Book Description
With the publication of his magisterial biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, Robert Dallek cemented his reputation as one of the greatest historians of our time. Now, in this epic joint biography, he offers a provocative, groundbreaking portrait of a pair of outsize leaders whose unlikely partnership dominated the world stage and changed the course of history.
More than thirty years after working side-by-side in the White House, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger remain two of the most compelling, contradictory, and powerful men in America in the second half of the twentieth century. While their personalities could hardly have seemed more different, they were drawn together by the same magnetic force. Both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition, driven by their own inner demons, and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals. At the height of their power, the collaboration and rivalry between them led to a sweeping series of policies that would leave a defining mark on the Nixon presidency.
Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified archives, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger's tumultuous personal relationship and the extent to which they struggled to outdo each other in the reach for achievements in foreign affairs. Dallek also brilliantly analyzes their dealings with power brokers at home and abroad—including the nightmare of Vietnam, the unprecedented opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and growing tensions between India and Pakistan—while recognizing how both men were continually plotting to distract the American public's attention from the growing scandal of Watergate. With unprecedented detail, Dallek reveals Nixon's erratic behavior during Watergate and the extent to which Kissinger was complicit in trying to help Nixon use national security to prevent his impeachment or resignation.
Illuminating, authoritative, revelatory, and utterly engrossing, Nixon and Kissinger provides a startling new picture of the immense power and sway these two men held in changing world history.
Customer Reviews:
Lots for research, but no "there" there at times, and some questionable analysis.......2007-09-27
The book seems to have plenty of snippets of research from the latest from the Nixon Library and Henry K himself. But, as other reviewers have also noted, it doesn't add a lot of new analysis to Nixon, Kissenger, or Nixon-Kissenger bios. The book could have been trimmed 200 pages (and lost 20 pages of footnotes as well), and maybe bumped up a star. Or, Dallek could have done more actual work, expanded it another 100 pages and have a worthwhile in-depth study. Instead, we get neither. (For example, there's just a handful of pages about relations with NATO allies, including almost nothing on their take on SALT talks.)
Beyond that, I have two historical analysis bones to pick, and one writing/copyeding one as well.
First, on page 76, Dallek claims that successful fall 1968 Vietnam peace talks would have been unlikely to change the election. HUH?
Given that Humphrey closed a double-digit percentage point gap in the final two weeks to the 0.7 percent of election day, that's a ludicrous argument. Heck, if LBJ had called the bombing halt on, say, Oct. 28 instead of Oct. 31, and gotten one more shred of "movement" from Hanoi before election day, HHH would have beaten Nixon.
Second, on page 511, Dallek claims that Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende would have been overthrown by his own ineptness even had Nixon/Kissenger not supported coup elements in various ways. For Dallek to say this without taking into account US economic pressure, or ITT meddling, is equally ludicrous to what he said about the 1968 election.
Finally, on the copyediting/writing side. Throughout the book, "State Department" is lower-cased as "state department," while "summit" and "junta," among other words, are consistently capitalized. This is not per Chicago style (at least not when I worked as a book publisher). I'm guessing it's some idiosyncrasy of Dallek's.
I had thought about three-starring this, but, what I said above, plus how I was able to skim this book so much, showing its amount of fluff, made me move it down a star.
Worth reading - An Inside Look.......2007-09-01
I liked this book. It gave a real inside view of two extremely complicated and powerful men. I came away not especially liking either one. Yet one could, to some extent, feel some sympathy for each. It takes a good writer to be able to illicit that in the reader. Dallek is a fine writer. You can trust what he pens. I recommend the book.
Author animous prejudices history.......2007-08-29
It is a pity that author Robert Dallek has allowed his personal animus, typical of many Nixon haters, to compromise almost every page of his book.
Dallek measures Nixon's views and actions with 20 / 20 hindsight rather than based on contemporary information and circumstances. In fact, Nixon's demonstrates great prescience and profundity in his early years as he struggles to lead the nation out of the inherited Viet Nam quagmire and to effectively deal with various major foreign policy challenges in order to safeguard the world against nuclear war.
We hear more of Dallek's criticism and psycho-babble than we hear of what Nixon and Kissinger were actually doing. So it is a task of shifting through pages to extract tid-bits of information.
When early in his administration Nixon makes a swing through Asia to become acquainted with and renew relationships with a dozen leaders, a typical Dallek comment is "The visits to Djakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand, were noteworthy only for heavy rains that drenched them to the skin, terrible heat that again left them 'dripping wet,' and delicious food. A quick four-and-a-half our visit to Saigon to discuss the war with Thieu and visit some U. S. troops accomplished nothing of importance."
Dallek clearly is an academic rather than someone with knowledge of business, diplomacy or politics to conclude that starting an administration by generating relationships and learning the views and positions of various heads of state is "nothing of importance."
Dallek severely faults Nixon for his desire to be well thought of in his own and future times, not recognizing that these are instincts that have motivated such great leaders such as George Washington, Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and Charles DeGaulle.
Had Dallek saved his analysis for his final chapters, it would have been fair play and interesting, especially if he endeavored to support his views with citations. But as it is, "Nixon and Kissinger" reads as one long venomous hatchet job. I can only recommend it to students of history as an example of how not to write a book.
Only the Paranoid Survive!!.......2007-08-16
Your Jeopardy answer is "Nixon and Kissinger."
Buzzer. The question is "Name two paranoid, overweening, self-centered, sometimes delusional men who were responsible for US policy between 1968-1974."
As might be expected from historian Robert Dallek, he has written an interesting, often compelling book about two giants (some might say ogres) of 20th century US government.
Both men would probably claim that all of their actions were for the benefit of the United States, but Dallek shows convincingly that Nixon and Kissinger's priorities might be rated as 1) How will this help my public image? 2) Will this help my election prospects? and 3) oh yes, I nearly forget, this policy / action will be for the benefit of the United States. Visionary leadership was not a strong suit for either of these two men.
Whatever demons existed inside Richard Nixon, he trusted no one. Had Intel's Andy Grove not titled his book "Only the Paranoid Survive," this would be a perfect title for Dallek's work. Kissinger was of a similar mind set to Nixon and was involved in consistent internal warfare with other government colleagues especially Secretary of State Bill Rogers. He brought Al Haig to Paris peace talks because he "didn't trust him behind my back anymore." He was not the only one with similar views of Haig. One of Kissinger's staff said Haig was "excessively ambitious, manipulative, ingratiating, crafty, not at all intelligent, a dissembler and untrustworthy." These were people who truly deserved each other.
Nixon will forever be remembered for Watergate, but Robert Dallek does a good job in showing Nixon and Kissinger's drive for improved relations with both the Soviet Union and China.
The material on Vietnam and the peace discussions shows both parties - Vietnam and US, to be cynical and devious. Kissinger thought that dealing with two groups of Vietnamese "in the one day, you might as well run an insane asylum." In forcing South Vietnam to sign a peace treaty with the communist North Vietnam, neither Nixon nor Kissinger were under any illusions but that the treaty would ultimately lead to the complete surrender of South Vietnam.
The most interesting part of what is a good lengthy (623 pages, excluding notes) read is the profile of Nixon during the Watergate debacle. Dallek shows the president to be often very close to nervous and mental breakdown and goes so far as to suggest Nixon should have been asked to hand over the reins of power much earlier. Watergate broke Nixon. He drank to excess and was often a rambling, shambles of a man. Much of this personality was hidden from public view but his bitterness at the press surfaced at one conference when he declared he was not angry at the fourth estate - "You see, one can only be angry with those he respects." I bet that won him a lot of kudos with The New York Times!
Keen students of Nixon and Kissinger might suggest there is little new in the book, but if you are looking for an interesting oversight of two brilliant but flawed men, it is a very worthwhile and interesting read.
horrifying.......2007-08-15
In this worthy book Dallek chronicles the dysfunctional relationship between two very dysfunctional individuals who made foreign policy from 1968 to 1974. These were two aloof men with inferiority complexes who believed that they were right and everyone else was wrong and promply proceeded to prove the opposite. In this relationship can be found the tragically unnecessary prolonging of the Vietnam War, the unethical overthrowing of President Allende of Chile and other catastrophes of foreign policy.
No matter how many times Kissinger has tried to rationalize his time at the top or find excuses for Vietnam there are none save that he read the issues wrong and acted wrongly.
This book is a good argument for why foreign policy should be made by the State Department and not the National Security Adivsor and why foreign policy shouldn't be made at the desk in the Oval Office.
Book Description
My Body
When it comes to the human body, children ought to know their way around these parts. Now there's a captivating way to introduce children to the basic body parts with this English and Spanish learning book featuring beautiful dimensional paper illustrations. Join happy-go-lucky Edward and Elisja as they take turns reciting the names of their body parts and how many of each they have. A complete pronunciation guide is included in the back of the book for quick and easy reference. From head to toe it's the most fun way to teach this fundamental subject. 20 pages, 4.75" x 5.875"
Mi cuerpo
Cuando se trata del cuerpo humano, es importante que los niños conozcan las partes que lo conforman. Ahora hay un modo cautivante de presentar al lector infantil las partes básicas del cuerpo con este libro en inglés y español de bellas páginas ilustradas. Únanse a Edward y Elisja a medida que se turnan para recitar los nombres de las partes del cuerpo y decir cuántas tienen de cada una. Al respaldo del libro hay una guía completa de pronunciación que sirve como consulta rápida y fácil. Desde la cabeza hasta los pies, este libro es el modo más divertido de enseñar este tema fundamental. 20 páginas, 4.75" x 5.875"
The Benefits and Features of the English • Spanish Foundations series include:
• Helps teach vocabulary and other oral language concepts
• Summary page at the end to recap and instruct
• Helps kids get ready to read
• Helps develop phonemic, print, and numeric awareness
• Large bright colorful pictures to keep kids engaged
• Rounded corners for children's safety
• Laminated to protect from spills
• Board book so they can last
• Great size for little hands
• Simple but engaging text
• Useful for beginning Spanish at any level
• Useful for beginning English at any level
Customer Reviews:
Simple, bright, and fun!.......2005-08-15
There are actual complete sentences in this book in both English and Spanish (not true of a lot of board books), which is perfect for this age and level range. This will be a great addition to Flip Flop Spanish workbook (level 2, not released yet) to help review or even introduce body parts.
I use this board book in my Spanish toddler and 4-7 year old classes, and the students love translating from Spanish to English and back again as I cover the other sentence, or if they can't read yet, guessing what Spanish words will be on that page because of the pictures. It's sturdy and well-illustrated. A great teaching resource.
Great book for curious young minds!.......2002-10-18
My niece has lots of questions about lots of things (3 yrs.old) and it is a continuous challenge to occupy her active mind. This book was a great find for her. She has a new bilinqual friend at pre-school and is excited about learning to talk the way her friend can talk! As these kids have a growing awareness about their bodies and many other things, it is great to find books like this that teach and expand a child's world awareness. Lots of fun and highly recommended.
Great teaching tool!.......2002-10-18
One of the main reasons I got this book was because of how easy it made the information to learn for kids. This book is filled with fun illustrations labeled in english and spanish. Each page also has two sentences, one in each language, which use the featured part of the body in a sentence. I would definitely recommend it!
Book Description
Extensively classroom-tested, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Analytical Reading and Reasoning provides a non-technical vocabulary and analytic apparatus that guide students in identifying and articulating the central patterns found in reasoning and in expository writing more generally. Understanding these patterns of reasoning helps students to better analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments and to more easily comprehend the full range of everyday arguments found in ordinary journalism. Critical Thinking distinguishes itself from other texts in the field by emphasizing analytical reading as an essential skill. It also provides detailed coverage of argument analysis, diagnostic arguments, diagnostic patterns, and fallacies. Opening with two chapters on analytical reading that help students recognize what makes reasoning explicitly different from other expository activities, the text then presents an interrogative model of argument to guide them in the analysis and evaluation of reasoning. This model allows a detailed articulation of "inference to the best explanation" and gives students a view of the pervasiveness of this form of reasoning. The author demonstrates how many common argument types--from correlations to sampling--can be analyzed using this articulated form. He then extends the model to deal with several predictive and normative arguments and to display the value of the fallacy vocabulary. Designed for introductory courses in critical thinking, critical reasoning, informal logic, and inductive reasoning, Critical Thinking features hundreds of exercises throughout and includes worked-out solutions and additional exercises (without solutions) at the end of each chapter. An Instructor's Manual, including solutions to the text's unanswered exercises and featuring other pedagogical aids, is available.
Customer Reviews:
An Excellent Text.......2004-09-02
I have used this text in my own critical thinking course over a dozen times. The text may be more challenging than others, but it is also more rewarding. The emphasis of the text is on developing our linguistic skills to be on par with our already-developed reasoning skills. This makes us more reflective, and more articulate, reasoners. The book uses examples culled from newspapers which makes for engrossing student activities. This also helps students see the relevance of applying the material outside the classroom.
One note of caution on the printing: If possible, buy the third printing (or any printing beyond the third). The first two have several compositing errors which seemed to have slipped by the copy editors. Though these don't detract from the reading of the text, they can be slightly distracting in the learning process.
Average customer rating:
- Bad translation
- Ask and It Is Given
- Un libro excelente
|
Pedid Que Ya Se Os Ha Dado: (Ask and It Is Given)
Esther Hicks , and
Jerry Hicks
Manufacturer: Hay House
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Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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El Secreto (The Secret)
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El Fascinante Poder De La Intencion Deliberada (Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent): Vivir el arte de permitir
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El Poder De La Intencion
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10 Secretos Para Conseguir El Exito Y La Paz Interior
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Vivir en Equilibrio (Being In Balance): 9 principios para crear habitos que concuerden con sus deseos
ASIN: 1401906915 |
Book Description
Ask and It Is Given presents the teachings of the nonphysical entity
Abraham. It will help you learn how to manifest your desires so that you’re living the joyous and fulfilling life you deserve.
As you read, you’ll come to understand how your relationships, health issues, finances, career concerns, and more are influenced by the Universal laws that govern your time/space reality—and you’ll discover powerful processes that will help you go with the positive flow of life.
It’s your birthright to live a life filled with everything that is good—and this book will show you how to make it so in every way!
Customer Reviews:
Bad translation.......2007-03-23
I would not recommend this book in Spanish. I loved the original version, I have almost studied it by heart! But the copy in Spanish I bought for a friend, is so bad... that it can hardly be understood.
Made up words... wrong verb tenses... and lots of grammar mistakes , make the book confusing and in ocasions even ridiculous. I dont understand how Hay House has this marvelous books translated so badly, sometimes it even seems as if it is one of those softwares doing the job. This works should be supervised by a team of expert translators in both languages and experts in the specific matter itself.
Ask and It Is Given.......2006-07-28
Some points make a lot of sense but others don't yeah we are the makers of our paths most of the time, and we can improve our lives with knowledge and spirituality. But this is not for "all" of us like this book is trying to tell you, there are so many people in our country and other countries that don't have food to eat, or are victims of so many crimes, you can't tell them "you can do it" you can have anything your heart desire. Realistic? I don't think so, give us the whole truth, not half of the truth. For some of us who know what Mediums can do in "real life" I think this is just one of those "rich getting richer from people who really need to believe in something to go on" Real life has all diferent colors, ups and downs, not just peaches and roses.
Un libro excelente.......2006-02-23
Uno de los libros mas impactantes que he leido en mi vida. Las ensenanzas de Abraham a traves de Esther, me han hecho recordar lo que siempre supe. Un libro que cambiara su vida, la sencilles de las palabras y la simpleza con la que es descrito hacen que este sea un libro facil de entender, y de practicar. Recomiendo este libro a todos los que quieran ser creadores de su propia realidad.
Average customer rating:
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Detecting Foreign Bodies in Food
Manufacturer: CRC
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0849325463 |
Book Description
Foreign bodies are the biggest single source of customer complaints for many food manufacturers, retailers, and enforcement authorities. Foreign bodies are any undesirable solid objects in food and range from items entirely unconnected with the food, such as glass or metal fragments, to those related to the food, for example bones or fruit stalks. Detecting Foreign Bodies in Food discusses ways of preventing and managing foreign body incidents, and reviews the range of both current and emerging methods and technologies available for detection and control. Part I addresses management issues, with chapters on identifying potential sources of foreign bodies, good manufacturing practice (GMP), the role of the HACCP system, and how best to manage incidents involving foreign bodies. Part II examines methods for detection and removal, with a discussion of existing techniques including metal detection, magnets, optical sorting, and physical separation methods. Other chapters present research on potential new technologies, including surface penetrating radar, microwave reflectance, nuclear magnetic resonance, and ultrasound.
Amazon.com
The winter holidays are usually a quiet time for news, but the December 2005 revelations of the Bush administration's extensive, off-the-books domestic spying program by New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau made headline after headline, raising criticism from both sides of the aisle and an immediate, unapologetic response from President Bush himself. On the heels of those scoops comes Risen's State of War, which goes beyond his Times stories to provide a wide-ranging, if anecdotal, "secret history" of U.S. intelligence following 9/11.
Risen's description of what he says was called "the Program"--the ongoing eavesdropping operation, done with almost no judicial or congressional oversight, on the phone calls and emails of hundreds of Americans (and potentially millions more)--is only a chapter in his larger tale of the recent missteps and oversteps of U.S. intelligence. His evidence ranges from insider White House accounts of Donald Rumsfeld, "the ultimate turf warrior," outmaneuvering his rivals to make the Defense Department the dominant voice in foreign policy, to on-the-ground reports of the administration's willful ignorance of crucial intelligence on the dormancy of Saddam's weapons programs, Saudi support for al Qaeda, and the startlingly rapid transformation of Afghanistan into a "narco-state" under American authority. Some of the episodes he recounts--Saudi security officials with Osama bin Laden screensavers, an Iraqi scientist who had told the CIA his country had no nuclear program watching Colin Powell testify to the UN that they did--would be comical were the stakes less high.
Risen's loyalties are not with the opposition party--he's sharply critical of Clinton's disinterest in the CIA--but with the career field agents who are his best sources. Those agents and their expertise, he argues, have been cast aside, along with the long centrist tradition of U.S. foreign policy and the basic checks and balances of the American system of government, by the Bush administration's radical politicization and militarization of intelligence. He covers a lot of ground in a book of just over 200 pages, some of it familiar from other accounts, and at times his tradecraft anecdotes can be hard to assess without context. But his specific revelations and his well-sourced, angry overview of the way the battles against terror have been fought make for startling, newsmaking reading. --Tom Nissley
Book Description
James Risen has broken story after story on the abuses of power of the Bush administration.
From warrantless wiretapping to secret financial data mining to the CIA's rogue operations, he has shown again and again that the executive branch has dangerously overreached, repudiated checks and balances on its power, and maintained secrecy even with its allies in Congress. In no small part thanks to Risen and State of War, the "secret history" of the Bush years has now come partially into view.
In a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Risen describes the two-front war that President Bush is now fighting: at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses; and in the Middle East, where George W. Bush's great gamble to bring a democratic revolution is failing radically. We must learn the lessons of Risen's history now, before it is too late.
Download Description
"With relentless media coverage, breathtaking events, and extraordinary congressional and independent investigations, it is hard to believe that we still might not know some of the most significant facts about the presidency of George W. Bush. Yet beneath the surface events of the Bush presidency lies a secret history -- a series of hidden events that makes a mockery of current debate. James Risen has covered national security for The New York Times for years. Based on extraordinary sources from top to bottom in Washington and around the world, drawn from dozens of interviews with key figures in the national security community, this book exposes an explosive chain of events. Not since the revelations of CIA and FBI abuses in the 1970s have so many scandals in the intelligence community come to light. More broadly, Risen's secret history shows how power really works in George W. Bush's presidency.
Customer Reviews:
I could not put it down once I started reading it........2007-05-29
James Risen describes an institution of the CIA decaying after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the retirement of many long time career CIA officers, the CIA in a politically weak and compromised position.
Former CIA director, George Tenet became entangled in the Bush administration's politics and seemed to be directing the CIA in a manner to save his own job while sacrificing the CIA's credibility by having the CIA produce reports to support the Bush administration's propaganda which was not supported by observable evidence or credible sources. The Bush administration wanted the CIA to manufacture intelligence propaganda to support Bush's claims that the Saddam regime in Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction, WMD, and allied to or supporting terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.
The CIA was able to produce neither credible sources nor evidence to support Bush's claims. In fact, credible sources and evidence produced by the CIA in its investigations contradicted Bush's claims to indicate that the reverse was true. Production of WMDs had been abandoned as a result of America's first war against Iraq. No evidence or credible reasoning was ever discovered to support the claims of any links between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The observation that James Risen points out that I find most fascinating is the contrast with the Bush administration's great expenditure in time, effort and resources to persuade Americans that al Qaeda was somehow linked to the Saddam regime and that Bush continues to portray the war on Iraq as a war on al Qaeda's terrorism despite evidence to the contrary. However, the Bush administration shows no interest at all in following up ample evidence that points out links between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and high level Saudi officials. On the contrary, such evidence at times has simply disappeared without explanation at the hands of Saudi officials or has been aggressively suppressed by American politicians. There is no American political support for U.S. intelligence services investigating terror evidence that leads back to Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, Saudi official's faster and more direct contacts with politicians in Washington, including Bush have been put to use by Saudis to hinder CIA and FBI investigations about terrorism originating out of Saudi Arabia.
One very ancient principle of war that both the CIA and the pentagon are guilty of neglecting is to know the enemy.
The CIA allowed its intelligence sources in Iraq to wither away without recruiting new intelligence sources in that country after operation desert storm and Saddam's non compliance with the terms of surrender to end the Persian Gulf war and his defiance against U.N. investigators searching for WMD.
The CIA accidently blinded itself in Iran by transmitting data to an Iranian double agent that enabled Iran to identify all CIA intelligence sources in Iran. Even worse, the CIA attempted an extremely dangerous and stupid stunt to get the Iranians to reveal their stage of nuclear weapons development by sending them flawed designs for a nuclear weapon through a former Russian scientist who revealed to the Iranians that the designs were flawed.
George Tenet established communication protocols between himself and high level Saudi officials. But, there was a complaint that George Tenet did not share the intelligence he received with CIA analysts. Saudis continue to ignore CIA requests for intelligence at lower levels and have even shared intelligence provided by the CIA with members of al Qaeda.
The Pentagon was unable to recognize that some hired Afghan allies were sympathizers of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who took bribes in exchange for allowing them to escape from the Americans. The Pentagon was also unable or unwilling to recognize that some of their drug lord allies were funding the al Qaeda and Taliban which led to the revival of both in 2005.
Recurrent failures of the Bush administration which almost led to reversals of American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq include over optimism while committing minimal numbers of troops to both theaters of war, too trusting of native afghan fighters, drug lords and Iraqi intelligence sources lacking credibility while overly suspicious and suppressive of American military and intelligence sources whose reports contradicted manufactured realities the Bush administration was attempting to project, a lack of coherent planning and communication and cooperation between the administration, the department of defense, the state department and intelligence agencies.
James Risen points out briefly ineffective management and poor leadership characteristics of the Bush administration with which I agree.
Basic Management and leadership functions are planning, organizing, directing and control. Anyone who has been through such training will be able to identify failures of these functions by extracting them from the readings in James Risens book.
I wish that leaders and future leaders would read this book and others I list below so as to able to recognize poor crisis management and leadership and resolve to do better in the future.
Here are some other sources of related material which I recommend:
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Anonymous AKA Michael Scheuer
Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail by Philip Smucker
No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West
House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer
Uncovered - The Whole Truth About the Iraq War by Robert Greenwald
Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border by Jon E. Dougherty
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
Disinformation at its Best !.......2007-05-16
Dont waste more than a couple of dollars on this breezy lite read. The real problem I had with this book is that it revolves around and gives creedence to the "Offical Version" or the propaganda we get on the idiot box. Too Verbose and Not Enough Hard Hitting Content. Example : What happened, why didnt the CIA catch 9/11 ? We just dropped the ball !!! HAHAHHAHA what bs. This book is full of diversionary crap like this. Really folks, there are tons of books that give more information than this, I suggest you start with
House of Bush House of Saud and Petrodollar Recycling.
An expose proven to be true.......2007-02-15
I had just finished this book when CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Feith from the State Department, and I became totally convinced (as if I were not already) that the Bush administration has lied its way into war and has no clue as to how to get us out. I was impressed with the following: (1) Charlie Allen contacted 30 families to visit relatives in Iraq to do undercover spying in regard to WMD, and all 30 of them reported that there were no weapons. It was not a surprise that the information was stuffed into a file and forgotten by his superiors. (2) Tenet was a puppet for whatever George and Rumsfeld wanted. (3) The drug trade in Afghanistan was not stopped, and Rumsfeld ordered the military to concentrate only on terrorists and ignore the poppies. It is obvious that we should have finished our job in Afghanistan and stayed out of Iraq.
No wonder we are a laughing stock. The FBI and CIA are incompetent and corrupt. Everyone should read this book before the election hoohaw starts.
Useful study of a disastrous, failed state.......2007-01-25
This useful book explores the conflict within the US state between the CIA and the rest of the Bush administration. Risen's thesis is that a flawed administration has overridden and distorted a trusting and trustworthy CIA. He writes, "It is a cautionary tale, one that shows how the most covert tools of American national security policy have been misused. It involves domestic spying, abuse of power, and outrageous operations." What he actually shows is that the whole US state is corrupt.
He notes of the thirty Iraqi sources on WMD, "All of them - some thirty - had said the same thing. They all reported to the CIA that the scientists had said that Iraq's program to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons had long since been abandoned."
The US state protects its allies in the Saudi autocracy, and thus protects their allies, Al Qa'ida. As Risen notes, "Yet it is still true that, both before and after 9/11, President Bush and his administration have displayed a remarkable lack of interest in aggressively examining the connections between Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Saudi power elite. Even as the Bush administration spent enormous time and energy trying in vain to prove connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in order to help justify the war in Iraq, the administration was ignoring the far more conclusive ties with Saudi Arabia."
Afghanistan is now a narco-state and a large part of its drug profits goes to Al Qa'ida. "For Afghanistan's drug lords, business was very good under the United States Central Command. Flush with drug money, the insurgency in Afghanistan intensified in the summer of 2005 to its most dangerous levels since the American invasion nearly four years earlier. There were steady reports that the rebels, a confusing mix of Taliban, al Qaeda, and others, were surprisingly well armed and equipped - evidence that they were also well financed. The Bush administration had purchased an illusion of stability in Afghanistan at the price of billions of dollars' worth of heroin that was flooding into the streets of Europe and the United States."
Risen summarises, "The establishment of a series of secret prisons around the world and the widespread use of harsh interrogation tactics against prisoners in American custody has been part of a broader and disquieting pattern by the Bush administration. The White House has interpreted the constitutional powers of the president to fight terrorism in such an expansive way that long-standing rules governing the military and intelligence communities have been skirted or ignored, and secret intelligence activities inside the United States have been approved that may be violating the civil liberties of American citizens. In particular, the technical wizards of the National Security Agency have been engaged in a program of domestic data mining that is so vast, and so unprecedented, that it makes a mockery of long-standing privacy rules."
Unbiased, Well Researched, Informative.......2007-01-15
Mr. Risen presents well-researched data with information coming from many inside resources. He is unbiased and presents the information with no partiality to democrats or republicans, something truly valuable if one wants "real" information. The book covers many current topics, such as wire tapping, prisoner-of-war abuses, the lack of planning for the initial Iraq invasion, as well as the president and his cabinet's refusal to look at the facts indicating we need not go in there, drug profits in Afghanistan, and more. Information is current, spanning perhaps the last 6 years. The book does not go into deeper issues of who is really pulling the strings of those who give the appearance of being in power.
Mr. Risen's style is straight forward, but definitely not as dry as this type of book tends to be. Because of his research and impartiality, I would read further work by him.
Average customer rating:
- Did not work for me! Ni una vez me sirvio!
- Este libro si vale la pena comprar
- Excelente!
- Recomiendo este ejemplar
- Estoy sorprendida con este libro
|
Diccionario De Los Suenos
Mario Jimenez-Castillo
Manufacturer: Llewellyn Espanol
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ASIN: 0738703133 |
Book Description
Conozca el significado de sus sueños Todos recibimos mensajes en nuestros sueños. Estos mensajes nos ayudan a tomar decisiones, nos previenen de situaciones negativas o peligrosas y nos comunican mensajes divinos. Ahora usted puede aprender a interpretarlos correctamente y entender sus significados.
Esta obra le dará información reciente sobre los estudios acerca del sueño y cómo podemos aprovechar la información contenida en ellos para armonisarla en nuestra vida. Adquiera uno de los diccionarios más completos jamás publicado y descifre desde el más simple hasta el más abstracto y complejo de sus sueños.
Puntos de venta -- Ofrece más de ocho mil interpretaciones de sueños -- Contiene palabras poco comúnes no incluídas en otros diccionarios de sueños -- Es un libro práctico y fácil de usar
Customer Reviews:
Did not work for me! Ni una vez me sirvio!.......2007-05-15
No me ha servido para interpretar ni un sueno y los que he tenido en el pasado no concuerda la descripcion con lo sucedido despues. Este libro me ha desilucionado, pues soy una persona que he tenido varios suenos premonitorios. Ademas mi prima tiene otro libro y cuando lo he consultado me ha dado mejor resultado pero lamentablemente no esta en Amazon.
Este libro si vale la pena comprar.......2007-01-19
Este libro es tan preciso que que es casi increible. Mis companeros de trabajo, vecinos, y familiares me llaman a consultar sus suenos porque siempre el significado descrito en este libro acerta tan increiblemente que he tenido que comprar unas cuantas copias para regalar. Al principio no le daba mucha importancia del significado de mis suenos pero luego me comence a dar cuenta de que todo me sucedia justo como lo describia este diccionario de los suenos. Ahora hasta mis 3 hijos estan todos fascinados.
Mercedes, Florida, USA
Excelente!.......2005-07-30
Este libro ya me a demostrado varias veces que los sueños si te dicen algo mas que un simple sueño.
Recomiendo este ejemplar.......2004-10-15
Mi esposa compró este libro y ya van tres presagios que han salido casi al pie de la letra. Es genial.
Estoy sorprendida con este libro.......2003-11-10
Que libro tan exacto, cuando tengo sueños y leo el significado solamente espero unos días y los augurios se cumplen casi al pie de la letra, es genial.
Muy interesante la parte de la introducción que habla sobre los libros de sueños a través de la histora y la numerología de los sueños. Es un libro muy completo, lo recomiendo.
Average customer rating:
- Handy Item for Gaijin
- Kana Pict-o-Graphix Review
- A Useful Little Book
- It works
- I learned all my Hiragana in a week!!!
|
Kana Pict-O-Graphix: Mnemonics for Japanese Hiragana and Katakana
Michael Rowley
Manufacturer: Stone Bridge Press
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Jimi's Book of Japanese: A Motivating Method to Learn Japanese (Hiragana)
ASIN: 1880656183 |
Book Description
This compact book is a lively collection of contemporary memory aids (mnemonics) that teaches you the shapes and sounds of hiragana and katakana, the two basic syllabaries used in written Japanese. Combining clever drawings and text memory aids, each hiragana and katakana pair is presented on a single page for comparison, with separate visual and text mnemonics. Fits handily into any pocket.
Customer Reviews:
Handy Item for Gaijin.......2007-05-19
The Japanese phonetic alphabets, hiragana for native words and katakana for "borrowed" words, can seem impenetrable to gaijin (foreigners). However, this brilliantly-conceived little gem will have you sounding out Japanese writing in no time. Each character is accompanied with a small cartoon that both resembles the character and represents its sound mmemonically in English. It's pocket-sized and has mini charts of both alphabets as well as a chart of easily-confused lookalike characters. You'll find this book incredibly useful whether you want to travel to the land of the rising sun or just amaze your friends - and yourself too - by reading the menu at your local sushi bar.
Kana Pict-o-Graphix Review.......2007-03-09
If learning Katakana or Hiragana you will not go wrong with this little pocket sized book. I was recognizing Hiragana in a matter of minutes and retaining the information day after day!
A Useful Little Book.......2007-02-13
This is a useful little book. It won't teach you ALL the Kana, I got a good set of flash cards for that. It will however help you start thinking of ways to remember the sound of each character. Not all of them work, some are a bit of a stretch, but I'd say about 75% of them are great and help a lot. Note that I draw and paint and so tend to think graphically. This way of memorizing the Kana works very well for me. Your milage may very, especially if you don't think in pictures. Also I was surprised at the size of the book. It is 3 inches by 5 inches. It's tiny, useful as all get out but I was surprised how small it was.
It works.......2007-01-10
The pictures in the books help memorize the kana pretty well. Although you have to use your imagination on some (like "E" is for "edible", didn't quite get the pic at first) of them it really works. Although I wish this book were bigger in terms of size...since I'm always losing/misplacing mine...I guess it's perfect for when you're on the go. I found the charts of each Kana at the beginning and end of the book really helpful too. I'd definitely recommend this book if you want to visually memorize the kana, if you want to know how to write it (aka "stroke order") or the context in which some are used then you might consider getting other accompanying materials.
I learned all my Hiragana in a week!!!.......2005-09-18
This book is fantastic. I'm a first-year Japanese student, and while the rest of my class learns five Hiragana characters per class, I whipped up 46 flash cards using the mnemonic devices within this book and successfully memorized all of them in a week. I am now weeks ahead of the rest of my class, because I can now sight read Hiragana while everyone else still needs to use Roman characters.
I highly recommend this to any English-speaking westerner who is beginning to learn Hiragana and Katakana. Some reviewers complain that it doesn't examine the true basis for these characters, however that element is totally useless and tedious. Hiragana is used to represent sounds, and the quicker you learn it, the easier your life will be. Some of the mnemonic devices are extremely corny and far-fetched, however the results do not lie!
On a side note, if you are struggling with your Kanji, I highly recommend "Remembering the Kanji, Volume 1," by James W. Heisig.
Average customer rating:
- An Inspiring book for humanity!
- I recommend it
- A must for all devotees of Babaji
- A must for those interested in Babaji
- Unauthentic writing
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Babaji and the 18 Siddha Kriya Yoga Tradition
Manufacturer: Kriya Yoga Publications
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Super Advanced Course Number 1 Lessons 1 to 12
ASIN: 1895383005 |
Book Description
The first authoritative biography of Babaji, the immortal master made famous by Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, an all-time best-seller. Babaji lives today near Badrinath, in the upper Himalayan mountains. His body has not aged since the age of sixteen, when centuries ago he attained the supreme state of enlightenment and divine transformation. This followed his initiation into scientific art of Kriya Yoga by two deathless masters, the siddhas Agastyar and Boganathar, who belonged to the "18 Siddha Tradition", famous among the Tamil speaking people of southern India. This rare account, by a long time disciple, reveals their little known stories, ancient culture and present mission, as well as how their Kriya Yoga can be used to bring about the integration of the material and spiritual dimensions of life. Clear explanations of the psychophysiological effects of Kriya Yoga and guidelines for its practice are given. It includes verses from the Siddhas' writings with commentary. A book which will inspire you.
Customer Reviews:
An Inspiring book for humanity!.......2005-05-04
This book revels the unlimited potential of human evolution.It shows that the current human development is at its infancy and it is very possible to achieve immortality with the human body.
To prove my point I would like to recommend other inspiring books such as the ''conversations with God series'' by Neale Donald Walsch which clearly states that the human body is designed to exist for eternity. That book also revels that our current physical, spiritual, intellectual and technological development is at its infancy compared to other civilizations in the universe.
There is a sricking similiarity between these books. M. Govindan has shown that Babaji and the other perfected beings are not myths. In the ''conversations with God'' series, God has also revealed that a number of human beings had achieved immortality in the physical plane and He made a reference to Babaji as an example!
The main reason that this book as received some negative reviews is because the readers themselves do not believe in their own divinity. Didn't Jesus teach that we are all gods and the kingdom of hevean is within us?
I highly recommend this book for those who wish to improve themselves in their thoughts, words and deeds. This book shows that nothing is impossible to achieve.
I recommend it.......2005-02-17
I have enjoyed this book. It speaks about the ancient lore of Yoga. It is only like the tip of the iceberg of a great knowledge. Those who like to know deeply about Yoga will like it.
A must for all devotees of Babaji.......2005-02-16
If you feel attracted to Babaji, this book is for you. You will learn about Him and His backgrounds. You will also learn about the Siddhas of the South of India. Babaji is here to stay, is spite of the darkness around.
A must for those interested in Babaji.......2003-11-03
If you feel atraction to Babaji, or you are a devotee of Him, this book is a must. Just ignore the other fundamentalist comments. Find for yourSelf.
Unauthentic writing.......2003-09-17
This biography of Babaji indicates the authors lack of true experience in the tradition he attempts to write about.
I fully agree with many of the other criticisms of this book.
It is, in its own light - highly uncorroborated & inconsistent.
Average customer rating:
- Not Bertrand Russell
- Stimulating and Synoptic Account of Philosophy's Problems
- Stimulating and Synoptic Account of Philosophy's Concerns
- A refusal to see things one way
- ... this is bad
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The View From Nowhere
Thomas Nagel
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195056442 |
Book Description
Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectually, morally, and practically? To what extent are they irreconcilable and to what extent can they be integrated? Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. He deals with its manifestations in such fields of philosophy as: the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, ethics, the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible.
Customer Reviews:
Not Bertrand Russell.......2005-11-01
This book is an expansion of the ideas in Nagel's essay "Subjective and Objective" (available in the collection Mortal Questions). I find the essay to be the most important short work on philosophy I've ever read. It changed my thinking on the class of problems addressed, which include the concept of mind (specifically consciousness), ethics, and meaning of life, all of which I've been reading a lot about for 35 years. The essay has a neat summary of the main point: "There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected."
If you agree with that statement you'll probably love the essay. The book is another matter. It is bafflingly difficult, which is troubling given the clarity of the essay. I've tried twice to get through the book, the first time reading casually as I typically do, the second studying it to the extent of writing out a summary of each paragraph as I read. I still had to give up in disgust. Yet, I still want to finish reading this book!
I'll admit to being a philosophical lightweight. My favorite authors are generally models of clarity and easy reading: Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, Bryan Magee's Confessions of a Philosopher, Walter Kaufmann's Faith of a Heretic, Thoreau's Walden, Nagel's Mortal Questions, Dennett's Consciousness Explained, later Wittgenstein, and so on. The View from Nowhere is more like Kant, Spinoza, Plotinus, the authors I tend to avoid where possible as being too abstract, too dry, too tough, or irrelevant to my life and thought.
So my advice would be to get Nagel's book of essays, read them, then proceed to this if you like what you've read. And above all, be prepared to work on it.
Alan Nicoll
Stimulating and Synoptic Account of Philosophy's Problems.......2004-05-17
Sorry for the double post here. (I'll try to get this one removed.)
Still, I can say a bit more about this book. This isn't a technical book, and I think it should be accessible to anyone interested in general philosophical issues. It's not an easy read--it's subtle and Nagel is sometimes a bit obscure--but it's not forbiddingly difficult and it doesn't presume that the reader is as knowledgeable about contemporary philosopohy as its author is. However, that's not to say that this is a book that fails to engage with the literature on these topics. It's clear that Nagel is familiar with the relevant contemporary work on these topics, and the book is accessible enough that it might server as a high-level introdution to the more technical literature in these areas. And it certainly provides you with a way to see the technical literature as concerned with fundamental human concerns.
Also, it's somewhat inspiring to see someone take on a grand project of this sort. Philosophy is becoming an increasingly specialized discipline, and it's nice to see someone trying to fit a lot of what is going on into a general picture of the origins and nature of genuine philosophical problems.
Stimulating and Synoptic Account of Philosophy's Concerns.......2004-05-17
This is a major work in metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory. It's essentially a summary of a career of thought concerning the central issues in philosophy, and it is built around Nagel's big idea: that the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity can help us to understand the nature and source of the central problems of philosophy. It's an interesting and fruitful idea--though perhaps not as interesting and fruitful as he thinks--and it leads Nagel to lots of interesting ideas about how to understand, appreciate, and maybe even solve the central problems of philosophy.
The main subject of the book is the relation between subjective and objective views of our minds, our selves, our thought, our actions, our moral views, etc. The subjective view is our limited point of view: it's the point of view we have when immersed in our own perspective on the world. We reach more objective points of view by subtracting the parochial elements from our perspective. In attempting to arrive at a more objective point of view, we step back from ourselves and place ourselves, along with our subjective points of view, in a broader conception of the world. This involves trying to see the world as it would appear to a being with a "view from nowhere."
But problems arise when we realize that it's difficult to integrate subjective and objective perspectives. There is a tension between subjectivity and objectivity, and this tension appears in all areas of philosophy. As a matter of fact, it's the source of most of the fundamental problems that plague philosophers. When we take up a more objective viewpoint, the central elements of our subjective viewpoints are inexplicable. When we arrive a more objective conception of the world by, say, doing more science, we find it hard to understand how we can have minds, how our ways of forming beliefs allow us to know the objective world, how we can make sense of objective reasons for action, etc. But these apparently inexplicable things are among the crucial components of our subjective conception of the world and ourselves. And we encounter a similar problem in the other direction. When we are immersed in our subjective viewpoints, we find it hard to place ourselves and our viewpoint within an objective account of the world. That is, we find it hard to see how our ways of knowing could be backed up in a way that makes them more than simply our ways of knowing, and we find it hard to see how our ways of acting could be backed up in a way that makes them more than simply our ways of acting.
Nagel treats most of the traditional "solutions" to the problems of philosophy as based on two general tactics for dealing with the tension between objectivity and subjectivity. According to Nagel, neither tactic is fully satisfactory. The first tactic is to understand everything as objective, and the construe the subjective as mere appearance. In contemporary thought, this tactic is manifest in overreaching forms of naturalism and scientism. Nagel agrees that the sciences do provide us with an objective conception of the world, and with an objective conception of the world that is likely to be largely accurate. But he doesn't think this means the sciences do or can provide us with an account of all the facts about the world, for they leave out our own subjective point of view. This leaves us with a residual unease: overarching naturalism provides us with an account of how things are that seems to leave something important out. We do have conscious experiences, there is a way things seem to us, we do seem to act freely, we do seem to be under moral obligations, etc.
The second tactic is to search for an answer by going to the opposite extreme: that is, by collapsing everything into the subjective point of view. This is to claim that there is no way to draw back from our perspective in order to arrive at an objective perspective on the world and on our place within it. And this view can result in even more extreme views according to which there is no objective world out there to discover, and according to which we can't even make sense of the very idea that there could be such a world. In other words, to accept such a view is to acquiesce in some sort of skepticism, relativism, subjectivism, etc. Again, though, such a solution leaves us with a residual sense of unease: there is more to our ways of thinking and acting than that, isn't there? There is the further question of whether we're really right about what we think, and whether we're really right to do what we do.
Is there any way to avoid these problems? Yes, we need a view of the world that is complex enough to accommodate both perspectives on the world; we need a view of the world that doesn't deny the reality of either the subjective or the objective. But this isn't really an answer; it's just a statement of what any answer is going to need to look like. Nagel doesn't claim to be able to offer a detailed solution to these problems. The final conclusion is that the success of attempts to solve the problems of philosophy straight will require our having something we don't have yet--namely an understanding of these two perspectives and their relations to one another. Can we have it? Here Nagel is cagey. At some points he offers some speculative suggestions about how this might go, at others he seems to doubt that it can be done.
Notwithstanding the lack of answers here, Nagel thinks that understanding the problems of philosophy as he does provides us with some important insights. It allows us to explain the nature and source of philosophical problems, and it allows us to understand these problems as closely related to one another. It also helps to explain why the usual "solutions" to them don't convince. Moreover, it allows us to see these problems as real problems, and as problems lacking obvious solutions. This also supports our intuitions concerning the hopelessness of attempts to dissolve the problems of philosophy or to construe them as mere pseudo-problems.
A refusal to see things one way.......2004-04-17
This book is incredibly important as a corrective to much recent academic philosophy.
What some reviewers have dismissed as "shallow" or "New Age puffery" or "not rigorous" is Nagel's refusal to give up the importance of some basic stances we adopt towards our minds, our actions, and the world.
For example, Nagel believes that a philosopher concerned with establishing the fullest kind of objective understanding of reality possible needs to make sense of how (a) our scientific view of the world can be brought into harmony with (b)the way things look from inside our subjective consciousness or experience of the world. The strategy he is arguing against is the attempt to reduce (b)to the facts of (a) and then call it establishing objectivity. In other words, there is another level of explanation, other than scientific reduction, that philosophers need to be engaged in order to make a completely objective view of the world coherent--that is, a view that does not leave crucial things what it feels like to be human from the inside.
... this is bad.......2002-11-14
nagel is perhaps the least rigorous philosopher in the past 50 years. he has an obvious smugness that he is somehow above contemporary debates in philosophy and therefore chooses not to engage them directly. maybe posterity will discover nagel's genius, but for now if you read this book surrounded by its peers and rivals (particularly Quine, Dennett, Block, and all those wicked scientificalist/physicalist silly gooses) then you really should come away wondering what he's talking about.
admittedly, nagel angers me on a somewhat personal level. it seems as though since jack smart and david armstrong came along with overtly physical theories of mind, that philosophers of mind have been working to make sense of explanatory gaps, hard problems of consciousness, etc. And much of this work is very interesting and makes significant progress. But then Nagel comes along, calls everyone stupid and yells, "WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A BAT?". Then he fills it in with some mucky muck and unknowing philosophy students take him seriously...
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