War and Politics Books

This book gave me great insight into the trauma to people's lives as a result of war and the war machine. It is profoundly written and the subject is sensitively handled. I'm sure not everyone will agree with the author's view point, but it sure helped me to have better understanding for the war veterans I come in contact with.

The military services spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising to attract young people to their ranks. Supported by school guidance counselors as a prime career option the system enlists hundreds of thousands of low income teens. What happens next? Read this book to understand why such a high proportion of our nation's homeless and mentally ill are veterans. This pocket sized paperback is based on a larger hardcover version called Hell, Healing and Resistance.

This book is very interesting and very disturbing as well as it details a mission to find POW's in Vietnam. Scott Barnes details his adventures in an exciting and suspenseful way. Highly Recommended for all interested in the POW/MIA issue.

You want intrigue? The first 90 pages moves slowly, as there is so much background that needs to be explained. But once the story takes off, you can't put the book down as it takes you into the depths of CIA intrigue and the world of black ops.
Scott Barnes is clearly the true definition of a patriotic American. If you want to read a true story that is suspenseful and frightening, then you don't want to miss reading BOHICA!

The book is clearly written, organized by region, brief yet to the point. I chose it as a starting point in beginning to understand US involvement in the Middle East. I found the information conscise and heavily footnoted. I appreciated the footnotes as I looked up additional information on the internet. The information was easy to grasp for a broad understanding. This book was quite helpful to me in going on to read other books which discuss matters at a deeper level. I would recommend it to another person not well versed in the politics of the middle east -US relationship.

This is a country-by-country chronicle of how American covert wars throughout the Middle East have come back to haunt us, creating plenty of enemies.

Saddam Hussein's rise to power in the 1970s was helped by a CIA decision to assassinate one of his predecessors, General Abdel Karim Qassim. In Syria, the CIA sponsored a 1949 military takeover, the first of over a dozen coups in the next 20 years. American oil companies felt that an independent Syria was not in their interests. Sudan has been involved, off and on, in a bloody civil war for almost 50 years. Oil just happens to be a factor in this ongoing slaughter.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak has ruled with an iron fist ever since the 1982 assassination of Anwar Sadat, his predecessor. Mubarak uses billions of dollars in US military aid to beat and torture opposition politicians and journalists, many of whom have died in custody. Press restrictions are widespread. Egypt is viewed as a well-bribed client state of the US. The military in Turkey, a US ally and fellow member of NATO, has been one of the biggest human rights abusers of the last decade.

America has always looked for a surrogate policeman in the Persian Gulf, to keep an eye on the huge oil reserves. First, we armed the Shah of Iran, ignoring his repression, until he was overthrown. Then we armed Iraq, ignoring Saddam Hussein's repression, until he became too powerful, and a major war was needed to destroy his arsenal. Now, America is arming Saudi Arabia, ignoring their repression, creating a generation of militants determined to overthrow the puppet regime propped up with American money.

Part of the blame for all this can be laid at the feet of Great Britain. They were the colonial power for much of the first half of the 20th century, and had a tendency to draw national boundaries while ignoring an area's ethnic makeup.

Arab hatred of America has less to do with our freedoms and diversity than with our illegal involvement in another country's internal affairs. This book easily reaches the level of Must Read. It's very interesting, it's easy to read and it is full of information that won't be mentioned in the mainstream media.

The author, a lawyer and a dual citizen of Venezuela and the United States, has literally risked her life to publish this book. She has received numerous death threats and plenty of insults. A sequel to her previous bestseller, "The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela", it examines secret US documents that reveal how hard the Bush administration is trying to overthrow the democratically-elected Venezuelan government.

"Follow the money trail" is good advice for any investigative journalist, and Golinger does just that. By studying thousands of US government documents obtained through exhaustive requests of every relevant department through the Freedom of Information Act, she is revealing proof of manipulation and covert operations to overthrow Chávez.

Historians generally do this work decades after major upheavals in Latin America. Golinger is doing this research now, in "real-time", to break the secrecy of Bush's imperial designs and to prevent a coup in the making.

Is the United States funding Counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela? Yes, says "Bush vs Chavez: Washington's War on Venezuela". Claiming that American taxpayer dollars are funding, albeit indirectly, organizations that fund the counter-revolutionary groups of Venezuela, in hopes for gaining favor with Latin America's most oil rich nation. More frightening, there is a build up of US troops in the Caribbean that are ready to threaten the Venezuelan people and their governments. "Bush vs Chavez: Washington's War on Venezuela" is highly recommended for community library social issues collections and for anyone who wants a look into the shadier actions of the Bush Administration.

If you are unfamiliar with the global struggle against Nazism, and the French idealogical struggle against this same threat, this may not be the book for you. However, I highly doubt that this is the first title one comes across as one encountering Camus for the first time. So, if you are one of those, perhaps you may like to look at something that is more of one one the great "Nobel Prize-Wining" author's novels first. They are entirely engaging and easy to read, but an intellectual challenge.
Intellectual grandstanding aside, I found this book wonderful. It gives perspective into the mind of one of the greatest Journalists / Novelist of the twentieth century. I have enjoyed his essays and novels in the past, but as a former working journalists, the thing that amazed me the most was his ability to see into the future based off of world events. Camus's insights are as revelant today as 60 years ago when he was writing in Combat. In this book, the young man's insight's and intellectual development are laid out in a neatly ordered fashion.
A caveat, this is a hard book to "get into". While there is a grand historical narrative, there is little continuity between the passages, making this, at least for me, a lengthy read. However lengthy it was, it was worth it. Camus's insights and his highly quotable and pity quotes are massively enjoyable. My significant other would account the times I had to read her a line. As a teacher, I had to have much restraint to not plaster my room with his quotes. The entry reflecting the first explosion of the atomic bomb is worth the price of admission alone.

For those who only know the novels of Camus, here is what I found to be an invaluable collection of his writings on key issues of the mid 1940's. It made me want to keep reading more about this major intellectual figure.

Essential to anyone interested in revolutionary, principled politics the Case of Leon Trotsky explains the most fundamental questions of revolutionary Marxist politics and modern history: How did the Bolsheviks conquer power? Why did Stalin prevail? Why do Marxists reject individual terrorism ? What was the relationship between Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin and Lenin? How did Stalin pave the way for Hitler's victory? What is Stalinism? What is Fascism? Why did Franco vanguish the Spanish Republic?

This is the text of Leon Trotsky's historic seven-day testimony to the commission led by American philosopher and educator John Dewey in 1937 that investigated the charges of the Stalin's Moscow frameup trials against Trotsky. Trotsky pledged to place himself into the hands of the Soviet Government if this tribunal or a court of extradition convicted him of any of the monsterous charges Stalin laid against him.

Though his native language was Russian, Trotsky submitted to the cross examination in English, the language of most of the committee members. Despite the gravity of the questions before him and his struggle with the English language, Trotsky's wit and imagination break through time and time again. Trotsky is no fuzzy radical; he is always precise, scientific, and workman-like and often eloquent.

One of history's greatest [...] was Stalin's claim that his murderous bureaucracy spoke for Marxism, communism, and the working class. THE CASE OF LEON TROTSKY is must reading today because it is not only most powerful rebuttal of Stalin's lies--but it stands as a great example of what real Marxism was and is. In this book, Trotsky presents his record of activity and the great ideas that he acted on. Trotsky's life and work are part of the link connecting the revolutionary communism of Lenin to the generations of the present and future. Today, no one takes seriously the pretences of Stalin and his heirs in Moscow and Peking. Now, authentic Marxism can step forward without having to explain how different it is from the Stalinist counterfeits. And this book is a wonderful place to begin the study, for a new generation of students. The ideas are presented with eloquence and with the drama of a court room setting, because Trotsky was answering questions and presenting testimony before the distinguished Dewey Commission.

The "Road to War: Causes of Conflict" series from OTTN Publishing features outstanding titles that introduce young readers in grades 4 through 6 to the causes of five American wars over the last two hundred years that saw significant American involvement. This series includes: Causes Of The American Revolution, Causes Of The Civil War, Causes Of World War I, Causes Of World War II, and Causes Of The Iraq War. Each title presents a truly in-depth survey of the reasons for America's involvement in these conflicts along with an articulate explanation of events and concepts. The fourth grade reading level texts are enhanced with more than 25 color photographs, illustrations, and maps. Although Causes of the American Revolution and Causes of the Civil War are available in paperback, the sturdy library binding of the hard cover edition is recommended for school and library collections.

I was teaching a course on the history of public address that involved a section of speeches devoted to the Civil War. This includes not only Abraham Lincoln's "A House Divided" (1858), "First Inaugural Address" (1861), "The Gettysburg Address" (1863), and "Second Inaugural Address" (1865), but also Frederick Douglass's "What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?" (1852) and Robert Toombs, "On Secession" (1861). Even though the speech collection that I was using had annotated copies of these speeches, I wanted my students to really understand the political situation that Lincoln and the others were responding to in their orations. I ended up doing a lecture on the history of slavery, beginning with the arrival of the first slaves in the American colonies and detailing each crisis and the major court cases and Congressional compromises. The idea was to set up the seeds for the conflict, showing how the political need to keep the number of free and slaves states balanced was running into geographical limitations with regards to the growing of cotton as the United States pushed beyond the Mississippi River. Consequently, I know what a book entitled "Causes of the Civil War" should cover.

James F. Epperson begins with a list of the Notable Figures who will play key roles in the history that he relates in these pages. These includes not only Lincoln, his predecessor James Buchanan, and his opposite number Jefferson Davis, but also Senators John C. Calhoun, Henry, Clay and Stephen A. Douglas, abolitionists John Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe, the slaves Nat Turner and Dred Scott, and Chief Justice Roger Taney. By highlighting these individuals before the historical narrative Epperson indicates that his thin volume is covering all three branches of government and their respective roles in the coming storm. The book is illustrated maps and photographs, most of the latter coming from the Library of Congress and National Archives, which lend the proper air of authenticity.

The specific causes of the Civil War are covered in six chapters: (1) Seeds of Conflict begins with Fort Sumter being shelled and then goes back to the establishment of slavery in America. The debate at the Constitutional Convention over slavery, the Northwest Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification crisis, and the Nat Turner rebellion all set the stage for the last great act of compromise. (2) The Compromise of 1850 covers how the territory acquired from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War, and the attempt to pass the Wilmot Proviso, made the question of how California would enter the Union of critical importance. Epperson then details exactly how the Great Compromise came about. (3) Bleeding Kansas is the next eruption after four years of sectional peace, by which point Stowe had published "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the violence entered the chamber of the U.S. Senate. Kansas did not receive statehood until 1861, but the issue spurred the creation of the Republican Party.

The fact that there is not another compromise forthcoming makes it clear the war is inevitable at this point, it is just a question of when. Epperson underscores that with (4) Deepening Divisions, where the Dred Scott decision and the Lincoln-Douglas debates make slavery THE only political issue on the agenda. (5) The Election of 1860 explains the great irony, that the split in the Democratic Party gave Lincoln and the Republicans the White House as a result of the 4-way race. Lincoln's election led to (6) Secession and War, with the Southern states making good on their threat, which they did not do in 1850 over the admission of California to the Union. By this last chapter the focus in no longer on the general causes, but rather the specific situation that make Fort Sumter the final crisis that sparked the war.

Granted, pretty much everything here can be found in a solid American history textbook, but Epperson has the advantage of clearing the field of everything else. There is nothing in this book that is not related to the topic of the title. The back of "Causes of the Civil War" includes a Chronology of key events from 1787 to 1861, including Eli Whitney patenting the cotton gin. This is followed by a Glossary of terms from "abolition" to "unconstitutional," and a list of Further Reading that is divided into books for students (e.g., Dale Anderson, "The Causes of the Civil War") and books for older readers (e.g., James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom"). There are also Internet Resources and an Index. Other books in The Road to War: Causes of Conflict series look at the causes of the American Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars. Hopefully these other books are as solid as this one.

Athan Theoharis' Chasing Spies tells how the FBI failed in counterintelligence but succeeded in promoting McCarthyism during the Cold War. Chapters focus on the failure of the organization to apprehend and convict Soviet agents, their rejection of information which could have been used against suspected spies, and the efforts of the agency and Hoover to use the information for personal gain.

I used this book for an undergraduate course on U.S. intelligence history at a very selective college and it was universally well-received.

The book presents a comprehensive treatment and assessment of FBI counter-intelligence dating back to the 1930's. This is a shadowy subject since the crime-fighting "celebrity" cases of the 30's (See: Bryan Burroughs' _Public Enemies) have always drowned-out the birth and growth of the FBI's formidible intelligence/counterintelligence capabilities. An aspect that has been forgotten in all this, to my mind, is that there is a reason the FBI has been deemed the "lead agency" in the current "War on Terror" - this book tracks that history.

It is a tragic history that engages Soviet Espionange, the Smith Act cases, and their politicization in the McCarthy era. The book also addresses the revelations of the 1996 Venona Transcripts and pays attention to the latest contentions in a fluid and changing historiography. Oh, and it keeps you wanting to turn the page.

CRG
Worcester, MA

Written by Gabe T. Wang (Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at William Paterson University), China and the Taiwan Issue: Impending War at Taiwan Strait is a critical examination of the modern political realities confronted by China, Taiwan, and the United States. The tensions between China and the independent Taiwan remain a persistent threat of instability in the region; China and the Taiwan Issue examines historical, cultural, and practical factors surrounding the issue and offers recommendations for peaceful solutions to potential conflict. Especially recommended reading for students of political science and foreign relations with China and Taiwan.

The most unique characteristic of this book is its comprehensive perspective on the Taiwan issue. After an introduction of the Taiwan issue in Chapter One, Chapter Two provided its readers with a concise but complete history of modern China, which is most fundamental in understanding the Chinese society and psychology about the internal and international politics. This brief history indicates why the Chinese are so anxious about getting Taiwan back. Then, Chapter Three provided the audience with a brief history of Taiwan, which informs the audience why many people in Taiwan want to become independent and why the Taiwan issue is so complicated. Chapter Four made a comparison of the socioeconomic development in both mainland China and Taiwan. The author seems to see more similarities than differences between the Taiwan Strait. This is very interesting and helpful, for most people are used to the Cold War stereotypes. Chapter Five described the U.S. involvement of the United States in the Taiwan issue and how the international politics influenced the United States decisions. It provides more information from the less known side of China. Chapter Six gave an account of the political relations between China and Taiwan with the involvement of the United States. Finally, Chapter Seven provides the author's analyses of the tri-part interactions between China and Taiwan as well as the United States. It also provided the readers with options for each of the three parties involved.

Compared with many books about Taiwan issue, this book is obviously less partial and has painted a more complete picture of the issue. It is less influenced by the prevailing and popular international politic ideologies; instead, it pays much more attention to the concerns and fundamental changes in both China and Taiwan. The book focuses on or intended to discuss about the Taiwan issue; however, it is also a good book to understand China, its politics, social problems, anxieties, the social and economic developments. It is a must read book for those who sincerely want to understand China. Although its subtitle is Impending War at Taiwan Strait, it actually does not talk about war.

I'm so glad that there is a clear, easy-to-read book that shows the connections between our most simple everyday buying decisions and our current economic predicament. Mr. Koeninger has connected the dots from our days as a solid manufacturing nation to today's "cheap-cheaper-cheapest" mentality and the picture those dots complete is pretty scary.

Read this book to understand why so many small towns in America look forlorn and deserted. If you really believe in action, buy the book for your local politicians, state representatives, and US Congressional delegates. A copy or two for your local newspaper editors wouldn't hurt either.

George is right on all the points that our politicians are afraid to confront. Although this book is supposed to be fiction, it is based on absolute fact. This is a must read for every American concerned about what's happening to our economy, the exodus of jobs, and the complacency of our politicians in responding to the crisis that's on our doorstep.