"The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world. Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, and LBJ were re-elected. John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable Civil War by standing with Henry Clay's compromise of 1850. Chester Arthur, the embodiment of the spoils system, was so reviled as James Garfield's successor that he had to defend himself against plotting Garfield's assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in Reconstruction. Theodore Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Truman surprised everybody when he succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam. Accidental Presidents adds immeasurably to our understanding of the power and limits of the American presidency in critical times"--

Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom, Co-Winner of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009! The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways--both successful and unsuccessful--of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.

"The startling inside story of Donald Trump's first two years, viewed from Capitol Hill, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle jockeyed for advantage as American politics reached a fevered pitch. Taking readers into secret strategy calls and closed-door meetings from the House to the White House, Politico Playbook writers Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer trace the strategy and the impulsiveness, the dealmaking and the backstabbing, in a blow-by-blow account of the power struggle that roiled the halls of Congress. Moving from the fights for advantage between Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer; to Mitch McConnell's merciless, Machiavellian handling of the sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh; to Paul Ryan's desperate, failed attempts to keep Mark Meadows from pushing Trump into a government shutdown over immigration, The Hill to Die On bristles with fresh news and tells the story of what really happened in some of the most defining moments our era. Like The West Wing for Congress, or Shattered meets This Town, The Hill to Die On tells an unforgettable story of politics and power, where the stakes are nothing less than the future of Congress and the fate of America" --

Consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands.

The outspoken political advisor and commentator offers a survey of history's most memorable coups and failures. Dick Morris is one of the frankest and most incisive political observers in America today. A fiercely intelligent advisor to candidates at the highest levels of government, Morris is a popular columnist and a political analyst for the Fox News Channel, bringing his brilliant strategic mind and insider's political savvy to a weekly audience of millions. Now, in Power Plays, Morris reaches into history to create this fresh and fascinating survey of the most dramatic political moves ever made, from the wildly effective to the disastrous. The result is a strategy playbook that holds lessons equally valuable to the planning of a political campaign, a business venture -- or even the War on Terror. Drawing on American and international examples, Morris identifies five different types of power play, and focuses on politicians whose careers have skyrocketed after implementing them successfully -- or foundered in the wake of misjudgment. Morris explores ideologues like Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, who stood on principle and waited for their moment to shine, and "triangulators" like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and François Mitterrand, who seized the opportunity to defang their opponents by stealing their pet issues and solving them. He looks at figures as diverse as Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, and Richard Nixon -- who rose to power by dividing and conquering their enemies -- and at reformers like Britain's Tony Blair and Japan's Junichiro Koizumi, who ascended by purging their parties of corruption. And he shines a light on how Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson used technology and new media to electrify their political careers. In a chapter inspired by the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Morris also reviews the efforts of FDR and Churchill to mobilize their nations in the face of Nazi Germany -- and compares their performance to that of George W. Bush in mounting America's ongoing campaign against terrorism. Morris also devotes attention to unsuccessful power plays, from Woodrow Wilson's failed attempt to launch the League of Nations to the disavowal of environmental issues that, he argues, cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. His analysis is surprising, often irreverent, but always enlightening. And the conclusion he draws -- that candidates who best serve the people also serve themselves -- is a breath of fresh air in the often bloodthirsty arena that is politics. - Jacket flap.

"How a new understanding of warfare can help the military fight today's conflicts more effectively. The way wars are fought has changed starkly over the past sixty years. International military campaigns used to play out between large armies at central fronts. Today's conflicts find major powers facing rebel insurgencies that deploy elusive methods, from improvised explosives to terrorist attacks. Small Wars, Big Data presents a transformative understanding of these contemporary confrontations and how they should be fought. The authors show that a revolution in the study of conflict--enabled by vast data, rich qualitative evidence, and modern methods--yields new insights into terrorism, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Modern warfare is not about struggles over territory but over people; civilians--and the information they might choose to provide--can turn the tide at critical junctures. The authors draw practical lessons from the past two decades of conflict in locations ranging from Latin America and the Middle East to Central and Southeast Asia. Building an information-centric understanding of insurgencies, the authors examine the relationships between rebels, the government, and civilians. This approach serves as a springboard for exploring other aspects of modern conflict, including the suppression of rebel activity, the role of mobile communications networks, the links between aid and violence, and why conventional military methods might provide short-term success but undermine lasting peace. Ultimately the authors show how the stronger side can almost always win the villages, but why that does not guarantee winning the war. Small Wars, Big Data provides groundbreaking perspectives for how small wars can be better strategized and favorably won to the benefit of the local population."--

Liberals take great pride in their supposed open-mindedness. Yet when it comes to hot-button issues like radical Islam, global warming, and abortion, "open-minded" liberals go to great lengths to discredit and suppress the ideas of their opponents. Breitbart senior editor Joel Pollak exposes the ten key ideas that today's liberals are desperate to suppress, revealing the blatant hypocrisy of left-wing leaders and pundits who preach tolerance but practice intolerance.

This thorough overview of all aspects of the field of genocide studies brings together for the first time classic and contemporary writings from some of the most noted scholars writing on genocide in the fields of genocide studies, political science, history, and sociology. The Reader covers key aspects of a host of complex and thorny issues, such as the definition of genocide, theories of genocide, prevention and intervention, and its denial. This collection of writings is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this most atrocious form of political violence that has plagued human history.

"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"--

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences.This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Classics from the Tavistock Press.Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1972 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

"Her book is all about people. . . . The publishers say of it that 'field work in its personal and objective dimension is placed under a kind of microscope. The book is a must for all field workers in the social sciences.' That claim does not seem to me excessive." -Edmund Leach, New York Review of Books "There are few books which are as informative of what it means to be a field-worker in social science as Hortense Powdermaker's Stranger and Friend. This book should be must reading both for scholars and students." -Seymour M. Lipset, Harvard University "Stranger and Friend is a passionate plea for anthropology as a human discipline as well as a science, as an all-engrossing life experience as well as a profession, and increasingly as a subject in the curriculum of graduate and undergraduate studies." -Margaret Mead, American Museum of Natural History "This is just the kind of book needed in anthropology today. It tells objectively, but in warm and human terms, how important research was done. It contributes to methodology and to the history of the science of anthropology." -Charles Wagley, Columbia University "This is an essential book for anyone interested in the problems of an anthropologist at work." -Cornelius Osgood, Peabody Museum of Natural History

This interpretation of the way female sexuality was viewed by the nineteenth-century European medical profession characterizes an attitude based on massive ignorance and prejudice

International Political Earthquakes is the masterwork of the preeminent scholar Michael Brecher. Brecher, who came of age before World War II, has witnessed more than seven decades of conflict and has spent his career studying the dynamics of relations among nations throughout the world. When terrorism, ethnic conflict, military buildup, or other local tensions spark an international crisis, Brecher argues that the structure of global politics determines its potential to develop into open conflict. That conflict, in turn, may then generate worldwide political upheaval. Comparing international crises to earthquakes, Brecher proposes a scale analogous to the Richter scale to measure the severity and scope of the impact of a crisis on the landscape of international politics. Brecher's conclusions about the causes of international conflict and its consequences for global stability make a convincing case for gradual, nonviolent approaches to crisis resolution. Michael Brecher is R. B. Angus Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

Available for the first time in paperback after being widely reviewed and discussed upon its hardcover publication, Historians in Trouble is investigative journalist and historian Jon Wiener's "incisive and entertaining" ( New Statesman ) account of several of the most notorious history scandals of the last few years. Focusing on a dozen key controversies ranging across the political spectrum and representing a wide array of charges, Wiener seeks to understand why some cases make the headlines and end careers, while others do not. He looks at the well publicized cases of Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture accused of research fraud; accused plagiarists and "celebrity historians" Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin; Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph J. Ellis, who lied in his classroom at Mount Holyoke about having fought in Vietnam; and the allegations of misconduct by Harvard's Stephan Thernstrom and Emory's Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who nevertheless were appointed by George W. Bush to the National Council on the Humanities. As the Bancroft Prize-winning historian Linda Gordon wrote in Dissent, Wiener's "very readable book . . . reveal[s] not only scholarly misdeeds but also recent increases in threats to free debate and intellectual integrity."

The Established and the Outsiders is a classic text from one of the major figures of world sociology. This new edition includes a theoretical introduction, published in English for the first time. In Norbert Elias's hands, a local community study of tense relations between an established group and outsiders - with no other discernible difference between them - becomes a microcosm that illuminates a wide range of sociological configurations including racial, ethnic, class and gender relations. The book examines the mechanisms of stigmatisation, taboo and gossip, monopolisation of power, collective fantasy and `we' and `they' images which support and reinforce divisions in society. Developing aspects of Elias's thinking that relate his work to current sociological concerns, it presents the fullest elaboration of his concepts of mutual identification and functional democratisation. The Established and the Outsiders not only brings out the important theoretical implications of micro-analysis but also demonstrates the significance of such detailed study analysis for better sociological theory. It will be essential reading for students and scholars in social theory, sociology and anthropology.

Egleston Community High School in Jamaica Plain, an impoverished and broken-down Boston suburb populated mainly by Latinos and African Americans, was where Murray Levin, a retired Boston University political scientist, had gone to work, trying, as he puts it, to "teach and feel useful." Levin set out to teach social sciences; what he achieved was not only an awakened desire for knowledge among kids who had been routinely discouraged in that pursuit, but an insight into a world view derived from their everyday alienation.