Cities withour Suburbs or Bay of Pigs Declassified

Cities withour Suburbs: Census 2000

Author: David Rusk

Cities without Suburbs, first published in 1993, has become an influential analysis of America's cities among city planners, scholars, and citizens alike. In it, David Rusk, the former mayor of Albuquerque, argues that America must end the isolation of the central city from its suburbs in order to attack its urban problems.

Rusk's analysis, extending back to 1950, covers 522 central cities in 320 metro areas of the United States. He finds that cities trapped within old boundaries have suffered severe racial segregation and the emergence of an urban underclass. But cities with annexation powers -- -- termed "elastic" by Rusk -- -- have shared in area-wide development.

This third edition is among the first books of any kind to employ information from the 2000 U.S. census. While refining his argument with this new data, Rusk assesses the major trends of the 1990s, including the perceived rebound of central cities, the impact of Hispanic and Asian migration, the growing similarities of older "inner-ring" suburbs to central cities, and the emerging influence of faith-based movements. New recommendations take account of growing restrictions on cities' annexation powers, even in the Southwestern United States, and of new opportunities for federal shaping of home mortgage programs and urban planning processes. Rusk's conclusion stresses cities' growing experience with building political coalitions in pursuit of development and growth.

Table of Contents:

	Boxes
	Preface
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: Framing the Issue	1
I	Lessons from Urban America	5
Lesson 1	The real city is the total metropolitan area - city and suburb	5
Lesson 2	Most of America's blacks, Hispanics, and Asians live in urban areas	7
Lesson 3	Since World War II, urban growth has been low-density, suburban style	7
Lesson 4	For a city's population to grow, the city must be elastic	9
Lesson 5	Almost all metro areas have grown	14
Lesson 6	Low-density cities can grow through in-fill; high-density cities cannot	16
Lesson 7	Elastic cities expand their city limits; inelastic cities do not	17
Lesson 8	Bad state laws can hobble cities	17
Lesson 9	Neighbors can trap cities	19
Lesson 10	Old cities are complacent; young cities are ambitious	22
Lesson 11	Racial prejudice has shaped growth patterns	23
Lesson 12	Elastic cities capture suburban growth; inelastic cities contribute to suburban growth	25
Lesson 13	Elastic cities gain population; inelastic cities lose population	28
Lesson 14	When a city stops growing, it starts shrinking	30
Lesson 15	Inelastic areas are more segregated than elastic areas	30
Lesson 16	Major immigration increases Hispanic segregation	33
Lesson 17	Highly racially segregated regions are also highly economically segregated regions	33
Lesson 18	Inelastic cities have wide income gaps with their suburbs; elastic cities maintain greater city-suburb balance	34
Lesson 19	Poverty is more disproportionately concentrated in inelastic cities than in elastic cities	36
Lesson 20	Little boxes regions foster segregation; Big Box regions facilitate integration	38
Lesson 21	Little boxes school districts foster segregation; Big Box school districts facilitate integration	40
Lesson 22	Inelastic areas were harder hit by deindustrialization of the American labor market	42
Lesson 23	Elastic areas had faster rates of nonfactory job creation than inelastic areas	43
Lesson 24	Elastic areas showed greater real income gains than inelastic areas	44
Lesson 25	Elastic cities have better bond ratings than inelastic cities	45
Lesson 26	Elastic areas have a higher educated workforce than inelastic areas	46
	Conclusion	48
II	Characteristics of Metropolitan Areas	51
	The Point of (Almost) No Return	78
	Cities without Suburbs	83
III	Strategies for Stretching Cities	89
	Three Essential Regional Policies	89
	Metro Government: A Definition	91
	State Government's Crucial Role	93
	Federal Government: Leveling the Playing Field	114
IV	Conclusions	129
App	Central Cities and Metro Areas by Elasticity Category	139
	Sources	147
	Index	149
	Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars	155

Interesting book: Leader in You or The Memory Jogger II

Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report

Author: Peter Kornbluh

Including the complete report and a wealth of supplementary materials, this volume provides a fascinating picture of the operation and of the secret world of the espionage establishment, with elements of plots, counterplots, and intra-agency power struggles worthy of a Le Carre novel.

Library Journal

If the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dire event of the Cold War, then the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 was the most absurd. Kornbluh (director, Cuban Documentation Ctr. Project of the National Security Archive; Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined, Lynne Rienner, 1997) includes the tedious but informative report of Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick, which largely blames the CIA for misleading President Kennedy. Richard Bissell, the CIA's deputy director for plans, responds with a similarly oppressive rebuttal that attributes the failure to Kennedy's need to ensure plausible deniability--to hide America's obvious role by committing limited, insufficient air support and troops. Additional supporting documents and an interview with the invasion planners show the Bay of Pigs fiasco to be what historian Theodore Draper calls "a perfect failure." For a narrative overview, see Ale Fursenko's One Hell of a Gamble (LJ 3/15/97). Primarily for specialists in the era.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Evan Thomas

One of the most brutally frank, important - and unusual - government documents ever written, Bay of Pigs Declassified should be required reading for citizens, as well as for CIA officials as a 'how-to' guide on how not to conduct a covert operation.
-- Newsweek

Kirkus Reviews

A look at spooks in action that does not resemble a Tom Clancy novel.

A lingering question about the Bay of Pigs operation has always been how anyone could ever have thought it would work. Somehow presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, with the input of their military and intelligence advisers, approved an invasion plan that projected the victory of a 1,400-man exile force over the 25,000-man Cuban army. Moreover, they did so while implausibly insisting that the action must not be traced back to the US. Until recently, the cloak of secrecy has restricted efforts to explain this planning and decision-making process to idle speculation; with the publication of this volume, somewhat informed speculation is now possible. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Archive (a public-interest group), with which Kornbluh is affiliated, has obtained the CIA's internal and very critical report on the Bay of Pigs and a lengthy response from the CIA officer in charge of the operation.

Edited by Kornbluh (Nicarauga, 1987), the volume includes an analytical introduction, an interview with two CIA men involved in the planning of the operation and a detailed timeline of events. This mass of information provides insight into shifting objectives, ambiguity over responsibility and accountability, and the momentum that precluded halting or even seriously reconsidering the operation. Most striking, however, is the vigor with which those involved seek to hide behind presidential cancellation of an air strike in explaining the failure. The impulse to deflect blame clearly overrides any self-analysis that could lead to institutional learning from the experience despite the absurdity of claiming that one decision was the turning point in an operation riddled with problems. What remains unexplained is the failure of American political leadership, a puzzle that may be beyond the potential of historical documents to solve.

An eye-opening account, regardless of one's political convictions.

Sister Revolutions or The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light

Author: Susan Dunn

In 1790, the American diplomat and politician Gouverneur Morris compared the French and American Revolutions, saying that the French "have taken Genius instead of Reason for their guide, adopted Experiment instead of Experience, and wander in the Dark because they prefer Lightning to Light." Although both revolutions professed similar Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, there were dramatic differences. The Americans were content to preserve many aspects of their English heritage; the French sought a complete break with a thousand years of history. The Americans accepted nonviolent political conflict; the French valued unity above all. The Americans emphasized individual rights, while the French stressed public order and cohesion. Why did the two revolutions follow such different trajectories? What influence have the two different visions of democracy had on modern history? And what lessons do they offer us about democracy today? In a lucid narrative style, with particular emphasis on lively portraits of the major actors, Susan Dunn traces the legacies of the two great revolutions through modern history and up to the revolutionary movements of our own time. Her combination of history and political analysis will appeal to all who take an interest in the way democratic nations are governed.

18 Black-and-White Photographs
Notes/Bibliography/Index

Publishers Weekly

The American and French Revolutions claimed the same Enlightenment ideals: freedom, equality, justice. Still, the two events were profoundly different in method and result. The American Revolution led to a well-reasoned public dialogue on the nature of democracy and the role of the fledgling government. This dialogue culminated first in the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution, on which the country has been anchored securely ever since. The French Revolution, on the other hand, led to the height of unreasonableness: a bloodbath of recrimination followed by a fragile republic destined to yield again and again to upheaval. Williams College professor Dunn (The Deaths of Louis XVI) explores the roots of these differences, finding that they spring from differences in the basic philosophy of citizenship espoused in each embryo state. While the Americans believed individual rights to be paramount, the French insisted on the appearance of public unity. Individual liberty was no more valued in the early French Republic than it had been under the Bourbons, she explains: "Armed with the `truth,' Jacobins could brand any individuals who dared to disagree with them traitors or fanatics," writes Dunn. "Any distinction between their own political adversaries and the people's `enemies' was obliterated." And as Dunn observes, tyranny does not good nation-building make. Dunn's comparative analysis is solid and well articulated--as far as it goes. A penultimate chapter, "Enlightenment Legacies," which treats the influence of the French and American experiences on subsequent revolutions from Russia to Africa, only begins to explore the legacies left by the sister revolutions. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

In a narrative style, with particular emphasis on lively portraits of major actors, Dunn (French literature, history of ideas, Williams College) traces the legacies of the American and French revolutions through modern history and up to the revolutionary movements of our own time. She examines why the two revolutions followed such different trajectories, and asks what influence these two different visions of democracy had on modern history. Her combination of history and political analysis will appeal to all who take an interest in the way democratic nations are governed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Time Magazine

They were both rooted in the same Enlightenment ideals of universal human rights, and they both erupted during the waning decades of the 18th century. Why then did the American and the French revolutions profice such radically different result: a contentious but stable democravy on one side of the Atlantic, the Terror and the triumph of Napoleon on the other?

The question is old but still stimulating and provocative, as historian Susan Dunn demonstrates anew in Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light. In presenting her lively analysis, Dunn, a history professor at Williams College, relies heavily on the words, both public utterances and private correspondence, of the participants in the two revolutions.

Kirkus Reviews

Dunn (Williams Coll.; The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination, not reviewed) compares the American and French revolutionary traditions and, not surprisingly in this presentist extended essay, finds the latter deficient. Comparisons of the intent, form, and style of these two great 18th-century revolutions are not new. And unfortunately, Dunn, relying heavily on previous scholarly work, adds few fresh perspectives to what has already been written. Nevertheless, her expressive and reflective work reminds us of the profound differences between these roughly contemporaneous revolutions and of their "invaluable lessons" for our own democracies. If its tone is excessively triumphalist, the book soundly insists that the American revolutionary tradition gave birth to a healthy emphasis upon the values of diversity and conflict, while the thrust of its Continental variant was more dangerously toward unity. The generation of the Framers sought to constitutionalize rights against their government, while the French revolutionaries sought to protect the rights of the community against individuals. One sought limited, the other embracing, government; one accepted the ambiguities of democracy, the other reached for clarity of principle. Dunn's freshest chapter, befitting a scholar of literature and ideas, compares the American and French styles of revolutionary expression and action and finds the former marked by courtesy and fairness, the latter all ardor and vigor. She is surely on strong, if well-trodden, ground in depicting a line running from revolutionary France into Bolshevism and the Viet Cong, but she strikes out on a new path in arguing for an Americanlineage to the recent peaceful revolution led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa. A thoughtful reconsideration of the never-ending, grave challenges of governance and power vouchsafed to the modern world by revolutions two centuries ago. (20 b&w illustrations, not seen.)

Table of Contents:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS *	xi
1 * SISTER REVOLUTIONS *	3
2 * REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP *	27
3 * CONFLICT OR CONSENSUS? *	53
4 * REVOLUTIONARY TALK, REVOLUTIONARY STAGE *	102
5 * DECLARING—AND DENYING-RIGHTS *	137
6 * ENLIGHTENMENT LEGACIES *	162
7 * ON "HER MAJESTY'S LOYAL OPPOSITION" *	193
APPENDIX * THE BILL OF RIGHTS DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF
MAN AND CITIZEN *	209
NOTES *	217
INDEX *	249

Book review: Standard and Poors Guide to Money and Investing or Freakonomics

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Author: John J Mearsheimer

A decade after the end of the Cold War, both policy makers and academics foresee a new era of peace and prosperity, an era when democracy, open trade, and mutual trust will join hands to banish war from the globe. With insight worthy of The Prince, John Mearsheimer exposes the truth behind this idyllic illusion: in a world where no international authority reigns above states, great powers invariably seek to gain power at each other's expense and to establish themselves as the dominant state.

Choice

This is the definitive work on offensive realism.

Barry R. Posen

A superb book....Mearsheimer has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the behavior of great powers.

Publishers Weekly

The central tenet of the political theory called "offensive realism" is that each state seeks to ensure its survival by maximizing its share of world power. Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, sets out to explain, defend and validate offensive realism as the only theory to account for how states actually behave. He proceeds by laying out the theory and its assumptions, then extensively tests the theory against the historical record since the Age of Napoleon. He finds plenty of evidence of what the theory predicts that states seek regional dominance through military strength. Further, whenever a condition of "unbalanced multipolarity" exists (i.e., when three or more states compete in a region, and one of them has the potential to dominate the others), the likelihood of war rises dramatically. If history validates offensive realism, then the theory should yield predictions about the future of world politics and the chances of renewed global conflict. Here Mearsheimer ventures into controversial terrain. Far from seeing the end of the Cold War as ushering in an age of peace and cooperation, the author believes the next 20 years have a high potential for war. China emerges as the most destabilizing force, and the author urges the U.S. to do all it can to retard China's economic growth. Since offensive realism is an academic movement, readers will expect some jargon ("buckpassing," "hegemon"), but the terms are defined and the language is accessible. This book will appeal to all devotees of political science, and especially to partisans of the "tough-minded" (in William James's sense) approach to history. Maps. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation.

Library Journal

Mearsheimer (political science, Univ. of Chicago), an articulate spokesman for the realist school of international politics, here serves up a theory dubbed "offensive realism." Because of the anarchic structure of the international system, he contends, the great powers compete perpetually to become the "hegemon," or dominant state in the world and thus to obtain that elusive quantity called security. Theories of the "democratic peace" have no place in this gloomy world, and the internal makeup of a state has little bearing on its international behavior. Readers of an idealist bent will be distressed to discover that America's grand endeavors of the 20th century the world wars and the Cold War sprang not from altruism but from amoral calculations of power. And the future will be no different: China and the United States are fated to become adversaries as Chinese power waxes, regardless of whether the Asian behemoth evolves in an authoritarian or a more benign direction. One of the finest works of the realist school, this belongs in all academic collections. James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Freelance journalist Mearsheimer (Political Science/Univ. of Chicago) argues that powerful states obey rules centuries old, rules that he believes should prescribe as well as predict a state's behavior. Mearsheimer calls his theory "offensive realism." Since there is no pervasive and powerful global government (the UN is a pale, frail imitation of one), states have obeyed-and should obey-a simple imperative: survival. In this deeply conservative, Darwinian view of the world, the states most likely to survive are those that can both achieve regional hegemony (as the US has done) and prevent other states from doing so anywhere else. (Mearsheimer argues that there has never been, and likely never will be, a global hegemon.) He asserts that there are two kinds of power: latent (population, wealth) and military. And the best kind of military force is a huge, well-equipped, well-trained army. Naval and air forces are at best supplementary and cannot on their own win a war (Nelson's massive victory at Trafalgar, for example, antedated Waterloo by ten years). Mearsheimer points out repeatedly what he calls "the stopping power of water"-the notion that the US and the UK, for example, are relatively safe because they are protected by sizable bodies of water. And because he believes China is now the principal threat to the US, he declares we should attempt to slow the Chinese economy (and thus retard its military capability) rather than invite it into the family of nations. To validate his theses, he examines every major-power conflict since the Napoleonic era-slighting only the effect of prominent individuals (Napoleon, Hitler-were France and Germany just waiting for them?). Mearsheimer has donean astonishing amount of research for this provocative, important study (there are 130 pages of endnotes) and tosses into the trash-bin of history any effete Enlightenment notions about the potential perfectibility of our species. Our nations, he concludes, are like ourselves: territorial, feral, canine, vulpine. A seminal book: controversial, scholarly, compelling-and ultimately frightening. (9 maps, 24 tables)

They Took My Father or Safe for Democracy

They Took My Father: Finnish Americans in Stalin's Russia

Author: Mayme Sevander

"Mayme Sevander and Laurie Hertzel tell a poignant tale of a hidden corner of U.S. and Soviet history. Tracing the hopes and hardships of one family over two continents, They Took My Father explores the boundaries of loyalty, identity, and ideals." -Amy Goldstein, Washington Post"What makes Mayme's story so uniquely-almost unbelievably-tragic is that her family chose to move from the United States to the Soviet Union in 1934, thinking they were going to help build a 'worker's paradise.' They found, instead, a deadly nightmare." -St. Paul Pioneer Press "This gripping and timely book traces the beginnings of communism not as dry history but as a fascinating personal drama that spreads across Russia, Finland, and the mining towns of Upper Michigan and the Iron Range of Minnesota. . . . An important and largely ignored part of history comes alive in one woman's story of her tragic family, caught up in the all-consuming struggle of the twentieth century." -Frank Lynn, political reporter, New York Times Mayme Sevander (1924-2003) was born in Brule, Wisconsin, and emigrated with her family to the Soviet Union in 1934. Laurie Hertzel is a journalist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Book about: Hot Cuisine or Incredibly Easy Italian

Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA

Author: John Prados

Safe for Democracy for the first time places the story of the CIA's covert operations squarely in the context of America's global quest for democratic values and institutions. National security historian John Prados offers a comprehensive history of the CIA's secret wars that is as close to a definitive account as is possible today. He draws on three decades of research to illuminate the men and women of the intelligence establishment, their resources and techniques, their triumphs and failures. In a dramatic and revealing narrative, Safe for Democracy not only relates the inside stories of covert operations but examines in meticulous detail the efforts of presidents and Congress to control the CIA and the specific choices made in the agency's secret wars. Safe for Democracy is the most authoritative and complete book on the CIA's secret wars ever published.

Choice

This is the most detailed single volume on the modern history of US covert operations.

Midwest Book Review

If you're studying the CIA's operations and routines you can't be without Safe for Democracy.

Booklist

Prados has performed a valuable service....A comprehensive and superbly researched effort that is both engrossing and disturbing..

Foreign Affairs

Prados is an extraordinarily tenacious researcher who has madea career of exploring the activities of the intelligence community, particularly covert operations. He builds his case using whatever evidence he can find. There may be arguments about points of detail and some inferences, but this account of the "secret wars" undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency since its founding in 1947 is an impressive achievement. Many of the stories are familiar -- the coups in Iran and Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the embrace of dubious rightists in Central America -- but what is striking is the range of countries in which the CIA has meddled and how counterproductive that meddling has so often been, even when the short-term goals were achieved. The anger generated (the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq still factors into Iranian attitudes toward the United States), the poor choice of political friends, and the ease with which the CIA fits into conspiracy theories have ended up undermining U.S. interests in the long run. This book does not suggest that the CIA is a rogue arm of the government; the problem is that a covert capability proves too tempting to presidents seeking quick fixes to otherwise intractable problems.

Democracy and Tradition or MoveOns 50 Ways to Love Your Country

Democracy and Tradition

Author: Jeffrey Stout

Do religious arguments have a public role in the post-9/11 world? Can we hold democracy together despite fractures over moral issues? Are there moral limits on the struggle against terror? Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.

Drawing inspiration from Whitman, Dewey, and Ellison, Jeffrey Stout sketches the proper role of religious discourse in a democracy. He discusses the fate of virtue, the legacy of racism, the moral issues implicated in the war on terrorism, and the objectivity of ethical norms. Against those who see no place for religious reasoning in the democratic arena, Stout champions a space for religious voices. But against increasingly vocal antiliberal thinkers, he argues that modern democracy can provide a moral vision and has made possible such moral achievements as civil rights precisely because it allows a multitude of claims to be heard.

Stout's distinctive pragmatism reconfigures the disputed area where religious thought, political theory, and philosophy meet. Charting a path beyond the current impasse between secular liberalism and the new traditionalism, Democracy and Tradition asks whether we have the moral strength to continue as a democratic people as it invigorates us to retrieve our democratic virtues from very real threats to their practice.

See also: Leadership and Self Deception or The Trillion Dollar Meltdown

MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change

Author: MoveOnorg Staff

With more than 2 million members, the flourishing online activist group MoveOn is at the cutting edge of a new model for political activism with its ability to mobilize thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars. Best known for its recent grassroots efforts in protesting the war in Iraq and opposing the California recall election, and credited as a major player in the significant gains made by Howard Dean's presidential campaign, MoveOn takes its message offline in this timely book that provides inspiration and ideas for becoming a responsible member of our democracy. The 50 ways range from simple ideas such as "Tell a Friend about a Petition" to more dynamic suggestions like "Organize a Constituent Meeting." For those who feel powerless or hopeless, angry or apathetic, confused or disgusted, this clear and compelling how-to guide helps Americans become more accountable, progressive, and peaceful as it answers the question that more and more citizens are asking: "What can I do?!"

Publishers Weekly

Fifty members of the online activist group MoveOn.org provide tips on how to take political action in this inspiring audiobook, which is impressive not only because of the breadth of its suggestions, but also because 42 of the 50 contributors lend their own voices to the recording. Although this makes for an uneven listening experience, as not all of the contributors possess velvet voices, it drives home the audiobook's message: that people of all ages, races and income levels can make a difference. The essays--which cover everything from starting an online petition and hosting a political salon to writing letters to congress and organizing a political book club--each end with a set of "action tips" summarizing the steps the writer took in achieving his/her goals. The most useful component of this audiobook, however, may be its enhanced CD features. Those with access to a computer can browse these "action tips" and link directly to any Web sites mentioned in the material. Based on the Inner Ocean Publishing paperback. (June)n Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction
I	The power of connecting	1
	Introduction	2
	Create an effective online petition	4
	Spread the word about online petitions	6
	Sign a petition	8
	Share informed political recommendations	10
	Speak out online	12
	Email the President (and other politicians)	14
	Meet with your representatives	16
II	Every vote counts	19
	Introduction	20
	Vote, no matter what	22
	Mobilize underrepresented voters	23
	Register voters in unlikely places	26
	Organize an issues-specific voter registration drive	28
	Get your office to vote	30
	Maximize the vote on election day	32
	Make a personal request to nonvoters	34
	Participate in a phone bank	36
III	The many faces of the media	39
	Introduction	40
	Read more, watch TV news less	42
	Write a letter to the editor	44
	Respond to biased reporting	48
	Alert the media to uncovered events	50
	Place an ad	54
	Reform the media	56
	Make your own media	58
	Write an op-ed piece	61
	Start a political book club	64
	MoveOn's suggested media sources	67
IV	Political action is personal	69
	Introduction	70
	Write letters to Congress that work	72
	Talk to the officials you did't elect	74
	Support clean elections	76
	Volunteer for campaigns	78
	Help run a campaign	81
	Hit the streets for your candidate	84
	Run for office to challenge incumbents	86
	Donate money	88
	Host a house party	90
	Petition effectively	92
	Attend a meetup	94
	Serve as an elected official	96
	Act outside the box	98
V	Personal action is political	101
	Introduction	102
	Serve your community	105
	Defy City Hall	108
	Respond locally to national issues	110
	Attend a rally	112
	Instigate protective laws	114
	Initiate a constitutional amendment	117
	Get a socially responsible day job	120
	Take action with your family	122
	Host a political salon	124
	Let your money speak	127
	Help others express their political views	130
	Express your views through art	132
	Advertise your political vision	134
	Afterword	137
	Acknowledgments	139
	Index	141
	MoveOn information	145

Among Warriors in Iraq or Contrary Notions

Among Warriors in Iraq: True Grit, Special Ops, and Lock-and-Load Raiding in Mosul and Fallujah

Author: Mike Tucker

Eight months after George W. Bush proclaimed major combat in Iraq over in 2003, author Mike Tucker found himself right in the thick of it--dirty, profane, violent, lethal, and daily major combat--with some of America’s most highly trained and accomplished soldiers.

Among Warriors in Iraq is a street-level view of the struggles of maintaining control in the anarchy that pervaded Iraq after Coalition forces declared victory. Tucker journeyed--and fought--with Special Forces groups in both Mosul and Fallujah, cities unconvinced the war was over, and willing to do anything to ensure that the struggle would continue.

Here is his frank and adrenaline-soaked account, seen through the resilient eyes of the soldiers willing to pay the ultimate price for victory.

A street-level view of the hell of combat in Mosul and Fallujah
Eight months after George W. Bush proclaimed major combat in Iraq over in 2003, author Mike Tucker found himself right in the thick of it - dirty, profane, violent, lethal, and daily major combat - with some of America's most highly trained and accomplished soldiers.
Among Warriors in Iraq is a street-level view of the struggles of maintaining control in the anarchy that pervaded Iraq after Coalition forces declared victory. Tucker journeyed with Special Forces groups in both Mosul and Fallujah, cities un-convinced the war was over and willing to do anything to ensure that the struggle would continue.
Here is his frank and uncensored account, seen through the resilient eyes of the soldiers willing to pay the ultimate price for victory.

Mike Tucker is a Marine infantry veteran with a Special Operations background, andan author. He broke Burmese Army lines in 2002 with Karen guerrillas, and has investigated war crimes in Burma and northern Iraq. In 2003, he journeyed throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, interviewing Kurds from all walks of life. Later, he joined U.S. Army snipers, scouts, light infantry, paratroopers, and Special Forces commandos for nineteen weeks on raids and patrols in northern and western Iraq. He remained in Iraq for fourteen months.

Publishers Weekly

Join Big Hungry, Kentucky Rife, Serpico and Jedi Knight for a harrowing journey into the heart of the Iraqi insurgency. A former Marine infantryman, Tucker follows the warriors of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul and the 82nd Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions in Fallujah during 19 weeks of urban warfare in late 2003 and early 2004. In declaratives one might describe as debased Hemingway on speed, Tucker tags along for counter-IED (improvised explosive devices) patrols and zero-dark-30 (predawn) raids, capturing the adrenaline-laced urgency of urban combat against a hidden enemy. His conversations with troopers are refreshingly authentic; his analysis of the politics of Iraq tends toward open advocacy for the Kurds and a separate state of Kurdistan. (Tucker is the author of Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds After Saddam.) But his gritty firsthand account is packed with detail: from the slow ballet of "scoping roof tops and alley corners," the excruciating tension of disarming IEDs and the frenetic choreography of urban combat to the children who are never far away and are always quick with a smile, a wave and an enthusiastic "Amerikee!" Several impressive accounts of the second Iraq War have appeared already from embedded journalists, but few are as personal and edgy as Tucker's. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Raymond Puffer - KLIATT

Any war looks very different depending on where you stand. Civilians see the destruction, the pain, and the frustrations. Generals see maps, troop concentrations, resources, and immense responsibilities. Young officers see tactics. However, it is the foot soldier who sees war at its most basic—the sand, the snipers, and the ominous objects by the side of the road. All of these viewpoints are part of the ultimate truth, but it is the grunt who feels it all the most. The trouble is, most of these young enlisted warriors are not writers. This is where author Mike Tucker comes in. Tucker is an ex-Marine, a combat veteran, and something of a soldier of fortune. His trade is visiting war zones around the globe, insinuating himself at the "point of the spear," and writing about what he sees. In this case, he somehow managed to become embedded in two different infantry units. In the course of combat strikes in Mosul and Fallujah, Iraq, he and his new comrades endured all of the discomfort, aching monotony, confusion and stark terror that have been the lot of every infantryman since Biblical times. Tucker is skillful at catching the enormously varied personalities of his soldiers and the bonds that sustain them. This is no infantile shoot-'em-up war book. Like combat anywhere, there is more moving around, waiting, eating, and horseplay than shooting. Tucker deserves credit for carefully keeping the focus away from himself and on the American troops. That's appropriate, because this is a story of the ordinary heroics of ordinary young Americans. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2005, Lyon Press, 234p. bibliog., Ages 15 toadult.

New interesting book: Istituzioni, cambiamento istituzionale e risultato economico

Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader

Author: Michael Parenti

"Radical in the true sense of the word, [Parenti] digs at the roots which . . . sustain our public consciousness."-Los Angeles Times Book Review

A powerful selection of Michael Parenti's most lucid and penetrating writings on real history, political life, empire, wealth, class power, technology, culture, ideology, media, environment, sex, and ethnicity. Also included are a few choice selections drawn from his own life experiences and political awakening. Parenti goes where few political observers dare to tread.

Michael Parenti is the author of eighteen books, including Superpatriotism, Inventing Reality, and The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

Aurora Online

Parenti communicates his message in an accessible, provocative, and historically informed style that is unrivaled among fellow progressive activists.

Reagan Diaries or A Revolution in Favor of Government

Reagan Diaries

Author: Ronald Reagan

During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Now, nearly two decades after he left office, this remarkable record--the only daily presidential diary in American history--is available for the first time.

Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader. Whether he was in his White House residence study or aboard Air Force One, each night Reagan wrote about the events of his day, which often included his relationships with other world leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II, Mohammar al-Qaddafi, and Margaret Thatcher, among others, and the unforgettable moments that defined the era---from his first inauguration to the end of the Cold War, the Iran hostage crisis to John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt.

The Reagan Diaries reveals more than just Reagan's political experiences: many entries are concerned with the president's private thoughts and feelings---his love and devotion for Nancy Reagan and their family, his belief in God and the power of prayer. Seldom before has the American public been given access to the unfiltered experiences and opinions of a president in his own words, from Reagan's description of near-drowning at the home of Hollywood friend Claudette Colbert to his determination to fight Fidel Castro at every turn and keep the Caribbean Sea from becoming a "Red Lake."

To read these diaries--filled with Reagan's trademark wit, sharp intelligence, and humor--is to gain a unique understanding of one of the most beloved occupants of the Oval Office in our nation's history.

The New York Times - Kevin Phillips

Not since the 19th century has a United States president kept a diary through his entire White House tenure, and this volume tells us more about Ronald Reagan than many of his biographies. Besides which, not a few interpretive bits of gold are sprinkled amid the grit and gravel of diplomatic niceties, Congressional consultations and after-dinner entertainments.

Publishers Weekly

The diaries our 40th president kept while in office—edited and abridged by historian Brinkley (The Great Deluge)—are largely a straightforward political chronicle. Reagan describes meetings with heads of state and anti-abortion leaders, reflects on legislative strategy and worries about leaks to the press. He often used his diary to vigorously defend his polices: for example, after a 1984 visit with South African archbishop Desmond Tutu (whom Reagan calls "naïve"), the president explained why his approach to apartheid—"quiet diplomacy"—was preferable to sanctions. Reagan sometimes seems uncomfortable with dissent, as when he is irked by a high school student who presents a petition advocating a nuclear freeze. And he often sees the media as a "lynch mob," trying to drum up scandal where there is none. Reagan's geniality shines through in his more quotidian comments: he muses regularly about how much he appreciates Nancy, and his complaints about hating Monday mornings make him seem quite like everyone else. Brinkley doesn't weigh down the text with extensive annotation; this makes for smooth reading, but those who don't remember the major political events of the 1980s will want to refer to the glossary of names. Reagan's diaries are revealing, and Brinkley has done historians and the broad public a great service by editing them for publication. (May 22)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Foreign Affairs

"D----n those inhuman monsters," runs Ronald Reagan's diary entry for May 17, 1981. He was referring to the Soviet authorities who were keeping Natan Sharansky in the gulag despite Reagan's personal and private appeal to Leonid Brezhnev. These diaries will complete the reevaluation of Reagan by the historical profession. Whatever one thinks of his policies, Reagan emerges here as a focused, take-charge president in full control of his cabinet and administration. He was extremely selective in regard to which issues he took up and willing to let many lower-priority matters slide, but on the things that he cared about, he was forceful and persistent. These are diary entries and lack the intellectual heft and stylistic polish of some of the earlier Reagan writings to reach the public. But they show a president stamping his personality and his views on an administration and contribute to a richer vision of the most influential U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt. One can only wish that Roosevelt had also kept a diary.<

Library Journal

Now you can read the diary Reagan kept daily over his two terms as President. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

See also: Pedometer Power or Libro de Cocina Ilustrado de la Nueva Dieta Atkins

A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U. S. Constitution and the Making of the American State

Author: Max M Edling

What were the intentions of the Founders? Was the American constitution designed to protect individual rights? To limit the powers of government? To curb the excesses of democracy? Or to create a robust democratic nation-state? These questions echo through today's most heated legal and political debates.
In this powerful new interpretation of America's origins, Max Edling argues that the Federalists were primarily concerned with building a government that could act vigorously in defense of American interests. The Constitution transferred the powers of war making and resource extraction from the states to the national government thereby creating a nation-state invested with all the important powers of Europe's eighteenth-century "fiscal-military states." A strong centralized government, however, challenged the American people's deeply ingrained distrust of unduly concentrated authority. To secure the Constitution's adoption the Federalists had to accommodate the formation of a powerful national government to the strong current of anti-statism in the American political tradition. They did so by designing a government that would be powerful in times of crisis, but which would make only limited demands on the citizenry and have a sharply restricted presence in society. The Constitution promised the American people the benefit of government without its costs.
Taking advantage of a newly published letterpress edition of the constitutional debates, A Revolution in Favor of Government recovers a neglected strand of the Federalist argument, making a persuasive case for rethinking the formation of the federal American state.

The Year of the Hangman or Dixie Rising

The Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois

Author: Glenn F Williams

With the entry of France on the American side, the War for Independence moved from a regional conflict to a global war. To offset this new alliance, Britain devised a bold new strategy. Turning its attention to the colonial frontiers, especially those of western New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Britain enlisted its Provincial Rangers and allied warriors, principally from the Iroquois Confederacy, to wage a brutal backwoods war in an attempt to cut the colonies in half, divert the Continental Army, and weaken its presence around British-occupied New York City and Philadelphia.

Moving quickly, British forces under the direction of Colonel John Butler and the charismatic Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant, unleashed a terror campaign, but following massacres in the well-established colonial settlements at Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Valley, New York, the Continental Congress persuaded General George Washington to conduct a decisive offensive to end the threat once and for all. Brewing since 1777, the "Year of the Hangman," the conflict between the Iroquois and colonists would now reach its deadly climax.

Charging his troops "to not merely overrun, but destroy," Washington devised a two-prong attack to exact American revenge. The largest coordinated American military action against Native Americans in the war, the campaign shifted the power in the east, ending the political and military influence of the Iroquois, forcing large numbers of loyalist to flee to Canada, and sealing Britain's fateful decision to seek victory in the south. In Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois, historian Glenn F. Williams recreates the riveting events surrounding the action, including the checkered story of European and Indian alliances, the bitter frontier wars, and the bloody battles of Oriskany and Saratoga, in order to tell the tale of the campaign that changed the outcome of the American Revolution.

Glenn F. Williams is Historical Operations Officer at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, DC. He also served with the National Park Service Battlefield Protection Program and was curator of the U.S.S. Constellation.

Read also Electronic Commerce or Online Retrieval

Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture

Author: Peter Applebom

In “one of the best portrayals of the South in years” (Washington Post), the Atlanta bureau chief of the New York Times travels from catfish farms and neo-Confederate gatherings to casinos and country music festivals and examines the reasons behind the region’s growing influence. Index.

Paige Williams

Peter Applebome plays the flip side of a tired old tune in Dixie Rising. Instead of adding one more book to the bulging section on the South's homogenization, Applebome aims to show how the region's bedrock ideals are in fact driving modern America. "Only the blind could look at America at the century's end," he writes, "and not see the fingerprint of the South on almost every aspect of the nation's soul."

Applebome, a New York Times correspondent in the South, finds in the region the roots of a whole slew of cultural trends -- a flourishing national conservatism, the racial preoccupations of national politics, a wildfire addiction to country music, the obsessive gun debate, and the spread of states' rights groups and of Southern Baptist outposts. Though his thesis isn't entirely original (John Egerton tried first, with The Americanization of Dixie: The Southernization of America in 1974), the concept is intriguing.

The book's most convincing chapters are on race, country music (a regional business turned $2 billion mega-industry) and politics, particularly George Wallace. Despite a surprisingly forgiving tone, Dixie Rising depicts Wallace as the politician who "tapped into the fears and resentments of white America in a way that has defined the political landscape" -- making a strong case that without Wallace's mobilization of that angry, alienated, working-class constituency, the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress might never have happened.

Yet in other areas, Dixie Rising doesn't quite build the bridge. What promises to be a cohesive portrait of the South's ongoing influence often reads like historical rehash. Other sections are merely self-indulgent profiles of places that Applebome finds interesting, rather than significant contributors to the American scene. In spots, Dixie Rising isn't much more than Applebome reaching. Some might explain that he's just another outsider seduced down the well-traveled path of an enduring mystery, one impossible to simplify. Applebome describes one man who "got Southernized" -- which is a bit like saying moving to Paris makes you French. You're either Southern or you're not; you can marry into it or move into it, but no amount of deep-fried osmosis can make you of it.

Dixie Risings value is that it forces us to think about the South's role in modern America and whether Applebome's perception will hold true: "We all need a calm in our storm, divine or otherwise. In ways both real and illusory, the South these days seems to promise one." -- Salon

Publishers Weekly

By turns seduced and repelled by Southern politics and culture, former longtime New York Times Atlanta bureau chief and transplanted Yankee Applebome grapples engagingly and appreciatively here with the stunning contradictions of the modern South. Not only does the South exercise disproportionate political power (Dixie now claims leadership of Congress as well as the White House); most of our serious conflicts over race and religion continue to play out dramatically in the old Confederacy. Applebome's unusual historical literacy helps him understand a region drenched in the tradition and legends of the Civil War, racist demagoguery and the battles over integration. Outsiders will be astonished by the new popularity of the Confederacy. Southerners black and white will recognize themselves in portraits of Selma, Ala., then and now, Nashville's music, South Carolina firebrands, Southern Baptist conventions and the saga of George Wallace. Above all, it is race that saturates Southern life. Because the author zeroes in on race and lets Southerners tell their own stories, this is a compelling, disturbing, at times inspiring book. As he stresses, no place in the U.S. has been so defined by raceand "the racial scapegoating... that crippled the South for so long will do the same thing for the nation." Photos. (Nov.)

Library Journal

Since the 1970s, a persistent theme in both academic and journalistic writing on the American South has been the presumed "convergence" of the politics and culture of the South with those of the non-South. Writers have also debated the question of whether this convergence is primarily a product of an "Americanization" of the South or of a "Southernization" of the non-South. Although New York Times journalist Applebome shows influence in both directions, his subtitle makes it clear that his focus is the South's influence on the rest of the nation. The author relies heavily on travels and interviews he did in the South over a period of 18 months starting in early 1995. Although he is a perceptive writer on matters pertaining to Southern culture and values, Applebome's understanding of Southern politics is not always as insightful. For public libraries.Thomas H. Ferrell, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette

Shopping for Bombs or John Brown Abolitionist

Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of AQ Khan's Nuclear Network

Author: Gordon Corera

A.Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden." A hero in Pakistan and revered as the Father of the Bomb, Khan built a global clandestine network that sold the most closely guarded nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
Here for the first time is the riveting inside story of the rise and fall of A.Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan's own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the ultimate arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals among rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan provided him with the protection to build his unique and deadly business empire. It explains why and how he was able to operate so freely for so many years. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran's nuclear ambitions and how close Tehran may be to the bomb.
In addition, the book contains startling new information on how the CIA and MI6 penetrated Khan's network, how the U.S. and UK ultimately broke Khan's ring, and how they persuaded Pakistan's President Musharraf to arrest a national hero. The book also provides the first detailed account of the high-wire dealings with Muammar Gadaffi, which led to Libya's renunciation of nuclear weapons and which played a key role in Khan's downfall.
The spread of nuclear weapons technology around the globe presents the greatest securitychallenge of our time. Shopping for Bombs presents a unique window into the challenges of stopping a new nuclear arms race, a race that A.Q. Khan himself did more than any other individual to promote.

The Washington Post - George Perkovich

Shopping for Bombs is more than the fast-paced story of an alarming proliferation network and the conditions that let it flourish. Corera also offers a fascinating, detailed account of how Libya surprised the world with its undetected nuclear acquisitions and how the United States and Britain secretly persuaded Moammar Gaddafi to verifiably give them up.

Publishers Weekly

Corera, a security correspondent for the BBC, offers a measured account of how a young Pakistani metallurgist named A.Q. Khan became the world's leading dealer in nuclear technology. The story starts as Khan watched Pakistan lose the 1971 war with India and vowed to help prevent it from happening again. Three years later, as India tested its first nuclear device, he offered Prime Minister Bhutto his help in creating the Muslim world's first nuclear bomb. In 1975, when his Dutch employer discovered Khan had stolen centrifuge designs, he fled to Pakistan. Though he was tried in absentia in 1983, it wasn't until January 2004, under pressure from the U.S. and Britain, that he was arrested for 30 years of selling nuclear materials and designs to Libya, North Korea and Iran. By the mid-1980s, Corera points out, the U.S. was aware that Pakistan had produced weapons-grade uranium. Drawing on CIA and diplomatic accounts of the spread of technology, Corera also examines why the Americans initially looked the other way as Pakistan joined forces in arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan before becoming an ally in the hunt for bin Laden. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

New interesting book: Prehistoric Cooking or Middle Eastern

John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights

Author: David S Reynolds

Few historical figures are as intriguing as John Brown, the controversial Abolitionist who used terrorist tactics against slavery and single-handedly changed the course of American history. This brilliant biography of Brown (1800-1859) by the prize-winning critic and cultural biographer David S. Reynolds brings to life the Puritan warrior who gripped slavery by the throat and triggered the Civil War.

When does principled resistance become anarchic brutality? How can a murderer be viewed as a heroic freedom fighter? The case of John Brown opens windows on these timely issues. Was Brown an insane criminal or a Christ-like martyr? A forerunner of Osama bin Laden or of Martin Luther King, Jr.? David Reynolds sorts through the tangled evidence and makes some surprising findings.

Reynolds demonstrates that Brown's most violent acts- his slaughter of unarmed citizens in Kansas, his liberation of slaves in Missouri, and his dramatic raid, in October 1859, on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia- were inspired by the slave revolts, guerilla warfare, and revolutionary Christianity of the day. He shows us how Brown seized the nation's attention, creating sudden unity in the North, where the Transcendentalists led the way in sanctifying Brown, and infuriating the South, where proslavery fire-eaters exploited the Harpers Ferry raid to whip up a secessionist frenzy. In fascinating detail, Reynolds recounts how Brown permeated politics and popular culture during the Civil War and beyond. He reveals the true depth of Brown's achievement: not only did Brown spark the war that ended slavery, but he planted the seeds of the civil rights movement by making a pioneering demand forcomplete social and political equality for America's ethnic minorities.

A deeply researched and vividly written cultural biography- a revelation of John Brown and his meaning for America.


From the Hardcover edition.

The New York Times - Barbara Ehrenreich

How do we judge a man of such different times -- and temperament -- from our own? If the rule is that there must be some proportion between a violent act and its provocation, surely there could be no more monstrous provocation than slavery. In our own time, some may discern equivalent evils in continuing racial oppression, economic exploitation, environmental predation or widespread torture. To them, John Brown, Abolitionist, for all its wealth of detail and scrupulous attempts at balance, has a shockingly simple message: Far better to have future generations complain about your methods than condemn you for doing nothing.

The Washington Post - David W. Blight

John Brown, Abolitionist captures with arresting prose Brown's early life of poverty, his huge, tragic, rolling-stone family of 20 children with two wives, the business failures and bankruptcies in several states, the lasting influence of his staunchly Calvinist father and his genuine devotion to the human rights of African Americans. He also takes us deeper than any previous historian into Brown's exploits in the 1856-58 guerrilla war known as "Bleeding Kansas." In the murderous frontier struggle between pro-slavery and free-state advocates, Brown led a personal band of abolitionist warriors who fought pitched battles and executed some settlers. Moreover, the narratives of Brown's fascinating fund-raising tours of Eastern reform communities, the Harpers Ferry raid itself, his epic letter-writing from a jail cell while awaiting execution, and the hanging (with the whole world watching) are all beautifully executed.

Publishers Weekly

In the very first paragraphs of this biography, Bancroft Prize-winner Reynolds (Walt Whitman's America) steps back a bit from the grandiose claims of his subtitle. Nevertheless, his book as a whole paints a positive portrait of the Calvinist terrorist Brown (1800-1859)-contrary to virtually all recent scholarship (by Stephen B. Oates and Robert Boyer, among others), which tends to depict Brown as a bloodthirsty zealot and madman who briefly stepped into history but did little to influence it. Reynolds's approach harks back to the hero-worship apparent in earlier books by W.E.B. Du Bois and Brown's surviving associates. John Brown waged a campaign so bloody during the Kansas Civil War-in 1856 he chased men and elder sons from their beds in cabins along the Pottawatomie Creek, and then lopped off their heads with broadswords as sobbing wives and younger children looked on-that fellow Kansas antislavery settlers rebuked him. Even the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison condemned Brown and his methods. After taking the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry in October 1859, Brown intended (had he not been swatted like a fly within hours) to raise and arm a large force of blacks capable of wreaking a terrible vengeance across Virginia. Yet Reynolds insists that "it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists." Really? 25 b&w illus. (Apr. 21) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

John Brown, with his bristling beard, fierce expression, and unyielding opposition to slavery, has always been the perfect icon of the nation's headlong rush into the abyss of the Civil War. After his gallant and completely foolhardy raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, virtually every person in the US lined up solidly on one side or another of the Great Question. By the time he was finally hanged, by the hand of Robert E. Lee, no less, there was no going back. Dealing with the man and his reputation, however, has always been something of a problem. Southerners at the time, horrified at the prospect of a massive slave uprising, immediately branded him as a terrorist, if not the Devil incarnate. The Transcendentalists and other anti-slavery groups in the North, in response, soon came to see him as a martyr for peace, nearly on the level of Jesus himself. As the Civil War finally receded into the past, most scholars eventually came to see Brown simply as some sort of crackpot, well-meaning perhaps, but always an unstable and colorful character who, much like his namesake John the Baptist, was a harbinger of colossal events to come. Now, with this book, author David Reynolds has portrayed what has come to be the modern view, seeing John Brown in the larger context of black emancipation and aligning him squarely alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and the modern civil rights era: all of which might (or might not) have astounded the bearded firebrand. Brown was both intelligent and complex, as Professor Reynolds skillfully brings out, and had one of history's more original personalities. Most YAs will find the entire book a large dose to swallow, but will find individual chaptersand episodes to be fascinating. The highly detailed text opens a fascinating window on the social turmoil of American society on the eve of the Civil War. Even if that war wasn't fought specifically to free the slaves, it was nevertheless all about slavery, and old Brown certainly played his part.

Kirkus Reviews

Cradle-to-moldering-grave biography of America's homegrown abolitionist terrorist. Was it John Brown's audacity that put the spark to the tinderbox of slavery in mid-19th-century America? The prize-winning Reynolds (Walt Whitman, 2004, etc.; English and American Studies/CUNY) makes the case that the Civil War and emancipation might well have been slower in coming had Brown (1800-59) not inflamed paranoia in the South by his murderous raids in Pottawatomie, Kan., and his seizure of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Va. The author argues that Brown was more of a Puritan pioneer than crazed fanatic, a patriarchal figure who "won the battle not with bullets but with words." Although the violence of Brown's anti-slavery raids was at first roundly denounced in the North, his calm and rational behavior after his capture, Reynolds emphasizes, eventually won admiration for his crusade, much thanks to Emerson, Thoreau and other transcendentalists who took up his banner. Though unabashedly hagiographic-the chapter on his execution is titled "The Passion"-the biography justifies its portrayal of Brown as an agent outside and above the norms of society. The author demonstrates that his nonracist behavior, for example, was startlingly original to Southerners and Northerners alike, albeit not anomalous vis-a-vis contemporary European attitudes. Reynolds takes great pains to cast a fair light on an exceptionally controversial figure who used brutally violent tactics to bring about the end of slavery and the beginning of racial equality. He states unequivocally that Brown's tactics were terrorist (and an inspiration to John Wilkes Booth), but in President Lincoln's own words, the Civil War itself was"a John Brown raid on a gigantic scale." Reynolds's conclusions are bold yet justified, and his analysis reflects a thorough understanding of the cultural environment of the time. Engrossing and timely, offering astute, thorough coverage of America's premier iconoclast and the cultural stage upon which he played his role.

Table of Contents:

Preface
1. The Party
2. The Puritan
3. The Pioneer
4. The Patriarch
5. The Pauper
6. The Plan
7. Pottawatomie
8. Pariah and Legend
9. The Promoter
10. Plotting Multiculturally
11. Practice
12. Preparation
13. Problems
14. Pilloried, Prosecuted, and Praised
15. The Passion
16. Positions and Politics
17. The Prophet
18. Posterity
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Prisoners of Hope or The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr

Prisoners of Hope: The Story of Our Captivity and Freedom in Afghanistan

Author: Dayna Curry

The gripping and inspiring story of two extraordinary women—from their imprisonment by the Taliban to their rescue by U.S. Special Forces.

When Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer arrived in Afghanistan, they had come to help bring a better life and a little hope to some of the poorest and most oppressed people in the world. Within a few months, their lives were thrown into chaos as they became pawns in historic international events. They were arrested by the ruling Taliban government for teaching about Christianity to the people with whom they worked. In the middle of their trial, the events of September 11, 2001, led to the international war on terrorism, with the Taliban a primary target. While many feared Curry and Mercer could not survive in the midst of war, Americans nonetheless prayed for their safe return, and in November their prayers were answered.

In Prisoners of Hope, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer tell the story of their work in Afghanistan, their love for the people they served, their arrest, trial, and imprisonment by the Taliban, and their rescue by U.S. Special Forces. The heart of the book will discuss how two middle-class American women decided to leave the comforts of home in exchange for the opportunity to serve the disadvantaged, and how their faith motivated them and sustained them through the events that followed. Their story is a magnificent narrative of ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances as a result of their commitment to serve the poorest and most oppressed women and children in the world. This book will be inspiring to those who seek a purpose greater than themselves.

Publishers Weekly

This is the eagerly anticipated story of the two Christian aid workers from Waco, Tex., who were imprisoned by the Taliban in Afghanistan shortly before the September 11 attacks on America. Because so many Americans followed their plight in the press, the behind-the-scenes details of their 105-day ordeal will inevitably be riveting. Unfortunately, the narrative is told in a weaving fashion that shuttles back and forth between Curry's voice, Mercer's voice and their joint perspective. Moreover, much of their story of monotonous prison life does not lend itself well to straightforward chronological narrative. Instead, the book is organized loosely by themes, places and people, and often leaps ahead of itself in confusing ways. Despite these frustrations and a surprisingly weak fade-to-black ending that barely mentions God or the faith that has sustained the missionaries throughout, the book is compelling. Readers will learn of the individual paths that led Curry and Mercer first to Christ and then to Kabul. Especially heartbreaking are the stories of all the Afghan families who were relying on the women for life-saving support and who were abruptly cut off at the time of their arrest. Perhaps most powerful is the honesty with which Mercer discusses her spiritual difficulties in captivity. This is not the story of larger-than-life heroines whose faith never wavers in the face of persecution; readers are allowed glimpses into Mercer's very real despair and the rift it caused in the group of prisoners. This gritty sense of the real life of ordinary, believing Americans keeps the pages turning. (June) Forecast: Curry and Mercer have become media-appointed American paladins, so this should garner some strong attention in both the Christian and secular markets. It is a main selection of the Crossings Book Club and a featured selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Clubs. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Book review: Mercadotecnia de Servicios:la Gente, Tecnología, Estrategia

The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Symbol of the Movement, January 1957-December 1958, Vol. 4

Author: Martin Luther King Jr

Acclaimed by Ebony magazine as "one of those rare publishing events that generate as much excitement in the cloistered confines of the academy as they do in the general public," The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. chronicles one of the twentieth century's most dynamic personalities and one of the nation's greatest social struggles. King's call for racial justice and his faith in the power of nonviolence to engender a major transformation of American society is movingly conveyed in this authoritative multivolume series.
In Volume IV, with the Montgomery bus boycott at an end, King confronts the sudden demands of celebrity while trying to identify the next steps in the burgeoning struggle for equality. Anxious to duplicate the success of the boycott, he spends much of 1957 and 1958 establishing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. But advancing the movement in the face of dogged resistance, he finds that it is easier to inspire supporters with his potent oratory than to organize a mass movement for social change. Yet King remains committed: "The vast possibilities of a nonviolent, non-cooperative approach to the solution of the race problem are still challenging indeed. I would like to remain a part of the unfolding development of this approach for a few more years."
King's budding international prestige is affirmed in March 1957, when he attends the independence ceremonies in Ghana, West Africa. Two months later his first national address, at the "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom," is widely praised, and in June 1958, King's increasing prominence is recognized with a long-overdue White House meeting. During this period King also cultivates alliances with the laborand pacifist movements, and international anticolonial organizations. As Volume IV closes, King is enjoying the acclaim that has greeted his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, only to suffer a near-fatal stabbing in New York City.

2010 Meltdown or The Call of Service

2010 Meltdown: Solving the Impending Jobs Crisis

Author: Edward E Gordon

Ed Gordon marshals a vast amount of data to illustrate how various trends are converging to create a labor vacuum--with potentially disastrous consequences for economic competitiveness and individual opportunity. He sounds a wake-up call to business leaders, policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens, employees, and parents--anyone with a stake in our economic future. Moreover, he highlights innovative initiatives in training, education, and community development in the United States and around the world that can serve as models for positive action. Ultimately, The 2010 Meltdown is an optimistic book about social change, setting an agenda for reforms in education, policy, and business investment that will promote economic freedom, renewal, and prosperity.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction: People, Jobs, and Culture
America's Meltdown
The 2010 Crossroad
The Rise of the Techno-Peasants
Feeding the Sharks
Where Has the Schoolhouse Gone?
Help Wanted in America and the World
Structuring Renewal
Signposts at the Workforce Crossroad
The "Sixth Discipline"
Beyond the 2010 Crossroad
End Notes
Index

See also: Condi vs Hillary or Chernobyl

The Call of Service

Author: Robert Coles

In this book, Coles explores the concept of idealism and why it necessary to the individual and society.

Publishers Weekly

In a searching, inspirational probe, eminent Harvard psychiatrist Coles ( The Moral Life of Children ) examines the idealistic motives of people who engage in volunteer work, community service or civil rights activism. Mixing autobiographical reminiscence, analysis and oral testimony, he interviews Peace Corps members as well as volunteers in hospitals, schools, prisons and nursing homes. Coles finds that volunteer work can have a transformative influence on those who heed the ``call of service,'' even though they frequently experience doubts, misgivings, depression and even a sense of futility and despair. Rich in empathy and insight, his informed study interweaves his own experiences as a child psychiatrist helping Southern children caught up in the school desegregation struggle, an account of his current work as a volunteer inner-city elementary school teacher near Boston, recollections of his 1950s service in a Manhattan soup kitchen with Catholic Worker activist Dorothy Day and portraits of his mentors Anna Freud and poet/physician William Carlos Williams, who set him on his altruistic path. Author tour. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Coles is the prolific and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such works as The Spiritual Life of Children ( LJ 11/1/90). Here he examines idealism, the drive that leads people to be of service to others. This service takes a variety of forms, from the formal (e.g., the Peace Corps) to simple volunteer work in hospitals, schools, and the like. Coles makes the subject interesting by letting the people who serve talk about their work. These doers, including Coles himself, tell of the satisfactions and the hazards of service. Let it be known that idealism or service is not a one-way street, Coles maintains. Those who give are as much receivers and learners. This engaging and inspiring book is highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/93.-- John Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Lib., New York

Kirkus Reviews

An exceptional blend of observation and reflection, literary report and personal revelation, that once again finds Coles (Psychiatry and Medical Humanities/Harvard; Anna Freud, 1992; etc.) exploring important social concepts—community service and the sources of altruism—with the tenacious moral energy that has characterized his writings for 30 years. From the first, Coles clearly cherished his encounters with people whose conduct claimed his imagination: In book after book, he presented them with dignity and respect. Here, he recalls the six-year-old integrating a southern school who sees ahead not trouble but opportunity; admires the white teacher who introduces Tillie Olsen's short story "O Yes" to a class of black middle- schoolers; learns from the Bowery bum who values not only the daily meal at his shelter but also the staff's acceptance of his angry moods; and understands the older tax lawyer who maintains that "there's still a little of 1964 in me." Coles contends that—while motives vary and overlap and stresses frequently wear people down—the satisfactions of service are plentiful and sustaining, conferring importance on small interactions and providing affirmation to those involved (often in place of, say, apparent social change). In his usual meandering way, he examines not only what those who serve mean to us and what their actions mean to them—most of his subjects emphatically resist the "idealist" designation—but also his own part in the equation (as volunteer and witness) and his enduring sources of inspiration: the examples of his own parents; of novelists whose ideas he finds edifying; and of mentors familiar from earlier works.Early on in his career, Coles abandoned the jargon of psychoanalysis and staked out his own territory—and a grateful audience. This work, a wellspring for those touched by "national service" headlines, echoes the spiritual tones of previous books and secures the author's place as a peerless interpreter of individual initiative and moral direction.

The Week the World Stood Still or Fighting for Faith and Nation

The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis

Author: Sheldon M Stern

“ . . . The Week The World Stood Still is an impressive work of scholarship that is also highly recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in the history of the Cold War era.”—The Midwest Book Review

Foreign Affairs

The discovery that President John F. Kennedy had installed a system for taping conversations in the Oval Office transformed the historiography of the Cuban missile crisis, and Stern was at the heart of the effort to transcribe them at the John F. Kennedy Library. An earlier and much longer version of this book (published in 2003 as Averting the Final Failure) expressed his disappointment with the inadequacy of the best-selling version of these transcripts, edited by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow. He believes strongly that at issue is intonation as well as language, evidence of the emotions at play, and the substance of the debate — so that emphasis can turn bland comment into heavy sarcasm. Only careful listening brings home, for example, how irritated Kennedy got with McGeorge Bundy during the critical discussions on October 27, 1962. This shortened version centers on a blow-by-blow account of the crisis as revealed in the tapes, getting across the ebb and flow of the discussions, the changes in mood, and the groping for a solution to an apparently desperate situation. As such it is a useful addition to the vast literature on the missile crisis and on Kennedy as a crisis manager.

Table of Contents:

1	The JFK Cuban Missile Crisis tapes	1
2	The making of the Cuban Missile Crisis	11
	The Cold War : JFK's crucible	11
	The Cold War and Cuba	14
	Nuclear confrontation in Cuba	18
	The Kennedy paradox	23
	Key members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council	29
3	The secret meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council	37
	Epilogue : the November post-crisis	205

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

Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants

Author: Cynthia Keppley Mahmood

The ethnic and religious violence that characterizes the late twentieth century calls for new ways of thinking and writing about politics. Listening to the voices of people who experience political violence - either as victims or as perpetrators - gives new insights into both the sources of violent conflict and the potential for its resolution. Going beyond such easy labels as "fundamentalism" and "terrorism," Mahmood shows how complex and multifaceted the human experience of political violence actually is. Drawing on her extensive interviews and conversations with Sikh militants, she presents their accounts of the human rights abuses they suffer in India as well as their explanations of the philosophical tradition of martyrdom and meaningful death in the Sikh faith. While demonstrating how divergent the worldviews of participants in a conflict can be, Fighting for Faith and Nation gives reason to hope that our essential common humanity may provide grounds for a pragmatic resolution of conflicts like the one in Punjab, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives in the past fifteen years.

Library Journal

Mahmood (Frisian and Free: Study of an Ethnic Minority of the Netherlands, Waveland, 1989) undertook this investigation as a study of the anthropology of violence and based her interviews solely on Sikhs living in North America, including some in prison. The narratives relate primarily to the relationship of the individual to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, or the invasion of the holiest Sikh temple by the Indian government in 1984. The last portion of the book raises questions about membership in communities and violent attempts to force conformity. Mahmood discusses Edward Said, Salmon Rushdie, and Harjot Oberoi (a Sikh whose academic writings have stirred much controversy). She is careful to state that the militants within the Sikh community are a minority and raises ethical issues for an anthropologist undertaking such research. Highly recommended.-Donald Clay Johnson, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis

Coercion Capital and European States or The Words of Martin Luther King Jr

Coercion, Capital and European States: Ad 990 - 1992

Author: Charles Tilly

In this pathbreaking work, now available in paperback, Charles Tilly challenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe. Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of state development resolving in today's national state.

Table of Contents:

Preface.
1. Cities and States in World History.
2. European Cities and States.
3. How War Made States, and Vice Versa.
4. States and their Citizens.
5. Lineages of the National State.
6. The European State System.
7. Soldiers and States in 1990.
References.
Index.

Go to: Operaciones y Gestión del sistema de suministros

The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Author: Coretta Scott King

Created as a "living memorial" to the philosophies and ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this essential volume includes more than 120 quotations from the greatest civil rights leader's speeches, sermons and writings.

Malcolm Boyd

This volume of quotations is thoughtful, intelligently provocative... —Los Angeles Times

New York Times

A valuable book.

Ebony Man

This book celebrates King's wisdom and is relevant today as it was during his lifetime.

Children's Literature

"When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind." These words and others from King's sermons, speeches and published works typify his conviction to address social wrongs by peaceful means. An introduction by his wife, Coretta, brings King's history briefly to life through her eyes—from their first meeting as students in 1952 to his death by a sniper's bullet in 1968. The quotations eloquently advocate love, peace, strength and courage, and are divided into sections representing Racism, The Community of Man, Nonviolence, Faith and Religion and more. Also included is President Reagan's speech proclaiming Martin Luther King Day as a public holiday. This short book could easily be read straight through but would benefit readers even more when absorbed in small, thoughtful doses. Though sources for the selections are listed, individual selections are rarely identified, making the text more useful for inspiration and awareness than as a research resource. An extensive chronology incorporates Dr. King's personal history with relevant events of the Civil Rights movement. Generous amounts of white space dramatically offset both the words and the black-and-white photographs that personify this vital leader and his cause. Part of "The Newmarket Words Of" series. 1996 (orig. 1983), Newmarket, $11.95. Ages 9 up. Reviewer: Betty Hicks AGES: 9 10 11 12 13 14

The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction or The Fate of Their Country

The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction

Author: F Michael Connelly

The Sage Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction emerges from a concept of curriculum and instruction as a diverse landscape defined and bounded by schools, school boards and their communities, policy, teacher education, and academic research. Each contributing author was asked to comprehensively review the research literature in their assigned topic. These topics, however, are defined by practical places on the landscape e.g. schools and governmental policies for schools.

Key Features:

• Presents a different vision or reconceptualization of the field
• Provides a comprehensive and inclusive set of authors, ideas, and topics
• Takes a global rather than North American parochial approach
• Recognizes that curriculum and instruction is broader in scope than is suggested by university research and theory
• Reflects post-1992 changes in curriculum policy, practice and scholarship
• Represents a rethinking of how school subject matter areas are treated

The contents of the Handbook are recognizable by high level practitioners with curriculum making jobs to do. Teacher education is included in the Handbook with the intent of addressing the role and place of teacher education in bridging state and national curriculum policies and curriculum as enacted in classrooms.

Meet the authors! phillion@purdue.edu 

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     viii
Introduction: Planning The Handbook: Practice, Context, and Theory   F. Michael Connelly   Ming Fang He   JoAnn Phillion   Candace Schlein     ix
Curriculum in Practice     1
Introductory Essay   Ian Westbury     1
Making Curriculum
Curriculum Policy and the Politics of What Should Be Learned in Schools   Ben Levin$dConsulting Authors: Geraldine Anne-Marie Connelly and Ulf P. Lundgren     7
Curriculum Planning: Content, Form, and the Politics of Accountability   Michael W. Apple$dConsulting Authors: Carlos Alberto Torres and Geoff Whitty     25
Making Curricula: Why Do States Make Curricula, and How?   Ian Westbury$dConsulting Authors: Stefan T. Hopmann and Leonard J. Waks     45
Subject Matter: Defining and Theorizing School Subjects   Zongyi Deng   Allan Luke$dConsulting Authors: John Chi-kin Lee and Margaret Placier     66
Managing Curriculum
Structuring Curriculum: Technical, Normative, and Political Considerations   Kevin G. Welner   Jeannie Oakes$dConsulting Authors: Michelle Fine and Kenneth R. Howe     91
Curriculum Implementation and Sustainability   Michael Fullan$dConsulting Authors: David Hopkins and James Spillane     113
Technology's Role in Curriculum and Instruction   Barbara Means$dConsulting Authors: Larry Cuban and Stephen T. Kerr     123
Curriculum in Context     145
Introductory Essay   Allan Luke     145
Diversifying Curriculum
Curriculum and Cultural Diversity   Gloria Ladson-Billings   Keffrelyn Brown$dConsulting Authors: Kathryn H. Au and Geneva Gay     153
Identity, Community, and Diversity: Retheorizing Multicultural Curriculum for the Postmodern Era   Sonia Nieto   Patty Bode   Eugenie Kang   John Raible$dConsulting Authors: Cherry A. McGee Banks and Sofia Villenas     176
Students' Experience of School Curriculum: The Everyday Circumstances of Granting and Withholding Assent to Learn   Frederick Erickson   Rishi Bagrodia   Alison Cook-Sather   Manuel Espinoza   Susan Jurow   Jeffrey J. Shultz   Joi Spencer$dConsulting Authors: Robert Boostrom and Pedro Noguera     198
Immigrant Students' Experience of Curriculum   Ming Fang He   JoAnn Phillion   Elaine Chan   Shijing Xu$dConsulting Authors: Jim Cummins and Stacey J. Lee     219
Teaching for Diversity: The Next Big Challenge   Mel Ainscow$dConsulting Authors: Chris Forlin and Roger Slee     240
Teaching Curriculum
Teacher Education as a Bridge? Unpacking Curriculum Controversies    Marilyn Cochran-Smith   Kelly E. Demers$dConsulting Authors: Ann Lieberman and Ana Maria Villegas     261
Cultivating the Image of Teachers as Curriculum Makers   Cheryl J. Craig   Vicki Ross$dConsulting Authors: Carola Conle and Virginia Richardson     282
Teachers' Experience of Curriculum: Policy, Pedagogy, and Situation   William Ayers   Therese Quinn   David O. Stovall   Libby Scheiern$dConsulting Authors: Freema Elbaz-Luwisch and Janet L. Miller     306
Internationalizing Curriculum
Indigenous Resistance and Renewal: From Colonizing Practices to Self-Determination   Donna Deyhle   Karen Swisher   Tracy Stevens   Ruth Trinidad Galvan$dConsulting Authors: Teresa L. McCarty and Linda Tuhiwai Smith     329
Globalization and Curriculum   Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt$dConsulting Authors: Lynne Paine and Fazel Rizvi     349
Community Education in Developing Countries: The Quiet Revolution in Schooling   Joseph P. Farrell$dConsulting Authors: Ash Hartwell and John N. Hawkins     369
Curriculum in Theory     391
Introductory Essay   William H. Schubert     391
Inquiring Into Curriculum
Curriculum Inquiry   William H. Schubert$dConsulting Authors: Craig Kridel and Edmund C. Short     399
Curriculum Policy Research    Edmund C. Short$dConsulting Author: Nina Basica     420
Hidden Research in Curriculum   Robin J. Enns$dConsulting Author: Margaret Haughey     431
Reenvisioning the Progressive Tradition in Curriculum   David T. Hansen   Rodino Anderson   Jeffrey Frank   Kiera Nieuwejaar$dConsulting Authors: Gert J. J. Biesta and Jim Garrison     440
What the Schools Teach: A Social History of the American Curriculum Since 1950   Barry M. Franklin   Carla C. Johnson$dConsulting Authors: Gary McCulloch and William J. Reese     460
Curriculum Development in Historical Perspective   J. Wesley Null$dConsulting Authors: Geoffrey Milburn and Wiel Veugelers     478
Curriculum Theory Since 1950: Crisis, Reconceptualization, Internationalization   William F. Pinar$dConsulting Authors: Donald Blumenfeld-Jones and Patrick Slattery     491
The Landscape of Curriculum and Instruction: Diversity and Continuity   F. Michael Connelly   Shijing Xu$dConsulting Authors: Elliot W. Eisner and Philip W. Jackson     514
Author Index     534
Subject Index     558
About the Editors     586
About the Part Editors     588
About the Consulting Authors     589
About the Contributing Authors     597

New interesting book: Consumers Guide to Cell Phones and Wireless Service Plans or Statistical Analysis of Medical Data Using SAS

The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War

Author: Michael F Holt

How partisan politics lead to the Civil War

What brought about the Civil War? Leading historian Michael F. Holt convincingly offers a disturbingly contemporary answer: partisan politics. In this brilliant and succinct book, Holt distills a lifetime of scholarship to demonstrate that secession and war did not arise from two irreconcilable economies any more than from moral objections to slavery. Short-sighted politicians were to blame. Rarely looking beyond the next election, the two dominant political parties used the emotionally charged and largely chimerical issue of slavery's extension westward to pursue reelection and settle political scores, all the while inexorably dragging the nation towards disunion.

Despite the majority opinion (held in both the North and South) that slavery could never flourish in the areas that sparked the most contention from 1845 to 1861-the Mexican Cession, Oregon, and Kansas-politicians in Washington, especially members of Congress, realized the partisan value of the issue and acted on short-term political calculations with minimal regard for sectional comity. War was the result.

Including select speeches by Lincoln and others, The Fate of Their Country openly challenges us to rethink a seminal moment in America's history.

Publishers Weekly

University of Virginia historian Holt (The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party) provides an elegant, brief analysis of the partisan political forces that, via the great debate over the extension of slavery into the American West, eventually plunged the United States into civil war. Holt discounts the view that the war arose inevitably from two irreconcilable economies as well as the more na ve interpretation that it derived from righteous Northern outrage over slavery. Instead he argues that shortsighted and self-absorbed politicians from both the South and the North (their agendas focused, for the most part, on simple re-election) needlessly exploited the slavery-extension debate and escalated the associated rhetoric to a crescendo that finally made disunion inevitable. Holt provides brilliant thumbnail portraits of such key players as Abraham Lincoln, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, James K. Polk, Daniel Webster and Stephen A. Douglas. He also offers vitally lucid analyses of such key legislative issues as the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Stating his case in a nutshell, Holt writes, "At few other times in American history did policy makers' decisions have such a profound-and calamitous-effect on the nation as they did in the 1840s and 1850s." 8 pages of b&w illus. not seen by PW; map. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

While modern historians often focus on the activities of marginalized groups that lacked true political power, the well-respected Holt (history, Univ. of Virginia; The Political Crisis of the 1850s) reaffirms the importance of politics and politicians as he re-examines the often studied coming of the Civil War. This short volume reiterates a thesis Holt offered earlier in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, which declares that the war resulted from a series of political decisions and actions relating to the extension of slavery rather than moral or social differences over slavery. The earlier volume was applauded by scholars, but its length (1000+ pages) and detail were daunting to more casual readers. This concise book, with four chapters focusing on significant political events of the prewar period and a useful appendix of primary sources, makes Holt's theories available to a wider audience. Reference to the current conflict in Iraq demonstrates the continuing importance of Holt's approach. Likely to be used for years to come, this work is highly recommended for academic and public libraries of all sizes.-Theresa McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

It wasn't slavery per se but the debates about the extension of slavery into new territories and states that sent the nation careening into civil war, argues Holt (History/Univ. of Virginia) in a work that aims at a broader audience than did his The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party (1999). As in that comprehensive, scholarly history, the author returns to the era of presidents whose visages will never adorn Mt. Rushmore (Polk, Taylor, Pierce, Buchanan) and politicians whose personal interests trumped the interests of the nation. (Stephen A. Douglas worked hard for the transcontinental railroad, in part to make sure it would pass through some of his land holdings.) With the confidence born of intimate knowledge, Holt guides us through some extraordinary complexities: the Missouri Compromise, the Mexican War, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He explores the reasoning and motivations of some of the most well-known names in American history, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. He does not, however, see much honor among the political thieves of the era. "Politicians made decisions," he writes, "from short-term calculations of partisan, factional, or personal advantage rather than from any long-term concern for the health, indeed, the very preservation of the Union." Holt implies that times have not changed much, and perhaps it was the contemporary parallels that led him, as he states in the text, to attempt both to sharpen the focus of his study of American Whigs and to attract a more general readership. He has certainly accomplished the former: few passages deal with anything other than politics, with glimpses of HarrietBeecher Stowe and John Brown providing occasional relief. But attracting a general readership is a more dubious proposition. Holt's prose is heavy, leaden, and veers at times into the inelegant. Important but occasionally tedious analysis of a most critical period in our history. (map; 8 pp. b&w illustrations, not seen)