Books by J. Michael Martinez

Congressional Pathfinders discusses twenty seminal public figures in the history of the United States Congress, including the first black member, the first woman, and the first openly gay member. With its emphasis on the diversity of elected officials, the book demonstrates the importance of inclusivity in American politics.

Public Administration Ethics for the 21st Century lays the ethical foundations for a uniform professional code of ethics for public administrators, civil servants, and non-profit administrators in the US. Martinez synthesizes five disparate schools of ethical thought as to how public administrators can come to know the good and behave in ways that advance the values of citizenship, equity, and public interest within their respective organizations. Using case studies, he teaches American administrators how to combine the approaches of all five schools to evaluate and resolve complex ethical dilemmas within the constraints of the U.S. democratic values set.Martinez enunciates the common ethical principles that guide public administrators in their practice within the specific ethical parameters and organizational cultures of a myriad entities at the federal, state, and local levels of government in the United States, as well as in non-profit organizations. Along the way, Martinez addresses a number of crucial issues, including personal gain, conflict of interest, transparency, democratic impartiality, hiring, hierarchical discipline, media relations, partisan pressure, appointments by elected officials, and whistle-blowing. The striking, high-profile case studies-Nathan Bedford Forrest, Adolph Eichmann, Lieutenant William Calley, and Mary Ann Wright-illustrate ethical dilemmas where, for better or worse, the individual was at odds with the organization.

Congressional Lions examines twelve trailblazing members of Congress throughout American history to understand their role in shaping the life of the nation. The book focuses on historical figures stretching from the founding of the nation into the twenty-first century.

In his award-winning first book, J. Michael Martinez reenvisions Latino poetics and its current conceptions of cultural identity. In Heredities, he opens a historically ravaged continental body through a metaphysical dissection into Being and silence.

This fascinating book recounts the compelling stories behind 14 of the most important criminal procedure cases in American legal history.

Terrorist Attacks on American Soil is a close look at some of the most horrific terrorist attacks in the United States from the Civil War to present day. J. Michael Martinez takes us on a trek through history, providing a context for these dreadful events and a greater understanding of the lessons we can learn from them.

Protecting the natural environment and promoting environmental sustainability have become important objectives for U.S. policymakers and public administrators at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Institutions of American government, especially at the federal level, and the public administrators who work inside of those institutions, play a crucial role in developing and implementing environmental sustainability policies.This book explores these salient issues logically. First, it explores fundamental concepts such as what it means to be environmentally sustainable, how economic issues affect environmental policy, and the philosophical schools of thought about what policies ought to be considered sustainable. From there, it focuses on processes and institutions affecting public administration and its role in the policy process. Accordingly, it summarizes the rise of the administrative state in the United States and then reviews the development of federal environmental laws and policies with an emphasis on late twentieth century developments. This book also discusses the evolution of American environmentalism by outlining the history of the environmental movement and the growth of the environmental lobby. Finally, this book synthesizes the information to discuss how public administration can promote environmental sustainability.

This book provides readers with a foundation in American environmentalism with complete coverage of philosophical concepts, economics, history of the environmental movement, and modern environmental politics, agencies, stakeholders, and tenets of the sustainability movement. Tracing the environmental American trajectory with this fascinating, holistic, and thoughtful approach, the book concludes with a practical look to the main decision criteria for policy-makers and how to actually "operationalize" sustainability amidst the competing priorities of consumer needs, ethical ideals, lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians.

This is the story of the rise and fall of the Reconstruction-era Klan, focusing especially on Major Merrill and the Seventh Cavalry's efforts to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan to the light of day.