Political Science Books - Page 19

Essentials of Comparative Politics, Second Edition

Patrick H. O'Neil

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Essentials of Comparative Politics supplies a framework that enables students to navigate and organize the material they will encounter in the course—and to make increasingly sophisticated comparisons between actual countries. In the first chapter, Patrick O'Neil explains the basic methodologies of comparative politics, discusses current issues and debates in the field, and introduces two themes that will inform the text—the importance of institutions to all political systems and the fundamental struggle between freedom and equality.

The subsequent chapters are organized thematically, beginning with the basic concepts of politics—the state, nations and society, and political economy—and building to discussions of the challenges facing different types of political systems today. Throughout, Professor O'Neil incorporates analysis of the transformative events of recent history—among them the fall of communism, the accelerating spread of democracy, the economic growth of Asia, globalization, and responses to the attacks of September 11th 2001.

Conscience of a Conservative

Barry Goldwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

past is prelude to the present 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Barry Goldwater predicted the present in 1961. Want to know why the welfare state has destroyed multiple generations? Destroy a persons self image by making them dependent on the federal government and they believe they have a right to benefits rather than an obligation to achieve for themselves. Charity as a right.
Please read and learn. WHO IS JOHN GALT?

Good ideas are eternal 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I had always been curious about this book and the "radical" fellow who authored it. Upon finally reading "The Conscience of a Conservative", I realized how very little today's conservatives have in common with Goldwater's conservatism, and how much I (a Libertarian) agree with what Goldwater had to say. Of course, the specifics in the book are dated, given the era of its writing, but the essential ideas and his stated reasons for them ring true to the issues of today. Goldwater's explanation of his views also puts paid to the idea that he was "mean" or a racist: his views may not have set well with everyone, but his views were formed through his belief in limited government and maximum individual freedom.

This was a fast read and a long overdue one. If only my next project, "The Wealth of Nations", were such an easy read...

Editorial Review:

"For a man who proudly described himself as "simple," Barry Goldwater remains a historical puzzle."

Barry Goldwater IS the conscience of a conservative.

The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--And What We Can Do About It

Tony Wagner

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Despite the best efforts of educators, our nation’s schools are dangerously obsolete. Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we are asking them to memorize facts for multiple choice tests. This problem isn’t limited to low-income school districts: even our top schools aren’t teaching or testing the skills that matter most in the global knowledge economy. Our teens leave school equipped to work only in the kinds of jobs that are fast disappearing from the American economy. Meanwhile, young adults in India and China are competing with our students for the most sought-after careers around the world.

Education expert Tony Wagner has conducted scores of interviews with business leaders and observed hundreds of classes in some of the nation’s most highly regarded public schools. He discovered a profound disconnect between what potential employers are looking for in young people today (critical thinking skills, creativity, and effective communication) and what our schools are providing (passive learning environments and uninspired lesson plans that focus on test preparation and reward memorization).

He explains how every American can work to overhaul our education system, and he shows us examples of dramatically different schools that teach all students new skills. In addition, through interviews with college graduates and people who work with them, Wagner discovers how teachers, parents, and employers can motivate the “net” generation to excellence.

An education manifesto for the twenty-first century, The Global Achievement Gap is provocative and inspiring. It is essential reading for parents, educators, business leaders, policy-makers, and anyone interested in seeing our young people succeed as employees and citizens.

For additional information about the author and the book, please go to www.schoolchange.org


 

Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!

Jesse Ventura

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Total reviews: 58 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jesse Ventura—former governor, wrestler, and Navy SEAL—on what's wrong with the Democrats, the Republicans, and politics in America.

Jesse Ventura has had many lives—as a Navy SEAL, as a star of pro wrestling, as an actor, and as the governor of Minnesota. His previous books, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed and Do I Stand Alone?, were both national bestsellers. Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! is the story of his controversial gubernatorial years and his life since deciding not to seek a second term as governor in 2002. Written with award-winning author Dick Russell at a secluded location on Mexico's Baja Peninsula, Ventura's new book reveals for the first time why he left politics—and why he is now considering reentering the arena with a possible independent run for the presidency in 2008.

In a fast-paced and often humorous narrative, Ventura pulls no punches in discussing our corrupt two-party system, the disastrous war in Iraq, and what he suspects really happened on September 11. He provides personal insights into the Clinton and Bush presidencies, and elaborates on the ways in which third parties are rendered impotent by the country's two dominant parties. He reveals the illegal role of the CIA in states like Minnesota, sensitive and up-to-date information on the Blackwater security firm, the story of the American spies who shadowed him on a trade mission to Cuba, and what Fidel Castro told him about who really assassinated President John F. Kennedy. This unique political memoir is a must-read for anyone concerned about the direction that America will take in 2008. 16 b/w photographs.

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us

Robyn Meredith

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Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A compelling look at the major changes in store as America faces increasing competition from two emerging Asian giants.

In the streets of India, camels pull carts loaded with construction materials, and monkeys race across roads, dodging cars. In China, men in Mao jackets pedal bicycles along newly built highways, past skyscrapers sprouting like bamboo. Yet exotic India is as near as the voice answering an 800 number for one dollar an hour. Communist China is as close as the nearest Wal-Mart, its shelves full of goods made in Chinese factories.

Not since the United States rose to prominence a century ago have we seen such tectonic shifts in global power; but India and China are vastly different nations, with opposing economic and political strategies—strategies we must understand in order to survive in the new global economy. The Elephant and the Dragon tells how these two Asian nations, each with more than a billion people, have spurred a new "gold rush," and what this will mean for the rest of the world.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Douglas A. Blackmon

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Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this groundbreaking historical exposé, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—an “Age of Neoslavery” that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of “free” black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.
The neoslavery system exploited legal loopholes and federal policies that discouraged prosecution of whites for continuing to hold black workers against their wills. As it poured millions of dollars into southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system.

Based on a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Slavery by Another Name unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude. It also reveals the stories of those who fought unsuccessfully against the re-emergence of human labor trafficking, the modern companies that profited most from neoslavery, and the system’s final demise in the 1940s, partly due to fears of enemy propaganda about American racial abuse at the beginning of World War II.
Slavery by Another Name is a moving, sobering account of a little-known crime against African Americans, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today.

Democracy in America (Penguin Classics)

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Oops 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

935 page book with no index.

Come on, you don't need one.
You can remember that part about the aristocracy of the law...
was just about here...
Or was it here...
Don't worry, I've got it...
Just a sec...

Editorial Review:

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority on democracy.

This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present

Michael B. Oren

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Total reviews: 99 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The history of America's political, military, and intellectual involvement in the Middle East from George Washington to George W. Bush.

From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at North African pirates to the conquest of Falluja by the Marines—from the early American explorers who probed the sources of the Nile to the diplomats who strove for Arab-Israeli peace—the United States has been dramatically involved in the Middle East. For well over two centuries, American statesmen, merchants, and missionaries, both men and women, have had a profound impact on the shaping of this crucial region. Yet their story has never been told until now. Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, featuring original maps and over sixty photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land stretching from Morocco to Iran, from the Persian Gulf to the Bosporus. Covering over 230 years of history, Power, Faith, and Fantasy is an indispensable work for anyone interested in understanding the roots of America's Middle East involvement today. 68 illustrations; 4 maps.

Conceptual Physical Science (2nd Edition)

Paul G. Hewitt, John Suchocki, Leslie A. Hewitt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Although the pictures are "cute," there's not much substance. 1 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

I'm a 14-year-old using this book for Freshman Physical Science. If you are homeschooling, do not buy this book.

Its overly conceptual tone elimitates precision. The paragraphs are long and overly wordy, yet they neither answer the questions "Why does this happen?" nor "What is the significance of this?" The paragraphs are written colloquially with a blatant disregard for punctuation, and the author seems to think that using many italics will help children in their fruitless quest to even try to understand the writing in this book.

The pictures are what has everyone raving about this book, but to me, they are confusing too. One problem I came across early was that the letters representing velocity and speed were handwritten. Be sure, if you make the immense mistake of buying this book, to explain to your child that the letter that looks like a "U" is actually a "V." In the pictures, the illustrator seems to think that adding smiley-faces to the picture will make it all easier. I, for one, found about half the pictures quite confusing. To even hazard a guess to what these pictures mean requires the hard task of reading through the cryptic paragraph.

In conclusion, the writing, the pictures, and the price tag of this book make it a terrible choice for a Physical Science book.

Editorial Review:

Provides a first introduction to physics, chemistry, earth science, & astronomy, molded in a manner to captivate student interest. DLC: Physical sciences.

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

Stephen Kinzer

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Total reviews: 114 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

History we should know 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Those high school and college history classes that cast the USA in a glowing llight are called to question by Kinzer. Here we find the extent to which commercial interests have dominated foreign policy. To this domination we add a huge dose of stupidity and a ton of arrogance. This will give the recipe for USA regime change operations in foreign lands. Details are included along with excellent documentation.

Great Overview of what US has done to mess up others! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I just started reading this book & have read about 100 pages. This book gives a great overview of US involvement & its motive behind overthrowing other governments. I think, it will be a great read to get a good perspective on the past and present.

Editorial Review:

A fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled fourteen foreign governments---not always to its own benefit.In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer tells the stories of the audacious politicians, spies, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers. He also shows that the U.S. government has often pursued these operations without understanding the countries involved; as a result, many of them have had disastrous long-term consequences.