War Sociology

Most locals in Big Timber, Montana learn to live with the wind. Rick Jarrett sought his fortune in it. Like his pioneer ancestors who staked their claims in the Treasure State, he believed in his right to make a living off the land—and its newest precious resource, million-dollar wind. Trouble was, Jarrett’s neighbors were some of the wealthiest and most influential men in America, trophy ranchers who’d come West to enjoy magnificent mountain views, not stare at 500-foot wind turbines.

This thought-provoking work traces the origins of voucher-based education reform to mid-twentieth-century fears over school desegregation. It shows how, in the intervening decades, a cabal of billionaire conservatives supporting a host of special political interests-including economic libertarianism, religious choice, and parental rights-have converged around the issue of education freedom in an ongoing culture war. Through deliberate policymaking, legislation, and litigation, Cowen reveals, an insular advocacy network has enacted a flawed system for education finance driven largely by dogma.

From January until April 2003, for 101 days, Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Bagdad for Scandinavian, German, and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the events in Iraq before, during, and after the attacks by the American and British forces.

Da generationen, der var unge under besættelsen, blev søde, skrøbelige bedsteforældre, kunne vi ikke få os selv til at spørge dem, om de også huskede at elske, feste og føle dengang. Besættelsen 1940-1945 er gået over i historien som de fem forbandede år, en tid præget af vareknaphed, mørke, dårlig hygiejne og angsten for morgendagen. Ikke desto mindre er det et faktum, at der var babyboom under besættelsen, at kønssygdomme florerede, og at der blev udgivet en masse frække bøger og blade.

This riveting biography of a Massachusetts slave boy who fought in the Revolutionary War illuminates race relations in the Northern colonies, early battles of the revolution, and the experiences of Black soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

In his famous farewell address in 1961, President Eisenhower urgently warned Americans to guard against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" in the leviathan he dubbed the military-industrial complex. As Eugene Jarecki powerfully portrays in this piercing and necessary book, Eisenhower's worst fears have been realized.

Jess enlisted in the Marines immediately after graduating from high school in 2001, and in 2004 she volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps' first officially declared Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. Her platoon was tasked with recovering and processing the remains of fallen soldiers. With sensitivity and insight, Jess describes her job retrieving and examining the remains of fellow soldiers lost in combat in Iraq, and the psychological intricacy of coping with their fates, as well as her own.

For the last two decades, Sidney Tarrow has explored "contentious politics" - disruptions of the settled political order caused by social movements. These disruptions range from strikes and street protests to riots and civil disobedience to revolution. In War, States, and Contention, Tarrow shows how such movements sometimes trigger, animate, and guide the course of war and how they sometimes rise during war and in war's wake to change regimes or even overthrow states.

Richard Hoffman sometimes felt as though he had two fathers: the real one who raised him and an imaginary version, one he talked to on the phone, and one he talked to in his head. Although Hoffman was always close to the man, his father remained a mystery, shrouded in a perplexing mix of tenderness and rage. When his father receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, Hoffman confronts the depths and limitations of their lifelong struggle to know each other.

This landmark study of the Vietnamese conflict, examined through the lens of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements in the rural province of Long An up until American intervention in the area, offers a human, balanced, penetrating account of war. Two new forewords by Robert K. Brigham of Vassar College and Jeffrey Record of the Air War College explore the book's enduring influence. A new end chapter offers previously unpublished scholarship on the conflict.

Between 1817 and 1898, New York City evolved from a vital Atlantic port of trade to the center of American commerce and culture. Although this important urban transformation is well documented, the critical role of select Union soldiers turned New York engineers has, until now, remained largely unexplored.

Von 2004 bis 2009 arbeitete Amaryllis Fox undercover als Antiterrorismus-Spezialistin der CIA. In diesem überwältigenden Memoir erzählt sie ihre Geschichte. "Ich trainierte mit der Glock, beherrschte das M4, wusste mich aus Plastikhandschellen zu befreien, während ich im Kofferraum eines Autos lag. Ich wurde gedrillt, Folter auszuhalten, lernte, welche Methoden des Suizids für den Fall einer Gefangenschaft anzuwenden wären. Am Ende aber brachte mir meine kleine Tochter bei, dass zwischenmenschliche Nähe die mächtigste Waffe von allen ist."

A parallel army lives on the margins of the Iraq war - nearly 100,000 armed men, invisible yet in plain sight, doing jobs the overstretched and understaffed military can't or won't do. The U.S. media call them "security contractors." They call themselves "mercs," and they operate under their own rules. Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru traveled with several groups of security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day.

In 2005 a Chinook helicopter carrying 16 Special Ops soldiers crashed during a rescue mission in a remote part of Afghanistan, killing everyone on board. In that instant, machine gunner Caleb Daniels lost his best friend, Kip Jacoby, and seven members of his unit. Back in the U.S., Caleb begins to see them everywhere - dead Kip, with his Alice in Wonderland tattoos, and the rest of them, their burned bodies watching him. But there is something else haunting Caleb, too - a presence he calls the Black Thing, or the Destroyer.

An extraordinary journey behind the scenes of Arlington National Cemetery, Senator Tom Cotton’s Sacred Duty offers an intimate and inspiring portrait of “The Old Guard”, the revered US Army unit whose mission is to honor our country’s fallen heroes on the most hallowed ground in America.

In a work of history that will make headlines, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon investigates the investigation of 9/11 and tells the inside story of most important federal commission since the the Warren Commission. Shenon uncovers startling new information about the inner workings of the 9/11 Commission and its relationship with the Bush White House.

The War Comes Home is structured around the different experiences of US veterans of the Iraq war. Sections of the book are dedicated to the difficulties of reintegrating to civilian life after coming home, living with disability, unemployment, dealing with the military bureaucracy, suicide, and homelessness - as well as more upbeat sections about families, communities and fellow veterans pulling together to help each other.

Why life is harder on American families than it's been in decades? This book takes the blame away from moms and puts it where it really belongs. Pressed for time and money, unable to find decent affordable daycare, wracked with guilt at falling short of the mythic supermom ideal-working and non-working American mothers alike have it harder today than they have in decades, and they are worse off than many of their peers around the world. Why? Because they're raising their kids in a family-unfriendly nation.

A searing, on-the-ground examination of the collapsing coal industry - and the communities left behind - in the midst of an economic and environmental crisis. The past few years have highlighted the paradox at the heart of coal country. Despite fueling a century of American progress, the people at the heart of coal country are being left behind, suffering from unemployment, the opioid epidemic, and environmental crises often at greater rates than anywhere else in the country. But what if Appalachia’s troubles are just a taste of what the future holds for all of us?

In this brilliantly analytical yet personal book, nondemocratic societies are put under a microscope to reveal the mechanics of tyranny that sustain them. In exposing the inner workings of a "fear society", the authors explain why democracy is not beyond any nation's reach, why it is essential for our security, and why there is much that can be done to promote it around the world.