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Hoover Institution's Documents
The Syrian Rebellion, by Fouad Ajami
In The Syrian Rebellion, Fouad Ajami offers a detailed historical perspective on the current rebellion in Syria. Focusing on the similarities and the differences in skills between former dictator Hafez al-Assad and his successor son, Bashar, Ajami explains how an irresistible force clashed with an immovable object: the regime versus people who conquered fear to challenge a despot of unspeakable cruelty. Although the people at first hoped that Bashar would open up the prison that Syria had become under his father, it was not to be—and rebellion soon followed. Offering a detailed historical perspective, Ajami shows how, for four long decades, the Assad dynasty, the intelligence barons, and the brigade commanders had grown accustomed to a culture of quiescence and silence. But Syrians did not want to be ruled by Bashar's children the way they had been ruled by Bashar and their parents had been by Bashar's father. When the political hurricane known as the Arab Spring hit the region, Bashar al-Assad proclaimed his country's immunity to the troubles. He was wrong. This book tells how a proud people finally came to demand something more than a drab regime of dictatorship and plunder. Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the co-chair of the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
Category:PoliticsReads:732Uploaded:04 / 20 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionCalifornia's Greek Tragedy, by Michael J. Boskin and John F. Cogan
Appeared in the Wall Street Journal March 13, 2012.
Category:Op-EdReads:130Uploaded:03 / 30 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionTalk of the Tower, Spring 2012
A quarterly newsletter featuring the activities of the Hoover Institution and commentary from its fellows and task forces.
Category:Brochures/CatalogsReads:134Uploaded:03 / 30 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionBook of Lists
This inaugural Book of Lists is designed to showcase the myriad ways that Hoover Institution research affects the development of public policy.
Category:Brochures/CatalogsReads:161Uploaded:03 / 29 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionEric Hoffer: The Longshoreman Philosopher, by Tom Bethell
A truly original American writer and thinker, Eric Hoffer was free of the practical pressures that steer many people of an intellectual disposition into conventional channels of thought. He lay beyond the peer pressure, grant-hunting, and cultural intimidation that stultify much of the academic world today. He always had the courage to stand alone. Three books about Hoffer were published in his lifetime, all of them now out of print. But now, in this volume, Tom Bethell offers a new, detailed biography of the man who became known as the "Longshoreman Philosopher." In addition to drawing from Hoffer's private papers and interviews with those who knew him, Bethell spent time interviewing Hoffer in the years just before his death. His meticulous accounts of these meetings offer new insights into this often enigmatic but always fascinating man.
Category:BiographyReads:421Uploaded:03 / 13 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionState of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department, by Kori N. Schake
Imagining a State Department as effective as the US military Conventional wisdom in Washington in recent years has maintained that the US State Department is dramatically undernourished for the work required of US civilian power. Developed in reaction to the proposition that America's civilian agencies could not be made as successful as the military, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department shows how the deficiencies in focus, education, and programmatic proficiency impede the work of the State Department and suggests how investing in those areas could make the agency significantly more successful at building stable and prosperous democratic governments around the world. Kori Schake explains why, instead of burdening the US military with yet another inherently civilian function, work should focus on bringing those agencies of the government whose job it is to provide development assistance up to the standard of success that our military has achieved. Schake presents a vision of what a successful State Department should look like and seeks to build support for creating it. She offers suggestions aimed at creating a solid basis for civilian-led US diplomacy, imagining a State Department that actually does lead US foreign policy and makes possible the projection of US civilian power as well as US military force.
Category:PoliticsReads:475Uploaded:03 / 09 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionIsrael and the Struggle over the International Laws of War, by Peter Berkowitz
In recent years, the term lawfare has come to describe the use of international law as a political weapon. The Goldstone Report, which was published by the United Nations in September 2009, and the Gaza flotilla controversy, which erupted at the end of May 2010, are examples of it. In both cases, UN officials, distinguished lawyers, and diplomats put forward weak or indefensible legal arguments to condemn actions taken by Israel in self-defense. In this book, Peter Berkowitz exposes these abuses of the international laws of war by bringing into focus the flawed assumptions on which they rest and refuting the defective claims they promulgate. Berkowitz shows that the Goldstone Report engaged in disreputable fact-finding and misapplied the relevant legal tests, even as its mission lacked proper foundations in international law. And he demonstrates that the arguments presented in the Gaza flotilla controversy to condemn Israel's blockade of Gaza as unlawful prove on inspection to be unsound and insubstantial. In both cases, he explains, the result has been to reward terrorists who, in gross violation of the international laws of war, deliberately efface the distinction between civilian and military objects and to punish liberal democracies—in particular Israel and the United States—that expose their soldiers and civilian populations to heightened risk in the quest to wage war lawfully. Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he chairs the Koret-Taube Task Force on National Security and Law. He was cofounder and director of the Israel Program on Constitutional Government, has served as a senior consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics, and is a member of the Policy Advisory Board at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Category:PoliticsReads:394Uploaded:03 / 06 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionPolicy Review - February & March 2012, No. 171
Policy Review is the preeminent publication for new and serious thinking and writing about the issues of our day. This journal became a publication of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, beginning with Issue 107 in 2001. Tod Lindberg, who in 1999 became editor of Policy Review, continues in that capacity, and has also been appointed research fellow at Hoover. The journal will continue to be based in Washington, D.C. — expanding the Hoover Institution’s presence in the nation’s capital. Policy Review and the Hoover Institution are well matched. They share a commitment to free and rigorous inquiry into the American condition, into the workings of government and of our political and economic systems and those of others, and into the role of the United States in the world. They both bring together scholars with an interest in current affairs and journalists interested in exploring our world in greater depth. They both take up topics not as exercises in theory, but for the purpose of better understanding the world and the betterment of people’s lives. They both are committed to civil discourse, the airing of reasoned disagreement, and a vigorous and open debate. They both are diligently independent, not least in affirming and guarding the independence of those associated with them in the community of informed discussion. As the Hoover Institution has been a premier home for serious scholars, so Policy Review has been a premier vehicle for serious writers and thinkers. As an editorially independent publication of the Hoover Institution, Policy Review will both draw on the intellectual resources of the institution and bring new people into contact with it, exponentially expanding serious dialogue about politics and policy.
Category:Magazines/NewspapersReads:543Uploaded:01 / 26 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionLessons From the Great Expansion, by Henry R. Nau
Appeared in the Wall Street Journal January 26, 2012.
Category:Op-EdReads:142Uploaded:01 / 26 / 2012ShareAdd to collectionEconomics for the Long Run, by John B. Taylor
Appeared in the Wall Street Journal January 25, 2012.
Category:Op-EdReads:186Uploaded:01 / 25 / 2012ShareAdd to collection
