Economic-union Books

Progressing from his study of slaveholding in Western North Carolina (Mountain Masters) and other explorations of Southern Appalachian History, John Inscoe has teamed up with Gordon B. McKinney, the editor of the microfilm version of the Zebulon B. Vance Papers and author of Southern Mountain Republicans to produce the first scholarly synthesis of the Civil War in Western North Carolina. The book breaks new ground in relying on the scholarship of the past twenty years to revise the portrait of a part of North Carolina that was considered to be staunchly Unionist. It explores mountaineers attitudes toward slavery, secession, and the war in general in very broad strokes; these insights are fleshed out with details from specific locales. From the historian's point of view, the authors have not met the rigorous burden of proof in many cases, choosing to base their conclusions on just one or two primary sources; in some cases, they are forced to draw from examples outside of the region (such as Tennessee) which would fail to satisfy the most demanding of those who want conclusive evidence. However, the book is a wonderful tale and in many cases shows the myriad of responses to what has been described as the most influential historical event in United States History.

A few pages into this book it occurred to me that it must be written by a college professor since it was text-book dry. Sure enough, not one, but two of them.
Having said that, it is loaded with an insightful peek into a specific region of our country during a very specific time. A good read for anybody interested in the history of the mountains of North Caroilina.

As someone working daily in Brussels on European issues and with an interest in EU enlargement, i found this book a breath of fresh air amidst reading on all the problems the EU has to face in enlargement. The author gives a convincingly upbeat and positive assessment of how far the CEECs have come in terms of institution building for democracy and the rule of law, of protection of minorities and human rights, and a (historically new) willingness to work with each other to resolve outstanding and often very old historical conflicts, often related ot minorities and borders. This new phenomenon is at least partly due to the incentive of prospects for EU Membership. The political Copenhagen Criteria set out for EU Membership apperently prove to be succesful at least in this respect. This is not to say that many economic and political issues are resolved, nor that these countries now or even soon will meet all the criteria. But the progress in many CEECs in such fields as democracy and human rights has indeed been remarkable, and that needs to be acknowledged and welcomed.

In terms of pure analysis the book is perhaps not so strong, but then again it is not meant for academia but for a more general public. I think the author, whose journalistic background shines through, does an excellent job in bringing a positive antidote to Euro-pessimism on enlargement.

In her book, The Rebirth of Europe, Elizabeth Pond provides a great overview of the many issues and underlying dynamics facing the European Union (EU) and Europe, presently. In ten chapters, she encapsulates history, European and American perceptions, domestic politics, European Monetary Union (EMU), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as the European Strategic Defense Initiative (ESDI). Although she covers these and many other issues in-depth, she paints a rather optimistic future for both the EU and Europe without fully addressing the impact of certain salient underlying factors that she does touch on. These are domestic politics, nationalism, institutionalism, the modern social welfare state, as well as the trans-Atlantic defense capabilities gap.
In Chapters 1-5, Pond covers the evolution of Europe and the EU from very early history through the creation of the EMU. In doing this, she touches on a wide range of issues. Of note is her discourse on how the perceptions of Europe's bloody and fragmented past impact on both the modern European and American psyches. Furthermore, her work is exceedingly well documented and thorough, especially Chapter 4, Post-Cold War NATO. Her writings on NATO enlargement and ESDI are very much in synchronization with the current literature on these "hot" topics from a macro view.
Chapters 6-10 are also well done. They cover Central and Eastern Europe, the EMU, as well as ESDI and NATO in relation to current trans-Atlantic relations. However, the three-page Chapter 10, Epilogue, is rather weak for the concluding chapter of such a thoroughly encompassing and well-researched book. Additionally, it tends to contradict itself as Pond goes to great lengths summing up some of the significant pitfalls facing Europe and concludes with two very terse sentences: "Europe remains a work in-progress. So far, it seems condemned to succeed." Unfortunately, this is the problem with the entire book.

In Chapter 1, Pond states, "intellectually it is less risky to be pessimistic than to be optimistic." Thus, she seems determined, despite the fact that she, herself, addresses significant pitfalls facing the EU, Europe, and the trans-Atlantic relationship, determined to be unabashedly optimistic instead of cautiously optimistic, or even somewhat pessimistic. First, she addresses nationalism, in the form of the modern day Flemish and Wallonian separatists' movements in Belgium. These movements are spawned in large part due to taxes. (Modern day Flanders' carries the lion's share of the tax burden for the whole of Belgium.) Thus, when Pond discusses EU institutional enlargement, the high unemployment rates prevalent in Europe today, the need for the EU or European countries to upgrade their military capacity, and the EU Central Bank's unresponsiveness to some of these problems, she neglects to intermesh these fiscal issues with salient political or fiscal solutions that the reader can understand. Furthermore, she fails to even broach the subject of how these issues are to be resolved without jeopardizing the foundations of the modern social welfare state (i.e., free health care, exorbitant unemployment benefits, etc...). Finally, she fails to address an even larger problem within this framework; the large numbers of immigrants form Africa and the Middle East, who come to Europe seeking these benefits and their impact on European nationalism.
Next, Pond stresses the importance of leadership throughout her book, whether it is individual or national. She cites examples of Adenauer, Kohl, Mitterand, and DeGaulle, all at times taking up the mantle of EU leadership, despite widespread domestic animosity, to further the greater good of the EU and Europe. However, she then states that there are no new great politicians/ statesmen of this caliber in present day Europe, who are willing to fly in the face of certain domestic political death for the greater good. This is not consistent for the prevailing view of optimism that Pond wishes to connote.
Finally, although Pond does a good job of addressing NATO, ESDI, and the trans-Atlantic relationship, once again, she does not convince the reader that the problems surrounding these issues are easily surmountable. First, is the military capability gap between Europe and the United States (US). While Pond does a good job of citing the problems and stated intellectual workarounds (i.e., Heisbourg's proposals for Europe to develop professional armies and European defense industrial consolidation to avoid redundancy ), she does not take into account the economic costs, both domestically and politically, nor the effects of globalization (corporate mergers, multi-national corporations) on such intellectual proposals. Furthermore, she does not take into account the risks associated with sharing the technology to upgrade European weapons systems to the caliber of US weapons systems in the form of security leaks when a large number of states become involved.
In the end, Pond's book is an excellent work for readers seeking a greater understanding of the issues facing modern Europe and the trans-Atlantic relationship. However, it fails to make one, who is somewhat knowledgeable in European affairs, feel as optimistic about Europe's future as Pond does. Had Pond taken time to further address some of the issues outlined above in her Epilogue, with cogent solutions, the book would be a powerful work indeed. As it stands, her work leaves a somewhat educated reader wondering if Pond is too optimistic about Europe's future. This writer, although optimistic as well, is not as optimistic as Pond. The issues facing Europe are real, multi-faceted, and exceedingly interlaced to be simply congealed as solvable in the short-run. Pond is right that Europe is a work in progress, but a work that will take significantly longer than Pond implies, especially if Europe and the EU does suffer a significant setback any of the issue areas Pond addresses.

This book combines a number of interesting topics. Especially important is the topic of bride-kidnapping, but like everything else in modern academia this has to be white washed, therefore kidnapping and forced marriage and rape is called "non-consenual" which is a nice civilized term, but it implies the typical view of elite westerners, that no one is ever allowed to judge the 'other'. Therefore bride kidnapping is explained, which is better than not analyzing it, but there is no context, there is no voice of the woman and there is no analysis of why such a practice is inherently wrong.

Secondly there is an interesting discussion of language policy in Kazakhstan, but again there is little context of this. The Soviets transformed central Asia, they built states out of gatherings of tribes, they deported millions of Germans, Poles, Russians and Koreans to these lands, millions of Russians immigrated and most all the Soviet union gave written languages where only dialect had been, they also gave women equal rights and a say in the state. But they had their shortcomings, they maintained local elites by transforming local chiefs into soviet commisars.

But there is no context for this in these essays, there is no history, nothing that ties these countries to together. There is not one word about Islamism and the rise of terrorism, there is not one word on the fate of minorities, especially in Tajikistan. So in the end this book is mostly a failure, either that or it is mis-packaged, it should have just been called 'insights' into central Asia.

Seth J. Frantzman

I was assigned this book as part of the reading for a class I took at Princeton on Central Asia. I have very mixed feelings about it.

Each section is written by a different author. Some are almost unreadable. Most chapters focus on very small (and often, seemingly unimportant) issues in state and society. At times it seems the authors are more concerned with citing each other (as indeed, every one of them does) than with teaching the reader about Central Asia

But worse, reading this book will give you no insight into the actual transformation of the region. If I had to single out the biggest problem with the book, it is the misleading title. Nowhere in this book will you find the history of Central Asia dealt with in a comprehensive--much less, thorough--way. I did not come away from it with a sense of the "transformation" of Central Asia.

What this book is good for, is learning about the contradictions and problems faced by the societies of the Central Asian Republics. All the same, I would counsel you against spending your money on this book.

This book advocates for a new kind of social justice unionism that goes beyond bread & butter issues (like salaries) to placing teacher unions at the forefront of school reform in order to better serve students.

There are a lot of valid and interesting points raised by various contributors, but the book emphasizes teacher/administrator collaboration on school reform to the detriment of a discussion about building union power in the first place.

How do we put teachers in the driver's seat? How do fight for the decent compensation that many districts still lack? Social justice unionism is based on a weak premise if it isn't based on a militant union willing to go to mat for what's right. (And I whole heartedly agree that our unions, and not private corporations, should be at the forefront of school reform.)

While the book deals with the types of teacher unionism in considerable detail, there is only brief mention of the need for teachers themselves to be teachers of unionism. Howard Zinn states in an interview, "If teacher unions want to be strong and well-supported, it's essential they not only be teacher unionists but teachers of unionism... to create a generation of students who support teachers and the movement of teachers for their rights."

If the survival of teacher unionism depends upon teachers teaching unionism, they will have to learn about it first. Teacher unions need to teach their members, certainly their site representatives about the history of unionism. Short of having a required course in the role of unions in public education, Transforming Teacher Unions: Fighting for Better Schools and Social Justice should be required reading at least for one of the many classes teachers have to take for a credential.

This book is like the story of Candide! Except in this tale Candide remains completely ignorant of all the evidence that this is not the best of all possible worlds. I'am not even going to spend my precious time writing a decent-sized review of this debacle of a book; it's bad enough that I've read the book. If you're looking for a realistic outlook on Eastern European post 1991 condition - look elsewhere.

Brezezinski offers nothing more than personal asinine butchered urban tales that appeal to people like himself--droll dunderheads lacking in both originality & sincerity. "Moskviche" would love to thank this "author."

As someone who has been involved in Russian legal matters for the past ten years, I found this book quite interesting, if not always accurate. It is not so much that it is inaccurate with respect to what it reports, it is that it so much sensationalizes Russian business that it ignores the great multitudes of Russian businesses that are out there slogging it out just like most businesses in the West. So while I greatly enjoyed the book from a mostly prurient perspective, I did not find it terribly helpful in improving my knowledge of Russian business.

Matthew Brzezinski, former reporter in the Moscow bureau of The Wall Street Journal (and nephew of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's anti-Soviet National Security Advisor) writes about his time in Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a gambling mentality took over from the collapsed aspirations of Russia's 70 year experiment with Communism.

His book captures something of the atmosphere of Moscow and the former Soviet Union of the 1990s when anything seemed possible in the world of finance, set in a time and place in which Berezovsky, Gusinsky, and Potanin were discussed with the same awe (and envy) as Bezos, Case and (Martha) Stewart were in the United States.

One tale of a board meeting in the mid-1990s in the chapter "Potemkin Inc." (after the phrase "Potemkin village", a sham devised by 18th century bureaucrats to impress their sovereign) is particularly telling, not only about how far corporate governance has to go to attract foreign investors but also how the 'Soviet' mentality continues:

"One by one, the nine board members followed, one elderly official pausing by the microphone. 'Foreigners need to think about the future of the plant and about the welfare of its employees, not just about pumping profits,' he spat, white with anger. 'This meeting is over,' he added, storming off the stage."

Such comments have a familiar tone to consumers of Soviet propaganda. For 70 years the Soviet Union spoke of the horrors of Western imperialism, while at the same time running the most far-reaching totalitarian empire the world has ever seen.

At times Casino Moscow veers too much between being a personal memoir of his time in Moscow along with his growing relationship with Roberta and the larger story of the first few years of freedom in Russia. Snippets of the life of an expat in Moscow-the problems with personal staff, fears about safety, frustration with the petty bureaucracy-leave the reader wanting to learn more about what it is like to be in a country that has collapsed and is trying to find its place in the world community. Although I can sympathize with the desire for maintaining discretion regarding his wife's career, it was somewhat teasing that Brzezinski doesn't name her shadowy (although well known in Russian finance circles) and immensely profitable employer; he writes, "...I have taken the liberty of changing [her firm's name] to VSO, for Very Secretive Organization." Such subterfuge does little to dispel the notion of a cabal of financiers plotting the future of the world behind the scenes (which does not make Western capital look too attractive to its recipients).

Casino Moscow is an enjoyable book to read for anyone wondering about the beginnings of Russia's post-Soviet history.

I've never felt compelled to throw a book away. Until this one.
A reporter for a widely respected newspaper, dropped into '90s Moscow's whirling clash of cultures, should be able to come away with quite a collection of stories. And, to be fair, Brzezinski has some humorous stuff, and some interesting tales, but they're buried among too much personal detritus. There is far too much about the author, his family ties (enough already about "Uncle Zbig!") and his resentment of all things Russian. I've never read a book with such a smug (yet whiny) protagonist.
He didn't much like Russians (and had a big chip on his shoulder throughout the book), and he had little use for the expat community. With all his complaining, I wondered throughout this book why Brzezinski agreed to go to Russia, then why he stayed there, then why he bothered to write about it.
There's a good book somewhere in the Russia of the 1990s. This isn't it.

Early in his professional career Mike Lieberman was an advocate for teachers and of teacher unionism. He even ran for president of the American Federation of Teachers.

His platform, in his run for AFT president, was merger with the much larger National Education Assn.

Failing to win even 10 percent of the vote, Lieberman returned to academia looking for a more lucrative vocation. He created the Teacher Leadership Institute. Teacher union leaders paid hefty tuitions to attend and be trained by Lieberman and associates. Most of the attendees were from NEA affiliates.

Then, in 1972, came the merger agreement of the New York State NEA and AFT affiliates. Given his earlier advocacy of AFT-NEA merger, Lieberman was asked to lend his name to a "Teacher Unity Commission," a list of people whose prestige would encourage members of the New York State Teachers Assn/NEA to vote for the merger agreement.

"I can't do that," Lieberman said, "because I think NEA is opposed to the merger." In other words, his principled advocacy of merger had to give way to his money-grubbing.

Later Lieberman relocated to California and made his money consulting with school boards as to how they might thwart the demands of teachers for better working conditions, salaries, and benefits. He even ran for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, though he won well less than five (5) percent of the vote.

This book, one of his several diatribes against teacher unions, should be read in the context of a man who has no principles, whose only interest is making as much money as he can.

It should be clearly evident to anyone who is not a member of a teacher's union that, in today's world, the teacher's unions do indeed seem to do more harm than good. The iniquities of teacher's unions aren't unfixable, but there is much work to be done. What this book brings to light are some of the crucial issues that badly need to be addressed.

For me, this book hits home, as I am close friends with many high school teachers. In speaking with them, I've come to understand that teacher pay has emerged as a crucial issue in education. Quality teachers are universally considered the key to producing high-performing students, but Florida has struggled to attract teachers enticed by high salaries elsewhere. Florida pays about $5,000 less a year than the national average.

In Broward County, the School Board will contribute 3 percent more money into the payroll pot for the current school year. Last year, the figure was 5 1/2 percent. The new scale pays beginning teachers $32,700 and tops out with a base salary of $61,411 for those who have been teaching for twenty-five or thirty years (these figures are very low relative to the cost of living in Florida).

But about three-quarters of that money funds a pay ladder, which rewards teachers for their years of experience--called a step increase. The rest, about a half-percent, is what many teachers consider raises; and the money is not applied evenly. Teachers at the bottom of the scale receive $100 for the entire year; a third of a percent. That works out to 6 cents an hour. Someone halfway up the salary scale with about 10 years experience would earn 54 cents more each hour. In the end, benefits every one except the teachers. As my wife will now get a marginal increase of 3%, administration, union members, and school board officials will receive a 10% pay increase; so much for the integrity of America's education system.

It is completely absurd and incomprehensible to me that the people who are educating our children are being treated and paid like second-class citizens. What an embarrassment it is that our teachers receive not reverence but contempt from the powers that be. When all of these factors are honestly considered, it is easy to see why it is becoming difficult to encourage our collegiate population to become teachers; and the problem has only been intensified with the nation facing a teacher shortage and the Florida class size reduction amendment requiring thousands more teachers than in previous years.

Teachers should be getting the kind of wages that can compete with other fields in the career marketplace. Instead, today's teachers are struggling more than ever to survive on low wages and ever-rising costs of living. But today's teacher's unions are either too weak or too corrupt to make any kind of reform a reality; and it's truly a shame. More and more teachers are feeling like they got sold down the river by the very unions that are supposed to be looking out for them.

My county's school district is the second largest employer in Florida and the $600 million-plus payroll is the largest single expense in the district's $3 billion operating budget. But the people who deserve at least an equal share of that money, the teachers, will be left high-and-dry. So it begs the question: what will it take to get Teacher's Unions to focus back on the REAL needs of teachers instead of their own? I'll tell you what: outrage and action by all of us who give a hoot.

This book is a must read for anyone concerned about the state of education in AMerica. Mr Lieberman speaks from years of experience as a teacher and an insider in the teachers unions. I highly recommend it!

I fought the California Teachers Association in my district and watched as every position they took was against the interests of education and my two kids. I am a teacher in another district. Lieberman is saying what many, many parents rightfully say: the unions are corrupt and immoral. The CTA leadership should be in jail for fraud, lying to parents, lying to its own membership, and single-handedly bringing the state of California to its financial knees. They are crooks.
Roger S. Peterson, Rocklin, California

Anyone who can claim to write a book on the teacher's unions and ignore the many decades of their fighting for students' and teachers' benefit is clearly only on a political hatchet mission and the truth be damned. So if your mind is already made up and you don't want reality to intrude on your pre-conceived ideas, buy this book- you'll love it.

First of all, contrary to the review now on line, this book was not written by John T. Williams, whoever he is, but by John T. Alexander. This biography is a much more serious and learned biography than Henri Troyat's, which I read in 1987. This book has dull parts, but the story it tells is an incredible one. Catherine had an amazing career, and of course her parade of favorites is legendary. I found this book to be good academic history and it well deserves reading.

This is a good book to read to get a handle on the reign of Catherine the Great and late 18th C. Russia. Alexander covers the court intrigues, the attempts at reform, the complexities of foreign policy. He also avoids treating Catherine's personal life in a sensationalistic way.

So if you read this book, you will learn a lot. On the other hand, the book doesn't really come to life in the way Massie's "Peter the Great" or Avrich's "Russian Rebels" did. It is recommended only to those with a serious interest in the time of Catherine, such as students, and not the casual reader.

I have read several books on the history of Russia, like Peter the Great, and the Romanovs, but this book frankly bored me. The author definetly knows his stuff about Catherine, but I got so tired of reading about all the political stuff in this book. I wanted to know more about her personal life, more details about her comings and goings, not about how she ruled her Russian cabinet officers. Also the use of vocabulary was way over my head, so it made it hard to enjoy reading because many times I needed to get the dictionary, and I feel I have a fairly good vocabulary. I would not recommend this book unless you want to know about Russian administration in her time.

Alexander does a marvelous job retelling history without sensationalizing it. Many past biographers undertaking the job of writing about Catherine the Great have often focused too much on her sexuality, rather than her political prowess. John T. Alexander, however, thoroughly examines the political and cultural context of her life, and refuses to insult the reader's intelligence by dishing gossip or repeating long-held opinions. Having read four other biographies of Catherine the Great, I can assure you this one is probably the best. Impartial, informative, and interesting.

I have read history books more interesting than this book. When i purchased the book i thought that it would be an interesting work. The book started off interesting. Then, as it progressed it got worse. Rent the movie. It would be much better. Trust me.

Professor McFaul's book TOTALLY ROCKS! This is the most kick-butt book I've ever read. The other reviewer is right, too. The bibliography in this book RULES! It is way detailed and kicks butt over its rivals' bibliographies! I wish I could give this book SIX stars! The only reason I'd give it five is that there aren't enough pictures. I wish there were some pictures of Mr. McFaul in Russia with the pro-Western "young reformers". Those guys totally rocked during the 90s! This is a serious book for serious-type people, but it's also a fun book to read and had me laughing out loud at times.

I admit there may be others, but is McFaul the worst Moscow-based Western journalist around? I feel like beating my head against a wall when I read his M.T. articles. They read like school reports written on the Metro. Heaven knows what 400 pages would do to anyone.

McFaul's work is an easily readable overview of Soviet/Russian politcal change since the mid-1980s. McFaul's analysis of the Gorbachev's period is inferior to that of other experts, such as Archie Brown. His analysis of the Yeltsin period is perhaps the best aspect of the book, especially the reason for the failure of the 1st Russian Republic, and the endurance of the second. But at times he loses his 'scholarly distance' and is almost an appologist for Yeltsin. There is little mention of Russian politics sicne 1996, though he does subtitle it "From Gorgachev to Putin." Putin's is only mentioned in passing in the conclusion. Brown's latest edited work is far better in terms of contemporary trends including the significance of Putin. THis work is best suited as introduction for advanced undergrads or masters students.

The subtitle title of the book, 'political change from Gorbachev to Putin', defines what you expect to find between it's pages. Only that's not what's covered. McFaul covers the Gorbechev years, as well as Yeltsen's presidency -- but only until 1996. There is virtually nothing after 1996. I would expect that Putin's coverage would be light, given a publication date of 2001, but to skip over Yeltsen's final years is simply neglegent.

By giving only a few sentances to the 'Shares for Rubles' program, he skips over the criminal neglegance and fraud that occured. This behavior had strong impacts on the Russian economy, which directly caused the crash of their economy in 1998. This crash is skipped over completely -- possibly because at the time, as a reporter, McFaul was cheering Anatoly Chubais the mastermind and archetect behind the economic reforms. (If Chubais attempted to do what he did in the US, he would be spending a lot of time behind bars.) In short, it looks like McFaul is skipping over the time period when his journalism was (effectively) cheering on the corruption.

The complete failure of the economy (which -- to reiterate -- was skipped over completely), combined with the treatment of the oligarchs (also skipped over) directly led shaped the Russian perception of democracy and the free market. These factors also directly effected the conclusions at the end of his book, but he presents no explination as to why the results are so bad -- probably because the explination would involve covering the ground he choose to skip over. To skip over these major milestones is unforgivable for an author who is attempting to track the political and economic reforms in Russia.

On the positive side, he does give a lot of good information, and there are a lot of references to look up additional data. I would recommend this book for someone researching Russia up to, but not after, Yeltsen's re-election. And even then, it helps to have an idea of the issues he doesn't talk about.

I would go so far as to call this book the post-Communist "Fainsod," an allusion to Merle Fainsod's classic study of the Soviet system. This volume is a thoroughgoing, well-researched study of what happened day by day, institution by institution, from the waning days of Gorbachev's shaky, uncertain rule to the denouement of Yeltsin.
Without a doubt, thid book will be go down as the basic study of what the author aptly titled, Russia's unfinished revolution.

Buying stocks when this book was published was one of my best investment moves. The Dow recently went over 14,000, about 30% over the Dot Com peak. Since the October 2002 when the Dow was yielding almost 5%, the market is up almost 100%. Money markets certainly did not beat stocks.

Ironically, had you bought high quality - high yield stocks any time after the March 24th 2000, Dot Com peak, you would have easily out performed money market funds. This was during a time when the NADAQ fell almost 90% and 9/11.

Attempting to base the Kondratyev Cycle on demographics or other such foolishness does a huge disservice to Mr. K. Anyone familiar with Schumpeter's work on the Long Wave easily recognizes the signs and the fact the Long Wave once again is right on track.
Mike and I had numerous discussions back in 1998-2000 on the Long Wave. He said if I was right and he was wrong he would issue me a public apology. So far with the Dow making new highs I have yet to receive one.

One should read economics books after they are aged. Reading this one now shows where the author went wrong and validates the Long Wave as having remained a consistent 53.3 years in length with no variation from technology, demographics or globalization.

Eric Von Baranov - CEO
The Kondratyev Theory Letters

If successful prediction is a sign of good science, Michael Alexander, who in his previous book "Stock Cycles: Why Stocks Won't Beat Money Markets over the Next Twenty Years" predicted poor stock market returns for twenty years beginning in 2000, has impressive scientific credentials.

In his second book, he synthesizes the theory of stock cycles and innovation waves developed in his first book, with a generational cycle based on the idea of birth cohort peer personalities, a Kondratieff social stress cycle, a world power cycle and a political cycle to describe a single operative cycle that is currently approximately 72 years. The analysis is very quantitative (but fairly easy to follow) and relies quite a bit on statistical significance testing, something that is understandably lacking in most long cycle research (there aren't generally enough cycles to test for statistical significance). Alexander's tying together of several independently constructed cycles to rise to statistical significance is perhaps his most important contribution. But there are several other contributions here including his use of a tool called reduced price that he uses to show that the Kondratieff Cycle that appeared to have ended around mid-century 20th century is actually still operative.

I highly recommend this book for investors, history buffs or anyone who loves a good intellectual puzzle. Some readers may be put off by the more speculative arguments, but the scope of subjects covered here should appeal to almost anyone.

I give my highest recommendation to this book. I found it to be well-researched, very rigorous, and the conclusions very convincing.

As also stated in his previous book "Stock Cycles...", he said (paraphrase) that the true test of the validity of his conclusions is to observe how events in the future unfold. So far, he is right on!!

Michael, if you're reading this, will you please write another book or offer those of us who admire your work a means to keep up with your current thinking?

Jim

it is fascinating that the K cycles coincide, perhaps coincidentally, with the generational cycle as popularized by a couple pseudo-scientists (strauss and howe). half the book is to explain why the cycle lengths change over time, and explaining away any differences or "the anomaly of the civil war period". the real meat of the argument could be presented - and the "predictions" as well - in a chapter or two. the prediction is simply that the bear market will continue. ok, thanks. while the observation that the K cycles coincide with one of the many theories of generational cycles is appreciated, if the Strauss&Howe cycles had not matched up, he could have merely found some other data to fit the theory of his choosing.

This book has the tone of an undergraduate student desperately trying to impress his professor by using big words to express simple ideas. The author's love of unnecessary academic jargon ("....the dialectic of conjectural constraints acting upon universal processes" [p.6]) is extremely annoying and makes reading this book a chore. I had to put this book down half way through because I got tired of trying to pick out the specks of interesting ideas from the flood of useless verbiage.

This is not a book for the casual reader interested in learning more about the history of the American labor movement. This is a book written by a professional student meant to impress other career academics. I gave it two stars as opposed to the minimum one star review because once you get past the opaque language this book does have some interesting insights.....if Mike Davis were a more capable writer this might have been a more enjoyable read.

Davis is usually an excellent writer. Even his dense writing in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World can be readily parsed and understood. His book on the Avian Flu is one of the best popular treatments of the issue and is well regarded by epidemiologists.

But Prisoners seems to be Davis' painting in the closet. As his other books get better, this one seems to degrade. He is inexcusably comfortable using pseudo-academic jargon until the reader longs to read a pretentious post-modern analysis of quantum physics.

A second fault is Davis' failure to include a glossary or acronym dictionary. He flings around names of obscure labor leaders, organizations, and movements without providing a reasonable amount of explanation (get a comprehensive guide to the American labor movements to help you keep track of who is doing what to whom).

Those gripes aside, Davis tackles a weighty question: "Why has the United States not developed a significant Labor or Social Democrat party?"

There is a wealth of labor history in this book. Unfortunately, the epic basically ends in the mid 80's. This vast stream of history makes it easier to comprehend how Carter's move to the right has snowballed to the insane situation in United States politics where Hilary Clinton is damned for being a "liberal" (virtually any time in the 20th century she would have been considered center-right).

I'm glad to have read this book. I'm glad I'll not have to read it again. I've now (I believe) read all the books that Davis has written. He continues to be an important and skilled American writer ... but this book doesn't exhibit his craft in the best light.

"Prisoners of the American Dream" is a two-pronged attack by Mike Davis on the general reactionary tendencies of the 1980s.

The first half of the book is a history of American unions and their relations to attempts to produce an actual progressive, leftist "Labor Party" on American soil. Davis does this in a very in-depth, well-sourced manner which will satisfy even a specialist in the subject. He explains the failures of creating a socialist alternative in the United States as a by no means pre-ordained result, but rather the consequence of contingent factors, among which are the intransigent conservatism and reformism of much of the union leadership (in particular the AFL), the general conservative party machine nature of the Democratic Party, and interethnic rivalries among the workers. This history of the left and the unions goes on until about the Eisenhower administration, then stops as Davis picks up his second line of attack in the second part of the book. One warning though: Davis seems to presume that the reader is already well-versed in the history of American unionism and in American socio-political terminology in general, making it quite difficult at times to follow for the (foreign) layman. The book could have been better with a good explanatory register of names.

The second half of the book is basically an attack on the neoliberal resurgence under Reagan and the complicity of the rightist Democratic Party to the same. Davis is clearly quite outraged at the general conservatism of what is supposed to be America's more progressive political party, and spends many pages outlining the failures of the Democratic leaders. He underlines his arguments with many a spiffy statistic for this purpose. However, much time has already passed since 1987, and his rather superficial and one-sided attack on everything to the right of Jesse Jackson is preaching to the choir. Most useful in this part is the epilogue, where he makes a series of political predictions about both parties based on his analysis, many of which have since turned out to be surprisingly correct. Yet one can skip the whole second part of the book without any real problem.

Generally the book is well-reasoned but relatively dry and dense. It could have done with a bit more livening up at times, and Davis tends to repeat himself just a little too much. Recommended to socialists of all stripes interested in the history of (radical) unions in America.