Politics Books

DEFINING VISION by Joel Brinkley is as comprehensive as any history behind the development of HDTV/DTV can ever possibly get. The text of this book will surely be required possessions for technological historians for at least the next 1000 years.

I'm reading this book a second time (a year later) because it's such a great introduction to players in the HDTV world. Brinkley chose a suspense style, and it really works well. I am excited about HDTV and turned each page holding my breath - hoping for a successful conclusion. Now I'm looking for more works that go beyond 1998, and can't find any more fulfilling...and the story isn't over yet!

Having had the opportunity to check the authenticity with several of the principles in the book, my hat's off to Joel Brinkley. He ties all the factions together that brought us DTV. It is a story with more twists and turns than you expect that comes mixing an industry that hates to change with new technology. Add in the governments of the U.S. and Japan, and it really becomes fun. Mr. Brinkley did a masterful job telling the story. This is a must read for anyone interested in television.

In the early 1980s US broadcasters faced two major headaches spawned by greed and jingoism. Their comfortable, tidy, oligopolistic-and profitable-broadcast world was about to be shaken by the digital revolution, where foes and friends were often indistinguishable. New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Joel Brinkley takes the reader on a roller coaster through boardrooms, bureaucracy, technocracy, and hubris (individual and national) in "Defining Vision." It is a ride worth taking for broadcast students, educators, historians, and international political economists.

Represented by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), radio and television companies considered the broadcast band spectrum their personal property. This largesse suddenly came under assault from the land mobile industry that wanted more spectrum space for a variety of public interest broadcast services such as police, firefighters, ambulance, quick response units, and other emergency services. Broadcasters, too, saw a new threat from across the sea. The Japanese spent $300 million and hundreds of thousands of engineering man-hours developing high definition television (HDTV). NHK unveiled its Muse system in 1986 to US policymakers and consumers. The picture quality was superior to the current analog systems in the United Sates, and Japanese-made monitors were designed to fit the wider formatted movies without the annoying letterbox effect.

Brinkley chronicles the scrimmages involving development of HDTV in the US like a general writing his wartime memoirs-if that general had access to the thinking of his opposition, that is. First the grand alliance-RCA, Zenith, AT&T, Phillips, General Instruments and MIT-had to admit that a victory by any one of them in the costly race to develop HDTV would be a defeat for the others. They were able to convince a willing FCC Advisory Committee that cooperation was possible in building a single system. Committee chairman Richard Wiley's role in HDTV cannot be understated (and Brinkley doesn't). His single-minded pursuit of high definition television as the national (and, it turned out, international) standard most probably resulted in its acceptance.

US broadcasters had worried privately and publicly as well, that the future of television would be dictated by a consortium of Japanese electronics magnates and NHK, the world's second-largest broadcasting company. Across the Atlantic, the European Union was equally concerned, and promised up to a billion dollars to Europeans to come up for a system on its own or else adopt the Japanese HDTV, since the Americans seemed not to be players in the game as the century's ninth decade unfolded. But the European effort never got off paper. US broadcasters at first fretted about a new "yellow peril" that posed as great a threat to them as it did to the automobile industry a decade earlier. Ever opportunistic, however, broadcasters found the Japanese an unlikely ally in their fight to snatch the unused frequencies from land mobile companies. HDTV, as the Muse system showed, required additional bandwidth space. Obviously, they reasoned, Congress and the FCC could not allocate precious broadcast spectrum space to land mobile users when they, the "rightful frequency heirs," needed the frequencies for HDTV.

At the same time, MIT's Nicholas Negroponte, who Brinkley treats somewhat derisively, was telling anyone who would listen that "HDTV had to be digital," not analog, which would allow for signal compression that would fit into existing frequencies. One naysayer echoed a common broadcast engineering complaint at the time: "we will have digital HDTV when we have anti-gravitation machines." Broadcast engineers at the major manufacturers nodded in agreement: digital high definition television technologically could not be done. The NAB, in its attempt to protect its space band largesse, inadvertently kicked off a race to develop HDTV in the United States that took on the trappings of a crusade to "rescue" the future of television in the United States from the hands of foreign interests. Along the way, General Instruments research engineer Woo Paik invented digital television (because, as a non-broadcast engineer, he didn't know that "it was impossible").

HDTV uses a compressed digital broadcast signal that not only remained within a single frequency but allowed broadcasters additional capacity to sell secondary services such as pager services, email, Internet connections, digital music, and pay-per-view movies. With such an entrée to new revenue flows, the reader would be surprised to learn the depth of NAB's animus to HDTV. Simply put, broadcasters used the HDTV concept to wrest away additional public airwaves spectra and then, among themselves, grumbled that they were unwilling to invest in new high definition cameras, monitors, and other equipment that would allow them to broadcast signals in both progressive scan (favored by the computer programming and manufacturing sector) and interlaced (favored by broadcasters) modes. Another opponent of a high definition television standard was the fledgling computer manufacturing industry in the mid-1990s, which didn't want the additional expense of adding interlacing decoding to what essentially was a dedicated proscan system.

After seven years of ups and downs in a process that often threatened to sputter, splinter, and spin totally out of control, HDTV in a digital form arrived in the US shortly after Thanksgiving in 1997. Despite all predictions to the contrary, the HDTV "turkey" arrived fully stuffed with enough goodies to ease its transition into the marketplace. The result was acceptance of the Americanized international standard by the European Union and the final, if not sad, acknowledgment by NHK that its analog Muse system was outmoded before it even got much beyond a toehold in its native land.

In "Defining Vision," Brinkley has crafted a highly readable, almost techno-mystery story with well-defined characters: heroes, villains, and rascals alike. At times he seems to get into the heads of the key players, which he explains as a literary device borne from extensive interviews with the principals who told him what they were thinking at the time. The effect rounds the edges of what could have been a highly technical, heuristic, and sloggish recitation of engineering reports, public hearings, and dreary diary entries from the participants. To his credit, the author explains his process to readers in an epilogue, thus enhancing the book's credibility. Furthermore, in this paperback edition, the author has updated and expanded several sections over the hardcover version, including an appendix and FAQ that are instructional.

I work in the television broadcast industry and this is a must read if you want to learn about the origins of HDTV, the players who made HDTV a reality, and how the standards for HDTV were defined. The author is an authority on the subject and provides an excellent description of the systems, history, etc. that both technical and business professionals can understand. At my company this has become required reading. I highly recommend this book.

I loved this book, for a start the narrative is wonderful. Rose Wilder Lane is a beautiful writer, very different to modern scholars who love to check, reference and double check every fact to the point of tedium. She simply takes her ideas and goes with the flow, they bristle with energy and she is a wonderfully exciting lady who comes across as a clever friend discussing the world and its woes. Sometimes it is frustrating as you wonder how she came upon them but the overall literary experience makes up for it. She has a clear view of how she sees different people in history, the Ancient Hebrews, the Muslims and Americans that makes an intuitive sense even though its not completely backed up. I particularly enjoyed her views of the break away from paganism. Her concept of paganism being a slavish religion where people belief that outside forces control their actions was illuminating. Before Islam, Meccans worshipped many gods who they thought controlled their actions. Mohammed said there was only one god, Allah the creator and after humans were created they were on their own. She understands how pagan gods were tied up to state machinery and how modern state machinery can create viewpoints that she dubs as pagan. It's a fascinating viewpoint.
I also enjoyed her insights into how America had changed over her lifetime. Many Europeans don't understand how free America was in the 19th century, we have never experienced that sort of minimal government. Thus the concept of conservatism is different in Europe it is tied up with conserving rotten regimes that she described yet in America it is allied with the freedom of past era. I appreciated her instinctive rejection of the changes made in her society and respected her for them, especially when she talked of the form of education that was voluntary and localy organized of which she herslef is an excellent advert for. She's a story teller rather than a formal philosopher, her work (as is her Mother's) is almost biblical in the way that every word is steeped in her beliefs and positive outlook, she is instinctively moral yet she never needs to moralize as she expresses herself so well without the need to lecture and drone. I only wished she had written more, I have a book of her letters where she refers to a new book that she is working on but it never materialized. I just love Rose Wilder Lane, she makes me feel more alive.

I stumbled across this book in an Amazon review and I am so glad I did. More than any other book I have read, this one tells the story of the United States of America in the context of the story of human freedom throughout the ages, and makes one appreciate how rare and unique this gift we have inherited (and often take for granted). Rose Wilder Lane is uncompromising, but also inspiring. God is part of the equation of freedom, and freedom is part of the natural order that allows human energy its full expression. Authority, in the form of governmental control, is what stifles human energy and has unceasingly stymied human progress. While written during World War II, I think her observations are just as accurate, and her warnings now more than ever need to be heard. Her recounting of history is unconventional, but seems accurate to me (I've read enough history to be a fair judge). Everyone, especially every American, should read this book to understand the unique and special legacy we've inherited and should strive to preserve. If you can't get a hold of a copy, it is also available via the author's biography on Wikipedia.

This book is also recommended reading for people interested in Islam and its effect on Arabs, namely that of freedom.

So give it a try.

Forget high school government and econ classes. Forget American history and psychology. All you need to do is read this short, exquisite work.

Ms. Lane crafted an excellent premise that cannot be over-emphasized or repeated too often: Man succeeds when free. Using history, economics, philosophy, religion, psychology, and sociology, Ms. Lane coherently explains recorded human history and gives it a logical framework for understanding. The stories read like a novel, rather than a textbook. Her prose is succinct, precise and very effective. Her first chapter should be memorized and recited in grade schools throughout this land.

Buy a copy for your favorite student as a graduation present. Give one to your congressman, store clerk, or a total stranger on the bus. Leave it at the Starbuck's or the State License Bureau. This is the finest piece of non-fiction I have ever read. Do yourself a favor and read it at least once a year.

No wonder the publishers in 1943 did not push this book! It is filled with truth about Freedom and very educational. Not at all what anyone who likes to control people would want you to know about. What is Freedom, what are people operating with instead. What a great book. I am sorry no one ever had me read this book years ago. Such an uplifting style of writing. In this day and age, our Liberty and Freedom is slowly being taken away because we don't know what freedom is. This book explains it simply and with great examples. Thanks Rose Wilder Lane...

Awesome book is a must read if more people in DC thought this way we would still be a republic instead of on our way of being a socialist government like the old USSR

This is a collection of Prof. Walter Williams's newspaper columns. It's in his usual plainspoken, tough minded style. A must for the Prof. Williams fan.

This book is a compilation of columns by America's strongest voice of liberty, Dr. Walter E. Williams. In this book Dr. Williams offers his common sense, freedom-loving take on the vital issues of the day. He fearlessly confronts the many liberal fallacies responsible for eroding our precious liberties. A must read for anyone wanting to expand their base of knowledge and unafraid to confront stark truths. A great antidote to the toxic political propaganda many of our universities dispense. And, a great book for Blacks brave enough to challenge the ethnic grievance industry (Jackson-Sharpton).

Everything Walter Williams writes is worth reading. His amazing capacity to convey economic truths combines with his wisdom, humor, eloquence, and keen powers of observation to make him one of America's top pundits. Williams is that rare bird: a truly courageous pundit who is also a genuine scholar.

Over the past 15 years I have read numerous works by many libertarian writers. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand, Charles Murray, P.J. O'Rourke, Dave Barry, Henry Hazlitt, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Julian Simon, and many others. Walter Williams is my definite favorite libertarian writer. He tells the plain, simple truth in a way that is very easy to understand. He presents the facts in such a way that only a fool could read him and then walk away without becoming a libertarian. This book is pretty much on par with his others. Which is to say, it is excellent. Mr Williams is a true supporter of individual liberty, freedom, private property rights, and strict limits on the size of government. Good for him!

As a person who was not born and raised in West Virginia, Loughry's book was an eye-opener. It takes the reader beyond the flippant comments and sound bites that emerge every political season, to give one a baseline, if you will, of the sordid past of politics in the state. The political shenanigans occur on both sides of the aisle, and some of the strange bedfellows that emerged at various times are truly fascinating.

The book begins with the Kennedy campaign and how a largely Protestant state voted for Kennedy, a Catholic, and changed the balance between Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in a primary season very different from what we see today. Loughry takes us into the inner workings of the political machines, lubricated by money from Joseph Kennedy (who is responsible, verbatim, for the title of the book).

From there the book shifts backwards to the development of political bosses of the distant past and then takes us through to some of the aspects of politics in play to this day.

I cannot verify Loughry's claim that everything he has gathered is verifiable through media excerpts, but I can say that it is a fascinating read that is a must for any armchair politician in the state, and a great read for anyone interested in how our the voting process works or does not work

After having this book recommended to me, I was a bit skeptical, figuring it too dry for my taste, but I was immediately drawn in and had trouble putting it down. Growing up in West Virginia I was startled at how deep the corruption in politics has been and its continuing nature. The book examines corruption itself in a very fair and even manner without attacking any particular group. After reading this, the need for election reform and accountability in public office is obvious. Not just for West Virginia but for the country. I found the book to be interesting, informative, entertaining at times, and very thought provoking. I would recommend it to anyone, whether or not they have an interest in politics. I can even see the value of the book as a required text for high school students because it provides a taste of history that is sometimes buried, along with a plan for the future.

Don't Buy Another Vote....is a wonderful, easy to read, eye-opening book. I think everyone including college students, West Virginians, people that follow politics very closely, and people that just vote should read. It is a very honest look at political corruption with a little humor along the way. Very well written! Go get a copy!!!!

I just finished "Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay For A Landslide" and find it to be one of the most amazing books I have ever read! I started reading and surprisingly, I couldn't put it down. Being a political junkie I thought I knew just about everything about politics, but this book breaks it down to a much more detailed level in a very comprehensive, yet readable way. The detail is mindboggling, but the conversational style of the author is refreshing.
In all of my years of reading political books and following politics, this is the first time I have ever read a book written in such a non partisan manner. I was skeptical at first because individuals often proclaim to be non partisan and write without bias, but that rarely is ever the case. The author is an equal opportunity offender, but it is clear that he doesn't pick on anybody. Instead, he tells the story of incredible corruption broken down at a state level. It includes amazing information about Mother Jones, the Hatfields and McCoys, the Coal Mine Wars, governors going to jail, a state attorney general hiring hit man to kill one of his deputies, another governor having his wife bribe a juror, a judge who bit the end off of a defendant's nose, and countless other stories. What makes this book different, however, is the that author provides a step-by-step way to fix the system that can be applied to all fifty states. This guy should run for Governor or U.S. Senator because we lack these types of visionaries in state and federal government these days.
This book should be read by everyone with any interest in politics, history, psychology, elections, etc.... I was overwhelmed and have told everyone I know. Every single high school student in America should be given a copy of this book as they graduate. This book changed my life! READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Dr. Allen Loughry's "Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide" is truly a breath of fresh air in a genre that sorely needed it. Most books written these days about the political arena and the corrupt nature attendant to it are riddled with shortcomings and philosophical pitfalls and, in the end, simply don't deliver. More often than not they serve to advance the agenda of their own writer, and the most painful part of the whole experience is how patently transparent that writer's intentions are. They provide little more than a laundry list of rants by an author perched high atop his/her soap box driven by a far greater concern for hijacking the pages of his/her own publication to simply rail against the establishment. The greater problem with this is how rarely they provide anything substantive in the way of suggested remedies for a very broken and morally bankrupt system that rules the day in American politics.

With "Don't Buy Another Vote" Loughry breaks that mold. His writing is not only to the complete contrary of such a dissatisfying style, but it downright hits home. This is the political narrative that we've all been waiting to read, and it was well worth the wait. Unlike may authors who complain about the proverbial weather without doing anything to change it, Loughry does plenty, or at least he inspires us to do so. Not only does he call nearly 150 years worth of corrupt West Virginia officials out on the carpet for their egregious misdeeds, but he also provides suggestions for the type of reform he feels is necessary to correct this longstanding crisis.

Loughry's "Contract With the Voter" is as innovative and well thought out as it is groundbreaking. Before the smoke settles, don't be surprised if this model for change might very well be adopted as the accepted norm for those seeking office not just in the Mountain State, but in any state. It's prolific in its simplicity and after reading it you'll find yourself saying..."Yes, why can't we implement something like THAT!?" From cover to cover Loughry's message resonates and his voice is true to the mark. A crisp writing style that goes a long way toward walking us through a murky history in which nothing sacred holds. A must read for all of us, irrespective of our own political affiliations. Loughry points out that corruption is not confined to party lines. Neither, for that matter, is the book now chronicling its long and ugly history in West Virginia.

I would like not to see the parallels. Any rational and compassionate person should like not to see the parallels. But the parallels are there, and Miller lays them bare in this devastating and meticulous extended analogy.

This is an astonishing book. Its thesis is provocative, to say the least, and it may not be for everyone -- but if you've ever wondered if just maybe our current federal drug policy wasn't delivering quite what you'd hoped, crack this book open and prepare to lose sleep.

The author has done the work and now the citizens must spread the "gospel". Like a seer Lawrence is able to anticipate the insane trajectory of where this drug war is leading. Though the picture he paints is ugly, if these drug warrior zealots are not vigorously challenged now he clearly shows how much uglier it will become. The evil of Nazi Germany and that of the US drug war are clearly shown to progress via the same chain of events: identification, ostracism, confiscation, concentration, and the final solution ie annihilation. Miller is an American hero doing the best he can to awaken conciousness.

This is one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time. Richard L. Miller deserves an award. In this book, the author details the erosion of civil liberties by the current war on drugs. For those familiar with this area, he trots out the typical points: harsh penalties for minor violations and loss of civil liberties for all.

But what makes this book special is the author's analysis of legal issues and history. Richard Miller is an independent scholar who has written about Nazi justice (in "Nazi Justiz"). I thought his application of Nazi jurisprudence to the drug war was overkill at first. Little did I know just how wrong I was. As one reviewer put it, this book will help you lose weight.

What sets this book above the others on the drug war is that Miller explains how the war effects the innocent, and how innocence is no longer an adequate defense. In fact, Miller has a Justice Department official quoted as saying that innocence was not a defense to forfeiture of assets. He argues that asset forfeiture has corrupted law enforcement at all levels.

In one example, Miller tells of an elderly couple in one California county who owned a mutil-million dollar ranch adjacent to a national park. Apparently, the Park Service wanted the land, the local law enforcement the assets (in the form of the house, possessions, etc.). Thus, police had to get a warrant to raid the property. First, they searched it illegally. This is a typical tactic of DEA agents and local law enforcement, who search a house and either plant or discover evidence that they can use to get a warrent later. Regardless, the courts have determined that even illegal searches and seizures are acceptable in the war on drugs. All of this is documented in the book. Even in the illegal search, no drugs were discovered. An elderly couple, go figure?

If you think that stopped the police, DEA, et al., then you haven't read the book. One local officer testified before a judge that "thousands" of marijuana plants were being cultivated on the property. This testimony was based on a lie told to the officer by another. Although both were aware of the lie (and the couple's complete innocence of ANYTHING), this way neither officer could be chared with perjury. Needless to say, the judge issued the warrant.

During the raid, the husband was sleeping. He was roused awake by his wife's screaming and was shot to death as he put down his rifle, which he had becuase he thought he was being robbed and was defending his wife. The agents participating in the raid evicted the wife. Even agents of the U.S. Park Service were involved, in case you doubted their complicity.

It gets better. The location of the ranch was in a different county than the one in which the local police were from! They went out of their own jurisdiction for the express purpose of seizing property from people THEY KNEW were innocent. All of this was expressed by the county prosecutor (where the ranch was), when he said that they appeared to be motivated by a desire to obtain the property and assests of its owners.

This book is meticulously documented and researched. The analysis of the legal issues with references to the Nuremburg Tribunal and Nazi legal principles is stunning. As well as his telling of the internment of Japenese-Americans to demonstrate how segments of society can be treated if the propaganda warriors desire their elimination.

If you're not enraged by the time you're finished reading this book, your heart is dead.

This is one of the best books I have read. I am against prohibition. Many people are but whenever the subject comes up in conversation the retort to my sugestion that prohibition be repealed is typically something along the line of "all you want to do is smoke pot" ...followed by some chuckling and then some stories about the days when we use to get high as kids.
This book is not about smoking pot. It is about the use of the drug war and prohibition law to circumvent Americans civil liberties. It is very well written. It helped me to form reasonable counter arguments to the for mentioned statement such as... "is it OK to strip search a child?"
This book is made even more relative when used as background material to analyze what I witness while watching the Judge Alito confirmatio hearings.
The scariest part of this book is watching the events described come alive right before our eyes on C-span.
I think you should read this if you, like me, suspect that something is rotten in Denmark and the official version of what is happening just isn't making sense.

This book is an anomaly amidst the typical drug policy literature available. Miller's argument stems from his scholarship on Nazism. He applies Raul Hilberg's "chain of destruction" to the current "war," not on drugs, but on drug users. William Bennett was less than secretive about his abhorrence for those who used drugs, especially those "hard-core users who were too far gone to care about" - stated differently, the real issue is not the drugs themselves, but the type of people who use drugs. America is full of social problems, e.g. poverty, crime, &c.; problems that most politicians are timid in addressing because of the complexities involved in solving them. Yet, politicians need a platform to stand on and the American public needs a scapegoat. Drug users, that most alien element in the population, according to Miller, are the perfect group to identify, ostracize, confiscate, concentrate, and then annihilate as scapegoats for all the ills in society: in fact this sequence of stages is Hilberg's "chain of destruction." It is from his "seminal" study on the Holocaust, later published as: The Destruction of the European Jews, that Hilberg constructed his theory of the chain of destruction. Nazi Germany, like America, was in the throes of profound social discord and the public demanded a scapegoat. The Jews became the literal manifestation of a scapegoat for the German people. Hitler, faced with harsh social problems, exercised his own prejudices to isolate, blame and thus use the Jews as a scapegoat for Germany's problems. It was identification of the scapegoat with a real entity and the eventual acceptance of this scapegoat by a German majority that led to the conceptualization and employment of a "final solution" for the riddance of social ills from German society. Miller's argument is provocative, to say the least, in that he sees a direct correlation between the processes of Nazism and the processes of the "drug warriors." Moral indignation when it is directed toward a highly specified group of people can have disastrous consequences. Miller is not the only scholar who has applied the scapegoat theory to drug users in American society, but he is the first to take it to its disturbing, but logical end.

I rate this book as amongst the most influential in my life. The author spends the first half of the book explaining why even though things may look much more advanced and different now than 2000 years ago, the same underlying forces are at play. The powerful are in control and we live under a system of mercantilism and not anything resembling the free trade we are taught at school.

I have read widely and believe that the solutions proposed by Dr Smith in the second half of this book focus too narrowly on the economic aspects of peoples lives and tend to be very prescriptive such as specific taxation reforms. I prefer the writings of Noam Chomsky who is less proscriptive but generally has more the right idea - that as human beings our main goal should be to let everyone live in freedom and peace where everyone is able to be himself. People just want to be free to control their own destiny and economics is only one part of this solution.

Despite not agreeing with all the solutions posed by Dr Smith I still fully rate this book because it is the first half that will blow your socks off. You do not have to agree with the second half and can pick and choose which reforms should be implemented as I did. This book changed my thinking forever and I now realise and understand the real forces at play when I see news items and read books.

Essentially this book is an extremely in-depth deconstruction of neo-liberal economics/politics. I had long thought myself almost unique (outside Academia) in the depth and breadth of my reading, but after having read this book, I realized that I understood very little about what was really going on. It was a humbling experience, to say the least. But it was also liberating, in that for the first time in my life, the opaque inconsistencies between what I had been taught in university and the realities I saw happening in the news became transparent. The author additionally offers many progressive ideas for a more just, efficient and ultimately sustainable economic system, which in my experience is very rare indeed. If you are looking for something more substantial than Michael Moore's often inarticulate rants - albeit less entertaining - than this is the book for you. BE WARNED: once you read this book, nothing will ever seem quite the same.

I've searched my whole life to the reasons for and the solution to world poverty and hunger. This work offers both in a well reasearched and thought out, realistic approach. The reasons for poverty become obvious after reading Dr. Smith's book. The posibility of ending poverty by building buying power in the Third World while improving the standard of living in the developed world is as brilliant as it feasible. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for answers to solving the world's ills

I was first impressed by JW Smith's book, The World's Wasted Wealth 2, filled as it is with ideas about how to reduce waste. His Economic Democracy book exposes the roots of world poverty and identifies how all people everywhere can become truly wealthy while respecting and conserving the world's ecology. I use several chapters in the undergraduate sociology course I teach called, Cooperation and Conflict. Every chapter is packed with information that we all need to know in order to participate responsibly in redirecting government policies.

A professor of economics once told me that "mainstream economics is 95% ideology and only 5% social science." This wonderful book by J.W. Smith shows why that is true. I found it utterly complelling and could not put it down. By exposing the macro-economic mechanisms of the past five centuries, Smith blows neo-liberal ideology right out of the water. This book should be required reading everywhere in the world. It points the way toward a liberated and decent world-order and shows that a just world-order would not be that difficult to achieve. This book lays the foundation for a new global economics of freedom and prosperity. Thank-you Dr. Smith!

This is an essential primer for all those wishing to learn more about the legislative and legalistic aspects of conservation activism. Doug Scott analyzes the history and politics behind statutory wilderness protection at the federal level, which culminated in the momentous Wilderness Act of 1964. I am proud to be from the same state (Pennsylvania) as two of the leading lights behind that legislation – Howard Zahniser and Rep. John P. Saylor. Believe it or not, Saylor was a Republican congressman, indicating that conservation has not always been the stark divisive issue that it is today. In the first half of this book, Scott gives a history of wilderness activism in the United States, from colonial times through the great influential figures of John Muir and Aldo Leopold, and how scattershot protection of valuable areas led to the need for the structured Act of Congress in 1964.

The second half of the book, starting with Chapter 5, gets more interesting as Scott turns to the modern politics of conservation that have been embodied by citizen requests for protection of their valued wild areas. We learn that every president has approved additions to America's protected wilderness, even GWB, and that this has always been accomplished through bipartisan compromise. As proven in poll after poll, the majority of Americans, from all walks of life and political stances, favor the protection of wilderness. This knowledge is a valuable side effect of this book, in that Scott shows us that the American government has always had a strong sense of compromise and pragmatism, which has proven to be more effective than the divisiveness and narrow ideological posturing that you might think have swamped government processes, thanks to loudmouthed pundits and sound bite media coverage. I have met Doug Scott at a speaking engagement, and I feel that anyone who loves wilderness as an American tradition should become familiar with his works. [~doomsdayer520~]

I enjoyed the historical perspective that is documented in the book. Mr. Scott gives a good narrative of the historical time line for The Wilderness Act of 1964. His supportive quotes from many people who were involved in the long process of writing and passing the bill are both interesting and timely. I feel the book is very timely as well as historical to today's wilderness protection process.

This book combines a brief history of American wilderness policy and politics with an impassioned plea for more wildernesses. Scott is the policy director for the Campaign for America's Wilderness, and a past recipient of the John Muir Award, so we are in no doubt where his sympathies lie.

Scott has written an admirable little book. It is short (154 pages of text, with wide margins and lots of sidebar quotes taking up space), so you shouldn't expect an in-depth history of wilderness policy. However, he packs a lot of information in that space. He provides a brief overview of attitudes toward wilderness from Teddy Roosevelt through Aldo Leopold and others in the 1920s and 1930s. After this, his story takes us through the Wilderness Act of 1964 and then into current debates over wilderness.

The centerpiece of his story is the question of statutory protection. Establishing a wilderness in the US requires an act of Congress and can be undone only by a similar act of Congress. This differs from other imaginable procedures, such as presidential decree or management agency discretion. Scott shows us why wilderness advocates came to believe that statutory protection was better than agency discretion, even if the agency was broadly sympathetic. He also argues that wilderness advocates were initially wrong in hoping for agency-based decisions subject only to congressional veto. Taking sole initiative away from agencies provided an incentive for grassroots citizen movements, which he believes has served the cause of wilderness well.

As you can see from my preceding paragraph, Scott gives us enough information so that we can disagree with him - - an admirable trait in any piece of advocacy. A mountain biker could read this book to understand why Scott's vision of wilderness excludes bicycles, and could also find common ground with Scott on preserving natural areas. This mountain biker would also gain insight into political strategies for protecting bike trails effectively.

Wilderness areas can be found in land managed by the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Though he doesn't make a big deal out of the differences across agencies - - after all, he has to work with these people - - it's clear that some agencies are easier to work with than others. He makes a friendly plea for the NPS to rethink how it approaches wilderness, for example.

Seeing the past century of wilderness policy also raises questions about our current dilemmas. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was our greatest conservationist president. Important legislation passed under Nixon and Ford. The younger Bush, in contrast, is extraordinarily hostile to wilderness. Bush has the support of most of the western states in which wilderness lies, though individual counties voted for Kerry (Teton County, Wyoming; Glacier County, Montana; and most of the ski areas in Colorado). Wilderness advocates need to make coalitions that include these voters, and current strategies don't seem to be working. Scott's next book might address some of these challenges.

I bought this book for a college class on wilderness and it provides a great overview of wilderness protection in the 20th century. It is amazing how so many years of history have been succinctly put into such a short book along with many insightful quotes. It is a great book for anyone interested in learning about protecting the wilderness.

In this book, Doug Scott provides us with an in-depth, refreshing and much needed look at the American Wilderness. We are all familiar with the wilderness of lore, whether it the pristine forests of Thoreau or the hostile wastes of the biblical prophet John. While these are powerful images they can't really compare to the diverse and very tangible wildernesses which are outlined in this book. Mr. Scott does a wonderful job both in detailing the ideas of the American Wilderness and the history and policy which brought this idea into reality.
I was fortunate enough to have used this book as a text for a college course. It is by far the most interesting college text book I have!
Mr. Scott presents a compelling look at the American Wilderness while at the same time giving us a hopeful outlook for its future. If you plan to have an opinion, you'd better read this first!

I was very satisfied with the text book. It is in almost perfect condition and was delievered in a timely fashion. Impressive! Plus I saved a lot of needed money.

One of the major things that striked me about this book is Lauren's acknowledgement that the concept of human rights is not a completely Western creation. Traditions around the world, political, cultural, and religious, have stressed justice and equality.
Lauren's treatment of Human Rights is quite thorough. I have to commend him for the fact that he does not value judgements on any of the events he described. He acknowledges the mistakes made but does not dwell on them.
I also learned a lot of things about history that wasn't touched about in my history classes. I can say that I actually felt smarter reading this book. :)

"For scholars of international human rights, it is difficult to imagine a finer gift on the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights than this study of the Declaration's complex and far-reaching impact. Paul Gordon Lauren has skillfully combined a detailed history of the legal documents with the political, philosophical, and social contexts in which they developed. He has further enriched his study with the personal visions of leading individuals so that the story comes alive, unfolding with a human drama supported by meticulous scholarly research." -- American Historical Review

Awarded an Outstanding Academic Book for 1999 Award from Choice Magazine

The author Paul Gordon Lauren deserves kudos!! A very well written book on Human Rights Theory. A must for all those who seriously want to go into depth on this subject. The concept of Human Rights is not limited to the western world nor it is proper to say that it has arisen mainly from Europe, an idea which has been very well captured in this book.

I wanted so badly to give this book 4 stars but couldn't bring myself to do it.
The concept of the book is interesting and Mr. Olson tackled it very well. The early part of the book details Mr. Olson's experiences growing up in Iowa, attending the University of Iowa Law School (Go Hawks!), how he came to join the CIA, and gave a brief summary of his career, although I say it was TOO brief and if Mr. Olson ever wrote a biography about his experiences in the Agency it would make a tremendously interesting read. He also mentioned that when he was recruited into the CIA, all he knew about it was what he had learned in Allen Dulles' book The Craft of Intelligence, which is ironic because I ordered that book on the same day as Fair Play. Both turned out to be greatly enjoyable.
The largest portion of Fair Play focuses on different (hypothetical) moral dilemmas potentially faced by Intelligence Officers, with each dilemma being asked in question form, "Would it be moral if..." Following each posed dilemma several people give their opinions and answer the posed question, answering either `yea' or `nay,' and telling why they answered in that way. At the conclusion of each `dilemma,' Mr. Olson himself chimes in and gives some basic background on the issue raised (these are the most informative parts of each section).
In the back of the book is an index explaining certain words and concepts, used throughout the text, that those outside the intelligence community may not fully grasp, which was nice to have as a reference. He also lists some of his most highly recommended books regarding the Intelligence community. Again, nice bonus.
All in all, it's a great book. So, why did I want to give it only 4 stars? ...Because the book wasn't entirely informative, as I prefer. That is to say, the questions were posed and people were allowed to give their opinions. Granted, the purpose of the book is to highlight the various dilemmas and take into consideration various perspectives, but that can grow tired after a bit. At times it made me feel like I was sitting in a moral dilemma debate conference.
However, in taking the following into consideration I feel obligated to give it 5 stars and absolutely recommend it: the informative reference section, the real-world input of the author, and the recommended reading list add a lot of value to the books content. Heck, even the small font causes the pages to be jam-packed with content. And lastly, Mr. Olson does indeed what he set out to do. It's worth the price!

Great book, great intro. to the intelligence field, and gives you a birdeye's view on the little spoken subfield, which is the morality of the intelligence field. Great demystifier of this field.

Fair Play offers the reader a peek into the murky world of espionage. CIA veteran Jim Olson has a unique perspective that few other authors can offer to anyone interested in intelligence. Fair Play is not your standard historical narrative. It is an interactive experience, which invites the reader to participate in fifty realistic and morally challenging scenarios that our spies must contend with. Olson adds further credibility to Fair Play by sharing with the reader a cross section of responses to his very realistic scenarios. These elicited responses are from accomplished professionals, whose vocations vary from the former Deputy Director of the CIA to practicing physicians.
Fair Play includes chapters on Olson's under cover career in the CIA, changing U.S. attitudes toward espionage from the Revolutionary War to the present, and historical, biblical, and philosophical justifications for committing espionage. Armed with this requisite knowledge, the reader is thrust into true-to-life situations that U.S. spies actually face in the shadows today. This approach redirects the reader from the role of arm chair quarterback to active participant by asking what he/she would do in that same situation. Among the many topics covered are assassinations, kidnappings, interrogation, torture, drugs, seduction, sexual entrapment, and blackmail.
Morality and espionage are not mutually exclusive. As Olson says, it is about time someone started thinking about how morality and spying fit together in today's world. The community he continues to serve faces monumental challenges. Its operators need to have a clearly defined moral code with which to take the fight to our enemies. This book represents a great first step towards providing such a moral code to our clandestine warriors.

FAIR PLAY could've been featured in our Military Shelf section - after all, it's by the former chief of CIA counterintelligence - but deserves a much broader reading audience than those who frequent military libraries. FAIR PLAY presents both a survey of the real world of spying and espionage and a concurrent survey of moral and ethical issues involved in spying, and dilemmas which come from field experience every day. The blend of intelligence history, political insights, and social issues makes for a survey which advocates a clearer moral sense in U.S. intelligence officers - and that holds many lessons for civilians as well. Even the general-interest lending library will find it a unique, compelling read.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

In the vast genre of intelligence writing, this book is simply unique. In presenting the moral dilemmas faced by intelligence officers, this work is indispensible--both for practical training for the professionals and for educating the public about the realities of the profession.

Where the book falls down, I'm afraid, is in its judgments about other works of intelligence writing. Olson's list of the best books for a professional library include two that have been discredited as historical works. He also repeats the mythical canard that Winston Churchill allowed Coventry to be bombed during World War II so as not to let the Germans know their communications were being read; he needs to read David Stafford, Martin Gilbert, and R.V. Jones on this score. Being taken in by [...] or by myths are disturbing failings for a former chief of counterintelligence.

Strother, a Texas bred Democrat consultant who served as a mentor to better known figures such as James Carville, recounts his experiences in the rough and tumble world of politics. In many hands, this could have been a very factual, dry and boring book. Luckily for the reader, Strother is an uproarious storyteller.

The son of a fervent union man in Port Arthur, Texas, Strother more or less falls into the political consulting business by default. He begins his career in Louisana, a hotbed of corruption and questionable ethics. Thru his journey, we relive his often painful and hilarious campaign experiences with country singer Jimmie Davis, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton.

Current politics are dirty business and not for the weak of heart. Idealists are often rudely discarded before they even realize what's happened. Strother considers himself a man of integrity in a profession that increasingly looks at such a trait as a weakness. He not only has to deal with Republican adversaries but underhanded tactics by members of his own party. Strother is honest in his analysis of his work and colleagues and spares no one including other Democrats who employed dirty tricks against his firm.

No matter what side your political beliefs fall, this is a good read if you want to understand how politics work behind the scenes.

I had the pleasure of visiting with Raymond last week in Montana,and hearing him tell some of the stories that were not in the book was an interesting evening.

Even though I have lived in La. all of my life so many of the stories in the book I had never heard!Raymond brought them all to life.

Books about politics by insiders get most of the business right, but only Ray Strother tells you what it is really like to work in national politics in plain, unhyped prose.

Ray Strother's chronicle of the industry that brings us our leaders is fascinating. His story is also an "American Success Story". From the giants of the U.S. Senate includingRussell Long (recently passed) and Lloyd Bentsen to today's leaders in the Senate - Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Zell Miller - Strother has woven a tapestry of stories that enthral and make us consider our democracy.

This is a first-rate, fast-read of an industry that is seldom discussed but that brings us world leaders. Ad agency execs marvel at their brilliance but at the end of the day they sell sugar water to children. Strother has given an insight to a world seldom seen, but of importance to all of us.

Get the book - read it and pass it around. This is one of those books that flys below the radar but could become a movie.

happy reading

Raymond Strother's warts-and-all memoir of his life as a political consultant is a fun, must-read for all students of American politics. Strother's career began when there was still some innocence in campaigning, and winds up during the frustrating years of ego-driven hacks whose self-importance overshadows their candidates, to the detriment of government. Ray Strother's genuinity was formed the old-fashioned way: he grew up poor and learned to appreciate other people.

Strother's tales of Southern political skirmishes will entertain. He's a smooth storyteller who should write more, now that he's out of the maelstrom of the Washington kill-or-be-killed consultant circuit.

Caveat: I am a Republican, and although Strother's life has been spent around Democrats, his tales are compelling across the board.