Book Description
Award–winning journalist David Batstone reveals the story of a new generation of 21st century abolitionists and their heroic campaign to put an end to human bondage. In his accessible and inspiring book, Batstone carefully weaves the narratives of activists and those in bondage in a way that not only raises awareness of the modern–day slave trade, but also serves as a call to action.
With 2007 bringing the 200th anniversary of the climax of the 19th century abolitionist movement, the world pays tribute to great visionary figures such as William Wilberforce of the United Kingdom and American Frederick Douglass for their remarkable strides toward framing slavery as a moral issue that people of good conscience could not tolerate. This anniversary serves not only as a commemorative date for battles won against slavery, but also as a reminder that slavery and bondage still persist in the 21st century. An estimated 27 million people around the globe suffer in situations of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Trafficking in people has become increasingly transnational in scope and highly lucrative. After illegal drug sales and arms trafficking, human trafficking is today the third most profitable criminal activity in the world, generating $31 billion annually. As many as half of all those trafficked worldwide for sex and domestic slavery are children under 18 years of age.
Customer Reviews:
Uncle Tom's Cabin for the twenty-first century.......2007-10-09
This is one of those books that makes you want TO DO SOMETHING. Every chapter is a story of a slave, their slave owner, and the person and persons who rescues them. There is too much information and too many statistics to remain unchanged after reading it.
There is a chapter on the invisible children in Uganda who are kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to kill the adults in their village. The younger girls are given as wives to the older boys. If you caught trying to escape you are gang murdered. Thank God for the work World Vision and other organizations are doing to rescue them! There are chapters about sex slaves who are transported to America and other countries to be prostitutes. This is a well researched book to a huge problem that must be addressed.
informative and inspiring.......2007-10-05
I became interested in the issue of human trafficking after I read a NY Times article titled, The Girls Next Door, by Peter Landesman, in 2004. It "broke my heart" and ever since then I have been looking for a way to help stop this terrible plague of injustice. In an effort to become informed, I read the Amazon reviews of all the books on this subject and ordered several. This one, Not For Sale, is fantastic!
It gives facts, which are not presented in an expoloitative, titillating way, but will still probably "break your heart" too. Besides the facts, there are also actual examples of many of the forms of human trafficking, from the sexual trade to child soldiers, and slave labor. Yes, people are still buying and selling slaves! And, yes, here in the United States, too!
But the best part is that this book gives you examples of people who are finding ways to stop this plague. And, it also gives you resources, such as the names of organizations where you can send donations, and websites that you can contact.
Right now this plague flourishes because it is mostly invisible, even though it is happening all around us. But, once we are informed, we will no longer be blind, and there will be no dark corners where this travesty can exist.
I read this book in one day (yesterday), then today, I ordered 16 more copies, which I am going to distribute in my personal effort to help the world become informed. Obviously, I highly recommend this book!
Great, informational book.......2007-10-01
This book was fantastic - it gave great detail as well as moving stories, and then provided plenty of information at the end on organizations who are fighting against this crisis. That way folks like me and you can have somewhere to start to get involved.
I really recommend that everyone read it. The events that are described are so heartbreaking and awful, but this is stuff we need to know. I feel that those of us who are blessed with freedom and various resources (education and or time, money, creativity, networks of friends, homes, etc.) have a duty to use what we've been given to help people trapped in slavery (or other negative situations. Otherwise we're really wasting our time. Read it and loan it to a friend!
BREAK THE CHAINS.......2007-09-03
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the scourge of human exploitation. As a volunteer for one of the ministries named in the book (NightLight), I personally have experienced how God breaks through and brings life and His light into the darkness of sexual exploitation. Perhaps you are called to be part of this rapidly growing abolitionist movement...are you a chainbreaker, an abolitionist, an emancipator?
"Not for Sale" presents the truth in an easy read that is NOT easy to forget or lay aside. It is a challenging message that grips your heart and mind. Slavery and human exploitation thrive in cultures of greed and domination - even in America. If you are moved by the book, purchase the dvd and become part of the Not for Sale campaign.
Together we can make a diference - JOIN THE MOVEMENT!
An outstanding book.......2007-05-16
As a literary critic for three national broadsheets in three continents (in addition to numerous magazines including Harper's Bazaar), I could not recommend this book more highly. Buy it.
Customer Reviews:
The truth and history of Islam.......2007-09-11
I found this book to be very informative about the history and truth behind Islam. The writer was a muslim and an active member of the PLO. His family background was high up in moslem leadership. In trying to convert his wife to Islam he compared the Koran with the Bible and was surprised to find facts about Islam in the Old Testament. It revealed to him that the god of Islam is not the same as the God of the Bible. He is now serving the one true God and as a result lost his family, property and is danger of losing his life.
Hearing real motivations and beliefs of Islam.......2007-08-15
With a left biased media, and politically correctness in vogue it is a warning to have realism plugged into the national consciousness. Mr. Shoebat's documentable evidences and his own personal experiences should serve as a wake up call to those who want to see Islam particularly and terrorists in general as being either maligned or misunderstood and should give a clear picture of the agenda at play in these camps. While there are "Muslum" individuals who don't participate or agree with the current agendas, those individuals are at odds with the written agendas and commandments of the Koran. People should read this and pass the book and the information and the evidences to others. In addition Mr. Shoebat addresses what it will take to change the hearts and minds of the people who are terrorizing the world as well as anyone who wishes to have a life that is salvaged for here and eternity.
Jan Rochester
Waiting now for his biography.......2007-07-25
Honest and humbling. This man has made the greatest effort by putting his life on the line for the sake of truth and his own peace of conscience. His writing is passionate as the subject obliges. We are talking of unreconcilable views of historical facts: what for some is white, for others will always be black; what for some is just, for others will be unjust. However, Mr. Shoebat does the noble task of carrying on with what his conscience tells him to do, and thus put his very important grain of sand into the public debate.
It is overwhelmingly encyclopedic in scope and detail. Does this make the book better or worse? As for being relevant and based on hard research and the author's first hand experiences, the book is priceless, intense, overwhelming. But if you are looking for a lighter read, a nice biography type of book this will not be it. Perhaps one day Mr. Shoebat can offer us that kind of book: a more easy read. As far as this one goes it is addressed to the doubtful, to the inquiring kind, the knowledgeable fellow who gets his info from various sources and likes to consider himself well-informed. I found it much more interesting when dwelling in personal experiences than when relating historic events from other sources and quotations.
Mr. Shoebat must be praised for his valiant testimony and personal exposure to muslim hatred, but I believe his contribution to spreading the message of love against hate would be better served with the writing of his biography. His personal testimony, if addressed to the more general public, could have a huge impact on the broader population. After all the "intellectuals" have pretty much made up their minds, and shut their eyes and hearts to the truth.
Why I Left Jihad.......2007-05-24
This timely book explores the reality of being a Muslim Arab coming of age in the hotly disputed West Bank. Mr Shoebat was exposed to virulent hatred of everything associated with Israel, and virtually nothing to the contrary, from early childhood to early manhood. It took the love of a good woman, and the Bible, to change his perspective on life.
EXCELLENT BOOK.......2007-05-14
Couldn't stop reading this book. Confirmed my thoughts on this subject, and explained this culture. Well worth reading!
Book Description
Today, some 80 nations can be described as fully democratic. Yet in numerous countries around the world, democracy has failed or is tottering, and in the United States its principles are increasingly under siege from corporate and other forces.
In What Would Jefferson Do? Thom Hartmann shows why democracy is not an aberration in human history but the oldest, most resilient, and most universal form of government, with roots in nature itself. He traces the history of democracy in the United States, identifies the most prevalent myths about it, and offers an inspiring yet realistic plan for transforming the political landscape and reviving Jefferson’s dream before it is too late.
Download Description
THOM HARTMANN is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, and the award-winning
author of fourteen books. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont, and can be found on the Internet at www.thomhartmann.com.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
A Clear point of View.......2007-09-25
It is not often that someone presents what appears to be a contrasting point of view (to what is common today) and then ACTUALLY HONESTLY, LOGICALLY, AND HISTORICALLY suports that position. This book does, it is a quick easy read and very informative. When finished, one would say, the author makes sense, and more should listen. After checking, Hartmann's data is factual and a realitively correct interpretation rather than snipits carefully chosen and not represenative of what Jefferson really intended. All citizens who are concerned with the politics of the day should read the book to get a different perspective, and understanding of what the founding fathers really said and wanted.
revere rides again.......2007-06-13
I'm a democratically elected union steward who maintains worker rights for no pay...I battle the "east india company" on a daily basis...books like yours give me hope that common sense is not dead. the tyrannical bottom line will not take our humanity nor our rights! I ask only that we forget not to be humane! The signatories of the declaration of independence were compelled by what was right and moral...and so we must be no matter how insignificant we deem ! I thank all the readers who care enough to increase their capacity to understand our founding principles! Bravo Thom !
Required Reading for New Citizens.......2007-04-07
Although I remember learning about the ideals of American's founders when I was in elementary school, it seems that children are no longer learning what Thom Hartmann so perfectly conveys in his book. This book should be required reading for every new citizen and for every new voter (as well as for a few million voters who seem to have forgotten what they learned in school).
interesting but not what i expected.......2007-01-10
expected more on jefferson but was mostly on his relationship with current mystics. still a good read.
Great easy reading lesson in democracy.......2006-11-04
We all should renew our history and realize not to take our democracy for granted. This is the book to get started!
Book Description
This highly acclaimed book offers a complete political history of East Central Europe from World War II to the present. Return to Diversity, now in its third edition, introduces a new co-author, Nancy M. Wingfield, and has been fully updated to cover events up through the 1990s. It includes an account and analysis of the developments in post-communist regimes throughout the region, addressing the transformation of each country during the first post-communist decade. It discusses coalition politics, ethnic discord, and issues of democratic development. This new edition features additional maps and extensively revised reading lists to reflect the most current scholarship in the field. Unsurpassed in scope, in depth of analysis, and in fairness and objectivity, Return to Diversity is an invaluable resource for students of this regions history and politics.
Customer Reviews:
tangled history.......2007-02-23
The tangled and often bloody history of eastern Europe is updated to include events after the end of the Cold War. Rothschild writes of the conflicting influences that drove events. Like the myriad nationalisms (Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Serb, Croat...) that were often suppressed under the Warsaw Pact. During the Cold War, these could often be neglected by analysts. Yet later, some would erupt into open tension or outright conflict. The latter being the Yugoslav Wars.
The book's title alludes to this suppressed diversity of heritages and ethnicities. It also contains material about the Cold War that only became available after its end.
Still the best survey of communist Eastern Europe out there.......2001-06-14
Rothschild's _Return To Diversity_ really is an outstanding classic (easily withstanding the cliched abuse of that label!). I have yet to see a better one-volume treatment of the postwar political history of Eastern Europe. Not that Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain's book is bad, just that Rothschild is richer and treats each country in more detail.
Rothschild does not deal with the Baltics or other republics of the former Soviet Union. He treats Poland, Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania in their respective sections in each chapter.
His introductory background chapters, one on the interwar period and an even longer one on WW II are excellent summaries, considering Rothschild has already written the classic on _East Central Europe between the Two World Wars_.
I used _Return to Diversity_ both as a student ten years ago, and recently to teach a course on the politics of Eastern Europe; I was very happy to find it still being published. Going back through it, I was amazed how consistently Rothschild treats each country on the topics of leadership politics, economic development, social relationships vis-a-vis each regime, the extent of opposition and civil society, and foreign relations. He did it so well that I was able to construct a one-page "grille" of essential, quick and dirty information to help students compare countries (after having them concentrate on two countries each).
Not only is this book perfect to catch students up on communist history in the most efficient way, I personally find it invaluable to verify basic facts and details quickly. Country specialists will, of course, need to look elsewhere for details for which surveys simply don't have the space.
The updated chapter on post-communist politics (presumably where most of Dr. Wingfield's contribution comes in) is good as far as it goes, but frankly, you'll find more thorough treatments of post-communist Eastern Europe elsewhere in more space than this volume has available.
Overall, this book is well worth the money and easily merits five stars. The style of writing may put some laypeople and students off, but the fact is that Rothschild writes very eloquently as an "old school" historian, and if it sometimes seems dry, it's because of all the information he managed to cram into it. I repeat, this book is the best survey of communist Eastern Europe out there, and will no doubt remain so for some time to come.
Amazon.com
Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa and produced My Traitor's Heart, which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on these pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage. This acclaimed book intends to illuminate South Africa's poisonous race relations under apartheid, and few books do it this well.
Book Description
A classic of literary nonfiction, My Traitor's Heart has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by readers around the world. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid, who fled South Africa after coming face-to-face with the atrocities and terrors of an undeclared civil war between the races. This book is the searing account of his return after eight years of uneasy exile. Armed with new insight and clarity, Malan explores apartheid's legacy of hatred and suffering, bearing witness to the extensive physical and emotional damage it has caused to generations of South Africans on both sides of the color line. Plumbing the darkest recesses of the white and black South African psyches, Malan ultimately finds his way toward the light of redemption and healing. My Traitor's Heart is an astonishing book -- beautiful, horrifying, profound, and impossible to put down.
Customer Reviews:
An insight into the tortured soul of a typical liberal wooftah.........2007-02-28
White liberal draft-dodger hard at work. He's a good writer and the book's a painful look into the heart of a white liberal. My admiration goes rather to those who fought to defend their country.... but it's an insight into the tortured soul of a typical liberal wooftah. Why people put themselves thru all this inner torment I have no idea - have a beer and get over it, bloke! If you'd just done your time in the armed forces like pretty much every other south african had to do instead of taking the chicken run, you wouldn;t be going thru all this turmoil.
memoirs of an Africaaner-1970-1990.......2006-02-24
Before a recent visit to S. Africa, this book was recommended as an introduction to the political climate in S. Africa, especially after Apartheid. This very personal account told by Rian Malan, whose ancestors were directly responsible for the formation of the Apartheid society, traces his teenage rebellion against Apartheid, his career as a liberal newspaper reporter and his ultimate rejection of the violence that the new government has spawned. Be prepared for graphic descriptions of violence committed by both whites and blacks.
A good introduction to the complicated history of S. Africa and leaves the reader with questions regarding the future of that sad country.
A Rare Look into the Afrikaner Mind..........2006-01-27
I really enjoyed this book, although I do have some problems with it. First and foremost I will recommend it because I think it offers amazing insight into the psychology of Afrikaners and should be read-by any serious student of South African History. It is a valid historical document in that sense, because it is an honest and well-written, and sometimes deeply moving, biographical account of a "liberal" Afrikaner who has to struggle with his progressive ideals and his residual prejudices.
Rian Malan is a fascinating individual who fully accepts the humanity of all his fellow men and loves people of all colors-but in a way he has also rather unapologetically bought into the idea of some deep and maybe unsurpassable "cultural differences" between "us and them". This involves repeating a traditional refrain about how outsiders "don't understand" how "they" really are. While I agree that outside observers tended to see things in only one dimension, I also think that Malan is somewhat won over to the colonial discourse of "Darkest Africa", that place where savagery reigns.
What about white savagery? Although Malan talks about some white atrocities and even explicitly says they are savage-e.g., a white man forces a black man to castrate himself at gunpoint and then flicks the testicles away with a stick-and although he suggests the Afrikaner is also "savage", he never seems to make this part of "white" South African character. It is always that the whites are acting from fear, because they are "swamped". But clearly the countless cases of white human rights atrocities cannot be attributed to fear. Somehow the violence of "natives" becomes assimilated to their "culture" in his mind-some ancient "African" culture outside observers can't understand, but white inhumanity, no matter how many instances of it there are, and there are countless, is not portrayed the same way, as an offshoot of "culture" that is somehow independent of environment. Whites are always granted a context for their actions; Zulus are simply doing things the way Zulus "always have".
Still, I do think it's a beautiful book in a number of ways, despite these serious flaws, and if you want to know how some Afrikaners think, I think this is a book to look at. I recently talked to a white South African and found his discourse to be similar to Malan's-talk of fear, talk of "strange cultural rites", talk of profound differences that are unbridgeable, upsetting things I generally disagree with, but this discourse is part of the white South African self-understanding. And although poverty and crime are very real in South Africa, I still believe that white South Africans often have a self-justifying ideology that simply refuses to look at what they've done to bring about the problems of modern South Africa and prefers to look at the problems they are faced with, as if they emerged from a vacuum. (Obviously, I'm not excusing anyone's violence of any kind here, just making a point).
This is only human that people prefer to avoid examining their own consciences, and Malan has more humanity, kindness, compassion and insight than most people do anywhere, but you will see what I mean about his essentializing of difference if you read the book, and you should. He loves these "native" men and women, he jokes with them, he finds some brilliant, and at the end of the book he accepts that he has to let go of his fear if he wants to move forward. But he has somewhat convinced me prior to these last pages that he isn't really ready to make that leap, and that his faith in building a new nation could be easily shattered, as of course it will be, if you think in terms of black and white.
Magnificent, brooding work.......2004-12-24
This book came out when I was working in South Africa. It explores in an uncompromising way two rival phenomena: the hopes of 'white liberalism' and some harsh realities of South Africa's 'African-ness' which many urban liberals at that point seemed to pretend either were not there or were somehow only a function of apartheid.
The passages on Creina Alcock, a 'white' South African who stepped far away from her background to live as a Zulu are are especially poignant, even stunning. I visited Creina in her remote hut on the strength of this book and was astonished by her courage and wisdom. Rian captures this extraordinary story in a moving if (for the average reader?) pessimistic way
This book has universalist insights for anyone interested in whether Civilisations really do Clash. Rian Malan was on to something very profound in this book. It is vivid and appalling in places, and not always easy reading. So what? These issues are as difficult as anything we face. Read it, lots of times.
Disturbing.......2004-02-29
This book is an investigation into the attitudes of a liberal who was raised in South Africa. In the book, Malan tells us that his original charge was to write the history of his racist ancestors, who were among the first Boer settlers in the region. But when Malan began his project, he found he needed to first explore and develop his own perspective on race in South Africa before he could begin. And once he began doing this, he never really got around to the history project.
The book is divided into 3 sections. In the first, Malan describes his own childhood and adolescence, leading up to his forced flight from South Africa, with a major focus on his youthful love for Blacks (especially in the abstract). The second part of the book details a number of violent murders that Malan investigated upon his return to South Africa in 1986 to write this book. In this section, Malan describes the intense violence that was occurring in South Africa at the time, and how all Whites, even doctors providing humanitarian services in the townships, became targets for Black rage. He also explores violence between rival Black political groups. In the closing section, Malan visits a White woman named Creina Alcock, who lived on the border of Msanga, a tribal homeland, where she and her husband had struggled to build a sustainable rural development project with the local Blacks. The woman was widowed after her husband was killed while trying to negotiate peace talks during a tribal disturbance in Msanga.
The book doesn't have a strong narrative thread- -instead it seems that Malan was trying to communicate some of his own confusion and ambivalence about racial questions by presenting so many stories and sides of the picture, and flipping rapidly from one to the next. The loose organization is effective to some degree; the reader slowly comes to understand the enormity and complexity of South Africa's problems. Yes, many Whites provoked anger from Blacks by their abominable behavior and laws. Blacks in turn responded with violence that was so overwhelming that even those Whites who tried as hard as they could to do the right thing were in mortal danger. And the worst and most senseless violence seemed to occur in Black communities that had no White involvement at all. The entire society was so focused on violence that as one White living on a farm in a rural area told Malan "The guy with the bigger stick wins." In closing with Creina Alcock's story, Malan tries to leave us with a little hope. He argues that Alcock's and her late husband's love for their community has made a marginal difference in the social structure, despite the ongoing attacks on them and thefts of their property by children they had adopted and raised as their own, and even the murder of Alcock's husband. With the infinitesimally small improvements that the Alcocks managed to make in their community by giving their entire lives over to the project, how many millions more Alcocks would it take to turn such a country around, and where might they come from?
Book Description
When a National Review colleague teased writer Rod Dreher one day about his visit to the local food co-op to pick up a week’s supply of organic vegetables (“Ewww, that’s so lefty”), he started thinking about the ways he and his conservative family lived that put them outside the bounds of conventional Republican politics. Shortly thereafter Dreher wrote an essay about “crunchy cons,” people whose “Small Is Beautiful” style of conservative politics often put them at odds with GOP orthodoxy, and sometimes even in the same camp as lefties outside the Democratic mainstream. The response to the article was impassioned: Dreher was deluged by e-mails from conservatives across America—everyone from a pro-life vegetarian Buddhist Republican to an NRA staffer with a passion for organic gardening—who responded to say, “Hey, me too!”
In Crunchy Cons, Dreher reports on the amazing depth and scope of this phenomenon, which is redefining the taxonomy of America’s political and cultural landscape. At a time when the Republican party, and the conservative movement in general, is bitterly divided over what it means to be a conservative, Dreher introduces us to people who are pioneering a way back to the future by reclaiming what’s best in conservatism—people who believe that being a truly committed conservative today means protecting the environment, standing against the depredations of big business, returning to traditional religion, and living out conservative godfather Russell Kirk’s teaching that the family is the institution most necessary to preserve.
In these pages we meet crunchy cons from all over America: a Texas clan of evangelical Christian free-range livestock farmers, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, homeschooling moms in New York City, an Orthodox Jew who helped start a kosher organic farm in the Berkshires, and an ex-sixties hippie from Alabama who became a devout Catholic without losing his antiestablishment sensibilities.
Crunchy Cons is both a useful primer to living the crunchy con way and a passionate affirmation of those things that give our lives weight and measure. In chapters dedicated to food, religion, consumerism, education, and the environment, Dreher shows how to live in a way that preserves what Kirk called “the permanent things,” among them faith, family, community, and a legacy of ancient truths. This, says Dreher, is the kind of roots conservatism that more and more Americans want to practice. And in Crunchy Cons, he lets them know how far they are from being alone.
A Crunchy Con Manifesto
1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.
6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
I found my voice.......2007-03-27
As a lifelong conservative Republican growing tired of the way the Republican party views money as the chief end of man, I was so refreshed to read Dreher. I found myself thinking, "I'm not alone." Even though I don't agree with all he says, the book forces the reader to confront ideas and to not simply accept the things the way they are.
"Conservative" but still quite "Liberal".......2007-01-19
I was recommended this book as one that I might enjoy due to my moderate beliefs. This person misunderstood me because my moderate beliefs are truly more conservative.
The author votes conservatively but many of his decisions lean more toward the liberal world. Of course he wouldn't intend that, but that is how I have interpretted them. Many of his ideas are good...if you can afford them.
His emphasis on conserving the family as a priority is key. Everyone will agree with that. His attacks on agri-business (something very important to my area of the country), real estate, education, and the environment all lean heavily to the left. Some of his ideas are ok, but they are just his ideas and his way of understanding life.
His emphasis upon religion has been particularly intriguing. All of his major decisions are based upon his religious faith. I definitely respect his willingness to stand for his faith and make his major life decisions based upon his faith. This is certainly commendable and a saving grace of this book.
If anyone is interested in reading a text that will stretch their "conservative" views or question their "liberal" views with an alternative, this is the book for you. I know my views have been stretched, I just don't agree with much that he talks about. Or maybe I don't agree with it as much as I couldn't afford it and therefore it is just a pipe dream to me.
We Have More In Common Than You Think!.......2007-01-16
I read this book shortly after it came out and I LOVED IT. At last, someone has found a label for my belief system. As a conservative, I feel that the family is the most important building block of our society. I believe in self-sufficiency, but I also believe in sharing your gifts with others and acting as good stewards of the earth and all the blessings that we've been given. This easy-to-read, at times humorous book, tells it like it is and gives a voice to what I believe is a larger group of people than you might think. There is common ground (a lot of it) between liberals and conservatives. Perhaps by following the author's precepts, we can begin to bring our country together by focusing on what we share in common, rather than that which drives us apart. Read this and see for yourself.
Conservative Granolas? Yes, Meet the Crunchy Cons.......2007-01-12
"Take out the granola! It's raining hippies. Left and Right." Anonymous
The scene: Mesopotamia, 3000 BC. We are at the dawn of civilization, in one of the first cities, along the Euphrates. Igor and Qahog are sent by Donald Trumpatomes to irrigate the water from the river to the city. Then that annoying guy wearing the first ever pair of Birkenstocks tells them to drop their shovels, disdain the Man and soulless city life, and head off with him to the country, where our ancestors lived a "real" life gathering berries and spearing an occasional wooly mammoth.
Ever since there has been cities, and especially since industrialization, there have always been doomsayers telling us that city life squashes the human spirit, and we need to head for the country and drop all these mindless technological toys that we bog down our lives with. Usually, we associate this with the Left. In the 60's, we had the anti-war hippies telling the world to mellow, smoke weed, and make love not war (said lovemaking as such must have been pretty nasty, considering they never showered or shaved). Nowadays, we think of granola types, in their Birkenstocks, suggesting we leave the cities for the hills, go hiking, and explore nature.
A twist in this idea has arrived with a recent turn by some conservatives to embrace this granola outlook on our culture. Conservative writer Rod Dreher, who writes one of the conservative columns for Beliefnet.com, has recently come out with a book called Crunchy Cons. Moral theologian Gilbert Meilander has written a fine review of it in the May 2006 edition of First Things.
Meilander begins his review with a personal story. He commits what would probably be a serious sin in the eye of Dreher by going to Burger King for a quick bite to eat. Noticing a family with two young boys of about eight and ten talking about baseball and the Cleveland Indians, Meilander joins in, being a Tribe fan himself. He ends up getting a Hershey Pie and sticking around longer in conversation. This was a nice family, a type of family that in Dreher's book in criticized for being overly materialistic.
Meilander praises Dreher for pointing out the pitfalls that do exist in our society and culture, but questions Dreher's conclusion that it is necessary to recuse oneself from the city life and live more granola. Granted, Meilander concedes, a granola lifestyle can be a morally exemplary lifestyle, however Dreher is wrong to claim that this is the only way, or the best way to live. Meilander admits early on that he is "pro-choice" when it comes to lifestyle choices such as what types of food to eat, and what places to live, and that Dreher, while right to criticize excesses of our culture, is wrong to highlight one good way of living as the ideal.
The problem, Meilander says, is that Dreher is encouraging parents to raise kids to be dissenters, rebels, and rabble rousers. There is a time and place for dissent and rabble rousing, but ultimately a parent's job is to raise his children to be, first and foremost, good people, not rebels against society. Meilander concludes by noting that he has a lot of hope for the two nice boys he met in Burger King, but is concerned about the kids who are being raised to be rebels.
Anthony Sacramone continues the discussion of this "head for the hills" mentality in the July 12, 2006 edition of First Things online daily blog
"Among several books I intend someday to write, one stands out: The Great Indoors: Why Going Outside Is Vastly Overrrated. Now is probably the time to pitch it--contrarian cant at its finest--given all the hugga-mugga over Crunchy Cons and the various websites supported by sundry disciples of Wendell Berry, who believe consumerism, free markets, and technological obsolescence are destroying our souls, families, and communities.
This concern is an old one. And the solution--high-tail it for the Ozarks--is also old. I believe Aristophanes was the first to give it dramatic form (while side-swiping poor old Socrates at the same time): Abandon the cities, abandon false patriotism, abandon the quack sciences and gimcrack philosophies that threaten old religion; abandon the battlefields, politics, and sausage salesmen."
But, as Sacramone rightly points out, people are just as susceptible to sin and vice in the country as in the city, even if it is in smaller quantities. "As for greed, envy, lust, and all those other black arts for which the city is a synonym, you can't tell me Farmer Jones doesn't practice them in spades, simply on smaller luxuries, more primitive needs, and stockier women. So instead of keeping up with the latest E: True Hollywood Story, he's only keeping up a new pair of bib overalls, because he won't be outclassed by that wise-acre who runs the general store."
As for me, I am leaving the urban, city life of Albany to head up to the beautiful St. Lawrence River, away from cable TV, the internet, and the daily newspaper sports section. But, only for the weekend. I will be back Monday or Tuesday to continue my mindless, technological comma-induced, city life.
Re-Thinking Conservatism, Environmentalism........2006-11-28
Buying organic locally produced meat is one of the most fundamentally conservative things you can do, writes Dreher. I agree. Too often the 'environment' is an issue hijacked (and misused) by the left, the same way patriotism has been hijacked and misused by neocons.
One reviewer said something to the effect that people with real jobs can't take the time to eat 'real food' or sit down to a family dinner ( i wonder how much time this guy spends in front of the TV watching football and commercials for industrialized food). If that's the case....then there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we live. And that's his point - and his self-discovery.
This book isn't just for 'conservatives' but anyone who suspects that the their current 'consumerist' lifestyles aren't the panacea they are thought to be. Amazing as it seems - going back to buying from a farmer's market and sitting down to a family dinner can profoundly, postively effect your life, as it did Dreher's
Book Description
Postmodernism Rightly Understood is a dramatic return to realism--a poetic attempt to attain a true understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the postmodern predicament. Prominent political theorist Peter Augustine Lawler reflects on the flaws of postmodern thought, the futility of pragmatism, and the spiritual emptiness of existentialism.
Customer Reviews:
Neo-Realism -- the time has come.......2004-02-07
Lawler makes a valiant effort to rescue the name Postmodern from the clutches of meaninglessness but it is time for a change anyway now that more and more people are using the name. Lawler points in the right direction by saying "Postmodernism is the return to realism." So why not call it that instead of fighting against the tide? I can't see everyone getting used to the term "hypermodernism" instead. Imagine what Derrida would say?
Can this be overcome by the linguistic manipulation of the imagination?
This is a very rewarding book.
Brilliant -- and quirky in the best sense.......2000-07-21
Peter Augustine Lawler is a rare find, and may be the most original and insightful political philosopher writing in America today. This book takes seriously the possibility that our age can meaningfully be understood as "post-modern," but concludes ultimately that what are taken to be indicators of the post-modern condition are actually artifacts of, as it were, hyper-modernity. An authentically POST-modern philosophical position would look very different from what is commonly believed. Lawler here begins to mark out a path which would lead us truly beyond modernity.
He does so, moreover, in a prose style that is direct -- readers who have slogged through the ponderous obscurity of continental European theorists will give thanks! -- but also seriously ironical. There is humor, playfulness here, but it is playfulness with a purpose.
For those enamored of Foucault, Derrida, and company, not least of interest in this book is that Lawler reveals the genuinely philosophical dimension of American thinkers. The book takes aim at Richard Rorty and ultimately finds our best philosophical guide in the reflections of the Southern novelist Walker Percy.
With surprising formulations on almost every page, a reader with an interest in things post-modern may at first be tempted to dismiss an author who says such unheard-of things. But give this book a chance. You just might have to conclude that Lawler has it right after all.
bring it up.......1999-10-05
This is the first book to make sense of postmodernism
and the best introduction available to the thought of
Walker Percy--philosopher and novelist. It has become
a kind of cult classic.
Book Description
When the Cold War ended, the world let out a collective sigh of relief as the fear of nuclear confrontation between superpowers appeared to vanish overnight. As we approach the new millennium, however, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to ever more belligerent countries and factions raises alarming new concerns about the threat of nuclear war. In Return to Armageddon, Ronald Powaski assesses the dangers that beset us as we enter an increasingly unstable political world. With the START I and II treaties, completed by George Bush in 1991 and 1993 respectively, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, it seemed as if the nuclear clock had been successfully turned back to a safer hour. But Powaski shows that there is much less reason for optimism than we may like to think. Continued U.S.-Russian cooperation can no longer be assured. To make matters worse, Russia has not ratified the START II Treaty and the U.S. Senate has failed to approve the CTBT. Perhaps even more ominously, the effort to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nonweapon states is threatened by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan. The nuclear club is growing and its most recent members are increasingly hostile. Indeed, it is becoming ever more difficult to keep track of the expertise and material needed to build nuclear weapons, which almost certainly will find their way into terrorist hands. Accessible, authoritative, and provocative, Return to Armageddon provides both a comprehensive account of the arms control process and a startling reappraisal of the nuclear threat that refuses to go away.
Book Description
The assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko in November 2006 -- poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium -- caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fit forty-three-year-old lay gaunt, bald, and dying in a hospital, the victim of a "tiny nuclear bomb." Suspicions swirled around Russia's FSB, the successor to the KGB, and the Putin regime. Traces of polonium radiation were found in Germany and on certain airplanes, suggesting a travel route from Russia for the carriers of the fatal poison. But what really happened? What did Litvinenko know? And why was he killed?
The full story of Sasha Litvinenko's life and death is one that the Kremlin does not want told. His closest friend, Alex Goldfarb, and his widow, Marina, are the only two people who can tell it all, from firsthand knowledge, with dramatic scenes from Moscow to London to Washington. Death of a Dissident reads like a political thriller, yet its story is more fantastic and frightening than any novel.
Ever since 1998, when Litvinenko denounced the FSB for ordering him to assassinate tycoon Boris Berezovsky, he had devoted his life to exposing the FSB's darkest secrets. After a dramatic escape to London with Goldfarb's assistance, he spent six years, often working with Goldfarb, investigating a widening series of scandals. Oligarchs and journalists have been assassinated. Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko was poisoned on the campaign trail. The war in Chechnya became unspeakably harsh on both sides. Sasha Litvinenko investigated all of it, and he denounced his former employers in no uncertain terms for their dirty deeds.
Death of a Dissident opens a window into the dark heart of the Putin Kremlin. With its strong-arm tactics, tight control over the media, and penetration of all levels of government, the old KGB is back with a vengeance. Sasha Litvinenko dedicated his life to exposing this truth. It took his diabolical murder for the world to listen.
Customer Reviews:
Great Read.......2007-09-10
After reading Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia & A Russian Diary, Klebnikov's Godfather of the Kremlin and Felshtinsky's Blowing Up Russia, I have to admit this book is excellent as it corraborates all the information and adds more details to the information printed in the aforementioned books. The only thing I believe is not accurately depicted is Berezovsky himself. It is true he looted, it is true he made his money in dubious ways like all of the oligarchs. Goldfarb's positive treatment of Berezovsky must have something to do with them being friends, but this is to be expected. Overall, however, Berezovsky is not a bda character and the book itaelf is excellent.
back to the future.......2007-08-31
The title and the cover of the book are somewhat misleading. The main hero is Berezovsky. Some chapters are written very thriller-like, almost on the verge of loosing sense of reality. Perhaps this inkling comes because while reading, it is not easy to leave behind the impression that the book is written to undertake a certain mission. If so, I would have liked to see that it is to show the direction Russia is moving these days, more villingly than to find out whose favourite vine is Château Latour.
Russia and Corruption. Very compelling courageous book. .......2007-08-01
Picking up this book I thought it would read more like a biography of Alexander Litvinenko's life and events leading up to his death - a bit exciting, but mainly mysterious. What I got instead was an unexpected surprise! A wonderful book detailing first hand accounts of some of the corruption plaguing Russia which lead up to Litvinenko's death; making his death appear less mysterious but inevitable.
Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko should be commended for writing such a brave, and wonderful book. Russia, Chechnya, and the politics surrounding a lot of big players, (too extensive to list here), become less puzzling. I enjoyed the italicized paragraphs detailing events playing out right along with the story; so for a while I could easily follow the Chechen war.
I did have difficulty keeping up with all of the names, where even pronouncing them was sometimes difficult. This caused me to forget who someone was, which is important to understanding the significance of certain events. I ended up filling up pages and pages in a small notebook trying to keep the players straight. This may sound a bit tedious but it really opened up the story. I plan to continue further readings, so having this resource is helpful.
In any event, I think the book is best summed up with Alex Goldfarb's Author's note: "I have written the personal story with the benefit of firsthand knowledge. I have written the history with confidence that it conveys Sasha Litvinenko's beliefs and conclusions, and my own. I do not propose that I am a neutral observer. I do maintain that I am an honest one and one who, with Marina's assistance, can best speak for Sasha."
If anyone is interested in the movie that is mentioned in the book, "The Assassination of Russia," you can search for it online and find it free on many websites. Very compelling.
Many thanks to Goldfarb and Marina for writing a courageous book.
15 Years in 300 pages.......2007-07-29
I am always looking for a book that can take a complex subject and make it seamless. Boris Berezovsky fighting with Vladimir Gusinsky, Anatoly Chubais fired and rehired by Yeltsin, Chubais knuckling under to Putin, a surprise in the form of Vanessa Redgrave coming to the aid of Akhmed Zakayev, a former Chechen commander who the Russians try to extradite from Denmark, Berezovsky fired by Yeltsin but instrumental in advancing Putin, Roma Abramovitch's handshake with the devil, the Moscow Theatre hostage crisis, the Ryazan incident, good and bad Chechens, hundreds of thousands of dead Chechens, the re-empowerment of the Russian bureaucratic state, the oligarchs and dissidents verses the War Party, and on and on, in a tightly packed, gripping narrative. What Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko provide is context in the dizzying array of shifting alliances of post-Communist Russia. It grabs you the way Victor Kravchenko's book, "I Chose Freedom" did in the 1940s.
You feel for the incredibly brave souls, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Duma members Sergei Yushenkov andYuri Shchekochikhin whose fate is death at the hands of the FSB; they are all tough, resilient, fearless and doomed. Yet Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko make you feel for all these people, make you wish that we could do something more to help, make you ache for their tragic and vicious fate.
But in tragedy we see what Sasha Litvinenko sees. The joy of fighting back against people who care for nothing but themselves, and have no compunction about ruining the life of anyone who resists them. Like real life James Bonds, Litvinenko, Goldfarb and Berezovsky marshal their resources to poke Putin in the eye daily, taking their pleasures where they find them. Goldfarb takes you into the world of psycho-tropic drugs, binary, and nuclear isotope killing agents and you see that even in the face of utter evil, there is a network that stands fast against Stalin's progeny.
By the end of the book you have felt Sasha Litvinenko's intelligence, his wife's devotion, and the final understanding of his fate. His "J'Accuse" hits its target. Maybe in the next round, civil Russia, with the help of democrats like Garry Kasparov, will bring down the War Party, and it will be Putin who stands in the dock. In the meantime, Putin's name stands in disgrace, and we owe no small debt to the writers of this book.
reads like fiction.......2007-07-15
this is a real page turner. I read the book in a matter of hours. very informative
Book Description
Somewhere in the 1970s liberals in the United States lost their way. After successes like the New Deal, they became arrogant. So argues Douglas Massey in Return of the "L" Word. Faced with the difficult politics of race and class, liberals used the heavy hand of government to impose policies on a resentful public. Conservatives capitalized on this with a staunch ideology of free markets, limited government, and conservative social values. The time is ripe for a liberal realignment, declares Massey, but what has been lacking is a consistent liberal ideology that explains to voters, in simple terms, government's vital role in producing a healthier, more financially equitable, less divided society.
This book supplies that ideology. Massey begins his powerful manifesto by laying out the liberals' mistakes over the past twenty years. Drawing on insights from the expanding field of economic sociology, he then sets forth a clear set of liberal principles to explain how markets work in society, principles he applies to articulate salable liberal policies.
After outlining a new liberal political philosophy, Massey traces liberalism's opposition and says plainly: liberals should have no illusions about the competition's resolve and skill. He closes with a practical approach to liberal coalition-building in America. The political economy conservatives have constructed in recent decades has benefited 20 percent of the people. Liberal success requires a return to material rather than symbolic politics, showing most Americans why it is in their economic as well as moral interest to support the liberal cause.
Customer Reviews:
Much needed - especially for the 2006 Elections.......2005-08-04
The best part of the book is Dr. Massey's unflinching view of how the liberals essentially led to their own downfall thanks to the excesses of the 1970s identity politics and neglect of the working poor and middle-class.
His Chapter 3 is worth the price of the book as it outlines a great argument to the conservative's rallying cry of free markets. Liberals need to embrace the concept of "fair markets" as the best response to conservative slurs of liberals as being socialists.
Honesty is the best economic and political policy.......2005-05-06
To revive the liberal movement in America and achieve future policy success, Princeton Professor Doug Massey argues that liberals need to articulate how their issue positions will speak and can speak to the everyday needs of people and how this has been done in the past.
Massey points out that the conservative movement benefits very few people, but effective marketing (and the subsequent positioning) has made all of the difference. People honestly believing that they are also included in the 'beneficiaries' of a conservative policy are not necessarily going to stop and read the very fine print.
But, it's the fine print which catches the 'everybody else' every single time. Conservative politicians talk about 'common people's lives' because they have learned this is what brings in the votes, but they remain as detached and self-absorbed as ever. They still want a majority of the wealth concentrated in a compact segment.
A key strength of Massey's work is that it recognizes the power of economic systems to bring about political and social transformation. Viewing markets as autonomous entities apart from politics ultimately proves disastrous and we need to be articulating how our world view will ultimately benefit other people in 'concrete ways' inside their own daily lives.
Books:
- Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (Between Men--Between Women)
- On Liberty and Other Essays (Oxford World's Classics)
- Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution
- Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them
- Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, Fifth Edition
- Political Philosophy: A Beginners' Guide for Students and Statesmen
- Politics and Policy in States and Communities (9th Edition)
- Politics in States and Communities (12th Edition)
- Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy
- Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis
- Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
- Economia Hoy - La Globalizacion y La Nueva Relacion Sociedad-Naturaleza / Polimodal
- Field Guide to the Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes of the Northern United States
- Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature
- Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss
- Histology of the Nervous System of Man and Vertebrates
- It Came from Beneath the Sink!
- Custom Party Associates for use w/Accounting Principles
- State Resistance to Globalisation in Cuba
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World (Invert)
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy
Real Christianity
Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World
