Events Books

This collection of short stories is easy to read and never boring. It gives the reader a picture of life in China that is very different from the propaganda we get from the governments in China and in the United States. If anyone wants to know about a culture or a country, observing the bottom of society is much more enlightening and accurate than looking at the society from the top. I suspect that most of us, in China and the rest of the world, are much closer to the bottom of our societies than we are to the leaders of those societies. I thank the author for braving the wrath of his government to show us a glimpse of real life in the real China. It makes me think that the more different we appear to be, the more we are all the same.

I read this book after seeing a positive review in the Chicago Tribune and it did not disappoint. Each story of everyday Chinese citizens and their struggles was very memorable, touching and thought-provoking. As an American, I also found it very enlightening, and thought the stories were so important that I recommended the book to family and friends.

The Corpse Walker is the kind of book you will think about long after you've finished reading it!

The collection of stories in The Corpse Walker is comparable to the most fantastic of Jorge Luis Borges' fiction, except they are real. I always thought that China, as big as it is, must be home to some of the weirdest human stories in the planet. Add some fifty years of communist dictatorship to the mix and it is impossible that it wouldn't be. Now Liao Yiwu, the only Chinese among the 1.5 billion that I can truly say I would dig a whole all the way to China in order to meet, gives to the world a glimpse of what some of those stories are. Where else would corpse walking exist as a profession? Where else would they select choice human excrement for delivery to a commune, once visited by Chairman Mao, where it was used as fertilizer?

Throughout, you get a hint that Liao Yiwu did not stumble into the stories by accident. His wit and genius comes through loud and clear.

My only complaint is why only one volume? Why did Pantheon Books not publish the three volumes that are mentioned in the introduction?

On the strength of this book, I think Liao Yiwu deserves the Nobel Prize. Since there isn't one for muckraking, he should be given one for Medicine on the grounds that he helps keep the world sane.

I picked up this book after reading a review in the Financial Times. And I couldn't put it down. There is so much being written about China but nothing out there presents such a fascinating glimpse into the lives of ordinary people who are out of view in all the talk about the economic power.

This is the most enlightening book I've read as a lawmaker. Dr. Ganor pens an easy-to-understand account, not only of the obvious problems with terrorism, but those involving America's future decisions on how to lead without sacrificing US civil liberties.

EXCELLENT!

REP. BURKE DAY
Chairman
Public Safety & Homeland Security
Ga House of Representatives

This is the most thorough, cogent, and intelligently written work on terrorism and the ways to defeat it to grace the open literature in recent times. Unlike the more common offerings in this field, Ganor's work goes to great lengths to avoid or at least identify potential bias and to present opposing views. Nor does the author shy away from tough issues. Deterrence is one such topic. While noting that deterrence can be a matter of image (p. 63), he also recognizes the difference between deterring nations or terrorist organizations vs. deterring individuals or networks (p.64). He analyzes measures intended to deter terrorists, concluding that, ultimately, the attacker becomes used to a given measure and learns to live with it or overcome it (p.74). Yet he also addresses the complexities inherent in making public the thresholds set for deterrents (p.94).

Another example is his thoughtful note that public warnings should only be issued when accompanied by concrete guidelines to follow that are directly related to the warning (p. 260) -- a welcome contrast to the post-9/11 proliferation of nonspecific warnings that often give the appearance of emerging to offset future claims of failing to alert the public.

For clarity, analysis, and insight, Ganor's book is without peer.

Dr. Ganor is an expert on counter-terrorism from the country with the most experience in that area -- Israel. He has spent his life sturying counter-terrorism. This book is based on his doctoral discertation 'Israel's Counter-Terrorism Strategy.' It has been expanded to cover the world rather than just Israel.

Most of the book is presented in the form of dilemmas. For instance, is terrorism a crime such as murder where the individual who did it should be hunted down, tried, imprisoned, etc.? Or is it a form of warfare where the individual perpetrator is less important than the organization be it govermental or otherwise behind him? The answer to this question determines what investigative techniques can be used, what incarceration rules should be followed, how extradition agreements are applied (murderers can be extradited, political activists are not ).

All of these examples are just in the first chapter. There are ten chapters, each of which cover one area of dilemmas. Chapter 8, for instance covers the media. The terrorists understand and play for media attention. On the other (and darker) side, coverage of terrorists increases viewership or numbers of newspapers sold.

This book is the most complete, most thought-out comprehensive discussion on counter-terrorism that I have seen. Note my emphasis on counter-terrorism. This is a book on how to fight terrorism, it is not a book on terrorism per se.

Highly recommended. I hope our leaders read this.

Saw Mr. Ganor on C-Span - May 2005. His absolute (total mastery) of the suject of the (radical) Muslim terrorist movement mindset, and his analysis how to end this (complex, difficult, and long-range problem) ... is nothing short of brilliant !

Professor Marjorie Cohn provides a much needed review of the Bush administration's legal record - from launching a "preemptive" war on the basis of palpable falsehoods, to advocating and even practicing torture at Guantanamo and by proxy through "extraordinary renditions," to warrantless wiretaps and spying on Americans, to overreaching claims of executive power that ignore validly passed laws and upset the framers' careful balance of constitutional powers.

Professor Cohn's book shows how an administration that claims a high regard for democracy and the rule of law has in truth demonstrated a deep-seated contempt for both -- explaining why the rest of the world is so fast losing faith in America and her ideals.

Professor Cohn's book should help Americans to come to terms with the harm that the Bush administration has done so far. And that, I believe, is a critical step to restoring our national decency and honor.

Eric Alan Isaacson

Daniel Ellsberg likes this book and so do I. Geoffrey Stone, foremost constitutional scholar, likes this book, and so do I.

It is a scholarly and complete exposition of a vital subject, the ruination of our country both inside and outside. Ms. Cohn skillfully describes the Bush-led hollowing-out of our former constitutional liberties coupled with a catastrophic war. Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild, an organization of lawyers who value human rights over property rights, uses the analytical abilities of a skilled lawyer and law professor to point the way out of the mess.

Ms. Cohn's writing makes you want to read on and on, and lay all other things aside until the book is read. How many books of any kind do that to you?

Marjorie Cohn, a law professor from San Diego and the head of the National Lawyers Guild, lays out the evidence in a scathing indictment of the current president and his administration. Professor Cohn explains step by step so that anyone, with or without a legal background can understand just exactly what is happening to our country. She explains how the president and his minions lied to the American people to "sell" the war in Iraq, how the executive sanctions torture and murder, how our civil liberties are being threatened and actually taken away and most importantly, in my mind, how the president refuses to enforce the laws he disagrees with and sets himself up as a constitutional scholar interpreting the law to decide which laws are constitutional and which are not. This is a usurpation of power that is unprecedented in this country and is startling in the fact that Congress has become complicit in this "crime." The president has refused to enforce more than 750 laws acording to one article cited by Professor Cohn, by using signing statements in approving laws he objects to rather than simply vetoing them. These statements have been used by other Presidents to explain how the law in question will benefit the American people but in Bush's hands they are used interpret Congress's intent, a violation of the separation of powers, among other problems. Please read this book. Nothing could be more important, regardless of your political affiliation.

What a well-reasoned legal analysis of Bush administration actions and policies. This administration is tried and found guilty. If you're looking for talking points to refute right-wing friends or talking heads, this book argues them for you in clear convincing language.

This remains one of the best books on Gay Civil Rights, even though it was written over a decade ago - and much indeed has transpired since. The authors place the question of equal rights for GLBT persons in the broader spectrum of American Civil Rights. Consequently, the book and the arguments set forth so cogently therein retain vitality, even though it was written well before Lawrence v. Texas was decided.

I think that this book is a must for anyone writing a paper on Homosexuality, Homophobia, or Gay Rights. The authors do an excellent job at debuking many stereotypes found it America. They are obviously extremely emotionally involved in the struggle for gay rights and they display their emotion excessively in this book. Maybe even to a point of indulgence, but it still is greatly helpful, so 4 Stars.

I am so happy to have found this book. The authors have done an outstanding job of presenting and explaining the issues of Gay rights versus special rights. This book does a great service to people who are interested in understanding why the U.S government and Fundamentalist right are so opposed to extending civil liberties to all citizens. Very concise and thought provoking. I loved it! Thanks to the authors for finally explaining the real issues behind gay equality.

This is one of the most thought-provoking books on any "morality" subject that I have ever read. The authors are very clear in explaining the difference between 'special' vs. 'equal' rights. It is unfortunate that the audience for this book will be almost exclusively gay. It is one that EVERYONE should read.

If you buy it, pass it on to a friend. If you have straight friends, buy them a copy, ask them to read it, and tell you what they think. After all, it's not that expensive, and maybe they'll even understand you better!

Compiled in part as a rebuttal to those who see the future through a dystopian lens (i.e. Orwell and company), Ogilvy offers this book as a refusal to accept either the notion that we are a doomed people, or that we must settle for "good enough" in contemplating progress and the future. He offers scenario building as the premiere tool for creating multiple, multicultural futures, based upon a "relational worldview". In doing so, Ogilvy tackles positivism and relativism, values and ethics, and the importance of true pluralism to creating better futures.

Ogilvy is well equipped for the task. With a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University, he has taught at that venerable institution, as well as at the University of Texas, and Williams College. He has been interested in the relationships between human values and consumer societies, and headed the "Values and Lifestyles" research project at the think tank, SRI International (formerly known as Stanford Research Institute). He worked in scenario building with Peter Schwartz for Royal Dutch/Shell, and later co-founded Global Business Network (GBN) with Schwartz and others. At GBN, he specializes in corporate scenario planning and research on futures in business environments. He has also authored, Living Without a Goal (1994), China's Futures (with Peter Schwartz - 2000), and Many Dimensional Man (1977), as well as numerous other publications through SRI.

Ogilvy fleshes out his relational worldview in the first part of the book, where he traces the move from mysticism to rationalism, and the evolving recognition of the inter-relatedness of the world today. Emphasizing the growth of elaborate networks of information and obviously competing visions of the future, Ogilvy constructs an extremely useful framework for beginning to consider potential futures in the world at large. He considers changing relations in religion, politics, and economics, in the struggle between individual and collectivist posturing and power, and weaves together multiple, shifting disciplinary views in the human sciences, and interprets these into a new view of the world that avoids the excesses of zealots and nihilists alike.

Ogilvy takes a chapter to discuss the application of particular features of this new world to normative scenario building. Recognizing the philosophical shift from things to symbols, the growing emphasis on relationships, the shift to narration from explanation, and the questionability of "timeless norms", Ogilvy cautions against wholesale subjective relativism, and instead holds out the possibility of what he calls the democratization of meaning, and paths towards ethical pluralism, that strives to unite the normal, or what exists, with the normative, what ought to be. In this model, ambiguity is always present, and the potential for multiple interpretations is rife - and a source of welcome creativity. Likewise, the idea of heterarchy, a sort of hyperlinkish anti-hierarchy, creates opportunities for multiplicity as well. Rather than trying to devise the One True Path based on immutable "laws" of nature, multiple paths are carved out that represent the shared hopes and dreams of community and communities.

By Part Four, entitled New Rules, New Tools, it is quite obvious how scenario building works hand in hand with the relational worldview and ethical pluralism Ogilvy has discussed. The rest of the book is devoted to the use of the scenario building tool, with examples of scenario building in action in first an educational context, and then a healthcare context. He closes by reiterating why even thinking about one best future is no more possible that thinking about one best way of being human, and encourages the visualization of a "rich ecology of species in the gardens of the sublime."

The strengths of this book are many; it is an extremely enjoyable read, with just enough additional sources to round it up to a "scholarly" tome. In the best scenario building tradition, the thesis of the book is cohesive and plausible, and is an especially refreshing departure from much of the scenario building literature, that too frequently focuses on business applications and barely questioned assumptions defined by buzzwords. Ogilvy stresses the need for passion and pluralism to co-exist, reminds us of the true potential of communal/social creativity, and suggests the possibility of exhilaration in imaginations unfettered. Creating Better Futures is aptly named, and offers an "Etch-a-Sketch" blueprint to be used over and over to do just that.

Compiled in part as a rebuttal to those who see the future through a dystopian lens (i.e. Orwell and company), Ogilvy offers this book as a refusal to accept either the notion that we are a doomed people, or that we must settle for "good enough" in contemplating progress and the future. He offers scenario building as the premiere tool for creating multiple, multicultural futures, based upon a "relational worldview". In doing so, Ogilvy tackles positivism and relativism, values and ethics, and the importance of true pluralism to creating better futures.

Ogilvy is well equipped for the task. With a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University, he has taught at that venerable institution, as well as at the University of Texas, and Williams College. He has been interested in the relationships between human values and consumer societies, and headed the "Values and Lifestyles" research project at the think tank, SRI International (formerly known as Stanford Research Institute). He worked in scenario building with Peter Schwartz for Royal Dutch/Shell, and later co-founded Global Business Network (GBN) with Schwartz and others. At GBN, he specializes in corporate scenario planning and research on futures in business environments. He has also authored, Living Without a Goal (1994), China's Futures (with Peter Schwartz - 2000), and Many Dimensional Man (1977), as well as numerous other publications through SRI.

Ogilvy fleshes out his relational worldview in the first part of the book, where he traces the move from mysticism to rationalism, and the evolving recognition of the inter-relatedness of the world today. Emphasizing the growth of elaborate networks of information and obviously competing visions of the future, Ogilvy constructs an extremely useful framework for beginning to consider potential futures in the world at large. He considers changing relations in religion, politics, and economics, in the struggle between individual and collectivist posturing and power, and weaves together multiple, shifting disciplinary views in the human sciences, and interprets these into a new view of the world that avoids the excesses of zealots and nihilists alike.

Ogilvy takes a chapter to discuss the application of particular features of this new world to normative scenario building. Recognizing the philosophical shift from things to symbols, the growing emphasis on relationships, the shift to narration from explanation, and the questionability of "timeless norms", Ogilvy cautions against wholesale subjective relativism, and instead holds out the possibility of what he calls the democratization of meaning, and paths towards ethical pluralism, that strives to unite the normal, or what exists, with the normative, what ought to be. In this model, ambiguity is always present, and the potential for multiple interpretations is rife - and a source of welcome creativity. Likewise, the idea of heterarchy, a sort of hyperlinkish anti-hierarchy, creates opportunities for multiplicity as well. Rather than trying to devise the One True Path based on immutable "laws" of nature, multiple paths are carved out that represent the shared hopes and dreams of community and communities.

By Part Four, entitled New Rules, New Tools, it is quite obvious how scenario building works hand in hand with the relational worldview and ethical pluralism Ogilvy has discussed. The rest of the book is devoted to the use of the scenario building tool, with examples of scenario building in action in first an educational context, and then a healthcare context. He closes by reiterating why even thinking about one best future is no more possible that thinking about one best way of being human, and encourages the visualization of a "rich ecology of species in the gardens of the sublime."

The strengths of this book are many; it is an extremely enjoyable read, with just enough additional sources to round it up to a "scholarly" tome. In the best scenario building tradition, the thesis of the book is cohesive and plausible, and is an especially refreshing departure from much of the scenario building literature, that too frequently focuses on business applications and barely questioned assumptions defined by buzzwords. Ogilvy stresses the need for passion and pluralism to co-exist, reminds us of the true potential of communal/social creativity, and suggests the possibility of exhilaration in imaginations unfettered. Creating Better Futures is aptly named, and offers an "Etch-a-Sketch" blueprint to be used over and over to do just that.

How do we achieve our futures? Is our future predetermined? How much of our future can we extrapolate from our past and our present? These are questions which James Ogilvy addresses in this book.

Ogilvy has an impressive background in both academia and the business world. Before co-founding the Global Business Network, he was a Professor of Philosophy at Yale and Williams, and a social researcher with the Stanford Research Institute (Values and Lifestyles Program). In Creating Better Futures he draws on all his experiences in these fields to outline what he sees as an emerging paradigm of how we view and shape society. This paradigm he calls the 'relational worldview': a view of the world which highlights relationships and interdependencies across and in spite of differences.
Ogilvy devotes a large part of the book to outlining his worldview - he identifies social structures which were dominant in the past & explains why they are no longer sufficient to provide us with the futures we want. Then he relates his argument for a new world view to shifts he sees in other social sciences, namely anthropology and literary criticism: the shift from objectivity to subjectivity, from things to symbols and relationships, from determinism to ambiguity and the existence of many different but equal possibilities which arise from meanings created and shared by and within groups.

Ogilvy points out that we already have at hand the essentials for creating a better tomorrow; the three key elements of players, values and tools we need are easily identified once we look at the world through the new paradigm of the relational worldview. He rejects the Religious Institutions of past eras, and the Governments and Marketplace of the modern era, as major players in future society. Placing individualist and collective societies at two opposite ends of the same spectrum of social organization, he identifies individuals within communities as the new actors in making decisions.

Similarly, the social values of this new paradigm are not found in the absolutism or determinism of religion, or the scientific objectivity of modernism. Nor are they found in the subjective relativism of postmodernism. Rather, values are found in the ethical pluralism of interrelated communities - an ongoing process whereby communities share their hopes and negotiate meanings as they try to get along with each other.

Recognizing that in an increasingly interdependent world there are a multiplicity of religions, races, standards, norms and values, Ogilvy's worldview identifies scenario-building as the tool best suited for creating better futures. Scenario-building is a process which provides a venue for a individuals and groups within a community to assess, articulate and negotiate its hopes and values for a better future. In the final chapters of the book Ogilvy gives a brief outline and some illustrations of the practice of scenario planning.

This is stimulating, though not easy, book to read. Adopting a new perspective is always challenging, and Ogilvy has included a lot of abstract philosophical, sociological and literary theories as he builds his case for a new worldview. However I chose this book because I wanted to read more than another "How to .." book - I wanted a book that would situate the technique of scenario-building in a wider social and global context. Ogilvy's well-considered paradigm provides a very good starting-point for us to contemplate as we try to negotiate our shrinking and increasingly interdependent world.

Jay Ogilvy begins this book by observing that "There is nothing inevitable about better futures. We have to create them." This is a powerful early statement of his approach toward the yet-to-be, which repudiates a singular and predictive mode of knowing. That is, he argues, we co-author the future through our actions, and we must take responsibility for that process. The burden of the book is to explain how and why we can coherently do so.

So although it may seem at first to be a methodological work, this is more of a philosophical meditation on what lies behind the scenario planning methodology; an exposition of the worldview which informs and makes scenaric thinking, especially normative scenarios, viable. For detail on how to actually do scenario planning, we are referred to previous, more manual-like works by such authors as Kees van der Heijden and Peter Schwartz. Ogilvy's focus is different, and he shows how scenarios provide the catalyst for a conversation among communities about what they want to become. Rather than holding the perils of judgment or moral commitment at arm's length, then, as much academic work modeled on supposedly "hard" science wants to do, in this arena he argues for its importance. "World-weary pessimism seems so much more intellectually respectable than even the most educated hope. However, I would argue...that the fashionable face of all-knowing despair is finally immoral. Granted, the bubble-headed optimism of Pangloss and Polyanna are equally immoral. A refusal to look at poverty or oppression can contribute to their perpetuation; but so can a cynical commitment to their inevitability."

Ogilvy takes it upon himself to show how the practice of normative scenario planning anticipates a paradigm shift currently occurring in the "human sciences", by embracing an interpretive, relational, ethically pluralistic - but not shallowly relativistic - worldview. He situates this thinking in the broad currents of contemporary thought by reference to literary criticism, anthropology, psychology, sociology and other disciplines. Rather than claiming entirely original scholarship, then, here he joins "familiar dots in relatively unfamiliar ways". The book ranges across a vast and various intellectual territory in search of a sound basis for normative futures work. In my view he finds it, and presents it, extremely well. For example, he suggests an intriguing parallel between the trajectory of literary criticism and that of studying the future. In interpretation, the tendency has gradually shifted from an original emphasis on the author's intentions, to the text itself, and finally to the role of the reader in constructing her own meaning. Similarly, studying the future was long conceived as an attempt to reveal "God's intentions", after which it became mainly a scientific attempt to trace the story etched in the patterns of history, or reality itself; and finally it has emerged as a matter of creating worlds and meanings for our own purposes. (Rather than being merely "readers" of the world, though, we can now see ourselves of the authors of our own story, thereby closing the interpretive loop.)

This philosophical approach may sound specialized, but in fact it reads as a startlingly clarifying and accessible portrait of the best practice in thinking about possible futures; things that haven't happened yet. Rather than writing an instructional guide to scenario planning he takes the trouble to explain how and why the worldview underpinning this strategy makes sense, and how the whole philosophical current of the West of our age is tending in this direction. It is therefore suitable and relevant to a far broader possible audience. Ogilvy's philosophy experience allows him to understand complex writers and thinkers, but his business background has forced him to avoid the communicative obscurantism that accompanies them. He wants to use the ideas, but extracts these from their ugly and intimidating packaging for use in a purer and more potent form. He navigates us through the dilemma of relativism (anything goes) vs absolutism (My Way, My Tradition...) and comes out with a relational worldview and an endorsement of pluralist ethics.

Ogilvy describes the book as an "odd mix of philosophy and consulting". The book is indeed a rare hybrid, like its author, part-academic and part-consultant. And it may equally puzzle purist philosophers and dedicated profiteers. However, for anyone interested in being able to bridge the thought-worlds of academia and business (or thought and action; principles and profits), this combination is not only refreshing to read, it's a definite strength. Ogilvy has had a chance to "test in the marketplace" the ideas he picked up in philosophy, and the test has made them stronger. So, an odd mix it may be, but it's one pulled off so persuasively and elegantly that the book warrants the close attention of not only those already concerned with futures studies, but more broadly, anyone concerned about how quality thinking about the future ought to look. In this respect I am reminded of The Ecology of Commerce, by Paul Hawken, a former colleague of Ogilvy. (They were two thirds of the team that wrote Seven Tomorrows, an early scenarios book; the third musketeer was fellow GBN Peter Schwartz, who provides a brief but helpful foreword in this volume.)

Overall this is an excellent, erudite and very well written contribution to the thinking behind scenario planning, and is highly recommended to those in search of a comprehensive, theoretically informed account of that methodology, or indeed a broader sense of the importance and value of a normative orientation in discussing possible futures in any community.

Mark Moore postulates creating public value as a mode of practical reasoning and an alternative way of conceiving of the public policy challenge in relation with the public administrative enterprise. Moore offers a notion of strategic management in government as a way of linking the traditional study of ends in public policy with the traditional study of means in public administration. Moore postulates a strategic triangle, arguing that a useful conception of public value can be envisioned by managers if they integrate (1) substantive judgments of what would be valuable and effective (2) a diagnosis of political expectations (and legal parameters) and (3) hard-headed calculations of what is operationally feasible. The text articulates ways of thinking about and enacting public value in government, considers approaches and techniques for managing upwards toward politics and downwards toward organizational operations in relation to a wide variety of case studies, and concludes with a consideration of what consciousness or temperament is required of public managers if they are to be successful in managing, effectively and democratically.

The text is exceptionally well-written and is equally accessible to undergraduate students, graduate students, and practitioners. It remains a fundamental resource and an invaluable key to new ways of thinking for policy makers and administrators today.

This book is an excellent source for practising public managers and academics and students who interest in public administration. As time passed, people, their representatives and public managers change or need to change their paragigms. Moore indicates the reason why public organizations must change. Organizational posture and position always must be in accordance with external environment. From the perspective of Moore, public managers must move away from the technicians that work to realize the goals imposed by elected officials with the maximum efficiency to the strategists that analyze the environment and find new ways for creating more value for people. This does not mean bureaucrats are completely free and can think and do whatever they desire. We know this situation points to the demolishing of the democracy. But Moore stresses that public officials must be made accountable for the results and all the time they must be oversighted by citizens, representatives, press, interest groups and public at large. This book is not a How-to-do guide. But we can adapt the principles proposed to the unique circumstances of our organizations.

This book is an excellent source for practising public managers and academics and students who interest in public administration. As time passed, people, their representatives and public managers change or need to change their paradigms. Moore indicates the reason why public organizations must change. Organizational posture and position always must be in accordance with external environment. From the perspective of Moore, public managers must move away from the technicians that work to realize the goals imposed by elected officials with the maximum efficiency to the strategists that analyze the environment and find new ways for creating more value for people. This does not mean bureaucrats are completely free and can think and do whatever they desire. We know this situation points to the demolishing of the democracy. But Moore stresses that public officials must be made accountable for the results and all the time they must be oversighted by citizens, representatives, press, interest groups and public at large. This book is not a How-to-do guide. But we can adapt the principles proposed to the unique circumstances of our organizations.

An excellent overview of the public manager as a creator of value. Moore does an excellent job drawing parellels to the private sector to illustrate how public managers need to address the needs of their consumers by creating value. The only downside of the text is the high level style of the writing, which sometimes makes it difficult to follow.

This book provides a very thorough, yet practical explanation of social security in an easy to read format. This is a great guide for almost anyone wanting a better understanding of not only how the program works, but how it will work for them as an individual participant.
However--as the author mentions--it should not be viewed as a technical reference for financial professionals.

OK, I'm the author and I'm biased. But the other Social Security books out there still seem to be either very poor-quality consumer guides (out of date, inaccurate, or jargon), or the "Social Security is a rip-off and it will crash in a few years" type. My guiding principles in creating this book: --accuracy (gained from many years working at SSA), --plain English, and --lots of concrete examples. There are a few areas where the book has become obsolete: --All the payment figures have increased with inflation. --The 1.45% payroll tax on Medicare no longer has an an earnings cap--it applies to all earnings, no matter how high. --The amount of Social Security benefits included in your taxable income has increased from 50% to 85% for high- income retirees. Otherwise the book is still current. (OK, it's time for a new edition, which I'll complete one of these days!) I invite readers to contact me with individual questions or comments. Happy reading!

I'm a retired Soc. Sec. claims rep and I rate this book as the best explanation of Social Security benefits I've ever seen. The writer's style is great and he has a nice, friendly approach. It's not an easy subject, but he explains things in a simple, understandable fashion.

Mr. Landis has succeeded in making a very complicated subject comprehensible to the average reader. All my questions about how the system works were answered. I appreciated the fact that Mr. Landis was employed by the Social Security Administration for many years and was able to give an insider's account of procedures and benefits. Many thanks for this very helpful book!

Many thanks to Dr. Levy and Dr. Orlans for producing an outstanding user-friendly book. This is an essential tool for anyone who is a foster or adoptive parent and for professionals working with children and families involved in the Child Welfare system. The book begins by describing the core concepts of child development and attachment, the three pillars of assessment, attachment patterns, and traits and symptoms of a compromised attachment. The book then goes on to describe how parents can become "healing parents" by getting to know themselves in order to create a healing environment where wounded children can learn to trust. The book provides the basic practices of Corrective Attachment Parenting and how the practical skills and strategies caregivers use can lead to positive change in your child and family. I highly recommend this book to the families I am working with.

This book is pack full of information. I enjoyed it very much. It explains alot of the behaviors and helps to not take anything personally. Overall it is very long but worth the read and to keep for reference. I highly recommend it.

As an adoptive parent, adoption professional, trainer and author, I found Healing Parents to be one of the most practical and insightful books curently available to deal with traumatized children. The book's readability and practical use will benefit both professionals and parents dealing with the hearts and minds of traumatized children. I now recommend it in all my workshops.

Jayne Schooler
International adoption educator

Written by therapists, teachers, consultants and researchers Michael Orlans and Terry M. Levy, Healing Parents: Helping Wounded Children Learn to Trust & Love is a guide written to give parents and caregivers the information, tools, support, and positive outlook they need to help emotionally wounded children heal and improve themselves behaviorally, socially, and morally. Chapters discuss the core phenomena of attachment - the deep connection that children and parents or caregivers establish early in life - the importance of knowing both one's child and oneself, basic principles of corrective attachment parenting, attachment issues in an adoptive or foster care family, and much more. "You cannot change others - not your spouse, children, parents, other family members, friends, coworkers or employer. You can influence others and create opportunities for others to change, via your attitudes, actions, and reactions. By creating a healing environment you can have a positive impact on your child, resulting in learning, growth, and motivation to succeed." Highly recommended especially for parents or caretakers of any type raising a child who has suffered trauma or deprivation.

From the first sentence, introducing Cardinal Justin Kennedy, to the very last sentence, tying the entire plot together with seven little words, one is kept awake, stimulated, and living through the magic of this author's skills. Author's like Dr. Shaffer should be sent to Oslo, and given the highest honors.

And to think by chance I received a free copy of his book.

Henry Anthony Ebarb, Doctoral Student, Prescott, Arizona

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

The Cross by Gene Shaffer is a well crafted novel of the escalating contempt held for an American Cardinal as his interpretation of a two-thousand-year-old inscription as the missing final verses from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Mark. As the Cardinal's election and coronation as Pope approaches, his discovery results in a political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Catholic church, The Cross leads its readers through a story of murder, divisions of loyalty, terrorism, suicide and scandal. An "instant classic" and sure to be timeless tale, The Cross is very highly recommended reading.

Cuba And The Coming American Revolution by author and political activist Jack Barnes, is a provocative and forcefully worded examination of the history and the future of American and Cuban politics. Ranging from the utter disaster that was the Bay of Pigs to predicting a socialist revolution in American policy and a counterrevolution in Cuba, this is an informed and informative account of class struggle. Barnes especially underscores the ways in which the American working class has been steamrolled and the consequent incentives that call for change. Cuba And The Coming American Revolution is a thought-provoking look at where two nations mights well be headed and a very welcome contribution to Cuban History and Socialist Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Jack Barnes, the author of this boook, points out: "The greatest obstacle to the line of march of the toilers is the tendency, perpetuated by the exploiting classes, for working people to underestimate ourselves, to underestimate what we can accomplish, to doubt our own worth." This book proves that like the Cubans the working class in the United States has the capacity to win political power. Barnes explains how after a visit to Cuba in 1960 he and other student activists defended Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion. They stood up to both campus administrators and right-wing thugs and won the the right not only to speak out but to become the makers of history, like the Cubans. Barnes explains how the Cubans as a people demonstrated remarkable courage and determination in standing up to an imperialist terror campaign, arms in hand, while continueing their revolutionary work, which included a literacy campaign the likes of which has not been seen before or since. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A BOLD SOCIAL VISION, I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOU! While amazon may list this book as not available from time to time, it is always available from the Pathfinder z store listed under "new and used" at the top of the page.

If you think, or rather I should say believe, that the "market" is the best of all possible systems, this the best of all possible countries, in the best of all possible worlds, then this is not the book for you.But if you are serious about doing something effective about meaningful social change in the "new millenium", then you owe it to yourself to buy this book.The author begins with the efforts of a small band of young people at a small Midwestern college to oppose the Yankee empire's efforts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and during the "Missile Crisis" in 1962. He shows you how and why the Cuban people then, and still today, were willing to fight and die to defend their nation and revolution, and how those everyday ordinary working people changed themselves into better humans in the process.He then explains that the only way to rid the earth of war, racism, discrimination against women, enviromental catastrophe,etc., is to do what the Cubans did, here in the "belly of the beast" --make a revolution. The alternative, he affirms, is fascism and a new world war. Finally he points to a concrete program to unify working people here and now,at home and abroad, necessary to fight back against the economic catastrophe looming before us to anyone with eyes to see.

If you are serious about making a human world, buy this book ! And pass it on to others.

While these books may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.

The Cuban revolution and especially the resistance and defeat of the US mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs is the starting point of this book. The author and tbe book's editor Mary Alice Waters were students at Carlton College in Minnesota in the early 1960s. This discuss how the Cuban revolution, and building a student movement to fight for the truth about that revolution radicalize them and other students, and the lessons they learned building a movement to defend Cuba during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Barnes extends this at the end to a discussion of a program for working people in the 21 Century accurately evaluating Bush and Gore as the same poison. He provides real a real program against both liberal and conservative probusiness politics. What I love about this book is the stream of history: the fighters of Cuba, the students and Black activists who defended the revolution, and going forward to fight for socialist in this world in the 21st Century.

While these books may not be directly available from Amazon at times, they are available from the booksfrompathfinder on Amazon that you can find by clicking on the new and used books on this page.