Courage After Fire by Armstrong, Best & Domenici - In his moving foreword, former Sen. Bob Dole stresses that servicemen and women returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars must have the courage to take care of themselves so they can reintegrate themselves into society. To help those veterans and their families and friends move forward, Armstrong, Suzanne Best, and Paula Domenici-all mental health professionals affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco-have written a compassionate and accessible guide. Chapters clearly address specific aspects of wartime trauma (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression) and available treatments (e.g., psychotherapy, techniques for sleeping better). There is also advice on how to rejoin the workforce and reconnect with one's children. (Library Journal 1/15/2006).

Absolute Convictions: my father, a city, and the conflict that divided America by Eyal Press - a gripping narrative account of a family caught in the crossfire of moral fervor and individual rights, as well as an incisive social history that offers new ideas about the economic and social roots of America’s most volatile conflict.

America’s coming War with China : a collision course over Taiwan by Ted G. Carpenter - An intractable and dangerous international confrontation gets a sobering reappraisal in this provocative study. Cato Institute analyst Carpenter, author of The Korean Conundrum, gives a lucid, evenhanded diplomatic history of the China-Taiwan standoff and the recent rise in tensions as China's growing determination to reclaim Taiwan meets increasingly defiant Taiwanese assertions of independence. Exacerbating the problem is America's approach of "strategic ambiguity," which he considers a euphemism for "confusion" and "incoherence." Influenced by business interests eager to court China and conservatives loath to see Taiwan's plucky democracy swallowed by the Communist Leviathan, Washington placates Beijing with an official One China policy while selling arms to Taiwan and conveying a tacit promise to defend her against Chinese attack. These mixed messages, Carpenter argues, invite the two sides into miscalculations that could embroil America in war. (Publisher’s Weekly 11/25/2005).

The Battle for Social Security : from FDR’s vision to Bush’s gamble by Nancy J. Altman - Social Security is still the most relied-upon government program, and one hotly contested by many conservatives. Enacted in 1935 to deal with unemployment, disability, and poverty-especially among the elderly-it included unemployment relief and a longer-term program that grew into compulsory old-age retirement insurance. Politicians have railed at it, boosted benefits before elections, and fought ideological battles as to whether the government should provide insurance at all. Each time Social Security was in "crisis," a consensus was forged to restore its fiscal health. In this timely book, Altman (Harvard Law Sch.), who assisted Alan Greenspan in 1983's Social Security amendments, provides a detailed and fascinating look at the birth, development, and currently endangered status of Social Security, directing fire at President Bush's efforts to undermine Social Security with private accounts. (Library Journal 11/15/2005).

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