From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans or The Much Too Promised Land

From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics since 1940

Author: David R Colburn

Likely to raise hackles among Democrats and Republicans alike, this dynamic history of modern Florida argues that the Sunshine State has become the political and demographic future of the nation. David Colburn reveals how Florida gradually abandoned the traditions of race and personality that linked it to the Democratic Party. The book focuses particularly on the population growth and chaotic gubernatorial politics that altered the state from 1940, when it was a sleepy impoverished southern outpost, to the present and the emergence of a dominant Republican Party.
 
In the twenty-first century, Colburn says, Florida is a dynamic, highly partisan, largely conservative state at the cultural, social, and economic intersection of the Western Hemisphere. But the transition hasn't been entirely felicitous. Allegations abound that the state is a "banana republic" favoring the wealthy, a piece of paradise that embraces "immigrants, natives, seniors, rednecks, evangelicals, and yes, flim-flam artists and mobile home salesmen. All of whom came to the state looking for ways to improve their lot in life."
 
Colburn depicts the state's colorful governors at the center of every postwar development from Cracker to Sun Belt politics, from segregation to integration, from boosterism and modernization to economic and environmental crises. As the story of one of the most influential states in the nation, the book redefines Florida politics.

Books about: Robot Builders Cookbook or End to End QoS Network Design

The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace

Author: Aaron David Miller

For nearly twenty years, Aaron David Miller has played a central role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace as an advisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisors. Without partisanship or finger-pointing, Miller records what went right, what went wrong, and how we got where we are today. Here is a look at the peace process from a place at the negotiation table, filled with behind-the-scenes strategy, colorful anecdotes and equally colorful characters, and new interviews with presidents, secretaries of state, and key Arab and Israeli leaders.

Honest, critical, and often controversial, Miller’s insider’s account offers a brilliant new analysis of the problem of Arab-Israeli peace and how it still might be solved.

The New York Times - Ethan Bronner

…[a] revealing and well-written…Apart from such self-criticism, what is unusual about this memoir when compared with other, similar ones is how lively, even irreverent, it is. Mr. Miller is a fine raconteur who fills his pages with real characters and sly observations.

The Washington Post - Glenn Kessler

If Miller had been secretary of state or national security adviser, he might have used his memoir to maintain or restore his reputation. But he does not have to worry much about history's judgment on him personally. And so he has the freedom to recount the many mistakes he and other American diplomats made…the value of the book is its rich and colorful history of past negotiations, and Miller's sharp-edged analysis of what went wrong and right. Memo to the secretary of state: The next time you head off to Jerusalem, throw out some of those briefing papers to make room for this book in your briefcase.

Publishers Weekly

In this extraordinary account of 20 years on the front lines of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, career diplomat Miller provides an impressively candid appraisal of Middle East peace efforts. Drawing from his extensive experience and 160 interviews with presidents, advisers and negotiators, he apportions censure and praise with an even hand, sparing not even his failures or those of his colleagues. Miller evinces genuine compassion for both sides in the conflict (stressing that Americans cannot fully understand the life-and-death stakes in the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians), while maintaining a detachment that allows him to draw hard conclusions. Miller says that though the two sides hold ultimate responsibility for their shared fate, American involvement is imperative and calls for the tough-love approach of Kissinger and Carter, arguing compellingly that such engagement is "now more vital to our national interests, and to our security, than at any time since the late 1940s." Although occasionally paternalistic, Miller's writing is both approachable and deeply smart; this and his absolute failure to take sides mean that this work will doubtlessly influence and enrage-and certainly inspire. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Reviews

A word to the next president regarding peace talks in the Middle East: "If you're not prepared to reassure the locals while cracking heads as needed (and both will be needed), don't bother."So ventures negotiator and Middle East specialist Miller, a veteran of many incidents requiring tough talk and tough action and a survivor of Yitzhak Rabin's legendary wrath. (Rabin called Miller's Clinton-era Declaration of Principles "the worst American text since Camp David.") This book combines memoir with what might be called a primer on diplomacy, ending with some carefully reasoned suggestions for the next president to heed. He is a diplomat through and through, but it doesn't take much between-the-lines reading to discern that he finds the present administration wanting in that regard. Its vaunted road map, he writes, had little chance "to get the car out of the parking lot, let alone onto the highway." Yet, just as clearly, Miller takes seriously the need to fight a long war on terror and the fact that Israel is a chief battlefield in that war. He warns that the Middle East is a "bad, bad neighborhood," fraught with perils of many kinds. He also opines that the golden age of Arab-Israeli diplomacy is past, with no current leaders of the likes of Rabin, Hussein, Begin and Sadat to take up the difficult job of peacemaking in an atmosphere where many of their compatriots do not seem to want it. Yet, Miller urges, majorities on both sides do want peace, and if they are to have it Washington must take the lead, even if "the primary responsibility for peacemaking rests with the Arabs and Israelis, not with the Americans."Despite a few bad baseball metaphors and some misplaced breeziness, Miller'saccount is well considered. Recommended reading for the next administration, if not this one. Agent: Deborah Grosvenor/Grosvenor Literary Agency