Encounter books usa (Más de 2600 resultados)

Paperback. Condición: Good. The American health care system is in crisis. Skyrocketing costs and increasing bureaucracy have traumatized consumers and doctors alike. In The Cure, Dr. David Gratzer brings a dose of common sense to this over-regulated area of the American economy.

Paperback. Condición: Good. This is the story of a man who searched his conscience, decided that the American Dream should be colorblind, and then set out to change the rules. Part memoir, part history lesson, and part road map, Creating Equal tells how a black man fought against affirmative action in California and Washington state. It begins in segregated Louisiana with a hard-working, resilient family that refused to be destroyed by personal tragedy or to be defined by race. This is where Ward Connerly grew up. In 1993, he would be called to make the most difficult decision of his life: to convince the regents of the University of California to end affirmative action. Two years later, he did the same thing for Washington state.…

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. Robust financial markets support capitalism, they don't imperil it. But in 2008, Washington policymakers were compelled to replace private risk-takers in the financial system with government capital so that money and credit flows wouldn't stop, precipitating a depression. Washington's actions weren't the start of government distortions in the financial industry, Nicole Gelinas writes, but the natural result of 25 years' worth of such distortions. In the early eighties, modern finance began to escape reasonable regulations, including the most important regulation of all, that of the marketplace. The government gradually adopted a "too big to fail" policy for the largest or most complex financial companies, saving lenders to failing firms from losses. As a result, these companies became impervious to the vital market discipline that the threat of loss provides. Adding to the problem, Wall Street created financial instruments that escaped other reasonable limits, including gentle constraints on speculative borrowing and requirements for the disclosure of important facts. The financial industry eventually posed an untenable risk to the economy -- a risk that culminated in the trillions of dollars' worth of government bailouts and guarantees that Washington scrambled starting in late 2008. Even as banks and markets seem to heal, lenders to financial companies continue to understand that the government would protect them in the future if necessary. This implicit guarantee harms economic growth, because it forces good companies to compete against bad. History and recent events make clear what Washington must do. First, policymakers must reintroduce market discipline to the financial world. They can do so by re-creating a credible, consistent way in which big financial companies can fail, with lenders taking their warranted losses. Second, policymakers can reapply prudent financial regulations so that markets, and the economy, can better withstand inevitable excesses of optimism and pessimism. Sensible regulations have worked well in the past and can work well again. As Gelinas explains in this richly detailed book, adequate regulation of financial firms and markets is a prerequisite for free-market capitalism -- not a barrier to it.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. "America's traditional values have been overshadowed by a new ideal: Diversity. More than a legal principle, diversity is a cultural edict that attempts to tell us who we are and how we should live"--.

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. This is an essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the peril today confronting Jews, Israel, and Western democracy as a whole.

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. In 2003, David Horowitz began a campaign to promote intellectual diversity and a return to academic standards in American universities. To achieve these goals he devised an Academic Bill of Rights and created a national student movement with chapters on 160 college campuses. Take No Prisoners is a riveting account of the reaction to Horowitz's campaign by professor unions and academic associations, whose leaderships have been taken over by the political left.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. The terms ?Front-Row Kids? and ?Back-Row Kids,? coined by the photographer Chris Arnade, describe the divide between the educated upper middle class, who are staying ahead in today?s economy, and the less educated working class, who are doing poorly. The differences in education?and the values associated with elite schooling?have produced a divide in America that is on a par with that of race. The judiciary, requiring a postgraduate degree, is the one branch of government that is reserved for the Front-Row Kids. Correspondingly, since the Warren era, the Supreme Court has basically served as an engine for vindicating Front-Row preferences, from allowing birth control and abortion, to marginalizing religion in the public space, to legislative apportionment and libel law, and beyond. Professor Glenn Reynolds describes this problem in detail and offers some suggestions for making things better.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. The terms ?Front-Row Kids? and ?Back-Row Kids,? coined by the photographer Chris Arnade, describe the divide between the educated upper middle class, who are staying ahead in today?s economy, and the less educated working class, who are doing poorly. The differences in education?and the values associated with elite schooling?have produced a divide in America that is on a par with that of race. The judiciary, requiring a postgraduate degree, is the one branch of government that is reserved for the Front-Row Kids. Correspondingly, since the Warren era, the Supreme Court has basically served as an engine for vindicating Front-Row preferences, from allowing birth control and abortion, to marginalizing religion in the public space, to legislative apportionment and libel law, and beyond. Professor Glenn Reynolds describes this problem in detail and offers some suggestions for making things better.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. The entire foreign policy and much of the domestic policy of the United States and other Western governments is based on the proposition that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and peaceful, including those who are emigrating in large numbers to Europe and North America. But as Islamist groups and many mosques radicalize peaceful Muslims and appeal to the teachings of the Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah, it is imperative for moderates and reformists to articulate a vision of Islam and an exegesis of Islamic texts that can withstand the challenge of Islamists and the ulema who have declared the sanctity and immutability of the text. Instead, they must reestablish a firm foundation of Islam that is modernized, genuinely peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic, and compatible with secular governance, the freedom of speech, human rights, and equality.The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is the first major effort to provide that foundation. Veteran journalist Christine Douglass-Williams interviews foremost moderate and reformist Muslims in the Western world. She asks them tough questions about how they deal with problematic Koran passages, how they intend to get their message across to the Muslim world, and more. Their answers are revelatory, even in the ways in which they disagree with one another. Douglass-Williams has captured the Islamic Reformist movement in its full intellectual ferment, laying bare the tensions and triumphs of the Reformers. In the book's second half, she adds a crucial series of searingly honest and illuminating reflections on the challenges the reformers face, the chances they have of succeeding, and the implications of their struggle for the future of the Western world and of all free people.Illuminating, engaging, and thought-provoking, The Challenge of Modernizing Islam is an essential text for understanding the future of the United States and the West, and the implications of Muslim moderates' struggle for the free world.…

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. Collapse takes stock of a volatile and threatening international environment by looking at some of the underlying causes and flashpoints?the principal one being the failure of institutions and elites to respond to their constituencies and address the problems of our age. This is a problem spanning the increased polarization that bred nationalist and populist movements, the continued failure of Western leaders to come up with effective strategies for combating authoritarian rivals like Russia and China, and the ongoing Islamist threat. Schoen makes clear that the indispensable ingredient for any constructive path forward is effective, engaged, and committed American leadership. This is discussed through the lens of the failed models of President Trump?s two recent predecessors, which reflected, respectively, an uncritical embrace of American power?lacking strategic insight and proportion?and an uncritical abandonment of American leadership that suggested an abject view of the U.S. moral example in the world. Instead, Schoen posits assertive democratic idealism?an embrace of U.S. moral leadership around the world but in ways that remain leavened by realism and a guiding understanding of our national interest. Whether President Trump can deliver on such a vision remains to be seen.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Are robots finally replacing humans? Does the emerging age of artificial intelligence and automation mean we will soon see ?peak jobs? and the need for a Universal Basic Income to support a widening swath of hapless citizens unsuited for employment in a primarily ?knowledge? workforce? Improving productivity?reducing labor hours per unit of product or service?has been the hallmark of economic progress for centuries. But advances due to robots and AI, some say, will be fundamentally different because digital machines are ready to revolutionize the nature of work in nearly every sector, not just one or two. But the lessons of history and the realities of technologies suggest that, despite yet more disruption, the overall result will be net job gains and faster economic growth.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. In this riveting book, Masetti takes the reader inside the war room of the Cuban revolution. His life involved international revolutionary intrigue: smuggling diamonds and ivory; counterfeiting U.S. dollars; trafficking in narcotics. He served in Angola and other war zones in the 1980s. He was an adviser with groups such as the M-19 guerrillas in Columbia and the Sandinistas.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Questions Hillary's status as a metaphor for the modern empowered woman. This book suggests that if anything, Hillary's mix of opportunism, acquiescence, and dependency has set women back rather than leading them forward.

Paperback. Condición: Good. Robust financial markets support capitalism, they don't imperil it. But in 2008, Washington policymakers were compelled to replace private risk-takers in the financial system with government capital so that money and credit flows wouldn't stop, precipitating a depression. Washington's actions weren't the start of government distortions in the financial industry, Nicole Gelinas writes, but the natural result of 25 years' worth of such distortions. In the early eighties, modern finance began to escape reasonable regulations, including the most important regulation of all, that of the marketplace. The government gradually adopted a too big to fail policy for the largest or most complex financial companies, saving lenders to failing firms from losses. As a result, these companies became impervious to the vital market discipline that the threat of loss provides. Adding to the problem, Wall Street created financial instruments that escaped other reasonable limits, including gentle constraints on speculative borrowing and requirements for the disclosure of important facts. The financial industry eventually posed an untenable risk to the economy -- a risk that culminated in the trillions of dollars' worth of government bailouts and guarantees that Washington scrambled starting in late 2008. Even as banks and markets seem to heal, lenders to financial companies continue to understand that the government would protect them in the future if necessary. This implicit guarantee harms economic growth, because it forces good companies to compete against bad. History and recent events make clear what Washington must do. First, policymakers must reintroduce market discipline to the financial world. They can do so by re-creating a credible, consistent way in which big financial companies can fail, with lenders taking their warranted losses. Second, policymakers can reapply prudent financial regulations so that markets, and the economy, can better withstand inevitable excesses of optimism and pessimism. Sensible regulations have worked well in the past and can work well again. As Gelinas explains in this richly detailed book, adequate regulation of financial firms and markets is a prerequisite for free-market capitalism -- not a barrier to it. …

Paperback. Condición: Good. One of the easiest ways to increase public cynicism about elections is to change the rule book to make the laws governing how we vote more vague and less rigorous. "Reforms" have been passed amid claims they would increase voter turnout. They haven't - but they have made it easier to commit absentee ballot and other fraud. In this explosive broadside, John Fund exposes the new package of reforms being pushed by Obama and liberals in Congress. First, the White House has declared it will exercise oversight of the Census next year, compromising the apportionment of Congressional seats and federal dollars. On top of that, liberals in Congress are pushing for "universal voter registration," a reform that is already used in a half dozen states but has only resulted in serious fraud. Making it easier to vote is a worthy goal. But pushing dubious measures puts the very foundation of our democracy at risk.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. In dramatic commentary, Indoctrination U. unveils the intellectual corruption of American universities by faculty activists who have turned America's classrooms into indoctrination centers for their political causes. It describes how academic radicals with little regard for professional standards or the pluralistic foundations of American society have created an ideological curriculum that it is as odds with the traditional purposes of a democratic education.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. The Communist Party of China is fast-tracking the largest military buildup since the Second World War; it is sanctions-proofing itself; it is stockpiling grain; it is surveying America for nuclear weapons strikes; and, most ominously, it is mobilizing China?s civilians for battle. In the past decade, ruler Xi Jinping has militarized the Chinese political system. As a result, the People?s Liberation Army has become so powerful that, like the bloodthirsty Japanese military of the 1930s, it believes it can do whatever it wants. Xi Jinping has no answer for mounting internal crises. He knows the Chinese people are increasingly angry. His only way out is to unify the nation with the prospect of conflict. Inside the Party, there is an almost irresistible imperative for war. Meanwhile, Washington and other Western capitals lack urgency.Naysayers tell us that war is neither inevitable nor imminent, but how many times in history has a militant regime embarked on a breakneck military buildup and not launched a war of aggression.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. This is a surreal time for freedom of speech. While the legal protections of the First Amendment remain strong, the culture is obsessed with punishing individuals for allegedly offensive utterances. And academia -- already an institution in which free speech is in decline -- has grown still more intolerant, with high-profile "disinvitation" efforts against well-known speakers and demands for professors to provide "trigger warnings" in class. In this Broadside, Greg Lukianoff argues that the threats to free speech go well beyond political correctness or liberal groupthink. As global populations increasingly expect not just physical comfort but also intellectual comfort, threats to freedom of speech are only going to become more intense. To fight back, we must understand this trend and see how students and average citizens alike are increasingly demanding freedom from speech.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Today, American sovereignty is more challenged than ever before, not from enemies that threaten us militarily but from "friends" who urge us to share or reduce our sovereignty for larger global objectives. How Barack Obama is Endangering our National Sovereignty reveals what sovereignty means to Americans, not as an abstraction but as a vibrant component of self government. Former Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton looks at specific threats to U.S. sovereignty, from "global governance" to the White House, and recommends what Americans can do to defend their sovereignty and resist encroachments from the wide array of challenges we face, internationally and in our own domestic politics.…

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. This book explains why so many efforts by liberals to help the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries. The intentions behind welfare programs may be noble, but in practice they have slowed the self-development that was necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are alr.…

Paperback. Condición: Fair. This book explains why so many efforts by liberals to help the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries. The intentions behind welfare programs may be noble, but in practice they have slowed the self-development that was necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are alr.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. This book explains why so many efforts by liberals to help the black underclass not only fail but often harm the intended beneficiaries. The intentions behind welfare programs may be noble, but in practice they have slowed the self-development that was necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are alr.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. Shows that fears about global warming are vastly exaggerated and are driven by politics, not truth. This book shows that the earth is far more resilient than exopessimists pretend and that increasing wealth and technology ingenuity, far from being the enemies of the environment, are the only means we possess to solve environmental problems.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. What was unfathomable in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has become a reality. Religious liberty, both in the United States and across the world, is in crisis. As we navigate the coming decades, We the People must know our rights more than ever, particularly as it relates to the freedom to exercise our religion. Armed with a proper understanding of this country?s rich tradition of religious liberty, we can protect faith through any crisis that comes our way. Without that understanding, though, we?ll watch as the creeping secular age erodes our freedom. In this book, Ken Starr explores the crises that threaten religious liberty in America. He also examines the ways well-meaning government action sometimes undermines the religious liberty of the people, and how the Supreme Court in the past has ultimately provided us protection from such forms of government overreach. He also explores the possibilities of future overreach by government officials. The reader will learn how each of us can resist the quarantining of our faith within the confines of the law, and why that resistance is important. Through gaining a deep understanding of the Constitutional importance of religious expression, Starr invites the reader to be a part of protecting those rights of religious freedom and taking a more active role in advancing the cause of liberty. …

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. What was unfathomable in the first two decades of the twenty-first century has become a reality. Religious liberty, both in the United States and across the world, is in crisis. As we navigate the coming decades, We the People must know our rights more than ever, particularly as it relates to the freedom to exercise our religion. Armed with a proper understanding of this country?s rich tradition of religious liberty, we can protect faith through any crisis that comes our way. Without that understanding, though, we?ll watch as the creeping secular age erodes our freedom. In this book, Ken Starr explores the crises that threaten religious liberty in America. He also examines the ways well-meaning government action sometimes undermines the religious liberty of the people, and how the Supreme Court in the past has ultimately provided us protection from such forms of government overreach. He also explores the possibilities of future overreach by government officials. The reader will learn how each of us can resist the quarantining of our faith within the confines of the law, and why that resistance is important. Through gaining a deep understanding of the Constitutional importance of religious expression, Starr invites the reader to be a part of protecting those rights of religious freedom and taking a more active role in advancing the cause of liberty. …

Paperback. Condición: Very Good. Describes the three basic transformations within the US military since Vietnam. This book covers Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's vision of a new military; the conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; and the disconnect between grand strategic visions such as the Bush Doctrine's idea of preemption.…

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. Traveling to China regularly since 1967, and spending all of 2005 and 2006 there, Guy Sorman saw it all, and in this jaw-dropping book, he documents the horrifying stories of China through the 21st century. He shows how the Party's primary concern is not improving the lives of the downtrodden; it seeks power more than it seeks social development. It expends extraordinary energy in suppressing Chinese freedoms-the media operate under suffocating censorship, and political opposition can result in expulsion or prison-even as it tries to seduce the West, which has conferred greater legitimacy on it than do the Chinese themselves.…

Hardback. Condición: Very Good. Without an understanding and appreciation of the culture we seek to preserve and protect, the defense of Western civilization is fundamentally futile; a culture that believes in nothing cannot defend itself, because it has nothing to defend. The past not only still has something to tell us, but it also has something that it must tell us. In this profound and wide-ranging historical survey, Michael Walsh illuminates the ways that the narrative and visual arts both reflect and affect the course of political history, outlining the way forward by arguing for the restoration of the Heroic Narrative that forms the basis of all Western cultural and religious traditions. Let us listen, then, to the angels of our nature, for better and worse. They have much to tell us, if only we will listen.…

Hardback. Condición: Good. Without an understanding and appreciation of the culture we seek to preserve and protect, the defense of Western civilization is fundamentally futile; a culture that believes in nothing cannot defend itself, because it has nothing to defend. The past not only still has something to tell us, but it also has something that it must tell us. In this profound and wide-ranging historical survey, Michael Walsh illuminates the ways that the narrative and visual arts both reflect and affect the course of political history, outlining the way forward by arguing for the restoration of the Heroic Narrative that forms the basis of all Western cultural and religious traditions. Let us listen, then, to the angels of our nature, for better and worse. They have much to tell us, if only we will listen.…

Paperback. Condición: Good. Were Osama bin Laden and his followers perverting Islam when they claimed to find sanction in the Qur'an for their attack against the United States? Does the explanation for the grim human rights record of Islamic countries lie in basic Muslim beliefs? Perhaps most importantly, can Islam create successful, secularized societies that will coexist peacefully with the liberal, multicultural world of the West? In this important study, Robert Spencer probes the Qur'an and other sacred documents, Islamic traditions, history, and present-day Middle Eastern conditions to find out why the world's fastest growing faith tends to arouse extremism. A student of the religion for the last twenty years, Spencer has written a captivating and carefully researched work that asks the hard questions about Islam and gives the hard answers.…