Booklist: How Should We Then Live, by Francis A Schaeffer

How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis A. Schaeffer
Crossway Books, 1976
258 pages pluus Chronological Index, Topical Index and Bibliography
Library: 909.09821 SCH

Description

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter One-Ancient Rome
The finite Graeco-Roman gods were not a sufficient inward base for the Roman society: Rome crumbled from within, and the invasions of the barbarians only completed the breakdown.

Chapter Two-The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages were the post-Roman age: a time of uncertainty in which there were great advances of the church but also great distortions of Biblical truth, eventually leading to the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Chapter Three-The Renaissance
Although the Renaissance revived the realization that man and nature are important, it went overboard by making man the measure of all things-and by that destroyed the importance of man.

Chapter Four-The Reformation
Like the Renaissance, the Reformation sought to bring freedom to man, yet unlike the Renaissance it did not lose sight of the Bible and absolute values.

Chapter Five-The Reformation-Continued
The impact of the Reformation on society at large was the opportunity of freedom without chaos.

Chapter Six-The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment believed in the perfectibility of society, and sought to bring it about mainly by the means of revolution.

Chapter Seven-The Rise of Modern Science
Modern science could only have arisen from a Christian foundation: namely, that man is not part of a closed system but can observe and act into the system.

Chapter Eight-The Breakdown of Philosophy and Science
The foundation in Philosophy and Science was changed from antithetical thinking to dialectic thinking-and because of it reason became more and more pessimistic.

Chapter Nine-Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology
Due to the pessimistic view on reason, Philosophy and Theology started to seek meaning in the irrational.

Chapter Ten-Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films
What began in Philosophy now made itself felt in the Arts: the abandonment of reason and increased fragmentation.

Chapter Eleven-Our Society
We have come full circle, since our society has become like the declining Roman Empire of old: it is marked by the love of affluence, a widening gap between rich and poor, an obsession with sex, freakishness in the arts, and an increased desire to live off the state.

Chapter Twelve-Manipulation and the New Elite
Because our society stands on the verge of chaos, we are in danger of coming under an authoritarian elite which will increasingly manipulate our lives.

Chapter Thirteen-The Alternatives
The only plausible alternative to authoritarianism is to align ourselves to a Biblical worldview-a worldview which produces freedom without chaos.

CONCLUSION
Whether or not one agrees with all of Schaeffer's points, his passion to be a Christian who engages secular culture has laid the foundation stone for much of Christian thinking in the past three decades.

- Jacob Schriftman, Author of The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible: What the Greatest Christian Writer Thought About the Greatest Book

Booklist: Freedom's Battle, by Gary J. Bass

Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, by Gary J. Bass
Alfred A Knopf, 2008
382 pages plus over a hundred pages of notes on chapters, and an index
Library: 341.584 BAS

Description
Why do we sometimes let evil happen to others and sometimes rally to stop it? Whose lives matter to us? These are the key questions posed in this important and perceptive study of the largely forgotten nineteenth century "atrocitarians"-some of the world's first human rights activists. Wildly romantic, eccentrically educated, and full of bizarre enthusiasms, they were also morally serious people on the vanguard of a new political consciousness. And their legacy has much to teach us about the human rights crises of today.

Gary Bass shatteres the myth that the history of humanitarian intervention began with Bill Clinton, or even Woodrow Wilson, and shows, instead, that there is a tangled international tradition, reaching back more than two hundred yers, of confronting the suffering of innocent foreigners. Bass describes the political and cultural landscapes out of which these activists arose, as an emergent free press exposed Europeans and Americans to atrocities taking place beyond their shores and galvanized them to act.

He brings alive a century of passionate advocacy in Britain, France, Russia and the United States: the fight the British waged against the oppression of the Greeks in the 1820s; the huge uproar against a notorious massacre in Bulgaria in the 1870s, and the American campaign to stop the Armenian genocide in 1915. He tells the gripping stories of the activists themselves: Byron, Bentham, Madison, Gladstone, Dostoevsky, and Theodore Roosevelt among them.

Military missions in the name of human rights have always been dangerous undertakings. There has invariably been the risk of radical destabilization and the threatening blurring of imperial and humanitarian intentions. Yet Bass demonstrates that even in the imperialistic heyday of the nineteenth century, humanitarian ideals could play a significant role in shaping world politics. He argues that the failure of today's leading democracies to shoulder such responsibilities has led to catastrophes such as those in Rwanda and Darfur-catastrophes that he means are neither inevitable nor traditional.

Timely and illuminating, Freedom's Battle challenges our assumptions about the history of morally motivated foreign policy and sets out a path for reclaiming that inheritance with greater modesty and wisdom.

Table of Contents
Part 1: Introduction
1. Humanitarianism or Imperialism
2. Media and Solidarity
3. The Diplomacy of Humanitarian Intervention

Part 2: Greeks
4. The Reek Revolution
5. The Scio Massacre
6. The London Greek Committee
7. Americans and Greeks
8. Lord Byron's WAll
9. Canning
10. The Holy Alliance
11. A Rumor of Slaughter
12. Navarino

Part 3: Syrians
13. Napoleon the Little
14. The Massacres
15. Public Opinion
16. Occupying Syria
17. Mission Creep

Part 4: Bulgarians
18. The Eastern Question
19. Pan-Slavism
20. Bosnia and Serbia
21. Bulgarian Horrors
22. Gladstone vs Disraeli
23. The Russo-Turko WAr
24. The Midlothian Campaign

Part 5: Conclusions
25. Armenians
26. The Uses of History
27. The International Politics of Humanitarian Intervention
28. The Domestic Politics of Humanitarian Intervention
29. A New Imperialism?
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

_________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Rules for Radical Conservatives, by David Kahane

Rules for Radical Conservatives: Beating the Left at its Own Game to Take Back America, by David Kahane
Ballantine Books, 2010
279 pages, no index
Library: 320.520973 KAH

Description
Are you a frustrated conservative shocked by the bunch of far Left fanatics driving the bus-and our future-off a cliff? It's time to fight back with the same ruthlessness that has served the radicals so well-not just now, but for the long term. And who better to reveal their strategies-and their fatal weaknesses-than one of their own? Playing on his all-too-typical hubris and good old greed, we've recruited well-known Liberal apparatchik David Kahane to lead conservatives out of the political wilderness, whether he means to or not. Is he arrogant and obnoxious? Absolutely. Does he deliver the goods? You betcha. We'll let Dave speak for himself:

Please allow me to introduce myself...My name is David and I'm going to share some secrets. I'm going to take you into the smoke-free back rooms of today's progressive political machine to reveal how it really operates-and how you can bring it down. I'll lay out the rules we radicals have used to run circles around you, and clue you in on how to make them work for you, too.

How do I know this stuff? As the son of the sainted "Che" Kahane, I've been schooled in the art of seizing and holding political power as we tranform America one antiquated tradition and constitutional clause at a time. Now I work in Hollywood, where I've perfected the game pioneered by such pros as Machiavelli, Saul Alinsky, and Al Capone, father of the immortal Chicago Way. Read on and learn from our time-tested techniques:

-Know your enemy, his intentions, his weapons and his weaknesses. You too can play relentless, on-message hardball with every scandal, hypocrisy, lie and fundamentally flawed policy your adversaries dish up.

-Become what you behold. Adopt some of our scorched-earth tactics, best described in David Mamet's Untouchables: "They pull a knife, you pull a gun."

-Take No Prisoners. Attack our premises, expose their true nature nd consequences, and pin them on us, hard.

-Never cede anything to the other side, philosophically speaking. Force the Left to argue facts, not emotions. We hate that.

-Treat us with the same respect we give you. None.

-It is better to be feared than liked, especially by your enemies. And it helps to show up for the fight. (Note to past and future Republican candidates)

Why am I telling you all this? Because I thrive on making trouble and, frankly, because I'm proud of what my tam has done. Between us, I don't think it matters if I turn over our playbook to you at this late date. I don't think you can get it together to stop us now. Plus, I got a lot of money.

Happy reading, America! You think you can take us down? Go for it. I dare you.

Table of Contents
Sympathy for the Devil: an Introduction by "Che" Kahane
First Things or Whose Book is This, Anyway?
A Tale of Two Citizens
Part I: The Problem: or The Beginning of Wisdom is Understanding How You Got Here
1. You Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us
-The Cold Civil War
-In the future, everyone will be a criminal for at least 15 minutes (Except us)
-Wiseguys and dolls
Great Moments in the People's History
-Higher Education or The Way to Ro a Society's Brain is through the Emotions of its Children
-The Enemy Within
-The Jake Lingle Society or How We Seized the "Narrative"
Summary Notes on How to Take Down a Nation
-For Four Eyes Only
-The Future is Now
-The WAr Against God
-Our Secret Weapon: Political Correctness
-"Fairness" and "Tolerance"
-Your Last Warning

A Tale of TWo citizens, part Two

Part Two, the Solution: or The Fight for Freedom is Never Over
Rule 1: Know your enemy, his intentions, his weapons, and his weaknesses, and use them against us.
Rule 2: Become What You Behold, including How to talk to a Liberal (and you must)
Rule 3: The Culture is the Message - So Seize It
Rule 4: Get on Offense and Stay on Offense-and Take No Prisoners
Rule 5: Let the Dismantling Begin
Rule 6. At all Times, Think Constitutionally
Rule 7: Adapt the Time-Honored Conservative Message for a New Kind of America and a New Kind of American
Rule 8: GEt Better Officers
Rule 9: Never Stop Fighting Until the Fight is Over
Rule 10: The Fight is Never Over

A Tale of Two Citizens, part three
Afterword: To the Devil, His Due
Part II:




____
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Red State Uprising, by Erick Erickson and Lewis Uhler

Red State Uprising: How To Take Back America, by Erick Erickson and Lewis Uhler
REgnery Publishing, 2010
196 pages plus acknowledgments, notes and index
Library: 320.52 ERI

Description
Want a real Conservative rewvoltion? Here's how.

Few conservatives are more influential than Erick Erickson, the man who sets the course for the Right as the editor of REdState.com. Even fewer are as knowledgeable about the Constitutional limits of government as Lewis K. Uhler, who has fought rampant government growth and high taxes for decades.

In this moment of crisis-with big government threatening fundamental American freedoms-Erickson and Uhler have written an essential how-to guide for cleaning up the GOP, slashing government, reclaiming lost ground, and getting America back on course.

Red State Uprising reveals:
-Why your Republican candidate may not be a real conservative-and how you can tell the difference
-How to make the Republican Party a truly conservative party (Red State activists are doing it now).
-How to shrink government using practical solutions that could be implemented TODAY
-Obama's contempt for your America, and who he has hired to radically reshape our nation
-Why today we have a unique opportunity to reduce fgovernment to the right size.

A rousing call for Americans to take back our government, Red State Uprising not only sounds the alarm about our freedoms in jeopardy-it shows us how to secure then now and in the future.

Table of Contents
Foreword - Reality Check
Introduction - "Don't tread on me"
1. Republicans in charge: Pro-life Statists
2. Barack Obama's War Against All Things Save the REal Enemy
3. Understanding Obama's Contempt For your America
4. Rebellion: America's Birthright
5. Our Nation Derailed
6. Buried Under a Mountain of Debt
7. Invasion of the Money Snatchers
8. Garden Variety Plunder
9. Entitlement Reform
10. Downsize Government
11. The Right Size
12. "The Chains of the Constitution"
13. The Way Forward
14. Is A New Party the Answer
15. Take Back America
Erickson Acknowledgments
Uhler Acknowledgments
Notes
Index


___________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: America and the World, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft

America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy, by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft
Basic Books/Perseus 2008
274 pages plus acknowledgments and index

Description
There is widespread agreement that something in American foreign policy is broken. Politics and habits of mind left over from the Cold War suddenly seem outdated, almost irrelevant. New challenges have arisen-the sudden prominence of terrorists and other non-state actors, the ascendancy of China as a world power, a widespread distrust of American intentions around the world-to which our responses are halting or ineffective. The problems run much deeper than any one administration: the nature of power itself is shifting. In traditional terms, the US is the most powerful nation since the Roman Empire, yet the limits on ehat its strength can achieve are greater than they were just fifteen years ago. It's essential that we understand and adapt to a new and ever-changing international environment.

Two of the most respected figures in American foreign policy are Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft-both former National Security Advisers under markedly different administrations. While one author is a Democrat and the other a REpublican, they broadly agree on the need for a new approach. In America and the World they dissect, in lively and unscripted conversations moderated by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, the most significant foreign policy challenges facing the US: whether we should withdraw our troops from Iraq or keep them there, how we should approach Iran, Israel and Palestine, hoow aggressively we should push to expand NATO to Russian borders, the importance of what Brzezinski has called the "global political awakening", how we can (and must) maintain our role in the Far East, and many other questions. They never hesitate to look into the soul of American policy and explain what we need to reform in order to turn the ship onto a better course. The decisions our nation takes in the next few years could well determine how long it remains a superpower. A deeply informed and provacative book that defines the center of responsible opinion on American foreign policy, America and the World is essential reading for everyone concerned with our country's international role.

Table of Contents
Introduction - David Ignatius
1. How we got here
2. Crises of our own making [Middle East]
3. Two unsolved problems [Arab-Isreal, Iraq-Iran]
4. The virtue of openness: China and the Far east
5. The State with unnatural boundaries [Russia]
6. The indispensable partnership [America and Europe]
7. The politics of cultural dignity [US's foreign policy]
8. The first hundred days [What the new president should do in his first hundred days]
Acknowledgments
Index
About the authors
_________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Known and Unknown, A Memoir, by Donald Rumsfeld

Known and Unknown: A Memoir, by Donald Rumsfeld
Sentinel, 2011
730 pages plus 48 pages of photos, notes and index

Description
Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld. Now he has wriiten an unflinching memoir of his half-century career, sharing previously undiscosed details that will fascinate readers and force historians to rethink many controversies.

Starting from a middle-class childhood in Illinois, Rumsfeld had a rapid rise that won him earrly acclaim. He shows us what it was like growing up during the Great Depression and World War II, going to Princeton on scholarships, serving as a naval aviator, then getting his first political job on Capitol Hill during the Eisenhower administration. He recalls how he won a seat in the House of Representatives at age thirty and what he experienced as a Congressman in Congress during the Kennedy and Johnson years.

We also follow him back to the executive branch as he took on key cabinet positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including his service as the youngest-ever Secretary of Defense, just after the trauma of Vietnam. And we learn about the challenges he later faced as a CEO in the private sector and during his special assignments for President REagan, including a face-to-fae meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1983.

All of that would have been enough material for a fascinating book. But as 2001 began, Rumsfeld's greatest challenges lay ahead of him. At 68, he returned to the Pentagon as President Bush's secretary of defense, with a mandate to transform the military for a new century. Just nine months later he would confront the worst acts of terrorism in American history, followed by unexpected wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he would be on the firing line for many controversies, from the revalations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to allegations of torture at Guantamano Bay.

Known and Unknown reveals what happened behind the scenes during the critical moments of the Bush years, as the President's inner circle debated how best to defend our country. It is based not only on Rumsfeld's memory but also on hundreds of previously unreleased docuiments from throughout his career. It also features his blunt, first-hand opinions about some of the world's best-known figures, from Margaret Thatcher to Elvis Presley, from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell, and about each American president from Dwight S. Eisenhower to GEorge W. Bush.

In a famous press briefing, Rumsfeld once remarked that "there are also unknown unknowns...thing we do not know we don't know." His book makes us realize just how much we didn't know.

Table of Contents
Author's Note
Part 1: Lessons in Terror
1. Smiling Death
2. Into the Swamp
Part 2: An American, Chicago Born
3. The Last of Spring
4. The Longest of Long Shos
Part 3: The US Congress: From Camelot to Quagmire
5. "Here, sir, the people govern"
6. Young Turks
Part 4: In Nixon's Arena
7. 1968: The Year of Turmoil
8. The Job that Couldn't Be Done
9. Counsellor
10. NATO and Nixon's Fall
Part 5: Javelin Catcher: Inside the Ford White House
11. Restoring Trust
12. A Rocky Start
13. An Agonizing REappraisal
Part 6: Fighting the Cold WAr
14. Unfinished Business
15. Turning on the Lights
16. Hold the SALT: Tension over Detente
17. The 1976 Defeat
Part 7: Back to Reality
18. Searle's Sweet Success
19. From Malaise to Morning in America
20. Our Rural Period, Interupted
Part 8: Leaning Forward
21. Here We Go Again
22. Dogs Don't Bark at Parked Cars
23. Bears in the Woods
24. The National Security Council
25. The Agony of Surprise
26. War President
Part 9: Into the GRaveyard of Empires
27. Special Operations
28. Little Birds in a Nest
29. Kabul Falls, Karzai Rises
Part 10: Saddam's Miscalculation
30. Out of the Box
31. The Case for Regime Change
32. A Failure of Diplomacy
33. Exit the Butcher of Baghdad
Part 11: The Occupation of Iraq
34. Catastrophic Success
35. Mission Accomplished?
36. Too Many Hands on the Steering Wheel
37. Liberation from the Occupation
Part 12: WArtime Detention
38. The Least Worst Place
39. The Twentieth Hijacker
40. Law in a Time of War
41. The Road Not Travelled
Part 13: Pulling on our Boots: Challenges and Controversies Beyond the War Zones
42. Katrina and the Challenge of New Institutions
43. Gardening
44. The Army We Had
Part 14: The Long, Hard Slog
45. Hands off the Bicycle Street
46. The Dead Enders
47. Eyes on Afghanistan
48. Iraq's Summer of Violence
49. Farewells
50. After Tidesand Hurricanes
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms
List of Illustrations
Notes
Index


___________________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts:
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day*
Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Know Your Power, by Nancy Pelosi

Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, by Nancy Pelosi with Amy Hill Hearth. Doubleday,2008



Description
When Nancy Pelosu became the first woman Speaker of the House, she made history. She gaveled the House to order that day on behalf of all of America's children and said: "We have made history, now let us make progress." Now she continues to inspire women everywhere in this thought-provoking collection of wise words - her own and those of the important people who played pivotal roles in her journey.

In these pages, she encourages mothers and grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters to never lose faith, to speak out and make their voices heard, to focus on what matters most and follow their dreams wherever they may lead.

Perhaps the Speaker says it best herself in the Preface: "I find it humbling and deeply moving when women and girls approach me, looking for insight and advice. If women can learn from me, in the same way I learned from the women who came before me, it will make the honor of being Speaker of the House even more meaningful."

This is a truly special book to share with all the women you know. It is a keepsake to turn to again and again, whenever you need to be reminded that anything is possible when you know your power.

In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts:
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.

Booklist: Getting It Done, by Senator Tom Daschle with David Nather

New feature - I'm going to create a booklist, of books written on both sides of the aisle, covering each issue from the Democrat side and the Republican side. How do the sides differ, as expressed in these books? I'll post these on Saturdays and Sundays.

First up, the Democrat version of the Health Care Reform bill.


Booklist: Getting It Done, by Senator Tom Daschle with David Nather

Description
The evolution of health care reform was drawn out, frutrating and complicated, but Senator Tom Daschle is the ideal person to recount the process. His account will guide you through the entire story, from the earliest presidential campaign debates-and his firsthand experiences on the Obama team-through the battles on Capitol Hill to solve our most serious health care problems. Not simply a book about policy, Daschle's narrative describes in vivid detail how fragile the support in Congress was every step of the way, as well as frantic efforts to design a rescue strategy before time ran out.

Combining his insights as a health care expert and his political expertise,, this is the inside story about how the new legislation came together: from the persistence of President Obama to the subsequent efforts-and counterefforts-within the Senate and the House. In Daschle's hands, this becomes a dramatic personal story and a remarkable lesson in politics at the highest level.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1. The Stakes
1. The Great Divide
2. "Let Me Tell You What You Want to Hear"
3. The Cost Problem
4. The Quality Problem
5. The Access Problem
6. Our Health Care Pyramid
7. Keeping What People Like
8. Lessons From Other Countries

Part 2: The Plan
1. The Phone Call
2. The Making of the Obama Plan
3. The Primaries
4. The Stakeholders
5. Obama vs McCain
6. Preparing the Road Map
7. Opening the Doors
8. Health Care vs the Economy
9. Meltdown

Part 3: No Margin for Error
1. The White HouseStrategy
2. The Senate
3. The House
4. Holding Down Costs
5. Improving Quality
6. Reaching (Nearly) Everyone
7. The Public Option
8. Paying For It
9. One Bipartisan Solution
10. Roadblocks
11. August
12. Breakthrough
13. Sixty Votes
14. The Rsecue Plan
15. The Final Push

Part 4: The Road from Here
1. How Close Did We Come?
2. Laying the Groundwork: 2010-13
3. A New Era: 2014-18
4. New Responsibilities
5. Next Steps
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index