Federal Election Commission trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left-Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness. While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In REPUBLIC, LOST, he not only makes this need palpable and clear-he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.

    troops deal with the trauma of war, and how one woman risks everything to bring these soldiers’ buddies home.

    There is a user-friendly table of contents for easy interaction. The following are included:1. 1215 - The Magna Carta2. 1606 - The First Virginia Charter3. 1620 - The Mayflower Compact4. 1676 - The First Thanksgiving Proclamation5. 1765 - Resolutions of the Stamp Act6. 1775 - Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death7. 1776 - Declaration of Independance8. 1777 - Articles of Confederation9. 1783 - The Paris Peace Treaty of 178310. 1787 - The Constitution of the United States of America and the Amendments11. 1796 - George Washington's Farewell Address12. 1823 - The Monroe Doctrine13. 1862 - The Emancipation Proclamation14. 1863 - The Gettysburg Address15. 1941 - The Four FreedomsThese documents and speeches provided a solid reference foundation for any class in United States history or government.All of Unique Classics ebooks have an improved navigation system which includes a linked table of contents. The works are formatted for easy reading and triple-checked for quality assurance. Our illustrated ebooks contain the best related works of art for the material which make the story reading experience much more pleasant and memorable.

    She is a forensic commercial real estate appraiser specializing in eminent domain valuation. Her nearly 30 years of experience analyzing land use and property value enabled her to recognize the planning revolution sweeping the country. While fighting to stop a huge redevelopment project in her city she researched the corporate, political, and financial interests behind it and found UN Agenda 21. Impacting every aspect of our lives, UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is a corporate manipulation using the Green Mask of environmental concern to forward a globalist plan.

    and thousands of miles away long before the rest of the country was paying attention to terrorism. Given unprecedented access, thousands of pages of once secret documents, and hundreds of interviews, Garrett M. Graff takes us inside the FBI and its attempt to protect America from the Munich Olympics in 1972 to the attempted Times Square bombing in 2010. It also tells the inside story of the FBI's behind-the-scenes fights with the CIA, the Department of Justice, and five White Houses over how to combat terrorism, balance civil liberties, and preserve security. The book also offers a never-before-seen intimate look at FBI Director Robert Mueller, the only U.S. national security leader still in office from 9/11, and the most important director since Hoover himself.Covering more than 30 years of history and coming right up until the present day of the Obama administration's response to terrorist attacks like that on Christmas Day 2009 in Detroit, the book explores the transformation of the FBI from a domestic law enforcement agency, handling bank robberies and local crimes, into an international intelligence agency--with more than 500 agents operating in more than 60 countries overseas today--fighting extremist terrorism, cyber crimes, and, for the first time, American suicide bombers.Brilliantly reported and suspensefully told, The Threat Matrix peers into the darkest corners of this secret war and will change your view of the FBI forever.

    - an Australian metals trader named Garry-with help from the CIA-inadvertently triggered the invasion of Iraq - coalition troops were killed by bombs made with explosives that, according to the White House, never existed - the United States Air Force bombed a wedding in Afghanistan by mistake - the U.S. gave material support to the president of Uzbekistan, who, as it happens, boils people aliveThese are not merely random disasters from an otherwise effective war. A History of the World Since 9/11shows us just why, a decade after the horrifying attacks on New York and Washington, we are no closer towinning the war on terror than we were on September 10, 2001. We failed to find Osama bin Laden or quellextremism. We sparked civil wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Around the world, innocents were incarcerated,tortured, and murdered-all in the name of justice.Acclaimed author and journalist Dominic Streatfeild traveled across the world for years in pursuit ofanswers for this stunning collapse of international law. The results of his search form the most fully realized study of the war on terror yet written. Piercing reportage blends with sobering human drama, woven into eight narratives of how our world went wrong after 9/11.

    Through incisive, morally engaging conversations with some of the leading political figures, writers, activists, poets, and scholars at work today, the Journal captured the essence of the past three pivotal years in American life and politics, including the final act of the Bush Administration and the early years of Obama.Now, Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues brings this groundbreaking work to the page. From Michael Pollan, David Simon, and Jane Goodall to John Grisham, Karen Armstrong, and Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues introduces the ideas that matter today—on subjects as diverse as the politics of food, race in the age of Obama, aging in America, the power of poetry, wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the conflict over gay marriage, and the fate of the American newspaper.With extensive new commentary from Bill Moyers—in the tradition of his national bestsellers A World of Ideas and Healing and the Mind—here is an unparalleled guide to the debates, the cultural currents, and above all the fascinating people who have so powerfully shaped the world we live in.

    

    But what is liberty exactly, and what role does it play in our lives? Connor Boyack explores these questions and much more in this detailed analysis of historical developments, secular information, and scriptural insights. Make the most of your freedom through the joys of the gospel with this timely book.

    In the tradition of Gideon's Trumpet, Adam Winkler uses the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, as a springboard for a groundbreaking historical narrative. From the Founding Fathers and the Second Amendment to the origins of the Klan, ironically as a gun control organization, the debate over guns has always generated controversy. Whether examining the Black Panthers' role in provoking the modern gun rights movement or Ronald Reagan's efforts to curtail gun ownership, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun rights advocates and gun control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.

    With the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Americans formally claimed their rights, and that tinder exploded into a new age for mankind.But more than 200 years later, the flames of freedom are dying. We cry that Washington has failed us, but that is not where the blame lies.With our rights, We the People were given the duty to maintain them. We the People are the problem. And We the People are the solution. Our republic will be restored not through political revolution, but through a revolution of the soul -- not as we point fingers upward, but as we turn inward.In an age of blame, this is uncommon sense. And it's precisely what America needs to rekindle her light.

    In the process, it clarifies the central role of race in this transformation and develops a more precise account of how race shapes poverty governance in the post–civil rights era. Connecting welfare reform to other policy developments, the authors analyze diverse forms of data to explicate the racialized origins, operations, and consequences of a new mode of poverty governance that is simultaneously neoliberal—grounded in market principles—and paternalist—focused on telling the poor what is best for them. The study traces the process of rolling out the new regime from the federal level, to the state and county level, down to the differences in ways frontline case workers take disciplinary actions in individual cases. The result is a compelling account of how a neoliberal paternalist regime of poverty governance is disciplining the poor today.

    The common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them, and inherently exposes them to threats. The existential motive of all oligarchs is wealth defense. How they respond varies with the threats they confront, including how directly involved they are in supplying the coercion underlying all property claims, and whether they act separately or collectively. These variations yield four types of oligarchy: warring, ruling, sultanistic, and civil. Oligarchy is not displaced by democracy but rather is fused with it. Moreover, the rule of law problem in many societies is a matter of taming oligarchs. Cases studied in this book include the United States, ancient Athens and Rome, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, medieval Venice and Siena, mafia commissions in the United States and Italy, feuding Appalachian families, and early chiefs cum oligarchs dating from 2300 BCE.

    Included are Thoughts on Government (1776), the pamphlet that shaped many of the state constitutions established after independence, and all of the “Letters from a Distinguished American” and “Replies to Hendrik Calkoen,” crucial essays Adams wrote in 1780 to influence European views of the newly independent United States and create a framework for postwar international relations. Also included is the “Report of a Constitution for Massachusetts,” Adams’s 1780 blueprint for what remains the world’s oldest working political charter. Throughout, in revealing excerpts from his diary and in his characteristically warm and frank letters, especially those to his “dearest friend” Abigail, Adams recounts the debate in Congress over independence, the struggles to form the government and law of the United States, and the intrigues and frustrations of diplomatic service.

    By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee's presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost.South Korea's political landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government's obsession with economic growth. The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapy-interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cuts-met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship.This landmark volume examines South Korea's era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea's trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growth.

    You will hear air traffic controllers, military aviation officers, airline and fighter jet pilots, as well as two of the hijackers, during two hours of that historic morning.Transcripts and some of the recordings have been released previously, but not the complete "audio monograph", as it was described by the September 11 Commission. The recordings were originally intended to be part of the Commissions' 2004 report on the terrorist attacks, but were not ready in time for a legal review before the Commission finished its work. They have now been released in their entirety.

    policies in Latin America during the Cold War. Author Stephen G. Rabe, a leading authority in the field, argues that the sense of joy and accomplishment that accompanied the end of the Cold War, the liberation of Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union must be tempered by the realization that Latin Americans paid a ghastly price during the Cold War. Dictatorship, authoritarianism, the methodical abuse of human rights, and campaigns of state terrorism characterized life in Latin America between 1945 and 1989. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala endured appalling levels of political violence. The U.S. repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of Latin American nations in the name of anticommunism, destabilizing constitutional governments and aiding and abetting those who murdered and tortured.Incorporating recently declassified documents, Rabe supplements his strong, provocative historical narrative with stories about the fates of ordinary Latin Americans, an extensive chronology, a series of evocative photographs, and an annotated bibliography.

    The new president, Ronald Reagan, fired the strikers, establishing a reputation for both decisiveness and hostility to organized labor. As Joseph A. McCartin writes, the strike was the culmination of two decades of escalating conflict between controllers and the government that stemmed from the high-pressure nature of the job and the controllers' inability to negotiate with their employer over vital issues. PATCO's fall not only ushered in a long period of labor decline; it also served as a harbinger of the campaign against public sector unions that now roils American politics.Now available in paperback, Collision Course sets the strike within a vivid panorama of the rise of the world's busiest air-traffic control system. It begins with an arresting account of the 1960 midair collision over New York that cost 134 lives and exposed the weaknesses of an overburdened system. Through the stories of controllers like Mike Rock and Jack Maher, who were galvanized into action by that disaster and went on to found PATCO, it describes the efforts of those who sought to make the airways safer and fought to win a secure place in the American middle class. It climaxes with the story of Reagan and the controllers, who surprisingly endorsed the Republican on the promise that he would address their grievances. That brief, fateful alliance triggered devastating miscalculations that changed America, forging patterns that still govern the nation's labor politics.Written with an eye for detail and a grasp of the vast consequences of the PATCO conflict for both air travel and America's working class, Collision Course is a stunning achievement.

    A powerful polemicist, leading member of the Continental Congress, brilliant constitutional theorist, and tireless diplomat, Adams was a figure of towering importance during the birth of the American republic. Now, in a two-volume edition charting his education, early career, courtship and marriage, and experience of the American Revolution from the earliest stirrings of discontent in 1761 to his negotiation of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, The Library of America presents the first comprehensive selection of Adams’s vitally important writing for the general reader.This first volume contains seventy-two letters, essays, public messages, and drafts written by John Adams between 1755 and 1775, along with extensive selections from his diary for this period and selected passages from his unfinished autobiography recalling his life up to 1775. Included are the full text of A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765), the work that transformed a young Boston lawyer into a leader of the emerging American resistance to British rule, and the entire 1775 exchange between Adams (“Novanglus”) and Loyalist Daniel Leonard (“Massachusettensis),” one of the most important newspaper debates in the colonies before independence. Throughout, in revealing excerpts from his diary and in his characteristically warm and frank letters, especially those to his “dearest friend” Abigail, Adams conveys the excitement and dangers of the emerging crisis with Britain, from the Stamp Act riots of 1765, to his successful defense of the British soldiers charged with perpetrating the Boston Massacre, to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773 and the convening of the First Continental Congress in 1774, where Adams, thrust at last onto a stage befitting his outsized ambition, became a leader of the patriot cause.

    This simple but powerful book explains why the state is illegitimate, unnecessary, and dangerous, and what we can do to begin achieving real freedom. Gary Chartier is Associate Dean of the School of Business and Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics at La Sierra University. He is the author of Economic Justice and Natural Law and The Analogy of Love. His byline has appeared in journals including Legal Theory, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence.

    He came to the U.S. from Kenya and was given a university scholarship. While in the Hawaii, he met Ann Dunham in 1961, and his son Barack was born. He left his young family to gain a master's degree from Harvard.After that, Obama's life became progressively more complicated. He was a brilliant economist, yet never held the coveted government job he felt should have been his. He was a polygamist, an alcoholic, and an ardent African nationalist unafraid to tell truth to power at a time when that could get you killed. Father of eight, nurturer of none, he was an unlikely person to father the first African American president of the United States. Yet he was, like that son, a man moved by the dream of a better world.Now, thanks to dozens of exclusive new interviews, prodigious research, and determined investigation, Sally Jacobs tells his full story.

    It's an immense subject-a battle between freedom and slavery, waged across the breadth of the still-expanding nation over a period of four years-and TIME has created an oversized volume to tell the story in the grandstyle it deserves. To bring the tale to life, the book focuses on little-seen photographs and original artifacts from the period: sketches from soldier's diaries, unusual and rare military and political memorabilia. And it brings us face-to-face with those who lived through the period, presenting scores of excerpts from the letters and diaries of soldiers, offi cers and statesmen. Yet the book also captures the full sweep of the war, telling the tale in chronological fashion, as the war evolves from a quiet beginning to become a mammoth struggle that consumed the divided nation. Here are the great generals: Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson. Here are the great battles, from Bull Run and Antietam to Gettysburg and Shiloh. Here are the latest discoveries and analysis by scholars of the conflict. And here are fascinating, informative graphics that reveal the war in fresh, clarifying detail. Here is a larger-than-life conflict, reported and illuminated in a larger-than-life oversized edition from TIME.

    Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on Novels by Robert Ludlum.

    Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. Tanya Harmer argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington. Drawing on firsthand interviews and recently declassified documents from archives in North America, Europe, and South America--including Chile's Foreign Ministry Archive--Harmer provides the most comprehensive account to date of Cuban involvement in Latin America in the early 1970s, Chilean foreign relations during Allende's presidency, Brazil's support for counterrevolution in the Southern Cone, and the Nixon administration's Latin American policies. The Cold War in the Americas, Harmer reveals, is best understood as a multidimensional struggle, involving peoples and ideas from across the hemisphere.

    Devastating" - Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist"...shines a hard light on the rotten heart of the IPCC" - Richard Tol, Professor of the Economics of Climate Change and convening lead author of the IPCC"...you need to read this book. Its implications are far-reaching and the need to begin acting on them is urgent." - Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics, University of Guelph----The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) performs one of the most important jobs in the world. It surveys climate science research and writes a report about what it all means. This report is informally known as the Climate Bible.Cited by governments around the world, the Climate Bible is the reason carbon taxes are being introduced, heating bills are rising, and costly new regulations are being enacted. It is why everyone thinks carbon dioxide emissions are dangerous. Put simply: the entire planet is in a tizzy because of a United Nations report.What most of us don't know is that, rather than being written by a meticulous, upstanding professional in business attire, the Climate Bible is produced by a slapdash, slovenly teenager who has trouble distinguishing right from wrong.This expose, by an investigative journalist, is the product of two years of research. Its conclusion: almost nothing we've been told about the IPCC is true.

    The account illustrates how the author attempted to convince the government to investigate allegations surrounding a multinational corporation, suspecting that they were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans who were mining vanadium--a vital strategic mineral. Documenting Coleman-Adebayo's shocking discovery that the EPA itself was the first line of defense for the corporation in question, this record depicts how the agency stonewalled, prompting the author to expose them. The agency's brutal retaliation is captured in detail, revealing their use of every racist and sexist trick in their playbook, costing the protagonist her career, endangering her family, and sacrificing more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa.Finishing on a hopeful note, the recollection concludes with the upwelling of support the author received from others in the federal bureaucracy, detailing how her subsequent grassroots struggle to protect future whistleblowers ended in victory.

    Huey Perry, a young, local history teacher was named the director of this program and soon he began to promote self-sufficiency among low-income and vulnerable populations. As the poor of Mingo County worked together to improve conditions, the local political infrastructure felt threatened by a shift in power. Bloody Mingo County, known for its violent labor movements, corrupt government, and the infamous Hatfield-McCoy rivalry, met Perry’s revolution with opposition and resistance.In They’ll Cut Off Your Project, Huey Perry reveals his efforts to help the poor of an Appalachian community challenge a local regime. He describes this community’s attempts to improve school programs and conditions, establish cooperative grocery stores to bypass inflated prices, and expose electoral fraud. Along the way, Perry unfolds the local authority’s hostile backlash to such change and the extreme measures that led to an eventual investigation by the FBI. They’ll Cut Off Your Project chronicles the triumphs and failures of the war on poverty, illustrating why and how a local government that purports to work for the public’s welfare cuts off a project for social reform.

    Most prominently, it resulted in the creation of the United States of America, a nation that has played a dominate role in world affairs for the past century. Equally as important it established a nation based on the republican model of government. In the world of the 18th Century where monarchs and emperors still wielded vast powers, the American model clearly placed the power of the nation with its people and not with a prince. This book contains the key writings and speeches of several major figures in the U.S. Revolutionary War, specifically Thomas Jefferson's "A Summary View of the Rights of British America", Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death", Thomas Paine's "Common Sense", John Adams' "Thoughts on Government" and the Speeches of George Washington. Also included is the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America.

    "A Patriot's History of the United States" has become a modern classic for its defense of America as a unique country founded on principles of justice, equality, and freedom for all.

    It has created a cowardly state: a state that sees responsibility and then runs away from it. Worse, the weak politicians who run our cowardly state want power solely to ensure that as much tax revenue as possible is used to benefit the private sector that they idolise. But neoliberal theory is wrong - it has created the crises we're suffering. And it has no solution to them. The Courageous State argues powerfully for a new economic model. That model is based on a very different idea of what the role of the state is. The Courageous State is driven by its desire to work on behalf of the people of this country. And that means a Courageous State is populated by politicians who believe in government and in the power of the office they hold. They believe that office exists for the sake of the public good. They know what that public good is. They think it is their job to help each and every person in their country to achieve their potential, sustainably, in a strong mixed economy. And they believe they can command the resources to fulfil this task - whether through tax or other means. A Courageous State offers hope; our existing, cowardly, state does not. Which is why building a Courageous State is essential if we want to both solve our current problems and build a sustainable future. The question is, are you willing to be that Courageous? "Since the 2008 crash conventional economists have run out of ideas. But Richard Murphy abounds with them. He writes with electric clarity about what went wrong and what could be done to put things right. He is a new economic thinker, no mere theoretician but guided by a sharp and practical accountant's eye. He knows where the money is hidden, who has it and how to release it. Murphy is the closest thing to a one-man think tank and he is as courageous as he says our politicians should be." Polly Toynbee, The Guardian newspaper columnist and economics commentator "Rich individuals, corporations, well-funded special interest groups and much of Fleet Street is on one (the wrong) side and then there is Richard Murphy.. . the heroic figure. Tireless and forensic, driven by an admirable moral fervour, I take my hat off to a campaigner with Duracell batteries." Kevin Maguire, Sunday Mirror

    This was not, as Empires, Nations, and Families makes clear, virgin wilderness discovered by virtuous Anglo entrepreneurs. Rather, the United States was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires. This book documents the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic lines and that, along with the river systems of the trans-Mississippi West, formed the basis for a global trade in furs that had operated for hundreds of years before the land became part of the United States. Empires, Nations, and Families shows how the world of river and maritime trade effectively shifted political power away from military and diplomatic circles into the hands of local people. Tracing family stories from the Canadian North to the Spanish and Mexican borderlands and from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Anne F. Hyde’s narrative moves from the earliest years of the Indian trade to the Mexican War and the gold rush era. Her work reveals how, in the 1850s, immigrants to these newest regions of the United States violently wrested control from Native and other powers, and how conquest and competing demands for land and resources brought about a volatile frontier culture—not at all the peace and prosperity that the new power had promised.

    In his latest book, management expert Ken Miller discusses how the processes of state and local government became so complicated and inefficient – and how to start cleaning up the mess. With his typical irreverent and funny tone, Ken lays out the simple ways that public-sector leaders can tear down all the twisted, broken parts of government and rebuild it stronger, leaner and better equipped to help citizens. Full of clear, concise tips on increasing government’s capacity, Extreme Government Makeover is essential reading for everyone in government, from top-level executives to managers and employees on the front lines.What you’ll learn in Extreme Government Makeover• The one and only thing government needs to focus on to get out of this crisis• How government can perform its vital functions 80 percent faster, at less cost and with better quality• The DNA of government complexity and how we can genetically modify it • How to spot the “moldy” thinking that is making us all sick• How to get rid of 40 percent of your agency’s workload• How to find the hidden costs of government• What the next generation of customers and employees are going to do to your operations• Why technology isn’t the answer• Most importantly, you’ll learn a new way of seeing the work of government – and a better way to make that work great.

    We now take for granted that economic growth is good, necessary, and even inevitable, but also feel a sense of unease about the simultaneous growth of complexity in the processes and institutions that generate and manage that growth. As societies grow more complex through the bounty of cheap energy, they also confront problems that seem to increase in number and severity. In this era of fossil fuels, cheap energy and increasing complexity have been in a mutually-reinforcing spiral. The more energy we have and the more problems our societies confront, the more we grow complex and require still more energy. How did our demand for energy, our technological prowess, the resulting need for complex problem solving, and the end of easy oil conspire to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill increasingly likely, if not inevitable? This book explains the real causal factors leading up to the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, a disaster from which it will take decades to recover.

    The tale of New York City's bridges begins in 1883, when the Brooklyn Bridge rose majestically over the East River, signaling the start of America's "Golden Age" of bridge building. The Williamsburg followed in 1903, the Queensboro (renamed the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge) and the Manhattan in 1909, the George Washington in 1931, the Triborough (renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) in 1936, the Bronx-Whitestone in 1939, the Throgs Neck in 1961, and the Verrazano-Narrows in 1964. Each of these classic bridges has its own story, and the book's paintings show the majesty and artistry, while the essays fill in the fascinating details of its social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental history. America's great bridges, built almost entirely by immigrant engineers, architects, and laborers, have come to symbolize not only labor and ingenuity but also bravery and sacrifice. The building of each bridge took a human toll. The Brooklyn Bridge's designer and chief engineer, John A. Roebling, himself died in the service of bridgebuilding. But beyond those stories is another narrative--one that encompasses the dreams and ambitions of a city, and eventually a nation. At this moment in Asia and Europe many modern large-scale, long-span suspension bridges are being built. They are the progeny of New York City's Golden Age bridges. This book comes along at the perfect moment to place these great public projects into their historical and artistic contexts, to inform and delight artists, engineers, historians, architects, and city planners. No other book has focused specifically on these iconic spans or explained their historical importance. New York's Golden Age of Bridges will encourage the understanding and appreciation of the art and history of bridges, explore the inestimable connections that bridges foster, and reveal the extraordinary impact of the nine Golden Age bridges on the city, the nation, and the world.

    We witness the inner workings of a government overhaul, led by citizens and politicians who enter at the bottom of the legislative heap and rise to become leaders of a sweeping program of bi-partisan reforms, culminating in the most productive legislative session in their state's history... and perhaps of all time. This 1960's government success story impels newer generations to take a more active citizen role - first by understanding how our government is designed, then by entering the process to problem-solve ever new challenges. The engaging narrative about real people, and the actual relationships required to legislate complex change, demystifies the gears of governing and empowers 'ordinary citizens' to speak up and take part in our governmental process.

    Laws that govern everyone are sent from a country far across the ocean. Step into the lives of the colonists, and get the real story of government and politics in Colonial America.

    Jacobs contends, ought to be magnificent, beautiful places to live. They should be places where people can be fulfilled, where they can be what they can be, where there is freedom, love, ideas, excitement, quiet and joy. Cities ought to be the ultimate manifestation of society's collective achievements.Allan B. Jacobs is one of the world's best known planners and urban design practitioners, with a long and distinguished international career. Drawing on his professional experience of almost sixty years, Jacobs guides the reader through the lessons he's learnt as a planner and lover of cities. Cities from Brazil, Italy, India, Japan, China and the US are featured.Written with a wonderfully engaging, humorous tone and Jacobs' own drawings, The Good City transfers lessons on city design, building and urban change to all those willing to help cities become the magnificent, beautiful places they should be - and encourages all inhabitants to learn to appreciate and explore their own cities.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Constitution, its primary functions, how it has changed over the years, and why it is still important today.Even before the first glorious ring of the Liberty Bell, America was a land of freedom and promise. The Cornerstones of Freedom series explores what inspires people from all over the world to start life anew here, endure the economic and social upheavals, and defend the land and rights that are unique to the United States of America.

    Since the end of World War II, a substantial percentage of the costs of socialprovision--most notably, unemployment insurance and health insurance--has been borne by employers rather than the state. The US has long been unique among advanced economies in this regard, but in recent years, its social contract has become so frayed that is fast becoming unrecognizable. DespiteObama's election, the burdens of social provision are falling increasingly upon individual families, and the situation is worsening because of the unemployment crisis. How can we repair the American social welfare system so that workers and families receive adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages of the market?In Shared Responsibility, Shared Risk, Jacob Hacker and Ann O'Leary have gathered a distinguished group of scholars on American social policy to address this most fundamental of problems. Collectively, they analyze how the 'privatization of risk' has increased hardships for American families andincreased inequality. They also propose a series of solutions that would distribute the burdens of risks more broadly and expand the social safety net. The range of issues covered is broad: health care, homeownership, social security and aging, unemployment, wealth (as opposed to income) creation, education, and family-friendly policies. The book is also comparative, measuring US social policy against the policies of other advanced nations. Given the current crisis in America social policy and the concomitant paralysis within government, the book has the potential to make an importantintervention in the current debate.

    Despite the relatively complication-free 2008 election, we are working with fairly new federal legislation designed to ease election administration problems. The implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) raises the question, how effective have reforms been? Could another Florida happen?Helping America Vote is focused on the conflict between values of access and integrity in U.S. election administration. Kropf and Kimball examine both what was included in HAVA and what was not. Widespread agreement that voting equipment was a problem made technology the centerpiece of the legislation, and it has remedied a number of pressing concerns. But there is still reason to be concerned about key aspects of electronic voting, ballot design, and the politics of partisan administrators. It takes a legitimacy crisis for serious election reforms to happen at the federal level, and seemingly, the crisis has passed. However, the risk is still very much present for the electoral process to fail. What are the implications for democracy when we attempt reform?

    That is because the tax increases of Obamacare become effective that year, and the Bush tax cuts expire, which Obama has refused to renew for the nation’s small businesses, job creators and investors.Also by 2013 Obama’s regulatory tsunami will be building to a crescendo of increased costs on the economy. And the Fed, now committed to maintaining loose monetary policy through the election, will be reversing course right after to head off inflation, which will add to the contractionary effects on the economy.The result will be one whopping, horrendous, record shattering recession, unless America changes course. In this explosive Broadside, former Reagan White House policy advisor Peter Ferrara exposes the final calamitous consequences of Obama's assault on prosperity

    You may think you have planned for your retirement and are safe, but the government must find a way to recover this borrowed money, and they can only do that by raising your taxes and reducing your hard-earned benefits. How did this debt come about, and why can't we simply pay it off? Pension Ponzi lays the blame squarely at the feet of the politicians who refused to stand up to Canada's public sector unions. The fact is Canada's public sector, which accounts for 20% of the workforce, has been grossly overpaid relative to their counterparts in the private sector with cushy pensions paid for with your taxes and new debt. There is no denying that the country does not have the financial resources to ensure that the next generation of Canadians will have the same standard of living as the ones before it-or to support our growing seniors population. Meeting our public sector pension obligations will break the current social safety net that is a pillar of the Canadian way.Can you escape this bleak future? Can you afford to live longer? Nationally-recognized pension expert Bill Tufts and award-winning journalist Lee Fairbanks explore how this catastrophe came about and then suggest ways that government can fix what's broken, and how you as an individual can protect yourself from the financial calamity that is about to engulf Canada.

    Given that the locus of Christianity is undeniably shifting to the global South, this volume uniquely integrates key voices from Africa, Asia, and Latin America with central texts from Europe and North America on such major subjects as church and state, gender and race, and Christendom and postcolonialism.Carefully selected, thematically arranged, and expertly introduced, these forty-nine essential readings constitute an ideal primary-source introduction to contemporary political theology — a profoundly relevant resource for globally engaged citizens, students, and scholars.CONTRIBUTORS:Nicholas AdamsRafael AvilaKarl BarthRichard BauckhamDietrich BonhoefferWalter BrueggemannErnesto CardenalJ. Kameron CarterJames H. ConeDorothy DayMusa W. Dube Jean Bethke ElshtainEric GregoryGustavo GutiérrezStanley HauerwasGeorge HunsingerAda María Isasi-DiazEmmanuel M. KatongoleRafiq KhouryKosuke KoyamaBrian McDonaldJohann Baptist Metzv Virgil MichelNéstor O. MiguezJohn MilbankJohn Courtney MurrayChed MyersH. Richard NiebuhrReinhold NiebuhrArvind P. NirmalOliver O’DonovanCatherine PickstockKwok Pui-lanA. Maria Arul RajaWalter RauschenbuschJoerg RiegerChristopher RowlandRosemary Radford RuetherAlexander SchmemannCarl SchmittPeter Manley ScottJon SobrinoDorothee SolleR. S. SugirtharajahElsa TamezMark Lewis TaylorEmilie M. TownesDesmond TutuBernd WannenwetschGraham WardGeorge WeigelDelores S. WilliamsRowan WilliamsWalter WinkJohn Howard YoderKim Yong-Bock

    Beginning with the violent border disputes that emerged after Israel's founding in 1948, Daniel Bymancharts the rise of Yasir Arafat's Fatah and leftist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--organizations that ushered in the era of international terrorism epitomized by the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics. Byman reveals how Israel fought these groups andothers, such as Hamas, in the decades that follow, with particular attention to the grinding and painful struggle during the second intifada. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terroristgroups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace. In surveying Israel's response to terror, the author points to the coups of shadowy Israeli intelligence services, the much-emulated use of defensive measures such as sky marshals on airplanes, and the role of controversial techniques suchas targeted killings and the security barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian areas. Equally instructive are the shortcomings that have undermined Israel's counterterrorism goals, including a disregard for long-term planning and a failure to recognize the long-term political repercussions ofcounterterrorism tactics.

     When a dying King Hussein shocked the world by picking his son rather than his brother, the longtime crown prince, to be the next king of Jordan, no one was more surprised than the young head of Special Operations, who discovered his life was in for a major upheaval. This is the inspirational story of a young prince who went to boarding school in America and military academy in Britain and grew up believing he would be a soldier. Back home, he hunted down terrorists and modernized Jordan's Special Forces. Then, suddenly, he found himself king. Together with his wife, Queen Rania, he transformed what it meant to be a monarch, going undercover to escape the bubble of the court while she became the Muslim world's most passionate advocate of women's rights. In this exceptionally candid memoir, King Abdullah tackles the single toughest issue he faces head-on- how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian standoff- and reveals himself to be an invaluable intermediary between America and the Arab world. He writes about the impact of the Iraq war on his neighborhood and how best to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions. Why would a sitting head of state choose to write about the most explosive issues he faces? King Abdullah does so now because he believes we face a moment of truth: a last chance for peace in the Middle East. The prize is enormous, the cost of failure far greater than we dare imagine.

    Told largely in the veterans’ own words, Mission to Berlin covers all aspects of a long-range bombing mission including pilots and other aircrew, groundcrew, and escort fighters that accompanied the heavy bombers on their perilous mission.

    It replaced the Charter of Carolina and the Concessions and Agreements of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina (1665). Unpopular with many of the early settlers, the Fundamental Constitutions were never ratified by the assembly, and were largely abandoned by 1700.

    Heller, containing:District of Columbia v. Heller, Scalia opinionDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, Breyer dissentDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, Stevens dissent

    Freedom was the unifying theme of Reagan's foreign and domestic agenda, and he set as his goals victory in the Cold War by defeating Communism abroad and rolling back big government at home.Want to read more? A useful annotated bibliography of essential books about Reagan's life and presidency are included.