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Past Books Archives 2003 - 2005
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See Past Books 2006 - 2009
| Date |
Title / Brief Description |
Author |
| December 12, 2005 |
Winning
The Future: A 21st Century Contract with America America currently faces
five threats that could undermine, if not eliminate, the United States
if immediate steps are not taken to correct them. To tackle these
problems, Gingrich offers his "21st Century Contract with America,"
which he outlines in great detail in this bold and thought-provoking
book. |
Newt Gingrich |
| November 14, 2005 |
Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond examined why some cultures have historically succeeded
in material, agricultural, and military gains while others seem to have
progressed little, even today. His short answer is that the
development of weapons such as guns, resistance to germs, and production
of material such as steel led to unassailable advantages in development
and in conquest. The book examines why
these advantages occurred, mostly
looking at geographical location and ecological settings, while
discounting factors such as race, cultural, or religious factors.
|
Jared Diamond |
| October, 17, 2005 |
Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America
Essayist and cultural critic Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialized
in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity, and
verve. With some 12 million women being pushed into the labor market by
welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and
find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the
unskilled--at $6 to $7 an hour, only half of what is considered a living
wage. So she did what millions of Americans do, she looked for a job and
a place to live, worked that job, and tried to make ends meet.
|
Barbara Ehrenreich |
| September 19, 2005 |
Charlie Wilson's War In conjunction with
President Zia of Pakistan in the 1980s,
Wilson circumvented most of the barriers to arming the Afghan mujahideen-distance,
money, law and internal CIA politics, to name a few. Their coups
included getting Israeli-modified Chinese weapons smuggled into
Afghanistan, with the Pakistanis turning a blind eye. A triumph of
ruthless ability over scruples, this story has dominated recent history
in the form of blowback: many of the men armed by the CIA became the
Taliban's murderous enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors. |
George Crile |
| August 22, 2005 |
The Sound and the
Fury The Sound and the Fury
was published in 1929, although it was one of the first novels Faulkner
wrote. Many critics and even Faulkner himself think that it is the best
novel that he wrote. Its subject is the downfall of the Compson family,
the offspring of the pioneer Jason Lycurgus Compson. |
William Faulkner |
| June 6, 2005 |
Bad
News: the Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to
Us All. Tom Fenton, senior correspondent at CBS has reported on
everything from the fall of the Shah of Iran to the movements of
al Qaeda throughout Europe -- a story he was tracking before
9/11. And in the three years since that fateful day, he has come
to a sobering realization: Our once-noble news media -- and
network TV news in particular -- have abdicated their
responsibility to the American people, and endangered us in the
process |
Tom Fenton |
| May 2, 2005 |
The End of Poverty:
Economic Possibilities for our Time. Marrying vivid
eyewitness storytelling to his laserlike analysis, Jeffrey Sachs
sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world
economy and the different categories into which countries fall.
|
Jeffrey Sachs |
| April 4, 2005 |
Word
Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of
Competitive Scrabble Players It's a very humorous and true look at
what makes Scrabble players tick.
|
Stefan Fatsis |
| March 7, 2005 |
What's the Matter with
Kansas?
The book examines
the rise of ultraconservative politics in the state that was once known
for agrarian populism. The book is clearly written from a leftist
perspective, while exploring the historical shift of rural Democrats to
conservative politics. |
Thomas Frank |
| February 7, 2005 |
More
Terrible Than Death - Violence, Drugs, & America's War in Columbia
The book chronicles US actions
and policies and their effects in Colombia's civil and drug wars from a
human rights perspective. |
Robin Kirk |
| January 10, 2005 |
The Tipping Point: How
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. By examining
fashion trends, TV shows, religion, disease and other everyday
things, Malcolm Gladwell takes the reader on an "intellectual
adventure" into the world of social epidemics and what causes
them. By bringing the reader to The Tipping Point, Gladwell
examines how little things can end up with global proportions.
|
Malcolm Gladwell |
| December 6, 2004 |
Dubliners. This is
Joyce's first book and is often recommended as an introduction
to him. It is a collection of short stories that details Dublin
in the early 1900s that weaves various everyday themes.
|
James Joyce |
| November 15, 2004 |
The Adventure of Food:
True Stories of Eating Everything. From the award-winning
editor of Travelers' Tales this collection of stories will make
your mouth water while helping you better understand other
cultures, through its touching, funny, and frightening stories
of eating. Food-its smells, textures, colors, flavors, and
rituals-is tied intrinsically to place. |
Richard Sterling |
| October 18, 2004 |
The Sunflower.
During the holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish concentration
camp prisoner, was asked for forgiveness by a dying German SS
officer. This book describes his reaction at the time and
includes essays from other famous personages about how they
would cope in a similar situation. |
Simon Wiesenthal |
| September 13, 2004 |
Resource Wars. Klare
analyzes the most likely cause of war in the century just begun:
demand by rapidly growing populations for scarce resources. He
also analyzes and explains his rationale where future conflicts
may erupt. |
Michael Klare |
| August 16, 2004 |
Fast Food Nation: The
Dark Side of the All American Meal. This book argues the
broad influence fast food has on American culture along with the
health risks and ethical issues regarding fast food's marketing
and production. |
Eric Schlosser |
| July 12, 2004 |
Siddhartha. This
classic of 20th century literature is about a young Indian
mystic, a contemporary of Buddha, sacrifices everything to
search for the true meaning of life. |
Herman Hesse |
| June 21, 2004 |
The End of Education:
Redefining the Value of School The book discusses how all of
today's educational initiatives in the US are more about the
means, and hence do not address any root change in the learning
process. The book is structured around five essays that outline
the author's proposed reforms. |
Neil Postman |
| May 10, 2004 |
The Ornament of the World:
How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance
in Medieval Spain. This book addresses how three major
cultures of the world lived together in a more stable and
productive way than had been achieved before, or arguably since.
This book provides historical context and insight into some of
the most pressing struggles of the modern world. |
Maria Rosa Menocal
|
| April 19, 2004 |
Hamilton's Blessing.
In a colorful, sweeping narrative, American Heritage business
columnist Gordon charts the history of our national debt, a mere
$80 million in 1792, but now a staggering $5.1 trillion. Gordon
deftly profiles a gallery of financial figures, including
aluminum magnate Andrew Mellon (Harding's treasury secretary and
the father of "trickle-down economics") and tough, tubercular
Federal Reserve boss Benjamin Strong, whose ill-timed death
triggered the 1929 crash. |
John Steele Gordon |
| March 15, 2004 |
A Short History of Nearly
Everything. The book reports the natural history of the
universe and how humans figured it out. Bill Bryson uses
hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews
with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people to
appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest
particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space.
|
Bill Bryson |
| February 9, 2004 |
Strength to Love. An
anthology of Dr. King's sermons covering an array of topics
including civil rights, good versus evil, communism, and
religion. |
Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| January 12, 2004 |
What's so Great about
America. India-born author D'Souza provides an immigrant's
perspective about America's virtues and qualities. He challenges
the criticisms from all viewpoints including Pat Buchanan and
Osama bin Laden. |
Dinish D'Souza |
| December 9, 2003 |
Affluenza. The book
deals with the environmental, social, cultural and mental
destruction and damage caused by consumerism. The book is in
many ways an answer to the book about globalism and my serve as
an excellent complement to contrast the differences from the
The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The book is based on two PBS
series. |
John De Graaf, David Wann and
Thomas H. Naylor |
| November 17, 2003 |
What Went Wrong?
Lewis tries to provide a concise history of relations between
the Arab world and Europe, explaining the divergence of the two
civilizations. |
Bernard Lewis |
| October 20, 2003 |
The Lexus and the Olive
Tree. This book examines the implications of globalization. |
Thomas Friedman |
| September 8, 2003 |
The Future of Freedom.
This book explores the importance and necessary components of
constitutional liberalism. Zakaria also explores the current
history of the United States and the Middle East. |
Fareed Zakaria |
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See Past Books 2006 - 2009
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