Alexis De Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution

By Hugh Brogan

In 1927 Paul Valéry wrote that Europe dreams of being ruled by an American Commission, and for many Europeans America is still seen as having an enviable freedom from the burdens of the past. There may be few who would now want to be subject to American rule but there are still many who see America as standing for a kind of freedom and equality to which Europeans can still only aspire. It is a view as common on the left of politics as on the right. There seem to be plenty of ex-communists and former Trotskyites who regard the United States with a loyalty and reverence of a sort they once reserved for the Soviet Union, and who round on critics of US policies as enemies of progress. Right across the spectrum of opinion America is seen as the supreme modern society, which more than any other embodies the future. [read more]

Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

By Michael Scheuer

Cyber and television jihad are parts of the war that the former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer believes bin Laden is winning. Scheuer, whose Cassandra-isms as head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit went unheeded by the Clinton and Bush administrations before 2001, is still trying to warn America. ‘No one,’ he writes, ‘should be surprised when bin Laden and al-Qaida detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States.’

Condi vs Hillary: The next Great Presidential Race

By Dick Morris and Elleen McGann

Who will be president in 2008? Many believe that the White House is Hillary Clinton's to lose. As long-time strategists Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal in Condi vs. Hillary, however, Hillary's plans for higher office are vulnerable to a challenge from a most unexpected quarter: the Bush administration's secretary of state and former national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice.

Rice is the only figure on the national scene who has the credentials, the credibility, and the charisma to lead the GOP in 2008. And, as this first book on the subject demonstrates, a race between these two commanding, but very different, women is a very real possibility -- and would inevitably prove one of the most fascinating and important races in American history.
Blending insider insight and political foresight, Condi vs. Hillary surveys the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates, finding persuasive clues about what we might expect from each of them as a chief executive. It traces their very different childhoods -- Hillary Rodham's in unchallenging suburban comfort, Condi Rice's in Birmingham, Alabama, during the civil rights era -- and finds in each the roots of their latter-day selves. It explores their career in public life -- Hillary's as an ambitious liberal who attached herself to a governor on the rise, Condi's as a woman of broad and deep talents who has earned her own way. It turns a discerning eye on how each has spent her time in government, contrasting Condi's growth and maturation in office with Hillary's record of underachievement as both first lady and senator from New York. And it reveals how a draft-Condi movement could sweep the secretary of state into the presidency even as she forgoes campaigning to address her responsibilities as secretary of state.

America, in short, may be on the verge of a perfect storm of twenty-first-century politics, pitting two of America's most popular -- and controversial -- women against each other, and offering Americans a choice between fulfilling the ambitions of one of our most polarizing figures . . . or changing history by electing not just the first woman, but also the first African American woman, to lead the free world into the future.

Leadership

By Rudolph W. Giuliani

The minutes and hours following the 11th September terror attacks on the World Trade Center posed the greatest challenge to governance in New York City's history. Mayor Rudoph Giuliani had barely escaped with his life in the collapse of the first tower. Fires burned furiously near the site as the other buildings verged on collapse and Air Force fighter jets criss-crossed the sky to ward off other attacks. Yet in those moments after the calamity, and in the following days and months, Mayor Giuliani not only steered the city through the crisis, but did so with an assurance and authority that was hailed around the world as a model of courageous leadership.

In this book, Giuliani describes vividly the chaos and horror of the twin towers catastrophe, and explains how the rules of management he enforced as Mayor enabled him to gain control of the emergency. These are also the rules, Giuliani makes clear, that anyone in a leadership position - from the head of a large corporation to the owner of a corner shop - can use to inspire others and achieve concrete results.