In Beyond Disruption: Technology's Challenge to Governance, George P. Shultz, Jim Hoagland, and James Timbie present views from some of the country's top experts in the sciences, humanities, and military that scrutinize the rise of post-millennium technologies in today's global society. They contemplate both the benefits and peril carried by the unprecedented speed of these innovations-from genetic editing, which enables us new ways to control infectious diseases, to social media, whose ubiquitous global connections threaten the function of democracies across the world. Some techniques, like the advent of machine learning, have enabled engineers to create systems that will make us more productive. For example, self-driving vehicles promise to make trucking safer, faster, and cheaper. However, using big data and artificial intelligence to automate complex tasks also ends up threatening to disrupt both routine professions like taxi driving and cognitive work by accountants, radiologists, lawyers, and even computer programmers themselves.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780817921453 20180730

• Executive summary
• Policy options: for the United States, science and risk, and the international community
• Science and Risk
• Conclusion.

"Drawing from a series of discussions convened by the Hoover Institution, the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, this essay explores the challenges facing our coastal communities in a series of discussions designed to advance US resilience to climate change impacts, strengthen the sustainability and economic security of coastal infrastructure, and enhance national security. Areas of discussion include understanding the state of scientific knowledge, identifying important gaps, and exploring relevant policies, decision-support tools, and decision-making approaches." -- publisher.

• Introduction : the choice
• Escape to Switzerland
• The beginnings of Dutch-Paris
• Extending the line through Brussels
• Allies in Paris and Toulouse
• Over the mountains
• Catastrophe in Paris
• The Gestapo knocks
• Sociaalwerk in the chaos of war
• Waiting for news
• Conclusion : the helper's courage.

Of all the resistance organizations that operated during the war, about which much has been written, one stands out for its transnational character, the diversity of the tasks its members took on, and the fact that, unlike many of the known evasion lines, it was not directed by Allied officers, but rather by group of ordinary citizens. Between 1942 and 1945, they formed a network to smuggle Dutch Jews and others targeted by the Nazis south into France, via Paris, and then to Switzerland. This network became known as the Dutch-Paris Escape Line, eventually growing to include 300 people and expanding its reach into Spain. Led by Jean Weidner, a Dutchman living in France, many lacked any experience in clandestine operations or military tactics, and yet they became one of the most effective resistance groups of the Second World War. Dutch-Paris largely improvised its operations-scrounging for food on the black market, forging documents, and raising cash. Hunted relentlessly by the Nazis, some were even captured and tortured. In addition to Jews, those it helped escape the clutches of the Nazis included resistance fighters, political foes, Allied airmen, and young men looking to get to London to enlist. As the need grew more desperate, so did the bravery of those who rose to meet it. Using recently declassified archives, The Escape Line tells the story of the Dutch-Paris and the thousands of people it saved during World War II. Koreman, who was given exclusive access to many of the archives, is herself the daughter of Dutch parents who were part of the resistance, offers the definitive account of this largely untold story.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780190662271 20181015

"In Revolution and Aftermath: Forging a New Strategy toward Iran, Eric Edelman and Ray Takeyh examine one of the most underappreciated forces that has shaped modern US foreign policy: American-Iranian relations. They argue that America's flawed reading of Iran's domestic politics has hamstrung decades of US diplomacy, resulting in humiliations and setbacks ranging from the 1979-81 hostage crisis to Barack Obama's concession-laden nuclear weapons deal. What presidents and diplomats have repeatedly failed to grasp, they write, is that 'the Islamic Republic is a revolutionary state whose entire identity is invested in its hostility toward the West.' To illuminate a path forward for American-Iranian relations, the authors address some of the most persistent myths about Iran, its ruling elite, and its people. They discuss the ways Iran played a vital role in US grand strategy after World War II. They discuss the Ayatollah Khomeini's worldview--including his view of the United States as 'the Great Satan'--and his remarkably durable legacy, which has animated decades of Iranian policies even when such policies are detrimental to the country's other stated national interests. Finally, they highlight lessons leaders can learn from America's many missteps since the 1979 Islamic Revolution." -- publisher.

• Foreword. The Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection: possibilities and limitations / by Eiichiro Azuma
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. The Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection / by Kaoru "Kay" Ueda
• Essay. Roots of the Issei: exploring early Japanese American Newspapers / by Andrew Way Leong
• References
• About the author.

Roots of the Issei presents a complex and nuanced picture of the Japanese American community in the early twentieth century: a people challenged by racial prejudice and anti-Japanese immigration laws trying to gain a foothold in a new land while remaining connected to Japan. Against this backdrop, Andrew Way Leong examines the emergence of generational terms that have long been used to organize Japanese American narratives: issei (first generation), nisei (second generation), and sansei (third generation). In the process, he suggests these widely-used generational concepts are in fact a recent construct. Leong's illuminating research is made possible by the Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection, the world's largest open-access, full-image, and searchable online digital collection of Japanese American newspapers. With this technology, Leong is able to analyze materials that until recently were regarded as beyond computer-aided analysis, due to difficulties presented by the complexity of Japanese language. With access to these primary sources, Leong is able to upend several scholarly assumptions and beliefs and present a never-before-seen picture of Japanese American struggles-both with an adversarial host country and among themselves-backed by the authority of primary sources.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780817922054 20181210

• Global news networks and state power
• Western global news networks and state power
• 1: diplomacy
• Western global news networks and state power
• 2: intelligence
• Non-western global news networks: diplomacy and intelligence gathering
• Conclusion
• Interview with Terry Phillips
• Methodology.

Throughout the world today there are obvious trouble spots that have the potential to explode into serious conflicts at any time in the immediate or distant future. This study examines what history suggests about the future possibilities and characteristics of war and the place that thinking about conflict deserves in the formation of American strategy in coming decades. The author offers a historical perspective to show that armed conflict between organized political groups has been mankind's constant companion and that America must remain prepared to use its military power to deal with an unstable, uncertain, and fractious world. Williamson Murray shows that while there are aspects of human conflict that will not change no matter what advances in technology or computing power may occur, the character of war appears to be changing at an increasingly rapid pace with scientific advances providing new and more complex weapons, means of production, communications, and sensors, and myriad other inventions, all capable of altering the character of the battle space in unexpected fashions. He explains why the past is crucial to understanding many of the possibilities that lie in wait, as well as for any examination of the course of American strategy and military performance in the future-and warns that the moral and human results of the failure of American politicians and military leaders to recognize the implications of the past are already apparent.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780817920043 20170410

• Is America still the “hope of Earth”? : origins and underpinnings of American exceptionalism / Paul E. Peterson
• Legal origins of American exceptionalism / Michael McConnell
• American exceptionalism : due principally to secure private property rights / Gary Libecap
• Intellectual property as a pillar of American exceptionalism / Stephen Haber
• The exceptional economy / Edward P. Lazear
• Law and the regulatory state / John Cochrane
• Whither American exceptionalism? / Niall Ferguson
• What makes America great? : entrepreneurship / Lee Ohanian
• American dominance of the international order / Kori Schake
• The foundations of America’s exceptional role in the world / Victor Davis Hanson
• Herbert Hoover and American exceptionalism / George H. Nash
• Ronald Reagan and American exceptionalism / Annelise Anderson
• The American dream is alive in the minds of young Americans / William Damon.

An insightful study of the political, economic, and social changes Brazil experienced during the twenty-year rule of its Cold War military regime. Cuba's revolution in 1959 fueled powerful anti-Communist fears in the United States. As a result, in the years that followed, governments throughout Central and South America were toppled in U.S.-backed military coups, and by 1977 only three democratically elected leaders remained in all of Latin America. This perceptive study, coauthored by a revered historian and a prominent economist, examines how the military rulers of Brazil profoundly altered the nation's economy, politics, and society during their two decades in power, and it explores the lasting impact of these changes after democracy was restored. Comparing and contrasting the history, programs, methods, and goals of Brazil's Cold War-era authoritarian government with the military regimes of Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay, authors Herbert Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna offer a fascinating, detailed analysis of the Brazilian experience from 1964 to 1985, one of the darkest, most difficult periods in Latin American history.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780300223316 20170515

• The constitution of political Islam
• Dawa: much more than a "call to Islam"
• Confronting ideology to win the war.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali analyzes the concept of dawa as practiced by Islamists: why it matters, and why ignoring it has had serious consequences for national security. In order to defeat not just "violent extremism" but the Islamist ideology that inspires it, the author provides a set of clear policy recommendations for the current US administration.

• Tragic fate of the Romanovs / Anatol V. Shmelev
• Alexandre Benois and his World of Art / John E. Bowlt
• Scenes from the revolution / Elena S. Danielson
• Architects of innovative book design / Margarita Nafpaktitis
• Embattled images: Soviet posters, 1917-27 / Masha Chlenova.

A poignant collection of letters written by the Latvian poet, novelist, and newspaper editor Arsenii Formakov while interned in Soviet labor camps Emily Johnson has translated and edited a fascinating collection of letters written by Arsenii Formakov, a Latvian Russian poet, novelist, and journalist, during two terms in Soviet labor camps, 1940 to 1947 in Kraslag and 1949 to 1955 in Kamyshlag and Ozerlag. This correspondence, which Formakov mailed home to his family in Riga, provides readers with a firsthand account of the workings of the Soviet penal system and testifies to the hardships of daily life for Latvian prisoners in the Gulag.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780300209310 20170530

In Hammer, Sickle, and Soil , Jonathan Daly tells the harrowing story of Stalin's transformation of millions of family farms throughout the USSR into 250,000 collective farms during the period from 1929 to 1933. History's biggest experiment in social engineering at the time and the first example of the complete conquest of the bulk of a population by its rulers, the policy was above all intended to bring to Russia Marx's promised bright future of socialism. In the process, however, it caused widespread peasant unrest, massive relocations, and ultimately led to millions dying in the famine of 1932--33. Drawing on scholarly studies and primary-source collections published since the opening of the Soviet archives three decades ago, now, for the first time, this volume offers an accessible and accurate narrative for the general reader. The book is illustrated with propaganda posters from the period that graphically portray the drama and trauma of the revolution in Soviet agriculture under Stalin. In chilling detail the author describes how the havoc and destruction wrought in the countryside sowed the seeds of destruction of the entire Soviet experiment.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780817920647 20180219

• "A pretty stiff time"
• "A whole jug full of experience"
• "I am the Devil"
• The adventures of Hu-hua and Hoo Loo
• "The late jar rather smashed my nerves"
• What lies beyond wealth
• "Hard to state without becoming hysterical"
• A pirate state organized for benevolence
• Make way for the Almoner of starving Belgium
• A hero in the house of truth
• Inconsolable in the hall of mirrors
• An engineer at the opera
• Meddling with God's economy
• Hoover versus a botched civilization
• Scandal, embarrassment, and the little feller
• Sleepless in good times
• "The wonder boy"
• "Giving genius its chance"
• "He didn't know where the votes came from"
• Nothing to fear but fear itself
• Just when we thought it was over
• "It seemed like the end of the world"
• The president in his fighting clothes
• "A human creature desperately hurt and pained"
• Through the abyss in a Buick
• Father of the new conservatism
• Reborn in a darker world
• Epilogue : "I admire a lot in Hoover's career."

"The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable and least understood Americans of the twentieth century--a wholly original account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. An impoverished orphan who built a fortune. A great humanitarian. A president elected in a landslide and then resoundingly defeated four years later. Arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism, Herbert Hoover lived one of the most extraordinary American lives of the twentieth century. Yet however astonishing, his accomplishments are often eclipsed by the perception that Hoover was inept and heartless in the face of the Great Depression. Now, Kenneth Whyte vividly re-creates Hoover's rich and dramatic life in all its complex glory. He follows Hoover through his Iowa boyhood, his cutthroat business career, his brilliant rescue of millions of lives during World War I and the 1927 Mississippi floods, his misconstrued presidency, his defeat at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt, his devastating years in the political wilderness, his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II, and his final vindication in the days of Kennedy's "New Frontier." Ultimately, Whyte brings to light Hoover's complexities and contradictions--his modesty and ambition, his ruthlessness and extreme generosity--as well as his profound political legacy. [This] is the epic, poignant story of the deprived boy who, through force of will, made himself the most accomplished figure in the land, and who experienced a range of achievements and failures unmatched by many Americans of his, or perhaps any, era. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that fully captures the colossal scale of Hoover's momentous life and volatile times." -- dust jacket.

Welcome to the House of European History, an initiative of the European Parliament. The purpose of the permanent exhibition is to offer visitors an outline of European history. The different topics are not presented according to national boundaries, but instead depict the main processes and phenomena that have united and divided Europeans through time. Perspectives on specific historic events are, of course, multiple. That is why a number of recurring questions underpin the displays. How does memory shape different visions of the past: How does history influence our lives today? What does the past tell us when we look ahead? In the exhibition you will not find ready-made answers. Instead, you are invited always to keep a critical eye, and to engage in the public conversation about Europe's past and its implications for the present and the future.

• Introduction: Exploiting "human raw material"
• Food: "Whoever does not work, shall not eat"
• Prisoners: "The contingent"
• Health: "Physical labor capability"
• Illness and mortality: "Lost labor days"
• Invalids: "Inferior workforce"
• Releases: "Unloading the ballast"
• Power: "We are not doctors but delousers"
• Selection: "The more (and less) valuable human element"
• Exploitation: "Labor utilization"
• Epilogue: Deaths and deceptions.

A new and chilling study of lethal human exploitation in the Soviet forced labor camps, one of the pillars of Stalinist terror In a shocking new study of life and death in Stalin's Gulag, historian Golfo Alexopoulos suggests that Soviet forced labor camps were driven by brutal exploitation and often administered as death camps. The first study to examine the Gulag penal system through the lens of health, medicine, and human exploitation, this extraordinary work draws from previously inaccessible archives to offer a chilling new view of one of the pillars of Stalinist terror.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780300179415 20170530