3rd Quarter 2006 ~ NONFICTION Book Suggestions!

riverc0il

The book does look interesting, but I wonder why they don't have a real publisher backing the title? The publisher listed is a "custom" or self publishing outfit. I read a lot about a book by which publisher is involved. These self publishing companies are generally a mixed bag with their titles. If I was an author trying to get an important book on the market, I would be more concerned with working with a respectable publisher than trying to milk every copy for as much money possible. There isn't a lot of money to be made in books to begin with. Any ways, long story short, I just thought it odd that a book that looks like a really good read isn't being put out by an actual publisher by rather a custom outfit.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 10:35 pm Post subject: Noam Chomsky: Failed States

Noam Chomsky Failed States : The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

This is Chomsky's latest book and I think it will prove worthy of generating copious debate and discussion. Considering our recent read, Harriis' End of Faith uses Chomsky as an example of bad thinking, it makes sense to tackle Noam head-on and see if Sam is right. Everything is on the table in this one: politics, environment, military, science, philosophy, popular culture, economics, planetary survival... something for everyone.

Quote:
Publishers Weekly: Ranging haphazardly from the Seminole War forward, Chomsky's jeremiad views American interventionism as a pageant of imperialist power-plays motivated by crass business interests. Disdaining euphemisms, he denounces American "terror" and "war crimes," castigates the public-bamboozling "government-media propaganda campaign" and floats comparisons to Mongols and Nazis. Chomsky's fans will love it, but even mainstream critics are catching up to the substance of his take on Bush Administration policies; meanwhile his uncompromising moral sensibility, icy logic and withering sarcasm remain in a class by themselves. Required reading for every thoughtful citizen.

Quote:
From the Book: Forceful, lucid, and meticulously documented, Failed States offers a comprehensive analysis of a global superpower that has long claimed the right to reshape other nations while its own democratic institutions are in severe crisis, and its policies and practices have recklessly placed the world on the brink of disaster. Systematically dismantling America’s claim to being the world’s arbiter of democracy, Failed States is Chomsky’s most focused—and urgent—critique to date

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Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 5/3/06 11:43 pm

LanDroid · Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject: Directive 19

Quote:
I have killed with ruthless disregard for humanity. I ordered young German soldiers to kill with ruthless disregard for humanity. I personally authorized favorable reports on the use of Zyklon B as a gassing chemical and personally pulled the trigger of a machine gun to shoot civilians on the snowy steppes of the Ukraine. I hanged Polish, French and Dutch civilians during summary and reprisal executions. I am a criminal.

I might be up for Directive 19, but I'm not sure I want the author to make one penny of profit off of me...

JulianTheApostate · Junior Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 308 Gender:

I finished Fisk's book a couple of weeks ago. Overall, it's worthwhile for one category of people, which includes me but excludes most potential readers.

First of all, Fisk jumps around, spending a lot of time on certain times & places while neglecting others. That's fine if you've read several books on the Middle East (as I have) but might be disorienting otherwise.

Second, Fisk is rather anti-violence, and is very critical of most governments. His characterization of government policies would piss off nationalistic Americans, Brits, Israelis, Iranians, etc.

Fisk talks a lot about people's suffering, whether caused by war, oppression, or economic sanctions. Parts of the book are hard to get through, though its a counterpart to most histories, which tend to downplay the sufferings.

Finally, since the book is rather long, and I doubt that many people here would be willing to read it.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend Fisk's book unless you're a leftist who's already read a great deal about the Middle East and can tolerate descriptions of violence.

riverc0il

Quote:
I might be up for Directive 19, but I'm not sure I want the author to make one penny of profit off of me... >:

i think the amazon review noted that the author was dead and it was being released by an uninvolved collaborated that helped write the book.

riverc0il

As we approach the end of the suggestion period, it might be a good idea for everyone to review the recommendations and come up with a few favorites. So far, I like MadArchitect's recommendation A Peace to End All Peace the best. I have wanted to better explore the history of the Middle East in more detail, this is an excellent opportunity. Also, despite the great discussion on going in "End of Faith" by Harris, I think a title not dealing with religious or atheistic topics may be a good idea for the next reading. Though it will likely be hard to read a book about Middle East peace without some discussion of how Islam has guided the area politically and socially, we can largely avoid most of the hot topic issues I believe.

Chris OConnor

I agree with everything you just said, Riverc0il.

BTW I am advertising on Infidelguy.com for 3 months at a total cost of $300. Hopefully this brings in a few heathens.

MadArchitect

"A Peace to End All Peace" is still my favorite suggestion of the lot. I may be biased. I'd like to see a broader range of topics covered by the suggestions as well -- it seems like we've got the politics/current events category covered. We could probably stand to have a few more philosophy, science, and arts suggestions.

MadArchitect

Despite the path I suggested in my last post, the following book ought to be worth consideration -- it won this year's Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction writing.

Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Forty years after Kenyan independence from Britain, the words "Mau Mau" still conjure images of crazed savages hacking up hapless white settlers with machetes. The British Colonial Office, struggling to preserve its far-flung empire of dependencies after World War II, spread hysteria about Kenya's Mau Mau independence movement by depicting its supporters among the Kikuyu people as irrational terrorists and monsters. Caroline Elkins, a historian at Harvard University, has done a masterful job setting the record straight in her epic investigation, Imperial Reckoning. After years of research in London and Kenya, including interviews with hundreds of Kenyans, settlers, and former British officials, Elkins has written the first book about the eight-year British war against the Mau Mau.
She concludes that the war, one of the bloodiest and most protracted decolonization struggles of the past century, was anything but the "civilizing mission" portrayed by British propagandists and settlers. Instead, Britain engaged in an amazingly brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that seemed to border on outright genocide. While only 32 white settlers were killed by Mau Mau insurgents, Elkins reports that tens of thousands of Kenyans were slaughtered, perhaps up to 300,000. The British also interned the entire 1.5 million population of Kikuyu, the colony's largest ethnic group, in barbed-wire villages, forced-labour reserves where famine and disease ran rampant, and prison camps that Elkins describes as the Kenyan "Gulag." The Kikuyu were subjected to unimaginable torture, or "screening," as British officials called it, which included being whipped, beaten, sodomized, castrated, burned, and forced to eat feces and drink urine. British officials later destroyed almost all official records of the campaign. Elkins infuses her account with the riveting stories of individual Kikuyu detainees, settlers, British officials, and soldiers. This is a stunning narrative that finally sheds light on a misunderstood war for which no one has yet been held officially accountable. --Alex Roslin

From Publishers Weekly
In a major historical study, Elkins, an assistant professor of history at Harvard, relates the gruesome, little-known story of the mass internment and murder of thousands of Kenyans at the hands of the British in the last years of imperial rule. Beginning with a trenchant account of British colonial enterprise in Kenya, Elkins charts white supremacy's impact on Kenya's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, and the radicalization of a Kikuyu faction sworn by tribal oath to extremism known as Mau Mau. Elkins recounts how in the late 1940s horrific Mau Mau murders of white settlers on their isolated farms led the British government to declare a state of emergency that lasted until 1960, legitimating a decade-long assault on the Kikuyu. First, the British blatantly rigged the trial of and imprisoned the moderate leader Jomo Kenyatta (later Kenya's first postindependence prime minister). Beginning in 1953, they deported or detained 1.4 million Kikuyu, who were systematically "screened," and in many cases tortured, to determine the extent of their Mau Mau sympathies. Having combed public archives in London and Kenya and conducted extensive interviews with both Kikuyu survivors and settlers, Elkins exposes the hypocrisy of Britain's supposed colonial "civilizing mission" and its subsequent coverups. A profoundly chilling portrait of the inherent racism and violence of "colonial logic," Elkins's account was also the subject of a 2002 BBC documentary entitled Kenya: White Terror. Her superbly written and impassioned book deserves the widest possible readership.

Product Details
Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (December 23, 2004)
Language: English

riverc0il

Quote:
I'd like to see a broader range of topics covered by the suggestions as well -- it seems like we've got the politics/current events category covered. We could probably stand to have a few more philosophy, science, and arts suggestions.

This is true. I am leaning towards a historical reading for next quarter myself, thus my preference on a Middle Eastern title. I also liked this recommendation as well:

The Image : A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, by Daniel J. Boorstin


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