This book reintroduces the U.N. Charter to the global audience by describing the Charter as the most important seculardocument in the world, for it is essentially the constitution of global governance to which all nations are bound, even if some honor it in the breach. The co-authors explain the core principles embedded in the Charter, which embodies codified customary international law for all nations. But the book also introduces pragmatic interpretations of key Charter provisions to mod...

American reluctance to join the International Criminal Court illuminates important trends in international security and a central dilemma facing U.S. Foreign policy in the 21st century. The ICC will prosecute individuals who commit egregious international human rights violations such as genocide. The Court is a logical culmination of the global trends toward expanding human rights and creating international institutions. The U.S., which fostered these trends because they served American na...

Getting to grips with the overlapping geopolitical, economic, and political crises faced by Western democratic societies in the 2020s. The 21st century has brought a powerful tide of geopolitical, economic, and democratic shocks. Their fallout has led central banks to create over $25 trillion of new money, brought about a new age of geopolitical competition, destabilised the Middle East, ruptured the European Union, and exposed old political fault lines in the United States. Disorder: ...

Chomsky observes the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a "Path to a Better World," while chronicling how far off the trail the United States is with respect to actual political practice and conduct. Analysing the contradictions of U.S. power while illustrating the real progress won by sustained popular struggle, Chomsky cuts through official political rhetoric to examine how the United States not only violates the UD, but at times uses it as a weapon to wield...

What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.Although Kagan asserts that much of the current pessim...

When it comes to spotting political abuses and covert conspiracies designed to strip Americans of their rights and freedoms, no one is more vigilant than #1 New York Times bestselling authors Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (Screwed!, Revolt!, Fleeced, Outrage). In their latest call-to-arms, Here Come the Black Helicopters!, Morris and McGann expose the most potent threat to American sovereignty to date: the brazen and treacherous Liberal...

In recent years American politics has seemingly become much more partisan, more zero-sum, more vicious, and less able to confront the real problems our nation faces. What has happened?In The Second Civil War, respected political commentator Ronald Brownstein diagnoses the electoral, demographic, and institutional forces that have wreaked such change over the American political landscape, pulling politics into the margins and leaving precious little common ground for compro...

"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —Michael Hirsh, New York Times Book ReviewIn 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.Globalization is a choice, not a fact. ...

An assessment of the state of the Democratic Party in the new millennium, the betrayal of progressive ideals, and how real change can happen.The 2006 elections put the Democrats in the majority in both houses of Congress, yet those hoping for change were deeply disappointed. Likewise, the striking victory of Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2008 created a wave of optimism, but the promise would not be fulfilled. In this book, Lance Selfa looks at the Democrats in ...

The United Nations has been called everything from "the best hope of mankind" to "irrelevant" and "obsolete." With this much-needed introduction to the UN, Jussi Hanhimaki engages the current debate over the organizations effectiveness as he provides a clear understanding of how it was originally conceived, how it has come to its present form, and how it must confront new challenges in a rapidly changing world. After a brief history of the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of ...

Although it lasted only a single term, the presidency of George H. W. Bush was an unusually eventful one, encompassing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, and contentious confirmation hearings over Clarence Thomas and John Tower. Bush has said that to understand the history of his presidency, while "the documentary record is vital," interviews with members of his ad...

Now in a comprehensively updated edition, this indispensable handbook analyzes how international humanitarian law has evolved in the face of these many new challenges. Central concerns include the war on terror, new forms of armed conflict and humanitarian action, the emergence of international criminal justice, and the reshaping of fundamental rules and consensus in a multipolar world. ThePractical Guide to Humanitarian Law provides the precise meaning and content for over 200 terms such ...