Political Biography Books: 2008

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Supervision of Police Personnel

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Author: Malcolm X

If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malxolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is now an established classic of modern America, a book that expresses like none other the crucial truth about our times.
"Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, important book."
TEH NEW YORKTIMES

Sacred Fire

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the story of one of the remarkable lives of the twentieth century. Malcolm X, as presented in this as-told-to autobiography, is a figure of almost mythic proportions; a man who sunk to the greatest depths of depravity and rose to become a man whose life's mission was to lead his people to freedom and strength. It provides a searing depiction of the deeply rooted issues of race and class in America and remains relevant and inspiring today. Malcolm X's story would inspire Alex Haley to write Roots, a novel that would, in turn, define the saga of a people.

Malcolm Little was born in Nebraska in 1925, the seventh child of Reverend Earl Little, a Baptist minister, and Louise Little, a mulatto born in Grenada to a black mother and a white father. Malcolm X quickly grew to hate the society he'd grown up in. After his father was killed, his mother was unfairly denied insurance coverage and his family fell apart. Young Malcolm went from a foster home to a reformatory, to shining shoes in the speakeasies and dance halls of Boston. After getting work as a Pullman porter, he went to New York and fell in love with Harlem. His stint as a drug dealer and petty crook landed him in jail, where he became a devout student of the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad. That was when he figured out that "he could beat the white man better with his mind than he ever could with a club." Malcolm X's subsequent quest for knowledge and equality for blacks led to his unreserved commitment to the liberation of blacks in American society.

What makes this book extraordinary is the honesty with which Malcolm presents his life: Even as he regrets the mistakes he made as a young man, he brings his zoot-suited, swing-dancing, conk- haired Harlem youth to vivid life; even though he later turns away from the Nation of Islam, the strong faith he at one time in that sect's beliefs, a faith that redeemed him from prison and a life of crime, comes through. What made the man so extraordinary was his courageous insistence on finding the true path to his personal salvation and to the salvation of the people he loved, even when to stay on that path meant danger, alienation, and death.

Robert Bone

A movement might emerge shorn of racism, seperatism, and blind hate which yet preserved the explosive force and liberating energy of the Muslim myth. This is the direction in which Malcolm X was moving for a year or more before his death. The essense of the this shift was psychological. It had nothing to do with black supremacy, but much to do with manhood and self-reliance. -- Books of the Century; New York Times review, September 1966

What People Are Saying

Spike Lee
The most important book I'll ever read. It changed the way I felt; it changed the way I acted. It has given me courage that I didn't know I had inside me. I'm one of hundreds of thousands whose life has changed for the better.

I.F. Stone
This book will have a permanent place in the literature of the Afro-American struggle.

Interesting book: Ethics in Community Based Elder Care or Employment Discrimination Litigation

Supervision of Police Personnel

Author: Nathan F Iannon

Known as the source for police supervision, this book offers complete coverage of leadership training of supervisors in law enforcement and allied fields. From proven leadership strategies to methods for maintaining high morale, this book discusses individual and group management techniques and how to carry out the various responsibilities of the supervisor. A variety of issues are explored, from hiring and training, to discipline and evaluation. This edition features the latest on leadership and decision making, more on handling critical incidents, contemporary personnel issues. For the training of managerial and supervisory personnel in police departments and law enforcement agencies.

Booknews

A textbook that examines the principles, practices, and techniques which can be used by supervisors of police personnel in fulfillment of their responsibilities. This edition (4th ed., 1987) brings up-to-date the legal aspects of the supervisor's position, and adds many practicable suggestions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Best American Political Writing 2008 or First Ladies

Best American Political Writing 2008

Author: Royce Flippin

The Best American Political Writing 2008 draws from a variety of publications and political viewpoints to present the year’s most insightful, entertaining, and thought-provoking pieces on the current political scene. This year’s edition will include full coverage of the presidential candidates and conventions, and will offer incisive reporting on America’s most pressing political concerns—from the threat of a looming economic recession, to the continued struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Selections will include Jane Mayer’s investigation of the various highly coercive interrogation techniques routinely employed by the CIA and the Pentagon, Jonathan Chait’s report on how radical economic extremists have hijacked national policy, Andrew Sullivan’s article on “Why Barack Obama Matters,” George Packer’s analysis of the contrasting appeals of Obama and Hillary Clinton, Parag Khanna on America’s struggle to retain its status as the world’s great superpower, and John Judis’s essay on how politicians wield power by tapping into our deepest anxieties, from such publications as The New Yorker, The New Republic, the Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Vanity Fair.

Book about: Pathophysiology or The Perricone Weight Loss Diet Personal Daily Journal

First Ladies: An Intimate Group Portrait of White House Wives

Author: Margaret Truman

"Fascinating. . . . First Ladies is a wonderfully generous look at the women who, often against their wishes, took on what Truman calls 'the world's second toughest job.' "
--The Christian Science Monitor
Whether they envision their role as protector, partner, advisor, or scold, First Ladies find themselves in a job that is impossible to define, and just as difficult to perform. Now Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry Truman and an acclaimed novelist and biographer in her own right, explores the fascinating position of First Lady throughout history and up to the present day.
With her unique perspective as the daughter of a First Lady, Ms. Truman reveals the truth behind some of the most misunderstood and forgotten First Ladies of our history, as well as the most famous and beloved. In recounting the charm and courage of Dolley Madison, the brazen ambition of Florence Harding, the calm, good sense of Grace Coolidge, the genius of Eleanor Roosevelt, the mysterious femininity of Jackie Kennedy, and the fierce protectiveness of Nancy Reagan, among others, Margaret Truman has assembled an honest yet affectionate portrait of our nation's First Ladies--one that freely acknowledges their virtues and their flaws.

Publishers Weekly

Truman's look at the nation's first ladies features capsule accounts of a selective number of women who have shared the White House with their husbands. She includes the obvious subjects such as Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt and all the modern presidents' wives, along with lesser-known first ladies as Julia Grant and Julia Tyler. Although Truman, a mystery writer (Murder in the White House) provides a brief background on the women she profiles, she focuses, naturally enough, on their White House years and the roles they played in their husbands' administrations. And Truman attributes to the first ladies plenty of influence over their mates, asserting on numerous occasions that they have played major parts in changing the course of history (e.g., how Dolley Madison's courage helped her husband, and the country, recover from the War of 1812). But her light approach makes it difficult to tell whether she seriously believes her assertion that Rachel Jackson and Lou Hoover died of broken hearts because of the negative publicity about themselves and their husbands. Photos. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Truman writes about first ladies with the obvious advantage of an insider, having spent her young adulthood in the White House. Her book is a tribute to both her parents-her father urged a study of presidential wives, and her mother exemplified the role of a supportive partner. Rather than following a strict chronology and discussing every first lady, Truman draws comparisons and contrasts. Lady Bird Johnson is judged the most successful first lady; Florence Harding the least. Lucy Hayes's interest in improving the lives of the poor and Ellen Wilson's interest in slum clearance foreshadowed Eleanor Roosevelt's career. Truman concludes that first ladies should provide public support to the president but there is no single pattern to follow, and each lady needs to fill that role in her own way. Truman's work is the latest popular treatment of presidential wives, following surveys with the same title including Carl Sferrazza Anthony's two-volume set (LJ 8/90, 4/1/91) and Betty Boyd Caroli's soon-to-be updated book (LJ 9/1/87). Recommended for public libraries.-Patricia A. Beaber, Trenton State Coll. Lib., N.J.

Booknews

On personal & public styles. Truman interviewed the madames Johnson, Ford, Reagan, Carter, Bush, and Clinton and carefully researched all the first ladies. And of them she writes with a practiced, skillful hand. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Daughter of Destiny or Spies for Hire

Daughter of Destiny

Author: Benazir Bhutto

Daughter of Destiny, the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto, is a historical document of uncommon passion and courage, the dramatic story of a brilliant, beautiful woman whose life was, up to her tragic assassination in 2007, inexorably tied to her nation's tumultuous history. Bhutto writes of growing up in a family of legendary wealth and near-mythic status, a family whose rich heritage survives in tales still passed from generation to generation. She describes her journey from this protected world onto the volatile stage of international politics through her education at Radcliffe and Oxford, the sudden coup that plunged her family into a prolonged nightmare of threats and torture, her father's assassination by General Zia ul-Haq in 1979, and her grueling experience as a political prisoner in solitary confinement.

With candor and courage, Benazir Bhutto recounts her triumphant political rise from her return to Pakistan from exile in 1986 through the extraordinary events of 1988: the mysterious death of Zia; her party's long struggle to ensure free elections; and finally, the stunning mandate that propelled her overnight into the ranks of the world's most powerful, influential leaders.

Publishers Weekly

Prime Minister of Pakistan, Bhutto writes with poise and passion in this autobiography, both a catharsis and a coming to terms with her past. In the poignant opening chapter, she describes the brutal murder in 1977 of her father, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, by General Zia ul-Haq. Under Zia's 11-year military dictatorship, propped up by the CIA and the Reagan administration, the author was kept under house arrest, then imprisoned for years in a cell, where guards encouraged her to commit suicide. She writes lovingly of her brother Shah Nawaz, whose highly suspicious death may have been a CIA murder, she speculates. She is evasive or reticent on sundry personal matters, such as her arranged marriage in 1987. Reading Bhutto's reminiscences about prison, schooling at Harvard and Oxford and her valuable work during her political exile, the reader grows impatient to learn more about what she intends to do for Pakistan, but the book ends on the eve of her triumphant election in late 1988. Photos. First serial to People. (Mar.)

Library Journal

Written by the new, young, female Prime Minister of Pakistan, this book is less her life story than a fascinating peek into the seamier side of Pakistani politics and a rabid diatribe against the late President Zia, who executed her illustrious father (also a democratically elected Prime Minister) despite international protests. It is the story of a remarkable family who bred a woman to leadership in a conservative Muslim society, of the sacrifice made to do so, and of the triumph of witnessing the masses once more exercising the right to vote in an ultra-poor Third World country. The account is biased, however, and must be balanced by another view such as Salmaan Taseer's excellent Bhutto, A Political Biography (Ithaca Pr., 1979). Recommended for most large collections.-- Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Lib., Gainesville

Books about: Thrill of the Grill or Betty Crocker Party Food

Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing

Author: Tim Shorrock

In Spies for Hire, investigative reporter Tim Shorrock lifts the veil off a major story the government doesn't want us to know about -- the massive outsourcing of top secret intelligence activities to private-sector contractors.

Running spy networks overseas. Tracking down terrorists in the Middle East. Interrogating enemy prisoners. Analyzing data from spy satellites and intercepted phone calls. All of these are vital intelligence tasks that traditionally have been performed by government officials accountable to Congress and the American people. But that is no longer the case.

Starting during the Clinton administration, when intelligence budgets were cut drastically and privatization of government services became national policy, and expanding dramatically in the wake of 9/11, when the CIA and other agencies were frantically looking to hire analysts and linguists, the Intelligence Community has been relying more and more on corporations to perform sensitive tasks heretofore considered to be exclusively the work of federal employees. This outsourcing of intelligence activities is now a $50 billion-a-year business that consumes up to 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget. And it's a business that the government has tried hard to keep under wraps.

Drawing on interviews with key players in the Intelligence-Industrial Complex, contractors' annual reports and public filings with the government, and on-the-spot reporting from intelligence industry conferences and investor briefings, Spies for Hire provides the first behind-the-scenes look at this new way of spying. Shorrock shows how corporations such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, CACIInternational, and IBM have become full partners with the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Pentagon in their most sensitive foreign and domestic operations. He explores how this partnership has led to wasteful spending and threatens to erode the privacy protections and congressional oversight so important to American democracy.

Shorrock exposes the kinds of spy work the private sector is doing, such as interrogating prisoners in Iraq, managing covert operations, and collaborating with the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mails. And he casts light on a "shadow Intelligence Community" made up of former top intelligence officials who are now employed by companies that do this spy work, such as former CIA directors George Tenet and James Woolsey. Shorrock also traces the rise of Michael McConnell from his days as head of the NSA to being a top executive at Booz Allen Hamilton to returning to government as the nation's chief spymaster.

From CIA covert actions to NSA eavesdropping, from Abu Ghraib to Guantánamo, from the Pentagon's techno-driven war in Iraq to the coming global battles over information dominance and control of cyberspace, contractors are doing it all. Spies for Hire goes behind today's headlines to highlight how private corporations are aiding the growth of a new and frightening national surveillance state.

Publishers Weekly

Even James Bond is temping these days. According to investigative journalist Shorrock, the CIA and other intelligence agencies now have more contractors working for them than they do spies of their own. Often former staff hired back at double or triple their former government salaries, these private contractors do everything from fighting in Afghanistan to interrogating prisoners, aiming spy satellites and supervising secret agents. Shorrock gives a comprehensive-at times eye-glazing-rundown of the players in the industry, and his book is valuable for its detailed panorama of 21st-century intelligence work. He uncovers serious abuses-contractor CACI International figured prominently in the Abu Ghraib outrages-and nagging concerns about corrupt ties between intelligence officials and private corporations, industry lobbying for a national surveillance state, the withering of the intelligence agencies' in-house capacities and the displacement of an ethos of public service by a profit motive. However, the bulk of the outsourcing Shorrock unearths is rather pedestrian, involving the management of mundane IT systems and various administrative services, and this exposé insinuates more skullduggery than it demonstrates. (May)

Kirkus Reviews

Private corporations employing former high-ranking federal government and military officials are making huge profits from secret contracts with the CIA, NSA and various baronies in the Defense Department, avers freelance journalist Shorrock. In his first book, the author penetrates the covert worlds of corporations with names like CACI International Inc., Mantech International and Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as government agencies spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars with no accountability. Dozens of previous titles have examined U.S. failures of information collection and analysis, especially leading up to and after 9/11. Shorrock excavates new dirt by focusing on the business of intelligence: the bottom line in dollars at the private corporations that win government contracts, often without competitive bidding or even public disclosure. The author does a remarkable job of learning as much as he can: gaining entry into conventions of defense contractors usually closed to journalists; sitting through the hearings of congressional committees whose members are regularly stonewalled by the government agencies they are supposed to oversee; reading through partially declassified documents. Peppered with acronyms, descriptions of highly technical hardware and hundreds of unfamiliar names both corporate and human, the book can be difficult to read, but Shorrock's prose is lucid, his passionate brief for open government inspiring. Occasionally, he describes fiascoes already known to the public, such as the nasty interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib, that illuminate the shadowy role of private corporations performing highly profitable contracted duties once handled by governmentemployees. Shorrock forcefully makes the case that only members of Congress, ostensibly accountable to the citizens who elected them, can halt the inefficiencies and occasional outright financial corruption emanating from the private contractor/intelligence agency nexus. A sterling example of why investigative journalists are valuable during an era of deep, broad and unconscionable government secrecy. Agent: John Ware/John Ware Literary Agency

John Quincy Adams or Federalist Papers

John Quincy Adams

Author: Robert V Remini

A vivid portrait of a man whose pre- and post-presidential careers overshadowed his presidency.Chosen by the House of Representatives after an inconclusive election against Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams often failed to mesh with the ethos of his era, pushing unsuccessfully for a strong, consolidated national government. Historian Robert V. Remini recounts how in the years before his presidency Adams was a shrewd, influential diplomat, and later, as a dynamic secretary of state under President James Monroe, he solidified many basic aspects of American foreign policy, including the Monroe Doctrine. Undoubtedly his greatest triumph was the negotiation of the Transcontinental Treaty, through which Spain acknowledged Florida to be part of the United States. After his term in office, he earned the nickname "Old Man Eloquent" for his passionate antislavery speeches.

Publishers Weekly

John and Abigail Adams's son was arguably the most brilliant man ever to occupy the White House. He was also probably the least temperamentally fit to do so. Nevertheless, as this straightforward biography reminds us, John Quincy Adams (1767- 1848) led one of the longest, most illustrious and most consequential public careers in the nation's history. Remini, the great modern biographer of Andrew Jackson, might seem the wrong choice to write a life of one of Jackson's most implacable enemies. But in this addition to a series on the presidents edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Remini, a National Book Award winner, paints an admiring portrait of an extraordinary man. Depicting Adams as deficient husband and father and disputably holding his famous parents largely responsible for the torments in all their children's lives, Remini concentrates on Adams's 50-year public career, much of it spent abroad. Remini is surely justified in holding Adams out as the nation's greatest secretary of state, largely responsible for what we know as the Monroe Doctrine. Although Adams as president was out of touch with most of his fellow citizens, it's likely that no one could have succeeded in the White House given the political confusion of those years. Adams's post-White House years (he was one of only two ex-presidents to return to Congress) yielded some of his life's greatest triumphs. He laid the basis for the Free Soil movement that eventually helped defeat slavery, protected the bequest that gave us the Smithsonian Institution and, as many readers will know from the film, defended the Amistad slaves. No one who reads this fine, short study will fail to place Adams in the pantheon of Great Neglected Americans-which is just what Remini hopes to achieve and does.

Publishers Weekly

John and Abigail Adams's son was arguably the most brilliant man ever to occupy the White House. He was also probably the least temperamentally fit to do so. Nevertheless, as this straightforward biography reminds us, John Quincy Adams (1767- 1848) led one of the longest, most illustrious and most consequential public careers in the nation's history. Remini, the great modern biographer of Andrew Jackson, might seem the wrong choice to write a life of one of Jackson's most implacable enemies. But in this addition to a series on the presidents edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Remini, a National Book Award winner, paints an admiring portrait of an extraordinary man. Depicting Adams as deficient husband and father and disputably holding his famous parents largely responsible for the torments in all their children's lives, Remini concentrates on Adams's 50-year public career, much of it spent abroad. Remini is surely justified in holding Adams out as the nation's greatest secretary of state, largely responsible for what we know as the Monroe Doctrine. Although Adams as president was out of touch with most of his fellow citizens, it's likely that no one could have succeeded in the White House given the political confusion of those years. Adams's post-White House years (he was one of only two ex-presidents to return to Congress) yielded some of his life's greatest triumphs. He laid the basis for the Free Soil movement that eventually helped defeat slavery, protected the bequest that gave us the Smithsonian Institution and, as many readers will know from the film, defended the Amistad slaves. No one who reads this fine, short study will fail to place Adams in the pantheon of Great Neglected Americans which is just what Remini hopes to achieve and does. (Aug. 20) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Remini, the author of many books on Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and the politics of the 1820s and 1830s, here offers a brief biography of the sixth president of the United States as part of the American Presidents series edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. John Quincy Adams's four-year presidency was the least satisfying period in a long public career. He served as diplomat and Secretary of State prior to his election and became the only former president to sit in the House of Representatives, where he remained for 17 years during the increasingly stormy sectional debate. Remini focuses on important incidents throughout Adams's life, demonstrating that he was not the failure he would have been if judged only by his presidential years. Adams has been the subject of two recent longer biographies: Paul Nagel's John Quincy Adams: A Public Life and Lynn Hudson Parsons's capable but generally overlooked John Quincy Adams. Though the book is brief, in keeping with the series, Remini still manages to stay true to his scholarly credentials while targeting a general audience. Some endnotes are included that do not interrupt the flow of each chapter. Recommended for major public or academic libraries. Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

Kirkus Reviews

Brief bio of one of our most capable and overlooked politicians, by the author of several well-received studies of the republic's early history (Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars, 2001, etc.). Remini (History and Humanities Emeritus/Univ. of Illinois, Chicago) lays a claim for John Quincy Adams as "arguably the greatest secretary of state to serve that office": the architect of an honorable peace in the War of 1812, the true author of what has since been known as the Monroe Doctrine, the statesman who helped formulate important international treaties and maritime laws. As president, Adams was perhaps less effective. Under his watch, federal prerogatives gave way to the demands of individual states, so that, for instance, the state of Georgia was able to take control of land owned by the Creek Indian nation and supposedly protected by treaty. This clash of state and federal power would eventually, as Adams recognized, end in civil war. In the case of the Indian nations, it opened the door to policies that successor Andrew Jackson (whom Adams detested "with a vengeance") would vigorously pursue; a regretful Adams later concluded that in his lifetime Americans did more harm to Indians than did all the European powers combined. Though often not of his own making, Adams's failures in office contributed to his defeat in the electoral campaign of 1828: "the filthiest in American history," remarks Remini. Although this capable and thoughtful author has little apparent interest in psychobiography, he turns in some juicy tidbits, among them the fact that powerful mother Abigail's opposition contributed to the end of "the only romantic and passionate love of John Quincy Adams's entire life." Likehis subject, Remini prefers the practical and even mundane, which makes this latest in the American Presidents series a less-than-thrilling read. Still, it does Adams justice and well serves to acquaint readers with a neglected leader.

Interesting textbook: Diet for Dancers or Best Gluten Free Family Cookbook

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.

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Powers to Lead or The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

The Powers to Lead: Soft, Hard, and Smart

Author: Joseph S Ny

What qualities make a leader succeed in business or politics? In an era when the information revolution has dramatically changed the playing field, when old organizational hierarchies have given way to fluid networks of contacts, and when mistrust of leaders is on the rise, our ideas about leadership are clearly due for redefinition.
With The Powers to Lead, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. offers a sweeping look at the nature of leadership in today's world, in an illuminating blend of history, business case studies, psychological research, and more. As he observes, many now believe that the more authoritarian and coercive forms of leadership--the hard power approaches of earlier military-industrial eras--have been largely supplanted in postindustrial societies by soft power approaches that seek to attract, inspire, and persuade rather than dictate. Nye argues, however, that the most effective leaders are actually those who combine hard and soft power skills in proportions that vary with different situations. He calls this smart power. Drawing examples from the careers of leaders as disparate as Gandhi, Churchill, Lee Iacocca, and George W. Bush, Nye uses the concept of smart power to shed light on such topics as leadership types and skills, the needs and demands of followers, and the nature of good and bad leadership in terms of both ethics and effectiveness. In one particularly instructive chapter, he looks in depth at contextual intelligence--the ability to understand changing environments, capitalize on trends, and use the flow of events to implement strategies.
Thoroughly grounded in the real world, rich in both analysis and anecdote, The Powers to Lead is sure to become a modernclassic, a concise and lucid work applicable to every field, from small businesses and nonprofit organizations to nations on the world stage.

Publishers Weekly

Leadership gurus since Machiavelli have argued over whether a leader should be loved or feared. In this evenhanded primer, Nye, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and "soft power" theorist, takes a resolute stand in between the two sides. Modern leadership, he contends, requires "smart power," a judicious situational balance of "hard power" (getting people to do what you want, with carrots, sticks and bullying) and "soft power" (getting people to want what you want, with inspiration, charisma and propaganda). Nye embeds his argument in a lucid, if somewhat dry, survey of leadership studies, touching on everything from bonobo behavior to Freudian psychology, and illustrates it with references to noted leaders like former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, Lincoln, Hitler and Subcomandante Marcos. (George Bush's presidency provides a recurring object lesson in bad leadership.) The author takes a skeptical, down-to-earth view of leadership fads and hype. But he can't quite break free of mystical notions like "vision" or vague buzz concepts like "contextual intelligence" (a head-scratcher that boils down to "judgment" and "wisdom"); his "smart power" formula is therefore more truism than concrete guide to action. Nye's is a useful introduction to the theory, but not the practice, of leadership. (Mar.)

Book review: Encyclopedia of Foods or Sacred Path Companion

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

Author: Kevin R C Gutzman

In The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, readers will follow the Supreme Court as it uses the Constitution as a fig leaf to cover its blatant seizing of the people's right to govern themselves through elections. Gutzman unveils the radical inconsistency between constitutional law and the rule of law, and shows why and how the Supreme Court should be reined in to the proper role assigned to it by the Founders.

George Washingtons Rules of Civility Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation or Bushs Law

George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Author: George Washington

Copied out by hand as a young man aspiring to the status of Gentleman, George Washington's 110 rules were based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. The first English edition of these rules was available in Francis Hawkins' Youths Behavior, or Decency in Conversation Amongst Men, which appeared in 1640, and it is from work that Washington seems to have copied. The rules as Washington wrote them out are a simplified version of this text. However much he may have simplified them, these precepts had a strong influence on Washington, who aimed to always live by them. The rules focus on self-respect and respect for others through details of etiquette. The rules offer pointers on such issues as how to dress, walk, eat in public, and address one's superiors.

Go to: Active Directory For Dummies or Photoshop Lightroom Workbook

Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice after 9/11

Author: Eric Lichtblau

In the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush and his top advisors declared that the struggle against terrorism would be nothing less than a war–a new kind of war that would require new tactics, new tools, and a new mind-set. Bush’s Law is the unprecedented account of how the Bush administration employed its “war on terror” to mask the most radical remaking of American justice in generations.

On orders from the highest levels of the administration, counterterrorism officials at the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA were asked to play roles they had never played before. But with that unprecedented power, administration officials butted up against–or disregarded altogether–the legal restrictions meant to safeguard Americans’ rights, as they gave legal sanction to covert programs and secret interrogation tactics, a swept up thousands of suspects in the drift net.

Eric Lichtblau, who has covered the Justice Department and national security issues for the duration of the Bush administration, details not only the development of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program–initiated by the vice president’s office in the weeks after 9/11–but also the intense pressure that the White House brought to bear on The New York Times to thwart his story on the program.

Bush’s Law is an unparalleled and authoritative investigative report on the hidden internal struggles over secret programs and policies that tore at the constitutional fabric of the country and, ultimately, brought down an attorney general.

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Stein

Get it out of your head that Bush's Law is another high-minded, high-umbrage, A.C.L.U.-channeled eulogy to the United States Constitution, which died on the table at the hands of Bush administration surgeons. No, it's Stephen King country, a collection of horror stories every bit as mouth-drying and finger-curling as Kathy Bates's taking the lumber to James Caan in "Misery"…Lichtblau relates such tales of heroes and villains, survivors and victims…with great verve and passion. One imagines he was motivated in part by the rude indignities he himself was subjected to by administration officials enraged by his exposes of their wrongdoing in the pages of The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Well, here are their deserts, and they are just.

The New York Times - Jeffrey Rosen

It is a gripping account of Mr. Lichtblau's efforts to expose various forms of secret surveillance and the Bush administration's Nixonian efforts to retaliate against him and other critics: All the President's Men for an age of terror. But this book offers much more than a journalist's well-earned victory lap. Mr. Lichtblau also documents, with scrupulous detail, the broader costs of the Bush administration's excesses for innocent victims and for the rule of law…At a time when the press's role in American democracy is being hotly contested, this book provides an inspiring example of reporters doing what they do best: checking claims of unlimited governmental power and protecting the public's right to know.

The Washington Post - Benjamin Wittes

Lichtblau's account of the Times's deliberations over the NSA story is detailed and interesting, and his report of the vigor with which the administration attempted to quash the story—the repeated meetings he and his editors had with numerous top-level administration officials, including one the publisher and executive editor of the newspaper had with Bush himself—is illuminating. Lichtblau also offers fascinating accounts of battles within the administration, some previously well-known, others less so. And he gives a lengthy catalogue of apparently innocent people harmed by the administration's new policies; these stories will give pause even to hardened supporters of strong antiterrorism policies.

Kirkus Reviews

Evenhanded study of justice blindfolded by "a broad, omnipotent reading of the president's wartime authority."There is some chicken and some egg in the question of why and how America embarked on the war on terror: Was Bush intent on going to war precisely in order to expand that authority, or did the authority necessarily expand to cover the comprehensive engagement of that war? Helen Thomas, the near-legendary correspondent and gadfly, has suggested the former, observing that she had never seen anyone so determined to go to war. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent Lichtblau-who was the Los Angeles Times Justice Department reporter at the time of 9/11-seems less sure. However, his account of executive power begins with a stern warning-as it happens, from the chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the time-that the Constitution prohibits much of the domestic program of the Bush administration, which for its part had been arguing from even before 9/11 that individual liberties, the Bill of Rights and other such legal provisions were mere niceties, disposable in the fight against the homeland's enemies. The press fell into line, Lichtblau observes, burying important stories about the law writ large, on drugs and inner-city violence and other concerns, in the interest of secrecy. One story that was so buried, he charges, concerned the "unusual arrangements that the Secret Service had made allowing one of President Bush's underage daughters-Jenna Bush, then nineteen-to make a bar-hopping trip south of the border"-and that less than a week before she was to appear in court in Texas on a charge of underage drinking. That was a trivial operation compared to othersengineered by the administration, from the Valerie Plame affair to illegal wiretapping and financial investigations to the "324-page legislative grab bag" that was the Patriot Act, all of which Lichtblau visits in careful detail, recording the administration's relentless protests that making any such efforts public was tantamount to working for al-Qaeda. Even conservative legislators, Lichtblau writes in closing, now reject that sham excuse. A sobering, saddening but altogether excellent book of legal reportage. Agent: Ron Goldfarb/Goldfarb & Associates

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Political Brain or All the Presidents Men

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Day of Empire or Freedoms Battle

Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall

Author: Amy Chua

In this sweeping history, bestselling author Amy Chua explains how globally dominant empires—or hyperpowers—rise and why they fall. In a series of brilliant chapter-length studies, she examines the most powerful cultures in history—from the ancient empires of Persia and China to the recent global empires of England and the United States—and reveals the reasons behind their success, as well as the roots of their ultimate demise.

Chua's analysis uncovers a fascinating historical pattern: while policies of tolerance and assimilation toward conquered peoples are essential for an empire to succeed, the multicultural society that results introduces new tensions and instabilities, threatening to pull the empire apart from within. What this means for the United States' uncertain future is the subject of Chua's provocative and surprising conclusion.

The New York Times - Lance Morrow

Chua, the John Duff Jr. professor of law at Yale Law School, unfolds an agreeably plausible case with clarity and insistent simplification, like a lawyer pacing before the jury box, hitting the same points (tolerance, diversity, inclusion) for emphasis as she clicks off centuries and civilizations. Always in the back of her mind is the drama of America.

The Washington Post - James F. Hoge Jr.

One might argue that Chua relies too heavily on "strategic tolerance" to explain the rise and fall of hyperpowers. Military and administrative excellence are key to the complex processes of creation and destruction, as is the growth over time of corruption. So, too, are the ambitions of those conquered—not all of which are generated by the behavior of their rulers. But the thesis of Day of Empire, like the thrust of her previous book, is provocative. Chua's lively writing makes her case studies interesting in themselves. And her convincing presentation of their relevance to the contemporary scene adds meaning to this timely warning.

Publishers Weekly

Chua (World on Fire), a Yale law professor and daughter of immigrants, examines a number of "world-dominant" powers-a none too rigorously defined group that lumps together the Persian, Roman, Mongol and British empires with the contemporary United States-and argues that tolerance and multiculturalism are indispensable features of global economic and military success. Such "hyperpowers" rise, Chua argues, because their tolerance of minority cultures and religions, their receptivity to foreign ideas and their willingness to absorb and empower talented provincials and immigrants lets them harness the world's "human capital." Conversely, hyperpowers decline when their assimilative capacities falter and they lapse into intolerance and exclusion. The sexy concept of a world-dominant hyperpower, in addition to being somewhat erratic-the smallish Dutch Republic makes the cut, while the far-flung (but inconveniently intolerant) Spanish empire doesn't-is doubtful when examining an America that can hardly dominate Baghdad and not much more convincing when applied to earlier hegemons. Chua does offer an illuminating survey of the benefits of tolerance and pluralism, often as a tacit brief for maintaining America's generous immigration policies. (Nov.)

Richard Fraser - Library Journal

Yale law professor Chua (World on Fire) argues that hyperpowers-those states that possess what Chua calls world-dominant power economically, militarily, and culturally-achieve dominance pursuing policies that do not alienate their subject peoples. Put positively, such hyperpowers practice tolerance. As far as it goes, this is hardly an original observation, and while Chua attempts to offer solid examples from history of how tolerance helps build empires and how intolerance leads to their downfall, she is ultimately unsuccessful. She assures us that she will do her best to resist cherry-picking her facts and then spends the rest of the book doing exactly that. Still, the reader cannot help but admire her honesty: for instance, her reference to British tolerance for Indian religious and cultural diversity is also an example of exploiting ethnic differences in an effort to divide and rule, and Chua does not hesitate to note this. Other instances of evidence offered and then mitigated abound, and Chua's constant qualification of her examples undermines her premise. In the end, the picture Chua presents of the symbiosis between empires and their constituent peoples does not support her argument. A marginal purchase for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ6/1/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

This analysis of world-dominant powers from ancient Persia to the modern United States yields an intriguing set of common traits and progressions. Chua's bestselling World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2002) led the pack in sizing up the backlash against global free-marketers. Now she examines hegemony and the handful of entities worthy of the title "hyperpower," which extends to the earliest civilizations: Persia, at its peak under Darius, the Macedonia of Alexander the Great and, of course, imperial Rome. There are also some surprises: Ghenghis Khan's 13th-century Mongolian domain, for instance, eventually extended from Vienna to the Sea of Japan, far exceeding any before or since in contiguous territory. And the Mongols did it without original technology or literacy, absorbing both from cultures that came under their dominion. Likewise, the Dutch Republic of the late 17th century, a midget among Europe's giants, became so dominant in world commerce that it eventually exported a king, William of Orange, to England. The commonality among these empires, says Chua, was tolerance. They were diverse societies, harboring-and exploiting-a wide range of ethnicities and unrestricted religions. The enduring model is Rome, which handed its adversaries a bloody defeat and proffered full citizenship the next day. The author notes that even China in its day of empire, the eighth-century Tang Dynasty, was a far more open society than it would be 1,000 years later. Tolerance alone won't create a hyperpower, though, says the author; the United States needed the collapse of the Soviet Union to achieve its status. Chua concludes that hyperpowersultimately tend to come "unglued" as a result of resistance to their own diversity. She cautions that the global rise of anti-Americanism today, which stems from attempts to export democracy in the service of self-interest, could be a negative sign. The author gives short shrift to forces introduced by petro-politics or the nuclear threat, but still an illuminating exploration of what makes a superpower. Agent: Glen Hartley/Writers' Representatives LLC

Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention

Author: Gary J Bass

Why do we sometimes let evil happen to others and sometimes rally to stop it? Whose lives matter to us? These are the key questions posed in this important and perceptive study of the largely forgotten nineteenth-century “atrocitarians”—some of the world’s first human rights activists. Wildly romantic, eccentrically educated, and full of bizarre enthusiasms, they were also morally serious people on the vanguard of a new political consciousness. And their legacy has much to teach us about the human rights crises of today.

Gary Bass shatters the myth that the history of humanitarian intervention began with Bill Clinton, or even Woodrow Wilson, and shows, instead, that there is a tangled international tradition, reaching back more than two hundred years, of confronting the suffering of innocent foreigners. Bass describes the political and cultural landscapes out of which these activists arose, as an emergent free press exposed Europeans and Americans to atrocities taking place beyond their shores and galvanized them to act. He brings alive a century of passionate advocacy in Britain, France, Russia, and the United States: the fight the British waged against the oppression of the Greeks in the 1820s, the huge uproar against a notorious massacre in Bulgaria in the 1870s, and the American campaign to stop the Armenian genocide in 1915. He tells the gripping stories of the activists themselves: Byron, Bentham, Madison, Gladstone, Dostoevsky, and Theodore Roosevelt among them.

Military missions in the name of human rights have always been dangerous undertakings. There has invariably been the risk of radical destabilization and the threatening blurringof imperial and humanitarian intentions. Yet Bass demonstrates that even in the imperialistic heyday of the nineteenth century, humanitarian ideals could play a significant role in shaping world politics. He argues that the failure of today’s leading democracies to shoulder such responsibilities has led to catastrophes such as those in Rwanda and Darfur—catastrophes that he maintains are neither inevitable nor traditional.

Timely and illuminating, Freedom’s Battle challenges our assumptions about the history of morally motivated foreign policy and sets out a path for reclaiming that inheritance with greater modesty and wisdom.

The Washington Post - Robert D. Kaplan

The more physically secure a Western nation feels, the more likely it is to intervene abroad for humanitarian reasons. This was certainly the case in the 1990s, when, with the Cold War behind us and no obvious threat yet in front of us, the United States intervened in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. At the time, a host of commentators branded such interventions a new phenomenon in international relations. But the 19th century in Europe, thanks to the Congress of Vienna that ended the Napoleonic Wars…was also a time of relative peace, and in the atmosphere of security that followed came a series of humanitarian interventions on behalf of Greeks, Syrian Christians and Bulgarians. In Freedom's Battle, Princeton professor Gary J. Bass recounts them in a lively, subtle and comprehensive manner that sheds a penetrating light on current policy debates…Bass's sense of nuance constitutes the strength of this book, which has the force of a polemic without descending to one.

Publishers Weekly

Bass, associate professor of international affairs at Princeton (Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals), makes the case with delightful wit, insight and scholarship that humanitarian military intervention arose not with genocide in Bosnia or Rwanda, but in Victorian times in parallel with democracy and the mass media. When Greeks rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, Turkish troops committed atrocities viewed by reporters and letter writers whose accounts produced a torrent of outrage. Reluctantly, British leaders began pressuring the sultan, but the failure of this effort led to Britain's great naval victory at Navarino that assured Greek independence. Bass moves on to two other half-forgotten but ghastly crises: the 1860s Syrian upheaval in which Maronite Christians and Druze slaughtered each other, and the 1870s mass murders of Bulgarians by the Ottomans. Bass ends with the Armenian genocide during WWI. Readers may squirm at the slowness with which nations acted to oppose gruesome cruelties, but they will relish Bass's gripping account of bloodthirsty characters, bitter political infighting and cynical leaders, forced by public opinion into moral actions that did not serve their own national interest. (Aug. 20)

Rachel Bridgewater - Library Journal

Kosovo. Rwanda. Darfur. The Congo. Just the names of these places conjure the struggle that other nations face when trying to end the slaughter and abuse of people in far-off lands. Though we may think of this concern for human rights as being relatively recent, possibly starting with the Wilson administration, Bass (international affairs, Princeton Univ.) here places the tradition of humanitarian intervention into its 19th-century context in a timely, enlightening, and gripping book. In describing a rich history of morally motivated intervention, largely by the British and the French, Bass challenges the belief that such involvement in the affairs of other nations must, at its core, have imperialistic motivations. The work explores the political and cultural milieus in which humanitarian responses to atrocities in Greece, Syria, Bulgaria, and Armenia arose, especially the role of increasingly free presses in rallying public sentiment. The very best kind of historical writing, Bass's work is lively, moving, deep, and full of insight for today's challenges. Highly recommended for both scholars and history buffs in all libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Cogent, reasoned analysis of 19th-century humanitarian intervention, especially as practiced in Victorian Britain. In this tightly restricted academic study, Bass (Politics and International Affairs/Princeton Univ.; Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals, 2000) skillfully demonstrates that the interventions demanded by outraged governments, their citizens and press during recent crises in Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo and Darfur evolved from human-rights activism developed in 19th-century England, America and France. The author looks carefully at the connections (and disjunctions) between humanitarianism and imperialism, liberalism and realism. He discusses cases in which governments actually did make decisions based on morality, such as Britain's abolition of the slave trade. He analyzes four conflicts in detail. First is the movement sparked by the vicious Ottoman retaliation against the Greek nationalist insurgency of the 1820s, championed by Lord Byron in defiance of realpolitik. French attempts under Napoleon III to protect the Syrian Christians after a series of Druze massacres in 1860 are characterized by Bass as "a triumph in the management of the tangled international politics surrounding a humanitarian military intervention." Atrocities committed by the Ottomans against the Bulgarians in 1876 fed the pan-Slavism crusade and fired the heated rhetoric of British Prime Minister William Gladstone. President Wilson's commitment to neutrality rendered ineffectual the American response to the Turks' genocidal 1915 assault against the Armenians. Bass examines the rise of a free press as instrumental in arousing public indignation and looks at cases in whichChristian sympathies or Muslim bigotry diluted humanitarian responses. Considering the sticky issues of national sovereignty and despotism, he debates the recent calls for a benevolent U.S. imperialism in the wake of 9/11. "There are terrifying hazards involved in meddling in other peoples' conflicts," notes Bass, but international responsibilities are also urgent and undeniable. Historical precedents shed timely light on ways "to keep a bright line between empire and humanity."

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Scalia Dissents or Inside Delta Force

Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice

Author: Kevin A Ring

Attorney Kevin Ring has assembled Justice Antonin Scalia's most scathing, most poignant, and most accessible opinions to date. Specific rulings and speeches are explained as Ring invites readers into the judicial world.

Ch. 1	Scalia's philosophy	1
Ch. 2	Interpreting laws	23
Ch. 3	Separation of powers	43
Ch. 4	Race	85
Ch. 5	Abortion	103
Ch. 6	Death penalty	143
Ch. 7	Religious freedom	167
Ch. 8	Gender equality	193
Ch. 9	Free speech	233
Ch. 10	Non-speech and un-free speech	257
Ch. 11	Homosexuality	279
Ch. 12	Other "rights"	303
	Epilogue : Scalia's America	317

Books about: Herbert Hoover or Are We Rome

Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit

Author: Eric L Haney

Now the inspiration for the CBS Television drama, "The Unit."

Delta Force. They are the U.S. Army's most elite top-secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions, and no book has ever taken readers inside—until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force).

Inside Delta Forece
The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit

He is a master of espionage, trained to take on hijackers, terrorists, hostage takers, and enemy armies. He can deploy by parachute or arrive by commercial aircraft. Survive alone in hostile cities. Speak foreign languages fluently. Strike at enemy targets with stunning swiftness and extraordinary teamwork. He is the ultimate modern warrior: the Delta Force Operator.

In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary counterterrorist unit. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process—designed to break the strongest of men—that singles out the best of the best: the Delta Force Operator.

With heart-stopping immediacy, Haney tells what it's really like to enter a hostage-held airplane. And from his days in Beirut, Haney tells an unforgettable tale of bodyguards and bombs, of a day-to-day life of madness and beauty, and of how he and a teammate are called on to kill two gunmen targeting U.S. Marinesat the Beirut airport. As part of the team sent to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Haney offers a first-person description of that failed mission that is a chilling, compelling account of a bold maneuver undone by chance—and a few fatal mistakes.

From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to rescuing missionaries in Sudan and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force brings honor to these singular men while it puts us in the middle of action that is sudden, frightening, and nonstop around the world.

Publishers Weekly

Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric Haney, a founding member of Delta Force, redirects for young adults the contents of his book published in 2002 for adults with the same title (and the basis of David Mamet's forthcoming CBS television series, The Unit). Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Michele Winship - VOYA

The world lives in the shadow of terrorist threat, and even before September 11 bought the reality of that threat home to America, the United States government's elite counterterrorist unit, Delta Force, has been working behind the scenes to combat terrorist activity, particularly hostage rescue, throughout the world. A retired command sergeant major, Haney writes about his personal experience as a member of the inaugural Delta Force unit. An army ranger, Haney was chosen for the grueling selection process on the remote edges of Fort Bragg for the special unit whose existence and mission remains to this day shrouded in mystery. Through part one of his riveting narrative, Haney recounts every torturous step of "selection," while one by one his fellow recruits drop by the wayside and are quickly sent, under a vow of secrecy, back to their home units. Haney is one of the few men left standing after the final challenge. In part two, Haney details Delta Force Operator training, including Close Quarters Battle training where operators storm a room with hostages and terrorists, selectively removing threats through highly-tuned sniper skill. The story is riveting with scenes so vividly described that this book is difficult to put down. The memoir concludes with the final training exercise that officially creates the first Delta unit. Haney gives his readers an exclusive insider's perspective without revealing government secrets or including gratuitous violence, making this a book for adolescents that may end up on their parents' nightstands. VOYA CODES: 4Q 5P M J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday; Middle School, defined asgrades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2006, Delacorte, 192p., and PLB Ages 11 to 18.

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-An adaptation of the author's adult book with the same title (Dell, 2002). The first part of the book gives an overview of Haney's military career and his association with the force and describes the red tape and planning that was required of those who wished to create a new, secret military unit that officially did not exist. It also includes a description of the physical challenges required of those who were chosen to participate in what was a preliminary round of qualification tests. Those who were successful in all the tests were then eligible to participate in the actual selection process. The second half of the text shows the sometimes brutal challenges the successful candidates were required to complete and details some of the actual training sessions. The narration concludes with the unit being sent on a "dry run" scenario in order to practice newly acquired skills. Black-and-white photos and documents are included in a centerfold. The reading level is not extremely high, but the subject is more likely to be of interest to older readers. This is an excellent choice for students with military interests.-Eldon Younce, Harper Elementary School, KS Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A founding member's memoir of soldiering in the Army's antiterrorism unit. Developed in the late 1970s, the Delta Force is so secretive that it's surprising retired Sergeant Major Haney was permitted to write this account. The narrative's first half describes the qualities required for membership (a combination of Bond-esque savvy and Rambo-esque strength), Haney's "selection," and his training. The selection process demanded physical and mental endurance. Participants had to complete 18-mile and 40-mile marches to qualify for a unit about whose actual activities they had only the vaguest knowledge. Haney, already a happy career soldier, found his niche in this environment. He was comfortable with uncertainty, professional about completing his tasks, and demanding of himself. In training, he learned the skills of an assassin. Delta Force operators practiced storming terrorist-held buildings and shooting terrorists without injuring hostages. Once acquired, these skills took Haney all over the world. The Delta Force planned and attempted a rescue of Iranian hostages that was botched by faulty Navy aircraft. Haney worked on the American Ambassador's security detail in Lebanon just before the embassy there was bombed. He helped rescue missionaries in Sudan, participated in guerilla warfare in Honduras, and stormed the island of Grenada. These exploits, though sensational in their danger, become somewhat rote in the retelling. Whereas the early chapters are driven by the force of Haney's deepening love affair with the Army, later events seem stagnant despite all the derring-do. Once the uncertainty of selection and training are finished, a soldierly professionalism takes over. As Haney putsit, "No posturing, no sloganeering, no high fives, no posing, no bluster, and no bombast. Just a quiet determination to get the job done." That same creed permeates his book: doubts, fears, and emotion are subdued in favor of action. Perfect for military enthusiasts and Hollywood screenwriters

Firehouse or To Sleep with the Angels

Firehouse

Author: David Halberstam

"In the firehouse the men not only live and eat with each other, they play sports together, go off to drink together, help repair one another's houses and, most importantly, share terrifying risks; their loyalties to each other must, by the demands of the dangers they face, be instinctive and absolute." So writes David Halberstam, one of America's most distinguished reporters and historians in this stunning book about Engine 40, Ladder 35 - one of the firehouses hardest hit in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers. On the morning of September 11, 2001, two rigs carrying 13 men set out from this firehouse, located on the west side of Manhattan near Lincoln Center; twelve of the men would never return.

Firehouse takes us to the very epicenter of the tragedy. We watch the day unfold, the men called to duty, while their families wait anxiously for news of them. In addition we come to understand the culture of the firehouse itself, why gifted men do this and why in so many instances they are anxious to follow in their fathers' footsteps and serve in so dangerous a profession - why more than anything else, it is not just a job, but a calling as well.

Firehouse is journalism-as-history at its best. The story of what happens when one small institution gets caught in apocalyptic day, it is a book that will move readers as few others have in our time.

Bookpage

[Halberstam's] special contribution is to anatomize the culture that incubated and nourished these remarkable public servants.

Newsweek - Malcolm Jones

A clear-eyed but affecting group portrait.

San Francisco Chronicle - Peter Lewis

Firehouse leaves one feeling . . . personally touched . . . and grateful that there are ordinary people who possess such uncommon courage.

New York Times Book Review - James Traub

Graceful and moving.

Onion

It re-forms and endures.

USA Today - Bob Minzesheimer

Richly detailed . . . in structure and tone, it resembles John Hersey's 1946 classic Hiroshima.

People - Joe Heim

A poignant remembrance . . . Halberstam's achievement is remembering these men not just for how they died . . . for how they lived.

Newsweek

Halberstam writes in this always clear-eyed but affecting group portrait.

Publishers Weekly

Halberstam's gripping chronicle of a company of Manhattan firemen on September 11 is moving without ever becoming grossly sentimental an impressive achievement, though readers have come to expect as much from the veteran historian and journalist (author, most recently, of War in a Time of Peace). Engine 40, Ladder 35, a firehouse near Lincoln Center, sent 13 men to the World Trade Center, 12 of whom died. Through interviews with surviving colleagues and family members, Halberstam pieces together the day's events and offers portraits of the men who perished from rookie Mike D'Auria, a former chef who liked to read about Native American culture, to Captain Frank Callahan, greatly respected by the men for his dedication and exacting standards, even if he was rather distant and laconic (when someone performed badly at a fire he would call them into his office and simply give him "The Look," a long, excruciating stare: "Nothing needed to be said the offender was supposed to know exactly how he had transgressed, and he always did"). The book also reveals much about firehouse culture the staunch code of ethics, the good-natured teasing, the men's loyalty to each other in matters large and small (one widow recalls that when she and her husband were planning home renovations, his colleagues somehow found out and showed up unasked to help, finishing the job in record time). Though he doesn't go into much detail about the technical challenges facing the fire department that day, Halberstam does convey the sheer chaos at the site and, above all, the immensity of the loss for fellow firefighters. (May 29) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Nancy Zachary - KLIATT

In the developing bibliography of titles on 9/11, David Halberstam has crafted a poignant, journalistic tale about the experiences of Engine 40, Ladder 35, from the West Side of Manhattan. In a direct, concise style, the reader is intimately treated to the heart and soul of this unit, which lost 12 out of 13 firefighters. We meet the individuals, we understand their devotion to their work, and we contemplate the grave danger that they face each time their trucks race to a fire. The details of the morning of September 11th are familiar, but the personal stories humanize the trauma and loss. The aftermath of searching Ground Zero, the funeral services and the strength of the firefighters' families are a tribute to America. This slim, powerful volume should be required reading for incoming high school students. KLIATT Codes: JSA*; Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Hyperion, 201p.,

Library Journal

The phrase "read it and weep" carries a flip connotation, but those who pick up this book will literally read it and weep. Pulitzer Prize winner Halberstam spent over two and a half months, beginning last October, at the Engine 40, Ladder 35 firehouse, located on Manhattan's West Side. On the morning of September 11 two rigs from that house had responded to the World Trade Center attack; 13 men went out, and one came back alive. Here, the author offers us short, personal looks at these men, with details provided by brother firefighters, spouses, family, and friends, and we see how 9/11 made its awful mark on the dozen who perished, those they left behind, and the one who survived. Ex-firefighter Dennis Smith's recent Report from Ground Zero paints a much broader and, owing to his background, more personal picture of the disaster, but if he captures its mind-boggling enormity Halberstam succeeds as well at emphasizing the individual grief it caused by focusing narrowly on just his 13 men. Recommended for all libraries. Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Peeled emotional energy characterizes this portrait by Halberstam (War in a Time of Peace) of a firehouse that lost 12 of 13 men in the initial response to the World Trade Center attack. It's a difficult story to tell from almost every angle. The notoriously insular firefighting community doesn't accept strangers in its midst, let alone confide in an outsider, and most of the subjects are dead. Halberstam is striving to achieve sympathetic yet realistic characterizations of men he never met, most of whom were very young. So it's quite an achievement that the author manages to get into the soul of Engine 40, Ladder 35, to give a glimpse of what it meant for these men to be firefighters. He nails the pride and purposefulness with which firefighters view their work, and how that sense of mission and honor melded the house into a family-a word that is not a metaphor here, since more than once the author informs us that someone was "a fireman's son and a fireman's grandson," with brothers and cousins thrown into the act. The profession's unique requirements, norms, and traditions seem to have passed through the generations like some DNA-driven imperative to create firefighters' preternatural calm, their selflessness, and their simple, extraordinary willingness to troop straight into danger while others are streaming away from it. Although the firehouse is a raw, exposed environment ("everyone knows everything about everyone, and therefore nothing can be faked"), it's not easy to draw out these men to speak of their dead comrades. Understandably, some portraits are more rounded than others, but only a few are pastiches of impressions that fail to jell. More often, the descriptionsclick, Halberstam succeeds in bringing his subjects back to life, and we ache as we suddenly remember that this man is no more. Fine work that will leave most readers with even higher esteem for firefighters.

Interesting book: The Cold War or New Firefighters Cookbook

To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire

Author: David Cowan

The story of one of the deadliest fires in American history that took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago. An absorbing account...a tale of terror. --New York Times Book Review

Journal of American History -

A journalistic account of tragedy...haunting and honest.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

A harrowing depiction of carnage, hysteria, fear, faith, heroism, and heartbreak.

Publishers Weekly

On December 1, 1958, a fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago killed 92 pupils, most between the ages of nine and 12, and three nuns. This deeply affecting account of that tragedy by two Illinois journalists recreates the horror that destroyed a school and parish. The causes of the tragedy were manifold: outdated fire laws that permitted an edifice built before 1908 to escape a code passed in 1949 to insure safer schools; severe overcrowding; delay in reporting the fire; nuns ordering their pupils to pray rather than try to escape. Nor did municipal and archdiocesan officials help matters, their philosophy being that the fire was best forgotten; when a former student admitted to setting the blaze, they tried to conceal his confession. One positive result of the fire were the safety improvements made in 16,500 U.S. school buildings within a year. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Cowan, an independent journalist in the Chicago area, and Kuenster, a former reporter and columnist for the Chicago Daily News, fashion a gripping story from the events surrounding the tragic 1958 fire that swept through Chicago's Our Lady of the Angels elementary school. The fire, which left 92 elementary school children and three nuns dead, had profound effects on surviving students, parents, the surrounding neighborhood, and the city of Chicago. The tragedy spawned a nationwide school fire-safety program that is now often taken for granted. Cowan and Kuenster piece together a moving narrative based on the eyewitness accounts of surviving children, parents, firemen, doctors, nurses, and arson investigators. Although appropriate for any collection that serves general readers, this book is particularly recommended for Chicago-area libraries.-Robert J. Favini, Bentley Coll. Lib., Waltham, Mass.

Friday, December 26, 2008

April 4 1968 or The Only Grant Writing Book Youll Ever Need

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, JR.'s Death and How It Changed America

Author: Michael Eric Dyson

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

The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need: Top Grant Writers and Grant Givers Share Their Secrets

Author: Ellen Karsh

This is the revised and expanded edition of the most sought-after guide for everyone seeking grants: nonprofits, state and local governments, universities, school administrators, teachers, artists, and those seeking funds for scholarly and cultural enterprises. Written by two authors who have won millions of dollars in grants — and updated to include vital information and advice accumulated since The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need first appeared — this new edition provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for grant writers, demystifying the process while offering indispensable advice from funders and grant recipients. It includes the following. Guidance on developing a realistic, cost-effective, collaborative program Concrete suggestions (with practice exercises and examples) for approaching each section of a grant so that the proposal is absolutely clear to the funder A glossary of terms with any word, phrase, or concept a grant writer may need, plus fifty tips for writing a winning proposal Funders roundtables put you inside the minds of the people who award grants

1	Who am I? (and what in the world do I want to do?)	3
2	Wait a second - what is a grant...and where do I get one?	11
3	Making (dollars and) sense of grant-application packages : what grantmakers want	44
4	Getting ready to write a grant proposal	62
5	Foundations of proposal writing	104
6	Writing (proposals) with style : twelve basic rules	109
7	Writing (proposals) with style : tackling the blank page	126
8	Identifying and documenting the need : what problem will a grant fix?	145
9	Goals and objectives : what do you hope to achieve if you get the money?	165
10	Developing and presenting a winning program	175
11	Finding partners and building coalitions (the MOUs that roared)	186
12	The evaluation plan : how can you be sure if your program worked?	196
13	The budget : how much will it cost... and is the cost reasonable?	206
14	Sustainability : how will you continue the program when the grant funds run out? (and you'd better not say, "I won't!")	219
15	Capacity : proving that you can get the job done	226
16	Front and back : the cover page or cover letter, the abstract, the table of contents, and the appendix	233
17	The site visit - playing host	276
18	So now you know - what next?	282

Petrostate or The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia

Author: Marshall I Goldman

In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle.
Based on extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, this revealing book chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. In his deft, informative narrative, Marshall Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. The book provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible.
The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power.Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Library of Essential Reading Series)

Author: Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is one of the most important and influential works in American history. It tells the story of Franklin's life from his humble beginnings to his emergence as a leading figure in the American colonies. In the process, it creates a portrait of Franklin as the quintessential American. Because of the book, Franklin became a role model for future generations of Americans, who hoped to emulate his rags to riches story. The Autobiography has also become one of the central works not just for understanding Franklin but for understanding America.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a man of many roles-printer, author, philosopher, scientist, inventor, diplomat, and politician to name only a few. He lived a wide and varied life and found himself at the center of virtually every major event involving America during the second half of the eighteenth century. He was so successful as a businessman that he was able to retire at the age of 42. He proved equally adept at science, and his experiments in electricity made him the most famous American in the colonies. Politics and diplomacy occupied him for most of the latter half of his life.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Mighty Heart or On Call in Hell

A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl

Author: Mariane Pearl

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Book about:

On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story

Author: Richard Jadick

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Prologue     1
Battle Begins     11
A Second Chance     23
Corpsman Up!     36
Becoming a Marine     48
Becoming a Doctor     67
From Baltimore to Liberia     84
Life at Haditha Dam     105
At the Gates of Hell     138
Hard Lessons     152
Heading into Hell     161
The Prayer Room     172
The Going Gets Tougher     190
Finishing the Fight     204
The Pickle Factory     215
What Comes Home     232
Epilogue: Life After Hell     248
Appendix     267
Acknowledgments     271

What It Takes or Leap of Faith

What It Takes: The Way to the White House

Author: Richard Ben Cramer

An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race -- and scours the psyches of contenders from George Bush and Robert Dole to Michael Dukakis and Gary Hart -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.

Publishers Weekly

Cramer's compulsively readable chronicle of the 1988 presidential campaign, a BOMC featured selection and a one-week PW bestseller in cloth, focuses on six contenders--Bush and Dole among the Republicans, and Democrats Hart, Biden, Gephardt and Dukakis--bringing them to life with detailed descriptions and well-crafted interior monologues. (June)

Library Journal

Defying political logic, Cramer has written a non sequitur that succeeds. In the midst of the 1992 campaign, why write such an exhaustive scorecard of the presidential candidates of 1988? By delving into the lives of these men--George Bush, Robert Dole, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt, Joseph Biden, and Michael Dukakis--Cramer allows the reader to experience palpably what it feels like to run for president in 1992. The extended biographical sketches are among the finest of the current genre, surpassing his choppier but still satisfying transitional sections on the campaign itself. Dole's recovery from having his arm nearly blown off in World War II is a triumph as powerfully retold as Ron Kovic's story in Born on the Fourth of July (McGraw, 1976). This extended metaphor of surviving and prospering on the mean streets of American politics is recommended for public libraries and emphatically so for large collections. BOMC featured selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92, and ``On the Campaign Book Trail,'' LJ 3/15/92, p. 110-112.-- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.

Kirkus Reviews

Irreverent, highly knowledgeable look at the 1988 presidential primaries by Pulitzer-winning journalist Cramer. The author's candidates are tough and clever, driven to a life so complicated by power that ordinary behavior is impossible—as when George Bush, ever eager to please (his intelligence "a silken windsock...so responsive to the currents"), tries to throw a baseball while wearing a bulletproof vest even as his son, bumped from the presidential box by an aide, throws a tantrum. Cramer's images are indelible: Shy, thoughtful Gary Hart, who soon will be destroyed by the press, noticing things that others do not ("The Soviet Union is rotting from within," he's quoted as saying; "...the Cold War rules do not have to apply"). Joe Biden, stutterer, the toughest kid in school somehow now a US senator, climbing into an abandoned DuPont mansion, claiming it for his own, and pouring money into it until friends think he is mad. Down-home Michael Dukakis chasing his cousin around the house with a fish- head, thinking that running the nation can be like running Massachusetts, and never grasping that the limos and other perks of power are essential evidence of major-league behavior. Or the usually well-balanced Richard Gephardt exploding at an overbearing reporter: "Fuck him to death!" But the great achievement of this powerful piece of Americana is its majestic sweep and range, brought into focus by Cramer's ability to fuse telling details into a fierce crescendo of a barbaric marketing process that, he contends, hucksters like Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes use to hoodwink the press (for which the author has little respect: "David Frost, the celebrated English brown-nose").Cramer penetrates media smoke screens as only a media-man can, marching into the psyches of his candidates as boldly as Albert Goldman investigating pop heroes. Exhaustively researched and written in a hot, jarring, unsentimental prose: the perfect antidote to election-year mythologizing.

Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

Author: Queen Noor

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Chapter 1	First Impressions	1
Chapter 2	Roots	9
Chapter 3	Tehran Journal	35
Chapter 4	An Audience with the King	45
Chapter 5	A Leap of Faith	79
Chapter 6	Honeymoon at Gleneagles	105
Chapter 7	A Young Bride in the Royal Household	127
Chapter 8	Pomp and Circumstance	145
Chapter 9	One Crisis after Another	155
Chapter 10	America through New Eyes	189
Chapter 11	At Home and Abroad	219
Chapter 12	"Women Hold Up Half the Sky"	245
Chapter 13	Parenthood	269
Chapter 14	Growing Pains	289
Chapter 15	Prelude to War	299
Chapter 16	Fire in the Gulf	327
Chapter 17	Test of Faith	337
Chapter 18	A Day Like No Other	351
Chapter 19	The Edge of the Abyss	383
Chapter 20	The White Bird	399
Chapter 21	The Skies Cried	423
	Epilogue	437

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Sacred Fire

Robert Bone

What People Are Saying

Supervision of Police Personnel

Booknews

Table of Contents:

Best American Political Writing 2008

First Ladies: An Intimate Group Portrait of White House Wives

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Booknews

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Daughter of Destiny

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing

Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents:

John Quincy Adams

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Federalist Papers

Monday, December 29, 2008

The Powers to Lead: Soft, Hard, and Smart

Publishers Weekly

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice after 9/11

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Stein

The New York Times - Jeffrey Rosen

The Washington Post - Benjamin Wittes

Kirkus Reviews

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall

The New York Times - Lance Morrow

The Washington Post - James F. Hoge Jr.

Publishers Weekly

Richard Fraser - Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention

The Washington Post - Robert D. Kaplan

Publishers Weekly

Rachel Bridgewater - Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents:

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice

Table of Contents:

Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit

Publishers Weekly

Michele Winship - VOYA

School Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Firehouse

Bookpage

Newsweek - Malcolm Jones

San Francisco Chronicle - Peter Lewis

New York Times Book Review - James Traub

Onion

USA Today - Bob Minzesheimer

People - Joe Heim

Newsweek

Publishers Weekly

Nancy Zachary - KLIATT

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire

Journal of American History -

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

Friday, December 26, 2008

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, JR.'s Death and How It Changed America

The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need: Top Grant Writers and Grant Givers Share Their Secrets

Table of Contents: