UDM Libraries Book of the Week

by Hans Binnendijk Report evaluates strategies for dealing with U.S. partners and adversaries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East in a time of diminishing defense budgets and an American public preference for a domestic focus.   CHAPTER ONE. Introduction; CHAPTER TWO. The Partnership Setting; The Historical Importance of U.S. Partnerships; Global Trends Affecting U.S. Partnerships; Partnerships Increasingly Require U.S. Political Flexibility; Alternative U.S. Approaches to Partnership Engagement; CHAPTER THREE. Anatomy of the Potential Adversaries; China; Russia; North Korea; Iran;...

by Diane P. Koenker The Bolsheviks took power in Russia 1917 armed with an ideology centered on the power of the worker. From the beginning, however, Soviet leaders also realized the need for rest and leisure within the new proletarian society and over subsequent decades struggled to reconcile the concept of leisure with the doctrine of communism, addressing such fundamental concerns as what the purpose of leisure should be in a workers’ state and how socialist vacations should differ from...

by Aldo J. Regalado “Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound . . . It’s Superman!” Bending Steel examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. Cultural historian Aldo J. Regalado asserts that the superhero seems a direct response to modernity, often fighting the interrelated processes of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and capitalism that transformed the United States from the early nineteenth century...

by Cass R. Sunstein As the Internet grows more sophisticated, it is creating new threats to democracy. Social media companies such as Facebook can sort us ever more efficiently into groups of the like-minded, creating echo chambers that amplify our views. It’s no accident that on some occasions, people of different political views cannot even understand each other. It’s also no surprise that terrorist groups have been able to exploit social media to deadly effect. Welcome to the age of...