The Last Utopia

The Last Utopia
Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2012-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674256522
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Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.

Forging a Total Force

Forging a Total Force
Author: Forrest L. Marion
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2018
Genre: United States
ISBN: 9780160943881
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"Forging a Total Force traces the evolution of the Guard and reserve from the Revolutionary War-era militias to today's operational reserve, an integral part of the nation's total force. In the early republic, the ideal of a citizen-solider, capable of taking the field with little or no training, predominated. The realities of modern combat slowly made it clear that a more professional force was required, but policy changes failed to keep up with that changing necessity. The nation struggled to provide adequate training and equipment to the reserve component throughout the Cold War until the idea of a Total Force, which integrated regular and reserve components, emerged and was achieved. It wasn't until the defense buildup of the 1980s that the ideal of a combat-ready reserve became reality. The core of this book focuses on what came next, from 1990 to 2011, with particular emphasis on the decade after 9/11. The Persian Gulf War demonstrated both the effectiveness of the reserve and the challenges it continued to face. The post-Cold War drawdown during the 1990s made the smaller active component more dependent on the reserves than it had been since the nation's founding. The reserve component proved itself yet again in the wars following 9/11, but also became strained as it became clear just how much the nation depended on its Guard and reserve. Finally, the authors detail the policy changes made midstream in an attempt to address issues with the overextended force, such as balancing training and deployment with civilian lives and careers, providing health care to reservists, and integrating the active and reserve components. The authors conclude by detailing the issues policymakers will face as they forge ahead with citizen-soldiers serving as an operational force."--Provided by publisher.

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030

The Future of Nursing 2020-2030
Author: National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9780309685061
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The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.