Economic Development Books

Doing Business with Saudi Arabia or Theory and Practice of Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment

2009-12-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

Doing Business with Saudi Arabia

Author: Anthony Shoult

This third edition of Doing Business with Saudi Arabia is the definitive English language guide to business practice and commercial opportunity in the Kingdom, the largest economy in the Middle East. This authoritative guide provides an up-to-date appraisal of the current economic and investment climate, a review of market potential in the key sectors, and unique 'best practice' advice on all aspects of commercial engagement with Saudi Arabia. Also included are detailed regional and sectoral profiles.

Theory and Practice of Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment

Author: Kees Bastmeijer

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a well-established instrument of environmental law and policy that aims to ensure that potential adverse environmental effects of human activities are assessed before decisions on such activities are made. The instrument is increasingly being applied in respect of activities that may cause environmental effects across the borders of a state. This book offers an assessment of thirteen systems of Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment (TEIA) that exist or are in development in different parts of the world. Although TEIA is generally associated with EIA between territorial states, this book takes a broader approach and is divided into three sub-parts: Transboundary EIA between states, EIA for activities in international and shared areas, and EIA required by international financial institutions. Knowledgeable experts (scholars and practitioners) provide an overview of the history, content, and practice of the individual systems and, based on these discussions, the state of the art concerning TEIA and possible future developments are discussed.

Paradigms and Sand Castles or High Tech Crimes Revealed

2009-12-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics

Author: Barbara Geddes

Paradigms and Sand Castles demonstrates the relationship between thoughtful research design and the collection of persuasive evidence in support of theory. It teaches the craft of research through interesting and carefully selected examples from the field of comparative development studies.
Barbara Geddes is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.

	Acknowledgments
1	Research Design and the Accumulation of Knowledge	1
2	Big Questions, Little Answers: How the Questions You Choose Affect the Answers You Get	27
3	How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias and Related Issues	89
4	How the Evidence You Use Affects the Answers You Get: Rigorous Use of the Evidence Contained in Case Studies	131
5	How the Approach You Choose Affects the Answers You Get: Rational Choice and Its Uses in Comparative Politics	175
6	Conclusion	213
	App. A	225
	App. B	233
	App. C	247
	Bibliography	289
	Index	307

Interesting book: The Lowdown on Families Who Get High or Addiction Free Naturally

High-Tech Crimes Revealed: Cyberwar Stories from the Digital Front

Author: Steven Branigan

Stories about hacking, stolen credit card numbers, computer viruses, and identity theft are all around us, but what do they really mean to us? The goal of this book, quite simply, is to help educate people on the issues with high-tech crimes.

High-Tech Crimes Revealed: Cyberwar Stories from the Digital Front demystifies the risks and realities of high-tech crimes. Demystifying these crimes and raising the awareness of users of technology will make people smarter and safer, and that will make all of us safer in the long run.

Steven Branigan shares the inside details of real cases he worked on in his various roles in law-enforcement, information technology, and security. The result is a comprehensive, accessible look at how digital crimes are discovered, what techniques the criminals use and why, and (in some cases) how they can be brought to justice.

Inside, you'll find extensive information on

Actual hacker investigations, including the harm caused and how the criminals were tracked and caught
The ins and outs of identity theft, a rapidly growing crime with potential for serious damage
Using the criminology and psychology of hackers to detect and deter attacks
The risks associated with various technologies
Do's and don'ts for high-tech criminal investigations

This easily understandable book will take you beyond hearing about high-tech crimes to actually understanding how and why they happen—and what can be done to protect yourself.

"Most books on this topic impart knowledge in the form of techniques and methods. This book differs in that it impartsSteven Branigan's experience in the field, and real case studies in which problems are framed and effective solutions are crafted. In this respect this book imparts not only knowledge, but Steve's experience and wisdom as well."

—Mike Tarrani, Independent Consultant

"Steven Branigan provides a gripping account of what's involved in investigating computer crime. I strongly recommend this book to any security practitioner or anyone with an interest in computer security."

—Michael Nickle, Lead Consultant, VeriSign

"Being on the inside of several high-tech busts has given Steven Branigan the ability to make this book intriguing enough to keep high-tech types interested, while also doing a superb job of demystifying these real-life cases in a way that anyone can read and enjoy."

—David Kensiski, Director of Operations, InfiniRoute Networks

"The modern high-tech industry brought new things to our lives. Buying a book, selling a car, or robbing a bank has never been so easy. Why is that? You've got to read this book to find out!"

—Denis Scherbakov, Systems Administrator, MCSA: Security, MCSA, MCP, Security+Atlant Telecom, ISP

"Steven Branigan has been deeply involved with many real incidents of high-tech crimes—some of them I know of are too sensitive to disclose by name. Yet, High-Tech Crimes Revealed gives outsiders an opportunity to find out what actually takes place in this often-misunderstood field. By combining his powerful knowledge of computers and technology with the legal and behavioral considerations that are overlooked by those less experienced, Branigan demonstrates just how much private industry and government need to cooperate in order to find the facts and identify criminals. While his topic is deadly-serious, he conveys his riveting stories with humor and distills observations into clearly understood rules that we all should know as we go about our lives."

—Ed Stroz, Former Supervisory Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Computer Crime Squad in New York and President of Stroz Friedberg LLC

"Steven brings us behind the scenes of some very exciting hacker investigations and interviews, and tells the stories like few others. This book is an exciting read because he describes the people and their actions, showing us how these new-age crimes can affect all of us."

—Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson

"Finally, real-life credible stories that deliver first-hand accounts of tactical and strategic high-tech operations. This book is a rare look into what goes on behind the scenes. Take a front row seat with the author as he brings you into a world few have seen."

—Bob Weaver, Retired Deputy Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Investigative Division, U.S. Secret Service, Washington, D.C.

"Steve's intellect and real-world experience in criminal investigations, forensic analysis, and security principles is evident on every page. Sprinkle in some sound advice and a bit of humor and you have a book that is interesting, informative, and most of all, useful. I highly recommend it."

—Fred Staples, Retired Director of Computer and Network Security Consulting for Telcordia Technologies

"This book details story after story of computer crimes and identity theft. The best way to prevent yourself from being a victim is to take these narratives to heart."

—Ben Rothke, Senior Security Consultant, ThruPoint Inc.

Evolution of the Judicial Opinion or Congressional Elections

2009-12-04T03:02:00.000-08:00

Evolution of the Judicial Opinion: Institutional and Individual Styles

Author: William Popkin

Read the Introduction

"There is no better book for conveying the hidden literary value in the judicial opinion of our time."
—Robert A. Ferguson, author of The Trial in American Life

In this sweeping study of the judicial opinion, William D. Popkin examines how judges' opinions have been presented from the early American Republic to the present. Throughout history, he maintains, judges have presented their opinions within political contexts that involve projecting judicial authority to the external public, yet within a professional legal culture that requires opinions to develop judicial law through particular institutional and individual judicial styles.

Tracing the history of judicial opinion from its roots in English common law, Popkin documents a general shift from unofficially reported oral opinions, to semi-official reports, to the U.S. Supreme Court's adoption in the early nineteenth century of generally unanimous opinions. While this institutional base was firmly established by the twentieth century, Popkin suggests that the modern U.S. judicial opinion has reverted — in some respects — to one in which each judge expresses an individual point of view. Ultimately, he concludes that a shift from an authoritative to a more personal and exploratory individual style of writing opinions is consistent with a more democratic judicial institution.

Read also Home Spa Feet or Inward Bound

Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in Washington

Author: Paul S Herrnson

About the Author:
Paul S. Herrnson is the director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship and professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland

Tables and Figures     x
Preface     xiv
Introduction     1
The Strategic Context     6
The Candidate-Centered Campaign     6
The Institutional Framework     8
Political Culture     17
Campaign Technology     19
The Political Setting     21
Recent Congressional Elections     26
Summary     34
Candidates and Nominations     36
Strategic Ambition     36
Passing the Primary Test     51
Nominations, Elections, and Representation     57
The Senate     66
Summary     69
The Anatomy of a Campaign     71
Campaign Organizations     72
Campaign Budgets     83
Senate Campaigns     85
Summary     86
The Parties Campaign     87
National Agenda Setting     88
The National, Congressional, and Senatorial Campaign Committees     90
Strategy, Decision Making, and Targeting     96
Campaign Contributions and Coordinated Expenditures     99
Campaign Services     105
Independent, Parallel, and Coordinated Campaigns     116
The Impact of Party Campaigning     124
Summary     131
The Interests Campaign     132
The Rise of PACs and Other Electorally Active Organizations     133
Strategy, Decision Making, and Targeting     141
PAC Contributions     150
Campaign Services     154
Independent, Parallel, and Coordinated Campaigns     157
The Impact of Interest Group Activity     161
Summary     165
The Campaign for Resources     166
Inequalities in Resources     167
House Incumbents     169
House Challengers     180
Candidates for Open House Seats     187
Senate Campaigns     191
Summary     195
Campaign Strategy     196
Voting Behavior     196
Voters and Campaign Strategy     200
Gauging Public Opinion     202
Voter Targeting     205
The Message     209
Summary     219
Campaign Communications     221
Television Advertising     222
Radio Advertising     227
Newspaper Advertising     228
Direct Mail and Newsletters      229
Mass Telephone Calls     231
The Internet     232
Free Media     235
Field Work     240
The Importance of Different Communication Techniques     241
Independent, Parallel, and Coordinated Campaign Communications     243
Summary     244
Candidates, Campaigns, and Electoral Success     245
House Incumbent Campaigns     246
House Challenger Campaigns     252
House Open-Seat Campaigns     258
Senate Campaign     262
Claiming Credit and Placing Blame     265
Summary     271
Elections and Governance     272
The Permanent Campaign     272
A Decentralized Congress     275
Political Parties as Centralizing Agents     280
Responsiveness, Responsibility, and Public Policy     282
Summary     289
Campaign Reform     290
The Case for Reform     290
Obstacles to Reform     292
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002     294
The BCRA's Impact     298
Beyond the BCRA     303
Conclusion     312
Notes     315
Index     345
Notes Name Index     363

England and the Spanish Armada or Dynamics of Contention

2009-12-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel

Author: James McDermott

The Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1603 was, to most contemporary Englishmen, a conflict for the soul of the nation. To their descendants, the Armada campaign of 1588 represented a watershed in European history that both preserved English freedoms and halted the momentum of an ambitious and alien empire. Yet the victorious nation had contributed much to the conflict. This book examines the process by which the Spaniard, a long-term ally and friend, became in English eyes the epitome of human depravity, and how resistance to his imagined goals helped shape an emerging sense of nationhood.
The antipathies generated by this process ensured that the Armada campaign was a battle for different ideals of civilization. The protagonists expected the clash to be decisive, but what ensued was no heroic encounter. Instead it was an inconclusive affair, redeemed—for England—by atrocious weather and poor Spanish understanding of the coastlines of western Scotland and Ireland.

Dynamics of Contention

Author: Doug McAdam

Dissatisfied with the compartmentalization of studies concerning strikes, wars, revolutions, social movements, and other forms of political struggle, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly identify causal mechanisms and processes that recur across a wide range of contentious politics. Critical of the static, single-actor models (including their own) that have prevailed in the field, they shift the focus of analysis to dynamic interaction. Doubtful that large, complex series of events such as revolutions and social movements conform to general laws, they break events into smaller episodes, then identify recurrent mechanisms and proceses within them. Dynamics of Contention examines and compares eighteen contentious episodes drawn from many different parts of the world since the French Revolution, probing them for consequential and widely applicable mechanisms, for example, brokerage, category formation, and elite defection. The episodes range from nineteenth-century nationalist movements to contemporary Muslim-Hindu conflict to the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 to disintegration of the Soviet Union. The authors spell out the implications of their approach for explanation of revolutions, nationalism, and democratization, then lay out a more general program for study of contentious episodes wherever and whenever they occur.

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth or Womens Rights Emerges within the Anti Slavery Movement 1830 1870

2009-12-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth

Author: Heather Beth Johnson

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth investigates the way that wealth (rather than income) structures educational opportunity in the United States. Furthermore, it shows the way that educational opportunity-the bedrock upon which our pervasive ideology of meritocracy or, in Johnson's terms, "the American Dream" is founded-structures the racial class system in the United States. She accomplishes this by analyzing an impressive store of qualitative and quantitative research on three cities: Boston, Los Angeles, and St. Louis.
The meritocratic ideology is riddled with contradictions due to the massive and growing wealth disparity between blacks and whites, in particular. Everyone wants the best for their children, but access to assets is what allows wealthy people to either send their children to private school or buy expensive homes in neighborhoods with good public schools. In this equation, income doesn't matter so much, but wealth-which is typically inherited-does. Not surprisingly, blackAmericans, who on average have far less wealth than white Americans, are often unable to attend the best schools. And since educational attainment is the root of our alleged meritocracy, whites disproportionately dominate it-and families with wealth, even when they recognize the meritocracy as a problem, don't opt out of the system that has successfully reproduced itself for decades. Essentially, the meritocratic ideology of the American Dream continues to cast a powerful spell, and people who stand to benefit will participate in it regardless of the social issues involved.

Women's Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Short History with Documents, Vol. 1

Author: Kathryn Kish Sklar

Combining documents with an interpretive essay, this book is the first to offer a much-needed guide to the emergence of the women's rights movement within the anti-slavery activism of the 1830s. A 60-page introductory essay traces the cause of women's rights from Angelina and Sarah Grimké's campaign against slavery through the development of a full-fledged women's rights movement in the 1840s and 1850s and the emergence of race as a divisive issue that finally split that movement in 1869. A rich collection of over 50 documents includes diary entries, letters, and speeches from the Grimkés, Maria Stewart, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Weld, Frances Harper, Sojourner Truth, and others, giving students immediate access to the world of abolitionists and women's right advocates and their passionate struggles for emancipation. Headnotes to the documents, 14 illustrations, a bibliography, questions to consider, a chronology, and an index are also included.

The Future of Reputation or Essay on the Principle of Population

2009-11-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

Author: Daniel J Solov

Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.

Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

Preface     vii
Introduction: When Poop Goes Primetime     1
Rumor and Reputation in a Digital World
How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us     17
Gossip and the Virtues of Knowing Less     50
Shaming and the Digital Scarlet Letter     76
Privacy, Free Speech, and the Law
The Role of Law     105
Free Speech, Anonymity, and Accountability     125
Privacy in an Overexposed World     161
Conclusion: The Future of Reputation     189
Notes     207
Index     237

Book about: Purple Cow or Suze Ormans Will and Trust Kit

Essay on the Principle of Population (Penguin Classic)

Author: Thomas Robert Malthus

Malthus's simple yet powerful argument was highly controversial in its day. Literary England despised him for dashing its hopes of social progress; today his name remains a byword for active concern about man's demographic and ecological prospects.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger or Water Follies

2009-11-29T06:02:00.000-08:00

The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Author: Christopher Hitchens

Drawing on first-hand testimony, previously unpublished documentation and broad sweeps through material released under the Freedom of Information Act, Christopher Hitchens mounts a devastating indictment of a man whose ambition and ruthlessness have directly resulted in both individual murders and widespread, indiscriminate slaughter.

Dan Kennedy

[A] new, devastating portrayal of Kissinger...[Hitchens's] essay is powerful, ugly, and important.

Henry Kissinger

I find it contemptible.

Nancy Mitchell

[T]hat Kissinger might be arrested might be far-fetched, but it has drawn blood....Hitchens has clearly hit a nerve. —The Raleigh News and Observer

San Francisco Chronicle

Hitchens is a brilliant polemicist and a tireless reporter....damning documentary evidence against Kissinger.

Village Voice

An eloquent and devastating indictment of Kissinger's involvement in the war...and many other acts of indiscriminate murder.

Conrad Black

[S]o contemptible that it almost makes a case for judicial book-burning.

James McQuillen

A thorough compilation of previously established facts as much as an indictment.

Greg Goldin

What emerges is an indictment not only of a criminal, but of a coward too.

Publishers Weekly

The arrest of Augusto Pinochet signaled a significant shift in enforcing international law, noticed by Henry Kissinger if not others. Vanity Fair columnist Hitchens (No One Left to Lie To, etc.), a self-described "political opponent of Henry Kissinger," writes to remedy the awareness gap, focusing on specific charges of Kissinger's responsibility for mass killings of civilians, genocide, assassinations, kidnapping, murder and conspiracy involving Indochina, East Timor, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Greece and Chile. If the book's title is direct, Hitchens's style is not. Indeed, so much attention is given to unraveling Kissinger's denials and cover stories that the underlying allegations recede into the background. Most of the material is known, but Kissinger's possible culpability has been overlooked for so long that Hitchens's stylish summation may be precisely what's required to bring resolution to a chapter in American foreign policy. Topics include what Hitchens casts as Kissinger's role in helping Nixon undermine the Paris peace talks on the eve of the 1968 election; the bombings of Cambodia and Laos, which killed roughly a million civilians; the assassination of Chilean chief of staff General Rene Schneider, whose loyalty blocked the planned coup against Allende; Kissinger's approval and support for Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and the resulting genocide; his support for the Pakistan military government's 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and for a bloody military coup in independent Bangladesh in 1975, and more. If America does not act promptly, Hitchens warns, others will, further eroding our claims to moral leadership. (May) Forecast: Hitchens's fame and reputation as a contrarian guarantee that his indictment will receive media attention (it's already been serialized in Harper's), and leftists will delight in his skewering of Kissinger. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Is former secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger a war criminal? Hitchens, a journalist (the Nation, Vanity Fair) and author (Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger), believes that Kissinger committed crimes around the world, from Cambodia to Bangladesh to Chile. With the recent detention of Chile's August Pinochet and the international interest in prosecuting Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Hitchens theorizes that the era of "sovereign immunity" for state crimes has ended. He would limit Kissinger's prosecution to "offenses that might or should form the basis of a legal prosecution: for war crimes, for crimes against humanity and for offenses against common or customary or international law." Hitchens relies on congressional hearing testimony, transcripts of the infamous Nixon tapes, and the memoirs and papers of Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administration officials to support his case against Kissinger. Although there is limited attribution of the quoted and referenced documentation, the substance of the material makes an intriguing case. Recommended for political science and international relations collections. Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

	Preface
	Introduction	1
1	Curtain-Raiser: The Secret of '68	6
2	Indochina	19
3	A Sample of Cases: Kissinger's War Crimes in Indochina	25
4	Bangladesh: One Genocide, one Coup and one Assassination	44
5	Chile	55
6	An Afterword on Chile	72
7	Cyprus	77
8	East Timor	90
9	A "Wet Job" in Washington?	108
10	Afterword: The Profit Margin	120
11	Law and Justice	127
App. I	A Fragrant Fragment	132
App. II	The Demetracopoulos Letter	146
	Acknowledgments	148
	Index	151

Books about: Comprehensive Diabetic Cookbook or A Taste and Tour of Northeast Country Inns

Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters

Author: Robert Jerome Glennon

<p>Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures.<p>Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities.<p>The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures.<p>Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.

Booknews

Glennon (law, U. of Arizona) tells several stories of how groundwater is being pumped from aquifers to generate huge profits by drying up lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Arizona, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, California, Maine, Minnesota, and Nevada are among the stops. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Fierce Discontent or Ruse

2009-11-28T00:50:00.000-08:00

Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920

Author: Michael E McGerr

With America's current and ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor and the constant threat of the disappearance of the middle class, the Progressive Era stands out as a time when the middle class had enough influence on the country to start its own revolution. Before the Progressive Era most Americans lived on farms, working from before sunrise to after sundown every day except Sunday with tools that had changed very little for centuries. Just three decades later, America was utterly transformed into a diverse, urban, affluent, leisure-obsessed, teeming multitude. This explosive change was accompanied by extraordinary public-spiritedness as reformers--frightened by class conflict and the breakdown of gender relations--abandoned their traditional faith in individualism and embarked on a crusade to remake other Americans in their own image.
The progressives redefined the role of women, rewrote the rules of politics, banned the sale of alcohol, revolutionized marriage, and eventually whipped the nation into a frenzy for joining World War I. These colorful, ambitious battles changed the face of American culture and politics and established the modern liberal pledge to use government power in the name of broad social good. But the progressives, unable to deliver on all of their promises, soon discovered that Americans retained a powerful commitment to individual freedom. Ironically, the progressive movement helped reestablish the power of conservatism and ensured that America would never be wholly liberal or conservative for generations to come.
Michael McGerr's A Fierce Discontent recreates a time of unprecedented turbulence and unending fascination, showing thefirst American middle-class revolution. Far bolder than the New Deal of FDR or the New Frontier of JFK, the Progressive Era was a time when everything was up for grabs and perfection beckoned.

Publishers Weekly

Indiana University historian McGerr (The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928) examines the social, cultural and political currents of a movement that, through its early successes and ultimate failure, has defined today's "disappointing" political climate. From the late 19th century until the Great Depression, American progressives undertook a vast array of reforms that shook the nation to its core, from class and labor issues to vice, immigration, women's rights and the thorny issues of race. In three parts, McGerr illuminates the origins of Progressive thought, the movement's meteoric ascent in American life and its descent into "the Red scare, race riots, strikes and inflation," positing that the Progressive vision of remaking America in its own middle-class image eventually sparked a backlash that persists to this day. McGerr hits all the usual notes associated with the Progressive era: the political ascensions of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and Progressivism's revered heroes (Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois) are well represented. It is McGerr's vivid portrait of turn-of-the-century America, however, that separates this book from the pack. Expertly weaving an array of vignettes and themes throughout his narrative, McGerr pulls into focus a period in American history too often blurred by the rapid pace of social, political and cultural change. He contrasts the values and lives of some of the "upper ten"-America's wealthy, high society families, the Rockefellers and Morgans-with unknown immigrant laborers and farmers the Golubs and Garlands. He discusses the dawn of the automobile as a hallmark in the struggle for women's rights. The plight of African-American boxer Jack Johnson resonates against the backdrop of segregation. And the life and work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the dawn of flight, and communication breakthroughs are also explored. Simply put, this is history at its best. McGerr's wide-ranging narrative opens our eyes not just to the broad strokes of a widely varying movement but to the true dimensions of an explosive era when the society we know today was forged amid rapid industrialization, cultural assimilation and a volatile international scene. Perhaps most compelling, and the mark of any great work of history, is McGerr's success in connecting the Progressive era to the world of today. The social and economic chaos of the 1960s and '70s and the rebirth of conservatism reinforce "the basic lesson of the Progressive era," McGerr concludes: "reformers should not try too much." In today's trying times, McGerr doubts that today's leaders will undertake "anything as ambitious as the Progressives' Great Reconstruction." That prospect, McGerr concludes, "is at once a disappointment and a relief." This is a truly remarkable effort from one of our nation's finest historians. (Sept. 15) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

This flawed but useful book on the influence of the Progressive movement in U.S. history illustrates both the potential and the limits of sentimental radicalism as a force in U.S. historiography. McGerr has a clear preference for radicals over Progressive middle-class leaders such as Jane Addams and Theodore Roosevelt, which gives him a better understanding of the limits of Progressivism than more conventionally liberal historians. Many historians of Progressivism have reluctantly acknowledged the popularity of eugenics and immigration restrictions among their subjects; McGerr goes further, illuminating the role Progressives played in establishing and then defending segregation and the degree to which they attempted to coercively reform the lower classes. Yet McGerr's nostalgic (and very middle class) radicalism creates blind spots of its own. In particular, by limiting his serious political analysis of Progressive thought to the early years of the period, he underestimates the radicalism that increasingly shaped Progressive leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt after 1910. One is left thinking that Mark Twain's description of the Widow Douglass, who wanted to "sivilize" Huck Finn and his father, is the best account of American Progressivism — and that Twain's description of Huck "lighting out for the territories" to escape the shackles of her well-intentioned rules remains the best description of why the Mugwumps, prohibitionists, earnest professors, food cranks, suffragettes, segregationists, social workers, and missionaries of Progressive America never quite got their way.

Library Journal

McGerr (history, Indiana Univ., Bloomington) provides a detailed and readable study of Progressivism, the middle-class reaction to the social, economic, and political changes wrought by industrialization. The Gilded Age saw conflict between workers and capitalists, immigrants and natives, men and women, and blacks andwhites. As McGerr demonstrates, the middle class of office workers, small businessmen, and professionals hoped to replace 19th-century individualism and conflict with a sense of community, making America a harmonious and orderly middle-class haven. Progressivism had notable successes-reining in corporate trusts, regulating the purity of food and drugs, and broadening the power of the government to deal with national problems. However, McGerr expands the account to show that Progressivism was seriously weakened by its condescension toward the working class, its complicity in establishing segregation, and the strength of its opponents. This book offers a fascinating description of an America with vast disparities of wealth, unchecked corporate power, and a government serving only the elite. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.-Duncan Stewart, Univ. of Iowa Libs., Iowa City Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A highly accessible survey of the Progressive Era, linking its reformist movements to their fruition-or, sometimes, repudiation-in the decades that followed. "We live in a politically disappointing time," writes McGerr (History/Indiana Univ.), and certainly as compared to the tumultuous half-century when progressive movements of various stripes worked to rein in corporate power and make the nation safe for democracy. McGerr elaborates: the Progressive Era inaugurated the "American Century," a period that was resolutely liberal and that ended early in the racial backlash, social upheaval, and sour economy of the late 1960s and the conservative counterrevolution that ensued. At its origin, McGerr holds, progressivism was an economic movement, a reaction against the "upper ten"-the percentage of society as measured by wealth, that is, which really turns out to have been a mere one or two percent of the population who controlled "fortunes with few parallels in history." Through campaigns for graduated taxation on income and inheritances, workers' rights, a humane workday, and other measures, progressives such as Jane Addams managed to curb some of the power of this superclass, always stopping short of calling for pure socialism-for most progressives of the time mistrusted the deterministic, Marxist view of the class struggle, and in any event European socialism clashed with nativist sensibilities, which, as McGerr does not hesitate to acknowledge, lent progressivism a racist edge. ("The progressives' . . . political weakness," he writes, "was their willingness to segregate the ballot box, and thereby keep so many Americans out of the battle against privilege.") The fundamental goal ofprogressivism, he suggests, was to end the battle between labor and capital, but the struggle spilled out in other directions, such as Carrie Nation's campaign to rid America of the evils of alcohol (which, she argued, contributed to crime, prostitution, and the oppression of women) and Sherwood Anderson's mission to bed as many women as he could in the name of sexual liberation-quests that would be replayed by others in the years to come. A lucid overview for students of American history and politics.

Pt. 1	The progressive opportunity
1	"Signs of friction" : portrait of America at century's end	3
2	The radical center	40
Pt. 2	Progressive battles
3	Transforming Americans	77
4	Ending class conflict	118
5	Controlling big business	147
6	The shield of segregation	182
Pt. 3	Disturbance and defeat
7	The promise of liberation	221
8	The pursuit of pleasure	248
9	The price of victory	279

Ruse: Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence

Author: Robert Eringer

For nearly ten years beginning in 1993, Robert Eringer lived a clandestine life of intrigue, conducting a spectrum of covert operations for the FBI's foreign counterintelligence division. His primary assignment: to lure American traitor Edward Lee Howard to capture.

About to be arrested by the FBI for spying for Moscow, CIA officer Howard defected to the Soviet Union in 1985. But then he wanted to tell his story to the world. Utilizing cover as a book publishing consultant, the author gained Howard's trust as his editor and confidant. As Eringer's skillfully orchestrated ruse progressed, he pierced not only Howard's inner circle of KGB cronies-including the KGB's former chairman, making him an unwitting intelligence asset-but also Howard's Cuban intelligence contact network in Havana. Only at the eleventh hour did a highly politicized Justice Department order Howard's "extraordinary rendition" scrapped; he died mysteriously under ominous circumstances in Moscow in 2002. Nonetheless, the secrets Eringer gathered shed light on such sensitive espionage cases as the treachery of senior CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames and FBI traitor Robert Hanssen.

In addition to his counter-espionage docket, Eringer undertook assignments for the FBI's criminal division, including a ruse he devised to hasten the extradition from France of notorious convicted murderer Ira Einhorn. Ruse tells the unknown side of a significant piece of U.S. intelligence history, an unvarnished insider's view of the FBI between the end of the Cold War and the events of 9/11.

The Subjection of Women or Tower Stories

2009-11-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

The Subjection of Women

Author: John Stuart Mill

The renowned and influential essay by the great English philosopher argues for equality in all legal, political, social and domestic relations between men and women. Carefully reasoned and clearly expressed with great logic and consistency, the work remains today a landmark in the important struggle for human rights.

	John Stuart Mill: A Chronology
	Introduction
	A Note on the Text
	The Subjection of Women
App. A	Preludes to The Subjection of Women
1	Essay on Government (1820)
2	"On Marriage" (1832-33?)
App. B	Comments by Mill about The Subjection of Women
1	Autobiography, Chapter VII
2	Letters
App. C	Nineteenth-Century Novelists on the Woman Question
1	Nothanger Abbey (1818)
2	Oliver Twist (1837-38)
3	Jane Eyre (1847)
4	Middlemarch (1871-72)
5	Jude the Obscure (1895)
App. D	Contemporary Reviews and Critiques
1	Athenaeum
2	Saturday Review
3	Fortnightly Review
4	Contemporary Review
5	Blackwood's Magazine
6	Edinburgh Review
7	Macmillan's Magazine
8	Macmillan's Magazine
9	Fraser's Magazine
10	Theological Review
11	Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
App. E	Florence Nightingale and Sigmund Freud vs. Mill
1	Florence Nightingale
2	The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
	Notes
	Select Bibliography

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Tower Stories: The Autobiography of September 11, 2001

Author: Damon Dimarco

No other book written about September 11^th displays the compassion, the breadth of focus, and the exacting eye for historic detail that Tower Stories offers on every single page. In the tradition of Studs Terkel's The Good War and the Roosevelt Administration's Slave Narratives, Damon DiMarco has offered a lasting literary contribution of inestimable importance to American culture. The policemen. . .the firemen. . .paramedics. . .witnesses. . .volunteers. . .business owners. . .theoreticians. . .the bereaved of 9/11. . .herein their voices are preserved for all time. So that we, their contemporary countrymen and citizens of a peace-loving world can hear them and share in their intimate understanding of that horrible day.

Strategery or Environmental Policy and Politics

2009-11-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

Strategery

Author: Bill Sammon

Strategery is a term borrowed from a Saturday Night Live skit and self-deprecatingly adopted by the White House for their meetings. White House Correspondent Bill Sammon is borrowing it yet again in his latest account of this unlikely-yet historic-president. It is written with verve and piercing insight by Sammon, who has been granted unprecedented access to President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their most senior advisers. No other journalist has interviewed the president more times than Sammon.

Interesting textbook: Leiths Fish Bible or Quality Restaurant Service Guaranteed

Environmental Policy and Politics

Author: Michael E Kraft

Offering an accessible overview and assessment of U.S. environmental policy and politics today, the fourth edition of Environmental Policy and Politics draws on an extensive collection of scientific studies, government reports, and policy analyses to provide the full scope of environmental issues to students. Concise yet thorough, this text is unique in its field for employing a risk-based framework for policy analysis that encourages students to judge for themselves the significance of conditions and trends and the risks they pose.

Ch. 1	Environmental problems and politics	1
Ch. 2	Judging the state of the environment	25
Ch. 3	Making environmental policy	56
Ch. 4	The evolution of environmental policy and politics	85
Ch. 5	Environmental protection policy : controlling pollution	111
Ch. 6	Energy and natural resource policies	159
Ch. 7	Evaluating environmental policy	205
Ch. 8	Environmental policy and politics for the twenty-first century	241

Dont Tell the Grown Ups or Pearl Harbor

2009-02-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature

Author: Alison Luri

In Don't Tell the Grown-Ups, one of our wittiest and most astute cultural commentators explores the world of children's literature -- from Lewis Carroll to Dr. Seuss, from classic fairy tales to A.A. Milne, from Beatrix Potter to J.R.R. Tolkien -- and shows that many of the most enduring books for children share a surprising quality: they challenge rather than uphold respectable adult values.

Publishers Weekly

These essays cite the popularity of certain authors, including Edith Nesbit and Kate Greenaway, as proof that children prefer books that feature disobedient characters and challenge conventional adult points of view. ``As important for the critical standards she sets as for those she lauds in children's books, this book by Lurie eyes with exemplary independence a genre too often sentimentalized,'' said PW. (June)

The New York Times

Ms. Lurie writes with relish about the wicked, often subterranean honesty of folk tales....She takes the model of classic fairy tales and, good literary scholar that she is, quite convincingly applies it to such books as F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night, to Jane Austen, John Updike, and Jean Stafford....The best sections of Don't Tell the Grown-Ups are the chapters about the pantheon of authors of the great Victorian and Edwardian children's books....Ms. Lurie's's examples are always illuminating.

What People Are Saying

Rosellen Brown
[A] thoroughly absorbing collection . . .by an unillusioned and cheerfully clearheaded guide. -- The New York Times Book Review

Interesting book: Objective Based Safety Training or Capitalism and Modernity
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

Author: Roberta Wohlstetter
It would be reassuring to believe that Pearl Harbor was just a colossal and extraordinary blunder. What is disquieting is that it was a supremely ordinary blunder. In fact, 'blunder' is too specific; our stupendous unreadiness at Pearl Harbor was neither a Sunday-morning, nor a Hawaiian, phenomenon. It was just a dramatic failure of a remarkably well-informed government to call the next enemy move in a cold-war crisis.

Dissent in America or Black in Selma

2009-02-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

Dissent in America: The Voices That Shaped a Nation

Author: Ralph F Young
“This is a wonderfully rich collection of voices of courage and resistance through all of our national history. These are the true heroes of our country, not the presidents and generals and industrialists, but those who spoke truth to power, and their words not only instruct us about our history, but inspire us at a time when dissenters are so needed.”
Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States

Dissent and protest have been at the heart of the American story from the first days of settlement to the present. Dissent in America traces the theme of dissent as it weaves its way through the fabric of American history. This collection of first-hand accounts show how dissenters fought to gain the rights they believed were denied to them, or others, or have disagreed with the government or majority opinion. Through songs, speeches, articles, testimonies, letters, and more, they tell the story of our nation and give us a unique look at the country that America has become.

With the words of almost 150 dissenters, Dissent in America features -
--A chronological organization with ten parts, from Pre-Revolutionary Roots (1607-1760) through Contemporary Dissent (1975-Present).
--First-hand accounts from well-known dissenters (Samuel Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Booker T. Washington, Langston Hughes, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Betty Friedan, Ralph Nader) as well as lesser known dissenters (Cherokee Chief John Ross protesting a treaty in 1836, Sarah Grimké on the equality of women in 1837).
--Essays that introduce each chronological section and place the writers and issues in historicalcontext.
--A brief introduction that precedes each document and discusses the significance of each dissenter.
Library Journal
In this time of warrantless wiretaps and imprisonment without trial, these two anthologies remind us how hard previous generations of Americans fought to preserve and broaden our civil and human rights. Dissent is the larger and broader of the two. Young (history, Temple Univ.) organizes his book chronologically, with introductions to each of nine broad periods from pre-Revolutionary War to contemporary times (Cindy Sheehan against the war in Iraq in 2005) and briefer introductions for each author. Early protests of religious persecution by Puritans in the 17th century mix with Native American speeches and an anonymous slave's letter, and the collection continues with a wide social, economic, political, and racial span, ultimately embracing a panoply of issues including black liberation, the environment, gay rights, workers' rights, and peace movements. While Young defines dissent as coming from both the Left and the Right in his introduction, left of center predominates. American Protest Literature is organized by Trodd around 11 subjects, which are collected more or less as they have arisen chronologically in our history, from "Declaring Independence" and "Unvanishing the Indian" to "The Word Is Out: Gay Liberation" and "From Saigon to Baghdad." Within each area, Trodd presents writings from both the originating movement and the later protest writings on similar themes, e.g., Daniel De Leon's 1895 Declaration of Interdependence by the Socialist Labor Party is with Thomas Paine in the first section. There is less introductory material here than in Young's book, but by linking original works to later pieces Trodd underlines the historical roots of American dissent and the ongoing relevance of these writings. Trodd does not attempt to include right-of-center dissent, nor does her work contain literature on environmentalism or the long history of anti-imperialism, as does Young. Taken together, these books offer an exciting and inclusive vision of Americans fighting for their rights since the 17th century. Both are highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Duncan Stewart, Univ. of Iowa Libs., Iowa City Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Book review: Im Like So Fat or Cults
Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut Jr.

Author: J L Chestnut
“The autobiography of J. L. Chestnut is the story of Selma’s first black lawyer and prodigal son, but it is also part of the history of the race, sweeping biblically from enslavement by segregation to freedom to the ambitious aftermath of redemption.” —New York Times Book Review “Unfolds with the richness that one expects in a nove. . . .Less about the famous civil rights figureheads like Adam Clayton Powell, Martin Luther King Jr., and Stokely Carmichael (though the author has his say about all of them) than the grass-roots folks who lived in Selma before the era of freedom riders, and remained there, toiling for social change, after the national leaders and media left. [This book] brims over with the social texture and political life of a Southern town raised to the level of a national symbol.” —Los Angeles Times “A valuable addition to the literature on civil rights. . . .It illuminates the personal isolation and frustration that make activism a high-risk endeavor.” —Journal of American History

Conquest or Long Pursuit

2009-02-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

Conquest: How Societies Overwhelm Others

Author: David Day
In this bold, sweeping book, David Day surveys the ways in which one nation or society has supplanted another, and then sought to justify its occupation - for example, the English in Australia and North America, the Normans in England, the Spanish in Mexico, the Japanese in Korea, the Chinese in Tibet. Human history has been marked by territorial aggression and expanion, an endless cycle of ownership claims by dominant cultures over territory occupied by peoples unable to resist their advance. Day outlines the strategies, violent and subtle, such dominant cultures have used to stake and bolster their claims - by redrawing maps, rewriting history, recourse to legal argument, creative renaming, use of foundation stories, tilling of the soil, colonization and of course outright subjugation and even genocide. In the end the claims they make reveal their own sense of identity and self-justifying place in the world. This will be an important book, an accessible and captivating macro-narrative about empire, expansion, and dispossession.
Publishers Weekly
Historian Day (Claiming a Continent) surveys the justifications that nations have offered for conquering other peoples, and lays out the process of claiming a territory by a symbolic act like planting a flag, then by mapping the land and naming it. Many of his examples are familiar-the Spanish in Central and South America, the Germans in Eastern Europe. But he includes less familiar instances, such as Japan's 18th-century takeover of the Ainu culture on the island of Hokkaido and the contest between the Dutch, French and English to claim Australia. As interesting as Day's stories are, he comes up short on interpretation and analysis. Much more could have been made, for example, of the impact of population pressures. And the book lacks almost any examples of conquests in the ancient world, a striking omission when one considers that modern nations have looked to Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome for models in their own empire building. Nevertheless, history buffs' curiosity will be piqued by Day's accounts of lesser known conquests. Maps. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents:
List of Plates
List of Maps
Introduction 1
1 Staking a Legal Claim 11
2 The Power of Maps 28
3 Claiming by Naming 49
4 Supplanting the Savages 69
5 By Right of Conquest 92
6 Defending the Conquered Territory 112
7 Foundation Stories 132
8 Tilling the Soil 159
9 The Genocidal Imperative 176
10 Peopling the Land 198
11 The Never-Ending Journey 223
Endnotes 239
Select Bibliography 265
Index 277
See also: Jarhead or The Pirate Queen
Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln's Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America

Author: Roy Morris Jr
In this compelling narrative, renowned historian Roy Morris, Jr., expertly offers a new angle on two of America's most towering politicians and the intense personal rivalry that transformed both them and the nation they sought to lead in the dark days leading up to the Civil War.

For the better part of two decades, Stephen Douglas was the most famous and controversial politician in the United States, a veritable "steam engine in britches." Abraham Lincoln was merely Douglas's most persistent rival within their adopted home state of Illinois, known mainly for his droll sense of humor, bad jokes, and slightly nutty wife.

But from the time they first set foot in the Prairie State in the early 1830s, Lincoln and Douglas were fated to be political competitors. The Long Pursuit tells the dramatic story of how these two radically different individuals rose to the top rung of American politics, and how their personal rivalry shaped and altered the future of the nation during its most convulsive era. Indeed, had it not been for Douglas, who served as Lincoln's personal goad, pace horse, and measuring stick, there would have been no Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, no Lincoln presidency in 1860, and perhaps no Civil War six months later. For both men—and for the nation itself—the stakes were that high.

Not merely a detailed political study, The Long Pursuit is also a compelling look at the personal side of politics on the rough-and-tumble western frontier. It shows us a more human Lincoln, a bare-knuckles politician who was not above trading on his wildly inaccurate image as a humble "rail-splitter," when he was, in fact, one of thenation's most successful railroad attorneys. And as the first extensive biographical study of Stephen Douglas in more than three decades, the book presents a long-overdue reassessment of one of the nineteenth century's more compelling and ultimately tragic figures, the one-time "Little Giant" of American politics.

Randall M. Miller - Library Journal
Morris (editor, Military Heritage magazine; The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War) argues that in Illinois Lincoln and Douglas grew up, legally and politically, pitted one against the other. The Democrat Douglas often got the better of the Whig Lincoln at the ballot box, though Lincoln won often in court-and in courting Mary Todd. Morris sees westward expansion and race as coming to define their contests. Douglas advocated majority rule, Lincoln individual rights as the bedrock of a free people. Lincoln proved a formidable foe on the legal circuit because of his skills and friendships and his recognition of the moral dimension of the slavery question. This dual biography helps us understand that the Lincoln-Douglas debates had both personal and political dimensions. Morris gives Douglas his due, but ultimately his book does not move beyond Allen Guelzo's Lincoln and Douglas, which argues that the debates obliged both men to reckon the meanings of democracy, liberty, and America. Morris does not much change established thinking. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman or The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights

2009-02-18T03:48:00.000-08:00

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Everyman's Library)

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft
The first novel of Samuel Beckett's mordant and exhilarating mid-century trilogy introduces us to Molloy, who has been mysteriously incarcerated, and who subsequently escapes to go discover the whereabouts of his mother. In the latter part of this curious masterwork, a certain Jacques Moran is deputized by anonymous authorities to search for the aforementioned Molloy. In the trilogy's second novel, Malone, who might or might not be Molloy himself, addresses us with his ruminations while in the act of dying. The third novel consists of the fragmented monologue—delivered, like the monologues of the previous novels, in a mournful rhetoric that possesses the utmost splendor and beauty—of what might or might not be an armless and legless creature living in an urn outside an eating house. Taken together, these three novels represent the high-water mark of the literary movement we call Modernism. Within their linguistic terrain, where stories are taken up, broken off, and taken up again. Where voices rise and crumble and are resurrected, we can discern the essential lineaments of our modern condition, and encounter an awesome vision, tragic yet always compelling and always mysteriously invigorating, of consciousness trapped and struggling inside the boundaries of nature.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Notes
Select Bibliography
Chronology
Author's Introduction 1
Dedicatory letter to M. Talleyrand-Perigord 7
I The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered 13
II The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed 21
III The Same Subject Continued 41
IV Observations on the State of Degradation to which Woman is Reduced by Various Causes 56
V Animadversions on some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, bordering on Contempt 84
VI The Effect which an Early Association of Ideas has upon the Character 124
VII Modesty--Comprehensively Considered, and not as a Sexual Virtue 131
VIII Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation 142
IX Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society 152
X Parental Affection 163

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The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights

Author: Joanne R Bauer
The "Asian values" argument within the international human rights debate holds that not all Asian states should be expected to protect human rights to the same degree. This position of "cultural relativism," often used by authoritarian governments in Asia to counter charges of human rights violations, has long been dismissed by Western and Asian human rights advocates as a weak excuse. This book moves beyond the politicized rhetoric that has dogged the international debate on human rights to identify the more persuasive contributions by East Asian intellectuals. The editors of this book argue that critical intellectuals in East Asia have begun to chart a middle ground between the extreme, uncompromising ends of this argument, making particular headway in the areas of group rights and economic, social, and cultural (ethnic minority) rights. The chapters form a collective intellectual inquiry into the following four areas: critical perspectives on the "Asian values" debate; theoretical proposals for an improved international human rights regime with greater input from East Asians; the resources within East Asian cultural traditions that can help promote human rights in the region; and key human rights issues facing East Asia as a result of rapid economic growth in the region.
Richard Halloran
While the Asian and Western scholars who wrote and edited this volume are too polite to say so directlytheir message is plain: All of you are wrong in the way you have framed and focused your running debate over human rights and Asian values....This book makes a compelling case that human rights are universalwhile Asian values are held mainly by those who advocate them. —Far Eastern Economic Review
Far Eastern Economic Review - Richard Halloran
While the Asian and Western scholars who wrote and edited this volume are too polite to say so directly, their message is plain: All of you are wrong in the way you have framed and focused your running debate over human rights and Asian values....This book makes a compelling case that human rights are universal, while Asian values are held mainly by those who advocate them.
What People Are Saying
Amitai Etzioni
This is an outstanding book on a whole set of crucial cross cultural issues we face: are we morally entitled to judge people of different cultures? And if the answer is in the affirmative -- on what grounds? The book has profound implications for our treatment of individual rights in authoritarian societies, female circumcision and child labor, role of women and relations among races and many other challenging moral and political issues of the day.

Perry Link
To allow the West to define 'universal' human rights seems wrong; to condone the abuses of authoritarians who hide behind 'non-Western values' seems equally wrong. This judicious and multifaceted book addresses the difficult but vitally important area that lies behind these two intuitions: What basic human values are shared in today's global village? How can we forge from them common conceptions of human rights?
— Princeton University

Winning the Future or A Legal Guide to Urban Design and Sustainable Development for Planners Developers and Architects

2009-02-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America

Author: Newt Gingrich
America's future in the twenty-first century, argues Newt Gingrich, will be determined by the decisions we make now. His book is a grass roots call to action--and will set the debate for the new administration and Congress.

See also: Hospitalité et Direction de Restaurant
A Legal Guide to Urban Design and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects

Author: Daniel K Slon
Written by pioneering attorneys in the emerging fields of urbanism and green building, A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects offers practical solutions for the legal issues faced in planning, zoning, developing and operating such communities.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Andrés Duany.
Acknowledgements.
Introduction.
1. To Suburbia and Back: How Urbanist Law is Different.
2. Sustainable Urbanism (Dan Slone).
Case Study: Noisette.
3. Tweaking the System: Getting Projects Built and Codes Changed within the Existing Zoning Framework (Chris Brewster, Matt Lawlor, Brian Ohm and Mark White).
4. Changing the Rules: New Approaches to Zoning.
Introduction (IBrian Ohm and Mark White).
Form-Based Codes (Bob Sitkowski and Bill Spikowski).
The Smart Code (Chad Emerson).
5. Fiefdoms and Fire Trucks: Overcoming Impediments in the Subdivision, Plat Review and Site Plan Processes (Dan Slone).
6. Retooling the Common Interest Community (Doris Goldstein).
Case Study: Seaside.
7. Special Building Types (Doris Goldstein).
8. Litigation (Andy Gowder).
Case Study: I’On.
9. Federal Policy, Initiatives and Alliances (Chris Brewster and Matt Lawlor).
10. Strategies for Change (Dan Slone).
Appendix A.
Appendix B.

Sisters in the Struggle or Law in a Lawless Land Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia

2009-02-15T17:24:00.000-08:00

Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement

Author: Bettye Collier Thomas
Read the .
Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2002
"The quality of each individual essay makes Sisters in the Struggle stand out as an unusual anthology, one whose total sum is actually more than its parts"
—Journal of American History
"Sisters in the Struggle is a powerful, inspirational and insightful book that takes the reader on a journey into the lives of some of the nation's most gifted and courageous African American women leaders, feminist organizers, and Black Power advocates. It was through the dint of their efforts that they helped shape and define what American society should become. These "sheroes" remind us that the prices they paid for freedom bequeathed a legacy of human dignity and opportunity that must be sustained by generations to follow."
—Joyce A. Ladner, author of Tomorrow's Tomorrow: The Black Woman
If Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin had only gathered together a distinguished group of scholars to document the role woman played in the black freedom movement, their contribution would be immense. But Sisters in the Struggle is more than an acknowledgement and celebration of black woman's activism. It is a major revision of history, revealing that black women were the critical thinkers, strategists, fighters, and dreamers of the movement. Black feminists developed a social vision expansive enough to emancipate us all."
—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
Women were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle, but their indvidiual stories were rarely heard. Only recently have historians begun torecognize the central role women played in the battle for racial equality.
In Sisters in the Struggle, we hear about the unsung heroes of the civil rights movements such as Ella Baker, who helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who took on segregation in the Democratic party (and won), and Septima Clark, who created a network of "Citizenship Schools" to teach poor Black men and women to read and write and help them to register to vote. We learn of Black women's activism in the Black Panther Party where they fought the police, as well as the entrenched male leadership, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where the behind-the-scenes work of women kept the organization afloat when it was under siege. It also includes first-person testimonials from the women who made headlines with their courageous resistance to segregation—Rosa Parks, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and Dorothy Height.
This collection represents the coming of age of African-American women's history and presents new stories that point the way to future study.
Contributors: Bettye Collier-Thomas, Vicki Crawford, Cynthia Griggs Fleming, V. P. Franklin, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Duchess Harris, Sharon Harley, Dorothy I. Height, Chana Kai Lee, Tracye Matthews, Genna Rae McNeil, Rosa Parks, Barbara Ransby, Jacqueline A. Rouse, Elaine Moore Smith, and Linda Faye Williams.

What People Are Saying
Joyce A. Ladner
Sisters in the Struggle is a powerful, inspirational and insightful book that takes the reader on a journey into the lives of some of the nation's most gifted and courageous African American women leaders, feminist organizers, and Black Power advocates. It was through the dint of their efforts that they helped shape and define what American society should become. These "sheroes" remind us that the prices they paid for freedom bequeathed a legacy of human dignity and opportunity that must be sustained by generations to follow.-- Joyce A. Ladner, author of Tomorrow's Tomorrow: The Black Woman

Robin D.G. Kelley
If Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin had only gathered together a distinguished group of scholars to document the role woman played in the black freedom movement, their contribution would be immense. But Sister's in the Struggle is more than an acknowledgement and celebration of black woman's activism. It is a major revision of history, revealing that black women were the critical thinkers, strategists, fighters, and dreamers of the movement. Black feminists developed a social vision expansive enough to emancipate us all. --Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xi

Interesting book: Conduit du Temps Basé sur l'activité de Valeur :un Sentier Plus simple et Plus puissant à de Plus hauts Profits
Law in a Lawless Land - Diary of a Limpieza in Colombia

Author: Michael T Taussig
A modern nation in a state of total disorder, Colombia is an international flashpoint—wracked by more than half a century of civil war, political conflict, and drug-trade related violence—despite a multibillion dollar American commitment that makes it the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. Law in a Lawless Land offers a rare and penetrating insight into the nature of Colombia's present peril. In a nuanced account of the human consequences of a disintegrating state, anthropologist Michael Taussig chronicles two weeks in a small town in Colombia's Cauca Valley taken over by paramilitaries that brazenly assassinate adolescent gang members. Armed with automatic weapons and computer-generated lists of names and photographs, the paramilitaries have the tacit support of the police and even many of the desperate townspeople, who are seeking any solution to the crushing uncertainty of violence in their lives. Concentrating on everyday experience, Taussig forces readers to confront a kind of terror to which they have become numb and complacent. "If you want to know what it is like to live in a country where the state has disintegrated, this moving book by an anthropologist well known for his writings on murderous Colombia will tell you."—Eric Hobsbawm

Birding Babylon or Selling Olga

2009-02-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

Birding Babylon: A Soldier's Journal from Iraq

Author: Jonathan Trouern Trend
Early in 2004, a National Guardsman from Connecticut arrived in Iraq for a year's posting. Sergeant First Class Jon Trouern-Trend had been a birder since age 12. So naturally he looked for birds--and found them in surprising number and variety around Anaconda Base in the Sunni Triangle, where he was stationed: old-world warblers near the laundry pond, kestrels at the dump, wood pigeons by the airstrip, owls on the cement bunkers. And whenever he got "outside the wire"--collecting water samples from the Tigris, delivering supplies to schoolchildren, at a forward operating base in Mosul, or on a trek to the ruins of ancient Babylon--his lifelist grew longer.
From nearly day one until he left Iraq, Trouern-Trend wrote about his sightings in an on-line journal, which attracted thousands of readers and was excerpted in the press. Now some of the highlights of his "Birding Babylon" blog are collected in this small, beautiful volume, designed to resemble a birder's journal. In a Preface, the author looks back on his experience--and ahead to what the future might hold for the rooks, doves, storks, bulbuls, and sparrows of Iraq, and for its people.
This little book cuts through the politics of war like birdsong, reminding us of our imperishable connection with nature; of how birds and their journeys tie the world together; of the persistence of life even in a wasted land. It's a small act of grace.

Go to: Costa Rica Reader:História, Cultura, Política
Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking

Author: Louisa Waugh
It’s seems inconceivable in the 21st century, but human trafficking is now the world’s fastest-growing illegal industry: according to U.S. government estimates, between 700,000 and two million people have become victims. Following three years of in-depth research, award-winning author and journalist Louisa Waugh has produced a vivid, unflinching account of how this immoral commerce operates and why it thrives. Throughout Eastern Europe, a combination of war and poverty has led to women being sold in bars, confined, and coerced into sex work. And while Waugh focuses especially on one woman, Olga, who tells her own story in angry, heartbreaking detail, she also introduces us to many others across Europe including Nigerian women in Italy and migrants trapped in other forms of forced labor. She helps us understand why, in spite of global awareness, relentless anti-trafficking campaigns, and increasing numbers of imprisonments, this type of crime hasn’t disappeared…and why, in spite of everything, there is hope for change.

First in or Arrest Proof Yourself

2009-02-13T06:58:00.000-08:00

First in: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan

Author: Gary C Schroen
While America held its breath in the days immediately following 9/11, a small but determined group of CIA agents covertly began to change history. This is the riveting first-person account of the treacherous top-secret mission inside Afghanistan to set the stage for the defeat of the Taliban and launch the war on terror.

As thrilling as any novel, First In is a uniquely intimate look at a mission that began the U.S. retaliation against terrorism–and reclaimed the country of Afghanistan for its people.

Book about: Discrete Mathematics or Information Assurance for the Enterprise
Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face

Author: Dale C Carson
This essential “how not to” guide explains how to act and what to say in the presence of police to minimize the chances of being arrested and to avoid add-on charges—which can often lead to permanent disqualification from jobs, financing, and education. Citizens can learn how to avoid arrest both on the street and when pulled over in a vehicle and are alerted to basic tricks cops use to get people to incriminate themselves. Sprinkled with absurdity and humor, this urgent, eye-opening book is a guide to criminal justice for all Americans.
Jamie WatsonCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal
Adult/High School
Carson has been both a cop and a criminal defense attorney. Here, he puts his years of experience into a "how-not-to" book. He feels that most people who get arrested aren't the worst criminals; they are just the most "clueless"—small-time offenders who make bad decisions and end up in what he calls the "electronic plantation." Now that computers make it ever so easy to track people, getting arrested, even if you're not ultimately convicted, can and will come back to haunt you. Carson has three golden rules: "If cops can't see you, they can't arrest you," "Keep your dope at home," and "Give cops your name and basic info, then shut the f*@# up!" While the book read straight through may seem a little repetitive, it ultimately does come back to one of these three rules, which are imparted with examples and behavior charts. Carson uses a blunt style to make these points, but it's a style that is sure to hit home with his target audience—the underclass. And he does make it plain that while there are many middle-class and white-collar criminals, the police tend to focus their patrols in bad neighborhoods. Those most likely to be in situations where they or those they know might get arrested will get the most out of this book, but even readers in more lofty areas with an interest in law enforcement could find much to discuss.

Slavery Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic or Fire and Emergency Service Administration

2009-02-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1, Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850

Author: John Ashworth
This is the first of a two-volume treatment of slavery, capitalism and politics in the forty years before the Civil War. It is both a novel reinterpretation, from a Marxist perspective, of American political and economic development and a synthesis of existing scholarship on the economics of slavery, the origins of abolitionism, the proslavery argument and the second party system. With its sequel, this book will locate the political struggles of the antebellum period in the international context of the dismantling of unfree labor systems. It will also show that the Civil War should be seen as America's "bourgeois revolution."
What People Are Saying
Eric Foner
To undertake a new study of the causes of the American Civil War is audacious, but John Ashworth has brought off a truly impressive achievement. Whether discussing the ideology of abolitionism, the impact of capitalism on social life, or the social origins of the slavery controversy, Ashworth offers original insights in a field already ploughed by many historians.
—(Eric Foner, Columbia University)

Table of Contents:
Context;
1. Slavery, Sectionalism and the Jeffersonian Tradition;
2. Free Labor, Slave Labor, Wage Labor;
Part I. Slavery Versus Capitalism:
3. Abolitionism;
4. The Proslavery Argument: Dilemmas of the Master Class;
Part II. the Second Party System:
5. Whigs and Democrats;
6. Slavery, Economics and Party Politics, 1836-1850; Conclusion:
Part III. Economic Development, Class Conflict and american Politics, 1820-1850.
Book review: Count Me in or 1001 Recipes for Every Occasion
Fire and Emergency Service Administration: Management and Leadership Practices

Author: L Charles Smeby
Fire and Emergency Services Administration: Management and Leadership Practices provides a comprehensive overview to prepare students to become leaders in the Fire, EMS, and Emergency Preparedness fields. With an emphasis on organizational and leadership tools for officers, managers, and administrators, this essential resource will offer valuable insight and understanding of the highly technical realm of fire and emergency services. Modeled after the Advanced Fire Administration course in the National Fire Academy's Degrees at a Distance Program, this text builds solid leadership skills.

Torture Papers or Citizen and Subject

2009-02-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib

Author: Karen J Greenberg
The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.
The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
The book is necessary, if grueling, reading for anyone interested in understanding the back story to those terrible photos from Saddam Hussein's former prison, and abuses at other American detention facilities.

Books about: Questions of Taste or In the Kitchen with Papa Wiltz
Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism

Author: Mahmood Mamdani
In analyzing the obstacles to democratization in post- independence Africa, Mahmood Mamdani offers a bold, insightful account of colonialism's legacy--a bifurcated power that mediated racial domination through tribally organized local authorities, reproducing racial identity in citizens and ethnic identity in subjects. Many writers have understood colonial rule as either "direct" (French) or "indirect" (British), with a third variant--apartheid--as exceptional. This benign terminology, Mamdani shows, masks the fact that these were actually variants of a despotism. While direct rule denied rights to subjects on racial grounds, indirect rule incorporated them into a "customary" mode of rule, with state-appointed Native Authorities defining custom. By tapping authoritarian possibilities in culture, and by giving culture an authoritarian bent, indirect rule (decentralized despotism) set the pace for Africa; the French followed suit by changing from direct to indirect administration, while apartheid emerged relatively later. Apartheid, Mamdani shows, was actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa.
Through case studies of rural (Uganda) and urban (South Africa) resistance movements, we learn how these institutional features fragment resistance and how states tend to play off reform in one sector against repression in the other. Reforming a power that institutionally enforces tension between town and country, and between ethnicities, is the key challenge for anyone interested in democratic reform in Africa.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
I Introduction: Thinking through Africa's Impasse 3
Pt. I The Structure of Power 35
II Decentralized Despotism 37
III Indirect Rule: The Politics of Decentralized Despotism 62
IV Customary Law: The Theory of Decentralized Despotism 109
V The Native Authority and the Free Peasantry 138
Pt. II The Anatomy of Resistance 181
VI The Other Face of Tribalism: Peasant Movements in Equatorial Africa 183
VII The Rural in the Urban: Migrant Workers in South Africa 218
VIII Conclusion: Linking the Urban and the Rural 285
Notes 303
Index 339

What Is Life Worth or The Economics of Climate Change

2009-02-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

What Is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11

Author: Kenneth R Feinberg
Just days after September 11, 2001, Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to administer the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, a unique, unprecedented fund established by Congress to compensate families who lost a loved one on 9/11 and survivors who were physically injured in the attacks. Those who participated in the Fund were required to waive their right to sue the airlines involved in the attacks, as well as other potentially responsible entities. When the program was launched, many families criticized it as a brazen, tight-fisted attempt to protect the airlines from lawsuits. The Fund was also attacked as attempting to put insulting dollar values on the lives of lost loved ones. The families were in pain. And they were angry.

Over the course of the next three years, Feinberg spent almost all of his time meeting with the families, convincing them of the generosity and compassion of the program, and calculating appropriate awards for each and every claim. The Fund proved to be a dramatic success with over 97% of eligible families participating. It also provided important lessons for Feinberg, who became the filter, the arbitrator, and the target of family suffering. Feinberg learned about the enduring power of family grief, love, fear, faith, frustration, and courage. Most importantly, he learned that no check, no matter how large, could make the families and victims of 9/11 whole again.
The New York Times - William Grimes
In What Is Life Worth? Mr. Feinberg offers a valuable first-person account of the 9/11 compensation fund and its workings. He makes clear, for the first time, exactly how peculiar the law governing the fund was, and the enormous difficulties, ethical and practical, that resulted from its ambiguous language and hastily written guidelines.
The Washington Post - John Farmer
What is life worth? Feinberg found the answer not in actuarial tables or projected incomes but in the almost limitless capacity of people to love: "Love was often all that survivors could cling to -- a life preserver -- in their effort to get through each day. They had been left behind, but they had been left behind with powerful reserves of love." The Sept. 11 fund began as an airline bailout, but it ended as a vehicle for expressing love. That transfiguration was Feinberg's great professional and, we suspect, personal achievement; we come away feeling that the process of determining what life is worth transformed not just the fund but its special master, too.
Washington Post 8/24/05
"... some times eloquent, at others oddly detached, at all times painfully honest... a rewarding read but not an easy one."
Publishers Weekly
When Feinberg writes that "[t]he cacophony of arguments validated my original preference: to refuse to evaluate individual suffering" midway through this frank memoir, the reader already trusts him enough to know that he is not being crass or unfeeling: he is being honest. By then, Feinberg, a lawyer who has been on two presidential commissions and has done Agent Orange litigation, has established his judicious forthrightness and his dedication to "the success of the fund"-getting as many families as possible to opt in to the trust, which he headed and which was established to award cash to the 9/11 victims, rather than sue the government. The problem: how, and how much? Feinberg's willingness to put himself into the book makes what could have been an alternately dry and self-serving case study crackle with care, frustration, intellectual energy and good writing. Feinberg and his team ran through every argument and counterargument for compensation and its various possible permutations, and he presents the debate, and his ultimate conclusions as head of the 9/11 fund, with an earned conviction and clarity, even on stat-heavy pages. With its combination of a strong personality, undeniably compelling subject matter and a great title, this understated, passionate trek into the dismal terrain is likely to be a major surprise bestseller. Anything but macabre, it ends up, in its own way, celebrating life. (June 13) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Look this: Le fait de Parler Public
The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review

Author: Nicholas Stern
There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earth's climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. The Stern Review is an independent, rigourous and comprehensive analysis of the economic aspects of this crucial issue. It has been conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service, and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The Economics of Climate Change will be invaluable for all students of the economics and policy implications of climate change, and economists, scientists and policy makers involved in all aspects of climate change.

Table of Contents:
Preface     ix
Acknowledgements     xi
Introduction     xiii
Summary of Conclusions     xv
Climate Change - Our Approach
Introduction     1
The Science of Climate Change: Scale of the Environment Challenge     3
Economics, Ethics and Climate Change     25
Ethical Frameworks and Intertemporal Equity     46
Impacts of Climate Change on Growth and Development
Introduction     63
How Climate Change will Affect People Around the World     65
Implications of Climate Change for Development     104
Costs of Climate Change in Developed Countries     138
Economic Modelling of Climate-Change Impacts     161
The Economics of Stabilisation
Introduction     191
Projecting the Growth of Greenhouse-Gas Emissions     193
Climate Change and the Environmental Kuznets Curve     216
The Challenge of Stabilisation     218
Identifying the Costs of Mitigation     238
Macroeconomic Models of Costs     267
Structural Change and Competitiveness     282
Key Statistics for 123 UK Production Sectors     297
Opportunities and Wider Benefits from Climate Policies     302
Towards a Goal for Climate-ChangePolicy     318
Policy Responses for Mitigation
Introduction     349
Harnessing Markets for Mitigation - The Role of Taxation and Trading     351
Carbon Pricing and Emissions Markets in Practice     368
Accelerating Technological Innovation     393
Beyond Carbon Markets and Technology     427
Policy Responses for Adaptation
Introduction     455
Understanding the Economics of Adaptation     457
Adaptation in the Developed World     471
Adaptation in the Developing World     486
International Collective Action
Introduction     507
Framework for Understanding International Collective Action for Climate Change     509
Creating a Global Price for Carbon     530
Supporting the Transition to a Low-Carbon Global Economy     555
Promoting Effective International Technology Co-operation     581
Reversing Emissions from Land Use Change     603
International Support for Adaptation     622
Conclusions: Building and Sustaining International Co-operation on Climate Change     640
Abbreviations and Acronyms     645
Postscript     649
Technical Annex to Postscript     658
Index     673

In Bad Company or The Ultimate Terrorists

2009-02-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground

Author: Mark S Hamm
"The dramatic sieges at Randy Weaver's cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, combined with the FBI's reluctance to admit wrongdoing in those tragic confrontations, fueled a virulent hatred of the federal government that unified previously isolated voices within the extreme radical right movement. As a result, the scores of clandestine paramilitary cells that flourished in the aftermath of Ruby Ridge and Waco formed a loosely knit underground network with a shared goal to violently overthrow the U.S. government." This volume examines thoroughly one of the most dangerous of those phantom cells - the Aryan Republican Army (ARA). Using trial transcripts, interviews, a secret diary, newspaper accounts, and ethnographic research, Mark S. Hamm provides a compelling history of the ARA, its organizers, and the revolutionary group's significance in supporting acts of domestic terrorism, including its previously unrecognized role in Timothy McVeigh's devastating bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He interweaves his narrative with a penetrating discussion of why people like McVeigh and the ARA members embrace the violent neo-Nazi subculture and why their hatred takes the form of terrorist activities.
Publishers Weekly
With the roots and trappings of terrorism at the forefront of national consciousness, Hamm's study of domestic terrorism is especially timely. Hamm (Apocalypse in Oklahoma), a criminology professor at Indiana State University, offers a detailed look at the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a radical right cell that he suspects actively assisted Timothy McVeigh. Based upon information from shared acquaintances, a reconstruction of McVeigh's movements in the months preceding the bombing and other circumstantial evidence, Hamm theorizes that the mysterious "John Doe 2" allegedly seen with McVeigh on the day of the bombing may have been an ARA member. These disaffected racists cast themselves, not unlike McVeigh, as patriots battling a corrupt federal government. Hamm interviewed the group's principal leader, Pete Langan, at length in prison, where he is serving a life sentence, and the account is based largely on his perspective. The colorful Langan took a few ideologically warped young men and led them on 22 successful bank robberies. Not your run-of-the-mill right-wing radical, Langan is a pre-operative transsexual. Hamm perceives sublimated homoerotic undercurrents among these neo-Nazis; Langan hid his sexuality from his gun-toting cohorts. He now blames his criminal actions on "`gender dysphoria.'" Despite Hamm's compelling perspective on right-wing subculture, his central theory that the ARA actively participated in the Oklahoma bombing is less than fully convincing, based as it is on only circumstantial evidence. Regardless, and despite the overlong, overly simplistic psychological portrait of Langan, the book will interest readers seeking more information about this violent subculture.Illus. not seen by PW. (Dec. 3) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Meticulous, if stiffly presented, probings into the activities of the Aryan Revolutionary Army-and their possible links to Timothy McVeigh. Ruby Ridge and Waco sparked acts of violent resistance by "angry white men" who "were tied together by an animosity toward the federal government and an obsessive suspicion that the U.S. Constitution had been abandoned by tyrannical bureaucrats in Washington," writes conspiracy theorist Hamm (Criminology/Indiana State Univ.; Apocalypse in Oklahoma, 1997). One of those groups was the Aryan Republican Army, a minuscule but effective cell of troubled characters who committed a string of audacious and comically spirited bank robberies during the 1990s (they wore Nixon and Clinton masks and never physically hurt anyone). The ARA, whose membership included garden-variety psychopaths and a fellow with gender-identity issues, who as a teenage "alcoholic anarchist with predatory tendencies" was crippled by "love-prejudice," may well have financed McVeigh, as the violent right by 1995 was everywhere-and, though decentralized, interconnected. Other possible members of the ARA may have helped McVeigh and Nichols build the Oklahoma bomb; however, they may not have either, for Hamm's evidence-and resulting conspiracy theory-are merely circumstantial. In suffocating academese-"all subcultural crime is rooted in the norms and values of the dominant culture," etc.-the author nonetheless presents a credible picture of a terrifying right wing blossoming under the right circumstances, particularly when the FBI and ATF wax into their periodic modes of militarized masculinity. Indeed, there's no reason to think that the mare's nest of associations between groups of theviolent right is anything but humming along, which is enough to run a shiver of dread right up the spine.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Bust a Cap 3
Pt. 1 Rebel, Rebel
1 Company Man, Warrior Dream 29
2 Gook 44
3 Ponyboy and the Greasers 54
4 No Fallen Angel 67
Pt. 2 ... About Sixteen Years Later
5 Acting Stupid and Contagious 85
6 The Foot Soldiers: Trails of an Estimated Prophet 94
7 The Ballad of Pedro Gomez 119
8 The Coiled Rattlesnake 155
9 Apocalypse: The Theory of Multiple John Doe 2s 188
Pt. 3 The Fall
10 Day of the Sword: The New Young Radicals 237
Epilogue: "In God's Name" - On Masculinity, Rage, and Lost Causes 280
Notes 299
References 311
Index 321

New interesting textbook: Exercise Ball for Beginners or Low Protein Diet a Medical Dictionary Bibliography and Annotated Research Guide to Internet References
The Ultimate Terrorists

Author: Jessica Stern
As bad as they are, why aren't terrorists worse? With biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons at hand, they easily could be. And, as this chilling book suggests, they soon may well be. A former member of the National Security Council staff, Jessica Stern guides us expertly through a post-Cold War world in which the threat of all-out nuclear war, devastating but highly unlikely, is being replaced by the less costly but much more imminent threat of terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction.
According to Stern, several factors increase the probability of a major incident. Most important is the emergence of a new breed of terrorists—violent right-wing extremists, apocalyptic groups, and millenarian cults, all less constrained than their predecessors by traditional ethics or political pressures and more capable of recruiting scientists. Such scientists, including unemployed Soviet weapons experts, and the dissemination of know-how about nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in books and on the Internet heighten the risk. Stern also warns us of the risks posed by the weak states and atomized societies left in the Cold War's wake, including the dangers of theft and smuggling of nuclear and chemical materials from former Soviet facilities.
Written from an insider's perspective, The Ultimate Terrorists depicts a not-very-distant future in which both independent and state-sponsored terrorism using weapons of mass destruction could actually occur. But Stern also holds out hope for new technologies that might combat this trend, and for legal and political remedies that would improve public safety without compromising basic constitutionalrights.

Tim Cavanaugh
The ominous-sounding title The Ultimate Terrorists can't outweigh the balanced and blessedly concise arguments that Jessica Stern presents in the book itself. The threat of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has given rise to a panic industry; Stern -- a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a former head of the National Security Council's Nuclear Smuggling Interagency group and an early WMD alarmist -- has emerged as one of a few influential voices of calm.
Her study is one of several recent books (including Bruce Hoffman's Inside Terrorism and Philip B. Heymann's Terrorism and America) that suggest a new consensus on the threat of terrorism. The Ultimate Terrorists lays out three main points. First, the threat of chemical, biological and nuclear terrorism is indeed significant, and the emergence of nontraditional terrorist groups -- religious fanatics, death cults and disturbed activists -- adds a shiver of uncertainty to the mix. Second, more fitting defense efforts -- assisting in the disposal of Russian "loose nukes," beefing up detection efforts at airports, preparing emergency health responses -- will bolster both U.S. and international security. ("Ballistic missiles are the least likely method of delivery," Stern writes, "and yet Congress regularly allocates more money to ballistic-missile defense than the Pentagon says it can use -- roughly ten times what is spent to prevent WMD terrorism.") Finally, the threat of WMD terrorism, real as it is, has been exaggerated to the point of needless panic.
In her examination of nontraditional terrorism, Stern points to a practical divide between will and ability. State-sponsored terrorists can do the most damage, but they're constrained by fear of retribution and of bad publicity. Fringe groups, on the other hand, may have the will to destroy, but they lack the money or the sponsorship to cause much damage. But the book's strongest chapter concerns the threat of loose Russian materials (the area that was Stern's metier at the NSC). Stern's knowledge of security in Russia -- and of how nuclear material could be (and may already have been) stolen -- gives these sections a punch that most reporting on this issue has so far lacked.
The same can't be said for sections in which Stern has to rely on secondary-source material. While her scheme of terrorist types is generally helpful, it raises some questions. How do we classify religious fanatics who are also state-sponsored political groups? For that matter, where do we put Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, a fringe cult that attracted massive funding and international membership (and whose Tokyo subway gas attack apparently represented a mere fraction of the hell it might have raised)? Stern considers Aum Shinrikyo an unusual case, which it certainly seems to be; but the group's success challenges her clear-cut distinction between traditional and nontraditional terrorism.
Since The Ultimate Terrorists gets much of its power from the assumption that terrorist activities are on the rise (although various data can be made to tell various stories), these aren't incidental points. You may find yourself occasionally wishing that the author would dispense with the overviews and get back to topics she has direct experience with. And in fact her anecdotes about encounters with fringe groups hint at the even more intriguing book she is working on now: a study of religious extremists at home and abroad. If any topic is subject to more Chicken Little mystification than the threat of weapons of mass destruction, it's the rise of extremist groups, and so no subject could better benefit from Jessica Stern's mix of clarity and caution. -- Salon
Salon
The ominous-sounding title The Ultimate Terrorists can't outweigh the balanced and blessedly concise arguments that Jessica Stern presents in the book itself. The threat of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has given rise to a panic industry; Stern has emerged as one of the few influential voices of calm. | Salon | March 23,1999 |
Publishers Weekly
In recent years, much has been made of the emerging post-Cold War threats posed by terrorist groups wielding devastating weapons. Stern, a former National Security Council staffer, explains with chilling lucidity why it is becoming more likely that those threats will materialize into a major terrorist incident featuring a weapon of mass destruction. Breaking her theory into numerous digestible parts, Stern begins by showing that terrorists themselves have changed. Whereas in the past they have been driven by political concerns (e.g., recognition of Palestinian national aspirations), terrorists now are motivated by a multitude of extremist causes, and some view terrorism not as a tactical tool but as an end in itself. The new terrorists are also better supplied and more highly educated than their precursors. Dangerous weapons--such as those previously owned by the former Soviet Union--are readily available on the black market. In addition, the Internet makes it easier for terrorists to recruit and communicate with comrades. In cool prose that never talks down to lay readers, Stern outlines the horrific effects of biological and chemical agents, making a thoroughly convincing case that a biochemical attack would be compounded by mass panic and a dangerous social breakdown. "Because they evoke such horror," Stern writes, "these weapons would seem to be ideal for terrorists, who seek to inspire fear in targeted populations." But even as Stern stokes fear, she also offers an extensive proposal for countering the new terrorism. Her proposals will not be for everyone but will surely provide substantial food for thought. (Mar.) FYI: Stern was portrayed by Nicole Kidman in the film The Peacemaker.
Library Journal
Stern, a former National Security Council staffer, reviews the current threat posed by terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD)--nuclear, chemical, and biological--especially as directed against the United States. She discusses state-sponsored terrorism (Iraq), the risks of leftover materials from the former Soviet Union, and recommendations for combatting WMD terrorism, such as closer monitoring of domestic threats like political extremists and religious cults. In the post-Cold War world, the threat of terrorism is much greater than nuclear war, yet in Stern's opinion the United States is not sufficiently prepared to confront it. She hopes her policy suggestions will help reduce the likelihood and deadliness of terrorist acts. Geared to an informed audience, heavily footnoted, and with technical details of WMD components, this book is recommended for specialized collections on terrorism.--Gregor A. Preston, formerly with Univ. of California Lib., Davis
The Times(U.K.) - Sean O'Callaghan
[Stern's] search is breathtakingly thorough, and the prose, so often describing complex technological detail, surprisingly lucid. The era of the ultimate terrorists, implying nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, may not yet have dawned in any real sense, but the potential and the danger, as this book illustrates, are all too obvious...[Stern] has written a valuable book that should serve as a timely warning about a potentially dreadful future.
What People Are Saying
Anthony Lake
Jessica Stern sounds an important alarm in responsible fashion. A good read as well as good scholarship. I hope her alarm is widely heard.

William J. Perry
The Ultimate Terrorists is a timely book on a vitally important subject. Jessica Stern has done a thorough job of research and presents her arguments with clarity and force. This book should be a wake up call for Americans.

Dean Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
What if the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center had used a nuclear device or anthrax? Jessica Stern's account reads like a thriller, but is deadly serious. Fortunately, she also provides good advice.

William J. Perry
The Ultimate Terrorists is a timely book on a vitally important subject. Jessica Stern has done a thorough job of research and presents her arguments with clarity and force. This book should be a wake-up call for Americans.
— Former Secretary of Defense

Synthetic Fuels Handbook or Bringing the War Home

2009-02-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

Synthetic Fuels Handbook

Author: James G Speight
With costly oil prices, here is a timely guide on synthetic fuels

Synthetic Fuels Handbook educates you in the different properties, processes, and performance characteristics of synthetic energy sources. This comprehensive guide provides a thorough description and discussion of the concepts, systems, and technology involved in the production of these fuels on both an industrial and individual scale.

Interesting book: Avid Xpress Pro Editing Workshop or Civic Life Online
Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies

Author: Jeremy Varon
In this first comprehensive comparison of left-wing violence in the United States and West Germany, Jeremy Varon focuses on America's Weather Underground and Germany's Red Army Faction to consider how and why young, middle-class radicals in prosperous democratic societies turned to armed struggle in efforts to overthrow their states. Based on a wealth of primary material, ranging from interviews to FBI reports, this book reconstructs the motivation and ideology of violent organizations active during the 1960s and 1970s. Varon conveys the intense passions of the era--the heat of moral purpose, the depth of Utopian longing, the sense of danger and despair, and the exhilaration over temporary triumphs. Varon's compelling interpretation of the logic and limits of dissent in democratic societies provides striking insights into the role of militancy in contemporary protest movements and has wide implications for the United States' current "war on terrorism."
Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60s and 70s, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970s. Bringing the War Home is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage andmilitancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
List of Key Acronyms
Introduction 1
1 "Agents of Necessity": Weatherman, the Red Army Faction, and the Turn to Violence 20
2 The Importance of Being Militant: The Days of Rage and Their Critics 74
3 "Hearts and Minds": The Antiwar Movement, Violence, and the Critical Mass 113
4 The Excesses and Limits of Revolutionary Violence 151
5 Deadly Abstraction: The Red Army Faction and the Politics of Murder 196
6 "Democratic Intolerance": The Red Army Faction and the West German State 254
Conclusion 290
Notes 313
Select Bibliography 361
Index 375

One Nation or Thieves in High Places

2009-02-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

One Nation: America Remembers September 11, 2001

Author: LIFE Magazin
With an Introduction by Rudolph Guiliani
During our nation's most trying times, it has been Life that has provided the images that help us understand, remember, and in the process, renew. Now the editors of Life have assembled a moving, brilliantly illustrated account of tragedy and triumph. This is about firemen going in amidst the rubble, but it is also about a Frenchman in Paris holding up a sign that says, "We are all Americans." This is about our leaders taking charge, but it is also about schoolchildren in Iowa hanging an American flag on a tree in their backyard. Beginning with the history of lower Manhattan, the book explains what happened on September 11, profiles many of the heroes, victims and rescuers (fireman, police, doctors, and rescue dogs among them), and paints an inspiring portrait if a nation and world coming together in sadness, pride and resolve.The book is more than photographs. Explanatory text runs throughout, and the book also includes a selection of original essays about America and September 11, written by such notables as Maya Angelou, Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List), Stephen Ambrose, Melissa Fay Greene (The Temple Bombing), Andrei Codrescu, Gordon Parks, Doug Stanton (In Harm's Way), Bob Greene (Duty), James Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers), and others.
Ten percent of the cover price of this book will be donated to the September 11th Fund of the New York Community Trust and the United Way of New York City. The purpose of this fund is to help address the immediate and longer-term needs of victims, their families, and communities affected by the events of September 11, 2001.

New interesting textbook: Medline or Fitness for Life
Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back

Author: Jim Hightower
Its Time to Take It Back
Author Biography: National radio commentator, columnist, public speaker, political sparkplug and author of If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be: consumers, working families, environmentalists, small business, and just-plain-folks.
Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower believes that the true political spectrum is not right to left, but top to bottom, and he has become a leading national voice for the 80 percent of the public who no longer find themselves within shouting distance of the Washington and Wall Street powers at the top.
Known as "America's Most Popular Populist," Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots.
He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 100 commercial and public stations, on the web, on Armed Forces Radio, Radio for Peace International, One World Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.
Each month, he publishes a populist political newsletter, "The Hightower Lowdown," which now has more than 100,000 subscribers and is the fastest growing political publication in America. The hard-hitting Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter.
Constantly on the hustings, he delivers about 100 speeches a year to colleges, union meetings, environmental groups, citizen rallies, farm and food organizations, social justice gatherings, teachers, legal activists, community groups, and others.
His newspaper column is carried in more than 75 independent newspapers, magazines, and other publications. He is also a frequent contributor to The Nation, America's leading progressive journal.
A best-selling author, his latest book, THIEVES IN HIGH PLACES: They've Stolen Our Country and Its Time to Take it Back is published by Viking. His previous books are If the Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates, There's Nothing In the Middle Of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos, Eat Your Heart Out, and Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times.
He frequently appears on television and radio programs, bringing a passionate populist viewpoint that rarely gets into the mass media. In addition, he works closely with the alternative media, and in all of his work he keeps his ever-ready Texas humor up front, practicing the credo of an old Yugoslavian proverb: "You can fight the gods and still have fun."
Hightower also devotes much of his energy to revitalizing grassroots progressive politics with his nationwide "Rolling Thunder Down-Home Democracy Tour." Sort-of like a county fair of progressive activism, these festivals include top-notch speakers, great music, how-to workshops, food, drink, games, clowns & fun for the whole family. In 2002, the Rolling Thunder Tour traveled to Austin, Chicago, Tucson, Seattle, Minneapolis and Duluth. The Tour will continue to roll on in 2003 with the aim of becoming a permanent fixture on the American political landscape.
Hightower was raised in Denison, Texas, in a family of small business people, tenant farmers, and working folks. A graduate of the University of North Texas, he worked in Washington as legislative aide to Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas before returning to his home state, where he was editor of the feisty biweekly, The Texas Observer.
He then made what he calls "the only downward career move you can make from journalism" by entering politics. He was twice elected to statewide office, serving two productive and boisterous terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983-1991).
Since then, Hightower has become his own media conglomerate, using his writings and voice to reach millions of people a year, raising issues, raising hope and raising hell. Describing himself as a Luddite with a Website, Hightower provides updated information about his newsletter, radio commentaries, books, speaking schedule, and other work at jimhightower.com.
Publishers Weekly
Populist radio commentator, columnist and author Hightower (If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates) delivers a timely manifesto for progressives living in what he calls a nation ruled by "a confederacy of kleptocrats." In Hightower's view of the current political situation, "King George the W" reigns atop a greedy hierarchy of corporate-politico corruption in which many politicians have become no more than handmaidens of corporations and the super-rich. Devotees of Hightower's populist politics and his sardonic style will find much to admire, but the average reader will consider the book a jumble of loosely connected treatises laced with distracting sidebars and peppered with hyperbolic forebodings of government evil. Hightower warns the reader, "Big Brother is no longer a paranoid's nightmare, but is alive and very much on the prowl." Hightower's prose at times bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the propaganda he condemns. While he does offer inspirational stories of community action and even practical information (e.g., how to contact a long list of public interest groups), the book's disorganization is baffling: he careens in one chapter from professional sports through the fate of public libraries to the history of Santa Claus. In addition, Hightower's quasi-comical, off-the-wall pronouncements (suggesting, for instance, that CEOs of companies with tax-free Bermuda bank accounts be required to wear Bermuda shorts at all times) tend to stifle his worthy, impassioned calls for action. Progressives will need a more comprehensible spokesperson if they hope, as Hightower envisions, to "take [America] back." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A former Texas public official turned author and lecturer, Hightower (If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates) takes on the conservative political establishment, calling them "kleptocrats" and arguing that the nation is ruled by thieves who have stolen democracy from the people and used the levers of government to enrich themselves and their fat-cat friends. President George W. Bush, the "Thief-in-Chief," comes in for especially harsh criticism. With biting and often on-target wit, the author attempts to speak truth to power, calling on the public to wake up and reclaim the democracy they have lost. Hightower is a gifted humorist who often brings his considerable talents to the defense of a brand of liberal populism that has difficulty finding a voice in post-9/11 America. This book won't change any minds, and it certainly won't appeal to conservatives or supporters of the President, but it will entertain Bush's critics and help establish Hightower as one of the stronger voices of liberalism in the country.-Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Report from Engine Co 82 or The Idea of Humanity in a Global Era

2009-02-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Report from Engine Co. 82

Author: Dennis Smith
Report from Engine Co. 82 is the story of one company of New York firefighters battling unimaginable death and destruction every day.
Dennis Smith worked as a firefighter in the South Bronx of New York City, and the graphic detail and gripping prose of this firefighting classic drives the most important, accomplished, terrifying book ever published on firefighting. With over two million copies in print, this book struck a nerve within the nation when it was first published thirty years ago. In our troubled times, it gains even greater resonance for those trying to make sense of the deaths of so many New York firefighters on September 11 and for those inspired by the tireless work of firefighters and other rescue personnel in the aftermath of the destruction. Dennis Smith describes the bravery, heroism, camaraderie, and unflinching courage of New York's bravest, demonstrating how firefighters everywhere have become the most respected of American heroes.
Library Journal
In 1972, Emergency, a show about the Los Angeles Fire Department, debuted on network TV. That same year, Smith, a New York City fireman, published this book about life in what was the busiest fire station in the country. It is the diary of a fireman in a station with over 700 calls per month. From the life and death heroics of firefighting to the frustration of false alarms and garbage fires, Smith ably shares his life at Engine Co. 82. Written during a period of civil unrest, the work captures the spirit of that time and shows how the social problems of the era affected the lives of the firemen whose duty was to protect all the citizens in their district. The author paints a portrait of the fire house: the drills, the off-color jokes, the male-bonding that occurs when men know their lives will often be in the hands of their buddies. Adam Henderson does a great job with the various New York City accents. Highly recommended for all public libraries.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Go to: The Local Politics of Global English or Welfare and Work in the Open Economy
The Idea of Humanity in a Global Era

Author: Bruce Mazlish
The result of a lifetime of research and contemplation on global phenomena, this book explores the idea of humanity in the modern age of globalization. Tracking the idea in the historical, philosophical, legal, and political realms, this is a concise and illuminating look at a concept that has defined the twentieth century.

Tower of Babble or International Politics on the World Stage

2009-02-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos

Author: Dore Gold
A United Nations insider exposes the ugly truth about the UN—including how UN organizations have been funding terrorist groups!

In the New York Times bestseller Tower of Babble, former United Nations ambassador Dore Gold blows the lid off the UN’s shocking failures to keep international peace, its corruption, its rampant anti-Americanism, and its emboldening of terrorist organizations. Citing previously unpublished documents, a brand-new chapter exclusive to this paperback edition provides the untold story of the infamous oil-for-food scandal—including the real scandal, that the UN let oil-for-food money go to fund terrorist organizations.

Read also Desperation Entertaining or Pig Perfect
International Politics on the World Stage

Author: John T Rourk
This concise text provides students and instructors with a comprehensive overview of world politics, inviting them in a straightforward and accessible way to explore international relations and its new challenges. A hallmark of the text is the authors' position that politics affect the lives of all of us, and that the individual can have an impact, whether small or large, by being politically aware and by taking action.
Booknews
An introductory text highlighting the connections between the events of current history and theories of international politics. Sections on international politics; world politics; physical security; and economic, ecological, and individual security include chapter summaries and b&w photos, plus a section of technical explanations and terminology. This fifth edition incorporates the latest developments in various countries, UN peacekeeping forces, and international trade. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - Thinking and Caring About World Politics
Previewing the Global Drama
Global Actors: Meet the Cast
How This Book is Structured
World Politics and Your Finances
World Politics and Your Living Space
World Politics and Your Life
You Can Make a Difference
Putting World Events in Context
Introducing Realism and Liberalism
The Nature of Politics: Realism and Liberalism
The Roles of Power and Principles: Realism and Liberalism
Prospects for Competition and Cooperation: Realism and Liberalism
Assessing Reality: Reality and Liberalism
Chapter Summary
Chapter 2 - The Evolution of World Politics
The Evolving World System: Early Development
Ancient Greece and Rome
After the Fall of Rome, A.D. 476 to 1700
The 18th and 19th Centuries
The Evolving World System: The 21st Century
The Rise of the Bipolar System
The Fall of the Bipolar System
The 21st Century: The Genesis of a New System
The Structure of Power in the 21st Century
Security in the 21st Century
Global Economics in the 21st Century
Quality of Life in the 21st Century
Chapter Summary
Chapter 3 - Level of Analysis
Individual-Level Analysis
Humans as a Species
Organizational Behavior
Leaders and Their Individual Traits
State-Level Analysis
Making Foreign Policy: Type of Government, Situation, and Policy
Making Foreign Policy: Political Culture
Foreign Policy-Making Actors
System-Level Analysis
Structural Characteristics
Power Relationships
Economic Realities
Norms
Chapter Summary
Chapter 4 - Nationalism: The TraditionalOrientation
Understanding Nations, Nationalism, and Nation-States
Nations, Nationalism, and Nation-States Defined
The Rise of Ascendancy of Nationalism
Nationalism in Practice: Issues and Evaluation
Nation-States: More Myth than Reality
Positive and Negative Aspects of Nationalism
Nationalism: Builder and Destroyer
Self-Determination as a Goal
Nationalism and the Future
The Recent Past and Present of Nationalism
The Future of Nationalism
Chapter Summary
Chapter 5 - Globalization and Transnationalism: The Alternative Orientation
Globalization
Globalization of Communications and Transportation
Economic Globalization
Cultural Globalization
Transnationalism
Transnationalism in Action
Transnational Organizations
Regional Transnationalism
Cultural Transnationalism
Transnational Religion
Islam and the World
Transnational Movements
Transnationalism Tomorrow
Chapter Summary
Chapter 6 - Power and the National States: The Traditional Structure
The Nature and Purpose of the State
The State Defined
Purposes of the State
National Power
The Nature of Power
Characteristics of Power
National Diplomacy
Diplomacy as Applied Power
The Context of Diplomacy
The Conduct of Diplomacy
Diplomacy as a Communications Process
Options for Conducting Diplomacy
States and the Future
The State: Changing States
The State: The Indictment
The State: The Defense
The State: The Verdict
Chapter Summary
Chapter 7 - International Organization: An Alternative Structure
A Overview of International Organization
The Origins of IGOs
The Growth of IGOs
Roles the IGOs Play
Regional IGOs' Focus on the European Union
The Origins and Evolution of the European Union
The Government of the European Union
The Future of the EU
Global IGOs' Focus on the United Nations
Structure, Rules, and Related Issues
Leadership
Administration, and Finance
Activities of the UN and Other IGOs
Evaluating IGOs and Their Future
Chapter Summary
Chapter 8 - International Law and Human Rights: An Alternative Approach
Fundamentals of International Law and Morality
The Primitive Nature of International Law
The Growth of International Law
The Practice of International Law
The Fundamentals of International Morality
The International Legal System
The Philosophical Roots of Law
How International Law is Made
Adherence to the Law
Adjudication of the Law
Applying International Law and Morality
Law and Justice in a Multicultural World
Applying International Law and Morality to States
Applying International Law to Individuals
The Prudent Application of Law and Morality
The Future of International Law and Morality
The Nature of Human Rights
Civil and Political Rights: Freedom from Abuses
Abuse of Individual Rights
Abuse of Group Rights
The International Response to Individual and Group
Human Rights Issues
Economic and Social Rights
Food
Health
Education
Chapter Summary
Chapter 9 - Pursuing Security
Chapter Summaryh3>Thinking about Security
A Tale of Insecurity
Conflict and Insecurity: The Traditional Road
War and World Politics
Force as a Political Instrument
Unconventional Warfare
Conventional Warfare
Warfare with Weapons of Mass Destruction
Global and International Security: The Alternative Road
Limited Self-Defense Through Arms Control
International Security Forces
Abolition of War
Chapter Summary
Chapter 10 - Globalization in the World Economy
Theories of International Political Economy
Economic Nationalism
Economic Internationalism
Economic Structuralism
Two Economic Worlds: North and South
Two Economic Worlds: Analyzing the Data
Two Economic Worlds: Human Conditions
The Growth and Extent of International Political Economy
Trade
International Investment
Monetary Relations
Globalization and Interdependence: Debating the Future
Chapter Summary
Chapter 11 - Global Economic Competition and Cooperation
Global Economic Competition: The Traditional Road
National Economic Power: Assets and Utilization
The North and International Political Economy
The South and Internatonal Political Economy
The Future of National Economic Policy
Global Economic Cooperation: The Alternative Road
Global Economic Cooperation: Background
Global Economic Cooperation: The Institutions
Regional Economic Cooperation
Chapter Summary
Chapter 12 - Preserving and Enhancing the Global Commons
Toward Sustainable Development
The Ecological State of the World
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development: Population and Resources
Population Issues and Cooperation
Resource Issues and Cooperation
Resource Conservation: The Global Response
Sustainable Development: The Environment
Environmental Issues
Environmental Protection: The International Response
Chapter Summary
An Epilogue to the Text/A Prologue to the Future
Endnotes
Glossary
Abbreviations
References
Index

We Shall Overcome or War by Other Means

2009-02-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law

Author: Alexander Tsesis
Despite America’s commitment to civil rights from the earliest days of nationhood, examples of injustices against minorities stain many pages of U.S. history. The battle for racial, ethnic, and gender fairness remains unfinished. This comprehensive book traces the history of legal efforts to achieve civil rights for all Americans, beginning with the years leading up to the Revolution and continuing to our own times. The historical adventure Alexander Tsesis recounts is filled with fascinating events, with real change and disappointing compromise, and with courageous individuals and organizations committed to ending injustice.

Viewing the evolution of civil rights through the lens of legal history, Tsesis considers laws that have restricted civil rights (such as Jim Crow regulations and prohibitions against intermarriage) and laws that have expanded rights (including antisegregation legislation and other legal advances of the civil rights era). He focuses particular attention on the African American fight for civil rights but also discusses the struggles of women, gays and lesbians, Japanese Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Jews. He concludes by assessing the current state of civil rights in the United States and exploring likely future expansions of civil rights.

Books about: The Breast Cancer Survival Manual or Midlife Mamas on the Moon
War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror

Author: John Yoo
On September 11, 2001, while America reeled from the day's cataclysmic events, and the majority of Official Washington, D.C. - including most of the Justice Department - evacuated, John Yoo and a skeletal staff of the Office of Legal Counsel stayed behind. They quickly found themselves on the phone with the White House. The attacks called for a response, but the president's legal authority to act was unclear. Were we at war?
In answering that question and others in the following months, Yoo had an almost unmatched impact on the fight against al Qaeda. His analysis led to many of the Bush administration's most controversial policies: detention at Guantanamo Bay, coercive interrogation, military trials, the NSA's wiretapping program, the Patriot Act, and the decision that the Geneva Conventions are irrelevant for "illegal enemy combatants."
In War by Other Means, you offers an insider accounts of the personalities, on-the-ground facts, and legal basis behind these decisions Through specific cases, from John Walker Lindh and Zacarias Moussaoui, to an American al Qaeda leader killed by a CIA pilotless drone in the deserts of Yemen, Yoo sweeps aside partisan bickering, answers his and the Bush administration's critics, and clarifies how and why we fight. War by Other Means is a captivating, brilliant, and accessible book, a must read for anyone concerned about the War on Terror.
Publishers Weekly
As a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo was in the center of the debate over where President Bush's administration draws the line on the torture of detained terrorism suspects. He revisits that and other controversies in the war on terror, from NSA wiretapping to the legal status of "enemy combatants." His response to most criticisms is that al-Qaeda is a new kind of enemy, and the old ways of thinking (e.g., the Geneva Conventions) prevent us from stopping another terrorist strike. The cornerstone of Yoo's argument is his belief that as commander-in-chief, the president has broad powers "to act forcefully and independently to repel serious threats to the nation." Even the formal declaration of war by Congress has become archaic; Yoo argues that America is at war whenever the president decides the military can "do what must be done." Thus, the Supreme Court's June decision rendering the prosecution of Guant namo detainees by military commissions unconstitutional is, in Yoo's eyes, "a dangerous judicial intention to intervene in wartime policy" that forces the president and Congress to waste time crafting legislation when we could be out fighting terrorists. Unambiguous and combative, Yoo's philosophy is sure to spark further debate. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

My American Journey or Blueprint for Action

2009-02-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

My American Journey

Author: Colin L Powell
"A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK."
—The New York Times Book Review
Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history—Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm—but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness.
MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, "the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers" inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision.
"The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating."—The Washington Post Book World
"Eloquent."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
"PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America."
—Jack Kemp
The Wall Street Journal
"A book that is much like its subject—articulate, confident, impressive, butunpretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading."
—San Diego Union Tribune
"Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary."
—The Detroit News

Library Journal
The story of Powell's rise from humble beginnings in Harlem to the corridors of power in Washington is one worth hearing. This abridgment touches Powell's high points: an average school career, the ROTC program that inspired him to military life, service in a divided Germany, and painful lessons learned in Vietnam. Powell's swift rise through the Pentagon bureaucracy made him a key figure in Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, the Iran-contra affair, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the debate over gays in the military. He closes with indefinite comments about a future role in politics, positioning himself as a "fiscal conservative with a social conscience." Recommended for public libraries, where Powell's serviceable reading and the program's concise format will be popular.-Linda Bredengerd, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib., Bradford, Pa.
School Library Journal
YA-The eminently readable journey of one African American boy from a close-knit neighborhood in the South Bronx through his rise to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to civilian retirement. Powell was neither an athlete nor a scholar; his childhood centered around his home, friends, and church. Later, in college, he found his niche. ROTC offered structure and purpose. A recounting of his army career and the support offered by family and friends are the primary focus of this work. Challenges, lessons learned, and opportunities opened by each posting are shared. Commanding officers, selected business contracts, and four presidents are introduced and evaluated, almost all in a positive light. Powell's involvement with and analysis of national and international affairs, from Vietnam to the Clinton administration, are succinctly and objectively recounted. Scattered throughout the book are personal rules of conduct and occasional incidents of particular kindnesses and of racism. Teens are given an opportunity to spend some time with a thoughtful, positive leader. They can share one participant's view of recent history and gain one perspective on our country's current needs.-Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA

Look this: L'Administrateur d'Affaires Étudiant Professionnel :l'Éducateur, le Chef et le Directeur
Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating

Author: Thomas P M Barnett
and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Whispering in the Giants Ear or Men in Black

2009-01-30T21:38:00.000-08:00

Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization

Author: William Powers
An intimate and powerful account of living in Bolivia during a time of crisis and change.

Long the obscure “Tibet of South America,” Bolivia emerged as a world flashpoint during the four years William Powers lived there as an aid worker. CNN and the New York Times have shown images of Aymara women in bowler hats standing down tanks; citizen protests have ousted multinationals and two pro-globalization presidents. In A Natural Nation, Powers breathes life into the recent struggles of the Bolivian people. When he arrives in the rainforest, he meets an extraordinary Chiquitano Indian named Salvador who is fighting the extinction of his people. At the same time, the clock ticks for three multinational energy companies forced to curb global warming. Both goals depend upon the survival of a stretch of pristine jungle. But as Indians and oil giants join to launch the world’s largest Kyoto Protocol project—using forests to absorb dangerous planetary greenhouse gasses—Salvador’s life is threatened by loggers collaborating with a racist Bolivian oligarchy. The quest for a single rainforest is subsumed in a movement of national liberation. A Natural Nation goes beneath the headlines, gracefully weaving memoir, travel, history and reportage into an unforgettable chronicle of a “poor little rich country” attempting to engage the world without losing its soul.

Publishers Weekly
During the last five years, the struggles of Bolivia's indigenous community against government corruption and globalization have garnered unprecedented visibility for the nation around the world. As an aid worker living in Bolivia, Powers did not just witness the change; he was immersed in the action, forced to juggle the country's internal conflict with his environmental organization's mission of saving the rain forest. By "thinking locally and acting globally," he forges a delicate partnership with Indians and multinational energy corporations to designate a swath of the Amazon forest for absorbing greenhouse gases. While matters of politics and the environment provide the framework for the book, much of the story is focused on the friendships he builds through genuine curiosity and emotion as he attempts to truly understand the needs of the people around him. What results is a deeply personal and informative chronicle of Powers's ambitions, the Indians' ambitions and perhaps most importantly in a country as physically diverse and dramatic as Bolivia, nature's ambitions. Although more background on Bolivia would have been helpful, the book succeeds in using the country's recent history to reveal how the worldwide battle for increased economic equality and environmental conservation operates locally. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Powers (Friends of Nature Foundation), a veteran developmental aid worker based in Bolivia, here echoes themes from his previous work, Blue Clay People: Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge. He explores the clash between indigenous communities, their own ambitions for development, and the force of the world's global economy. Powers provides a personal narrative on the plight of the Indian populations of Bolivia, told principally through his relationship with an Amazon Indian, Salvador. He craftily interweaves the story of one Amazon tribe, the broader story of a nation struggling to come to terms with its identity, and the global movement toward green globalization. A central theme of this highly personalized work revolves around the Amazon Indians' struggle for recognition, both politically and economically. Readers should be aware that Powers uses a technique he calls grafting, in which a particular character or event may be used to represent several encounters. This allows him to present what was in fact a four-year odyssey into a compact narrative. Recommended for all libraries.-Deborah Lee, Mississippi State Univ. Lib., Starkville Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:
I The shimmering forest 1
II Civilized barbarians 87
III Rebellion 161
IV A delicate space 237

Read also Web Design or iPhoto 08 for Mac OS X
Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America

Author: Mark R Levin
Mark Levin throws the book at our own judicial system--in particular, American judges who ignore the Constitution and dismantle the rights of American citizens in everyday court proceedings. He shares jaw-dropping examples of judicial power grabs and liberal power plays by judges.

Kant or Gospel According to RFK

2009-01-29T16:25:00.000-08:00

Kant: Political Writings

Author: Immanuel Kant
The original edition of Kant: Political Writings was first published in 1970, and has long been established as the principal English-language edition of this important body of writing. In this new, expanded edition two important texts illustrating Kant's view of history are included for the first time, his reviews of Herder's Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind and Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History, as well as the essay What is Orientation in Thinking?. In addition to a general introduction assessing Kant's political thought in terms of his fundamental principles of politics, this edition also contains such useful student aids as notes on the texts, a comprehensive bibliogaphy and a new postscript, looking at some of the principal issues in Kantian scholarship that have arisen since the first edition.

Table of Contents:
Preface to the second edition; Preface to the first edition; List of abbreviations;
1. Introduction;
2. Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose;
3. An answer to the question: 'what is enlightenment?';
4. On the common saying: 'this may be true in theory, but it does not apply in practice';
5. Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch;
6. The metaphysics of morals;
7. The contest of faculties;
8. Appendix;
9. Reviews of Herder's ideas on the philosophy of the history of mankind;
10. Conjectures on the beginning of human history;
11. Introduction to what is orientation in thinking?;
12. What is orientation in thinking?; Notes to the text; Bibliography; Index of names; Index of subjects.
Books about: The Biogenealogy Sourcebook or We Live Too Short and Die Too Young
Gospel According to RFK: Why It Matters Now

Author: Norman MacAfe
This collection of RFK's 1968 presidential campaign speeches demonstrates his eloquence, passion, and humanity, and resonates today in the ongoing battle for the White House.
As he campaigned for the presidency in 1968, Robert Kennedy outlined what is today a redemptive vision for America. Tirelessly, before the kinds of vast crowds reserved for rock stars, RFK articulated with passionate eloquence the disasters of a misguided war, the pain of the dispossessed, and the way out of war and poverty. And then, 81 days into the campaign, he was assassinated. Now, in The Gospel According to RFK, writer Norman MacAfee has brought together for the first time the best of Kennedy's presidential campaign speeches to which he adds lively and engaging commentary that makes them fresh and relevant.
Issues of peace, justice, equality, and responsibility, which were at the center of RFK's campaign, have as much meaning today as they did in 1968. The Gospel According to RFK is a book for combative Democrats, liberals, independents, progressives, and even moderate Republicans to carry around, read for inspiration, and quote. It is a book for people who believe they can change the government, the society, even the world.
What People Are Saying
Robert F. Drinan
Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Professor, Georgetown University Law Center
Those who read this inspiring volume will acquire a deeper admiration and gratitude for Kennedy than they ever had before.

Vine Deloria Jr.
A badly needed corrective offering compassion, understanding, and optimism.
— (Vine Deloria, Jr., author of Custer Died for Your Sins)

How to Change the World or Empire Statesman

2009-01-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

Author: David Bornstein
What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, writes David Bornstein, the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up--and remake the world for the better.
How to Change the World tells the fascinating stories of these remarkable individuals--many in the United States, others in countries from Brazil to Hungary--providing an In Search of Excellence for the nonprofit sector. In America, one man, J.B. Schramm, has helped thousands of low-income high school students get into college. In South Africa, one woman, Veronica Khosa, developed a home-based care model for AIDS patients that changed government health policy. In Brazil, Fabio Rosa helped bring electricity to hundreds of thousands of remote rural residents. Another American, James Grant, is credited with saving 25 million lives by leading and 'marketing' a global campaign for immunization. Yet another, Bill Drayton, created a pioneering foundation, Ashoka, that has funded and supported these social entrepreneurs and over a thousand like them, leveraging the power of their ideas across the globe.
These extraordinary stories highlight a massive transformation that is going largely unreported by the media: Around the world, the fastest-growing segment of society is the nonprofit sector, as millions of ordinary people--social entrepreneurs--are increasingly stepping in to solve the problems where governments and bureaucracies have failed. How to Change the World shows, as its title suggests, that with determination and innovation, even a single person can make a surprising difference. For anyone seeking tomake a positive mark on the world, this will be both an inspiring read and an invaluable handbook.

Publishers Weekly
Journalist Bornstein (The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank) profiles nine indomitable champions of social change who developed innovative ways to address needs they saw around them in places as distinct as Bombay, India; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and inner-city Washington, D.C. As these nine grew influential when their ingenious ideas proved ever more widely successful, they came to the attention of Ashoka, an organization that sponsors a fellows program to foster social innovation by finding so-called social entrepreneurs to support. As Bornstein interviewed these and many other Ashoka fellows, he saw patterns in the ways they fought to solve their specifically local problems. To demonstrate the commonality among experiences as diverse as a Hungarian mother striving to provide a fuller life for her handicapped son and a South African nurse starting a home-care system for AIDS patients, he presents useful unifying summaries of four practices of innovative organizations and six qualities of successful social entrepreneurs. Bornstein implies that his subjects are in the tradition of Florence Nightingale and Gandhi; the inspiring portraits that emerge from his in-depth reporting on the environments in which individual programs evolved (whether in politically teeming India or amid the expansive grasslands of Brazil) certainly show these unstoppable entrepreneurs as extraordinarily savvy community development experts. In adding up the vast number of current nongovernmental organizations and their corps of agents of positive change, Bornstein aims to persuade that, without a doubt, the past twenty years has produced more social entrepreneurs than terrorists. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Soundview Executive Book Summaries
Social Entrepreneurs and The Power of New Ideas
According to journalist David Bornstein, social entrepreneurs are people with powerful ideas to improve other people's lives who have implemented these ideas across cities, countries and, in some cases, the world. These are the doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, journalists and parents who solve social problems on a large scale and have a profound effect on society. Bornstein points out that they are usually not famous, and are usually not politicians. They are the people who create a transformative force that addresses major problems in the pursuit of a vision, and they will not give up until they have spread their ideas as far as possible.
How to Change the World provides a close look at numerous people from several countries - including the United States, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Hungary, India and Bangladesh - who have advanced systemic change and shifted behavior patterns and perceptions. They have ideas for attacking problems, Bornstein points out, and are unwilling to rest until they have spread their ideas throughout society.

Solving Challenging Problems
Bornstein has chronicled the achievements of many of these people in solving problems that challenge all societies around the globe: inadequate education and health systems, environmental threats, declining trust in political institutions, entrenched poverty, high crime rates, etc. He also demonstrates how their ideas can help businesspeople and nonprofit managers see how social entrepreneurs have served large "markets" with limited resources to solve problems and make a positive change. The creative people Bornstein describes possess the determination and will to propel the innovation that society needs to tackle its toughest problems. He points out that these lessons can be applied across all types of organizations and industries.

Bornstein also describes the recent growth of what he calls the "citizen" sector - the nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that make up the framework of the social and economic supports, thus multiplying the number and the effectiveness of the world's social entrepreneurs. According to business guru Peter Drucker, this sector is America's leading growth industry.

Bornstein explains that by "sharpening the role of government, shifting practices and attitudes in business and opening up waves of opportunity for people to apply their talents in new, positive ways, the emerging citizen sector is reorganizing the way the work of society gets done."

One of the social entrepreneurs Bornstein profiles is Gloria de Souza, a 45-year-old elementary school teacher in Bombay whose dream in 1981 was to transform education across India. Over her 20 years of teaching experience, she was pained by the rote learning taking place in her school that she felt was holding back her students. By adapting her teaching ideas to India's specific circumstances and founding an organization to build a team to spread her ideas -with the help of a stipend from the social entrepreneur organization Ashoka - she was able to disseminate her Environmental Studies (EVS) approach to teaching. In just a few years, she could demonstrate that her approach significantly increased students' performance. "By the end of the 1980s," Bornstein reports, "the Indian government had incorporated EVS into its national curriculum, making it India's official standard of instruction in grades one through three."

Bornstein also describes - through the example of Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank - how a social entrepreneur can innovate better ways to alleviate poverty among a group of people. Yunus attacked this challenge by focusing on access to capital. By creating a way for villagers to access small amounts of working capital, they are able to purchase assets, increase their productive capacity, and capture profits that usually go to moneylenders and land owners.

Disability Rights
Bornstein also highlights Justin Dart, a Texas Republican who had contracted polio in 1948 when he was 18 years old, and been denied a teaching certificate because he used a wheelchair. After visiting a facility in South Vietnam in 1967 for children with polio and witnessing the deplorable conditions there, he returned to the United States and became a spokesman for disability rights. He would eventually become a member of the National Council on the Handicapped during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and worked to advance the first version of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1990, as chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, he fought to achieve the law's passage.

Bornstein shows readers how inspired individuals can use determination and innovation to make a difference.

Why We Like This Book
How to Change the World reveals fascinating stories about remarkably creative people who have been able to challenge the status quo and facilitate positive change for others. Any organization can use these stories that address many of the most difficult issues facing people today to gain inspiration to solve problems where others have failed. Copyright © 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

What People Are Saying
Bill Bradley
The social entrepreneurs chronicled in this book are part of the vital generation of independent, creative leaders . . .

Arminio Fraga
Arminio Fraga, Former Governor of the Central Bank of Brazil
. . . Bornstein's book will touch the hearts and minds of many. I hope it will get the wide readership it deserves . . .

Jeff Skoll
Jeff Skoll, Founder and Chairman, Skoll Foundation; first president of eBay
. . . a book about hope, about courage, and about the power of those extraordinary men and women who change the world.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
1 Restless People 1
2 From Little Acorns Do Great Trees Grow 11
3 The Light in My Head Went On: Fabio Rosa, Brazil: Rural Electrification 20
4 The Fixed Determination of an Indomitable Will: Florence Nightingale, England: Nursing 40
5 A Very Significant Force: Bill Drayton, United States: The Bubble 47
6 Why Was I Never Told about This? 61
7 Ten - Nine - Eight - Childline!: Jeroo Billimoria, India: Child Protection 68
8 The Role of the Social Entrepreneur 90
9 "What Sort of a Mother Are You?": Erzsebet Szekeres, Hungary: Assisted Living for the Disabled 98
10 Are They Possessed, Really Possessed, by an Idea? 117
11 If the World Is to Be Put in Order: Vera Cordeiro, Brazil: Reforming Healthcare 126
12 In Search of Social Excellence 146
13 The Talent Is Out There: J. B. Schramm, United States: College Access 159
14 New Opportunities, New Challenges 178
15 Something Needed to Be Done: Veronica Khosa, South Africa: Care for AIDS Patients 183
16 Four Practices of Innovative Organizations 200
17 This Country Has to Change: Javed Abidi, India: Disability Rights 209
18 Six Qualities of Successful Social Entrepreneurs 233
19 Morality Must March with Capacity: James Grant, United States: The Child Survival Revolution 242
20 Blueprint Copying 256
21 Conclusion: The Emergence of the Citizen Sector 264
Epilogue 280
Notes 283
Resource Guide 303
Selected Readings 309
Index 313

Books about: Weights for 50 or Running Fit
Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith

Author: Robert A Slayton
Franklin Roosevelt is said to have explained Al Smith, and his own New Deal, with these words: "Practically all the things we've done in the federal government are the things Al Smith did as governor of New York." Smith, who ran for president in 1928, not only set the model for FDR, he also taught America that the promise of the country extends to everyone and no one should be left behind.
The story of this trailblazer is the story of America in the twentieth century. A child of second-generation immigrants, a boy self-educated on the streets of the nation's largest city, he went on to become the greatest governor in the history of New York; a national leader and symbol to immigrants, Catholics, and the Irish; and in 1928 the first Catholic major-party candidate for president. He was the man who championed safe working conditions in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. He helped build the Empire State Building. Above all, he was a national model, both for his time and for ours.
Yet, as Robert Slayton demonstrates in this rich story of an extraordinary man and his times, Al Smith's life etched a conflict still unresolved today. Who is a legitimate American? The question should never be asked, yet we can never seem to put it behind us. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Ku Klux Klan reorganized, not to oppose blacks, but rather against the flood of new immigrants arriving from southern Europe and other less familiar sources. Anti-Catholic hatred was on the rise, mixed up with strong feelings about prohibition and tensions between towns and cities. The conflict reached its apogee when Smith ran for president. Slayton's story of the famous election of 1928,in which Smith lost amid a blizzard of blind bigotry, is chilling reading for Americans of all faiths. Yet Smith's eventual redemption, and the recovery of his deepest values, shines as a triumph of spirit over the greatest of adversity.
Even in our corrosively cynical times, the greater vision of Al Smith's life inspires and uplifts us.

The Prince or The Scandal of Empire

2009-01-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

The Prince: With Related Documents (The Bedford Series of History and Culture)

Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
Need to seize a country? Have enemies you must destroy? In this handbook for despots and tyrants, the Renaissance statesman Machiavelli sets forth how to accomplish this and more, while avoiding the awkwardness of becoming generally hated and despised.
"Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."
For nearly 500 years, Machiavelli's observations on Realpolitik have shocked and appalled the timid and romantic, and for many his name was equivalent to the devil's own. Yet, The Prince was the first attempt to write of the world of politics as it is, rather than sanctimoniously of how it should be, and thus The Prince remains as honest and relevant today as when Machiavelli first put quill to parchment, and warned the junior statesman to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.
Salon - Annie M. Paul
No doubt about it -- this writer is hot. His works inspire countless knockoffs and imitations. His imprimatur gilds the covers of other authors' books like Oprah's golden O. His name has even entered the language as an adjective. But you won't see him signing books at Barnes & Noble or trying to talk over Charlie Rose. No doubt he'd relish the attention, but he's been dead for almost 500 years.
These days, Niccolo Machiavelli is generating a volume of buzz Tina Brown would envy. In the past couple of years, he's been the subject of more than 20 books, including Dick Morris' The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century, The New Machiavelli: The Art of Politics in Business and Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago. For the fairer (but no less devious) sex, there's The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women and for those mischievous little tykes, A Child's Machiavelli: A Primer on Power.
Of course, the buzz around Machiavelli has never really died down. Since his guide to getting and keeping power, The Prince, was published in 1532, Machiavelli's matter-of-fact instruction that rulers must be prepared to lie, cheat and steal to hang on to their thrones -- all the while acting the part of the benevolent leader -- has not lost its razor edge. Even in this era of cynicism, Machiavelli's view of humanity as greedy and self-seeking or stupid and easily tricked still seems remarkably dark -- and to some, remarkably relevant. The little Italian excites so much passion because his works divide readers into two hostile camps: those who admire his clear-sighted pragmatism and those who are repelled by his casual amorality.
His polarizing presence isn't limited to light reading, either. Now Machiavelli is making an appearance in a loftier realm: the speculations of sociobiology. In Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (Oxford University Press, 1988) and Machiavellian Intelligence II: Extensions and Evaluations (Cambridge University Press, 1997), two scientists make a startling claim: Machiavellian behavior helped our early ancestors survive, and even drove the evolution of their brains. In other words, it made us human.
Andrew Whiten and Richard Byrne, both professors of biology at Scotland's St. Andrews University, apply the word "Machiavellian" to artful manipulation that serves one's own interests. In the communal living situations of our early forbears, they explain, those who could make the biggest grab for resources without getting kicked out of the group altogether -- that is, those who were most effectively underhanded and guileful -- were the ones who lived to pass on their (Machiavellian) genes. The competition to be the craftiest of them all created an "evolutionary arms race," write Whiten and Byrne, "leading to spiraling increases in intelligence."
Their supposition grows out of what's known as the "social intelligence hypothesis": the idea that it's not the world of objects that demands superior smarts, but our complicated and nuanced web of relationships. Sounds sensible enough -- but earlier theories had tied the development of human intelligence to the use of tools and weapons. (That dealing with relationships is the more cognitively complex activity will surprise no one who's seen modern-day man prefer a session with his power tools to a long talk with his wife.)
Machiavelli's survival-of-the-shrewdest philosophy has obvious parallels to evolutionary theory (were he writing today, he might thank, fawningly of course, Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins in his acknowledgements), and the researchers have embraced him as a sage. "Machiavelli seems to me to have been a realist, who accepted that self-interest was ultimately what drove people, and emphasized that the best way to achieve one's personal ends was usually through social, cooperative and generous behavior -- provided that the costs are never allowed to outweigh the ultimate benefits to oneself," says Byrne. Though the biologists' work doesn't draw directly on Machiavelli's texts, his steel-fisted, velvet-gloved approach provides the perfect model for the behavior they describe.
Evolutionary biology isn't the only academic discipline to borrow from Machiavelli: Psychology got there first. Almost 50 years ago, a Stanford psychologist named Richard Christie set out to ascertain just how many modern-day adherents Machiavelli had, and how they differed from those who disavow his ideas. Christie created a personality test based on statements taken from The Prince: "Most people forget more easily the death of their parents than the loss of their property," for example, and "The biggest difference between most criminals and other people is that the criminals are stupid enough to get caught." Test-takers were asked to rate how strongly they agreed with Machiavelli's acid observations. Those who endorsed Machiavelli's opinions Christie dubbed high Machs; those who rejected them out of hand were low Machs. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but there's a significant minority at either extreme.
The unusual origins of Christie's test set it apart from the carefully constructed instruments psychologists ordinarily use. The survey itself measures only one thing -- whether the test-taker subscribes to the ideas of a 16th century Italian political philosopher. But here's the rub: In subsequent experiments in his lab, Christie found that our reactions to Machiavelli act as a kind of litmus test, delineating differences in temperament that he confirmed with more traditional personality inventories. High Machs, he determined, constitute a distinct type: charming, confident and glib, but also arrogant, calculating and cynical, prone to manipulate and exploit. (Think Rupert Murdoch, or if your politics permit it, Bill Clinton.)
Christie and his collaborator, Florence Geis, had deeply mixed feelings about high Machs, especially after watching them trounce other players in games the psychologists set up and observed in their lab. "Initially, our image of the high Mach was a negative one, associated with shadowy and unsavory manipulations," they wrote in their 1970 classic, Studies in Machiavellianism (Academic Press). "However, after watching subjects in laboratory experiments, we found ourselves having a perverse admiration for the high Mach's ability to outdo others in experimental situations." Almost against their will, they were impressed by the high Machs: "Their greater willingness to admit socially undesirable traits compared to low Machs hinted at a possibly greater insight into and honesty about themselves."
One of the many psychologists who have contributed to the now-substantial literature on Machiavellianism is John McHoskey, of Eastern Michigan University. In a major paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he made the case that Machiavellianism is, in fact, a mild form of mental illness. The tendency to exploit and manipulate others, he says, can be placed on a continuum that runs from Mother Teresa to Ted Bundy. "People who are way out on the far end are the crazed Hannibal Lecter psychopaths," he explains. "But in the middle, there's still a lot of room for differences, and the people who score on the high end you can think of as Machiavellian." (Of course, do-gooders like Mother Teresa might actually be engaging in a less blatant and therefore more sophisticated form of Machiavellianism. As Byrne notes, the ultimate Machiavellian bargain may be the one made with God.)
McHoskey's article argued that high Machs possess, to a greater or lesser degree, the qualities associated with classic psychopaths: a lack of remorse, pathological lying, glibness and superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth. Even so, he refuses to denounce Machiavellians outright, however, cautioning that it all depends on context. We want our spies and sometimes our diplomats to be devious in the nation's service. Elected officials and other administrators must be at least a little Machiavellian to get anything done. A degree of impersonality toward human life is essential in a doctor performing bypass surgery, or a soldier engaged in warfare. Plus, McHoskey points out, true low Machs are kind of sucky. "They're the extreme opposite of someone who's Machiavellian: dependent, submissive, socially inept, shy," he says. In other words, be sure to invite a high Mach or two to your next dinner party.
Psychologists' emphasis on these individual differences in Machiavellianism sits uneasily alongside Byrne and Whiten's focus on the universal processes of selection and adaptation. According to the biologists' theory, every human is the end result of evolution's preference for the sly and cunning. (Byrne and Whiten don't make distinctions between good and bad intentions but instead focus on the means we use to achieve them.) Does that mean we're all Machiavellians? "Well, yes, to some degree," Whiten says. "For example, young children, from the ages of about 3 to 4, have been observed to attempt deceptions and to manipulate social situations to their own benefit. This seems natural to humans, and begins early."
Yet such universal theories on the mercenary motivations of human behavior create a kind of circular reasoning. It's impossible to disprove that we're all Machiavellian because any successful human endeavor -- whether it's feeding the poor or taking care of a loved one -- can be reinterpreted through the lens of selfishness.
After decades circling around this point, some sociobiologists are beginning to form other evolutionary theories that concur with the psychological vision that individual personalities engage in varying levels of selfishness and altruism and use a variety of methods to achieve their ends. David Sloan Wilson, of SUNY-Binghamton, believes that Machiavellianism is just one wrench in the tactical toolbox that humans have evolved over the eons -- and not one that all of us choose to use. "There's more than one way to succeed in social life," he notes. "There are exploitative ways, and there are cooperative ways."
In a 1996 Psychological Bulletin paper, Wilson proposed his "multiple-niche" theory which didn't exactly refute his colleagues' work on Machiavellian behavior but refused to allow it to claim credit for all human success. Some people do get ahead by being slick, Wilson suggested, but others prosper using more straightforward or altruistic approaches. (Wilson is also the co-author of a recent book on altruism, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Harvard University Press, 1998)).
"There are wolves," says Wilson grimly, "and there are sheep." He doesn't hide his visceral reaction to the former. "It's kind of scary when you appreciate that human life is like a predator-prey relationship, in which both are members of the same species," he says. Wilson describes the unsettling feeling of looking out over a class to whom he has administered Christie's test of Machiavellianism, knowing that a certain number of his students are hard-core manipulators. "We grow up thinking that we have to have this presumption of niceness" about other people, he muses, "and there's something startling about the fact that that's just not true."
But Wilson's message is ultimately an optimistic one: cooperative strategies can work as well as, and sometimes better than, exploitative ones. After all, Machiavellianism sometimes backfires: Its proponents may scheme and manipulate even when a show of submissiveness or an offer to share might more easily get them what they want, and they always run the risk of being found out and then sanctioned or expelled by their communities. As McHoskey notes, Machiavellians therefore do best in highly mobile societies, in which individuals are free to make their own fortunes and the expression of greed or self-interest is encouraged or at least accepted.
Sound familiar? Forget 16th century Italian city states -- 20th century America is a land of would-be Princes, a place where the grifter, the con man and the wheeler-dealer are both celebrated archetypes and real-life heroes. Perhaps that's why now, as the gospel of global capitalism spreads unhindered by other philosophies and Americans reflexively interpret politicians' words and deeds as motivated solely by strategic self-interest, Machiavelli is experiencing a popular revival. Whatever timeless truths he may have to offer, his message is perfectly pitched to this high-flying, high-rolling cultural moment, when image means everything and power is purchased at any cost.
Were he on the scene today, Machiavelli would no doubt revel in his continuing popularity, though he would likely have little use for the academic debates he inspires (students of literature and political science still argue if his advice to the Medicis was satire, all a monstrous joke). "It seems to me better to concentrate on what really happens," he coolly pronounced in The Prince, "rather than on theories or speculations."
Sixteenth Century Journal - John Gueguen
There is good reason to assert that Machiavelli has met his match in Mansfield.
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
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.
Booknews
An inexpensive but high quality translation of the classic Italian Renaissance statement of what has come to be called realpolitik. The translator, Paul Sonnino, presents an easily readable English but also takes care to render Italian words into English cognates or at least to use the same word consistently so the reader gets a sense of what terms and concepts Machiavelli repeated and in what context. Lightly annotated.

Table of Contents:
Chronology
Map
Introduction
Translator's Note
Selected Books
Machiavelli's Principal Works
Letter to the Magnificent Lorenzo de Medici 1
I How many kinds of principality there are and the ways in which they are acquired 5
II Hereditary principalities 5
III Composite principalities 6
IV Why the kingdom of Darius conquered by Alexander did not rebel against his successors after his death 13
V How cities or principalities which lived under their own laws should be administered after being conquered 16
VI New principalities acquired by one's own arms and prowess 17
VII New principalities acquired with the help of fortune and foreign arms 20
VIII Those who come to power by crime 27
IX The constitutional principality 31
X How the strength of every principality should be measured 34
XI Ecclesiastical principalities 36
XII Military organization and mercenary troops 39
XIII Auxiliary, composite, and native troops 43
XIV How a prince should organize his militia 47
XV The things for which men, and especially princes, are praised or blamed 49
XVI Generosity and parsimony 51
XVII Cruelty and compassion; and whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse 53
XVIII How princes should honour their word 56
XIX The need to avoid contempt and hatred 58
XX Whether fortresses and many of the other present-day expedients to which princes have recourse are useful or not 67
XXI How a prince must act to win honour 71
XXII A prince's personal staff 75
XXIII How flatterers must be shunned 76
XXIV Why the Italian princes have lost their states 78
XXV How far human affairs are governed by fortune, and how fortune can be opposed 79
XXVI Exhortation to liberate Italy from the barbarians 82
Glossary of Proper Names 86
Notes 99

Look this: Somersize Chocolate or Understanding Your Health with Powerweb and OLC Bi Card Package
The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain

Author: Nicholas B Dirks
Many have told of the East India Company’s extraordinary excesses in eighteenth-century India, of the plunder that made its directors fabulously wealthy and able to buy British land and titles, but this is only a fraction of the story. When one of these men—Warren Hastings—was put on trial by Edmund Burke, it brought the Company’s exploits to the attention of the public. Through the trial and after, the British government transformed public understanding of the Company’s corrupt actions by creating an image of a vulnerable India that needed British assistance. Intrusive behavior was recast as a civilizing mission. In this fascinating, and devastating, account of the scandal that laid the foundation of the British Empire, Nicholas Dirks explains how this substitution of imperial authority for Company rule helped erase the dirty origins of empire and justify the British presence in India.
The Scandal of Empire reveals that the conquests and exploitations of the East India Company were critical to England’s development in the eighteenth century and beyond. We see how mercantile trade was inextricably linked with imperial venture and scandalous excess and how these three things provided the ideological basis for far-flung British expansion. In this powerfully written and trenchant critique, Dirks shows how the empire projected its own scandalous behavior onto India itself. By returning to the moment when the scandal of empire became acceptable we gain a new understanding of the modern culture of the colonizer and the colonized and the manifold implications for Britain, India, and the world.

Publishers Weekly
Dirks, dean of the faculty and a professor of anthropology and history at Columbia, sets out to dismantle the traditional explanation that Britain's empire in India was, in the famous words of Victorian historian J.R. Seeley, acquired "in a fit of absence of mind." According to Dirks, there was nothing accidental about Britain's "conquest" of the subcontinent in the late 18th century. He argues that public exposure of the East India Company's scandalous corruption by the philosopher and politician Edmund Burke during the Warren Hastings impeachment trial in 1788 persuaded the government to step in and administer what the British regarded as a vulnerable, backward territory. This intrusive, imperialist behavior, claims the author, helped cover up the "corruption, venality, and duplicity" of Britain's presence in India, which was recast as a civilizing mission that also happened to benefit the British economy. In examining the Hastings case, Dirks scores many points, vaporizing comforting visions of a benevolent empire, and he expertly unravels the complexities of Burke-too often caricatured as a reactionary. Unfortunately, portions of the book are rendered too opaque for the general reader by Dirks's political point scoring and his digressions into academic squabbles. 9 b&w photos, 1 map. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
What People Are Saying
Gyan Prakash
This is a brilliant work of historical excavation that exposes the foundation of modern Britain in the scandals of empire. Dirks shows that, contrary to the imperialist ideologues then as now, the scandals of conquest, violence, and oppression were at its center, not its incidental sideshow. Civilizing the "native" necessarily entailed the practice of barbarism, the assertion of imperial sovereignty required the exercise of despotism. We will never be able to look at either British history or imperialism without the record of repression and double-speak at their very heart. --(Gyan Prakash, Princeton University)

Dipesh Chakrabarty
By assiduously drawing out necessary connections between European 'corruption' and imperial sovereignty in eighteenth-century British India, this lucid and masterful interpretive essay serves as a timely reminder that modern empires, caught in ideological contradictions of their own making, are fundamentally unpleasant, oppressive, and immoral formations. A stimulating contribution to contemporary debates. --(Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of Provincializing Europe)

Catherine Hall
In this timely and important intervention on empires--both past and present--Nicholas Dirks makes a compelling critique of Britain's imperial relation to India. Scandal, conquest, and empire, he argues, were central to the making of modern Britain. This is a seminal contribution to current debates on empires--their rise, decline and fall. --(Catherine Hall, University College London)

The Price of Liberty or Politics of Latin America

2009-01-26T00:38:00.000-08:00

The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars

Author: Robert D Hormats
In a bracing work of history, a leading international finance expert reveals how our national security depends on our financial security
More than two centuries ago, America’s first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, identified the Revolutionary War debt as a threat to the nation’s creditworthiness and its very existence. In response, he established financial principles for securing the country—principles that endure to this day. In this provocative history, Robert D. Hormats, one of America’s leading experts on international finance, shows how leaders from Madison and Lincoln to FDR and Reagan have followed Hamilton’s ideals, from the greenback and a progressive income tax to the Victory Bond and Victory Garden campaigns and cost-sharing with allies.
Drawing on these historical lessons, Hormats argues that the rampant borrowing to pay for the war in Iraq and the short-sighted tax cuts in the face of a long-term war on terrorism run counter to American tradition and place our country’s security in peril. To meet the threats facing us, Hormats contends, we must significantly realign our economic policies—on taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and oil dependency—to safeguard our liberty and our future.
Publishers Weekly
Exploring the idea that the need to pay for wars often drives financial innovation, Goldman, Sachs & Co. managing director Hormats traces the fiscal decisions made in American wars from the revolution to today's war on terror. Customs duties often fall off with hostilities, he observes, leading to increased reliance on excise and other consumption taxes. These cut civilian demand, freeing up resources for war, but may be unduly burdensome on the poor, who also do most of the dying. Taxes on businesses and the rich are more popular, he notes, but don't reduce consumption and may discourage energetic investment in war industries. Printing money is easy, but stimulates demand and inflation. Borrowing requires faith in the ability of the government to prosecute the war and its willingness to honor the debt afterwards. If broad-based, debt can cement support for the war, but if not, it can create a class of creditors with excessive political power. Hormats shows that, despite their differences, each treasury secretary seems to pick up where his predecessor left off, refining the old ideas and adding new wrinkles. Moving from history to current events, the author strongly criticizes the Bush administration for failing to adhere to the principles that have paid for 230 years of American liberty. (May 1)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Kirkus Reviews
A vigorous account, by a Goldman Sachs VP and presidential adviser, of the high cost of combat. From the nation's beginnings, leaders have worried about the burdens the citizenry would have to take up in order to pay for their military, with George Washington warning that debts "which unavoidable wars may have occasioned" should not be charged to future generations but paid for as soon as possible through taxes, however hated taxes might be. A sense of fairness governed presidents until recently; during the War of 1812, for instance, Madison approved a $3 million direct tax on slaves to be paid for by their owners, while during the Civil War the federal government imposed a tax-called a duty to skirt constitutional issues-of three percent on all incomes over $800. "It was a victory for the populists and advocates for working poor and farmers," Hormats observes, since the average income was only $150. The government raised further funds by printing rather than minting money, risking inflation but solving the short-term problem and retiring the Civil War debt within a few years. During World War II, the mix included a tax on corporate profits and the elimination of special privileges for the rich. All that changed, though, with the Cold War, since an army had to be maintained at constant readiness; the Defense Department was kept on a diet at first, with Eisenhower wisely remarking, "the current problem in defense spending is to figure how far you should go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without." That lesson, Hormats concludes, is lost on the present administration, which threatens through its uncontrolled spending and giveaways to the wealthy to leavefuture presidents "without the resources, the military capacity, the intelligence capabilities, or the homeland security apparatus required to thwart or cope with a dangerous new security threat."A careful study in economic history that deserves wide airing.
What People Are Saying

"Bob Hormats has taken on the impossible: making lively history of the fiscal side of America's wars. Taxes and spending, economics and politics, all mixed up together in times of national crisis, from the Revolution and Alexander Hamilton to Iraq and both George Bushes. There are lessons to be learned and too often forgotten, even for the financing of the new 'War on Terror.'"
---Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve
"The Price of Liberty is both a superb history and an urgent call for appropriate fiscal policy in the current campaign against terrorism. Hormats shows that, time and again, how wars were paid for determined how wars were fought--and won or lost. An important and timely book."
---David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear
"Robert Hormats mounts a compelling argument that America faces large-scale economic catastrophe due to lack of a long-term, fiscally sound strategy for meeting military and security needs as well as domestic obligations. The Price of Liberty is a fascinating book and its messsage is hard to ignore.
---Henry Kissinger
"Hormats links economics with history and politics in a must-read for anyone who would understand the fundamentals of America's national security. Lucid and engrossing, The Price of Liberty provides a new and vital perspective for students of national security."
---General Wesley K. Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Table of Contents:
Introduction: A Country Born of War and Debt     XIII
Hamilton's Vision: Securing the Nation's Finances     1
The First Great Test: Financial Sabotage and the War of 1812     28
The Fiery Trial: A Tax to Save the Union     56
Capitalizing Patriotism: Progressive Finance During World War I     94
A Righteous Might: Shared Sacrifice During World War II     134
"A Prolonged and Complex Struggle": The Threat of American Bankruptcy in the Cold War     173
"Hard and Inescapable Facts": The Great Society Versus the Vietnam War     207
Bankrupting Communism: The Reagan Rearmament and Deficit Finance     227
New Enemies: Asymmetrical Threats and the Long War on Terrorism     251
Conclusion: The Price of a Long War     280
Notes     300
Selected Bibliography     328
Acknowledgments     331
Index     332
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Politics of Latin America: The Power Game

Author: Harry E Vanden
Politics of Latin America, Second Edition, explores both the evolution and the current state of the political scene in Latin America. Distinguishing itself from more traditional works on Latin American politics, this text demonstrates a nuanced sensitivity to the use and abuse of power and the importance of social conditions, gender, race, globalization, and political economy. The first section of the book presents relevant information about the region's geographic setting, history, economics, society, people, and religion, setting the stage for a more detailed analysis of the politics, democratization, political culture, political movements, and revolution in Latin America. The second part of the book consists of carefully constructed case studies of nine representative Latin American nations: Guatemala (Susanne Jonas), Mexico (Nora Hamilton), Cuba (Prevost), Brazil (Wilber Albert Chaffee), Argentina (Aldo C. Vacs), Chile (Eduardo Silva), Venezuela (Daniel Hellinger), Colombia (John C. Dugas), and Nicaragua (Prevost and Vanden). Each case study traces the historical development of key political actors and institutions, analyzing contemporary power configurations.
Keeping pace with the rapidly changing events in each country, this expanded second edition provides fresh material throughout, including more information on interamerican relations and the successes and failures of democracy in Latin America. Along with two entirely new chapters on Venezuela and Colombia, it also features sections that thoroughly discuss democratic versus authoritarian political culture, the role of the United States, and the power game in Latin America. The thematic chapters offer updatedbackground analyses--including a discussion of the 2002-2005 electoral triumphs of several presidents who were critical of the neo-liberal agenda, the new movements that have deposed presidents--and additional sections on U.S.-Latin American relations. Incorporating maps, tables, chronologies, bibliographies and clear indications of key players, Politics of Latin America, Second Edition, is indispensable for students and other readers wishing to gain a deeper understanding of this complex, dynamic, and rapidly changing region of the world.

Give War a Chance or The Continuities of German History

2009-01-24T19:26:00.000-08:00

Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, & Alcohol-Free Beer

Author: P J ORourk
In the spirit of his savagely funny and national best-seller Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance is P. J. O'Rourke's number one New York Times best-selling follow-up. O'Rourke runs hilariously amok by tackling the death of Communism, sanctimonious liberals, and America's perennial bad guy Saddam Hussein in a series of classic dispatches from his coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. Here is our most mordant and unnervingly funny political satirist on: Kuwait City after the Gulf War: "It looked like all the worst rock bands in the world had stayed there at the same time." On Saddam Hussein, O'Rourke muses: "He's got chemical weapons filled with ... chemicals. Maybe he's got The Bomb. And missiles that can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Spokane. Stock up on nonperishable foodstuffs. Grab those Diet Coke cans you were supposed to take to the recycling center and fill them up with home heating oil. Bury the Hummel figurines in the yard. We're all going to die. Details at eleven."

Interesting book: Mastering Windows Network Forensics and Investigation or Conscience of a Liberal
The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race Across the Long Nineteenth Century

Author: Helmut Walser Smith
This book addresses the long term of German history, tracing ideas and politics across what have become sharp chronological breaks. Smith argues that current historiography has become ever more focused on the twentieth century, and on twentieth-century explanations for the German catastrophe. Against conventional wisdom, he considers continuities - in the concept of nation and the ideology of nationalism, in religion and religious exclusion, and in racism and violence - that are the center of the German historical experience and that have long histories. Smith explores these deep continuities in novel ways, emphasizing their importance, while arguing that Germany was not on a special path to destruction. The result is a series of innovative reflections on the crystallization of nationalist ideology, on patterns of anti-Semitism, and on how the nineteenth-century vocabulary of race structured the twentieth-century genocidal imagination.

Table of Contents:
Introduction page 1
1 The Vanishing Point of German History 13
2 The Mirror Turn Lamp: Senses of the Nation before Nationalism 39
3 On Catastrophic Religious Violence and National Belonging: The Thirty Years War and the Massacre of Jews in Social Memory 74
4 From Play to Act: Anti-Jewish Violence in German and European History during the Long Nineteenth Century 115
5 Eliminationist Racism 167
Conclusion: Continuities in German History 211
Acknowledgments 235
Index 239

Global Linguistic Flows or Autonomia

2009-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities, and the Politics of Language

Author: Awad Ibrahim
This cutting-edge book, located at the intersection of sociolinguistics and Hip Hop Studies, brings together for the first time an international group of researchers who study Hip Hop textually, ethnographically, socially, aesthetically, and linguistically. It is the harvest of dialogue between these two separate yet interconnected areas of study. The borderline between Hip Hop culture and language pedagogy is fruitful but rarely explored. By looking at Hip Hop sociolinguistically and applying diverse applied linguistics frameworks, the authors explore the relations between language, popular culture, identity , and pedagogy, and offer a complex reading of the politics of language education through detailed ethnographic, critical discourse analysis, and sociolinguistic studies of Hip Hop culture in locally and globally diverse contexts. Overall, this book looks at the ways in which multilingual identities are performed within Hip Hop culture. A missing gap in the Hip Hop literature is the centrality and an in-depth analysis of the very medium that is used to express and perform Hip Hop -- language. Global Linguistic Flows fills this gap.

Go to: SELinux by Example or Excel 2002 for Dummies
Autonomia: Post-Political Politics

Author: Sylvre Lotringer
with a new introduction by Sylvère Lotringer, "In the Shadow of the Red Brigades"

Most of the writers who contributed to the issue were locked up at the time in Italian jails.... I was trying to draw the attention of the American Left, which still believed in Eurocommunism, to the fate of Autonomia. The survival of the last politically creative movement in the West was at stake, but no one in the United States seemed to realize that, or be willing to listen. Put together as events in Italy were unfolding, the Autonomia issue--which has no equivalent in Italy, or anywhere for that matter--arrived too late, but it remains an energizing account of a movement that disappeared without bearing a trace, but with a big future still ahead of it.

--Sylvère Lotringer

Semiotext(e) is reissuing in book form its legendary magazine issue Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, originally published in New York in 1980. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi with the direct participation of the main leaders and theorists of the Autonomist movement (including Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone, Paolo Virno, Sergio Bologna, and Franco Berardi), this volume is the only first-hand document and contemporaneous analysis that exists of the most innovative post-'68 radical movement in the West. The movement itself was broken when Autonomia members were falsely accused of (and prosecuted for) being the intellectual masterminds of the Red Brigades; but even after the end of Autonomia, this book remains a crucial testimony of the way this creative, futuristic, neo-anarchistic, postideological, andnonrepresentative political movement of young workers and intellectuals anticipated issues that are now confronting us in the wake of Empire. In the next two years, Semiotext(e) will publish eight books by such Italian "Post-Fordist" intellectuals as Antonio Negri, Christian Marazzi, Paolo Virno, and Bifo, as they update the theories of Autonomia for the new century.

American Legend or James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights

2009-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

Author: Buddy Levy
THE REAL KING OF THE WILD FRONTIER

David Crockett was an adventurer, a pioneer, and a media-savvy national celebrity. In his short-but-distinguished lifetime, this charismatic frontiersman won three terms as a U.S. congressman and a presidential nomination. His 1834 memoir enjoyed frenzied sales and prompted the first-ever "official" book tour for its enormously popular author. Down-to-earth, heroic, and independent to a fault, the real Crockett became lost in his own hype-and he's been overshadowed by a larger-than-life pop-culture character in a coonskin cap.

Now, American Legend debunks the tall tales to reveal the fascinating truth of Crockett's hardscrabble childhood, his near-death experiences, his unlikely rise to Congress-and the controversial last stand at the Alamo that mythologized him beyond recognition. In this beautifully written narrative, Crockett emerges as never before-a rugged individual, a true American original, and an enduring symbol of the Western frontier.
Publishers Weekly
Levy presents a sympathetic but unremarkable biography of the legendary frontiersman in colloquial if occasionally florid prose (an election loss "burned into Crockett like a brand searing a cow's flank"). Those whose image of Crockett was formed by the cultishly successful Disney treatment will find much that is familiar: the Indian fighter with Andrew Jackson, the congressmen from Tennessee and, finally, the Texas patriot who died defending the Alamo. But Levy (Echoes on Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge) offers more (although not a lot more) in the way of background and complexity, and is willing to expose some of Crockett's deficiencies without making judgments: Crockett clearly indulged his wanderlust at the expense of his wife, a strong figure in her own right, and was, for a variety of reasons, an ineffective, bumbling politician. But despite his faults, readers will find Crockett likable and talented. In Levy's view, Crockett's abilities were expansive, and he opines that Crockett's bestselling 1834 autobiography "prefigures by some fifty years the literary genre of `realism,' with nothing remotely like it" until Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And Crockett's falling out with President Jackson over, in part, Jackson's brutal Indian Removal Act of 1830 is to the frontiersman's credit. B&w illus. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Interesting book: Working Shirking and Sabotage or The Legal and Regulatory Environment of E Business
James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights

Author: Richard Labunski
Today we hold the Constitution in such high regard that we can hardly imagine how hotly contested was its adoption. Now Richard Labunski offers a dramatic account of a time when the entire American experiment hung in the balance, only to be saved by the most unlikely of heroes--the diminutive and exceedingly shy James Madison.
Here is a vividly written account of not one but several major political struggles which changed the course of American history. Labunski takes us inside the sweltering converted theater in Richmond, where for three grueling weeks, the soft-spoken Madison and the charismatic Patrick Henry fought over whether Virginia should ratify the Constitution. Madison won the day by a handful of votes, mollifying Anti-Federalist fears by promising to add a bill of rights to the Constitution. To do this, Madison would have to win a seat in the First Congress, which he did by a tiny margin, allowing him to attend the First Congress and sponsor the Bill of Rights.
Packed with colorful details about life in early America, this compelling and important narrative is the first serious book about Madison written in many years. It will return this under-appreciated patriot to his rightful place among the Founding Fathers and shed new light on a key turning point in our nation's history.

The New York Times - Gary Rosen
A virtue of Labunski's account is the generous attention he gives to Anti-Federalist luminaries like Henry, George Mason and Richard Henry Lee - figures too often overlooked in our reverential regard for the founding. For those used to thinking of the Bill of Rights as carved in stone, it is also instructive to see just how large a role accident played in its creation. The 10 amendments familiar to us started off as 17 in the House and were reduced to 12 by the Senate. The first two of these - on the size of the House and Congressional pay - didn't pass muster in the states, and so the third recommended amendment became, as if by fate, our famous First.
Publishers Weekly
It will come as little surprise to learn that Poe is a veteran Broadway performer: in reading Labunski's chronicle of James Madison's efforts to ratify the Constitution and pass the Bill of Rights, his voice echoes with effortless assurance, carrying into the virtual back row of any room. Thankfully, Poe mostly avoids the vocal equivalent of theatrical preening and posing. His reading is careful, unassuming and avoids wholly unnecessary showboating. Labunski's narrative revolves around Madison's struggle with fellow Virginian Patrick Henry over ratification, and Poe does a fine job of conveying the steadily ratcheting tension of their battle. Poe colors Labunski's tale with an appropriate array of significant pauses, emphases and hushed mock-whispers, bringing his book to life without resorting to overworked theatrical tricks. He may be a stage veteran, but Poe's reading is anything but stagy. Simultaneous release with the Oxford hardcover (Reviews, May 8). (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
James Madison played an important role in both the development of the U.S. Constitution and the creation of its first ten amendments, i.e., the Bill of Rights. Relying on primary sources, Labunski (Sch. of Journalism & Telecommunications, Univ. of Kentucky: The Second Constitutional Convention: How the American People Can Take Back Their Government) carefully and lucidly examines how Madison and his political supporters and opponents (mostly Anti-Federalists) shaped the initial parameters of the Constitution and then further expressed their constitutional philosophies in the amendments that followed. Seven of the ten chapters focus on activities prior to the introduction of the Bill of Rights. In his thorough coverage of the activities of the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Labunski offers intriguing discussions of constitutional debates and provides an understanding of the political and social context of the early constitutional polity. He finds that Madison and other Federalists used strategies that would ensure adoption of constitutional ideas in both Virginia and other parts of the nation. He then goes on to examine Madison's transformation from opponent of amendments to the Constitution to a central advocate in the U.S. House of Representatives for passage of what would become the Bill of Rights. A highly recommended analysis that will be useful for public and academic libraries. Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Mama for President or Adolf Hitler

2009-01-21T03:48:00.000-08:00

Mama for President: Good Lord, Why Not?

Author: Thelma Harper
Thelma Harper is running for president, and the free world will never be the same!

Finally, a candidate who will speak her mind and put the country on the right track. From health care to homeland security, Mama has a plan, and she's not afraid to tell you about it. Vicki Lawrence and Monty Aidem, writing as Thelma Harper, the outspoken, irascible widow from the television series Mama's Family, which has never been off the air since it first aired in 1983, tackles the big issues, and runs a campaign that has everyone running. Bitingly funny and brutally honest, Mama may just have the answer - but if not, at least readers will have a great laugh.

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Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography

Author: John Toland
A national bestseller with more than 370,000 copies in print, this is "the first book that anyone who wants to learn about Hitler or the war in Europe must read... a marvel of fact."--Newsweek
Booknews
Toland's massive and masterful biography was originally published (hardcover) by Doubleday in 1976. Deeply researched, thoroughly documented, compelling reading for a general audience. Includes many photographs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Mongrels Bastards Orphans and Vagabonds or Merchant of Death

2009-01-20T00:56:00.000-08:00

Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America

Author: Gregory Rodriguez
Wide-ranging and provocative, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds offers an unprecedented account of the long-term cultural and political influences that Mexican Americans will have on the collective character of our nation.

In considering the largest immigrant group in American history, Gregory Rodriguez examines the complexities of its heritage and of the racial and cultural synthesis--mestizaje--that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Rodriguez deftly delineates the effects of mestizaje throughout the centuries, traces the northern movement of this "mongrelization," explores the emergence of a new Mexican American identity in the 1930s, and analyzes the birth and death of the Chicano movement. Vis-a-vis the present era of Mexican American confidence, he persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration in to the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but how we envision our nation.

Deeply informative--as historically sound as it is anecdotally rich, brilliantly reasoned, and highly though provoking--Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is a major contribution to the discussion of the cultural and political future of the United States.
The Washington Post - Pamela Constable
Despite its unappealing title, Gregory Rodriguez's Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds provides a fascinating excursion through the history of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Full of instructive revelations and forgotten facts, the book shows how the treatment and status of immigrants have always been hostage to the vicissitudes of history—from the Gold Rush to the invasion of Iraq. The best sections of this book by a Mexican American columnist for the Los Angeles Times cover events that occurred long ago. But by putting the current tensions in a solid historical context, Rodriguez offers hope that they too will eventually subside and be followed by a cooler spell in which a lasting, more rational solution can prevail over the politics of fear and bigotry.
Publishers Weekly
Despite its title, this volume from L.A. Timescolumnist Rodriguez is a thorough and accessible history of Mexico that emphasizes the legacy of mestizaje, mixed races, among Mexico's inhabitants. Beginning with Cortes's arrival in 1519, an elaborate system of racial classification was put into place to keep separate Spanish and native peoples. The failure of this system, Rodriguez argues, allowed for a more progressive and open-minded approach to race in Mexico compared with, for example, the U.S.: "In colonial New Mexico, mestizajewas the rule rather than the exception." Black/white racial lines were nonexistent, as African natives merged effortlessly into Mexican society (which abolished slavery nearly 40 years before the States). Other developments include the Mexican American War and subsequent insurgencies in the huge swath of Mexican land ceded to the U.S.; the Mexican Revolution and the immigration wave it inspired; the backlash against Mexican-Americans during the depression years; and the Chicano movement of the 1960s and '70s. There's more at stake in Rodriguez's text than the latest immigration hullabaloo (he doesn't get around to addressing the past 30 years until the last chapter); aside from illuminating a complicated history and deeply contextualizing the present debate, the author takes on the concept of racial classification itself, calling for a change in attitude that more closely reflects the Mexican unifying idea of mestizaje, that we are all, to some extent, racially mixed "mongrels." (Oct.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Kirkus Reviews
Montezuma's revenge is not what you think. Instead, suggests essayist-journalist Rodriguez, the emperor's true revenge may be in the dismantling of the idea of racial differences among white, brown and every other hue. "After the conquest of Mexico," writes the author, "some conquistadors married Indian princesses and daughters of chiefs." So they did, and the Spaniards who came after that first generation of conquistadors married other Indian women, while some Indian men married white women. The result was the mestizo, the Mexican: the race that melded all other races, with "a great variety of phenotypic traits." The upper crust kept itself as white as possible and used skin color as a measure of race and social position. This way of reckoning among whites, creoles, mestizos, indios and other phenotypic types was carried over to the frontier. Once gringo census takers arrived, Californios gave themselves promotions so that, as Rodriguez quotes a historian as remarking, "everyone acquired some fictitious Caucasian ancestry and shed Negro backgrounds-becoming, in effect, lighter as they moved up the social scale." Today, Mexican Americans-who, as Rodriguez points out, constitute two-thirds of the Latino population in the United States-self-identify on the census differently depending on their perceived social status. The upper class considers itself white, but the vast majority of Mexican Americans check "other race," even as most identify ethnically as Hispanic or Latino. As Rodriguez's lucid book demonstrates, now that whites are no longer the majority in California, there is not much talk there of majorities or minorities, even as census officials worry that this confounding of race andethnicity will "undermine the validity of all the other racial categories." In other words, given the growth of the Latino population and high rate of intermarriage, the "other" will do what its forerunner did, namely subvert and redefine the notion of a melting-pot nation. Of great interest to the demographically inclined, and those who wonder what America will look like at the tricentennial.

Table of Contents:
Preface     ix
The Birth of a People     3
The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Colonial Racial System     33
The Spaniards Venture North     55
Mexicans and the Limits of Slavery     80
The Anglos Move West     98
Caught Between North and South     122
Becoming Mexican American     159
The Chicano Movement     201
Mongrel America and the New Assimilation     224
Acknowledgments     263
Notes     265
Index     305
See also: Gestione finanziaria contemporanea
Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

Author: Douglas Farah
Praise for Merchant of Death

"A riveting investigation of the world's most notorious arms dealer—a page-turner that digs deep into the amazing, murky story of Viktor Bout. Farah and Braun have exposed the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive businesses—the international arms trade."
—Peter L. Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know

"Viktor Bout is like Osama bin Laden: a major target of U.S. intelligence officials who time and again gets away. Farah and Braun have skillfully documented how this notorious arms dealer has stoked violence around the world and thwarted international sanctions. Even more appalling, they show how Bout ended up getting millions of dollars in U.S. government money to assist the war in Iraq. A truly impressive piece of investigative reporting."
—Michael Isikoff, coauthor of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

"Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun are two of the toughest investigative reporters in the country. This is an important book about a hidden world of gunrunning and profiteering in some of the world's poorest countries."
—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

"In Merchant of Death, two of America's finest reporters have performed a major public service, turning over the right rocks that reveal the brutal international arms business at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Viktor Bout, they have given us a new Lord of War, a man who knows no side but his own,and who has a knack for turning up in every war zone just in time to turn a profit. As Farah and Braun uncover and document his troubling role in the Bush Administration's Global War on Terror, his ties to Washington almost seem inevitable."
—James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

"An extraordinary and timely piece of investigative reporting, Merchant of Death is also a vividly compelling read. The true story of Viktor Bout, a sociopathic Russian gunrunner who has supplied weapons for use in some of the most gruesome conflicts of modern times—and who can count amongst his clients both the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. military in Iraq—is a stomach-churning indictment of the policy failures and moral contradictions of the world's most powerful governments, including that of the United States."
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad

The Washington Post - Fawaz A. Gerges
…a riveting investigation of the world's most notorious weapons dealer, Viktor Bout, whose post-Cold War arms network has stoked violence worldwide. Although U.S. intelligence officers have tried for years to shut down Bout's operation, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun reveal that the United States paid firms linked to him as much as $60 million to ferry weapons to the U.S. military and private contractors in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
Publishers Weekly
While there's no shortage of books on international terrorism, drug cartels and genocide, the international weapons trade has received less attention. Journalists Farah and Braun center their absorbing exposé of this source of global misery on its most successful practitioner, the Russian dealer Victor Bout. Throughout the Cold War, they show, the Kremlin supplied arms to oppressive regimes and insurgent groups, keeping close tabs on customers; after the U.S.S.R. collapsed, the floodgates opened in the 1990s. With weapons factories starved for customers, Soviet-era air transports lying idle and rusting, and dictators, warlords and insurgents throughout the world clamoring for arms, entrepreneurs and organized criminals saw fortunes to be made. The authors paint a depressing picture of an avalanche of war-making material pouring into poor, violence-wracked nations despite well-publicized U.N. embargoes. America denounces this trade, but turns a blind eye if recipients proclaim they are fighting terrorism, they say. Ruthless people who shun publicity make poor biographical subjects, and Bout is no exception. The authors' energetic research reveals that rivals dislike him, colleagues admire him, enemies condemn him, and Bout describes himself as a much-maligned but honest businessman. Although an unsatisfactory portrait, the book surrounds it with an engrossing, detailed description of this wildly destructive traffic. (Aug.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

72 Things Younger Than John McCain or Surrender Is Not an Option

2009-01-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

72 Things Younger Than John McCain

Author: Joe Quint
"I have the courage, the wisdom, the experience, and most importantly, the oldness necessary."
-- John McCain, Saturday Night Live, May 17, 2008
John McCain may have been joking during his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, but it is true that, if elected, at age 72 he will have more oldness on his side than any person ever inaugurated as a first-term president of the United States.
72 Things Younger Than John McCain takes a lighthearted look at all that's come into existence since John McCain was born so many, many, many years ago, including:
The Jefferson Memorial
Duct Tape
Nachos
Chocolate-Chip Cookies
Area Codes
Social Security
Based on Joe Quint's popular blog, 72 Things Younger Than John McCain also contains humorous photos and interesting trivia that highlight the events, milestones, inventions, and people that make up American pop-culture history since McCain was born on August 29, 1936. There's also a bonus section (albeit a very short one) of Things Older Than McCain!

Book review: The Employment Interview Handbook or Materials and Process Selection for Engineering Design Second Edition
Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations

Author: John Bolton
With no-holds-barred candor, the former ambassador to the United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the UN and the U.S. State Department and reveals why his efforts to defend American interests and reform the UN resulted in controversy. He also shows how the U.S. can lead the way to a more realistic global security arrangement for the twenty-first century and identifies the next generation of threats to America.
In this revealing memoir, John Bolton recounts his appointment in 2005 as Ambassador to the United Nations, his headline-making Senate confirmation battle, and his sixteen-month tenure at the United Nations. Bolton offers keen insight into such international crises as North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, the genocide in Darfur, the negotiation that produced the controversial end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and more. Chronicling both his successes and frustrations in taking a hard line against weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferators, terrorists, and rogue states such as North Korea and Iran, he also exposes the operational inadequacies that hinder the UN's effectiveness in international diplomacy and its bias against Israel and the United States. At home, he criticizes the bureaucratic inertia in the U.S. State Department that can undermine presidential policy.
This fascinating chronicle of the career of one of America's outstanding statesmen who has fought to preserve American sovereignty and strength at home and abroad now contains a new afterword, "Challenges for the Next President."

Table of Contents:
Early Days     1
The Reagan Revolution and the Bush 41 Thermidor     18
Cutting Gulliver Loose: Protecting American Sovereignty in Good Deals and Bad     47
Following the Yellow Cake Road on North Korea     99
Leaving the Driving to the EU: Negotiations Uber Alles with Iran     130
Why Do I Want This Job?     165
Arriving at the UN: Fear and Loathing in New York     194
Sisyphus in the Twilight Zone: Fixing the Broken Institution, or Trying To     220
As Good as It Gets: The Security Council     246
Electing the New Secretary General: Ban Ki-moon Is Coming to Town     273
Security Council Successes on North Korea     291
Iran in the Security Council: The EU-3 Find New Ways to Give In     314
Darfur and the Weakness of UN Peacekeeping in Africa     341
Israel and Lebanon: Surrender as a Matter of High Principle at the UN     371
Recessional     413
Free at Last: Back to the Firing Line     429
Afterword: Challenges for the Next President     457
Index     475

Democracy for the Few or Introduction to U S Health Policy

2009-01-19T03:30:00.000-08:00

Democracy for the Few

Author: Michael Parenti
This is no ordinary textbook on American Government. DEMOCRACY FOR THE FEW is a provocative interpretation of American Government that you have likely not been exposed to in elementary school, high school, or other college courses, and certainly not in the mass media. This textbook shows how democracy is repeatedly violated by corporate oligopolies, but how popular forces have fought back and occasionally made gains in spite of the system. By focusing on the relationship between economic power and political power, discussing actual government practices and policies, conspiracies, propaganda, fraud, secrecy and other ploys of government and politics, this book stands apart in its analysis of how US Government works.

Table of Contents:
Preface     xi
About the Author     xiv
Partisan Politics     1
Beyond Textbooks     1
The Politico-Economic System     3
Wealth and Want in the United States     6
Capital and Labor     6
Capital Concentration: Who Owns America?     8
Downsizing and Price Gouging     12
Monopoly Farming     14
Market Demand and Productivity     15
The Hardships of Working America     18
The Human Costs of Economic Injustice     22
The Plutocratic Culture: Institutions and Ideologies     27
Corporate Plutocracy and Ideological Orthodoxy     27
Left, Right, and Center     31
Public Opinion: Which Direction?     35
Democracy: Form and Content     36
A Constitution for the Few     40
Class Power in Early America     40
Containing the Spread of Democracy     42
Fragmenting Majority Power     45
Plotters or Patriots?     46
Democratic Concessions     49
Rise of the Corporate State     53
War against Labor, Favors for Business     53
Pliable Progressives and Red Scares     57
The New Deal: Hard Times and Tough Reforms     59
Politics: Who Gets What?     65
Welfare for the Rich     65
Federal Bailouts, State and Local Handouts     67
Taxes: Helping the Rich in Their Time of Greed     68
Unkind Cuts, Unfair Rates     71
Deficit Spending and the National Debt     73
Some Hidden Deficits     74
The U.S. Global Military Empire     77
A Global Kill Capacity     77
Pentagon Profits, Waste, and Theft     79
Harming Our Own     81
Economic Imperialism     83
Intervention Everywhere     85
Global Bloodletting     86
Health and Human Services: Sacrificial Lambs     92
The Poor Get Less (and Less)     92
Social Insecurity: Privatizing Everything     94
How Much Health Can You Afford?     95
Buyers Beware, and Workers Too     99
Creating Crises: Schools and Housing     100
"Mess Transit"     102
The Last Environment     106
Toxifying the Earth     106
Eco-Apocalypse     109
Pollution for Profits     110
Government for the Despoilers     112
An Alternative Approach     114
Unequal before the Law     118
Crime in the Suites     118
Class Law: Tough on the Weak     122
The Crime of Prisons     125
A Most Fallible System     126
Sexist Justice     128
The Victimization of Children     131
Racist Law Enforcement     132
Political Repression and National Insecurity     138
The Repression of Dissent     138
Political Prisoners, USA     141
Political Murder, USA     144
The National Security Autocracy     148
CIA: Capitalism's International Army or Cocaine Import Agency?     150
Watergate and Iran-contra     152
Homeland Insecurity     153
Who Governs? Elites, Labor, and Globalization     160
The Ruling Class     160
Labor Besieged     163
Unions and the Good Fight     165
How Globalization Undermines Democracy     166
Mass Media: For the Many, by the Few     173
He Who Pays the Piper     173
The Ideological Monopoly     177
Serving Officialdom     180
Political Entertainment     182
Room for Alternatives?     183
Voters, Parties, and Stolen Elections     188
Democrats and Republicans: Any Differences?     188
The Two-party Monopoly     191
Making Every Vote Count     192
Rigging the Game     193
Money: A Necessary Condition     195
The Struggle to Vote     198
Stolen Elections, Lost Democracy     201
Congress: The Pocketing of Power     210
A Congress for the Money     210
Lobbyists: The Other Lawmakers     213
The Varieties of Corruption     216
Special Interests, Secrecy, and Manipulation     219
The Legislative Labyrinth     222
Term Limits     224
Legislative Democracy under Siege     226
The President: Guardian of the System     230
Salesman of the System     230
The Two Faces of the President     233
Feds versus States     237
A Loaded Electoral College     238
The Would-Be King     241
The Political Economy of Bureaucracy     250
The Myth and Reality of Inefficiency     250
Deregulation and Privatization     253
Secrecy and Deception, Waste and Corruption     255
Nonenforcement: Politics in Command     258
Serving the "Regulated"     260
Public Authority in Private Hands     263
Monopoly Regulation versus Public-Service Regulation     264
The Supremely Political Court     268
Who Judges?     268
Conservative Judicial Activism     271
Circumventing the First Amendment     273
Freedom for Revolutionaries (and Others)?     276
As the Court Turns     277
Influence of the Court     284
Democracy for the Few     289
Pluralism for the Few     289
The Limits of Reform     292
Democracy as Class Struggle     294
The Roles of State     296
What Is to Be Done?     298
The Reality of Public Production     303
Index     310
Interesting textbook: Das Lernen im Globalen Zeitalter: Internationale Perspektiven auf der Globalisierung und Ausbildung
Introduction to U. S. Health Policy: The Organization, Financing, and Delivery of Health Care in America

Author: Donald A Barr
Home to the world's most advanced medical practices, the United States spends more on health care than any other country. At the same time, treatment is harder to get in the United States than in most other industrialized nations. Benchmark statistics such as infant mortality and life expectancy reveal a society that is not nearly as healthy as it could be.
This comprehensive analysis introduces the various organizations and institutions that make the U.S. health care system work -- or fail to work, as the case may be. It identifies historical, social, political, and economic forces that shape this system and create policy dilemmas that are all too familiar.
Donald A. Barr examines the structure of American health care and insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid. He addresses the shift to for-profit managed care and how it may affect the delivery of care; the pharmaceutical industry and the impact of pharmaceutical policy; issues of long-term care; and the plight of the uninsured. The new edition also covers recent developments in areas such as prescription drugs, medical errors, and nursing shortages.

The COMPSTAT Paradigm or Yes You Can Still Retire Comfortably

2009-01-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

The COMPSTAT Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector

Author: Vincent E Henry
A rare, behind-the-scenes look at the stunning crime-fighting revolution that revolutionized law enforcement!
Ever wonder how NYC, once infamous for crime and violence, gains status as the safest big city year after year? The answers are here, coming straight from one of the actual creators of the most innovative crime reduction programs in history! From the four deceptively simple principles of COMPSTAT to the accountability protocols that can improve every agency, this is more than just a case study... it's a field-tested, ready-to-use, crime-fighting blueprint!

New interesting book: Victoria or Martha Stewarts Hors dOeuvres
Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably: The Baby-Boom Retirement Crisis and how to Beat It

Author: Ben Stein
A specter is haunting the baby-boom generation—the specter of retirement. The generation that's used to having it all is suddenly finding that it doesn't have enough. The stock market bubble has deflated, interest rates are at all-time lows, Social Security is questionable, pension plans are underfunded, and personal savings are woefully inadequate. This comes at a time when medical advances are assuring that we'll be the longest-lived generation ever.

The authors grapple with the coming baby-boom retirement crisis and show you how to get back on track. They outline the steps you can take today to assure your future tomorrow. Backed up with the facts and figures, they lay out exactly how much you need to save in order to maintain your standard of living, and how to invest your dollars to get the maximum return from your savings. For those already retired, they explain how to tap in to your nest egg to get the most income while keeping your money safe. This is a survival manual for the difficult but exciting road to retirement security.

Don't leave middle age without it!
About the Authors
Ben Stein can be seen talking about finance on Fox TV news every week. He is known to many as a movie and television personality, but has probably worked more in personal and corporate finance than anything else. He has written about finance for Barron's and The Wall Street Journal for decades and contributes regularly to the AARP's Modern Maturity (now AARP: The Magazine). He was one of the chief busters of the junk bond frauds of the 1980s, has been a long-time critic of corporate executives' self-dealing, and has written several self-help books about personal finance.
Phil DeMuth was valedictorian of his class at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972, then got his master's in communications and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. An investment psychologist with a longstanding interest in the stock market, he has written for The Wall Street Journal and Barron's, as well as Human Behavior and Psychology Today. His opinions have been quoted on theStreet.com and Fortune Magazine and is president of Conservative Wealth Management in Los Angeles.

The Era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1933 1945 or Death by Supermarket

2009-01-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

The Era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945: A Brief History with Documents

Author: Richard D Polenberg
The era of Franklin D.Roosevelt and the New Deal was a time of depression and despair, economic rebirth and renewal, and mobilization for a war in both the East and the West. Richard Polenberg's introduction to this new volume provides an engaging historical and biographical overview of the period by focusing on one of its key actors. The biographical introduction is followed by over 45 topically arranged primary sources that provide students with a rich context in which to understand FDR's multifaceted role as president, reformer, policymaker, and commander-in-chief. The readings thoroughly cover issues of race and ethnicity, profile First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and explore the New Deal's transformative agencies for their economic and social ramifications and the constitutional revolution they triggered. A chronology, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and an index are also provided.

Interesting book: Kants Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace or Closed Chambers
Death by Supermarket

Author: Nancy Devill
Although Americans worship youth and beauty, we are aging rapidly. Death by Supermarket makes a compelling case that the epidemic of obesity and degenerative and neurological diseases in the US is the result of a new form of malnutrition. Since World War II, factory produced food, diets, and drugs have caused a new type of malnutrition that manifests in obesity, depression, lowered IQ, disease

George C Marshall or Life and Words

2009-01-17T14:53:00.000-08:00

George C. Marshall: The Rubrics of Leadership

Author: Seward W Husted
There have been more biographies of George C. Marshall than any other Army Chief of Staff or Secretary of Defense and almost any Secretary of State. This is not another one. Stewart Husted recognizes that, for Marshall, leadership was a verb, not a noun, and this book conjugates it. It is a leadership book bereft of most academic jargon--no collaborative synergisms, no Type A, B, or even C, no Theory X or Y, nothing approaching charismatic, not even a paradigm, shifting or not shifting. The Marshall Library, Bland's Papers, Pogue's Marshall, and nearly 100 other sources have been carefully plumbed to extract and glean Marshall leading, Marshall talking about leading, and Marshall teaching leadership. Only the biography and history is repeated as are necessary to putting the leadership issue in context. And the context is as current as tonight's CNN or Fox News--preparation for war, diversity, the United Nations, negotiating with France, disloyal generals, overreaching politicians, dealing with Russia and China. In this milieu, it should be noted that this is a book about democratic (small "D") leadership.

About the Author:
Stewart W. Husted is a retired U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel who has taught leadership at both the MBA and undergraduate levels.

Table of Contents:
Dedication     v
Acknowledgments     vii
Foreword   General J. H. Binford Peay, III     xi
Prologue   General Colin Powell     xiii
Author's Note     xv
Building a Solid Foundation     1
A Leader of Character     15
The U.S. Army: A Learning Organization     35
Managing and Planning the Impossible     53
Building a Winning Team     33
Building and Maintaining Morale     89
Communications     103
Turning Crisis into Success     125
Conflict Resolution and Negotiation     147
A Life of Selfless Service     169
Civil-Military Relations     183
Chronological Order of George Marshall's Professional Career, 1902-1951     235
Marshall Plan Speech: Harvard University, June 4, 1947, version     237
Bibliography     243
Index     247
Author's Biography     261
Book review: Men Who Knit The Dogs Who Love Them or The Complete Book of Sports Nutrition
Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary

Author: Veena Das
In this powerful, compassionate work, one of anthropology's most distinguished ethnographers weaves together rich fieldwork with a compelling critical analysis in a book that will surely make a signal contribution to contemporary thinking about violence and how it affects everyday life. Veena Das examines case studies including the extreme violence of the Partition of India in 1947 and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In a major departure from much anthropological inquiry, Das asks how this violence has entered "the recesses of the ordinary" instead of viewing it as an interruption of life to which we simply bear witness. Das engages with anthropological work on collective violence, rumor, sectarian conflict, new kinship, and state and bureaucracy as she embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of the relations among violence, gender, and subjectivity. Weaving anthropological and philosophical reflections on the ordinary into her analysis, Das points toward a new way of interpreting violence in societies and cultures around the globe. The book will be indispensable reading across disciplinary boundaries as we strive to better understand violence, especially as it is perpetrated against women.

In the Company of Soldiers or Sex Trafficking

2009-01-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat

Author: Rick Atkinson
"Intimate, vivid, and well-informed . . . On the field of battle where more than 770 journalists were 'embedded,' Atkinson stood apart as one of the very rare war correspondents who are also fine military historians."

—The New York Times Book Review

For soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, the road to Baghdad began with a midnight flight out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in late February 2003. For Rick Atkinson, who would spend nearly two months covering the division for The Washington Post, the war in Iraq provided a unique opportunity to observe today's U.S. Army in combat. Now, in this extraordinary account of his odyssey with the 101st, Atkinson presents an intimate and revealing portrait of the soldiers who fight the expeditionary wars that have become the hallmark of our age.

At the center of Atkinson's drama stands the compelling figure of Major General David H. Petraeus, described by one comrade as "the most competitive man on the planet." Atkinson spent virtually all day every day at Petraeus's elbow in Iraq, where he had an unobstructed view of the stresses, anxieties, and large joys of commanding 17,000 soldiers in combat. And all around Petraeus, we see the men and women of a storied division grapple with the challenges of waging war in an unspeakably harsh environment.

With the eye of a master storyteller, a brilliant military historian puts us right on the battlefield. In the Company of Soldiers is a compelling, utterly fresh view of the modern American soldier in action.

The New York Times
On a field of battle where more than 770 journalists were ''embedded'' with American troops, Atkinson stood apart as one of the very rare war correspondents who are also fine military historians. One of his earlier books dealt with the West Point class of 1966, including those platoon leaders sent to Vietnam who were bloodied in combat and embattled at home. Another of his books explored in detail the way Desert Storm was waged to liberate Kuwait in 1991. Atkinson actually learned he'd won the 2003 Pulitzer for An Army at Dawn, his history of the World War II North African campaign, while he was eating dust in the push toward Baghdad.
So you'd expect this new volume, In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat, would be the most intimate, vivid and well-informed account yet published of those major combat operations that President Bush declared at an end on May 1. And it is. — Christopher Dickey
The Washington Post
… this is still a perceptive, exciting and engaging book. The battle scenes are heart-pounding narratives of officers directing combat. Largely, the war on offer here is the one available over command post radio frequencies and in after-action reports, but Atkinson does a fine job of re-creating the division's battles from various threads of information, including the Army's own history of the conflict, written by the Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group. Atkinson is wise to offer an occasional view of the wider war. — Anthony Swofford
Publishers Weekly
A Pulitzer-winning Washington Post correspondent and military historian gives the best account yet to come out of the Iraq War, chronicling the unit in which the author was embedded, the 101st Airborne, or Screaming Eagles, and particularly its headquarters. This inevitably puts much emphasis on the division commander, the intense, competitive and thoroughly professional Maj. Gen. David Petraeus. But no one is left out, from General Wallace, the gifted corps commander, to a Muslim convert and the victims of his ghastly but little publicized fragging incident at the opening of the war. The narrative covers this large cast from the division's being called up for the war at Fort Campbell, Ky., through to the author's departure from the unit after the fall of Baghdad. Through the eyes of the men he associated with, we see excess loads of personal gear being lugged into Iraq and insufficient supplies of essentials like ammunition and water (the reason for the infamous "pause"). We see sandstorms and the limitations of the Apache attack helicopter, and understand the legal framework for avoiding civilian casualties and "collateral damage," and much else that went right or wrong-in a manner that is antitriumphalist, but not antimilitary. The son of an army officer and thoroughly up to date on the modern American army, the author pays an eloquent and incisive tribute to how the men and women of the 101st won their part of the war in Iraq, in a manner that bears comparison to his Pulitzer-winning WWII volume, An Army at Dawn. Superb writing and balance make this the account to beat. $150,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Mar. 15) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Wars come at a human cost to both the victors and the vanquished, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Atkinson (An Army at Dawn) loses no time reminding readers that, all technological advances aside, warfare is still brutal and deadly for those at the tip of the spear. As an embedded journalist in the Iraqi headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division from February 2003 until the declared end of major combat operations in April, Atkinson became closest to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus. From this vantage point, he was able to watch the operation unfold and closely observe the development of senior combat leaders in the crucible of battle. While Atkinson asserts that the "war's predicate was phony"-which thus "cheapened the sacrifices of the dead and living alike"-he argues that it is imperative not to "conflate the warriors with the war." He found the warrior leaders of the 101st "uncommonly excellent" and relates their great endurance, flexibility, resourcefulness, and abiding concern for the welfare of their soldiers throughout all the challenges and hardships of the campaign. This fluid battle narrative will hold wide appeal and is recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/03.]-Edward Metz, Combined Arms Research Lib., Leavenworth, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Atkinson takes the long view of history and blends it with a journalist's acuity for telling detail to create a narrative that is rich in immediacy, yet seasoned with thoughtful analysis. In the spring of 2003, the author accompanied combat units to Iraq. He spent two months embedded with the 101st Airborne Division's headquarters staff, sharing their daily experiences from initial deployment out of Fort Campbell, KY, to overseas staging areas in Kuwait, and ultimately bearing witness to the unit's march on Baghdad. His view of the war was from a vantage point that permitted scrutiny of strategy, planning, and decision making at the senior command level. Atkinson's portraits of military leadership are compelling, balanced, and nuanced; they reflect professionalism, a keen sense of responsibility for the 17,000 lives in the command, and constant reevaluation of optimal deployment of the unit's assets. The author draws upon his notes from the frequent battle update briefings he attended with the HQ staff, material from personal interviews conducted in the field, and supplementary data from "after action" reports to which he had access following his return to the States. This is a candid, well-paced work by a writer with an appreciation for the region's culture and geography, foreshadowing the challenges of U.S. presence "in a country with five thousand years' experience at resisting invaders."-Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A superbly written account of the recent unpleasantness in Mesopotamia. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post writer Atkinson (An Army at Dawn, 2002, etc.) saw combat early on in Gulf War II as an embedded journalist with the 101st Airborne. He enjoyed unusually close access to the division's commander, Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, a tough "warfighter" who, Atkinson writes, "kept me at his elbow in Iraq virtually all day, every day, allowing me to feel the anxieties and the perturbations, the small satisfactions and the large joys of commanding 17,000 soldiers under fire." Much of Atkinson's account has a commander's-eye, synoptic view of the 2003 Iraq campaign, and it resounds with extraordinary statistics and facts that presumably were not available to the average grunt: for instance, that the Iraqi army was "poorly trained [and] . . . excessively led: an army of half a million included 11,000 generals and 14,000 colonels. (The U.S. Army, roughly the same size, had 307 generals and 3,500 colonels.)" Toward the end of the fight on the ground, the Americans had taken only 10 percent of the prisoners that they had in the first Gulf War-not because the Iraqis fought any better, but because that army simply melted into the crowd, some to fight another day. Atkinson's memoir is engaging on many levels; for civilians, it provides a crash course in military culture, while veterans will appreciate some of the eternal verities of that culture's illogic, whereas American soldiers were not allowed to have alcohol in the theater, for instance, Czech soldiers merrily stowed case after case of beer in their bivouac; whereas previous generations of soldiers marched on their stomachs, today's apparentlycan't make a move without a staff attorney on hand; and so forth. Atkinson shows the soldiers of the 101st and their comrades nothing but respect, even as he expresses misgivings for the mission: "They were better than the cause they served." Sure to be textbook reading at the Pentagon, but deserving of the widest audience. $150,000 ad/promo; author tour. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn/Sagalyn Literary Agency

Look this: The New Glucose Revolution Pocket Guide to Peak Performance or The Paranoids Pocket Guide to Mental Illnesses You Can Just Feel Coming On
Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

Author: Siddharth Kara
Every year, millions of women and children are abducted, deceived, seduced, or sold into forced prostitution, made to service hundreds if not thousands of men before being discarded. Generating huge profits for their exploiters, sex slaves form the backbone of one of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises, for unlike narcotics, which must be grown, harvested, refined, and packaged, the female body requires no such "processing" and can be repeatedly consumed.
In this first-of-its-kind journey, Siddharth Kara investigates the mechanics of the global sex trafficking business across four continents and takes stock of its devastating human toll. Since first encountering the horrors of sexual slavery in a Bosnian refugee camp in 1995, Kara has taken multiple research trips to India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Albania, Moldova, Mexico, and the United States. He has met hundreds of slaves, has witnessed the sale of numerous human beings into slavery, and has confronted some of the criminals who have exploited them.
Drawing on his background in finance and economics, Kara provides a rare business analysis of sex trafficking, focusing on the local drivers and global macroeconomic trends that gave rise to the industry after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He quantifies the size, growth, and profitability of sex trafficking and other forms of modern slavery—metrics that have never been published before—and locates the sectors that would be hardest hit by specifically designed interventions and penalties.
Kara supplements his analysis with a riveting account of this unconscionable industry, sharing the moving stories ofvictims and revealing the shocking conditions of their exploitation. He concludes with a proposal for aggressive measures that target the essential business and economic functioning of the sex trafficking industry designed to provide a more effective global approach to abolishing these crimes against the world's most vulnerable and exploited persons.
The author will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the organization Free the Slaves.

Publishers Weekly
Kara, a former investment banker and executive, uses theoretical economics and business analysis to propose measures that could eradicate sex trafficking by undermining the profitability of the illegal activities associated with the crime. At considerable personal risk and expense-he is nearly attacked by a gang of pimps in Mumbai-the author penetrates seedy underworlds and forced labor markets to meet the women and children in the "dungeon of human disgrace" in Asia, Europe and the U.S. He highlights ubiquitous and disturbing trends-the heavy involvement of law enforcement agencies and personnel in trafficking and slavery-but this book's intentions suffers from Kara's self-professed "rudimentary" economic analysis, which often borders on the offensive (a theoretical calculation of the lifetime value of a sex slave) and an unscientific, ad hoc research model. While the evidence indicates the urgent need for action-a woman or child is trafficked for sexual exploitation every 60 seconds-Kara's economic approach fails to shed new light on the human cost of sex slavery and seems at the best of times beside the point, although the detailed statistical information he compiles-on everything from the costs of running a brothel in Queens, N.Y., to massage parlor and bonded labor economics worldwide-is a resource for researchers in the field. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Sex Trafficking: An Overview
2. India and Nepal
3. Italy and Western Europe
4. Moldova and the Former Soviet Union
5. Albania and the Balkans
6. Thailand and the Mekong Sub-region
7. The United States
8. A Framework for Abolition: Risk and Demand
Appendix A: Selected Tables and Notes
Appendix B: Contemporary Slavery Economics
Appendix C: Selected Human Development Statistics
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Working Longer or Presidents Most Wanted

2009-01-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

Working Longer: The Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge

Author: Alicia Haydock Munnell
Daily headlines warn American workers that their retirement years may be far from golden. The average worker needs more retirement income than ever, due to increased life expectancy and soaring health care costs. But the main components of the retirement income system—Social Security and employer-provided pensions—are on the decline. What's more, fewer employers are providing retiree health insurance, forcing households to purchase their own coverage or do without.
This bleak picture has inspired calls to fix Social Security, shore up employer pensions, and redesign 401(k) plans. But as Alicia Munnell and Steven Sass show in this thought-provoking book, the most effective response to the retirement income challenge lies elsewhere—in remaining in the workforce longer. At first blush, it may seem almost Orwellian to suggest that saving retirement requires reducing its length. But working longer does not mean working forever. By staying on the job for another two to four years, retirees in 2030 can be as well off as those in the current generation.
Working Longer investigates the prospects for moving the average retirement age from 63, the current figure, to 66. The authors ask whether future generations of workers will be healthy enough to work beyond the current retirement age, as well as whether older men and women are willing to do so. They examine companies' incentives to employ older workers and ask what government can do to promote continued participation in the workforce. Finally, they consider the challenge of ensuring a secure retirement for low-wage workers and those who are unable to continue to work.
Spending a few additional years in the laborforce can make a big difference. By continuing to work until their mid-60s or beyond, most individuals should be able to secure a reasonably comfortable retirement. Implementing such a change on a large scale will not be simple, however. It requires thought and planning on the part of individuals, employers, and the government. In Working Longer, Munnell and Sass explain what each of these groups can and should do to keep the American dream of retirement alive.
What People Are Saying
Hedrick Smith
"This book is a badly needed wake-up call. With lifetime pension plans dwindling and employer health benefits to retirees shrinking drastically, Americans-especially the Boomer generation-need to face the reality that Munnell and Sass describe: longer lives, higher costs, and inadequate savings in their 401k plans and elsewhere. This means that average Americans are going to have to work longer or face poverty in their so-called golden years."--(Hedrick Smith, correspondent, PBS Frontline: "Can You Afford to Retire?")

Jane Bryant Quinn
"The retirement landscape is different from the one you might have imagined just a few years ago. The good news is that you're living longer. The bad news is that health care will cost more, pensions are shrinking, and your investments might not have grown as fast as you'd hoped. Munnell and Sass show you how-by working a little longer-you can overcome these challenges and live the retirement you'd planned."--(Jane Bryant Quinn, financial columnist and author of Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People)

Robert Hutchens
"The United States has a retirement income problem. This remarkable book examines one potential solution to the problem: increased work by older Americans. Munnell and Sass provide thoughtful answers to the key questions. This is a lucid, thorough, and thought-provoking contribution to a very important debate."--(Robert Hutchens, Cornell University)

Senator Herb Kohl
"As Americans live longer and healthier lives, many seniors will need to generate additional income to remain financially secure. The skills, experience, and expertise of these seasoned workers can only stand to benefit our economy. This book is a timely and comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities of recruiting and retaining older workers."--(U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging)

John H. Biggs
"We have made remarkable progress in improving health and longevity. Now we need to figure out how to finance the substantially longer retirements these gains have produced. In Working Longer, Munnell and Sass make a strong case for moving the average age at retirement from 62 to 65 or 66-and thereby safeguarding the future of most retirees. Anyone who is interested in preparing our country for a better retirement future should read this elegant essay."--(John H. Biggs, former chairman and CEO, TIAA-CREF)

Book review: New Holland Professional or Down That Aisle in Style
Presidents' Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Extraordinary Executives, Colorful Campaigns, and White House Oddities

Author: Nick Ragon
The presidency is a special office. Along with the vice president, the victorious candidate is our only nationally elected official, and the position has come to symbolize American government worldwide. In many ways, the office is greater than the people who have occupied it.

In the 200-plus years of our nation's history, the presidency has grown and evolved dramatically. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, the nineteenth-century office holders exerted little executive power and mostly deferred to Congress on domestic affairs. Teddy Roosevelt began to change all that, and FDR completed the transformation with his New Deal, laying the foundations for the modern presidency. With the onset of the Cold War, the "imperial" presidency was in full bloom, and after a brief lull, the government's response to the war on terror has given the office new and unprecedented powers. Undoubtedly now the presidency is not only the most powerful and important job in the United States, but arguably in the world.

Presidents' Most Wanted™ celebrates the office, the people who inhabited it, and the process of winning it, with thirty-five chapters packed full of all sorts of presidential trivia. It covers everything from elections to first ladies to blunders and triumphs, and gives the reader an in-depth look at the most powerful person in the world.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations     ix
Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction     xiii
Firsts     1
Advisers     7
Distinguished Cabinet Members     14
Great Speeches     23
Bold Decisions     34
Legislative Accomplishments and Notable Achievements     43
Memorable Quotes     51
Generals Who Became President     58
Assassinations and Attempts     67
Illness     74
Biggest Blunders     82
Feuds and Rivalries     90
Scandal     97
Embarrassing Moments     105
Closest Elections     113
Presidential Losers     121
Debates     129
Third-Party Candidates     138
Primary Upsets     145
Campaign Slogans     152
First Ladies     157
Mistresses     166
Offspring     173
Vice Presidents: The Powerful and Memorable     180
Vice Presidents: The Forgettable and Regrettable     189
Ranking the Presidents: The Great and Near Great     196
Ranking the Presidents: The Good     207
Ranking thePresidents: The Average     216
Ranking the Presidents: The Bad and the Ugly     223
Postpresidential Careers     230
Tourist Destinations     238
Memorials and Monuments     244
Movies     251
Hackers in Chief     257
Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Presidency     264
Selected Bibliography     271
Index     275
About the Author     287

Pigs at the Trough or Humanitarianism in Question

2009-01-16T05:15:00.000-08:00

Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

Author: Arianna Huffington
Who filled the trough? Who set the table at the banquet of greed? How has it been possible for corporate pigs to gorge themselves on grossly inflated pay packages and heaping helpings of stock options while the average American struggles to make do with their leftovers?

Provocative political commentator Arianna Huffington yanks back the curtain on the unholy alliance of CEOs, politicians, lobbyists, and Wall Street bankers who have shown a brutal disregard for those in the office cubicles and on the factory floors. As she puts it:

“The economic game is not supposed to be rigged like some shady ring toss on a carnival midway.” Yet it has been, allowing corporate crooks to bilk the public out of trillions of dollars, magically making our pensions and 401(k)s disappear and walking away with astronomical payouts and absurdly lavish perks-for-life.

The media have put their fingers on pieces of the sordid puzzle, but Pigs at the Trough presents the whole ugly picture of what’s really going on for the first time—a blistering, wickedly witty portrait of exactly how and why the worst and the greediest are running American business and government into the ground.

Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski, Adelphia’s John Rigas, and the Three Horsemen of the Enron Apocalypse—Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andrew Fastow—are not just a few bad apples. They are manifestations of a megatrend in corporate leadership—the rise of a callous and avaricious mind-set that is wildly out of whack with the core values of the average American. WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, AOL, Xerox, Merrill Lynch, and the other scandals are only the tip of thetip of the corruption iceberg.

Making the case that our public watchdogs have become little more than obedient lapdogs, unwilling to bite the corporate hand that feeds them, Arianna Huffington turns the spotlight on the tough reforms we must demand from Washington. We need, she argues, to go way beyond the lame Corporate Responsibility Act if we are to stop the voracious corporate predators from eating away at the very foundations of our democracy.

Devastatingly funny and powerfully indicting, Pigs at the Trough is a rousing call to arms and a must-read for all those who are outraged by the scandalous state of corporate America.

Book Magazine
This wicked broadside on American capitalism from syndicated columnist Huffington targets corporate ubercriminals such as Enron's Ken Lay and Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, who allegedly stole millions of dollars from their companies. Whatever happened, Huffington asks, to the safeguards designed to check corporate greed? How did accountants, formerly the most boring people in the world, become dangerous and sexy henchmen? From offshore tax shelters and corporate-financed loans to "restatements of earnings," Huffington gives away the secret book-cooking recipes Martha Stewart never taught you and exposes the incestuous relationship between business and politics in twenty-first-century America—and she names names. It's a delicious and educational read about how this country really works. And there are fun quizzes that test your CEO IQ.
Publishers Weekly
Nationally syndicated columnist Huffington's greatest dilemma while writing this scathing indictment of the corporate and political culture that brought the "new economy" '90s crashing down must have been how to choose among the plethora of examples of greed, corruption, hypocrisy and political manipulation. So unsavory are the CEO villains, so unfathomable is their greed and monstrously callous is their disregard for the thousands of employees who lost jobs and savings because of them, that even the most worldly activist and most cynical political observers will be shocked by what they read here. And Huffington's indictment of the corporate culture of greed, one that she believes undermines democracy, goes far beyond the high-flying corporate figures featured in congressional investigations. Among her accusations are that U.S. drug companies allowed the African AIDS epidemic to rage in the interests of corporate profits, and that President Bush is a conspirator in the corporate disregard of the interests of the American public. This is a powerful book, brimming with wit and sulphurous satire that connects the dots among politicians, lobbyists and corporations, and demonstrates their destructive effect on the well-being of average Americans. She may well be on her way to achieving her goal of convincing readers "to join forces to storm the control room of the S.S. America." (Feb.) Forecast: With this book, Huffington should find readers among people who never thought they'd read her. On her Web site (ariannaonline.com), she explains her disillusionment with the political right, though she hasn't turned left, she says, but "beyond the standard left-right paradigm." Readers will eat this up. Look for a PW interview with Huffington in February. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

See also: Great Demo or Residential Design Using AutoCAD 2009
Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics

Author: Michael Barnett
Years of tremendous growth in response to complex emergencies have left a mark on the humanitarian sector. Various matters that once seemed settled are now subjects of intense debate. What is humanitarianism? Is it limited to the provision of relief to victims of conflict, or does it include broader objectives such as human rights, democracy promotion, development, and peacebuilding? For much of the last century, the principles of humanitarianism were guided by neutrality, impartiality, and independence. More recently, some humanitarian organizations have begun to relax these tenets. The recognition that humanitarian action can lead to negative consequences has forced humanitarian organizations to measure their effectiveness, to reflect on their ethical positions, and to consider not only the values that motivate their actions but also the consequences of those actions.
In the indispensable Humanitarianism in Question, Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address the humanitarian identity crisis, including humanitarianism's relationship to accountability, great powers, privatization and corporate philanthropy, warlords, and the ethical evaluations that inform life-and-death decision making during and after emergencies.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments     vii
List of Abbreviations     ix
Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present   Michael Barnett   Thomas G. Weiss     1
The Rise of Emergency Relief Aid   James D. Fearon     49
The Imperative to Reduce Suffering: Charity, Progress, and Emergencies in the Field of Humanitarian Action   Craig Calhoun     73
Saying "No" to Wal-Mart? Money and Morality in Professional Humanitarianism   Stephen Hopgood     98
Humanitarian Organizations: Accountable-Why, to Whom, for What, and How?   Janice Gross Stein     124
The Grand Strategies of Humanitarianism   Michael Barnett   Jack Snyder     143
The Power of Holding Humanitarianism Hostage and the Myth of Protective Principles   Laura Hammond     172
Sacrifice, Triage, and Global Humanitarianism   Peter Redfield     196
The Distributive Commitments of International NGOs   Jennifer C. Rubenstein     215
Humanitarianism as a Scholarly Vocation   Michael Barnett     235
Humanitarianism and Practitioners: Social Science Matters   Peter J. Hoffman   Thomas G. Weiss     264
Contributors     287
Index     291

Madam Secretary or We Were One

2009-01-14T07:59:00.000-08:00

Madam Secretary

Author: Madeleine Albright
The New York Times best-selling memoir of former secretary of state now in paperback.
In this outspoken and much-praised memoir, the highest-ranking woman in American history shares her remarkable story and provides an insider's view of world affairs during a period of unprecedented turbulence. A national bestseller on its first publication in 2003, Madam Secretary combines warm humor with profound insights and personal testament with fascinating additions to the historical record. Includes a new preface written especially for this edition.

Madeleine Albright, born in Prague, was confirmed as the sixty-fourth secretary of state in 1997. Her distinguished career in government includes positions in the National Security Council, as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and on Capitol Hill. She lives in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

Walter Russell Mead
Madeleine Albright, who rose from comparative obscurity as a daughter of Czech Jewish émigrés to become the first female secretary of state and thereby the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government, has given us the memoirist's equivalent of a tease. She lets readers see something of the private and rather endearing woman behind the public faзade and discreetly lets slip a few facts about her personal and emotional life, but Madame Secretary is a controlled performance, not a confessional. — The Washington Post
The New York Times
Work harder, be tougher, have fun. That could be Madeleine Albright's mantra in work and in life. Now she has given us her memoir, although it is unlike any other by a secretary of state. She tried on the memoirs of her predecessors for size, and they just didn't fit...It will make a great Mother's Day present.—Elaine Sciolino
The New Yorker
This memoir by America’s first female Secretary of State is a deeply conventional book, full of long accounts of negotiations and reflections on the proper uses of American power. Albright is not out to settle scores (her criticisms of colleagues are mild at worst) and seems, on balance, pleased with the foreign-policy record of the Clinton Administration. This might have made a dull book, were it not for Albright’s appealing character—personally ingenuous but professionally sophisticated, earnest but hard-nosed. Her eye for details—clothing, food, travel conditions—helps bring the diplomat’s world to life, and her portraits of foreign leaders are lively and evocative. The result is a book that creates a sense of policy made by real people, not by world-bestriding titans.
Publishers Weekly
As one might expect from someone with Albright's resume, the former Secretary of State speaks clearly, makes her points succinctly and doesn't stray into speculation, fancy or whimsy. She begins with her childhood in an intellectual Czechoslovakian family and moves fairly quickly through her education, courtship, marriage and motherhood before arriving at what can be considered the guts of the story-her impressive period of service as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and, eventually, as Secretary of State. Her no-nonsense tone is a perfect match for the material, her voice at once serious and warmly maternal. There are a few times when emotion seeps into her voice: when discussing her heated run-ins with Colin Powell or when relating details of the Kenyan embassy bombings and mass graves in Bosnia. An early passage in which she tells of the poor health of her twin babies and how she didn't want to name them until she knew they would survive is particularly moving. Such moments are necessarily rare in a memoir of this nature, but they help paint a well-rounded picture of this remarkable lady. Simultaneous release with the Miramax hardcover (Forecasts, Sept. 15). (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Albright, as Secretary of State the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States, recounts her life as a refugee fleeing the Nazis and then the Communists; as a new immigrant to the United States at age 11; her marriage into the prominent Guggenheim family and her painful divorce; and the life-altering discovery of her Jewish heritage. She also illuminates her remarkable public persona and her friendships and battles with world leaders such as Vaclav Havel, Vladimir Putin, Slobodan Milosevic, Hillary Clinton, and Kim Jong-il. Albright narrates her book in a strong, clear, and convincing voice. Recommended for public and academic libraries and for patrons with a strong interest in politics and world affairs.-Ilka Gordon, Marcell Community Lib., Cleveland Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Look this: Das Stellen der Moralherausforderungen der Führung: Licht werfend oder Schatten
We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah

Author: Patrick K ODonnell
The platoon included four pairs of best friends. Each of the four would lose a best friend forever.Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company’s 1st Platoon found itself in Fallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house, hand-to-hand combat since World War II. Civilians were used as human shields or as bait to lure soldiers into buildings rigged with explosives; suicide bombers approached from every corner hoping to die and take Americans with them; radical insurgents, high on adrenaline, fought to the death. The Marines of the 1st Platoon (part of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment) were among the first to fight in Fallujah, and they bore the brunt of this epic battle. When it was over, the platoon had suffered thirty-five casualties, including four dead.This is their story.Award-winning author and historian Patrick O’Donnell stood shoulder-to-shoulder with this modern band of brothers as they marched and fought through the streets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualties mounted. O’Donnell captures not only the sights, sounds, and smells of the gritty street combat, but also the human drama of young men in a close-knit platoon fighting for their lives-and the lives of their buddies. We Were One chronicles the 1st Platoon’s story, from its formation at Camp Pendleton in California to its near destruction in the smoldering ruins of Fallujah.We Were One is an unforgettable portrait of the new “Greatest Generation.”With 16 pages of extraordinary photographs from the front lines of the Battle for Fallujah.
Marine Corps Gazette
Destined to be a classic of urban close combat and honors the memory of all who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Military Illustrated
An exhilarating and instructive read.
Midwest Book Review
Capture[s] vivid encounters between soldiers and civilians and re-create[s] loss and combat conditions.

Publishers Weekly
Military historian O'Donnell (Into the Rising Sun) embedded himself in the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 1st Marine Regiment. His book describes its training and deployment to Iraq in 2004, where the platoon patrolled, fended off guerrilla attacks and finally "fought bravely and died in the Iraq War's fiercest battle" in Fallujah. Most of the book is a detailed, blow-by-blow description of the brutal street fighting, during which nearly the entire unit became casualties. As the author portrays them, these Marines were heroes and warriors with only macho flaws, such as heavy drinking or practical joking, while their enemies are simply terrorists. Maintaining that our troops fight because they love America and their buddies, but their opponents fight because they are drug-addled, suicidal maniacs, the author forgets what every military buff knows: one cannot be a great warrior without a worthy opponent. Like many embedded reporters, O'Donnell appears to have fallen in love with his subjects, adding to the growing genre of worshipful, jingoistic battle narratives about Iraq. Though these Marines fought with great courage and the details of their battle make gripping reading, the author's uncritical cheerleading reduces their accomplishment to fantasy heroics. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Recollections of action by U.S. Marines who fought in the Iraq War's fiercest battle. Military writer O'Donnell joined up partway through the battle for Fallujah with a unit from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and accompanied them through several days until the notorious Iraqi city, with its denizens of insurgent fighters, was pulverized. The bulk of the book, the author explains, is based on "corroborated oral history interviews which have been vetted." They were gleaned principally from surviving members of the 1st Platoon, Lima Company, nominated by O'Donnell as the troops having "seen the worst" of what was obviously a horrendous experience for anyone involved-some 14 of its original 45 members were left standing at the close of hostilities. Given those definitive circumstances, it is clear that he writes for no purpose other than to reflect the fullest possible credit on the individuals he happened to be embedded with. They are portrayed as uniformly dedicated and patriotic, bonded by a hatred of the enemy mujahadin and the overriding desire to protect one another and do the Corps proud. Some "love combat," while others have been able to overcome fear through indoctrination. The descriptions of urban warfare are graphic and grisly; most encounters result in at least one disfigured corpse (sometimes that of a Marine). A redundant line of justification reminds the reader that insurgents fight dirty, don't follow any of the rules of war and use civilians as shields, and that Marines in Iraq are often handicapped by engagement rules stemming from biased or inaccurate media coverage, etc. Clearly reflects valor and courage, but this is hardly "history" as most understand it.
What People Are Saying
Carlo D'Este
We Were One is a dramatic tale of courage, hardship and the extraordinarily difficult challenges faced by a gallant Marine unit in one of the world's most deadly places. Patrick O'Donnell brilliantly and compassionately recounts the story of our American sons called upon to fight, bleed, die, and survive in a hostile land.
—Carlo D'Este, author of Patton: A Genius For War

Hampton Sides
Here in these gripping pages is the Iraq War's fiercest battle, seen from the adrenaline-charged vantage of a few Marine buddies who are part of the next "Greatest Generation." We Were One is feelingly narrated by an intrepid war historian who risked his own life to capture every raw minute of their story.
—Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers

Bing West
A magnificent tale of combat-mixing valor, grit, love, blood and sacrifice. This book defines what it means to be a Marine grunt.
—Bing West, author of The March Up and No True Glory

Willy Buhl
Pat O'Donnell was with us on the ground in Fallujah-house to house. His story is historically accurate and describes the greatest personal and professional test of our lives. We Were One is destined to be a classic of urban close combat, and honors the memory of all who made the ultimate sacrifice for their brother Marines. I am deeply thankful that Pat kept his oath to Lima Company.
—LtCol Willy Buhl, CO Task Force 3/1, Operation AL FAJR

J. N. Mattis
As an embedded journalist in an Infantry Platoon, O'Donnell paints an authentic picture of our Nation's most precious assets--the Marine Riflemen--engaged in one of their fiercest fights. We Were One is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground account that enables readers to witness the overwhelming will and courage of Marines as they move against the enemy.
—J.N. Mattis, Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force

Democratic Institutions of Undemocratic Individuals or Eugene McCarthy

2009-01-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

Democratic Institutions of Undemocratic Individuals: Privatizations, Labor, and Democracy in Turkey and Argentina

Author: Peride K Blind
After almost three decades of economic adjustment and restructuring, what had been the political consequences of structural reforms? Democratic Institutions of Undemocratic Individuals is a cogent, intriguing and a long-overdue account of the real impact of economic globalization in the developing world. In this book, Peride K. Blind bridges an important gap in the literature attempting to straddle the yawning chasm between those scholars who argue that privatizations are good for democracy and those who maintain that they are not. This book demonstrates the differential impact of privatizations on different sectors of society. It gives a different perspective on the virtues and shortcomings of labor unions in democratization processes, and introduces fascinating comparisons between Kemalist and Peronist templates of nation-building. It yields a judicious process-tracing of Turkish and Argentine labor developments and depicts the groundbreaking interlacing of privatization and democratization in the global era.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables and Figures Introduction Democratic Institutions of Undemocratic Individuals 1
1 A Recipe for Deciphering Democratization Today: Privatizations and Labor 7
2 History of Labor Developments in Turkey: From State-Dependent to Cautiously Autonomous Unionism 31
3 History of Labor Developments in Argentina: From Peronist to Cautiously Independent Unionism 57
4 Turkish Labor in the Global Era: Autonomous Unions and Transiently Unified Workers 85
5 Argentine Labor in the Global Era: More Plural Unions and Atomized Workers 123
6 Effects of Privatizations on Labor: A Cross-Cultural Comparison and Implications for Democracy 183 Notes 209 Bibliography 225 Index 253
Interesting book: Dementia Caregivers Share Their Stories or Fundamentals of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy
Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism

Author: Dominic Sandbrook
and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Diarios de motocicleta Notas de viaje por Am rica latina or Kingfish

2009-01-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Diarios de motocicleta. Notas de viaje por Amйrica latina

Author: Ernesto Che Guevara
Edición ampliada y corregida con Prefacio de Aleida Guevara March.
El origen de Notas de viaje es el diario que redactó Ernesto 'Che' Guevara cuando en diciembre de 1951, a la edad de veinitrés años, decidió emprender un largo recorrido en moto por América Latina con su amigo Alberto Granado. Juntos, decidieron empezar su ruta en la provincia de Córdoba para recorrer la Argentina y continuar su viaje por Chile, Perú, Colombia y Venezuela. El Che acabó su viaje solo --tras ocho meses de periplo-- cuando consiguió volver desde Miami hasta Buenos Aires para poner fin a lo que, sin duda, fue una gran aventura.
"Todo lo trascendente de nuestra empresa se nos escapaba en ese momento, sólo veíamos el polvo del camino y nosotros devorando kilómetros en la fuga hacia el norte..."
---Ernesto Che Guevara
La Poderosa II parecía un enorme animal o una visión extraterrestre, flanqueada por dos bolsos de lona impermeable y en la parte posterior un sobrecargado portaequipaje. Los dos jóvenes argentinos estaban listos para la aventura, para su "vagar sin rumbo por nuestra Mayúscula América". El viaje comenzó...
Un muy joven Ernesto Guevara, realiza un viaje por América Latina junto a su amigo Alberto Granados, parten de Argentina y se enfrenta a aventuras y realidades que lo transformaran para siempre. Ernesto va en busca de sí mismo, del sentido de su vida. Una etapa trascendental en la formación del futuro Che.
Esta nueva edici&iocute;n inlcuye fotografías inéditas tomadas por Ernesto "Che" Guevara a los 23 años, durante su travesía por América del sur, y es presentada con un tierno prefacio de Aleida Guevara, quien ofrece una perspectiva distinta de su padre, el hombre y el ícono de millones de personas.
What People Are Saying

Nuestro film es sobre un hombre joven, el Che, lleno de amor por el continente y buscando su lugar en él.
---Walter Salles, director de la película Diarios de motocicleta (productor ejecutivo: Robert Redford / protagonistas: Gael García Bernal y Rodrigo de la Serna).

Book review: Mr Adams Last Crusade or Spanking the Donkey
Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long

Author: Richard D Whit
From the moment he took office as governor in 1928 to the day an assassin’s bullet cut him down in 1935, Huey Long wielded all but dictatorial control over the state of Louisiana. A man of shameless ambition and ruthless vindictiveness, Long orchestrated elections, hired and fired thousands at will, and deployed the state militia as his personal police force. And yet, paradoxically, as governor and later as senator, Long did more good for the state’s poor and uneducated than any politician before or since. Outrageous demagogue or charismatic visionary? In this powerful new biography, Richard D. White, Jr., brings Huey Long to life in all his blazing, controversial glory.
White taps invaluable new source material to present a fresh, vivid portrait of both the man and the Depression era that catapulted him to fame. From his boyhood in dirt-poor Winn Parish, Long knew he was destined for power–the problem was how to get it fast enough to satisfy his insatiable appetite. With cunning and crudity unheard of in Louisiana politics, Long crushed his opponents in the 1928 gubernatorial race, then immediately set about tightening his iron grip. The press attacked him viciously, the oil companies howled for his blood after he pushed through a controversial oil processing tax, but Long had the adulation of the people. In 1930, the Kingfish got himself elected senator, and then there was no stopping him.
White’s account of Long’s heyday unfolds with the mesmerizing intensity of a movie. Pegged by President Roosevelt as “one of the two most dangerous men in the country,” Long organized a radical movement to redistribute money through his Share OurWealth Society–and his gospel of pensions for all, a shorter workweek, and free college spread like wildfire. The Louisiana poor already worshiped him for building thousands of miles of roads and funding schools, hospitals, and universities; his outrageous antics on the Senate floor gained him a growing national base. By 1935, despite a barrage of corruption investigations, Huey Long announced that he was running for president.
In the end, Long was a tragic hero–a power addict who squandered his genius and came close to destroying the very foundation of democratic rule. Kingfish is a balanced, lucid, and absolutely spellbinding portrait of the life and times of the most incendiary figure in the history of American politics.
The New York Times - David Oshinsky
Kingfish," by Richard D. White Jr., who teaches public administration at Louisiana State University, is a faithful retelling of a familiar story. White highlights the vulgar outbursts, bloody fistfights and snake-oil salesmanship that defined "the reign of Huey P. Long."
Publishers Weekly
The inspiration for Robert Penn Warren's demagogue in All the King's Men, Huey Long was Louisiana's governor, then U.S. senator and controlled virtually every aspect of the state government from 1929 until he was shot to death in 1935 at age 42. Long used the same skills he had honed as a charming traveling salesman for a lard substitute to appeal directly to potential voters and bypass the powerful political bosses. He filled the ranks of government employees with his own supporters, shamelessly appointing his brother as a tax collector even though he had promised to abolish the post and use the money for a TB hospital. Long may have started out as a populist with the admirable goal of providing free textbooks to schoolchildren, but squandering resources and lining his own pockets, he created Louisiana's first income tax.. Supposedly pro-labor, Long put the kibosh on pensions, unemployment insurance and a minimum wage. Crude and vindictive, Long had his eye on the presidency, influenced an Arkansas U.S. senate race and may have been killed by a "trigger-happy" bodyguard aiming at an attacker and not by an assassin's gun. LSU professor White's (Roosevelt the Reformer, etc.) latest is lively and well researched but isn't as groundbreaking as the biography by William Ivy Hair or as authoritative as Pulitzer-winner T. Harry Williams's. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (On sale Apr. 4) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
FDR considered Louisiana's Huey P. Long (1893-1935) one of the most dangerous men in America. Novelist Robert Penn Warren captured the essence of Long's Southern demagoguery in All the King's Men. Now, for the first time, a political scientist (public administration, Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge; Roosevelt the Reformer: Theodore Roosevelt as Civil Service Commissioner) has plunged into dissecting Long's political career. White focuses on how the bright and ruthless Long acquired dictatorial power during his years as governor and U.S. senator (1928-35). He provided textbooks, charity hospitals, and paved roads to those who had been largely ignored since the Civil War-rural farmers-while effectively destroying the opposition. Readers have had three main options from historians: T. Harry Williams's favorable Huey Long (a 1970 Pulitzer Prize winner), the brief and negative view of Glen Jeansonne's Messiah of the Masses, and the attempt at historical balance in William Ivy Hair's The Kingfish and His Realm. Political buffs will delight in White's readable account even if it shortchanges the economic and social conditions that made Long virtually inevitable. Nonetheless, the rise of demagogues abroad suggests this book's importance. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Lethal Passage or Giants

2009-01-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun

Author: Erik Larson
This devastating book begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.

In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." In so doing, he not only illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.
Publishers Weekly
Wall Street Journal reporter Larson has written a new afterword to this timely study of American gun culture.
Library Journal
In this work, Larson interweaves the story of a boy and his gun (a 16-year-old who kills one teacher and wounds another with a member of the infamous MAC-10 family) with a study of the causes and effects of our gun-happy society. He admits that he has no problem with using handguns for sport or even as a last line of self-defense. But he goes on to propose a model bill calling for sweeping changes in laws governing the distribution, sale, and design of firearms. It's a pity that, by producing a reasonably balanced account of an incendiary subject, Larson will probably alienate both the pro- and antigun camps, and his bill, as he acknowledges, ``doesn't have a chance in hell of being passed.'' Highly recommended nonetheless. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/93.-- Jim Burns, Ottumwa, Ia.
Newsday
Should be required reading.

Look this: Understanding Your Health or Vibrational Healing
Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

Author: John Stauffer
"Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were the preeminent self-made men of their time. In this dual biography, John Stauffer describes the transformations in the lives of these two giants during a major shift in cultural history, when men rejected the status quo and embraced new ideals of personal liberty. As Douglass and Lincoln reinvented themselves and ultimately became friends, they transformed America." At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross their threshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincoln recognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy the Confederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized that Lincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goal of freeing the nation's blacks. Their relationship shifted in response to the country's debate over slavery, abolition, and emancipation.
Theresa McDevitt - Library Journal
Many books have examined the life of Abraham Lincoln and analyzed his attitudes toward blacks and emancipation. In this comparative treatment, Stauffer (English, Harvard; Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race) traces the extraordinary life journeys of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass from humble origins to national prominence, emphasizing their brief and unique friendship. Enlivening the story with rich detail and well-chosen quotations, Stauffer offers insight into Lincoln's personal and political attitudes toward blacks through an examination of his relationship with the great abolitionist orator whom he treated with courtesy and respect even when his steps toward emancipation and full equality for African Americans were, in Douglass's eyes, agonizingly slow and limited. This interesting book, which grew out of a well-well received article in Time magazine, is recommended for large academic libraries, even those that already own individual biographies of these men.
Kirkus Reviews
A dual biography highlighting the remarkable similarities and the crucial differences between "the two pre-eminent self-made men in American history."The interest in linking Lincoln and Douglass has never been greater-see, for example, Paul and Stephen Kendrick's Douglass and Lincoln (2008) and James Oakes's The Radical and the Republican (2007)-and surely the intertwined careers of both men support continuing efforts to understand their combined, enduring impact. In five double-barreled chapters focusing on comparable stages in each man's life, Stauffer (History of American Civilization and English/Harvard Univ.; The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, 2002, etc.) explains how Douglass the slave and Lincoln the frontiersman emerged from a culture of poverty, ignorance and violence to international renown. Both were physically imposing; both abstained from tobacco and alcohol at a time when few men did. Both were poetry lovers-they had Robert Burns in common-and both were unsuitably married, Douglass to an illiterate, Lincoln to a termagant. A naturally talented orator, Douglass worked to perfect his writing. Always a good, later a great writer (and a superb editor), Lincoln slowly emerged as an effective public speaker. Addressing public issues, Douglass decided quickly and frequently changed strategies. Lincoln always made up his mind slowly, but then rarely reversed course. Douglass, the radical, never befriended an enemy until after converting that man to his cause. Lincoln, the conciliator, believed that "if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." Notwithstanding calculated, public statements byLincoln and Douglass, Stauffer goes too far in claiming "an interracial friendship." The author is also oddly willing to speculate broadly on Lincoln's premarital sexual history, and unwilling to reciprocate when it comes to Douglass's extramarital relations. Despite these lapses, Stauffer's dexterous interweaving of biographical detail makes for enjoyable reading and serves as a useful introduction to understanding the dynamic between two 19th-century giants. A frequently insightful look at the makeup of two men who helped remake the country.

Table of Contents:
Prologue: Meeting the President (August 10, 1863) 1
1 Privileged Slave and Poor White Trash 25
2 Fugitive Orator and Frontier Politician 67
3 Radical Abolitionist and Republican 129
4 Abolitionist Warrior and War President 213
5 Friends 273
Epilogue 303
Acknowledgments 315
Notes 319
Index 417

Robert Moses and the Modern City or Javatrekker

2009-01-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York

Author: Hilary Ballon
A fresh look at the greatest builder in the history of New York City and one of its most controversial figures.

Go to: The Cult of Thinness or Iron Yoga
Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee

Author: Dean Cycon
Behind a single coffee bean lie the stories of countless lives and cultures, of success, opportunity, struggle, and tradition amid a complex global landscape of economics and desire. Founder and owner of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee, Dean Cycon is truly one of the few people on Earth who can be described as a professor of coffee. In Javatrekker, Cycon explores the untold origins of coffee through his travels to ten different producing countries. Drawing upon his wide range of experience and study as a coffee roasting entrepreneur, lawyer, activist, and development worker, he shares the unique qualities of the coffee, insight into the lands and culture, and a greater understanding of the economic and personal challenges of bringing each bean to your grinder.
What is Fair Trade Coffee?
Coffee prices paid to the farmer are based on the international commodity price for coffee (the "C" price) and the quality premium each farmer negotiates. Fair Trade provides an internationally determined minimum floor price when the C plus premium sinks below $1.26 per pound for conventional and $1.41 for organics (that's us!). As important as price, Fair Trade works with small farmers to create democratic cooperatives that insure fair dealing, accountability and transparency in trade transactions. In an industry where the farmer is traditionally ripped off by a host of middlemen, this is tremendously important.
Cooperatives are examined by the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO), or the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), European NGOs, for democratic process and transparency. Those that pass are listed on the FLO Registry or become IFAT members. Cooperatives provide important resources and organization to small farmers in the form of technical assistance for crop and harvest improvement, efficiencies in processing and shipping, strength in negotiation and an array of needed social services, such as health care and credit. Fair Trade also requires pre-financing of up to sixty percent of the value of the contract, if the farmers ask for it. Several groups, such as Ecologic and Green Development Fund have created funds for pre-finance lending.
Publishers Weekly
This surprisingly gripping travelogue is filled with tales from the "coffeelands," barely-on-the-map locales in Africa, the Americas and Asia where coffee farmers struggle to survive. Written with knowledge and good cheer by the founder and owner of Dean's Beans Organic Coffee, the book reads more like a trippy adventure than a business trip, though the issues Cycon raises are vital, prescient and little known ("99 percent of the people involved in coffee... have never been to a coffee village"). While learning firsthand about the hardships involved in growing and selling coffee beans-the world's second most valuable commodity, after oil-the author finds himself in Guatemala, praying to an effigy wearing a Mickey Mouse tie and cowboy boots; eating armadillo leg in Colombia; working to heal landmine victims in Nicaragua and war widows in Sumatra; and meeting with all manner of farmers, bureaucrats and dignitaries. His dispatches are highly enlightening, demonstrating how few national governments provide coffee growers with water, education, health care or even protection from harmful pesticides; further, coffee growers' income is subject to the whims of financial speculators half a world away. After reading this eye-opening book, it's impossible not to reconsider-and feel grateful for-the myriad people behind your morning cup. (Oct.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments and Dedication
Prologue: The Inner Worlds of Coffee—Evolution of a Javatrekker
Part I – Africa
Chapter 1. Miriam's Well, the Emperor's Bed and Kaldi's Goats (Ethiopia 2002)
Chapter 2. Fermenting Change, But Don't Cross the Big Man (Kenya 2005)
Part II – South America
Chapter 3. Bridging the Gap (Peru 2003)
Chapter 4. Global Warning: Climate Change, Conflict and Culture (Colombia 2007)
Part II – Central America
Chapter 5. Lighting a Candle for Freedom (Guatemala 1993)
Chapter 6. Tracking the Death Train (Mexico/El Salvador 2005)
Chapter 7. Coffee, Landmines, and Hope (Nicaragua 2001)
Part IV – Asia
Chapter 8. Good Friends, Cold Beer. . . and a Water Buffalo (Sumatra 2003)
Chapter 9. The 300-Man March (Papua-New Guinea 2004)
Epilogue

The Turnaround or Murdering McKinley

2009-01-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

The Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic

Author: William Bratton
When Bill Bratton was sworn in as New York City's police commissioner in 1994, he made what many considered a bold promise: The NYPD would fight crime in every borough...and win. It seemed foolhardy; even everybody knows you can't win the war on crime. But Bratton delivered. In an extraordinary twenty-seven months, serious crime in New York City went down by 33 percent, the murder rate was cut in half—and Bill Bratton was heralded as the most charismatic and respected law enforcement official in America.. In this outspoken account of his news-making career, Bratton reveals how his cutting-edge policing strategies brought about the historic reduction in crime.

Bratton's success made national news and landed him on the cover of Time. It also landed him in political hot water. Bratton earned such positive press that before he'd completed his first week on the job, the administration of New York's media-hungry mayor Rudolph Giuliani, threatened to fire him. Bratton gives a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at the sizzle and substance, and he pulls no punches describing the personalities who really run the city.

Bratton grew up in a working-class Boston neighborhood, always dreaming of being a cop. As a young officer under Robert di Grazia, Boston's progressive police commissioner, he got a ground-level view of real police reform and also saw what happens when an outspoken, dynamic, reform-minded police commissioner starts to outshine an ambitious mayor. He was soon in the forefront of the community policing movement and a rising star in the profession. Bratton had turned around four major police departments when he accepted the number onepolice job in America.

When Bratton arrived at the NYPD, New York's Finest were almost hiding; they had given up on preventing crime and were trying only to respond to it. Narcotics, Vice, Auto Theft, and the Gun Squads all worked banker's hours while the competition—the bad guys—worked around the clock. Bratton changed that. He brought talent to the top and instilled pride in the force; he listened to the people in the neighborhoods and to the cops on the street. Bratton and his "dream team" created Compstat, a combination of computer statistics analysis and an unwavering demand for accountability. Cops were called on the carpet, and crime began to drop. With Bratton on the job, New York City was turned around.

Today, New York's plummeting crime rate and improved quality of life remain a national success story. Bratton is directly responsible, and his strategies are being studied and implemented by police forces across the country and around the world. In Turnaround, Bratton shows how the war on crime can be won once and for all.
Publishers Weekly
Scant weeks after Rudy Giuliani's landslide reelection as New York's mayor, his ousted police chief returns to haunt him, `a la Banquo's ghost, in this self-serving but powerful memoir. With just-the-facts crispness, Bratton skewers his "callous" and "paranoid" former boss, whose effort to take credit for Bratton's manifold innovations caused the popular commissioner to step down after only 27 months on the job. As Bratton tells it, the struggle between the two lawmen was fueled by testosterone: in one corner, megalomaniac Rudy; in the other, the "CEO cop," a "gung-ho conscientious" civil servant nicknamed "Cannonballs," who came to see himself as a cross between Lee Iacocca and Babe Ruth. Bratton candidly reports how he spent his early years in the Boston Police Department "plotting and intriguing" to become commissioner; when his relentless courting of the media antagonized his superiors, he left to head up Boston's beleaguered Transit Police, then New York's. Both as top transit cop and then as commissioner, Bratton perfected the art of the "turnaround," mostly by linking disorder (e.g., fare evasion, panhandling, "broken windows") to more serious crimes, and by boosting cop morale by mobilizing top performers and requisitioning state-of-the-art equipment. And unlike Giuliani, who hated to be upstaged, Bratton hired a staff of renegade deputies, including Jack Maple ("a character out of Guys and Dolls") and flashy TV crime reporter John Miller. Despite a tendency to lapse into lecture-circuit pieties ("if you make unreasonable demands you get reasonable results"), Bratton comes across as a tough-minded visionary who rose above petty office politics to lead the city's rebirth. (Feb.)
Library Journal
More than the story of Bratton's two years as New York City police chief and his disagreements with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, this work details Bratton's early life and tenure at previous policing jobs while providing a crash review of contemporary American policing. For every citizen who has wondered, "What do these cops think they're doing?" this book is the answer. Bratton's book resembles Los Angeles Police Chief William Williams's Taking Back Our Streets (LJ 4/1/96), but it covers more. The management reengineering that Bratton undertook in all of his command positions earned him the sobriquet CEO Cop and allowed him to step right into private industry when he resigned. Bratton may or may not be responsible for New York's plummeting crime rate, but he put impetus behind a new era of community and quality-of-life policing as espoused by George Kelling and Catherine M. Coles in Fixing Broken Windows (LJ 12/96). This book is certain to be widely read and may be Bratton's lasting contribution. [Preivewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/97.]Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice Lib., New York
NY Times Book Review
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's first Police Commissioner, apparently dismissed for shining too brightly in the news, gives his version of things.

Go to: Accountants Guide to Fraud Detection and Control or Business Communication Today
Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America

Author: Eric Rauchway
When President William McKinley was murdered at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, Americans were bereaved and frightened. Rumor ran rampant: A wild-eyed foreign anarchist with an unpronounceable name had killed the commander-in-chief. Eric Rauchway's brilliant Murdering McKinley restages Leon Czolgosz's hastily conducted trial and then traverses America with Dr. Vernon Briggs, a Boston alienist who sets out to discover why Czolgosz rose up to kill his president.

Publishers Weekly
This ambitious book paints a fresh picture of American culture a century ago and finds there the confused stirrings of our own age. Rauchway's lens opens on the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz and keeps that event in focus throughout. The author's aim is to get us to understand in new ways the dawning 20th century, when so many of our present political and social struggles took form and solutions were proposed. For instance, the involvement in Czolgosz's case of "alienists" and criminologists provides Rauchway (The Refuge of Affections) with openings into such varied issues as nativism, racism, industrial conditions and social work. As for politics, he deals skillfully with now mostly forgotten issues-such as tariffs and currency policy-that rarely appeal to readers, but which here gain clarity through Rauchway's deft brevity. Most important, he shows how the nation's culture, and Theodore Roosevelt, who gained the presidency on McKinley's death, got caught up in a debate about the reasons for the murder. Was Czolgosz spurred by his psychological state or by anarchist ideology? Did the murder's origins lie within the assassin or in the social conditions that produce desperate people? These are issues that continue to divide Americans. And the book shines in dealing with them, making an important contribution to historical understanding. Rauchway's explanation for Roosevelt's 1912 loss as "Bull Moose" candidate of the Progressive Party-that he was caught between opposing interpretations of the roots of the nation's ills-is especially provocative. That alone should make the book controversial. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Rauchway (Refuge of Affections: Family and American Reform Politics, 1900- 1920) here examines the murder of President William McKinley in 1901, with special emphasis on his assassin, Leon Czolgosz. Following Czolgosz's execution, Vernon Briggs, a Boston psychologist (or alienist, in period slang), probed into Czolgosz's background, looking for reasons why he committed this terrible crime. Though new president Theodore Roosevelt and other government leaders encouraged the idea that Czolgosz's actions had been politically motivated, given his connections with Socialist and anarchist groups, Briggs found that this was only part of the story. Evidently, Czolgosz incorrectly thought he was dying of syphilis; his conversion to radical politics came relatively late, and he decided to end his life with the death of the President. Rauchway further holds that Roosevelt moved to enact reforms that shaped the Progressive era as a means to reduce the threat of socialism and anarchism. This thought-provoking work is based on archival materials, including Czolgosz's trial manuscript and Briggs's personal record. Recommended for all libraries.-Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Lib., Parkersburg Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An exploration of the personalities and sociopolitical forces that brought together President William McKinley and assassin Leon Czolgosz on Sept. 6, 1901. McKinley was downed by two assassins, Rauchway (History/UC Davis) argues. Czolgosz fired two shots into the president, but it was vice-president Theodore Roosevelt who proceeded to make most Americans and many historians forget about him. Rauchway first examines the assassination, the immediate capture of Czolgosz, his speedy trial only weeks after the murder (the jury deliberated for 25 minutes), death by electrocution a month later, the perfunctory autopsy, and the gruesome burial, during which sulfuric acid was poured over the body. American political and social institutions functioned very differently then, the author demonstrates. Although Czolgosz was identified early on as an anarchist, he was never part of any official organization. (The oxymoronic nature of an anarchist "organization" is not lost on Rauchway.) Emma Goldman charmed the future assassin when he heard her speak in Cleveland; Czolgosz followed her to Buffalo shortly before the killing, but he was not known to the principal anarchists of the day. Among the most interesting parts here are the summaries of post-mortem interviews with the killer's family in Cleveland conducted by Lloyd Vernon Briggs, a young physician who was attempting to determine if there were any psychological or medical reasons for his decision to shoot the president. Briggs discovered that Czolgosz had, in fact, led a fairly typical working-class life but had lost his job in a steel mill after the Panic of 1893. He was also, submits Rauchway, deeply concerned that he had developed syphilis andmight have believed he was dying. The author argues as well that Roosevelt's progressive beliefs arose in part out of his desire for a society that would not create men like Leon Czolgosz. Occasionally sluggish prose, but serviceable enough to convey ideas of great consequence. (15 b&w photos)

Hidden Iran or Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

2009-01-11T06:41:00.000-08:00

Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (A Council on Foreign Relations Book)

Author: Ray Takeyh
“Savvy and accessible . . . A shrewd, timely guide to Iran's schisms, interests and ambitions.”—The Washington Post Book World

In Hidden Iran, leading Middle East expert Ray Takeyh demystifies the Iranian regime and shows how this pivotal country's internal conflicts have produced its belligerent international posture, especially toward the United States. With President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pushing the development of a nuclear program, making a play for regional preeminence, and stirring up anti-Israel sentiment, the consequences of not understanding Iran have never been higher. Takeyh explains why this country continues to confound American expectations and offers a new paradigm for managing our relations with this rising power—at a time when getting Iran right has become increasingly urgent for America.
Publishers Weekly
In this well-constructed sketch of American-Iranian relations, Takeyh (senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations) critiques the U.S.'s unnuanced approach to Iran since its 1979 revolution as well as the failure of successive administrations to note that decades of sanctions and containment haven't significantly changed Iranian behavior. A picture emerges of a complex society marked by cultural struggle and compromise, as Takeyh criticizes the perception of Iranian politics as monolithic. He concludes that the "chimera of regime change" must finally be rejected, and pointedly observes that "it is rare... for a state that views nuclear weapons as fundamental to its security interests to dispense with such weapons under relentless threats." Takeyh urges America to look beyond President Ahmadinejad to such institutions as Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council and Foreign Ministry, each of which distanced themselves from Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel rhetoric. Takeyh even suggests areas in which Iran and the U.S. might forge a "selective partnership"-not least their shared need for a stable Iraq. Though he occasionally slips into a too-casual assumption of the inevitability of his forecasts, Takeyh (The Receding Shadow of the Prophet) provides a well-argued, seldom heard viewpoint. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Think Iraq is a mess? Wait until the neocons get to Iran, warns Council on Foreign Relations fellow Takeyh. Getting Iran wrong is the single thread that has linked American administrations of all political persuasion, writes the author. In some instances, getting Iran wrong has involved overestimating its people's willingness to endure oppression, as with the hated Pahlavi dynasty, which fell in 1979. In other instances, it has involved overestimating the power of religious orthodoxy-and misreading the very nature of the Iranian theocracy. In the case of the Bush administration and its think-tankers, misreadings are tinged with ideological certainty that Iran is indeed a member of the league of rogue nations: Thus, former CIA director James Woolsey deems Iran the "central antagonist" in World War IV ("the third evidently being the Cold War," Takeyh glosses), while Iraq war architect Richard Perle urges the overthrow of "that miserable government." Takeyh argues that Iran seeks only to be regionally influential, though it has an unfortunate habit of projecting its power via terrorist proxies, as with Hezbollah in Lebanon and various Shiite factions in Iraq. All that aside, Iran is best understood as a nation in search of itself, one in which Islamic ideology, factional politics (including reformist, democratic organizations) and pragmatic national interests are in constant struggle. Even if the 2005 presidential election seemed to secure the ascendancy of conservative power, opposition politics is very much alive. It does no good, Takeyh urges, to isolate Iran; the specter of an "impudent American president castigating Iran as part of an 'axis of evil,' or denigrating its political processby proclaiming its elections a fraud even before they take place, only provides ammunition to hard-liners decrying Iran's democrats as unwitting agents of Western machinations."Think of Iran as China, Takeyh concludes in this useful essay, a nation with whom it is possible to compete and cooperate at once. We'll see. Agent: Larry Weissman/Larry Weissman, LLC

Books about: Core Concepts in Health or Bloom
Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Modern Library Series)

Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Jefferson aspired beyond the ambition of a nationality,
and embraced in his view the whole future of man."
--Henry Adams
What People Are Saying
Henry Adams
Jefferson aspired beyond the ambition of a nationality, and embraced in his view the whole future of man... His true delight was in an intellectual life of science and art... He fairly reveled in what he believed to be beautiful, and his writings often betrayed subtle feeling for artistic form - a sure mark of intelectual seriousness.

The Revolt of the Masses or New Worlds Lost Worlds

2009-01-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

The Revolt of the Masses

Author: Jos Ortega y Gasset
Social upheaval in early twentieth-century Europe is the historical setting for this seminal study by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset of the 'mass man'-the phenomenon of mass culture that more than any other factor stamps the character of modern life.

Books about: Food Engineering Aspects of Baking Sweet Goods or Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down
New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors, 1485-1603

Author: Susan Brigden
No period in British history has more resonance and mystery today than the sixteenth century. New Worlds, Lost Worlds brings the atmosphere and events of this great epoch to life. Exploring the underlying religious motivations for the savage violence and turbulence of the period-from Henry VIII's break with Rome to the overwhelming threat of the Spanish Armada-Susan Brigden investigates the actions and influences of such near-mythical figures as Elizabeth I, Thomas More, Bloody Mary, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Authoritative and accessible, New Worlds, Lost Worlds, the latest in the Penguin History of Britain series, provides a superb introduction to one of the most important, compelling, and intriguing periods in the history of the Western world.
Library Journal
This is a splendid piece of scholarship that engages the reader's imagination; Brigden's (history, Lincoln Coll., Oxford) extensive research has paid off in spades. While readers may find themselves running to the OED to check words and concepts long forgotten, the chase is worth it. The title hints at the lost worlds of this dramatic era in Britain, beginning with the early years of Henry VII and carrying forward through the fascinating dynastic and religious struggles of Henry VIII; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Elizabeth I. The book covers not only England but Ireland, Scotland, and Wales as well, and scholars of this period will come away with refreshing insights into this remarkable period. General readers will be equally delighted because the writing is so fluid and accessible. The chapter on social life and customs, "Family and Friends," could stand alone as a single book on Tudor times. Highly recommended for all academic and larger public libraries. Gail Benjafield, St. Catharines P.L., Ont. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A history of the Tudor reign, which solidified the power of the crown amid great religious tumult. The Tudors ruled during one of the most awkward stages of English history. Henry IV came to power by the sword, defeating the dastardly Richard III, who had murdered his rivals to the throne. The first Tudor wasn't much more humane, however, and he kept a ruthless grip on the nobility, who every now and then raised armies against him. Oxford historian Brigden (London and the Reformation, not reviewed) provides the well-known tales of court intrigue and chivalry as well as the social context for these changes. She describes the difference between the aristocracy, gentry, and commoners (discussing at length the crisis instigated by the country's focus on sheep herding rather than other forms of agriculture, for example). The author also brings in literature of the day (e.g., Thomas More's Utopia) to illustrate trends in the era's political thought. These asides come frequently, as a new monarch always pops up to replace the old: Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I succeed each other in dramas springing mostly from the Reformation. Mary reversed the direction of her father's church, delivering the nation back into the hands of Spain and the Hapsburgs, only to die childless, with Elizabeth waiting behind her. The author successfully conveys how switching back and forth between Protestantism and Catholicism was a sea change for the people: in 1553, when Mary assumed power, half the population was under 20 and had no recollection of the Catholic faith. Elizabeth, the last Tudor, is the most charming. Brigden portrays Elizabeth, the patron of Shakespeare, as the first and only softheartedTudor. She concluded treaties with Scotland and told her governors in Ireland to rule by persuasion rather than force (the governors didn't listen). She reluctantly executed Mary Queen of Scots. And when the Irishman Hugh O'Neill revolted against her, she offered him pardon. A treat for Tudor afficionados, but others might find this a heavy read.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Preface
About Dates and Names
Prologue: New Worlds, Lost Worlds 1
1 Rather Feared than Loved: Henry VII and his Dominions, 1485-1509 7
2 Family and Friends: Religion and Society in Early Tudor England 38
3 Ways to Reform: The Challenge to the Church 84
4 Imperium: Henry VIII and the Reformation in England, 1509-47 101
5 Bearing Rule: The Governors and the Governed 140
6 Rebuilding the Temple: The Reigns of Edward VI (1547-53) and Mary I (1553-8) 179
7 'Perils many, great and imminent': The Challenge of Securing Peace, 1558-70 213
8 Wars of Religion: Churches Militant in England, Ireland and Europe, 1570-84 239
9 The Enterprise of England: New World Ventures and the Coming of War with Spain in the 1580s 274
10 The Theatre of God's Judgements: Elizabethan World Views 295
11 Court and Camp: The Last Years of Elizabeth's Reign 311
Epilogue: Lost Worlds, New Worlds 358
Bibliographical Essay 368
Index 400

1	The wealth gap and the American dream	1
2	Meritocracy and "good" schools	19
3	Buying in and opting out	53
4	Making do and feeling stuck	79
5	Wealth privilege	101
6	Inequality and ideology	129
7	An unresolved conflict	157
App	Methodology	175

	Acknowledgments
I	Introduction: Thinking through Africa's Impasse	3
Pt. I	The Structure of Power	35
II	Decentralized Despotism	37
III	Indirect Rule: The Politics of Decentralized Despotism	62
IV	Customary Law: The Theory of Decentralized Despotism	109
V	The Native Authority and the Free Peasantry	138
Pt. II	The Anatomy of Resistance	181
VI	The Other Face of Tribalism: Peasant Movements in Equatorial Africa	183
VII	The Rural in the Urban: Migrant Workers in South Africa	218
VIII	Conclusion: Linking the Urban and the Rural	285
	Notes	303
	Index	339

	Preface
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: Bust a Cap	3
Pt. 1	Rebel, Rebel
1	Company Man, Warrior Dream	29
2	Gook	44
3	Ponyboy and the Greasers	54
4	No Fallen Angel	67
Pt. 2	... About Sixteen Years Later
5	Acting Stupid and Contagious	85
6	The Foot Soldiers: Trails of an Estimated Prophet	94
7	The Ballad of Pedro Gomez	119
8	The Coiled Rattlesnake	155
9	Apocalypse: The Theory of Multiple John Doe 2s	188
Pt. 3	The Fall
10	Day of the Sword: The New Young Radicals	237
	Epilogue: "In God's Name" - On Masculinity, Rage, and Lost Causes	280
	Notes	299
	References	311
	Index	321

	Acknowledgments
	List of Key Acronyms
	Introduction	1
1	"Agents of Necessity": Weatherman, the Red Army Faction, and the Turn to Violence	20
2	The Importance of Being Militant: The Days of Rage and Their Critics	74
3	"Hearts and Minds": The Antiwar Movement, Violence, and the Critical Mass	113
4	The Excesses and Limits of Revolutionary Violence	151
5	Deadly Abstraction: The Red Army Faction and the Politics of Murder	196
6	"Democratic Intolerance": The Red Army Faction and the West German State	254
	Conclusion	290
	Notes	313
	Select Bibliography	361
	Index	375

I	The shimmering forest	1
II	Civilized barbarians	87
III	Rebellion	161
IV	A delicate space	237

	Acknowledgments
1	Restless People	1
2	From Little Acorns Do Great Trees Grow	11
3	The Light in My Head Went On: Fabio Rosa, Brazil: Rural Electrification	20
4	The Fixed Determination of an Indomitable Will: Florence Nightingale, England: Nursing	40
5	A Very Significant Force: Bill Drayton, United States: The Bubble	47
6	Why Was I Never Told about This?	61
7	Ten - Nine - Eight - Childline!: Jeroo Billimoria, India: Child Protection	68
8	The Role of the Social Entrepreneur	90
9	"What Sort of a Mother Are You?": Erzsebet Szekeres, Hungary: Assisted Living for the Disabled	98
10	Are They Possessed, Really Possessed, by an Idea?	117
11	If the World Is to Be Put in Order: Vera Cordeiro, Brazil: Reforming Healthcare	126
12	In Search of Social Excellence	146
13	The Talent Is Out There: J. B. Schramm, United States: College Access	159
14	New Opportunities, New Challenges	178
15	Something Needed to Be Done: Veronica Khosa, South Africa: Care for AIDS Patients	183
16	Four Practices of Innovative Organizations	200
17	This Country Has to Change: Javed Abidi, India: Disability Rights	209
18	Six Qualities of Successful Social Entrepreneurs	233
19	Morality Must March with Capacity: James Grant, United States: The Child Survival Revolution	242
20	Blueprint Copying	256
21	Conclusion: The Emergence of the Citizen Sector	264
	Epilogue	280
	Notes	283
	Resource Guide	303
	Selected Readings	309
	Index	313

	Chronology
	Map
	Introduction
	Translator's Note
	Selected Books
	Machiavelli's Principal Works
	Letter to the Magnificent Lorenzo de Medici	1
I	How many kinds of principality there are and the ways in which they are acquired	5
II	Hereditary principalities	5
III	Composite principalities	6
IV	Why the kingdom of Darius conquered by Alexander did not rebel against his successors after his death	13
V	How cities or principalities which lived under their own laws should be administered after being conquered	16
VI	New principalities acquired by one's own arms and prowess	17
VII	New principalities acquired with the help of fortune and foreign arms	20
VIII	Those who come to power by crime	27
IX	The constitutional principality	31
X	How the strength of every principality should be measured	34
XI	Ecclesiastical principalities	36
XII	Military organization and mercenary troops	39
XIII	Auxiliary, composite, and native troops	43
XIV	How a prince should organize his militia	47
XV	The things for which men, and especially princes, are praised or blamed	49
XVI	Generosity and parsimony	51
XVII	Cruelty and compassion; and whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse	53
XVIII	How princes should honour their word	56
XIX	The need to avoid contempt and hatred	58
XX	Whether fortresses and many of the other present-day expedients to which princes have recourse are useful or not	67
XXI	How a prince must act to win honour	71
XXII	A prince's personal staff	75
XXIII	How flatterers must be shunned	76
XXIV	Why the Italian princes have lost their states	78
XXV	How far human affairs are governed by fortune, and how fortune can be opposed	79
XXVI	Exhortation to liberate Italy from the barbarians	82
	Glossary of Proper Names	86
	Notes	99

	List of Illustrations
	Preface
	About Dates and Names
	Prologue: New Worlds, Lost Worlds	1
1	Rather Feared than Loved: Henry VII and his Dominions, 1485-1509	7
2	Family and Friends: Religion and Society in Early Tudor England	38
3	Ways to Reform: The Challenge to the Church	84
4	Imperium: Henry VIII and the Reformation in England, 1509-47	101
5	Bearing Rule: The Governors and the Governed	140
6	Rebuilding the Temple: The Reigns of Edward VI (1547-53) and Mary I (1553-8)	179
7	'Perils many, great and imminent': The Challenge of Securing Peace, 1558-70	213
8	Wars of Religion: Churches Militant in England, Ireland and Europe, 1570-84	239
9	The Enterprise of England: New World Ventures and the Coming of War with Spain in the 1580s	274
10	The Theatre of God's Judgements: Elizabethan World Views	295
11	Court and Camp: The Last Years of Elizabeth's Reign	311
	Epilogue: Lost Worlds, New Worlds	358
	Bibliographical Essay	368
	Index	400