How Paris Taught Modernity to 19th-Century America ------- In his new best-seller, a renowned and thegreaterjourney
popular American historian unearths and brings vividly to life a rich high point in France’s tradition of incubating the talents of Americans who go on to change their own nation’s destiny. His book fills a gap of neglect. Until now, Americans have generally viewed their nation’s cultural and intellectual debts to France as arising from two key periods – in the late 18th century and early part of the 20th century. The first involved the French role in the American revolution through military assistance to General George Washington and via the Enlightenment’s inspiration for the Founding Fathers’ revolutionary concept of freedom. The second period featured Paris as an artistic hot-house for expatriate American artists and writers such as Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s.

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How Can the U.S. Come Back as an Exporting Power? Germany Holds Lessons on Manufacturing Striving to bring back the U.S. from economic slump and recover from an opposition victory in recent Congressional elections, President Barack Obama has put his political capital behind the idea that the U.S. can rebound economically by pushing innovation and thus increasing exports.

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frugalsuperpower"IF U.S. REDUCES TO “SECURITY ON A SHOESTRING,” HOW WILL EUROPE LIKE IT?

The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era.

By Michael Mandelbaum

PublicAffairs, 2010, 282 Pages.

We are now deep enough into the 21st century that its chroniclers have already recalibrated its turning-point date. No longer is it September 11, 2001, but September 15, 2008 – the day of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the official advent of the Great Global Recession.

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The Dirty and Dangerous Details of Nuclear Technology Smuggling

Peddling Peril

By David Albright alt

Free Press, 2010, 254 Pages

Reviewed by Kurt Moss

This account of the global clandestine traffic of nuclear-weapons technology is written by David Albright (no relation to Madeline), one of the most knowledgeable American experts on proliferation. Albright minces no words about his conviction that the most dangerous threat today to international security is the threat of nuclear weapons falling into “the wrong hands:” terrorists, criminals or irresponsible governments. He is equally clear about what needs to be done in self-defense against this threat. Western democracies and their allies should not rely on pre-emptive military action as their first line of defense against nuclear-armed rogues. Instead, Albright argues that Western democracies and other responsible governments should make it a security imperative to combat the global nuclear smuggling that is spreading this weapons technology amid comparative indifference to this particular dangerous threat.

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Gaullist Modernization France had some Seminal Roots in Much-Reviled Third Republic and Vichy – A Revisionist View

France's New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era

By Philip Nord

Princeton University Press, 2010, 383 pages.

Reviewed by Jennifer Wnuk

Even Charles de Gaulle, almost universally hailed as the savior of modern France, is subject to the revisionist diligence of Philip Nord, a Harvard historian who has written a meaty book challenging some of the conventional wisdom about the sources of France’s postwar modernization.

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