by Bruce Tap (1998)
The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War generated controversy throughout the war, and its legacy sparks debate even today over whether it invigorated or hampered the Union war effort. In the wake of both critical and sympathetic appraisals, Bruce Tap now offers the first history of the committee's activities, focusing on the nature of its power and influence on military policy in order to show conclusively what the ultimate impact really was. Tap presents solid evidence, including examples of contact between Congress and the military, to show that the committee produced little good and no small amount of harm. As Tap demonstrates, it was in many ways a serious impediment to the war effort, due not to its fanaticism or vindictiveness, as some historians have suggested, but rather to its members' total ignorance of military matters.
David E. Murphy
Murphy asks why the Soviet Union was so unprepared for the German attack in 1941. The highly efficient Soviet intelligence services warned Stalin several times about German preparations, but they were ignored. What led Stalin to make such an enormous blunder?
por Francisco X. Montero Lozano
“Y Mexico no ha escapado ha esta penetracion impune de mercadologos politicos “criollos” provenientes algunos de ellos-los mas cotizados-, del Centro Interamericano de Gerencia Politica con sede en Miami. Los nombres de Duran Barba, Alex Castellanos o J.J. Rendon, asociados al de Dick Morris, son apenas unos de los frecuentemente contratados por Vicente Fox o Felipe Calderon, a quienes desde luego se debe en mucho la implantacion en nuestro pais del modelo publicitario cuya estrategia descansa en el uso intensivo del spot por television, disenado para producir un efecto de aturdimiento y en consecuencia inhibir la capacidad de reflexion de los ciudadanos en la medida en que se posicione loa imagen del candidato, tratado como un producto expuesto al universo ciudadano, considerado como consumidor”.
Melissa Whitcraft
Details events that led to the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary War, looks at major battles including the Battle of Yorktown, and reviews the formation of a United States government.
/Ronald E. Powaski
"In Return to Armageddon, Ronald E. Powaski assesses the dangers that beset us as we enter an increasingly unstable political world. With the Start I and II treaties, completed by George Bush in 1991 and 1993 respectively, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, it seemed as if the nuclear clock had been successfully turned back to a safer hour. But Powaski shows that there is much less reason for optimism than we may like to think. Continued U.S-Russian cooperation can no longer be assured. To make matters worse, Russia has not ratified the Start II Treaty and the U.S. Senate has failed to approve the CTBT. Perhaps even more ominous, the effort to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nonweapon states is threatened by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan. The nuclear club is growing and its most recent members are increasingly hostile. Indeed, it is becoming ever more difficult to keep track of the expertise and materials needed to build nuclear weapons, which almost certainly will find their way into terrorist hands."--Jacket.