Political Science Books - Page 15

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

Sandy Tolan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

floored by this book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

yes, after 1948 there were many conflicts between jews and arabs, but what some reviewers here fail to highlight is the very critical timeline of the conflict: no arab ever had a problem with jews prior to 1948, prior to when israel took what was without any interpretation arab land and declared itself a country. did the reviewers even read what they wrote? the grouping of the arabs against the jews was nothing other than solidarity with their kinsmen for losing their land to a newly-, arbitrarily-created country. imagine if a group of muslims joined the significant muslim population in an american city, suddenly declared themselves a country, then cried about the injustice of "all the american states unifying against them"...ludicrous to expect otherwise. Of course this book doesn't portray EVERYTHING, but if it portrays the conflict somewhat favorably towards palestinians, it is because that's the way the facts played out. Some israelis think that an unbiased report means a neutral report, most are willing to accept some fault for starting the whole mess.

Editorial Review:

In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

William Russell Easterly

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

We are all aware of the extreme hunger and poverty that afflict the world's poor. We hear the facts, see the images on television, buy the T-shirt and are moved as individuals and governments to dig deep into our pockets. Yet what happens to all this aid? Why after 50 years and $2.3 trillion are there still children dying for lack of twelve cents medicine? Why are there so many people still living on less than $1 a day without clean water, food, sanitation, shelter, education or medicine? InThe White Man's Burden William Easterly, acclaimed author and former economist at the World Bank, addresses these twin tragedies head on. While recognising the energy and compassion behind the campaign to make poverty history he argues urgently and powerfully that grand plans and good intentions are a part of the problem not the solution. Giving aid is not enough, we must ensure that it reaches the people who need it most and the only way to make this happens is through accountability and by learning from past experiences. Without claiming to have all the answers, William Easterly chastises the complacent and patronising attitude of the West that attempts to impose solutions from above.In this book, which is by turns angry, moving, irreverent but always rigorous, he calls on each and everyone of us to take responsibility, whether donors, aid workers or ordinary citizens, so that more aid reaches the people it is supposed to help, the mother who cannot feed her children, the little girl who has to collect firewood rather than go to school, the father who cannot work because he has been crippled by war.

The Assault on Reason

Al Gore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 342 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Al Gore at his best 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The rationale and thesis behind Al Gore's book are well rounded and even better developed. It goes beyond just critizising the current administration but sheds light on the systemic problem Democracy has in our times and what needs to be done to get back to its original concept. This one is a MUST read!

Editorial Review:

A #1 New York Times bestseller: A visionary analysis of the degradation of our public sphere and its consequences for our democracy

Nobel Peace Prize winner, bestselling author, activist, and political icon, Al Gore has become one of the most respected and influential public intellectuals in America today. The Assault on Reason takes an unprecedented look at how faith in the power of reason—the idea that citizens can govern themselves through rational debate—is now under assault. The marketplace of ideas, once open to everyone through the printed word, has been corrupted by the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith. By leading us to an understanding of what we can do to restore the rule of reason, Gore has written a farsighted and powerful manifesto for clear thinking.

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

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Total reviews: 133 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"Study history or it will repeat itself" 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A must read for all, especially my generation (1964) and younger. We need to ensure that what South Africa went through and the racism present in the U.S. is never allowed to return. Any racism no matter how small or seemingly insignificant needs to be stamped out. Wouldn't it be nice if someday we were all classified as "Human" and not by some other label? Read this book and realize the struggle this man, his family, and his country went through to gain the simple freedoms we often take for granted.

Outstanding Book....Great Inspiration! 5 out of 5 stars.
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I first bought this book in paperback form at the PX while stationed at Fort Hood. It was a long and outstanding read! I understand that there are some things that Mr Mandela may have decided to leave out i.e.: his linking to various political uprisings against the aparthied government. I wish that he would have discussed that part of his life more. Nonetheless, this book tells the story of a man who came from humble beginnings to become the first black president of post-aparthied South Africa. I had to buy copy of this book for the Kindle. If you want a piece of modern history, and a good long read as well, get this book. I recommend it to everyone!

Editorial Review:

An international hero, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and leader of South Africa's antiapartheid movement chronicles his life, including his tribal years, his time spent in prison, and his return to lead his people. 175,000 first printing. Major ad/promo.

Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President

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Editorial Review:

“Mark Green and Michele Jolin look to 2009 as the beginning of an era of renewal and progressive governance in America. Change for America presciently and insightfully offers specific ideas for what our next President can do to revitalize our nation and restore our standing abroad."—President Bill Clinton

It was an election about change, but how will that change actually happen?

The result of a collaboration between the Center for American Progress Action Fund (the advocacy arm of Washington’s leading-edge progressive think-tank led) and the New Democracy Project's Mark Green, this comprehensive volume is written by over sixty leading policymakers, scholars and advocates.

Based on four core values—of democracy, security through diplomacy, opportunity and a greener world—Change for America offers scores of solutions how to repair our broken government and create an enduring progressive era.

“The Center for American Progress Action Fund and Mark Green have assembled some of our nation's best minds, and their best ideas, into a book is packed with innovative, practical, and progressive solutions that will help take America in a New Direction."—Speaker Nancy Pelosi

“These thoughtful essays offer a progressive way forward for the vast majority of Americans who hope their government works for the many, not just the few.”—Senator Ted Kennedy

“We don't just need a transition -- we need a transformation. Mark Green and Michele Jolin's encyclopedia of change offers a brilliant roadmap for the 44th President.”—Senator John Kerry

“This is one of the most important books to be published this year. It's a handbook for restoring the New Deal's social compact with our citizens over the first '100 Days' and the next 1360.”—James Roosevelt, Jr.

“Change for America is brilliant, timely and practical and teems with hard earned wisdom and common sense.”—Michael Eric Dyson

Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews

David Frost, Bob Zelnick

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Following the resounding success of the eponymous West End and Broadway hit play, Frost/Nixon tells the extraordinary story of how Sir David Frost pursued and landed the biggest fish of his career -- and how the series drew larger audiences than any news interview ever had in the United States, before being shown all over the world.This is Frost's absorbing story of his pursuit of Richard Nixon, and is no less revealing of his own toughness and pertinacity than of the ex-President's elusiveness. Frost's encounters with such figures as Swifty Lazar, Ron Ziegler, potential sponsors, and Nixon as negotiator are nothing short of hilarious, and his insight into the taping of the programs themselves is fascinating. Frost/Nixon provides the authoritative account of the only public trial that Nixon would ever have, and a revelation of the man's character as it appeared in the stress of eleven grueling sessions before the cameras. Including historical perspective and transcripts of the edited interviews, this is the story of Sir David Frost's quest to produce one of the most dramatic pieces of television ever broadcast, described by commentators at the time as "a catharsis" for the American people.

Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989

Michael R. Beschloss

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 63 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Unreadable & badly off-target much of the time 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

How did Michael Beschloss get to be "America's Leading Presidential Historian?" I can only assume it is because he has a talent for getting himself on TV again & again...because it certainly isn't because of dreadful efforts such as this.

Setting content aside for a moment --- how can any literate person regard this as well-written? It reads like a Power Point presentation, or more specifically, like research notes which were never revised into a coherent narrative. It's hard to have narrative at all when your chapters are only 5 pages long! Suffice it to say, I found the writing to be such an irritant that I ultimately never finished the book. Life is too short to read crappy writing.

As for the content itself, this is all ground which has been well-covered many times before and Beschloss' conclusions are generally quite unremarkable. When he isn't stating the obvious, Beschloss is dumbing down the subject matter to make it appear more simple than it really was.

Just as an example, I would point to Andrew Jackson & the Bank War. Exactly how is this courageous? Jackson was enjoying tremendous popular support when he went in for the kill against the 2nd BUS, and he was as convinced of his own rectitude as any man ever has been. Also, it is grossly inaccurate to characterize the 2nd BUS as corrupt. Nicholas Biddle may have been a ruthless autocrat, but nobody could accuse him of corruption. That label would be more accurately applied to Jackson's "pet banks" into which Jackson put government deposits, and which were largely responsible for the catastrophic Panic of 1837. Does Beschloss provide anything more than the most shallow of analysis? Of course not.

I never would have purchased this in the first place, but it was part of a book club shipment which I opened by mistake, thinking that it was another (better-written) book. It was only the first of many regrets.

Editorial Review:

Presidential Courage is a brilliantly readable and inspiring saga about crucial times in American history when a courageous President dramatically changed our future. Like Beschloss's previous book, The Conquerors, it was a New York Times bestseller for months.

With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings to life those flawed, complex men -- and their wives, families, friends and foes. Never have we had a more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives. For Americans who must choose Presidents and assess them once they are elected, Presidential Courage sets a lasting standard by showing us the best in Presidential leadership.

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

William J. Bernstein

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” But how did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world? In this sweeping narrative history of world trade, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports readers from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

Edmund Morris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Classic Biography and a Work of Art 5 out of 5 stars.
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What a tremendous biography, or actually one third of a biography, as this is the first of a projected three volumne work. It is hard to imagine someone having a career like this today, although to be fair to our own times, Teddy Roosevelt was a dynamo by the standards of his own era as well.

The books only covers Roosevelt's life up until he becomes president, but because of Roosevelt's statue, drive and intellect, and Morris' thorough research, expert analysis and superb writing, it is also a very exciting view into America in the second half of the 19th century. A total of 700 pages and at the end I could not wait to start the next volume, Theodore Rex (Modern Library Paperbacks)

Editorial Review:

Described by the Chicago Tribune as "a classic," The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt stands as one of the greatest biographies of our time. The publication of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt on September 14th, 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain

George Lakoff

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.

As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.

But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.

This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.