Throughout Western history, the societies that have made the greatest contributions to the spread of freedom have created iconic works of art to celebrate their achievements. Yet despite the enduring appeal of these works—from the Parthenon to Michelangelo’s David to Picasso’s Guernica—histories of both art and democracy have ignored this phenomenon. Millions have admired the artworks covered in this book but relatively few know why they were commissioned, what was happening in the culture that produced them, or what they were meant to achieve. Even scholars who have studied them for decades often miss the big picture by viewing them in isolation from a larger story of human striving. David’s Sling places into context ten canonical works of art executed to commemorate the successes of free societies that exerted political and economic influence far beyond what might have been expected of them. Fusing political and art history with a judicious dose of creative reconstruction, Victoria Coates has crafted a lively narrative around each artistic object and the free system that inspired it. This book integrates the themes of creative excellence and political freedom to bring a fresh, new perspective to both. In telling the stories of ten masterpieces, David’s Sling invites reflection on the synergy between liberty and human achievement.

The CIA and its top agent, Dave McClure, have their hands perilously full. Franz Altmann, a vicious killer and a member of the German terror group Red Storm Movement, has slipped unseen into America. He intends to bring the U.S., the world’s epicenter of capitalism and finance, to its knees in a horrendous attack. If that isn’t enough, Vassily Krasnoff, a Russian believed fatally wounded in the Alaskan wilderness by McClure’s rifle shot, didn’t die as intelligence indicated. Krasnoff has emerged from a coma, and now he wants revenge for the death of his brother, Leonide. Someone Dave McClure loves dearly must die—in the most gruesome fashion imaginable—if McClure doesn’t find and kill Krasnoff first.

Unwilling to risk the use of nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Russia try to develop the ultimate in computer-controlled smart weapons

2011 Updated Reprint. Updated Annually. Jewish Lobby in the United States Handbook: Organization, Operations, Performance

Contents: (1) U.S.-Israeli Relations and the Role of Foreign Aid; (2) U.S. Bilateral Military Aid to Israel: A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement; Foreign Military Financing; Ongoing U.S.-Israeli Defense Procurement Negotiations; (3) Defense Budget Appropriations for U.S.-Israeli Missile Defense Programs: Multi-Layered Missile Defense; High Altitude Missile Defense System; (4) Aid Restrictions and Possible Violations: Israeli Arms Sales to China; Israeli Settlements; (5) Other Ongoing Assistance and Cooperative Programs: Migration and Refugee Assistance; Loan Guarantees for Economic Recovery; American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program; U.S.-Israeli Scientific and Business Cooperation; (6) Historical Background. Illustrations.

Military Industry and Regional Defense Policy re-examines military industrialization in the developing world, focusing on policy-making in producer states and the impact of security perceptions on such policy-making.Timothy D. Hoyt reassesses the role of regional state sub-systems in international relations, and recent historical studies of international technology and arms transfers. Looking at Israel, Iraq and India, the three most powerful regional powers in the Cold War era, he presesnts an expert analysis of the three-sided phenomena of the regional hegemony, the regional competitor and the small over-achiever.This new book breaks away from existing literature on military industries in the developing world, which has focused on their economic and development costs and benefits. These past studies have used primitive methodologies that focus on the production of complete weapons systems - a misleading gauge in a world of growing international defense cooperation. They have also ignored empirical evidence of the impact of local military industrial production on Cold War regional conflict, and of the defence planning and concerns that drove development of indigenous military industries in key regional powers. This new text delivers an incisive new perspective.

The story of David and Goliath existed in antiquity in two variant literary editions, a short version found in the Greek tradition of Codex Vaticanus (LXXB) and a longer version found in the Hebrew tradition of the MT. Benjamin J. M. Johnson proposes that each version is worthy of study in its own right and offers a close literary reading of the narrative of David and Goliath in the Greek text of 1 Reigns 16-18. The author explores a method for reading the Septuagint that recognizes it is both a document in its own right and a translation of a Hebrew original. In offering a reading of the septuagintal version of the David and Goliath narrative, the literary difference between the two versions of the story and the literary significance of the Greek translation are highlighted.