The Jewish Joke: A Short History - With Punchlines


Devorah Baum - 2017
    This smart and funny book includes tales from many of these much-loved comics, and will appeal to their broad audience, while revealing the history, context and wider culture of Jewish joking.The Jewish joke is as old as Abraham, and like the Jews themselves it has wandered over the world, learned countless new languages, worked with a range of different materials, been performed in front of some pretty hostile crowds, and yet still retained its own distinctive identity. So what is it that animates the Jewish joke? Why are Jews so often thought of as ‘funny’? And how old can a joke get?The Jewish Joke is a brilliant—and laugh-out-loud funny—riff on about what marks Jewish jokes apart from other jokes, why they are important to Jewish identity and how they work. Ranging from self-deprecation to anti-Semitism, politics to sex, Devorah Baum looks at the history of Jewish joking and asks whether the Jewish joke has a future. With jokes from Lena Dunham to Woody Allen, as well as Freud and Marx (Groucho, mostly), Baum balances serious research with light-hearted humor and provides fascinating insight into this well-known and much loved cultural phenomenon.

R. N. Kao: Gentleman Spymaster


Nitin A. Gokhale - 2019
    Alas, those documents-transcripts of tape-recorded conversations with RN Kao, the legendary spy chief-are not going to be available until 2025, according to instructions left by him, months before he passed away in 2002. So until those tapes and papers are made public, any biography of Rameshwar Nath Kao or 'Ramji' to friends, colleagues and family would have to depend on personal memories of a vast array of individuals who knew him in different capacities and their interpretation of his personality and contribution.

CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files


Jefferson Morley - 2016
    Kennedy, Jefferson Morley is asked, “So who killed JFK? What’s your theory?” Morley, a former reporter for the Washington Post and author of Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA, invariably disappoints. “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell.” Fifty-plus years after JFK’s death, this answer is laughable but serious. The JFK story remains unsettled well into the 21st century, no matter what the various conspiracy and anti-conspiracy theorists may proclaim. Indeed, the complex reality of how a president of the United States came to be gunned down on a sunny day, and no one lost his liberty — or his job — continues to live and grow in popular memory. This is a book that reveals deceit and deception on the part of the CIA relating to the Kennedy assassination and why the CIA should reveal to the American people what it is still keeping secret. Employing his investigative reporting skills through interviews and examination of long-secret records, Morley reveals that the CIA was closely monitoring the movements of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the months preceding the assassination of President Kennedy. Questions naturally arise: Did the CIA suspect that Oswald was up to no good? Or was its surveillance part of a CIA scheme to frame Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy? Why did the CIA keep its surveillance secret from the Warren Commission?Morley also reveals a close relationship between the CIA and an American anti-Castro group that began advertising Oswald’s connections to communism and the Soviet Union immediately after the assassination? That raises questions: Why didn’t the CIA reveal that relationship to official agencies investigating the assassination of President Kennedy? Why did a federal judge and the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations accuse the CIA of deceit and deception?The U.S. government retains almost 3,600 assassination-related records, consisting of tens of thousands of pages that have never been seen by the public. More than 1,100 of these records are held by the CIA.What is in those secret files? What do they reveal about JFK’s death? Why has the CIA been so reluctant to release them? And when will they finally be revealed to the public? Will they answer the disturbing questions that the revelations in this book raise?

The AIG Story


Maurice R. Greenberg - 2013
    They regale readers with riveting vignettes of how AIG grew from a modest group of insurance enterprises in 1970 to the largest insurance company in world history. They help us understand AIG's distinctive entrepreneurial culture and how its outstanding employees worldwide helped pave the road to globalization.Corrects numerous common misconceptions about AIG that arose due to its role at the center of the financial crisis of 2008. A unique account of AIG by one of the iconic business leaders of the twentieth century who developed close relationships with many of the most important world leaders of the period and helped to open markets everywhere Offers new critical perspective on battles with N. Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the 2008 U.S. government seizure of AIG amid the financial crisis Shares considerable information not previously made public The AIG Story captures an impressive saga in business history--one of innovation, vision and leadership at a company that was nearly--destroyed with a few strokes of governmental pens. The AIG Story carries important lessons and implications for the U.S., especially its role in international affairs, its approach to business, its legal system and its handling of financial crises.

Voices From The Forest: The True Story of Abram and Julia Bobrow


Stephen Paper - 2019
    Abram and Julia Bobrow escaped from the Nazi death squads and fled to the vast forests of Byelorussia where they learned to survive with little food, shelter or warm clothing. Finally adapting to the severe conditions, they began to do little things like cutting telephone wires or tearing up railroad tracks. Still, they were never more than one step ahead of the SS and their auxiliaries—units bent on destroying the partisan movement and ridding Europe of its Jewish population. Most partisan groups were made up of Soviet soldiers and they wouldn't accept anyone who didn't have their own weapons. Julia was lucky and was accepted to a Russian group as a nurse; Abram’s group consisted of himself, his brother Label and his father. They had a sawed-off rifle and one pistol with six bullets. Abram and Label used their first two bullets to kill two peasants that had turned in their aunt and her children for blood money. The story is told in Abram's own words.

The Myth of German Villainy


Benton L. Bradberry - 2012
    During both wars, fantastic atrocity stories were invented by Allied propaganda to create hatred of the German people for the purpose of bringing public opinion around to support the wars. The "Holocaust" propaganda which emerged after World War II further solidified this image of Germany as history's ultimate villain. But how true is this "official" story? Was Germany really history's ultimate villain? In this book, the author paints a different picture. He explains that Germany was not the perpetrator of World War I nor World War II, but instead, was the victim of Allied aggression in both wars. The instability wrought by World War I made the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia possible, which brought world Communism into existence. Hitler and Germany recognized world Communism, with its base in the Soviet Union, as an existential threat to Western, Christian Civilization, and he dedicated himself and Germany to a death struggle against it. Far from being the disturber of European peace, Germany served as a bulwark which prevented Communist revolution from sweeping over Europe. The pity was that the United States and Britain did not see Communist Russia in the same light, ultimately with disastrous consequences for Western Civilization. The author believes that Britain and the United States joined the wrong side in the war.

Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics


Donald Jeffries - 2014
    In Hidden History, you will see the amount of effort over the past fifty years that our government has dedicated to lying and covering up the truth to the world.Starting with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Don Jeffries chronicles a wide variety of issues that have plagued our country’s history. Whether it’s the assassinations of MLK and RFK, Iran-Contra, the Oklahoma City bombing, TWA Flight 800, voting fraud, or 9/11, every major disaster or war that we’ve witnessed has somehow been distorted by those who are supposed to be protecting us.Jeffries also delves into extensive research on the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., and you’ll be shocked by what he finds out.So whether you’ve only heard bits and pieces of these stories or have read several books on the topics, Hidden History is the book that belongs in every conspiracy theorist’s library, as the information included in this encyclopedia has never been collected together in any other published work available. So sit down, strap in, and get ready to be shocked and awed by how much has been hidden from you by our government over the past fifty years.

History of India: A History In 50 Events


Hourly History - 2018
    This region of the world, largely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization, has developed over a period of over 5,000 years. Consequently, this long run of history has drawn up a national history filled with intrigue, philosophy, art, architectural wonders, and the births and deaths of great men and women. Inside you will read about... - Dawn of Civilization - Vedic Period - Mauryan Empire and Gupta Empire - Medieval India - Age of Exploration and Colonialism - Independence and the Modern Age And much more! From Buddha to Gandhi this account of Indian history is but a taste of the full spectrum of historical flavor that one can experience when exploring Indian history.

Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty


Jeffrey Tucker - 2017
    Most people of the current generation lack a sense of the historical sweep of the intellectual side of the right-wing collectivist position. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that this movement represents the revival of a tradition of interwar collectivist thought that might at first seem like a hybrid but was distinctly mainstream between the two world wars. It is anti-communist but not for the reasons that were conventional during the Cold War, that is, because communism opposed freedom in the liberal tradition.Right-collectivism also opposes traditional liberalism. It opposes free trade, freedom of association, free migration, and capitalism understood as a laissez-faire free market. It rallies around nation and state as the organizing principles of the social order—and trends in the direction of favoring one-man rule—but positions itself as opposed to leftism traditionally understood.We know about certain fascist leaders from the mid-20th century, but not the ideological orientation that led to them or the ideas they left on the table to be picked up generations later. For the most part, and until recently, it seemed to have dropped from history. Meanwhile, the prospects for social democratic ideology are fading, and something else is coming to fill that vacuum. What is it? Where does it come from? Where is it leading?This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap, to explain what this movement is about and why anyone who genuinely loves and longs for liberty classically understood needs to develop a nose and instinct for spotting the opposite when it comes in an unfamiliar form. We need to learn to recognize the language, the thinkers, the themes, the goals of a political ethos that is properly identified as fascist."Jeffrey Tucker in his brilliant book calls right-wing populism what it actually is, namely, fascism, or, in its German form national socialism, nazism. You need Tucker’s book. You need to worry. If you are a real liberal, you need to know where the new national socialism comes from, the better to call it out and shame it back into the shadows. Now."— Deirdre McCloskey

Did Jew Know?: A Handy Primer on the Customs, Culture, and Practice of the Chosen People


Emily Stone - 2013
    Jews, lapsed Jews, and their spouses and friends will surely learn a thing or ten while devouring this addictively readable mix of practical information, fun facts and figures, and amusing trivia. Including information on key figures from Saul to Seinfeld, a lesson in proper Jew-fro care, and a basic guide to all those second-tier holidays no one ever celebrates, this engaging compendium is perfect for gifting or for simply learning more while being thoroughly entertained.

Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century


Charles Shaar Murray - 1999
    Acclaimed writer Charles Schaar Murray's Boogie Man is the authorized and authoritative biography of this musician whose extraordinary career spanned over fifty years and included over one-hundred albums and five Grammy Awards. Murray was given unparalleled access to Hooker, and lets him tell his own story in his own words, from life in the Deep South to San Francisco, from the 1948 blues anthem "Boogie Chillen" to the Grammy-winning album The Healer nearly a half-century later. Boogie Man is far more than merely a brilliant biography of one man; it also gives the story of the music that inspired him. "When I die," Hooker said, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die." Here is the book that does him and his music full justice.

Jabotinsky: A Life


Hillel Halkin - 2014
    This biography, the first in English in nearly two decades, undertakes to answer central questions about Jabotinsky as a writer, a political thinker, and a leader. Hillel Halkin sets aside the stereotypes to which Jabotinsky has been reduced by his would-be followers and detractors alike.   Halkin explains the importance of Odessa, Jabotinsky’s native city, in molding his character and outlook; discusses his novels and short stories, showing the sometimes hidden connections between them and Jabotinsky’s political thought, and studies a political career that ended in tragic failure. Halkin also addresses Jabotinsky’s position, unique among the great figures of Zionist history, as both a territorial maximalist and a principled believer in democracy. The author inquires why Jabotinsky was often accused of fascist tendencies though he abhorred authoritarian and totalitarian politics, and investigates the many opposed aspects of his personality and conduct while asking whether or not they had an ultimate coherence. Few figures in twentieth-century Jewish life were quite so admired and loathed, and Halkin’s splendid, subtle book explores him with empathy and lucidity.About Jewish Lives:  Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent" –New York Times "Exemplary" –Wall Street Journal "Distinguished" –New Yorker "Superb" –The Guardian

Against Empire


Michael Parenti - 1995
    empire today. Documenting the pretexts and lies used to justify violent intervention and maldevelopment abroad, Parenti shows how the conversion to a global economy is a victory of finance capital over democracy.As much of the world suffers unspeakable misery and the Third-Worldization of the United States accelerates, civil society is impoverished by policies that benefit rich and powerful transnational corporations and the national security state. Hard-won gains made by ordinary people are swept away.

The Bohemian Grove: Facts & Fiction


Mark Dice - 2015
    Is this mysterious meeting “just a vacation spot” for the wealthy and well-connected, or is it something more? Does it operate as an off the record consensus building organization for the elite establishment? What major plans or political policies were given birth by the club? Do they really kickoff their gathering each year with a human sacrifice ritual? Is this the infamous Illuminati? After getting his hands on some rare copies of the club’s yearbooks; obtaining an actual official membership list smuggled out by an employee; and having personally been blocked from entering the club by police—secret society expert Mark Dice uncovers The Bohemian Grove: Facts & Fiction. By the Author of The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction-Their History-Symbols, Saint, and Motto-Infiltrations and Leaks-Cremation of Care-Different Subcamps-Allegations of Murder-Hookers & Homosexuality-Depictions in TV and Film-And More!

Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border


Jan Brewer - 2011
    Unfairly tarred by liberal critics as a state comprised of racist rednecks, Arizona is on the front lines in the battle against illegal immigration—and the courageous stand of its leader, a national hero who’s been called so tough that she “eats scorpions for breakfast,” will educate and inspire Americans from coast to coast.