Politics Government Books

I feel that everyone in this country should get and read this book so that when you want to understand why this country is important you will understand and believe.

The book is more than i thought it would be. It has some great writing and good background information with it.

Every school and home library should have a copy of this on their shelf

I never received this book. I'm hoping it was overlooked and will be sent soon.

One can take two opposing approaches to this kind of volume. One can celebrate the treasures that are in it, or one can lament all the treasures it lacks. I prefer the first approach. For any volume which contains , The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington's First Inaugural and Farewell Speeches, Lincoln's First and Second Inaugurals and the Gettysburg Address contains the very heart of America's political thought and creed.
These documents are valuable not only politically, and historically they are also very great Literature.
There is much to be inspired by in the documents that are in this volume .Those seeking more important documents relating to American political life and democracy can find other volumes, whole libraries if they wish.
For what it is, this is just right.

I first read this book as a freshman at the University of Massachusetts over a decade ago. I still have it on my bookshelf. What the writers have done, all proffesors at UMass, is to aggregate numerous sources of content some legal, some on the fringes which are made to be legal oriented in context, to offer an anti clinical and humanisitic approach to the study of law. The focus is to offer the reader/student a different perspective on law and its impact and effect on society. I would imagine that reading the text alone may be a less than gratifying experience, but coupled with intellectual discussion it can be a tremendously powerful tool. The text is required reading for all UMass Legal Studies majors, and offers a wonderful foundation for moving forward within the study of law with a unique point of view.

This is no doubt an excellent collection. Obviously, a lot of thought has gone into the selecting of the numerous reading. I've used it as companion to my course on sociology of law. It proved, however, a little too complex for undergraduates. I still believe it would be very useful for graduate courses, in particular the notes and questions accompanying the readings. My main objection is the clearly leftist (or anarchical ?) bias the reader rather rapidly detects. I am not questioning the right of the editors to promote their point of view. But I believe their sympathies should have been stated to start with. Textbooks need not be neutral; their leanings, however, should not be hidden behind pretended scientific or academic objectivity. It is somewhat annoying to have to warn students. The above does not mean that I will never assign the book again. But it is my considered opinion that the higher level of critical ability of graduate students is more appropriate to confront the propaganda aspect of this text.

A great read for Anyone who wants to know the state of Egypt today. Banned in Egypt for that reason??

This is the perfect volume if you are looking for one book to read before visiting Egypt, or just to get a handle on the country. It is smoothly written, combining journalistic reporting with historical and political analysis. He is deeply critical of the state of Egyptian politics and society, and of official Western approaches to that country, but those criticisms ring true.

Bradley writes like a novelist, from his own situation and point of view, and fortunately is an intelligent and perceptive observer who writes beautifully. We are with him as he travels up and down the Nile, interviews leading figures in the major political and cultural groupings, and shares the situation of the abandoned middle class in this police state on the verge of collapse. The reader gains the benefit of his long residence in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, his fluent Arabic, his talent for friendship and his evident love and sympathy for the people he meets. This is a fine example of a more realistic reporting than we have been used to in recent years, free from the point-counterpoint and shouting of the mass media.

Bradley lets us see Egypt in the light of its recent history. In the break-up of empires, Ottoman and British, a military clique seized the government and established party rule modeled on European dictatorships. The new home-grown dictators destroyed as much as they could of the structure of civil society and the deep religious and cultural diversity of Egypt, which they identified with opposition and a colonial past. They sought to erase history itself. Like the dictators of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, Egypt's rulers slipped steadily into corruption and terror, and are now challenged by a new, Islamist movement that threatens to repeat the cycle of violence and minority dictatorship. The liberal middle class is being steadily destroyed by pressure from both sides: anyone searching for the reason that educated, middle class youth are becoming suicide bombers and soldiers of intifada will find much of the reason in this book. A horrifying chapter on the multi-billion dollar sex tourism industry gives us a vivid sense of the degradation of Egyptian society and the looting of its cultural and natural resources.

This book is required reading. If Bradley has a fault, it is his optimism: he recommends that the United States use its considerable leverage to force a degree of liberalism upon the military rulers of this uniquely important nation, but given the corruption and incompetence that he demonstrates so graphically it is hard to imagine them climbing out of the hole they have been digging for fifty years. Egypt needs the kind of massive rebuilding of infrastructure that has been undertaken in Ireland and the former Soviet Republics. One would think that from his description, only a true peace in the Middle East, instead of the "cold peace" Bradley describes, that would allow the harnessing of oil wealth and the technical expertise of Egypt's neighbors, and a radically new Egyptian government capable of making use of such aid, would seem to meet the need.

Well, I found this book special as an Egyptian living abroad. The amount of true information of such a book is huge. Although I did not like the author's point of view about the Muslim Brotherhood. The chapter about the bedouins also lacks the depth of the rest of the book.
Other than this, the book is fine, and I totally recommend it for students who are interested in different cultures, and also to the professors of Egyptology, to see how the grandchildren of the builders of the pyramids are lacking even the basic requirements to live an adequate life.

Mr. Bradley writes a very telling portrait of modern Egypt, a country which has been ruled by a military oligarchy since 1953. The corruption, poverty and oppression which are hallmarks of the regime are discussed in detail and personal anecdotes are used whenever possible. The writing style makes the subject matter very easy to get through even if you are not an Islamophile or have never been to Egypt.

Many of the interviews and anecdotes took place in 2007, the same year I was assigned to duty in Egypt. Many of the experiences he had in Egypt are typical and I also had many similar experiences or knew people who did. Yes, Egyptians will not hesitate to tell you that they hate Mubarak and I also learned from Egyptians I met of the near-universal perception that Mubarak intends to have his son follow him into office. I wish the author had also mentioned the extensive cult of personality surrounding Mubarak and how his image seems to be everywhere... even if it gets vandalized in remoter parts of the country. And baksheesh is rampant in the country... I once had to pay a parking attendant a small wad of notes for helping me get out of my reserved parking space... he had allowed another vehicle to park too close to the front of my machine. Events that I could "verify" with my own experiences made the book real to me.

On the other hand, the author did not fully discuss the problems involved in removing food subsidies, political pluralism or the legitimate terror threat that hangs over Egypt. Also, the author feels it necessary to compare the routine torture that takes place in Egyptian police stations to Abu Ghraib... where no physical torture took place despite the images on the internet. He also feels it necessary to denigrate the Coalition effort to bring democracy in Iraq. The author bemoans the lack of democracy in Egypt but in none of the instances he mentions Iraq does he talk about the successful elections there.

Egypt's future is uncertain and this book definitely gives you a feeling for the disaster that looms on the horizon when Mubarak passes on.

This is a wise, thoughtful, deeply probing assessment of The United States current situation, with sensible prescriptions to address problems. Every American should read it.

I am sending my copy of "A LETTER TO AMERICA"A Letter to America by David Boren to the Arizona State Superintentent of Public Schools with the recomendation that he read it and mandate it to be required reading for all High School Junior Students. If I could afford it, I'd send a copy to every citizen in the United States!
My wife, Pegge, is ordering a copy to send to Opra.
Tom Downs, Scottsdale, AZ

This book is a must for every American to read. Finally, someone has expressed how I feel about various issues facing our country.

I wish this book was mandatory reading for all High School Seniors and all College Freshman and College Sophmores. Most of my colleagues and friends have long felt that over the past 2 decades our leadership has mis-guided us and short changed us on the quality of stewardship provided. This book uses plain talk to tell a compelling story about events and decisions that have put us where we are, and provides hopeful recommendations on how the future could be shaped.

This short book represents David Boren's current views of the problems facing the USA. I found his dispassionate discussion of the US's relation to the world, the destructiveness of partisanship, campaign corruption, economic health, the disappearing middle class, and the Urgency of Memory (best chapter in the book) to be good summaries of where the USA stands today. I did not see Boren saying "we are at a crossroads", however.

Overall, each of these problems have been discussed in the media in one form or another, so to me, it seem like a better than average repitition of what's out there. However, the CHapter on "The Urgency of Memory" caught my eye and should be restated as an "op Ed" column. It is by far the best chapter in the book, and it contained much in it that was new to me.

Boren quotes the following passage from an address entitled "The Urgency of Memory" in which the importance of Americans returning to humanistic studies was emphasized to understand themselves and their place in the world following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"A nation that does not know why it exists or what it stands for cannot be expected to long endure. We must recover from the amnesia that shrouds our history in darkness, our principles in confusion, and our future in uncertainty. We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision. We cannot hope that forgetting our past will enhance our focus for the future."

Boren then summarizes the demise of teaching of American History and Civics in US high schools, colleges, and other institutions of higher learning. He rightfully criticizes the demise of academic standards through out the American educational system because of political correctness and recommends that American history and Civics be required of all university graduates.

My own recollection is that the main purpose of the American primary and secondary school system was to teach American History and civics to immigrants so as to integrate them into American Society. If it is indeed true that American primary and secondary education has abdicated this reponsibility, we are in trouble.

The solution: Mandate that all immigrant and foreign students not only learn English, but also American History and Civics at ALL levels of the US educational system from kindergarten to the graduate school. Once implemented, make it mandatory for ALL students.

How can that be done?: By executive order, instruct the Department of Education to withold federal funding from primry and secondary school systems unless such a requirement is instituted. Second, by executive order, mandate the same requirement in all American Unviersities who receive federal funds for research, extension and other services or risk seeing their funds evaporate. That's at least a start.

As for Boren's other solutions, I found them weak. I felt that they represented a nostalgic trip to his younger days when life was 'simpler' or in the US Senate, where things at one time were more "collegial".
I saw no recommendations that would reinvent America along our traditional model in a new framework for the 21st century.

Solzhenitsyn wrote this work at a time when there still was an Iron Curtain and a Cold War. His warning was an effort to somehow reinstill in the West, spiritual values and an awareness of its true duties. The essence of his message was given in his famous Harvard Commencement address,
"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism."

This rejection of Western materialism is also for Solzhenitsyn a rejection of what he sees as too great a focus placed on legal rights, on individual happiness, on a freedom to seek after pleasure.
He believes that all this has ' weakened the West' and that it therefore stands threatened by what he believes are the stronger characters of those who have lived in systems of oppression in the East.
This of course has, as we have seen with the fall of the Soviet Union and the threat Solzhenitsyn so feared, proven to be illusory. The people of the former Soviet Union and especially those in Russia and Ukraine have revealed no special powers and skills in confronting the world.
However the warning to the West ironically does have relevance today in relation to the new threat to Civlization, that from Radical Islamic Terrorism. Here there is something to be said about ' the best lacking all conviction and the worst being full of passionate intensity'. I do believe that the internal divisions within the West itself, the kinds of self- defeating trends Solzhenitsyn noticed are still here.
One more point. Solzhenitsyn fell into a certain disfavor after his warning to the West, because many secular liberals who had supported him were dismayed to see that fundamentally and most deeply he was a Russian Orthodox Christian whose view of the world is far from that of post-modern relativists.
My own sense is that Solzhenitsyn somehow missed the special spirit of freedom which is at the heart of American greatness. My sense is that he somehow did not 'get' America.
But his warning is powerful and strong and certainly touches upon many points of weakness there is much to say and think about.
One other point. The great Solzhenitsyn is not the Solzhenitsyn who is making a Warning to the West, or who is as it were being a Prophet of Mankind as a whole. The great Solzhenitsyn is the one who told of the horrific world of suffering which is Archipelag Gulag. In doing that he was one of mankind's great writer- witnesses.

It is a somewhat daunting task to attempt to write an articulate review when Solzhenitsyn is so incredibly articulate himself. Suffice it to say that this book should be required reading for all world citizens, but especially those of us who carry American citizenship. We have much to learn from this book and we have a great deal to offer if we choose to engage.

The book is actually a collection of five speeches given in 1975 and 1976; three in the U.S. and two in the U.K.

There are numerous lessons and insights that are highly relevant. Perhaps a selected quote from the author's last speech provides a glimpse at why this work is so worth reading and contemplating. "We have become hopelessly enmeshed in our slavish worship of all that is pleasant, all that is comfortable, all that is material -- we worship things, we worship products. Will we ever succeed in shaking off this burden, in giving free rein to the spirit that was breathed into us at birth, that spirit which distinguishes us from the animal world."

I returned to this slim volume following the Sept. 11 attacks. While America is now said to be fighting "terrorism," few have pointed out the similarities between terrorism and our old foe communism. Reading Solzhenitsyn is at once alarming and comforting. In reading these words, now a quarter of a century old, it is not at all a stretch to apply them to our present situation. He writes: "I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust to prevent those pundits who are attempting to establish fine degrees of justice and even finer legal shades of equality (some because of their distorted outlook, others because of short-sightedness, still others out of self-interest)to prevent them from using the struggle for peace and social justice to lead you down a false road. They are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat -- one which has never before been seen in the history or the world. Not only in the history of the country, but in the history of the world." This treatise had a monumental effect on me when I was in college, helping to shape much of my politics. Going back and re-reading it, I find that its content is as powerful and as applicable as ever. To boot, Solzhenitsyn writes with a sense of urgency that is uniquely Russian -- he is similar to Dostoevsky in that way -- and, like Dostoevsky, for having been in the Gulag, his words ring powerfully, indeed. A wonderful companion volume to this would be his Nobel lecture (he won the Nobel for literature in 1970), where in speaking about writing and art, he says, "One word of truth outweighs the world." In short, he is one of the most important thinkers/writers of the century. It is disheartening that these speeches are out of print.

Read this book if you are wondering how polical correctness got this far. He nails the pseudopacifist in their feel good rush from responsibility. I believe he is right in questioning the ethos of the persuit of happiness. What does it mean to be an American? If we have nothing we will die for, don't be suprised when others who do, kill us.

A book mixing a variety of topics on the hot subject of child labor, it combines all the right elements to attract the reader. Though the lengh of the book is a little long its great ideas and intriguing subject keep you reading. This is an enjoyable book to read on a lazy day.

This book contains information about numerous human rights concerns from all around the world. In addition, it contains numerous articles and many documents. It is a wonderful research took that can be used by persons first learning about human rights, as well as by those persons who are working on post-undergraduate degrees

This is a really good human rights textbook. It covers a wide range of human rights issues, and has a lot of interesting articles. However I found some of the chapters rather difficult because of the legal jargon. Some of the things you have to read over more than once. The questions in the text focus on your personal opinions, so doing homework from this book is not so bad once you understand the questions (which for my slow brain was a challenge.) It is also very useful as a doorstop. :)

Very interesting and informative book on how the US Constitution has been raped by the US Supreme Court over the years. A must read for everyone!

This book should be required reading for anyone who plans to vote. If you'd like a laundry list of most everything that's been done to eviscerate the Constitution and lead America down the wrong path, this is the book for you.
Also, if you'd like to support authors who are brave enough to speak the truth (a rare thing today), buy this book. I was beginning to think no one but Ron Paul had read the Constitution. After you've read this book, ask yourself if Obama, McCain or any of our elected officials have ever read the Constitution. If they have, they simply don't care what it says.

I recommend that everyone read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. It clearly shows how the Supreme Court has, since the founding of our country, taken more and more power for itself that never was granted by the Constitution. It explains why law is now based on past Court rulings, instead of on the words of the Constitution itself (unless, of course, the Supreme Court conveniently chooses to ignore any past precedents in order to make a new ruling they want to impose on the country).

Some of the reactions to Court rulings mentioned in the book include: "Louisiana briefly considered responding to the Court's decision in the Flag-burning Case by making it legal to beat up flag-burners. Perhaps such violence is covered by `freedom of expression.' In the end, Louisiana didn't go ahead with the idea: state legislatures often are more restrained in their behavior than the Court is."

Interesting sidebars in the book include "Books You're Not Supposed to Read," which includes The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods. After reading this Guide to the Constitution you will know which Supreme Court justice was a former Ku Klux Klansman, who "took the lead in writing the twentieth-century Klan's views on church-state relations into `constitutional law.'" Sidebars also contain interesting facts such as: "Supreme Logic: Fraud Is a Contract--According to [Chief Justice] Marshall in Fletcher v. Peck (1810), a fraudulent land purchase was a `contract'-and was thus subject to the protection of the Contracts Clause. `Coincidentally,' Marshall was a substantial land investor." You will also learn which Court ruling was based on "penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees [in the Bill of Rights] that help give them life and substance." This book is a great starting place for understanding how we got from the guaranteed freedoms of the Constitution to where we are today.

I had just read The Revolution by Ron Paul when I saw this book. Interested in learning more about the Constitution I thought it looked promising. I had no idea what a treat I was in for. I couldn't put it down. Kevin Gutzman masterfully lays out how the constitution has been used and abused to achieve political ends that were not intended to be achieved. And the abuses started happening from the beginning, before the ink was even dry on the document. This book will help any reader gain a better understanding of the purpose of the constitution, what it says, what the framers meant, and how that has been ignored by far too many Supreme Court justices, Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen in the quest for power over the people. Gutzman is an excellent guide and by bringing out the human element in this fascinating journey he makes it very interesting to read. I highly recommend you read this book. Enjoy!

When I studied constitutional law in law school, we studied what the Supreme Court said about the Constitution. I recall that our constitutional law text began its discussion of the First Amendment using an excerpt from Justice Hugo Black's opinion in the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education. What is vitally important in the study of any "text" - the historical background - was missing from my law school education.

Kevin Gutzman (an historian and attorney) provides the needed background in this outstanding book. As Gutzman shows in detail, while the Constitution did increase the power of the federal government as the expense of the states, the states still remained sovereign. In fact three states (Maryland, Virginia and Rhode Island) ratified the Constitution with the proviso that they were reserving the right to withdraw from the union if they saw fit. The Southern states did have the right to secede.

The Constitution thus remained a quintessentially state's right document.

Two things changed this. First, Justice John Marshall interpreted the Constitution in a way beneficial to Supreme Court and federal power. Second, the Supreme Court gradually held that the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporated" the provisions of the Bill of Rights, making them binding on the states. Prof. Gutzman's attack on these two pillars of Court supremacy is quite persuasive.

In the Constitutional scheme as understood by Prof. Gutzman, the states retain almost complete power to regulate the economy, personal morality, and religion. This leads to some (by today's standards) unusual conclusions. While Prof. Gutzman rejects the "right to privacy" underlying such decisions Roe v. Wade, he also believes that the Supreme Court's decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (which struck down an Oregon law requiring nearly all children to attend public schools) an impermissible extension of judicial power over a purely state matter. This is a consistent state's rights view not held by any "conservatives" on the Supreme Court.

This is a vital work, which should be required reading for all law students and all Americans. I also recommend WHO KILLED THE CONSTITUTION? by Prof. Gutzman and Prof. Thomas Woods.

This book has a lot of information regarding political trends. I highly reccomend it to beginners that want a strong background in American Politics.

The editors give the reader a timely historical perspective on how American politics is played. Some papers are classics. Notably James Madison's Federalist #10 and #51 Papers. Now some two hundred years old. These discuss how the checks and balances in the Constitution act to restrain legislators from exploiting the nation, and on how the very diversity of a large republic can reduce the chances of factionalism prevailing. Though the latter argument is perhaps somewhat questionable.

The book also has lectures from two current Supreme Court judges, Scalia and Breyer. Plus pivotal court decisions like Roe vs. Wade from the 1970s.

The sweep of the readings is a good indicator of the multivaried nature of politics.