David Halberstam - works available here at CARL

Renowned author David Halberstam died last week at the age of . The CARL has some 16 of his most famous works including "The best and the brightest, " (1972) and "War in a time of Peace" (2001) Select this link to browse our Halberstam titles

Excerpt from a Washington Post column on Halberstam's life by Henry Allen: "He'd been hit by shrapnel in Africa. He'd waded through swamps on patrols in Vietnam. He'd written stories so inflammatory that John Kennedy suggested, futilely, that the publisher of the Times remove him from the war beat. (He won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam coverage, at the age of 30.) Now the subject was fishing. Everything was important to Halberstam. He concatenated bluefishing ("They're crazed, they're killers") into the same drama that he found in war or industrial empire building. He cared. He judged and condemned, too, but he cared."

Read the full story entitled "A Journalist For Whom There Were Not Enough Words"

Read more about his life works

Related Podcast: NPR podcast from All Things Considered: A Reporter's Memories of Writer David Halberstam

david halberstam

Coming soon to CARL- Reclaiming History: the assasination of JFK

See CARL Holdings in our catalog- Reclaiming history: the assasination of John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi

Book Description:

From USA Today's Book Buzz, 22 feb 07:

"Case closed? Vincent Bugliosi is best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and writing Helter Skelter, his 1974 best-selling account of the case. For 20 years, Bugliosi has been investigating President Kennedy's assassination and various conspiracy theories. His conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone (which was doubted by 75% of the public in a 2003 Gallup Poll). Bugliosi's research will be laid out in a 1,696-page book, Reclaiming History, to be published by Norton in May."

For other views on the Kennedy Assassination see:

• Breach of trust : how the Warren Commission failed the nation and why by Gerald McKnight
• The Kennedy assassination tapes by Max Holland
• Case closed : Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner

New video footage comes to light: news article from the Providence Journal

Kurt Vonnegut - works available here at CARL

Renowned author Kurt Vonnegut died last week at the age of 84. The CARL has over a dozen of his most famous works from his best-selling Slaughterhouse Five to his most recent book "A Man without a Country." Select this link to browse our Vonnegut titles

Read about Vonnegfut's life and works.

Slaughterhouse Five - description

Related Podcast: you can listen to this NPR author interview from 2005.

Kurt Vonnegut slaughterhouse five

Waging Total War: A Learning Curve or a Bleeding Curve

The National World War I Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri is hosting five forums on the Great War that continues on 10 AM, Saturday, 12 May 2007 with the second installment entitled "Waging Total War." Each forum features two leading experts on the First World War who'll examine the legacies of the conflict and its impact on today's world.

The second in this discussion series features the internationally acclaimed military historian Sir John Keegan and Hew Strachan, Professor of the History of War, Oxford University. You can check out what both men have published by visiting our catalog. Just follow the links below.

• Works by John Keegan available at the CARL
• Works by Hew Strachan available at the CARL

You can also browse magazine articles about the First World War online in fulltext at this link (CARL library card log-in may be required)

World War One John Keegan Liberty Memorial Hew Strachan

Personal Narratives from the Front Lines

Select this link to browse personal narratives on the War in Iraq

Select this link to browse personal narratives on the War in Afghanistan

Related Podcast:

Leadership Lessons from the Front Lines: veteran alumns from the Harvard School of Government and Harvard School of Business share their stories from Iraq and Afghanistan. Click here to listen to this podcast (MP3)

Panel members include: Major Joseph Ewers, Prof. David R. Gergen, Lt. Col. Oscar Hall, Ms. Maura Sullivan, Lt. Col. Dan Wagner, Lt. Col. Frederick Wellman

iraq war afghanistan national security leadership

Militant Islam

Here are several recent titles of interest fro our collections that relate to Islamic terrorism:

Hamas : politics, charity, and terrorism in the service of jihad by Matthew Levitt. "This important book provides the most fully researched assessment of Hamas ever written. Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert with extensive field experience in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, draws aside the veil of legitimacy behind which Hamas hides." Full Book description

The road to Martyrs' Square : a journey into the world of the suicide bomber by A.M. Oliver "Combining in equal measure the critical and the compassionate, the tragic and the absurd, this memoir chronicles two interlocking, often clashing journeys-an exploration of the cult of martyrdom in the underground media of the intifada, on the one hand, and on the other, the struggle for friendship across seemingly impossible divides." Table of Contents

Journey of the jihadist : inside Muslim militancy by Fawaz Gerges "In a book that is both deeply personal and brilliantly illuminating, renowned Middle Eastern expert and media commentator Fawaz Gerges takes us into the mindset of the jihadi-or holy warrior-that lies behind so many front-page headlines yet remains nearly impenetrable." Full book description

The Osama bin Laden I know : an oral history of al-Qaeda's leader by Peter Bergen "Peter Bergen takes the reader onto the battlefields of Afghanistan as bin Laden goes from a shy, quiet teen to a leader; he brings you into Osama's intimate family life as he lives under the radar in Sudan, then Afghanistan; he puts you right in the room for al Qaeda's very first meeting; and he uses eyewitness accounts to relate what bin Laden said, and thought on 9/11 as he watched the twin towers fall." Full Book Description

Related podcasts

Extended interview with author Matthew Levitt on his book Hamas (Yale University Press podcast)

Fawaz Gerges on Lebanon, Israel and the Media

terrorism islam

Shield of Achilles by Dr. Phillip Bobbitt

The shield of Achilles : war, peace, and the course of history by Dr. Phillip Bobbitt

Summary from the Book Jacket:

The Shield of Achilles is a classic inquiry into the nature of the State, its origin in war, and its drive for peace and legitimacy. Philip Bobbitt, a professor of constitutional law and a historian of nuclear strategy, has served in the White House, the Senate, the State Department, and the National Security Council in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and here he brings his formidable experience and analytical gifts to bear on our changing world. Many have observed that the nation-state is dying, yet others have noted that the power of the State has never been greater. Bobbitt reconciles this paradox and introduces the idea of the market-state, which is already replacing its predecessor. Along the way he treats such themes as the Long War (which began in 1914 and ended in 1990). He explains the relation of violence to legitimacy, and the role of key individuals in fates that are partially -- but only partially -- determined.This book anticipates the coalitional war against terrorism and lays out alternative futures for the world. Bobbitt shows how nations might avoid the great power confrontations that have a potential for limitless destruction, and he traces the origin and evolution of the State to such wars and the peace conferences that forged their outcomes into law, from Augsburg to Westphalia to Utrecht to Vienna to Versailles. The author paints a powerful portrait of the ever-changing interrelatedness of our world, and he uses his expertise in law and strategy to discern the paths that statehood will follow in the coming years and decades. Timely and perceptive, The Shield of Achilles will change the way we think about the world.

Related Podcast: Dr. Bobbitt discusses the transformation of the nature of war and his book in this Pritzker Military Library Podcast which aired 12 April 2007.

warfare military international relations

Database of the Week

The spotlight this week is on Ebscohost's Military and Government Collection. Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military, this database offers a thorough collection of periodicals, academic journals and other related content. The Military & Government Collection provides cover-to-cover full text for nearly 300 journals and periodicals. The database also includes full text for 245 pamphlets and offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 400 titles. Publications covered in this database include Air Force Comptroller, Army Reserve Magazine, Defence Studies, Global Security Review, JFQ: Joint Force Quarterly, Military Technology, Combat Edge, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Foreign Affairs, Naval Forces, and many more. Browse online thru recent articles from these publications:

• Parameters,
• Military Review
• Infantry

New York Times Bestsellers at CARL

Want to know what's hot on the New York Times Bestseller Lists? You can check out from the CARL the latest bestellers. Visit this link to see what we have in current bestselling nonfiction and fiction.

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

New Pulitzer Prize Winners available at the CARL include:

• Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction - The Looming Tower: AL-QAEDA and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright.
• Pultizer Prize for Fiction - The Road by Cormac McCarthy (ebook edition also available)

Click here to read what other books were selected this year.

Reviews:

Excerpt of a Washington Post review of the Looming Tower, from August 2006:

"...al-Qaeda is on the march. It has regrouped and reorganized from the setbacks meted out by the United States, its allies and partners shortly after 9/11 -- above all, the loss of al-Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan -- and is marshalling its forces to continue the war that Osama bin Laden declared against America 10 years ago with his then mostly ignored fatwa." Read full review

Exerpt of a Washington Post review of The Road from Oct, 2006

The Road ( Knopf, 241 pp., $24) follows two of the last people on Earth, an unnamed man and his young son, as they walk through an incinerated wasteland foraging for food and hiding from gangs of starving cannibals. "The nights now only slightly less black," he writes. "By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." Read full review

Author Interviews:

View or listen to this PBS Lehrer News Hour Interview of Lawrence Wright

Pulitzer Prize Cormac McCarthy Lawrence Wright Al Qaeda

New from the Council on Foreign Relations - After the surge

Visit our catalog and read this paper online: After the Surge The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq by Steven Simon

Excerpt from a newspaper article by Steven Simon appearing in the Washington Post (March 5, 2007) :

"As I wrote in "After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq", the United States should withdraw the bulk of American forces within twelve to eighteen months. A quicker timetable would ignore logistical complexities and reinforce perceptions of a rout. The priorities should be containing the conflict and engaging Iraq's neighbors -- including Iran and Syria, who the administration have begun to approach under congressional pressure -- and potential donors to an Iraq stabilization plan." Read full article

Related Podcast:

Council on Foreign Relations audio - Iraq: Four Years of War (MP3 format) with Speakers Ali Allawi and Steven Simon.

counterinsurgency surge steven simon Council on Foreign Relations

Galula and Counterinsurgency

David Galula's 1964 work on counter-insurgency has received lots of attention in recent years. Learn a little more about it here below.

Available at the CARL Counter Insurgency: Theory and Practice by David Galula

CGSC Students and Faculty can also read Galula online at this link from Praeger Security International.

Exerpt of book review by Terence Daly, Military review Sep-Oct 2006 "We know that Galula's main claim--you defeat an insurgency by controlling the target population--works. It worked for Galula when he commanded an understrength French infantry company in the harsh terrain of the Kabylia in Algeria, and it worked for the U.S. 3 d Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) in Tal Afar in Iraq.(3) The 3d ACR was required to read Counterinsurgency Warfare before it deployed. The book's lessons were suitably modified for the conditions the regiment was about to face, and then used to inform the planning and execution of their successful campaign to subdue the insurgency in Tal Afar. Currently, Galula's ideas pervade the new counterinsurgency manuals that are being developed for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps." Full review

Key excerpts from Galula's Counter Insurgency

Additional reading:

• Counterinsurgency campaign plan concept: the Galula compass by Stephen Vrooman - Available Online
• Winning the counterinsurgency fight in Iraq : the role of political culture in counterinsurgency warfare 2003-2006 in Iraq by Joseph Pepper - Available Online

counterinsurgency afghanistan iraq war Galula nation-building

Recent Books on Afghanistan 2006-2007

Check out below some of the latest books, papers and more published on Afghanistan and the fight against global terrorism.

Books at CARL

• Kabul in winter : life without peace in Afghanistan by Ann Jones
• The places in between by Rory Stewart
• One valley at a time by Adrian Bogart
• In contact! : case studies from the long war by William Robertson

Fulltext Online Papers, Monographs, Theses

• Afghanistan and its neighbors : an ever dangerous neighborhood by Marvin Weinbaum
• Afghanistan : post-war governance, security, and U.S. policy by Kenneth Katzmann
• Retooling the nation-building strategy in Afghanistan by Vincent Dreyer
• Provincial reconstruction teams : Afghanistan vs. Iraq--should we have a standard model? by John Drolet
• NATO in Afghanistan : a test of the transatlantic alliance by Paul Gallis

Related vodcast:

Frameworks For Success in Afghanistan: Do We Have What We Need? Christopher Alexander, U.N. Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan; former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan speaks at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs March 5, 2007.

counterinsurgency afghanistan international affairs NATO nation-building

Imperial life in the Emerald City : inside Iraq's Green Zone

Imperial life in the Emerald City : inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Excerpt from book review by Justin Marozzi

If Herodotus, the chirpy Father of History, had witnessed President Bush's infamous 'Mission Accomplished' speech on board the USS Abraham Lincoln on 1 May, 2003, he would probably have detected a whiff of imperial hubris. Had he been able to witness the blood-soaked catastrophe in Iraq over the next four years, he would have had little doubt that here was a tragically familiar denouement: hubris, once again, had led to nemesis. Full review

About the author

Related Podcast: KQED Forum interview with the author

Browse Inside this Book

counterinsurgency iraq war international affairs Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Counterinsurgency and the War on Terror: Canadian and Australian perspectives

Recent casualties in Afghanistan remind us of the major contributions of Canada and Australia to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can read below a sample of contemporary thought on topics such as counterinsurgency, modularity and coalition operations from Canadian and Australian perspectives.

Australia

• The other special relationship : the United States and Australia at the start of the 21st century by Jeffrey McCausland - Available online
• Revisiting counterinsurgency : a manoeuvrist response to the 'War on Terror' for the Australian Army by J.C. Blaxland - Available Online
• The rise of the strategic private : technology, control, and change in a network-enabled military by David Schmidtchen
• The transformation of special operations forces in contemporary conflict : strategy, missions, organisation and tactics by Malcolm Brailey
• Australian and US military cooperation : fighting common enemies by Christopher Hubbard

Canada

• Canada -- United States Army interoperability in the age of modularity by Dean Bell - Available Online
• On the front lines of leadership by Bernd Horn
• Apples and oranges : a comparison of operational level peace operations doctrine of Canada, United States, and United Kingdom by Colin Magee - Available Online
• Operational art in a middle-power context: a Canadian perspective by Richard Dixon - Available Online

counterinsurgency australia canada canadian defense academy landwarfare studies centre

New NetLibrary Downloadable Audiobooks - Fiction

Did you know you can download audiobook titles directly to your desktop, or transfer them to portable devices for audio on the go? Audiobooks available through NetLibrary can be downloaded or played on any desktop, laptop or portable device supporting Windows Media Player (v9), Music Match (v8.2+), or Nullsoft Winamp 5.

Never tried this before? View Audio Book Demo

Here's a list of new NetLibrary downloadable AudioBooks - Fiction.

Click on any of the links to our catalog below to learn more about each title.

• Crossed Bones
• Ten days in the hills
• The spy who came in from the cold
• Guns of the Canyonlands
• Let it be love
• Web of evil
• Traveler
• Body scissors
• Summer of the midnight sun
• The intruder
• The cat who had 60 whiskers
• Bad blood
• When joy came to stay
• Hell at the breech
• Divas of Damascus Road
• The cold dish
• Maelstrom
• When you dance with the devil
• The castle in the forest
• The long patrol : a tale from Redwall
• The Echelon vendetta

NetLibrary Audio Book Guide

audio books downloadable audio file netlibrary fiction

Nation-building - new titles at CARL 2006 - present

Browse our recent titles on the subject of Nation-building available at the CARL

Can't come to the library?

You can read these think-tank papers,and monographs on Nation-building in fulltext online.

Related Podcast

For further information on this topic you can list to this podcast on nation-building by Andrew S. Natsios, former Director of the USAID. (Lecture at the Flectcher School.)

book foreign policy Nation-building War on Terror Iraq

Recent Books on American Foreign Policy at the CARL

Check out these recent publications covering aspects of America's foreign policy.

• American foreign policy : past, present, future by Glen Hastedt
• America at the crossroads : democracy, power, and the neoconservative legacy by Francis Fukuyama
• American ally : Tony Blair and the War on Terror by Con Coughlin
• Confronting Iran : the failure of American foreign policy and the next great crisis in the Middle East by Ali Ansari
• Making war to keep peace by Jeanne Kirkpatrick
• Dangerous nation by Robert Kagan
• Friction in U.S. foreign policy : cultural difficulties with the world by Andrew Stewart
• The mighty and the Almighty : reflections on America, God, and world affairs by Madeline Albright

Browse inside this book

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

Related podcast on American Foreign Policy:

Strobe Talbott Lecture at New York University: After the Revolution: The Next Phase of American Foreign Policy (MP3 format)

Description (from the University Channel website): "In his first term, George W. Bush broke with his predecessors, notably including his father, in his working concept of America’s role in the world. He launched what has been called the “The Bush Revolution in U.S. Foreign Policy.” Its distinguishing features were unilateralism (going it alone) and exceptionalism (a belief that America had a special dispensation to set the rules for others but not necessarily to follow the rules that the U.S. itself helped establish for the international system over the past century). The high-water mark of the Bush Revolution was the invasion of Iraq. With the debacle now unfolding there and in the region, a restoration of traditional American internationalism is underway."

book foreign policy international affairs diplomacy

Oprah's Book of the Month - The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This month Oprah looks at Cormac McCarthy's new novel entitled "The road". A summary is provided here below. To read more reviews, learn about the author and check the book's availability at the CARL click here to go to our catalog. If the book is checked out be sure to place a hold request.

Excerpt from Library Journal review:

"Winner of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses) here offers a prescient account of a man and his son trying to survive in a devastated country where food is scarce and everyone has become a scavenger. The term survival of the fittest rings true here—very few people remain, and friends are extinct. Essentially, this is a story about nature vs. nurture, commitment and promises, and though there aren't many characters, there is abundant life in the prose." To read full review and more go to our catalog and select the Library Journal Review link in left column.

Oprah's Book of the Month Club

Oprah's Book of the Month

New at the CARL - Soldier: the life of Colin Powell

Check our holdings of: Soldier : the life of Colin Powell by Karen deYoung

Extract from publisher description:

"Over the course of a lifetime of service to his country, Colin Powell became a national hero, a beacon of wise leadership and, according to polls, “the most trusted man in America.” From his humble origins as the son of Jamaican immigrants to the highest levels of government in four administrations, he helped guide the nation through some of its most heart-wrenching hours. Now, in the first full biography of one of the most admired men of our time, award-winning Washington Post journalist Karen DeYoung takes us from Powell’s Bronx childhood and meteoric rise through the military ranks to his formative roles in Washington’s corridors of power and his controversial tenure as secretary of state.With psychological acumen and a reporter’s eye for detail, DeYoung introduces us to the racially integrated neighborhood where Powell grew up, his courtship of and marriage to Alma Johnson, and his years as a promising young Army officer. We are witness to the pivotal events that helped shaped his world view, including two tours of duty in Vietnam, where he was disillusioned by a breakdown in leadership and the lack of a clear objective, and a 1988 meeting as President Reagan’s national security adviser with Mikhail Gorbachev, who looked at him dead-on and effectively declared an end to the Cold War. We are privy to his reasoning as the architect of Operation Desert Storm and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, a position that made him a household name and an international celebrity. And we experience his agonizing deliberations in the face of a groundswell of public desire that he run for the presidency. "Full description

Related podcast:

From University Channel website: "On February 26, 2007, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum welcomed Karen DeYoung to discuss her new book, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell. DeYoung is an associate editor at The Washington Post, where she has held a number of senior editing positions and served as a foreign policy reporter in Washington and as a correspondent abroad." Click here to listen to the author discussion. (MP3 file)

New netLibrary Downloadable Audio Books: Nonfiction

These netLibrary downloadable audio books are now available for you to download and listen to either on your PC or on any MP3 media player.

• Political theory : the classic texts and their continuing relevance
• State of denial (by Bob Woodward)
• Battle cry of freedom : [the Civil War era] (by James McPherson)
• A history of the English language

Self-Help Titles

• Thinking for a living : how to get better performance and results from knowledge workers
• Good luck : create the conditions for success in life and business
• Vital friends : the people you can't afford to live without
• The innovator's solution : creating and sustaining successful growth
• UltraMetabolism : the simple plan for automatic weight loss
• Raising the bar : integrity and passion in life and business

NetLibrary ebook of the month: Caesar in Gaul and Rome

Caesar in Gaul and Rome: War in Words by Andrew M. Riggsby University of Texas Press, 2006

Book Review Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with Latin knows "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" ("All Gaul is divided into three parts"), the opening line of De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar's famous commentary on his campaigns against the Gauls. But what did Caesar intend to accomplish by writing and publishing his commentaries, how did he go about it, and what potentially unforeseen consequences did his writing have? These are the questions that author Andrew Riggsby pursues in the award-winning Caesar in Gaul and Rome. Named by the Association of American Publishers as the 2006 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) award winner for Excellence in Classics and Ancient History, Caesar in Gaul and Rome uses contemporary literary methods to examine the historical impact De Bello Gallico had on the Roman reading public and offers a fresh interpretation of Julius Caesar's Gallic War that focuses on Caesar's construction of national identity and self-presentation.

Other ebooks on ancient Rome:

Intelligence activities in ancient Rome : trust in the gods, but verify by Rose Sheldon

The Roman War Machine by John Peddie

The Civil War 50-48 BC by Julius Caesar