Book Description
This up-to-date, highly-readable text focuses on twin perspectives: the political economy of state and local politics and the impact of political reformism on states and communities.
Customer Reviews:
Enjoyable reading.......2007-06-01
I am not a Political Science major. I used the 2005 edition in a class that met a general education requirement, and I found this book surprisingly engaging, with interesting examples.
TO THE POINT.......2002-01-27
THIS IS A FANTASTIC TO THE POINT BOOK; CLEAR AND CONCISE! JUST THE THING WHEN TRYING TO GET AN UNBIASED OPINION OF A VERY COMPLEX TOPIC.
Amazon.com
Gilles Kepel's Jihad is an intense, detailed examination of the militant Islamist movement over the last quarter-century. Kepel divides his book into two parts--"Expansion" and "Decline"--and posits that the September 11, 2001, attacks, rather than demonstrating "strength and irrepressible might," highlighted the "isolation" and "fragmentation" of a "faltering" and probably doomed extremist ideology. Kepel follows Islamism from its theoretical underpinnings in the late 1960s and its rapid expansion into Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and Central, South, and Southeast Asia, through the Taliban's ascendancy in Afghanistan and beyond. He explains Islamism's attractions, and outlines its severe shortcomings. With consummate skill, he illuminates the bewilderingly intricate effects global events (oil prices, the fall of Communism) have had on internal politics of individual countries, and vice versa. Kepel, wisely, refuses to prognosticate. Instead, his achievement is in providing--for the determined reader--a deeply authoritative context for the seemingly inexplicable events of the recent past. --H. O'Billovich
Book Description
The late twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of an unexpected and extraordinary phenomenon: Islamist political movements. Beginning in the early 1970s, militants revolted against the regimes in power throughout the Muslim world and exacerbated political conflicts everywhere. Their jihad, or "Holy Struggle," aimed to establish a global Islamic state based solely on a strict interpretation of the Koran. Religious ideology proved a cohesive force, gathering followers ranging from students and the young urban poor to middle-class professionals.
After an initial triumph with the Islamic revolution in Iran, the movement waged jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan, proclaiming for the first time a doctrine of extreme violence. By the end of the 1990s, the failure to seize political power elsewhere led to a split: movement moderates developed new concepts of "Muslim democracy" while extremists resorted to large-scale terrorist attacks around the world.
Jihad is the first extensive, in-depth attempt to follow the history and geography of this disturbing political-religious phenomenon. Fluent in Arabic, Kepel has traveled throughout the Muslim world gathering documents, interviews, and archival materials inaccessible to most scholars, in order to give us a comprehensive understanding of the scope of Islamist movements, their past, and their present. As we confront the threat of terrorism to our lives and liberties, Gilles Kepel helps us make sense of the ominous reality of jihad today.
Customer Reviews:
Important for understanding 9/11/2001.......2007-06-11
To understand the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, people need to read Gilles Kepel's account of Islamist jihadism. Kepel suggests that the Islamist jihadist movement worldwide was running out of steam prior to the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
Thus we can see that the attacks of 9/11/2001 on the United States were carried out by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda as a spectacular recruitment device, to recruit more Muslims to the Islamist jihadist cause, the cause that Kepel says was on the wane because of the relative shortage of new recruits to the cause that had amassed only a somewhat unimpressive record in several Muslim countries.
In light of Kepel's analysis, we can see that President George W. Bush played into the hands of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda when he brashly declared war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had not attacked the United States on 9/11/2001. So the war that the United States led against Saddam Hussein's Iraq is an unjust war of aggression on Iraq. Not surprisingly, the war in Iraq has attracted many Muslims from around the world to fight against the U.S.-led coalition troops.
It also appears that the war in Iraq has attraced new recruits to the Islamist jihadist cause elsewhere as well.
(...)
Political Islam: Doomed to Failure?.......2006-12-12
Kepel knows his subject. You can't ask for a more comprehensive sweep of Islamist history. That said, the author's fundamental thesis (that Salafism is on the wane, and will die out under its own weight) seems to read as slightly optimistic. Particularly violent brands of Islam, such as Wahhabi Islam, will come and go, but the intrinsic moral and emotional flaws (they are not solely socio-economic) that give ground to such movements will always exist. We will see sea changes, waxing and waning trends, as well as the rise and fall of more positive groups, but groups that advocate a political jihad will always find a voice and an audience. (Just as those who advocate Judeo-Christian, Maoist, and/or Secular crusades will always find a voice and an audience.)
That said, anyone wishing to better understand the figures and ideas behind Salafist political movements will enjoy this work immensely. The translation is dry, but the information is robust.
Unreal.......2006-09-27
As Walter Laqueur observed in The Atlantic in his March 2002 review of this Gilles Kepel book, his " obituary of Islamism was written before September 11."
What seemed truly astounding when I read this book four years ago was the extent of Kepel's knowledge--and his fundamental ignorance. I hadn't realized, as I read, that the original French edition of this book came out in 2000. Still, it is extraordinary to think a scholar as widely read as Kepel could be so wrong, as he is here, as to pronounce radical Islam and jihad on the wane.
As the intervening years have proved, nothing could have been further from the truth, and of all people, Kepel should have known it. But it was not Kepel's lack of knowledge concerning the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt of the 1920s, or the writings of Hassan al-Banna and his heir, Sayyed Qutb (whom Nasser hanged in 1966) that lead to the author's blindness.
It was most likely Kepel's lack of understanding of the fundamentals of Islam itself. Like so many writers before and after, Kepel blamed the rise of radical Islam on the backwardness of Middle Eastern society, and the lack of political power of the rising middle class.
As Laqueur noted in The Atlantic, Kepel laid the attractiveness of Qutb's radical "message and in particular his appeal to violence" to broad swaths of Egyptian society to several mostly economic and intellectual factors. Qutb resonated for "students who could not find jobs; the religiously observant lower middle class, distrustful of modernity; and, generally speaking, all those disaffected by the state of affairs in the Muslim world who had become intellectually homeless after the failure of Arab nationalist ideology and of Marxism."
Actually, however, both Qutb's philosophy and its attractiveness to Egyptians and other middle eastern Muslims were powered by the same force--the fact that Qutb based his thinking and writings on the classical jurisprudence of Islamic scholars across the centuries. And in this respect, Qutb was no different than many of the other radicals that Kepel covers, including the violent Iranian religious revolutionary, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Pakistan's Mawlana Mawdudi, among others.
To understand the rootedness of these "radicals" in Islamic religious precepts and Islamic history, Kepel ought to read Dr. Andrew Bostom's Legacy of Jihad.
Certainly, Kepel is right about some factors that encouraged Islamic radicals to pursue their goals at the specific times that they did: In the 1980s and early 1990s, Khomeinist fanatics terrorized Iran unchallenged, Islamists seized power in Sudan and their cohorts had attempted coups in Algeria and Egypt as well. But more importantly, ragtag Afghan Islamist armies eventually defeated the Soviet Union there, and built a very successful propaganda campaign (though undoubtedly not entirely truthful) as a result.
But Kepel did not understand how Islamists saw their defeat and alienation from the Algerian majority, Egypt's mass arrests of terrorists or Sudan's surrender of Carlos the Jackal to the French, for criminal trial. To radicals, these were merely temporary setbacks, not the heralds of permanent defeat. Nor were the radicals at all discouraged by the rise of Iran's so-called moderate, Mohammad Khatami (who was never really moderate) or the protests of Saudi women for the right to drive cars independently.
Worse, Kepel did not understand that many Islamic scholars--whom he and many foolhardy others presume to be "reformist" thinkers--are themselves reputedly central figures in the Muslim Brotherhood, and in any case, fundamentalists in their own right.
Take Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of MB founder Hassan al-Banna, whose visa application the U.S. State Department has twice, rightfully, rejected. Kepel accepts him as the "reformer" he pretends to be. But this is utter nonsense.
As J.C. Brissard recently noted on the Terror Finance Blog, ample evidence suggests Ramadan has links to terror. A 1999 Spanish police General Directorate memo, for example, stated that Ahmed Brahim--who last April received a 10 year sentence for incitement to terrorism--maintained "regular contacts with important figures of radical Islam such as Tariq Ramadan."
Likewise, Djamel Beghal--sentenced to 10 years in March 2005 for participating in a foiled attack on the US Embassy in Paris--in September 2001 aligned his religious "engagement" to the 1994 time when "he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan." Beghal later said he had also "attended the courses given by Tarek Ramadan." And "brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan," according to a 2001 Swiss intelligence memo, together planned a 1991 Geneva meeting between Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack. This was confirmed by the member of a Geneva mosque, who heard Hani Ramadan announce the upcoming meeting.
While Kepel conducted extensive and sometimes useful research, his conclusions are unreal.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
optimistic theory?.......2006-08-25
Kepel's book is well formed, serious and weighty. He used variety of sources in different languages; articles and books in French, German, Arabic, Turkish and English, as well as websites, newspapers, and interviews. Kepel analyzes the Islamist movement of the last five decades and focuses on the recent events in Muslim world. In the first part of his book he could have made parallelism with similar movements in Islamic world in early years especially in the Cultural Revolution Chapter. Kepel also makes hasty judgement about the decline of Islamist movement. Based on the events of the last couple of years in Europe and the Middle East, the decline of Islamism makes Kepel's theory only optimistic.
jihad for defense.......2006-02-07
jihad only for in defese of islam not murders
this book insults muslims as dogs
we live and work to eat and happiness
we are not animals and men who seek truth
read koran not this book lies enslave the mind
insults to islam not freedom of press but hate
Customer Reviews:
Solid introduction to the policy process.......2007-09-08
There are a number of books "out there" on the nature of the public policy process. This is one of the better textbooks on the subject.
The book begins with a solid chapter on the nature of public policy and how we study the phenomenon. This flows into the second chapter, which focuses on the history of public policy (going back to Constitutional design) and culminates with a discussion (albeit brief) of the fragmentation of the policy process.
The next two chapters explore key actors--official governmental actors like the President and Congress and unofficial actors such as media and think tanks.
Thereafter, the text focuses on the various "stages" of the policy process--from agenda setting to policy types to policy design and the toolbox of policies to implementation.
The volume concludes with an examination of several theories of the policy process.
This book isn't the best of the lot; however, it is a good, serviceable introduction to the policy process.
A clear public policy book...it is possible!.......2005-01-30
This book explains how public policy is made, the types of models which could be used to make/evaluate a public policy, and an overview of how public policymaking fits into the American government process.
Since most people have only learned about the three branches of government, they may not be certain how passed laws are enacted. Lacking the time and expertise needed to implement these laws, legislators at the federal, state, and local levels delegate authority to agencies to make the policy which will implement these laws.
The chief benefit of this text is the qualitative approach which Birkland personally prefers (although he does warn that other approaches use an economics-based approach) and clear explanations. It also contains an annotated bibliography of influential works and a dictionary of key terms used in the public policymaking process.
Birkland's text is written so that it can be used either by students or public policy practitioners. Instead of bogging down the reader in minutiae and personal liberty, he wanted to emphasize how important public policy is.
Book Description
Contributors use the most promising and widely-held public policy theories to present the basic propositions of their framework and to discuss promising directions for future research.
Customer Reviews:
Standard work on theories of the policy process.......2007-06-06
This edited work is now in its second edition. In that, it has updated its summary of theories to cover new approaches and deleted a couple chapters from the first edition that are no longer as useful for the analyst and student of public policy.
Interested in how an evolutionary theory of change among species, punctuated equilibrium, has any relevance for our understanding of policy? Then read the chapter by True, Baumgartner and Jones. What about the impact of chance and contingency on what issues gain access to the political agenda versus those that might not gain governmental discussion and consideration? Read the chapter on Kingdon's "multiple streams" theory, written in this volume by Zahariadis.
Ingram and Schneider (with deLeon) have added a chapter to this edition not in the prior one. Their theory of social construction and its effect on policy has become widely recognized in recent years and is included in this edition. Network organizations are increasingly viewed as critical structures in the delivery of services. The private sector, nonprofits, and the public sector collaborate within networks to achieve public goals. The chapter by Adam and Kriesi is new to this edition and a welcome addition.
And so on.
The work ends with a comparison of different theories (by Schlager) and a reflection on how to enhance development of policy theory (by the editor, Sabatier).
Any edited volume like this can be questioned for why certain items were included and others excluded. Edited volumes often end up lacking cohesion. However, this edited work does its subject justice and is a useful book for those with some background in policy.
A good overview of an exciting field.......2000-09-19
Tired of trying to keep up with the pace in public policy research? Ta-da! Theories of the Policy Process offers some nice introductory essays on current public policy research, with a focus on (guess what...) theoretical developments. Each major theory is given a chapter of its own, written by distinguished scholars, often the actual parents of the theories. Among the theories covered are Institutional Rational Choice (by Ostrom), Multiple Streams and Garbage Can (by Zahariadis - not Kingdon), Advocacy Coalitions (by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith) and Punctuated Equilibrium (by True, Baumgartner and Jones). The collection ends with a very good synthesizing chapter by Schlager, where the theories are compared and essential diffrences are higlighted.
This collection is extremely useful to get updated on the latest developments in Public Policy. Lots of good, fresh references, and very accessible and authoritative introductions to the field. Yet, since the collection does not offer anything substantially new, a fifth star is not motivated. Still a very good buy.
I would not recommend it for use in introductory public policy-courses, though. Too abstract and theoretical for that. This is for people already familiar with the field.
Book Description
Focusing on institutions and processes and paying rigorous attention to scholarship, Politics in Russia is an authoritative overview of the Russian political system, now updated to reflect all of the most recent political events in
Russia
.
Customer Reviews:
A Comprehensive Text on Modern Russian Politics.......2001-07-27
I used this book with some success in my upper division course on Russian politics. The book addresses Russian politics after the implosion of the Soviet system. The book is comprehensive, but its attention to detail does not destract the reader from main points. This is important, because textbooks often become unreadable due to excessive irrelevant information. This in not the case with Remington's book. The writing style is rather pedestrian, but for a textbook, it is more than adequate. This book cover events in Russia up until 1997, so this book, or at least this edition is a bit dated. Events in Russia are changing very fast, and the author is not responsible for not being able to churn out a textbook that is 100 percent up to date. For a more popular analysis of events in Russia afer 1991 see David Remnick's "Resurrection." I recommend this textbook for any undergraduate class in Russian politics.
Remington's Politics in Russia.......2000-04-01
I have twice used Remington's Politics in Russia as a text in my Russia Politics course for intermediate political science students. -- It is an excellent text for students. Most of my students thought the book was readable, comprehensive, sufficiently detailed, and clear. -- It is an excellent text from which to teach, comparative in nature, adequately comprehensive, short (244 pages), and without a strong personal bias.
Remington's approach is the comparative politics approach of Almond and Powell -- systems from socialization through interest aggregation and policy making to implementation and feedback. His book is a broader, more detailed version of his chapter in Almond and Coleman's Comparative Politics Today (Longman) 2000.
For a short book, it is comprehensive. It lacks, however, a development of the historical context of the Russian political system. Its chapters 1 and 2 are sufficient for his purposes, but they do not give a student, with little or no knowledge of late 19th and 20th century Russian history, an adequate overview of the past. Additionally, the book does not discuss sufficiently critical social issues in Russia, although his comparative approach is dependent upon the culture and socialization.
Because the book is short, I can supplement it with other readings (I use a Russian foreign policy text and The Economist)without breaking the student's bank account or having to rely solely on Remington.
The book has no obvious bias, other than its particular comparative approach. It is objective and factual, while raising many of the important value issues. He does not try to sell the reader a particular view of Russian politics.
Amazon.com
Understanding Power is a wide-ranging collection of transcribed and previously unpublished discussions and seminars (from 1989 to 1999) with sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky.
The chapters, each covering discrete sessions with Chomsky, arrive in a question-and-answer format that at times becomes delightfully contentious. Chomsky holds forth on such disparate topics as American third-party politics, the stifling of true dissent, the illusion of a muscular media, heavy-handed American imperialism (from Southeast Asia to Mexico), a dysfunctional and self-destructing United States political left, the gilding of the Kennedy and Carter administrations, and the impotent state of labor unions.
The relatively accessibility of Understanding Power is a welcome balance to Chomsky's often formidable scholarly writings. This is a book best taken in doses: a sort of bedside reader. --H. O'Billovitch
Book Description
A major new collection from "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky. Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating collection of interviews.......2007-08-25
I purchased this book while on vacation, for something to read on the long car rides and nights in the hotel, and ended up reading it in just under 3 days. I am familiar with Chomsky's other works, and I would call this book one of the more reader friendly ones (its a collection of Q&A responses from many speeches he's delivered over the years). The material covered in this book is wide and thought provoking, and i found it to be very interesting and would call it a definite page turner. The footnotes are rich and complete, citing for the majority major newspapers and magazines, amongst the many other easily findable books.* Take Chomsky's advice, and challenge what he says, check the sources, and decided for yourself.
If you have enjoyed this book, I suggest reading "Language and Politics" also by Chomsky, which has the same format, but 787 pages of never before published interviews. Make sure to get the second edition (published in 2004 by AK PRESS).
*which are available at understandingpower dot com
Excellent understand without actually understanding.......2007-06-23
I've read many Noam Chomsky books and this one is pretty good. Its just a assorted set of lectures and talks he has given. While his ability to be aware of so many facts about foreign policy is amazing his actual understanding can be sometimes limited. One example is when He talks of Nixon's fall from power and points out that Nixon did worse things then watergate. He mentions the bombing of cambodia which killed in his estimate about 150,000 people. The problem of course is that it is laughable that any president would be impeached for killing people in a war, even if it is a war crime. Noam Chomsky is brilliant but his idealism often obstructs an otherwise clear view of the world.
read it for yourself.......2007-03-16
Don't believe anything you read_about_Noam Chomsky. Read Noam Chomsky for yourself. Understanding Power is a great place to start.
Intentions Good, Views Muddled.......2006-12-18
Understanding Power is, without question, the most comprehensive and compelling presentation of Noam Chomsky's ideas. Reading this book will change the way you see the world. If you are interested in Chomsky, it is likely that you are a noble person who genuinely cares for others and yearns for a better world. Beware, reader, and make sure you choose the right vehicle for your hope. While his intentions are for a peaceful, safe, and healthy world, Chomsky's political writings systematically assume conscious malevolence without evidence, ignore context, and romanticize Third World struggles, regardless of their goals.
Let's briefly examine some of his convictions on a pressing topic: the War on Terror. Following the September 11th attacks, Chomsky immediately presented them as our fault: the result of U.S. Middle East policy, and equally evil U.S. Cold War efforts (training Mujahadeen to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan). His presumption here is that if the United States changes its behavior, that terrorist attacks will then cease. Islamic terrorists, in fact, want a pan-world government under Talibanesque repressive sharia law, a vision that mandates the overthrow of all free nations beginning with ours. These facts are easily learned by reading about the historical development of Islamic radicalism, which is rooted in reinterpretations of the Qur'an's dictates for action, NOT in wishes to live peacefully in a U.S.-free Middle East. These facts, however, do not enter into the Chomskyan world-view, which romanticizes Third World underdogs as brave and legitimized no matter what they stand for.
The linguist also described the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan as a conscious "silent genocide," predicting wrongly that millions would be severed from food supplies. As is typical, Chomsky here focused solely on the negative aspects of the situation, those for which the U.S. deserved his bitter recrimination. For a man who lives prosperously in America and is supposedly the voice of the downtrodden, Chomsky certainly did not put himself into the shoes of the Afghan women. For them, whose existence was akin to slavery, the liberation was a cause for great joy. Actual sentiments were fully antithetical to Chomsky's condemnatory remarks to his villainous U.S. government, which he and he alone believed was consciously bent on killing as many innocent Afghans as possible. Omitting what is significant (the liberation of people living under tyranny, in this case) to emphasize his often ludicrous misperceptions about American motives and motivations is a constant in Chomsky's writings. His Cold War depictions are even more stunning, as Understanding Power's abundant examples attest.
In the case that you are already entrenched in his manner of thinking, at least admit that Noam Chomsky MIGHT be wrong, and see if his positions hold up under review: read Chomsky's articulate, sane critics (The Anti-Chomsky Reader is a good place to start). If he is perfect, then you have nothing but gain to acheive from this exercise; it will only serve to strengthen your ability to effectively argue and implement Chomsky's ideas in the world. After clear-eyed reassessment of his political writings, if you STILL think he is on-point, then all the best to you. If, however, you reevaluate his "wisdom," you will have saved yourself from much needless confusion and despair.
Were Chomsky's views simply false, there would not be need for this posting. They become perilous, however, in their blind, wholesale demonization of the United States. Chomsky's own fear and anger about the state of our world are projected, with great urgency: anger at and fear of U.S. "elites" is the Chomsky program. The result is often flat-out hatred. What would Chomsky do were he President? We do not know; he avoids that inconvenient question by telling us that were he to run (which he admits he would never do), the first thing he would do is tell us not to vote for him. Furthermore, why does Professor Chomsky not include himself in the "elites" so prominent in his analyses? Does he not pay taxes, and drive a BMW, and teach at a cushy, prestigious university? The questions may seem too simplistic, but they point to a core issue: if Chomsky cannot look into the mirror regarding his own status and societal position, then how much more impaired must his assessments be of things outside of himself? On paper, it is unclear exactly what Chomsky IS calling for, and putting aside the constant onslaught of judgment-filled writings and audio programs, neither does his life provide us an example of what he conceives to be right-action. Those who want an idea of who believes IN Chomsky, however, need look no further than Hugo Chavez, who recently proclaimed allegiance and military support to his "brother" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad, for anyone who needs reminding, daily denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel and the United States. Is it a coincidence that those who love Chomsky also embrace a world-view rooted in blame, anger, and vilification?
Good and evil do exist in this world, but Noam Chomsky is not capable of distinguishing between the two. The U.S.A. is not perfect, and never will be. Nevertheless, if we fail to recognize the good that IS here, we may soon lose our nation. Chomsky's writings are little more than a good reminder that appearance is not essence. It is worth noting as well, that Chomsky is an avowed atheist, and believes that life is meaningless. If we bear in mind that evil is in the eye of the beholder, then Chomsky--an American, an Israelite, a millionaire--is instantly unmasked in all of his self-revulsion. Understanding Power should be retitled as "Understanding Blame." Stear clear and take heart, reader; there is hope in this world, and your country is good, but you will discover neither in Avram Noam Chomsky.
Intentions Good, Views Dangerous.......2006-12-17
Understanding Power is, without question, the most comprehensive and compelling presentation of Noam Chomsky's ideas. Reading this book will change the way you see the world. If you are interested in Chomsky, it is likely that you are a noble person who genuinely cares for others and yearns for a better world. Beware, reader, and make sure you choose the right vehicle for your hope. While his intentions are for a peaceful, safe, and healthy world, Chomsky's political writings systematically assume conscious malevolence without evidence, ignore context, and romanticize Third World struggles, regardless of their goals.
Let's briefly examine some of his convictions on a pressing topic: the War on Terror. Following the September 11th attacks, Chomsky immediately presented them as our fault: the result of U.S. Middle East policy, and equally evil U.S. Cold War efforts (training Mujahadeen to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan). His presumption here is that if the United States changes its behavior, that terrorist attacks will then cease. Islamic terrorists, in fact, want a pan-world government under Talibanesque repressive sharia law, a vision that mandates the overthrow of all free nations beginning with ours. These facts are easily learned by reading about the historical development of Islamic radicalism, which is rooted in reinterpretations of the Qur'an's dictates for action, NOT in wishes to live peacefully in a U.S.-free Middle East. These facts, however, do not enter into the Chomskyan world-view, which romanticizes Third World underdogs as brave and legitimized no matter what they stand for.
The linguist also described the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan as a conscious "silent genocide," predicting wrongly that millions would be severed from food supplies. As is typical, Chomsky here focused solely on the negative aspects of the situation, those for which the U.S. deserved his bitter recrimination. For a man who lives prosperously in America and is supposedly the voice of the downtrodden, Chomsky certainly did not put himself into the shoes of the Afghan women. For them, whose existence was akin to slavery, the liberation was a cause for great joy. Actual sentiments were fully antithetical to Chomsky's condemnatory remarks to his villainous U.S. government, which he and he alone believed was consciously bent on killing as many innocent Afghans as possible. Omitting what is significant (the liberation of people living under tyranny, in this case) to emphasize his often ludicrous misperceptions about American motives and motivations is a constant in Chomsky's writings. His Cold War depictions are even more stunning, as Understanding Power's abundant examples attest.
In the case that you are already entrenched in his manner of thinking, at least admit that Noam Chomsky MIGHT be wrong, and see if his positions hold up under review: read Chomsky's articulate, sane critics. If he is perfect, then you have nothing but gain to acheive from this exercise; it will only serve to strengthen your ability to effectively argue and implement Chomsky's ideas in the world. After clear-eyed reassessment of his political writings, if you STILL think he's on-point, then all the best to you. If, however, you reevaluate his "wisdom," you will have saved yourself from much needless confusion and despair.
Were Chomsky's views simply false, there would not be need for this posting. They become perilous, however, in their blind, wholesale demonization of the United States. Chomsky's own fear and anger about the state of our world are projected, with great urgency: anger at and fear of U.S. "elites" is the Chomsky program. The result is often flat-out hatred. What would Chomsky do were he President? We do not know; he avoids that inconvenient question by telling us that were he to run (which he admits he would never do), the first thing he would do is tell us not to vote for him. Furthermore, why does Professor Chomsky not include himself in the "elites" so prominent in his analyses? Does he not pay taxes, and drive a BMW, and teach at a cushy, prestigious university? The questions may seem too simplistic, but they point to a core issue: if Chomsky cannot look into the mirror regarding his own status and societal position, then how much more impaired must his assessments be of things outside of himself? On paper, it is unclear exactly what Chomsky IS calling for, and putting aside the constant onslaught of judgment-filled writings and audio programs, neither does his life provide us an example of what he conceives to be right-action. Those who want an idea of who believes IN Chomsky, however, need look no further than Hugo Chavez, who recently proclaimed allegiance and military support to his "brother" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad, for anyone who needs reminding, daily denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel and the United States. Is it a coincidence that those who love Chomsky also embrace a world-view rooted in blame, anger, and vilification?
Good and evil do exist in this world, but Noam Chomsky is not capable of distinguishing between the two. The U.S.A. is not perfect, and never will be. Nevertheless, if we fail to recognize the good that IS here, we may soon lose our nation. Chomsky's writings are little more than a good reminder that appearance is not essence. It is worth noting as well, that Chomsky is an avowed atheist, and believes that life is meaningless. If we bear in mind that evil is in the eye of the beholder, then Chomsky--an American, an Israelite, a millionaire--is instantly unmasked in all of his self-revulsion. Understanding Power should be retitled as "Understanding Blame." Stear clear and take heart, reader; there is hope in this world, and your country is good, but you will discover neither in Avram Noam Chomsky.
Book Description
Illuminates the increasing collusion between Big Government and Big Business to "manage" our society in the interests of the elite.
Customer Reviews:
The State Of Our Gavernment.......2007-04-11
How much freedom do you think you have? Very little. Did you know some 90% of what the government robs us of each pay day finds its way into the hands of the rich, and Giant Corporations? You know the weapons we buy for the event of war, which do not function as advertised. Then we the Taxpayers spend billions more to make these weapons function as sold. Not just weapons, but computers, and just about everything else the government purchases.
The Federal Reserve is not a government bank, but a private bank, and they print, and value our money. Shockingly they are now writing laws designed to protect these bankers aganist the everyday citizen's attempts at filing bankruptcy. With Government being so impotent in the face of the Bankers, it is no wonder all of our jobs are going over seas, and soon we will be in the grips of a new depression. Thank you Woodrow Wilson. No wonder we can do nothing to prevent all the illegal aliens from flooding into our country. It is called economic control. A sure sign of "Fascism." Something we fought World War II to put an end to.
Taxes are scattered to prevent you the taxpayer from understanding just how much we are robbed each payday. You know income tax, gas tax, sales tax, property tax, exise tax, etc.,etc. And you know what, we pay taxes on the taxes we pay. Our bad, we do nothing to change these tax laws. We sit back and take the screwing, all done without lube. Imagine that.
It is all here, but the fact is, some of this should have changed long ago, because this book was written in 1982. Things have only gotten worse. This means we the people are not reading, or trying to change things. We continue to elect, and elect the same old "Brainless, Spineless Twits", and refuse to look past our noses, meaning we get what we deserve.
Read America, please read. Become informed, only by learning can we hope to restore our government.
Dated leftist delusions. .......2006-10-16
I read this book many years ago and reviewed it yet again at the prompting of yet another Leftist dolt, I found it illogically constructed, breathlessly conspiratorial and vacuous. It is the favored deceit of Leftists that there is some distinction between "Fascism" or National Socialism and International Socialism. There is none. National Socialism in Germany, Fascism in Italy and other state worshiping monopolistic governmental construct has no distinguishing characteristics from states based upon Lenin/Stalin/Mao/Castro's Socialism.
It is a lie that the Comintern invented after the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact for the division of Eastern Europe between the National Socialist state and the Soviet Union. This cooperation terminated by the opening of hostilities between the two socialist entities. Germany's attack was predicated upon competition over the east's wealth not ideology.
Reagan and Bush are the defenders of the democratic institutions of the west in line with the founders of the United State while the Left is the heir of a foreign born, degenerate and alien ideology that has produced nothing but slaughter and despair wherever and whenever it overthrows the established order.
Fascist America?.......2006-03-04
In a land where the cops have to run away from gun toting street gangs because the so-called law won't let them do anything about the problem, how can you consider the government anything but extraordinarily liberal (read socialist)?
If our nation's government today, or in the 1980s, had any hint of fascism in it, why does it, and why did it, encourage immigration from third world nations en masse?
And, of course, one must wonder how a nation whose foreign policy is so often determined...err...influenced by the State of Israel can be anything like a fascist dictatorship. Surely AIPAC, not to mention the SPLC/ADL/ACLU, haven't allowed us to stray from their chosen (socialist) path?
Prophetic Book Considers Effects Of Rise Of The Power Elite!.......2003-07-28
I lost my trusty old `dogged-eared' copy of this wonderful classic in a house fire a couple of years ago, and only recently found a used hardcover copy at the wonderful independent bookstore in Peterborough; The Toadstool Bookstore. Considering how relevant the book is to events transpiring in this country now, it was a fortuitous discovery. This is a relatively short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward; the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of `friendly persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans through what Gross refers to as "friendly fascism".
For anyone familiar with modern social theory, it is apparent that the author's thesis is a quite clever and accurate extension of sociologist C. Wright Mills' well known notions of what came to be known as the `mass society' theory. This was an essential aspect of Mills' famous theory of the power elite as forwarded in a book with the same title. Like social theorist G. William Domhoff ("The Higher Circles"), Professor Gross shows how the deceptively friendly and engaging style of the powers that be actually constitute an increasingly dangerous threat to the democratic process and to the long-term survival of our precious civil liberties. Of course, for Americans used to the association between the term `fascism' and the image of angry totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany and the Italy of the same period of time, it is perhaps difficult to associate with the notion that clever and systematic manipulation of the general population through use of the mass media is a form of fascistic influence. Yet, as Gross argues so persuasively, that is exactly what it is.
The term that pops to mind is that process that M.I.T. scholar Noam Chomsky would refer to as "manufacturing consent", a dangerous propensity which dangerously influences the perceptions of individual citizens by continually immersing the populace in an electronic stream of messages, both blatant and subliminal, that serves to condition them to a particular way of experiencing, participating, and perceiving the world around them. We find ourselves constantly bombarded by powerful and suggestive images, message-laden icons which deliver consistent themes regarding the nature of the environment we are living in, one we come to employ more and more exclusively as our preferred method of interacting in both the civil and legal aspects of contemporary society. As Professor Gross so prophetically forecasted, the mergers of all commercial news sources, both electronic and other, have come under the ownership and control of corporate America, one of the leading edges of the power elite. Amazingly, all of this also rings a responsive chord with the single most prophetic work of fiction in the 20th century, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". Lost in our petty diversions and self-absorbed in a pool of trivial pursuits, we become increasingly more vulnerable to the solid wall of subliminal and other messages all conveying a message regarding he nature of the world and our social, economic, and political place in it.
As our experience with the several successful Presidents ranging from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, the artful use of personal charisma to cover a mean-spirited political agenda has worked amazingly well. In the twenty years since the book was originally published, many aspects of our collective socioeconomic well-being have been profoundly changed, almost exclusively to the favor of the rich and well placed and to the increasing detriment of the average man and woman on the street. The statistics available are overwhelming in detailing the levels to which ordinary citizens have been stripped of most of the socioeconomic gains of the last century. In every area of contemporary life, from the cost and extent of health coverage to the responsibility for a variety of aspects such as providing for individual retirements, the vastly expanding future tax liability, and the use of the federal treasury to provide for subsidies to corporate America, the story is the same. Increasingly we are being manipulated into surrendering our voice in the democratic process and to playing a more limited role as consumers, which the elite evidently sees as our only crucial civic responsibility. As George W. Bush said with a booming voice and a congenial charismatic smile, post 911 Americans just had to get out to do their patriotic duty by once again buying things, to get the economy going once more. Indeed, it is becoming a brave new world. This is a wonderful book, and one that is a great, thought-provoking read. Enjoy!
Reality is worse, much worse!.......2003-06-22
Bertram Gross, while writing this book some 20 years ago, predicted a lot, but far from all. The fascism is here allright, but the "friendly" part is missing, and missing badly! Today's America is the land of the unfree, enslaved people, the land of presently the largest in the world and still growing at an enormous rate Gulag for the poor and disadvantaged. We now hold more of our people in cages than any other country in the world, both in real numbers and per capita. We punish our people and punish them harshly, frequently for totally victimless crimes, or for the crime of wanting to feel better in a hostile world called America. We hold in cages more mentally ill people than any other dictatorship in the world and many of them have been denied their freedom because of their actions triggered by their illnesses. We grant due process of law selectively only to those, who are rich enough to afford to buy it, while processing others through the legal grinder of the human souls, with the grotesque and bizzarre figure called "public defender" assuring near 100%, or frequently exactly 100% rate of conviction. And yes, torture of prisoners in America is quite well-documented fact. So, where's that "friendly" fascism?
Our government kills its people for the crime of murdering another, most of the time, only one human being, but then it sends our army into other countries, kills many thousands of totally innocent people, including entire families and small children, injures, disfigures thousands more, and never admits any wrongdoing and is never punished in any way.
Our Constitution has been raped and destroyed. We now have the largest police force in the world, also both in real numbers and per capita of population. Federal Government is involved in activities forbidden by the Consitution and it doesn't even feel the need to explain, justify the fact. Police breakins into people's homes, searches without warrants take pleace in massive numbers everyday (just watch any TV show Cops - they don't even hide it, they want you to get used to it). They no longer must justify any traffic stop - now they can stop you only because they ar the police, and you are not!
Still, Bertram Gross saw more than what 99.99% of Americans did. This book is well-documented, scholarly written and definitely interesting to read. But do yourself, your country and the humanity a favor. Read also, listen to Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, go to any search engine on the Internet and enter "American Gulag", "fascism in America", "prison nation USA", visit at least a few of those sites, study, read, learn, understand. Check www.amnestyusa.org, www.lp.org, www.aclu.org, www.hrw.org, www.cato.org. Until you can, until everything is not yet shut down and destroyed. And never, ever say you didn't know...
"...Huey Long once said, 'Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism'. I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
Nafeez Moseaddeq Ahmed, Preface
and quote from Jim Garrison, New Orleans
District Attorney, 1967, from the Conclusion
THE WAR ON FREEDOM
Book Description
The problem-solving capacity, and hence the democratic legitimacy, of national governments is being weakened by the dual processes of legal and economic integration in Europe; and the loss is not fully compensated by the development of effective and legitimate problem-solving capabilities at the European level. Professor Scharpf supports his position by examining the normative underpinnings of democratic legitimacy and by a detailed analysis of the structural asymmetry between the effectiveness of the legal instruments of `negative integration' which prevents governments from interfering with the free movements of goods, services, capital, and persons and the political constraints impeding positive political action at the European level. This is particularly true for policies pertaining to the welfare state. Governing in Europe explores strategies at the national level that could succeed in maintaining welfare state goals even under conditions of international economic competition, and it also discusses the conditions under which European policy could play a protective and enabling role with regard to these national solutions. The author suggests that if these opportunities should be used, multi-level governance in Europe could indeed regain both effectiveness and legitimacy.
Book Description
Stephen Skowronek's wholly innovative study demonstrates that presidents are persistent agents of change, continually disrupting and transforming the political landscape. In an afterword to this new edition, the author examines "third way" leadership as it has been practiced by Bill Clinton and others. These leaders are neither great repudiators nor orthodox innovators. They challenge received political categories, mix seemingly antithetical doctrines, and often take their opponents' issues as their own. As the 1996 election confirmed, third way leadership has great electoral appeal. The question is whether Clinton in his second term will escape the convulsive end so often associated with the type.
Customer Reviews:
The individual president in the politics of his time........2007-08-26
Stephen Skowronek wants to change how we judge the success of our Presidents. His major contribution to that understanding is to turn our attention away from the individual holding the office. Instead he wants us to focus on a combination of political, social and institutional factors. Perhaps the best way to introduce his theory is to start off with his observation that in general, "power has been less of a problem for presidents than authority" (p.17). In other words, it is easier to get things done then to sustain the justification of the action taken. In fact, Skowronek (hereafter called S.) feels that it in the ability of a president to "control the political definition of their actions" that will determine "the terms in which their places in history are understood" (ibid.)
Furthermore, S. sees that the power and authority have changed over the span of American history according to different arcs of development. S. sees the power of the presidency as being in the resources available to the office at any one moment and distinguishes that history of change (toward more resources and toward more independent use of those resources) as occuring in secular time. Authority refers to the way a president is expected by his contemporaries to use the resources of his office. The historical arc of change of authority structures, S. sees as taking place in political time (p.30).
The final key to understanding S.'s theory is his insistance on the inherently disruptive and creative nature of the office of the presidency. This is something that he insists on time and time again throughout the book (the first instance is on p.xii). Every president imposes themselves on the office in such a way as to change (disrupt) the current political order. How they frame doing so greatly determines the extent to which their authority to do so is challenged.
Here is where it gets interesting. Some presidents have been elected with a clear warrant for radical change in the political order. Some are elected to continue down an established path. S. imposes order on all this with a simple two by two box on p. 36. A president arrives in office either affliated with or opposed to the current regime. That regime is either vulnerable or resiliant. A president who arrives opposed to a current regime that is vulnerable has a chance to practice what S. calls the politics of reconstruction. S. examines as examples the presidencies of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, F.D.R., and Reagan. This is the politics of greatness. If they arrive opposed to a current regime that is resiliant, the president is mired in the politics of preemption. S. sees as examples of this situation to be the presidencies of John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, (maybe) Grover Cleveland, (maybe) Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon and (somewhat) Bill Clinton. If a president arrives affiliated with a resiliant regime, he is an examplar of the politics of articulation. S discusses as examples of this James Monroe, James Polk, Teddy Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Finally, if the president is affiliated with a vulnerable regime, he will be an example of the politics of disjunction. S.'s examples are John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter (pp.17-57).
A couple of points need to be made about this scheme. The different types of politics unfold in a cycle in political time. There is a reconstructive president who usually arrives as the leader of a party realignment and with a mandate to change the corrupt and inept politics of the current regime. Utilizing this warrant for change they are able to make full use of the current powers of the president to change the regime (usually increasing both those powers and the independence of their use). One of their typical rhetorical tropes will be making the claim that they are returning our politics back to its first principles.
The presidents who follow are usually affiliates whose warrant is to continue along the new path. They do so initially as articulators but increasingly as disjunctivists (my own term and an ugly one, I acknowledge). This is due to the disruptive and individual nature of the office. In imposing their own style, ideas and appointees upon reaching office, the affiliates inevitably expose schisms in the party structure and ideology. This type of president will try to run a full-service presidency that pleases all factions of the party but the competition for the resources to do so will begin the unraveling of the coalitions created by the reconstructivists.
Even solid policy success will create problems for the affiliates who are claiming the mantle of the favorite son. Their own implementation of policy to solidify the success of their predecessor begins a debate on the history and the future of that's predecessor's reconstruction.(p.327).
Finally, in the politics of disjunction, the president will tend to resort to the reification of technique. This occurs when the president begins to lose control over the framing of the divisive issues of the day. They then attempt to use a standard of behavior as a justification for their actions. These standards of political behavior were usually introduced by the reconstructive president and have since become "politically vacuous" by the development of events. J. Q. Adams attempted to shore up his appointments by claiming that they were chosen solely on the basis of ability (the standard of patrician politics championed by Jefferson). But the politics of the moment demanded a balancing of political interests that were pressing upon him due above all to the circumstances of his election. Playing the patrician only made him seem duplicitious (see chapter 4, part 3).
Occassionally non-political events (e.g., the assisination of Lincoln) throws into office someone who is opposed to a resiliant regime and we experience the politics of preemption.
There is nothing regular or predetermined about these cycles. My qualifications about what type of president Cleveland and Wilson were shows that S. is sensitive to the difficulties with typing many of the individuals who have held the office. I think his chosen and discussed examples are probably best seen as Weberian ideal types. But I also think that S. feels that his typology can be usefully and clearly imposed on the great majority of our presidents.
Another qualifier on the theory is that the presidency is not the only governmental branch that has developed in secular time. Both Congress and the judiciary became increasingly independent from the presidency and developed increasing resources for expressing that independence.
Just as important, the last century has seen the rise of other institutions that are independent of the three branches (the Federal Reserve Bank) or outside of government all together (large unions, religious organizations, PACs, etc.) These factors along with others make it increasingly difficult to successfully pull off a reconstructive presidency.
S.s organizes his case studies in chronological order. They are in sections that are led off by study of the reconstructive presidents, followed by studies of affiliates and disjunctive presidents. They are very impressive essays that could easily stand alone. Part of what impressed me about them is the amount of archival research that S. has done. I would have expected him to rely on secondary studies and for the most part he has. But he has also read deeply in the writings of the individual presidents. For example, he makes good use of the letters of Franklin Pierce. There is an extraordinary amount of research that went into this book.
There is also a certain amount of hyperbole. I feel that S. sometimes makes his argument through his rhetoric. S. wants to emphasize the powerful nature of the office. So S. tells us that Polk's attempts to manage Jacksonian orthodoxy unleashed "schisms so destabilizing that it would take a civil war to resolve them."(p.162). I am going to suggest that those schisms were unleashed long before Polk did much of anything on the political scene. Polk's actions made things worse at most by accelerating a process already well developed.
Finally, S. feels that the political reality exposed in his theory is breaking down in various ways in the post-modern plebescitary presidency (his terms- don't look at me). I have gone on far too long to even begin to go into why he feels that is. What I hope I have done is to make you want to read the book. This is as important and insightful a scholarly work as I have read in a long time. It has several flaws but scholarly timidity is not one of them. If you are an American politics or history reader, you simply must read this book.
And then write a comment to me explaining how S.'s theory applies to Bush. I am still working on that one.
Good but boring.......2006-12-15
I had to read this for a class in undergrad, it was ok. I only read like 2 chapters because i was out drinking too often. His thesis is unique and kind of makes you think about the way presidents act within the overall American political landscape.
Most important book on the presidency in decades.......2004-06-08
Skowronek has written a magesterial study of the American presidency, fundamentally reinterpreting it through a novel historical framework. His writing style is very dense, and often unclear - but the hard work necessary to understand him is well worth the effort.
I first read this as an undergraduate, then twice again in graduate school. Each reading brought out new insights I missed the previous time.
No student of the presidency can afford not to read this. Quibble with him on some details, perhaps, but overall no one can doubt its lasting importance. An instant classic.
BRILLIANT, but a tad dense.......2002-02-22
This is definitely a difficult book, and understanding certain critical passages may require several readings. In short, this is NOT a good book for an introduction to presidential politics and leadership. For a more readable and still highly regarded account, Neustadt's seminal work is a good choice. However, none of this is to say that Skowronek's book is not brilliant--it is, and reading it carefully is a very profitable experience and will enhance anyone's understanding of the presidency, agree with Professor Skowronek or not. Through all the technical references, Skowronek proposes a paradigm for assessing presidential leadership: Reconstruction, Disjunction, Articulation, and Pre-emption, all of which are based on the nature of the government and its commitments (vulnerable or resilient) and on the president's relationship to that regime (opposed or affiliated). Reconstruction results when presidents are opposed to a vulnerable regime--here are the "great" presidents: Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan, for example. Affiliation with a vulnerable regime produces Disjunction. Articulation results from affiliation with a resilient regime. And Pre-emption is the product of opposition to a resilient regime. Of course, this merely scratches the surface of Skowronek's argument, for which he argues quite well and which he approaches from a fairly historical perspective. I highly recommend this for anyone wishing to gain a deeper, fuller understanding of presidential leadership, especially in considering how much a president's skills affect what type of leader he is and how much circumstances shape his presidency.
Decent.......2000-08-31
I read this as part of a course (taught by the author himself) in my sophomore year of college. Skowronek is I think to be applauded for his historical approach to presidential politics, and for his style of writing: it seems more as if youre reading a story than a political science book. Time and time again, Skowronek comes back to his thesis and main themes (legitimacy and presidents ability to correctly understand and manipulate their historical moment. The book never loses focus as Skrownek discusses different presidents or as he tells stories about a particular president. And hes done his research really really well. In particular his use of presidential quotes is very very impressive. Numerous times he gives examples of Presidents who attempt to build political legitimacy using words that fit very well into Skowronek's conceptual framework ("preserving foundations", recovering old sacred truths, continuing work that has already begun). The problem with Skowronek's book is that I think, given the sort of analysis hes doing here, its not very naunced. Im sure for example, articulation presidents often distanced themselves from their predecesors in some form or another. Some may not have a problem with this: after all S. is trying to prove his point and prove it well. However I thought at times that the book could have been more nauanced. Just my thoughts....OHH BUY THE BOOK!
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