Trade Books for Courses :: Trade Books For Courses: Political Science Books

Trade Paperback : $15.00 Buy	One Country A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse Ali Abunimah Holt Paperbacks "A provocative and well-written account attacking the same failure of imagination that delivered to the world the present Arab-Israeli calamity."—Clayton E. Swisher, Middle East Policy

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The Limits of Power

The End of American Exceptionalism

American Empire Project

Andrew Bacevich A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

“This compact, meaty volume ought to be on the reading list of every candidate for national office in November's elections. In an age of cant and baloney, Andrew Bacevich offers a bracing slap of reality. The Limits of Power is gracefully written and easy to read . . . chockablock with provocative ideas and stern judgments. Bacevich's brand of intellectual assuredness is rare in today's public debates. Many of our talking heads and commentators are cocksure, of course, but few combine confidence with knowledge and deep thought the way Bacevich does here. His big argument is elegant and powerful.”—The Washington Post

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A Long Way Gone

Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah Sarah Crichton Books

"What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determine—perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book. . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."—William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review

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In the Land of Magic Soldiers

A Story of White and Black in West Africa

Daniel Bergner Picador

"The journalist and novelist Daniel Bergner is right . . . to see Africa's civil wars as a horror of our time that deserves exploration . . . Bergner has a keen eye . . . What is of value in this book is less what it says about Sierra Leone than about the human condition."—Adam Hochschild, The New York Times Book Review

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Escape from Slavery

The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America

Francis Bok with Edward Tivnan St. Martin's Griffin

"Bok takes the Sudanese government and world leaders to task for their indifference to his people's suffering. Although he at first was an unwilling ambassador, he has become a leading voice for the antislavery movement in the United States."—Detroit News and Free Press

"A touching modern-day slave narrative that is more than just an account of [Bok's] journey from childhood to manhood under the worst of circumstances . . . Pages of historical details are eye-opening and provide a glimpse into what can happen when religion is the impetus in the governing of a nation . . . An informative, inspiring read."—The Boston Globe

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Trade Paperback : $16.95 Buy	The Koreans Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies Revised and Updated; Michael Breen St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books "Michael Breen gives readers an insight into the history and character of a complex people which helps us assess how they might deal with the current complex period in their development."—Catherine Lee, Seoul correspondent, The Economist

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Gerald R. Ford

The American Presidents Series: The 38th President, 1974-1977

The American Presidents

Douglas Brinkley; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., General Editor Times Books

"Although Brinkley calls the pardon and its 'healing' effect on America Ford's most enduring legacy, he deftly describes other achievements. These including ending the divisive Vietnam War while doing his best to aid South Vietnam's refugees; helping to forge the 1975 Helsinki Accords that led the Soviet Union to acknowledge basic human rights and opened the way for its collapse, and fiscal policies that cut inflation in half and, according to Brinkley, boosted the U.S. economy out of its lowest trough since the Great Depression."—Jack Nelson, Los Angeles Times

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The Stone Fields

Love and Death in the Balkans

Courtney Angela Brkic Picador

"Harrowing . . . The Stone Fields is more than a memoir of the latest Balkan bloodletting. It is also an intimate history of the Balkans since the end of World War I. In sections entitled 'Herzegovina 1918-1931,' 'Sarajevo 1933-1945,' and 'Liberation 1945-1959,' Brkic re-creates the battered lives of her father's parents and sisters under the succession of regimes and circumstances that followed the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire with an almost folkloric intensity . . . Brkic establishes character and complexity, including her own, with the authority of an experienced novelist."—Elinor Langer, The Oregonian

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Meltdown

The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Mike Chinoy St. Martin's Press

“A tour de force of reporting . . . Chinoy clearly sympathizes with administration officials who favored engagement with North Korea. But he lets officials who wanted to isolate Pyongyang make their case. More than 100 people granted him interviews, and the list is a who's who of both senior and junior U.S. players on North Korea policy.”— Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post

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Imperial Ambitions

Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

American Empire Project

Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian Metropolitan Books

"Reading Chomsky today is sobering and instructive . . . He is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet."—The New York Times Book Review

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Failed States

The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

American Empire Project

Noam Chomsky A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

"It's hard to imagine any American reading this book and not seeing his country in a new, and deeply troubling, light."—The New York Times Book Review

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What We Say Goes

Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World

American Empire Project

Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian Metropolitan Books

"Linguist, philosopher, and political activist Chomsky has long been critical of U.S. foreign policy . . . This latest book gathers 2006-07 interviews with radio journalist Barsamian . . . Presented in chronological order, these conversations cover many topics frequently in the news, including the Middle East and Iraq, Latin America, trade and globalization, and Israel. Despite the format, statements are extensively footnoted, with references to both mainstream media and the web sites of relevant organizations . . . Chomsky's points are challenging."—Library Journal

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The Last Campaign

Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America

Thurston Clarke Holt Paperbacks

"Mr. Clarke advances at a sprightly pace, has a keen eye for detail and captures not only the externals but the fascinating inner dynamics of the contest . . . Clarke captures [Kennedy's] transformation with skill, showing R.F.K. emerging, page by page, into a brilliant and utterly iconoclastic politician over those short months on the trail."—Ted Widmer, The New York Observer

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The Monster at Our Door

The Global Threat of Avian Flu

Mike Davis A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

"Engrossing . . . thoughtful and measured. The book's main strength . . . stems from the skill with which Davis has documented the many ways in which human greed, folly and political ambition threaten our ability to respond effectively to this latest emerging infectious disease."—American Scientist

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Squandered Victory

The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq

Larry Diamond Holt Paperbacks

"[A]n unsettling account of the mind-boggling challenges involved in trying to bring democracy to Iraq . . . [Squandered Victory] is a book that should be read by anyone interested in understanding why the United States' quick military victory has given way to an increasingly virulent insurgency and nearly daily reports of car bombings and suicide attacks, why even post-election hopes have been shadowed by worries about the continuing violence spiraling into a Lebanon-style civil war."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

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The Spirit of Democracy

The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World

Larry Diamond Holt Paperbacks

“Larry Diamond, one of the most preeminent students of democracy today, explains why this system of government remains an achievable goal for most countries around the world, despite recent setbacks in places like Russia and Venezuela. The Spirit of Democracy is a worthwhile corrective to America's post-Iraq pessimism about the future of democratic ideals throughout the world.”—Francis Fukuyama, author of America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy

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Take This Job and Ship It

How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America

Senator Byron L. Dorgan St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books

"A serious and important book, written by someone who knows as much about the practical workings of the international economy, and the way American legislation and politics shape that economy, as anyone alive. There is nothing slapdash or egotistical about this book . . . You cannot read the book without feeling delight in this resurgence of North Dakota's populist heritage. Even those who disagree with Dorgan's point of view should be glad we have a senator who seeks to create a national dialogue about an issue so essential to American life."—Clay Jenkinson, The Bismarck Tribune

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Devil's Game

How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

American Empire Project

Robert Dreyfuss Holt Paperbacks

"Crisp, lively . . . Provides a concise and readable account of the evolution of America's partnerships with radical Islamic groups and regimes."—The American Conservative

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Global Woman

Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

Edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

"This very interesting collection focuses on the multiple effects of globalization on women and their families. Among its subjects are the rise in female migration, the transfer of domestic services from low- to high-income countries, the care crisis left behind by transnational families, and the problems of international sex tourism. The different essays raise key questions and are important reading for our time."—Lourdes Beneria, Professor of City and Regional Planning and Women's Studies at Cornell University

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Bait and Switch

The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

Barbara Ehrenreich A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

"A worthy companion to Nickel and Dimed . . . The new book provides a victim's-eye view of the world of unemployed white-collar workers—people struggling, mostly in vain, to recoup the high wages and prestige they lost after being dismissed from the not-so-secure confines of corporate America . . . Like the now classic Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch is alternately hilarious and tragic, a searing exposé of economic cruelty where we least expect it."—The Washington Post Book World

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Awards

Quill Award - Nominee - Business

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This Land Is Their Land

Reports from a Divided Nation

Barbara Ehrenreich A Metropolitan/Holt Paperbacks Book

"Ehrenreich is at her best (and she’s very, very good) when chronicling the outrageous human downside of our economy, the costs it imposes on people who can’t afford a bacon-infused old-fashioned. There’s the hospital worker whose employer garnished her paycheck for an emergency room visit, 'a condition of debt servitude reminiscent of early-20th-century company towns.' There’s the poor man who got himself arrested in order to live more comfortably in prison, because 'we are reaching the point . . . where the largest public housing program in America will be our penitentiary system' . . . A tight and chilling companion volume to Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich’s account of her own experience working undercover in the low-wage economy."—Eve Fairbanks, The New York Times Book Review

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Democracy Reborn

The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America

Garrett Epps Holt Paperbacks

"The 14th Amendment was 'by far the most sweeping and complex change ever made in the original Constitution,' argues Garrett Epps in this valuable history of the amendment's adoption. Over time, he writes, it has 'changed almost every detail of our national life.' A University of Oregon law professor and former Washington Post reporter who has published two novels, Epps brings crisp writing to a story whose political complexities and obscure cast of characters pose tall hurdles for any popular history."—David Garrow, The Washington Post

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The Terror Dream

Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America

Susan Faludi Picador

"Throughout the book, Faludi provides stunning and depressing evidence of a concerted effort to silence women and roll back women's rights in the wake of 9/11 and to transform the attack on a U.S. financial symbol where men and women worked side by side into an assault on family and hearth. She shows over and over again how some conservatives and right-wing media and bloggers have blamed the attack on a society feminized and emasculated by the women's movement."—Amy Wilentz, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Trade Paperback : $14.00 Buy	After Jihad America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy Noah Feldman Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks "A substantial and important defense of why America should support democratic reform and not the authoritarian status quo in much of the Muslim world. In the follow-up to the conflict in Iraq, no subject could be more timely."—Emran Qureshi, The Washington Post Book World