Author: David Runciman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
The Confidence Trap
Author: David Runciman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
Regulatory Breakdown
Author: Cary Coglianese
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207491
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation brings fresh insight and analytic rigor to what has become one of the most contested domains of American domestic politics. Critics from the left blame lax regulation for the housing meltdown and financial crisis—not to mention major public health disasters ranging from the Gulf Coast oil spill to the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion. At the same time, critics on the right disparage an excessively strict and costly regulatory system for hampering economic recovery. With such polarized accounts of regulation and its performance, the nation needs now more than ever the kind of dispassionate, rigorous scholarship found in this book. With chapters written by some of the nation's foremost economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, Regulatory Breakdown brings clarity to the heated debate over regulation by dissecting the disparate causes of the current crisis as well as analyzing promising solutions to what ails the U.S. regulatory system. This volume shows policymakers, researchers, and the public why they need to question conventional wisdom about regulation—whether from the left or the right—and demonstrates the value of undertaking systematic analysis before adopting policy reforms in the wake of disaster.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207491
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation brings fresh insight and analytic rigor to what has become one of the most contested domains of American domestic politics. Critics from the left blame lax regulation for the housing meltdown and financial crisis—not to mention major public health disasters ranging from the Gulf Coast oil spill to the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion. At the same time, critics on the right disparage an excessively strict and costly regulatory system for hampering economic recovery. With such polarized accounts of regulation and its performance, the nation needs now more than ever the kind of dispassionate, rigorous scholarship found in this book. With chapters written by some of the nation's foremost economists, political scientists, and legal scholars, Regulatory Breakdown brings clarity to the heated debate over regulation by dissecting the disparate causes of the current crisis as well as analyzing promising solutions to what ails the U.S. regulatory system. This volume shows policymakers, researchers, and the public why they need to question conventional wisdom about regulation—whether from the left or the right—and demonstrates the value of undertaking systematic analysis before adopting policy reforms in the wake of disaster.
Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s
Author: Daniel Horowitz
Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's
ISBN: 9780312401221
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
In a decade of constant crises, perhaps the most formidable challenge that Americans faced in the 1970s was the energy shortage. An era of inexpensive and seemingly unlimited supplies of oil came to an end with the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and strained the nation's economy for the remainder of the decade. In his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, one of the most remarkable political addresses in American history, President Jimmy Carter drew connections between America's increasing dependence on foreign oil and what he considered larger, more spiritual problems that plagued the nation. Through carefully selected documents that bring together the high-level White House decision-making process and the national conversation about energy, Daniel Horowitz helps students understand both the crises of the 1970s and the continuing relationship between American economic and foreign policy. An introduction by the editor, headnotes to documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide further pedagogical support.
Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's
ISBN: 9780312401221
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
In a decade of constant crises, perhaps the most formidable challenge that Americans faced in the 1970s was the energy shortage. An era of inexpensive and seemingly unlimited supplies of oil came to an end with the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and strained the nation's economy for the remainder of the decade. In his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, one of the most remarkable political addresses in American history, President Jimmy Carter drew connections between America's increasing dependence on foreign oil and what he considered larger, more spiritual problems that plagued the nation. Through carefully selected documents that bring together the high-level White House decision-making process and the national conversation about energy, Daniel Horowitz helps students understand both the crises of the 1970s and the continuing relationship between American economic and foreign policy. An introduction by the editor, headnotes to documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide further pedagogical support.
'What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?'
Author: Kevin Mattson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608192067
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
An assessment of the events that led up to Jimmy Carter's infamous 1979 "malaise" speech places it against a backdrop of such events as the gas crisis and the Iran-hostage situation while explaining that the speech had far greater relevance than its reception reflected, in an account that also claims the speech inadvertently set a course for the conservative movement. Reprint.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608192067
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
An assessment of the events that led up to Jimmy Carter's infamous 1979 "malaise" speech places it against a backdrop of such events as the gas crisis and the Iran-hostage situation while explaining that the speech had far greater relevance than its reception reflected, in an account that also claims the speech inadvertently set a course for the conservative movement. Reprint.
Crisis of Command
Author: Stuart Scheller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1637585454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Wall Street Journal Bestseller USA Today Bestseller Publishers Weekly Bestseller As Seen on Tucker Carlson Combat-decorated Marine officer Stuart Scheller speaks out against the debacle of the Afghan pullout as the culmination of a decades-long and still-ongoing betrayal of military members by top leadership, from generals to the commander in chief, comes to light. Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was the perfect Marine. Battle tested. A leader. Decorated for valor. Yet when the United States acted like the Keystone Cops in a panicked haphazard exit from Afghanistan for political reasons, Scheller spoke out, and the generals lashed out. In fact, they jailed him to keep him quiet, claiming he lost the “trust and confidence” bestowed upon him by the Marines. When the faith and trust is exactly what our generals and even our commander-in-chief betrayed by exercising such reckless and derelict policies. Now Scheller is free from the shackles of the Marine Corps and can speak his mind. And in Crisis of Command, that he does. He holds our generals’ feet to the fire. The same generals who play frivolously with the lives of our service men and women for political gain. The same general who lied to political leaders to further their own agendas and careers. Stuart Scheller is here to say that the buck stops here. Accountability starts now. It’s time to demand accountability and stand up for our military. In this book, Stuart Scheller shows us how.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1637585454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Wall Street Journal Bestseller USA Today Bestseller Publishers Weekly Bestseller As Seen on Tucker Carlson Combat-decorated Marine officer Stuart Scheller speaks out against the debacle of the Afghan pullout as the culmination of a decades-long and still-ongoing betrayal of military members by top leadership, from generals to the commander in chief, comes to light. Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was the perfect Marine. Battle tested. A leader. Decorated for valor. Yet when the United States acted like the Keystone Cops in a panicked haphazard exit from Afghanistan for political reasons, Scheller spoke out, and the generals lashed out. In fact, they jailed him to keep him quiet, claiming he lost the “trust and confidence” bestowed upon him by the Marines. When the faith and trust is exactly what our generals and even our commander-in-chief betrayed by exercising such reckless and derelict policies. Now Scheller is free from the shackles of the Marine Corps and can speak his mind. And in Crisis of Command, that he does. He holds our generals’ feet to the fire. The same generals who play frivolously with the lives of our service men and women for political gain. The same general who lied to political leaders to further their own agendas and careers. Stuart Scheller is here to say that the buck stops here. Accountability starts now. It’s time to demand accountability and stand up for our military. In this book, Stuart Scheller shows us how.
The Anxieties of Affluence
Author: Daniel Horowitz
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN: 9781558494329
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This work charts the reactions of prominent American writers to the unprecedented prosperity of the decades following World War II. It begins with an examination of Lewis Mumford's wartime call for democratic consumption and concludes with an analysis of the origins of Jimmy Carter's malaise speech of 1979. It documents a broad range of competing views, each in its own way reflective of a deep-seated ambivalence toward consumer culture - a persistent but shifting tension between a commitment to self-restraint and the pursuit of personal satisfaction through the acquisition of commercial goods and experiences. To explain why affluence has caused so much anxiety in America, the text focuses on key works of cultural criticism that stimulated public debate during what many have called the golden age of modern American capitalism. It examines the writings of three leading intellectuals - Daniel Bell, Robert N. Bellah, and Christopher Lasch - whose views shaped President Carter's response to the energy crisis of the 1970s
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN: 9781558494329
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This work charts the reactions of prominent American writers to the unprecedented prosperity of the decades following World War II. It begins with an examination of Lewis Mumford's wartime call for democratic consumption and concludes with an analysis of the origins of Jimmy Carter's malaise speech of 1979. It documents a broad range of competing views, each in its own way reflective of a deep-seated ambivalence toward consumer culture - a persistent but shifting tension between a commitment to self-restraint and the pursuit of personal satisfaction through the acquisition of commercial goods and experiences. To explain why affluence has caused so much anxiety in America, the text focuses on key works of cultural criticism that stimulated public debate during what many have called the golden age of modern American capitalism. It examines the writings of three leading intellectuals - Daniel Bell, Robert N. Bellah, and Christopher Lasch - whose views shaped President Carter's response to the energy crisis of the 1970s
Confidence Men
Author: Ron Suskind
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062225324
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 809
Book Description
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful, quintessentially American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades, learned how to manufacture it. Until August 2007, when that confidence finally began to crumble. In this gripping and brilliantly reported book, Ron Suskind tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in “a new era of responsibility.” It is a story that follows the journey of Barack Obama, who rose as the country fell, and offers the first full portrait of his tumultuous presidency. Wall Street found that straying from long-standing principles of transparency, accountability, and fair dealing opened a path to stunning profits. Obama’s determination to reverse that trend was essential to his ascendance, especially when Wall Street collapsed during the fall of an election year and the two candidates could audition for the presidency by responding to a national crisis. But as he stood on the stage in Grant Park, a shudder went through Barack Obama. He would now have to command Washington, tame New York, and rescue the economy in the first real management job of his life. The new president surrounded himself with a team of seasoned players—like Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, and Tim Geithner—who had served a different president in a different time. As the nation’s crises deepened, Obama’s deputies often ignored the president’s decisions—“to protect him from himself”—while they fought to seize control of a rudderless White House. Bitter disputes—between men and women, policy and politics—ruled the day. The result was an administration that found itself overtaken by events as, year to year, Obama struggled to grow into the world’s toughest job and, in desperation, take control of his own administration. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind intro-duces readers to an ensemble cast, from the titans of high finance to a new generation of reformers, from petulant congressmen and acerbic lobbyists to a tight circle of White House advisers—and, ultimately, to the president himself, as you’ve never before seen him. Based on hundreds of interviews and filled with piercing insights and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the collusion and conflict between the nation’s two capitals—New York and Washington, one of private gain, the other of public purpose—in defining confidence and, thereby, charting America’s future.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062225324
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 809
Book Description
The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful, quintessentially American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades, learned how to manufacture it. Until August 2007, when that confidence finally began to crumble. In this gripping and brilliantly reported book, Ron Suskind tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in “a new era of responsibility.” It is a story that follows the journey of Barack Obama, who rose as the country fell, and offers the first full portrait of his tumultuous presidency. Wall Street found that straying from long-standing principles of transparency, accountability, and fair dealing opened a path to stunning profits. Obama’s determination to reverse that trend was essential to his ascendance, especially when Wall Street collapsed during the fall of an election year and the two candidates could audition for the presidency by responding to a national crisis. But as he stood on the stage in Grant Park, a shudder went through Barack Obama. He would now have to command Washington, tame New York, and rescue the economy in the first real management job of his life. The new president surrounded himself with a team of seasoned players—like Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, and Tim Geithner—who had served a different president in a different time. As the nation’s crises deepened, Obama’s deputies often ignored the president’s decisions—“to protect him from himself”—while they fought to seize control of a rudderless White House. Bitter disputes—between men and women, policy and politics—ruled the day. The result was an administration that found itself overtaken by events as, year to year, Obama struggled to grow into the world’s toughest job and, in desperation, take control of his own administration. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind intro-duces readers to an ensemble cast, from the titans of high finance to a new generation of reformers, from petulant congressmen and acerbic lobbyists to a tight circle of White House advisers—and, ultimately, to the president himself, as you’ve never before seen him. Based on hundreds of interviews and filled with piercing insights and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the collusion and conflict between the nation’s two capitals—New York and Washington, one of private gain, the other of public purpose—in defining confidence and, thereby, charting America’s future.
Losing Confidence
Author: Elizabeth May
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551994054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A ringing manifesto for change from Canada’s Green Party leader and Activist. We Canadians are waking up from our long political slumber to realize that there will not be change unless we insist upon it. We have a presidential-style prime minister without the checks and balances of either the US or the Canadian systems. Attack ads run constantly, backbenchers and cabinet ministers alike are muzzled, committees are deadlocked, and civility has disappeared from the House of Commons. In Losing Confidence, Elizabeth May outlines these and other problems of our political system, and offers inspiring solutions to the dilemmas we face. “We no longer behead people in Canada, but Stephen Harper’s coup d’état cannot be allowed to stand, not least because of the precedent. Any future government can now slip the leash of democracy in the same way. This is how constitutions fail.” - Ronald Wright
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551994054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A ringing manifesto for change from Canada’s Green Party leader and Activist. We Canadians are waking up from our long political slumber to realize that there will not be change unless we insist upon it. We have a presidential-style prime minister without the checks and balances of either the US or the Canadian systems. Attack ads run constantly, backbenchers and cabinet ministers alike are muzzled, committees are deadlocked, and civility has disappeared from the House of Commons. In Losing Confidence, Elizabeth May outlines these and other problems of our political system, and offers inspiring solutions to the dilemmas we face. “We no longer behead people in Canada, but Stephen Harper’s coup d’état cannot be allowed to stand, not least because of the precedent. Any future government can now slip the leash of democracy in the same way. This is how constitutions fail.” - Ronald Wright
The Virtues of Aging
Author: Jimmy Carter
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345425928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Former president Jimmy Carter reflects on aging, blending memoir, anecdote, political savvy, and practical advice to truly illuminate the rich promises of growing older. “As we've grown older, the results have been surprisingly good,” writes former president Jimmy Carter in this wise, deeply personal meditation on the new experiences that come to us with age. President Carter had never enjoyed more prestige or influence on the world stage, nor had he ever felt more profound happiness with himself, with his accomplishments, and with his beloved wife, Rosalynn, than in his golden years. In The Virtues of Aging, Jimmy Carter shares the knowledge and the pleasures that age have brought him. The approach to old age was not an easy one for President Carter. At fifty-six, having lost a presidential election, he found himself involuntarily retired from a job he loved and facing a large debt on his farm and warehouse business. President Carter writes movingly here of how he and Rosalynn overcame their despair and disappointment as together they met the challenges ahead. President Carter delves into issues he and millions of others confront in planning for retirement, undertaking new diet and exercise regimens, coping with age prejudice, and sorting out key political questions. On a more intimate level, Carter paints a glowing portrait of his happy marriage to Rosalynn, a relationship that deepened when they became grandparents. Here too are fascinating sketches of world leaders, Nobel laureates, and great thinkers President Carter has been privileged to know—and the valuable lessons on aging he learned from them. The Virtues of Aging celebrates both the blessings that come to us as we grow older and the blessings older people can bestow upon others. An important and moving book, written with gentleness, humor, and love, The Virtues of Aging is a treasure for readers of all ages.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345425928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
Former president Jimmy Carter reflects on aging, blending memoir, anecdote, political savvy, and practical advice to truly illuminate the rich promises of growing older. “As we've grown older, the results have been surprisingly good,” writes former president Jimmy Carter in this wise, deeply personal meditation on the new experiences that come to us with age. President Carter had never enjoyed more prestige or influence on the world stage, nor had he ever felt more profound happiness with himself, with his accomplishments, and with his beloved wife, Rosalynn, than in his golden years. In The Virtues of Aging, Jimmy Carter shares the knowledge and the pleasures that age have brought him. The approach to old age was not an easy one for President Carter. At fifty-six, having lost a presidential election, he found himself involuntarily retired from a job he loved and facing a large debt on his farm and warehouse business. President Carter writes movingly here of how he and Rosalynn overcame their despair and disappointment as together they met the challenges ahead. President Carter delves into issues he and millions of others confront in planning for retirement, undertaking new diet and exercise regimens, coping with age prejudice, and sorting out key political questions. On a more intimate level, Carter paints a glowing portrait of his happy marriage to Rosalynn, a relationship that deepened when they became grandparents. Here too are fascinating sketches of world leaders, Nobel laureates, and great thinkers President Carter has been privileged to know—and the valuable lessons on aging he learned from them. The Virtues of Aging celebrates both the blessings that come to us as we grow older and the blessings older people can bestow upon others. An important and moving book, written with gentleness, humor, and love, The Virtues of Aging is a treasure for readers of all ages.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Author: Jimmy Carter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 6
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Afghanistan
Languages : en
Pages : 6
Book Description