Product Description
With a thrilling narrative that sheds much light on recent events, this national bestseller brings to life the 1953 CIA coup in Iran that ousted the country’s elected prime minister, ushered in a quarter-century of brutal rule under the Shah, and stimulated the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist, it now features a new preface by the author on the folly of attacking Iran. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (164)

Iranian history
This is one of the best books I ever read.The author very carefully details the history of Iran in the twentieth century and identifies the themes emerging from it that have come to inform Iranian history, views, and passion since then.The writer is very objective and scholarly in transcending narrow rhetoric and biases in order to get at the real story.I would recommend this fine piece of work to anyone.

All the Shah's Men:Questions Answered
"So what's the story with Iran?What's that mess all about?"I don't remember where I heard this, but it was on TV somewhere (maybe I read it somewhere).Regardless, it's a question that maybe a lot of us ask, but never really took the time to answer.After reading Kinzer's Overthrow, I was curious about American involvement in Iran and this book answered all of my questions.For the length of the book, Kinzer answered a lot of questions and showed how often agenda having government bureaucrats can change the course of history.What Kinzer does well is that he takes a plethora of information and drills it down into a regular sized book.Some people complain that he could have gone more in-depth, but I feel his penetration of the subject is just right.A really great book that leaves you thinking.

The politics of greed and fear...
A clear, concise history of 50+ years in US, Iran, and UK relations and the coup that toppled Mossadegh's government, a coup motivated by Britain's need to control Iran's oil supply and the Eisenhower administrations rising fear of potential growth in communist influence. You meet the major players:Truman, Mossadegh, Churchill, the Shah, Eisenhower, the Dulles brothers, and Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Teddy Roosevelt and a CIA operative) who masterminded the plan.The author then takes you full circle to present when he visits Mossadegh's house at Ahmad Abad, Iran, in 2002 and confronts the confused legacy left to the Iranian people, weighing short term political gains vs. long term consequences.

an excellent book about Mossadegh and the US coup that toppled his goverment
Doubtlessly, Stephen Kinzer is a gifted writer.His book All the Shah's Men tells the story of Mohammad Mossadegh who was briefly prime minister of Iran in 1952-3 before getting overthrown by a secret United States coup.Unlike his book on Turkey, Crescent and Star, this book is primarily based on research and not personal experience in the country he writes about.Nevertheless, you can easily tell that Kinzer deeply feels for Mossadegh, and Kinzer's Epilogue, where he tells about his own personal pilgrimage to the home and town where Mossadegh was imprisoned the last 11 years of his life, is extremely moving and revealing.

As is Kinzers habit, just underneath the surface of his text is a warning and a message on current United States foreign policy.Surely, this 1952-3 story of the overthrow of the Iranian government has lots to teach us about Iran, but the story is a little more complicated.

As an aside, in the book we learn of yet another sordid episode in the history of British Petroleum, initially created as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company!!!... the nationalization of which the entire 1953 coup was about!

Impressive
One of the best history books I've ever read, just can't imagine it could be writen in better way. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the only book on the market reviving the traditional American activity of brewing old-fashioned drinks like sarsaparilla and birch beer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Homemade Sodas
This book has much information and recipes for making sodas at home. I am looking forward to using this information to make an orange cream soda.

Soda Pop
I AM AN EMPLOYEE OF A MAJOR SOFT DRINK COMPANY FOR OVER 20 YEARS. I LOVE MY JOB AND THE PRODUCTS WE MANUFACTURE. IN THE LAST FEW YEARS I HAVE BECOME MORE INTERESTED IN THE LESS MAIN STREAM COLA AND LEMON LIME DRINKS DRINKS AND WANTED TO MAKE MY OWN. ROOT BEER AND GINGER ALES ARE MY FAVORITE AND I THINK THIS IS A GREAT BOOK ON LEARNING THE CRAFT OF BREWING YOUR OWN SOFT DRINKS. THE BOOK ALSO IS A GREAT HISTORY OF SODA OR POP IN THE "GOOD OLE DAYS".

Good for Beginners, but check the Internet for the same info
I homebrew beer and wine, so perhaps I'm not the target reader for this book, but I found Cresswell's book to be very light on specifics - especially in regards to flavors. I was particularly frustrated encountering such lines as, "This is one of many ingredients on my list to try," (yarrow leaves, page 91). Really? And you're the author of the only currently-published book on making soda? Shouldn't you familiarize yourself with a particular ingredient before you suggest its use?

There is interesting historical information in this book, and some recipes that look like they will be tasty, but as other reviewers have mentioned, many of these recipes are useful only for those east of the Appalachian mountains, because many of the necessary roots and herbs are not available fresh in the Western USA. This is a disappointing oversight on the part of the publisher, who should've pressed the author to do a bit of research to make this a more useful volume.

Home made sodas isa rare find
This book is a rarity. The recipes helps give me good ideas on what to try next with make my own sodas.

Great Book!!!
Just got this delivered yesterday. It was everything I was expecting & will be making some of the recipes once I relocate to another state.

... Read more

Product Description
Sure to provoke discussion and debate as it offers a unique approach to some old and perplexing issues in the history of ancient Israel and its religion, Cook’s study is a bold new proposal for synthesizing the social history of Israel’s religious traditions. Among the many "Yahwisms" coexisting in ancient Israel was an initially small minority stream of theological tradition composed of geographically and socially diverse groups in northern and southern Israel. These groups shared a religious commitment to a covenantal, village-based, land-oriented Yahwism that arose before the emergence of Israelite kingship. It eventually rose to dominance, and its theology provided robust resources for dealing with the Babylonian exile. It thus came to occupy a prominent place in the present canon of the Hebrew Bible. Cook combines detailed study of biblical texts with a carefully constructed social-scientific method and body of data to argue for the early origins of biblical Yahwism. This book is written to be accessible to lay readers and also of significant interest to Hebrew Bible students and specialists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

solid, if sometimes repetitive, linking of important biblical themes
Stephen Cook's latest work brings together several pieces of the Hebrew Bible in supporting his thesis that the Bible contains throughout two basic worldviews in competition with one another. The first, which Cook favors, he calls the "Sinai tradition," found(perhaps surprisingly)in the 8th century prophetic books of Micah and Hosea, the Deuteronomistic History (Deut-2 Kings) the "E" strand of the Pentateuch, and the "Psalms of Asaph" (Ps 50, 73-81). Cook weaves these seemingly desparate texts together in making a solid case for their comprising together over two centuries of consistent proclamation of a rural, agrarian-based, decentralized, tribal, covenant way of life under the rule of YHWH. Cook argues well that the tradition is carried by the rural Levites.

In opposition to this Sinai tradition is the Zion tradition, which supports the opposite social structure, that of the urban, centralized, hierarchical life of Jerusalem and Samaria. This tradition is carried by the urban priests and royal retainers of the capital cities.

Cook shows clearly how it is the Sinai tradition that the Bible truly favors as YHWH's way for YHWH's people. That this is the case is also clear beyond Cook's book in how the New Testament writers almost unanymously call on the Sinai traditions in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah, despite the Davidic and Zion components of popular messianic expectations in the first century.

Cook writes with zest and as the teacher he is, sometimes honoring his students by quoting their papers or other comments. I commend him for recognizing the wisdom of those who have come seeking his wisdom as a scholar, the sign of a truly good teacher.

My only criticisms are relatively minor (I'd like to give the book 4 1/2 stars). He has a penchant, which becomes irritating, for describing topics he likes but doesn't have space to cover as "fascinating." I counted over a dozen uses of the term before I quit counting. Similarly, he seeks too often to bolster his argument by claiming that evidence he has presented is "clear," "convincing," or otherwise unarguable. As a law professor and former judge once taught me, watch out when someone claims that their argument is "unarguable." Cook's evidence is solid and his rhetorical effort to make it seem stronger tends to undermine his case rather than strengthening it.

All in all, though, a fine contribution to the growing understanding of how the Bible contains multiple points of view which reflect the same kind of internal arguments that takes place in Judaism, Christianity and Islam today. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Roots of the Republic shows how the Constitution was a product, not simply of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but of a legal and philosophical tradition almost two centuries old. The editors have selected eighteen key documents in the development of that tradition and reproduced them with essays that explain what they mean, why they were written, and why they are important today. Each key document is accompanied by an interpretive essay written by a contemporary scholar. These essays focus on the importance of each frame of government and include commentaries on why they are meaningful today. Intended to help readers learn how to read and understand these documents, the book is also a handy reference and a strong introduction to the development of political thought and the debates surrounding the formation of the state governments and the federal union. ... Read more

Product Description
The Catholic Roots of the Protestant Gospel is concerned withanti-Catholic bias in Protestantism. It wishes to show that the specialconcepts of salvation in Protestantism actually arose from Catholic ideas andthat these same concepts became distorted or one-sided as Protestantism soughtto negate their orthodox Catholic opponents.Among the doctrines discussed are included the following: justification byfaith, assurance of salvation, imputation of righteousness, covenant theology,penal substitution, limited atonement, and supralapsarianism.The work is filled with historical analysis, theological insights, andecumenical exhortations. The historian will find a thorough analysis ofprimary and secondary sources of the Reformation. The theologian will bechallenged with fresh approaches to traditional doctrines. The ecumenist willbe heartened by its spirit and analysis of subjects that suffer too often fromanti-Catholic bias. ... Read more

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
Thirty-three years after American presidential candidate JohnF. Kennedy was backpedaling from his Roman Catholic religion,President Bill Clinton said that one's faith should inform one'spolitical actions. Stephen Burgard, a journalist with the LosAngeles Times, shows how all churches can cooperate throughpolitically active interfaith councils in making concrete changes intheir communities--while avoiding the dogmatic confrontations thathave marked politics on the national level. Objective and pragmatic,Hallowed Ground can make a difference in communitieseverywhere. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Comfortable Profundity


The book consists of 25 articles by various scholars on the absence and presence of individuality from ancient Egypt to our computer age.

On page 261, C. S. Mann, one of the editors, says
One of the frustrating elements of this enterprise is not only an increasing awareness on the part of most of us that the modern notion of the individual is far later in emerging than we might have supposed, but there is the equal dilemma of knowing precisely how to define the individual, that individual being with unique qualities and with concerns which in each case mark one person off from another. Ancient (and not so ancient) societies were far less concerned for the welfare of the individual than they were for the place of the individual in society.

Great thinkers and the heavy artillery of philosophy and psychology are brought to bear on this acquired notion of individuality and political and economic facets illuminate our contemporary news. Individuality is a notion of surprising neglect as it is a surprising nexus, a root of Western Civilization.

The book is a comfortable, engaging, expansive read.

Strangely, individuals have no sex.
... Read more

Product Description
This policy-relevant study of US Foreign policy, written in the light of September 11, examines US actions since the 1970s in the critical geographical arena of the Middle East. It argues that the more that the US has militarized the region, the less secure have the American people become. The US faces a stark contrast: to continue imposing a Pax Americana, or to promote real peace based on human rights, international law and sustainable development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

2 is for the effort
I thought this would be a factual book. I did not bother to look deep into it......why?Because it seemed evident to me by thumbing through the book, that it was a Jewish view slant on current world affairs, now in the breastpocket of current government officials. However, if you want more of this kind of thinking, then by all means read it. It is dated material. ... Read more

Product Description
Sinking Your Roots in Christ is one volume in an eight-volume series of daily devotional guides that focus on the personal disciplines of Bible study, prayer, and meditation. ... Read more