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The United States of Toyota: How Detroit Squandered Its Legacy and Enabled Toyota to Become America's Car Company
The United States of Toyota is many stories in one. First and foremost, it is a business story, detailing the decline of the American automobile industry - and the simultaneous rise of an Asian manufacturer to take its place. It is also a history book, providing an intimate portrait of the larger-than-life personalities and cars that led the American auto industry through its glory days and down the path toward extinction. It is a political/current affairs piece, presenting the rise of a Japanese company - Toyota - not just in terms of its sales success but also in terms of its cultural success, as it works to assimilate into American society. And finally, it is a never-before-seen primer on Detroit - The Motor City - a town and a region dominated by the auto companies, their suppliers and their ad agencies - and by a mindset and culture all its own. In commentary that is as accurate as it is blunt, Peter De Lorenzo presents the players and the action in the auto business in a way not seen before in print. His voice is unique and refreshingly candid. His provocative analyses and assessments - grounded in personal experience and a lifelong immersion in all things automotive - present a compelling picture of the state of the auto business - how it used to be, what it has become and where it is headed. From the arrogance and short-sightedness of the Detroit manufacturers to the acumen and relentlessness of Toyota, The United States of Toyota paints an insightful portrait of an iconic American industry as it struggles for survival in the early years of the 21st century..
Price: $28.67
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The Meaning of Is: The Squandered Impeachment and Wasted Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton
Responding to the release of Clinton’s long-awaited memoir, Bob Barr (the man behind the so-called "vast right wing conspiracy") shares his judgment on the Clinton legacy. His new book, The Meaning Of Is: The Squandered Impeachment And Wasted Legacy Of William Jefferson Clinton, clearly highlights the shocking depth of corruption that characterized Clinton’s administration. Proving his reputation as Clinton’s worst nightmare, Barr reveals previously unknown details of the impeachment process; describing how its scope was artificially limited and its progress politically undermined by both Democrats and Republicans. Published by Stroud & Hall Publishers, the book is expected to be available in bookstores in August 2004. Barr writes, "Looking back on the Clinton administration from the perspective of someone who was personally involved in investigating basically every public corruption case raised against Clinton, I am most amazed that the Monica Lewinsky case is ultimately what got the president impeached. This is not to say that lying under oath and obstructing justice are not impeachable charges or that the remedy we chose was inappropriate. However, these charges pale in comparison to the systematic damage Bill Clinton did to American national security, the office of the presidency, and the civil liberties of individual American citizens." The Meaning Of Is provides a starkly contrasting viewpoint on the record of the Clinton administration than found in President Clinton’s new book. These two books promise to ignite a fresh debate on the real legacy of the Clinton administration. Barr writes, "Bill Clinton will go down in history as a failed president, because he had the intelligence and opportunity required for greatness, but suffered from fundamental character flaws… There is no core to Bill Clinton, no principle he will not sell out, no lie he will not tell, no rule he will not break, if he believes doing so will best serve his immediate interests." Foreword by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
Editor in Chief, The American Spectator.
Price: $2.17
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Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq
In the fall of 2003, Stanford professor Larry Diamond received a call from Condoleezza Rice, asking if he would spend several months in Baghdad as an adviser to the American occupation authorities. Diamond had not been a supporter of the war in Iraq, but he felt that the task of building a viable democracy was a worthy goal. But when he went to Iraq, his experiences proved to be more of an education than he bargained for. Squandered Victory is Diamond’s provocative and vivid account of how the American effort to establish democracy in Iraq was hampered not only by insurgents and terrorists but also by a long chain of miscalculations, missed opportunities, and acts of ideological blindness that helped assure that the transition to independence would be neither peaceful nor entirely democratic. And in a new Afterword for the paperback edition, Diamond shows how the ongoing instability in Iraq is a direct result of the shortsighted choices made during the fourteen months of the American occupation and the subsequent Iraqi interim government.
“A forceful and detailed critique of the invasion’s aftermath. . . . A searing indictment.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Larry Diamond has a flair for making incisive points at the right moment. . . . [Squandered Victory] explodes with the frustrations he felt working for the U.S. occupation.” —The New Republic
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Price: $1.89
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U.S. Relations with Latin America during the Clinton Years: Opportunities Lost or Opportunities Squandered? (International Relations/Latin American Studies)
The first book-length treatment of the Clinton administration’s Latin American policies, this timely study reads like an insider’s account, based in part on interviews and roundtable discussions with more than 50 participants in the Latin American foreign policy process during these years—from career diplomats to political appointees, White House insiders to jaded professionals. In his balanced analysis of an administration that made some progress in Latin American relations, the author reluctantly concludes that the Clinton presidency failed to build on the favorable international and regional context and on opportunities inherited from the George H. W. Bush administration. The study offers a multifaceted explanation for why Clinton’s Latin American policy was, on balance, not able to accomplish many of its objectives in spite of some important successes, including the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the historic Summit of the Americas. Citing the collapse of the Governor’s Island accords to return democracy to Haiti and Clinton’s reluctant signing of the Helms-Burton bill that imposed new restrictions on Cuba as among the administration’s failures, the author allows that policymakers were often handicapped by limitations of leadership at various levels, bureaucratic politics, a lack of resources, unexpected events, competing policy priorities, and the influence of domestic politics. In addition, Clinton and his senior-level advisers showed only sporadic interest in Latin America, which, among other factors, had the effect of hamstringing mid-level policy advocates. Such constraints, rather than a lack of vision or a failure to articulate policy objectives, appear to explain why the administration failed to exploit effectively the historic opening for a new post-Cold War approach to U.S.-Latin American relations. This timely study will be a valuable reference for the foreign policy community at large and for students and scholars of international relations. .
Price: $24.95
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Squandered Fortune : The Life and Times of Huntington Hartford
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Squandered Opportunities: New York's Pataki Years
"When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos." - Thomas More, patron saint of politicians When George Pataki was swept into office in 1994, conservatives throughout New York rejoiced Not only had they helped knock off liberal icon Mario Cuomo, but after thirty-two years in the political wilderness the New York Conservative Party had provided the margin of victory that fulfilled their mission to elect a governor who was not a legatee of Nelson Rockefeller/Jacob Javits/John Lindsay-style liberal, big government Republicanism. But after Pataki's good start, Conservatives became disenchanted. They realized that in his desperate desire to be all things to all people, Pataki squandered the historic opportunity entrusted to him in 1994. In this first commentary on the Pataki administration, George Marlin, former Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and New York Conservative Party activist, traces how fiscally, economically, and culturally Governor Pataki sold out to leftist interests. In Squandered Opportunities, Marlin contends that the Pataki Administration did not possess a philosophical compass. Political expediency overwhelmed any political philosophy, and "political conscience" and "political ideals" were mere slogans used to patronize conservatives. Marlin examines how Pataki's social policies betrayed conservatives. Pataki approved gay-rights, bias crime bills, restricted the medical insurance "conscience clause" for religious institutions, increased gun regulations and repudiated term limits. Squandered Opportunities traces how Pataki's embrace of government activism caused him to abandon bedrock fiscal principles: * His pledge to impose no new taxes, which ended in 1999 with a $400 million cigarette tax hike, and hit a new low in 2003 with raises of almost every conceivable tax and fee. * His pledge to curb Medicaid costs. * The fight to end unfunded state mandates on local municipalities. * Promises to avoid one-shot fiscal gimmicks. * The campaign to stop "back door borrowing" and enact true debt reform. (As a result of this capitulation the total debt burden on future New Yorkers has grown over 40 percent since Cuomo left office.) * The effort to seek state labor productivity gains. Marlin concludes that by deserting mainstream Republican principles, George Pataki, who harbors 2008 presidential aspirations, has forfeited his seat at the leadership table of the party of Ronald Reagan..
Price: $17.50
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Squandered Victory: The American First Army at St. Mihiel
This is the first book ever devoted entirely to the St. Mihiel operation and its ramifications It details Pershing's struggle to form an independent American army in France and the importance of the St. Mihiel operation from both political and military perspectives. It links historical events and details in a way that has never been done on this subject, pulling from a variety of sources to depict motivations, events, and political and military thought. It supports the conclusion--debated by historians and military men for over 75 years--that Pershing might have been able to end the war in September 1918, if not held back by the machinations of the Allies..
Price: $37.50
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The Squandered Green
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