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183652-1 | Chris Wallace | Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage | —from the publisher's website Throughout American history, presidents have faced difficult choices-- decisions that have had grave political and personal consequences. Will leadership prevail? Or will the office cede power to popular opinion? At these critical times, many of our presidents have chosen a path of genuine courage. They stood up for what they believed was right for the country and displayed tremendous character, which made them leaders of men. With the indispensable contributions of Richard E. Neustadt-- author of the seminal Presidential Power, former adviser to presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, and founder of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government-- Wallace has chosen nearly twenty notable acts of presidential courage in our nation's history, including: George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion, Theodore Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War, Harry Truman and the Berlin Airlift, and George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. How and why did these men choose the hard way? What experiences from their civilian lives came to bear on their decisions? What forces shaped them? Who influenced them? Who didn't? What gave them their inner fortitude? Using this Socratic approach, Wallace brings out the humanity of these power brokers and lets their personal histories shine through. The result is a completely involving and tremendously informative look at the presidents who've made defining choices for our nation in times of national uncertainty. Just in time for the 2004 election, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage is a must read for every citizen who has lost his or her faith in our executive branch of government‹a captivating and informative narrative of courage and determination in our nation's presidential history. | 2004-10-31T00:00:00 | 159071038X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/183652-1 |
80204-1 | David Horowitz | Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey | Mr. Horowitz talked about his autobiography, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey. He talked about his background, including his early life with communist parents and as a leader of leftist movements in the 1960s and how he became a conservative later in life. | 1997-04-13T00:00:00 | 068482793X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/80204-1 |
123557-1 | Floyd Flake | The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps For Achieving Your Dreams | A highly esteemed Democratic congressman from eleven years, Reverend Floyd Flake is the influential pastor of New York's Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the largest churches in America. What's the key to his success? Bootstrapping. It is Flake's motivational system of taking personal responsibility in order to create a successful life. The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps for Achieving Your Dreams, Flake offers his steps for using empowering plan to fulfill your passions, talents, and highest aspirations. Bootstrapping, says Flake, is the strategy our ancestors used to raise families, work the land, start new businesses, run the government, build wealth, and care for the less fortunate. Bootstapping is three things: a process to achieve success by making it against the many obstacles; a mindset to take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, words, actions, and life circumstances; and a value system to transform your personal relationship with yourself, your neighbors, and your environment. Bootstrappers do not see themselves as victims but have confidence in their abilities to rise above limited expectations. Bootstrappers develop inner strength from their experiences and sufferings allwing them to persevere even in the face of challenging odds. Bootstrappers use their personal resources to achieve success but also maintain high moral standards. Bootstrappers are able to adapt to a changing world and life circumstances and conduct their activities not merely for themselves but also for the benefit of others and future generations. Weaving his amazing personal story along with helpful activities and nine motivational action steps, Floyd Flake's story of his rise from a struggling young man, to minister, to Congressman is compelling. —from the publisher's website | 1999-07-04T00:00:00 | 0062515950 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/123557-1 |
121264-1 | Tom Brokaw | The Greatest Generation | One of NBC's most famous anchormen celebrates the greatest generation in history — Americans born in the 1920s who came of age during the Great Depression, fought in World War II, and went on to build America. The Greatest Generation will be also be the subject of a concurrent NBC-TV show. —from the publisher's website | 1999-03-07T00:00:00 | 0375502025 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/121264-1 |
167924-1 | Bernard Lewis | What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response | One of the world's leading authorities looks at the eclipse of the Middle East in the last three centuries and how the aftermath is felt to this day For many centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement--the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe, a remote land beyond its northwestern frontier, was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed, as the previously despised West won victory after victory, first in the battlefield and the marketplace, then in almost every aspect of public and even private life. In this intriguing volume, Bernard Lewis examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to understand why things had changed--how they had been overtaken, overshadowed, and to an increasing extent dominated by the West. Lewis provides a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil. He shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry and military tactics, commerce and industry, government and diplomacy, education and culture. Lewis highlights the striking differences between the Western and Middle Eastern cultures from the 18th to the 20th centuries through thought-provoking comparisons of such things as Christianity and Islam, music and the arts, the position of women, secularism and the civil society, the clock and the calendar. Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis is one of the West's foremost authorities on Islamic history and culture. In this striking volume, he offers an incisive look at the historical relationship between the Middle East and Europe. —from the publisher's website | 2001-12-30T00:00:00 | 0195144201 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/167924-1 |
168016-1 | Edward Steers Jr. | Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln | The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government. Booth was also aided by the Confederate leadership in Richmond. As he made his plans to strike at Lincoln, Booth was in contact with key members of the Confederate underground, and after the assassination these same forces used all of their resources to attempt his escape. Had it not been for all this assistance, Booth would not have gone far as he did, for as long as he did. When Booth entered the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865, he held a small derringer in his hand, but there were many fingers on the trigger. Noted Lincoln authority Edward Steers Jr. introduces the cast of characters in this ill-fated drama, he explores why they were so willing to help pull the trigger, and corrects the many misconceptions surrounding this defining moment that changed American history. —from the publisher's website | 2002-02-17T00:00:00 | 0813122171 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/168016-1 |
48269-1 | Tom Rosenstiel | Strange Bedfellows | Mr. Rosenstiel discussed his book Strange Bedfellows: How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American Politics, 1992. The book deals with the impact of television coverage of the 1992 presidential election on the outcome of that election. The author concentrated on ABC news coverage, receiving permission to interview ABC employees and attend editorial meetings | 1993-08-08T00:00:00 | 0786880228 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/48269-1 |
164503-1 | Thomas Fleming | The New Dealers' War | Controversial and revisionist to the core, a sweeping re-examination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's handling-and mishandling-of World War II. Acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming brings to life the flawed and troubled FDR who struggled to manage WWII. Starting with the leak to the press of Roosevelt's famous Rainbow Plan, then spiraling back to FDR's inept prewar diplomacy with Japan, and his various attempts to lure Japan into an attack on the U.S. Fleet in the Pacific, Fleming takes the reader inside the incredibly fractious struggles and debates that went on in Washington, the nation, and the world as the New Dealers, led by FDR, strove to impose their will on the conduct of the War. Unlike the familiar yet idealized FDR of Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, the reader encounters a Roosevelt in remorseless decline, battered by ideological forces and primitive hatreds which he could not handle-and frequently failed to understand-some of them leading to unimaginable catastrophe. Among FDR's most dismaying policies, Fleming argues, were an insistence on "unconditional surrender" for Germany (a policy that perhaps prolonged the war by as many as two years, leaving millions more dead) and his often uncritical embrace of and acquiescence to Stalin and the Soviets as an ally. For many Americans, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is a beloved, heroic, almost mythic figure, if not for the "big government" that was spawned under his New Deal, then certainly for his leadership through the War. The New Dealers' War paints a very different portrait of this leadership. It is sure to spark debate. —taken from jacket of the book | 2001-08-26T00:00:00 | 0465024645 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/164503-1 |
163338-1 | Kiron Skinner | Reagan In His Own Hand | Until Alzheimer's disease wreaked its gradual destruction, Ronald Reagan was an inveterate writer. He wrote not only letters, short fiction, poetry, and sports stories, but speeches, newspaper articles, and radio commentary on public policy issues, both foreign and domestic. Most of Reagan's original writings are pre-presidential. From 1975 to 1979 he gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, two-thirds of which he wrote himself. They cover every topic imaginable: from labor policy to the nature of communism, from World War II to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, from the future of Africa and East Asia to that of the United States and the world. They range from highly specific arguments to grand philosophy to personal stories. Even those who knew him best were largely unaware of Reagan's output. George Shultz, as he explains in the Foreword, was surprised when he first saw the manuscripts, but on reflection he really was not surprised at all. Here is definitive proof that Ronald Reagan was far more than a Great Communicator of other people's ideas. He was very much the author of his own ideas, with a single vision that he pursued relentlessly at home and abroad. Reagan, In His Own Hand presents this vision through Reagan's radio writings as well as other writings selected from throughout his life: short stories written in high school and college, a poem from his high school yearbook, newspaper articles, letters, and speeches both before and during the presidency. It offers many surprises, beginning with the fact that Reagan's writings exist in such size and breadth at all. While he was writing batches and batches of radio addresses, Reagan was also traveling the country, collaborating on a newspaper column, giving hundreds of speeches, and planning his 1980 campaign. Yet the wide reading and deep research self-evident here suggest a mind constantly at work. The selections are reproduced with Reagan's own edits, offering a unique window into his thought processes. These writings show that Reagan had carefully considered nearly every issue he would face as president. When he fired the striking air-traffic controllers, many thought that he was simply seizing an unexpected opportunity to strike a blow at organized labor. In fact, as he wrote in the '70s, he was opposed to public-sector unions using strikes. There has been much debate as to whether he deserves credit for the end of the cold war; here, in a 1980 campaign speech draft, he lays out a detailed vision of the grand strategy that he would pursue in order to encourage the Soviet system to collapse of its own weight, completely consistent with the policies of his presidency. Furthermore, in 1984, Reagan drafted comments he would make to Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko at a critical meeting that would eventually lead to history's greatest reductions in armaments. Ronald Reagan's writings will change his reputation even among some of his closest allies and friends. Here, in his own hand, Reagan the thinker is finally fully revealed. —from the publisher | 2001-04-29T00:00:00 | 074320123X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/163338-1 |
91741-1 | Thomas West | Vindicating the Founders | Today students are taught that America's Founding Fathers were racist, sexist, and elitist. Historians condemn them as hypocrites who failed to live up to their own enlightened principles. In this landmark book, Thomas G. West debunks these and other widely held myths about the Founders' political thought. It is commonly but incorrectly , asserted that because Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, because women, even after the American Revolution, enjoyed virtually no rights, and because the poor and those without property wee denied the basic tenets of democratic participation, the Founders were frauds who never really believed that "all men were created equal." West demonstrates why such politically correct interpretations are no only dead wrong, but dangerous. Because our understanding of the Founders so profoundly influences our opinion of contemporary America, this book explains why their views, and particularly the constitutional order they created, are still worthy of our highest respect. West proves that the Founders were indeed sincere in their belief of universal human rights and in their commitment to democracy. By contrasting the Founders' ideas of liberty and equality with today's, West persuasively concludes that contemporary notions bear almost no resemblance to the concepts originally articulated by the Founders. This controversial, convincing, and highly original book is important reading for everyone concerned about the origins, present, and future of the American experiment in self government. —from the publisher's website | 1997-11-02T00:00:00 | 0847685160 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/91741-1 |
100454-1 | Taylor Branch | Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65 | In Pillar of Fire , the second volume of his America in the King Years trilogy, Taylor Branch portrays the civil rights era at its zenith. The first volume, Parting the Waters , won the Pulitzer Prize for History. It is a monumental chronicle of a movement that stirred from Southern black churches to challenge the national conscience during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. In this masterly continuation of the narrative, Branch recounts the climactic struggles as they commanded the national and international stage. Pillar of Fire covers the far-flung upheavals of the years 1963 to 1965—Dallas, St. Augustine, Mississippi Freedom Summer, LBJ's Great Society and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Vietnam, Selma. And it provides a frank, revealing portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr.—haunted by blackmail, factionalism, and hatred while he tried to hold the nonviolent movement together as a dramatic force in history. Allies, rivals, and opponents addressed racial issues that went deeper than fair treatment at bus stops or lunch counters. Participants on all sides stretched themselves and their country to the breaking point over the meaning of simple words: dignity, equal votes, equal souls. —from the publisher's website | 1998-04-12T00:00:00 | 1416558705 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/100454-1 |
155477-1 | Tavis Smiley | Doing What's Right | Travis Smiley discussed his book, "Doing What's Right: How to Fight for What You Believe - And Make a Difference," published by Doubleday. The book is a collection of essays from the syndicated radio talk show host, providing his philosophy of self-improvement through community involvement. | 2000-04-09T00:00:00 | 0385499302 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/155477-1 |
89123-1 | Peter Gomes | The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind & Heart | One of this country's most acclaimed preachers, Peter J. Gomes is the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard for twenty-five years. In The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart (Morrow). "Peter Gomes has taken on a monumental task of interpreting the Bible that affords many of us profound comfort as well as deep confusion. This fine work reflects his great intelligence, open mind, humanity, wisdom, and struggle to understand the meaning of life and God's word. —from the publisher's website | 1997-09-21T00:00:00 | 0688134475 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/89123-1 |
73835-1 | Lloyd Kramer | Lafayette in Two Worlds | Mr. Kramer talked about his book, "Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Cultures and Identities in an Age of Revolutions," published by the University of North Carolina Press. He talked about the Marquis de Lafayette as a public and private figure, including his role in shaping early U.S. nationalism and his relationship with many female intellectuals in his later life. | 1996-09-15T00:00:00 | 0807822582 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/73835-1 |
77488-1 | Stanley Wolpert | Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny | Jawaharlal Nehru was India's royal figure, its matinee idol, its most gifted prime minister. He combined a unique array of talents: compelling oratory, a brilliant mind, good looks, a keen political sense, but he also suffered from brooding isolation. He left an indelible mark on both the country he led to independence, and the world in which he lived. Yet even though Nehru wrote more about himself than did any other modern Indian, "Panditji's" true face has always remained veiled. Following Nehru from childhood, through his Harrow and Cambridge education, to his years as nationalist leader and Prime Minister of India, Stanley Wolpert's compelling, authoritative biography strips Nehru of his many cloaks and covers, removing the public masks he fashioned for himself throughout his mature life. With a subtle analysis of the various influences on Nehru's intellectual and political life--including the early homosexual influences, his conflict with his father, his close relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, his English education, and the years of periodic and sometimes prolonged imprisonment--Wolpert lays open to the reader the most nuanced, insightful rendering of Nehru's life yet written. Wolpert describes Nehru's brief career as a barrister, and his devotion to India's struggle for freedom, following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi to the dust and poverty of India's villages. The book traces Jawaharlal's swift rise to the presidency of India's National Congress, revealing how his radical ideas and fearless leadership of Congress's left wing soon won him the martyrdom of long years behind British bars for conducting civil disobedience campaigns. After his release in 1945, Nehru met Lord Mountbatten, with whom he was destined to negotiate the independence and partition of British India into the nation states of India and Pakistan in 1947. Nehru then went on to become India's immensely popular Prime Minister for almost two decades. Wolpert brings Nehru's complex personality to life against a vividly portrayed picture of India's fascinating history throughout its most turbulent century. He shows how India's own destiny was intimately wrapped up in the destiny of Nehru, a charismatic leader who stands among the twentieth century's foremost statesmen. —from the publisher's website | 1996-12-29T00:00:00 | 0195100735 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/77488-1 |
84989-1 | Jack Rakove | Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution | WHAT DID THE U.S. Constitution originally mean, and who has understood meaning best? Do we look to the intentions its framers at the Federal Convention of 1787, or those of its ratifiers in the states? Or should we trust our own judgment in deciding whether original meaning of the Constitution should guide its later interpretation? These are the recurring questions in the ongoing process of analyzing and resolving constitutional issues, but are also questions about the distant events of eighteenth century. In this book, Jack Rakove approaches the debates surrounding the framing ratification of the Constitution from the vantage point of history, examining the range of concerns that shaped the politics of constitutionmaking in the late 1780's, and which illuminate the debate about the role that "originalism" should play in constitutional interpretation. In answering these questions, Rakove reexamines the classic issues that the framers of the Constitution had to solve: federalism, representation executive power, rights, and the idea that a constitution somehow embodied supreme law. In of these cases, Original Meanings suggests that Americans of the early Republic held a spectrum of positions, some drawn from the controversial legacy of Anglo-American politics, others reflecting the course of events since 1776, the politics of the Federal Convention, or the spirited debate that followed. Rakove's narration of the story of the great sources of contention also reveals the character of the central actors: George Washington, reserved yet charismatic; James Wilson, brilliant but arrogant; Benjamin Franklin, witty and wise; Roger Sherman, a crabbed speaker but dogged parliamentarian; Alexander Hamilton, the candid iconoclast. By describing the ratification controversy Rakove gives both Federalists and Anti-Federalists their due. And throughout he pays close attention to the concerns of James Madison, who went to Philadelphia in the grip of a great passion to remedy the vices of the American political system, and who exerted the greatest influence not only over the entire process of adopting the Constitution, but also over the controversies of interpretation that have continued into our day. —from the publisher's website | 1997-07-06T00:00:00 | 0394578589 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/84989-1 |
17242-1 | Richard Brookhiser | The Way of the WASP | Mr. Brookhiser talked about his book The Way of the WASP: How it Made America and How It Can Save It...So To Speak, published by Free Press. It is meant to show where America has come from and thereby discover where the country might be going. In the book, Mr. Brookhiser argues that the ethics of the WASPs formed American character and that progressive politics are a bad influence. The author adds that without the ideals of the WASPs, America will lose its way. He talked about the prevalence of WASP ideals and the current national inclination to return to the values of personal modesty, public service, and quiet steadfastness. He said that the perception of WASPs, though, is of a "pale, bloodless elite." According to Mr. Brookhiser, WASPs have influenced American life in virtually all areas such as culture, education, business, and religion. | 1991-03-24T00:00:00 | 0029047226 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/17242-1 |
66038-1 | Newt Gingrich | To Renew America | Speaker Gingrich discussed his book To Renew America, published by Harper Collins Publishers. The book outlines his views on how what he calls American civilization can be renewed and restored by making several key decisions in the next few years. | 1995-07-23T00:00:00 | 006017336X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/66038-1 |
78276-1 | John Brady | Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater | Mr. Brady talked about his new book, Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater, published by Addison-Wesley. It focuses on the life and career of this former Republican National Committee chair and party leader during the 1980s. He died in 1991 from a brain tumor. The program opens with music from "Red, Hot and Blue" that Mr. Atwater recorded in 1989 with B.B. King and other blues musicians. | 1997-02-09T00:00:00 | 0201627337 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/78276-1 |
78628-1 | Jon Katz | Virtuous Reality | Mr. Katz talked about his book, "Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits and Blockheads Like William Bennett," published by Random House. The book focuses on the cultural wars that have been spawned by new media outlets, such as talk radio and the Internet. He also criticized recent media phobia as being baseless. | 1997-03-23T00:00:00 | 0679449132 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/78628-1 |
74188-1 | Monica Crowley | Nixon off the Record: His Commentary on People and Politics | Ms. Crowley talked about her new book, Nixon off the Record, published by Random House. It is based on her recordings of conversations the former president had with her and others while she was his assistant from 1990 until his death in 1994. She related his opinions on various leaders and issues and what she learned about Nixon as a private individual rather than a public figure. | 1996-09-29T00:00:00 | 0679456813 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/74188-1 |
170755-1 | Simon Worrall | The Poet and the Murderer | —from the publisher's website In The Poet and the Murderer , acclaimed journalist Simon Worrall takes readers into the haunting mind of Mark Hofmann, one of the most daring literary forgers and remorseless murderers of the late twentieth century. He was a young Mormon boy who loathed what he believed to be the hypocrisy of his faith, and who devised secret ways to infiltrate and undermine the church. Mark Hofmann began his career by forging and selling rare Mormon coins, and quickly moved on to creating false, highly controversial religious documents that threw the Church of Latter-Day Saints into turmoil. But it was his infamous Emily Dickinson poem that would prove his greatest deception, stunning the art and literary worlds and earning him thousands from the most distinguished Dickinson scholars. It would also prove his ultimate undoing, when his desperation to keep his greatest forgery a secret drove him to commit ever more heinous crimes including acts of shocking violence. Filled with the page-turning suspense and tantalizing sleuthing techniques of a literary thriller, The Poet and the Murderer gives us an unforgettable portrait of a deeply irreligious man and a brilliant con artist whose greatest talent and greatest tragedy was his ability to conceal his mad genius behind the unique gifts and enduring celebrity of others. —from the publisher's website | 2002-08-18T00:00:00 | 0525945962 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/170755-1 |
68402-1 | Charles Kuralt | Charles Kuralt's America | Charles Kuralt talked about his book, "Charles Kuralt's America," published by Putnam Publishing Group. He reminisced about his favorite places in the U.S. He was formerly a host of "Sunday Morning" on CBS television and did "On the Road" segments from various parts of the U.S. | 1995-12-31T00:00:00 | 0385485107 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/68402-1 |
39134-1 | Michael Kelly | Martyr's Day: Chronicle of a Small War | Michael Kelly discussed the research behind his book, "Martyr's Day: Chronicle of a Small War," published by Random House, which focused on Iraq during and after the Persian Gulf War. He spoke on the devastation of the Persian Gulf War on the people of Iraq, as well as the hard-line stance of the Iraqi government in maintaining face following the bombing by coalition forces. | 1993-03-28T00:00:00 | 1400030366 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/39134-1 |
26325-1 | Lester Thurow | Head to Head | Professor Lester Thurow discussed the ideas behind his book, "Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America." He spoke on the political, economic, and psychological ramifications for America of the economic unification of Europe in 1993, and the changes in the global political and economic balance that will result from the predominance of the European and Japanese economies in the next century. | 1992-05-31T00:00:00 | 0446394971 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/26325-1 |
67045-1 | Irving Kristol | Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea | Professor Irving Kristol discussed his book, "Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, Selected Essays 1949-1995," published by The Free Press. He talked at length about the development of his personal philosophy which began with Marxism in the 1940s. His outlook became more conservative over the years and the term "neo-conservative" was coined as a criticism of Kristol's work in the 1980s. He has since adopted the term as apt and descriptive of his thought. His son, William Kristol, formerly an aid to Vice President Quayle, publishes a new conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard. | 1995-09-24T00:00:00 | 0028740211 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/67045-1 |
32291-1 | James Billington | Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope | James Billington, author of Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope, published by The Free Press, discussed his analysis of the transformation of Russian culture following the collapse of Communism. Mr. Billington spoke on his experiences in the Soviet Union over the past thirty years, including his visit to the Soviet Union before, during and after the attempted coup in August 1991. | 1992-09-13T00:00:00 | 0029035155 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/32291-1 |
178164-1 | Lance Morrow | Evil: An Investigation | —from the publisher's website Long couched only in theological terms, and popularly personified by the despots of history, the nature of evil has resisted explanation. In this singular survey of this mysterious but all too often palpable force, veteran Time magazine writer Lance Morrow examines the unmistakable ways evil influences our global culture-and how that global culture in turn has magnified evil's menace. Its dramatic reemergence in the national consciousness-against a backdrop of high-tech, sensationalized violence-makes his updated understanding both timely and absolutely necessary. Drawing on examples both obscure and splashed across the headlines, Morrow seeks to understand how evil works, and what purpose, if any, it serves. From the heartrending to the harrowing, from quiet lies to catastrophic acts, his stories are drawn from over thirty years of experience as a revered journalist and essayist. The result is a brilliant synthesis of a lifetime of observation that elegantly illuminates a chronically elusive but fascinating subject. | 2003-10-19T00:00:00 | 0465047548 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/178164-1 |
157925-1 | H. Paul Jeffers | An Honest President: The Life & Presidencies of Grover Cleveland | Best known as the only president to be elected to two non-consecutive terms, Grover Cleveland also impressed with his record as a staunch reformer. This book provides the first full look at a president whose moral timber and courageous administrations have more to say to today's politicians than perhaps any other leader in American history. —from the publisher's website | 2000-08-06T00:00:00 | 038097746X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/157925-1 |
86425-1 | Tom Clancy | Into the Storm: A Study in Command | For many Americans the overwhelming and rapid defeat of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 signaled the final chapter in the U.S. military's amazing recovery from the tragedy of Vietnam. Leading a multinational coalition put together by President Bush, the U.S. military had liberated Kuwait and reduced the Iraqi army from the fourth largest in the world to twenty-second largest in a little over a month. But while reporters routinely compared and contrasted the Army' s experience in the Persian Gulf with its experiences in Southeast Asia more than twenty years earlier, many missed the enormous and profound transformation that had occurred in our Army-first from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, and then from that period until Operation Desert Storm and beyond. INTO THE STORM: A Study in Command, by Tom Clancy, is the first in an extraordinary series of nonfiction books—a look deep into the operational art of war as seen through the eyes of some of America's greatest military leaders. Working in collaboration with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), who commanded the main Coalition force that broke the back of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards during the Gulf War, Clancy explores the nature of war and command from the inside. He offers a minute-by-minute account of ground combat during Desert Storm, much of it told in Franks's own voice, as well as a thorough analysis of the decisions that were made and the strategies and tactics that were used. Just as important, Clancy also tracks the evolution of America's Army as it moved, in a single generation, from the triumph of World War II to the embarrassment of Korea, and from the tragedy and waste of Vietnam to dominance on the sands of Iraq and Kuwait. In carrying out his study of command Clancy draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with General Franks, and dozens of other individuals who played important roles in the Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars as well as the development and rebuilding of the U.S. Army and its doctrine. Clancy also incorporates information from a wide variety of newspaper accounts and books, as well as previously unpublished articles, monographs, and field reports. —from the publisher's website | 1997-07-13T00:00:00 | 0425196771 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/86425-1 |
52460-1 | Richard Reeves | President Kennedy: Profile of Power | Mr. Reeves described his book, "President Kennedy: Profile of Power," published by Simon and Schuster. The book is meant to illustrate President Kennedy's own view of his three years in office, through research in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room tapes and interviews with such Kennedy advisers as Pierre Salinger. Mr. Reeves felt he gained insights into Kennedy decisions which were not fully understood at the time, such as increasing U.S. troop strength in Vietnam. The book title derives from one of John F. Kennedy's books, "Profiles in Courage." | 1993-12-12T00:00:00 | 0671892894 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/52460-1 |
176702-1 | Vartan Gregorian | The Road to Home: My Life and Times | —from the publisher's website Vartan Gregorian's tale starts with a childhood of poverty, deprivation, and enchantment in the Armenian quarter of Tabriz, Iran. As the world reeled from depression into six years of warfare, his mother died, leaving his grandmother Voski as the loving staff of his life. Through unlettered example and instruction, he learned about the first of his many worlds: the strenuousness required for survival, the fairy tale that explained existence, the place and name of his own star in the night sky, how to maneuver as a member of a Christian minority in a benevolent Muslim kingdom, the beauty and inspiration of Armenian Church liturgy, the exciting foreign world of ten-year-old American westerns, the richness of life on the streets. He learned the magic of the innumerable worlds he could find in books -- and he wanted to visit them all. As the spell books cast on him grew more powerful, so did the constraints imposed by his father's indifference to his dreams of redirecting his life through learning. So, one day when he was fifteen years old, he presented himself at an Armenian-French lycée in Beirut, Lebanon, to start the arduous task of becoming a person of learning and consequence. This book tells not only how he reached that school but also about the many people who guided, supported, taught, and helped him on an extravagantly absorbing and varied journey from Tabriz to Beirut to Palo Alto to Tenafly to London, from Stanford University to San Francisco State University to the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Pennsylvania to the New York Public Library to Brown University and, currently, to the presidency of Carnegie Corporation of New York. With witty stories and memorable encounters, Dr. Gregorian describes his public and private lives as one education after another. He has written a love story about life. | 2003-06-29T00:00:00 | 068480834X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/176702-1 |
25258-1 | Nan Robertson | The Girls in the Balcony | Nan Robertson discussed her book, "The Girls in The Balcony: Women, Men, and The New York Times." Her book chronicles the history of sex discrimination at The New York Times. It also details the class action suit brought against The New York Times by seven women in 1974, which was settled in favor of the women. Ms. Robertson also discussed how she won a Pulitzer Prize for a story on toxic shock syndrome. Ms. Robertson contracted the infection herself and had the ends of her fingers amputated before she recovered. | 1992-03-29T00:00:00 | 0595154646 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/25258-1 |
15031-1 | Jean Edward Smith | Lucius D. Clay: An American Life | Jean Edward Smith, a professor at Marshall University, discussed the life of General Lucius D. Clay, chronicled in his book, "Lucius D. Clay: An American Life." Mr. Smith credits General Clay with rebuilding Germany, following World War II, into a prosperous and democratic nation. General Clay was the American overseer of Germany from 1945-1949, serving as the military governor. He is most noted for his role in the Berlin airlift of 1948 when he told Washington that the Russians were bluffing and that America must not budge against communism. The son of a U.S. Senator and a graduate of West Point, General Clay's other accomplishments included running President Eisenhower's first presidential campaign, working for Fortune 500 companies, and raising over $750 million for political and charitable organizations. | 1990-11-18T00:00:00 | 0805017879 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/15031-1 |
170086-1 | John Leonard | Lonesome Rangers: Homeless Minds, Promised Lands, Fugitive Cultures | An exciting and far-reaching new book on writers and exile by the leading literary critic. John Leonard, "the fastest wit in the East" ( The New York Times Book Review ), is back with the off-beat, wide-ranging style that earned his last book, When the Kissing Had to Stop , a place among the Voice Literary Supplement's "25 Favorites of 1999." Now, with an eye to the social and political experience of writers, Leonard adopts a broad definition of exile. He addresses Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone , where exile manifests itself in solitary bowling, a reflection of a declining sense of community. He considers Salman Rushdie as rock'n'roll Orpheus, who after ten years in fatwa -enforced exile bears a striking resemblance to his continually disappearing characters. And Leonard also explores Primo Levi's exile of survival, Bruce Chatwin's self-imposed exile in travel, as well as the work of Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Phillip Roth, Barbara Kingsolver, and Don DeLillo, among others. As always, Leonard's writing jumps off the page, engaging the reader in what the Washington Post calls his "laugh-out-loud magic with words." —from the publisher's website | 2002-06-30T00:00:00 | 156584694X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/170086-1 |
174208-1 | Andrew Roberts | Napoleon & Wellington | —from the publisher's website An award-winning historian offers an eye-opening view of the relationship between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington, whose lives moved inexorably to their meeting at Waterloo, one of the most famous battles of all time. At breakfast on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, the Emperor Napoleon declared that the Duke of Wellington was a bad general, the British were bad soldiers and that France could not fail to win an easy victory. Forever afterwards, historians have accused him of gross overconfidence and massively underestimating the caliber of the British commander opposite him. Now Andrew Roberts presents an original, highly revisionist view of the relationship between the two greatest captains of their age and of the great battle that determined European history in the nineteenth century. Napoleon, who was born in the same year as Wellington -- 1769 -- fought Wellington by proxy years earlier in the Peninsular War, praising his ruthlessness in private while publicly deriding him as a mere "general of sepoys." In contrast, Wellington publicly lauded Napoleon, saying that his presence on a battlefield was worth forty thousand men, but privately he wrote long memoranda lambasting Napoleon's campaigning techniques. Although Wellington saved Napoleon from execution after Waterloo, the emperor left money in his will to the man who had tried to assassinate the duke. Wellington in turn amassed a series of Napoleonic trophies of his great victory, even sleeping with two of the emperor's mistresses. The fascinating, constantly changing relationship between these two historical giants forms the basis of Andrew Roberts's compelling study in pride, rivalry, propaganda, nostalgia and posthumous revenge. It is at once a brilliant work of military history and a triumphant biography. Featuring a cast of fascinating supporting characters -- including the empress Josephine, the Prince Regent and Talleyrand -- Napoleon and Wellington provides the definitive account of the most decisive battle of the nineteenth century. | 2003-01-12T00:00:00 | 0743228324 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/174208-1 |
35544-1 | Daniel Boorstin | The Creators | Mr. Boorstin, author of The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination published by Random House, discussed the research behind his history of major figures in world history who expanded the horizons of humankind through inventiveness, creativity, and ingenuity. The figures discussed in the book include figures from the fields of art, exploration, and academia. | 1992-12-06T00:00:00 | 0679743758 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/35544-1 |
169463-1 | David Lipsky | Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point | —from the publisher's website Lipsky, a Rolling Stone writer and an award-winning novelist, chronicles daily life at the U.S. Military Academy during the most tumultuous period in its history. In 1998, West Point made David Lipsky an unprecedented offer: stay at the Academy as long as you like, go wherever you wish, talk to whomever you want, to discover why some of America's most promising young people sacrifice so much to become cadets. Lipsky followed one cadet class into mess halls, barracks, classrooms, bars, and training exercises, from arrival through graduation. By telling their stories, he also examines the Academy as a reflection of our society: Are its principles of equality, patriotism, and honor quaint anachronisms or is it still, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, the most "absolutely American" institution? During arguably the most eventful four years in West Point's history, Lipsky witnesses the arrival of TVs and phones in dorm rooms, the end of hazing, and innumerable other shifts in policy and practice known collectively as The Changes. He uncovers previously unreported scandals and poignantly evokes the aftermath of September 11, when cadets must prepare to become officers in wartime. Absolutely American spotlights a remarkable ensemble of characters: a former Eagle Scout who struggles with every facet of the program, from classwork to marching; a foul-mouthed party animal who hates the military and came to West Point to play football; a farm-raised kid who seems to be the perfect soldier, despite his affection for the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe; and an exquisitely turned-out female cadet who aspires to "a career in hair and nails" after the Army. These cadets and their classmates are transformed in fascinating, sometimes astonishing, ways by one of America's most mythologized and least understood challenges. Many of them thrive under the rigorous regimen; others battle endlessly just to survive it. A few give up the fight altogether. Lipsky's extensive experience covering college students for Rolling Stone helped him gain an exceptional degree of trust and candor from both cadets and administrators. They offer frank insights on drug use, cheating, romance, loyalty, duty, patriotism, and the Army's tortuous search for meaning as new threats loom. | 2003-08-17T00:00:00 | 061809542X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/169463-1 |
164555-1 | Morton Kondracke | Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease | A deeply moving, unflinchingly honest memoir by the renowned political journalist of his extraordinary relationship with his wife, Milly, and how her battle with Parkinson's disease has transformed their lives. Morton Kondracke did not intend to marry Millicent Martinez. He intended to marry an Ivy League heiress whose connections and credentials might help his career. But Milly—a Mexican American, inner city Chicago kid and daughter of a radical labor organizer who grew up to be a dynamo—eventually captured his heart. They married, and loved and fought with each other passionately for twenty years. Then one day in 1987, Milly noticed a glitch in her handwriting; a small tremor which would lead to the shattering diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. Saving Milly is Kondracke's powerfully moving chronicle of his vital and volatile marriage; one that has endured and deepened despite the devastating physical and emotional effects of a chronic and as-yet incurable disease. It is also the inspiring, sometimes astoundingly frank story of his own transformation from careerist to caregiver and disease activist a process that has deepened his religious faith. Finally, it is an exploration of the realities of "disease politics" in the campaign to find a cure for Parkinson's, and a passionate argument for doubling the government's minuscule investment in medical research. For any one of the million Americans with Parkinson's and their families; for anyone inspired by books like John Bayley's Elegy for Iris or Christopher Reeve's Still Me ; for anyone whose religious faith has been tested by tragedy; and for anyone who loves a real-life love story, Saving Milly is unforgettable reading. —from the publisher | 2001-06-10T00:00:00 | 1586480375 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/164555-1 |
70845-1 | Robert Kaplan | The Ends of the Earth | Mr. Kaplan talked about his book, "The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century," published by Random House. He warned against the widening gap between rich and poor in many areas of the world and predicted that anarchy will result, first in Eastern Europe and later in Africa and other places. He intended his book to be a combination of travelogue and geopolitical essay. | 1996-04-21T00:00:00 | 0679431489 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/70845-1 |
179039-1 | Michael Moore | Dude, Where’s My Country? | —from the publisher's website Fresh on the heels of his #1 New York Times bestseller, Stupid White Men , Michael Moore returns with a bold but hilarious act of sedition as he seeks to overthrow the "Thief in Chief" and effect the kind of grass roots change that will shake the very foundations of our country. In case anyone in Washington hasn't noticed, Americans are fed up with the status quo. In this, the first shot fired over the bow of the 2004 Presidential election, Michael Moore aims to unseat the man who slithered into the White House on tracks built by the bloody hands of Enron and greased with the oil of his daddy. As if an unelected, semi-literate president weren't problem enough, America's Democrats have managed to take the liberty out of "liberal," signing on with the G.O.P. for dirty corporate money and the ill-gotten gains of globalization. The "left" is just as satisfied as the right to stand idly by as the chasm between the haves and the have-nots grows wider and wider. Thank god for Michael Moore because DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY? tells us precisely what went wrong, and, more importantly, how to fix things. In a voice that is fearless, funny, and furious, Moore takes readers to the edge of righteous laughter and divine revenge. Tapping into the collective and widespread discontent of everyday Americans, DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY? provides an incisive look at Republicans, Democrats, and the robber barons of corporate America as it maps out what regular citizens can do to storm the halls of power and reclaim their stolen country. | 2003-11-16T00:00:00 | 0446532231 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/179039-1 |
181499-1 | Samuel Huntington | Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity | —from the publisher's website In his seminal work The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order , Samuel Huntington argued provocatively and presciently that with the end of the cold war, "civilizations" were replacing ideologies as the new fault lines in international politics. His astute analysis has proven correct. Now Professor Huntington turns his attention from international affairs to our domestic cultural rifts as he examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on our own country. America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites. September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. But already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security. Who Are We? shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake. Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are. | 2004-06-13T00:00:00 | 0684870533 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/181499-1 |
179455-1 | Richard Pipes | Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger | —from the publisher's website A distinguished historian, Harvard professor, and White House adviser looks back on his own life and on the tumultuous twentieth century Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the U.S. Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly forty years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. In this engrossing book, the eminent historian remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary political events. From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers penetrating observations as well as fascinating portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded. “Mr. Pipes has had a long and distinguished life and career, and he has made distinctive and important contributions to both scholarship and public policy. He has much of interest to tell, particularly concerning his often contentious involvement with American policy toward the Soviet Union.”--Mark Raeff, Columbia University | 2003-12-07T00:00:00 | 0300101651 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/179455-1 |
60001-1 | Paul Weaver | News and the Culture of Lying | Paul Weaver spoke about his book, "News and the Culture of Lying," which argues that public affairs are essentially staged events by public officials to court public favor and that the media help guide them along for their "performances." Thus the newsmakers and the news media are involved in an interrelated circle of lies and fabrications. | 1994-09-04T00:00:00 | 9780029340219 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/60001-1 |
91723-1 | Geoffrey Perret | Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President | Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President by Geoffrey Perret, author of Old Soldiers Never Die, is a cradle to grave biography that covers every important aspect of Grant's life, both as soldier and president. Using new materials not seen by any contemporary writer—most notably 12 more volumes of Grant's papers and recently released material by the Grant family to the Library of Congress, Perret has presented the most comprehensive study of Grant the man, soldier, president and writer written thus far. Perret's central theme is that Grant was the greatest soldier the United States ever produced. His achievements in the military are so impressive that they dwarf his comparative failures as a president. But even in the White House, Grant had successes as well as disappointments. While Grant was plagued with financial scandals during his presidency, Perret writes that Grant was. in reality, a highly competent and conscientious chief executive. His administration brought honesty and competence to Indian affairs, made important advances in the development of international law, smashed the original Klu Klux Klan and transformed government finances. Ultimately Grant was not just a simple soldier, but a complex man with a remarkable literary gift, as displayed in the memoirs he wrote just before his death. In Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President, Perret provides the first biography of Grant that offers a full and convincing portrait of Grant the man. Perret gives an in depth look at Grant's youth on the frontier and his years at West Point. He writes of the thrilling battles Grant orchestrated and became so publicly famous for, of his years as President and his ultimate demise as a man penniless, trying desperately to finish his Personal Memoirs at the urging of Mark Twain. With Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President, Geoffrey Perret has written the first up to date biography of Grant, one of America's greatest military heros and the man behind the that public facade. —from the publisher's website | 1997-10-12T00:00:00 | 0679447660 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/91723-1 |
15360-1 | Shen Tong | Almost a Revolution | Shen Tong was a student leader of the pro-democracy demonstrations in China during the spring of 1989. "Almost a Revolution: The Story of a Chinese Student's Journey From Boyhood to Leadership in Tiananmen Square" recounts Shen Tong's involvement in political demonstrations in China during the 1980s. The book is written chronologically and details the events leading up to the Chinese military's attack and dispersal of the protesting students at Tiananmen Square on June 3, 1989. The book also chronicles how Mr. Tong escaped from China after the Tiananmen massacre. He is now a student at Brandeis University and lives in Waltham, Massachusetts. Marianne Yen of The Washington Post co-wrote the book. | 1990-12-16T00:00:00 | 0060974303 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/15360-1 |
125373-1 | Michael Cottman | The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie | When prize-winning journalist and avid scuba diver Michael Cottman participated in an underwater expedition to survey the sunken wreck of a slave ship off the coast of Florida, he was overwhelmed by powerful feelings of kinship and oneness with his African ancestors. As he held in his hands the very shackles that once had bound men, women, and children in their tortured passage from their African homeland to America, Michael Cottman became determined to tell their stories and the story behind the ship that had carried them away from all they knew and loved. The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie is a fascinating look at one man's quest to reconstruct the journey of a British slave ship with all the detail and accuracy available to us at the end of the twentieth century. The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie takes readers back three centuries and to three continents in order to trace the complex and moving story of the slaves and the slavers. We travel to England on the trail of the shipbuilders and the captain and his crew; to Goree Island, located off the westernmost extension of the African continent near Dakar, where the ship almost certainly sailed past and from which its enslaved passengers would have gotten their last view of their homeland; and to the Gulf of Mexico, where the Henrietta Marie sank without a trace—until its recent rediscovery gave us a tangible key to one of history's most terrible episodes. The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie is a powerful and compelling testament of one man's attempt to make sense of the history of his ancestors, chronicling his journey while confronting questions with no answers and striving for reconciliation with his homeland's past and his own country's future. From The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie:When the ships dropped anchor, the African villagers, their curiosity aroused, approached the pale men with stringy hair who had rowed ashore. The seamen quickly overpowered at least a dozen people, loaded them into longboats and sailed away. These strong-arm raids didn't last long. They ultimately evolved into the more routine capturing and trading for Africans, as Europeans were fast to establish a formal system by persuading some African kings and chiefs to capture their own people and sell them into slavery. For long periods after the abductions, some of the children from the villages would climb the tallest trees to watch for the return of the great Portuguese ships that had snaked their way along the Rio Real—ships with long guns aimed at the shore; ships with tall sails that snapped in the breeze; dark ships that creaked in the tide; ships that brought chaos and fear and always left death in their wakes. Calm would become only a memory for the people of the West African villages. Lives would be lost in the steady state of terror called slavery. A life of peace had been stolen from these African families. Those taken were stripped of their titles, and even their names, snatched away from everything familiar. No one was safe from slavery--not the smallest children, not the mightiest warrior. And so, the people of these villages along the west coast of Africa could only embrace their children, comfort each other, and wait for the ships to come. —from the publisher's website | 1999-07-18T00:00:00 | 0517703289 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/125373-1 |
119569-1 | Allen Weinstein | The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America The Stalin Era | Based upon previously secret KGB records, The Haunted Wood reveals for the first time the riveting story of Soviet espionage's "golden age" in the United States throughout the 1930s, World War II, and the early Cold War. Historian Allen Weinstein, author of Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, and Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB agent-turned-journalist, were provided unique access to thousands of classified Soviet intelligence dispatches that documented the KGB's success in acquiring America's most valuable atomic, military, and diplomatic secrets. The Haunted Wood narrates the triumphs and failures of Soviet operatives and their American agents during the 1930s and 1940s, describing as well the compelling human dramas involved. —from the publisher's website | 1999-03-14T00:00:00 | 0679457240 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/119569-1 |
16899-1 | Haynes Johnson | Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years | Mr. Johnson's book, Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years, talks about the 1980s as the most important years in the United States since World War II. Ronald Reagan was the first president since Eisenhower to serve two consecutive terms, and this Mr. Johnson said, made it possible for him to "invent an age" whose consequences Americans will be dealing with for years. Mr. Johnson chronicles the significant events that occurred during the Reagan era, including the Iran hostage situation. He also describes the key figures of the era, such as Ivan Boesky, Oliver North and Jim Baker. According to Mr. Johnson, the way to understand the Reagan decade is by examining how America's economic status fell from that of a dominant world power to a struggling debtor nation. | 1991-03-03T00:00:00 | 0385422598 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/16899-1 |
77223-1 | President Bill Clinton | Between Hope & History | President Clinton spoke about his book, Between Hope and History: America's Challenges for the 21st Century. It outlines the accomplishments of his first term and his agenda for the next four years as a mixture of various political ideas and ideologies. The title comes from an Irish poem. He also talked about other topics, including his personal reading habits, his relations with the press and his goals for his life after his presidency. | 1996-12-15T00:00:00 | 0812929136 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/77223-1 |
67753-1 | Bell Hooks | Killing Rage: Ending Racism | Professor Hooks talked about her book, Killing Rage: Ending Racism, published by Henry Holt & Company. The book is a collection of 23 essays discussing the issue of race in America from a Black and feminist perspective. The author argues that in order to end racism, Americans must envision a world without it. She spoke of her opposition to the Million Man March as patriarchal and discussed the continuing inequality of women of all races. | 1995-11-19T00:00:00 | 0805037829 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/67753-1 |
57532-1 | Dan Quayle | Standing Firm | The former vice president spoke about his book, "Standing Firm," in which he discussed his life prior to and including his tenure as vice president. He described his family and the influence they have had on his life. A large portion of the book covered media misperceptions of him and the need for a more objective media. | 1994-07-24T00:00:00 | 9780060177584 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/57532-1 |
177423-1 | Richard Viguerie | America's Right Turn | —from the publisher's website Liberal media activists beware! Richard A. Viguerie, venture capitalist of the conservative movement (described as the “funding father of the right”) and David Franke, a founder of the conservative movement, detail how conservatives—shut out by the liberal mass media of the 1950s and ’60s—came to power by utilizing new and alternative media, and then created their own mass media. Viguerie and Franke give a first-hand account of how the right took power by using direct mail, talk radio, cable news TV, and later the Internet. Can liberals do the same? This is the first “insider” book to expose the link between the conservative political revolution and the alternative media revolution. Viguerie, Chairman of American Target Advertising Inc., pioneered political ideological direct mail in the 1960s and 1970s, and is credited with helping to build the conservative movement that elected President Reagan in 1980. Franke served on the editorial staffs of Human Events and National Review , and was Senior Editor of Arlington House Publishers and the Conservative Book Club. Since 1997 he has been editorial director of the New Media News Corp., working with Viguerie on newsletter and Internet projects. | 2004-09-05T00:00:00 | 1566252520 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/177423-1 |
38530-1 | Alex Dragnich | Serbs & Croats: The Struggle in Yugoslavia | Professor Dragnich discussed his book, Serbs and Croats, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. He described the causes and effects of the struggle in the former Yugoslavia between the two opposing ethnic groups. Professor Dragnich is a political science professor of Serbian background. | 1993-03-06T00:00:00 | 0156806630 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/38530-1 |
107196-1 | Ben Procter | William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years, 1863-1910 | William Randolph Hearst was one of the most colorful and important figures of turn-of-the-century America, a man who changed the face of American journalism and whose influence extends to the present day. Now, in William Randolph Hearst , Ben Proctor gives us the most authoritative account of Hearst's extraordinary career in newspapers and politics. Born to great wealth—his father was a partial owner of four fabulously rich mines—Hearst began his career in his early twenties by revitalizing a rundown newspaper, the San Franciso Examiner . Hearst took what had been a relatively sedate form of communicating information and essentially created the modern tabloid, complete with outrageous headlines, human interest stories, star columnists, comic strips, wide photo coverage, and crusading zeal. His papers fairly bristled with life. By 1910 he had built a newspaper empire—eight papers and two magazines read by nearly three million people. Hearst did much to create "yellow journalism"—with the emphasis on sensationalism and the lowering of journalistic standards. But Procter shows that Hearst's papers were also challenging and innovative and powerful: They exposed corruption, advocated progressive reforms, strongly supported recent immigrants, became a force in the Democratic Party, and helped ignite the Spanish-American War. Proctor vividly depicts Hearst's own political career from his 1902 election to Congress to his presidential campaign in 1904 and his bitter defeats in New York's Mayoral and Gubernatorial races. Written with a broad narrative sweep and based on previously unavailable letters and manuscripts, William Randoph Hearst illuminates the character and era of the man whose life inspired Citizen Kane and left an indelible mark on American journalism. —from the publisher's website | 1998-07-19T00:00:00 | 1195112776 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/107196-1 |
18639-1 | Roger Gittines | Consequences: John G. Tower, A Personal and Political Memoir | Mr. Gittines, the ghostwriter of the late Senator John Tower, provided an inside account of the political process and offered insights into Washington politics. He also spoke of the bond between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Senator Tower, especially during the time of the Vietnam War. He told how the senator made seven trips to Southeast Asia, more than any other member of Congress, to report on the war. Much of the book focused on the confirmation hearings by the Senate Armed Services Committee and the decisions made by Senator John Warner (R-VA) and Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) to disagree with Tower's confirmation. Their allegations of the senator's misconduct throughout the years was discussed in the book as well as the ruthlessness of the politicians who sought to destroy his political career. | 1991-06-30T00:00:00 | 0316851132 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/18639-1 |
9435-1 | Barbara Ehrenreich | Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class | Barbara Ehrenreich talked about her book Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class in which she examined social stereotypes. A freelance writer and a columnist and contributing editor for Ms. magazine, she also holds a Ph.D. in biology. Coming from a blue-collar background, she uses her experience to present a unique analysis of America, focusing on the professional middle class, its prejudices and how stereotypes are proliferated. | 1989-10-08T00:00:00 | 0060973331 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/9435-1 |
173283-1 | Caryle Murphy | Passion for Islam | —from the publisher's website "Islam's revival is reshaping Egypt and other Arab countries in ways beyond violent politics. The yearning for personal solace, a just political system, indigenous lifestyles, and relevant theology all await satisfaction....Just as the Nile runs through Egypt for almost eight hundred miles, giving it life, so also the Straight Way, the way of Allah, runs through it, beckoning its people. The search by Egypt's Muslims for a modern understanding of the Straight Way is the essence of today's passion for Islam." -- from Chapter 1, "First Verses" Written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, this authoritative and enthralling primer on the modern face of Islam provides one of the most comprehensive accountings for the roots of religious terrorism and Middle Eastern strife. Over decades, a myriad of social, political, and religious factors has made today's Middle East a combustible region and has contributed to Islam's new power and turmoil. Passion for Islam uses one particular country, Egypt, as a lens through which to show how these forces play out across the area, allowing terrorism to gain a foothold. Through the personal experiences and observations of individual Egyptians encountered during her five years as the Washington Post's Cairo bureau chief, veteran journalist Caryle Murphy explores how Islam's contemporary revival is unfolding on four different levels: "Pious Islam" highlights the groundswell of grassroots piety that has created more Islamic societies; "Political Islam" examines how Islamists, using both violent and peaceful means, are reshaping the region's authoritarian secular political order and redefining Islam's role in the public arena; "Cultural Islam" looks at Egyptian efforts to resist a ubiquitous Western culture by asserting an Islamic identity; "Thinking Islam" reveals how intellectuals are reexamining their theological heritage with the aim of modernizing Islam. Representing years of exhaustive research, Passion for Islam also looks at how the tortured Israeli-Palestinian conflict has contributed to the region's religious ferment and political tumult. By revealing the day-to-day ramifications of all these issues through the eyes of Egyptian intellectuals, holy men, revolutionaries, and ordinary citizens, Passion for Islam brings an unparalleled vitality and depth to Western perceptions of Middle Eastern conflict. | 2002-11-03T00:00:00 | 0743235789 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/173283-1 |
156704-1 | David Crosby | Stand and Be Counted: Making Music, Making History | American music legend David Crosby presents a rich and powerful history of the great musical events that have advanced human rights throughout the past five decades. of photos. Crosby's dramatic narrative provides a "you are there" feeling as artists relate emotionally riveting events: Harry Belafonte movingly recalls the night he performed at a Martin Luther King, Jr., rally for nonviolence in the South, and Sean Lennon speaks poignantly of the men of peace who've been assassinated, including his own father, John Lennon. —from the publisher's website | 2000-05-28T00:00:00 | 0062515748 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/156704-1 |
163850-1 | Emily Bernard | Remember Me to Harlem | These engaging and wonderfully alive letters paint an intimate portrait of two of the most important and influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Carl Van Vechten—older, established, and white—was at first a mentor to the younger, gifted, and black Langston Hughes. But the relationship quickly grew into a great friendship—and for nearly four decades the two men wrote to each other expressively and constantly. They discussed literature and publishing. They exchanged favorite blues lyrics (?So now I know what Bessie Smith really meant by ?Thirty days in jail / With ma back turned to de wall,?? Hughes wrote Van Vechten after a stay in a Cleveland jail on trumped-up charges). They traded stories about the hottest parties and the wildest speakeasies. They argued politics. They gossiped about the people they knew in common—James Baldwin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, H. L. Mencken. They wrote from near (of racism in Scottsboro) and far (of dancing in Cuba and trekking across the Soviet Union), and always with playfulness and mutual affection. Today Van Vechten is a controversial figure; some consider him exploitative, at best peripheral to the Harlem Renaissance or, indeed, as the author of the novel Nigger Heaven, a blemish upon it, and upon Hughes by association. The letters tell a different, more subtle and complex story: Van Vechten did, in fact, help Hughes (and many other young black writers) to get published; Hughes in turn appreciated what Van Vechten was trying to do in Nigger Heaven and defended him, fiercely. For all their differences, Hughes and Van Vechten remained staunchly loyal to each other throughout their lives. A correspondence of great cultural significance, judiciously gathered together here for the first time and annotated by the insightful young scholar Emily Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem shows us an unlikely friendship, one that is essential to our understanding of literature and race relations in twentieth-century America. —from the publisher | 2001-04-22T00:00:00 | 0679451137 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/163850-1 |
63783-1 | Stanley Greenberg | Middle Class Dreams | Mr. Greenberg talked about his recent book, Middle Class Dreams, published by Times Books. It focuses on how "middle class" Americans have become alienated from the current political system and how they can influence the next election. He believes that this new majority has changed the two party dynamic, the Republicans being pro-business and the Democrats being pro-"little guy," which he dates back to the election of 1896. Much of his research was based on focus groups, small discussion forums where pre-selected people could freely express themselves on a variety of political issues. | 1995-04-09T00:00:00 | 0517179857 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/63783-1 |
16808-1 | Robert Kuttner | The End of Laissez-Faire | Robert Kutner's book, "The End of Laissez-Faire: National Purpose and the Global Economy After the Cold War," describes the Reagan administration's "anti-government" policies. He said the country has been run under a false utopian view over the last ten years. Deregulation of banks and airlines are examples of failed policies. His book marks the end of an era with the conclusion of the Cold War. He analyzes America's changing role in the growing global financial and economic community. He said the Soviet Union should still be an important consideration because their governmental changes and economy still impacts the world. Mr. Kutner also talked about the Persian Gulf war and its impact on the well-being of the United States. | 1991-02-24T00:00:00 | 0812214013 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/16808-1 |
64214-1 | David Maraniss | First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton | David Maraniss talked about his book, "First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton," published by Simon and Schuster, which won the Pulitzer Prize. It focuses on the early life of Bill Clinton and how he rose from an anonymous background in a small southern town to become president of the United States. He also talked about his troubled family life with a non-existent father and an alcoholic stepfather. | 1995-05-07T00:00:00 | 0684818906 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/64214-1 |
10122-1 | Clifford Stoll | The Cuckoo's Egg | Clifford Stoll enthusiastically discussed his discovery and tracking of a West German computer spy who "broke" into his institution's computer network to access other networks throughout the U.S. In "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage," Stoll details the story involving Markus Hess, who sold the stolen information from U.S. military networks to the Soviet Union before being caught and eventually indicted. Stoll's animated personality adds to the discussion of his background and views on computer crime. Between yo-yo tricks and sharing a favorite cookie recipe, he tells his experience of giving congressional testimony and of working with federal agents to track the spy. Now an expert in computer security, Stoll has spoken to many government agencies, universities and other organizations on the subject. | 1989-12-03T00:00:00 | 0743411463 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/10122-1 |
44051-1 | George Shultz | Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State | George Shultz spoke about his book, "Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State," which was published by Touchstone Books. He presented a personal account of his tenure as secretary of state, from 1982 to 1989, under President Ronald Reagan. In Turmoil and Triumph, he recounts President Reagan's foreign policy, the relationship between the State Department and the National Security Council, and George Bush's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. Mr. Shultz includes his perceptions of many of the political figures he worked with during his term in office, including Ed Meese, Bill Casey, George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and Yitzhak Shamir. | 1993-06-27T00:00:00 | 0684193256 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/44051-1 |
80114-1 | Christopher Buckley | Wry Martinis | Mr. Buckley talked about his new book, “Wry Martinis,” published by Random House. It is a collection of essays on various topics previously published in the New Yorker and elsewhere. Mr. Buckley also discussed his writing career, which included two years as a speechwriter for President George H. W. Bush. | 1997-05-04T00:00:00 | 0060977426 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/80114-1 |
123553-1 | Bill Gertz | Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security | Bill Gertz, who covers national security for the Washington Times, lays out a chilling argument against Bill Clinton's foreign policy in Betrayal. In his view, Clinton's "naive" strategies of "appeasement" with China and Russia have resulted in a betrayal of American interests, leaving "the United States weaker militarily as its enemies grow stronger and the world becomes more dangerous." According to Gertz, Clinton's policies have compromised national security: Clinton opposed development of a missile defense system that would derail arms control agreements with the Russians—even though they are believed to be developing such a system themselves. Gertz also maintains that the Russians are using U.S. aid targeted for decommissioning nuclear weapons to develop new weapons of mass destruction and to continue to develop new nuclear weapons. Gertz also makes the case that the Clinton administration's sale of sophisticated computer and satellite technology to China was influenced by campaign contributions to the Democrats from Chinese and American executives. "The small but growing force of Chinese strategic nuclear missiles has become more reliable—thanks to American high technology," writes Gertz. He further charges that the Clinton administration has attempted to downplay the Chinese threat to U.S. security even though "China has undertaken a steady military buildup that is directly aimed at fighting a future war with the United States." Betrayal asserts that the "most important legacy" of Bill Clinton's presidency may be "his dead serious disarmament of the United States and his self-serving appeasement of powerful and determined foreign enemies . . . . The administration's policies have endangered not only the United States," Gertz concludes, "but the peace and security of the entire world." —from the publisher's website | 1999-05-30T00:00:00 | 0895261960 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/123553-1 |
158396-1 | Harry Stein | How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy | A former Left-identified novelist/journalist charts his transition from liberal to conservative in this unjaundiced political memoir. Looking back over decades, Stein recalls his growing bewilderment with and estrangement from the counterculture, and shares the liberating joy and comfortableness of his new position on the Right. —from the publisher's website | 2000-08-20T00:00:00 | 038533396X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/158396-1 |
170043-1 | Diana Preston | Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy | On May 7, 1915, toward the end of a routine crossing from New York to Liverpool, England, RMS Lusitania pride of the Cunard Line and one of the greatest ocean liners afloat became the target of a terrifying new weapon and a casualty of a terrible new kind of war. Sunk by a torpedo fired from the German submarine U-20, she exploded and sank in eighteen minutes, taking with her some twelve hundred people, more than half of the crew and passengers. Cold-blooded, deliberate, and unprecedented in the annals of terror, the sinking of the Lusitania shocked the world. It also jolted the United States out of its neutrality 128 Americans were among the dead and hastened the nation’s entry into World War I. In her riveting account of this enormous tragedy which caused controversies that continue to this day Diana Preston recalls both a pivotal moment in history and a remarkable human drama. The story of the Lusitania is a window on the maritime world of the early twentieth century the heyday of the luxury liner, the first days of the modern submarine, and the climax of the decades-long German British rivalry for supremacy of the Atlantic. It is a critical chapter in the progress of World War I, and in the political biographies of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Woodrow Wilson, and the young First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Above all, it is the story of the passengers and crew on that fateful voyage a story of terror and cowardice, of self-sacrifice and heroism, of death and miraculous survival. With a historian’s insight and a novelist’s gift for characterization and detail, Preston re-creates the Lusitania’s voyage through the eyes of those who experienced it. Captain William Turner, steadfast and trustworthy but overconfident, boasted that a torpedo can’t get the Lusitania she runs too fast. Passengers included the rich and the powerful (American millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt, theater producer Charles Frohman, Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat) and the rest of the human comedy: newlyweds and nursemaids, galley cooks and stokers, Quakers and cardsharps, ship’s detectives and German stowaways. Preston weaves their stories into her own dramatic narrative, giving her book a powerful immediacy. Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy is the definitive account of this pivotal event in western history. Drawing on a vast array of sources, including letters and memoirs, Cunard and Admiralty archives, and previously untranslated German documents, Diana Preston also visited every key location connected with the story. She has written a book that deserves to stand beside Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember, pairing the two great sea disasters of the twentieth century. —from the publisher's website | 2002-06-23T00:00:00 | 0802713750 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/170043-1 |
179699-1 | Antony Beevor | The Mystery Of Olga Chekhova | —from the publisher's website In 1920, young Olga Chekhova, the beautiful niece of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, fled Moscow for Berlin—taking only a smuggled diamond ring. Olga quickly won both celebrity as an actress and prominence in the ranks of Germany’s Nazi party, eventually becoming Hitler’s favorite actress. But was she really a sleeper agent recruited by her brother, Lev Knipper, to spy for the Russian NKVD? Antony Beevor’s The Mystery of Olga Chekhova tells the extraordinary tale of how one family survived the Russian revolution, the civil war, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist terror, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In putting together this amazing story, Antony Beevor demonstrates how people survived under the terrible pressures of a totalitarian age. He reveals a confusion of courage, idealism, fear, self-sacrifice, opportunism, and betrayal. The most astonishing part of this truly epic tale is that both Olga and Lev would live through this most murderous era in modern history. | 2004-10-24T00:00:00 | 0670033405 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/179699-1 |
60409-1 | John Kenneth Galbraith | A Journey Through Economic Time | Professor Galbraith talked about his lifelong interest in economics and discussed his recent book. A Journey Through Economic Time describes the evolution of his own economic thought over his long academic career. He says he has learned a good deal, including that economic theory is not constant but must change with changing circumstances. He began teaching at Harvard University in 1934. | 1994-11-13T00:00:00 | 0395741750 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/60409-1 |
53348-1 | Willard Sterne Randall | Thomas Jefferson: A Life | Professor Willard Randall discussed his book, "Thomas Jefferson: A Life," published by Henry Holt and Company. In the 700-page book, the emphasis is on Jefferson's years in France as ambassador from the U.S., because there is less documentation of that period of his life. Professor Randall described much of Jefferson's life, his career, and his relationships with others. Mr. Randall describes Thomas Jefferson as a man who was intelligent, and extremely goal-oriented. He further explains that President Jefferson often resorted to ruthlessness in both personal and political settings. | 1993-12-26T00:00:00 | 0805015779 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/53348-1 |
71644-1 | Seymour Martin Lipset | American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword | Professor Lipset discussed his book, "American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword," published by W.W. Norton and Company. He talked about the differences between the United States and other nations in positive ways, such as freedom and social equality, and in negative ways, such as crime and racism. | 1996-06-23T00:00:00 | 0393316149 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/71644-1 |
124611-1 | Michael Korda | Another Life: A Memoir of Other People | In his remarkable new memoir, at once frank, audacious, canny, and revealing, Michael Korda, the author of Charmed Lives and Queenie , does for the world of books what Moss Hart did for the theater in Act One, and succeeds triumphantly in making publishing seem as exciting (and as full of great characters) as the stage. Here is a memoir that reads like a novel, sweeping the reader into another life on a tide of energy, wit, and a seemingly inexhaustible flow of marvelous anecdotes. Another Life is not just an adventure—the engaging and often hilarious story of a young man making his career—but the insider's story of how a cottage industry metamorphosed into a big business, with sometimes alarming results for all concerned. Korda writes with grace, humor, and a shrewd eye, not only about himself and his rise from a lowly (but not humble) assistant editor reading the "slush pile" of manuscripts to a famous editor in chief of a major publishing house, but also about the celebrities and writers with whom he worked over four decades. Here are portraits—rare, intimate, always keenly observed—of such larger-than-life figures as Ronald Reagan, affable and good-natured but the most reluctant of authors, struggling with his "ghosted" presidential autobiography; Richard Nixon, seen here as a genial, if bizarrely detached, host; superagent Irving Lazar, pursuing his endless deals and dreams of "class"; retired Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, the last of the old-time dons, laboring over his own version of his life in his desert retreat; Joan Crawford, giving Korda her rules for successful living; and countless other greats, near greats, and would-be greats. Here too are famous writers, sometimes eccentric, sometimes infuriating, sometimes lost souls, captured memorably by someone who was close to them for years: Graham Greene, in pursuit of his FBI file and a Nobel Prize; Tennessee Williams, wrestling unsuccessfully with his demons; Jacqueline Susann, facing and conquering the dreaded "second-novel syndrome" after the stunning success of Valley of the Dolls ; Harold Robbins (who had to be guarded under lock and key and made to finish his novels), struggling to keep the IRS at bay from the deck of his yacht; Carlos Castaneda, at his most sorcerously charming, described—at last—in detail, as he really was, by one of the few people who knew him well; not to mention Richard Adams, Will and Ariel Durant, Susan Howatch, S. J. Perelman, Fannie Hurst, Larry McMurtry, and many, many more. And here as well is a rich cast of major publishing figures, beginning with the marvelously peculiar M. Lincoln Schuster and his partner, Richard L. Simon—father of Carly—and including just about everybody who is or was anybody in the world of boook publishing: For Another Life is also a business story, tracing the rise and fall of great names and explaining just what happened when "Publishers' Row" collided with Wall Street, transforming modest (if world-famous) businesses into multibillion-dollar book conglomerates. Parts of this book that have appeared in The New Yorker over the years have brought Korda great acclaim—the chapter about Jacqueline Susann has been made into a major motion picture. Here at last, entertaining and provocative and always hugely readable, is the whole story—a book as engaging and full of life as Korda's highly acclaimed memoir of his family, Charmed Lives , about which Irwin Shaw wrote: "I don't know when I have enjoyed a book more." —from the publisher's website | 1999-07-11T00:00:00 | 0679456597 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/124611-1 |
152230-1 | James Glassman | Dow 36,000 | Contrarian . . . controversial . . . compelling . . . practical This book will liberate investors from conventional wisdom and change the way everyone thinks about stocks and investing. What's the message investors have been getting from media pundits and so-called market experts? "Stocks are in the stratosphere. . . They're risky. . . . We're headed for a fall." Jim Glassman and Kevin Hassett heard this message for years but wondered why the opposite kept happening. Instead of declining, the prices of stocks kept rising. Was financial gravity being defied, or were other forces at work? Were investors being frightened away from profits they could be enjoying from a market that will continue to boom? Dow 36,000 is the result of Glassman and Hassett's investigation. It is one of the most important and provocative books on markets and investing written in recent years. Its original and compelling analysis and practical program for profiting from the continuing rise in the stock market are ideas that every investor—from neophytes to the most experienced—must understand and act on now. Stocks are undervalued, not overvalued. Stock prices will double, even quadruple, within a short period of time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon reach 36,000. Astounding profits can be made, but the time to act is now! Dow 36,000 tells why this one-time rise is coming and how to adjust your portfolio and invest without fear. The perfectly reasonable price. Prices are too low because investors and Wall Street have been looking at stocks the wrong way: at valuation levels of the past (the traditional ceiling of the price/earnings ratio, for example). Dow 36,000 provides a new model—a new way of valuing the worth of any stock by figuring out how much money it will put in an investor's pocket. How to invest with confidence. Glassman and Hassett provide investors with a sensible strategy for making money by becoming a disciplined "36er." Their practical advice tells why many investors should not be active traders and why it's important to hold on to stocks and mutual funds even when they go into a downturn. A practical program to maximize your portfolio. Glassman and Hassett provide their picks for the best stocks and mutual funds, but just as valuable are their ideas on how to think about the kinds of stocks and mutual funds that will help earn the most money. Examples include not only such stocks as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and GE, but many you may not have thought of, including Tootsie Roll and Investors have long needed a new way to understand what is happening in the stock market. Dow 36,000 provides that understanding. It is the new paradigm. —from the publisher's website | 1999-10-03T00:00:00 | 0812931459 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/152230-1 |
71142-1 | Stanley Crouch | The All-American Skin Game, or the Decoy of Race | Mr. Crouch talked about his recent book, The All-American Skins Game, or, The Decoy of Race, the Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994, published by Pantheon. The essays are about human life and American democracy, race in U.S. culture, current cinema, feminism, and music. He uses jazz as a metaphor for maintaining democratic morale in the industrial world. | 1996-05-12T00:00:00 | 0679442022 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/71142-1 |
91435-1 | Alan Schom | Napoleon Bonaparte | Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most powerful and dominating historical figures of all time, the greatest of all French heroes, and to this day, an endlessly fascinating subject. While thousands of books have been written on him, no comprehensive, one volume biography exists. American-born French scholar Alan Schom has filled this gap with his definitive biography Napoleon Bonaparte . Unlike previous biographers, Schom candidly describes both the strengths and weaknesses of this complicated man, and even has new insights into some of Napoleon's relationships and his often eccentric behavior. Schom's remarkably ambitious, compulsively readable, and authoritative account of Napoleon's life includes all facets of Napoleon's incredible career, from his childhood in Corsica to his death in exile on the island of St. Helena. It follows his many military campaigns and describes the great battles he won and lost, from northern Italy to Egypt, Spain, Prussia, Austria, Poland, and Russia, to his final defeat at Waterloo. It illuminates his extensive political and structural reorganization of the French government; explores his illustrious relationships with his wives—the legendary Josephine and her replacement, Marie-Louise—and some of his mistresses; and chronicles his feuds with his tempestuous family and both loyal and mutinous officials. Key aides, ministers, generals, and naval commanders—from Talleyrand and Police Minister Fouche to Marshals Ney, Davout, and Lannes, Admiral Villeneuve, and many more—are fully portrayed and given their due. International rivalries and diplomatic negotiations are also thoroughly covered, and Napoleon's many opponents and enemies—including Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Emperor Franz I of Austria, Czar Alexander I of Russia, and field marshals Kutuzov, Blucher, and the Duke of Wellington—are brought vividly to life. There are intriguing fresh insights included, too; among them an examination of Napoleon's little-known friendship with a leading mathematician and savant, and of the cause of his death on St. Helena. Unique in Napoleonic literature, even that by French authors, is Schom's candor about Napoleon's character flaws. Nor does he gloss over the awful misery and destruction that Napoleon' s endless, often needless wars of conquest wreaked on the peoples of Europe, his indifferences to the medical needs of his own soldiers, or the surprisingly frequent examples of his poor planning and intelligence gathering. Enriched by more than ten years of research in the voluminous Napoleonic archives of Europe and the United States; enhanced by vivid recollections and personal accounts of contemporaries who knew Napoleon; fast-paced and full of interesting profiles and dramatic events; and illustrated with nearly one hundred photographs and many maps, NAPOLEON BONAPARTE is a fully balanced and enormously engrossing portrait of one of the greatest and most controversial historical figures of all time. —from the publisher's website | 1997-10-26T00:00:00 | 0060172142 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/91435-1 |
21629-1 | Stephen Carter | Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby | Mr. Carter attended Stanford University and Yale University Law School. He discussed the problem of whites opposed to affirmative action being labelled racist, and blacks opposed to affirmative action being seen as "traitors." He said he wrote the book to promote the benefits of affirmative action and to get rid of the "rhetoric and name-calling." He said that it is important to open higher educational opportunities to non-whites, but after college or entry-level positions, the need for affirmative action has ended. He cited his own college education as a model of affirmative action. | 1991-09-29T00:00:00 | 0465068693 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/21629-1 |
64553-1 | Yuri Shvets | Washington Station: My Life as a KGB Spy in America | Mr. Shvets talked about his recently published book, Washington Station, published by Simon and Schuster. It is based on his experiences as a K.G.B. agent in Washington, D.C. from 1980 to 1990. He believes that intelligence was one of the most inefficient aspects of the Cold War, and that the money and resources expended injured the Soviet Union more than the United States | 1995-06-18T00:00:00 | 0788166786 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/64553-1 |
21064-1 | Liva Baker | The Justice from Beacon Hill | Liva Baker, author of two previous books on the Supreme Court, discussed her book, “The Justice from Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of Oliver Wendell Holmes.” At the beginning of the interview, Ms. Baker explained why she wrote the book: "He was Mount Everest for a legal historian---he was there, he had to be done." She examined not only his life as a Supreme Court Justice, but also his relationship with his father, his service in the Civil War, his Harvard days, and his private legal practice. She also examined his relationship with Theodore Roosevelt, who had appointed him to the court. | 1991-09-08T00:00:00 | 0060166290 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/21064-1 |
102936-1 | David Aikman | Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century | For more than two decades David Aikman watched world history unfold before his eyes. From his unique position as senior foreign correspondent for Time Magazine, Aikman was assigned to stories that only an elite group of journalists were privileged to cover. As a Christian believer, he brought an added dimension to his reporter's notebook as he observed the rise and fall of nations, the tragedy of war, and the extraordinary acts of good and evil that indelibly mark and mar human history. His writings not only provide readers with eyewitness accounts of modern world history, but with astute spiritual observations drawing important lessons from the lives of the history makers. In the introduction to Great Souls, David Aikman writes, "What has struck me as a reporter for most of my adult life is the capacity of individual human beings again and again to rise above their times and their circumstances and to change, if only just a little, the direction of human tide." The life and times of just such individuals provide the subject material for Great Souls—Six Who Changed the Century. The author explores the historical background, the family experiences and the cultural settings that surrounded Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, and Elie Wiesel. To these profiles, Aikman adds his personal perspectives—drawn from conversations, interviews, and inside stories—to breathe energy and truth into every page. David Aikman comments, "Like most readers of biographies throughout history, I have always personally been inspired by the lives of great people. It is hard not to be energized by the stories of how individuals have risen above adversity or suffering, or have maintained a purity in the face of great temptation. Our age, with its habit of instant judgment of a man or woman's life based on the fragmentary and proverbial sound-byte, is often impatient with detail, nuance, and depth." It is the good fortune of the reader that Great Souls is blessed with those very attributes—detail, nuance, and depth. These, enlivened by the author's gifted writing, render it an unprecedented biographical collection. —from the publisher's website | 1998-05-03T00:00:00 | 0849909651 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/102936-1 |
8609-1 | Porter McKeever | Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy | Porter McKeever, publicity director of volunteers for presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 election, talked about his personal experiences in his book, "Adlai Stevenson: His Life and Legacy." Among the topics discussed was the progressive nature of Mr. Stevenson. McKeever noted that while many of Stevenson's political views were scorned at the time, successive administrations have adopted many of his ideas such as the ending of the military draft and the development of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. | 1989-08-06T00:00:00 | 0688066615 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/8609-1 |
173871-1 | Stephen Schwartz | The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud from Tradition to Terror | —from the publisher's website In this informed, compelling exploration of Moslem beliefs and of the sectarian conflicts within the community, a Jewish historian paints a sympathetic portrait of mainstream Islam and exposes the centuries-old roots of Osama bin Laden’s extremism. The difficult, protracted war against terrorism has raised unsettling questions about the nature of Islam and its influence on America’s declared enemies. In The Two Faces of Islam , Stephen Schwartz, who has devoted years to the study of Islam, explains its complex history and describes the profound philosophical and religious differences that distinguish traditional beliefs from the radical sects that have sprung up over the past fifteen hundred years. He focuses on Wahhabism, the puritanical sect to which Osama bin Laden belongs. Founded in the eighteenth century by a radical cleric, this intolerant Islamo-fascist sect became the official creed of the Saudi Arabian state and has been exported to Moslem countries from the Balkans to the Philippines, as well as to Islamic communities in Western Europe and the United States. By setting the current upheavals within an historical and religious context, Schwartz demonstrates that Osama bin Laden and his followers are not really fighting a war against America. Rather, they are engaged in a revolution within Islam itself a movement that parallels the turmoil within Christianity during the sixteenth century. Schwartz not only exposes the collusion of the Saudi Arabian government in the spread of radical Islam (which makes them at best reluctant allies of the West), he shows that the majority of Moslems have little sympathy for the Wahhabis and that many openly denounce their motivations and goals. A riveting narrative that never smacks of propaganda, The Two Faces of Islam is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand who we are fighting, what our enemies believe, and who our friends in the Moslem world really are. | 2003-02-02T00:00:00 | 0385506929 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/173871-1 |
181143-1 | Michael Dobbs | Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America | —from the publisher's website Shortly after America’s entry into World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered an extensive sabotage campaign against the United States to disrupt the production of tanks and airplanes and blow up bridges and railroads. Eight German saboteurs were dispatched across the Atlantic by U-boat, one team landing in Amagansett, Long Island, the other near Jacksonville, Florida. They brought with them enough money and explosives for a two-year operation and traveled inland to explore potential targets. The full story of this audacious endeavor is a remarkable account of a terrorist threat against America. Michael Dobbs describes the saboteurs’ training in Nazi Germany, their claustrophobic three-week voyage in submarines, and their infiltration into American life. He explores the reasons each volunteered, and their links to a network of Nazi sympathizers in the United States. He paints a portrait of the group’s leaders: George Dasch, a onetime waiter who dreamed of leaving his personal mark on history, and Edward Kerling, a fanatic Nazi caught between his love for his mistress and his love for his wife. And he shows how the FBI might never have captured the saboteurs had one of them not helped J. Edgar Hoover transform a hapless manhunt into one of his proudest accomplishments. A military tribunal, a historic Supreme Court session, and one of the largest mass executions in American history provide a stunning climax to a dangerous but failed mission. | 2004-03-28T00:00:00 | 0375414703 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/181143-1 |
182109-1 | Amy Goodman | The Exception to the Rulers | —from the publisher's website In The Exception to the Rulers , award-winning journalist Amy Goodman, with the aid of her brother David, exposes the lies, corruption, and crimes of the power elite -- an elite that is bolstered by large media conglomerates. Her goal is "to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority." As Goodman travels around the country, she is fond of quoting Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." This book informs and empowers people to act on that principle. For years, Amy Goodman has confronted the Washington establishment and its corporate cronies while giving voice to the voiceless. She hosts the national radio and TV show Democracy Now! , which began in 1996 as the only daily election show in public broadcasting. It is now the largest public media collaboration in North America. Democracy Now! is not just a show. It is a movement. | 2004-06-06T00:00:00 | 1401301312 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/182109-1 |
162903-1 | Dick Gregory | Callus on My Soul: A Memoir | A comedian, actor, civil rights activity and nutrition guru, Gregory is renowned for his biting satire. Now, more than 30 years after his bestselling book Nigger, Gregory has put his provocative life story down on paper, recounting his unique experience and discussing a host of other luminaries—from Rosa Parks to Hugh Hefner. | 2001-03-04T00:00:00 | 1563525542 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/162903-1 |
160224-1 | William Duiker | Ho Chi Minh: A Life | This biography of Marxist revolutionary and political leader Ho Chi Minh chronicles his peasant background, his education—which included formative years in Paris—and his role as leader of the liberation movement to unify his people as a nation. In 1954, Ho became President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The rest of his life, until 1969, was spent in a protracted war against South Vietnam and its ally, the United States of America. Duiker's research gave him him access to revealing documents about Ho's relations with China and Russia and about the war with the United States. —from the publisher's website | 2000-11-12T00:00:00 | 0786863870 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/160224-1 |
161310-1 | Bernard Weisberger | America Afire | America Afire is the powerful story of the election of 1800, arguably the most important election in America's history and certainly one of the most hotly disputed. American self-government was still an endangered experiment seventeen years after the War of Independence had been won. As 1800 dawned, the sacrifices and fraternity of "the spirit of '76" had vanished, replaced by bitter and angry rivalries. Former allies Adams and Jefferson, president and vice president, now Federalist versus Republican, squared off in a vicious contest to win the fourth presidential election under the Constitution. The Constitution was still new and untried. The young republic lacked a cohesive national identity, the strength to confront aggressive foreign powers in a world racked by war and revolution, and a stable system for working out political differences electorally. Political parties were new, unforeseen, and unwelcome creations. Small wonder that no one was prepared for the partisan warfare that threatened to rage out of control. Or for the broken friendships, scandals, riots, slanders, beatings, and jailings—elements of a crucial and perilous election that sparked a constitutional crisis and threats of civil war. Ultimately, the surprise is not that problems arose, but that the United States emerged from them a stronger nation. For when Adams stepped down from the presidency peacefully in 1801, it was the first time in modern history that a leader had voluntarily turned over power to his political enemy. This was truly a revolution and a triumph for democracy "made in America." Scrupulously researched and eminently readable, America Afire tells the tale of a watershed event in American history and lends a valuable new perspective on the early years of the United States, as well as the genesis and nature of our political system. —from the publisher | 2001-02-25T00:00:00 | 038097763X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/161310-1 |
25755-1 | Tinsley Yarbrough | John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court | Tinsley Yarbrough discussed his book, "John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court." The book is a biography of former Justice Marshall and his impact on the Warren Court. | 1992-04-26T00:00:00 | 0195060903 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/25755-1 |
71097-1 | Jean Baker | The Stevensons: A Biography of an American Family | Professor Jean Baker discussed her book, “The Stevensons: A Biography of an American Family,” published by W.W. Norton and Company. In the book, she traced the family history of Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, former U.S. senator from Illinois. Ms. Baker described the family's Scottish-Irish roots, and detailed the lives and careers of several family members, including Grover Cleveland's Vice-President Adlai Stevenson and two-time Democratic presidential candidate and former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II (1900-1965), the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. | 1996-04-07T00:00:00 | 0393038742 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/71097-1 |
55387-1 | Clare Brandt | The Man in the Mirror: A Life of Benedict Arnold | Clare Brandt discussed her recent book The Man in the Mirror: A Life of Benedict Arnold, published by Random House, which examines Benedict Arnold's life and role in the American Revolution. She was intrigued by the reason for Arnold's actions as a traitor during this era. She said that the libraries where she conducted her research were all extremely helpful during the six years it took her to write the book. She also addressed the mood swings that she underwent as a writer. | 1994-03-20T00:00:00 | 0679401067 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/55387-1 |
6735-1 | Judy Shelton | The Coming Soviet Crash | Judy Shelton, author of "The Coming Soviet Crash," analyzed the condition of the Soviet economy. Due to its emphasis on military spending, the Soviets have neglected all other areas of their economic development and thus face a crisis. This crisis is so grave, Shelton said, that the collapse of the Soviet system is imminent. She also talked about the differences between the U.S. and Soviet economies and the issue of whether the West should give economic and technological aid to the U.S.S.R. | 1989-04-09T00:00:00 | 002928581X | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/6735-1 |
11527-1 | David Halevy | Inside the PLO | Mr. Halevy talked about the book he co-authored with Neil Livingstone, Inside the PLO, published by William Morrow. He discussed the background of Yasir Arafat. He referred to Arafat choosing a political strategy after military and terrorist strategies were ineffective. Halevy described his own background in Israel, including military service and involvement in politics and journalism. Halevy said that Arafat is not charismatic, and that his power base is money. He estimated the amount of money under Arafat's control at 6 to 8 billion dollars. He described various aspects of PLO funding, affiliations, administration, and military operations. | 1990-03-18T00:00:00 | 0688093353 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/11527-1 |
66079-1 | John Hockenberry | Moving Violations: A Memoir: | Journalist Hockenberry was paralyzed in an auto accident at age 19. His book, Moving Violations: A Memoir - War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence, is an exploration of his career and of his adventures in discovering the meaning of life in a wheel chair. The book is published by Hyperion. | 1995-07-30T00:00:00 | 0786881623 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/66079-1 |
87257-1 | LeAlan Jones | Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago | Teenagers LeAlan Jones And Lloyd Newman, Tell Story Of Chicago's Ida B. Wells Housing Project. NPR Radio Documentaries Ghetto Life 101 and Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse With Producer David Isay, Served As Basis For Book. "LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman have told us a story that should tear at our hearts. They speak of a 'different America.' One where crime, drugs, lack of jobs and every imaginable social ill work to break the human spirit. Yet, some youngsters rise above it. But too many of them don't have a chance, they are trapped. Read this moving chronicle and resolve to help a young person in need in your community to believe in the American Dream." —General Colin L. Powell In 1993, the fresh, original voices of LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman stunned the country in Ghetto Life 101, a National Public Radio documentary that received more than a dozen national and international awards. Jones and Newman would go on to produce another acclaimed NPR documentary, Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse, which examined the brutal murder of a five-year-old by two young boys. These startling and poignant documentaries earned Jones and Newman this year's Peabody and RFK awards. With the help of NPR producer David Isay, these two extraordinary thirteen-year-olds gave America a clear-eyed snapshot of their lives within the Ida B. Wells Homes, Chicago's most notorious public housing development. OUR AMERICA: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago is the third part of this trilogy, and a startling look at the "other" America that most of us rarely see. OUR AMERICA is drawn from more than 100 hours of taped interviews, conversations and monologues that were not included in the original NPR documentaries. Jones and Newman report the truth as they see it with honesty and wit, showing us their world from the inside-out. When we first meet LeAlan Jones, he is living in the Ida B. Wells with an extended family that includes his grandparents, two sisters, two nephews, and his mother (who suffers from manic-depression). His quiet, but always-curious sidekick, Lloyd Newman, lives with two sisters who have cared for the family since their mother died at age thirty-five. With tape recorder in hand LeAlan and Lloyd travel throughout their community interviewing family, friends, neighbors and teachers. No topic is too tough for them to handle. From what it's like to grow up without a father, to their hopes and dreams, Jones and Newman explore it all. OUR AMERICA is also an investigation into the murder of Eric Morse, who, in October 1994 was thrown out of a 14th story window by two boys, ten and eleven-years old, for refusing to steal candy. The murder made headlines nationwide and resulted in visits to the Ida B. Wells Homes by reporters calling for action and politicians promising change. Weeks later, everyone was gone--except Jones and Newman: "So in January 1995, when we were both 15 years-old, Lloyd and I decided to try to do something: to be messengers to the world about the Ida B. Wells, and let them know that something has got to change. We picked up our microphones again to find out the story of Eric Morse." Jones and Newman undertake a year-long investigation to uncover how and why the crime occurred. They interview the prosecutors and public defenders involved in the case, housing police officers who knew the killers, and the head of the Chicago Housing Authority. They meet with the father of one of the defendants, who is in a correctional facility three hours outside of Chicago. Again, and again, they return to the building where Eric Morse died to talk to residents and interview members of his family. It is a courageous inquiry into a crime that the rest of the country quickly forgot. Illustrated with the remarkable photographs of John Brooks, OUR AMERICA is a powerful work in the tradition of There Are No Children Here, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl. —from the publisher's website | 1997-08-03T00:00:00 | 0613084993 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/87257-1 |
157968-1 | Harold Bloom | How to Read and Why | "Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom commences this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threaten to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom. Shedding all polemic, Bloom addresses the solitary reader, who, he urges, should read for the purest of all reasons: to discover and augment the self. Always dazzling in his ability to draw connections between texts across continents and centuries, Bloom instructs readers in how to immerse themselves in the different literary forms. Probing discussions of the works of beloved writers such as William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, and William Faulkner highlight the varied challenges and delights found in short stories, poems, novels, and plays. Bloom not only provides illuminating guidance on how to read a text but also illustrates what such reading can bring—aesthetic pleasure, increased individuality and self-knowledge, and the lifetime companionship of the most intriguing and complex literary characters. Bloom's engaging prose and brilliant insights will send you hurrying back to old favorites and entice you to discover new ones. His ultimate faith in the restorative power of literature resonates on every page of this infinitely rewarding and important book. —from the publisher's website | 2000-09-03T00:00:00 | 0684859068 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/157968-1 |
15508-1 | Garry Wills | Under God: Religion and American Politics | Garry Wills discussed his book, "Under God: Religion and American Politics," published by Simon and Schuster. He explained why no non-Christian has ever been elected to the office of president. He labeled religion as an important determinant to voters during election time, in particular with the Kennedy election of the early sixties. | 1990-12-30T00:00:00 | 0671747460 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/15508-1 |
39360-1 | Nadine Cohodas | Strom Thurmond & the Politics of Southern Change | Ms. Cohodas discussed her book, Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change, published by Simon and Schuster, including her reasons for writing it. The book focuses on Senator Thurmond's career as a politician and describes the evolution of his political ideology and the civil rights struggle from a white perspective. | 1993-04-04T00:00:00 | 0865544468 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/39360-1 |
96281-1 | Sally Quinn | The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining | Sally Quinn talked about her book, "The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining," published by Simon and Schuster. She talked about what makes a good guest at a dinner party and her ideas and conceptions of what makes a good hostess. Ms. Quinn writes a column for the Style section of the Washington Post. | 1997-12-28T00:00:00 | 0684811448 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/96281-1 |
103023-1 | Patrick Buchanan | The Great Betrayal | Pat Buchanan has seen firsthand the devastating effects of America's slavish devotion to global free trade. As a Republican candidate for president in 1992 and 1996, he met plenty of American workers who had been sacrificed to the Global Economy, and saw towns and regions abandoned by the industries that once supported them. While America boasts of having a strong economy-a powerful stock market, booming corporate profits, record CEO salaries-the men and women he met on the campaign trail told a far different story. With free trade now supported by both parties, more and more businesses are closing up shop in the United States and moving elsewhere, taking thousands of jobs with them. The result is a sharp drop in Middle America's standard of living-a trend that has continued for twenty-five years-and a national divide between the global elites and those who have been left behind. Now, in The Great Betrayal , Buchanan charges the architects of NAFTA and GATT with selling out the middle class and turning their backs on the nation. As the voice of populist conservatism, he speaks to the desperation of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs as a result of the free-trade policies of the Global Economy. He shows how by exporting jobs to Asia and Mexico, the corporate elite is destroying the American dream and profiting from the exploitation of sweatshop labor. Abandoned by their government, American workers are being forced to compete with cheap Third World labor and, inevitably, are losing out. Basing his arguments on the principles of our founding fathers and using real-life stories to illustrate the plight of the working class, Buchanan raises an impassioned call to arms. He offers a "new economic nationalism" and invites a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party in 2000 on the issues of national sovereignty and social justice. Republicans, neoconservatives, and Democrats cannot let his charges go unanswered. —from the publisher's website | 1998-05-17T00:00:00 | 0316115185 | https://booknotes.c-span.org/Watch/103023-1 |
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