Offers an exposé of the treatment of American military personnel by the U.S. government at every stage from recruitment through deployment and recovery, revealing the bureaucratic indifference and neglect suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Attributes the failure of the modern presidency to the development of a political system that inherently impedes creative leadership, and offers prescriptive measures to restore the governing capacity of the president. This book explores the failure of the modern American presidency, a failure the author attributes to the development of a political system that impedes creative leadership. The American presidency, Gary L. Rose argues, is under siege. Surrounded and blockaded by a reactionary Congress, an entrenched bureaucracy, an aggressive media, lobbyists, political action committees, and special interest groups, American presidents fail not because of a lack of ability or character but because of the political system and style of politics inside the Beltway. Rose ascribes this emergence of a political system that obstructs presidential leadership to the decline of political parties as electoral and governing mechanisms. As political parties have declined, presidents have lost vital political connections that historically have enhanced their capacity to lead. He presents a variety of prescriptive measures, including political-party and legal reform, that have the potential to restore political parties and the governing capacity of the presidency. "This book fills an important gap in the literature on both the presidency and parties. The most original and provocative parts of the book concern the author's proposals for reforming the national conventions in order to revitalize them as decision-making, federal bodies, and thus to simultaneously de-emphasize the role of candidate-centered, party weakening primaries. Also, I am intrigued by the fact that Rose elaborates on the roleof patronage in party-building and explores patronage reform for the purpose of both strengthening the parties and helping presidents govern more effectively". -- Sean J. Savage, Saint Mary's College "The unique quality of this book is the manner in which it presents the problems of the presidency and the exciting manner in which it chooses among the various reforms presented. The result is a very readable and stimulating book on the presidency. It will take its place with Cronin's The State of the Presidency and Rethinking the Presidency as an important work in presidential studies, but it will stand alone because of its critical and prescriptive character". -- Robert D. Loevy, Colorado College

This updated study of the sanctions' impact on Iraq now includes Bush's latest plans for invasion.

"Exposes how entrenched political interests, beholden to industry lobbyists, are waging an all-out war to weaken key environmental laws and gut regulatory agencies, . and how deals are made giving private industry a profit at the public's expense"--Jacket.

From antiquity until now, most writers who have chronicled the events following the death of Alexander the Great have viewed this history through the careers, ambitions, and perspectives of Alexander’s elite successors. Few historians have probed the experiences and attitudes of the ordinary soldiers who followed Alexander on his campaigns and who were divided among his successors as they fought for control of his empire after his death. Yet the veterans played an important role in helping to shape the character and contours of the Hellenistic world. This pathfinding book offers the first in-depth investigation of the Macedonian veterans’ experience during a crucial turning point in Greek history (323–316 BCE). Joseph Roisman discusses the military, social, and political circumstances that shaped the history of Alexander’s veterans, giving special attention to issues such as the soldiers’ conduct on and off the battlefield, the army assemblies, the volatile relationship between the troops and their generals, and other related themes, all from the perspective of the rank-and-file. Roisman also reexamines the biases of the ancient sources and how they affected ancient and modern depictions of Alexander’s veterans, as well as Alexander’s conflicts with his army, the veterans’ motives and goals, and their political contributions to Hellenistic history. He pays special attention to the Silver Shields, a group of Macedonian veterans famous for their invincibility and martial prowess, and assesses whether or not they deserved their formidable reputation.

On April 10, 1970, Hill 927 was occupied by troopers of the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division. By July, the activities of the artillery and infantry of Ripcord had caught the attention of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and a long and deadly siege ensued. Ripcord was the Screaming Eagles’ last chance to do significant damage to the NVA in the A Shau Valley before the division was withdrawn from Vietnam and returned to the United States. At Ripcord, the enemy counterattacked with ferocity, using mortar and antiaircraft fire to inflict heavy causalities on the units operating there. The battle lasted four and a half months and exemplified the ultimate frustration of the Vietnam War: the inability of the American military to bring to bear its enormous resources to win on the battlefield. In the end, the 101st evacuated Ripcord, leaving the NVA in control of the battlefield. Contrary to the mantra “We won every battle but lost the war,” the United States was defeated at Ripcord. Now, at last, the full story of this terrible battle can be told.

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