"Niech będzie przeklęty ten, kto wyjdzie stąd i będzie milczał" - wyrył kiedyś na ścianie łagrowego karceru jeden z milionów więźniów sowieckiego Gułagu. Okazało się, że choć niektórzy z ocalałych misją życia uczynili opowiedzenie wolnemu światu o naturze dyktatury, rzadko kto ich słuchał, a jeszcze rzadziej im wierzył. Obojętne pozostały zwłaszcza opiniotwórcze i polityczne elity.

Powodów, dla których Zachód długo odrzucał świat relacje o sowieckim terrorze, było wiele. Prawda o zbrodniach sowieckich nie była dostępna bezpośrednio w takim stopniu, jak prawda o zbrodniach hitleryzmu. Żołnierze alianccy, wyzwalając nazistowskie obozy, zastali w nich niepodważalne dowody ludobójstwa. Wiadomości tyczące masowych mordów z Sowietach pochodziły jedynie od świadków - a wspomnienia łatwo zakwestionować. Zwłaszcza że komunistyczna machina propagandowa, prócz chwytów prostackich, używała też narzędzi wyrafinowanych. Symbolem jej działań stały się potiomkinowskie spektakle dla zachodnich intelektualistów i dziennikarzy, organizowane w stworzonych na pokaz obozach i więzieniach. Łatwo wykorzystywała również zwykły oportunizm i osobiste interesy wielu z nich.

Swoje robiła także zwykła kalkulacja polityczna: ZSRR był przecież cały czas ważnym graczem politycznym i partnerem gospodarczym. Choć więc z czasem demokratyczny świat zaczął potępiać Moskwę za represje, to nie wykazywał w tym ani wielkiej stanowczości, ani konsekwencji.

Kto wie, czy nie najważniejsza była jednak niewyobrażalna skala sowieckich represji. Z podobnego powodu Zachód długo odrzucał przecież raporty o Holocauście - także zagłada Żydów wydawała się „nie do pomyślenia" dla racjonalnie myślącego człowieka XX w.

Przeprowadzona przez prof. Dariusza Tołczyka z University of Virginia analiza zaślepienia zachodnich elit na komunistyczne ludobójstwo jest równocześnie historią terroru w ZSRR, opartym na mnóstwie przykładów wykładem o sile socjotechniki i propagandy oraz mechanizmów uwodzenia przez ideologię.

Ale jest to też na szczęście opowieść o moralnej sile tych, którym cudem przeżyli i ich uporze w ujawnianiu prawdy. Choćby Gustawa Herlinga Grudzińskiego i Aleksandera Sołżenicyna, których „Inny świat" i „Archipelag Gułag" w połączeniu z tzw. tajnym referatem Chruszczowa, przyniosły Zachodowi otrzeźwienie.

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Jason Mattera - Obama Zombies, How the Liberal Mac hine Brainwashed My Generation (2010).jpg

In 2008, Barack Obama lobotomized a generation.

For an entire year, otherwise clear-thinking members of the most affluent, over-educated, information-drenched generation in American history fell prey to the most expensive, hi-tech, laser-focused marketing assault in presidential campaign history.

Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed.

Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire.

YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity.

All the while, the mega-money-raising engine whirred like a slot machine stuck on jackpot.

The result: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the most radical and untested president in U.S. history.

Recognized as one of the country’s top young conservative activists by Human Events, Jason Mattera created an internet sensation with ambush video interviews that exposed clueless young liberals and cunning Democratic officials. Now he reveals the jaw-dropping lengths Barack Obama and his allies in Hollywood, Washington, and Academia went to in order to transform a legion of iPod-listening, MTV-watching followers into a winning coalition that threatens to become a long-lasting political realignment.

Obama Zombies uncovers the true, behind-the-scenes story of the methods and tactics the Obama campaign unleashed on youth culture. Through personal interviews and meticulous original research, Mattera explains why conservatism’s future rests upon jolting the young masses from their slumber, yanking out their earphones, and sparking a countercultural conservative battle against the rise of the ignorant Left.

The lesson from 2008 is crystal clear: When true conservatives run away, Obama zombies come out to play.

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Stan Winer - Between the Lies, Rise of the Media-m ilitary-industrial Complex (2004).jpg

The Between the Lies by Stan Winer gives a devastating analysis of some key military and intelligence operations of modern times. On the basis of convincing research and first-hand observation, Winer identifies the replication in "peacetime" of wartime methods of news and information management. With unnerving clarity, the book unravels the story of how the management of public perceptions has served to transport many people into a safe moral universe of Good v Evil, uncomplicated by the moral dilemmas of the real world. Between the Lies shows that this real world is actually a morally questionable world. Various axes of evil straddle this morally questionable world, the exact centres of which depend entirely on where you are standing at any given time. And where you are standing is largely determined by the symbiotic relationship that exists between the media and the military-industrial complex. Between the Lies is concerned with the remarkable historical and institutional continuity of that relationship, and the way it feeds off prevailing heroic myths about war. If more British and American people knew about that relationship, they might not have supported their countries' infamous rush to invade Iraq. The book forces a reassessment of where humanity has been, where it is heading, and the role of media in allowing history to unfold in the certain way it has. To that end, Between the Lies shows how the British and American secret services went in for "news" management in a big way during World War II and the Cold War, and continues to do so in the "war against terrorism". Disinformation is a large part of their strategic capability, while official information agencies, functioning with almost limitless funds, are left to do as they please, against friend and foe alike - just so long as their leaders are free to deny it. If there are dark secrets to be kept or dirty deeds to be done, most lawmakers do not even want to know about them. Parliamentary and congressional oversight are essentially non-existent, and many reporters are more willing to collaborate with the secret services than expose their secrets.

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Stan Winer - Between the Lies, Rise of the Media-m ilitary-industrial Complex (2004).pdf

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Sarmatian duel.jpg

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Loren C. Steffy - Drowning in Oil, BP & the Reckle ss Pursuit of Profit (2010).jpg

As night settled on April 20, 2010, a series of explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, the immense semisubmersible drilling platform leased by British Petroleum, located 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The ensuing inferno claimed 11 lives, and it would rage uncontained for two days, until its wreckage sank to a final resting place nearly a mile beneath the waves. On the ocean floor, the unit's wellhead erupted. Over the next ten weeks, as repeated attempts to cap the geyser failed, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil—the equivalent of 20 Exxon Valdez spills—spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, eventually lapping up on beaches as far away as Florida.

Drowning in Oil, by award-winning Houston Chronicle business reporter and columnist Loren Steffy—considered by many to be the writer with the best access to the story—is an unprecedented and gripping narrative of this catastrophe and how BP's winner-take-all business culture made it all but inevitable.

Through never-before-published interviews with BP executives and employees, environmental experts, and oil industry insiders, Steffy takes us behind the scenes of 100 years of BP corporate history. Beginning with the conglomerate's early gambits in the Middle East to its recent ascent among energy titans, Steff unearths the roots of the Gulf oil spill in the unwritten bargain between oil producers and consumers, whose insatiable appetites drive the search for new supplies faster, farther, and deeper.

Beyond this, the Deepwater Horizon disaster took place after a history of cost cutting in pursuit of profits, particularly under the guidance of its two most recent ex-CEOs, John Browne and Anthony Hayward.

Exhaustively researched and documented, Drowning in Oil is the first in-depth examination of how a lack of corporate responsibility and government oversight led to the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. It is an objective, no-punches-pulled account of the energy industry: its environmental impact and the intense competition among stakeholders in today's oil markets.

This book puts all the pieces together, offering a definitive account of BP's pursuit of outsized profits as the industrial world awakens to the grim realities of Peak Oil.

"They fumbled around the darkened room and found an instruction manual. By flashlight, they read the starting procedures. They were doing everything right. After five or six futile tries, they gave up and headed back toward the bridge. Back on the bridge, alarms were shrieking and the captain knew they were running out of time. The subsea engineer had hit the emergency disconnect for the well, and although the control panel showed the rig should be free, it wasn't. The hydraulics were dead. Fire continued to shoot from the top of the derrick. The rig had no power, and without power, it had no pumps for the firefighting equipment, no way to shut off the flow of gas from the well, and no way to disconnect the rig from the flaming umbilical that had it tethered to the wellhead." —from Drowning in Oil

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Loren C. Steffy - Drowning in Oil, BP & the Reckle ss Pursuit of Profit (2010).pdf

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Mary Jo Devaland - China's Economic Policy Impact on the United States (2008).jpg

Since the initiation of economic reforms in 1979, China has become one of the world's fastest-growing economies. From 1979 to 2007 China's real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 9.8%. Real GDP grew 11.4% in 2007 (the fastest annual growth since 1994). While China is expected to continue to enjoy rapid economic growth in the years ahead and could become the world's largest economy within a decade or so, it faces a number of challenges, including widespread corruption, an inefficient banking system, over-dependence on exports and fixed investment for growth, pollution, widening income disparities, and growing inflationary pressures. The Chinese government has indicated that it intends, over the coming years, to create a 'harmonious society' that would promote more balanced economic growth and address a number of economic and social issues. Trade and foreign investment continues to play a major role in China's booming economy. From 2004 to 2007, the value of total Chinese merchandise trade nearly doubled. In 2007, China's exports (at $1,218 billion) exceeded U.S. exports (1,162 billion) for the first time. China's imports were $956 billion and its trade surplus was $262 billion (a historic high). Well over half of China's trade is conducted by foreign firms operating in China. The combination of large trade surpluses, foreign direct investment flows, and large-scale purchases of foreign currency have helped make China the world's largest holder of foreign exchange reserves at $1.5 trillion at the end 2007. China's economy continues to be a concern to many U.S. policymakers. On the one hand, U.S. consumers, exporters, and investors have greatly benefited from China's rapid economic and trade growth. On the other hand, the surge in Chinese exports to the United States has put competitive pressures on various U.S. industries. Many U.S. policymakers have argued that China often does not play by the rules when it comes to trade and they have called for greater efforts to pressure China to fully implement its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments and to change various economic policies deemed harmful to U.S. economic interests, such as its currency policy, its use of subsidies to support state-owned firms, trade and investment barriers to U.S. goods and services, and failure to ensure the safety of its exports to the United States. Concerns have also been raised over China's rising demand for energy and raw materials, its impact on world prices for such commodities, increased pollution levels, and efforts China has made to invest in energy and raw materials around the world, including countries (such as Iran, North Korea, and Sudan) where the United States has political and human rights concerns. This book provides an overview of China's economic development, challenges China faces to maintain growth, and the implications of China's rise as a major economic power for the United States.

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Mary Jo Devaland - China's Economic Policy Impact on the United States (2008).pdf

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Arthur W. Hunt III - The Vanishing Word, The Vener ation of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World (2 003).jpg

The truth about our culture and the dangers of a subtle overdose of celebrity worship, visual images, and watered-down worship

Sounds blare and pictures flash frantically across the screen. This may seem to be an accurate description of every commercial aired on TV, but such commercials are actually symptomatic of a much more important cultural shift.

Arthur Hunt argues that there is a conceptual transformation taking place today, as we move from an emphasis on the "word" to the predominance of the 'image".
Hunt focuses on the contrast between a Judeo-Christian heritage, characteristically word-dependentâ€”and paganism, typically image-dependent. As people trust experience and visual representations to interpret their surroundings, they focus less on content and more on sensory appeal.
Hunt argues that movements like the Protestant Reformation, Puritanism, and the beginnings of the American nation were all created and sustained in an environment that transmitted its ideas through words, while historical shifts to emphasize image have occurred during periods like the Dark Ages. As the word, both written and spoken, is devalued, there is a renewed descent into paganism.

A wide range of issues ”education, politics, entertainment, postmodernism" are brought together in an incisive, illuminating way. This book examines trends in today's culture and churches that lead away from a word-centered world and into an image-soaked world ripe for propaganda and a demagogue.

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Arthur W. Hunt III - The Vanishing Word, The Vener ation of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World (2 003).pdf

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Johan Söderberg - Hacking Capitalism, The Free and Open Source Software Movement (2008).jpg

Różne - Johan Sderberg - Hacking Capitalism, The Free and Open Source Software Movement 2008.jpg

Is open source software provocative to capitalism because it is free, or because it is authored in a way that subverts the labor-wage-consumption relations that are so central to Post-Fordist capitalism?

This is the central question taken up in "Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement" (Routledge, 2008) by Johan Soderberg. He comes down on the side of the latter, arguing specifically that the hacker movement has replaced the increasingly ineffective labor struggle with a new form of struggle: play struggle. "Resistance has here become a game" (183).

Soderberg has a knack for interdisciplinarity, traversing a vast terrain of historical, technical, and theoretical material without sacrificing depth in any particular area. Hacking Capitalism is the sort of thought-heavy book that you read slowly, not because it is inaccessible or esoteric, but because it is appropriately dense and informative, and you want to both take in every word and enjoy the read.

Soderburg also has a knack for framing theoretical work in larger discourses and contextualizing it in history, which makes the book a useful resource for students seeking a broader understanding of Marxist and NeoMarxist thought in general.

The bulk of Hacking Capitalism is an overview of the usual suspects in NeoMarxist critiques of capitalism - deskilling & alienation of labor, excess commodification, and the cycle of production and consumption - but with a particular emphasis on the networked society and its impact on the labor struggle. Soderberg clearly believes that the underlying productive processes of hacking are more important than the products that result, or the methods of distribution. "It is not pirate sharing that makes peer-to-peer networks subversive, though, but the peer-to-peer labour relations of which this technology is an example" (123).

Pulling from a weatlh of examples - ranging from GNU/Linux to file sharing to fan fiction - Soderberg argues that the hacker movement is part of a larger revolt "against the boredom of commodified labour and needs satisfaction" (44).

In other words, living standards have improved enough (in developed nations) that workers, particularly middle class knowledge workers, no longer have an incentive to work harder to improve their living standards, or to participate in the antiquated labor struggle, and they are instead simply becoming bored with work. The expression of this boredom, for Soderberg, is play struggle. Noting that scholars frequently fixate on the question of hacker's incentives - "What drives hackers to write code when there are no direct economic incentives for them to do so?" - Soderberg dismisses the very idea that hackers are motivated by the market: "All of that is invalidated once we start taking play seriously" (165).

As Soderberg's first book, Hacking Capitalism is clearly paving the way for future research, and he admits as much from the beginning, dedicating his book to those "who make something new and interesting with it." Viewed in those terms, the book is certainly a success, but it is not without its limitations. Two, in particular, stood out to me.

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Johan Söderberg - Hacking Capitalism, The Free and Open Source Software Movement (2008).pdf

First, the term "hacker," so central to the book, is loosely defined and inconsistently used. Soderberg discusses both the libertarian and anarchist tendencies of early hackers and, more recently, content pirates, as well as the distinctly non-libertarian perspectives of the Creative Commons, but he fails to either distinguish between these perspectives or justify grouping them together. He invokes Pekka Himanen's "hacker spirit" as an umbrella term for a wide variety of activities, but neglects to pin the term down. While he correctly observes that "no-one can represent the hacker community since there are no clear borders" (179), the lack of precision in defining the boundaries of his own object of study hurts the overall argument.

Second, Soderberg's primary topic, his theory of play struggle, occupies only a liminal place in his book (though traces of it persist throughout). I felt, as a reader, that I spent the majority of the book anticipating his ultimate argument, rather than experiencing and understanding it. In the closing chapter, I felt a rising sense of panic as the final pages slipped past too quickly, without enough depth to satisfy me, and I closed the book with a touch of disappointment. Perhaps Soderberg was wary of overstating the significance of the "hacker spirit", and opted to conservatively understate it instead.

However, despite these criticisms, my overall opinion of the book is that it is a phenomenally well-written and invaluable resource, particular to young scholars like myself. Hacking Capitalism is a must read for anyone doing research on hacktivism, the commons, the information economy, the future of technology, and any topic that starts with "free," "open," or "hack."

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Osprey - Warrior 151 - Stephen Turnbull - Samurai Women 1184-1877 (2010).jpg

From when the Empress Jingo-kogo led an invasion of Korea while pregnant with the future Emperor Ojin, tales of female Japanese warriors have emerged from Japan’s rich history. Using material that has never been translated into English before, this book presents the story of Japan’s female warriors for the first time, revealing the role of the women of the samurai class in all their many manifestations, investigating their weapons, equipment, roles, training and belief systems. Crucially, as well as describing the women who were warriors in their own right, like Hauri Tsuruhime and the women of Aizu, this book also looks at occasions when women became the power behind the throne, ruling and warring through the men around them.

Contents
* Introduction
* Chronology Appearance and dress
* The roles of the samurai woman in peacetime
* The samurai woman in times of war
* The samurai woman on the battlefield
* Collecting
* Museums
* Re-enactment
* Bibliography
* Glossary
* Index

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Zbigniew Lalak, Andrzej Kamiński - Artyleria samob ieżna w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych 1940-1945 (2006).jpg

In Polish with English summary and under photos titles.

Książka zawiera bardzo dużo zdjęć, rysunki oraz plansze barwne. Opisuje: 105 mm HMC M7, 75 mm GMC M3, M16 MGMC M10, 17-prd. M10 SP, Valentine, 17-pdr. SP Archer, 25-pdr. RAM Carrier, Crusader III AA Mk.III, Carrier, SP,4x4,40 mm AA(Bofors) Morris-Commercial C9/B.

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Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej; vol. I - Zbigniew Lalak - Broń pancerna w PSZ 1939-194 5, Organizacja i Struktura (2005).jpg

Różne - Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej vol. I - Zb... pancerna w PSZ 1939-1945, Organizacja i Struktura 2005.jpg

Pierwsza część Leksykonu sił zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej jest poświęcona broni pancernej w PSZ w latach 1939-1945.

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Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej; vol. I - Zbigniew Lalak - Broń pancerna w PSZ 1939-194 5, Organizacja i Struktura (2005).pdf

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Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej; vol. II - Zbigniew Lalak - Broń pancerna w LWP 1943-19 45, Organizacja i Struktura (2005).jpg

Różne - Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej vol. II - Z...ń pancerna w LWP 1943-1945, Organizacja i Struktura 2005.jpg

Książka stanowi drugą część Leksykonu sił zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej. Opisuje organizację i strukturę broni pancernej w LWP w latach 1943-1945.

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Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej; vol. III - Zbigniew Lalak, Andrzej Kamiński - Kawaleri a Pancerna w PSZ 1940-1945, Organizacja i Struktur a (2006).jpg

Różne - Leksykon Sił Zbrojnych w II Wojnie Światowej vol. III - ...a Pancerna w PSZ 1940-1945, Organizacja i Struktura 2006.jpg

W książce przedstawiono rozwój organizacyjny jednostek kawalerii we Francji, Wielkiej Brytanii oraz na Bliskim Wschodzie. Szczegółowo omówiono powstanie Pułku Ułanów Karpackich, 10. Pułku Strzelców Konnych, 14. Pułku Ułanów Jazłowieckich, 9. Pułku Ułanów Małopolskich, 12. Pułku Ułanów Podolskich, 15. Pułku Ułanów Poznańskich, 25. Pułku Ułanów Wielkopolskich, 7. Pułku Ułanów Lubelskich, 3. Pułku Ułanów Śląskich i 10. Pułku Huzarów. Pozycja ilustrowana jest 200 fotografiami, schematami organizacyjnymi oraz 58 kolorowymi schematami malowań czołgów i samochodów pancernych używanych w PSZ

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Nicholas Sammond - Babes in Tomorrowland, Walt Dis ney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-196 0 (2005).jpg

Linking Margaret Mead to the Mickey Mouse Club and behaviorism to Bambi, Nicholas Sammond traces a path back to the early-twentieth-century sources of "the normal American child." He locates the origins of this hypothetical child in the interplay between developmental science and popular media. In the process, he shows that the relationship between the media and the child has long been much more symbiotic than arguments that the child is irrevocably shaped by the media it consumes would lead one to believe. Focusing on the products of the Walt Disney company, Sammond demonstrates that without a vision of a normal American child and the belief that movies and television either helped or hindered its development, Disney might never have found its market niche as the paragon of family entertainment. At the same time, without media producers such as Disney, representations of the ideal child would not have circulated as freely in American popular culture.

In vivid detail, Sammond describes how the latest thinking about human development was translated into the practice of child-rearing and how magazines and parenting manuals characterized the child as the crucible of an ideal American culture. He chronicles how Walt Disney Productions' greatest creation--the image of Walt Disney himself--was made to embody evolving ideas of what was best for the child and for society. Bringing popular child-rearing manuals, periodicals, advertisements, and mainstream sociological texts together with the films, tv programs, ancillary products, and public relations materials of Walt Disney Productions, Babes in Tomorrowland reveals a child that was as much the necessary precursor of popular media as the victim of its excesses.

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Nicholas Sammond - Babes in Tomorrowland, Walt Dis ney and the Making of the American Child, 1930-196 0 (2005).pdf

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Eric Rauchway - The Great Depression and New Deal, A Very Short Introduction (2008).jpg

The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures.
Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies--described as "laissez-faire with a vengeance"--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history.

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Audiobook - Eric Rauchway - The Great Depression a nd New Deal, A Very Short Introduction (2008) Read by Richard Davidson (265m18s).mp3

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Steve Fainaru - Big Boy Rules, America's Mercenari es Fighting in Iraq (2008).jpg

There are tens of thousands of them in Iraq. They work for companies with exotic and ominous-sounding names, like Crescent Security Group, Triple Canopy, and Blackwater Worldwide. They travel in convoys of multicolored pickups fortified with makeshift armor, belt-fed machine guns, frag grenades, and even shoulder-fired missiles. They protect everything from the U.S. ambassador and American generals to shipments of Frappuccino bound for Baghdad’s Green Zone. They kill Iraqis, and Iraqis kill them.
And the only law they recognize is Big Boy Rules.
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter comes a harrowing journey into Iraq’s parallel war. Part MadMax, part Fight Club, it is a world filled with “private security contractors”—the U.S. government’s sanitized name for tens of thousands of modern mercenaries, or mercs, who roam Iraq with impunity, doing jobs that the overstretched and understaffed military can’t or won’t do.
They are men like Jon Coté, a sensitive former U.S. army paratrooper and University of Florida fraternity brother who realizes too late that he made a terrible mistake coming back to Iraq. And Paul Reuben, a friendly security company medic who has no formal medical training and lacks basic supplies, like tourniquets. They are part of America’s “other” army—some patriotic, some desperate, some just out for cash or adventure. And some who disappear into the void that is Iraq and are never seen again.
Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru traveled with a group of private security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day. He joined Jon Coté and the men of Crescent Security Group as they made their way through Iraq—armed to the teeth, dodging not only bombs and insurgents but also their own Iraqi colleagues. Just days after Fainaru left to go home, five men of Crescent Security Group were kidnapped in broad daylight on Iraq’s main highway. How the government and the company responded reveals the dark truths behind the largest private force in the history of American warfare. . . .

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George Sanford - Historical Dictionary of Poland ( 2003).jpg

The Historical Dictionary of Poland, Second Edition, strikes a judicious balance in covering past and contemporary figures in Poland's history, as well as its richly-textured political, social, and cultural dimensions. Revised and updated to include more than 150 new entries, this second edition now brings readers up to date on the many events that have taken place since the publication of the first edition.

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George Sanford - Historical Dictionary of Poland ( 2003).pdf

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Michael Clarke - Challenging Choices, Ideology, Co nsumerism and Policy (2010).jpg

Choice pervades our society, and for good reason. We live in a society founded on political rights to choose and in an economy based on market choices, but we have now reached an opposite extreme in which choice is extended almost everywhere. Choice has become an ideology: more is invariably seen as beneficial, and often as a solution to policy issues. This lively and topical book provides a critique of choice in contemporary society and policy, arguing that we can have too much of a good thing. A severe lack of choice frustrates and disadvantages us, and having choices empowers us, but constant extension of choice overwhelms us. And there are alternatives. In part one, the author shows how choice works at a personal level, its demands, and how it can fail to work at the personal and policy levels. By examining key policy issues such as healthcare, education and pensions, he then explores the alternatives to choice, such as provision. In part two the book reviews the impact of choice on us through the life cycle, identifying the demanding choices that are now required in respect of jobs and careers, relationships and fertility, retirement and death. From the trivial to the momentous, choices now dominate our lives to an extent that has dramatically increased in a short time. In a concise and readable style, the author considers whether this enhances or burdens our lives, and questions the blithe assumption that more choice is always for the better.

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Michael Clarke - Challenging Choices, Ideology, Co nsumerism and Policy (2010).pdf

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Aleksandr Travnikov - Kniga Kinzhalov (2010).jpg

Александр Травников - известный ученый, автор этой книги-исследования - собрал множество сведений о древнейшем оружии - кинжале, история развития которого насчитывает несколько тысячелетий.
Каждый представленный в книге кинжал реален и является коллекционным. Все образцы сфотографированы, измерены, взвешены, обмерены и дано их описание. По мнению автора книги, история оружия и боевых искусств - это во многом история кинжала, а одним из самых совершенных представителей данного вида оружия является боевой кавказский кинжал. Книга предназначена, для военных историков, музейных работников криминалистов, коллекционеров, а также для всех, кто интересуется историей оружия.

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