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Why has U.S. security policy scarcely changed from the Bush to the Obama administration? National Security and Double Government offers a disquieting answer. Michael J. Glennon challenges the myth that U.S. security policy is still forged by America's visible, "Madisonian institutions" - the President, Congress, and the courts. Their roles, he argues, have become largely illusory. Presidential control is now nominal, congressional oversight is dysfunctional, and judicial review is negligible. The book details the dramatic shift in power that has occurred from the Madisonian institutions to a concealed "Trumanite network" - the several hundred managers of the military, intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement agencies who are responsible for protecting the nation and who have come to operate largely immune from constitutional and electoral restraints. Reform efforts face daunting obstacles. Remedies within this new system of "double government" r...

Conflict attracts a great deal of attention-as much or more than any other element of human life. People generally dislike it, and try to prevent and avoid it as much as possible. So why do clashes of right and wrong occur? And why are some clashes worse than others? In Moral Time, Donald Black shows how changes in intimacy (friends or strangers?), inequality (rich or poor?), and cultural diversity (Christian or Jew?) all determine when conflict happens. A reduction of closeness or a display of disrespect alters a relationship, for example, and the greater and faster the change, the more likely conflict will ensue. Throughout the book, Black applies his theory to an astounding range of human behavior, from bad manners to crime and warfare, accusations of witchcraft, racism, and anti-Semitism, conflict about creativity in science and art. Written in Black's trademark straightforward style, Moral Time is a powerful and incisive new take on conflict-a fundamental and inescapable fea...