How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less

By Sarah Glidden
"Glidden, a progressive American Jew who is sharply critical of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Occupied Territories, went on an all-expense-paid "birthright" trip to Israel in an attempt to discover some grand truths at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This graphic memoir tells the touching and often funny story of her utter failure to do so. As the tour group moves from the Golan Heights to Tel Aviv, Glidden's struggles with propaganda and perspective lead only to a morass of deepening questions and self-doubt. Her neurotic need for objective truths and struggle to reconcile historical perspectives is hugely gratifying for the reader. This is especially true when the group visits Masada, the site of an epic confrontation between a sect of Jewish rebels and a Roman siege army that culminated in mass suicide. Gruesome fanaticism or a stirring clarion call for the burgeoning Zionism movement? You be the judge. As befits a travelogue, Glidden's drawings have the look of something jotted down on the fly; if it weren't for a haircut here or a pair of glasses there, many of the characters would be indistinguishable. Yet the simplicity of the drawing is offset by bright, delicate watercolors that belie our heroine's unresolved struggle with history and heritage."   (PW Reviews)  Check Our Catalog

The Longest War: Inside The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al Qaeda

By Peter Bergen
"CNN national security analyst and journalist Bergen (The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, 2006, etc.) takes a critical look at all phases of the conflict between the West and al-Qaeda. Drawing on an impressive range of both Western and Islamic sources, the author examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the jihadist movement, most importantly as exemplified by Osama bin Laden.......... Bergen looks at the lessons learned on both sides of the war, notably the U.S. military's rediscovery of one of the lessons of Vietnam: Small units working closely with the indigenous population can achieve what large concentrations of conventional force cannot. The author concludes that, simply by surviving so long, bin Laden has created a movement likely to carry on his brand of anti-Americanism for the foreseeable future.
One of the deepest and most disturbing investigations of one of the defining issues of our era."   (Kirkus Reviews)   Check Our Catalog

The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership In A Cash-Strapped Era

By Michael Mandelbaum
"The Era Marked by an expansive American foreign policy is now coming to an end. During the seven decades from the nation's entry into World War II in 1941 to the present, economic constraints rarely limited what the United States did in the world. That has now changed. The country's soaring deficits, fueled by the huge costs of the financial crash and of its entitlement programs---Social Security, Medicare, and the new health care legislation-will compel a more modest American international agenda. This change will have major effects in every part of the world, as well as in the United States.

In assessing the consequences of this new, less costly foreign policy, Mandelbaum, one of America's leading foreign policy experts, describes the policies the United States will have to discontinue; assesses the potential threats from China, Russia, and Iran; and recommends a new policy, centered on reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, which can do for America and the world in the twenty-first century what the successful policy of containment of the Soviet Union did in the twentieth."  (Publisher Description)   Check Our Catalog

All The Devils Are Here: The Hidden History Of The Financial Crisis

By Bethany McLean
"A closely written account of the late financial meltdown, when, in the words of one analyst, "we went from a collective belief in soundness to a collective belief in insolvency."
That change of attitude is entirely understandable, inasmuch as the financial system was predicated on abstractions. The origins of the meltdown and the subsequent Great Recession, write former Fortune and current Vanity Fair contributor McLean (co-author: The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, 2003) and New York Times reporter Nocera (A Piece of the Action : How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class, 1994), largely lie in the speculator's dream called the mortgage-backed security, which "allowed Wall Street to scoop up loans made to people who were buying homes, bundle them together by the thousands, and then resell the bundle, in bits and pieces, to investors." This innovation netted fortunes for the players at the top, undoing the former bond between buyer and seller and leading directly to the rise of the subprime industry and its toxic holdings. Ironically, write the authors, the securitizing of mortgages was not an invention of Wall Street but of government, with the federal agencies Ginnie Mae and then Freddie Mac selling securities 40 years ago. Scrupulously fair, McLean and Nocera look inside the closed doors of agencies, some now extinct, such as Bear Stearns and Countrywide, which took the official rhetoric, shared by George Bush and Bill Clinton alike, that there is something near-sacred about homeownership and ran with it. Interestingly, the authors attribute the failed policing of the subprime industry, whose criminal business practices were the engine of the meltdown, to a very real fear on the part of the government that cracking down would harm the people who most needed help. Those little fish were soon swallowed up by the Wall Street sharks, who sagely played the odds to the end, when it finally became apparent that the system was being hit by a perfect storm far beyond the worst of worst-case scenarios.
Hard-hitting reporting and fluent writing bring the utter devastation of the Great Recession to life—with John Cassidy's How Markets Fail (2009) an essential aid to understanding where all the money went, and who benefited."  (Publisher Description)  Check Our Catalog

Stay Of Execution: Saving The Death Penalty From Itself

By Charles Lane
"In his debut, Lane puts himself squarely in the camp of the "pro-death penalty American majority," yet believes that its application reveals "troubling flaws." Addressing the lack of a standards in sentencing that allows counties to act autonomously, Lane says that "There is no ‘American criminal justice system,' but rather 3,141 criminal justice systems." He studies the use and abuse of capital punishment, and uncovers statistical evidence of racism (until 1967, Southern courts defined the rape of a white woman by a black man as a capital crime.) Lane dismisses claims that the penalty is a deterrent, comparing the homicide rate in Canada, where the death penalty was abolished in 1967, with that of the U.S. Lane feels that the death penalty should be used sparingly, not as retribution but as a "special penalty" for "special crimes" in order to affirm the sanctity of human life, and breaking with the European Union's definition of capital punishment as a human-rights issue ("everyone has an absolute right not to be put to death by the state"). A member of the Washington Post's editorial board, Lane has produced a careful, considered examination of a divisive issue." (PW Annex Reviews)  Check Our Catalog

As China Goes, So Goes The World; How Chinese Consumers Are Transforming Everything

By Karl Gerth
"Sharply observed account of what happens, both good and bad, when a group of more than a billion people start seriously shopping.
While China is often thought of as a major producer of goods, it is as a consumer, writes Gerth (Modern Chinese History/Oxford Univ.; China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation, 2003), that the Chinese population is transforming itself and the world. Deliberate government policies aimed at reducing the country's overreliance on exports have transformed China from a country of scarcity and frugality to one in which the consumer ethos rules. "Chinese have already become the world's largest consumers of everything from mobile phones to beer," writes the author, and it is the largest market in the world for automobiles and is becoming one of the world's largest manufacturers of cars. As at least part of the population reaches middle-class status, they are afforded easy access to a variety of quality goods that rival anything available in Japan or the United States. The Chinese have also learned that their status and identity are often tied to their possessions. Gerth makes clear there are many downsides to the new Chinese consumer culture, from the massive manufacture of counterfeit goods to the creation of extreme markets in such things as babies, sex slaves, human organs and endangered species. Perhaps most serious is pollution. Each year in China, millions of trees are cut down in order to produce tens of billions of disposable chopsticks, thus creating millions of tons of waste and also adding greatly to the problem of desertification through deforestation. The author emphasizes, however, that many consumer-driven environmental problems in China are ones of scale rather than kind. These problems are not unique to China, but exacerbated by the sheer size of the population. The rest of the world can learn much as China attempts to solve the problem of "how to enjoy modern consumer lifestyles without exacerbating their many downsides."  (Kirkus Reviews)   Check Our Catalog

Living Large: From SUV's To Double D's; Why Going Bigger Isn't Going Better

By Sarah Wexler

"A sociological exploration of America's obsession with the supersized lifestyle.
"There's nothing wrong with our living large, nor anything particularly new about it," writes journalist and debut author Wexler, citing Manifest Destiny as historical proof of America's longtime tradition of consumption. Yet being the biggest comes with a price: "We have the largest gross domestic product and the largest gold reserves, but also the largest national debt," With size comes responsibility, and as the author recounts throughout her examination of the "largeness" of America, that responsibility is often lacking. Americans live in McMansions, attend mega-churches and demand the most plastic surgery and the largest engagement rings, all while openly celebrating their gluttony. The juxtaposition of the McMansion phenomenon alongside mega-churches offers a unique perspective on America's psyche. While McMansions are "a tangible way to show yourself and everyone else...that you're movin' on up," the appeal of mega-churches is the safety of anonymity. Wexler argues that the average American desires to stand out while simultaneously remaining unnoticed, a fascinating and unexplainable contradiction. Why do Americans prefer the anonymity of a mega-church while demanding the flashiest engagement rings? Attention is "part of why we consume big," writes the author. "A Hummer will draw more attention than a common Corolla, a McMansion more than a town house. Extra-large breast implants are a way to wordlessly, constantly shout, 'Look at me!' It's like peacocks unfurling their flashy tails." But bigger isn't necessarily better. Wexler reminds us that Americans have completely lost perspective, both literally and figuratively. Throughout the book, the author's message remains clear: In the 21st century, standing out is just another way of fitting in.
Amusing and timely."  (Kirkus Reviews)
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Griftopia; Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids and The Long Con That Is Breaking America

By Mark Taibbi
"Rolling Stone contributing editor Taibbi delivers a blistering examination of the upheaval that has roiled the American economic system over the past several years. At the heart of the upheaval, he says, is a vein of greed running up and down the real-estate industry, from mortgage brokers who falsified customer loan applications to banks that parceled out mortgages to second and third parties to rating agencies that signed off on highly suspect loans. Taibbi saves a good deal of venom for former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, arguing that Greenspan's philosophy of easy cash, limited government oversight of markets, and bailing out "too big to fail" financial institutions all fueled the recent economic meltdown. And Taibbi profiles a recently passed health-care bill severely compromised by an all-powerful insurance lobby. As critical as he is of the process—a process not likely to get fixed any time soon—he doesn't seem to carry an agenda; instead, like any good investigative reporter, he mostly follows his nose."  (Booklist Reviews)
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Broke; The Plan To Restore Our Trust, Truth and Treasure

By Glenn Beck
"Briefly surveys more than two centures of American political history to describe how the country has been "broken"--spiritually, politically, and financially--and advocates a return to core values to restore America's economic and spiritual health."   (Publisher Description)
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