Are good and bad outcomes significantly affected by the decision-making process itself? Indeed they are, in that certain decision-making techniques and practices limit the ability of policymakers to achieve their goals and advance the national interest. The success of policy often turns on the quality of the decision-making process. Mark Schafer and Scott Crichlow identify the factors that contribute to good and bad policymaking, such as the personalities of political leaders, the structure of decision-making groups, and the nature of the exchange between participating individuals. Analyzing thirty-nine foreign-policy cases across nine administrations and incorporating both statistical analyses and case studies, including a detailed examination of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the authors pinpoint the factors that are likely to lead to successful or failed decision making, and they suggest ways to improve the process. Schafer and Crichlow show how the staffing of key offices and the structure of central decision-making bodies determine the path of an administration even before topics are introduced. Additionally, they link the psychological characteristics of leaders to the quality of their decision processing. There is no greater work available on understanding and improving the dynamics of contemporary decision making.
A searing and entertaining manifesto on the ills of the criminal justice system from two of America’s most prominent defense attorneys. From the rise of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle to the television ratings bonanza of the O.J. Simpson trial, a perfect storm of media coverage has given the public an unprecedented look inside the courtroom, kicking off popular courtroom shows and TV legal commentary that further illuminate how the criminal justice system operates. Or has it? In Mistrial, Mark Geragos and Pat Harris debunk the myths of judges as Solomon-like figures, jurors as impartial arbiters of the truth, and prosecutors as super-ethical heroes. Mistrial draws the curtain on the court’s ugly realities—from stealth jurors who secretly swing for a conviction, to cops who regularly lie on the witness stand, to defense attorneys terrified of going to trial. Ultimately, the authors question whether a justice system model drawn up two centuries ago before blogs and television is still viable today. In the aftermath of recent high-profile cases, the flaws in America’s justice system are more glaring than ever. Geragos and Harris are legal experts and prominent criminal defense attorneys who have worked on everything from celebrity media-circuses—having represented clients like Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Scott Peterson, Chris Brown, Susan MacDougal, and Gary Condit—to equally compelling cases defending individuals desperate to avoid the spotlight. Shining unprecedented light on what really goes on in the courtroom, Mistrial is an enjoyable, fun look at a system that rarely lets you see behind the scenes.
From Hell’s Half Acre to Quality Grove, We’re for Smoke tells the wild and woolly story of turn-of-the-century Fort Worth, a cow town on the cusp of becoming a modern industrial city. Told through a series of characters who made the papers for tangles with the law, ranging from high and low society, black and white, male and female, perpetrator and victim, We’re for Smoke reveals a society scrabbling to emerge from the chaotic growing pains of the frontier West. Readers and fans of The Son by Philipp Meyer, Boardwalk Empire by Nelson Johnson, and Larry McMurtry’s Horseman Pass By would enjoy We’re for Smoke.
Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers intended a strict separation of church and state, right? He would have been very upset to find out about a child praying in a public school or a government building used for religious purposes, correct? Actually, the history on this has been very distorted. While Jefferson may seem to be the Patron Saint of the ACLU, his words and actions showed that he would totally disagree with the idea of driving God out of the public square. Doubting Thomas documents that ... Jefferson said that our rights come from God. God-given rights are non-negotiables ... At the time that he wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom--major contributions to human and religious rights--Jefferson served diligently as a vestryman (like an elder and a deacon rolled into one) for the Episcopal Church ... In 1777, he wrote up the charter for the Calvinistical Reformed Church in his town with an evangelical preacher, the Rev. Charles Clay--with whom he had a lifelong friendship. Jefferson was the biggest single contributor to this fledgling congregation ... He had many positive relationships with orthodox clergymen and active lay Christians ... He actively supported Christian causes, financially, in ways that would put the average Christian to shame ... He set out to create a non-denominational college that accommodated Christian groups of different stripes. And on it goes. Historical revisionism has distorted the religious views of Thomas Jefferson, making him far more skeptical than he was. But there is no doubt that by the end of his life, he seemed to privately embrace Unitarian views of the Christian faith, while outwardly supporting and attending his local Trinitarian church. Thus, a legacy of Jefferson's has been taken out of context and used to squelch religious freedom in America. Ironically, religious freedom was one of Jefferson's core beliefs and contributions. But this is being turned on its head. Chiseled in stone at the Jefferson Memorial are his famous words: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" Regardless of Jefferson's private religious views, he stood solidly against the state making theological decisions for its people. Therefore, he would stand solidly against the anti-Christian crusade being carried out in his name today. It's time to set the record straight
A highly readable, beautifully illustrated study of the homes built by elite colonial Philadelphians as retreats—which balanced English models with developing local taste. Colonial Americans, if they could afford it, liked to emulate the fashions of London and the style and manners of English country society while at the same time thinking of themselves as distinctly American. The houses they built reflected this ongoing cultural tension. By the mid-eighteenth century, Americans had developed their own version of the bourgeois English countryseat, a class of estate equally distinct in social function and form from townhouses, rural plantations, and farms. The metropolis of Philadelphia was surrounded by a particularly extraordinary collection of country houses and landscapes. Taken together, these estates make up one of the most significant groups of homes in colonial America. In this masterly volume, Mark Reinberger, a senior architectural historian, and Elizabeth McLean, an accomplished scholar of landscape history, examine the country houses that the urban gentry built on the outskirts of Philadelphia in response to both local and international economic forces, social imperatives, and fashion. What do these structures and their gardens say about the taste of the people who conceived and executed them? How did their evolving forms demonstrate the persistence of European templates while embodying the spirit of American adaptation? The Philadelphia Country House explores the myriad ways in which these estates—which were located in the country but responded to the ideas and manners of the city—straddled the cultural divide between urban and rural. Moving from general trends and building principles to architectural interiors and landscape design, Reinberger and McLean take readers on an intimate tour of the fine, fashionable elements found in upstairs parlors and formal gardens. They also reveal the intricate working world of servants, cellars, and kitchen gardens. Highlighting an important aspect of American historic architecture, this handsome volume is illustrated with nearly 150 photographs, more than 60 line drawings, and two color galleries.
In his twenty terms as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Clarence Thomas has written nearly 450 opinions. Although they are readily available to the American people, much of the public continues to base its view of Thomas merely on the reporting by the media. This analysis of Thomas's most important majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions offers laypersons and legal professionals alike the opportunity to understand in his own words Thomas's approach to constitutional decision-making and his understanding of the most important provisions of the Constitution. Thomas's opinions, this work shows, reveal his consistent adherence to the core principles of federalism, separation of powers, and restrained judicial review, and to the regard for individual rights and limited government embodied by the Founders in the Constitution.
Explaining the English Revolution studies the years 1649 to 1653, from regicide to the establishment of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, during which time English writers 'took stock' of a disordered England stripped of the traditional ideas of political, moral, and social order and considered the possibilities for a politically and religiously reordered state.
The power and status of English male elites were not merely inherited at birth but developed through everyday interactions with family, peers and guardians. Much of these conversations were conducted through correspondence. In this fascinating Sourcebook, Mark Rothery and Henry French present a unique collection of letters which together trace this construction of gender and social identities. The Formation of Male Elite Identities in England, c.1660-1900: - Reveals the lifelong process of shaping and managing manliness via a range of social agents - Illustrates continuities and changes in the values associated with the landed gentry over the course of the period, and within the male lifecycle - Charts the process from school and university, through to experiences of travel, courtship, marriage and work - Provides a detailed Introduction to the letters, editorial guidance throughout, questions to stimulate discussion, and helpful suggestions for further reading
The dramatic story of a founding father, his illegitimate son, and the tragedy of their conflict during the American Revolution—from the acclaimed author of The Lincolns. Ben Franklin is the most lovable of America’s founding fathers. His wit, his charm, his inventiveness—even his grandfatherly appearance—are legendary. But this image obscures the scandals that dogged him throughout his life. In The Loyal Son, award-winning historian Daniel Mark Epstein throws the spotlight on one of the more enigmatic aspects of Franklin’s biography: his complex and confounding relationship with his illegitimate son William. When he was twenty-four, Franklin fathered a child with a woman who was not his wife. He adopted the boy, raised him, and educated him to be his aide. Ben and William became inseparable. After the famous kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment, it was William who proved that the electrical charge in a lightning bolt travels from the ground up, not from the clouds down. On a diplomatic mission to London, it was William who charmed London society. He was invited to walk in the procession of the coronation of George III; Ben was not. The outbreak of the American Revolution caused a devastating split between father and son. By then, William was royal governor of New Jersey, while Ben was one of the foremost champions of American independence. In 1776, the Continental Congress imprisoned William for treason. George Washington made efforts to win William’s release, while his father, to the world’s astonishment, appeared to have abandoned him to his fate. A fresh take on the combustible politics of the age of independence, The Loyal Son is a gripping account of how the agony of the American Revolution devastated one of America’s most distinguished families. Like Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough, Epstein is a storyteller first and foremost, a historian who weaves together fascinating incidents discovered in long-neglected documents to draw us into the private world of the men and women who made America. “The history of loyalist William Franklin and his famous father has been told before but not as fully or as well as it is by Daniel Mark Epstein in The Loyal Son. Mr. Epstein, a biographer and poet, has done a lot of fresh research and invests his narrative with literary grace and judicious sympathy for both father and son.”—The Wall Street Journal
When the first edition of this highly successful volume appeared in 1982, the proponents of the “new” military history were just gaining full momentum. Their objective was to reach beyond the traditional focus of military studies—the flow of guns, combat, and tactics that influenced the immediate outcome of battles and martial conflicts, often with little reference to broader historical contexts. Believing that one cannot fully appreciate the Revolution without reckoning with the War for Independence and its effects in helping to shape the new American republic, Martin and Lender move beyond the deeply ingrained national mythology about the essence of the war effort, so neatly personified by the imagery of the embattled freehold farmer as the quintessential warrior of the Revolution. Then they integrate, not persist in keeping separate, the fascinating history of the real Continental army into the mainstream of writing about the nation-making experience of the United States. In the process of revising their now-classic text, Martin and Lender drew on their own work as well as the invaluable outpouring of new scholarship over the last two decades. Wherever necessary, they questioned previous arguments and conclusions to render a meaningful new edition that is certain to receive the same kind of positive reception—and widespread acceptance—that its predecessor enjoyed. Also new to the second edition is a bank of illustrations, a Note on Revolutionary War History and Historiography, and a fully revamped Bibliographical Essay, making A Respectable Armyessential reading for anyone enrolled in the U.S. survey or specialized courses in colonial or military history or the American Revolution.
Includes: *4 practice tests with detailed explanations *Expert review to prepare test takers for the U.S. History content they need to know *Effective strategies
“A brief, sharply focused biography [that] restores Adams to his rightful place as an indispensable provocateur of American liberty” (Kirkus Reviews). Samuel Adams is perhaps the most unheralded and overshadowed of the founding fathers, yet without him there would have been no American Revolution. A genius at devising civil protests and political maneuvers that became a trademark of American politics, Adams astutely forced Britain into coercive military measures that ultimately led to the irreversible split in the empire. Through his remarkable political career, Adams addressed all the major issues concerning America’s decision to become a nation—from the notion of taxation without representation to the Declaration of Independence. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all acknowledged that they built our nation on Samuel Adams’ foundations. Now, in this riveting biography, his story is finally told and his crucial place in American history is fully recognized. Winner of the 2007 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award
Covering criminal justice history on a cross-national basis, this book surveys criminal justice in Western civilization and American life chronologically from ancient times to the present. It is an introduction to the historical problems of crime, law enforcement and penology, set against the background of major historical events and movements. Integrating criminal justice history into the scope of European, British, French and American history, this text provides the opportunity for comparisons of crime and punishment over boundaries of national histories. The text now concludes with a chapter that addresses terrorism and homeland security.
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