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Promised land: a novel

Fletcher, Martin
"The tumultuous early years of the young Jewish state are brought to vivid life through the eyes of two German Jewish brothers. Arie survived the Holocaust in Europe. Peter, one year older, was sent to America before the war began. They find each other again in Israel, learning everyone else in their family has been murdered. Peter becomes a top Mossad agent, deeply involved in many of the key spy adventures of the era. Arie becomes a scheming businessman, among the richest men in Israel: one brother is building the state, the other protecting it. But they have fallen in love with the same woman, a Jewish refugee from Egypt. The brothers' jealousies and intrigues are mirrored by the young nation's very own struggles to survive"--
Thomas Dunne Books 2018 409 pages

Fixing global finance

Wolf, Martin
Since 2008, when Fixing Global Finance was first published, the collapse of the housing and credit bubbles of the 2000s has crippled the world’s economy. In this updated edition, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf explains how global imbalances helped cause the financial crises now ravaging the U.S. economy and outlines steps for ending this destructive cycle—of which this is the latest and biggest. An expanded conclusion recommends near- and long-term measures to stabilize and protect financial markets in the future. Reviewing global financial crises since 1980, Wolf lays bare the links between the microeconomics of finance and the macroeconomics of the balance of payments, demonstrating how the subprime lending crisis in the United States fits into a pattern that includes the economic shocks of 1997, 1998, and early 1999 in Latin America, Russia, and Asia. He explains why the United States became the “borrower and spender of last resort,” makes the case that this was an untenable arrangement, and argues that global economic security depends on radical reforms in the international monetary system and the ability of emerging economies to borrow sustainably in domestic currencies. Sharply and clearly argued, Wolf’s prescription for fixing global finance illustrates why he has been described as "the world's preeminent financial journalist."
Johns Hopkins University Press 2010-04-01 250 pages

Virtually human: the promise - and the peril - of digital immortality

Rothblatt, Martine Aliana
"Virtually Human explores what the not-too-distant future will look like when cyberconsciousness--simulation of the human brain via software and computer technology--becomes part of our daily lives. Meet Bina48, the world's most sentient robot, commissioned by Martine Rothblatt and created by Hanson Robotics. Bina48 is a nascent Mindclone of Martine's wife that can engage in conversation, answer questions, and even have spontaneous thoughts that are derived from multimedia data in a Mindfile created by the real Bina. If you're active on Twitter or Facebook, share photos through Instagram, or blogging regularly, you're already on your way to creating a Mindfile--a digital database of your thoughts, memories, feelings, and opinions that is essentially a back-up copy of your mind. Soon, this Mindfile can be made conscious with special software--Mindware--that mimics the way human brains organize information, create emotions and achieve self-awareness. This may sound like science-fiction, but the nascent technology already exists. Thousands of software engineers across the globe are working to create cyberconsciousness based on human consciousness and the Obama administration recently announced plans to invest in a decade-long Brain Activity Map project. Virtually Human is the only book to examine the ethical issues relating to cyberconsciousness and Rothblatt, with a Ph. D. in medical ethics, is uniquely qualified to lead the dialogue"--
Picador 2015-10-06 350 pages

They're playing our song

Hamlisch, Marvin
America's premier funny man and the Tony Award-winning composer of A Chorus Line; collaborated on this hit musical; a funny, romantic show about an established composer and his relationship with an aspiring young female lyricist, not unlike Carole Bayer Sager. Professionally, their relationship works beautifully, but ultimately leads to conflict on the home front. Of course, there's a happy ending.
French 1980 81 pages

Cannibals and kings: the origins of cultures

Harris, Marvin
Since time began, man has been threatened by growing populations and diminishing resources. In response, he has created idiosyncratic cultures whose forms and functions can - to the outsider - seem incomprehensible. In fascinating and at times bizarre detail a distinguished American anthropologist traces the evolution of cultures in terms not of traditionally accepted notions of the inexorable march of material progress but rather of man's supremely rational survival tactics and adaptability in a world which ever threatens him with extinction.
Fontana 1978 255 pages

The rise of anthropological theory: a history of theories of culture

Harris, Marvin
The best known, most often cited history of anthropological theory is finally available in paperback! First published in 1968, Harris's book has been cited in over 1,000 works and is one of the key documents explaining cultural materialism, the theory associated with Harris's work. This updated edition included the complete 1968 text plus a new introduction by Maxine Margolis, which discusses the impact of the book and highlights some of the major trends in anthropological theory since its original publication. RAT, as it is affectionately known to three decades of graduate students, comprehensively traces the history of anthropology and anthropological theory, culminating in a strong argument for the use of a scientific, behaviorally-based, etic approach to the understanding of human culture known as cultural materialism. Despite its popularity and influence on anthropological thinking, RAT has never been available in paperback_until now. It is an essential volume for the library of all anthropologists, their graduate students, and other theorists in the social sciences.
AltaMira Press 2001-08-14 806 pages

George Washington's expense account

Kitman, Marvin
In George Washington's Expense Account -- the best-selling expense account in history -- Kitman shows how Washington brilliantly turned his noble gesture of refusing payment for his services as commander in chief of the Continental Army into an opportunity to indulge his insatiable lust for fine food and drink, extravagant clothing, and lavish accommodations. In a close analysis of the document that financed our Revolution, Kitman uncovers more scandals than you can shake a Nixon Cabinet member at -- and serves each up with verve and wit.
Simon and Schuster 1970-07-20 285 pages

The road to war: presidential commitments honored and betrayed

Kalb, Marvin L.
Not since Pearl Harbor has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. From Korea to Vietnam, Panama to Grenada, Lebanon to Bosnia, Afghanistan to Iraq —why have presidents sidestepped declarations of war? Marvin Kalb, former chief diplomatic correspondent for CBS and NBC News, explores this key question in his thirteenth book about the presidency and U.S. foreign policy. Instead of a declaration of war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing "commitments," private and public, made by former presidents. Many of these commitments have been honored, but some betrayed. Surprisingly, given the tight U.S.-Israeli relationship, Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Is it time for a negotiated defense treaty between the United States and Israel as a way of substituting for a string of secret presidential commitments? From Israel to Vietnam, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous. For example, one president after another committed the United States to the defense of South Vietnam, often without explanation. Over the years, these commitments mushroomed into national policy, leading to a war costing 58,000 American lives. Few in Congress or the media chose to question the war's provenance or legitimacy, until it was too late. No president saw the need for a declaration of war, considering one to be old-fashioned. The word of a president can morph into a national commitment. It can become the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president "commits"the United States to a policy or course of action with, or increasingly without, congressional approval, watch out —the White House may be setting the nation on a road toward war.
Brookings Institution Press 2013 287 pages

Computation: finite and infinite machines

Minsky, Marvin
Man has within a single generation found himself sharing the world with a strange new the computers and computer-like machines. Neither history, nor philosophy, nor common sense will tell us how these machines will affect us, for they do not do "work" as did machines of the Industrial Revolution. Instead of dealing with materials or energy, we are told that they handle "control" and "information" and even "intellectual processes." There are very few individuals today who doubt that the computer and its relatives are developing rapidly in capability and complexity, and that these machines are destined to play important (though not as yet fully understood) roles in society's future. Though only some of us deal directly with computers, all of us are falling under the shadow of their ever-growing sphere of influence, and thus we all need to understand their capabilities and their limitations. It would indeed be reassuring to have a book that categorically and systematically described what all these machines can do and what they cannot do, giving sound theoretical or practical grounds for each judgment. However, although some books have purported to do this, it cannot be done for the following a) Computer-like devices are utterly unlike anything which science has ever considered---we still lack the tools necessary to fully analyze, synthesize, or even think about them; and b) The methods discovered so far are effective in certain areas, but are developing much too rapidly to allow a useful interpretation and interpolation of results. The abstract theory---as described in this book---tells us in no uncertain terms that the machines' potential range is enormous, and that its theoretical limitations are of the subtlest and most elusive sort. There is no reason to suppose machines have any limitations not shared by man.
Prentice-Hall 1972 317 pages

The Tragedy of American Compassion

Marvin Olasky
Can a man be content with a piece of bread and some change tossed his way from a passerby? Today's modern welfare state expects he can. Those who control the money in our society think that giving a dollar at the train station and then appropriating a billion dollars for federal housing can cure the ails of the homeless and the poor. But the crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. Like animals in the zoo at feeding time, the needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give. Poverty fighters 100 years ago were more compassionate--in the literal meaning of "suffering with"--than many of us are now. They opened their own homes to deserted women and children. They offered employment to nomadic men who had abandoned hope and human contact. Most significantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom, and faith as central to our being, not as life-style options. No one was allowed to eat and run. Some kind of honest labor was required of those who needed food or a place to sleep in return. Woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common in the 1890s as liquor stores are in the 1990s. When an able bodied woman sought relief, she was given a seat in the "sewing room" and asked to work on garments given to the helpless poor. To begin where poverty fighters a century ago began, Marvin Olasky emphasizes seven ideas that recent welfare practice has put aside: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and most importantly, belief in God. In the end, not much will be accomplished without a spiritual revival that transforms the everyday advice we give and receive, and the way we lead our lives. It's time we realized that there is only so much that public policy can do. That only a richness of spirit can battle a poverty of soul. The century-old question--does any given scheme of help... make great demands on men to give themselves to their brethren?--is still the right one to ask. Most of our 20th-century schemes have failed. It's time to learn from the warm hearts and hard heads of the 19th-century.
Simon and Schuster 2022-10-25 300 pages

From Plotzk to Boston

Mary Antin
Written from the authors own personal experiences of her journey from Polotsk, Russia to Boston, USA in 1894 at the age of 11. This early works, published in 1899, is a fascinating look at American history and immigration. Mary Antin's vivid description of all she and her dear ones went through, enables us to see almost with our own eyes how the invasion of America appears to the impecunious invader. It is thus "a human document" of considerable value, as well as a promissory note of future performance..... Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Read Books 2009-05 70 pages

A Billion for Boris

Mary Rodgers
Things are back to normal for Annabel Andrews since that freaky Friday when she switched bodies with her mother. She is still in love with Boris, her cute friend from upstairs, and she is still annoyed by her pesky little brother, Ape Face. But normal doesn't last long in the Andrews household! When Ape Face fixes a broken-down television set Boris sold to him, something unusual happens. Instead of regularly scheduled programs, this TV shows the future -- one day in advance! They get tomorrow's shows, tomorrow's movies, and tomorrow's news. Annabel thinks they should use their new TV with ESP to help people, but Boris has plans of his own ...
Harper Collins 2003-01-21 224 pages

Drudge manifesto

Drudge, Matt
Everyone's talking about Matt Drudge and Drudge Manifesto:"In this wave of scandal, deceit, and hypocrisy hitting Washington and the world of politics, who can help the public divide 'the truth' from 'the spin'? His name is Matt Drudge. He is feared and reviled...cheered and celebrated. He's a hero and a visionary-or enemy No. 1. Drudge Manifesto further cements his reputation on both sides." -Sunday News [Lancaster, PA] "The buzz of the media-industrial complex." -The Washington Post
New American Library 2000 247 pages

English Passengers

Matthew Kneale
Narrated by over twenty distinct voices and full of dangerous humour, English Passengers combines wit, adventure and historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of smugglers have their contraband confiscated they are forced to put their ship, Sincerity, up for charter. The only takers are two Englishmen, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania, and Dr. Thomas Potter who is developing his sinister thesis concerning the races of man. Meanwhile an aboriginal in Tasmania, Peevay, recounts his people's struggles against the invading British. As the English passengers haplessly approach his land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.
Random House of Canada, Limited 2001 464 pages

Who by Fire War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen

Matti Friedman
"An expedition into the troubled soul of one of the world's greatest songwriters."-- Haaretz "A fascinating and intense account of Leonard Cohen's time in Israel during the 19-day Yom Kippur War of 1973. A must for any Leonard Cohen completist."--Suzanne Vega A Vanity Fair Best Book of 2022 * Mosaic Magazine Best Book of 2022 The untold story of Leonard Cohen's concert tour to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War, including never-before-seen selections from an unfinished manuscript by Cohen and rare photographs In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen--thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end--traveled to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a group of local musicians, Cohen sang for hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. Those who survived never forgot the experience. And the war transformed Cohen, reigniting his creativity and inspiring him to compose some of his most memorable songs. Who by Fire provides a riveting account of those weeks in the Sinai, drawing on Cohen's previously unpublished writing and original reporting to create a kaleidoscopic depiction of a harrowing, existential moment for both a young country at war and a singer at a crossroads.
Spiegel & Grau 2024-09-03 224 pages