The Honest Broker

The Honest Broker
Author: Roger A. Pielke, Jr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2007-04-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139464825

Scientists have a choice concerning what role they should play in political debates and policy formation, particularly in terms of how they present their research. This book is about understanding this choice, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences of such choices for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise. Rather than prescribing what course of action each scientist ought to take, the book aims to identify a range of options for individual scientists to consider in making their own judgments about how they would like to position themselves in relation to policy and politics. Using examples from a range of scientific controversies and thought-provoking analogies from other walks of life, The Honest Broker challenges us all - scientists, politicians and citizens - to think carefully about how best science can contribute to policy-making and a healthy democracy.

Honest Broker

Honest Broker
Author: Pedro Latoeiro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2022-07-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1787388867

Based on exclusive interviews with the United Nations Secretary-General himself, this is the first book to explain how António Guterres thinks and operates, in an era of renewed great power competition and rising nationalism. The UN leader was re-elected for a second term starting in 2022; yet, after five years in the job, Guterres' discreet diplomacy continues to intrigue even politicians, diplomats and analysts. Honest Broker introduces a world leader to the world public, revealing Guterres' profound religion convictions, and his views on issues as wide-ranging as women's rights, gay rights, global terrorism and the political influence of social media. Pedro Latoeiro and Filipe Domingues tell the story of an extraordinary life, from Guterres' long association with the Clintons, and the mistakes and defeats that led to his resignation as Portuguese prime minister; to his decade advocating for the world's most vulnerable as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the diplomatic plotting to sabotage his candidacy for the top job. Through over 120 interviews about Guterres' life and career before he became Secretary-General, speaking with several former heads of state or government and senior UN officials, the authors help us understand what can be expected from the head of the United Nations as he confronts the challenges of the 2020s.

Honest Broker?

Honest Broker?
Author: John P. Burke
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2009-04-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1603441026

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” “Who will be guarding the guardians?”—Juvenal The U.S. president’s decisions on national security and foreign policy reverberate around the world. The National Security Council (NSC) and the national security advisor are central to the decision making process. But how was the role of the national security advisor originally understood, and how has that understanding changed over time? Above all, how has the changing role of the national security advisor affected executive decisions and the implementation of policy? Now, presidential scholar John P. Burke systematically and thoroughly addresses these questions. In Honest Broker?, he reviews the office of national security advisor from its inception during the Eisenhower presidency to its latest iteration in the White House of George W. Bush. He explores the ways in which the original conception of the national security advisor—as an “honest broker” who, rather than directly advocate for any certain policy direction, was instead charged with overseeing the fairness, completeness, and accuracy of the policymaking process—has evolved over time. In six case studies he then analyzes the implications of certain pivotal changes in the advisor’s role, providing thoughtful and sometimes critical reflections on how these changes square with the role of “honest broker.” Finally, Burke offers some prescriptive consideration of how the definition of the national security advisor’s role relates to effective presidential decision making and the crucial issues of American national security. Honest Broker? will be an important resource for scholars, students, political leaders, and general readers interested in the U.S. presidency, foreign policy, and national security

Honest Broker?

Honest Broker?
Author: John P. Burke
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781603440981

Examines the history of the office of national security in the United States from its inception, describing how the role of the national security advisor to the president has evolved between the 1950s and 2000s, and discusses the influence of the national security advisor on the commander in chief's decisions.

Brokers of Deceit

Brokers of Deceit
Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2013-03-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0807044768

Winner of the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. In this book, acclaimed historian Rashid Khalidi zeroes in on the United States’s role as the purported impartial broker in this failed peace process. Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States’ involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine. The first moment he investigates is the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, when Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin refused to accept the Reagan administration’s proposal to reframe the Camp David Accords more impartially. The second moment covers the period after the Madrid Peace Conference, from 1991 to 1993, during which negotiations between Israel and Palestine were brokered by the United States until the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. Finally, Khalidi takes on President Barack Obama’s retreat from plans to insist on halting the settlements in the West Bank. Through in-depth research into and keen analysis of these three moments, as well as his own firsthand experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 pre–Oslo negotiations in Washington, DC, Khalidi reveals how the United States and Israel have actively colluded to prevent a Palestinian state and resolve the situation in Israel’s favor. Brokers of Deceit bares the truth about why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, US policymakers have masqueraded as unbiased agents working to bring the two sides together, when, in fact, they have been the agents of continuing injustice, effectively preventing the difficult but essential steps needed to achieve peace in the region.

Music

Music
Author: Ted Gioia
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1541617975

"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a four-thousand-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how outcasts, immigrants, slaves, and others at the margins of society have repeatedly served as trailblazers of musical expression, reinventing our most cherished songs from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day. Music: A Subversive History is essential reading for anyone interested in the meaning of music, from Sappho to the Sex Pistols to Spotify.

Dishonest Broker

Dishonest Broker
Author: Naseer Hasan Aruri
Publisher:
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2003
Genre: Arab-Israeli conflict
ISBN:

This latest work by Naseer Aruri focuses on the failed Middle East "peace process." Aruri analyzes the evolving relationship between the United States and the two protagonists--the Palestinians and Israel--and argues that the U.S. rejectionist policy toward Palestinian participation and Palestinian rights has become a policy that focuses more on the process and than on peace. Aruri argues that the special relationship between the United States and Israel turned into a strategic alliance after the war in 1967--ruling out a role of honest brokering for the United States--all other would-be peacemakers and facilitators were held at bay. The U.S. diplomatic -monopoly continues to serve as the single most effective means to accomplish Israel's goals. It sustains Israel, protecting it from international scrutiny, and engineers the gridlock that allows the Israeli government to negotiate indefinitely. Bolstered by September 11, U.S. policy at present, is Israel's: fix the blame on the Palestinian partner, declare Arafat unfit to rule, and demand his removal. Aruri demonstrates how American diplomacy has come to a grinding halt, providing a cover for Ariel Sharon's Israel to crush the Palestinians. Naseer Aruri is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, and the former co-chair of Amnesty International. He lectures widely on the politics and history of the Middle East.

When The Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm

When The Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm
Author: Layne Redmond
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
Total Pages: 582
Release: 2021-08-05
Genre: History
ISBN:

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history. Artistic representations reveal that female frame drummers carried the spiritual traditions of many of the earliest recorded civilizations. During those ancient times, the drummer-priestesses held the keys to experience of the divine through rhythm. They were at the center of the goddess worship of matriarchal societies until the ascendance of patriarchal cultures and the loss of drumming as a spiritual technology. With wisdom and passion, Redmond chronicles our species’ deep connection to the drum, our rich heritage of inseparable spirituality and music, and the modern-day women reclaiming it. This book encourages readers—both women and men—to reestablish rhythmic links with themselves, nature, and other people through the power of drumming. Redmond illustrates her message with an extensive collection of images gathered during ten years of research and travel. Woven throughout the book are strands of ancient ritual and mythology, personal stories, and scientific evidence of the benefits of drumming. It is at once a history, a memoir, and a resounding call for spiritual and social renewal.

Unpacking My Library

Unpacking My Library
Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Eris
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781912475841

"I fully realize that my discussion of the mental climate of collecting will confirm many of you in your conviction that this passion is behind the times, in your distrust of the collector type. Nothing is further from my mind than to shake either your conviction or your distrust." Walter Benjamin was one of the great cultural critics of the twentieth century. In Unpacking My Library he offers a strikingly personal meditation on his career as a book collector and on the strange relations that spring up between objects and their owners. Witty, erudite and often moving, this book will resonate with bibliophiles of all kinds. Eris Gems make available in the form of beautifully produced saddle-stitched booklets a series of outstanding short works of fiction and non-fiction.

Films from the Future

Films from the Future
Author: Andrew Maynard
Publisher: Mango Media Inc.
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1633539067

“Deftly shows how a seemingly frivolous film genre can guide us in shaping tomorrow’s world.” —Seth Shostak, senior astronomer, SETI Institute Artificial intelligence, gene manipulation, cloning, and interplanetary travel are all ideas that seemed like fairy tales but a few years ago. And now their possibilities are very much here. But are we ready to handle these advances? This book, by a physicist and expert on responsible technology development, reveals how science fiction movies can help us think about and prepare for the social consequences of technologies we don’t yet have, but that are coming faster than we imagine. Films from the Future looks at twelve movies that take us on a journey through the worlds of biological and genetic manipulation, human enhancement, cyber technologies, and nanotechnology. Readers will gain a broader understanding of the complex relationship between science and society. The movies mix old and new, and the familiar and unfamiliar, to provide a unique, entertaining, and ultimately transformative take on the power of emerging technologies, and the responsibilities they come with.