Blogcritics Category: Books: Politics and Affairs

Book Review: Knitting For Good! A Guide to Creating Personal, Social, and Political Change Stitch by Stitch by Betsy Greer

Alyse Wax — Fri, 9 Jan 2009 02:29:05 EST

A guide to creating personal, social, and political change, stitch by stitch.
Betsy Greer believes that positive change can take place via the smallest gesture – including crafting. She has written Knitting for Good! to be “a guide to creating personal, social, and political change, stitch by stitch.” Her book is divided into three sections: knitting for yourself, knitting for your community, and knitting...

Book Review: The Nation Guide to the Nation

Barbara Barnett — Thu, 8 Jan 2009 19:06:54 EST

The Editors of The Nation have compiled this guide to the 21st-century American Left.
The past eight years seemed an eternity. And now with Barack Obama about to become President of the United States, liberal is no longer a label to be uttered in hushed tones. It’s OK to be a card-carrying liberal again! As it has been since it first began publication in 1865, The Nation is the about as close as you can get to being the...

Book Review: Ways Of Escape by Graham Greene

Philip Spires — Mon, 5 Jan 2009 23:42:05 EST

Graham Greene�s development as a writer is described in this, his autobiography. While he denies his genius, Greene constantly if disarmingly reaffirms it.
Ways Of Escape is one of the most rewarding and, surprisingly, surprising reads one might encounter. On the face of it, the book is Graham Greene’s artistic, literary autobiography. A second half and companion volume for A Sort Of Life, Ways Of Escape deals chronologically with Graham Greene’s works, his inspiration and his development...

Book Review: Karnak Café by Naguib Mahfouz

Tim Gebhart — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 16:38:59 EST

With a novella, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz takes readers inside Egyptian culture and politics in the 1960s and early 1970s.
"There is always an idea behind a novel, at least behind the novel as I know it," Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz once said. In his case, the idea frequently shed light on the cultural and political landscape of his native country, helping earn Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. That unquestionably occurs with Karnak...

Book Review: Red Highways - A Liberal's Journey Into the Heartland by Rose Aquilar

Heloise — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:05:31 EST

Red Highways captures the essence of America in a political time capsule, its author changing time zones and hoping to change minds.
Rose Aquilar, political blogger and radio talk show host, chose the year 2006, one of national upheaval, to trek through four red states -- Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Montana -- interviewing random bystanders, shoppers, Wal-Mart workers, state representatives, folks leaning right and left and dozens in between. She and her husband capture the...

Book Review: Twice As Good - Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power by Marcus Mabry

Daddypundit — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:32:56 EST

Newsweek editor Marcus Mabry examines the life of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and how she rose to power and influence.
Of all the members of the outgoing Bush administration, the one who is probably most respected and simultaneously least well known is Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. In his book, Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power, Marcus Mabry (chief of correspondents and senior editor at Newsweek) delves into her past to discover who she is...

Book Review: The Duel - Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power by Tariq Ali

naperville mom — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:06:12 EST

An interesting study about Pakistan and how it came to be.
Recently, I happened to watch Tariq Ali on 'Book events', discussing his latest book called The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power and was driven to fetch this book come-what-may. Of course, coming from a leading commentator on Pakistan, the book was very informative, strewn with a lot of interesting anecdotes, and gets to...

Book Review: The Spy Within - Larry Chin and China's Penetration of the CIA by Tod Hoffman

Lou Novacheck — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 10:17:14 EST

Spies are ghosts.
The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China’s Penetration of the CIA presents the story of Larry Chin, a Chinese national from a middle-class family who displayed a knack for English at college and went on to become a Federal Broadcast Information Service employee, then a U.S. citizen, and ultimately a trusted CIA employee with a security clearance...

Martial Law: Through the Eyes of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski

Lou Novacheck — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:20:20 EST

�One of you is a spy!�
Symposium at CIA HQ, 11 December 2008December 11th was the perfect day to visit the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. The concrete was grey, the sky was grey, and it was raining like the proverbial cow pissing on the proverbial flat rock. Even the people were grey, but as we know that’s an attained “spook” trait,...

Book Review: The Nine - Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin

El Bicho — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:12:28 EST

I highly recommend this, especially to Americans.
Noted author and senior political analyst for CNN Jeffrey Toobin has written a fascinating book that pulls back the robes to reveal the machinations of the United States Supreme Court, mainly focusing on the years of the Rehnquist Court (which is how it was known in name only as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor proved to be more of a power broker...