Projects Books

Rathje's and Murphy's RUBBISH! is insightful and engaging. Their anecdotes about the ironies of environmental movements rallying behind particular causes (like McDonald's styrofoam clam shells), and their analyses of popular misconceptions about waste provide, great food for thought for policy makers and for environmentally-minded individuals concerned about the problems with waste and its disposal. Along the way, the authors demonstrate the utility of archaeological knowledge for dealing with current social challenges. This book is a really great read!

Great book. Rathje is a engaging figure that delivers a good story - the story of our garbage.

Highly recommended.

I never thought reading about garbage would be interesting - well, okay, actually I did, otherwise I would have never read this book. I mean that I didn't suspect the book would be so darn interesting. Garbage really sheds a strong light on the culture that generates it. Just think, your garbage tells us a lot about who you are. Future archaeologists are going to love digging through our old garbage in a few thousand years. Oh, what a story it will tell.

This is an overview of the University of Arizona's continuing trash sorting project started in 1972 to document the lifestyle habits of the American public through observing what we eat, what we use in household goods, etc., and then throw out. Socio, political and economic behaviors become evident while recording the fascinating finds in daily trash digging, probing, and quantifying.

This project also included studies at the now closed Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island in New York City where holes were bored all the way to the bottom of the fill and where the studies then took on a more ominous dimension of environmental impact discoveries such as: that the breakdown of trash, even over years, is a myth. The research showed that there is little biodegradation occurring due to compaction and lack of bacterial decomposition, so the researchers found completely intact and recognizable items from food to readable newsprint- even at the bottom of the heap where it was at least 50 years old- same type discoveries of intact trash heaps discovered in ancient Rome, Greece, etc.

Most distressing of the discoveries in the landfill was the discovery of the huge quantity of "leachate"- a toxic liquid stew, that is leaking at the rate of a million gallons a day into New York Harbor.

The book concludes with recommendations on alternatives to landfill as a means to dispose of trash plus recycling and lifestyle changes.

For another enlightening read on all things trash, there is Elizabeth Royte's "Garbage Land"- a personal story of discovery of what her family's trash footprint is and where everything including recyclables ends up- a real eye-opener and an entertaining read!

"Rubbish" is a highly academic book about "The Garbage Project" at the University of Arizona's Anthropology Department. The main idea behind "The Garbage Project" is to gain information about society by analyzing garbage patterns in various locations.

Despite being a book about garbage, the contents of the book are quite diverse. The book is divided into 4 parts. The first section, An Introduction to the Garbage Project, gives the background of "The Garbage Project", why it started, what they do, and what they hope to accomplish. This section also discusses how anthropologists use garbage to learn about ancient civilizations. The second section, The Landfill Excavations, discuss the basic theories of landfills, how the team takes samples from landfills, and discusses why biodegradation does not work in landfills. The third section, Interlude: Diapers and Demographics, I found to be highly entertaining. This section has a fascinating chapter on estimating the population of a neighborhood (as well as sex and age) based on the garbage collected from this neighborhood (a study done to initially help the Census Bureau). This section is also filled with useless information such as "There is a link between owning a cat and reading "The National Enquirer"". There is also a detailed discussion about disposable diapers in landfills. The final section, Garbage and the Future, was the most educational by far. This part discusses the serious shortcomings of citywide recycling programs and side effects people never hear about. There are also discussions on alternate garbage disposal methods, such as high tech incinerators used to generate electricity, as well as several other attempts at using technology to turn garbage into a useful product. The section and the book end with a chapter on reducing and addressing garbage disposal.

I think this book will not be for everyone. The book reads like a Master's Thesis at times, rather long and seems to ramble. However, some parts of the book are exceptional (such as the chapter on recycling or "Closing the Loop") and are really an eye opener.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in Environmental Sciences. Also, if you can manage to wade through pages of various scientific theories and facts, I'd highly recommend picking this book up! While a little slow reading at times, it is quite informative and I think a real eye opener.

With "Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior," The Atlantic Systems Guild team of DeMarco, Lister et al has done it again - a book about projects, project work and software development that is both useful and readable. I highly recommend this book.

Many books that relate to technical or managerial subjects are difficult to read - a lot of stuff you don't care about, and the occasional nugget. "Adrenaline Junkies" is a book of nuggets. Each chapter is a nugget or "pattern," including a phrase, a picture, a sentence and a couple of pages of descriptive text. One of my favorites, "News Improvement," refers to the tendency of bad news to be "improved" as it makes its way up the organizational chain. Another, "The Overtime Predictor," talks about how fear can drive people to overtime.

Not everyone will care about every pattern, but the book is organized in such a way that the reader has control over what to miss. Some patterns validated my own experiences. Some provided new insights. A couple I didn't get. My recommendation: read through the book, paying special attention to the patterns you care about. Skip some of the descriptive text if the pattern doesn't resonate with you, but first make sure you understand it. (Hint: the last paragraph of each pattern usually has a brief summary.) Then, when you're done, take a few minutes and go through all the patterns again to refresh your mind. That way, when you encounter these situations in real life, you'll remember the pattern. Even if that's all you can remember, you'll be able to refer back to the book for advice.

What makes a project successful or doomed - loved or hated? Those are the questions "Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior" hopes to answer, looking critically at the archetypes of people and engineers that people constantly fall into, whether they know they are or not. Not afraid to take a humorous look at it all, it's a comprehensive guide that offers an example of what is a good and bad behavior coming from team members in management of a project. "Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior" is highly recommended to anyone in charge of a group project and for community library business collections.

How can you keep from getting sick by infection? You need to build up immunity. There are two ways to do this. One is by surviving an earlier bout with the disease, and the other is by getting vaccinated.

Reading this book will "vaccinate" you against the negative project behaviors it describes, so that they can be recognized and dealt with before they cause project failures. Learning from the failures of others is a lot faster and cheaper than learning "the hard way" (by taking part in failed projects yourself). Get everyone on your team a copy, so that the cries of alarm cannot fail to be heard.

The title and cover caught my eye (today!) in the bookstore and after flipping through, I couldn't wait to get home and blow through it.

It's clear why this is getting a 5-star average here @ Amazon. Written by the same folks who authored Peopleware (classic skilled-person management book), it contains ~80 patterns of project behaviour alternating between helpful and harmful.

Almost immediately I had several, "Ohhh yeah! That's what's going on!" moments. The authors do a terrific job of identifying patterns and the reasoning behind them. Being relatively new to a management gig, this sort of resource is invaluable. You might not be able to fix some of the issues, but you'll certainly be able to notice them more quickly - which is really the first step.

Each pattern is about 2-3 pages long, clearly identified in the table of contents and with pattern headings that stand out. This presentation allows me to quickly refer back to find out the suggested cure.

Most patterns are presented with prescriptive, corrective behaviour. Granted it's not a detailed dissertation on how to fix organizational issues, but enough to get an idea of the scope of the fix; work through it, or time to find another employer?

I'm already in the process of recommending this to my peers. It's such a brief, valuable read that anybody with skin in the game (from developers to CEOs) should give it a look.

I have been a fan of Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister for some time, their insights into the right way to manage information technology (IT) projects could be entitled, "The Way It Should Be Done." In this book, they are joined by their colleagues in the Atlantic Systems Guild to describe 86 project patterns, some of which you would enjoy being used to describe how you do things and others that you would avoid if you could. The descriptions are generally short, less than three pages and include a figure for emphasis.

Unless you have been blessed to a level that no one to my knowledge has ever been or you have never worked, then there will be patterns in this book that will cause your head to nod in agreement. Using colorful language on occasion and consistent blunt talk, the authors tell it straight, providing advice that pulls the façade off of some of the common notions of what makes a project work. Some of the titles of the patterns are:

Project slut
Rattle Yer Dags
One Throat to Choke
The Too Quiet Office
Everyone Wears Clothes for a Reason
What Smell?
Sanctity of the Half-Baked Idea
Seelenverwandtschaft
The authors are big advocates of creatively goofing off, arguing forcefully that the most productive teams are those that do things together that are anything but work related. Eating together, attending a movie, playing together in a band and a regular poker night are suggested ways to build cohesion and a sense of respect between the members of the development team. They also insist that some of these things should be done on company time.

The group is also strongly opposed to strict rigidity of any form, believing that a bit of chaos, animated discussion with disagreement and respectful truth telling are all signs of an efficient and productive team. In the "Miss Manners" pattern, they point out that extreme civility is misdirected and results in deep mediocrity. Everyone is subject to generating the occasional error or bad idea and if it is accepted rather than rejected for fear of hurting feelings, everyone suffers.

This past year, I authored a new major and minor program in Management Information Systems (MIS) for the college where I teach. Two of the upper level classes in the program involve the study of the proper ways to manage IT projects. This book will be used as a supplementary text when I teach those courses.

Published in the online Journal of Object Technology reprinted with permission

If you are interested in developing new skills in how to do the relationship dance, this is the book for you. Fearless Loving is a must read. It doesn't matter whether you're currently in relationship, whether you would like to be in a relationship, married, single, recently split up, or divorced. Rhonda has a talent for bringing together concepts and distilling them into bit size, chewable skills for taking action, which most any one of us can implement, given our commitment.

This book is a valuable tool for me, personally and for my sixteen year marriage/partnership. I'm finding new ways to really listen, communicate, to set boundaries, to clarify perceptions, to honor my feelings and to play.

Fearless Loving also offers an insightful and helpful protocol for people who are interested in a new way to date. I highly recommend this book to my friends and anyone interested in Love.

Rhonda Britten just gets it. This book is so wonderful. She can guide you along your path to loving in a way you never thought you could, but always wanted to. The most poignant truth for me is that everyone is innocent. That's so hard to think and act on, but she's so right about it. I would have everyone believe me innocent until proven guily, so it only seems fair for me to believe that about everyone else. This book will help you with understanding any type of love and how to do it best! She never coaches you to be someone you're not, and even highly discourages behaving as if you were playing a game. She teaches you how to test your prospective partner, or current partner so you can hear what they're not saying (which is more insightful than what they are saying). Rhonda will fill you full of courage and you will feel that you can love confidently without ever sacrificing who you are, or ever compromising what you need from a loving relationship.

Fearless Loving is well-written and packed full of useful tools that if followed will send you on your way to building new love relationships, enhancing the one's you already have and uncovering and discovering the ways in which we block or deny ourselves love. The author jumps into the trenches with you as she reveals her own personal experiences. This approach made it feel real and tangible. The best self-help book I've read in a long time!!

If you've ever been through divorce -- if you've ever had a failed relationship and aren't quite sure why things couldn't have worked out better -- if you're tired of playing relationship roulette -- READ THIS BOOK!! It's the guidebook for finding and keeping love that you've been looking for. And don't forget to read Fearless Living, too! It's your ticket to freedom and to the real YOU!

ok, i only first heard of Rhonda by watching the TV reality show "starting over" + then got hooked onto watching the amazing clarity with which she brought women from all walks of life to.
so my roomate bought this book to assist her from dating another jerk, and boy, is this book stellar! its not thick, not complicated, but really packs an emotional + mental punch. i have even more respect for this woman, who has been through so much + has found a way to positively help others. i've been telling all open-minded pals of mine who really do want to change any "failures" they have to read this. its really good stuff!

Eric Kassan(1st reviewer), has it right. So many books these days are word stuffed by the publishers to give them more apparent value. I'm guessing editor's jobs these days are to add "breadth" to books.
Bob doesn't do that. To describe the book in one word would be SUCCINT.
I never felt like he was spinning his wheels.

I don't want him to blush now, but, with all that I've read and studied in IT, outside of some of the original IBM manuals for VM and CMS, his book gives the most bang for the buck. He's not pedantic. Rather than codifying some new method, the Lewis Method, he gives advice wisdom. He's trying to let people know what its really going to be like to run a project. The way he starts out with Sponsorship and Governance in unusual and a critical point. I've seen many projects fail because they get orphaned, either by a sponsor leaving the company or deciding there is bigger fish to fry and this project isn't going to shine up his finish as much as some new thing. Also hadn't considered many things in the way he puts them, such as the only three ways a business can improve. I've run many, varied project but can still learn. I loved the Dilbertian sentence, "The usual root cause is that the project is good for the company without being good for any of its executives." So true. I've seen it so many times. Once the execs complete their analysis, and realize they have nothing personal to gain, the 180 degree turn is quick and startling. Don't completely agree with everything in the book, but I'd say 99.5% of it I do agree with. He pointed up a number of my owns, which I always need work on. The people management advice is excellent and much ignored by other writers. An unhappy team member starts to build a gravity that can pull the whole project down with it.

I'm a pathetically slow reader, my comprehension is great, but I read and think. I finished in two days in just two sessions. The end of chapter "steps" summary is incredibly helpful as a memory tool.

I'll be rereading the book and keeping it close at hand for the rest of my career. Its an excellent addition to anyone's toolkit and reference shelf. Great job Bob. Thank You.

As manager of a small IT shop in a not-for-profit organization, the overhead of a rigorous application of the PMI methodology is often overkill for our projects. Many of our projects are run by small team that need to focus their time and efforts on accomplishing the work and moving to the next project rather. The Bare Bones philosophy provides sound project management principles in a format that is easy for any project manager to understand, regardless of his or her project management experience. The principles are easy to apply and all but guarantee a successful outcome to the project.

There are very few reference materials that I will carry with me on any business trip but this book is one of them. Mr. Lewis is so well versed in his subject that his distillation is refreshingly concise and complete. It's an excellent "airport read" on your way to your project's kick-off meeting. Get this book before you need this book!

An excellent summary of the key steps to successful project management. Somehow Bob Lewis manages to write in an entertaining fashion, with flashes of his trademark humor, cover the basics, and throw in useful tips all in just 52 pages. If you're not an experienced project manager, do yourself a favor and take an hour to go through this book before tackling that "hot potato" project your boss just handed you!

Where was this book when I first needed it. This book is indispensible for a first time project manager or even for project team members. This book is a great combination, short enough to quickly digest, readable so its points are easy to understand, detailed and relatable to be put immediately into action, and comprehensive enough to cover all the major issues. Project management training is the most useful training I have received, and frankly, this book does a better job of distilling the finer points of good project management than my two week intensive courses, and was a lot more enjoyable to experience.

I got a belated birthday present from a friend last week, Between Friends by Charlotte Lyons. What a wonderful surprise. Charlotte Lyons has made several craft books on different topics. This one is about projects you can share with friends. What about starting a craft group with some good friends or giving away a small hand made gift when you go for a visit or enclosing some fabric in a letter for a dear friend. The book gives alot of creative and great suggestions.

I have done all this, and still do. As a matter of fact, the friend who gave me the book and I have shared so many crafty projects over the years. There really are no limits in what you can do. And as it's said on the cover of the book - in an era when women set aside very little leisure time for themselves, let alone for their friends, Between Friends provides the perfect excuse to invite the girls over.

The great thing about this book is that Charlotte Lyons has collected so many different things you can do, and put them together in a charming and quite whimsical way. Don't start reading the book late in the night. You will never be able to go to bed then untill you have started a new project, phoned a friend to discuss some new yarn you saw in town earlier that day, or written a letter to a pinpal with pictures of some of your latest quilts.

The book will be a favorite of mine for years to come, and I know it will inspire me to make wonderful gifts for and with my friends from all over the world. And a little secret. MY Between Friends has a little handmade bookmark, embroidered with the words"If friends were flowers, I'd pick you" - made special for me by my special sharing friend.

Britt Arnhild Lindland

These are lots of fun and in many cases practical too :) One thing that's especially neat about this book isthat the crafts are broken down into chapters according to how long they'll likely take (e.g. Chapter 1: "in an hour" - these are crafts like seed packets, paper weights, quick frame, painted tea pot etc; Chapter 2: Half a day - these are crafts like note box, a book bag, flea market pillow, oatmeal cake, etc; Chapter 3: All Day -memo board, cachepots, postcard holder etc; Chapter 4: Over the weekend: these include a journal, topsy-turvey doll, wall clock, tea cozy; Chapter 5: As long as it takes - garden throw, craft cabinet, hooked rug, memory album, friendship quilt)

The end of the book has sources, glossary and patterns.

There are lots of pictures (color) throughout, great stories of friends doing things together, good instructions.

Super book - makes a great gift to a friend as well

Plan a leisurely project with friends with the aid of Between Friends, which includes craft projects meant to be shared. From onehour to allday and longterm projects, these are organized first by time frame, making it easy for friends to pick projects that lend to easy scheduling. Sample ideas: a wall clock, doll, postcard holder, or memo board.

I received this book as a gift from a good friend. Even if you're not an experienced crafter but have a fun group of friends, get them together (add a little wine) and try some of these projects. You'll find some really good ideas for sharing your old photos, letters and treasures.

Charlotte Lyons has a real gift for creating something wonderful out of basic odds and ends. And her newest book, Between Friends, offers inspiration galore. Whether you have friends to share the craft projects with or simply want to escape the daily routine by making something alone this book is a fabulous resource. The instructions are very clear and the projects are cleverly organized by the amount of time they take. A great gift idea too.

I have been quilling for a number of years and have several books, and this one is the best I have found so far. It has all the instructions needed for beginners, but also contains instructions for different herbs, berries and a wide assortment of flowers. It also covers several 3-D projects, holiday projects, ideas for framing pictures and invitations, tags, and miniature plants. I refer back to it on a regular basis. Overall, an excellent choice and a wonderful addition to your library!

I borrowed this book from our local library in Rotorua,New Zealand. Just loved it so had to get my own copy. I am a beginner and find the book full of instructions and thoroughly enjoying the book and the art more and more. A Lot of fun!

VERY EASY TO READ AND THE PICTURES AND INFORMATION FOR MAKING ALL THE QUILLING PIECES WERE CLEAR AND COLORFUL.

This my first quilling book and i love it. It has some great patterns including a cross, minature plants, kitchen herbs and more! I recommend this book for both beginners and advanced quillers.

I am an ardent collector of craft books, and have three on quilling now. Of those I have, this is the best one; it covers the basic technique itself, exhibits the many various shapes, gives helpful suggestions on form, design and uniformity, and provides the student with a number of useful suggestions for finished projects. (I also enjoyed the book because it wasn't filled with the "I" word every other sentence.)

It is amazing to see the scope of the body of work he produced during this time period, LIFE was pissed at him Magnum fed up! All the world didn't understand his need to see! This book shows the work in full! wonderful buy.

I purchased Dream Street after reading about the Pittsburgh Project and what it ment to Eugene Smith. I think it's an important book for anyone interested in Photography, Photojournalism or Eugene Smith. The size and quality of the prints is quite allright for the price paid. And the photos are the best part. Great book!

This book was bought for Christmas for my husband who just loves photography. He has had this on his must have list for some time so he was delighted with it.

This book does a great job in documenting not only W. Eugene Smith's four years of extensive research and photographing Pittsburgh, PA but it also reveals a torment man's struggle in trying to capture something that we will never understand since his 6000 photographs of Pittsburgh set a standard for not only documenting a city but he also raise the bar in the artistic expression of black & white photography. The prints of Smith's work in this book are very good and edited quite nicely, included are some of the photograper's letters to his friend and relatives revealing the thoughts of a troubled genius in words that show he could have been a great writer, too.

I'm a Pittsburgh native, though I was born after the pictures were made. Still, I found Dream Street to be an interesting perspective on my hometown. Smith's special gift is looking beyond the typical "beauty shots"- the Pittsburgh skyline, the parks, etc., and capturing images that create a strong feeling of the local neighborhoods and their residents. While the topology of Pittsburgh creates strong local neighborhoods, it's the mix of residents that really gives it character. Local restaurants, the alleys and streets of some of the less glamourous sections of the city, and the sense of history and grandeur of Mellon Bank downtown. This book is a great opportunity to step into the past and feel the grit of a true industrial city. Smith's personal genius - and his demons- heavily influnce the project. We're fortunate to be able to benefit from his views after the fact. Special credit has to go to the editors for wading through the 17,000 images Smith shot to get down to the highlights for this book.

this book includes very good basic instructions, including how to increase. There are lots of beautiful patterns ranging from florals, scenics, geometrics and some for children. Included are curtains, table covers, edgings, and many others. One can easily adapt the filet charts to uses other than those shown. Photos and charts are very clear.

This is the one of the most detailed books on filet crochet that I have ever read. It has background, history, comparisons, patterns. The pattern section has a good variety to choose from and are not just doilies. The instructions are excellent and the patterns are just beautiful. The introduction and general "how to" instructions are detailed and have large illustrations. There is a conversion chart of hook sizes, as well as US and British terms for chart symbols and abbreviations. There are complete instructions on how to read charts, do increasing and decreasing, make turns and calculate patterns. It has a great "first project" with one the best illustrated directions I've seen for how to work the stitches and where to actually place your hook for stitches and turns. I would recommend this book regardless of whether you are already into filet crochet or want to learn how to do filet crochet. Chris did an excellent job.

The projects in this book are what I would call 'sophisticated country' in style. I have found the directions to be excellent. I made a doily from this book as my very first project having just learned to crochet. I have made an edging from the book to adorn a linen baptismal gown. I know I will choose projects from this book for many years to come, and have spent many hours just enjoying the pictures.

This is a wonderful book, but a new edition could be more useful if it listed the thread size and amounts in yards used for the projects as illustrated. While the book lists thread weights in grams, the weight can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Before you do a project, make sure to crochet a gage swatch and make estimates based on the swatch.

I have crocheted before but everytime I tried to follow instructions on how to filet, I couldn't understand them. This explained it very well and I was quickly making very nice projects. Filet works rapidly and you can really make things quickly.

I'm addicted to flower pounding. My kids love it, too...the only thing that gets washed after my kids do an art project is the kids . I've worked with alum tons before and if you're concerned that it's going to rot the fabric, just rinse it out. No big deal. This is a wonderful, wonderful book and I highly recommend it. Such a wonderful break from all the "same old, same old" that's already out there. You won't be disappointed with flower pounding.

I thought Flower Pounding the oddest title, until I saw it. It's a must buy book. It's beatuiful with easy-to-understand instructions and a dash of humor. I love quilts and gardens and this showed me a great new way to enjoy both. I'm doing a project this summer and hope to use it for a youth group activity next year.

I was fortunate to take a flower pounding class with Amy. It was such a delight to have the author demonstrate just how easy and beautiful this process is. By the end of class I had made my own gorgeous print. Everyone was delighted by the beautiful results and had a blast making their work of art. You will never again look at flowers the same way! (Irises are my favorite...so far.) In fact, you'll be itching to pound every petal you can get your hands on. When I got home that day my husband and 6 year old son asked to try their hands at it. I'm embarassed to admit it, but their prints were even prettier than mine. My son especially loved this project and can't wait to get more flowers. Kudos to Amy and Ann for creating a sensational new way to make breathtaking quilts the whole family can be involved in. (And for those of you wanting to take a class like I did, check out patchworktwins.com for their class listing.)

A friend introduced me to Flower Pounding. We are having a great time with this. The authors give a lot of great tips on their website. They also state that your Flower Pounding works of art are dry-cleanable. This is great news! We have also tried color copying our poundings to transfer paper and having them ironed onto t-shirts. It worked great. Now they truly are washable. I don't see why you couldn't iron them onto a quilt block too. The possibilities are endless with this technique. Thanks to Amy and Ann for making my summer and my quilting a lot more interesting.

You may be wondering what in the world "Flower Pounding" is. Put simply, it is the process of transferring plant pigments to specially treated fabric via pounding with a hammer to create floral imagery reminiscent of water color painting. When I read through the book I was amazed at the beautiful projects within and wanted one for my very own.

The book has a wonderful alphabetic index of common garden flowers in the back and all of the gallery photographs list the flowers used in the projects for reference which I found to be very helpful. Along with detailed visual instructions for every step of the process from fabric treatment through pounding to completion with outlining, there are numerous photographs in the book of scenes created by the authors, Ann Frischkorn and Amy Sandrin. They have also included instructions for nine projects complete with quilting how-tos and templates to get you started. And, lest you think that this a project limited to the spring flower season, there are examples using fall flowers as well as poinsettias.

The authors glibly suggest that once you try flower pounding, you will never look at flowers the same. I must say that they are right in this assessment. Just the other day, I was at Costco and I eyeballed the fresh flower bouquets as I walked by. But, I was not thinking how pretty they were, no, I was wondering how they would look pounded!

Try it and see if you don't start thinking the same way!

Anthony presents a sober account of how calculated the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was. Exposing all the rationales for the war as lies, "Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal" turns to the real reasons for the bi-partisan project in Iraq; to further imperial aims in the middle east. In the The Logic of Withdrawal chapter Anthony systematically nullifies all arguments against withdrawal, and the following chapter argues for the only principled stance -- troops out now!

The book is only 105 pages long, but it explains the US/British foreign policies that wanted the war, how the evidence necessary to invade was manufactured, and also the misreporting of the war by the media. It's extremely concise and valueable. The author even manages to squeeze in some semi-tangents that are important. My favorite one is the discussion of the Democratic Party and their belligerence - I just get tired of hearing that the Democratic Party is an anti-war party.

A third of the book is devoted to explaining why the invasion was sought after (as well as the occupation of Afghanistan). Then the book moves to focus on the realities of the war's fighting, and how it is covered. After the end of all "major combat operations" in May 2003 the continued attacks on US troops was blamed on Hussein, who was captured in December 2003. After the fighting continued, it was blamed on foreign interference. The administration said a provisional Iraqi government was needed. After the "free" elections on January 2005 the fighting continued. Since then, the administration has been blaming it on al-Qaeda and other foreigners, which Arnove shows not to be the case. These steps of blaming a domestic resistance to other causes is strikingly similar to that of Vietnam. After facing continued resistance, our policies changed to describe and fight those false causes (strategic-hamlet program-->search-and-destroy operations-->pacification program-->Operation Phoenix-->Vietnamization (which was only initiated after the Tet Offensive of 1968 awakened people to the grim truth of the war). Also discussed in this portion of the book (what's really going on over there) is the liberalization of Iraq's economy - It's straight from the IMF/World Bank playbook. The last section of the book argues, after looking at why the invasion occured and what's happening there now, that we should leave Iraq and provide aid until they're back on their feet.

I'd also recommend that an interested reader look into Bush in Babylon: The Recolinisation of Iraq and America's confrontation with revolutionary change in the Middle East, 1948-83.

Q: How many pages does it take to make a compelling case for immediate withdrawal from Iraq? A: Apparently not many when you have logic on your side!

It is a myth that Bush & Co.--though misguided--had the best of intentions at heart when they ordered the military invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. And this unfortunate myth prostrates the antiwar movement when it deludes itself into believing that a bloody occupation stemming from an illegal war can somehow be salvaged into something beneficial for anybody besides Halliburton.

Anthony Arnove's book explains the real roots of the Iraq war in the context of power and profit (not misguided humanitarianism), summarizes for the reader three years of blood-spattered occupation history, provides eight excellent reasons for immediate withdrawal and then discusses the ABC's of anti-imperialist struggle drawn from the history of the Vietnam War.

This isn't a catchall antiwar book to give to your chicken hawk uncle at the next family reunion. This is a book for the 50 million Americans who already consider themselves part of the antiwar movement and want some real answers about stopping the blood-letting. Or as the author puts it, "...the U.S. left in particular needs far greater clarity about the reasons for the war, the political context of the war, and an effective strategy for ending it." (page 98)

This is the most articulate, politically sophisticated yet easy-to-read appeal to bring our loved ones home now that I've read since the war began.

But don't trust this synopsis--read the book.

This outstanding book makes the case for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq. This would meet the democratic demands of the Iraqi people, and also of the American and British peoples. In a September 2005 New York Times-CBS News poll, 52% supported the immediate withdrawal of US troops.

Arnove sums up, "Every single argument the Bush administration made to justify the invasion of Iraq has turned out to be false. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, posed no imminent threat to the United States, and had no connection to al-Qaeda or to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Iraq was attacked not because it had weapons of mass destruction, but because it did not (a fact that has not been lost on other potential targets of U. S. intervention). U. S. soldiers were not greeted as liberators, and the occupation has not paid for itself, or required few troops, or been quickly concluded. Nor has the occupation made the world safer or reduced the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, it has made Iraq, the Middle East, and the world far more dangerous."

From the start, the war on Iraq was a huge lie. As Arnove writes, "The attacks of September 11, 2001, provided the pretext the Bush administration needed to portray an offensive war to reshape the Middle East as a defensive measure to protect the people of the United States."

Everything we are told about the war is untrue. For example, we are told that the occupation troops conduct a humanitarian war on the ground. In reality, the USA is waging war largely by massive, unreported, bombing: the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone dropped more than 500,000 tons of bombs on Iraq between May 2003 and December 2005. We are told that there is no national resistance attacking the foreign occupier, just terrorists attacking civilians. In reality, for every attack against civilians, there are a hundred against the occupying forces.

British governments have always lied to us about matters of war and peace, of security and the national interest. This Labour government is different only because its lies have been more stupid, so that we have rumbled it more quickly.

Arnove's book lays out, in a pretty straight-forward manner (105 pages, not counting the foreword, afterword, appendix, acknowledgement, and notes) the case for pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq immediately. I read a few other books about Iraq before reading this one, and I would suggest that to any reader, just so they have a frame of reference while reading it. Arnove tries to use well-known quotes and facts to support his argument, and this helps, but there is still so much information on such a complex issue, that I think it would be difficult to read this and fully comprehend it with no prior knowledge of Iraq.

Arnove makes a very compelling case. What's sad is that he's using readily available information to make it, and yet we're now sending more troops to Iraq.

I think the only fault of the book is expecting that it will drive people to action. Arnove isn't really presenting anything new, just laying all the facts out for us in a very clean, logical way, almost like he's writing his thesis. While this style might work if Arnove were a lawyer convicting Bush of war crimes, it just serves to further highlight how this administration works above the law and gets away with it. Even with this much clear evidence against the war it continues on.