Drawing on rich narratives of politics and violence and war from around the world and written by one of the world's leading writers, Stripping Bare the Body is a moral history of American power during the last quarter century. From bloody battleground to dark prison cell to air-conditioned office, it tells the grim and compelling tale of the true final years of the American Century, as the United States passed from the violent certainties of the late Cold War, to the ideological confusions of the post-Cold War world, to the pumped up and ongoing evangelism of the War on Terror and the Iraq War, and the ruins they have left behind.
Moving from mass murder on election day in Port-au-Prince, to massacre by mortar bomb on the streets of Sarajevo to suicide bombing in the suburban neighborhoods of Baghdad, to torture in the secret "black site" prisons of Thailand and Afghanistan, to the political deal making, personal rivalries and bureaucratic infighting in Washington and New York and Langley, Stripping Bare the Body shows the considerations of a wide range of policymakers, and the minute effects their decisions, and their mistakes, have on people in distant places and on Americans as they live and work in "the indispensable nation." Here is the vivid, unforgettable history of what Mark Danner calls a "grim age, still infused with the remnant perfume of imperial dreams
Author: William Damon This book explores Damon’s concern that many American young people do not have meaningful or significant purpose to guide them, and do not get much help from their teachers. As he defines it, “Purpose is a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond the self.” Getting good grades and into college does not in itself fulfill the demands of purposefulness; even the desire to achieve these ambitions so as to make a good living and raise a family, while better, does not fully qualify.
Since 2003 Damon, along with collaborators, has been engaged in a study of 1,200 American youths between the ages of 12 and 26. He subdivides the young people in his study into four categories: the disengaged, the dreamers, the dabblers, and the purposeful. He considers one-fifth of the subjects to be purposeful; 25 percent he sees as disengaged, “showing no signs of anything remotely purposeful”; another quarter he labels dreamers, who have aspirations but have taken no steps to realize them; and another 31 percent are dabblers, “who have actively tried out a number of potentially purposeful pursuits, but without a clear sense of why they are doing so or whether they will sustain these interests into the future.”
Damon also provides readers with a description of some of the purposeful youth in the study. Consider Ryan Hreljac, who at age 12 “had been working six years [sic] to raise money for drinking wells in parts of rural Africa…With help from his family, Ryan started a foundation, established a Web site…, and raised over $2 million…. Ryan has won numerous awards, including the World of Children Founder’s Award, considered the equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize for youth service.”
Nina Vasan, 19, in her second year at Harvard, “has played sports competitively, hosted her own radio show, received the $50,000 grand prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, presented her research during the Nobel Prize festivities, was named one of the ten top Girl Scouts in the nation, ran the Olympic torch, and was a pageant winner as West Virginia’s Junior Miss. On top of all this, and more significantly, Nina founded and served as national President of American Cancer Society Teens….” And so on.
Neuroscientists Aamodt, editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience, and Wang, of Princeton University, explain how the human brain—with its 100 billion neurons—processes sensory and cognitive information, regulates our emotional life and forms memories. They also examine how human brains differ from those of other mammals and show what happens to us during dreams. They also tackle such potentially controversial topics as whether men and women have different brains (yes, though what that means in terms of capabilities and behavior, they say, is up in the air) and whether intelligence is shaped more by genes or environment (genes set an upper limit on people's intelligence, but the environment before birth and during childhood determines whether they reach their full genetic potential). Distinguishing their book are sidebars that explode myths—no, we do not use only 10% of our brain's potential but nearly all of it—and provide advice on subjects like protecting your brain as you get older. The book could have benefited from a glossary of neurological terms and more illustrations of the brain's structure. Still, this is a terrific, surprisingly fun guide for the general reader
Author: Mark Stein America's first century was defined by expansion and the negotiation of territories among areas colonized by the French and Spanish, or occupied by natives. The exact location of borders became paramount; playwright and screenwriter Stein amasses the story of each state's border, channeling them into a cohesive whole. Proceeding through the states alphabetically, Stein takes the innovative step of addressing each border-north, south, east, west-separately. Border stories shine a spotlight on many aspects of American history: the 49th parallel was chosen for the northern borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana because they ensured England's access to the Great Lakes, vital to their fur trade; in 1846, Washington D.C. residents south of the Potomac successfully petitioned to rejoin Virginia (called both "retrocession" and "a crime") in order to keep out free African-Americans. Aside from tales of violent conquest and political glad-handing, there's early, breathtaking tales of American politicos' favorite sport, gerrymandering (in 1864, Idaho judge Sidney Edgerton single-handedly "derailed" Idaho's proposed boundary, to Montana's benefit, with $2,000 in gold). American history enthusiasts should be captivated by this fun, informative text.
