BOOKS: A shortened version of the afterword to Chomskyís <I>Hegemony or Survival</I>
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- Written by Donna Quexada
A shortened version of the afterword to Noam Chomskyís Hegemony or Survival: Americaís Quest for Global Dominance (Metropolitan Books, 2003; just out in paperback), with a brief introduction by Tom Englehardt, who is one of those who conceived the American Empire Project of which Chomskyís volume forms a part. (Other volumes: Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire; El FisgÛn, How to Succeed at Globalization; Michael Klare, Blood and Oil.) ...
BOOKS: Is Kitty Kelleyís <I>The Family</I> worth reading?
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- Written by Jim O. Madison
One might be inclined to respond to the Kitty Kelley story by thinking of Eleanor of Aquitaineís line in James Goldmanís wonderful play The Lion in Winter, made into a film by Anthony Harvey with Katharine Hepburn in the role of Eleanor: ìWell, what family doesnít have its ups and downs?î -- Except that in this case, the allegations in her new book about the Bush dynasty, The Family, correspond with the notion that a fundamental characteristic of the Bushesí approach to politics is a Machiavellian politics of deceit. -- (Kevin Philipsís American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, published earlier this year, reached a similar conclusion.) -- Salon asked Kelley: ìYou write that the Bushes are particularly good at cleansing anything in government files that will besmirch the family reputation. How does that work?î She replied: ìWell, you see it on all sorts of levels, from the trivial on up. For instance, I got a copy of the Bush family tree from the Bush presidential library. And at first we just thought a couple things were left off, but it was a number of things. Mentally retarded children from one branch of the family erased. Too many divorces in one family -- that doesn't fit with the family-values image, so some ex-wives simply disappear. You could say that's just an oversight or mistake here and there. But when you see a pattern as I've seen over the past years of files redacted, too many mysterious fires that destroy records, state department files simply missing, gone, National Guard files.î -- Itís this pattern that makes Kelleyís book worth attending to, however distasteful it might be to read. She concludes the interview by saying: ìYou know something that I have found out from this family after four years -- [George W. Bush] doesn't plan to lose. They know how to win -- no matter what.î ...
BOOKS: Charles Glass reviews Bernard Lewisís <I>From Babel to Dragomans</I>
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- Written by Henry Adams
Bernard Lewis is the well-known academic who invented the notion of ìthe clash of civilizations.î The work of this ìcourt academicî has many attractive qualities, writes Charles Glass, but unfortunately ìhis conceptual framework prevents any understanding of the lands he mentions.î -- Charles Glass is a USC graduate who began his journalistic career at ABC News in Beirut, and has been a regular freelance contributor and columnist in many prominent newspapers and magazines in the United States and Great Britain, often reporting from dangerous locations, like Sarajevo and East Timor; in 1987, he himself was held hostage by Shiite captors for two months before he escaped. He is also the author of Tribes with Flags (1990) and Money for Old Rope (1993), and has made documentary films....