Download or read book Peddlers of Crisis written by Jerry Wayne Sanders and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes the U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviet Union.

Download or read book Reversing Course written by David Skidmore and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By probing beneath the obvious and carefully sifting the abundant but poorly understood evidence, Skidmore finds at the root of Carter's failed effort an irresistible pressure to reverse a liberal foreign-policy agenda in order to address the effect at home of well-organized conservative criticism.

Download or read book The Swamp Peddlers written by Jason Vuic and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida has long been a beacon for retirees, but for many, the American dream of owning a home there was a fantasy. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called "installment land sales industry" hawked billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded home site that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result was Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others—sprawling communities with no downtowns, little industry, and millions of residential lots. In The Swamp Peddlers, Jason Vuic tells the raucous tale of the sale of residential lots in postwar Florida. Initially selling cheap homes to retirees with disposable income, by the mid-1950s developers realized that they could make more money selling parcels of land on installment to their customers. These "swamp peddlers" completely transformed the landscape and demographics of Florida, devastating the state environmentally by felling forests, draining wetlands, digging canals, and chopping up at least one million acres into grid-like subdivisions crisscrossed by thousands of miles of roads. Generations of northerners moved to Florida cheaply, but at a huge price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; poorly-regulated development begat environmental destruction, culminating in the perfect storm of the 21st-century subprime mortgage crisis.

Download or read book U S vs Them written by J. Peter Scoblic and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenging, clear-eyed, and authoritative history of American conservatism and its grave effect on our country's foreign policy In this compelling and sometimes alarming analysis, J. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of The New Republic, traces the history of American foreign policy and how it has evolved from the Cold War conservatism of the 1950s to today. The belligerence, intransigence, and disinclination for diplomacy that mars the right wing once brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. More recently it has failed to meet the post-9/11 challenges posed by Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Scoblic argues forcefully that the only way to face these new threats practically and seriously is by adopting an approach exactly opposite to that suggested by conservatism. By diagnosing the origins of Bush's foreign policy, U.S. vs. Them illuminates the path to renewed American leadership in the twenty-first century as the most serious danger ever faced looms before us: nuclear terrorism.

Download or read book The Road to 9 11 written by Peter Dale Scott and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America."—Richard Falk, author of The Great Terror War "Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. The Road to 9/11 further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the central issue of our time—America's coming to terms with its behavior in the modern world. As in his past work, Scott's gift is not only recognition and wisdom but also redemption and rescue we simply cannot do without."—Roger Morris, former NSC staffer "The Road to 9/11 is vintage Peter Dale Scott. Scott does not undertake conventional political analysis; instead, he engages in a kind of poetics, crafting the dark poetry of the deep state, of parapolitics, and of shadow government. As with his earlier work Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Scott has no theory of responsibility and does not name the guilty. Rather, he maps out an alien terrain, surveying the topography of a political shadow land, in which covert political deviancy emerges as the norm. After reading Scott, we can no longer continue with our consensus-driven belief that our so-called 'liberal' order renders impossible the triumph of the politically irrational."—Eric Wilson, Senior Lecturer of Public International Law, Monash University, and co-editor of Government of the Shadows "Peter Dale Scott exposes a shadow world of oil, terrorism, drug trade and arms deals, of covert financing and parallel security structures-from the Cold War to today. He shows how such parallel forces of the United States have been able to dominate the agenda of the George W. Bush Administration, and that statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before, during and after September 11, 2001, present evidence for an American 'deep state' and for the so-called 'Continuity of Government' in parallel to the regular 'public state' ruled by law. Scott's brilliant work not only reveals the overwhelming importance of these parallel forces but also presents elements of a strategy for restraining their influence to win back the 'public state', the American democracy."—Ola Tunander, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo "A powerful study of the historic origins of the terrorist strikes of September 11, this book offers an indispensable guide to the gluttonous cast of characters who, since Watergate and the fall of Nixon, fashioned an ever more reckless American empire. By exposing the corrupt U.S. 'deep state'-transfer of public authority to America's wealthy and to the nation's unaccountable secret intelligence agencies-Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11 illuminates the path toward a more democratic and inclusive republic."—David MacGregor, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario "The Road to 9/11 provides an illuminating and disturbing history of the American government since World War II. Scott's account suggests that the 9/11 attacks were a culmination of long-term trends that threaten the very existence of American democracy, and also that there has been a massive cover-up of 9/11 itself. This book, which combines extensive research, perceptive analysis, and a fascinating narrative, will surely be considered Scott's magnum opus."—David Ray Griffin, author of Debunking 9/11 Debunking "'The America we knew and loved. Can it be saved?' That question opens this book, and getting to the answer called for the honed intellect of a scholar and the sensitivity of a poet. Peter Dale Scott has both, in spades, and here gives us much, much more than a book about 9/11. In a time of fear, he speaks for sanity and freedom."—Anthony Summers, author of The Arrogance of Power

Download or read book Hitting First written by William Walton Keller and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2006 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. war in Iraq was not only an intelligence failure—it was a failure in democratic discourse. Hitting First offers a critical analysis of the political dialogue leading up to the American embrace of preventive war as national policy and as the rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Taking as its point of departure the important distinction between preemptive and preventive war, the contributors examine how the rhetoric of policy makers conflated these two very different concepts until the public could no longer effectively distinguish between a war of necessity and a war of choice. Although the book focuses on recent events, Hitting First takes into consideration the broader historical, ethical, and legal context of current American policies. Precedents are examined for preventive military action based on conventional as well as nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons threats. The authors also consider recent examples of the rhetoric of “humanitarian intervention,” which have tended to undermine traditional notions of national sovereignty, making purportedly “morally justifiable” actions easier to entertain. Intelligence gathering and its use, manipulation, and distortion to suit policy agendas are also analyzed, as are the realities of the application of military force, military requirements to sustain a policy of preventive war, and post-conflict reconstruction. Hitting First presents a timely and essential view of the lessons learned from the failures of the Iraqi conflict, and offers a framework for avoiding future policy breakdowns through a process of deliberative public and governmental debate within a free market of ideas. The critiques and prescriptions offered here provide a unique and valuable perspective on the challenges of formulating and conduct of national security policy while sustaining the principles and institutions of American democracy. This collection will appeal to students and scholars of American foreign policy, international relations, political communication, and ethics.

Download or read book Bracing for Armageddon written by Dee Garrison and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bracing for Armageddon, Dee Garrison pulls back the curtain on the U.S. government's civil defense plans from World War II through the end of the Cold War. Based on government documents, peace organizations, personal papers, scientific reports, oral histories, newspapers, and popular media, her book chronicles the operations of the various federal and state civil defense programs from 1945 to contemporary issues of homeland security, as well as the origins and development of the massive public protest against civil defense from 1955 through the 1980s. At a time of increasing preoccupation over national security issues, Bracing for Armageddon sheds light on the growing distrust between the U.S. government and its subjects in postwar America.

Download or read book A Shuddering Dawn written by Ira Chernus and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1989-08-17 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the symbolic meanings of the Bomb, this book excavates the "depth dimension" of the nuclear age. Rather than adding to the many ethical commentaries asking whether or not there should be nuclear weapons, the authors ask why there are nuclear weapons and a continuing arms race. They also address the kinds of symbolic changes that must occur in order to reverse the build-up of nuclear weapons. The authors approach these questions from the perspective of academic research, not from particular faith commitments, asking the reader to envision different human responses to this technology, human stances that can be illuminated by the creative insight of religious studies.

Download or read book James B Conant written by James G. Hershberg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the giants of the American establishment in the twentieth century. President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, he was also a scientist who led the US government's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction, and his story mirrors the transition of the United States from isolationism to global superpower at the dawn of the nuclear age. 'This splendid portrait of Conant ... illuminates the life of a pivotal figure in the making of US nuclear, scientific, educational, and foreign policy for almost half a century. But the book is much more: it is not only an insightful narration of Conant's life, it is also a brilliant and important account of the making of the nuclear age, a chronicle that contains much that is new.' TheWashington Post 'The bomb would be as much Conant's as it was anyone's in government. His inner response to that burden of responsibility has long been obscured, but it is illumined here ... This is a model of historiography that is evocative reading.' The New York Times Book Review 'Vibrantly written and compelling, it breaches Conant's shield of public discretion in masterly fashion ...

Download or read book The Neoconservative Revolution written by Murray Friedman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book which will come as a surprise to many educated observers and historians suggests that Jews and Jewish intellectuals have played a considerable role in the development and shaping of modern American conservatism. The focus is on the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists known as neoconservatives who began to impact on American public policy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and most recently in the lead up to and invasion of Iraq. It presents a portrait of the life and work of the original and small group of neocons including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Sidney Hook. This group has grown into a new generation who operate as columnists in conservative think tanks like The Heritage and The American Enterprise Institute, at colleges and universities, and in government in the second Bush Administration including such lightning rod figures as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams. The book suggests the neo cons have been so significant in reshaping modern American conservatism and public policy that they constitute a Neoconservative Revolution.

Download or read book The Suburban Crisis written by Matthew D. Lassiter and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Most accounts of post-1950s political history tell the story of of the war on drugs as part of a racial system of social control of urban minority populations, an extension of the federal war on black street crime and the foundation for the "new Jim Crow" of mass incarceration as key characteristics of the U.S. in this period. But as the Nixon White House understood, and as the Carter and Reagan administrations also learned, there were not nearly enough urban heroin addicts in America to sustain a national war on drugs. This book argues that the long war on drugs has reflected both the bipartisan mandate for urban crime control and the balancing act required to resolve an impossible public policy: the criminalization of the social practices and consumer choices of tens of millions of white middle-class Americans constantly categorized as "otherwise law-abiding citizens."" That is, the white middle class was just as much a target as minority populations. The criminalization of marijuana - the white middleclass drug problem - moved to the epicenter of the national war on drugs during the Nixon era. White middle-class youth by the millions were both the primary victims of the organized drug trade and excessive drug war enforcement, but policymakers also remained committed to deterring their illegal drug use, controlling their subculture, and coercing them into rehabilitation through criminal law. Only with the emergence of crack cocaine epidemic of the mid-1980s did this use of state power move out of suburbs and remgaged more dramatically in urban and minority areas. This book tells a history of how state institutions, mass media, and grassroots political movements long constructed the wars on drugs, crime, and delinquency through the lens of suburban crisis while repeatedly launching bipartisan/nonpartisan crusades to protect white middle-class victims from perceived and actual threats, both internal and external. The book works on a national, regional, and local level, with deep case studies of major areas like San Francisco, LA, Washington, and New York. This history uses the lens of the suburban drug war to examine the consequences when affluent white suburban families serve as the nation's heroes and victims all at the same time, in politics, policy, and popular culture"--

Download or read book Freedom s War written by Scott Lucas and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Under the Eagle s Claw written by Jon Kofas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-10-30 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The record shows that the United States often acts as if it has license to disregard the sovereign rights of other peoples and nations. Kofas argues the United States has used Greece as a means of satisfying its own interests for the past half-century, and that Greece has suffered mightily at the hands of its protector. The United States has deemed this strategically situated nation too important to its own geopolitical ambitions to allow it to realize the democratic freedoms so often espoused. Because of U.S. pressure, Greeks have been subjected to authoritarian regimes and have carried huge military budgets that have significantly weakened social programs. Kofas shows that Greece's own domestic and international interests were consistently subordinated to America's.

Download or read book Toward Nuclear Abolition written by Lawrence S. Wittner and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final volume in the trilogy "The Struggle Against the Bomb", this book presents the inspiring and dramatic story of how citizen activists helped curb the arms race and prevent nuclear war.

Download or read book American Studies written by Janice A. Radway and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-03-09 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Studies is a vigorous, bold account of the changes in the field of American Studies over the last thirty-five years. Through this set of carefully selected key essays by an editorial board of expert scholars, the book demonstrates how changes in the field have produced new genealogies that tell different histories of both America and the study of America. Charts the evolution of American Studies from the end of World War II to the present day by showcasing the best scholarship in this field An introductory essay by the distinguished editorial board highlights developments in the field and places each essay in its historical and theoretical context Explores topics such as American politics, history, culture, race, gender and working life Shows how changing perspectives have enabled older concepts to emerge in a different context

Download or read book Rising Wind written by Brenda Gayle Plummer and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African Americans have a long history of active involvement and interest in international affairs, but their efforts have been largely ignored by scholars of American foreign policy. Gayle Plummer brings a new perspective to the study of twentieth-century American history with her analysis of black Americans' engagement with international issues, from the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 through the wave of African independence movements of the early 1960s. Plummer first examines how collective definitions of ethnic identity, race, and racism have influenced African American views on foreign affairs. She then probes specific developments in the international arena that galvanized the black community, including the rise of fascism, World War II, the emergence of human rights as a factor in international law, the Cold War, and the American civil rights movement, which had important foreign policy implications. However, she demonstrates that not all African Americans held the same views on particular issues and that a variety of considerations helped shape foreign affairs agendas within the black community just as in American society at large.

Download or read book Business And The State In International Relations written by Ronald W Cox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the traditional notion that state officials act autonomously in formulating and implementing international policy, the contributors to this volume argue that the influence of organized business groups has been consistently underestimated in recent decades. Each uses a "business conflict" model of state-society relations as a new paradig