Iraqi Politics Books

Thursday, December 25, 2008

unSpun or Democracy in America

unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation

Author: Brooks Jackson

Americans are bombarded daily with mixed messages, half-truths, misleading statements, and out-and-out fabrications masquerading as facts. The news media--once the vaunted watchdogs of our republic--are often too timid or distracted to identify these deceptions.

unSpun is the secret decoder ring for the twenty-first-century world of disinformation. Written by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the founders of the acclaimed website FactCheck.org, unSpun reveals the secrets of separating facts from disinformation, such as:

• the warning signs of spin, hype, and bogus news
• common tricks used to deceive us
• how to find trustworthy and objective sources of information

Telling fact from fiction shouldn't be a difficult task. With this book and a healthy dose of skepticism, anyone can cut through the haze of biased media reportage to be a savvier consumer and a better-informed citizen.

What People Are Saying

"Read this book and you will not go unarmed into the political wars ahead of us. Jackson and Jamieson equip us to be our own truth squad, and that just might be the salvation of democracy."
----Bill Moyers

"THE DEFINITIVE B.S. DETECTOR---AN ABSOLUTELY INVALUABLE GUIDEBOOK."
---Mark Shields, syndicated columnist and political analyst, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

"unSpun is an essential guide to cutting through the political fog. Just in time for the 2008 campaign, Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson have written a citizen's guide to avoiding the malarkey of partisan politics."
---Mara Liasson, NPR national political correspondent

"The Internet may be a wildly effective means of communication and an invaluable source of knowledge, but it has also become a new virtual haven for scammers---financial, political, even personal. Better than anything written before, unSpun shows us how to recognize these scams and protect ourselves from them."
---Craig Newmark, founder and customer service representative, Craigslist.org

Interesting book:

Democracy in America

Author: Alexis de Tocquevill

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority on democracy.

This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida.

Booknews

<:st> Political philosophers Mansfield (government, Harvard U.) and Winthrop (constitutional government, Harvard U.) present a new translation<-->only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840<-->aiming to restore the nuances of Tocqueville's language. Tocqueville himself was not satisfied with the 19th-century translation; the other, prepared in the late 1960s (Harper & Row), is cited in This translation is based on a recent critical French edition (Editions Gallimard, 1992). Mansfield and Winthrop provide a substantial introduction placing the work and its author in historical and philosophical context, as well as annotations elucidating references that are no longer familiar to readers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

New York Times Book Review - Caleb Crain

Thanks to [Tocqueville's] prescience, a new edition of ''Democracy in America'' is always timely.

	Note on this Reeve Edition
	Preface to this Edition
	Introductory Notice
	Introductory Chapter	3
Ch. I	Exterior form of North America	14
Ch. II	Origin of the Anglo-Americans, and its importance in relation to their future condition	20
Ch. III	Social condition of the Anglo-Americans	35
Ch. IV	The principle of the sovereignty of the people in America	41
Ch. V	Necessity of examining the condition of the States before that of the Union at Large	44
Ch. VI	Judicial power in the United States, and its influence on political society	73
Ch. VII	Political jurisdiction in the United States	79
Ch. VIII	The Federal Constitution	84
Ch. IX	Why the people may strictly be said to govern in the United States	133
Ch. X	Parties in the United States	134
Ch. XI	Liberty of the Press in the United States	140
Ch. XII	Political associations in the United States	147
Ch. XIII	Government of the Democracy in America	154
Ch. XIV	What the real advantages are which American Society derives from the Government of the Democracy	186
Ch. XV	Unlimited power of the majority in the United States, and its consequences	201
Ch. XVI	Causes which mitigate the tyranny of the majority in the United States	215
Ch. XVII	Principal causes which tend to maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States	228
Ch. XVIII	The present and probable future condition of the three Races which inhabit the territory of the United States	264
	Opinions of the Present Work	344
	Endnotes	347
	Appendix	640
	Index	691

Constitutional Law or The Way Well Be

Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies

Author: Erwin Chemerinsky

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: Principles and Policies continues to serve as an incomparably clear introduction to both doctrine and policy in its Third Edition.

This highly successful student treatise offers distinct advantages:

thorough treatment of all areas of constitutional law covered in both beginning and advanced courses

direct, unambiguous identification of the issues

takes a neutral approach that examines all sides of constitutional law debates

presents both the doctrines and the underlying policy issues of the law, unlike many other texts which emphasize one or the other

flexible organization allows the chapters to be used in any order

For the Third Edition, the author:

updates the entire text, with new material introduced throughout

pays special attention to developments between editions, particularly in regard to presidential power in the war on terrorism, the many decisions concerning state sovereign immunity, the controversial rulings concerning the takings clause, the important decisions concerning affirmative action by colleges and universities, and significant developments concerning the Establishment Clause (such as the approval of vouchers and the Ten Commandments decisions)

covers the most recent and significant cases, among them Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (executive power to detain enemy combatants), Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs and Tennessee v. Lane (sovereign immunity), Gonzales v. Raich (Congress's ability to prohibit possession and cultivation of marijuana for medicinal purposes), City of New London, Connecticut v. Kelo (takings clause), Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (equal protection),Lawrence v. Texas (sexual privacy), and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (vouchers)

Book about:

The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream

Author: John Zogby

In the tradition of Why We Buy, preeminent pollster John Zogby identifies key trends in American culture and suggests how companies from the Fortune 500 to the neighborhood deli can use this information to improve their business.

The Washington Post - Steve Weinberg

Dismissing a crystal-ball book by a professional pollster would be easy. After all, generalizing about a diverse nation of 300 million people based on samples of just a few hundred seems ludicrous. But pollster John Zogby's voice in The Way We'll Be is disarming. He anticipates skepticism and answers potential arguments with a combination of intelligent rebuttal, winning modesty and full disclosure about the limits of his methodology. What he describes seems a plausible (though not guaranteed) scenario for the future of the United States, its politics, culture and economics. Even if Zogby's conclusions prove to be mistaken, the data he has collected offer plenty of fodder for discussion.

Publishers Weekly

Renowned political pollster Zogby distills a lifetime of surveying public opinion into a provocative-and heartening-portrait of American attitudes toward a host of topical issues that will shock cynics who regularly pronounce on the nation's divisions, apathy and appetite for excess. "The bullshit era is over and done," Zogby notes; his surveys reveal a public craving for truth rather than hype, valuing thrift over luxury and ready to accept limits on consumption. A "New American Consensus" is emerging, according to the author; shared economic hardships are uniting people commonly perceived to be at odds, and self-defined identities such as "investor" are becoming more reliable predictors of worldviews than race or gender. The author reserves particular enthusiasm for the younger generation, whose responses reveal an unprecedented embrace of diversity, sensitivity to global human rights and a willingness to grapple with complex issues-such as abortion-free from orthodoxy and with a desire to find middle ground. "The American Century is over," Zogby declares, "and the Whole Earth Century has begun"; his intriguing claims will likely stimulate hope and continued debate. (Aug.)

Elizabeth L. Winter - Library Journal

Pollster Zogby (CEO, Zogby Int'l.) synthesizes several years' worth of polling data across a wide variety of topics to paint a picture of today's American culture. In other words, he's not just discussing political polling here. After explaining the art and science behind polling, he goes on to argue for a new American consensus, one that he believes is emerging. He identifies and discusses four "meta-movements" that he thinks represent new definitions of the American dream, much different from the material prosperity that defined the good life for previous generations. He then details these meta-movements-living with limits, embracing diversity, looking inward, and demanding authenticity, discussing poll results on everything from how long Americans expect to live to whether or not scientists should bring back extinct dinosaurs. While Zogby's conclusions seem neither unfounded nor unreasonable, it is difficult to see how he can legitimately tease so much why out of polling numbers that simply demonstrate what. The poll data in the book will likely be of general interest, and his text boxes of summarized marketing tips following each chapter will be useful for those seeking to find new ways of reaching the kinds of American consumers Zogby has described. Recommended for business collections and corporate libraries.