Exposing the moral and strategic deficits of the Obama, Clinton and Kerry approach to world affairs, A Perilous Path takes a close look at American history, while at the same time providing fresh, thought-provoking analysis. It calls for renewal of the best American foreign policy traditions, which emphasize “peace through strength” and human rights. Anne R. Pierce tells the fascinating story of Obama administration foreign policy and illustrates its disturbing consequences. She shows that President Obama and his Secretaries of State expended more effort in improving relations with dictatorships than in strengthening ties with democracies or encouraging ideas of freedom. With meticulous research, Pierce documents the administration’s decisions and discusses its worldview. She reveals vital information regarding Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, providing a cautionary account of what we can expect from a Clinton presidency. Whoever becomes president, A Perilous Path offers a moral and strategic compass for both policymakers and the public. A Perilous Path will make a substantial contribution to the discussion about America’s proper role in the world. This book is a must read for everyone concerned about the current state of the world, and interested in charting a better course.
Childhood in America has changed, and not for the better. From day care for babies, to the exhausting array of activities for children, to the storm of lurid and violent shows now deemed appropriate for the young, to the expectation that teenagers build resumes, childhood has been thoroughly redefined. Anne R. Pierce argues that this radical re-definition has been embraced with remarkably little discussion about what children, by nature, need. Pierce submits that we have latched onto opinions about childrearing that are potentially harmful to children. If traditions are choices to be embraced or abandoned at our discretion, and adult self-fulfillment is a primary determinant in those choices, the fundamentals of the well-wrought childhood are easily forgotten. Steeped in intellectual permissiveness, we have convinced ourselves that parental substitutes are as good as parents themselves at caring for children, that the concepts of nurture and of the maternal are archaic and irrelevant, that more lessons and sports are better than less and that the earlier one embarks upon them the better, and that innocence and knowledge are less important than worldly attitudes and competitive skills. Understanding and challenging the theories and agendas behind childrearing trends is a pressing need, and the subject of this book. Pierce takes an honest look at the evidence on the effects of daycare and of hyper-structuring children. She gives voice to the many intelligent and estimable educators, child-development experts, researchers, and social commentators who are ignored because their conclusions are hard to bear. Equally important, Pierce says, is attention to that inner tug of love and conscience, which many of us have been programmed to ignore.Modern American children are expected to adjust and to understand as adults would the complexities and vicissitudes of public as opposed to private life. For them, childhood is fast becoming a distant memory. Could it be that America's thrust forward leaves children without a solid foundation upon which to grow? This is the sobering question asked, and answered, in this challenging book.
The modern world derives part of its meaning and definition from the foreign policy formulations of Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman. These presidents viewed the enhancement of American power and the invigoration of American principles as the only response to modem problems such as imperialism, bolshevism, fascism and "total war." The fact that Europe and Asia had submitted to the disastrous consequences of their ideas meant that we had to project and promote our democratic alternative. If we were to live up to our mission and our character, we had to accept radically new responsibilities. This work reveals the important relationship between these presidents and explores the reverential, yet revolutionary relationship each had with broader American traditions. Wilson came to power at a time when both need and the means for change were apparent. In the face of looming war and global turmoil, Wilson took full advantage of America's emerging world-power status. While he held to the traditional American ideal of setting a democratic example, he reconceived it as an obligation to actively promote democracy and self-determination abroad. Indeed, he construed our increased involvement in the world as the logical fulfillment of our democratic purpose. In the heated aftermath of World War II, Truman echoed Wilson's assertion that only the fortification of democracy and the "influence" of America could ease European tensions and prevent future wars. While Truman's early foreign policy is often said to exhibit Wilsonian internationalism, his later "power politics," Pierce shows that all of his foreign policy was underlain by his determination never to let what had happened during and between two world wars happen again. Pierce demonstrates that even Truman's most avid departure from Wilsonianism, his plunge into geopolitics and his build-up of the military power of the free world, was saturated with Wilsonian ideals. "Containment" was underlain by the conviction that, even though it faced fascism and bolshevism, freedom was on the march, and by the surety that democracy is lasting, peaceful and beneficial. As Pierce studies these presidents within the synergistic interplay of ideas and policies, she compels us toward a fruitful dialogue with the American past. Truman's brilliantly construed version of Wilsonianism, this book argues, holds great promise for us today.
Down to the River is a family saga set in the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Twin brothers, Nash and Remi Potts, have grown up as entitled, Harvard-educated, golden boys, heirs to an old, but dwindling family fortune. With the passage of time, the gold veneer of prosperity begins to chip away, and their lives begin to falter. We meet Remi and Nash in 1968, in their mid-forties and partners in a sporting goods store in Harvard Square. The twins' marriages are in trouble. Their youngest children, Chickie and Hen (mistakes, they're often called....), are coming of age during the turbulent urban wilderness of the late 1960s-- school bomb threats, racial tensions, war protests and demonstrations at Harvard and beyond. With all hell breaking loose at home, and any semblance of "parenting" hanging ragged in the wind, the two cousins are left largely to their own devices. Suddenly freed from old rules and restrictions, they head out onto the streets of Cambridge, which become their concrete playground, tumbling headlong into a world of politics, sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Pierce submits that we have latched onto opinions about childrearing that are potentially harmful to children. If traditions are choices to be embraced or abandoned at our discretion, and adult self-fulfillment is a primary determinant in those choices, the fundamentals of the well-wrought childhood are easily forgotten. Steeped in intellectual permissiveness, we have convinced ourselves that parental substitutes are as good as parents themselves at caring for children, that the concepts of nurture and of the maternal are archaic and irrelevant, that more lessons and sports are better than less and that the earlier one embarks upon them the better, and that innocence and knowledge are less important than worldly attitudes and competitive skills."--BOOK JACKET.
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