Political Doctrines Books - Page 34

The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich (Modern War Studies)

Robert M. Citino

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives ("short and lively")--wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again.

Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great "sleigh-drive" against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.

Through this long view, Citino reveals an essential recurrent pattern--characterized by rapid troop movements and surprise attacks, maneuvers to outflank the enemy, and a determination to annihilate the opposition--that made it possible for the Germans to fight armies often larger than their own. He highlights the aggressiveness of Prussian and German commanders--trained simply to find the enemy and keep attacking--and destroys the myth of Auftragstaktik ("flexible command"), replacing it with the independence of subordinate commanders. He also brings new interpretations to well-known operations, such as Moltke's 1866 campaign and the opening campaign in 1914, while introducing readers to less familiar but important battles like Langensalza and the Annaberg.

The German way of war, as Citino shows, was fostered by the development of a widely accepted and deeply embedded military culture that supported and rewarded aggression. His book offers a fresh look at one of the most remarkable, respected, and reviled militaries of the past half millennium and marks another sterling contribution to the history of operational warfare.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

The Covenant with Black America

Tavis Smiley

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Total reviews: 72 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Six years' worth of symposiums come together in this rich collection of essays that plot a course for African Americans, explaining how individuals and households can make changes that will immediately improve their circumstances in areas ranging from health and education to crime reduction and financial well-being. Addressing these pressing concerns are contributors Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. surgeon general; Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; Angela Glover Blackwell, founder of the research think tank PolicyLink; and Cornell West, professor of Religion at Princeton University. Each chapter outlines one key issue and provides a list of resources, suggestions for action, and a checklist for what concerned citizens can do to keep their communities progressing socially, politically, and economically. Though the African American community faces devastating social disparities—in which more than 8 million people live in poverty—this celebration of possibility, hope, and strength will help leaders and citizens keep Black America moving forward.

Clued in to Politics: A Critical Thinking Reader in American Government

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Designed to teach students in introduction to American government courses to think critically about the political information they encounter, this reader provides relevant, accessible selections with a contemporary focus. Students learn to read critically though a new five-step process that binds each article. Developed by the authors, this consistent critical-thinking strategy, referred to as CLUES, asks students to Consider the source; Lay out the argument; Uncover the evidence; Evaluate the conclusion; and Sort out the political end.

To draw students' attention a special preface, To the Student, explains the critical-thinking approach of the text and introduces the tools used throughout. In every subsequent chapter an essay defines the institution or political process discussed and briefly explains the major issues, why they matter, and how the readings illustrate and explore them. Each of the 16 chapters contains three to five articles that correspond to standard topics covered in an introductory government course, including political culture, the Constitution and Federalism, civil liberties and rights, Congress, the presidency, elections, and the courts.

• Engaging, contemporary articles from a variety of sources—print, broadcast, and the Internet—illustrate American government at all levels.
• Post-it-style call out notes within the readings draw students' attention to key passages to consider as they read.
• One classic reading per chapter, such as John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and Federalist No. 51, helps students understand and observe the changes or constants in key political arguments over time.
• Consistent end-of-chapter questions walk students through the CLUES method of critical thinking.
• Each chapter includes a personal account that shows the relevance of the political process to individual lives.Readings are balanced between objective and opinion-based points of view and vary in length and format to provide instructors with maximum flexibility.

The Force of Reason

Oriana Fallaci

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Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Oriana Fallaci is back with her much-anticipated follow up to The Rage and the Pride, her powerful post-September 11 manifesto. The genesis for The Force of Reason was a postscript entitled Due Anni Dopo (Two Years Later), which was intended as a brief appendix to the thirtieth edition of The Rage and the Pride (2002). Once Ms. Fallaci completed the postscript, she chose to expand it into a book, a continuation of her ideas set in motion in The Rage and the Pride.In The Force of Reason Fallaci takes aim at the many attacks and death threats she received after the publication of The Rage and the Pride. Ms. Fallaci begins by identifying herself with one Master Cecco, the author of a heretical book who was burnt at the stake during the Inquisition seven centuries ago on account of his beliefs, and proceeds with a rigorous analysis of the burning of Troy and the creation of a Europe that, to her judgment, is no longer her familiar homeland but rather a place best called Eurabia, a soon-to-be colony of Islam (with Italy as its stronghold). Ms. Fallaci explores her ideas in historical, philosophical, moral, and political terms, courageously addressing taboo topics with sharp logic.

The American cause

Russell Kirk

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Americanism 101 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful.

In 1957, Russell Kirk (1918-1994) published this brief synopsis of principles of the "American way of life." It was recently republished and serves as a useful introduction to a conservative view of what is uniquely American. Kirk hits on many of the principle themes of American life: the influence of Christianity, the American view of government, etc.

I tend to agree with most of what Kirk writes here. I did find a couple things interesting. First, Kirk's view of Christianity is somewhat "humanistic." For example, Kirk's discussion of the significance of Jesus' death is more or less the "example" theory of the atonement. Second, I think Kirk's discussion of US imperialism sugar coats how cynical and brutal American policy with respect to other nations has at times been.

This is a new edition of this work, which has been slightly re-edited by Gleaves Whitney as a sort of "primer on America, post September 11." I don't have a problem with this, but the previous edition contained an introduction by John Dos Passos. Why was this removed? Also, Mr. Whitney has included a section of "recommended readings" which recommends several works by neoconservatives. Considering Dr. Kirk's disavowal of the neoconservative movement, this is regretful.

Editorial Review:

A statement of the moral and social principles which the American nation upholds in times of trouble.

American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman--and the Shoot-out That Stopped It

Stephen Hunter, John Jr. Bainbridge

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The Attempt on President Truman's Life 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Authors Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge provide the reader with minute details on the assassination attempt by Puerto Rican Nationalists on President Harry Truman outside Blair House on November 1, 1950. Many of the details provided are those they perceive to be in the mind of each of the assassins and those they are attacking during the gunfight. These details are interesting and perhaps correct. I feel it makes for a more interesting book. To me, the main drawback of the book is its disjointedness. Whenever a character is introduced into the story we are provided with a chapter delving into their background from years before. Due to this method of writing the book loses its continuity. The authors make a convincing case that the attempt may have been a part of a wider conspiracy. Security for presidents tightened significantly following the attempt on Truman's life. Truman did not run for reelection in 1952, and the attempt on his life may very well have been a factor in his decision. I have to admit to being one of those the authors refer to as those who weren't aware of this attempt on the life of President Truman, but confuse it with an incident in 1954 when four Puerto Rican Nationalists had a shootout in Congress. The book educated me, but I did not like getting sidetracked with chapters introducing the characters when they entered the story.

Editorial Review:

November 1, 1950 -- an unseasonably hot afternoon in sleepy Washington, D.C. At 2:00 P.M. at his temporary residence in Blair House, President Harry Truman takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two Puerto Rican natives approach from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don't look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent guarding the president cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm German automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory.

Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy

Natan Sharansky

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

This should be required reading for every American 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Sharansky opens the book talking about his time in The Gulag and the type of character it takes to survive the brutality and torcher despensed at the hands of the KGB. He talks about the current utopian world vision that seeks to undermine the West and what it will take to defeat it. He wrote this book to America to inspire American's to live up to the ideals that beat back and defeated Communism and Natzism. Today we face the new ideology of Post Nationalism, an old idea dressed up in new clothing, couched in new retoric, but whose mission reamins the same.

Editorial Review:

From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Case for Democracy, a piercing examination of the dominant force that shapes political interactions.

Who is better prepared to confront challenges and defend principles in a volatile modern world? Those with strong national, religious, ethnic, or tribal identities who accept democracy, or democrats who renounce identity as a kind of divisive prejudice?

Natan Sharansky, building on his personal experience as a dissident, argues that valueless cosmopolitanism, even in democracies, is dangerous. Better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.

In a vigorous, insightful challenge to the left and right alike, Natan Sharansky, as he has proved repeatedly, is at the leading edge of the issues that frame our times.

Red star over China

Edgar Snow

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Political Science -> Political Doctrines -> Communism

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An excellent look at the Chinese Civil War 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 21 people found this review helpful.

For the last few decades, we Americans have had an extremely negative view of the Chinese Communist Party, and especially such now-mythical forefathers as Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, whose drastic excesses and failures have led to their demonisation in Western society as mere liars, thugs, and brutish dictators. But yet, in the '30s and '40s, such men managed to overcome both the tanks and rifles of powerful Japanese war machine and the propaganda and armies of the Western-financed Nanjing government with primarily the support of the Chinease peasantry; certainly such mass support would not be easily handed to one of the dime-a-dozen bandit-kings that infested pre-1949 China. What would have driven the rural laobaixing to throw in their lot against all the power of the Kuomintang?

Snow's excellent Red Star Over China is not, as many critics seem to think, glowing puff praise of Communists. Rather, it is an in-depth, powerful explanation of the reasons for their support among both the starving poor and ethnic minorities, and an examination of how less than 200 men managed to turn this support into a mass movement powerful enough to wash both the overextended Japanese and unpopular Nationalists out of the mainland.

When Snow waxes about the moral rigor of the Red soldier and the zealous dedication of the "Little Red Devil" youth, he is not merely praising moral men, but is showing how the fanaticism of Red soldiers gave them advantages in morale and tactics the hesitant-but-well-financed KMT army could not attain. When he shows the propaganda-writing classes, it is not because Snow believes "the Red army is the fist of the poor" but because of the great importance of the Red literacy programs: the gratitude formerly-illiterate peasants felt to their teachers translated into a great respect and willingness to assist men they had once believed were "Red bandits."

Yes, under Mao great tragedies were unleashed, as his Communist zeal began to outweigh his common sense. But this book is not the story of the famines of the Great Leap Forward twenty years after Red Star Over China was writeen, nor could Snow have predicted the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution thirty years after he finished his book. This is a book about revolutionaries, not a book about the government they would later establish. And its importance as a book about revolutionaries is incredible. This is an explanation of how the world's most populous nation would fall to revolution--written by a neutral observer among the revolutionaries.

If you are of the belief that Communists are intrinsically evil and that any book finding good in them--even if to explain why they enjoyed overwhelming local popularity--you will find Red Star Over China difficult to digest. If you would prefer to think of Mao as a raving psychopathic lunatic who blundered his way into power, there are certainly other books for you to read. But if you want to see the Chinese Communist Party as it was seen by those who carried into power, you can't do any better than this, the book written by the man who watched it happen.

Editorial Review:

The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorized account of Mao’s life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution, and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.

A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy (Isi Guides to the Major Disciplines)

Harvey C. Mansfield

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The very best guide to the subject 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Harvard University Professor Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., is well known within the discipline of political theory as one of the great figures of our time. Profoundly influenced by Leo Strauss, he also brings to his work a concern for the institutions of constitutional democracy which was a staple at Harvard during the era of Carl Friedrich. He has made original contributions to the study of Machiavelli and recently completed a translation of, and commentary on, Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

Mansfield's lectures on ancient, medieval, and modern political philosophy are famously dense and provocative, forcing students to confront the deepest problems posed by some of the greatest minds in Western history. In this remarkable guide, Mansfield conveys with subtle precision the contours, the twists and turns, that political philosophy has taken over the centuries, from Plato to Nietzsche.

For any student of political philosophy, this is the place to begin. This slim book can be read at a single sitting, but what Mansfield has to say may keep you thinking for the rest of your life.

Editorial Review:

The ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines are reader-friendly introductions to the most important fields of knowledge in the liberal arts. Written by leading scholars for both students and the general public, they will be appreciated by anyone desiring a reliable and informative tour of important subject matter. Each title offers an historical overview of a particular discipline, explains the central ideas of each subject, and evaluates the works of thinkers whose ideas have shaped our world. They will aid students seeking to make better decisions about their course of study as well as general readers who wish to supplement their education. All who treasure the world of ideas and liberal learning will be motivated by these original and stimulating presentations.

The LIBERTARIAN READER: Classic & Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman

Thomas Paine, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Paterson, Murray Rothbard, Richard Epstein, John Locke

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Valuable Addition to Any Political Science Library 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 17 people found this review helpful.

If you are looking for a quick introduction to the principles and practices of the Libertarian Party, avoid this book; a good search engine and some basic research skills are all you need. If instead you're searching for a deeper understanding of the philosophy of liberty, then I can suggest no better starting point.

The book itself is a collection of short essays from a wide range of contributors to the libertarian tradition, from political economists and philosophers (such as Locke, Mill, and Adam Smith) to some perhaps more surprising sources (like the Old Testament and the Tao Teh Ching). These essays are grouped around broad themes - "individual rights", "free markets", "skepticism about power" - certainly a boon to students, but also an aid to the casual reader. Should a particular topic or thinker pique your interest, a lengthy essay called "The Literature of Liberty" catalogs the sources as it closes the book.

Whether reading this book will convince you to join the Libertarian Party, or send money to the Cato Institute, is a matter open to debate; indeed, some critics rightly point out elements of "big L" Libertarianism that are at odds with "small l" classical liberal thought. My own hope is that reading these essays will give you not only a better understanding of the founder's intent, but also a clearer vision of a better possible future - a freer, saner world. How we get there, if we get there, remains to be seen.

Editorial Review:

Collected in one volume are the classic writings that form the basis of libertarian philosophy. The Libertarian Reader links some of the most fertile minds of our time to a centuries-old commitment to freedom, self-determination, and opposition to intrusive government.