Author: YAAKOV KATZ The shadow war between Israel and Iran has been raging for more than three decades, ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 ushered in a fundamentalist regime whose sworn enemies have consistently included, first and foremost, Israel and the United States. Israel, especially, has borne the brunt of attacks from Irans two most powerful proxiesHamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Irans nuclear ambitions raise the stakes immeasurably. Israel vs. Iran evaluates the threat to Israels security posed by a nuclear Iran, including competing perceptions of the threat, and analyzes Israels military and diplomatic options.Drawing on in-depth research and invaluable access to the Israeli defense establishment, including interviews with key decision makers, Israeli military correspondent Yaakov Katz and Israeli military historian Yoaz Hendel describe behind-the-scenes Israeli strategic military deliberations and intelligence analysis since the Second Lebanon War of 2006. The authors focus on pivotal military events in this shadow war with Iran, including the Syrian reactor bombing and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, as well as assassinations of key Hezbollah operatives, Iranian nuclear scientists, and Syrian officials.Assassinations, computer viruses, and Western sanctions might not be enough to stop Iran, the authors argue. They outline the choice Israel faces: launch a military strike, which could lead to an all-out regional war, or tacitly accept a nuclear Iran, which would lead to a new balance of power in the Middle East. In 2012 Israel appears closer than ever to making a decision.
Author: edited by Jorge I. Domínguez, Kenneth F. Greene, Chappell H. Lawson, and Alejandro Moreno
In 2012, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)which had governed Mexico with an iron grip for 71 years before being ousted in 2000was surprisingly returned to power. In Mexico's Evolving Democracy, a team of distinguished political scientists delivers an exceptional analysis of the remarkable 2012 Mexican elections. Extending the scholarship that the editors generated in their panel studies of the 2000 and 2006 elections, the book assesses all three elections from both traditional and nontraditional vantage points, seeking fuller answers to the lingering question of why this maturing democracy returned the party associated with Mexicos old regime to office. To evaluate the PRIs rehabilitation and eventual electoral success, the authors explore Mexicos electoral institutions, parties, candidates, campaign strategies, public opinion surveys, and media coverage. They also delve into issues of clientelism, corruption, drugs, violence, and the rise of new protest movements in the run-up to and aftermath of the elections. Not only does the book provide rich detail for Latin American electoral and democratization scholars, but its coherent narrative will also appeal to those unfamiliar with Mexican politics. Parts one and two offer an excellent recap of the state of play in 2012; part three analyzes why Mexicans voted as they did; and part four considers the elections implications for Mexicos political system more broadly.
Author: By Scott Hubbard; Foreword by Bill Nye
The Red Planet has been a subject of fascination for humanity for thousands of years, becoming part of our folklore and popular culture. The most Earthlike of the planets in our solar system, Mars may have harbored some form of life in the past and may still possess an ecosystem in some underground refuge. The mysteries of this fourth planet from our Sun make it of central importance to NASA and its science goals for the twenty-first century. In the wake of the very public failures of the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999, NASA embarked on a complete reassessment of the Mars Program. Scott Hubbard was asked to lead this restructuring in 2000, becoming known as the "Mars Czar." His team's efforts resulted in a very successful decade-long series of missions--each building on the accomplishments of those before it--that adhered to the science adage "follow the water" when debating how to proceed. Hubbard's work created the Mars Odyssey mission, the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Phoenix mission, and most recently the planned launch of the Mars Science Laboratory. Now for the first time Scott Hubbard tells the complete story of how he fashioned this program, describing both the technical and political forces involved and bringing to life the national and international cast of characters engaged in this monumental endeavor. Blending the exciting stories of the missions with the thrills of scientific discovery, Exploring Mars will intrigue anyone interested in the science, the engineering, or the policy of investigating other worlds.
Author: Phyllis Rodriquez-Peralta
Over the past century, the Philadelphia Orchestra has earned its reputation as one of the finest orchestras in the world. Philadelphia Maestros tells the tale of this marvelous orchestra through the tenures of three conductors: Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. With their singular approaches to sound and public image, all three maestros left an indelible mark on the Orchestra, and the cultural life of the city of Philadelphia. A lifelong fan and scholar of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Phyllis White Rodríguez-Peralta paints intimate portraits of the conductors using archival material and interviews with musicians, including pianists Gary Graffman and Lang Lang, and violinist Sarah Chang. Rodríguez-Peralta's text captivates as she recounts Eugene Ormandy's performance as a last-minute substitute for guest conductor Arturo Toscanini; Riccardo Muti's magnetic presence and international fame; and the role of Wolfgang Sawallisch in moving the Orchestra to its grand new hall at the Kimmel Center. Engaging and entertaining, Philadelphia Maestros will be a welcome addition to any aficionado's bookshelf.
Author: Henry Corbin
In this work a distinguished scholar of Islamic religion examines the mysticism and psychological thought of the great eleventh-century Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), author of over a hundred works on theology, logic, medicine, and mathematics. Henry Corbin's discovery in an Istanbul library of the manuscript of a Persian translation of and commentary on Avicenna's Hayy ibn Yaqzan, written in Arabic, led him to an analysis of three of Avicenna's mystical recitals. These form an initiatory cycle leading the adept along the path of spiritual progress. In Part I Corbin summarizes the great themes that show the philosophical situation of Avicennan man in the cosmos and presents translations of these three great Avicennan recitals. Part II is a complete translation, with notes, of the Persian commentary.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Author: Spencer Schaffner
From meadows to marshlands, seashores to suburbs, field guides help us identify many of the things we find outdoors: plants, insects, mammals, birds. In these texts, nature is typically represented, both in words and images, as ordered, clean, and untouched by human technology and development. This preoccupation with species identification, however, has produced an increasingly narrow view of nature, a binocular vision, that separates the study of individual elements from a range of larger, interconnected environmental issues. In this book, Spencer Schaffner reconsiders this approach to nature study by focusing on how birds are presented in field guides. Starting with popular books from the late nineteenth century and moving ultimately to the electronic guides of the current day, Binocular Vision contextualizes birdwatching field guides historically, culturally, and in terms of a wide range of important environmental issues. Schaffner questions the assumptions found in field guides to tease out their ideological workings. He argues that the sanitized world represented in these guides misleads readers by omitting industrial landscapes and so-called nuisance birds, leaving users of the guides disconnected from environmental degradation and its impact on bird populations. By putting field guides into direct conversation with concerns about species conservation, environmental management, the human alteration of the environment, and the problem of toxic pollution, Binocular Vision is a field guide to field guides that takes a novel perspective on how we think about and interact with the world around us.
Author: Jeffrey R. Henig
Why is it so difficult to design and implement fundamental educational reform in large city schools in spite of broad popular support for change? How does the politics of race complicate the challenge of building and sustaining coalitions for improving urban schools? These questions have provoked a great deal of theorizing, but this is the first book to explore the issues on the basis of extensive, solid evidence. Here a group of political scientists examines education reform in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., where local governmental authority has passed from white to black leaders. The authors show that black administrative control of big-city school systems has not translated into broad improvements in the quality of public education within black-led cities. Race can be crucial, however, in fostering the broad civic involvement perhaps most needed for school reform. In each city examined, reform efforts often arise but collapse, partly because leaders are unable to craft effective political coalitions that would commit community resources to a concrete policy agenda. What undermines the leadership, according to the authors, is the complex role of race in each city. First, public authority does not guarantee access to private resources, usually still controlled by white economic elites. Second, local authorities must interact with external actors, at the state and national levels, who remain predominantly white. Finally, issues of race divide the African American community itself and often place limits on what leaders can and cannot do. Filled with insightful explanations together with recommendations for policy change, this book is an important component of the debate now being waged among researchers, education activists, and the community as a whole.
Author: Paul Verlaine
Poems Under Saturn is the first complete English translation of the collection that announced Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) as a poet of promise and originality, one who would come to be regarded as one of the greatest of nineteenth-century writers. This new translation, by respected contemporary poet Karl Kirchwey, faithfully renders the collection's heady mix of classical learning and earthy sensuality in poems whose rhythm and rhyme represent one of the supreme accomplishments of French verse. Restoring frequently anthologized poems to the context in which they originally appeared, Poems Under Saturn testifies to the blazing talents for which Verlaine is celebrated. The poems display precocious virtuosity, mingling the attractions of the flesh with the longings of the spirit. Greek and Hindu myth give way to intimate erotic meditations and wickedly satirical society portraits, mythological landscapes alternate with gritty narratives of mid-nineteenth century Paris, visions of happiness yield to nightmarish glimpses of deep alienation, and real and imaginary characters--including Achilles, Valmiki, Charlemagne, and Spain's baleful King Philip II--all figure as the subject matter of a supremely ambitious young poet. Poems Under Saturn presents the extraordinary devotion and intense musicality of an artist for whom poetry remained the one true passion.