The year is 1970. Impressionable twenty-year-old Jimmy Cramer returns to the safety and security of his family’s South Dakota farm after a tour of duty in Viet Nam. To his younger brother Billy; his parents; his best friend Larry; and his girl friend Sandra; he returns a decorated war hero. But why doesn’t he ever willingly talk about how or why he was decorated? Could he return to his home and family and friends from the swamps of Viet Nam as the same person he was before he left? In this touching and often compelling novel of war, American youth, love, and compassion, we follow the plight of this reluctant war hero who struggles to pick up the pieces of his life that the war interrupted. Can he adjust, or will the Viet Nam conflict claim another casualty?

A nation's fighting forces are often believed to embody a country's qualities of determination, resourcefulness, and courage. This study examines the influences of these qualities from the viewpoint of the American Army in Vietnam, the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the Israeli Army throughout its struggle in the Middle East. It is a provocative look at corporate military character--operations, personalities, organizations, administrative policies, training, social factors, technology, strategy, and tactics--all elements that are woven tightly together to explain why national armies perform in the manner that they do. Goodspeed uses these historical case studies as the basis of his analysis, then explores the social, technical, and organizational issues that future armies will likely face. He assesses the future of modern warfare in technical terms in the context of mass, mobility, firepower, and communications. The Duke of Wellington once scoffed, Tell the history of a battle? One might as well describe the history of a ball. This book takes the Iron Duke's advice to heart and seeks to explain modern military victory and defeat in terms of corporate military character, a complex and fragile mosaic, one in which national temperament is only a minor feature. In so doing, it takes on a subject long veiled in myth and invention. The social, political, and technical blueprints for the conduct of wars in the 21st century are already well established. Goodspeed illustrates these patterns by showing how armies have coped in the most influential campaigns of modern times and in this light assesses the key factors driving change for future wars.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

For more than 30 years, Yoga Journal has been helping readers achieve the balance and well-being they seek in their everyday lives. With every issue,Yoga Journal strives to inform and empower readers to make lifestyle choices that are healthy for their bodies and minds. We are dedicated to providing in-depth, thoughtful editorial on topics such as yoga, food, nutrition, fitness, wellness, travel, and fashion and beauty.

The goal of “Inclusive Economics” is to tie together various authoritative strands of contemporary economic theory into an easily comprehensible whole that illuminates the need for a broader approach to contemporary economic policymaking undistorted by obsolete 18th century rationalist assumptions about utility, ethics, worthiness and traditional culture. This is accomplished by elaborating the rationalist competitive ideal along the optimizing lines pioneered by Paul Samuelson (neoclassical economics); plumbing modifications necessitated by Herbert Simon's realist concepts of “bounded rationality” and “satisficing”; refined further by applying a pragmatist outlook to probe the consequences of relaxing Enlightenment teleological, ethical, spiritual and cultural taboos. The exercise will explain why competitive market economies guided by rational utility-seeking invariably are less productive, efficient, just and beneficent than most theorists concede, and will illuminate the full range of interventions needed to achieve better outcomes. We call this program in its entirety “Inclusive Economics”, including the integration of micro and macroeconomics.

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition? includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader nderstand the turbulent and dynamic world of Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg. When Raskolnikov, a young student, is driven to murder by desperate poverty and a belief in his own superiority, he is plunged into a dark hell of guilt and delirium. Set in the gloomy slums of St. Petersburg in the 1860s, this stark and gripping psychological tale describes a man's search for redemption in the face of suffering and a society's search for meaning in the chaos of a changing world.Shortly after returning from a decade-long exile in Siberia, Dostoevsky fled creditors only to end up living in destitution in Austria. Staying in a hotel he couldn't afford, with barely enough money for tea, he composed this masterfully modern examination of a murderer's mind.