Freedom Books

The Last Addiction is a book of hope. It will take you on a journey of self-discovery that there is no turning back from. Author Sharon Hesch helps you break the cycle of addiction for yourself or someone you love. This book changed my perspective and my life. I highly recommend it.

This book is amazing. It comes at addiction from a refreshing & Biblical perspective.
I would highly recommend this book to everyone regardless of whether one thinks they have addiction issues or not. Everyone will benefit from reading this book.

"The Last Addiction" is a book for everyone. A manual to follow on where to discover the answers for lasting freedom from the cycle of addiction for yourself or someone you love. Sharon's meaningful pages lead the reader on a journey to find that the ultimate answer to their desires can only be found in the love of Jesus Christ. She gives all glory and praise to our Heavenly Healer and Father, all the while generously blessing us with her earthly wisdom, life-experiences, and profoundly insightful analysis of our very human hearts. I am always delighted and changed after reading Sharon's work. She is an author and person to admire.

Yes ... a gift. Sharon Hersh speaks from experience, not as an addict who has successfully "overcome" her addiction. Rather, she speaks as a woman who has been found and has surrendered to her Pursuer. Here's an example: "My experience of redemption in the humiliating and broken places of my story has taught me that the deepest reality is that God is searching for us. In the midst of our pain and foolishness, we wonder why God isn't doing anything about it. But in fact, the pain, failure, and foolishness are driving us to God. Redemption does not mean that God meets our needs and then our souls stop longing. No, redemption does not eradicate kamar (desperation.) Instead, redemption allows us to surrender. We don't give up craving. We give in to craving God. And God doesn't want something from us. He wants us."

This book is a must read for all of us who find ourselves (or love another who is) "in bondage to something that initially promised to make everything better, until it made everything worse."

Beth Moore recommended this book at one of her conferences. I was able to get the last copy available at the local book store and as I picked it up from the shelf 5 other women were looking for the same book. It is still sold out at all of the local bookstores. Just the title speaks to the hearts of so many who are struggling!

I read the book in a matter of days. I was unable to put it down! I am a graduate level counseling student, lead an addictions group, and I have been through my own recovery from numerous addicitons. Needless to say, my bookshelves are FULL of addiction books. This is BY FAR the best book I have ever read on the topic. It reaches the heart in a different way and puts a whole different slant on the struggle.

THIS BOOK IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN ADDICTION PROCESSES, HELPING SOMEONE THROUGH AN ADDICTION, TREATING ADDICTIONS, COMING FROM A FAMILY WHO STRUGGLES WITH ADDICTION, EFFECTED BY ADDICTIONS IN ANY WAY.... Pretty much anyone!!!

"Letters from Lexington : Reflections on Propaganda" is a compelling collection of letters which reveal the role of the US major media in justifying and championing US government and corporate actions throughout the world. One chapter which illuminates Chomsky's dissident analysis is the chapter entitled, "The PC Thought Police". In this chapter, Chomsky compares the US propaganda system to that of Brezhnev's USSR:

"In the study of any system, it is often useful to look at something radically different, to highlight crucial features. Let's begin, then, by looking at a society that is close to the opposite pole from ours: Brezhnev's USSR.

Consider policy formation. In Brezhnev's USSR, economic policy was determined in secret, by centralized power; popular involvement was nil, except marginally, through the Communist Party. Political policy was in the same hands. The political system was meaningless, with virtually no flow from bottom to top.

Consider next the information system, inevitably constrained by the distribution of economic-political power. In Brezhnev's USSR there was a spectrum, bounded by disagreements within centralized power. True, the media were never obedient enough for the commissars. Thus they were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Afghanistan, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the USSR was courageously defending the people of Afghanistan. For the totalitarian mind, no degree of servility is ever enough.

There were dissidents and alternative media: underground samizdat and foreign radio. According to a 1979 US government-funded study, 77% of blue-collar workers and 96% of the middle elite listened to foreign broadcasts, while the alternative press reached 45% of high-level professionals, 41% of political leaders, 27% of managers, and 14% of blue-collar workers. The study also found most people satisfied with living conditions, favoring state-provided medical care, and largely supportive of state control of heavy industry; emigration was more for personal than political reasons.

Dissidents were bitterly condemned as "anti-Soviet" and "supporters of capitalist imperialism," as demonstrated by the fact that they condemned the evils of the Soviet system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. They were also punished, not in the style of US dependencies such as El Salvador, but harshly enough.

The concept "anti-Soviet" is particularly striking. We find similar concepts in Nazi Germany, Brazil under the generals, and totalitarian cultures generally. In a relatively free society, the concept would simply evoke ridicule. Imagine, say, that Italian critics of state power were condemned for "anti-Italianism." Such concepts as "anti-Soviet" are the very hallmark of a totalitarian culture; only the most dedicated and humorless commissar could use such terms.

Well-behaved party hacks were guilty of no such crimes as anti-Sovietism. Their task was to applaud the state and its leaders; or even better, criticize them for deviating from their grand principles, thus instilling the propaganda line by presupposition rather than assertion, always the most effective technique.

With these observations as background, let us turn to our own free society.

Begin again with policy formation. Economic policy is determined in secret; in law and in principle, popular involvement is nil. The Fortune 500 are more diverse than the Politburo, and market mechanisms provide far more diversity than in a command economy. But a corporation, factory, or business is the economic equivalent of fascism: decisions and control are strictly top-down. People are not compelled to purchase the products or rent themselves to survive, but those are the sole choices.

The political system is closely linked to economic power, both through personnel and broader constraints on policy. Efforts of the public to enter the political arena must be barred: liberal elites see such efforts as a dangerous "crisis of democracy," and they are intolerable to statist reactionaries ("conservatives"). The political system has virtually no flow from bottom to top, apart from the local level; the general public appears to regard it as largely meaningless.

The media present a spectrum of opinion, largely reflecting tactical divisions within the state-corporate nexus. True, they are never obedient enough for the commissars. The media were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Vietnam, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the US was courageously defending the people of Vietnam; a Freedom House study provides a dramatic example. For the totalitarian mind, again, no degree of servility is enough.

There are dissidents and other information sources. Foreign radio broadcasts reach virtually no one, but alternative media exist, though without a tiny fraction of the outreach of samizdat. Dissidents are bitterly condemned as "anti-American" and "supporters of Communism" as demonstrated by the fact that they condemn the evils of the American system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. But they are not severely punished, at least if they are privileged and of the right color. Again, the concept "anti-American" is particularly striking, the very hallmark of a totalitarian mentality."

Just one example of Chomsky's brilliant analysis contained in this seminal study of how the major US media works together with the US government and its corporate interests to undermine democracy. A must read for any student of journalism.

The double entendre in the title of my review is intentional. Chomsky's letters not only sketch how the USA government manufactured domestic consent for its foreign policies during the early 1990s, it also (perhaps intentionally?) adumbrates by demonstration the salient aspects of the "propaganda model" Chomsky and Edward Herman explored in considerable depth in their work *Manufacturing Consent*.

As for the content of the work, I recommend that readers consult the excellent reviews by Chris Green (always, always read his reviews), Egalitarian, and "Reader" (10.10.99) on this page. I couldn't possibly improve on them.

One last observation: Chomsky resides in Lexington, but I can't help but wonder if the title selection plays on the historical significance Lexington has as the location for the beginning of the American Revolution. Perhaps I am poeticizing the title. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that this work will make the canon of literary political dissent as so many of Chomsky's works have already done.

Chomsky writes that the Sandinistas won an election in November 1984 widely perceived as free and fair but U.S. elites put this down the memory hole. Michael Kinsley noted the "Orwellian" rhetoric of the Reaganites in blaming the Sandinistas for Nicargua's ruined economy, after it had been the official policy of the U.S. backed contras to destroy it. But he praised Nicaragua's 1990 elections as free and fair. Anthony Lewis praised the elections too but criticized the Central American policies of the administration--which included the economic embargo on Nicaragua supported by liberals like him. Chomsky quotes the UNO economist Fransisco Mayorga as estimating that the embargo cost Nicaragua 3 billion.

The implications suggesting that the U.S. is a terrorist state in that it was telling the Nicaraguan people that Contra terror and the embargo would continue unless they voted out the Sandinistas in Feb. 1990, was not noticed in the U.S. media. Indeed Time magazine celebrated the attacks on Nicaraguan civilian infrastructure i.e. U.S./contra war crimes as causing the Sandinistas to be voted out. The killing of the poor by the U.S. backed security forces in El Salvador and Guatemala, which ran elections under extreme terror, received little sustained attention.

Chomsky observes that Laurence Pezullo, while the last U.S. ambassador to Somoza, had advised the National Guard to continue its final mass murder operations which were killing tens of thousands. After Carter couldn't prevent the Sandinistas from taking power, the National Guard, the future Contras, were flown out in U.S. military planes with Red Cross markings (a war crime). The media had nothing to say about the U.S. successfully pressuring the new UNO government in Nicaragua after 1990 to drop its demand that the U.S. comply with the World Court ruling of 1986 that the U.S. stop terrorizing Nicaragua and pay 17 billion dollars in reparations. After the U.S. withheld desperately needed aid, the Chamarro government dropped its demand for U.S. compliance

The media suppressed that evidence of Libyan involvement in the murder of one American that led to the "retaliation" against Libya in 1986 which killed many dozens of civilians, was non-existent according to the West Germans. . Chomsky writes that likewise evidence for Libyan involvement in the Lockerbie bombing is negligible (and years later this is still the truth, see--William .Blum's new book "Freeing the World to Death). In any case, Lockerbie may have been "retaliation" for the U.S. shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, killing 290. The commander of a nearby vessel, David Carlson later wrote that the Iranian plane was clearly civilian.and not acting otherwise.. The shoot down, by the U.S.S. Vincennes, Carlson suggested,was designed to test the ship's Aegis missile system. This atrocity was the culmination of U.S. support for Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war; for a few days later Iran capitulated to a cease fire on Iraq's terms. When the commander of the Vincenes came home, he was awarded medals by George Bush Sr. In another case of the U.S. and blowing up planes, Chomsky writes that George Schultz later admitted "in a backhand way" that the terrorists who blew up the Air India Flight over Ireland in 1985 killing 329, originated in a mercenary training camp for Central America in Alabama. It was a sting operation that went haywire.

The U.S. funded Noriega's candidate in 1984 elections in Panama that Noriega stole with great violence, a period when he was knee-deep in the drug trade.. George Schultz went down to the inauguration of the candidate, Barletta. The U.S. later soured on Noriega of course, for reasons having nothing to with his bad qualities. As the U.S. invaded Panama to install more reliable drug tycoons in the name of freedom, the Bush senior administration was resuming high tech sales to China and lifted a ban on loans to Saddam's Iraq. After the U.S. suppressed peaceful settlements of the first Gulf war and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, Thomas Friedman and Alan Cowell explained that after the first Gulf War the U.S. undermined the anti-Saddam rebellion.. They hoped Saddam would remain in place until a more pliable clone of the dictator could overthrow him and restore Iraq to the "iron-fisted" rule that the U.S. had so admired before August 1990.. Ahmad Chalabi complained in the British press about the U.S. supporting Saddam's butchery of the rebels. Chomsky notes that the late Senator Moynihan was heard a great deal during this period about his devotion to the UN charter/international law. Of course, Moynihan had bragged in his 1978 memoir about blocking UN efforts to stop Indonesia's aggression against East Timor in 1975 while U.S. ambassador to the UN. He admitted that the invasion, supported by the U.S. until 1999, had killed 60,000 people by early 1976... The media did not juxtapose proclamations of U.S. opposition to aggressive dictators with U.S. support for aggression in East Timor, Morocco in Western Sahara(also helped along by Moynihan at the UN), Turkey in Cyprus, Turkey's ethnic cleansing of its Kurds, South Africa in Namibia and Angola, etc.

Chomsky analyzes a review by Caleb Carr about a book about America's mid 19th century Indian wars and notes its similarity to a hypothetical apologetic for Nazi expansionism. He exposes some embarrassing contradictions and fallacies in the venerable A. Schlesinger's claim that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam without victory.

This short book is lucidly written and full of Chomsky's subtle humor. It is Chomsky at his best and most accessible.

Chomsky is the American Empire's worst enemy. Like anyone who challenges powerful interests and their claims to authority, he has been the target of an unrelenting, but increasingly ineffectual (sometimes comical), smear campaign. Noam Chomsky is a national treasure and a credit to the human species. Read Chomsky's "Letters", or anything else by one of the world's leading advocates for democracy and freedom.

MARY WARDS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR MILITARY FAMILIES. I'VE BEEN FORTUNATE IN KNOWING MARY WARD AND HER SON AND HUSBAND. THIS BOOK IS SOMETHING ALL MILITARY FAMILIES NEED TO READ IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND WHAT OUR SOLDIERS GO THROUGH AND WHAT THEY NEED FOR SUPPORT. YOU CAN'T GO WRONG IF YOU LISTEN TO THIS SOLDIER IN THIS BOOK.

I recommend this book to moms, dads, families, and friends of military personnel being or currently deployed to Iraq. Reading 'Letters Home' will help you gain insight and understanding into the daily lives of those deployed. It will also validate the emotions experienced by those of us who wait, wonder, and worry through the deployment time. Read how this family supports their soldier and how their friends and family support one another.

I was fortunate enough to hear about the book Letters Home by Mary Ward from a friend who had just finished reading it twice. I knew that it was a book that I needed to read. Everything that I was told about the book was true.
This book took me back to my own memories of the first time my son was deployed to Iraq. Facing my son's second deployment, I once again picked up Letters Home and read it again and again.
I hope that everyone in America has the opportunity to read this book to understand what it is like to have a loved one in the military.
Once you buy this book you will not be able to put it down!
I anxiously wait for more books by this very talented author.

In the Fall of 2004, when I realized my son would be deploying to Iraq for the 2nd time, I began searching the internet once again for ANYTHING relating to the 3rd ID. My search led me to Mary Ward of Marehaven Productions. A review of her book, "Letters Home" by Ron Martz of the Atlanta Journal Constitution caught my eye because he had been embedded with my son's Company on the Thunder Run to Baghdad. I ordered "Letters Home" that day. From the moment I opened the book, I couldn't put it down. It transported me back in time. Her words were my words. Her son became my son. I cried and I felt the joy of a son returning home from war, and the guilt because I knew others had not. In the week before my son left, I felt compelled to read her book again. In 3 short months, I have read it twice. For any parent who has sent their child off to war and is familiar with the emotional roller coaster ride, this is a must read. And for those who have never sent a child off to war, this book offers insight as to how very difficult it is.

Mary Ward captured my interest with the first sentence and kept it through the entire book. I truly felt her every emotion. It gave me so much appreciation for each and every soldier that is serving our country.

An accurate accounting of the modern-day Texas Rangers. A must read for the Texas Ranger enthusiast and those interested in the history of law enforcement in Texas. I loved the section about "Garrison's Rangers". A real good read!! I highly recommend.

Much to the pleasure of Texans and history buffs acclaimed historian Robert Utley returns with his sequel to Lone Star Justice (2002) thus bringing the saga of the Texas Rangers to the present day. Many have been introduced to the Rangers via television with such programs as Walker or Texas Ranger, yet it is left to Utley to deliver the most telling and intriguing story of all.

We read, "One Riot, One Ranger. A single Ranger could quell an incipient riot. Rangers and Texans alike reveled in the image of the stalwart, fearless lawman facing down an angry mob. On occasion it came close enough to happening to provide at least an inspiration for the slogan."

Yes, the Rangers were and are, for many, men of mythic stature. Utley debunks some myths while perpetuating others. History is at its most fascinating as the Rangers enter the twentieth century leaving their beloved horses behind and chasing criminals in motorized vehicles. They're no longer after rustlers but set their sights on modern criminals and the utilization of contemporary methods, such as forensic science.

With Lone Star Lawmen readers view the Mexican Revolution (a dark point in Ranger history) and visit towns made rich and lawless by oil. The dramatic capture of Bonnie and Clyde is retold, as well as the Branch Davidian tragedy near Waco.

Prodigiously researched Lone Star Lawmen is one more valuable addition to Texas history.

- Gail Cooke

Robert Utley shows again why he is the dean of western history with the second part of his masterful account of the Texas Rangers. While this isn't as romantically wild and woolly as the previous volume--it's inevitable, as automobiles replace horses and the solving of cases relies on more technical tools--it's still engaging and colorful. A great historian--and a great storyteller--does a magnificent job once more.

As a proud native Texan I have relished the mythology of the Texas Rangers as much as anyone else. But after a century and three quarters of a steady diet of stories of larger-than-life Rangers who could do no wrong it is past time that we begin to understand these lawmen as the real men they were. Some of what they did was extraordinarily good and some extraordinarily bad. Robert Utley, who has never yet stepped back from pushing fact in the face of popular mythology, has helped us know the genuine background of Texas as few others have done.

Robert M. Utley follows his masterful account of the first century of the Texas Rangers, Lone Star Justice, with another tour de force, bringing the story up to date. Brilliantly written and meticulously documented, as always with this celebrated historian of the West, this book traces the transformation of a frontier peace force at the beginning of the 20th century to today's internationally recognized investigative and law-enforcement force, a small band of efficient professionals whose frontier history will always hang over them. Casting off frontier ways was not always easy, politically or professionally, as Utley clearly explains. He is not afraid to deal with the controversial aspects of his subject's history, in particular repeated charges of racism and high-handed brutality. This is no love poem to this sometimes controversial organization, as Utley takes on the negative as well as the positive, with judiciouos balance. On the whole, his judgment of the Rangers, for all the regrettable elements of their past, is favorable, and he concludes that the organization has not so much overcome its history as learned from it. A welcome corrective to the romanticizing that usually characterizes stories about the Rangers. Recommended to anyone interested in the history of Texas, the West, and law enforcement. Given that issues involving the US border with Mexico are in the forefront lately, this book provides informative background.

Nutshell review - This book provides an excellent presentation of financial concepts as they relate to information security. The only problem with these techniques is, as Richard Bejtlich points out in his review, the difficulty in obtaining accurate input data for these models. But regardless, if you are a manager charged with budget planning you should read this book.

This book provides an excellent discussion of key economic principles needed to make managing cybersecurity resources more effective. I really liked the nice examples provided throughout the book. The examples reinforce the economic concepts and applications. I foresee this book becoming a prime reference for me.

Managing Cybersecurity Resources (MCR) is an excellent book. I devoured it in one sitting on a weather-extended flight from Washington-Dulles to Boston. MCR teaches security professionals how to think properly about making security resource allocation decisions by properly defining terms, concepts, and models. The only problem I have with MCR is the reason I subtracted one star: its recommended strategy, cost-benefit analysis, relies upon estimated probabilities of loss and cost savings that are unavailable to practically every security manager. Without these figures, constructing cost-benefit equations as recommended by MCR is impossible in practice. Nevertheless, I still strongly recommend reading this unique and powerful book.

My favorite aspect of MCR is its explanation of economics and finance terms to the security audience. I felt like applauding when I read on p 47 "[M]any managers... are merely calling the IRR an ROI or ROSI (return on security investment). Given that the concepts of "return on investment" and "internal rate of return" are well established in the accounting, finance, and economics literature, as well as among nearly all senior financial managers (e.g., CFOs), security managers should be careful how they use these terms. Indeed, misusing these terms can only lead to problems for the security manager." (See p 45 for a comparison of ROI, IRR, and NPV.)

In a similar fashion, MCR explains what a "return" is for security on p 21: "The benefits associated with cybersecurity activities are derived from the cost savings (often called cost avoidance) that result from preventing cybersecurity breaches. These benefits are difficult, and often impossible, to predict with any degree of accuracy. Moreover, since the actual benefits are conceptually the cost savings associated with potential security breaches that did not occur, it is not possible to measure these benefits precisely after the security investments are made."

What of "investment"? Pp 28-30 say: "[O]rganizations tend to treat the bulk of their cybersecurity expenditures as operating costs and charge them to the period in which they are incurred," unlike capital investments, which "represent assets of an organization that should appear on the organization's balance sheet." The authors recommend us to "view all costs related to cybersecurity activities... as capital investments with varying time horizons."

So what is a cost? P 5 says "The cost of information security is essentially a negative network externality associated with the Internet... [It] arises when malevolent individuals and organizations [which the authors properly label "threats" on p 12] join the network, thereby imposing costs on all well-intentioned users. These costs take the form of losses caused by actual security breaches plus the cost of actions... designed to prevent such breaches."

P 30 wisely states "[N]o amount of security can guarantee that breaches will not occur... The goal of the organization should be to implement security procedures up to the point where the benefits minus the costs are at a maximum." The footnote on p 31 continues with "An alternative way to view this discussion is to think of the goal as one of trying to minimize the sum of the costs associated with cybersecurity activities and the costs associated with breaches... the optimal level of cybersecurity for an organization would be the same under the cost minimization goal as it would be if the organization were to maximize the net benefits." I think most managers prefer to think in terms of cost minimization, which is a prevalent throughout IT.

Costs are dissected on pp 56-58: "The direct costs of cybersecurity breaches are those costs that can be clearly linked to specific breaches... the indirect costs of cybersecurity breaches cannot be linked... Explicit costs of cybersecurity breaches are those costs of breaches that can be measured in an unambiguous manner... implicit costs are opportunity costs (i.e., costs associated with lost opportunities), which cannot be measured without ambiguity... the benefits derived from spending funds on cybersecurity activities come largely from the cost savings derived by avoiding the implicit costs of breaches."

Page 63 explains why companies have "Chief Privacy Officers" and the like, even though preserving privacy is the confidentiality aspect of the CIA triad and could be a CISO responsibility: "The findings from our study show that, on average, information breaches that compromise confidentiality do have a significant negative impact on the stock market value of corporations experiencing breaches. Indeed, the average decline in the firm's stock market value... was approximately 5 percent."

So far so good, right? The major flaw with MCR arrives in ch 4, on p 68: "The variables affecting potential cost savings include (1) the potential losses associated with information security breaches, (2) the probability that a particular breach will occur, and (3) the productivity associated with specific investments, which translates into a reduction in the probability of potential losses." This is true -- but this is the key problem: devising even rough estimates of 1, 2, and 3 is nearly impossible in practice. The authors' examples (see figure 4-2 for one) assume these factors can be determined (like $10 mil total potential loss without countermeasures, 75% probability of loss with no countermeasures / 50% with $650,000 of countermeasures, and so on). When I saw these contrived examples I wondered "what is the origin of these figures?" The fact of the matter is that they are all guesswork, which means the calculator can say anything the analyst wishes to produce.

In some sense we are back to square one, although much better educated in economics. (Note that Andy Jaquith's book Security Metrics also observes how calculating these figures is nearly impossible in real life.)

Because MCR is so right in all of its other discussions, the book deserves 4 stars. A proper acceptance of the difficulty or impossibility of determining 1, 2, and 3 might have resulted in 5 stars. Perhaps a second edition will address these concerns?

PS: I would be remiss to not quote the authors' exceptional insights into the problems with security auditing. P 132 says "[T]he checklist approach tends to shift attention away from the cost-benefit aspects of such security. That is, the checklist approach usually assumes that conducting a particular procedure is inherently worth doing." P 137 hits the nail on the head: "[F]or some firms, it is quite possible that the costs of cybersecurity auditing will exceed the benefits. If this were to occur, then cybersecurity auditing would in effect decrease the firm's value." Amen.

This book is very timely and extremely useful as a tool for key decision-makers in organizations - Chief Technology Offiers, Information System Managers, and general managers, including CEOs, as well as academics. How do you allocate scarce resources to increasing cybersecurity, in the context of other competing claims ? Professors Gordon and Loeb provide a solid economic framework to do this. They bring their decades of experience researching and teaching about a cost-benefit approach to managerial decisions to the table, in the context of cybersecurity investments.

What I like about the book is its appeal to practitioners and academics alike. There is a nice section on developing a business case for cybersecurity investments. Empirical evidence to support their arguments are provided throughout the book. Complex ideas like real options and cybersecurity investments are nicely explained with simple and insightful examples.

Overall, whether you are a manager making or evaluating the case for cybersecurity investments, or teaching in this area, this book is a must-read.

Managing Cybersecurity Resources: A Cost-Benefit Analysis is excellent! Information security practitioners will appreciate the insightful economic analysis on how to determine the right amount to spend on cybersecurity projects and how to prepare a business case to justify such projects. I especially liked the chapter on risk that included perspectives and analysis not found in any other information security books. The book discusses many topics (for example, economics of cybersecurity and its role in national security) in a manner that novice and expert alike will find appealing. Its clear that the authors, chaired professors from a top business school and pioneers in cybersecurity economics, have a strong understanding of the security environment along with great technical skills. Of more importance, is their intuitive understanding of problems in the cybersecurity trenches. Policy makers, CISOs, CFOs, and managers at all levels, should find enormous value in this book. While at times I wish the authors would not have condensed their discussion, the good news is that they have left some important issues for a follow-up book. I am recommending this book to co-workers and friends.

All information is fairly up-to-date. For anyone interested in current UN affairs, what they do or how they recieve awards you'll find this book interesting.

The peacekeeping operations of the United Nations have grown in number and importance in recent years, producing a thicket of bewildering acronyms (UNIKOM and UNIPOM, UNOMUR and UNAMIR),and for participants a corresponding number of awards, which are often confusingly similar in appearance. For the first time this is all sorted out, in this well-produced guide.
The book features excellent color illustrations of the medals, ribbons, and insignia, with information on the historical context, mandate (mission), participant countries and strengths, fatalities incurred, and number of medals issued. There is also a chronology, a world map of operations, a splendid section on Korean War medals and variants, background essays, bibliography, index, and more, providing comprehensive coverage of this relatively neglected area. Borts' admirable work will likely be the standard on the subject for many years to come, and will be of particular interest to students of contemporary military affairs as well as collectors.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

The peacekeeping operations of the United Nations have grown in number and importance in recent years, producing a thicket of bewildering acronyms (UNIKOM and UNIPOM, UNOMUR and UNAMIR),and for participants a corresponding number of awards, which are often confusingly similar in appearance. For the first time this is all sorted out, in this well-produced guide.
The book features excellent color illustrations of the medals, ribbons, and insignia, with information on the historical context, mandate (mission), participant countries and strengths, fatalities incurred, and number of medals issued. There is also a chronology, a world map of operations, a splendid section on Korean War medals and variants, background essays, bibliography, index, and more, providing comprehensive coverage of this relatively neglected area. Borts' admirable work will likely be the standard on the subject for many years to come, and will be of particular interest to students of contemporary military affairs as well as collectors.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

Amongst the many things I can say about this book, it is exciting material stating the exact nature of the United Nations Orders and Medals from one of the world's most renowned figures in the industry. Its uncanny accuracy is unprecedented.

The peacekeeping operations of the United Nations have grown in number and importance in recent years, producing a thicket of bewildering acronyms (UNIKOM and UNIPOM, UNOMUR and UNAMIR),and for participants a corresponding number of awards, which are often confusingly similar in appearance. For the first time this is all sorted out, in this well-produced guide.
The book features excellent color illustrations of the medals, ribbons, and insignia, with information on the historical context, mandate (mission), participant countries and strengths, fatalities incurred, and number of medals issued. There is also a chronology, a world map of operations, a splendid section on Korean War medals and variants, background essays, bibliography, index, and more, providing comprehensive coverage of this relatively neglected area. Borts' admirable work will likely be the standard on the subject for many years to come, and will be of particular interest to students of contemporary military affairs as well as collectors.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This book is very close to the pinnacle of fame. The reader can visualise the author wrestling with the great philosophical problems that enveloped and obsessed the minds of European intellectuals in the 17th and following centuries. An impressive contextualisation and transmission of the origins, development and consequences of Cristuado's selected subjects theses - even as he is manhandled, twisted, crushed and flung violently around the ring by Descartes, Hegel, Kant and Marx in turn. An unfair tag-team bout of four against one - but Cristaudo makes a courageous and valiant attempt to withstand the rigours he imposed upon himself.

Viewed in its proper context, the ivory tower of philosophical introspection and the output of a genuine academic egghead, this is a serious, dogged tome. Through both material and method, the author offers valuable insights into the Schwerfaelligkeit of Hegel, the obsessive Klassificationsmanie of Kant, the whimsy of Descartes and the catastrophe of Marxism. Highly recommended for any who share the author's proclivities.

In this work Wayne Cristaudo offers the specialist reader a detailed scholarly analysis of the influential philosophical figures from Descartes to Marx. The author has painstakingly laid out and scrutinised the presumptions and implications entailed in each philosopher's writings as well as indicating some connections between them. This is indeed a valuable and rigorous study.

It is no wonder that Cristaudo has moved on to explore other worlds since this tour de force. There is nothing left in this one for him to comment on; he has single-handedly exhausted what remained of "philosophy". Cristaudo's dissection of the greats: Descartes, Hegel and Kant is methodical yet insightful, erudite yet humble. He knows his place in the scheme of things. Cristaudo's masterful analysis of the mechanics of the proto-modernist mind signposts the way out, and he achieves this with a rare literary panache. Any readers wishing to understand not only the thinkers at issue but the world they lived in and what effects they had, and have, on the future, will be fascinated by this book. And, indeed, by Cristaudo's future efforts.

Cristaudo's gone on to explore great beasts and great ideas, but I think this remains his best effort. A meticulous dissection of the schemata and minutiae behind the Cartesian, Kantian and Hegelian Weltanschauungen. Cristaudo deploys his famed 'philosophical anthropology' method with shattering effect, weaving connections and ruthlessly exposing the inherent flaws in these thinkers respective systems.

A triumph from the master interpreter of continental thought.

And slow, cold, cheap food.

This is an exceptional work of real empirical science. Steve Biddle has a hypothesis that "force employment" is a more important determinant of military success than either technology or preponderance of military forces. He subjects this hypothesis to a wide range of analytical and empirical tests, and the evidence in support of his argument is compelling. And the author has the foresight to raise many of the issues that occur to a skeptical reader, and to treat them with reasoned analysis and data. His prose is clear, and this is compelling reading even to one who is not an expert in this field.

Stephen Biddle, a Professor at the US Army War College, has produced an important book on modern warfare. He shows how material forces, numbers and technology, only count if used in the modern system. Force deployment shapes the role of material forces. He analyses full data-sets of modern battles, proving that bigger is not always better.

The increasing lethality of firepower means that since 1914 exposed mass movement is suicidal. Only the modern system of using combined arms, cover and concealment enables the attackers' forces to survive the defence's response.

Biddle looks at three significant battles, firstly, the successful German attack of March 1918. For preponderance theorists, the Allies should have stopped this attack dead. The German/British force-to-force ratio was 1.5/1, among the least favourable of any major attack of the war. The British had a few more tanks, but the main weapons were still the infantry and guns of 1915-18, a defence-dominant technology. The British official history blamed the fog, as if there had been no fog until then.

The Germans won an unprecedented breakthrough, advancing 40 miles across a 50-mile front. The Germans implemented the modern system tactically and to some extent operationally; the British didn't. This broke the great stalemate, not new technology, US intervention or exhaustion.

Biddle's second example, Operation Goodwood in July 1944, was the failed Allied effort to break out of the Normandy beachhead. The British had more troops and weapons: 1,277 tanks, 4,500 aircraft and 118,000 troops against 319 tanks, several hundred aircraft and 29,000 troops. If preponderance theorists were right, the British would have won, but they tried an exposed mass tank charge, unsupported by infantry or suppressive artillery.

Biddle's third example is Operation Desert Storm of 1991, which US forces won with an unprecedentedly low loss rate. US forces used the modern system, the Iraqis did not. The superior US air technology did not eliminate the Iraqi resistance: 2,000 tanks still fought back after the air assault. US troops with or without advanced ground technology, and those fighting local engagements at better or worse odds, won equally convincingly.

According to Stephen Biddle force employment or the use of combined arms is the secret to military success not superior technology or overwhelming numbers. The first example that Biddle uses is the opening German offensive in 1918 against the British in which they succeded intially against the English army due to effective coordination of artillery and infantry. The second case that Biddle brings up is the British operation Goodwood against the Germans in 1944. The British failed, according to Biddle, due to the lack of cooperation between infantry and armor.Also Biddle dispels the myth that technology alone won Desert Storm because the Marines,equipped with only sixties era tanks, were able to defeat the Iraqis with superior tactics. The only weakness of Biddle's book is that he leaves out the two cases in which opponents with superior nummers defeated a force with effective force employment methods which is the defeat of the Germans to the Russians in the summer of 1944, and the rout of the Americans from North Korea by the Chinese in the winter of 1950. Otherwise, Biddle writes an effective case that force employment and not technology is the most important factor in military victory.

I'll begin by saying that this is an excellent book and highly recommended to anyone interested in the field. Well written and great to read even for a non-military reader.
Unfortunately, the case studies and battles are not really described, and if you were not already familiar with the battles before (as I was not in 2 of 3), the analyses will not help to gain any real understanding.
Second, the model presented is an excellent tool for "post mortem" analyses. However, since according to the model, the major factor that will decide the outcome of the battle is force emplacement, and since it cannot be known in advance what will the force emplacement be (neither for friendly nor for enemy forces), the model cannot really be used to predict outcomes of future battles. I see this as a major problem with the model.

Prof Terry Tucker, Senior Doctrine Developer, Saudi Arabian NG Modernization Program;
The author presents a balanced, provocative and well presented case for how victory or defeat occurs in battle. This book is designed for both the tecnical numbers kind of person and also the less technical. The chapters can be read as a stand alone or you can also go through the entire book. Either way it has immense value.
The thesis of this book is that force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which forces are used in combat is centrally important. This book is great reading, is controversial in its presentation but clearly provides both empirical and quantitative analysis to support his position. THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ.

WHAT A CHARMING PIECE ON THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH. CRAFTED WITH PURE GENIOUS AND A PEN FOR DETAIL, "THE MODERATES' DILEMMA" BRINGS TO LIGHT THE UNDENIABLE OBSTINANCE OF THE SOUTH'S PREMIERE SCHOOL DISTRICTS.THIS WORK IS A MUST READ FOR HISTORY GRADS OF ANY BACKGROUND.

I read the book, it is brilliant collection of writings. The editors offer an interesting, sophisticated analysis of the white response to busing. Being a former student of his, I can attest that Matthew D. Lassiter is an incredibly intelligent, dynamic individual. I highly recommend this book, and anxiously await his upcoming works.

Matthew Lassiter, editor-in-chief of this seminal collection, sets forth, once again, a fresh standard of scholarly excellence and eloquence. His essay, "A 'Fighting Moderate,'" illustrates one of his innumerable intellectual virtues, the ability to electrify his arduously acquired historian's sobriety with an innate psychological acuity.

Matthew D. Lassiter, perhaps the world's pre-eminent scholar of the American South, co-edited this penetrating and resonant collection of essays, to which he has contributed a characteristically elegant and astute study of Benjamin Muse, who figured prominently in the turbulent early years of desegregation in Virginia.

For my senior seminar, I wrote a paper on desegregation/busing in the South. While I was doing research, a librarian found this book for me. I had to wait 2 weeks to get it through interlibrary loan, but it was worth it!! The essays really bring home the complexity of Southern desegregation when viewed through the lens of class issues. I can only aspire to produce such insightful scholarship!

I liked this book because the financial information is user-friendly and told as a story, which makes it easy to absorb. It is not dry as if coming from a text book. I found the information easy to apply to my life. It is a great resource book that I will keep by my side for a long time. One of the many important things that I remember from the book is that "I have to do what I love" and abundance will follow somehow. I liked the money exercises at the end of the book, because they are very clear to follow. I was so enthusiastic after reading the book that I started working on my numbers right away and collecting the information needed to help improve my finances. I have purchased the book several times already to give it as a gift to my friends. My thanks to the author.

I liked this book because the financial information is user-friendly and told as a story, which makes it easy to absorb. It is not dry as if coming from a text book. I found the information easy to apply to my life. It is a great resource book that I will keep by my side for a long time. One of the many important things that I remember from the book is that "I have to do what I love" and abundance will follow somehow. I liked the money exercises at the end of the book, because they are very clear to follow. I was so enthusiastic after reading the book that I started working on my numbers right away and collecting the information needed to help improve my finances. I have purchased the book several times already to give it as a gift to my friends. My thanks to the author.

This is a work of fiction about an honorable young woman's struggles to get out of debt and get on a firm financial footing. She succeeds with the help of a mentor and by working hard, visits to Debtors Anonymous and much will-power. Along the way, she, and the reader, finds out a great deal about dealing with money in all its aspects in an entertaining way. I am not just starting out in life and I learned a lot.

I liked the book, though I would sock any dentist who tried to talk about compound interest while he was drilling. This could be an excellent gift to give anyone going off to college, or starting a small business, especially an arts business. Anyone heavily in debt might find the heroine a wee bit hard to live up to.

THE MONEY MENTOR by Tad Crawford

This wonderful book is essential for anyone who has had consternation or outright difficulty managing their money. Even for those who are frugal and well organized, it gives extraordinary insights into societal and historical attitudes regarding money and debt. It puts money management into human terms. I alternately cringed (when recognizing my own patterns) and cheered, as the heroine began to pull herself out of the demoralizing trap of debt.

While the book is a fountain of information, there is also a real drama here. By humanizing the problem through the story of a young woman, Iris, plagued by debt and her aid at the hands of a wise and generous mentor, Saidah, it keeps us turning the pages. Instead of a dry lecture filled with advice, this story unfolds as a journey with all the pathos and uncertainty we can recognize in our own battles to balance the cares of earning a living with the real goal of contentment. It's a remarkable work with much more than sound guidance about money management. Filled with history, literature fables and a touch of Zen it is is fascinating and reassuring. We aren't the first generations to be torn apart by money mismanagement.

By the end all I could say is where can I find that mentor? And I want Saidah's telephone number. But I suspect that the author would reply that the mentor can be within us. She is always there in the gift of this book.

I highly recommend this compelling story of a young woman's coming to terms with debt incurred by overuse of credit cards. Iris Cassidy is a contemporary "Everywoman" whose coming to awareness about her finances also involves a journey of self-discovery that has a profound spiritual dimension. This is a warm-hearted didactic tale, a novel with a message, of one woman's experiences of life, work and relationships, as she wrestles with her realization that she has been spending more than she earns, and resolves to free herself from the burden of debt. In her story, personal transformation occurs through growing self-awareness, with the help of a mentor. She comes to see that forming a viable spending plan for repaying her debts has to make room for what gives joy and makes life meaningful for her--in her case, dancing. This well-written book can give anyone -- young or old -- insight into how to find financial freedom through careful planning and openness to change. It entertains while it teaches, even includes helpful exercises at the end.