Governments

THis is the real, hard to believe story of Hitler's ascent to the corridors of power. Chancellor was the only real job he ever had, other than his military service...and this book charts his rise over all the educated, polished saps who tried to use Hitler, and wound being suckered by him instead. His seizure of power in Germany, thanks to Von Papen and Hindenburg was as unfortunate for everyone else, as it was lucky for him.
If you want to know how Hitler rose to Chancellor in Germany, read this book.

There is little I can say that would do justice to Turner's magisterial work. It is carefully researched and documented and is extraordinarily well-written. While it is very much a work of historical scholarship, it is also written with an eye toward an almost dramatic narrative style (without the embellishments which some of today's "popular historians" resort to). To be quite truthful, I got so absorbed by the book, I couldn't put it down. Of course, you know what happens in the end, but Turner's writing is so vivid and his analyses so keen that it is an absolutely riveting account. And Turner's general thesis--that Hitler's rise to power was anything but inevitable--is one that he proves (at least as far as I'm concerned) beyond a shadow of a doubt. Chance played a tremendous role, as did human error and personal folly and misjudgment. On the topic of personal folly, Turner's assessment of General Schleicher is justifiably harsh. It is almost unfathomable to ponder, for example, that Hitler's rise might not have happened had Franz von Papen not nursed an inner animosity toward Schleicher, which led him to collaboration with the Nazi leader. So many if's. But such is history. And as far as histories of the Third Reich go, those who want to understand how Hitler became Chancellor of Germany will turn to this phenomenal work.

Mr. Turner's study on the Hitler's rise to power is excellent and maddening. It is excellent as an historical treatise reviewing the facts that caused Hitler to seize power and it is maddening in that it did not have to happen. In some circles there is a misbelief that Hitler's rise to the Chancellorship was inevitable. Turner puts that myth to rest in describing how the personal ambition of Hindenburg, Papen and Schleicher, as well as their ineptitude had more to do with Hitler's rise than Hitler himself.

The writing flows and keeps the readers attention riveted. This is an important book and a must read for anyone interested to Nazi Germany.

This well-researched journal of Hitler's early days will really get you thinking. You cannot understand World War 2 or the Holocaust without learning about what went on with this man before the age of 40. I recommend this to anyone and everyone who loves history or is doing a report. It is out of print so you can either get it used or get it at your local library. Whatever you do, you will enjoy this great book.

I cannot recommend this book enough for anyone interested in reading about the causes and origins of German fascism. Any book on Hitler can always veer off into the cartoonish, reinforcing the idea that the man was a monster. That approach devalues the very serious underpinnings of Hitler's ascent that Bracelen Flood describes: The Versaille Treaty and the short-sighted behavior of the victors of World War I; the intense racialism of Bavaria; the sheer incompetence of Germany's leaders; and the brilliance of Hitler's campaign to rule the country. Telling details are on every page of the book, but Bracelen Flood is very careful to qualify his observations when the evidence is conflicted. He sees the interaction between the anecdote and the big picture, using several devices to ground the reader in the reality of what happened. Best of all, Bracelen Flood's extensive research allows us to understand what people involved in the events were thinking. At several points, I was struck by how, above all else, Hitler was abetted by luck and the fact that he was consistently underestimated by people who should have known better. The end result is both a study of a pivotal portion of the last century and a valuable tool to ensuring that nothing like it ever happens again.

...this book captivated my attention. Very clearly and well written, Flood takes you almost step by step from Hitler's early years as a floundering nobody to the flourishing of what became the Nazi party under his rule. Be advised that this is as far as the timeline goes. The historical context is thoroughly discussed, a necessity considering that the rise of a man such as Hitler happened as a reaction to the political and cultural and social stagnation that occured in Germany after WWI.

This would be on the list of the 100 books that influenced me the most.
What it is is a wideranging defense of anarchism, not just in the political sphere but in all human endeavors.
The insight i've carried with me for the 20+ years since i read it is that quantity doesn't scale, there is a point where a teaspoon of water increasing to a cup is useful and necessary, but as it increases to a swimming pool and eventually to the Pacific ocean, something in the quality changes. It becomes not a life essential glass of water, but a life threatening monster. Changes in quantity are qualitative. Seems like such a simple idea, but it isn't, as the book shows.
An easy but complete read, it talks about how many people you can remember by name, or by shape at a distance. To how technology distorts and maims people and our minds. I am sure that each chapter, and each insight has a number of books now written on the topic, but this is AFAIK the best one volume defense of this cluster of insights about how size really matters.

Since the Small/Beautiful/Sensual societies we create in the post-corporate world should directly reflect the democratic will of each of our families, communities and bioregions, there is little point in pushing one-size-fits-all paradigms. You don't need a doctor to tell you how to enjoy your health after the plague is past. As long as we keep the "pathological scale" problem in mind and simply refuse existence to vast hierarchic entities, a diversity of congenial new cultures is thinkable, desirable, probably inevitable. But we have learned a lot about ourselves as a species in the last few thousand years, and that history must be consulted when building our brave new worlds. Kirkpatrick Sale offers an invaluable review of that history in "Human Scale" and clearly outlines what has worked and what hasn't since the days of ancient Greece. His primary conclusion is predictable - ..., but the historical insights he offers into our unsung successes both amaze and encourage. Read this book! You will feel a lot better about both the past and the future.

I've been a voracious reader ever since I learned to read almost 50 years ago, so that adds up to at least several thousand books. Out of all of those, there were perhaps half a dozen which permanently changed my life, and this is one of them. (If you really care to know what the others were, then e-mail me and I'll tell you, LOL.) Sale begins with the simplest possible premise: that all human efforts should be measured and evaluated in terms of how they increase human happiness, comfort and convenience. That idea seems too obvious to require discussion, and yet Sale demonstrates that in almost every aspect of our culture, we have ignored that principle. He then describes what would have to be done in order to bring our homes, furniture, neighborhoods, etc. into conformance with the greatest comfort and happiness for human beings. It's one of the most fascinatingly thoughtful books I have ever read, and I hope it comes back into print soon.

If you are sorely depressed about the current state of the country and with the idea being pushed on us that the USA Patriot Act is a way toward Homeland Security. If instead of security, you're finding personal freedom and privacy a thing of the past,this may be just the book to read. Claire gives you the sense that things aren't completely lost. She doles out some sound advice about how to live quietly within the system--sort of a low tech under the radar approach--and also perhaps a little bit of a utopian approach, but very do-able if people just band together. Her idea for using hobo signs to identify others of like mind is one that I personally like. There is a lot of hope in this book and what Claire Wolfe is famous for--that ability to inspire. For other books like this 8003802230 or the loompanics site.

Claire Wolfe, Culture Hero

The revised and expanded second addition of her recognized libertarian classic, I Am Not a Number! Freeing America from the ID State, is out now and even better than the first. She's written a bunch of other books, too. In fact that's the first question a person asks after reading one of them: "Is there more?" You find yourself wanting to take a couple of weeks off from work to check out the rest.

A sage once said, "If we keep on the way we're going, we're going to wind up where we're headed." So this is a book to get now, because when we do wind up where we're headed, a book like this is only one of the things we won't be able to get.

In the great tradition of Harriet Tubman, who led slaves out of bondage via the underground railroad, Claire Wolfe provides clear directions back to America. The America some of us love and miss. An America where, to give just one little example, paying for something with legal tender didn't used to be seen as suspicious behavior.

It's about "how to retain ownership of our lives."

Wolfe reminds us that the recipe for freedom is a willingness to take risks, combined with a re-evaluation of priorities, followed by making the appropriate changes in lifestyle. (As another sage expressed it, you can do anything you want as long as you're willing to pay the price. A lot of times you don't end up having to pay the price - but you have to be willing.)

She discusses the extremes: primitive living at a level so far below the radar that the authorities don't bother with you - which can be a life of deprivation and loneliness - or sophisticated hiding - which can be ditto. How to escape? Shooting the bastards is not a real good idea, since all it tends to do is make the next crop of bastards even nastier.

Millions of Americans, Wolfe feels, "have now reached their line in the sand" and are ready to stop being sheeple. The preferred method is to "creatively disregard" the rulers - emotionally, mentally, philosophically and if necessary even physically. Leave the government even if you can't leave the country. Many methods of non-cooperation are suggested here, along with advice about how to handle such things as financial and medical affairs. For someone who hasn't heard about, for instance, the Free State Project, this could be a major life-changer.

The slogan of the cyberpunk crowd was, "Information wants to be free." These days, it's much more useful to remember this - "Information want to help us be free." The opportunities for further self-enlightenment in Wolfe's generous "Freedom Resources" section prove it.

Claire Wolfe first popped into view while researching National ID sites and electronic privacy forums. I was delighted with what I found. Perhaps enough of us will see the light Claire has given us before the lamp is extinguished.

For the interested reader, there are other gems to be mined. A "must read", fictional account of where we are headed if current trends are not reversed is a new novel by author Jerry Furland, "TRANSFER-the end of the beginning...". Chillingly topical and utterly believable, you should check it out right here at Amazon.com. Forewarned is forearmed.

This book farts in the general direction of the anarchist, terrorist and jolly roger cookbooks. Unlike them, this one was created by a bunch of government scientists so not only do the recipes work properly as long as guidelines are followed, but it contains many more recipes and many more techniques for your enjoyment. Remember, if you want a good book about explosives, rockets, chemical mixtures, how to build devices, and how to aquire ingredients, this book is for you.

The contents in this book were origionally tried and tested by the u.s government for the military, so its contents are much safer in terms of stability, and maybe to some degree, safer(although NO pyrotechnics are safe) than other cookbooks. It is NOT intended to be used in practice, but for educational purposes only!. As a pyrotechnician myself, i have found this book to be the best of its kind that i have found to date. Well worth purchasing.

This is the book that most of the information in the anarchist cookbook came from.Only this book has a few more explosives and some guns to make right at home.Pretty good book.

This is a factual, well documented text. And that's just what it is: A text fit for an honest, college level sociology course. I found it very informative, especially the final chapter on Constitutional issues. However, I found the chapter dealing with the Fourth Estate, the press, a little curious. It seems that Kates bent over backwards giving excuses for the press's behavior, but went on to reveal a clear case of premeditated libel. Oh well, I didn't let that color my judgement of this well balanced presentation. I highly recommend this book because of the revealing statistics and their erudite presentation. A highly reliable book.

What is lost on many reviewers is the political history of the two authors which would cause some to assume that they would be viciously anti-gun. Well, they were, at one time.

Don Kates is a former "Criminologist of the Year" award winner, as is Florida State University's Gary Kleck. Kates is lawyer specializing in civil rights, and was instrumental in writing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Part of Kate's life experience that shapes his views today were the violent attacks on the civil rights workers by roving bands of KKK. The local police would not come to their aid, so Kates found himself standing armed guard around the homes of NAACP officials. The KKK wisely kept clear. Even given this, Kates had fallen for the gun controlers ruse, "Saturday Night Special" (SNS) which are claimed to be disproportionately used by criminals. Kates later researched the subject and found that the term got its start in the post Civil War south. The original term was actually "Niggertown Saturday Night Special." It was used to villify inexpensive firearms (the only ones the newly freed slaves could afford) and resulted in only well-made and expensive guns being legal. Viola! Blacks were slowly disarmed and easily attacked by the newly formed KKK. Kates discovered that criminals actually prefer high quality firearms (just like the rest of us) and wonders, if the SNS theory is true, what the benefit would be to arm criminals with more expensive weapons the didn't "blow up, jam, or were more accurate."

Kleck is another self-described liberal Democrat. He is a member of ACLU, Common Cause, and Amnesty International. He was so firmly anti-gun that his original study was admittedly started to show that guns in the hands of peaceful citizens were not used very often to stop crime. His final study found that they were indeed used at least 2.5 million times per year in face to face confrontations to thwart crime. For this work he won the Hindelang award (most significant work by a criminologist in several years).

Despite their pro-gun data, Kleck and Kates still think that "gun control" and "registration" is a good thing in general. I don't. To find out why, look into Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. It was founded by holocaust survivors who saw Hitler confiscate Jewish firearms using registration data just before he killed six million of them.

Kates and Kleck present a reasoned discussion of the possession, control and use of guns and their impact on violence and crime in the US.

The book is a refreshing change from the pre-programmed argumentation that characterizes most of the "gun debate". As a gun owner, I dislike the lack of intellectual honesty that is endemic in the anti-gun literature but I also recognize the repetitive, almost ritual pro-gun prose.

Kates and Kleck address the traditional guns'n crime issues but also say that some types of gun control are desireable (ones aimed at disarming or disabling people who've demonstrated membership in the "criminal class").

They address in some detail the intellectual dishonesty behind much of anti-gun "science" and the biases in much of the press coverage of the "gun debate".

It's a very informative and readable book. I recommend it highly.

"How Congress Evolves" is elegantly written, cogently argued, and politically astute. Nelson Polsby gives his readers the benefit of four decades and more of immersion in and observation of Congress, along with his penetrating insights into politics, people, and institutions, and a writing style that is at once accessible and sophisticated. Novices and experts, students and practitioners, scholars and journalists, all will learn immensely about how the House of Representatives works and how it changes."--Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute

From the Publisher: "Nelson Polsby has been studying, reading about and hanging around the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 40 years. In "How Congress Evolves", he provides the definitive--and often witty-account of how the House has changed over time, and why." Michael Barone, coauthor, "The Almanac of American Politics"

From the Publisher:
"How Congress Evolves" is Nelson Polsby's magnum opus. Polsby is an institution among congressional scholars and this book will be a classic work on Congress along with the writings of Woodrow Wilson and Richard Fenno. Polsby's wonderful observations from his interviews and deft use of data about stability and change in Congress combined with his humor make the book hard to put down once you start reading it. --James A. Thurber, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

A great historical book on the Russian Communist Revolution and how it was viewed from the point of view of an ardent Communist. By reading this book, a good comparison can be made with other famous revolutions in history.

This book is the most important description of the soviet terror that stroke the whole society in communist countries much before Soljenistin. When published, all communist parties in Europe, continued to refuse to see the horrible reality for decades, showing that communism equal nazism. This book should be reprinted and advertised as a piece of XX century History

This book is probably the best book written about the extremes to which a government can systematically abuse it citizens, and how one individual can live through the horror and document the story first hand. Takes place in Stalinist Russia, but the back drop could be any totalitarian regime.

'The process of presidential impeachment and trial thereon, culminates in a judgement of the Senate, either that the president is not guilty, or that he is guilty on one or more of the Articles of Impeachment voted by the House, and is to be removed from office. Is this judgement of conviction final, or is it in some manner appealable, to the United States Supreme Court or elsewhere'?

Good question, huh? And so begins Chapter 4 of Charles L. Black's marvelous essay on the subject of impeachment. Black wrote this book when President Richard M. Nixon occupied the White House, yet the clarity of his writing, the reasonableness of his arguments and the vigor of his analysis, still hold true today nearly a quarter of a century later. This edition, republished in 1998, includes an impressive new forward by Prof Akhil Reed Amar of Yale University. If you're looking somewhat bewildered by the goings on Capitol Hill, and by implication, the lead stories on the news, rest assured you're not alone. One moment you hear the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee recommending four Articles of Impeachment and the next moment you see the House vote to send the President to be tried by the Senate. What gives? You ask.

Black's book takes the reader on a journey in search of the facts relating to impeachment: what it means, where it originated and how we apply tests to determine the case for or against an impeachable offence. Black also examines the role of lawyers and of the Courts.

The author's objective throughout is not so much as to provide the reader with solutions, rather it is to illuminate why certain answers are incorrect. He does this by laying the evidence before the reader, so that the reader has every chance to examine both the evidence and his conscience, prior to arriving at a determination. As in other aspects of life, the book highlights that not all issues are clearly defined, and there is indeed room for some interpretation Irrespective of whether you're keen to turn the first sod in the political grave of the President William Jefferson Clinton, or whether you'd prefer to stand at his side as the United States Senate charges him; Black's essay is lucid, elegant and entertaining. As a contribution to the debate it is invaluable.

Black's "Impeachment" is the ideal guide for the average citizen who hasn't studied constitutional law. Black gives a thumbnail sketch of the impeachment process' mechanics and explains what we know about the framers' intentions. He discusses the most often debated impeachment issues, and he offers his own interpretation of the process in general and comments on Nixon's impeachment.

The main points I took from this book are that impeachment gravely frays the fabric of American society, and that partisan politics has no place in the process; the linchpin of impeachment is the solemn statesmanship of our congressmen. If another impeachment comes about in my lifetime, I'll let my congressmen know early in the proceedings that I'm counting on them to act without partisan bias.

Black's book is remarkably relevent to the current impeachment situation, even after 25 years. Though his examples are comtemporary to the Nixon near-impeachment (and prior to his resignation), it is refreshing to read a treatise on impeachment that does not constantly refer to Starr, Lewinsky, Tripp, et al. It is not written for the lawyer, so it has a popular flavor that made it a quick read while still imparting a great deal of information.

Theodore Friend has decades of research and personal experience living in this subcontinent that masquerades as a nation. The distinctive combination of personal anecdote and informed expertise (he's written several books on Southeast Asia) makes this book much more than a typical academic study. The data on which "Indonesian Destinies" is based is both broad and deep, covering, as other reviewers note, most facets of Indonesian history since World War Two. Friend also has a knack for addressing the issues informed US citizens associate with Indonesia---to the extent we think about this crucially important country at all: oil, gas, minerals and other economic resources; environmental concerns; Islamic radicalism; and most importantly, the ongoing internal struggle for a more just political culture and civil society, including the recent Timor tragedy. However, the abbreviated time-depth means that the work is not truly comprehensive, and thus complements other landmark studies, instead of supplanting them. These include J.G. Taylor, "Indonesia: Peoples & Histories," stronger on pre-1900 history, from an Australian perspective; and A. Reid, "Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce," which masterfully examines regional structures and continuities. Friend's lively and sensitive study sets a very high standard for US readers, at least until Indonesians themselves are permitted to reach an international audience with their own interpretations. For this, one can begin with the many novels by Pramoedya Toer, along with "The Mute's Soliloquy," his collection of prison and political writings. There is also Kartini, "Letters of a Javanese Princess," by the sadly shortlived but pioneering Indonesian feminist from a century ago.

This book is the most comprehensive and yet not-too-hard read on Indonesian independence history that I have found. With detailed accounts of important events, vivid descriptions, and personal experience, Theodore Friend is able to weave together a compelling story about the complexity of the Indonesian history since independence. The crucial facts and theories are insightful if not eye-opening, especially for Indonesians who have not been exposed to the nation's history from an outsider perspective.

Every single page in this book offers a glimpse into the complexity of Indonesian society. As a reader, we are brought into understanding the social events that occurred in this country through differing point of views, from the powerful government, the simple yet hopeful citizens or foreigners that either fell in love with the country or somehow managed to get themselves tied to the country. As an Indonesian myself, I am thankful to Mr.Friend for this book. It is like a glass of water quenching the thirst of knowledge on the subject that has too long been oppressed in Indonesia itself. More than anything, this book serves its purpose well that is to make readers, both Indonesian and those affiliated, to question many unfortunate social disorders that had befallen upon this country. If Indonesia is heading toward to a better society, only a study into her past will guides her future. By ignoring the mistakes from the past social disorders, Indonesia will only fall back to the same state many years to come in the future, only a matter of time. This book put out the many issues for readers to discuss, to ponder and to question. From reading the book, we know as a reader that this book is written by a writer that really cares about the issues in Indonesia.