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| The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It |
Joshua Cooper Ramo |
Amazon $7 |
Zetta Feder
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Today the very ideas that made America great imperil its future. Our plans go awry and policies fail. History's grandest war against terrorism creates more terrorists. Global capitalism, intended to improve lives, increases the gap between rich and poor. Decisions made to stem a financial crisis guarantee its worsening. Environmental strategies to protect species lead to their extinction. The traditional physics of power has been replaced by something radically different. In The Age of the Unthinkable, Joshua Cooper Ramo puts forth a revelatory new model for understanding our dangerously unpredictable world. Drawing upon history, economics, complexity theory, psychology, immunology, and the science of networks, he describes a new landscape of inherent unpredictability--and remarkable, wonderful possibility.
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| Republic, Lost |
Lawrence Lessig |
Hardback |
Art Zirger
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In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government_driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission_trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature. With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic_-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left_Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories.
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| How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything |
Dov Seidman |
$17 Amazon |
Art Zirger
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The flood of information, unprecedented transparency, increasing interconnectedness-and our global interdependence-are dramatically reshaping today's world, the world of business, and our lives. We are in the Era of Behavior and the rules of the game have fundamentally changed. It is no longer what you do that matters most and sets you apart from others, but how you do what you do. Whats are commodities, easily duplicated or reverse-engineered. Sustainable advantage and enduring success for organizations and the people who work for them now lie in the realm of how, the new frontier of conduct. For almost two decades, Dov Seidman's pioneering organization, LRN, has helped some of the world's most respected companies build 'do it right,' winning cultures and inspire principled performance throughout their organizations. Seidman's distinct vision of the world, business, and human endeavor has helped enable more than 15 million people doing business in more than 120 countries to outbehave the competition. In HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, Dov Seidman shares his unique approach with you. Now updated and expanded, HOW includes a new Foreword from President Bill Clinton and a new Preface from Dov Seidman on why how we behave, lead, govern, operate, consume, engender trust in our relationships, and relate to others matters more than ever and in ways it never has before. Through entertaining anecdotes, surprising case studies, cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, and revealing interviews with a diverse group of leaders, business executives, experts, and everyday people on the front lines, this book explores how we think, how we behave, how we lead, and how we govern our institutions and ourselves to uncover the values-inspired 'hows' of twenty-first-century success and significance. Divided into four comprehensive parts, this insightful book: Exposes the forces and factors that have fundamentally restructured the world in which organizations operate and their people conduct themselves, placing a new focus on their hows Provides frameworks to help you understand those hows and implement them in powerful and productive ways Helps you channel your actions and decisions in order to thrive uniquely within today's new realities Sheds light on the systems of how-the dynamics between people that shape organizational culture -and introduces a bold new vision for leading and winning through self-governance The qualities that many once thought of as 'soft'-values, trust, and reputation-are now the hard currency of success and the ultimate drivers of efficiency, performance, innovation, and growth. With in-depth insights and practical advice, HOW will help you bring excellence and significance to your business endeavors- and your life-and refocus your efforts in powerful new ways. If you want to stand out, to thrive in our fast changing, hyperconnected, and hypertransparent world, read this book and discover HOW.
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| Confidence Men |
Ron Susskind |
Amazon $15 |
Doug Macdonald
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Doug Macdonald writes " Haven't read it but Susskind is a Pulitzer winner journalist and topic is timely. Heard him interviewed about book and it is balanxced but not all goodie-goodie. $15 on Amazon. "
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| Blood Money |
David Ignatius |
Amazon $15 |
Doug Macdonald
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This has to be written as a novel yet it is anything but. The ISI is Pakistan's Intelligence group. It has two components: one that supports the civilian government and the other which supports the Taliban and the Generals who wish to remain in power. They probably had a hand in the assasination of Benazir Bhutto, the populist rival for president a few years ago. They also probably hid Bin Laden just yards from Pakistan's version of West Point. $16 fm Amazon. "
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| Free Lunch |
David Cay Johnston |
Paperback/Non-Ficton |
walt petersen
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'If you are concerned about the congressional earmarks,hedge fund tax breaks,subsides sports teams,K Street lobbyist and the state of health-care you'll read this book--as I did-with a growing outrage' this is a quote from John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group and I agree
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| Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the Economy, the Environment, and Your Soul |
James Livingston |
$18 Amazon |
John Forbes
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Since the financial meltdown of 2008, economists, journalists, and politicians have uniformly insisted that to restore the American Dream and renew economic growth, we need to save more and spend less. In his provocative new book, historian James Livingston_author of the classic Origins of the Federal Reserve System_breaks from the consensus to argue that underconsumption caused the current crisis and will prolong it. By viewing the Great Recession through the prism of the Great Depression, Livingston proves that private investment is not the engine of growth we assume it to be. Tax cuts for business are therefore a recipe for disaster. If our goal is to reproduce the economic growth of the postwar era, we need a redistribution of income that reduces corporate profits, raises wages, and promotes consumer spending.
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| How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think |
Andy Andrews |
$9 Amazon |
John Forbes
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It all comes down to the truth. Much like the character in one of his best-selling books, Andy Andrews is first and foremost a Noticer. Sometimes, all one needs is a little perspective and Andy has been providing that perspective to some of the world's most influential companies and organizations for the last 20 years. His ability to transform an individual by their own understanding and desire has made him loved by millions. Now, Andy Andrews brings his lessons and perspective into the important arena of government, citizenship, and what it means to completely uphold the truth. If the truth is what sets us free, what does it mean to live in a society where truth is absent? How do truth and lies in the past shape our destiny today? Through the lens of the Holocaust, best-selling author Andy Andrews examines the critical need for truth in our relationships, our communities, and our government. In this compact, nonpartisan book, Andrews urges readers to be _careful students_ of the past, seeking accurate, factual accounts of events and decisions that illuminate choices we face now. By considering how the Nazi German regime was able to carry out over eleven million institutional killings between 1933 and 1945, Andrews advocates for an informed population that demands honesty and integrity from its leaders and from each other. The future of our country rests on the ability to separate the truth from lies, and Andrews compels each of us to examine our leaders' claims with a critical eye. His question_ how do you kill eleven million people?_is provocative, but his warning is clear: _Only a clear understanding of the answer to this question and the awareness of an involved populace can prevent history from continuing to repeat itself as it already has, time and again._
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| The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics |
Alastair Smith, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita |
$19 Amazon |
John Forbes
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For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutionizing the study of politics by turning conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the _national interest__or even their subjects_unless they have to. This clever and accessible book shows that the difference between tyrants and democrats is just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.
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| Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 |
Charles Murray |
$15 Amazon |
Art Smoot
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In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship_divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. That divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.
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