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.