The power of political blogs in American politics is now evident to anyone who follows it. In Typing Politics, Richard Davis provides a comprehensive yet concise assessment of the growing role played by political blogs and their relationship with the mainstream media. Through a detailed content analysis of the most popular political blogs--Daily Kos, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Wonkette--he shows the degree to which blogs influence the traditional news media. Specifically, he compares the content of these blogs to four leading newspapers noted for their political coverage: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Times. He explains how political journalists at these papers use blogs to inform their reportage and analyzes general attitudes about the role of blogs in journalism. Drawing on a national survey of political blog readers, Davis concludes with a novel assessment of the blog audience. Compact, accessible, and well-researched, Typing Politics will be an invaluable contribution to the literature on a phenomenon that has reshaped the landscape of political communication.

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Richard Davis - Typing Politics, The Role of Blogs in American Politics (2009).pdf

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Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders (1957).jpeg

A classic examination of how our thoughts and feelings are manipulated by business, media and politicians, The Hidden Persuaders was the first book to expose the hidden world of “motivation research,” the psychological technique that advertisers use to probe our minds in order to control our actions as consumers. Through analysis of products, political campaigns and television programs of the 1950s, Packard shows how the insidious manipulation practices that have come to dominate today’s corporate-driven world began. Featuring an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, The Hidden Persuaders has sold over one million copies, and forever changed the way we look at the world of advertising.

“One of the best books around for demystifying the deliberately mysterious arts of advertising.”–Salon

“Fascinating, entertaining and thought-stimulating.”–The New York Times Book Review

“A brisk, authoritative and frightening report on how manufacturers, fundraisers and politicians are attempting to turn the American mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command–The New Yorker

Originally published in 1957 and now back in print to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, The Hidden Persuaders is Vance Packard’s pioneering and prescient work revealing how advertisers use psychological methods to tap into our unconscious desires in order to “persuade” us to buy the products they are selling.

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Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders (1957).pdf

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Anderson Cooper - Dispatches from the Edge, A Memo ir of War, Disasters, and Survival (2006).jpeg

From one of America's leading reporters comes a deeply personal, extraordinarily powerful look at the most volatile crises he has witnessed around the world, from New Orleans to Baghdad and beyond. "Dispatches from the Edge of the World" is a book that gives us a rare up-close glimpse of what happens when the normal order of things is suddenly turned upside down, whether it's a natural disaster, a civil war, or a heated political battle. Over the last year, few people have witnessed more scenes of chaos and conflict than Anderson Cooper, whose groundbreaking coverage on CNN has become the touchstone of twenty-first century journalism. This book explores in a very personal way the most important - and most dangerous - crises of our time, and the surprising impact they have had on his life. From the devastating tsunami in South Asia to the suffering Niger, and ultimately Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Cooper shares his own experiences of traversing the globe, covering the world's most astonishing stories. In his first book, that passion communicates itself through a rich fabric of memoir and reportage, reflection and first-person narrative. Unflinching and utterly engrossing, this is the story of an extraordinary year in a reporter's life.

In 2005, two tragedies--the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina--turned CNN reporter Anderson Cooper into a media celebrity. Dispatches from the Edge, Cooper's memoir of "war, disasters and survival," is a brief but powerful chronicle of Cooper's ascent to stardom and his struggle with his own tragedies and demons. Cooper was 10 years old when his father, Wyatt Cooper, died during heart bypass surgery. He was 20 when his beloved older brother, Carter, committed suicide by jumping off his mother's penthouse balcony (his mother, by the way, being Gloria Vanderbilt). The losses profoundly affected Cooper, who fled home after college to work as a freelance journalist for Channel One, the classroom news service. Covering tragedies in far-flung places like Burma, Vietnam, and Somalia, Cooper quickly learned that "as a journalist, no matter ... how respectful you are, part of your brain remains focused on how to capture the horror you see, how to package it, present it to others." Cooper's description of these horrors, from war-ravaged Baghdad to famine-wracked Niger, is poignant but surprisingly unsentimental. In Niger, Cooper writes, he is chagrined, then resigned, when he catches himself looking for the "worst cases" to commit to film. "They die, I live. It's the way of the world," he writes. In the final section of Dispatches, Cooper describes covering Hurricane Katrina, the story that made him famous. The transcript of his showdown with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu (in which Cooper tells Landrieu people in New Orleans are "ashamed of what is happening in this country right now") is worth the price of admission on its own. Cooper's memoir leaves some questions unanswered--there's frustratingly little about his personal life, for example--but remains a vivid, modest self-portrait by a man who is proving himself to be an admirable, courageous leader in a medium that could use more like him. --Erica C. Barnett

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Joshua Goldstein - The Real Price of War, How You Pay for the War on Terror (2005).jpg

Are Americans in denial about the costs of the War on Terror? In The Real Price of War, Joshua S. Goldstein argues that we need to face up to what the war costs the average American—both in taxes and in changes to our way of life. Goldstein contends that in order to protect the United States from future attacks, we must fight—and win—the War on Terror. Yet even as President Bush campaigns on promises of national security, his administration is cutting taxes and increasing deficit spending, resulting in too little money to eradicate terrorism and a crippling burden of national debt for future generations to pay.

The Real Price of War breaks down billion-dollar government expenditures into the prices individual Americans are paying through their taxes. Goldstein estimates that the average American household currently pays $500 each month to finance war. Beyond the dollars and cents that finance military operations and increased security within the U.S., the War on Terror also costs America in less tangible ways, including lost lives, reduced revenue from international travelers, and budget pressures on local governments. The longer the war continues, the greater these costs. In order to win the war faster, Goldstein argues for an increase in war funding, at a cost of about $100 per household per month, to better fund military spending, homeland security, and foreign aid and diplomacy.

Americans have been told that the War on Terror is a war without sacrifice. But as Goldstein emphatically states: "These truths should be self-evident: The nation is at war. The war is expensive. Someone has to pay for it."

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Joshua Goldstein - The Real Price of War, How You Pay for the War on Terror (2005).pdf

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Nancy K. MacLean - Behind the Mask of Chivalry, Th e Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (1995).jpg

On Thanksgiving night, 1915, a small band of hooded men gathered atop Stone Mountain, an imposing granite butte just outside Atlanta. With a flag fluttering in the wind beside them, a Bible open to the twelfth chapter of Romans, and a flaming cross to light the night sky above, William Joseph Simmons and his disciples proclaimed themselves the new Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, named for the infamous secret order in which many of their fathers had served after the Civil War. Unsure of their footing in the New South and longing for the provincial, patriarchal world of the past, the men of the second Klan saw themselves as an army in training for a war between the races. They boasted that they had bonded into "an invisible phalanx...to stand as impregnable as a tower against every encroachment upon the white man's liberty...in the white man's country, under the white man's flag."
Behind the Mask of Chivalry brings the "invisible phalanx" into broad daylight, culling from history the names, the life stories, and the driving passions of the anonymous Klansmen beneath the white hoods and robes. Using an unusual and rich cache of internal Klan records from Athens, Georgia, to anchor her observations, author Nancy MacLean combines a fine-grained portrait of a local Klan world with a penetrating analysis of the second Klan's ideas and politics nationwide. No other right-wing movement has ever achieved as much power as the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, and this book shows how and why it did. MacLean reveals that the movement mobilized its millions of American followers largely through campaigns waged over issues that today would be called "family values": Prohibition violation, premarital sex, lewd movies, anxieties about women's changing roles, and worries over waning parental authority. Neither elites nor "poor white trash," most of the Klan rank and file were married, middle-aged, and middle class. Local meetings, or klonklaves, featured readings of the minutes, plans for recruitment campaigns and Klan barbecues, and distribution of educational materials--Christ and Other Klansmen was one popular tome. Nonetheless, as mundane as proceedings often were at the local level, crusades over "morals" always operated in the service of the Klan's larger agenda of virulent racial hatred and middle-class revanchism. The men who deplored sex among young people and sought to restore the power of husbands and fathers were also sworn to reclaim the "white man's country," striving to take the vote from blacks and bar immigrants. Comparing the Klan to the European fascist movements that grew out of the crucible of the first World War, MacLean maintains that the remarkable scope and frenzy of the movement reflected less on members' power within their communities than on the challenges to that power posed by African Americans, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and white women and youth who did not obey the Klan's canon of appropriate conduct. In vigilante terror, the Klan's night riders acted out their movement's brutal determination to maintain inherited hierarchies of race, class, and gender.

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Wendy Goldman Rohm - The Murdoch Mission, The Digi tal Transformation of a Media Empire (2001).jpg

Raves for The Murdoch Mission
"Wendy Goldman Rohms exciting new book sheds light on one of the worlds most powerful, yet enigmatic figures–– Rupert Murdoch. Given unparalleled access to Murdoch and his sprawling media empire, Rohm has drawn a detailed portrait of the man who single-handedly created one of the largest media companies on the planet. Its an epic story not to be missed." ––Eric Nee, Senior Writer, Fortune magazine
"Wendy Goldman Rohm has written a fascinating account of how Rupert Murdochs News Corp. is fighting the battle for access to the worlds audiences and advertisers. The Murdoch Mission is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the people and forces shaping the future of the global media and entertainment business." ––Michael J. Wolf, Senior Partner & Director, McKinsey & Company
"Presenting the man behind the media mogul, The Murdoch Mission aims to dispel much of the mythology about Rupert Murdoch. Author Wendy Goldman Rohm has been given rare access to the man himself, the Murdoch family dynasty, and the top executives who make up his inner sanctum. The Murdoch Mission gives an insight into the driving force behind Murdochs global media ambitions for the new millennium and looks at his high- risk strategies in several world markets." ––Eve Conway, Producer/Reporter, BBC News
"A compelling book that takes the reader deep inside Rupert Murdochs empire, a region few have successfully explored before. Those who read this wonderful book can find out how Rupert continues to forge unorthodox paths in new media that no other media barons have yet had the stamina to explore, never mind weather the risks involved. Author Rohm has managed to get in-depth access to the mogul as well as his sons and top executives, a rare accomplishment for any journalist. The Murdoch Mission provides a unique look at a man and an empire at their maturity–– and at the turning point of digital media in a new century." ––Daniel Jeffreys, London Daily Mail
"Rupert Murdochs vision transcends media–– and the technology required for its dissemination–– to impact the creation and dissemination of ideas across the planet in a way that even the Internet does not yet do. Wendy Goldman Rohms The Murdoch Mission provides a fascinating insiders view on how the man and his empire, armed with the expertise and knowledge acquired in previous high-stakes ventures, plan to carry out the interactive revolution." ––Tim Grace, Vice President, The Financial Relations Board/BSMG Worldwide (Chicago)

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Wendy Goldman Rohm - The Murdoch Mission, The Digi tal Transformation of a Media Empire (2001) .pdf

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Cheyney Ryan - The Chickenhawk Syndrome, War, Sacr ifice, and Personal Responsibility (2009).jpg

In recent years, the question of war and sacrifice has been a major topic of political debate and controversy. If our country goes to war for reasons we endorse, what is our responsibility to share in its sacrifices? Does supporting a war mean serving in it? Does it mean encouraging our children to do so?
Such questions have been posed by the so-called "chickenhawk" phenomenon: pro-war leaders and their pro-war children who call on Americans to assume the burden of war and its sacrifices, but avoid those sacrifices themselves. President Bush and other architects of the Iraq conflict were the most prominent chickenhawks. Cheyney C. Ryan argues that the chickenhawk issue is not just a matter of personalities--it will remain with us for a long time even though the Bush administration has left office. Ryan poses fundamental questions of war and personal sacrifice, pointing to the basic disconnection in American politics generally between the support for war and the willingness to assume its costs, which he calls "Alienated War."
Calling for the reinvigoration of civic involvement, this illuminating and insightful book offers both a philosophical and historical exploration of America's citizen-soldier tradition and the consequences involved in separating the citizenry from the armed forces.

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Cheyney Ryan - The Chickenhawk Syndrome, War, Sacr ifice, and Personal Responsibility (2009).pdf

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Robert Swansbrough - Test by Fire, The War Preside ncy of George W. Bush (edition 2008).jpeg

This book revolves around three closely related questions. First, how did George W. Bush—a wisecracking cutup, mediocre student, failed oil patch entrepreneur and fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard’s “Champagne Unit”—become a War President? Did George W. Bush go too far—invading Iraq, abandoning the Geneva Conventions’ safeguards for captured prisoners and conducting surveillance over American citizens without court approval—in wielding his powers as War President? And finally, will George W. Bush receive history’s accolade as a great American president for his leadership in the war on terror?

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Robert Swansbrough - Test by Fire, The War Preside ncy of George W. Bush (edition 2008).pdf

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Karen J. Greenberg - The Least Worst Place, Guanta namo's First 100 Days (edition 2009).jpg

In January 2002, the first flight of detainees captured in the global war on terror disembarked in Guantanamo Bay. They were dazed, bewildered, and--more often than not--alarmingly thin. Given very little advance notice, the military's preparations for this group of predominantly unimportant ne'er-do-wells were hastily thrown together, but as Karen Greenberg shows, a number of capable and honorable Marine officers tried to create a humane and just detention center--only to be thwarted by the Bush Administration. The Least Worst Place is a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America's leading experts on the Bush Administration's policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried--and ultimately failed--to stymie the Pentagon's desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions.

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Webster Griffin Tarpley - Obama, The Postmodern Co up (2008).jpeg

Barack Obama is a deeply troubled personality, the megalomaniac front man for a postmodern coup by the intelligence agencies, using fake polls, mobs of swarming adolescents, super-rich contributors, and orchestrated media hysteria to short-circuit normal politics and seize power. Obama comes from the orbit of the Ford Foundation, and has never won public office in a contested election. His guru and controller is Zbigniew Brzezinski, the deranged revanchist and Russia-hater who dominated the catastrophic Carter presidency 30 years ago. All indications are that Brzezinski recruited Obama at Columbia University a quarter century ago. Trilateral Commission co-founder Brzezinski wants a global showdown with Russia and China far more dangerous for the United States than the Bush-Cheney Iraq adventure. Obama's economics are pure Skull & Bones/Chicago school austerity and sacrifice for American working families, all designed to bail out the bankrupt Wall Street elitist financiers who own Obama. Obama's lemming legions and Kool-Aid cult candidacy hearken back to Italy in 1919-1922, and raise the question of postmodern fascism in the United States today. Obama is a recipe for a world tragedy. No American voter can afford to ignore the lessons contained in this book.

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Webster Griffin Tarpley - Obama, The Postmodern Co up (2008).pdf

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Gordon B. Arnold - Conspiracy Theory in Film, Tele vision, and Politics (2008).jpg

Since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, motion pictures and television productions-some based on historical fact and conjecture, others clearly fanciful-have embraced the idea that conspiracies shape many events, hide others, and generally dictate much of the course of modern life, often to the disadvantage of the average person. As a result, conspiracy theories have developed into a potent undercurrent in American politics. By the 1990s, it was not unusual to find conspiracies used as explanations for a wide range of political events that would otherwise seem to have quite ordinary explanations. Thus, a vast right-wing conspiracy was suggested as the source of Bill Clinton's troubles, just as conspiracy-like machinations of the liberal media were used to explain why the picture of world events did not coincide with conservative views. And this is to say nothing of the bitter arguments that still erupt over varying explanations for the attacks of 9/11.

Regardless of a person's opinion about such claims, what these and many other examples clearly show is that conspiracy-theory explanations have penetrated mainstream American thought. Here, author Gordon Arnold examines the evolution of this cultural climate in the United States. Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics examines the intersection of various film and television productions in the context of unfolding political developments. The chapters follow this story chronologically, showing how screen media have both reflected and shaped the cultural milieu in which traumatic events and political controversies have been interpreted with increasing cynicism. The work also reviews the original contexts in which film, television, and political manifestations of conspiracy ideas first appeared.

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Gordon B. Arnold - Conspiracy Theory in Film, Tele vision, and Politics (2008).pdf

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Thomas E. Ricks - The Gamble, General David Petrae us and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 20 06-2008 (2009).jpg

USA Books - Thomas E. Ricks - The Gamble, General David Petraeus a...e American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 2009.jpg

Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks’s #1 New York Times bestseller, transformed the political dialogue on the war in Iraq—The Gamble is the next news breaking installment.

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Since early 2007 a new military order has directed American strategy. Some top U.S. officials now in Iraq actually opposed the 2003 invasion, and almost all are severely critical of how the war was fought from then through 2006. At the core of the story is General David Petraeus, a military intellectual who has gathered around him an unprecedented number of officers with both combat experience and Ph.D.s. Underscoring his new and unorthodox approach, three of his key advisers are quirky foreigners—an Australian infantryman-turned-anthropologist, an antimilitary British woman who is an expert in the Middle East, and a Mennonite-educated Palestinian pacifist.

The Gamble offers news breaking information, revealing behind-the-scenes disagreements between top commanders. We learn that almost every single officer in the chain of command fought the surge. Many of Petraeus’s closest advisers went to Iraq extremely pessimistic, doubting that the surge would have any effect, and his own boss was so skeptical that he dispatched an admiral to Baghdad in the summer of 2007 to come up with a strategy to replace Petraeus’s. That same boss later flew to Iraq to try to talk Petraeus out of his planned congressional testimony. The Gamble examines the congressional hearings through the eyes of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their views of the questions posed by the 2008 presidential candidates.

For Petraeus, prevailing in Iraq means extending the war. Thomas E. Ricks concludes that the war is likely to last another five to ten years—and that that outcome is a best case scenario. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered by us and by the world have not yet happened.”

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Thomas E. Ricks - The Gamble, General David Petrae us and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 20 06-2008 (2009).pdf

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Peter Knight, - Conspiracy Theories in American Hi story, An Encyclopedia (2003).jpeg

"Conspiracy theories (and, from time to time, actual conspiracies) have played a vital role in shaping the course of American history." So states the editor of this set, which is the work of more than 123 contributors. It is intended as "a serious and comprehensive summary of all the major events, ideas, and figures of U.S. conspiracy thinking."

The set begins with "Conspiracy Theories in America: A Historical Overview" and "Making Sense of Conspiracy Theories," two excellent articles that provide background and understanding of the subject. This material is followed by more than 300 entries for both actual and imagined conspiracies. Examples of theories include the extremely well known as well as the somewhat obscure. As might be expected, the entry on the John F. Kennedy assassination is the longest, covering 15 pages. Among other entries are AIDS, Cattle mutilations, Oklahoma City bombing, Pearl Harbor, Tobacco industry, UFOs, and whitewater. The theories are arranged alphabetically and include see also references and brief bibliographies of related works. Appropriate Web sites are also listed for some.

Section 3 contains approximately 100 extracts from primary source documents, arranged chronologically from Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World (1692) to Lawton et al. v. Republic of Iraq (2003). A headnote explains the context of each.

This is a fascinating reference set that presents intriguing (albeit sometimes far-fetched) theories. Examining these theories, one can see how almost any event or idea can be viewed as a conspiracy, actual or imagined. This would be an excellent addition to academic and large public libraries. RBB

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Peter Knight, - Conspiracy Theories in American Hi story, An Encyclopedia (2003).pdf

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Charles R. Morris - The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Cra sh (2008).jpeg

The sub-prime mortgage crisis is only the beginning: A more profound economic and political restructuring is on its way.

We are living in the most reckless financial environment in recent history. Arcane credit derivative bets are now well into the tens of trillions.

According to Charles R. Morris, the astronomical leverage at investment banks and their hedge fund and private equity clients virtually guarantees massive disruption in global markets. The crash, when it comes, will have no firebreaks. A quarter century of free-market zealotry that extolled asset stripping, abusive lending, and hedge fund secrecy will come crashing down with it.

The Trillion Dollar Meltdown explains how we got here, and what is about to happen. After the crash our priorities will be quite different. But things are likely to get worse before they better. Whether you are an active investor, a homeowner, or a contributor to your 401(k) plan, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown will be indispensable to understanding the gross excess that has put the world economy on the brink--and what the new landscape will look like.

Chapter 01: The Death of Liberalism
Chapter 02: Wall Street Finds Religion
Chapter 03: Bubble Land, Practice Runs
Chapter 04: A Wall of Money
Chapter 05: A Tsunami of Dollars
Chapter 06: The Great Unwinding
Chapter 07: Winners and Losers
Chapter 08: Recovering Balance

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Charles R. Morris - The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Cra sh (2008).pdf

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Jan Nederveen Pieterse - Is There Hope for Uncle S am, Beyond the American Bubble (2008).jpg

For over a century now, America has dominated global politics and the global imagination. Yet as the dollar declines, inequality increases, rates of consumption are unprecedented and American unilateralism comes under fire, such hegemony is increasingly unsustainable. In this provocative new book, leading sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse asks whether it’s possible for America to chart a different course. In this book, he argues that correcting the course of decline would mean taking drastic steps. Only a reinvention of New Deal politics could address social inequality, while repositioning itself in world politics would mean adopting genuine multilateralism.

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Jan Nederveen Pieterse - Is There Hope for Uncle S am, Beyond the American Bubble (2008).pdf

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John McQuaid & Mark Schleifstein - Path of Destruc tion, The Devastation of New Orleans and the Comin g Age of Superstorms (2006).jpg

USA Books - John McQuaid Mark Schleifstein - Path of Destruction,...of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms 2006.jpg

America and the world were stunned in August 2005 as Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed New Orleans. Shocking images seared the national consciousness: a city under water; entire families pulled from holes chopped in rooftops; children begging for water outside the convention center; hundreds of people waiting for days in hundred-degree heat alongside an interstate for buses that seemed never to arrive. To grasp how Katrina could happen in twenty-first-century America, you have to understand the untold backstory of the catastrophe, from New Orleans’s centuries-long flirtation with disaster, to the heroic attempts by a handful of local scientists and officials to sound warning bells, to the ignorant and misguided decisions by politicians, bureaucrats, and engineers that set the stage for the catastrophe. In Path Of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms (Little, Brown and Company; August 16, 2006; $25.99), John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, give a full account of the storm and the dreadful inadequacies that existed prior to 2005, an indictment of the officials at all levels who failed to act, and a scientific investigation into why these huge storms have only just begun.

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