Halliburton’s Army – How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War.  Pratap Chatterjee. Nation Books, New York, 2009.   This is a book the Halliburton/KBR can live with.  It airs out their dirty laundry:  the bribes, kickbacks, the inefficient work, the near slave labour conditions of... » read this article

In Mortal Hands – A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age.  Stephanie Cooke.  Bloomsbury, New York, 2009.   In an era when the corporate media and the corporate politicians and the corporate military men gang up together and denounce and threaten other countries because of their nuclear related activities, they... » read this article

Reviews on Amazon "This book contains so much amazing detail that it takes a while to absorb it all. The author's background gives him credibility, and the connections between the political class, organized crime, corporate media and Israeli connections are well researched." "This explosive tour de force by former Senate... » read this article

Violence in the holy land – Witnessing the Conflict in the Middle East. Ed. Robert Wolf. Free River Press, Lansing, Iowa. 2004.   The original concept for this work, as described by the editor Robert Wolf, is that of a writing workshop during which Israeli and Arab participants discuss aspects of... » read this article

Zed Books, New York, 2008    “The Uncultured Wars” comprises an excellent series of thought provoking essays, the excellence deriving from their ability to provoke thought that should be one of the hallmarks of academic works.  As such Steven Salaita writes as an advocate of a position rather than pretending... » read this article

This latest collection of essays by the controversial Israeli writer will not disappoint both admirers and antagonists of this iconoclastic anti-Zionist, most definitely the greatest thorn in Israel's very own backyard. Shamir has known controversy most of his life, notably when he was forced to leave the Soviet Union for... » read this article

20 December 2008 Written and directed by Darnell Martin In 1941 renowned folklorist Alan Lomax traveled to the impoverished Mississippi Delta region on behalf of the US Library of Congress to record a 26-year-old sharecropper named McKinley Morganfield. The expedition took place just four months before the US entered World... » read this article

Overview   Robert Kagan is a difficult subject to analyze.  At times his writing seems to be very honest and directly critical of U.S. intentions as well as being clearly honest about the sometimes “dangerous nation” aspect of its history and foreign policy.  Underlying it all however is his own... » read this article

Hamas vs. Fatah – The Struggle For Palestine.  Jonathan Schanzer. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008.    I’m not sure where to start with this volume – other than to say it is a history so out of context and so biased in its language that it is essentially meaningless.  If... » read this article

DURING recent months various events in Colombia have been commented on by Fidel in his habitual "Reflections," published in the Cuban press. The humanitarian operation sponsored by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, which culminated in the release on January 10 of Clara Rojas and Consuelo González, held by the guerrilla forces.... » read this article

Jim Miles' review of: The Limits of Power – The End of American Exceptionalism.  Andrew J. Bacevich. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2008.  Before the war in Iraq started Robert Kagan wrote a wonderful little narcissistic view of the United States and its abilities to provide peace... » read this article

Jim Miles' Book Review of Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of Palestine. By William A. Cook. EXPATHOS, Groningen, Netherlands, 2008.   The cover of Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: the Rape of Palestine tells a significant story on its own: from a Palestine of green dotted with a few Jewish settlements,... » read this article

The Secret War With Iran.  Ronen Bergman.  Free Press (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2008.  [Translated from “Nekudat Ha’al Chazor”]   If one knew little about the Middle East and its many strands of religious, political, military, and strategic interests, this seemingly well written work would have the reader believing... » read this article

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is one of the most interesting and informative books I have read. I suppose I am not alone in such an assessment, as the book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book » read this article

  Hernando Calvo Ospina�s recent book, Colombia, Laboratorio de Embrujos: Democracia y Terrorismo del Estado is the most important study of Colombian politics in recent decades and essential reading in light of the Western media�s and... » read this article

ISRAEL:  Good for America?   Criticizing and exposing the powerful public role of American Zionism in shaping US policy in the Middle East is the biggest taboo in US politics. Politicians, academics, journalists, prelates and ordinary American citizens who publicly voice their dissent are targeted for political purges, denied academic... » read this article

WE SHOULDN�T EXIST: PRELIMINARY NOTES FROM NO MAN�S LAND   The following is an excerpt from the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published this month by AK Press. To learn more about the book, please visit http://www.RedStateRebels.org.    We are not supposed to... » read this article

Jim Miles book review of: Palestine Inside Out - An Everyday Occupation By Saree Makdisi W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2008   This has been one of the most difficult books that I have ever read.  It removed me from my academic detachment with which I read the majority... » read this article

Pens and Swords � How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  Marda Dunsky.  Columbia University Press, New York, 2008.   In an era when American foreign policy has reached the pinnacle of unilateralism by invading other countries pre-emptively, threatening others with nuclear annihilation, and abrogating in doing so... » read this article

True to the American manner of meeting challenges and desiring to overcome them, a recent Time magazine cover led off with the title �How to Win The War On Global Warming� [1].   Accompanying that article, the UN Secretary-General demonstrated his Washington consensus credentials with a commentary titled �The Right War.�[2] ... » read this article