George W. Bush has launched a revolution in American foreign policy. He has redefined how America engages the world, shedding the constraints that friends, allies, and international institutions ...impose on its freedom of action. He has insisted that an America unbound is a more secure America. How did a man once mocked for knowing little about the world come to be a foreign policy revolutionary? In America Unbound, Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay dismiss claims that neoconservatives have captured the heart and mind of the president. They show that George W. Bush has been no one's puppet. He has been a strong and decisive leader with a coherent worldview that was evident even during the 2000 presidential campaign. Daalder and Lindsay caution that the Bush revolution comes with significant risks. Raw power alone is not enough to preserve and extend America's security and prosperity in the modern world. The United States often needs the help of others to meet the challenges it faces overseas. But Bush's revolutionary impulse has stirred great resentment abroad. At some point, Daalder and Lindsay warn, Bush could find that America's friends and allies refuse to follow his lead. America will then stand alone-a great power unable to achieve its most important goals.
The Trump presidency has resulted in a fundamentally disruptive
moment in this nation's political culture. Not only were there
different policy options and directions, but the cultural artifacts
of ...politics changed because of how this president dramatically
challenged the existing norms of political behavior and action. As
we have shifted from a period of American liberalism to a time of
political populism, deep fissures are dividing Americans in general
and Jews in particular.
The Impact of the Presidency of Donald Trump on American
Jewry and Israel unpacks President Donald Trump's distinctive
and unique relationship with the American Jewish community and the
State of Israel. Addressing the various dimensions of his personal
and political connections with Jews and Israel, this publication is
designed to provide an assessment of how the Trump presidency has
influenced and altered American Jewish political behavior. Writers
from different backgrounds and political orientations bring a broad
range of perspectives designed to examine various aspects of this
presidency, including Trump's particular impact on Israel-US
relations, his special connection with Orthodox Jews, and his
complex and uneven relationship with Jewish Republicans.
For liberal American Jews, these four years represented a
fundamental revolution, overturning and challenging much that a
generation of activists had fought to achieve and protect. For
Trump's supporters, it afforded them an opportunity to advance
their priorities, while joining the forty-fifth president in
changing the American political landscape. The "Trump effect" will
extend well beyond his four-year tenure, creating an environment
that has fomented the politics of hate and exposed a deeply
embedded presence of anti-Semitism. How Americans understand this
moment in time and the ways society will adapt can be reflected
through the prism of the Jewish encounter with Trumpism that this
volume seeks to explore.
News After Trump Carlson, Matt; Robinson, Sue; Lewis, Seth C
11/2021
eBook
Donald Trump’s rapid—and seemingly improbable—ascension from reality show star to polarizing president threw into question many assumptions about how our media and political worlds work. His habit of ...lying, history of racist statements, and disdain for conventions upended traditional relations between journalists and political elites. Taking an expansive view of the contemporary media and political environment during the Trump years, News After Trump portrays a media culture in transition. As journalism’s very relevance comes to be increasingly questioned, we focus on how different actors—from Trump to small-town newspaper editors—use their cultural power to define journalism, assess its value, and question what the news should look like. The chapters chronicle how Trump and his allies turned attacks on journalists into a central component of a right-wing populist formula, with journalists positioned as just one more self-interested, out-of-touch elite. Over time, this anti-press rhetoric escalated, with Trump regularly debasing journalists as the enemy of the people. While journalists responded by falling back on cherished norms of objectivity and neutrality to trumpet their democratic role, many among their ranks questioned whether past commitments still had value in a changed media culture and if their reporting practices did more harm than good. To move forward, News After Trump does not advocate for a nostalgic return to the past, but instead argues for a journalism that is more assertive in speaking in a moral voice on behalf of communities, more comfortable in rendering judgments, and more self-aware of its shortcomings.
The Performative Presidency brings together literatures describing presidential leadership strategies, public understandings of citizenship, and news production and media technologies between the ...presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, and details how the relations between these spheres have changed over time. Jason L. Mast demonstrates how interactions between leaders, publics, and media are organized in a theatrical way, and argues that mass mediated plot formation and character development play an increasing role in structuring the political arena. He shows politics as a process of ongoing performances staged by motivated political actors, mediated by critics, and interpreted by audiences, in the context of a deeply rooted, widely shared system of collective representations. The interdisciplinary framework of this book brings together a semiotic theory of culture with concepts from the burgeoning field of performance studies.
Beginning withLost Highway, director David Lynch "swerved" in a new direction, one in which very disorienting images of the physical world take center stage in his films. Seeking to understand this ...unusual emphasis in his work, noted Lynch scholar Martha Nochimson engaged Lynch in a long conversation of unprecedented openness, during which he shared his vision of the physical world as an uncertain place that masks important universal realities. He described how he derives this vision from the Holy Vedas of the Hindu religion, as well as from his layman's fascination with modern physics.
With this deep insight, Nochimson forges a startlingly original template for analyzing Lynch's later films-the seemingly unlikely combination of the spiritual landscape envisioned in the Holy Vedas and the material landscape evoked by quantum mechanics and relativity. InDavid Lynch Swerves, Nochimson navigates the complexities ofLost Highway,The Straight Story,Mulholland Drive, andInland Empirewith uncanny skill, shedding light on the beauty of their organic compositions; their thematic critiques of the immense dangers of modern materialism; and their hopeful conceptions of human potential. She concludes with excerpts from the wide-ranging interview in which Lynch discussed his vision with her, as well as an interview with Columbia University physicist David Albert, who was one of Nochimson's principal tutors in the discipline of quantum physics.
Lebanon Najem, Tom
2012, 20120312, 2012-03-12, 20120101, 20020101
eBook
In a time of great political change and unrest in the Middle East, this highly topical text offers a succinct account of the contemporary political environment in Lebanon. Tom Najem provides both a ...developed understanding of the pre-civil war system and an analysis of how circumstances resulting from the civil war combined with essential pre-war elements to define politics in Lebanon.
Systematically exploring Lebanon's history, society and politics, the author stresses the importance of the crucial role of external actors in the Lebanese system. The analysis encompasses:
the formation of the state
weaknesses and dynamics of the Lebanese state
the civil war
post-war government and change
the Lebanese economy
foreign policy.
Written in a clear and accessible manner, this book fills a conspicuous gap in the existing academic literature on Lebanon. It will be of interest not only to students of international politics and Middle East studies, but also to anyone travelling in or wanting to learn more about the region.
Inside the Clinton White House uses never-before-seen interviews with Bill Clinton's administration and colleagues to provide a nuanced look at politics and life during the 42nd presidency.
