Public Policy Books

After having read the big lie I still was dubious as for knowing if the Boeing 757-200 from American Airlines Flight 77 crashed on the Pentagon or not. Even Though I fully agreed with Thierry Meyssan about the FBI lies and contradictions, the Meyssan's thesis was not supported enough and all he had done was asking questions without really answering them. Further to all these accusations here is a book which explains the thesis in minute detail - lots of pictures, testimonies and experts to back this up and this is very convincing. The demonstration lacks nothing and Thierry Meyssan easily quashes all his detractors' arguments to finally put forward a sturdy hypothesis. The Author and his team show a great analytic sense, without setting aside any fact or testimony in their disfavor.

When this book was published, the term `Conspiracy theorists' became more propagated.

You may not be persuaded much by what's described in your book `9/11 The Big Lie', but the fact remains that in history, and through some quirk in the fortunes of contemporary events, the truth never came out and a lot will remain mysteries that may not be discovered for many generations to come, like for instance `Who killed John F Kennedy and why??'.... "The Secrets behind Pearl Harbour!!' ... `Was Arafat given a lethal injection??' ... Angered at having to waste time and manpower `fighting' to prove to the world- using ordinary common sense - many will identify the open questions now raised in this book with possible obsessions by the 'Holocaust against six million Jews....'.....'Was 9/11 addressed against America or to address American public opinion...'How could a man on a mule shake America, and the world...'?

It is indeed admirable how much a `Camera' can do to the human brain.
The impact of the 'picture' is magnificent; it has eclipsed the impact of the written and even the spoken `Word'. And Thierry Meyssan used many pictures to substantiate his viewpoints.

Nevertheless, in this book the questions rose about `the Boeing should have dived on the roof'....... `video surveillance in the Pentagon parking lot, they did not see the Boeing either.' are fruitful and make one scratch one's head.

The Basic Question:

- How can a B757 that was said by officials to have
totally disintegrated and vaporized as it impacted
(accounting for lack of substantial aircraft wreckage
on site), have nevertheless penetrated through the 3rd
ring's inner wall with its nosecone (the punched-out
hole on the cover of this book), given that the nose
cone is the most fragile part of the aircraft?

There seem to be zillions of other subsidiary
questions, such as:

- Why the FBI confiscated and has
never shown the adjacent hotel and gas station
security cam videos that must have caught the B757's
impact;

- Why the officially blessed few frames of
Pentagon cam video do not show anything remotely
resembling a B757 and appear to have been doctored
anyway;

- How the "hijacker" pilot (incompetent by
instructors' reports) accomplished an extremely
precise approach and targeting (they say these guys
never learned to land, but the "B757" was just meters
above the ground when it hit, (in effect he "landed the plane"
very precisely);

- Why the little scrap of liveried supposed "wreckage" on the lawn shows lettering only one-half or less the size scale it should be for an AA liveried B757;

- Why the "plane" coincidentally hit the
least populated side of the Pentagon, after apparently
taking extra effort and time to target that position;

- Why after saying the plane was totally vaporized and
disintegrated officials now claim to have an almost
complete reconstruction of the "B757"; why the initial
entrance hole was so small;

- Why after a fire that totally melted and vaporized the plane computer manuals and other papers visible in offices at the
sheared cutoff are totally undamaged;

- Why initial eye witnesses reported a small plane or missile-like object; and on and on and on.

Meyssan deals with most of these questions and I got news for you - as a mainstream mind-controlled American (like me) you aren't going to like his answers!

Anyway let's face it - probably no Boeing 757 ever hit the
Pentagon.

The only evidence supporting the Boeing hypothesis
seems to be the following:

- About half the eye witnesses state they saw either a
B757, a plane with AA livery, or both (i.e. a B757 in
AA livery)

- AA Flt 77 is unaccounted for

- The government has officially stated that AA 77 hit
the Pentagon

- bits of possible 757 wreckage were photographed in
ambiguous settings

I really hate to conclude this, but to me it seems
probable that some form of cruise missile, dressed in
AA livery, was used and all the rest is a USA Mil-Gov
coverup. A horrible conclusion, I know it!

Please read this book and if you can convincingly
refute it, dealing adequately with all the anomalies I've
listed above and settling each concern, please write
your own counter-book immediately, and we'll put this horrible
hypothesis to bed once and for all.

Note that Purdue (Indiana) academics have completed a
government-funded graphical simulation of the crash
that on my reading, unfortunately again, does not come
close to answering all the questions raised above.

I don't know why the mainstream media doesn't at least
look into this? All I've seen are one or two jokey
reviews of Meyssan's first (much less detailed)
general book about 9-11. In one case, the "reviewer"
hadn't even read the book!

Why isn't the public more interested in this? Are we
just so satisified with our Hollywood FX story of
"Fires, Explosions, Arab Villians, American Heroes"
that we can't even be bothered to read and respond
rationally to an important analysis like this one?

"Nothing was wrong far as we could tell,
that's what we liked to tell ourselves,
but no it wasn't that way"

- Stevie Wonder "How Come, How Long"

Pentagate is a very important book about the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon because it points out the problems with the evidence that U.S. journalists won't even touch.

Meyssan has built much of his case on the problems in the official version of what happened at the Pentagon. His first chapter, "One Piece of Debris Too Many", points out that the large piece of debris that appeared to be from an American Airlines jet has not even been inventoried by the Dept. of Defense.

As a journalist for American Free Press in Washington, I have tried repeatedly to get the Pentagon to clarify the status of this important piece of debris that was seen by millions. As of this date there has been NO response to numerous requests. What's wrong with this picture?

Meyssan points to the evidence seen in the video from the Pentagon security camera and the round holes that were pierced in three layers of the Pentagon and builds his case that this was not a Boeing passenger jet that struck the building.

The explosion seen in the video and the nearly perfectly round holes that were bored in the Pentagon are evidence that a cruise missile, painted to look like an American Airlines jet, crashed into the Pentagon, according to Meyssan.

The book has an important chapter by a French military expert on explosives who describes "The Effects of a Hollow Charge". This technical information bolsters the case made by Meyssan.

Meyssan raises a lot of good questions. Now if we could only get some answers from the Pentagon.

Pentagate is highly recommended for those interested in the Pentagon attack by Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press.

This short book provides a competent overview of the China melamine pet food scare of two years ago. As a dog owner who lived through it and searched for updates on what was safe and what wasn't, I was very interested in Nestle's investigation and findings after the fact. While I was reading it, the news broke about the same kind of poisoning in baby formula in China. Had I not seen that, I might have believed that once the perpetrator of the pet food poisoning was executed!! the poisoning would stop, but no. As Nestle expertly explains, despite the lack of safely involved with worldwide food production, the United States is woefully short of regulatory and safety inspectors for these products as they come into the country and are combined with other ingredients and then distributed to companies who make food of all kinds and specifically pet food. Maybe, pet food companies will take more care in their formulations, however, all pet owners should take the time to investigate the manufacturer of the food they use and pay extra for the better brands of pet food. Nestle lists the brands that had to be recalled for both cat and dog food in the back of her book.

I found the information in this book very interesting. It is packed full of information that kept me turning the pages - I finished this book in a little over a day and am still processing the information. There is information in here that I had never heard and I followed the recall very closely.

I think that all animal owners owe it to themselves to read this book just to see how loose the pet food industry was/is. Pretty appalling stuff.

I went to school for international business and found the material regarding the China/USA import/export very interesting and think everyone can take something away from this book.

This book is a page-turner - and not just because it shows all the twists and turns that went on behind the scenes in the pet food recall. It is an eye-opener about the lack of government oversight or pet food company responsibility for what goes into pet food or how it is made. Just as the title makes clear, this is not a book about pet food manufacture and ingredients - that is the book the author was working on when the pet food recall happened. THAT book is forthcoming. This book is exactly what the title says: it's about the politics of pet food manufacture and sales and how our chihuahuas have been the sentinels as a wake-up call that our human food industry is no better. The author is neutral and balanced and generously gives benefit-of-the-doubt to the various players in this dangerous food drama, a fiasco that still haunts many of us with dogs and cats. Nestle's lack of judgmentalism is actually great because it allows you as the reader to discover how it all worked and bring your own moral indignation to the table, as it were. This book is like following a detective looking for an explanation of the economic,business, political and social elements that conspired to bring about a horrible Perfect Storm of tainted food. I was absolutely riveted by the meticulous research that went into unraveling the mystery and uncovering the obfuscation by many of the participants. As the author of "The Dog Bible" I can attest how hard some information is to come by, especially in nutrition, so I was so impressed by this book that I invited the author, Marion Nestle, onto my live NPR radio show DOG TALK on September 27th. You can sign up for the free podcast or listen live online and decide for yourselves. I say she's done a brilliant job and given us a really significant heads-up for ourselves as well as our pets. I will wager that you'll click on "buy now" once you've heard her talk.

Marion Nestle's book "Pet Food Politics" is about the pet food recall of 2007. For those of you who don't remember, there was a massive recall of pet food last summer. The recall began with cat food manufactured by Menu Foods (but sold under many other brand names including Iams, Nutro, and Hill's), but expanded into a large number of cat and dog foods under many different brand names. It became clear after the recall that the problem occurred because an unscrupulous Chinese supplier sold a mixture of wheat flour, cyanuric acid, and melamine as wheat gluten. As a pet owner, the recall inconvenienced me (I had to change my cats' foods). As a parent, I became greatly concerned about what I was feeding my daughter and began seriously looking at where the food I bought was produced. I bought this book because I wanted to better understand what happened.

I knew the basic story here, but did not know about the total number of pets who died (likely in the thousands), the reasons why melamine was substituted for the wheat gluten (cheap melamine looks like expensive protein when tested using standard industrial tests), nor what happened to the contaminated pet food (it was fed to livestock and made it into the human food chain).

This book is a fast read and is clear, well written, and very interesting. Unfortunately, it is too brief. I wish that Ms. Nestle had taken this opportunity to explain more about the pet food industry: its history, the major players, the processes used to make pet food. The story is fascinating, but it feels more like a New Yorker article than a book.

I would recommend this book to someone who was interested in the pet food recalls, though I think that most readers should start with other books about food production. Specifically, I would recommend Michael Pollan's excellent The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals or Marion Nestle's own What to Eat before reading this book, to get a feel for how food is produced and to understand some of the politics involved.

PRIOR TO THE TTY DEAF PERSONS WERE ALMOST TOTALLY ALONE UNLESS THEY
HAD A HEARING PERSON AROUND TO MAKE CALLS ETC-THE BLIND DID NOT HAVE THIS---WE HEARING PERSONS WILL NEVER KNOW HOW THEY PERSISTED
PERSISTED PERSISTED TO BECOME EQUALS IN A HEARING WORLD--IS MY GOOD FORTUNE IN LIFE TO KNOW (SINCE 1948) ONE OF THE PRINCIPALS
OF THIS WONDERFUL BOOK... JAMES C MARSTERS DDS--THATS CORRECT DDS
WE WERE CLASS MATES-AND THE IDEA WAS COMING AROUND IN HIS HEAD
AS EARLY-IN MY KNOWLEDGE--AROUND 1950---sooooooo read on THEY CLIMED
THE MOUNTAIN.................................................

Less than one percent of the 85 million telephones in the U.S. and Canada in 1964 were used regularly by the deaf. That's when Robert Weitbrecht (physicist with the Stanford Research Institute), James Marsters (orthodontist), and Andrew Saks (businessman) started the process that led to deaf people around the world possessing an affordable phone system that they could use. All three of these enterprising men were also deaf. Harry Lang's A Phone Of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell is the fascinating story of how these three diverse men collaborated to solve the technical difficulties of developing a coupling device for a teletypewriter that would translate sounds into discernible letters. With the help of an expanding corps of deaf advocates, ATT and FCC resistance to this technological innovation was overcome and a portable, fully accessible, and affordable telephone system came into being for the deaf community. A Phone Of Our Own is a remarkable and enduring story of innovation and the enduring human spirit.

A phone of our own. From the very first sentence of the introduction "For nearly a century after the advent of the voice telephone, we deaf people were without a phone of our own". Author Harry G. Lang takes the reader by the hand and brings the very personal struggle of the Deaf people to the reader. He brilliantly brings to the public eye not only the Deaf persons responsible for bringing us the TTY that we enjoy so much, but also the countless numbers of Deaf people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes. It is not a book about one Deaf person but many Deaf people in their ongoing struggle to communicate. This book is a masterpiece of writing and brings a renewed pride within the Deaf community. I highly recommend this book for everyone, Deaf and hearing.

As always, Dr. Harry Lang writes about topics pertaining to the Deaf world and its ongoing attempt to make their way in a hearing world. This book is a magnificent story about the battle between big corporations and a small group of people who were striving to find a way to communicate with each other and with the hearing world. It is very ironic that Alexander Graham Bell was attempting to find a way to assist the Deaf (his own wife was Deaf) when he started developing the phone, yet his creation became the bane of our existence. Until the development of the computer and email, the phone was the ultimate barrier for those with hearing impairments to participate in the 'normal' world through education, employment, and necessaries such as calling the doctor for an appointment.

Dr. Lang tells the story of 3 courageous and very different men who wanted to rectify this communication deficit for the hearing impaired community. What started out in homes and garages much as the history of PCs did in the San Francisco Bay Area, spread throughout the U.S., and much of the effort had to be spent trying to get corporations such as AT&T to cooperate. It is unbelieveable the amount of obstacles raised by the very group who would benefit (in increased revenue from a priorly non-using community) were the ones who made things so difficult for these men. Yet persistence from all of them led to an invention/tool which is much used now and taken for granted by all of us who became deaf later in life.

This history is well-written and well-documented, and it should be required/recommended reading for those in communications, as well as those who are deaf or who work with the deaf. Changes in the TTY, increased private/public computer use, and changes in federal laws such as the ADA and rulings by the FCC have led to increased use of this method of communication, and the increasing availability of TTYs in public places. It has also led to innovations in computer use, and prompted attitudinal changes which were much needed. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

product was sent in a timely manner with tracking information to follow the progress. Good work as always

This is a mandatory book in an urban planner or college bookshelf, for it has all the necessary information to complete urban projects. It is my handbook and that says all. It is also very well presented with a hardcover in good leather. The only shortcoming that I see is the absence of folded pages with urban plans in a larger scale, or renderings of zoning plans.

This book is tremendously broad in its coverage of planning topics, though not in depth. Most topics get only 2 pages, though some get 4-5. References are listed for each topic to help you find more detailed information. The book is well organized and indexed. It's loaded with illustrations such as graphs, diagrams, flow charts, line art, photographs, and maps. Most are black and white, but there are 16 color plates that are grouped together and stuck in a seemingly arbitrary position in the middle of an unrelated topic.

Some information is already out of date. For example, on page 580 it says that the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) expired in 2003 and Congress was still debating reauthorization. The new act (SAFETEA-LU) was enacted in August 2005 and is not mentioned.

My only real complaint is that the type is quite small and can be difficult to read for 40+ year-old readers. On the other hand, I understand that if they used larger type this huge, heavy book would be even bigger and heavier.

I also got the electronic, online version of the book and was disappointed in that, again because of the small type. Even using a 20" monitor I had a very hard time reading it. The viewer application that Amazon uses has very limited capability to zoom in on the text so it does not help.

An excellent resource for anyone involved in public sector land-use planning. Contains great detail on many different subjects. Good illustrations throughout. Not the best resource for site planning, though.

Mr. Behan's main theme in PLUNDERED PROMISE is how political and economic overshoot has led to the increasing plunder of public lands for private profit. His deeper look at how the growth of corporations, hyperconsumerism, and centralized oligarchical government has led to the plundering and degradation of US Federal lands frames our present Bush administration problems and he directs the reader to authors such as Cobb-Daly, Kemmis, Prugh, Yaffee, etc. for workable, practical solutions.

After a synoptic opening chapter, there are chapters on the first century of public land management, the rise of corporate capitalism at the start of the 20th century, the rise of professional management and 'sustained yield' at mid-century and finally, "The Economics and Politics of License: Corruption and Predatation, 1976 to the Present.

Behan's development of the concept of economic and political overshoot and how it effected public lands is of key importance to environmentalists. The history of the development of governmental subsidization of private use of public lands and the momentum of the growth economy in degrading forests, overgrazing grasslands, overfishing the commons, etc. is crucial. Revoking corporate charters and devolving government out of Washington to local 'neighbourhoods' are revolutionary tactics advocated to get the philistines out of the temple.

Good as Korten, Greider and Klein. Well worth your while.

Behan explains in fascinating detail many of the quirks -- mostly intentional -- that make our government behave today the way it does. The convoluted process that got George Bush elected is only a glimpse of the deep issues. He explains how it is virtually impossible, and has been since our foundation, to say we have rule by majority in our government. This is all explored from a foundation of federal land policy, but applies equally to the rest of our governmental operations. It was eye opening, and angering, to learn how we got where we are.

This book is worthwhile reading for anyone who proclaims a political opinion, or perhaps simply draws a breath. It is not an unbiased book, and you are unlikely to agree with every argument. I don't, but, after teaching forest policy and economics to university students for 25 years, I regret not having had the advantage of this book as a text. It would ideally complement a standard text in an undergraduate policy course, and it would serve well as core reading in a graduate seminar, supplemented by books on related topics. Several good choices, in fact, are cited in "Plundered Promise."

Behan is an engaging, provocative writer so his description of the evolution of land use policy in the United States is entertaining as well as instructive. He makes clear the process by which we have moved from the capitalistic ideal of individual private property ownership of all lands to one of reserving some lands to be held in common, and provides a logical defense for why we did it. The rationale, he notes, for maintaining such a "public good" has grown stronger with time. These public lands are a collective national treasure like no other in the world.

Behan then makes the case that we are hell-bent to squander this "promise" of the book's title. The great evil in this story is our unwitting, and presumably unwilling collaboration with modern (huge) corporations in a senseless, wasteful social party of conspicuous consumption. Modern corporations, many with global reach and stunning political and financial command, attempt to create demand for their massive and efficient production by devising market strategies to convince us to over consume; to acquire material goods as a measure of our social success and prosperity. The below-cost, ready access these giants have to our public lands treasure in order to supply their raw material needs, and for air, land and water sinks, requires consumers (all of us) to bear costs disproportionate to gains from such enterprise.

How have we been duped into this distorted market? Behan provides a fascinating and fresh perspective on the way America's founders contrived a unique constitional government that precludes majoritarian democracy. Political, legal and economic power has been concentrated among elites in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he notes, corporations were legally granted unique constitutional privileges. This argument deserves careful consideration. It is not the stuff of high school civics courses, or an uncritical recitation of the wisdom of free enterprise. It ties together the facts and the thesis of the book, and because it challenges the standard assumptions most Americans hold about their individual rights, prerogatives and powers, this argument alone makes the book required reading.

The way out of the jam, according to Behan, is for citizens to moderate their consumptive behavior, to resist the importuning of corporate advertisers, to pursue legal redress of corporate license, and to seize control of the political process at the local level. He offers specific examples of local or community level politics in practice, with attendant successes in resolving land use issues while protecting public land values. This resolution, while appropriate for many issues, and promising as an idealistic framework, seems less reassuring when one considers the complexities of international politics and global environmental issues. What can we do for a national energy policy, for example, wherein the real costs of our consumptive behavior, at whatever level, must be assessed globally and then allocated equitably among all of us? What can we do locally about issues that transcend national boundaries?

One optimistic notion that Behan suggests as a partial solution seems practical, and likely to work, and that is the power of Internet communication. This could facilitate the formation of "communities of interest" to address problems in ways that transcend normal geographical limits. Much needs to be done, and too much has been done badly, but the necessary dialogue has begun. Richard Behan's book, "Plundered Promise," is an essential component of that dialogue.

A lot of people might find Behan's book illuminating. Among them: anyone whose job moved overseas to a cheaper labor force; anyone who has looked from the window of a commercial airplane flying from Seattle to Los Angeles and marveled at the size of clearcuts on public forestland. Anyone who has wondered why the treasury doesn't receive fair value for the minerals extracted from publicly owned land, for the grazing rights, for the timber and for the water resource. Beyond the public land issues Behan addresses, the book is is an informative read for anyone who has wondered why there is no public agenda in the United States -- and, instead, a plethora of interest groups and PACs that shape the direction of legislation. As an aside, the book is a civics lesson for all of us who wonder why we find ourselves voting against the least-unappealing candidate in a two-way race instead of choosing enthusiastically from among outstanding candidates. Forestry professionals should read it in hopes of renewing the passion, optimism and zeal with which they began their careers. Behan is a scholar, and the work is carefully written and the cases he makes are well-documented. Yet there's sparkle in the prose. Even so the book isn't an easy read. The facts he presents are depressing, and the hopeful recommendations Behan makes at the end seem ever so far from being adopted. Or even considered in my lifetime.

Chris Cross's analysis of the history of federal public policy in public education provides all of us a critical perspective of the evolution of this policy, the issues within it, and possibilities for the future. Change is undoubtedly coming for our work in education at the federal level, and to fundamentally understand and then move to assist in this change, practioners and policymakers alike must understand the evolution that has brought us to the point, the needs we jointly face, and the players who have wrought our federal system. Chris gives us the foundation the make critical decisions in this book. Our next steps will be better measured because of this seminal work! Alice D. Parker, former Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction, California Department of Education, former president, National Association of State Directors of Special Education

Political Education is a must read for anyone interested in education, but policymakers have a special obligation to read this book. Cross has preserved important aspects of our nation's institutional record concerning K-12 education that will benefit even the most seasoned policy and education professionals. Cross explains with ease the ways - both subtle and overt - in which America's federal education policies have evolved over time, focusing most intently on the policies enacted after World War II that led to the creation of No Child Left Behind. Rest assured though, this is no snoozer. Political Education is a page turner that is full of engaging stories about how the political process really works. A must read.

Political Education is a must for anyone studying federal education policy! The author, Chris Cross, has written a comprehensive book on the history of the paramount Elementary and Secondary Education Act, giving the reader a clear picture of its evolution and purpose.

This book is also important read for elementary and secondary public school educators. This book will help teachers around the country better understand the federal role in our nation's public schools.

This book serves as a foundation for understanding the No Child Left Behind Act and the future of federal elementary and secondary education in the United States.

The author provides a masterful account of the development of federal K-12 policy. He draws upon his own experience as a key player in the proceess while maintaining balance and perspective. This book belongs on the short list of anyone with an interest in American education policy.

I have bought a lot of books on Amazon, but I have never written a review. This was a GREAT READ!! In a user-friendly writing style, Cross' ubiased work follows the progression of federal education policy from World War II to the present. This well-researched work (over 150 references and personal interviews) provides an excellent refresher of US education policy. I am not a history buff, and I couldn't put it down (and neither could my classmates-- they loved it too.)

For the purposes I think the author had in mind this is a wonderful job, the most detailed, readable, and comprehensible recent explanation of New York State's politics yet. The "Chronicle" part of the book is quite clear; "What you can do to Save Your State" part is less so. But that's OK, as it offers enough fodder for general readers and for university classes, especially when read with other books that offer pointed policy solutions.

My take on the book is likely different than what other reviewers might write for general trade publications, as I'm focused largely on the public finance issues. The value of the book has wonderful utility for academics (such as I am) to demonstrate the importance (and the destructive influence) of what is called "rent-seeking." (see Wikipedia's definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking ) Rent-seeking is the technique (or behavior) by which economic actors are able to interpose themselves in markets to extract "rents" for themselves without in any way adding to productivity. New York State is rife with such practices, and author Gallagher, without ever using the words, points to government's role in their creation. Only government actions can undo the panoply of rent-seeking behaviors that have grown so pervasively in New York governments for the past several decades.

As important as it is, the concept of rent-seeking was coined only three decades ago, even though it has its roots in the dominant classical economic theory prior to the 20th century. Contemporary economist Gordon Tullock revived the idea in 1967, and its core thesis has since come to be championed largely by political conservatives - becoming the core of what is called "public choice" theory. (See www.thelockeinstitute.org/journals/luminary_v1_n2_p2.html ) But there is no necessary reason why rent-seeking needs to embody a particular political stance. As the Wikipedia definition notes, it also plays an important role in Georgist economics, which can be right, left, or middle.

The importance of rent-seeking explains much of the costly operation of New York governments, but not everything. Jay Gallagher alludes on almost every page to the high burdens of taxation so destructive to the State's economic health. But he fails to realize that taxes need not always have a depressive and destructive influence on economies, even though current tax regimes usually do. The notion that taxes are necessarily burdensome is conventional wisdom in today's economic discourse, even though the neoclassical paradigm that has given rise to its foundations is in grave disarray. If policy advisors can escape the limitations imposed by today's tax wisdom and think outside the proverbial box, they will find that there are tax regimes that are both without burdens and can actually enhance productive enterprise.

The key to such reform is to tax that self-same economic rent that necessarily accretes to natural capital - to what the classical economists called "land." Taxing land rents can easily supplant all the current tax designs that now deaden entrepreneurial activity and put the State of New York at an evident disadvantage. Those alternate tax designs are by their nature essentially "painless." ( See: www.wealthandwant.com, www.urbantools.net, www.schalkenbach.org, and their links, and articles by the author at these sites:
www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt-h-william_who-says-cities-are-poor.html
www.cooperativeindividualism.org/batt-h-william_painless-taxation.html
www.taxpolicy.com/batt/

My former college room mate recommended this book to me and I purchased it but with some concern for two reasons: 1) I do not live in New York State and was not sure that I would feel connected to the subject matter and 2) books of this type that are filled with facts and figures can be terribly dry and a struggle to read. I was pleasantly surprised that my concerns were ill-founded on both counts. While Mr. Gallagher focuses on specific problems that have been experienced in the State of New York since the 1960s, and particularly since the mid-1990s, many of the lessons he discusses are of benefit to the citizens of other states as well. Of particular interest to me was his explanation of the byzantine workings of the Medicaid program - both in New York as well as at the federal level. After reading the chapter I was almost able to delude myself that I was beginning to understand the system. What was of particular benefit were the comparisons that were made to medicaid systems in other states and how those states had managed to address certain of the problems that still confront the Empire State.
It was also enlightening to understand how dysfunctional the state government in New York has become. The Republican controlled senate, the Democratic controlled assembly and the governor's bunker mentality have tied up the workings of government to the point where much of the needed change can not be made and legislators often do not fully understand the bills on which they are voting. I found his explanation both fascinating and maddening at the same time and it caused me to rethink how the government in my own state is functioning - or not functioning.
Finally, the book is a good read. Mr Gallagher appears to have a somewhat sardonic wit which comes through in many passages of the book. I experienced interspersed senses of outrage and mirth. While the subject matter can be dry, Mr Gallagher manages to keep the reader's attention by providing sufficient detail without mind-numbing minutia, as some of his fellow authors are prone to do. I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to try and understand how state government can sometimes fail to meet the best interests of the voters it represents because it is responding to the interests of lobbyists and special interest groups.
If there is ever a sequel to Mr Gallagher's book, I hope that it addresses how, after 2006, Albany reformed its current practices after taking into account the issues addressed in The Politics of Decline.

Jay Gallagher writes with clarity and wisdom as a life long observer of state politics. His perceptive analysis counters the conventional argument against big government by asserting that the real enemy is big stupid government. A rallying cry for citizens to re-commit themselves to public life, The Politics of Decline, read rightly, is a manifesto of hope.

Although this well-written book will be of special interest to those who live in or are from New York, I also recommend it to people who live elsewhere. New York's problems - a shrinking number good jobs, the challenge of educating children, the cost of providing health care, etc., are also problems that confront people in other states. By reading this book, the reader will have a better understanding of these problems, along with possible approaches to meet these challenges. Mostly, this book serves as a warning to those in other states about what happens to us when apathetic legislators fail to serve the general public and an unengaged electorate fails to hold those legislators accountable for their inaction. The book is remarkably easy to read. The writing is straight forward, sophisticated, yet never overly technical or dense. I also came away optimisitc about how a vigilant public can cause governemnt to work for the greater good of the people and how, perhaps, better days are ahead for New York.

Outstanding book! One of the best overviews of the often confusing post-modern literature I have ever encountered. Highly recommended!!!

It's really hard to know how a nihilistic movement such as post-modernism can have anything other than a renunciatory effect upon science of any kind. That notwithstanding, Rosenau distinguishes two main strands within PoMo, which may otherwise cause confusion. The skeptical strand comprises the purists who brook no compromise with their anti-foundational findings. On the other hand, are what Rosenau calls the"affirmatives". They comprise the compromisers within the broader PoMo camp, and are prepared to somehow accomodate modernist precepts within a broader PoMo framework. Whether these affirmatives compose anything more than an unworkable eclecticism, is left wisely unresolved. Even so, Rosenau believes their sensitivity to openess has the capacity to force modernism into major revisions. In any event, it is the purists, the other major strand, who define the movement itself.

If the affirmative's problem is trying to eclectically blend unblendables, the skeptics tend to refute themselves, the usual outcome of extreme abeyance. In an excellent concluding section, the author summarizes the endemic paradoxes of this position. For example, PoMo's use of theory to disavow theory; deconstruction's use of the very tools it deconstructs, viz. reason and logic; moreover, in raising the marginal at the expense of the center, a value judgement takes place even when such judgements are programmatically condemned.

Boiled down to basics, purist PoMo ends in its own version of solipsism: millions of unsynthesizable personal narratives. Small wonder that only the narrowest, most localized results are sanctioned in a prospective post-modern social science. In Rosenau's account, the possibility that such a science can emerge focuses on individuals instead of subjects or personalities. Since reason, structure, and other modes of synthesis are impossible, how such idiosyncratic accounts can even approach a threshold of science seems inexplicable to me even after reading the book.

But since PoMo is the fashion of the day, it's to the author's credit to have crystallized these topical questions in clearly understood terms.

As a graduate student I encountered this book on several levels over the years. I first bought it in India while doing anthropological fieldwork to catch up on theory. The applications on social inquiry to the "Third world" were very helpful, especially the section on views of the west in the post-Marxist era. More recenty I have read it with an interest in public policy, and found relevant insights on the nature of the public sphere. The glossary is unique in its throroughness. This book serves as a classic--elegantly written, comprehensively researched- and more importantly a useful guide to postmodern ideas for the working academic and student alike.

Through my years in graduate school I have encountered this book on several levels- I first used it in India while working as an antrhopologist to review the basics and get "caught up" with some theroy. The book proved to be especially useful in applying postmodern ideologies to the "Thrid World". More recently I have re-read it with a focus on public policy, and again was not disappointed. Dr. Rosenau's research is impeccable and comprehensive. The book is useful for both experienced academicians as well as beginners.

Among all of Rothbard's works, Power and Market is my personal favorite. I first read it several years ago and have found myself going back to it ever since. The most important section of the book is his analysis of taxation, about 100 pages long. Every form of taxation is discussed and thoroughly refuted on both practical and moral grounds. Highly recommended!

if you feel a serious need to understand what is being done to you, and your business, by those in charge of the government, look no further! when you are done reading power and market, not only will you be able to criticize, you will understand the situation. by the way, this book reads fresh and new. it could have been written yesterday; and it is that relevance that makes it so special!

This volume is one of the most important economic works of the 20th century. For the most part, the bulk of this work is really nothing more than an extension of the chapter on "violent intervention" in "Man, Economy, and State." Unfortunately the initial publishers of that work balked at the radical views set forth, and therefore forced Rothbard to truncate his analysis. Nevertheless, we are fortunate enough to have this work, in he elaborates on his work in order to offer a complete praxeological critique of *all* governmental action. He classifies government intervention into 3 basic categories; autistic, binary, and triangular, and proceeds to refute arguments for all of them. Dealt with are the more commonplace statist policies such as licensing, antitrust, etc., as well as many generally off-limit areas. Indeed, probably the most startling and important aspect of this work is the lengthy refutation of virtually every significant justification of taxation, from the income tax to the Georgist single tax. Even common "conservative" myths are given no standing, as Rothbard demonstrates that there is really no such thing as a "neutral tax," and that all taxation, however applied, has sharply negative effects on the market economy. In addition to this, Rothbard develops a very stimulating refutation of common ethical arguments against capitalism, showing them to be incompatible with reality and economics. Although by and large the work is solid, I must say that I still disagree on several points with Rothbard's particular vision for a totally free, voluntary society. Nonetheless, we are not very far apart. Altogether, I have to say that this work is a landmark in economic theory, and should be on the bookshelf of every serious radical libertarian.

Power and Market is Murray Rothbard's seminal critique of government intervention in the economy. Originally meant to be part of his magisterial Man, Economy, and State, it was published separately some years later. (For a discussion of this, see Justin Raimondo's An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard at 189-194.)

Unlike most Austrian school economists, Rothbard was an anarchist. In fact, he was the twentieth century's seminal figure in anarcho-capitalist thought. This means that Rothbard thought that not only roads and the like, but also national defense and courts could be provided without a state. (See his Society Without a State in the Libertarian Reader, ed. Machan, for a succinct presentation of his views.)

Rothbard starts out this work with a discussion of various types of government intervention in the economy. He divides them into three types: autistic (violent crime), triangular (tariffs, wage and price controls, licensing, etc.)and binary intervention (taxation and government spending). Following this is a discussion of antimarket ethics. There isn't an aspect of government intervention in the economy that escapes Rothbard's scalpel. As a whole, this is certainly an outstanding book. Take Rothbard's discussion of taxation. Many "right wing" economists support the sales tax on the ground that it doesn't discourage savings and investment. But it reduces people's income and thereby reduces savings and investment. It is a tax on income. [pp. 92-93.]

My main problem with this work is the sometimes simplistic discussion of complex problems and the leaps in logic. (I've discussed this is my review of The Ethics of Liberty.) Take for example the issue of immigration laws. "The advocate of immigration laws . . . really fears, therefore, is not so much immigration as any population growth. To be consistent, therefore, he would have to advocate compulsory birth control, to slow down the rate of population growth desired by individual parents." [p. 55.] Even in light of the entire 2 page discussion of immigration laws, I don't see how this follows. In this (and some other areas) the discussion is narrowly economic. Aren't there good reasons to restrict the type of immigrants? For example, if you have a society that is devoted to individual freedom and responsibility, isn't it wise to prevent immigration from those countries that don't support freedom?

If you want to know the essence of Rothbard, purchase this work; Man, Economy, and State; The Ethics of Liberty; and the Logic of Action.

This is the best book I have read on the subject of rape & how to survive it. Unlike so many of the books out on rape, this is not written from a statistical aspect & how to prevent rape in the first place. This book is written totally to the survivor with exercises to help you recover from rape. If you are a victim of rape & trying to figure out how to recover from it, this is the book for you! It really made me realize that my reactions are typical of the normal victim & that there is nothing wrong with me for taking so long to recover. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been the victim of rape & is trying to become a survivor!

I found this book very easy to read and helpful in the recovery process. It basically describes the process of going from victim to survivor. The shortness of the book did make it easier to read as I was in grad school at the time. I didn't have time to read anything besides my assignments. It addresses shame, guilt and anger and ends with solutions or ways to change thoughts and behavior (cognitive restructuring). It was a good introduction to survivor issues in a very manageable size.
If you are in crisis now you can call the national sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. They will forward you to a local rape crisis counselor. The crisis center can give you a referral to a rape crisis counselor, a therapist, victim advocacy (for reporting to police or going to court), provide free counseling or offer a support group. This hotline is run by RAINN.org which is the leading resource on sexual assault.

I have read several books for survivors of rape and this one has the best ideas written most succinctly. Also, this book can be completed in one day if a person has the time.

As a therapist and survivor of rape, this book has been an essential resource for myself and so many others. This is the first book I recommend to all clients who have been raped. It can be read immediately following the rape and for years after, each time offering meaning and hope. This book may also be a guide for family and friends affected by this event, helping them better understand what the victim may be experiencing. This is a great place to begin and continue a healing journey.