Politics Government Books

This is a journalist's cultural account of the Nixon years, not a historian's textbook, and not a biography of RMN. It's a great read, filled with fabulous details that historians tend to overlook. Here's Al Capp trying to pick a fight with John Lennon; there's Lorne Greene attacking McGovern for lack of support of Israel.

Three caveats. First, the nature of the book makes it hard to figure out where you are. As others have mentioned, dates aren't given, and he does go back and forth a few times. Second, it's hard to ignore the possibility that Perlstein may be reading the present into the past. His approach is so anecdotal -- not in the sense of being false, but in the sense of focusing on small things that are supposed to represent larger things -- that we are at his mercy. For example, he quotes letters written to Time magazine. This adds color, but also forces us to trust the author that these items really are representative.

Third: we don't get to see Nixon tossed out of office. The book ends before.

The book gives a detailed and insightful history of US politics 1955-1975, roughly the "Era of Nixon." Anyone who lived through those times, or anyone who is interested in the principal trends of American politics, will benefit from this analysis. It's really a very good book.

I thought it was going to be a visitors' guide to a new theme park.

Well, it was still pretty good.

A sprawling, compulsively readable tale of a divided America spinning out of control over an unpopular, divisive war and civil rights and social justice issues. Perlstein argues that Richard Nixon helped end the consensus on Great Society liberalism, and divided America along lines that still divide her. Perlstein paints a picture of Richard Nixon as a brooding, jealous loner, filled with resentments against more privileged opponents like the Kennedys, but also a master demagogue and mass manipulator who achieved election to the Presidency by playing on emergent generational and racial divisions. Perlstein does a good job of weaving the distinctive music and culture of the 60s into the tale. Apparently hastily written in places, loose with some facts, and a bit repetitive at times (e.g., Perlstein seems enamored of the phrase 'soiling humiliation' when discussing Nixon trolling for votes), this is nonetheless a first-rate history of a turbulent era, the effects of which are still being felt today.

I had heard good things about Nixonland and it started out very well. Unfortunately, Perlstein perpetuates a lot of the mythology of that period and could not repress his own biases in his discussion of Richard Nixon and his times. As previous reviewers have noted, this book is loaded with inaccuracies and poor research but of greatest importance, he misses (or miscasts) the central tragedy of that period and Nixon. Richard Nixon pursued the presidency as an idealist, believing in the purity of the presidency and his unique capabilities to straighten out our country and its position in the world. He inherited all of JFK's and LBJ's social programs and turmoil with their huge costs, an all-consuming Cold War in progress with the Soviet Union and China, a full-up hot war in Vietnam with nearly half a million troops 10,000 miles away and its costs, and a huge space program costing yet more. It was a political and fiscal train wreck that was almost beyond any one president's powers to rectify. Perlstein also glosses over the "antiwar" movement, focusing on immaterial areas like the hippies and the Socialist Worker's Party's "New Mobe" while completely missing or avoiding the direct connections of the US Communist Party, its umbrella People's Coalition for Peace and Justice and their direction of the schedules, sustainment, and "thrust" of nation wide pro-enemy activities. In Perstein's account, there isn't any mention of the continuous flow of activists travelling to Hanoi to meet with the enemy or the return flow of propaganda and guidance that came from the North Vietnamese. Nixon was rigidly opposed by the nation's media who held a complete monopoly on the information given to the people in those days as "news" and the law enforcement agencies watched mutely as treasons were committed and American lives lost. It's a shame. Nixon was a rare individual and he had enormous talents but the deck was stacked against him. Too bad Perlstein couldn't get past his own leftist biases to come up with a more accurate picture.

Lester R. Brown presents an excellent, comprehensive analysis and discussion of the major ecological and social challenges threatening humanity with the possibility of extinction. These include problems with oil and food supplies; climate change and rising sea levels; water shortages; depletion of natural resources; and warnings about possible tipping points in failing social and economic systems. The most concerning factor is global heating, which could reach a tipping point beyond which it would be impossible to reverse the melting of glaciers and the destruction of life as we know it on our planet.

He proposes numerous solutions for our most serious and urgent challenge, climate change, often measured in the numbers of coal-powered electricity generating facilities that could be eliminated. This is vital to climate control because emissions of carbon dioxide from coal burning facilities is the most serious contributor to global warming on the one hand, and one of the most readily replaceable factor on the other hand.

...in plan B we propose to cut net carbon dioxide emissions 80 perent by 2020. our goal is to prevent the atmospheric Co2 concentration from exceeding 400 ppm, thus limiting the future rise in temperature.

This is an extraordinarily ambitious undertanking. It means, for example, phasing out all coal-fired power plants by 2020 while greatly reducing the sue of oil. This is not a simple matter.

We can, however, make this shift using currently available technologies. The three components of this carbon-cutting effort are halting deforestation while planting trees to sequester carbon, ... raising energy efficiency worldwide, ... and harnessing the earth's renewable sources of energy... Plan B calls for using the most energy-efficient technologies available for lighting, for heating and cooling buildings, and for transportation. It calls for an ambitious exploitation of the earth's solar, wind, and geotheramal energy sources. It means, for example, a wholesale shift to plug-in hybrid cars, running them largely on wind-generated electricity. (p. 67)

The challenges that are threatening to overwhelm the capacities of various countries to deal with the pressing problems of their populations are not being addressed in anything resembling serious or concerted efforts by the wealthier nations. Brown points out that relatively modest investments in enhanced education (sums far smaller than are being spent on arms and military engagements) are key to stabilizing social and political crises around the world. These are potential human time bombs that could escalate into global problems of population migrations which would threaten other nations. With basic education it is possible to achieve birth control, reductions in population growth and reducing the spread of AIDS are achievable goals.

Plan be is shaped by what is needed to save civilization, not by what may currently be considered politically feasible. Plan B does not fit within a particular discipline, sector, or set of assumptions.

Implementing Plan B means undertaking several actions simultaneously, including eradicating poverty, stabilizing population, and restoring the earth's natural systems. (p. 20)

This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in understanding the global crises that threaten the continuation of life as we know it on our planet, and wanting to contribute to preventing this disaster.

If you are not contributing to the solution, you are a part of the problem. -Anonymous

Then you must read this book. It clearly lays how mankind is on the road to ruin if we don't change our ways and the U.S. is no ways immune. It is hopeful also to read about tangible plans on how we can change our ways and build a world for all of us to thrive in, maybe compramising just a little bit for the better well-being of all of us. The book is extremely well writting and the documentation of sources is impressive. My only complaint is that some of it is unessecarily redundant, but I don't blame the author for trying to hit home key points. Anyone with any concern for the future needs to read this book, and take some action, even if just a little.

Lester Brown gives us a solid plan to save civilization from the ravages of Peak Oil and Global Warming. But at $190 billion a year, it just sounds too easy.

In fact Peak Oil is now becoming Peak Everything (the title of Richard Heinberg's latest book), driving huge price increases in many key commodities. This means that the actual cost is likely to become twice Brown's estimate or more, the longer we delay, the higher the price. To keep costs down will take a global mobilization, with many agreements like the proposed Oil Depletion Protocol (subject of another Heinberg book) and massive rationing or taxation of non-essential consumption.

One way or another global economic decline is in the offing. This is a scary issue, especially for politicians, but it needs to be faced. This is because there is a huge difference in how this decline occurs. Business-as-usual decline (Plan A) will lead to collapse, possibly by mid-century. Decline imposed through mobilization (Plan B) will lead to survival, though with far less of many of today's luxuries.

Here's how decline will hit home, even with mobilization. Brown, along with the Apollo Alliance and many others, are now talking about a new economy of "green collar" jobs, with re-localization of much outsourced productive activity. What they don't tell you is that most of these jobs will pay far less in real purchasing power than most white and blue collar jobs in today's top industries.

But good people will take these Walmart-pay type jobs anyway because of layoffs that will skyrocket in the coming decades. That is, today's wealth is based primarily on cheap energy, so with many more people competing there will a lot less wealth to go around as we head down the Peak. Much of Plan B amounts to learning how to live with less. Many of those who've looked carefully at the numbers don't see the resources to build and maintain the renewable energy we'd need to replace all of today's fossil fuels.

This brings up the population issue. Brown says that we must stabilize at eight billion people. But will we really have the resources for 8 billion people to live sustainably and with at least basic middle class amenities (decent food, clothing, housing, health care, education, transportation, ...)? Some people are now saying that we need to think two billion or less.

Radical population reduction seems impossible without invoking the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it's actually very simple in concept: Women have only one child, on the average, and that child is born in the woman's mid thirties, again on the average. Mathematically this will reduce the population by a factor of 4 in 80 to 100 years. Sure, this would take a global cultural mobilization, but it is possible. As Brown points out, Iran cut its population growth rate in half in less than a decade, and Thailand did too. Perhaps we need Al Gore to show the world the kind of Apocalypse that happens when an exploding population uses up all its resources.

This is one of the finest books to summarize in layman's terms both the problems and solutions to our unsustainable, industrialized economy. What distinguishes Lester Brown form other authors on the topic of sustainability is the ease of readability of his books. That definitely cannot be said about other, overly laborious works that mostly appeal to policy makers or academia.

Version 3.0 (2007) here expands where Plan B 2.0 left off and what Eco Economy started in 2001. There is much valuable news and trends in 3.0 not in 2.0 as this is an extremely fast moving topic which needs updating every year. (I've had Harvard profs tell me they need to completely revamp their sustainability lectures each year to keep up with the latest happenings).

Positives: very clear, readable writing style ... a keen ability to "connect the dots" of the many issues of a unsustainable society ... depth and insight ... loaded but not overloaded with useful eco-factoids ... and ability to balance bad news/good news and not be either wholly focused on total eco-gloom disaster scenarios or a total pie-in-the-sky-kind-of-a-guy. His balance is superb and his recommendations believable.

Negatives: not many but some charts and graphs to break up the text would have enhanced the points and visual interest. Also, the 100+ pages of reference notes could have been indexed on the website to save some trees and shipping weight (as only researchers need this for most part).

Other good recent books include "Earth: The Sequel" by Fred Krupp (super detailed accounts about the latest eco-solution technologies poised to change the world) ... and "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg (how the collision course of severe resource constraints and industrialization impacts will wreak havoc on society and how new thinking is required to dig out of this mess).

This is a difficult book to get wrapped around. Which is good news, and then again it is bad news.

The good news is that this is an excellent and wide-sweeping run-up to the current health of our Earth.

Such topics as Our Socially Divided World, Eradicating Poverty, Designing Cities For People, and The Great Mobilization are spread over 287 pages of dense statistics and research, backed up by nearly another 100 pages of footnotes.

The bad news? There is far more content than is of interest to me - the motivated renewable energy reader. Some day I will wade through the less interesting parts, and then leave the remainder as a source reference.

The book cover heralds "REVISED AND EXPANDED". Actually, I would have preferred the less-is-more previous edition.

The book is a compilation of dreams of a man in suspended reality. Newt had a mess on his hands in 1994 when he took over as a speaker, and now in this book you can find out why the House Speaker's job during the following years became even more of a disaster. How can a man whose personal life is so shattered by his own deceitful ways, try and tell people in this book, "How things should be"?
I gave this book 3 stars because an intelligent person can read it and use it as a guide for his or her political thinking, by taking what Newt endorses and then following the near opposite path. But please buy the book used from the Amazon.com Marketplace. And I think the epitome of hypocrisy is for Mr. Gingrich to let the words truth, or Christian anything come out in his writing.....yeech!

Gringrich cites American's responses to polls on topics that are very important such as health care, how to handle terrorism, taxes, competitiveness, etc. The results of the poll show a preponderance of Americans believe in common sense solutions yet our elected representatives cannot agree on anything. He identifies a series of solutions that address these important topics and shows how the left is out of step with the poll responders. This is a good read with more balance than you might expect as Republicans get their fair share of blame.

Absolutely excellent; really brings you up to date on the issues that Government (Congress, et al) needs to take to get America headed in the right direction.

I wish more people especially politicians knew more about history and the lessons we need to learn from history. Being a history professor makes Newt especially talented in seeing the historical perspective of the problems and solutions. His book offers change we can believe in for real American Solutions. I took notes and have contacted politicans and the media about my concerns. We, the people, need to be heard and this book plus his Ammerican Solutions site helps us be heard. One clear result is his help with increasing interest in drill here, drill now, pay less.

In this great country - the U S A - I feel we do not have a good choice for PRESIDENT!!! There has to be some one more qualified to run our country than the 2 men running!!! OBAMA thinks he's great and McCAIN is acting like a wimp!!

it holds american history in one volume, from Colon to 9/11

great price

this books is very easy to read and it comes with a code to get premium access to the editorial, with videos and a long interview with the authors about each chapter, really cool !

Overall, this is a pretty poorly written book. Most of the important events are glossed over. The book is written in a list style, spending only one sentence on some important events and people, like the Glass-Steagal Act. World War I gets about 2 pages. Also, the organization leaves something to be desired. The author likes to skip around chronologically in favor of grouping by social, political, and economic topics. This works well in the case of the chapter on Progressivism, but fails elsewhere.
Written by only one author - most history textbooks have multiple authors - this books has the feel of getting only one viewpoint. Foner isn't even an expert in this time period; he writes about the Civil War and Reconstruction. There are much, much better US history textbooks out there. I would recommend American Pageant for this level (advanced high school, college survey).

I am a foreign student, and this is the first time that I study American History. The Seagull Edition of this book is great because it has all the written information and appendix from the regular volume and it costed less than half. Some people might miss the colored pictures, the maps or the extra margens to right notes, but this edition fitted my budget and i am enjoying it anyway.

Regarding the content, the information is presented clearly and very complete.

The book arrived in the estimated time and in the condition advertised by this seller.

Buying this product (We the People: Shorter Sixth Edition) off of amazon was an excellent choice. Considering that the campus bookstore charged 3x more, this was an outstanding value for such an in depth look at American Government.

The book is in perfect condition and is the edition that I needed. I also believe it was brand new and it was cheaper than what my bookstore was selling it used.

I saved lots of money buying here and it was still new i couldn't believe it

Easily applies governmental fundamentals to real world issues. Allows for quick and easy understanding

Mr. Wright has done an outstanding job of connecting the dots from the first hints of Islamic terrorism to the catastrophic events of 9/11. The book is very readable and gives a clear understanding of this small group of disenfranchised, Middle-Eastern religious windbags and why they were allowed to fester. Also it fleshes out how the bureaucratic infighting between, primarily, the CIA and FBI helped Al-Qaeda to succeed in the terrorists' attacks. The book '102 Minutes' by Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn compliments Mr. Wrights book by explaining the bureaucratic snafus and political pettiness that contributed to many of the unnecessary deaths in the Twin Towers. Illuminating, frustrating and places the events and key individuals in proper perspective. Please do yourself a favor and read it.

It is easy to see how the author won the Pulitzer for this book. It is the definitive account of Al Qaeda's genesis leading up to 9/11. The book is both detailed but also concise and extremely readable. The author has a talent to make these events of non-fiction read like the best thriller novel. For those that want to understand our enemy and how we got to 9/11, this is essential reading. Highly recommended.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 is appropriately titled. If I had to recommend a first book for one who wants to gain insight into the formation of the world's most sinister terrorist organization and the events leading to September 11, 2001, this is the book. Lawrence Wright is concise, to the point and does not allow the book's tentacles to wander too far away from the main subject, Al-Qaeda, in an attempt to cover the fundamentals. Mr. Wright also covers "The Wall" very well. The Wall was the operational restrictions mainly between the FBI and the CIA exposed during the 911 Commission. The Wall discouraged mutual cooperation between the CIA and the FBI in investigating the very terrorists that would wreak havoc in America on that fateful date. The book focuses on many individuals involved in the investigation of Al-Qaeda, especially the late FBI Special Agent John O'Neill's battles with "The Wall", US Ambassador-to-Yemen Barbara Bodine, and Al-Qaeda in general. John O'Neill is a true American hero and this book explains why. Mr. Wright also ties the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and the September 11, 2001 attacks in a simple package. Sometimes the book lacks substance but that can be directly attributed to a lack of information or suspect resources associated with Al-Qaeda which to date remains a shadowy terrorist organization. Great book.

First of all, this book makes it clear that 9/11 had many roots that stem from many factors, all of which combined to create the perfect storm that we know as 9/11. However, most of the activities that directly led up to the even occurred during the Clinton Administration. I think Wright tried to protect the reputations of such key people as Sandy Berger, George Tenet, Madeline Albright, Louis Freeh and others -- mainly by omitting or scarcely mentioning them -- leaders who must bear responsibility for success or failure. Instead, Wright goes after the lesser officials -- the guys on the ground, the expendable professionals. And it's clear that he's a big fan of Richard Clarke, who probably provided him with a great deal of the inside baseball in which Clarke is hardly a disinterested party. Therefore Clarke comes out good in this book, despite his attempts to shift blame from his shoulders on others. Wright also seems to favor the FBI, probably because one of the main characters of this book is uber-FBI agent and philanderer John O'Neil. I imagine the CIA didn't help its own cause due to its institutionalized and deep-seated secrecy that probably thwarted its ability to effectively tell its side of the story.

All that said, however, there is no taking away from the fact that this book is a monumental chronology of the rise of jihadist terrorism and and almost Keystone Kops bureaucracy battles between the FBI and the CIA that unwillingly abetted 9/11. If Wright is to be believed -- and I think he should be -- 9/11 could have easily been prevented had the CIA and FBI coordinated better. There were enough warnings but those warnings weren't often shared because each group had a separate agenda --the CIA wanting to recruit spies; the FBI seeking to put them in jail. Also, the book paints a picture of Osama Bin Laden that is revealing. We see that he is not invincible. Instead, he is largely flawed and vulnerable. To my mind, he's a dangerous but unstable mental case who just got lucky. He's still dangerous, but not invincible. Another message is that the U.S. is quite capable of protecting itself against the terrorists if it can correct the infighting among the intelligence/law enforcement instituions. All in all, this is a book for our times and screams to be on bookshelves all over America. The murders and psycopaths are coming back. Will we be ready for them? This book may help you answer that question.

The Looming Tower does a superb examination of the 9/11 attacks and their attackers. The author did extensive research for this history of terrorism, describing its morph from anti-Communist/Left-wing agenda (as atheists, the Communists and the Left-Wing were a huge abomination to the militant Muslims) in Afghanistan to the present day. He details how the group led by Osama bin Laden, called Al-Qaeda, was formed in that country along with their ideology blaming America. As a modestly wealthy member of a prominent Saudi construction family, bin Laden lived a Spartan life and created a responsive and insular organization with a strong sense of publicity. The list of terrorist attacks include East Africa embassy attacks, the USS Cole and more. Like war, counterterrorism is not a scientific activity with 100% assurance of results. It's inexact at best and we see that the FBI, CIA and other agencies are pursuing an uneven and cloudy trail. One of the most dangerous aspects of bin Laden's efforts are the seeds that he tossed into the wind to create a considerable, unconnected (and therefore untraceable) waves of terrorist imitators.

Michael Mandaville, Author: "Citizen Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways for Every American to Fight Terrorism"

Kevin Phillips' BAD MONEY receives Scott Brick's excellent acting skills as it provides a solid non-fiction account of oil troubles, debt, and the bursting of the American financial bubble. Any collection strong in nonfiction economics listens needs BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM.

Kevin Phillips, you have done it again. I don't know why you morphed from a Republican strategist into a harsh critic of right-wing, robber barons' assault on the welfare state and its dream of economic justice. But you hit the nail on the head time-and-time-again: entrenched interest groups, the collapse of real political debate, the transition from productive to financial capital, the politics of oil, the protection of Wall Street by the Fed. giving rise to meltdowns rather than tamable booms and preventable busts, the shift of wealth from those who labor or save to those who speculate, financial gambling in the form of derivatives and other synthetic securities which reward their inventors and defraud both latecomers and the public at large, the embrace of moral hazard which is a subsidy for those too big to fail and happen to be friends and peers of the government officials who are supposed to regulate them. I know someone who hustled subprime mortgages for speculators by knowing how to work the computer programs lenders use to assess mortgage risk; his clients had absolutely no equity. There was so much money to hustle, lenders were not interested in due diligence. They chopped the loans into little pieces, packaged them to disguise risk and sold them as equities. I am not sure the broker is not in jail. He was small potatoes. How about the Mertons, Greenspans, Bernankes and legions of Ph.D.s from MIT who claimed they were diversifying risk only to discover when things went wrong they were gambling on air and there was no liquidity? A fixed roulette wheel does not help when too many people learn how it is loaded. See Bookstaber's excellent A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation. As Phillips points out, a good deal of finance in the US is a giant subsidized Ponzi scheme. Only in a world of greed and class oppression would labor be taxed more than return on capital.
It is a pretty shabby picture but unfortunately 90% of the voting public has little ability or interest in understanding it. No wonder, as Phillips points out, Obama's backers will swallow his hedge fund contributors without noticing what their presence in his camp means. Although Joe Biden may bring a white bread image to the Democratic ticket, he also brings the bipartisanship which makes it impossible to honestly name, if not solve, both foreign policy problems and the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth in the US. If I were to talk to my middle/upper-middle class friends about how much we all benefit from the set up as it is, they would either not listen or regard me as attacking them.
Kevin, you have the courage to tell it like it is. But is anyone listening?
Besides the fact that the book is a bit repetitive and, having listened to it as a book on tape, the narrator is overly dramatic making each nugget of corruption sound like an apocalypse, I find some of the overarching historical comparisons a bit of a stretch. The declines of Rome, Spain, the Dutch Confederation, and finally Britain are interesting background, and some aspects are reminiscent of what is happening to
America now, but each had its own very individual causes. Metropolitan Spain, the master of a great empire, was always a debtor. That is how it fought its wars. New World silver and gold just made it possible to fight nastier wars of the counter reformation. Indebtedness was not some declining empire phenomena. Italian and German bankers were paying for the conquest of Granada years before Columbus sailed. Similarly depopulation and decline don't really fit either England or Spain. Spain had plenty of poor from denuded Andalusia to get rid of and opportunity lay abroad. Besides wool for the Low Lands, wine and olives, Spain had little industry and needed less when the geld started pouring in. And, at the height of the industrial revolution, England was exporting it street ruffians and poor to Australia. There was no place for them at home even though industry needed surplus labor to keep wages down. It had all the displaced, barefoot Irish it needed. England only really bankrupted itself in WWII. Where its decline began is hard to say. It may have been initiated way before coupon clipping and remittance men of Edwardian England became subjects of literature. How about sometime between the Crimean and Boer wars? An interesting take on Britain is in Correlli Barnett's reactionary book Collapse of British Power (History/20th Century History). He sees the decline as a function of free trade, public schools' crippling of ruling-class moral fiber, post WWI pacifism, and the greater cost of defending the empire and Commonwealth in comparison to its military return especially during WWII. As for the Dutch Republics, I guess I need to find a good economic history of them. From I had thought their small population and increasing cost of shipping made them hopelessly outflanked by their larger English neighbors. The Dutch had prospered by early textile manufacture, shipping cheaper (paying their sailors less in the Baltic trade) and stealing weaker Portugal's overseas entrepots. ( See Charles Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800 and John Keay The Spice Route: A History (California Studies in Food and Culture).) In the end the Dutch Republics were outcompeted and outfought by England.
Despite the shortcoming in Phillips' comparative history, his clarion call of decline is well taken. I like to think of Fulbright's "arrogance of power." We are headed for a fall, but maybe not the apocalypse Phillips trumpets. Our increased productivity from the US lead in computers has a lot to do with the wealth generated since the late 1980's. That is production, not finance. It just was, and still is, being lopsidedly distributed leading to private splendor (fed much by finance) and public squalor. The consequences of Lyndon Johnson's guns and butter and the 70's oil boycott stopped middle/lower-middle class growth and Reagan reached into their pockets and gave their subsidence to the upper/middle and upper classes along with a giant share of the new productivity. More people should read Phillips' books. But then it is not in many peoples', who know better and vote, interest to advocate for his implied solutions. It might preclude million dollar houses, jet-setting and three Volvos in the drive way . And as for the lower classes who might really profit from his criticism, they are too busy paying their subprime mortgages, watching television, playing video games or shopping at Wal-Mart. So we have a world of unnecessary conflicts and economic injustice. Remember Tolstoy's description of the Russian nobility ignoring Napoleon's advance on Moscow. Rather than Götterdämmerung, we have the twilight of our empire which is OK because of all the harm to which our arrogance has led. Our successors, the Chinese, don't give any sign they will dominate the world any more fairly.
Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

Does the mortgage credit crisis bother you? Are you concerned about high oil prices? Do you get the feeling that Wall Street is largely a high-stakes casino, where insiders collect billions on winning bets, and also collect billions on losing bets, payed off with taxpayer bailouts? Do you want to understand why this is happening and how the game works? Then go find a different book. The author of this book is a "big idea guy", and he does nothing to elucidate his major points, all of which I was painfully aware before reading page one.

The writing is in a churning stream of consciousness style, looping back over the same topics several times, in no particular sequence, as if hoping that some meaningful connections would appear just from the proximity of the paragraphs. Most annoying, is the habit of introducing an interesting topic, promising, "more on this in a later chapter", then repeating the introductory comments without pushing further when the later chapter arrives.

There is no way to deny that the problems outlined in the book are important and deserve attention. Most of the positive reviews here award 4 or 5 stars based on that alone. But not only are no solutions offered, the problems themselves are not broken down and explained in any meaningful way. The comparisons of recent American history to the declines of previous empires is interesting, but superficial. If the thesis is that an over-emphasis on financial services leads to decline, I want to know why. I believe it could be true, but I don't understand why. No help here.

I do know that when the government takes the downside out of risky behavior, by promising taxpayer bailouts for failed lenders, that it's a recipe for disastrously risky behavior. That's obvious. Why is it allowed to happen? Who can stop it? Somebody please give me the name of a book that can help.

"Guns don't hurt people. People hurt people." It's the same in shadow finance. If you invest for yourself, or if you want to invest for yourself, but you don't trust a system that keeps the middle class investors in the dark, that over-extends its borrowing to crisis levels, that sells questionable contracts & mortgages not only to naive Americans but to unsuspecting foreign institutions (buyer beware), then you will find the root causes of our 2007 financial lock-up in BAD MONEY useful. Like Roger Lowenstein's books describing earlier lock-ups, Kevin Phillips' book outlines how people we trust repeatedly let us down. Notice that I use the phrase "lock-up" & not "sell-off". From the early 1990s to the present, Lieberman, Greenspan, Paulson, Gramm, etc., all have fought against transparency in the financial markets by turning the discussion towards the fear of more regulations. Buyer beware!

I read this book after hearing the author, Kevin Phillips, give a radio presentation to the Cambridge Forum. Phillips was familiar to me as a spokesman for conservative perspectives over a span of decades, a perspective that I never shared. Thus, I was a bit skeptical when I first heard his presentation on this topic. However, I was quickly impressed by his careful, scholarly analysis, and have come to agree that he is exactly right. Phillips' central point is that the United States has abrogated its leadership position in the world by virtue of having stopped being a nation that produces goods and services of real value and becoming a nation who's primary business is the manipulation of financial markets and debt. He cites earlier examples of the Maritime Dutch republic of the 1700s, Great Britain around the time of WWI, and even Rome. The sobering point is that once a nation has gone this route, the course is irretrievable. He finds lots of blame for this situation, and it is not all deposited on any single political party...there is plenty to go around! He discusses our biggest product, Credit Debt, the root causes of the rise in oil prices, and the impact of right-wing evangelicals on the administration's feeble approach to dealing with our major challenges. This is not a feel-good book, but it is an important contribution to helping Americans understand our current situation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The "Nightingales's Song" is a remarkable story. I know three of the five characters, (McCain, McFarlane, and Webb), and truly admire them all. This book is a great piece of reporting, and is more relevant today than it was when it was first published. Admiral Jim Stavridis, still on the front lines of history, and a wonderful writer as well, said this book is a, "Greek tragedy," and is, "no more about Iran-Contra than 'Moby Dick' is about whaling." David Mamet who recommended this story to me and I both agree.

amazing must read book.

first the writing is simply beautiful, from the choice of words, to hidden humor and subtle points to the really big ideas that make a life ruined by reading well worthwhile.

second, i have no idea what genre this book falls into. it is unique.
it is the well researched story of 5 men's lives, those most effected by the iran contra hearings. from the day they entered the US Naval Academy to the time of the hearings.

the hearings are just a chapter or so at the very end. it is how they got to where they were and even more importantly --who they are and what they had learned during their time in government service that makes the books both a pleasure for the eye and for the mind. it is very good history with a high level analysis of what is good about these men and what is bad and how choosing each path is important, in these cases not only for the men involved but for the country they serviced.

thanks to the author for a very pleasant and rewarding day spent reading...

This book was important when it was published and remains so today. It describes in detail key members of the Reagan administration and other prominent political figures. Some remain active today, e. g. John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North. Most interesting figure, in my opinion, was Admiral Poindexter. He was a brilliant man with a Ph. D. but commanded at sea and was apparently respected and liked by the sailors. In my opinion, it may be unusual for a CalTech PH. D. to be a down-to-earth commander of troops.

Lots of detail; well-researched; very interesting book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book's insights into these prominent graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy. I gained in-depth information about the subjects which I never saw covered in any other publication.

This was an amazing book when it was written a few years ago, and is now more timely than ever. It follows the careers of five Naval Academy graduates, all of whom gained some measure of fame--Oliver North, Jim Webb (now US Senator from VA) John Poindexter and "Sparky" McFarlane, both of whom served Ronald Reagan, and JOHN MCCAIN, who certainly was a wild man, by any standard, in his younger years. Beautifully written by another Naval Academy graduate who was severely wounded in Vietnam.

This is a must-have for going through the Story of the World series. My favorite part is the "continued reading" recommendations. I'd suggest not trying to do all the activities. We started out that way and it was taking forever.

I do have her do the map exercises for every chapter and try to read at least one of the recommended books (often a fairy tale/myth/legend picture book about that time/culture). When she's very interested in a chapter, we'll spend more time and do a project or two and read more of the books.

This book series is the perfect balance between a scripted, rigid history program and a completely unstructured approach to teaching history. I use it in a homeschooling history coop group with 6 girls, age 5-8. We have a great time. I use the study questions, we fill out the map, and then we do a craft. We enjoyed forming the Nile river with dirt and rocks, building an "ancient home" structure in the back yard, and creating hieroglyphics in clay. I like a lot of the books she recommends as supplements. We use the coloring pictures to add to our timeline we are creating that encircles our homeschooling room.
The coloring pictures are simple, but I think thats better for boys who sometimes are not into detailed coloring. I purchased some extra coloring books for my daughter who loves to color.
Finally, I am a devoted Christian who appreciates the flexibilty to add biblical content as I see fit.

Love these books. Don't buy just the textbook and not the activity. Its worth it. Only thing that would be nice would be if the pages to copy were preforated for easy pullout. Otherwise, no complaints!

We have tried several hs history curricula and this is the first one that has captivated my children. I would highly recommend this!

Overall, this is an excellent resource, but there are some inaccuracies. I still recommend it, just examine maps carefully. Ninevah is on the wrong side of the Tigris river on two maps. We aren't finished either, so it is possible there may be more errors.

I read this book a little over a year ago in response to a suggestion
from a left wing blogger. I suppose to be fair, I should go back and
reread the book in order to do a better review. But I'll try to "wing
it" by memory, which may be a real challenge because the book is
quite forgetable.

Basically the entire premise revolves around the idea that you morons out
there don't know what's good for you. So, the thing to do is to vote for
the left because they know best.

Whoever you are, left or right, liberal or conservative- you probably
deserve a little more credit than that. You'll vote for who you think is
best; best for you or for your country. I'll make a deal with liberals:
don't call me stupid for voting conservative, and I won't call you stupid.
I may think you're pretty stupid, but I'll keep that to myself.

The author is a typical leftist; that is, he was a rich kid brought up in a Lilly-white suburb whose politics swung to the left when he didn't automatically inherit the social-standing he assumed was his birthright. This mindset deludes him into thinking that he has some sort of common-cause with the working-class he spent his early years avoiding like the plague. Franks' thesis is that populist demagoguery is only acceptable when serving the purposes of socialism,rather then corporate-conservatism...the possibility that populism itself isn't such a hot idea ain't even on the table.
Obama basically said the same thing with his "guns and religion" gaffe, but at least he didn't repeat himself until he had enough pages for a book. One of the log-rolling blurbs on the cover calls Frank "the second-coming of H.L. Mencken, but with better politics". Wrong on both counts. If you need a laugh at the fumbling of Marxists trying to convert Bubbas to their cause without having to actually interact with them, this is the fish-wrap for you!

This book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand today's politics and the great backlash occurring among good people who have been "tricked" into believing that voting "conservative" will somehow help and protect them. How far from the truth! I urge you to read this book. I highly recommend it.

Author Thomas Frank takes a funny, insightful 2005 look at politics in Kansas (and the USA). Frank shows how cultural wedge issues (abortion, gun control, etc.) have more pull with Kansans than economic ones. Most Kansas farmers and workers have fallen behind in wages, benefits, etc., yet see millionaire George W. Bush as their pal, even as he cuts their subsidies, busts their unions, and lowers taxes for their rich bosses. These Kansans often blame liberals for their problems - even with Republicans controlling government. Frank also shows how Kansas conservatives foolishly vent anger at wealthy moderate Republicans from suburban Kansas City by cutting their taxes! Of course, this is Kansas, which hasn't voted Democratic for U.S. Senate since 1932, nor for President (except in 1964) since 1936.

This book is fun reading, but the author jumps around too much, and wrongly faults free trade and Bill Clinton's middle-class strategy. He also can't see why blabbering idiots like Rush Limbaugh influence many, or why McGovern-liberalism (busing, racial quota's, etc.) still hurts Democrats at the polls. Despite these flaws, this readable look at U.S. politics is mostly on-target.

I just want to say that this book is completely on target and right about the political mindset of Kansas citizens in addition to almost every other right-winged American. I should know -- I used to live in Kansas. Luckily, I spent most of my life growing up in NY because after realizing many of the same conclusions of Thomas Frank, my mom knew we had to leave. The book was very well written and kept me smiling throughout because his descriptions ring true to my personal experience living there - they brought back so many memories of the extreme conservative mindset of all of my family and friends in KS. Anyone who lives in the midwest, has an open mind and understands politics can learn a great deal from this book; and anyone who disagrees is clearly ignorant of the truth.