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Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before
Alastair Fothergill
Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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![Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series [HD DVD]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000MRAAJW.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series [HD DVD]
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ASIN: 0520250540 |
Book Description
A visual odyssey that will change the way we see our planet, this remarkable book, companion to the acclaimed Discovery Channel/ BBC series, is an enduring and awe-inspiring record of one of the most ambitious natural history projects ever undertaken. Using the latest aerial surveillance, state-of-the-art cameras, and high definition technology, the creators of Planet Earth have assembled more than 400 stunning photographs of wondrous natural landscapes from around the globe, including incredible footage of the rarely spotted, almost mythical creatures that live in these habitats. Many of the images reveal inaccessible places that few have seen and record animal behavior that has never been filmed or photographed before. With the help of this highly advanced technology and the world's premier wildlife photographers, the book takes us on a spectacular journey from the world's greatest rivers and impressive gorges, to its mightiest mountains, hidden caves and caverns, and vast deserts. Planet Earth captures breathtaking sequences of predators and their prey, lush vistas of forests viewed from the tops of towering trees, the oceans and their mysterious creatures viewed from beneath the surface, and much more--in a magnificent adventure that brings unknown wonders of the natural world into our living rooms.
Copub: BBC Worldwide Americas
Customer Reviews:
Planet Earth........2007-08-14
Wow!!! my 8 year old loves this DVD. Very interesting to watch. Does have some parts that my 8 year old has a trouble watching, this is the section of life and death in the food chain. Otherwise highly recommended, in HD DVD is Awesome....
Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before.......2007-08-10
I have not had a chance to even break the seal on this new book as yet. I skimmed this book at a bookstore, and then decided to buy it. If you saw the mini-series on Discovery or Animal Planet, you will be impressed with this book as well. For those with children, this book is a must.
A Great Coffee Table Book.......2007-08-04
A great companion book to the dvd series.
magnificent.......2007-07-30
Amazing photos and wonderous facts regarding everything imaginable to the unusual. Our family has enjoyed this educational and spellbinding photography.
Glorious.......2007-07-27
Beautifully photographed and informational, this book should be on every nature lover's shelf. The "Planet Earth" series, which I watch weekly on Animal Planet, is even more jaw-dropping. I thank the generous and unbelievably courageous people who have the cojones to make this possible!
Julie Townsend
Metairie, LA
Amazon.com
According to most relationship books, the key to a solid marriage is communication, communication, communication. Phooey, says John Gottman, Ph.D., author of the much-lauded Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. There's much more to a solid, "emotionally intelligent" marriage than sharing every feeling and thought, he points out--though most couples therapists ineffectively (and expensively) harp on these concepts.
Gottman, the director of the Gottman Institute, has found through studying hundreds of couples in his "love lab" that it only takes five minutes for him to predict--with 91 percent accuracy--which couples will eventually divorce. He shares the four not-so-obvious signs of a troubled relationship that he looks for, using sometimes amusing passages from his sessions with married couples. (One standout is Rory, the pediatrician who didn't know the name of the family dog because he spent so much time at work.)
Gottman debunks many myths about divorce (primary among them that affairs are at the root of most splits). He also reveals surprising facts about couples who stay together. They do engage in screaming matches. And they certainly don't resolve every problem. "Take Allan and Betty," he writes. "When Allan gets annoyed at Betty, he turns on ESPN. When Betty is upset with him, she heads for the mall. Then they regroup and go on as if nothing's happened. Never in forty-five years of marriage have they sat down to have a 'dialogue' about their relationship." While this may sound like a couple in trouble, Gottman found that they pass the love-lab tests and say honestly that "they are both very satisfied with their relationship and they love each other deeply."
Through a series of in-depth quizzes, checklists, and exercises, similar to the ones he uses in his workshops, Gottman provides the framework for coping with differences and strengthening your marriage. His profiles of troubled couples rescued from the brink of divorce (including that of Rory, the out-of-touch doctor) and those of still-happy couples who reinvigorate their relationships are equally enlightening. --Erica Jorgensen
Book Description
John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage by using rigorous scientific procedures to observe the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over many years. Here is the culmination of his life's work: the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Packed with practical questionnaires and exercises,
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.
Download Description
John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage by using rigorous scientific procedures to observe the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over many years. Here is the culmination of his life's work: the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship.
Packed with practical questionnaires and exercises, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.
"An eminently practical guide to an emotionally intelligent -- and long-lasting -- marriage."
DANIEL GOLEMAN, AUTHOR OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
"Gottman stays refreshingly down to earth, rather than on Mars and Venus."
BILL MARVEL AND GEOFFREY NORMAN, AMERICAN WAY
"Gottman comes to this endeavor with the best of qualifications: he's got the spirit of a scientist and the soul of a romantic."
NEWSWEEK
"Twenty-five years of landmark marital research."
USA TODAY
"Offers something every relationship can benefit from."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
"Astonishing new research!"
WOMAN'S WORLD
Customer Reviews:
A must for couples considering marriage/long-term partnership.......2007-09-30
My fiancee and I decided to be proactive and visit a psychologist before we had any relationship issues and before we got married. He recommended Gottman to us, and what a fabulous recommendation it was! Reading "Seven Principles" really illustrated with lucidity what it was about my parents' marriage that has always bothered me (contempt from my mother in their arguments) and gave clear steps on how to avoid this and other relationship killers. It was very reaffirming in that it doesn't tell couples not to fight (because how realistic is that?), but teaches them how to fight and how to agree to disagree. My fiancee is in the process of reading it now, and I'm excited for him to finish so we can talk it over. The last principle, in particular, is really great for people who already have solid relationships...it made me excited to get married!
A really excellent book overall, Gottman's writing style is clear and concise!
A must have in protecting one's marriage!.......2007-09-26
This book is absolutely essential in the treatment of marriage or couple counseling, as well as can be used by anyone interested in strengthening their own marriage/relationships. It is helpful because it is basic, layed out in a very simplistic manner, and is an easy reader. The book offers concrete instructions for couples on how to improve their closeness, connection, and communication. It is also based on scientific studies thereby offering value and effectiveness of the techniques illustrated in the book. I would highly recommend it for struggling couples, those considering divorce, as well as couples with a good relationship seeking a closer bond.
researched through many, this one the best .......2007-09-05
This author uses common sense and clinical study and marries the 2 together,
He gives simple, thought provoking questions and daily/weekly effective deeds to do. Insightful and effective. We're using it to help others but aNYONE can take a few hints from this even MR and MRS perfectly happy.
seven principles of making a marriage work.......2007-08-23
great book that I had initially borrowed from my therapist. Was enlighteneing. Made me recognize a lot about myself and my spouse. I recommend it for newleyweds and other couples as well; I myself have been married for 10 years. It can be used preventitively or as a couselling guide or just to provide some insight into what you may be feeling or going through with a significant other. It made me realize my thoughts and actions were not "crazy" but rather common.
Great Resource.......2007-08-16
I use Dr. Gottman's marriage principles in my private practice with great success. I highly recommend this book.
Book Description
In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Meanwhile, the British Empire was in decline but did not yet know it. Any number of other powers might have won primacy in the twentieth century and beyond, including Germany, Russia, possibly even France. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Andrew Roberts brilliantly reveals what made the English-speaking people the preeminent political culture since 1900, and how they have defended their primacy from the many assaults upon them. What connects those countries where the majority of the population speaks English as a first language—the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and Ireland—is far greater than what separates them, and the development of their history since 1900 has been a phenomenal success story.
Authoritative and engrossing, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an enthralling account of the century in which the political culture of one linguistic world-grouping comprehensively triumphed over all others. Roberts's History proves especially invaluable as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest and most dependable allies.
Customer Reviews:
Water For Elephants.......2007-09-09
This 648 page book is a synopsis of historical events which have had impact by the English speaking peoples of America, Great Britian, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand from 1900 to present. Major events include WWI, WWII, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, The War on Terror, and the Iraq War. Andrew Roberts is a Londonite and neoconcervative apologist who gives a fresh perspective of these historical events that, unlike liberal revisionist history, portrays the the English speaking people in a light they deserve with recognition of their accomplishments, their sacrifices, their fortitude, their benevolence, and their leadership in protecting the world from fascism, communism, and Islamic radicalism. This refreshing perspective, which is a rare find amongst history books, along with an enticing writing style and brilliant diction made this book very enjoyable. I will frequently reference this work and re-read portions of it. Looking forward to more from this author.
It's about dang time.......2007-07-24
I finally got my hands on this book, and I will tell you all that it is glorious. None of the wishy-washy anti-British hollywood diatribe that was force fed to the globe in the nineteen nineties by Hollywood's anti-Protestant elite. If you want a book that tries to justify Irish nationalist baby murderers in Ulster or sympathizes with the claims of the openly fascist Argentine government of the early nineteen eighties, than look somewhere else. It's about time somebody stood up for John Bull and Uncle Sam, and I for one am proud to say this book lays a giant red, white and blue smackdown on all the nay-sayers, or anglophobes who would like to shoot it down.
Furthermore, many of the critics of this book love hyping on the fact that many Americans aren't of English or Scottish or Welsh decent. Well, no, many are not, but I am. My ancestry is Southern, and they got here from England four hundred years ago. This may not be the case for ALL Americans, but it is for those of us who were here making a country before all sorts of Johnny-come-latelies decided to show up and slander the Mother Country with all of their stereotyping and leftist bashing of England's international acheivements. This book does not gloss over the glory of any of the the Sister Nations to which it refers, it does not make apologies or exceptions, and frankly, it is about dang time that a book like this came out. God Bless America and God Bless England.
Roberts updates Churchill, masterfully.......2007-06-19
The conception of this book, Roberts tells us, was born from a desire to see Churchill's H.O.T.E.S.P's updated. Roberts haughtily delegated the task to himself, then improbably pulled it off with consummate skill.
One of the things I tend to dislike about big general histories--lovable things in themselves--is that they skimp on analysis and thus, notwithstanding their lovely narratives, fail to explode those specious counter-narratives that give all who care about historical accuracy and sound judgment the shakes. This book has both the proper narrative and the analytical explosiveness, making it a ripping read as well as a veritable artillery barrage of insight, a new weapon for sane souls and a new devastation for adversaries. Willmoore Kendall, after reading Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences, nominated him for "the captaincy of the anti-liberal team." In this age of obsessions with minutiae, where arguments tend to boil down to fabricating ingenious connections between detail-dots, it is very important to have another captain who can play the detail game and play it better and more honorably. Roberts is hereby nominated for captaincy of the anti-barbarism team.
Many people will be fooled by the stridency of people like myself and those opposite me who loudly hail or denounce this book. Don't let either of us confuse you. Roberts is no demagogue, and he is eminently fair to people who deserve fairness--for example, he concludes of FDR's social experimentation, "the New Deal worked;" and his re-interpretation of Wilson as not-half-as-deluded-as-Paul-Johnson-and-most-other-conservatives-would-have-us-think should be refreshing to anyone; his evaluation of the Churchill-could-have-stopped-Hitler-had-the-appeasers-not-bollocksed-it-up line is unsettling but eye-opening, as is his measured judgment of Chamberlain; his unwillingness to bow to rabid anti-imperialism could be said to be merely a willingness to examine the facts, and he is not, despite what his critics sometimes charge, a risible "triumphalist;" and alas, his reading of the policies that got us into the (now proverbial) "Situation-In-Iraq" as rooted in old traditions is not a fanatical "neocon" chestnut, as Josef Joffe (realist) and John Lewis Gaddis (liberal), among others, have made substantially the same case. Overall, Roberts' argument is simple and modest: that the English-Speaking Peoples have, taken as a collective whole, done better (not PERFECTLY, not FLAWLESSLY, not BLAMELESSLY) for the world than any other great power, and that this is demonstrable so far as such things can be demonstrated. It is up to the reader whether he wants to apply a normative criterion as goofy as Chomsky's quasi-Kantianism or Zinn's (let's be honest) inept Marxism to the study of history, but Roberts applies a more tangible standard: material improvements coupled with preservation of and respect for, as Thomas Sowell likes to say, "the intangibles without which the tangibles don't work" (virtue, freedom, honor, prestige, etc.). Truth is not always stranger than fiction--Zinn's "People's Histories" are surely way-out-there compared to real histories--nonetheless, truth is often more exciting and bracing than fiction. Thus Roberts' book blows your hair back; Zinn's is a sedative by comparison.
It ought to be said, in conclusion, that there is nothing "triumphalist" about not obsessively citing ten debits for every one credit given to the English speaking peoples, which method of moral accounting is today called "balance." Orwell would have a field day with this nonsense, but Roberts holds his own and handles it with grace and not a shred of bitterness. That used to be called magnanimity. Churchill had it. Roberts has it. The English speaking peoples have it, oftener than not. With this book, we continue to ensure that it stays that way.
Excellent Book.......2007-06-17
This is an excellent book. I also bought a copy for a friend, something that I do less often anymore. If you like history and want a good synopsis of the 20th century, try this. Yes, it is somewhat opinionated, but it isn't blatant about it. It is a larger book than it might appear to be -- it might take some time to finish. Although it does have some more difficult words, it is easy to gather their meaning from the context. It certainly generates an enlightened appreciation for those that protect us. Worth reading.
A well-meaning letdown.......2007-06-16
A previous Amazon reviewer compared this book to Paul Johnson's classic "Modern Times", to which I respond: we should only have been so lucky. Roberts' robust defense of the English-speaking nations' actions during the 20th century is refreshingly free of the "guilt complexes" that befoul many trendy historical narratives, but it sorely lacks the narrative "spine" of Johnson's seminal work. Roberts freely admits that his book is more of a grab-bag of anecdotes than a continuous narrative, but he fails to follow the first rule of anyone engaged in such selective cherry-picking: GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT. A multitude of mistakes, both large and small, tend to undercut Roberts' arguments (such as they are). The book is also inconsistent in its treatment of the English-speaking peoples. The U.S., Britain, the Anzac nations, and even Ireland get plenty of attention, but Roberts seems to have forgotten about Canada along the way, saying very little about postwar Canadian politics and culture. Roberts is a needed voice of reason and intellectual honesty, and I hope that he will follow up this disappointing work with a more coherent version covering the same basic material, but I'm afraid that this was an opportunity missed.
Book Description
A prominent Palestinian's searching, anguished, deeply affecting autobiography, in which his life story comes to be the story of the recent history of his country.
Sari Nusseibeh’s autobiography is a remarkable book—one in which his dramatic life story and that of his embattled country converge in a work of great passion, depth, and emotional power.
Nusseibeh was raised to represent his country. His family’s roots in Palestine traced back to the Middle Ages, and his father was the governor of Jerusalem. Educated at Oxford, he was trained to build upon his father’s support for coexistence and a negotiated solution to the problems of the region.
But the wars of 1967 and 1973 spelled the beginning of the end for the vision of a unified Palestine—and Nusseibeh’s response to these events, and to those that followed, gives us the recent history from a Palestinian point of view as no book has done. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at Hebrew University through his appointment by Yassir Arafat to administer Arab Jerusalem, he holds fast to a two-state solution, even as the powers around him insist that it is impossible. As Palestine is torn apart by settlements and barricades, corruption and violence, Nusseibeh remains true to the ideals of his youth, determined to keep hold of some faint hope for the life of his country.
Once Upon a Country is a book with the scope and vitality of an old-fashioned novel—one whose ending is still uncertain.
Customer Reviews:
A moderate Palestinian's story.......2007-08-23
If you want to understand the immense gulf between Israel and Palestine even among moderates, read this book.
Once Upon a Peace Maker!.......2007-08-08
This is a truly important book for anyone wishing to understand fully the Arab / Palestinian - Israeli conflict. It sheds tremendous light on very important events, thus far not fully presented from the Palestinian side, especially that of the non rejectionist Palestinian camp. Sari Nusseibeh is a truly visionary man with tremendous courage and is a highly gifted activist and indeed very clever politician despite his own denials.
I have thoroughly enjoyed, and was often moved by, the first half of the book which dealt with the history of Nusseibeh's family and contained his even handed description of the events leading to 1948 and all the way through the 1967 war and his subsequent return to live in Palestine with his British wife. Nusseibeh's portrayal of the lives of the Palestinians between the wars of 1948 and 1967 was very helpful.
In the second half of the book Nusseibeh hammers in, over and over again, on the tacit unspoken alliance of the extremists on both sides and shows how Israel supported the creation of Hamas as a counter weight to the Fateh and PLO. He coherently and very persuasively presents the thought process that he went through to move from the one state solution to the two state solution and demonstrates very effectively the threats that prolonging the conflict would cause to it.
Nusseibeh was often right at the center of things or at least presents himself as such; we see him as a leading figure in standing up to the Israelis and to the Islamists, we see him as the key engine behind the first intefada, or uprising, and we see him winning the respect and approval of Yasir Arafat. In this, second, half, this book moves from being a truly exceptional account of the personal and family history more into an aggrandizing politician's memoir. This should not reduce nor detract from the tremendous personal sacrifice and commitment Nusseibeh made to his cause.
I have heard of the peace work of Dr. Nusseibeh and read some of his articles and interview for some years and while I admire him more than any other Palestinian public figure, this book troubled me in a number of ways. Unlike the other three Palestinian memoirs, originally written in English, that I have read (Gada Karami, Fay Kenfani & Edward Said) Nusseibeh sought to justify every action he has ever taken, to defend his various historic positions and to settle the scores with those of differing views. Most unlike the other three biographies, the book contained virtually no retrospective sole searching whatsoever and important topics such as his obvious passion and skill for politics vs. his academic eccentric persona were packaged for the purpose rather than thought through. Nusseibeh repeatedly simply presented himself as the reluctant professor, yet left us wondering about his very savvy organizational, political and survival skills. He seemed to know exactly how to deal with wily old Arafat, Hamas, the Israeli intelligence and the various factions of the PLO yet retain the freedom to advance his own agenda as well as build important relationships with Israelis.
The tremendous heights, in which, Nusseibeh holds his father, a former Governor of Jerusalem, ambassador and member of cabinet gives the feeling of an immature biography lacking in the distance to be objective. Indeed the first half of the book contains rework of the some of the father's own unpublished memoirs. Obvious points such as the father's commitment to an idealistic form of pan Arabism, albeit non Bathist and non Nasserist, and Nusseibeh own movement into being Palestinian nationalist, seeing Palestine being in natural alliance with Israel did not cause him to reflect further on the role and thinking of his father. A respectful critique and contrast of the views would have enhanced and not hindered the understanding of his father and need not be disloyal to his memory.
Most grating perhaps is the competitiveness displayed with other Palestinian peace advocates and the various attempts at discrediting them. This was particularly evident in describing the efforts that led to the Geneva Accord, which Nusseibeh referred as the plan by the name of the Israeli negotiator, thus marginalizing the Palestinian partner. At some point Nusseibeh clearly fell out with Hanan Ashrawi and Dr. Barghouti, both articulate advocates of the Palestinian cause and for peace and coexistence with Israel, he made his disdain of them very obvious and has not troubled himself to analyze their positions even in retrospect.
A genuine peacemaker and a pleasure and privilege to read.......2007-07-24
In the Palestinian struggle against an apartheid, territorially hungry (manifest-Zioinst-destiny) Israel, there has been a shortage of local leaders of wisdom, character, and good fortune. This shortage has been partially circumstantial and partially managed by Israel who has been "sowing the wind" for decades by imprisoning moderates and secretly cultivating Islamist extremists. That Nusseibeh has managed to be spared assasination by Israel or others is fortunate for everyone. We may hope that just as modern Israel has risen from the ashes left in the ovens of the shoah, a viable modern Palestine will emerge from the ordeal of Israeli presecution and imprisonment, and Nusseibeh's voice might be revered as both prophetic and instrumental. Otherwise, we might well see a second shoah (of the sort for which, unfortunately, many end-times enthusiasts seem to hanker). We must hope, indeed we should pray, that Nusseibeh's humanitarian good will and good sense are not too late and that his voice, now seemingly crying in the wilderness, will not have been a waste of breath.
Interesting and enlightening, but ..........2007-07-05
Well written history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from somewhat of a unique perspective. The author had a very different experience with some of the primary events of the conflict - not up close and personal a la Arafat, but certainly not man-on-the-street. Dr. Nusseibeh has been a broken record set on "peace," but events have conspired to not let his message get across. An interesting look at a mostly unfortunate series of events.
The NY SUN sums it up a lot better than the reviewers below. .......2007-06-17
First off let's start by exposing who Nusseibeh really is:
He's a double-talker. Saying one thing in English and another in Arabic.
* Helped organize the first Palestinian Intifada, 1987-1993
* Seeks the ultimate destruction of Israel
* Supports Palestinian suicide bombings against Jews
He has appeared on Al-Jazeera TV supporting the Palestinian "right of return" and the "stages" strategy towards the eventual annihilation of Israel. This has been Nusseibeh's modus operandi for some time: pursuing a sequence of small, pragmatic steps - each arguably justifiable as purported attempts to mitigate hostilities - but whose ultimate objective is to bring about Israel's destruction.
He does not condone bombings against Jewish civilians, and sees the terrorist attacks and martyrdom operations.
Then there's the complete BS included.. the NYSun covers it well:
In Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, Sari Nusseibeh misses no opportunity to denigrate and delegitimize Israel through sharp, short, often subtle yet always false readings of history.
His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
But Mr. Nusseibeh is not someone to be bothered by the facts. His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
--The British foreign secretary who made the famous declaration (in November 1917) on "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was Mr. Arthur James Balfour, not " Lord Alfred Balfour," and the declaration was made in a letter to Lord Rothschild, not to Chaim Weizmann.
--Lawrence of Arabia had nothing to do with the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence that led to the "Great Arab Revolt" of World War I, and the person with whom the British plotted the revolt was Emir Hussein ibn Ali (later King Hussein of the Hijaz), not his son Emir Faisal (misrepresented by Mr. Nusseibeh as " Sheikh Faisal Hussein").
--Neither did the British ever promise Faisal (or Hussein for that matter) the headship of the Arab kingdom that would be established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
--General Edmund Allenby did not occupy Palestine with his Mule Corps but rather with the powerful Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the Ottoman potentate Djemal Pasha did not surrender to the British in 1917, as it was only in late September 1918 that Allenby scored his culminating victory, in the Battle of Megiddo.
--Sheik Izz al-din al-Qassam, the Syrian religious fanatic operating in Palestine in the mid-1930s, was not hanged by the British but killed in action.
--The Higher Arab Committee (established in 1936) comprised 10, rather than six, members and Jaffa's Arab population in 1948 didn't amount to 200,000 people, but to about a third of this figure.
--The Dome of the Rock was built by Caliph Abdel Malik ibn Marwan and not Mu'awiya, and Caliph Omar did not capture Jerusalem in 638 C.E. after the bloody conquest of Baghdad and Cairo for the simple reason that both cities were established long after the Muslim capture of Jerusalem. And so on and so forth.
If the Arabs reverted to violence, as they occasionally did, it was invariably the Jews' fault, according to Nusseibeh. The 1929 massacres, for example, in which 133 Jews were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors, and hundreds more were wounded, were but "a nasty backlash among Muslims" to Zionist nationalist aspirations regarding the Wailing Wall; just as Arafat's war of terror was a logical reaction to Ariel Sharon's short stroll along the Temple Mount. But then, why should Muslims act differently when Jews, who have no valid claim to Palestine, let alone to the Wailing Wall - "a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions" - make outrageous demands on this holy Muslim site.
This absurd assertion -- part of a lengthy historical fabrication of Jerusalem's history posted on the homepage of Al-Quds University, an institution headed by Mr. Nusseibeh -- is hardly different from the countless misrepresentations and distortions contained in "Once Upon a Country." It is also congruent with the persistent Palestinian denial of the existence of King Solomon's Temple, and by extension the Jewish millennarian attachment to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Small wonder that in 2002 he was appointed PLO Commissioner for Jerusalem affairs by Arafat, who in the Camp David summit of September 2000 had told President Clinton that the Temple had been located in Nablus rather than in Jerusalem. To judge by the gist of "Once Upon a Country," Arafat could not have made a better choice.
Amazon.com
Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the "ladder of economic development" so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty. Though his plan certainly requires the help of rich nations, the financial assistance Sachs calls for is surprisingly modest--more than is now provided, but within the bounds of what has been promised in the past. For the U.S., for instance, it would mean raising foreign aid from just 0.14 percent of GNP to 0.7 percent. Sachs does not view such help as a handout but rather an investment in global economic growth that will add to the security of all nations. In presenting his argument, he offers a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in the midst of great wealth. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.
Despite some crushing statistics, The End of Poverty is a hopeful book. Based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN and several individual nations, Sachs makes a strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the same commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war. This important book not only makes the end of poverty seem realistic, but in the best interest of everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
A landmark exploration of the way out of extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens
Among the most eagerly anticipated books of any year, this landmark exploration of prosperity and poverty distills the life work of an economist Time calls one of the world's 100 most influential people. Sachs's aim is nothing less than to deliver a big picture of how societies emerge from poverty. To do so he takes readers in his footsteps, explaining his work in Bolivia, Russia, India, China, and Africa, while offering an integrated set of solutions for the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that challenge the poorest countries. Marrying passionate storytelling with rigorous analysis and a vision as pragmatic as it is fiercely moral, The End of Poverty is a truly indispensable work.
Customer Reviews:
Read with a grain of salt. .......2007-10-05
This book covers some concepts that at face value and first read - especially people like me who are not economists - seem quite enlightening. But the more you read, the more you have to question how it seems that the view he presents is a seemingly simplistic solution to what is in reality a complex problem. One of the reviews on here talked about how it is not "infrastructure" that is key to solving the problems, but rather an access to market. I'd have to agree. Companies are not flocking to sub-Saharan Africa to utilize the labor there. Companies are moving to China and India. This is not a simple matter of infrastructure, but a matter of economic policy and much more.
The book points to some villages in rural Africa where things appear to be improving - a choice village or two where Jeffrey Sachs and the Earth Institute at Columbia pour in their resources (these are subsequently called Millennium Villages to coincide with the Millennium Development Goals) - and it makes you think that he might possibly be making some sense. However, what about generalization to a whole country? Of course if you take all your resources, all the scientific knowledge accessible to you from the Earth Institute, and then some, and pour these into a village, what village will not transform? But is it sustainable? Is it generalizable to the whole country? Change needs to occur at the policy/governmental level concurrently, in order for real success and improvement.
While this book may be interesting, it is important to remember that it is not THE way; it is A way, and along with it, it has its flaws. Ask some other economist what they think - I did, and got an earful. The opinion was that Jeffrey Sachs is just recycling his ideas that he used decades back during the 80s, and that to counter this viewpoint, I must read William Easterly. I'm sure there are others out there to read. But again, one good read does not solve all the world's ills. If you don't have access to an economist, read ALL the reviews on here because there are some other points that need to be considered. And I don't appreciate the impression I get that ideas for solving poverty in places like sub-Saharan Africa comes from a simplistic seemingly-enlightened Westernized view of "this is what is wrong with Africa".
We need to end poverty.......2007-09-28
The book is great. It puts the poverty of the world, including America into light. It lets the reader know that poverty can be ended in our lifetime. It is very serious topic and book. We have the opportunity to end poverty, but will we be the generation that sits by and watches our fellow humans starve and die of disease or not?
The book got to me in a very timely manner and was inexpensive.
Using American Wealth to End Poverty.......2007-09-18
Eradicating global poverty is a concern that Christian missionaries and activists now share with a growing number of global economists and even rock stars like Bono. The gulf between incomes in the West and developing countries complicates the missionary task, yet missionaries often have little understanding of how the global economy works.
Jeffrey Sachs is well qualified to interpret globalization since he has worked in over a hundred nations, analyzing and offering advice on national economies. He was an economics professor at Harvard University and is now Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He was an economic advisor to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and to Bono.
In The End of Poverty, Sachs outlines a plan to end global poverty by 2025. He is not only a visionary but also an excellent teacher on the fundamentals of global economics. He distinguishes between three degrees of poverty: extreme poverty, representing one billion people who literally struggle for survival every day; moderate poverty, representing 1.5 billion people who live just above subsistence level; and relative poverty, representing 2.5 billion people. Sachs shows how the world economy has changed dramatically since 1980, with over half the world making economic progress. Only Africa has experienced a general increase in extreme poverty in the past 25 years. When Sachs speaks of eradicating poverty, he means primarily ending only extreme poverty by 2025.
Sachs criticizes the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for failing to represent the interests of the poor and advocates "clinical economics" which gives a scientific diagnosis of each nation's economic problems with a prescription for improvement. He believes that if every wealthy nation committed just 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) to foreign direct assistance, global poverty would end. The United States currently gives only 0.15 percent of GNP in such aid, far below all other wealthy nations.
Sachs offers deep insights into globalization. He states that his worldview is from the Enlightenment, so he advocates "Enlightened Globalization," meaning that he believes scientific rationalism combined with compassion can solve humanity's problems. He also sees American wealth as the key to ending global poverty and discounts the effects of differing cultures as being part of the problem. Sachs does not answer all questions about the sources and solution of poverty, but he sheds some needed light on the subject.
Another impartial diagnosis of poverty.......2007-06-21
For some populist reasons, many pundits think that poverty in poor countries, notaby in Africa, is the result of the lack of investment or commitment of western nations. Unfortunately, Dr. Sachs is one of them. In this book, he only stresses the external factors deepening extreme poverty in Third World countries, not the significance of domestic variables like the obvious lack of commitment and weak incentives to eradicate poverty. The latter is a confluence of factors, both indigenous and external. Using history as our guide, one can almost certainly say that growth has failed because of weak domestic incentives. Failing to recognize that and calling for a large-scale investment in poor countries is an unadulterated promotion of utopianism. Without prior government commitments( not those based on short-term policy reforms but historical performance), all prescriptions will be worse than the desease.
i really do like it.......2007-06-16
if you think about how stinjy (stingy) the 1st world is, it makes you sad. but if you read this book, you'll at least realize that something can be done. hopefully it'll make you feel a little bit better ^_^
Average customer rating:
- Thinking about your food
- Powerful Read
- Great book and fun to read!
- Lifechanging book
- Totally Awesome!
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver ,
Camille Kingsolver , and
Steven L. Hopp
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
ASIN: 0060852550
Release Date: 2007-05-01 |
Book Description
Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.
"Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel. . . ."
Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.
"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."
Customer Reviews:
Thinking about your food.......2007-10-05
Ms Kingsolver writes smoothly and with passion about organic farming. Sidebars from her college age daughter cover practical personal concerns, complete with recipes to enjoy the seasonal bounty of the land; while ones from her husband give the political overview of how farming policies affect us all on a world level. All in my book group enjoyed the book as a whole. It was obviously edited tightly to be easy and fast to read while still introducing ideas that would be unusual to most people in North America. As one with a extensive backyard fruit and vegetable garden in California, I would have enjoyed more detailed planning information on how she decided what and how much to plant, why she did not try to raise more and different animals for food, (e.g., rabbits, sheep, or even guinea pigs)and what she could have done with a greenhouse and solar or wind power.
Powerful Read.......2007-10-04
I think this is an important book about our society, economy and values. While it can be a bit preachy at times, Barbara's humor is wonderfully dry. I highly recommend.
Great book and fun to read! .......2007-10-01
I loved the book, it was informative and entertaining. Everyone can benefit from reading it and trying to follow Barbara's lead.
Lifechanging book.......2007-10-01
I heard an interview on NPR with the author and purchased this book because her ideas were very interesting to me. I was not disappointed. This book was riveting and eye opening. I've been checking out the websites suggested in the book to find local harvest information and I intend to frequent my local farmers and farmers markets during next years growing season and maybe even try my hand at canning. I'm hooked. Thank you so much for this wonderful informative book.
Totally Awesome!.......2007-09-29
This is one of the best books on what's wrong with our Farm Bill and our Standard American Diet (SAD) and how to fix it! The Kingsolver family have done a great and wonderful service for our country and the world by creating this wonderful book. It should be required reading in every school in the country!
Amazon.com
John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.
Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. --Alex Roslin
Book Description
The runaway bestseller that has generated a major movie deal—and an international dialogue—with over 170,000 copies sold in hardcover and seven weeks on the New York Times list
“Economic hit men,” John Perkins writes,” are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as Empire but one that has taken on terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.”
John Perkins should know—he was an economic hit man for an international consulting firm that worked to convince developing countries to accept enormous loans and to funnel that money to U.S.corporations. Once these countries were saddled with huge debts, the American government and international aid agencies were able to request their “pound of flesh” in favors, including access to natural resources, military cooperation, and political support.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is the story of one man's experiences inside the intrigue, greed, corruption and little-known government and corporate activities that America has been involved in since World War II, and which have dire consequences for the future of democracy and the world.
“[A] gripping tell-all book.”—The Rocky Mountain News
“Astonishing.”—Boston Herald
“This riveting look at a world of intrigue reads like a spy novel . . . Highly recommended.”— Library Journal
“Here are the real-life details—nasty, manipulative, plain evil—of international corporate skullduggery spun into a tale rivaling the darkest espionage thriller.”—Greg Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Customer Reviews:
The Hit Man Takes Hits.......2007-10-08
I was loaned this book by a friend who believes the world is controlled by a conspiratorial group whose goal is world domination through a one-world government. Therefore, I was fully prepared to write off Perkin's story as just another conspiracy theory. But, in deference to my friend (with whose theories I DO NOT agree), I read it.
Surprisingly, I found I could not put the book down. For me, Perkin's revelations were like having an insider's guide to a difficult jigsaw puzzle, one where I had many of the pieces but was having trouble seeing how they fit together.
There have already been enough reviews written about this book and its contents. I will focus on what I can add by way of my own personal experiences. Incidentally, this book is definitely NOT a conspiracy theory, as the author makes clear.
Since 1995, I have been cruising fulltime on my sailboat, visiting many countries south of the border. My travels include spending many months (in some cases, years) in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Bonaire, the Dominican Republic, etc. I'm presently spending six months in Venezuela. I don't hesitate to claim that I've learned much more about these countries and their peoples than the average U.S. citizen. I don't stay in insulated tourist hotels and resorts, but much prefer to mingle with the locals, playing music on guitar and talking politics. (BTW, knowing how to play guitar will buy infinitely more good will among the common people of Latin America than all the Gringo dollars you can carry.)
As far as Perkin's descriptions of events in the countries I've visited, I found him to be 100% credible; e.g., the unilateral invasion of Panama by the U.S., the role of United Fruit in the Latin countries, the devastating effects of U.S. big oil interests in Venezuela and Ecuador, his account of the ascendency of Hugo Chavez, the explanations of why and how Torrijos, Roldos and Allende met their untimely ends. Perkin's accounts of such things may be new and surprising to U.S. readers, but they are completely accurate and well-known facts among Latins.
Having for a long time been a serious student of world history, I can also find nothing incorrect about Perkin's accounts of events in other parts of the world. In my opinion, this is a very important book. It should be made required reading at every high school in the U.S. Then we might have a chance of producing a new generation of U.S. citizens whose heads are not buried in the sand and who might stand some chance of reaching valid conclusions, DESPITE their incessant exposure to the U.S. mass media, about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
If you are considering buying this book, read the five-star reviews. Most importantly, don't be intimidated by the caustic language and attempts at character assassination evident in many of the negative reviews. It shouldn't require much of your critical thinking skills to see that most of those reviews are nothing more than irrational, vindictive mud-slinging by right-wing fanatics. The mere fact that there are so many virulent condemnations of the book, the author, and his message, should alone be enough to stimulate your interest.
In sum, Perkins is entirely credible, the book is sufficiently documented, and his story is important for an understanding of the political realities surrounding "globalization" and the role of U.S. mega-corporations in that effort. It was also very well-written. I couldn't recommend any book more highly.
A human story about change of heart, not just economics.......2007-10-02
John Perkins, a man who has written mostly about his experiences with shamanism and only eluded to his "dark side", now comes clean in this eye-opening expose of how real people are paid to destroy countries economies in order to create wealth for the elite. But more than anything, this book for me is about one man's conversion experience - from selling his soul to the highest bidder (even while studying with indigenous shamans) to facing the human and environmental consequences of his actions. Eventually, he changed his life and stepped into the full potential of his heart.
Despite the harsh reality Perkin's truth-telling offers, this book is inspirational in that it proves that anyone can change from a life of greed and domination to one of kindness and compassion. I highly recommend his previous books (such as Shapeshifting) which speak to his spiritual awakenings and the role of indigenous people's teachings in leaving the Hit Man life behind.
Viewing America's Global Empire from the Trenches.......2007-10-01
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man presents the experiences of John Perkins, while working as an Economic Hit Man (EHM)- although he was officially titled as an economist, essentially cheerleading foreign loans to third world countires as a means of economic development, although as Perkins claims, is was expected that the third world nations would never actually achieve the growth levels to allow them to pay off the loans.
All of this was done to both line the pockets of multi-national construction firms, primarily U.S.-based, as well as lead to the expansion of the United States "Global Empire".
While I find Perkins' writing a bit preachy, and his views somewhat a "holier-than thou" attitude, as it comes to his statements that he foresaw the ramifications of his work "doctoring" economic forecasts, the book is an interesting book that did make me consider a number of events on the international stage that I had previously considered chance happenings.
I think the time spent reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is time well spent.
Self-Serving Drivel.......2007-09-25
Perkins was an economic hit man, acting as a consultant who helped strong arm less developed countries into being saddled with debt they would be unable to pay. This strategy enriches American companies, and makes indebted countries obligated to serve US interests. In doing so, poor people become more impoverished, sensitive ecosystems are destroyed, and future generations suffer.
All the while Perkins created inflated economic forecasts to justify irresponsible lending by the World Bank and other financial behemoths, he claims to have felt guilty. Guilty all the way to his bank...
To assuage his guilt, he tries to equate how the general population benefits from lower prices based upon the work he has done, making us all his moral equivalent.
[...]
Perkins has a story to tell. His constant whining about his feelings, while getting richer and taking bribes throughout many decades, sickens me.
He should tell his story, and let his actions speak for his feelings. [...]
Economic hit man.......2007-09-21
The book starts out with speciifc strong facts. However, towards the end it becomes significantly weaker and less convincing. Overall wothwhile reading, as long as you do not believe every word.
Amazon.com
In a global economy, it is crucial for business people to be sensitive to cultural differences. And although the best reason for doing so may be ethical, it's great for business as well! This is an invaluable book for "doing well while doing good" in your intercultural relations, covering the protocols of appointments, business entertaining, greetings, forms of address, gestures, dress, and gifts in 60 of the nations you're most likely to be doing business. Some interesting excerpts:
- Australia: The "thumbs-up" sign, which in the U.S. indicates "O.K." is considered rude.
- Brazil: The colors of the Brazilian flag are green and yellow, so avoid wearing this combination in any fashion.
- China: Avoid making exaggerated gestures or using dramatic facial expressions. The Chinese do not generally use their hands when speaking, and become distracted by a speaker who does.
- Indonesia: Since it is impolite to disagree with someone, Indonesians rarely say "no"...a clear way to indicate "no" is to suck in air through the teeth.
The authors are very aware that no generalizations apply to all residents of a nation, and are careful not to stereotype or judge. Highly recommended to any business traveler--or any student of the diversity of human cultures.
(Note: a great companion volume for this book is Gestures, which is devoted entirely to explaining the varieties of hand gestures in 82 countries!)
Book Description
More than a decade after establishing itself as the number-one book on international business etiquette, Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands has been fully revised to reflect the profound global transformation that has occurred since its debut. In this new edition, author Terri Morrison McCarthy-the leading expert in this field-has included:
Comprehensive updates for each of the book's 60-plus country chapters
Several brand-new sections, including Cultural IQ tests, "Know Before You Go" tips, and alerts on international security issues
Additional chapters on Austria, Belize, Ireland, South Africa, and Vietnam
The most comprehensive, authoritative text of its kind, the first edition of this invaluable reference guide has won a following among high-ranking military officials, influential corporate executives, and business school professors alike. This new edition, with its wealth of revised material and discussions of current hot topics, is proof that such a classic only gets better with time.
Customer Reviews:
Understanding.......2007-06-18
This is an excellent resource to assist those of us who live in the United States to better understand and relate to individuals from other countries. Behaviors are very often driven by culture. I use this with Homestay families when I place students from other countries in their homes.
A Quick Reference on Cross Cultural Sensitivities.......2007-05-19
I run leadership programs for high potential Fortune 500 women in NYC, Boston and NJ and I meet so many talented men and women from Eastern Europe, Europe, South America, Asia, South America and even Iceland. This book gives me a quick reference on business culture, mores, traditions and social culture. I know these get out of date quickly but it's sure better than not knowing and allows you to be more responsive.
Dubious advice at best.......2007-04-25
I lived in South East Asia for nearly 12 years including over 8 of them in Indonesia. From tiny villages in Java with just under 30 families to the skyscrapers of Jakarta, running industrial projects and developing business. I even gained a native level fluency of the language.
At no time during that entire period did I EVER find an Indonesian who would hesitate to tell me "no". They can say it, do say, and even have a few different words for it. The only time I've ever seen someone suck air between their teeth is when they've eaten something really hot.
It's naive to think a single book or individual can cover the customs of 60 countries. Having spent considerable time in one geographic region with my feet on the ground for years in nearly a dozen countries, I couldn't even begin to start to explain the cultural traits and habits of maybe four or five of those countries.
Find yourself a real cultural etiquette book that focuses on the specific country you want to visit, and forget this superficial treatment that looks like a rehash of every other general cultural etiquette book I've ever read.
Another inaccuracy .......2007-03-30
Perhaps many of the people who are rating the book so highly did not take the "cultural IQ" quizzes. I took the one for Spain, a country I have visited. The answers were correct in identifying the Prado as being in Madrid, but the last time I visited the Alhambra, it was in Granada, not Toledo (where the book puts it). That's quite a distance to move a major cultural landmark!
Kiss Bow or Shake Hands.......2007-01-12
Excellent reference book. Especially useful if you do international business of any kind.
Book Description
From one of the world's best-known development economists—an excoriating attack on the tragic hubris of the West's efforts to improve the lot of the so-called developing world
In his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly criticized the utter ineffectiveness of Western organizations to mitigate global poverty, and he was promptly fired by his then-employer, the World Bank. The White Man's Burden is his widely anticipated counterpunch—a brilliant and blistering indictment of the West's economic policies for the world's poor. Sometimes angry, sometimes irreverent, but always clear-eyed and rigorous, Easterly argues that we in the West need to face our own history of ineptitude and draw the proper conclusions, especially at a time when the question of our ability to transplant Western institutions has become one of the most pressing issues we face.
Customer Reviews:
Frustrating and Illuminating.......2007-09-03
I found The White Man's Burden frustrating and illuminating at the same time. I was frustrated by the fact that despite masses of foreign aid little seems to have helped Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the other areas known as "the Rest". It was illuminating in that William Easterly oes such a good job of analyzing the reasons why so much good will and so much money have accomplished so little.
Basically, Westerners who seek to help the rest of the world have largely been Planners, Easterly's term for people and organizations who think the way to help others is to help them become more like themselves. Despite historic, cultural, religious, and a host of other differences, the West tries to improve the Rest by trying to make it into a New West. On the other hand, there are the Searchers, who try to find ways to help and to help the Rest help itself. Unfortunately, too many agencies and too many powerful people are Planners, and far too few are Searchers. Easterly dissects the failures of the Planners and compares them with the successes of Searchers in a scholarly, well researched manner that leaves room for the occasional witticism.
As I read The White Man's Burden I recognized so many of the same problems that I, as a public school teacher, face dealing with bureaucracies full of Planners, who think the way to solve a problem is to come up with a big overall Scheme and throw tons of money around, usually unsuccessfully. Easterly has performed a valuable service by revealing the problem and identifying the solutions. Maybe someday the Searchers will be in charge!
A Wake-up call for the Aid-Industry.......2007-08-07
William Easterly gives, in his book, The White Man's Burden, an important contribution to the debate on foreign aid to developing countries. As a counterpart to economist Jeffrey Sachs and the World Bank's utopist policies, most of all suitable to give the West and their politicians a clean conscience - this book gives more realistic and down-to-earth suggestions to what really could work and what is possible to accomplish. It also calls for greater UN/World Bank/ NGO accountability towards the poor and not only towards donors...A "must-read" for all involved in foreign aid and other citizens alike.
Skip Part 3.......2007-07-26
In this book, William Easterly does an excellent job of critiquing the West's efforts at foreign aid and why they have been so unsuccessful despite constant efforts over the past decades. He draws on his extensive experience with the World Bank and knowledge of the practices of other aid agencies to build a solid foundation for his argument. His claims that the grand plans of agencies simply do not address the real problems that the poverty face and that their efforts are simply not working are well founded.
However he divides the book into 4 parts, the first an introduction and the second a more detailed critique of development agencies. The fourth section presents his conclusions about the future of foreign aid and suggestions about how to make it more effective. But in part 3 he strays from the topic of direct foreign aid to address other ways that he claims that West has tried to aid the Rest. The section consists of 2 chapters. The first chapter addresses a proposed idea that Western powers take over certain sections of the developing world as a sort of economic protectorate. The idea is not clearly outlined but Easterly is immediately opposed to it because it sounds sort of like colonialism. He then analyzes decolonization for examples of why colonialism was bad for the developing world and, by analogy, so will these economic protectorates. His analysis of decolonization hinges on the fact that the colonial powers left behind countries with artificial boundaries that grouped antagonistic ethnic groups together and led to warfare and rivalry that hindered the country's development. However, he gives examples in which he twists historical facts to support his thesis, presenting colonial powers in an exclusively negative light. His treatment of the partition of India at their independence is the best example. As India was achieving independence from Britain, Muhammad Jinnah, the leader of the Muslims of India, pushed for a separate Muslim state, against the wishes of Gandhi and Nehru. He claimed that India will come to be dominated by Hindus and the Muslims would suffer under such a situation. The actual point of independence was overseen by Lord Mountbatten, sent in by Britain to peacefully bring about independence. The creation of Pakistan was the result. Unfortunately Pakistan would encompass a number of ethnic groups, including Sikhs, Baluchis, Pashtuns as well as Muslim Indians, who were uncooperative and led to Pakistan being an underdeveloped state. All of this is presented well by Easterly in the chapter. However his final take is that the problems of Pakistan are Mountbatten's fault for allegedly grouping all the ethnic groups together in that country. But Pakistan was Jinnah's idea who was doing something that Easterly would have advocated, separating 2 mutually antagonistic ethnic groups into separate states so that each could control their own destiny. Easterly twists historical facts in order to put Britain (a.k.a. the West) in a negative light. This attitude and distortion of history characterizes the entire chapter. Moreover his critique of colonialism says nothing the possible success of the proposed economic protectorates. Colonies were focussed on the economic development of the mother country. The economic protectorates would theoretically (and the whole idea was only a theory at the time of writing) focus on the economic development of the Third World.
The second chapter of the section does not fare much better. He addresses military interventions into developing countries, positing them as attempts to bring development to a country by bringing peace. However his detailed critique of them never presents them as economic development measures. Many of them were simply peacekeeping missions just to stop people from killing each other or undertaken as a means of national security. They were nothing more than political moves and should not be used as an example of the West's failure at development.
Overall this section simply reveals Easterly's biases and shows that he has stepped far outside his area of expertise. The section is misplaced and should have been deleted from the book altogether. It only detracts from an otherwise well-written and carefully thought out critique of foreign aid. In all I agree with his critique and his belief that the West needs to abandon its grand plans and listen to the world's poor to find out how we can address their needs more specifically.
Incidentally, I found one point where Easterly does not follow his own advice. At one point he is talking with a South African woman diagnosed with HIV, who will likely die within a few years, who, instead of resigning herself to her fate, is working as hard as she can to ensure a good life for her children. He asks what the biggest problem the country faces is. She answers "No jobs". Easterly then turns back to the reader with a twinkle in his eye and uses her unwillingness to give up as a call for better aid. But she didn't say she wanted aid, did she? She wants jobs. The real problem that all the developing world faces is a lack of economic investment. They need jobs so that they have a better chance of standing on their own in the future. What was that idea about economic protectorates?
Very informative, unfortunately too much detail.......2007-06-22
Prof. Easterly knows what he is writing about as he spent many years with the World Bank. His basic thesis is, that the aid to developping countries does not lack funding, but the funds are applied very inefficiently. The "customers" of the help agencies are not the needy poor, but the "rich" donor countries and their citizens. Hence aid is applied to please these customers, rather than pleasing the poor. In other words, he applies market logic to explain the reasons for failure.
The only draw back to the book is its length. After some time, the book starts repeating itself, and the details become onerous for the interested lay person. (Who, except the specialist really cares about some fine differences between World Bank IMF and the various UN agencies?)
Even though I did not finish the book for that reason, I highly recommend it to anybody, who wants to know, why his aid money does not seem to work.
Thought-provoking and memorable.......2007-06-04
As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Africa -- but someone without a lot of formal training in macroeconomics or knowledge of the politics and history of the IMF, World Bank, and associated other organizations -- I picked this book up hoping for a cogent and intelligent perspective on the "larger picture" driving what I observed on the ground. I wasn't disappointed.
Easterly arrives at many of the same conclusions I did, backed up with reams of analysis and a deep understanding of the nature of the IMF, World Bank, etc., as well as the historical roots explaining why they are the way they are. I found the book to be slow-going in parts, but that's probably more because much of the content was totally new to me: it's dense, but that's a good thing. And even though it is dense, I thought it was very readable.
One thing that I thought would have been valuable was more of a discussion about how a foreign policy oriented around a bottom-up, "Searcher" type approach could be sold. He acknowledges that the reason "Planner" solutions are so popular is that they make us feel good, like "something is being done" -- but, unfortunately, the psychological power of that is so strong that a fundamental shift in policy will not occur simply on the basis of rational evidence that it doesn't work. That said, I don't think it's impossible: it's just about appealing to a different aspect of our psychology. Peace Corps, for instance, I think does a pretty good job of selling the Searcher ethos, and it does so by emphasizing the small-scale stories of success, as well as the OTHER benefits of being a Searcher (such as learning from the other cultures). A Searcher-based foreign policy, on the larger scale, could sell itself similarly -- buzzwords like "empowerment" and "grassroots" spring to mind. Anyway, I would have appreciated more of a discussion about that (or, if these ideas are silly, a discussion of exactly why).
Still, this book is important reading for anyone interested in foreign policy and foreign aid. And it should be required reading for the people in charge of such things.
Book Description
Do you love America? Are you proud to call this country your home? Now, what about your kids? You want them to love America as much as you do, but when popular culture tells them it’s cooler to bash this country than to love it, how can you teach them to be proud and loyal citizens?
As mothers themselves, bestselling author Myrna Blyth and former presidential speechwriter Chriss Winston have struggled with the same dilemma. Shocked by the growing patriotism gap, they set out to create a real-world resource all parents can use to teach their kids about the greatness of America’s past, the promise of its future, and the important role each of us plays in this democracy. How to Raise an American shows you how to make patriotism a priority without it becoming a chore for you or your kids.
This practical guide offers tips, games, activities, quizzes, and information you can use to make patriotism part of your family’s daily life, including:
- 60-Minute Solutions that easily and seamlessly instill a love of this country
- Dinner Table Debate topics that will have the whole family talking
- Road trip ideas that bring America’s history to life
- Books and movies that exemplify our shared ideals
- Inspiring stories of American courage, honor, and ingenuity
- Fun and educational ways to 
