Above the Din of War: Afghans Speak about Their Lives, Their Country, and Their Future-And Why America Should Listen

Peter Eichstaedt. Veteran journalist Eichstaedt delivers from Afghanistan a dismal report on that country's continued disintegration and decline and the failure of U.S. efforts to prevent it. Eichstaedt interviewed Afghans from all walks of life: government officials, Taliban leaders, shopkeepers, mullahs, would-be suicide bombers, victims of self-immolation and others. Heartbreaking and spellbinding dispatches from a country descending into madness.--Kirkus

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Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941

Lynne Olson. A fully fleshed-out portrait of the battle between the interventionists and isolationists in the 18 months leading up to Pearl Harbor. Former Baltimore Sun White House correspondent Olson looks closely at both sides of the U.S. debate about whether to support Britain against the onslaught of Nazi Germany or remain aloof from the European conflict, epitomized by the two prominent personalities of the respective camps, President Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh.Throughout, Olson adroitly sifts through the many conflicting currents. A vivid, colorful evocation of a charged era.--Kirkus

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American Story: A Lifetime Search for Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

Bob Dotson. The longtime Today Show correspondent offers a collection of heartwarming stories about ordinary citizens, "people who live the values our country cherishes." The author mixes in a little autobiographical information, but he focuses on a succession of quiet achievers, people whose imagination, grit and goodness might otherwise have escaped the news, had he not gone in search of their stories. Many of the characters require more than the three or four pages Dotson allots them to make any lasting impression, but the sheer multitude of tales underscores his argument about an America chock-full of unassuming people whose lives enrich the nation.--Kirkus

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Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East

Rashid Khalidi. Extracting three episodes from a complex 35-year history, a distinguished Middle East scholar exposes America's unfitness to mediate between Israel and Palestine. Khalidi maintains that the U.S. and Isreal, "by far the most powerful actors in the Middle East," through successive administrations and a variety of key officials (Condoleezza Rice and Dennis Ross take a particular beating here), have conspired to deny Palestinians any semblance of self-determination. A stinging indictment of one-sided policymaking destined, if undisturbed, to result in even greater violence.--Kirkus

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Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Ira Katznelson. Emphasizing the long New Deal, putting it in its global context, and shifting the focus from the White House to Congress makes this book a major revision of conventional interpretations. But it's the extent of the permeating influence of Southern Democrats on national politics that is the work's revelation Katznelson rues the New Deal's surrender to special interests at the expense of the public good. Overall, a critical and deeply scholarly work that, notwithstanding, is compulsively readable--Publisher's Weekly

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The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

Ervand Abrahamian. A relevant, readable study of the foreign-engineered 1953 Iranian coup reminds us of the cause that won't go away: oil. Abrahamian clears away much of the nostalgic Cold War cobwebs surrounding the ouster of the popular Iranian reformer Muhammad Mossadeq, employing new oral history and pertinent memoirs published posthumously by Mossadeq's advisers. The well-rendered, lucid back story explaining the current, ongoing deep distrust and suspicion between the U.S. and Iran.--Kirkus

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The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century

Paul Collins. A lively, full-to-bursting history of the turbulent 10th century in Europe, when inner dissention and external marauding began to give way to cohesion and centrality. Collins manages to enthrall readers in the vicissitudes of an early medieval era marked by random violence and unpronounceable Nordic names via his thorough knowledge of the epoch and ability to spin an engaging tale. Who knew the 10th century could be so compelling?--Kirkus

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The Pharaoh: Life at Court and on Campaign

Garry Shaw. In this delightful and lavishly illustrated guide, Egyptologist Shaw (Royal Authority in Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty) introduces the fascinating lives and times of the pharaohs in elaborate detail, recreating in stories what it was like to be one. The author helpfully provides brief biographies of most of the pharaohs, such as Hatshepsut, a strong female pharaoh who established important trading relations with one of Egypt's neighbors, and Amenhotep IV, who briefly established monotheistic worship. Shaw's captivating study is the perfect introduction to these fabled rulers.--Publisher's Weekly

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Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865

James Oakes. A finely argued book about how the destruction of slavery involved much more than Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Oakes returns to the notion that slavery, rather than states' rights or "an outbreak of hysteria, irrationality and paranoia," was truly the origin of the Civil War. A useful contribution to the literature about slavery and the Civil War.--Kirkus

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