Other books that might interest you

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  Confronting Saddam Hussein -...

  Melvyn P. Leffler

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  America's decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 is arguably the most important foreign policy choice of the entire post–Cold War era. Nearly two decades after the event, it remains central to understanding current international politics and US foreign relations.In Confronting Saddam Hussein, the eminent historian of US foreign policy Melvyn P. Leffler analyzes why the US chose war and who was most responsible for the decision. Employing a unique set of personal interviews with dozens of top officials and declassified American and British documents, Leffler vividly portrays the emotions and anxieties that shaped the thinking of the president after the shocking events of 9/11. He shows how fear, hubris, and power influenced Bush's approach to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. At the core of Leffler's account is his compelling portrait of Saddam Hussein. Rather than stressing Bush's preoccupation with promoting freedom or democracy, Leffler emphasizes Hussein's brutality, opportunism, and unpredictability and illuminates how the Iraqi dictator's record of aggression and intransigence haunted the president and influenced his calculations. Throughout, Leffler highlights the harrowing anxieties surrounding the decision-making process after the devastating attack on 9/11 and explains the roles of contingency, agency, rationality, and emotion.

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  The United States and the...

  Julien Zarifian

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  During the first World War, over a million Armenians were killed as Ottoman Turks embarked on a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing. Scholars have long described these massacres as genocide, one of Hitler's prime inspirations for the Holocaust, yet the United States did not officially recognize the Armenian Genocide until 2021.This is the first book to examine how and why the United States refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide until the early 2020s. Although the American government expressed sympathy towards the plight of the Armenians in the 1910s and 1920s, historian Julien Zarifian explores how, from the 1960s, a set of geopolitical and institutional factors soon led the United States to adopt a policy of genocide nonrecognition which it would cling to for over fifty years, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike. He describes the forces on each side of this issue: activists from the US Armenian diaspora and their allies, challenging Cold War statesmen worried about alienating NATO ally Turkey and dealing with a widespread American reluctance to directly confront the horrors of the past. Drawing from congressional records, rare newspapers, and interviews with lobbyists and decision-makers, he reveals how genocide recognition became such a complex, politically sensitive issue.

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  Neoliberalism's War on Higher...

  Henry A. Giroux

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  An accessible examination of neoliberalism and its effects on higher education and America, by the author of American Nightmare.Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education reveals how neoliberal policies, practices, and modes of material and symbolic violence have radically reshaped the mission and practice of higher education, short-changing a generation of young people. Giroux exposes the corporate forces at play and charts a clear-minded and inspired course of action out of the shadows of market-driven education policy. Championing the youth around the globe who have dared to resist the bartering of their future, he calls upon public intellectuals—as well as all people concerned about the future of democracy—to speak out and defend the university as a site of critical learning and democratic promise.“Giroux has focused his keen intellect on the hostile corporate takeover of higher education in North America . . . .He is relentless in his defense of a society that requires its citizenry to place its cultural, political, and economic institutions in context so they can be interrogated and held truly accountable. We are fortunate to have such a prolific writer and deep thinker to challenge us all.”―Karen Lewis, President, Chicago Teachers Union“No one has been better than . . . Giroux at analyzing the many ways in which neoliberalism . . . has damaged the American economy and undermined its democratic processes.”―Bob Herbert, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos“Giroux . . . dares us to reevaluate the significance of public pedagogy as integral to any viable notion of democratic participation and social responsibility. Anybody who is remotely interested in the plight of future generations must read this book.”―Dr. Brad Evans, Director, Histories of Violence website

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  The Fight of Our Lives - Knowing...

  William J. Bennett, Seth Leibsohn

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  “This bold and readable book makes a powerful, if controversial, case against appeasing terrorists and those who support them.” —Alan Dershowitz 
   
  Ten years ago, when radical Islamist terrorists used three U.S. airplanes to kill nearly three thousand of our countrymen, America was angry. It was a focused and justified anger—one that generated clear objectives and a willingness to meet them. But that resolve has deteriorated so much that many of our nation’s top political and military leaders will scarcely utter the word that brought us here, “terrorism,” let alone the ideology that fuels it, “radical Islam.” 
   
  In The Fight of Our Lives, William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn examine the devolution of America’s post-9/11 tenacity and how this country’s well-meaning culture of religious tolerance, coupled with soft and apologetic political leadership, has placed us squarely in the pocket of radical Islamists who have made clear their intention to obliterate everything we value. 
   
  America’s devotion to political correctness has crippled its ability to accurately interpret and respond to the motives of its fiercest enemies. Unless we change course and re-engage the fight, the costs of our tolerance will prove tragic and immeasurable. 
   
  The Fight of Our Lives helps readers refocus, to reframe and understand the threats we face. 
   
  By surveying and explaining the current scene, Bennett and Leibsohn point the way to a future in which our enemies are properly acknowledged and firmly opposed. 
   
  “Many have forgotten the mortal threat to America that is radical Islam. Bennett and Leibsohn explain why we must wake up and what we need to do.” —Mark Levin, talk-show host and #1 New York Times–bestselling author

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  Left Turn - How Liberal Media...

  Tim Groseclose

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  A leading political scientist provides a rigorous and revealing analysis of liberal media bias: “I’m no conservative, but I loved Left Turn” (Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics). 
   
  Dr. Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science and economics at UCLA, has spent years constructing precise, quantitative measures of the slant of media outlets. He does this by measuring the political content of news, as a way to measure the PQ, or “political quotient” of voters and politicians. 
   
  Among his conclusions are: (i) all mainstream media outlets have a liberal bias; and (ii) while some supposedly conservative outlets—such the Washington Times or Fox News’ Special Report—do lean right, their conservative bias is less than the liberal bias of most mainstream outlets. 
   
  Groseclose contends that the general leftward bias of the media has shifted the PQ of the average American by about 20 points, on a scale of 100, the difference between the current political views of the average American, and the political views of the average resident of Orange County, California or Salt Lake County, Utah. With Left Turn readers can easily calculate their own PQ—to decide for themselves if the bias exists. This timely, much-needed study brings fact to this often overheated debate.

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  Happiness for All? - Unequal...

  Carol Graham

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  How the optimism gap between rich and poor is creating an increasingly divided societyThe Declaration of Independence states that all people are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and that among these is the pursuit of happiness. But is happiness available equally to everyone in America today? How about elsewhere in the world? Carol Graham draws on cutting-edge research linking income inequality with well-being to show how the widening prosperity gap has led to rising inequality in people's beliefs, hopes, and aspirations.For the United States and other developed countries, the high costs of being poor are most evident not in material deprivation but rather in stress, insecurity, and lack of hope. The result is an optimism gap between rich and poor that, if left unchecked, could lead to an increasingly divided society. Graham reveals how people who do not believe in their own futures are unlikely to invest in them, and how the consequences can range from job instability and poor education to greater mortality rates, failed marriages, and higher rates of incarceration. She describes how the optimism gap is reflected in the very words people use—the wealthy use words that reflect knowledge acquisition and healthy behaviors, while the words of the poor reflect desperation, short-term outlooks, and patchwork solutions. She also explains why the least optimistic people in America are poor whites, not poor blacks or Hispanics.Happiness for All? highlights the importance of well-being measures in identifying and monitoring trends in life satisfaction and optimism—and misery and despair—and demonstrates how hope and happiness can lead to improved economic outcomes.

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