Everything You Think You Know about Politicsand Why Youre Wrong or Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington 1837 1863

Everything You Think You Know about Politics...and Why You're Wrong

Author: Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Here, at last, is the book for anyone who ever wondered how the media extravaganzas we call political campaigns really work. Everything You Think You Know About Politics…and Why You're Wrong explores why the American public, seemingly so eager for "unspun" information about candidates and their positions, invariably ends up feeling manipulated by our political process.Challenging the reader with strategically placed quizzes, well-known commentator on the media and politics Kathleen Hall Jamieson surveys the existing public record on voting patterns, campaign promises, and all manner of electioneering and comes up with an engaging mix of analysis, surprising factoids, and political cartoons. This book separates the facts from the convenient fictions that deter Americans from caring about the processes and outcomes of elections.

Library Journal

With the assistance of a team of researchers, JamiesonDwho is dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Packaging the PresidencyDpresents a collection of essays that empirically challenge some widespread political assumptions. The findings are extrapolated from the Annenberg Campaign Mapping Project, the most thorough investigation conducted of modern presidential campaigns, which was based on analyses of 2,535 speeches, 880 ads, and 23 debates. The author stresses the importance of campaigns: presidents work hard to keep their campaign promises, or voters will penalize them. Campaign ads are important, and negative ads are useful when they criticize an opponent's policies. Televised news is racially biased, one of her studies reveals: persons of color are more likely to be portrayed as perpetrators and whites as victims, although most crimes are intra- and not interracial. The optimistic Jamieson disputes the unsubstantiated view of a broken political system manipulated by scheming politicians who run rampant over an apathetic electorate. This scholarly yet accessible appraisal is recommended for academic and larger public libraries.DKarl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Focusing on the media-shaped perceptions of the American public, Jamieson (communication and public policy, University of Pennsylvania) explores feelings of manipulation in politics. Based on information of the last two presidential elections, she surveys the existing public record on voting patterns, campaign promises, polling, soundbites, negative ads, and election strategies. Jamieson's analysis focuses on the content and effects of campaigns, the use of advertising, and the influence of the news media. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Christian Science Monitor - Chinni

[Jamieson] does an excellent job of looking at how political bias in the newsroom affects coverage...at the very least there is honest information and, in the endless spin cycle of Washington, that's no small thing.

The New York Observer - Stephen Metcalf

Ms Jamieson is widely regarded as one of the finest critics of media and politics in the United States, and has produced a book that will doubtless serve as the vade mecum for the upcoming campaign season...Ms. Jamieson's book is remarkable in its own assiduously researched, often tightly argues way. The sections on local news coverage and the defeat of the McCain tobacco bill are superb.

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Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington 1837-1863

Author: Cheryl Harness

From Lincoln's early practice of law in Springfield, Illinois, through his election to the Presidency of the eve of the Civil War, to his untimely assassination, Harness weaves an enormous amount of information into this compelling picture of our 16th President's public and private life. Readers see Lincoln happy and gangly during his first dance with Mary Todd, playful with his young sons, and strong under pressure as he drafts the Emancipation Proclamation and delivers the Gettysburg Address.

Publishers Weekly

Picking up right where she left off in Young Abe Lincoln, Harness begins the second installment of her biography in 1837, as the 28-year-old state legislator rides into Springfield, Ill. The conversational narrative sets the milestones of Lincoln's personal life into the wider political and economic developments of his turbulent times, following him through career setbacks, his ascension to the White House and leadership during the Civil War, and ending with his assassination. Able as the text is, it is Harness's paintings that most vividly convey Lincoln's private and public personalities. Her densely populated pictures alternate between sweeping scenes (a curious Illinois crowd listening to Lincoln debate Stephen A. Douglas; the President greeted by newly freed slaves as he walks the streets of the fallen Confederate capital) and close-up glimpses of her subject with his cherished family, as he romps on the parlor floor with his boys and anxiously keeps vigil at his dying son's bedside. Illustrated and extensively captioned maps will help young audiences measure the progress of the war and understand the impact of specific battles. Solid storytelling meets sound history. Ages 5-up. (Feb.)

School Library Journal

K-Gr 4A richly illustrated and well-researched history. Harness's text is full of facts about Lincoln's family life and political career. Even more facts and situations are presented visually in the paintings that surround and envelope the printed words. While some of the darkest moments of Lincoln's life (his depression and his marital problems) are not mentioned, the death of his beloved son Willie and his assassination are important parts of the story. Portraits, names, maps of Civil War sites and the division of North and South, borders, scrolls, banners, slogans, and dramatic scenes engage the eye and colorfully enrich the story. There is so much detail to see and absorb that the book calls for individual reading rather than reading aloud. There is substance enough for reports, but the emphasis on details of Lincoln's personal life and the elaborate, full-color visuals invite reading for interest as well. While there are undoubtedly many biographies of Lincoln on every library's shelves, Harness's individualized book design makes this a fine purchase.Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ

Kirkus Reviews

To the growing number of picture-book biographies add this sequel to Young Abe Lincoln (1996) that covers the latter half of Lincoln's life. From the tall, lanky new lawyer who tucked his papers inside his stovepipe hat to the president who led a divided country through civil war, Harness profiles a personal and political Lincoln in a variety of settings and states of mind. Her informal style lends a familiarity to the narrative, interspersing quotes, excerpts, anecdotes, and speeches into the straightforward story line. Without romanticizing Lincoln's role in history, the author allows this larger-than-life president to be human by presenting the anguish and torment he suffered at home as well as in his role as president during a time of civil war. Illustrated maps rife with captions and dates outline the chronology of events and provide a jumping-off point for more serious war buffs. An enormous amount of information and a number of complex issues are pared down to an approachable, satisfying sketch of the simple country lawyer who became "Father Abraham, the Emancipator."

Christianity and the Constitution or New Frontiers of Jihad

Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of Our Founding Fathers

Author: John Eidsmo

John Eidsmoe rights the faulty historical record and correctly brings us back to the roots that made America great . . . clearly demonstrates that our constitutional liberties are a direct result of our founders' moral and religious convictions which were based on a belief in a God who created heaven and earth as well as on the fixed and unchanging absolutes of God's Word.
Robert Skolrood, National Legal Foundation

Legally accurate yet easy to understand . . . presents the truth about our founding fathers and their strong Christian roots that is missing from most textbooks and reference books written during the last fifty years. Every student of American history, ministers, and public speakers should read this book. . . .
Tim LaHaye, Family Life Seminars

Combines an interesting presentation with fine scholarship and a critical m message . . . should be read by anyone interested in the Constitution or Christianity.
Wendell Bird, constitutional attorney

Knowledge of our Christian heritage is an important weapon in the current fight for religious freedom in America. Eidsmoe has given us an entire arsenal of new and important evidence substantiating the Christian roots of our government.
Mike Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association

Balanced and lucid . . . clearly documents the pervasive Christian influence on the lives and thought of those who wrote our Constitution. I recommend it highly as a corrective to the almost totally secular portrayal of the Constitution found in so many textbooks today.
Paul Vitz, author

John Eidsmoe holds five degrees in law, theology, and political science. He currently serves as professor ofconstitutional law and related subjects at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, Faulkner University, Montgomery, Alabama, where he received the Outstanding Professor Award in 1993. A constitutional attorney and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, he has also taught church history and other subjects in various seminaries and has produced a twelve-part video series titled The Institute on the Constitution. His other books include The Christian Legal Advisor, God and Caesar, and Columbus and Cortez.

Go to: Cooking with Country Music Stars or Selling em by the Sack

New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe

Author: Alison Pargeter

Alison Pargeter examines how radical ideology travels from East to West and how the two contexts shape each other. She finds that, contrary to what some analysts have claimed, local rather than global concerns still preoccupy those involved in militant Islam, and national differences and rivalries dominate the scene. Middle Eastern power struggles are now being played out in the mosques of Birmingham, Paris and Milan. She shows how apparently spontaneous expressions of radicalism, such as the cartoon controversy, are in fact driven by political conflicts between different factions in the Middle East. Unravelling the networks behind events like Madrid, 7/7, and the French Metro bombings, she reveals some surprising connections and explores the reasons why young men in Europe are becoming tied up in the world of militant Islamism.

Publishers Weekly

Rejecting the conventional wisdom that the European jihad is monolithic and rooted in local conditions (alienation, marginalization), Pargeter argues that it is instead "plagued by division, petty infighting, and battles of ego," and is "shaped by powers outside the continent." The book's careful analysis demonstrates that the initial wave of radical Islam in Europe in the 1980s was rooted in political struggles against secular governments in the Middle East and that the continent evolved over time into a base "to assist the struggle back home." Even after 9/11, the author claims that the popular notion of a global jihad remains a myth, and after analyzing the terror attacks in Madrid and London, concludes that the evidence linking the perpetrators with al-Qaeda is speculative at best. Pargeter is careful to note that the radicals are a minority within a minority, and her prescription for understanding and combating radical Islam in Europe is to look first to "conditions in the Islamic world." Local "counter-radicalization strategies," she argues, can not work in isolation. Provocative, timely and well-reasoned, Pargeter's iconoclastic views deserve a wide audience.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents:

1 The First Wave of Radicals 1

2 Europe as Islamic Melting Pot 16

3 Recruitment for Jihad 32

4 Islamist Opposition Groups and European Support Networks 47

5 Europe as Battleground 64

6 Algerian Radicalism Targets France 77

7 The 9/11 Effect and 'Globalized' Islam 98

8 The Madrid Bombings 115

9 The London Bombings 140

10 Radical Converts 166

11 The Danish Cartoon Row and the Dilemma of the Moderates 187

Conclusion 204

Notes 210

Index 239

The Iraq War or Native Vote

The Iraq War: A Military History

Author: Williamson Murray

In this unprecedented account of the intensive air and ground operations in Iraq, two of America's most distinguished military historians bring clarity and depth to the first major war of the new millennium. Reaching beyond the blaring headlines, embedded videophone reports, and daily Centcom briefings, Williamson Murray and Robert Scales analyze events in light of past military experiences, present battleground realities, and future expectations.

The Iraq War puts the recent conflict into context. Drawing on their extensive military expertise, the authors assess the opposing aims of the Coalition forces and the Iraqi regime and explain the day-to-day tactical and logistical decisions of infantry and air command, as British and American troops moved into Basra and Baghdad. They simultaneously step back to examine long-running debates within the U.S. Defense Department about the proper uses of military power and probe the strategic implications of those debates for America's buildup to this war. Surveying the immense changes that have occurred in America's armed forces between the Gulf conflicts of 1991 and 2003—changes in doctrine as well as weapons—this volume reveals critical meanings and lessons about the new "American way of war" as it has unfolded in Iraq.

The New York Times

… The Iraq War is an excellent overview of the American military campaign itself. Operation Iraqi Freedom was an extremely complicated and fast-moving campaign -- one that did not lend itself to being understood in bite-size pieces, as most Americans experienced it from television news reports. For this reason, while the embedded journalists provided a wealth of tactical color that helped the average American understand certain aspects of the war, they did little to help the viewer comprehend the operational maneuvering of American forces and the rationale behind those actions.

Murray and Scales make sense of the various events of the war and put them in their proper context -- spatially, chronologically and thematically. In a way that the disconnected reports of the embedded journalists could not, they are able to convey just how remarkable this military campaign was -- and why. — Kenneth M. Pollack

Publishers Weekly

The practice of "embedding" journalists in combat units provided a good deal of spectacular, timely footage, but tended to restrict insight to the frontline perspective of riflemen and vehicle crews. Murray and Scales provide a lucid and leavened look at the larger-scale forces shaping the war. Murray (A War to Be Won), currently a fellow at the Institute of Defense Analysis, is an eminent military historian, and Scales (Yellow Smoke), a retired major general and former commandant of the Army War College, is a familiar commentator on security issues. In this operational history, they eschew discussion of such abstractions as whether the war was a "revolution in military affairs." Instead, they show how, since the Gulf War of 1991, each of the services (army, air force, navy and marines) improved its mastery of the craft of war: individually integrating technology, training, and doctrine while at the same time cultivating a "jointness" that eroded, if it did not quite eliminate, traditional rivalries at the operational level. The result, they argue, was a virtuoso performance in 2003 that did not depend on Iraqi ineffectiveness, a model exercise in maneuver warfare at the operational level that stands comparison with any large-scale operation in terms of effectiveness and economy. The authors complement their work with competent surveys of Iraq's history and of how the U.S. armed forces recovered from the Vietnam debacle, and with an excellent appendix describing the weapons systems that dominated America's television screens. While the short duration of the war's main push-three weeks from start to finish-works against systematic analysis, and there will be much more material to surface and be sifted in the coming years, Murray and Scales set the standard for future works. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Prologue: The Gulf War, 1991	1
1	The Origins of War	15
2	The Opposing Sides	45
3	The Ground Campaign in Southern Iraq	88
4	The British War in the South	129
5	The Air War	154
6	The End of the Campaign	184
7	Military and Political Implications	234
	Weapons of War	259
	Notes	294
	Acknowledgments and Sources	298
	Index	301

New interesting book: The New Leaders or The Asian Financial Crisis

Native Vote: American Indians, the Voting Rights Act, and the Right to Vote

Author: Daniel McCool

The right to vote is the foundation of democratic government; all other policies are derived from it. The history of voting rights in America has been characterized by a gradual expansion of the franchise. American Indians are an important part of that story but have faced a prolonged battle to gain the franchise. One of the most important tools wielded by advocates of minority voting rights has been the Voting Rights Act. This book explains the history and expansion of Indian voting rights, with an emphasis on seventy cases based on the Voting Rights Act and/or the Equal Protection Clause. The authors describe the struggle to obtain Indian citizenship and the basic right to vote, then analyze the cases brought under the Voting Rights Act, including three case studies. The final two chapters assess the political impact of these cases and the role of American Indians in contemporary politics.