Donald Trump, as president, sought to undermine fundamental norms and principles of American government, institutionalizing bigotry, and therefore damaged American society. Details are provided on how he carried out a racist and sexist agenda, endangered the lives of LGBQTs, terrorized immigrants, allowed exploitation of the environment, endangered public health and the lives of seniors, and tried to abolish the social safety net, while trying to construct an economic oligarchy around him and building a personal praetorian guard. To explain what he did, the book provides a unique window into how agencies of federal government work, their programs, and what he did to reverse decades of social development of the American people. *** "This richly detailed and accessible book is a report card on the Trump presidential era, and the grades are not good. Covering ten major areas from homophobia to immigration, this thoughtful report gives a dismal assessment of how society was shaken up, and casts a dark cloud on Trumpism's continuing influence. This is must reading for any concerned citizen in assessing the damage that has been done and preparing for the social battles to come." -Mark Juergensmeyer, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Global Studies and Founding Director, Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara; Author of Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State (2009) *** "This is a study of both how Donald Trump attempted to impose his will on domestic policy and also a broader story of how and why presidents are so often frustrated in achieving their domestic goals. It is a joy to read a master scholar at the top of his game, and with this book, Michael Haas provides us with a valuable, readable and important lens into both Donald Trump and the American political process. This book may not be the last book on Donald Trump's domestic policy, but it is likely to be the most important, and the most lasting." -Michael A. Genovese, President, Global Policy Institute, and Loyola Chair of Leadership, Loyola Marymount University; Author of The Modern Presidency: Six Debates That Define the Institution (2022) and How Trump Governs (2017)

This book identifies why presidents, prime ministers, and other leaders of countries often make blunders in foreign policy. Blunders have been recognized within the study of foreign policy, but no central methodology or theory has developed to provide a way to avoid future disasters. Options are often presented to leaders of countries by advisers who do not always assess which policies will best serve national interests. Presidents, prime ministers, and other leaders of countries then have their legacy judged accordingly. Therefore, the book reviews existing efforts at developing theories of foreign policy to determine why they have failed. Instead of allowing a discipline with a lot of competing theories to continue to flounder, the book consolidates all approaches and develops a new professional format that will serve to professionalize foreign policy decision-making so that fewer key decisions are ever again considered blunders.

-- Timely and relevant socio-political issue for US audiences -- Provocative and compelling analysis of an array of social, cultural, and political dynamics across US society and political institutions -- Engagingly written for both academic and non-specialist readers

The disastrous handling of the coronavirus (Covid-19) in the United States calls out for an explanation of who is to blame for a disease that could have been contained but instead became an epidemic. Donald Trump, who plays so many roles in life, was unable to fathom how to deal with the problem, but others in his administration made serious mistakes as well. Readers will discover the scope of the errors in an entirely factual, chronological account from the first word about the outbreak to the last day of the Trump administration. The narrative begins by identifying 13 roles that Trump played as president. The discovery of Covid-19 is identified next. The Trump administration was unprepared to do the same and took inappropriate actions in the early stage, notably refusing to use a widely used test for 46 critical days. Congressional economic relief is also identified. States, forced to design their own programs due to federal inaction, then differed widely, resulting in a spread from the coasts to the heartland. Decisions to end lockdowns prematurely meant yet another surge. Trump promoted snake oil remedies, denigrated science and scientists, but wisely poured money into pharmaceutical firms to develop vaccines. People adversely affected are identified statistically. The book concludes by summarizing what each person and organization did to harm or help efforts to deal with Covid-19, leaving the final assessment to the reader who has absorbed all the facts during the Trump administration.

Democracy rests on ten pillars. However, they have fallen in the United States because both major political parties have strayed from the concept of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. One party wants to recreate life in the past, while the other party appeals to the economic self-interest of specific groups. The coup on January 6, 2021, has prompted a fundamental analysis of what has gone wrong, but proposed corrections have failed to strengthen belief in democracy. The fundamental pillars are of two types-preconditions and the structure of government. The preconditions are a strong middle class, a Constitutional framework supporting equal justice, a vibrant civil society, an informed citizenry, and a strong belief in democracy. The necessary governmental institutions are an independent judiciary, a legislature with integrity, a competent bureaucracy, free and fair elections, and an executive operating with civility. According to the Mass Society Paradigm, democracy works best when the voices of the people are aggregated into coherent programs by political parties, which seek majority approval and then demand action by government to solve problems, with the information media performing an oversight over the political process and government actions. But in the United States, some individuals are so culturally desperate that they have supported politicians favoring extreme measures to end democracy by paying attention to alternative concepts of reality. If ever achieved, corrective measures will take decades.

Racial and social relations can become harmonious and serene in every country of the world. Racism can be eliminated. The Kingdom of Hawai'i during the nineteenth century reveals a history of responsive politicians, economic progress, environmental preservation, and serene race relations because of a cultural lifestyle that can be emulated. But not everything was rosy. Severe challenges emerged after the discovery of the Islands in 1778. The leaders and the people responded to various intrusions in an exemplary manner, while the same problems have provoked endless conflict and social disintegration that plague the world today. Using analytical methods, this book recounts how the people of the Islands overcame civil wars, decimating diseases, ecosystem despoliation, religious conflicts, the uprooting of feudalism, worker exploitation, imperialist threats, coups, and a massive influx of new residents who quickly became acculturated. But the Kingdom of Hawai'i ended because of a flagrant violation of international law that calls out to be reversed. The world needs to know how a society of Caucasians, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Native Hawaiians, and others worked together to solve problems that seem intractable elsewhere. Until the secret is revealed, the world seems doomed to constant turbulence. Presenting a plan for social transformation, this book will be of key interest in the fields of political science, public affairs, sociology, and Hawaiian studies.

Eminent jurists, professional legal organizations, and human rights monitors in this country and around the world have declared that President George W. Bush may be prosecuted as a war criminal when he leaves office for his overt and systematic violations of such international law as the Geneva and Hague Conventions and such US law as the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws. "George W. Bush, War Criminal?" identifies and documents 269 specific war crimes under US and international law for which President Bush, senior officials and staff in his administration, and military officers under his command are liable to be prosecuted. Haas divides the 269 war crimes of the Bush administration into four classes: 6 war crimes committed in launching a war of aggression; 36 war crimes committed in the conduct of war; 175 war crimes committed in the treatment of prisoners; and 52 war crimes committed in postwar occupations.

For each of the 269 war crimes of the Bush administration, Professor Haas gives chapter and verse in precise but non-technical language, including the specific acts deemed to be war crimes, the names of the officials deemed to be war criminals, and the exact language of the international or domestic laws violated by those officials. The author proceeds to consider the various US, international, and foreign tribunals in which the war crimes of Bush administration defendants may be tried under applicable bodies of law. He evaluates the real-world practicability of bringing cases against Bush and Bush officials in each of the possible venues. Finally, he weighs the legal, political, and humanitarian pros and cons of actually bringing Bush and Bush officials to trial for war crimes.

Political science has been described as a jigsaw puzzle with many specializations and subfields that do not talk to one another. This book offers a solution that will advance the field from mid-level theory to engage in cross-fertilization through metatheoretical paradigms. The book begins with a history of political science from the nineteenth century to the present, followed by a paradigmatic history of political science including 6 metatheories in the pre-behavioral era, 12 in the behavioral era, and the 4 major and several minor paradigms being developed today. The book advances the goal of David Easton by proposing a neobehavioral political science including multimethodological innovations, cross-testing of paradigms, and tenets of a new political science that can rise to become a truly theoretical science. Each paradigm is diagramed to demonstrate the key concepts and their causal interconnections. Political Science Revitalized: Filling the Jigsaw Puzzle with Paradigms poses an exciting and provocative argument for the future of the vast field of political science.

While many texts on international relations deal only with ideologies, this book goes beyond discussion of ideology to provide an understanding of how global economics, politics, and society operate. The book begins with a history of the International Studies Association, which was founded to develop empirically-based knowledge and was opposed to ideological "isms" as biased guides to policy. The book focuses on four major paradigms-Marxian, Mass Society, Community Building, and Rational Choice-with diagrams indicating their empirical predictions over time. The Marxian paradigm focuses on scientific claims of Marx and Engels. The Mass Society paradigm explains why democracies become dysfunctional. The Community Building paradigm explains how communities can be and are built at the local, national, regional, and international levels. The Rational Choice paradigm assembles proposed explanations of reason-based economic, political, and social life to demonstrate what they have in common. Other candidates for paradigms are reviewed, with a focus on why they need further development to become major paradigms at the decision-making, dyadic, societal, national, and international system levels of analysis.

This book describes racist rule in Hawai'i during the first half of the twentieth century and how statehood made possible a fundamental transformation. Based on a multicultural ethos, top political power shifted from Whites to Japanese and later to other racial groups. Racism was eliminated in the economy, environmental policies were modified, government operations became more multicultural, and the desires of Native Hawaiians to recover what had been lost from the days of the Kingdom of Hawai'i were placed on legal and political agendas. Even before statehood, Hawai'i's example of school integration gave birth to the movement resulting in Brown v Board of Education. Afterward, the Aloha State was the first to adopt many reforms: unrestricted abortion, universal health care insurance, an Equal Rights Amendment, a State Ombudsman, neighborhood boards, classifying Whites as a "minority" in affirmative action, banning strip searches of females, and dozens of other innovative reforms that have been adopted elsewhere. Hawai'i remains the only state that is officially bilingual, has required mediation before foreclosures, celebrates an Islam Day, prohibits discrimination based on credit history and breastfeeding, bans smoking until the age of 21, disallows plastic bags, has declared an end to the use of fossil fuels by 2045, and has adopted many other measures that lead the world. This book explains how developments in the Aloha State, which have provided leadership to the United States, may be copied elsewhere, primarily based on the technique of reverse cultural engineering, which is the unrecognized basis for legal systems around the world.

Although Singapore's struggle for independence was led by politicians promising democracy, the leaders have sought to maintain power by reversing democratic practices and subverting democratic institutions. The case for Singapore's government today is based on economic prosperity that has raised the per capita income of the country into the top ten states of the world. The case against Singapore's government is that the economic policies have been copied from Hong Kong, the rule of law has become rule by political appointees, the free press has been muzzled, and the foreign policy is narcissistic in the extreme.

The reason for the paradox of increasing dictatorship as the economy improves is the establishment of a mass society, that is, a society with few intervening groups or institutions between the public and the government. Although the government blames mass society on rapid social change, the authors in this book identify myriad instances when the government itself destroyed intervening social institutions and, thus, intensified mass society. This is an important study for scholars, researchers, and policymakers involved with Asia and the developing world in general.

This book describes how institutional racism arose in Hawaii, why it arose, what kept it going, and how it can be dismantled. The book is unique in describing the history, statistical patterns, ideological disputation, and political underpinnings of institutional racism in a particular state, indeed one often thought to be relatively free from virulent forms of racism. The book specifically focuses on racial problems in regard to education, employment, health care delivery, and public accomodations.

The book concludes that White-constructed institutional racist policies, practices, and procedures persisted even when political power shifted after statehood in 1959 to affluent Japanese-Americans, who used the same forms of institutional racism to hold back Whites and poorer non-White ethnic groups. Although affirmative action is often improperly thought to involve quotas and reverse discrimination, the case of Hawaii shows that institutional racism can be dismantled through affirmative action without lowering standards of education, employment qualifications, and health care, instead, standards actually improved the benefit to all.

A detailed, scholarly reassessment of developments in Cambodia since December 25, 1978, when Vietnamese combat soldiers expelled the ruthless Pol Pot regime. "Genocide by Proxy" is an account of a country at war and of a people consigned to the role of pawn in world politics. Michael Haas contends that Cambodia became an arena for superpower conflict and thus could only find peace when the superpowers extricated themselves from the country. In providing perhaps the best explanation of the causes of the Cambodian tragedy, Haas exposes the narcissism that reigns when one state forces another to be its pawn. Haas' analysis entails a study in comparative foreign policies, an exercise that has theoretical merit for political scientists in search of paradigms of political behavior. Challenging the conventional view of Vietnam as the aggressor, this volume vindicates VietnaM's role in the Cambodian conflict, while at the same time revealing the treachery of U.S. foreign policy toward Cambodia. Much of the information in the book is based on Haas' own interviews with more than 100 key international figures and on primary documents.

In an introductory chapter devoted to the basic facts of how genocide by proxy began, Haas sets forth the history of Pol Pot's rise and fall. The first three parts of the book, which deal with proxy war, proxy peace, and deproxification, are related in the style of the film Rashomon and detail how each country perceived events and framed policies to use the conflict for its own ends. The final chapter suggests an alternative to this world of superpower chess games. The two appendices contain records of voting in the United Nations on Cambodia. "Genocide by Proxy" provides a truly fresh assessment of Cambodia that will prove invaluable in courses in Asian studies, international relations, and peace research.

The first comprehensive statistical analysis of human rights attainments and improvements over time, this book seeks to answer the question, Why do some countries better observe human rights than others, and what can be done to advance the cause of human rights around the world? Haas's data support his argument that economic sanctions against countries that violate human rights are likely to be counterproductive. When information flows more freely and economies are more pluralistic, competing political parties emerge, and basic human rights are increasingly respected. When liberal democracies have sufficient prosperity to adopt welfare state policies, women's rights are most likely to advance.

A collection of original papers by distinguished scholars, this volume explores a variety of strategies for the reunification of North and South Korea, based on alternative theoretical approaches. Although many policymakers and academics have been pessimistic about reunification, each of the contributors here argue that reunification could be achieved through a realistic, long-term strategy. In presenting their individual approaches to the problem, the authors first adapt a scenario for the future and then sketch a step-by-step program aimed at bringing about developments that would invariably lead to some form of reunification. Students of Asian studies, international relations, and political science will find this an illuminating treatment of the issues involved in one of the world's longest protracted conflicts.

The volume begins with a history of negotiations between North and South Korea on the question of reunification and identifies the political alternatives. The contributors then evaluate various proposals for reducing tensions on the peninsula, using both academic and practical approaches. John Galtung, recent winner of the alternate Nobel Prize for Peace, argues the case for neutralization, while volume editor Michael Haas explicates a functionalist approach that stresses cooperative activities. Oran Young presents a plan for graduated, reciprocated unilateral moves for tension reduction. Subsequent papers discuss the nonviolence, mediation, and domestic political feasibility approaches in turn. The book concludes with appendixes containing the latest plans for reunification proclaimed by both governments. With world attention once again focused on Korea because of the recent Olympic Games, the issue of reunification has achieved new prominence. This volume is a timely and important contribution to the reconciliation process.

-- Timely and relevant socio-political issue for US audiences -- Provocative and compelling analysis of an array of social, cultural, and political dynamics across US society and political institutions -- Engagingly written for both academic and non-specialist readers

Democracy is in crisis because voices of the people are ignored due to a politics of mass society. After demonstrating how the French Fourth Republic failed, wherein Singapore's totalitarianism is a dangerous model, Washington is enmeshed in gridlock, and there is a global democracy deficit, solutions are offered to revitalize democracy as the best form of government. The book demonstrates how mass society politics operates, with intermediate institutions of civil society (media, pressure groups, political parties) no longer transmitting the will of the people to government but instead are concerned with corporate interests and have developed oligarchical mindsets. Rather than micro-remedy bandaids, the author focuses on the need to transform governing philosophies from pragmatic to humanistic solutions.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to international human rights -- international human rights law, why international human rights have increasingly risen to world prominence, what is being done about violations of human rights, and what might be done to further promote the cause of international human rights so that everyone may one day have their rights respected regardless of who they are or where they live. It explains: how the concept of international human rights has developed over time the variety of types of human rights (civil-political rights, economic-social rights, as well as a delineation of war crimes) empirical findings from statistical research on human rights institutional efforts to promote human rights an extensive listing of international human rights agreements identification of recent prosecutions of war criminals in domestic and international tribunals ongoing efforts to promote human rights through international aid programs the newest dimensions in the field of human rights (gay rights, animal rights, environmental rights). Richly illustrated throughout with case studies, controversies, court cases, think points, historical examples, biographical statements, and suggestions for further reading, International Human Rights is the ideal introduction for all students of human rights. The book will also be useful for human rights activists to learn how and where to file human rights complaints in order to bring violators to justice. The new edition is fully updated and includes new material on: the Obama presidency the Arab Spring and its aftermath the workings of the International Criminal Court quantitative analyses of human rights war crimes.

This insightful book shows how the cultural affinity among the island nations of the South Pacific, known as the Pacific Way, has led to unique regional intergovernmental organizations. In particular, Haas points out that the survival and vitality of regional cooperation in the South Pacific is pivoted on this peculiar cultural affinity. He claims that organizations who have not adopted the Pacific Way have collapsed, while those that embrace it survive and will continue to grow. This politically oriented book, which covers Hawaii and the island nations from Pitcairn Islands on the east to Palau and Papua New Guinea on the west, from Micronesia on the north to Australia and New Zealand on the south, offers a perceptive view of this much ignored region of the world.

"The Pacific Way" examines specific organizations in this political culture, revealing how individual countries have developed common institutional arrangements in accordance with the Pacific Way. Haas starts with the organizing efforts of the colonial powers in the region, and goes on to provide a complete history of intergovernmental organizations. He offers pertinent information of the South Pacific Commission, ANZUS, and the South Pacific Forum. He fully describes the more technical organizations, including the Pacific Forum Line and the University of the South Pacific--providing both historical and contemporaruy perspectives. Finally, in view of the formation of the subregional Melanesian Spearhead Group and discussion on a possible Polynesian Economic and Cultural Community, "The Pacific Way" addresses prospects for integration of South Pacific regional organizations into a single coherent structure. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in political anthropology, theories of regional cooperation, and the politics of the region. It will also prove invaluable to business executives and foreign officials who deal with this part of the world.

While Europe has traditionally been the role model for international cooperation, this volume suggests a new highly successful mode. Using a flourishing operational code of diplomacy known as the Asian Way, Asian regional cooperation has gone even further to unite disparate countries for economic and political objectives. Culminating twenty years of research, this volume defines the Asian Way. It then provides details on fifty regional organizations in an effort to study this spirit of regional cooperation. Highlighting the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the author concludes that Asian international relations has been ASEANized and increased economic progress has been advanced in two decades through the application of the Asian Way.

Examining in microcosm how nations conduct their foreign relations in Asia, this volume provides an extensive list of regional organizations. It details their organizational charts, provides membership lists, and reveals funding formulas and projects undertaken. The author explains how, through the application of the principles of the Asian Way, the countries of Southeast Asia have resolved their conflicts, harmonized foreign policies, begun projects of regional economic cooperation and ultimately advanced prosperity.

Dr. Michael Haas' book, United States Diplomacy with North Korea and Vietnam: Explaining Failure and Success, aims to explain a significant, beguiling discrepancy in U.S. foreign relations: How has American diplomacy with Vietnam proved so successful when compared with its efforts to negotiate with North Korea? Haas undertakes a comparative analysis of foreign policy decisions to determine how relationships between the U.S. and each country have diverged drastically, in spite of a legacy of U.S. occupation in both regions. By tracing diplomatic interactions historically, comparatively quantifying diplomatic missteps on the part of the U.S., and cross-testing four paradigms of international relations, Haas presents a case for why the U.S. has succeeded in developing good relations with Vietnam while failing to achieve them with North Korea. Nuclear war haunts the world today because the U.S. has refused to negotiate a peace agreement with North Korea for more than six decades, yet the U.S. is on friendly terms today with Vietnam, a former enemy. This book answers why, finding that Washington's diplomacy with both countries explains the dramatic difference. Among four theories posed, power politics and presidential politics are refuted as explanations. Mass society theory, which focuses on civil society, finds that negotiations regarding American soldiers missing in action paved the way for success with Vietnam but not with North Korea. But diplomacy theory-tracing moves and countermoves during diplomatic interactions-reveals the real source of the problem: The United States provided reciprocated unilateral positive gestures to Vietnam while repeatedly double crossing North Korea. Although Pyongyang repeatedly offered to give up nuclear developments, Washington offered no alternative to Pyongyang but to develop a nuclear deterrent to safeguard the country against a devious and hostile U.S. The book, in short, serves as a serious corrective to false narratives and options being disseminated about the situation that fail to appreciate North Korea perspectives. Now that North Korea has a nuclear deterrent, diplomacy is the only route toward a de-escalation of tensions so that the United States can live peacefully with North Korea in a manner similar to its relations with nuclear China and nuclear Russia. More broadly, United States Diplomacy with North Korea and Vietnam demonstrates what happens when Washington plays the role of global bully, whereas more resources are needed for developing diplomatic talent in a world that will otherwise become more dangerous.

Racial and social relations can become harmonious and serene in every country of the world. Racism can be eliminated. The Kingdom of Hawai'i during the nineteenth century reveals a history of responsive politicians, economic progress, environmental preservation, and serene race relations because of a cultural lifestyle that can be emulated. But not everything was rosy. Severe challenges emerged after the discovery of the Islands in 1778. The leaders and the people responded to various intrusions in an exemplary manner, while the same problems have provoked endless conflict and social disintegration that plague the world today. Using analytical methods, this book recounts how the people of the Islands overcame civil wars, decimating diseases, ecosystem despoliation, religious conflicts, the uprooting of feudalism, worker exploitation, imperialist threats, coups, and a massive influx of new residents who quickly became acculturated. But the Kingdom of Hawai'i ended because of a flagrant violation of international law that calls out to be reversed. The world needs to know how a society of Caucasians, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Native Hawaiians, and others worked together to solve problems that seem intractable elsewhere. Until the secret is revealed, the world seems doomed to constant turbulence. Presenting a plan for social transformation, this book will be of key interest in the fields of political science, public affairs, sociology, and Hawaiian studies.

This provocative analysis of U.S. relations with Cambodia from the 1950s to the present illuminates foreign policy issues that remain especially pertinent in the aftermath of the Cold War, as we attempt to formulate new approaches to a changed but still threatening international situation. Based on interviews with more than 100 diplomats, journalists, and scholars who have been involved with the Cambodian peace process, Michael Haas' book brings to light new information on a complex chain of events and casts doubt on official accounts of U.S. policies toward Cambodia.

Haas sorts through the tangle of misinformation, anti-communist hysteria, secret operations, and other policy miscalculations that he contends were instrumental in defeating the unaligned government of Prince Sihanouk and setting the stage for the Khmer Rouge takeover and massive slaughter in Cambodia. He examines the strategic assumptions underlying U.S. efforts to sustain the Khmer Rouge after its defeat by Vietnam in 1979, and the unraveling of that policy when the unilateral withdrawal of Vietnamese troops eliminated any reasonable justification for it. Haas attributes U.S. failures in Cambodia to a combination of the idealistic desire to remake the world in a democratic image, a belief in U.S. omnipotence, and the realpolitik tradition of using power to advance U.S. commercial and security interests whenever they seem to be threatened. Through the method of options analysis, Haas proposes a model of international relations based on self-determination and democratic principles. Urging reflection on the lessons of Cambodia as policies are developed for the 1990s, this book will be important reading for diplomats, policymakers, journalists, and academics with an interest in foreign policy analysis and conflict resolution, communism, and Southeast Asia.

With a foreword written by former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, this book portrays President Barack Obama as a true child of Hawai'i and explains why he believes that America can achieve even more greatness by learning from the multicultural customs of the 50th state. Obama's aspiration to transform the United States using Hawai'i as his model has been a conspicuous theme in his books and speeches over the years. In them, he extols Hawai'i's multicultural ethos, describing how a normative, problem-solving mindset predicated on mutual respect and harmonious interchange is inculcated in the culture, politics, and society of the Islands. Indeed, this "Aloha Spirit" is imbued in Barack Obama, is part of what made him irresistibly charismatic as a candidate, and explains why voters in 2010 were baffled at his demeanor after he became the 44th President of the United States. This unique book examines Obama's decisions as an adult and as president and exposes how they are directly linked to the culture of Hawai'i and Obama's multicultural life as a child. The author and contributors also describe the ways in which native Hawaiians were dispossessed of their sovereignty and their land, how they steadfastly sought justice, and how their quest served as a model for Obama's mobilization of support for his candidacy. Provides connections between quotes from President Barack Obama to his philosophy and temperament throughout the book Supplies a comprehensive look at the multiculturalism of Hawai'i and ties these characteristics to Obama's career and political decision-making Includes a reprint of the text of the Aloha Spirit Law, which guides governmental decisions in Hawai'i with the force of law Identifies how Obama's presidency is unlike any other as a result of his multicultural experiences as a child of Hawai'i, and why he is compelled to bring his humanity, idealism, and strong belief in American values to the entire country

What happens to a composer when persecution and exile means their true music no longer has an audience?   In the 1930s, composers and musicians began to flee Hitler’s Germany to make new lives across the globe. The process of exile was complex: although some of their works were celebrated, these composers had lost their familiar cultures and were forced to navigate xenophobia as well as entirely different creative terrain. Others, far less fortunate, were in a kind of internal exile—composing under a ruthless dictatorship or in concentration camps and ghettos.   Michael Haas sensitively records the experiences of this musical diaspora. Torn between cultures and traditions, these composers produced music that synthesized old and new worlds, some becoming core portions of today’s repertoire, some relegated to the desk drawer. Encompassing the musicians interned as enemy aliens in the United Kingdom, the brilliant Hollywood compositions of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the Brecht-inspired theater music of Kurt Weill, Haas shows how these musicians shaped the twentieth-century soundscape—and offers a moving record of the incalculable effects of war on culture.