Republic of Fear or Formations of the Secular

Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Updated Edition)

Author: Kanan Makiya

First published in 1989, just before the Gulf War broke out, Republic of Fear was the only book that explained the motives of the Saddam Hussein regime in invading and annexing Kuwait. This edition, updated in 1998, has a substantial introduction focusing on the changes in Hussein's regime since the Gulf War.
In 1968 a coup d'état brought into power an extraordinary regime in Iraq, one that stood apart from other regimes in the Middle East. Between 1968 and 1980, this new regime, headed by the Arab Ba'th Socialist party, used ruthless repression and relentless organization to transform the way Iraqis think and react to political questions. In just twelve years, a party of a few thousand people grew to include nearly ten percent of the Iraqi population.
This book describes the experience of Ba'thism from 1968 to 1980 and analyzes the kind of political authority it engendered, culminating in the personality cult around Saddam Hussein. Fear, the author argues, is at the heart of Ba'thi politics and has become the cement for a genuine authority, however bizarre.
Examining Iraqi history in a search for clues to understanding contemporary political affairs, the author illustrates how the quality of Ba'thi pan-Arabism as an ideology, the centrality of the first experience of pan-Arabism in Iraq, and the interaction between the Ba'th and communist parties in Iraq from 1958 to 1968 were crucial in shaping the current regime.
Saddam Hussein's decision to launch all-out war against Iran in September 1980 marks the end of the first phase of this re-shaping of modern Iraqi politics. The Iraq-Iran war is a momentous event in its own right, but for Iraq, the author argues, the wardiverts dissent against the Ba'thi regime by focusing attention on the specter of an enemy beyond Iraq's borders, thus masking a hidden potential for even greater violence inside Iraq.

Books about: Americas Constitution or Imperial Tense

Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity

Author: Talal Asad

“A dark but brilliantly original work, Formations of the Secular is one of the most important books on religion and the modern in recent years.”—H-Net Reviews
“Formations of the Secular is also a difficult if stunningly eloquent book, a response both elusive and forthright to the many shelves of ‘books on terrorism’ which this country’s trade publishers are rushing into print.”—Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: Thinking about Secularism	1
1	What Might an Anthropology of Secularism Look Like?	21
2	Thinking about Agency and Pain	67
3	Reflections on Cruelty and Torture	100
4	Redeeming the "Human" Through Human Rights	127
5	Muslims as a "Religious Minority" in Europe	159
6	Secularism, Nation-State, Religion	181
7	Reconfigurations of Law and Ethics in Colonial Egypt	205
	Index	257

The Long Road Home or Student Atlas of World Politics

The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time: A Doonesbury Book

Author: G B Trudeau

Thousands of U.S. soldiers have suffered grievous wounds in Iraq, but only one of them is a Doonesbury character. This special collection chronicles seven months of cutting-edge cartooning, during which B.D.-and readers of the strip-got an up-close schooling in a kind of personal transformation no one seeks.

Deprived not only of leg but also his ubiquitous trademark helmet, B.D. survives first-response Baghdad triage, evacuation to Landstuhl's surgeon-rich environment, and visits by innumerable morale-boosting celebs, both red and blue in hue. He's awed in turn by morphine, take-no-guff nurses, his fellow amps, and his family, including the daughter who hand-delivers succor, one aspirin at a time.

Transferred stateside to Walter Reed's Ward 57, B.D. is inspired by the wisdom of physiatrists, warmed by the dedicated ministrations of real-life fellow-amp heroes like Jim the Milkshake Man, and dazzled by high-tech prostheses that cost more than luxury cars. He's annoyed by his own bouts with self-pity, by the bedside awkwardness of friends more comfortable regarding his stump from e-mail distance, and by Zonk's unwavering commitment to supplementing his care with organic meds.

As their journey continues, B.D. and Boopsie are cared for by Fisher House, a home-next-door-to-the-hospital for families whose lives revolve around therapy. B.D. finds himself painfully engaged in building his future, one sadistically difficult physical therapy session at a time. "To Lash, Helga, and the Marquis!" toast the band of differently limbed brethren, raising their glasses to their PT masters as they prepare for reentry into the ambulatory world.

From rebuilding tissue to rebuilding socialskills to rebuilding lives, B.D's inspiring, insightful, and darkly humorous story confirms that it can take a village, or at least a ward, to raise a soldier when he's gone down. "Thank you for getting blown up," offers one of B.D.'s visiting players. Replies the coach, "Just doing my job."

The New York Times - Kurt Andersen

The Long Road Home, given its absence of any explicit ideological line, reminded me why ''Doonesbury'' has managed to endure so long and to be so fine so much of the time. Trudeau is a great comic writer whose devotion to politics and capacity for moral outrage are apparently undiminished after 37 years, but he is a great comic writer first, with the intellectual honesty that implies … Garry Trudeau, who by all rights should be phoning it in by now, still takes his responsibilities to the strip and his audience seriously, and in service to them still takes large and interesting risks.

George Galuschak - KLIATT

B.D., the Doonesbury character who never takes off his helmet, is wounded in combat in Iraq, and his leg is amputated above the knee; The Long Road Home chronicles the stages of his rehabilitation and eventual return home. This graphic novel is pretty much apolitical, which is a relief, and instead focuses on B.D. and his family—Boopsie (wife), Sam (daughter) and Zonker (nanny). However one feels about Doonesbury (to me, it stopped being funny years ago), The Long Road Home is powerful stuff about a timely issue. Trudeau does a fine job of juxtaposing humor and seriousness; he doesn't preach or get sappy; and he is donating the proceeds from the book to a good cause: Fisher House, an organization that aids families of patients receiving medical care at military and VA medical centers. I also admire the fact that Trudeau is not afraid to let his characters age, change and even die. The Long Road Home contains the aftermath of one combat sequence, and is highly recommended for libraries with graphic novel collections. KLIATT Codes: JSA*—Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2005, Andrews McMeel, 93p. illus., Ages 12 to adult.

New interesting book: Last Call or If Its Not Food Dont Eat It

Student Atlas of World Politics

Author: John L Allen

The STUDENT ATLAS OF WORLD POLITICS is an attractive atlas of current affairs that reflects recent developments in political geography and international relations. The new Seventh Edition includes enlarged and detailed thematic maps. This collection of maps and data, with its emphasis on currency, is particularly useful for exploring the concept of geopolitics and the crucial relationships between geography and world politics.

Politics of Same Sex Marriage or International Business

Politics of Same-Sex Marriage

Author: Craig A Rimmerman

Same-sex marriage emerged in 2004 as one of the hottest issues of the campaign season. But in a severe blow to gay rights advocates, all eleven states that had the issue on the ballot passed amendments banning the practice, and the subject soon dropped off the media’s radar. This pattern of waxing and waning in the public eye has characterized the debate over same-sex marriage since 1996 and the passing of the Defense of Marriage Act. Since then, court rulings and local legislatures have kept the issue alive in the political sphere, and conservatives and gay rights advocates have made the issue a key battlefield in the culture wars.

The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage brings together an esteemed list of
scholars to explore all facets of this heated issue, including the ideologies and strategies on both sides of the argument, the public’s response, the use of the issue in political campaigns, and how same-sex marriage fits into the broad context of policy cycles and windows of political opportunity. With comprehensive coverage from a variety of different approaches, this volume will be a vital sourcebook for activists, politicians, and scholars alike.

Books about: Twenty Years Crisis 1919 1939 or Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

International Business: Environments and Operations

Author: John Daniels

This classic bestseller discusses the differences faced in international environments, the overall strategies companies can take, and practical alternatives for operating abroad. Its abundance of colorful maps, strong engaging and opening cases, and classic and contemporary examples provide a balanced approach to all functions of business. More than 15 new cases have been added to this edition, all of which engage the reader with hot topical issues; these include Cran Chik, Luikoil, Cisco Systems, Johnson & Johnson, and Global Sofware Piracy. It has excellent coverage of Latin America, and reviews the latest institutional actions, market trends, and company activities. It provides an extensive background section, a comparative environmental frameworks section, a section on theories and institutions (trade and investment), a section on the world financial environment, business-government relationships, operations and tactical alternatives, and a section on managing business internationally. For readers involved in international business, whether they are employees, managers, or owners/CEOs of such corporations. Also an excellent resource for individuals seeking to expand their current businesses to the international market.

Table of Contents:

1	Globalization and international business	2
2	The cultural environments facing business	44
3	The political and legal environments facing business	86
4	The economic environment	118
5	Globalization and society	160
6	International trade and factor mobility theory	200
7	Governmental influence on trade	238
8	Cross-national cooperation and agreements	266
9	Global foreign exchange and capital market	304
10	The determination of exchange rates	340

The Chinese Economy or Geopolitics

The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth

Author: Barry Naughton

This comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy by a noted expert on China's economic development offers a quality and breadth of coverage not found in any other English-language text. In The Chinese Economy, Barry Naughton provides both an engaging, broadly focused introduction to China's economy since 1949 and original insights based on his own extensive research. The book will be an essential resource for students, teachers, scholars, business people, and policymakers. It is suitable for classroom use for undergraduate or graduate courses.

After presenting background material on the pre-1949 economy and the industrialization, reform, and market transition that have taken place since, the book examines different aspects of the modern Chinese economy. It analyzes patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural economy, including agriculture and rural industrialization; industrial and technological development in urban areas; international trade and foreign investment; macroeconomic trends and cycles and the financial system; and the largely unaddressed problems of environmental quality and the sustainability of growth.

The text is notable also for placing China's economy in interesting comparative contexts, discussing it in relation to other transitional or developing economies and to such advanced industrial countries as the U.S. and Japan. It provides both a broad historical and macro perspective as well as a focused examination of the actual workings of China's complex and dynamic economic development. Interest in the Chinese economy will only grow as China becomes an increasingly importantplayer on the world's stage. This book will be the standard reference for understanding and teaching about the next economic superpower.

Read also Women Power and AT T or Blackwell Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management

Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Klaus Dodds

In places such as Iraq or Lebanon, moving a few feet on either side of a territorial boundary can be a matter of life or death, dramatically highlighting the connections between geography and politics. This Very Short Introduction illuminates the concept of geopolitics, revealing how a country's location and size as well as its sovereignty and resources all affect how its people understand and interact with the wider world. Using wide-ranging examples, from historical maps to James Bond films and the rhetoric of political leaders like Churchill and George W. Bush, Klaus Dodds describes how people and places are inter-connected with each other, and how our geopolitical outlook molds our understanding of the world. He shows why it is vital that we understand how and why we divide the world into zones and territories--and how these divisions depend on your perspective. The book explains how terrorism, globalization, environmental degradation, and new technologies such as the internet are all challenging the geographical basis of global politics, and it sheds light on the history of terms such as "the iron curtain," "the third world," and "the axis of evil."

Gandhi or Chinas Economic Transformation

Gandhi

Author: Beatrice Tanaka

Without question Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. His principles of non-violence and passive resistance, his compassion, his steadfast determination in achieving political and social reform have influenced countless leaders and activists throughout the world. For this volume, editor and illustrator Beatrice Tanaka has culled Gandhi's inspirational text, either written or spoken, on a variety of subjects, including wealth, work, non-violence, civil disobedience, religion, love, and hope - all of which are as pertinent today, or perhaps more so, as the day they were written. Every spread includes not only Gandhi's words, but Beatrice Tanaka's striking black-and-white illustrations, which were created for this volume to complement Gandhi's visionary text.

See also: Secret Potions Elixirs and Concoctions or Pride of Kentucky

China's Economic Transformation

Author: Gregory C Chow

In the last two and a half decades, reform in China has resulted in phenomenal economic growth for the world’s most populous country. In this second edition of the successful book, Gregory Chow uses insights gained from over twenty years of teaching and traveling, as well as his work with government officials and academics, to address the transformation, development, and functioning of China’s economy.
Chow combines historical-institutional and theoretical-quantitative approaches to provide a penetrating and comprehensive analysis of the factors that have contributed to China’s economic transformation. Introducing the reader to the inner workings of the Chinese economy and details the process of its transformation into a market economy, Chow observes the economics of institutional changes taking place, the role of China’s government, and the significance of the historic and cultural traditions of the country. Chow’s knowledge of what has happened and what is happening in China helps him identify the major causes of economic change and development.

Table of Contents:

	List of Figures and Tables
	Preface
	Introduction: The Transformation of China's Economy	1
Pt. I	Historical Background and General Survey	7
1	Economic Lessons from History	9
2	Experiments with Planning and Economic Disruptions	24
3	Economic Reform up to the Mid-1990s	46
4	Further Reform: Problems and Prospects	68
Pt. II	Analysis of the Macroeconomy	87
5	Economic Growth	89
6	Economic Fluctuations	105
7	Macroeconomic Policies	117
8	The Effects of Political Movements on the Macroeconomy	129
Pt. III	Topics in Economic Development	147
9	Consumption	149
10	Western Development and Environmental Policies	168
11	Population	181
12	Human Capital	194
Pt. IV	Analysis of Individual Sectors	217
13	The Banking and Financial System	219
14	Shanghai Stock Price Determination	237
15	The Behavior of State Enterprises	249
16	The Nonstate Sectors	268
17	Foreign Trade	281
18	Foreign Investment	304
Pt. V	Studies of Economic Institutions and Infrastructure	321
19	Use or Misuse of Assets	323
20	The Legal System and the Role of Government	338
21	The Education System and Policy	352
22	Taking Stock and Looking Ahead	367
	Conclusion: Lessons for the Study of Economic Transformation	386
	Index	394

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbess Leviathan or Defending Life

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan

Author: Patricia Springborg

This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship, addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on Continental European theories of state and legal systems as it was at home. This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from both the Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newly commissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in a topic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure of Leviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics, metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. Collectively they showcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines both the context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating the degree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition of European humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows that Hobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a tradition of reflection on political theory and governance that is still alive, both in Europe and in the diaspora.

See also: Journey into Islam or Christmas in Plains

Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice

Author: Francis J Beckwith

Defending Life is the most comprehensive defense of the prolife position on abortion ever published. It is sophisticated, but still accessible to the ordinary citizen. Without high-pitched rhetoric or appeals to religion, the author offers a careful and respectful case for why the prolife view of human life is correct. He responds to the strongest prochoice arguments found in law, science, philosophy, politics, and the media. He explains and critiques Roe v. Wade, and he explains why virtually all the popular prochoice arguments fail. There is simply nothing like this book.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     vii
Introduction: Who and What Are We and Can We Know It?     xi
Moral Reasoning, Law, and Politics
Abortion and Moral Argument     3
The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and Abortion Law     18
Abortion, Liberalism, and State Neutrality     42
Assessing the Case for Abortion Choice and Against Human Inclusiveness
Science, the Unborn, and Abortion Methods     65
Popular Arguments: Pity, Tolerance, and Ad Hominem     93
The Nature of Humanness and Whether the Unborn Is a Moral Subject     130
Does It Really Matter Whether the Unborn Is a Moral Subject? The Case from Bodily Rights     172
Extending and Concluding the Argument
Cloning, Bioethics, and Reproductive Liberty     203
Conclusion: A Case for Human Inclusiveness     226
Notes     231
Selected Bibliography     287
Index     291

Wake Up Call or Introduction to International Disaster Management

Wake-Up Call: The Political Education of a 9/11 Widow

Author: Kristen Breitweiser

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

See also: Dominiques Tropical Latitudes or All Maine Cooking

Introduction to International Disaster Management

Author: Damon P Coppola

Written from a global perspective on risk, hazards, and disasters, Introduction to International Disaster Management provides practitioners, educators and students with a comprehensive overview of the players, processes and special issues involved in the management of large-scale natural and technological disasters. The book discusses special issues encountered in the management of international disasters, and explains the various private, non-governmental, national, and international agencies that assist in the preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery to national and regional events.

Concentrating on the four major phases of emergency management — mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery — Introduction to International Disaster Management deals with such timely topics as Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Asian tsunami, and SARS. It also serves as a reference to governmental and other agencies involved in international disaster management activities. This book is the first of its kind to take a global approach to the topic of international disaster management.

* Serves as the first comprehensive resource dealing with the issues of international disaster management
* Contains numerous case studies, examples of Best Practices in international disaster management, and a contact list of the governmental and nongovernmental agencies involved in international disaster management
* Provides a global perspective on risk, hazards, and disasters that is written both for students within disaster management programs and for professionals entering the field

Police Lab or Activists Beyond Borders

Police Lab: How Forensic Science Tracks Down and Convicts Criminals

Author: David Owen

Is there such a thing as the perfect crime?

In 1979, US Army captain, Jeffrey MacDonald claimed that three "hippies" broke into his house and attacked him and stabbed his wife and daughters. Despite the Army Captain's careful attempts to conceal evidence, forensic scientists were able to prove that MacDonald himself was guilty. Police Lab shows how forensic scientists gather and analyze evidence, examine weapons and bodies and use DNA testing and other techniques to help solve crime. Twenty real-life case studies show forensic scientists in action and demonstrate the fascinating secrets of police labs.

Police Lab includes:

• analyzing physical evidence and weapons
• fraud and forgeries including handwriting analysis
• DNA testing and the future of forensic science
• "forensic facts" sidebars throughout the book explaining how even the smallest detail and shred of evidence can help solve crime
• 20 real-life case studies including: The World Trade Center bombing, O.J. Simpson trial, assassination of John F. Kennedy and the conviction of serial killer Ted Bundy
• more than 200 color photographs

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8-What with CSI one of the more popular shows around, forensic-science methods have made an entrance into many living rooms around the country, and there has been corresponding activity in the previously placid 363.25s. This addition to the genre discusses current methodology interspersed with actual forensic investigations into crimes as diverse as a brutal murder in 1889 to the causes of the gun turret explosion on the USS Iowa in 1989. Poison, strangulation, burning, drowning, shooting, and stabbing are some of the murderous methods explored in the readable text, as are such forensic tools as facial reconstruction, bite matching, ballistics, DNA screening, and the old standby, fingerprinting. Color photos abound, as do "Forensic Fact" and "Crime File" boxes. This title is on a comparable level with Andrea Campbell's more stolid Forensic Science (Chelsea, 1999) and Brian Lane's Crime & Detection (DK, 2000), and more difficult than Charlotte Foltz Jones's chattier Fingerprints and Talking Bones (Delacorte, 1997). Couple Owen's book with Mark P. Friedlander, Jr., and Terry M. Phillips's competent When Objects Talk (Lerner, 2001) and Donna M. Jackson's superb The Bone Detectives (Little, Brown, 1996) and put CSI on TiVo.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

Foreword

Introduction: The Origins of Forensic Science

Chapter 1: The Crime Files Opens Crime File: Justice Bites Back: Ted Bundy

Chapter 2: Positive ID Crime File: The Ruxton Body Bags: Buck Ruxton

Chapter 3: Pure Poison Crime File: Caroline Grills: Aunt Thally's poisoned tea
Crime File: Georgi Markov and the poisonous pellet

Chapter 4: The Cut of a Knife; the Blow of a Hammer Crime File: Jeffrey MacDonald and the ice pick

Chapter 5: Starved of Air: Strangulation and Suffocation Crime File: A Trunk Full of Clues: Michel Eyraud & Gabrielle Bompard

Chapter 6: Fire and Water: Death by Burning and Drowning Crime File: Robert Maxwell afloat

Chapter 7: The Smoking Gun Crime File: The Kennedy Investigation: one marksman or two?
Crime File: The tragic turret on USS Iowa

Chapter 8: The Flames of Destruction: Fire and Explosives Crime File: Steven Benson a family destroyed
Crime File: The double tragedies of the World Trade Center
Crime File: Ground Zero: World Trade Center

Chapter 9: Unmasking the Criminals: Frauds and Forgeries Crime File: The Hitler Diaries

Chapter 10: Criminal Traces Crime File: High Fiber: Wayne Williams
Crime File: hooded attacker Malcolm Fairley

Chapter 11: Written in Blood Crime File: The Dingo Baby: Lindy Chamerlain
Crime File: The bloody message of Ghislaine Marchal

Chapter 12: DNA: The Ultimate Identifier? Crime File: The DNA Link theconviction of Colin Pitchfork

Chapter 13: The Future of Forensic Sciences Crime File: Richard Ramirez outstalked by a computer
Crime File: O.J. Simpson and the pitfalls of DNA
 
Glossary
Index
Bibliography and Picture Credits

Interesting textbook: Iscador or Understanding Pain

Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics

Author: Margaret E Keck

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be international organizations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances include anti-slavery and woman suffrage campaigns. In the past two decades, transnational activism has had a significant impact in human rights, especially in Latin America, and advocacy networks have strongly influenced environmental politics as well. The authors also examine the emergence of an international campaign around violence against women.

The conventions of the nation-state have shaped our contemporary understanding of the process and politics of social movements. Keck and Sikkink sketch for the first time the dynamics of emergence, strategies, and impact of activists from different nationalities working together on particular issues. This eagerly awaited work will alter the way scholars conceptualize the making of international society and the practice of international politics.

Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States or Fixing Hell

Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States

Author: Kermit L Hall

The Supreme Court has continued to write constitutional history over the thirteen years since publication of the highly acclaimed first edition of The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court. Two new justices have joined the high court, more than 800 cases have been decided, and a good deal of new scholarship has appeared on many of the topics treated in the Companion. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, and the Court as a whole played a decisive and controversial role in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Under Rehnquists's leadership, a bare majority of the justices have rewritten significant areas of the law dealing with federalism, sovereign immunity, and the commerce power.
This new edition includes new entries on key cases and fully updated treatment of crucial areas of constitutional law, such as abortion, freedom of religion, school desegregation, freedom of speech, voting rights, military tribunals, and the rights of the accused. These developments make the second edition of this accessible and authoritative guide essential for judges, lawyers, academics, journalists, and anyone interested in the impact of the Court's decisions on American society.

Library Journal

This oversized, dense volume provides comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court, exploring at great depth its history, cases, procedures, and more. Originally published 13 years ago, it has now been considerably updated and expanded, featuring 86 brand new articles and commentaries on 14 new cases. Of the existing articles, about 100 have been revised, among them the entries on impeachment and Justice O'Connor. Editor Hall, a well-regarded legal scholar and historian, has written over 20 books on the American legal and constitutional system, making him highly qualified to tackle such a complex subject in reference format. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This obviously impressive and highly needed collection of over 1000 entries on the Supreme Court is sure to become the standard in the field. Succeeding in their appointed task ``to humanize the high court,'' the editors have assembled an excellent cast of contributors--scholars and legal professionals--who have covered virtually every aspect of the Court's work and its all-important, often controversial role in American law and politics. Entries feature biographies of all the justices and other figures connected with the Court's histories. Other entries discuss the Court's most significant decisions, and chronological essays explore the Court's history and related topics like slavery and the civil rights movement. This fine volume is essential for any serious student of the Court; it belongs in every academic library in the country. Its organization is first-rate and its scope is all-encompassing. Highly recommended.-- Stephen K. Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, Id.

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up-- An extremely thorough treatment of the subject, composed of brief defining entries and lengthy essays by almost 300 contributors, including lawyers, judges, scholars, and journalists, who were charged with the responsibility of making their presentations accessible to a general readership. Entries, arranged alphabetically, cover the internal operations and history of the Court; biographical information on all of the justices plus other relevant historical figures; definitions of basic legal and constitutional terminology; and the process of selecting, nominating, and confirming justices. More than 400 entries examine the Court's most significant decisions. All are signed; those of any length are followed by selective bibliographies of further reading. Every effort has been made to provide adequate cross referencing within the text and at the end of entries. Cases (with proper citation), persons, places, and institutions are indexed. This work will be of value not only to students of the Court and constitutional law, but also to those needing information (interpretive and/or historical) about the major socioeconomic issues of our day. Illustrations, primarily portraits and photographs of the justices, are of good quality and appropriately placed. This is a landmark publication, representing the highest standard of American scholarship. It is strongly recommended for reference collections serving high school students.-- Tess McKellen, Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn

BookList

This convenient and authoritative guide to the Supreme Court succeeds well in accomplishing its goal of providing a political, economic, cultural, and legal history of the Court and, by extension, of the very country itself. In more than 1,000 entries, about 300 contributors interpret the Court to the layperson, providing historical context, evaluation, and explanation of its decisions and procedures. The contributors explain the Court's influence on American life and vice versa. While the editors are all professors of law, browsing through the list of contributors reveals professors of history, political science, and government as well as librarians, justices, attorneys, and archivists Entries are of several types. Biographies treat every justice, every nominee, and many prominent lawyers who argued before the Court. Sheldon Novick's entry on Oliver Wendell Holmes is a masterpiece of interpretation, pointing out Holmes' chief theories and influences on the Court. Conceptual entries define ideas. The entry "Double Jeopardy", for example, provides historical context, relevant cases, and the importance of the idea to the court. Institutional entries treat such matters as the clerks of the justices and the office of chief justice. Entries on the physical surroundings of the Court highlight its location. Longer entries end with brief bibliographies of nontechnical literature The more than 400 entries on Court decisions include a "U.S. Reports" citation, date argued, date decided, and chief spokesman; each entry discusses the impact of the case on American life. Interpretive entries treat substantive topics such as abortion and procedural topics such as the insanity defense. "History of the Court" is a four-part chronological essay. Other historical entries treat such broad subjects as slavery and race and racism--again, always with the interpretive approach that explains the effect of the issue on the Court as well as the Court's effect on the issue. Vocabulary entries provide definitions for basic terms like "writ of mandamus" and such famous phrases as "separate but equal" The companion is thoroughly cross-referenced. Any topic that has its own entry is marked by an asterisk in the text. "See" and "see also" references are plentiful; for example, the entry "Flag Burning" leads to several important cases and to the entry "Symbolic Speech". In a project of this scope, there is always room to quibble. For example, "McCulloch v. Maryland" is fundamental to the discussion in "State Regulation of Commerce", but the entry for the case itself does not refer to the broader entry The companion concludes with case-name and topical indexes as well as extensive appendixes, including the succession of justices, vacancies, appointing presidents, Senate votes of confirmation and rejection, length of service of each justice, and trivia and traditions of the Court. About 100 black-and-white photographs add interest The companion is a unique work. It covers landmark cases and biographies--as do "Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court", second edition ["RBB" My 1 90], and Facts On File's "Reference Guide to the United States Supreme Court" (1986)--but is in a handy A-Z arrangement and lacks the long essays of those two books. It complements but does not replace them "The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States" belongs in every library, high school and up, and on the shelf of the practitioner and the teacher. It will prove to be the standard reference work on the Supreme Court.

Herbert Jacob

THE OXFORD COMPANION is evidently intended as a reference work for students, journalists and other interested readers who wish to learn quickly about one or another aspect of the United States Supreme Court. It is edited by three legal historians (Kermit L. Hall, James W. Ely, and William W. Wiecek) and one political scientist (Joel B. Grossman). It is arranged alphabet- ically by topic with signed articles by 296 (by my count) schol- ars. Some of the articles are several pages long; many occupy a column or less. A large number of the contributors are political scientists. THE OXFORD COMPANION is remarkably comprehensive if one approaches the subject from a legalistic perspective. Readers will find short biographies of all Supreme Court justices. The majority of articles are brief summaries of important cases from ABINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT V. SCHEMP to ZURCHER V. THE STANFORD DAILY. There are also articles on issues such as abortion (by Judith Baer), judicial review (by John Brigham), capital punish- ment (by Lief Carter), speedy trial (by Malcolm Feeley). Some of articles are quite substantial such as the four pieces on the history of the Court which cover 32 pages. Most are brief, encompassing less than a page. Doctrines are identified and discussed as for example, the Preferred Freedoms Doctrine (by C. Herman Pritchett), Exhaustion of Remedies (by Michael F. Sturley), and the Right to Counsel (by Susette M. Talarico). Broad concepts such as capitalism as well as topics such as the New Deal merit a lengthy articles. Important statutes are described separately in brief pieces. There are even articles on the architecture of the Supreme Court building, on Supreme Court buildings, on paintings in the Supreme Court, and on the sculp- ture in the building. Thus, THE OXFORD COMPANION is an attractive source to which to send students for an introductory understanding of particular aspects of the Supreme Court as an institution, of its proce- dures, of its decisions, and of its personnel. However, it suffers from several weaknesses that trouble this reviewer. One fault is that THE OXFORD COMPANION's references to addi- tional sources are spotty at best. Some articles cite several sources (though rarely more than a handful); many offer none at all. For instance, Lief Carter's article (approximately one page) on capital punishment mentions only Hugo Adam Bedau's THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA (1987) and Errol Morris' film, "The Thin Blue Line" (1987). The articles by Lawrence Baum on reversals of Supreme Court decisions by constitutional amendment and by Congressional legislation have none at all. I presume that this was an editorial decision, but I judge it to be a bad one. Such skimpy references will not provide much assistance to students who are embarking on a term paper project. It encourages stu- dents to take the articles in the COMPANION as the last word on the subject. My second concern is that THE OXFORD COMPANION reflects little of the political science research that has occurred over the past half century. James Gibson's article on public opinion is one of the rare articles which are attentive to social science findings about the Court. Most striking is the absence of a focused discussion of interest groups and the Court even though many of the contributors to this body of knowledge write other articles in the COMPANION. Thus Stephen L. Wasby writes an article of less than a page on amicus briefs. Individual inter- est groups may be found such as the American Civil Liberties Union (in an article by Samuel Walker) and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (in brief articles by Mark V. Tushnet and Eric Rise) but students would have to know where to look and will not find much mention of the interest Page 42 follows: group literature. Of the ten articles that Harold J. Spaeth contributes, the closest he (or any other contributor) gets to scaling or judicial attitudes is his article on Justice Scalia. There is no article on voting blocs or the analysis of voting patterns although C. Herman Pritchett contributes eleven articles on individual cases. Stephen Wasby's one-column article on decision-making dynamics (p. 222) has no references. The impact of decisions (also written by Wasby) merits two columns but also has no references (pp. 422-23). The extraordinary influence of the Solicitor General in setting the Court's agenda is mentioned by Lincoln Caplan, but that influence is buried in much trivia about the SG's office. Thus, he contends that "special rela- tionship" between the SG and the Court is illustrated by the custom that when a justice dies, "the Solicitor General is asked to call a meeting of the Supreme Court bar to honor the justice." (p. 803) THE OXFORD COMPANION will prove puzzling to students whose courses introduce them to political analyses of the Court. The concepts which they learn in those courses are not readily found in this book. Although many political scientists contributed to it, readers will have difficulty ascertaining the discipline's contribution to our understanding of the Court. Is it really as small as this volume suggests? Finally, this reviewer is left to wonder why THE OXFORD COMPANION was not published on a CD-ROM. An electronic medium would make THE OXFORD COMPANION far simpler to search and incom- parably easier to update. This is a book destined for library reference rooms where CD-ROMs are now commonly found. I hope the publisher considers such a medium in the near future.

Go to: Microeconomia di attivit� bancarie

Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib

Author: Larry C James

This is the story of Abu Ghraib that you haven't heard, told by the soldier sent by the Army to restore order and ensure that the abuses that took place there never happen again.

In April 2004, the world was shocked by the brutal pictures of beatings, dog attacks, sex acts, and the torture of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. As the story broke, and the world began to learn about the extent of the horrors that occurred there, the U.S. Army dispatched Colonel Larry James to Abu Ghraib with an overwhelming assignment: to dissect this catastrophe, fix it, and prevent it from being repeated.

A veteran of deployments to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a nationally well-known and respected Army psychologist, Colonel James's expertise made him the one individual capable of taking on this enormous task. Through Colonel James's own experience on the ground, readers will see the tightrope military personnel must walk while fighting in the still new battlefield of the war on terror, the challenge of serving as both a doctor/healer and combatant soldier, and what can-and must-be done to ensure that interrogations are safe, moral, and effective.

At the same time, Colonel James also debunks many of the false stories and media myths surrounding the actions of American soldiers at both Abu Ghraib and GuantanamoBay, and he reveals shining examples of our men and women in uniform striving to serve with honor and integrity in the face of extreme hardship and danger.

An intense and insightful personal narrative, Fixing Hell shows us an essential perspective on Abu Ghraib that we've never seen before.

Table of Contents:

Foreword   Dr. Philip Zimbardo     xi
Entering Hell     1
Journey to Gitmo     7
An Infidel in Guantanamo     32
Long Flight to Hell     68
House of Strange Fathers     102
Choosing a Path     118
I'm in a Zoo     138
Is This the Day?     165
This Is My Dog     180
Fighting the Terrorist Mind     195
I'm Broken     202
Go to the Basement     229
Facing My Critics     240
Conclusions     257
Epilogue     263
U.S. Military Prisons: A Timeline     269
Acknowledgments     277
Index     279

The Birth of Biopolitics or The Grand Alliance

The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-79

Author: Michel Foucault

this liberal governmentality.  This involves describing the political rationality within which the specific problems of life and population were posed:  "Studying liberalism as the general framework of biopolitics".
 
What are the specific features of the liberal art of government as they were outlined in the Eighteenth century?  What crisis of governmentality characterises the present world and what revisions of liberal government has it given rise to?  This is the diagnostic task addressed by Foucault's study of the two major twentieth century schools of neo-liberalism:  German ordo-liberalism and the neo-liberalism of the Chicago School.  In the years he taught at the Collège de France, this was Michel Foucault's sole foray into the field of contemporary history.  This course thus raises questions of political philosophy and social policy that are at the heart of current debates about the role and status of neo-liberalism in twentieth century politics.  A remarkable feature of these lectures is their discussion of contemporary economic theory and practice, culminating in an analysis of the model of homo oeconomicus.
 
Foucault's analysis also highlights the paradoxical role played by "society" in relation to government.  "Society" is both that in the name of which government strives to limit itself, but it is also the target for permanent governmental intervention to produce, multiply, and guarantee the freedoms required by economic liberalism.  Far from being opposed to the State, civil society is thus shown to be the correlate of a liberal technology of government.   

Table of Contents:

Foreword: Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana     xiii
10 January 1979     1
Questions of method
Suppose universals do not exist
Summary of the previous year's lectures: the limited objective of the government of raison d'Etat (external politics) and unlimited objective of the police state (internal politics)
Law as principle of the external limitation of raison d'Etat
Perspective of this year's lectures: political economy as principle of the internal limitation of governmental reason
What is at stake in this research: the coupling of a set of practices and a regime of truth and the effects of its inscription in reality
What is liberalism?
17 January 1979     27
Liberalism and the implementation of a new art of government in the eighteenth century
Specific features of the liberal art of government (I): (1) The constitution of the market as site of the formation of truth and not just as domain of jurisdiction
Questions of method. The stakes of research undertaken around madness, the penal order, and sexuality: sketch of a history of "regimes of veridiction"
The nature of a political critique of knowledge (savoir)
(2) The problem of limiting the exercise of power by public authorities. Two types of solution: French juridical radicalism and English utilitarianism
The question of "utility" and limiting the exercise of power by public authorities
Comment on the status of heterogeneity in history: strategic against dialectical logic
The notion of "interest" as operator (operateur) of the new art of government
24 January 1979     51
Specific features of the liberal art of government (II): (3) The problem of European balance and international relations
Economic and political calculation in mercantilism. The principle of the freedom of the market according to the physiocrats and Adam Smith: birth of a new European model
Appearance of a governmental rationality extended to a world scale. Examples: the question of maritime law; the projects of perpetual peace in the eighteenth century
Principles of the new liberal art of government: a "governmental naturalism"; the production of freedom
The problem of liberal arbitration. Its instruments
the management of dangers and the implementation of mechanisms of security
disciplinary controls (Bentham's panopticism)
interventionist policies
The management of liberty and its crises
31 January 1979     75
Phobia of the state
Questions of method: sense and stakes of the bracketing off of a theory of the state in the analysis of mechanisms of power
Neo-liberal governmental practices: German liberalism from 1948 to 1962; American neo-liberalism
German neo-liberalism (I)
Its political-economic context
The scientific council brought together by Erhard in 1947. Its program: abolition of price controls and limitation of governmental interventions
The middle way defined by Erhard in 1948 between anarchy and the "termite state"
Its double meaning
respect for economic freedom as condition of the state's political representativity
the institution of economic freedom as basis for the formation of political sovereignty
Fundamental characteristic of contemporary German governmentality: economic freedom, the source of juridical legitimacy and political consensus
Economic growth, axis of a new historical consciousness enabling the break with the past
Rallying of Christian Democracy and the SPD to liberal politics
The principles of liberal government and the absence of a socialist governmental rationality
7 February 1979     101
German neo-liberalism (II)
Its problem: how can economic freedom both found and limit the state at the same time?
The neo-liberal theorists: W. Eucken, F. Bohm, A. Muller-Armack, F. von Hayek
Max Weber and the problem of the irrational rationality of capitalism. The answers of the Frankfurt School and the Freiburg School
Nazism as necessary field of adversity to the definition of the neo-liberal objective
The obstacles to liberal policy in Germany since the nineteenth century
the protectionist economy according to List
Bismarck's state socialism
the setting up of a planned economy during the First World War
Keynesian interventionism; (e) the economic policy of National Socialism
The neo-liberal critique of National Socialism on the basis of these different elements of German history
Theoretical consequences: extension of this critique to the New Deal and to the Beveridge plans; interventionism and the growth of the power of the state; massification and uniformization, effects of state control
The stake of neo-liberalism: its novelty in comparison with classical liberalism. The theory of pure competition
14 February 1979     129
German neo-liberalism (III)
Usefulness of historical analyses for the present
How is neo-liberalism distinguished from classical liberalism?
Its specific stake: how to model the global exercise of political power on the principles of a market economy, and the transformations that derive from this
The decoupling of the market economy and policies of laissez-faire
The Walter Lippmann colloquium (26 to 30 August 1938)
The problem of the style of governmental action. Three examples
the question of monopolies
the question of "conformable actions (actions conformes)." The bases of economic policy according to W. Eucken. Regulatory actions and organizing actions (actions ordonnatrices)
social policy. The ordoliberal critique of the welfare economy
Society as the point of application of governmental interventions. The "policy of society" (Gesellschaftspolitik)
First aspect of this policy: the formalization of society on the model of the enterprise
Enterprise society and judicial society; two faces of a single phenomenon
21 February 1979     159
Second aspect of the "policy of society" according to the neo-liberals: the problem of law in a society regulated according to the model of the competitive market economy
Return to the Walter Lippmann colloquium
Reflections based on a text by Louis Rougier
(1) The idea of a juridical-economic order. Reciprocity of relations between economic processes and institutional framework
Political stake: the problem of the survival of capitalism
Two complementary problems: the theory of competition and the historical and sociological analysis of capitalism
(2) The question of legal interventionism
Historical reminder: the Rule of law (l'Etat de droit) in the eighteenth century, in opposition to despotism and the police state. Re-elaboration of the notion in the nineteenth century: the question of arbitration between citizens and public authorities. The problem of administrative courts
The neo-liberal project: to introduce the principles of the Rule of law into the economic order
Rule of law and planning according to Hayek
(3) Growth of judicial demand
General conclusion: the specificity of the neo-liberal art of government in Germany. Ordoliberalism faced with the pessimism of Schumpeter
7 March 1979     185
General remarks: (1) The methodological scope of the analysis of micro-powers. (2) The inflationism of state phobia. Its links with ordoliberalism
Two theses on the totalitarian state and the decline of state governmentality in the twentieth century
Remarks on the spread of the German model, in France and in the United States
The German neo-liberal model and the French project of a "social market economy"
The French context of the transition to a neo-liberal economics
French social policy: the example of social security
The separation of the economic and the social according to Giscard d'Estaing
The project of a "negative tax" and its social and political stakes. "Relative" and "absolute" poverty. Abandonment of the policy of full employment
14 March 1979     215
American neo-liberalism (I). Its context
The difference between American and European neo-liberalism
American neo-liberalism as a global claim, utopian focus, and method of thought
Aspects of this neo-liberalism: (1) The theory of human capital. The two processes that it represents
an extension of economic analysis within its own domain: criticism of the classical analysis of labor in terms of the time factor
an extension of economic analysis to domains previously considered to be non-economic
The epistemological transformation produced by neo-liberal analysis: from the analysis of economic processes to the analysis of the internal rationality of human behavior
Work as economic conduct
Its division into capital, abilities, and income
The redefinition of homo oeconomicus as entrepreneur of himself
The notion of "human capital." Its constitutive elements
innate elements and the question of the improvement of genetic human capital
acquired elements and the problem of the formation of human capital (education, health, etcetera)
The interest of these analyses: resumption of the problem of social and economic innovation (Schumpeter). A new conception of the policy of growth
21 March 1979     239
American neo-liberalism (II)
The application of the economic grid to social phenomena
Return to the ordoliberal problematic: the ambiguities of the Gesellschaftspolitik. The generalization of the "enterprise" form in the social field. Economic policy and Vitalpolitik: a society for the market and against the market
The unlimited generalization of the economic form of the market in American neo-liberalism: principle of the intelligibility of individual behavior and critical principle of governmental interventions
Aspects of American neo-liberalism: (2) Delinquency and penal policy
Historical reminder: the problem of the reform of penal law at the end of the eighteenth century. Economic calculation and principle of legality. The parasitic invasion of the law by the norm in the nineteenth century and the birth of criminal anthropology
The neo-liberal analysis: (1) the definition of crime; (2) the description of the criminal subject as homo oeconomicus; (3) the status of the penalty as instrument of law "enforcement." The example of the drugs market
Consequences of this analysis
anthropological erasure of the criminal
putting the disciplinary model out of play
28 March 1979     267
The model of homo oeconomicus
Its generalization to every form of behavior in American neo-liberalism
Economic analysis and behavioral techniques
Homo oeconomicus as the basic element of the new governmental reason appeared in the eighteenth century
Elements for a history of the notion of homo oeconomicus before Walras and Pareto
The subject of interest in English empiricist philosophy (Hume)
The heterogeneity of the subject of interest and the legal subject: (1) The irreducible nature of interest in comparison with juridical will. (2) The contrasting logics of the market and the contract
Second innovation with regard to the juridical model: the economic subject's relationship with political power. Condorcet. Adam Smith's "invisible hand": invisibility of the link between the individual's pursuit of profit and the growth of collective wealth. The non-totalizable nature of the economic world. The sovereign's necessary ignorance
Political economy as critique of governmental reason: rejection of the possibility of an economic sovereign in its two, mercantilist and physiocratic, forms
Political economy as a science lateral to the art of government
4 April 1979     291
Elements for a history of the notion of homo oeconomicus (II)
Return to the problem of the limitation of sovereign power by economic activity
The emergence of a new field, the correlate of the liberal art of government: civil society
Homo oeconomicus and civil society: inseparable elements of liberal governmental technology
Analysis of the notion of "civil society": its evolution from Locke to Ferguson. Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1787). The four essential characteristics of civil society according to Ferguson: (1) it is an historical-natural constant; (2) it assures the spontaneous synthesis of individuals. Paradox of the economic bond; (3) it is a permanent matrix of political power; (4) it is the motor of history
Appearance of a new system of political thought
Theoretical consequences
the question of the relations between state and society. The German, English, and French problematics
the regulation of political power: from the wisdom of the prince to the rational calculations of the governed
General conclusion
Course Summary     317
Course Context     327
Index of Names     333
Index of Concepts and Notions     339

See also: Finanzbuchführung

The Grand Alliance

Author: Winston S Churchill

The New York Public Library, in looking back on the greatest books of the past century, called Churchill's history "monumental" and said that the author "drew upon thousands of his own memoranda and documents in British archives, but in the end, this epic is structured on his personal experiences and expresses his courage and astonishing self-confidence."

Legal Considerations for Fire and Emergency Services or The Rise of American Democracy

Legal Considerations for Fire and Emergency Services

Author: J Curtis Varon

Written by a lawyer who is also an experienced firefighter, this book examines the most challenging legal issues confronting firefighters and emergency service personnel today. Readers will explore such major legal concerns as fire service liability issues, the jurisdiction of OSHA over fire departments, the applicability of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, search and seizure, employment discrimination, residency requirements, sexual harassment, and more. Many of the most significant fires of the past century are also discussed, along with the cases and legal battles that ensued, so readers can make important connections between past events and the legal concepts facing emergency responders today.

Go to: Psychologie de le fait d'Investir

The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

Author: Sean Wilentz

A grand political history in a fresh new style of how the elitist young American republic became a rough-and-tumble democracy.

In this magisterial work, Sean Wilentz traces a historical arc from the earliest days of the republic to the opening shots of the Civil War. One of our finest writers of history, Wilentz brings to life the era after the American Revolution, when the idea of democracy remained contentious, and Jeffersonians and Federalists clashed over the role of ordinary citizens in government of, by, and for the people. The triumph of Andrew Jackson soon defined this role on the national level, while city democrats, Anti-Masons, fugitive slaves, and a host of others hewed their own local definitions. In these definitions Wilentz recovers the beginnings of a discontent—two starkly opposed democracies, one in the North and another in the South—and the wary balance that lasted until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody resolution. 75 illustrations.

The New York Times Sunday Book Review - Gordon S. Wood

This enormous book by Sean Wilentz has been in the works a long time, and the results are nothing less than monumental. An old-fashioned account of the rise of democracy during the first half of the 19th century, it is a tour de force of historical compilation and construction that more than justifies all the articles and monographs on antebellum politics written by historians over the past several decades. Wilentz, the Dayton-Stockton professor of history at Princeton, has drawn extensively on these secondary sources and on his own research. He has brought it all together into a clear and generally readable narrative.

The New York Times - William Grimes

The Rise of American Democracy deserves to be read slowly. Mr. Wilentz takes on an enormous subject and articulates a grand theme, supported by a wealth of detailed scholarship. Inch by inch, he covers a broad expanse of ground, analyzing countless local struggles to widen the voting franchise, dislodge entrenched privilege and make good on the lofty promises of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Publishers Weekly

As the revolutionary fervor of the war for independence cooled, the new American republic, says Princeton historian Wilentz, might easily have hardened into rule by an aristocracy. Instead, the electoral franchise expanded and the democratic creed transformed every aspect of American society. At its least inspired, this ambitious study is a solid but unremarkable narrative of familiar episodes of electoral politics. But by viewing political history through the prism of democratization, Wilentz often discovers illuminating angles on his subject. His anti-elitist sympathies make for some lively interpretations, especially his defense of the Jacksonian revolt against the Bank of the United States. Wilentz unearths the roots of democratic radicalism in the campaigns for popular reform of state constitutions during the revolutionary and Jacksonian eras, and in the young nation's mess of factional and third-party enthusiasms. And he shows how the democratic ethos came to pervade civil society, most significantly in the Second Great Awakening, "a devotional upsurge... that can only be described as democratic." Wilentz's concluding section on the buildup to the Civil War, which he presents as a battle over the meaning of democracy between the South's "Master Race" localism and the egalitarian nationalism of Lincoln's Republicans, is a tour-de-force, a satisfying summation and validation of his analytical approach. 75 illus. not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

Wilentz's account of the rise of American democracy is a triumph of scholarship and industry. Ranging with immense learning from the politics of New York State to the ethnic, class, and moral politics that shaped the emerging mass democracy, Wilentz has prepared a feast for all those drawn to this crucial but little-known era in the United States' past. In spite of its many virtues, the book unfortunately falls short of the kind of transformative work that would open this era to modern readers in the way that the Civil War and Revolutionary War periods have been opened. Eschewing some of the shibboleths of mid-twentieth-century historiography, Wilentz is driven by a sort of historical affirmative action to focus excessively on figures and movements of the period that share key values with the enlightened twenty-first-century academy (applications from antibank, antislavery, pro-labor feminists of color eagerly sought) while neglecting less enlightened figures who, alas, often had more influence at the time. The most striking failure of this kind has to do with Wilentz's near-total neglect of the rise of party organizations and political corruption and influence peddling. The net result is that Wilentz's picture, although finely detailed and masterfully drawn, bears less relationship than it should to the actual flow of American history. The future of the Democratic Party for more than a century would be a coalition of "master race" democracy Southerners and corrupt urban machines in the North, while the Republicans cemented a large popular base to Whig and Federalist economic ideas. Little in Wilentz's book prepares the reader for this anticlimactic result.

Library Journal

A central question of American history is how U.S. democratic institutions developed from the early republic to the beginning of the Civil War. In this informative, thoughtful, and thoroughgoing book, Wilentz (history & American studies, Princeton Univ.; Chants Democratic) demonstrates how multiple meanings that have attached to American ideas of democracy, both as a form of government and as a social construct, were altered in a complex fashion from the egalitarian Jeffersonian view to the populist Lincolnian perspective. He examines events and experiences, in particular the phenomenon of increased popular oversight of state and national government, that led to changing relationships between governors and the governed. Wilentz's themes include the political conflicts found in the development of representative democracy and the implications of the slavery controversy in battles concerning democratic reforms. His clear, insightful narrative conveys new interconnected understandings of main historical dimensions in our national life and will enhance citizens' understanding of the history of American political development. This superb analysis is highly recommended for public and academic libraries. -Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Is the U.S. a democracy, or a republic? As Wilentz (History/Princeton Univ.) shows in this sprawling account, Americans debated the issue from the post-revolutionary era to the Civil War. In classical terms, a republic is governed "through the ministrations of the most worthy, enlightened men," whereas a democracy "dangerously handed power to the impassioned, unenlightened masses." One-time revolutionary firebrand Noah Webster so mistrusted the mob that, he thundered, had he foreseen popular rule, he would never have fought for freedom; even Thomas Jefferson, that most impassioned of democrats, allowed that given a free choice, the public chose wrongly more often than not. Democracy as such was an oxymoron, Wilentz observes, with power limited to white propertied men in the early days of the republic; the extension of rights throughout the 19th century to a wider polity was a matter of fierce fighting, and eventually war. The battle over just who was to be in charge began almost as soon as national freedom was achieved, an early test, Wilentz writes, being the Whisky Rebellion of 1794, fought by country people against an excise tax on distilled liquor imposed by urbanite arch-republican Alexander Hamilton. As the contest expanded, Wilentz notes, some of the differences between country and city people gave way to other divisions, and by the time Andrew Jackson ran for office in 1824, the gulf between North and South was beginning to widen (as, for a time, was that between those who believed in a cash economy and those who argued for the merits of credit). Abraham Lincoln, though deeply committed to democratic values, would insist on the supremacy of federal over states' rights, while thenominally democratic leaders of the South meant to exalt "the supreme political power of local elites." Wilentz shows that none of these battles was new when Lincoln took office; in some respects, they are still being fought today. Wilentz's book, though very long, wastes no words. A well-crafted, highly readable political history.

Breaking Blue or States and Power in Africa

Breaking Blue

Author: Timothy Egan

In Breaking Blue, Timothy Egan reports a true story of crime, corruption, and cover-up that reads like a thriller and offers a compelling look at the rough-and-tumble days of the Inland Northwest during the Depression. In Egan's vivid account, follow modern-day lawman Tony Bamonte -- graduate student, logger's son, and Vietnam veteran -- as his investigation plunges him back in time to black-market crime, extortion, and even murder. As he unfolds layer after layer of unsavory detail, Bamonte's determination leads him to the murder weapon -- missing half a century -- and to the ex-cop he's convinced is the murderer.

Publishers Weekly

In 1935, Spokane, Wash., was in the sixth year of the Great Depression. Unemployment was high. Civilian Conservation Corps workers were arriving in droves from the East for the Grand Coulee Dam project. Crime was rampant, and a series of creamery robberies had the town on edge. Then, on Sept. 4, the Pend Oreille County town marshal investigating these crimes was murdered. The mystery of George Conniff's death went unsolved until 1989, when Tony Bamonte, sheriff of Pend Oreille County and a graduate student, inadvertently uncovered information that generations of police had conspired to keep hidden. Egan ( The Good Rain ), Seattle bureau chief for the New York Times, lumbers occasionally, but his account of the reopened investigation generally resonates with regional color. Bamonte's investigation of the killing started as scholarly research, but stepped up when ``a convergence of conscience and coincidence'' suggested that the marshal had been shot by a cop protecting colleagues associated with the robberies. In a deathbed confession, a cop revealed that the Spokane police were involved in more than ``a conspiracy of small corruptions.'' Egan evocatively resurrects the scenes and raw insensitivities of '30s police life in the region, from Mother's Place, the diner where cops plotted their heists, to the Hotel de Gink, where transients stayed. (May)

Library Journal

In the course of preparing a master's thesis on law enforcement in Pend Oreille County, Washington, Sheriff Tony Bamonte discovered new evidence relating to the 1935 murder of Town Marshal George Conniff. Bamonte uncovered documents that implicated another police officer in the murder and also revealed a widespread cover-up by the Spokane Police Department. Already unpopular because of his confrontations with the lumber industry and his criticism of other law-enforcement agencies, Bamonte further angered the police community by disregarding the code that forbids going after a fellow police officer--``breaking blue.'' Tracking down witnesses who verified his suspicions, Bamonte turned his efforts to a search for the murder weapon, a gun thrown into a river more than 50 years earlier. The trail eventually led him to a final surprising discovery, which in turn was capped by an even greater irony. Egan, Seattle bureau chief of the New York Times , tells this remarkable story with a journalist's thoroughness and a novelist's ability to evoke place and character. The tale is rich in history and suspense and is recommended for all crime collections.--Ben Harrison, East Orange P.L., N.J.

Kirkus Reviews

Powerhouse story of an iconoclastic sheriff who cracked through 54 years of police coverups and solved the oldest open murder case in the country. Beginning with a brilliant evocation of 1935 Spokane and Pend Oreille County, Egan (Seattle bureau chief of The New York Times; The Good Rain, 1990) sets the scene for the killing of Spokane town marshal George Conniff, who had surprised men stealing butter from the local creamery. In the fifth year of the Depression, Spokane was full of reluctant hobos—many of them farmers who had fled the dust bowls of the Midwest—living, hungry for food and work, in a Hooverville by the local rail yards. The Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from these "vagrants" and collected also from the bootleggers, saloons, whorehouses, Chinese lotteries, and opium dens in the "Queen City of the Richest Empire in the Western Hemisphere." When a shortage doubled the price of butter, 6'3" rock-fisted Detective Clyde Ralstin and his partner profitably robbed dairies until the night that Conniff was killed. Ralstin was fingered for the killing by fellow detective Charles Sonnabend, but Sonnabend was ordered by the brass to stop investigating, and Ralstin disappeared. Fifty-four years later, in 1989, 47-year-old Sheriff Anthony Bamonte—former logger, Vietnam vet, Spokane cop—was writing his master's thesis on the ten previous sheriffs of Pend Oreille County and discovered a 1955 deathbed statement by Sonnabend about the coverup. Bamonte began to probe the case and, amazingly, men and women in their 80s and 90s who had known Ralstin came forward. Egan's narration of Bamonte's methodical stalking, of the ring of paranoia tighteningaround Ralstin (living in a tiny Montana town and knowing of the hunt), and of murder refusing to stay buried after 54 years—all make for compulsive, white-knuckle reading. Egan rises into the Most Wanted group of true-crime writers with this smoothly told, exciting account.

Book about: Cuba Cocina or Flavors of India

States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control

Author: Jeffrey Herbst

Theories of international relations, assumed to be universally applicable, have failed to explain the creation of states in Africa. There, the interaction of power and space is dramatically different from what occurred in Europe. In his groundbreaking book, Jeffrey Herbst places the African state-building process in a truly comparative perspective, examining the problem of state consolidation from the precolonial period, through the short but intense interlude of European colonialism, to the modern era of independent states. Herbst's bold contention--that the conditions now facing African state-builders existed long before European penetration of the continent--is sure to provoke controversy, for it runs counter to the prevailing assumption that colonialism changed everything.

In identifying how the African state-building process differs from the European experience, Herbst addresses the fundamental problem confronting African leaders: how to extend authority over sparsely settled lands. Indeed, efforts to exert control over vast, inhospitable territories of low population density and varied environmental and geographical zones have resulted in devastating wars, millions of refugees, and dysfunctional governments perpetrating destructive policies.

Detailing the precise political calculations of distinct African leaders, Herbst isolates the basic dynamics of African state development. In analyzing how these leaders have attempted to consolidate power, he is able to evaluate a variety of policy alternatives for dealing with the fundamental political challenges facing African states today.

What People Are Saying

Charles Tilly
Herbst's arguments will excite controversy among students of African history and politics, who have built up an extensive story about European transformations of African politics. His analysis raises doubts about how deeply those transformations went; rather, he maintains that durable conditions of topography and social structure have long constrained African state formation. Herbst offers an integrated account of state formation, transformation, and deformation in sub-Saharan Africa.

Table of Contents:

Introduction 3
PART ONE: THE CHALLENGE OF STATE-BUILDING IN AFRICA 9
One The Challenge of State-Building in Africa 11
PART TWO: THE CONSTRUCTION OF STATES IN AFRICA 33
Two Power and Space in Precolonial Africa 35
Three The Europeans and the African Problem 58
Four The Political Kingdom in Independent Africa 97
PART THREE: NATIONAL DESIGN AND DOMESTIC POLITICS 137
Five National Design and the Broadcasting of Power 139
Six Chiefs, States, and the Land 173
PART FOUR: BOUNDARIES AND POWER 199
Seven The Coin of the African Realm 201
Eight The Politics of Migration and Citizenship 227
PART FIVE: CONCLUSION 249
Nine The Past and the Future of State Power in Africa 251
Index 273

September 11 2001 or Global Filipino

September 11, 2001

Author: The Poynter Institut

On Tuesday September 11, our world changed forever. The United States was attacked by an unknown terrorist organization. Word of this attack spread instantaneously around the world. Billions of people woke up on September 12 to find that the front page of their local newspaper was devoted to the tragedy of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Andrews McMeel Publishing in conjunction with The Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, is proud to announce the immediate publication of September 11, 2001.

This book will be a collection of 150 front pages of major newspapers throughout the world. The net profits earned by Andrews McMeel Publishing and the royalties to The Poynter Institute will be given to the September 11th Fund, administered by the United Way.

Go to: Les fondements de Direction D'investissement avec S&P se lient - dans la carte

Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia

Author: Brett Decker

A Man of the People; A Man for the World

Jose de Venecia Jr., the five-time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, has been for years a trail-blazer for the Filipino people, Asia, and the world.

In a political arena often plagued by uncertainty, intrigue, scandal, and poverty, he has fought relentlessly to cast off the Philippines unflattering moniker as the sick man of Asia and has sought to bring political, economic, and cultural influence to the dynamic, hard-working people of his homeland. A coalition builder, visionary, and achiever, de Venecia has:

* conceived and implemented the historic dollar-remittance program that keeps the Philippine economy afloat and has become a model for the third world
* provided breakthroughs in the peace accord between Christian and Muslim (MNLF) Filipinos and a second pact between government and military rebels
* pioneered Filipino projects in the Arab world that led to the employment of millions of Filipinos worldwide
* founded the Asian Parliamentary Assembly and the International Conference of Asian Political Parties to create the beginnings of an Asian Parliament and help achieve political and economic integration in Asia
* pushed the Christian-Muslim and Interfaith dialogues approved by the United Nations to help reduce politico-religious tensions and conflict in various parts of the world
* presented his debt for UN MDGs plan, endorsed by G-77 countries but pending at he G-7, to finance the battle against poverty amidst the global financial crisis

Despite all these advancements, Jose de Venecia is still not immune to the turbulence of Philippine politics. In February 2008, he was ousted from theSpeakership after refusing to ignore his conscience and opposed with his son, Joey III, a scandal-wracked government deal involving some very prominent members of the Philippine government.

Through it all, however, de Venecia has continued to serve the people of his great country. De Venecia continues the fight to improve the lives of his fellow countrymen. No matter the ultimate outcome of the current political tumult, what will long linger in the nation's collective consciousness is the recognition that he--more than any one else in his generation--ushered his people into the age of the Global Filipino.

What People Are Saying

Alexander Haig
Speaker de Venecia has played a key role in the Philippine economic resurgence."--(Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of State, 1981-1982)

Fidel V. Ramos
"In the pantheon of Philippine democracy which is the oldest in Asia, Speaker de Venecia will reside with those others from the past who spent their lives taking our government to a higher plain. This is because he has nurtured a vision of greatness that beholds a more prominent leadership role for the Philippines on the world stage. It is an inspiring vision, and how he arrived there is an interesting story. In this biography, Brett M. Decker reveals knowledge of the Philippines and devotion to his subject that are only surpassed by Joe de Venecia's own passion for a better Philippines. Global Filipino is a great read about a patriotic Filipino, and I endorse them both with enthusiasm."--(Fidel V. Ramos, President of the Philippines, 1992-1998)

"Jose de Venecia will certainly go down as one of the great Speakers in the history of the [Philippine] Congress. His many successful initiatives in the wider field of regional politics make him one of Asia's leading contemporary statesmen. This biography by Brett Decker is about a man who has constantly reinvented himself to meet the challenges of ever-changing times. Even more important, in the overall way the world works, Jose de Venecia is a good man-and that, I think, is a true testament to character in our rough-and-tumble profession of politics."--(Joseph Ejercito Estrada, President of the Philippines, 1998-2001)

Sustainability by Design or Barack Obama

Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture

Author: John R Ehrenfeld

The developed world, increasingly aware of “inconvenient truths” about global warming and sustainability, is turning its attention to possible remedies—eco-efficiency, sustainable development, and corporate social responsibility, among others. But such measures are mere Band-Aids, and they may actually do more harm than good, says John Ehrenfeld, a pioneer in the field of industrial ecology. In this deeply considered book, Ehrenfeld challenges conventional understandings of “solving” environmental problems and offers a radically new set of strategies to attain sustainability.

 

The book is founded upon this new definition: sustainability is the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever. There are obstacles to this hopeful vision, however, and overcoming them will require us to transform our behavior, both individually and collectively. Ehrenfeld identifies problematic cultural attributes—such as the unending consumption that characterizes modern life—and outlines practical steps toward developing sustainability as a mindset. By focusing on the “being” mode of human existence rather than on the unsustainable “having” mode we cling to now, he asserts, a sustainable world is within our reach.

Read also Multiple Sclerosis or Aura Soma

Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest

Author: John K Wilson

Barack Obama is quickly becoming America's most popular politician, and his run for the presidency has brought huge crowds at home and an unprecedented wave of international attention as well. Much more than a biography, this book is a political tour of Obama's legislative experience as well as his ideas about race, religion, and politics. Political writer John K. Wilson, author of four previous books including a study of Newt Gingrich, explores the reaction Obama has received from the left, the right, and the media. As the first presidential candidate from Generation X, Obama has generated an exciting movement of young people to support his campaign as he defines a new kind of broadly popular progressive politics. As improbable as such a quest may be this fresh new candidate may be just the right one to bridge not only generations but ideologies that often divide. Amid all the hype surrounding Obama, this book provides the first in-depth look at what he believes, what he represents, and how he might transform American politics.

Library Journal

Regarding freshman U.S. Senator Barack Obama's quixotic (at least by conventional standards) quest for the Oval Office, these books fall between the usual extremes of unabashedly promotional and critical policy analysis. The more thought-provoking is Steele's (senior fellow, Hoover Inst., Stanford Univ.; White Guilt ), who argues that while he shares much in common with Obama, he is convinced that the senator cannot prevail in his race for the White House. In his brief polemic, almost a literary jazzlike riff on U.S. politics, race relations, and contemporary sociology, Steele examines the significance and implications of Obama's candidacy, concluding that while it is historical-even iconic-he cannot be elected because he is "a bound man." By this he means that although Obama seeks to transcend superficial racial identities, he is in a double-bind, suspended between black racial solidarity and white liberal guilt. Steele admires Obama yet questions his character and policy commitments.

If Steele is an Obama agnostic, Wilson (How the Left Can Win Arguments and Influence People ), who studied law under Obama at the University of Chicago, is an Obama disciple. While Obama's candidacy is perhaps the "improbable quest" that he himself declared it in his announcement speech in 2007, Wilson contends that Obama is the most electorally appealing progressive candidate, one who has truly sparked a grassroots movement. While Steele argues that race may be the downfall of Obama's campaign, Wilson counters that Obama, through his policy proposals and charisma, has transcended race in large measure, and, if elected in 2008, would help the country move further down the road towardwhat Martin Luther King called the "beloved community." With caucuses and primaries upon us, we soon will find out which of these books proves the more deeply insightful. Neither is fully persuasive but each is essential reading for anyone wishing to try to make more sense of contemporary American presidential politics and social policy. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Stephen K. Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Univ., Nampa, ID

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Blowing up Russia or The Adams Women

Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror

Author: Alexander Litvinenko

Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.

Table of Contents:

Foreword     ix
Introduction     xxi
Abbreviations and Terms     xxix
The FSB Foments War in Chechnya     1
The Security Services Run Riot     21
Moscow Detectives Take on the FSB     31
Nikolai Patrushev: A Biographical Note     51
The FSB Fiasco in Ryazan     54
The FSB Resorts to Mass Terror: Buinaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk     100
The FSB Against the People     148
The FSB Sets Up Free-Lance Special Operations Groups     185
The FSB Organizes Contract Killings     196
The Secret Services and Abductions     207
The FSB: Reform or Dissolution?     221
In Place of a Conclusion: The FSB in Power     229
Epilogue     232
Appendices
Statement of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, February 11, 2002     241
Testimony of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin, November 18, 1999     244
Abu Movsaev's Discussion with a Group of Foreign Journalists on the Testimony of Senior Lieutenant A. Galkin     248
Transcript of the Hearings of the Public Commission for the Investigation of the Apartment-House Bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk and the Ryazan Training Exercise in September 1999. Teleconference: Moscow-London, June 25, 2002     255
An Open Letter to the Commission for the Investigation of the Apartment-House Bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk by Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev     285
A. Litvinenko, Y. Felshtinsky: Letter to S. Kovalyov about A. Gochiyaev's Statement     288
Written Statement by A. Gochiyaev, April 24, 2002     293
Printout of Interview with A. Gochiyaev, August 20, 2002     296
Written Statement by A. Gochiyaev, February 2005     304
About the Authors     309
Index     311

Interesting textbook: Construcción de Paisaje Sostenible:un Guía de Edificio Verde Al aire libre

The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters

Author: Paul C Nagel

From his vast storehouse of knowledge about the Adams family. Nagelpulls out the feminine threads of that tapestry to write all about the Adams women, from Abigail to daughter Nabby, from Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of John Quincy, to Clover Adams, wife of Henry, with others making more than cameo appearances. They all lived exceptional, if not extraordinary, lives, in different ways.

Guests of the Ayatollah or Practicing Peace in Times of War

Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam

Author: Mark Bowden

On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans hostage and kept nearly all of them captive 444 days.

The Iran hostage crisis was a watershed moment in American history. It was America's first showdown with Islamic fundamentalism, a confrontation at the forefront of American policy to this day. It was also a powerful dramatic story that captivated the American people, launched yellow-ribbon campaigns, made celebrities of the hostage's families, and crippled the reelection campaign of President Jimmy Carter.

Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, their radical, naïve captors, the soldiers sent on the impossible mission to free them, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Taking listeners from the Oval Office to the hostages' cells, Guests of the Ayatollah is a remarkably detailed, brilliantly re-created, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

Mr. Bowden reaffirms his role as tough-guy Cassandra with this hefty replay of the hostage crisis in Iran that began in 1979. Invoking Philip Roth's great aphorism about hindsight ("the terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides"), Mr. Bowden returns to that pivotal 444-day ordeal and reconstructs it with painstaking care.

The Washington Post - Afshin Molavi

… Bowden skillfully evokes the era and the ordeal, putting a human face on the yellow ribbons. And he describes in detail President Carter's vacillations, the failed rescue attempts, and the charlatans and apologists who acted as private intermediaries to seek the hostages' release (and their own photo ops).

Publishers Weekly

Bowden, whose Black Hawk Down won him a National Book Award nomination, turns his sights to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The audio abridgment is generally smooth, though it's often difficult to keep the cast of characters straight: 66 original hostages, dozens of Iranian captors and untold numbers of diplomats, bureaucrats and family members. On audio, such a dizzying array of stories and backstories can become confusing. Bowden is a capable and competent narrator; while there are no tour de force performances here, the reading is solid and consistent, with no annoying vocal tics or other distractions. The real bonus of the audio over the print version is the final disc, which contains several visual enhancements: a PDF map of the embassy compound; a map of Iran, with markings not only for cities but also the landing site of the ill-fated 1980 rescue mission; and, most impressively, almost nine minutes of footage from the Discovery Channel's four-part documentary Guests of the Ayatollah, featuring compelling interviews with surviving members of the rescue team. Simultaneous release with the Atlantic Monthly hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 17). (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

According to his publisher, Bowden (Black Hawk Down) took five years to write this book. It wasn't long enough. His account of the Iran Hostage Crisis is overwritten, sloppy in detail, and seemingly endless. He begins with prose not unlike that of the pulp novels that Garrison Keillor's "Guy Noir" satirizes, and by the time his writing becomes less turgid the reader realizes with horror that there still remains an arduous 500-page slog ahead. Bowden faults the media for failing to explain Iranian hatred of America, but beyond the briefest description of the 1953 CIA-backed coup, he does no better-unlike David Harris in his excellent The Crisis: The President, The Prophet, and the Shah-1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam, a lucid and comprehensive exploration of the tensions in Iran. Already, there is a shelf of books on this topic, many by insiders such as the American charg , the leader of the failed rescue mission, and President Carter's chief of staff. The need for another book is unclear. Though it is a quarter-century old, Robert D. McFadden's No Hiding Place: The New York Times Inside Report on the Hostage Crisis is concise, readable, and far better. Not recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/06.]-Michael O. Eshleman, Kings Mills, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A riveting account of the 444-day Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81. Bowden's (Road Work, 2004, etc.) contention that the capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran was "the first battle in America's war against militant Islam" needs qualification, for America had been battling by proxy for years. Still, it was the first direct assault on Americans in strength. Those who undertook it viewed the Cold War superpowers as equally evil-surprisingly, the so-called "Muslim Students Following the Imam's Line" had first planned to take over the Soviet embassy in Tehran-and wanted to guide their nation, freshly rid of the much-hated Shah and now governed by a conservative Islamic theocracy, away from Western modernism and toward some recapitulation of the medieval golden age. Led by an inner circle called The Brethren, the militants who stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, initially planned to stay for three days and broadcast their grievances; once it became apparent that the Ayatollah Khomeini's government was not going to eject them-and the attack, it seems, took most of the mullahs by surprise, too-they stayed on. Using the same you-are-there point of view as he did in Black Hawk Down (1999), Bowden introduces figures on both sides of the struggle: American staffers who revered Persian culture and spoke the language fluently; humorless bureaucrats; gung-ho Marine guards and hardcore Delta Force types; Islamic ideologues convinced-and not without cause-that all Americans in Iran worked for the CIA; real-life students who, after a year of hostage-keeping, came to regard the enterprise as a mistake and drifted away; and, least likable of all, the Tokyo Rose-like Iranian interpreter who to this day insistson the justice of her actions and of the Islamist cause. It's a big book not to put down, but Bowden's latest will tempt readers to keep turning the pages. Altogether excellent-and its revelations of back-channel diplomatic dealings are newsworthy. First printing of 200,000; $150,000 ad/promo

See also: Orvis Cookbook or Tempted

Practicing Peace in Times of War

Author: Pema Chodron

With war and violence flaring all over the world, many of us are left feeling vulnerable and utterly helpless. In this book Pema Chödrön draws on Buddhist teachings to explore the origins of aggression, hatred, and war, explaining that they lie nowhere but within our own hearts and minds. She goes on to explain that the way in which we as individuals respond to challenges in our everyday lives can either perpetuate a culture of violence or create a new culture of compassion.

"War and peace begin in the hearts of individuals," declares Pema Chödrön at the opening of this inspiring and accessible book. She goes on to offer practical techniques any of us can use to work for peace in our own lives, at the level of our habits of thought and action. It's never too late, she tells us, to look within and discover a new way of living and transform not only our personal lives but our whole world.