On January 29, 2001, President Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Its stated mission is to fight society's ills by "rallying the armies of compassion" inside America's churches. In Faith-Based Inefficiency Bob Wineburg argues that beneath the compassionate camouflage lies a five-star war plan to demolish government programs, mobilize and increase the size of the evangelical Christian voting block, shift government money to churches and other faith-based organizations in the conservative-led culture war, and develop a smoke screen of convincing media images and baffling words to confuse detractors. This largely understated relationship between the plan's politics and its service delivery has been overlooked, until now. Wineburg untangles the web of motives and complex activities in this newest dimension of the ongoing culture war to capture America's soul. He identifies the parties--religious extremists, social engineers, and politicos--and shows how they work to further the agenda of the core constituency of compassionate conservatism. His analysis clearly explains this initiative and exposes the naivete of the Administration's approach to fixing the serious and complex problems of persistent poverty. In addition, Wineburg illustrates through first-hand examples what is required for effective services, and he shows how local communities can develop plans to produce more skills for coping with local problems. He addresses complex issues like worker displacement, illiteracy, child abuse, substance abuse, and prison reentry, while offering workable options for small churches to participate in partnerships with government and other local nonprofits to prevent, solve, and manage such problems.

zachomikowany

11,6 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Bob Wineburg - Faith-Based Inefficiency, The Folli es of Bush's Initiatives (2007).pdf

zachomikowany

23 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

David E. Nye - When the Lights Went Out, A History of Blackouts in America (2010).jpg

Where were you when the lights went out? At home during a thunderstorm? Preparing for an air attack during World War II? During the Great Northeastern Blackout of 1965? In New York City during a similar but more frightening blackout in 1977? In California when rolling blackouts hit in 2000? In 2003, when a cascading power failure left fifty million people without electricity? We often remember vividly our time in the dark. In When the Lights Went Out, David Nye views power outages in America from 1935 to the present not simply as technical failures but variously as military tactic, social disruption, crisis in the networked city, outcome of political and economic decisions, sudden encounter with sublimity, and memories enshrined in photographs. Our electrically lit-up life is so natural to us that when the lights go off, the darkness seems abnormal.

Nye looks at America's development of its electrical grid, which made large-scale power failures possible; military blackouts before and during World War II ("The silence was the big surprise of the blackout, the darkness discounted," wrote Harold Ross in The New Yorker in 1942); New York City's contrasting 1965 and 1977 blackout experiences (the first characterized by cooperation, the second by looting and disorder); the growth in consumer demand that led to rolling blackouts made worse by energy traders' market manipulations; blackouts caused by terrorist attacks and sabotage; and, finally, the "greenout" (exemplified by the new tradition of "Earth Hour"), a voluntary reduction organized by environmental organizations.

Blackouts, writes Nye, are breaks in the flow of social time that reveal much about the trajectory of American history. Each time one occurs, Americans confront their essential condition—not as isolated individuals, but as a community that increasingly binds itself together with electrical wires and signals.
Review
"Meticulously researched and engagingly written, When the Lights Went Out is part history and part cautionary tale. David Nye illumines his subject with such insight and skill that a reader won't ever be able to flip on an electrical switch without thinking of this book and its consequential message." --Robert Schmuhl, Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Chair in American Studies and Journalism, University of Notre Dame "Fifteen years ago, David Nye's groundbreaking Electrifying America showed us how the social, cultural, and political terrain shifted when the lights went on. Now he shows us what happened When the Lights Went Out--a must-read for anyone who lived through or just heard about the big-city blackouts of 1965 onward and wonders what it all meant." --Arthur P. Molella, Director, Smithsonian Lemelson Center

zachomikowany

1,5 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

David E. Nye - When the Lights Went Out, A History of Blackouts in America (2010).pdf

zachomikowany

118 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

F. Forrester Church - God and Other Famous Liberal s, Recapturing Bible, Flag, and Family from the Fa r Right (1996).jpg

USA Books - F. Forrester Church - God and Other Famous Liberals, R...uring Bible, Flag, and Family from the Far Right 1996.jpg

With history and the Holy Scriptures as his guide, the Reverend Forrest Church takes on the religious right and political conservatives on three fronts: religion, patriotism, and family values. Emphasizing the strong connection between liberalism and democracy, he debunks the myth of the moral superiority of the conservative viewpoint. With an excellent forward by Anne Eleanor Roosevelt, God And Other Famous Liberals is divided into three sections: Reclaiming the Bible (The Most Famous Liberal of All; God's Son Jesus; The Holy Spirit); Reclaiming the Flag (With Liberty for All; We Hold These Truths; One Nation Under God); and Reclaiming the Family (Your Mother is a Liberal; E Pluribus Unum). The book concludes with an Epilogue, Appendix; and an Index. God And Other Famous Liberals is recommended reading for everyone, freethinker or religionist, who support the principles of church-state separation, and whose are saddened by the spectacle of the Religious Right claiming moral superiority over not only the "Godless Humanist" but the Religious Left as well. Insightful, very well written in an engaging style, and as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote: "This thoughtful and and spirited book reminds us all that the Bible and the flag are not the private property of the radical right. " Forrest Church is pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, and the author of numerous books including: Father and Son, Everyday Miracles, and The Seven Deadly Virtues.

zachomikowany

10,1 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

F. Forrester Church - God and Other Famous Liberal s, Recapturing Bible, Flag, and Family from the Fa r Right (1996).pdf

zachomikowany

26 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

J. David Woodard - The America That Reagan Built ( 2006).jpg

This is a whistle-stop survey of American politics from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, with visits to poll results, biennial elections, political crises, and policy questions of the past twenty-five years. It touches on numerous aspects of American political life as well as economics, art, literature, science, society, fads, and customs that changed with the culture of the country. The story is told in terms of the presidents who shaped and led the nation, the elections that brought and kept them in power, and the dozens of people who collectively played a part in helping mold the national experience from 1980 to 2005.

zachomikowany

10,5 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

J. David Woodard - The America That Reagan Built ( 2006).pdf

zachomikowany

117 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jeffrey A. Hammond - The American Puritan Elegy, A Literary and Cultural Study (2000).jpg

"Although one scarcely expects contemporary readers to show much interest in the multitude of formulaic death poems left behind by dead white (and mostly male) Puritans, Jeffery A. Hammond's study offers an impressively innovate approach to this subject matter." John Gatta Christianity and Literature

"Never has thid body of peoms read so intensely and so well." Early American Literature: Volume 36

"Hammond's rich, erudite text is clearly addressed to academic peers...Hammond's achievement is considerable." American Literature

zachomikowany

85 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Jim Wallis - The Great Awakening, Reviving Faith a nd Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (200 8).jpg

What will it take to solve the biggest issues of our time: extreme and needless poverty, global warming and environmental degradation, terrorism and the endless cycle of violence, racism, human trafficking, health care and education, and other pressing problems? While Washington offers only the politics of blame and fear, Jim Wallis, the man who changed the conversation about faith and politics, has traveled the country and found a nation hungry for a politics of solutions and hope. He shows us that a revival is happening, as people of faith and moral conviction seek common ground for change. Wallis also reminds us that religious faith was a driving force behind our greatest national reforms, such as the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. These "great awakenings" happened periodically at crucial times in our nation's history to propel us toward the common good. The time is ripe for another movement that will transform this country. With The Great Awakening, Wallis helps us rediscover our moral center and provides both the needed inspiration and a concrete plan to hold politics accountable and find solutions to our greatest challenges.

zachomikowany

28 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Keith J. Bybee - Mistaken Identity (1998).jpeg

Is it ever legitimate to redraw electoral districts on the basis of race? In its long struggle with this question, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated race-conscious redistricting either as a requirement of political fairness or as an exercise in corrosive racial quotas. Cutting through these contradictory positions, Keith Bybee examines the theoretical foundations of the Court's decisions and the ideological controversy those decisions have engendered. He uncovers erroneous assumptions about political identity on both sides of the debate and formulates new terms on which minority representation can be pursued. As Bybee shows, the Court has for the last twenty years encouraged a division between individualist and group concepts of political identity. He demonstrates convincingly that both individualist and group proponents share the misguided notion that political identity is formed prior to and apart from politics itself. According to Bybee, this "mistaken identity" should be abandoned for a more flexible, politically informed understanding of who the "people" really are. Thus, a misdirected debate will be replaced by a more considered discussion in which the people can speak for themselves, even as the Court speaks on their behalf. Engaged in the politics of minority representation, the Court will be able to help citizens articulate and achieve more fruitful forms of political community.

zachomikowany

10,7 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Keith J. Bybee - Mistaken Identity (1998).pdf

zachomikowany

158 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Randy E. Barnett - Restoring the Lost Constitution , The Presumption of Liberty (2005).jpg

This is a thoroughly fascinating book by one of our major constitutional thinkers. What makes the book especially notable is that Tushnet not only assesses the possibility of constitutional interpretation outside the courts, but also goes on to deliver an assault on what might be termed constitutional interpretation 'inside' the judiciary. That is, the book becomes a ringing attack on judicial review. This will, no doubt, occasion much debate."--Sanford Levinson, University of Texas at Austin

zachomikowany

10,2 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Randy E. Barnett - Restoring the Lost Constitution , The Presumption of Liberty (2005).pdf

zachomikowany

106 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Richard A. Primus - The American Language of Right s (1999).jpg

Richard A. Primus examines three crucial periods in American history (the late eighteenth century, the Civil War and the 1950s and 1960s) and demonstrates how the conceptions of rights prevailing at each of these times grew out of opposition to concrete political cases. In the first study of its kind, Primus highlights the influence of totalitarianism (in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) on the language of rights. This book will be a major contribution to contemporary political theory, of interest to scholars and students in politics and government, constitutional law, and American history.

zachomikowany

132 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Robin Archer - Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States (2008).jpg

Why is the United States the only advanced capitalist country with no labor party? This question is one of the great enduring puzzles of American political development, and it lies at the heart of a fundamental debate about the nature of American society. Tackling this debate head-on, Robin Archer puts forward a new explanation for why there is no American labor party--an explanation that suggests that much of the conventional wisdom about "American exceptionalism" is untenable. Conventional explanations rely on comparison with Europe. Archer challenges these explanations by comparing the United States with its most similar New World counterpart--Australia. This comparison is particularly revealing, not only because the United States and Australia share many fundamental historical, political, and social characteristics, but also because Australian unions established a labor party in the late nineteenth century, just when American unions, against a common backdrop of industrial defeat and depression, came closest to doing something similar. Archer examines each of the factors that could help explain the American outcome, and his systematic comparison yields unexpected conclusions. He argues that prosperity, democracy, liberalism, and racial hostility often promoted the very changes they are said to have obstructed. And he shows that it was not these characteristics that left the United States without a labor party, but, rather, the powerful impact of repression, religion, and political sectarianism.

zachomikowany

10,2 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Robin Archer - Why Is There No Labor Party in the United States (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

30 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Sanford Levinson - Responding to Imperfection (199 5).jpg

An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.

zachomikowany

10,5 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Sanford Levinson - Responding to Imperfection (199 5).pdf

zachomikowany

79 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Sheldon S. Wolin - Democracy Incorporated, Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitaria nism (2008).jpg

USA Books - Sheldon S. Wolin - Democracy Incorporated, Managed Dem...cracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism 2008.jpg

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost clich. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

zachomikowany

113 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Teresa da Silva Lopes - Global Brands. The Evoluti on of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages (2007).jpg

In a world focused on science and new technology, brands help to explain why several of the world's multinational corporations have little to do with either. Rather they are old firms with little critical investment in patents or copyrights. For these firms, the critical intellectual property is trademarks. Global Brands explains how the world's largest multinationals in alcoholic beverages achieved global leadership; considers the predominant corporate governance structures for such firms; and looks at why these firms form alliances with direct competitors. Brands also determine the waves of mergers and acquisitions in the beverage industry. Global Brands contrasts with existing studies by providing a new dimension to the literature on the growth of multinationals through the focus on brands, using an institutional and evolutionary approach based on original and published sources about the industry and the firms.

zachomikowany

85 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Vaclav Smil - Why America Is Not a New Rome (2010).jpg

America's post–Cold War strategic dominance and its pre-recession affluence inspired pundits to make celebratory comparisons to ancient Rome at its most powerful. Now, with America no longer perceived as invulnerable, engaged in protracted fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, comparisons are to the bloated, decadent, ineffectual later Empire. In Why America Is Not a New Rome, Vaclav Smil looks at these comparisons in detail, going deeper than the facile analogy-making of talk shows and glossy magazine articles. He finds profound differences.
On the surface, the vision of America as the new Rome has resonance. There are obvious, intriguing parallels and amusing—even disconcerting—similarities. The America-Rome analogy deserves a closer look, and this is what Smil, a scientist and a lifelong student of Roman history, offers. He does this by focusing on several fundamental concerns: the very meaning of empire; the actual extent and nature of Roman and American power; the role of knowledge and innovation in the two states and the importance of machines and energy sources; and demographic and economic basics—population dynamics, illness, death, wealth, and misery. America is not a latter-day Rome, Smil finds, and we need to understand this in order to look ahead without the burden of counterproductive analogies. Superficial similarities do not imply long-term political, demographic, or economic outcomes identical to Rome's.

zachomikowany

102 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Wendy Conklin - Benjamin Franklin, Early America ( 2008).jpg

Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents. His mind was constantly working to make things better for the colonists both before and after independence. Franklin was also a great writer, and he contributed to both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

zachomikowany

12,8 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Wendy Conklin - Benjamin Franklin, Early America ( 2008).pdf

zachomikowany

24 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Mark V. Tushnet - Taking the Constitution Away fro m the Courts (1999).jpg

zachomikowany

118 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Robert M. Uriu - Clinton and Japan, The Impact of Revisionism on U.S. Trade Policy (2009).jpg

This book chronicles how a controversial set of policy assumptions about the Japanese economy, known as revisionism, rose to become the basis of the trade policy approach of the Clinton administration. In the context of growing fear over Japan's increasing economic strength, revisionists argued that Japan represented a distinctive form of capitalism that was inherently closed to imports and that posed a threat to U.S. high-tech industries. Revisionists advocated a "managed trade" solution in which the Japanese government would be forced to set aside a share of the market for foreign goods. The author describes the role that various American academics, government officials, and business leaders played in developing revisionist thought. Revisionism was at its peak just as the Clinton administration came into office. The author uses extensive interviews with policy makers to trace the internal discussions inside the Clinton White House, which culminated in the adoption of revisionist policy and then to demands for "results-oriented" trade agreements during the Framework negotiations. This book details how Japan refused to accept these managed trade solutions, and fought to discredit revisionism and to rally global support against American unilateralism.

About the Author
Robert M. Uriu is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of California at Irvine. Professor Uriu is a specialist in international relations and international political economy. His region of expertise is East Asia, with an emphasis on Japan, U.S.-Japan relations, and American foreign policy toward East Asia. In 1996-97 Professor Uriu served as a Director of Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. While at the NSC he was involved in policy making toward all aspects of U.S.-Japan relations. He is a two-time Fulbright scholar: in 1996 he was awarded a Fulbright Grant for Research in Japan, as well as being named an International Affairs Fellow by the Council on Foreign Relations, and his earlier research was funded by a grant from the Fulbright-Hays Commission. Professor Uriu has also been a Visiting Foreign Scholar at Keio University, the University of Tokyo, and Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

zachomikowany

157 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Ron Field, Richard Hook - Brasseys' History of Uni forms - Spanish-American War 1898 (1998).jpg

This book covers more than just uniforms, it covers all the items carried or worn by the individual soldiers in this disease-ridden war. Congratulations to the author and the illustrator. This is a valuable compendium, of a size larger than octavo so that the plates are clear, and well constructed. I have been researching the U.S. arms, uniforms, and accoutrements of this period for some forty years now. It takes much more than a slew of pictures and a few gee whizzy captions to impress me. This work does--not only does it cover the details of the uniforms, it also covers the accoutrements and arms of the contending soldiers of both nations. I can vouch for the accuracy of the U.S. portion of the book. The detail shown herein on the Spanish forces, as far as I know, has not been readily available in English at all. Though I have not pursued detailed research on Spanish arms, clothing, and accoutrements, I have kept my eyes out for published materials, and I have not seen it. As much of the non-metallic materiel of this period was subject to hard usage in the field, and because the U.S. soldiers' clothing and equipments were burned for sanitary purposes upon the troops' return home, the cloth and leather of this period that actually saw service in campaign is extremely rare. What is now available is mostly web belts sold off as surplus and firearms and edged weapons the same.

zachomikowany

67,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Ron Field, Richard Hook - Brasseys' History of Uni forms - Spanish-American War 1898 (1998).pdf

zachomikowany

136 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Lou Drendel - The Air War in Vietnam (1969).jpg

One of the fisrt books by Lou Drendel the famous artist and author of many Squadron Signal aviation publcations. The books was written while the war was still raging.

zachomikowany

« poprzednia strona następna strona »