In October 1963, President Kennedy proposed withdrawing from Vietnam, gaining him a durable reputation as a skeptic on the war. However, drawing on secret White House tapes, Marc Selverstone reveals that JFK never had a firm intention to withdraw. The real value of the proposal lay in obtaining political cover for his open-ended Vietnam policy.

Two of our most celebrated intellectuals grapple with the uncertain aftermath of the American collapse in Afghanistan “Through the structure of a deeply engaging conversation between two of our most important contemporary public intellectuals, we are urged to defy the inattention of the media to the disastrous damage inflicted in Afghanistan on life, land, and resources in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal and the connections to the equally avoidable and unnecessary wars on Iraq and Libya.”—from the foreword by Angela Y. Davis Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy—not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds. Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents. Called “the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet” by the New York Times Book Review, Noam Chomsky is the guiding light of dissidents around the world. In The Withdrawal, Chomsky joins with noted scholar Vijay Prashad—who “helps to uncover the shining worlds hidden under official history and dominant media” (Eduardo Galeano)—to get at the roots of this unprecedented time of peril and change. Chomsky and Prashad interrogate key inflection points in America’s downward spiral: from the disastrous Iraq War to the failed Libyan intervention to the descent into chaos in Afghanistan. As the final moments of American power in Afghanistan fade from view, this crucial book argues that we must not take our eyes off the wreckage—and that we need, above all, an unsentimental view of the new world we must build together.

Zinn's compelling case against the Vietnam War, now with a new introduction. Of the many books that challenged the Vietnam War, Howard Zinn's stands out as one of the best--and most influential. It helped sparked national debate on the war. It includes a powerful speech written by Zinn that President Johnson should have given to lay out the case for ending the war.

Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall takes us on a dreamlike voyage into nature at that secret moment when fall turns into winter. We find ourselves in a kind of paradise, which humans may be part of but which they have not despoiled. A father and son lead us through forests, down rivers, over lakes and ponds. Along the way we experience the primordial beauty of the physical world. This is nature as we all feel in our hearts it must once have been. Through lyrical words and a masterful collage technique, Leo Yerxa has created an exquisite and poetic evocation of this moment.

Detroit was to be a workers' paradise, a symbol of Progressive success. Instead, it has become a symbol of Big Government failure, corruption, violence and decay. In 2013, after a great withdrawal of more than a million productive residents, once-great 'Debtroit' became the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.The Great Withdrawal explores why Detroit failed, why other liberal cities may soon follow, and how this could drag America into insolvency and prolonged Depression.It explores the bizarre Nanny Statist Progressive movement that took power in America in 1913 and has driven America on a "100-Year Detour" away from the ideals of our nation's Founders and towards the stagnation of Euro-socialist welfare states.Smith and Ponte, in this their fourth book, look at how Progressivism has used addiction to welfare and easy money, as well as psychological manipulation politics from "crisis-ocracy" and "the herd inside our heads" to the sinister brain science techniques known as "nudge" to win elections, manufacture consent, impose invisible taxes, and control us.Progressives now feel their power slipping away as Americans are withdrawing from a century of hypnotic control. This, argue Smith and Ponte, is why a desperate Left is turning to naked force--"financial repression," rule by decree, "regulution," crony capitalism, seizures and wealth redistribution, and politicized government agencies including the IRS and NSA to keep their hold on government power.These power grabs will fail, predict monetary expert Smith and former think tank futurist Ponte, because Progressives are obsessed with obsolete centralization and expansion of government power. Progressives are doomed, even if they cling to power, to rule a nation that their policies have put into an economic death spiral towards a new Dark Age.The path back to the Framers' prosperous Constitutional Republic, Smith and Ponte write, will decentralize and return Power to the People via the Internet, 3-D printing, decentralized energy, honest money, small government and individual self-reliance. They offer a road map back to the ideals Americans held before the very alien European ideology of collectivist Progressivism steered our nation off course exactly 100 years ago.

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Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama’s “just war,” the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading commentators, politicians, and military strategists to analyze America’s real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan’s previous occupiers—Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war—The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.