Packaging materials strongly affect the effectiveness of an electronic packaging system regarding reliability, design, and cost. In electronic systems, packaging materials may serve as electrical conductors or insulators, create structure and form, provide thermal paths, and protect the circuits from environmental factors, such as moisture, contamination, hostile chemicals, and radiation. Electronic Packaging Materials and Their Properties examines the array of packaging architecture, outlining the classification of materials and their use for various tasks requiring performance over time. Applications discussed include: -interconnections -printed circuit boards -substrates -encapsulants -dielectrics -die attach materials -electrical contacts -thermal materials -solders Electronic Packaging Materials and Their Properties also reviews key electrical, thermal, thermomechanical, mechanical, chemical, and miscellaneous properties as well as their significance in electronic packaging.

At few times in recent history have we seen a war so insistently and openly signaled as the U.S.'s looming war on Iraq. According to Rahul Mahajan, the coming war is a culmination of a process that the United States started with the Gulf War, where Iraq was made into a permanent target and pariah state. Mahajan argues that the Bush administration's post-September 11 policy toward Iraq is neither about controlling weapons of mass destruction nor fighting terrorism, but about consolidating U.S. control of oil reserves and dominance in the Middle East. Despite the prospects that attacking Iraq could quickly escalate into wider regional war and lead to further terrorist attacks, the Bush administration insists that violence is our only option. Mahajan cuts through the comic-book language of President Bush's "Axis of Evil" rationale, and presents a much-needed examination of the myths, facts, and history behind the U.S.'s pitch to start another war.

"Mahajan writes clearly and in plain language and the book takes on directly the main issues surrounding the war."
"Educational Book Review"

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 and the US government response, especially after the bombing of Afghanistan, transformed US and global politics.

--Will the US-led war on terrorism rid the world of this scourge, or fuel the hatred and suffering on which it feeds?

--Will the middle East and central Asia be stabilized once Afghanistan is reduced to rubble and starvation, or become a zone of enduring war?

--Within the United States, will it bring about new forms of patriotism and solidarity, or provide a platform for intensified racism, new assaults on civil liberties, and on the living standards of ordinary Americans?

This book locates ongoing events in the aftermath of September 11 in historical context, analyzes their motive forces and possible outcomes, and examines the alternatives that face the anti-globalization movement and opponents of racism and war. The New Crusade sets out the main historical and political issues at stake clearly, accessibly, and comprehensively. It examines US policy in the middle East from the break-up of the Soviet Union, ongoing sanctions against Iraq, and the quest for a US oil pipeline from the former Soviet republics through Afghanistan; the ideology of the National Security State and its implications for global conflict; the nature of humanitarian interventions in the Third World; and the questions of international law raised by terrorism. It concludes with a fresh appraisal of the options facing us today.

Reflecting both deep knowledge of theregion and the commitment and hands-on experience of a seasoned activist, Mahajan provides a powerful interpretation of events that will be decisive in the making of our time.