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  National Security Through a...

  Steve A. Yetiv

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  A study examining how poor decision-making based on mental errors or cognitive biases hurts American foreign policy and national security. 
   
  Author Steve A. Yetiv draws on four decades of psychological, historical, and political science research on cognitive biases to illuminate some of the key pitfalls in our leaders’ decision-making processes and some of the mental errors we make in perceiving ourselves and the world. 
   
  Tracing five U.S. national security episodes?the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan; the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration; the rise of al-Qaeda, leading to the 9/11 attacks; the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq; and the development of U.S. energy policy?Yetiv reveals how a dozen cognitive biases have been more influential in impacting U.S. national security than commonly believed or understood. 
   
  Identifying a primary bias in each episode?disconnect of perception versus reality, tunnel vision (“focus feature”), distorted perception (“cockeyed lens”), overconfidence, and short-term thinking?Yetiv explains how each bias drove the decision-making process and what the outcomes were for the various actors. His concluding chapter examines a range of debiasing techniques, exploring how they can improve decision making. 
   
  Praise for National Security through a Cockeyed Lens 
   
  “Yetiv’s volume could be one of the key books for presidents and their advisers to read before they begin making decisions.” —William W. Newmann, H-Diplo 
   
  “The principles in this book deserve wide recognition. Yetiv places necessary focus on lapses in decision making that are important to acknowledge.” —James Lebovic, Political Science Quarterly

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  Pure Goldwater

  John W. Dean, Barry M. Goldwater...

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  Barry Goldwater was a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost its way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over fifty years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life. Here bestselling author John Dean combines analysis with Goldwater's own words.With unprecedented access to his correspondence, interviews, and behind-the-scenes conversations, Dean sheds new light on this political figure. From the late senator's honest thoughts on Richard Nixon to his growing discomfort with the rise of the extreme right, Pure Goldwater offers a revelatory look at an American icon-and also reminds us of a more hopeful alternative to the dispiriting political landscape of today.

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  Foxtrot in Kandahar - A Memoir...

  Duane Evans

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  A thrilling true story of courage and duty after 9/11—“an extraordinary read from cover to cover . . . Gritty, frustrating, brutal, exhilarating” (Midwest Book Review).   Within hours after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, ex-Green Beret Duane Evans began a personal quest to become part of the US response against al-Qa’ida. His determination led him to join one of the CIAs elite teams bound for Afghanistan. It was a journey that eventually took him to the front lines in Pakistan—first as part of the advanced element of a CIA group supporting President Hamid Karzai, and finally as leader of the under-resourced and often overlooked Foxtrot team.   Evans’s mission was to venture into southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qa’ida held sway, and try to organize a cohesive resistance among the fractious warlords and tribal leaders. He traveled in the company of Pashtun warriors—one of only a handful of Americans pushing forward across the desert into some of the most dangerous, yet mesmerizingly beautiful, landscape on earth.   Brilliantly crafted and fast-paced, Foxtrot in Kandahar “dramatically reports the huge challenges and exceptional success of [Evans’s] and his brothers’ work in Afghanistan defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in nine weeks” (Ambassador Cofer Black, former director, Counterterrorist Center, CIA).  

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  The Hidden History of American...

  Thom Hartmann

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  Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America—and how we can win the latest round. 
   
  Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.  
   
  The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation's oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation's economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class. 
   
  Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America's founding to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point.  
   
  Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We've beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.

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  Troublemaker - Let's Do What It...

  Christine O'Donnell

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  From the moment she upset a heavily-favored incumbent in the primary for the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Joe Biden, Christine O'Donnell made headlines.  Though she didn't win the general election, O'Donnell did win the designation of 2010's Most Covered Candidate.  And what people were talking about wasn't just gossip: they responded to a fresh, unencumbered voice that appealed to voter frustration with politics—and politicians—as usual. 
  America's strength lies in its government "by the people, for the people", but too many of those people feel they are now just labeled featureless residents of "flyover country", told what to think and what they can and cannot do by an entrenched, reigning class of elites.  O'Donnell's candidacy gave hope that the voices of real people—the people—not only can be heard but can also become a force.  Part of this hope is invested in the nascent Tea Party, but most of it is invested in individual voters who are willing to work hard and make sacrifices for what they believe in, not what backroom dealing and a bloated federal government has mandated is good for them. 
  Troublemaker is about where O'Donnell comes from—the Philadelphia suburbs with five kids to a room—and what she weathered in the 2010 election.  But the core of the book is a clear, straightforward discussion of an America that yearns to embrace freedom and opportunity through personal responsibility, and how it is hamstrung and stymied by excessive regulation, taxation, and the sanctimony of a "nanny state."  And Troublemaker will deliver an important, rousing message about what we do with the quiet anger in America today: where we can go, and how strong we can be, from here. Warning readers that challenging the status quo makes the political establishment push back, O'Donnell wants to build a movement that will continue to goad it. 
  It's practical, too, since O'Donnell believes in power through participation: it's not enough to grumble about how things are going; pitch in and try to change things if you care. O'Donnell details how she participated by running for high office as an everywoman, but also shows how attending town council meetings, organizing a petition drive, making an effort to meet a staffer in your local representative's office, or simply reading the minutes from your community board can make a difference.A Macmillan Audio production.

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  It's Time to Fight Dirty - How...

  David Faris

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  The American electoral system is clearly falling apart—as evidenced by the 2016 presidential election. In It's Time to Fight Dirty, David Faris offers accessible, actionable strategies for American institutional reform which don't require a constitutional amendment, and would have a lasting impact on our future. 
  With equal amounts of playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, Faris describes how the Constitution's deep democratic flaws constantly put progressives at a disadvantage, and lays out strategies for "fighting dirty" though obstructionism and procedural warfare: establishing statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico; breaking California into several states; creating a larger House of Representatives; passing a new voting rights act; and expanding the Supreme Court. 
  The Constitution may be the world's most difficult document to amend, but David Faris argues that many of America's democratic failures can be fixed within its rigid confines—and, at a time when the stakes have never been higher, he outlines a path for long-term, progressive change in the United States.

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