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"In the wake of the Enlightenment ... the suddenness with which Jews began to appear and make a mark in numerous ... areas ... is nothing short of astounding. It seemed as if a huge reservoir of Jewish talent, hitherto dammed up behind the wall of Talmudic learning were suddenly released to spill over into all fields of Gentile cultural activity."--Raphael Patai, The Jewish Mind "Quite suddenly, around the year 1800, this ancient and highly efficient social machine for the production of intellectuals began to shift its output. Instead of pouring all of its products into the closed circuit of rabbinical studies, where they remained completely isolated from general society, it unleashed a significant and ever growing proportion of them into secular life. This was an event of shattering importance in world history." -Paul Johnson, History of the Jews The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement chronicles the astonishing record of one people's disproportionate achivements and the causes behind it. The stunning performance of Jews over the last 125 years can only be compared with that of the Italians during the Renaissance, the Greeks during the era of Pericles, or the Dutch during their own Golden Age. The Golden Age details that record in more than 60 exhibits covering the range from Nobel prizes to Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame awards, from Pulitzer Prizes to chess champions, from philanthropy to Supreme Court Justices and more. But more intriguing is the question, "Why has this happened?" (the question posed by Rabbi Harold N. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People). Through fascinating stories, such as "Lev Leviev and the Soviet Jews" (at the start of Chapter 20) and "The Jazz Singer" (at the start of Chapter 13) the book illustrates the life and circumstances of hundreds of remarkable Jews before drawing its perspective together in Chapter 25 - Why? Timely, the book raises notions advanced by Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, and recent debates over "Jewish genes" as well as Charles Murray's 2007 Commentary article where he argued for natural selection. The Golden Age makes the case for culture. It explains how the evolution of Judaism, coupled with a tortured 2,000 year history has shaped a unique combination of cultural values which have made Jews into the world's most successful tribe of Outliers. For example, they were history's first tribe to mandate literacy for all of their people. The book challenges natural selection, second generation immigra ...

Introduction -- Focus of the book -- Background -- Developments since the first and second editions -- Who should read this book -- Acknowledgments -- Rationale -- Why visit customers? -- Customer visits and market focus -- Promise and peril of customer visits -- Additional information -- Customer visits as a distinctive approach to market research -- Why do market research at all? -- Why do market research via personal visits? -- Why visits by cross-functional teams? -- Additional benefits of team visits -- Additional information -- Limits, boundary cases, and the sweet spot for customer visits -- When customer visits are not the technique of choice -- The sweet spot for customer visits -- Boundary cases -- From conceptual rationale to practical advice -- Additional information -- Procedures -- Programmatic, ad hoc and hybrid approaches to visiting customers -- Ad hoc visits -- Hybrid and emerging visit types -- How to harvest data from ad hoc visits -- Planning a program of visits -- Why a program of visits? -- Appropriate and inappropriate applications for visit programs -- A seven-step procedure for planning customer visit programs -- To begin: set objectives -- Additional information -- Budgets, recruitment, coordination, team preparation, and time line -- Cost factors -- Recruit customers -- Coordination with the salesforce -- Select team members -- Time frame -- Additional information -- Selecting customers to visit -- Devising a sample frame -- Special cases in sample selection -- Additional information -- Preparing a discussion guide -- The goal: information capture -- The discussion guide -- A process for team preparation of a discussion guide -- Additional information -- Constructing good questions -- Preparation but also spontaneity -- Importance of open-ended questions -- Workhorse questions -- Specialized question strategies -- Criteria for effective and ineffective questions -- A few specific questions to avoid -- How to ask questions about pricing -- The importance of follow up questions -- Additional information -- Conducting the visits -- Interview format: time boundaries -- Interview format: spatial considerations -- Group vs. individual interviews -- Interview roles -- Interview skills -- Difficult interview situations -- Additional information -- Completing the visit program -- Debriefing -- Analysis and reporting -- Dissemination of results -- Storage of results -- Closure for customers and the field -- Additional information -- Analysis -- Generalizability of visit data -- Procedures for the analysis of visit data -- Process of analysis: baseline approach -- Analysis of visit data: a closer look -- Visual representation of visit data -- Tips for improving the analysis of visit data -- Additional information -- The place of customer visits within the market research toolbox -- Compartments in the market research toolbox -- Research planning -- Customer visits compared to kindred techniques -- Combination strategies involving customer visits -- Mistakes to avoid -- Summary -- Additional information -- Appendix: checklist for conducting a program of customer visits -- Bibliography -- About the author -- Index

Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Acronyms and abbreviations -- Introduction -- E-development as a holistic vision -- The eSri Lanka program -- Learning from eSri Lanka -- Developing e-leadership institutions -- An institutional innovation in e-leadership: the ICT Agency of Sri lanka -- The institutional model -- Evolution of the authorizing environment and governance model -- Mandate -- Paths to sustainability -- Core competencies -- Partnerships -- A learning organization -- Role of aid agencies -- Lessons and conclusions -- Annex 2.1 The ICT agency in search of a corporate identity -- Annex 2.2 The ICT policy framework & the organizational structure of the ICT agency -- Annex 2.3 Internal and external risks facing the ICT agency at inception -- Managing results -- Objectives of monitoring and evaluation for eSri Lanka -- Framework for monitoring and evaluation -- Arrangements for monitoring and evaluation -- Emerging lessons -- Annex 3.1 Results framework for monitoring and evaluation -- Outcome indicator -- ICT human resource development and industry promotion -- Transforming government -- Best practices and options for planning and implementing e-government -- Approaches to planning e-government -- Implementation of e-government: four phases -- Leadership, partnership, and change management -- Providing leadership, building partnerships -- Conclusions and implications -- Readiness for e-government: a historical perspective -- History of e-government in Sri Lanka -- Analysis of the situation -- Findings and recommendations -- A vision of e-government -- Motivations and aspirations -- Challenges to realizing the vision -- Lessons learned: a postscript -- A strategy for e-government: initial priorities and lessons -- Planning for e-services -- Building e-governance -- Implementation agenda -- Early experience and lessons -- Annex 7.1 Criteria for determining impact & feasibility of offering services online -- Determining impact -- Determining feasibility -- Empowering communities -- Innovation in ICT use for poverty reduction -- Bottom-up planning and participatory development -- Serving the bottom of the pyramid -- The user innovation revolution -- Demand-driven ICT-enabled development -- Financing ICT innovation: lessons from InfoDev -- Conditions for ensuring impact by small grants -- Strategies for soliciting and funding good proposals -- Evaluating proposals and making funding decisions -- Good practices in managing a small-grant program -- E-society: design and early experience -- Overview of the fund -- Practices in soliciting and funding proposals -- Arrangements for implementation and monitoring -- Early operation and lessons learned -- Key lessons of eSri Lanka -- Designing and implementing a holistic framework for e-development -- Developing e-leadership institutions -- Transforming government -- Empowering communities -- Appendix 1 Main program components of eSri Lanka -- ICT policy, leadership, and institutional development program -- Information infrastructure program -- Reengineering government program -- ICT human resource capacity-building program -- ICT investment and private sector development program -- E-society program -- Appendix 2 Selected indicators for Sri Lanka and comparators -- Bibliography -- About the author

Sous-officier des Forces Armées Royales (FAR), Ahmed Marzouki a participé à son corps défendant au coup d'État de juillet 1971 contre le roi Hassan II au palais de Skirat. Ce coup d'État mal organisé par la haute hiérarchie militaire a tourné au véritable carnage. Des soldats ont tiré dans la foule des invités du roi qui fêtait son anniversaire. Le roi sauva sa vie en se cachant plusieurs heures dans les toilettes. Il est parvenu ensuite à renverser la situation en réapparaissant par surprise. Un certain nombre de responsables militaires ont été fusillés aussitôt après. D'autres qui avaient été envoyés en commando sans connaître le but de leur mission ont été condamnés à des peines de 3 à 5 ans de prison. Ahmed Marzouki était de ceux-là. Il a été condamné en février 1972 à cinq ans de prison. Estimant que la justice s'était montrée trop clémente en condamnant ces militaires innocents, Hassan II les fit enlever de la prison où ils purgeaient leur peine et ordonna de les enfermer dans une prison secrète, construite au fin fond du royaume pour assouvir cette sinistre vengeance. Pendant des années, on ignora tout de leur sort. L'auteur a écrit ce livre juste après avoir trouvé sa liberté = Non-commissioned officer of the Royal Armed Forces (FAR), Ahmed Marzouki participated reluctantly in the coup d'état of July 1971 against King Hassan II at the palace of Skirat. The poorly organized coup by senior military hierarchy has turned into carnage. Soldiers fired into the crowd of guests of the king who were celebrating his birthday. The King saved his life by hiding several hours. He then managed to reverse the situation by turning out of the blue. A number of military officers were shot soon after. Others who had been sent as a commando unit without knowing the purpose of their mission were sentenced to terms of 3 to 5 years in prison. Ahmed Marzouki was one of them. He was sentenced in February 1972 to five years in prison. Believing that justice had been too lenient in sentencing the innocent soldiers, Hassan II had them removed from the prison where they were serving their sentences and ordered them to shut up in a secret prison, specially built in a remote region. For years, no one knew anything about their fate. The author wrote this book after his release

When Bill Bratton was sworn in as New York City's police commissioner in 1994, he made what many considered a bold promise: The NYPD would fight crime in every borough...and win. It seemed foolhardy; even everybody knows you can't win the war on crime. But he delivered. In an extraordinary twenty-seven months, serious crime in New York City went down by 33 percent, the murder rate was cut in half -- and Bill Bratton was heralded as the most charismatic and respected law enforcement official in America. In this outspoken account of his news-making career, Bratton reveals how his cutting-edge policing strategies brought about the historic reduction in crime. Bratton's success made national news and landed him on the cover of Time. It also landed him in political hot water. He earned such positive press that before he'd completed his first week on the job, the administration of New York's media-hungry mayor Rudolph Giuliani, threatened to fire him. The author gives a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at the sizzle and substance, and he pulls no punches describing the personalities who really run the city. Bratton grew up in a working-class Boston neighborhood, always dreaming of being a cop. As a young officer under Robert di Grazia, Boston's progressive police commissioner, he got a ground-level view of real police reform and also saw what happens when an outspoken, dynamic, reform-minded police commissioner starts to outshine an ambitious mayor. He was soon in the forefront of the community policing movement and a rising star in the profession. Bratton had turned around four major police departments when he accepted the number one police job in America. When he arrived at the NYPD, New York's Finest were almost hiding; they had given up on preventing crime and were trying only to respond to it. Narcotics, Vice, Auto Theft, and the Gun Squads all worked banker's hours while the competition -- the bad guys -- worked around the clock. Bratton changed that. He brought talent to the top and instilled pride in the force; he listened to the people in the neighborhoods and to the cops on the street. Bratton and his "dream team" created Compstat, a combination of computer statistics analysis and an unwavering demand for accountability. Cops were called on the carpet, and crime began to drop. With Bratton on the job, New York City was turned around. Today, New York's plummeting crime rate and improved quality of life remain a national success story. Bratton is directly r ...

The Baby Boom generation is leading the nation into the future. Having elected one of its own to the White House, this generation - the largest and best educated in history - is poised to place its imprint on the 21st century. Cheryl Russell - acclaimed author of 100 Predictions for the Baby Boom and former editor-in-chief of American Demographics - meets the challenge of predicting the daunting future of this most singular of generations. Russell perceptively shows why members of the Baby Boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, have always embraced their independence. This individualism has become the master trend of our time. But the Baby Boom generation is now finding itself in the midst of a midlife crisis as it is pulled in one direction by its sense of individualism and in another by its children. Baby Boomers, known for following the beat of their own drummer, are suddenly awakening to the urgent need to bring society together for the sake of their children's future. The Baby Boom generation prizes individualism so highly that it has become the first generation of what Cheryl Russell calls "free agents." Like Curt Flood - baseball's first free agent - the Baby Boomers play by their own rules. Free agents have become both the creators and the eager customers of a new, fast-paced, hotly competitive "personalized economy" that seizes on cutting-edge technologies to produce the innovative and custom-designed products and services the world so sorely needs. Will this personalized economy bring prosperity to Americans? Can the free agents of the Baby Boom generation make life better for all of us? Will they learn to work together for the good of society? Most important, what kind of society are the Baby Boomers leaving to their children? In a culture that values individualism above all, what will happen to the unprepared millions who are trapped in the margins of society? In a world where the disparity between rich and poor has grown dramatically what kind of tensions will arise? The Baby Boom generation is now laying the foundation for the next century. The choices it makes today will reshape America either into a society of turmoil and danger or into a brave new world of cooperation and prosperity. In this landmark work, Cheryl Russell presents the blueprint by which the Baby Boom generation will leave its legacy for the future

The first part of the text presents the republican position of young Hegel. This position is developed primarily through a divergence from Christianity, which is, in Hegel's judgment, the spiritual pillar of political despotism and the main cause of German spiritual, social and political backwardness. According to Hegel, the main reason for the fatal influence of Christianity is its private character, the fact that it teaches man to despise this earthly life, tells him that he is unable to achieve moral perfection through his own efforts and turns him into an object of a transcendental power. In opposition to Christianity, Hegel puts forward the Greek popular religions, i.e. the antique republican orders as the only orders adequate to man's freedom, pointing them out also as models for his own time. The second part of the text shows how Hegel's giving up on his youthful republican-democratic ideals and his adherence to hereditary monarchy is a consequence of the appearance of the liberal moment in his political philosophy. Through acceptance of subjectivity as the supreme principle of the new age, Hegel realizes that a return to the substantial ethical unity of the Greek polis is impossible. At the same time, he sees in the constitutional monarchy of the hereditary type the only order adequate to modern conditions. Namely it preserves the autonomy of non-political spheres in the state, while simultaneously -- in the monarch who is not dependent on the will of those subject to his power -- the state unity is guaranteed as opposed to civil society as a space of interest plurality and socio-economic differences. Finally, the author strives to demonstrate how, in spite of Hegel's obvious opting for hereditary monarchy and rejection of the republic, his mature political philosophy also encompasses a republican dimension. This has to do with a contradiction between the republican form and the monarchic contents of the political state. Namely the latter is not (only) a machinery of power which serves as a counterbalance to civil society, but is defined as the sphere of true political community. It is however not shaped through the activity of individuals; their political subjectivity is embodied in the hereditary monarch. This contradiction, i.e. the republican essence of the political state, leads to the conclusion that political emancipation can be conceived as a natural and necessary consequence of civil emancipation also in the conceptual field of The Philosophy of Right. Adapted from the source document.

This article includes some ideas on the crisis that took place in Osh, Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Apart from a brief summary of the events, it describes viewpoints of the main 'actors' including the international organizations; it also seeks an answer to the question on what the reasons leading up to these tragic events were. Regarding possible sources of conflicts, including the factor of ethnic minorities, the question arises whether the various international mechanisms created for handling regional conflicts function properly, in a conducive way, and whether they can warn the international community of an evolving crisis and prevent conflicts. According to the facts, in the concrete case of the Osh crisis, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities succeeded in fulfilling his task in the area of early warning; however, no concrete actions were taken by the above-mentioned 'actors' in regional and international politics to prevent the conflict. This paper has no intention of dwelling on this issue as it was very adequately addressed by an earlier article written by Sabine Machl. The ethnic conflicts of 1990 and 2010 in Central Asia demonstrate the vulnerability of the region, which also faces some additional challenges in the field of security. This article does not intend to examine all the aspects of the Kyrgyz crisis. However, as some experts at the time of the Osh events explicitly mentioned, the possibility of the infiltration of militants from Afghanistan and their involvement in the clashes and as Afghanistan itself is a country, where about half of the population belong to various ethnic 'minority' groups (Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmens, etc.), one cannot ignore the danger of the implication of the conflict going on in Afghanistan for its vicinity, including Central Asia. The awareness of this challenge was reflected in various ideas and suggestions (to address the Afghan crisis) emanating from these countries. The most comprehensive of these -- according to the views of the author of this article -- is the so called '6+3' initiative developed by Uzbekistan. One of the 'messages' of this article should be that, at the present, stronger and more consistent as well as concerted efforts are needed to deal with evolving conflicts and crises in the broader region of Central and West Asia, where these potential conflicts may develop not only by themselves, in separate countries or 'subregions', but they could include the danger of a 'spillover' which may also effect other countries. Adapted from the source document.

Jacques Bidet's theory of modernity is a fascinating research project which confronts us in a challenging way with a series of key theoretical & practical problems. The text focuses on the concepts of metastructure, domination, class & democracy. The most important concept is "metastructure," which is to be perceived as all coordination & legitimation resources (on the economic, legal-political & cultural levels -- the overcoming of any transcendental order) at the disposal of the citizens of modernity. These resources can be combined in several different ways, in varied structures of modernity. How are we to understand the ontological status of this metastructure? A full answer confronts us with another question: is it possible to offer a scientific explanation of the genesis of this modern (meta)structure? Thus, if metastructure is some sort of general grammar of modernity, the social structures are an actualization of the possibilities of metastructure according to the spectrum ranging from the extreme of planned collectivism to the extreme of liberistic capitalism. Consequently, the duality of modernity is manifest in the fact that it is characterized, on the one hand, by universalistic legitimacy and, on the other, by the persistence of forms of (class) domination. According to Bidet, in capitalism a dominant class will be established with two poles -- property & competence -- which correspond to the interlinkage of market & organization in such a form of society. For this reason, an attempt to achieve emancipation from the domination of the proprietor, in the case of planned collectivism, developing to the full the organizational dimension in order to satisfy the social needs in a more egalitarian way, necessarily results in the organizer's domination. But the thesis that the dominant class in capitalism has two poles (property & competence) is met with the objection that simultaneously too much & not enough is said about the second pole of this class (of managers). Namely, it remains unclear how we must think the unity of capitalist domination in the plurality of spheres of social power; & if, on the contrary, we must abandon this unity, why should we limit ourselves to only two poles? The author concludes with a discussion of two questions which he deems to be decisive: to what extent can the inequalities related to property or competence be designated as class relations or forms of domination? And what is the relation between various modalities of class relations or relations of domination, & the institutions of modern poliarchic democracy which is centered on the multi-party system? Adapted from the source document.

Providing a balance sheet of Kirchnerism is not a straightforward task. While clearly far from being the recasting of Argentina's political culture proclaimed by its partisans, neither of Argentina's political culture proclaimed by its partisans, neither was it a mere prolongation of the 1990s dispensation. In what follows, the author will outline Kirchnerism's characteristic features, noting both where it marked a break with the past & the elements of strong continuity. For if Kirchner can point to some genuine economic achievements & certain policy initiatives that qualitatively separate him from earlier administrations, his government otherwise presided over widening income inequalities & an increasing trend towards precarious forms of labor. His political praxis meanwhile, was marked by repeated recourse to tactics of co-option & clientelism, suggesting that the old order supposedly swept aside by the crisis of 2001-02 has clung to life, in altered guise; & that it may yet make a full recovery. The conflict with the countryside had a paradoxical result; on the one hand, it brought onto the political stage different social & economic actors, linked to the agribusiness model, while strengthening the positions of the most conservative & reactionary section. On the other hand, its denouement has imposed political limits on the government which probably signal the end of the 'K Era' -- at least in the configuration that has obtained since 2003, combining appeals for a 'new politics' & hopes of constructing a cross-party centre let force with a heightened concentration of power in the executive branch & the instrumental use of allies, even within the ruling bloc. This style of government, effective in reshaping the political scene during the first years of Kirchner's mandate, is now being questioned by a significant portion of society -- above all the middle classes -- who rejected the authoritarianism of the presidential couple, disbelieving its promises of renewal & demanding that power be further democratized. The Peronist party's election of Nestor Kirchner as its chairman in May 2008 may be a public role, but as a first step towards the reconsolidation of the Partido Justicialista which, thanks to Kirchner's changeling strategies, has ridden out the storms of devaluation more successfully than any other political force in the country. The situation as it stands is likely to mark the end of the K Era & its timid experiments with building a centre left coalition clearing the way for the traditional system of Peronist domination to return with a vengeance. Adapted from the source document.