American Philosophy Books

I'm sorry to say that I did not enjoy this book. The author was honest when he named the book - "Waiter Rant" because it is a rant of a prejudiced and unhappy waiter. The author reveals a lot about himself in this book that has little to do with being a waiter and mostly to do with being a snob in a job he hates. The language in the book bothered me as did his cruel treatment of the kitchen staff, poor, mostly immigrant workers who had to use public transportation and barely made enough to support their families.

There were a few redeeming tales in the book - like when he waited on a young couple celebrating an anniversary and obviously were not able to afford to eat at the high end restaurant. Helping them select items from the menu that would cost less and asking the kitchen to put a little extra on the plate was unexpected.

If you enjoy reading the author's blog - keep reading the blog.

A cursory glance at `Waiter Rant's summary did not prepare me for the surprise I'd have actually reading it. With the subtitle "Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter" and the vague hints of pointed anecdotes about the frustrations of being a server, the descriptions only scratch the surface. Having psychology, sociology, movies and books at his disposal, the waiter is a resourceful humorist and philosopher.

Like many a server, the anonymous waiter yearns to be someone else. In this case a writer. Using wit and wisdom at his disposal he gives us a set of stories that weave in and out both seamlessly and episodically at the same time. A former seminarian, he constructs his book to match the four seasons, but like the liturgy he formerly read, his narrative unfolds vividly and without mincing metaphors.

I love how he balances his criticism with empathy for all of his true life characters and shares the unvarnished truth about poverty, sanitation, relationships, and bad customers.

Appetizers:

Humor: 1.) For the tyrant owner, the waiter offers this: "`Caesar's in the hospital,' Sammy says, close to weeping. `I want all of us to remember him in our prayers.' It soon becomes obvious the waiters aren't besieging heaven with requests to speed up Caesar's recovery. In fact, they're probably asking the Almighty for the exact opposite."

2.) For finicky customers: "Fussy eaters are an interesting evolutionary paradox. How did they manage to survive the primordial jungle and pass on their DNA?...I can just imagine some Stepford cave wife getting mauled by a saber-tooth tiger because she dithered between picking free-range mastadon and dietetic tree bark."

3.) And for fellow staff: "...I feel my prisoner struggle inside the napkin. For a moment I wonder what karmic sins it committed to deserve coming back as a cockroach. Maybe he was a concentration-camp guard, a serial killer, or a politician. Maybe he was a chef."

4.) For unwanted visitors: "'MADAM, STEP AWAY FROM THE SQUIRREL!' I yelled. With a hurt expression the animal do-gooder returned to her seat. Tough s---, lady. This is a restaurant. Not a petting zoo."

Compassion: For decent, poor customers: "'It's a little expensive,' his girlfriend says. 'I completely understand, madam,' I say in a conspiratorial whisper. 'I can't even afford to eat here.'"

Philosophy: "Not taking Mom out to a restaurant on Mother's Day is like Ebenezer Scrooge pistol-whipping Tiny Tim on Christmas morning."

Straight from the hip, about "the rest of us": "Was I out to lunch when the happiness and success genes were passed out?"

If there's a flaw in the book, it is when he restates that he feels like a loser waiting tables into his upper thirties. Although emphatic and fitting into each scene's reflection, it gets repetitious. Otherwise, this little tempered criticism comes from such a fun and engaging read.

In the end, `Waiter Rant' does for wait staff what `The Cracker Factory' did for alcoholic housewives. It is an insightful trip that thoroughly examines every nook and cranny of restaurant life, its every participant, and every funny philosophical thought as it comes to fruition in the author's mind. Blending Miss Manners with excruciatingly humorous anecdotes, the waiter does a skillful job of illuminating both the restaurant world and the life it frames.

While ultimately a worthwhile read, Waiter Rant leaves something to be desired.
"The Waiter", Steve Dublanica, is a career waiter working at three restaurants throughout the book. He spends most of his time on The Bistro, a New York City 'fine dining' establishment. He serves the crassest of individuals to the nicest, most sensitive people one could hope to meet. And throughout the memoir (and in the appendixes) information about how to be a better customer is dispensed. However, I have a number of problems with Waiter Rant. They are as follows:
As a memoir, Waiter Rant succeeds until about page two hundred. At which time it gets repetitive. The stories The Waiter tells throughout are interesting in many ways. Each has its own morals or objectives but as the memoir goes on, the stories get very repetitive and almost a pain to read. Hearing about the waiter's point of view on holidays like Valentines Day or new years eve are interesting and informational - but that value is lost when tales of what happens behind the scenes become all similar. Don't get me wrong, each brings something new to the table but - in my opinion - Waiter Rant should have been cut off much sooner.
The second main problem I have with Waiter Rant is how a chronology of the success of his blog (and book deal) is interspersed throughout the memoir. Frankly, an update on his blog is not of concern to the rest of the book nor is it of any concern to readers outside those who follow it. At seemingly random points, the author inserts conversations about his blog or book with coworkers or narrates a paragraph or so about it. Not only is it somewhat irrelevant, but mentioning the writing process of the book as the reader is reading it disrupts the memoir's flow. Steve Dublanica takes away the magic of the book. It's like you're at a movie, completely engrossed in the film, and all of the sudden the lights go on - you realize you're not in the movie anymore but in a theater. That's the essence of what I'm trying to convey.
From a purely realist perspective, Waiter Rant provides valuable information on the restaurant service industry and on being a better customer and patron. The author indirectly answers many questions one may have about restaurants and - rather explicitly - lists important information one may want to use at the end.
Looking at the memoir from a pure entertainment perspective, I feel the first half or so was very entertaining - well written and thought out. However, by the end we see repetition though the writing style never fails.
All in all, this book deserves fours stars for the job it does in dispensing interesting, valuable information and most importantly being an entertaining read. Despite its shortcomings, I recommend picking it up at the library or - if you so desire - buying it at your local bookstore.

I was expecting a lot more from this book. The waiter is rather whiny, and the customers described say little more than "unacceptable" when faced with less than what they feel entitled to. They're all rather homogenous. I've never read the blog, but I am not impressed with the writing and felt like it was more of a "me, me, me" story than a true description - or expose - on the behaviour encountered in restaurants. The waiter himself is not a very interesting character, and has little in the way of redeeming personality traits.He also seems to have a chip on his shoulder rather than any semblance of a sense of humor. Maybe the blog is better, but this doesn't make me want to read it. The whole going-to-the-seminary thing put me off at the beginning, so I fee like this guy has a lot of issues.

I got a lot of insight into the world behind the swinging kitchen door in this book, which make me crack up out loud sometimes and rub my chin in thought at others, impressed by some of his observations. He can be a witty, sarcastic SOB from time to time (his background includes studying to be a priest -- to being the recipient of a lap dance in the back room of a stripclub. what a versatile guy!), which I love. But, I didn't find the book to be consistent. The editor definitely didn't do his/her job here because the pacing is all over the place. I do recommend Waiter Rant, however, especially for the stories about horribly rude customers that remind of me of how I've probably behaved sitting in a restaurant seat. I promise I won't act that way any more.

You would be surprised to see how our government is screwing us so bad and how they spend our hard earned money. Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised. This is a great book.

So what is a nut like me supposed to do come this Fall? If my 1988 Ron Paul for President bumper sticker judiciously placed upon my 1986 Renault Encore worked by way of putting Ron Paul in the White House in 1989, then maybe now I could be reviewing the book of Dr. Paul's presidential memoirs rather than ruminating on federal government grandiosity more convoluted than this sentence. From page 37 & 38: ...with our 700 [military] bases around the world...including troops in 130 countries..."With a $9 trillion debt, perhaps $50 trillion in entitlement liabilites, and the dollar in free fall, how much longer can we afford..." [my words coming up] to keep going as an intact nation? Paraphrased from pages 79 & 80: If we abolished the personal income tax now, our federal government budget would have to return to the levels of... 1997! Shriek, run! Not that, anything but that! If you have children, and you plan to vote for either Sen. Obama (even if he is almost too conservative for you), or Sen. McCain (even if he is almost too liberal for you), please [at a minimum] read pages 133 & 134 and see what the government has in store for your kids (brainwashing never looked so good). So much of what passes for government is most likely unconstitutional, even if I do take a fancy to those interstate highways.

Ron Paul's book is a short, simple read; but so is the catastrophe section of the newspaper. Read it to challenge yourself to explore what true freedom and responsibility entail. The other two guys will keep their feet firmly on the accelerator with our big bus aimed right at the cliff.

If only Mr. Paul would stick to the basics as stated in this book and realize that change is a process that happens slowly, especially with regard to foreign policy and national security, he might have gotten further in politics.

The book itself is an excellent read and a keen look at where we came from constitutionally with a warning to those complacent enough to put their faith in government control of their lives.

Ron Paul once again shows why he should be, but won't be president. Too much common sense.

I expected this title to be more of a statement of what Republicans that want a return to Constitutional government and fiscal responsibility would need to do to return the country to those values. Certainly, many of those ideas are in this book, but the book is more a picture of Ron Paul's campaign experiences, and responses to the issues.

In those responses, explanations and essays on the issues, it becomes clear what those that have the same value system would need to do. Dr. Paul does call for some action on these topics and explains succinctly why.

I enjoyed reading his views and responses to many of his campaign challengers and situations. I also enjoyed the forays into our history that explain how some of these situations have come about.

This book embodies the "It's not me, it's you" theme. It is a quick read, and something you should read weekly. I loaned it to a friend and they never gave it backso I'm buying it again! One should live by the 4 agreements! REALLY---I'm trying!

A friend recommended this book to me and I'm grateful that he did. This is a short, but very profound little book and came to me at just the right time in my journey. If you are not ready to accept and assimilate the information provided, it will be hard to appreciate this book fully. I know that I wouldn't have been ready until now. I have the four agreements posted on my fridge and am trying to think about them often as I go about my daily life. They are so simple to comprehend, yet it is amazing what a challenge it really can be to practice them fully.

Using and applying these four agreements has improved my relationship with myself and others. I highly recommend them to anyone drawn here. The work is powerful yet simple, beautiful in its simplicity, and washes away emotional pain like the ocean sculpts the shoreline. Other of my favorite book about self-help and love is I Love You. Now What?: Falling in Love is a Mystery, Keeping It Isn't

Great for anyone struggling with the injustices of society and religion. This is an EXCELLENT cd. A little /new agey/ at first, but after the 1st 10 minutes or so, it gets really good. Of course, for the new age folks out there, you will love it right from the beginning. I'm telling everyone I know about this cd.

First of all this is a very basic book. I have big issues with page 30 right from the get go. He says the word is powerful and is a force....I beg to differ. Things are just symbols of symbols, thus twice removed from reality, and the word IS the symbol! It's the thoughts we think that give us power and give us light to see what we REALLY are, not the word. He states a familar bible phrase, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God,and the word is God." No.... I'm sorry, God doesn't DO words or any other "idols" He only does creation... in the form of loving, expansive thoughts. Yes we, (as children of God), are thoughts in the mind of God, and have NEVER left. Ideas leave NOT their source. He also gives a definition of sin, which I don't beleive in, and therefore can't possilbly be correct! The truth MUST be the same for eveyone! So while this book may have some good things to say, I so disagree with most of it's main premises, that it will serve no good purpose to reccommend it or reread it.

I was genuinely interested in reading this, but he was so caught up with his fervor, talking points, and preconceived notions of reality that I couldn't get to the wonderfully researched history.

His thesis relies on his own (rather uninteresting, though mildly creative) manipulation of semantics. At best his arguments are eye-rolling. More disgracefully, he completely discounts general historic attitudes that were pervasive across party lines.

All in all, rather than being an informative piece, he just comes across as a condescending jerk who only loves the sound of his voice. The kind of guy that clears the room at a party.

How DARE you Amazon place this on my screen where I have to look at it as a RECOMMENDED book! How dare you place the image of this hateful, narrowminded, uneducated, propagandizing, hating, fearing, polarizing DETRITUS in my face! Keep this political clap trap to yourselves!

What is this book about?

Walmart got an unfair trade advantage by trading with Communist China, using their slave labor, and putting millions of small mom and pop American businsess out of business.

Walmart then supports the Republican party with their communist money.

Then some Commi Republican writes a stupid book. The Bush family has orchistrated our current free trade sysetem with China - the only country that systemiszes abortion yet they claim to be anti-abortion. Not! Plus they gave cCommi China the opportunity to poisen American children with toxic toys. Great job Republicans.

Read the end of animal farm and you will see the slave owning coomunists and their admiring capitalists working together.

Communism ended in Europe due to the greatest President Reagan and the fear he put into athiest pigs plus the union movement solidarty lead by Lech Walensa.

The Republicans today are funded by Communists and are Commi lovers. Read Animal Farm.

We need someone to fight for Democracy, not some screwed up vision of capitalism funded by trade with athiest communists, but plain Red, White and Blue Democracy. Vote Obama.

God, I wish Reagan were alive.

Our homes should also be more then just some capitalist driven Vegas-style pyramid scheme supported by a corrupt Republican engineered tax scheme.

I could write a book about the communist republican since the sad exit of Reagan.

I have really enjoyed this book. Goldberg has shined a light on what it truly means to be Liberal today. While I had heard some of this in college a lot of the information, especially about Wilson was all news to me. At times it does seem that Goldberg reaches a little to make his point, but he does make it. I would, and have, recommend this book to Liberals I know so that they can lean a little about their history and where their beliefs come from

So many people, to include certain friends of mine, are all too willing to write this book off as just one more salvo from the Republican noise machine without ever bothering to read it. Goldberg's title is perhaps unfortunate in this regard, as it leaves one with the impression that it is another rightist screed targeting the usual suspects--"feminazis," militant environmentalists, and the like.

Goldberg had me right away, though, when he discussed the ways in which the word "fascism" (in contemporary discourse) has become pretty much emptied of all real meaning. It has become a sort of floating signifier onto which people project various meanings as they see fit. In the last forty years, "fascism" has been served as a sort of stand-in for "extreme conservative" or "Christian fundamentalist." One strain of this goes back to the protests of the sixties and continues in protest discourse today (a la Chris Hedges' book, for example). Yet, as Goldberg shows in his detailed historical analysis, "fascism" has never really been synonymous with conservatism in any significant way. Fascism is in fact a form of radicalism, as is Christian fundamentalism, whereas conservatism is a movement that is focused essentially on the preservation of tradition and the moderation of the impulse to institute reforms.

One of the great ironies of sixties-era radicals bandying about the word "fascist" to describe Richard Nixon and his ilk is that many of those radical groups who trafficked in such talk (Weathermen, the Black Panthers) employed many of the classic brownshirt tactics of fascist agitators.

This is a great book for anyone who has been perplexed by all the shifting alliances and labels of our times, and anyone who realizes how slippery and meaningless terms like "liberal" or "conservative" or "progressive" are when you try to pin them down. What it really leads the reader to do is rethink the way we think of the political spectrum, in terms of Right, Center, and Left. The radical Right and the radical Left, for example, have much more in common with each other than the radical Left does with traditional liberalism or the radical Right has with conservatism.

Goldberg's working definition of "fascism" is pretty much this: Total worship of the state, state control of all activities and expression, and state ownership of everything. Fascism is always more and more government. The classic example of Fascism, Mussolini's Italy, is exactly this when you examine the historical record. True conservatism, on the other hand, always seeks to lessen the influence of government.

Certainly, the Franco regime in Spain was heavily Catholic and at the same time in political sympathy with Germany and Italy (but ultimately neutral during WWII), but it is important not to confuse "theocracy" with true Fascism.

Goldberg's readings of Rousseau, Robespierre, Sorel, Mussolini, Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, and many other figures are lively and very perceptive. Many of his revelations are shocking and surprising. Woodrow Wilson, for example, has gone down DRASTICALLY in my estimation after reading Goldberg's interpretation of some of his major writings.

If Hillary Clinton-style liberalism and fascism have anything at all in common, Goldberg says, it's the notion that the state is the supreme arbiter and caretaker for all and of all.

Jonathan Kozol's "The Shame of the Nation" is an insightful analysis into the re-segregation of America's schools.

Kozol spends an equal amount of time examining the root causes for the re-segregation of America's school as well as the on-the-ground effects that re-segregation has wrought.

The analysis regarding the root causes is pretty near flawless. Kozol rightfully excoriates those who have abandoned the promise of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. He also rightfully pinpoints the moment in legal history where the momentum of Brown v. Board of Education was reversed in the Supreme Court case of San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. For a more in-depth treatment of the broken promises of Brown v. Board of Education, one should read Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol and Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter Irons. Instead, Kozol points out that America's educational system has reverted back to a perverted Plessy v. Ferguson "separate but equal" system allegedly discredited by Brown v. Board of Education.

For the teachers locked inside this system, Kozol depicts the demoralizing impacts the system has upon its students, its teachers and its administrators.

Kozol's solution appears to be twofold: (1) reform from inside the system and (2) completing what was started in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. One gets the feeling that Kozol is not altogether sanguine about either prong of the solution. Reforming the inside of the system would require a concerted effort on the part of teachers, administrators (and even students) and becomes more difficult each and every day in an era in which schools and school districts are receiving less and less resources. Re-starting the Civil Rights movement seems even less likely given the inertness of politics at almost every layer of government and the large degree of escapism afforded to the citizenry of the United States (internet, tv, movies, video games, etc.).

Kozol wonders aloud why Brown v. Board of Education is celebrated and it is clear that the answer is that it allows America to soothe its collective conscience to celebrate the "end" of segregation. If only that were true...

Sheesh....if Kozol is suppose to be some type of expert in public education, you think he would have marshaled a few facts to bolster his case. If, as other reviewers assert, the target audience for this book is the comfortable suburban parents and schools, then the book has failed. Suburbanites are sophisticated enough to require valid data to support an argument. Kozol offers nothing but anecdote and appeals to emotion. Not very convincing.

Jonathan Kozol is very good at exposing the shameful conditions of inner city schools serving an overwhelmingly poor and minority student population. As after I read his earlier book "Savage Inequalities" a number of years ago, I came away shocked at just how bad things still are for so many of this nation's schoolchildren.

Kozol's solution to all the problems facing urban schools is simply to fund them at the same level as the wealthiest suburbs. There is no examination of whether that funding target is appropriate, which is a very important question. Perhaps the ritzy suburbs are spending too much and wasting money on frills such as lavish sports facilities and so on. It's one thing if the residents in that community are willing to pay for those frills but quite another to ask the overburdened taxpayer to provide the same to all schools.

Kozol takes the typical educrat position on all the hot button issues, from vouchers to standardized testing to phonics to gifted & talented programs (all of these are bad in his view) to universal government-run preschool (good in his view). He doesn't provide much in the way of convincing data to support his arguments, which suggests that they are based on ideology rather than sound research.

Kozol's got this rag doll in his mouth and won't let go. Who can blame him? The schools are in bad shape and, one supposes, someone is at fault. Why not blame everyone except the students? An alternative perspective might suggest the rise of a new phenomenon rarely mentioned by those advocating increased funding: Willful ignorance and the cult of pride. I work in the inner city. Many of my students refuse to do anything and are backed up by their parents. "You can't make me" is their slogan. No administrator will back up a teacher who assigns homework to kids who won't do it. The kids come to school three days a week and routinely take 6-weeks to visit their grandparents south of the border. The girls wear $100 nail jobs, $150 tennis shoes, and won't carry their books because they have bad backs. 25% of the kids stay home on rainy days. Charter schools make the rules the public schools refuse. The kids drop out because they won't accept discipline programs based on "consequences." After years in the local PS, they can't cope with being forced to take responsibility. No doubt, Kozol knows well that some schools have more lap tops than others. This may be a "savage inequality," but for the life of me I can't see how a lap top is going to make up for the lack curiosity in students devoted to gang culture.

After his time spent as an educator, Jonathan Kozol devoted his career to that of an educational reform activist. He has visited what seems like thousands of schools throughout the United States and the communities that make up those schools to bear witness to the shameful secret that lies hidden in plain sight. Kozol's message in "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America" is not too different from the message he has written about in previous books - America still has 'second class citizens' who do not receive the same schooling, services, opportunities, rights, the same anything that the white majority does. With his argument that school integration has regressed to a level almost on par with the school segregation that existed before Brown vs. Board of Education, his message is a wake up call to anyone in education and to any American citizen.

As a teacher I have witnessed what Kozol writes about firsthand. I taught in a de facto segregated school that exhibited the classic signs of neglect Kozol mentions - antiquated building, overcrowded classrooms, military-style discipline, heavy emphasis on test preparation - the list goes on and on. I've witnessed firsthand the trials and tribulations that children of color and poverty can often bring to the classroom, only to have their education shortchanged as well. Kozol's plea is passionate; it is a shame that America continues to have segregated schools and that some school districts do whatever they can to guarantee that minorities are excluded all the while claiming that race isn't the issue. It is a shame that minority children have to go to classes in condemned buildings and that their curriculum is centered almost solely around raising test scores in math and reading to meet government demands. How can they meet those expectations when they do not receive the same education as the majority students? It is a shame that the landmark decision of Brown vs. Board of Education has failed and we still hail it as a triumph. It is a shame that schools named for courageous civil rights leaders are segregated schools, bearing witness to the exact opposite of what these leaders hoped to bring about. It is a shame that too few seem to care about these issues and that it may take a movement even larger than the civil rights movement to make any changes. It is a shame that some fail to recognize still that separate is never equal.

Why should those who have the most receive the most (in terms of education and opportunities) while those who have not or have the least receive the least? This is a question that one elementary student posed to the author. He was saddened that the only response he could give her was that after numerous years of asking that same question, he didn't have any good answer for it. Perhaps there never will be one. And even though that is one issue other reviewers have raised with "The Shame of the Nation", there are limited answers or suggestions Kozol can give with the state that education is in today. One author and the teachers and principals and government officials that he interviews cannot give a simple answer to a complex problem that is sadly most likely never going away and that will only continue to get worse. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., America will never be a first class nation while it still has second class citizens. If we are failing our children in their education, how are they ever going to be prepared to succeed in life?

First of all, I realize this book is slightly dated, in that it was published 17 years ago. The unfortunate thing is that I don't believe much has changed since Kozol wrote it... if there have been major changes, he wouldn't have found it necessary to write his second book, Shame of the Nation, or continue to push for equal-opportunity education like he is still doing today. So, although this book was researched and written awhile ago, I do believe it is still relevant for discussion today.

This book is sad. Plain and simple, it made me very sad to read about the way these kids have to "learn" every single day. Children who live in poverty every single day of their lives, who struggle just to get a decent meal and a good night's sleep, who cannot count on safety, a clean environment, or even love from their families, should absolutely, 100% have one place they can call their sanctuary - their school. Unfortunately, this book showed that is simply not the case. Children who live in these horrifying conditions of dire poverty are going to "schools" (and I say that loosely because some of the schools Kozol describes simply are not places to learn) that are decrepit, dirty, disgusting, with not enough space, not enough teachers, not enough books, no computers, and sometimes not even enough working toilets. There isn't another way to describe this book other than horrifying. Pure and simple, we should not be allowing any child to spend a minute in these conditions, let alone every day for eight hours a day. This book is heartbreaking to read, but it needs to be read, because I truly do not think that conditions have changed since the book was published in 1991. This is something that, as a country, we need to improve, big time. Our future literally depends on it.

Kozol begins his book by writing about east St.Louis. Wikipedia writes about East St.Louis as one of the most crime-ridden cities in the nation. This is one of the poorest cities in America and of course the school system suffers. The school buildings are run down, bathrooms are broken, and the kids don't have textbooks to study from. The physics labs haven't had water for 25 years and the sports field is completely in ruins . A lot of industrial waste is dumped here from the chemical factories that have established themselves in these areas. Usually it happends by accident when trains with the stuff spills it out on the ground. Then an alarm sounds and people have to take cover. But the kids here suffer from lead poisoning, high asthma rates and other diseases that can be traced to the toxic elements that surround them. The neighbourhoods themselves are filled with 24 hour liquor stores, strip bars, gambling houses, and dealers roaming the streets at night. Its hard to think of a worse start for a kid.

He writes of another neighbourhood in Chicago, called North Lawndale. That was a vibrant community until the riots after Martin Luther Kings death when a lot of the businesses where destroyed. It never really recovered. Now the gangs have moved in and the industries have moved out. A pastor from the area says"kids like these will kill each other over nothing". Dr.Martin Luther King himself lived there but there is no memorial. Only an old truck stands at the spot where his house once was. The schools here are also in terrible condition. Out of a kindergarten class of 23 kids 14 will drop out. 4 at most will go to college. 1 of those 4 will graduate. Three of the twelve boys will have spent time in prison. A few teachers are great but mainly there is a shortage of teachers, leaving many classrooms without one. In fact these kids are economically getting much less than the kids are in the richer areas. Although many adults say that one should not tell these poor kids that because that would encourage "victim" thinking. Although I would feel like a victim if I was reading a textbook that said Nixon was president like some of these kids do! Top salary of a teacher in an underpriveledged innercity school is 40000 dollars a year whereas in a suburb up to 60000 dollars. About 2900 dollars is spent every year on a child in a poor neighbourhood whereas 7800 dollars is spent on a child in a rich one. There is a silent understanding amongst many corporations that the kids in the inner city schools are perfect for the bottom end jobs that they offer. They aren't expected to become doctors or lawyers. This has led to principles and teachers of these innercity schools in "framing their language carefully" when requesting grants or money from corporations to "train ghetto children to become good employees".

In the Bronx one school that is overpopulated is located in an old roller skating rink. It was made to fit 1000 people now there are 1550 people there. The interior is old and falling apart. Too many people crowd into small rooms and many of the windows are broken. There are hardly any computers and the school is surrounded by heavy traffic. In another Bronx school there is a gaping hole in a classroom floor, the blackboards are so cracked that students risk cutting themselves on them when writing, paint flakes off the wall and covers the floor, and when it rains theres a waterfall flowing down the six flights of stairs in the school. Out of 500 freshmen from one school 82 will go on to take the SAT. On the other hand a school in a well off district is close to a park with lots of flowers around it. 825 kids attend this school. Here the library contains 8000 books in contrast to the skating rink school library that contained 700 books.

Wan to understand why our education system is in the shape that it's in? READ THIS BOOK! Explains why lower income schools perform the way they do....must have for any educator's collective of continuing education books. Worth reading twice!!

Kozol's Savage Inequalities paints a frightening picture of urban schools in the United States. He describes schools that are overcrowded, dilapidated, and flooded with sewage. He asks why we allow our children to go to schools in conditions where none of us would choose to work. He deeply explores the issue of inequality in funding. While he does suggest equalizing funding, he is careful to mention that the problems facing schools are complex and require innovative solutions. I know many teachers have read this book, but we need policymakers and elected officials to read it as well.

I needed this book for a class I was taking. WOW!, it was a real eye-opener. As it was really hard to read because it is sad. How amazing that there are schools here in the United States that are in dire need. I would reccomend it, but be prepared to cry.

I'm not quite sure how she pulled it off, but with The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand managed to forge a literary masterpiece out of reheated libertarianism, stone age sexual politics, and dialogue that's so full of grandiose monologuing it would make William Shakespeare blush. I'm not being tongue-in-cheek here; I really do love this novel. I really do think that it's a jaw-dropping monument to the might of the individual, a symphonic ode to mankind's potential. Its seven-hundred pages see Rand laying waste to conventional standards, inverting all of society's most cherished values, and dropping more than a few subtle hints about the potential dangers of good intentions. Critics of Rand's work seem to miss out on the difference between quality and agreeability; they attack The Fountainhead for its philosophical underpinnings, calling it a piece of trash for no other reason than that they don't see things in quite the same way as Ayn Rand. They don't seem to care about its literary merit. Either that, or they just can't see the novel for what it is. They're completely oblivious to its ecstatic drama, angular poetry, remorseless tension, and epic scope. When they call Rand humorless, I have a hard time believing that they're missing out on the smirking satire and bruising irony that lurk beneath The Fountainhead's surface. When they call Rand inhuman, I wonder what they make of the dizzying panoply of characters that populate her work. Are they aware of the care she takes in evoking sympathy, even for her antagonists? Are they aware that she goes out of her way to remind us that Peter Keating, Alvah Scarret, and the Dean really are human beings? Even when she's depicting pure evil, Ayn Rand understands the importance of complexity, vision, and dimension; indeed, the novel's arch villain is every bit as masterful a creation as Shakespeare's Iago. Critics don't seem to appreciate the protagonist, either. I mean, do they really need to be told that Howard Roark is the very opposite of a soulless automaton, that he's the personification of struggle, of ambition, of hope, of everything that is pure and honest and noble about humanity? No, I don't sympathize with Rand's atheism (or with Roark's). I don't think that selfishness is as clear-cut a virtue as it's made out to be in her work. I am, for the most part (and I say this somewhat grudgingly), a liberal. I'm certainly not an objectivist, and I only have libertarian sympathies if you squint hard enough and ignore my views on our healthcare system. But that's beside the point; I'm not a Christian and I still like the Bible. I'm not an objectivist, and I absolutely adore The Fountainhead.

The fountaun head is a great piece of Ayn Rand's work.
However I had trouble with 2 of the 6 discs I listened too. Returned the full set to Amazon.
Amazon got me a replacement set in nothing flat. Excellent service there. The replacement New set has 4 bad out of the 12 I have listened too. Its going back as well.
The manufaturer of these Audio books needs some new equipment of Quality control.

This is an excellent story that will keep you entertained the whole way through! The reader does a great job of doing different voices for characters which is also amusing to listen to. It will not disappoint!

this book is not on the same level of entertainment as atlas shrugged, but i did still very much enjoy it. i find myself aggreeing with what ayn rand writes and find her philosophy very interesting and compelling

At first sight, i never thought I would like this book or read it like i'm in that world; but, i did. I was in and did not want to come out, for reasons i, myself, can't explain. it's a great book of mysterious power to suck the readers into the vacuum of its world.

Must read for those who wish to understand the US Constitution in it basic understanding from the writers of the USC

Great historical document by founders Hamilton,Madison, & Jay. Should be requited reading in every Classroom.

You will not know American History without reading these papers. I am a history major and forget or never realized the importance of these papers. I know I never read them in college.

The details have already been well covered so let me just add another five star vote for must read(or for many of us reread). Whatever your political views you simply cannot understand the basis of our countries principles without working through the Federalist Papers. Step away from the bloggers and bar stool pundits(same thing really-just different delivery) and do your own homework on the founding of this great country. I am not a flag waving, rah, rah patriot type but it is hard to come away from a reading of the Federalist papers without a profound respect, admiration and in my case awe of the principles which form our government.

Lastly, this is a review of the Signet series which is very good but frankly I suggest not spending too much time worrying about which edition, publisher etc. The main point is to get a copy and start studying.

The Federalist Papers provide an outstanding basis for comprehending the foundation in the principles of creating and maintaining the U.S. government. It is very interesting. If you are studying American politics you can not continue without reading this book. It will also give you a better understanding of how the older laws of the U.S.A. were developed.

I bought this for my dad for his birthday a few months ago because I consider him to be a remarkable person as well. He thoroughly loved it and is having my mom now read it. If my dad says it's good than it is so.

I have to agree with another reviewer...this is banal and boring. Most of the essays are highly repetitive (i.e. be good to others, have faith in God, be a good role model, make peace not war...blah,blah,blah). Sure, people have a right to their beliefs and I do not presume to argue against those; nonetheless, the beliefs are uninspired and typical, revealing little more than "Wow, we all want the world to be a better place, and it can only come about if you believe what I believe."

This ties into my final point: virtually all of the essays had a didactic tone. Growing up in the midwest, I have no desire to be taught what I should believe.

Great collection from ordinary to famous people - from the series titled "This I Believe" on Public Radio. Bought as a gift to inspire a young writer.

Short stories that share the reality and persistence of the common American. Some really hit home. Others are lighthearted and yet profound.
Recommended.

A book that is worth the words that they are written on. Personal beliefs are unique due to individual lifestyles which are reflected by the inspirational essays making up this book. Spend your money and you will be very glad you did.

"Simply put, [this] is the most important book ever written on American foreign policy." Thus writes Andrew Bacevich in his introduction to the newly reissued book written by Reinhold Niebuhr in 1952. Bacevich is a Niebuhr scholar and author of the just published book, "The Limits of Power". He was largely responsible for getting "Irony" reissued.

The timing of this book becoming available, as well as of Bacevich's own book, couldn't be better. Niebuhr was a pastor, teacher, activist, moral theologian and prolific author. He was a towering presence in American intellectual life from the 1930's through the 1960's. He was, at various points in his career, a Christian Socialist, a pacifist, an advocate of U.S. intervention in World War II, a staunch anti-communist, an architect of Cold War liberalism, and a sharp critic of the Vietnam War.

The Irony of American History traces the course of American idealism and exceptionalism from its very beginnings in the providential thinking of the Pilgrims who settled Massachusetts. Written early in the Cold War, Niebuhr devotes much of his analysis to comparing and contrasting Marxian communism and the "bourgeois" liberalism, or liberal democracy of America. While he clearly argues that the liberal project of democracy offers more to the "common good" of the community than does Marxism, both have the seeds of their destruction in the illusions they hold. So-called "Niebuhrian realism" is the ability to see through such illusions as a condition for avoiding the worst pitfalls they carry.

Alas, one of the greatest of these pitfalls is the American tendency to suppose that we can manage history. As Niebuhr writes: "The illusions about the possibility of managing historical destiny from any particular standpoint in history, always involves, as already noted, miscalculations about both the power and the wisdom of the managers and of the weakness and the manageability of the historical 'stuff' which is to be managed." He goes on to point out that "In the liberal versions of the dream of managing history, the problem of power is never fully elaborated. ...On the whole, [American government] is expected to gain its ends by moral attraction and limitation. Only occasionally does an hysterical statesman suggest that we must increase our power and use it in order to gain the ideal ends, of which providence has made us the trustees."

Is it not painfully evident that we reached one of those "occasional moments" after 9/11 when "hysterical statesmen" - Bush and Cheney, et al - argued for a profound increase in the power to gain the "ideal ends" of bringing "freedom" to Iraq and the Middle East since we are the obvious "trustees" of this freedom?

Herein lies the element of "irony", the philosophical and spiritual core of Niebuhr's arguments. The first element of irony, Niebuhr points out, "is the fact that our nation has, without particularly seeking it, acquired a greater degree of power than any other nation of history" and we "have created a 'global' political situation in which the responsible use of this power has become a condition of survival of the free world."

He continues: "But the second element of irony lies in the fact that a strong America is less completely master of its own destiny than was a comparatively weak America, rocking in the cradle of its continental security and serene in its infant innocence. The same strength which has extended our power beyond a continent has also interwoven our destiny with the destiny of many peoples and brought us into a vast web of history in which other wills, running in oblique or contrasting directions to our own, inevitably hinder or contradict what we most fervently desire. We cannot simply have our way, not even when we believe our way to have the 'happiness of mankind' as its promise."

In Iraq we have met the enemy and "it is us". Not enough of us understood that "we cannot simply have our way" in the exercise of American power, which is thought to be essentially military power, to head off the folly in which we are buried and the prospect of a war without end.

Writing all this in 1952 with the cataclysmic dangers of the Cold War becoming a hot war, Niebuhr foresaw the increasing globalization of the world and the danger of not recognizing and accepting the limits of our power to bring freedom and happiness to the rest of the world, especially through military means.

This slender book of 173 pages is loaded with these prescient observations warning us clearly of the catastrophic dangers that can follow from a failure to understand the limits of our power of our exceptionalism and of the illusion that we can manage all this history to accomplish our supposedly moral and "good" ends for other nations.

When you finish reading this book you will then want to read Bacevich's book, "The Limits of Power", in which he essentially channels Niebuhr's understanding and traces the history of the last 60 years in which the Bush-Cheney foreign policy has become simply an extension of the direction American foreign policy has taken, primarily from the Reagan administration onward.

Being a fan of the author, I appreciated the condition of this book. Thank you.

In The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr reviews the competing ideologies of communism and liberal democracy and finds that they both express an overly optimistic view of human nature. In the liberal view, the defects in human nature are curable through education or changes to social and political institutions. In communist ideology, the proletariat is a repository of virtue that will create a perfect society when the corrupting influence of the institution of private property is abolished. History, of course, shows that these views are dangerously inaccurate. Against them, Niebuhr offers the Christian view that man must struggle to create justice in this world while realizing that ultimate solutions lie beyond his grasp: "every sensitive individual has a relation to a structure of meaning which is never fulfilled in the vicissitudes of actual history."

This book was written more than 50 years ago, during the hottest part of the cold war. Much of the book focuses on America's new (at that time) responsibilities as a superpower, and on the struggle between communism and democracy. Still, a modern reader will be surprised by the book's relevance to the current position of the United States in the world.

Niebuhr takes it as self-evident that, if there is one center of power and authority, "preponderant and unchallenged, ... its world rule would almost certainly violate basic standards of justice." He outlines the attempts made in the U.S. constitution to diffuse power among different institutions and create a system of checks and balances. He cites James Bryce's assessment: "The aim of the constitution seems to be not so much to attain great common ends by securing a good government as to avert the evils which will flow not merely from a bad government but from any government strong enough to threaten the pre-existing communities and individual citizens." This works well enough in the United States, but how can the dangers associated with hegemonic power be averted in an international context? Niebuhr, a realist, notes that "no world government could possibly possess, for generations to come, the moral and political authority to redistribute power between nations in the degree in which highly cohesive national communities have accomplished this end in recent centuries." However, he expresses optimism that the United Nations might serve as a forum in which national policies are subjected to the scrutiny of world opinion. He also suggests that a sense of community with others might serve as some kind of internal check on power. Establishing such a sense of community requires recognition of our own fallibility and of the valid elements in what are to us foreign cultures, outlooks, and systems of government.

Niebuhr sees that the strength of the United States after World War II has brought us into contact with very different societies, and "... neither their conceptions of the good, nor their interests, which are always compounded with ideals, are identical with our own." Lacking a deep understanding of the complexities of national aspirations and cultural differences, U.S. foreign policy often lunges between two extremes of offering economic advantage to secure cooperation or overcoming intransigence through military force.

Moreover, the United States has always considered itself an example for others to follow: "except in moments of aberration, we do not think of ourselves as the masters, but as tutors of mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection." People in the United States do not lust for world power, although we feel the pride that accompanies power. Because we see our motives as idealistic, the anger that others feel toward us is hard for us to understand or accept. The great danger for the United States is an excess of hubris. "Our moral perils are not those of conscious malice or the explicit lust for power. They are the perils which can be understood only if we realize the ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too complacently relied upon; and of power to become vexatious of the wisdom which directs it is trusted too confidently. The ironic elements in American history can be overcome, in short, only if American idealism comes to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historical configurations of power, and the mixture of good and evil in all human virtue."