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A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina

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In September 2005, the House of Representatives created the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina. The Committee was charged with conducting “a full and complete investigation and study and to report its findings to the House not later than February 15, 2006, regarding– (1) the development, coordination, and execution by local, State, and Federal authorities of emergency response plans and other activities in preparation for Hurricane Katrina; and (2) the local, State, and Federal government response to Hurricane Katrina.” The Committee presents the report narrative and the findings that stem from it to the U.S. House of Representatives and the American people for their consideration. Members of the Select Committee agree unanimously with the report and its findings. Other Members of Congress who participated in the Select Committee?s hearings and investigation but were not official members of the Select Committee, while concurring with a majority of the report?s findings, have presented additional views as well, which we offer herein on their behalf. First and foremost, this report is issued with our continued thoughts and prayers for Katrina?s victims. Their families. Their friends. The loss of life, of property, of livelihoods and dreams has been enormous. And we salute all Americans who have stepped up to the plate to help in any way they can. (Summary modified from the Preface.)

All in the Day’s Work

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In this autobiography, written when the author was 82 years old, Ida Tarbell looks back at her life and remarkable career as an investigative journalist. Ms. Tarbell is best known for her 1904 work, “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” which was a significant factor in the dissolution of the Standard Oil monopoly. She was a noted writer and lecturer, served on two presidential committees, and is considered by her actions to be an important feminist (although she was critical of the feminist movement). – Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi

The Cossacks: Their History and Country

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One of the earliest histories of the Cossacks to appear in English, with an emphasis on the exploits of famous Cossack leaders and Cossack struggles for political autonomy. Originally published in 1919. From the Foreword: “It is the proudest boast of the Cossacks of today — as of their forbears of the Ukraine — that they have never been classed as serfs nor for a moment lost their freeman’s instinct for the principles of liberty. While the peasants of North Russia were bowed in shameful submission to the Great Princes of Moscow and later to the ‘dark forces’ of the Tsar’s court and the Baltic-German officialdom of the capital on the Neva, the history of the Cossack inhabitants of the southern steppes was (as we shall later see) a long epic of heroic resistance to the encroachments of autocracy.” – Summary by Kazbek