Other books that might interest you

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  Taylor Branch: The Clinton Tapes

  PBS NewsHour

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  Jeffrey Brown speaks with Taylor Branch about his behind the scenes look at the White House.

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  Is Democracy Possible Here? -...

  Ronald Dworkin

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  Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. 
  The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized? 
  Dworkin, one of the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere. 
  Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes — as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures — that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values. The book is published by Princeton University Press.

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  Finland's War of Choice - The...

  Henrik O. Lunde

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  A selection of the Military Book Club: “A solid operational analysis” from “an established scholar of the Scandinavian theater” (Publishers Weekly).   This book describes the odd coalition between Germany and Finland in World War II and their joint military operations from 1941 to 1945. In stark contrast to the numerous books on the shorter and less bloody Winter War, which represented a gallant fight of a democratic “David” against a totalitarian “Goliath” and caught the imagination of the world, the story of Finland fighting alongside a Goliath of its own has not brought pride to that nation and was a period many Finns would rather forget.   A prologue brings the reader up to speed by briefly examining the difficult history of Finland, from its separation from the Soviet Union in 1917 to its isolation after being bludgeoned in 1939–40. It then examines both Finnish and German motives for forming a coalition against the USSR, and how—as logical as a common enemy would seem—the lack of true planning and preparation would doom the alliance.   In this book, Henrik Lunde, a former US Special Operations colonel and author of Hitler’s Pre-emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940, once again fills a profound gap in our understanding of World War II.

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  Sarah Palin - A New Kind of Leader

  Joe Hilley

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  A political biography of the self-styled renegade who rose from mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, to VP nominee—from the New York Times–bestselling author. 
   
  Our present era demands a new style of leadership that transcends political affiliation and party lines. In an age that values relationship over authority and instant information over accuracy, breadth of knowledge and depth of conviction are prized commodities. Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) brings both of those qualities to her new role as candidate for the vice presidency of the United States. Her familiarity with a broad range of issues and her strong moral center are just two of the leadership traits that have allowed Palin to organize and focus her efforts in elected office. Exploring themes from her career in politics, her life as a hockey mom, and her strongly held Christian faith, author Joe Hilley’s biographical leadership study of Sarah Palin explores the principles that have catapulted her into the national spotlight and explains how she models a fresh paradigm of leadership that will guide our nation through the twenty-first century.

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  The Power of Nothing to Lose -...

  William L. Silber

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  Following books by Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Ariely, noted economics professor William L. Silber explores the Hail Mary effect, from its origins in sports to its applications to history, nature, politics, and business. 
  A quarterback like Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers gambles with a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game when he has nothing to lose -- the risky throw might turn defeat into victory, or end in a meaningless interception. Rodgers may not realize it, but he has much in common with figures such as George Washington, Rosa Parks, Woodrow Wilson, and Adolph Hitler, all of whom changed the modern world with their risk-loving decisions. 
  In The Power of Nothing to Lose, award-winning economist William Silber explores the phenomenon in politics, war, and business, where situations with a big upside and limited downside trigger gambling behavior like with a Hail Mary. Silber describes in colorful detail how the American Revolution turned on such a gamble. The famous scene of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the enemy may not look like a Hail Mary, but it was. Washington said days before his risky decision, “If this fails I think the game will be pretty well up.” Rosa Parks remained seated in the white section of an Alabama bus, defying local segregation laws, an act that sparked the modern civil rights movement in America. It was a life-threatening decision for her, but she said, “I was not frightened. I just made up my mind that as long as we accepted that kind of treatment it would continue, so I had nothing to lose.” 
   The risky exploits of George Washington and Rosa Parks made the world a better place, but demagogues have inflicted great damage with Hail Marys. Towards the end of World War II, Adolph Hitler ordered a desperate counterattack, the Battle of the Bulge, to stem the Allied advance into Germany. He said, “The outcome of the battle would spell either life or death for the German nation.” Hitler failed to change the war’s outcome, but his desperate gamble inflicted great collateral damage, including the worst wartime atrocity on American troops in Europe. 
  Silber shares these illuminating insights on these figures and more, from Woodrow Wilson to Donald Trump, asylum seekers to terrorists and rogue traders. Collectively they illustrate that downside protection fosters risky undertakings, that it changes the world in ways we least expect.

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  Jesus vs Socrates - Religious vs...

  J.-M. Kuczynski

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  This work puts forth two answers to the question: In what ways are Jesus and Socrates similar? One of these answers is put forth by a Christian and embodies a deeply Christian perspective, and the other is put forth by two non-Christians, working jointly, and embodies a decidedly secular perspective. The question was first raised by the Christian author.

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