The American founders did not endorse a citizen’s right to know. More openness in government, more frankness in a doctor’s communication with patients, more disclosure in a food manufacturer’s package labeling, and more public notice of actions that might damage the environment emerged in our own time. As Michael Schudson shows in The Rise of the Right to Know, modern transparency dates to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s—well before the Internet—as reform-oriented politicians, journalists, watchdog groups, and social movements won new leverage. At the same time, the rapid growth of higher education after 1945, together with its expansive ethos of inquiry and criticism, fostered both insight and oversight as public values. “One of the many strengths of The Rise of the Right To Know is its insistent emphasis on culture and its interaction with law...What Schudson shows is that enforceable access to official information creates a momentum towards a better use of what is disclosed and a refinement of how disclosure is best done.” —George Brock, Times Literary Supplement “This book is a reminder that the right to know is not an automatic right. It was hard-won, and fought for by many unknown political soldiers.” —Monica Horten, LSE Review of Books

Straight-talking CNBC reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera demands a modern solution to our nation’s social and economic woes—a return to our political roots: fiscal conservatism, limited government, and personal accountability. Hypocrites and radicals on both sides of the political spectrum have left fiscally conservative, socially liberal Americans like CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera people without a party. If you tell your neighbors you’re a card-carrying Republican, they’ll assume you’re opposed to abortion, hostile to gay marriage, and don’t care about the environment or the poor. Democrats are portrayed as union-loving, tree-hugging activists, more concerned with making government big rather than effective. The reality is that both parties have been hijacked by the wrong issues and have abandoned the loyal Americans who believe that government should stay out of our private lives and out of our pocketbooks. Both parties are to blame for the exorbitant spending and excessive social interference over the last ten years that have left our country in a financial disaster. The core principles of Reaganomics rejuvenated an unstable economy and the Clinton-era policy successes took power away from the federal government and put money in our pockets. We must return to the fundamentals of American politics: small, not big, government. Less spending, not more. The first step is to more narrowly define the parties’ platforms away from needlessly divisive social issues and refocus the political discussion on that really matters: economic policies that create jobs. In the smart, tell-it-like-it-is style that has made her popular with Democrats and Republicans like, Caruso-Cabrera outlines forward-thinking free-market solutions for health care, education, and immigration. These ideas will stop our growing deficit, boost our competitive capital, and strengthen our dollar, because an economy that is flexible and free of government interference can grow faster and get the country out of its current malaise. It’s not too late to fix our nation, restore our credibility, and rebuild our political system with the tenets on which it was founded: fiscal conservatism and social liberty. Our future is counting on it.

Have you ever wanted to force open the secretive doors of government? This book provides all the tools you need. With a new foreword by Ian Hislop, it's also fully updated to include...-- New chapters on Scotland and the law in practice-- Tips for digging out information and new template letters-- An expanded and updated directory-- Examples of case law that you can use in your quest for answers-- An expanded Business chapter to help you get contracts, tenders and performance evaluations

This book provides the first comprehensive philosophical examination of the right to know and other epistemic rights: rights to goods such as information, knowledge, and truth.

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

The things I want to know are in books, Abraham Lincoln wrote, and so he read. Good books are rightly addictive, enticing the dedicated reader to open more books, and gain more knowledge, and come closer to wisdom. The more one reads, John Adams observed, the more one sees we have to read.Books contain the ideas, make the arguments, and preserve the history necessary for the maintenance and perpetuation of liberty.Reading the Right Books is a practical list of thoughtful and accessible books-not the classics but solidly good books-recommended to provide a general framework around which the reader can build a firmer structure of political knowledge.Edited and annotated by Lee Edwards, the Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at The Heritage Foundation, Reading the Right Books is a guide for intelligent, conservative-minded readers who want to prepare themselves for a public life of thought and action, and to seek to know more about politics, public policy and modern conservative thought, as well as literature, economics, religion, history, and statesmanship.