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  Disaster Deferred - How New...

  Seth Stein

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  A geologist takes readers inside contemporary earthquake research to offer a new account of the Midwest’s legendary New Madrid fault—“an exceptional read” (Choice).  In the winter of 1811-12, a series of large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone shook the Midwest. These historic geological events are often incorrectly described as the biggest ever to hit the United States. Today the federal government ranks the earthquake hazard in the Midwest as high as California's and is pressuring communities to undertake expensive preparations for disaster. In Disaster Deferred, geologist Seth Stein revisits these earthquakes, the legends that have grown around them, and the predictions of doom that have followed in their wake. He details how limited scientific knowledge, bureaucratic instincts, and the media's love of a good story have exaggerated these hazards. Debunking the hype, Stein explains how contemporary seismological techniques—including the use of GPS—painting a very different-and much less frightening-picture of the future. Using new geological ideas and data, he calls for a more sensible, less costly policy.   “An essential book for policy makers, economists, and notably educators.”—Choice

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  Spies - The Rise and Fall of the...

  John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr,...

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  “This important new book . . . based on archival material . . . shows the huge extent of Soviet espionage activity in the United States during the 20th century” (The Telegraph).   Based on KGB archives that have never been previously released, this stunning book provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new and shocking historical account.   Along with valuable insight into Soviet espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves many long-standing intelligence controversies. The book confirms that Alger Hiss cooperated with the Soviets over a period of years, that journalist I. F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence.   Uncovering numerous American spies who never came under suspicion, this essential volume also reveals the identities of the last unidentified American nuclear spies. And in a gripping introduction, Vassiliev tells the story of his notebooks and his own extraordinary life.

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  God and Donald Trump

  Stephen E Strang

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  With pundits asking, "How did he win?" this book explores whether there was a supernatural element involved. Christian leaders prophesied before the election that God had raised up Donald Trump to lead the nation through a time of crisis. But could this billionaire reality-TV star actually convince the voters he was for real? If so, what is God doing now not only in Donald's Trump's life, but also in the nation? 
  Trump is an enigma, a brash self-promoter, casino owner, and man of the world. Yet he is also a devoted husband and father who has surrounded himself with men and women of faith and has made religion a key component of his image. 
  God and Donald Trump is a powerful first-person account of one of the most contentious elections in American history, with exclusive interviews and insightful commentary from the men and women who were there.

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  Rollback - Repealing Big...

  Thomas E. Woods Jr.

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  In his blockbuster new book Rollback, New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., offers the first critical analysis of the 2010 midterm elections and answers the number-one question on conservatives' minds: How do we roll back the liberal policies and big government programs that Obama/Pelosi/Reid rushed through Congress before the midterms? From getting rid of wasteful and inefficient federal agencies to abolishing the income tax to repealing health care reform and all of Obama's "green" policies, Woods outlines a bold plan for dramatically overhauling the government and restoring our Founding Fathers' vision for America.

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  It's Not Free Speech - Race...

  Michael Bérubé, Jennifer Ruth

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  How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning?The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors?It's Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses. Faculty across the nation can develop protocols that account for both the new realities—from the rise of social media to the decline of tenure—and the old realities of long-standing inequities and abuses that the classic liberal conception of academic freedom did nothing to address. This book will resonate for anyone who has followed debates over #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, and "cancel culture"; more specifically, it should have a major impact on many facets of academic life, from the classroom to faculty senates to the office of the general counsel.

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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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