Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Politics in the Ivory Tower


Jon Wiener - 2004
    He looks at the well publicized cases of Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture accused of research fraud; accused plagiarists and “celebrity historians” Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin; Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph J. Ellis, who lied in his classroom at Mount Holyoke about having fought in Vietnam; and the allegations of misconduct by Harvard’s Stephan Thernstrom and Emory’s Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who nevertheless were appointed by George W. Bush to the National Council on the Humanities.As the Bancroft Prize–winning historian Linda Gordon wrote in Dissent, Wiener’s “very readable book . . . reveal[s] not only scholarly misdeeds but also recent increases in threats to free debate and intellectual integrity.”

Ancient Knowledge


George Curtis - 2011
    Proven with mathematics this book describes genuine ancient knowledge that conflicts with modern science but upholds the Biblical story of Genesis.

Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives


Edwin Black - 2006
    and the world to an oil addiction that could have been avoided, that was never necessary, and that could be ended not in ten years, not in five years, but today. Edwin Black, award-winning author of IBM and the Holocaust, has mined scores of corporate and governmental archives to assemble thousands of previously uncovered and long-forgotten documents and studies into this dramatic story. Black traces a continuum of rapacious energy cartels and special interests dating back nearly 5,000 years, from wood to coal to oil, and then to the bicycle and electric battery cartels of the 1890s, which created thousands of electric vehicles that plied American streets a century ago. But those noiseless and clean cars were scuttled by petroleum interests, despite the little-known efforts of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to mass-produce electric cars powered by personal backyard energy stations. Black also documents how General Motors criminally conspired to undermine mass transit in dozens of cities and how Big Oil, Big Corn, and Big Coal have subverted synthetic fuels and other alternatives. He then brings the story full-circle to the present day oil crises, global warming and beyond. Black showcases overlooked compressed-gas, electric and hydrogen cars on the market today, as well as inexpensive all-function home energy units that could eliminate much oil usage. His eye-opening call for a Manhattan Project for immediate energy independence will help energize society to finally take action. Internal Combustion, and its interactive website www.internalcombustionbook.com, will generate a much-needed national debate at a crucial time. It should be read by every citizen who consumes oil -- everyone. Internal Combustion can change everything, not by reinventing the wheel, but by excavating it from where it was buried a century ago.

Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Values


A.C. Grayling - 2009
    Starting a war 'to promote freedom and democracy' could in certain though rare circumstances be a justified act; but in the case of the Second Gulf War that began in 2003, which involved reacting to criminals hiding in one country (Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan) by invading another country (Iraq), one of the main fronts has, dismayingly, been the home front, where the War on Terror takes the form of a War on Civil Liberties in the spurious name of security. To defend 'freedom and democracy', Western governments attack and diminish freedom and democracy in their own country. By this logic, someone will eventually have to invade the US and UK to restore freedom and democracy to them.'In this lucid and timely book, Grayling sets out what's at risk, engages with the arguments for and against examining the cases made by Isaiah Berlin and Ronald Dworkin on the one hand, and Roger Scruton and John Gray on the other, and finally proposes a different way to respond that makes defending the civil liberties on which western society is founded the cornerstone for defeating terrorism.

Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison


John Kiriakou - 2017
    His crime: blowing the whistle on the CIA's use of torture on Al Qaeda prisoners. Doing Time Like A Spy is Kiriakou's memoir of his twenty-three months in prison. Using twenty life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. Including his award-winning blog series "Letters from Loretto," Doing Time Like a Spy is at once a searing journal of daily prison life and an alternately funny and heartbreaking commentary on the federal prison system.

Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century


F. William Engdahl - 2010
    It details the intimate synergies between American military power and the financial means of Wall Street and Washington to create the most extensive global empire since the fall of the British Empire a century ago. It traces the rise of America from the 1800s to the hegemonic global superpower on the ashes of the British Empire by the end of the Second World War.Here's some of what you will learn:+ How a cabal of international Wall Street bankers in violation of the US Constitution made a coup d'etat in 1913 to create the private Federal Reserve to finance World War I and the rise of what they would later call the American Century. + How the Rockefeller family emerged during the Great Depression as the most influential family shaping America's destiny into and after World War II. + The real agenda of the American Century triumphantly proclaimed in 1941. + The real relation between America's military industrial complex and Bretton Woods Dollar System + How Wall Street banks systematically lifted all restraints on their expansion that ended in the 2007 Sub-prime meltdown and 2008 global financial crisis.The dollar financial system of Wall Street was born not at a conference in Bretton Woods New Hampshire in 1944. It was born in the first days of August, 1945 with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that point the world was in no doubt who was the power to reckon with. This book is no ordinary book about money and finance. Rather it traces the history of money as an instrument of power; it traces the evolution of that power in the hands of a tiny elite that regards themselves as, quite literally, gods-The Gods of Money. How these gods abused their power and how they systematically set out to control the entire world is the subject.

Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism


Richard C. Carrier - 2005
    A complete worldview is presented and defended, covering every subject from knowledge to art, from metaphysics to morality, from theology to politics. Topics include free will, the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, and much more, arguing from scientific evidence that there is only a physical, natural world without gods or spirits, but that we can still live a life of love, meaning, and joy.

Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times


Jerry H. Bentley - 1992
    The author examines the political, social, economic and cultural conditions that enabled one culture to influence or suppress another.

Evolution Impossible: 12 Reasons Why Evolution Cannot Explain Life on Earth


John F. Ashton - 2012
    In Evolution Impossible, Dr. John Ashton uses discoveries in genetics, biochemistry, geology, radiometric dating, and other scientific disciplines to explain why the theory of evolution is a myth. Regardless of your level of scientific education, you will finish this book able to cite 12 reasons why evolution cannot explain the origin of life.

Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America


Cullen Murphy - 2007
    Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warming of imminent collapse.The esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundits' rhetoric to draw nuanced lessons about how America might avoid Rome's demise. Working on a canvas that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of venality in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic though various forms of privatization. He persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that are in our power to change.In lively, richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative new light.

The Battle for Sanskrit: Is Sanskrit Political or Sacred, Oppressive or Liberating, Dead or Alive?


Rajiv Malhotra - 2016
    The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and sanskriti - Indian civilization - concerning an important school of thought that has its base in the US and that has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit studies. From their analysis of Sanskrit texts, the scholars of this field are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing 'poisons' allegedly built into these texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as political weapons in the hands of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted; and that Sanskrit has long been dead. The traditional Indian experts would outright reject or at least question these positions.The start of Rajiv Malhotra's feisty exploration of where the new thrust in Western Indology goes wrong, and his defence of what he considers the traditional, Indian approach, began with a project related to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, one of the most sacred institutions for Hindus. There was, as he saw it, a serious risk of distortion of the teachings of the peetham, and of sanatana dharma more broadly.Whichever side of the fence one may be on, The Battle for Sanskrit offers a spirited debate marshalling new insights and research. It is a valuable addition to an important subject, and in a larger context, on two ways of looking. Is each view exclusive of the other, or can there be a bridge between them? Readers can judge for themselves.

The Life of Mohammed: The Sira


Bill Warner - 2010
    He was an orphan who rose from poverty to become the first ruler of all of Arabia. He created a new religion, new methods of war and a new political system including a legal code, the Sharia. Mohammed was the world's greatest warrior. Today no one wages war in the name of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or any other military leader. However, every year many people die because of Mohammed. After 1400 years, Islam is more powerful than it has ever been. Mohammed said that one day all of the world would live under his rule of law.To understand Islam, you must know the life of Mohammed. Every Muslim's desire is to live a life identical to his. His every word and deed are the perfect model for being a Muslim. Every Muslim is a Mohammedan. The religion of Islam is not about worshiping Allah; it about worshiping Allah exactly as Mohammed did. This book is unique. It is concise, but it is completely authoritative. The reference system allows you to verify all information.

Waiting for God


Simone Weil - 1950
    An enduring masterwork and "one of the most neglected resources of our century" (Adrienne Rich), Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come."Simone Weil has become a legend, and her writings are regarded as a classic document of our period." THE NEW YORKER"Her example, her achievements, her frustrations, her intellectual or moral or religious impasses, and her failures, self-described or apparent to us from hindsight, all can serve to focus the mind, enlarge the heart, and stir the soul." ROBERT COLES

The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West


Mark Lilla - 2007
    The quest to bring political life under God’s authority has been revived, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest—and its surprising role in shaping Western thought.The story could not be more timely. Most civilizations in history have been organized on the basis of a political theology – a myth or revelation about the correct ordering of society. Yet due to a crisis in Western Christendom nearly five hundred years ago, a novel intellectual challenge to political theology arose in Europe. By portraying religion as an expression of human nature, not a divine gift, modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from God’s authority and build barriers against destructive religious passions.But the temptations of political theology are always present, even in the West. As Lilla vividly shows, the urge to reconnect politics to religion remained strong and took novel forms in modern European thought. By the Second World War a forceful political messianism had arisen, justifying the most deadly ideologies of the age.Making us question what we thought we knew about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West’s unique trajectory and what is required to remain on it.

The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies


Thomas McEvilley - 2001
    This groundbreaking reference will stir relentless debate among philosophers, art historians, and students.