Addressing issues of continuing if not heightened relevance to contemporary debate, America at the Brink of Empire explores the foreign policy leadership of Dean Rusk and Henry Kissinger regarding the extent of the United States' mission to insure a stable world order. Lawrence W. Serewicz argues that in the Vietnam conflict the United States experienced an identity crisis-a near Machiavellian moment, to use the concept of J. G. A. Pocock-whereby America came close to assuming an imperial role, stretching the country to the limits of its identity as a republic. Serewicz offers a revealing look at the parts played by Rusk and Kissinger-and President Lyndon Johnson-in bringing the nation to the brink of empire in the years 1963-75.As a true believer in liberal internationalism, Rusk set the stage by defining the war in Vietnam as a threat to the world order based on the United Nations security system created after World War II. Johnson kept an open-ended commitment in Vietnam without a clear goal in sight even as he pursued the ambitious domestic reforms of the Great Society. In refusing to choose between either an imperial mission or a true republican position for the nation, he brought it perilously close to becoming an empire, ultimately failing to achieve his goals either at home or abroad. Kissinger corrected for Johnson's overreach, implementing a pragmatic realism based upon the principle that the United States is an ordinary country-a republic, not an empire-within the international community and therefore must balance its commitments with its resources.In concluding, Serewicz reflects on the continuing relevance of the Machiavellian moment for the United States by observing the differences and similarities between the presidencies of Johnson and George W. Bush. America at the Brink of Empire illuminates the far-reaching consequences of Rusk's and Kissinger's widely divergent foreign policy philosophies and outlines the tension that a statesman must reconcile between a republican government and the maintenance of a stable world order.

Researched over the course of nearly two years, Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice draws extensively on the U.S.-PRC negotiating record and numerous interviews with key former U.S. officials to give a textured sense of U.S. Taiwan policyand its relation to overall Sino-American relationsfrom the Nixon Administration through the present. It argues that U.S. leaders have on occasion been either inattentive toor unaware ofthe commitments undertaken with the Peoples Republic of China regarding Taiwan and, because of this, have unwittingly generated crisesand could do so again.

This book presents the theory and computation of open channel flows, using detailed analytical, numerical and experimental results. The fundamental equations of open channel flows are derived by means of a rigorous vertical integration of the RANS equations for turbulent flow. In turn, the hydrostatic pressure hypothesis, which forms the core of many shallow water hydraulic models, is scrutinized by analyzing its underlying assumptions. The book’s main focus is on one-dimensional models, including detailed treatments of unsteady and steady flows. The use of modern shock capturing finite difference and finite volume methods is described in detail, and the quality of solutions is carefully assessed on the basis of analytical and experimental results. The book’s unique features include: • Rigorous derivation of the hydrostatic-based shallow water hydraulic models • Detailed treatment of steady open channel flows, including the computation of transcritical flow profiles • General analysis of gate maneuvers as the solution of a Riemann problem • Presents modern shock capturing finite volume methods for the computation of unsteady free surface flows • Introduces readers to movable bed and sediment transport in shallow water models • Includes numerical solutions of shallow water hydraulic models for non-hydrostatic steady and unsteady free surface flows This book is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate level students, given that the theory and numerical methods are progressively introduced starting with the basics. As supporting material, a collection of source codes written in Visual Basic and inserted as macros in Microsoft Excel® is available. The theory is implemented step-by-step in the codes, and the resulting programs are used throughout the book to produce the respective solutions.

A riveting and frequently hilarious insider account of one of the twentieth century’s most outrageous capers. On the evening of January 17, 1950, armed robbers wearing Captain Marvel masks entered the Brink’s Armored Car building in Boston, Massachusetts. They walked out less than an hour later with more than $2.7 million in cash and securities. It was a brazen and expertly executed theft that captured the imaginations of millions of Americans and baffled the FBI and local law enforcement officials. But what appeared on the surface to be the perfect crime was, in fact, the end result of a mind-boggling series of mistakes, miscalculations, and missteps. The men behind the masks were not expert bank robbers but a motley crew of small-time crooks who bumbled their way into a record-breaking payday and managed to elude the long arm of the law for six years. New York Times–bestselling author Noel Behn tape-recorded nearly one thousand hours of interviews with the surviving robbers, including motormouthed mastermind Tony Pino, a character so colorful he might have been dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter, to tell the uncensored story of the heist forever known as “the Great Brink’s Robbery.” Fun and suspenseful from first page to last, Behn’s true-crime classic was the basis for The Brink’s Job (1978), the Academy Award–nominated film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk and Peter Boyle.

'It wasn't only Britain's biggest heist, it became the bloodiest' Mail on Sunday The inside story of the 20th century's most lucrative armed robbery. On 26 November 1983 six armed robbers escaped with £28 million worth of gold bullion from a Brink's-Mat warehouse at London's Heathrow Airport. The Curse of Brink's-Mat reveals the pulse-racing full story of the crime itself before moving to its chilling aftermath, which still reverberates to this day. The heist made the careers of many of the underworld's biggest names, and changed the face of British crime forever but in the years that followed the robbery, many of those involved, innocent and guilty alike have been sent to an early grave. Two decades on, the death toll is still rising. Nobody knows more about that extraordinary morning's events than Wensley Clarkson, whose early career was spent as a reporter for Britain's biggest-selling newspapers, providing him with a wealth of insider contacts. From small-time crime in south-east London, to 'the heist of the century' and its bloody consequences, Wensley Clarkson's The Curse of Brink's-Mat is an epic tale of villainy, gold and revenge.