Events Books

After the communism and fascism, western culture ideals and the way of life are threatened, more than ever, by an aggressive and uncompromising religion. Radical Moslems want to conquer the world and impose their laws based on Dark Ages standards. And they have no respect for human life. They want to convert the rest of the world to their religion and destroy those who resist.

Helped by an infusion of enormous amounts of western capital, radical Islam, out of an irrelevant religious movement, has become a major threat to the West.

With the precision of an engineer, Dr. Joksimovich in his book "The Revenge of the Prophet" analyzed historical facts, explained the radicalization of Islamic countries and the goals of Jihadists. His book is a must read for those who want to understand present political situation in the world and specifically in the Middle East and Balkans.

S. Djuric

Dr. Joksimovich's book is an excellent and well researched account on the rise of Radical Islam. Most people in the West "noticed" militant Islamists only after 9/11, not realizing that there was a planned strategy in place long before 9/11. This book gives a historic review of when and how it all began and how it progressed to what it is now: The biggest threat to the democratic world since the II World War and Nazis.
When reading the Revenge of the Prophet it becomes clear how our own foreign affairs "experts" in the period from 1992-1999 helped the rise of Osama bin Laden during the wars in the former Yugoslavia by making decisions without taking into consideration long term consequences.
Very interesting book and I highly recommend it.

Did we, the US, sacrifice the middle east to win the cold war? To this end, did we empower and help radicalize Islam and the historically moderate countries in the middle east? Have we allowed radical Islam to get a foothold in Europe, creating a staging ground for terrorism throughout Europe? Has the war in Irac had the opposite intended effect by further radicalizing the middle east?

This book deals with these serious issues by giving a detailed historical perspective on Islam, the countries of the middle east, the key groups and figures who shaped this region, and the current policies that are shaping it now. In fact, the information in this book is so well researched and documentated that I doubt you could find more current or pertinent information on this subject outside of a CIA file. And, if they are not currently doing so, the CIA should be using this book as a primer on the middle east for all staff/personnel.

Radical Islam is on the rise, and Mr. Joksimovich makes it crystal clear that this ideology is a fundamental threat to western ideals and culture. It is radical Islams' stated goal to destroy western culture and religion. Not since Nazi Germany has the world faced a greater threat, and just like then we cannot afford to lose this war.

If you value the freedoms western culture has provided you, you must read this book.

If you read "The Revenge" carefully you will find the book written very much straight foreword,with dates,places and people ,full with data and facts that does not live much room to reader for speculation ,in short The Islamists road is narrow and the ultimate goal is the destruction of the two other great religions Judaism and Christianity as we know it.It was interesting to learn that last century "birthed" three "great movements" :Nazism and Black shirts, Fascism and the Brown shirts and Islamism and the Green shirts.The world and societies of the past dealt pretty successfully with the first two ..the third survived and is a great problem of this century.Needles to say , it has to be defeated by positive forces ,all the same ones that defeated Nazism and Fascism.

Once again polymath Dr. Joksimovich has authored a book notable for its deep research and thought-provoking analysis. Dr. Joksimovich illustrates in impressive detail how Islamic extremist terrorism was brought to life by U.S. support for the most retrograde elements in Afghanistan during the 1980s (the most massive CIA operation in history), and how this movement that the Western world helped to create turned into a classic case of blowback. Through mismanagement, the U.S. focus on short-term (and short-sighted) goals in its intervention in the Balkans and its blind support for Saudi Arabia has only fed this growing movement, the consequences of which we are paying for today. The Bush Administration's reckless invasion of Iraq, based, like the war on Yugoslavia, on deliberate lies, has only given Al Qaeda and like-minded movements a rallying cause with which to recruit many new adherents. 'The Revenge of the Prophet' documents these and many other disturbing developments in hard-hitting fashion. A book not to be missed.

Prof. Finkelstein gives us a crucial perspective on the effects both of the Israeli Occupation and of the Oslo accords on the people of the West Bank. Finkelstein's book is helped immeasurably by his excellent writing style; clear, concise and easy to read, this book will be attainable and required reading for laypeople and Mideast scholars alike. Rather than focus on the actions of politicians and self-aggrandizing "leaders", Finkelstein instead gives us a view of the Palestinian PEOPLE. We meet a wide array of folks in Finkelstein's book and we emerge, necessarily from the experience far more understanding of who these people are than when we started. Perhaps most important of all is that Finkelstein never lets us forget that he himself is a Jew. He therefore lets everyone know that to be Jewish is NOT to be Zionist and it is most certainly not to be necessarily supportive of the actions of the Israeli government. There are many books that amply chronicle Israeli brutality and the crimes of the Zionist regime (another by Finkelstein that I highly recommend among them, called "Image and Reality of the Israel palestine Conflict) but I can think of no book more important to the understanding of the dilemma of the Palestinian people and to open the door for Jewish opposition to Israel than this one

a brutally honest account of the palestinian intifada experience as written by a jewish american. exposes fallacies in the representation of the case as well as in foreign policy. very necessary in understanding the israel-palestine conflict

This book provides a welcome dissent from typical American Jewish political views, and provides refreshing objectivity towards the Arab/Israeli conflict. Finkelstein portrays West Bank Palestinians before and during the Gulf War: the effects of thirty years of brutal repression on these people, their lives, hope and aspirations--and why they might have cheered Saddam's scud missiles. One chapter is dedicated to Finkelstien's methodical summary of American foriegn policy toward Israel on one hand, and Iraq on the other--Finkelstein refrains from judging either of these two countries during his comparison--and the result demonstrates an undeniable double standard in the application of international law. There is much evidence--much of it taken from declassified Israeli documents--that suggests Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon was entirely an offensive operation, the sole purpose of which was to avoid having to come to political terms with the PLO, and Finkelstein touches on this as well. Overall, an excellent, insightful book well worth reading.

Finkelstein's book is that rare gem of a monumental work housed within a slim volume. What makes his ideas so astonishing, in addition to their being meticulously researched and footnoted, is that his parents were survivors of the Nazi holocaust. Based on encounters with Elie Wiesel and the like, one would not expect a Jew of this background to have such a profound understanding of the Palestinian people and of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This book is a must-read in that it convincingly defies, with powerfully sculpted arguments and towering research, the tired and frequently hypocritical views of the New York Times and other news authorities.

Finkelstein will convince you.

As a Jewish woman living in the U.S. it was difficult for me to hear but one side of the story in the Israeli-Arab conflict. That side was the Zionist perspective. It wasn't until I spent time in Israel (ironic as this is) that I began to understand the fallacies in the arguments I grew up hearing. I read this book after picking it up at a friend's house, and now I'm feeling brave enough to buy a copy of my own. That courage comes from Finkelstein. I feel like I'm in good company. There ARE other Jews who can see and dare to shed some light on the OTHER SIDE--the Palestinian viewpoint. Finkelstein presents us with the Palestinian perspective in the context of the Israel-Arab conflict with such integrity and simplicity. As descendents of a terribly oppressed group of people, I whole-heartedly support all efforts to stop dehumanizing the "enemy." Finkelstien shows us the humanness of Palestinians.

Excellent book, it's helping me a lot with my Thesis at School.... I love it

incredibly depressing and negative, leaves one with a sick feeling in the stomach. but its happening in China every day.

This is an astounding book, but very difficult to read. I still shake my head in disbelief.

"The River Runs Black" by Elizabeth C. Economy is an intelligent analysis of contemporary China and its burgeoning environmental crisis. This engaging book helps us understand how globalization is reshaping China and issues an urgent plea for international cooperation to help monitor and rectify an increasingly worrysome situation.

Ms. Economy tells us how China's environment has been steadily deteriorating over the past centuries due to wars, political power struggles and overpopulation. However, today's problems
are attributable to specific policy decisions by China's government that has favored rapid economic development through engagement with the international business community. Unfortunately, the particular kinds of economic development favored by China's rulers has led to myriad environmental problems including deforestation, desertification, and air and water pollution. The collusion of local government and business interests has made it difficult to obtain reliable data or to implement solutions where it is feared that plant shutdowns might
result in mass unemployment and social unrest, making difficult problems seem untractable.

Environmental consciousness in China has increased as the problems have become more visible and as the country has engaged with the world economy. Ms. Economy profiles some of the courageous and inspirational individuals who have struggled for conservation, urban renewal and grass-roots democracy such as Tang Xiyang, He Bochuan, Dai Qing and others. While environmentalists have achieved some successes (such as protecting endangered species of monkeys and antelopes), the author believes that the government's championing of highly destructive projects such as the Three Gorges Dam proves that much more needs to be done.

Ms. Economy recounts the experiences of the former Communist nations of Eastern Europe to gain insight into how China might resolve its environmental problems. The Chernobyl disaster catalyzed local environmental groups into pushing for political reforms that brought down the Communists in the USSR and elsewhere. Recognizing that China's Communist Party is a "patronage machine committed to rapid economic development" and devoid of any ideological purpose other than self-perpetuation, Ms. Economy believes that increasing democratization in China could easily undermine the country's single Party system. Of course, China's leaders are keenly aware of this threat and consequently have tightly circumscribed the activities of environmental organizations, but the author is hopeful that the contradictions between increasing environmental degradation and the lack of a meaningful democracy will eventually force China's political system to change.

In the last section, Ms. Economy speculates about the manner in which China may develop in the future. The author envisions three possible scenarios: China goes green; inertia sets in; and environmental meltdown. Ms. Economy thinks that the U.S. should take the lead in encouraging China to develop its regulatory system and implement green technologies so that the country can embark on an environmentally sustainable path. Indeed, the unpredictable consequences of a Chinese environmental meltdown should give the international community pause to consider how it might help China -- and by extension all of us -- to avoid a worse case scenario.

I highly recommend this superbly written book to everyone.

Previous reviewers have said good things about this book, and I can only agree. It is notably superior to other recent books about the Chinese environment, which (though often scholarly) are long on polemics and short on comprehensive vision.
Dr. Economy focuses on politics and policies. These have been notoriously awful under Communism, but there is now a realization of the damage being done, and thus some hope. Dr. Economy is as optimistic as one could reasonably be. Incidentally, interested readers should also look up her very fine chapter in Kristen Day's worthy edited volume CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT AND THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
I am not so optimistic. One reason is that my training is more in biology, and I am aware that the devastating damage China has done to its environment will not be clear for 50 to 100 years. It takes that long for pollution and environmental degradation to show themselves fully.
As Dr. Economy says, China wanted to be "first rich, then clean" (that's the literal Chinese; she actually phrases it more academically). They thought that the west had done this. No, the west started conservation and scientific management long ago. The United States' golden age of conservation was under Theodore Roosevelt, when the US was still poor and rural. The US and western Europe never allowed anything close to what China has done. There was much degradation, but reaction always came eventually. China, like all Communist-led countries, missed this lesson. Marx had spoken: production is all, and top-down control is the way to do it. This has led, everywhere, to dismal environmental records, though much good has come from distributing food, health care, housing, etc., more evenly (this may no longer be the case). It is now too late. The white-flag dolphin, once common and resilient, is extinct, the Three Gorges are dammed, and much else has gone beyond possibility of repair.
Dr. Economy does not draw as sharp a contrast as I would between traditional management and Communist excess. Traditional China had major Malthusian problems, but they were caused more by imperial policy than by environmental mismanagement at the riceroots level. The peasants and workers created a system based on harmony and balance. The system was full of problems, and never got as harmonious as we would now wish, but it worked; it kept hundreds of millions of people alive in spite of a premodern technology, and it managed the key resources--topsoil, water, forests, and so on--sustainably enough that there was quite a bit left by 1950. Recent books trashing the old system have titles significantly featuring elephants and tigers instead of people. Even if you prefer the charismatic megafauna, note that China had some elephants and a lot of tigers in 1950.
So a flawed, antiquated, underproductive, but still well-designed and eminently functional system was sacrificed, and the result has been a royal mess. Yields of food are way up, thanks to modern technology (some of it developed in China by the Communists--to their credit), but the future is cloudy indeed.
If you want the best account of what can be done and what is being done, look no further than this book.

Not an easy read, but one that many Americans probably should...it demonstrates well how our life styles here in the US increases demand for cheap consumer goods, resulting in corporations poisoning other parts of the planet to supply them quickly and without major expense to us.

Incredibly sickening injury to the planet is well documented and presented in a professional way, and the book is very readable.

Recommended for all of those who need a greater repetoire of evidence that we are rather quickly destroying the planet, and as a means of strengthening arguments against "globalization" and consumerism.

This definitive edition has been edited and provided with a Foreword and Introduction by Bruce Caldwell who retained the prefaces and forewords of earlier editions. The text has been enhanced by explanatory notes and new appendices that are listed at the end of this review.

Even after six decades, The Road To Serfdom remains essential for understanding economics, politics and history. Hayek's main point, that whatever the problem, human nature demands that government provide the solution and that this is the road to hell, remains more valid than ever. He demonstrated the similarities between Soviet communism and fascism in Germany and Italy.

The consensus in post-war Europe was for the welfare state which seemed humane and sensible for a long time. Now it is clear that this has led to declining birth-rates amongst native Europeans, mass immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, and a tendency to exchange their ancient cultural values for multiculturalism and moral relativism which is just another form of nihilism as the French philosopher Chantal Delsol observes.

In this timeless classic, Hayek examines issues like planning and power, the fallacy of the utopian idea, state planning versus the rule of law, economic control, totalitarianism, security and economic freedom. He brilliantly explains how we are faced with two irreconcilable forms of social organization. Choice and risk either reside with the individual or s/he is relieved of both. Societies that opt for security instead of economic freedom will in the long run have neither.

Complete economic security is inseparable from restrictions on liberty - it becomes the security of the barracks. When the striving for security becomes stronger than the love of freedom, a society gets into deep, deep trouble. The way to prosperity for all is to remove the obstacles of bureaucracy in order to release the creative energy of individuals.

The government's job is not to plan for progress but to create the conditions favorable to progress. This has been proved by the impressive economic expansion under Reagan and Thatcher and by the amazing growth of the Asian Tiger economies, and most recently India since it started implementing sensible economic policies. Everywhere entrepreneurial energy is unshackled, massive improvements follow.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the contrast between phenomenal growth in formerly communist countries like Estonia or Poland or even the economic health of the UK as measured against the stagnant economies of Germany and France during the first years of the millennium. Old Europe would have benefited by a Thatcher and the French would have welcomed Polish plumbers instead of being resentful.

Hayek warns against utopian yearnings that are exploited by politicians, the stealthy way in which welfarism diminishes individual freedom, the totalitarian impulse and different types of propaganda. As pointed out by Chantal Delsol in Icarus Fallen, lack of personal responsibility leads to perpetual adolescence where citizens conflate desires with rights. Defining this process as the "sacralization" of rights, she shows that freedoms are then transformed into entitlements.

What a pity people don't learn; what a blessing we have in The Road to Serfdom as a reminder and a warning. The new Appendix of Related Documents include: Nazi-Socialism (1933), Reader's Report by Frank Knight (1943), Reader's Report by Jacob Marschak (1943), Foreword to the 1944 American Edition by John Chamberlain, Letter from John Scoon to C. Hartley Grattan (1945) and Introduction to the 1994 Edition by Milton Friedman. The book concludes with an index.

I always am skeptical about experts and their predictions so it was a delight to read Hayek's thoughts in 1944 about the problems with the prevailing economic theories. Life becomes the "answer key" about who was right and who was wrong. I started reading the book because of its historical importance but ended up enjoying Hayek's conversational and relaxed style. Thoughtful and balanced with the right mix of personal and societal examples. It seems that he would have been a wonderful teacher.

Without question one of the finest books every written in the realm of economics and politics. This is required reading for all whom love liberty and freedom.

This new edition includes a foreword by Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added useful explanatory notes.

Hayek's central thesis of "The road to serfdom" is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny, and he used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries which had gone down "the road to serfdom" and reached tyranny.

The book has many worthy observations. For example, all people are different by their mental development (which is also influenced by family environment and education, not counting the physical differences of the brain and endocrine system) and thus the classes of the society are needed at least to give more developed people to fully put into action their potential. Liquidation of social classes will also liquidate the abilities of more developed individuals. The same is on the international level. Consider international planning. Whichever honest and democratically open panning system will be adopted, it will be opposed by less developed and poorer nations, because they will see it as ignorance or oppression of their interests. This is obvious - the needs and goals of poor or underdeveloped countries cannot match the goals of rich or developed countries; as the interests of more educated people cannot match the interests of less educated ones.

Many people came to a conclusion that the wealth, in some extent, depends on a level of education. The problem is that not all the people in equal extend incline to the education, to their self-improvement. This is because of the differences of their needs, habits, abilities, capabilities, and so on. Leo Tolstoy in his novel "Resurrection" arose a question of how to improve the level of education: from inside of each individual or from outside? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Should first the level of education in the society be risen which yields a revolution (dialectic transition of quantity into quality) or the revolution should make the environment to foster the education. Hayek doesn't explicitly raise this issue, but brings parallel between delegation of decision making in managing an enterprise and managing the state. Hayek thought that if a company boss makes all decision making solely by himself and doesn't give the work (of decision making) back to the people (see Ronald Heifetz's publications), it is similar to the states with totalitarian government. Such a dictatorship, enterprise-wide or country-wide, can be used in particular circumstances, but should not be used in all cases as the absolutely correct way of management, according to Hayek.

Over 30 years ago, when I was in graduate school, this book was nowhere to be found on any Political Science or Political Theory reading list. I suppose part of the reason was that once the Nazis and Fascists had been defeated, their ideas were no longer seen as important. The question then was whether or not Communism would succeed. Furthermore, then and now, many people in academia had no complaint about government power as long as their side holds the power.

Hayek skillfully deflates that delusion by showing how the very economic powers of government created by the Social Democrats were the powers the Nazis used to consolidate their power.

This book was published 64 years ago but is as timely today as it was then.

This book details how the top %1 in income in the U.S., as exemplified by the Bush family, gets richer and more powerful by gaining control of our government and draining our treasury. Why do the %99 put up with it?

I don't pay much attention to titles (which I consider part of the exaggerated PR to get a book sold), but the frequent references from early in the text to the "Bush Gang" as not only descendants of the "Robber Barons", but in many ways worse than them, at first almost put me off. How biased was this book going to be, exactly? I was looking for hard evidence, not unsubstantiated claims or whining.

Well hard evidence I got, in abundance. The author clearly knows his stuff, on a wide range of topics. None if this is really a surprise, much of it I already knew or suspected, and some of it I'd learned years ago and forgotten about until now, but Brouwer puts together probably the most devastating critique of Bush and those that surround him thus far put on paper -- precisely because it primarily lays out facts and history, harshly exposing many of Bush's policies and public statements to the scrutiny of reality in the form of history, the government's own numbers and the public opinions of dozens of experts.

It also draws together the motivations behind both domestic and foreign policy in such a way that it all comes into sharp releif, finally all making perverted sense. An American foreign policy that seeks to destabilize democratic governments to be replaced by autocratic regimes (which we have demonstratively done multiple times and are still trying to get away with) makes no sense, until it is viewed through the lens of NOT CARING about long-term destabilization, fairness to the people of that country, or promoting any sort of ideal of democracy or civil rights. It's all about short- and medium-term profits for large companies via control of oil and other resources, and when looked at as a motivation for all government policy, suddenly everything Bush does seems perfectly obvious. It also demonstrates that Bush and his cronies are essentially crooks, with entirely selfish motivations. Many of us already suspected as much, but this book makes it all clear, in no uncertain terms.

The language is hard and to the point -- pulling no punches. Brouwer calls a spade a spade -- and a thief a thief and a liar a liar. At first the terms used sound unfair and entirely subjective. But by the end, it's difficult to feel that this is anything other than the truth, finally called by its name.

Books like "All the President's Spin" look at how the media is letting Bush get away with continuous almost-lies that deceive just as surely as real-lies would, at how rules of media fairness are being manipulated by Republicans to force essentially favorable coverage without allowing the media to portrary conservative deceptions as untruths.

Books like "Robbing Us Blind", unlike the mainstream media, aren't limited by the rules of "journalistic fairness" that dictate equal time to both sides and disallow the reporter from expressing obvious skepticism. "Robbing Us Blind" is freely skeptical, and refreshingly truthful. Terms like "Gang" and "Robber Baron" are useful tools to frame the point of the book, but aren't really necessary -- had they been omitted, most likely the reader would have come to the same conclusion by the end regardless. But the only reason they sound shocking in the first place is because the mainstrem media has been so complicit in playing into Bush's hands, disguising his and his associates' true natures.

Here, the truth is told in not only all its unvarnished perversity but also in scrupulously footnoted, factual detail.

One of the most important books that every American should read before the election.

This book looks at the myriad of ways that average and lower-income Americans have been systematically robbed of their monetary wealth through deliberate government policy. That wealth has been given to the top 1 percent of the people, in terms of income, by a group of elites and super-rich that the author calls the Bush Gang. The Bush family has been at, or near, the seat of American power for 16 of the last 24 years.

To give one example, from 1982 to 2002, the number of Americans without health care jumped from 25 million to 43 million, a rise of more than 50 percent. In that same period, the number of American billionaires rose from 13 to 229.

The Bush Gang's plan looks something like this: Give tax relief to corporations and the very rich. Build up the military with big increases in defense spending. Be very aggressive in international relations. Deregulate business as much as possible. Overlook the criminal actions of those businessmen who support this agenda. Ignore the real possibility of large deficits. Also, attack labor and working Americans as much as possible.

This book covers a number of topics. The Bush remedy for a sick economy is CEOs who will drive up a company's stock price by laying off thousands of workers. There has been a systematic plan to keep wages low for most Americans in order to transfer wealth to the richest. The famous Skull and Bones club at Yale was originally endowed in the 1830s by the Russell Trust. It was connected to a company that, at the time, was the premier American smuggler of opium. The media, especially Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, can be counted on to keep up the fear level. One of the justifications for tax cuts is that the money will be used for new investment. Has that happened over the last 25 years?

What is to be done? The Democratic Party needs to get a backbone. It should not blame Ralph Nader for the results of the 2000 election, but itself. It needs to push its vision for America: higher minimum wage, federally funded health care for all, full employment, public works spending that fixes America's infrastructure, good public schools, etc.

This is a gem of a book. Can't get ahead financially? This book gives part of the reason. It's highly recommended.

The title, as is all too common in such forthrightly biased (though not necessarily incorrect in its assertions) political texts, is highly inflammatory and doesn't tell you much beyond the obvious--that quite a lot of a Bush bashing is contained within.

Thus, upon starting the book, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of listing all the old, well-worn arguments presented in the more moderate liberal bestsellers, "Robbing Us Blind" focuses on one topic, the continuing economic (and as a result political) gap between the megarich and the rest of us. The book is written very clearly, and employs many sources and statistics. The data presented is interesting, but is often overly simplified, and as a result I was sometimes wondering whether numbers had been convienently left out.

Regardless, as a whole, the book is very persuasive in its case, and goes a fairly satisfying way towards suggesting possible changes. Though I'm sure most conservatives would find some way or other to unfairly dismiss or bash the book, it is recommended reading for liberals interested in learning about the many problems with America's economic situation.

After hearing Steve Brauwer speak at a Pocono Progressives rally, I was anxious to read his book. It lived up to expectations. He presents an incontrovertible argument of the long history of the Bush families taking advantage of their wealth and position with no regard for the ordinary American. He impeccably documents his facts with graphs and charts. The pointed illustrations are an added bonus.

If you are a political junkie like I am, some of the language used is a little out there. I haven't read this cover to cover, but what I had to look up explained things very well to me. I keep this with whatever political book I'm reading at the time and it make things a little more understandable. I would recommend this.

A comprehensive guide and literal dictionary on the subject from a man who knows what he's talking about. "Safire's Political Dictionary" is a massive, thick tome of 862 pages, each covered with invaluable information on the shaky language that so covers today's political landscape. This new and expanded edition covers terms such as regime change, red/blue state, triangulation, moonbat/wingnut and so many more terms that muddle political language. Written by presidential speech writer and Pulitzer prize winner William Safire, "Safire's Political Dictionary" is highly recommended for community library politics collections.

You will love this whopper of a book - all 896pp! William Safire belongs to the delightfully patrician generation of political insiders alongside the likes of radio columnist Alistair Cooke Alistair Cooke's America and Ted Sorenson, speechwriter and adviser to JFK. Safire, who has contributed his own fair share of speeches on the Republican side, (it was he who added alliterative relief to Spiro Agnew's barren verbal landscape through phrases such as "nattering nabobs of negativism") has a keen ear for political language and he rises above partisanship simply because he is fascinated by the provenance and meaning of political language. As he points out, a political dictionary is fascinating because the language has been chosen to either inspire or inflame - it is rich, sometimes explosive emotive fuel.

- This very complete dictionary, fully updated, provides a rich journey and explains where so many of our commonly used and extremely colorful phrases really come from.
- It is comprehensive: reaching back to historic phrases, that go back beyond the original era of pork-barrel politics, and coming right up to the present to include the words of McCain, Clinton and Obama.
- It highlights the hidden agendas behind the language we hear: the phrases designed to make headlines, the sayings that are used to bring a folksiness to our sometimes aloof politicians.
- The dictionary does this with real panache. Safire is part wit, part journalist and part investigator - and he makes great company for the reader. It is a treat to dip into.

And yes, it is election year, so a tour of duty through Safire's fascinating lexical battleground will leave you ready for the speeches to come: your BS detectors set on full alert, your sense of irony and history sharpened. What an excellent book.

Perfect for students of political studies. Ideal for journalists. Essential for voters of all stripes. Democracy may be messy sometimes, but as this book shows - the language of politics is always darned colorful.

Safire's POLITICAL DICTIONARY is a MUST READ and MUST KEEP for those who value and appreciate the art, science and practice of politics.

So let me tell you- it seems pretty regular these days for news reporters and politicians to insert esoteric words into their vocabulary, making us laymen all feel a bit "Out of the Loop" (p. 508). Terms like "Triangulation" (p. 752), "Postpartisan" (p. 55), and "Bird-Dog Minute" (p. 55). Am I missing something here? What is this bird/dog hybrid, and what does this mutant do in the span of a minute to warrant creation of such an odd term?

Well, thanks to the wonderful William Safire, I've discovered that a bird-dog minute does not in fact refer to some genetic freak house pet, but to something Hillary Clinton referred to a few weeks ago on her campaign trail. What that is exactly, I'm not telling!

Are you following the presidential campaign? If so, get this book! If not, get this book anyway! It's loaded with cryptic, humorous, and sometimes downright confusing jargon that spouts off the lips of our politicians and newspeople.

And if you just had to google "bird dog minute" to find out what it actually means, then you DEFINITELY need to buy this book.

The author goes above and beyond the "real" effects that the U.N.-U.S. imposed sanctions are producing up to this day to the average iraqui citizen.If the overkill of the iraqui infrastructure wasn't enough, sanctions have taken back the iraqui people to a pre-industrial age.

The United States Government blockades of Cuba and Iraq are acts of genocide against national groups, `deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part'. Simons summarises: "United States policy, a slow and knowing extermination of a national people, falls unambiguously within the terms of the UN Genocide Convention."

Eight years of sanctions have killed two million Iraqis, including a million children. Bush began them, supported by Major. Now Clinton maintains them, supported by Blair, `the perfect peacekeeper', in Kofi Annan's words. Protocol I, Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states, "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited." The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly denounced the US blockade of Cuba as illegal and demanded that it be lifted. (British Governments usually abstain on these votes.) Ramsey Clark, a former US Attorney-General, says, "I see the blockade as a crime against humanity, in the Nuremburg sense, as a weapon of mass destruction. The blockade is a weapon for the destruction of the masses, and it attacks those segments of society that are the most vulnerable ... infants and children, the chronically ill, the elderly and emergency medical cases."

Some say we must ensure that economic sanctions respect agreed exemptions. The exemptions are for public relations: sanctions are designed to kill. A doctor might as well call for the humane implementation of torture. US and British Governments have consistently vetoed the delivery of baby food and medical supplies to Iraq. The US Government has consistently blocked contracts for medical supplies arranged by British companies.

The sanctions are a continuation of the war by other means. The war itself was more a traditional colonial massacre, with one side having a huge advantage in forces and weaponry. The US and British forces fired tens of thousands of depleted uranium (DU) shells. They are an illegal weapon, under UN Resolution 32/84 of December 1977, which bans the use of `radioactive material weapons'. The US Army admitted that some US soldiers were unknowingly exposed to DU radiation during the War. Obviously, we need not look any further for the cause of `Gulf War syndrome'. The US forces also used chemical weapons against the Iraqis. At the war's end, the US forces bombed troops no longer able to offer resistance, and those in retreat: both of these are war crimes.

To blame Castro and Saddam Hussein for their peoples' suffering is like blaming Churchill for the British people's suffering under the Nazi blockade, or like blaming the rabbis for the Jews' suffering under the Nazis.

It is a hideous mockery even to talk of an ethical foreign policy when genocide is being perpetrated. We should demand an end to the sanctions, otherwise we acquiesce in genocide.

The author provides a vivid picture of the effects of the US's methodical destruction of the life support infastructure in Iraq during "Desert Storm" and its relationship to, and the continuing use of, "Economic Warfare", i.e. "sanctions" to produce hundreds of thousands of deaths, targeting especially babies and children, the elderly and the chronically ill, by starvation and preventable diseases.

The author provides a vivid picture of the effects of the US's methodical destruction of the life support infastructure in Iraq during "Desert Storm" and its relationship to, and the continuing use of, "Economic Warfare", i.e. "sanctions" to produce hundreds of thousands of deaths, targeting especially babies and children, the elderly and the chronically ill, by starvation and preventable diseases.

The author goes above and beyond the "real" effects that the U.N.-U.S. imposed sanctions are producing up to this day to the average iraqui citizen.If the overkill of the iraqui infrastructure wasn't enough, sanctions have taken back the iraqui people to a pre-industrial age.

I agree with other reviewers that this book is as great as political science gets -- I grant you that such is faint praise. I also agree that, having read it, one should move on to later treatments.

...Please find it in a library and let it drip off your brain like fine wine down your tongue....

I can only agree with the other reviewers. This is as good as political science gets. Pure brilliance.

When you have read this book - you really should! - then you can move on to more current studies that uses Schattschneider's ideas and develops them much further. Rochefort & Cobb: "The Politics of Problem Definition", Baumgartner & Jones: "Agendas and Instability in American Politics", Cobb & Ross: "Cultural Strategies of Agenda Denial" and Jones: "Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics" should all interest you once you've fallen in love with the thoughts of Schattschneider. Your view of politics will never be the same again.

E. E. Schattschneider was one of the most important political scientists of the middle part of the 20th century. His work has had an influence on many analysts of politics. This slender volume, although brief, is one of his more provocative and influential works. Ideas from this book show up in the work of many others.

Let's take a look at just two of the many provocative points that he makes.

A central assumption underlying the work (Page v): ". . .the nature of political organization depends on the conflicts exploited in the political system, which ultimately is what politics is about." Understanding the scope of conflict is a central question in this book. Some want to keep conflict narrowly constrained and "private." If so, economic powerhouses will win out, because they would be dominant in that domain. Others, who wish government to get involved, try to broaden the scope of conflict so that political institutions get involved. If this is the case, then a different dynamic will be at work. In his view (Page 12), "Democratic government is the greatest single instrument for the socialization of conflict in the American community." By widening the scope of conflict, the people can become important players.

A second important argument that he makes represents a critique of the view that democracy is enhanced by the existence of organized interest groups, since these represent the views of many people and inject a democratic influence into the political process. Schattschneider demurs. First, the members of these interest groups are not typical of all people. In a famous line, he notes that (Pages 34-35): "The vice of the groupist theory is that it conceals the most significant aspect of the system. The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent. Probably about 90% of the people cannot get into the pressure system."

Anyway, this is a wonderful little book. Of course, there are some issues that emerge: sometimes arguments are not developed enough (brevity in this book is a plus, but it sometimes seems to leave some points "hanging"); he may downplay some positive aspects of the interest group system. However, in the main, his arguments remain as fresh today as they were when the book first came out, in 1960. Still worth a read!

This often-quoted book is one of the most classic works of 20th century political science. Despite its age, published in the early 1960s, this brilliant little book is still astonishingly fresh. Schattschneider's account of the expansion and privatisation (contraction) of conflicts, and his description of the structural biases of modern western democracy, is eye-opening. The book is very accessible, yet scholary. This is one of the best, most important, and in a strange way morally refreshing, books on politics I have ever come across.

I first read this book in college and have never forgotten it. During careers in politics, business and the church I've found myself returning again and again to Schattschneider's key themes. From his discussion of conflict and its scope to his simple point that whomever controls the agenda controls the outcome, Schattschneider has captured the essence of human interaction. Nearly forty years old, this is still a superb book not to be missed.

An invaluable glimpse into the lives of the people affected by "free trade." Concise and eloquent: the perfect book to hand to someone who believes that more trade is necessarily better trade.

Shafted is a powerful and punchy read! I recommend this book to all those concerned about the future of our economy and the effects of free trade on working people in America. The testimonies reveal the devastating effects of free trade on workers, family farmers and farmworkers. These testimonies also reveal, however, that people refuse to sit back and allow biased economic policies to destroy their livelihoods and their families. By fighting to expose the myth of "free trade," the working people in Shafted are demanding a shift in the values of America - from the unjust and exploitative values of corporate America to fundamental values of the global community - human rights, justice and dignity of people everywhere.

I've always been a domestic policy wonk, and for a long time kept my head buried in the international sand. This book made me wake up and realize that the line between domestic and international is no more, and that it's time to get serious about a cohesive, solid global movement to protect the environment, workers, and basic human dignity. Not a movement based on ignorance, slogans, and bandanaded rebels, but one based on solid information and real-world relevance. Shafted could prove to be a huge step in that kind of a movement. I hope so.

This may be the best introduction available both to the problems of "free trade" and to what a congressional hearing might look like if Congress were focused on the needs of people rather than the needs of campaign contributors.

"Shafted" is an easy-to-read and powerful window into the human side of the effects of free trade. It's one thing to read statistics and another to hear stories directly from those affected. The book is based on a congressional briefing in Washington D.C. where a delegation of America's working poor was able to tell members of Congress and the American public how free trade has impacted their lives. "Shafted" is separated into four parts: Farmers, Workers, Farmworkers, and Analysts. What is great about the book is that it includes stories and analyses from people of different backgrounds, including racial, ethnic, and work backgrounds. I especially liked the contributions in the Analysts section (the analysts coming from the Public Citizen organization, Cornell University, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and California Senate Select Committee on International Trade). I found them accessible and to the point, lacking loads of economic and political jargon. Throughout the book you'll also find short excerpts from important historic documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

This is an important book that addresses a growing menace in our society and in the international arena. It does not provide a suggested plan of action, however it does include resources to further educate yourself and to get involved.

"Shafted" is a quick and powerful read that'll open your eyes to another side of America that we hardly get the chance to hear from. And it shows how people are bravely standing up for what they believe it. An invaluable book!

At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Stalin toasted the summary executions of 50,000 German officers, Churchill privately proposed a number of some 100 major war criminals, Roosevelt kept silent, swayed alternately by Hans Morgenthau, Jr., who proposed some 2500 summary executions, and Henry Stimson, who preferred trials. That Stimson should ultimately prevail in the debate owes as much to accidents of history as to any profound historical moment culminating in Nuremberg. How Nuremberg ultimately played out, and the subsequent notion of holding leaders personally responsible for war crimes, is a tale well worth reading.

Gary Jonathan Bass's book, Stay the Hand of Vengeance, debunks several of the myths that grow from such moments. Still, in reviving the story of Leipzig (trials of German officers after World War I) and Constantinople/Malta (trials of Ottoman officers after World War I), Bass has presented not just a useful set of anecdotes on trials that failed and one that succeeded beyond expectation or intention, but a careful history of what drove efforts to hold such trials in the first place, of the limited political will behind them, the complexity and likelihood of failure.

Bass offers two principle insights: first, liberal states have a tendency to support individual accountability through trials for leaders responsible for war crimes that is unique (illiberal states prefer summary executions without second thought). Second, the tendency for liberal states to desire individual accountability and punishment ("legalism," as Bass uses the term) varies directly with the quantity of suffering experienced by that state: France loses 14 times as many men as America in World War I, and Britain 10 times as many men, and both are far more interested in war crimes trials. America, on the other hand, supported prosecutions for those responsible for unrestricted submarine warfare. The first goal of liberal states is to punish those who have harmed their own citizens. The second goal is to do so without risking their own troops. Bass calls this "selfishness."

The principle defect with Bass's amazingly rich work (and apparently, his first academic work following the Let's Go Guide to Egypt and Israel) is that it was published before 9-11, before Guantanamo, the trial of Saddam, the death of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, the ongoing efforts in Arusha and Rwanda, and the preliminary flickerings of prosecutions before the International Criminal Court for offenses in Darfur, Sudan, and Uganda. An update is urgently needed.

Vainly, one hopes Bass's insights into war crimes trials and the politics behind them will prove unnecessary. Those who anticipate that new monstrous figures will arise in this century may be well-served by a careful read of Bass's work, in that the prospects and pitfalls of trials as a means of addressing global villainy deserve this sort of well-researched, attentively reasoned, albeit somewhat disheartening, treatment.

"In the last analysis," Bass concludes, "the two international war crimes tribunals in The Hague and Arusha stand largely as testaments to the failure of America and the West."

Indeed: a bit more willpower at the right time, and gross atrocities might have been averted. The thing is, this indictment applies not only to these grand tribunals, but to all criminal courts generally: but for a bit more will, courage, restraint, honor, or whatever other moral virtue proved lacking, nearly all crime might be averted. Hence, the issue is not whether courts reduce criminality, but what to do with the folks guilty of the worst order thereof. And at the least, Bass's work provides some suggestions on when they will likely fail, or prove worse than failures, and how to limit total risks of prosecuting the worst villains of history.

Gary Jonathan Bass's book is a riveting, thoughtful read into what has been a long-neglected chapter of history. Piecing it all together wasn't easy. Mr. Bass takes sound scholarship, adds good reporting, and weaves a tale that I, frankly, could not put down. Read it. You won't regret it.

The man has courage to deal with these issues read the book

If you care even a little bit about international justice, you have to read this groundbreaking book. The research is incredibly painstaking--there's unbelievable stuff about the war crimes tribunal after the Napoleonic Wars, and a riveting reconstruction of the failed tribunal after the Armenian genocide. But there's also great journalism about the search for justice in the Balkans. It looks like international tribunals are going to be the next big thing; this is the definitive history, and the definitive analysis.

This book is thoroughly researched and footnoted and very well written. It culminates in a balanced account of the development of the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and exposes the role of Western nations in supporting- and in some cases, obstructing the tribunal's work. Bass' thesis is that Western nations value human rights and the rule of law,- but not more than the lives of their own soldiers - thus accounting for the sporadic Western support for War Crimes tribunals. This is provocative book which has many insights into the complexities of international organizations, human rights, and diplomacy.