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The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise


Joe Scarborough - 2009
    Delivering a searing indictment of the political leaders who have led us astray, Scarborough inspires conservatives to reclaim their heritage by drawing upon the strength of the movement’s rich history.With independent thinking and straight talk, Scarborough explains:• How Washington and Wall Street conspired to create the housing bubble that caused America’s financial meltdown• How the “candidate of change” has not only maintained but accelerated the reckless spending policies that led us to this historic economic collapse• How Washington’s bailout culture will cripple America’s future if left unchecked• How Barack Obama’s stimulus plan devolved into a socialist spending spree that would make FDR and LBJ shudder• And how conservatives need to take a closer look at Ronald Reagan’s political career before claiming his great legacyA fearlessly argued conservative manifesto that brings American conservatism into the twenty-first century, The Last Best Hope is a must-read for all who care about the direction America is heading.

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?


Michael J. Sandel - 2009
    In his acclaimed book―based on his legendary Harvard course―Sandel offers a rare education in thinking through the complicated issues and controversies we face in public life today. It has emerged as a most lucid and engaging guide for those who yearn for a more robust and thoughtful public discourse. "In terms we can all understand," wrote Jonathan Rauch in The New York Times, Justice "confronts us with the concepts that lurk . . . beneath our conflicts."Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, the moral limits of markets―Sandel relates the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well.Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise―an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.

Neorealism and Its Critics


Robert O. Keohane - 1985
    The debate was sparked by the 1979 publication of Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Relations, which systematized realism as a coherent, deductive theory. This volume provides a unique summary of current thinking on neorealism. Ideal for course use, it presents key portions of Waltz's book along with the most significant critical evaluations of the topic by other leading scholars.Neorealism's supporters stress how much we can learn by focusing rigorously on the level of the international system, particularly by examining the effects of the distribution of power among states. Critics point out what they feel are neorealism's shortcomings: continuing ambiguities in the concepts of power and balance of power, the importance of internal determinants of foreign policy, difficulties of neorealist theory accounting for change, and what some regard as its tendency to ignore both history and the material conditions on which any international system rests. These issues are not merely of abstract interest, but relate to fundamental values as well as to the question of how humanity can survive in today's nuclear world.Neorealism and Its Critics addresses these and other vital questions in its critiques of the theory, and of Waltz's book in particular. Featuring contributions by John Ruggie, Robert Cox, Richard Ashley, and Robert Gilpin, with an introductory essay by Keohane and a concluding chapter by Waltz, this book is essential reading for both students and scholars as an up-to-date assessment of neorealism.

Civil Disobedience


Henry David Thoreau - 1849
    In it, Thoreau argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848).

Defending Identity


Natan Sharansky - 2008
    Better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.In a vigorous, insightful challenge to the left and right alike, Natan Sharansky, as he has proved repeatedly, is at the leading edge of the issues that frame our times.

Libertarianism in One Lesson: Why Libertarianism Is the Best Hope for America's Future


David Bergland - 2005
    With insight and candor, Bergland answers the most common questions about the freedom philosophy: What exactly is libertarianism? Does libertarianism work in the "real world"? The book lays out the central premise of libertarianism -- "you own yourself" -- and reveals how that deceptively simple statement has an enormous impact on the relationship between government and individuals. Bergland explains where libertarians stand on Social Security, gun rights, the War on Drugs, poverty, the environment, taxes, terrorism, and more. In a fast-paced Q&A chapter, he contrasts the conservative, liberal, and libertarian positions on major issues. Finally, he punctures the muddled thinking that encourages people to turn to government to solve problems. "The best brief introduction to libertarianism available. Bergland is anxious to provide as persuasive and comprehensive a case as he can, and wastes no time getting to the point... He has even adapted it so it can be readily used in classrooms, and sprinkles the book with short sections differentiating among liberal, conservative, and libertarian positions on current issues."--Brian Wilson, radio talk show host

Western Political Thought: From Socrates to the Age of Ideology


Brian R. Nelson - 1995
    It views the thinkers in an historical context and examines them in terms of changing relationships of ethics and politics in Western political philosophy.

Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner


Nina Munk - 2004
    The news was crazy, incredible. The biggest merger ever, it was, according to the media, an "awesome megadeal" and "a fusion of guts and glory." It was "the deal of the century" and "a mega-marriage of earth and cyberspace." An Internet upstart, AOL was buying the world's most powerful media and entertainment company. "A company that isn't old enough to buy beer," marveled the Wall Street Journal, "has essentially swallowed an ancien régime media conglomerate that took most of a century to construct."Two years later, after the smoke had cleared, $200 billion of shareholder value had vanished into cyberspace. On the trail of possible fraud, the SEC and the Justice Department started investigating AOL Time Warner's accounting practices. Meanwhile, a civil war had broken out inside the company, complete with backstabbing and personal betrayals. Before long, almost every major player was out of the company, discredited, and humiliated. Jerry Levin, Time Warner's "resident genius," lost his job, lost his reputation, and, in the view of some people, simply "lost it." Steve Case, the visionary leader of AOL, was forced out of the company he had created. Gone too was the telegenic wonder-boy Bob Pittman, and his gang of fast-talking salesmen. As for Ted Turner, he resigned from his post as vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner in early 2003, bitter, wiser, and $8.5 billion poorer.Fools Rush In is the definitive account of one of the greatest fiascos in the history of corporate America. In a narrative fraught with drama, Nina Munk reveals the overweening ambition and moral posturing that brought down the Deal of the Century. With painstaking reporting and the remarkable eye for detail she's known for, Munk lays out, step by step, the anatomy of a debacle. Irreverent, witty, and iconoclastic, she sees through it all brilliantly."As in all great Greek tragedies, you knew the plot before it played out," one perceptive insider told Munk on the subject of the AOL Time Warner deal; "you knew who'd be sacrificed at the altar." Here's what we discover in Fools Rush In: In their single-minded quest for power, Steve Case and Jerry Levin were at each other's throats even before the deal was announced. Bob Pittman was regarded as a "windup CEO" by Case, and viewed as a hustler by just about everyone at Time Warner. Ted Turner underestimated Jerry Levin's ruthlessness badly. And Levin himself, convinced he was creating a great legacy comparable to that of Time Inc.'s founder, Henry Luce, refused to acknowledge the obvious: that, with a remarkable sense of timing, Steve Case had used grossly inflated Internet paper to buy Time Warner.

The Communist Manifesto


Karl Marx - 1848
    Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom.This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Wilding of America: Money, Mayhem, and the New American Dream


Charles Derber - 1996
    The American Dream champions individualism.  But at what price?  In this timely revision of The Wilding of America, Charles Derber chronicles the latest incidents of "wilding" - extreme acts of self-interested violence and greed - that signal an eroding of the moral landscape of American society.  Despite this ever-increasing emphasis on individualism in America, Derber offers a communitarian alternative that is as inspiring as it is instructive.

How the Other Half Lives


Jacob A. Riis - 1890
    With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences


J. Robert Lilly - 1989
    Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences, Fourth Edition shows the real-world relevance of theory by illuminating how ideas about crime play a prominent role in shaping crime-control policies and compelling students to apply theories to the contemporary milieu.

Leviathan


Thomas Hobbes - 1651
    But his penetrating work of political philosophy - now fully revised and with a new introduction for this edition - opened up questions about the nature of statecraft and society that influenced governments across the world.

Introduction to Marx, Engels, Marxism


Vladimir Lenin - 1987
    Brief collection of the basic ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin.

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality


Jean-Jacques Rousseau - 1755
    In his sweeping account of humanity's social and political development, the author develops a theory of human evolution that prefigures Darwinian thought and encompasses aspects of ethics, sociology, and epistemology. He concludes that people are inevitably corrupt as a result of both natural (or physical) inequalities and moral (or political) inequalities.One of the most influential works of the Enlightenment, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality offers a thought-provoking account of society's origins and a keen criticism of unequal modern political institutions.