General Books - Page 10

A Small Place

Jamaica Kincaid

By: Virago Press Ltd Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $75.76

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

The lovely tourists 1 out of 5 stars.
12 of 34 people found this review helpful.

I had to read this book for a Multicultural Literature class at my Uni, and, far from being informative, all it did was fill with me a contempt of my own. I am not a racist by any means, but when confronted with such a bitter, snide voice as the one Kincaid displays, I find myself unconsciously getting defensive. When she says, "you are a tourist; you are ugly," I find myself saying, "Fine, I'll keep my money and let you trade with seashells and beads." Kincaid is a master of the self-fulfilling prophecy: she says Antiguans are so oppressed and so downtrodden and so angry, and rather than doing anything to help it, she's exacerbating it by using such a bitter, over-the-top voice.

Other reviewers have stated that the vision of Antigua portrayed is a warped and extremely limited one, biased by Kincaid's apparent small mindedness, and I must confess that I'm glad to hear that. To think that the entire island is solely occupied by bitter people who imagine themselves to be ex-slaves would make me steer clear of the area any time I go on vacation.

Because, yes, I am a tourist. And no, being a tourist does not automatically make anyone ugly, despite what Kincaid's bitter rant might say.

A History of the Modern Middle East

William L. Cleveland

Amazon Price: $42.75 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Westview Press Amazon Marketplace: 93 new & used starting at $28.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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

for the amount of history that is compacted into this work it still admazes me at how little is left out. the meat is left, and even though the fat gives the taste, it is the meat that we need to live off. for all it is a must read on what the middle east is and why. i require it for all my soldiers who want to make rank. this is a work from the highest of scholary men.

Editorial Review:

This comprehensive work provides a penetrating analysis of modern Middle Eastern history, from the Ottoman and Egyptian reforms, through the challenge of Western imperialism, to the Iranian Revolution and the Gulf War. After introducing the reader to the region's history from the origins of Islam in the seventh century, Cleveland focuses on the past two centuries of profound and often dramatic change. While built around a framework of political history, the book also carefully integrates social, cultural, and economic developments into a single, carefully crafted account. The revised and updated third edition of this benchmark text places the developments of the 1990s in a new historical perspective and includes an examination of key events of the early twenty-first century. An epilogue offers a critical evaluation, from a historian's perspective, of the al-Qa'ida attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the early phases of the US occupation of Iraq.

Yes We Can: A Biography of Barack Obama

Garen Thomas

List Price: $6.99 By: Feiwel & Friends Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $3.24

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I loved reading this book with my 10-year-old son 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 22 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for one of my child therapy clients at work and we read it together. We couldn't put it down. I am speaking for the both of us when I say that the book "Yes We Can" was enlightening and inspiring. Not only did it do a great job of explaining the American political system to young readers, but it also detailed Barack Obama's life in a way that offers youth the inspiration to achieve great things in life.

Editorial Review:

In third grade, Barack Obama wrote an essay titled, “I Want to Become President”—and he is, to this day, determined to show the world that, yes, he can.

Born in the U.S.A., the son of an African father and an American mother, a boy who spent his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, Barack Obama is truly a citizen of the world. His campaign for the presidency is powered by a fierce optimism, an exuberant sense of purpose and determination, and, above all, a belief that change can happen.

Garen Thomas takes us through the life of Barack Obama, from his struggle to fit in with his classmates and concern about not knowing his biological father, through his term as Illinois senator, to his historic and momentum-building run for president of the United States.

Barack Obama is a man who uses his words to inspire us. We can have a better future. We can be whatever we want to be. Yes. We. Can.

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

Thomas Sowell

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Basic Books Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $7.58

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

More Genius from an Immortal Genius 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It's unfortunate that we only have a 1 to 5 star system here for ratings because Thomas Sowell deserves better than that. If we had 100 stars I'd give him 99 for everything I've read by him. This is the fourth book I've consumed by this great master of economics and with every page he becomes more and more of a legend. A Conflict of Visions is a perfect counterpart to The Vision of the Anointed. Conflict is a more philosophical book and I preferred Anointed for that reason (which I'd give a 100 out of 100) as more current examples are fleshed out. Neither one though is really a political book. They are much more psychological and philosophical than anything else. With Sowell, you uncover the way human beings actually are and what greater gift can a writer give than that kind of enlightenment? I cannot think of one. I do agree with another reviewer about the language, however. Unconstrained and constrained are not the best of terms but you'll understand the dichotomy between them clearly by the time you've finished. Incidentally, NR had a five part interview with Sowell concerning this book last week which occasioned my pulling it out and finishing it over the weekend. Basically, with any of the Sowell books you can't go wrong. Race and Culture is next on my list.

Editorial Review:

Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the "unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. He describes how these two radically opposed views have manifested themselves in the political controversies of the past two centuries, including such contemporary issues as welfare reform, social justice, and crime. Updated to include sweeping political changes since its first publication in 1987, this revised edition of A Conflict of Visions offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

Joe Bageant

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Three Rivers Press Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $7.78

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Why Rednecks Vote Republican 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Bageant hits a home run in "Deer Hunting With Jesus." Only a skilled expatriate writer returning to his roots in Appalachia could weave a story explaining why dirt poor white folk put their faith in political dogmas that run against their own best economic interests. Partly due to poor education and ignorance, the redneck mindset developed out of the history of persecuted Scotch-Irish immigrants living in mountainous isolation in frontier America. This book is about real people, old friends, whose names and identities have been changed to protect their privacy. It's about the way they think and why.

Rather than despising the way they pooh-pooh evolutionary science and feel sorry for their belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible, Bageant's has you empathizing with these old friends in Winchester, Virginia. Down home jokes have you laughing even guffawing at this take on Americana. Blue-state voters owe it to themselves to read "Deer Hunter With Jesus" just to fathom the reality behind the "red neck state" mentality.

Editorial Review:

A raucous, truth-telling look at the white working poor-and why they hate liberalism.

Deer Hunting with Jesus is web columnist Joe Bageant’s report on what he learned when he moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, which-like countless American small towns-is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. By turns brutal, tender, incendiary, and seriously funny, this book is a call to arms for fellow progressives with little real understanding of "the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks."

Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668

Thomas Hobbes

Amazon Price: $11.30 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hackett Pub Co Inc Amazon Marketplace: 110 new & used starting at $9.28

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent edition 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 27 people found this review helpful.

There are lots of editions of Leviathan around, so why buy this one? The things the editor, Ed Curely, has done to make this edition accessible yet scholarly, like:

1. Updated spelling and punctuation. Although I personally miss Hobbes' original spelling (see the Penguin edition for that), as a teacher I appreciate Ed's making it easier for beginners to read Hobbes' words.

2. Index. Most editions do not have one.

3. Glossary. Hobbes used many terms that are now archaic, and Ed's brief but clear glossary helps clarify the text.

4. Ed's Introduction. Curley is one of the most careful and knowledgeable commentators out there, and he briefly but expertly introduces some of the major themes of the book.

5. Latin variants. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in English and in Latin, and there are some interesting differences between the two versions. Ed presents many of these in the footnotes, plus he includes English translations of the Appendices of the Latin version.

Editorial Review:

This new edition of Hobbe's masterpiece is uniquely suited to meet the needs of both student and scholar. It offers a brilliant introduction by Edwin Curley, modernised spelling and punctuation of the text, and a key annotative feature found in no other edition: the inclusion, along with historical and interpretive notes, of the most significant variants between the English version of 1651 and the Latin version of 1668. A glossary of seventeenth century English terms and indexes of persons, subjects, and scriptural passages help make this the most thoughtfully conceived edition of Leviathan available.

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))

Thom Hartmann

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 60 new & used starting at $2.15

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Hartmann is Brilliant 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Thom Hartmann's Screwed is must reading by everyone who isn't a right wing nut. In easy to understand language, Hartmann debunks right wing myths about Liberals and progressives using facts and history, not emotional mantra.
He's on Sirius Radio each day, and he'll take on any Neo-con and every issue and argue intelligently for the need for liberal/progressive politics in America, and he shows the historical and constitutional basis for all his agrguments. All of his works are a must read. I give this book to all my Independent and moderate Republican friends( see I'm a Liberal, very tolerant).

Absolute must read 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

If you have any care at all about your finacial wellbeing in this country
you must read this book. Few people are old enough to know what it was like in the usa when one person working one job made enough to buy a house and raise a family. health care was very affordable for all.
Where did it all go? This book tells you.

Editorial Review:

Nationally syndicated radio host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann exposes the covert war conservatives, and corporations are waging against America's middle class?a war that's reducing the rest of us to a politically impotent working poor. This book asks: How did this happen? Who's benefiting? And how can we stop it?

Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source

The Onion, Scott Dikkers, Mike Loew

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Three Rivers Press Amazon Marketplace: 127 new & used starting at $0.44

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 209 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Tiny little book, fairly large price 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Smaller than a 3X5 card, it has a big book price. Hardbound, it'll last a while. History of the last 100 years. Cute gift idea. Decent read. Nothing extra special about it. Kind of gimmicky.

The Best of The Onion Books 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've read several of The Onion's books, and this one stands out as the funniest. A few of my favorite headlines: "Kennedy Slain by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons,"; "Stalin Announces Five-Year 'Everybody Dies' Plan"; and "World's Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-Berg". Hopefully we can all learn something from The Onion's version of history, or we'll be condemned to repeat it!

Editorial Review:

The Onion has quickly become the world's most popular humor publication, misinforming half a million readers a week with one-of-a-kind social satire both in print (on newsstands nationwide) and online from its remote office in Madison, Wisconsin.

Witness the march of history as editor-in-chief Scott Dikkers and The Onion's award-winning writing staff present the twentieth century like you've never seen it before.

The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World

Allen W. Dulles

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The Lyons Press Amazon Marketplace: 21 new & used starting at $9.81

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

If the experts could point to any single book as a starting point for understanding the subject of intelligence from the late twentieth century to today, that single book would be Allen W. Dulles's The Craft of Intelligence. This classic of spycraft is based on Allen Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA's predecessor-the Office of Strategic Services-and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his ten years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs.
In World War II his OSS agents penetrated the German Foreign Office, worked with the anti-Nazi underground resistance, and established contacts that brought about the Nazi military surrender in North Italy. Under his direction the CIA developed both a dedicated corps of specialists and a whole range of new intelligence devices, from the U-2 high-altitude photographic plane to minute electronic listening and transmitting equipment.
Dulles reveals much about how intelligence is collected and processed, and how the resulting estimates contribute to the formation of national policy. He discusses methods of surveillance, and the usefulness of defectors from hostile nations. His knowledge of Soviet espionage techniques is unrivaled, and he explains how the Soviet State Security Service recruited operatives and planted "illegals" in foreign countries. He spells out not only the techniques of modern espionage but also the philosophy and role of intelligence in a free society threatened by global conspiracies.
Dulles also addresses the Bay of Pigs incident, denying that the 1961 invasion was based on a CIA estimate that a popular Cuban uprising would ensue. This account is enlivened with a wealth of personal anecdotes. It is a book for readers who seek wider understanding of the contribution of intelligence to our national security.

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

Larry M. Bartels

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Princeton University Press Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $18.71

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Unequal Democracy debunks many myths about politics in contemporary America, using the widening gap between the rich and the poor to shed disturbing light on the workings of American democracy. Larry Bartels shows that increasing inequality is not simply the result of economic forces, but the product of broad-reaching policy choices in a political system dominated by partisan ideologies and the interests of the wealthy.

Bartels demonstrates that elected officials respond to the views of affluent constituents but ignore the views of poor people. He shows that Republican presidents in particular have consistently produced much less income growth for middle-class and working-poor families than for affluent families, greatly increasing inequality. He provides revealing case studies of key policy shifts contributing to inequality, including the massive Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the erosion of the minimum wage. Finally, he challenges conventional explanations for why many voters seem to vote against their own economic interests, contending that working-class voters have not been lured into the Republican camp by "values issues" like abortion and gay marriage, as commonly believed, but that Republican presidents have been remarkably successful in timing income growth to cater to short-sighted voters.

Unequal Democracy is social science at its very best. It provides a deep and searching analysis of the political causes and consequences of America's growing income gap, and a sobering assessment of the capacity of the American political system to live up to its democratic ideals.