Brookings Press Blog

A Push for Power in the Political Arena

The Bush Administration’s Play for Power

If every individual who signed the Constitution traveled 221 years forward to the present, would they find America running according to the guidelines they intended? According to James Pfiffner, the Founding Fathers would probably turn to the 43rd president of the United States and shake their heads. Pfiffner believes that while the constitution outlines three equal branches of power, President Bush has used his time in office to shift the balance of power in favor of the executive branch. Pfiffner justifies these claims in his newest book, Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution, explaining why this abuse of power within the executive branch “will continue to threaten the future of republican government if the other two branches do not assert their own constitutional prerogatives.” Read Power Play to view a Constitutional and historical perspective of the Bush administration’s power grab.

- Read James Pfiffner’s take on the Bush Presidency in Power Play.

Book Launch Bonanza

Three new release launches and a sneak peek at Red and Blue Nation? Vol. II in the coming week

Bouncing right back from turkey overload, Brookings is hosting three new book release launches through early next week, with a discussion on a forthcoming title in the mix for good measure. You can register for these public events at the links below.

• Book launch for Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement with India and Pakistan by P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen - Tuesday, November 27 at 9:30 a.m. Read the full event transcript here.
• Book launch for Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics edited by Francis Fukuyama - Wednesday, November 28 at 2 p.m. Read the full event transcript here.
• Discussion of Peter Beinart’s chapter on partisan polarization in the United States and its effect on foreign policy in the forthcoming Red and Blue Nation? Volume II: Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized Politics edited by Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady - Friday, November 30 at 10 a.m.
• Book launch for Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia by Yegor Gaidar, former prime minister of Russia - Monday, December 3 at 1 p.m.

See you there!

This Week in History

The Nuclear Bomb Is Born

On July 16, 1945, the top-secret Manhattan Project successfully tested the first atomic bomb in Alamorgodo, New Mexico.

On July 22, 1987, in a landmark decision, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to ban intermediate-range nuclear missiles. This decision paved the way for the groundbreaking Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the United States that effectively eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.

Take a moment to peruse these books about nuclear proliferation:

- Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb, Charles Pritchard (Brookings, 2007)

- Beyond Preemption: Force and Legitimacy in a Changing World, Ivo H. Daalder, ed. (Brookings, 2007)

- Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism: The Impact of UNSCR 1540, Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham, eds. (Brookings, Chatham House, and the Clingendael Institute; 2006)

- U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today’s Threats, George Bunn and Christopher F. Chyba, eds. (Brookings and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, 2006)

- The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices, Kurt M. Campbell, Robert Einhorn, and Mitchell Reiss, eds. (Brookings, 2004).

(Image above is of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945)

Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith

Brookings Receives Top Billing in WSJ List of Essential Books on Understanding Islam

Vartan Gregorian's Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith (Brookings, 2003) gets top billing in Karen Elliott House's opinion piece in the November 11, 2006 edition of The Wall Street Journal entitled "Sense of Ummah." House calls Islam "the perfect primer....simple, but not simplistic" in her listing of books essential to understanding Islam.

Upon publication, Publishers Weekly noted that "Gregorian reminds readers that it is unfair to generalize so wantonly about a religion that encompasses more than a billion people. This book is brief, but its scope is ambitious...." CHOICE  called Islam "An exceptionally readable, panoramic view of the Islamic world."

Three years after publication this book hasn't waned in importance or scope. Gregorian urges Westerners to distinguish between activist Islamist parties, which promote—sometimes violently—Islam as an ideology in a theocratic state, and Islamic parties, whose traditional members want their secular political systems to co-exist with the moral principles of their religion. By doing so, he calls on us to promote international understanding, tolerance, and peace.

- Read "Sense of Ummah" on WSJ.com.

- Learn more about Islam.