Levels of Government Books - Page 6

An Introduction To The Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, And Models Of Public Policy Making

Thomas A. Birkland

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A clear public policy book...it is possible! 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 25 people found this review helpful.

This book explains how public policy is made, the types of models which could be used to make/evaluate a public policy, and an overview of how public policymaking fits into the American government process.

Since most people have only learned about the three branches of government, they may not be certain how passed laws are enacted. Lacking the time and expertise needed to implement these laws, legislators at the federal, state, and local levels delegate authority to agencies to make the policy which will implement these laws.

The chief benefit of this text is the qualitative approach which Birkland personally prefers (although he does warn that other approaches use an economics-based approach) and clear explanations. It also contains an annotated bibliography of influential works and a dictionary of key terms used in the public policymaking process.

Birkland's text is written so that it can be used either by students or public policy practitioners. Instead of bogging down the reader in minutiae and personal liberty, he wanted to emphasize how important public policy is.

Editorial Review:

Now redesigned for increased user friendliness, this readable and practical introduction to the public policy process is intended for students in either traditional academic or professional programs at the undergraduate or graduate level. The author's direct writing style and extensive use of examples will also appeal to practitioners. The book offers an extensive overview of the best current thinking on the policy process, with an emphasis on accessibility and synthesis rather than novelty and abstraction. It has many features that make it equally useful as a ready reference, including myriad definitions throughout each chapter; an annotated bibliography; an introduction to web-based research, with a guide to the most important and reliable public policy research sites; and additional reading suggestions. New for this edition are chapter-at-a-glance introductions; new case studies for major chapters; new Questions-for-Discussion; and sidebars for definitions.

Understanding Public Policy (12th Edition)

Thomas R. Dye

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

Editorial Review:

For undergraduate-level courses in Public Policy.

 

Understanding Public Policy is not only an introduction to the study of public policy, but also an introduction to the models that political scientists use to describe and explain political life.

 

This leading  introduction to public policy is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with concrete tools for not only understanding public policy in general, but for analyzing specific public policies. It focuses on what policies governments pursue, why governments pursue the policies they do, and what the consequences of these policies are. Very contemporary in perspective, it introduces eight analytical models currently used by political scientists to describe and explain political life and then, using these various analytical models—singly and in combination—explores specific public policies in a variety of key domestic policy areas.

Wilderness and the American Mind, Fourth Edition

Roderick Nash

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Wilderness: One of America's Most Important Ideas 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Those who have been so quick to pronounce the "death" of environmentalism surely have not taken Roderick Frazier Nash's Wilderness and the American Mind into account. With roots in European Romanticism, and blossoming in mid-19th Century writings of Thoreau and Emerson, the idea of wilderness is one of the most important ideas America has contributed to the world.

The wilderness idea has no abler chronicler than Roderick Nash, whitewater rafting guide, adventurer, descendent of Canadian explorers and professor emeritus of environmental studies, who first published this book in 1967 and has taken it through four editions. His entertaining narrative covers the life of Muir and the early preservation struggles of The Sierra Club. He provides special insight into Aldo Leopold and sets the whole discussion of Leopold's land ethic in its historical context.

While wilderness is everywhere under assault, many still understand the continuing need to preserve our wilderness system, a network of wild areas free from all other human activities. In fact, it's difficult to come away from Nash's book without understanding that wilderness is an intrinsic American value.

The most articulate advocate of wilderness was Theodore Roosevelt, who believed the modern American was in danger of becoming an "overcivilized" man, who has lost strength and higher virtue in a trend toward "slothful ease." Nash gives great credit to Roosevelt and shows how his ideas and experiences contributed to later 20th Century concepts of environmental preservation.

America, according to Roosevelt, needed to preserve the remnants of the pioneer environment because, "no nation facing the unhealthy softening and relaxation of fibre that tends to accompany civilization can afford to neglect anything that will develop hardihood, resolution, and the scorn of discomfort and danger."

Wilderness evokes deep sentiments in the mystic chords of American memory. It is not merely a political movement thought up in the 1960s--a trend that will fade as baby boomers age and our present generation of environmental leaders moves on. Nash shows us how wilderness came to be that way and suggests the wilderness idea is likely to endure at the vital center of our national psyche.

Business and Its Environment (5th Edition)

David P. Baron

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

Pretty Easy Reading 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I've read a good chunk of this book during a B-school elective on non-market strategies, and found it imparted some valuable information. It's not very prescriptive if that's what you're looking for. But it made me feel like I got something out of the class despite an unstellar professor.

New Edition is Better 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

There is a new edition (the fifth) for this book, and it is better than the edition shown here. While avoiding a polemical view, Baron illustrates business ethical priciples with very poignant examples and stories. The case studies are very up to date and fun to read. More than that, though, the case studies can form a basis for classroom debate and discussion which not only brings the material to life but also promotes critical thinking and articulation among students.

I liked it very much, and recommend it highly.

Editorial Review:

For undergraduate and graduate courses in Environment of Business, Business and Public Policy, Business and Society, and Business and Public Responsibility. Business and Its Environment, the best-selling text, brings together in an integrated manner the disciplines of economics, political science, law, and ethics to provide a deeper understanding of the managerial issues that arise in the environment of business. Built around a set of conceptual frameworks for analyzing these issues, the text formulates nonmarket strategies to deal with them, integrates these with market strategies, and provides cases for the application of the conceptual material.

The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom

James W. Stigler, James Hiebert

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Comparing math teaching practices in Japan and Germany with those in the United States, two leading researchers offer a surprising new view of teaching and a bold action plan for improving education inside the American classroom.

For years our schools and children have lagged behind international standards in reading, arithmetic, and most other areas of academic achievement. It is no secret that American schools are in dire need of improvement, and that education has become our nation's number-one priority. But even though almost every state in the country is working to develop higher standards for what students should be learning, along with the means for assessing their progress, the quick-fix solutions implemented so far haven't had a noticeable impact.

The problem, as James Stigler and James Hiebert explain, is that most efforts to improve education fail because they simply don't have any impact on the quality of teaching inside classrooms. Teaching, they argue, is cultural. American teachers aren't incompetent, but the methods they use are severely limited, and American teaching has no system in place for getting better. It is teaching, not teachers, that must be changed.

In The Teaching Gap, the authors draw on the conclusions of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) -- an innovative new study of teaching in several cultures -- to refocus educational reform efforts. Using videotaped lessons from dozens of randomly selected eighth-grade classrooms in the United States, Japan, and Germany, the authors reveal the rich, yet unfulfilled promise of American teaching and document exactly how other countries have consistently stayed ahead of us in the rate their children learn. Our schools can be restructured as places where teachers can engage in career-long learning and classrooms can become laboratories for developing new, teaching-centered ideas. If provided the time they need during the school day for collaborative lesson study and plan building, teachers will change the way our students learn.

James Stigler and James Hiebert have given us nothing less than a "best practices" for teachers -- one that offers proof that how teachers teach is far more important than increased spending, state-of-the-art facilities, mandatory homework, or special education -- and a plan for change that educators, teachers, and parents can implement together.

Business Law and the Regulation of Business

Richard A. Mann, Barry S. Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good book, but AMZN's price is high 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 16 people found this review helpful.

You can get the book at much cheaper price from elsewhere including book stores.

Barnes and Nobles.com sells it only for $72.50.

Check it out. do not buy from AMZN. They are cheaters.

Wow, awesome 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

My book arrive very quickly and it was in excellent condition. It arrived just in time for class. Thanks

Reader-friendly with terrific examples 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very easy-to-read text, chock-full of case citations and examples. A great text for business students and an easy-to-understand introduction to law as it applies to the real world!

Editorial Review:

This text provides a concise explanation of the statutory and case law that affects business with the objective of enabling students to use the law as a source for business decision-making. Excellent preparation for CPA exams and numerous critical thinking features are particular strengths of this text. This sixth edition continues the tradition of authoritative, accurate, and up-to-date presentation of the law.

A G-Man's Life: The FBI, Being Deep Throat, and the Struggle for Honor in Washington

Mark Felt, John O'connor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Last Watergate Book? 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I've been a student of Watergate for years. Maybe in part because I was born in October 1973, and I enjoy asking people who was Vice President the day I was born (answer: no-one). Maybe also in part because ten years ago I picked up "The Haldeman Diaries" off the remainder rack at Barnes & Noble, and then started collecting all the Watergate autobiographies still in print (yes, that includes your own, Jeb Stuart Magruder).

I never really had an intelligent guess as to who Deep Throat actually was. When Mark Felt's name was released by his family last year, I finally understood why -- he's only a tangential part of the books I read, not mentioned by name in the Woodward/Bernstein books, not mentioned even in "The Haldeman Diaries" or the Oliver Stone "Nixon" movie, both of which fixated on J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, Felt's immediate FBI superiors.

When I purchased "A G-Man's Life", I thought I'd bought my last Watergate book. I was wrong. This book necessarily leaves lots of questions unanswered, primarily because Felt is now essentially senile and then, according to my reading of co-author John O'Connor's portions of the back, he took no active role in the writing. "G-Man" is drawn mostly from Felt's long-forgotten FBI memoir, and supplemented by unpublished writings and interviews with family members (who learned Felt's secret only at the same time as did family friend O'Connor).

Oddly, even the unpublished writings do not acknowledge that Felt was Deep Throat (hence the odd parsing of his phrase last year, "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat"). O'Connor does explain this gap in two different ways: first, he points out where Felt didn't identify with the Deep Throat character portrayed in the movie; and second, he prints his speculation that Woodward's Deep Throat was a composite of which Felt was only a part. That speculation, however, is not echoed in Woodward's own "Secret Man", a book about Felt written before the public announcement.

Felt's own writing, about his rise through the FBI ranks, well reflects the fatigue of hard work with the rewards of a job well done. This is a more than adequate crime memoir, with lots of decent anecdotes along the way. The FBI is not publicly regarded the way it used to be, so "A G-Man's Life" is not only an effective period piece, but a reminder of what good a governmental organization can achieve when motivated solely by the public interest.

The toll that Felt's career took on his own family is mentioned not at all in the memoir chapters-- that is left to O'Connor to describe in the epilogue. O'Connor, whose daughter went to college with Felt's grandson, has become a family friend and is thus in the best position to write objectively about these struggles. Where Felt's own writing also seems naive in retrospect is his celebration of Hoover the man -- there are tens of thousands of pages of well-documented books offering contrary evidence -- and also in his take on the New Left, the obsession that ultimately brought down his FBI career. Whether the New Left was a Communist-infiltrated organization that actively conspired with foreign governments to overthrow the United States is not a question answered by Felt, although he does try.

The aftermath of Felt's authorization of "black bag jobs" against the Weather Underground resulted in his conviction in federal court -- after a trial in which Richard Nixon testified in his favor. Felt's principled refusal to come forward as Deep Throat in the midst of his trial postponed his receiving the accolades he so richly deserved. The question remains... was Felt's three decades of secrecy worth the wait?

Editorial Review:

This absorbing account of Mark Felt's FBI career--from the end of the great American crime wave through World War II and the culture wars of the 1960s--and his conviction for his role in penetrating the Weather Underground, provides a rich historical and personal context to the "Deep Throat" chapter of his life. Felt's personal recollections of the Watergate scandal (which he wrote in 1982 and kept secret) in which he explains how he came to feel that the FBI needed a "Lone Ranger" to protect it from White House corruption, shed light one of the most mysterious public figures of our time.

The ANATOMY OF MOTIVE: The Fbis Legendary Mindhunter Explores The Key To Understanding And Catching Vi (Lisa Drew Books)

John Douglas, Mark Olshaker

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Total reviews: 63 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why?

In this eagerly anticipated new book from the international bestselling authors of Mindhunter, Journey into Darkness, and Obsession, legendary crime fighter John Douglas explores the root of all crime -- motive.

Every crime is a mystery story with a motive at its heart. Understand the motive and you can solve the mystery. The Anatomy of Motive offers a dramatic, insightful look at the development and evolution of the criminal mind. The famed former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, Douglas was the pioneer of modern behavioral profiling of serial criminals. Working again with acclaimed novelist, journalist, and filmmaker Mark Olshaker, the collaborator on his previous three bestsellers, and using cases from his own fabled career as examples, Douglas takes us further than ever before into the dark corners of the minds of arsonists, hijackers, bombers, poisoners, serial and spree killers, and mass murderers.

From seemingly ordinary men who suddenly kill their families or go on a rampage in the workplace to dedicated murderers who embark on the kind of spree that resulted in the death of fashion designer Gianni Versace, John Douglas helps us understand what causes violent sociopathic behavior. In chapters such as "Playing with Fire," "Name Your Poison," and "Guys Who Snap," he shows how criminals use and react to the media and how the motives behind hijacking and terrorism have evolved through recent history.

For the first time, Douglas identifies the common building blocks contributing to the violently antisocial personality, showing the surprising similarities and equally surprising differences between various types of offenders. Douglas profiles notorious assassins, examining that particular personality and how it applies to other types of crimes. Drawing on cases from today's headlines, he looks at recent sniper incidents at schools and other public places to penetrate the minds and motivations of mass killers. As Douglas tracks the progressive escalation of these criminals' sociopathic behavior, he also shows the common elements in many of their pasts that link them together.

Through riveting profiles and a narrative that reads like the best mystery fiction, The Anatomy of Motive analyzes such diverse killers as Lee Harvey Oswald, Theodore Kaczynski, and Timothy McVeigh, and helps us learn how to anticipate potential violent behavior before it's too late.

The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World

Bjorn Lomborg

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Total reviews: 333 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Bjørn Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace, challenges widely held beliefs that the world environmental situation is getting worse and worse in his new book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues that feature prominently in headline news around the world, including pollution, biodiversity, fear of chemicals, and the greenhouse effect, and documents that the world has actually improved. He supports his arguments with over 2500 footnotes, allowing readers to check his sources. Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific evidence and argues that we are making decisions about the use of our limited resources based on inaccurate or incomplete information. Concluding that there are more reasons for optimism than pessimism, he stresses the need for clear-headed prioritization of resources to tackle real, not imagined, problems. The Skeptical Environmentalist offers readers a non-partisan evaluation that serves as a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favored by campaign groups and the media. Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. When he started to investigate the statistics behind the current gloomy view of the environment, he was genuinely surprised. He published four lengthy articles in the leading Danish newspaper, including statistics documenting an ever-improving world, and unleashed the biggest post-war debate with more than 400 articles in all the major papers. Since then, Lomborg has been a frequent participant in the European debate on environmentalism on television, radio, and in newspapers.

The Plan: How to Rescue Society the Day the Oil Stops--or the Day Before

Edwin Black

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Energy Talking Points for McCain and Obama 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Edwin Black, already an award-winning journalist and investigator for his previous books such as "IBM and the Holocaust" and "War Against the Weak", deserves an award for national service for producing his latest work "The Plan: How to Save America the Day After the Oil Stops--or Perhaps the Day Before." This book should shake up all Americans, and their political establishment, to wake up and take notice of the United States' peril. America has become dependent on foreign countries to feed its oil addiction.

Do Senators McCain and Obama have a Plan of their own to address the ramifications of a shortfall in supplies of petroleum to the US? Have they considered the potential chaos that would ensue in the US if the purveyors of oil come up short?

Edwin Black has certainly done his homework in accessing government documents, anonymous sources, and government websites. Just one of the possibilities Black points out is that should there be a military strike in the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, the US would have to tap its Strategic Petroleum Reserve immediately. Within days, America would have to beg its allies to supply its oil habit. Given that President George W. Bush was unable to secure additional oil production from supposed-ally Saudi Arabia this year, it should be clear to most that the situation begs a solution.

Black is able to suggest a Plan to break the habit of oil consumption through a program that includes retrofitting vehicles and tapping into alternative sources of energy that will free Americans from dependence on countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which have made clear their geopolitical enmity towards the U.S. His latest book, The Plan, is alarming but should move Americans - and the current presidential election - towards discussing how technologies currently available and in development can be harnessed to free their country and start what could promise to be another Industrial Revolution.

Editorial Review:

A controversial and bitter-pill crisis plan to rescue America once the oilstops. The must-have go-to book once the oil stops or perhaps justbefore it does. Companion to the best selling, award-winning InternalCombustion (St. Martins 2006). See www.Planforoilcrisis.com pluswww.internalcombustionbook.com. By the author of IBM and the Holocaust and Internal Combustion.