Hoover Institution Press Publication
ebook
(0)
Seeking Middle Ground on Social Security Reform
by David Koitz
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
This book looks at both the Republican and the Democratic Party plans for Social Security, showing how each confronts significant ideological and political hurdles. David Koitz cuts through the partisan rhetoric that has made social Security one of the most debated programs on the U.S. political scene and looks at both the Republican and the Democratic plans for Social Security, showing important flaws in each.
ebook
(0)
Tests, Testing, and Genuine School Reform
by Herbert J. Walberg
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The author draws on scientific studies of tests and their uses to show how standardized achievement tests must play a central role in improving achievement in K-12 schools. He explains the central considerations in developing and evaluating tests and tells how tests can best be best used, covering such topics as using tests for student incentives, paying teachers for performance, and using tests in efforts to attain new state and national standards.
ebook
(0)
The Crimean Tatars
by Alan W. Fisher
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The first in a series of volumes to discuss the history and development of the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union.
ebook
(0)
My Times & Life
A Historian's Progress Through A Contentious Age
by Morton Keller
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Morton Keller recounts his "not extraordinary life played out in quite extraordinary times"-from the Great Depression through World War Two, the cold war, the sixties, and 9/11. A classic American saga of respectable achievement from relatively humble origins, his life through eight-plus decades as a dues-paying member of the middle class resonates beyond the individual to echo the experiences, the beliefs, and the values of his generation.
ebook
(0)
The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act
by Richard A. Epstein
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
With the Obama administration in the White House and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) appears likely. But it can and should be stopped if at all possible, given the adverse impact that it will have on the workplace and the overall economy. In The Case against the Employee Free Choice Act, Richard Epstein examines this proposed legislation and why it is a large step backward in labor relations that will work to the detriment of employees, employers, and the public at large.
ebook
(0)
Total Volunteer Force
Lessons from the US Military on Leadership Culture and Talent Management
by Tim Kane
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Tim Kane analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the US armed forces leadership culture and personnel management. He proposes a blueprint for reform that empowers troops as well as local commanders. Kane's proposals extend the All-Volunteer Force reforms of 1973 further along the spectrum of volunteerism, emphasize greater individual agency during all stages of a US military career, and restore diversity among the services. The Leader/Talent Matrix-an analytic framework Kane develops in the book-offers a multidimensional view of an organization's personnel practices. A survey of hundreds of veterans and active-duty troops reveals world-class strengths in the US armed forces leadership culture but a wide array of weaknesses in talent management. The Total Volunteer Force returns autonomy to the army, navy, air force, and Marine Corps. Kane offers an array of reforms to improve performance evaluations, create a talent market for job-matching, and revolutionize compensation to better reward merit and skill.
ebook
(0)
Eyes on Spies
Congress And The United States Intelligence Community
by Amy B. Zegart
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Amy Zegart examines the weaknesses of US intelligence oversight and why those deficiencies have persisted, despite the unprecedented importance of intelligence in today's environment. She argues that many of the biggest oversight problems lie with Congress-the institution, not the parties or personalities-showing how Congress has collectively and persistently tied its own hands in overseeing intelligence.
ebook
(0)
Liberal Reform in an Illiberal Regime
The Creation of Private Property in Russia, 1906-1915
by Stephen F. Williams
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
An examination of property rights reforms in Russia before the revolution reveals the advantages and pitfalls of liberal democracy in action-from a government that could be described as neither liberal nor democratic. The author analyzes whether truly liberal reform can be effectively established from above versus from the bottom up-or whether it is simply a product of exceptional historical circumstances.
ebook
(0)
Varieties of Progressivism in America
by Peter Berkowitz
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Varieties of Progressivism in America focuses on the debates within the party of progress about how best to increase opportunity in America and to make social and political life more egalitarian. The contributors to this volume offer different expertise and varying perspectives as they examine the Old Democrats of the New Deal, the contributions of the Clinton-era New Democrats, and the future of progressivism in America.
ebook
(0)
Ending Government Bailouts As We Know Them
by Kenneth E. Scott
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
This book examines the dangers of continuing government bailouts and offers alternative strategies designed to produce growth based on the vigor of the private sector with inflation under control. The expert authors show that it is indeed possible to explain the causes of the crisis in understandable terms and clarify why resolving the bailout problem is essential to preventing future crises.
ebook
(0)
Agenda for Economic Reform in Korea
International Perspectives
by Kenneth Judd
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
An Agenda for Economic Reform in Korea looks at Korea's economic problems from the perspective of the American experience with economic reforms and sheds new light on the problems of economic reform facing nations all over the world. The authors examine such issues as corporate governance, social welfare, labor relations, and other pressing challenges-and suggest a new vision for the Korean economy.
ebook
(0)
Social Security
The Unfinished Work
by Charles Blahous
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Arguing that an equitable Social Security solution will be unattainable unless we bring stakeholders together around a common understanding of the facts and of the need to take action to address them, former White House adviser Charles Blahous presents some often misunderstood, basic factual background about Social Security. He discusses how it affects program participants and explains the true demographic, economic, and political factors that threaten its future efficacy.
ebook
(0)
Failing Liberty 101
How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared For Citizenship In A Free Society
by William Damon
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The author argues that we are failing to prepare today's young people to be responsible American citizens-to the detriment of their life prospects and those of liberty in the United States of the future. He identifies the problems-the declines in civic purpose and patriotism, crises of faith, cynicism, self-absorption, ignorance, indifference to the common good-and shows that our disregard of civic and moral virtue as an educational priority is having a tangible effect on the attitudes, understanding, and behavior of large portions of the youth in our country today.
ebook
(0)
Unconditional Democracy
Education and Politics in Occupied Japan, 1945-1952
by Toshio Nishi
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The difficult mission of a regime change: Toshio Nishi gives an account of how America converted the Japanese mindset from war to peace following World War II.
ebook
(0)
Turning Points in Ending the Cold War
by Kiron K. Skinner
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The expert contributors examine the end of détente and the beginning of the new phase of the cold war in the early 1980s, Reagan's radical new strategies aimed at changing Soviet behavior, the peaceful democratic revolutions in Poland and Hungary, the events that brought about the reunification of Germany, the role of events in Third World countries, the critical contributions of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and more.
ebook
(0)
Our Brave New World
Essays on the Impact of September 11
by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Every American remembers exactly how it unfolded, where they were, and what they were doing on that terrible morning of September 11. And like any other unprecedented historic jolt, September 11 continues to roil our collective mind. We still ponder the questions it raised: What changed that day? What remains of the old? What is truly new? The essays in this collection examine these and other questions, taking a sometimes sobering, sometimes uplifting look at a historic turning point in our lives. The contributors examine the challenges and dangers of our new foreign policy and the sense that we have only seen the opening stage of a long-term realignment. They also examine our domestic politics, revealing that, with the exception of national security matters, partisan considerations remain as strong as before. A look at the Islamic world after 9/11 shows how, as never before, it is understood that American assertiveness is the main deterrent against Islamist terror and a stabilizing force in an unsteady cultural sphere.
ebook
(0)
Speaking the Law
The Obama Administration's Addresses On National Security Law
by Kenneth Anderson
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
When Barack Obama came into office, the strategic landscape facing the United States in its overseas counterterrorism operations was undergoing a shift. Even before the rise of drones necessitated the articulation of legal doctrine, the Obama administration had to explain itself. In Speaking the Law, the authors offer a detailed examination of the speeches of the Obama administration on national security legal issues. Viewed together here for the first time, the authors lay out a broad array of legal and policy positions regarding a large number of principles currently contested at both the domestic and international levels. The book describes what the Obama administration has said about the legal framework in which it is operating with respect to such questions as the nature of the war on terrorism, the use of drones and targeted killings, detention, trial by military commission and in federal courts, and interrogation. The authors analyze this framework, examining the stresses on it and asking where the administration got matters right and where they were wrong. They conclude with suggestions for certain reforms to the framework for the administration and Congress to consider.
ebook
(0)
Illusion of Net Neutrality
Political Alarmism, Regulatory Creep And The Real Threat To Internet Freedom
by Bob Zelnick
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
In this riveting treatise, coauthors Bob Zelnick and Eva Zelnick sound the alarm on the debilitating effect that looming regulations, rules, and powerful interests would have on today's regulation-free Internet. The authors lay out the imminent threats-from "network neutrality" to FCC regulations-that would rob this global, society-changing, communication powerhouse forever of its full potential.
ebook
(0)
Jihad in the Arabian Sea
by Camille Pecastaing
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Camille Pecastaing looks at the twenty-first-century challenges facing the region around the Bab-el-Mandeb (the tiny strait that separates the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean) from civil war, piracy, radical Islamism, terrorism, and the real risk of environmental and economic failure on both sides of the strait. The author takes us with him into Somalia and Yemen, Eritrea and Djibouti, with excursions into Ethiopia and the Sudan, as he reveals how the economic and environmental crisis currently in gestation could lead to more social dislocation and violence in this strategically important region.
ebook
(0)
The Best Teachers in the World
Why We Don't Have Them And How We Could
by John E. Chubb
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
John Chubb shows how we can raise student achievement to levels comparable to those of the best nations in the world through a radically new strategy for raising teacher quality. He asserts that we must attract and retain much higher caliber individuals in teaching, which we can accomplish by reducing the size and increasing the compensation of the teaching force via technology, abolishing licensing and training teachers in institutions and programs that have demonstrated their efficacy in producing effective, and improving the quality of school leadership, on which teaching quality heavily depends.
ebook
(0)
The Last Empire
Nationality and the Soviet Future
by Robert Conquest
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The historical background, the present position, and the future prospects of both the non-Russian and Russian peoples are considered in their many aspects, as are the maneuvers of the Communist regime to suppress, appease, or make use of them. The future of the Soviet Union, and thus of the world, depends greatly on whether, and how, the Communist leadership, whose own ideology has lost most of its appeal, can adjust to a new surge of national feeling. The authors examine the question from many points of view, in a broad conspectus of political, cultural, economic, demographic, and other approaches.
ebook
(1)
Estonia and the Estonians
by Toivo U. Raun
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
A comprehensive survey of Estonian history, placing recent events into historical perspective. The author analyzes the country's post-communist transition, its strategic geopolitical location, and the role of ethnic Estonians in shaping the history of the area.
ebook
(0)
Vietnam Under Communism
1975-1982
by Nguyen Van Canh
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Based on his own experiences, extensive use of primary and secondary sources, and interviews with Vietnamese refugees who lived under the new order, Nguyen Van Canh analyzes the contemporary political and administrative structure of Vietnam and its leaders, culture, education, economy, and foreign policy.
ebook
(0)
Stalin's Loyal Executioner
People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940
by Marc Jansen
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Stalin's Loyal Executioner, drawn from still-classified Soviet archives, chronicles the meteoric and bloody career of Nikolai Ezhov, NKVD leader and security chief, revealing the tragic scope of communist terrorism under Joseph Stalin.
ebook
(4)
The End of Modern History in the Middle East
by Bernard Lewis
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Bernard Lewis looks at the new era in the Middle East. With the departure of imperial powers, the region must now, on its own, resolve the political, economic, cultural, and societal problems that prevent it from accomplishing the next stage in the advance of civilization. There is enough in the traditional culture of Islam on the one hand and the modern experience of the Muslim peoples on the other, he explains, to provide the basis for an advance toward freedom in the true sense of that word.
ebook
(0)
Remaking Domestic Intelligence
by Richard A. Posner
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The author reveals the dangerous weaknesses undermining domestic intelligence in the United States and tells why a new national security service should not be part of the FBI. He explains the need for a new domestic intelligence agency, modeled on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and lodged in the Department of Homeland Security.
ebook
(0)
The Bulgarian Communist Party From Blagoev to Zhivkov
Histories of Ruling Communist Parties
by John D. Bell
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Since the days of Dimitur Blagoev, a member of the first Marxist group in Russia and a founder of Bulgarian communism, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) was closely identified with its Russian counterpart. In the waning days of the Soviet Bloc, the best-known fact about Bulgaria was that it modeled itself closely on the USSR and was allegedly linked to KGB terrorist activities.
Those similarities were more than superficial. The internal factions in the early history of the party, the emphasis on personal leaders and democratic centralism, the foreign policy of the pre-World War II united front, the partisan experience in the war, industrialization and collectivization, Stalinization and de-Stalinization-all these developments in Bulgaria reflected the Russian experience. Nonetheless, their extent and effect were inevitably colored by Bulgaria's size, its role in the complicated politics of Eastern Europe, and, of course, the fact that the BCP did not come to power in Bulgaria until after World War II and occupation by the Red Army.
Under Todor Zhivkov, the head of the BCP from 1954 until its near demise in 1989, Bulgaria continued its close collaboration with the USSR while reviving some elements of Bulgarian national culture. Zhivkov, unlike his Soviet mentor, Nikita Khrushchev, proved an enduring leader whose anticorruption campaigns and attempts to professionalize the Bulgarian bureaucracy were relatively successful. But even at the time this history of the BCP was written, in 1986, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the path of Bulgaria's future was uncertain.
ebook
(0)
Crosswinds
The Way of Saudi Arabia
by Fouad Ajami
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Fouad Ajami presents a firsthand look at the political culture in Saudi Arabia and its conduct and influence in foreign lands from the early 1990s to around 2010. From the influence of Islam in public life to Saudi rulers' attitudes toward the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the author fills a significant gap in our understanding of that country.
ebook
(0)
Market and Plan under Socialism
The Bird in the Cage
by Jan S. Prybyla
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
In this volume the author provides an analysis of the centrally planned, socialist state economies and their common percentage in the Stalinist Plan introduced in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. Prybyla first explores the "neoclassical" plan in two variants (conservative and liberal), the "radical" plan (Maoplan), and the Yugoslav experiment (neomarket Yugoplan). He then examines specific countries as their governments search for alternative solutions to the economic problems that plague them. His dynamic presentation of the economic models clearly shows the transformation of the original Stalinist model, reveals the obstacles to reform created by the structural problems that exist within these economies, and demonstrates that inherent deficiencies within the systems must, in time, affect growth and balance.
ebook
(0)
Winning Florida
How The Bush Team Fought The Battle
by Robert Zelnick
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
With a reporter's keen eye for detail, award-winning journalist Zelnick conveys every emotion of the key players in this battle, presenting a rich, colorful tale that reads more like a fictional political thriller than the bizarre real-life drama it was-from election night through the U.S. Supreme Court's historic decision.
ebook
(1)
Government Policies And The Delayed Economic Recovery
by Lee E. Ohanian
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
This book examines the reasons for the unprecedented weak recovery following the recent US recession and explores the possibility that government economic policy is the problem. Drawing on empirical research that looks at issues from policy uncertainty to increased regulation, the volume offers a broad-based assessment of how government policies are slowing economic growth and provides a framework for understanding how those policies should change to restore prosperity in America.
ebook
(0)
Spin Wars and Spy Games
Global Media and Intelligence Gathering
by Markos Kounalakis
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
As most long-standing news outlets have shuttered their foreign bureaus and print operations, the role of GNNs as information collectors and policy influencers has changed in tandem. Western GNNs are honored for being untethered to government entities and their ability to produce accurate yet critical situational analyses. However, with the emergence of non-Western GNNs and their direct relationships to the state, the independent nature of our global news cycle has been vastly manipulated. In Spin Wars and Spy Games, Kounalakis uses his interviews with an expansive and diverse set of GNN professionals to deliver a vivid depiction of the momentous sea change in mass media production. He traces the evolution of global news networks from the twentieth century to now, revealing today's drastically altered news business model that places precedence on networks leveraging global power. This eye-opening narrative transforms our understanding of why countries like Russia and China invest heavily in their news media, and how the GNN framework operates in conjunction with state strategy and diplomatic sensitivity. Profoundly meticulous and insightful, this seminal work on the current state of transnational journalism gives readers a first-hand look at how global media powers shape policy and morph the public's consumption of information.
ebook
(31)
Is Reality Optional?
And Other Essays
by Thomas Sowell
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Sowell challenges all the assumptions of contemporary liberalism on issues ranging from the economy to race to education in this collection of controversial essays, and captures his thoughts on politics, race, and common sense with a section at the end for thought-provoking quotes.
ebook
(13)
More Liberty Means Less Government
Our Founders Knew This Well
by Walter E. Williams
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
In this collection of thoughtful, hard-hitting essays, Walter E. Williams once again takes on the left wing's most sacred cows with provocative insights, brutal candor, and an uncompromising reverence for personal liberty and the principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
ebook
(1)
Burden Of Empire
An Appraisal Of Western Colonialism In Africa South Of The Sahara
by Peter Duignan
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Since its publication in 1967, Burden of Empire has been widely praised and criticized for its controversial approach to the problem of colonialism in Africa. The authors have challenged the new "orthodoxy" about Africa-the belief that little but evil and exploitation has resulted from the era of European colonialism.
ebook
(0)
The Second Twentieth Century
How The Information Revolution Shapes Business, States, And Nations
by Jean-Jacques Rosa
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Jean-Jacques Rosa offers an analysis of the "grand cycle" in social organization of the twentieth century, showing how the transformation in communication and information technology has led to the downfall of the old political and corporate hierarchies. He explains how today's explosion of freely available information is fueling the democratic free-market revolution and reveals its universal contemporary consequences.
ebook
(0)
Reacting to the Spending Spree
Policy Changes We Can Afford
by Various Authors
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
A team of expert contributors analyze the near- and long-term implications of efforts by both the Obama and Bush administrations to fix the current financial crisis. They examine a range of issues affected by the proposed reforms, including health care, "going green," the Employee Free Choice Act, an open world economy, and more.
ebook
(0)
Torn Country
Turkey Between Secularism and Islamism
by Zeyno Baran
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Zeyno Baran examines the intense struggle between Turkey's secularists and Islamists in their most recent battles over their country's destination. Looking into the fate of both Turkey's secularism and its democratic experiment, she shows that, for all the flaws of its political journey, the modern Turkish state has managed to maintain an essential separation between religion and the political realm, a separation that is now in jeopardy.
ebook
(2)
Nuclear Security
The Problems And The Road Ahead
by George Shultz
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Concern about the threat posed by nuclear weapons has preoccupied the United States and presidents of the United States since the beginning of the nuclear era. Nuclear Security draws from papers presented at the 2013 meeting of the American Nuclear Society examining worldwide efforts to control nuclear weapons and ensure the safety of the nuclear enterprise of weapons and reactors against catastrophic accidents. The distinguished contributors, all known for their long-standing interest in getting better control of the threats posed by nuclear weapons and reactors, discuss what we can learn from past successes and failures and attempt to identify the key ingredients for a road ahead that can lead us toward a world free of nuclear weapons. The authors review historical efforts to deal with the challenge of nuclear weapons, with a focus on the momentous arms control negotiations between U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They offer specific recommendations for reducing risks that should be adopted by the nuclear enterprise, both military and civilian, in the United States and abroad. Since the risks posed by the nuclear enterprise are so high, they conclude, no reasonable effort should be spared to ensure safety and security.
ebook
(0)
Road Ahead for the Fed
by John D. Ciorciari
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Expert contributors examine the recent actions of the Federal Reserve and suggest directions for the Fed going forward by drawing on past political, historical, and market principles. They explain how the Fed arrived at its current position, offer ideas on how to exit the situation, and propose new market-based reforms that can help keep the Fed on the road to good monetary policy in the future.
ebook
(3)
American Contempt for Liberty
by Walter E. Williams
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Throughout history, personal liberty, free markets, and peaceable, voluntary exchanges have been roundly denounced by tyrants and often greeted with suspicion by the general public. Unfortunately, Americans have increasingly accepted the tyrannical ideas of reduced private property rights and reduced rights to profits, and have become enamored with restrictions on personal liberty and control by government. In this latest collection of essays selected from his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter E. Williams takes on a range of controversial issues surrounding race, education, the environment, the Constitution, health care, foreign policy, and more. Skewering the self-righteous and self-important forces throughout society, he makes the case for what he calls the "the moral superiority of personal liberty and its main ingredient-limited government." With his usual straightforward insights and honesty, Williams reveals the loss of liberty in nearly every important aspect of our lives, the massive decline in our values, and the moral tragedy that has befallen Americans today: our belief that it is acceptable for the government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another.
ebook
(24)
Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays
by Thomas Sowell
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
A collection of essays that discusses such issues as the media, immigration, the minimum wage and multiculturalism.
ebook
(0)
Eight Questions You Should Ask About Our Health Care System
(Even If The Answers Make You Sick)
by Charles E. Phelps
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Charles E. Phelps provides a comprehensive look at our health care system, including how the current system evolved, how the health care sector behaves, and a detailed analysis of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" parts of the system-from technological advances (the "good") to variations in treatment patterns (the "bad") to hidden costs and perverse incentives (the "ugly"). He shows that much of the cost of health care ultimately derives from our own lifestyle choices and thus that education may well be the most powerful form of health reform we can envision.
ebook
(0)
Learning From No Child Left Behind
How And Why The Nation's Most Important But Controversial Education Law Should Be Renewed
by John E. Chubb
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The author, writing on behalf of Hoover's Koret task Force on K–12 Education, presents a convincing case that, despite the controversy it has ignited, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law is making a positive difference and should be renewed. He outlines ten specific lessons and recommendations that identify the strengths and weaknesses of NCLB and offers suggestions for improving the law, building on its current foundation.
ebook
(0)
Two-Fer
Electing a President and a Supreme Court
by Clint Bolick
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Constitutional scholar Clint Bolick examines the importance of judicial nominations in current and future political campaigns-not just in campaigns for president but also for the senators who confirm the nominees and the governors who appoint state court judges. He offers his opinion of the framers' original intentions-that the judiciary play a robust role in curbing abuses of government power and protecting individual rights-and provides both a historical perspective and a look at the courts' decisions on today's most contentious issues.
ebook
(0)
Beyond Disruption
Technology's Challenge to Governance
by George P. Shultz
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
In Beyond Disruption: Technology's Challenge to Governance, George P. Shultz, Jim Hoagland, and James Timbie present views from some of the country's top experts in the sciences, humanities, and military that scrutinize the rise of post-millennium technologies in today's global society. They contemplate both the benefits and peril carried by the unprecedented speed of these innovations-from genetic editing, which enables us new ways to control infectious diseases, to social media, whose ubiquitous global connections threaten the function of democracies across the world. Some techniques, like the advent of machine learning, have enabled engineers to create systems that will make us more productive. For example, self-driving vehicles promise to make trucking safer, faster, and cheaper. However, using big data and artificial intelligence to automate complex tasks also ends up threatening to disrupt both routine professions like taxi driving and cognitive work by accountants, radiologists, lawyers, and even computer programmers themselves.
ebook
(0)
Skating On Stilts
Why We Aren't Stopping Tomorrow's Terrorism
by Stewart Baker
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
Stewart A. Baker, a former Homeland Security official, examines the technologies we love-jet travel, computer networks, and biotech-and finds that they are likely to empower new forms of terrorism unless we change our current course a few degrees and overcome resistance to change from business, foreign governments, and privacy advocates. He draws on his Homeland Security experience to show how that was done in the case of jet travel and border security but concludes that heading off disasters in computer networks and biotech will require a hardheaded recognition that privacy must sometimes yield to security, especially as technology changes the risks to both.
ebook
(1)
Gravest Danger
Nuclear Weapons
by Sidney D. Drell
Part of the Hoover Institution Press Publication series
The mortal danger of nuclear weapons is unique in its terrifying potential for devastation on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale. In this book, Sidney D. Drell and James E. Goodby-each with more than twenty years' experience in national security issues both in public and private capacities-review the main policy issues surrounding nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. They address the specific actions that the community of nations-with American leadership-should take to confront and turn back the nuclear danger that imperils humanity. The nuclear genie, say the authors, cannot be put back in the bottle. Our most urgent task as a nation today is to successfully manage, contain, and reduce the grave danger of nuclear weapons-whether in the hands of adversaries or friendly states. This book hopes to stimulate active public dialogue on this important subject.