01 - USA - monroeville - Chomikuj.pl, Strona 382

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W. James Popham - America's Failing Schools, How P arents and Teachers Can Cope With No Child Left Be hind (2004)(1).jpg

01 - USA - W. James Popham - Americas Failing Schools, How Parent... and Teachers Can Cope With No Child Left Behind 20041.jpg

In June 2004, millions of parents and teachers across the United States will receive report cards in the mail alerting them that their local schools have "failed". For many Americans, this will be the first introduction to President Bush's controversial No Child Left Behind legislation, which calls for expanded student testing, more stringent accountability requirements, and annual school-focused report cards at the state, district, and school levels. The legislation ties substantial federal funds for disadvantaged students--which many schools have already been receiving for almost four decades--to performance requirements dictated by the new legislation.
But will these report cards be accurate? In America's "Failing" Schools, W. James Popham provides parents and teachers explanations of No Child Left Behind as a whole, walking them through the implications for standardized testing in particular, in language that is uncomplicated and straightforward. Popham offers definitions of the law andits key terms, explanations of what it really means when a school is labeled "failing," and concrete suggestions for what can be done in response.
Because parents with children in failing schools will have the heretofore rare option of transferring their children to other, non-failing schools, they will need to understand why a "failing" school may actually still be a good school. Similarly, the teachers and administrators at both failing and passing schools need to know whether their school's label was truly deserved, and how to bring about the changes required by the new legislation.
Whether parent, teacher, administrator, or involved citizen, anyone concerned with the state of education in the U.S. will want to read America's "Failing" Schools.

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W. James Popham - America's Failing Schools, How P arents and Teachers Can Cope With No Child Left Be hind (2004)(1).pdf

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Alan Wolfe - Does American Democracy Still Work (2 006).jpg

The past few decades have brought a shift in the nature of American democracy—an alarming shift that threatens such liberal democratic values as respect for pluralism, acceptance of the separation of powers, and recognition of the rights of opposition parties. In this insightful book, political scientist Alan Wolfe identifies the current political conditions that endanger the quality of our democracy. He describes how politics has changed, and he calls for a democracy protection movement designed to preserve our political traditions not unlike the environmental protection movement’s efforts to safeguard the natural world.
Voters who know little about issues, leaders who bend rules with little fear of reprisal, and political parties that are losing the ability to mobilize citizens have all contributed to a worrisome new politics of democracy, Wolfe argues. He offers a brilliant analysis of how religion and morality have replaced political and economic self-interest as guiding principles, and how a dangerous populism promotes a radical form of elitism. Without laying blame on one party or ideology and without claiming that matters will improve with one party or the other in office, Wolfe instead suggests that Americans need to understand the danger their own indifference poses and take political matters more seriously.

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Alan Wolfe - Does American Democracy Still Work (2 006).pdf

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Jarol B. Manheim - War and the Out-of-Power Elite, The Progressive-Left Attack on the Corporation ( 2004).jpg

This book tells the fascinating story of the reemergence of the American political left over the last quarter century in the form of the new Progressive Movement. Born out of Liberalism's crushing defeats at the hands of conservative strategists of the Reagan/Bush era, this new movement has cleverly reverse engineered the conservative's institutional networking strategy to plan and finance its resurgence. Progressive strategists have constructed an elaborate network of foundations, advocacy groups, and other institutions to advance their agenda. But where the conservatives relied on affirmative corporate support to help power their movement, the Progressive Left has used an anti-corporate strategy whose purpose is three-fold:
1. To reclaim the moral high ground of politics by challenging corporate power and influence.
2. To gain effective control over other people's money (e.g., pension funds, mutual funds) and use it to press for changes in corporate social policies.

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The New York Observer - The Kingdom of New York, K nights, Knaves, Billionaires, and Beauties in the City of Big Shots (2009).jpg

01 - USA - The New York Observer - The Kingdom of New York, Knight...llionaires, and Beauties in the City of Big Shots 2009.jpg

For the last two decades, The New York Observer has documented the Platinum Age of New York, when the city's new elite rose and dominated society, media, business, and culture with an amusing arrogance that redefined the power capital of the world. The Kingdom of New York jauntily chronicles the Rise and Fall and Rise of New York City, as personified by the protagonists and antagonists of the past twenty years, told in archival pastiche—a breathtaking sprint of headlines, great reporting, witty writing, and stories in fashion, ideas, real estate, style, media, movies, politics, sex, and finance.

All of New York's major players are here—including Bill and Hillary, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, Graydon Carter, Katie Couric, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Tina Fey, J. Lo, Seinfeld, Tina Brown, Anderson Cooper—as well as essays by Cynthia Ozick, Gay Talese, Woody Allen, and Martin Scorsese. Here, too, are many of the country's finest journalists reporting on the high opulence of the 1990s; the wry irony of the Seinfeld years; the poignant loss of John Kennedy Jr.; and the inconceivable assault of September 11, 2001, and New York's rallying return. Among it all are signature features—from Candace Bushnell's "Sex and the City" columns as they initially appeared to the couples counseling of "George and Hilly"—as the Observer grew into one of the city's most influential papers.

Handsomely designed and filled with the paper's trademark attention to politics, status, and wealth, this is a rollicking insider's account of contemporary New York. At once wickedly funny and astute, The Kingdom of New York is a striking tribute to an unforgettable era in the city's history.

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Susan Delson - Dudley Murphy, Hollywood Wild Card (2006).jpg

Dudley Murphy (1897–1968) was one of early Hollywood’s most intriguing figures. Active from the 1920s through the 1940s, Murphy was one of the industry’s first independents and a guiding intelligence behind some of the key films in early twentieth-century cinema. In the first full-length biography of Murphy, author Susan Delson gives full rein to an American original whose life was as audacious as his films. As expertly chronicled here, Murphy caromed between film and the other arts, between Hollywood and other cultural capitals—Greenwich Village, Harlem, London, and Paris—hobnobbing with some of the era’s leading cultural figures, including Ezra Pound, Man Ray, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Chaplin, and leaving many a scandal in his wake. With artist Fernand Léger, Murphy made Ballet mécanique, one of the seminal works of avant-garde film. He directed Bessie Smith in her only film appearance, St. Louis Blues, and Paul Robeson in The Emperor Jones. He had a hand in shaping Tod Browning’s Dracula, gave Bing Crosby one of his first film appearances, and collaborated with William Faulkner in attempting to bring one of the author’s most challenging novels to the screen. Murphy also turned out forgettable Hollywood fodder like Confessions of a Co-Ed and Stocks and Blondes, and ended his career making melodramas in Mexico. Delson pays close attention to Murphy’s cinematic style, which favored visual play over narrative and character, and she offers provocative new insights into his two most important works, Ballet mécanique and The Emperor Jones. A lively portrait, Dudley Murphy, Hollywood Wild Card provides a fascinating perspective on the evolution of the classical Hollywood aesthetic, the development of the film industry, and the century’s broader cultural currents. Susan Delson is based in New York and writes frequently about film, art, and history.

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Zander Brietzke - American Drama in the Age of Fil m (2007).jpg

Is theater really dead? Does the theater, as its champions insist, really provide a more intimate experience than film? If so, how have changes in cinematic techniques and technologies altered the relationship between stage and film? What are the inherent limitations of representing three-dimensional spaces in a two-dimensional one, and vice versa? American Drama in the Age of Film examines the strengths and weaknesses of both the dramatic and cinematic arts to confront the standard arguments in the film-versus-theater debate. Using widely known adaptations of ten major plays, Brietzke seeks to highlight the inherent powers of each medium and draw conclusions not just about how they differ, but how they ought to differ as well. He contrasts both stage and film productions of, among other works, David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, Sam Shepard’s True West, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Margaret Edson’s Wit, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. In reading the dual productions of these works, Brietzke finds that cinema has indeed stolen much of theater’s former thunder, by making drama more intimate, and visceral than most live events.But theater is still vital and matters greatly, Brietzke argues, though for reasons that run counter to many of the virtues traditionally attributed to it as an art form, such as intimacy and spontaneity. Brietzke seeks to revitalize perceptions of theater by challenging those common pieties and offering a new critical paradigm, one that champions spectacle and simultaneity as the most, not least, important elements of drama.

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Owen Hurd - Chicago History for Kids, Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activitie s (2007).jpg

01 - USA - Owen Hurd - Chicago History for Kids, Triumphs and Trag...ragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activities 2007.jpg

From the Native Americans who lived in the Chicago area for thousands of years, to the first European explorers Marquette and Jolliet, to the 2005 Chicago White Sox World Series win, parents, teachers, and kids will love this comprehensive and exciting history of how Chicago became the third largest city in the U.S. Chicago’s spectacular and impressive history comes alive through activities such as building a model of the original Ferris Wheel, taking architectural walking tours of the first skyscrapers and Chicago’s oldest landmarks, and making a Chicago-style hotdog. Serving as both a guide to kids and their parents and an engaging tool for teachers, this book details the first Chicagoan Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the Fort Dearborn Massacre, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the building of the world’s first skyscraper, and the hosting of two World’s Fairs. In addition to uncovering Windy City treasures such as the birth of the vibrant jazz era of Louis Armstrong and the work of Chicago poets, novelists, and songwriters, kids will also learn about Chicago’s triumphant and tortured sports history.

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Owen Hurd - Chicago History for Kids, Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activitie s (2007).pdf

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Richard Panchyk - World War II for Kids, A History with 21 Activities (2002).jpg

Grade 5-7-In this introductory survey, Panchyk describes major events throughout the great conflict in nearly every theater of operation. While the main focus is on America's part in the war, life in England and other European countries is given careful attention. A special aspect of this work is the variety of informative activities appearing in substantial sidebars. Through them, readers can vicariously go on a reconnaissance mission, grow a victory garden, track a ship's movements using latitude and longitude, live on rations for a day, and experience other aspects of wartime life. Adult help and/or permission is suggested for many of the projects. One involves labeling alternate halves of a class of students with special armbands and simulating discrimination; teacher involvement is not mentioned in the instructions. Summarized or quoted first-person accounts by World War II participants are integral parts of this book, which also includes letters and journal entries by soldiers and civilians in both Allied and Axis countries. A large selection of black-and-white contemporary photographs and reproductions of such items as ration stamps and propaganda posters further contribute to the book's immediacy. Attention grabbers are a letter from former President Clinton, a short foreword by Senator John S. McCain, and an afterword by World War II veteran Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings.
Ann G. Brouse, Steele Memorial Library, Elmira, NY

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Richard Panchyk - World War II for Kids, A History with 21 Activities (2002).pdf

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Mary C. Turck - The Civil Rights Movement for Kids , A History with 21 Activities (2000).jpg

Grade 7 Up—The history and evolution of the court and how it works are discussed in the first chapter. Thematic sections follow, covering such topics as free speech, privacy, and civil rights, with significant decisions included. The cases are arranged chronologically, giving readers a sense of how the court's opinions have changed over time. Throughout, interviews with a variety of people involved in Supreme Court cases add to the text. They include former attorneys general, politicians, lawyers, and litigants. Some of the interviews contribute a wider perspective on issues, while others give personal insight into the case and the time period. The variety and arrangement of photos, drawings, posters, and news clippings add interest and help to break up the text into manageable chunks. Some of the activities are of dubious value ("Be a Court Stenographer"—court cases are now recorded, not typed), and others may be too time-consuming for many of today's standards-based, high-stakes-testing classrooms (electing a class Supreme Court and holding mock trials). All in all, though, this a solid work that makes a complex and important subject accessible to students.—Anthony C. Doyle, Livingston High School Library, CA

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Mary C. Turck - The Civil Rights Movement for Kids , A History with 21 Activities (2000).pdf

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Janis Herbert - The American Revolution for Kids, A History with 21 Activities (2002).jpg

Grade 4-6-Joining the ranks of those books recently published that combine history with crafts and hands-on activities, Herbert's book is one of the best of its kind. Reading it and doing some of the activities, or even just reading the activity directions, brings the character of this period into focus. Achieving a good balance between textual material, illustration, and projects, the book immerses children in the milieu of these years. The text discusses in detail the causes of the Revolution, the personalities involved, the formation of the new national government, and life in 18th-century America. The activities cover every aspect of revolutionary life, from making clothing, brewing root beer, and coding messages to battle reenactment, games, and dancing the minuet. The directions are detailed enough and adequately illustrated with pencil drawings to make them exciting and easy to follow. Short biographical sketches and portraits bring to life the notable people of the period, both male and female, European and American, and black and white. Numerous sidebars, such as the one analyzing the song "Yankee Doodle," add to the interesting details. Full-page art, as well as smaller illustrations, depict the battle scenes, people, and clothing of the day. The appendix includes the full text of the Declaration of Independence, four pages of thumbnail biographies, Revolutionary War sites to visit, and major Web sites. Whether they are studying the Revolution and need a project idea or are personally curious about this country's origins, children will be fascinated by the scope and detail of this book.
Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJ

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Janis Herbert - The American Revolution for Kids, A History with 21 Activities (2002).pdf

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Richard Panchyk - Our Supreme Court, A History wit h 14 Activities (2006).jpg

Grade 7 Up—The history and evolution of the court and how it works are discussed in the first chapter. Thematic sections follow, covering such topics as free speech, privacy, and civil rights, with significant decisions included. The cases are arranged chronologically, giving readers a sense of how the court's opinions have changed over time. Throughout, interviews with a variety of people involved in Supreme Court cases add to the text. They include former attorneys general, politicians, lawyers, and litigants. Some of the interviews contribute a wider perspective on issues, while others give personal insight into the case and the time period. The variety and arrangement of photos, drawings, posters, and news clippings add interest and help to break up the text into manageable chunks. Some of the activities are of dubious value ("Be a Court Stenographer"—court cases are now recorded, not typed), and others may be too time-consuming for many of today's standards-based, high-stakes-testing classrooms (electing a class Supreme Court and holding mock trials). All in all, though, this a solid work that makes a complex and important subject accessible to students.—Anthony C. Doyle, Livingston High School Library, CA

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Richard Panchyk - Our Supreme Court, A History wit h 14 Activities (2006).pdf

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Robert H. Bork - A Country I Do Not Recognize, The Legal Assault On American Values (2005).jpg

The growing legal threat to our sovereignty and values

During the past forty years, activists have repeatedly used the court system to achieve social and political change. On both the domestic and international fronts, they have accomplished substantive policy results that could not otherwise be obtained through the ordinary political processes of government both in the United States and abroad. In five insightful essays, the contributors to this volume show how these legal decisions have seriously undermined America's sovereignty and values.

The first essay details how the Supreme Court has taken the law out of the hands of the people and their elected representatives and used it to overthrow or undermine traditional values, customs, and practices through judge-made constitutional law that is divorced from the Constitution. The second contribution examines the legal principle of "universal jurisdiction"--which suggests that any state can define, proscribe, prosecute, and punish certain "international" criminal offenses, regardless of where the relevant conduct took place, or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims--and shows how it challenges the American people's authority over their own destiny. A third contribution looks at how the "new diplomacy" promoted by nongovernmental organizations worldwide seeks to alter the world's political power structure in a way that presents real threats to American sovereignty and values. Another essay takes on the current legal interpretation of a contrived "right to privacy" and reveals how it poses a serious threat to constitutional self-government. The book's final contribution looks at the Supreme Court's religion decisions and asserts that they have done serious damage to our religious freedom and helped make our country a far more secular society than ever before.

Robert H. Bork has served as solicitor general, acting attorney general of the United States, and a United States Court of Appeals judge. He is also a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute and the Tad and Dianne Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has been a partner in a major law firm and taught constitutional law at Yale Law School, and is the author of the best-selling The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law.

Contributors: Lee A. Casey, David Davenport, Terry Eastland, Lino A. Graglia, Gary L. McDowell, David B. Rivkin Jr

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Robert H. Bork - A Country I Do Not Recognize, The Legal Assault On American Values (2005).pdf

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Scott Bittle, Jean Johnson - Who Turned Out the Li ghts, Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis (2009).jpg

From the editors of PublicAgenda.org, an entertaining, irreverent, and absolutely essential nonpartisan guide to the energy crisisEnergy: It's a problem that never goes away (despite our best efforts as a nation to ignore it). Why has there been so much talk and so little action? In Who Turned Out the Lights? Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson offer a much-needed reality check: The "Drill, Baby, Drill" versus "Every Day Is Earth Day" battle is not solving our problems, and the finger-pointing is just holding us up.Sorting through the political posturing and confusing techno-speak, they provide a fair-minded, "let's skip the jargon" explanation of the choices we face. And chapters such as "It's All Right Now (In Fact, It's a Gas)" prove that, while the problem is serious, getting a grip on it doesn't have to be. In the end, the authors present options from the right, left, and center but take just one position: The country must change the way it gets and uses energy, and the first step is to understand the choices.

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John Cirafici - Airhead Operations, Where AMC Deli vers (1995).jpg

Airhead operations have been an important feature of modern warfare since Gen Francisco Franco, in 1936, air-landed his Moroccan forces in southern Spain during the opening phase of the Spanish Civil War. The concept gained currency during World War II, especially as an element of airborne operations. In that context it denoted an assault zone(s) employed during vertical envelopment maneuvers. In current usage airhead is defined in Joint Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, this way:
1. A designated area in a hostile or threatened territory which, when seized and held, ensures the continuous air landing of troops and materiel and provides the maneuver space necessary for projected operations. Normally it is the area seized in the assault phase of an airborne operation. 2. A designated location in an area of operations used as a base for supply and evacuation by air.1
Airhead has become a significant part of nearly all contingency operations. Operations Urgent Fury, Just Cause, Desert Shield/Storm, Restore Hope, among others, demonstrate the airhead's criticality in almost every phase of mission execution. It is, therefore, essential for potential participants in any contingency, be it a low-intensity conflict, humanitarian, or any other form of force projection, to possess a conceptual understanding of the airhead, as it applies to air mobility operations. This study educates and recommends, where needed, improvements in the conduct of air mobility airhead operations.

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John Cirafici - Airhead Operations, Where AMC Deli vers (1995).pdf

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Paul Varner - Historical Dictionary of Westerns in Cinema (2008).jpg

In the world of cinema, some things remain static and some things change. The Western was for a very long time a genre that remained static. In any given Western, it did not take long to identify the good guys and the bad guys; then after a bit of rousing action, the good guys beat the bad guys, righted various wrongs, and rode off into the sunset. At present, that sort of scenario is hardly imaginable and would not be very popular since it is no longer perceived as the real world. Nowadays the good guys have questionable characteristics, the bad guys often possess a streak of decency, and the cast of characters has broadened to include many who were previously nearly invisible. Women, gays, African Americans, and Native Americans finally appear as real people and not just convenient villains. These changes, which mirror changes in society, have given the Western a new lease on life, resulting in films that could not have been produced or conceived of in earlier decades.

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Paul Varner - Historical Dictionary of Westerns in Cinema (2008).pdf

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Robert E. Pearson - Critical Dictionary of Film an d Television Theory (2000).jpg

This new Dictionary is the first in-depth reference to cover the approaches deployed in the study of the moving image as well as defining key theoretical terms.
Featuring over 400 entries ranging from 500 to 3,000 words, this resource gives a context to the debates surrounding the terms rather than simplistic "definitions." The dictionary is destined to be a key reference for students of communication, media, film and cultural studies, art, design and literature.

Entries include:
180 degree rule * African American cinema * agit-prop * audience measurement * Baudrillard, Jean * Bhaba, Homi K. * bias * children and media * consumption * continuity editing * decoding/encoding * deconstruction * Deleuze and Guattari * diaspora * displacement * essentialism * expressionism * fetishism * film noir * formalism * Gaze, the * globalization * hermeneutics * high concept * horror * imaginary * infotainment * internet * Jakobson, Roman * jouissance * kino pravda * live television/live news * Lyotard, Jean-Francois * matching (shots) * McLuhan, Marshall * metanarrative * mise-en-scene * moral panics * narrative * news values * oppositional * pleasure * prime time * Public sphere * quiz shows * real time * reification * Sarris, Andrew * sci-fi films * sender/receiver * tabloid television * utopia/dystopia * verisimilitude * vertical integration * video, home * violence * virtual reality * watershed * western * and more...
Includes suggestions for further reading, cross-references and an extensive index.

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Robert E. Pearson - Critical Dictionary of Film an d Television Theory (2000).pdf

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Rodney P. Carlisle - The Early National Period and Expansion, 1783 to 1859 (2009).jpg

Encompassing the period leading up to the Civil War, the interval from 1783 to 1859 witnessed the newly implemented concept of a democratically organized state. The fast growth of the national economy gave rise to a new middle class not founded on pedigree while the acquisition of new territories provided many opportunities for immigrants to seek their fortunes. As the colonies expanded into a country, writers and artists began to describe a national character in their works. Above all, the institution of slavery overshadowed the country's daily and political life and the battle for its abolition began to divide communities. Characterized by social upheaval and moral reform, this period in modern American history preceded one of the most significant battles fought on American soil: the Civil War.

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Rodney P. Carlisle - The Early National Period and Expansion, 1783 to 1859 (2009).pdf

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Jan Coffey - The Deadliest Strain (2008).jpg

What can stand between America and a plague that devours human bodies from the inside out?
Cases of sudden, unexplained deaths—marked by rapid decomposition—are cropping up across the U.S. Their cause: a supermicrobe that causes flesh-eating disease so aggressive that victims die within an hour and infect dozens more.
Suspecting bioterrorists at work, Homeland Security is willing to bend any rule to find the source of the deadly infection, even if it means resurrecting a "dead" Iraqi biochemist, long held in a CIA ghost prison. The disease's unwitting creator risked her life trying to destroy it. Her sister tried, too, and landed in prison. But time is running out as they search for the one person who might hold the key.…

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