Public Policy Books

This book not only talks about the Yanze river and three gorges dam but it also gives a very interesting lesson on the history of China. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in China.

A superb book. Drawing from her life experience, the author gives vivid picture of people's life along China's Yangtze River. The construction of the super-dam will greatly alter people's life there. We should thank the author for recording, thus preserving the past that will be gone forever. Scholars, especially scholars of China Studies would get detailed description of the daily life of Chinese people. Travellers would also find the book useful. The author was among the first group of foreigners who worked and travelled in China after 1976. Thus, her story is really invaluable since not many foreigners had the chance to witness China around 1980. Overall, the book is informative and insightful. Wonderful work.

December, 2, 2002. I just returned from my first trip to China which included 4 days cruising through the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. My good fortune was having this wonderfully and scholarly written book by Ms Chetham.

This book was invaluable to me because it gave me a full perspective of China, it's people, it's culture, and it's economic development. With this book as my traveling companion along with 43 good friends from San Francisco our group visited Beijing, Xian, Chongching,350 miles of the Yangtze River, Wuhan, Shanghai, & Souzhou. In each locale we had english speaking guides who were born and raised in the area. The combination of the local input, our observations, and readings from this book created a "trip of a lifetime" for me.

If you plan to visit China this book is a must.

Found this book very readable. Thought it was fascinating as an introduction to how the Yangtze shaped China. Gave me a good overview of the the area around the river basins.

This book encompasses the history of the Yangtze, as a history major I enjoyed learning about the history pertaining the Yangtze. Moreover, it discusses the political motives behind the construction of the dam. Also, this book addresses the social as well as environmental costs of TGD. It is a great book for students, travelers, environmentalists, historians, and those who have an interest in China.

This book should be mandatory reading for every member of the U. S. Congress! All heads of the major media network news departments should also read it.

Philip Longman makes the case that current U.S. healthcare is a fragmented, market driven system that lags behind much of the industrialized world in both quality and access of healthcare. According to Longman, the problem with our healthcare system is that it isn't really a system and that it doesn't reward the one thing that it should - health improvement. In fact, he offers proof that in the U.S. doctors and hospitals are rewarded for providing treatment, but not necessarily providing health to their patients. To illustrate this, he offers examples from two of the nation's premier hospitals - Beth Israel and Duke Medical Center. Both initiated programs that were so successful at improving health that they became unprofitable and were ultimately terminated.

This book is filled with understandable, but often shocking statistics. For example, every year in the United States 98,000 people die due to medical errors while in the hospital, another 90,000 die due to infections that they get while in the hospital, and 126,000 needlessly die because their doctor failed to use evidence-based protocols for just four of the most common conditions.

The solution? Longman speaks effusively about the VA healthcare system. And rightfully so. It is the only fully functioning, evidence-based healthcare system in the country. The book explores the history of the VA and speaks honestly about some of the warts that mar the VA's reputation. But the truth of the matter is that the VA has turned all of that around and is currently at the front of the healthcare revolution.

Longman's book contains sections on safety, quality improvement, the concept of lifetime healthcare, and the Kizer Revolution at the VA, which dramatically improved quality and altered forever the course of veterans' healthcare.

The section on VistA, the software program that is revolutionizing healthcare, is worth the price of the book. This open source software program is really a bundle of 20,000 programs written in open source code. Surprisingly, it is being adopted extensively around the world - but not right here at home.

Longman proposes a reform of the U.S. healthcare system that incorporates the best of VistA and many other VA best practices and innovations. If you are interested in the healthcare debate and what is possible in future U.S. healthcare, I highly recommend this book.

For those interested in learning more about the healthcare debate and want to explore other opinions, I would also recommend the following three books: A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care; Who Killed Health Care?: America's $2 Trillion Medical Problem - and the Consumer-Driven Cure; and Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results.

Best Care Anywhere is well-researched and well-written. It clearly shows us why our health care "system" is costly and sometimes dangerous, and it gives some great ideas about how it can be fixed.

I really enjoyed reading this excellent summary of the changes that have taken place at the VA hospitals and how their successes might be duplicated in the private sector. Overall an illuminating portrait of a system that went from barely adequate to outstanding and how integration of medical informatics and dedication to preventive medicine made it happen.

This was a truly interesting book that is a 'must read' for those who are looking for alternative national solutions to our healthcare situation. Another related book of interest is "Medical Informatics 20/20" available on Amazon

Medical Informatics 20/20: Quality And Electronic Health Records Through Collaboration, Open Solutions, And Innovation

The Weekly Standard May 7, 200l Scrapbook, page 3 Book Notes

The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self-respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately.

Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation -- A Practical Primer

As reviewed in ORBIS Summer 2001, By Mark T. Clark,Ph.D., Director of National Security Studies, California State University at San Bernardino.

Henry Sokolski, in his Best of Intentions, expressly eschews the search for the causes of proliferation and instead prefers to evaluate efforts to prevent proliferation in the first place. A former military legislative analyst in the Senate and an official in the Department of Defense during the first Bush administration, he currently heads the nonprofit Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. His interests, therefore, lie in the search for practical answers to policy questions, not in the development of theory per se. He proposes to determine how effective U.S. and international efforts have been in curbing proliferation, and specifically intends to "identify and weigh the premises of U.S. nonproliferation policies (p. xii).

His book is divided into seven chapters, the first and last of which deal with the history and future of nonproliferation. The five central chapters are analytic histories of the major nonproliferation policies: the Baruch Plan, the Atoms for Peace Program, the NPT, proliferation technology control regimes, and the U.S. Counterproliferation Initiative. According to Sokolski, each of the initiatives had distinct assumptions that were built upon an assessment of the strategic dangers that needed to be avoided at the time, and each was designed to correct the failures of its precursors. He further argues that "[t]o the extent each characterized the strategic threat properly, they produced nonproliferation measures that were sound. To the extent that they did not, they encouraged measures that were impractical or that actually compounded the proliferation threats they were supposed to reduce" (p. xii).

How U.S. leaders characterized the strategic threat makes for an interesting approach to the periods under examination. It also reminds the reader that there is always a strategic context to policy, and favored solution to perceived problems. In other words, policymakers' assumptions about the world tend to influence their responses to it. For example, after World War II, American policy makers worried that the spread of nuclear weapons would inevitably generate undeterrable wars against which no defense was possible. Since the United States would not be able to deflect potential offensive nuclear wars, it sought to retain sole ownership of nuclear weapons. The Baruch Plan that was offered to the United Nations in 1946 provided, among other things, that anything critical to nuclear bomb making be turned over to the control of an international atomic energy authority, a meritorious proposal in itself. However, the United States' exaggerated fears of undeterrable offensive nuclear wars made it crucial for the country to maintain it sole nuclear monopoly until thorough safeguards were in place - and that condition alone provided the Soviets with the reason to reject it.

The drafters of the Nonproliferation Treaty of l968 had their own strategic assumptions, which continue to fuel debate over nonproliferation policies today. At the heart of the first three articles of the NPT are concerns about the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, that is, the spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear states. The original Irish proposal in l958 reflected the early fears that the addition of new nuclear powers would lead to international instability, making nuclear war more likely. Before the NPT was finished, however, negotiators began fearing the effects of vertical proliferation, that is, the accumulation of nuclear weapons by the superpowers targets against one another, which could lead to accidental or unauthorized nuclear war. Today some states refuse to sign the NPT unless and until the major powers move more drastically toward disarmament. In the meantime, the dangers of horizontal proliferation continue to grow.

Sokolski's history and analysis would seem to be premised on political realism. In the concluding chapter, however, his prescriptions for new nonproliferation policies reflect a different theoretical bent. Since there are limits and weakness to all the previous policies, he argues, new initiatives must focus on issues more lasting than technological or military contingencies. The next counterproliferation campaign must be anchored in larger policies that distinguish between liberal and hostile illiberal regimes in an effort to broaden, over the long run, the "zones of peace" and shrink "zones of conflict." In other words, Sokolski relies on a form of the "democratic peace theory," which suggests that democracies do not wage war against other democracies. This idea has broad acceptance among American political leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.

Sokolski and Best of Intentions deserve credit for accomplishing the politically impossible: Clarifying the last half century of U.S. strategic arms control and nonproliferation in a manner that both the Right and Left can support. This is no mean trick. How many books on this subject get featured not only in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, but the Weekly Standard; get endorsed by Conservatives including Bill Kristol and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and liberals such as Democratic Congressman Ed Markey; and have receptions thrown for them by both the liberal Carnegie and the Conservative Heritage Foundations? Other than this book, none that I know of. How could this happen? No mystery here: The book is unusually well written and to the point. More important, it makes a very critical, nonpartisan point: Every U.S. effort to control the spread of strategic arms has presumed some vision of the next war that has either been wrong or overtaken by events. As such, the U.S. needs to focus its next arms restraint campaign less on dubious military predictions and more on the political and economic trends toward markets and liberal democracy that are both sounder and more positive. Indeed, Best of Intentions' effort to detail the past assumptions of U.S. policy makers is first rate reading for anyone smug enough to assume that the U.S. has done the best that it can to prevent armageddon. Clearly, it has meant well but there is room for improvement. For any student or official interested in clarifying this point or who is anxious to get on with this project, Best of Intentions is the best (and a most bipartisan) place to begin.

"...Best of Intentions provides a timely and well-reasoned history of U.S. attempts to prevent the spread of nuclear materials. Henry Sokolski has succeeded in setting forth the current dilemmas facing present-day decision makers and making a compelling analysis of where past policies have gone right or wrong."
Representative Edward J. Markey, (D-Massachusetts), Co-Chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation

"...informed and trenchant...offers valuable insights and presents important challenges - not only to those who have advocated prior non-proliferation initiatives, but to those who contend that there are better options..."
Alton Frye, Vice President, Council on Foreign Relations

"Henry Sokolski has done us all a great service by parsing, briefly and succinctly, the tangled history of nonproliferation, and relating it to the problems we face today."
James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency

"This is an outstanding survey, analysis and critique ...a vitally important addition to the reading lists and libraries of scholars, policymakers, and others having an interest in U.S. national security strategy, technology transfer, arms control and proliferation."
Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

"For any Democrat or Republican wishing to rethink what our nonproliferation policies should be, Best of Intentions is the place to begin."
William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard

"...an indispensable primer on a long and crucial battle we may now be losing."
Peter W. Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"A fascinating history and penetrating critique of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy."
Frank Von Hippel, Princeton University, former arms control advisor to the Clinton Administration

"...raises fundamental strategic questions that must be addressed...a thoughtful, welcome provocation."
George Perkovich, author, India's Nuclear Bomb, director of the Alton Jones Foundation

"The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately."
The Weekly Standard

"...This sobering analysis is must reading for scholars and policy makers alike."
Henry Rowen, Stanford University, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"...a reference work no serious student of these matters should be without."
Gordon C. Oehler, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Nonproliferation Center

A history of U.S. efforts to stop the expansion of nuclear arms "ownership" is not novel. One that treats both vertical proliferation, for old owners' stockpiles, and horizontal proliferation, to new owners, is unusual. So too is a work that is conceptual yet succinct. Henry Sokolski, the Pentagon chief of non-proliferation policy in the first Bush presidency and executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, delivers on both counts. Best of Intentions looks at the results of arms control policies, which often involved unintended consequences-but consequences that Sokolski shows nonetheless follow from their authors' thinking. Ultimately, however, the character and designs of regimes owning weapons of mass destruction is Sokolski's most portentous theme.

Best of Intentions is intended, it appears, for undergraduate and early graduate-level students, though policy analysts would do well to read its treatment of arms control doc-trines and instruments-both carrots and sticks. Sokolski has a certain under statement manifest both in succinctness and, occasionally, in subtlety, which may leave the not so nimble behind.

Sokolski draws lessons from five cases: the Baruch Plan rejected by the Soviet Union; Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative, which paved the way for the inadequate" safeguards" regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency; the1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) based on bargaining with nuclear have-nots; proliferation technology control regimes such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Australia Group on Chemical and biological weapons; and counterproliferation policy in the1990s, which prepared military means to eliminate emerging weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenals.

Sokolski draws three lessons from these cases. First, strategic assumptions shape initiatives. For instance, he attributes the NPT's effort to reward nations promising to desist from acquiring nuclear arms with access to ostensibly civilian nuclear technology to 1960s ideas on "finite deterrence" and an attendant right to acquire civilian nuclear technology. He offers a unique critique of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, which he demonstrates shares the premises of the NPT, hatched a quarter-century earlier. Second, Sokolski highlights the risks of basing nonproliferation initiatives on wrongheaded assumptions about the sources and nature of future wars. Finally, he suggests that horizontal proliferation can only be reduced when the nuclear "haves" reduce their vertical proliferation-but only "without increasing the world's access to ever larger and more uncertain amounts of strategic materials and capabilities."

Sokolski offers corrective prescriptions for the future. He insists that quid pro quo for nonproliferation promises must be banished because they encourage efforts to acquire WMDs to get a reward. Also, he calls for a centrist position on export controls between existing voluntary consultation regimes and a new version of the Cold War COCOM, whereby nations "could deny any export (listed or not) to Any destination and expect this denial to be upheld (i.e., not undercut) By other members until they met to learn why the denial was made . . . [so that] incremental agreement might be reached on a substantial number of items and destinations."

The book has several particular strengths. It offers rich portraits of doctrines, such as the Mutual Assured Destruction balance of terror and the early Clinton Administration paradigm of "cooperative security," as alternatives to either export controls or missile defense. Sokolski brilliantly shows how the premises of initiatives like Atoms for Peace led to perverse results. Also, his critique of "carrots" is quite convincing. For instance, he asks about one incentives-based policy of the 1990s:"Wouldn't including both proliferation suppliers and consumers into organizations that had relatively free trade in sensitive technology simply turn existing proliferation technology denial regimes into proliferation breeding grounds?"

Indeed, in style, the book's objective and balanced tone is welcome, despite strong normative implications. For instance, Sokolski writes, "Atoms for Peace may have gotten the relationship between vertical and horizontal proliferation wrong but at least it recognized that there was a connection." And once again, conciseness is a strength of this veritable primer -- including informative documentary appendices on the cases.

The best insight the book offers, though, is emphasized in the last Chapter of the text. The "intentions" highlighted in the title are important when it comes to countries the United States is seeking to constrain from acquiring WMDs. What really matters is not so much the deadly capability of other nations, but their intent in acquiring that capability. As such, regime-type is all-important. Authoritarian states that take the lives of their own citizens lightly typically take the use of supremely deadly force against other countries lightly as well. Therefore, the United States should seek a world filled with more benign neighbors, because "a world of Canadas is a world not at war." Democratic states either forego WMD arsenals, or pose no danger if they do acquire them.

By implication, non-proliferation policy must focus on the demand side, not just the supply side. Sokolski observes that "in the 1980sand very early 1990s, Taiwan, South Korea, Ukraine, Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil all foreswore or dismantled their nuclear weapons or long-range missile programs." Why? He believes that it is because they became more democratic-typically with a little push from the United States. Going beyond reliance on globalized trade to inevitably yield political liberalization, the author asserts that active democracy-promotion is the best nonproliferation policy.

Hence, Best of Intentions contributes to multiple sets of literature. It belongs to the rich literature on nuclear doctrines, but breaks new ground in dissecting U.S. nonproliferation policy initiatives. In particular, the work belongs to an under developed literature critiquing prevailing deterrence and arms control theory by emphasizing how intent, rather than capability, matters most to nuclear peace.

More generally, Best of Intentions contributes to the literature on ideas, and not just books dealing exclusively with nuclear doctrines. It adds to the literature on U.S. foreign policy doctrines. Finally, the work links nonproliferation to the literature on the democratic peace and the importance of democracy-promotion. This final contribution may be even more crucial than Sokolski intended.

este libro de veras, trata este asunto desde la perspectiva de los dos lados en una manera unica y verdadera. Hasta la fecha no sé si haya un libro tan real, tan hasta al grano que, con una certeza y verdad brutal, ataca a los dos gobiernos y sus mafias malisimas.
Los datos sobre la familia Bush sobre todo, y como se han metido cizaña en los asuntos de todos sectores de la economia, hasta contratos con el sistema penal son verdaderamente asombrosos.
Si necesitas leer algo para tu clase en la universidad, o simplemente quieres un libro sobre las frontera, este es. Sin leer este libro no tendrás ninguna perspectiva adecuada.

If issues of the border, immigration or the prison system affect you, you need to read this book. Enjoy the book.
Half of the royalties for this book are going straight to legal costs for rainforest defense so that corporate developement can be stopped. Especially pristine coastal habitat like mangrove esturaries which are critical and endemic habitat areas for many species of wildlife. We don't need anymore of the coast to look like Cancun or Acupulco now do we?
Richard Alevizos

This was a very interesting book!! Much of the material presented was first-hand and anecdotal, and sometimes reads like a diary.. yet throughout the book, it also reads like a formal treatise on the subject at hand: our country's flagrant misuse of tax dollars, solely designed to administer unreasonable immigration control, and designed to uphold a clearly pork-barrel agenda to keep the lower classes lower and the upper classes upper.

As a staunch "centrist" who generally frowns on lefist conspiratorial blather, I was nontheless able to identify with the liberal slant of this book, for the simple reason that it mostly espouses simple truths about the matter at hand with regard to our prison system. In other words, after reading this novel, even a right-wing conservative has to admit: our prison system is completely out of hand. I was also impressed by the authors' knowledge of the hispanic culture(s?) and his general ability to capture the essense of our troubled lands "down south".

The author has lived a strange and particular tale, and unlike a vast majority of the prison populace, was able to put his experiences to paper, with the hopes that others might benefit from his ordeal. My only regret is that the book does not follow through on the ultimate outcomes of the authors' experiences as well as his subjects, and instead, leaves us all wondering, "what happens next"? A Great Read...

The border is an artificial construct designed to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. The simple fact that our companies can go down there and set up shop and destroy the environment and offer terrible wages to poor mexicans while screwing over people in this country is testimonial enough to the "border". And the fact that those who cross over it to get here become nothing more than the very economic slaves used to pick your kid's strawberries or trim the fat off your beef or pork at your friendly neighborhood rendering plant says it all. How about the economic slave getting your big maccie ready with the super size me it fries and corn syrup. And while the 65% obese U.S.A. complains that it can't get its goods cheap enough it also complains about poor workmanship or quality of product. I think it was those very same who not only weren't satisfied with John the Baptist running around the woods in a loin cloth eating off a leg of raw venison, but they weren't satisfied with Jesus in his fine clothes and decent food. Nothing can make them happy!
And so just like these self same people who complain about the quality of their goods and services, tomorrow they would compain if there was nobody there to serve their selfish obese(and overinflated) egotistical needs. And if they had the nerve to complain about the lack of service, at least they wouldn't be complaining about the quality, it wouldn't be an isse at that point. Because if tomorrow all those illegals went home for good, the U.S.A. would be on its knees and in no time at all it would be beggin for its shadow workers to come back. Heck if that happened, if all the illegal Mexicans went home, the U.S.A. would have to get rid of the border all together in an effort to entice those shadow workers to come back to their often dangerous low paying job so it could stimulate its "shadow" economy and save itself from "starving".

One could tell this book is as informed as anybody in any think tank in Washington D.C. or on Wall Street. The facts infused within the anecdotal dialogue combined with the author's common sense and street smart give a whole new twist to the immigration debate. Why are we listening to a bunch of strictly white guys on Wall Street? And everybody knows Washington D.C. is out of touch with thegeneral populace.
As one review indicates, it leaves you hanging with that sense of what is next, but it's message pressages the immediacy of a solution to this problem before it gets more out of hand and more wasteful. This should leave the reader with a sense of urgency to resolve this problem so that more of the money that gets wasted can be diverted to worthy causes, like disaster relief, true disaster relief.
Awesome book, somoebody should make a movie of it

Listened to the interview with the author
on First Voice. A real interesting
book and interview.

The interview is online

There's a transcript for those using dial up.

--J. R.

It's beyond dispute that America's public schools, particularly in our cities, are failing to provide either an adequate education or an adequate socializing experience for children. The consequences are also well known: low self-esteem, poverty, crime... the gamut of ills attendant to relegating whole communities to the status of "underclass", unable to contribute to a 21st century economy.

The reasons for school failure and how to significantly improve our public schools are frequently debated. Proposals include "raise teacher pay", "get more teachers certified by our schools of education", "build better schoolhouses", and the incredible demand, "send us better kids". With a parent's perspective and a keen eye, Stern sweeps aside all the self-serving nonsense and gets right to the point: if the public wants public schools to perform, then schools must be managed to achieve that performance. Management means a controlling authority (most importantly, a principal) with the power to select teachers and other staff who will collaborate to achieve measurable goals. In today's public schools, the principal's inability to hire, fire, or to define work content and compensation, is a fatal blow to any attempts to dramatically improve school performance.

Stern goes on to document how, with $2 billion in annual dues and unprecedented political power that ranges from the local to the national level, the teachers' unions have dominated the political process. On the national and state level, wielding hundreds of millions of dollars worth of political clout, the teachers' unions have generally dominated the legislative process. On the local level, school districts are forced into signing labor contracts running to hundreds of pages, loaded with provisions that effectively eliminate teacher accountability and the principal's control.

Talented teachers and principals are disgusted and often demoralized when they see their profession become a dumping ground for incompetence, protected by a union that only cares about teacher prerogatives, including the "right" not to be judged, and who actively obstruct any drive for standards of performance. Principals with enough integrity to put students' interests first must struggle with a morass of rules and procedures that would be considered farcical in the private sector. The teacher's classroom is a fief impenetrable to any objective evidence of success or failure.

Stern focuses on the massive New York City public school system, where an antiquated administration is helpless to defend the interests of the individual school. In the case of Stuyvessant High School, where the City's finest students are assembled, Stern documents how an aggressively pro-student principal is "grievanced" into retirement by a diligent union representative wielding nothing more (or less) lethal than the teacher contract.

Stern's primary concern is the fate of students from poor homes, where parents are unable to supplement their children's education, and who attend schools where "to teach" is a process, not a result. These students fall behind early and never catch up. The significance of this academic failure is disputed by faddish school-of-ed-talk about "the inner child" and "learning to learn" and "critical faculties". Nevertheless, in the real world where reading, writing and math really matter, these children are stamped once and for all with the mark of the underclass. Meanwhile, down the street, with half the money, the City's Catholic schools are doing a significantly better job with the same students.

"Breaking Free" is a plea for school choice, to date the only school reform movement that has opened a chink in the Berlin Wall of public education. Charter schools and vouchers have proven the enormous pent-up demand for alternatives to the public school monopoly and the potential to do much better with our education dollars. Both programs, ferociously opposed by the unions, are struggling to meet their potential, hobbled by grossly inadequate state and local legislation. Behind these great public battles lies an even greater battle: to create public schools that work.

This is a remarkable book. Part of it is the author's own story--how he grew up in NYC in the 1940s and, as the bright son of immigrant parents, attended the best public schools, which taught real skills and civic consciousness; and how his own children now attend the best public schools in the city (Stuyvesant, etc.) and face curricular chaos and the tyrannical incompetence of teachers who consider themselves union members more than instructors. In the second part of the book, the author goes looking for alternatives and stumbles on a Catholic school in his neighborhood where the students are all black. And unlike the underprivileged black kids imprisoned in the horrible NYC ghetto schools, these kids are learning in an orderly, humane environment. Stern completes his odyssey by going to areas like Cleveland and Milwaukee where choice has been institutionalized and he finds there more small educational miracles. He concludes that school choice is a moral imperative, the new civil rights movement of our era. This is an eye opening book. I did some research and discovered that some of the articles that Stern wrote while working on this book came to the attention of Mayor Rudi Guiliani and were instrumental in his decision to come out in favor of school choice for New York, a plan that the teachers unions killed. (Naturally).

This book starts quietly, with a personal look at the New York City schools, as experienced by the author as a child and as experienced by his own children several decades later. This section of the book is very powerful, precisely because it is non-ideological. Stern is not writing as a political theorist, but simply as a parent, trying to get a decent education for his children. This tone is powerful, in part, because Stern actually is a political theorist, for his day job so to speak; he is a journalist who was deeply involved in the New Left.

Keeping that tone and that focus, Stern takes us, with his kids, through a tour of New York City's best and most elite public schools. The schools that his kids got into are the best of the best. And, while his kids managed to get a reasonable education at them, Stern shows us, in a very understated way, just how bad the system is, even in the best of the schools. The problem, fundamentally, is simple. The schools are not run for the good of the children. Instead, the schools are run for the good of the adults who have jobs in the school system. Exhibit A of this is how even a super elite school can not fire a grossly incompetent teacher, and can not hire an extremely qualified teacher who does not have the right credentials. In both cases, if you actually cared about the kids, the decision would be simple: fire the incompetent, and hire the gifted but unconventional teacher.

But, in New York City, as in most of our large urban school districts, that common sense result is nearly impossible. Why? Because the union contract basically forbids firing tenured teachers, and takes a very rigid, uncreative approach to credentialiing. Why? It is simple. The unions wants its members to live without risk, to have guaranteed jobs and guaranteed security. From the union's point of view, that is perfectly logical and reasonable. After all, it is the union's duty to protect its members. But, the problem is that the union has an extraordinary level of political power, and no one within the educational system has the power to stand up to them, so decisions are made for the whole system, which are driven by nothing but the self-interest of the union.

Stern then moves on to examine a number of successful alternatives to the public schools. He looks at the Catholic schools, as well as a mixed bag of voucher schools and charter schools. As he shows, these schools vary greatly, but many of them produce much better results than the public ones, simply because they are run for the good of the children, not as a jobs program for the union.

Stern does a very good job of discussing the opponents to school choice. I am pretty familiar with this area, so I am very familiar with the writings of Jonathan Kozol, who is perhaps the most passionate opponent of school choice writing in America today. Kozol has written a series of books, which very dramatically and emotionally attack American schools for being racist and under-funded, while, at the same time, defending the status quo on every point, except his passion for racial integration and increasing funding.

As well known as Kozol is, I did not know that he was a hard-line radical Leftist. Stern gives a very useful summary of Kozol's career. Apparently, Kozol, at one point, went to Cuba and produced a book which lavishly praised Castro and his educational system. Also, in Kozol's books directed at teachers, he suggests that they look up to Cuba and China as models of the sort of society which radical teachers should create in this country. Kozol, in short, is as close to an old-line Communist as one is likely to find these days, a fact not stressed by all of the glowing New York Times reviews of Kozol's latest pro-union book.

Breaking Free tries hard to be the one-size-fits-all destroyer of the public school temple. And it comes very close. But its ancestry as a bunch of shorter journalism, and its seemingly complete faith in principals, keep it from being perfect.

Mr. Stern seems to believe that dynamic principals can single-handedly reshape a school. That is true to a point. But there are two problems he fails to address. One is that these dynamic leaders are hard to find, and even harder to identify. I worked for many years in public schools and knew many principals. Among the worst was a charming and pretty lady who knew the jargon, conveyed authority and confidence, and was "for the children." She was a PR prize, known in the community and valued as an "expert." She was also a very bad principal. Cronies were in positions of authority, cronies who were always "downtown" or "at a conference" but never around. She wanted everything to run wonderfully, and did not want to know anything about the details. So details were kept away. I am reasonably certain that standardized tests were "corrected" by the teachers, giving comparatively good scores to very weak students. Even in a world of choice, it would be hard to pinpoint her school as anything other than a success. Good scores, great leadership, happy staff. It all looked good. And it was all a charade.

Principals have plenty of other ways of jiggering the books. And giving them additional unregulated power will only allow those with a deceptive streak to provide jobs for friends and lovers, keep critics away, and create personal fiefdoms where their word goes. So, though a dynamic, dedicated principal, willing to work slavishly long hours for low pay, may be the answer, just how many of those guys are there?

But his devastating critique of the New York City public schools, with their entrenched unions that ultimately make the only rules that matter, and his comparisons with (admittedly selected) private schools doing far more with much less should be required reading for those who believe the Chicken Littles in the education world who run screaming whenever any change is proposed.

Public education is a near-total failure. It is outrageously expensive. Teachers control the language of debate, the politicians pretending to debate, and the future voters, so their terms and their ability to exclude critics make them apparently invulnerable. But enough people are avoiding public schools, even the best ones, that change will have to come. I just hope we don't wait until the entire system is in ruins.

The "Capital Homesteading" term builds upon the successful experience under the United States Homestead Act of 1862. Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, it transferred sustainable plots of government land on the country's frontier to families who devoted at least five years to developing a farm. The book includes a quote from Ronald Reagan, who called for an "Industrial Homestead Act" in 1974, before he was president, saying "it is time to accelerate economic growth and broaden the ownership of productive capital. The American dream has always been to have a piece of the action."

The book's 17 separate "Policy Objectives of Capital Homesteading" include many legislative goals that are not directly related to broadening the ownership of capital. For instance, balanced federal budgets, zero inflation rate, new global monetary system, tax simplification and "teaching at all levels of education of universal principles of personal morality and social morality, that are based on the inherent dignity and sovereignty of every human person under the higher sovereignty of the Creator."

The objective that relates specifically to the book's title and subtitle is the creation of "Capital Homestead Accounts (CHAs)" for each U.S. citizen. These accounts would borrow from banks to pay for "full voting, full dividend-payout shares issued by `qualified' private sector enterprises in need of capital for expansion, modernization or for purchasing outstanding shares from present shareowners." The bank loans would be insured by a Federal Capital Credit Corporation and then discounted at the Federal Reserve Banks. Dividends from the shares purchased by the CHA would pay interest and principal on the loans and then provide income to the citizen.

The book deals with most of the questions that come to mind from the basic proposal, including the major change in the function of the Federal Reserve System and Social Security. A citizen could rollover other retirement plans, and even inheritances and gifts, into the CHA and have it accumulate income tax free, up to a maximum that would be set by law, based upon current living costs and other factors.

Reading Capital Homesteading was a bit like my reading, 50 years ago, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Published in 1888, its fictional narrator had slept until 2000 and is comparing the socialist utopia of his awakening with the inequities when he fell asleep. With Bellamy, I couldn't believe that the socialist society would work, or that it would even be a very desirable way of life. With Kurland, I just can't believe that the program is politically possible. If one made a list of who stands to lose from his legislative proposals, and then compared that to the list of who spends the most on political contributions and lobbyists, the two lists would be a match.

Changing expectations and attitudes may be the best work we can do today toward making the legal system more compatible with broadening the ownership of business.

My sincerest congratulations to Norman Kurland, Dawn Brohawn and Michael Greaney for authoring such an impressive book on Capital Homesteading and how it can avoid bankrupting the Social Security and radically improve the competitiveness of basic industries in America. I am very impressed at the comprehensivenes of this book in addressing through a more just free market system a whole host of economic problems that up to now, seemed to be hopeless. The book is also very timely in that I and other seaman of Oglebay Norton Marine Services recently formed an association called the Oglebay Norton Employee Economic Empowerment Association (ONEEEA) to initiate an employee buyout of the Great Lakes vessels owned by our financially ailing company. The Capital Homesteading book helped me tremendously to understand why many corporations are experiencing financial difficulties and why our economy is so unstable. It gives very clear reasons, scenarios and end results of why these problems exist, offers solutions to these problems and describes in great detail, the benefits of implementing the suggested solutions. I could not recommend a book more highly for educating all American workers and our leaders to the mess we are in. It really brought on a whole new understanding for me, why our present economic systems and corporations are failing and what kind of reforms are needed before it's too late. All of the suggested reforms for simplifying and restructuring the tax systems, governments, social security, credit availability, corporations, etc., seem to have a logic that makes it easy to understand. Many of the problems and failures in our economy that are described in this book in graphic detail, have come to roost in the corporation that I work for. The book makes it easy to see why we, as a group of employees, are so drammatically affected by flaws in our current economic policies. I believe that reading this book very carefully would help everyone to gain a better understanding of our economic problems of today. It is well worth the purchase price.

I am not an economist but that has not prevented me from seeing the solid and compelling arguments laid out in this book to truly turn the United States into an "ownership" society. Many may feel we already have that. I would agree that we have it to a point. But, there are too many structural impediments to real democracy in the capital markets resulting in greater and greater polarization of wealth in our society. If unchecked, I fear that this trend will lead to more and more disengagement on the part of my fellow citizens.

The United States has always been a beacon to the entire world as a result of our economic and political freedom. This book offers a new economic paradigm that will not only continue that but, more over, significantly elevate the US even more as a source of new and exciting ideas that help EVERYONE build a better life.

The proposals in this book are bold. But they are so compelling and, at least in my view, so intuitively correct that they must be heard."

Our political leaders need to take a long, hard look at Capital Homesteading if they're truly serious about the future of our democracy. As it is currently structured, Social Security reminds me of a federally guaranteed Ponzi scheme. At what point are future generations going demand that they be allowed to opt out of a system that is becoming increasingly unfair?

Capital Homesteading offers a comprensive solution for restructuring Social Security around a new frontier, not one based on land, but based on a different kind of property. In the tradition of George Mason, Capital Homesteading offers a mechanism for ensuring that every individual would have the means of aquiring and possessing property in America's new frontier. Today, America's new frontier is limited only by the creative capacity of Americans to come up with better ideas, inventions, technology, and thrive in the global marketplace. Our political leaders need to adopt a national strategy for rebuilding our country as a nation of owners, because we are quickly becoming a nation of wage serfs. Such a strategy is sitting on the shelf, available at Amazon.com, waiting for a leader to adopt it as his own, and win the undecided voter.

This is a great book. The book offers solutions on how to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, encouraging employees to become owners of their company, overhauling the current taxation system, and reforming the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

I would recommend this book to everyone. You don't need whole lot of background in economic to read this book.

The information in the book is VERY essential when working with children and youth. The professor who wrote the book teaches at my school, the University of Michigan School of Social Work. The only problem I've ever had with the book is that when I ordered it and it came the cover was one way and the whole text was another. So when I opened it up from the front cover, I had the last page of the text AND it was upsidedown. Amazon should really fix that!!

Douglas Davies's text is lively, intelligent, and somehow manages to be grounded in developmental/attachment theory AND the narrative, real-life details of case studies. His case studies bring the factual elements to life and make this a memorable read. In all honesty, I probably know 100 people who all agree that Davies's text was the finest textbook we have ever read. Highly recommended!

As a school psychologist (ages 4 - 13), I have been looking for a book like this for years! It's much more elaborate than the standard books on child development and it's based on the latest research rather than on theories. It provides me with a rich fund of information that I use when assessing a child, especially younger children with social or emotional issues.
One thing that appeals to me in this book, is the emphasis on psychological processes. Diagnoses like ADHD are briefly discussed but Davies explains also how for example an environmentally based language delay can lead to problems with impulsivity.
Highly recommended!

As a developmental psychologist and professor in a Clinical PsyD program I thoroughly endorse this book. This is a graduate level text and I can say with certainty that professors that utilize this book will produce students grounded in the topic. I have used this text in four consecutive semesters and my students really love this book. It is easy to read, but sophisticated. Each chapter on a developmental stage is followed by case examples whereby developmental concepts are applied. Your students will have a thorough grounding in latest findings in child development and be able to translate this into their clinical work. I cannot say enough about the superiority of this text.
Kim Vander Dussen, Psy. D., RPT-S
Licensed Psychologist
Registered Play Therapist and Supervisor
Assistant Professor, Argosy University, Orange County

There are far too many books out there on development that drown readers with boring facts and research statistics. This is the first book I have read in 10 years that is interesting, clinically sounds, easy to read, and very informative. Douglas Davies writes a book that is a must for any practitioner/therapist interested in working with kids on developmental issues. His book gives a comprehensive view of the various stages kids go through and the clinical issues that arise. It is excellent! You can easily relate to what is written and actually apply it to work with kids! Stop reading and buy this book!

As the international director of the campaign to stop one of the dirtiest oils in the world from perpetuating the American oil addiction (i.e., tar sands oil from Alberta, the second largest oil reserve in the world), I'm constantly reading books on coal, oil, and global warming. This book by Michael Brune is one of the first that I've read that is actually a pleasure to read (despite the subject matter). Michael's writing style is crisp with active tense, great little vignettes, and a little humor thrown in to keep you from getting depressed. Each chapter contains the juiciest and most relevant facts, great examples of what other countries or industries are doing to end the fossil fuel habit, and very specific ways to learn more and take action. I highly recommend this book! Michael Marx, Executive Director, Corporate Ethics International.

Coming Clean hits all the right notes. In his first book, Michael Brune meets the challenges of a climate in crisis and an imperiled environment head on. Brune offers hope to those feeling helpless and overwhelmed by climate change and our global addiction to fossil fuels. More than just another primer on the most urgent environmental issues of the day (though it fills that niche effectively), Coming Clean offers easy steps that any citizen can take to help usher in a clean energy economy.

Coming Clean isn't another environmental treatise accessible only to the academic elite. This book is for the rest of us. Every chapter engages the reader by putting a human face on complex issues ranging from oil and coal to biofuels to building a safer, more efficient mass transit system.

If you ever wanted to make a difference but weren't sure how to get started, pick up a copy of Coming Clean and create an environmental legacy you'll be proud to leave to the next generation.

"Coming Clean" offers real solutions to our current energy crisis. It should be required reading of ALL corporate CEO's and politicians. If only we, as a nation, would heed the warnings and act on the sound advice offered by experts, we could lead the world in use of clean energy and in making the billions that would be connected to the new industries created. I will be leaving this book out for any of my guests and friends to see and comment upon.

I thoroughly enjoyed Coming Clean! Michael Brune writes about complex issues of climate change and energy in an accessible, engaging way. The book is chock full of information - it clearly presents the problems we're facing, but it doesn't make you feel hopeless. Brune tells fascinating stories with an insider's view of past activism to stop major corporations from destroying our environment, as well as stories of regular people taking action in their communities. Every couple of pages, I found myself jumping out of my seat to share something with my boyfriend or whoever happened to be nearby at the time. I love that every chapter gives you things you can do right away to address the issues raised in that chapter. It's a very empowering and affirming read!

Coming Clean is an important book that is a really great read for anyone who wants to understand why America is addicted to oil and coal, and more importantly, learn how people are fighting for a clean energy future that will be good for our country, our economy, and the planet as a whole. Even more importantly, you'll learn about many ways you can get involved and be a part of the solution yourself.

I really liked Coming Clean's focus on vision and action, combined with its hopeful tone giving a sense of what is possible and plenty of inspiration and tools as promised on the cover. I started using the Take Action and Resources sections before I even finished the book. I also found there to be a lot more useful nuts and bolts and thought-provoking information and statistics in this book than other more challenges-focused books that tend to be overloaded with less essential info (and that for me usually start to feel onerous around the halfway to 2/3 mark).

In contrast, Coming Clean is lean and focused with clarity of purpose. There's great use of humor and engaging stories of people making a difference that make it an enjoyable, quick read. But once you are finished, you will likely be inspired enough to return to it often to utilize its many tools for taking both individual and collective action.

What makes this fabulous book unique is that rather than focusing just on the law of zoning or just on the politics of same, Merriam does both- and in language that a nonlawyer can understand. He writes not just about the basics of zoning procedure, but also about how to assemble experts and present your case in a way likely to persuade a zoning board or city council.

In addition, Merriam's work contains some inadvertent clues as to why most American neighborhoods and suburbs are so sprawling and expensive. State and local laws typically require that an attempt to rezone property must be accompanied by some form of notice to neighbors- and so to get government approval, a developer must get neighbors' approval.

And to get that approval, developers must often change their plans in ways that increase the price of housing, make neighborhoods less walkable, or both. For example:

*The neighbors might be worried about traffic congestion. So the developer tries to appease them by widening the roads on its property, thus making that subdivision a scarier place to walk (and also reducing the amount of land available for housing).

*The neighbors might be worried about density. So the developer has to reduce the units in its subdivision, thus reducing housing supply.

*And sometimes, the developer has to just give something to neighborhood groups, essentially bribing them for permission to build. For example, Merriam points out that he sometimes has bought neighborhood goodwill by offering to pay a neighborhood group's lawyers and experts. He also suggests other little payoffs, such as setting aside open space for a neighborhood. I suspect that at least some of these costs are passed on to home buyers.

This book is a great overview of zoning. It gives you the basics -- all of them, but it is definitely for people who know very little about zoning. If you are finding yourself in your first zoning battle, make this your first book. If you already have a general understanding of zoning and its processes, then you already know everything in this book.

Whether or not you will absolutely love this book or find it a waste of money is dependent entirely on your level of knowledge and what you are looking for. This is perfect for those who are just learning about zoning or those who need to brush up.

As the Director of Planning and Development for a mid sized city in CT for the last 16 years, I highly reccomend this book. All planners and developers should read it.

The Complete Guide To Zoning: How Real Estate Owners and Developers Can Create and Preserve Property Value is a no-nonsense guide to understanding what zoning is and how to use it to protect one's property rights and interests. Zoning and Land-Use Law controls what can be done with land and how it can be developed; The Complete Guide To Zoning offers the lay reader a very short course in the law, the importance of knowing what one has, what one wants, and how to get it, the value of creating and leveraging relationships, when to reach out for support, preparing winning applications and making successful presentations, strategies for winning zoning battles, and much more. Chapters give equal focus to pursuing one's desire to develop land commercially, or the desire to see that adjoining lands to one's residential area are not developed commercially. Written in plain terms, The Complete Guide To Zoning is highly accessible regardless of the reader's legal background, and a "must-read" for property owners everywhere.

The Complete Guide to Zoning
By Dwight H. Merriam, FAICP, CRE
Review by Donald J. Poland, AICP

As planners, we tend to take the complexities of zoning and the land-use approval process for granted. Zoning is complicated system of government regulations that impact property rights and property values and more importantly the lives of any person who owns real estate. Dwight H. Merriam, in his new book, "The Complete Guide to Zoning" has successfully written a comprehensive account of zoning and the zoning game. Similar to Chris Matthews' book, Hardball, an insider's look at how the game of politics in played inside the Washington beltway, The Complete Guide to Zoning provides insiders look at how the zoning game is played. With over 25 year's experiences in planning and land use law, Dwight provides many lessons learned through his own experiences.

The Complete Guide to Zoning is formatted into six sections, "What is Zoning and Land-Use Law," "Getting Ready to Make Your Move," "Putting On Your Case," "Posthearing Follow-Up," "Winning Strategies," and "Protecting Your Property Rights." In a plain English and conversational voice, the book walks the reader through the basic law associated with zoning, the complex land-use approval process, and how to get what you want need out of zoning. From a variance for a backyard pool to developing a major expansion to a regional mall, The Complete Guide to Zoning shows the reader how zoning works and how to get the most out of your property and/or project.

While the book provides mostly a developer's perspective (the applicant seeking an approval), it also provides a unique insight and lessons to be learned by the neighbors or opposition groups who want to protect their properties and their rights. Most importantly, The Complete Guide to Zoning emphasizes the important of good communication between all parties, realizing that all or none approaches may not get either party what they want, and that all efforts should be made to avoid litigation.

Dwight's experience and perspective provides insight and understanding to the neophyte or layman, while reaffirming what the seasoned planner, engineer, or land-use attorney knows. We have all been involved in those applications that appear bigger than life and become more than just a job or an approval, but personal parts of ourselves. Be it as the developer who wants the 12-lot subdivision approval, the neighborhood who is fearful of increased traffic on their street, or the planner who has assisted the commission in drafting a new regulation, we all have been personally vested in the outcome of a zoning decision. Dwight reminds us that, "To be successful in resolving these disputes, you need to leave your ego at home. Whether you are the developer, the property owner, the leader of the neighborhood group, the lawyer, or the engineer, it is never about you. It is about land, the objective is developing or saving it, and zoning."

The Complete Guide to Zoning is a must read for anyone who owns real property or is involved in zoning. From the neighbor to the developer, the engineer to the architect, the commission member to the zoning official, the planning student to the veteran planner, this book should be on your desk, night table and available in the planning office and/or local library for applicants to read. The time spent reading "The Complete Guide to Zoning" will save any applicant from many frustrating hours of trying to figure out the land use approval process and weeks if not months of time in gaining a zoning approval. As we all know, saving time saves money and when it comes to development and zoning, time is money.

And last, I assure anyone who reads this book, when you are done reading it you will want to say, "Dwight, you magnificent bastard!" (An inside joke you'll get in reading the book.)

For a number of years now the U.S. government has abused the extension of allowing Immigrants to enter the United States. 'Crowded Land of Liberty: Solving America's Immigration Crisis' is an excellent book on this subject. Author Dirk Chase Eldredge does a fine job in examining the way pro-immigration enthusiasts extend new waves to unassimilated aliens streaming into the country. We are reminded of clichés that "this is a land of immigrants" only to a degree. The true origin of the founders of the original 13 Colonies were very much alike coming from Christian Europe, especially from British Isles, France and Germany. The flood of third world immigrants with the help of multinational corporation, arrive with very low economic and educational levels. They keep their native languages and take longer to assimilate into American culture and send back wages to their families residing in their home country.

The book examines how the dimensions of immigration growth and how it has contributed to a very serious major crisis facing the United States. The fact that what passes for American has ceased to be American people. Now, America is a state and government, it being a nation is a thing of the past. Even under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 those who sought reduction of immigration made a compromise with opposing forces in a foolish bargain only to create more illegal "chain" immigration and mass amnesty. To eliminate this problem the U.S. government needs to look into these immigration policies and revise the Immigration Act. With this out of control and if they continue at this rate the United States will end in disaster. With the trend in states like California being 52 percent Third World and Texas having 50 percent Third World, it's no doubt what the consequences will be. The future of our children and grandchildren will be very grim. Our only hope is America-first voice to take control of sensible policy. The policy should include an absolute freeze on new immigration, deportation of all illegal aliens in America, no extensions or visas. In order for the United States to correct this it will take a few years to solve it's overpopulation and invasion of mass cultures. It's up to the American people to have the will power to make their politicians to implement a solution.