Attempts to keep an eye on Americans are nothing new, Parenti argues in this well-researched albeit pedantic history of ways people have been controlled in the U.S. Relying on the theories of scholar Michel Foucault-who used surveillance and control as two of his central themes-Parenti begins with slavery, focusing on the slave passes that slaveowners used to keep their human property in place. He then moves on to new crime controls, like fingerprinting, that accompanied increased urbanization. Throughout, he emphasizes how new technology has always increased the government's ability to spy on its citizens. So it's no surprise that the current rise in technology comes in for special criticism. Credit cards, ATMs, highway toll passes such as E-ZPass are all tools that the government can employ to curtail freedom. There's a lot of food for thought here (and some troubling aspects of American history brought to light). But Parenti's lens is too sharp and his antigovernment animus too apparent. As he himself admits, most Americans seem to think that some liberties are worth trading in if they bring more security. There's no doubt that books focusing on this topic can be helpful contributions to the national discourse, but when Parenti sees post-September 11 not as a shift toward cracking down on civil liberties but as more of the same, many readers will likely feel he is a bit off base.

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Christian Parenti - The Soft Cage, Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror (2003).pdf

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R. Catley, David Mosler - The American Challenge, The World Resists US Liberalism (2007).jpg

The rise of the US as a hegemonic power during the twentieth century first pursuing a liberal project of globalization under Clinton and then moving towards greater unilateralism after the election of George W Bush, is comprehensively described in this much-needed study. Following the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration became increasingly unpopular at home and abroad. America's power to impose its will declined and rivals were able to take advantage of its weakened state and pursue their own agendas with considerable success.This indispensable book looks at whether policy failure in Iraq and declining US soft and hard power mark the beginning of the end of US hegemony or whether the resilience of America's military and economic foundations will once again prove observers wrong.

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R. Catley, David Mosler - The American Challenge, The World Resists US Liberalism (2007).pdf

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Richard John Neuhaus - American Babylon, Notes of a Christian Exile (2008).jpg

Christians are by their nature a people out of place. Their true home is with God; in civic life, they are alien citizens “in but not of the world.” In American Babylon, eminent theologian Richard John Neuhaus examines the particular truth of that ambiguity for Catholics in America today.
Neuhaus addresses the essential quandaries of Catholic life—assessing how Catholics can keep their heads above water in the sea of immorality that confronts them in the world, how they can be patriotic even though their true country is not in this world, and how they might reconcile their duties as citizens with their commitment to God. Deeply learned, frequently combative, and always eloquent, American Babylon is Neuhaus’s magnum opus—and will be essential reading for all Christians.

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Richard John Neuhaus - American Babylon, Notes of a Christian Exile (2008).pdf

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John L. Brooke - The Refiner's Fire, The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (1996).jpg

Mormon religious belief has long been a mystery to outsiders, either dismissed as anomalous to the American religious tradition or extolled as the most genuine creation of the American imagination. The Refiner's Fire presents a new and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion, whose theology promises the faithful that they will become "gods" through the restoration of ancient mysteries and regain the divine powers of Adam lost in the fall from Paradise. Professor Brooke contends that the origins of Mormonism lie in the fusion of radical religion with occult ideas, and organizes his book around the two problems of demonstrating the survival of these ideas into the nineteenth century and explaining how they were manifested in Mormon doctrine. In the concluding chapter, the author provides an outline of how Mormonism since the 1850s gradually moved toward traditional Protestant Christianity. As well as religion, the book explores magic, witchcraft, alchemy, Freemasonry, counterfeiting, and state-formation. John L. Brooke is professor of history at Tufts University and the acclaimed author of The Heart of the Commonwealth: Society and Political Culture in Worcester County, Massachusetts, 1713-1861 (CUP, 1989), which has won, among other prizes, the Organization of American Historians' Merle Curti Award for Intellectual History and the National Historical Society Book Prize for American History.

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John L. Brooke - The Refiner's Fire, The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (1996).djvu

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Brian Brazeau - Writing a New France, 1604-1632 (2 009).jpg

The focus of this study is the exciting period of French overseas exploration directly following the stagnation caused by the Wars of Religion. The book examines the early period of French involvement in Northeastern America through readings of key texts, principally travel and missionary accounts. Among the works examined are travel writings by Marc Lescarbot (Histoire de la Nouvelle-France) and Samuel de Champlain (Voyages), and missionary works by Gabriel Sagard (Dictionnaire de la Langue Huronne, Histoire du Canada), Jean de Brebeuf, and Paul le Jeune (early Relations de Jesuites). Through a careful examination of these texts, the author discerns a French 'rewriting of the self' in relation to the American other, represented by both land and people. America, Brazeau argues, allowed a consolidation of past markers of identity, and forced a radical rereading of others, due to the difficulties presented by the Canadian wilderness and its natives. "Writing a New France, 1604-1632" sheds fresh light on a significant moment in French colonial history while providing an innovative contribution to the understanding of early modern French identity and cultural contact.

About the Author
Brian Brazeau is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and English at The American University of Paris, France.

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Brian Brazeau - Writing a New France, 1604-1632 (2 009).pdf

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Rachel M. McCleary - Global Compassion, Private Vo luntary Organizations and U.S. Foreign Policy Sinc e 1939 (2009).jpg

USA Books1 - Rachel M. McCleary - Global Compassion, Private Volun...Organizations and U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1939 2009.jpg

Aid organizations like Oxfam, CARE, World Vision, and Catholic Relief Services are known the world over. However, little is known about the relationship between these private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and the federal government, and how truly influential these organizations can be in the realm of foreign policy. Indeed since the end of the Second World War, humanitarian aid has become a key component of U.S. foreign policy and has grown steadily ever since. This history of interaction deflates the common claim that PVOs have been independent from the federal government, and that this independence has only recently been threatened.

Global Compassion is the first truly comprehensive study of PVOs and their complex, often-fraught interaction with the federal government. Rachel McCleary provides an ambitious analysis of the relationship between the two from 1939 to 2005. The book focuses on the work of PVOs from a foreign policy perspective, revealing how federal political pressures shape the field of international relief. McCleary draws on a new and one-of-a-kind data set on the revenue of private voluntary agencies, employing annual reports, State Department documents, and I.R.S. records, to assess the extent to which international relief and development work is becoming a commercial activity. She outlines the increasing financial dependence of these organizations on the federal government and the consequences of that dependency for various types of agencies, as well as the often competing goals of the federal government and religious PVOs. As a result, there is a continuing trend of decreasing federal funds to PVOs and of simultaneously increasing awards to commercial enterprises. Focusing on the interplay between public and private revenue, the discussion ends with the commercialization of foreign aid and the factors most likely to influence the future of PVOs in international relief and development.

In this thought-provoking and rigorously researched work, Rachel McCleary offers a unique, substantive look at an understudied area of U.S. foreign policy and international development, and provides a crucial analysis of what this relationship holds for the future.

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Rachel M. McCleary - Global Compassion, Private Vo luntary Organizations and U.S. Foreign Policy Sinc e 1939 (2009).pdf

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Albert N. Link, Jamie R. Link - Government as Entr epreneur (2009).jpg

Government acts as entrepreneur when its involvement in market activities is both innovative and characterized by entrepreneurial risk. Thinking of government as entrepreneur is a unique lens through which the authors of this book examine a specific subset of U.S. government policy actions. As such, their viewpoint underscores the purposeful intent of government, its ability to act in new and innovative ways, and its willingness to undertake policy actions that have uncertain outcomes.

Viewing particular policy actions through an entrepreneurial lens is useful in two broad dimensions. First, it underscores the forward looking nature of policy makers as well as the need to evaluate the social outputs and outcomes of their behavior in terms of broad spillover impacts. Second, government acting as entrepreneur parallels in concept similar activities that occur in the private sector.

Government as Entrepreneur is the first broad effort to emphasize the entrepreneurial aspects of governments. It is also the first systematic treatment of U.S. innovation policies to promote the formation of strategic research partnerships. It will foster a new perspective on the role of government and how incentives for government to act entrepreneurially might be institutionalized; it will serve as a vehicle for policy makers and scholars to think about the entrepreneurial actors in an economy, in a new way.

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Albert N. Link, Jamie R. Link - Government as Entr epreneur (2009).pdf

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Robert Bryce - Pipe Dreams. Greed, Ego, and the De ath of Enron (2004).jpg

Finally, an Enron book that actually explains what happened at Enron. Bryce, an Austin, Tex., journalist familiar with the energy and telecommunications industries, offers a colorful account of the most spectacular corporate self-destruction in American history. Tracing the company's history, he shows how deal-focused executives like CEO Jeff Skilling transformed a fiscally responsible energy supplier into an out-of-control trading firm. He describes risky practices, like "mark-to-market" accounting and shell corporations, in clear, concise language that doesn't confuse readers who don't have MBAs. The book relies heavily on good ol' boy colloquialisms (e.g., "If [George W.] Bush had been any more simpatico to Enron, he could've been charged with a misdemeanor under the state of Texas' buggery laws") but backs up every unusual assertion, revealing, for example, connections between Bush and Enron going back to the mid-1980s. Not that Democrats were innocent; there's also extensive coverage on what Enron got from government agencies during the Clinton administration. While the emphasis on sexual misconduct among the top brass and its correlation to the financial shenanigans is arguable, Bryce makes a reasonable case for former chairman Ken Lay's unwillingness to control his staff's behavior-and inability to lead by example. This isn't just the first book to make sense out of the debacle; it's a vivid cautionary tale about the consequences of the lurid excesses-personal and professional-of the recently ended economic bubble, where corporations and their employees were so obsessed with acquiring wealth they became "dumber than a box of hammers" about making-and saving-money.

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Robert Bryce - Pipe Dreams. Greed, Ego, and the De ath of Enron (2004).pdf

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John Sussex - Day One Trader, A Liffe Story (2009 ).jpg

"The catastrophic events of 2008 prove that the financial world has not learnt the lessons of my own tragic tale. But anyone who thinks that the world of derivatives is just about greedy bankers who put our pensions and savings at risk is wrong. Day One Trader is the gripping chronicle ofthe unknown working heroes of the Liffe floor who shattered a glass ceiling of elitism in the City of London and helped build one of the few financial institutions that we can be proud of."
—Nick Leeson

"As I walked into the members entrance of the exchange for the first time on September 30 1982 I felt a buzz of excitement. I had realised my ambition of being a "day-one trader". Inside, the fluorescent lit exchange floor bustled with about three hundred traders in orange, red and blue jackets. A brief opening ceremony was overseen by Gordon Richardson, the governor of the Bank of England, before he cut a white ribbon hanging above a pulpit overlooking the floor. I felt at fever pitch as we counted down the start of trading. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!" The bell rang and I watched a scrum of dealers scramble to trade Liffe's first ever contracts in a heap of frenetic energy."
—From Day One Trader

Day One Trader is the exclusive story of John Sussex on his journey from son of a Basildon factory worker, leaving school at 16, to successful City financier and member of the Liffe board.

Providing a unique insight to this competitive and often brutal industry, readers will discover the tactics used by dealers to survive the jungle of the pits in a story that chronicles the floor banter and characters that made Liffe a global derivatives powerhouse.

Packed full of exclusive – until now unreported – stories, Day One Trader sheds new light on what motivated characters such as Nick Leeson, and provides insight to Liffe floors star traders.

Financial experts and novices alike will be gripped by Sussex’s account of the highs and lows of a career that spanned almost three decades in the history of the financial markets.

"John Sussex lived by the mantra of My Word is My Bond. This makes Day One Trader a must read for all traders. Every page brings back a lifetime of trading memories of days that will never be the same."
—David Barnett, Global Head of Treasury, Royal Bank of Canada

"Day One Trader describes a journey through a world that came and went in too short a time. The Liffe floor challenged the status quo in the City of London in the early eighties and was itself killed off by technology in the late nineties. John Sussex was one of the great characters of that world and a man of the utmost integrity."
—Richard Berliand J.P. Morgan, Chairman Futures & Options

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John Sussex - Day One Trader, A Liffe Story (2009 ).pdf

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Robert Winter - Toward a Simpler Way of Life, The Arts and Crafts Architects of California (1997).jpg

This book celebrates one of the richest and most enduring themes in American architecture California's Arts and Crafts Movement. Echoing the writings of Helen Hunt Jackson, Charles F. Lummis, and Charles Keeler, this movement represented a retreat into a quieter place from the materialism of American society. Anti-commercial, anti-modern, Arts and Crafts practitioners drew on the decorative schemes of English Tudor, Swiss chalet, Japanese temple, and Spanish mission, evoking an earlier time before modern industry and technology intruded. And if only one word is used to describe virtually every Arts and Crafts house in California, that word is "woodsy": wood shingles outside, wood paneling inside, a wood fire burning in the homey, welcoming fireplace. Most chapters in this impressive and very readable book focus on one building by a particular architect or designer and illustrate that person's development and influences. Familiar architects such as Bernard Maybeck, Charles and Henry Greene, John Galen Howard, and Julia Morgan are here, but so too are less well- known names who were a vibrant part of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

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Robert Winter - Toward a Simpler Way of Life, The Arts and Crafts Architects of California (1997).chm

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Roy W. Jastram, Jill Leyland - The Golden Constant , The English and American Experience 1560-2007 (2 009).jpg

The book is the only in-depth examination of how the purchasing power of gold has performed over the centuries in both England and the USA. It contains a thorough explanation of how the gold market evolved and how this is related to economic and political developments, from 1560 in England, and from 1800 in the USA, up to 2007. The book also contains detailed historical statistics on gold, wholesale and consumer prices and the real price of gold.

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Roy W. Jastram, Jill Leyland - The Golden Constant , The English and American Experience 1560-2007 (2 009).pdf

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Steve Wiegand - U.S. History For Dummies (2009).jpg

Now revised — the easy-to-understand guide to the story of America

Want to better understand U.S. History? This friendly book serves as your tour guide through the important events of America's past and present, introducing you to the people who helped to shape history. From pre-Columbus to the American Revolution, from Watergate to Iraq to Barack Obama, you'll discover fascinating details that you won't find in dry history texts!

They're coming to America — explore early civilizations, meet Native Americans, and see how the development of the English colonies led to slavery and the American Revolution

From Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln — examine the contributions of great Americans as well as the discovery of gold, the birth of California, the Civil War, and Manifest Destiny

America grows up — be there during the conquering of the West, industrial development, and the invention of the light bulb and the telephone

The impact of the World Wars — understand the sweeping changes these epochal events brought to America and the rest of the world

The Cold War, Camelot, and Clinton — take a closer look at the Korean War and communism, the fabulous '50s, JFK, Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Reaganomics, and the Clinton years

From the '90s to now — witness the birth of the microchip, the impact of hanging chads in a presidential election, the largest terrorist attack on American soil, and the growing economic crisis

Open the book and find:

Ten important events that defined American culture

Interesting Americans, from presidents to gangsters to sports heroes

How America fought to win independence from England

Details about all the major wars and their long-term effects

Insight into the roots of slavery

Inventions that changed life for Americans

The impact of the atomic bomb

The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence

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Douglas M. Branson - The Last Male Bastion, Gender and the CEO Suite in America's Public Companies ( 2009).jpg

Not until 1997 did a female become chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 corporation (Jill Barad, at Mattel Toy Co. Women’s progress since that time has been in fits and starts, exceedingly slow. The number of women CEOs reached 4 in 1999 only to slide back to 2 in 2001. Meanwhile, while not reaching anything approaching parity, women made significant strides in politics (as senators, cabinet secretaries and governors), in not-for-profit spheres (as CEOs of health care and hospital organizations or of United Way chapters, with budgets of billions of dollars), and at colleges and universities (23 % have female presidents or chancellors). Currently, 3%, or 15, of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

After examining in detail the educations, career progressions, pronouncements and observations, as well as family lives, of the 19 women who have risen to the top (sitting and former CEOs), this book asks, and attempts to answer, two questions:

Why haven’t more women reached the CEO suite?How might women in business better position themselves to ascend to the pinnacle?

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Douglas M. Branson - The Last Male Bastion, Gender and the CEO Suite in America's Public Companies ( 2009).pdf

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Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues - Red River (2001).jpg

Illustrated Red River (1947) is one of Howard Hawks' near-perfect films. A sweeping, fast-moving Western, it's stunningly shot and stars John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in complex roles set off by typically fine ensemble acting. In her study, Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues explores the thematic complexity of Red River as well as its historical resonances and its place in film history. She focuses particular attention on the actors' contributions and on Red River's relationship to other Hawks classics.

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Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues - Red River (2001).pdf

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Jeff Wallenfeldt - The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, People, Politics, and Power ( 2009).jpg

The American Revolutionary War and The War of 1812 is just one title in this 5 book series that gives readers a detailed look into America's military history. Military legacies are not just about dates and timelines; they're about our strengths and weaknesses, ignorance and brilliance, and desire for peace or dominance. Students will discover the underlying motivations, causes and consequences of military engagement throughout America's history. Written for high school and college students, these image-studded volumes are a must-read for anyone interested in understanding America's experience in the crucible of war. Each volume includes in-depth, balanced coverage of key military, political, and civilian leadership. Engaging narratives about crucial battles transport the student into all sides of America's wartime actions, creating an unforgettable reading experience.

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Jeff Wallenfeldt - The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, People, Politics, and Power ( 2009).pdf

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The Thirteen Colonies - Craig A. Doherty, Katherin e M. Doherty - South Carolina (2005).jpg

In an engaging narrative style, South Carolina thoroughly examines life in the early colony, including such details as the Yamasee War, pirate attacks, slavery, and the effect of such crops as indigo and rice. An entire chapter focuses on the numerous American Indian tribes - mainly the Cherokee and Catawba - who lived throughout the colony, from the coast and lowlands up into the Appalachian Mountains. Attention is also given to post-Revolution struggles such as the challenge of rebuilding South Carolina and deciding what to do about the remaining Loyalists.

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