Lyndon Johnson was often blamed for abandoning Kennedy's vision of development and progress in Latin America in favor of his own domestic concerns: anti-communism and economic stability. Johnson, along with his fellow Texan and chief adviser on inter-American affairs Thomas C. Mann, nonetheless offered a vision for American engagement with the developing world even as congressional funding and public enthusiasm for such programs waned and Johnson's presidency collapsed under the weight of the Vietnam War. This book explores Lyndon Johnson's Latin American policy, from his key advisers to development programs and military interventions, to establish a new perspective on the impact of a complex and controversial president on a tumultuous period in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Demonstrating that much of the negative coverage of their efforts emerged from disgruntled Kennedy loyalists, Tunstall Allcock argues that Johnson and Mann were both New Dealers who possessed a keen desire to operate as good neighbors and support Latin American development and regional integration while dealing with domestic pressure from both right and left. Based on extensive primary research in multiple archives, this much-needed book provides a crucial exploration of how inter-American relations transitioned from the enthusiasm and excitement of the Kennedy years to the neglect and frustration of the Nixon presidency.

Acrimony and hyperpartisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America's two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established social and economic policy regime.In It's Even Worse Than It Looks, congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress -- and the United States -- to the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a governing system that, unlike a parliamentary democracy, makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. Second, while both parties participate in tribal warfare, both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces what the authors call &"asymmetric polarization," with the Republican Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the Democrats politically, no matter the cost.With dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends, a coarsened political culture and a new partisan media, the authors conclude that there is no &"silver bullet"; reform that can solve everything. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the House and Senate, while debunking others, like independent or third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction, American democracy will remain in serious danger.

One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.

Famous for his novels, Thomas Mann is more accessible through the shorter fictions which span his entire career. The most famous of these stories is one of the earliest. Death in Venice was made into the celebrated Visconti film, but all his mature preoccupations are present in this story: the need for a sense of meaning in existence, the relationship between life and art, the central role of sexual energy and the strange forms it can take, the place of death and disease, the importance of work, the individual's complex relations with his society and the dominant culture. These themes are developed in a series of brilliant stories, may of them very short and displaying the author's talent for macabre comedy. Dr Faustus and Buddenbrooks are already available in Everyman

A companion book for young readers based upon the explorations of the Americas in 1491, before those of Christopher Columbus.

In this fourth volume of the popular series 'Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists' we once again delve into the minds of writers, painters, and poets in order to gain better insight on how neurological and psychiatric diseases can influence creativity. The issue of schizophrenia, the interaction between psychological instability and drug abuse, and the intricate association between organic wounds and shell-shock disorders are illustrated with the examples of Franz Kafka, Raymond Roussel, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline and their writings. Dementia has been specifically studied before, including in the previous volumes of Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists. It is revisited here in order to present the striking and well-documented case of Willem de Kooning, which inspired a new approach. Apart from issues that sometimes border on neuropsychiatry, purer neurological cases such as post-amputation limb pain (Arthur Rimbaud) or tabetic ataxia (Edouard Manet) are presented as well. Other fascinating life trajectories associated with cerebral or psychological changes include those of the writers Bjornsen, Tolstoi, Turgeniev, Mann, Ibsen, and Pavese.

This book offers an insightful analysis of presidential policy towards Rhodesia during the UDI era of 1965-1979. Michel provides an informative account of the stance adopted by the differing presidential administrations towards Salisbury and highlights the shifting alignment of the global and domestic dynamics that shaped decision-making. The book also explores the complex relationship between pragmatism and morality in formulating policy, and Michel considers intriguing questions over the competing visions within Washington of what constituted pragmatism or morality during the era of decolonization.