Politics Government Books

This book deals with a central question. Why do leading states after major wars institutionalize and even strategically restrain their powers? Ikenberry's response is that 'states in this situation have sought hold onto power and make it last, and that this has led these states, paradoxically, to find ways to set limits on their power and make it acceptable to other states".(p. xi) To analyze this central puzzle, the author looks at the settlements of 1815, 1919, and 1945 as well as the end of the cold war. These times are important turning points in the history of world politics as major powers search for a new international order.

Moreover, this book has important implications for contemporary American foreign policy makers. "The United States has entered the new century as the world's lone superpower. Whether that extraordinary power can be put to good use in creating a lasting and legitimate international order will in no small measure determined by how American officials use and operate within international institutions. It might appear that there are few constraints or penalties for the United States to exercise its power unilaterally and at its own discretion. But the theory and historical experiences in these chapters suggest otherwise. The most enduringly powerful states are those that work with and through institutions". (p.20)

Overall, After Victory is a very good contribution to diplomatic history, international relations theory as well as to American foreign policy.

This book sheds a startling but bright and objective light into a very serious look at the coming 'New America'. A time as more than ever as these that we live in. Tells us that the time has come for overwhelming consideration of what is the ordinary man's response, reaction, responsibility and recourse as a proper answer to a threat of a true 'Orwellian' and 'Huxleyian' world for more than just America. For those of us here and other individuals around the world whom remember what a true sense of freedom and privacy was, the answer is an easy one, but the solution will prove to be a very difficult task. Louis Fisher has written a very excellent and comprehensive book detailing America's extremely dire predicament of it's frightening burden to maintain 'Constitutional Integrity' in a time of enormous 'Constitutional Frailty'.

Chaper 2 was somewhat helpful but nothing new. Maybe I need to read it again.

I learned a great deal from the authors' explicit comparison of their views with those of King, Keohane, and Verba (KKV). Indeed, to a great extent, this book reads like an extended dialogue with KKV. The authors follow the strategy of trying to show that KKV was actually not a unified statement, but rather that Keohane's actual view departs, in significant respects, from what the trio said in their book.

One of the strengths of this book is the excellent discussion of the philosophy of the social sciences and how case studies fit into the quest for knowledge about social phenomena. I found it balanced and informative.

One shortcoming of the book's discussion of "process tracing," which I think is an innovative way of thinking about dynamic analysis, is that the authors seem unaware of event history analysis. Much of their discussion reads as if they still think of social science research as a successive series of cross-sections on the one hand, or detailed narrative presentations of processes on the other. One of the great advantages of event history analysis, which is now widespread in sociology, is that it gives an investigator the ability to do micro level analyses of the timing, pacing, and rhythm of change which would simply not be possible if we were confined to verbal descriptions.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants an alternative to the KKV view of the world and who is also interested in an introduction to how political scientists do case analysis.

Livro permite compreender a metodologia "estudo de caso" para além da mera antinomia "quantitativa" versus "qualitativa".

This book provides many wonderful insights into how to conduct case studies that can withstand methodoligical criticism from the quantoids. I have used many other texts to build case study strategies, but this one by far was the best. Concpets are made very clear and accessible, which allows for clear application of these ideas.

Every day it seems the world looks a little more broken to me. It helps so much to read a few pages of Wendell Berry. He is a fantastic example of someone who thinks for himself; and really strives to get to the core truth about the important issues we face as a civilization. It should be required reading for everyone in the United States - IF we want to get on a path to restoration and healing of our society. But that's where the scary part comes in. I'm beginning to think people would put this book down and give up on it a few pages in. Even if they did get all the way to the end, not many would be willing to put the ideas into practice in their daily lives.

I picked this selection for my book club, and it was very interesting to watch the responses of the participants. You could sense the tension - watch them wiggling in their chairs. They were so relieved when we were finally done with the book; and not because it was poorly written; just because it requires an examination of how far we've all fallen from what is true. I will continue to encourage people to read this excellent and important book, but it will never be an easy sell...and that's a shame.

This highly stimulating collection of Berry's essays contains some of the most important things Berry has written. The essay "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" is one of the most insightful and important theological statements of our day. It is in everyone's best interest to work to see that the organized churches take Berry's essay to heart. Of course, the book is also notable for the beauty of Berry's writing -- not coincidental, since he argues here and elsewhere for a recovery of the idea of work as sacred and for beauty as a measure of "right livelihood."

This is the first Wendell Berry book that I've read, and from the introduction, I found it to be an immensely interesting and engaging read. I was amazed at how skillfully Berry could take complex social issues and boil them down into bite-sized (read: understandable) pieces. I typically wouldn't find myself being overly interested in a collection of essays like this, but needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the enjoyable read.

The one element of this book that was hard for me to swallow was Berry's overly idealistic view of people and communities. Granted, significant changes to the current social, economic, and agricultural systems would most likely have to begin in the mind of an idealistic individual, but I felt like many of Berry's arguments rested solely on the inherent goodness of people as a whole. Here's the core problem - individuals act in their own self interest. People are selfish.

This is still a worthy book to read, however, and can bring about fantastic discussion. (I may be frequenting a farmer's market now, as a result of his arguments...Just trying to close the distance between producer and consumer!) Read it and wrestle with it.

This, I think, is a difficult book to review. There are so many diverse themes throughout the book that it is hard to describe what the book is "about", and my reaction to the book was a mixture of excitement, personal conviction, and intellectual challenge. Yet, hopefully I can get something coherent down for you.

The book is a collection of eight essays written by Berry, all of which deal (sometimes loosely) with the degradation of community. "Community" is a term of art for Berry; it is more than merely a group of people living in close proximity to one another who happen, from time to time, to bump into each other at the store. Rather, community is a defined group of people who live together in a particular place, over time, in a way that fosters a strong sense of togetherness. People who have this type of community have experiences together in everyday life, such as work, play, tragedy, and joy. In community of this nature there is a sense of belonging that most Americans today would not be able to relate to.

Berry is not the only intellectual (a label I would guess he'd hate hear applied to himself) to suggest not only that our communities are deteriorating, but that this deterioration adversely effects the quality and essence of our lives. For a more empirical approach to the subject, see especially Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam. I think when Berry's book is read in light of Putnam's we see not only a picture of the problem but also a recipe for the remedy.

Berry is a challenging author. He is at times very radical, and he sometimes employs demagoguery to press his point. However, when taken as a whole he approaches his topic from a position of humility and honesty. There is even a sense, after coming to grips with this humility and honesty, that Berry comes to his subject with righteous indignation. He is clearly passionate about small, rural communities like his own, and his passion easily rubs off onto the reader. After reading this book, I feel like I have a heightened sense of compassion for people who are trying to keep their communities alive.

This book is probably not for everyone. I would recommend it to people who already have sympathies for the rural, self-sufficient lifestyle and those especially who have concerns for the quality of our environment (a topic that Berry hits upon numerous times). This is not to say that this book cannot change minds. However, many people who read this book from the point of view of an average modern American will dismiss Berry's ideas as utterly and hopelessly out of date. This is because Berry criticizes the way in which most of us (including himself, he admits) tend to live our lives. It takes a special intellectual state of mind to read such a book, in which you are being criticized, and keep an open mind. I hope that, if this book is for yourself, that you do keep an open mind, and allow Berry to convince you that he is right, and to show you a better way. Happy reading!

...thinkers I was exposed to in high school while researching for an essay report. His well-balanced thoughts on various agrarian and community-based themes are the most eloquent I have found from a single writer. His words and rationales spring from the land and argue pursuasively for more restraint for the betterment of the world by the human animal. The most compelling living philospher I know of is Wendell Berry. I recommend all of his written works.

Ann Coulter is so caustically funny and bitter as she rips through this listing of sacraments in the church of liberalism that at times it appears she can't be serious or sincere. But in the last chapter she wraps it all up in strong words that makes this book worth of the rating.

Our rules (God's rules), she concludes, "are decreed by a legislator whose opinions are not subject to appeal by the ACLU. . . The truth is the truth whether we like it or not." She speaks the truth about evolution and its impact as clearly as Ken Hamm, in words stronger than he would ever use, with an attitude that would never be approved behind a Christian pulpit.

Still, its fun, its fast, its factual...and in the end, she's right, she knows it . . . . And you'll know it too..

Ms. Coulter does an excellent job of explaining the controversy about evolution and intelligent design. She creates some confusion, perhaps, by not explaining the evidence for what is called common descent. It is this evidence that makes evolution "....the most pervasive principle in biology, and a thematic thread woven throughout this book."

The quote is on p. 110 of the fourth edition of the textbook used by 65% of biology majors in the United States: Biology by Neil A. Campbell.
On page 77, Campbell replicates the probability calculation for random mutations given by Coulter to show that evolution is absurd. The point Campbell is making is that evolution does not apply to the origin of life, but only to what happened after the first living cell began to replicate. The idea that Campbell is in need of a lecture about biology is nonsense.

It is also clear from Campbell's book that evolution only applies to animals and the bodies of human beings. It does not apply to the souls of human beings, which were created by God. This is generally overlooked because there is a lack of understanding of a method of inquiry called existentialism or metaphysics. Free will, God, the human soul are existential concepts. They are not mentioned by Campbell because his book is about science, not existentialism. To deny that the subject matter of evolution is the bodies of human beings is to make a statement about existentialism.

This point is also overlooked because many popular accounts of evolution don't say it. Francis Ayala, for example, in Darwin's Gift: to Science and Religion, says that the human soul is a religious concept. Religious concepts are matters of faith and revelation and can't be proven. In my review of this book, which was published by Sight Magazine [...], I prove that human beings have souls.

It is true that Campbell doesn't mention the arguments against evolution set forth in Godless, such as the irreducible complexity of molecular machinery and the complexity of the human eye. The reason for this, I suggest, is that everybody already knows these argument. Another reason is that advocates of intelligent design use these arguments to promote intelligent design which is more existentialism than science. It is perfectly okay to spend time figuring out whether the big bang was caused by an angel or by God, but it is not science.

I am a republican and a conservative christian and I was very interested in reading this book. I was ultimately very dissapointed by it and couldn't finish reading. Coulter does speaks some truth in this book as far as the politics of democrats are concerned, but when it comes to discussing the true meaning of Christianity, its transcendent concept of Unconditional Love, she is utterly and desperately bankrupt. Hate spews from her mouth at every turn in this book. She is an embarrassment to all true, thoughtful, loving Christians. Please don't waste your money. There are plenty of other thoughtful books written by republicans that seek to expose democrats' errors in thinking.

There is no possible way she believes the things she says. Much like Stephen Colbert, she is a farce; a completely made-up persona, only she's not "clearly kidding"; this is designed to rake in the dough from ignorant, innocent Americans who lap up this kind of garbage. Poor America; as long as people support this kind of thinking, we are in grave danger.

You can't fault Ann Coulter's passion for her political views however, BUT you can completely dismiss her scientific views. You can agree or disagree with political views but when it comes to making factual statements about the natural world you either stick to the science or spout a bunch of logical fallacies. And it is logical fallacies that this book is peppered with when Ann Coulter's pen turns to anything related to science.

Ann Coulter makes the big mistake of making all her arguments from a value-based (politics and religious) position. Science is not a matter of conjecture or democratic vote. She does this by making fallacious claims about evolution simply because the bible says something different. She then goes on to describe evolution as a 'godless religion' that is worshipped by liberals. If this is her argument for conservatism then she is making a big error in judgement.

If it was a simple dichotomy such that Liberals accept evolution while Conservatives do not, then we could quite happily say Liberals accept facts while Conservatives do not. Apparently this is the case.

Secondly, if evolution were to be a religion with Darwin as its prophet, why isn't she trumpeting the same argument with Newton (Gravitation), Einstein (Relativity) and Watson/Crick (DNA)? Presumably these are all prophets and religions too given Liberals would accept their discoveries as valid? Evolution is purely singled out because it provides a natural explanation to life that directly contradicts the bible. By this logic, we ought also accept the bible definition of pi at 3 and completely massacre all of geometry and engineering.

You have every reason to be skeptical of someone who makes a bunch of claims and then attacks the science that undermines their position. Any ideology that requires a smear campaign on real world evidence needs to be seriously criticised. In Ann Coulter's case, the case could be argued that because she should know better, her flagrant abuse of science and reason is completely unethical. How does that fit into the conservative "moral" case?

Of course, any criticism of biblical claims to fact is viewed as Godless by Ann Coulter. I would hope the need for criticism of blatant abuses of reason isn't only a Liberal value but if it is then Conservatives really need to examine their own beliefs.


P.S. For those who claim Evolution is "just a theory": A Theory in Science is a label applied to a hypothesis heavily supported by experimental evidence from multiple strands of inquiry. In 150 years, Evolution has been criticised and analysed by scientists (this is how the scientific method works). It remains standing as the unified theory of biology, something physicists are striving to attain in their field. If you wish to undermine evolution, you must necessarily dismiss genetics, the fossil record, molecular biology, ethology, zoology, germ theory... One must be incredibly confident of the antithesis claim to say they can dismiss an entire field of science.

This is an outstanding collection of vintage and new Didion. It is a MUST have for Didion fans.

I seldom read non-fiction, due to habit and training, mostly. However, when I read essays like these, I am as amazed and inspired as I would be by any great piece of fiction. Joan Didion's voice is clear, her eye sharp. This collection gathers essays from the 60's (a time I remember very well)up to and including the Bush Administration (a time I'd just as soon forget)and manages to combine history, social commentary and personality profiles into keen observations not only about the world at large, but also about herself as a part of that world. She moves from Las Vegas (I love her take on that place!) to California to Miami to El Salvador. All the while, as I read I stand in amazement at the way she writes. In his intro to the book, John Leonard says her "black album" is the "habitation of a brave heart and a radiant intellect, an ice palace and a greenhouse. . . to instruct us and the sentences we can almost sing." Certainly said better than I could have. If you can appreciate journalism as literature, you will no doubt enjoy these essays.

Tasteless, meaningless, insipid, Joan Didion is a writer for our times. Her cool detached nihilism dovetails perfectly with a world that abjures conviction and commitment. Even so, her work won't long outlast her life.

WARNING! This is an extremely biassed review!
No one writes like Joan Didion. Every story, almost every sentence is a study of someone who obviously loves the language.
Didion hones in on our finest feelings, our fears, our sorrows shot from her literary arrow, with the truest aim.
I cannot read Didion without wanting to know more...there is something in her non-fiction pieces which reaches out and grabs you, drawing you into facts that would send you to sleep if it were someone else offering them to you.
This is a fine collection of Didion observations. No one does it better. I am still resonanting to Self Esteem from Slouching Toward Bethlehem and I read it 10 years ago. Where I Was From is full of California stories, and even if you've never even visited the place you would know it intimately when you finish the book.
A great collection.

What I had read from Didion in my college comp. class could not have prepared me for the depth and beauty of her body of work. In retrospect, I cannot believe that my professor only asked us to read ONE essay from this remarkable woman. Her work is amazing! Now I see what thousands of others have always known--that Didion is undoubtedly one of the best essayists and authors alive today. I can't wait to read The Year of Magical Thinking next.

I wholeheartedly believe that it's imperative that we teach children about the importance of voting. With the freedom of democracy in the United States, we have the ability to choose who we want to lead us. It's up to use to teach our children how wonderful that freedom really is!

Eileen Christelow presents VOTE! in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand format, with fun characters and illustrations, that will appeal to even the youngest of readers. Although they may be too young to vote, children of all ages will learn how important that right is.

VOTE! presents the mayoral race of Chris Smith and Bill Brown, two opponents who both want to lead the city. They have different platforms on which they're running, different types of families, and different agendas and reasons that they want to be mayor.

Although the book is a bit one-sided in making one candidate out to be the "good guy" and one to be the "bad guy," children will be able to get a basic understanding of how elections work.

Also of interest is the glossary of election-related terms at the back of the book, along with a timeline of voting rights, interesting facts about political parties, and additional website resources for further exploration.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

Since citizenship education is becoming such a focus in the elementary shcools (and rightly so), it is good to see a really informative and kid-focused book about voting available to the grades that really need the boost. The pictures are engaging and colorful, and the "action" is enough to keep any kid interested. The timeline and glossary and excellent for teachers planning a lesson, and accessible to a kid who is looking for information for a report.

This is a great book to integrate into the classroom or to help your children understand the essentials of the primary element of democracy.

Recommended.

While I like the way the information is presented with the humor of the dogs along with the explanations, I have several problems with this book. #1 I disagree with presenting one candidate in a good light (Chris Smith who is portrayed to care about schools, and has her child campaigning for her, aka "liberals are compassionate"), and the other as a villian (Bill Brown, whose platform is portrayed to be based on building a new stadium, a cold businessman who doesn't like animals or care about children, aka "the non-compassionate conservative"). This nice candidate/mean candidate portrayal is a poor way to teach childen voting discernment. #2 At the end of the book, there is "A Timeline of Voting Rights". Again, this is a great idea- laying out these important dates to understand more easily. However, I find the comments regarding the 2000 Presidential Election troubling. The author carefully implies that the 2000 Presidential Election was bogus, and the 2002 voting act will take care of faulty elections in the future. I believe this book would've been much more effective had the author NOT brought biases into play.

I was so impressed at how easy and enjoyable this book was to read. It's about time someone wrote a good children's book about voting. Most books about voting are dry, dull and totally detached. This book provides a likable protaganist and takes us through the voting and election process. Students of mine who have read non-fiction books on voting and been left totally confused as well as bored may finally "get it" with this one. Good job!

Hobbes is a master of rhetoric and builds up a convincing arguement that you have to spot early on in order to not be pulled into his flawed statements. Human beings cannot be pigeonholed and I would not choose Stalin and communism over a democratic society even if we were in a state of chaos. And no, I do not think it's such a tragedy that there are no notes. Think for yourself. Come up with your own notes, not someone else's.

While not written yesterday, this classical treatise on politics and society is still as relevant today as it has always been. Required reading on Political Science degree courses the World over, it is almost unthinkable that any serious (or even casual) student of the field would deprive themselves of its insights. Not always the easiest of reads, it, never the less, rewards the reader more than adequately with its insights and observations.

This is not a review of the work itself.

One comment only: surprisingly enough, the editor of this volume, the 'world renowned' Richard Tuck DOES NOT PROVIDE NOTES, please pay attention: the book was originally published in 1651 (or something) but nevertheless the so called Hobbes scholar does not provide scholarly notes... and this is supposed to be a 'student's edition'... ha ha

Shame on you, Mr. Tuck!

I'll preface this review by saying that I've only read Books I-II of Leviathan (about half), but as a close friend recently told me, "That may be a new record." Although the title refers to the ideal leader of state, it could easily be attributed to the book itself; it's a truly exhaustive, and exhausting, development of Hobbes' theory of political government, and it took me more than 2 months to sort through the first 400-odd pages.

Besides its girth, the first thing that I would say usually dissuades readers from Hobbes' masterwork is the fact that many of its theories on government have been discarded over the last 300 years. He was not a fan of representative democracy - he held a largely pessimistic view on collective human nature - and viewed absolute rule under one centralized authority as the only form of government capable of controlling large groups of people with conflicting goals and opinions.

That said, what kept me reading the first two books was how rigorously and completely he develops his theories of government from very basic anatomic principles and universal truths. It goes something like this:

In Book I, entitled "Of Man," Hobbes uses the scientific principles of his time to show how the human body operates in the world, gaining knowledge and competing with other human bodies for supremacy; this is, in the parlance of Locke, Rousseau, Hume and other 16th and 17th Century philosophers, the State of Nature, which in Hobbes words makes every human life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

(I suspect that Hobbes, while using biblical references and terminology, was a closet atheist, as his view of human nature and survival was Darwinist well before Darwin. I've found at least one religious zealot in my book inventory who agrees with me, a missionary named Paul Hutchinson who wrote a book called "The New Leviathan" directly after WWII comparing the communist governments of Russia and China the ideal all-powerful state power Hobbes set forth in Leviathan. Of course, Hutchinson doesn't mind playing both sides of the coin, also referring to the fascist regimes of Mussolini and Hitler in Hobbesian terms in one chapter entitled "The Worship of the `Mortal God'.")

It's interesting and ironic that Hobbes in Book I derides educators and philosophers such as Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Thomas of Aquinas for your use of metaphors, which are to his empirical understanding not absolute and thus not reliable ("For words are wise mens counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the mony of fooles" - Chapter 4), since Book II of Leviathan, "Of Commonwealth," relies entirely upon the metaphor of government functioning as a human body. To his mind, every functional nation of the world is in the state of nature (in other words, the state of war) with every other nation. This, to his mind, is why nations are formed - [CUT] to protect the citizens, i.e., the parts of the body, from harm by other nations, i.e., political bodies.

The only way Hobbes saw to do this - and this is where Hobbes has aged worst - was through enforced dictatorial rule, as the only way to keep people from breaking civil and natural laws was through fear of retribution (to be fair, Hobbes wrote Leviathan while in exile during one of England's bloodiest civil wars, so his primary political motive was ending internal conflict). I think the reason this opinion is universally decried is that most ideologies from either end of the political spectrum have something not to like - free-market advocates see the competition Hobbes wanted to eliminate as the ideal ruling power; his centralized oligarchical rule is exactly what liberal constitutionalists created social contracts against; religious fundamentalists are continually up in arms when the government conflicts with their own tenets.

Jane Jacobs in the introduction to The Death and Life of Great American Cities rails against urban planners of the time she wrote it (it was first published in 1961) as "earnest and learned men, dealing with complex phenomena they do not understand at all and trying to make do with a pseudoscience." I probably wouldn't use such strong language about Hobbes' political philosophy, but the principle is similar - Hobbes may have gotten it all wrong, but he got it wrong better than most of us have gotten it right.

This huge work is the foundation of classical liberalism; it is the basis for Locke, for Smith, and all economic neo-liberalists all the way up to the current period. Written during the English Reformation, Hobbes was confronted with the problem of absolute individualism; he begins this work of political theory with a demolishment of objective truth swift enough to impress any post-modernist. He then proceeds to demonstrate the logical conclusion of man in a state of nature, and compels the modern world to enter into his social contract, or Leviathan out of necessity and fear. It is tempting to write off Hobbes as a cynic, but who can deny that much of what motivates individuals in the modern world is simply a fear to maintain survival and acceptance. It is the driving force of modern societies in terms of economic competition, and inter-national conflicts. Hobbes was a thinker of true depth and insight, though his ideas are so commonly ingrained in modern society that it is difficult to see why they were revolutionary when they were composed.

"Yes We Can".....thats the punch line I used to hear everyday when my toddler use to watch "Bob the Builder".

I bought this book for one of my child therapy clients at work and we read it together. We couldn't put it down. I am speaking for the both of us when I say that the book "Yes We Can" was enlightening and inspiring. Not only did it do a great job of explaining the American political system to young readers, but it also detailed Barack Obama's life in a way that offers youth the inspiration to achieve great things in life.

Is there a limit to the hagiography surrounding Barack Obama? According to Garen Thomas, apparently not. By all means, let's get children involved in the propaganda offensive. And certainly, let's not help them to think critically and objectively by providing a well rounded and balanced protrait. Soon to be found in the Blind Idolatry section of your child's school library.

This is definitely a book for adults, too.
It gives you an interesting insight of B. Obama's life as a politician but it doesn't forget his role as a son and father.
I couldn't put the book down.
5stars!!

Garen Thomas provides a thought-provoking and honest look at race and politics.
The perfect addition to any middle or high school student's summer reading list.