The Challenge of Crime: Rethinking Our Response

Book Description

The development of crime policy in the United States for many generations has been hampered by a drastic shortage of knowledge and data, an excess of partisanship and instinctual responses, and a one-way tendency to expand the criminal justice system. Even if a three-decade pattern of prison growth came to a full stop in the early 2000s, the current decade will be by far the most punitive in U.S. history, hitting some minority communities particularly hard.

The book examines the history, scope, and effects of the revolution in America's response to crime since 1970. Henry Ruth and Kevin Reitz offer a comprehensive, long-term, pragmatic approach to increase public understanding of and find improvements in the nation's response to crime. Concentrating on meaningful areas for change in policing, sentencing, guns, drugs, and juvenile crime, they discuss such topics as new priorities for the use of incarceration; aggressive policing; the war on drugs; the need to switch the gun control debate to a focus on crime gun regulation; a new focus on offenders' transition from confinement to freedom; and the role of private enterprise.

A book that rejects traditional liberal and conservative outlooks, The Challenge of Crime takes a major step in offering new approaches for the nation's responses to crime.

Our Own Backyard: The United States In Central America, 1977-1992

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A subject not many like to think about
An exhaustive account of US policy in Central America.
182 Pages of Index
Great analysis of the U.S.-El Salvador relations durings 80s

Our Own Backyard: The United States In Central America, 1977-1992
William M. LeoGrande
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Iran | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

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Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History
Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America

ASIN: 0807823953

Amazon.com

"What began as a relatively bounded project examining the domestic debate over Central America evolved into a comprehensive history of U.S. policy toward the region during its decade of crisis--how policy was made, how it worked, and how the administration tried to sell it to the American people."

According to William LeoGrande, American involvement in Central America in the 1970s and '80s can be understood only in the context of the Cold War, and its greater struggle against the Soviet Union. Central America--and by this William LeoGrande means mainly El Salvador and Nicaragua--was simply one of several stages upon which these political war games were played. This was especially true during the Reagan years, during which U.S. policy "shifted from Carter's attempts to seek a negotiated settlement in El Salvador, and coexistence with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, to Reagan's effort to achieve military victory for the Salvadoran government, and the ouster of the Sandinistas by covert proxy war."

In Our Own Backyard, LeoGrande traces the evolution of American policy in Central America as well as its reception by the Congress and people of the United States. He discusses the schisms within Reagan's own ranks, the struggle between the Republican White House and the Democratic congress, and how the ever-present shadow of Vietnam continued to shape American attitudes well into the 1990s. This is a book that liberals will love and conservatives will find plenty to disagree with.

Book Description

In this remarkable and engaging book, William LeoGrande offers the first comprehensive history of U.S. foreign policy toward Central America in the waning years of the Cold War. From the overthrow of the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua and the outbreak of El Salvador's civil war in the late 1970s to the final regional peace settlements negotiated a decade later, he chronicles the dramatic struggles—in Washington and Central America—that shaped the region's destiny.

For good or ill, LeoGrande argues, Central America's fate hinged on decisions that were subject to intense struggles among, and within, Congress, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House—decisions over which Central Americans themselves had little influence. Like the domestic turmoil unleashed by Vietnam, he says, the struggle over Central America was so divisive that it damaged the fabric of democratic politics at home. It inflamed the tug-of-war between Congress and the executive branch over control of foreign policy and ultimately led to the Iran-contra affair, the nation's most serious political crisis since Watergate.

Customer Reviews:

A subject not many like to think about.......2003-01-25

Excellent book. LeoGrande tells us a disturbing tale that would be fodder for nightmares. And it's all too true.

That these people were once in charge of our government, and today are not sitting in jail is appalling.

An exhaustive account of US policy in Central America........1999-06-08

Leogrande documents the strong role the United States played in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the civil wars in these countries. He apologizes for excluding Guatemala because that would make his necessarily long work even longer. The actions of all players - the CIA, State Department, National Security Council, the Sandinistas, the Contras, the FLMN (Salvadoran rebels), the Organization of American States (OAS), and many others - are presented in a detailed narrative which illuminates the extraordinarily intricate background behind the headlines. As such it shows the tremendous power, resources and determination the United States has for controlling events south of its border. Though lengthy, I found this book extremely absorbing for I experienced history coming alive on its pages. Leogrande has produced a valuable work which will no doubt appear on any major bibliography on US policy in Central America.

182 Pages of Index.......1999-04-18

Mr. LeoGrande has written a 590 page book with an additional 182 pages of notes and index. Only a university with a great basketball program such as UNC (the publisher) could afford to humor such a person. On the book cover, it states Mr. LeoGrande is an employee of "American University" yet doesn't bother to inform me about this school. Is it well-known like Harvard or MIT? At any rate he knows how to go on and on about his chosen subject.

Great analysis of the U.S.-El Salvador relations durings 80s.......1999-01-20

LeoGrande's academic analysis of the U.S. military involvement in Central America is the best account yet of the U.S. foreign policy towards Central America during the Eighties. Although, his focus is on El Salvador and Nicaragua, it is the painstaking assessment of the relations of the U.S. and El Salvador during the 1980s that makes this book valuable to its readers. Regarding El Salvador, the theme of the U.S. foreign policy was simple: support the Salvadoran military to stop the marxist-led FLMN guerrillas even if the military's death squads engage in massive human rights violations. The book should be useful not only to those interested in Central America, but also to those who live with, work with and do business with Central Americans in the United States. The Civil War in El Salvador displaced over 1 million persons, most of whom fled to the United States. During the Salvadoran Civil War, about 60,000 people died. The children and grandchildren of Salvadorans who were able to make it to the U.S. should find LeoGrande's book as an excellent introduction to the reasons why their forebears came to the United States. LeoGrande's book is informative, engaging and insightful.

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Culture, not Economics
The big picture and the small picture
The best book I know on twentieth-century American history
Excellent overview
Barone's book a forecast of politics at the millenium.

Our Country
Michael Barone
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980

ASIN: 0029018625

Customer Reviews:

Culture, not Economics.......2003-12-30

Michael Barone is the co-creator (with Grant Ujifusa) of the Almanac of American Politics, itself an almost inexhaustible well of the curious and (sometimes) interesting. Our Country is an effort to put the same sensibility to work in a narrative history. Barone has absorbed a lot and forgotten little, and he likes to remind the reader of things others are more likely to forget. Civil rights, for example. One wing of the Republican party had its roots planted firmly in the abolitionist movement, dating back to before the Civil War. You could call it "the Eisenhower wing," if you were clear that it did not include Eisenhower. As general, and later as president, it seems fair to say that Eisenhower just didn't get it - not so much hostility to blacks as a kind of blank incomprehension - why weren't they willing to keep the place (one is tempted to make comparisons with General Sherman). Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, is one who emphatically did get it. Vulnerable and insecure as he always saw himself, Johnson was able to show real empathy for the plight of American Blacks. So we have the kind of irony so familiar in politics - the soldier-statesman who didn't get it, imposing a civil rights bill on Congress against the best efforts of the cracker politician who did.

Barone obviously relishes the irony there, but he likes the story in particular because of an even more consistent enthusiasm. That is: he is fascinated by the hard work of governing, which he comes close to glamorizing in its very unglamorousness. You can see it perhaps best in his appreciative account of a man who he nominates as a forgotten progenitor of modern social legislation - Robert Wagner, the senator and father, inter alia, of the Wagner Labor Relations Act. Without Wagner, as Barone tells it, the New Deal's legislative agenda would have been a lot more insipid. It perhaps explains also his affection for Hubert Humphrey - a name perhaps mostly forgotten today, or remembered if at all only in the sour aftertaste of the 1968 presidential election, which he lost to Richard Nixon.

What perhaps gives zest to Barone's account is that for all his skill as a data-miner, he believes at the end that politics is culture and not economics that divides us or draws us together. It impels him to insist that there is a society more important than its contentions and divisions, more than the sum of its parts - in some sense, a res publica, or (back to Barone's title here) "Our Country." Only one afterthought: this is another book that cries out for an new edition.

The big picture and the small picture.......2000-03-08

Two warnings: First, the book is long. Second, the author is conservative and doesn't make an effort to hide it. If these facts don't disturb you then I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is a wonderful story of twentieth-century American politics, crammed with polls, stats, and insightful commentary. Why has ethnicity been a more important factor in politics than class? How did the political pendulum shift from conservatism to liberalism to conservatism again? Who are some of the most important statesmen in history that you've never heard of? And much, much more. If Michael Barone's "The Almanac of American Politics" is the Holy Bible of politics, then this work is a book of prayer.

The best book I know on twentieth-century American history.......1999-11-30

Barone knows American political history inside and out. He gives the reader crisp, incisive portraits of individuals from Henry Wallace to Jack Kemp, of legislation from the Taft-Hartley Act to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- and he shows the reader how these people and measures fit into and shaped the world as it existed in their time. (The first two chapters, in which he presents brief portraits of Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Tammany Hall politico Charles Murphy, brilliantly illuminate how Republicans and Democrats thought and felt about their country in the early 1920s.) In addition, Barone knows the hard data of politics -- survey results, voting patterns, demographics -- and analyzes them in ways which often produce striking insights. His analysis of the timing and nature of the New Deal realignment, and the patchy and hesitant way in which liberal policies came to be accepted in the three decades or so following 1932, ought to be read by anyone interested in how ideological shifts really take place in American politics. Lastly, Barone (a journalist and former Democratic activist) recognizes and respects the achievements of the United States in the twentieth century -- and doesn't define "achievement" solely as "movement towards the political left" (as many other writers on American history, even sincere admirers like Harold Evans, sometime seem to do.) I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone with an interest in twentieth-century political and social change.

Excellent overview.......1999-08-02

Barone's history of politics from Roosevelt to Reagan was a very enjoyable read. He included historical polling information throughout the book (presidential popularity, etc.) that really illustrated his theory on political trends. I knocked off one star from my rating because at times I felt the author's own political opinion overshadowed the points he was trying to make.

Definitely worth reading.

Barone's book a forecast of politics at the millenium........1998-07-21

This is required reading for all those hooked on what the White House derides as "the cable news shows" like Chris Matthews et al. Barone's years of compiling The Almanac of American Politics are manifested in this synthesis of some sixty years of national politics and his conclusion that it really is more than the economy, stupid. Is the Lewinsky Affair just a flash in the pan or will it define the landscape of American Politics at the millenium? Can a president's peccedillos (or other foreign sounding words) affect the national scene like race relations or the Panama canal? Was Dan Quayle onto something when he declared a race in 2000 against our two-term incumbent? While its timeframe doesn't reach Clinton, this book offers great insight into the schizophrenic poll results of late that seem to have pundits on the right and left tied up in knots trying to explain/spin.

Incorrect Thoughts: Notes on Our Wayward Culture

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It left me almost speechless.
Common sense take on culture
Unapologetic Conservative Common Sense
Interesting read
True Classicism Revived

Incorrect Thoughts: Notes on Our Wayward Culture
John Leo
Manufacturer: Transaction Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765800381

Customer Reviews:

It left me almost speechless........2006-02-17

If the information present in this book is all true and accurately framed, I'm horrified. I am not implying that I am challenging the validity of the information. In fact, I have seen hints of some of this in other sources. Some of this left me almost speechless (I don't think I'm ever completely speechless). I don't doubt, that if this book were read by every person in this country, there would be massive changes demanded in many areas. I hope this book galvanizes enough people to begin the process of those changes. SUMMARY: Horrifying - and a must read for every citizen.

Common sense take on culture.......2003-11-21

John Leo fans will love it, of course. It is quintessential Leo. But for the uninitiated, John Leo presents a 7 course meal of the decline of culture through the use of the elite's conceptaual reconstitution of "fairness". He takes aims and devastates their pet ideal of Political Correctness, and spares no institution from his microscope. He's astute, on point and very, very funny. He's the precursor to Rich Lowry, et al, and a lot better at the game.

Unapologetic Conservative Common Sense.......2002-09-06

A prior reviewer (see below) questioned the value of calling John Leo a 'conservative' thinker, but, let's face it, it's an appropriate label. The subject areas he tackles reads like Neal Boortz's program notes: abortion, feminism, victimology, postmodernism, welfare, Bill Clinton, Rigoberta Menchu, and some former low-level government temporary employee named Monica. Even George Lucas and Kate Moss get ladled a helping of Leo's unparalleled common sense. And the authors he quotes without referencing their political tilt (Heather MacDonald, David Horowitz, William Raspberry...) becomes almost a running joke.

Grouped into seven parts ('Media', 'Education', 'Family and Gender', 'Race and Minorities', 'Politics and Law', 'Culture and Language', and 'Society and Social Behavior'), the body of the book consists of reprints of Leo's columns from U.S. News & World Report, each only about a page long. Unfortunately, this makes the reading feel like riding with someone who's learning to drive stick, just as he gets rolling, he stops and starts again.

The two biggest downsides to the book are not Leo's fault: first, the articles aren't dated, which would have helped put some of his comments (like those on O.J. and Amy Fisher) a little more into perspective, and second, inexplicably, there's no index, which would have saved you much frustration the many times in the future you will likely refer back to these articles again.

Interesting read.......2002-03-20

A good, interesting read. It's full of bite-sized articles, catagorized into various groupings. My only (real) problem is that reading article-after-article on the craziness of it all, there's never any suggested course of action. Of course, that's not necessarily his 'brief', but it would have made various topics come 'full circle'. However, that's just my opinion. I would recommend this book...and you don't have to be a screaming conservative to appreciate it either!

True Classicism Revived.......2001-04-10

John Leo is frequently categorized as a conservative thinker, but such a label these days does little to indicate the actual freshness and vitality of his thought. He most resembles in this collection of occasional pieces a contemporary Dr. Johnson, for he applies a similar overwhelming good sense to a host of issues of the day. Perhaps he should be called a classical thinker. No knee jerker when commenting on contemporary matters, he is acutely aware of the claims both of the head and the heart . Underlying his treatment of the media, the educational system, etc., though, is the insistence that the head must balance the feelings in conflicts. Hence, in multiplying instances of its dismissal of facts, logic, or evidence, he exposes our age as one in which grotesque emotion seeks to, and often succeeds in, trumping reason. One leaves this collection not with a resolve to always vote Republican but instead with a determination to push for justice, but without succumbing to the forces of arrant propaganda which solicit on all sides.

The Sixties: Art, Politics, and Media of Our Most Explosive Decade

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The Sixties: Art, Politics, and Media of Our Most Explosive Decade

Manufacturer: Marlowe & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

Reporting the Counterculture (Media and Popular Culture : 5)
"Takin' it to the streets": A Sixties Reader
Smiling Through the Apocalypse
The Medium is the Massage
Against Interpretation: And Other Essays

ASIN: 1569248249

A History of Our Time: Readings in Postwar America

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A History of Our Time: Readings in Postwar America
Harvard Sitkoff
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Feminist Theory | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0195066162

Book Description

This comprehensive, widely-read anthology presents cogent and provocative articles from differing political perspectives on major issues in post-World War II America. The third edition is considerably expanded to include new selections on the origins of the Cold War, the struggle of
African-Americans for equality, the feminist movement, and Vietnam. The final section examining prospects for America in the 1990s has been completely revised, offering articles on current topics such as the urban underclass, the "greenhouse effect," nuclear arms control, and changing relations
with the Soviet Union. In addition to articles by leading historians the editors have chosen first-person accounts by participants in each of the issues under discussion, from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham Jail to Mikhail Gorbachev's historic speech to the United Nations.
With lively introductions to each section providing a context for the articles, this book helps readers make sense of the tumultuous world of our time.

Observing our Hermanos de Armas: U.S. Military Attaches in Guatemala, Cuba and Bolivia, 1950-1964 (Latin American Studies (Routledge (Firm)).)

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Observing Our Hermanos De Armas

Observing our Hermanos de Armas: U.S. Military Attaches in Guatemala, Cuba and Bolivia, 1950-1964 (Latin American Studies (Routledge (Firm)).)
Robert Kirkland
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415947847

Book Description

This study analyzes the effectiveness of the U.S. military attaché corps in Latin America from the end of World War II to the Johnson administration. Until now, there has not been a historical study on attaché proficiency, their training and education, or utilization of their reports by policy makers in Washington. An analytical framework is used to test the capability of this intelligence gathering system and applied in the case studies of : Guatemala, 1950-1954, Cuba, 1954-1958 and Bolivia 1960-1964.

Customer Reviews:

Observing Our Hermanos De Armas.......2004-09-06

From the Author:

The military attaché system dates from the pre-World War II period. In those years, policymakers in Washington had limited information on the latest overseas military innovations. Attachés reported on these advances at selected embassies abroad. After the war, the U.S. substantially increased its diplomatic and military presence around the globe. This expansion included Latin America, where the U.S. had attachés stationed at every embassy in the Hemisphere. Attachés reported mostly on political-military developments because Latin American militaries were heavily involved in politics. Reporting accurately on these matters required attachés to possess language and cultural awareness which hitherto they had not necessarily needed.

This study analyzes the effectiveness the military attaché corps in Latin America from the end of World War II to the Johnson Administration. Until now, there has not been a historical study on attaché effectiveness, their training and education, or utilitization of their reports by policymakers in Washington. This book uses the case studies of: Guatemala, 1950-1954, Cuba, 1954-1958, and Bolivia, 1960-1964, to draw its conclusions.

This study finds that the training and education system of the U.S. Armed Forces did not prepare attachés to report accurately on complex political-military issues. The exceptions were those attachés who brought "skills to the table" that they obtained outside the services' training system--such as language fluency. The Washington bureaucracies which analyzed and disseminated attaché reports proved effective. However, this had more to do with the redundancy of information flow than the quality of one particular intelligence agency.

Data for the book draw heavily on interviews with attachés and those who worked with them and on the diverse military archives located at National Archives, the Washington National Records Center, the DIA History Office Archive, the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Presidential Libraries, the Military History Institute, and the U.S. Air Force Air War College Library.

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Our Century 1970-1980
Tony Napoli
Manufacturer: Globe Fearon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Our Century: 1970-1980

Manufacturer: Lake Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Paul Maenz Koln, 1970-1980-1990: Eine Avantgarde-Galerie und die Kunst unserer Zeit = an avant-garde gallery and the art of our time (Lebendige Geschichte = Living history)

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Paul Maenz Koln, 1970-1980-1990: Eine Avantgarde-Galerie und die Kunst unserer Zeit = an avant-garde gallery and the art of our time (Lebendige Geschichte = Living history)

Manufacturer: DuMont
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3770127358

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