General Books - Page 8

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.

See No Evil

Robert Baer

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Total reviews: 209 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In "See No Evil", one of the CIA's top field officers of the past quarter century recounts his career running agents in the back alleys of the Middle East. In the process, Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides compelling evidence about how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA's efforts to root out the world's deadliest terrorists. Not only is this an unprecedented examination of the roots of modern terrorism and the CIA's failure to acknowledge and neutralise the growing fundamentalist threat, it is an engrossing memoir of Baer's education and disillusionment as an intelligence operative. When Baer left the agency in 1997, he received the Career Intelligence Medal with a citation that says: "He repeatedly put himself in personal danger, working the hardest targets, in service to his country." "See No Evil" is Baer's frank assessment of an agency that forgot that "service to country" must transcend politics and is a forceful plea for the CIA to return to its original mission - the preservation of American national sovereignty and the American way of life.

The Assault on Reason

Al Gore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 344 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent condition 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The book was delivered sooner then I expected. Was delivered in better condition, then described. I will definitly purchase from this seller in the future.

Hope for the world? 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this book a number of months ago, almost right after it came out.

When I read it, I realized what a brilliant thinker Al Gore was. However, at the same time, I was saddened by his observations on current culture. The US is anti-intellectual and as long as they are more up on "Dancing with the Stars" than what is going on in the world, there is little hope for the world.

The "media" doesn't really help at all either, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, etc., are all simply infotainment rather than solid news. The only exceptions are Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Unless and until people begin thinking for themselves, the country and maybe the world are doomed.

So - the central messages I got from the book.

1. The Media is attacking reason
2. People are allowing it to happen
3. People need to wake up.

I hope that 3 happens, and the election of Obama and the trouncing of the Republicans gives me hope, but I am not overly hopeful for the world.

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.

Aristotle: Politics (Loeb Classical Library No. 264)

Aristotle

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367–347); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeias's relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343–2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philip's death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of 'Peripatetics'), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexander's death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.

Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows: I Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Economics (on the good of the family); On Virtues and Vices. II Logical: Categories; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); Interpretation; Refutations used by Sophists; Topica. III Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV Metaphysics: on being as being. V Art: Rhetoric and Poetics. VI Other works including the Constitution of Athens; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.

The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates (Mentor)

Ralph Ketcham

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Origin of our Bill of Rights 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

"The Anti-Federalist Papers" along with the "Federalist Papers" is an excellent way to really learn about how our Constitution came about. Pseudonyms like The Centinel, The Pennsylvania Farmer, John DeWitt, Cato, et.al. set forth the cons against why various provisions of our Constitution should be viewed with great suspicion, and they offered counter proposals to safeguard our freedoms from ultimate despotism. I haven't read all the papers as I am also studying the Federalist Papers along with this book; but I am finding that many of the warnings the Anti-Federalists expressed have either come true or have come a long way toward becoming true.

I surely recommend purchasing this book if you want to learn the truth behind the reasons for our Constitution being as it is, and if you want to finally understand this very important basis for our government.

Editorial Review:

The dissenting opinions of Patrick Henry and others who saw the Constitution as a threat to our hard-won rights and liberties.

Edited and introduced by Ralph Ketcham.

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.

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.

Democracy in America (Penguin Classics)

Alexis de Tocqueville

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Customer Reviews:
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.