Book picks similar to
The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada by Patrick Malcolmson
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Strategy in the Contemporary World: An Introduction to Strategic Studies
John Baylis - 2007
Taking a functional approach and looking at issues from both times of war and of peace, editors John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, and Colin S. Gray analyze the conflicts themselves--as well as what can be learned from them. This new edition covers topics such as intelligence and strategy, strategic studies and its critics, as well as strategy in practice, providing a comprehensive and insightful collection of contributions from a team of leading experts in the field. FEATURES * Provides a more comprehensive analysis of strategic studies than any other text in its market * Brings together contributions from international experts * Incorporates excellent learning features throughout, including readers' guides, key points, questions, suggestions for further reading, and boxes * Accompanied by a comprehensive Companion Website (www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199548873) with case studies, weblinks, PowerPoint lecture slides, and a (password-protected) Test Bank of multiple choice questions NEW TO THIS EDITION * Expanded coverage of key issues such as intelligence, critics of strategic studies, and strategy in practice * New chapters on intelligence and strategy, strategic studies and its critics, and the practice of strategy * New case studies for the online resource centre, including a case on the 2006 war in Lebanon and a case on the Gaza conflict
These Honored Dead: How The Story Of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory
Thomas A. Desjardin - 2003
We remember Gettysburg as, perhaps, the biggest, bloodiest, and most important battle ever fought-the defining conflict in American history. But how much truth is behind the legend?In These Honored Dead, Thomas A. Desjardin, a prominent Civil War historian and a perceptive cultural observer, demonstrates how flawed our knowledge of this enormous event has become, and why. He examines how Americans, for seven score years, have shaped, used, altered, and sanctified our national memory, fashioning the story of Gettysburg as a reflection of, and testimony to, our culture and our nation.
Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before
Jean M. Twenge - 2006
In this provocative new book, headline-making psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge explores why the young people she calls "Generation Me" -- those born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s -- are tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious.Herself a member of Generation Me, Dr. Twenge uses findings from the largest intergenerational research study ever conducted -- with data from 1.3 million respondents spanning six decades -- to reveal how profoundly different today's young adults are. Here are the often shocking truths about this generation, including dramatic differences in sexual behavior, as well as controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole. Her often humorous, eyebrow-raising stories about real people vividly bring to life the hopes and dreams, disappointments and challenges of Generation Me.GenMe has created a profound shift in the American character, changing what it means to be an individual in today's society. The collision of this generation's entitled self-focus and today's competitive marketplace will create one of the most daunting challenges of the new century. Engaging, controversial, prescriptive, funny, "Generation Me" will give Boomers new insight into their offspring, and help those in their teens, 20s, and 30s finally make sense of themselves and their goals and find their road to happiness.
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It
Lawrence Lessig - 2011
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.
Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister
John Ivison - 2019
A must-read as we head into the 2019 federal election.Canadians are becoming increasingly skeptical about their chameleon prime minister. When he entered politics, Justin Trudeau came across as a person with no fixed principles. Now, he presents himself as a conviction politician. What motivated his metamorphosis--belief or opportunism?Either way, in 2019's election he will be judged on results--results that have so far been disappointing for many, even those in his own party. From the ballooning deficit to the Trans Mountain purchase to the fallout of his disastrous trip to India to the unpopular implementation of a carbon tax, Justin Trudeau has presided over his share of controversy. Most damaging, his egregious missteps during the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the subsequent resignation of two top ministers, his principal secretary, and the clerk of the Privy Council have raised serious questions about Trudeau's integrity.As a political columnist for the National Post since 2003and Ottawa bureau chief for Postmedia for the past three years, John Ivison has watched Trudeau evolve as a politician and leader, a fascinating transition that has not been fully captured by any writer. Trudeau traces the complexities of the man himself, now barely visible beneath the talking points, virtue signalling, and polished trappings of office. Ivison concludes that while Trudeau led a moribund Liberal Party to victory in the 2015 election, the shine of his leadership has been worn off by a series of self-inflicted wounds, broken promises, and rookie mistakes.One of the central contentions of Trudeau is already apparent: the prime minister's greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses; the famous name, high-handedness, and impulsiveness are as liable to hurl him from office as they were to get him there in the first place.With unprecedented access and insight, John Ivison takes us inside one of the most contentious first terms of any prime minister in our history.
Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries
Arend Lijphart - 1999
It demonstrates that consensual systems stimulate economic growth, control inflation and unemployment, and limit budget deficits.
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture
Marvin Harris - 1974
The author shows that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from concrete social and economic conditions. It is by isolating and identifying these conditions that we will be able to understand and cope with some of our own apparently senseless life styles. In a devastating attack on the shamans of the counterculture, the author states the case for a return to objective consciousness and a rational set of political commitments.
How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns
Audrey Kurth Cronin - 2009
Contrary to what many assume, when it comes to dealing with terrorism it may be more important to understand how it ends than how it begins. Only by understanding the common ways in which terrorist movements have died out or been eradicated in the past can we hope to figure out how to speed the decline of today's terrorist groups, while avoiding unnecessary fears and costly overreactions. In How Terrorism Ends, Audrey Kurth Cronin examines how terrorist campaigns have met their demise over the past two centuries, and applies these enduring lessons to outline a new strategy against al-Qaeda.This book answers questions such as: How long do terrorist campaigns last? When does targeting the leadership finish a group? When do negotiations lead to the end? Under what conditions do groups transition to other forms of violence, such as insurgency or civil war? How and when do they succeed or fail, and then disappear? Examining a wide range of historical examples--including the anti-tsarist Narodnaya Volya, the Provisional IRA, Peru's Shining Path, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, and various Palestinian groups--Cronin identifies the ways in which almost all terrorist groups die out, including decapitation (catching or killing the leader), negotiation, repression, and implosion.How Terrorism Ends is the only comprehensive book on its subject and a rarity among all the books on terrorism--at once practical, optimistic, rigorous, and historical.
Structures of Indifference: An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City
Mary Jane Logan McCallum - 2018
He was left untreated and unattended to for thirty-four hours in the Emercency Room, where he ultimately died from an easily treatable infection. McCallum and Perry show that Sinclair’s tragically avoidable death reflects a particular structure of indifference born of and maintained by colonialism.
The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy
Susan Strange - 1996
Big businesses, drug barons, insurers, accountants and international bureaucrats all encroach on the so-called sovereignty of the state. Professor Strange examines the implications of this rivalry and points to some new directions for research in international relations, international business and economics.
The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election
John Sides - 2013
presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt RomneyGame changer. We heard it so many times during the 2012 U.S. presidential election. But what actually made a difference in the contest--and what was just hype? In this groundbreaking book, John Sides and Lynn Vavreck tell the dramatic story of the election--with a big difference. Using an unusual moneyball approach, they look beyond the anecdote, folklore, and conventional wisdom that often pass for election analysis. Instead, they draw on extensive quantitative data about the economy, public opinion, news coverage, and political advertising to separate what was truly important from what was irrelevant. Combining this data with the best social science research and colorful on-the-ground reporting, they provide the most accurate and precise account of the election yet written--and the only book of its kind.Which mattered more--Barack Obama's midsummer ad blitz or the election year's economic growth? How many voters actually changed their minds--and was it ever enough to sway the outcome? The Gamble answers important questions like these by looking at the interplay between the candidates' strategic choices--the ads, speeches, rallies, and debates--and the chance circumstances of the election, especially the economy. In the Republican primary, the book shows, the electioneering and the media's restless attention did matter, producing a string of frontrunners. But when Obama and Mitt Romney finally squared off in the general election, there were few real game-changers. The candidates' billion-dollar campaigns were important but largely cancelled each other out, opening the way for Obama to do what incumbents usually do when running amid even modest economic growth: win.An election book unlike any other, The Gamble is a must-read for political junkies, analysts, journalists, consultants, and academics.
Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform
John F. Pfaff - 2017
Yet today, though the US is home to only about 5 percent of the world's population, we hold nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration is now widely considered one of the biggest social and political crises of our age. How did we get to this point?Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent fifteen years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations
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the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons
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tell us much less than we think. Pfaff urges us to look at other factors instead, including a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before. He describes a fractured criminal justice system, in which counties don't pay for the people they send to state prisons, and in which white suburbs set law and order agendas for more-heavily minority cities. And he shows that if we hope to significantly reduce prison populations, we have no choice but to think differently about how to deal with people convicted of violent crimes
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and why some people are violent in the first place.An authoritative, clear-eyed account of a national catastrophe, Locked In transforms our understanding of what ails the American system of punishment and ultimately forces us to reconsider how we can build a more equitable and humane society.
Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis
Robert D. Putnam - 2015
This is the America we believe in a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing opportunity gap emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam about whom The Economist said, "His scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny," offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students "our kids" went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book. Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country.
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville - 1835
Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the young nation to investigate the functioning of American democracy & the social, political & economic life of its citizens, publishing his observations in 1835 & 1840. Brilliantly written, vividly illustrated with vignettes & portraits, Democracy in America is far more than a trenchant analysis of one society at a particular point in time. What will most intrigue modern readers is how many of the observations still hold true: on the mixed advantages of a free press, the strained relations among the races & the threats posed to democracies by consumerism & corruption. So uncanny is Tocqueville’s insight & so accurate are his predictions, that it seems as tho he were not merely describing the American identity but actually helping to create it.
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice
Jack Donnelly - 1989
Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice is just such a book.... Donnelly's interpretations are clear and argued with zest.--American Political Science ReviewThis wide-ranging book looks at all aspects of human rights, drawing upon political theory, sociology, and international relations as well as international law.... [Jack Donnelly] deals successfully with two of the principal challenges to the notion of the universality of human rights: the argument that some non-Western societies are not subject to Western norms, and the claim that economic development may require the sacrifice of some human rights.--Foreign AffairsIn a thoroughly revised edition of Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (more than half of the material is new), Jack Donnelly elaborates a theory of human rights, addresses arguments of cultural relativism, and explores the efficacy of bilateral and multilateral international action. Entirely new chapters address prominent post-Cold War issues including humanitarian intervention, democracy and human rights, Asian values, group rights, and discrimination against sexual minorities.