An analysis of American politics from Lyndon Johnson's administration to the present is arranged by such themes as campaigns, the media, and wars, in a volume that illuminates particular events in modern history.

A real-life thriller about a CIA contractor who vanished in Iran and the international manhunt to find him In late 2013, Americans were shocked to learn that a former FBI agent turned private investigator who disappeared in Iran in 2007 was there on a mission for the CIA. The missing man, Robert Levinson, appeared in pictures dressed like a Guantánamo prisoner and pleaded in a video for help from the United States. Barry Meier, an award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times , draws on years of interviews and never-before-disclosed CIA files to weave together a riveting narrative of the ex-agent’s journey to Iran and the hunt to rescue him. The result is an extraordinary tale about the shadowlands between crime, business, espionage, and the law, where secrets are currency and betrayal is commonplace. Its colorful cast includes CIA operatives, Russian oligarchs, arms dealers, White House officials, gangsters, private eyes, FBI agents, journalists, and a fugitive American terrorist and assassin. Missing Man is a fast-paced story that moves through exotic locales and is set against the backdrop of the twilight war between the United States and Iran, one in which hostages are used as political pawns. Filled with stunning revelations, it chronicles a family’s ongoing search for answers and one man’s desperate struggle to keep his hand in the game.

"Diplomacy is essential to the conduct of foreign policy and international business in the twenty-first century. Yet, few international actors are trained to understand or practice effective diplomacy. Poor diplomacy has contributed to repeated setbacks for the United States and other major powers in the last decade. Drawing on deep historical research, this book aims to 'reinvent' diplomacy for our current era. The original and comparative research provides a foundation for thinking about what successful outreach, negotiation, and relationship-building with foreign actors should look like. Instead of focusing only on failures, as most studies do, this one interrogates success. The book provides a framework for defining successful diplomacy and implementing it in diverse contexts. Chapters analyze the activities of diverse diplomats (including state and non-state actors) in enduring cases, including: post-WWII relief, the rise of the non-aligned movement, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. opening to China, the Camp David Accords, the reunification of Germany, the creation of the European Union, the completion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and relief aid to pre-2001 Afghanistan. The cases are diverse and historical, but they are written with an eye toward contemporary challenges and opportunities. The book closes with systematic reflections on how current diplomats can improve their activities abroad. Foreign Policy Breakthroughs offers rigorous historical insights for present policy"--

The 2000 presidential left the world standing still, but it was no fluke. America is divided right down the middle - the product of a half-century, unique in our country's history, of inconclusive, increasingly heated partisan battle. Tantalizingly close to victory, each party inflames and mobilizes its most loyal supporters and battles to gain even a small edge with some contested groups. Politics has become culture war - a fight about values, faith, the family, how people should live their lives. The result: partisans are more partisan, politics more polarized, America more divided. The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It tells the history of each party's failed efforts to dominate the era's politics and ideas, radically changing the political landscape. The book provides an in-depth guide to the new groups at the center of our politics. Internationally renowned political strategist and pollster Stanley Greenberg puts the reader in the room with the strategists and politicians and shows how each party can win, even shatter the impasse. The Two Americas is a political primer and strategic playbook for this unique era - essential reading for any armchair political strategist or engaged citizen eager to understand our future politics.

"The 2000 presidential left the world standing still, but it was no fluke. America is divided right down the middle - the product of a half-century, unique in our country's history, of inconclusive, increasingly heated partisan battle. Tantalizingly close to victory, each party inflames and mobilizes its most loyal supporters and battles to gain even a small edge with some contested groups. Politics has become culture war - a fight about values, faith, the family, how people should live their lives. The result: partisans are more partisan, politics more polarized, America more divided. This book tells the history of each party's failed efforts to dominate the era's politics and ideas, radically changing the political landscape and provides an in-depth guide to the new groups at the center of our politics"--

Children have been recruited for fighting throughout history - as soldiers in regular and guerilla armies, in armed revolts, and for political terrorism. However, these children cannot always be viewed as victims of remorseless and criminal leaders. In some situations, joining the fighting is the best or the only alternative for the young. Ch. 2 (pp. 19-56), "Fighting for Their Lives: Jewish Child Soldiers of World War II", discusses children's participation in the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Using mainly material from resistance and partisan groups in Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus, shows that joining the fighters was sometimes the Jewish children's only hope for survival. The children were motivated by necessity and a sense of honor and duty. Zionist and leftist movements, in particular Hashomer Hatzair, which headed the resistance in many ghettos, cultivated independence and militancy of the young and were especially inclined to draw children into their ranks.

"Visitors tells the story of feminist activist Ann Snitow's work as an organizer in East Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Over a period of 20 years, Snitow captures the changes and struggles in the new political landscape of post-communism as they unfold, and presents insight into the origins and development of the multi-faceted internationalist feminism that is evolving today"--

In addition to producing much other literature, Marxist economist Perlo (1912-99) wrote more than 3,000 People vs. Profits columns over 39 years for the Communist Party paper People's Weekly World . Survivors and colleagues reprint a selection based on their portrayal of conditions at the time. Presumably a second volume will consider foreign matters. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Book by Kolko, Gabriel

In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik—one of Europe’s leading dissidents—traces the post-cold-war transformation of Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of history, memoir, and political critique, In Search of Lost Meaning shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland’s past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past, and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland’s enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland’s Jewish history and residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their most important protagonists.

"The collection of well-researched essays assesses the uses and misuses of history 25 years after the collapse of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. As opposed to the revival of national histories that seemed to be the prevailing historiographical approach of the 1990s, the last decade has seen a particular set of narratives equating Nazism and Communism. This provides opportunities to exonerate wartime collaboration, casting the nation as victim even when its government was allied with Germany. While the Jewish Holocaust is acknowledged, its meaning and significance are obfuscated. In their comparative analysis the authors are also interested in new practices of 'Europeanness'. Therefore their presentations of Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian and Slovenian post-communist memory politics move beyond the common national myths in order to provide a new insight into transnational interactions and exchanges in Europe in general. The juxtaposition of these politics, the processes in other parts of Europe, the modes of remembering shaped by displacement and the transnational enable a close encounter with the divergences and assess the potential of the formation of common, European memory practices" -- From the publisher