Local Government Books

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk

Randy Shilts

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: St. Martin's Griffin Amazon Marketplace: 30 new & used starting at $10.45

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A LEADER IN THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Randy Shilts was a great writer, his books are always a good read. This was his first, and perhaps best book. It tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected politician in America. I bought this book after reading the reviews of "Milk," the new movie starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. It's a good history of how gay men were treated in America in the 1940's and 1950's, tells about Stonewall, then moves to San Francisco and the Castro, when Harvey Milk does.The Castro grew up around the time Harvey Milk first came here, started his camera store and ran for City Supervisor. Milk comes across as someone with compassion and a clear vision of what city governement should do, but also someone with a wicked sense of humor, and a sense of theatre, which makes it a fun read. He really comes alive in this book. The book goes through his assasination by a former police officer, Dan White, the candlelight procession after his death, the trial of Dan White, and subsequent "White Night Riots." A must read for anyone interested in the gay rights movement.

Editorial Review:

Known as “The Mayor of Castro Street” even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk’s personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

Harvey Milk has been the subject of numerous books and movies, including the Academy Award–winning 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. His life is also the basis of a 2008 major motion picture, Milk, starring Sean Penn.

How to Run for Local Office : A Complete, Step-By-Step Guide that Will Take You Through the Entire Process of Running and Winning a Local Election

Robert J. Thomas

Amazon Price: $19.95 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 3 to 5 weeks By: R & T Enterprise Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $13.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Government -> Elections
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Practical Politics
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The best how-to-run-for-office book I've ever read 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Robert J. Thomas is not a great writer in the conventional sense, but perhaps miraculously, this humble and unassuming 128 page mini-tome is the best book on running for office that I've ever read. Mr. Thomas gives you the information that you need to know without a lot of filler, and he gears the book to the most likely potential readership - the first-time campaigner without a lot of money, connections, or experience. No fluff, no filler, no frills. When I ran for office in 2004, I purchased five how-to-run-a-campaign books (see my other reviews), and this was the best of the bunch. Thank you, Robert J. Thomas! I only got 1.33% of the vote (Green Party candidate in five-way race), but the tips and techniques offered herein probably saved me from an even more humiliating defeat.

I approve! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I checked out a lot of reviews of other books before I bought this one, and I'm not disappointed. What's particularly great is that it really zeroes in on the local election with very specific ideas and tasks.

As I've worked on local elections for others, I can say that Thomas clearly knows what he's talking about, and he's taught me many things I didn't know. When it comes time to throw my hat in the ring myself, this book will be my bible.

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

Ashraf Ghani, Clare Lockhart

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $12.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Popular Economics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Law -> International Law -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Today between forty and sixty nations, home to over a billion people, have either collapsed or are teetering on the brink of failure. The world's worst problems--terrorism, drugs and human trafficking, absolute poverty, ethnic conflict, disease, genocide--originate in such states, and the international community has devoted billions of dollars to solving the problem. Yet by and large the effort has not succeeded.
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. Now, in Fixing Failed States, they describe the issue--vividly and convincingly--offering an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advancing a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises. Military force, while certainly necessary on occasion, cannot solve the fundamental problems, and humanitarian interventions cost billions yet do not leave capable states in their wake. Ghani and Lockhart argue that only an integrated state-building approach can heal these failing countries. As they explain, many of these countries already have the resources they need, if only we knew how to connect them to global knowledge and put them to work in the right way. Their state-building strategy, which assigns responsibility equally among the international community, national leaders, and citizens, maps out a clear path to political and economic stability. The authors provide a clear, practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world's success stories--Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.
The battle against terror, poverty, climate change, and much more cannot be won unless we can save these nations. In Fixing Fixed States, two of the world's foremost authorities offer a way out of the current crisis--a framework for re-imagining the international system. It is a book that is unique in its essential optimism--an optimism that the authors have earned through their own substantial real-world efforts in failed states.

Drug Lord: The Life & Death of a Mexican Kingpin - A True Story

Terrence E. Poppa

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Demand Publications Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $9.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Reference & Collections
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Criminals
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Reference

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

great read, flawed conclusion 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

In Drug Lord, Terrence Poppa manages to capture all the elements that a book about America's War on Drugs should have: engrossing, multidimensional heroes and villains, clearly-defined connections between the men and women who move oceans of narcotics across the Rio Grande and the larger governmental interests on both sides of the border that profit, one way or the other, from the trade, and guns, guns, guns. Drug Lord was an engrossing read, which I happened to read while touring the Big Bend area of West Texas. The book had such an impact on me that I made a 100-mile detour to visit Ojinaga, the stage where Pablo Acosta made his rise from dirt-poor campesino to mafia kingpin. Although Ojinaga today does its best to disassociate itself, at least to outsiders, from Acosta's legacy (even this pinche gringo knew better than to walk into a cantina and start asking questions), many of the tangible remnants of the bad old days Poppa describes, such as the smuggler's trucks with questionable propane tanks in the bed and houses surrounded by 12 foot-high cinderblock walls, are still readily visible. Although the book succeeds as narrative and will satisfy anyone interested in the drug war, the conclusion that Poppa comes to can be summed up in one sentence: it is all Mexico's fault. True, the Mexican government is rotten to the core, and six years under Vicente Fox doesn't seem to have changed much. But any honest examination of the War on Drugs must acknowledge the fact that Acosta and those who have come before and after him are only supplying a demand created by Americans; if the Mexicans don't sate that demand, then the Colombians will, and if the Colombians don't sate it, then the Cosa Nostra, or the Russians, and so on and so forth. I found Poppa's willingness to foster the blame for an unwinnable war on the shoulders of a country that has lost so much fighting a conflict whose victory will primarily benefit Americans to be a sad and myopic conclusion to an otherwise great book. Readers wanting an equally-engrossing but more balanced read should try Charles Bowden's Down By The River, about the Amado-Fuentes organization.

Editorial Review:

During the last years of his violent life, Pablo Acosta smuggled a staggering 60 tons of cocaine a year into the United States-one third of the total U.S. consumption. Set only miles from the Texas border, Drug Lord is an extraordinary inside look at how drug trafficking really works in Mexico. Based on interviews with Acosta and other insiders, Poppa weaves a tale of the smuggler's rise from humble beginnings, his violent struggle to maintain control over his empire, the treachery and over-indulgence that fostered his downfall, and his grisly death at the hands of the judiciales, the Mexican federal police he had been paying off for years and who turned against him when he was no longer of use.

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina

Rob Christensen

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The University of North Carolina Press Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $17.75

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> North Carolina
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> South

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

Editorial Review:

How can a state be represented by Jesse Helms and John Edwards at the same time? Journalist Rob Christensen answers that question and navigates a century of political history in North Carolina, one of the most vibrant and competitive southern states, where neither conservatives nor liberals, Democrats nor Republicans, have been able to rest easy. It is this climate of competition and challenge, Christensen argues, that enabled North Carolina to rise from poverty in the nineteenth century to become a leader in research, education, and banking in the twentieth.

Although party divisions and the issues of race that often distinguish them are deeply rooted, Christensen explains, North Carolina voters remain loyal to candidates who focus on issues such as education and building a business-friendly infrastructure. He takes us to picket lines and debates and through numerous red-baiting and race-baiting political campaigns. Along the way we are introduced to many remarkable characters, including a U.S. senator who was a Nazi sympathizer, a candidate for governor who was a Soviet agent, a senator who helped bring down Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, and a TV commentator who helped usher in the Reagan Revolution. Long before the talk of red state-blue state polarization, North Carolina was an intensely divided state politically. With Christensen as a guide, readers may find there is sense after all in the topsy-turvy nature of Tar Heel politics.

Torture and Democracy

Darius Rejali

Amazon Price: $31.60 List Price: $39.50 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Princeton University Press Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $30.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> World -> General

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

Editorial Review:

This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.

As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.

Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.

Emergency Response Planning for Corporate and Municipal Managers, Second Edition (Butterworth-Heinemann Homeland Security)

Paul A. Erickson

Amazon Price: $58.36 List Price: $72.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Butterworth-Heinemann Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $57.45

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Management
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

Emergency Response Planning outlines the essential roles of corporate and municipal managers and demonstrates the importance of their relationships with federal, state, and local government agencies as well as public and private community sectors. Author Paul Erickson, one of the leading experts in the field, focuses on proactively planning for emergencies, particularly in the recognition and advance coordination of response to incidents instead of simply implementing emergency measures.

The book is broken out into three sections. Section 1 outlines the overall scope of comprehensive emergency planning and discusses in detail the major elements that must be addressed in an Emergency Response Plan. Section 2 examines the types of hazards and risks faced by emergency response personnel, as well as the public, in typical emergencies, and provides specific recommendations regarding the immediate and long-term health and safety of emergency response personnel. Section 3 discusses a range of issues that must be given special attention in the development and implementation of any emergency response plan including: hazard and risk reduction, decontamination, data and information management, monitoring strategies and devices, terrorism, and the training of emergency response personnel.

* Helps you to develop and implement an Emergency Response Plan
* Provides specific recommendations regarding the immediate and long-term health and safety of emergency response personnel
* End of Chapter summaries and questions provide concise information on learning objectives and a review of important concepts

The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda (Minnesota)

Paul David Wellstone

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of Minnesota Press Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $6.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> Minnesota
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

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

Editorial Review:

When senators think about running for president, they write books like The Conscience of a Liberal. Indeed, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota thought about pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, but ultimately backed off. Unfortunately, his death in an October 2002 plane crash ended both a promising political career and all speculation about where it might lead.

The first part of the book explains Wellstone's unlikely ascension to the Senate (he was once a college professor), and some of his campaign war stories are fun reading for political junkies. One of the most amusing passages describes how he once nearly clocked New York Republican Alfonse D'Amato over a disagreement: "When the train reached the Senate chamber, I jumped out and lunged forward, intending to catch D'Amato and deck him. My body was shaking with uncontrollable anger." Another senator held him back, and Wellstone calmed down.

The bulk of The Conscience of a Liberal, however, is given over to laying out a political agenda that includes universal health care, reversing welfare reforms, prekindergarten education, raising the minimum wage, and campaign-finance reform. He closes with a call for a new politics: "This is not a conservative America.... There is a huge leadership void in this country that the Democratic Party, emboldened by political courage and a commitment to the issues that made our party great, can fill." Sadly, one of the politicians who helped fill that void is now gone himself. Still, his ideas live on. --John J. Miller

You Can Lead a Politician to Water, But You Can't Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics

Kinky Friedman

Amazon Price: $14.96 List Price: $22.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 75 new & used starting at $0.74

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

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

Editorial Review:

And Kinky Said Unto the People: Why the Hell Not?

So the good people of Texas weren't able to get the Kinkster into the Governor's Mansion in 2006. It was a solid race, and he fought the good fight. Getting on the ballot as an independent -- a feat that had not been achieved in over a century -- was a victory in itself. And with ideas like "slots for tots" (legalized gambling to pay for education), the five Mexican generals plan (bribes to enforce border protection), and a firm stand against the "wussification" of the state, he would have done a helluva job.

If that 2006 election was any indication -- and it was -- the political landscape in both Texas and the country at large needs a significant overhaul. The hucksters, the wealthy, and the twofaced rule; there is no room for Truth, and the little guys are quickly forgotten in all the muck. But Kinky, (briefly) down yet certainly not out, is still looking out for his fellow Americans, and he has much wisdom to impart.

In this hilarious, thought-provoking manifesto, Kinky lays forth his ten commandments for improving the state of Texas and politics everywhere, and for restoring order, logic, decency, and above all a sense of humor back to this country. It's classic Kinky in a brand new way. And he might just have a point.

Making Government Work

Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, Fritz Hollings

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of South Carolina Press Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $10.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This book describes a career politician's pragmatic remedies for broken government, drawn from a half-century of political leadership experience."Performance is better than promise" has long been the motto of Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, former governor of South Carolina and 6-term U.S. Senator. In this political autobiography of his 50-year career in public service, Hollings takes to task our flawed political machine and pulls from his own experiences compelling - and often colorfully candid - accounts how one makes government work in spite of itself. Confrontational at times toward those individuals and issues he cites as to blame for deadlocking government and putting America "in the ditch", Hollings proves through his crystal clear prose he is deeply committed to improving our system of government, strengthening regulations on free trade, countering dependence on wooing campaign contributions, and enhancing our communication and education systems to better compete in an information-driven global market. Hollings details specific instances from his past of moments when bold leadership and smart use of resources and authority led to positive differences in the lives of Americans. It is his mission through this volume to reinvigorate a floundering system and call good people and good ideas back into the service of America's future.