About national and international power in the "modern" or PostRenaissance period. Explains how the various powers have risen andfallen over the 5 centuries since the formation of the "newmonarchies" in W. Europe.

Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History atHarvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College,Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution,Stanford University. The bestselling author of Paper andIron , The House of Rothschild , The Pity of War , The Cash Nexus , Empire , and Colossus , he alsowrites regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world.Since 2003 he has written and presented three highly successfultelevision documentary series for British television: Empire , American Colossus , and, most recently, TheWar of the World .

Linking Hamlet's ghost with the opening of the Communist Manifesto, the noted French philosopher (Aporias, LJ 2/15/94) meditates on the state and future of Marxism since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Developing two highly expanded lectures, Derrida notes that the current talk of the "new world order" and "the end of history" is the recurrence of a old debate, an attempt to exorcise the "spirit" represented by Marxism, just as Marx was concerned with the "ghosts" and "conjuring" of capitalism. Derrida argues that the deconstructive doctrine of "differance" and Marxism as an act posit many Marxisms. It is therefore the interpreter's duty to preserve the spirit of Marxism by pursuing the ghosts and laying bare the conjurings. This is Derrida's first major statement on Marx; an important book for academic collections. Written in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and within the context of a critique of a "new world order" that proclaims the death of Marx and Marxism, Jacques Derrida undertakes a re

A WATERSHED ACCOUNT OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POLITICAL FRIENDSHIPIN AMERICAN HISTORY In Madison and Jefferson, esteemed historians Andrew Burstein andNancy Isenberg join forces to reveal the crucial partnership of twoextraordinary founders, creating a superb dual biography that is athrilling and unprecedented account of early America. The third and fourth presidents have long been considered properand noble gentlemen, with Thomas Jefferson’s genius overshadowingJames Madison’s judgment and common sense. But in this revelatorybook, both leaders are seen as men of their times, ruthless andhardboiled operatives in a gritty world of primal politics wherethey struggled for supremacy for more than fifty years. In most histories, the elder figure, Jefferson, looms larger. YetMadison is privileged in this book’s title because, as Burstein andIsenberg reveal, he was the senior partner at key moments in theformation of the two-party system. It was Madison who did the mostto initiate George W

Party Influence in Congress challenges current arguments andevidence about the influence of political parties in the U.S.Congress. Steven S. Smith argues that theory must reflect policy,electoral, and collective party goals. These goals call forflexible party organizations and leadership strategies. They demandthat majority party leaders control the flow of legislation;package legislation and time action to build winning majorities andattract public support; work closely with a president of theirparty; and influence the vote choices for legislators. Smithobserves that the circumstantial evidence of party influence isstrong, multiple collective goals remain active ingredients afterparties are created, party size is an important factor in partystrategy, both negative and positive forms of influence areimportant to congressional parties, and the needle-in-the-haystacksearch for direct influence continues to prove frustrating.

A riveting exploration of the world's most highly trained military units, from the ancient Spartans to modern-day US Navy SEALs, this is the definitive guide to the world's special military forces. 作者简介： Hugh McManners is a former commando and the author of many books, including Scars of War, and several successful DK titles, including The Outdoor Training Manual, Backpackers Handbook, and The Complete Wilderness Training Book.

First published in 1923, The Prospects of IndustrialCivilization is considered the most ambitious of BertrandRussell's works on modern society. It offers a rare glimpse intooften-ignored subtleties of his political thought and in it heargues that industrialism is a threat to human freedom, since it isfundamentally linked with nationalism. His proposal for onegovernment for the whole world as the ultimate solution, along withhis argument that the global village and prevailing politicaldemocracy should be its eventual results, is both provocative andthoroughly engaging.

Praise for Man of the People "Among the many legends who have made America great stands John McCain. Man of the People, Revised and Updated lyrically tells his quintessentially American story: a seemingly ordinary man doing extraordinarily heroic and selfless things—out of a pure devotion to his country. This dynamic biography shows why it's easy to imagine him among the ranks of Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan, who led America with such daring and wisdom. McCain's life is so organically American, so true to the legacies of the leaders who preceded him, that the greatest chapter of his story is still to be written." —Monica Crowley, panelist, The McLaughlin Group; host, The Monica Crowley Show "John McCain is a real man. By that I mean he has faults and weaknesses like anybody else. But he has supplemented those with a ferocious courage and intensity. Paul Alexander brings McCain's life to life in a way the reader will never forget." —Bill O'Reilly, anchor, The O'Reilly Fac

From an award-winning historian, a stirring (and timely)narrative history of American labor from the dawn of the industrialage to the present day. From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first realfactories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentiethcentury and their waning influence today, the con?test betweenlabor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped ournational experience. Philip Dray’s ambition is to show us the vitalaccomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate itscentral role in our social, political, economic, and culturalevolution. There Is Power in a Union is an epic, character-drivennarrative that locates this struggle for security and dignity inall its various settings: on picket lines and in union halls,jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the hallsof Congress, and the White House. The author demonstrates,viscerally and dramatically, the urgency of the fight for fairnessand economic democracy—a strugg

Revival is the dramatic inside story of the definingperiod of the Obama White House. It is an epic tale that followsthe president and his inner circle from the crisis of defeat tohistoric success. Over the span of an extraordinary two months inthe life of a young presidency, Obama and his senior aides engagedin a desperate struggle for survival that stands as the measure ofwho they are and how they govern. Bestselling Obama biographer Richard Wolffe draws on unrivaledaccess to the West Wing to write a natural sequel to his criticallyacclaimed book about the president and his campaign. He traces anarc from near death to resurrection that is a repeated pattern forObama, first as a candidate and now as president. Starting at thefirst anniversary of the inauguration, Wolffe paints a portrait ofa White House at work under exceptional strain across a sweepingset of challenges: from health care reform to a struggling economy,from two wars to terrorism. Revival is a road map to understanding the dynamics,cha

One ofthe most critical battles of the Afghan War is now revealed asnever before. Lions of Kandahar is an inside account from theunique perspective of an active-duty U.S. Army Special Forcescommander, an unparalled warrior with multiple deployments to thetheater who has only recently returned from combatthere. Southern Afghanistan was slipping away.That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his thirdtour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies wereinfiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, theirstrategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATOcoalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in itshistory. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packedwarren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers,lush orchards, and towering marijuana stands, all laced withtreacherous irrigation ditches. A mass exodus of civilians heraldedthe carnage to come. Dispatched as a diversionary force insuppo

The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against “failed states” around the globe. In this much-anticipated follow-up to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky turns the tables, showing how the United States itself shares features with other failed states—suffering from a severe “democratic deficit,” eschewing domestic and international law, and adopting policies that increasingly endanger its own citizens and the world. Exploring the latest developments in U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Chomsky reveals Washington’s plans to further militarize the planet, greatly increasing the risks of nuclear war. He also assesses the dangerous consequences of the occupation of Iraq; documents Washington’s self-exemption from international norms, including the Geneva conventions and the Kyoto Protocol; and examines how the U.S. electoral system is designed to eliminate genuine political alternatives, impeding any meaningful democracy. Forceful

After nearly a dozen books and service as secretary of statefor presidents Nixon and Ford, Kissinger has established himself asa major thinker, writer, and actor on the world's diplomatic stage.His newest work is a remarkable survey of the craft ofinternational relations from the early 17th century to the presentera. Beginning with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, Kissingersummarizes three centuries of Western diplomacy, giving specialattenton to the influence of Wilsonian idealism on 20th-centuryAmerican foreign policy. He is not shy about describing his owncontributions to Nixon's foreign gambits, nor is he reticient aboutoffering his own advice to the current administration on how tohandle Russia, China, or the rest of the world. From Kissinger welearn that there is really little new about the New World Order.This is an important contribution to the theoretical literature onforeign affairs and will also serve quite ably as a one-volumesynthesis of modern diplomatic history. All libraries should havethi

A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, agroundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plansand the Western intelligence failures that culminated in theassault on America. Lawrence Wright’s remarkable book is based onfive years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conductedin Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England,France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy andinsight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of fourmen: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Aymanal-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; andthe former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turkial-Faisal. As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents ofmodern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . .the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into anorganization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya andTanza

More than two thousand years after his death, Julius Caesarremains one of the great figures of history. He shaped Rome forgenerations, and his name became a synonym for "emperor" -- notonly in Rome but as far away as Germany and Russia. He is bestknown as the general who defeated the Gauls and doubled the size ofRome's territories. But, as Philip Freeman describes in thisfascinating new biography, Caesar was also a brilliant orator, anaccomplished writer, a skilled politician, and much more. Julius Caesar was a complex man, both hero and villain. Hepossessed great courage, ambition, honor, and vanity. Born into anoble family that had long been in decline, he advanced his careercunningly, beginning as a priest and eventually becoming Rome'sleading general. He made alliances with his rivals and thendiscarded them when it suited him. He was a spokesman for theordinary people of Rome, who rallied around him time and again, buthe profited enormously from his conquests and lived opulently.Eventually he

The twenty-first century has brought a renewed interest indemocratic theory and practices, creating a complicatedrelationship between time-honoured democratic traditions and newforms of political participation. Reflecting on this interplaybetween tradition and innovation, Aletta J. Norval offers freshinsights into the global complexities of the formation ofdemocratic subjectivity, the difficult emergence and articulationof political claims, the constitution of democratic relationsbetween citizens and the deepening of our democratic imagination.Aversive Democracy draws inspiration from a critical engagementwith deliberative and post-structuralist models of democracy,whilst offering a distinctive reading inspired by contemporary workon the later Wittgenstein. This is a creative and insightful workwhich reorients democratic theory, elucidating the character of thecommitments we engage in when we participate in democratic lifetogether.

In this riveting collection, published for the first time,we follow Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, two giants of thepost–World War II period, as they move from an officialrelationship to one of candor, humor, and personal expression.Together they were primarily responsible for the Marshall Plan andNATO, among other world-shaping initiatives. And in these letters,spanning the years from when both were newly out of office untilAcheson’s death at the age of seventy-eight, we find them sharingthe often surprising and always illuminating opinions, ideas, andfeelings that the strictures of their offices had previously keptthem from revealing. Adapting easily to their private lives, they nonetheless felt apowerful need to keep in touch as they viewed with dismay what theyconsidered to be the Eisenhower administration’s fumbling offoreign affairs, the impact of Joseph McCarthy, John FosterDulles’s foreign policy, and the threat of massive nuclearretaliation. Adlai Stevenson’s poor campaign o

Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea longtantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But outsiders,blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn't get to it. Then theSoviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush into the regionerupted. Along with oilmen, representatives of the world's leadingnations flocked to the Caspian for a share of the thirty billionbarrels of proven oil reserves at stake, and a tense geopoliticalstruggle began. The main players were Moscow and Washington-theformer seeking to retain control of its satellite states, and thelatter intent on dislodging Russia to the benefit of theWest. The Oil and the Glory is the gripping account of this latestphase in the epochal struggle for control of the earth's "blackgold." Steve LeVine, who was based in the region for The WallStreet Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek, weaves anastonishing tale of high-stakes political gamesmanship, greed, andscandal, set in one of the most opaque corners of the world. InLeVine's tel

1 On Interpretation: Literature as a Socially Symbolic Act 2 Magical Narratives: On the Dialectical Use of'Genre Criticism 3 Realism and Desire: Balzac and the Problem of the Subject 4 Authentic Resscntiment: Generic Discontinuities and Ideologemes in the "Experimental" Novels of George Gissing 5 Romance and Reification: Plot Construction and Ideological Closure in Joseph Conrad 6 Conclusion: The Dialectic of"Utopia and Ideology INDEX

From the best-selling author of The Working Poor, animpassioned, incisive look at the violations of civil liberties inthe United States that have accelerated over the past decade—andtheir direct impact on our lives. How have our rights to privacy and justice been undermined? Whatexactly have we lost? Pulitzer Prize–winner David K. Shiplersearches for the answers to these questions by examining thehistorical expansion and contraction of our fundamental rights and,most pointedly, the real-life stories of individual men and womenwho have suffered. With keen insight and telling detail hedescribes how the Supreme Court’s constitutional rulings play onthe streets as D.C. police officers search for guns in poor AfricanAmerican neighborhoods, how a fruitless search warrant turns thehome of a Homeland Security employee upside down, and how thesecret surveillance and jailing of an innocent lawyer result froman FBI lab mistake. Each instance—shocking and compelling—is aclear illustration of the ri

In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Senator Obama called “the audacity of hope.” Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics–a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces–from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media–that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating hu

whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Drawingon historical records as well as his conversations with Chineseleaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China hasapproached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout itshistory, and reflects on the consequences for the global balance ofpower in the 21st century. Since no other country can claim a more powerful link to itsancient past and classical principles, any attempt to understandChina's future world role must begin with an appreciation of itslong history. For centuries, China rarely encountered othersocieties of comparable size and sophistication; it was the "MiddleKingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states.At the same time, Chinese statesmen-facing threats of invasion fromwithout, and the contests of competing factions within-developed acanon of strategic thought that prized the virtues of subtlety,patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess. In On China, Kissinger exa