The Dispensable Nation For Mac

• The Dispensable Nation

In his seminal work critiquing the fast food industry, Eric Schlosser presents an eye-opening account of the effects companies like McDonald’s have had on the American population that extend far beyond its waistline. Not only does he examine the monopolization of the beef and corn industries by corporate giants, but he also takes a closer look at the socioeconomic implications affecting workers. In each of the chapters, the human component that propels the behemoth machine forward is often at a disadvantage–most of the fast food employees are kept working part-time (to avoid the benefits of full-time employment) and automation often makes them dispensable. It’s this mechanized process that truly strikes a chord with Schlosser as being the dark underbelly of fast food greed. Originally published in 2001, the book’s observations still resonate. He traces the history of the fast food industry and reflects on the stranglehold it’s had on our country since World War II. Schlosser delves deep, even exploring the evolution of fast food production.

He visits the flavor scientists who are responsible for manipulating and delivering the Whopper and the Big Mac flavors so many of us crave. In another chapter, he discusses a potato factory that has perfected the science of chopping and slicing to get that ideal, crunchy french fry.

Listen to 'The Dispensable Nation American Foreign Policy in Retreat' by Vali Nasr available from Rakuten Kobo. Narrated by Stephen Hoye. Start a free 30-day trial today and get your first audiobook free.

In all of these instances, the human component is largely removed in preparation and enjoyment of food. We might as well be mechanized robots inhaling the laboratory experiments presented before us. After reading and rereading this book numerous times over the years, one still can’t help but feel shocked at the lack of changes the fast food industry has taken to protect its workers as well as its consumers.

If only the time and effort spent on sales and marketing went into improving the quality of all the various lives within the fast food nation.

Author by: Vali Nasr Language: en Publisher by: Anchor Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 88 Total Download: 307 File Size: 54,9 Mb Description: In a brilliant and revealing book destined to drive debate about the future of American power, Vali Nasr questions America’s dangerous choice to engage less and matter less in the world. Vali Nasr, author of the groundbreaking The Shia Revival, worked closely with Hillary Clinton at the State Department on Afghan and Pakistani affairs. In The Dispensable Nation, he takes us behind the scenes to show how Secretary Clinton and her ally, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, were thwarted in their efforts to guide an ambitious policy in South Asia and the Middle East. Instead, four years of presidential leadership and billions of dollars of U.S. Spending failed to advance democracy and development, producing mainly rage at the United States for its perceived indifference to the fate of the region. After taking office in 2009, the Obama administration had an opportunity to fundamentally reshape American foreign policy, Nasr argues, but its fear of political backlash and the specter of terrorism drove it to pursue the same questionable strategies as its predecessor.

Meanwhile, the true economic threats to U.S. Power, China and Russia, were quietly expanding their influence in places where America has long held sway. Nasr makes a compelling case that behind specific flawed decisions lurked a desire by the White House to pivot away from the complex problems of the Muslim world. Drawing on his unrivaled expertise in Middle East affairs and firsthand experience in diplomacy, Nasr demonstrates why turning our backs is dangerous and, what’s more, sells short American power.

The United States has secured stability, promoted prosperity, and built democracy in region after region since the end of the Second World War, he reminds us, and The Dispensable Nation offers a striking vision of what it can achieve when it reclaims its bold leadership in the world. Author by: David F. Schmitz Language: en Publisher by: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 86 Total Download: 563 File Size: 45,8 Mb Description: As National Security Advisor to President Gerald Ford, advisor to President Ronald Reagan, and as National Security Advisor to President George H. Bush, Brent Scowcroft was at the center of the ongoing debate over how to shape American foreign policy in the post-war world. Schmitz makes clear in his new biography, Scowcroft was a realist in his outlook on American foreign policy and an heir to the Cold War internationalism that had shaped that policy since 1945. The type of bi-partisan cooperation and internationalism that marked the pre-Vietnam War years served as Scowcroft's guide to how to defend American interests and promote U.S. Values and institutions globally.

While not always successful, Scowcroft provided a consistent internationalist voice in the midst of change. Author by: Robert G. Kaufman Language: en Publisher by: University Press of Kentucky Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 43 Total Download: 977 File Size: 41,8 Mb Description: Much like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, President Barack Obama came to office as a politician who emphasized conviction rather than consensus.

During his 2008 presidential campaign, he pledged to transform the role of the United States abroad. His ambitious foreign policy goals included a global climate treaty, the peaceful withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a new relationship with Iran. Throughout Obama's tenure, pundits and scholars have offered competing interpretations of his 'grand strategy,' while others have maintained that his policies were incoherent or, at best, ad hoc.

In Dangerous Doctrine, political scientist Robert G. Kaufman argues that the forty-fourth president has indeed articulated a clear, consistent national security policy and has pursued it with remarkable fidelity.

Yet Kaufman contends that President Obama has imprudently abandoned the muscular internationalism that has marked US foreign policy since the end of World War II. Drawing on international relations theory and American diplomatic history, Kaufman presents a robust critique of the Obama doctrine as he situates the president's use of power within the traditions of American strategic practice. Focusing on the pivotal regions of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, this provocative study demonstrates how current executive branch leadership threatens America's role as a superpower, weakening its ability to spread democracy and counter threats to geopolitical order in increasingly unstable times. Kaufman proposes a return to the grand strategy of moral democratic realism, as practiced by presidents such as Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, with the hope of reestablishing the United States as the world's dominant power. Author by: Javid Husain Language: en Publisher by: Springer Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 99 Total Download: 835 File Size: 51,7 Mb Description: This book delineates the role that Pakistan should play in the largely anarchic world of the twenty-first century in order to best serve the country’s long-term national interests.

Its main aim is to lay down the parameters within which Pakistan’s grand strategy should be formulated, taking into account the evolving global and regional security environment and Pakistan’s historical experience. Provided here is an in-depth analysis and critical evaluation of the past record of Pakistan’s foreign policy within this context, bringing out its successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses. Based on these analyses, a comprehensive approach is recommended for safeguarding Pakistan’s national security and promoting its prosperity utilizing a strategy that is a marked departure from the military-dominated, uni-dimensional policies the country has followed thus far. Besides providing guidelines to Pakistan’s policy makers and intelligentsia, this book will be of interest to academics, foreign observers, and general readers in understanding the constraints and parameters within which Pakistan – a de facto nuclear-weapon state of 190 million people at the cross-roads of South Asia, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf – must operate to safeguard its national interests in the turbulent times ahead. Author by: Hassan Abbas Language: en Publisher by: Yale University Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 20 Total Download: 962 File Size: 53,9 Mb Description: In autumn 2001, U.S. And NATO troops were deployed to Afghanistan to unseat the Taliban rulers, repressive Islamic fundamentalists who had lent active support to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda jihadists.

The NATO forces defeated and dismantled the Taliban government, scattering its remnants across the country. But despite a more than decade-long attempt to eradicate them, the Taliban endured—regrouping and reestablishing themselves as a significant insurgent movement. Gradually they have regained control of large portions of Afghanistan even as U.S. Troops are preparing to depart from the region. In his authoritative and highly readable account, author Hassan Abbas examines how the Taliban not only survived but adapted to their situation in order to regain power and political advantage.

The Dispensable Nation

Abbas traces the roots of religious extremism in the area and analyzes the Taliban’s support base within Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In addition, he explores the roles that Western policies and military decision making—not to mention corruption and incompetence in Kabul—have played in enabling the Taliban’s return to power. Author by: Colin Dueck Language: en Publisher by: Oxford University Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 34 Total Download: 812 File Size: 54,7 Mb Description: By mid-2015, the Obama presidency will be entering its final stages, and the race among the successors in both parties will be well underway. And while experts have already formed a provisional understanding of the Obama administration's foreign policy goals, the shape of the 'Obama Doctrine' is finally coming into full view. It has been consistently cautious since Obama was inaugurated in 2009, but recent events in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Far East have led an increasingly large number of foreign policy experts to conclude that caution has transformed into weakness. In The Obama Doctrine, Colin Dueck analyzes and explains what the Obama Doctrine in foreign policy actually is, and maps out the competing visions on offer from the Republican Party. Dueck, a leading scholar of US foreign policy, contends it is now becoming clear that Obama's policy of international retrenchment is in large part a function of his emphasis on achieving domestic policy goals.

There have been some successes in the approach, but there have also been costs. For instance, much of the world no longer trusts the US to exert its will in international politics, and America's adversaries overseas have asserted themselves with increasing frequency. The Republican Party will target these perceived weaknesses in the 2016 presidential campaign and develop competing counter-doctrines in the process. Dueck explains that within the Republican Party, there are two basic impulses vying with each other: neo-isolationism and forceful internationalism. Dueck subdivides each impulse into the specific agenda of the various factions within the party: Tea Party nationalism, neoconservatism, conservative internationalism, and neo-isolationism. He favors a realistic but forceful US internationalism, and sees the willingness to disengage from the world by some elements of the party as dangerous. After dissecting the various strands, he articulates an agenda of forward-leaning American realism-that is, a policy in which the US engages with the world and is willing to use threats of force for realist ends.

The Obama Doctrine not only provides a sharp appraisal of foreign policy in the Obama era; it lays out an alternative approach to marshaling American power that will help shape the foreign policy debate in the run-up to the 2016 elections. Author by: Bruce D. Jones Language: en Publisher by: Brookings Institution Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 71 Total Download: 632 File Size: 50,8 Mb Description: Is the United States still a 'superpower'? How are the rising powers establishing themselves in international politics and security? What is the future of global stability? For over a decade, Bruce Jones has had a front-row seat as the emerging powers—principally China, India, and Brazil, but also Turkey, Indonesia, Korea, and others—thrust themselves onto the global stage. From Delhi to Doha to Beijing to Brasilia, he's met with the politicians, diplomats, business leaders, and scholars of those powers as they craft their strategies for rising influence—and with senior American officials as they forge their response.

In Still Ours to Lead, Jones tells a nuanced story of American leadership. He artfully examines the tension between the impulse to rival the United States and the incentives for restraint and cooperation among the rising powers. That balance of rivalry and restraint provides the United States with a continued ability to solve problems and to manage crises at roughly the same rate as when American dominance was unquestioned.

Maintaining the balance is central to the question of whether we will live in a stable or unstable system in the period to come. But it just so happens that this challenge plays to America's unique strength—its unparalleled ability to pull together broad and disparate coalitions for action. To succeed, America must adapt its leadership to new realities. Author by: Michael J.

Glennon Language: en Publisher by: Oxford University Press, USA Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 84 Total Download: 430 File Size: 55,7 Mb Description: Why has U.S. National security policy scarcely changed from the Bush to the Obama administration? And why does it matter? The theory of 'double government' posed by the 19th century English scholar Walter Bagehot suggests a disquieting answer. The public is encouraged to believe that the presidency, Congress, and the courts make security policy.

That belief sustains these institutions' legitimacy. Yet their authority is largely illusory. National security policy is made, instead, by a 'Trumanite network' of several hundred members that is largely concealed from public view. Author by: James Livingston Language: en Publisher by: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 22 Total Download: 385 File Size: 50,5 Mb Description: The World Turned Inside Out explores American thought and culture in the formative moment of the late twentieth century in the aftermath of the fabled Sixties. The overall argument here is that the tendencies and sensibilities we associate with that earlier moment of upheaval decisively shaped intellectual agendas and cultural practices from the all-volunteer Army to the cartoon politics of Disney movies in the 1980s and 90s.

By this accounting, the so-called Reagan Revolution was not only, or even mainly, a conservative event. By the same accounting, the Left, having seized the commanding heights of higher education, was never in danger of losing the so-called culture wars. At the end of the twentieth century, the argument goes, the United States was much less conservative than it had been in 1975. The book takes supply-side economics and South Park equally seriously. It treats Freddy Krueger, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Ronald Reagan as comparable cultural icons.' Author by: Thomas P.M.

Barnett Language: en Publisher by: Penguin Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 50 Total Download: 931 File Size: 45,7 Mb Description: The Pentagon's New Map was one of the most talked-about books of the year - a fundamental reexamination of war and peace in the post-9/11 world that provided a compelling vision of the future. Now, senior advisor and military analyst Thomas P.M.

Barnett explores our possible long- and short-term relations with such nations and regions as Iran, Iraq, and the Middle East, China and North Korea, Latin America and Africa, while outlining the strategies to pursue, the entities to create, and the pitfalls to overcome. If his first book was 'a compelling framework for confronting twenty-first century problems' (Business Week), Barnett's new book is something more - a powerful road map through a chaotic and uncertain world to 'a future worth creating.'