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The varied forms of Leonard Bernstein's musical creativity have been recognized and enjoyed by millions These lectures, Mr. Bernstein's most recent venture in musical explication, will make fascinating reading as well. Virgil Thomson says of the lectures: "Nobody anywhere presents this material so warmly, so sincerely, so skillfully. As musical mind-openers they are first class; as pedagogy they are matchless".

Mr. Bernstein considers music ranging from Hindu ragas through Mozart and Ravel, to Copland, suggesting a worldwide, innate musical grammar. Folk music, pop songs, symphonies, modal, tonal, atonal, well-tempered and ill-tempered works all find a place in these discussions. Each, Mr. Bernstein suggests, has roots in a universal language central to all artistic creation. Using certain linguistic analogies, he explores the ways in which this language developed and can be understood as an aesthetic surface. Drawing on his insights as a master composer and conductor, Mr. Bernstein also explores what music means below the surface: the symbols and metaphors which exist in every musical piece, of whatever sort. And, finally, Mr. Bernstein analyzes twentieth century crises in the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, finding even here a transformation of all that has gone before, as part of the poetry of expression, through its roots in the earth of human experience.

These talks, written and delivered when Leonard Bernstein was Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, are the newest of the author's literary achievements. In addition to a distinguished career as conductor, pianist, and composer, Mr. Bernstein is the recipient of many television Emmys for the scripts of his Young People's Concerts, Omnibus programs, and others, and is the author of The Infinite Variety of Music and The Joy of Music, for which he received the Christopher Award.

Why have states throughout history regularly underestimated dangers to their survival? Why have some states been able to mobilize their material resources effectively to balance against threats, while others have not been able to do so? The phenomenon of "underbalancing" is a common but woefully underexamined behavior in international politics. Underbalancing occurs when states fail to recognize dangerous threats, choose not to react to them, or respond in paltry and imprudent ways. It is a response that directly contradicts the core prediction of structural realism's balance-of-power theory--that states motivated to survive as autonomous entities are coherent actors that, when confronted by dangerous threats, act to restore the disrupted balance by creating alliances or increasing their military capabilities, or, in some cases, a combination of both.

Consistent with the new wave of neoclassical realist research, Unanswered Threats offers a theory of underbalancing based on four domestic-level variables--elite consensus, elite cohesion, social cohesion, and regime/government vulnerability--that channel, mediate, and redirect policy responses to external pressures and incentives. The theory yields five causal schemes for underbalancing behavior, which are tested against the cases of interwar Britain and France, France from 1877 to 1913, and the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) that pitted tiny Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Randall Schweller concludes that those most likely to underbalance are incoherent, fragmented states whose elites are constrained by political considerations.

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A co-publication of Seven Stories Press and Akashic Books.

With the passage of time, an ever-growing number of indisputable facts are pointing to very serious breaches of integrity and an unsettling lack of transparency surrounding the motivations of key individuals and agencies with distinct roles in events leading up to and following that fateful morning.

In The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11, investigative reporter James Ridgeway pinpoints five glaring black holes of information surrounding 9/11:

1. The initial government response: Why was Cheney running the country on 9/11? Where was Donald Rumsfeld, commander of the US armed forces? Why didn't American Airlines immediately alert the FAA headquarters and the military at 8:20 when the airline first learned from flight attendants onboard that a hijack was underway?
2. The ignorance of the FBI and CIA: With Al-Qaeda firmly on the radar for years, why were they unable to see this coming?
3. The failings of the FBI's translation department: Why wasn't the Bureau set up to decipher the transmissions within its grasp?
4. The role of Pakistani secret intelligence: As the attacks were planned in Afghanistan, who was watching and who was invested?
5. The 9/11 Commission's investigation: Why weren't even the most obvious questions addressed?

Currently the Washington correspondent for The Village Voice, James Ridgeway has authored over 15 books and co-directed the films Blood in the Face and Feed. He has also written for Harper's Magazine, Economist, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, Parade, Ramparts, and The Wall Street Journal.