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Customer Reviews (1)

From Ur to the return of 1951
This fascinating book covers 3000 years of the history and culture of the Jews of Iraq, from when Ur of the Chaldess fell to Elamite invaders in 1960 BC to 1951 with the mass exodus of the Jews of Iraq back to their ancient homeland of Israel.
It is divided into three parts.
Part I covers the period from the Assyrian Captivity to the Arab Conquest (731 BC- 641 AD), Part II overs The Encounter With Islam from 641 t0 1850, and Part III covers the monumental events of the last hundred yers of the Jewish presence in Iraq, from 1851 to 1951.
The book is self-contained and an interesting read, and covers such events as the Assyrian and Babylonian destruction of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, and the deportation of the Jews to Babylon, in captivity, the growth of Jewish communities in Babylon, and the long period when Babylon was the center of Jewish life in exile, after the destruction by the Romans of the Second Temple.
The author documents the ebb and flow of life for the Jews in the region, alternating between outright persecution and a tolerated dhimmni (inferior) status for the Jews.
He covers the
Mongol massacres of the Middle Ages, and Arab and Ottoman domination of Iraq.
Finally the book covers the Second World War, and the pro-Axis Rashid Ali regime of 1941, followed by the bloody Nazi-inspired pogroms, in which hundreds ofJews were massacred in Baghdad, known as the Farhud.
An independent Commisssion found that the Farhud had been caused by
* Nazi propaganda disseminated by the German legation.
* The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who in the name of Arabism and Islam conducted Nazi propaganda and incited against 'the Jews and the British'.
* Palestinian and Syrian schoolteachers who poisoned the minds of their students with Nazi propaganda
* Nazi broadcasts from Germany which greatly contributed to Nazi and anti-semitic propaganda in Iraq.
* Iraqi radio broadcasts, which spread reports of non-existant misdeeds in 'Palestine', containing open and agressive incitement against the Jews
and the Futtuwa and ArabYouth Brigades whose members imbibed Nazism from the Palestinians and Syrians and regularly attacked Jews.



The Jewish return to the Land of Israel, known as Zionism, exacrebated widespread persecution of Iraqi Jews. But the majority of Iraqi Jews remained loyal to Zionism, and in 1951, after bloody attacks on the Jews of Iraq, and persecution, 107 603 Jews were airlifted to Israel, and 16 000 reached Israel by other means.
Only a remmant remained in Iraq, and they were subjected to intensified persecution after the Hashemite monarchy was overthrown in 1958 and a succession of Revolutionary and totalitarian regimes followed.
... Read more

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Voicing Dissent presents a unique and original series of interviews with American artists (including Guerrilla Girls on Tour, Tony Shalhoub, Shepard Fairey, Sean Astin, and many others) who have voiced their opposition to the war in Iraq. Following Pierre Bourdieu's example, these discussions are approached sociologically and provide a thorough analysis of the relationships between arts and politics as well as the limits and conditions of political speech and action. These painters and graphic artists, musicians, actors, playwrights, theatre directors and filmmakers reveal their perceptions of politics, war, security and terrorism issues, the Middle East, their experiences with activism, as well as their definition of the artist's role and their practice of citizenship. Addressing the crucial questions for contemporary democracies - such as artists' function in society, the crisis of political legitimacy and representation, the rise of new modes of contestation, and the limits to free public speech - this book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, politics, and the arts.

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Customer Reviews (6)

Flojo y facilón
"Arte callejero y la guerra contra el terror" es el titulo de un libro que recopila muestras globales de arte callejero durante la administración Bush en Estados Unidos y críticas con sus políticas. Tras el subtítulo "como los mejores artistas del graffiti dijeron no a la guerra en Iraq" ofrece tanto una muestra interesante como algunas lagunas en su planteamiento.

En el libro estoy involucrado como autor con las cuatro imágenes que he donado de Washington DC. Y mientras me siento agradecido cada vez que tengo la oportunidad de diversificar las representaciones de esta ciudad y ofrecer algo de su lectura más compleja y distante, también es cierto que son muchos los que buscan perspectivas comunes tanto en su documentación de la ciudad como en sus intervenciones artísticas. En realidad es una sorpresa halagadora pero incómoda que DC sólo haya sido representado a través de mis fotos.

En muchos casos agrupar a todas las muestras bajo una protesta directa contra la llamada "guerra contra el terror" y la guerra y ocupación de Iraq se convierte en un grueso ejercicio de generalización. Un ejercicio que esconde matices obvios y no tan obvios, como el ramillete de protestas que están más relacionadas con sentimientos anticapitalistas, aspectos de la cultura estadounidense, o críticas a la idiosincrasia contemporánea, que relacionada explícitamente con el vigente gobierno estadounidense. Del mismo modo, los textos parecen no estar escritos en relación con los autores de las obras, ni en relación con los autores de la acción como los de la fotografía en si. Esto genera así un texto genérico, a menudo gratuito que responde a la reflexión personal de Xavier Tápies, editor al cargo de ese aspecto. Son comentarios que buscan a menudo ilustrar imágenes que no lo necesitan y peor aún muchas son las conclusiones sobre lo representado que no se corresponden con el contexto local. Es así en buena medida en las imágenes de Washington y en ese sentido añadiría doble valor la idea de ofrecer la imagen sin narrativa ajena en lugar de generar un relleno forzado.

Más: http://daquellamanera.org/?q=node/337

Pesimo
Nada que no se vea en Internet, realmente esperaba algo de analisis, historia, cronica y contexto. Pero noe s mas que imagenes que bien se pueden sacar de Flickr.

Great book on Public Art
As an Art teacher, I feel that this book is great for looking at images of public art. This book shows that art is happening everywhere in many different forms and artists can make their voices heard. The artists chosen for this book are some of the best artists of the street art/public art movement currently going on.

Shipped in timely manner
We found this book at the Tate Modern in London, and loved it.It's fascinating.However, with the currency exchange rate these days, it was much cheaper to find it in the states. This book was a Christmas gift for our family, and was shipped in good condition and in a timely manner.High marks!

not impressed
The collection of art in the book isn't bad, but the way it is presented and the captions accompanying the works leave a lot to be desired.I am not a Bush supporter, but i don't want to have a graffiti of a monkey likened to Bush without any evidence that the artist had that idea in mind.The captions are extremely anti-Bush and one dimensional; everything is about the illegal war in Iraq, the Bush war machine, or the Bush-Blair collaboration.I am a liberal, but anything this one sides invokes in me a desire to play devils advocate.Not an altogether well thought out or significant consideration of the art, but again, the art is good.And to be fair, -some- of the artists were "saying" exactly what the makers of this book wanted them to be saying. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best guide to the evolution of Iraqi Cultures
This is one of the most-complete works descibing the evolution of Iraqi cultures.My favorite quotes:
p. 15.The many Arabs, mostly Christian, living under Persian rule in lower Iraq at first supported their Persian masters against the Moslem invaders but gradually transferred their allegience.Persian power was completely submerged once the Arabs decided to occupy the area west of the Euphrates.Final subjugation of Iraq was accomplished under the second caliph, Omar, in a decisive battle at Al Qadisiyah in 637.The religion and, somewhat more slowly, the language of the conquerors were accepted by the majority of the population. The civilization of Iraq entered into a new phase with the advent of Islam but its essential continuity was not broken, and far from accepting the cultural elements brought by the victors it assimilated them so thoroughly that the Arab golden age that followed centered in Iraq, not Arabia.In this fusion it was the Arabs rather than the old population of Mesopotamia that were culturally absorbed.
Pg16--The Shiite doctrines attribute to Ali and his descendants a divine right to rule, a claim which accords with ancient Persian theories concerning the basis of kingly power. It contrasts with the Sunnite view, which emphasizes as the practical test of legitimacy the actual possession of power.
--The individual is bound to his kinsmen by a network of mutual obligations which is strongest within the extended family but which can also draw the whole lineage together in instances of any external threat. Where there are several lineages within a village, for example, rivalry is common and not infrequently leads to feuds; but in dealing with the outside world the village usually proves itself capable of acting as a unit.
The extended family, uniting a group of closely related males and their wives and children, has long been a more important unit of work and residence in the Iraqi village than the nuclear family composed of a married couple and their children.
--the non-kinship patterns of association found in the villages are perhaps more reliable than any other indicator in determining village class structure. The only formally organized groups found in Iraqi villages are the religious tariqahs (associations).Males of all classes may join a tariqah, and , theoretically at least, class lines are wiped out by membership; this is not true in fact, however, since the tariqahs are almost invariably controlled by men who are village leaders for other reasons There is little evidence, moreover, that contacts initiated within the tariqah carry over into other aspects of life.
--The bulk of the population continues to rely on the informal word-of-mouth communications which are the traditional news channels of the Middle East. The coffeehouse provides a center where news is read aloud and broadcasts are interpreted and discussed, later to reappear in distorted form as gossip in the marketplace or rumors in the public bath or in the courtyard of the mosque. The bedouin obtains news during infrequent visits to towns and villages and from wayfarers and merchants. On the rare occasions when a newspaper fins its way into a tribal area a sayyid (a person claiming descent from the Prophet Mohammed who often functions as a religious leader) may read and interpret it, but the average bedouin's zest for information traditionally has been limited to news concerning one's family and tribal matters .With the exercise of increasing control over tribal affairs by the government, it is likely that the bedouin's interest in events outside his own home is being whetted by access to the radio sets which are being acquired by more and more bedouin (and Kurdish) tribal leaders.
The rumor and gossip circulated by informal channels are not subjected to critical scrutiny or any process of verification. The significance of reports is magnified or minimized indiscriminately ; consequentlythe factual and emotional content of public opinion varies widely from place to place and is inevitably based upon a mixture of truths, half-truths, and falsehoods.
--The merchant in the Middle East traditionally has functioned as more than the link between producer and consumer. When he actually traveled with his goods he was the conveyor of news between towns and villages, and was often moneylender as well as trader. Many Iraqi merchants still combine these activities, but the trend is toward greater specialization and the new businessman is less than both merchant and banker.
--Two essentials of modern commerce--adequate credit and systematic market information--have developed only slowly and with difficulty in Moslem countries. Traditionally the religious injunction against the taking of interest worked against the growth of credit institutions in Moslem society, and Moslem merchant was forced to resort to devious and generally disapproved means of obtaining credit. A further handicap was present in the indifference of the old-style merchant to statistical information, which was no doubt related to his highly personal and informal way of doing business. Direct and indirect western influence, including the example of the European and indigenous non-Moslem enterprises in the country, has produced a new generation of Iraqi Moslem businessmen who have adopted modern methods and deprecate thereligious inhibitions and "backwardness" of their more conservative co-religionists.
--The tradition family in Iraq, as elsewhere in the Middle East, in addition to providing its members with support and social orientation in childhood, remains throughout their lives a primary agency for economic cooperation, social control, and mutual protection. The first loyalty of an individual is to his family--on whose wealth, welfare, and reputation are his own are to a considerable degree dependant.Prescriptions relating to family honor are binding, and there is a strong tradition of kin solidarity, reinforced by Islam but long antedating its event. Relatives may quarrel but in the face of an outside threat the family displays its fundamental cohesiveness.
Deeply ingrained family loyalty manifests itself in business and public life no less than in domestic matters and personal relationships. The mutually protective attitude of relatives is taken as a matter of course and kinsmen are expected to render one another special favors and services. Taken for granted, the widespread practice of securing employment and favored treatment for relatives bears no stigma of nepotism and relatives tend to be preferred business partners since they are more "reliable" than persons over whom one does not have the hold of kinship ties.

To see where Iraqi groups and subgroups came from, this is the best starting point for serious investigations. See the other resources at civilsocietyiraq on Kenneth Tyler's great seedwiki system. ... Read more

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In the winter of 1979 Nabeel Yasin, Iraq's most famous young poet, gathered together a handful of belongings and fled Iraq with his wife and son.Life in Baghdad had become intolerable.Silenced by a series of brutal beatings at the hands of the Ba'ath Party's Secret Police and declared an “enemy of the state,” he faced certain death if he stayed.

Nabeel had grown up in the late 1950s and early '60s in a large and loving family, amid the domestic drama typical of Iraq's new middle class, with his mother Sabria working as a seamstress to send all of her seven children to college. As his story unfolds, Nabeel meets his future wife and finds his poetic voice while he is a student.But Saddam's rise to power ushers in a new era of repression, imprisonment and betrayal from which few families will escape intact.In this new climate of intimidation and random violence Iraqis live in fear and silence; yet Nabeel’s mother tells him “It is your duty to write.”His poetry, a blend of myth and history, attacks the regime determined to silence him. AsNabeel’s fame and influence as a poet grows, he is forced into hiding when the Party begins to dismantle the city’s infrastructure and impose power cuts and food rationing.Two of his brothers are already in prison and a third is used as a human minesweeper on the frontline of the Iran-Iraq war. After six months in hiding, Nabeel escapes with his wife and young son to Beirut, Paris, Prague, Budapest, and finally England.

Written by Jo Tatchell, a journalist who has spent many years in the Middle East and who is a close friend of Nabeel Yasin’s, Nabeel's Song is the gripping story of a family and its fateful encounter with history. From a warm, lighthearted look at the Yasin family before the Saddam dictatorship, to the tale of Nabeel’s persecution and daring flight, and the suspense-filled account of his family’s rebellion against Saddam's regime, Nabeel's Song is an intimate, illuminating, deeply human chronicle of a country and a culture devastated by political repression and war.

Customer Reviews (2)

A universal story of courage and resistance
The celebrated Iraqi poet Nabeel Yasin and his family were front-row witnesses to the brutality, the indignities, and the humiliations of life under Saddam Hussein for more than three decades. In this lovingly written family biography, Jo Tatchell, a British freelance journalist and friend of Yasin, tells the story of Nabeel and his three brothers and two sisters, from the arranged marriage of their parents through the liberation of Baghdad in 2003 and the tragically sad years that followed.

In exploring the unique character of its subjects, Nabeel's Song relates not just the tale of one remarkable family but the human history of the Iraqi nation during the final third of the 20th Century and the opening years of the 21st.

Nabeel Yasin, known to this day as "The Poet of Baghdad," achieved acclaim as an artist early in life. The passion he invested in his poetry was matched by the fervor of his opposition to the regime of Saddam Hussein, but Nabeel was hardly alone in his discontent. Both his older brothers, one an Arab nationalist, the other a Communist, suffered even more at the hands of the regime, cycling in and out of Saddam's prisons and emerging again and again emaciated and wounded both physically and emotionally. Their siblings, too, were victims of the dictatorship, with a younger brother drafted into the carnage of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and a sister, a brilliant physician, forced to practice her profession in the country's very worst hospitals because she refused to join Saddam's Ba'athist Party.

Nabeel's Song neatly unfolds in two parts. The first, concluding in 1980 with Nabeel and his family's nerve-wracking flight from Iraq, covers the years of his childhood, youth, and early artistic success. Part 2 relates Nabeel's peripatetic exile, moving from country to country in an often futile search for work as a journalist or in academia before he, his wife, and children finally settle in the U.K., where they still live today.

This book gave me a fuller and more understandable picture of life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein than years of newspaper and magazine stories had managed to do. Nabeel's Song is well worth reading.

(From Mal Warwick's Blog on Books"

This is now being published at The Poet of Baghdad
This is a true biography of a man and his family who lived before, during, and after the reign of the despotic ruler Saddam Hussein in Iraq.You can read how he and his family suffered through beatings, incarcerations and murders of near relatives and friends and the activities of the terrorist regime of Saddam. Written with compassion and wit, a wonderful book! It is now being published as the Poet of Baghdad. ... Read more

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In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic—the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq—one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back—until he had a son of his own.

My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.

Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers—marvelous characters all— this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention.

Ariel Sabar's My Father's Paradise is the Winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (83)

totally engaging story, beautifully written
This is really an amazing story, so thoughtfully and artistically told, and so unlikely!Who knew about Aramaic as a modern language?Ancient history is woven together with personal journey, in a way that is both totally unique but at the same time completely universal.

Jewish Kurds
This was a really interesting story of language and culture. Prior to this book, I knew nothing of this minority group within the larger Jewish population. This story did a wonderful job of painting the picture of a culture and it's people.

Interesting History Lesson
This was more of a history and linguistics overview than novel. However, there was much to be learned and it was quite enjoyable.

AMAZING STORY
This book was a beautiful surprise, with relationships unfolding and developing.How a man's culture will always be with him.I have new respect and awe for people who are excluded and ultimately have to move to a new country, learn new languages and culture.
Great book.

People with humble beginnings often reach greatness

Yona Sabar was born in a Zakho, a little village in Iraqi Kurdistan. His family had a relatively comfortable life according to the standard of living in those days. For many generations, Jews, Christians lived in harmony with the Muslim majority. Everything changed after November 1947 when the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews in Palestine did accept that resolution, but the Arab League did not. In May 1948, the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, declared an Independent State of Israel. Within hours, the armies of Iraq, with other four Arab countries invaded Israel. They were all defeated by the nascent Jewish Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Then, Anti -Jewish measures were taken against the Jewish population in Zakho, throughout Iraq and in other Arab countries. Eventually, in 1951 the entire Jewish population in Zakho was compelled to leave Iraq, for Israel.

In Israel Yona Sabar's family faced financial difficulties and hurdles of acclimatization. Many immigrants became disenchanted; some felt they had fallen into an existential funk. Jewish Kurds, at that time were considered to be uneducated, inferior to the Jewish immigrants from Europe. Zabar claims that"Kurds were treated like the scum of the earth. A generation of Kurdish Jews had been spit on by a society that should have known better" These are exaggerated statements. Some Israelis might have been rude and prejudice but not the Israeli "society" as a whole. Not every Israeli made crude and derogatory comments. Many compassionate Israelis did reach out to help ALL immigrants and all Israeli citizens paid a special Absorption Tax. Sabar had assumed that Ashkenazi parents (descendants of Jews from Western and Central Europe) will not permit their daughter to date a Kurdish Jew or any Sephardic Jew (descendant of Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal before their expulsion in the late 15th). In the book, From A Name to A Number, a Holocaust survivor from Poland writes: " Rina and I toyed with the idea of getting married. However, her parents, objected to the marriage without even knowing me. They insisted that their daughter marries a Sephardic Jew, as they were. Rina planned once to invite me to celebrate Passover with her family, but her parents discouraged her. We were heartbroken." Regretfully, stereotyping breeds worldwide. However such shopworn attitudes of segregation are no longer as prevalent as they used to be sixty years ago in Israel, U.S. or in other countries. Intermarriage and mixed marriages are quite common nowadays. Common humanity has been demolishing dividing walls of nationality, race and faith.

Israel was facing monumental challenges in absorbing hundreds of thousands of new emigrants from over one hundred countries of various cultures. Some immigrants from Rumania felt somewhat worse off than immigrants from Poland and so on. Jews from Yemen, a very underdeveloped country, were completely lost in the modern state of Israel. Given a refrigerator they used it for storing shoes rather than food. They had never seen a refrigerator before. Today, sixty years later, many of those primitive Yemenites are doctors, engineers, generals etc. Given a chance, the potential of the uneducated from the most backward environment will blossom.
In the book, A Lucky Child, Thomas Buergenthal, a Holocaust survivor who had been incarcerated during his early school years became an international law professor and a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He is a symbol of intelligence and erudition. A little Jewish boy, classified by the Nazis, to be inferior, proved himself to be superior. A victim of human rights violations became an ardent human rights advocate. I was inspired by Buergenthal's tenacity and resilience; he is a shining example of human dignity. So is, in my view, Yona Sabar who had risen above deprivation.He had won in Israel a prestigious research grant and came to the U.S. to study. Eventually he became a distinguished professor at UCLA and an eminent scholar of Neo-Aramaic. He had proven that "Ana Kurdi" could make it.

Throughout history most beginnings are thorny. Only people forged in steel, who, at heir beginnings, suffered hunger, deprivation, and disabilities reached greatness! It is a well-known fact that a person that grows without worries and is comfortable economically reaches, at best scenario, mediocre levels. Most of the greatest inventors, and the renowned started to get their education at a later age. Their first experiments were conducted in primitive cellars or poorly equipped workshops. A pampered person could not have endured those harsh conditions.

Yona Sabar, the father had a deep longing for the cultural environment and religious upbringing in his old country. Ariel Sabar, the son, born in the U.S., distanced himself from his father's tradition and heritage. He felt embarrassed the way his father talked or dressed."Everyone - except for me, saw things to admire about my father" As a young man, Ariel Sabar had no interest in his father's heritage and family's past. Later on, married and having his own son, Ariel found the need and duty to make a record of his family's past, and culture even when few people might findinterest in it. Ariel Sabar deserves credit for it. MY FATHER'S PARADISE is very well written. Yona and Ariel Sabar's life stories enhanced my knowledge. I am grateful to learn from both of them.

... Read more

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This book explores the culture of deference by the legislative branch to the executive branch on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the George W. Bush administration’s rush to war in Iraq in 2003. By authorizing President Bush to go to war in Iraq at his own discretion in its October 2002 resolution, the 107th Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility and its members failed to honor their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Although the "war powers" are constitutionally those of Congress, historically presidents have engaged in war making and Congress has with limited success attempted to curb such war making. This book traces how this culture of deference to the chief executive on war making evolved and how, especially in the case of Iraq, it has adversely affected the interests of the nation, its constitutional framework, and its position in the world. This book will serve as an excellent text for courses on U.S. foreign policy, U.S. diplomatic history, and the role of Congress. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

How to make a baseless arguement 101
I had the misfortune of not only being assigned this book in class (which had to be bought new because he would not allow us to buy used) but of also being taught by the author.This book makes a wonderful example for this individual's incompetence in IR, foreign relations and history.Much in the same way he made his "arguments" in class, he makes them in this book.I put arguments in quotes because they were more like edicts than arguments in that there was no valid support made. ... Read more

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Schechter's insightful, wide-ranging critique of the American media's war coverage targets the way in which a virtual merger between the Pentagon and the media produced a war spectacle that the American public was primed to see, media collusion in the campaign to discredit the UN, "rightwing liberation theology" as war propaganda, the cosy relationship between news anchors and retired officers hired as military analysts, the controversies over Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera, the looting of Baghdad, the lack of media focus on civilian casualties, the disparities in coverage between U.S. and foreign media, and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

From Robert Furs, Counterbias.com
Danny Schechter, a television producer and independent filmmaker, is a notable figure in the media community. As a writer and speaker focused on media issues, Schechter brings to the table a more leftward viewpoint than that which is found in today's mainstream media (no, the media isn't as 'liberal' as Fox News may tell you, and the fact that people like Schechter no longer exist in the mainstream is testament to that).

Schechter is extremely critical of the way the media has conglomerated into a mass of right-leaning, sensationalistic, pro-authority and screw-everyone-else insanity, and, as the inside jacket states, Embedded is his analysis of the media's "cheerleading for a war in which reporting was sanitized, staged, and suppressed".

Why introduce Schechter's new book, Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception, with a seemingly unrelated description of his blog? Well, because the book is the blog. With little much else, the book isn't much more than entries taken directly from his web writings, rearranged, formatted into a columnized, newspaper-like format, and printed in book form, with hopes of making a tidy profit (one could say that by selling the book, he wishes to disseminate his views to a wider audience, but then what audience is wider than the internet on which the book's contents already appear?).

Unfortunately, the fact that most everything in the book is simply reproduced from widely-available online form (the archives are all still online, and worth going through if time is spare), is not the book's worst problem.

The blog-grabbing nature wasn't constrained to content alone-even spelling and punctuation errors are taken straight from the online text, and they simply haven't been corrected. Quality control is minimal, with spelling, punctuation, and even factual errors, all quite eminent. It's as if the book was thrown together in a matter of days, without much contextual editing-if any at all-to go along with it.

Further, the books format-a virtual replication of blog entries-make it much less readable as a book. There is absolutely no flow to the many short, albeit interesting and informative, entries. The choppy nature of a blog, with new entries once a day or less rather than a continuous flow, mean that the book version contains much repetition that may grate on the reader's nerves (the MSNBC Ashleigh Banfield saga that Schechter is fond of mentioning feels as though it is repeated fifty times in the book).

With all its faults, Embedded is an entertaining and somewhat informative read for citizens still lost in the pro-war media fog, who are unwilling to read 286 pages of text on a bright computer screen. The short tidbits are fun to skim and the book is a witness to the faults in the media's Iraq War coverage. Unfortunately, Schechter's obvious left-wing bias may turn off some, and the lazy nature of the book will likely displease most others. Schechter's fifth book is Embedded in mediocrity. He can surely do better.

A GreatDeal of Effort
It is obvious that a great deal of effort went into writing this book. Unfortunately it is heavy-handed without much substance.
Also the author seems to have a personal chip on his shoulder so it is not very objective. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2005. The length of the article is 4623 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Iraq and moral judgement.(The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life)
Author: Richard Neuhaus
Publication: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 156Page: 71(6)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Explains the situations the Kurds are now in, and assesses what may happen in the future. Illustrated with colour photographs and 1 map. A new title in the THREATENED CULTURES series, relevant to the National Curriculum Geography Key Stage 3. ... Read more

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Deborah L. Jaramillo investigates cable news' presentation of the Iraq War in relation to "high concept" filmmaking. High concept films can be reduced to single-sentence summaries and feature pre-sold elements; they were considered financially safe projects that would sustain consumer interest beyond their initial theatrical run. Using high concept as a framework for the analysis of the 2003 coverage of the Iraq War -- paying close attention to how Fox News and CNN packaged and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- Ugly War, Pretty Package offers a new paradigm for understanding how television news reporting shapes our perceptions of events.

Product Description
This digital document is an article from American Scholar, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2007. The length of the article is 1079 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Inshallah: the war in Iraq might leave us a new word to match a new sense of our own limitations.(Tuning Up)(inshallah, an Arabic phrase which means "if God wishes")
Author: Cullen Murphy
Publication: American Scholar (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 76Issue: 4Page: 14(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1317 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Provides comprehensive coverage of the foods and recipes of approximately 75 cultural groups from more than 60 countries. Entries provide 10-15 recipes for each group and include data on the agriculture and dietary habits of each group as well as an overview of each group's nutrition and health. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Sojourners, published by Thomson Gale on August 1, 2004. The length of the article is 762 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: In Iraq, the truth is out there: camcorders subvert the 'official' war story.(Culture)
Author: Danny Duncan Collum
Publication: Sojourners (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 33Issue: 8Page: 40(1)

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