Politics Government Books

Since the advent of the written word, authors have for various reasons, chosen to adopt pseudonyms. I don't find this to be a problem. Maybe the imprimatur Lynn is looking for is absent because to explicily label it in line with Catholic teaching or doctrine (free of error) would cause for some panic, for others doubt in faith, and still others a scoffing dismissal of the implausibility of what is being presented. Since Christ's death on the Cross, and His Ressurection, we have been in the "end times". Draw your own conclusions.

Great book and great service from Amazon. Book is a real eye-opener of things that are happening all around us and yet are hidden from our consciousness via the media and the manipulations of the government and devil.

I would like to have known previously that this book was writtin by a friend of Madgegoria.
I am enjoying the book and learning a lot. I like the refresher regarding the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. It is really eye opening!Look What Happened While You Were Sleeping

The apparitions of Medjugorje have never been approved by the Vatican. The bishop of Mostar has said following three separate investigations into the apparitions that there is no supernatural activity occurring at Medjugorje. That it is a fraud. He has told the faithful not to make pilgrimages there. Catholics should not be reading this stuff. It dangerous to your faith. If you go back and look at the simplicity of the children of Fatima and Bernadette at Lourdes the Children of Medugorje are their polar opposites. Bernadette and Lucia both became nuns as a result of their visions. None of the Medugorje children have become religious.

9/05/2008
The Vatican has suspended the main priest involved with the so called visionaries. Pilgrimages to the site were banned by the Vatican in 1985.

Excellent information very much needed to regain what is quickly eroding away in the US. It is far beyond a religious point of view.

Very good book. He doesn't freely hurl labels, he gives credit where due (for the most part) and backs up his statements with facts (unlike Michael Moore's Stupid White Men). I am non-partisan but lean a bit to the right; however, I would have liked the book more if he would have balanced the list a bit. Of the 100 people, I'd think 15 or 20, at least, would be Republicans.

I picked this one up out of curiosity, and am glad that I did. It is both funny and informative, and shows how utterly goofy some of America's most influential people can be. Although entertainers do not make policy per se, they certainly wield great influence with the public, and many of these ill-informed folks show up, in addition to politicians, professional protesters, and a conglomeration of "unasylumed lunatics" who are nonetheless helping to (mis)shape modern America. This is a great read, and highly recommended.

No one is going to have a list that is exactly 100% the same but what is interesting about this list is that everyone can find something that they like about it. Don't judge a book by its cover in this case because while some might be quick to dismiss it as a knee jerk republican manifesto it really isn't.

Those I liked

Two people on the list whose names escape me who are screwing up American education by the demon of self esteem. One of these people is on record as saying that "it doesn't matter that student X thinks that 2+2=5 he did try after all and he is still a winner." Ok kid see how well that attitude works for you in college.

The one word description of #56 Courtney Love is just classic

The crowning achievement of this list for me is Peter Singer(30 something) who has made a lot of friends among my fellow disabled people by saying that disabled children should be either aborted or killed at birth for the betterment of the species. This would be bad enough however Mr. Singer says that you can kill a baby up to a month old that shows signs of weakness or frailty he equates this to returning a car that turned out to be a lemon.

On behalf of disabled people everywhere Mr. Singer thanks very much its always good to feel loved and cared for which I always thought was the true mark of an enlightened society.

Now I have issues with the book four of them actually Rodney King, Jesse Jackson and Michel Moore way too predictable. Other then that I found the book to be throughly entertaining.

This list-style book is wildly entertaining. I am a moderate and I still agree with much of the content. Goldberg calls out liberal cowardice and even neo-cons on ignorant decisions and views on socioeconomic issues facing our nation. Just for fun, he even throws in some pop culture figures that are wasting our space.

I recommend this for anyone who dislikes liberals, neo-cons, Hollywood elitists and anyone with a good sense of humor. Of course, conservatives will love this book.

Genuine entertainment for anyone who is not an extremist or idealogue.

Bernard Goldberg provides opinions that are food for thought--whether or not one agrees with him. The introductory section includes scathing criticisms of the media for its bias, Hollywood for its pompousness and arrogance, and academia for its political correctness and selective sensitivities. He also has choice words for the professional America haters, and for the purveyors of frivolous lawsuits. Goldberg decries the coarsening of the American culture, including the prevalence of public profanity. He points out that we could have retained the civility of the 1950's while doing away with its racial and gender prejudices.

In his original-100 list, reproduced here, Goldberg criticizes Michael Savage and Jimmy Swaggart for what he considers their intemperate rhetoric. He sees Jesse Jackson as someone who, unlike Martin Luther King, divides rather than unites, and who is a hog for the cameras. Goldberg chides Judge Moore for breaking the law. He sees Gloria Steinem, and other feminists, as hypocrites for looking the other way while former President Clinton preyed on women. Goldberg sees former President Jimmy Carter as soft on dictators.

This book is an excellent guide to the American Government system. It covers historical events surrounding the writing of the Constitution and reveals personal information on the founding fathers. This book is an interesting read and a great companion book to AP Government Classes for High Schoolers or anyone who would like to have more information on the political roots and processes in America.

Whether starting to explore the American government's workings or brushing up, this is a great guide. Nick Ragone's straight-forward approach breaks it down, creating a refreshing, interesting read.

The layout is less intuitive than, say, an idiots guide, but doesn't talk down to you and leave out details while doing it.

The genius about this book is the fact that it remains intuitive via the writing style. This book was meant, I believe, to be read from front to back as an easily digestible read, but can be taken in part.

Good stuff.

This is not to judge or grade this book on American Government.
But it is true that I looked for something which I consider an essential element of federal government, and I did not find it her, and not in other presentations of American government either.
Namely, there is no systematic presentation of the division of legislative (and administrative) powers between the federal and the state level, and there is no information either on fiscal federalism, the division, between the two levels, of collecting and of spending public money, and of their respective degree of autonomy in doing so.
It is easier to find information on some of these aspects in Wikipedia than here, which I found disappointing.
There you are,
Best, C.Deubner

Relatively easy to understand explaination of the basics; however the author's political bias is definitely there and comes out repeatedly in his highlighted examples, which overshadows what he should be trying to illustrate.

I read this book and found some of the stories about people going to jail for years over trying to "clean-up" their property just too hard to believe so I did a Google search on some of the family names in this book of people that were sent to prison for nothing more than cleaning up their property only to find that he does not tell the whole story. He leaves out the real reason they were tried and convicted. And it wasn't because they wanted to just cleaned up their property. He exaggerates and leaves out key issues.

Every American who is concerned with the direction that our country is headed should read this book!

I bought this book because a local city council is overstepping its bounds and telling private property owners what can and cannot be done on their property, but there are so many other things that intrusive government is attempting that exceeds the limits our Framers put in place in the Constitution. You ought to read this book to see what some of them are and how we can all fight back against the "power that be" and reclaim "power to the people."

A great compilation of property rights related horror stories, broken down by category: endangered species, eminent domain, DEC/EPA, etc.

After spending billions to defeat the dictators of Nazism and Communism we have home grown our own fascists...BOTH parties are guilty of allowing this undermining of freedom to go on....
In direct violation of the the Fourth Amaendment...Nameless, faceless judges and bureaucrats are literally stealing the life work of thousands of private citizens...
Buy this book and publicize it....We need thousands of Paul Reveres...

Quick delivery, book was in great shape when I received it. Greatr seller, thank you.

I used this book in my mid-level International Finance class at a liberal arts college, and I think it is excellent. This text was used to supplement class lectures and economics research/working papers. It served as a companion to more advanced and technical academic literature. Krugman and Obstfeld use commonsense and watered-down calculus to explain the key principles, making the material accessible to the average hard working college student. Furthermore, each scenario is thoroughly explained with a beautiful (i.e. colorful) graph.

Would be more suitable for pg students or ug students majoring in international economics. Better to read after having some basic background in international trade and international monetary system. I'd advice to read "International Trade Theory and Policy Analysis" by Steven Suranovic for example, before going ahead with this text-book.

Krugman rehashes old Keynesian thinking, without challenging it. Science does not move an inch without people daring to kick the can of the old school. This book is very old school and the section on the gold standard is specifically contemptable by its total lack of foundation. I have found better education elsewhere. Besides-the-point mathematics is leaving students confused and not any wiser, except that they probably wasted some money on this book. It passes off for knowledgable but it can not hide its lack of understanding. I certainly will not teach this to my children. If anything, I would recommend Carl Menger, starting with a disequilibrium theory, which seems much more suitable for a non-linear world such as ours.

And I'm not just saying that because I'm inadequate and can't comprehend whatever the author is saying. Seriously, this book is disorganized, confusing, and badly worded. The first equation introduced in the textbook, the gravity model, is written like so: Tij= A x Yi x Yj/Dij. Now I know it's common sense that the division sign before Dij (the distance between countries i and j) would go under both Yi and Yj...but it's just improper formatting (it looks like it could be over just Yj or A,Yi, and Yj). I also agree with the first reviewer that the author does not provide any sort of explanation that would help you with problems for exams or homeworks. He assumes you know random things, yet TAKES FOREVER to explain the simplest of concepts.

Excellent book and still relevant today. Considering the current mortgage crisis, much of this book is proven to be on the right track.
Page 86- "One must draw the dinstinction between competitive free enterprise, the most moral and productive system ever devised, and cartel capitalism dominated by industrial monopolists and international bankers. The difference is the private enterpriser operates by offering products and services in a competitive free market while the cartel capitalist uses the government to force the public to do business with him. These corporate socialists are deadly enemies of competitive private enterprise." Hmm, "bailout" sound familiar?

Empires rise and fall- and America will eventually fall- simply cyclical. The difference between empires of old and what will be the next empire is that the next has the potential to encapsulate the world. None dared to call it conspiracy in 1970, but by 1990 Bush Sr. was plainly talking about his "new world order." It isn't hard to connect any modern day world leader to "one worlder" quotes or councils. Perhaps, their openness is equally related to their assurance that it is fait accompli.

The author of this book laments the end of segregation in the US. In
particular, he decries the limitations that were imposed upon the
right of State Governments to decide their own affairs, during the
Civil Rights Era.


During the Civil Rights Era the powers of the Federal Government
were expanded to end segregation. Well, should the Federal Government
have stood by and done nothing while atrocities against African
Americans were being perpetrated? Could the West remain silent while
the Shoah happened in Nazi Germany? The truth is that Southern
Governors helped to place limitations upon the rights of States to
decide their own affairs, by giving the Federal Government a moral
imperative to act. For if Southern Governors, such as George Wallace
of Alabama, had done the right thing and ended segregation, the
Federal Government would not have had to step in and curtail the
powers of the State Governments to decide their own affairs. And now,
as the US Government commits atrocities against arab detainees, as
well as their own citizens, should not the UN curtail the powers of
the US Federal Government?


This author also pretends to be religious, but his comments would
indicate otherwise. Perhaps he grew up in one of those churches in the
US that want people to believe that people of colour are "canaanites"
and destined to be slaves? What is a canaanite? A canaanite is an
individual who behaves like Ham, the son of Noah, did. You want to be
a son of God, and not a canaanite, a "son of Ham". A canaanite "serves"
as an example to others as to how not to behave. The cartoon
characters, Beavis and Butt-head, are canaanites. Intent matters: You
don't look at another person as if he (or she) was an object of
derision, as Ham did to his father. And pastors in the US that try to
legitimize, and justify, slavery, are simply evil: They are liars and
murderers, as is the devil. See, John 8:44; Acts 13:9-11, KJV. Only
True Believers are able to say, (say, not sing), "Jesus Christ is Lord":
See, 1 Corinthians 12:1, KJV. Also, see Judges 12:6, KJV.


Behaviour matters, whereas skin colour does not. It is interesting that
Moses took an Ethiopian woman to be his wife: See, Numbers 12:1 ;
Jeremiah 13:23, KJV. One of the Apostles was a canaanite, a descendant
of Canaan, but not a canaanite, as in a "son of Ham". See, Mark 3:18,KJV.
If you are saved, you have a Hope of Salvation, and not a certainty of
salvation.


That said, the author's strength lies in his ability to state historical
facts, but there is little meaningful analysis, from a moral perspective.
He also does not realize that the 'Learned Protocols' was written in
code. He does not see that The 'Learned Protocols' is actually, 'The
Learned Etiquette of the Matrons of Femdom': That the "boy him" are the
males.


Where the author succeeds is in his analysis of the "political spectrum".
However, a model is "useful falsehood", and not reality itself. For
example, students of Political Science have been taught, or are taught,
to think of the "political spectrum" as looking like this:


Left Wing ----------------------------------- Right Wing

Liberals ------------- the Centre ----------- Conservatism


Far Left ---------------------------------- Far Right

Communism ------------ Socialism ---------- Fascism


If you consider the actions of people like Hitler and Stalin, and the
kind of society that emerged during their regimes, you might find that
the 'Far Left' looks like the 'Far Right'.


ANARCHY is defined as the "absence of government" (where nobody
appears to be in charge). Where would you put 'anarchy' on the above
political spectrum? And so, perhaps the "true political spectrum" looks
like this:


TOTALITARIANISM ------------ LIMITED GOVERNMENT ----- ANARCHY

Total Government:
Nazism, Communism, Socialism,
Enviro-Mentalism, Pharoahism, etc.


If you have to break the laws of men to do the right thing, do so:
Rosa Parks did. For a moral right always trumps a legal right.
See, Exodus 18:13-26 ; Daniel 3 ; Acts 5:29, KJV.


I think this book, 'None Dare Call it Conspiracy', serves as a glimpse
into the mind of a racist, and paranoid, America.

---------------

I first reads this shortly after it came out, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. As the decades passed and I learned proper historiographic and journalistic techniques, I realized that "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" was mostly bunk: many of the perceived threads of conspiracy were nothing more than examples of proximity in time and space, the sorts of coincidences which any history is likely to throw up, simply because the rich and powerful DO hang out together and they DO intermarry, and have done so since the beginning of time, mostly without any intent to crush the peasantry underfoot. Then George W. Bush usurped the Presidency of the United States....

With most of the protagonists of NDCIC long dead, the Bush regime has consciously adopted policies which were described in detail in this book thirty-six years ago. The "election" of 2004, in which the voters were offered a choice between a Skull & Bones cultist from Yale and a different Skull & Bones cultist from Yale makes the rigged elections Allen and Abraham describe seem like Gilbert and Sullivan operettas by comparison. There was literally NO difference between the policies of the Republican Party candidate and the Democratic Party candidate -- if one judges John Kerry by his actual Senate voting record instead of the crap he spouted once he garnered more than five percent in a primary; prior to that he had voted for EVERY power-grabbing, Constitution-shredding outrage proposed by the Bush gang, including the illegal war against Iraq, the war crimes committed there, and the torture used by the jack-booted thugs of the Bush regime on every continent (except Antarctica -- maybe).

Still and all, while "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" presented the playbook, it seemed to have failed entirely when it came to predicting the teams which would make it to the finals. In fact, in the spring and summer of 2008 I even wondered what had become of the Rockefellers and some of the other "Insiders" described in NDCIC. Then came September 2008 and the cockroaches came crawling out of the woodwork, allowing us to see that -- mirabile dictu! -- while the teams were different, many of the players were the same as those denounced in "None Dare Call It Conspiracy!"

Lehman Brothers, which crops up again and again in NDCIC as one of the main tools of the "Insiders," was allowed to crash and burn, which would have been astonishing except that its collapse was used as the justification for the most crushing act of repression ever to have been inflicted upon the American people. The largest bank failure in American history (which is to say, in WORLD history) took place in the dead of night when Washington Mutual was seized and sold off to JP Morgan Chase without so much as hint that the stockholders had any say in the matter. JP Morgan Chase is the unholy union of two "Insider" banks notorious from NDCIC: JP Morgan and the Chase Manhattan Bank, which was chaired by David Rockefeller in the 1970s. Even as those who make their living "debunking" conspiracy theories were starting to cite the collapse of Lehman Brothers as "proof" that there is NO conspiracy between the American government and a few Wall Street bankers, the great-grandchildren of the robber barons of the 19th century -- those whom Allen and Abraham describe as the founders of the unspoken "conspiracy" -- had a bank with MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS IN ASSETS handed to them for less than $2 billion! At that price Bill Gates could have bought WaMu with his "walking around money" ... but the Bush regime didn't offer it to the world's most successful entrepreneur. Millions of Americans awoke just a few days ago to discover that their mortgages were now owned by the children (literal or figurative) of JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. But beyond those raw assets, Washington Mutual had something else: huge stock holdings in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and other Federal Reserve Banks. (The Federal Reserve Banks are NOT an arm of the United States government; they are owned by the banks in their regions. By acquiring WaMu the Morgan-Chase conglomerate effectively acquired control of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a lovely companion piece to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which it has controlled for decades. The Bushies have literally given JP Morgan Chase a license to print money.) By using Lehman Brothers as a sacrificial pawn, the "Insiders" were able to win the game, and the "revolution from above" which is discussed at the very beginning of "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" is now a fait accompli.

While you let that last paragraph sink in, consider this, too: the Bush regime has recreated many of the very same trusts and monopolies which Progressives and free market proponents had spent decades breaking up. AT&T, the creation of J. P. Morgan the banker, has been re-inflicted upon the American people by the Bushiecrats, and American telecommunications companies are being snatched up one by one into its vice-like grip. Standard Oil, broken up a century ago, is essentially back in business now that Exxon has been permitted by the Bushiecrats to snap up piece after piece of the old Rockefeller empire. Not only do the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the robber barons and the "Insiders" have the American economy in a stranglehold once again, they are actually recreating the very companies which a hundred years of Americans justifiably hated and feared!

It was all too easy to dismiss "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" as bunk for many years. The events of September 2008 have revealed it as prophetic. Logically flawed in many places, positively ludicrous in others, but, on the whole, horrifyingly prophetic. Read it while you can.

This pieces together incredibly well the problems of our county that exist right now. We need to restore the Constitution! There are those in this country that are more interested in the control of more money and wealth than are interested in the well being, personal liberties, and lives of anyone else. Therefore we need to vote for RON PAUL to be our next president. He will help tremendously in RESTORING THE REPUBLIC and in reintroducing, repairing, and protecting the CONSTITUTION! Go to his website www.ronpaul2008.com or just google his name and you will soon find that he is the only candidate willing to stop the evil socialists from destroying all that we hold dear!

I don't know. This book was written in 1970. From what I can gather, the thesis of the book is this: There are a handful of wealthy families that are controlling the world. They lend money to governments of nations, and when the governments can't pay the money back, the governments become their [...] out of fear of attack from another funded (Paying) country. Furthermore, communism is the tool that carries out the plan. Communism, allegedly an "uprising of the people", is really a carefully orchestrated scheme of the super wealthy elite meant to funnell even more wealth (And thus, power) upward (Even more so than capitalism) until the entire world is unified under one hand. Wow. That's deep. The only thing is, if that's really what was happening, how do explain the fall of communism? You know, the wall in Germany? The crumbling of the Soviet Union? Maybe the plan now is to disguise communism as capitalism so we won't notice. The scary thing is, a lot in this book is probably 100% dead on accurate. The Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules. Hasn't it always been that way? That's not really a conspiracy, it's just human nature. People are greedy. They always want more. And yes, the federal reserve is a private institution, not a federal one. I guess my point is, you could sit back and postulate about every damn thing and to some degree make a point that it is connected with a conspiracy. That don't neccesarily make it so. Remember the Roman Empire? With all its wealth and power, it eventually crumbled. As will any that follows. Not a conspiracy. Just the way it is. My advice: Play with your dog. Watch Family Guy. Lighten up.

This is an utterly brilliant book that has held my attention all morning. Although the authors do not integrate the thinking in the ten books below, I am totally, deeply, impressed by their intelligence, knowledge, and good intention.

They set out to develop understanding in five areas:

1. What State needs to do
2. How international community can help
3. How timelines and interdependencies should define sequencing
4. Why one size does NOT fit all
5. Why we must accept our shared responsibility and recognize the need for both proactive intervention, and coproduction (and sharing) of wealth.

I started with the endnotes and index, which is where I begin the most intelligent books in my reading program. I immediately detected the gaps that I address with the ten annotated links, but I was also immediately won over in seeing their appreciation for the report of the High Level Threat Panel of the UN, for Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew, for the balanced score card approach (some call for a triple bottom line), for Paul Collier's focus on the bottom billion, for Paul Hawkin's et al on natural capitalism.

Within the notes, I was shocked to learn that it has been reported that the United Nations deprived Afghanistan of the first two and a half years of all donor contribution, "by agreement" with US Government and World Bank. Since one of the author's has served as Finance Minister in Afghanistan, not only do I believe this--it must never happen again.

I find in this book one of the most original, refreshing, relevant, and therefore essential reviews on the matter of the State. Although the author's do not cite McIver, the original master on the origins and functions of the state, I consider them to be the new thought leaders and essential to any discussion of how to improve the inter-relationships among the eight tribes of governance: states, militaries, law enforcement authorities, academics, businesses, media, non-governmental organizations, and civil society including labor unions and religions. They are wrong-headed in thinking that "only sovereign states...will allow human progress to continue," and that "illegitimate networks will not be conquered except through hierarchical organizations," but in no way does this diminish the extreme importance of their deep thinking on the role of the state and the need to change both our concepts of sovereignty and our rules of the road for international organizations.

A useful early idea is that of the "double compact" between the country leadership and the international community on the one hand, and with the citizens on the other. It becomes obvious very quickly that corruption in government service is the single cancer that must be removed before states can achieve legitimacy and efficacy.

The authors have many gifted turns of phrase to include "harnessing our collective energies and readjusting to emerging patterns."

The authors recognize early on that legitimacy comes from below, from citizens, and must be earned.

I am not going to summarize each chapter, but I want to point readers toward the Army War College Strategy Conference, just concluded, on "Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power." I have posted both 29 pages of notes and an 8-page draft article for the Joint Forces Quarterly. Singapore got it early and is the world's first "smart nation." They understood early on that education powers economics, economics powers security, and so on.

Today, the authors document ably, stewardship of the environment, respect for social entrepreneurship, fair trade, and innovation in applying information technology to create wealth are all coming to the fore with honest leaders.

They identify five aspects of the networked world that are of note:

1. Framework for balancing activities of diverse stakeholders
2. Rule of law at a strategic level, with freedom of action at a tactical level (not quite true in the USA where the corrupt federal Congress establishes federal CEILINGS for regulatory action).
3. Massive investment--one reads repeatedly of the glut of money available for emerging markets (and I would add, the absence of both commercial intelligence and co-investment planning with charitable foundations)
4. World is evolving according to open systems (super point, see my keytone briefing to Gnomedex 2008, "Open Everything."
5. World is finally starting to evolve past rote memorization and toward recognizing patterns (the adaptive complex system and panarchy literature covers this well).

In the middle of the book they have six themes, each developed in a manner that makes this book quite valuable for any library, personal or organizational.

1. Conflict causes polarization of identities *and* ungovernability of aid subject to black market rules.
2. Peacemaking has been geared to compromise rather than strategic planning for a long-term outcome
3. This means that state dysfunctionality is highest immediately after the peace accord.
4. Even if civil war does not break out, cost of failed politics and poor policies is immense.
5. Lack of money is not the driver for poverty, but rather corrupt politics that enrich the few at the expense of the many.
6. Dysfunctional states spawn the rise and spread of networks of criminality and wealth confiscation instead of networks of social wealth creation and sharing.

The book concludes with "A New Agenda for State Building"

1. International compacts
2. Sovereignty strategy
3. Shared rules of the game
4. Mobilization of resources (this would be better titled harmonization of resources--we need Global Range of Gifts Tables for every country down to the village hut level, online, updated by national call centers
4. New leadership styles--this is a superb overview of what it takes to migrate from industrial era pyramidal leadership to Epoch B swarm leadership (see the image I am loading above).
5. Reflexive monitoring at every step of the implementation process
6. Double compact in practice

The final two chapters focus on national programs, and in conclusion, on "Collective Power."

I put the book down feeling GREAT. This book is a seminal reference.

Now for ten books (and my reviews) that round out this one book:
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

This is an important, easy-to-understand look at why rebuilding failing states should be the at the top of our country's priority list. The authors provide clear cut examples of why previous efforts to curb corruption and terrorism have failed, and offer a viable "framework" for fixing these systems.

We love being able to listen to Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World: Modern History, whenever we're in the car. Jim Weiss reads so well - he uses different accents to make the story come alive and is very easy to listen to. My whole family can't wait for the next instalment when the CD player goes on in the car.

We are a homeschooling family. I Love this whole series! I have all of them on CD which is great because we take them in the van with us. You can listen to them over and over and really remember it that way. They are Told kind of like a story so it holds your interest. I have 5 kiddos and I find they all enjoy and learn from these. I am learning alot too :)

IMPOSSIBLE SUBJECTS, written by Mae Ngai, is the best of recent books on the 20th-century American history of immigration. She reveals that the problem of "illegal immigrants," which has been regarded as one of the most serious problems since the late 20th century, is indeed a legal construction. According to the author, immigrants from Mexico were drawn into the U.S. Southeast because the Southeast political economy, especially agri-business, raised need for the massive wave of low-wage immigrant workers and at the same time defined them as the racially "foreign" people who were rendered alien to America, which was defined as the nation of Caucasians. What enabled the American Government and people to attach racialized foreignness to the Mexican immigrants (and, inevitably, American citizens of Mexican origin) were Immigration Acts, border policing, and discriminatory control of visas.

Mae Ngai argues that positive laws concerning immigration policy have constructed the category of "illegal aliens" from Mexico, and the implementation of the laws by Border Patrols and INS has reinforced the labeling of racially alien immigrants. She bases her analysis on the critical legal theory which suggests that laws constitute social formations. Her usage of the new legal theory in her inquiry into the American immigration history is highly excellent and persuasive.

The historical analysis of the immigration problems in this book seems to be applicable to other countries' history. For example, Ngai's insight shall give light to the recent Japanese conservative media discourses on the "illegal migrants" from China, South Korea, and Latin American nations which describe the undocumented migrant workers as illegal, criminal and, in case of women, prostitutes.

I would have dedicate five stars to this book if its text were easier to read (it is possible that I felt this book's text not very easy to read because I am not of a native-English tongue).

Mae Ngai's ambitious book compels historians and general readers alike to critically reassess traditional understandings of and approaches to U.S. immigration. Much of the histories on U.S. immigration and immigration policies have told a similar tale. The United States, the narrative goes, has been tainted by a long history of exclusion, a blight on the nation's democratic tradition that was only recently removed with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. Such a narrative not only reaffirms the myth of American universalism, but also consistently fails to produce any new critical knowledge about U.S. immigration and U.S. history. Impossible Subjects differs from these other works of immigration history in this important respect: it proceeds with the conviction that the United States was never a "nation of immigrants."

Ngai examines the era between 1924 and 1965, an unconventional periodization in immigration history that situates the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act (usually signifying the end of one regime) at the beginning of her study, and the Immigration Act of 1965 (usually signifying the beginning of another) at the end. Beyond simply filling a historiographical gap in immigration history, the focus on this period of immigration restriction enables a reevaluation of U.S. immigration laws, and more broadly of U.S history, on several levels. First, it demonstrates that restrictionist policies did not merely function as a tool for exclusion, but more, it created-through a racial and geographical remapping of the nation-new categories and concepts deeply implicated in race that defined the spaces and limits of national inclusion. Second, these categories and concepts, most notably "illegal aliens" and "national origins," are not natural or fixed conditions and markers, but are the product of positive law that, when scrutinized, reveal the ways in which its uses have shaped and defined the United States in the twentieth century, particularly its ideas and practices about race, citizenship, and the nation-state. Finally, this periodization allows for a reconfiguration of immigration history beyond a nationalist framework. By suggesting that the making of modern America rested on the exclusion of nonwhites from the geographical and ideological borders of the nation during this regime of restriction, the book argues against the normative telos of immigrant settlement, assimilation, and citizenship as the defining narrative of American history, a narrative that is confined to the nation-state and that invariably reproduces American exceptionalism.

By charting the historical origins of the "illegal alien" and the genealogy of immigration laws that have consistently reproduced it, Ngai has ultimately written a stunning history that goes far beyond narrating the history of U.S. immigration restriction. It is a book that deserves to be read widely.

This book is truly awful. I don't know what her publisher was thinking by letting this book get out. The tone: Nasal. The language: Sociological jargon. The argument: Garbage. Save a tree and find something better.

The United States of America is the great melting pot of the world's immigrants, or is it? A white, middle-class, Protestant, European American lifestyle is what the great melting pot of American folklore was truly intended to articulate to the immigrants of the early 20th century. Mai Ngai counters this image of the US as the embracive playground of diverse immigrants and powerfully weaves the tale of how race, nationality, assimilation, and immigration all became interwoven concepts in overtly discriminatory US immigration policy of the mid-20th century in her newest book Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. As Mae says, "The telos of immigrant settlement, assimilation, and citizenship has been an enduring narrative of American history, but it has not always been the reality of migrants' desires or their experiences and interactions with American society and state." (5)
Throughout the history of the United States, there has been a clear struggle to define who can gain citizenship in this great nation. Ngai's book attempts not to tackle this debate, but rather how the construction of the illegal immigrant came about because "the promise of citizenship applies only to the legal alien, the lawfully present immigrant. The illegal immigrant has no right to be present, let alone embark on the path to citizenship." (6) Her book begins in 1924 with the adoption of the Johnson-Reed Act which established numeric quotas for immigration from countries across the globe. Prior to the 1920s, immigration was relatively unrestricted as, "the free global movement of labor was essential to economic development in the New World." (17) Ngai points out that it is vital to note that this pre-Johnson Reed Act period did see the exclusion of Chinese laborers who migration disturbed the precious ideas of manifest destiny in the West. She stresses that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was most important because the Supreme Court gave Congress absolute control over immigration as part of foreign relations.
Throughout her book, Ngai focuses on what she believes to be the two biggest consequences of the Johnson-Reed Act, the first being creation of the concept of illegal alien and the second being racially ranking the desirability for certain groups to immigrate to the United States. Perhaps the most powerful quote of the entire book goes, "Immigration restriction produced the illegal alien as a new legal and political subject, whose inclusion within the nation was simultaneously a social reality and a legal impossibility - a subject barred from citizenship and without rights." (4) Ngai points out that the irony of this newly created status is that the undocumented or illegal immigrants are woven into the economic fabric and labor market of our nation, and yet as they are cheap labor, they are disposable labor who can easily lose their ability to live in even the subhuman conditions in this oh so great nation.
Now that this new quota system was to be implemented, how would the country establish what the quotas would be for the varying countries of the world? Easy, they compared it to the approximate composition of the US population circa 1790, a clearly discriminatory and completely inaccurate and unreliable practice! As the rising popularity of eugenics was during this time period, there had been increased emphasis on census and racial definition and maintaining "racial hygiene". "Euro-American identities turned both on ethnicity - that is, a nationality-based cultural identity that is defined as capable of transformation and assimilation - and on racial identity defined by whiteness." (7) In this construction of the white American, those non-white, browner immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Mexico were deemed less desirable and lower class peoples who subsequently had a lower quota for the number of immigrants allowed. Ngai points to Mexicans as a changing population in regards to the immigration and whiteness policy of time, as originally they were deemed white as the need for immigrant farm workers was needed in the Southwest, but then subsequently deportation and repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans became the common practice.
Ngai wonderfully illustrates how as this period of quota-based immigration restrictions continued, the treatment of Filipinos, Mexicans, Chinese, and Japanese worsened to the extent of which no matter how long they or their families had been woven into the fabric of the US, they were viewed and abused as second-class foreigners. Ngai urges you to remember, these were systematic attempts at ranking races, excusing maltreatment, and elevating the political, economic, and racial status of white Euro-Americans, and not just subtle nuances of American policies. As the US struggled with its policies towards the Philippines, practices bounced back and forth from Filipinos being portrayed as being capable of "benevolent assimilation" but at the same time clearly of Asian ancestry and eventually was pushed towards independence and repatriation. As World War II arose, the massive discrimination and maltreatment that the Japanese and Chinese Americans endured only further reinforced their cultural ties to their home countries and therefore they were portrayed as disloyal citizens. In many cases these were actual citizens of the US, native-born patriotic people who had protected rights unlike those of their illegal immigrant counterparts. Ngai reminds us not to forget about the Cold War and the extreme measures that were taken to exclude Chinese people from immigration to the US and even participation as US citizens in order to protect us from evil communist China.
Ngai's phenomenal history comes to a close with the Immigration Act of 1965. Although this act overturned the racialized, discriminatory numeric quota system, it did sadly further extend the reach of numeric restrictions. For anyone who believes that racial hierarchy as part of US policy is a thing of the ancient past, for anyone who believes that African-Americans and their struggles for civil rights were the only systematically discriminated against population in recent US history, this is the book for you! Sit back and relax as Ngai takes you through this tremendously researched sensational tale of the United States and the construction of the illegal immigrant.