Systems Of Government Books - Page 16

Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

Peter Schweizer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 331 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“I don’t own a single share of stock.” —Michael Moore

Members of the liberal left exude an air of moral certitude. They pride themselves on being selflessly committed to the highest ideals and seem particularly confident of the purity of their motives and the evil nature of their opponents. To correct economic and social injustice, liberals support a whole litany of policies and principles: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, raising the inheritance tax, strict environmental regulations, children’s rights, consumer rights, and much, much more.

But do they actually live by these beliefs? Peter Schweizer decided to investigate in depth the private lives of some prominent liberals: politicians like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, and Ralph Nader; commentators like Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West; entertainers and philanthropists like Barbra Streisand and George Soros. Using everything from real estate transactions, IRS records, court depositions, and their own public statements, he sought to examine whether they really live by the principles they so confidently advocate.

What he found was a long list of glaring contradictions. Michael Moore denounces oil and defense contractors as war profiteers. He also claims to have no stock portfolio, yet he owns shares in Halliburton, Boeing, and Honeywell and does his postproduction film work in Canada to avoid paying union wages in the United States. Noam Chomsky opposes the very concept of private property and calls the Pentagon “the worst institution in human history,” yet he and his wife have made millions of dollars in contract work for the Department of Defense and own two luxurious homes. Barbra Streisand prides herself as an environmental activist, yet she owns shares in a notorious strip-mining company. Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent, yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors. Nancy Pelosi received the 2002 Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farm Workers, yet she and her husband own a Napa Valley vineyard that uses nonunion labor.

Schweizer’s conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives—their property, their privacy, and their children—they jettison their liberal principles and embrace conservative ones. Schweizer thus exposes the contradiction at the core of liberalism: if these ideas don’t work for the very individuals who promote them, how can they work for the rest of us?

Comparative Public Management: Putting U.S. Public Policy and Implementation in Context

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Editorial Review:

In this new approach to a comparative text in public management, Randall Baker examines how, why, and to what extent the public sector around the world has shared in the "management revolution." Baker and his expert contributors also consider what can be learned from other countries and what the dangers are in trying to apply these approaches to American government.

Police Function (University Casebook)

Frank W. Miller, Robert O. Dawson, Dix, Parnas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Good Crim Pro text 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

As casebooks go, its very readable, and along with an updated supplement, is a very good learning tool for 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment issues

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

I dropped the class which needed this book, so tried to resell this book.
But the bookshop said it has too much highlights and they would not buy it. It's not in a bad condition though.

Editorial Review:

These materials are a complete extract of the Introduction and Chapters 1 through 10 of Miller, Dawson, Dix, and Parnas' "Criminal Justice Administration, 5th Ed." The focus of these materials is upon the police role in the modern criminal justice process and the difficult legal issues that are raised by modern policing methods.

Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership

Madeleine Albright

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Editorial Review:

The next president will face the daunting task of repairing America's core relationships and tarnished credibility after the damage caused during the past eight years. In Memo to the President, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright offers provocative ideas about how to confront the myriad challenges awaiting our newly elected commander-in-chief. Secretary Albright's advice is candid and seasoned with humor and stories from her years in office, blending lessons from the past with forward-looking suggestions about how to make full use of presidential power without repeating the excesses of the Bush administration and how to revive America's commitment to its founding ideals.

Politics in the Developing World

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Editorial Review:

Politics in the Developing World, Second Edition, identifies and analyzes the processes of change that are transforming the politics of the Third World. It deals with central political themes and issues such as globalization--both economic and cultural, and resistance to both--inequality, identity, religion, the military, democracy, the environment, and policy development. Presented in a user-friendly format, the text contains useful pedagogical features including a glossary of key terms, chapter summaries, questions for discussion, chronologies, web links, suggestions for further reading, and boxes highlighting particular issues, events, and ideas. The second edition features four new chapters on "people power," security issues, colonialism and post-colonialism, and globalization/good governance.
Features:
Contains a section of issue-based case studies that enable students to compare individual countries
An impressive line-up of international experts provides students with authoritative and accessible content
Accompanied by a companion website containing additional case studies, review questions, web links, and a flashcard glossary

Politics in America, Basic Edition (7th Edition) (MyPoliSciLab Series)

Thomas R. Dye

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Editorial Review:

For courses in American Government.

With a focus on conflict and the struggle for power, this textbook ignites students' interest in American politics.

This balanced and exceedingly readable text uses Harold Laswell's classic definition of politics—“Who gets what, when, and how”—as a framework for presenting a clear, concise, and stimulating introduction to the American political system. Updated with discussions of recent events in our country, well-known political scientist Tom Dye has written a lively and absorbing narrative examining the struggle for power: the participants, the stakes, the processes, and the institutional arenas. An abundance of feature boxes explore timely issues and opinions, draw cross-cultural comparisons, and introduce important people.

The Assassins

Bernard Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A missed oportunity 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

As a previous reviewer pointed out, post 9/11 the sales of this book have probably gone through the roof not least because Lewis has been (not so subltely) making comparisons between the Assassins and Al-Qaeda but also because every Al-Qaeda opponent on the planet has been jumping on the bandwagon.

Sadly, this book aside from the obvious that it was first published years before the events of 9/11 is a missed opportunity to study a little known Islamic group and instead, relies upon shock and scandal and instead of reading like a scholarly study of a subject reads more like something you would find in a tabloid.

The book begins with some history of the word Assassin and how it came into the English language then onto some early books that have been published on the subject in the West. The book then moves onto some brief studies of the subject by British scholars in India and the briefest of analysis of the current descendants of the Assassins who reside in that country. The book then covers nothing more than the sensationalist stories of "The old man of the mountains" Who dispatched deadly assassins to murder political opponents and scholars alike. Whose movement struck fear into its enemies and was finally defeated by a similarly ruthless movement, the Mongols of Genghis and Hulagu Khans.

The book just fails miserably in studying just who exactly the Assassins were. There is simply not enough on the background of the movement. The Assassins where the spiritual descendants of the Egyptian Fatimid (who later better known as the Ismaili) movement who followed and esoteric version of Islam which did indeed produce some great scholars in medicine and science. They were part of a wider movement in Islam (Such as the Ikhwan as-Safa) who while small in number, had a wide influence on Islam both Shia and Sunni from all aspects from science to Sufism.

The Nizari Ismaili, as the Assassins were known religiously were followers of a strand of Islam Sunnis refer to as a 'ghulat' or 'extremist' sect. This should not be seen in the context of violently extreme but rather extreme in their distance from the beliefs of Sunni Islam (Much in the same way as Zaidi Shia are referred to by Sunnis as 'moderate Shia') Why has Lewis not examined this aspect? Why has Lewis not studied the strands of Islam, the origins of the Nizari and their religious and political development? When the Nizari strongholds were finally breached by the Mongols the Shia scholar Nasruddin Tusi remarked at the vast libraries found there (It is also mentioned that many of their books were subsequently burned) Lewis rather treats us to pictures of Nizari mountain castles and stories of mass drunken orgies in defiance of Islam.

Why was there no examination of Nizari influence on other Shia groups? The Alevis of Turkey share almost the exact same beliefs as the Nizaris, ethnically they are from the same geographical area, history notes that the Nizaris made converts amongst the Turkomans and that Turkoman tribes were brought in bondage and then freed in Anatolia by Timur Khan. Was this too sensitive a subject to examine for a man who propagates Turkey as the beacon of democracy in the Middle East?

Lewis may even look to ibn Al-Athir (all be it briefly) for historical information on the Nizaris but keep in mind, he was a Sunni civil servant and had no love for the Nizaris and also keep in mind that his history book ran into volumes. Just how much of it do you think was taken up by a group that for Sunnis formed but a blip in history?

And lets examine the Nizari practice of assassination. First of all they were not "The first Islamic terror group" as some have written. Secondly they did not "Invent the art of assassination" The Greeks and Persians practiced it. Jewish groups in the Jewish revolts practiced it. The Caliph Ali, Hassan and Hussain were assassinated. Was this the be all and end all of their beliefs or rather was this the reaction of a minority group against a large opponent (both Abbasid and Crusader) who would easily and happily crush them given the chance? Was it just random assassinations or rather just to silence opponents (Such as the threat against the Sunni scholar Fakr al-Din Razi)? This is in sharp contrast to Al-Qaidi whose methods are to "Liberate the Muslim world" etc....

An entirely missed opportunity with far more faults that could be brought out but frankly too numerous to mention.

Read the books of Schimmel, Nasr, Corbin and Chodkiewicz. All of whom have examined the beliefs and practices of the Ismaili Muslims. If you want a bit of shock, horror, first terrorists in......., lets get these wackos..... then this may be the book for you.

Editorial Review:

The Assassins is a comprehensive, readable, and authoritative account of history's first terrorists. An offshoot of the Ismaili Shi'ite sect of Islam, the Assassins were the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon. Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they aimed to overthrow the existing Sunni order in Islam and replace it with their own. They terrorized their foes with a series of dramatic murders of Islamic leaders, as well as of some of the Crusaders, who brought their name and fame back to Europe.

Professor Lewis traces the history of this radical group, studying its teachings and its influence on Muslim thought. Particularly insightful in light of the rise of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. and in Israel, this account of the Assassins--whose name is now synonymous with politically motivated murderers--places recent events in historical perspective and sheds new light on the fanatic mind.

The Very Best Men: The Daring Early Years of the CIA

Evan Thomas

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Very Best Men is the story of the CIA's early days as told through the careers of four glamorous, daring, and idealistic men who ran covert operations for the government from the end of World War II to Vietnam. Evan Thomas re-creates the personal dramas and sometimes tragic lives of Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond FitzGerald, who risked everything to contain the Soviet threat.

Within the inner circles of Washington, they were regarded as the best and the brightest. They planned and acted to keep the country out of war -- by stealth and "political action" and to do by cunning and sleight of hand what great armies could not, must not be allowed to do. In the end, they were too idealistic and too honorable, and were unsuited for the dark, duplicitous life of spying. Their hubris and naïveté led them astray, producing both sensational coups and spectacular blunders like the Bay of Pigs and the failed assassination attempts on foreign leaders in the early 1960s. Thomas draws on the CIA's own secret histories, to which he has had exclusive access, as well as extensive interviews, to bring to life a crucial piece of American history.

The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa

Bill Berkeley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Tribalism and loyalties 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I liked this book, more because it shed several spotlights on how several things happened that have contributed to past and present conditions in Africa. Much scorn should be rained down on several generations of leaders of the so called industrialized world for prepetuating the continued patronage of really bad people who seem to hold no regard for thier fellow man outside of thier clan or tribe. How divide and conquer is used repeatedly. When the cold war ended, Africa was suddenly abandoned as a front and more support for bad people was prepetuated. Five areas that continually recieve attention for good and bad, mostly bad are the key hotspots, we have to the northeast, Sudan and Somalia, though not much mention of the latter here, in the southwest; Liberia and all of the hate and discontent that a sucession of this leaning and that leaning despots created. In the centre, we have Rwanda, Zaire( the Congo) and Uganda and the very bottom, South Africa. Much of the cause for many of these turmoils seems to be a result of a half hearted attempt to extract the wealth from the country, and leave the mess for some one else to deal with, a general misunderstanding of history and the legacy of colonialism past and present.

Editorial Review:

Since 1983 journalist Bill Berkeley has traveled through Africa's most troubled lands-Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire-seeking out the tyrants and military leaders who orchestrate seemingly intractable wars. Shattering the myth that ancient tribal hatred lies at the heart of the continent's troubles, Berkeley instead holds accountable the "Big Men" who came to power during this period, describing the very rational methods behind their apparent madness. A New Republic Book

The New Deal (American History Series)

Paul Keith Conkin

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Editorial Review:

Demonstrating the intellectual excitement that is the practice of history at its best, Paul Conkin's The New Deal is still one of the best known titles in the very popular American History Series, edited by John Hope Franklin and A. S. Eisenstadt.

The New Deal, Third Edition is still the best succinct and coherent description of a chaotic period. It is an account of the major domestic policies adopted during the Roosevelt administration. It is also a rich portrait of Roosevelt the man and consummate politician, and the satellite figures around him. This highly interpretive text, with its spirited and often subtle assessments of New Deal personalities and programs, will continue to bring the period to life for new generations of students. Includes extensive photo essay.