Politics Government Books

I am a home school mom of elementary aged children and this book is great. I do suggest you get the book that goes with it or you will be a little lost. This set together has been a wonderful asset to our school experience. It is an easy approach to teaching more than one age. Everyone is enjoying it - even me! There are maps that go along with each lesson which really give the kids a picture of where things took place, fun coloring pages and some word puzzles. The projects that go with each lesson have also been helpful. I find that there is enough info to choose from that I can easily pick what will work for us that lesson and leave out what won't and things still come together well. The kids are picking up tons of information and even more importantly, this book paints the big picture of ancient times and my kids are loving it!

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.

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.

Fascinating stories from this champion Senator and solid family man. Amazing how his 1971 campaign's ideas/platforms are still relevant today. Compelling sections on his private interactions with historic Senators, foreign leaders, troops and Presidents Carter, Reagan, Clinton and W. Bush.

Could be improved stylistically. Jumps around chronologically in parts, and some sections are dry. Also, I wish he'd explained what caused his first wife's tragic car accident (no mention of how it happened, just the aftermath).

Overall a very interesting, timely and quick read.

Puts understanding behind Biden's philosophy. Interesting commentary re what he felt was needed to run for President when he first ran vs Obama's background. Biden has a much better chance of becoming President (his ultimate goal) after serving as VP for 4-8 years & believe this is his plan. Overall good reading and somewhat incitefull--- I would recommend it.

This is a great memoir about Biden's life. He discusses everything from his early days growing up in an Irish Catholic family (and the strong influence of the nuns) to his early adult life, where his first marriage was cut short by the tragic loss of his wife and daughter.

The book is not self-promoting political soliloquy, and is written in an unusually modest and self-reflective tone. You don't get the sense that this book was written as a means to further his political career, but rather that it was a memoir of an ordinary man. I've always respected Biden and I found that this book depend my understanding of him, his character, and his foreign policy acumen.

First, the book is poorly written. It wanders endlessly at some points, coasting over spans of years where Biden had very little going on in his personal life or political life. Elements of his personal life are captivating and moving, but for the most part it is just a chronicle of a wealthy man's adventures. World travels, fine parties, elite clubs... stories that just turn me off since I can't relate to that level of wealth or lifestyle. A biography can impress in two ways. One, it can be well written and enjoyable to read for its language. Two, it can relate a story that is inspiring, impressive, and full of accomplishment. This book misses on both accounts. A poorly written book on a wealthy man's career which has had very little impact on America or the world. I would not recommend this to a friend since reading it or relating to his life is painful at times.

Two Five-star reviews by two absolutely great reviewers (Mr. Bill Emblom, a fellow Yankee fan. His reviews made me add to my list, Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynastyand a Bobby Kennedy fan (much more than JFK)) The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America. I read books about each of the three oldest Kennedy brothers. The lost prince (died in WWII), JFK and Bobby. Bobby was head and shoulders above and the best of the three. Bobby was the push behind the Civil rights,crime fighting and almost everything else. Ted must have been adopted, I have no respect for him at all. Look at Bill Emblom's 460 reviews, they are very helpful.

Also Mr John Drury convinced me to add to my list, The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life and [[ASIN:0061734950 Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir] John McCain]. His 85 reviews are to-the-point and insightful. We need articulate and brief reviewers with integrity like Mr Emblom and Mr Drury to lead us to great books, and honestly state why we should read them.

This was the first time we didn't connect. The two great reviewers have over 550 reviews between them. Strangely, the other 30 Five-star reviews only have 6 other Books, combined in their reviews. How can I trust a Non-reader? Twenty seven of the 30, have no other books reviewed. This doesn't fit. Too many of the reviews are spurious, and they sound like it also. Confirming my reliance on Qualitative not Quantitative reviews. I hope my analysis is of some help. Thank you for leading me to good books.

I love this book so much (and admire the author Doris Kearns Goodwin enormously) that I have bought this inside story of America and the Roosevelts during WWII for many of my friends and family members and they all make sure to thank me for introducing them to it...A MUST READ in my humble opinon

I've read several books on FDR and this one covered many aspects of the Roosevelts and the war years that the others didn't. Worth reading!

We may think we know all there is to know about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, but Doris Kearns Goodwin shows in this well-written and fascinating book that we only *thought* we knew the whole story.

This book is full of intimate moments, as told by those who were present to see them. Beautiful detailed, interesting and colorful, this is a layered and nuanced description of life in the Roosevelt White House during those turbulent years between 1940 and 1945.

What I wasn't expecting, and what turned out to be a delightful surprise, was the discussion of what life was like on the Homefront for average Americans during this time. This made extraordinary reading.

For those who are interested in history, this must be added to your list of titles. Highly recommended.

Seemingly hundreds of books have been written about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Books about Franklin, written from his point of view, can be critical of Eleanor - her tendency to nag, her seriousness, her lack of personality. Similarly, books about Eleanor, written from her point of view, can be critical of Franklin - his deceptions, arrogance, and self-centeredness. "No Ordinary Time, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II," written by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, provides a unique perspective in telling the stories of both Franklin and Eleanor, incorporating each point of view into the story, describing them both as individual people and as part of a troubled yet fascinating partnership. Written in narrative form, Goodwin chronicles the war years on the home front, beginning in May of 1940 and ending in December of 1945, combining the story of the Roosevelts with that of regular Americans to demonstrate the unique relationship that was created between government and the people, making this truly "no ordinary time" in American history.

In "No Ordinary Time," Franklin Roosevelt is fleshed out as a charming and charismatic figure who comes to inspire the nation through his "ebullient energy" and unlimited confidence, not only in himself, but in the country. Although he came from a wealthy, aristocratic family, Roosevelt was able to empathize with the poor and underprivileged after a bout with polio left him crippled. Although he never allowed himself to be seen in his wheelchair, and most Americans did not realize the extent of his disability, Goodwin describes one poignant scene when the president went to visit troops in Oahu and specifically asked to be wheeled around the hospital ward slowly - to, in effect, put himself, his disability, and his vulnerability on full display, so that troops who had lost arms or legs could see "living proof of what the human spirit could do."

His unique ability to transmit his own perpetual cheerfulness and optimism to others was what defined his leadership. According to Goodwin, more than any previous president, Roosevelt studied public opinion (reading newspapers, analyzing polls, securing different points of view), allowing him to understand the national temperament. Even more than that, he wanted to connect to the American people. Prior to one of his fireside (radio) chats, he asked Americans to buy a map to have before them as they listened to his speech. Americans rushed to buy maps, and eighty percent of the audience was listening to the radio as Roosevelt explained to them the situation in each part of the world, bringing the war to life, so Americans could better understand the challenges they were facing and be more prepared for a new kind of war being fought on every continent. Not only did these fireside chats allow Americans to connect with their president, they allowed Americans to connect them with each other. Describing the scene on the Chicago Midway during a fireside chat, novelist Saul Bellow explained how all the taxi drivers were pulled over by the side of the road with their radios on, so that he didn't miss a word of the speech as he walked by their cars: "You felt joined to these unknown drivers, [. . . .] not so much considering the President's words as affirming the rightness of his tone and finding assurance from it." Through his leadership, Roosevelt inspired a country that had just been through an economic depression and that was woefully underprepared for a global war to come together and re-establish itself as the world's preeminent superpower.

Like her husband, Eleanor Roosevelt also forged a unique relationship with the American people. Although she too had grown up in a wealthy, aristocratic family, unlike her husband she suffered through an unhappy childhood, leading to a lack of confidence and various bouts with depression. She lived a conventional subservient life as Franklin's wife up until she discovered his affair with Lucy Mercer. At that point, she decided she would no longer depend on another person for fulfillment and happiness and embarked on her own independent life devoted to her own interests, including teaching, writing, and participating in various political causes. She was not a conventional first lady but rather "challenged the traditional sense of what was possible": she was the first wife of a president to hold a government job, testify before a congressional committee, hold press conferences, write a syndicated column, and earn money as a lecturer. She didn't limit her role to staying at the White House and hosting social events, believing, if she did, she "would lose touch with the rest of the world." Instead, she traveled the country, observing poverty in Appalachia and sweatshops in Puerto Rico firsthand, reporting back to her husband when she found workers making less than minimum wage in one town. She witnessed the devastation of the war herself, also, as she traveled to Britain and to the Pacific. After seeing "the mangled bodies, the stomachs ripped by shells, the amputated limbs, the crushed spirits," she fell into a depression, trying to come to terms with her "emotionally disturbing" trip. Like her husband, she empathized with the American people and, even more than him, was determined to raise the consciousness of our country, fighting against Japanese internment and for women's rights in the workplace, an increased role for African Americans in the workplace, and less restrictive rules to allow refugees into the United States.

Characterizing Eleanor as the agitator and Franklin as the politician, Eleanor as the one who thought about what should be done while Franklin thought only of what could be done, and contrasting Eleanor's shyness and insecurity with Franklin's confidence and sociability, Goodwin makes it clear just how different Eleanor and Franklin were. Realizing their inability to fulfill each other's needs, they established largely independent lives where they turned to others for comfort - Franklin to his "real wife" Missy LeHand, his gossipy cousins, and his aide Harry Hopkins, and Eleanor to her young political activist friend Joseph Lash and a circle of feminist friends, including newspaper reporter Lorena Hickok. Even after Franklin grew lonely as Missy and Hopkins drifted away and turned to Eleanor in the hopes they could re-establish a more traditional marriage, she refused, later writing to Lash that she felt there was "no fundamental love to draw on, just respect and affection." Yet, Goodwin makes it clear that there was a bond between them that could not be broken. In one particularly affecting passage, Goodwin quotes from Eleanor's son, who describes the aftermath of his uncle Hall's death: "'Hall has died,' Eleanor told Franklin simply. Father struggled to her side and put his arms around her. 'Sit down,' he said, so tenderly I can still hear it. And he sank down beside her and hugged her and kissed her and held her head on his chest. . . . . For all they were apart both physically and spiritually much of their married life, there remained between them a bond that others could not break." This bond was not just from nearly forty years of marriage, but from the common cause they were joined in - to better the lives of Americans. In order to advance this cause, they drew strength from each other, together creating a far different America than the one that existed when Franklin Roosevelt first took office.

While it is clear that Goodwin has deep admiration for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, she also establishes them as fully-fleshed characters - visionary, courageous, and brave, but also deeply flawed. In fleshing out their characters, she also succeeds in creating a third character, that of the American people. When Franklin Roosevelt began his second term, one-third of Americans had no running water or indoor plumbing, more than half had no central heating, and only one-fourth had even graduated from high school. America was a "pyramidal society," with a few fortunate on the top and a great mass of people at the bottom. During the war, though, Americans moved from the farm to the factory, from the south to the north, from the east to the west, as war production led to the emergence of the middle class and created the "most profound transition in American history." Most importantly, through innovations like the minimum wage, labor protection, social security, and market regulation, a new relationship between the American people and their government was formed. Franklin Roosevelt's importance is felt most at the end of the book, as Goodwin poignantly describes the public's reaction to his death - "everybody is crying" - and the long railroad trip as his body is carried from Georgia to Washington, with Eleanor looking out the window of the train and seeing hundreds of thousands of people whose lives he had touched gathered along the way to pay their tribute. In recounting the lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and their impact on America, Goodwin shows readers why this was "no ordinary time," creating a vivid portrait of what American life on the home front was like during the second world war and bringing this incredible time in American history alive.

"Team of Rivals" remains my favorite Doris Kearns Goodwin book. But this is a very close second. "No Ordinary Time" is a brilliantly written, information-packed book that provides great insight into the FDR White House and the minds of both Franklin and Eleanor.

"No Ordinary Time" covers the Roosevelts from 1940-45, focusing primarily on how they handled the home front during America's involvement in World War II. It was interesting to learn about Eleanor's deep commitment to civil rights, how polarizing a figure she was throughout the country, and her influence on the president.

I was also very intrigued by the relationships between both Roosevelts and their friends and family. Goodwin occasionally breaks from the time period of the book to cover important moments in their lives pre-1940. FDR's affair with Lucy Rutherfurd, and the rekindling of their relationship in his last years, through the help of his daughter, is fascinating.

If I have one criticism -- and it's a stretch -- it would be that Goodwin sometimes gets bogged down in numbers, such as statistics about war production -- the amount of planes, tanks, guns, etc., that were produced and/or shipped to England and Russia. But while those sections may have somewhat slowed the progress of the book, they were important to the story she was telling.

So I consider this a 5-star book. I know Goodwin justifiably received criticism a few years ago due to some plagiarism in a previous book, but few, if any, historians combine research and writing as effectively as she does. I highly recommend this book.

This book is fine as far as it goes--the author provides a mind-numbing sequence of chapters, charts, and maps showing that rich states do not vote the way rich individuals do, and poor states do not vote the way poor individuals do.

Unfortunately, while he has a point and it is a useful important point, that is as far as the book gets. I was hoping for something much more nuanced, something that focused on all of the issues the way Paul Ray does, or Yankelovich or Weiss. This book focuses on religion and income--that's it.

I found two statements worth noting.

Page 23: "...the country is polarized in two ways, *economically* between the rich and the poor, and *culturally* between upper-income Americans in red and blue areas." [Emphasis in original as italics.]

Page 177: "We need to move beyond stereotypes of income and place in order to understand how Americans of different backgrounds, attitudes, and cultures express their views in the electoral process."

Duh. The last sentence is the book, above, is what I thought this book was going to be about. Not so. Nor do the terms electoral reform or Congressional corruption appear in this book.

Much more important books you can spend money on (I have reviewed all):
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Clustering of America
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back

This is a wonderful book for those interested in American politics and elections. While drawing heavily on the existing research in political science and advancing that research in significant ways, the book is written for a general audience. I found it refreshingly clear without dumbing down the material. I decided to use the book in my introductory level political science class this semester and my students have responded very well. They were excited by the argument and able to develop an understanding of how to do good research on political questions. The many graphic representations of data were particularly useful, as the students were able to use those graphs and charts to reconstruct Gelman's argument on their own, which made this an even more valuable learning experience.

This book advances an important argument, and should be required reading for journalists. Just last week I heard a talking head prattle on about rich people voting for democrats and poor people supporting republicans, something that, as Gelman shows definitively, is completely false. By removing this false assumption, Gelman is then able to show what's really going on in our polarized politics: cultural and religious differences among middle class and wealthy voters drive the red/blue division. His suggestions for how this information should be used by campaigns and researchers are useful.

In short, non-specialists and students will find this book engaging, accessible, and full of interesting and counter-intuitive arguments. Specialists should find the book useful for the compilation of data and previous research in one place, and if they teach political science will want to consider using this text in lower division American politics and methods courses.

I read this book as a psychologist who is familiar with Gelman's work in statistics, and so if this book had been written by someone else, I never would have noticed it. I thought it had a lot of great insights, and a lot of very clever ways of thinking about how to analyze political (or any) data. The book is not full of numbers, in fact I don't think there is a single table of numbers in it - everything is done with graphs.

Occasionally I would have liked more information on the analysis techniques used, but I realize I'm probably in a minority.

Tabbi simply rehashes the liberal line of the past fifty years that consists of presenting middle America as idiots who do not understand the real world and therefore needs liberal thinking individuals, like him, to lead the way to salvation.

Perhaps, twenty-five years from now, he will have something interesting to say but it is doubtful since most liberals become mean spirited as their view of the world never gains the support of the majority.

I really enjoyed this book. The author has a good sense of humor and his adventures are quite interesting. Probably not for you if you are sensitive about religion.

This book was a complete eye-opener. Literally prying open the third eye. Must read for any remaining free-thinking Americans. Matt Taibbi is absolutely brilliant.

Taibbi commendably takes his journalist spotlight off the corrupt actors on Washington's center stage, and instead investigates the most disaffected ordinary Americans. But to do so he goes undercover, posing as a believer in far right-wing Christian-Zionism, or far-left 9/11 conspiracy theories. He basically plays Borat, inventing oddball past experiences to play his part, and letting the unsuspecting locals make fools of themselves for the camera. Later Taibbi gives his real opinions of what idiots they are, and asks what America is coming to.

Only slowly does Taibbi's basic compassion for these people rise to the fore. These are people, he reasons, both conservatives and liberals, who feel so conned by the political rip-off system that they can't tell who to trust. And maybe, Taibbi suspects, part of the con has been to get them to blame and hate each other.

Much of the book focuses on the insider game in Washington, the non-functioning government bent on both sides twisting reality while continuing to rake in millions from big business. Meanwhile, Boeing, G.M., and Ford are headed towards becoming Chinese companies, and OPEC is likely to begin trading in the Euro. In between safaris into our government, Taibbi also reports on his immersions into both far-Right evangelical religion and far-left (?) 9/11 Truthers, finding them both living in an imaginary world. The common link in all this nuttiness - Madison Avenue and its world of make-believe messages and promises.

It was shocking to read that the "06 election saw political parties spend $160 million on negative ads, vs. only $17 million on the positive. Debate has mostly been removed from the House schedule - 79% of all bills passed during the Republican's recent majority were "suspension bills" where only 40 minutes of debate are allowed, no amendments can be offered, and a two-thirds majority is required for passage.

The Rules Committee can completely rewrite what passes the committee of jurisdiction (usually in the middle of the night) to include anything leadership knew could not survive public discussion. House members are supposed to have 3 days to read the Rules Committee output before it goes to a vote, but this has been waived in "emergency." Thus, virtually every bill passing the House during the Bush-GOP majority years was voted on just hours after emerging from Rules.

Conference Committees again can totally rewrite the bill (majority vote of members not required for passage) and again send the bill out for vote with only a few hours' notice.

Moving on briefly to the Army, Taibbi reports that their camaraderie is real - for a lot of them their unit is the best family they had, they are basically lonely. He also makes a similar observation regarding the far-Right evangelicals in Texas in which he immerses himself (including baptism) while revealing their inanity. Then its the 9/11 Truthers - a 2006 poll cited found 36% believed our government either "did" 9/11 or consciously allowed it, despite the preposterousness of their thinking.

Finally, Taibbi asks: "What about our corrupt medical insurance system, disappearance of the manufacturing economy, exploding prison population, takeover of politics by financial interests?" After setting aside those believing in aliens on earth, etc., it looks like there's not enough sanity left to care!

Whenever I read about Lincoln and his time I'm always amazed at how much information historians are able to gather in the finest detail through letters and records and quotations, etc. Books like Team of Rivals are so special for lovers of history like me because they go beyond the textbook achievements of the likes of our presidents, scientists, inventors or war heroes and examine who they are as people. Their personalities, their weaknesses and strengths, their philosophies. Having read Team of Rivals has given me new insight into why Lincoln is considered one of our greatest presidents if not the greatest.

Part of his genius and selflessness was that he surrounded himself with his political rivals to not only heal the wounds of a bitter political race, but so that Whigs and Democrats could reach common ground on the essential issues. And after having read this book I now have such a deep respect and reverence for Edwin Stanton (Lincoln's secretary of war) and William Seward (Lincoln's secretary of state whom I feel deserves the same amount of credit for the fight against and abolition of slavery as Lincoln as does Stanton for the Union's victory of the Civil War).

Team of Rivals also provides a great wealth of information into the private lives of the Lincolns, the Sewards, and the Chases in particular with tragic stories of personal loss. And it is clear that one of the major things to be admired about these people of the mid nineteenth century was their incredible ability to go on living and carry on with the responsibilities of life in the wake of losing children, wives, brothers and sisters so easily to diseases and certain conditions modern day people take for granted. Those who love Lincoln and American history will undoubtedly love this book.

It's a long, deep, and ultimately engrossing book about the 16th president and his cabinet. The book has a very strong, almost simplistic, point of view about its focuses. Lincoln is a kindly man always with a story to tell and with an almost preternatural grasp of politics. Seward is the loyal consigliere and companion. Chase is the scheming power-hungry plotter pushed by his scheming power-hungry daughter. Bates is the kindly old guy who no one else really cares about. Stanton is the hard-working, hard-driving guy who never lets the President down. Mary Lincoln is the batty, jealous wife. Everyone comes across as a one-dimensional archetype once they start the Administration. Most of them seem like more interesting people BEFORE Lincoln gets elected.

The book is engaging--it has to be with over 750 pages of text, not including notes, index, etc. But I am no Lincoln expert. I suspect the sketches that are drawn are overly simplistic, but without having seen an alternate account, and not being a Lincoln scholar, I hesitate to state an opinion on the accuracy or the perspective Kearns provides. I can say the book is immensely readable and I enjoyed it greatly.

LEARNING from HISTORY... One of our limitations as a nation is that we don't seem to learn from history. Doris Keanrs Goodwin's book THE TEAM OF RIVALS was written before the current election but provides many lessons that are still relevant in today's political situation. First is the conditions that Lincoln had to deal with when he was elected and when assumed power. We think that times today are unique and troublesome, but can you imagine taking over power and having the country divide and a new nation formed..neither McCain nor Obama could imagine or are prepared for this type of division.
Second, it is interesting that LINCOLN choose his rivals to help him lead and was willing to deal with the consequences of this decision. McCain clearly has followed the Lincoln example and is likely to choose his rivals to help him serve...when he is elected.

Overall we can learn from history and if we are smart avoid making the same mistakes... THANK YOU Ms. GOODWIN for the opportunity to do this because of your easy to read, highly researched and presented HISTORY LESSON.

Bill Rothschild, author of THE SECRET TO GE's SUCCESS...which tries to do the same for American businesses.

I have just completed Ms. Goodwin's book. I realize that a huge number of people will not like this review. While no one would denies that Abraham Lincoln was one of the top three presidents in this country's history-perhaps Washington and FDR being the other two-it seems that Goodwin wants to create some type of God out of Lincoln, which he probably was not. Moreover, she makes the south out to be this huge bunch of minsters which they probably was not. Was what the south was doing in sustaining slavery wrong? Yes it was and no one would argue that point. It just takes more of an effort to understand why they were sustaining slavery. There are so many things we encounter today that are just as wrong, but people like to cover them up as Goodwin has done in her biography of Lincoln. I must add, and this should have been pointed out and was not, Lincoln did things as president that would never have been tolerated today, but still he is expected to be worship; and, that is just dangerous.

Very interesting read using source material, in their own words, account. The characters are alive and believeable with the background of the election and civil war. The narrative is engrossing and I got lost in the book. It is a biography of the four people who ran for president in 1860. All four biographies enchance understanding of the times and complement Lincoln's story. The history is fascinating and is paced well and comprehensive.

There are really three things I think I would've wanted to know about this book before reading it.

1. Reich's book treats us to a great many (quite persuasive) counterintuitve explanations. I'm a sucker for (good) explanations about phenomena that cut against intuition. For instance, when you learn in basic training that a bullet drops at the same rate as a paperclip, it's obviously true, but counter to your intuition.

2. The book isn't perfect, but it is without any _serious_ flaws of reasoning. His least cogent argument is his claim that corporations cannot be responsible, unless being so happens to be good for the stakeholders of the company. First, I'm not sure that's true for privately held companies. Think of Caribou Coffee, for instance. Nevertheless, his point that the raison d'etre of a modern publicly-traded company is to make stockholders richer is hardly controversial. My view of this section is that he makes too much of some aspects of his case, without considering other non-governmental companies or the actual deeply held values and motivations of corporate executives. Furthermore, his argument would've been made stronger by some knowledge of attribution and dissonance studies.

3. Reich changed my mind on some significant matters of practical import. For instance, if you think, as I did, that many large corporations seem to be failing in their civic responsibilities, this book will challenge that. (This may simply be an instance of 1 above.)

All in all, I expect this book to leave a mark on future debates on the proper role of business in civic matters and government in business matters.

Reich was interviewed on NPR in September 2007, and some of his comments promoting this book were eye-opening and counter-intuitive. His 'driveway moment' suggestions included eliminating the corporate income tax, putting lobbyist contributions into blind trusts so politicians could not know who gave what, preventing punitive fines on corporate malfeasance, eliminating the ability of corporations to challenge business-limiting regulations, and not giving tax advantages to corporations who keep their headquarters in the United States. These were some revolutionary recommendations and I was anxious to read his preparatory research.

Unfortunately this book is a good bit less convincing than his radio interview. The second through fifth chapters are devoted to a litany of scolds about multinational corporations, globalization, outsourcing, Fair Trade laws and other sins of 'supercapitalism.' On nearly every page within these four chapters he mentions Wal-Mart at least once. He rightly blames market forces for the intense competitiveness which drives such corporations to look no further ahead than their next quarterly statement. He correctly places the blame on public ownership for changing corporate focus from customer satisfaction to stock price. There is nothing noteworthy here, and it is 2/3rds of the book.

The first chapter is an excellent summation of the thirty year period 1945-1975, when most of us grew up, when government stimulus and regulatory bite combined to create a hugely-successful economic engine. During this period (our formative) a vibrant Middle Class emerged; educated, financially rewarded, productive, acquisitive and procreative. The new markets thus opened up drove industry to create more and better products, which in turn created more wealth shared among the workers. It was a positive feedback loop that floated all boats.

Chapters 2-5 detail, as mentioned, the change in focus from productivity to profitability but without really explaining how this change came about. It isn't until the sixth and final chapter that Reich begins to lay out his vision of what happened.

The mid-'70s saw the first cracks in the American juggernaut, with the Arab Oil Embargo, the rise of Japanese electronics imports, increasing auto imports, the fall of the U.S. dollar and the strain of the Vietnam War. In response, industry began lobbying Congress for increased freedom from regulation, from union contracts, from environmental responsibilities and from restrictions on overseas outsourcing. By the time Ronald Reagan washed into office the stage was set for major re-ordering of priorities, with the stick-and-carrot of previous regulation-and-stimulus being replaced by carrots alone. Big business took off running, and an unholy alliance of politics and big business suddenly got cozier -- to the point where consumers, citizens & taxpayers are no longer Congress's main constituents.

Reich's solutions to these systemic problems depend, as he admits, on a culture change inside the Washington beltway, and this is unlikely to occur without some sort of intervention to break the dependency on lobbyist dollars. His recommendations on pages 210-211 are:
* publicly finance election campaigns for all major offices
* require broadcasters who use the public airwaves to contribute free campaign advertising to candidates in a general election
* prohibit lobbyists from soliciting and bundling big-check donations from their business clients
* ban gifts to lawmakers from corporations or executives
* prohibit privately financed junkets for legislators and aides
* ban parties staged to "honor" politicians with corporate contributions
* prohibit former legislators and public officials from lobbying for at least five years after they leave office
* require lobbyists to disclose all lobbying expenditures
* mandate that all expert witnesses in legislative and regulatory hearings disclose financial relationships with economically interested parties

I might add term limits would also be helpful. Decoupling legislative elections from lobbyist contributions would help Congress begin to serve the electorate again, and weed out career politicians whose only loyalty is to their own benefit.

To return to Reich's radio recommendations, they have to do with eliminating the fiction that corporations are individuals, with rights and responsibilities. He recommends essentially making all corporations S-type corporations, where all profits and losses are funneled straight through to the shareholders and taxed on the shareholders themselves, rather than waiting for capital gains taxes. This eliminates the tax advantage to corporations to make capital investments (i.e. buy competitors) rather than pay dividends to shareholders. He also recommends that corporate malfeasance, and any fines levied, be charged to corporate officers directly rather than coming out of business profits. Corporations must not be used as proxy people, especially when publicly-held corporations are using shareholder money to enrich the officers of the company without returning an appropriate portion back to the real owners.

In all, I still respect Robert Reich as one of the smartest men in politics, and if he were to run for office I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. Unfortunately (for us) he's probably way too smart to do that.

This is a very good, clearly written and authoritative book. It is of particular interest to me for it explains why capitalism has developed to be instrumental in the present world crisis for civilisation. The author does not claim this but if one extrapolates supercapitalism's explosion of lobbying and influence to remove impediments to profit, which have demolished many of the social attributes of capitalism, it follows that environmental regulation and law will continue to suffer most from the attention of market forces. There are no affluent companies to lobby on behalf of the retention of ecological services, in effect the life support services of humanity, or to lobby on behalf of the urgent action to curtail greenhouse emissions which have an increasingly visible impact on the earth's physical and biological systems, or to make representations that capitalism must not extend its exploitation of natural resources to use capital as well as interest. These representations are made by dint of the small donations of concerned citizens and are rarely heard.

For these reasons, I would recommend the book to all those concerned with the future health and wellbeing of humanity and therefore students of environmentalism for it explains the fundamental problem that must be solved if democracy is to survive to address the present crisis. This orientation is in contrast with the many reviewers who see the book as economically focussed.

By any scientific calculation, world natural resources and damage to the planet, the accelerating economic growth conferred by supercapitalism is not sustainable. Reich does not address this and the omission reflects the reductionism that separates economics and science. His observations on the demise of democracy are however incisive. In "The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy" by David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith published at the same time as "Supercapitalism", our conclusion agrees with that of Reich--that democracy must be reformed by separating government from capitalism. We describe a fusion of capitalism and liberal democracy as a root cause of our problems and state that it must be ruptured.

The mechanisms whereby reform can be enacted amount to wishful thinking by Reich. This statement is not intended to be dismissive for it is difficult to visualise how to proceed. As a physician and therefore student of human nature, I recognise both the potency of unleashed human greed and the capacity for self delusion in the face of severe illness! Western democracy is wallowing in both. It would be good if the intellectual giants of public policy, such as Robert Reich and the environmental scientists applied their lateral thinking together.

A final thought. The statement "Capitalism is almost certainly a precondition for democracy" can surely be contested, perhaps not in US liberal democracy but certainly in the ancient Greek origins and operation of democracy.

Robert Reich writes extremely well. In this book, he has some particular points to make. He sticks to the point, and develops his argument very clearly and cleanly. What he's saying is tremendously important to anyone who lives in, or wants to understand, the USA. The way we have traded off gains in our roles as consumers and shareholders, at the expense of our roles as citizens, is a huge change in our society that affects us all. Even if you are a "conservative", you'll find that you can read this book and appreciate what he's saying; it's not based on "liberal pieties", and he's not taking sides. As with many public policy books, he's much stronger on analyzing the problem than proposing solutions, but he is quite up-front about this. His goal is to persuade you to agree that the phenomenon he describes is a real one, and that we should think carefully about the degree to which we like or dislike this tradeoff. The writing style is utterly lucid, and no special knowledge is required to understand everything he says. I have not heard these points made anywhere else; this is truly something new. If you want to understand a lot about how politics works in the USA and its direct effects on you, read this book!

The author describes the growing disconnect between capitalism and the communities served by our economic system. Initially, he discusses the 1873-1897 Long Depression which economists still debate today. Workers migrated from farms to factories. Between 1945-1975, democracy and capitalism seemed to work side by side. The mass production economy was the foundation of the American middle class. A full 1/3 of the workforce belonged to labor unions with predictable wages and guaranteed benefits.

Incrementally, the planned economy in the USA was orchestrated by big business. This phenomenon drove the prosperity of the 50s onward. Corporate governance was balanced against the plethora of stakeholders.

Over time, technology empowered consumers in order to secure better deals. Herein, the roots of many problems began to surface . Chief among the problems was the creative destruction of the older industries. As jobs and income became less secure, the need for a public safety net became more evident.

From the 1970s to the year 2000, the DOW grew from 1000 to 12,000 and more. Productivity grew incrementally. Executive pay outstripped workers up to a 400: 1 discrepancy between the entry level workers and executive management.

Supercapitalism tends to erode democracy because national boundaries are blurred in favor of the objectives of corporate governance. Supercapitalism doesn't encourage charity that erodes the bottom line.

Overall, the book documents important economic history. The author could write another book on transitioning from the supercapitalism model to a participatory model which could benefit workers and the community more significantly. Perhaps, our bureaucratic structures need less bureaucratic levels and a flatter organization to redistribute pay and power more equitably.

In his acclaimed study of counterinsurgency, LEARNING TO EAT SOUP WITH A KNIFE, John Nagl includes this note from Vicount Montgomery of El Alamein, to the Colonial Secretary,
" Dear Lyttelton, Malaya
We must have a plan.
Secondly we must have a man.
When we have a plan and a man, we shall succeed: not otherwise.
Yours Sincerely,
Montgomery (F.M.)"

Linda Robinson, in her brilliantly conceived and executed, TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS: GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS AND THE SEARCH FOR A WAY OUT OF IRAQ. addresses the Iraq war in terms of both the plan - how it was developed, adapted, and executed - and the man: Petraeus. In so doing, she has written a classic analysis that ranges from U.S. national policy through the levels of strategy and operations down to the tactical and back again. In telling the story of General Petraeus and his plan she also tells the tales of the other actors, American and Iraqi, Ambassadors and Generals, Lt. Colonels, Captains, Sergeants, soldiers and Marines. And she shows how the smoke and sounds of battle (and the silences) flow from policies, plans, and military doctrine.

Robinson's story focuses on David Petraeus and takes the reader through a series of key mentorships and experiences. The most important mentor was General John R. Galvin who encouraged Petraeus to seek his doctorate and brought him into contact with counteinsurgency in 1986 when Galvin was the commander of the U.S. Southern Command in Panama. Robinson notes, in this context, that Petraeus co-authored Galvin's important article, "Uncomfortable Wars" dealing with counterinsurgency in Latin America published in the Army War College journal, PARAMETERS, and later in Max Manwaring's edited volume by the same title. From this background and later experiences in Iraq, Petraeus led the effort to redefine Army and Marine Corps counteinsurgency doctrine while commanding the Army's Combined Arms Center.

For this, Petraeus assembled a team under the leadership of his West Point classmate, Con Crane, and including LTC John Nagl. Robinson points out the debt the authors acknowledge to Manwaring's work on small wars issues. From the doctrine that his efforts produced, the newly promoted four star General Petraeus developed the strategy that came to be known as "the surge" (of which the troop surge was only a small, if important, part).

Robinson uses this story to show how an effective military commander works to achieve unity of effort up to the political level, laterally with the American ambassador in Iraq, and down to the troops under his command. In the process, she demosntrates the difficulties inherent in coalition counterinsurgent warfare.

The weakest section of the book is her last chapter (which is not very weak at all) where she suggests approaches for the future in Iraq. The only problem is that much of the future is now and some of her suggestions have been overtaken by events.

That said, the only appropriate words for the book are superlatives!

Linda Robinson's "Tell Me How This Ends: General Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq" is a superb addition to the next wave of Iraq War literature: the Surge Assessments. Hitting the ground before new books by Gordon, Ricks, Woodward, et al., Robinson of the "US News and World Report" tells more than the tale of how a General and his wizards turned around a failed military effort. "Tell Me How This Ends" is a holistic picture of the Surge. It takes the reader from fractious discussions in the White House --- where a beleaguered President pushed aside all of his senior military advisors to go the extra mile for success --- down to the burning fighting vehicles of the troops who bought battlefield progress with their blood. Robinson's battle stories of the 5th Cavalry, 26th Infantry, 23d Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, and the Marines in Anbar will quiet those who think we can't take a punch or fight this kind of war.

At the same time, Robinson knows her counterinsurgency theory. She portrays the struggle for Iraq as essentially a political contest and spends many pages discussing how Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his team prodded the Maliki government to act in the whole nation's interest. Among the more interesting pages are those on the Awakening, the process whereby Sunni tribesmen were turned against the vicious, foreign influences of Al Qaeda. Equally interesting were the chapters on how the central (Shiite-dominated) Iraqi government is dealing with those armed Sunnis, who are, at least for now, nominally on their side. Another highlight --- at least for this old soldier-bureaucrat --- was the inner workings of Team Petraeus and how this remarkable General adapted a standard military bureaucracy to the task of politico-military innovation. The cooperation documented here between the Embassy and the Command was also exemplary.

All of these issues are covered with great insight, fueled by experienced, on-the-ground reporting. There is a minimum of anonymous, third-hand sources in this book. Most of the participants speak clearly here in their own words, or through first hand observations, or by their subsequent actions. If good journalism is the first draft of history, we can be well satisfied with Robinson's contribution. The title passage --- tell me how this ends --- was actually a rhetorical question from then-Major General Petraeus at the start of the Iraq war. In a twist of historical irony, the questioner became responsible for crafting the political-military answer to his own question. Much progress has been made, but as Petraeus himself has recently noted, we are not yet ready for dancing in the end zone. This is the critical set of issues covered holistically by Linda Robinson in this well-reported and highly readable book. She has set the bar high for those who come after her.

This review represents my personal views and does not represent the policy or opinion of any U.S. government entity.

Joseph J. Collins, National War College, August 25, 2008.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
A Preventable Tragedy
"
Philip Gourevich's award-winning retrospective of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 takes a rational look at the unfathomable and irrational. Gourevich spent many months in the war-ravaged country and talked with dozens of survivors. The facts aren't in dispute...over 800,000 Tutsis were hacked to death by machete-wielding Hutus...but the causes are. Among his conclusions: the "ancient animosity" between Hutus and Tutsi's is largely a creation of the West; the colonial powers Germany and Belgium inflamed ethnic divisions where they did exist; and the Church (Protestant and Catholic) remained silent as the killing continued.
There is enough blame to go around in the story: the International Relief Community, the UN, the media and the major powers. International tribunals have found fault with everyone. Gourevich takes some time exploring the whole concept of genocide:
"Nobody knows how many people were killed at Nyarubuye. Some say a thousand, and some say many more: fifteen hundred, two thousand, three thousand. Big difference. But body counts aren't the point in a genocide, a crime for which, at the time of my first visit to Rwanda, nobody on earth had ever been brought to trial, much less convicted. What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many lives, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct.
The idea is the crime."
As a double-dose of genocide studies, I am also currently reading "Pol Pot:Anatomy of a Nightmare."

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

Philip Gourevitch, in We Wish to Inform You, has accomplished an incredible feat: a moral and reasoned history of an insane situation. He manages to cut through all of the misinformation that we so often hear about the Rwandan Genocide and write something truly informative.

Other reviews on Amazon have complained about his focus on the political/violent situation in the entire region, but I strongly disagree. How are we to understand the genocide without its context and without the context that it created in nearby countries? I also found myself very interested in Rwanda's (and the region's) possibilities for a decent future.

This book is also damning towards the "international community," as well as international journalism of our times. The "international community" failed to intervene in the genocide - indeed, France even armed the genocidaires - and even fed and housed the genocidaires after they fled Rwanda. And Western Journalists consistently wrote the type of stories that were no more informative than "people are killing each other." Well, in this book, Philip Gourevitch has completely negated any previous excuse about the complexity of the situation or how little information was available, because he managed to quite clearly get to the heart of the situation and explain it quite easily, but in all its complexity, to us non-experts and non-historians.

I've lived in Africa near Rwanda for several years and have studied the Rwanda genocide extensively in graduate school. There is no better book about the genocide than "We Wish to Inform You.." It's extremely sad, frustrating, and fascinating at the same time. Gourevitch tells the stories so well that this doesn't read like non-fiction. My favorite part about this work is how he goes into detail about the refugee situation after the genocide, a time not as well documented as the actual genocide. It was fascinating how the international aid machine facilitated more murders by the interahamwe. The story he unravels is engaging and suspenseful and you can't wait to turn the page to find out what nugget of knowledge he turns up next. Pitching curveball after curveball, you are bound to learn a lot about many issues surrounding the genocide by reading this book.

I purchased and read this book last year, as I have studied the subject on this one quite extensively.
This book gets off to a good start, but loses interest as the book progresses.
There is also a lack of real-life survivors and witnesses imput, which could have made it more interesting.
The book however shed light onto many of the problems and atrocities that occurred after the genocide - which I wasn't particularly savy about previously - most notablly the problems in the Congo as a result of Genocidaires fleeing and relocating there - and still not losing their blood-lust and total disrespect for life.
Still a good addition to your home library however.
Derek Meade, NSW, Australia

We now know the basic story. Hutu extremists killed Tutsis and the world ignored them. The "International Community" from President Clinton to the Red Cross ignored Rwanda and allowed it to happen.
In Gourevitch's book, he looks not only at those months but also afterwards. The struggle and continued animosity between Tutsis and Hutus led to the tangled web of involvement in the Congolese wars. Mobutu stood on one side; while Kabalia stood on the other.
The work itself is insightful and well-written. However, while he is quick to condemn the Hutu Power and the "international community" (both correct in being condemned) he does little to give similar condemnation of Paul Kagame or his compatriots who are now in charge in Rwanda.
The world stood by and ignored the genocide and all we can do now about it is say "Never Again," again.