Search results for ""author lester""

Medicine and the media exist in a unique symbiosis. Increasingly, health-care consumers turn to media sources—from news reports to Web sites to tv shows—for information about diseases, treatments, pharmacology, and important health issues. And just as the media scour the medical terrain for news stories and plot lines, those in the health-care industry use the media to publicize legitimate stories and advance particular agendas. The essays in Cultural Sutures delineate this deeply collaborative process by scrutinizing a broad range of interconnections between medicine and the media in print journalism, advertisements, fiction films, television shows, documentaries, and computer technology. In this volume, scholars of cinema studies, philosophy, English, sociology, health-care education, women’s studies, bioethics, and other fields demonstrate how the world of medicine engages and permeates the media that surround us. Whether examining the press coverage of the Jack Kevorkian–euthanasia controversy; pondering questions about accessibility, accountability, and professionalism raised by such films as Awakenings, The Doctor, and Lorenzo’s Oil; analyzing the depiction of doctors, patients, and medicine on E.R. and Chicago Hope; or considering the ways in which digital technologies have redefined the medical body, these essays are consistently illuminating and provocative.Contributors. Arthur Caplan, Tod Chambers, Stephanie Clark-Brown, Marc R. Cohen, Kelly A. Cole, Lucy Fischer, Lester D. Friedman, Joy V. Fuqua, Sander L. Gilman, Norbert Goldfield, Joel Howell, Therese Jones, Timothy Lenoir, Gregory Makoul, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Faith McLellan, Jonathan M. Metzl, Christie Milliken, Martin F. Norden, Kirsten Ostherr, Limor Peer, Audrey Shafer, Joseph Turow, Greg VandeKieft, Otto F. Wahl

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Because of its fragmentary, evolving, exploratory, and dialectical character, Diderot's thought has continuously resisted overall synthesis. In the ideas of "order" and "disorder," ideas important in all of eighteenth-century thought, Lester G. Crocker finds the key to an outline of a structure that leads to a genuine synthesis of Diderot's writings on philosophy, morality, politics, and aesthetics. The tensions in Diderot's thought, Professor Crocker shows, reflect his understanding of reality itself--paradoxically, an anarchic order, a dynamic universe governed by laws but always changing in a chaotic way. The book examines Diderot's approach to aesthetics as a human ordering response to the world, and his approach to morals and politics as practical ways of dealing with the problems of order and disorder in the context of life in society. In light of the concepts of order and disorder, the inextricable associations of all of these realms of thought in Diderot's work become clear, and a unity is perceived. Since the problem of order and disorder was fundamental to an age faced with the dissolution of the Christian view of cosmic order, this novel approach to Diderot's work suggests new ways of understanding the Enlightenment as a whole. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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Lester S. King, M.D., focuses on those aspects of medicine that remain constant through the centuries--the problems that doctors always face and the critical judgment needed to solve them. According to Dr. King, modern technological advances are really new ways of answering old questions, while the basic modes of medical thinking have not changed. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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This remarkable, inexpensive guide packs a comprehensive look at writing (and analyzing) arguments into 200 brief, accessible pages. Best-selling authors Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer offer clear, engaging chapters covering what argument is, how to read (and view) arguments critically, how to write a variety of persuasive arguments, and how to support your arguments with good reasons and appropriate documentation. This remarkable, inexpensive guide packs a comprehensive look at writing (and analyzing) arguments into 200 brief, accessible pages. Best-selling authors Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer offer clear, engaging chapters covering what argument is, how to read (and view) arguments critically, how to write a variety of persuasive arguments, and how to support your arguments with good reasons and appropriate documentation.

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An intellectual dialogue of the highest plane achieved in America, the correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson spanned half a century and embraced government, philosophy, religion, quotidiana, and family griefs and joys. First meeting as delegates to the Continental Congress in 1775, they initiated correspondence in 1777, negotiated jointly as ministers in Europe in the 1780s, and served the early Republic--each, ultimately, in its highest office. At Jefferson's defeat of Adams for the presidency in 1800, they became estranged, and the correspondence lapses from 1801 to 1812, then is renewed until the death of both in 1826, fifty years to the day after the Declaration of Independence. Lester J. Cappon's edition, first published in 1959 in two volumes, provides the complete correspondence between these two men and includes the correspondence between Abigail Adams and Jefferson. Many of these letters have been published in no other modern edition, nor does any other edition devote itself exclusively to the exchange between Jefferson and the Adamses. Introduction, headnotes, and footnotes inform the reader without interrupting the speakers. This reissue of The Adams-Jefferson Letters in a one-volume unabridged edition brings to a broader audience one of the monuments of American scholarship and, to quote C. Vann Woodward, 'a major treasure of national literature.' |In a compelling story of the installation and operation of U.S. bases in the Caribbean colony of Trinidad during World War II, Harvey Neptune examines how the people of this British island contended with the colossal force of American empire-building at a critical time in the island's history. He explores the military-based economy, relationships between U.S. servicemen and Trinidadian women, and the influence of American culture on local music (especially calypso), fashion, labor practices, and everyday racial politics. Neptune also places this history of Trinidad's modern times into a wider Caribbean and Latin American perspective, highlighting how Caribbean peoples sometimes wield ""America"" and ""American ways"" as part of their localized struggles.

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Lester R. Brown, whom the Washington Post praised as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers,” built his understanding of global environmental issues from the ground up. Brown spent his childhood working on the family’s small farm. His entrepreneurial skills surfaced early. Even while excelling in school, he launched with his younger brother a tomato-growing operation that by 1958 was producing 1.5 million pounds of tomatoes. Later, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brown emphasized the need for systemic thinking. In 1963 he did the first global food supply and demand projections to the end of the century. While on a brief assignment in India in 1965, he pieced together the clues that led him to sound the alarm on an impending famine there. His urgent warning to the U.S. and Indian governments set in motion the largest food rescue effort in history, helping to save millions of lives. This experience led India to adopt new agricultural practices, which he helped to shape. Brown went on to advise governments internationally and to found the Worldwatch and Earth Policy institutes, two major nonprofit environmental research organizations. Both brilliant and articulate, through his many books he has brought to the fore the interconnections among such issues as overpopulation, climate change, and water shortages and their effect on food security. His 1995 book, Who Will Feed China?, led to a broad restructuring of China’s agricultural policy. Never one to focus only on the problem, Brown always proposes pragmatic, employable solutions to stave off the unfolding ecological crises that endanger our future.

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The sixth annual guide to the environmental, economic and social trends which are shaping the future, this text presents the good news, the bad news, and a few surprises about the state of our planet. n Part One, facing pages of text and graphs provide information on 40 carefully selected indicators, mapping changes in food supplies; agriculture; the atmosphere, energy and transport; natural resources; the global economy; society and health; and the millitary. Part Two of the text contains special features on less celebrated trends, including ten new vital signs indicators such as violence against women, how the environment impacts on the insurance industry, and the proliferation of landmines.

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Originally published in 1959. This book examines the French Enlightenment by analyzing critical thought in eighteenth-centruy France. It examines the philosophes' views on evil, free will and determinism, and human nature. This is an interesting group to look at, according to Crocker, because French Enlightenment thinkers straddled two vastly different time periods.

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Anarchy, State, and Utopia: An Advanced Guide presents a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the ideas expressed in Robert Nozick’s highly influential 1974 work on free-market libertarianism—considered one of the most important and influential works of political philosophy published in the latter half of the 20th-century. Makes accessible all the major ideas and arguments presented in Nozick’s complex masterpiece Explains, as well as critiques, Robert Nozick’s theory of free market libertarianism Enables a new generation of readers to draw their own conclusions about the wealth of timely ideas on individualism and libertarian philosophy Indicates where Nozick’s theory has explanatory power, where it is implausible, and where there are loose ends with further work to be done

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From Rocky to Field of Dreams, sports movies are among the most beloved of American films. Revolving around familiar narratives like the underdog story, these movies have generated modern-day legends, reinforcing and disseminating our national myths about the American Dream. In Sports Movies, Lester D. Friedman describes the traditional formulas that have made these movies such crowd-pleasers, including stock figures like the disgraced athlete on a quest for redemption, or the wise old coaches who help mentor the heroes to victory. He also explores how the genre’s attitudes have changed over time, especially in key issues like class, race, masculinity, and women in sports. Along the way, he takes stock of sports films from the dawn of cinema’s silent era to the present day, including classic baseball movies like Pride of the Yankees and Bull Durham, basketball movies like Hoosiers and He’s Got Game, football movies like Friday Night Lights and Rudy, and boxing movies like Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby. As Friedman’s analyses reveal, not only do sports movies influence our perceptions about the drama of real-life sports, but they also help to shape our attitudes toward the competitive ethos in American life.

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Lester Salamon pioneered the study of nonprofit organizations and of their cooperation with government in the development and delivery of important social and economic services. His unique research in the early and mid-1980s was the first to document the pervasive interrelationships between government and the nonprofit sector in the United States, identifying some of crucial characteristics of nonprofit human service agencies and examining the impact of the budget and tax policies of tire Reagan and Bush administrations. Partners in Public Service brings together some of Lester Salamon's most important work on the changing relationship between government and the voluntary sector in the American version of the modern welfare state. Approaching issues from a variety of perspectives -- theoretical, empirical, retrospective, prospective, and comparative -- Salamon illuminates the theoretical basis of government-nonprofit cooperation, shows why government came to rely on nonprofit groups to administer public programs, documents the scope of the resulting partnership, reviews the consequences for this partnership of recent attempts to cut federal spending, and explores the expanding scope of government-nonprofit collaboration at the international level.

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Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman presents the filmmaker as a major artist who pairs an ongoing willingness to challenge himself with a widely recognized technical mastery. This new edition of Citizen Spielberg expands Friedman’s original analysis to include films of the 2010s like Lincoln and Ready Player One. Breaking down the works by genre, Friedman looks at essential aspects of Spielberg’s art, from his storytelling concerns and worldview to the uncanny connection with audiences that has powered his longtime influence as a cultural force. Friedman's examination reveals a sustained artistic vision--a vision that shows no sign of exhausting itself or audiences after Spielberg's nearly fifty years as a high-profile filmmaker.Incisive and discerning, Citizen Spielberg offers a career-spanning appraisal of a moviemaking icon.

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Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman presents the filmmaker as a major artist who pairs an ongoing willingness to challenge himself with a widely recognized technical mastery. This new edition of Citizen Spielberg expands Friedman’s original analysis to include films of the 2010s like Lincoln and Ready Player One. Breaking down the works by genre, Friedman looks at essential aspects of Spielberg’s art, from his storytelling concerns and worldview to the uncanny connection with audiences that has powered his longtime influence as a cultural force. Friedman's examination reveals a sustained artistic vision--a vision that shows no sign of exhausting itself or audiences after Spielberg's nearly fifty years as a high-profile filmmaker.Incisive and discerning, Citizen Spielberg offers a career-spanning appraisal of a moviemaking icon.

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Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) changed American cinema, reinvigorating the gangster genre with European, New Wave techniques and radically candid view of sex and violence.

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Competitiveness is one of the key themes in the current debate about national economic performance. A vast array of statistical data is usually assembled by national governments to demonstrate a closing or widening of productivity or trade 'gaps' with other countries or groups of countries. The authors of this book argue that far too little attention has been paid to the often subtle, but highly significant, organisational and cultural characteristics which underpin production and trade in a globalised economy. Dimensions of Competitiveness suggests that awareness of the impacts of this neglected dimension of competitiveness can, together with appropriate corrective action, significantly improve corporate and national performance.While considering a variety of more conventional dimensions of international competitiveness, the authors challenge many established tenets. A number of policy prescriptions are outlined as a result. Attention is also paid to some of the key distributive and infrastructural roles in enhancing international competitiveness including facilitating labour and capital mobility and providing efficient transport systems.

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This collection focuses on the introduction of phenomenology to the United States by the community of scholars who taught and studied at the New School for Social Research from 1954 through 1973. During those years, Dorion Cairns, Alfred Schutz, and Aron Gurwitsch—all former students of Edmund Husserl—came together in the department of philosophy to establish the first locus of phenomenology scholarship in the country. This founding trio was soon joined by three other prominent scholars in the field: Werner Marx, Thomas M. Seebohm, and J. N. Mohanty. The Husserlian phenomenology that they brought to the New School has subsequently spread through the Anglophone world as the tradition of Continental philosophy. The first part of this volume includes original works by each of these six influential teachers of phenomenology, introduced either by one of their students or, in the case of Seebohm and Mohanty, by the thinkers themselves. The second part comprises contributions from twelve leading scholars of phenomenology who trained at the New School during this period. The result is a powerful document tracing the lineage and development of phenomenology in the North American context, written by members of the first two generations of scholars who shaped the field. Contributors: Michael Barber, Lester Embree, Jorge García-Gómez, Fred Kersten, Thomas M. T. Luckmann, William McKenna, J. N. Mohanty, Giuseppina C. Moneta, Thomas Nenon, George Psathas, Osborne P. Wiggins, Matthew M. Seebohm, and Richard M. Zaner.

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Updated every five years, the series represents the optimal compromise between currency and a sufficient body of material for cohesive and comprehensive treatment in a monograph. Provides a quick yet thorough overview of the synthetic routines that have been used to access specific classes of therapeutic agents. Materials are organized by chemical class, and syntheses are taken back to available starting materials. Discusses disease state, rational for method of drug therapy, biological activities of each compound and preparation. Coverage also includes those generic pharmaceutical compounds not accorded clinical status. A glossary defines biological terms.

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Updated every five years, the series represents the optimal compromise between currency and a sufficient body of material for cohesive and comprehensive treatment in a monograph. Provides a quick yet thorough overview of the synthetic routines that have been used to access specific classes of therapeutic agents. Materials are organized by chemical class, and syntheses are taken back to available starting materials. Discusses disease state, rational for method of drug therapy, biological activities of each compound and preparation. Coverage also includes those generic pharmaceutical compounds not accorded clinical status. A glossary defines biological terms.

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This timely volume addresses those who teach and study multicultural topics. Rather than offering a Band-Aid approach to curricular offerings, the contributors demonstrate inclusive, innovative ways to integrate multicultural issues and media into existing courses. In "Struggling for America's Soul: A Search for Some Common Ground in the Multicultural Debate," Lester Friedman leads off the volume with an analysis of the value and necessity of multicultural approaches for today's students and for society at large. The essays that follow provide a wealth of material for organizing courses, including week-by-week syllabi detailing specific writing assignments, bibliographical information on readings, and sources for films and videos. The contributors, who teach at institutions ranging from community colleges through major research universities, describe their experiences teaching students of various ages, backgrounds, and interests. Shared Differences will be of value to all who use media as a tool in their teaching, whether in history, literature, or the social sciences, as well as to those who teach film and video production.

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First Published in 1998. In this seventh annual edition of VITAL SIGNS the team at the Worldwatch Institute bring together an eclectic selection of disparate trends to offer a unique, multifaceted view of our rapidly changing world. This vital resource and reference guide traces the scientific, social, economic and environmental trends that have and continue to shape our world. Among the trends covered for the first time in VITAL SIGNS 1998-99, are frontier forests, plantation forestry, satellite launches, minerals exploration, small arms proliferation and female education. This year's edition points out that global emissions of carbon, the leading contributor to global climate change, hit another new high, while wind power has grown an amazing 26 per cent per year, and sales of solar cells jumped a phenomenal 43 per cent in 1997. VITAL SIGNS is the most comprehensive source of environmental and social information available.

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This fine collection of original essays is in recognition of Colin Robinson, who has been at the forefront of thinking in energy economics for over 30 years. Energy in a Competitive Market brings together both prominent academics and practitioners to honour his outstanding and unique contribution. The authors cover a wide and fascinating selection of topics incorporating the whole spectrum of energy economics. In doing so, they examine the belief that markets are the key to the effective allocation of resources, a notion which arguably applies as much to energy as it does to any other commodity. In particular, they focus on several pertinent issues including: competition and regulation in gas and electricity comparative efficiency analysis (yardstick competition) in electricity regulation UK coal in competitive markets vertical integration in the oil industry cluster developments in the UK continental shelf modelling underlying energy demand trends emissions targets, environmental Kuznets curves and incentive mechanisms. Colin Robinson's work on the economics of energy has influenced the thinking of academics, researchers and policymakers alike. This book, in his honour, will undoubtedly do the same.

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From Rocky to Field of Dreams, sports movies are among the most beloved of American films. Revolving around familiar narratives like the underdog story, these movies have generated modern-day legends, reinforcing and disseminating our national myths about the American Dream. In Sports Movies, Lester D. Friedman describes the traditional formulas that have made these movies such crowd-pleasers, including stock figures like the disgraced athlete on a quest for redemption, or the wise old coaches who help mentor the heroes to victory. He also explores how the genre’s attitudes have changed over time, especially in key issues like class, race, masculinity, and women in sports. Along the way, he takes stock of sports films from the dawn of cinema’s silent era to the present day, including classic baseball movies like Pride of the Yankees and Bull Durham, basketball movies like Hoosiers and He’s Got Game, football movies like Friday Night Lights and Rudy, and boxing movies like Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby. As Friedman’s analyses reveal, not only do sports movies influence our perceptions about the drama of real-life sports, but they also help to shape our attitudes toward the competitive ethos in American life.

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"'May they be cursed in the chest and the heart, cursed in the stomach, cursed in the blood, cursed in the hands and feet and each of their members." Monks in medieval France lay flat before the altar as they intoned these maledictions laced with biblical quotations or paraphrases: "May their children be made orphans and their wives widows" (Psalm 108:9). In this long-awaited book, the result of more than a decade of research, Lester K. Little reconstructs and explores the phenomenon of officially sanctioned religious cursing in medieval Europe. He focuses on a church service, called in Latin either clamor or maledictio, used by monastic communities (primarily in Francia) between approximately 990 and 1250. Threatened by bands of heavily armed knights in a period of incessant civil strife, communities of monks, nuns, and cathedral clerics retaliated by cursing their enemies in a formal religious ceremony. After presenting the formulas the monks used in such cursing, Little explores the social, political, and juridical contexts in which these curses were used and explains how Christian authorities who condemned cursing could also authorize it. He demonstrates that these Benedictine maledictions often played a decisive role in resolving the monks' frequent property disputes wit local notables, especially knights. Little's approach to his subject is topical. After determining the clamor's sources, he takes up its kinship with such related liturgy as the humiliation of saints and then shows where and to what end it was used. By the conclusion of his work, he has recreated the whole culture of the medieval clamor, and in the process he has illuminated many other aspects of medieval social and legal culture.

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Mr. Pearson's approach to world politics might be characterized as a combination of moral firmness with patience and toleration, and a determination to explore every possible avenue toward an honorable peace. He has barbed words for those who expect easy solutions to international problems, as well as for those who succumb to despair or take refuge in isolationism. With penetrating insight he outlines the problems introduced by the new scale of armed force in atomic warfare, he considers the problems of international coalitions, and he analyzes the question of secret versus open diplomacy. Particularly important is his conception of the mediating role that the United Nations does play now, and the role that it can play in the future. Mr. Pearson approaches all these problems with vision but at the same time with the hard-headed realism of an active statesman, as shown especially in his final chapter on the influences which determine the international policies of the democracies. Originally published in 1955. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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More than a timeline, the Chronological History allows readers to follow themes and compare time periods via extensive chronological listings, numerous cross-references, and thorough index. This comprehensive resource also includes 38 new maps to provide perspectives on the complex territorial disputes in which the US has played a role. With over one third new material, along with updated and revised entries and maps, this second edition is essential for all students of political science, history, and international relations. Also includes 38 maps.

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A remarkable, personal glimpse of Black student life at Indiana University in the early 1960s. In 1961, a skinny African American boy from Indianapolis arrived at Indiana University Bloomington determined to become a doctor. For the next three years, Lester Thompson kept a detailed, intimate diary of his journey to graduation. In Lucky Medicine, Lester returns to his long-ago journal and, with honesty, humor, and a healthy dose of rueful self-reflection, shares stories from his college years at Indiana University. Fascinating glimpses emerge of Black Greek life at the time, including the building of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house and the successes, struggles, and social lives of its members. Lester's student years were driven by hard work, but also bustled with fun and drama. He recalls his time studying at the university library, falling in and out of love many times, becoming friends with fellow fraternity brother Booker T. Jones, a truly memorable invitation extended to meet with George Wallace, and an epic, no-holds-barred brawl with limestone cutters at the 24-Hour Grill. Lucky Medicine offers a closeup, unforgettable look at IU student life just before the sweeping social changes of the 1960s, when students of color accounted for less than 2 percent of the Indiana University's student body.

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A remarkable, personal glimpse of Black student life at Indiana University in the early 1960s. In 1961, a skinny African American boy from Indianapolis arrived at Indiana University Bloomington determined to become a doctor. For the next three years, Lester Thompson kept a detailed, intimate diary of his journey to graduation. In Lucky Medicine, Lester returns to his long-ago journal and, with honesty, humor, and a healthy dose of rueful self-reflection, shares stories from his college years at Indiana University. Fascinating glimpses emerge of Black Greek life at the time, including the building of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity house and the successes, struggles, and social lives of its members. Lester's student years were driven by hard work, but also bustled with fun and drama. He recalls his time studying at the university library, falling in and out of love many times, becoming friends with fellow fraternity brother Booker T. Jones, a truly memorable invitation extended to meet with George Wallace, and an epic, no-holds-barred brawl with limestone cutters at the 24-Hour Grill. Lucky Medicine offers a closeup, unforgettable look at IU student life just before the sweeping social changes of the 1960s, when students of color accounted for less than 2 percent of the Indiana University's student body.

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This compelling biography offers a unique perspective on the life and career of one of Latin America's most famous—and most adulated—historical figures. Departing from the conventional, narrow treatment of Bolívar's role in the Spanish-American wars of independence (1810–1825), leading historian Lester D. Langley frames this remarkable figure as the quintessential Venezuelan rebel, who by circumstance and sheer will rose to be the continent's most noted revolutionary and liberator. In the process, he became both a unifying and a divisive presence whose symbolic influence remains powerful even today. Twice Bolívar gained power, twice he confronted a formidable counterrevolution, twice he was compelled to flee. His ultimate tactic of using slave and mixed-race troops aroused both the admiration and fear of U.S. leaders and became a topic of heated discussion in the critical debates of 1817 and 1818 over U.S. policy toward the Spanish-American wars as well as the arguments over the admission of Missouri as a state in 1820–1821 and the U.S. decision to participate in the ill-fated Congress of Panama. Although he earned the sobriquet of the "George Washington" of South America, Bolívar in victory became more conservative and critical of the democratic tide of the era. Unlike Washington, Bolívar was forced into exile, the victim of his own ambitions and the fears of others. In his tragic end, he symbolized the glorious warrior so consumed by his own ambition and hatreds that he was destroyed. In death, he became a cult figure whose life and meaning casts a long shadow over modern Venezuelan history. As the author convincingly explains, he remains the most relevant figure of the revolutionary age in the Americas.

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The War in Afghanistan (1979-1989) has been called ""the Soviet Union's Vietnam War,"" a conflict that pitted Soviet regulars against a relentless, elusive, and ultimately unbeatable Afghan guerrilla force (the mujahideen). The hit-and-run bloodletting across the war's decade tallied more than 25,000 dead Soviet soldiers plus a great many more casualties and further demoralized a USSR on the verge of disintegration.In The Soviet-Afghan War the Russian general staff takes a close critical look at the Soviet military's disappointing performance in that war in an effort to better understand what happened and why and what lessons should be taken from it. Lester Grau and Michael Gress's expert English translation of the general staff's study offers the very first publication in any language of this important and illuminating work.Surprisingly, this was a study the general staff never intended to write, initially viewing the war in Afghanistan as a dismal aberration in Russian military history. The history of the 1990s has, of course, completely demolished that belief, as evidenced by the Russian Army's subsequent engagements with guerrilla forces in Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, and elsewhere. As a result, Russian officers decided to take a much closer look at the Red Army's experiences in the Afghan War.Their study presents the Russian view of how the war started, how it progressed, and how it ended; shows how a modern mechanized army organized and conducted a counter-guerrilla war; chronicles the major battles and operations; and provides valuable insights into Soviet tactics, strategy, doctrine, and organization across a wide array of military branches. The editors' incisive preface and commentary help contextualize the Russian view and alert the reader to blind spots in the general staff's thinking about the war.This one-of-a-kind document provides a powerful case study on how yet another modern mechanized army imprudently relied upon the false promise of technology to defeat a determined guerrilla foe. Along the way, it vividly reveals the increasing disillusionment of Soviet soldiers, how that disillusion seeped back into Soviet society, and how it contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Red Army had fought their war to a military draw but that was not enough to stave off political defeat at home. The Soviet-Afghan War helps clarify how such a surprising demise could have materialized in the backyard of the Cold War's other great superpower.

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