Robert Mann

Robert W. Mann

Miryam Ehrlich Williamson

A leading forensic anthropologist takes readers behind the scenes of some of his most intriguing cases to reveal the secrets of forensic science, discussing such incidents as the hunt for the identity of Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim, the identification of an unknown soldier from the Vietnam War, and his work following September 11th to give a name to the victims of the attack on the Pentagon. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

How I Cracked the World's Toughest Cases

Forensic Detective

A Grand Delusion is the first comprehensive single-volume American political history of the Vietnam War. Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning but often misguided American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to Cold War dogma led the nation into its tragic misadventure in Vietnam. At the center of this narrative are seven such men-Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, J. William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, and George McGovern. During their careers, each occupied center-stage in the nation's debate over Vietnam policy.Mann focuses in particular on the role played by leading members of Congress, including senators' Mansfield and Kennedy's shaping of American policy toward Vietnam in the 1950s; Congress's acquiescence in the 1950s to the Eisenhower administration's support of the American-backed Diem government; and the blank check that Congress gave to Lyndon Johnson with the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution.Mann considers as well the evolution of opposition to the war, including pivotal hearings conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1966 to 1968; the small band of war opponents led by senators Fulbright, McGovern, and Wayne Morse; Mansfield's quiet-but-persistent lobbying campaign to dissuade his friend Lyndon Johnson from escalating the war in 1965; the bitter political feud that erupted between Fulbright and Johnson-erstwhile friends-over the war; McGovern and Hatfield's determined effort to force Richard Nixon to withdraw American forces from Vietnam; and Congress's assertion of its Constitutional role in war making in the early 1970s, culminating in the passage of the War Powers resolution in 1973.In addition to being a piercing analysis of the political currents that resulted in and eventually ended the war, A Grand Delusion is an epic tragedy filled with fascinating characters and a keen reflection on the antagonisms and beliefs that divided the nation during those tumultuous years.

A Grand Delusion: America's Descent Into Vietnam

"This autobiography by the communications director of Gov. Kathleen Blanco during Hurricane Katrina covers the political drama and intrigue he witnessed--and learned from--as a political columnist and congressional aide since the late 1970s. He reported on and/or worked for Louisiana's top political leaders of the last forty years: Edwin Edwards, Russell Long, John Breaux, J. Bennett Johnston, and Mary Landrieu. He is a professor and Manship Chair in Journalism at Louisiana State University"--

Backrooms and Bayous: My Life in Louisiana Politics

Russia's Great Medieval Epic

The Song of Prince Igor

An Introduction to the Standard Model of Particle Physics familiarizes readers with what is considered tested and accepted and in so doing, gives them a grounding in particle physics in general. Whenever possible, Dr. Mann takes an historical approach showing how the model is linked to the physics that most of us have learned in less challenging ar

An Introduction to Particle Physics and the Standard Model

The Dionysian Art of Isaac Babel

In this collection of lectures, the author explores such issues as: Eastern mind versus Western mind; the place of ethics in 20th-century consumer society; paradox and the spiritual path; and what it means to be born into the human realm. He also looks at the first Buddhist monks and how their sometimes less than perfect behaviour led to the formation of Buddhist monasticism, and describes the series of events that culminated in the Buddha's death.

Buddhism in a Foreign Land

Andrei Bely's Petersburg and the Cult of Dionysus

The grainy black-and-white television ad shows a young girl in a flower-filled meadow, holding a daisy and plucking its petals, which she counts one by one. As the camera slowly zooms in on her eye, a man's solemn countdown replaces hers. At zero the little girl's eye is engulfed by an atomic mushroom cloud. As the inferno roils in the background, President Lyndon B. Johnson's voice intones, "These are the stakes -- to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." In this thought-provoking and highly readable book, Robert Mann provides a concise, engaging study of the "Daisy Girl" ad, widely acknowledged as the most important and memorable political ad in American history. Commissioned by Johnson's campaign and aired only once during Johnson's 1964 presidential contest against Barry Goldwater, it remains an iconic piece of electoral propaganda, intertwining cold war fears of nuclear annihilation with the increasingly savvy world of media and advertising. Mann presents a nuanced view of how Johnson's campaign successfully cast Barry Goldwater as a radical too dangerous to control the nation's nuclear arsenal, a depiction that sparked immediate controversy across the United States. Repeatedly analyzed in countless books and articles, the spot purportedly destroyed Goldwater's presidential campaign. Although that degree of impact on the Goldwater campaign is debatable, what is certain is that the ad ushered in a new era of political advertising using emotional appeals as a routine aspect of campaign strategy.

LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics

Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds

Rose Youd

This is a clear and systematic guide to vipassana meditation, the practice of insight at the heart of Buddhism. The book focuses on the original teachings of the Buddha and shows how they can be applied today. The approach is to show Buddhism without history, politics or jargon, and to offer the plain facts about the Buddha's path to enlightenment.

The Plain Facts

Buddhism

In the 1960s transitioning from acting to politics was rare. Ronald Reagan was not the first to do it, but he was the first to jump from the screen to the stump and on to credibility as a presidential contender. Reagan’s transformation from struggling liberal actor to influential conservative spokesman in five years—and then to the California governorship six years later—is a remarkable and compelling story. In Becoming Ronald Reagan Robert Mann explores Reagan’s early life and his career during the 1950s and early 1960s: his growing desire for acclaim in high school and college, his political awakening as a young Hollywood actor, his ideological evolution in the 1950s as he traveled the country for General Electric, the refining of his political skills during this period, his growing aversion to big government, and his disdain for the totalitarian leaders in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. All these experiences and more shaped Reagan’s politics and influenced his career as an elected official. Mann not only demonstrates how Reagan the actor became Reagan the political leader and how the liberal became a conservative, he also shows how the skills Reagan learned and the lessons he absorbed from 1954 to 1964 made him the inspiring leader so many Americans remember and revere to this day. Becoming Ronald Reagan is an indelible portrait of a true American icon and a politician like none other.

Robert Mann

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