Current Events Books

Len Wood presents Dollars and Sense in a practical manner enabling readers to absorb its content. A must read book for those that "watch" their local governments, school districts and elected officials. Written for fast reading,yet covers the subject matter extensively. If you want to be certain your local government is working at its fullest potential, Dollars & Sense can be a great help to you.

Here is a "no holds barred" approach to describing "real life" shortcomings in handling public finances, and then providing tips to local government policy makers and managers on how to avoid a similiar circumstance.

Len Wood writes from first hand knowledge and experience. He describes the situation; outlines the facts; details the results; and provides the reader with suggestions to lessen financial risk and/or failure in the expenditure of public funds.

While the author's primary target is the newly elected official, the importance of this work to experienced elected and appointed public officals cannot be overstated. No one who has worked in the public sector can peruse this book without saying, "There, but for the grace of God, go I!"

As an elected Treasurer and local government finance director for the past several years, I found this book to be an excellent primer for all elected and appointed officials. The practical advice offered by Mr. Wood is based on his experience and input from his peers and is extremely valuable. The book is written in a very informal and concise way and should be required reading for all elected officials. In fact, I gave this book to each City Council member and they have all indicated that this book provided excellent financial advice.

What a delightful book. The author has presented his subject in an understandable and capitivating manner. He does this by using lots of real life vignettes to make his points. People who want to know what their local officials should and should not be doing will want to read this book.

I am a huge fan of Stephen Elliott's fiction; HAPPY BABY was one of the best novels of 2004. So I was excited to read this and I wasn't disappointed. It's a superb and hilarious account of Elliott's year on the campaign trail, and you don't have to be a politics junkie (I'm certainly not) to find it absolutely charming as well as remarkably insightful and smart about various aspects of American political culture. It's a classic!

This book is a rare treat, a double-secret insider crawl through the wasteland of the presidential election season. Elliott shows us stuff no one else does, from up-close views of the most accomplished paid spokesliars, to the real reasons Kerry won the nomination. Along the way, he steers us, careening, through alternate realities, dozens of funny Eggers-style footnotes, drugs, and compulsive gambling.

I'm not on the same end of the political spectrum as Elliott, but I still enjoyed this book's insights. What I didn't enjoy was the sloppy editing, no doubt resulting from Picador rushing the book out the door in two and a half months. (See misspellings of "Mineta", "signal corps", even the arcade game Pole Position, thought the last is at least understandable.)

Elliott has some great analysis of the PA senatorial race, the youth vote, and more, but shows a strangely innocent naivete on occasion. A few cases in point: 1) He repeatedly calls Bush a liar, without ever specifically naming the lie. Perhaps he means the lack of Iraqi WMDs? But every intelligence agency in the world unanimously believed Iraq had WMDs, meaning Bush was mistaken, not intentionally lying. Sloppy. 2) He shows a fundamental ignorance of how the free market works by not understanding why rents go down when property taxes are cut. 3) He incorrectly states that the NORC analysis showed Gore should have won Florida if all votes were counted, under any standard. Actually, Bush would have won under certain standards where all 3 ballot viewers had to agree on voter intent. At least he correctly lets the Supreme Court off the hook, something many Democrats will never do. 4) He really, really wants universal health insurance, to the point where he says silly things like "Switching to a public system would save a whopping 10 percent in administrative costs, more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage." Uh huh.

All in all, lots of fun, whether you are a Bush-hating liberal, or just a conservative looking for a tasty bit of schadenfreude.

. . . because Stephen Elliott has written our new campaign classic.

Now, I'm not saying this book isn't full of insight into the theatricality of the political process, or the sycophantic relationship between the mainstream press and the two major parties, or the silliness of the sound byte culture. It is. I promise. It's all there.

But what makes this book sing is the digressions, sometimes personal, sometimes fictional, sometimes incomplete, sometimes written in the first, second, or third person, sometimes funny, sometimes quite sad, sometimes involving sadomasochism, sometimes involving nonsexual love affairs with fellow travelers.

The real protagonist of Looking Forward to It is not John Kerry or Howard Dean or George W. Bush. The real character, the real hero, is Stephen Elliott. And thank God for that.

Okay, that's all. I'm not giving anything else away. Buy this book. Buy it, buy it, buy it!

Stephen Elliot's book is far and away the funniest and most insightful political punditry from the 2004 election. From the rise and fall of Howard Dean to the Republican convention in New York, Elliot doggedly pursues value in stories most reporters don't even recognize. As he crosses the lower 48 by bus, plane and thumb, we are introduced to some of the wisest, most astute political analysts grassroots America has yet uncovered.
I loved this book for the sound byte it isn't.

For anyone interested in world peace, Mary King's book, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr: The Power of Nonviolent Action, is a must read.

In the post cold war era, the battling forces of conflict - war and negotiation - peace have changed. From 1945 to 1990, the United States/Soviet Union standoff shaped public policy. The absence of the super power conflict has created a void and the opportunity for regional controversies has emerged. The essence of Mary King's theme is to utilize the people-based non-violent practices of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. as the major new forces for peace and conciliation.

Mary King's whole background and international experience makes her a unique voice. She cut her teeth in the 1960's in Mississippi, active in America's civil rights batles, working with Julian Bond and Martin Luther King, Jr. From there she has been one of the world's leading spokespersons and activists working on the international scene on behalf of women's rights, civil rights and peace. Her first book on civil rights in Mississippi won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Journalism.

There are not nearly enough books published in English on the extremely important topic of nonviolent social action. I am a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and realize how very many publications there are that examine all aspects of the use of violence/force in international and inter-group relations. But sadly, few of those books give much sober assessment of the huge limitations there are on the effectiveness of coercion-based actions (e.g. in Kosovo, Bosnia, etc.) This book helps to provide an antidote to that. In addition to giving full descriptions of Gandhi's and Dr. MLK's thinking on the power of nonviolence, the author, Mary King, also provides some fascinating material about the effectiveness of nonviolent acts in more recent struggles.

I have written a regular column on global issues for 'The Christian Science Monitor' for nearly a decade now. In the past couple of years, I have also been blessed by the opportunity to work as a writer with an extremely inspiring group of Nobel Peace laureates, including the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, and others. (Based on that work, I wrote a book called "The Moral Architecture of World Peace: Nobel Laureates Discuss our Global Future".) It was significant that nearly all the laureates I worked with mentioned both Gandhi and Dr. MLK--who was also himself a Nobel Peace Laureate--as prime inspirations in their own work and thinking. So I was looking for one reference book that I could use myself, and to which I could refer readers, that would provide a broad overview of the thinking of those two men. I was delighted to find it in Mary King's book, which ideally should be placed as a source-book in every high-school and community library in the country!

Mary King has woven together photos, quotes and her own reflections in a manner reminiscent of the popular GANDHI THE MAN by Sri Eknath Easwaran. Her subject is broader, however, in that she gives us not only Gandhi and King but some of the more dramatic leaders of nonviolence in the modern world. The need for information and understanding about this subject and these people cannot be overstated. Mary King was superbly qualified to respond to that need, and she has done so beautifully in this volume. I agree with previous reviewers that it should be in the library of every school and college.

At a time when the power of violence appears to be growing and unchallenged, this book provides an important reminder that there ARE alternatives.

Gandhi, King and others demonstrated to the world and to history that non-violence is more powerful than violence, if one has the courage and discipline necessary to apply it. Mary King's book does a better job than any other I've read at laying out this very-human saga. I came to recognize in this book that it is through the diligent and committed work of many unsung people over many decades that these two great leaders were able to make the decisive contributions to humanity that they did. Even though Gandhi had said it many times - that what he did could be done by anyone - one can only truly appreciate this truth when one has the "full story." And Mary King delivers the full story.

I also found the collection of quotes one of the best organized and most useful I've ever seen. Anyone with any level of leadership responsibility in social issues will want this book on their shelf - and in their suitcase.

This is an excellent book about how specific corporations, individuals and both European and African rulers have plundered Africa for profit and the accumulation of private fortunes on the backs of millions of Africans who have been slaughtered over the centuries. Some of the individuals have passed into the history books, but some of the corporations and individuals are still very much in the news today and the world still waits for their atonement. Madelaine Drohan has provided a very courageous addition to the literature in the area by in-the-field research in some of the most dangerous places in Africa and written in most detailed and compelling manner.

What happens when multinational corporations decide that the use of armed force is really business? When companies line up with warlords and armies to make a profit? When corporate interests dictate war or peace? Madelaine Drohan's meticulously researched and impressively wrfitten expose, Making A Killing, shows just what happens in a world of multinational power, drawing important connections between corporate armed forces and history and providing food for thought for corporations, policy makers and national leaders alike -- the result is an intriguing, eye-opening discussion.

Drohan cover a number of specifc cases of corporations using violence to further their interests - dedicating a chapter to each case. She makes no effort to be a comprehensive compendium of all the ills perpetrated by corporations, instead choosing to focus on a few prime examples in detail where her experiences as a journalist can bring some perspective to each case.

My own particular interest is around the role of Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. in Sudan. The chapter on Talisman was solid and insightful, with Drohan drawing from her own experiences in Sudan and interviews with key players, as well as the volumes of research and reports available.

The book is a telling study of the irresponsible extremes corporations can go to in their simple-minded focus on profit as the only goal.

Resource control is the core of Madelaine Drohan's book. Where the image of empire was once faceless armies, religious zealots or expanding trade, modern conditions have changed this view. Instead of governments launching empires, suit-clad businessmen now decide where the action lies. Decisions to exploit resource areas are not made in ministry offices, but in corporate boardrooms. Businessmen, "and they are almost always men", choose locations, make investments, recruit workers and begin operations. Until there is unrest. Then they call in governments to support their enterprise. If governments cannot or will not respond, the entrepreneur's answer is the "private army". Mercenary professional military men act as "security" teams, policemen or replacement armies. And they are accountable to no-one but the firm that has hired them.

Drohan's account begins with the rule of Cecil Rhodes "who stands head and shoulders above" the ranks of those applying military solutions to "corporate problems". Rhodes built an immense resource empire in Southern Africa. He also set the standard for controlling workers as firmly as he did markets. By the expedient of raising a battalion of "pioneers" to deal with reluctant African peoples and recalcitrant workers, Rhodes expanded his holdings to an unprecedented degree. Attributing his goals to the furtherance of the British Empire, he also ensured the continuation of profits to his own pocket. Belgium's king Leopold followed Rhodes' example by keeping the Congo as a personal fief. The Belgian government was simply shunted aside on imperial affairs for decades. The rape of the Congo is a glaring example of imperialism run rampant, yet it set the stage for what followed.

Drohan's narrative is dominated by personalities. Like a gaggle of rapacious ravens, men prominent in resource enterprise descended on Africa after Rhodes. Some of these were British, some Canadian, but others arose from among Africa's own peoples. These last were flexing political and economic muscle as former colonies became independent. These new nations, with their artificial boundaries laid down irrespective of tribal or ethnic limits, became caught up in internal regional disputes. Resource firms played off these rivalries to their advantage where possible. If contests for power became too heated, the companies had the option to withdraw or find ways of protecting their investments. Protection was provided by "security forces" available for hire. Among the most notorious of these was the South African firm, Executive Outcomes. Staffed by disaffected South African soldiers, it offered services directly or through hidden subsidiaries. Executive Outcomes emerges frequently, if often vaguely, as Drohan valiantly tries to unravel the machinations the firm and its customers perpetrated as gold, diamonds and other resources were sought and exploited. Legality is an elusive term in these activities.

These are not distant and unrelated events. We tend to cling to the image of investment benefiting all - the theme of "globalisation". Drohan demonstrates how firms, pursuing resource wealth in Africa, have followed the Rhodes formula for success. Whether hiring private armies or simply requesting local government forces to act in their interests, resource firms are steadfastly ignoring the impact on local people and their economy. Of all Drohan's examples, the most glaring is the Talisman Energy story. Her chapter on this operation is at once the worst and the best example in the book. Talisman, a latecomer to Africa, seems to have learned nothing from previous resource history in the region. As Drohan describes it, Jim Buckee, Talisman's head, followed a sinuous path trying to keep his firm active in the resource field. With one eye open to profits and the other closed to government activities done in the name of "security" for his operations, Buckee brought his firm close to disaster. On the other hand, the case demonstrated the power of the public in bringing such firms to judgment. Various large stockholders, chastened at the thought of supporting a firm blind to the impact of its operations, withdrew investment. It's a fine example of what individuals can achieve in acting collectively.

Drohan's book is a much needed exposure of business morals left unscrutinised. In her final chapter, "Perfectly Legal, Perfectly Immoral", she shows the path to justice for people under oppressive regimes shored up by rapacious businesses is long and difficult. Yet, if readers pay attention, she shows how they can be effective in making change. With a federal election looming, it would benefit electors to read this book and reflect on its message. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays On How To Change The World collects "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxemburg, and "Socialism and Man in Cuba" by Ernesto Che Guevara. All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark; here are ideas that transformed the world, with repercussions resonating to the modern day and beyond. A preface, introduction, and brief notes on the contributors round out this vital collection concerning political power, social consciousness, and the need for societal transformation, especially recommended for library and educational reference shelves.

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays On How To Change The World collects "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxemburg, and "Socialism and Man in Cuba" by Ernesto Che Guevara. All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark; here are ideas that transformed the world, with repercussions resonating to the modern day and beyond. A preface, introduction, and brief notes on the contributors round out this vital collection concerning political power, social consciousness, and the need for societal transformation, especially recommended for library and educational reference shelves.

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays On How To Change The World collects "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxemburg, and "Socialism and Man in Cuba" by Ernesto Che Guevara. All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark; here are ideas that transformed the world, with repercussions resonating to the modern day and beyond. A preface, introduction, and brief notes on the contributors round out this vital collection concerning political power, social consciousness, and the need for societal transformation, especially recommended for library and educational reference shelves.

Three very insightful essays. You can certainly learn and gain valuable insight to the ideals that literally have changed the world in many ways. Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto; Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution and Che Guevara's Socialism and Man in Cuba.

I really think this book is very enlightening and is a highly valuable read. And with that, I would like to comment on the second essay, the essay by the Polish Jew and political activist who attended Zurich University, Rosa Luxemburg. This essay was published in 1898, nineteen years before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Rosa Luxemburg's essay consists of an attack on Eduard Bernstein's book entitled "Problems of Socialism," Seen from today's lenses reveals her erroneous absolute and dogmatic views, lacking in comparison to the logic of Bernstein. It's so obvious from the scientific Marxist views. Marx's and Engels views were based on rational science, Hegelian dialectics and like science, an exact blueprint of rational analysis. Today they call this "vulgar Marxism" and few follow it.(You can find a good analysis in Allan Bloom's, Closing the American Mind). Marxism today is not based on an exact science. That is the old view, the original view. And the obvious result of her attack on Bernstein is that everything she has attacked has come true, her defense for Absolutism, for exact science in economic history through Hegelian dialectics has proven false and inaccurate. Bernstein, on the other hand, has proven the greater prophet. And the answer lies in Luxemburg's very words of attack. In this she attacks him for his integral approach of aperspectivism in integrating multiple paradigms which allow the relative nature and uncertainty of the various shades and levels of both Liberal Democracy and Socialism. Bernstein's sees the differing aspects and refutes absolutism in Marxist science and dogmatism in its Hegelian nature. History, nor economic history, is not an exact science. And If I may take this a step further there are levels of subjectivity, objectivity, cultural and social aspects or the I, We and It (&Its) (the big three or the 4 Quadrants of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology).

Bernstein sees the problems of socialism and the need for liberal democracy to reform slowly, even rejecting both (vulgar or original scientific, Hegelian) Marxism and Socialism and choosing to remain a liberal democracy but with socialist-liberal facets of nature (Roosevelt's domestic policies for instance), while Luxemburg seeing Marxism as an exact science sees revolution the only real way to bring forth Socialism. And although both thinkers are basically reduction in inter-objective social systems or political system theories, there still exists a major difference between both and that 150 years of time has vindicated (relativlty speaking: the low wages, poor and homeless in the U.S. are in large numbers) Bernstein's flexible and integral insight with greater value than Luxemburg's "flatland," which in Integral Psychology means interpreting realty or in this case, economic political history, as only in objective terms, failing to understand its relativity in dealing with the individual and collective human subjective nature.

AND now I will contradict myself: Luxemburg was right, Bernstein was not. After reading Howard Zinn's Peoples History of the United States, it is evident; the only reforms come from revolution. Socialism is always adamantly fought by the wealthy, compromises are extremely rare.

Now the essay by Che Geverra is the only without such a materialistic, Hegelian science and Marxist exactitude of empirical societal observation on economic meaning. It is much less dogmatic and in that sense less scientific, being much more utilitarian in practical means to achieve a socialist revolution and common sharing good of the Cuban society.

This documentary is a reasonable exposition of Chomsky's views. For those unfamiliar with Chomsky's (and Edward Herman's) propaganda model, this film is highly recommended. Those already conversant with Chomsky will probably revel in the extension of his ideas to real Living Color (those who agree with him anyway). However, I have one complaint: the propaganda system is complicated, and the film seems to take a dive on the specifics instead of dealing with its essential details. The failure to explicate what exactly Chomsky means when he speaks of "thought control in a democratic society" allows the pejorative claim that his ideas are "conspiratorial" to seep into the argument. Tom Wolfe scoffingly impugns what he calls, "the cabal"- I doubt he's actually read Chomsky. Anyone who understands the propaganda model, even if they fervently deny its existence, realizes that it is not worthy of "conspiracy theory" derision. The film would have done well to debunk this myth.

The other flaw as I see is the focus on Chomsky's background and personal life, which are superfluous to the film's main message and inconsistent with Chomsky's own feelings about celebrity.

As you can imagine, the film is rather one-sided in favor of Chomsky's views. Once you've seen this, it's absolutely imperative to read "Necessary Illusions", "Manufacturing Consent", and even some of Chomsky's other books- "The Washington Connection" and "Rouge States" are recommended. Also of note is that Chomsky may be Godfather of media criticism, but others including Nancy Snow and Michael Parenti have written well on the subject.

This book is much more than a simple transcript of the documentary of the same name, it also offers a lot of information and excerpts from interviews with and writings by Noam Chomsky not included in the film. It is a very wonderfully put together book. This might be the best introduction to Chomsky's thought around. and the philosopher all star trading cards in the back of the book are a great idea. Plus, it really looks good on the coffee table.

"While the film has met with large-scale success throughout much of the world, it is as a book that Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media is most useful. A virtual transcript of the film, it also includes a range of other materials--extended extracts from Chomsky's writings, reviews of those writings, interviews and a variety of novelty items, from comic strips through to a set of "Philosopher all-Star" trading cards attached to the spine. Through these, the emphasis on Chomsky's personality with marks the film (and about which Chomsky himself was concerned) is diminished, and the result is a highly skimmable guide to Chomsky's political ideas, the controversies in which he has been embroiled, and the notoriously thorny question of the relationship between his political and linguistic ideas. It is, perhaps, too fragmentary and montage-like in its organization to serve as a course text, but as a distillation of one important current within Western radical thought it is extremely useful."

Will Straw,
Canadian Journal of Communication

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media is the essential companion book to the celebrated philosophical documentary film of the same name which was released in 1993.

Noam Chomsky followers and all free thinkers who have seen the film (and those who have not) owe it to themselves to get a copy of this provocative book and discover the incredible depth and lucidity of Chomsky's thought and ideas which address the most important moral, ethical, political and social issues of our time.

The book contains a complete transcript of the film, with 300 stills illustrating the text, as well as copious excerpts from Chomsky's writings, interviews and other sources. The side-bar rich format of the book is well designed in that it allows one to follow the sometimes fast pace of the documentary's narrative while providing well chosen excerpts from Chomsky's writings that enrich and elucidate the topics presented in the film.

Like the film, this book will hold your attention, and you will find yourself returning again and again to explore the political life and times of the controversial author, linguist, and radical philosopher Noam Chomsky. I would highly recommend this book both to the seasoned reader of Chomsky's work and as a very approachable introduction for the first time reader to this authors intellectually potent thought.

"Marx's Concept of Man" is essentially a pamphlet establishing the humanist, philosophical side of Marx as against the orthodox, Soviet view of Marx as tyrannical and economistic, and against the degree to which this view has seeped into academic literature in the West also. Famous Freudian Marxist Erich Fromm uses the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" as well as "The German Ideology" to stress the importance of humanist concepts such as alienation, freedom, and creativity for Marx, and in so doing explains what these and similar terms mean in Marx' work. Fromm has clearly paid careful attention to Marx' philosophy, and this part of the book is quite good as a simple overview.

The second half of the book covers the English translation of the aforementioned "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" by Tom Bottomore, as well as excerpts from various other works by and about Marx meaning to show his humanism, his good nature, and his sensitivity to culture. Of special interest are the excerpts from the memoirs of those who knew Marx, like his daughter Eleanor as well as Paul Lafargue. These works are often quoted, but rarely does one find a larger part in English, not even in McLellan's biography.

Fromm goes a bit overboard here and there in stressing Marx' 'spiritual' nature. Although nothing Fromm writes is of itself incorrect, it may unwittingly reinforce the old canard of Marxism 'really' being a religion, and Marx a millennarian prophet, and so on. Fromm obviously rejects this old refrain, but should have made that clearer. In other aspects this collection is an interesting primer on Marx as thinker on human action and human nature, and sheds good light on this side of Marxist thought for those not familiar with it.

Fromm's analysis of Marx is incredible, finally someone truly understands Marx's writing. This is an excellent edition for someone looking for a side of Marx not often discussed.

This book is an excellent book for anyone wishing to gain a readable understanding of Marxist thought. The first 92 pages are especially insightful. A must buy for anyone interested in Marxism.

...someone dusted off Marx and took a good psychological look at the wealth in his writings! One needn't be a Marxist (I am not) to appreciate this fine book. My one concern is that Fromm is to Marx as Kaufmann is to Nietzsche: both men either ignore or euphemize the weaknesses in the visionaries they write about (e.g., Kaufmann's remark that Nietzsche's hateful, cynical, and demeaning remarks about women "do him little credit"). Nevertheless, this book provides a good compensation for the Western tendency to demonize a man very much misunderstood by those who turned his writings to political purposes.

"Marx's Das Kapital" is noted Marx-sympathetic journalist Francis Wheen's contribution to Atlantic Magazine's series on book biographies. It's short, merely 120 pages of actual text, but it does the job well. Relying strongly on prominent secondary literature about Marx, such as David McLellan's excellent biography (Karl Marx, Fourth Edition: A Biography) and S.S. Prawer's equally fascinating study of Marx' use of literature and literary references (Karl Marx and World Literature (Oxford Paperbacks)), Wheen summarizes the background of Das Kapital, how it came to be, as well as its content and its reception.

Wheen is at his best in the journalistic parts, when he can give colorful and well-done descriptions of Marx's life and activities, his relation to Engels, his trials and tribulations while working on the magnum opus, and in commentary on Marx's books and style. On the other hand, his grasp of Marx's economic theories is very weak and likely to make things more confusing, especially since he misses the point and meaning of Marx's Theory of Value entirely. Also dubious is that he appends a chapter on 'afterlife' of the book, which is mostly an attempt to summarize all of the later Marxist tradition (from an anti-Leninist viewpoint) in a few pages, a task so impossible that its attempt is fruitless and uninformative.

However, Wheen is quite good at putting Das Kapital in its historical context, in emphasizing the rhetorical and literary qualities of the book and of Marx' thought in general, and the book also contains some fascinating quotes and remarks from pro-capitalist economists and businessmen who have come to see, to their own astonishment, that ol' Marx was a better analyst of the system they wish to support than anyone else. Let us hope the reader of this booklet will be inspired by this to attempt to delve into Marx & Engels' own works, which constantly show their relevance in new and unexpected ways. As Wheen demonstrates, this is precisely as Marx had intended it.

Mr. Francis Wheen's narration of the genesis of Karl Marx's Das Kapital deserves an honored space on the library shelves of every man conversant in current affairs.

John Gooch

Karl Marx. For some, those two four letter words elicit hissing recoils and vicious claw swipes. Just one glimpse of the man resembling Santa Claus' evil twin can send them into a relentless conniption of fury. They may equate Marxism with communist, socialist, Leninist, anti-American claptrap. After all, weren't the Soviets America's diabolical enemy? Didn't they breed Bolsheviks in our washrooms? Inject anti-capitalist fluid into our drinking water? And didn't they derive such sinister plots from their hoary prophet of doom, Herr Marx? Surely the mighty bearded one inspired the killing fields, the Gulag death camps and the Red Square parades? So why drudge up this hateful mess?

After the Berlin Wall and the USSR collapsed, and especially after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, which put the focus on Middle East terrorism, Marx has acquired a more innocuous aura. Nothing cools old passions like new enemies. This new era has allowed Marx to crawl out from under those who have claimed him as their ideological messiah. And many have claimed him. But why did they claim him, an impoverished exiled German journalist? And were those countless communist regimes of the past two hundred years accurate reflections of Marx's ideas? Where did those ideas come from?

This small book explores the origins and fate of those ideas through Marx's maniacal magnum opus, "Das Kapital." As spiraling, towering, and dizzying, and as incomplete, as Gaudí's cathedral, this sprawling tome usually goes unread. A reputation for Tolstoyian verbosity, Proustian opacity, and Gödelian complexity preceded it into the twenty-first century. Not only that, at some 1000 pages, the book's physical presence alone would intimidate anyone but the most recklessly courageous bookworm. Nonetheless, it somehow persists. The story of how it came to be makes up this much shorter book's first two chapters. Procrastination, neglect, illness, despair, and squalor almost kept it from appearing. Decades passed between its conception and its printing. Fredrick Engels, Marx's partner and financial supporter, egged him on through a parade of excuses and diversions. Along the way snippets of Marx's economic theory, such as use-value, exchange-value, surplus-value, commodity fetishism, immiseration, and dialectic, also dot the narrative.

The reception of "Das Kapital" following its publication, outlined in chapters two and three, surprised everyone, except Engels. It didn't sell. It seemed to have fallen, a la Hume, still born from the press. Engels blamed the book's dense obscurity. The one place it did catch on, to Marx's astonishment, was in Tsarist Russia. Though Marx passed on well before the 1917 revolution there, he nonetheless praised the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by a group called "The People's Will." He also spent the rest of his days waiting for the fall of capitalism. He and Engels seemed to revel in every economic disruption. But the big blow never struck. The boom and bust cycles that Marx outlined in "Das Kapital" never destroyed capitalism from within, as he predicted it someday would and should. Of course, it still could, but to this day the system endures.

Chapter three discusses Marx's legacy. Most of all, it rescues him from some of the crimes perpetrated by "Marxist" regimes. Vladimir Lenin in particular seemed to turn the Marxian dialectic on its head by postulating an elite proletariat "intelligentsia." Marx never condoned such a thing. As the twentieth century continued, Marx was also appropriated by academic movements such as cultural studies. The book dismisses these movements apparent "Marxism" through figures such as Louis Althusser. It also criticizes this movement's displacement of economics, which lies at the heart of Marx's work, with critiques of mass culture, such as television shows and candy wrappers. Most shocking are quotes from modern economists who support some of Marx's views on capitalism. So Marx wasn't blacklisted along with all those 1930s entertainers. Marx's legacy may just be beginning, but not as a revolutionary overthrowing the capitalist machine, but as an observer of the machine's working and flaws.

A better introduction to Marx and "Das Kapital" is hard to imagine. The book reads like a roller coaster in clear accessible language. Pros as well as cons of Marxist theory, its implications, and abuses receive apt attention, and Marx's turgid masterpiece comes to life. Anyone curious about "the spectre of communism" should start with this tiny but riveting - and appropriately colored - book.

If you're anything like me, you have neither the time, nor the patience to delve into Karl Marx's monstrous Magnum opus of political economics, Das Kapital. Fortunately, Francis Wheen has done us a great service by giving us this fantastic "biography" of a book that changed the world. The book is superbly written, and the audio version, eloquently delivered by Simon Vance, is equally good. It is a concise work; the CD version is 3.5 hours, while the printed format is only about 144 pages. My CD version is separated into three sections. The first section details Marx's life and the circumstances that led him to write such a groundbreaking book. The second section is a succinct exposition of Das Kapital. Wheen aptly outlines and dissects the basic principles of Marx's revolutionary economic theory, objectively pointing out both Marx's errors, as well as his numerous insights, many of which have proven true. While his prophesies of the collapse of the capitalist system have obviously not come to pass, Marx offers more insight into the "nature of the beast" than anyone else before, or since.

The final section deals with the book's lasting influence and Marx's legacy. Wheen points out that in most "Marxist" countries, Marx's ideas were never thoroughly researched and interpreted, their leaders simply took their own interpretation, made it an unquestionable dogma, and that was that. Ironically, it's been in western capitalist societies where Marx, due to the freedom of scholars to study him, has been more thoroughly understood. "Marxism as practiced by Marx himself," Wheen writes, "was not so much an ideology, as a critical process, a continuous dialectical argument." More simply put, Marx was not a Marxist.

Wheen clearly has a great amount of respect for Marx. And while he is quick to point out certain lapses in logic or prognosis, he maintains that Marx was one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 19th century. In fact, he predicts that we have not seen the last of Karl Marx, and boldly suggests that in the end, he may turn out to be more relevant than most would expect. All in all, I would recommend this as a great introduction to Marx or even a refreshing new look at an old subject. 5 stars.

In terrorizing America, Osama Bin Laden only got the ball rolling. Contrary to FDR's famous statement that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, George W. Bush seems to believe that fear should be the prime motivator in engaging Islamic radicals and of them we should be truly terrified. With much of America and Congress cowed, Bush was given carte blanche to push his right wing agenda including massive tax cuts on the wealthy, an erosion of civil rights and a stunning reelection win using a campaign of fear. It was Bush who was instrumental in bringing Bin Laden's dream to fruition by galvanizing the Islamic world against America and driving a wedge between the U.S. and its allies. The author writes, `The strength of the U.S. government, including its ability to project force abroad, not only depends on its reputation for invincibility abroad, it also relies on its domestic legitimacy.' What Bush has managed to do is completely tie down the military, demonstrate to the world its limitations and tar the image of the United States as a beacon for freedom and law.

The author devotes an entire chapter to Dept. of Justice lawyer John Yoo and with good reason. Yoo's views on presidential power can best be summed up by a quote from his book `The Powers of War and Peace' saying, "the President's authority under the Constitution did not differ in important measure from that of a king" In other words everything Americans know about checks and balances and the founding fathers desire to rid themselves of a king is wrong. To support his assertion Yoo cherry picks through historical documents, omits contrary facts and distorts reality. Yoo is to political discourse what creationism is to science. What sets Yoo apart, besides the fact that he is the reductio ad absurdum of Conservative thinking on the concept of the Unitarian Executive, is that he actually went to the effort of putting his extremist ideas into a book. Yoo is unashamed in his belief that Nixon was right when he said, `When the president does it that means that it is not illegal' The views Yoo expresses are a mirror held up to the policies practiced by the Bush Administration, that the president in time of war becomes a supreme branch of the government answerable to none.

Yoo's most infamous statement, that a president could order the brutal torture of a child in order to extract information from a parent, leads into the author's next point. Why does the Bush Administration seem so adamant about having the ability to torture detainees? Besides ignoring Global Warming, engaging in torture may be the most shameful act the Bush Administration has involved itself in. John Dean speculated that torture is encouraged by the Bush Administration in order to satisfy the leadership's authoritarian egos. Mr. Holmes takes a different approach suggesting that the Bush Administration tortures as a demonstration to our enemies and allies that the gloves are off. The U.S. intends to match ferociousness with ferociousness. Similar to Bush's belief when governor that executions are good crime deterrents even if a few innocents die, the Administration seems to believe that torture should be done for tortures sake as a symbol. Torturing innocents and breaking international law is a means to an end because the U.S. looks that much more ruthless. The author writes, "The ticking time-bomb fable also suggests the quiet heroism of those who, defying moral norms and legal conventions, choose torture"

These are just a couple of examples from a book that is jam packed with thought provoking discussions about government and the use of power. I have read more than a few books on the Bush Administration's response to 9/11 but this may be the most intellectually profound, lucid and sober account yet. Stephen Holmes doesn't just recite the Bush Administration endless buffooneries he steps beyond partisan politics and establishes solid reasons for supporting alternative solutions. The Matadors Cape is a five star book that gets my highest endorsement.

Stephen Holmes, Professor at the New York University School of Law, has produced an exceptionally good book exploring the tangled arguments for the US and British governments' `war on terror'. He sums up that this war has been a disaster.

He describes the US state's "excessively violent, too broadly targeted, and patently counter-productive response to 9/11." He notes the odd assumption that "American immoderation will produce Muslim moderation." As he writes, "America's bellicose response to the 9/11 provocation was not only dishonourable and unethical, given the cruel suffering it has inflicted on thousands of innocents, but also imprudent in the extreme because it was bound to produce as much hatred as fear, as much burning desire for reprisal as quaking paralysis and docility."

Holmes demolishes the arguments used to try to justify the shift from getting Al Qa'ida to `America's gratuitous invasion and horrifyingly bloody occupation of Iraq'. He criticises idealist warmongering about the clash of civilisations, humanitarian intervention and democratisation. He notes, "Senators and Representatives who originally voted to approve a war on false pretenses have subsequently hesitated to criticize it, no matter how calamitous the outcome, because after-the-fact dissent embarrassingly reveals their own prior gullibility and lack of foresight."

He points out, "In Administration rhetoric, terrorism (a method for waging asymmetric war) is routinely opposed to liberty (a principle for organizing a modern society). The antithesis of liberty, however, is not terrorism but tyranny. So, when the Administration tries to place jihadism in the space vacated by Communism, turning it into the new global enemy of liberty, it confuses both itself and others." Gordon Brown uses the same bad comparison to continue Blair's war policies.

Holmes writes, "On the one hand, neoconservatives assert that Islamic radicals despise American values (such as religious toleration), not American policies (such as support for Israel), and deny that America's past behaviour has in any way provoked anti-American violence. On the other hand, they imply that the 9/11 plot was inspired and implemented by terrorists radicalized by Arab autocracies allied with or sponsored by the United States. This suggest precisely that 9/11-style terrorists hate American policies (backing the oppressors of Muslim peoples), not American values. They hate not the principles of American liberty but, rather, America's unprincipled support for tyranny. ... That is to say, jihadism, however repugnant, is not simply `evil' but has a perfectly comprehensible rationale. If we do not honestly grapple with this rationale, we will not be able to reduce the jihadist appeal."

He concludes, "the war on terror is bound to fail when conducted, as it has been so far, against the rule of law and outside the constitutional system of checks and balances." "To `go around the law' when combating terrorism is to regress into collective punishment. ... Waiving the rules will do the work of terrorists in this sense: it will recreate a world where violence breeds violence - where terrorism breeds torture and torture breeds terrorism. This will not be a safer world."

This book is mostly a collection of book reviews strung together with the goal of making sense of the US' foreign policy lurches after 9-11. Even that description makes it sound a little more coherent than it actually is, since there is also an interesting chapter that tries to explicate the mindset of the 9-11 terrorists. Furthermore the books reviewed uneasily fall into two different categories--there are those that are symptomatic of current American mindsets (books by Robert Kagan, Samantha Powers, and Samuel Huntington, for example), and there are books that Holmes considers somewhat useful for illuminating the world (books by Geoffrey Stone or Michael Mann among others). Nevertheless, Holmes is an able, lucid guide through this highly uneven pile of books and ideas. Furthermore, an overarching theme does crystalize. Holmes is insistent on the value of laws, international and domestic, which is not some sort of trick played on the powerful, but instead both creates an enabling context for the exercise of power and a check on the errors rulers are likely to commit. Those who underestimated the virtues of a lawful international (and domestic) order include not only the neocons in the Bush administration but also humanitarian liberals like Samantha Power. Holmes is also potent in describing the way the Bush administration could not let go of cold war binary frameworks to interpret the post-9-11 world, although these were woefully inadequate to the task. My main reservation about the book is that it tends to see the failures of the US/Bush administration entirely as a failure of understanding. There is little political economic texture that might help illuminate why these ideas thrived with so little effective opposition. Rather than requiring a new coalition guided by different principles, Holmes seems to hope that somehow the flawed thinking he documents can be corrected away.

New York University School of Law research director Stephen Holmes presents The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response to Terror, a scholarly examination of the failures, mismanagement, and worse rampant in the Bush-Cheney administration's response to the September 11th attacks, especially the deleterious ramifications of the war in Iraq. The Matador's Cape strongly condemns acts of terror and genocide, yet examines with equal suspicion the Bush-Cheney's administration's insistence in sequestering its intelligence and decision-making process from the public - and therefore from any solid opportunity to vette or cross-check its ideologically driven conclusions, with disastrous results. Also discussed is the significant yet by no means unilateral role of religious fundamentalism in propagating terrorism, the impact of rising birthrates in the Islamic world contrasted with falling birthrates in the Western world, the harmful and psychologically twisted effects of the Bush-Cheney administrations embrace of torture, and much more. A measured, well-reasoned and deftly persuasive treatise about the need for an immediate reexamination of America's current administration and foreign policy. Highly recommended.

The idea of a book full of arguments for the war in Iraq from liberal authors seemed so interesting that I immediately ordered it and started reading it as soon as I had finished my book of conservative authors not so happy about the war.

Seeing the way liberals had reacted to Iraq was one of the biggest reasons why I have started calling myself moderate instead of liberal. I'm not trying to imply that the word liberal is monolithic by any means, but seeing the way so many different types of liberals were so strongly opposed to this war (many times out of pure hatred of George W. Bush and nothing else), really made me take serious look at what I thought.

Some of the articles in this book are a bit dense, and the average reader might not be able to get through them, but there are numerous other brilliant articles in this book that make a very strong case for their arguments. Put simply, the main point of this book is that a perfectly logical case can be made in favor of invading Iraq from a humanitarian perspective.

The authors in this book are not fans of Bush in any way, but yet they still make the case that getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing. One of the contributors, Adam Michnik, put it best when he said "I believe you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein."

Throughout the book, the authors pose tough questions such as "If Bush really did lie about the weapons (and knew that none were in Iraq), why did the U.S. not arrange to plant the weapons after the invasion? A simple, but ironclad point in my opinion. The authors also tackle many of the liberal points used to argue against the war. Michael Moore is mentioned several times and because of this book, I am firmly cemented in my view that Moore has about as many positive contributions to make to the political world as Ann Coulter (which would be next to none).

Something I found particularly interesting was that a lot of what was said could be found coming from the right, but the point here is that the talk of liberating the Iraqi people from these authors are genuine. Hearing someone like Sean Hannity making these arguments isn't convincing because he's only for liberating another country if a Republican President is the one doing it. You never hear Hannity-types making the liberation argument in any other case.

I sincerely hope that anyone calling themselves a liberal that is opposed to the war in Iraq reads this book. It really challenges liberals to look at Iraq from the humanitarian perspective and I would venture to say that if you're a Michael Moore fan or a Noam Chomsky fan that could make it through this book and not have second thoughts, you're no different than the Republicans and conservatives you accuse of being blinded by ideology.

Irrespective of whether it leaves you believing that the Iraq war was just, this book is a fresh and valuable perspective. It explores important and critical arguments of a sophistication and depth that the lightweights and bigots of the contemporary media simply ignore (whether through bias or ineptitude).

Read the introduction here:

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10415/cushman.pdf

...and another example of the books chapters is here:

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/wi04/berman.htm

Highly recommended.

With the exception of Roger Scruton, all of the contributors to this thought-provoking book come from the left of the political spectrum. It is most refreshing to see that there are still rational people on that side and that the strident, hateful and juvenile shrieking that one encounters in the media are not the only voices of the left.

Part One: Reconsidering Regime Change, contains contributions by the brilliant Christopher Hitchens, Jeffrey Herf, Jan Narveson and Mitchell Cohen. These essays state the case for the overthrow of the sadistic Saddam whilst discussing the liberal and humanitarian case for the liberation.

The next section, Philosophical Arguments, includes a reflection on national interest and international law by the conservative Roger Scruton, an essay on a just war against criminal regimes by Mehdi Mozaffari, and moral arguments on sovereignty, agency and consequences by Daniel Kofman.

Critiques Of The Left is the third section. This contains the most interesting dissection of leftist positions and thoroughly undermines the fallacy created by the mass media that liberals and leftists were unanimously against the war. My personal favourite essays in this group include Pages From A Daily Journal Of Argument by Norman Geras, Ethical Correctness And The Decline Of The Left by Jonathan Re and A Friendly Drink In A Time Of War by Paul Berman, a liberal.

In European Dimensions, people like John Lloyd, Michel Taubmann and Anders Jerichow reveal that many prominent European intellectuals, including Vaclav Havel, supported the war on liberal-humanitarian grounds.

Part Five: Solidarity, contains an interview between the compiler Thomas Cushman and the Polish intellectual Adam Michnik. There are also moving essays by Timorese leader Jose Ramos-Horta, Johann Hari, Pamela Bone and Ann Clwyd. It is quite clear that unlike the rest of the Left, these authors have genuine compassion for the weak and the oppressed. An important point made here is that indifference to the plight of the oppressed means abdication of the duty to protect them.

The volume concludes with Liberal Statesmanship that contains Prime Minister Tony Blair's full statement to the House of Commons on 18th March 2003 and another speech of his titled The Threat Of Global Terrorism. They are both eloquent arguments for the liberation of Iraq that are rooted in principle and morality.

This valuable book demolishes many myths perpetuated by the academic and media elites and more importantly, exposes their malignant mindsets to some extent. For example, Johan Hari points out how Anti-Americanism has become a religion and how leftists ignore the crimes of sundry third world dictators. It is made clear that the anti-war camp really did not care about Saddam's victims. Then again, this is nothing new - leftists of the past also tried to suppress knowledge of Stalin's atrocities and those of Pol Pot.

Another lie that is exposed is the myth of American unilateralism. Forty Eight countries had joined the Coalition by March 2003 and in Europe, states like the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia strongly allied themselves with the USA. Many Asian states supported it too, including Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines. That puts the myth of unilateralism to rest.

In his introduction, Cushman mentions the relentless campaign of hatred and disinformation against Israel by the United Nations and the travesty of a UN Human Rights body that that includes representatives of cruel totalitarian states like Libya, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

He also mentions the shady motives behind the anti-war position of France, Germany and Russia. These essays were written and the book compiled before the full extent of the UN Oil For Food graft became widely known, but this scandal of the century only confirms the hypocrisy of the leadership of the aforementioned countries.

The book is not flawless. Some of the writing is perhaps too self-critical and as a Reaganite, I obviously disagree with many contributors on a range of other issues. But they are brave people who are willing to stand up for their convictions in a hostile environment. I regard the George Galloway/Michael Moore Moonbat Left as one would a hairy spider, but these authors are rational and decent. Their concern for the wretched of the earth is genuine. Their hearts are in the right place.

I also recommend A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq by Christopher Hitchens, Unholy Alliance and The Anti Chomsky Reader by David Horowitz, The Force Of Reason by Oriana Fallaci plus everything written by the wonderful Norman Geras.

The essays in this book about the Iraq War and international law are for the most part in clear and accessible English and do not rely on theories that are left unexplained in the body of the essay itself. For that reason I would recommend this collection to people who are interested only in the development of international law and mores and who are not much concerned with the Iraq War.

For those who are interested in the Iraq War, this collection is, I feel, indispensable. Not because the authors agree (they do not) but because the debate in this volume has about it a quality that has been largely absent from the Iraq debate: candor. Thus while the authors disagree on fundamental issues such as:

* was the war in Iraq, on balance, justified;

* did the governments that lead us to war lie or act in good faith;

* was the suffering of the Iraqi people alone sufficient justification for war; and

* do we have what it takes to see this war through

they do so without simplifying the arguments and without assuming that the Iraqi people agree with their positions.

For as profound as their disagreements are, the authors agree that:

* Saddam's regime was genocidal;

* leaving Saddam in place was not costless either (and most immediately) to the Iraqi people or (eventually) to the West; and

* the Bush administration has terribly botched the occupation, thereby endangering the whole enterprise.

And finally these authors point out that when in a public policy debate, the liberals sound like Henry Kissinger while the conservatives echo John Rawls, the political landscape is out of joint.

This is the sort of debate liberals like myself had every right to expect in the days and months preceding the Iraq invasion. We did not get it (for reasons addressed in this volume). We get it here; in this collection of essays. I highly recommend it.