Friday, January 30, 2009

The Keys to the White House or Good Intentions Bad Outcomes

The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President

Author: Allan J Lichtman


About the Author:
Allan J. Lichtman is professor of American history at American University, a veteran political commentator, and author of the forthcoming White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (2008)

Jack Germond - Baltimore Sun

This is a must book for political junkies who want to answer one important question about any campaign: Who's going to win?

Toronto Sun

If you're into American presidential politics, "The Keys to the White House" is a must, and fun, read.

Roll Call

Of the hundreds of books written about presidential elections, one of the best is Allan J. Lichtman's "The Keys to the White House".

What People Are Saying

William Schneider
Do me a favor. Don't read this book. Because if you do, it could put all of us pundits and political consultants out of business. Allan Lichtman has some nerve, revealing our trade secrets to the great unwashed public. Including the biggest secret of all, which is that the presidential vote is simple, rational, and highly predictable.


David Broder
For generations, politicians, pundits, and poll-takers have been seeking their version of the Holy Grail--a surefire, guaranteed way to predict presidential elections well ahead of time. It may have been found in this book.




Table of Contents:
Foreword
Introduction
1Logic of the Keys: How Presidential Elections Really Work1
2Turning the Keys to the Presidency19
3Civil War and Reconstruction49
4The Gilded Age65
5Rise and Fall of Progressivism81
6Depression, War, and Cold War99
7New Directions, War, and Scandal123
8Reagan and Beyond143
9Lessons of the Keys159
10Toward a New Presidential Politics171
11How to Bet in '96177
Notes183
Index189
About the Author197

Interesting book: Heal Your Heart or Generation Extra Large

Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes: Social Policy, Informality, and Economic Growth in Mexico

Author: Santiago Levy

Despite various reform efforts, Mexico has experienced economic stability but little growth. Today more than half of all Mexican workers are employed informally, and one out of every four is poor. Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes argues that incoherent social programs significantly contribute to this state of affairs and it suggests reforms to improve the situation.

Over the past decade, Mexico has channeled an increasing number of resources into subsidizing the creation of low-productivity, informal jobs. These social programs have hampered growth, fostered illegality, and provided erratic protection to workers, trapping many in poverty. Informality has boxed Mexico into a dilemma: provide benefits to informal workers at the expense of lower growth and reduced productivity or leave millions of workers without benefits. Former finance official Santiago Levy proposes how to convert the existing system of social security for formal workers into universal social entitlements. He advocates eliminating wage-based social security contributions and raising consumption taxes on higher-income households to simultaneously increase the rate of growth of GDP, reduce inequality, and improve benefits for workers.

Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes considers whether Mexico can build on the success of Progresa-Oportunidades, a targeted poverty alleviation program that originated in Mexico and has been replicated in over 25 countries as well as in New York City. It sets forth a plan to reform social and economic policy, an essential element of a more equitable and sustainable development strategy for Mexico.

What People Are Saying

Nancy Birdsall
"This is a rare study linking misguided social programs to low productivity and wages and disappointing growth in Mexico. Clear, compelling, and worrying, justifying a bold policy prescription, from an author who knows his economics, his politics, and his Mexico."--(Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development, and former Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank)


Ravi Kanbur
"The central thesis of this monograph is that the way Mexico's social programs are structured vis-à-vis the labor market is inequitable and inefficient. This excellent book argues that such programs, which the author strongly supports, should be delivered in a manner that does not discriminate between different types of employment arrangements. Benefits should be financed with general taxes, not employment-specific contributions by firms and workers. It will become a standard reference in the development literature because although the focus of the study is Mexico, the issues considered are faced by most developing countries, in Latin America and beyond."--(Ravi Kanbur, T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics, Cornell University, and former Chief Economist for Africa at the World Bank)


Franзois Bourguignon
"Santiago Levy demonstrates how important it is that we consider the systemic implications of individual actions when designing economic and social policies. His comprehensive analytical framework, his thorough interpretation of an unusual data set, and his acute sense of how real people behave combine to make for a fascinating and constructive critique of Mexico's social protection system that would also apply to several other emerging economies."--(François Bourguignon, Director, Paris School of Economics, and former Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank)


James D. Wolfensohn
"Santiago Levy makes a compelling case for the reform of the Mexican social protection system. He provides a brilliant in-depth analysis of the shortcomings of the current approach that fails to achieve the basic goal of protecting those in need and also seriously harms Mexico's growth prospects."--(James D. Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank)




Thursday, January 29, 2009

Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant or Novus Ordo Seclorum

Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography

Author: Renee Winegarten

When they first met in 1794, shortly after the Reign of Terror, Germaine de Staël and Benjamin Constant were both in their twenties, both married, and both outsiders. She was already celebrated and a published writer, whereas he, though ambitious, was unknown. This compelling dual biography tells the extraordinary story of their union and disunion, set against a European background of momentous events and dramatic social and cultural change. Renee Winegarten offers new perspectives on each of the protagonists, revealing their rare qualities and their all-too-human failings as well as the complex nature of their debt to one another.

 

Their passionate and productive relationship endured on and off for seventeen years. Winegarten traces their story largely through their own words—letters and autobiographical writings—and illuminates the deep intellectual and visceral bond they shared despite disparate personalities and gifts. Exploring their relationships with Napoleon and the Bourbons, their different responses to the momentous upheavals of postrevolutionary France, their support of individual liberty with order, and more, the book concludes with an appreciation of de Staël’s and Constant’s singular contributions to a new literature and to the history of liberty.

The Washington Post - Michael Dirda

Winegarten tells the story of de Stael and Constant's "marriage of true minds" with absorbing detail…For many readers, I suspect that the names Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant are, in effect, just names. If that's the case, take heart: Renee Winegarten's fine dual biography will bring them to blazing life.

Marie Marmo Mullaney - Library Journal

This "dual biography" is the first full-length exploration of the tempestuous 17-year partnership between Madame de Stael, the most celebrated woman writer of the Napoleonic period, and up-and-coming liberal politician, journalist, and theorist Benjamin Constant. Literary critic Winegarten (Accursed Politics) uses letters, diaries, and published accounts to reveal the pair's innermost thoughts and feelings on love, marriage, and politics, skillfully interweaving the story of their parallel lives against the backdrop of the social and political maneuverings of post-revolutionary France. While the two were never a married couple, they consulted, advised, inspired, and used each other, and each responded in distinct ways to the new Napoleonic order. At times, the complexities of French politics in this period may make the book difficult to follow for all but the most engaged and informed readers, yet Winegarten's recounting of the nature of this partnership and clear examination of the pair's political ideas, writings, and emotions make her book an important contribution to the field. The author concludes that despite their private shortcomings, these two should be remembered and admired for their key contributions to Western liberalism in its formative phase. Students of French literary and cultural history will best appreciate this highly readable, if occasionally complex, narrative. Recommended for academic collections and large public libraries.



Table of Contents:

Prologue 1

1 A Chance Encounter 6

2 Prodigies 33

3 A Bold Throw 67

4 Enter the Hero 98

5 A New Order 125

6 Journey into the Unknown 155

7 Corinne and Adolphe 180

8 The Flight to Freedom 218

9 Reunion in Paris - and After 247

10 The Death of Corinne 277

Epilogue 288

Notes 301

Bibliography 319

Index 327

Read also Going Digital or Total Global Strategy II

Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origin of the Constitution

Author: Forrest McDonald

This is the first major interpretation of the framing of the Constitution to appear in more than two decades. Forrest McDonald, widely considered one of the foremost historians of the Constitution and of the early national period, reconstructs the intellectual world of the Founding Fathers--including their understanding of law, history political philosophy, and political economy, and their firsthand experience in public affairs--and then analyzes their behavior in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in light of that world. No one has attempted to do so on such a scale before. McDonald's principal conclusion is that, though the Framers brought a variety of ideological and philosophical positions to bear upon their task of building a "new order of the ages," they were guided primarily by theiy own experience, their wisdom, and their common sense.

William and Mary Quarterly

Thoroughly impressive. A book that is consistently enlightening and one that, more than any of McDonald's previous works, stands as a monument to his remarkable talents.

Georgia Historical Quarterly

As provocative as it is difficult to put down.

The New York Times Book Review

A witty and energetic study of the ideas and passions of the Framers.



Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Kingdom of God Is Within You or Babylon by Bus

The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Author: Leo Tolstoy

The soul-searching book that inspired Gandhi to embrace the concept of passive resistance, Tolstoy's 1894 polemic outlines a radical, well-reasoned revision of traditional Christian thinking. The revered novelist and political thinker denounces violent revolution, calling upon readers to rely upon their inner divinity for the strength to effect social change.



See also: After Cancer Treatment or Silencing the Self

Babylon by Bus: Or, the True Story of Two Friends Who Gave Up Their Valuable Franchise Selling "Yankees Suck" T-shirts at Fenway to Find Meaning and Adventure in Iraq

Author: Ray Lemoin

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

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Ghosts of the Fireground or Federalist Papers

Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter

Author: Peter M Leschak

A firefighter's remarkable first–hand account of the lessons of tragedy, courage and faith in the epic struggle between man and fire.

In April of 2000, on the brink of one of the most ferocious fire seasons ever recorded, Peter Leschak discovers the diary of Father Pernin, one of the few survivors of a wildfire that hit Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871. Throughout this harrowing summer, Leschak takes us through Pernin's dangerous clash with the Great Peshtigo Fire while reflecting on his own journey from the ministry to fireground leader. In so doing, Leschak captures the sacred and mysterious pull of the fireground and breathes life into one of the most astounding and little–known disasters to ever hit this country.

Ghosts of the Fireground weaves seamlessly between Father Pernin's struggle with an inferno so hot that not even the Peshtigo River guaranteed safety to Peter Leschak's breathtaking frontline battles 130 years later, offering a compelling look at the courageous and noble pursuit that is wildland firefighting.

The New Yorker

If almost no one has heard of the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871, which consumed an entire Wisconsin town and killed twelve hundred people, that's because it occurred at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire. But Peshtigo was a far more potent example of just how devastating and uncontrollable fire can be, which is why it fascinates the author. In this curious blend of history and autobiography, Leschak, himself a wildland firefighter, intersperses an account of the Peshtigo disaster with stories of his own experience on the fireground. The result is often formally awkward, but the material is gripping, and Leschak does an excellent job of evoking both the terror and the majesty of a raging fire. In clean, understated prose, he describes the world of the firefighter, in which endless days of waiting give way to hours of intensity and exaltation. Firefighters, Leschak suggests, may not like fires, but they're never happier than when they're in the middle of one.

Publishers Weekly

What is it about their work that makes firefighters so devoted addicted, even to the calling? Leschak (Trial by Wildfire), a 20-year veteran wildfire fighter, attempts to answer this question in his contemplative memoir. He focuses primarily on the spring of 2000, when he led a helitack crew (a rapid-response helicopter unit) battling especially fierce and persistent wildfires in western Montana. That was also when Leschak discovered the diaries of Father Peter Pernin, a survivor of the 1871 fire that leveled Peshtigo, Wis. He threads the story of the Peshtigo fire throughout the book, along with other historical facts about American forest fires and the formation of a wildfire subculture. As he describes the dangers faced by his own team, the plainspoken, articulate Leschak explores the psychology and spirituality of fire fighting particularly the exhilaration of life-threatening situations citing sources as diverse as Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James and Walker Percy. Leschak had trained to become an evangelical minister in East Texas, and he recalls his conversion to evangelism at age 18, after listening to a radio preacher; his growing disillusionment with the narrow-mindedness of his Bible college; and his revelatory discovery of his true life' s work. In spite of its prominence in the subtitle, the story of the Peshtigo fire is woven casually and sporadically into the book; those looking for a sustained history should turn to another book on the Peshtigo fire being publishing the same month (Firestorm at Peshtigo, Forecasts, June 24). Nonetheless, Leschak' s action scenes crackle with energy, and his down-to-earth account of his spiritual quest should strike a chord with many. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

From Leschak (Letters from Side Lake, not reviewed, etc.), a good look into the mind of one wildland firefighter, his motivations and methods of operation. Though there are episodes throughout about fighting "magnificent, dangerous fires in remote and rugged terrain," what Leschak focuses on here are the questions of why he chose such a supremely high-risk job and whether he measures up to the quick-thinking, life-saving acts of Reverend Peter Pernin during the hellfire that struck Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871, killing an estimated 1,200 people and burning 1,800 square miles. Leschak, too, had trained for the ministry, but he bridled at the authoritarianism and yearned for more direct personal responsibility in his life. There's plenty of zeal-touched imagery here, from "the romantic attraction of hardship and hazard amid a corpulent society obsessed with mammon" through phrases like "grasp the hot iron," referring to a trial by fire believed by Saxons to distinguish the innocent from the guilty. It might be a stretch to say that the plain-speaking Leschak has a death wish ("I sure wouldn't want to miss it. Miss what? Let's slice to the core: miss the chance to die"), though on the daring meter he rates very high. "Action," he says, "is the crux of sentient life," and the crazy-sublime world of wildfires is just the place to find it, though he admits that "anyone who does it for the money is either desperately derelict or requires remedial arithmetic." Like Pernin, who led dozens to safety during the Peshtigo conflagration, Leschak "accepted the duty of decision" by becoming a crew chief. The urgency and drama that infuse his story never feel overstated but aptly fit the circumstances.History, danger, and courage, intriguingly rendered.



New interesting book: Rosso de novelo Realização de Excelência em Levantamento de Fundo

Federalist Papers

Author: Alexander Hamilton

The Federalist Papers--85 essays published in the winter of 1787-8 in the New York press--are some of the most crucial and defining documents in American political history, laying out the principles that still guide our democracy today. The three authors--Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay--were respectively the first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution, and their essays make a compelling case for a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day. The Federalist Papers are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers and a canonical text in the development of western political thought. This is the first edition to explain the many classical, mythological, and historical references in the text, and to pay full attention to the erudition of the three authors, which enabled them to place the infant American republic in a long tradition of self-governing states.



Table of Contents:

Introduction

Synopsis of The Federalist Papers

Select Bibliography

A Chronology of Events 1763-1791

Map of the United States c. 1789

The Federalist Papers 1

Appendix The Constitution of the United States (1787 and 1791) 433

Explanatory Notes 447

Thematic Index 467

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Welfare State Reader or Managerial Epidemiology for Health Care Organizations

The Welfare State Reader

Author: Christopher Pierson

'The Welfare State Reader’ has rapidly established itself as vital source of outstanding original research. In the second edition of this highly respected reader, Pierson and Castles have comprehensively overhauled the content, bringing it wholly up-to-date with contemporary discussions about this most crucial area of social and political life. The book includes almost twenty new carefully-edited selections, all reflecting the very latest thinking and research in welfare state studies. These readings are organised around a series of current debates – on welfare regimes, on globalization, on Europeanization, on demographic change and the political challenges of the new century. There are also two substantial sections devoted to the future of welfare – assessing the new risks and new opportunities that confront policy-makers in an increasingly complex political environment. Each section, as well as the volume overall, is set in context by an editorial introduction.

As well as bringing together classic debates, The Welfare State Reader constitutes an invaluable guide to what is happening at the cutting-edge of welfare research. Read either independently or alongside he third edition of Pierson’s ‘Beyond the Welfare State?', it will give the reader an unrivalled overview of debates surrounding the welfare state.
"



Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Editors' Note
Editors' Introduction1
IApproaches to Welfare
The First Welfare State?11
The Welfare State in Historical Perspective18
Citizenship and Social Class32
Universalism versus Selection42
What is Social Justice?51
The Fiscal Crisis of the State63
Some Contradictions of the Modern Welfare State67
The Power Resources Model77
The Meaning of the Welfare State90
The Two Wars against Poverty96
The New Politics of the New Poverty107
Feminism and Social Policy119
The Patriarchal Welfare State133
IIDebates and Issues
Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism154
The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism170
Towards a European Welfare State?190
Is the European Social Model Fragmenting?207
Social Welfare and Competitiveness234
Negative Integration: States and the Loss of Boundary Control254
Challenges to Welfare: External Constraints257
National Economic Governance263
Social Security around the World271
On Averting the Old Age Crisis281
Intergenerational Conflict and the Welfare State: American and British Perspectives293
The New Politics of the Welfare State309
Welfare State Retrenchment Revisited320
IIIThe Futures of Welfare
High-Risk Strategy337
The Implications of Ecological Thought for Social Welfare343
Basic Income and the Two Dilemmas of the Welfare State355
The Welfare State and Postmodernity360
Positive Welfare369
Subject Index380
Name Index400

Look this: Le Lecteur de Transformations Global :une Introduction à la Discussion de Globalisation

Managerial Epidemiology for Health Care Organizations

Author: Brian W Amy

Managerial Epidemiology for Health Care Organizations provides readers with a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the application of epidemiological principles to the delivery of health care services and management of health care organizations. As health administration becomes evidence- and population-based, it becomes critical to understand the impact of disease on populations of people in a service area. This book also addresses the need of health organizations’ to demonstrate emergency preparedness and respond to bioterrorism threats. A follow-up to the standard text in the field, this book introduces core epidemiology principles and clearly illustrates their essential applications in planning, evaluating, and managing health care for populations. This book demonstrates how health care executives can incorporate the practice of epidemiology into their various management functions and is rich with current examples, concepts, and case studies that reinforce the essential theories, methods, and applications of managerial epidemiology.

Allen Brinker

This text contains equal parts basic epidemiology and an overview of descriptive statistics for healthcare utilization. As stated, the intention is to introduce the student or healthcare administrator/manager to the notion of healthcare for populations. Healthcare administrators and students are the intended audience. The first section includes a complete primer on epidemiology, with chapters on the current nomenclature and science of health assessment and health economics. The authors should be complimented on the ease at which mathematical statistics are described and outlined using real life examples. All new students of epidemiology can benefit from this section of the text. The second section includes chapters on the assessment of healthcare utilization based on setting of care (ER, hospital-adult, hospital-pediatric, worksite) and the specific needs of the aged. It is, however, a shortcoming that the authors do not explain in substantial detail the pervasive impact poverty and ethnicity maintained in the assessment of health and healthcare utilization and the limitations of observational information in general. The successful implementation of information from controlled studies (evidence-based medicine) into clinical practice remains the challenge for a system whose public perception is that of managed cost and not managed care. The first section is an enjoyable and readable primer on epidemiology. The second section, with chapters on utilization of healthcare, is informative and provides the groundwork for anyone inclined to begin study of healthcare utilization by objective means. The book does not, however, lend itself to the design or redesign of any healthcaresystem. The authors, both of whom have outstanding credentials and experience in this area, should be credited with an excellent, basic textbook, but perhaps an over-reaching title.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Allen Brinker, MD, MS (Private Practice)
Description: This text contains equal parts basic epidemiology and an overview of descriptive statistics for healthcare utilization.
Purpose: As stated, the intention is to introduce the student or healthcare administrator/manager to the notion of healthcare for populations.
Audience: Healthcare administrators and students are the intended audience.
Features: The first section includes a complete primer on epidemiology, with chapters on the current nomenclature and science of health assessment and health economics. The authors should be complimented on the ease at which mathematical statistics are described and outlined using real life examples. All new students of epidemiology can benefit from this section of the text. The second section includes chapters on the assessment of healthcare utilization based on setting of care (ER, hospital-adult, hospital-pediatric, worksite) and the specific needs of the aged. It is, however, a shortcoming that the authors do not explain in substantial detail the pervasive impact poverty and ethnicity maintained in the assessment of health and healthcare utilization and the limitations of observational information in general. The successful implementation of information from controlled studies (evidence-based medicine) into clinical practice remains the challenge for a system whose public perception is that of managed cost and not managed care.
Assessment: The first section is an enjoyable and readable primer on epidemiology. The second section, with chapters on utilization of healthcare, is informative and provides the groundwork for anyone inclined to begin study of healthcare utilization by objective means. The book does not, however, lend itself to the design or redesign of any healthcare system. The authors, both of whom have outstanding credentials and experience in this area, should be credited with an excellent, basic textbook, but perhaps an over-reaching title.

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody




Saturday, January 24, 2009

What the Anti Federalists Were For or The Early American Republic 1789 1829

What the Anti-Federalists Were For

Author: Herbert J Storing

The Anti-Federalists, in Herbert J. Storing's view, are somewhat paradoxically entitled to be counted among the Founding Fathers and to share in the honor and study devoted to the founding. "If the foundations of the American polity was laid by the Federalists," he writes, "the Anti-Federalist reservations echo through American history; and it is in the dialogue, not merely in the Federalist victory, that the country's principles are to be discovered." It was largely through their efforts, he reminds us, that the Constitution was so quickly amended to include a bill of rights.

Storing here offers a brilliant introduction to the thought and principles of the Anti-Federalists as they were understood by themselves and by other men and women of their time. His comprehensive exposition restores to our understanding the Anti-Federalist share in the founding its effect on some of the enduring themes and tensions of American political life. The concern with big government and infringement of personal liberty one finds in the writings of these neglected Founders strikes a remarkably timely note.



Table of Contents:
Preface by Murray Dry
1. Introduction
2. Conservatives
3. The Small Republic
4. Union
5. The Federalist Reply
6. The Aristocratic Tendency of the Constitution
7. Complex Government
8. Bill of Rights
9. Conclusion
Works Frequently Cited
Notes
Appendix: Contents of The Complete Anti-Federalist
Index

New interesting book: Guide To Operating Systems Enhanced Edition or Workflow Management

The Early American Republic, 1789-1829

Author: Paul E Johnson

Synthesizing political, social, and cultural aspects of early U.S. history, The Early American Republic, 1789-1829 provides a unique and integrated overview of the era. Focusing on the politics and process of nation-making and the birth of American market society, the book addresses two main subjects. First, it recounts the history of national politics from the presidency of George Washington through the inauguration of Andrew Jackson. During that period, the Founders struggled to make a national republic, then watched as their United States became bigger, more democratic, and more divided than anything they had envisioned. Second, the book describes the beginnings of American market society, demonstrating how many Americans began to organize their lives around earning, buying, and selling. The Early American Republic, 1789-1829 illustrates the formative years of American nationhood, democracy, and free-market capitalism. While most people consider these to be inevitably American, the book demonstrates that none were natural, inevitable, or undisputed in 1789.
Examining all aspects of the Early Republic, the book explores such topics as family life, religion, the construction and reconstruction of gender systems, the rise of popular print and other forms of communication, and evolving attitudes toward slavery and race. It also covers the social history of market society, territorial expansion, and the growth of slavery, offering detailed region-, race-, and class-specific considerations of family life and religion. Providing a brief, comprehensive, and clearly written synthesis of American political, economic, social, and cultural development, The Early American Republic,1789-1829 is ideal for courses in the early national period.



Friday, January 23, 2009

Rogue Economics or Holy Roller

Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality

Author: Loretta Napoleoni

Economist and syndicated journalist Loretta Napoleoni argues that the world is undergoing rapid and unexpected great transformations fueled by what she calls rogue economics. Eagerly awaited around the world (translation rights have already been sold throughout Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia), Napoleoni's account is based on top-to-bottom primary-source interviews from banking executives in New York to Russian prostitutes to London morgue workers, and grounded in the author's personal experience in international finance. From Eastern Europe's booming sex trade industry to China's "online sweatshops," from al-Qaeda's underwriters to America's subprime mortgage lending scandal, Rogue Economics exposes the paradoxical economic connections of the new global marketplace.

Loretta Napoleoni is the author of the best-selling book Terror Inc.: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism, which has been translated into twelve languages. One of the world's leading experts on money laundering and terror financing, she has worked as London correspondent and columnist for Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, El Pais, and Le Monde. A former Fulbright scholar, she holds a PhD in economics, an MA in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University, and an MPhil in terrorism from the London School of Economics. For her work as a consultant for the commodities markets, she traveled regularly to Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries, where she has met top financial and political leaders. She lives in London.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. After looking into how terrorism gets paid for (Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism), Napoleoni tackles the whole of capitalism's dark side: the economics of illegal, criminal and terrorist activities worldwide. There's no shortage of material, including the sex trade of Eastern Europe, internet fraud, piracy (both nautical and intellectual), human slavery, drugs and even the subprime mortgage lending scandal. Unsettling, eye-opening statistics abound-one third of all fish eaten in the UK is illegally poached; today, 27 million slaves worldwide generate annual profits of $31 billion; up until 9/11, 80 percent of the $1.5 trillion underworld economy was laundered through the US (the Patriot Act moved much of this business to Europe)-and Napoleoni's bold analysis begs controversy. From page one, she ties the illegal business boom directly to the spread of democracy, pointing to the fall of the Berlin Wall as the moment when "rogue economics" were unleashed in their current, globe-enveloping iteration. Timely and fascinating, Napoleoni's top-notch reporting, in which her attention turns from Viagra to blood diamonds to the banana price wars in a few pages, works in the vein of Freakonomics and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, but much grimmer. Like those, this volume doesn't provide many answers, but the questions it raises are profound.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



Book review: Diagnosis for Organizational Change or Mandarins of the Future

Holy Roller: Growing up in the Church of Knock down, Drag Out: or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus

Author: Diane Wilson

In this rollicking memoir, Diane Wilson-a Texas Gulf Coast shrimper and the author of the highly acclaimed An Unreasonable Woman-takes readers back to her childhood in rural Texas and into her family of Holy Rollers. By night at tent revivals, Wilson gets religion from Brother Dynamite, an ex-con who finds Jesus in a baloney sandwich and handles masses of squirming poisonous snakes under the protection of the Holy Ghost. By day, Wilson scratches secret messages to Jesus into the paint on her windowsill and lies down in the middle of the road to see how long she can sleep in between passing trucks.
Holy Roller is a fast-paced, hilarious, sometimes shocking experience readers won't soon forget. It is the prequel to Wilson's first book, telling the story of the Texas childhood of a fierce little girl who will grow up to become An Unreasonable Woman, take on Big Industry, and win. One of the best Southern writers of her generation, Wilson's voice twangs with a style and accent all its own, as true and individual as her boundless originality and wild youth.

Publishers Weekly

In her latest, shrimper and memoirist Wilson (An Unreasonable Woman) unspools the tale of her 1950s small-town upbringing along the Gulf Coast of Texas, the daughter of third-generation shrimpers. As in her first book, Wilson writes with a stylized cadence, sans extraneous punctuation, that readers will either take to or not: "Grandma ate Fritos in a glass of buttermilk for dinner and supper and that plus giving the radio evangelist all her shrimp-heading money was driving two of her daughters batty and two not so much." Her father, "a man's man who didn't talk unnecessarily to women," and is always off shrimping, leaves her to be raised by her eccentric mother and grandmother ("the original Waste Not Want Not-er... nothing was so low that it didn't get cooked into something else"), who nevertheless imbue her with strong, transcendent values. Meanwhile, a cast of characters that includes her Pentecostal Aunt Silver ("Pentecostals had faith and faith was the absence of planning") and a snake-handling Brother Dynamite lead her through a clash between the Church of Jesus Loves You and an upstart backwoods congregation. Wilson's distinctive voice makes for some whip-smart passages, and her southern Gothic world, a colorful and unpredictable place, is fully identifiable in its commitment to vice-tight family love and responsibility to some higher power.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Janet Ingraham Dwyer - Library Journal

These two vivid memoirs, in very distinct voices, recollect childhood in the context-well, in the clutches-of all-encompassing religion. Wilson's fierce determination and passion characterized her first memoir, An Unreasonable Woman, about her David vs. Goliath fight against a polluting Texas chemical company. Now she delves into her childhood in a hardscrabble Pentecostal shrimping family, surrounded by fire-and-brimstone preachers, radio evangelists, tongue-speakers, snake-handlers, and her own relatives-believing women and fallen-away men. Wilson's prose is breathtaking in its dexterity and blunt poetry, as when she recounts being conscripted as a scout to accompany her grandfather and Aunt Patty, under cover of night, to break into a game warden's riverside shack in pursuit of an incriminating gun. Wilson evokes in her rural Gulf Coast setting an exotic place at the intersection of transcendence and squalor, coated in oyster dust and the conviction that God saves (the Pentecostal believers, and no one else).

In contrast to Wilson's intensity, Turner offers a gentle, amused-and slightly bemused-recollection of his own Christian fundamentalist upbringing. His story begins on the day his four-year-old, formerly Methodist self gets affixed with a clip-on necktie and whooshed off to a new, independent Baptist church and ends, more or less, the day he receives an award at his high school graduation for being "Most Christ-like" (out of a class of four). In between, the author reflects on his pastor's overly loud sermons, his own struggle with the sin of dilly-dallying, and the foibles of growing up in a family that would, for instance, celebrate Christmas by throwing apoorly-thought-through birthday party for Jesus, featuring a cake with 33 lit candles. As reflected in his subtitle, Turner, who has written several books on Christian life, came through the experience with faith intact. Churched would have benefited from more exploration of how and why, but it is a solid, poignant, and funny memoir nonetheless. Both books are recommended for public libraries, and Wilson's is essential.



Thursday, January 22, 2009

Harvard Business Review on Compensation or Nat Turners Slave Rebellion

Harvard Business Review on Compensation

Author: Alfred Rappaport

The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series is designed to bring today'smanagers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, here are the leading minds and landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious businesspeople in organizations around the globe.

This collection will help managers and human resource professionals weigh the pros and cons of different compensation plans and provide a framework for thinking about this important aspect of the war for talent. The articles discuss a variety of compensation-related issues such as: making salaries public, stock options, executive compensation, and incentive plans.

Booknews

Reprints eight articles published in the that explore issues related to employee compensation, such as making salaries public, stock options, and incentive plans. Topics include the salary system at Egon Zehnder recruiting, how to link executive pay with performance, and six dangerous myths about pay. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Table of Contents:
New Thinking on How to Link Executive Pay with Performance1
Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work29
Rethinking Rewards51
A Simpler Way to Pay77
What You Need to Know About Stock Options93
When Salaries Aren't Secret119
Six Dangerous Myths About Pay141
Growing Pains167
About the Contributors197
Index201

Read also Entrevista:Princípios e Práticas

Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion: Including the 1831 Confessions

Author: Herbert Aptheker

The first full-length study of the bloodiest slave uprising in U.S. history, this meticulously researched document explores the nature of Southern society in the early 19th century and the conditions that led to the rebellion. Aptheker's book includes Turner's "Confessions," recorded before his execution in 1831.



Wednesday, January 21, 2009

John Glenn or Twenty Five Lessons in Citizenship

John Glenn: Young Astronaut

Author: Michael Burgan

Dear Reader:

The Childhood of Famous Americans series, sixty-five years old in 1997, chronicles the early years of famous American men and women in an accessible manner. Each book is faithful in spirit to the values and experiences that influenced the person's development. History is fleshed out with fictionalized details, and conversations have been added to make the stories come alive to today's reader, but every reasonable effort has been made to make the stories consistent with the events, ethics, and character of their subjects.

These books reaffirm the importance of our American heritage. We hope you learn to love the heroes and heroines who helped shape this great country. And by doing so, we hope you also develop a lasting love for the nation that gave them the opportunity to make their dreams come true. It will do the same for you.

Happy Reading!

The Editors



Books about: 300 Best Chocolate Recipes or Thai Cooking

Twenty-Five Lessons in Citizenship

Author: DL Hennessey

This book has helped countless immigrants gain citizenship since its first publication in 1925

Twenty-Five Lessons in Citizenship offers clear, concise, and accurate information about U.S. history and the make-up of national, county, and city governments for people who are studying to become citizens of the United States. In addition to the lessons, this guide gives the complete text of the U.S. Constitution.



Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Seventies or Selected Political Speeches

The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics

Author: Bruce J Schulman

Sweeping away misconceptions about the "Me Decade," Bruce Schulman offers a fast-paced, wide-ranging, and brilliant examination of the political, cultural, social, and religious upheavals of the 1970s. Arguing that it was one of the most important of the postwar twentieth-century decades, despite its reputation as an eminently forgettable period, Schulman reconstructs public events and private lives, high culture and low, analyzing not only presidential politics and national policy but also the broader social and cultural experiences that transformed American life. Here are the names, faces, and movements that gave birth to the world we now live in-from Nixon and Carter to The Godfather and the Ramones; from Billie Jean King and Phyllis Schlafly to NOW and the ERA; from the Energy Crisis to Roe v. Wade. The Seventies is an astutely provocative reexamination of a misunderstood era.



Book review: MCITP Self Paced Training Kit or Word 2002 for Dummies

Selected Political Speeches

Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero

As the Roman Republic lurched to its close, amid corruption, ruthless power struggles and gross inequality, Cicero produced some of the most stirring and eloquent speeches ever written. Whether he is quashing the Cataline conspiracy, defending the poet Archias or railing against Mark Antony in the Philippics - the magnificent speeches in defence of liberty that cost him his life - Cicero vividly evokes for us the cut and thrust of the Roman Assembly, Senate and court rooms. This excellent modern translation also enables readers to understand why Cicero was for centuries a major influence on prose writers and political thinkers of every kind.



Monday, January 19, 2009

How Congress Works or The Revolt of the Cockroach People

How Congress Works: And Why You Should Care

Author: Lee H Hamilton

An inside look at the way Congress works and how it impacts the lives of all Americans, by an eminent former Congressman.

Publishers Weekly

Remember that "how a bill becomes law" charts in your high school civics class? It doesn't begin to describe the "messy" process that really operates in Congress, according to Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana who was respected on both sides of the aisle. He offers a strong defense of the institution he served from 1965 to 1999. This basic primer details the history of Congress, its importance and some of the critical actions it has taken-from the Tariff Act of 1790, which established duties on imported goods, to landmark laws of the 1960s, such as the Voting Rights Act and the bills that established Medicare and Medicaid. Hamilton also describes the "complicated and untidy" process by which Congress really works and why we "need more people who know how to practice the art of politics." Congress, he argues, acts "as the people's voice against unchecked power[;] it is the guarantor of liberty." The author is not uncritical of Congress, offering several suggestions as to how that body could improve itself. But here and elsewhere in the book, his suggestions and arguments fail to scratch much below the surface. It's hard to disagree with the statements that congressional discourse should be more civil and that citizens should be more active in politics, but Hamilton fails to address the causes of these and other problems. Still, in a cynical age, and a time of increasing presidential authority, it's encouraging to see a true, reasonable believer call for recognizing Congress as a necessary pillar of American democracy. Parents should send this primer off with their kids to college. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Polling data since the 1950s demonstrates that, of all branches of the national government, Congress consistently ranks as the least popular or trusted. Recent studies have found that such poor opinion is a function of the public's ignorance of what Congress does and how it does it. In an effort to correct the public's perceptions about Congress, former Congressman Lee Hamilton has published a collection of his essays drawn from newspaper columns that both inform and empower the reader. In lively, accessible language, Hamilton presents the institutional Congress-its rules and procedures-while simultaneously exposing the human face of the legislature: the people who occupy the seats in the House and the Senate. His many examples drawn from personal experience are perfectly chosen to illustrate his points. Most important, Hamilton challenges the reader to become more involved in the political process and suggests simple methods for the average person to do so. Recommended for all public libraries.-Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.



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The Revolt of the Cockroach People

Author: Oscar Zeta Acosta

The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas" — the Chicanos of East Los Angeles.

Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge.

In this exhilarating sequel to The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Acosta takes us behind the front lines of the militant Chicano movement of the late sixties and early seventies, a movement he served both in the courtroom and on the barricades. Here are the brazen games of "chicken" Acosta played against the Anglo legal establishment; battles fought with bombs as well as writs; and a reluctant hero who faces danger not only from the police but from the vatos locos he champions. What emerges is at once an important political document of a genuine popular uprising and a revealing, hilarious, and moving personal saga.



Feingold or Reflected Glory

Feingold: A New Democratic Party

Author: Sanford D Horwitt

Russ Feingold is a rarity in American politics. A staunch civil libertarian, he was the only member of the U.S. Senate who voted against the ill-conceived USA Patriot Act that was rushed through Congress in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2002, while the Bush administration's fabrications and scare tactics persuaded an overwhelming majority of the Senate to vote for the Iraq war resolution, Feingold opposed it. Washington insiders thought such controversial votes could doom Feingold's 2004 reelection. But he won by a near landslide, far outdistancing his party's presidential candidate, John Kerry.

Sanford D. Horwitt writes in this timely, compelling independent biography that Russ Feingold "represents the progressive side of the Democratic divide more clearly and authentically than any successful politician on the national stage." The third-term senator's willingness to take bold stands -- he was the first in the Senate to call for a timetable for redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq -- has inspired a growing number of rank-and-file Democrats across the country.

Drawing on scores of interviews and historical documents, Horwitt shows that Feingold's authenticity is deeply rooted in the old progressive tradition personified by one of his heroes, Robert M. La Follette, the legendary Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator. "Fighting Bob" and the other great reformers of the Progressive Era placed a high value on honest, efficient government, investment in public education, health and infrastructure, and curbs on corporate power and other wealthy interests in the political process.

Feingold became known to a national audience when he teamed up with Republican JohnMcCain on campaign finance reform legislation. After a seven-year battle, the McCain-Feingold bill became the first major reform of the campaign laws since the Watergate era.

Feingold, who grew up in a small southeastern Wisconsin town, is a man of modest means and the grandson of Jewish immigrants. In this lively portrait, Horwitt evokes mid-century Janesville, a Republican stronghold on the banks of the Rock River, where a precocious Rusty Feingold absorbed lifelong lessons about the importance of community and personal integrity.

Beginning with his first election to public office, he has defied conventional political wisdom and long odds, Horwitt tells us, a pattern that has been repeated throughout his career. Feingold has shown how a new, reinvigorated Democratic Party can stand for progressive ideals, resist the corrupting influence of special interests and win elections.

Kirkus Reviews

Admiring portrait of the maverick liberal who was the only U.S. Senator to oppose the Patriot Act and the first to call for a timetable for American troop withdrawal from Iraq. Horwitt, the biographer of activist Saul Alinsky (Let Them Call Me Rebel, 1989), draws extensively on interviews with friends, family and colleagues of the 54-year-old, twice-divorced Wisconsin Democrat. Russ Feingold grew up in one of the few Jewish families in Janesville, a small farming community. His Yiddish-speaking Russian grandfather Max owned a grocery store; his father was a progressive lawyer. One of five children, Feingold early showed himself to be bright, hardworking and a self-described "renegade by nature," waging campaigns at his high school for a more relaxed dress code and other reforms. He first tasted politics at the University of Wisconsin, where he campaigned for John Lindsay in the 1972 Presidential primary. After college and a stint as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, he attended Harvard Law, practiced briefly and won election to the Wisconsin state senate in 1982. Ten years later, at 39, he became the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. He co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, passed in 2002, led efforts to censure George Bush over NSA wiretapping of international phone calls and remains a steadfast opponent of the Iraq war. Written with the senator's cooperation, the book describes an unfailingly courageous politician who champions reform in the progressive tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and Wisconsin Governor Robert M. La Follette, often to the consternation of colleagues. "You're not living in the real world," Hillary Clinton told him when he objected to the DemocraticParty's efforts to gut McCain-Feingold. Noting that the Wisconsin senator has been discussed as a possible presidential contender, the author suggests that Feingold offers "a serious, authentic alternative" to Washington's Democratic establishment. Not an official biography, but it might as well be. Agent: Mary Evans/Mary Evans Inc.



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Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman

Author: Sally Bedell Smith

English debutante Pamela Digby first came into the public eye when she married Churchill's dissolute son Randolph. While he was overseas in World War II, she had an affair with Averell Harriman, the first in a line of wealthy and prominent men - including Jock Whitney, Prince Aly Khan, Gianni Agnelli, Elie de Rothschild, and Stavros Niarchos - who supported her over the next two decades. She found legitimacy as the wife of Broadway producer Leland Hayward and became wealthy when she married Harriman on the eve of his eightieth birthday. At age sixty she reinvented herself as a kingmaker in the Democratic Party, and more than a decade later was rewarded with an appointment as U.S. Ambassador to France. Smith details how Pamela Harriman, even after she had become independent and respectable to a degree that would have been unimaginable in her party-girl years, burned through the Harriman fortune, prompting her late husband's disgruntled heirs to file a series of lawsuits accusing her of being a "faithless fiduciary." Always a brass-knuckle fighter, she made headlines with a barrage of ironic countersuits - against the family whose name elevated her to Democratic doyenne, the Wall Street brokerage that provided her wealth, and the advisers who had guided her every move. At each stage of Pamela's life, newspapers and magazines recounted her public exploits and amplified her legend. The private moments were equally indelible: playing bezique late at night with Winston Churchill, enlisting Dwight Eisenhower to help in the kitchen at her officers' club during World War II, presiding over lavish dinners at the Riviera estate of Gianni Agnelli, fixing chicken hash at midnight for Leland Hayward and his Broadway stars, talking one-on-one with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

Kurt Jensen

Biographers are often knocked for devoting too much attention to pop psychologizing and not enough to "the work" - the accomplishments that justify a book-length treatment of any life. In her tart new unauthorized biography of Pamela Churchill Harriman, biographer Sally Bedell Smith is refreshingly uninterested in exploring the inner child of the current U.S. Ambassador to France. The book has been cleansed of the Freudian spoor that clings to the cracks and footnotes of most current biographies.

This leaves Smith free to poke around in Harriman's thin shelf of "accomplishments" - most notably her ability to make cozy with rich and influential people, primarily men. An early marriage to Winston Churchill's unimpressive son Randolph was followed by marriages to Broadway producer Leland Hayward and, later, the elderly diplomat and Wall Street heir Averell Harriman. Harriman married well, and she dated well: The men in her life also included CBS founder William Paley and Edward R. Murrow. Her marriage to Averell Harriman gave her the Democratic party connections (and the cash) to become a major Washington social figure and fund-raiser, cultivating Bill Clinton among many others as her friends.

Bedell makes it clear that Harriman's abilities as a gadfly outstrip any others she might possess. Reflected Glory is vicious in its small details as well as in its large ones. Did Harriman perhaps possess some unseen talent as a writer? "Her personal correspondence showed scant literary merit," Bedell writes, and as a journalist "her commitment to the craft was thin." In conversation, "she was remembered neither for the originality nor the felicity of her contributions." Was she, then, a woman of bold principle, a political provocateur, on the model of her contemporary Margaret Thatcher? "Her political beliefs shifted along with the men in her life." Then she must have had style? Harriman is variously described as "dumpy" and "a banal milkmaid, a little plump, certainly not beautiful."

It was precisely because she lacked conventionally redeeming traits, that Harriman, Bedell implies, was naturally drawn to politics. Reflected Glory is compulsively readable as Bedell details the rake and shovel of Harriman's busy PAC, and the final painful spectacle of her gropings toward respectability - an ambition which culminated in her appointment as an ambassador in 1993. "A lot of French," remarks a source, "were puzzled."

Solidly researched, smoothly written and full of tangy revelations, Reflected Glory is a fascinating study of the triumph of mediocrity - and mediocrity's particular affinity to late 20th-century American democracy. -- Salon

Publishers Weekly

In 1994, Christopher Ogden, employed by Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman to ghost her autobiography, published Life of the Party. When she balked at exposing the spicier side of her career, he went ahead on his own, using her taped interviews, but legally he could quote nothing. Smith, another unauthorized biographer, quotes little from Harriman, written or vocal, for similar reasons, but 400 of her acquaintances cooperated, resulting in a deeply informed and revelatory study. Smith (All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley) has done further homework in financial and court papers and in the diaries, letters and memoirs of contemporaries. Had it not been for Ogden's preemptive strike, Smith's intensely detailed biography of the least sedate of American ambassadors--British-born Pamela Harriman, now 76, represents the U.S. in Paris--would be even more explosive. Perhaps only in France, where premiers and presidents often have publicly acknowledged mistresses, would she be acceptable, even admired, as an envoy. Bedding her way to wealth and power, the resourceful red-haired beauty wed Randolph Churchill, Leland Hayward and Averell Harriman, filling in the interstices between marriages with Edward R. Murrow (her only unmoneyed lover), Gianni Agnelli, Aly Khan, Elie de Rothschild and other deep-pocketed admirers. Said one observer: "She could make a man, not just in bed. She stretched a man's horizons." Austerity was never her cup of tea, nor was familial loyalty to the children and grandchildren inherited from two American husbands. Her lifestyle, Smith contends, was always based on self-aggrandizement. As a former Hayward wife remarked, "Pam Churchill thought she would marry [Fiat heir] Agnelli, so she became a Catholic on spec." Brushing aside her reputation as grande cocotte, a French friend scoffed, "Everyone has a past. It is who she is today that counts." Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Vanity Fair. (Nov.)

Library Journal

In this fully documented biography of a modern-day courtesan, Smith (In All His Glory: The Life of William S. Paley, S. & S., 1990) reveals details and anecdotes extracted from 800 interviews (using 400 named sources) to animate the extraordinary Harriman and her relationships, whether personal, public, or political. The English debutante, born in 1920 and until very recently claiming France as her latest conquest as U.S. ambassador there, has led many lives. Her reputations as "wartime hostess, international femme fatale, show business wife, diplomat's consort..., and American ambassador" evolved with her marriages to three famous men: Randolph Churchill, Leland Hayward, and Averell Harriman. Smith recounts all aspects of this female whirlwind with a straightforward reporting style yet impels us to follow Harriman's continuing saga. Although an interview with Harriman would have lent more credence to her work, Smith paints a portrait with less bias than Christopher Ogden's unauthorized Life of the Party (Little, Brown, 1994). This work lends itself well to a public library's biography section. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/96.]Kay Meredith Dusheck, Univ of Iowa, Iowa City



Sunday, January 18, 2009

1215 or Until Death Do Us Part

1215: The Year of Magna Carta

Author: Danny Danziger

Surveying a broad landscape through a narrow lens, 1215 sweeps readers back eight centuries in an absorbing portrait of life during a time of global upheaval, the ripples of which can still be felt today. At the center of this fascinating period is the document that has become the root of modern freedom: the Magna Carta. It was a time of political revolution and domestic change that saw the Crusades, Richard the Lionheart, King John, and—in legend—Robin Hood all make their marks on history.

The events leading up to King John's setting his seal to the famous document at Runnymede in June 1215 form this rich and riveting narrative that vividly describes everyday life from castle to countryside, from school to church, and from hunting in the forest to trial by ordeal. For instance, women wore no underwear (though men did), the average temperatures were actually higher than they are now, and the austere kitchen at Westminster Abbey allowed each monk two pounds of meat and a gallon of ale per day. Broad in scope and rich in detail, 1215 ingeniously illuminates what may have been the most important year of our history.

Publishers Weekly

Magna Carta is considered a foundation of modern freedoms, yet it is deeply rooted in the unique facts and political situation of 13th-century England. This excellent study is not only about the document itself but also about the context in which it can be fully understood. Danziger (The Year 1000) and Gillingham, professor emeritus of history at the London School of Economics, head each chapter with a passage from the Great Charter and elucidate the daily experience and issues that underlie it. While the first chapters elaborate on how both average folk and elites lived, worked, hunted, married, studied, played and went to church, later chapters get deeper into the meaning of the document itself. Marvelous details about daily life abound, while myths and misperceptions are firmly swept away. The infamous King John, who signed the Great Charter, moves slowly to center stage against the background stories of his parents, the legendary Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine; his brother Richard Lionheart; and other great figures of the day, both historical and mythical, including Robin Hood and Thomas Becket. When the reader reaches the climactic chapter, in which the barons force the Charter on John, the document has jumped off the pedestal on which tradition has placed it and become a living thing. The event itself and the details of the document show how age-old practices and last-minute concessions shaped the text (which is included in its entirety). Danziger and Gillingham make it clear that the Magna Carta was not an abstract thesis, but a brilliant response to a particular time and circumstance. Map. (June 15) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

"No vill or man shall be forced to build bridges at river banks, except those who ought to do so by custom and law."The years preceding 1215 in England were bad ones, apparently, for the folks who didn't wish to be press-ganged into building bridges; they weren't much better for those who liked a little variety in their diet, for in those days "the poor virtually fasted every day," even if their simple repasts spared them from the tooth decay that the rich, with their artificial sweeteners, suffered. British historian/writers Danziger (co-author, The Year 1000, 1999, etc.) and Gillingham (History/London School of Economics) take readers on an informal, sometimes even breezy tour of the times, explaining oddments and customs: Chairs being rare, for instance, visitors to a house were usually seated on daybeds; only an important guest was given the seat of honor, whence the modern term "chairman" or "chair." Danziger and Gillingham linger appreciatively on some of the better aspects of the day, when cathedrals and seats of learning were established and England's holdings were beginning to expand across the waters to France and Ireland. But they don't shy from the less idyllic features of life in Merrie Olde, when slavery may have been abolished but serfdom endured ("Economic and social circumstance inevitably meant that some people were less free than others"). Their narrative, which moves along nicely, closes with the rebellion of the English knights against King John, who, most commentators agree, needed to be rebelled against; the result was the Magna Carta, a translation of the complete text of which closes this study (and makes it of extra use for readers seeking good value for theirshilling). Danziger and Gillingham suggest that the most important clauses of the Magna Carta concern the requirements for fair trials and judgment by peers-but protection against having to build bridges unwillingly must have been nice, too. A reader-friendly glance at a turning point in history.



Table of Contents:
Introductionix
Map of Britain and Francexxii
1The Englishman's Castle1
2The Countryside19
3Town37
4School57
5Family Strife77
6Tournaments and Battles95
7Hunting in the Forest111
8The Church125
9King John141
10The King's Men159
11Trial by Ordeal175
12A Christian Country191
13The English and the Celts207
14The Wider World223
15The Great Charter245
16The Myth267
The Text of Magna Carta275
Bibliography291
Acknowledgments297
Index299

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Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia

Author: Ingrid Betancourt

This memoir reads like a fast-paced political thriller. Until Death Do Us Part recounts Ingrid Betancourt's early years in Paris, where she grew up among diplomats, literati, and artists, including Gabriel García Máraquez. From this charmed life, Ingrid returned to the embattled political scene of her native Colombia, where as a senator and a national heroine, she confronted—and became the target of—the establishment and the drug cartels behind it.

This is also a deeply personal story of a woman whose love for her country gave her the courage to stand up to a power that has defeated or seduced all others who opposed it. Until Death Do Us Part gives a chilling account of the dangerous, byzantine machine that runs Colombia, and tells a riveting, inspiring story of privilege, sacrifice, and true patriotism.

James Sullivan <BR> <BR> - Book Magazine

Colombian presidential candidate Betancourt promises to rid her native country of its rampant drug-funded corruption. In Colombia, one of the most dangerous political environments in the world, such a pledge can get you killed. But Betancourt has been living with that horrible threat for some time now. A pampered young woman who spent years in Paris with her diplomat parents, she has devoted her adulthood—and sacrificed a safe, stable life with her two children—to face down Colombia's deeply ingrained criminal culture. She first ran for legislative office in Bogotáas an unknown but won the seat with an ingenious campaign gimmick—she handed out condoms to symbolize her battle against the "disease" of corruption. In office, she undertook a highly publicized hunger strike to protest the illicit connections of the recent president, Ernesto Samper. Betancourt's memoir could make for a crackling novel of political intrigue. "My relationship with death is like that of a tightrope walker," she concludes. "We're both doing something dangerous, and we've calculated the risks, but our love of perfection invariably overcomes our fear."

Publishers Weekly

In a memoir that sometimes conveys the excitement of a Clancy thriller, Betancourt recounts her remarkable life, from the Paris of her childhood (her father was Colombia's minister of education and ambassador to UNESCO) to present-day Colombia, where she has served as a senator in Bogot and where she plans to launch her 2002 presidential campaign. That is, if she isn't assassinated first. Betancourt announces early on that she is no ordinary politician and that her reminiscences will comprise no ordinary political memoir. But what constitutes exceptional in Colombia, a country awash in political corruption and controlled by a government that is under the thumb of organized crime and vulnerable to the financial lure of illegal drug trafficking? Well, for starters, Betancourt spent her first campaign, for a seat in the House of Representatives, standing along the city's busiest streets, handing out condoms ("[O]ur poster: my photo alongside a picture of a condom, with this slogan: `The best to protect us against corruption.' " She scandalized her parents, her friends, her country, but won her seat in the House. So began Betancourt's campaign against electoral fraud and narcopoliticians, which, despite the death threats and the pressure exerted on her family, continues to this day and which won't end, as her title implies, until she wins or is killed for her efforts. Betancourt's memoir is intelligently written, if occasionally sentimental, and she passionately and clearly describes the consequences of corruption and the dangers of combating it. (Jan.) Forecast: This was a bestseller in France and Colombia. It may not reach that status here, but Betancourt's attractive face on the cover will lead people to pick it up, and her fast-paced story will keep them reading. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A manifesto from the woman running for Colombia's presidency. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A courageous Colombian senator, member of a politically active family, charts her course through the dangerous political waters of her troubled country.



Ethics or The Force of Reason

Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory

Author: Lawrence M Hinman

ETHICS: A PLURALISTIC APPROACH TO MORAL THEORY provides a comprehensive yet clear introduction to the main traditions in ethical thought, including virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology. Additionally, the book presents a conceptual framework of ethical pluralism to help students understand the relationship among various theories. Hinman, one of the most respected and accomplished professionals in ethics and philosophy education today, presents a text that gives students plentiful opportunities to explore ethical theory and their own responses to them, using fascinating features such as the "Ethical Inventory" sections that appear at the beginning and the end of the text. End-of-chapter discussion questions, interviews with contemporary advocates of major ethical theories, and the use of current issues and movies help students retain what they've learn and truly comprehend the subject matter.



Table of Contents:
1. The Moral Point of View
2.Understanding the Diversity of Moral Beliefs: Relativism, Absolutism, and Pluralism
3.The Ethics of Divine Commands: Religious Moralities
4.The Ethics of Selfishness: Egoism
5.The Ethics of Consequences: Utilitarianism
6.The Ethics of Duty and Respect: Immanuel Kant
7.The Ethics of Rights: Contemporary Theories
8.The Ethics of Justice: From Plato to Rawls
9.The Ethics of Character: Aristotle and Our Contemporaries
10.The Ethics of Diversity: Gender
11.The Ethics of Diversity: Race, Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism
12.Conclusion: Toward a Global Ethics of Peace.
Glossary.
Index.

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The Force of Reason

Author: Oriana Fallaci

Oriana Fallaci is back with her much-anticipated follow up to The Rage and the Pride, her powerful post-September 11 manifesto. The genesis for The Force of Reason was a postscript entitled Due Anni Dopo (Two Years Later), which was intended as a brief appendix to the thirtieth edition of The Rage and the Pride (2002). Once Ms. Fallaci completed the postscript, she chose to expand it into a book, a continuation of her ideas set in motion in The Rage and the Pride.In The Force of Reason Fallaci takes aim at the many attacks and death threats she received after the publication of The Rage and the Pride. Ms. Fallaci begins by identifying herself with one Master Cecco, the author of a heretical book who was burnt at the stake during the Inquisition seven centuries ago on account of his beliefs, and proceeds with a rigorous analysis of the burning of Troy and the creation of a Europe that, to her judgment, is no longer her familiar homeland but rather a place best called Eurabia, a soon-to-be colony of Islam (with Italy as its stronghold). Ms. Fallaci explores her ideas in historical, philosophical, moral, and political terms, courageously addressing taboo topics with sharp logic.



Saturday, January 17, 2009

Kants Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace or Closed Chambers

Kant's Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace

Author: Otfried Hoff

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

Table of Contents:
1Kant's challenge and relevance today1
2Aristotle instead of Kant?21
3Universalistic ethics and the faculty of judgment45
4On evil68
5Kant's more nuanced approach81
6The moral concept of right and law94
7Categorical imperatives of right according to Ulpian119
8The neglected ideal135
9The "idea" : legal progress159
10Peace I : are republics peaceable?177
11Peace II : federation of peoples or world republic?189
12The critique of pure reason : a cosmo-political reading204

Books about: Herbs in the Garden or Quick Mix Biscuits and Slices

Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court

Author: Edward Lazarus

When Closed Chambers was first published, it was met with a firestorm of controversy-as well as a shower of praise-for being the first book to break the code of silence about the inner workings of this country's most powerful court. In this eloquent, trailblazing account, with a new chapter covering Bush v. Gore, Guantanamo, and other recent controversial court decisions, Edward Lazarus, who served as a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, presents a searing indictment of a court at war with itself and often in neglect of its constitutional duties. Combining memoir, history, and legal analysis, Lazarus reveals in astonishing detail the realities of what takes place behind the closed doors of the U.S. Supreme Court-an institution that through its rulings holds the power to affect the life of every American.



The Toledo War or John Brown Abolitionist

The Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry

Author: Don Faber

The Michigan-Ohio football rivalry is well known and stretches back many years. But far fewer may be aware that Michigan and Ohio were engaged in a different kind of battle more than a century earlier---one that began before Michigan became a state.

It was a fight over a narrow wedge of land called the Toledo Strip. Disagreement over ownership of the Strip dated to the early nineteenth century. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, described an east-west boundary line between the northern and southern states in the Northwest Territory. That line began at the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan and ran eastward to where it intersected Lake Erie, thus placing the mouth of the Maumee River in the Territory of Michigan.

But maps in those days weren't precise, and there was considerable doubt as to the exact location of Lake Michigan's southernmost point. Adding to the uncertainty was the absence of a good survey. When Ohio became a state in 1803, the importance of a harbor on Lake Erie became evident. To provide for this need, the state's constitution included a provision that claimed the mouth of the Maumee River for Ohio, disregarding the boundary line placed by the Northwest Ordinance.

Today the fight over Toledo in 1835 puts a grin on most people's faces---on Ohioans because they won, and on Michiganians because Ohio won Toledo while Michigan ended up with the Upper Peninsula. But passions about rightful ownership ran high, and it would be many years---and involve a colorful cast of characters all the way up to presidents---before the dispute was settled. The Toledo War: The FirstMichigan-Ohio Rivalry gives a well-researched and fascinating account of the famous war.

Don Faber is best known as the former editor of the Ann Arbor News. He has also served on the staff of the Michigan Constitutional Convention, won a Ford Foundation Fellowship to the Michigan State Senate, and was a speechwriter for Michigan Governor George Romney. Now retired, Faber lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Jeannette, and indulges in his love of Michigan history.



Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 The Battle of Phillips Corners 1

Chapter 2 Roots of the Dispute I: The Northwest Ordinance 12

Chapter 3 Roots of the Dispute II: Ohio Statehood 25

Chapter 4 Prelude to War, 1815-30 29

Chapter 5 Path to Statehood 41

Chapter 6 A War of Words Opens the Curtain 53

Chapter 7 Acts of Provocation 66

Chapter 8 Events of April-June 1835 83

Chapter 9 Bloodshed in Toledo 98

Chapter 10 The Case for Ohio 106

Chapter 11 The Case for Michigan 116

Chapter 12 Governor Mason Is Fired 123

Chapter 13 Statehood in the Balance 131

Chapter 14 Bloodless Victory at Toledo: Lucas Trumps Mason 156

Chapter 15 War's End 174

Epilogue 183

Time Line for the Toledo War and Michigan Statehood 193

Notes 195

Index 211

Book review: Automated Information Retrieval or International Financial Market Investment

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.



Friday, January 16, 2009

The Democratization of American Christianity or Reflections on the Revolution in France

The Democratization of American Christianity

Author: Nathan O Hatch

The half century following the American Revolution witnessed the transformation of American Christianity. In this book Nathan O. Hatch offers a provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the young republic, arguing that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful accors on the religious scene. The passion for equality, says Hatch, brought about a crisis or religious authority in popular culture, introduced new and popular forms of theology, witnessed the rise of minority religious movements, reshaped preaching, singing, and publishing, and became a scriptural foundation for nineteenth-century American individualism.

Hatch examines five distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century: the Christian movement, the Methodists, the Baptists, the black churches, and the Mormons. Each was led by young men of relentless energy who went about movement building as self-conscious outsiders, However diverse their theologies and church organizations. Hatch points out, they all offered the unschooled and unsophisticated compelling visions of individual potential and collective aspiration. More effectively than religious movements in other modern industrial societies, these denominations embraced people without regard to social standing and challenged them to think, interpret Scripture, and organize the church for themselves. The religious populism that resulted remains among the oldest and deepest impulse in American life.



Books about: High Energy Cookbook or The First Year Multiple Sclerosis

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Author: Edmund Burk

This new and up-to-date edition of a book that has been central to political philosophy, history, and revolutionary thought for two hundred years offers readers a dire warning of the consequences that follow the mismanagement of change. Written for a generation presented with challenges of terrible proportions--the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions, to name the most obvious--Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France displays an acute awareness of how high political stakes can be, as well as a keen ability to set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory.

The Times Literary Supplement

This edition of Burke's classic text aims to locate Burke once again in his contemporary political and intellectual setting. It reprints the text of the first edition of the Reflections, and provides extensive notes and a comprehensive introduction.

Booknews

Edmund Burke's classic text, which he appended over the years, was originally written in 1790 in the form of a letter to Richard Price. J.C.D. Clark provides us with a lengthy introduction and annotation to the original, unappended text which follows, in order to situate Burke and his canonical work within its original political and intellectual setting. Price's reply, and Burke's subsequent additions are included in appendices. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Table of Contents:
Editor's Preface
Introduction: Edmund Burke: The Political Actor Thinking
Reflections on the Revolution in France3
Rethinking Reflections on the Revolution in France211
Edmund Burke: Prophet Against the Tyranny of the Politics of Theory213
Edmund Burke and the Literary Cabal: A Tale of Two Enlightenments233
Why American Constitutionalism Worked248
Democracy, Social Science, and Rationality, Reflections on Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France268
Suggested Readings291
Glossary-Index293