The U.S. healthcare system is in critical condition--but this should come as a surprise to no one. Yet until now the solutions proposed have been unworkable, pie-in-the-sky plans that have had little chance of becoming law and even less of succeeding. In Code Red, David Dranove, one of the nation’s leading experts on the economics of healthcare, proposes a set of feasible solutions that address access, efficiency, and quality.

Dranove offers pragmatic remedies, some of them controversial, all of them crucially needed to restore the system to vitality. He pays special attention to the plight of the uninsured, and proposes a new direction that promises to make premier healthcare for all Americans a national reality. Setting his story against the backdrop of healthcare in the United States from the early twentieth century to the present day, he reveals why a century of private and public sector efforts to reform the ailing system have largely failed. He draws on insights from economics to diagnose the root causes of rising costs and diminishing access to quality care, such as inadequate information, perverse incentives, and malfunctioning insurance markets. Dranove describes the ongoing efforts to revive the system--including the rise of consumerism, the quality movement, and initiatives to expand access--and argues that these efforts are doomed to fail without more fundamental, systemic, market-based reforms. Code Red lays the foundation for a thriving healthcare system and is indispensable for anyone trying to make sense of the thorny issues of healthcare reform.

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Eric Wickham - Dead Fish and Fat Cats, A No-Nonsen se Journey Through Our Dysfunctional Fishing Indus try (2002).jpg

USA Books1 - Eric Wickham - Dead Fish and Fat Cats, A No-Nonsense J...urney Through Our Dysfunctional Fishing Industry 2002.jpg

Dead Fish and Fats Cats is a lively, no holds barred account of the experiences and entanglements of Eric Wickham, a commercial fisherman who fished for salmon, halibut and sablefish for over fifty years. It describes the unpredictable life of independent commercial fishermen and chastises the fishing bureaucrats for their mismanagement of the fishing industry. Dead Fish and Fat Cats provides a first hand look at the world of coastal fishing, describing everything from electronic fishing gadgets and fishing boats to fish farms. The book also answers the question: "Where have all the salmon gone?" and explains how we have moved from fish in abundance to scarcity and barrenness. The author proposes some innovative methods of dealing with some of the problems that plague the fishing industry.

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CANADA

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Eric Wickham - Dead Fish and Fat Cats, A No-Nonsen se Journey Through Our Dysfunctional Fishing Indus try (2002).pdf

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Hanno Hardt - Myths for the Masses, An Essay on Ma ss Communication (2004).jpg

With a lively and engaging style, Myths for the Masses provides a critical, interdisciplinary, and historically informed statement about communication in contemporary life.
* Written by Hanno Hardt, one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject.
* Offers a comprehensive appraisal of mass communication.
* Provides a critical perspective on media and communication in society.
* Contains critical insights into the state of mass communication, democracy, and the construction of the self in society.

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Hanno Hardt - Myths for the Masses, An Essay on Ma ss Communication (2004).pdf

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Magdalena Nowicka, Maria Rovisco - Cosmopolitanism in Practice (2009).jpg

What makes people cosmopolitan? How is cosmopolitanism shaping everyday life experiences and the practices of ordinary people?Making use of empirical research, "Cosmopolitanism in Practice" examines the concrete settings in which individuals display cosmopolitan sensibilities and dispositions, illustrating the ways in which cosmopolitan self-transformations can be used as an analytical tool to explain a variety of identity outlooks and practices. The manner in which both past and present cosmopolitanisms compete with meta-narratives such as nationalism, multiculturalism and religion is also investigated, alongside the employment of cosmopolitan ideas in situations of tension and conflict.With an international team of contributors, including Ulrich Beck, Steven Vertovec, Rob Kroes and Natan Sznaider, this book draws on a variety of intellectual disciplines and international contexts to show how people embrace and make use of cosmopolitan ideas and attitudes.

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7510 - Carl Schule - H MMWV, Workhorse of the US Army (2002).jpg

In March of 1983 the US Army Tank, Automotive & Armaments Command signed a US $1.2 billion contract with the AM General Division of LTV Aerospace, which today is the AM General Corporation. The mission was to produce 55.000 M998 Series High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, in short HMMWV. These were to be delivered in five basic variants and 15 different configurations over a five-year period. Of the 55.000 vehicles produced, the US Air Force received approximately 1.100. while 11.000 went to the USMC and the remainder to the US Army. This contract, and the introduction into service in 1985 of the first of more than 150,000 HMMWVs. marked the beginning of its popularity, which is topped only by that of the legendary Jeep.

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7510 - Carl Schule - H MMWV, Workhorse of the US Army (2002).pdf

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7513 - Carl Schulze, R alph Zwilling - US Army HMMWV's in Iraq (2005).jpg

After its introduction into U.S. Army service in 1985, the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV for short) became the prime utility vehicle of U.S. ground forces. The HMMWV replaced the M151 Ford MUTT, the M274 Mule, the M561 Gama Goat, and to some extent the M880 pickup trucks. Since series production of the HMMWV started in 1985, the vehicle has been produced in a basic M998 model along with various other variants, as well as in the upgraded M998A1 and M998A2 models and their associated variants. Also manufactured by AM General were Expanded Capacity Vehicles and Up-armored models. By June 2004, more than 175,000 HMMWVs had been produced by AM General Corporation in Mishawaka, Indiana, USA. (This total includes HMMWVs of the basic series as well as of the newer A1 and A2 series). While the bulk of these fore mentioned HMMWVs are in service with the U.S. Armed Forces, some 30,000 are also used by more than 40 different nations worldwide. In November 2000, the U.S. Army signed a contract for the production of 31,474 additional HMMWVs, of which 18,000 had been delivered by June 2004. The last of the vehicles covered by this contract will be delivered by 2007.

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7513 - Carl Schulze, R alph Zwilling - US Army HMMWV's in Iraq (2005).pdf

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7518 - Carl Schulze - Iraq Insurgency (1), US Army Vehicles in Action (2 006).jpg

Between March and May 2003. U.S.-led Coalition Forces invaded Iraq to end the reign of Saddam Hussein and his ruthless regime. One reason for the Coalition's decisive and quick victory was the overwhelming strength and capabilities of the U.S. military machine, a force that is so well designed to fight and win a conventional war. During the initial assault on Iraq, some 140 U.S. troops were killed, while official sources claimed that some fifteen armored fighting vehicles like the M1A1 Abrams MBT or the M2A20DS Bradley IFV were lost to hostile fire. In military terms, it could be said that this was an acceptable toll when taking into account the fact that the forces of a whole country were totally destroyed in the brief campaign.

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7518 - Carl Schulze - Iraq Insurgency (1), US Army Vehicles in Action (2 006).pdf

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7519 - Carl Schulze - Iraq Insurgency (2), US Army Vehicles in Action (2 008).jpg

January 2008: Two years have passed since the first volume of the two-part work, "Iraq Insurgency: U.S. Army Armored Vehicles in Action", has been published. Still the struggle for peace in Iraq has not come to an end, and the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has risen to some 3960. In addition 29.000 U.S. personnel have been wounded in combat operations.
But U.S., Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have not been the only ones targeted. In 2006. sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis escalated further. On 22 February 2006, the gold-covered dome of the holy Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra was destroyed in an attack. In November 2006, one of the deadliest bombings since the beginning of the insurgency caused the deaths of more than 200 people in Sadr City. Baghdad. In the incident, five car bombs were detonated on crowded streets. All over Iraq, areas populated by a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites erupted in violence aimed at terminating minorities so as to let one or the other side gain power in the region. In Baghdad, warring factions were fighting for power in most districts. Even the presence of U.S. and ISF troops did not stop "death squads" from raiding houses of opposing ethnicities and slaughtering inhabitants.

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Concord - Mini Color Series 7519 - Carl Schulze - Iraq Insurgency (2), US Army Vehicles in Action (2 008).pdf

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Ken Matthews - The Gulf Conflict and International Relations (1993).jpg

Key documents and essential facts, combined with a strong theoretical framework - this new textbook clarifies the Gulf War of 1991, puts it in the context of the changing international order and identifies long-term consequences.

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Ken Matthews - The Gulf Conflict and International Relations (1993).pdf

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Andrew Johnstone - Dilemmas of Internationalism (2 008).jpg

"Dilemmas of Internationalism" is a new political history of the 1940s which charts and analyses the efforts of private internationalists to define US internationalism and promote the establishment of the United Nations. Internationalists hoped that the United States would shake off the fear of entangling alliances that had characterised the nation's history, replacing isolationism and unilateralism with a new, involved and multilateral approach to foreign affairs.During and after World War II, a number of private individuals and organisations were at the forefront of the fight to change the nature of US foreign policy. This book focuses in particular on the most important internationalist organisation: the American Association for the United Nations (AAUN), known as the League of Nations Association through 1944. It situates the AAUN in the vast network of private organisations promoting an internationalist foreign policy during and after World War II, and analyses the connections between the AAUN and the US government and key public figures who proposed a more internationalist foreign policy.One of the most innovative aspects of "Dilemmas of Internationalism" is its focus on state-private interaction with regard to defining internationalism. Most previous works on wartime internationalism neglect considerations of state-private interaction, or fail to significantly develop them. The study also acts as a corrective to the general neglect of state-private interaction during this period, turning attention away from the common focus on the Cold War to the crucial phase during and immediately after World War II.Beginning with the US entry into the War, this study continues through the onset of the Cold War to early 1948, ending with the passing of the Marshall Plan. By 1948, the path of US internationalism appeared firmly fixed by a Cold War framework, but in 1941, US entry into the Second World War offered the opportunity to develop a more multilateral approach to foreign affairs, and create a more just and peaceful world. This book is a much-needed history of the attempt to seize that opportunity.

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Andrew Johnstone - Dilemmas of Internationalism (2 008).pdf

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David Igler - Industrial Cowboys, Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920 (20 01).jpg

Few industrial enterprises left a more enduring imprint on the American West than Miller & Lux, a vast meatpacking conglomerate started by two San Francisco butchers in 1858. Industrial Cowboys examines how Henry Miller and Charles Lux, two German immigrants, consolidated the West's most extensive land and water rights, swayed legislatures and courts, monopolized western beef markets, and imposed their corporate will on California's natural environment. Told with clarity and originality, this story uses one fascinating case study to illuminate the industrial development and environmental transformation of the American West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The process by which two neighborhood butchers turned themselves into landed industrialists depended to an extraordinary degree on the acquisition, manipulation, and exploitation of natural resources. David Igler examines the broader impact that industrialism--as exemplified by Miller & Lux--had on landscapes and waterscapes, and on human as well as plant and animal life in the West. He also provides a rich discussion of the social relations engineered by Miller & Lux, from the dispossession of Californio rancheros to the ethnic segmentation of the firm's massive labor force. The book also covers such topics as land acquisition and reclamation, water politics, San Francisco's unique business environment, and the city's relation to its surrounding hinterlands. Above all, Igler highlights essential issues that resonate for us today: who holds the right and who has the power to engineer the landscape for market production?

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David Igler - Industrial Cowboys, Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920 (20 01).pdf

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Huw Beverley-Smith - The Commercial Appropriation of Personality (2002).jpg

Commercial exploitation of attributes of an individual's personality (name, voice and likeness) is characteristic of modern advertising and marketing. This volume provides a framework for analyzing the disparate aspects of the commercial appropriation of personality and traces its discrete patterns in the major common law systems. It considers whether a coherent justification for a remedy may be identified from a range of competing theories.

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James T. Patterson - The Dread Disease, Cancer and Modern American Culture (1989).jpg

Cancer is that "loathsome beast, which seized upon the breast, drove its long claws into the surrounding tissues, derived its sustenance by sucking out the juices of its victims, and never even relaxed its hold in death," a turn-of-the-century physician recorded. Even today cancer affects the popular imagination with dread. In a subtle and penetrating cultural history, James Patterson examines reactions to the disease through a century of American life.
The modern American preoccupation with cancer was apparent during the widely publicized illness and death from that ailment of Ulysses S. Grant in 1885. Awareness of the disease soon figured heavily in the public consciousness, and individual reactions to it continue to reveal broader tensions within American society. Patterson examines responses to cancer by researchers and physicians, quacks and faith healers, by the multitude who have heard sensational media reports of "cures," as well as by many who have had firsthand experiences with the disease.
Optimistic attitudes of many experts contrast sharply with the skepticism of large segments of the population--often the less wealthy and the less educated--that reject the claims of medical science and resist the advice or, some argue, the paternalistic dictates of the government-supported cancer research establishment.
Expanding expectations of a cure from a confident medical profession; the rise of a government-supported Cancer Establishment managing a large research empire; the emergence of a "cancer counterculture"; a new emphasis on prevention through control of the environment and the self; and the private fears and pessimism of millions of Americans form a telling history of American social patterns. Whether the issue is smoking, pollution, or regular checkups, attitudes toward cancer reflect more general views on medicine, public policy, and illness, as well as on death and dying. This century has witnessed both a biomedical revolution and a vastly increased role of the state in the private lives of citizens; but not everyone has bought the medical package, and many have little faith in government intervention.
Readers interested in the cultural dimensions of science and medicine as well as historians, sociologists, and political scientists will be enlightened and challenged by The Dread Disease.

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James T. Patterson - The Dread Disease, Cancer and Modern American Culture (1989).pdf

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Peter Brimelow - Alien Nation, Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (1996).jpg

The controversial, bestselling book (37,500 hardcover copies sold) that helps define the debate about one of the most important and hotly contested issues facing America: immigration.

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Peter Brimelow - Alien Nation, Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (1996).pdf

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Ted Striphas - The Late Age of Print, Everyday Boo k Culture from Consumerism to Control (2009).jpg

Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.

From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.

Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.

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Tariq Ali - Clash of Fundamentalisms, Crusades, Ji hads and Modernity (2003).jpg

The aerial attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, a global spectacle of unprecedented dimensions, generated an enormous volume of commentary. The inviolability of the American mainland, breached for the first time since 1812, led to extravagant proclamations by the pundits. It was a new world-historical turning point. The 21st century, once greeted triumphally as marking the dawn of a worldwide neo-liberal civilization, suddenly became menaced. The choice presented from the White House and its supporters was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against terrorism or be damned.

Tariq Ali challenges these assumptions, arguing instead that what we have experienced is the return of History in a horrific form, with religious symbols playing a part on both sides: 'Allah's revenge,' 'God is on Our Side' and 'God Bless America.' The visible violence of September 11 was the response to the invisible violence that has been inflicted on countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine and Chechnya. Some of this has been the direct responsibility of the United States and Russia.

In this wide-ranging book that provides an explanation for both the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and new forms of Western colonialism, Tariq Ali argues that many of the values proclaimed by the Enlightenment retain their relevance, while portrayals of the American Empire as a new emancipatory project are misguided.

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Peter Gowan - The Global Gamble, Washington's Faus tian Bid for World Dominance (1999).jpg

In Depoliticizing Development, John Harriss explores the origins of the idea of social capital and its diverse meanings in the work of James Coleman, Pierre Bourdieu and, more specifically, Robert Putnam, who is most responsible for the extraordinary rise of the idea of social capital through his work on Italy and the United States. Harriss asks why this notion should have taken off in the dramatic way that it has done and finds in its uses by the World Bank the attempt, systematically, to obscure class relations and power. Social capital has thus come to play a significant part in the discourses of international development, which go toward comprising ‘the anti-politics machine’. This powerful and lucid critique will be of immense value to all those interested in development studies, including sociologists, economists, planners, NGOs and other activists.

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