Gerald R Ford or Hizbullah

Gerald R. Ford

Author: Douglas Brinkley

THE "ACCIDENTAL" PRESIDENT WHOSE INNATE DECENCY AND STEADY HAND RESTORED THE PRESIDENCY AFTER ITS GREATEST CRISIS

When Gerald R. Ford entered the White House in August 1974, he inherited a presidency tarnished by the Watergate scandal, the economy was in a recession, the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, and he had taken office without having been elected. Most observers gave him little chance of success, especially after he pardoned Richard Nixon just a month into his presidency, an action that outraged many Americans, but which Ford thought was necessary to move the nation forward.

During his presidency, many people thought of Ford as a man who stumbled a lot -- clumsy on his feet and in politics -- but acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley shows him to be a man of independent thought and conscience, who never allowed party loyalty to prevail over his sense of right and wrong. As a young congressman, he stood up to the isolationists in the Republican leadership, promoting a vigorous role for America in the world. Later, as House minority leader and as president, he challenged the right wing of his party, refusing to bend to their vision of confrontation with the Communist world. And after the fall of Saigon, Ford also overruled his advisers by allowing Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States, arguing that to do so was the humane thing to do. Brinkley also offers keen analyses of the Mayaguez incident and the Helsinki Accords, where Ford's steady and focused leadership played a key role in advancing American interests.

Brinkley draws on exclusive interviews with Ford and on previously unpublished documents (including a remarkable correspondence between Ford and Nixon stretching over four decades), fashioning a masterful reassessment of Gerald R. Ford's presidency and his underappreciated legacy to the nation.

The Washington Post - David Broder

Brinkley does full justice to those qualities of Midwestern goodwill exhibited by Ford all his life, and he excuses Ford's anger with Reagan and the right-wingers because he plainly shares Ford's preference for a more tolerant, pragmatic version of conservatism.

Foreign Affairs

Brinkley has written a decent and honest book about a decent andhonest man; more than that, Brinkley has managed to get beneath Gerald Ford's Midwestern reserve to give us a surprisingly engaging and accessible account of the most down-to-earth president since Calvin Coolidge. He is particularly good on Ford's congressional years, illuminating the political life of a Republican Party that seemed, for much of Ford's active career, doomed to perpetual minority status.

Brinkley's Gerald R. Ford is part of a series of short presidential lives edited by Arthur Schlesinger. The series is the latest and by no means the least of the contributions Schlesinger made to American studies during a long and extraordinary career. His generosity to rising generations of historians and his commitment to useful history that could inform contemporary policy debates in the service of democratic values were remarkable; he will be sorely missed. <

What People Are Saying

"A rock-hard moral core defined Gerald Ford. Unrattled by the speed of events or by their uneven consequences, Ford remained the steadiest of public men, certain of his course and confident in his ability to keep to it. He may have landed in the White House without planning to but he proved well prepared for the nation's highest office, intellectually as well as emotionally. Having never slogged through the mud of a presidential campaign, he arrived in the White House with neither an untoward gratitude for those who had supported him nor any lingering animosity toward those who hadn't. Instead, he had an unobstructed view of his enormous and widely diverse constituency, and his record in the White House was remarkably evenhanded. He left the presidency in far better shape than he had found it -- perhaps even healthier than it had been in decades."

--Douglas Brinkley on Gerald R. Ford

Go to: Whats Cooking America or Donna Dewberrys Designs For Entertaining

Hizbullah (Hezbollah): The Story from Within

Author: Naim Qassem

A unique insider's view of one of the most important political parties in the Middle East. The mandate of Hizbullah ("Party of God") is laid out here for the first time in English by a high-ranking insider.

Table of Contents:

1	Vision and goals	13
2	Organization and public work	59
3	Key milestones in the history of Hizbullah	87
4	The Palestinian cause	151
5	Issues and stance	187
6	Regional and international relations	235
7	Hizbullah's future	261
App	Hizbullah's 1992 election programme	271

The Quest for Cosmic Justice or American Dreamer

The Quest for Cosmic Justice

Author: Thomas Sowell

This is not a comforting book -- it is a book about disturbing issues that are urgently important today and enduringly critical for the future. It rejects both "merit" and historical redress as principles for guiding public policy. It shows how "peace" movements have led to war and to needless casualties in those wars. It argues that "equality" is neither right nor wrong, but meaningless.

The Quest for Cosmic Justice shows how confused conceptions of justice end up promoting injustice, how confused conceptions of equality end up promoting inequality, and how the tyranny of social visions prevents many people from confronting the actual consequences of their own beliefs and policies. Those consequences include the steady and dangerous erosion of the fundamental principles of freedom -- and the quiet repeal of the American revolution.

Publishers Weekly

One of the country's most respected conservative intellectuals, Sowell (Race and Culture, etc.) proclaims a need to clarify the notion of justice. He then hurriedly decrees an absolute dichotomy between "traditional justice"--purely procedural equal treatment--and "cosmic justice." Unfortunately, Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, never satisfactorily defines what he means by cosmic justice, using it as an elastic term. Sowell easily tears apart handpicked examples of ill-conceived cosmic justice while steering clear of serious engagement with opposing positions. Thus he attacks Supreme Court rulings such as Miranda as "attempts to seek cosmic justice in the courtroom," but it requires a much better argument than Sowell provides to see how Miranda is anything but procedural. He equates redistributive state policies with "Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot," as if Western European welfare states simply didn't exist. Sowell makes some very good points in these four essays (touching on the difficulty of defining equal performance, the necessity of considering costs in pursuing abstract ideals and the corrosive political effects of envy), but he overplays his hand. The essay called "The Tyranny of Visions" asserts that conservatives "acquire no sense of moral superiority" from their positions, a point that anyone familiar with Pat Buchanan or with Sowell himself will find hard to swallow. Certainly, a good case can be made that people use the term "justice" loosely and that many conflate procedural justice with metaphysical justice. Beyond that, however, Sowell offers a catechism for true conservative believers. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"Much of the world today and down through centuries of history has suffered the terrible consequences of unbridled government power, the prime evil that the writers of the American constitution sought to guard against." It is this "unbridled government power" that prolific political theorist Sowell (Affirmative Action Reconsidered) fears most as something that follows necessarily when societies try to achieve "cosmic justice" (as opposed to "social justice"). "Cosmic justice," he asserts, "is not about the rules of the game" but rather about "putting particular segments of society in the position that they would have been in but for some undeserved misfortune." Referring often to 20th-century world history, he argues persuasively that whatever benefits one might hope would result from trying to right the past wrongs of the world (instead of trying to repair the present world), they are not worth the almost inevitable risks of the loss of freedom and the rise of despotism. As Sowell does so well in his other books--many of which analyze the tradeoff between freedom and equality--he presents his case in clear, convincing, and accessible language. Strongly recommended for most public and academic libraries.--Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

The Wall Street Journal - Daniel J. Silver

Mr. Sowell provides a trenchant critique of this disturbing line of thought, which has done so much harm to the basic values and commitments of most Americans.

Kirkus Reviews

A cosmic straw man is vanquished in the fight against dangerous ideals such as social justice and equality. This is not the place to look for original ideas or honest analysis. Presumably, Sowell's (Migrations and Cultures, 1996, etc.) goal is to entertain those who share his convictions rather than convince open-minded readers, and this audience will be pleased. "Cosmic justice" is presented as a fundamental departure from the "traditional" conception of justice, which Sowell claims has the "characteristic of a process," rather than of a particular outcome. He conveniently forgets to mention that this "tradition" dates back only to the emergence of liberal-democratic states and that contrasting notions of procedural vs. substantive justice remain the subject of lively debate. Admitting legitimate disagreement over even something as slippery as justice would soften the blows he aims at those who think inequality and any associated oppression raises concerns a just society should address, and Sowell is not one to temper a political argument simply to maintain intellectual integrity. He is not straightforwardly defending inequality, of course, but rather is pursuing the familiar strategy of attacking measures that could alleviate it. Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, boldly asserts that those who believe equality should be pursued through public policy "assume that politicizing inequality is free of costs and dangers." No names are mentioned, and it is indeed hard to imagine that anyone would believe there are no costs or dangers. By stating the issue in terms of extremes, however, he ducks the real issue—the challenge of weighing costs and benefits—andavoids the need for incorporating any subtlety into his discussion.

Table of Contents:

	Preface
I	The Quest for Cosmic Justice	1
II	The Mirage of Equality	49
III	The Tyranny of Visions	97
IV	The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution	143
	Notes	191
	Index	207

Books about: French Worker or Case Studies in Estate Planning

American Dreamer: The Life of Henry A. Wallace

Author: John C Culver

The son of prominent Midwestern Republicans, Henry Agard Wallace became the emblematic leftist politician of his time. A man ill at ease in the world of politics, Wallace nevertheless came close to becoming president of the United States. He was beloved by millions as the Prophet of the Common Man and yet reviled by millions more as a dangerous, misguided radical.

With American Dreamer, John C. Culver and John Hyde do justice to this important and controversial figure. We are shown Wallace the agriculturist of international renown, the prolific author, the ground-breaking economist, and the businessman whose company (eventually worth billions) paved the way for a worldwide agricultural revolution. The authors do more than investigate the complex personality of their subject. They bring to life with novelistic intensity the pivotal era in which Wallace lived: the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. Wallace held two cabinet posts, served four tumultuous years as FDR's wartime vice president, and waged a brave if quixotic campaign for president in 1948. By the McCarthy years, Wallace's reputation was in steep decline, his cries against the escalating Cold War unheeded.

Drawing on thousands of documents, many previously unavailable, Culver and Hyde provide a fully rounded portrait of a man who reflected his country's hopes as well as its flaws, an authentic American dreamer whose story is a vital part of our nation's history.

Arthur Schlesinger

A careful, readable, sympathetic but commendably dispassionate biography. —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Douglas Brinkley

At long last a lucid, balanced and judicious narrative of Henry Wallace...a first-rate biography.

Robert Dallek

Everyone interested in twentieth-century American history will want to read this book.

Walter LaFeber

[T]he most balanced, complete, and readable account...

Kai Bird

A formidable achievement....[an] engrossing account.

Evan Thomas

[A] lucid and sympathetic portrait of a fascinating character. Wallace's life reminds us of a time when ideas really mattered.

George McGovern

This is a great book about a great man. I can't recall when—if ever—I've read a better biography.

Dale Bumpers

Many perceptions of Henry Wallace, not always favorable, will forever be changed.

Michael Beschloss

A fascinating, thoughtful, incisive, and well-researched life of the mysterious and complicated figure who might have become president...

James MacGregor Burns

A fine contribution to twentieth-century American history.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Wonderfully researched and very well written...an indispensable document on both the man and the time.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

In this masterly work, Culver and Hyde have captured one of the more fascinating figures in American history.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

[E]minently readable...a captivating chronicle of American politics from the Depression through the 1960s.

Mexican New York or Learning to Drive

Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants

Author: Robert Courtney Smith

Drawing on more than fifteen years of research, Mexican New York offers an intimate view of globalization as it is lived by Mexican immigrants and their children in New York and in Mexico. Robert Courtney Smith's groundbreaking study sheds new light on transnationalism, vividly illustrating how immigrants move back and forth between New York and their home village in Puebla with considerable ease, borrowing from and contributing to both communities as they forge new gender roles; new strategies of social mobility, race, and even adolescence; and new brands of politics and egalitarianism.
Smith's deeply informed narrative describes how first-generation men who have lived in New York for decades become important political leaders in their home villages in Mexico. Smith explains how relations between immigrant men and women and their U.S.-born children are renegotiated in the context of migration to New York and temporary return visits to Mexico. He illustrates how U.S.-born youth keep their attachments to Mexico, and how changes in migration and assimilation have combined to transnationalize both U.S.-born adolescents and Mexican gangs between New York and Puebla. Mexican New York profoundly deepens our knowledge of immigration as a social process, convincingly showing how some immigrants live and function in two worlds at the same time and how transnationalization and assimilation are not opposing, but related, phenomena.

Table of Contents:

1	Transnational life in ethnographic perspective	1
2	Dual contexts for transnational life	18
3	"Los ausentes siempre presentes" : making a local-level transnational political community	53
4	The defeat of Don Victorio : transnationalization, democratization, and political change	76
5	Gender strategies, settlement, and transnational life in the first generation	94
6	"In Ticuani, he goes crazy" : the second generation renegotiates gender	123
7	"Padre Jesus, protect me" : adolescence, religion, and social location	147
8	"I'll go back next year" : transnational life across the life course	186
9	Defending your name : the roots and transnationalization of Mexican gangs	207
10	Returning to a changed Ticuani	242
	Conclusions and recommendations	277
	Coda : the Mexican educational foundation of New York	293

Look this: Governing the White House or Accounting Principles

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories

Author: Katha Pollitt

Celebrated for her award-winning political columns, criticism, and poetry, Katha Pollitt offers something new in this poignant, hilarious, and sometimes outrageous collection of stories drawn from her own life. With deep feeling and sharp insight, she writes about love, sex, betrayal, heartbreak, and much more: what she learned about her parents from reading their FBI files, the joy and loneliness of new motherhood, the curious mental effects of a post-college stint proofreading pornographic novels, and the decline and fall of practically everything, including herself. Unafraid to say what others only think and acknowledge what others won’t admit, Katha Pollitt surprises and entertains on every page.

Praise for Learning to Drive

“The kind of book you want to look up from at points so you can read aloud certain passages to a friend or lover.”
–Chicago Tribune

“A powerful personal narrative . . . full of insight and charm . . . [Katha] Pollitt is her own Jane Austen character . . . haughty and modest, moral and irresponsible, sensible and, happily for us, lost in sensibility.”
–The New York Review of Books

“With . . . bracing self-honesty, Pollitt takes us through the maddening swirl of contradictions at the heart of being fifty-something: the sense of slowing down, of urgency, of wisdom, of ignorance, of strength, of helplessness, of breakdown, of renewal.”
–Sunday Seattle Times

“Essays of breathtaking candor and razor-sharp humor . . . [Pollitt] has outdone herself. . . . [Her] observations are acute and her confessionstonic. Forget face-lifts; Pollitt’s essays elevate the spirit.”
–Booklist (starred review)

“Candid, confessional prose . . . But even at her most intimate, [Pollitt] manages to infuse her tales of dissatisfaction and heartbreak with levity and humor.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“Pitch perfect . . . painfully hilarious to read.”
–The Boston Globe

The New York Times - Toni Bentley

Her three previous essay collections gathered brilliant commentary on welfare, abortion, surrogate motherhood, Iraq, gay marriage and health care, mostly from the pages of The Nation. But with Learning to Drive, she gets personal, and shameless. She has decided to wave her dirty laundry (among which she found unidentified striped panties) and confesses to "Webstalking" her longtime, live-in, womanizing former boyfriend…It's hard to tell if she's coming into her own, trying to sell more books or has lost it entirely. Or perhaps she's giving up her dignity in a generous motion of solidarity toward the rest of us who have already blown our cover? Whatever the reason, she's entitled.

Publishers Weekly

This collection of reflections by the Nationessayist and poet Pollitt (Reasonable Creatures) ranges in subject from her philandering boyfriend to a general late-midlife sense of loss. The title essay is the zippiest and most successful, fashioning a canny metaphor about the importance of observation both in learning to drive for the first time at age 52 and in recognizing that her lover of seven years was cheating on her from the get-go. Pollitt plays the conflicted modern woman par excellence, both feminist and feminine; she writes of unabashedly joining a Marxist study group at the behest of her guru-like boyfriend, who padded the meetings with past and present lovers ("In the Study Group"), then wonders with wistful anticipation what kind of life it will be when she has outlived all the men who find her desirable ("After the Men Are Dead"). Familiarity seems to breed weariness, however, and her essays about motherhood ("Beautiful Screamer") and women's tenacious collusion in men's superiority ("Sisterhood") have the feel of oft-tread ground. (Sept. 4)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Stacy Russo - Library Journal

Pollitt (Virginity or Death!) is unconcerned with making friends: some of her comments, particularly on the subjects of abortion and religion, will anger members of the conservative right. But a close reading of these 11 nonfiction pieces executed with fiercely poetic language and brilliantly placed sarcasm reveals a highly inquisitive and independent voice. Pollitt divvies out clever observations of American culture along with honest moments of self-examination. In "Webstalker," she frankly and humorously describes her voyeuristic obsession with her former partner. Another comical yet endearing essay, "In the Study Group," portrays various members of a Marxist study group. Pollitt writes movingly of her father in "Good-bye, Lenin" and of her mother in "Mrs. Razzmatazz." In the final entry, "I Let Myself Go," she questions how some feminists equate plastic surgery with women's freedom. In one of the collection's most poignant moments, Pollitt describes a black-and-white photograph of writer Iris Murdoch's wonderfully wrinkled and asymmetrical face. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. [The New Yorkerwill feature the first serial.-Ed.]

Kirkus Reviews

A collection of savvy, witty essays, more personal than political, from a feminist known for her social and cultural commentary. In the title essay, Pollitt (Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, 2006, etc.), a long-time columnist for The Nation, has lost her man and consequently must learn to drive a car, a task fraught with difficulties for a woman in late middle age. In the second piece, "Webstalker," the loss of her man turns her into an Internet addict who compulsively Googles him and anyone connected to him. These two essays, both previously published in the New Yorker, are laced with self-deprecating humor, as is "Memoir of a Shy Pornographer," about her stint as a young, shy freelance copyeditor and proofreader of pornography. There is a darker tone to her wry essay on belonging to a Marxist study group, led by a charismatic leader who was also her philandering boyfriend, and in the several pieces on feminism. A measure of poignancy marks her recollections of her Communist father ("Good-Bye, Lenin"), on whom the FBI kept error-filled files, and of her alcoholic mother ("Mrs. Razzmatazz"), who hid bottles in the kitchen cabinets. Resignation fills "End Of," her meditative piece on a vanishing landscape near her Connecticut home. Love, sex, marriage, mothering, aging, keeping up appearances-all come under her sharp scrutiny. A sardonic observer of human behavior, especially the relations between men and women, Pollitt leaves no doubt about her opinions. She writes that " the stories women tell each other about themselves emphasize the comical, the improbable, the vaguely malevolent but always entertaining twists and turns of fate," acharacterization that fits much of her work here. Thoroughly enjoyable reading for anyone, feminist or not, who likes bright, funny, opinionated writing. Agent: Melanie Jackson/Melanie Jackson Agency