The citizens of the United States generally oppose new energy developments, yet the public does not want to go without cheap, plentiful energy. This book explores the intricate relationship between public opinion and energy issues. Using the state of California as a model, the author addresses such questions as, What roles do ideology and other values play in influencing opinions on energy issues? How much does the public understand about energy issues? Who favors further oil development o...

Energy crises, which amount to painful combinations of energy shortages and soaring prices, have struck the United States several times in recent decades. Each time they have resulted in political and economic shockwaves because, when gasoline becomes more expensive, the American public tends to react with anger and suspicion. Energy crises instantly put related issues at the top of the nation's agenda, sometimes with dramatic consequences for public policy. What can we learn from recent h...

In the universally acclaimed and award-winning The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier reveals that fifty failed states--home to the poorest one billion people on Earth--pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. The book shines much-needed light on this group of small nations, largely unnoticed by the industrialized West, that are dropping further and further behind the majority of the world's people, often falling into an absolute decline in living ...

"A damning denunciation of things as they are, and a platform for how we can do better."--Andrew Leonard, SalonFour years after he outlined the challenges our increasingly interdependent world was facing in Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz offered his agenda for reform. Now in paperback, Making Globalization Work offers inventive solutions to a host of problems, including the indebtedness of developing countries, international fiscal ...

AlterNet editor Joshua Holland demolishes the Right's biggest and most outrageous myths about the economyTaxes kill growth. Labor unions hurt their members. Government regulation destroys jobs. These are just a few of the biggest lies in the web of misinformation spun by conservatives and the Chamber of Commerce. Holland's book dissects each malicious fiction to show how the Right is just plain wrong on the economy—wrong on jobs, wrong on the deficit, wrong on taxe...

Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing worldCountries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing.Ross traces the oil curse to the upheav...

A Harvard-trained economist's startling predictions reveal critical challenges in the decades ahead, helping individuals, businesses, and governments to make smarter decisionsAs individuals, companies, and countries struggle to recover from the economic crisis, many are narrowly focused on forecasts for the next week, month, or quarter. Yet they should be asking what the global economy will look like in the years to come—where will the long-term risks and opportunit...

Globalization has shrunk the world in the name of free trade and broken down many of the boundaries between peoples. But it has also been a powerful driver of inequality, over-consumption and corporate control. This fully updated edition unpacks the complexities of globalization, examines the forces in whose interests it works, and provides the critical analysis for re-appraising the system.Wayne Ellwood is former co-editor of New Internationalist magazine...

One of our most prescient political observers provides a sobering account of how pitched battles over scarce resources will increasingly define American politics in the coming years—and how we might avoid, or at least mitigate, the damage from these ideological and economic battles.In a matter of just three years, a bitter struggle over limited resources has enveloped political discourse at every level in the United States. Fights between haves and have-nots over h...

"A competent, thorough assessment from a veteran expert in the field." — Kirkus ReviewsIncome disparities in our wealthy nation are wider than at any point since the Great Depression. The structure of today's economy has stultified wage growth for half of America's workers—with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on the few at the very top.In this "accessible and inspiring analysis", lifelong ...

Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor—and how racism helped bring this about.The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Te...

Lament for America explores the major challenges to the status of the United States as a world superpower. In delving into the fundamental question of whether or not a relative decline is inevitable, the author recognizes that the changes faced over the next few decades will be more rapid and transformational than at any other period in American history. Lament for America offers concrete recommendations for renewal in areas such as defense policy, health care, education,...