Politics Books - Page 19

Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition

Deborah Stone

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A provocative and rewarding examination of policy making 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Deborah Stone's "Policy Paradox" is an important work in the field of policy analysis. The subtitle is illuminating: "The Art of Political Decision Making." Her takeoff point is the following statement (pages x-xi): "This new field of policy analysis supposedly devoted to improving governance, was based on a profound disgust for the ambiguities and paradoxes of politics. . . . In rational analysis, everything has one and only one meaning." In her own words, she (page xi) ". . .wrote this book to critique the field and to capture, I hope, a more inspiring and humane kind of policy analysis."

Her basic point is that the rational models drawn from economics do not explain very well how policy analysis works. Nor, in her view, should it be the actual model for decision making. She contends that economic rationality often gives way to political reality, to accommodation to conflicting interests, to compromise, to values other than economic efficiency (such as liberty, fairness, and so on).

The introduction opens the book strongly, with Stone noting policy paradoxes, where the economic rational model does not prevail and explain how things work. She argues (page 13) that "each type of policy instrument [e.g., inducements, rules, rights, for example] is a kind of sports arena, each with its peculiar ground rules, within which political conflicts are continued." The first chapter continues the theme, by speaking of the market (economics) and the polis (politics), with a nice table summarizing key points on page 33). She concludes that (page 34) "Problems in the polis are never `solved' in the way that economic needs are met in the market model." Two different realms, and what works in the market may or may not work in the polis.

The book proceeds in three major sections: Part II focuses on broad goals (e.g., equity, efficiency, security, liberty); Part III examines problems (with chapters labeled as follows: symbols, numbers, causes, interests, decisions); Part IV focuses on solutions (or tools or instruments, such as inducements, rules, facts).

In the end, the book examines nicely the tensions between economic rational analysis of policy ideas and the messier but inescapable political process as it addresses policy issues. The reader will be provoked to think about important issues upon encountering Stone's perspective. A very useful work on the bigger picture of policy analysis.

Editorial Review:

Since its debut, Policy Paradox has been widely acclaimed as the most accessible policy text available. Unlike most texts, which treat policy analysis and policy making as different enterprises, Policy Paradox demonstrates that "you can't take politics out of analysis." Through a uniquely rich and comprehensive model, this revised edition continues to show how real-world policy grows out of differing ideals, even definitions, of basic societal goals like security, equality, and liberty. The book also demonstrates how these ideals often conflict in policy implementation. In this revised edition, Stone has added a full-length case study as an appendix, taking up the issue of affirmative action. Clear, provocative, and engaging, Policy Paradox conveys the richness of public policy making and analysis.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Barbara Ehrenreich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1086 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity -- a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything -- from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal -- in quite the same way again.

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, New Edition

Benedict Anderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A new edition of the definitive book on nationalism—over a quarter of a million copies sold worldwide.

Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson's brilliant book on nationalism, forged a new field of study when it first appeared in 1983. Since then it has sold over a quarter of a million copies and is widely considered the most important book on the subject. In this greatly anticipated revised edition, Anderson updates and elaborates on the core question: what makes people live, die and kill in the name of nations? He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was adopted by popular movements in Europe, by imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa, and explores the way communities were created by the growth of the nation-state, the interaction between capitalism and printing, and the birth of vernacular languages-of-state. Anderson revisits these fundamental ideas, showing how their relevance has been tested by the events of the past two decades.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

Elizabeth Kolbert

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

a mind opener 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My grandson mentioned this fascinating and informative book which was a must read for incoming freshman last year at Tulane. I was so impressed when I read it that I have been giving and recommending it for high school graduation gifts.

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book came to us in very good condition and earlier than we expected. Thanks!!

I was not an environmentalist. Now I am. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book will change the way you look at your impact on the world. Whether you consider the environment to be an important issue or not, it is well worth your time to read this short yet powerful book. The world is changing, fast, and it is becoming impossible to reasonably deny that fact. News reports are consistent: the world is warming faster than expected, and the results are found everywhere we look. More powerful hurricanes, ancient glaciers melting, ice caps shriveling, animals extinct and behaviors changing, more powerful storms and floods, longer droughts, incredible fire seasons. These are the signs of a changing climate.

In her Field Notes, Elizabeth Kolbert carefully walks the uninitiated through the spin and bias commonly found when discussing climate change, and sticks with the facts. Though she begins with anecdotal evidence, the claims stack one upon another to create a neat picture, one which clearly shows the many different impacts the warming climate has already made. She quickly reviews other data, from studies which cover a broader scope, but it's the anecdotes--people watching ancient glaciers in their backyards melting away--that will leave an impact and understanding. We are already experiencing the effects of global warming, and those effects will only become more pronounced as we continue down this dangerous path.

My one complaint with this book is that it leaves you with little guidance on what the reader can do to help. What steps can we each take to lessen our impact on the planet?

While "Top 10" lists of steps to lower your CO2 emissions are common online and in print, it takes more than a switch to CFLs or a hybrid car to really make a difference. It takes a conscious effort to reduce, conserve, reuse. Energy efficiency is more than switching one inefficient device for a more efficient one. These steps help, but more is necessary to reduce, if not reverse, the damage that will be done over the coming decades. It's time to consider alternatives. Instead of air conditioning in the spring or fall, why not open a window and use a ceiling or desk fan? Instead of buying that hybrid car you've been eying, why not keep your current car and start bicycling for all trips within 3-4 miles? Turn off your computers at night! Keep your tires inflated to the proper PSI, and your engine properly tuned! Buy less meat (the average American eats far too much as it is) and buy more local produce. These are some real steps, among many more, that you can take to reduce your negative impact on the environment. We do not have to turn back the industrial clock 100 years to reduce our impact on the environment...we only need to be more efficient in how we use the new technologies of the last century. In time, new developments such as renewable energy will catch up with the problem of global warming, but it's up to us to ensure the impact of our current lifestyle does not leave an unnecessary burden for future generations.

Editorial Review:

Long known for her insightful and thought-provoking political journalism, author Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial and increasingly urgent subject of global warming. In what began as groundbreaking three-part series in the New Yorker, for which she won a National Magazine Award in 2006, Kolbert cuts through the competing rhetoric and political agendas to elucidate for Americans what is really going on with the global environment and asks what, if anything, can be done to save our planet. Now updated and with a new afterword, Field Notes from a Catastrophe is the book to read on the defining issue and greatest challenge of our times.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers)

Harriet Jacobs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very Valuable 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am a slow to moderate reader, but read this in 3 days.

Jacobs compiled something of which I did know existed, a real first hand account of slavery. She depicts the plight of her life in North Carolina, and also that of fellow slaves.

The depictions of the owners shows some to be generous and others to be horrible, such as when her mistress makes a point to spit in all the dinner pots when they are empty as a means to detract the slaves from scraping anything of them together to eat themselves. When I first read this I was thinking, 'what's a little spit to a hungry malnourished person?' but to think of the contrast of Southern gentility with the effort this horrible bitch put into dragging out the most horrendous mucous she could just to detract another that she claimed from nourishment is beyond me.

Furthermore, there is another scene where Jacobs' aunt passes away, and the mistress, whom the aunt raised and raised the children of, does not know what she will do without her sleeping outside her door any longer. The inhumanity and the lengths that happened over 3 generations of ownership is a must know for all Americans.

I recommend this book highly and hope that this review does bring it into new hands.

Editorial Review:

Published in 1861, this book is one of the last of many slave narratives published before the Civil War; it is also one of the few existing narratives written by a woman. As such it offers a unique perspective on the complex plight of the black woman as slave and as writer. Merging the conventions of the slave narrative with the techniques of the sentimental novel, Harriet Jacobs describes her efforts to fight off the advances of her master, her eventual liaison with another white man, the father of her two children, and her ultimately successful struggle for freedom.

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

Studs Terkel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Life-altering perspectives 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book changed my life. I read it when it was new, at a time when I was becoming incredibly discontent in my first real career position job. What struck me about the people in this book was that almost all of them are busy doing work they don't really care for, and which many of them downright hate. They feel trapped and are unhappy, but they stick at it because they have bills to pay. The people who in contrast were doing work that they *loved* had a magical time of it. They were also few and far between. After I read this I questioned why people choose to make themselves unhappy at work they hate, when they could (as we say these days but didn't, then) "follow their bliss" and find what gives them joy. I have never looked at work the same way since, and the insights I gained from this book gave me the courage to leave a bad situation in order to find a better path to fulfillment. This is an amazing work of oral history, and the love work/hate work issue is just as relevant today.

Editorial Review:

Studs Terkel records the voices of America. Men and women from every walk of life talk to him, telling him of their likes and dislikes, fears, problems, and happinesses on the job. Once again, Terkel has created a rich and unique document that is as simple as conversation, but as subtle and heartfelt as the meaning of our lives.... In the first trade paperback edition of his national bestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel presents "the real American experience" (Chicago Daily News)--"a magnificent book . . .. A work of art. To read it is to hear America talking." (Boston Globe).

In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection

Massad F. Ayoob

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Including brief critiques of "The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery: and "The Ayoob Files" 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Written by Mr. Ayoob in 1880, "The Gravest Extreme" remains my favorite book by this author. I am including a very brief overview of a couple of his other books, which frankly don't seem they were written by the same author. Is it possible we have a ghostwriter at work here? Yes, that's it! Now all we have to figure out is what the ghostwriter wrote and what Mr. Ayoob wrote, although what point that would serve is beyond me.

"The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery" has, I believe, the most information in the various facets of handgunnery, but then it by far has the most pictures. If we multiple all those pictures by 1000 words, it is easy to see why it contains practically encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.

"The Ayoob Files: the Book" easily is rated dead last. It not only contains very few pictures, but many of those it does have tend toward the gruesome side. This is not necessarily bad since we are learning to blow sinew from bone and dynamic from adynamic organs. But when it is simply done to add some hot pink to the cover and chapter headings, one has to question Mr. Ayoob's taste.

The best of the lot, though as already stated not as informational, is "In the Gravest Extreme". Personally I like books with puns in their titles. If you do not, perhaps you are not fit to own a handgun. Anyways, moving right along, I have misplaced my copy of the book. Maybe those of you who have your copy nearby can refresh my memory about what it contains. I know there is a dirth of photos. We have seen this can be good and bad.

I seem to remember a chapter on trying to act the hotshot, rather than run the hell away, and attempt to aid the officer in his duties for which he may shoot you.

Then there is a chapter explaining what a sad state of affairs you are in if your home is invaded successfully. I seem to recall that all your second story family should jump up on thier beds to help prevent bullets from penetrating the mattress followed by their persons. By all means have a safe room. Better yet rent the movie, so you can pause it, write down details of building a safe safe room, and the like.

If all this fails, throw a matchbook covered in a ten dollar bill at the assailants, and tell them to all go out and have a beer on you. It need not be said to get out of your house as soon as the invaders leave. The entire family should run as a pack to the nearest bar to phone the police. If you happen to run into the same bar as your assailants, well, it's just not your day, and you need a priest more than you need Mr. Ayoob's advice.

More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well (Hoover Institution Press Publication ; No. 453)

Walter E. Williams

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this new collection of thoughtful, hard-hitting essays, Walter E. Williams once again takes on the left wing's most sacred cows with provocative insights, brutal candor, and an uncompromising reverence for personal liberty and the principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. He challenges the assumptions of contemporary liberalism with ruthless honesty, presenting an impressive array of powerful ideas and substantive information to frame his perspectives on the issues facing America in such critical areas as race, sex, government, law, education, the environment, and international relations. Williams's often controversial views include commentary on

• Women in the Military. "At Parris Island, it was discovered that 45 percent of female Marines were unable to throw a hand grenade far enough to avoid blowing themselves up. If I were in a foxhole with a woman about to toss a hand grenade, I'd consider her the enemy."
• Racial and Gender Quotas. "The only reason the elite haven't mandated quotas for women, Japanese, and other underrepresented groups in the NBA and the NFL is because the folly and costs of their cosmic justice vision would be exposed."
• Affirmative Action. "Too many blacks receive twelve years of fraudulent primary and secondary education that cannot be overcome by four years of college. Unfortunately, liberals and civil rights organizations add to that disaster by giving unquestioned support to a corrupt education establishment that produces the fraud."
• The Americans with Disabilities Act. "In some quarters, the ADA is taken to stand for 'Attorney's Dream Answered.' And who pays? You and I, through higher prices or less convenience."
• The Minimum Wage. "Low wages are more a result of people being underproductive than being underpaid. They simply do not have the skills to produce and do things their fellow man highly values. The minimum wage law is evil legislation and deserving of repeal altogether."

Using the fundamentals of economics—and basic common sense—to prove his points, Williams offers wise, witty, and stimulating insights on these and other controversial subjects, including corporate welfare, gun control, environmental regulations, free trade, abortion, the public school system, tobacco industry regulation, and more.

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Bryan Burrough, John Helyar

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Over rated 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Many people I know have read this book and rave about how good it is. However it is really just a factual account of the events with no real insight. The writing is ok but you are not transformed into the action. You get no since of the pressure or the egos. The characters are the real deal and the writes don't all you to understand them or even get you to like or hate them. The book left me a bit flat but if you have no idea how companies are bought and offers are made it is still worth the read. If you know how companies are bought it is worth the read just to be scared to death.

Editorial Review:

Over six months on the New York Times bestseller list, Barbarians at the Gate is the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's gripping record of the frenzy that overtook Wall Street in October and November of 1988 is the story of deal makers and pulicity flaks, of strategy meetings and society dinners, of boardrooms and bedrooms, giving us not only an unprecedentedly detailed look at how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted but also a richly textured social history of wealth at the twilight of the Reagan era. As compelling as a novel, Barbarians at the Gate is must reading for everyone interested in the way today's world really works.

Family Therapy: Concepts & Methods (8th Edition)

Michael P. Nichols, Richard C Schwartz

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

"The Standard Text" for Family Therapy 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Nichols work, now in the 8th edition, is a seminal work in family therapy. This new edition, has some extra-features, which make it even more desireable than the 7th. It is more sympathetic to the postmodern therapies (solutions-focused, narrative), which I either practice or have been heavily influenced by. Nichols work is a great way to "break in" to this field as he survey the field, its developments, and various schools of thought. Better yet, he also includes a "recommended reading" list after each chapter of other seminal works in the field.

The danger of this book lies not with it or the author, but rather the student. Like all good survey books, contemporary master's level students often think they now can "go forth and heal" on this knowledge alone. One of my greatest gifts I received from seminary training was this: "Gents (we were all men), this class isn't the last word on this subject. This is the beginning of a life-long journey in this area."

Nichols book, when used in academia, is best seen in this light. Students need to know this is a secondary source which is to focus their reading of primary sources - you need to read Minuchin, Haley, White, de Shazer, Berg, Johnson, and Whitaker for yourselves!

As an introduction to the field, you will find none better.

Editorial Review:

Family Therapy: Concepts & Methods is the definitive classic text in the field of Family Therapy. It was the first textbook written for family therapy, and it continues to be the most authoritative and comprehensive. By covering all major schools and developments in family therapy, students receive a thorough grounding in the profession. Numerous case studies throughout the text help students understand the link between history, theory, and practice.