Mayday

This book details how sex was first used to sell industrial hardware, how Orphan Annie still keeps the world on track, and how an Arabian Nights wonderland of mass entertainment and suggestion makes information irrelevant, and sends us to bed at night too dazed to question whether we're happy or not. We live in an age in which legions of highly educated professionals dedicate themselves to the task of getting inside the collective public mind with the object of manipulating, exploiting and controlling. The Mechanical Bride is vintage McLuhan so aptly illustrated by dozens of examples from ads, comic strips, columnists, etc., that those who were stung by McLuhan were hard put for rebuttals.

About the Author :
Seth Cropsey is a former Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy, having served under four Secretaries of the Navy. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard and other publications.

Review :
From diminished budgets to increased tasks the world over, the rise of potential future naval competitors, and an enfeebled procurement system the United States Navy is in serious trouble. Seth Cropsey's brilliant explanation speaks to a general audience, detailing how the failure to solve these problems will cripple America's position as a global power and risk the United States' future security. Every American should read this extraordinary book. "Mayday" looks at the past, present, and future of the U.S. Navy and finds a troubling drift toward a smaller fleet and reduced American global influence. Seth Cropsey argues that America's stature as a formidable power has and will parallel her ability to remain the world's great seapower. It is an argument that deserves the widest possible readership. "Mayday" is a powerful distress call about the dangerous decline of American seapower. It's also a significant contribution to thinking about American national security policy and to formulating American grand strategy in the 21st century. And it's a good read. Seldom is a book on a military topic so well informed and compelling in regard to the underlying and pertinent historical patterns, strategical necessities, economic truths, and political realities with which Cropsey deals as scholar, academic, high official, analyst, and naval person. His superior intellect, great clarity of vision, long experience, and fundamental courage make this, an enjoyable "tour d'horizon" of naval affairs, truly the book of a soldier/statesman. In a well-structured narrative, Mr. Cropsey provides a concise and compelling summary of the evolution of American and other great powers' application of and dependence on sea power. He chronicles the waxing and waning of that power and the global order that has come with our nation's ability to command the seas...He wisely advocates that "the most advanced technology should bow to numbers" and argues for pursuing unmanned systems to achieve "decreased cost and increased surveillance and combat power..".."Mayday" is extremely timely, reminding us that security and prosperity are inextricably linked to sea power.