Come Hell or High Water

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Ivor van Heerden and Mike Bryan

The ultimate inside story of the Katrina tragedy—from the cofounder of the LSU Hurricane CenterAfter warning for years about the looming threat of catastrophic flooding in New Orleans, Ivor van Heerden was one of the highest-profile media experts during the Katrina disaster. Over the following eighteen months, he was even more prominent as he challenged the official version of those events and campaigned for an engineering plan that would protect all of southeastern Louisiana, once and for all. In The Storm, van Heerden lays out in full detail the stunning incompetence among the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the Army Corps of Engineers that culminated in the catastrophe that crippled, perhaps forever, a great American city.

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James L. Robinson

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." - a passage by Charles Dickens published a century ago - describes how African Americans today feel about their chances for advancement. Since the 1960s, socioeconomic reports have examined the difficulties blacks have endured in their attempts to enter into the mainstream. For example, in 1965, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel P. Moynihan released the "Moynihan Report" stating that the roots of poverty, illiteracy, and despair in the black community are tied to the instability within the family resulting from centuries of slavery and discrimination. Twenty-five years later, U.S. Statistical Abstracts declared that the number of African Americans in correctional facilities equaled those in universities; and the 1990 U.S. Census Bureau reported that not only do 45% of black children live in families barely at the poverty line, but that the median income of a white household is almost double that of a black household. Are there specific reasons for the prevalence of dysfunction in the African-American community? Racism or Attitude? The Ongoing Struggle for Black Liberation and Self-Esteem challenges the long-held assumptions of black leaders and liberal thinkers that racism and discrimination are the only reasons behind the state of the African-American population. Dr. James L. Robinson, a political scientist specializing in African-American history, contends that negative attitude and a lack of self-esteem are as accountable as discrimination and racism for the ethnocentric troubles within the black community. The author explores social and economic conditions as they relate to the contradictions between race and class thinking, the varied results of Affirmative Action, and the effects of the civil rights movement on African Americans. Have Affirmative Action and other such programs contributed to a sense of unworthiness within African Americans as to their abilities and intelligence? Or, is today's politically sensitive climate deflecting the responsibility of the individual to succeed in a society based upon merit? In response to these questions, Dr. Robinson, himself a beneficiary of Affirmative Action, demonstrates that true black liberation will occur only when black attitudes toward race change. Racism or Attitude? is a frank analysis on the effects of race, economics, and politics in the United States on present and future generations of all members of society. Sociologists, political scientists, educators, ethnohistorians, demographers, criminologists, and behavioral psychologists will find this handbook on contemporary American history to be invaluable.

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Michael D. Woodard

In Black Entrepreneurs in America, Woodard lets us hear for the first time from many on the front lines of the American marketplace. Woodard begins the book with a summary of two hundred years of Black entrepreneurship in America, and then offers a lucid analysis of contemporary theories of Black business. Through in-depth interviews with twelve entrepreneurs, Woodard provides a powerful record of entrepreneurial vitality in a market that is often hostile and exclusive. Woodard covers businesses from across the United States representing diverse industries, including paper distribution, office furniture, computer management, construction, chemicals, ship building, communications, and systems engineering. Each business has a minimum gross revenue of $1 million per year and from ten to over two hundred employees. These twelve interviews make up the heart of the book, as Black entrepreneurs talk frankly about business challenges, opportunities, and issues of community involvement. Woodard ends on a practical note with resources and advice for anyone contemplating an entrepreneurial future.

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Nick Bostrom, Milan M. Cirkovic

"In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes." "Bostrom pioneered the concept of existential risk and the simulation argument. He developed the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects and is the author of a number of seminal studies on the implications of future technologies."--Jacket.