Роберт Мэсси0.0 "Loosing the Bonds" is popular, narrative history at its best: a consuming, dramatically told David and Goliath story about the moral power of justice triumphing over powerful forces of oppression.Apartheid-the brutal enforcement of racial segregation by South Africa's white government--became official policy in post-World War II South Africa, coinciding with the rise of the civil-rights movement in the United States. From the Kennedy administration on, Washington spoke against apartheid but, pressured by American corporations making big profits in South Africa and the geopolitics of the cold war, did little to foster change. Anti-apartheid activists turned their attention instead to South Africa's Achilles heel: its economy. Soon institutional America-churches, foundations, union and government pension funds-joined activists and college students in pressuring American business to get out of South Africa. Their efforts built to a climax in the 1980s, when South Africa became the burning issue of the day, the United States imposed punitive sanctions, and the apartheid regime collapsed.
Robert Kinloch Massie re-creates the passions and struggles of these years, deftly showing how American and South African politics, money and personalities were intertwined in these years. Populated with real-life heroes and villains, bursting with colorful incident, "Loosing the Bonds" is an inspiring chronicle of one of the most important struggles of our lifetime.
Джеймс Чейс0.0 Presents the biography of Dean Acheson, one of the Wise Men who shaped America's vision of the world in the aftermath of World War II. Acheson was the driving force behind the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and NATO. This book chronicles the decisions, events and personalities of this period.
Дэвид С. Лэндис5.0 The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is a "picture of enormous sweep and brilliant insight" (Kenneth Arrow) as well as one of the most audaciously ambitious works of history in decades.
For the paperback edition, Landes has written a new epilogue, in which he takes account of Asian financial crisises and the international tension between overconfidence and reality.
Леон В. Сигал0.0 In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to South Korea, and plans were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis. Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately diffused.
Дэниел Ергин, Joseph Stanislaw0.0 "The Commanding Heights" is about the most powerful political and economic force in the world today -- the epic struggle between government and the marketplace that has, over the last twenty years, turned the world upside down and dramatically transformed our lives. Now, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Prize" joins with a leading expert on the new marketplace to explain the revolution in ideas that is reshaping the modern world. Written with the same sweeping narrative power that made "The Prize" an enormous success, "The Commanding Heights" provides the historical perspective, the global vision, and the insight to help us understand the tumult of the past half century.
Trillions of dollars in assets and fundamental political power are changing hands as free markets wrest control from government of the "commanding heights" -- the dominant businesses and industries of the world economy. Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw demonstrate that words like "privatization" and "deregulation" are inadequate to describe the enormous upheaval that is unfolding before our eyes. Along with the creation of vast new wealth, the map of the global economy is being redrawn. Indeed, the very structure of society is changing. New markets and new opportunities have brought great new risks as well. How has all this come about? Who are the major figures behind it? How does it affect our lives?
The collapse of the Soviet Union, the awesome rise of China, the awakening of India, economic revival in Latin America, the march toward the European Union -- all are a part of this political and economic revolution. Fiscal realities and financial markets are relentlessly propellingderegulation; achieving a new balance between government and marketplace will be the major political challenge in the coming years. Looking back, the authors describe how the old balance was overturned, and by whom. Looking forward, they explore these questions: Will the new balance prevail? Or does the free market contain the seeds of its own destruction? Will there be a backlash against any excesses of the free market? And finally, "The Commanding Heights" illuminates the five tests by which the success or failure of all these changes can be measured, and defines the key issues as we enter the twenty-first century.
"The Commanding Heights" captures this revolution in ideas in riveting accounts of the history and the politics of the postwar years and compelling tales of the astute politicians, brilliant thinkers, and tenacious businessmen who brought these changes about. Margaret Thatcher, Donald Reagan, Deng Xiaoping, and Bill Clinton share the stage with the "Minister of Thought" Keith Joseph, the broommaker's son Domingo Cavallo, and Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian economist who was determined to win the twenty-year "battle of ideas." It is a complex and wide-ranging story, and the authors tell it brilliantly, with a deep understanding of human character, making critically important ideas lucid and accessible. Written with unique access to many of the key players, "The Commanding Heights, " like no other book, brings us an understanding of the last half of the twentieth century -- and sheds a powerful light on what lies ahead in the twenty-first century.
