International Books - Page 4

Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

Jim Marrs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 169 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Educate: fight the New World Order 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book covers the groups who run the international shadow government:
The New World Order, The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), The Trilateral Commission, The Bilderbergers, The Illuminati, and Freemasonry.

I think Jim must live on Mars 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I love this type of book, however 90% of it is stolen from other conspiracy theory books and most of those theories have been flat out proven to be false. There was little to no actual investigation here. No new material, nothing to make my purchase worth while. First book in my life I threw in the trash where it belongs!

Editorial Review:

What secrets connect Egypt's Great Pyramids, the Freemasons, and the Council on Foreign Relations? In this astonishing book, celebrated journalist Jim Marrs examines the world's most closely guarded secrets, tracing the history of clandestine societies and the power they have wielded – from the ancient mysteries to modern–day conspiracy theories.

Searching for truth, he uncovers disturbing evidence that the real movers and shakers of the world collude covertly to start and stop wars, manipulate stock markets, maintain class distinctions, and even censor the news. Provocative and utterly compelling, Rule by Secrecy offers a singular worldview that may explain who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Samuel P. Huntington

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 240 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Engrossing analysis of world order 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This excellent book provides the reader with a view of the world based on civilizations - past, present and future. If you cannot find time to read the entire book, read the last chapter. It describes creditable circumstances under with a third world war could ignite.

Confirmed predictions 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

First published in 1996, this scholarly discussion of future international relations has been a classic from the beginning and will remain so for decades to come. From among the seven most important civilizations the author selected three, which may collide in conflict. Thus, in Moslem eyes Western culture is decadent in various ways and therefore utterly unacceptable. The current resurgence of the Islamic civilization is seen as an evolution no less significant than the Reformation or Marxism, demanding society's complete overhaul, renewal and purification, a movement whose impact on history will grow as the Moslem population will soon represent thirty percent of humanity. At the same time, Islam is seen as the least tolerant of religions, as it promotes peace inside their ranks but hostility toward the infidels outside.
Similarly, in East Asia, the Confucian civilization adheres to commandments like order, discipline, hard work and abstemiousness, where the individual subordinates to the needs of the community. Alien to them is what they call the West's sanctifying of human rights. Whereas we in the West expect our value system soon to become universal, the Confucian world is convinced that "the Anglo-Saxon module is not working" and that their own standards must of necessity apply to the rest of humanity. Here, again, the impact of such convictions will be immense as the center of gravity of economic power is rapidly shifting from the West to the East.
Out of such discordance, there arise economic and political contentions and military ones cannot be ruled out. Huntington believes possible conflicts could arise from a contest between Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance and Sinic assertiveness. The spark igniting material strife, however, will most likely be generated by more prosaic crises such as the youth bulge among the unemployed, terrorism, rivalry in the search of resources such as oil, and the pervasiveness of weapons of mass destruction among those who suffer and rebel.
The main message carried forth from this study is that any military clash in the future will most likely oppose not nations but rather civilizations in what he aptly calls fault-line wars. He points to the danger that such inter-civilizational feuds will be uncompromising and almost impossible to halt.
Huntington advises the reader that cultural universalism, so engrained in the mind of the West, is ill advised and that especially includes the American tendency to be "a nanny if not even a bully" in other civilizations. We must, he says, renounce universalism of values, and instead accept diversity and seek commonalities.
Since these thoughts were first published, much has been confirmed. The power shift toward East Asia is rapidly progressing. Fault-line conflicts in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Chechnya and the Balkans have resisted or defied peacemaking efforts. Our promotion of democracy, civil rights, and individualism has been rejected elsewhere in favor of soft authoritarianism. Most importantly, perhaps, is the West's failure to observe the "abstention rule", that is, for one civilization to abstain from invading the lands of another.
Every prospective world leader should read this book at least once.

Editorial Review:

The thesis of this provocative and potentially important book is the increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts between countries and cultures that base their traditions on religious faith and dogma. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures--Western, Eastern Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African--in current struggles across the globe. Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard University and foreign policy aide to President Clinton, argues that policymakers should be mindful of this development when they interfere in other nations' affairs.

How to Ruin the United States of America

Ben Stein, Phil DeMuth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On the heels of his very successful books, How to Ruin Your Life, How to Ruin Your Love Life, and How to Ruin Your Financial Life, Ben Stein, in collaboration with his pal Phil DeMuth, has tongue firmly in cheek once again as he comes up with surefire ways to ruin the greatest nation in the history of the human race.

Try a few of these on for size:

· Trust the United Nations to protect us and our security.

· Make it unlawful to worship God or even to show images of the Ten Commandments.

· Convert our universities into fortresses of anti-Americanism, hatred of freedom, and centers of confusion and ignorance.

· Encourage contempt for the family and for the community.

· Allow Hollywood to brainwash us into believing that only suckers and criminals fight for their country.

· Treat the military, the police, firefighters, and teachers as losers and pay them starvation wages.

Hey, does any of this sound familiar? Maybe that’s because it’s already happening! Ben and Phil give you all the information you’ll ever need in order to successfully ruin the USA even further! Sardonic, humorous, but also angrily emphatic, this is a book every old-fashioned patriot really needs to read!

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Chris Hedges

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

"An Enticing Elixir" 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is one of the most disturbing and unsettling books I have read since I examined "The New Pearl Harbor" by David Griffin. It was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent who has covered wars for more than 20 years. It isn't the rantings of an ivory tower academic. He has covered wars in El Salvador, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Iraq and elsewhere. He has been imprisoned, beaten by military police and attacked by death squads. His perspective deserves to be taken seriously and soberly. This book is neither a diatribe against war nor an argument for pacifism. His claim is that he "wrote this book not to dissuade us from war but to understand it. It is especially important that we who wield such massive force across the globe see within ourselves the seeds of our own obliteration. We must guard against the myth of war and the drug of war that can, together, render us blind and callous as some of those we battle."

He points out how, rashly and quickly, only three days after 9/11, the Congress granted the President the right "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks." This resolution was passed unanimously by the Senate and with only one dissenting vote, from Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, by the House of Representatives. She warned that military action could not guarantee the safety of the country and, "as we act, let us not become the evil we deplore."

He sets down the basic premise of the book with these words. "The enduring attraction of war is that it can give us what we long for in life, even with its destruction and carnage. It can give us purpose, meaning and a reason for being. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. War is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised north African immigrants in France and even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war's appeal...."

Before I could recover from his assault on my ill-informed conscience, I remembered how evangelical religion has given sanction and certitude to the war in Iraq. This haunting word, reported in "Utne," of Sam Ross, a paratrooper wounded in Iraq is a vivid testimony to the truth of his thesis. "I lost my left leg, just below the knee. Lost my eyesight....I have shrapnel in pretty much every part of my body. Got my finger blown off...I had a hole blown through my right leg....It hurts a lot, that's about it. You know, not really anything major. Just little things....It was the best experience of my life."

This book is a clear call to us to understand just what continues to take place in Iraq as President Bush refuses to end it. My guess is that he finds meaning in that conflict. Hedges says that it gives us meaning! But there is another force, maybe even a new and unsuspected force. It is love regardless of the violence inflicted upon us. There is meaning in a life lived differently. I suggest that you read this book carefully.

Editorial Review:

As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well that to those who pass through it, war can be exhilarating and even addictive: “It gives us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.

The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada

Jerome R. Corsi

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Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the New York Times bestseller The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada, Jerome Corsi proves that the benignly-named "Security and Prosperity Partnership," created at a meeting between George W. Bush, Stephen Harper and Vincente Fox, is in fact the same kind of regional integration plan that led Europe to form the EU. According to Corsi, the elites in Europe who wanted to create a European nation knew that "it would be necessary to conceal from the peoples of Europe just what was being done in their name until the process was so far advanced that it had become irreversible." Could the same thing be happening here? Is American sovereignty doomed?

Using dozens of documents secured through the Freedom of Information Act and his trademark hard-hitting interviews, Jerome Corsi sets out a chilling view of America's possible "harmonized" future -- one being created covertly, without voter input or Congressional oversight. Could our government's unfathomable position on illegal immigration be tied to the prospect of an integrated North American Union?

Just And Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations

Michael Walzer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This book is ultimately not very instructive about just war 1 out of 5 stars.
25 of 52 people found this review helpful.

At a lecture at West Point United States Military Academy April 6, 2006, Naom Chomsky argued, "Just war theory" literature "deserves special attention but is ultimately not very instructive about just war". "Just war theory" is "declarations of personal preference", which "never tells you anything. It doesn't tell you when it is proper to intervene, what it tells you is 'I think it is proper to intervene'...there is a big gap between assertion and argument, between surmise and evidence." "We learn very little about just war from 'Just war theory'" what we do learn is "mostly about the prevailing moral and intellectual climate in which we live." Walzer's book relies crucially on such premises as "Seems to me entirely justified, or I believe, or no doubt." Chomsky then discusses scientific studies on human behavior which is noticeably absent from Walzer's book.

Walzer uses the term "I think" at least 52 times in the book. "I don't think" 7 times. "I believe" twice, "no doubt" at least 41 times, and "seems to me" 12 times (I write "at least" because the same phrase twice on one page would be counted once.)

Walzer's hypocricy

In a book which suffers from terribly bad organization, on page 62 Walzer finally systematically lays out his arguments, stating that "Once the agressor state has been militarily repulsed, it can also be punished."

On December 29, 2005, in an interview on NPR Morning Edition ('Just and Unjust Wars' Author Critical on Iraq.) Walzer stated that the Iraq war was not a just war:

"If you are going to use military force in someone else's county...There has to be a cause of some urgency, a massacre in progress. A massacre in memory is not a just cause."

Therefore, if you follow Walzer's assertions to its obvious conclusion, the Iraq war was not a just war and therefore "the agressor state", the US, should "be punished."

But Walzer signed and endorsed The Euston Manifesto, which states in part:

"We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure...rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention."

Therefore in Just and unjust wars, Walzer argues that "agressor states" should be "punished" but yet Walzer signs a document which criticize those who "pick through the rubble of the arguments over intervention."

Although the Iraq War is not covered in this book, Walzer's inconsistent views on the Iraq war should give serious students of International affairs pause before subscribing to his arguments. It is one mans opinion, full of statments such as "Seems to me entirely justified" "I believe" or "no doubt."

Walzer's arguments are unscientific rablings of one intellectual which are "ultimately not very instructive about just war".

Editorial Review:

From the Athenian attack on Melos to the My Lai Massacre, from the wars in the Balkans through the first war in Iraq, Michael Walzer examines the moral issues surrounding military theory, war crimes, and the spoils of war. He studies a variety of conflicts over the course of history, as well as the testimony of those who have been most directly involved--participants, decision makers, and victims. In his introduction to this new edition, Walzer specifically addresses the moral issues surrounding the war in and occupation of Iraq, reminding us once again that "the argument about war and justice is still a political and moral necessity."

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Vintage)

Rajiv Chandrasekaran

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Total reviews: 153 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A damning indictment 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Since I lived for a year in Baghdad's Green Zone, I felt it was necessary for me to read what happened before I got there, under L. Paul Bremer, bureaucrat extraordinaire. That is why I recently found myself reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

To say that the Bush Administration and its chosen Iraq occupation overlords made poor choices during and immediately after the invasion of that country would be an understatement so vast that I have no words to describe how big an understatement I would be making. Reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City reinforced for me many of the reasons why I heard the impact of so many mortars during my 2005-2006 sojourn to Iraq's largest city and at the time one of the most violent if not the most violent city in the world.

I met Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad in 2006, when I credentialed him for access to military bases. The man was humble, unassuming and patient with the bureaucratic process he endured, which is much more than I can say for Geraldo Rivera, who had sycophants hanging all over him and required that we open for a special session to credential him. In any case, the book itself is superly written in a professional tone.

The damning indictments of cronyism and poor decision making due to a complete lack of understanding of the culture and history of Iraq are presented artfully, without the forced overtones of sarcasm that would have appeared had I written Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

From the story of the Iraqi expatriatate who returns post invasion to open a five-star pizza shop only to find his American customers cannot leave their fortified enclave to the tale of the minor minister who is assasinated for trying to help his country without being politically involved, to the detailed descriptions of the "little America" inside a several square mile compound in downtown Baghdad, this book is well worth reading.

I do not know if L. Paul Bremer has yet publicly admitted how arrogant and stupid many of the decisions made in that first year of occupation were, but he knows it in his heart. If he doesn't that would mean the man has no heart.

Having served in Iraq, and having been to a few locales outside the "Emerald Palace" I called the Green Zone, I still hold pain in my heart for the people I met and for their suffering. Things may be turning around now in that country. But in reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it becomes clear that much of the violence that wracked the country and the city of Baghdad could have been avoided if things had been done differently in the beginning. We'll never know how many died because of bad decision making, but it is clear that the numbers are in the tens of thousands and possibly much higher.

If you've ever wondered what was really going on in those first days of the occupation, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies.

In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

Annual Editions: Global Issues 08/09 (Annual Editions : Global Issues)

Robert M Jackson

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Editorial Review:

This Twenty-Fourth Edition of ANNUAL EDITIONS: GLOBAL ISSUES provides convenient, inexpensive access to current articles selected from the best of the public press. Organizational features include: an annotated listing of selected World Wide Web sites; an annotated table of contents; a topic guide; a general introduction; brief overviews for each section; a topical index; and an instructor’s resource guide with testing materials. USING ANNUAL EDITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM, ISBN 0073301906, is offered as a practical guide for instructors. ANNUAL EDITIONS titles are supported by our student website, www.mhcls.com/online.

Understanding International Conflicts (6th Edition) (Longman Classics in Political Science)

Joseph S. Nye

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Primer on Conflict Theory 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A good introduction to political theory in relation to conflict and war, especially if you are not political science student. We used it for a class on US intelligence and social trends at our university (National Defense Intelligence College)

Understanding the contemporary world 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Understanding..., sixth edition, is an excelent introductory manual to international conflicts, but is a book of yesterday (2007), and it must to be updated. The importance of energy supply is underestimated in the text.

Editorial Review:

Part of the “Longman Classics in Political Science” series, Nye's best-selling text has been completely updated with new discussions about Middle East politics, including the Israel-Palestine dispute and the Iraq war, terrorism in general and radical Islamic terrorism in particular, the global politics of oil, and much more. Replete with illustrative examples and written in a lively, engaging manner, this is a brief, inexpensive book that students will buy and actually enjoy reading. It deftly balances theory and history to help students develop a well-rounded, informed framework for analyzing the international issues confronting us at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (7th Edition) (MyPoliSciKit Series)

Joseph S. Nye

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

Superb, Post 9-11 Update, Excellent Adult Foundation 5 out of 5 stars.
44 of 59 people found this review helpful.

First, it is vital for prospective buyers to understand that the existing reviews are three years out of date--this is a five-star tutorial on international relations that has been most recently updated after 9-11. If I were to recommend only two books on international relations, for any adult including nominally sophisticated world travelers, this would be the first book; the second would be Shultz, Godson, & Quester's wonderful edited work, "Security Studies for the 21st Century."

I really want to stress the utility of this work to adults, including those like myself who earned a couple of graduate degrees in the last century (smile). I was surprised to find no mention of the author's stellar service as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council--not only has he had full access to everything that can be known by secret as well as non-secret means, but he has kept current, and this undergraduate and affordable paperback was a great way for me--despite the 400+ books I've read (most of them reviewed on Amazon.com) in the past four plus years--to come up to speed on the rigorous methodical scholarly understanding of both historical and current theories and practices in international relations. This book is worth anyone's time, no matter how experienced or educated.

Each chapter has a very satisfactory mix of figures, maps, chronologies, and photos--a special value is a block chart showing the causes for major wars or periods of conflict at the three levels of analysis--international system, national, and key individual personalities, and I found these quite original and helpful.

Excellent reference and orientation work. Took five hours to read, with annotation--this is not a mind-glazer, it's a mind-exerciser.