Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A TRUE STORY FROM HELL ON EARTH

Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A TRUE STORY FROM HELL ON EARTH
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Could have been so much better

LOVED this book

5-star stories. 3-star writers.

Intense Reality Check of History in Our Lifetime

A gripping, candid story of wartime events which refutes popular myth.

Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A TRUE STORY FROM HELL ON EARTH
Kenneth Cain , Heidi Postlewait , and Andrew Thomson
Manufacturer: Miramax
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1401352014
Release Date: 2004-06-09

Book Description

In the early 1990s, three young people attracted to the ambitious global peacekeeping work of the UN cross paths in Cambodia. Andrew, a child of missionaries and a New Zealand-trained doctor, strives for a better world through medicine. Heidi, a New York social worker, is in need of a new challenge and a better paycheck. Ken, fresh from Harvard Law and full of idealism, is searching for a meaningful career. As the Cold War ends and the new world order dawns, as the peacekeeping community in Phnom Pehn throws wild parties-the three become friends for life. In this powerful, devastatingly honest memoir, Andrew, Heidi, and Ken mingle their distinct voices and experiences to paint a searing portrait of life amidst war and genocide. Andrew's journey takes him to Haiti, and then to Rwanda and Bosnia. Heidi and Ken are posted together in Somalia, during the infamous Black Hawk Down incident. Each of them risks death and, one way or another, survives. As their stories interweave, the trio reveals a dangerous world of witnessed atrocities, mass graves, desperate loneliness , and primal desires. By day they work in brutal war zones; by night they stave off fear and futility with revelry, in sex, in any human connection in a frightening world. Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures is a startling celebration of the strength of the human spirit-and the gritty power of friendship to keep you alive.

Customer Reviews:

Could have been so much better.......2007-07-22

Saving lives while putting yours under risk sounds like the perfect material for a compelling memoir and the juicy title of this one sounds like it would deliver in spades. However I was ultimately disappointed by "Emergency Sex".

The book is written by three aid workers: Ken, a recent Harvard graduate; Heidi, a social worker from New York; and Richard, an idealistic doctor from New Zealand. The three meet initially when they are all working in Cambodia and their stories intersect as they work together and separately on assignment in various `90s trouble spots: Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia. The book is written by each of them in turn and the pace is quick and lively. Parts are exciting (the description of being in Somalia when the Black Hawk helicopter was downed) or very moving (the description of the terrible atrocities in Rwanda and Liberia).

So it's an interesting read but somehow it failed to grab me. The book does convey what its like to be an aid worker: alternating fear, adrenalin, exhaustion, hopelessness, cynicism and only very occasionally the sense that you've made a small difference to the world. It certainly gives the flavor of how terrible things were in these places and how the UN could have done things better. However the three personalities never rang true for me. I didn't feel that I got to know these people. As another reviewer has commented, they all sounded curiously alike and I got the sense that Ken perhaps penned all three stories. Heidi's story was too much Ken's fantasy of the girl with the limpid eyes and the active sexual appetite. Richards's story was also Ken's fantasy of the heroic and noble doctor who windsurfed in his spare time. I'm not saying that these aren't real people, just that they never leapt off the page and became real to me.

Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because the nature of aid work is such that it's one long grind, the book dragged along for me. While I didn't mind it, I never felt the urge to pick it up and read more. I felt several times that I could have skipped 100 pages here or there and it wouldn't have made much difference. Really, you could flip open the book in a bookstore, read a few pages here and there, and get the flavor of the entire piece. It's not a bad book by any stretch, but it could have been better with judicious editing.

LOVED this book.......2007-07-13

I really enjoyed this book. I was hard-pressed to put it down. I am an avid reader and politics/history person yet at times I still found my self appauled that some of the things discussed in the book never made it to light in the media. We all know how the media is - they report locally not globally. It was so refreshing to hear the personal accounts of 3 individuals about what their lives were really like living in these war-torn areas. Average citizens should be so lucky to be informed of these unfortunate events. It's a huge wake up call....

5-star stories. 3-star writers........2007-04-09

I picked up this book and read it, almost compulsively, during a trip to Cambodia earlier this year. Structured as interspersed diary entries of three people who become involved in one way or another in the big moments of UN interventions from 93 on -- democracy to Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia...

Although lacking the narrative skills of more accomplished writers or the insightful introspection of truly self-aware diarists, you cannot help but develop an understanding (no matter how objectionable) to the different characters, their motivations and the different ways they choose to react to and cope with the overwhelming reality of the horrors that surround them.

Andrew is a doctor driven by a genuinely humanitarian streak; all the more poignant for his painful shyness which seems to make him unable to relate to others as strongly as he relates to humanity as a race. Ken's motivation seems to be a desire to live up to quixotic ideals which he wants others to acknowledge -- feels can best be served through his involvement in the humanitarian work. Heidi appears a shallow narcissist who deals with her own insecurities with a dominating personality and a self-destructive hedonism and abandonment that seems to be only heightened by an impending feeling of doom.

Overall, the stories are riveting. Deeply personal moments sprinkle what little gems of unexpectedly prescient insights -- the mistakes of the "international community" and NGOs in handling the crises, the lack of many shades of gray and the impersonal amorality and frailties of many of the people who we would hold to a higher standard.

But perhaps what I found most powerful was the creeping realization -- almost imperceptible -- of the futility of the whole thing. Spirits are high at the start of the book, the sense of purpose almost messianic. But as the stakes climb and the disappointments become harder to justify, the very real limitations of human interventions and the personal toll they take on those who are asked to be involved become apparent. There is a numb feeling of nothingness as the book draws out and the reader is left with a numb emptiness as he realises how little there is left to hope for.

The ending of the book is an awkward attempt at closure (with some interesting words by Ken) but overall suffers from the limited skills of the authors. However, purely for the benefit of the experiences they lived and the lessons they learnt, the book is worth a read.

Oh, and as most others point out, Heidi's sexual exploits (from where the book gets its title) are as sordid and pitiable as they are unnecessary.

Intense Reality Check of History in Our Lifetime.......2006-12-29

This book was absolutely amazing. Written as a memoir from three different perspectives (twenty-somethings working for the UN with widely various backgrounds), the use of point of view is incredible and adds significant insight into the characters and the different aspects of world conflict through the nineties.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in world events or anyone who hates history because it's boring. The detail of character and plot development provide such an interesting foreground for the tumultuous, wartime background that you almost don't even realizing you're learning about real historical events.
Please read this book. It will open your eyes and entertain your socks off.

A gripping, candid story of wartime events which refutes popular myth........2006-12-13

Here's a winner: a book which reads with all the high drama and action of fiction, but which is a nonfiction first-person story of three U.N. Peacekeepers who exposed atrocities during a decade of peacekeeping missions. This book received much acclaim in hardcover: its paperback rendition includes a new afterword by the authors and provides readers with a gripping, candid story of wartime events which refutes popular myth.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures A True Story from Hell on Earth

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Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures A True Story from Hell on Earth
Andrew Thompson
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N7ICGE

1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War 11
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1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War 11
Michael Jabara Carley
Manufacturer: House of Stratus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1842320416

1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II
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Excellent book but unconvincing.

Two Cheers for Appeasement!

Great book!

Excellent Study Of The Year Leading To WWII!

Exposing the Cold War mentality of the 1930s

1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II
Michael Jabara Carley
Manufacturer: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Any book named after that most fateful of years, 1939, is sure to tell a tragic tale. As Michael Jabara Carley writes in the opening pages of this volume, "This is not a pretty story. It is about appeasement and the failures of collective security in Europe against Nazi aggression. It is about moral depravity and blindness, about villains and cowards." Carley offers a provocative thesis: anticommunist passions in England and France prevented these countries from forming an antifascist alliance with the Soviet Union that might have headed off the bloodiest conflict in human history. This is not a totally original idea, but Carley makes a forceful case that just a few years ago was an especially tough sell: "Cold war ideology tended to overshadow Anglo-French culpability and responsibility for the path to war in 1939." In other words, the anticommunist sentiments that made it so difficult to deal with the Soviet Union during the 1930s also made it nearly impossible during the cold war to blame anticommunism for what went wrong. Carley's tale is not entirely bleak; he devotes a fair amount of attention to "a motley, imperfect group of heroes" who warned about the rise of Nazi power and urged a joint strategy with the Soviets to contain Germany. One of these Cassandras was Winston Churchill, but others have been nearly forgotten. Carley revives them on these pages in a thought-provoking--and certainly controversial--book that takes a fresh look at an old topic. --John J. Miller

Book Description

At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union became the last chance to halt Hitler's aggression. Michael Carley's gripping account of these negotiations challenges prevailing interpretations by situating 1939 at the end of the early cold war between the Soviet Union, France, and Britain, and by showing how anti-communism was the major cause of the failure to form an alliance against Hitler. Michael Carley has done what many would say is impossible. He has given us a new understanding of the coming of World War II in Europe. --Lloyd C. Gardner

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book but unconvincing........2004-09-05

I very much enjoyed this book, but the author didn't convince me of his thesis. Instead he convinced me that war was unavoidable.

Britain's hesitation to form an alliance with the Soviet Union was fueled by the fear of the Soviets dominating Eastern Europe. Since World War II ultimately resulted in just that, Britain's fear can hardly be called unjustified.

If an alliance had been made with passage rights through Poland for the Soviets, can there be any doubt this would have ended with a Soviet controlled Poland? Stalin had, after all, a bone to pick with Poland since 1920.

Can Chamberlain be blamed for fearing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe more than Nazi domination given the horrors--starvation of the Ukraine and the purges--of Stalin's regime? Only with the knowledge of the Holocaust, which had not yet come, could Soviet domination be considered more palatable.

Two Cheers for Appeasement!.......2002-09-29

Carley recounts the diplomatic story of 1939, the nadir of a "low, dishonest decade." Its characters are "Guilty Men" and "Gravediggers," whose "clever hopes" consisted mainly of appeasing Hitler. He reveals the failed negotiations to forge an alliance that "never was" with Russia which might have prevented war; the fear and short-sightedness that doomed that alliance; the ideological blindness that feared a victory that could lead to the spread of Communism more than a defeat that would spread Nazi terror. The book is a corrective to those who have blamed Russia and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact for the outbreak of the war, ignoring the 5 years of efforts by the Soviets to form an effective anti-German alliance.

There are few heroes in this story. France, divided internally, found it easiest to follow the British. France wouldn't move to save Eastern Europe without Britain, and Britain wouldn't move. What the Russians wanted was an ironclad military alliance, with precise and concrete terms, staff talks and passage rights through Poland so that Russia could come to grips with Germany. Poland could not hold the eastern front against Germany alone. Without such an agreement Russia's options were to stay neutral or come to terms with Germany. One Foreign Office official in May 1939 summed it up, "The Russians have for years past been pressing for staff [talks]...and the French at our instigation have always refused them." Gen. Gamelin as early as 1936 told the French Staff that the only real help against Germany had to come from Russia and Russia needed passage rights to come to France's aid.

If the British and French were suspicious of Russian motives, the Russians were equally suspicious. They felt that the Allies would be happy to see Germany and Russia destroy each other. Chamberlain wrote that he was so "skeptical of the value of Russian help that [the Allies' position] was [not] greatly worsened if we had to do without them." (France estimated Britain had two divisions to send to its aid, Russia 100 divisions.) The British wouldn't fight to save the Baltics, but wanted Russia to fight to save Belgium.

Despite their awareness of this fundamental problem, the Allies couldn't see their way to a solution even after five years. Litvinov, the chief proponent of collective security, was finally replaced by Molotov as Russian frustrations grew and war neared. The British considered Molotov "totally ignorant," "an ignorant and suspicious peasant" with a peasant's "foolish cunning." In July 1939 Chamberlain was still arguing that the Allies did not need the offensive might to defeat Germany, only defensive forces to prevent a German victory.

When the Allies made a last ditch effort to string the Russians along it sent a delegation on a slow merchant vessel with instructions so vague as to be "almost useless," lacking written credentials and told to avoid discussions of passage rights. No wonder the Russians were suspicious. In the end the Russians signed a non-aggression pact with Germany; Poland, "an aggressor in 1938 and a victim in 1939," was partitioned. Even then, a month into the war, Chamberlain was still suggesting that Britain might have to unite with Germany "against the common danger."

Carley blames chiefly the British and interwar anti-communism for the failure of the Western Powers to form an alliance with Russia that might have prevented WWII. Using extensive research in French and British archives, Carley focuses narrowly on the diplomatic "dance" going on among the British, French and Soviets, other broader issues are only touched upon as they affect this diplomatic activity. The politics and diplomacy of the smaller Eastern European states is largely ignored as Carley concentrates on the "big picture."

The narrative bogs down in the middle as the British and the French repeatedly try to wiggle out of making any firm commitments to Russia. British and French obstinate un-Realpolitik grows tedious, but demonstrates the growing frustrations of the Russians. A frustration that had already driven the Italians onto the side of Hitler. Exceptionally well-researched, "1939" presents an important interpretation of the events leading to WWII.

Great book!.......2002-08-20

Other people have already written about this book. I simply want to add that this book is worth of reading.

Excellent Study Of The Year Leading To WWII!.......2001-03-16

This excellent recent work by author Michael Jabara Carley adds more fuel to the continuing fire of controversy regarding relative responsibility for the outbreak of general war in the fall of 1939. Indeed, in this well-written and well-documented work, the author's main argument contends that it was the collective failure of the so-called allies to overcome their own fears about communism and the perceived threats associated with the rise of international socialism that were responsible for the failure to bring the Soviet Union into the Allied orbit in time to stave off Hitler's rush into Poland. Given the well-documented facts and figures marshaled in defense of this argument, it is difficult to fault this view.

For example, Carley illustrates how the Soviet Union made attempt after attempt to solicit the support and agreement of the western allies to form an alliance against Germany, only to be slow-rolled and virtually ignored time after time. In this fashion, the Soviets were finally left with few obvious options other than to turn into the direction fo their greatest fear and accept terms with the Nazis, hoping that by cooperating them and acting as their key supplier in the face of growing intransigence on the part of the Allies, the Germans would leave them alone. The author masterfully shows how this consistent series of rebuffs of the Russians by the western Allies was related to a western phobia of the communism and its associated threats, and illustrates how these fears of all things socialistic blinded the Allies to the obvious dangers presented by the acts of the Nazi regime.

Thus, despite the fact that the Russians regularly tested the waters for a broad alliance against the Nazis during the late thirties, it was the western Allies who spurned such efforts to create a united front that did so much to engender the conditions allowing it to break out in the fall of 1939. In fact, as the author so well illustrates, a particularly virulent form of anti-socialist fervor seemed to affect both the British ruling class as well as many in the higher reaches within the French political community during this period of time, and this attitude did much to limit the discussion of the possibilities for compromise and joint action with the Russians. Of course, there were a few hardy souls with the vision and perspective to understand how important an early alliance with the Soviet Union, including Winston Churchill in Britain and Robert Vansittart in France. But few others listened to their emotional pleas for action and union with the Russians or their reasoning for taking such common cause with the dreaded socialists.

This is a carefully documented and painstakingly well-researched work that serves a much wider readership and appreciation for it as the work of careful scholarship that it is. I was especially impressed by the degree of information revealed from the archives of the former Soviet Union, which acts to shed a lot of light on the efforts made by Stalin and the Soviet cabinet during the time in question. This is an excellent book, and a worthy companion to a number of other excellent works such as "Grand Illusion" and "Dark Valley", each of which explores the nature of international politics in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War Two. Enjoy!

Exposing the Cold War mentality of the 1930s.......2000-04-23

Michael Carley's 1939: The Alliance That Never Was demolishes the Cold War-inspired revisionism regarding the diplomacy that led to World War 2. From the Cold War perspective, Stalin, the left-wing dictator, betrayed the Western democracies who were wooing him, to form a dictators' pact with Hitler, the right-wing dictator. This allowed Hitler to invade Poland, giving the Soviets the chance to steal eastern Poland, a forewarning of how they would behave after World War 2 once the Nazis were beaten.

Wrong in every respect, argues Carley. The Soviets had been pressing for a front with the democracies to prevent Nazi rearmament and aggression since 1934. They still wanted this desperately in 1939, but after Munich, they did not think they would get it. Fanatic anti-communism on the part of most of the leadership of Britain and an important section of the French political class made such an alliance seem unlikely. Indeed the Western democracies appeared to prefer Nazi Germany to Communist Russia. While the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, worked tirelessly to press for collective security, and the Soviet Ambassador to London, Ivan Maiski, had an important network of friends in high places in Britain who trusted Soviet initiatives, the Soviet plans were always blocked by the "men of Munich." Led by Neville Chamberlain himself, they included key Cabinet members, members of the Foreign Affairs ministry, and the military. These men were impervious to pleas from Maiski, and from Winston Churchill, and Robert Vansittart for an alliance with the Soviets against the Nazis.

Carley's book is the result of painstaking research in the foreign affairs documents of all the principal players. Particularly important here is his work in the archives of the old Soviet Union that began to open a variety of once-closed documents in the era of glasnost.

While this book focuses almost exclusively on the events of 1939, it reinforces the views expressed in Clement Leibovitz and Alvin Finkel, In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion, that in the years leading up to World War 2, the leaders of the Western democracies deliberately tried to build up Hitler's power in the hope that he would take on the hated Soviets. He could have all of eastern and central Europe as a reward if he could keep his hands off Britain and France, their empires, and their spheres of influence. Only when it became clear that Hitler would not do these things, did the Western countries reluctantly decide to fight him.

1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II.(Review) (book review): An article from: Canadian Journal of History
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1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II.(Review) (book review): An article from: Canadian Journal of History
G. Bruce Strang
Manufacturer: University of Saskatchewan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B0008HFLPE
Release Date: 2005-07-28

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This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on August 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1069 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II.(Review) (book review)
Author: G. Bruce Strang
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 2000
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: 35 Issue: 2 Page: 345

Article Type: Book Review

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1939, The Alliance That Never Was & the Coming of World War II

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1939, The Alliance That Never Was & the Coming of World War II
Michael Jabara Carley
Manufacturer: Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LV8Y6U

Book Description

Joshua Muravchik traces the fiery trajectory of socialism with sketches of dreamers and doers who developed the theory, led it to power and presided over its collapse.

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Joshua Muravchik traces the fiery trajectory of socialism with sketches of dreamers and doers who developed the theory, led it to power, and presided over its collapse. Among them are the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf, whose "Conspiracy of Equals" wanted to outlaw private property; Robert Owen, who tried to plant a model socialist utopia in the United States; Friedrich Engels, who created the cult of Karl Marx and "scientific" socialism; Benito Mussolini, self-proclaimed socialist heretic and inventor of fascism; Clement Attlee, who set out to build socialism democratically in Britain; Julius Nyerere, who hoped to make Tanzania a model for the developing world; and Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and Tony Blair, who became socialism's inadvertent undertakers. "Heaven on Earth" is an epic chronicle of a movement that tried to turn the world upside down-and for a time succeeded.

Customer Reviews:

PROPERTY IS GOOD, BUT PROPER COFFEE'S BETTER.......2007-08-29

Opposing socialism as I do, and advocating the property rights of the person, free market small state government, and individual liberty, I found this well-written and sympathetic book most enlightening. I have tried it on double-dyed socialists, who find it sobering. Stanford economist Professor Thomas Sowell remarks: `It is hard to find a book on the history of socialism that is either readable or accurate...[this] is both...It is a great read'. And as I find it hard to find a readable book on socialism itself, let alone its history, this book will do for both. (For the hardier soul I have added a few titles of further reading along these lines below. The one by Professor Sowell is quite easy going and more a backgrounder than a stance on socialism.)

The religious title of the book is indicative, the author states on page one line one: `Socialism was the faith in which I was raised.' It quotes Moses Hess, `A Communist Confession of Faith', 1846 - a prophet of little profit - fortelling `this heaven on earth'. Socialism is a faith, with its bibles, practised religiously, intended as a road from superstition to inevitable rational scientific enlightenment, final freedom from the chains of church dogma.

The author is of Russian Jewish background, not hostile in tone, baptised into his socialist birth-faith, but converted in his thirties. He is a kind critic, and all the more effective for that. The first chapter `Prologue: Changing Faiths', pages 3-6, forms a useful abstract of the book in three pages, but belies the detail and coherence of the whole. The skill of this author is in pulling together highly detailed and disparate insider accounts of real existent socialist entities and relating the truth to the propagandist picture we have been shown. He is no iconoclast, more a sort of political undertaker with printer's ink as embalming fluid. The epilogue on the Socialism of the Israeli kibbutz is an eye-opener, and all the more touching for the intimate details of the young mothers and children who suffered it. The tale of Tanzania is a sad chapter of hope poured down a gutter.

Let's face it. Reality is right-wing, property is progress. Entrepreneurism is good. Buying and selling benefits both parties, or they would not trade. Profit is proper, losses are Nature's way of saying, `Do something else'. People are not equal, you can't make them equal, and it is wrong to try. The Barking Bolshevik Club cannot see it because they do not want to - it's against their religion.

CONTENTS
Prologue: Changing Faiths
Section: BEGINNINGS
1. Conspiracy of Equals: Babeuf, blood and revolution, France
2. New Harmony: Owen, UK exports damp-squib socialism to USA, sorry guys
3. Scientific Socialism: Engels & co., all scientists they!
4. Theoretical wrangles: Bernstein doubts Marx, Lenin ahoy

Section: TRIUMPHS
5. Lenin seizes power and people die, Russia
6. Fascism: Mussolini - socialista fascisti, und Socialisten Realpolitik
7. Social Democracy: Atlee, UK
8. Ujamaa: Nyerere, Tanzania

Section: COLLAPSE
9. Unions: Gompers and Meany, USA - an eye-opener this chapter
10. Perestroika and Modernisation: Deng and Gorbachev, China/USSR
11. The Party of Business: Blair redefines social democracy, sends out the troops

Epilogue
Kibbutzim kebab, Israel

These chapters and headings sell the book short. There is far more drawing of connections between the topics than would be understood at a glance. The apparent lack of comment on China is only apparent. The index reveals dozens of references to grimness that was and is Chinese communism and its influence on the world events. The China-Tanzania link is particularly revealing, and explains why Tanzania, the great African `benign' socialist experiment shambled on for so long. I was shocked by so many of these chapters, but the chapter on the well-intentioned obtuseness of Tanzanian socialism left me open-mouthed: being colonised by the UK was ten times better than being colonised by interfering socialists from the world over. Skip the theoreticals in chapter 4 if you are in any type of hurry. The recipe for socialist crumble with propaganda custard seems to have been shared by so many amateur cooks the world round. After having poisoned so many the wonder is that it is still not universally regarded as toadstool pie and gravy today.

If this book is light anywhere it is in the economics, which it does not claim to cover. Further reading may be found in 1) `The Turning Point - Revitalizing the Soviet Economy', (1989) by Shmelev and Popov, two senior Soviet economists. The professionally detailed insider account of the slow death-in-life demise of Russia after the 1917 Revolution. Reckless industrialisation and - the clue is in the title - formation of the `Union of Soviet Socialist Republics', an entity of no less world-dominating intentions than Adolf Hitler, which took just one human lifetime (1917-1989) to buckle at the knees and collapse in the Soviet slums. 2) `Basic Economics', by Thomas Sowell. A sanity-enhancer. 3) `The Gulag Archipelago' by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A grim aperient. 4) `The Counter-Revolution of Science' by F.A. Hayek (especially part two). First part, a tough read. Genesis of positivism and scientism. Second part, historical analysis of the genesis of socialism and sociology. Comte, etc, easier reading.

The appendices of `Heaven on Earth' give the countries of the `high tide' of Socialism in 1985. (Forget not that even in 1989 socialists of all denominations were in denial about the global crises of their faith.) Just glancing down that 1985 list of 18 officially communist countries, the largest number the world had ever suffered, is faith-building today. In 2007 I make the communists to be just two little fish. Let us hope and pray that Cuba and North Korea are free soon. And Joshua Muravchik must have the last word - `socialism's epitaph turned out to be: If you build it, they will leave.', (p.6).

Try something that is less biased.......2007-07-28

This book was written by Joshua Muravchik, who works for the American Enterprise Institute. The same AEI that is one of the major architects of Bush IIs policies. It is also the same AEI thats mission statement says that it's aim is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism -- limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate." In other words the author here is an employee of a conservative, neo-liberal think tank. Prima facie, he would not seem to be unbiased on Socialism... upon reading the book, it becomes obvious.

Also, don't let the fact that Mr. Muravchik was the former chairman of the Young People's Socialist League give you any false pretense of a balanced historical view. He seems as enthralled with Socialism as an ex-smoker is with cigarettes, i.e. he looks back longingly at the ideology, albeit with much self-loathing and then preaches the failures of socialism with all the vigor of a born-again (non-smoker, etc.)

History you don't get in school.......2006-09-22

This is a fantastic work, well documented and thorough. The author takes you on a whirlwind tour of the history of Socialism and its affects on our world. I was astonished to learn about the failed socialist experiements in both Great Britain and the US. I NEVER came accross this in my public education in America!

Anyone who is a serious student of history and wants to unearth religious worldviews that are harming the welfare of nations and generations of people MUST read this book.

Move Heaven and Earth and Read This!.......2006-03-23

Highly readable. Very informative. Must read!!

Since when is the U.S. a laissez-faire economy?.......2005-11-18

"One does not need to read a book to see merits of socialism; one merely needs to look at the chaos that exists today in the U.S. - corporate greed, outsourcing of educated middle-class labor to line the pockets of a few ultra-rich as the country hemorrhages entire professions and salaried positions that are unlikely to return in any form, globalization and the race to the bottom (just to name a few) - to realize that the majority of this country's population (which has the courage to admit to itself that it isn't part of the top 1% and almost inevitably never will be) stands to gain more from some level of socialism than it chances to lose. Having the requisite resources/intellect/social standing that the vast majority of the population is unlikely to partake in/be part of (and it would well behoove itself to admit this fact), the ones who truly profit from laissez-faire capitalism are indeed modern day aristocrats; and they're laughing all the way to the bank while reading a book like this."

Since when is the U.S. a laissez-faire economy. Our country has hundreds of thousands of government regulations, zoning laws, licensure requirements, restrictions on international trade, price controls, a centralized bank, a wasteful public school system, increasingly complex tax laws and loopholes, billions of dollars in subsidies to all kinds of groups, corporate welfare scams, public works projects, and many other examples too numerous to mention almost. If anything, our country is hundreds of miles from a laissez-faire economy. The closest that we ever had to a laissez-faire economy was with
The Industrial Revolution where we had enormous technological gains, improved living standards, and plentiful job opportunities where it if one got fired or quit, it was easy to get another job by the end of the day. And even that still wasn't a laissez-faire economy, as we still had subsidizing of railroads, public schools, public post office, and other things. The last fifteen years could hardly be considered laissez-faire, as government spending has increased. And for your information, wealth is infinite. The economy isn't a pie where you only get something by taking it from others. If I own .00005% of the total wealth in this country, that's still buys a lot more than it did a century ago. You can't measure wealth by income, only by material conditions mostly.

"Mr. Sowell's soundbite "redistribution of wealth leads to redistribution of poverty" is just plain wrong. Some counter examples might include Social Security, Medicare, and Urban Housing assistance--all products of socialism that have immensely benefited our society"

Have you at all been paying attention to what these programs are? Social Security spending is increasing and has often been dipped into to provide funding for other things. Medicare spending is increasing and was one of the first things to eventually lead to a healthcare crisis in this country. And have you ever even been to an urban housing project. All of these things are constantly having more money put into them with more taxes, which are making more of us poorer and poorer.

The Trumpeter Swan Its History, Habits, and Population in the United States (Number 63)
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The Trumpeter Swan Its History, Habits, and Population in the United States (Number 63)

Manufacturer: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GGTZG8

Product Description

1963 Reprint of 1960 publication.

THE TRUMPETER SWAN: ITS HISTORY, HABITS AND POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES

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THE TRUMPETER SWAN: ITS HISTORY, HABITS AND POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Winston E. Banko
Manufacturer: Government Printing Office Washington, D.C.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000EGSTU

The trumpeter swan: Its history, habits and population in the United States (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North American fauna)

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The trumpeter swan: Its history, habits and population in the United States (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North American fauna)
Winston E Banko
Manufacturer: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

The Trumpeter Swan: Its History, Habits, and Population in the United States
Winston E. Banko
Manufacturer: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000P9EOE4

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