The Reconstruction Presidents or Nationalism

The Reconstruction Presidents

Author: Brooks D Simpson

During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black Americans - and of achieving a balance between those goals. This first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex issues presented during that contested era in American politics. Brooks Simpson examines the policies of each administration in depth and evaluates them in terms of their political, social, and institutional contexts. Simpson explains what was politically possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power were more limited than they are now. He compares these four leaders' handling of similar challenges - such as the retention of political support and the need to build a southern base for their policies - in different ways and under different circumstances, and he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of their personal beliefs on their actions.

Library Journal

Comparative studies of presidents inevitably introduce "the rating game." In this case, the Reconstruction presidential quartet is evaluated by the prolific historian and young author of Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction (LJ 10/15/91) and found to be dissonant. Lincoln epitomizes the ultimate democratic political leader--flexible as he struggled to preserve the last best hope of humankind while working toward a racial justice and active when necessary. His successor, however, proved to be the most dangerous kind of politician in a republic: an active, inflexible one. Although Johnson moved far beyond his past, unlike his predecessor he couldn't overcome it--especially his racism and hatred. The author allows for the best historical context to justify Grant and Hayes, well-intentioned passives whose excessive dependence on others spawned an environment that ultimately ruined reputations. A fine comparative study; recommended for all presidential collections.--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport

Booknews

In a first-time collective assessment of the Reconstruction polices of Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, Simpson (history, humanities; Arizona State U.) presents the challenges they faced in maintaining political support while seeking to provide justice for black Americans and reunite the country after the Civil War. The author contends that constraints on Federal action determined policies more than personal views on race. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Kirkus Reviews

The historian Eric Foner has presented the Reconstruction as a failed opportunity to achieve emancipation and equality for black Americans. Here, Simpson (History/Arizona State Univ., Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, not reviewed) persuasively argues that, given their circumstances, the four Reconstruction presidents generally did as well as they could. The Reconstruction has always been controversial. For decades, scholars believed that the postwar policies of the Republicans were unduly vindictive and punitive. Yet some in recent years have charged that Congress was pusillanimous, half-hearted, and ineffectual in ensuring the equality of the South's ex-slaves. Such judgments, Simpson observes, fallaciously attribute the perspectives of the present to the past, "as if critics are seeking some sort of validation for their own views on race." He shows that, despite attitudes afloat that would be considered racist today, the Reconstruction presidents (with the exception of Johnson) were generally sincere in assisting African-Americans in overcoming the legacy of slavery, but were constrained by the 19th-century understanding of the presidency as an office of limited powers. Lincoln's priorities were winning the Civil War and preserving the Union; though he truly hated slavery, his emancipation policy was intended as a means to another end. Johnson, who shared white Southern antagonism toward African-Americans, sought a return to Jacksonian democracy of the past, but became bogged down in internecine disputes with Congress. Ulysses Grant, the author contends, was a pragmatist who balanced competing goals of restoring harmony to the formerConfederate states and realizing black citizenship, yet was driven by circumstances beyond his control. Though sharing the goals of Reconstruction, Rutherford Hayes, in a final bow to political necessity, withdrew federal troops from the South, unwittingly ensuring decades of second-class citizenship for African-Americans. A powerful analysis of a darkly formative period in American history. (History Book Club selection)

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Introduction	1
Pt. 1	Abraham Lincoln
1	"Broken Eggs Cannot Be Mended"	9
2	"Much Good Work Is Already Done"	36
Pt. 2	Andrew Johnson
3	"There Is No Such Thing As Reconstruction"	67
4	"Damn Them!"	100
Pt. 3	Ulysses S. Grant
5	"Let Us Have Peace"	133
6	"Unwhipped of Justice"	163
Pt. 4	Rutherford B. Hayes
7	"The Great Pacificator"	199
	Conclusion	229
	Notes	237
	Bibliographical Essay	261
	Index	271

Look this: Organizational Behavior or Starting an Online Business All in One Desk Reference For Dummies

Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity

Author: Liah Greenfeld

Nationalism is a movement and a state of mind that brings together national identity, consciousness, and collectivities. It accomplished the great transformation from the old order to modernity; it placed imagination above production, distribution, and exchange; and it altered the nature of power over people and territories that shapes and directs the social and political world. A five-country study that spans five hundred years, this historically oriented work in sociology bids well to replace all previous works on the subject. The theme, simple yet complex, suggests that England was the front-runner, with its earliest sense of self-conscious nationalism and its pragmatic ways; it utilized existing institutions while transforming itself. The Americans followed, with no formed institutions to impede them. France, Germany, and Russia took the same, now marked, path, modifying nationalism in the process.

Nationalism is based on empirical data in four languages—legal documents; period dictionaries; memoirs; correspondence; literary works; theological, political, and philosophical writings; biographies; statistics; and histories. Nowhere else is the complex interaction of structural, cultural, and psychological factors so thoroughly explained. Nowhere else are concepts like identity, anomie, and elites brought so refreshingly to life.

Booknews

Premised on the belief that nationalism lies at the basis of the modern world, Greenfeld's (social sciences, Harvard U.) study addresses the specific questions of why and how nationalism emerged, why and how it was transformed in the process of transfer from one society to another, and why and how different forms of national identity and consciousness became translated into institutional practices and patterns of culture, molding the social and political structures of societies which defined themselves as nations. To answer these questions, Greenfeld focuses on five major societies: England, France, Russia, Germany, and the US. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hitler and the Final Solution or Kremlin Rising

Hitler and the Final Solution

Author: Gerald Fleming

Fleming is the only scholar given access to the interrogations of the German civilian crematoria engineers lying inaccessible, until a few months ago, in Moscow. This historically important information finally places the last stone in the mosaic of Auschwitz-Berkenau.

Go to: Aromatherapy or Beasts of the Earth

Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution

Author: Peter Baker

In the tradition of Hedrick Smith's The Russians, Robert G. Kaiser's Russia: The People and the Power, and David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb comes an eloquent and eye-opening chronicle of Vladimir Putin's Russia, from this generation's leading Moscow correspondents.

With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia launched itself on a fitful transition to Western-style democracy. But a decade later, Boris Yeltsin's handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, a childhood hooligan turned KGB officer who rose from nowhere determined to restore the order of the Soviet past, resolved to bring an end to the revolution. Kremlin Rising goes behind the scenes of contemporary Russia to reveal the culmination of Project Putin, the secret plot to reconsolidate power in the Kremlin.

During their four years as Moscow bureau chiefs for The Washington Post, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser witnessed firsthand the methodical campaign to reverse the post-Soviet revolution and transform Russia back into an authoritarian state. Their gripping narrative moves from the unlikely rise of Putin through the key moments of his tenure that re-centralized power into his hands, from his decision to take over Russia's only independent television network to the Moscow theater siege of 2002 to the "managed democracy" elections of 2003 and 2004 to the horrific slaughter of Beslan's schoolchildren in 2004, recounting a four-year period that has changed the direction of modern Russia.

But the authors also go beyond the politics to draw a moving and vivid portrait of the Russian people they encountered -- both those who have prospered and those barely surviving -- and show howthe political flux has shaped individual lives. Opening a window to a country on the brink, where behind the gleaming new shopping malls all things Soviet are chic again and even high school students wonder if Lenin was right after all, Kremlin Rising features the personal stories of Russians at all levels of society, including frightened army deserters, an imprisoned oil billionaire, Chechen villagers, a trendy Moscow restaurant king, a reluctant underwear salesman, and anguished AIDS patients in Siberia.

With shrewd reporting and unprecedented access to Putin's insiders, Kremlin Rising offers both unsettling new revelations about Russia's leader and a compelling inside look at life in the land that he is building. As the first major book on Russia in years, it is an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the country and promises to shape the debate about Russia, its uncertain future, and its relationship with the United States.

The New York Times - William Grimes

Well written, well reported and well organized, the book consists of free-standing chapters that touch on the most important events and trends in contemporary Russia, from the war in Chechnya to the spread of AIDS and the dire state of the Russian judicial system. Connecting these disparate themes is the fishy-eyed, single-minded man at the top, a thoroughgoing mediocrity, as depicted by the authors, with a vision for Russia that happens to match the moment.

The Washington Post - James M. Goldgeiger

Methodical in its approach, as riveting as a novel in its depiction of modern Russian life, Kremlin Rising is a powerful indictment of Putin's years as president. In his obsessive quest for control and a stronger Russian state, Putin is undermining Russia's long-term future just as Soviet leaders did in their own repressive days. Given how often President Bush has spoken of Putin's commitment to democracy, one can only hope that this book is on the must-read list for those vacationing in Crawford, Tex., this summer.

Foreign Affairs

Baker and Glasser, The Washington Post's husband-and-wife team in Moscow from 2001 to 2004, are sharp-eyed and knowing. Having seen, felt, and tasted Putin's Russia, they paint with clear but somber strokes. Moscow is aglitter with the playthings of the rich and the indulgences of a swelling middle class, but elsewhere teachers face a new generation of students uncritical of Stalin and proud of Soviet power, military reformers fall to military leaders still fighting World War II, and advocates of modern jury-trial justice cannot make it past layers of prejudice and corruption. Amid all this, Putin comes off as captive to his KGB past, calculating and harsh in dealing with opposition, and readier to trifle with than to build democracy. Baker and Glasser have dug deeply and interviewed well and widely, offering on all the headline issues — from the 2002 Moscow theater seizure and the 2004 Beslan school massacre to the Khodorkovsky case and the 2004 presidential election — details available nowhere else.

First Amendment Law in a Nutshell or Up from Slavery

First Amendment Law in a Nutshell

Author: Jerome A Barron

Expert authors summarize the principles set forth in case law and explore the philosophical foundations of First Amendment law. Current theories are examined to explain the rationale behind constitutional protection for free expression and freedom of religion. The debate between separationists and religious accommodationists in establishment clause jurisprudence is featured in this text as well.

Booknews

A nice little textbook on freedom of religion and speech. We are put off by the 13 pages of West Publishing Co. books advertised ahead of the title page. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

PrefaceTable of Cases Part One. Background and Methodology Chapter Text, History and Theory The Marketplace of Ideas Model The Self–Government Model—Civic Republicanism and Civic Virtue Revived The Liberty Model—Self–Fulfillment and Autonomy Additional Theories of Free Expression Critics of Special Protection for Free Expression First Amendment Methodology Categorization and Balancing Content–Based v. Content–Neutral Regulations Overbreadth and Vagueness Prior Restraint Part Two. Content-Based Regulation and Low-Value Speech Advocacy of Illegal Conduct Dangerous and Offensive Speech Fighting Words Hostile Audiences Offensive Speech True Threats Obscenity and Indecency Obscenity Child Pornography Indecent Speech First Amendment "Due Process" Defamation, Privacy and Mental Distress Constitutionalizing Libel Law Public Figures and Public Issues Public Figures and Private Figures Public Speech and Private Speech Privacy Intentional Infliction of Mental Distress Commercial Speech Commercial Speech in the Chrestensen ERA: A Categorical Approach The Problem of Defining Commercial Speech Virginia Pharmacy and New Protection for Commercial Speech Commercial Speech Differentiated From Other Forms of Protected Speech The Central Hudson Test: Special or Diminished Protection for Commercial Speech? The Fox and the Central Hudson Test Revised Lawyer Advertising Routine Services In–Person Solicitation Solicitation Through Print Advertising and Targeted Mailings Statements of Certification and Specialization Truthful Advertising About Lawful but Harmful Activity New Categories? Racist Speech Pornography and Feminism Part Three. General Approaches The Public Forum Regulating the Public Forum The Nonpublic Forum Private Property Expressive Conduct Standards for Expressive Conduct The Definitional Problem The O'Brien Test Flag Burning Nude Dancing Freedom of Association and Belief Regulation of Group Membership Government Employment and Benefits Registration and Disclosure Compelled Association The Electoral Process Political Speech During the Campaign Electoral Spending Buckley v. Valeo Corporate Spending Access to the Ballot Regulating Political Parties Government Sponsored Environments Student Speech Government Employment Criticizing the Government Political Activity Political Patronage Subsidized Speech: Sponsorship or Censorship? Summary Freedom of the Press The Press Clause—"Or of the Press" Journalist's Privilege Protecting Confidentiality Burning the Sourc Gagging the Press Introduction The Nebraska Press Case Silencing the Bar and Other Trial Participants Access to the Courtroom Trial Proceedings Pretrial Proceedings Summary Access to the Media Access to the Electronic Media Part Four. Freedom of Religion Text, History and Theory of the Religion Clauses The Antiestablishment Clause Government Financial Aid to Religious Institutions Religion in the Schools Released Time and Equal Access Religious Exercise in the Schools Religion and Curriculum Control Government Acknowledgement of Religion Related Establishment Clause Problems Taxation and Tax Exemptions Sabbath Day Observance Laws Establishment Clause Miscellany The Establishment Clause Today The Free Exercise Clause Belief/Opinion or Conduct Direct or Indirect Burdens The Reign of Compelling Interest Analysis The Repudiation of Judicial Exemptions Religion in Government–Sponsored Environments The Burdens That Count Formal Neutrality Triumphant Index

Look this: The Science of Sherlock Holmes or Id Rather Teach Peace

Up from Slavery

Author: Booker T Washington

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period.

"Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.

Booker T. Washington's words are profound. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He imparts 'gems of wisdom' throughout the book, which are relevant to Americans who aspire to achieve great attainments in life.

Listeners will appreciate the impassioned delivery of the reader, Andrew L. Barnes. Legacy Audio is proud to present this audio book production of "Up From Slavery" by Booker T. Washington.

Langston Hughes

Washington's story of himself, as half-seen by himself, is one America's most revealing books.

Sacred Fire

The history of the African in America has often been personalized or embodied within one individual, one spokes-person who represented the sentiments of the moment. In the South of the 1890s, Booker T. Washington stood as the often controversial personification of the aspirations of the black masses. The Civil War had ended, casting an uneducated black mass adrift or, equally tenuous, creating a class of sharecroppers still dependent on the whims of their former owners. Black Reconstruction, for all its outward trimming, had failed to deliver its promised economic and political empowerment. While an embittered and despairing black population sought solace and redemption, a white citizenry systematically institutionalized racism.

From this Armageddon rose this Moses, Booker Taliaferro Washington, who was born in 1856 in Virginia, of a slave mother and a white father he never knew. But he gave no indication in his autobiography of the pain this almost certainly caused him: "I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the nearby plantations. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time." After Emancipation, Washington began to dream of getting an education and resolved to go to the Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. When he arrived, he was allowed to work as the school's janitor in return for his board and part of his tuition. After graduating from Hampton, Washington was selected to head a new school for blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama, where he taught the virtues of "patience, thrift, good manners and high morals" as the keys to empowerment.

An unabashed self-promoter (Tuskegee was dependent upon the largesse of its white benefactors) and advocate of accommodation, Washington's "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "be patient and prove yourself first" philosophy was simultaneously acclaimed by the masses, who prescribed to self-reliance, and condemned by the black intelligentsia, who demanded a greater and immediate inclusion in the social, political, and economic fabric of this emerging nation. Washington's philosophy struck a chord that played like a symphony within the racial politics of the times. It gave a glimmer of hope to the black masses; it created for whites a much-needed locus for their veneer of social concern—funds flooded into Tuskegee Institute; and finally, the initiatives of the black intelligentsia, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, were, for the moment, neutralized.

Washington "believed that the story of his life was a typical American success story," and he redefined "success" to make it so: "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in his life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." His powerfully simple philosophy that self-help is the key to overcoming obstacles of racism and poverty has resonated among African Americans of all political stripes, from Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan.

Library Journal

Washington's memoir begins with his life as a slave on a plantation in western Virginia. Once he's freed, he looks for ways to gain knowledge, while also working in a coal mine and eventually as a house boy for a noted member of the white community. Later, he attends Hampton Institute where for the first time he is exposed to higher education and begins to develop his philosophy. The author then goes to Tuskegee Institute where he is first a teacher and later its president. Up from Slavery includes much of Washington's thinking on economic empowerment and the importance of education. Also included here is an 1895 speech he made at the International Exposition in Atlanta that turned him into a national figure and a role model. Washington's words continue to inspire many but also ruffle the feathers of those who follow the work of scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, who had a different view regarding the role of African Americans in society. Andrew L. Barnes offers a fine reading of this important work. For all libraries.-Danna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

John Hope Franklin
The ascendancy of [Booker T. Washington] is one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of American education and of race relations.

The Secret Destiny of America or Looking for History

The Secret Destiny of America

Author: Manly Palmer Hall

Manly P. Hall's two classic works on the hidden history and occult mission of America—The Secret Destiny of America and America's Assignment with Destiny— each redesigned and reset in this special two-in-one volume.

Drawing upon often neglected fragments of history, The Secret Destiny of America presents evidence for a mysterious Great Plan at the core of the nation's founding. Preeminent occult scholar Manly P. Hall argues that humanistic, esoteric, and mystical orders collaborated in setting aside the American continent for a world-shaking experiment in enlightened self-government and religious liberty.

The author locates the seeds for this plan one thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era, exploring figures such as the Pharaoh Akhnaton, Plato, and Plotinus. Once hatched in the colonial age, the great experiment involved: · Christopher Columbus, who may have been an agent of esoteric order connected with Lorenzo de' Medici and Leonardo da Vinci;

• English intellectuals Bacon and Raleigh, who played unique roles in the court intrigue surrounding the settlement of the continent;

• founders Washington and Franklin, who had esoteric associations;

• and a network of Rosicrucians, mystics, and Freemasons whose ideals of religious freedom traveled to American soil.

Whether discussing the symbolism of the Great Seal of the United States, the prophecy at George Washington's birth, or the role of a mysterious stranger who swayed the signers of the Declaration of Independence, The Secret Destiny of America is the sole volume to link together the fascinating strandsof esoteric history that lie at America's heart.

Books about: Qigong Fever or Immortality

Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America

Author: Alma Guillermoprieto

From the esteemed New Yorker correspondent comes an incisive volume of essays and reportage that vividly illuminates Latin America’s recent history. Only Alma Guillermoprieto, the most highly regarded writer on the region, could unravel the complex threads of Colombia’s cocaine wars or assess the combination of despotism, charm, and political jiu-jitsu that has kept Fidel Castro in power for more than 40 years. And no one else can write with such acumen and sympathy about statesmen and campesinos, leftist revolutionaries and right-wing militias, and political figures from Evita Peron to Mexico’s irrepressible president, Vicente Fox.

Whether she is following the historic papal visit to Havana or staying awake for a pre-dawn interview with an insomniac Subcomandante Marcos, Guillermoprieto displays both the passion and knowledge of an insider and the perspective of a seasoned analyst. Looking for History is journalism in the finest traditions of Joan Didion, V. S. Naipaul, and Ryszard Kapucinski: observant, empathetic, and beautifully written.

Publishers Weekly

Guillermoprieto (The Heart That Bleeds: Latin America Now), Latin America correspondent for the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, presents a collection of essays focusing on Colombia, Cuba and Mexico in the 1990s, accompanied by wonderfully elegant sketches of Eva Per"n of Argentina and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru. There is some repetition, but this flaw does not seriously detract from her message that although Latin American political culture in the latter half of the 20th century is largely shrouded in myth, particularly because of its potent relationship with the U.S., it does indeed have "its own independent life." Apparent throughout is the author's ability to capture a historical moment and place it in context: for example, her observations of the pope's visit in January 1998 to a Cuba led by Fidel Castro dressed in a dark suit, and not his usual army fatigues, who made many political concessions for the privilege of paying homage to the pope. The chapter on John Paul II is flanked by portraits of Che Guevara and of Castro, the former steeped in romantic fanaticism, the latter seen as clinging to power long after his revolution has been bypassed by history. Guillermoprieto's writing seems unaffected by any obvious political bias; she excoriates the violence of the left (the murderous guerrilla brigades of Colombia) and of the right (the murderous Colombian paramilitary forces). Above all, the author displays an insightful grasp of the absurdities and chaos (one of the root causes of which is the U.S.'s inexhaustible appetite for drugs) that, in her view, permeate Latin American politics. (Apr. 18) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Guillermoprieto, a staff editor at The New Yorker, is a well-known and astute observer of Latin America. This collection of 17 of her essays, all adapted from pieces published in The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, focuses on recent political events in the region. The essays are primarily about three countries: Cuba, where revolutionary idealism had to face reality; Colombia, where revolutions have always failed; and Mexico, a land of political fantasy. Among the stories, book reviews, and descriptions are perceptive and insightful observations of Latin American politics and society that help illuminate this important part of the world. This volume will be of interest to Latin American collections as well as current affairs libraries. Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ., Provo, UT Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Clear-eyed essays focusing chiefly on political events of the past decade in Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba. New Yorker writer Guillermoprieto (The Heart That Bleeds, 1994) is the very model of the intrepid reporter. With astounding energy, she braves the snarls of politics and the perils of mountains and jungle to hack her way to the heart of the matter and lay out the facts for her reader. Whether she is making her way through the nearly impenetrable wilds of Colombia to meet with leaders of that nation's oldest guerilla group (the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, alias FARC) or being awakened in the middle of the night to talk with Subcomandante Marcos, military leader of the Zapatistas, her commitment to the story is unshakeable. She stays alert through six hours of a Castro press conference, and awakens at 5 a.m. to witness the Pope's historic outdoor mass in Havana. For all of this physical action, however, it is her fluency with the political territory that is truly remarkable. Tracing the histories of political parties and alliances, Guillermoprieto provides insight into movements that usually seem absolutely opaque. The nebulous War on Drugs in Colombia is laid out piece by piece, with the guerillas and government actors labeled and interviewed. The Zapatistas are made human and comprehensible. Cuba's citizenry is seen up close and personal. Looking at massive movements and political machinery, Guillermoprieto insists on understanding the very human motivations behind them and their impact on millions of regular people who contribute to them and must live with their effects. She's equally impressive analyzing Eva Perón or Mario Vargas Llosa. Atrulyinstructive work.

Chomsky For Beginners or Chi Na Fa

Chomsky For Beginners

Author: David Cogswell

Noam Chomsky has written over 30 books, he is the most-quoted author on earth, the New York Times calls him “arguably the most important intellectual alive” — yet most people have no idea who he is or what he’s about.

Chomsky For Beginners tells you what he’s about: Chomsky is known for his work in two distinct areas — Linguistics and… “gadflying.” (“Gadfly,” the word applied to Socrates. comes closest to the constant social irritant that Chomsky has become.) It is Chomsky’s work as Political Gadfly and Media Critic that has given passion and hope to the general public — and alienated the Major Media — which, of course, is why you don’t know more about him.

Chomsky’s message is very simple: Huge corporations run our country, the world, both political parties, and Major Media. (You suspected it; Chomsky proves it.) If enough people open their minds to what he has to say, the whole gingerbread fantasy we’ve been fed about America might vanish like the Emperor’s clothes…and America might turn into a real Democracy.

What’s so special about Chomsky For Beginners? The few existing intros to Chomsky cover either Chomsky-the-Linguist of Chomsky-the-Political-Gadfly. Chomsky For Beginners covers both — plus an exclusive interview with the maverick genius. The clarity of David Cogswell’s text and the wit of Paul Gordon’s illustrations make Chomsky as easy to understand as the genius next door. Words and art combine to clarify (but not oversimplify) the work and to “humorize” the man whomay very well be what one savvy interviewer called him — “the smartest man on earth.”

Read also Digital Night and Low Light Photography or SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes

Chi Na Fa: Traditional Chinese Submission Grappling Techniques

Author: Liu Jinsheng

First published in 1936, this work represents primary source material of ancient combat techniques designed in a time of occupation and war, when the threat of lethal hand-to-hand combat was an ever-present reality for soldiers, those involved in law enforcement, and very often for the ordinary citizen. This is the seminal work in the field, written by the form’s founders, Liu Jinsheng and Zhao Jiang, as a training manual for the Police Academy of Zheijiang province. The intent of this translation is to provide authentic historical documentation for martial arts techniques that have been modified for use today in both competition and self-defense. Submission grappling is a technique in which fighters use locks, chokes, and breaking techniques to defeat their challengers in no-holds-barred matches. Chi Na Fa remains the most comprehensive explanation available of these Chinese grappling techniques, from which derive many current techniques. Renowned author and Brazillian jiu jitsu champion Tim Cartmell presents the book in a clear, compelling new translation.

Do the Hard Things First or Beyond the Wire

Do the Hard Things First: (And Other Bloomberg Rules for Business and Politics)

Author: Michael R Bloomberg

In Do The Hard Things First, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg shares the management strategies and life lessons that have helped him build a multi-billion dollar global business and run a $60 billion city government, serving the needs of demanding business clients and diverse constituencies alike. In the words of Michael Bloomberg himself, “Over the course of both my private and public sector careers, I’ve learned a set of rules that I believe offer guidance that people of all professions will find useful. In this book, I've summed up these rules and my experience in how to follow them: from how to build a first-rate team, to create the conditions for innovation, and to know when to say ‘yes’ to your customers and when to say ‘no’.”

New interesting textbook: Uninsured in America or Great Feet for Life

Beyond the Wire: Former Prisoners and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland

Author: Peter Shirlow

This book provides the first detailed examination of the role played by former loyalist and republican prisoners in grass roots conflict transformation work in the Northern Ireland peace process. It challenges the assumed passivity of former prisoners and ex-combatants. Instead, it suggests that such individuals and the groups that they formed have been key agents of conflict transformation. In analyzing this, the authors challenge the sterile demonization of former prisoners and the processes that maintain their exclusion from normal civic and social life.

The book is a constructive reminder of the need for full participation of both former combatants and victims in post-conflict transformation. It also lays out a new agenda for reconciliation that suggests that conflict transformation can and should begin "from the extremes".

The book will be of interest to students of criminology, peace and conflict studies, law and politics, geography and sociology as well as those with a particular interest in the Northern Ireland conflict.

Table of Contents:

List of Tables     vi
Preface     vii
Introduction     1
Understanding Political Imprisonment: Northern Ireland and the International Context     21
Prisoner Release and Reintegration in the Northern Ireland Context     42
The History and Evolution of Former Prisoner Groups     56
Imprisonment and the Post-Imprisonment Experience     76
Residual Criminalisation and its Effects     94
Community and Conflict     107
Former Prisoners and the Practicalities of Conflict Transformation     123
Conclusion: Conflict Transformation and Reintegration Reconsidered?     143
Notes     154
Bibliography     163
Index     180

Firewall or Defending the Homeland

Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up

Author: Lawrence E Walsh

In this historic, first-person account, the independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation exposes the extraordinary duplicity of the highest officials of Ronald Reagan's administration and the paralyzing effects of the cover-up that Judge Lawrence Walsh and his associates unraveled. Iran-Contra was far more than a rogue operation conceived and executed by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North with the backing of National Security Advisor John Poindexter, as the Reagan administration claimed. It was instead a conspiracy that drew in the chief actors of that administration: President Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and Attorney General Edwin Meese, among others. With the president's support, the United States attempted to trade arms for hostages held by Iranian terrorists, then retained part of the proceeds from these undercover sales in Swiss bank accounts, where the secret money funded the guerrilla activities of the Nicaraguan Contras, a counter-revolutionary group that Congress had specifically forbidden the administration to support. An experienced and steely prosecutor, Judge Walsh built a powerful team of young lawyers to pursue the truth of the Iran-Contra affair through painstaking interrogations and reviews of hundreds of thousands of documents. His team confronted daunting barriers: some of the key players were given grants of immunity by Congress's own (and sometimes hindering) investigation, government agencies twisted claims of national security in order to hide the true nature of their activities, administration officials told outright lies in sworn testimony, and Republican leaders attempted to drown the investigation in a massive flow of often irrelevant material.

Publishers Weekly

Iran-contra independent counsel Walsh chronicles here his efforts to call to account senior Reagan administration officials for their deceptions and the arms-for-hostages fiasco, alleging that "no one... told the full truth." Having failed to put anyone in prison, he marshals considerable evidence of malfeasance to convict Oliver North, John Poindexter and Caspar Weinberger. Neither Beltway insiders nor the public at large, however, are likely to read this work for its insights into Iran-contra or the political culture of the Reagan era. Instead, Walsh's book will probably be cited in a growing debate about whether the expenditure of millions on independent investigations has made our government more honest. Foes of the independent counsel system will find a lot of material here with which to buttress their arguments. Despite years of effort from some of the most astute prosecutors in the country, the only high-level official left with a criminal record from Walsh's investigation was national security adviser Robert McFarlanea reluctant participant in the Iran-contra cover-up who pleaded guilty to deceiving Congress. Walsh attributes his meager results to systematic efforts by two administrations to frustrate his efforts and an executive bureaucracy mired in a culture of concealment.

Library Journal

Walsh was the independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation from 1986 to 1993. Though he writes earnestly and with the highest integrity, his recounting of the events surrounding Iran-Contra is as confusing as the hearings themselves and is overburdened by excessive detail. Walsh alleges that Presidents Reagan and Bush could have been indicted for obstruction of justice and misuse of the presidential pardon, respectively. However, Reagan is not Nixon, and Iran-Contra never fascinated and repelled the public like Watergate. The long ordeal ended with few perpetrators being convicted, while members of Reagan's cabinet built an impenetrable firewall around the president. -- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

Library Journal

Walsh was the independent counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation from 1986 to 1993. Though he writes earnestly and with the highest integrity, his recounting of the events surrounding Iran-Contra is as confusing as the hearings themselves and is overburdened by excessive detail. Walsh alleges that Presidents Reagan and Bush could have been indicted for obstruction of justice and misuse of the presidential pardon, respectively. However, Reagan is not Nixon, and Iran-Contra never fascinated and repelled the public like Watergate. The long ordeal ended with few perpetrators being convicted, while members of Reagan's cabinet built an impenetrable firewall around the president. -- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

John B. Judis

Walsh's book is a useful record of the scandal and its aftermath. -- The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

Walsh, the former independent counsel for Iran/Contra matters, submits an injudicious, self-serving brief in aid of reversing the probable verdict of history that his extended and contentious investigation of malfeasance at the highest levels of US government produced appreciably more heat than light. Drawing on the record he compiled in the course of a six-year investigation, the author delivers a largely chronological narrative built around a rehash of serious charges that were never proved in court. At issue was the question of whether Ronald Reagan exceeded his presidential authority in sanctioning a hushed-up arms-for-hostages deal with Iran, which also yielded cash used to equip the Contra forces in Nicaragua. These clandestine operations came to light in the mid-1980s, and Walsh was called in to unravel the tangled web at the start of 1987. By the author's account, he had no axes to grind at the outset of his inquiry. Perhaps not, but his office became vaultingly ambitious in its selection of targets after failing to put the usual CIA, National Security Council, or White House suspects, let alone Oliver North and John Poindexter, behind bars. At various times, Walsh recounts, he and his aides went after George Bush, Edwin Meese, Donald Regan, George Shultz, and Caspar Weinberger. The fact that he got nary a one of these men in the dock does not stop the author from repeating in detail allegations of supposed misdeeds that resulted in but a single indictment. Attentive readers will learn that feckless subordinates, ill-informed judges, and national-security hurdles, not Walsh, are to blame for the paucity of scalps.

A spirited if one-sided effort by Walsh to have the last word on the Iran/Contra affair and to justify his largely unavailing stewardship of the independent counsel's office.

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations

Preface
Part I. Rogue Conspiracy: The Congress againstthe Courts
1. From Stonewall to Firewall
2. The Private War
3. Call to Counsel
4. Opening View
5. The Bramble Bush
6. First Convictions
7. Close Pursuit
8. Crossroads
9. The Basic Indictment

Part II. Litigation: The Courts against the Congress
10. Half a League Onward
11. The Trial of Oliver North
12. Deniability Triumphant
13. The Trial of John Poindexter
14. Reversal and Revival
15. The CIA Cracks
16. Roller Coaster

Part III. Behind the Firewall
17. What the Secretary of State Knew
18. The Note-Taker
19. The Chief of Staff
20. The President's Protector
21. Like Brushing His Teeth

Part IV. Political Counterattack
22. Nuclear War
23. An Unusual Proposal
24. Boomerang: The Character Issue
25. Bob Dole, Pardon Advocate
26. The Last Card in the Cover-up
Reflections
Index

New interesting textbook: Encyclopedia of Food and Color Additives or Move over Martha

Defending the Homeland: Domestic Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Securit

Author: Jonathan R Whit

The United States government is reorganizing to increase domestic security. How will these changes impact the American criminal justice system? DEFENDING THE HOMELAND: DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND SECURITY is the only book that illustrates up-to-the minute information on how our criminal justice system has changed since 9/11. Written by an expert on academic leave to provide training for the Department of Defense, White provides an insider's look at issues related to restructuring of federal law enforcement and recent policy challenges. The book discusses the problem of bureaucracy, interaction between the law enforcement and intelligence communities, civil liberties, and theories of war and police work. From a practical perspective, the book examines offensive and defensive strategies. The book gives an introduction to violent international religious terrorism and an overview of domestic terrorist problems still facing law enforcement.

Cold New World or American Pharaoh

Cold New World: Growing up in a Harder Country

Author: William Finnegan

New Yorker writer William Finnegan spent time with families in four communities across America and became an intimate observer of the lives he reveals in these beautifully rendered portraits: a fifteen-year-old drug dealer in blighted New Haven, Connecticut; a sleepy Texas town transformed by crack; Mexican American teenagers in Washington State, unable to relate to their immigrant parents and trying to find an identity in gangs; jobless young white supremacists in a downwardly mobile L.A. suburb. Important, powerful, and compassionate, Cold New World gives us an unforgettable look into a present that presages our future.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction of 1998 selection
One of the Voice Literary Supplement's Twenty-five Favorite Books of 1998

What People Are Saying

Nicholas Lemann
Cold New World is a book about an important, grievously underreported (until now) social phenomenon, the shutting out of a whole generation of young Americans from opportunity.

New interesting book: Al Dente or Little Cafe Cakes

American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation

Author: Adam Cohen

"This is Chicago, this is America." With those words, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley famously defended his brutal crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention. Profoundly divided racially, economically and socially, Chicago was indeed a microcosm of America, and for more than two decades Daley ruled it with an iron fist. The last of the big city bosses, Daley ran an unbeatable political machine that controlled over one million votes. From 1955 until his death in 1976, every decision of any importance -- from distributing patronage jobs to picking Congressional candidates -- went through his office. He was a major player in national politics as well: Kennedy and Johnson owed their presidencies to his control of the Illinois vote, and he made sure they never forgot it. In a city legendary for its corruption and backroom politics, Daley's power was unrivaled.

Daley transformed Chicago -- then a dying city -- into a modern metropolis of skyscrapers, freeways and a thriving downtown. But he also made Chicago America's most segregated city. A man of profound prejudices and a deep authoritarian streak , he constructed the nation's largest and worst ghettoes, sidestepped national civil rights laws, and successfully thwarted Martin Luther King's campaign to desegregate Northern cities.

A quarter-century after his death, Daley's outsize presence continues to influence American urban life, and a reassessment of his career is long overdue. Now, veteran journalists Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor present the definitive biography of Richard J. Daley, drawn from newly uncovered material and dozens of interviews with his contemporaries. In today's era of poll-tested, polished politicians, Daley's rough-and-tumble story is remarkable. From the working-class Irish neighborhood of his childhood, to his steady rise through Chicago's corrupt political hierarchy, to his role as national powerbroker, American Pharaoh is a riveting account of the life and times of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century domestic politics. In the tradition of Robert Caro's classic The Power Broker, this is a compelling life story of a towering individual whose complex legacy is still with us today.

Scott Turow

American Pharaoh is a unique gem. It is an enthralling narrative, a true page-turner, and also a needed work of history. It is the first serious biography of Richard J. Daley, the enormously complicated man who ruled Chicago for decades, and who, no matter how viewed, indelibly shaped not only one city, but the American political scene and national urban life." (—Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent)

Douglas Brinkley

I have read a lot of biographies, but none more compelling than Cohen and Taylor's brilliant portrait of Mayor Richard J. Daley. American Pharaoh is a tour de force." (—William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor)

Washington Monthly

...fast-paced, comprehensive, and written well enough to evoke the sights and sounds of a great city in turbulent times.

Publishers Weekly

Like all good biographies, this first full account of the life of Richard Daley does more than tell the story of an individual. In the course of telling Daley's tale--from his birth (in 1902) to his death (in 1976)--journalists Cohen and Taylor also chronicle the history of 20th-century Chicago. They capture the grittiness of Daley's boyhood--the day-to-day of life near the stockyards, the importance of ethnicity in local neighborhoods and the city's seemingly paradoxical combination of parochialism and diversity, dynamic growth and resistance to change. Initiated into machine politics as a young man, Daley quickly embraced the machine's values of order, allegiance, authority and, above all, the pursuit of power. Later, he ran the city in accordance with these values; the authors explain that he always assessed his options in terms of what would both enhance his power and encourage Chicagoans to stay in their proper place. Cohen (a senior writer at Time) and Taylor (literary editor and Sunday magazine editor of the Chicago Tribune) use the most famous crisis during his tenure, the 1968 Democratic convention, to illustrate how the mayor's rigid values dictated his actions--but more importantly, they say, his myopic passion for order worked together with his deep racism to shape modern Chicago. And, they argue, his legacy is a cultural legacy--through him, early 20th-century ethnic narrow-mindedness shaped everything from the character of Chicago politics to its landscape. (Constructed during his tenure, Chicago's freeways and housing projects keep everyone, especially blacks, in their places.) Penetrating, nonsensationalistic and exhaustive, this is an impressive and important biography. 16 pages b&w illus. not seen by PW. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

The Washington Monthly - Nolan

Cohen and Taylor are fastidiously fair to the famous mayor and do not take sides...Like their subject, they take Chicago very seriously.

The New York Times Book Review - Alan Ehrenhalt

A splendid, serious treatment of Daley's life, the first full-length biography of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters of modern American political history . . .

The New York Observer - Ward Just

This marvelous book—it is one of the very best narratives of American politics that I have read—is a meticulous account of the rise and long twilight of the most powerful city boss of recent history...

Business Week - Robert Royalty

...the definitive biography...Cogen and Taylor don't just look under the hood of America's last great political machine, they take the engine apart and examine every corroded nut and bolt...a compelling narrative.

Kirkus Reviews

A monumental biography of Chicago's six-term mayor that elevates the coarse and cunning political boss to the status of an American icon. It's hard to argue with the assertion of journalists Cohen (Time) and Taylor (Chicago Tribune) that Daley was the biggest political boss of the last century. The only child of a working-class, Irish-Catholic family, Daley started out as a laborer in the city's infamous stockyards and, despite the fancy suits and limousines he later indulged as prerogatives of power, always claimed to be just another hard-working man who took care of the people who voted for him. In the city's working-class Bridgeport neighborhood, the young Daley did the boring detail work that local Democratic precinct captains didn't like, got out the vote, kicked back to those who favored him, and never forgot a face. More a plodder than a charismatic leader, Daley worked his way through law school, remained faithful to his wife, refrained from smoking or drinking, and never stole from the public trough—though he had no problems lying to the press and collecting two salaries (beginning in 1955) as both mayor and Democratic Party chairman. A stickler for clean streets, he surrounded himself with glad-handers, thugs, bureaucratic hacks, and ward heelers who doled out patronage jobs, exploited racist fears, and salted election returns. The darling of the national Democratic Party after Illinois provided the crucial votes that put Kennedy in the White House in 1960, Daley let the city's business elite launch urban-renewal schemes that improved the skyline while reinforcing racial and economical segregation. He became a national embarrassment when journalistswerebeaten by police during the 1968 Democratic convention, but (despite numerous scandals) he remained in control of the city up to the moment he died in 1976. A breathlessly engrossing history of a classic urban political machine and the powerbroker who ran it his way. (16 pages b&w illustrations, not seen)

What People Are Saying

Scott Turow
American Pharaoh is a unique gem. It is an enthralling narrative, a true page—turner, and also a needed work of history. It is the first serious biography of Richard J. Daley, the enormously complicated man who ruled Chicago for decades, and who, no matter how viewed, indelibly shaped not only one city, but the American political scene and national urban life.
—(Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent)

Douglas Brinkley
American Pharaoh is a grand, sweeping profile of Chicago's Richard J. Daley, perhaps the most powerful and irascible mayor in American history. This is political biography at its absolute finest: sprightly prose, dramatic flair, definitive insights, careful research, colorful anecdotes, and a balanced interpretation. Daley leaps off these pages as if he were still alive.
—(Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Eisenhower Center and Professor of History, University of New Orleans)

Studs Terkel
This is a myth—shattering portrait of Mayor Daley the elder. In its revelatory detail, it offers us a canny politician, not especially original or colorful, whose staying power enabled him to outlast all competition. It is an eye opening work that enthralls the reader from page one.
—(Studs Terkel, author of Working and My American Century)

Alex Kotlowitz
American Pharaoh is biography at its absolute best. In the spirit of Robert Caro's The Power Broker, this is a story of more than just a man. It is a tale of a tumultuous time, of the corrupt authority of power, and of the strength and frailties of our democracy. Best of all, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, who have done an extraordinary job of reporting, know how to spin a good yarn. I read this book on airplanes. I read it late at night. I read it when I should have been working. In short, it held me spellbound.
—(Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and The Other Side of the River)

Kaiser Wilhelm II or Humanitarian Imperialism

Kaiser Wilhelm II: Profiles in Power Series

Author: Christopher Clark

Kaiser Wilhelm II is one of the key figures in the history of twentieth-century Europe: King of Prussia and German Emperor from 1888 to the collapse of Germany in 1918 and a crucial player in the events that led to the outbreak of World War I. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including unpublished archival material, this study focuses on:

* the character and extent of his power
* his political goals
* his success in achieving them
* the mechanisms by which he projected authority and exercised influence.
* his role in the formation of foreign policy and his impact on the events of July 1914

Following Kaiser Wilhelm's political career from his youth at the Hohenzollern court through the turbulent peacetime decades of the Wilhelmine era into global war and exile, the book presents a new interpretation of this controversial monarch and assesses the impact on Germany of his forty-year reign.

Christopher Clark is a Lecturer in Modern European History at St Catharine's College, Cambridge University.

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Acknowledgements
	Chronology
Ch. 1	Childhood and youth	1
Ch. 2	Taking power	27
Ch. 3	Going it alone	55
Ch. 4	Domestic politics from Bulow to Bethmann	92
Ch. 5	Wilhelm II and foreign policy, 1888-1911	123
Ch. 6	Power and publicity	160
Ch. 7	From crisis to war: 1909-1914	186
Ch. 8	War, exile, death: 1914-1941	225
Ch. 9	Conclusion	257
	Further reading in English	262
	Index	266

New interesting book: Comptabilité Directoriale :une Introduction aux Concepts, les Méthodes et les Utilisations

Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War

Author: Jean Bricmont

Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a justification for intervention by the world's leading economic and military powers—above all, the United States—in countries that are vulnerable to their attacks. The criteria for such intervention have become more arbitrary and self-serving, and their form more destructive, from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the large parts of the left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention—discovering new "Hitlers" as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement on the model of Munich in 1938.

Jean Bricmont's Humanitarian Imperialism is both a historical account of this development and a powerful political and moral critique. It seeks to restore the critique of imperialism to its rightful place in the defense of human rights. It describes the leading role of the United States in initiating military and other interventions, but also on the obvious support given to it by European powers and NATO. It outlines an alternative approach to the question of human rights, based on the genuine recognition of the equal rights of people in poor and wealthy countries.

Timely, topical, and rigorously argued, Jean Bricmont's book establishes a firm basis for resistance to global war with no end in sight.

Private Oral Exam Guide or Framing of Mumia Abu Jamal

Private Oral Exam Guide: The Comprehensive Guide to Prepare You for the FAA Oral Exam

Author: Michael D Hayes

Updated to reflect vital FAA regulatory, procedural, and training changes, this indispensable tool prepares private pilots for their one-on-one "checkride" with an FAA examiner. It answers the most commonly asked questions, clarifies the requirements of the written and oral portions, and presents study material for the exam. Topics covered include certification and documents, weather, airplane systems, and cross-country flight planning. This newly revised edition also includes a section on aeronautical decision-making and crew resource management.

Book review: Direzione della Fuori-de--Scatola

Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Author: J Patrick OConnor

Sentenced to death in 1982 for allegedly killing a police officer named Daniel Faulkner, Mumia Abu-Jamal is the most famous death row inmate in the United States, if not the world. This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office efficiently and methodically framed him. It takes you step-by-step through what actually transpired on the night Faulkner was shot, including positioning each of the witnesses at the scene and revealing the identity of the killer. It also details the entire trial and fully covers the tortuous appeals process. The author, a seasoned crime reporter, writes in the language of hard facts, without hyperbole or exaggeration, unfounded accusation or finger-pointing, to reveal the truth about one of the most hotly debated cases of the twentieth century.

Publishers Weekly

In this account of the trial of controversial death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, O'Connor, editor and publisher of crimemagazine.com, clearly lays out his case that Abu-Jamal should receive at least a new trial, if not complete exoneration. O'Connor asserts that Abu-Jamal was framed for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner because of a vendetta by Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo and the police due to Abu-Jamal's defense, as a journalist, of the cultish countercultural group MOVE. Relying heavily on court transcripts and prior books on the case, O'Connor shows what he sees as the judge's bias, troubled relations between Abu-Jamal and his defense lawyer and dubious statements by various witnesses. Abu-Jamal was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death; later overturned, the sentence could still be reinstated pending a decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In the wake of Faulkner's widow's recent book alleging Abu-Jamal's guilt, it's difficult to be swayed entirely by O'Connor's arguments, but he makes a strong case that the investigation into Faulkner's murder deserves another look. (May)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Booklist

A complex and compelling read that rivals established TV hits while tackling real life injustice.

Kirkus Reviews

The title says it all: Longtime investigative reporter and Crime Magazine editor and publisher O'Connor argues that the best-known death-row inmate of our time was set up. An advocacy journalist well regarded in Philadelphia and beyond for his interviewing skills, perhaps destined for fame as a news anchor or writer, Mumia Abu-Jamal "had never been known for violence." Indeed, writes O'Connor, he had been a peace activist while a student at ultraliberal Goddard College and was seemingly on the path to becoming a Rastafarian ascetic when he was charged with the December 9, 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal admittedly carried a gun; a part-time cab driver since being fired from a public radio station for his unscripted political commentary, Mumia had twice been robbed and was concerned for his safety. Connected by several threads to the "back-to-nature group MOVE," which had drawn the ire and bullets of Philadelphia police during the Frank Rizzo years, Abu-Jamal was framed, perhaps to keep him from looking too deeply into police counterintelligence operations. The police investigation was incomplete, confused and much-revised, and the forensics were improbable: Detained, Abu-Jamal was supposed to have been on the ground below Faulkner, but the first bullet to strike hit the officer in the back. Moreover, writes O'Connor, "It would not come out until trial that the police had not bothered to run any tests of Abu-Jamal's hands or clothing to determine if he had fired a gun or even if [his] .38 had been fired." Such tests being commonplace at shooting scenes, O'Connor advances the view that the results did not fit the setup and were discarded. Compounding all this,O'Connor then enumerates, was flawed physical evidence, a biased judge, perjured testimony and a district attorney known as the " 'Queen of Death' because of her zeal for seeking the death penalty," particularly for black capital offenders. O'Connor sets forth a careful, well-constructed argument. Whether it changes minds one way or the other remains to be seen, but, he urges, it is time for a new trial.

What People Are Saying

Edward Asner
O'Connor's . . .efforts and results are most impressive.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Preface     xi
Introduction: A Cause Celebre     1
December 9, 1981     7
The Arrest     15
The Original Police Version of the Shooting     21
Frank Rizzo     25
MOVE     29
The Arrest and Trial of John Africa     47
Mumia     49
Pretrial Hearings     57
The Witnesses     61
The Players     65
Jury Selection     73
The Trial Opens     77
Testimony of Robert Chobert     81
Cynthia White's First Day of Testimony     87
White's Testimony, Part II     95
The Alleged Confession     101
Testimony of Michael Scanlan     113
Testimony of Albert Magilton     117
How Faulkner Died     121
Judge Sabo: "I Don't Care About Mr. Jamal"     131
The Defense     141
Witnesses for the Defense     147
"The Negro Male Made No Comments"     157
Jackson's Closing Statement     165
McGill's Summation     171
Guilty!     179
The Sentencing Hearing     181
The FreeMumia Movement     191
The Post-Conviction Relief Act Hearings     201
Arnold Beverly     223
Mumia's Own Account     227
Was Faulkner an FBI Informant?     235
Justice Delayed     239
Oral Arguments     245
Justice at Last     253
Index     261

Women and the National Experience or Social Welfare

Women and the National Experience: Primary Sources in American History

Author: Ellen Skinner

This brief, accessible primary source collection contains over one hundred different sources that illuminate the history of women in the United States. This book combines classic and unusual sources to explore both the private voices and the public lives of women throughout U.S. history. For anyone interested in the history of women in the United States.

Table of Contents:

* indicates new readings.

Preface.

1. Gender Patterns in the Colonial Era. Anne Hutchinson, Trial (1638).
Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children (c. 1650).
Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World: The Trial of Susanna Martin (1692).
Femme Sole Trader Act (1718).
Benjamin Wadsworth, A Well-Ordered Family (1712).
Chrestien Le Clercq, The Customs and Religion of the Indians (c. 1700).
Mary Jemison, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison (1724).
Elizabeth Sprigs, Letter from an Indentured Servant (1756).
* Eliza Pinckney, Birthday Resoultions (1750s).
Judith Cocks, Letter to James Hillhouse (1795).

2. From Revolution to Republic: Moral Motherhood and Civic Mission. * Ann Hulton, Letter of a Loyalist Lady (1774).
Esther DeBerdt Reed, Sentiments of an American Woman (1780).
Molly Wallace, The Young Ladies' Academy of Philadelphia (1790).
Abigail Adams, Letters to John Adams and His Reply (1776).
* Judith Sargent Murray, On the Equality of the Sexes (1790).
Ladies Society of New York, Constitution (1800).
Colored Female Religious and Moral Society of Salem, Massachusetts, Constitution (1818).
Emma Willard, Plan for Female Education (1819).
John S.C. Abbott, The Mother at Home (1833).

3. Emerging Industrialization: Opportunity and Protest. Harriet Hanson Robinson, Lowell Textile Workers (1898).
Letters to the Voice of Industry (1846).
Ellen Monroe, Letter to the Boston Bee (1846).
Female Labor Reform Association, Testimony Before the Massachusetts Legislature (1845).
* Betsy Cowles, Report on Labor, Women's Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio (1851).
Caroline Dall, Women's Right to Labor (1860).

4. Moral Activism, Abolitionism, and the Contest over Woman's “Place.” * Advocate of Moral Reform, Important Lectures to Females (1841).
Friend of Virtue, Died in Jaffrrey, Aged 27 (1841).
Dorothea Dix, On Behalf of the Insane (1843).
Catherine Beecher, The Evils Suffered by American Women and American Children (1846).
A Temperance Activist (1853).
Elizabeth Emery and Mary P. Abbott, Letter to the Liberator (1836).
Pastoral Letter to New England Churches (1837).
Sarah Grimke, Reply to Pastoral Letter (1837).
Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, Philadelphia (1838).
Angelina Grimke, An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States (1838).
Benjamin Drew, Narrative of Escaped Slaves (1855).
Harriet Tubman, Excerpts from a Biography by Her Contemporaries (c. 1880).
Elizabeth Dixon Smith Geer, Journal (1847-1850).

5. Woman's Rights: Pioneer Feminists Champion Gender Equality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments (1848).
Women of Philadelphia (1848).
Caroline Gilman, Recollections of a Southern Matron (1838).
Lucretia Mott, Discourse on Women (1849).
Emily Collins, Reminiscences of the Suffrage Trail (c. 1881).
The Unwelcome Child (1845).
Sojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman? (1851).
Ernestine Rose, This Is the Law but Where Is the Justice of It? (1852).
Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, Marriage Contract (1855).
H.M. Weber, Defends Dressing Like a Man, Letter to the Woman's Rights Convention, Worcester, Mass, (1850).

6. The Civil War, Reconstruction and Gender Politics. Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Confederate Lady's Diary (1861).
Clara Barton, Nursing on the Firing Line (c. 1870).
Phoebe Yates Pember, Excerpts from A Southern Woman's Story (1879).
Charlotte Forten, Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1862).
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, On Marriage and Divorce (c. 1850).
* Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Why Women Should Not Seek the Vote (1896).
* Victoria Claflin Woodhull, And the Truth Shall Make You Free (1871).
Susan B. Anthony, Proceedings of the Trial (1872).
Bradwell v. Illinois (1869).
Amelia Barr, Discontented Women (1896).

7. Building Sisterhood: The Limits of Inclusion. Edward H. Clarke, Sex in Education (1874).
M. Carey Thomas, Present Tendencies in Women's Education (1908).
Anna Manning Comfort, Only Heroic Women Were Doctors Then (1916).
Martha E.D. White, Work of the Woman's Club (1904).
Grover Cleveland, Woman's Mission and Woman's Clubs (1905).
National Association of Colored Women, Club Activities (1906).
Frances Willard, On Behalf of Home Protection (1884).
Zitkala-Sa, The School Days of an Indian Girl (1900).
* Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Bible and Church Degrade Woman (1895).
Ida Wells Barnett, A Red Record (1895).
* Selena Butler, The Chain Gang System (1897).

8. Industrial Expansion and the Woman Worker: Gender, Race, and the Workplace. Mary Church Terrell, What It Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States (1906).
Susan B. Anthony, Bread Not Ballots (c. 1866).
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, The Working Girls of Boston (1884).
Leonora Barry, Investigator for the Knights of Labor (1888).
* Clara Lanza, Women as Clerks in New York (1891).
Mother Jones, The March of the Mill Children (1903).
Rose Schneiderman, A Cap Maker's Story (1905).
Rose Schneiderman, The Triangle Fire (1911).
New York Times, Miss Morgan Aids Girl Waist Strikers (1909).

9. Progressive Era: Maternal Politics, Protective Legislation, and Suffrage Victory. Ann Garlin Spencer, Women Citizens (1898).
Jane Addams, The Clubs of Hull House (1905).
Florence Kelley, The Child, the State, and the Nation (1905).
Muller v. Oregon (1908).
National Women's Trade Union League, Legislative Goals (1911).
Anna Howard Shaw, NAWSA Convention Speech (1913).
Mollie Schepps, Senators v. Working Women (1912).
NAWSA, A Letter to Clergymen (1912).
Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Catt Assails Pickets (1917).
Alice Paul, Why the Suffrage Struggle Must Continue (1917).
Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch, Resolutions Adopted at the Hague Conference (1915).

10. Post-Suffrage Trends and the Uneven Rate of Gender Change. U.S. Government, Survey of Employment Conditions: The Weaker Sex (1917).
* Mary G. Kilbreth, The New Anti-Feminist Campaign (1921).
Women Streetcar Conductors Fight Layoffs (1921).
Ann Martin, We Couldn't Afford a Doctor (1920).
The Farmer's Wife, The Labor Savers I Use (1923).
National Woman's Party, Declaration of Principles (1922).
*Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Speech Given at the Women's Interracial Conference.
Elisabeth Christman, What Do Working Women Say? (c. 1912).
* Eleanor Woodbridge, Petting and the Campus (1925).
Letter to Margaret Sanger (1928).

11. The Impact of the Depression and the New Deal. Meridel Le Sueur, Women on the Breadlines (1932).
Ruth Shallcross, Shall Married Women Work? (1936).
* Pinkie Pilcher writes to President Roosevelt (1936).
Ann Marie Low, Dust Bowl Diary (1934).
Louise Mitchell, Slave Markets in New York City (1940).
Mary McLeod Bethune, A Century of Progress of Negro Women (1933).
* Jessie Daniel Ames, Southern Women and Lynching (1936).
Eleanor Roosevelt, Letter to Walter White (1936).

12. World War II and Postwar Trends: Disruption, Domestic Restoration, and Civil Rights Protest. Richard Jefferson, African-American Women Factory Workers (1941).
Postwar Plans of Women Workers (1946).
* Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, Modern Women; The Lost Sex (1947).
* Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston from Farewell to Manzanar (1973).
* Loretta Collier, Interview: A Lesbian Remembers Her Korean War Military Service (1990).
Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955).
Anne Moody, The Movement (1963).
Betty Friedan, The Problem That Has No Name (1963).

13. Feminist Revival and Women's Liberation. National Organization for Women, Statement of Purpose (1966).
Redstockings Manifesto (1969).
Gloria Steinem, Statement to Congress (1970).
* Joyce Maynard, An Eighteeen-Year-Old Looks Back at Life (1972).
Rape, an Act of Terror (1971).
Chicana Demands (1972).
National Black Feminist Organization, Manifesto (1974).
Lesbian Feminist Organization, Constitution (1973).
National Organization for Women, General Resolutions on Lesbians and Gay Rights (1973).
* Kathy Campell et al, Women's Night at the Free Clinic (1972).

14. Contested Terrain: Change and Resistance. Roe v. Wade (1973).
Phyllis Schlafly, The Positive Woman (1977).
Letter from a Battered Wife (1983).
Gerda Lerner, A New Angle of Vision (1986).
Anita Hill, Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee (1991).
Susan Faludi, Backlash (1992).

15. Entering the Twenty-First Century: Elusive Equality and Gender Gap Issues. Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (1991).
Paula Kamen, Acquaintance Rape: Revolution and Reaction (1996).
Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (2000).
bell hooks, Feminist Theory, 2nd Edition (2000).
Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future (2000).
Concerned Women for America, Final Beijing +5 Battle Centers Around Abortion (2000).
Leila Ahmed, A Border Passage: From Cairo to America—A Woman's Journey (2000).
Kathleen Slayton, Gender Equity Gap in High Tech (2001).
Petra Mata, Interview: from Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, Sweatshop Warriors (2001).

Read also Federalism or Arrogant Capital

Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy (Research Navigator Edition)

Author: Diana M DiNitto

 

Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy, (Research Navigator Edition)

Sixth Edition

By:Diana M. DiNitto (University of Texas at Austin)

With Linda K. Cummins (Barry University)

 

Overview:

 

Social Welfare: Politics and Public Policy is a comprehensive and easy-to-understand introduction to the social welfare system and social welfare policy.

 

Now in a Research Navigator Edition, the text includes:

·        64 pages of additional material in the front matter, featuring a chapter-by-chapter update on various policy issues and legislation since November 2004

·        New exercises and activities for each chapter, asking students to think critically about some of the issues, or to do further research on them

·        An access code for Research Navigator on the inside front cover

 

Research Navigator™ is the easiest way for students to start a research assignment or research paper. Complete with extensive help on the research process and four exclusive databases of credible and reliable source material including the EBSCO Academic Journal and Abstract Database, New York Times Search by Subject Archive, “Best of the Web” Link Library, and Financial Times Article Archive and Company Financials, Research Navigator helps students quickly and efficiently make the most of their research time.

 

What Reviewers Are Saying:

 

“One of the positive strengths of this text is an emphasis on appropriate research and current trends in the area being discussed. In particular, the material on child support enforcement is some of the best that can be found. Given the reputation of the author as a top-notch researcher, this carries over and is evidenced in the text.”

--Stephen C. Anderson, Ph.D., The University of Oklahoma

 

“It is an excellent overview and introduction to this broad topic Social Welfare policy and programs, and provides essential basic information, as well as brief histories of the types of debates and controversies that have occurred in each of the various topic areas covered.”

--Carole Upshur, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts - Boston

 

 

 

[ ]

Smallholders Householders or Governance and Politics of China

Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture

Author: Robert McC Netting

“A magnificent work of scholarly synthesis. His book will long remain essential reading for all who claim an interest in debates about agrarian change.”—The Geographical Journal

Table of Contents:

	Tables and Figures
	Prologue: An Ethnological Essay in Practical Reason	1
1	The Technology and Knowledge of Intensive Farm Practices	28
2	The Farm-Family Household	58
3	Labor-Time Allocation	102
4	Energy Inputs, Outputs, and Sustainable Systems	123
5	Farm Size and Productivity	146
6	Smallholder Property and Tenure	157
7	Inequality, Stratification, and Polarization	189
8	Chinese Smallholders	232
9	Intensive Agriculture, Population Density, Markets, and the Smallholder Adaptation	261
10	Peasant Farming and the Chayanov Model	295
	Epilogue: Does the Smallholder Have a Future?	320
	References Cited	337
	Index	379

Interesting textbook: The Four Yogas or The Baby Boomer Body Book

Governance and Politics of China

Author: Anthony Saich

Over the past 20 years change in China has been breathtaking. Reform has affected every facet of life and has left no policy and institution untouched. Now available in a substantially revised second edition covering the changes of the Sixteenth Party Congress and Tenth National People's Congress and other recent developments this major text by a leading academic authority, who has also lived and worked in China, provides a thorough introduction to all aspects of politics and governance in post-Mao China.

The Age of Reagan or In Her Own Right

The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008

Author: Sean Wilentz

One of the nation's leading historians offers a groundbreaking and provocative chronicle of America's political history since the fall of Nixon.

The past thirty-five years have marked an era of conservatism. Although briefly interrupted in the late 1970s and temporarily reversed in the 1990s, a powerful surge from the right has dominated American politics and government. In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz accounts for how a conservative movement once deemed marginal managed to seize power and hold it, and the momentous consequences that followed.

Ronald Reagan has been the single most important political figure of this age. Without Reagan, the conservative movement would have never been as successful as it was. In his political persona as well as his policies, Reagan embodied a new fusion of deeply right-leaning politics with some of the rhetoric and even a bit of the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. In American political history there have been a few leading figures who, for better or worse, have placed their political stamp indelibly on their times. They include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt—and Ronald Reagan. A conservative hero in a conservative age, Reagan has been so admired by a minority of historians and so disliked by the others that it has been difficult to evaluate his administration with detachment. Drawing on numerous primary documents that have been neglected or only recently released to the public, as well as on emerging historical work, Wilentz offers invaluable revelations about conservatism'sascendancy and the era in which Reagan was the preeminent political figure.

Vivid, authoritative, and illuminating from start to finish, The Age of Reagan raises profound questions and opens passionate debate about our nation's recent past.

The Washington Post - Kevin Phillips

Wilentz deserves kudos for biting off a challenge that few historians would have dared to undertake. All too many U.S. political chronicles have been written by specialists who present events in four- or eight-year segments minimally encumbered by a larger economic, political or historical context. By contrast, Wilentz goes for sweep, and in a number of ways achieves it.

The New York Times - Douglas Brinkley

in The Age of Reagan—a smart and accessible overview of the long shadow cast by our 40th president—Wilentz largely abandons partisanship in favor of professionalism. Thus, the supposedly inflexible Reagan emerges here as the pragmatic statesman who greatly reduced the world's nuclear stockpiles…Undoubtedly, Reaganholics will carp that Wilentz has a selective memory (giving more ink to Iran-contra than Reagan's diplomacy with Margaret Thatcher), and progressives will denounce him for drinking Gipper-flavored Kool-Aid (equating Reagan with Franklin D. Roosevelt). But, in truth, the main thrust of Wilentz's thesis is fair-minded, with a slight center-left tilt.

Publishers Weekly

Distinguished Princeton historian Wilentz-winner of a Bancroft Prize for The Rise of American Democracy-makes an eloquent and compelling case for America's Right as the defining factor shaping the country's political history over the past 35 years.

Wilentz argues that the unproductive liberalism of the Carter years was a momentary pause in a general tidal surge toward a new politics of conservatism defined largely by the philosophy and style of Ronald Reagan. Even Bill Clinton, he shows, tacitly admitted the ascendance of many Reaganesque core values in the American mind by styling himself as a centrist "New Democrat" and moving himself and his party to the right.

Wilentz postulates Reagan as the perfect man at the ideal moment, not just ruling his eight years in the White House, but also casting a long shadow on all that followed (a shadow, one might add, still being felt in the Republican presidential campaign today). While examining in detail the low points of Reagan's presidency, from Iran-Contra to his initial belligerence toward the Soviet Union, Wilentz concludes in his superb account that Reagan must be considered one of the great presidents: he reshaped the geopolitical map of the world as well as the American judiciary and bureaucracy, and uplifted an American public disheartened by Vietnam and the grim Carter years. While much has been written by Reagan admirers, Wilentz says, "his achievement looks much more substantial than anything the Reagan mythmakers have said in his honor." 16 pages of b&w photos. (May)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Michael O. Eshleman Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information - School Library Journal

Why don't books have accurate titles? You'd think this one would be about the evident influence of the 43rd president, acknowledged by members of both parties as having wrought major change. Instead, Bancroft Prize winner Wilentz (history, Princeton Univ.; The Rise of American Democracy) presents an extended survey of the past 30 years of Washington politics, writing from left of center as a liberal Democrat. Thus, in his treatment of the 1980s, Reagan gets a lot of blame and none of the credit. Wilentz judges the scandals and accusations of Reagan's administration harshly but is dismissive of those of the Clinton administration. By his own admission, he conducted no interviews for this book on recent history, and he offers no new insights. Worse, he makes these decades boring, notwithstanding their being filled with the kinds of events and personalities that should make history appealing. The results are more like a textbook that dutifully covers all the bases. Only the extended critical bibliographic essay, surveying the vast literature of the period, makes it worth consideration by larger libraries. Richard Reeves's President Reagan: The Triumph of Imaginationis a first-rate, albeit more narrowly focused, alternative. [See Prepub Alert, LJ1/08.]

Kirkus Reviews

A distinguished center-left historian surveys U.S. politics over the past 35 years and pronounces Ronald Reagan, like it or not, the era's dominant figure. In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, the McGovernite Congress elected in 1974 appeared to restore liberalism to its accustomed place as the dominant force in American politics. In fact, the victory disguised years of Democratic Party confusion and intellectual decay. This, plus a growing network of conservative think tanks, institutes and media voices, and the feckless Ford and Carter presidencies, prepared the ground for conservatives to take over the Republican Party and then the country. The movement to shrink government, reduce taxes, reverse the country's moral decline, keep the military strong and fight communism found its perfect champion in the smiling personage of Reagan, who so transformed the terms of political debate that no successor has been able to conduct business without accounting for him. Wilentz (History/Princeton Univ.; Andrew Jackson, 2006, etc.) correctly calls for Reagan to be treated seriously by professional historians. He's wrong, though, to think his own political proclivities have not colored the analysis here. The author pays only grudging respect to Reaganism, tellingly defining it as a "distinctive blend of dogma, pragmatism, and, above all, mythology." He attributes Reagan's signal achievement-ending the Cold War without bloodshed-as much to Gorbachev. He treats the rest of the Reagan legacy-gutted regulatory agencies, regressive tax policies, politicized judiciary, polarized citizenry-as a set of indisputable, unfortunate facts that the Clinton interregnum barely disrupted. Wilentz declines to predictwhether Bush II will revise and extend conservatism's reach or spark a liberal resurgence. Still, the very fact that a historian of Wilentz's credentials and liberal disposition willingly deals seriously and at such length with Reagan means, in a Nixon-to-China sense, attention must be paid. An insightful analysis of the rise and reign of Reagan; a somewhat less successful explication of the meaning of Reaganism and its implications.

Books about: Essentiel de Direction

In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Author: Elisabeth Griffith

The first comprehensive, fully documented biography of the most important woman suffragist and feminist reformer in nineteenth-century America, In Her Own Right restores Elizabeth Cady Stanton to her true place in history. Griffith emphasizes the significance of role models and female friendships in Stanton's progress toward personal and political independence. In Her Own Right is, in the author's words, an "unabashedly 'great woman' biography."

Charles McGrath

....[W]armth and cantankerous humor come out strongly in this biography. -- The New York Times Books of the Century