Events Books

A thought-provoking read about a truly remarkable life. I found The Frank Conspiracy absorbing, touching and shocking. Not all glamour and excitement, a spy's existence is dangerous and lonely. A tremendous book.

I couldn't put this book down. Powerful, poignant, vivid, evocative, ultimately inspiring. Every woman and man will gain a deeper understanding to the meaning of life when they read this captivating book. There's nothing else like it on the market, it really is unique. I recommend you read it before they make the movie. Not just spies, its about one woman's fight against injustice, its about love and death, its about thrills and spills, its about religion and politics, its about everything important. This book is my bible, its so sparky and compelling I've read it again and again.

Spy Olivia Frank battles against injustice to expose a shocking British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) plot to assassinate the life of a well-known multi-millionaire who was forced into exile from the United Kingdom. A real eyeopener it lifts the lid on a despicable scandal to dupe the public. A true story it was filmed by UK television investigator Roger Cook's The Cook Report, too hot to transmit so buy it before they ban it!

A real eye-opener, exciting, moving, ultimately inspiring. A book for everyone, it uncovers the cloak and dagger world of spies and reveals the hardships encountered by a genuine spy. I found myself unable to put this down and told all my friends they must read it too. An extraordinary story about real people. find out what's going on.

Freedom next time is an excellent read. Thought provoking and puts new light on the crimes of the west on developing countries. John Pilger narrates a harrowing tale of betrayal and deceit with well-sourced interviews on both sides of a myriad of important injustices that currently plague our world. He starts with the little known plight of the Chaogisans: a people who were evicted from their Island at the same time as the Falklands war. This was because the British government `sold' it for a discount on a Nuclear Trident submarine and the 2500 people forgotten and ignored. The US consequently turned the Island paradise into one of their largest overseas bases from which they would later launch air attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pilger then discusses the increasing stratification of society in India, reveals the true results of the end of apartheid in South Africa. He gains access to many influential parties involved in the current genocide of Palestine by Israel and exposes the barbarism of Governments, the complicity of the media in suppressing the true nature of how the Palestinians are being treated.

This is an excellent companion to Naoim Kleins, `Shock Doctrine' which goes into more detail into the involvement of the IMF, world bank, corporations and military industrial complex in many of the same issues that Pilger discusses from the human contact and investigative journalism he has undertaken.

Essential reading.

Many of the interviews from this book can be seen in a series of BBC documentaries available by searching google video.

This book gets to the very heart of the way injustice is perpetrated in the world. In the best traditions of investigative journalism, Pilger examines in depth a number of ongoing situations in the world involving exploitation and injustice. The first of these relates to the plight group of islanders evicted from their Chagos island home using blatant deceit and brute force and given so little compensation that they were consigned to a life of penury in Mauritius. Why? So the British could give their American allies an island paradise as a new military base. The fact that most of us have never even heard of the Chagos islanders demonstrates the complicity of the world media in selectively reporting the news we often naively assume to have at least a modicum of impartiality.

The true shock of the book comes with the following chapters, however, where we are systematically shown the perspectives of those who have suffered most in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Afghanistan and since the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Did you think the average black South African has more opportunities to get ahead since the end of apartheid? or that the average Afghan woman is much better off since the ousting of the Taliban? I did - but completely erroneously as it turns out.

Pilger combines a concise summary of the facts with vivid snapshots of the situation on the ground in each location. He gives us excerpts from interviews with the victims that allow the reader to get a very personal perspective and juxtaposes these with excerpts from interviews with those responsible for the decisions that brought about the suffering. The combination is powerful and enlightening.

If I were to criticize the book it would be to say firstly that the chapter in India does not have the depth of the other chapters and adds little to the book. Secondly, Pilger very occasionally commits the same sin of telling only part of the truth that he accuses other journalists of. For example, he relates that the US has intervened 72 times in the affairs of other nations, including the overthrow of democratically elected social democracies such as in Guatemala, Brazil, Iran and Chile. I doubt that some of those governments would really have qualified as having been democratically elected by the standards that Pilger himself would apply to democracy. To be fair, this is a rare occurrence in the book and does not in any way detract from the substance of what Pilger has to say.

"This book is about empire". With this opening eye-grabber, John Pilger has once again risen above the mundane pattern of today's "mainstream" journalism. The book is an account of how the US is forging its global empire, aided and abetted by such allies as Great Britain and Israel. And that's not counting the client rulers of nations like Afghanistan and South Africa. The edifice is "global capitalism" supported by buttresses of military might and bearing giant billboards displaying the shibboleths "freedom" and "democratic ideals". With scathing revelations delivered with strictly expressive prose, Pilger relates his findings with almost surgical precision.

He structures the book around five nations. The first, even after all these years, is likely to be beyond many reader's ken. It is a little island group in the Indian Ocean - the Chagos Islands. Inhabited for generations by the descendents of former slaves, they were summarily and illegally deported from their home to make way for a massive US Air Force base. The base provides a launching site for long distance bombers to reach anywhere in Asia. Two thousand people - those that haven't died from "sadness" have pursured a legal challenge to be returned to their home. The High Court of Britain has accepted their plea, but under US pressure, says Pilger, the British have ignored the ruling.

From the Indian Ocean, Pilger travels to Palestine, one of "freedom's" most shocking contradictions. Displaced from their ancient homelands, thousands of Palestinians were herded into grubby refugee camps. Those that weren't slaughtered by the invaders at the beginning of the occupation, that is. Pilger describes Israeli racist policies and their implementation, killing children, usurping land and water supplies and blockading the population from medical care. Israelis, he notes, often refer to their de facto prisoners in dismissive terms, allowing the Israeli army to invade and crush homes and farms. Orchards, a major agricultural factor in the Palestinian community, seem to be particular targets. Pilger explains how the US has built up Israel's military to the point where it is the world's third most powerful. Its major task is to keep Palestinian freedom in check, as well as smashing the economic base of a people with no state and no means of protecting themselves. Is it any wonder, he asks, that acts of desperation have resulted.

Pilger makes a rather swift pass through India to describe how "global capitalism" has intensified the separation between rich and poor. A few urban centres maintain a facade of prosperity, securely enclosed within well-protected facilities. From these sites, Indians who have transformed themselves into IT "help desk" call centres, provide "support" for US workers unfamiliar with their office computers. Outside those high-tech enclaves, much of the remaining population suffers in grinding poverty. The "democratic" promise of Ghandi's struggle has been overthrown by leaders eager to follow what they deem the US model of "free enterprise". The process has economically divided the nation worse than it ever was under the Raj.

The last two segments of Pilger's account vividly demonstrate the dual primary thrusts of empire - economic and military. South Africa, suffering for half a century under the truncheon of apartheid, emerged with a grand promise of freedom under Nelson Mandela. Finally freed after a generation within the walls of Robben Island prison, he exemplified what a crusader for freedom could achieve. The achievement proved hollow as Pilger graphically describes the Truth and Reconciliation hearings he attended. Police and army thugs, whose ranks reached to the highest level went free, absolved from punishment. Worse, none of the victims of their brutality received a jot of compensation. Far worse, was the selling out of South Africa's resources to the new wave of foreign investors from the UK and US. Part of the investment deal left any regulations about miner's safety in limbo or worse. Another part was the granting of mineral rights on any parcel of land the firms chose. Displacement of the population by uncaring capitalists remains an ongoing process, Pilger declares.

Finally, the military arm of imperialism exhibits the most glaring hypocrisies in Afghanistan. Pilger recounts the sordid history of British rule, Soviet invasion and, finally, the US vengence against innocent people for the World Trade Centre attacks. It makes gut-wrenching reading. Villages, single homes and people in the open have been attacked by high-speed bombers and helicopters. Once airily described as eliminating "terrorists", now the handing over of power to war-lords, has demonstrated to Afghanis who the real "terrorists" are. Confronting US officials with the fact that three times the number of those killed on 9/11, Pilger was simply dismissed by those who didn't want to hear the statistics. Yet, the numbers and policies are damning, but the US public remains generally unaware of how many have died - indirectly killed by taxpayers, Pilger reminds us.

This is a book that can stir people to anger. Pilger may not wish his readers to be angry, but he wants them to be informed. If you can close this book without feeling shame, then you are lucky. Or perhaps you should return to the first page and read it again. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This text was a difficult if not an extremely painful read. Man's inhumanity to man expressed in this book truly goes beyond the pale. We have entered an Orwellian stage in our history, where world dominance is justified as paving the way for democracy, maintaining our `freedom' through combating `terror', where the true victims are the innocent, the silent oppressed, euphemised as `collateral damage'.

John Pilger has been chronicling crimes against humanity for over 35 years, his first most ground breaking story being the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which was given the green light by President Ford and Henry Kissinger, and supplied weapons by the British. Thousands of innocents were slaughtered, including two Australian television news crews as they were attempting to report this illegal action to the world and paid the ultimate price. The oppression in East Timor continues today. In Freedom Next Time, Pilger examines five examples of crimes against humanity and the effects of economic globalization, where the elites are getting richer and the poor slowly vanishing from the radar screens, categorized as "non-persons".

In chapter 1, Stealing a Nation, Pilger describes the unlawful deportation of an entire people, the island of Diego Garcia, part of the Chagos archipelago, which constitutes the Saloman Islands and Edgemont Island, situated exactly between Africa and Asia. A secret deal between the British and American governments, the British sold Diego Garcia to the Americans to make way for a military base. Over two thousand Chagossian's were deported to Mauritius, dropped off with barely the cloths on their backs, currently living in abject poverty without compensation from the British government despite being British citizens. What is startling is the massive cover-up by the government and the silence of most journalists over three decades, allowing (them) to get away with it.

In chapter 2, The Last Taboo, chronicles the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Pilger devotes a lot of space to this subject, giving a well-rounded assessment of the `conflict', revealing terrorism on both sides of the equation. One point that should be stressed is that Israel is the leading country in denying and transgressing against numerous UN resolutions. One resolution being the right of the Palestinians to return to their homelands. Between 1948 and 2000, Israel has defied the UN and the International community 135 times, never seen before in UN history.

The effect of economic globalism in India is examined showing the widening gap between rich and poor that continues at an alarming rate.

Pilger also analysis South Africa since the end of Apartheid; having been banned from entering the country for thirty years, returns to discover that economically not much has changed, and those that committed unspeakable atrocities, have essentially gotten away with it. Again, a few are benefiting economically while the majority remain in poverty, dieing like flies from starvation and disease.

The last chapter, Liberating Afghanistan, is an appalling situation of lies, death and destruction. To say the least, Afghanistan is a convoluted mess. According to Pilger, the Afghanis' felt safer under the Taliban regime than the numerous warlords that are currently creating havoc across the country. The unreported innocent deaths from American bombing (10,000) are a terrible travesty beyond words. However, the true purpose of the "forgotten war", which has been reported by many others, including Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and author Gore Vidal, is the `oil and gas junta' as the oil lobby in Washington is now called, building a pipeline through to the oil and gas rich Caspian sea. This was the true purpose and the prize has been won. This is an example of incestuous collusion between corporations and government. Who is part of this deal? - a consortium of Enron, Amoco, British Petroleum, Chevron, Exxon and Mobil. Dick Cheney, former Chairman of Halliburton, James Baker, former secretary of State under Bush senior and Condoleezza Rice, once vice-president of Chevron Oil. Does anyone smell a rat?

This a hard book to read as man's inhumanity to man, the appalling lies and silence from the mainstream media, and the amount of innocent deaths around the globe for the betterment of the few, is hard to take. Pilger has never held back with the truth, despite numerous death threats over his career, banned from countries and standing up to those that perpetrate these crimes against humanity.

As a reader of Pilger for some years now, this is his best book to date.

Highly recommended.

Buy This Book! I'm serious, you need to read about the corruption that the author went through. As far as I know, no other officer has ever been shot TWICE by other cops and lived to tell the tale. I'm amazed it isn't a movie yet, and what he went through after exposing more crime, the people running this California City (close to Los Angeles) need to be in Jail. If your into true crime, this book sounds like fiction, but it is true. All I can say is BUY IT, even just to learn how your government works against our interests, just to save themselves money and to protect their own rear-ends. I'm staying away from that area, and once you read this book, you will want to as well.

SAN BERNARDINO, California - Corruption, intimidation and rape are not words most would normally associate with members of the nation's police forces. However, power sometimes intoxicates and can make one feel like they are above the law, even if they are sworn to protect it. Stephen K. Peach tells a story of internal corruption and cover-up in the San Bernardino Police Department in his shocking and revealing new book, Friendly Fire? The Good, The Bad and The Corrupt.
Stephen Peach emigrated from England to the United States in 1986 to follow his dream of becoming a police officer. After becoming a U.S. Citizen, he began his career in 1991 with the San Bernardino Police Department and became a highly regarded gang investigator and S.W.A.T. officer. His personable style encouraged trust and confidence in the people he met, and his eye for detail helped solve numerous crimes. In 1998, things fell apart. He was shot twice in two weeks on two separate S.W.A.T. calls. The second time occurred as he was serving a warrant on a former San Bernardino detective. Peach says that his supervisor shot him in the leg to initiate a gun battle between the former detective and Peach's fellow officers. The wound nearly killed him. He fought hard to return to his post and later discovered an officer in the department was raping women.
When one of the victims named the offending officer, the department ignored it and looked to cover up his crimes. Peach was singled out as a liability and had to go. Now, he tells his story. With Friendly Fire?, he hopes to expose the corruption that he discovered in his own department and redeem some of the honor of his badge. "The pattern of corruption in San Bernardino is a disgrace to all the officers that are honest and put their lives in jeopardy every day to serve the citizens. The purpose of his book is to hold those that are corrupt accountable," Peach says. Friendly Fire? is his first book.

This book exposes the dirty underside of Law Enforcement politics. I was a highly regarded gang and SWAT officer that was the victim of 2 accidental? shootings within 2 weeks of each other by other officers. The second time I was shot by my supervisor while serving a warrant on an ex-detective. I was shot to initiate a gunfight between a SWAT team and the detective, it worked, the team believing that the ex-detective had shot me tried to shoot the ex-detective. I returned to work 5 months later, disabled and slightly disillusioned however I continued to work the streets and I used my vast network of informants to find a Police officer rapist. I tried in vain to bring about an internal investigation for a year to expose the rapist however the department turned their corruption upon me to discredit me, trying to frame me with a crime they knew I didn't commit. If it became common knowledge that I had tried to expose the police officer rapist, the dozens of victims could sue and bankrupt the City. The San Bernardino Police Department protected the rapist as he had witnessed drug money thefts in search warrants that the administration took part in. "What happened to me is common in Police Agencies, if they could do this to me, someone who understand the law, what else is going on?" My book exposes the corruption that City Governments allow to occur to protect their civil liability. Many other corrupt activities that I have exposed in my book have never been exposed before. This is a true story of many different crimes that administrators and their corrupt subordinates have committed that they would rather not have exposed.

This book chronicles the working and corruption of San Bernardino Police dept. Scary because it's non-fiction. Very interesting as to how the police can deal with all elements that they are exposed to on a daily basis. How certain departments condone a superior attitude to the people they are suppposed to serve. This was a real wake up call to what goes on behind the Blue line. I can only hope Stephen Peach gets the justice he rightly deserves.

The sub title of this book, "Organizations as Weapons" is derived from a comment made by a U.S. Congressman in 1986.This is certainly an interesting concept, but it really does not describe the contents of this book. In point of fact, the book is a very good and careful dissection of the concept of network centric warfare. The author clearly supports the concept and sees it as the convergence of the Information Revolution and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). He provides the reader with a careful and well thought out discussion of the implications of this concept not only on military organization, but on personnel, and operations. He notes the problems raised by the concept and cites specific examples of how it works. In the course of doing this, he also provides a very nice tribute to Jean de Bloch a brilliant and prescient late 19th Century military thinker and strategist who inexplicably has been largely forgotten. Bloch developed the method of multi-level analysis of warfare which has three layers: 1) analysis of technology; 2) analysis of tactics and operations; and 3) analysis of the actions and behaviors of people and organizations making up nation states. The author applies Bloch's analytic method in his analysis of network centric warfare. At least to this reviewer this book offers the clearest and most well developed explanation of network centric warfare available.

My only quarrel with this excellent and thought provoking book is that it introduces yet another appalling military acronym, C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) which is apparently is how the U.S. military describes network centric warfare. Well, as long as they understand what C4ISR stands for I guess it is al right.

The author makes three assumptions--that military revolutions do occur; that it is possible to identify them while they are occurring; and that their ultimate effects can be predicted and shaped by current actions. Drawing upon economics, political science, sociology, and history and influenced by his own experiences as an analyst on the U.S. Air Force's Gulf War Air Power Survey, Mark D. Mandeles argues that those seeking to transform the modern American military have focused too heavily on changes in technology and techniques and not enough on the organizational implications of the digital revolution. In his view the goal should be to organize all American forces into three unified commands by mid-21st Century: a precision-strike command; a constabulary command; and a conventional command.
The Future of War is a brilliant analysis of trends in the post-Cold War military. It deserves reading as much for the author's way of reaching his conclusions as the conclusions themselves. Historians will find his reflections on the role of chance and contingency in the preparations for the Gulf War well worth the price of the book. Students of the contemporary military scene and force planners will find the volume very thought provoking. Because of the range of disciplines the author draws upon, this is not an easy read--but it is an important one and well worth the time invested. Highly recommended.

Edgar F. Raines, Jr.

Mark D. Mandeles' THE FUTURE OF WAR: ORGANIZATIONS AS WEAPONS (1574886312, $24.00) provides an analytical, college-level defense study adding to the 'Issues in 21st Century Warfare' series with a study on the radical technological changes which have reshaped the face of US military strategy in this century. It'll require a consequent restructuring of defense to fully take advantage of these newfound capabilities, Mandeles argues in an original study of factors which change military strengths.

Military organizations change slowly. The last big change in the United States military from an organizational sense was the closer integration of the various services under the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. World War II was fought with almos as much fighting between the Army and the Navy that it is somewhat surprising that we had time for the Germans and the Japanese.

It took considerable effort on the part of the military to meet Goldwater-Nichols. But by the first Iraq war considerable progress had been made. By the second there even more.

This book looks at even further organizational changes to reflect the changes in information warfare, the role of the media, and the changing battlefield as superpower confrontation recedes further into the past and the nature of battles to be expected in the future changes.

I was stunned by the quality of Shamir's writing. No dry review can convey the richness of his descriptions of the Palestinian landscape and people, and their brutalisation and dispossession by Israel. This is up with the best travely writing, and the best literature ever. The eye and mind just effortlessly gulp up his writing. He is controversial, not just because he exposes the injustice of the occupation, but because he goes to the heart of the matter ( where few dare look), identifying the locus of Israel's power in the financial power of US jewish elites. I think this is obviously correct, but he goes even further; he identifies some facets of jewish culture and religion which he considers malign. I think this should not be off limits, considering the amount of coverage given to those who claim that there is something inherently violent in Islam. But I don't accept his answer - that jews convert to Christianity. I think it's time we all outgrew religion, of any kind. This latter trend in his writing, is not so evident here as in his later writing where it intrudes too much for my taste.
Even if you violently disagree with Shamir, few could fail to be impressed by his writing. At one point, he even draws an analogy with the tv science fiction series, Babylon 5 (my all-time favourite), which shows, to me, that he has a profound sense of what's valuable.Babylon 5 - The Complete Television Series (5-Pack)

A rich and deeply felt examination...

Details life in the Occupied Territories with sensitivity, insight and a fine eye for moral ambiguities. Highly recommended!

It's books like this that remind you some things definitely need to be put into book form to be properly appreciated. I remember reading it sitting outside of a Starbucks several nights in a row and having revelation after revelation alter my perception of the world - and for the better, I knew as one who experiences an epiphany.

The beautiful essays in this book show the heart of someone who truly loves Palestine and its people and makes the reader share that love. I'm ashamed to think of how I used to fall for the portrayal, by "the masters of discourse," of the Palestinians. Shamir, through this book, most certainly helped wise me up.

Shamir has been accused of being anti-Semitic, but actually this formerly Jewish convert to Orthodox Christianity is not against any innocent people, be they Jewish or non-Jewish. He is against the ideology of Judaic Supremacism, and God bless him for that.

Reading this book is so rewarding that I can't even come up with words to explain how I feel about it. Divinely inspired, for the most part, I scarcely think are words of hyperbole.

With every word, every phrase, Israel Shamir displays his love
of the holy land. I've read lots of books on the Middle East,
but this is - by far - the most compelling. I really cannot
express how important this book is to me, so I'll include a
quote from Nick Pretzlick, which I agree with wholeheartedly:

"Israel Shamir is in love with the Holy Land. He has a
passion for the land and its people; he believes the
two are umbilically linked. For him there is only one
viable solution to the conflict that has ravaged the
region for so long and that is the one state solution.
Shamir is a humanist and although he is scathing about
Palestine's enemies - the Jewish elite - he takes
pride in and writes lovingly about the courageous
Jews, who resist Israeli crimes.

Flowers of Galilee is a collection of essays, so full
of affection - such an elegy of love - that, reading
it for the first time, I felt impelled to delay the
turning of pages, preferring instead to linger over
images - to savour the sentiments.

Shamir does not pull any punches. He challenges
conventional thinking, but he does so with honesty,
affection and such thorough understanding and
knowledge that his outspokenness is reasonable and
rational. Flowers of Galilee is an eye opener - a
learning experience. It is also enchanting."

The trouble with the majority of writing about climate change and other environmental worries is that they make people think, "Oh, hell. It's too late anyway. Why even try to do anything?" The Geography of Hope is an antidote to this kind of thinking. I am now 54 years old, and when I was 20 years old or so, I devoured ecological jeremiads such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The trouble is, back then I actually thought my civilization was doomed to fall apart before the end of the 20th century. This, fortunately, didn't happen and in the meantime I got sidelined by matters too complex to detail here. Now at last I am returning to my environmental roots, but I find I simply no longer have the patience and strength to wade through dour predictions of ecological gloom and doom. Chris Turner's The Geography of Hope is the first book on this topic that I have felt glad to pick up, because it shows that it is really possible to put the brakes to the looming climate train wreck before it occurs and that sustainability is already within our grasp using existing technology, if only we would commit to it. How inspiring!

If anyone is feeling that the world is coming to an end because of human folly...then you must read "The Geography Of Hope"Here you will meet individuals all over the world who are making the world a better place and there is HOPE !!!! Brav0 !!!

Chris Turner takes a year-long tour around the world, visiting places that are implementing solutions for sustainable living. A zero-net energy island in Denmark. Community Supported Agriculture in the southern USA. Plug-in hybrid cars. Earthship homes in New Mexico. Radical improvements in waste recycling in various industries. Examples of New Urbanism in city planning and architecture in Florida, the UK, Denmark, Colorado. Mass transit and city policy in Portland. Finhorn in the UK and Tibetan refugee communities in India -- for agriculture and community and deliberate living. A micro-hydro installation in a remote village on the Burma/Thai border built by local villagers, folks from a nearby refugee camp students, and local NGOs. He looks at questions like "what kinds of planning and structures inspire community?" "What exists NOW that can be building blocks for a truly sustainable world?" Inspiring and casual at the same time.

I have no background in environmentalism or connection to the author. As a general reader I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it informative, inspiring and entertaining in equal parts. An unequivocal five stars!
The author is a journalist and disillusioned environmental activist. He is also a new father, and, concerned for his daughter's future, decided to do a global survey of existing, practical methods of achieving environmental sustainability. His perspective is what makes this book so refreshing: tired of the mainstream environmental movement's two main weapons of guilt and apocalyptic predictions, he searches for not just the means but the inspiration to change the way the world's resources are used. I found this practical, hopeful approach much more compelling than the doom-and-gloom, armchair analyst approach of, say, George Monbiot's Heat.
Potential readers should keep in mind that the author's previous opus was Planet Simpson, an exploration of the cultural significance of an animated cartoon series. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it informs his writing with a pop-culture sensibility that makes for entertaining asides and a contemporary grasp of how cultural fashions evolve. On the other hand, the one time I felt we may be getting a little too much information was in the final chapter. There he describes how the epiphany of embracing environmental sustainability occurred to him at a Seattle Lebowski Fest, a cult-like celebration of a movie that he admits to "only begin to understand after the fifth viewing". Presumably fatherhood changed his priorities, and rather than strain his credibility, I found this geeky anecdote disarming. A Greenpeace diatribe this is not.

I have followed David Domke's research for more than five years and have appreciated his thorough documentation and analsyis of a phenomenen that is largely ignored by the mainstream media and unknown to the American public. The phenomenen of political fundamentalism, so carefully covered in his new book, "God Willing," is a must-read for anyone who cherishes American democracy.



Domke's book is the product of meticulous analysis of hundreds of Bush administration speeches, news reports and public opinion polls between the September 11 terrorist attacks and the end of major combat in Iraq. The research clearly shows that Bush strategically cloaked his religiously conservative worldview in nationalistic language and ideas that were reflected consistently by the media and the general public. This religious-cum-political worldview, in turn, framed public discourse in ways that seriously threaten freedoms that are at the heart of a democracy. Complex issues were reduced to simplistic binaries ("You are either with us or you are with the terrorists."). Criticism of the administration's policies was labeled un-American. The War on Terror and invastion of Iraq were justified as America's calling such that dissent was seen as defying God's will.



All Americans, regardless of their political leanings, must agree that such rhetoric, when echoed by the press, limits the free and open discourse that is fundamental to democratic governance. Domke deserves great credit for stepping forward to call on the news media and the public to demand more wide-ranging dialogue, including dissent, on the important issues facing our country. In my book, he's a true patriot.

Over my lifetime, I have come to have a healthy respect for the American free press. Recently, however, I have found myself questioning what I read in the papers and hear coming from other media. Thanks to David Domke and this book, I now understand that my increasing concerns about the American media were well founded. Domke presents clear evidence that George Bush and his staff developed a calculated policy designed to stop all opposition to a Bush/Republican plan dealing with a post 9/11 world and to shut down any healthy exchange of diverse ideas. Based on the research, these actions by the Bush administration have led to an interconnection of religious fundamentalism and political policy that is little different from that of the Taliban or al Qaida - with the obvious inserting of Bush as the person who professes to be carrying out God's will. Domke also presents evidence that these actions by Bush were echoed by the mainstream media so substantially that a policy has been established that essentially says, "you are either with the president or you are against democracy and for the terrorists." Further, there is the suggestion that to challenge the president is to put the nation at great peril. Domke has courage in presenting these research findings. The actions of the Bush administration and the news media were directly counter to fundamental American democratic ideals and principles, and Domke's work makes that clear.

After September 11, 2001, I knew I was frustrated with the Bush administration's use of civil religion to promote its political goals, but I had a hard time articulating my uneasiness. I owe David Domke a debt of gratitude. His book helped me understand what I have been feeling and thinking. Domke uses the phrase "political fundamentalism" to describe the way the Bush administration's uses civil religion.

Political fundamentalism, according to Domke, has four major characteristics:
·A black and white world view that has no patience with complexities
·A sense of urgency that drives towards immediate and enduring action
·Identification of the Christian faith with the values of freedom and liberty
·Intolerance of dissent

For each of these four aspects, Domke presents excerpts from speeches by President Bush between September 11, 2001 and May, 2003, when Bush declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq. Domke analyzes the vocabulary and concepts in Bush's speeches that manifest this approach used so effectively by Bush's administration. Domke notes the way those same words and concepts appear in editorials and TV commentary within a few days of each speech.

The net effect, according to Domke, of the Bush administration's political fundamentalism, and the echoing of those views in the press, is a compromise of the very principles that make democracy work: discussion of various points of view and the willingness to take the time to reach some level of consensus. In fact, Domke argues that our administration is doing the very same kinds of things that the violent Islamic fundamentalists are doing: using religion to justify self-interest.

Everyone who feels uneasy about the Bush Administration's use of religious images, as well as those who have concerns about the way the press helped Bush advance his agenda, should read this book.

Domke shows how the fundamentalist politics based on fundamentalist religion has usurped the democracy "of the people, by the people and for the people". The black and white, right and wrong stance of President Bush and his administration has supplanted the values of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Domke shows how language crafted to fit fundamentalist politics can only be countered with language from a different world view - the language of a world view based in hope not fear.

Great book. It provides a great overview of campaigning from Washington to 2006. We tend to think of politics today as being negative and dirty. The facts are that politics in the 1800's was so much more negative and dirty.

David Mark writes in an engaging style and does not go into more detail than needed. Almost everything is sourced (unique for political books) and you can get into the weeds if you wish.

Highly highly recommended.

This is a compelling, well written guide to negative campaigning. it provides some strong underpinning theories to negative campaigning from an accute observer of campaign methodology. Very useful and well worth purchasing.

Going Dirty is an excellent book covering the recent history of negative campaigning in the US. The book gives an insightful and balanced look into a topic most people wish wasn't there.

Most of the book is filled with case studies of where negative ads were used, and while primarily contemporary (starting in the 1950's), it also goes back a century helping show how it all evolved. The book only considers campaigns in the US but the author does a good job of looking at campaigns across the country (and political spectrum), critiquing those who might think that any set strategy could work without taking into account the people and area.

While most of the book feels like more of a history of negative campaigning near the end it goes into more analysis. (Ironically the author's analysis starts in a chapter talking about negative campaigns that failed). Though I found the book intriguing I would have liked it to have focused more specific tactics of negative campaigns, and less of a history of them. Too much of the book just reads like a history lesson rather than a real analysis. I still had some questions floating in my head about negative campaigning (how it wears on the public, it's ebbs and flows, possibilities for the future, etc) that I wish had been answered by the book, but perhaps I'll just need to read the authors follow up work.

Written by David Mark (editor-in-chief of Campaigns & Elections magazine), Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning is a no-nonsense history of negative campaigning in American politics, with especial attention paid to case studies of notable races during the modern era of television. In particular, Going Dirty notes campaign negativity has increased sharply since September 11, 2001, with commercials routinely suggesting that political opponents are irresolute in pursuing the war on terror. Going Dirty explores incidents when negative campaigning has backfired, most often due to non-credible charges or the attackers failure to correctly gauge the sentiments of the electorate, and incidents when negative campaigning has been remarkably successful, which are common enough to explain its persistence as an electoral tactic. Accessible to lay readers and political scientists alike, Going Dirty is a nonjudgmental, thorough, insider's history of an undeniably strong aspect of the American political institution, and highly recommended.

The Good Death provided me with information that everyone should know! If you have a loved one facing a trminal illness this is the book that you should read. I was especially grateful for the information about pain management, about what to expect, and to learn why we fail so often in this country to make people comfortable in their final days, how our "war on drugs" has tied the hands of doctors and resulted in dying patients being under medicated, often times grossly under medicated even hospices, and what you can do to insure that your loved on will not suffer.

You cannot walk away from this book without a new persepective on how modern issues have affected the death experience. Marilyn Webb not not only brings insight to the reader on how death affects the family and friends, but also the dying. She presents a breadth of knowledge on so many point of views without pushing one or the other, because she knows death is a personal experience.

"The Good Death" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

Offering no soft, simple answers, this book gives a troubling look at many different views of dying in America. A necessary read for anyone interested in not just the spiritual side of dying, but the practical, political, difficult aspects of dying.

When I started reading books on dying (Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley; The Grace in Dying by Kathleen Singh), I read books that gave me hope and comfort in dealing with my own mortality. This book made the hair on my neck rise up.

It begins by shattering illusions (the ones I'd built up) about having a pain-free, easy death. There are insurance companies, personal opinions, differing agendas of a variety of institutions that come into play.

In short, some people have an easier death than others. Webb writes in an easy to read, article style. She begins with a chapter called "Dying Easy", about the nearly beautiful, fairly comfortable death of Judith Hardin, who at 36 dies at home with her husband and children.

"Dying Hard," is based on Webb's personal interviews and experiences with the death of Peter Cicione. Cicione died a death more painful than it needed to be, largely due to medical staff's fears that this dying man was misusing morphine, might overdose or use so much medication that the drugs would no longer be effective (not true).

In "The Sorcerer's Apprenctice" and "When Death Becomes a Blessing," Webb focuses on the history of medical control of pain, the prolonging of life with new medical techniques and modern pain control through the works of Dr. Kathleen Foley, director of neurology pain service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Foley estimated that 5% of the patients she was seeing were "in unassuageable pain." Webb's conservative estimate offers that "109,500 people a year die with unrelieved suffering." Much of this is due to outdated information, old rules, and misunderstandings about how much medication a dying person in severe pain can and should get. She offers the possibility that terminally ill patients who want to commit suicide or look for assistance in dying might not do this, if their pain could be properly handled.

She has chapters about the legal conflicts for families who want comatose relatives off of life-support systems, with detailed information about Karen Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan's cases and the affects on their families long after these women died.

"Bearing the Burden" focuses on what happens to the lives of families with a terminally ill member - "The sad secret that many don't want to admit is that care at home, wonderful as it can be in helping a patient to a good death, is hard on families. Home care may allow for those close, intimate, late-night times with the dying family member...but there are also the difficult times: changing diapers, losing sleep or feeling intense anxiety because the patient is in pain or can't breath..."

This first half of the book is tough reading, but necessary - for there is still a lot of work to be done to make dying easier. The second half of the book deals with hospice; assisted dying (suicides); spirituality in dying.

She closes with 10 common factors 'good deaths' have - 1) open, ongoing communication with doctors, patients, families 2) preservation of the patient's decision-making powers for as long as possible 3) sophisticated pain control 4) limits on excessive treatment (medical interventions, per the patient) 5) focus on preserving the patient's quality of life 6) emotional support 7) financial support 8) family support 9) spiritual support 10) patient isn't abandoned by the medical staff even when curative treatment is no longer required.

She also has 10 changes, which she believes need to be made to change the culture of dying from a cold, hospital-set detachment to a family affair. These encompass everything from expanding health insurance to cover needs currently not met, to legalization of assisted suicide.

If you have given little thought to some of the darker sides of dying, focusing as I have on the spiritual and more uplifting side, this book offers a lot of food for thought. Well-written, easy to read, disturbing.

Even if you have different opinions than Webb has (about assisted suicide, for example), this book is a good read to investigate the other side's information and arguments.

i read this book almost 8 years ago while travelling in central america. i forgot its title then but never forgot its message. i have only just tracked it down - it was worth the wait and what it has to say is every bit as important as i remembered it. perhaps now (post 11th september) it is even more poignant, illustrating the inability of the 'west' to learn from mistakes in its foreign policy, how the lives of others are affected by this and how our complicity in this debases our own humanity. with this book, i understood so much more than i could otherwise have done, the feelings of the people i met in C.Am, particularly in nicaragua. i love the people there, the lack of malice and bitterness they are entitled to, that i felt on their behalf.
it is an essential read, for anyone interested in global politics, for anyone thinking of going travelling there, for anyone...well, for anyone.

The history of U.S. involvment south of its border is an ugly and painful one, full of rapacious corporations, support for torture and dictatorships, and dripping in racism. Bringing this sordid history to light is Black, who makes the history both entertaining and powerful. In a fast-reading book, loaded with photos, political cartoons, and illustrations, Black manages to swiftly educate Americanos of all kinds about this amazing history. Highly recommended!

This book was required reading for a history course I took at university. It is one of the most memorable books I read while at university; in fact I actually re-read it cover-to-cover while in law school. The writing is entertaining and it has a very clever layout with interesting historical photos and illustrations. The author describes the historical events covered by the book in a fresh and persuasive style which is rarely seen in books about history or politics. I wish Black or other authors would produce more works like this on other periods of history or political topics.

It is a crime that George Black's Good Neighbor has been out of print. Written with a wry style and a British detachment from the assumptions of U.S. culture, Black explores the history of what he regards as a neurotic United States romping though Central America from the Spanish American war onward. While I disagree with his premise that there is an irrationality to U.S. behavior in Latin America, my students love this book. Beautifully and intelligently illustrated.