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BIBLIOGRAPHY
2002-2004 (years lost)
September
11: Historical and Theological, And Social Perspectives by Ian Markham
(2002)
("...Written
by faculty members of Hartford Seminary, this compelling collection of essays
establishes a context for some of the hardest questions provoked by the Sept. 11
attacks: Where was God that day? How could this have happened? Why do they hate
us? What would a moral response entail? With its Institute for Religion Research
and Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, the seminary
is in an excellent position to provide a thoughtful analysis of the events,
their causes, and consequences. And these resources have been drawn on well.
Editors Ian Markham, a Christian, and Ibrahim M. Abu-rabi, a Palestinian Muslim,
have selected representative views from a broad range of disciplines and
viewpoints...").
Laboratory of Justice by David Faigman (2004)
Bloodsworth
by
Tim Junkin (2004)
("...Books
about wrongful convictions have proliferated during the past decade, as DNA
evidence shows that police, prosecutors, judges, and juries combine far too
frequently to arrest, incarcerate, and sentence innocent people. Most
of these books are valuable up to a point. The trouble is that few of the
authors make an effort to view the big picture...").
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)
(...Philip Roth's "provocative but lumpy new novel" asks, what if
"Charles A. Lindbergh had defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940
election, and what if Lindbergh ... had instituted a pro-Nazi agenda? Roth's
historical nightmare ... is a not-altogether-successful attempt to mesh two
incompatible genres: the political-historical thriller and the coming-of-age
tale...").
The Secret Goldfish by David Means (2004)
("It's been 40 years since Richard Hofstadter diagnosed the ''paranoid style'' in American politics, conveniently handing fiction writers a useful tool for making some of their crazier characters seem prescient. From the Warren Report and Vietnam through Watergate and the war on terror, the cognitive dissonance between what we suspect to be true and what we're told is true leads, predictably, to anxiety. And for candid snapshots of an anxious people, there's no better place to look than the newest wave of short fiction to emerge in the post-9/11 era....").
Checkpoint by Nicholson Baker (2004)
("...The
115-page novella is framed as the transcript of a conversation between fictional
characters Jay and Ben at a hotel a few blocks away from the White House in May
2004. Jay claims that he wants a record of his motives for killing the president
later that day "for the good of humankind....")
Why America Slept by Gerald Posner (2003)
("...an infuriating review of how incompetence and misplaced priorities made America
an easy target for terrorists. From
the Back Cover: The
seeds for failure were sown repeatedly in almost twenty years of fumbled
investigations and misplaced priorities. After a while, the revelations of
ineptitude presented in this book no longer cause surprise, but only anger").
The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy by Smith, Mark W. (2004)
("...The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy didn't cease operations when Hillary climbed onto her broomstick and flew out of the White House. In fact, it has been more active than ever! Now you can win arguments with your liberal friends and initiate new members into the Conspiracy with this clever, dead-on, and helpfully concise guide to the conservative take on issues. It's a perfect source of ammunition for conservatives and education for prospective converts to the Conspiracy").
An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum (2003)
("...From the audacious title, to an opening that quotes Thomas Paine's rebuke of the "sunshine patriot," to a proposal for immediately widening the war against al-Qaeda to include Hamas and Hezbollah, An End to Evil is a worthy election-year polemic from Richard Perle and David Frum. The work is clearly meant to help define foreign policy for a second Bush Administration, and it may well do that if sloganeering continues to displace actual strategic planning...").
Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Anonymous, CIA officer Michael Scheuer (2004)
("...Scheuer blasts
most elite experts, whatever their political or philosophical persuasion, for
"a process of interpreting the world so it makes sense to us, a process
yielding a world in which few events seem alien because we Americanize their
components." Ultimately, "ignorance of their own and world history,
failure to appreciate the power of faith, and disdain for the views and analyses
of idiosyncratic American and non-Westerners" begets a particularly
perilous imperialism.
While much of Imperial Hubris isn’t necessarily polemical, it does lead to a provocative conclusion. One thrust of the book is that at least three decades of US foreign policy fed what has become an intractable worldwide defensive Islamist insurgency, whose violent strain is performing what it considers a jihad in defense of Islam — necessary because, as bin Laden professes, Muslims have failed to demonstrate adequately their love for Islam and one another. In Scheuer’s view, because the American public seems either unwilling or unable to hold an honest debate about the wisdom of certain US policies, the insurgency will perpetuate and multiply."
America Alone by Jonathan Clarke and Stefan Halper (2004)
"...The
authors remind us that the neoconservatives wanted a military confrontation with
China before 9/11. Although many are accused of having an Israel First bias,
it's not fair to say that is their only concern. Their doctrine
was to take down any rising power in the world. Most of them also supported the
Kosovo war. Indeed, Bush waffled when that war started, until Wolfowitz rushed
down to Texas to persuade the governor to support it.
Many neocons got their credentials with jobs in the Reagan administration and claim his mantle for their later objectives. Clarke and co-author, both solid Reaganites, explain that Reagan never had such imperial theories. On the inside cover, leading conservative publisher Alfred Regnery writes, "Particularly, contrary to their own assertions, neoconservatives are not the inheritors of the Reagan legacy in foreign policy."
About the future, the book explains the new phenomenon of "counter-Americanism," whereby foreign nations now "actively seek to frustrate American objectives." This is a drastic change from before, when "America was, generally, pushing through an open door" to promote its goods, services and ideas..."
The Empire Has No Clothes by Ivan Eland (2004)
("...A
leading expert on U.S. defense policy and national security examines America’s
continuing expansion and military intervention around the world. Beginning with
the acquisition of the Philippines and Guam during the Spanish-American War, he
traces U.S. interventions in Latin America after World War I, the global growth
of foreign military bases and alliances after World War II and during the Cold
War, and the current Bush Administration’s alarming expansion of U.S.
strategic influence and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
Eland questions the historical assumptions on which interventionist U.S. policy is based and advocates a return to the Founding Fathers’ policy of military restraint overseas. He argues that the concept of empire is contrary to the principles of both liberals and conservatives, as well as the American Founder’s vision of the republic. Eland warns that in recent years, blowback from this overextended empire has begun to threaten the American homeland and curtail the very liberties and well-being U.S. interventions were supposed to protect.").
Plan
of Attack
by Bob Woodward (2004)
"...The Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University argues that by ignoring experts who knew and understood the history of the Middle East, the United States was courting disaster. This is a region rich with a history of revolting against foreign occupation and full of resentment against those outside powers that would seek to determine its destiny. Yet none of the major players who made the decisions to go to war knew anything about this history. Mr. Khalidi wrote this short book to fill the knowledge gap."
The Globalization Paradox by Slaughter (2004)
"The
world needs global governance to combat problems that jump borders, like crime
and environmental degradation, and yet most people fearthe idea of a centralized,
all-powerful world government.
What
We've Lost
by
Graydon Carter (2004)
("Graydon
Carter, 55, has risen to impressive heights. The editor of Vanity Fair
since 1992 after succeeding Tina Brown he is one of America's celebrity
editors with clout, glamour and a nice line in suits. It is hard to imagine
Carter doing physical work of any kind, beyond exercising his thumb on his
silver Zippo lighter. His labor is restricted to rejigging headlines in his
magazine he is a self-confessed failure at delegation of duties and
swanning to Manhattan parties. Martini in hand, he cuts an almost princely and
dandyish figure, with billowing shirts and similarly billowing silver hair....").
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner (2004)
("...Recent years have seen the flourishing of a new genre of history: the book focusing on some object of material culture considered a window on the larger pageant of human history. Thus we read about "salt" or "cod" as having "changed the world," or about the ordinary lead pencil, or the manufacture of chemical pigments, or even the color mauve. "Spice" continues that tradition").
Germany's Grasp for World Power by Fritz Fischer (1961)
("...Fritz
Fischer asserted that Kaiser Wilhelm II was largely responsible for the outbreak
of World War I. To a population that had grown up viewing the war as defensive,
Mr. Fischer's book was widely rejected. Now, public opinion is beginning to
shift. And new theories that test old notions about World War I are surfacing").
THE
9/11 COMMISSION REPORT. Final
Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004)
W.
W. Norton & Company. Paper, $10. ("...The
report found the "most important failure" leading to the Sept. 11
attacks "was one of imagination. We do not believe leaders understood the
gravity of the threat." This panel deserves praise for its professional and
dogged investigation. It debunked some theories (such as deliberate Saudi
government help for the terrorists), while uncovering new areas to explore (the
Iran connection to the 9/11 hijackers). By remaining nonpartisan, and offering
"solid, sound" recommendations (words from President Bush), the
commission has done a great service").
Bushworld. Enter at Your Own Risk By Maureen Dowd (2004)
High
Crimes and Misdemeanors by
Ann Coulter (2002)
The Meaning of Is. The Squandered Impeachment and Wasted Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton by Bob Barr (2004)
("...The
9/11 Commission confirms in its report what Barr and few others knew in 1995,
the year I left the White House – the nation as a whole had little concern for
national security. But Congressman Barr, having spent years working for
the C.I.A., understood the ramifications of Clinton’s high and low antics.
Clinton’s policies and behavior placed us in grave danger. His sexual
proclivities distracted him from important matters of his presidency. Of
course his defense against the claims that he had violated the precious trust
placed in him by voters consumed much of his attention. But Barr makes a
persuasive case that even if Clinton wasn’t chasing Monica or trying to lie
about it to protect himself, he would not have given any more attention to the
growing problem of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Thunder on the Left by Gary Aldrich (2004)
("...A 26-year FBI veteran agent, Gary Aldrich blew the whistle on the corruption in the Clinton White House with his #1 NY Times bestseller, Unlimited Access. Now he goes after the Hard-Left and shines a bright light on their sinister plans to move our country to a Hard-Socialist, near-dictatorship, modeled after Fidel Castro’s island paradise, Cuba. Are you impressed with what the murderous dictator has done for Cuba? No? Well, the Hard-Left loves Fidel Castro, and right now they are working overtime to assist him, while they try to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush....").
("... is a book framed by war. Rick Rescorla led the evacuation of Morgan
Stanley's 2,700 employees at the World Trade Center but died when he stayed to
look for others. He showed the same steely calm commanding troops in Vietnam's
Ia Drang Valley, a battle made famous in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once
... and Young." Born in a working-class English village as World War II
began, Rescorla served as a British soldier and a colonial police officer as
Africa descended into violence. In his last command decades later, he headed
security at Morgan Stanley, chillingly predicting truck or plane attacks against
the twin towers. Pulitzer Prize-winner Stewart also weaves in lighter details
about Rescorla, a man who quoted Kipling in foxholes and spontaneously danced on
sidewalks...").
Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda by Jeff Stein and Khidhir Hamza (2002)
Attack
Poodles. And Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror
by
James Wolcott (2004)
Republic or Empire? by Pat Buchanan (2002)
Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination by Noam Chomsky (2004)
These Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot (2004)
Empire:
The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
by Niall Ferguson (2004)
("...The United States had military bases in more than 70 countries. ...Today no other country can begin to match the reach and lethality of the American armed forces. Only the United States can send bombers from its heartland on a round-trip mission to attack targets anywhere around the globe and do so with great stealth, precision and destructive force. ...The real debate, then, is not whether to have an empire, but what kind").
Terrorism and Tyranny by James Bovard (2003)
("...Jim
Bovard, in the words of the Orange County Register, is Washington's most
hated truth-teller...While
reading the book you'll learn and be reminded of the insanity that has emerged
in the last two years, and by the time you're done you'll be recommitted to the
cause of resisting that insanity. ...Bovard does an excellent job in narrating
one futile U.S. attempt to stop terrorists with missiles after another. By the
chapter's end the reader has lost count of the number of embassy bombings and
hijackings, and it becomes clear that while the U.S. government did everything
possible to appear vigilant against terrorists, it did little to ensure even the
most common sense security precautions at obvious terrorist targets....Bovard
then explains how FBI incompetence and arrogance had the likely effect of
allowing the hijackers to murder thousands on September 11, and how the most
severe bureaucratic error in American history was rewarded by a glorification of
those most responsible. By focusing not on alleged government malice, but rather
on the incompetence inherent in bureaucracy, Bovard distances himself from the
counterproductive argument that government officials wanted the attacks to
happen...Perhaps the most controversial chapter is on Israel's War on Terrorism
and how the United States has increasingly adopted it as a model. Bovard
documents the numerous abuses of the Israeli government in an even-handed,
non-inflammatory way, while clarifying that he is not an anti-Semite simply for
his critique of Israel. .
Se no Evil by Richard Bauer (2002)
("...When American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Osama bin Laden in 1998, CBS blamed Congress for "drastic cutbacks." When Clinton responded by attacking targets in Afghanistan and Sudan three days after admitting the Lewinsky affair, Ted Koppel found it "unthinkable" to question Clinton's actions and mourned "the times we live in" that some people did not believe the White House line...").
The Lessons of Terror by Aleb Carr (2002)
(''...A popular novelist and a military historian, makes two arguments. The first is that punitive warfare by states against civilians amounts to terrorism. The second is that terrorism never works. Both of these arguments strike me as wrong. War against civilians has been a feature of the Western military tradition since the Romans razed Carthage. Carr argues that indiscriminate war against the Carthaginians, and then against the barbarians, helped bring about Rome's downfall...").
Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden by Peter L. Bergen (2003)
("...An American-born, English-educated television journalist, set out six years ago to meet and understand bin Laden. As he says in completed in August and rushed into print after the Sept. 11 attack, he had wanted to get to the bottom of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Through intermediaries in London, he persuaded bin Laden to give his first television interview to the English-speaking world to CNN in 1997. The opening chapter of this engaging, well-written account of bin Laden and his organization tells of Bergen's trip with the correspondent Peter Arnett to a cave in Afghanistan to interview the man whom the State Department the previous year called ''the most significant financial sponsor of Islamic extremist activities in the world today.'' .Bergen has a fine eye for detail...".
Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy by Paul R. Pillar (2003)
("...The former deputy chief of the Counterterrorist Center at the Central Intelligence Agency, in his book says that fighting terrorism may be a hot war in terms of the casualties we have, and will have, to sustain, but as Pillar shows in this sober, workmanlike book, it requires the ''long, patient, persistent effort'' of the cold war. The struggle against it may also be likened to that of controlling disease pandemics: the threat can be managed and reduced to acceptable proportions, according to the author, but it may never be permanently eradicated...").
Dangerous
Diplomacy by Joel Mowbray (2003)
("...Seasoned investigative reporter Joel
Mowbray explores the seldom-seen inner workings of the State Department. Relying
on exhaustive interviews with State Department personnel and extensive research
into State's publications, procedures, and recent history, Mowbray reveals an
astounding pattern of short-sighted and misguided policies, compounded by an
ingrained resistance to self-criticism and correction. Mowbray
documents a State Department in dire need of reform -- and he has helped make that reform possible by revealing here for the
first time just how far State has strayed from its intended role as the primary
agent of U.S. interests abroad...)".
Inside 9-11 by Der Spiegel Magazine (2002)
("...If
the book suffers from anything, it's a lack of clear sources, qualifiers, and
"maybes." But if you're willing to take the book's sober, gripping
account at face value, it's a valuable resource for gaining a better
understanding of one of modern history's turning points...").
Terrorist
Hunter by Anonymus (2003).
Deadly Alliance by Ralph Ranalli (2001)
("...shocking instances of ignorance, violence, and corruption...")
Politics, Power and Crime by William Chambliss (2002)
("No comments...")
CHAIN
OF COMMAND. The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour M. Hersh
(2004). At the end of the book, Hersh confesses that he still hasn't got the
whole story. ''There is so much about this presidency that we don't know, and
may never learn,'' he writes. ''How did they do it? How did eight or nine
neoconservatives who believed that war in Iraq was the answer to international
terrorism get their way? How did they redirect the government and rearrange
longstanding American priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they
overcome the bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress and
dominate the military? Is our democracy that fragile?''
Editoriali Intelligence Corso di perfezionamento Recensioni Summaries in English Scienze dell'Investigazione Bibliografia Forum Strumenti Cineteca Mappamondo Ultime notizie