Warrior King or Politics

Warrior King: The Triumph and Betrayal of an American Commander in Iraq

Author: Nathan Sassaman

The startling and controversial memoir of combat and betrayal, written by one of the most prominent members of the U.S. fighting forces in Iraq

A West Point graduate, a former star quarterback who carried Army to its first bowl victory, and a courageous warrior who had proven himself on the battlefield time and again, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman was one of the most celebrated officers in the United States military. He commanded more than eight hundred soldiers in the heart of the insurgency-ravaged Sunni Triangle in Iraq, and his unit’s job was to seek out and eliminate terrorists and loyalists to Saddam Hussein, while simultaneously rebuilding the region’s infrastructure and introducing democratic processes to a broken people. Sassaman’s tactics were highly aggressive, his methods innovative, and his success in Iraq nearly unparalleled.

Yet Sassaman will always be known for a fateful decision to cover up the alleged drowning of an Iraqi by his men, in which they purportedly forced two detainees to jump into the Tigris River. The army initially charged three soldiers with manslaughter and a fourth with assault---the first time troops who served in Iraq have been charged with a killing in connection with the handling of detainees. Sassaman’s decision led to his downfall, despite an impressive career, and sent shock waves through the American military.

This controversial decision goes to the heart of the complex fight in Iraq, where key army leaders betray one another, politics in the war room leads to lost lives on the battlefield, and enemy factions routinely sabotage U.S. efforts, making success difficult for American commanders on thebattlefield.

Warrior King is the explosive memoir of one of the most deeply involved members of the U.S. military in Iraq. This is the first book to take readers from the overnight brutality of combat to the daunting daytime humanitarian tasks of rebuilding Iraq to the upper echelons of the Pentagon to show how and why the war has gone horribly wrong.

Kirkus Reviews

A battalion commander who challenged army leadership and was punished for it scathingly indicts America's miscalculations in Iraq. West Point graduate and career soldier Sassaman was deployed in 2003 as battalion commander of the Fourth Infantry Division's 1-8 Infantry in Iraq. From day one, he ran afoul of his superior officer, Colonel Fred Rudesheim, whose "filtered, innocuous, and risk-averse orders," the author believed, contributed to the preventable killing of his men. Although a stickler for order, Sassaman calls himself a type-A personality who encouraged in his command the judicious "crossing of boundaries" in cases of life and death. Boastful of the success demonstrated by his battalion, he admits he had become "something of a warrior king in Iraq," paving the way to career suicide by continually challenging the orders of his superior. Then, on the night of January 3, 2004, two of his men detained two Iraqi males in northern Samarra shortly after curfew and forced them to jump in the Tigris River. "A high school prank," declares the author, who was in command but not present at the time; he repeats the soldiers' assurances that they saw both men walking away from the river and points out that no body was found. Nonetheless, an investigation was conducted and Sassaman held accountable for the alleged drowning of one of the Iraqis. He got a "letter of reprimand under Article 15 proceeding," which meant that he could be promoted to colonel but no higher. He might have been able to live with that, but an April 5 article in the Washington Post, with extensive quotes from Rudesheim, brought the incident to public attention, and Sassaman retired the following summer. "I thought wecould win the war," he writes. "But there is no war right now. It's law enforcement, and we're losing ten, fifteen soldiers a week to law enforcement."A valuable insider's look at the many-layered ramifications of the American-Iraqi tragedy of errors.

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Politics (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

Author: Aristotl

Aristotle's Politics is one of the earliest, and at the same time one of the most thorough and balanced, accounts of politics. It provides extended analyses of the origin and function of the state; the proper distribution of political power among the branches of government; a classification of the different types of regime; the reasons why the different regimes fail and how to prevent such failure; and, in general, the principal details of practical politics. In this respect, it is a primer on government as valuable today as it was when first written.

The greatest contribution of the Politics, however, lies in its establishment of the fundamental principles underlying these details-the political significance of human nature and rationality; the relation of the human good to the political good; the critical difference between politics and economics; and the true justification for political authority and power. At the very least, Aristotle's Politics is a reminder that government, both in theory and practice, needs to have its foundation and justification in broader understandings of man, of nature, and of the purpose of political life.

What Remains or Obama

What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love

Author: Carole Radziwill

What Remains is a vivid and haunting memoir about a girl from a working-class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a prince, Anthony Radziwill, one of a long line of Polish royals and nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Carole Radziwill's story is part fairy tale, part tragedy. She tells both with great candor and wit.

Carole grew up in a small suburb with a large, eccentric cast of characters. She spent her childhood summers with her grandparents and an odd assortment of aunts and uncles in their poorly plumbed A-frame on the banks of a muddy creek in upstate New York.

At the age of nineteen, Carole struck out for New York City to find a different life. Her career at ABC News led her to the refugee camps of Cambodia, to a bunker in Tel Aviv, to the scene of the Menendez murders. Her marriage led her into the old world of European nobility and the newer world of American aristocracy.

What Remains begins with loss and returns to loss. A small plane plunges into the ocean, carrying John Kennedy, Anthony's cousin, and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Carole's closest friend. Three weeks later Anthony dies of cancer. The summer of the plane crash, the four friends were meant to be cherishing Anthony's last days. Instead, Carole and Anthony mourned John and Carolyn, even as Carole planned her husband's memorial.

Carole Radziwill has an anthropologist's sensibility and a journalist's eye. She writes about families--their customs, their secrets, and their tangled intimacies-- with remarkable acuity and humanity. She explores the complexities of marriage, the importance of friendship, and the challenges of self-invention with unflinching honesty.This is a compelling story of love, loss, and, ultimately, resilience.

Publishers Weekly

Here's a very sad story: a middle-class girl is working as a reporter at ABC, where she meets a handsome man from a famous family. They court, marry and become best friends with the husband's first cousin and his new wife. Abruptly, the reporter's husband is diagnosed with cancer. He dies, but not before the cousin and his wife (and her sister) die, too, in a senseless plane crash. This would be a heartbreaking story even if it weren't about Anthony Radziwill, nephew of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and about his and Carole's friendship with John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. But because its publisher (and, presumably, the author) have decided not to market it as a "Kennedy book" but "a memoir of fate, friendship and love," it begs consideration on its literary merits. So here goes: Radziwill is a serviceable, if sentimental, writer. She is brave, especially when she describes how cancer became the third party in her marriage, and how she briefly flirted with infidelity. She also knows how to convey the essence of a person with small scenes and quotes (JFK Jr. holding his dying friend's hand and softly singing a song from their childhood; director Mike Nichols not calling but just coming to the hospital and handing out sandwiches to the nurses). Still, perhaps in Radziwill's effort to further the myth of its non-Kennedyness, much of this already short book feels padded-with scenes from the author's childhood and medical details about Anthony's treatment. Otherwise, much of Radziwill's writing approaches melodrama, particularly when she recounts that July 1999 night when the plane crashed. At one point, Radziwill scoffs at the "tragedy whores" who luxuriate in Kennedy trauma, and yet she seems to have been unable to resist contributing some crumbs to their feeding frenzy. (Sept. 27) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Radziwill's life, from ABC correspondent to wife of a prince, Anthony Radziwill, who was diagnosed with cancer before their wedding and died within five years, just as the plane piloted by cousin John Kennedy crashed. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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Obama: From Promise to Power

Author: David Mendell

David Mendell has covered Obama since the beginning of his campaign for the Senate and as a result enjoys far-reaching access to the new Senator--both his professional and personal life. He uses this access to paint a very intimate portrait of Obama and his life pre and post Senate, including Obama's new status as a sex symbol now that going into a crowd to shake hands with constituents carries the added concern of being groped by women, and the toll this has had on his marriage. Mendell also describes the dirty tactics sanctioned by Obama--who has steeped his image and reputation on the ideals of clean politics and good government--to win his Senate seat by employing David Axelrod, a Chicago-based political consultant (consultant to the John Edwards's campaign) with what the author describes as "an appetite for the Big Kill."

Mendell also positions Barack Obama as in fact the Savior of a fumbling Democratic party, who is potentially orchestrating a career in Senate to guarantee him at the very least a vice presidential nod, if not a nod for the top job in 2008. The dream ticket would be Hilary Clinton-Barack Obama given his reception at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Because he enjoys popularity among Whites (particularly suburban White women) and Blacks, it might not be such a far-fetched idea.

Vision of the Anointed or Worlds at War

Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

Author: Thomas Sowell

Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

Wall Street Journal

As compelling an explanation as any for the seemingly disproportionate amount of condescension and politically correct invective that emanates from the liberal side of the political spectrum toward the conservative opposition.

New York Times Book Review

An important and incisive book.

Publishers Weekly

In this broadside against the received wisdom of America's elite liberal intelligentsia, noted conservative Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, offers some strenuous arguments as well as fuzzy generalizations. Thus, his attacks on the war on poverty, sex education and criminal justice policies forged in the 1960s counter some slippery rhetoric by their defenders, yet his suggestion that these policies exacerbated things is questionable. Sowell deconstructs how statistics can be distorted to prove assumptions (that lack of prenatal care is the cause of black infant mortality) and gleefully skewers ``Teflon prophets'' such as John Kenneth Galbraith (who said that big companies are immune from the market) and Paul Ehrlich (who said starvation loomed). While ``the anointed'' favor explanations that exempt individuals from personal responsibility and seek painless solutions, those with the ``tragic vision'' see policies as trade-offs. Sowell scores his targets for disdaining their opponents, but this book also invokes caricature-these days, many of ``the anointed'' are less unreconstructed than he assumes. Conservative Book Club and Laissez-Faire Book Club selections. (Aug.)

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Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West

Author: Anthony Pagden

In the tradition of Jared Diamond and Jacques Barzun, prize-winning historian Anthony Pagden presents a sweeping history of the long struggle between East and West, from the Greeks to the present day.

Triangle or Bad Money

Triangle: The Fire that Changed America

Author: David Von Drehl

On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. With ladders too short for a rescue, firemen had to watch in horror, along with hundreds on the street, as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. The final toll was 146 people-123 of them women. It was the worst industrial disaster in New York City history until 9/11.

The New York Times

For a historian of New York, the dreadful sight of trapped World Trade Center workers leaping to their deaths on Sept. 11 summoned up the horrible image of trapped seamstresses, hair and clothing ablaze, plunging from the Triangle shirtwaist factory on March 25, 1911. David Von Drehle was at work on Triangle: The Fire That Changed America when the attack came, and for a time its appalling parallels stopped him cold. We can be thankful that he carried on, because he has given us an enthralling chronicle of that distant and very different disaster, which left its own profound mark on the city and taught lessons that we are badly in need of remembering. — Mike Wallace

The Washington Post

Von Drehle ably describes the growth of the garment industry, the lives of its immigrant work force, the politics of early 20th-century New York, and the 1909 strike. But he truly excels in telling the harrowing story of the fire itself. Two gripping chapters put the reader inside the Triangle factory, as the fire spreads with awesome speed from the pile of garment scraps where it began, taking all its victims within just a half-hour. Von Drehle shows how clear thinking, decisive action, physical strength and luck saved many, including the owners, while others were doomed by paralyzing terror, trying to save colleagues, a locked exit door, the poorly constructed fire escape that collapsed during the inferno, or sheer chance. Von Drehle's reconstruction of the fire is reminiscent of Norman McClean's Young Men and Fire, the classic account of what it is like to face a raging fire, and the split-second events that separate life from death. — Joshua B. Freeman

NY Times Sunday Book Review

As David Von Drehle makes clear in his outstanding history, Triangle, the overwhelmingly young, female victims of the fire -- at least 123 were women, and of these at least 64 were teenagers -- were betrayed by the greed of their employers, by the indifference of the city's political bosses, by an entire matrix of civic neglect and corruption. … Von Drehle, a reporter at The Washington Post, has written what is sure to become the definitive account of the fire. — Kevin Baker

Publishers Weekly

It was a profitable business in a modern fireproof building heralded as a model of efficiency. Yet the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City became the deadliest workplace in American history when fire broke out on the premises on March 25, 1911. Within about 15 minutes the blaze killed 146 workers-most of them immigrant Jewish and Italian women in their teens and early 20s. Though most workers on the eighth and 10th floors escaped, those on the ninth floor were trapped behind a locked exit door. As the inferno spread, the trapped workers either burned to death inside the building or jumped to their deaths on the sidewalk below. Journalist Von Drehle (Lowest of the Dead: Inside Death Row and Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election) recounts the disaster-the worst in New York City until September 11, 2001-in passionate detail. He explains the sociopolitical context in which the fire occurred and the subsequent successful push for industry reforms, but is at his best in his moment-by-moment account of the fire. He describes heaps of bodies on the sidewalk, rows of coffins at the makeshift morgue where relatives identified charred bodies by jewelry or other items, and the scandalous manslaughter trial at which the Triangle owners were acquitted of all charges stemming from the deaths. Von Drehle's engrossing account, which emphasizes the humanity of the victims and the theme of social justice, brings one of the pivotal and most shocking episodes of American labor history to life. Photos not seen by PW. Agent: Esther Newberg. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Edna Boardman - KLIATT

To quote from the review of the audiobook in KLIATT, May 2004: The legendary fire that killed 146 in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, March 25, 1911, "grew geometrically in the space of a few seconds." The factory was packed with tables that limited workers' movement and with waste receptacles that contained flammables ripe for the match head or cigarette stub. Its narrow staircases ended in locked doors, and the fire department's ladders were not long enough to reach the windows against which the screaming women crowded. The flames were brought under control within half an hour, but the fire's effects have reverberated through American development. In an impressive piece of research and writing, Von Drehle opens up the story, illuminating the legal, political and cultural setting in which the fire occurred. Tammany Hall ruled New York for the sake of the wealthy, ships daily brought hundreds of immigrants escaping Europe's pogroms and poverty, and factory-made clothing was replacing traditional homemade. He details the fire's setting, the persons involved at all levels, the trial that exonerated the owners, Max Blank and Isaac Harris, and the profound attitude change that put the government into social programs. A cultural history masterpiece. KLIATT Codes: SA*—Exceptional book, recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Grove Press, 340p. illus. notes. bibliog. index., Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal

The tragic conflagration at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in March 1911 resulted in the deaths of 123 women (most of them young immigrants), caused widespread public outrage, and set in motion a wave of reform. Drehle's vivid retelling of this horrifying event begins with the strike that immediately preceded it and then examines the terrible fire, the unsuccessful prosecution of the factory owners, and the fight to prevent similar tragedies in the future. Drehle, a reporter for the Washington Post and author of such investigative books as Lowest of the Dead: Inside Death Row, utilizes the vast amount of documentation surrounding the tragedy and some newly discovered court transcripts to re-create the fire and its legislative aftermath, plus immigrant life and labor conditions at the time. The story of this disaster can never be told too often and has rarely been told this well. Recommended for academic and public libraries of all sizes, even those who already own Leon Stein's classic The Triangle Fire. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Theresa McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Von Drehle has embedded the intense, moving tale of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in a fascinating, meticulously documented account of a crucial period in U.S. history. In addition to using an impressive list of secondary sources, the author has drawn heavily on newspaper articles, author Leon Stine's interviews with survivors, and trial transcripts. In a short prologue, he provides a poignant account of stunned, grieving relatives trying to identify burned bodies. To show why the tragedy occurred, he then goes back two years to the beginning of the 1909 general strike. The stifling, dingy tenements and the horrific conditions of the factories where immigrant workers toiled for 84-hour workweeks are described in evocative detail. Stories of the hardships they left behind in Italy and Eastern Europe contribute to the portraits of the victims and villains. Readers unfamiliar with Tammany Hall, the Progressive movement, or the rise of trade unions benefit from clear, concise background information. The account of the fire, the investigation, and the trial are both heartbreaking and enraging. The courtroom drama of defense attorney Max Steuer brazenly defending the factory owners overshadows any modern comparison. After concluding with the announcement of the trial verdict, the author provides an epilogue covering the final years of the key figures. An appendix gives the first complete list of victims. Eight black-and-white photos are included.-Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A vivid recounting of the 1911 blaze that until the World Trade Center attack was the worst workplace disaster in New York history. On March 25 of that year, a fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in Greenwich Village. In a half-hour, 146 people were killed, 123 of them women. Washington Post journalist Drehle (Among the Lowest of the Dead, 1995) fleshes out the social and political background to the conditions that made the tragedy inevitable. Abysmal pay and harassment for petty work violations had prompted a massive waist-workers' strike in New York the year before. Nor was the fire unusual or unforeseen; one historian estimated that at the time, a hundred accidents occurred in American workplaces each day. The largest blouse-making operation in New York, the Triangle sweatshop employed 500 or more workers, mostly Jewish and Italian, who toiled on the upper floors just beyond the reach of fire department ladders. The victims' doom was sealed when a rickety fire escape collapsed, and they couldn't open a door kept locked because the owners feared employee theft. Though the owners were acquitted of manslaughter charges, the outrage that swept the city led to changes in laws concerning workplace safety and the rights of labor. Reaction to the Triangle disaster also foreshadowed a national political realignment as urban Democrats became the shock troops of FDR's coalition. Drehle enhances his narrative with colorful portraits of principal players, including flamboyant defense attorney Max Steuer; Charles Whitman, the politically ambitious district attorney of New York; Tammany Hall boss Charles Murphy; and his Albany lieutenants Al Smith and Robert F. Wagner, who staved offsocialist insurgency by passing 25 workplace safety bills in 1912. More remarkably, the author manages to piece together from news accounts and a long-lost trial transcript the lives and aspirations of the accident's victims. Compelling, in-depth look at a tragedy that deserves to be better remembered. (8-page b&w insert, not seen) Agent: Esther Newberg/ICM

Table of Contents:

	Prologue: Misery Lane	1
1	Spirit of the Age	6
2	The Triangle	35
3	Uprising	55
4	The Golden Land	87
5	Inferno	116
6	Three Minutes	139
7	Fallout	171
8	Reform	194
9	Trial	219
	Epilogue	259
	Appendix	269
	Notes	285
	Notes on Sources	317
	Selected Bibliography	321
	Acknowledgements	327
	Index	329

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Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism

Author: Kevin Phillips

The bestselling author reveals how the U.S. financial sector has hijacked our economy and put America's global future at risk

In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned us of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the increasing cost of scarce oil. The current housing and mortgage debacle is proof once more of Phillips's prescience, and only the first harbinger of a national crisis. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. America's current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers-especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the world superpower.

"Bad money" refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance-the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Also "bad" are the risk miscalculations and strategic abuses of new multitrillion-dollar products such as asset-backed securities and the lure of buccaneering vehicles like hedge funds. Finally, the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world's other currencies. In all these ways, "bad" finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis. Bad Money is the perfect follow- up to Phillips's last book, whose dire warnings are now proving frighteningly accurate.

The New York Times - Daniel Gross

Bad Money is perfectly timed for the present, as the foul stench of moldering debt and American decline lingers in the concrete canyons of Manhattan…Phillips is an entertaining writer. His prose is full of jabs and one-two combinations that keep things moving briskly.

Dale Farris - Library Journal

Longtime political and economic commentator Phillips continues the theme of his American Theocracy(2006)-also narrated by Scott Brick (www.scottbrickpresents.com)-with this gloomy projection of a major economic storm brewing on the horizon. Here, Phillips again draws parallels between our current situation and the declines of 17thcentury Spain, the 18thcentury Dutch Republic, and early 20thcentury Britain, parallels over which historians and economists will likely quibble. However, even if his moody pessimism is not entirely defensible, his warnings should provide useful fodder for enlightened, learned voters in the exhausting 2008 presidential campaign. Brick's steady pacing will help listeners sustain focus throughout this informationpacked read. Recommended for university libraries supporting business and economics curricula and for larger public libraries. [Also recorded by Books on Tape. 8 CDs. unabridged. ISBN 9781415949900

Steal This Book or My Guantanamo Diary

Steal This Book

Author: Abbie Hoffman

In 1970, Abbie Hoffman conceived the idea for his most ambitious book project yet. He had begun criss-crossing the country, ferreting out alternative ways of getting along in America—some illegal, but most of them having to do with survival techniques. Steal This Book captures the spirit of those years, describing actions and techniques that were already in use in all 50 states.

Table of Contents:

	Free Food	2
	Free Clothing and Furniture	21
	Free Transportation	27
	Free Land	42
	Free Housing	47
	Free Education	55
	Free Medical Care	58
	Free Communication	67
	Free Play	83
	Free Money	86
	Free Dope	96
	Assorted Freebies	104
	Tell it All, Brothers and Sisters	113
	Guerrilla Broadcasting	139
	Demonstrations	146
	Trashing	159
	People's Chemistry	170

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My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me

Author: Mahvish Khan

Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents in Michigan. Outraged that her country was illegally imprisoning people at Guantanamo, she volunteered to translate for the prisoners. She spoke their language, understood their customs, and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home. And they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away.

For Mahvish Khan the experience was a validation of her Afghan heritage—as well as her American freedoms, which allowed her to intervene at Guantanamo purely out of her sense that it was the right thing to do. Mahvish Khan's story is a challenging, brave, and essential test of who she is —and who we are.

The Washington Post - Juliet Wittman

My Guantanamo Diary joins such indispensable documents as Murat Kurnaz's Five Years of My Life in chronicling events behind the thick secrecy surrounding the prison…[Khan's] contribution here is to show us the humanity of those who have been waiting for years—often in conditions that drive human beings mad—to learn what they are accused of and when, if ever, they might be released. These stories will sink permanently into the reader's consciousness

The New York Times - Jeffrey Rosen

I began My Guantanamo Diary wondering whether Khan was too credulous, especially after she conceded that "it may appear to some readers that I gave ample, and perhaps naive, credence to the prisoners' points of view." But by the end, I was more or less persuaded by her conclusion that most of the Afghans she met were not guilty of crimes against the United States, and for a simple reason: the military ultimately released most of them. Once you know the endings to Khan's stories, they read like the gripping narratives of the wrongly accused…By giving us the perspective of the detainees, My Guantanamo Diary provides a valuable account of what we can now recognize as one of the most shameful episodes in the war on terror. It is hard to read this book without a growing sense of embarrassment and indignation.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

In her moving debut memoir, a young journalist recounts her time as a translator for the detainees of notorious Guantánamo Bay prison. As a law student and American-born daughter of Pashtun (ethnic Afghan) immigrants, Khan seeks a translator position at one of the private law firms that represent the Guantanamo inmates, some of whom spend years in prison before offered a "fair" trial-or even access to counsel. Shockingly, many of the detainees Khan encounters are average citizens placed in prison due to unfortunate circumstances, the blind aggression of modern anti-terror tactics and the incompetence of its enforcers; one detainee, elderly stroke patient Nusrat, was detained after questioning the authorities regarding the arrest of his son (accused of having ties with al-Qaeda). Revealing near-universal abuse, both mental and physical, inflicted on the prisoners, Khan's account is plenty powerful-and that's before she travels alone to war-torn Afghanistan in order to prove her clients' innocence. Khan also divulges her poignant reunions with several prisoners following their release, a bittersweet breath of fresh air amid a nightmarish, eye-opening and important account.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ingrid Levin - Library Journal

In this highly disturbing and impassioned memoir, Afghan American law school graduate and journalist Mahvish Khan writes of her experiences serving as a translator for lawyers representing detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Khan perceptively details a catalog of horrors and humiliations suffered by the prisoners, including many instances of torture, lack of medical care, and other human rights abuses. She highlights the plight of many so-called enemy combatants who ended up at Guantánamo only because of large bounties paid by U.S . forces for turning over suspected terrorists. With no right to a fair trial and often facing a litany of trumped-up charges, the falsely accused have little recourse; many resort to suicide attempts and hunger strikes in desperation. Khan's blistering exposé of the blatant injustices inflicted in the name of fighting terrorism will leave many readers shocked and disillusioned. This is not for the faint of heart. With parallels to Clive Stafford Smith's The Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side and Murat Kurnaz's Five Years of My Life, this work is highly recommended for all public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Based on what she learned as a translator at the notorious detention center, the American-born daughter of Afghan immigrants indicts the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners there. Khan explains how she found her way inside the heavily guarded Guantanamo Bay facility. Her parents had made sure she learned the Pashto language of their homeland, and while she was a law student at the University of Miami she became outraged by what she learned about Guantanamo operations, which she judged "a blatant affront" to American principles. Khan did not assume that all detainees at Guantanamo were innocent of terrorism-related crimes. She did believe, however, that each had the right to a lawyer and a fair hearing on the charges alleged by the federal government. She contacted Michael Ratner, an attorney at New York City's Center for Constitutional Rights who was challenging government policy at Guantanamo. Because none of the lawyers trying to assist the detainees spoke Pashto, Khan's usefulness was apparent from the time of her initial visit in 2006. Despite the security precautions, she kept notes; the text alternates between the stories she heard from detainees and her personal experiences inside the facility. She was stunned, for example, by the treatment of Ali Shah Mousovi, a pediatrician in Afghanistan who was classified as a terrorist for reasons that neither he nor Khan could discern. Arrested while trying to open a medical clinic in an Afghan town, Mousovi told Khan that he had been beaten, spat upon, stripped naked and forced to remain awake for days while standing stock-still. Khan heard similar accounts from detainee after detainee; she judged them credible, and her outragegrew. She holds back little in her searing debut, realizing that few other observers are in a position to reveal the truth as she found it. A gutsy and disturbing expose of U.S. civilian and military personnel out of control. Agent: Lynn Franklin/Lynn C. Franklin Associates

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave or The Sustainability Revolution

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by Himself

Author: Frederick Douglass

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED
BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
Frederick Douglass's powerful autobiographical account of life in bondage and his triumphant escape to freedom.
EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:
• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

Sacred Life

When it was first published, many critics doubted that The Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass had even been written by Frederick Douglass. As odd as it may seem now, that criticism was not completely unfounded: In the mid-nineteenth century, the antislavery movement produced hundreds of slave narratives, many of them ghostwritten by white abolitionists and tailored to create sympathy for their movement. But this book, by this remarkable man, was different. The tag line at the end of the book's subtitle—Written by Himself —was vitally important. Although clearly written with the abolitionist cause in mind, this book is not merely a political tract. True, its dispassionate prose brought to light the "injustice, exposure to outrage, and savage barbarity" of slavery as Douglass observed and experienced But also brought to life an uncommon man and the particular concerns seared into him during his experience of bondage. Douglass recounts that during slavery, he and his people were denied life's fundamentals: faith, family, education, the capacity for bold action, a sense of community, and personal identity. Douglass saw reclamation of these things as the key to his and his people's survival, redemption, and salvation.

The autobiography opens with a description of the aspects of his own life that Douglass was never allowed to know: the identity of his father, the warmth and care of his mother (who was a stranger to him), and even the fact of his own date of birth. As a child, he suffered from and observed savage beatings firsthand, including the fierce beating of his Aunt Hester at the hands of their master, Captain Aaron Anthony. As he grew older, Douglass liberated himself in stages: mentally, spiritually, and, eventually, physically. His mental freedom began when he was taught to read and write and realized the power of literacy; his spiritual freedom came when he discovered the grace of Christianity and the will to resist his beatings; his physical freedom arrived when he finally escaped to the North.

After escaping, Douglass was committed to telling the world about the condition of the brothers and sisters he left behind. Aside from telling Douglass's personal story, his autobiography takes us to the fields and the cabins and the lives of many slaves to reveal the real human cost of slavery. Douglass focused on the dehumanizing aspects of slavery: not just the beatings, but the parting of children from their mothers, the denial of education, and the sexual abuses of slave masters. He ends the book with this statement: "Sincerely and earnestly hoping that his little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds—faithfully relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my humble efforts—and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause, I subscribe myself, Frederick Douglass."

The book was an incredible success: It sold over thirty thousand copies and was an international bestseller. It was the first, and most successful, of three autobiographies that Douglass was to write. The other two, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, update the story of his life and revise some of the facts of his earlier autobiography.

Table of Contents:

	Foreword
	Preface
	INTRODUCTION: "A Psalm of Freedom"
Pt. 1	The Document	25
	Editor's Note on the Text	27
	Preface by William Lloyd Garrison, May 1,1845	29
	Letter from Wendell Phillips, Esq., April 22,1845	36
	Narrative Of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself	39
	Notes on the Text	109
Pt. 2	Selected Reviews, Documents, and Speeches	117
	Caleb Bingham, "Dialogue Between a Master and a Slave," in The Columbian Orator (1797)	119
	Margaret Fuller, Review of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, New York Tribune, June 10, 1845	121
	Ephraim Peabody, "Narratives of Fugitive Slaves," excerpt, Christian Examiner, July 1849	124
	Nathaniel P. Rogers, "Southern Slavery and Northern Religion," two addresses delivered in Concord, New Hampshire, February 11, 1844, as reported in (Concord, N.H.) Herald Freedom, February 16,1844	128
	Frederick Douglass, "My Slave Experience in Maryland," an address delivered in New York City, May 6, 1845, as recorded in National Antislavery Standard, May 22,1845	130
	Frederick Douglass, Letter to Thomas Auld, September 3, 1848, published in The North Star, September 8,1848; and The Liberator, September 22, 1848	134
	Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" speech delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852	141
	App. A Douglass chronology (1818-1895)	147
	App. Questions for Considerarion	153
	App. Selected Bibliography	155

Book review: Introduction to the Theory and Application of Data Envelopment Analysis or Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization

The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift

Author: Andres R Edwards

A comprehensive primer on the history, evolution and future of the movement toward sustainability.

Sustainability' has become a buzzword in the last decade, but its full meaning is complex, emerging from a range of different sectors. In practice, it has become the springboard for millions of individuals throughout the world who are forging the fastest and most profound social transformation of our time the Sustainability Revolution.

The Sustainability Revolution paints a picture of this largely unrecognized phenomenon from the point of view of five major sectors of society:

-- Community (government and international institutions)
-- Commerce (business)
-- Natural Resources (forestry, farming, fisheries, etc.)
-- Ecological Design (architecture, technology)
-- Biosphere (conservation, biodiversity, etc.).

The book analyses sustainability as defined by each of these sectors in terms of the principles, declarations and intentions that have emerged from conferences and publications, and which serve as guidelines for policy decisions and future activities. Common themes are then explored, including:

-- an emphasis on stewardship
-- the need for economic restructuring promoting no waste and equitable distribution
-- an understanding and respect for the principles of nature
-- the restoration of life forms, and
-- an intergenerational perspective on solutions.

Concluding that these themes in turn represent a new set of values that define this profound transformation, The Sustainability Revolution describes innovative sustainable projects and policies improving the lives of people in Colombia, Brazil, India and the Netherlands and examines future trends. The first book of its kind, it will appeal to business and government policy makers, academics, and all interested in sustainability.

Andrйs R. Edwards is an educator, author, media designer and environmental systems consultant who has specialized in sustainability topics for the past 15 years. The founder and president of EduTracks, an exhibit design and fabrication firm specializing in green building and sustainability education programs for parks, towns and companies, he lives in Northern California.

President Lincoln or Cobra II

President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman

Author: William Lee Miller

In his acclaimed book Lincoln's Virtues, William Lee Miller explored Abraham Lincoln's intellectual and moral development. Now he completes his "ethical biography," showing how the amiable and inexperienced backcountry politician was transformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head of state. Faced with a radical moral contradiction left by the nation's Founders, Lincoln struggled to find a balance between the universal ideals of Equality and Liberty and the monstrous injustice of human slavery.

With wit and penetrating sensitivity, Miller brings together the great themes that have become Lincoln's legacy—preserving the United States of America while ending the odious institution that corrupted the nation's meaning—and illuminates his remarkable presidential combination: indomitable resolve and supreme magnanimity.

Publishers Weekly

Subtle and nuanced, this study is something of a sequel to Miller's Lincoln's Virtues. Here he examines Honest Abe's moral and intellectual life while in the White House, prosecuting a bloody war. Miller finds that early in his presidency, Lincoln balanced two strong ethical imperatives-his duty to preserve the union and his determination not to fire the first shots. Of course, Miller also addresses that other great moral challenge: slavery. In short, says Miller, Lincoln believed slavery was "not only profoundly wrong but profoundly wrong specifically as measured by this nation's moral essence," and he used a terrific amount of political savvy to push through emancipation. But more original is Miller's discussion of what Lincoln thought was at stake in the war. Through a close reading of the president's papers, Miller persuasively argues that Lincoln believed secession would not merely "diminish" or "damage" the United States but would destroy it. That, in turn, was an issue of global import, for if the American experiment failed, free government would not be secure anywhere. Miller has given us one of the most insightful accounts of Lincoln published in recent years. (Feb. 5)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

R. Kent Rasmussen - Library Journal

This thoughtful and elegantly written sequel to Miller's 2002 biography, Lincoln's Virtues, focuses on the decisions Lincoln faced as the Civil War threatened to destroy the Union-well-trodden ground. But Miller's book differs in that it pays closer attention to the moral issues at play, e.g., Lincoln's commuting of the sentences of court-martialed soldiers. Lloyd James's (www.lloydjames.com) narration is competent but lacks energy, and his timing is often off. Really only for dedicated Lincoln aficionados or libraries stocking up on Lincoln biographies to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his February 12 birth. [Audio clip available through www.tantor.com; for a roundup of Lincoln books in this issue, see p. 136; additional reviews of Lincoln audiobooks forthcoming.-Ed.]

Kirkus Reviews

A member of the board of the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the Lincoln Studies Group examines the moral reasoning at the heart of the president's statecraft. Lincoln's graceful and humane exercise of power remains exemplary, a startling assessment, perhaps, of the man who presided over the greatest slaughter in American history. But Lincoln was neither a prophet nor a saint, neither a reformer nor a revolutionary. Rather, he was an engaged, embattled politician who clearly understood the role of settled law and of government and who resisted the temptation to engage in moral posturing. Miller (Ethics and Institutions/Univ. of Virginia; Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography, 2002, etc.) focuses on Lincoln's moral reasoning, demonstrating how worthy statecraft requires the leader to attend to reality, to the objective situation, to achieve his goals, all the while hewing to certain principles that cannot be compromised. From the time he took the oath of office, the bedrock principle for Lincoln was the preservation of the Union, no mere political power struggle in his mind, but rather an undertaking with vast, universal moral significance: whether a free, constitutional government could sustain itself, whether a successful appeal from ballots to bullets would mean not just diminishing or damaging the American experiment, but rather destroying it. Through this lens, Miller examines Lincoln's leadership under the unique circumstances of civil war in a variety of cases large and small: the decision to resupply Fort Sumter, to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and to enroll freed slaves in the Union army; the exercise of the president's pardon power; the strategies to keep border statesfrom joining the rebellion and to keep foreign powers at bay. While enduring the criticism of opponents, the incompetence or, in George McClellan's case, insubordination of his generals, or horrible battlefield reversals, Lincoln remained a resolute and aggressive war leader, even as he displayed an uncommon charity and largeness of spirit. His remarkable success, Miller makes clear, was attributable not only to his powerful mind, but also to his moral clarity, a seemingly unerring instinct that allowed him to achieve his goals without losing his own or his country's soul. A creative thesis thoroughly explored and beautifully argued.

Table of Contents:

About this Book     ix
Introduction: Honest Abe Among the Rulers     3
A Solemn Oath Registered in Heaven     7
Act Well Your Part, There All the Honor Lies     31
On Mastering the Situation: The Drama of Sumter     48
On Not Mastering the Situation: The Comedy of the Powhatan     72
Days of Choices: Two April Sundays     91
Realism Right at the Border     110
The Moral Meaning of the Union and the War     140
Bull Run and Other Defeats: Lincoln's Resolve     155
On Holding McClellan's Horse     169
The Trent and a Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind     193
Too Vast for Malicious Dealing     212
A Second Introduction: Lincoln's Nation Among the Nations     231
I Felt It My Duty to Refuse     235
In Giving Freedom to the Slave, We Assure Freedom to the Free     254
The Prompt Vindication of His Honor     273
And the Promise Being Made, Must Be Kept     289
The Benign Prerogative to Pardon Unfortunate Guilt     314
Must I Shoot a Simple Soldier Boy?     327
A Hard War Without Hatred     351
Temptation in August     370
The Almighty Has His Own Purposes     396
A Conclusion: Abraham Lincoln Among the Immortals     417
Notes     425
Acknowledgments     471
Index     473

See also: Always Talk to Strangers or The Art of Learning

Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

Author: Michael R Gordon

There have been many reports about the Iraq war and the vicissitudes of the American occupation, yet none heretofore has been informed by the inside story. Rendered fairly and documented impressively, it offers a galvanizing account of the strategy, the personalities, the actual battles, the diplomacy, the adversary, and the occupation.

Cobra II is stunning work of investigative journalism by Michael Gordon, the chief military correspondent of The New York Times, winner of the George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting in 1989 and the one and only correspondent embedded in Allied land command; and General Bernard E. Trainor, former military correspondent for The New York Times and current military analyst for NBC. Brimming with new and compromising disclosures, the book promises to be a singularly authoritative and comprehensive account of the planning and prosecution of the Iraq war.

Michael Gordon had unparalleled access to top military brass and was in the war room with Tommy Franks, Donald Rumsfeld and the field generals who were key in the formulation and execution of the war strategy. He has interviewed an extraordinary range of officials, including Franks himself, Condoleezza Rice, Steve Hadley, Paul Wolfowitz, Marc Grossman (the third ranking State Department official), Jerry Bremer, General Meyers (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), as well as virtually every general, regimental commander and brigade commander. He has had access to classified military and diplomatic documents, military archives and internal after-action reports and oral histories not meant for public consumption.

About the Authors

MICHAEL GORDON is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times. Since he joined the newspaper in 1985, he has covered arms control, the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons and other security issues. Mr. Gordon has been posted in Washington, Moscow and London and has covered the United States intervention in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, NATO's military deployment in Macedonia, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Russian invasion of Chechnya, among other conflicts. Mr. Gordon is the co-author, along with Bernard E. Trainor, of The Generals' War, a critically acclaimed account of the Persian Gulf conflict.

BERNARD E. TRAINOR, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, was a military correspondent for The New York Times from 1986-1990. He was the Director of the National Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from 1990-1996. Currently a military analyst for NBC, Trainor lives in Potomac Falls, Virginia.

The Washington Post - Andrew F. Krepinevich

The book's core, however, centers not on Beltway deliberations but on the dash to Baghdad by the Army and the Marines.The authors do a fine job making one of the most lop-sided campaigns in memory interesting, but the surprises that the Americans encounter turn out to be even more compelling. Senior U.S. field commanders soon realize that their principal enemy is not the Iraqi army but irregular forces -- many of them foreigners -- employing guerrilla tactics. These are portents of the full-blown insurgency to come, but no one back in Washington proves capable of connecting the dots.

The New York Times - Sean Naylor

A work of prodigious research, Cobra II will likely become the benchmark by which other histories of the Iraq invasion are measured. Note the word invasion. Cobra II was the name United States commanders gave the operation to depose Saddam Hussein's regime. It is the story of the planning, execution and immediate aftermath of that invasion that is related by Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times's chief military correspondent, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general and former military correspondent for The Times, in Cobra II.

Publishers Weekly

On one level, narrator Wasson's mostly neutral delivery is apt. The authors' dispassionate prose imparts their impeccably researched story of the 2003 Iraq invasion-from concept to insurgency. Sourced at the highest levels, Cobra II captures the fog of war and war planning. But Wasson's read too often feels routine, as if recounting a local board meeting. Because he renders the numerous players and backdrops with equal tones, differentiating between them can be a challenge. This style of narration creates an anti-tension when juxtaposed with the book's revelations that an invasion plan was being formed not long after September 11, despite administration denials. Strictly supervising the plan was defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was intent on transforming the military into a lighter, leaner force. False assumptions, faulty intelligence, willful ignorance, personal politics and a lack of foresight all fed into the invasion strategy and subsequent messy outcome. During the audiobook's second half, which documents the march to Baghdad and enemy engagements, Wasson's energy picks up and he paints some impressive scenes of war. But in the end, a more vibrant read would have better complemented the significance of this penetrating work. Gordon reads the introduction and epilogue. Simultaneous release with the Pantheon hardcover. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Gordon, chief military corespondent for the New York Times, and NBC military analyst Trainor, retired from the Marine Corps, reportedly got special access for this behind-the-scenes account of preparing for war. With a 12-city tour. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Ghost Wars or God Man at Yale

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

Author: Steve Coll

To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both foreign and American, Coll details the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the failed efforts by U.S. forces to find and assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The New York Times

Coll, the managing editor of The Washington Post, has given us what is certainly the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of Al Qaeda in the post-Soviet rubble of Afghanistan. He has followed up that feat by threading together the complex roles played by diplomats and spies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States into a coherent story explaining how Afghanistan became such a welcoming haven for Al Qaeda. — James Risen

The Washington Post

In Ghost Wars, The Washington Post's managing editor, Steve Coll, takes a long -- and long overdue -- look at the peaks and valleys of the CIA's presence in Afghanistan throughout the decades leading to Sept. 10, 2001. It is a well-written, authoritative, high-altitude drama with a cast of few heroes, many villains, bags of cash and a tragic ending -- one that may not have been inevitable. — James Bamford

Library Journal

A Pulitzer Prize winner who covered Afghanistan for the Washington Post from 1989 to 1992, Coll explains how long and how deeply we've been entrenched there. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Interesting textbook: The Twelve Step Life Recovery Devotional or The Portion Teller

God & Man at Yale

Author: William F Buckley

In 1951, a twenty-five-year old Yale graduate published his first book, which exposed the extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude that prevailed at his alma mater. This book rocked the academic world and catapulted its young author, William F. Buckley Jr., into the public spotlight.

Peter Viereck

...Has a young Saint Paul emerged from the Yale class of 1950 to bring us the long-awaited Good tidings of a New Conservatism and Old Morality? The trumpets of advance publicity imply it. However, this Paul-in-a-hurry skips the preequisite of first being a rebel Saul. the difference between the easy, booster affirmation that precedes the dark night of the soul and the hard-won, tragic affirmation that follows it... Books of the Century, New York Times review, November,1951

Great American Hypocrites or Paris 1919

Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics

Author: Glenn Greenwald

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING:
Falling for the Marlboro Man marketing and sleazy takedown tactics of the Republican Party can be hazardous to the health of this nation!

Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man.

For example:

Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man.
Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career.

Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe.
Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure.

Myth: Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited government.
Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course.

“Intelligent, insightful.” —Daily Kos

“Glenn Greenwald has done it again.” —Alan Colmes

“Glenn Greenwald is a treasure.” —BuzzFlash

Publishers Weekly

With this provocative book, Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and author of A Tragic Legacyand How Would a Patriot Act, purports to expose the "rank myth-making and exploitation of cultural, gender and psychological themes" by the Republican Party. The author begins his attack by targeting John Wayne, whom he sees as a template for right-wing notions of "American courage and conservative manliness." Wayne's avoidance of military service and his string of divorces, both at odds with his public image, are emblematic in this account of a fundamental hypocrisy implicit in conservative mythologies. Greenwald goes on to argue that prominent Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney display the same hypocrisy in their public ideologies and personal lives. Shouldering much of the blame are the press and the media, including Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, Chris Matthews and even Maureen Dowd, all of whom propagate popular attitudes about virile Republicans and effeminate Democrats. Despite the antipathy the author feels for Coulter, his writing is much like hers. More a partisan screed than a reasoned argument meant to persuade undecided readers, this repetitive text frequently devolves into personal attacks and vast generalizations. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007Reed Business Information

Donna L. Davey, Margaret Heilbrun - Library Journal

Attorney-turned-blogger Greenwald's hypocrites-e.g., John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, and the Bush administration-have been thus labeled before. Greenwald's examination of them as marketers who successfully created images of themselves and their causes through use of favorite American themes (e.g., the rugged cowboy, the thirst for freedom) isn't all that new either. He's caustic but supports his points with sound research. The results may well have appeal in public libraries.

Table of Contents:

Preface     1
The John Wayne Syndrome     13
How Great American Hypocrites Feed Off One Another     36
Tough Guise     96
Wholesome Family Men     172
Small-Government Tyrants     206
John McCain     247
Acknowledgments     277
Index     279

Go to: Relief Is in the Stretch or Celtic Tattoos

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Author: Margaret MacMillan

National Bestseller

New York Times Editors’ Choice

Winner of the PEN Hessell Tiltman Prize

Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize

Silver Medalist for the Arthur Ross Book Award
of the Council on Foreign Relations

Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award

For six months in 1919, after the end of “the war to end all wars,” the Big Three—President Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and French premier Georges Clemenceau—met in Paris to shape a lasting peace. In this landmark work of narrative history, Margaret MacMillan gives a dramatic and intimate view of those fateful days, which saw new political entities—Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Palestine, among them—born out of the ruins of bankrupt empires, and the borders of the modern world redrawn.

Publishers Weekly

A joke circulating in Paris early in 1919 held that the peacemaking Council of Four, representing Britain, France, the U.S. and Italy, was busy preparing a "just and lasting war." Six months of parleying concluded on June 28 with Germany's coerced agreement to a treaty no Allied statesman had fully read, according to MacMillan, a history professor at the University of Toronto, in this vivid account. Although President Wilson had insisted on a League of Nations, even his own Senate would vote the league down and refuse the treaty. As a rush to make expedient settlements replaced initial negotiating inertia, appeals by many nationalities for Wilsonian self-determination would be overwhelmed by rhetoric justifying national avarice. The Italians, who hadn't won a battle, and the French, who'd been saved from catastrophe, were the greediest, says MacMillan; the Japanese plucked Pacific islands that had been German and a colony in China known for German beer. The austere and unlikable Wilson got nothing; returning home, he suffered a debilitating stroke. The council's other members horse-traded for spoils, as did Greece, Poland and the new Yugoslavia. There was, Wilson declared, "disgust with the old order of things," but in most decisions the old order in fact prevailed, and corrosive problems, like Bolshevism, were shelved. Hitler would blame Versailles for more ills than it created, but the signatories often could not enforce their writ. MacMillan's lucid prose brings her participants to colorful and quotable life, and the grand sweep of her narrative encompasses all the continents the peacemakers vainly carved up. 16 pages of photos, maps. (On sale Oct. 29) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Karl Helicher - Library Journal

On his trip to China in February 1972, President Richard Nixon exclaimed in a toast to his hosts that his visit, the first such trip by an American President, was "the week that changed the world." However, Nixon, who considered the opening of China his greatest achievement, didn't bask in his glory for long because Watergate would soon put him on the defensive for the remainder of his presidency. MacMillan (history, Univ. of Toronto; Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World) presents a lively narrative of the people, diplomacy, and pomp of this memorable visit, which was orchestrated as much by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Premier Zhou En-Lai as it was by Nixon and Mao. Although the visit did not resolve the major issue for the People's Republic (reunification of Taiwan with mainland China) and for the United States (terminating the Vietnam War), Nixon's visit ended decades of Chinese diplomatic isolation from most of the world and began an important Cold War-era dialog between the two nations. The author is especially good at providing historical background on China and showing how the trip's aftermath reverberated among such American allies as Britain, Taiwan, Australia, and Japan and within its Cold War nemesis, the Soviet Union. Recommended for all public and academic collections.

Kirkus Reviews

From Canadian historian MacMillan (Women of the Raj, not reviewed), a lively and thoughtful examination of the conference that ended the war to end all wars. After more than four years of carnage on a scale the world had never before seen, WWI ended with an exhausted Germany asking the exhausted Allies for an armistice based on American President Woodrow Wilson's idealistic formula for a just peace. The resulting Paris Peace Conference of 1919 aimed at redrawing the map of a Europe in which the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires lay ruined, and rearranging a world in which new nations were struggling to emerge from those moribund colonial empires. Diverse characters came to Paris, including British Arabist T.E. Lawrence, Greek patriot Eleutherios Venizelos, Poland's Roman Dmowski, and Japan's Prince Saionji, but MacMillan (History/Univ. of Toronto) focuses on the complex relationships among the three disparate personalities who dominated the Conference: Wilson, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and British prime minister David Lloyd George (the author's great-grandfather). Bringing them vividly to life, MacMillan reviews the conference's considerable failures and accomplishments. In hindsight, the punitive disarmament and reparation terms imposed upon Germany and the accommodation of Japanese claims to Pacific territory can be seen as setting the stage for the rise of those nations' militarism. The creation of colonial mandates in the Mideast and betrayal of Arab nationalists who had fought for the Allied cause led to tensions that plague the world today. However, MacMillan disputes that the Paris arrangements led directly to WWII; decisions made afterward, sheargues, were more significant. The peacemakers made mistakes, she concedes, but "could have done much worse." Among the Conference's real achievements were the fashioning of seven European countries and Turkey out of the detritus of failed empires, the development of an International Labor Organization, and the creation of the League of Nations, which presaged the rise of the United Nations. Absorbing, balanced, and insightful narrative of a seminal event in modern history.

Icon of Evil or A Crime So Monstrous

Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam

Author: David G Dalin

The definitive account of the little-known 1920s Palestinian leader who allied himself with Hitler and forms the hidden link between the fascism of the twentieth century and the new fascism of the twenty-first.

Book about: Complete Candida Yeast Guidebook or The Whartons Stretch Book

A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

Author: E Benjamin Skinner

To be a moral witness is perhaps the highest calling of journalism, and in this unforgettable, highly readable account of contemporary slavery, author Benjamin Skinner travels around the globe to personally tell stories that need to be told -- and heard.

As Samantha Power and Philip Gourevitch did for genocide, Skinner has now done for modern-day slavery. With years of reporting in such places as Haiti, Sudan, India, Eastern Europe, The Netherlands, and, yes, even suburban America, he has produced a vivid testament and moving reportage on one of the great evils of our time.

There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history. After spending four years visiting a dozen countries where slavery flourishes, Skinner tells the story, in gripping narrative style, of individuals who live in slavery, those who have escaped from bondage, those who own or traffic in slaves, and the mixed political motives of those who seek to combat the crime.

Skinner infiltrates trafficking networks and slave sales on five continents, exposing a modern flesh trade never before portrayed in such proximity. From mega-harems in Dubai to illicit brothels in Bucharest, from slave quarries in India to child markets in Haiti, he explores the underside of a world we scarcely recognize as our own and lays bare a parallel universe where human beings are bought, sold, used, and discarded. He travels from the White House to war zones and immerses us in the political and flesh-and-blood battles on the front lines of the unheralded new abolitionist movement.

At the heart of the story are the slaves themselves. Their stories are heartbreaking but, in the midst of tragedy, readers discover a quietdignity that leads some slaves to resist and aspire to freedom. Despite being abandoned by the international community, despite suffering a crime so monstrous as to strip their awareness of their own humanity, somehow, some enslaved men regain their dignity, some enslaved women learn to trust men, and some enslaved children manage to be kids. Skinner bears witness for them, and for the millions who are held in the shadows.

In so doing, he has written one of the most morally courageous books of our time, one that will long linger in the conscience of all who encounter it, and one that -- just perhaps -- may move the world to constructive action.

The Washington Post - Denise Brennan

In A Crime So Monstrous Skinner reports from some of the key departure, transit and destination points in the modern slave trade, including Haiti, Sudan, Romania, Moldova, Turkey, India, the Netherlands and Miami. Much like 19th-century abolitionist accounts of slavery in the United States, his book is meant both to inform and to enrage—and it succeeds on both counts.

Publishers Weekly

Today there are "more slaves than at any time in history," according to journalist Skinner's report on current and former slaves and slave dealers. Skinner's travelogue-cum-indictment focuses most sharply on Haiti, Sudan, Romania and India, and is interspersed with a detailed account of the work of John Miller, director of the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, or "America's antislavery czar." Skinner reiterates that sexual trafficking is only one component of slavery, but devotes the bulk of this book (when it is not following Miller's State Department career) to this issue. The text teeters toward the travelogue, taking the reader to "Dubai's most notorious brothel" and Skinner's adventures in "pos[ing] as a client to talk to women... [or] as an arms dealer to talk to traffickers." Nevertheless, Skinner's story merits reading, and not just because the cause is noble and the detail often fascinating, such as the moral complications of Christian Solidarity International's "redemption" or purchase of 85,000 slaves' freedom. Skinner's account of the internal workings of the State Department and the deep links to faith-based antislavery groups and their special interests is seriously newsworthy and, at times, moving. (Mar.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

An impassioned expose of a thriving slave economy in the world's poorest regions. With the appearance of Kevin Bales's shocking book Disposable People (1999), in which the author claimed there were 27 million slaves in the world-defined as "human beings forced to work, under threat of violence, for no pay"-Bill Clinton became the first U.S. leader to make modern-day slavery a national issue by signing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Subsequently, President Bush, at the behest of his Evangelical supporters, has spoken out vociferously against it, empowering a former congressman from Seattle, John Miller, to hunt down slavery rings across the globe and rescue victims, especially women and children. Journalist Skinner went underground to investigate pockets of this slave economy and the plight of its victims. In Haiti, he negotiated with a courtier (a broker) to buy a restavek (a "stay-with") for $50, a child taken from a family in the country on the promise of being educated and typically treated as chattel and concubine with impunity. In civil-war-torn Sudan, the author explored the history of Arab raids on southern Dinka villages to seize slaves, a practice sanctioned by the northern (Arab) government as a weapon of war. In Bucharest, he infiltrated a Romani slave market and discovered Moldovan villages drained of women by slave traders. In northern India, he was "overwhelmed" by the scale of bondage. Skinner tracks the crusading efforts of Miller and other faith-based abolitionists and the government's wrangling over the definition of slavery as a form of genocide (a crime against humanity) versus the euphemistic word "trafficking" (not a crime). The individual slave stories areso numerous and ghastly that readers may feel bludgeoned by the horror. An important, consciousness-raising book. Agent: Geri Thoma/Elaine Markson Agency

Twilight at Monticello or The New Cold War

Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson

Author: Alan Pell Crawford

Told with grace and masterly detail, Alan Pell Crawford's unprecedented and engrossing personal look at the intimate Thomas Jefferson in his final years will change the way audiences think about this true American icon.

The Washington Post - Michael Grunwald

…a well-researched narrative of Thomas Jefferson's post-presidential years—with a notable non-emphasis on the best-known aspect of those years, Jefferson's correspondence with Adams. Crawford deserves credit for focusing on less trampled ground and for shedding new light on Jefferson's dysfunctional family life and shopaholic tendencies.

Publishers Weekly

Crawford (Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman) does a thorough if artless job of narrating Thomas Jefferson's postpresidential years. Crawford's narrative is a slave to chronology, which works against him. The first 50 pages are a highly condensed account of his life up through his presidency: information which, if it must be included, could have been more elegantly inserted into the main narrative. After this false start, Crawford's story improves as he delivers an exhaustive account of Jefferson's tangled dotage: the attempted murder of his much-loved grandson by another relative, his dealings with other descendants both white and black; his de facto bankruptcy; and his late relations with such fellow founders as Adams and Madison. Much of this has been recounted before, though interesting and surprising details abound. For example, a young Edgar Allan Poe was at Jefferson's funeral. Despite all this diligence, however, Crawford's narrative regularly stops dead in its tracks, especially when the author crawls inside Jefferson's head, presuming to know his thoughts at a given moment. Crawford is quite sure, for example, that on the first day of February 1819, Jefferson dwelled upon "the planters' financial plight, and his own... but this difficulty, Jefferson told himself, was surely temporary." (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Joseph L. Carlson - Library Journal

Crawford (Thunder on the Right) gives readers more than just a look at Thomas Jefferson's final years-drawing on new research and documents, he presents them with extensive information on his youth and his ascension to the presidency. Actor/narrator James Boles's (Tulia) reading is steady, if a bit pedantic. The subject matter, however, is enough to keep all listeners fascinated. Recommended for academic and large public libraries. [Audio clip available through www.tantor.com.-Ed.]

Library Journal

These books offer distinct perspectives and insights into public and private moments in the life of Thomas Jefferson, first U.S. secretary of state and third President-and one of the most fascinating figures in American history. Cerami (Jefferson's Great Gamble ) offers a second work on Jefferson as perceptive and well written as his first. This time his focus is the long-standing personal and political feud between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the Treasury. Fearing that tensions between them on issues such as agriculture versus industry, states' versus federal rights, and South versus North would destroy the new nation, Jefferson reluctantly saw that his country would survive only through compromise. It was 1790. He invited Hamilton and his own ally, James Madison (aware of the purpose of the evening), to a private dinner at his home, then in New York. Compromise was achieved, Jefferson and Madison agreeing not to oppose federal assumption of states' war debts, Hamilton agreeing to the national capital being constructed in northern Virginia. Cerami wittily recounts the evening in rich detail, embracing the culinary details as well as the larger story of President Washington's quarrelsome cabinet, the evolution of the dual party system, and Jefferson's emergence as a persuasive national leader.

Crawford (Thunder on the Right ) offers his own equally compelling look, in this case at Jefferson's life, post-presidency, from 1809 until his death in 1826. Then a private citizen, Jefferson was burdened by financial and personal and political struggles within his extended family. His beloved estate, Monticello, was costly to maintain and Jefferson was indebt. Newly studying primary sources, Crawford thoroughly conveys the pathos of Jefferson's last years, even as he successfully established the University of Virginia (America's first wholly secular university) and maintained contact with James Madison, John Adams, and other luminaries. He personally struggled with political, moral, and religious issues; Crawford shows us a complex, self-contradictory, idealistic, yet tragic figure, helpless to stabilize his family and finances. Historians and informed readers alike will find much to relish in both of these distinctive works of original scholarship. Both are recommended for academic and large public libraries. [For Crawford, see Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/07.]-Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina, Thomas Cooper Lib., Columbia

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Crawford (Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman) does a thorough if artless job of narrating Thomas Jefferson's postpresidential years. Crawford's narrative is a slave to chronology, which works against him. The first 50 pages are a highly condensed account of his life up through his presidency: information which, if it must be included, could have been more elegantly inserted into the main narrative. After this false start, Crawford's story improves as he delivers an exhaustive account of Jefferson's tangled dotage: the attempted murder of his much-loved grandson by another relative, his dealings with other descendants both white and black; his de facto bankruptcy; and his late relations with such fellow founders as Adams and Madison. Much of this has been recounted before, though interesting and surprising details abound. For example, a young Edgar Allan Poe was at Jefferson's funeral. Despite all this diligence, however, Crawford's narrative regularly stops dead in its tracks, especially when the author crawls inside Jefferson's head, presuming to know his thoughts at a given moment. Crawford is quite sure, for example, that on the first day of February 1819, Jefferson dwelled upon "the planters' financial plight, and his own... but this difficulty, Jefferson told himself, was surely temporary." (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Kirkus Reviews

Event-filled but melancholy history of the 17 years following Jefferson's departure from the presidency in 1809. The 66-year-old retiree was an international icon who received a steady stream of visitors and mail, writes Crawford (Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America, 2000, etc.). His visitors eagerly set down their experiences, and Jefferson was an indefatigable letter-writer, so scholars have access to a mountain of material, capped by the legendary correspondence with John Adams. Money rarely left Jefferson's thoughts during his final years. Presidential pensions did not exist, and he was juggling huge loans. He expected to live off his 10,000 acres and 200 slaves, a characteristically unrealistic financial plan-much of the book is taken up by accounts of his ineffectual efforts to better his fortune. Crawford's chronicle of the founding of the University of Virginia, which Jefferson considered his greatest achievement next to the Declaration of Independence, details the president's difficulties with the state legislature: True Jeffersonians, the lawmakers didn't want to spend the money. A dedicated acolyte of the Enlightenment, Jefferson disliked the increasingly urban, populist and religious America of his retirement years. He also disliked the uneducated, pugnacious politicians (such as Andrew Jackson) preferred by new states west of the Appalachians. This distaste belied his credentials as a fervent, egalitarian democrat, but Jefferson was a man of disturbing contradictions. Historians love to quote his eloquent youthful denunciations of slavery, but Crawford reminds us that in retirement, immune frompolitical damage, he refused to speak out and counseled correspondents against action. During the first great political debate on slavery in 1820, he unconditionally supported the Southern position. Detailed explanations of the Negro's inferiority from a man who prided himself on his scientific acumen make sad reading, as does the steady decay of Jefferson's personal and financial fortunes. Nonetheless, nearly all of his thoughts and actions merit attention. Insightful analysis and lucid prose make this autumnal portrait a rewarding experience.

Books about:

The New Cold War: The Future of Russia and the Threat to the West

Author: Edward Lucas

In late 1999 when Vladimir Putin was named Prime Minister, Russia was a budding democracy. Multiple parties campaigned for seats in the Duma, the nation’s parliament. The media criticized the government freely. Eight years later as Putin completes his second term as president of Russia and announces his bid for prime minister, the country is under a repressive regime. Human rights abuses are widespread. The Kremlin is openly hostile to the West. Yet the United States and Europe have been slow to confront the new reality, in effect, helping Russia win what experts are now calling the New Cold War.

Edward Lucas, former Moscow Bureau Chief for The Economist, offers a harrowing portrait from inside Russia as well as a sobering political assessment of what the New Cold War will mean for the world. In this big, hard hitting and urgently needed book, he shows how

* Russia is pursuing global energy markets
* Neighboring nations are being coerced back into the former Soviet orbit
* Journalists and dissidents are being silenced
* Foreign investments and private enterprises are routinely defrauded
* Putin is laying the groundwork for controlling industry and planning his new role as prime minister

Drawing on new and hitherto reported material, The New Cold War brilliantly anticipates what is in store for the new Russia and what the world should be doing.

Screwed or Deliver Us from Evil

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - and What We Can Do About It

Author: Thom Hartmann

Nationally syndicated radio host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann exposes the covert war conservatives, and corporations are waging against America's middle class'a war that's reducing the rest of us to a politically impotent working poor. This book asks: How did this happen? Who's benefiting? And how can we stop it?

Table of Contents:

Foreword   Mark Crispin Miller     ix
Introduction: Profits before People     1
A Middle Class Requires Democracy     27
There Is No "Free" Market     29
How We the People Create the Middle Class     41
The Rise of the Corporatocracy     59
Democracy Requires a Middle Class     71
The Myth of the Greedy Founders     73
Thomas Paine against the Freeloaders     81
Taxation without Representation     95
James Madison versus the Business of War     107
FDR and the Economic Royalists     115
Governing for We the People     129
Too Important for the Private Sector     137
Knowledge Is Power     147
Medicine for Health, Not for Profit     153
The Truth about the Trust Fund     163
Setting the Rules of the Game     173
The Illegal Employer Problem     183
Leveling the Playing Field     191
Conclusion: The Road to Victory     207
Afterword   Greg Palast     225
Notes     227
Index     236
Acknowledgments     247
About the Author     249

New interesting textbook:

Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism

Author: Sean Hannity

Nearly three years have passed since that tragic day in September. Since then, our wounds have healed, but our senses and memories have dulled.

At first, the nation rallied behind its leader. But by the time the confrontation with Iraq presented itself, our courage and moral certainty seemed to fade in the face of partisan bickering and posturing.

Now the political left and the Democratic Party are trying to use the demanding aftermath of the war to exploit our national cause for their own political advantage.

How could we allow ourselves to forget so soon?

--from Deliver Us from Evil

Sean Hannity's first blockbuster book, the New York Times bestseller Let Freedom Ring, cemented his place as the freshest and most compelling conservative voice in the country. As the host of the phenomenally successful Hannity & Colmes on the Fox News Channel and The Sean Hannity Show on ABC Radio, Hannity has won a wildly devoted fan base. Now he brings his plainspoken, take-no-prisoners style to the continuing War on Terror abroad -- and liberalism at home -- in Deliver Us from Evil.

"Evil exists," Hannity asserts. "It is real, and it means to harm us." And in these pages he revisits the harsh lessons America has learned in confronting evil in the past and the present, to illuminate the course we must take in the future. Tracing a direct line from Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin through Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, he reminds us of the courage and moral clarity of our great leaders. And he reveals how the disgraceful history of appeasement has reached forward from the days of NevilleChamberlain and Jimmy Carter to corrupt the unrepentant leftists of the modern Democratic Party -- from Howard Dean and John Kerry to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

As Americans face the ongoing war against terrorists and their state sponsors around the world, Sean Hannity reminds us that we must also cope with the continuing scourge of accommodation and cowardice at home. With his trademark blend of passion and hard-hitting commentary, he urges Americans to recognize the dangers of putting our faith in toothless "multilateralism" when the times call for decisive action. For only through strong defense of our freedoms, at home and around the world, can we preserve America's security and liberty in the dangerous twenty-first century.

Publishers Weekly

Conservative Fox Television news host and bestselling author Hannity sees behind the ills of the world one cause: evil. And so Hannity joins the "neocon" chorus, positing that totalitarian regimes, such as Hussein's in Iraq, Hitler's Germany and the former Soviet Union, serve as breeding grounds for evil, thus justifying President Bush's policy of pre-emptive action against countries that could threaten American interests. Despite "irrefutable evidence," Hannity writes, today's liberals inexplicably doubt that "absolute evil truly exists," and instead foolishly cling to the idea that the world's problems might arise from social, psychological and cultural differences or from economic inequality. Fans of Hannity-Christian conservatives in particular-will no doubt embrace this straightforward call to arms. Many readers, however, will find Hannity's "irrefutable" evidence to be anything but, and his selective use of history and circular logic raise far more questions than it settles. Two final chapters examine what Hannity considers to be the dangerous, partisan policies espoused by the current slate of Democratic presidential candidates. For our democracy to survive, Hannity argues, we must root out terrorists and defeat evil totalitarian regimes before they can harm us-a theme that will no doubt play loudly this election season. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.