Books

2008: Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War

2007: The Moral Measure of the Economy | A Bush & Botox World | The Pigment of Your Imagination: Mixed Race in a Global Society | Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer | Political Keywords: A Guide for Students, Activists, and Everyone Else

2006: The Four Freedoms under Siege: The Clear and Present Danger from Our National Security State | Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century | The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

2005: Challenging Empire: People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power | Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (Second Edition) | Taking Back the Corporation: A Mad as Hell Guide | Field Guide to the Global Economy (Second Edition) | Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation | Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes

1988: Winning America: Ideas and Leadership for the 1990s

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Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War

Contributor(s):
Edited By: William D. Hartung and Miriam Pemberton.

IPS research fellow and FPIF peace and security editor Miriam Pemberton has teamed up with New America Foundation scholar William D. Hartung to produce a new book that pulls together the thinking of some great minds on the lessons we should be able to take from the Iraq War disaster.

This war may actually have an upside: it should permanently discredit quite a few policies and practices. Preventive war. Politicized intelligence. Coalitions of the coerced. New frontiers of media manipulation. This book's editors drew up a list, and asked the experts on each to boil down what they know for the rest of us. The authors include The Three Trillion Dollar War's Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, pre-war UN  weapons inspector Hans Blix, National Book Award winner Frances Fitzgerald, NYU legal scholar Aziz Huq, and artist-restauranteur-activist Anas Shallal.

Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Paradigm Publishers, 2008) is short, accessible and affordable. As Barbara Ehrenreich said, "Read this compelling set of essays and join the movement to prevent the next war."

 

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The Moral Measure of the Economy

By: Inequality and the Common Good Director Chuck Collins and Mary Wright

“By the end of this book you may not be able to explain how the Federal Reserve Bank works, but you will be very clear about the moral values that measure economic health.”

It is twenty years since the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter on the U.S. economy. Since then striking changes have occurred as the U.S. has become dramatically more unequal in terms of wealth, income, and opportunity. The signs are everywhere, from the fantastic salaries of corporate CEOs, the skyrocketing rates of personal and public debt, tax cuts for the wealthiest, increased job insecurity, and shrinking public services. Catholic social teaching supplies a set of criteria for evaluating the moral health of an economic system, though for most people these principles are a well-kept secret. In this clear and penetrating book, Chuck Collins and Mary Wright draw on these principles to evaluate our economy and lay out practical steps toward establishing an economy “as if people mattered.”

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A Bush & Botox World

Botox promoters promise to wipe away wrinkles, the signs of aging-the signs of time passing. Such "eternal youth" potions metaphorically help erase the very notion of time itself. In a phony world, increasingly dependent on smoke and mirrors, it is no wonder we look at elected officials like a cheap circus act. Saul Landau travels in and out of America, from the stress-filled cultures of Southern Californian businesspeople and poor towns in Texas, to the wildly booming streets of Hanoi and temples of Angkor Wat, to muse on just how low we have sunk.

The book explores the ironies of a time in which science explores the genetic code and masters the physics of instant global communication technology, while bible thumpers and talkers to Christ advocate medieval crusades to spread their order to infidels. Gore Vidal provides a scabrously funny introduction to a book by an author he says he "loves to steal ideas from."

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The Pigment of Your Imagination: Mixed Race in a Global Society

By: Break the Chain Campaign Director Joy Zarembka

Author Joy Zarembka and her brother, Tommy Zarembka (featured on the front of cover of the book), look strikingly similar but were labeled totally two different races at birth. Joy's birthing document states that she is "black" while Tommy's states that he is "white." How do these and other racial classifications effect the lives of mixed race people?

By combining vivid anecdotes of her travels, historical context, and oral histories from mixed-race families, Joy Zarembka examines the notion of race in order to explore the vastly different interpretations of racial identity in various parts of the world in her new book, "The Pigment of Your Imagination: Mixed Race in a Global Society" (Madera Press 2007).

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Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer

By: New Internationalism Fellow Phyllis Bennis

If you have ever wondered "Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?", "Who are the Palestinians?", "What are the occupied territories?" or "What does Israel want?", then this is the book for you. With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of Hamas. Together her answers provide a comprehensive understanding of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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Political Keywords: A Guide for Students, Activists, and Everyone Else

By: Andrew Levine

Written by renowned political philosopher Andrew Levine, Political Keywords guides readers through today's most commonly used- and misused- political terminology.

• A much-needed dictionary of contemporary political vernacular from “alienation” to “Zionism”
• Defines the most important political keywords, i.e. the often-confusing (and sometimes intentionally misleading) terms that are used to describe our politics
• Refamiliarizes the reader with today’s most commonly used and misused terms, thus clarifying the current political landscape
• Assumes no prior academic background in politics
• Includes extensive cross-referencing, suggested further readings, and a
  comprehensive glossary
• Provides the ideal guide to navigating a landscape of dangerously vague terms

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The Four Freedoms under Siege: The Clear and Present Danger from Our National Security State

By: Paths for Reconstruction in the 21st Century Co-Founder and Distinguished Fellow Marcus Raskin

FDR's Four Freedoms--Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear--were presented to the American people in his 1941 State of the Union address, and they became the inspiration for a second bill of rights, extending the New Deal and guaranteeing work, housing, medical care, and education. Although the bill never was adopted in a legal sense in this country, its principles pervaded the political landscape for an entire generation, including the War on Poverty and the Great Society reforms of the 1960s. Furthermore, the ideas expressed in the Four Freedoms speech inspired the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But since the late 1970s and early 1980s, these freedoms have been under assault, from presidential administrations of both parties, economic pressures, and finally, the alleged requirements of national security. After 9/11, this process accelerated even more rapidly.

The authors address the hard questions of individual freedom versus national security that are on the minds of Americans of all political stripes. They bring together the pivotal events, leaders, policies, and fateful decisions--often path-breaking, more often ending in folly--that have subverted our constitutional government from its founding. "You reach the inescapable conclusion," the authors write, "that the United States is a warrior nation, has been addicted to war from the start, and is able to sustain its warfare habit only by mugging American taxpayers, and believing in its mission as God's chosen."

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Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century

By: Clarence Lusane

Lusane has created a groundbreaking analysis of the intersection of racial politics and American foreign policy. This insightful work critically examines the roles played by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State (and former National Security Advisor) Condoleezza Rice in the construction of U.S. foreign policy, exploring the ways in which their racial identity challenges conventional notions about the role of race in international relations. Neither Powell nor Rice consciously allowed their racial identity to substantially influence or characterize their participation in the defense and projection of U.S. hegemony, Lusane argues, but both used their racial identity and experiences strategically in key circumstances to defend Bush administration policies. This is but one sense in which their race, despite their reluctance to be seen as racial figures, is significant in relation to U.S. foreign policy.

Locating Powell and Rice within the genealogy of the current national security strategy, and within broader shifts under George W. Bush, this work argues that their racial location in the context of the construction of U.S. foreign policy is symbolic, and that it serves to distract from the substantive part they play in the ongoing reconfiguration of U.S. global power. Criticism of Powell's and Rice's policies, for example, is often blunted by race. Black liberals may be reluctant to condemn them, while white liberals may be afraid criticism could be interpreted as racial bias, especially since conservatives of both races argue that such criticism is probably racist. Lusane tackles these difficult issues along with others, asking whether there is a black consensus on foreign policy and, if so, what its dimensions, driving forces, and prospects for stability are. How can a progressive alternative to the current U.S. foreign policy be realized? Are Powell and Rice merely functionaries, or did they substantially determine the direction of U.S. foreign policy? What will their legacies be?

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The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

By: Antonia Juhasz

The Bush Agenda is the first book to expose the Bush Administration's radical economic agenda for global domination, a plan more extreme, unilateral and audacious than any of his predecessors, a plan that has created the greatest level of violent opposition to America and Americans in recent history.

The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time explores the Bush Administration's plan to invade the world through a corporate globalization agenda, first in Iraq, then the Middle East with the proposed U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area, and ultimately as a cornerstone to the global Bush Doctrine of Pax Americana. What is Bush's "free trade?" It's an economic model that argues that by removing restrictions on multinational corporations, these companies will be freed to become engines of economic growth in countries around the world, but in fact bring vast wealth of a small number of global elites while entire populations suffer dislocation, poverty and violence, creating a perfect Petri dish for breeding terrorists. The instruments for this takeover include such corporations as Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, ChevronTexaco, Halliburton, and many others.

This book addresses the history of U.S. economic relations throughout the world over the past 25 years, the key role of U.S. corporations, and the larger Bush economic agenda and what the potential impact of this agenda will be on the United States and the world. It concludes with specific alternatives to guide the U.S. on a more peaceful and sustainable course in the future. Using Naomi Klein's No Logo and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation as models, The Bush Agenda is based on hard analytic fact and presented so that it will not only be persuasive, but highly engaging and entertaining to a broad audience.

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Challenging Empire: People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power

By: New Internationalism Fellow Phyllis Bennis

When millions around the world marched to protest the Iraq war and the U.S. drive towards empire, the New York Times dubbed global public opinion "the second super-power." What empowered those protests was their alliance -- if only for a brief moment -- with governments unexpectedly willing to stand up to U.S. pressure, and with the United Nations itself, when it followed its Charter's command to stop "the scourge of war." Bennis tracks the rise of U.S. unilateralism and the doctrine of preemptive war, looking particularly at Iraq and Israel/Palestine, and examines both the potential and the challenges ahead in reclaiming the UN as part of the global peace movement.

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Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (Second Edition)

By: Inequality and the Common Good Director Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel

Hard-hitting and insightful.
- The Beacon

This updated edition of the widely touted Economic Apartheid in America looks at the causes and manifestations of wealth disparities in the United States, including tax policy in light of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and recent corporate scandals.

Published with two leading organizations dedicated to addressing economic inequality, the book looks at recent changes in income and wealth distribution and examines the economic policies and shifts in power that have fueled the growing divide.

Praised by Sojurners as “a clear blueprint on how to combat growing inequality,” Economic Apartheid in America provides “much-needed groundwork for more democratic discussion and participation in economic life” (Tikkun). With “a wealth of eye-opening data” (The Beacon) focusing on the decline of organized labor and civic institutions, the battle over global trade, and the growing inequality of income and wages, it argues that most Americans are shut out of the discussion of the rules governing their economic lives. Accessible and engaging and illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and political cartoons, the book lays out a comprehensive plan for action.

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Taking Back the Corporation: A Mad as Hell Guide

By: Ralph Estes and Ralph Nader

Not so long ago, corporate America was widely respected. Our products set the standards for the world; corporations bore a fair share of the tax burden; customers, workers, and communities were loyal to companies like GM, GE, Ford, and Procter & Gamble, and to a fair degree that loyalty was reciprocated. Not anymore. Recent headlines tell the story: Bank of America Penalized $464,000,000 for Defrauding Mutual Fund Investors; Citibank to pay $1,600,000 to Twenty-Six States for Engaging in Consumer Deception; General Electric Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Pentagon, Pays $69,000,000 in Fines. And on, and on.

Taking Back the Corporation tells us what to do about it. Among many useful resources and references for activists, it includes a special toolkit for reforming corporations and provides a primer on corporations, organizing, contacting the media, and drafting local ordinances.

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Field Guide to the Global Economy (Second Edition)

By: Global Economy Fellow Sarah Anderson and Global Economy Director John Cavanagh and Thea Lee

This fully updated and expanded second edition of The Field Guide to the Global Economy presents the latest facts to help make sense of the rapidly changing international economy. Illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and cartoons, the book documents new trends, including the foreign “outsourcing” of U.S. service jobs, as well as the increasing influence of mega-firms like Wal-Mart and labor union–free China on workers around the globe.

Published in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent research institute based in Washington, D.C., this accessible guide explains how global institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and North American Free Trade Agreement affect communities, workers, the poor, and the environment. The book dispels the widely disseminated propaganda about current globalization policies and provides an update on the burgeoning movement that is challenging them, from Bolivian water warriors to U.S. student anti-sweatshop activists.

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Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation

By: Robin Hahnel

In Economic Justice and Democracy Robin Hahnel argues that progressives need to go back to the drawing board and rethink how they conceive of economic justice and economic democracy. He presents a coherent set of economic institutions and procedures that can deliver economic justice and democracy through a "participatory economy." But this is a long-run goal; he also explores how to promote the economics of equitable cooperation in the here and now by emphasizing ways to broaden the base of existing economic reform movements while deepening their commitment to more far reaching change.

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Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes

By: Inequality and the Common Good Director Chuck Collins and Bill Gates Sr.

More than a thousand individuals of high net worth rose up to protest the repeal of the estate tax-Newsweek tagged them the "billionaire backlash." The primary visionaries of that group, Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins, argue here that individual wealth is a product not only of hard work and smart choices but of the society that provides the fertile soil for succes. Weaving personal narratives, history, and plenty of solid economic sense, Gates and Collins make a sound and compelling case for estate tax reform, not repeal.

"When the wealthy themselves plead for the right to pay higher taxes, the situation becomes more challenging . . . The skeptics will say . . . 'Let the rich get rich! It's good for us!' No society will remain healthy in the long run if it fails to pay attention to the distribution of income and wealth. It is thus Gates and Collins, rather than the mean-spirited advocates of Bushonomics, who are the true American patriots."
-Michael Prowse, Financial Times

"After reading this persuasive volume, you'll think the whole case for repealing the 'death tax' is unhinged . . ."
-Rich Barlow, Boston Globe

"In their clearheaded primer on estate taxes, Gates and Collins . . . are doing urgent work. By pushing to repeal the estate tax, the Bush administration is doing all it can to shift the total tax burden away from the very wealthy and toward middle- and lower-income taxpayers. This is not only unjust, it's nuts. Inheritance taxes would only fall on the largest estates . . . It is a concept no less worthy for being old-fashioned."
-E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

"Bill Gates and Chuck Collins provide a clear rationale for retaining the estate tax in this helpful and unselfish analysis."
-Jimmy Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize

"Inheritance taxes are not about raising tax revenue. They are about 'What Kind of Nation Do We Want to Be?' . . . This book gets our thoughts back on the right issues."
-Lester Thurow, author of The Future of Capitalism

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Winning America: Ideas and Leadership for the 1990s

Contributor(s):
Edited By: Chester Hartman and Marcus Raskin.

This collection of 38 short, clear and prescriptive articles covers virtually every topic that may be at issue in November's presidential election, from the drug war and welfare reform to the Middle East conflict. The roster of contributors is an array of leading liberal academics, policymakers and activists, including many from the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The editors' opening piece, a salvo against the Reagan administration and "the deterioration of the American democratic experiment" under it, sets the tone. Essays on constitutional questions, such as William Cannon's call to strengthen the executive branch and Jane Kirtley's warning on violations of the First Amendment, both attack the Reagan record and promote liberal ideas. The articles bristle with references to current events like the Iran-contra scandal and the recent stock-market debacle. While sounding its share of plaintive notes, Winning America is nonetheless an optimistic anthology of ideas. Though some of its proposals are wish-list items, the book's value is in its offering of both strong arguments and specific recommendations. Portions of the book previously appeared in the New Yorker, the Progressive and the UTNE Reader.