In recent years, a key research project at the China Institutefor Re-form and Development where I work has been thetransformation of thegovernment. The Institute has hosted severalimportant international fo-rums focusing on this topic which haveproduced research achievementsand aroused an extensive response. Asa scholar of the Institute, I havedevoted much of my time andenergy to issues related to the study ofthe transformation of thegovernment. This book presents 37 articles Iwrote or speeches Igave on this topic between May 2003 and September2005.
What were pirates really like? How much, if any, of thepiratical stereotype - of a dashingly handsome man with aneye-patch, peg-leg and a parrot on his shoulder - is based on thedocumented fact. In this revealing and highly original study DavidCordingly sets out to discover the truth behind the piracy myth,exploring its enduring and extraordinary appeal, and answering suchquestions as: why did men become pirates? Were there any womenpirates? How much money did they make from plundering and looting?And were pirates really dashing highwaymen of the Seven Seas orjust vicious cut-throats and robbers? From Long John Silver toHenry Morgan, Robert Louis Stevenson to J.M. Barrie, LIFE AMONG THEPIRATES examines all the heavyweights of history and literature andpresents the essential survey of this fascinating phenomenon.
Free cable television. Imaginary tax deductions. Do you takeyour chance to cheat? David Callahan thinks many of us would;witness corporate scandals, doping athletes, plagiarizingjournalists. Why all the cheating? Why now? Callahan blames thedog-eat-dog economic climate of the past twenty years: Anunfettered market and unprecedented economic inequality havecorroded our values and threaten to corrupt the equal opportunitywe cherish. Callahan's "Winning Class" has created a separate moralreality where it cheats without consequences-while the "AnxiousClass" believes choosing not to cheat could cancel its only shot atsuccess in a winner-take-all world. Updated with a new afterwordanalyzing the latest on cheating from the Martha Stewart trial tothe Tyco and Enron sentencings, The Cheating Culture takes us on agripping tour of cheating in America and makes a powerful case forwhy it matters.
In the first thorough account of the complex workingrelationship between Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King,Jr., Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Nick Kotz offers anengrossing investigation of a little-known element of the Johnsonpresidency. Tracing both leaders' paths, from Johnson's assumptionof the presidency in 1963 to King's assassination in 1968, Kotzdescribes how they formed a wary alliance that would becomeinstrumental in producing some of the most substantial civil rightslegislation in American history: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 andthe Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on a wealth of newlyavailable sourcesJohnson's taped telephone conversations,voluminous FBI wiretap logs, and secret communications between FBIdirector J. Edgar Hoover and the presidentKotz examines the forcesthat drew the charismatic men together and those that eventuallydrove them apart. Kotz's focused and incisive examinationsignificantly enriches our understanding of both men.
Syd, a breathtakingly beautiful supermodel on a photo shoot inHawaii, disappears. Fearing the worst, her parents travel to Hawaiito investigate for themselves, never expecting the horror thatawaits them. LA Times reporter Ben Hawkins is conducting his own researchinto the case, hoping to help the victim and get an idea for hisnext bestseller. With no leads and no closer to uncovering thekidnapper's identity than when he stepped off the plane, Ben gets ashocking visit that pushes him into an impossible-to-resist dealwith the devil. A heart-pounding story of fear and desire, SWIMSUIT transportsreaders to a chilling new territory where the collision of beautyand murder transforms paradise into a hell of unspeakablehorrors.
