Hattie and Huey

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William I. Robinson

A penetrating analysis of the controversial U.S. role in the 1990 Nicaraguan elections - the most closely monitored in history - this book exposes the intervention in the electoral process of a sovereign nation by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, the National Endowment for Democracy, and private U.S.-based organizations. Robinson begins by tracing the evolution of U.S. foreign policy in recent decades and reviewing U.S.-Nicaraguan relations since the Carter administration. He then describes specific aspects of the "electoral intervention project," bringing to light the clandestine activities of U.S. officials. Finally, he examines the implications of such an undertaking for U.S. foreign policy and for social change in the Third World in the post-cold war era, arguing that it is a dangerous harbinger of a new interventionism conducted under the pretext of promoting democracy. Drawing on an extensive array of confidential documents and on interviews with representatives from U.S. and foreign government agencies, private organizations, and anti-Sandinista groups in Nicaragua, the author offers a chilling account of a foreign policy venture that was at the very least duplicitous and quite possibly illegal as well.

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[by] Patrick Vinton Kirch

In How Chiefs Became Kings, PKirch addresses a central problem in anthropological archaeology: the emergence of "archaic states" whose distinctive feature was divine kingship. Kirch takes as his focus the Hawaiian archipelago, commonly regarded as the archetype of a complex chiefdom. Integrating anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, traditional history, and theory, and drawing on significant contributions from his own four decades of research, Kirch argues that Hawaiian polities had become states before the time of Captain Cook's voyage (1778-1779). The status of most archaic states is inferred from the archaeological record. But Kirch shows that because Hawai'i's kingdoms were established relatively recently, they could be observed and recorded by Cook and other European voyagers. Substantive and provocative, this book makes a major contribution to the literature of precontact Hawai'i and illuminates Hawai'i's importance in the global theory and literature about divine, kingship, archaic states, and sociopolitical evolution. --Jacket.

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Hedrick Smith

Recounts how the American dream has been dismantled over the past forty years by legislative, electoral, and corporate decisions that have compromised the middle class and minimized individual economic and political power.

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Dilip Hiro

Outlines the Islamic heritage of the country, and the rise and fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. Describes the phases of the Islamic revolution and ends with the second parliamentary election in April-May 1984.