Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analyzing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics

"Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson's revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In his masterly saga, Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that cr eated our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page. This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It's also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative. For an era that seeks to foster innovation, creativity, and teamwork, The Innovators shows how they happen"--

"Palo Alto's weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system. In Palo Alto, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory. The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. Palo Alto is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course"--Provided by publisher.

In 1983, Michael S. Dell, then an incoming freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, drove away from his parents' Houston home in a white BMW he'd bought selling subscriptions to his hometown newspaper. In the backseat were three personal computers. Today, he is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dell Computer Corporation, an $18 billion company, the second-largest manufacturer and marketer of computers in the world. Founded on a deceptively simple premise--to deliver high-performance computer systems directly to the end user--Dell Computer is the envy of its competition, constantly growing at five times the industry rate, and a perennial darling of Wall Street: its stock is up more than 36,000 percent this decade, and more than 200 percent in the last year. In Direct From Dell, Michael Dell himself tells the incredible story of Dell Computer's successful rise, beginning in his college dorm room with $1,000 in capital. In these pages, you'll see the formation of a great visionary--and a great company. You'll meet the young Dell who, at the tender age of eight, had already begun looking "to eliminate unnecessary steps" and who, as a numbers-loving adolescent, was inspired by a newfound fascination with computers to save his money to buy a coveted Apple II--only to promptly take it apart. You'll encounter a young visionary who, upon witnessing the inefficiencies of an exploding industry, challenged conventional wisdom and set out to do nothing less than beat IBM at its own game. In so doing, Dell forever changed the way things "had always been done" in the computer industry. You'll also see the birth of a Dell hallmark--the direct model--which, in its ability to reach the customer directly, eliminated not only a substantial middleman markup but also the possibility of costly excess inventory, setting the stage for other extraordinary achievements. In an industry notorious for its unreliable service, Dell utilized its direct customer relationships to pioneer the concept of customer "support"--and didn't rest until the caliber of its service was rivaled only by the quality of its products and its speed of delivery. But the story of Dell Computer is no fairy tale. Marked by uncharacteristically rapid growth, the company was faced with challenges that could have threatened its very existence. From forays into retail to under- (and over-) developed product lines, Dell learned some hard lessons along the way--and emerged stronger as a result. The strategies born of those times--unrivaled speed to market; superior customer service; a fierce commitment to producing constantly high-quality custom-made systems--heralded what has perhaps been the company's crowning achievement: an early exploitation of the Internet. One of the first companies to actually make money online, Dell is now selling more than $12 million worth of systems per day over www.dell.com. Not just for CEOs or those in high tech, the strategies revealed in Direct From Dell are invaluable to managers in a broad cross section of industries. From starting a successful business to pioneering computer sales and service over the Internet, Dell shares his perspectives on: Why it's infinitely better for any business starting out to have too little capital, rather than too much How studying your customers--not your competition--will give you a greater competitive edge Why it can be life-threatening to your company to pursue too many good ideas--or to grow too fast Why it's essential to run a P&L on every area of your business Why your people prose a greater threat to the health of your business than your competition does How you can exploit your competition's weakness by exposing its greatest strength How integrating your business virtually can make the difference between being quick--and being dead Revealing nothing less than a new model for doing business in the information age, Direct From Dell is both an extraordinary business success story and a manifesto for revolutionizing any industry.

American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In this book the author tells the story of the United States over the past three decades. The book journeys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet's significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. The author interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics that capture the flow of events and their undercurrents. Through an examination of the lives of these Americans and leading public figures over the past three decades, the book portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.

Since its publication in 1976, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America hasbeen recognized as a classic study of the career of the foremost politicalpamphleteer of the Age of Revolution, and a model of how to integrate thepolitical, intellectual, and social history of the struggle for Americanindependence.Foner skillfully brings together an account of Paine's remarkable career witha careful examination of the social worlds within which he operated, in GreatBritain, France, and especially the United States. He explores Paine's politicaland social ideas and the way he popularized them by pioneering a new form ofpolitical writing, using simple, direct language and addressing himself to areading public far broader than previous writers had commanded. He shows whichof Paine's views remained essentially fixed throughout his career, whiledirecting attention to the ways his stance on social questions evolved under thepressure of events. This enduring work makes clear the tremendous impact Paine'swriting exerted on the American Revolution, and suggests why he failed to have asimilar impact during his career in revolutionary France. And it offers newinsights into the nature and internal tensions of the republican outlook thathelped to shape the Revolution.In a new preface, Foner discusses the origins of this book and the influencesof the 1960s and 1970s on its writing. He also looks at how Paine has beenadopted by scholars and politicians of many stripes, and has even been calledthe patron saint of the Internet.

Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperilled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialise on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection - a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being co-opted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science - from the Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stuart Brand and the hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley - Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They're monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.

"According to the media, Donald Trump could never become president. Now many are on a mission to prove he shouldn't be president. The Trump administration and the press are at war -- and as in any war, the first casualty has been truth. Bestselling author Howard Kurtz, host of Fox News's Media Buzz and former Washington Post columnist, offers a stunning exposé of how supposedly objective journalists, alarmed by Trump's success, have moved into the opposing camp. Kurtz's exclusive, in-depth, behind-the-scenes interviews with reporters, anchors, and insiders within the Trump White House reveal the unprecedented hostility between the media and the president they cover."--Jacket.

Responding to what is perceived as the reemergence of worldwide antisemitism from 1998-99, and especially from 2000, surveys the new outbreak of this spiritual and psychological illness now thriving globally. After discussing the history of Christian antisemitism and modern racism, proceeds to illuminate aspects of antisemitism in America (on the political and religious Right, among Blacks, and in popular culture), as well as Islamic fundamentalism and antisemitism in the Arab press. Clarifies how racists, including antisemites, exploit the Internet. Foxman also relates his experiences as a hidden child during the Holocaust, and his activities as head of the Anti-Defamation League.

"Mute is one of the most revered and influential indie labels of all time. Through the music of its tight-knit community of artists--ranging from Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and Moby to Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Goldfrapp--it has had an incalculable impact on popular music for forty years. Daniel Miller created Mute to release his debut single (Warm Leatherette / T.V.O.D.), a pioneering electronic sound with a defiantly DIY punk attitude. Mute quickly established a reputation for cultivating the experimental, releasing cutting-edge industrial sounds, and chart-topping electronic music by the likes of Depeche Mode and Yazoo. The label was equally at home with the savage punk of Nick Cave's The Birthday Party and--to critical acclaim--his next outfit, The Bad Seeds. It also proved to be an Internet pioneer, launching the online site Mute Liberation Technologies in 1994. Mute features stunning artwork and photography--much of it previously unseen--and revelatory behind-the-scenes insights from the vibrant cast who have worked with the label"--

While the special relationship of all ethnic and religious minorities in the USA with their old countries and the existence of their pressure groups is regarded as normal, the support given by U.S. Jews to Israel and the pro-Israeli lobby causes some Americans to view the Jews as disloyal to the USA. Examines the "paper" by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (first published in 2006 on the Internet and then in the "London Review of Books"; an expanded book appeared later, in 2007). The authors contend that U.S. support of Israel is harmful to American interests, and is due to pressure exerted by a mighty Israel Lobby which acts to the detriment of the state. They argue that the Israel Lobby had a crucial part in the decision to attack Iraq in 2003. Notes that despite the academic style of their paper, Mearsheimer and Walt have revived the myths of a Jewish conspiracy, of Jewish control of the mass media, and of a Jewish secret power. Dwells, also, on the Tony Judt affair. In 2006 Judt, who supported Mearsheimer and Walt, was to deliver a lecture on a binational alternative for Israel. His lecture was cancelled, which he ascribed to pressure by the Anti-Defamation League. Supporters of Mearsheimer and Walt used it as a demonstration of the Israel Lobby's intervention. Criticizes Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (2006) for its clear anti-Israel bias.

An inside look at America’s largest newspaper— The Wall Street Journal ”Phillips offers fascinating insights about American business, politics, and journalism. He traveled in the circles of CEOs, U.S. presidents, prime ministers, and royalty; always at his core he was a reporter. That is the beauty of Newspaperman .” —Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights leader; senior managing director, Lazard Freres & Company; adviser to President Bill Clinton “[Phillips] captures the fabulous stories of a scrawny, precocious boy from reporter to publisher and then CEO, participating in and then presiding over the Journal ’s years of greatest growth.” —Joan Konner, Dean Emerita, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism “Phillips fell in love with newspapers when he was a boy. He’s still infatuated but he doesn’t skip over his tough times or mistakes. That’s what makes Newspaperman such a telling guide to the newsroom and to the top office in the executive suite.” —Lou Boccardi, former president and chief executive, Associated Press; former chairman, Pulitzer Prize Board “This lovely book recounts the life of a wise, thoughtful, and admired newspaper editor and publisher. The tiny Wall Street Journal Warren Phillips joined grew up to be a giant. Newspaperman tells that story.” —Donald E. Graham, chairman and chief executive, The Washington Post Company “[Phillips provides] perceptive commentaries on Germany, Greece, Turkey, England, Spain, China, Russia, and the Middle East. All is told with modest good humor, but repeatedly emphasizes the need for integrity and high standards.” —George B. Munroe, retired chairman and chief executive, Phelps Dodge Corporation “The story of a boy born in Brooklyn, a reporter, an editor, a publisher, a corporate executive, and now the author of a fascinating book.” —James Q. Riordan, former vice chairman, Mobil Corporation “In spite of a few hiccups, honestly related here, Dow Jones was rated by Fortune magazine as the second most-admired company in the United States, and so proved that an outstanding newspaperman can also achieve enormous success as a business builder and leader.” —Hamish Maxwell, former chairman and CEO, Philip Morris Companies Inc. “A memoir from a man who helped transform The Wall Street Journal from a local newspaper to a global operation.. . . Throughout the book, Phillips looks at his part in shaping the Journal ’s news and editorial coverage, and these sections provide insight into his highly successful methods. The author includes many anecdotes culled from his diaries, some very funny, which illustrate the variegated aspects of his life and the people who shared in it.. . . A well-rounded autobiography about the journalism industry and the people who shaped the news over the past 50 years.” —Kirkus Reviews “The sections about the rise of the Wall Street Journal 's quality and influence are fascinating - for journalists and non-journalists alike.” — Philadelphia Inquirer ”Phillips provides an arresting retrospective on modern world history that general readers will find informative and delightful.” — Star-Telegram About the Book When Warren Phillips was eleven years old, his father took him on a guided tour of the New York Daily News , where he got his first look at the frenzied yet surprisingly ordered and controlled world of newspaper publishing. He saw everything from the industrial printing presses churning out newspapers at astonishing speeds to reporters hunched over their typewriters, writing the very stories those presses would be producing within hours—or even minutes. Phillips was hooked. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant’s shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for sixteen dollars a week—and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business. Here, the details of his vast experience come together to create a broad picture of the newspaper business— revealing how news is discovered, reported, edited, published, and disseminated. Sharing vivid tales of working as a reporter around the world and describing the many colorful characters he meets along the way, Phillips provides a level of insight that only a leading figure in the industry could offer. Newspaperman gives you an up-close look at one of the most influential people in the history of The Wall Street Journal —and an unprecedented view of the business, from its rapid modernization during the post–WWII , cold war era to the early years of digital publishing and the rise of the Internet, which may mark the decline of the printed page forever. Phillips’s entertaining, penetrating, and impressively detailed account is a must-read for both devotees of America’s most iconic business publication and anyone with an interest in how news is reported.

A crucial guide to life before—and after—Tinder, IVF, and robots. What will happen to our notions of marriage and parenthood as reproductive technologies increasingly allow for newfangled ways of creating babies? What will happen to our understanding of gender as medical advances enable individuals to transition from one set of sexual characteristics to another, or to remain happily perched in between? What will happen to love and sex and romance as our relationships migrate from the real world to the Internet? Can people fall in love with robots? Will they? In short, what will happen to our most basic notions of humanity as we entangle our lives and emotions with the machines we have created? In Work Mate Marry Love , Harvard Business School professor and former Barnard College president Debora L. Spar offers an incisive and provocative account of how technology has transformed our intimate lives in the past, and how it will do so again in the future. Surveying the course of history, she shows how marriage as we understand it resulted from the rise of agriculture, and that the nuclear family emerged with the industrial revolution. In their day, the street light, the car, and later the pill all upended courtship and sex. Now, as we enter an era of artificial intelligence and robots, how will our deepest feelings and attachments evolve? In the past, the prevailing modes of production produced a world dominated by heterosexual, mostly-monogamous, two-parent families. In the future, however, these patterns are almost certain to be reshaped, creating entirely new norms for sex and romance, and for the construction of families and the raising of children. Steering clear of both techno-euphoria and alarmism, Spar offers a bold and inclusive vision of how our lives might be changed for the better.

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Award The benefits of living in a digital, globalised society are enormous; so too are the dangers. The world has become a law enforcer's nightmare and every criminal's dream. We bank online, shop online, date, learn, work and live online. But have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned to protect us in the burgeoning digital world?Ê Have we become complacent about our personal security Ñ sharing our thoughts, beliefs and the details of our daily lives with anyone who cares to relieve us of them? In this fascinating and compelling book, Misha Glenny, author of the international bestseller McMafia, explores the three fundamental threats facing us in the twenty-first century: cyber crime, cyber warfare and cyber industrial espionage. Governments and the private sector are losing billions of dollars each year, fighting an ever-morphing, often invisible, and highly intelligent new breed of criminal: the hacker. Glenny has travelled and trawled the world. And by exploring the rise and fall of the criminal website, DarkMarket, he has uncovered the most vivid, alarming and illuminating stories.ÊWhether JiLsi or Matrix, Iceman, Master Splynter or Lord Cyric; whether Detective Sergeant Chris Dawson in Bolton or Agent Keith Mularski in Pittsburgh, Glenny has tracked down and interviewed all the players Ñ the criminals, the geeks, the police, the security experts and the victims Ñ and he places everyone and everything in a rich brew of politics, economics and history. The result is simply unputdownable. DarkMarketis authoritative and completely engrossing. It's a must-read for everyone who uses a computer: the essential crime book for our times.

The media served a highly partisan and propagandistic role in Nato’s Kosovo war, uncritically reproducing official spin in a way that was incompatible with their proclaimed democratic role as objective purveyors of information. Degraded Capability is the first book to integrate a critical interpretation of Western policy toward the former Yugoslavia with analysis of media coverage of the Kosovo crisis and war. The first part of the book deals with the war itself and the build-up to it, placing this in the context of earlier Western intervention in Yugoslavia. Part two discusses key issues raised by the media coverage, including the demonisation of the enemy, and the role of CNN. In the final section, contributors analyse how the war was reported in different countries around the world, including the United States, Britain, Germany, India, Greece, Russia, and France. The book offers an important corrective to the hysteria and misinformation that permeated media coverage. Subjects covered include the role of the internet, the changing media-military relationship, the depiction and definition of ‘war crimes,’ and how Yugoslav television was presented as a legitimate military target. Contributors include John Pilger, Edward S. Herman, Phil Hammond, Diana Johnstone and Jim Naureckas.

Gossip is no trivial matter; despite its reputation, Epstein argues, it is an eternal and necessary human enterprise. Proving that he himself is a master of the art, Epstein serves up delightful mini-biographies of the Great Gossips of the Western World, along with many choice bits from his own experience. He also makes a powerful case that gossip has morphed from its old-fashioned best--clever, mocking, a great private pleasure--to a corrosive new-school version, thanks to the reach of the mass media and the Internet. Written in his trademark erudite and witty style, Gossip captures the complexity of this immensely entertaining subject.

Books are still among the most important cultural achievements of humanity. Their invention was as important as the Internet: for the first time, a mass transfer of information became possible. Education, science, research, but also entertainment was based on a new revolutionary basis. Books are changing society until today. The technical possibilities of mass printing led to a radical increase in titles in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nevertheless, the conditions were still very different than today: Who wrote a book at that time, often wrote a life's work. This is reflected in the high quality of old books. Unfortunately, books age. Paper is not made for eternity. Therefore, we have made it our mission to preserve the book of knowledge of humanity and to make old books available in high quality at low prices

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life? In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate, the epoch we’re living through? She calls this epoch the Information Crisis. The internet has flooded us with more knowledge, opinions, ideas, opportunities, as well as verbal attacks and misinformation, than ever before. It lets us learn more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly, it brings us together and also divides us in new ways, it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no going back. But we have been here before. In fact, this is humanity’s third information crisis. The first, the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, and the second, the invention of the printing press 600 years ago, drastically reshaped our perceptions, interactions and mental landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information, people become afraid and angry, unsettled and distressed, as well as more knowledgeable, educated and curious. By looking at those previous information crises, both the turmoil and the advances, Alderman asks what we can learn from the past to better understand our present, and prepare for our future. Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today explores how new technology opens up new ways of being and helps us chart a way forward (once again), through the turbulent seas of information overload.[Bokinfo]

Secret history of Islamist terrorism in America from Sirhan Sirhan to Major Hasan and how the JDO fights it. The JDO was founded in March 1982 in reaction to the demise of the Jewish Defense League (JDL). The JDO was never and never will be a Kahanist organization; instead it is based on principles first set forth by the Honorable Zev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism. Jabotinsky, poet, statesman and militarist told Jewish audiences prior to the Holocaust to leave Europe. In 2010 JDO was able to get a meeting of the American Renaissance Party that was to be held at the Skyline Motel in Washington, D.C. cancelled despite the insistence of its manager that it take place. In February 2011 JDO quashed another meeting of this racist group with the help of the NAACP and City Council members Patrick Cannon and Councilman Warren Turner. These men had enough self-respect to stop these KKK jackasses from spewing their racial-hatred in Charlotte, North Carolina. Look what happened in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1979 when the Klan mowed down a "Death to the Klan" march staged by Communists. Declassified FBI documents revealed that JDO Chairman Mordechai Levy warned the FBI that the Klan was planning a violent attack but his intelligence was ignored due to his status as a Jewish militant. Just the opposite should have been true. In March 2011 the JDO was able to convince the landlord of the the Nazi-Holocaust revisionist scumy group The Institute of Historical Review not to renew their lease. In May 2011 the JDO held a demonstration in front of Nazi Headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. These are our latest actions - we've been staging these events and others for years and years. It is from this militant / activist point of view that the JDO research team studied the history of Islamist terrorism on American soil within certain parameters of interest. Rather than using a shotgun approach we zeroed in on terrorist plots in which bombs were actually constructed or shots were fired and excluded numerous conspiracies that the FBI nipped in the bud. Our researchers obtained the documents from every terrorism court case in the United States, conducted interviews, scoured the Internet in all languages, studied declassified government documents, filed FOIA requests then put the puzzle pieces together. We even collected the trash in front of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations at 115 East 65th Street in Manhattan and discovered cable traffic that indicated the PLO was using Syrian diplomatic pouches to smuggle bomb parts to various locations throughout the world. JDO turned these cables over to Israeli intelligence who cautioned JDO not to reveal its methodology as it was going to be applied to other hostile diplomatic installations. JDO waited for a year before revealing its discovery on local television. Shortly thereafter a car with two Arabic looking men parked outside JDO headquarters at 6 Bleecker Street in Manhattan. A JDO member displayed his semi-auto Uzi and invited the thugs upstairs. It was just another day in the 1980's at JDO Headquarters.

In the wake of national crises and sharp shifts in the electorate, new members of Congress march off to Washington full of intense idealism and the desire for instant change—but often lacking in any sense of proportion or patience. This drive for instant political gratification concerned one of the key Founders, James Madison, who accepted the inevitability of majority rule but worried that an inflamed majority might not rule reasonably. Greg Weiner challenges longstanding suppositions that Madison harbored misgivings about majority rule, arguing instead that he viewed constitutional institutions as delaying mechanisms to postpone decisions until after public passions had cooled and reason took hold. In effect, Madison believed that one of the Constitution's primary functions is to act as a metronome, regulating the tempo of American politics. Weiner calls this implicit doctrine "temporal republicanism" to emphasize both its compatibility with and its contrast to other interpretations of the Founders' thought. Like civic republicanism, the "temporal" variety embodies a set of values—public-spiritedness, respect for the rights of others-broader than the technical device of majority rule. Exploring this fundamental idea of time-seasoned majority rule across the entire range of Madison's long career, Weiner shows that it did not substantially change over the course of his life. He presents Madison's understanding of internal constitutional checks and his famous "extended republic" argument as different and complementary mechanisms for improving majority rule by slowing it down, not blocking it. And he reveals that the changes we see in Madison's views of majority rule arise largely from his evolving beliefs about who, exactly, was behaving impulsively—whether abusive majorities in the 1780s, the Adams regime in the 1790s, the nullifiers in the 1820s. Yet there is no evidence that Madison's underlying beliefs about either majority rule or the distorting and transient nature of passions ever swayed. If patience was a fact of life in Madison's day—a time when communication and travel were slow—it surely is much harder to cultivate in the age of the Internet, 24-hour news, and politics based on instant gratification. While many of today's politicians seem to wed supreme impatience with an avowed devotion to original constitutional principles, Madison's Metronome suggests that one of our nation's great luminaries would likely view that marriage with caution.