Sara and Eleanor or Americas Christian Heritage

Sara and Eleanor: The Story of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Her Daughter-in-Law, Eleanor Roosevelt

Author: Jan Pottker

We think we know the story of Eleanor Roosevelt--the shy, awkward girl who would redefine the role of First Lady, becoming a civil rights activist and an inspiration to generations of young women. As legend has it, the bane of Eleanor's life was her demanding and domineering mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Biographers have overlooked the complexity of a relationship that had, over the years, been reinterpreted and embellished by Eleanor herself.

Through diaries, letters, and interviews with Roosevelt family and friends, Jan Pottker uncovers a story never before told. The result is a triumphant blend of social history and psychological insight--a revealing look at Eleanor Roosevelt and the woman who made her historic achievements possible.

Publishers Weekly

Pottker (Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) has made a specialty of tell-alls about the wealthy and the powerful, from the Mars family to Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. But in Sara and Eleanor a study of the complex, sometimes supportive, sometimes contentious relationship between FDR's wife and mother Pottker embarks upon serious historical waters. Navigating across a story already well traversed by such superb writers and researchers as Blanche Wiesen Cook, Geoffrey Ward and Betty Boyd Caroli (the latter in 1998's The Roosevelt Women), Pottker unfortunately, despite her protestations, has nothing new to add to the well-worn tale of these two fascinating ladies. One comes away from Pottker's book wondering why she believed another retelling (one that comes at the story far less eloquently and authoritatively than previous efforts) to be necessary in the first place. The answer lies, apparently, in Pottker's revisionist tack when it comes to key details. For example, Pottker somewhat astonishingly in the face of much testimony to the contrary discounts the notion of Franklin ever having had a true affair with Eleanor's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. But the revision in question is purely speculative on Pottker's part, not based on evidence. Both Eleanor and Sara deserve and have gotten in the past far more accurate accounts of themselves. Readers should refer to those. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Mel Berger, William Morris. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Pottker (Janet and Jackie; Dear Ann, Dear Abby) considers another power relationship, that of Sara Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Contrary to popular belief, she would have readers believe that Sara was not a gorgon, a racist, an anti-Semite, or a snob; she supported FDR's political career and treated her moody daughter-in-law warmly. At most, Pottker concedes that Sara was something of a meddler. Moreover, Eleanor owed Sara her marriage because Sara apparently warned Franklin that a divorce from Eleanor meant the end of Sara's largesse. Accordingly, Eleanor comes off less well. Emerging from her painful childhood to become a depressed and emotionally unavailable mother, she is shown initially welcoming Sara's extravagant attentions to her and Franklin's children and then carping about them in retrospect. Pottker has extensively researched this book and filled it with convincing and engaging details to make her case for Sara. She takes a defensive tone-not surprising considering that Sara has taken it on the chin from Dore Schary (in Sunrise at Campobello) and Eleanor herself, whose retrospective criticism of her mother-in-law has informed recent scholarship. So perhaps Pottker's sympathetic portrait is overdue. For public libraries.-Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A thoroughly researched, though highly chatty and oddly superficial, attempt to rehabilitate the image of FDR's mother, which was besmirched, the author argues, by less sympathetic Roosevelt biographers. Pottker (Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, 2001, etc.) writes for the Princess Di set, for lovers of royals and riches and American dynasties. Here are accounts of who was wearing cream taffeta at which Roosevelt wedding; here are six pages devoted to the 1939 visit to Hyde Park of Queen Elizabeth and King George VI and the spats between Eleanor and Sara about the menu. Here is such a concern for the exteriors of people's lives (what they wore, where they lived, how their homes were decorated, what they drove, where they traveled, what they bought) that interior lives must almost always be inferred, and then only with difficulty. Pottker just doesn't want to get into it. Neither, in this strangely prudish account, does she wish to be more than coy about sexual issues. The author tells us that the teenaged Eleanor installed triple interior locks on her bedroom door because of drunken uncles. What does that mean? You won't find the answer here. Nor does the author give credence to stories that FDR and Lucy Mercer actually had sexual relations. No, she claims, it was just an intimate relationship. Pottker tries to focus on the stories of the two titular women, but that's hard to do with FDR filling the stage with his charm, his polio, his political successes. And, besides, the author's principal intent is to reinstall Sara Delano Roosevelt on her pedestal-Sara, the woman who was on the cover of Time before her son (or daughter-in-law), the woman who was the heart andsoul and financial officer for the Roosevelt clan. In short: the mother of all matriarchs. Skims across the surface of a very deep lake. (16 pp. b&w photos, not seen) Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris

Interesting book: SQL Server 2005 Bible or Viva Pinata

America's Christian Heritage

Author: Gary DeMar

From Plymouth Rock to Independence Hall and beyond, the dates of American history overflow with evidence of the profound role Christianity has played in our nation. The historical record fully documents the claim that America was founded by Christians to be a biblical "city on a hill." Sadly, however, that record is rarely consulted... As a result, the once self-evident assertion that America was founded as a Christian nation is mocked by academic and media elites. Author Gary DeMar answers secular denials of America's Christian heritage as he presents evidence from a broad range of historical sources and lets the record speak for itself. Consider, for example, the following: In 1892, the Supreme Court of the United States declared, "This is a Christian nation." French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville concluded in 1831 that "[T]here is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than America." Woodrow Wilson said in 1911 that "America was born a Christian nation." The New England Confederation said the purpose of the colonies was "to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace."

Table of Contents:

	Introduction: America's Christian Heritage: Fact or Fiction?	7
1	"By the Providence of Alimighty God" Christianity in Colonial America	13
2	"Through Divine Goodness" Christianity in the Colonial Constitutions	23
3	"In the Year of Our Lord" Christianity and the Constitution	31
4	"To Lay Christ at the Bottom" Christianity in the Colleges	39
5	"In God We Trust" Christianity in our Nation's Capitol	49
6	The Separation Myth Christianity and the First Amendment	61
7	The Ten Commandments on Trial A Supreme Legal Fight	69
8	"God Bless America" Giving Thanks to God in America	77
	Conclusion: God Governs in the Affairs of Men	81
	Epilogue	85

Mr Jeffersons Women or Captive Mind

Mr. Jefferson's Women

Author: Jon Kukla

From the acclaimed author of A Wilderness So Immense comes a pioneering study of Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, both personal and political.

The author of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the words “all men are created equal,” was surprisingly uncomfortable with woman. In eight chapters, Kukla examines the evidence for the founding father's youthful misogyny, beginning with his awkward courtship of Rebecca Burwell, who declined Jefferson's marriage proposal, and his unwelcome advances toward the wife of a boyhood friend. Subsequent chapters describe his decade-long marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton, his flirtation with Maria Cosway, and the still controversial relationship with Sally Hemings. A riveting study of a complex man, Mr. Jefferson's Women is sure to spark debate.

Publishers Weekly

This highly insightful study by Kukla (A Wilderness So Immense), director of the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, investigates Thomas Jefferson's relationships with women, from Elizabeth Moore Walker, the married neighbor with whom Jefferson may have had an affair, to Sally Hemings, the slave whose children he purportedly fathered. One of the most fascinating chapters examines the young Jefferson's failed attempts to woo a classmate's sister, Rebecca Burwell, whose rejection of his marriage proposal may have incited the misogyny found throughout his writings. Perhaps the least satisfying section studies Jefferson's relationship with his wife, Martha: since Jefferson destroyed their private correspondence after she died, Kukla's re-creation of their relationship is necessarily sketchy. The conclusion moves to a larger argument concerning Jefferson's thinking about women as citizens. Kukla shows that Jefferson was much less open to women's political participation and education than were contemporary Enlightenment thinkers, and his "definition of America as a white male polity" was "rooted in his personal discomfort with women." This is one of the most discerning and provocative studies of Jefferson in years. B&w illus., map. (Oct. 12)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Thomas J. Schaeper - Library Journal

It is hard to dislike a book that, like this one, starts off with a discussion of how J. Peterman Company shirts are related to Thomas Jefferson. Kukla (director, Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation; A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America) not only knows his subject well but writes in a fluid and sparkling style. His basic thesis is that Thomas Jefferson grew increasingly uncomfortable with women as he aged, becoming misogynistic and predatory. Three of the four women to whom he made early romantic advances turned him down, and the fourth (his wife) hurt him by dying. Thereafter Jefferson was on his guard, not wanting to be wounded again. When he formed a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings he was in a position of power, as he owned her and could not be rejected. Kukla's research is impeccable, and his voluminous notes are a treasure trove. Nonetheless, this reviewer fails to be persuaded by his overly negative interpretation. He reaches too many conclusions based on supposition rather than solid evidence. Sure to spark heated debate, this book is recommended for academic and public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Enticing, relentlessly driving expose of a Founding Father's private and public misogyny. After a stormy scholarly conference about Thomas Jefferson's long affair with his slave Sally Hemings, Virginia historian Kukla (A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America, 2003, etc) looked for a book about Jefferson's relations with women in general, assuming that it already existed. Instead, he ended up writing it, and his conclusions are dismaying. Kukla asserts that after belle Rebecca Burwell rejected his proposal when he was 20, Jefferson demonstrated throughout his adult life predatory urges toward women, a fear of disruptive female influences (exacerbated by the alarming conduct of women during the French Revolution) and a distasteful endorsement of the master-slave model for male-female relations. Despite his friendship with Abigail ("Remember the Ladies") Adams, Jefferson remained adamant about excluding women from the liberties of the new American republic. He needed to control the women in his life, Kukla argues. Before his happy 11-year marriage to the widow Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772, the young lawyer repeatedly attempted to seduce Elizabeth Walker, the wife of his best friend. Marriage to Martha, the perfect domestic partner, solidified Jefferson's patriarchal ideal of gender roles. Marooned at her death, he later futilely flirted with a married Englishwoman in Paris and back home in Monticello took up for the rest of his life with the much younger, attractive and light-skinned Hemings, who was actually the half-sister of his dead wife. Their six children were emancipated in his will, although he never mentions Hemings by name. Closing with a grimlitany of his subject's consistent opposition to "any departure from an exclusively domestic role as republican wives and mothers," Kukla concludes that "Jefferson's personal aversion to and fear of women in public life shaped American laws and traditions in ways that echo into the twenty-first century."Necessary reading-but an awful revelation of a great man's failings. First printing of 40,000

Book review: Eating Habits for Cancer Patients or Beginning with Chiles

Captive Mind

Author: Czeslaw Milosz

The best known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right.

What People Are Saying

Jerzy Kosinski
A faultlessly perceptive analysis of the moral and historical dilemma we all face...as timely today as when it was first written.

Shadow of Pearl Harbor or Obligations

Shadow of Pearl Harbor: Political Controversy over the Surprise Attack, 1941-1946

Author: Martin V Melosi

The Japanese surprise attack on U.S. forces in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, came as a tremendous shock to Americans. Accustomed to success and victory in every aspect of life, they found the Pearl Harbor disaster nearly impossible to understand. Thus, almost immediately the search began for a simple explanation why the United States was unprepared and why it should succumb in battle to a foe long considered inferior.

The Shadow of Pearl Harbor analyzes the resulting controversy, which pitted the Democratic administration against congressional Republicans. In an atmosphere of insecurity and suspicion brought on by the greatest naval defeat ever suffered by the United States, Roosevelt's critics demanded a full public disclosure of information about the causes of the debacle.

Fearing a volatile partisan confrontation that such public disclosure might inspire, the Democratic administration tried to silence its critics by shelving the issue for the duration of the war and by keeping national attention fixed on the war effort. Retreating behind the veil of "national security," the executive branch initiated a cover-up of the Pearl Harbor case, sustained by the conclusions of pro-administration investigations, and made scapegoats of the Hawaiian commanders, Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short.

Martin V. Melosi has studied in detail each of those investigations and the political infighting between the administration and its opponents. His focus is the extent to which Roosevelt and his high officials succeeded, or failed, to minimize the domestic impact of the Pearl Harbor defeat and keep blame away from themselves.

Table of Contents:

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Chapter 1.	Shock Waves in December	3
Chapter 2.	A Policy of Evasion	17
Chapter 3.	Hasty Investigation	31
Chapter 4.	Cover-up!	45
Chapter 5.	New Battle Lines	56
Chapter 6.	A Republican Assault Falls Short	71
Chapter 7.	Threat to the Official Line	89
Chapter 8.	Prying Open Pandora's Box	111
Chapter 9.	Hope and Trepidation	132
Chapter 10.	Conclusion	161
	Bibliography	169
	Index	178

See also: Toxic Consumer or Salud Total En 8 Semanas

Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War, and Citizenship

Author: Michael Walzer

In this collection of essays, Michael Walzer discusses how obligations are incurred, sustained, and (sometimes) abandoned by citizens of the modern state and members of political parties and movements as they respond to and participate in the most crucial and controversial aspects of citizenship: resistance, dissent, civil disobedience, war, and revolution. Walzer approaches these issues with insight and historical perspective, exhibiting an extraordinary understanding for rebels, radicals, and rational revolutionaries. The reader will not always agree with Walzer but he cannot help being stimulated, excited, challenged, and moved to thoughtful analysis.

The Commanders or The Good Life

The Commanders

Author: Bob Woodward

It is impossible to examine any part of the war on terrorism in the twenty-first century without seeing the hand of Dick Cheney, Colin Powell or one of their loyalists. The Commanders, an account of the use of the military in the first Bush administration, is in many respects their story -- the intimate account of the tensions, disagreements and debates on the road to war.

Library Journal

Wars make great fiction and even better fact. But best of all is the realm in between. So it is with journalistic histories like Woodward's latest book. YOU ARE THERE: in the inner sanctums of the Pentagon and the White House. YOU HEAR ALL: the privileged conversations, the promises to Kuwait, the military plans. From Panama to Riyadh, from Noriega to Saddam, Woodward bombards you with unrelentless, highly placed gossip, the brew of 400-plus unnamed tattletalers WHO WERE THERE, or so we are told. Sans footnotes, this book will torture scholars for centuries. Truth or embellishment, the glimpses of the pinnacle of power fascinate. Other more scholarly histories of this period will come, better written and more exegetical. Hopefully we will know the source of their tales. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/91.-- John Yurechko, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.

New interesting book: Interventions or Vietnam Wars 1945 1990

The Good Life

Author: Van Alen Institut

A ball and a wall used to be all you needed for hours of entertainment. But these days, when good design is an expected component of almost every experience, that's just not enough. The right color and composition can make all the difference. Fortunately, architects and landscape designers have answered the call and produced an amazing array of public spaces for recreation. The Good Life shows the best new designs from around the globe in one colorful collection. From Acconci Studio's Skateboard Park in San Juan, to ShoP's East River Project in New York City, to Ken Smith's Railyard Park in Santa Fe, to muf Art and Architecture's Barking Town Square in London, these spaces are some of the most imaginative work around. Stripped from the structural constraints and serious programs of so many building types, the projects here are designed for fun.
The Good Life was organized by Zoë Ryan, Senior Curator at Van Alen Institute and editor of this volume. A broad team of creative experts, including Paola Antonelli, Janet Abrams, Michael Bierut, and Diana Balmori have contributed their thoughts in a series of roundtable discussions, printed in this publication. The list of contributors reads like a who's who of design: Stan Allen, Martha Schwartz, Diller Sco?dio + Renfro, David Adjaye, and many more. An exhibition of the work will take place on New York's waterfront beginning in September 2006.

Interventions or Vietnam Wars 1945 1990

Economic History of Puerto Rico - Instiutional Change and Capitalist Development

Author: Noam Chomsky

Interweaving findings of the 'new' Puerto Rico historiography with those of earlier historical studies, and using the most recent theoretical concepts to interpret them, James Dietz examines the complex manner in which productive and class relations within Puerto Rico have interacted with changes in its place in the world economy.

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Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990

Author: Marilyn Young

The first book to give equal weight to the Vietnamese and American sides of the Vietnam war.

Publishers Weekly

In this dark account of the political and diplomatic sides of the Vietnam wars and the psychic aftermath, the author contends that the Indochina experience refuted (temporarily) the simplistic assumptions that in foreign policy America always ``meant well'' and that communism was always ``bad.'' The epithets popularly employed to characterize the enemy in Vietnam--``indifferent to human life,'' ``dishonest,'' ``ruthless''--came to characterize our own actions as well. From counterinsurgency expert Edward Lansdale's ``cheerful brutalization of democratic values'' to President Nixon's attempt to ``make war look like peace,'' the moral breakdown is assessed here in disturbing detail. Young goes on to argue that more recent U.S. intervention in Lebanon, Libya, Grenada and Panama suggests that few lessons were learned in Vietnam--indeed, that the past decade has seen a dangerous resurgence of native faith in the benevolence of American foreign meddling. This, she maintains, goes hand in hand with a renewed commitment to use force in a global crusade against Third World revolutions and governments. Young, a history professor at New York University, paints a grim picture of our part in the Indochina war and its excoriating effects on the nation. Photos. (Jan.)

Library Journal

Two new books join the many which try to summarize and analyze the Vietnam War, its precedents, and its epilog, with differing approaches and results. Young (history, NYU) coauthored, along with William G. Rosenberg, Transforming Russia & China ( LJ 1/1/82). Her current study focuses on the American experience, while touching on the periods before and after direct American involvement. She provides some useful insights, and details debates among American leaders, but she draws predominantly on published sources and offers little new information. More significantly, her arguments are heavily biased (she seems to think that only the American and South Vietnamese military and governments demonstrated cruelty, corruption, deception, and destruction), leading to some troubling conclusions (e.g., that U.S. bombing of Cambodia may have been responsible for the later horrors of the Khmer Rouge), and leaving the reader unable to place events in any kind of valid historical perspective. In stark contrast to Young's black-and-white picture, Olson and Roberts (history, Sam Houston State Univ. and Purdue Univ., respectively) paint a picture of many colors. This successful popular history of the war is less scholarly, less detailed than The Vietnam Wars , but the better-balanced coverage throughout yields a more insightful, instructive history. At times the authors' emotionalism (e.g., the account of the My Lai massacre) clouds their presentation, and the otherwise fascinating discussion of the postwar media's depiction of the war is not up to date, but general readers will find their book to be a helpful and accessible introduction to the complexities of the Vietnam experience.-- Kenneth W. Berger, Duke Univ. Lib., Durham, N.C.

Booknews

A history of the war the US fought in Indochina, beginning with the aid the Americans gave to the French to recover control of their former colony, and also a history of the war of resistance the Vietnamese fought, which was by turns, and sometimes simultaneously, a struggle against foreign aggression and for a socialist revolution. Includes two 16-page photo inserts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

What People Are Saying

Michael H. Hunt
"Unmatched in its striking juxtaposition of the Vietnamese revolution with American Cold War policy and ideology, and in its sensitivity to the human dimension of the conflict on both sides."

George MC. Kahin
"A first-rate synthesis of the vast literature on the Vietnam War which effectively interweaves U.S. involvement in Indochina with relevant developments on the domestic front in a way that makes both more understandable."

Three Early Modern Utopias or The Birth of the Modern World 1780 1914

Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia, New Atlantis, The Isle of Pines

Author: Thomas Mor

With the publication of Utopia (1516), Thomas More provided a scathing analysis of the shortcomings of his own society, a realistic suggestion for an alternative mode of social organization, and a satire on unrealistic idealism. Enormously influential, it remains a challenging as well as a playful text. This edition reprints Ralph Robinson's 1556 translation from More's original Latin together with letters and illustrations that accompanied early editions of Utopia.
This edition also includes two other, hitherto less accessible, utopian narratives. New Atlantis (1627) offers a fictional illustration of Francis Bacon's visionary ideal of the role that science should play in the modern society. Henry Neville's The Isle of Pines (1668), a precursor of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, engages with some of the sexual, racial, and colonialist anxieties of the end of the early modern period. Bringing together these three New World texts, and situating them in a wider Renaissance context, this edition--which includes letters, maps, and alphabets that accompanied early editions--illustrates the diversity of the early modern utopian imagination, as well as the different purposes to which it could be put.

Look this: Arbeitsvolkswirtschaft

The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons

Author: C A Bayly

This thematic history of the world from 1780 to the onset of the First World War reveals that the world was far more ‘globalised’ at this time than is commonly thought.

• Explores previously neglected sets of connections in world history.

• Reveals that the world was far more ‘globalised’, even at the beginning of this period, than is commonly thought.

• Sketches the ‘ripple effects’ of world crises such as the European revolutions and the American Civil War.

• Shows how events in Asia, Africa and South America impacted on the world as a whole.

• Considers the great themes of the nineteenth-century world, including the rise of the modern state, industrialisation and liberalism.

• Challenges and complements the regional and national approaches which have traditionally dominated history teaching and writing.

The Great Theft or Rites of Peace

The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists

Author: Khaled M Abou El Fadl

Despite President George W. Bush's assurances that Islam is a peaceful religion and that all good Muslims hunger for democracy, confusion persists and far too many Westerners remain convinced that Muslims and terrorists are synonymous. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent bombings in London, an unprecedented amount of attention has been directed toward Islam and the Muslim world. Yet, even with this increased scrutiny, most of the public discourse regarding Islam revolves around the actions of extremist factions such as the Wahhabis and al-Qa'ida. But what of the Islam we don't hear about?

As the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world, Islam is deemed by more than a billion Muslims to be a source of serenity and spiritual peace, and a touchstone for moral and ethical guidance. While extremists have an impact upon the religion that is wildly disproportionate to their numbers, moderates constitute the majority of Muslims worldwide. It is this rift between the quiet voice of the moderates and the deafening statements of the extremists that threatens the future of the faith.

In The Great Theft, Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the world's preeminent Islamic scholars, argues that Islam is currently passing through a transformative period no less dramatic than the movements that swept through Europe during the Reformation. At this critical juncture there are two completely opposed worldviews within Islam competing to define this great world religion. The stakes have never been higher, and the future of the Muslim world hangs in the balance.

Drawing on the rich tradition of Islamichistory and law, The Great Theft is an impassioned defense of Islam against the encroaching power of the extremists. As an accomplished Islamic jurist, Abou El Fadl roots his arguments in long-standing historical legal debates and delineates point by point the beliefs and practices of moderate Muslims, distinguishing these tenets from the corrupting influences of the extremists. From the role of women in Islam to the nature of jihad, from democracy and human rights to terrorism and warfare, Abou El Fadl builds a vital vision for a moderate Islam. At long last, the great majority of Muslims who oppose extremism have a desperately needed voice to help reclaim Islam's great moral tradition.

Publishers Weekly

El Fadl, professor of Islamic law at UCLA and Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is the academic voice of the world's majority-moderate Muslims. His strong credentials and thoughtful approach set him apart from his peers. Here, he successfully argues that the extremist sects of Islam, mainly Wahhabism, blatantly defy the true values of Islam. He clarifies that Wahhabism was once an unpopular, fringe, cultlike movement, which only grew through a chance partnership with the Saudi Arabian ruling family. The discovery of oil created an unprecedented infusion of petro-dollars into the fledgling, conservative belief system. The point of the book, El Fadl writes, is to define "the reality of Muslim thought as it currently exists." He focuses on the extremists' "puritan" view, exposing the hypocrisies and inconsistencies inherent in their "imagined Islam." He doesn't offer specific solutions, but he raises the issues carefully and well. Though the writing can be dry and portions read like a law school lecture, overall El Fadl's book is a fulfilling read for moderate Muslims concerned about conservative leadership and any non-Muslims who want to inform themselves about the extremists' misuse of Islam. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

Is Islam the solution or part of the problem? Abou El Fadl depicts an ongoing struggle between puritans and moderates to define and apply Islam today. Those he labels puritans embrace an absolutist and intolerant orientation. The moderates draw on the more humanistic heritage hammered out by generations of ulama (religious scholars). That heritage has been badly undermined in modern times by the replacement of Islamic legal thought and institutions with Western courts and codes, but most of all by the intolerant doctrines of the Wahhabis, spread with the help of Saudi oil revenues, and of those groups known as Salafis, whose ideology stems in part from Wahhabism. The moderate Muslim outlook that Abou El Fadl champions can, however, build on that battered tradition — through a dynamic process engaged with a changing world, not through restoration of a supposed lost golden age. A scholar trained in both Islamic and Western law, Abou El Fadl presents a brilliant brief for that humanistic Islamic tradition while getting in some well-placed blows against those puritans. He takes on tough issues such as Islam and human rights, the status of women, and jihad. In the process, he serves up one of the more engaging primers on Islam available.

Library Journal

Islamist jurist and Western law scholar El Fadl's (law, UCLA; U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom) objective is to address some of the difficulties currently facing Islam by distinguishing between what he refers to as Muslim "puritans" and "moderates" (i.e., the extremists and the moderate majority), portraying the context in which each group has developed and describing the distinctions on each side. He thereby provides a useful introduction and background on the subject for interested readers. He is especially concerned about whose voice currently represents Islam, believing it is politics that distorts its message and gives the West a perspective of a faith filled with violence. Further, he expresses a bias against Islamic purists because he feels they detract from Islam and argues for the moderate majority to engage in a counter-jihad. Since it focuses on Muslim extremists, this book affords readers an opportunity to better evaluate the current situation of Islam to which they are exposed. It will have broad public appeal and is appropriate for libraries where interest exists.-Naomi Hafter, Baltimore Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

Author: Adam Zamoyski

In the wake of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, the French emperor's imperious grip on Europe began to weaken, raising the question of how the continent was to be reconstructed after his defeat. While the Treaty of Paris that followed Napoleon's exile in 1814 put an end to a quarter century of revolution and war in Europe, it left the future of the continent hanging in the balance.

Eager to negotiate a workable and lasting peace, the major powers—Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia—along with a host of lesser nations, began a series of committee sessions in Vienna: an eight-month-long carnival that combined political negotiations with balls, dinners, artistic performances, hunts, tournaments, picnics, and other sundry forms of entertainment for the thousands of aristocrats who had gathered in the Austrian capital. Although the Congress of Vienna resulted in an unprecedented level of stability in Europe, the price of peace would be high. Many of the crucial questions were decided on the battlefield or in squalid roadside cottages amid the vagaries of war. And the proceedings in Vienna itself were not as decorous as is usually represented.

Internationally bestselling author Adam Zamoyski draws on a wide range of original sources, which include not only official documents, private letters, diaries, and firsthand accounts, but also the reports of police spies and informers, to reveal the steamy atmosphere of greed and lust in which the new Europe was forged. Meticulously researched, masterfully told, and featuring a cast of some of the most influential and powerful figures in history, including Tsar Alexander, Metternich, Talleyrand,and the Duke of Wellington, Rites of Peace tells the story of these extraordinary events and their profound historical consequences.

Jim Doyle - Library Journal

Freelance historian Zamoyski (Moscow 1812) offers a penetrating account of Europe's first summit meeting. In September 1814, Austria, Russia, Prussia, England, and many lesser political entities convened in Vienna to restore order to a Europe that had endured 25 years of bloody warfare. Napoléon had been defeated and shipped off to Elba, of course to return during the Hundred Days, but this did not deter the conferees from carving up Europe into compliant properties for the victors. The key players in what amounted to a high-stakes poker game were Metternich (Austria), Hardenberg (Prussia), Castlereagh (Britain), and Alexander I (Russia). But just about every European aristocrat seemed to have congregated in Vienna to advance agendas and to party. Zamoyski stresses that the Congress of Vienna was a bacchanalian extravaganza where affairs of state became entwined with affairs of the heart, and until the 1950s most historians condemned it as nothing more than the restoration of the ancien régime. Then in 1957 Henry Kissinger posited in his published doctoral thesis, A World Restored, that the congress epitomized the virtues of realpolitikand brought a century of peace to Europe. Zamoyski will have none of this revisionist interpretation and maintains that the congress left a negative legacy that haunted Europe well into the 20th century. His book is a superb example of diplomatic history and belongs in every Modern European history collection.

Kirkus Reviews

The allied powers gathered in Vienna to negotiate and celebrate after Napoleon's defeat were self-interested, but they took some tentative steps toward the sort of multilateral negotiations that have characterized international relations in the ensuing centuries. So concludes Zamoyski, whose previous shelf-benders (Moscow 1812, 2004, etc.) have illuminated various aspects of 19th-century Europe's military and political landscape. His newest artfully blends geography, politics, military matters and bedroom manners in a highly readable account. Some of history's most famous men pace the author's stage: Napoleon, Wellington, Castlereagh, Tallyrand, Metternich and the rising martial star from Russia, Tsar Alexander. In Zamoyski's capable hands, these are more than mere names. Motives become more understandable, successes more exciting, failures more wrenching. The narrative opens with Napoleon's bashing by the Russian winter of 1812 and his frantic attempts over the course of 1813 and early 1814 to keep his enemies at bay until he could rebuild the French army. But Alexander, unlike his Prussian, Austrian and British allies, wanted to march into Paris; the tsar saw the struggle in its most primal, good-versus-evil aspect. Still, animated by what he said was a Christian impulse of forgiveness, he made a deal with Napoleon (others wanted him executed) and sent him off to Elba in April 1814. The Congress of Vienna, which began five months later, confronted the victors with some difficult issues: What to do about Poland? Germany? Italy? How and if and why to divide or unite them? What about the Scandinavian countries? And Switzerland? England wanted to abolish the slave trade, but found fewlisteners. Some wanted to punish France severely; others feared that excessive sanctions would do more harm than good. It wasn't all work, though. For months the parties ran late into the night, and the delegates played Musical Bedchambers with various women. Then Napoleon escaped . . . First-rate popular history with obvious contemporary relevance.

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations     vii
List of Maps     xi
Introduction     xiii
The Lion at Bay     1
The Saviour of Europe     15
The Peacemakers     35
A War for Peace     49
Intimate Congress     64
Farce in Prague     82
The Play for Germany     98
The First Waltzes     118
A Finger in the Pie     137
Battlefield Diplomacy     151
Paris Triumph     169
Peace     185
The London Round     204
Just Settlements     218
Setting the Stage     238
Points of Order     260
Notes and Balls     280
Kings' Holiday     296
A Festival of Peace     314
Guerre de Plume     329
Political Carrousel     341
Explosive Diplomacy     358
Dance of War     371
War and Peace     385
The Saxon Deal     404
Unfinished Business     420
The Flight of the Eagle     442
The Hundred Days     455
The Road to Waterloo     470
Wellington'sVictory     487
The Punishment of France     499
Last Rites     515
Discordant Concert     531
The Arrest of Europe     550
Notes     571
Bibliography     599
Index     619

Plato or Liberty

Plato: The Republic, Volume 6, Books 6-10 (Loeb Classical Library)

Author: Plato

Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BCE. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates' execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of 'advanced' democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates' mind fused with Plato's thought.

In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city's thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology (not a dialogue), Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness (and involves education, equality of the sexes, the structure of society, and abolition of slavery). Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory ofknowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato's last work of the twelve books of Laws (Socrates is absent from it), a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes.

New interesting book: The Differentiated Network Organizing Multinational Corporations for Value Creation or Financial Management

Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

Author: Isaiah Berlin

Liberty is a revised and expanded edition of the book that Isaiah Berlin regarded as his most important--Four Essays on Liberty, a standard text of liberalism, constantly in demand and constantly discussed since it was first published in 1969. Writing in Harper's, Irving Howe described it as "an exhilarating performance--this, one tells oneself, is what the life of the mind can be." Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has revised the text, incorporating a fifth essay that Berlin himself had wanted to include. He has also added further pieces that bear on the same topic, so that Berlin's principal statements on liberty are at last available together in one volume. Finally, in an extended preface and in appendices drawn from Berlin's unpublished writings, he exhibits some of the biographical sources of Berlin's lifelong preoccupation with liberalism. These additions help us to grasp the nature of Berlin's "inner citadel," as he called it--the core of personal conviction from which some of his most influential writing sprang.

Table of Contents:

The Editor's Tale

Five Essays on Liberty

Introduction

Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century

Historical Inevitability

Two Concepts of Liberty

John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life

From Hope and Fear Set Free

Other Writings on Liberty

Liberty

The Birth of Greek Individualism

Final Retrospect

Autobiographical Appendices

The Purpose Justifies the Ways

A Letter to George Kennan

Notes on Prejudice

Berlin and his Critics by Ian Harris

Index

War and Decision or The Seventeen Traditions

War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism

Author: Douglas J Feith

Of all the players in the planning and evolution of the Bush Administration's war on terrorism, few were more integral -- or more controversial -- than Douglas Feith, the chief strategist on Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon policy team. A highly influential international policy analyst for more than a quarter century before joining the Bush Administration in 2001, Feith worked closely with Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Cheney, and President Bush in defining the U.S. response to the attacks of 9/11 -- from the successful war on Afghanistan to the more challenging invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Now, in this candid and revealing memoir, Feith -- a founding member of the "neoconservative" movement and an architect of the administration's preventive strategy in the war on terrorism -- offers the most in-depth and authoritative account yet of the Pentagon's evolving stance during one of the most controversial eras of American history. Drawing upon a unique trove of documents and records, this extraordinary chronicle will put the reader in the room for scores of previously unreported senior-level meetings, showing how hundreds of critical decisions were made in defense of American interests during and after the crisis of 9/11 -- decisions both successful and controversial. Where journalists like Bob Woodward could only speculate, Feith is the first inside player to reveal the inner workings of the Pentagon, at a time when history hung in the balance.

As the political battles over Iraq and the Bush administration surge onward, one thing has been missing: A fair and accurate assessment of how the battles were joined, from inside the team that planned them. With this exceptional work of history, Douglas Feith contributes the only thing that can change the course of the debate: the truth.

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The Seventeen Traditions

Author: Ralph Nader

By the legendary activist and humanitarian: A surprising and moving look back at a small-town family and the traditions that shaped a childhood.

Ralph Nader is known for his lifetime of progressive activism and fearless critique of corruption in American politics and society. Yet in this fresh and inspiring new book, Nader takes a look backward - at a serene and enriching childhood spent in bucolic Winsted, Connecticut, and at the traditions he absorbed within his family. From listening to learning, from patriotism to argument, from work to simple enjoyment, Nader revisits seventeen traditions he learned from his parents, his siblings, and the people in his community, and draws from them inspiring lessons for today's society. Blending memoir and thoughtful inspiration, Nader offers readers a chance to look back on a time in American history when the family and the natural world were central in a child's understanding of how to be a conscientious adult.

Among the seventeen traditions he celebrates:

* The Tradition of Listening
* The Tradition of Charity
* The Tradition of Civics
* The Tradition of Work
* The Tradition of Patriotism
* The Tradition of Simple Enjoyment

In his warmest and most personal writing to date, Nader fondly describes his father's restaurant business and how it taught him about work, community and how to share in the spirits of others; the value of his mother's ethnic cooking and how it defined his relationship with his heritage, and the hours he spent as a child wondering through the undeveloped forests of Connecticut where he learned the value of solitude. In doing so, he reawakens our own memories of the blessings of a simpler time-and of the enduring values of family, community, and love that gave him the courage to lead a meaningful life.

La agonia erotica or Pasteurs Quadrant Basic Science and Technological Innovation

La agonia erotica: De Bolivar, el amor y la muerte

Author: Victor Paz Otero

Of all possible literary histories, none reveals its subject more intimately than the epistolary, as is made evident in this collection of love letters written by Simón Bolívar to Manuelita Sáenz. The liberator and founding father of a good portion of Latin America, Bolívar was also a heartened and bold warrior in love—in the arms of his lover Bolívar found his only refuge from the war surrounding him.   De todos los medios posibles de entender la historia, ninguno encierra tanta intimidad como las cartas, una observación que está muy evidente en esta colección de cartas de amor escritas por Simón Bolívar para su querida Manuelita Sáenz. El libertador de América, Bolívar fue también un aguerrido combatiente en el amor que desafió las convenciones de la guerra y la sociedad, para encontrar en los brazos de Manuelita Sáenz el último refugio en medio de una guerra.

Interesting book: Le Secteur À but non lucratif :un Manuel de Recherche

Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation

Author: Donald E Stokes

The author recasts the widely accepted view of the tension between scientific understanding and use and builds a convincing case that by recognizing the importance of use-inspired basic research, we can frame a new contract between science and government.

Lion in the White House or The Boys from Dolores

Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt

Author: Aida D Donald

New York State Assemblyman, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, Vice President and, at forty-two, the youngest President ever—in his own words, Theodore Roosevelt “rose like a rocket.” He was also a cowboy, a soldier, a historian, an intrepid explorer, and an unsurpassed environmentalist. In Lion in the White House, historian Aida Donald masterfully chronicles the life of this first modern president.

TR’s accomplishments in office were immense. As President, Roosevelt redesigned the office of Chief Executive and the workings of the Republican Party to meet the challenges of the new industrial economy. Believing that the emerging aristocracy of wealth represented a genuine threat to democracy, TR broke trusts to curb the rapacity of big business. He built the Panama Canal and engaged the country in world affairs, putting a temporary end to American isolationism. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize—the only sitting president ever so honored.

Throughout his public career, TR fought valiantly to steer the GOP back to its noblest ideals as embodied by Abraham Lincoln. Alas, his hopes for his party were quashed by the GOP’s strong rightward turn in the years after he left office. But his vision for America lives on.

In lapidary prose, this concise biography recounts the courageous life of one of the greatest leaders our nation has ever known.

Publishers Weekly

In this brisk biography, Donald, former editor-in-chief of Harvard University Press, ascribes Teddy Roosevelt's popularity to his combination of charisma and substance; he was an "electrical, magnetic" speaker, according to one contemporary newspaper account, and he hit themes that resonated with ordinary folks, such as honesty in government and opportunity for all. In the White House, Roosevelt established a model of "positive, active governance" and insisted that the president was more powerful than any business tycoon. Donald pays particular attention to Roosevelt's pioneering conservancy efforts, and she suggests that one of his most important acts was to appoint Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to the Supreme Court. Donald also touches on the personal: his grief when his first wife died, and his passionate love for his second wife, with whom he set a new standard for presidential domestic life, entertaining with a gusto unmatched until the Kennedys. The book is refreshingly slim, but sometimes-as in the brief discussion of Roosevelt's appointments of African-Americans to government jobs-one wishes for more. Indeed, there's not much here that readers won't find in other studies of Roosevelt, but Donald's swift prose makes this a satisfying read. Photos. History Book Club main selection.(Nov.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

William D. Pederson - Library Journal

Donald (former editor in chief, Harvard Univ. Press) here provides an accessible biography of Theodore Roosevelt (TR), who is receiving renewed attention during the centennial of his presidency (1901-09). America's last Renaissance president, TR led multiple lives: he was a rancher, soldier, historian, explorer, conservationist, hunter, and politician. Most scholars rank him at the top of the near-great presidents. Donald, who only briefly notes his faults, ranks him even higher. She not only shows how he propelled the United States from provincial status into a world power but also sheds light on how much he identified with his chief political hero, Abraham Lincoln. TR, who was given a ring by Lincoln's former private secretary to wear during his inauguration, often tried to define Lincoln as a progressive, a concept his Republican Party rejected. Ironically, it was TR's distant nephew Franklin who patterned his political life on TR to such a degree that Lincoln eventually morphed into a New Deal Democrat. Donald's account, although covering familiar territory, will appeal to a broad array of readers, both those already admiring the man and those new to him.

Kirkus Reviews

A compact biography of the genuine cowboy president. Donald undertakes a daunting task: compressing the crowded life of Theodore Roosevelt into fewer than 300 pages, where any year-indeed, almost any episode (see Candice Millard's thrilling The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, 2005)-merits book-length treatment. Donald offers glimpses of Roosevelt in his many guises: the sickly youth, the Harvard swell, the cowboy rancher, the frontier deputy sheriff, the amateur scientist, the historian and author, the avid hunter and explorer, the conservationist, the Rough Rider, the devoted family man. She pays a bit more attention to his deeds in public office, from his early days as an Albany legislator, to his term as civil-service commissioner under Presidents Harrison and Cleveland, to his stint as police commissioner of New York City. She turns a larger spotlight on Roosevelt the assistant secretary of the navy, the New York governor, the McKinley vice president and, of course, the inventor of the modern presidency. Donald duly notes Roosevelt's magnificent public deeds-storming San Juan Hill, busting the trusts, launching the Great White Fleet, building the Panama Canal, waging the valiant Bull Moose campaign-and takes care also to mark his failures-his mishandling of the Brownsville, Texas, army affair and his failure to challenge the 1902 Chinese Exclusion Act. Indeed, no important aspect of the life goes unexplored, but the galloping pace leaves little time for the color this subject demands. Donald fares much better with her sensitive and informed discussion of Roosevelt's political philosophy. She ably demonstrates how his life shaped his public policy, how he actedwisely and moderately on a reformist agenda and how Lincoln's example informed his presidency, the high watermark of Republican progressivism. His increasingly "radical" positions-actually nothing more than an extension of his abiding belief in the efficacy of active government-finally alienated him from the Party he so briefly defined. Although readers seeking rich detail, a portrait in full, will continue to consult Edmund Morris's exquisite two-volume biography, Donald's work serves as a fair introduction to Roosevelt's life and a fine appreciation of his politics.

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The Boys from Dolores: Fidel Castro's Classmates from Revolution to Exile

Author: Patrick Symmes

From the author of Chasing Che, the remarkable tale of a group of boys at the heart of Cuba's political and social history. The Boys from Dolores illuminates the elite island society from which Fidel Castro and his brother Raul emerged.
The Colegio de Dolores was a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago, Cuba's rich and ancient second city, where Fidel and Raul were educated in the 1930s and '40s. Patrick Symmes begins his story here, tracking down dozens of Fidel's schoolmates glimpsed in a single period photograph. And it is through their stories--their time at the Colegio; the catastrophic effects of the revolution on their lives; their fates since--that Symmes opens a door onto a Cuba, and a time in Castro’s life, that have been deliberately obscured from us. Here too is the elusive Raúl Castro, a cipher destined to rule Cuba in Fidel’s place.
We see Castro in his formative youth, an adolescent ruling the classrooms of the Colegio and running in the streets of Santiago. Symmes traces the years in which the revolution was conceived, won, and lost, describing the changes it wrought in Santiago and in the lives of Fidel’s own classmates: we follow them through the maelstrom of the 1960s, as most fight to leave Cuba and a few stay behind. And here, in Santiago today, Symmes finds Castro’s most lasting achievement, the creating and sustaining of a myth-soaked revolutionary idealism amid the harshest realities of daily life.
Wholly original in its approach, The Boys from Dolores is a powerfully evocative, eye-opening portrait of Cuba--and of the Castro brothers--in the twentieth century.

The New York Times - William Grimes

Patrick Symmes, the author of Chasing Che, returns to Cuba in fine style with The Boys From Dolores. Sneaking up on his subject sideways, he uses the Colegio de Dolores and its graduates as the starting point for creating an atmospheric, richly evocative history of modern Cuba: the Cuba that produced Fidel; the Cuba that might have been, had the Dolorinos and their ideals prevailed; and the sorry, compromised Cuba of today, charismatic even in decay…Mr. Symmes digs like a reporter and writes like a novelist. As he makes his rounds, chasing down leads, pestering recalcitrant Cuban bureaucrats, grabbing his opportunities when they come, keeping his eyes and ears open all the time, he accumulates a fat dossier of vivid impressions. These feed into extended dramatic scenes and lightning-quick vignettes…

The New York Times Book Review - Guy Martin

…[a] masterly account of Cuba's pathology…Symmes has luxuriously researched this book over a period of years, commuting to Havana and Miami to track down the people with the goods. He's also a rarity among journalists, humorous and wise enough to report the historiographical obstacles he faced. As a result, he brings us a ground truth, apolitical in the best sense, and a great depth of vision.

The Washington Post - Wendy Gimbel

"Symmes is a staccato historian, a storyteller on speed. One minute he's dancing at Santiago's Carnaval, and suddenly he's flying on a rickety plane to an interview in Puerto Rico. Now he's climbing four flights of crumbling stairs in Havana, and, at the Dolorinos' reunion, he's doing an exuberant cha cha cha. But Symmes is also a superb journalist. His interviews with the Dolorinos form a priceless archive of the Cuban diaspora and argue for the importance of the storyteller's art."

Boyd Childress - Library Journal

Castro's tale has been told from all angles, but journalist Symmes (Chasing Che) attacks from a new direction. The author writes of Castro's schoolmates from Dolores, the private Jesuit academy in Santiago de Cuba on the island's eastern end, and he visits several of them. Many are in exile, and a handful remain in Cuba. Among the Dolores students were Castro's brothers Raul and Ramon and a future star in North American television, Desi Arnaz. But it is Cuban intellectuals like Lundy Aguilar to whom Symmes turns for insights into Cuba before and after Castro's revolution. The result is a remarkable account of the country and its people. The lengthy chapter on the Bay of Pigs and its aftermath is evocative and powerful, easily the equal of any contemporary writings on Cuba. The book certainly dispels the myth of a romantic revolution with egalitarian goals. As Symmes puts it, "Within the Revolution, everything. Outside the Revolution, nothing." Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ3/15/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

A searching story of Cuba's revolutionary generation, now almost gone. There was a time when Fidel Castro was a guileless schoolboy, one who in 1940 wrote to Franklin Roosevelt and asked for a handout: "[I]f you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them." It is worth considering that Castro soon complained, "The Americans are assholes. I asked for ten dollars and they didn't send me a cent," the birth of a lifelong grudge. With his classmates at Colegio de Dolores, an elite Jesuit school, Castro learned revolutionary discipline if not revolutionary politics; indeed, said one of those classmates many years later, "To think and work. That's what they taught. Some learned it, others didn't. The pre-revolutionary society owed a lot to the Jesuits." The famed, ill-fated attack on the Moncada Barracks took place just a few blocks from the school; when Castro and his brother Raul fled the scene, it was down familiar alleys. One by one, their classmates left, even as other intellectual admirers streamed in to join the revolution; a Cuban who stayed for a time after the revolution, Guillermo Cabrera Infante was shocked when a visiting Turkish writer who had spent years in prison warned him that his turn was coming, that dictatorship was looming, as the heartbroken exiles knew. It's a strange dictatorship at that: Symmes (Chasing Che, 2000) observes that in Castro's Cuba everyone can read, but almost no one is allowed to. And when Fidel dies, as most of his classmates already have? Then Raul-whose classmates nicknamed him La Pulgita, the little flea-will take charge. Notes theauthor: "If he has any instinct for survival, he will announce the day after Fidel's funeral that nothing is going to change, and then start changing everything."Essential for Cuba watchers.

Domination and the Arts of Resistance or The God Strategy

Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts

Author: James C Scott

The purpose of this book is to suggest how we might more successfully read, interpret, and understand the often fugitive political conduct of subordinate groups. A comparison of the hidden transcript of the weak with that of the powerful and of both hidden transcripts to the public transcript of power relations offers a substantially new way of understanding resistance to domination.

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The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America

Author: David Scott Domk

In The God Strategy, David Domke and Kevin Coe offer a timely and dynamic study of the rise of religion in American politics, examining the public messages of political leaders over the past seventy-five years--from the 1932 election of Franklin Roosevelt to the early stages of the 2008 presidential race. They conclude that U.S. politics today is defined by a calculated, deliberate, and partisan use of faith that is unprecedented in modern politics.
Sectarian influences and expressions of faith have always been part of American politics, the authors observe, but a profound change occurred beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. What has developed since is a no-holds-barred religious politics that seeks to attract voters, identify and attack enemies, and solidify power. Domke and Coe identify a set of religious signals sent by both Republicans and Democrats in speeches, party platforms, proclamations, visits to audiences of faith, and even celebrations of Christmas. Sometimes these signals are intended for the eyes and ears of all Americans, and other times they are distinctly targeted to specific segments of the population. It's an approach that has been remarkably successful, utilized first and most extensively by the Republican Party to capture unprecedented power and then adopted by the Democratic Party, most notably by Bill Clinton in the 1990s and by a wide range of Democrats in the 2006 elections.
"For U.S. politicians today, having faith isn't enough; it must be displayed, carefully and publicly. This is a stark transformation in recent decades," write Domke and Coe. With innovative, accessible research and analytical verve, they document how thishas occurred, who has done it and why, and what it means for the American experiment in democracy.

L. Kriz - Library Journal

Religion has always been a part of the political subtext in the United States, but it is now a defining fault line, with Democratic and Republican leaders undertaking partisan use of faith. Domke and Coe, both in communication programs at universities, use texts of presidential speeches and other documents to show how politicians craft text to demonstrate their idea of religious faith. Asserting that the turning point for political religious language started with Ronald Reagan in 1981, the authors analyze and graph the language of faith and God of presidents from the 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the beginnings of the 2008 presidential race. Their findings are part of the "God strategy" in which the nation is invoked, set apart, renewed, and sanctified with God's blessings in speeches. The conclusion: except for the malaise in the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the remaining presidents-Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush-have reached new heights in speaking the language of faith and fusing God and country. A worthy work for most libraries presenting a new way to listen to the presidential speeches in the upcoming election.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: A New Religious Politics     3
One Nation under God, Divisible     11
Political Priests     29
God and Country     49
Acts of Communion     71
Morality Politics     99
Religious Politics and Democratic Vitality     129
Epilogue: Act II     151
Acknowledgments     157
Notes     159
Index     225

Chomsky Foucault Debate or Treason

Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature

Author: Noam Chomsky

In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world's leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by Dutch philosopher Fons Edlers to debate an age-old question: is there such a thing as "innate" human nature independent of our experiences and external influences?

What People Are Saying

"[Chomsky is] arguably the most important intellectual alive."
---THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Foucault . . . leaves no reader untouched or unchanged."
---EDWARD SAID

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Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

Author: Ann Coulter

Liberals' loyalty to the United States is off-limits as a subject of political debate. Why is the relative patriotism of the two parties the only issue that is out of bounds for rational discussion?"

In a stunning follow-up to her number one bestseller Slander, leading conservative pundit Ann Coulter contends that liberals have been wrong on every foreign policy issue, from the fight against Communism at home and abroad, the Nixon and the Clinton presidencies, and the struggle with the Soviet empire right up to today's war on terrorism. "Liberals have a preternatural gift for always striking a position on the side of treason," says Coulter. "Everyone says liberals love America, too. No, they don't." From Truman to Kennedy to Carter to Clinton, America has contained, appeased, and retreated, often sacrificing America's best interests and security. With the fate of the world in the balance, liberals should leave the defense of the nation to conservatives.

Reexamining the sixty-year history of the Cold War and beyond-including the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss affair, Ronald Reagan's challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," the Gulf War, and our present war on terrorism-Coulter reveals how liberals have been horribly wrong in all their political analyses and policy prescriptions. McCarthy, exonerated by the Venona Papers if not before, was basically right about Soviet agents working for the U.S. government. Hiss turned out to be a high-ranking Soviet spy (who consulted Roosevelt at Yalta). Reagan, ridiculed throughout his presidency, ended up winning the Cold War. And George W. Bush, also an object of ridicule, has performed exceptionally in responding to America's newest threats at home and abroad.

Coulter, who in Slander exposed a liberal bias in today's media, also examines how history, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century, has been written by liberals and, therefore, distorted by their perspective. Far from being irrelevant today, her clearheaded and piercing view of what we've been through informs us perfectly for challenges today and in the future.

The New Yorker

Coulter's thesis has the force of simplicity: liberals detest America and prefer to side with the "Third World savages" who attack it. In her view, American critics of the War on Terror are the intellectual progeny of the Soviet sympathizers rooted out by Senator McCarthy and HUAC. Joe Stalin may have given way to Osama Bin Laden, but the fellow-traveling habit is unchanged. The result is a strangely lopsided book, which spends a lot of time going over ground -- the Venona transcripts, Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs -- that has been well covered in recent years and asserting, for the umpteenth time, the guilt of people whom few liberals today would try to defend. Coulter does better when sending up the post-colonial pieties of liberals and "their cheese-tasting friends," and probably owes her widespread popularity more to her skill as a social satirist than to any real acumen as a political commentator.

Table of Contents:

1	Fifty years of treason	1
2	Alger Hiss, liberal darling	17
3	No Communists here!	35
4	The indispensable Joe McCarthy	55
5	Victims of McCarthyism - the liberals' Mayflower	73
6	But were there Communists in the State Department?	95
7	Vietnam: oh, how they Miss Saigon	125
8	How Truman won the Cold War during the Reagan administration	145
9	Liberals in love: MASH notes to the Kremlin	167
10	Cold War epitaph: the Hiss affair at the end of the Cold War	191
11	Neville Chamberlain had his reasons, too: trembling in the shadow of Brie	203
12	North Korea - another opportunity for surrender	231
13	Celebrity traitors: "Now that I'm sober I watch a lot of news"	245
14	Modern McCarthyism: this is what it meant in the fifties, too	259
	Conclusion: why they hate us	285
	Notes	293
	Index	341

Crimes Against Nature or Secrets

Crimes Against Nature

Author: Jr Robert F Kennedy

In this powerful and far-reaching indictment of George W. Bush's White House, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the country's most prominent environmental attorney, charges that this administration has taken corporate cronyism to such unprecedented heights that it now threatens our health, our national security, and democracy as we know it. In a headlong pursuit of private profit and personal power, Kennedy writes, George Bush and his administration have eviscerated the laws that have protected our nation's air,water, public lands, and wildlife for the past thirty years, enriching the president's political contributors whilelowering the quality of life for the rest of us.

Kennedy lifts the veil on how the administration has orchestrated these rollbacks almost entirely outside of public scrutiny -- and in tandem with the very industries that our laws are meant to regulate, the country's most notorious polluters. He writes of how it has deceived the public by manipulating and suppressing scientific data, intimidated enforcement officials and other civil servants, and masked its agenda with Orwellian doublespeak. He reports on how the White House doles out lavish subsidies and tax breaks to the energy barons while excusing industry from providing adequate security at the more than 15,000 chemical and nuclear facilities that are prime targets for terrorist attacks. Kennedy reveals an administration whose policies have "squandered our Treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks, and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people."

Crimes Against Nature is ultimately about the corrosive effect of corporate corruption on our core American values -- free-market capitalism and democracy. It is about an administration, the author argues, that has sacrificed respect for the law, public health, scientific integrity, and long-term economic vitality on the altar of corporate greed. It is a book for both Democrats and Republicans, people like the traditionally conservative farmers and fishermen Kennedy represents in lawsuits against polluters. "Without exception," he writes, "these people see the current administration as the greatest threat not just to their livelihoods but to their values, their sense of community, and their idea of what it means to be American."

Interesting book: Cisco CallManager Fundamentals or PowerPoint for Teachers

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Author: Daniel Ellsberg

In 1971 former Cold War hard-liner Daniel Ellsberg made history by releasing the Pentagon Papers-a 7,000-page top-secret study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam-to the New York Times and Washington Post. The document set in motion a chain of events that ended not only the Nixon presidency but the Vietnam War. In this remarkable memoir, Ellsberg describes in dramatic detail the two years he spent in Vietnam as a U.S. State Department observer, and how he came to risk his career and freedom to expose the deceptions and delusions that shaped three decades of American foreign policy. The story of one man's exploration of conscience, Secrets is also a portrait of America at a perilous crossroad.

Howard Zinn

If our nation could absorb its lessons we might all face a better future.

Seymour Hersh

It is a chilling tale of life at the bureaucratic top, and what profound compromises it takes to stay there.

Daniel Schorr

This is an honestly and lucidly told narrative by someone who single-handedly changed the course of history.

John Kerry

[Ellsberg's] story reminds us that to fulfill the responsibilities of citizenship is to always ask questions and demand the truth.

Washington Post - Ben Bagdikian

...written with breathtaking excitement...

Martin Sheen

The most important expose of Washington since the Pentagon Papers themselves, Secrets is essential reading for any American who wants to understand true patriotism.

A. J. Langguth

...timeless...

Publishers Weekly

Ellsberg's transformation from cold warrior and Defense Department analyst to impassioned antiwar crusader who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in June 1971 makes a remarkable and riveting story that still shocks 30 years later. Avoiding, for the most part, self-justification and self-aggrandizement, he clearly relates the experiences that led him to reject as arrogant lies the premises six presidents presented to the public and Congress to secure support for the Vietnam War. He describes the disjunction between what he saw during visits to Vietnam in the early and mid-'60s, driving through dangerous Viet Cong-held territory, and what was told to the press and public. And he recalls his first reading of the classified documents later known as the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the motives, in his view unprincipled, behind American involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg creates page-turning human drama and suspense in both his descriptions of his early experience accompanying U.S. combat missions in Vietnam and his days spent underground evading an FBI manhunt after the Times's publication of the Papers. Another strength of this memoir is Ellsberg's vivid recollections of meetings with prominent policymakers, from Henry Kissinger to Senator William Fulbright, that re-create the deep tensions of the Vietnam era. Ellsberg raises serious ethical questions about how citizens, politicians, the press and officials act when confronted with government actions they consider immoral and perhaps illegal. Ellsberg's own answer is history. (Oct. 14) Forecast: Broad and prominent review coverage is guaranteed, and boomers, especially those who opposed the war, will grab this. But it remains to be seen whether a post-Vietnam generation will be similarly moved.

Foreign Affairs

Ellsberg's memoir recounts the story of how he came to leak the Pentagon Papers (the history of the American intervention in Vietnam) to The New York Times in 1971 and how his subsequent trial unfolded. Ellsberg draws attention to the need for public servants to guard against government mendacity and speak out against reckless policies instead of confining their doubts to safe internal channels. The bulk of the book, however, is a candid and detailed account of Ellsberg's own involvement in the Pentagon's policymaking during the critical years of the Johnson administration and the early deliberations of the Nixon administration. He paints a striking picture of intelligent people persevering and tinkering with a war policy that could never be successful, given the inherent limitations of the U.S. military and its South Vietnamese ally. He also describes the complex interaction between the various forms of opposition to the war as it continued under Richard Nixon, and how the president's fury with Ellsberg's own act of dissent led to Watergate and to the added bonus — in addition to Ellsberg's own acquittal — of Nixon's resignation.

Library Journal

Before leaking the Pentagon Papers, which documented U.S. foreign-policy failures and deceit in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968, Ellsberg was a gung-ho advisor to the State and Defense departments. One fascinating part of this story is his growing disenchantment with the war during these years. He came to believe that leaking the top-secret papers and other classified documents was a patriotic act that could help end the war. Other fascinating aspects of this account include Ellsberg's frustrated attempts to find a member of Congress who would accept and use the papers to build a case against the war as well as his growing role in the antiwar movement. President Nixon failed in his strong-arm tactics to discredit Ellsberg, and the case against him was dismissed because of the illegal break-in at the office of Dr Lewis Fielding, Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Interestingly, Ellsberg speculates that the break-in by Nixon's "Plumbers" was as much an attempt to blackmail Fielding as it was a gambit to stop Ellsberg. The book suffers somewhat from the overabundance of detail and repetition that also flawed Tom Wells's Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg. However, Ellsberg's autobiographical account provides insight into the disturbing abuses of presidential power that plagued the Vietnam/Watergate era. Recommended for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/02.]-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A well-crafted, windmill-tilting autobiography by the famed cold warrior turned antiwar activist. A former Marine officer and civilian employee in Vietnam, Ellsberg knew early on that the war would lead to heartache for America; as early as the fall of 1961, he recalls, he believed "that nothing we were trying to do was working or was likely to get better." Armed with "go-anywhere" clearance and allied with the likes of John Paul Vann (the subject of Neal Sheehan's A Bright, Shining Lie, 1988), Ellsberg had ample opportunities to prove himself right. What is more, he writes here, just about everyone in the American command knew full well that the Vietnam War was a senseless slaughter, the product of think-tankers' fond wishes and blind faith in American might and technological prowess; still, the habitually blundering leadership ignored clear signs of disaster, and when it did, Ellsberg writes, "I foresaw very strong tendencies to try to recoup early failures and break out of a stalemate by expanding the war still further." Determined to bring this folly to a conclusion, Ellsberg, by the late 1960s an analyst for the Rand Corporation, decided to expose more than 7,000 pages of secret material that provided "documentary evidence of lying, by four presidents and their administrations over twenty-three years, to conceal plans and actions of mass murder." When portions of the so-called Pentagon Papers were released by the New York Times and other publications, he writes, sitting president Richard Nixon at first seemed happy to have support for his don't-blame-me argument, then worried that secret documents from his own administration would be leaked to the media-which, Ellsberg writes, set inmotion the chain of spying that ended in the Watergate affair and Nixon's resignation. Throughout, Ellsberg is convinced of the justice of his cause-as will be many of his readers, on seeing the evidence amassed here of the criminality of our recent politics. Thoughtful, full of righteous indignation-rightly so-and likely to be of great interest to students of the Vietnam War and domestic resistance thereto.

Useful Idiots or Monetary Policy Strategy

Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (Harper Perennial Series)

Author: Mona Charen

Meet the "Useful Idiots" Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Madeleine Albright, Katie Couric, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, and all the other liberals who were -- and are -- always willing to blame America first and defend its enemies as simply "misunderstood."

Now that the Cold War has been won, these liberals, amazingly, are proud to claim credit for the victory -- conveniently forgetting their apologies for the Communists and their spluttering attacks on Cold Warriors like Ronald Reagan.

But nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen isn't about to let them rewrite history. From politicians and professors to entertainers and journalists, she exposes the useful idiots for all the world to see in this arresting New York Times bestseller.

I prayed that such a book would be written but doubted anything so wonderfully readable and instructive at the same time would come along. But here is Mona Charen's great explication of the central conflict of our times.—National Review

Publishers Weekly

Syndicated columnist and CNN commentator Charen offers a moral indictment of those public figures-politicians, entertainers and professors-who, she says, stubbornly refused to see communism for what it was: a brutal, dictatorial death machine. Throughout the Cold War, some public figures and activists cheered the Communist movement and berated America for its capitalist ways. Famous actors traveled to Cuba to smoke a cigar with their favorite dictator; posters of Che Guevara, Castro's military leader, adorned college dorms during the '60s; the Soviet Union was praised and defended for its social progress. Charen particularly singles out the media as having played a significant role in distributing tendentious if not false accounts of world events. One example tells of Katie Couric's visit to Cuba in 1992. Upon her return, according to Charen, Couric raved about Cuba's "terrific health-care system," but uttered not a word about the men and women detained in Cuban prisons. The author highlights the kind of historical revisionism and self-hatred that marked some of America's most noted public figures and warns that the lessons learned from communism are just as relevant today. The tragedy of September 11, Charen says, has produced a cadre of left-leaning pundits who wasted no time in blaming America for the violence perpetrated by terrorism. Charen is operating as a polemicist here, and some readers will object to her tarring all liberals with the same brush. But there is a strong market for conservative polemics today, and many readers will cheer Charen on. (Mar. 1) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction to the Perennial Edition
	Introduction: None Dare Call It Victory	1
Ch. 1	The Brief Interlude of Unanimity on Communism	11
Ch. 2	The Consensus Unravels	23
Ch. 3	The Bloodbath	55
Ch. 4	The Mother of All Communists: American Liberals and Soviet Russia	77
Ch. 5	Fear and Trembling	119
Ch. 6	Each New Communist Is Different	171
Ch. 7	Post-Communist Blues	231
	Epilogue	259
	Notes	265
	Acknowledgments	287
	Index	291

Go to: Nicht Behaltene Versprechungen: Armut und Der Verrat der Entwicklung der Dritten Welt

Monetary Policy Strategy

Author: Frederic S Mishkin

This book by a leading authority on monetary policy offers a unique view of the subject from the perspectives of both scholar and practitioner. Frederic Mishkin is not only an academic expert in the field but also has been a high-level policymaker. He is especially well positioned to discuss the changes in the conduct of monetary policy in recent years, in particular the turn to inflation targeting. Monetary Policy Strategy describes his work over the last ten years, offering published papers, new introductory material, and a summing up, "Everything You Wanted to Know about Monetary Policy Strategy, But Were Afraid to Ask," which reflects on what we have learned about monetary policy over the last thirty years.

Mishkin blends theory, empirical evidence, and extensive case studies of monetary policy in advanced and emerging market and transition economies. Throughout, his focus is on these key areas: the importance of price stability and a nominal anchor; fiscal and financial preconditions for achieving price stability; central bank independence as an additional precondition; central bank accountability; the rationale for inflation targeting; the optimal inflation target; central bank transparency and communication; and the role of asset prices in monetary policy.

Six Great Ideas or Arts Inc

Six Great Ideas

Author: Mortimer Jerome Adler

Each summer, Mortimer J. Adler conducts a seminar at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. At the 1981 seminar, leaders from the worlds of business, literature, education, and the arts joined him in an in-depth consideration of the six great ideas that are the subject of this book: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty - the ideas we judge by; and Liberty, Equality and Justice - the ideas we act on. The group discussions and conversations between Dr. Adler and journalist Bill Moyers were filmed for broadcast on public television, and thousands of people followed their exploration of these important ideas. Discarding the out-worn and off-putting jargon of academia, Dr. Adler dispels the myth that philosophy is the exclusive province of the specialist. He argues that "philosophy is everybody's business," and that a better understanding of these fundamental concepts is essential if we are to cope with the political, moral, and social issues that confront us daily.

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Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights

Author: Bill Ivey

In this impassioned and persuasive book, Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America. In eight succinct chapters, Ivey blends personal and professional memoir, policy analysis, and deeply held convictions to explore and define a coordinated vision for art, culture, and expression in American life.

Table of Contents:

The Cultural Bill of Rights     ix
Preface     xi
Introduction     1
Heritage     27
Artists     57
A Creative Life     94
America, Art, and the World     124
Art of Lasting Value     155
Strong, Responsible Institutions     184
The Failure of Government     222
Conclusion: Bridging the Cultural Divide     261
Acknowledgments     297
Notes     299
Bibliography     323
Index     329

Cold War or The Challenge

Cold War

Author: Robert J McMahon

The massive disorder and economic ruin following the Second World War inevitably predetermined the scope and intensity of the Cold War. But why did it last so long? And what impact did it have on the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, and the Third World? Finally, how did it affect the broader history of the second half of the twentieth century--what were the human and financial costs? This Very Short Introduction provides a clear and stimulating interpretive overview of the Cold War, one that will both invite debate and encourage deeper investigation.

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	List of illustrations
	List of maps
1	World War II and the destruction of the old order	1
2	The origins of the Cold War in Europe, 1945-50	16
3	Towards 'Hot War' in Asia, 1945-50	35
4	A global Cold War, 1950-8	56
5	From confrontation to detente, 1958-68	78
6	Cold wars at home	105
7	The rise and fall of superpower detente, 1968-79	122
8	The final phase, 1980-90	143
	Further reading	169
	Index	175

Interesting textbook: New Holland Professional or Down That Aisle in Style

The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power

Author: Jonathan Mahler

An inspiring legal thriller set against the backdrop of the war on terror, The Challenge tells the inside story of a historic Supreme Court showdown. At its center are a Navy JAG and a young constitutional law professor who, in the aftermath of 9/11, find themselves defending their nation in the unlikeliest of ways: by suing the president of the United States on behalf of an accused terrorist in order to prevent the American government from breaking the law and violating the Constitution.  

Jonathan Mahler traces the journey of their client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, from the Yemeni mosque where he was first recruited for jihad in 1998, through his years working as a driver for Osama bin Laden, to his capture in Afghanistan in November 2001 and his subsequent transfer to Guantanamo Bay. It was there that Hamdan was designated by President Bush to be tried before a special military tribunal and assigned a military lawyer to represent him, a thirty-five-year-old graduate student of the Naval Academy, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift.                      

No one expected Swift to mount much of a defense. Not only were the rules of the tribunals, America’s first in more than fifty years, stacked against him, his superiors at the Pentagon were pressuring him to persuade Hamdan to plead guilty. But Swift didn’t believe that the tribunals were either legal or fair, so he enlisted a young Georgetown law professor named Neal Katyal to help him sue the Bush administration over their legality. In the spring of 2006, Katyal, who had almost no trial experience,took the case to the Supreme Court and won. The landmark ruling has been called the Court’s most important decision ever on presidential power and the rule of law. 

Written with the cooperation of Swift and Katyal, The Challenge follows the braided stories of Swift’s intense, precarious relationship with Hamdan and the unprecedented legal case itself. Combining rich character portraits and courtroom drama reminiscent of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action with sophisticated yet accessible legal analysis, The Challenge is a riveting narrative that illuminates some of the most pressing constitutional questions of the post-9/11 era.

The New York Times - Jonathan Turley

With an engaging writing style and eye to detail, Mr. Mahler…takes the reader through Mr. Hamdan's evolution from a street urchin to one of a handful of "high value" enemy combatants…The Challenge is not just a very readable account of an important case. It is also an intimate account of the lawyers who overcame personal conflicts, animus and flaws to produce a decision for the ages. It is an intriguing tale of how a unique convergence of personalities propelled an unlikely dabab driver from Yemen to international prominence.

Publishers Weekly

In this account of the momentous Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Mahler (Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning) profiles key figures of the defense: JAG lawyer Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, constitutional law professor Neal Katyal and the defendant, Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver. The book chronicles this legal odd couple-Swift, the gregarious blowhard, and Katyal, the diligent straight man-as they struggle to keep their client alive in Guantánamo Bay and craft a case challenging the legality of President George W. Bush's military tribunals. The author narrates their burgeoning relationship with each other and their client-in one endearing passage, Swift seeks counseling for his relationship with Hamden at the same time that he seeks therapy to save his marriage. While Mahler skillfully humanizes the characters and institutions at the heart of the case, the book sags under detailed forays into arcane aspects of the American justice system and irrelevant personal vignettes that feel forced and slow the pace. For whatever dramatic tension the book lacks, Mahler amply conveys the heroism of his protagonists. (Aug. 13)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bob Nardini - Library Journal

In the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld(2006), the Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals established by the U.S. government to try its Guantánamo Bay detainees were unconstitutional. Mahler (New York Times magazine; Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning) bases this book largely on interviews with the two principal defense attorneys, Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University constitutional law professor, and Charles Swift, of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps. Mahler does an excellent job of presenting the complex legal issues surrounding the case in a highly readable manner, but at the book's heart are his characterizations of Katyal and Swift and their relationship with each another, with their families, with the military, and with their client, Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni man captured in 2001, as they worked passionately, and against high odds, to win the case. While the book is a great read, its impact may be diluted because the further fate of the military tribunals, and of Hamdan himself, remains unclear, matters of decision in subsequent litigation. Highly recommended for all law, public, and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ4/15/08.]

Kirkus Reviews

Near-exhaustive account of what some Supreme Court watchers consider "the most important decision on presidential power ever."Three days after 9/11, George Bush set in motion a program to try suspected terrorists as war criminals, not civilians, through military tribunals. The tribunals would be convened abroad, not just for security reasons but also to keep strict control over what information could leave the courtroom. An air base in Germany was considered and rejected, lest the Germans "try to exert a degree of authority over the facility," as New York Times Magazine contributor Mahler (Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, 2005) notes. The Marshall Islands and other Pacific outposts lacked sufficient infrastructure. But Guantanamo Bay served well-it was remote from the press, yet accessible to the mainland. Up early for trial was a Yemeni jihadist named Salim Hamdan, initially recruited to go to Tajikistan and join an Islamic insurgency against the Russian-backed government. Instead, he fell in with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and worked as his bodyguard and driver. Captured in the American invasion, Hamdan was transferred to Cuba in December 2003. He made an ideal, low-hanging-fruit kind of defendant, since, among other things, he hadn't been rendered to a third country for interrogation, "which would open the door for his defense attorney to raise questions about his treatment." His defense attorney was a troubled naval officer who both belonged to the ACLU and recognized that he was committing career suicide, and who drew on a wide network of legal allies to press a constitutional case that argued, at its basis, that the president was overstepping the bounds of hisauthority. The argument made for strange allies (Ken Starr, anyone?) and an impressive array of foes, but it worked, convincing even a conservative Supreme Court. Naturally, the military and administration are working to get around the Court's decision, but for a brief moment, Mahler concludes, "the system worked."Though sometimes bogged down in legal minutia, quite understandably, Mahler's fluent account of events is essential reading for students of constitutional law-and anyone concerned with civil rights.