Oxymorons or The Affirmative Action Empire

Oxymorons: The Myth of a U.S. Health Care System

Author: J D Kleink

In this impassioned and often vitriolic book - a follow-up to the author's bestselling Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century - U.S. health care industry expert J.D. Kleinke offers an unflinching look at our broken health care system. Throughout the book, Kleinke - who was once a vocal advocate of the managed health care system - explains what went wrong and attempts to answer such perplexing questions as:

Who's in charge of the American health care system?
How does managed care work . . . or not work?
Why have hospitals become so complex?
What are the prospects for reform?
Does the Internet change anything?
Can we solve the growing problem of the uninsured?

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Acknowledgments
	About the Author
1	Wars, Strikes, Riots, and Acts of Congress	1
2	Playing with the Boss's Money	27
3	The HMO Will See You Now	51
4	The Health Care Jobs Program	83
5	Chaos in the Clinic	107
6	Vaporware.com	133
7	A "System" for the Uninsured	165
8	A Simple Plan	177
9	Personal Effects	201
	References	207
	Index	215

See also: Type Talk at Work or Quiet Leadership

The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union,1923-1939

Author: Terry Martin

The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products.

This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state. Terry Martin provides a comprehensive survey and interpretation, based on newly available archival sources, of the Soviet management of the nationalities question. He traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of dozens of official national languages, and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programs.

Martin examines the contradictions inherent in the Soviet nationality policy, which sought simultaneously to foster the growth of national consciousness among its minority populations while dictating the exact content of their cultures; to sponsor national liberation movements in neighboring countries, while eliminating all foreign influence on the Soviet Union's many diaspora nationalities. Martin explores the political logic of Stalin's policies as he responded to a perceived threat to Soviet unity in the 1930s by re-establishing the Russians as the state's leading nationality and deporting numerous "enemy nations."

About the Author:
Terry Martin is Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University.

New Yorker

In the popular imagination, the Soviet Union was always synonymous with Russia, but in the U.S.S.R.'s early days Soviet leaders had a very different idea in mind: they wanted to establish a true multinational, multi-ethnic empire. To that end, they attacked Russian nationalism as a vestige of Tsarism, and instituted a set of policies that looked very much like affirmative action, enforcing the use of local languages and fostering the development of ethnic leaders, even at the cost of discriminating against Russians. Yet, as Martin shows in this fascinating history, simply giving an order was not enough, even in the Stalin years, and the complex relationship between socialism and nationalism in places like Ukraine often frustrated Soviet intentions. More important, ethnicity, once fostered, was frequently a counterweight to, rather than a bulwark of, Communist ideology; although Stalin remained rhetorically committed to the multi-state idea, he ended up terrorizing those ethnic leaders he saw as threats.

Force of the Example or Handbook of Public Finance

Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment

Author: Alessandro Ferrara

During the twentieth century, the view that assertions and norms are valid insofar as they respond to principles independent of all local and temporal contexts came under attack from two perspectives: the partiality of translation and the intersubjective constitution of the self, understood as responsive to recognition. Defenses of universalism have by and large taken the form of a thinning out of substantive universalism into various forms of proceduralism.

Alessandro Ferrara instead launches an entirely different strategy for transcending the particularity of context without contradicting our pluralistic intuitions: a strategy centered on the exemplary universalism of judgment. Whereas exemplarity has long been thought to belong to the domain of aesthetics, this book explores the other uses to which it can be put in our philosophical predicament, especially in the field of politics. After defining exemplarity and describing how something unique can possess universal significance, Ferrara addresses the force exerted by exemplarity, the nature of the judgment that discloses exemplarity, and the way in which the force of the example can bridge the difference between various contexts.

Drawing not only on Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment but also on the work of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas, Ferrara outlines a view of exemplary validity that is applicable to today's central philosophical issues, including public reason, human rights, radical evil, sovereignty, republicanism and liberalism, and religion in the public sphere.

New interesting textbook: Convicted In The Womb or Battleground Chicago

Handbook of Public Finance

Author: J Backhaus

The Handbook of Public Finance provides a definitive source, reference, and text for the field of public finance. In 18 chapters it surveys the state of the art - the tradition and breadth of the field but also its current status and recent developments. The Handbook's intellectual foundation and orientation is truly multidisciplinary. Throughout its examination of the standard material of public finance, it explores the connections between that material and such neighboring fields as political science, sociology, law, and public administration.

The editors and contributors to the Handbook are distinguished scholars who write clearly and accessibly about the political economy of government budgets and their policy implications. To address the needs and interests of international scholars, they place European issues next to the American agenda and give attention to the issues of transformation in Central Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

General Editors: Jürgen G. Backhaus, University of Erfurt
Richard E. Wagner, George Mason University
Contributors: Andy H. Barnett, Charles B. Blankart, Thomas E. Borcherding, Rainald Borck, Geoffrey Brennan, Giuseppe Eusepi, J. Stephen Ferris, Fred E. Folvary, Andrea Garzoni, Heinz Grossekettaler, Walter Hettich, Scott Hinds, Randall G. Holcombe, Jean-Michel Josselin, Carla Marchese, Alain Marciano, William S. Peirce, Nicholas Sanchez, David Schap, A. Allan Schmid, Russell S. Sobel, Stanley L. Winer, Bruce Yandle.

The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth or The British Empire

The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth: Nationalism and Impartiality in American Historical Writing, 1784-1860

Author: Eileen Ka May Cheng

American historians of the early national period, argues Eileen Ka-May Cheng, grappled with objectivity, professionalism, and other "modern" issues to a greater degree than their successors in later generations acknowledge. Her extensive readings of antebellum historians show that, by the 1820s, a small but influential group of practitioners had begun to develop many of the doctrines and concerns that undergird contemporary historical practice. The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth challenges the entrenched notion that America's first generations of historians were romantics or propagandists for a struggling young nation.

New interesting textbook: Weekend Cooking or James Beards Shellfish

The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset

Author: Philippa Levin

This is a meticulous and energetic synthesis that has the hallmarks of Levine's scholarship: narrative cogency, attention to gender and sexuality and broad geographical sweep. For those convinced that the British Empire was acquired in a 'fit of absence of mind', this is a carefully plotted and empirically grounded rejoinder.  Antoinette Burton, Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This is an excellent history. I am very impressed by its breadth, its readability, and the strong narrative that is produced of the rise and fall of the British Empire... The story is so complex that it is a triumph to make it so accessible.  Professor Catherine Hall, University College London

Violent, powerful, vast: the British Empire affected everyone who lived within its sphere.  Colonialism’s impact could be felt in every aspect of life: food, language, work and education.

The empire is typically viewed as distant and tropical; by contrast, this book examines the effects of the empire on men, women and children across the globe: both those under imperial rule and those who implemented it.  Looking beyond politics and diplomacy, Philippa Levine combines a traditional approach to colonial history with an investigation of the experience of living within the empire. 

Spanning the period from Cromwell’s rule to decolonization in the late twentieth century, and including an extensive chronology for ease of reference, Levine considers the impact of British rule for people in Africa, India and Australia, as well as for the English rulers, and forthe Welsh, Scots and Irish who were subject to 'internal colonialism' under the English yoke. Imperialism often led to serious unrest; Levine examines the cruel side of imperialism’s purportedly 'civilizing' mission unflinchingly.

Comprehensive, subtle and innovative, The British Empire:  Sunrise to Sunset tells the human story of colonialism alongside the political drama. 

Philippa Levine is a professor at the University of Southern California.  She has written and edited several books, including Gender and Empire (2004), Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Veneral Disease in the British Empire (2003), Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire (2000) and Feminist Lives in Victorian England (1990).

Table of Contents:

List of illustrations     vi
List of maps     vii
Preface     ix
Acknowledgements     xi
Publisher's acknowledgements     xii
Uniting the kingdom     1
Slaves, merchants and trade     13
Settling the 'New World'     31
After America     43
Britain in India     61
Global growth     82
Ruling an empire     103
Being ruled     123
Gender and sexuality     142
Contesting empire     166
Decolonization     191
Further reading     210
Chronology     220
Index     244

The Moral Imagination or Postcolonial Disorders

The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace

Author: John Paul Lederach

John Paul Lederach's work in the field of conciliation and mediation is internationally recognized. As founding Director of the Conflict Transformation Program and Institute of Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, he has provided consultation and direct mediation in a range of situations from the Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, and the Philippines. His influential 1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline. This new book represents his thinking and learning over the past several years. He explores the evolution of his understanding of peacebuilding by reflecting on his own experiences in the field. Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art. Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act - an exercise of what Lederach terms the "moral imagination."

Table of Contents:

1	On stating the problem and thesis	3
2	On touching the moral imagination : four stories	7
3	On this moment : turning points	21
4	On simplicity and complexity : finding the essence of peacebuilding	31
5	On peace accords : image of a line in time	41
6	On the gift of pessimism : insights from the geographies of violence	51
7	On aesthetics : the art of social change	65
8	On space : life in the Web	75
9	On mass and movement : the theory of the critical yeast	87
10	On Web watching : finding the soul of place	101
11	On serendipity : the gift of accidental sagacity	113
12	On time : the past that lies before us	131
13	On Pied Pipers : imagination and creativity	151
14	On vocation : the mystery of risk	163
15	On conclusions : the imperative of the moral imagination	171
	Epilogue : a conversation	179

New interesting textbook: Explorer Extraordinaire or Fancy Nancy

Postcolonial Disorders

Author: Mary Jo DelVecchio Good

The essays in this volume reflect on the nature of subjectivity in the diverse places where anthropologists work at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contributors explore everyday modes of social and psychological experience, the constitution of the subject, and forms of subjection that shape the lives of Basque youth, Indonesian artists, members of nongovernmental HIV/AIDS programs in China and the Republic of Congo, psychiatrists and the mentally ill in Morocco and Ireland, and persons who have suffered trauma or been displaced by violence in the Middle East and in South and Southeast Asia.
Painting on book jacket by Entang Wiharso

George Washingtons War on Native America or The Politics Presidents Make

George Washington's War on Native America

Author: Barbara Alice Mann

The Revolutionary War is ordinarily presented as a conflict exclusively between colonists and the British, fought along the northern Atlantic seacoast. This important work recounts the tragic events on the forgotten Western front of the American Revolution--a war fought against and ultimately won by Native America. The Natives, primarily the Iroquois League and the Ohio Union, are erroneously presented in history texts as "allies" (or lackeys) of the British, but Native America was working from its own internally generated agenda: to prevent settlers from invading the Old Northwest. Native America won the war in the West, holding the land west and north of the Allegheny-Ohio River systems. While the British may have awarded these lands to the colonists in the Treaty of Paris, the Native Americans did not concur. Throughout the war, the unwavering goal of the Revolutionary Army, under George Washington, and their associated settler militias was to break the power of the Iroquois League, which had successfully held off invasion for the preceding two centuries, and the newly formed Ohio Union. To destroy the Natives in the way of land seizure, Washington authorized a series of rampages intended to destroy the League and the Union by starvation. Food, livestock, homes, and trees were destroyed, first in the New York breadbaskets, then in the Ohio granaries--spreading famine across Native lands. Uncounted thousands of Natives perished from New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio. This book tells how, in the wake of the massive assaults, the Natives held back the American onslaught.

Interesting textbook: Think Big or The Teenage Investor

The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton

Author: Stephen Skowronek

Stephen Skowronek's wholly innovative study demonstrates that presidents are persistent agents of change, continually disrupting and transforming the political landscape. In an afterword to this new edition, the author examines "third way" leadership as it has been practiced by Bill Clinton and others. These leaders are neither great repudiators nor orthodox innovators. They challenge received political categories, mix seemingly antithetical doctrines, and often take their opponents' issues as their own. As the 1996 election confirmed, third way leadership has great electoral appeal. The question is whether Clinton in his second term will escape the convulsive end so often associated with the type.

Culture and Materialism or Total Lobbying

Culture and Materialism

Author: Raymond Williams

A comprehensive introduction to the work of one of the outstanding intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Books about: Someday Well All Be Free or Arms and Influence

Total Lobbying: What Lobbyists Want (and How They Try to Get It)

Author: Anthony J Nownes

This book offers a scholarly yet accessible overview of the role of lobbying in American politics. It draws upon extant research as well as original data gathered from interviews with numerous lobbyists across the United States. It describes how lobbyists do their work within all branches of government, at the national, state, and local levels. It thus offers a substantially broader view of lobbying than is available in much of the research literature. Although tailored for students taking courses on interest group politics, Total Lobbying offers an indispensable survey of the field for scholars and others concerned with this important facet of American politics.

Tenured Radicals 3rd Edition or This Little Light of Mine

Tenured Radicals, 3rd Edition: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education

Author: Roger Kimball

Since Tenured Radicals first appeared in 1990, it has achieved a stature as the leading critique of the ways in which the humanities are now taught and studied in American universities. Trenchant and witty, it lays bare the sham of what now passes for serious academic pursuit in too many circles. In this new edition, completely reset, Roger Kimball has brought the text up to date and has added a new Introduction.

Interesting book: The Complete Idiots Guide to Digital Video or Pragmatic Version Control

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

Author: Kay Mills

" WITH A FOREWORD BY MARION WRIGHT EDELMAN The award-winning biography of black civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. "Riveting. Provides a history that helps us to understand the choices made by so many black men and women of Hamer's generation, who somehow found the courage to join a movement in which they risked everything." --New York Times Book Review "One is forced to pause and consider that this black daughter of the Old South might have been braver than King and Malcolm." --Washington Post Book World "An epic that nurtures us as we confront today's challenges and helps us Keep Hope Alive.'" --Jesse L. Jackson "Not only does This Little Light of Mine recount a vital part of America"s history, but it lights our future as readers are inspired anew by Mrs. Hamer's spirit, courage, and commitment." --Marian Wright Edelman "This book is the essence of raw courage. It must be read." --Rep. John Lewis

Publishers Weekly

An unlettered Mississippi cotton-picker, Fannie Lou Hamer (1918-1977) led the black Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic Convention and was, to many in the civil rights movement, ``the most inspirational person they ever knew.'' In this thorough, sensitive biography, Mills ( A Place in the News ) shows Hamer inspired by her mother and her faith, propelled by anger at her unbidden sterilization and sustained by deeply spiritual, invoking songs, like the one that serves as this book's title. Drawing on published sources and interviews with principals, Mills reconstructs the efforts of civil rights activists to register fearful rural voters, depicts how Hamer shifted ``from private outrage to public person'' and describes how her politics evolved to include social reconstruction. Mills doesn't ignore complexities: she details controversies over Hamer's role in a local Mississippi Head Start program and in a race for Democratic national committeewoman and indicates that certain middle-class blacks were alienated from her. The book emphasizes Hamer's public life more than her private one; Mills notes that Hamer rarely spoke about her family. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)

Michael Rogers - Library Journal

Hamer was a poor, uneducated Southern black woman who was literally treated worse than her employer's dog. When the Civil Rights Movement flowered in the early 1960s, Hamer exclaimed she was "sick and tired of being sick and tired" (she has coined this phrase) and took action. She started many programs to help the poor gain better housing and job training, founded the National Women's Political Caucus, was the first black delegate at a national political convention since Reconstruction, and much, much more. Although not as well known as other Civil Rights figures, Hamer did as much for that cause as anyone. This edition of Mills's 1994 biography contains a new foreword by children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman. A solid addition for biography, civil rights, and African American studies collections in public and academic libraries.

Library Journal

Journalist Mills has written a moving, inspiring biography of black activist Fannie Lou Hamer. The daughter and wife of poor Mississippi sharecroppers, Hamer was ``converted'' to the Civil Rights movement after attending a mass voter-registration meeting in 1962. For the next 15 years, she was in the forefront of major struggles in Mississippi involving voter registration and economic and educational rights for its black citizens. To Mills, Hamer's ability to influence people came from a combination of energy, powerful public speaking, and an extraordinary talent in music and singing. While hardly perfect (she lacked organizational skills and too often refused to compromise), Fannie Lou Hamer was an inspiration to thousands of ``foot soldiers'' in the movement. This beautifully written tribute is highly recommended.-- Anthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind.

School Library Journal

YA-A biography that captures the pain, sorrow, and joy of a spirited woman who fought for basic human rights. Born into a black sharecroppers' family in rural Mississippi, Hamer was always reaching out; as a child she would hop off a truck to retrieve a scrap of paper so she would have something to read. Undeterred by the threat of personal injury and the loss of her job, she organized and encouraged members of her race to register to vote. Mills chronicles Hamer's life and her resilience in the face of setbacks, showing how her indomitable light continues to shine.- Mary I. Quinn, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Homeland Security and Terrorism or Being Arab

Homeland Security and Terrorism

Author: Russell D Howard

The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Series draws on frontline government, military, and business experts to detail what individuals and businesses can and must do to understand and move forward in this challenging new environment. Books in this timely and noteworthy series will cover everything from the balance between freedom and safety to strategies for protection of intellectual, business, and personal property to structures and goals of terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.

Homeland Security and Terrorism is a comprehensive collection of essays and articles addressing the problems and solutions of maintaining openness and freedom in American society, while providing protection against future terrorist incidents. Noted contributors including former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating discuss relevant matters from the changing relationships and responsibilities among government, industry, and private citizens to strategies for minimizing tensions between establishing defensive measures and the financial and societal costs of those matters.

Brigadier General (retired) Russell Howard, a career Special Forces officer, is the former Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy. He has had numerous antiterror and counterterror responsibilities and has taught and published books and articles on terrorism subjects.

James Forest is the Director of Terrorism Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Military Academy. His teaching, research and publications focus on terrorist recruitment and training.

Major Joanne Moore is a career Army officer, currently serving in Iraq. Until recently, she served as anassistant professor of political science at the U.S. Military Academy, teaching courses on American politics and homeland security.

See also: The Lady and the Lingcod or Luscious Low Fat Desserts

Being Arab

Author: Samir Kassir

A passionate meditation on contemporary Arab identity.

Being Arab is a brilliant exploration on what Samir Kassir describes as the "Arab malaise," the political and intellectual stagnation of the Arab world. In searching to understand how the region arrived at this point Kassir turns to the past, revisiting the Arab "golden age," the extraordinary nineteenth-century flowering of cultural expression that continued into the twentieth as, from Cairo to Baghdad and from Beirut to Casablanca, painters, poets, musicians, playwrights and novelists came together to create a new, living Arab culture. Investigating the huge impact of modernity on the region, and the accompanying shockwaves that turned society upside-down, Kassir suggests that the current crisis in Arab identity lies in the failure to come to terms with modernity, instead embracing false solutions such as pan-Arabism and Islamism. Being Arab is a clarion call, urging Arabs to confront their own history, to reject Western double standards and Islamism alike, and to take the future of the region into their own hands.

Jefferson and His Time or Hobbes

Jefferson and His Time: Jefferson and the Rights of Man, Vol. 2

Author: Dumas Malon

The second volume in this Pulitzer Prize-winning biography tells the story of the eventful middle years in the life of Thomas Jefferson: his ministry to France in the years just before the French Revolution and during the early stages of that conflict; his service as secretary of state in President George Washington's first cabinet; the crucial period of his first differences with Alexander Hamilton and the beginnings of his long struggle with the Federalists.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction	xiii
	Chronology	xxv
	Lowest of the Diplomatic Tribe
I	Introduction to Paris	3
II	The Rebuffs of a Commissioner, 1784-1786	21
III	At the Court of Versailles, 1785-1787	33
IV	Confronting John Bull, 1786	50
	The Knowledge of Another World
V	Sentimental Adventure, 1786	67
VI	Minister of Enlightenment	82
VII	Traveling with a Purpose, 1787	112
VIII	The Jefferson Circle, 1787-1788	131
	The Rights of Man
IX	Considering the American Constitution, 1786-1789	153
X	In the Twilight of the Old Regime, 1787-1788	180
XI	A Diplomat Awaits His Leave, 1788-1789	203
XII	Revolution Begins and a Mission Ends, 1789	214
	In the Harness of State
XIII	The Return of a Virginian	241
XIV	New York and the Court of George Washington, 1790	256
XV	The Functions of the Secretary of State	269
XVI	Working with Hamilton, 1790	286
XVII	First Skirmishes over Foreign Policy	307
	The Struggle Within the Government
XVIII	Transition to Philadelphia	319
XIX	Foreign Commerce Becomes an Issue, 1791	327
XX	The Bank and the Constitution, 1791	337
XXI	Storm over the Rights of Man, 1791	351
XXII	Starting the Federal City	371
	A Feud Breaks out
XXIII	New Actors on the Diplomatic Stage, 1791-1792	391
XXIV	An American Champion Meets Disappointments, 1792	406
XXV	The Beginnings of Party Struggle, 1791-1792	420
XXVI	The Causes of Discontent, 1792	443
XXVII	Hamilton vs. Jefferson	457
XXVIII	An Election and Its Promise, 1792	478
	Acknowledgments	489
	List of Symbols and Short Titles Most Frequently Used in Footnotes	492
	Select Critical Bibliography	494
	Long Notes	505
	Index	509

Go to: Breaking the Barriers to Higher Economic Growth or The Physical Science Basis

Hobbes: On the Citizen

Author: Thomas Hobbes

De Cive (On the Citizen) is the first full exposition of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, the greatest English political philosopher of all time. Professors Tuck and Silverthorne have undertaken the first complete translation since 1651, a rendition long thought (in error) to be at least sanctioned by Hobbes himself. On the Citizen is written in a clear, straightforward, expository style, offering students a more digestible account of Hobbes' political thought than even Leviathan itself. This new translation is itself a very significant scholarly event.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism or Multicultural Odysseys

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Author: Brigitte L Nacos

Focusing on the phenomenon of terrorism in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 era, Terrorism and Counterterrorism looks at this form of political violence in an international and American context and in light of new and historical trends. Broadly addressing the question “What is terrorism?,” Brigitte Nacos, a renowned expert in the field, clearly defines and discusses terrorism’s many causes, actors, and strategies as well as anti- and counter-terrorist responses. In addition, this text uniquely investigates terrorism’s relationship with the media and the public. Comprehensive and highly readable, Terrorism and Counterterrorism introduces students to key concepts in the study of terrorism and political violence and helps them challenge preconceptions of this complex and vital issue.

Book review: Guia de Escrita de Subvenção Eficaz:Como Escrever a Nih Grant Application Próspero

Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity

Author: Will Kymlicka

We are currently witnessing the global diffusion of multiculturalism, both as a political discourse and as a set of international legal norms. States today are under increasing international scrutiny regarding their treatment of ethnocultural groups, and are expected to meet evolving international standards regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, national minorities, and immigrants. This phenomenon represents a veritable revolution in international relations, yet has received little public or scholarly attention.
In this book, Kymlicka examines the factors underlying this change, and the challenges it raises. Against those critics who argue that multiculturalism is a threat to universal human rights, Kymlicka shows that the sort of multiculturalism that is being globalized is inspired and constrained by the human rights revolution, and embedded in a framework of liberal-democratic values.
However, the formulation and implementation of these international norms has generated a number of dilemmas. The policies adopted by international organizations to deal with ethnic diversity are driven by conflicting impulses. Pessimism about the destabilizing consequences of ethnic politics alternates with optimism about the prospects for a peaceful and democratic form of multicultural politics. The result is often an unstable mix of paralyzing fear and naive hope, rooted in conflicting imperatives of security and justice. Moreover, given the enormous differences in the characteristics of minorities (eg., their size, territorial concentration, cultural markers, historic relationship to the state), it is difficult to formulate standards that apply to all groups. Yet attempts toformulate more targeted norms that apply only to specific categories of minorities (eg., "indigenous peoples" or "national minorities") have proven controversial and unstable.
Kymlicka examines these dilemmas as they have played out in both the theory and practice of international minority rights protection, including recent developments regarding the rights of national minorities in Europe, the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, as well as emerging debates on multiculturalism in Asia and Africa.

Strong Borders Secure Nation or Lightning out of Lebanon

Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes

Author: M Taylor Fravel

As China emerges as an international economic and military power, the world waits to see how the nation will assert itself globally. Yet, as M. Taylor Fravel shows in Strong Borders, Secure Nation, concerns that China might be prone to violent conflict over territory are overstated. The first comprehensive study of China's territorial disputes, Strong Borders, Secure Nation contends that China over the past sixty years has been more likely to compromise in these conflicts with its Asian neighbors and less likely to use force than many scholars or analysts might expect.

By developing theories of cooperation and escalation in territorial disputes, Fravel explains China's willingness to either compromise or use force. When faced with internal threats to regime security, especially ethnic rebellion, China has been willing to offer concessions in exchange for assistance that strengthens the state's control over its territory and people. By contrast, China has used force to halt or reverse decline in its bargaining power in disputes with its militarily most powerful neighbors or in disputes where it has controlled none of the land being contested. Drawing on a rich array of previously unexamined Chinese language sources, Strong Borders, Secure Nation offers a compelling account of China's foreign policy on one of the most volatile issues in international relations.

Interesting book: Quick Facts or Just Us Girls

Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil

Author: Tom Diaz

Before September 11, 2001, one terrorist group had killed more Americans than any other: Hezbollah, the “Party of God.” Today it remains potentially more dangerous than even al Qaeda. Yet little has been known about its inner workings, past successes, and future plans–until now.

Written by an accomplished journalist and a law-enforcement expert, Lightning Out of Lebanon is a chilling and essential addition to our understanding of the external and internal threats to America. In disturbing detail, it portrays the degree to which Hezbollah has infiltrated this country and the extent to which it intends to do us harm.

Formed in Lebanon by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in 1982, Hezbollah is fueled by hatred of Israel and the United States. Its 1983 truck-bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 soldiers–the largest peacetime loss ever for the U.S. military–and caused President Reagan to withdraw all troops from Lebanon. Since then, among other atrocities, Hezbollah has murdered Americans at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon and the Khobar Towers U.S. military housing complex in Saudi Arabia; tortured and killed the CIA station chief in Beirut; held organizational meetings with top members of al Qaeda–including Osama bin Laden–and established sleeper cells in the United States and Canada.

Lightning Out of Lebanon reveals how, starting in 1982, a cunning and deadly Hezbollah terrorist named Mohammed Youssef Hammoud operated a cell in Charlotte, North Carolina, under the radar of American intelligence. The story of how FBI special agent Rick Schwein captured him in 2002 is a brilliantly researchedand written account.

Yet the past is only prologue in the unsettling odyssey of Hezbollah. Using their exclusive sources in the Middle East and inside the U.S. counterterrorism establishment, the authors of Lightning Out of Lebanon imagine the deadly future of Hezbollah and posit how best to combat the group which top American counterintelligence officials and Senator Bob Graham, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have called “the A Team of terrorism.”

The Washington Post - Daniel Byman

The book shines when discussing FBI operations and the mundane realities of the Hezbollah operatives' daily existence. The FBI officials faced numerous problems, most of which stemmed from byzantine or misguided regulations and procedures rather than the craftiness of their prey. Time and again, opportunities were lost because the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department didn't share information. The artificial "wall" separating criminal and intelligence investigations within the FBI also created roadblocks, making it far harder for investigators to put the pieces together and act effectively.

Publishers Weekly

In a compact and cogent addition to the literature on terrorism, two expert journalists join forces for a portrait of how a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte, N.C., was broken up a little more than a year before September 11. In clear prose with a minimum of political ax-grinding, Newman (The Covenant) and Diaz (Making a Killing) provide biographies of cell leader Mohammed Youssef Hammoud (from his origins in the Shiite slums of Beirut) and member Said Harb; the FBI agents and federal prosecutors (who overcame bureaucratic inertia and civil libertarian-fostered barriers to accumulate the evidence that led to Hammoud's prosecution); and many incidental players along the way. They also provide clear historical summaries of the religious and ethnic divides in the Middle East, and portraits of lesser-known phenomena such as the role of Paraguay (and its borders with Argentina and Brazil) in providing havens for international terrorists. The authors' skill at characterization of friends and foes puts a great many thriller writers in the shade, and at no point do they fall into stereotyping. Embedded in the book is an argument for the kind of interagency intelligence sharing that is still in its infancy. (Mar. 1) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	"You've got to be taught ..."	3
	"For the violence done in Lebanon ..."	32
	"I knew what he was thinking ..."	61
	"I believe in the sun ..."	93
	"Like a soccer goalkeeper ..."	128
	"Doing something illegal to be legal ..."	161
	"God keep our land glorious and free! ..."	185
	"Rise for Jihad! ..."	218

The Selected Political Writings of John Locke or Global Financial Warriors

The Selected Political Writings of John Locke (Norton Critical Editions Series)

Author: John Lock

"This Norton Critical Edition begins with Paul E. Sigmund's comprehensive introduction to the volume, which provides readers with biographical background and a history of the interpretation of Locke's writings, giving particular attention to the ideologically influenced debates of the last fifty years. Locke's most important political writings - The Two Treatises of Government (The First Treatise generously excerpted; The Second Treatise complete) and A Letter Concerning Toleration - are accompanied by explanatory annotations. The Selected Political Writings of John Locke is the only student edition available that includes, in addition to Locke's political texts, selections from his ethical, epistemological, and religious writings - Essay on the Law of Nature, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and The Reasonableness of Christianity." "Sources" includes writings by the major political theorists who influenced Locke. Twenty-one "Interpretations," judiciously chosen from the thousands of books and articles on Locke's political writings, have been thematically organized to allow students to explore the full range of Locke's influence on political and social controversies and developments.

Book review: Youre Only Young Twice or Dressing Smart for Men

Global Financial Warriors: The Untold Story of International Finance in the Post-9/11 World

Author: John B Taylor

Sworn in as head of the U.S. Treasury Department's international finance division just three months prior to 9/11, John B. Taylor soon found himself at the center of the war on terror. Global Financial Warriors takes you inside the White House Situation Room, to the meetings of the G7 finance ministers, and to cities worldwide as Taylor assembles a coalition to freeze terrorist assets, plans the financial reconstruction in Afghanistan, oversees the development of a new currency in Iraq, and deals with the spread of financial crises. From reforming the IMF and the World Bank to negotiating international agreements to reduce Iraq's debt by 80 percent and cancel the debt of very poor countries, Taylor's unparalleled access offers the reader an insider's account of a pivotal time in international finance. 16 pages of illustrations.

The Washington Post - Jeffrey E. Garten

If most people were asked about President Bush's foreign policy priorities, they would probably point to Iraq, al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea -- crises characterized by the actual or potential use of military force. But in Global Financial Warriors, an account of the administration's international financial efforts from Sept. 11, 2001, to April 2005, John B. Taylor, then the Treasury Department's undersecretary for international affairs, gives us an intriguing and highly personalized view of some other dimensions of international policy that get far less attention these days than they deserve … Taylor has written a valuable insider's account of financial diplomacy in the Bush administration. Coming so soon after the events themselves, it is a worthy first draft of some important recent history.

Library Journal

From freezing terrorists' assets to figuring out how to reduce Iraq's debt, Taylor had a lot to do after being sworn in as head of the U.S. Treasury Department's international finance division just months before 9/11. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

1	The first shot in the global war on terror	1
2	Financial reconstruction in Afghanistan	29
3	Avoiding global financial contagion	70
4	New rules for the international monetary fund	98
5	Accountability at the World Bank and beyond	133
6	Financial diplomacy and the Turkish option	166
7	A plan for financial stability in Iraq	197
8	Iraq achieves financial stability	220
9	Negotiating the mother of all debt deals	250
10	Exchange rate diplomacy	274

The Anthropology of Development and Globalization or The Greek Wars

The Anthropology of Development and Globalization

Author: Marc Edelman

Development — is it a powerful vision of a better life for the half of the world’s population who subsist on two dollars a day? Or is it a failed Enlightenment legacy, an oppressive 'master narrative'? Such questions inspire a field newly animated by theories of globalization, modernity, cultural hybridity, and transnationalism. The Anthropology of Development and Globalization is a collection of readings that provides an unprecedented overview of this field that ranges from its classical origins to today’s debates about the 'magic' of the free market.

The volume is framed by an encyclopedic introduction that will prove indispensable to students and experts alike. Subsequent readings range from classics by Weber and Marx and Engels to contemporary works on the politics of development knowledge, consumption, environment, gender, international NGO networks, the International Monetary Fund, campaigns to reform the World Bank, the collapse of socialism, and the limits of “post-developmentalism.” Explicitly designed for teaching, The Anthropology of Development and Globalization fills a crucial gap; no other available text so richly mingles historical, cultural, political, and economic perspectives on development and globalization, and none captures such a wide variety of theoretical approaches and topics as does this exciting collection.

Book about: Plain Lives in a Golden Age or Travel Perspectives

The Greek Wars: The Failure of Persia

Author: George Cawkwell

The Greek Wars treats the whole course of Persian relations with the Greeks from the coming of Cyrus in the 540s down to Alexander the Great's defeat of Darius III in 331 BC. Cawkwell discusses from a Persian perspective major questions such as why Xerxes' invasion of Greece failed, and how important a part the Great King played in Greek affairs in the fourth century. Cawkwell's views are at many points original: in particular, his explanation of how and why the Persian invasion of Greece failed challenges the prevailing orthodoxy, as does his view of the importance of Persia in Greek affairs for the two decades after the King's Peace. Persia, he concludes, was destroyed by Macedonian military might but moral decline had no part in it; the Macedonians who had subjected Greece were too good an army, but their victory was not easy.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. The subjection of the Greeks of Asia

3. `The lands beyond the sea'

4. The Ionian Revolt

5. The conquest of Greece

6. The war in the East Aegean

7. Peace with Athens, 449-412 BC

8. The recovery of the Greeks of Asia

9. From the King's Peace to the end of the Social War

10. The end of the Achaemenids

Rutherford B Hayes or Chutes and Ladders

Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President

Author: Ari Hoogenboom

"Rutherford B. Hayes was an important president who has long deserved a full modern treatment of his career. Ari Hoogenboom's well-researched, engrossing, and multi-faceted account of Hayes's life as a soldier and politician is a significant contribution to the historical literature on the American presidency. It is also a first-rate example of political biography at its best."—Lewis L. Gould, author of The Presidency of William McKinley and The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

"From antislavery lawyer to Union general and Republican politician, Hayes's career was intertwined with the major issues of slavery, war, and reunion. As president he struggled with the issues of Reconstruction and the emerging industrial order, always seeking to do the right thing; as an ex-president, he endeavored to preserve the past and prepare for the future. In this comprehensive biography, Hoogenboom rescues Hayes from undeserved obscurity and tells us much not only about the man but also about the times in which he lived. Hoogenboom's skilled rendering of the life of the nineteenth president promises to be definitive, restoring Hayes to his rightful place in American history as a representative of his era."—Brooks Simpson, author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868

"Compels fresh respect for both the man and his times."—Allan Peskin, author of Garfield

"An exceptional study: revisionist, comprehensive, and, to a surprising extent, relevant. A superb job."—Les Fishel, former director of the Hayes Library

Author Bio: Ari Hoogenboom is professor of history at the City University of New York-Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center and the author of Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement and The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes.

Publishers Weekly

To critics, U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) was an aloof, inept politician, but this revisionist biography limns a pragmatic reformer, supporter of civil rights and precursor of the Progressive movement. As a Cincinnati lawyer, Hayes defended runaway slaves; as a crusading antislavery Civil War colonel, he served bravely and was wounded five times. Three-time Republican governor of Ohio, Hayes secured his state's ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the vote to all races. President Hayes has been accused of brutally crushing the Great Strike of 1877, but Hoogenboom, professor of history at the City University of New York, argues that he called out federal troops against striking railway workers only at the behest of state and local authorities. Hayes's abandonment of Reconstruction by withdrawing troops from the South ended a failed policy that had unwittingly polarized politics along racial lines, in Hoogenboom's assessment. Despite Hayes's commitment to equality for all Americans, one is left with the impression that his administration was, at best, merely efficient. Photos. (Jan.)

Library Journal

Enlarging his earlier book on Hayes's presidency (The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, Univ. Pr. of Kansas, 1988), historian Hoogenboom casts Hayes as a reformer, an advocate for equal rights, and a masterful politician. From his conversion to an antislavery stance through his law career in Ohio to his military service during the Civil War, Hayes grew in his commitment to human rights. As president of the United States (1877-81), he used the veto and appointive powers in new ways and the bully pulpit to protect freedmen and workers. In his retirement, he lobbied for prison reform, veterans' benefits, and education for the poor. Although the Hayes presented is more prescient and principled than his record of achievement would show, all readers will appreciate Hoogenboom's larger view of the man and his time. Burdensome detail sometimes overwhelms and obscures the argument, but this revision merits attention. For academi libraries.-Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1
1 Ohio and New England	7
2 Kenyon and Harvard	27
3 Lower Sandusky	52
4 Cincinnati	73
5 Law and Family	87
6 Politics	100
7 War	112
8 War in Earnest	131
9 Western Virginia Interlude	149
10 The Valleys of Virginia	162
11 The End of the War	178
12 Congressman	189
13 Governor	211
14 Second Term	225
15 Interlude	239
16 The Campaign of 1876	256
17 The Disputed Election	274
18 Two New Policies	295
19 A TroubledSummer	326
20 Congress Triumphant	351
21 Hayes Takes Charge	370
22 Riders, Politics, and Reform	392
23 The Succession	414
24 The Garfield Campaign	433
25 Lame Duck	447
26 Spiegel Grove	466
27 Popular Education	480
28 Social Justice	493
29 Without Lucy	508
30 Joining Lucy	521
Afterword	535
A Note on Sources	541
Notes	543
Index	615

Books about: Understanding and Overcoming Depression or The Type 2 Diabetes SourceBook

Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market

Author: Katherine S Newman

Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labor market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labor markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighborhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas, and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay, and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger paychecks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor.

A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labor market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends.

Supplementing finely drawn ethnographic portraits, Newman examines the national picture to show that patterns around the country paralleled the findings from some of New York's most depressed neighborhoods. More than a story of the shifting fortunes of the labor market, Chutes and Ladders asks probing questions about the motivations of low-wage workers, the dreams they have for the future, and their understanding of the rules of thegame.

Library Journal

ea. vol: Harvard Univ. Oct. 2006. SOC SCI Remember playing the board game Chutes and Ladders? Drawing on an eight-year study, Newman (sociology & public affairs, Princeton Univ.; A Different Shade of Gray: Midlife and Beyond in the Inner City) effectively uses ethnographic portraits to examine why some low-wage earners in New York's ghettos and beyond particularly African American and Latino service-sector employees have been experiencing a real-life version of the game. Some were able to capitalize on the economic prosperity of the late 1990s, often thanks to family, friends, and public subsidies; they went up the ladder, returning to school and obtaining trade certificates, high school diplomas, and even college degrees. Meanwhile, others, faced with family obligations, little or no training, and sheer prejudice, were not able to take advantage of these opportunities and moved downward. Similarly, sociologist Venkatesh (director of research, Inst. for Research in African American Studies, Columbia Univ.; American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto) looks at the impoverished residents of Southside Chicago's Maquis Park and the networks they have developed to cope with their devastating circumstances. For example, a mechanic works in an alleyway "shop," and gang-run businesses are an everyday affair. While Venkatesh has a more personal, compelling writing style, Newman's work offers appendixes rich in socioeconomic detail and will be of greater interest to policymakers. Both of these books are in the fine tradition of David K. Shipler's The Working Poor: The Invisible in America, and both deserve places in public and academic libraries. Ellen D. Gilbert, Princeton, NJ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Andrew Cherlin
Chutes and Ladders makes an important contribution to our knowledge of low-wage workers. There are many studies of the plight of young, low-income workers, but few if any follow them closely to see what happens to them over time. The conventional wisdom says that they are stuck in undesirable jobs forever, but Katherine Newman shows that about 20 per cent move up the job ladder and greatly improve their lives. Because of her detailed knowledge of these workers' life stores, Newman shows us how they do it. --(Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University)

Senator John
Katherine Newman is not afraid to ask the hard questions in her new book, Chutes and Ladders. There is much to draw from the "high flyers" such as Kyesha, Jamal and Kevin, who work their way out of poverty, and the rest of the people Newman follows in these pages offer all of us important lessons and insights. In Chutes and Ladders, policymakers have a blueprint for valuing work and reducing poverty. --(Senator John Edwards)

William Julius
This engaging book chronicles the divergent trajectories of a group of low-wage workers during a brief period of economic prosperity. Katherine Newman has once again demonstrated the value of careful ethnographic research in revealing the many challenges confronting the working poor. Chutes and Ladders is a unique and important study that should be widely read and discussed. --(William Julius Wilson, Harvard University)

Stalins Last Crime or Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953

Author: Jonathan Brent

A new investigation, based on previously unseen KGB documents, reveals the startling truth behind Stalin's last great conspiracy.

On January 13, 1953, a stunned world learned that a vast conspiracy had been unmasked among Jewish doctors in the USSR to murder Kremlin leaders. Mass arrests quickly followed. The Doctors' Plot, as this alleged scheme came to be called, was Stalin's last crime.

In the fifty years since Stalin's death many myths have grown up about the Doctors' Plot. Did Stalin himself invent the conspiracy against the Jewish doctors or was it engineered by subordinates who wished to eliminate Kremlin rivals? Did Stalin intend a purge of all Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities, which might lead to a Soviet Holocaust? How was this plot related to the cold war then dividing Europe, and the hot war in Korea? Finally, was the Doctors' Plot connected with Stalin's fortuitous death?

Brent and Naumov have explored an astounding arra of previously unknown, top-secret documents from the KGB, the presidential archives, and other state and party archives in order to probe the mechanism of on of Stalin's greatest intrigues -- and to tell for the first time the incredible full story of the Doctors' Plot.

Publishers Weekly

Though the Great Terror of the late 1930s is widely viewed as the height of Stalin's purges, the number of arrests actually peaked in the early 1950s, and Stalin was planning hundreds of thousands more on the eve of his death in 1953. These arrests were spurred by the "doctors' plot," a supposed conspiracy among Jewish doctors to kill members of the government and destroy the U.S.S.R. at the behest of the Americans. Brent, the editorial director of Yale University Press, and Naumov, executive secretary of Russia's Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons, trace how Stalin himself put together false evidence of the "doctors' plot," which was far more than a simple exercise in anti-Semitism and paranoid senility. According to the authors, Stalin intended to use the "doctors' plot" to accomplish several goals: to purge his Ministry of Security and upper ranks of government; to defuse the potential threat posed by Soviet Jews, many of whom had ties to the U.S. and the new state of Israel; and to provide fuel for an armed conflict with the U.S. Brent and Naumov provide a riveting view of Stalin's modus operandi: over the course of several years, he patiently and meticulously gathered forced confessions that would weave together unrelated events-the death of a top Party official here, the arrest of a Zionist doctor there-into a story of massive conspiracy. One of the reasons for his great care, the book contends, is that the popular mood had subtly shifted in the postwar era; revolutionary fervor had died down, there was a desire for legal legitimacy and, in contrast to their 1930s counterparts, top bureaucrats were loath to convict without evidence. One wishes that the authors had elaborated on fascinating points like these. Their narrative is a complicated one, full of minor characters and bureaucratic missives, and, by necessity, most of this narrowly focused book is taken up with close readings of documents. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

These two publications deal with similar topics but have different areas of focus. In Stalin's Last Crime, Brent, editorial director of Yale University Press, which publishes the distinguished "Annals of Communism" series, and Naumov, executive secretary of the Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons in Moscow, have researched materials previously buried in KGB archives to make the startling but long-suspected assertion that Stalin was poisoned by Politburo members and allowed to die. Their focus is the "doctors' plot" that Stalin concocted to implicate Jewish doctors in the deaths of two top Kremlin leaders in 1945 and 1948. These incidents were tangled together with his paranoid suspicions that the Jews and the Americans were planning to invade Russia (and nuke Moscow), which he used as a cover to purge the MGB (precursor to the KGB). As Stalin fabricated the plot, he had concentration camps built to hold the Jews of Moscow and then all of Russia, and he planned to detain or deport the entire Jewish population. In contrast, Lustiger's Stalin and the Jews begins with the repression of the Jews from the time of Catherine II (the Great) through the tsars of the 19th century to the known anti-Semitism of Nicholas II as background for its own account of the "doctors plot "and the plight of the Jews in Soviet Russia. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC) was established in 1942 to muster Jewish support for the war against Hitler's Germany. But its remarkable success was not enough to convince Stalin, who saw demons in the organization's leaders and, with forced confessions, false evidence, and compliant underlings, had the JAFC leadership murdered after a secret mock trial. Both books are well researched and complement each other. But while Brent and Naumov do a great deal of guessing, asserting what Stalin probably did, Lustiger-a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and an independent publisher and writer-is less interpretive. Both books are recommended for all libraries with Russian history collections.-Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A worthy, attention-getting study revealing Stalin's plans to revive state terror after WWII, this time with Soviet Jews as the target and perhaps a war with the US on the horizon. The pretext for the new pogrom, write Yale University Press editor Brent and Russian historian Naumov, was the 1948 death of Communist Party apparatchik A.A. Zhdanov, to all appearances the victim of a bad heart and a bad lifestyle. The Stalin government alleged, however, that Zhdanov was the victim of a widespread conspiracy on the part of Jewish doctors to destroy the Kremlin leadership one party boss at a time. "Fantastic stories circulated," write Brent and Naumov, "that Jewish doctors were poisoning Russian children, injecting them with diphtheria, and killing newborn infants in maternity hospitals." Stalin himself charged that the "Jewish doctors" were part of a larger plot organized by the capitalist powers to invade the Soviet Union, and he apparently planned a retaliatory war that in at least one scenario would have brought Soviet troops to America's West Coast. Over the next few years, hundreds of doctors were arrested and imprisoned, most of the members of Jewish organizations such as the wartime Jewish Antifascist Committee were executed, and plans were laid to create a special gulag for Jews. When Stalin died in 1953--among the most headline-making elements here is the suggestion that he was slowly poisoned by his lieutenant, Beria--the notion of a Jewish plot against the state was quietly dismissed and the doctors freed. That Stalin was using the affair as an excuse to reinstate terror as a political instrument is made clear, the authors suggest, by the fact that not only Jews were specifictargets, but also elements of the Kremlin leadership, members of the state security apparatus, and indeed anyone who looked sideways at the Great Man in his last days. More evidence for the essential evil of the Stalin regime, joining such recent studies as Stйphane Courtois's Black Book of Communism (1999) and Anne Applebaum's Gulag (p. 196).

Go to: The Machiavellian Moment or War and Peace in the Middle East

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage

Author: Nicholas Wapshott

New details of the remarkable relationship between two leaders who teamed up to change history.

It's well known that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were close allies and kindred political spirits. During their eight overlapping years as U.S. president and UK prime minister, they stood united for free markets, low taxes, and a strong defense against communism. But just how close they really were will surprise you.

Nicholas Wapshott finds that the Reagan-Thatcher relationship was much deeper than an alliance of mutual interests. Drawing on extensive interviews and hundreds of recently declassified private letters and telephone calls, he depicts a more complex, intimate, and occasionally combative relationship than has previously been revealed.

Publishers Weekly

White House press secretary James Brady once declared "[i]t took a crowbar" to separate President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher. Biographer Wapshott (Thatcher) assesses the nature of that sometimes testy but always close freindship. As Reagan put it, they were "soul mates when it came to reducing government and expanding economic freedom." Not content with biography, Wapshott also provides a political history of the post-WWII period and the 1980s. Elected under similar circumstances, the two faced many of the same trials: assassination attempts, striking workers and tensions with the Soviet Union. Wapshott's attention to Reagan and Thatcher's compatibility sometimes comes at the expense of a deeper analysis of the ideas that united them. On their economic conservatism, Wapshott is insightful and exhaustive; on the ideas driving their foreign policy, he is less thorough, and more detailed comparison of Thatcher's cold Methodism and Reagan's sense of God's purpose after his attempted assassination would have been welcome. Throughout, Wapshott favors the nitty-gritty, painting a portrait of the friendship that shaped the 1980s and the alliance that won the Cold War. (Nov.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

National Review

I can recommend a rattling good read with lots of new material on their previously private meetings and correspondence.

New York Sun

Briskly written, perceptive, and, ultimately, moving.

Bob Nardini - Library Journal

When Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher met for the first time in 1975 in London, writes veteran biographer Wapshott (Peter O'Toole), the moment was nearly as significant as the first meeting between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in 1941. Thatcher was then the newly elected Conservative Party leader, while Reagan, just done with his second and final term as governor of California, had set a course for the White House. This dual biography centers on the personal friendship and political partnership between Thatcher and Reagan, who, as prime minister and president, were of course to alter the politics of Britain and the United States as leaders of the West in the final years of the Cold War. Wapshott wrote an earlier biography of Thatcher, although most of his books have been on actors and entertainers. Here he writes just well enough to intermittently engage a popular readership, his primary audience. He relies mainly on secondary sources, his research is too thin, and his thesis too overreaching for academic readers. Optional for public libraries.

What People Are Saying

Tina Brown
Nicholas Wapshott, with access to their unpublished correspondence, gives us a nuanced—and immensely readable— portrait of how Reagan and Thatcher resolved their differences in leading the world out of incipient chaos. This is a shrewd and affecting portrait. (Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles)

Table of Contents:

Introduction     ix
Above the Shop     1
The World of Work     22
A Taste of Power     46
The Road to the Top     70
Success at the Polls     101
The Honeymooners     126
A Lovers' Tiff     142
Outcast of the Islands     160
Cold Warriors     186
Strikebusters     209
From Russia with Love     226
The Victors     251
The Merry Widow     272
Epilogue     289
Acknowledgments     295
Notes     297
Select Bibliography     315
Index     321

Imperial Hubris or Sketches from a Life

Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

Author: Michael Scheuer

When Imperial Hubris first came out in 2004, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat was to believe-at the urging of U.S. leaders-that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. The now-classic showed that a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications and demonstrated that they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Imperial Hubris remains a must read for an in-depth look at Al Qaeda and the War on Terror.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

Imperial Hubris, the scalding new book by a current Central Intelligence Agency officer — who was able to publish the book on the condition that his real name not be revealed — is an assessment of America's war on terror that is bound to provoke large heapings of controversy, on both the right and the left, among hardliners on Iraq and critics of the administration alike. Readers will doubtless contest some or many of the things Anonymous has to say, but he pulls few punches in this book and gives us a fascinating window on America's war with Al Qaeda — at least as framed by one senior analyst, who seems to have put all bureaucratic niceties aside.

The Washington Post - Richard A. Clarke

For those Americans who had begun to doubt whether the Central Intelligence Agency could produce good analysis, Imperial Hubris clearly demonstrates otherwise. It is a powerful, persuasive analysis of the terrorist threat and the Bush administration's failed efforts to fight it. The CIA carefully vetted the book to ensure that no "sources and methods" were exposed, but the anonymous author -- a current CIA official -- draws effectively on the years he's spent carefully studying detailed intelligence reports from several U.S. and many foreign spy agencies. His criticism is damning.

Publishers Weekly

It's unclear how, in an age when even office workers must sign confidentiality agreements, an alleged CIA Middle Eastern specialist has gotten permission to publish a sprawling, erudite book on the origins and present state of the "war on terror." His main point is that Arab antagonism to the West (and even non-fundamentalist Arab regimes' winking at terrorism) has its root in real grievances that have gone unaddressed by U.S. measures. The actions of the Saudis, and their U.S. supporters, come in for some hard criticism, as does the elevation of Northern Alliance warlords to de facto governors of Afghanistan. The author makes some challenging remarks regarding Israel ("Surely there can be no other historical example of a faraway, theocracy-in-all-but-name of only six million people that ultimately controls the extent and even the occurrence of an important portion of political discourse and national security debate in a country of 270-plus million people that prides itself on religious toleration, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech") while playing down the extent to which the Taliban itself was a corrupt theocratic regime. But his annotated compendia of battles and skirmishes won and lost by the U.S. and al-Qaeda are gripping, and his engagement with his subject has made him a pundit-in-demand. (Aug.) Forecast: This is more a book to shake up policy wonks with facts on the ground than for the general public, but it has already created a stir inside the Beltway and beyond. The book is the author's second; Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America was mostly ignored, but this time around, the Primary Colors approach (necessary to protect the author's identity) has led to much TV and print exposure (with voice and features disguised); expect media-based sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Book about: Taxação de Propriedades, Presentes e Confianças

Sketches from a Life

Author: George F Kennan

Written originally as a series of entries in a travel diary and now considered one of the most important memoirs of our time, Sketches from a Life is George F. Kennan's peerless, impressionistic record of his experiences with twentieth-century history. Beginning with his first foreign service post in 1927 and ending seven decades later, Kennan's account is rich with the insight of a major historical participant. Whether relating the perils of Hitler's Germany or revisiting Kennan's days as ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sketches from a Life is as riveting as great literature, and one of the most invaluable documents of our time.

Publishers Weekly

``Wistful and wise, these travel notes distilled from a long career in diplomatic service and private wanderlust reveal Kennan as a citizen of the world, though one who may be truly at home nowhere,'' noted PW. (Apr.)

Library Journal

As always, Kennan offers a unique perspective on history, even in the context of these memoirs. This is a collection of very private reflections spanning some 60 years of foreign service in Nazi Germany, the Baltic states, the Low Countries, the Soviet Union, as well as nonofficial travels covering the entire globe. Kennan has marvelous insight into his ever-changing surroundings--an insight that is always sharp, sometimes melancholy, and punctuated frequently by dry, Midwestern wit. His ardent opposition to the arms race is clear in postwar entries which express a mounting concern for the future of his country and the planet. Along with Kennan's other works, this will form a fitting legacy to one of America's greatest historians.-- Joseph W. Constance Jr., Boston Coll. Libs.

The Arab and Jew or Trade Regulation

The Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land

Author: David K Shipler

The Jew, according to the Arab stereotype, is a brutal, violent coward; the Arab, to the prejudiced Jew, is a primitive creature of animal vengeance and cruel desires. In this monumental work, revised and more relevant than ever, David Shipler delves into the origins of the prejudices that have been intensified by war, terrorism, nationalism, and the failure of the peace process.

"The best and most comprehensive work there is in the English language on this subject." (Walter Laqueur, The New York Times)

"A rich, penetrating, and moving portrayal of Arab-Jewish hostility, told in human terms." (Newsday)

Publishers Weekly

The Jew, in the Arab stereotype, is a brutal, violent coward; the Arab, to the prejudiced Jew, is a primitive creature of animal vengeance and cruel desires. There is remarkable symmetry in these images, as Shipler (Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams points out in this hefty mixture of reportage, personal histories, interviews and scholarship. An act of courage and clarity, the book is an important contribution to the literature on the Middle East. The New York Times correspondent shows how Israeli Jews deny the reality that Palestinian Arabs are victims of forcible displacement and expulsion from what was once their homeland; he describes how a ``synthetic Israeli history'' is taught to Jewish schoolchildren, while Palestinian boys and girls in the refugee camps are taught militant rhetoric and hatred. Shipler explores the corrosive effects of terrorism by both sides, the zeal of Islamic fundamentalists, as well as that of Israeli ultraconservatives. BOMC and History Book Club alternates; first serial to the New York Times Magazine. (September 24)

Library Journal

int affairs The political and military dimensions of the middle Eastern crisis are the common stuff of headlines and books; Shipler focuses instead on the human dimension. In portraits of Arabs and Jews from all walks of life and political perspectives, he examines the ``attitudes, images, and stereotypes that Arabs and Jews have of one another, the roots of their aversions, and the complex interactions between them. . . .'' The effects of war, nationalism, terrorism, religion, and history come to life, illuminated by Shipler's insights drawn from his five-year residence in Jerusalem and his wide reading. While he concludes with a dream of a peaceful society growing out of direct links among the youth of the two groups, he offers no promise that such a dream can survive the hatred, fear, and pain. Highly recommended. Elizabeth R. Hayford, President, Assoc. Colls. of the Midwest, Chicago

Look this: Inventing the Indigenous or Diagnosis

Trade Regulation: Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series)

Author: Robert Pitofsky

The text is an integrated discussion of the major antitrust guidelines produced by the Department of Justice and the FTC during the 1990s and significant antitrust process issues. The book's comparative law materials reflect expanded antitrust systems of other nations. A series of economic essays and notes prepared in collaboration with economist Steven C. Salop, offer views on antitrust policy development. The casebook offers hypothetical problems throughout as a teaching aid.

Table of Contents:

The Objectives and Origins of Antitrust LawInstitutional Framework of Antitrust Policy Market Structure and a First Look at the Problem of Monopoly Power Competitor Collaboration on Price Fixing and Division of Markets Group Refusals to Deal and Joint Ventures Market Concentration, Conspiracy, and the Antitrust Laws Vertical Restraints on Competition Additional Limitations on a Single Firm Exercising Market Power Mergers Foreign Commerce and the U.S. Antitrust Laws Price Discrimination and the Robinson-Patman Act

Voltaire in Exile or Though the Heavens May Fall

Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 1753-78

Author: Ian Davidson

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

See also: Handbook of Community Practice or Prague in Black

Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery

Author: Steven M Wis

The case of James Somerset, an escaped slave, in June of 1772 in London's Westminster Hall was a decisive turning point in human history. Steven Wise has uncovered fascinating new revelations in this case, which statesmen of the time threatened would bring the economy of the British Empire to a crashing halt. In a gripping, hour-by-hour narrative of the trial and the inflamed participants, Wise leads the reader to the extraordinary and unexpected decision by the great conservative judge, Lord Mansfield, which led to the United States' own abolition movement. As the case drew to a close, and defenders of slavery pleaded with him to maintain the system, Mansfield's reply has resounded down through more than two centuries: "Let Justice be done, though the Heavens may fall."

The New York Times - Marilynne Robinson

Wise, the president of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, traces with reverent care how the question of the legality of slavery developed within England, culminating in this famous trial.

Library Journal

Legal historian Wise examines how 18th-century English abolitionists created legal arguments to challenge slavery. Granville Sharp was a leading abolitionist whose legal failures and eventual success are analyzed here in the context of 18th-century English law and common-law precedents. Wise emphasizes two cases, Lewis v. Stapylton (1771) and the trial of James Somerset (1772). In the latter case, Wise examines Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's legal course to declaring slavery in England as immoral and illegal since it was wrong to treat human beings as property. Wise shows how Mansfield could interpret common law to meet the changing needs of society. Wise uses historical analysis to draw connections between these cases and later U.S. activities concerning freedom in the American Revolution and Civil War. This thoughtful analysis provides an underpinning for the social and legal context of slavery, making this a recommended book for academic and larger public libraries.-Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Forensic Science Handbook Volume 1 or Masters of Deception

Forensic Science Handbook, Volume 1

Author: Richard Saferstein

The second in a three-volume series, this popular and widely circulated professional handbook describes the theories and practices of today's criminalistics, and covers a wide range of subject areas relevant to the services rendered by crime laboratories and related facilities. Presents authoritative reviews from recognized forensic criminologists and forensic scientists well-versed in their chosen areas of expertise. Considers a specific examination technique for a wide-range of evidence prevalent in the modern crime laboratory, e.g., DNA, hair, paint, soil, glass, petroleum products, explosives, alcohol in blood and breath, and questioned documents. Describes the theory, operation, and forensic utilization of such modern analytical instruments as mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, high-performance liquid chromatography, and the visible microspectrophotometer. Emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between forensic science and criminal law as it examines the role and conduct of the expert witness, rules of evidence, and the legal requirements governing the admissibility of scientifically evaluated evidence. For professionals in forensic science and criminology.

See also: L'econometria dei mercati finanziari

Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace

Author: Michele Slatalla

The bestselling account of a band of kids from New York who fought an electronic turf war that ranged across some of the nation's most powerful computer systems. "An immensely fun and -- one cannot emphasize this enough -- accessible history of the first outlaws in cyberspace."--Glamour

Migrations and Cultures or One Nation Underprivileged

Migrations and Cultures: A World View

Author: Thomas Sowell

Most commentators look at the issue of immigration from the viewpoint of immediate politics. In doing so, they focus on only a piece of the issue and lose touch with the larger picture. Now Thomas Sowell offers a sweeping historical and global look at a large number of migrations over a long period of time.Migrations and Cultures: shows the persistence of cultural traits, in particular racial and ethnic groups, and the role these groups’ relocations play in redistributing skills, knowledge, and other forms of “human capital.” answers the question: What are the effects of disseminating the patterns of the particular set of skills, attitudes, and lifestyles each ethnic group has carried forth—both for the immigrants and for the host countries, in social as well as economic terms?

New York Times Book Review

Well reasoned and impressively researched, Migrations and Cultures is...a formidable achievement.

Publishers Weekly

Sowell (Race and Culture), senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, takes a sweeping look at major world migrations, his aim being to "provide revealing glimpses of the enormous role of cultural heritages and their far-reaching implications." Focusing on the Germans, Japanese, Italians, Chinese, Jews and Indians (why not the Irish, too?), he traces the migratory pattern of each group and examines how it has affected the countries where its members settled, as well as the effects of migration on the immigrants themselves over time. Interesting insights abound in this study. For instance, the xenophobia of Westerners toward Chinese is equally as strong among China's Asian neighbors; northern Italians in their new homelands asked to be counted separately from their southern compatriots; German Jews in America, while extending charity to their less fortunate Eastern European brethren, kept a social distance from them. Sowell's treatment is so comprehensive and detailed, with a plethora of footnotes on almost every page, that his book will be of particular interest to specialists. (Apr.)

What People Are Saying

Peter Brimelow
"Sowell is one of the wonders of the American intellectual world and this book once again illustrates why."

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Acknowledgments
Ch. 1	Migration Patterns	1
Ch. 2	Germans Around the World	50
Ch. 3	Japanese Around the World	105
Ch. 4	Italians Around the World	140
Ch. 5	The Overseas Chinese	175
Ch. 6	Jews of the Diaspora	234
Ch. 7	The Overseas Indians	309
Ch. 8	History and Cultures	371
	Notes	393
	Index	503

Interesting textbook: Direction Stratégique :la Compititivité et la Globalisation, les Concepts

One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All

Author: Mark Robert Rank

Despite its enormous wealth, the United States leads the industrialized world in poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged unravels this disturbing paradox by offering a unique and radically different understanding of American poverty. It debunks many of our most common myths about the poor, while at the same time provides a powerful new framework for addressing this enormous social and economic problem.
Mark Robert Rank vividly shows that the fundamental causes of poverty are to be found in our economic structure and political policy failures, rather than individual shortcomings or attitudes. He establishes for the first time that a significant percentage of Americans will experience poverty during their adult lifetimes, and firmly demonstrates that poverty is an issue of vital national concern.
Ultimately, Rank provides us with a new paradigm for understanding poverty, and outlines an innovative set of strategies that will reduce American poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged represents a profound starting point for rekindling a national focus upon America's most vexing social and economic problem.