With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many have proclaimed not just the death of communism, but also the obsolescence of all forms of utopian thinking. Geoffrey Hodgson argues that it is still possible to imagine new economic alternatives to the current system, and that utopian thinking serves as a necessary aspect of developing alternative solutions to present problems. He places the focus on the relationship between learning and knowledge and on the context of different economic models. This book goes beyond conventional wisdom to open new horizons of economic thought.

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Geoffrey M. Hodgson - Economics and Utopia, Why th e Learning Economy Is Not the End of History (1998 ).pdf

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Jamin B. Raskin - Overruling Democracy, The Suprem e Court Versus the American People (2003).jpg

The Supreme Court has recently issued decisions announcing that citizens have neither a constitutional right to vote, nor the right to an education. Conservative judges have continually disavowed claims to any rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. In Overruling Democracy, celebrated law professor Jamin B. Raskin, argues that we need to develop a whole new set of rights, through amendments or court decisions, that revitalize and protect the democracy of everyday life. Detailing specific cases through interesting narratives, Overruling Democracy describes the transgressions of the Supreme Court against the Constitution and the people - and the faulty reasoning behind them - and lays out the plan for the best way to back a more democratic system.

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Jamin B. Raskin - Overruling Democracy, The Suprem e Court Versus the American People (2003).pdf

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Mark David Spence - Dispossessing the Wilderness, Indian Removal and the Making of the National Park s (1999).jpg

USA Books - Mark David Spence - Dispossessing the Wilderness, Indi...ian Removal and the Making of the National Parks 1999.jpg

National parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier preserve some of this country's most cherished wilderness landscapes. While visions of pristine, uninhabited nature led to the creation of these parks, they also inspired policies of Indian removal. By contrasting the native histories of these places with the links between Indian policy developments and preservationist efforts, this work examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal. The first study to place national park history within the context of the early reservation era, it details the ways that national parks developed into one of the most important arenas of contention between native peoples and non-Indians in the twentieth century.

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Mark Thornton - The Economics of Prohibition (1991 ).jpg

It is conventional wisdom that alchohol prohibition failed, but the economic reasons for this failure have never been as extensively detailed or analyzed as they are in this study by Mark Thornton. The lessons he draws apply not only to the period of alcohol prohibition but also to drug prohibition and any other government attempt to control consumption habits. The same pattern is repeated again and again. Thornton's treatment of the topic is methodical. He first examines the history of prohibition laws, primarily focusing on American implementation of prohibitionist policies. He examines the prime movers in the alchohol, narcotics, and marijuana prohibition movements. He then examines the theoretical premises upon which prohibition advocates depend, and thoroughly exposes them as fallacious. After examining the history and theory of prohibition, Thornton reveals the effects of such policies on the potency of illegal drugs. He explains how prohibition inevitably creates incentives for producers to increase the potency of drugs and alcohol products distributed via the black market. Also investigated in this book are the effects of prohibition policies on crime rates and government corruption rates. Finally, Thornton discusses the repeal of prohibition, offering both public policy alternatives and truly free-market solutions. According to Murray N. Rothbard, "Thornton's book... arrives to fill an enormous gap, and it does so splendidly... The drug prohibition question is... the hottest political topic today, and for the foreseeable future... This is an excellent work making an important contribution to scholarship as well as to the public policy debate."

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Mark Thornton - The Economics of Prohibition (1991 ).pdf

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Robert A. Hall - Combat Battalion, The 8th Battali on in Vietnam (2008).jpg

The story of the 1969 tour of Vietnam by the Eighth Battalion of the Australian army.

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Robert A. Hall - Combat Battalion, The 8th Battali on in Vietnam (2008).pdf

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Ron Paul - Gold, Peace, and Prosperity (2007)(1).jpg

Ron Paul has been the leading champion of sound money in the Congress. Here he explains why sound money means a new gold standard. The monograph is written in the clearest possible terms with the goal of explaining the basics of paper money and its effects of inflation, business cycles, and government growth. He maps out a plan to bring about a dollar that is as good as gold, one that would be protected against manipulation by government and central bankers. Part of that strategy is the minting of a new gold one but the more far-reaching plan involves a redefinition of the dollar and complete monetary competition. This monograph first appeared in 1981, and it has been in wide distribution ever since. Henry Hazlitt writes the introduction, and Murray Rothbard writes the preface. 57 pages, 6" x 9", paperback

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Ward Churchill - Acts of Rebellion, The Ward Churc hill Reader (2002).jpg

What could be more American than Columbus Day? Or the Washington Redskins? For Native Americans, they are bitter reminders that they live in a world where their identity is still fodder for white society.Churchill, one of the most respected writers on Native American issues, lends a strong and radical voice to the American Indian cause. Acts of Rebellion shows how the most basic civil rights' laws put into place to aid all Americans failed miserably, and continue to fail, when put into practice for our indigenous brothers and sisters. Seeking to convey what has been done to Native North America, Churchill skillfully dissects Native Americans' struggles for property and freedom, their resistance and repression, cultural issues, and radical Indian ideologies.

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Ward Churchill - Acts of Rebellion, The Ward Churc hill Reader (2002).pdf

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Richard Heinberg - The Party's Over, Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2005).jpg

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times.

In The Party's Over, Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the twentieth century and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the twenty-first century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the United States-the world's foremost oil consumer-is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future.

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Richard Heinberg - The Party's Over, Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2005).pdf

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Catherine Weaver - Hypocrisy Trap, The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform (2008).jpg

As the preeminent international development agency for the past sixty years, the World Bank has attracted equal amounts of criticism and praise. Critics are especially quick to decry the World Bank's hypocrisy--the pervasive gaps between the organization's talk, decisions, and actions. In the wake of the Paul Wolfowitz leadership scandal in May 2006, perceptions of hypocrisy have exacted a heavy toll on the Bank's authority and fueled strong demands for wide-scale reform. Yet what exactly does the hypocrisy of the World Bank look like, and what or who causes it? In Hypocrisy Trap, Catherine Weaver explores how the characteristics of change in a complex international organization make hypocrisy difficult to resolve, especially after its exposure becomes a critical threat to the organization's legitimacy and survival.

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Phil Harris - Machiavelli, Marketing and Managemen t (2000).jpg

A fascinating, cutting-edge book that provides insight into the meaning and interpretation of Machiavelli and his works for management, marketing and political thought, and highlights their particular relevance to the manager today. The authors address a number of common themes relating to the influences and arguments of perhaps the first political scientist and advocate of sound management and marketing principles. Topics covered include: modern management; governance and ethics; postmodernism; marketing, political communication and spin doctoring; and rhetoric and dichotomy of Machiavelli.

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Phil Harris - Machiavelli, Marketing and Managemen t (2000).pdf

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Brian VanDeMark - Into the Quagmire, Lyndon Johnso n and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (1995).jpg

In November of 1964, as Lyndon Johnson celebrated his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the government of South Vietnam lay in a shambles. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor described it as a country beset by "chronic factionalism, civilian-military suspicion and distrust, absence of national spirit and motivation, lack of cohesion in the social structure, lack of experience in the conduct of government." Virtually no one in the Johnson Administration believed that Saigon could defeat the communist insurgency--and yet by July of 1965, a mere nine months later, they would lock the United States on a path toward massive military intervention which would ultimately destroy Johnson's presidency and polarize the American people.
Into the Quagmire presents a closely rendered, almost day-by-day account of America's deepening involvement in Vietnam during those crucial nine months. Mining a wealth of recently opened material at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and elsewhere, Brian VanDeMark vividly depicts the painful unfolding of a national tragedy. We meet an LBJ forever fearful of a conservative backlash, which he felt would doom his Great Society, an unsure and troubled leader grappling with the unwanted burden of Vietnam; George Ball, a maverick on Vietnam, whose carefully reasoned (and, in retrospect, strikingly prescient) stand against escalation was discounted by Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy; and Clark Clifford, whose last-minute effort at a pivotal meeting at Camp David failed to dissuade Johnson from doubling the number of ground troops in Vietnam. What comes across strongly throughout the book is the deep pessimism of all the major participants as things grew worse--neither LBJ, nor Bundy, nor McNamara, nor Rusk felt confident that things would improve in South Vietnam, that there was any reasonable chance for victory, or that the South had the will or the ability to prevail against the North. And yet deeper into the quagmire they went.
Whether describing a tense confrontation between George Ball and Dean Acheson ("You goddamned old bastards," Ball said to Acheson, "you remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of buzzards sitting on a fence and letting the young men die") or corrupt politicians in Saigon, VanDeMark provides readers with the full flavor of national policy in the making. More important, he sheds greater light on why America became entangled in the morass of Vietnam.

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Catherine Mulholland - William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles (2000).jpg

William Mulholland presided over the creation of a water system that forever changed the course of southern California's history. Mulholland, a self-taught engineer, was the chief architect of the Owens Valley Aqueduct--a project ranking in magnitude and daring with the Panama Canal--that brought water to semi-arid Los Angeles from the lush Owens Valley. The story of Los Angeles's quest for water is both famous and notorious: it has been the subject of the classic yet historically distorted movie Chinatown, as well as many other accounts. This first full-length biography of Mulholland challenges many of the prevailing versions of his life story and sheds new light on the history of Los Angeles and its relationship with its most prized resource: water.
Catherine Mulholland, the engineer's granddaughter, provides insights into this story that family familiarity affords, and adds to our historical understanding with extensive primary research in sources such as Mulholland's recently uncovered office files, newspapers, and Department of Water and Power archives. She scrutinizes Mulholland's life--from his childhood in Ireland to his triumphant completion of the Owens Valley Aqueduct to the tragedy that ended his career.

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Catherine Mulholland - William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles (2000).pdf

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J. Patrice McSherry - Predatory States, Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (2005).jpg

This powerful work makes a compelling case that U.S. forces secretly condoned and assisted the implementation of Operation Condor, a covert Latin American military network created during the Cold War to facilitate the seizure and murder of political opponents across state borders. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, J. Patrice McSherry provides a hidden history of the Cold War through her analysis of the intelligence networks, security structures, coordinated operations, and international connections of Condor. Revealing new details of Condor operations and fresh evidence of links to the U.S. security establishment, this controversial work offers an original analysis of the use of secret, parallel armies in Western counterinsurgency strategies. It will be a clarion call to all readers to consider the long-term consequences of clandestine operations in the name of democracy. Visit our website for sample chapters!

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James B. Jacobs - Can Gun Control Work (2002).jpg

Few schisms in American life run as deep or as wide as the divide between gun rights and gun control advocates. Awash in sound and symbol, the gun regulation debate has largely been defined by forceful rhetoric rather than substantive action. Politicians shroud themselves in talk of individual rights or public safety while lobbyists on both sides make doom-and-gloom pronouncements on the consequences of potential shifts in the status quo.
In America today there are between 250 and 300 million firearms in private hands, amounting to one weapon for every American. Two in five American homes house guns. On the one hand, most gun owners are law-abiding citizens who believe they have a constitutional right to bear arms. On the other, a great many people believe gun control to be our best chance at reducing violent crime. While few--whether gun owner or anti-gun advocate--dispute the need to keep guns out of the wrong hands, the most important question has too often been dodged: What gun control options does the most heavily armed democracy in the world have? Can gun control really work?
The last decade has seen several watersheds in the debate, none more important than the 1993 Brady Bill. That bill, James B. Jacobs argues, was the culmination of a strategy in place since the 1930s to permit widespread private ownership of guns while curtailing illegal use. But where do we go from here? While the Brady background check is easily circumvented, any further attempts to extend gun control--for instance, through comprehensive licensing of all gun owners and registration of all guns--would pose monumental administrative burdens. Jacobs moves beyond easy slogans and broad-brush ideology to examine the on-the-ground practicalities of gun control, from mandatory safety locks to outright prohibition and disarmament. Casting aside ideology and abstractions, he cautions against the belief that there exists some gun control solution which, had we the political will to seize it, would substantially reduce violent crime.
In Can Gun Control Work?, James B. Jacobs, one of our most fearless commentators on intractable social problems, has given us the most sober and even-handed assessment of whether gun control can really be made to work.

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James B. Jacobs - Can Gun Control Work (2002).pdf

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James M. McPherson - Crossroads of Freedom, Antiet am (2002).jpg

The Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day in American history, with more than 6,000 soldiers killed--four times the number lost on D-Day, and twice the number killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. In Crossroads of Freedom, America's most eminent Civil War historian, James M. McPherson, paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath.
As McPherson shows, by September 1862 the survival of the United States was in doubt. The Union had suffered a string of defeats, and Robert E. Lee's army was in Maryland, poised to threaten Washington. The British government was openly talking of recognizing the Confederacy and brokering a peace between North and South. Northern armies and voters were demoralized. And Lincoln had shelved his proposed edict of emancipation months before, waiting for a victory that had not come--that some thought would never come.
Both Confederate and Union troops knew the war was at a crossroads, that they were marching toward a decisive battle. It came along the ridges and in the woods and cornfields between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River. Valor, misjudgment, and astonishing coincidence all played a role in the outcome. McPherson vividly describes a day of savage fighting in locales that became forever famous--The Cornfield, the Dunkard Church, the West Woods, and Bloody Lane. Lee's battered army escaped to fight another day, but Antietam was a critical victory for the Union. It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln's party in control of Congress. It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention. And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war.
McPherson brilliantly weaves these strands of diplomatic, political, and military history into a compact, swift-moving narrative that shows why America's bloodiest day is, indeed, a turning point in our history.

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Jed Horne - Breach of Faith, Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (2006).jpg

Hurricane Katrina shredded one of the great cities of the South, and as levees failed and the federal relief effort proved lethally incompetent, a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe. As an editor of New Orleans’ daily newspaper, the Pulitzer Prize—winning Times-Picayune, Jed Horne has had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama of the city’s collapse into chaos and its continuing struggle to survive.
As the Big One bore down, New Orleanians rich and poor, black and white, lurched from giddy revelry to mandatory evacuation. The thousands who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave initially congratulated themselves on once again riding out the storm. But then the unimaginable happened: Within a day 80 percent of the city was under water. The rising tides chased horrified men and women into snake-filled attics and onto the roofs of their houses. Heroes in swamp boats and helicopters braved wind and storm surge to bring survivors to dry ground. Mansions and shacks alike were swept away, and then a tidal wave of lawlessness inundated the Big Easy. Screams and gunshots echoed through the blacked-out Superdome. Police threw away their badges and joined in the looting. Corpses drifted in the streets for days, and buildings marinated for weeks in a witches’ brew of toxic chemicals that, when the floodwaters finally were pumped out, had turned vast reaches of the city into a ghost town.

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Lyde Cullen-Sizer, Jim Cullen - The Civil War Era, An Anthology of Sources (2005).jpg

There is an extraordinary range of material in this anthology, from Lincoln Gettysburg address to a contemporary account of a visit from the Ku Klux Klan. The primary sources reproduced are both visual and written, and the secondary materials present a remarkable breadth and quality of relevant scholarship.
Contains an extensive selection of writings and illustrations on the American Civil War Reflects society and culture as well as the politics and key battles of the Civil War Reproduces and links primary and secondary sources to encourage exploration of the material Includes editorial introductions and study questions to aid understanding.

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Lyde Cullen-Sizer, Jim Cullen - The Civil War Era, An Anthology of Sources (2005).pdf

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Sean McCann - Gumshoe America, Hard-Boiled Crime F iction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalis m (2000).jpg

USA Books - Sean McCann - Gumshoe America, Hard-Boiled Crime Ficti...ion and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism 2000.jpg

In Gumshoe America Sean McCann offers a bold new account of the hard-boiled crime story and its literary and political significance. Illuminating a previously unnoticed set of concerns at the heart of the fiction, he contends that mid-twentieth-century American crime writers used the genre to confront and wrestle with many of the paradoxes and disappointments of New Deal liberalism. For these authors, the same contradictions inherent in liberal democracy were present within the changing literary marketplace of the mid-twentieth-century United States: the competing claims of the elite versus the popular, the demands of market capitalism versus conceptions of quality, and the individual versus a homogenized society.
Gumshoe America traces the way those problems surfaced in hard-boiled crime fiction from the1920s through the 1960s. Beginning by using a forum on the KKK in the pulp magazine Black Mask to describe both the economic and political culture of pulp fiction in the early twenties, McCann locates the origins of the hard-boiled crime story in the genre’s conflict with the racist antiliberalism prominent at the time. Turning his focus to Dashiell Hammett’s career, McCann shows how Hammett’s writings in the late 1920s and early 1930s moved detective fiction away from its founding fables of social compact to the cultural alienation triggered by a burgeoning administrative state. He then examines how Raymond Chandler’s fiction, unlike Hammett’s, idealized sentimental fraternity, echoing the communitarian appeals of the late New Deal. Two of the first crime writers to publish original fiction in paperback—Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford—are examined next in juxtaposition to the popularity enjoyed by their contemporaries Mickey Spillane and Ross Macdonald. The stories of the former two, claims McCann, portray the decline of the New Deal and the emergence of the rights-based liberalism of the postwar years and reveal new attitudes toward government: individual alienation, frustration with bureaucratic institutions, and dissatisfaction with the growing vision of America as a meritocracy. Before concluding, McCann turns to the work of Chester Himes, who, in producing revolutionary hard-boiled novels, used the genre to explore the changing political significance of race that accompanied the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s and the 1960s.

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