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› Find signed collectible books: '9-11'
It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States'
The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]
More editions of The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States:
› Find signed collectible books: '9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Official edition) Including the Executive Summary'
The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]
More editions of 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Official edition) Including the Executive Summary:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States Official Government Edition'
The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]
More editions of The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States Official Government Edition:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The 9/11 Report'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States'
What constitutes the behavior that gets a nation labeled a "rogue state"? If, Noam Chomsky suggests, we consider a state to be acting in an "outlaw" fashion when it refuses to heed the articles and resolutions of the United Nations, then the United States is as much a "rogue state" as Saddam Hussein's Iraq--if not more. Chomsky presents a brief outline of America's attempts--once the cold war was over--to reconstruct Iraq as an enemy after years of turning a blind eye to Saddam's activities and even supplying him with aid. He also considers how the broader "war" on terrorism fits into this post-cold-war strategy. Noted commentator on Middle Eastern affairs Edward Said supplements Chomsky's argument with a consideration of the severity of U.S. sanctions against Iraq and what he views as a growing disregard for the interests of other Arab nations in the region. And Ramsey Clark offers a brief coda on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Chomsky himself delivers a more elaborate consideration of this theme in another book in the Open Media series, The Umbrella of U.S. Power. --Ron Hogan [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'After the Cataclysm : Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology'
More editions of After the Cataclysm : Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Against All Enemies: Inside America's War On Terror'
Few political memoirs have made such a dramatic entrance as that by Richard A. Clarke. During the week of the initial publication of Against All Enemies, Clarke was featured on 60 Minutes, testified before the 9/11 commission, and touched off a raging controversy over how the presidential administration handled the threat of terrorism and the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Clarke, a veteran Washington insider who had advised presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, dissects each man's approach to terrorism but levels the harshest criticism at the latter Bush and his advisors who, Clarke asserts, failed to take terrorism and Al-Qaeda seriously. Clarke details how, in light of mounting intelligence of the danger Al-Qaeda presented, his urgent requests to move terrorism up the list of priorities in the early days of the administration were met with apathy and procrastination and how, after the attacks took place, Bush and key figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney turned their attention almost immediately to Iraq, a nation not involved in the attacks. Against All Enemies takes the reader inside the Beltway beginning with the Reagan administration, who failed to retaliate against the 1982 Beirut bombings, fueling the perception around the world that the United States was vulnerable to such attacks. Terrorism becomes a growing but largely ignored threat under the first President Bush, whom Clarke cites for his failure to eliminate Saddam Hussein, thereby necessitating a continued American presence in Saudi Arabia that further inflamed anti-American sentiment. Clinton, according to Clarke, understood the gravity of the situation and became increasingly obsessed with stopping Al-Qaeda. He had developed workable plans but was hamstrung by political infighting and the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But Bush and his advisers, Clarke says, didn't get it before 9/11 and they didn't get it after, taking a unilateral approach that seemed destined to lead to more attacks on Americans and American interests around the world. Clarke's inside accounts of what happens in the corridors of power are fascinating and the book, written in a compelling, highly readable style, at times almost seems like a fiction thriller. But the threat of terrorism and the consequences of Bush's approach to it feel very sobering and very real. --John Moe [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Power and the New Mandarins'
Back in print, the seminal work by "arguably the most important intellectual alive" (The New York Times).
American Power and the New Mandarins is Noam Chomsky's first political book, widely considered to be among the most cogent and powerful statements against the American war in Vietnam. Long out of print, this collection of early, seminal essays helped to establish Chomsky as a leading critic of United States foreign policy. These pages mount a scathing critique of the contradictions of the war, and an indictment of the mainstream, liberal intellectualsthe "new mandarins"who furnished what Chomsky argued was the necessary ideological cover for the horrors visited on the Vietnamese people.
As America's foreign entanglements deepen by the month, Chomsky's lucid analysis is a sobering reminder of the perils of imperial diplomacy. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire'
If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson, an authority on Japan and its economy, offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments. Critics will call Johnson an isolationist, but friends (perhaps admirers of Patrick Buchanan's A Republic, Not an Empire) will say he simply speaks good sense. All will agree he is an earnest voice: "I believe our very hubris ensures our undoing." --John J. Miller [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order'
As people increasingly define themselves by ethnicity or religion, the West will find itself more and more at odds with non-western civilizations that reject its ideals of democracy, human rights, liberty, the rule of law, and the separation of the church and the state. Huntington feels that the fundamental source of conflict in the post-Cold War period will not be primarily ideological or economic, but cultural. Picturing a future of accelerated conflict and increasingly "de-westernized" international relations, he argues for greater understanding of non-western civilizations and offers strategies for maximizing western influence, by promoting co-operative relations with Russia and Japan, by exploiting differences between Confucian and Islamic states, and by maintaining military superiority in East and South-West Asia. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Clash of Civilizations?: The Debate'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War'
Robert Kaplan warns of a "bifurcated world divided between societies like ours, producing goods and services that the rest of the world wants, and those mired in various forms of chaos." This is a familiar theme for previous Kaplan readers (Balkan Ghosts, The Ends of the Earth). For those unacquainted with Kaplan, however, The Coming Anarchy is a fine introduction to one of the most important voices on the future of society and international relations. Kaplan mixes the intense reportage of a travel writer with the sharp wisdom of a foreign-policy expert to deliver what he calls "an unrelenting record of uncomfortable truths, of the kind that many of us implicitly acknowledge but will not publicly accept." The Coming Anarchy is also a disturbing book: Kaplan's vision of the future is a bleak one, full of ethnic conflict as the world falls away from a cold war that at least provided a kind of stability in even the shakiest of countries. That's gone now, of course, and Kaplan's descriptions of life and politics in Sierra Leone, Russia, India, and elsewhere are keenly troubling. Much of the book--but not all of it--has already seen print, mainly on the pages of The Atlantic Monthly and The Wall Street Journal. It is brief in length but not in importance. --John J. Miller [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man'
John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.
Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. --Alex Roslin [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Diplomacy'
In this brilliant, controversial, and monumental book, former Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger explains, based on his own experience, what diplomacy is, and why, historically, Americans, from our presidents down to the man in the street, have always distrusted the whole idea. 30 photos. 6 maps. Index. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Does America Need a Foreign Policy'
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks a question in the title of his book Does America Need a Foreign Policy?--but there's really no doubt about the answer. That's not to say it shouldn't be asked: "The last presidential election was the third in a row in which foreign policy was not seriously discussed by the candidates," writes Kissinger. "In the face of perhaps the most profound and widespread upheavals the world has ever seen, [the United States] has failed to develop concepts relevant to the emerging realities." Kissinger tours the world in this book, describing how the United States should relate to various regions and countries. This is not a gripping book, but it is sober, accessible, brief, and comprehensive--and an excellent introduction to international relations and diplomacy.
Kissinger has opinions on just about every topic he raises, from globalization (for it) to international courts (against them, for the most part). He supports a vigorous missile-defense system: "The United States cannot condemn its population to permanent vulnerability." He opines on peace in the Middle East: "Israel should abandon its opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state except as part of a final status agreement." His claims are often eye-opening: "There are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel or more compatible interests than Iran." He is especially critical of domestic politics interfering with America's international relations: "Whatever the merit of the individual legislative actions, their cumulative effect drives American foreign policy toward unilateral and seemingly bullying conduct." The media has been a special problem in this regard, as it zips around the world in search of exciting but ephemeral stories, which are "generally presented as a morality play between good and evil having a specific outcome and rarely in terms of the long-range challenges of history." Does America need a foreign policy? Of course it does, and Henry Kissinger has done readers a service by outlining what a good one might be. --John J. Miller [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century'
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks a question in the title of his book Does America Need a Foreign Policy?--but there's really no doubt about the answer. That's not to say it shouldn't be asked: "The last presidential election was the third in a row in which foreign policy was not seriously discussed by the candidates," writes Kissinger. "In the face of perhaps the most profound and widespread upheavals the world has ever seen, [the United States] has failed to develop concepts relevant to the emerging realities." Kissinger tours the world in this book, describing how the United States should relate to various regions and countries. This is not a gripping book, but it is sober, accessible, brief, and comprehensive--and an excellent introduction to international relations and diplomacy.
Kissinger has opinions on just about every topic he raises, from globalization (for it) to international courts (against them, for the most part). He supports a vigorous missile-defense system: "The United States cannot condemn its population to permanent vulnerability." He opines on peace in the Middle East: "Israel should abandon its opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state except as part of a final status agreement." His claims are often eye-opening: "There are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel or more compatible interests than Iran." He is especially critical of domestic politics interfering with America's international relations: "Whatever the merit of the individual legislative actions, their cumulative effect drives American foreign policy toward unilateral and seemingly bullying conduct." The media has been a special problem in this regard, as it zips around the world in search of exciting but ephemeral stories, which are "generally presented as a morality play between good and evil having a specific outcome and rarely in terms of the long-range challenges of history." Does America need a foreign policy? Of course it does, and Henry Kissinger has done readers a service by outlining what a good one might be. --John J. Miller [via]
More editions of Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century:
› Find signed collectible books: 'For Reasons of State'
Chomsky's major works now reissued by The New Press.
An essential record of Chomsky's political and social thought as it was sharpened during the upheavals in domestic and international affairs of the early 1970s, For Reasons of State includes articles on the war in Vietnam and the "wider war" in Laos and Cambodia, an extensive dissection of the Pentagon Papers, reflections on the role of force in international affairs, essays on civil disobedience and the use of the university, and a now-classic introduction to anarchism. These essays reveal very different facets of Chomsky's power as a thinker, from his uncanny ability to join abstract philosophical considerations with the concrete political realities of his time, to his singular capacity to mount withering, fact-based critiques of American foreign policy. Following the recent release of American Power and the New Mandarins, For Reasons of State is a major addition to the intellectual history of the Vietnam era. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Future of Freedom'
A work of tremendous originality and insight. ... Makes you see the world differently.Washington Post
A modern classic that uses historical analysis to shed light on the present, The Future of Freedom is, as the Chicago Tribune put it, "essential reading for anyone worried about the promotion and preservation of liberty." Hailed by the New York Times as "brave and ambitious...updated Tocqueville," it enjoyed extended stays on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller lists and has been translated into eighteen languages. Prescient in laying out the distinction between democracy and liberty, the book now contains a new afterword on the United States's occupation of Iraq.
"Intensely provocative and valuable," according to BusinessWeek, with an easy command of history, philosophy, and current affairs, The Future of Freedom calls for a restoration of the balance between liberty and democracy and shows how politics and government can be made effective and relevant for our time.
[via]› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East'
During the thirty years that award-winning journalist Robert Fisk has been reporting on the Middle East, he has covered every major event in the region, from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution, from the American hostage crisis in Beirut (as one of only two Western journalists in the city at the time) to the Iran-Iraq War, from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan to Israels invasions of Lebanon, from the Gulf War to the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq. Now he brings his knowledge, his firsthand experience and his intimate understanding of the Middle East to a book that addresses the full complexity of its political history and its current state of affairs.
Passionate in his concerns about the region and relentless in his pursuit of the truth, Fisk has been able to enter the world of the Middle East and the lives of its people as few other journalists have. The result is a work of stunning reportage. His unblinking eyewitness testimony to the horrors of war places him squarely in the tradition of the great frontline reporters of the Second World War. His searing descriptions of lives mangled in the chaos of battle and of the battles themselves are at once dreadful and heartrending.
This is also a book of lucid, incisive analysis. Reaching back into the long history of invasion, occupation and colonization in the region, Fisk sets forth this information in a way that makes clear how a history of injustice has condemned the Middle East to war. He lays open the role of the West in the seemingly endless strife and warfare in the region, traces the growth of the Wests involvement and influence there over the past one hundred years, and outlines the Wests record of support for some of the most ruthless leaders in the Middle East. He chronicles the ever-more-powerful military presence of the United States and tracks the consequent, increasingly virulent anti-Westernand particularly anti-Americansentiment among the regions Muslim populations.
Fisk interweaves this history with his own vividly rendered experiences in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Israel, Palestine and Lebanonon the front lines; behind the scenes; in the streets of cities and villages; and inside military headquarters, the hideouts of guerrillas, the homes of ordinary citizens. Here, too, are indelible portraits of Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and Yassir Arafat, among othersall of whom he has met face-to-facerevelatory in their apprehension of the individuals and the ideologies they represent.
Finally, The Great War for Civilisation is the story of journalists in war: of their attempts to report the first, impartial drafts of history, to monitor the centers of power, to challenge authority (especially . . . when governments and politicians take us to war) and to battle an increasingly partisan worldwide media in their determination to report the truth.
Unflinching, provocative, brilliantly writtena work of major importance for todays world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance'
Noam Chomsky is considered the father of modern linguistics. In this richly detailed criticism of American foreign policy, he seeks to redefine many of the terms commonly used in the ongoing American war on terrorism. Surveying U.S. actions in Cuba, Nicaragua, Turkey, the Far East and elsewhere over the past half a century along with the modern American war in Iraq, Chomsky indicates that America is just as much a terrorist state as any other government or rogue organization. George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq drew worldwide criticism, in part because it seemed to present a new philosophy of pre-emptive war and an appearance of global empire building. But according to Chomsky, such has been the operating philosophy of American foreign policy for decades. Opponents of the Bush administration's tactics consistently point out how the American government supported Saddam Hussein for many years prior to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait (pictures of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand are easy to come by) as a means of pointing out how the United States is happy to fund despots when it's in American interests. But Chomsky, armed with extensive historical notation, takes this notion further, arguing how the repression of other nations' citizenry is, in fact, the very reason Americans support certain foreign leaders. The charges made throughout the book are severe, as are the dire consequences he posits if current trends are not reversed, and Chomsky is no more likely to make friends or gain supporters from the mainstream now than he's ever been. But Hegemony or Survival is relatively dispassionate. Instead of relying on camp or shock value or personal attacks as some of his contemporaries have done, Chomsky drives his well-supported points steadily forward in an earnest and highly readable style. --John Moe [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Imperial Hubris: Why The West Is Losing The War On Terror'
Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one anonymous member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger.
According to the author, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believeat the urging of U.S. leadersthat Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetoric informs the public that the Islamists are offended by the Western worlds democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy participatory democracy, for example, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities.
Instead, a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications. Capitalizing on growing anti-U.S. animosity, Osama bin Ladens genius lies not simply in calling for jihad, but in articulating a consistent and convincing case that Islam is under attack by America. Al Qaedas public statements condemn Americas protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Ladens supporters thus identify their problem and believe their solution lies in war. Anonymous contends they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Unless U.S. leaders recognize this fact and adjust their policies abroad accordingly, even moderate Muslims will join the bin Laden camp.
Download the Complete Bibliography for this book.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iraq Study Group Report, the Way Forward: A New Approach'
More editions of The Iraq Study Group Report, the Way Forward: A New Approach:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II'
Is the United States a Force for Democracy? From China in the 1940s to Guatemala today, William Blum provides the most comprehensive study of the ongoing American holocaust. Covering U.S. intervention in more than 50 countries, KILLING HOPE describes the grim role played by the U.S. in overthrowing governments, perverting elections, assassinating leaders, suppressing revolutions, manipulating trade unions and manufacturing "news." [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middle East Illusions'
Middle East Illusions offers chapters written by Chomsky just before the 2000 Palestinian Intifada and up through October 2002, when 9-11 and a prospective U.S. military campaign against Iraq add new pressures to age-old conflicts. The book also includes the full text of Chomsky's earlier book, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood, written during the crucial period spanning the Six-Day and 1973 wars, which continue to define and deeply influence events in the Middle East today. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middle East Illusions: Including Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood'
What are the roots of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and how has it been influenced by the United States? Why has the U.S.-brokered "peace process" repeatedly failed to deliver peace? What are the prospects for a just resolution? What interests underlie current U.S. strategic doctrines in the Middle East, especially in its redeclared "war on terrorism" after 9-11, and how do we look beyond them to find more peaceful and viable alternatives?
These are among the current and long-standing questions Noam Chomsky takes up in his newest book. Middle East Illusions presents recent chapters written by the author about the myths behind the peace process, the second Palestinian Intifada (which began in September 2000 and continues today in defiance of Israeli repression), and the Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, including its drive toward another war with Iraq.
Middle East Illusions also includes the full text of Chomsky's earlier book, Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on Justice and Nationhood, written during the crucial period spanning the Six-Day and 1973 wars, events that continue to define and deeply influence the world today. It therefore presents in-depth analysis covering several decades, making it one of the richest of any analysis published about the region's geopolitics.
Noam Chomsky is recognized internationally for his critical analysis of the Middle East. His thoroughly documented research draws on an immense range of sources, including Hebrew texts rarely discussed in the United States, declassified government planning documents, and other sources all too often overlooked in discussions of the U.S. role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order'
From its opening-line salvo"It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world"Of Paradise and Power announces a new phase in the relationship between the United States and Europe. Robert Kagan begins this illuminating essay by laying out the general differences as he sees them: the U.S. is quicker to use military force, less patient with diplomacy, and more willing to coerce (or bribe) other nations in order to get a desired result. Europe, on the other hand, places greater emphasis on diplomacy, takes a much longer view of history and problem solving, and has greater faith in international law and cooperation. Kagan does not view these differences as the result of innate national character, but as a time-honored historical reality--the U.S. is merely behaving like the powerful nation it is, just as the great European nations once did when they ruled the world. Now, Europe must act multilaterally because it has no choice. The "UN Security Council is a substitute for the power they lack," he writes.
Kagan also emphasizes the inherent ironies present in the relationship. European nations have enjoyed an "American security guarantee" for nearly 60 years, allowing them to cut back on defense spending while criticizing the U.S. for not doing the same. Yet Europe relies upon the U.S. for protection. This has led America and Europe to view the same threats much differently, as evidenced by the split over how to deal with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Kagan points out that some European leaders are more afraid of how the U.S. will wield its power in the Middle East than they are of the thought of Hussein or other "rogue state" leaders acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Kagans brevity is as impressive as it is appreciated; most writers would have required thrice as many pages to get to their point. At any length, the book is nothing short of brilliant. This is essential reading for those seeking to understand the post-Cold War world. --Shawn Carkonen [via]More editions of Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order:
› Find signed collectible books: 'On Power & Ideology'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century'
This bold and important book strives to be a practical "strategy for a Second American Century." In this brilliantly argued work, Thomas Barnett calls globalization "this countrys gift to history" and explains why its wide dissemination is critical to the security of not only America but the entire world. As a senior military analyst for the U.S. Naval War College, Barnett is intimately familiar with the culture of the Pentagon and the State Department (both of which he believes are due for significant overhauls). He explains how the Pentagon, still in shock at the rapid dissolution of the once evil empire, spent the 1990s grasping for a long-term strategy to replace containment. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Barnett argues, revealed the gap between an outdated Cold War-era military and a radically different one needed to deal with emerging threats. He believes that America is the prime mover in developing a "future worth creating" not because of its unrivaled capacity to wage war, but due to its ability to ensure security around the world. Further, he believes that the U.S. has a moral responsibility to create a better world and the way he proposes to do that is by bringing all nations into the fold of globalization, or what he calls connectedness. Eradicating disconnectedness, therefore, is "the defining security task of our age." His stunning predictions of a U.S. annexation of much of Latin America and Canada within 50 years as well as an end to war in the foreseeable future guarantee that the book will be controversial. And that's good. The Pentagon's New Map deserves to be widely discussed. Ultimately, however, the most impressive aspects of the book is not its revolutionary ideas but its overwhelming optimism. Barnett wants the U.S. to pursue the dream of global peace with the same zeal that was applied to preventing global nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. High-level civilian policy makers and top military leaders are already familiar with his vision of the futurethis book is a briefing for the rest of us and it cannot be ignored. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Political Economy of Human Rights 2: After the Cataclysm Postwar'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Political Economy of Human Rights: The Washington Connection and the Third World'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Power and Terror: Post 9-11 Talks and Interviews'
Power and Terror, Noam Chomsky's highly anticipated follow-up to 9-11, is drawn from a series of public talks that Chomsky gave during the spring of 2002, as well as a lengthy unpublished interview. It presents Chomsky's latest thinking on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, and alternatives to militarism and violence as solutions to the world's problems. Chomsky challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others, and arrives at a surprisingly optimistic conclusion rooted in his faith in the power of an informed public. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Power, Terror, Peace, And War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide'
During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World'
"God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America."--Otto von Bismarck
America's response to the September 11 attacks spotlighted many of the country's longstanding goals on the world stage: to protect liberty at home, to secure America's economic interests, to spread democracy in totalitarian regimes and to vanquish the enemy utterly.
One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U.S.'s success in the world. In a sweeping new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each exemplified by a towering figure from our past.
Wilsonians are moral missionaries, making the world safe for democracy by creating international watchdogs like the U.N. Hamiltonians likewise support international engagement, but their goal is to open foreign markets and expand the economy. Populist Jacksonians support a strong military, one that should be used rarely, but then with overwhelming force to bring the enemy to its knees. Jeffersonians, concerned primarily with liberty at home, are suspicious of both big military and large-scale international projects.
A striking new vision of America's place in the world, Special Providence transcends stale debates about realists vs. idealists and hawks vs. doves to provide a revolutionary, nuanced, historically-grounded view of American foreign policy. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Trial of Henry Kissinger'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky'
Understanding Power is a wide-ranging collection of transcribed and previously unpublished discussions and seminars (from 1989 to 1999) with sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky.
The chapters, each covering discrete sessions with Chomsky, arrive in a question-and-answer format that at times becomes delightfully contentious. Chomsky holds forth on such disparate topics as American third-party politics, the stifling of true dissent, the illusion of a muscular media, heavy-handed American imperialism (from Southeast Asia to Mexico), a dysfunctional and self-destructing United States political left, the gilding of the Kennedy and Carter administrations, and the impotent state of labor unions.
The relatively accessibility of Understanding Power is a welcome balance to Chomsky's often formidable scholarly writings. This is a book best taken in doses: a sort of bedside reader. --H. O'Billovitch [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What Uncle Sam Really Wants'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The White House Years'
Memoir, Political Studies [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'
The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century [Paperback] [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A World Transformed'
Former U.S. president George Bush sounds relaxed and reinvigorated as he recounts the major events of the first two years of his presidency, 1989-1991. Those were remarkable times, encompassing the end of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and the Gulf War, and his voice captures his own wonder that they happened on his watch and that he successfully dealt with them. Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security advisor, also narrates parts of the tape, explaining his big-picture take on events that Bush relates on a more personal level. Other parts of A World Transformed, those involving neither author's point of view, are read by Condoleeza Rice, former special assistant to the president for the Soviet Union. (Running time: three hours, two cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A World Transformed'
George Bush's term as President occurred during a watershed era for international politics. In fact, so many major events took place on his watch that he limits A World Transformed to the years 1989 to 1991, in which the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the Persian Gulf War held center stage. Though some will claim that this narrow focus only confirms Bush's disproportionate interest in foreign rather than domestic affairs, the events in question certainly warrant a book of their own. Perhaps anticipating such a response, Bush hints in the introduction that further memoirs are in the works.
A World Transformed is divided into three voices: Bush, his coauthor and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and the collective "we" of the National Security Council (supplying vital background information and a wider view of the events discussed). Overall, this formula works--Bush's tone is particularly warm and chatty, his narrative peppered with telling anecdotes that reveal the personalities and emotions behind the bold-faced headlines. His remarks are mostly to the point, gratifyingly lucid, and often compelling. Diary excerpts supply many memorable insights, if few truly shocking revelations. For instance, at the end of the Persian Gulf War, he wrote: "Isn't it a marvelous thing that this little country will be liberated.... The big news, of course, is this high performance of our troops--the wonderful job they've done; the conviction that we're right and the others are wrong. We're doing something decent, and we're doing something good; and Vietnam will soon be behind us.... It's surprising how much I dwell on the end of the Vietnam syndrome."
In describing his interaction with other world leaders, Bush emerges as a skillful negotiator and statesman, fostering a personal, first-name-basis style of diplomacy that proved especially effective with Mikhail Gorbachev and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Scowcroft, the consummate support man and workaholic, focuses more on the nuts and bolts, balancing out their presentation of how crises are dealt with at the highest level. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Year 501'
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› Find signed collectible books: '11 De Septiembre'
It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El choque de civilizaciones: Y la reconfiguracion del orden mundial'
El presente libro, basado en un influyente artículo que "ha configurado la totalidad de los debates políticos de estos últimos años" (Foreign Policy), es un informe incisivo y profético, en la línea del Francis Fukuyama de El fin de la historia, sobre las distintas formas adoptadas por la política mundial tras la caída del comunismo. La fuente fundamental de conflictos en el universo posterior a la guerra fría, según Huntington, no tiene raíces ideológicas o económicas, sino más bien culturales: "El choque de civilizaciones dominará la política a escala mundial; las líneas divisorias entre las civilizaciones serán los frentes de batalla del futuro". Y, a medida que la gente se vaya definiendo por su etnia o su religión, Occidente se encontrará más y más enfrentado con civilizaciones no occidentales que rechazarán frontalmente sus más típicos ideales: la democracia, los derechos humanos, la libertad, la soberanía de la ley y la separación entre la Iglesia y el Estado. Así, Huntington --al tiempo que presenta un futuro lleno de conflictos, gobernado por unas relaciones internacionales abiertamente "desoccidentalizadas"-- acaba recomendando un más sólido conocimiento de las civilizaciones no occidentales, con el fin, paradójicamente, de potenciar al máximo la influencia occidental, ya sea a través del fortalecimiento de las relaciones entre Rusia y Japón, del aprovechamiento de las diferencias existentes entre los estados islámicos o del mantenimiento de la superioridad militar en el este y el sudeste asiáticos. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El choque de Civilizaciones y la Reconfiguracion del Orden Mundial / The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Estados Canallas/ Rogue States: El Imperio De La Fuerza En Los Asuntos Mundiales / the Rule of Force in World Affairs'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'La Gran Guerra Por La Civilizacion/the Great War of Civilization'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'La Tierra Es Plana / The World Is Flat: Breve Historia del Mundo Globalizado del Siglo XXI / A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century'
Edicion en español [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ein Imperium Verfallt'
If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson, an authority on Japan and its economy, offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments.
Unter den Ursachen für den Zusammenbruch der UdSSR war nach Meinung des Autors die politische Instinktlosigkeit der sowjetischen Machthaber in hohem Maße ausschlaggebend. Und da die USA sich ähnlich brutal und egoistisch in die Politik ihrer Satellitenstaaten einmische, wird die einzig verbliebene Supermacht dasselbe Schicksal erleiden und untergehen. Der renommierte Professor für politische Wissenschaften geht mit seinem Land hart ins Gericht: Amerikanische Politiker haben in den Zeiten des Kalten Krieges durch stümperhaftes, herrisches und inhumanes Verhalten in Südostasien, den arabischen und mittelamerikanischen Staaten, in Chile wie in afrikanischen Ländern so viel Vertrauen verspielt, dass der globale Einfluss der Vereinigten Staaten stetig abnimmt [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Attack/Hintergrunde Und Folgen'
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