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  The United States of Fear

  Tom Engelhardt

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  The creator of TomDispatch.com “focuses on the specific absurdities of American wars . . . strident, passionate, and problem-solving” (Mother Jones).   In 2008, when the US National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the administration of newly elected president Barack Obama, it predicted that the planet’s “sole superpower” would suffer a modest decline and a soft landing fifteen years hence. In his new book, The United States of Fear, Tom Engelhardt makes clear that Americans should don their crash helmets and buckle their seat belts, because the United States is on the path to a major decline at a startling speed. Engelhardt offers a savage anatomy of how successive administrations in Washington took the “Soviet path”—pouring American treasure into the military, war, and national security—and so helped drive their country off the nearest cliff.   This is the startling tale of how fear was profitably shot into the national bloodstream, how the country—gripped by terror fantasies—was locked down, and how a brain-dead Washington elite fiddled (and profited) while America quietly burned.  Praise for Tom Engelhardt and The United States of Fear   “Engelhardt is absorbing and provocative. Everything he writes is of a satisfyingly congruent piece.” —The New York Times   “A politician’s worst nightmare.” —Mother Jones   “Tom Engelhardt is the I. F. Stone of the post-9/11 age.” —Andrew J. Bacevich, New York Times–bestselling author   “Tom Engelhardt, as always, focuses his laser-like intelligence on a core problem that the media avoid . . . A stunning polemic.” —Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear and The Monster at Our Door

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  The Politics of Digital...

  Felix Heidenreich, Florian...

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  Digitization is transforming our world economically, culturally, and psychologically. The influx of new forms of communication, networking, and business opportunities, as well as new types of distraction, self-observation, and control into our societies represents an epochal challenge. Following Bernard Stiegler's concept of pharmacology, Felix Heidenreich and Florian Weber-Stein propose to view these new forms as digital pharmaka. Properly dosed, they can enable new self-relationships and forms of sociality; in the case of overdose, however, there is a risk of intoxication.
  In this essay, Felix Heidenreich, Florian Weber-Stein, and, in a detailed interview, Bernard Stiegler analyze this complex change in our world and develop new skills to use digital pharmaka.

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  Figures of Speech - First...

  William Bennett Turner

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  “Turner tells fascinating stories of unlikely heroes and explains difficult legal issues clearly and concisely, educating and entertaining at the same time.” —Elizabeth Farnsworth, PBS NewsHour   Recounting controversial First Amendment cases from the Red Scare era to Citizens United, William Bennett Turner—a Berkeley law professor who has argued three cases before the Supreme Court—shows how we’ve arrived at our contemporary understanding of free speech. His strange cast of heroes and villains, some drawn from cases he has litigated, includes Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ku Klux Klansmen, the world’s leading pornographer, prison wardens, dogged reporters, federal judges, a computer whiz, and a countercultural comedian. This is a fascinating look at how the scope of our First Amendment freedoms has evolved and the colorful characters behind some of the most important legal decisions of modern times.  “In Figures of Speech, celebrated civil rights attorney Bill Turner has crafted a rare gem: a concise, clearly written book that provides a trenchant introduction to the complexities of First Amendment law as well as riveting, behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the most controversial free-speech cases in American history. Anyone interested in politics, the law, and the future of American democracy should read this important, vigorously argued book.” —Robert Perkinson, author of Texas Tough  “Turner attempts to enlighten those with only a vague conception of their rights . . . an important reference on the First Amendment.” —SFGate

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  The Old Social Classes and the...

  Hanna Batatu

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  This comparative study analyses the traditional elite of Iraq and their sucessors - the Communists, the Bathists and Free Officers - in terms of social and economic relationships in each area of the country. The author draws on secret government documents and interviews with key figures, both in power and in prison, to produce an engrossing story of political struggle and change. 'A landmark in Middle Eastern historical study' Roger Owen, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 'By far the best book written on the social and political history of modern Iraq' Ahmad Dallal, Professor of Middle Eastern History, Stanford University

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  The Co-Presidency of Bush and...

  Shirley Anne Warshaw

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  This analysis of the Bush administration reveals how the president willingly ceded power to a calculating vice president—with disastrous consequences. 
   
  Under the relatively inexperienced president George W. Bush, Dick Cheney was perhaps the most powerful vice president in American history. In this excellently documented work, presidential scholar Shirley Anne Warshaw debunks the popular myth that Bush’s authority was hijacked or stolen. Instead, drawing on extensive research as well as personal interviews with White House Staffers and Washington insiders, she demonstrates how Bush and Cheney operated as nothing less than co-presidents.  
   
  While Bush focused on building what he called a moral and civil society, anchored by a war on science and by the proliferation of faith-based programs, he allowed Cheney to lead in business and foreign policy. Warshaw highlights Cheney’s decades-long career in Washington and his familiarity with its inner workings to present a complete picture of this calculating political powerhouse. From Cheney’s unprecedented merging of presidential and vice-presidential authority to his abhorrence of what he deemed congressional interference, Warshaw paints an intriguing, and at times frightening, portrait.

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  Grow Up

  Dr. Everett Piper

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  The “snowflake” rebellion and its juvenile temper tantrums are far from over. As the pampered and bubble-wrapped adolescents of Berkeley and Brown graduate, petulant progressivism is taking root in our nation’s corporations, courts, and even our Congress. A simple glance at the daily news reveals we now stand on the cliff of a cultural crisis where vitriol has replaced virtue, identity politics trumps principle, character no longer matters, and elected leaders act more like spoiled children than mature adults. In Grow Up, the nearly two-decades-long president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and the national bestselling author of Not a Daycare, Dr. Everett Piper, presents common-sense solutions to the lunacy Americans face on the news, in the classroom, and from the mouths of elected officials in a powerful reminder that, in the end, civilization relies on adults.

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