Employing a narrative approach that uncovers the tangled and often confusing nature of foreign affairs, Crucible of Power focuses on the personalities, security interests, and post-war/Cold War tendencies behind the formulation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy since 1945. The book includes updated coverage of the Bush administration's foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the Middle East. Selections from key foreign policy documents appear in each chapter.

Life's biggest setbacks and disasters can actually be essential passageways in our relationship with God and opportunities to grow in leadership. In this illuminating guidebook, Gayle D. Beebe identifies seven crucibles—powerful catalysts for transformation—that, when embraced, shape us on our journey and become a bedrock for a better, richer faith.

Content Description #Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

The term “community organizer” was deployed repeatedly against Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign as a way to paint him as an inexperienced politician unfit for the presidency. The implication was that the job of a community organizer wasn’t a serious one, and that it certainly wasn’t on the list of credentials needed for a presidential résumé. In reality, community organizers have played key roles in the political lives of American cities for decades, perhaps never more so than during the 1970s in Chicago, where African Americans laid the groundwork for further empowerment as they organized against segregation, discrimination, and lack of equal access to schools, housing, and jobs. In Crucibles of Black Empowerment, Jeffrey Helgeson recounts the rise of African American political power and activism from the 1930s onward, revealing how it was achieved through community building. His book tells stories of the housewives who organized their neighbors, building tradesmen who used connections with federal officials to create opportunities in a deeply discriminatory employment sector, and the social workers, personnel managers, and journalists who carved out positions in the white-collar workforce. Looking closely at black liberal politics at the neighborhood level in Chicago, Helgeson explains how black Chicagoans built the networks that eventually would overthrow the city’s seemingly invincible political machine.

"In Crucibles of Leadership, esteemed leadership author and thinker Robert J. Thomas profiles successful leaders from all walks of life, focusing on the role experience has played in their success. In vivid stories of leadership from United Parcel Service to the United States Marine Corps, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Hells Angels, you see firsthand how leaders learn from experience, and how they leverage what they learn." -- Back Cover