of religion and religious education in the culture. Fischer’s book, with its new introduction updating arguments for the post-Revolutionary period, brings a dynamic view of a society undergoing metamorphosis, which remains fundamental to understanding Iranian society in the early twenty-first century.

1	Culture, History, and Politics	1
2	Rise and Decline of the Madrasa	12
3	Madrasa: Style and Substance	61
4	Qum: Arena of Conflict	104
5	Discourse and Mimesis: Shi'ism in Everyday Life	136
6	The Revolutionary Movement of 1977-1979	181
	Epilogue: Muharram 1400/1979	232
App. 1	Courses of Study	247
App. 2	Maraji'-i Taqlid since the Twelfth Imam	252
App. 3	Qum Statistical Profile	254
App. 4	Chronology of Religious and State Administrations	256
App. 5	Budget of the Shrine of Fatima, Hadrat-i Ma'suma, in Qum	258
App. 6	Karbala	260
	Notes	265
	Glossary	289
	Bibliography	293
	Index	305

The China Price or Nuer Journeys Nuer Lives

2009-02-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage

Author: Alexandra Harney

Alexandra Harney uncovers the truth about how China is able to offer such amazingly low prices to the rest of the world. She has discovered that intense pricing pressure from Western companies combined with ubiquitous corruption and a lack of transparency exacts an unseen and unconscionable toll in human misery and environmental damage.

Publishers Weekly

Dreaded by competitors, "the China price" has become "the lowest price possible," the hallmark of China's incredibly cheap, ubiquitous manufacturers. Financial Timeseditor Harney explores the hidden price tag for China's economic juggernaut. It's a familiar but engrossing tale of Dickensian industrialization. Chinese factory hands work endless hours for miserable wages in dusty, sweltering workshops, slowly succumbing to occupational ailments or suddenly losing a limb to a machine. Coal-fired power plants spew pollutants into nearly unbreathable air. Migrants from the countryside, harassed by China's hukousystem of internal passports, form a readily exploitable labor pool with few legal protections. The system is fueled by Western investment and, Harney observes, hypocrisy. Retailers like Wal-Mart impose social responsibility codes on their Chinese suppliers, but refuse to pay the costs of raising labor standards; the result is a pervasive system of cheating through fake employment records and secret uninspected factories, to which Western companies turn a blind eye. But Harney also finds stirrings of change; aided by regional labor shortages, rising wages and intrepid activists. Chinese workers are demanding-and gradually winning-more rights. Packed with facts, figures and sympathetic portraits of Chinese workers and managers, Harney's is a perceptive take on the world's workshop. (Mar. 31)

Morgen Witzel - The Financial Times Limited

Anyone running a company that outsources manufacturing to China, or is thinking of doing so, needs to read this book.

Kirkus Reviews

Financial Times reporter Harney paints a vivid portrait of factory life in the country that sells consumer goods for the lowest price possible. With a manufacturing workforce of 104 million people, China dominates global production of consumer goods, selling everything from clothing to computer parts at half or even one-fifth the amount that it would cost to make them in the United States. The author, who lives in Hong Kong, focuses on the consequences of China's ceaseless pursuit of economic growth, from unethical business practices to pollution to an epidemic of occupational diseases. Drawing on interviews, she takes us into factories and their dormitories to show youths who have flocked from the countryside to take dangerous manufacturing jobs. We meet 17-year-old Li Gang, who worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week to earn $39 monthly as a zagong ("dogsbody"), the lowest-ranking employee in a plastic-bag factory; and Li Luyuan, 20, who sleeps in cramped quarters with a dozen other girls, trying to save enough money from her job producing DVDs and sweaters to buy a new home for her parents. These migrants are taking legal action to win better working conditions, posing a challenge to efforts to maintain the China price. Harney brings us into model factories, where rules on working hours and product safety are followed, and into the "shadow" factories (often operated under contract to the same owners) where anything goes in the drive to produce cheaper products. Despite efforts by companies buying consumer goods from China to enforce a code of conduct, most suppliers falsify time cards, hide the use of unapproved materials and otherwise engage in dishonest practices. Western importersknow it and often look the other way. In the face of growing labor unrest and pollution, Chinese officials hope to move the economy away from reliance on exports by fostering domestic consumption. Essential reading for anyone concerned about how dangerous pet food and children's clothing manufactured in China make it into American stores.

What People Are Saying

Clyde Prestowitz
"With unusual insight and reportorial perseverance Alexandra Harney presents the inconvenient truths about China and globalization that flat worlders have overlooked. This book is very important and is a must read for those who want to understand how today's world really works."--(Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy Institute and the author of Three Billion New Capitalists)

Introduction: The Better Mousetrap     1
Hooked     18
The Five-Star Factory     33
The Physical Cost     56
The Gold Rush     88
The Stirring Masses     106
The Girls of Room 817     148
Accounts and Accountability     181
The New Model Factory     235
The Future of the China Price     272
Acknowledgments     291
Notes     295
Bibliography     313
Index     321

Go to: Economía de Trabajo

Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives: Sudanese Refugees in Minnesota

Author: Nancy Foner

This book examines contemporary migration to the United States through a surprising and compelling case study – the Nuer of Sudan, whose traditional life represents one of the most important case studies in the history of anthropology. In understanding the experiences of the Nuer, students will not only gain insights into the world refugee problem and the role of immigration in the United States, they will also learn about the features of Nuer life which are considered a standard part of the anthropology curriculum. The book juxtaposes elements of Nuer culture which are well-known within anthropology — and featured in most anthropology textbooks — with new developments arising from the immigration of many other Nuer to the U.S. in the 1990s as refugees from civil war in southern Sudan. Consequently, this book will fit well within existing anthropology curricula, while providing an important update on descriptions of traditional life. In addition to fascinating vignettes and case studies, this book provides an opportunity to examine issues of current importance within anthropology, such as social change, transnationalism, displacement, and diaspora in an easy to understand manner.

The Economics of Innocent Fraud or Abe Lincoln

2009-02-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time

Author: John Kenneth Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith has long been at the center of American economics, in key positions of responsibility during the New Deal, World War II, and since, guiding policy and debate. His trenchant new book distills this lifetime of experience in the public and private sectors; it is a scathing critique of matters as they stand today.

Sounding the alarm about the increasing gap between reality and "conventional wisdom" -- a phrase he coined -- Galbraith tells, along with much else, how we have reached a point where the private sector has unprecedented control over the public sector. We have given ourselves over to self-serving belief and "contrived nonsense" or, more simply, fraud. This has come at the expense of the economy, effective government, and the business world.
Particularly noted is the central power of the corporation and the shift in authority from shareholders and board members to management. In an intense exercise of fraud, the pretense of shareholder power is still maintained, even with the immediate participants. In fact, because of the scale and complexity of the modern corporation, decisive power must go to management. From management and its own inevitable self-interest, power extends deeply into government -- the so-called public sector. This is particularly and dangerously the case in such matters as military policy, the environment, and, needless to say, taxation. Nevertheless, there remains the firm reference to the public sector.
How can fraud be innocent? In his inimitable style, Galbraith offers the answer. His taut, wry, and severe comment is essential reading for everyone who cares about America's future. This book is especially relevant in anelection year, but it deeply concerns the much longer future.

Publishers Weekly

In this thin volume, Galbraith, the noted economist and presidential adviser, serves up a pessimistic view of today's U.S. economy. Drawing on the omnipresent headlines of corporate scandal and greed, Galbraith explains that as the economy suffers, the overall state of American society declines as well. He points to a number of cases of "innocent fraud," or the gap between reality and conventional wisdom. The author bemoans the emphasis on gross domestic production, or GDP, rather than cultural or artistic advances. Companies, not the public, decide what products to make. Galbraith believes that decisions in various corporate arenas are made based on profits, rather than sound business strategies. Furthermore, he says that shareholder meetings, with a few rare exceptions, are pointless because "Shareholders-owners-and their alleged directors in any sizeable enterprise are fully subordinate to the management.... An accepted fraud." He also calls the rapid Internet growth and subsequent bubble another example of fraud as millions of analysts predicted rapid growth for so many companies, but ultimately many employees were laid off. Even more dismaying to Galbraith is the power of the Federal Reserve, which is credited with prompting economic resurgence when, in his view, the institution has limited real power. This brief treatise is a well-written, logical argument about the state of the economy. However, readers may be disappointed because the short concluding chapter offers few realistic solutions. (Apr.) Forecast: Given Galbraith's reputation and the ongoing criminal trials of CEOs, this book should get review attention and early sales could be strong. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

	Introduction and a personal note
I	The nature of innocent fraud	1
II	The renaming of the system	3
III	The economics of accommodation	11
IV	The specious world of work	17
V	The corporation as bureaucracy	23
VI	The corporate power	29
VII	The myth of the two sectors	33
VIII	The world of finance	39
IX	The elegant escape from reality	43
X	The end to corporate innocence	49
XI	Foreign and military policy	53
XII	The last word	57

New interesting textbook: Life after Stroke or Jubbs Cell Rejuvenation

Abe Lincoln

Author: Sterling North

Born in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier, Abraham Lincoln faced a life

of extreme poverty and hardship. Without losing his gentle nature and sense of

humor, he surmounted these and many other obstacles to attain the highest

office in the land and the enduring love of the American people.

The Prince or In Defense of America

2009-02-01T02:30:00.000-08:00

The Prince (Everyman's Library)

Author: Niccolo Machiavelli

That Machiavelli’s name has become synonymous with cold-eyed political calculation only heightens the intrinsic fascination of The Prince–the world’s preeminent how-to manual on the art of getting and keeping power, and one of the literary landmarks of the Italian Renaissance. Written in a vigorous, straightforward style that reflects its author’s realism, this treatise on states, statecraft, and the ideal ruler is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how human society actually works.

Library Journal

First published in 1517, this classic treatise on the art of practical politics remains a fascinating and powerful work. Laying down uncompromising guidelines for successful leadership, Machiavelli leaves no room for indecision or weakness, and his text comes alive in the voice of actor Fritz Weaver. The narrator's performance is energetic and committed, heightening the dramatic impact of such controversial mandates as the necessary destruction of all the members of a ruling family, of inflicting violence once and for all, or of acting cruelly for the sake of unity. The text is prefaced by the unidentified translator's enlightening introduction. The packaging is aesthetically appealing but flimsy. Definitely recommended for academic and large public libraries.

--Sister M. Anna Falbo CSSF, Villa Maria College Library, Buffalo. N.Y.

Library Journal

--Sister M. Anna Falbo CSSF, Villa Maria College Library, Buffalo. N.Y.

Look this: The Ethical Chemist or Turkey

In Defense of America

Author: Bronwen Maddox

The world has turned against the United States. Anti-American sentiments have swept the globe. Foreign leaders, pundits, and ordinary people decry the United States, at best proclaiming their heartbreak that the American values they once admired have vanished, and at worst condemning America as a criminal state beyond redemption. The invasion of Iraq, America's refusal to sign the Kyoto accords, detention without trial in Guantanamo and torture in Abu Ghraib, the spread of American movies and fast food into every corner of the globe--all have contributed to a feeling that the United States, once a force for good in the world, is abusing its position as the world's sole superpower.

How wrong they are.

In this provocative, brilliant book, acclaimed foreign affairs columnist Bronwen Maddox shows how critics of America take the best of it for granted and exaggerate the worst. They give the United States too little credit for their own freedom and wealth, and struggle to fend off a monolithic American culture that does not exist. She shows how opponents often unfairly equate American mistakes with moral failings, and how the United States frequently makes its own case badly, even when it is on strong ground. And she reveals a world in danger of fighting to keep the giant at bay, when the harder task is to give America good reason to keep engaged.

Persuasive and important, In Defense of Americais essential reading for anyone who cares about our place in the world, and our future.

Environmental Politics and Policy or The End of the European Era

2009-01-30T21:18:00.000-08:00

Environmental Politics and Policy

Author: Walter A Rosenbaum

About the Author:
Walter A. Rosenbaum is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida

Booknews

More than an update of the earlier edition--in light of the global changes in the environment over the past four years, Rosenbaum has made substantial revisions and formed new conclusions concerning the environmental crisis. He summarizes major trends in environmental politics over the past 20 years, examines problems of policy implementation, and presents the challenges of the coming decade. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

1	After earth day : American environmentalism in transformation	1
2	Making policy : the process	27
3	Making policy : institutions and politics	63
4	Common policy challenges : risk assessment and environmental justice	111
5	More choice : the battle over regulatory economics	140
6	Command and control in action : air and water pollution regulation	171
7	A regulatory thicket : toxic and hazardous substances	213
8	Energy : nuclear dreams, black gold, and vanishing crude	250
9	635 million acres of politics : the battle for public lands	285
10	The United States and climate diplomacy : the emerging politics of global environmentalism	326

Book about: Savoring Mexico or Soy Soy Soy

The End of the European Era

Author: Felix Gilbert

The new fifth edition of the leading text in twentieth-century European history offers a thorough revision that is up-to-date in its coverage and its scholarship. The new final chapter provides a clear, thorough analysis of the transformations that swept Europe in the 1990s—the unification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet empire and the regime itself, the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The chapter also traces the efforts at European integration through the European Union and the enlargement of NATO. Throughout the new edition David Large has introduced discussions of women's history and strengthened the coverage of social history in general. He has also pared detail to ensure that the text remains accessible to students.

Booknews

A standard text now brought current through 1989-1990. A new edition (3d was in 1984) will be needed to reflect events of August 1991. A solid and concise treatment with a modest bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Chicken Soup for the Soul of America or Them

2009-01-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

Chicken Soup for the Soul of America: Stories to Heal the Heart of Our Nation

Author: Jack Canfield

Most American heroes aren't in our history books, nor do they have monuments erected in their honor. Their names aren't in the headline news or memorialized in song. The true hero is simply someone who makes a difference-large or small-in the lives of others. They battle disease, crime, poverty and human rights violations. They clean up environments, mentor neglected children and truly care about others. Most importantly, anyone can be a hero in the eyes of another.

In Chicken Soup for the Soul of America, everyday heroes are celebrated. Heroes have always been in our midst, but the recent terrorist attacks on American soil have revealed many more heroes who have given their lives, love, time and strength to those in great need. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 events, Americans have found courage and inspiration from so many heroes, and this book pays tribute to them all, as well as those who appear every day in our lives.

At a time when so many are in pain, these unique stories will touch readers with love and wisdom, the cornerstones of the American people and the hallmark of the well-loved Chicken Soup series.

New interesting textbook: Desenho de Produto

Them: Adventures with Extremists

Author: Jon Ronson

A wide variety of extremist groups — Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis — share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room.

As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of "Them" but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited? Them takes us across three continents and into the secret room. Along the way he meets Omar Bakri Mohammed, considered one of the most dangerous men in Great Britain, PR-savvy Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Thom Robb, and the survivors of Ruby Ridge. He is chased by men in dark glasses and unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp. In the forests of northern California he even witnesses CEOs and leading politicians — like Dick Cheney and George Bush — undertake a bizarre owl ritual.

Ronson's investigations, by turns creepy and comical, reveal some alarming things about the looking-glass world of "us" and "them." Them is a deep and fascinating look at the lives and minds of extremists. Are the extremists onto something? Or is Jon Ronson becoming one of them?

Publishers Weekly

U.K. journalist Ronson offers a look into the world of political, cultural and religious "extremists" who dwell at the edges of popular culture and the conspiracy theorists who love them. His only criteria for groups' inclusion as extremists is "that they have been called extremists by others," which may explain why the Anti-Defamation League is profiled along with the modern-day KKK, radical Northern Ireland Protestant spokesperson Dr. Ian Paisley and a former BBC sportscaster who believes the world is ruled by a race of alien lizards. The best as well as most timely and unsettling of these essays follows Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Islamic militant, on his often bumbling effort to organize British Muslims into a jihad. (Bakri was arrested after September 11.) Ronson's journalism is motivated less out of a duty to inform the public than a desire to satisfy his own curiosity. At the heart of the book is Ronson's quest to find the Bilderberg Group, a secret cabal said to meet once a year to set the agenda of the "New World Order." Fortunately for the reader, his efforts lead somewhere: an informant tracks Bilderberg to a golf resort in Portugal; later, a prominent British politician and Bilderberg founder discusses it on the record. Once viewed up close through Ronson's light, ironic point of view, these "extremists" appear much less scary than their public images would suggest. It is how he reveals the all-too-real machinations of Western society's radical fringe and its various minions that makes this enjoyable work rather remarkable. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

British journalist and filmmaker Ronson spent the last five years with extremists: religious fundamentalists in Great Britain, Texas, and Cameroon; white supremacists in Arkansas, Michigan, and Idaho; and New World Order conspiracy chasers in Portugal and California. Despite their differences, all seem to believe that the world is controlled by an elite group known as "them." Although one may not find, say, the Ku Klux Klan funny on the surface, Ronson, well known for his "Human Zoo" column in the Guardian, makes each essay engaging by pointing out the irony of it all and accentuating the characters' foibles. He also presents their humanity the same humanity they would deny to others. Yet between the lines of satire, the extremists are unmasked for what they really are. They come off, above all, as mundane. This book was accompanied in Britain by a five-part TV documentary, The Secret Rulers of the World. Recommended for all academic and public libraries. Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A picaresque journey into the wonderland of delusional fanatics, often scary, yet wildly funny. Ronson, a British journalist and documentary filmmaker (Channel 4's The Secret Rulers of the World) explores the world of religious and political extremists, from Omar Bakri Mohammed, a hapless militant Islamic fundamentalist cheerfully trying to organize a jihad in North London, to David Icke, ranting that the world is run by a global elite descended from a race of extraterrestrial 12-foot lizards. (The response to Icke of the Anti-Defamation League, ever alert for anti-Semitism disguised by code words, suggests that paranoia is not confined to the lunatic fringes.) Most encounters, such as with an Arkansas Ku Klux Klan leader who eschews use of the "N" word (in public), or with Dr. Ian Paisley preaching his conspiracy theories in Cameroon, read like a comic novel, as the deadpan Ronson lets his subjects skewer themselves with their own words. Less laughable is his visit with Randy Weaver's daughter Rachel, which leads him to conclude that the killings at Ruby Ridge were made possible by the demonization of the Weavers as white supremacists. A subsequent brief meeting with skinheads at the Aryan Nation in Idaho is one of the most chilling episodes here. From his wanderings among extremists, Ronson learns that their most consistent belief is that the world is run by a cabal of international financiers and politicians, mostly Jews, known as the Bilderberg group, who periodically gather in a secret room to determine the planet's fate. Ronson's mission, to track down the secret rulers of the world and discover who they are and what they actually do, is the stuff of high comedy, and what he findsis about as sinister as a frat party. Ronson's eye for the telling detail and his gift for capturing hilarious dialogue make this an entertaining read, but laughs aside, this is serious and thought-provoking stuff, and likely to nettle left, right, and some in the middle too.

	Preface	9
1.	A Semi-Detached Ayatollah	19
2.	Running Through Cornfields	63
3.	The Secret Rulers of the World	107
4.	Bilderberg Sets a Trap!	123
5.	The Middlemen in New York	142
6.	There Are Lizards and There Are Lizards	148
7.	The Klansman Who Won't Use the N-Word	177
8.	Hollywood	202
9.	Living a Diamond Life in a Rocky World	217
10.	Dr. Paisley, I Presume	242
11.	Ceausescu's Shoes	266
12.	The Way Things Are Done	281
13.	The Clearing in the Forest	295
	Acknowledgments	329

The Guidebook for Linemen and Cablemen or United States Government Information

2009-01-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Guidebook for Linemen and Cablemen

Author: Wayne Van Soelen

A comprehensive and reader-friendly book, The Guidebook for Linemen and Cablemen is a reference tool that contains the most-up-to date information for linemen, cablemen, foremen, and others associated with transmission and distribution departments of electric utility companies. This book discusses the equipment used as well as the responsibilities of a lineman and cablemen. It explains in detail the training and need for safety within this profession. This book is an invaluable resource, providing linemen and cablemen with the best quality and most up-to-date information for their fast growing, technology based, profession.

1. Introduction to Safe Work on Power Lines,
2. Electrical Power System Overview,
3. Electrical Units,
4. Alternating Current (A-C),
5. Three-Phase Circuits,
6. Awareness When In an Electrical Environment,
7. Constructing Power Lines,
8. Working with Conductor and Cable, 9 Operating Switchgear, 10 Circuit Protection, 11 Installing Protective Grounds, 12 Connecting and Troubleshooting Transformers, 13 Supplying Quality Power, 14 Working with Aerial Devices and Digger Derricks,
15 Rigging in Powerline Work, 16 Working it Hot, 17 Tree Work in an Electrical Utility Environment,
18 Working in Substations, 19 Outdoor Lighting Systems,
20. Working with Revenue Metering

Look this: Egg Gravy or 180 Barbecues

United States Government Information: Policies and Sources

Author: Peter Hernon

The first text to provide a comprehensive introduction to the information policies of the United States government and basic source material, this book provides students with an understanding of the underlying importance of policy and how it is formulated. It also shows how to locate information produced since the founding of the government in the 18th century, and traces policies and sources from that time to the emergence of electronic government resulting from the advent of the Internet. The discussion of finding aids and legislative history is reinforced with the inclusion of examples in the text as well as exercises. In addition to covering the three branches of the government, the text explains terminology and lists sources likely to provide relevant information on presidential communication and more.

Library Journal

Hernon (U.S. Government on the Web, Professional Media, LJ 10/1/99) and his coauthors have produced a valuable addition to the literature on federal government information. Their comprehensive overview traces the history of U.S. government information policy from its first mention in the Constitution through the changes instituted since the terrorist attacks of September 11. Government publishing is also well covered, from the first publications of the Congress up to today's transition to electronic information delivery and services. Each chapter includes source notes; additional information (including review and practice questions) is provided on an accompanying web site (accessible via www.lu.com) and CD-ROM (not available for review). There is the occasional bit of outdated information (e.g., concerning Patent and Trademark Depository Library collections) and apparent author biases toward particular policies and their outcomes, but these shortcomings do not detract from the volume's overall value. Although other works have discussed various aspects of government information, this survey offers the best introduction to the topic for historians, political scientists, teachers, and librarians. For every collection with a substantial focus on government information.-Patrick Ragains, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno

The Facilitator Excellence Handbook or Politics

2009-01-27T05:38:00.000-08:00

The Facilitator Excellence Handbook

Author: Fran Rees

This is the thoroughly revised and updated edition of the best-selling The Facilitator Excellence Handbook. Written for both new and experienced facilitators, the second edition of The Facilitator Excellence Handbook offers a comprehensive guide for understanding the full range of skills, processes, and knowledge needed to become an effective facilitator. The book addresses a variety of facilitation opportunities, challenges, and problems and also contains

• A variety of verbal and nonverbal facilitation techniques

• Step-by-step facilitation processes and tools

• Information on how to facilitate conflict resolution in groups and how to facilitate difficult situations

• Instructions for designing and leading group work

• Examples of how various levels of facilitator competency are called for in different types of groups

• Techniques for facilitating meetings, teams, virtual teams, and organization-wide projects

• Discussions on the art of facilitating and what makes a great facilitator

	Introduction : getting the most from this resource	1
Pt. 1	Overview of facilitation	9
Ch. 1	Facilitation in organizations today	11
Ch. 2	Role of the facilitator	23
Pt. 2	Basic facilitation skills	31
Ch. 3	Verbal techniques : what to say	33
Ch. 4	Nonverbal techniques : what to do	51
Ch. 5	Recording techniques	75
Ch. 6	Reading the group	97
Ch. 7	Facilitating consensus	111
Pt. 3	Facilitator methods and tools	117
Ch. 8	Generating and organizing material	121
Ch. 9	Ranking and evaluating material	151
Ch. 10	Facilitating difficult situations	179
Ch. 11	Facilitating conflict resolution	191
Pt. 4	Designing effective facilitations	211
Ch. 12	How to design a facilitation	213
Ch. 13	Organizing and enhancing group work	235
Ch. 14	Opening and closing activities	249
Pt. 5	The facilitator in action	259
Ch. 15	Levels of facilitator competency	261
Ch. 16	Facilitating meetings	285
Ch. 17	Facilitating teams	315
Ch. 18	Facilitating virtual teams	337
Ch. 19	Facilitating organization-wide projects	349
Pt. 6	Facilitator excellence	359
Ch. 20	Managing yourself	361
Ch. 21	The art of facilitating	375
Ch. 22	What makes a great facilitator?	381

Books about: Ride the Tiger to the Mountain or Cheating Destiny

Politics

Author: Aristotl

The Politics is one of the most influential texts in the history of political thought, and it raises issues which still confront anyone who wants to think seriously about the ways in which human societies are organized and governed. By examining the way societies are run--from households to city states--Aristotle establishes how successful constitutions can best be initiated and upheld.
For this edition, Sir Ernest Barker's fine translation, which has been widely used for nearly half a century, has been extensively revised to meet the needs of the modern reader. The accessible introduction and clear notes examine the historical and philosophical background of the work and discuss its significance for modern political thought.

Satans Circus or Herod

2009-01-26T00:18:00.000-08:00

Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century

Author: Mike Dash

They called it Satan’s Circus—a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the twentieth century, it was a place where everyone from the chorus girls to the beat cops was on the take and where bad boys became wicked men; a place where an upstanding young policeman such as Charley Becker could become the crookedest cop who ever stood behind a shield.

Murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel. But when, two weeks later, an ambitious district attorney charged Becker with ordering the murder, even the denizens of Satan’s Circus were surprised. The handsome lieutenant was a decorated hero, the renowned leader of New York’s vice-busting Special Squad. Was he a bad cop leading a double life, or a pawn felled by the sinister rogues who ran Manhattan’s underworld?

With appearances by the legendary and the notorious—including Big Tim Sullivan, the election-rigging vice lord of Tammany Hall; future president Theodore Roosevelt; beloved gangster Jack Zelig; and the newly famous author Stephen Crane—Satan’s Circus brings to life an almost-forgotten Gotham. Chronicling Charley Becker’s rise and fall, the book tells of the raucous, gaudy, and utterly corrupt city that made him, and recounts not one but two sensational murder trials that landed him in the electric chair.

The New York Times - Vincent Patrick

The Becker-Rosenthal affair has been reported on over the years by several writers, most notably Andy Logan, whose book Against the Evidence (1970) exhibited the fine craftsmanship she developed in her years as a New Yorker journalist in William Shawn's heyday. Now we have Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century, by Mike Dash, the author of Tulipomania and Batavia's Graveyard. He has researched the case meticulously, and wisely incorporates into the story enough pertinent New York City history to provide context and atmosphere.

Publishers Weekly

The sole police officer to be executed in U.S. history, NYPD lieutenant Charles Becker died in the electric chair in 1915 for the murder of a lowlife gambler who pimped his own wife. Set apart from other, mostly Irish, New York policemen by his German ancestry and "markedly intelligent," Becker bribed his way in 1894 onto a force infected by Tammany Hall and worked undercover patrolling the crime-riddled midtown Manhattan district called Satan's Circus, the city's center of entertainment and vice. Acquitted in 1896 of charges of falsely arresting a woman for prostitution, a charge testified to by novelist Stephen Crane, Becker went on to commit graft, perjury and theft, but by 1911 he headed his own vice squad and by 1912 he had built up a vast extortion racket. Gambler Herman Rosenthal, one of Becker's victims, exposed him to the media and the DA, and when Rosenthal was shot to death, Becker became the notorious prime suspect although some doubted his guilt. Peopled by mobsters and crooked cops and politicians, and chronicling the early years of the NYPD as well as Becker's ruin and comeuppance, this engrossing, well-researched history by the author of Batavia's Graveyard immerses readers in the corrupt hurly-burly that was old New York. Map. (June)

Frederick J. Augustyn - Library Journal

Journalist and historian Dash (Batavia's Graveyard) proves that truth is often stranger than fiction with this monograph on Charles Becker (1870-1915), the only New York City police officer to be executed for murder. A Republican of German descent who stood out in a predominantly Irish and Democratic police force, Becker presided over Satan's Circus (a.k.a. the Tenderloin), midtown Manhattan's entertainment, gambling, and prostitution zone. His indictment and conviction for conspiracy to murder gambler Herman Rosenthal resulted in what the contemporary press called the "trial of the century" in 1912, followed by a retrial in 1914 and Becker's subsequent electrocution. Drawing from legal documents, newspapers, magazines, detective reports found in the Municipal Archives, the private Becker family collections, and Sullivan County (NY) repositories, Dash crisply traces the descent of a "crooked cop" in the context of a corrupt and crime-ridden metropolis. He augments his tale with appearances by characters like Tammany politico "Big Tim" Sullivan, writer Stephen Crane, and Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. Using colloquialisms he freely explains--e.g., "sporting men" frequenting "blind tigers" (unlicensed drinking dens)--Dash serves up an intriguing story that will interest social historians and general readers alike. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ2/15/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

Dash (Batavia's Graveyard, 2001, etc.) provides a colorful tour of early-20th-century New York in this Police Gazette-style tale of the only New York cop ever executed for murder. The killing of well-known gambler Herman Rosenthal took place in 1912 outside a midtown hotel in "Satan's Circus," the street name for midtown Manhattan's wide-open Tenderloin district. The author has done a herculean job of ferreting out the comings and goings of a menagerie of hookers and hoodlums, introducing us to folks with names like Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie and Bald Jack Rose. He also provides some eye-opening evidence on the corruption that permeated the city, which served as the personal playground of Tammany Hall bosses, gambling czars like Arnold Rothstein and policemen who with impunity neatly carved up millions in bribes and graft money. Dash delivers their stories in a clear if rather wooden prose offset by anecdotes and nuggets of trivia. (For instance, the fact that assistant police commissioner Winfield Sheehan later went to Hollywood and discovered Rita Hayworth and John Wayne.) The author's chief problem lies in the character of his protagonist, corrupt police lieutenant Charley Becker. Early on in his career, Becker had a well-publicized run-in with young writer Stephen Crane over his false arrest of a prostitute. At the time of his trial, he admitted to massive bribe-taking during his years on the police force. Generating sympathy for this dour, stone-faced brute would have been a tall order in any case, but Dash fails to provide more than a grainy out-of-focus portrait. Nor, for that matter, does he offer a verdict on whether Becker was actually guilty of the celebrated murder or not.Copious notes and research buttress the text, but photographs of at least some of the colorful heroes and villains who roam its pages would have livened things up considerably. A worthwhile history lesson, less compelling as a personal crime drama. Agent: Patrick Walsh/Conville & Walsh

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Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans

Author: Peter Richardson

Peter Richardson's biographical study of Herod (73-4 BCE) offers insight into the personality of the man who served as the most prominent member of the substantial Herodian family and whose rule shaped the world in which the Christian faith arose. Richardson reveals Herod to be far more complex and important than is generally perceived and demonstrates that an understanding of Herod holds great value for comprehending the relationship between Judea and Rome. Setting his study against the crosscurrents of Jewish and Roman culture in the first century, Richardson emphasizes the social and historical context in which Herod's life unfolded and evaluates the family matters, patronage, religious developments, and ethnic issues that shaped his reign. Richardson details Herod's active participation in political events during the making of the Roman Empire and his close association with such prominent figures as Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cassius, Octavian (Augustus), Cleopatra, and Marcus Agrippa. In addition to telling Herod's life story, Richardson recounts the legends that grew up around the man - including his responsibility for a massacre of young children in Bethlehem. Richardson's accessible, and relatively positive, assessment of Herod sheds new light on a fascinating but much maligned character.

Society of Biblical Literature - Rebecca Gray

...[A] portrait of Herod that is considerably richer and more generous than the standard one. The book makes an especially important contribution to the understanding of Herod's religious convictions, broadly conceived....In general, the book is a model of what can be achieved through careful integration of sources of various types, attention to detail and to historical context, and fair-minded interpretation. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the history of Jewish Palestine in the late Second-Temple period.

They Dare to Speak out or Higher Purpose

2009-01-24T19:06:00.000-08:00

They Dare to Speak out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby

Author: Paul Findley

The first book to speak out against the pervasive influence of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on American politics, policy, and institutions resonates today as never before. With careful documentation and specific case histories, former congressman Paul Findley demonstrates how the Israel lobby helps to shape important aspects of U.S. foreign policy and influences congressional, senatorial, and even presidential elections. Described are the undue influence AIPAC exerts in the Senate and the House and the pressure AIPAC brings to bear on university professors and journalists who seem too sympathetic to Arab and Islamic states and too critical of Israel and its policies. Along with many longtime outspoken critics, new voices speaking out include former President Jimmy Carter, U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney, Senator Robert Byrd, prominent Arab-American Dr. Ziad Asali, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and journalist Charles Reese. In addition, the lack of open debate among politicians with regard to the U.S. policy in the Middle East is lamented, and AIPAC is blamed in part for this censorship. Connections are drawn between America’s unconditional support of Israel and the raging anti-American passions around the world—and ultimately the tragic events of 9/11. This replaces 1556520735.

	Preface	vii
1	Rescue and Involvement	1
2	King of the Hill	27
3	Stilling the Still, Small Voices	51
4	The Deliberative Body Fails to Deliberate	81
5	The Lobby and the Oval Office	117
6	Penetrating the Defenses at Defense and State	147
7	The Assault on Assault	187
8	Subverting Academic Freedom	209
9	Paving the Way for the Messiah	249
10	Not All Jews Toe the Line	281
11	Scattering the Seeds of Catastrophe	313
12	What Price Israel?	349
	Acknowledgments	375
	Notes	379
	Index	395

New interesting book: Shamans Mystics and Doctors or Touch

Higher Purpose: Profiles in Presidential Courage

Author: Thomas J Whalen

In the American political system we know today, courage and the presidency are rarely spoken of in the same sentence. With a few notable exceptions, recent occupants of the Oval Office have appeared all too willing to sacrifice principle for the sake of political expediency. Extreme partisanship, special-interest money, and an unhealthy obsession with opinion polls have discouraged modern presidents from assuming unpopular stands. Forgotten is the axiomatic wisdom of Andrew Jackson: One man of courage makes a majority. Thomas Whalen's A Higher Purpose seeks to prove the inherent truth behind Jackson's words by relating the stories of nine historic decisions made by commanders-in-chief over two centuries of American history.

Publishers Weekly

Boston University social scientist Whalen (Kennedy Versus Lodge) insightfully applies to residents of the White House JFK's rubric from his Profiles in Courage. As Kennedy did, Whalen seeks heroes who display a willingness to go against the political tide in order to do what is right. The ultimate example is Gerald Ford, who took the profoundly unpopular step of pardoning Nixon and then paid the political price in the next presidential election. Whalen also cites FDR's maneuvering to support Great Britain against the Nazis in the days before Pearl Harbor despite an isolationist and antiwar electorate; Harry Truman's firing of the abrasive but wildly popular Douglas MacArthur; and Kennedy's siding with civil rights interests challenging segregation at the University of Alabama. Several other examples are less obvious instances of presidential courage. These include Andrew Jackson's heartfelt yet ill-advised fight against a national bank and Grover Cleveland's opposition to the annexation of the Hawaiian islands. Two more events in Whalen's roster are debatable. Was Lincoln going against, or with, political currents when he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation? And was Theodore Roosevelt not catering to his large Progressive base when he broke up the Northern Securities railroad companies' combination? These quibbles aside, Whalen's study constitutes intriguingly construed history, eloquently told. Illus. (Sept.)

Kirkus Reviews

A highly readable exercise forthrightly modeled on JFK's Profiles in Courage, examining nine instances in which American presidents have acted against their own political interest. Some are well known, others not-or at least not in their full details. Everyone knows, for example, that the Emancipation Proclamation aroused scorn in the rebellious states; few recall how bitterly it divided Lincoln's nominal supporters in the North. Whalen (Social Science/Boston Univ.) opens each tale of moral courage with a mini-portrait of the president involved. Some episodes feel too large for the book's slight frame: Andrew Jackson's war against the aristocratic Bank of the United States, which plunged the nation into financial panic; Teddy Roosevelt's prosecution of J. Pierpont Morgan's Northern Securities Company as an illegal railroad combination under the antitrust laws; and FDR's Lend Lease agreement with Britain, which frightened and angered a large portion of the mostly isolationist public. For the most part, however, the author has chosen bite-sized incidents of presidential courage perfectly suited to his theme: Truman's firing of insubordinate World War II icon General Douglas MacArthur; Chester Arthur's unexpected transformation from a machine politician to a civil service reformer; JFK's 1963 address committing his administration to civil rights; Gerald Ford's unpopular pardoning of Richard Nixon. Whalen pointedly distinguishes between presidential courage and presidential recklessness, using the example of George Bush's decision to invade Iraq, but at the same time somewhat contradictorily laments recent presidents' willingness "to sacrifice principle for the sake of political expediency."He acknowledges this will not be "the final word," and indeed one might wonder why Jimmy Carter's relinquishment of the Panama Canal in 1977 was not every bit as morally courageous as Grover Cleveland's principled refusal to annex Hawaii in 1893. Uneven but entertaining.

What People Are Saying

Donald A. Ritchie
"This is a timely and engaging study of moral courage in high office. . . . "--(Donald A. Ritchie, author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps)

James N. Giglio
"Concentrates on nine U.S. presidents who exhibited moral courage while confronting national crises. An excellent read especially for the non-specialist...."--(James N. Giglio, author of The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, Revised, Updated Edition)

Leon Panetta
"These historic examples of presidential courage are needed now more than ever."

1920 or Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation

2009-01-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

1920: The Year of the Six Presidents

Author: David Pietrusza

The presidential election of 1920 was one of the most dramatic ever. For the only time in the nation's history, six once-and-future presidents hoped to end up in the White House: Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, and Theodore Roosevelt. It was an election that saw unprecedented levels of publicity — the Republicans outspent the Democrats by 4 to 1 — and it was the first to garner extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage. It was also the first election in which women could vote. Meanwhile, the 1920 census showed that America had become an urban nation — automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit were transforming the economy and America was limbering up for the most spectacular decade of its history, the roaring '20s. Award-winning historian David Pietrusza's riveting new work presents a dazzling panorama of presidential personalities, ambitions, plots, and counterplots — a picture of modern America at the crossroads.

Publishers Weekly

Pietrusza's (Rothstein) chronicle of the presidential election of 1920 is absorbing, despite the subtitle's rather tangential claim that the election involved six men who had served or would serve as president: Harding, Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover and both Roosevelts (though Teddy had died in 1919). This book isn't really about them, nor is it merely the story of one electoral race. Rather, Pietrusza is telling a grander tale, of a country toppling into "modernity, or what passed for it." In 1920, the automobile had overtaken the horse, jazz and the fox-trot were replacing the camp meeting as popular entertainment, people were learning to buy on installment, and more and more of those fox-trotting shoppers lived in cities. Presidential candidates, for the first time, courted women voters. (Democrat Cox was divorced, which was expected to play badly with the fairer sex.) Both parties waffled on the so-called race question, seeking black votes while either tacitly or explicitly endorsing white supremacy. Given Harding's electoral victory and death during his term, Pietrusza could have devoted more space to the abiding importance of this election. All in all, Pietrusza has produced a broad, satisfying political and social history, in the style of Doris Kearns Goodwin. 16 pages of b&w illus. (Feb. 7) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Thomas J. Baldino - Library Journal

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, the United States did nothave six presidents in 1920. The author stretches the truth a bit to dramatize a historical anomaly: six men—a sitting president, former president, and four eventual presidents—competed in the 1920 presidential election. Actually, President Woodrow Wilson was physically incapacitated at the start of the year, and Theodore Roosevelt had died in 1919, but the legacies of both presidents shaped the 1920 election campaign. Pietrusza (Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series) sufficiently contends that this election marked the birth of modern American politics. Each of the main characters is introduced sequentially, with brief biographical information, beginning with Wilson and his failed attempt to have his League of Nations treaty adopted by the Senate, to TR and his split with Taft and the mainstream Republican Party, to Warren Harding, winner of the election, to Coolidge, Harding's vice president and successor upon death, to Hoover and finally FDR. Pietrusza wisely includes considerable information on Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate that year. The many issues and forces that swirled during that time, from the fear of Communists and Socialists and the terrorism they allegedly perpetrated to technological advances and Prohibition, make for a fascinating and compelling tale of an often-overlooked election in our history. Highly recommended.

Kirkus Reviews

A rousing chronicle of the political year that saw six American presidents, past, present and future, vying simultaneously for high office. Poised between the administrations of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and the ensuing decade that would earn itself the qualifier "roaring," 1920 found Americans craving a pause, a return to the soothing "normalcy" of a bygone era. Who better fit the national mood than the thoroughly undistinguished Senator Warren G. Harding? After an intense primary season and many convention ballots, the Republican Party finally settled on the affable Ohioan and his law-and-order running-mate, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, choices made easier by the sudden death of the beloved TR, himself eyeing a comeback, and the one man capable of disturbing the party's predilection for calm. Incumbent President Wilson, bedridden after a debilitating stroke, shed no tears over the death of his bitter enemy and unaccountably believed the Democratic Party would extend his discredited presidency by nominating him for an unprecedented third term. Instead, the party chose Ohio Governor James Cox, like Harding a former small-town newspaper editor, and for vice-president, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a charming fellow from New York, who came with the added advantage of that hallowed name Roosevelt: Franklin D. Only Herbert Hoover's seeming desire to be anointed rather than nominated (he refused to disclose his party affiliation) kept this internationally acclaimed humanitarian from being a bigger factor in the race. Other figures who helped shape the political battle-Eugene Debs, Hiram Johnson, Leonard Wood, William McAdoo, A. Mitchell Palmer, Nicholas MurrayButler, Alfred E. Smith-are highlighted as well. Pietrusza (Rothstein: The Life Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, 2003) adds color and dimension with smart discussions of Prohibition, women's suffrage, immigration, civil rights, the League of Nations and labor strife, and he offers animated portraits of William Jennings Bryan, Carrie Chapman Catt, Henry Ford, Marcus Garvey, Sacco and Vanzetti, William Randolph Hearst, H.L. Mencken and many others. A hugely fascinating episode in American history, told with insight and great humor, by an author in command of his subject. Agent: Robert Wilson/Wilson Media

Books about: Talking with My Mouth Full or Short and Sweet Dessert Deck

Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe

Author: Juan J Linz

Since their classic volume The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes was published in 1978, Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan have increasingly focused on the questions of how, in the modern world, nondemocratic regimes can be eroded and democratic regimes crafted. In Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, they break new ground in numerous areas. They reconceptualize the major types of modern nondemocratic regimes and point out for each type the available paths to democratic transition and the tasks of democratic consolidation. They argue that, although "nation-state" and "democracy" often have conflicting logics, multiple and complementary political identities are feasible under a common roof of state-guaranteed rights. They also illustrate how, without an effective state, there can be neither effective citizenship nor successful privatization. Further, they provide criteria and evidence for politicians and scholars alike to distinguish between democratic consolidation and pseudo-democratization, and they present conceptually driven survey data for the fourteen countries studied.

Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation contains the first systematic comparative analysis of the process of democratic consolidation in southern Europe and the southern cone of South America, and it is the first book to ground post-Communist Europe within the literature of comparative politics and democratic theory.

"This is an important volume by two major scholars on a central topic--one of broad interest to people in comparative politics, to those interested in democracy, and to regional specialists on Southern Latin America and on Central and Eastern Europe. The book willunquestionably be a major contribution to the literature on constructing democratic governance."--Abraham F. Lowenthal, University of Southern California

Tony Judt

Has the virtue of broad comparative reference. -- New York Review of Books

	List of Figures, Tables, and Exhibits
	Preface and Acknowledgments
1	Democracy and Its Arenas	3
2	"Stateness," Nationalism, and Democratization	16
3	Modern Nondemocratic Regimes	38
4	The Implications of Prior Regime Type for Transition Paths and Consolidation Tasks	55
5	Actors and Contexts	66
6	The Paradigmatic Case of Reforma Pactada-Ruptura Pactada: Spain	87
7	From Interim Government to Simultaneous Transition and Consolidation: Portugal	116
8	Crisis of a Nonhierarchical Military Regime: Greece	130
9	Southern Europe: Concluding Reflections	139
10	A Risk-Prone Consolidated Democracy: Uruguay	151
11	Crises of Efficacy, Legitimacy, and Democratic State "Presence": Brazil	166
12	From an Impossible to a Possible Democratic Game: Argentina	190
13	Incomplete Transition/Near Consolidation? Chile	205
14	South America: Concluding Reflections	219
15	Post-Communism's Prehistories	235
16	Authoritarian Communism, Ethical Civil Society, and Ambivalent Political Society: Poland	255
17	Varieties of Post-Totalitarian Regimes: Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria	293
18	The Effects of Totalitarianism-cum-Sultanism on Democratic Transition: Romania	344
19	The Problems of "Stateness" and Transitions: The USSR and Russia	366
20	When Democracy and the Nation-State Are Conflicting Logics: Estonia and Latvia	401
21	Post-Communist Europe: Concluding Comparative Reflections	434
	Index	459

Presidential Diversions or J Edgar Hoover

2009-01-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

Presidential Diversions: Presidents at Play from George Washington to George W. Bush

Author: Paul F Boller

Paul F. Boller, Jr.'s widely admired and bestselling anecdotal histories have uncovered new aspects and hidden dimensions in the lives of our presidents. Now he turns to an uncharted - but unexpectedly revealing - element of our leaders' personalities as he brings us stories of what the presidents did for fun. In thumbnail portraits of every president through George W. Bush, Boller chronicles their taste in games, sports, and cultural activities. George Washington had a passion for dancing and John Quincy Adams skinny-dipped in the Potomac; Grover Cleveland loved beer gardens and Woodrow Wilson made a failed effort to write fiction; Calvin Coolidge cherished his afternoon naps, as did Lyndon Johnson his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit; Jimmy Carter was a surprisingly skilled high diver and Bush Senior loved to parachute. The sketches revitalize even the most familiar of our leaders, showing us a new side of our presidents - and their presidencies.

Publishers Weekly

Overall, this harmless collection of presidential trivia is perfect for those with a taste for such gossip: the toenail clippings of history. Texas Christian University's Boller lays out his survey of chief executive hobbies in 42 short chapters.Washington rode horses, danced and attended the theater. Jefferson liked to hike, invent contraptions, design buildings and study nature. Truman threw horseshoes and played piano. Sometimes Boller must grasp at straws in order to find something to say, since presidents are often, by nature and necessity, workaholics. Since Andrew Johnson entertained himself only by playing with his grandchildren, Boller must give a long peroration on Johnson's defensiveness about his lowly origins. Lyndon Johnson, too, couldn't understand why people wasted time in leisure, but he drove motor boats at recklessly high speeds and we are told at some length what a good dancer he was. The current Bush, as we all know from media reports, likes to exercise, clear brush on his ranch, fish, hunt and golf. Boller's book will be enjoyed by fans of his previous works (Presidential Anecdotes; Presidential Wives) and all others who take their history "light." (June)

Kirkus Reviews

Thumbnail sketches of America's 43 presidents, highlighting the amusements, pastimes and hobbies that helped each shoulder the weight of office. Grant and Harding appear never to have risked working too hard while in office, but most chief executives were type-A personalities who had to be coaxed by family and friends into taking time out for pleasure. Reagan, like Lincoln and FDR before him, took refuge in humorous storytelling, a talent foreign to the rigid Polk, Buchanan and both Adamses. For most of our presidents, their job's all-consuming nature left little time for diversions. Accordingly, Boller (Presidential Campaigns, 2004, etc.) sometimes pads by relating how each man spent his leisure time before and after office. Eisenhower's and Ford's football days were long behind them by the time they entered the White House; Jimmy Carter started writing poetry and Bush I took up skydiving after their presidencies ended. Boller's decision to include a chapter on each of the presidents occasionally leads to strained connections. It's also a stretch to give each chief exec his very own adjective: "studious" Rutherford B. Hayes, "bookish" James A. Garfield, "doughty" Grover Cleveland, etc. Still, taken together, some interesting trends emerge. Presidential exercise? Watch horseback riding give way to walking, then to running and mountain biking. Presidential reading? See Greek and Roman classics replaced by Zane Grey and Ian Fleming. Swimming, fishing and golf emerge as the most popular presidential sports, cards the favorite game. Boller identifies still another constant: the inescapably political dimension to anything a president does, even how he chooses to spend his leisure. BenjaminHarrison was criticized for boating on Sundays; McKinley and Kennedy both hid their enthusiasm for golf (too "undignified" in 1896, too much like Ike in 1960); and Truman moved his poker games from the White House to the presidential yacht. Perhaps better dipped into than read through. Still, an entertaining look at presidents at play.

New interesting textbook: BusinessToday or Information Systems Solutions

J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography

Author: Rick Geary

A True History of Violence (and Crimefighting, Politics, and Power)

In the hands of gifted cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover’s life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidents—from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon—and everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI’s headlinegrabbing tracking down of Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover’s increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and circumvention of Supreme Court decisions, J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography provides a special window into the life of an outsized American and a bird’seye view on the twentieth century.

Publishers Weekly

Geary returns to the finely detailed style of historical case study made so fascinating in his Library of Victorian Murder series, this time moving away from visceral horror to the arena of political power and the transgressions wrought by those who wield it. He traces the life and career of the creator of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, weaving a compelling portrait of a man isolated by authority and his desire for secrecy while simultaneously making a name for himself and his agency in the war against organized crime. But behind the details known to the public were petty power plays, possible connections to La Cosa Nostra and rumors of homosexuality and cross-dressing. All surrounded a government official whose ultraconservative ways and fascistic tactics bordered on the criminal when they suited his goals, and led Eleanor Roosevelt to consider the FBI one step away from becoming an American Gestapo. Encompassing events from the Great Depression, WWII, McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Kennedy administration, the Civil Rights movement and Watergate, Geary's work serves as an engrossing, easy to take history lesson. (Jan.)

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up -This comprehensive, highly detailed account is captivating. Hoover, director of the FBI for nearly 50 years, has been elevated to iconic status in the annals of U.S. history and pop culture. His story is well represented by this master illustrator's old-fashioned, highly stylized, black-and-white line art and high-crime drama-superhero comic-book format. Geary has done his homework: the cover and splash page distinctly mimic 1930s advertisements for the popular Warner Brothersa' film G-Men , showcasing a machine-gun-toting, dapper Hoover looking much like James Cagney, who played him in the movie. The author provides a fascinating look at how pop culture (films, radio, pulp magazines, comic strips, etc.) worked to aggrandize the status of Hoover, who craftily used entertainment for propagandistic and self-promotional purposes. He befriended the likes of Jack Warner, who glamorized the FBI in his film. An interesting point that Geary reiterates is Hoover's strategy to remain nonpartisan while wooing presidential supporters from both parties. He maintains an unbiased, objective point of view, but still dishes up some dirt. This excellent graphic biography makes the life of Hoover and the history of the FBI both accessible and engaging.-Jodi Mitchell, Berkeley Public Library, CA

Kirkus Reviews

The life and times of America's top cop, by prolific author/artist Geary (The Bloody Benders, 2007, etc.). His work for National Lampoon and Heavy Metal illustrates his long-standing taste for the pulpier side of things, but Geary also does solid work in historical comics, albeit ones with a gruesome true-crime slant. He brings the same clean artwork and swift but steady pacing to his graphic biography of J. Edgar Hoover. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1895, Hoover came from a religious clan whose "family business" was the federal bureaucracy. Obsessively hardworking from an early age, with few friends but a careful eye toward staying politically neutral in order to advance his career, Hoover swiftly moved up the ladder from a lowly Department of Justice post procured for him by a cousin in 1917 to head the Bureau of Investigation by 1924. Geary expertly marks the exacting effort with which Hoover set out during the Depression years to transform the oft-ignored, nearly powerless bureau into a well-publicized and widely idealized national crime-fighting, gangster-busting force. Hoover was obsessed almost equally by fighting what he saw as the immoral poison of liberalism and by consolidating his power with that of the FBI-the two often seen as the same thing to Hoover and, thanks to his intense media lobbying, to the nation itself. In the postwar years, he became the embodiment of an American reactionary. Geary doesn't stoop to rumor-mongering about Hoover's sexuality-he points out that the cross-dressing story is most likely false-but he gives the director's lengthy, marriage-like relationship with second-in-command Clyde Tolson the importance it deserves, particularly since Hoover publiclyproclaimed such a rigid, outdated view of sexual morality. As solid, thrilling and informative a guide to the life of the America's most powerful authoritarian as one could ask for.

Hitler or How to Be Invisible

2009-01-21T03:28:00.000-08:00

Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris

Author: Ian Kershaw

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, IanKershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Hitler here emerges from obscurity to uncontested rule over a disillusioned people desperate to escape from political and economic chaos. Hitler's path to power leads from the anti-Semitism of prewar Vienna through the First World War, the nationalism of Bavaria in the 1920s, and the undermining of German democracy by extremists of the right and left that opens the door for his seizure of the state in 1933. Drawing on previously untapped sources—including Joseph Goebbels's diaries, recently discovered in Moscow—this volume ends with the promulgation of the Nuremberg laws that pushed German Jews to the fringes of society and the march of the German army into the Rhineland, Hitler's first step toward the abyss of war. Horrifying, unstoppably readable, rich with analysis whose implications remain all too relevant as we near the end of Hitler's century, this is "biography of profound importance" (Thomas Childers, Boston Globe).

Istvan Deak

Kershaw demonstrates how naive almost all the politicians and political writers of the time were concerning Hitler....[He] wisely avoids the controversy about Hitler's "greatness," and warns that even the argument fo rhisnegative greatness is potentially apologetic. —The New Republic

Washington Post

A much-needed, readable, up-to-date biography.

The New York Times Book Review - Walter Reich

Masterly...Kershaw is able to clarify, perhaps better than any biographer who preceded him, what made Hitler's dictatorial power possible.

Wall Street Journal

The most astute assessment of Hitler's bond with the German people yet written.

London Review of Books - Wolfgang Mommsen

The sense of his own greatness instilled in Hitler by his following had reached a new peak; as Kershaw sees it, he was following the path that he believed had been laid out for him by Providence with the confidence of a sleepwalker.

Baltimore Sun

In the quest for the definitive explanation of the Hitler phenomenon, Ian Kershaw's prodigious work is an eminently worthy contender. Meticulously detailed...Kershaw brilliantly sets down how Hitler influenced events to serve his grandiose visions.

Library Journal

The first of two volumes from a British biographer.

National Review - Richard Lowry

...[B]ypasses the grand philosophical musings and explanatory muddle with a straightforward narrative of Hilter's rise.To the confounding question, How could it happen?, Kershaw has a basic, implicit answer: politics.

The Christian Science Monitor - Leonard Bushkoff

Ian Kershaw avoids fanciful interpretations; there is no psycho-history or its equivalent....The book makes one ponder the troubling parallels in some of today's fragmented countries where a sense of national unity and the public good are lacking...

The Washington Post

A much-needed, readable, up-to-date biography.

Kirkus Reviews

A monumental biography that seeks to be the final word (at least for this century) on the subject. British historian Kershaw (University of Sheffield) has spent an academic career thinking judiciously and writing clearly about Hitler, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany. This massive work, which will consist of two volumes, promises to be the most comprehensive biography of Hitler to date. And although the writing is clear and mercifully free of far-fetched theories attempting to fathom Hitler's evil, it still takes some dedication to historical truth to finish such a work and realize that the story is only half told. This is epic history on a grand scale; from rural Austria and Vienna to Munich and cosmopolitan Berlin; from the battlefields of the Great War to the exaggerations of the beer hall; from Hitler's rejection by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna to his election as chancellor of Germany. As narrative biography, Kershaw's account clearly portrays how Hitler evolved from a rejected artist to a political novice and then to messianic illusion. Besides the use of Goebbels's diaries, recently discovered in Moscow, there is little that is new here; Kershaw's achievement lies in his retelling the tale in greater detail and avoiding some of the more outlandish theories concerning Hitler. No one writing on Hitler, though, can avoid some attempt at explanation. Kershaw writes - and few would argue - that "the First World War made Hitler possible," but goes on to argue against the interpretation that Hitler was somehow the logical outcome of German history's "special path." Kershaw's Hitler is no "psychopathic god" but deeply rooted in the history and culture of Vienna, the Great War,and German racial nationalism. Thus, what emerges is a fascinating dialectic between the socioeconomic causes of Hitler's rise and the responsibility of the German people for his reign of terror.

What People Are Saying

Ian Kershaw
"Numerous people said, "...why are you working on this? It's so horrible..." But it always struck me it was of such vital importance to the 20th century....This is not very long ago, and yet it seems to be on another planet...

[He was asked:] After all his years of research, does he dream of Hitler? "I have never dreamed about Hitler....I've dreamed about the fate of my rugby team, but never about Hitler."
— Interviewed in The New York Times, March 22, 1999

Book review: Va de Vi Cookbook or Wandering and Feasting

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life

Author: J J Luna

From cyberspace to crawl spaces, new innovations in information gathering have left the private life of the average person open to scrutiny, and worse, exploitation. In this thoroughly revised update of his immensely popular guide How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna shows you how to protect yourself from these information predators by securing your vehicle and real estate ownership, your bank accounts, your business dealings, your computer files, your home address, and more.

J.J. Luna, a highly trained and experienced security consultant, shows you how to achieve the privacy you crave and deserve, whether you just want to shield yourself from casual scrutiny or take your life savings with you and disappearing without a trace. Whatever your needs, Luna reveals the shocking secrets that private detectives and other seekers of personal information use to uncover information and then shows how to make a serious commitment to safeguarding yourself.

There is a prevailing sense in our society that true privacy is a thing of the past. Filled with vivid real life stories drawn from the headlines and from Luna's own consulting experience, How to Be Invisible, Revised Edition is a critical antidote to the privacy concerns that continue only to grow in magnitude as new and more efficient ways of undermining our personal security are made available. Privacy is a commonly-lamented casualty of the Information Age and of the world's changing climate-but that doesn't mean you have to stand for it.

Kirkus Reviews

A subversive, disturbing, and altogether remarkable exposure of our frightening transparency to government agencies, investigators, the media, and more malign forces. Luna, a security consultant who "spent 11 years running a secret operation in Franco's Spain" (presumably outwitting the state police), begins by presenting formidable evidence of the demolition of personal privacy in the information age, as well as a chilling hypothetical selection of ways in which this state of affairs can ruin the existence of Joe & Jane Citizen (from false criminal accusations to stalking to lawsuits). His wryly presented conclusion—that advanced privacy measures are "flood insurance"—are borne out through the clear-headed instructional chapters that follow. First he shows how to protect one's physical space: how to construct an alternative mail-drop and "ghost" address, how to keep your real domicile unknown, and how to avoid using one's social-security number and birthdate for identification purposes. Although his suggestions seem surprisingly simple, he offers stern disclaimers to consult legal professionals. Further chapters delve deeply into the complicated netherworld of trusts, limited-liability companies, personal nominees, secret home businesses, anonymous travel, hidden ownership of vehicles and real estate, and so forth. One cannot but note that such information, although certainly invaluable to people in particular demographics (such as undercover cops or abused women, who might well need to "disappear"), is most often utilized by a new breed of transnational organized crime (with examples evident from Nick Leeson to the Russian Mafia). Yet Luna—whoseslightlyornate prose suggests Nero Wolfe after several Belgian ales—makes a bracing, serious argument for the aggressive defense of one's informational and asset privacy, acidly noting throughout how governmental entities constantly attempt to seal the doors of invisibility, as in their harrassment of mail-receiving services. This is a memorable work which should be considered by many and undoubtedly will be acted upon by some.

	Preface	xi
1	How This Book Can Make You Invisible	3
2	U.S. Mail--Serious Dangers	20
3	When Is a "Lie" Not a Lie?	39
4	Mailboxes, Public and Private	47
5	How to Obtain Your Own "Ghost" Address	57
6	Repairmen, Home Deliveries, House Calls, FedEx, UPS	72
7	Untraceable Trash, Anonymous Utilities	83
8	Your Social Security Number and Date of Birth	90
9	Your Alternate Names and Signatures	110
10	Telephones and Answering Machines	121
11	Cell Phones and Pagers	140
12	Handheld Two-Way Radios	148
13	How to Find and Use Nominees	157
14	Bank Accounts and Money Transfers	161
15	Limited Liability Companies	173
16	Hidden Ownership of Vehicles and Real Estate	182
17	Personal Computers	197
18	E-Mail and the Internet	211
19	How to Secretly Run a Home-Based Business	232
20	Secret Spaces, Hidden Places	240
21	Cool Stuff That Did Not Fit In Earlier	248
22	An Exam, a Secret, and an Invitation	266
	Glossary	275
	Appendix	276
	Index	279

The Stillborn God or Hackers Challenge 3

2009-01-20T00:36:00.000-08:00

The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West

Author: Mark Lilla

A brilliant account of religion's role in the political thinking of the West, from the Enlightenment to the close of World War II.

The wish to bring political life under God's authority is nothing new, and it's clear that today religious passions are again driving world politics, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest-and its surprising role in shaping Western thought. Making us look deeper into our beliefs about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West's unique trajectory and how to remain on it. Illuminating and challenging, The Stillborn God is a watershed in the history of ideas.

The New York Times - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

One can read Lilla's story and draw precisely the opposite normative conclusions from the ones he asks us to draw: that the West's experimental testing and retesting of political theology, trying to see if there is any safe way of mixing politics and religion, has delivered an answer from which all may learn. Separating church and state works; mixing them tends toward disaster. But draw what normative conclusions you will from The Stillborn God, this provocative book is to be applauded for doing justice to the complexity of our long attempt to reconcile our transcendental aspirations with human well-being.

Publishers Weekly

This searching history of western thinking about the relationship between religion and politics was inspired not by 9/11, but by Nazi Germany, where, says University of Chicago professor Lilla (The Reckless Mind), politics and religion were horrifyingly intertwined. To explain the emergence of Nazism's political theology, Lilla reaches back to the early modern era, when thinkers like Locke and Hume began to suggest that religion and politics should be separate enterprises. Some theorists, convinced that Christianity bred violence, argued that government must be totally detached from religion. Others, who believed that rightly practiced religion could contribute to modern life, promoted a "liberal theology," which sought to articulate Christianity and Judaism in the idiom of reason. (Lilla's reading of liberal Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen is especially arresting.) Liberal theologians, Lilla says, credulously assumed human society was progressive and never dreamed that fanaticism could capture the imaginations of modern people-assumptions that were proven wrong by Hitler. If Lilla castigates liberal theology for its naïveté, he also praises America and Western Europe for simultaneously separating religion from politics, creating space for religion, and staving off "sectarian violence" and "theocracy." Lilla's work, which will influence discussions of politics and theology for the next generation, makes clear how remarkable an accomplishment that is. (Sept. 14)

Gary P. Gillum - Library Journal

Noted historian Lilla's (Committee on Social Thought, Univ. of Chicago; The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics) newest book is according to the back cover "a sobering and thought-provoking work making us question what we thought we knew about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations." Lilla helps us to take stock and, as he writes in his introduction, "think harder about how we live now and what is required if we wish our experiment to continue." He addresses the strengths and weaknesses of current political thought and the modern institutions we take for granted, and he further distinguishes among the Ethical God, the Bourgeois God, the Redeeming God, and the Stillborn God of our current political thought. This is a fascinating and edifying analytical history of ideas offering many observations, among them, that our world is becoming as fragile as the medieval world-increasingly intolerant, dogmatic, and fearful. For readers who love theology and philosophy as well as such thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, Lilla's reasoned survey of secular and religious politics is a major gift to modern thought. Recommended for academic and public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

An elegant and timely investigation of the rise, and fall, and rise, of political theology. Once upon a time, everyone assumed religion and politics went hand in hand. Here, Lilla (Committee on Social Thought/Univ. of Chicago; The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, 2001, etc.) traces the relatively recent Western divide between the two. Lilla opens by distinguishing three different kinds of political theology-those that imagine God as immanent, remote or transcendent-and by sketching the different ways Judaism and Christianity conceive of God's involvement with the world. He then tours post-medieval Western thought. On one end sits Hobbes (who, with Locke and Hume, untangled religion from statecraft); on the other end sit Kant and Hegel. In between those two poles is the most significant section of the book-Lilla's reading of Rousseau's "The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar," a section of Emile (and the most sustained treatment Rousseau ever offered of religion). Rousseau was the first to articulate the belief that religion is an expression of man's essential goodness. In wanting to have it both ways-wanting a secular politics shot through with some domesticated sense of piety-Rousseau was, in a sense, undermining the profound break that his forebears had made with religion. The titular stillborn God is Rousseau's step-child: The liberal religion Emile spawned was dealt a paralyzing blow in the mid-20th century, because it ultimately couldn't stand up to the monstrous reemergence of the political theology of Nazi Germany. Lilla offers no tidy answers at the end of the book. Given the purchase political theology has on so many people, even today, Westerners must ask whetherthey wish the separation between politics and religion to continue. Dense and rewarding.

Interesting book: Sex Power Conflict Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives or Understanding Organizational Culture

Hacker's Challenge 3: 20 Brand-New Forensic Scenarios and Solutions

Author: David Pollino

The stories about phishing attacks against banks are so true-to-life, it’s chilling.” --Joel Dubin, CISSP, Microsoft MVP in Security

Every day, hackers are devising new ways to break into your network. Do you have what it takes to stop them? Find out in Hacker’s Challenge 3. Inside, top-tier security experts offer 20 brand-new, real-world network security incidents to test your computer forensics and response skills. All the latest hot-button topics are covered, including phishing and pharming scams, internal corporate hacking, Cisco IOS, wireless, iSCSI storage, VoIP, Windows, Mac OS X, and UNIX/Linux hacks, and much more. Each challenge includes a detailed explanation of the incident--how the break-in was detected, evidence and clues, technical background such as log files and network maps, and a series of questions for you to solve. In Part II, you’ll get a detailed analysis of how the experts solved each incident.

David Pollino has a strong background in security, wireless, and networking. David is currently a security practitioner working in financial services. During his career, he has worked for an industry-leading security consulting company, a large financial services company, and a tier 1 ISP. David often speaks at security events and has frequently been quoted in online and printed journals regarding security issues. During his career as a consultant and network engineer, David has worked for clients across multiple industries, including financial services, service providers, high technology, manufacturing, and government. He co-authored Wireless Security (RSA Press, 2002) and Hacker'sChallenge and Hacker's Challenge 2 (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2001 and 2002, respectively).

Bill Pennington, CISSP, has six years of professional experience in information security and eleven years in information technology. His duties at WhiteHat include managing research and development, guiding product and technology direction, managing web application assessment teams, and developing and delivering WhiteHat Security training. Bill has performed web application assessments for more than four years in a variety of industry verticals including financial services, e-commerce, and biotechnology. He is familiar with Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, Windows, and OpenBSD, and he is a Certified Information Security Systems Practitioner (CISSP) and Certified Cisco Network Administrator (CCNA). He has broad experience in web application security, penetration testing, computer forensics, and intrusion detection systems. Prior to joining WhiteHat, Bill was a principal consultant and technical lead for assessment services at Guardent, a nationwide security services provider.

Tony Bradley, CISSP-ISSAP, MCSE2k, has eight years of computer networking and administration experience, focusing the last four on network security and malware protection. Tony is a network security architect providing design, implementation, and management of network security solutions for a variety of Fortune 500 customers. He is also the editor and writer for the About.com Internet/Network Security website and frequently contributes to a variety of technical and security publications, both in print and on the Web. You can view his writing portfolio at http://www.s3kur3.com.

Himanshu Dwivedi is a founding partner of iSEC Partners, an independent provider of information security services and tools. He has 12 years of experience in security and IT. Before forming iSEC, he was Technical Director for @stake's Bay Area security practice. Himanshu's professional focus includes strategic security services, which leverages his experience with software development, infrastructure security, application security, tool development, and secure product design. He is considered an industry expert in storage security, specifically Fibre Channel/iSCSI SANs and CIFS/NFS NAS systems. Himanshu has presented at major security conferences throughout the world, including Black Hat, Storage Networking World, Syscan Singapore, and Bellua Indonesia. Himanshu also has a patent pending for a storage security design architecture that can be implemented on enterprise storage products for Fibre Channel networks. Himanshu has also authored two additional security books, including Securing Storage: A Practical Guide to SAN and NAS Security (Addison-Wesley, 2005) and Implementing SSH: Strategies for Optimizing the Secure Shell (Wiley, 2003).

And Then There Were Four or Cases in Macro Social Work Practice

2009-01-19T13:24:00.000-08:00

And Then There Were Four

Author: Ellen Stein

This book was born when we four-childhood friends from our school days-realized that each of us had different and unique memories of growing up in pre-Holocaust Berlin. We wanted to share these stories not only with our families and friends, but with others.

In so doing, we honor our parents and acknowledge the distinctive ways in which they coped with overwhelming circumstances. Their efforts and their courage made it possible for us to survive.

We also remember our sometimes miraculous escapes, our subsequent adventures, and the challenges of adapting to a new culture and a foreign language. We even discovered occasional joy in the process. We cherish our lasting friendship and look forward to what the future still has to offer.

LE CHAYIM ! TO LIFE !

Go to: Cuba Cocina or Flavors of India

Cases in Macro Social Work Practice

Author: David Fauri

Cases in Macro Social Work Practice

Third Edition

David P. Fauri, Virginia Commonwealth University

Stephen P. Wernet, St. Louis University

F. Ellen Netting, Virginia Commonwealth University

Overview

The third edition of Cases in Macro Social Work Practice provides relevant, contemporary, macro practice case scenarios that reflect practice dilemmas and challenges typically experienced by social workers in organizational, community, and policy practice areas. The text emphasizes the change process in both domestic and international settings with a theoretical and practice perspective.

New to This Edition

Leadership in and understanding of cross-cultural practice settings
Strategic planning and leadership in nonprofit organizations
New cases set in South America and Africa that add international and NGO aspects and complement an existing caseset in Central America
Complete literature updates with each case to assist students in delving further into specific settings, problems, and interventions

Cases in Macro Social Work Practice is designed to accompany Social Work Macro Practice, Fourth Edition, ©2008, by Netting / Kettner / McMurtry. To find our more about this special package, please contact your local sales representative at ablongman.com/replocator.

_______________________________________________________________________

About the Editors     vii
About the Contributors     ix
Introduction     1
Using the Case Method in the Classroom     1
The Case Method: An Introduction     3
Conceptual Background: The Case Method in Education for the Professions     4
Using Cases as Learning Tools     6
Theories, Concepts, and Practice Applications: Selecting Cases in This Book According to Themes     7
Understanding Problems and Populations     11
Lee and the Amazing Multifaceted Community Needs Assessment   Marsha A. Marley   Mary E. Rogge   Robin L. Ersing     13
References     17
Hate Crimes Legislation: Legislative Advocacy for the GLBT Community   D. Veronica Creech   Stephen P. Wernet   Jeff Wunrow     31
References     35
The Underground Advocates: Legislative Advocacy for and with Service Users with Disabilities   Stephen French Gilson     45
References     48
The Guatemalan Stove Project   Melissa L. Abell     61
References     64
The Community as the Arena of Change     77
The Reverend and Me: Faith Communities and Public Welfare   Robert Wineburg     79
References     82
Riverton: Envisioning a Sustainable Community   Jonathan Scherch     92
References     95
The Native Hawaiian Children's Center: Changing Methods from Casework to Community Practice   Elizabeth A. Mulroy   Jon K. Matsuoka     107
References     110
Lindblom County: How Diversity Influenced Philanthropic Sufficiency   Roger A. Lohmann     121
References     125
The Organization as the Arena of Change     137
Growing Hope: Strategic Planning and Organizational Change   Alan Erdman   Stephen P. Wernet     139
References     142
The Women's Co-Op: The Clash of Two Organizational Cultures   Cheryl A. Hyde     155
References     158
When Community Mental Health Meets Public Managed Care   Diane Vinokur-Kaplan   Patricia Miller     170
References     174
Recognizing the Realities: Managing Biculturally   Dwight Jackson   Stephen P. Wernet     186
References     189
Changing Macro Systems     199
The Coffee Break; Supervisor-Employee Relationships at Risk   David P. Fauri     201
References      205
KingsHaven and You: Managing Volunteers   Nancy Macduff   F. Ellen Netting     214
References     216
Carol's Value Dilemmas: Implementing Public Services for Disabled Elders   Sharon M. Keigher     229
References     233
Organizing in Jacinto: Getting In and Getting Started   Mary Katherine O'Connor     252
References     255
Index     268

Jefferson or The Second Civil War

2009-01-19T03:10:00.000-08:00

Jefferson: A Monticello Sampler

Author: Richard H Britton

Rick Britton has been writing about Thomas Jefferson and Monticello for over a dozen years. His well-received Jefferson pieces have appeared in newspapers and magazines all across the Old Dominion. Based largely on that work, this book presents an eclectic and captivating collection of Jefferson essays. Within its pages you'll discover: Jefferson's influence on Albemarle, his native county; the British raid that came within a hairsbreadth of capturing Jefferson; slavery along Monticello's Mulberry Row; Jefferson's friendship with Italian vintner Filippo Mazzei; his wide-ranging scientific pursuits; William Clark's 1807 trek to Big Bone Lick, Ky., in search of Mastodon bones; Jefferson's efforts toward exploring the West; the all-but-forgotten Freeman and Custis expedition; Jefferson's slavery correspondence with Edward Coles; Lafayette's 1824 visit to Monticello; Jefferson's founding of the University of Virginia; his amazing architectural legacy; and the early years of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, the organization that owns and operates Monticello.

Interesting textbook: The Kennedy Men or A New History of Social Welfare

The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America

Author: Ronald Brownstein

From one of America's most respected political commentators, an epic, shrewd, and important big-picture analysis of the forces that have made this era in American politics as divisive and bitterly partisan as any since the Civil War.

Few don't appreciate that in recent years American politics has seemingly become much more partisan, more zero-sum, more vicious, more willing to make mountains out of molehills, and less able to confront the mountains of real problems we face. And yet in poll after poll, the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as either "very conservative" or "very liberal" hasn't budged in more than a generation. What has happened? In The Second Civil War, Ronald Brownstein brilliantly diagnoses the electoral, demographic, and institutional forces that have brought such change over the American political landscape, pulling politics to the margins and leaving precious little common ground for compromise.

Displaying the deep historical perspective for which he is noted, Brownstein begins with a history of the evolving climate for partisanship since the dawn of the modern political era in 1896, presenting a fresh and bold reinterpretation of American politics and the personalities who have shaped it from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Offering both sweeping analysis and intimate detail drawn from exclusive interviews with top officials and strategists in both parties, The Second Civil War captures the currents that have carried America to today's dangerous impasse, from little-understood changes in congressional rules that made it easier for parties to enforce discipline and discourage compromise tothe rise of special-interest pressure groups to a vastly changed media environment that has become much more vicious and much less serious.

While there was no Golden Age, and in many respects the increasing plurality of voices that get to have a say in our politics is all to the good, the net-net is a system in which compromise and conciliation are thwarted at almost every turn and big problems that require broad consensus continue to fester ominously, unaddressed and growing more and more painful to face as we approach crisis situations. But Ronald Brownstein ends with a menu of clear and compelling ways out of our collective dilemma, largely centering on the opportunity for unifying leadership. The Second Civil War is not a book for Democrats or Republicans per se but for all Americans who are disturbed by our current political dysfunction and hungry for ways to understand it-and move beyond it.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

In describing the history of partisanship in this country Mr. Brownstein writes with both an authoritative understanding of the political dynamics in Washington and a plain-spoken common sense. He points out the practical dangers of hyperpartisanship—how it has prevented America's leaders from agreeing on everything from a comprehensive immigration plan to a strategy for reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil to a long-term plan for securing Social Security. And he reminds us that while the country itself is not more divided than it has been in the past (especially when compared, say, with the 1960s or the 1860s), the nation's current political system accentuates differences instead of bridging them.

Publishers Weekly

With this intelligent and expansive book, Los Angeles Timespolitical correspondent and columnist Brownstein dissects the hyperpartisanship that he believes "has unnecessarily inflamed our differences and impeded progress against our most pressing challenges." The first half of the book examines the roots of this hyperpartisanship, beginning with the 1896 election of William McKinley, which the author argues ushered in four decades of fierce partisan division. The 1938 resurgence of the Republican Party marked the start of the "age of bargaining," with presidents and legislators crossing party lines to govern through consensus. The author believes both parties became more ideologically consistent during the 1960s, resulting in a "sorting out" of the electorate that eventually led to today's partisan divisiveness. This thorough history lays the groundwork for Brownstein's incisive analysis of the contemporary Republican and Democratic parties. He resists blaming any one party or president for the state of contemporary American politics, instead attributing partisan divisions to interest groups, changes in congressional rules and practices and the realignment of the parties and electorate. This sophisticated though lengthy book lays out a complex history with lucid precision, painting a damning portrait of contemporary politics that's sure to provoke and captivate readers interested in American politics and history. (Nov. 1)

The Kennedy Men or A New History of Social Welfare

2009-01-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets

Author: Nellie Bly

Unparalleled by any other family in the history of our nation, the Kennedys have become a legend for the scandals, the love and the mysteries that surround them.

The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets uncovers the truth about this long-admired family. Learn what they have endured and the truth about the men who play by their own rules: JFK’s rumored first marriage, President Kennedy’s Oval Office tapes, the night Marilyn Monroe died and the subsequent cover-up, the Good Friday rape case, Teddy Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick tragedy.

Publishers Weekly

This is Kennedy family history for a visitor from Saturn, a by-the-clips stampede through the generations from Joe Sr. and his dynastic ambitions through the Joe/Jack/Bobby/Teddy era, trailing off into chronological snippets on every fourth-generation Kennedy infant. There's nothing new here unless one didn't know that Kennedy males drink a lot and have drawn more of their share of tragic cards from the deck. Had we forgotten that Rory Kennedy was arrested in 1984 for demonstrating in D.C. against apartheid in front of the South African embassy? Or that John F. Kennedy Jr. failed his New York bar exam more than once? The short story here is that Kennedy men are aggressive, oversexed spoiled brats and that their women are nobly struggling to full citizenship in the clan. Bly, a pseudonymous author oddly both pictured and named (Sarah Gallick) in the accompanying publicity, assembles her material conscientiously and identifies almost every anecdote and quotation by its origin in another Kennedy volume. She isn't pretending access to any primary sources, but she's read a lot of books by "pocket Kennedy historians," including Arthur Schlesinger and Doris Kearns Goodwin. This is for Kennedy fanatics only. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)

	Introduction	1
	Part One: An American Gothic
	Chapter One: The Marriage of Joe and Rose	9
	Chapter Two: Joe Heads for Hollywood - Alone	19
	Chapter Three: Joe Finds a Hero in Franklin D. Roosevelt	27
	Chapter Four: The Kennedys at the Court of St. James	37
	Chapter Five: The Kennedys Go to War	48
	Part Two: The Postwar Boom
	Chapter Six: The First Kennedy Campaign	61
	Chapter Seven: Jack Aims for Vice President and Takes a Bride	73
	Chapter Eight: Jack's Presidential Campaign	86
	Part Three: Living on the New Frontier
	Chapter Nine: Days of Heaven: Life in the Kennedy White House	97
	Chapter Ten: Dark Clouds Gather	131
	Part Four: After Camelot
	Chapter Eleven: Bobby's Brief Moment	149
	Part Five: The Rise and Fall of Cadillac Eddie
	Chapter Twelve: Teddy's Turn	167
	Chapter Thirteen: Chappaquiddick	176
	Chapter Fourteen: Teddy's Power Fades	191
	Part Six: The Legacy
	Chapter Fifteen: Collapse of the Dream	223
	Part Seven: Welcome to the Nineties
	Chapter Sixteen: A New Generation in the Spotlight	269
	Chapter Seventeen: Palm Beach Scandal	275
	Chapter Eighteen: Final Curtain	310
	Appendix	321
	Notes and Sources	331
	Bibliography	346
	Index	351

New interesting book: Automated Information Retrieval or International Financial Market Investment

A New History of Social Welfare

Author: Phyllis J Day

What Colleagues are Saying:

“I very much like the book. The format is good, the content is excellent, and the author does a good job of staying current on issues.” — Brenda K.J. Crawley, Loyola University Chicago

“The approach of attempting to answer the “why” of social welfare is very useful… The “why” approach aids in encouraging more reflection of the content.” — Brenda K.J. Crawley, Loyola University Chicago

“Day’s approach has an easy flow and I find the chronological progression of the profession itself is interwoven with ideology of basic human need chapter by chapter. I assign students to read all the chapters, as I believe any one of them might gain some important piece of information, some new understanding or some unanswered question that we can then take on as an entire class.” — Anna May Walsh, Sussex County Community College

“Material in each chapter is presented in a way that holds student interest but also offers a challenge.” -- Anna May Walsh, Sussex County Community College

“Day’s book has many strengths. It is very well-written and makes history very interesting. The text is easy to understand and engaging to the reader. The book is well-organized, and comprehensive. Its chronological scope covers the early African origins of humankind through the New Millennium, and includes a detailed analysis of social welfare in the United States. A final strength of the book is the author’s apparent willingness to invite and integrate input and perspectives from other social work educatorsthroughout the country. She achieves her objective, in my view, of answering the “why” of social welfare, and she consistently incorporates learning content and analytical perspectives from the “subjects/victims/recipients/clients” viewpoints.” — Stan L Bowie, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

“The writing style in Day’s 5^th edition is straightforward, engaging, and flows in a manner that keeps the material fresh and interesting. The context is quite in-depth, comprehensive, thoroughly backed up with current and relevant citations and references, and presented in a detailed fashion that is conducive to learning.” -- Stan L Bowie, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Preacher and the Presidents or Applebees America

2009-01-18T02:45:00.000-08:00

The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House

Author: Nancy Gibbs

No one man or woman has ever been in a position to see the presidents, and the presidency, so intimately, over so many years. They called him in for photo opportunities. They called for comfort. They asked about death and salvation; about sin and forgiveness.

At a time when the nation is increasingly split over the place of religion in public life, THE PREACHER AND THE PRESIDENTS reveals how the world's most powerful men and world's most famous evangelist, Billy Graham, knit faith and politics together.

Interesting book: Legendary Cocktails or Sexy City Cocktails

Applebee's America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community

Author: Douglas B Sosnik

A unique team of authors -- Douglas B. Sosnik, a strategist in the Clinton White House; Matthew J. Dowd, a strategist for President Bush's two campaigns who has recently broken publicly with the president over the direction of the administration; and award-winning political journalist Ron Fournier -- took their exclusive insiders' knowledge far outside Washington's Beltway in search of keys to winning leadership.

Publishers Weekly

Anyone wondering what that "values" buzz after the 2004 election was about, and what it means for business, religion and politics, will find solid answers in this analysis by a former Clinton aide, one of the masterminds behind the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign and a senior Associated Press political correspondent. In a unified, third-person voice, the three declare their intention to "help twenty-first-century American leaders think anew about the people they serve a people that, despite an increasingly multiracial society, "seem to be seeking more homogeneity in their lifestyle choices." Since the 1990s, they argue, the key to winning the hearts, dollars and votes of the American public and its leaders is appealing to "the three C's, connections, community, and civic engagement." Drawing on interviews with the middle class "exurb" residents who eat at Applebee's restaurants, as well as their own inside knowledge, the authors declare that the pattern holds across the greater part of the American spectrum. Though their narrow interview sample is a weakness, they draw conclusions about the political arena, where lifelong Democrats voted for Bush in 2004 on "gut instinct"; the business world, where customers at the more than 1,700 Applebee's restaurants deem it "a second home"; and in megachurches, which fulfill Americans "need for belonging and purpose in a new century." Illus. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Americans crave community, and they look for leaders who can deliver it. That's the premise of this work by an unlikely trio of political heavyweights. Sosnik (former senior advisor to President Clinton), Fox News analyst Matthew J. Dowd (former chief campaign strategist for Bush-Cheney in 2004), and Ron Fournier (chief political writer, Associated Press) team up in an effort to explain how successful businesses, political candidates, and clergy win their audiences. For starters, Americans are less issues-oriented than they are values-oriented. So both the Clinton and the Bush campaigns aimed at voters' hearts rather than their heads-with notable success. The 1700 Applebee's bar and grills thrive by creating a sense of community in America's alienating exurbs, with each Applebee's striving to be a vital neighborhood institution in spite of its strip-mall location and run-of-the-mill fare. The authors drew upon that cozy image as their metaphor for community. They go on to show how the new mega-churches, as well as businesses and politicians, find and target customers by using marketing techniques to predict habits based on lifestyles. To be successful, these "marketers" constantly adapt to the changing behavior patterns and preferences of their target groups, as they must. Recommended for academic and larger public library business and leadership collections.-Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin, Whitewater Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
"For anyone interested in how Americans make connections and build community in the 21st century, this book is a must read. Whether your interest is in the political world or the business world, Applebee's America explains how community and shared values can determine how we vote, where we worship, and even where we dine. Whether you manage a restaurant or a political organization, there are certain consistencies that matter to people: community, communication, and authenticity. This book examines current trends and provides fresh thinking and new ideas and strategies for anyone interested in influencing large groups of people."

Senator John McCain
"In a lucid and engaging narrative, the authors offer an insightful account of modern America that should interest Americans of all political, religious, and social affiliations, and prove invaluable to those who presume to lead them."

	Introduction : stormy present	1
1	Politics : values trump the economy	11
2	Business : selling community	62
3	Religion : a cause greater than yourself	93
4	Anxious Americans	129
5	The 3 Cs : connections, community, and civic engagement	147
6	Navigators	180
7	Americans on the move	198
8	Generation 9/11	218
App. 1	What's your tribe?
App. 2	Changes in technology and American lifestyle

Monetary Policy Inflation and the Business Cycle or How to Conduct Surveys

2009-01-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework

Author: Jordi Gali

The New Keynesian framework has emerged as the workhorse for the analysis of monetary policy and its implications for inflation, economic fluctuations, and welfare. It is the backbone of the new generation of medium-scale models under development at major central banks and international policy institutions, and provides the theoretical underpinnings of the inflation stability-oriented strategies adopted by most central banks throughout the industrialized world. This graduate-level textbook provides an introduction to the New Keynesian framework and its applications to monetary policy.

Using a canonical version of the New Keynesian model as a reference framework, Jordi Galí explores issues pertaining to the design of monetary policy, including the determination of the optimal monetary policy and the desirability of simple policy rules. He analyzes several extensions of the baseline model, allowing for cost-push shocks, nominal wage rigidities, and open economy factors. In each case, the implications for monetary policy are addressed, with a special emphasis on the desirability of inflation targeting policies.

The most up-to-date and accessible introduction to the New Keynesian framework available
Uses a single benchmark model throughout
Concise and easy to use
Includes exercises
An ideal resource for graduate students, researchers, and market analysts

Preface     ix
Introduction     1
A Classical Monetary Model     15
The Basic New Keynesian Model     41
Monetary Policy Design in the Basic New Keynesian Model     71
Monetary Policy Tradeoffs: Discretion versus Commitment     95
A Model with Sticky Wages and Prices     119
Monetary Policy and the Open Economy     149
Main Lessons and Some Extensions     185
Index     195

Go to: File System Forensic Analysis or Not Left behind

How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide

Author: Arlene Fink

Arlene Fink and Jacqueline Kosecoff's practical guide examines the nuts and bolts of interview and questionnaire design. It takes the reader through the process of deciding informational needs, choosing a questionnaire or interview format, designing a data-collection method, choosing a sample, analyzing the findings and reporting results. The book is geared to everyone who needs to learn how to do a simple survey, regardless of background. With practical exercises and informative appendices, this book is appropriate for both self-teaching and classroom use.

Booknews

Guides readers in developing their own rigorous surveys and evaluating the credibility of other surveys, with practical advice and instructions. This second edition is completely revised to reflect changes such as computer-assisted and interactive surveys, and gives guidelines on preparing informed consent statements for survey respondents and for asking sensitive questions about ethnicity, income, and gender. Other new topics include translating surveys to other languages, reading computer output containing survey results, and using new survey data analysis techniques such as odds rations, relative risks, and confidence intervals. Includes guidelines on preparing reports and giving oral presentations, as well as examples, exercises and answers, and appendices on performing technical computations. Useful for self-paced instruction, workshops, and formal classrooms. Requires no background in statistics. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Lenin Stalin and Hitler or Statecraft

2009-01-17T04:20:00.000-08:00

Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe

Author: Robert Gellately

A bold new accounting of the great social and political upheavals that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945—from the Russian Revolution through the Second World War.

In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature. Arguing that the tragedies endured by Europe were inextricably linked through the dictatorships of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, Gellately explains how the pursuit of their “utopian” ideals turned into dystopian nightmares. Dismantling the myth of Lenin as a relatively benevolent precursor to Hitler and Stalin and contrasting the divergent ways that Hitler and Stalin achieved their calamitous goals, Gellately creates in Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler a vital analysis of a critical period in modern history.

The Washington Post - Simon Sebag Montefiore

"The image of Lenin that emerges from the pages of this book, even the mere mention of him in the title alongside Stalin and Hitler," writes Robert Gellately in the introduction to his new study of the epoch of the great slaughterhouse in the 20th century, "will disturb some people." The author, a distinguished academic, adds that "a good friend of mine…said the very thought of putting Lenin next to Stalin and Hitler in the book's title would be enough to make her Russian grandmother turn in her grave." But let that Russian grandmother turn: It's time to rip up the accepted versions of this terrible period and analyze it on the evidence that we now have. Gellately has done just that in a book that is both sensible and sophisticated, scholarly and very readable.

Publishers Weekly

Historian Gellately's (Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany) new work insists on Lenin's inclusion in any effort to understand the two major and deadly dictatorships of 20th-century Europe, Soviet communism and Nazism. Every horrendous act of the Stalin era had been seeded by Lenin, the author argues. Moreover, the Soviet and Nazi systems developed in tandem, each carefully eying the other, learning from each other, as they both reached an apex of brutality and terror. In developing this analysis, Gellately provides informed but somewhat plodding accounts of the two systems. Not all of the arguments stand up to scrutiny. "In the 1930s, the struggle between Communism and Nazism became a deadly rivalry for world domination," the author writes. But in the 1930s Stalin cared for little beyond the Soviet Union and was hardly bent on global conquest. Gellately's approach is relentlessly one-sided in its focus on ideology as the causative factor in history. Even the civil war that followed the Bolshevik revolution is treated as backdrop for the implementation of ideology, rather than as an earthquake-like event that well into the 1950s shaped the thinking of Soviet leaders. Gellately is better on the Third Reich, but overall this is an unsatisfying and uninspired history. 16 pages of photos. (Aug. 20)

Kirkus Reviews

Overlong history of Europe between 1914 and 1945, the age of totalitarian empires and what Gellately (History/Florida State Univ.) (Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 2001, etc.) calls "the great catastrophe" whose origins lie in Leninism. Solzhenitsyn would approve, and so would the authors of The Black Book of Communism, none of whom would find Gellately's thesis extraordinary. However, since by the author's account so many academics hasten to distinguish the "good" Lenin from the "bad" Lenin, the idea that the 20th-century bloodletting somehow begins with him may prove controversial. Gellately defends his position well, and indeed even loyal Leon Trotsky allowed that Lenin "was driven to distraction," as Gellately puts it, "when other Bolsheviks did not grasp or agree that Communism could be realized only by paying a heavy price in human lives." The dictatorship that Lenin and his ambitious acolyte Stalin forced upon Russia was open to Jewish revolutionaries, a point not lost on Hitler when he came to power; Gellately argues that Hitler's war on the Soviet Union was "an extension of his war against the Jews," summarized by Hitler's conflation of "Jewish Bolshevism"; had Hitler kept his war confined to the Jews, Gellately observes in passing, many citizens of the Soviet regime would have proved sympathetic and even would have collaborated, but Hitler chose to make war on all things Soviet instead. Interestingly, Gellately notes toward the end of his book, Stalin's postwar pogroms may have been a delayed reaction to Hitler's charge; Stalin was no fan of Jewish Bolshevism either, but even so his "turn to anti-Semitism was out of character . . . and a completecontradiction of what Marxists had said about the Jewish question for almost a century." Such things will prove revelations for many readers, but much of Gellately's narrative repeats well-known facts about the various dictators' rise and fall. A more streamlined narrative would have been welcome. All the same, a solid contribution to the literature of World War II, totalitarianism and the bloody 20th century.

Abbreviations and Glossary     xi
Note on Russian Spelling and Dates     xv
Maps     xvi
Introduction     3
Lenin's Communist Dictatorship
The First World War and the Russian Revolution     21
On the Way to Communist Dictatorship     41
Civil Wars in the Soviet Union     62
The Rise of German National Socialism
Nazism and the Threat of Bolshevism     81
First Nazi Attempt to Seize Power     102
Hitler Starts Over     117
Stalin Triumphs over Political Rivals
Battle for Communist Utopia     131
Lenin's Passing, Stalin's Victory     141
Stalin's New Initiatives     160
Stalin Solidifies His Grip     173
Germans Make a Pact with Hitler
Nazi Party as Social Movement     185
Nazism Exploits Economic Distress     198
"All Power" for Hitler     211
Stalin's Reign of Terror
Fight Against the Countryside     227
Terror as Political Practice     240
"Mass Operations"     253
"Cleansing" the Soviet Elite     267
Hitler's War Against Democracy
Winning Over the Nation     285
Dictatorship by Consent     298
Persecution of the Jews in the PrewarYears     315
"Cleansing" the German Body Politic     331
Stalin and Hitler: Into the Social Catastrophe
Rival Visions of World Conquest     345
German Racial Persecution Begins in Poland     360
Hitler and Western Europe     375
The Soviet Response     384
The War Spreads     397
Hitler's War on "Jewish Bolshevism"
War of Extermination as Nazi Crusade     413
War Against the Communists: Operation Barbarossa     429
War Against the Jews: Death Squads in the East     441
The "Final Solution" and Death Camps     452
Hitler's Defeat and Stalin's Agenda
Greatest Crisis in Stalin's Career     471
Between Surrender and Defiance     482
Soviets Hold On, Hitler Grows Vicious     498
Ethnic Cleansing in Wartime Soviet Union     511
Final Struggle
From Stalingrad to Berlin     525
Stalin Takes the Upper Hand     543
End of the Third Reich     560
Epilogue     579
Notes     595
Acknowledgments     671
Index     673
Photographic Credits     697

Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World

Author: Dennis Ross

In this wise and thought-provoking book, the renowned peace negotiator Dennis Ross shows that America’s current foreign policy problems stem from the Bush administration’s inability to use the tools of statecraft to advance our national interests. Ross explains that in the globalized world—with its fluid borders, terrorist networks, and violent unrest—statecraft is more necessary than ever. In vivid chapters, he outlines how statecraft helped shape a new world order after 1989. He shows how the failure of statecraft in Iraq and throughout the Middle East has undercut the United States and makes clear that only statecraft can check the rise of China and the danger of a nuclear Iran. He draws on his expertise to reveal the art of successful negotiation. And he shows how the next president could resolve today’s problems and define a realistic, ambitious foreign policy. Statecraft is “an essential book for our time” (Walter Isaacson).

Publishers Weekly

Ross, the Clinton administration's Middle East envoy (The Missing Peace) makes the seemingly dreary, opaque processes of international diplomacy as coherent, absorbing and occasionally dramatic as a procedural thriller. He conceives of statecraft as a subtle orchestration of foreign policy "assets," including intelligence and analysis, diplomacy, sanctions, economic aid and military pressure. Most of all, it requires negotiations: the book's middle section is a lengthy tutorial on the nuts and bolts of epic negotiating, Ross's forte, complete with tips on how and when to stage angry outbursts at the conference table. The author illustrates with case studies of foreign policy triumphs and disasters (many of which he had a hand in), from German reunification to the war in Iraq. The book is an avowedly "neo-liberal" rebuke of Bush's unilateralist, "faith-based" foreign policy blundering. Indeed, with its call for virtuoso state craftsmanship and its detailed proposals on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iranian nuclear ambitions to relations with China, it could well be Ross's application for the 2009 secretary of state opening. If so, it's an impressive one, full of canny, judicious insights into the making of foreign policy. (June)

Foreign Affairs

Everything was so much clearer during the Cold War. The UnitedStates used its diplomatic, economic, and military might to contain and outmaneuver the Soviet Union. Then, as the Cold War was winding down, the United States engaged Mikhail Gorbachev's rapidly declining regime as a source of leverage to manage and resolve conflicts across the globe.

Through sustained diplomatic negotiations, Washington took advantage of the shifting geopolitical landscape to negotiate settlements and aid transitions in Afghanistan, Central America, Southeast Asia, and southern Africa while laying the foundations for Europe's post-Cold War security architecture. This approach helped the United States defeat Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, launch the Madrid phase of the Middle East peace process, and facilitate the unification of Germany. Thanks in large part to the United States' vision and diplomatic skill, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of over a dozen states in its wake was a remarkably peaceful affair.<

Kirkus Reviews

A former Middle East envoy for the Bush I and Clinton administrations argues that the current President Bush's team has abandoned "statecraft" in favor of lecturing, posturing, bullying and bombing, thereby making the world a far more dangerous place. Ross (The Missing Peace, 2004) is most knowledgeable about the Middle East, unsurprisingly, and issues in that region dominate his plodding but important text. He writes with great understanding about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, Iran, Iraq and the rise of what he calls "non-state actors," such as Osama bin Laden. He begins with a long, textbookish definition of "statecraft," as distinguished from ordinary diplomacy. An early chapter deals with recent failures of the craft-Bush I's neglect of the Balkans, Clinton's inaction in Rwanda, Bush II's bloody boondoggle in Iraq-and insists that the United States must quickly return to "a statecraft mentality." Ross then offers a number of case studies in effective statecraft: Bush I's handling of German reunification and his crafting of the coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait; Clinton's tardy though effective work with the Balkans. He follows with a hard look at Bush II's failed Iraq policies and strategies, then hammers hard his theme that our objectives must align with our means and our strategies. He identifies state-supported terror, WMDs, weak and failing states as among the most serious challenges we face today and outlines 12 rules our diplomats should follow in the practice of statecraft. Unfortunately, this section and some later ones read and look like PowerPoint presentations designed for undergraduates, and pop-culture jargon like "tough love" and "good cop-bad cop"attenuates the gravitas established earlier. Ross concludes with some strong passages dealing with our most troubling challenges: radical Islam, Iran and the rise of China. Brimming with important ideas, well-organized and well-argued, but lacking the stylistic polish and panache that would attract a wider readership.

Marx or Rescuing Justice and Equality

2009-01-16T15:07:00.000-08:00

Marx

Author: Peter Singer

Peter Singer identifies the central vision that unifies Marx's thought, enabling us to grasp Marx's views as a whole. He sees him as a philosopher primarily concerned with human freedom, rather than as an economist or a social scientist. In plain English, he explains alienation, historical materialism, the economic theory of Capital, and Marx's ideas of communism, and concludes with an assessment of Marx's legacy.

Rescuing Justice and Equality

Author: G A Cohen

In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, people’s material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality.

In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawls’s theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not only for the state but also for people in their daily lives. The right rules for the macro scale of public institutions and policies also apply, with suitable adjustments, to the micro level of individual decision-making.

Cohen also charges Rawls’s constructivism with systematically conflating the concept of justice with other concepts. Within the Rawlsian architectonic, justice is not distinguished either from other values or from optimal rules of social regulation. The elimination of those conflations brings justice closer to equality.

The Politics of Upheaval 1935 1936 or Flying Close to the Sun

2009-01-16T04:55:00.000-08:00

The Politics of Upheaval, 1935-1936: The Age of Roosevelt (Age of Roosevelt Series), Vol. 3

Author: Arthur M Schlesinger

The Politics of Upheaval, 1935-1936, volume three of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s Age of Roosevelt series, concentrates on the turbulent concluding years of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. A measure of economic recovery revived political conflict and emboldened FDR's critics to denounce "that man in the White house." To his left were demagogues — Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Dr. Townsend. To his right were the champions of the old order — ex-president Herbert Hoover, the American Liberty League, and the august Supreme Court. For a time, the New Deal seemed to lose its momentum. But in 1935 FDR rallied and produced a legislative record even more impressive than the Hundred Days of 1933 — a set of statutes that transformed the social and economic landscape of American life. In 1936 FDR coasted to reelection on a landslide. Schlesinger has his usual touch with colorful personalities and draws a warmly sympathetic portrait of Alf M. Landon, the Republican candidate of 1936.

Library Journal

While a lot of ink has been spilled profiling FDR, Schlesinger's three-volume work remains among the best efforts. Released in the late 1950s, the trio begins with a broader overview of his early political career and then moves into dissections of far shorter, distinct periods in his ascent to the White House and first term as president. These reprints sport new introductions by the author. Essential for all history and political science collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Book review: Control Your Depression or Fun and Games

Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman

Author: Cathy Wilkerson

"Unsparingly maps the idealism, fanaticism, moral absolutism and personal passions that carried her to the town house [explosion]."-The New York Times

"Clear-sighted, self-critical yet unapologetic account."-Los Angeles Times

"You'll want to plunge right into Cathy Wilkerson's Flying Close to the Sun. If you're a 60s survivor (as I am), you'll know it's the real thing."-Carol Brightman, Truthdig

"Flying Close to the Sun is, above all else, a well-written record of Wilkerson's evolving beliefs-a point-by-point memoir of innumerable arguments with herself over political philosophies and innovations."-The Phoenix (Boston)

"At times exciting and at other times refl ective, Flying Close to the Sun is always captivating."-Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch

Flying Close to the Sun is the stunning memoir of a white middle-class girl from Connecticut who became a member of the Weather Underground, one of the most notorious groups of the 1960s. Cathy Wilkerson, who famously escaped the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, here wrestles with the legacy of the movement, at times finding contradictions that many others have avoided: the absence of women's voices, then and in its retelling; the incompetence and the egos; the hundreds of bombs detonated in protest, which caused little loss of life but which were also ineffective in fomenting revolution. In searching for new paradigms for change, Wilkerson asserts with brave humanity and confessional honesty an assessment of her past-of those heady, iconic times-and somehow finds hope andfaith in a world that at times seems to offer neither.

Cathy Wilkerson was active in the civil rights movement, SDS, and the Weather Underground. In 1970, she, along with Kathy Boudin, survived an explosion in the basement of her parents' townhouse that killed three Weathermen, forcing the two underground. For the past twenty years she has worked as an educator.

Duncan Stewart - Library Journal

The last thing that 1960s militants might expect is that 40 years later they would seem quaint. Wilkerson, of the Weathermen Underground terror group, was one of two survivors of an explosion at the group's bomb factory in her father's New York townhouse. Her memoir combines an overview of 1960s radical history with the story of her transition from bourgeois daughter to make-believe Leninist. It can be read several ways-as a personal account of the plunge of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from idealism to the self-satisfied violence of the Weathermen, as a deeply felt autobiography of Wilkerson's struggle to find her way in the world, or as an individual's muddled story, which gives us this history much as readers may know it already from such books as Todd Gitlin's The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rageor James Miller's Democracy Is in the Streets. Wilkerson's writing conveys the urgency of the time as well as the 1960s slogan that all politics is personal. Most interesting is the account of the budding women's liberation movement and the resistance that "radical" men showed to it. Recommended for academic libraries and larger public libraries.

Introduction     11
New England Soil     15
North American Roots     37
Discovering the World     53
The Limits of Electoral Politics     101
New Left Notes     109
Washington SDS     145
1968     181
The Question of Power     251
Weatherman     275
The Explosion     355
The Underground Years     359
Reentry     389
Afterword     399
Chronology of Weatherman Bombings     405
Ted Gold, Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins     406
Bibliography     415
Notes     437
Acknowledgments     429
Index     437

Herding Cats or Vindication

2009-01-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

Herding Cats: A Life in Politics

Author: Trent Lott

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Interesting textbook: National Environmental Accounting or How Advertising Works

Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft

Author: Lyndall Gordon

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	List of Illustrations	xi
	Family Trees	xii
1	Violence at Home	1
2	'School of Adversity'	19
3	New Life at Newington	40
4	A Community of Women	61
5	A Governess in Ireland	80
6	The Trials of High Life	103
7	Vindication	122
8	Rival Lives	156
9	Into the Terror	182
10	Risks in Love	214
11	The Silver Ship	232
12	Far North	256
13	Woman's Words	291
14	'The Most Fruitful Experiment'	330
15	Slanders	363
16	Converts	390
17	Daughters	411
18	Generations	447
	Abbreviations	453
	Sources, Contexts, Questions	456
	Bibliography	519
	Internet Documents	540
	Acknowledgements	542
	Index	547

My Year in Iraq or The Audacity of Hope

2009-01-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope

Author: L Paul Bremer

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Go to: Chronic Candidiasis or Senior Fitness

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Author: Barack Obama

“A government that truly represents these Americans–that truly serves these Americans–will require a different kind of politics. That politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won’t be pre-packaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we’ll need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.”
–from The Audacity of Hope

Before becoming the 44th President-elect of the United States, in July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what President Obama called “the audacity of hope.”

In The Audacity of Hope, President Obama called for a different brand of politics–a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces–from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media–that can stifle even thebest-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment.

At the heart of this book is President Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats–from terrorism to pandemic–that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy–where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories about family, friends, members of the Senate, even the president, is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus.

President Obama wrote a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes–“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

The Washington Post - Michael Kazin

… what's most impressive about Obama, 45, is an intelligence that his new book displays in abundance. He articulates a mode of liberalism that sounds both highly pragmatic and deeply moral. The Audacity of Hope -- the title comes from a sermon by his Chicago pastor -- trumpets no unifying theme or grand theory about how the American dream will be reclaimed and by whom. Chapters bear such prosaic titles as "Values," "Opportunity" and "Faith." But in a disarmingly modest way, Obama offers a more sensible perspective on "how we might begin the process of changing our politics and our civic life" than his more seasoned Capitol Hill colleagues have provided.

The New York Times Sunday Book Review - Gary Hart

In a very short time, Barack Obama has made himself into a figure of national interest, curiosity and some undefined hope. This book fully encourages those sentiments. His greatest test will be that of sensing the times, of matching his timing with the tides of the nation.

He is at his best when he writes things like this: "I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that a striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience."

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama's policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq.

But while Mr. Obama occasionally slips into the flabby platitudes favored by politicians, enough of the narrative voice in this volume is recognizably similar to the one in Dreams from My Father, an elastic, personable voice that is capable of accommodating everything from dense discussions of foreign policy to streetwise reminiscences, incisive comments on constitutional law to New-Agey personal asides.

Publishers Weekly

Obama reads his own words with the conviction and strength that listeners would expect from the Ilinois Democratic senator. The audacity of his hope echoes in each sentence he speaks as he lays the groundwork for reclaiming the values and inner strength that makes the United States so grand. While Obama is a great public speaker, those same skills could be overwhelming within the confines of an audiobook. Listeners will rejoice that he does not turn this reading opportunity into a six-hour speech. Instead, his cadence, speed and tone work to bring the listener from point to point, building inspiration through provocative thought rather than intense voice and personal charisma. Political inclinations will determine whether Obama's solutions or intentions are valued or disregarded. However, in his sincerest moments, he seizes hold of the problems plaguing the nation while criticizing both sides' failure to grasp the actual problem and to become bogged down in petty politics. He emphasizes the complexity of politics in a pluralist country spread out over millions of square miles. But even in his exploration of the political landscape, he does not hesitate to admit to his own limitations within the system. Simultaneous release with the Crown hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 2). (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Obama reads his own words with the conviction and strength that listeners would expect from the Ilinois Democratic senator. The audacity of his hope echoes in each sentence he speaks as he lays the groundwork for reclaiming the values and inner strength that makes the United States so grand. While Obama is a great public speaker, those same skills could be overwhelming within the confines of an audiobook. Listeners will rejoice that he does not turn this reading opportunity into a six-hour speech. Instead, his cadence, speed and tone work to bring the listener from point to point, building inspiration through provocative thought rather than intense voice and personal charisma. Political inclinations will determine whether Obama's solutions or intentions are valued or disregarded. However, in his sincerest moments, he seizes hold of the problems plaguing the nation while criticizing both sides' failure to grasp the actual problem and to become bogged down in petty politics. He emphasizes the complexity of politics in a pluralist country spread out over millions of square miles. But even in his exploration of the political landscape, he does not hesitate to admit to his own limitations within the system. Simultaneous release with the Crown hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 2). (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

This book has been available in hardcover, audiobook, and trade paperback, but here it is now in a mass-market edition, highly affordable. It has been a bestseller for many months, especially as the campaign for President of the US has put Obama and his political ideas front and center in American life. Here in his own words he describes his basic political philosophies and how they have been formed in his own mind. He reveals himself to be a visionary—"reclaiming the American dream"—but all the while he shows he understands the complexities of problems and how difficult it can be to effect change. So, his pragmatic side is revealed, as well as his legal mind. Here are the chapter titles: Republicans and Democrats; Values; Our Constitution; Politics; Opportunity; Faith; Race; the World Beyond Our Borders; and Family. Throughout are woven his own personal experiences, past and present: an important book that can inform readers about how Obama thinks and lives. He is an accomplished writer, and his books have probably influenced voters as much as his speeches have. Reviewer: Claire Rosser

Library Journal

A Hundred and One Days or Bad President

2009-01-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal

Author: Asne Seierstad

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Book about: Best Diabetes Slow Cooker Recipes or The Everything Health Guide to Thyroid Disease

Bad President

Author: R D Rosen

It's time. Past time: Announcing Bad President, the book that, as the warning on its cover promises, is resolved to inflict painful political humor.

Written by the team that brought us the #1 New York Times bestseller Bad Cat, with Jim Edgar, plus Bad Dog and Bad Baby, Bad President takes the "bad" format and puts it to the service of political satire. This is Bush and the gang cut down to size, the emperor not only without his clothes, but without his stage managers and news-spinners. The photos are surprisingly candid, the captions subversive, and with a good counter-punch, the humor is shored up by the "Sad Truths" on every third or fourth page, the real truths that remind readers of the maddening reality of the Bush administration.

Sure, there are lots of important books coming out now that highlight the follies and foibles of the Bushies, but Bad President has two key advantages: It takes only about 17 minutes to read, and it is laugh-out-loud funny.

Life and Death in the Third Reich or Unlimited Access

2009-01-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

Life and Death in the Third Reich

Author: Peter Fritzsch

On January 30, 1933, hearing about the celebrations for Hitler’s assumption of power, Erich Ebermayer remarked bitterly in his diary, “We are the losers, definitely the losers.” Learning of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which made Jews non-citizens, he raged, “hate is sown a million-fold.” Yet in March 1938, he wept for joy at the Anschluss with Austria: “Not to want it just because it has been achieved by Hitler would be folly.”

In a masterful work, Peter Fritzsche deciphers the puzzle of Nazism’s ideological grip. Its basic appeal lay in the Volksgemeinschaft—a “people’s community” that appealed to Germans to be part of a great project to redress the wrongs of the Versailles treaty, make the country strong and vital, and rid the body politic of unhealthy elements. The goal was to create a new national and racial self-consciousness among Germans. For Germany to live, others—especially Jews—had to die. Diaries and letters reveal Germans’ fears, desires, and reservations, while showing how Nazi concepts saturated everyday life. Fritzsche examines the efforts of Germans to adjust to new racial identities, to believe in the necessity of war, to accept the dynamic of unconditional destruction—in short, to become Nazis.

Powerful and provocative, Life and Death in the Third Reich is a chilling portrait of how ideology takes hold.

Publishers Weekly

University of Illinois historian Fritzsche (Germans into Nazis) effectively takes up one of the key controversies surrounding the Third Reich: to what extent were the German people accomplices of the regime? Over the years, the answers have ranged widely. Daniel Goldhagen's argument that the annihilation of the Jews was what the German people had always wanted has never persuaded specialists. Others have argued that the German people were either manipulated and deceived by, or converted to, Nazism. Fritzsche provides a more nuanced argument that the Nazis were quite successful in winning the people's support, but it took time and effort. He cites diaries showing that individuals had to examine how they could become reconciled, or converted, to National Socialism. The fabled Volksgemeinschaft—people's community—was not mere propaganda but had a powerful allure that drew Germans into the Nazi orbit. Fritzsche mines diaries and letters written by the famous and well-placed as well as the unknown, to show that the prospects of German grandeur and unity resonated deeply with many people, even when it meant a hugely destructive war and the genocide of the Jews. Fritzsche offers a significant interpretation of Nazism and the German people, and writes with a vibrancy that is not often found in studies of the Third Reich.

Historians often debate the degree to which ordinary Germans supported the Nazi regime. Fritzsche (history, Univ. of Illinois) redirects the question by asking, How did people adapt to the Nazi regime? His fascinating book reveals how many Germans internalized Nazi doctrines in a variety of ways, for example, by investigating their own genealogy to demonstrate to Nazi bureaucrats their Aryan bona fides. Perhaps the most compelling aspects of this study are the parallel stories of how Jews and non-Jews viewed World War II. For German Jews, the story was one of descent into destruction, with only a pitiful few voices heard after 1943. For gentiles, knowledge about the annihilation of German and European Jewry was widespread, although the actual details were sketchy. Fritzsche's book demolishes the myth of contemporary ignorance about the Shoah and the artificial divide between the apolitical Wehrmacht and the evil SS. As the aerial bombing campaign destroyed German cities, the citizenry transformed their status as perpetrators and beneficiaries of Nazi policy into that of victims, thereby quelling postwar confrontation with reality for more than a generation. Fritzsche's book demonstrates that there are still numerous areas of the Nazi era in which historians may delve. Highly recommended.

What People Are Saying

Geoff Eley
With remarkable vision and poise, Fritzsche guides us through the interior of the Third Reich's racial imaginary to explore the terrible effectiveness of the efforts required of Germans in thinking themselves into the morally coercive world of the Volksgemeinschaft. Commanding the vast literatures on Nazism with enviable facility, he seamlessly combines major themes with a keen eye for the telling detail. This is one of the most illuminating reflections on the popular history of the Third Reich in many years.

--(Geoff Eley, University of Michigan)

Thomas Childers
A provocative revisionist view of the Third Reich and the complex relationship of Germans to it. This book, more than any other I know, conveys the complex nature of day-to-day life in Nazi Germany from the perspective of its political leaders, German citizens, and Jewish victims. In many ways, Fritzsche's interpretation of National Socialism and its supporters is far more unnerving than a view of a terrorized, hypnotized populace. The book offers not only an admirable analytic clarity but also passages of such human pathos that they leave the reader quaking. --(Thomas Childers, author of In the Shadows of War)

Michael Geyer
Fritzsche has written an extraordinary book--a short, compelling, and yet comprehensive history of the Third Reich. It unfolds a masterful narrative of a regime that set out to restore a nation and in the process turned Europe into a killing field. This history familiarizes the reader with the key events as they unfolded and with contemporary reflections on them in diaries and letters. We come to the quite shocking recognition that these ruminations capture a conversation, for good and evil, that continues to the present day. --(Michael Geyer, University of Chicago)

Modris Eksteins
What makes this thoroughly engrossing account of everyday life in Nazi Germany so important is Fritzsche's ability to show how the ideology of racism enveloped not only the public but also the private sphere and eventually informed all thought and action in this empire of death. This is a major achievement. --(Modris Eksteins, University of Toronto)

Preface     vii
Introduction     1
Reviving the Nation     19
"Heil Hitler!"     19
How Far Did Germans Support the Nazis?     25
Volksgemeinschaft, or the People's Community     38
Consuming the Nation     56
Unter Uns, or Nazism's Audiovisual Space     65
Racial Grooming     76
Aryan Passports     76
Biology and the National Revolution     82
Seeing like an Aryan     91
The Camp     96
Unworthy Life     108
The Assault on German Jews     119
Empire of Destruction     143
Writing Letters     143
The Imperial Project     154
The Expansion of the German Empire     177
Final Solutions to the "Jewish Problem"     186
The Deportation of German Jews     202
The Holocaust     213
Intimate Knowledge     225
Train Station     225
Jewish Witnesses     235
German Witnesses     250
Perpetrators and Victims     266
Imagining the End of the War     272
Reading Catastrophe     296
Notes     309
Index     359

Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House

Author: Gary Aldrich

#1 New York Times Bestseller.

Shattered Peace or How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

2009-01-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today

Author: David A Andelman

Advance Praise for A Shattered Peace

"The peace settlements that followed World War I have recently come back into focus as one of the dominant factors shaping the modern world. The Balkans, the Middle East, Iraq, Turkey, and parts of Africa all owe their present-day problems, in part, to these negotiations. David Andelman brings it all back to life—the lofty ideals, the ugly compromises, the larger-than-life personalities who came to Paris in 1919. And he links that far-away diplomatic dance to present-day problems to illuminate our troubled times. A tremendous addition to this vitally important subject."

—Ambassador Richard Holbrooke

"The peace conference in Paris at the end of World War I was the first and last moment of pure hope for peace in the history of world affairs. Our president Woodrow Wilson was the sorcerer for this hope, and he kindled great expectations in people everywhere. David Andelman, a classic reporter and storyteller, tells this fascinating tale of hope falling finally and forever on the shoals of naivete and hard-headed cynicism."

—Leslie H. Gelb, former columnist for the New York Times and President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations

"The failed peace settlement following the Great War of 1914–1918 has been the subject of many fine books. In many respects, David Andelman's A Shattered Peace is the best of these. It is compact and compellingly written. Moreover, it explains more clearly than any other work how the failure of peacemaking in 1919 shaped later history and, indeed, shapes our own era."

—Ernest R. May, Charles Warren Professor of American History, HarvardUniversity

"It is the power and fascination of David Andelman's new book, A Shattered Peace, that he shows us—with the clarity of a first-rate reporter and the drama and detail at the command of a first-rate novelist—that we are all still enmeshed in the loose ends of the Treaty of Versailles. Andelman brings us to Korea, to Vietnam, to the Persian Gulf, and to Iraq in our own vexed era. His story is alive with color, conflict, and interesting people. We could not find a better guide to this time."

—Richard Snow, Editor in Chief, American Heritage

Edwin B. Burgess - Library Journal

The Versailles peace conference, held between the Allied victorious powers and Germany following World War I, attempted to create a lasting peace-and parcel out the world. The great powers felt that they should inherit much of it; inhabitants of the countries to be parceled out felt otherwise. The shortsightedness of the conferees produced a world that fragmented in unexpected ways and arguably generated a century of continuous conflict. With chapters on some of those present, such as the young Ho Chi Min, on the shared goals of Emir Feisal and Chaim Weizmann, and on the abortive stab at making peace in revolutionary Russia, Andelman (executive editor, Forbes.com) casts a bitter light on the rest of the 20th century. The author's constant theme is that the failures of the Versailles conference laid the groundwork for World War II, the iron curtain, the Vietnam War, the various Middle East conflicts, and the Balkan wars. Andelman's sprightly view of the peace process, the major and minor players, and the decades-later outcomes is an excellent read that will enhance most history collections. Recommended for most subject collections.

Interesting textbook: Martin Luther King Jr or Case for Israel

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

Author: Slavenka Drakulic

Hailed by feminists as one of the most important contributions to women's studies in the last decade, this gripping, beautifully written account describes the daily struggles of women under the Marxist regime in the former republic of Yugoslavia.

New York Times Book Review

A thoughtful, beautifully written collection of essays...blending provocative analysis with the texture of everyday life.

Library Journal

Drakulic's fine collection of essays draws strength from her keen powers of observation and sensitivity to her readers' interests. Her achievement is to depict the starkly common identity of everyday life in socialist Eastern Europe before its unlamented loss becomes irretrievable. It is a world in which party authority can create the ``sudden invisibility'' for an offending journalist, where public buildings share a ``shabbiness and color of sepia,'' and one that makes the post office an impenetrable ``institution of power.'' The essays are also about people, about the obsessive `` communist eye '' (italics original) disturbed by the injustice of New York's homeless yet neurotically envious of those wearing fur coats at home. The tragic irony lies in the book's title. Hoarding material objects enabled people ``to survive communism,'' but hoarding wartime memories and the inability to ``let the dead be dead'' may destroy the author's native Yugoslavia. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.-- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-Erie

What People Are Saying

Vivian Gornick
"An invaluable account of the cumulative weariness of the soul brought on by daily life in an Eastern European country."

Condi or Rise of the Vulcans

2009-01-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Condi: The Life of a Steel Magnolia

Author: Mary Beth Brown

An in-depth look at the life, faith, and achievements of one of America's most fascinating women.

Condoleezza Rice rose from humble beginnings in racially segregated Alabama to become an accomplished classical pianist, Stanford University professor and provost, US national security advisor, and secretary of state. In this gripping and inspiring book, Mary Beth Brown artfully explores the roles played in Condi's life by her parents, mentors, faith, and key events and how those things have prepared her for her present position of power and global influence.

In 2005, Condi topped Forbes' list of the world's most powerful women. In 2007, she topped GQ's ranking of Washington's most powerful players. Not only does she appeal to moderates and Republicans, she draws women, African Americans, and Hispanic voters from the Democratic Party. Additionally, Condi may emerge as a strong vice presidential candidate, a possibility the book explores.

Introduction     VII
Prologue     XI
Transforming America     1
Entering a New World     19
A Strong Family Heritage     31
Childhood Matters     47
Becoming a Steel Magnolia     65
Not Your Average Teenager     83
Education Is the Way to Success     97
Professor Rice     111
Dealing with the Soviet Union     135
Tackling a Monstrous Deficit     153
Condi the Campaigner     175
Advising a President     191
The Most Powerful Woman in the World     217
Epilogue     239
Bibliography     243
Notes     273
Index     305
Acknowledgments     317
About the Author     319

Book review: Organisatorische Kultur und Führung

Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet

Author: James Mann

When George W. Bush campaigned for the White House, he was such a novice in foreign policy that he couldn't name the president of Pakistan. But he was advised by a group that called themselves the Vulcans—a group of men and one woman with long and shared experience in government, dating back to the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and first Bush administrations. After returning to power in 2001, the Vulcans—including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleeza Rice—were widely expected to restore U.S. foreign policy to what it had been in past Republican administrations. Instead, they put America on an entirely new course, adopting a far-reaching set of ideas and policies that changed the world and America's role in it.

In this revelatory and newsworthy volume, James Mann narrates the hidden story of these six history makers, their early careers and rise to power, the interactions and underlying tensions among them, their visions, and their roles in the current administration. Along the way, he offers a wealth of new information (about how Rumsfeld schemed in the Nixon White House, how Cheney toiled as Rumsfeld's doorkeeper, how Wolfowitz first warned of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East in the 1960s) to complete a remarkable look at George W. Bush's inner circle.

Author Biography: James Mann is the senior writer in residence at the CSIS International Security Program and the author of two critically acclaimed books: About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton and Beijing Jeep. Previously, he was a long-time correspondent with the Los Angeles Times, and his writing has also appeared in The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly.

The New York Times

… lucid, shrewd and, after so many high-decibel screeds from both the right and left, blessedly level-headed. It is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding the back story of how and why America came to deal with the rest of the world the way it is doing under the Bush administration. — Michiko Kakutani

The Washington Post

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again," Ronald Reagan liked to say, quoting Thomas Paine. But the efforts of the Vulcans to create a new world order today, Mann persuasively argues, are at heart not new at all. They are an effort to repeal the inhibitions and restrictions that have constrained American power in the last 30 years and to revive an earlier moment when the unapologetic and unbridled pursuit of global primacy was a widely accepted national goal. — Alan Brinkley

Publishers Weekly

Mann, a former correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, offers a lucid, nonpolemical and carefully researched history of President Bush's foreign policy team, the self-described "Vulcans" (after the Roman god of fire). In doing so, Mann illuminates the administration's rationale for the Iraqi war with impressive clarity. For the Vulcans, he shows, the war is not an anomalous foreign adventure or a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. On the contrary, the foreign policy, devised by Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, was 35 years in the making and has its roots in the Republican Party faction that opposed d tente with the Soviet Union. Vulcan philosophy has three major tenets: the embrace of pre-emptive action, the notion of an "unchallengeable American superpower" and the systematic export of America's democratic values. Implicit is the rejection of both the notion that transatlantic relationships are the natural focus of U.S. foreign policy and the Kissingeresque realpolitik that dominated much of 20th-century policy. Mann's purpose is to explicate Bush's foreign policy, not to make sweeping value judgments about its wisdom; he takes care to expose not only errors in the Vulcans' assumptions about the war in Iraq but also those of the war's opponents. This well-written, serious, evenhanded effort should be essential reading for anyone interested in American foreign policy. Agent, Rafe Sagalyn. First serial to the Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker. (On sale Mar. 8) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Today every presidency has its own shelf of contemporary histories and other accounts, but rarely do these books combine the immediacy and depth of this one. Mann (About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China from Nixon to Clinton) has written a collective biography of George W. Bush's foreign policy inner circle: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice. In tracing their personal histories in the military, government, business, and academia, Mann aims to show how America's stance toward the world changed over the 40 years between the Vietnam War and our invasion of Iraq and how the notion of distinct pre- and post-Cold War eras is misleading. "The ideas that the United States should emphasize military strength, should spread its ideals and should not accommodate other centers of power," Mann shows, were long in the making. Mann interviewed dozens of insiders, including several of his principals, and researched archival and other printed sources to produce this exceptionally evenhanded and well-written book. Highly recommended.-Robert F. Nardini, Chichester, NH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Intricately shaded and scary profile of President George W. Bush's foreign policy team: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, and to a lesser degree Condoleeza Rice. In a steady voice that likes to hew to the facts, Mann (About Face, 1999, etc.) profiles a group of associates with close, intricate, and overlapping ties. Dubbing themselves the Vulcans in honor of the Roman god of fire, they craft, in the stead of a president with little to no experience in the greater world, the global vision of the current administration, which the author broadly summarizes as a willingness to deploy sledgehammer and fire to protect and further American interests abroad. Not that this chorus sings in harmony, notes Mann: they have manifold strategic and tactical differences, but they share an overriding sense of the country's potential as a unilateral military power, with its unbridled ability to affect events on the global stage. The author anatomizes in exquisite detail the players' backgrounds and the experiences that shaped them, to whom they are beholden, and the trajectories of their careers-no mean feat with this seemingly incestuous and opportunistic lot, whose alliances and perspectives shift through time and space. But they all emphasize US supremacy, confrontational and self-interested, diplomatically thuggish, built on "coalitions" or "ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted." Iraq, of course, is the unpersuasive field test for their belief in retaliation, an emphasis on weapons on mass destruction (real or otherwise), stanching terrorism, containing the "axis of evil" states. None of these rationales obviously apply, but all are brought tobear. Mann doesn't address the thorny question of how the Vulcans plan (or have failed to plan) to contend with the swarm of variables that assert themselves once the facade of tyranny is dismantled. A neat dissection of current American tactics overseas that, understandably, as history has yet to be played out, leaves hanging the question of their efficacy.

Common Sense or The Judge

2009-01-11T06:20:00.000-08:00

Common Sense

Author: Thomas Pain

Thomas Paine arrived in America from England in 1774. A friend of Ben Franklin, he was a writer of poetry and tracts condemning the slave trade. In 1775, as hostilities between Britain and the colonies intensified, Paine wrote "Common Sense" to encourage the colonies to break the British exploitative hold through independence. The little booklet of 50 pages was published January 10, 1776 and sold a half-million copies, approximately equal to 75 million copies today.

Library Journal

Penguin strikes again with a wonderful new series called "Great Ideas" featuring 12 books by great thinkers dating back to the first millennium B.C.E. through the mid-20th century, covering art, politics, literature, philosophy, science, history, and more. Each slim paperback is individually designed, and all are affordable at $8.95. A great idea indeed. Snap 'em up! Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand

Author: Paul Kengor

The most important biographical record of the Reagan years-from the Reagan governorship to the 40th president's period in the White House-has not been written, until now: it is the story of Ronald Reagan's indispensable man, confidant, and single most important adviser: William P. Clark, known to many as simply The Judge.
With his record, resume, and the respect he earned from so many quarters, why did Bill Clark never pen an autobiography? Why did he never write memoirs, even while less influential advisers advanced their stories in the 1980s, proclaiming theirs to be the authoritative "insider's account" of the Reagan presidency? And why did Clark not write that story as everyone-from top Reagan officials such as Cap Weinberger to authoritative Reagan biographers such as Lou Cannon-urged him to do so?
Bill Clark's reluctance to promote himself stopped him from picking up pen and paper. Instead, at long last, he acquiesced to the writing of this biography. Paul Kengor did the convincing, and Pat Clark Doerner worked with Clark to painstakingly review the manuscript-after Kengor and Doerner together wrote this fascinating account of one man's life, from a ranch house to the White House and then, again, back to the ranch-to what Ronald Reagan called the "sunset of life."
Reagan biographers such as Edmund Morris and major publications like the New York Times Magazine and Time all agree: Bill Clark was Ronald Reagan's single most trusted aide, perhaps the most powerful national security advisor in American history. His close relationship with Reagan allows special insight into the President as well as other close friends from the earliest Reagan years: Lyn Nofziger, CapWeinberger and Bill Casey. Also featured are the exquisite Clare Boothe Luce; the elegant Nancy Reagan; the mercurial Alexander Haig; Britain's "Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher; France's wily François Mitterrand, the saintly Pope John Paul II, and an anxious Saddam Hussein, among others.
With Reagan, Clark accomplished many things, but none more profound than the track they laid to undermine Soviet communism, to win the Cold War. As this book shows, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clark, two ranchers, a president and his top hand, truly changed history. At long last, over two decades after that significant accomplishment, Bill Clark shares the details of that extraordinary effort, many of which-as readers of this book will learn-have never been reported.

Green Living for Dummies or The Coming Generational Storm

2009-01-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

Green Living for Dummies

Author: Liz Barclay

Want to do your part to reduce energy consumption, waste, and pollution; clean up the environment, and save the planet? Green Living For Dummies is packed with practical suggestions you can follow to make your lifestyle greener by doing as little damage as possible to the planet and the animal and plant life that depend on it.

This practical guide delivers an array of realistic practices and changes you can undertake to help the environment and create a better home for yourself and your loved ones. You’ll discover easy and innovative ways to make a difference by reducing energy use and waste, scaling back reliance on your car, and even making minor adjustments to your diet. You’ll also find how to live green at work and in your community, and you’ll develop a deeper understanding of how these changes benefit both the environment and your own health and well-being! Discover how to:

• Go green gradually

• Make eco-friendly home improvements

• Work greener transportation into your lifestyle

• Save money by going green

• Eat locally and organically

• Raise your children’s environmental awareness

• Reduce waste by repairing, restoring, and reusing

• Become a green consumer

• Invest in green companies for fun and profit

Complete with handy lists of things you can do to make a difference right away and down the road Green Living For Dummies is the resource you need to start taking steps toward shrinking your footprint.

Introduction.

Part I: Understanding the Planet’s Challenges and Finding Solutions.

Chapter 1: Being Greener for the Good of People and the Planet.

Chapter 2: Understanding the Environment’s Challenges.

Chapter 3:The World’s Source of Hope: Renewable Energy Sources.

Part II: Living Greenly at Home.

Chapter 4: Green Building and Remodeling.

Chapter 5: Making Your Home Healthy and Efficient.

Chapter 6: Minimizing Your Trash and Decluttering Your Life.

Chapter 7: Getting Green in the Yard.

Chapter 8: Growing Your Own Food.

Chapter 9: Raising Green Kids.

Part III: Spending and Investing Your Green (Money).

Chapter 10: Making Great Green Diet Decisions.

Chapter 11: Wearing It Well.

Chapter 12: Ethical Investments, Donations, and Banking Solutions.

Part IV: Thinking Greenly on the Road.

Chapter 13: Choosing and Using Your Transportation Wisely.

Chapter 14: Expanding the Green Vehicle Evolution.

Chapter 15: Becoming a Green Traveler.

Part V: Creating a Green Societ.

Chapter 16: Implementing Ideas for a Green Working Environment.

Chapter 17: Getting Involved with Your Community and Beyond.

Part VI: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 18: Ten Easy Actions that Make an Immediate Impact.

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Darken Your Shade of Green.

Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Repair and Restore Rather than Trash.

Appendix: Finding Green Products, Services, and Information.

Index.

New interesting textbook: Pale Ale or Secrets from the Master Brewers

The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future

Author: Laurence J Kotlikoff

One of Library Journal's Best Business Books of 2004, A Forbes.com Top Ten Business Book for 2004, One of Barron’s 25 Best Books of 2004, Winner in the category of Economics in the 2004 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. and CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2004

This paperback edition of The Coming Generational Storm has been revised and updated and includes a new foreword by the authors.

In 2030, as 77 million baby boomers hobble into old age, walkers will outnumber strollers; there will be twice as many retirees as there are today but only 18 percent more workers. How will Social Security and Medicare function with fewer working taxpayers to support these programs? According to Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, if our government continues on the course it has set, we'll see skyrocketing tax rates, drastically lower retirement and health benefits, high inflation, a rapidly depreciating dollar, unemployment, and political instability. The government has lost its compass, say Kotlikoff and Burns, and the Bush administration's spending and tax policies have charted a course straight into the coming generational storm.

Kotlikoff and Burns take us on a guided tour of our generational imbalance: There's the "fiscal child abuse" that will double the taxes paid by the next generation. There's also the "deficit delusion" of the under-reported national debt. And none of this, they say, will be solved by any of the popularly touted remedies: cutting taxes, technological progress, immigration, foreign investment, or theelimination of wasteful government spending. Kotlikoff and Burns propose bold new policies, including meaningful reforms of Social Security and Medicare, that are simple, straightforward, and geared to attract support from both political parties.

Library Journal

Kotlikoff (economics, Boston Univ.) and personal finance writer Burns paint a bleak picture of the future U.S. economy. They claim that a "generational storm" will occur when baby boomers start to retire, leaving fewer people in the workforce to support the massive programs on which the boomers will be depending. Focusing on three programs that they feel are ailing-Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid-the authors argue that administrations past and present have misled the public on the health of the economy and that our children will be left with a huge financial burden if the government continues on its course of fiscal irresponsibility. The first chapter details the aging population, and the entire text is heavy on statistics and calculated financial scenarios. The authors end by outlining their own solutions to the troubled economy. This is a sobering look at an impending crisis with implications for all of us. Recommended for all collections.-Stacey Marien, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Gender and Health or Battle Ready

2009-01-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies

Author: Chloe E Bird

Gender and Health is the first book to examine how men's and women's lives and their physiology contribute to differences in their health. In a thoughtful synthesis of diverse literatures, the authors demonstrate that modern societies' health problems ultimately involve a combination of policies, personal behavior, and choice. The book is designed for researchers, policymakers, and others who seek to understand how the choices of individuals, families, communities, and governments contribute to health. It can inform men and women at each of these levels how to better integrate health implications into their everyday decisions and actions.

Battle Ready

Author: Tom Clancy

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Preface: The Generation	3
Chapter 1	The Duel	20
Chapter 2	The Dinner	48
Chapter 3	The Silence	81
Chapter 4	The Farewell	120
Chapter 5	The Collaborators	162
Chapter 6	The Friendship	206
	Notes	249
	Index	279

Politics & Buddhism Books

Outsourcing Security or The Case of Abraham Lincoln

Outsourcing Security: A Guide for Contracting Services

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The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President

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Voting the Gender Gap or The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement

Voting the Gender Gap

The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement

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Founding Brothers or Imperial Leather

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

Library Journal

New York Times Book Review - Michiko Kakutan

New York Times Book Review - Benson Bobrick

Table of Contents:

Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest

Library Journal

Truth Imagined or Sea Ranch

Truth Imagined

Sea Ranch: Dwelling on the Edge

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

The Onion AV Club - Scott Tobias

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

The Christian Science Monitor - Walker

The New York Times Book Review - Alan Brinkley

The Boston Book Review - Scott Stossel

Downsize This!: Random Threats from an Unarmed American

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents:

Patrolling Baghdad or Andrew Jackson

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

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

Marya Jansen-Gruber - Children's Literature

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

Publishers Weekly

Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power

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Community Service Learning or Shared Histories

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

Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue

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The Presidency of James Monroe or Manifest Destinys Underworld

The Presidency of James Monroe

Times Literary Supplement

Library Journal

Booknews

Table of Contents:

Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America

James M. McPherson

International Relations Theories or Breaking Rank

International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity

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

The FBI or Women in Power

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:

Meltdown or Cuba Confidential

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

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

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