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books tagged “politics”
books tagged “politics”
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1968: The Year That Rocked The Worldby Mark KurlanskyISBN 0345455827 (0-345-45582-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: '1968: The Year That Rocked The World'Book summary:In this monumental new book, award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has written his most ambitious work to date: a singular and ultimately definitive look at a pivotal moment in history.
With 1968, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval. People think of it as the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap, avant-garde theater, the birth of the womens movement, and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. From New York, Miami, Berkeley, and Chicago to Paris, Prague, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo, and Mexico City, spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the globe.
Everything was disrupted. In the Middle East, Yasir Arafats guerilla organization rose to prominence . . . both the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Biennale were forced to shut down by protesters . . . the Kentucky Derby winner was stripped of the crown for drug use . . . the Olympics were a disaster, with the Mexican government having massacred hundreds of students protesting police brutality there . . . and the Miss America pageant was stormed by feminists carrying banners that introduced to the television-watching public the phrase womens liberation.
Kurlansky shows how the coming of live television made 1968 the first global year. It was the year that an amazed world watched the first live telecast from outer space, and that TV news expanded to half an hour. For the first time, Americans watched that days battlethe Vietnam Wars Tet Offensiveon the evening news. Television also shocked the world with seventeen minutes of police clubbing demonstrators at the Chicago convention, live film of unarmed students facing Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia, and a war of starvation in Biafra. The impact was huge, not only on the antiwar movement, but also on the medium itself. The fact that one now needed television to make things happen was a cultural revelation with enormous consequences.
In many ways, this momentous year led us to where we are today. Whether through youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, Mark Kurlansky shows how, in 1968, twelve volatile months transformed who we are as a people. But above all, he gives a new understanding to the underlying causes of the unique historical phenomenon that was the year 1968. Thoroughly researched and engagingly writtenfull of telling anecdotes, penetrating analysis, and the authors trademark incisive wit1968 is the most important book yet of Kurlanskys noteworthy career.
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The Age of Jacksonby Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.ISBN 0316773433 (0-316-77343-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Company
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The Analectsby Arthur Waley, ConfuciusISBN 0375412042 (0-375-41204-2)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Confucius is one of the most humane, rational, and lucid of moral teachers, concerned not with arcane metaphysics but with practical issues of life and conduct. What is virtue? What sort of life is most conducive to happiness? How should the state be ruled? What is the proper relationship between human beings and their environment?
In this classic translation of The Analects by Arthur Waley, the questions Confucius addressed two and a half millennia ago remain as relevant as ever. [via]More editions of The Analects:
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The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translationby Confucius, Roger T. Ames, Henry RosemontISBN 0345434072 (0-345-43407-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation'Book summary:There are more translations of Confucius' Analects than you can shake a stick at, but until now none have plumbed the depths of Confucius' thinking with such a keen sensitivity to philosophical and linguistic underpinnings. Following up on his groundbreaking work with David Hall in Thinking Through Confucius, Roger Ames has teamed up with Henry Rosemont to put theory into practice, portraying Confucius in light of his communitarian leanings. In a translation that comes off as surprisingly relaxed and colloquial, gone are the adherence to strict rules of propriety and righteous moralizing. Confucius has long been the victim of a certain unwitting Christianization, having been interpreted through the lens of Western philosophical assumptions. Ames and Rosemont scale away these assumptions, revealing a flexible and subtle thinker whose ideas of how to live well in a harmonious community have much to offer a fragmented society tied to reductive atomism and the exclusive exaltation of the individual. --Brian Bruya [via]
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The Analects of Confucius : A Philosophical Translationby Roger T. Ames, Henry RosemontISBN 0345401549 (0-345-40154-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Another Day of Lifeby Ryszard Kapuscinski, William R. Brand, Katarzyna Mroczkowska-BrandISBN 0375726292 (0-375-72629-2)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Another Day of Life'Book summary:In 1975, Angola was tumbling into pandemonium; everyone who could was packing crates, desperate to abandon the beleaguered colony. With his trademark bravura, Ryszard Kapuscinski went the other way, begging his was from Lisbon and comfort to Luandaonce famed as Africa's Rio de Janeiroand chaos.
Angola, a slave colony later given over to mining and plantations, was a promised land for generations of poor Portuguese. It had belonged to Portugal since before there were English-speakers in North America. After the collapse of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal in 1974, Angola was brusquely cut loose, spurring the catastrophe of a still-ongoing civil war. Kapuscinski plunged right into the middle of the drama, driving past thousands of haphazardly placed check-points, where using the wrong shibboleth was a matter of life and death; recording his imporessions of the young soldiersfrom Cuba, Angola, South Africa, Portugalfighting a nebulous war with global repercussions; and examining the peculiar brutality of a country surprised and divided by its newfound freedom.
Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand. [via]More editions of Another Day of Life:
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Anthills of the Savannahby Chinua AchebeISBN 0385260458 (0-385-26045-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anthills of the Savannah'Book summary:Achebe writes about the political and social problems facing newly independent African states.
Anthills of the Savannah transports the reader to the West African country of Kangan, a fictional Nigeria, in the wake of a revolutionary coup that overthrew a dictator. Achebe discusses the strict balance of power that must be maintained in order to sustain a democracy, and the fine the line that is tread between leader and dictator. [via]More editions of Anthills of the Savannah:
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Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politicsby Kevin PhillipsISBN 0316706027 (0-316-70602-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics'Book summary:A respected political analyst offers a controversial plan to stop the bloat of government and the ever-increasing power of special interests, arguing that Washington has become a parasite feeding off the governed. 75,000 first printing. Tour. [via]
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The Art of Political Manipulationby William H. RikerISBN 0300035926 (0-300-03592-6)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Political Manipulation'Book summary:In twelve engrossing stories whose protagonists range from Pliny the Younger to Abraham Lincoln to Adam Clayton Powell, a noted political scientist and game theorist demonstrates how some of our heroes as well as ordinary folk have manipulated their opponents in order to win political advantage. [via]
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The Art of Warby Niccolo MachiavelliISBN 030681076X (0-306-81076-X)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of War'Book summary:In medieval warfare, organization, staff services, hierarchy of command, and codes of military law were nonexistent. Machiavelli changed all that. For him, discipline was of supreme importance. War is war, he believed, a no-holds-barred contest, and victory the supreme aim to which all other considerations must be subordinated. To this end, Machiavelli instituted the systematic conception of troop formation, which until then had been almost unheard-of.The Art of War was widely read and highly esteemed throughout the sixteenth century. It was one of the favorite books of Frederick the Great; Napoleon, Saint-Cyr, and Clausewitz all held it in very high regard. Like The Prince and The Discourses, it is vividly and concisely written. But most importantly, The Art of War outlines most of the fundamental questions that theorists of war continue to examine today, making it essential reading for any student of military history, strategy, or theory.[via] -
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through Historyby Robert D. KaplanISBN 0312424930 (0-312-42493-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History'Book summary:From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare now sweeping Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy.
This enthralling and often chilling political travelogue fully deciphers the Balkans' ancient passions and intractable hatreds for outsiders. For as Kaplan travels among the vibrantly-adorned churches and soul-destroying slums of the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, he allows us to see the region's history as a time warp in which Slobodan Milosevic becomes the reincarnation of a fourteenth-century Serbian martyr; Nicolae Ceaucescu is called "Drac," or "the Devil"; and the one-time Soviet Union turns out to be a continuation of the Ottoman Empire. [via]
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The Bonfire of the Vanitiesby Tom WolfeISBN 0374115346 (0-374-11534-6)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bonfire of the Vanities'Book summary:After Tom Wolfe defined the '60s in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and the cultural U-turn at the turn of the '80s in The Right Stuff, nobody thought he could ever top himself again. In 1987, when The Bonfire of the Vanities arrived, the literati called Wolfe an "aging enfant terrible."
He wasn't aging; he was growing up. Bonfire's pyrotechnic satire of 1980s New York wasn't just Wolfe's best book, it was the best bestselling fiction debut of the decade, a miraculously realistic study of an unbelievably status-mad society, from the fiery combatants of the South Bronx to the bubbling scum at the top of Wall Street. Sherman McCoy, a farcically arrogant investment banker (dubbed a "Master of the Universe," Wolfe's brilliant metaphorical co-opting of a then-important toy for boys), hits a black guy in the Bronx with his Mercedes and runs--right into a nightmare peopled by vicious mistresses, thin wives like "social x-rays," slime-bag politicos, tabloid hacks, and Dantesque denizens of the "justice" system. If the Coen and Marx brothers together dramatized The Great Gatsby, Wolfe's Bonfire would probably be funnier. Many think his second novel, A Man in Full, is deeper, but Bonfire will never die down.
You might find it interesting to compare the film The Bonfire of the Vanities, a fascinating calamity perpetrated by the geniuses Brian De Palma and Tom Hanks, with The Right Stuff, one of the very best films of the '80s. --Tim Appelo [via]
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The Book of Political Lists: From the Editors of George Magazineby Blake Eskin, George MagazineISBN 0375750118 (0-375-75011-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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A Call for Revolution: How Washington Is Strangling America - and How to Stop Itby Martin L. GrossISBN 0345387732 (0-345-38773-2)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Comparative Politics Today: A World Viewby Russell J. Dalton, Kaare Strom, G. Bingham Powell, AlmondISBN 0321106768 (0-321-10676-8)
Hardcover, Pearson
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Comparative Politics Today: A World View'Book summary:Comparative Politics Today is the text that defined the discipline of comparative politics and continues to set the standard for the course with and the most current country study chapters available. The chapters on England, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, India, and the United States have all been thoroughly updated. As in the previous edition, theoretical chapters (Chapters 1-7) at the beginning of the book explore the "purpose of government" and provide students with a framework for understanding comparative politics. The theoretical section is followed by 12 individual country studies. All country studies are written by pre-eminent specialists on that particular country, ensuring that students have the most reliable information and insights into the political systems of those nations. [via]
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Comparative Politics Today: A World Viewby Gabriel Abraham AlmondISBN 0321089820 (0-321-08982-0)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Comparative Politics Today: A World View'Book summary:The Seventh Edition Update of this market-leading text offers the most current and respected introduction to comparative politics available, with several updated country studies and a robust new Web site. Comparative Politics Today is the text that defined the discipline of comparative politics and continues to set the standard for the course with a brand new Web site and the most current country study chapters available. The chapters on England, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico, Japan, and the United States have all been thoroughly updated. A new, highly interactive Comparative Politics Web site (www.ablongman.com/comparativepolitics) is sure to engage today's students and help them learn. The site's features include: country profiles, interactive maps, practice tests, news links, web links, and more. As in the previous edition, theoretical chapters (Chapters 1 - 7) at the beginning of the book explore the "purpose of government" and provide students with a framework for understanding comparative politics. The theoretical section is followed by 12 individual country studies. All country studies are written by pre-eminent specialists on that particular country, ensuring that students have the most reliable information and insights into the political systems of those nations. [via]
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Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercyby Matthew ScullyISBN 0312319738 (0-312-31973-8)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy'Book summary:"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." --Genesis 1:24-26[via]
In this crucial passage from the Old Testament, God grants mankind power over animals. But with this privilege comes the grave responsibility to respect life, to treat animals with simple dignity and compassion.
Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong.
In Dominion, we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We attend the annual International Whaling Commission conference, where the skewed politics of the whaling industry come to light, and the focus is on developing more lethal, but not more merciful, methods of harvesting "living marine resources." And we visit a gargantuan American "factory farm," where animals are treated as mere product and raised in conditions of mass confinement, bred for passivity and bulk, inseminated and fed with machines, kept in tightly confined stalls for the entirety of their lives, and slaughtered in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes decency.
Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives.
The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.More editions of Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy:
Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasusby Robert D. KaplanISBN 0375705767 (0-375-70576-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisisby Graham T. Allison, Philip ZelikowISBN 0321013492 (0-321-01349-2)
Softcover, Pearson P T R
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Fate of the Earthby Jonathan SchellISBN 0380613255 (0-380-61325-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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First and Second Discoursesby Jean-Jacques RousseauISBN 0312694407 (0-312-69440-7)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'First and Second Discourses'Book summary:One of the most respected translations of this key work of 18th-century philosophy, this text includes a brief introduction to the two works as well as abundant notes that range from simple explanations to speculative interpretations.[via]More editions of First and Second Discourses:
Franklin and Winston : An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendshipby Jon MeachamISBN 0375505008 (0-375-50500-8)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Franklin and Winston : An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship'Book summary:The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of historys towering leaders
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of the Greatest Generation. In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique onea president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in places as far-flung as Washington, Hyde Park, Casablanca, and Teheran, talking to each other of war, politics, the burden of command, their health, their wives, and their children.
Born in the nineteenth century and molders of the twentieth and twenty-first, Roosevelt and Churchill had much in common. Sons of the elite, students of history, politicians of the first rank, they savored power. In their own time both men were underestimated, dismissed as arrogant, and faced skeptics and haters in their own nationsyet both magnificently rose to the central challenges of the twentieth century. Theirs was a kind of love story, with an emotional Churchill courting an elusive Roosevelt. The British prime minister, who rallied his nation in its darkest hour, standing alone against Adolf Hitler, was always somewhat insecure about his place in FDRs affectionswhich was the way Roosevelt wanted it. A man of secrets, FDR liked to keep people off balance, including his wife, Eleanor, his White House aidesand Winston Churchill.
Confronting tyranny and terror, Roosevelt and Churchill built a victorious alliance amid cataclysmic events and occasionally conflicting interests. Franklin and Winston is also the story of their marriages and their families, two clans caught up in the most sweeping global conflict in history.
Meachams new sourcesincluding unpublished letters of FDRs great secret love, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, the papers of Pamela Churchill Harriman, and interviews with the few surviving people who were in FDR and Churchills joint companyshed fresh light on the characters of both men as he engagingly chronicles the hours in which they decided the course of the struggle.
Hitler brought them together; later in the war, they drifted apart, but even in the autumn of their alliance, the pull of affection was always there. Charting the personal drama behind the discussions of strategy and statecraft, Meacham has written the definitive account of the most remarkable friendship of the modern age. [via]More editions of Franklin and Winston : An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship:
The Gay Militants/How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969-1971by Donn TealISBN 0312112793 (0-312-11279-3)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Gladstoneby Roy JenkinsISBN 0333602161 (0-333-60216-1)
Hardcover, Macmillan Pub Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gladstone'Book summary:His most ambitious and most satisfying book...As befits the heroic grandeur of its subject, this is an admirably proportioned and beautifully written book, by turns enthralling, moving and (sometimes) very funny. It is the best single-volume biography of a Victorian stateman, since Robert Blake's life of Disraeli. What higher praise can there be?' - David Cannadine, Observer; It is a notable achievement and will not be easily superseded.' - Robert Blake, Times;William Ewart Gladstone stands alone as the only man who was four times Prime Minister, and the most remarkable person ever to have held that office. Roy Jenkins uses Gladstone's life not only to shine light on his manifold activities but also to compare the nineteenth century with the present day: the political rhythms, travel patterns and religious assumptions of Victorian England are all related to our era. This is an authoritative interpretation of a great career, and a revelation of a strange and brilliant character. [via]
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A Godly Hero : The Life of William Jennings Bryanby Michael KazinISBN 0375411356 (0-375-41135-6)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Godly Hero : The Life of William Jennings Bryan'Book summary:Politician, evangelist, and reformer William Jennings Bryan was the most popular public speaker of his time. In this acclaimed biographythe first major reconsideration of Bryans life in forty yearsaward-winning historian Michael Kazin illuminates his astonishing career and the richly diverse and volatile landscape of religion and politics in which he rose to fame. Kazin vividly re-creates Bryans tremendous appeal, showing how he won a passionate following among both rural and urban Americans, who saw in him not only the practical vision of a reform politician but also the righteousness of a pastor. Bryan did more than anyone to transform the Democratic Party from a bulwark of laissez-faire to the citadel of liberalism we identify with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1896, 1900, and 1908, Bryan was nominated for president, and though he fell short each time, his legacya subject of great debate after his deathremains monumental. This nuanced and brilliantly crafted portrait restores Bryan to an esteemed place in American history. [via]
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Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicansby Lewis L. GouldISBN 0375507418 (0-375-50741-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Great Political Theories: From Plato and Aristotle to Locke and Montesquieuby Michael CurtisISBN 0380007851 (0-380-00785-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Political Theories: From Plato and Aristotle to Locke and Montesquieu'Book summary:The philosophy of politics
As an introduction to political theory and science, this collection of writings by the great philosophers will be of close interest to general readers. It also forms a basic textbook for students of government and political theory. Such fundamental concepts as Democracy, the Rule of Law, Justice, Natural Rights, Sovereignty, Citizenship, Power, the State, Revolution, Liberty, Reason, Materialism, Toleration, and the Place of Religion in Society are traced from their origins, through their development and changing patterns, to show how they guide political thinking and institutions today.
And new in this edition, examinations of selected works by Sophocles, Francois Hotman, and Francisco Suarez. Also new are a detailed table of contents and an up-dated, comprehensive bibliography--each clear and concise for easy reference.
The second volume of Professor Curtis' work, also available in a Discus edition, includes the writings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century thinkers--from Burke, Rousseau, and Kant to modern times. [via]
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Howard Dean in His Own Wordsby Lisa RogakISBN 0312330731 (0-312-33073-1)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn'tby William Wilson, Judy JonesISBN 0345468902 (0-345-46890-2)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't'Book summary:When it was originally published in 1987, An Incomplete Education became a surprise bestseller. Now this instant classic has been completely updated, outfitted with a whole new arsenal of indispensable knowledge on global affairs, popular culture, economic trends, scientific principles, and modern arts. Here's your chance to brush up on all those subjects you slept through in school, reacquaint yourself with all the facts you once knew (then promptly forgot), catch up on major developments in the world today, and become the Renaissance man or woman you always knew you could be!
How do you tell the Balkans from the Caucasus? What's the difference between fission and fusion? Whigs and Tories? Shiites and Sunnis? Deduction and induction? Why aren't all Shakespearean comedies necessarily thigh-slappers? What are transcendental numbers and what are they good for? What really happened in Plato's cave? Is postmodernism dead or just having a bad hair day? And for extra credit, when should you use the adjective continual and when should you use continuous?
An Incomplete Education answers these and thousands of other questions with incomparable wit, style, and clarity. American Studies, Art History, Economics, Film, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Science, and World History: Here's the bottom line on each of these major disciplines, distilled to its essence and served up with consummate flair.
In this revised edition you'll find a vitally expanded treatment of international issues, reflecting the seismic geopolitical upheavals of the past decade, from economic free-fall in South America to Central Africa's world war, and from violent radicalization in the Muslim world to the crucial trade agreements that are defining globalization for the twenty-first century. [via]More editions of An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't:
- An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't: ISBN 0345295706 (0-345-29570-6)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books - An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't: ISBN 0345391373 (0-345-39137-3)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books - An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't: ISBN 0345468902 (0-345-46890-2)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
- An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't: ISBN 0345295706 (0-345-29570-6)
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The Infernoby Gustave Dore, Anthony M. Esolen, Alighieri DanteISBN 034548357X (0-345-48357-X)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept
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The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translationby Dante Alighieri, Robert Pinsky, Nicole PinskyISBN 0374524521 (0-374-52452-1)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation'Book summary:The one quality that all classic works of literature share is their timelessness. Shakespeare still plays in Peoria 400 years after his death because the stories he dramatized resonate in modern readers' hearts and minds; methods of warfare have changed quite a bit since the Trojan War described by Homer in his Iliad, but the passions and conflicts that shaped such warriors as Achilles, Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Odysseus still find their counterparts today on battlefields from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Likewise, a little travel guide to hell written by the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri in the 13th century remains in print at the end of the 20th century, and it continues to speak to new generations of readers. There have been countless translations of the Inferno, but this one by poet Robert Pinsky is both eloquent and tailored to our times.
Yes, this is an epic poem, but don't let that put you off. An excellent introduction provides context for the work, while detailed notes on each canto are a virtual who's who of 13th-century Italian politics, culture, and literature. Best of all, Pinsky's brilliant translation communicates the horror, despair, and terror of hell with such immediacy, you can almost smell the sulfur and feel the heat from the rain of fire as Dante--led by his faithful guide Virgil--descends lower and lower into the pit. Dante's journey through Satan's kingdom must rate as one of the great fictional travel tales of all time, and Pinsky does it great justice. [via]
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The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translationby Robert Pinsky, Nicole Pinsky, Alighieri Dante, Michael MazurISBN 0374525315 (0-374-52531-5)
Softcover, Noonday Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation'Book summary:The one quality that all classic works of literature share is their timelessness. Shakespeare still plays in Peoria 400 years after his death because the stories he dramatized resonate in modern readers' hearts and minds; methods of warfare have changed quite a bit since the Trojan War described by Homer in his Iliad, but the passions and conflicts that shaped such warriors as Achilles, Agamemnon, Patroclus, and Odysseus still find their counterparts today on battlefields from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Likewise, a little travel guide to hell written by the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri in the 13th century remains in print at the end of the 20th century, and it continues to speak to new generations of readers. There have been countless translations of the Inferno, but this one by poet Robert Pinsky is both eloquent and tailored to our times.
Yes, this is an epic poem, but don't let that put you off. An excellent introduction provides context for the work, while detailed notes on each canto are a virtual who's who of 13th-century Italian politics, culture, and literature. Best of all, Pinsky's brilliant translation communicates the horror, despair, and terror of hell with such immediacy, you can almost smell the sulfur and feel the heat from the rain of fire as Dante--led by his faithful guide Virgil--descends lower and lower into the pit. Dante's journey through Satan's kingdom must rate as one of the great fictional travel tales of all time, and Pinsky does it great justice. [via]
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Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Mediaby Michael ParentiISBN 0312020139 (0-312-02013-9)
Softcover, Wadsworth Pub Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media'Book summary:Taking a critical perspective on the economics and politics of "presenting" the news, this topical supplement argues that the media systematically distorts news coverage. [via]
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Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Mediaby Michael ParentiISBN 031243474X (0-312-43474-X)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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The Journals of Woodrow Wyattby Sarah Curtis, Woodrow WyattISBN 0333774051 (0-333-77405-1)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt'Book summary:Whether coincidence or otherwise, most of the best political diarists seem to have been of a Tory bent. The 1930s saw Chips Channon, and of recent times the people's favourite, in Blair-speak, has been the late Alan Clark. However, a richer palate might feast on the musings of former Labour MP Woodrow Wyatt, the self-appointed Voice of Reason, who facilitated the posthumous vanity publication of his diaries as a pension for his surviving family. Covering the Major years (though perhaps beyond his own peak), from the general election in 1992 until three months before his death in December 1997, aged 79, Wyatt's self-referential intimacies present brown-nosing of the highest order in his obsessive quest to keep the Chairmanship of the Tote and his newspaper columns, which netted him over £250,000 a year. An endless barrage of dinner parties, ingratiating conversations and geriatric leching occupied Wyatt's leisure hours when not fretting over money, with a primary concern of reconciling Major--"You are a great man", he told him, noting without discernible irony that "history will see him as such"--with his increasingly eccentric predecessor. The presiding deity, though, is Rupert Murdoch, to whom Wyatt desperately toadies, and who brings the diaries to a catastrophic (for Wyatt) climax, when he switches his allegiance to Blair.
Editor Sarah Curtis should be applauded for making a molehill out of a mountain, in reducing the original three million words by a factor of 10. Indiscreet, yet chiding indiscretion in others (Beryl Bainbridge alone is exempt from criticism), the main amusement from these latter journals comes from the buffet of inadvertent humour and pathos arising from his resolute lack of introspection. Wyatt thought Alan Clark was "mad as a hatter", while the predatory Clark disingenuously scorned the Voice of Reason as "gaga". This was unfair. As charming in cigar-puffing person as his ilk so often are, these silly snobberies, never knowingly understated, serve to expose the serious absence of a genuine British political class, a sourly lingering aftertaste to such frippery. --David Vincent [via]
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The Journals of Woodrow Wyattby Woodrow WyattISBN 0330390066 (0-330-39006-6)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt'Book summary:Woodrow Wyatt, Chairman of the Tote, journalist, bon viveur, confidant of Thatcher and Murdoch, friend of aristocracy and royalty, leaves in these diaries his posthumous last laugh. His observations offer a mix of the historic and the obscure, the public and the personal. [via]
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The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000by Gore VidalISBN 037572639X (0-375-72639-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Last Hurrahby Edwin O'ConnorISBN 0316626597 (0-316-62659-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill Alone 1932-1940by William Raymond ManchesterISBN 0316545120 (0-316-54512-0)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill Alone 1932-1940'Book summary:Alone is the second volume of William Manchester's brilliant three-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In this volume, we witness the war within, before the colossal war to come. During this period, Churchill was tested as few men are: relentlessly pursued by creditors, disowned by his own party, vociferously dismissed by the press as a warmonger, and twice nearly lost his seat in Parliament. Yet despite his personal and political troubles, Churchill managed to assemble a vast, underground intelligence network-both within the British government and on the continent-which provided him with more complete and accurate information on Germany than the British government. Recognizing the horrifying truth, Churchill stood almost alone against Nazi aggression and the sordid British and French policy of appeasement.
Manchester's luminous portrait never loses sight of Churchill the man-a man with limitations, especially his callousness toward others (including his supporters) and his recklessness, which could border on the foolhardy; but also a man whose vision was global and whose courage was boundless. Here is Churchill as a light in the approaching darkness, readying himself for the terrible stand to come. [via]More editions of The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill Alone 1932-1940:
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The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932by William ManchesterISBN 0316545031 (0-316-54503-1)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932'Book summary:William Manchester met Winston Churchill on January 24, 1953. Their encounter on the Queen Mary sparked an intense curiosity in Manchester that would eventually result in his classic three-volume magnum opus The Last Lion.
In this, the first volume, we follow Churchill from his birth to 1932, when he began to warn against the remilitarization of Germany. Born of a lovely, wanton American mother and a gifted but unstable son of a duke, his childhood was one of wretched neglect. He sought glory on the battlefields of Cuba, Sudan, India, South Africa and the trenches of France. In Parliament he was the prime force behind the creation of Iraq and Jordan, laid the groundwork for the birth of Israel, and negotiated the independence of the Irish Free State. Yet, as Chancellor of the Exchequer he plunged England into economic crisis, and his fruitless attempt to suppress Gandhi's quest for Indian independence brought political chaos to Britain.
Throughout, Churchill learned the lessons that would prepare him for the storm to come, and as the 1930's began, he readied himself for the coming battle against Nazism--an evil the world had never before seen. [via]More editions of The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932:
Leo Strauss and the American Rightby Shadia B. DruryISBN 0312217838 (0-312-21783-8)
Softcover, Palgrave Macmillan
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A Man in Full Pt. 1: A Novelby Tom WolfeISBN 0374270325 (0-374-27032-5)
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Man in Full Pt. 1: A Novel'Book summary:Man in Full, A: A Novel, by Wolfe, Tom [via]
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Man of the Houseby Tip O'NeillISBN 0312911912 (0-312-91191-2)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Manuscript Murdersby Roy Harley LewisISBN 0312513917 (0-312-51391-7)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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Maximum City: Bombay Lost And Foundby Suketu MehtaISBN 0375703403 (0-375-70340-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost And Found'Book summary:A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insiders view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks. [via]
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The Metaphysical Clubby Louis MenandISBN 0374528497 (0-374-52849-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America'Book summary:If past is prologue, then The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand may suggest an intellectual course for the United States in the 21st century. At least Menand, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, thinks so. This enthralling study of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey shows how these four men developed a philosophy of pragmatism following the Civil War, a period Menand likens to post-cold-war times. Together, "they were more responsible than any other group for moving American thought into the modern world."
Despite this potentially forbidding theme, The Metaphysical Club is not a dry tome for academics. Instead, it is a quadruple biography, a wonderfully told story of ideas that advances by turning these thinkers into characters and bringing them to life. Menand links them through the Metaphysical Club, a conversational club formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872. It lasted but a few months, and references to it appear only in Peirce's writings (its real significance seems rather limited), though Holmes and James were both members. (Dewey was much younger than these three, and more an heir than a contemporary.) It is difficult to describe in a sentence or two what they accomplished, though Menand takes a stab at it: "They helped put an end to the idea that the universe is an idea, that beyond the mundane business of making our way as best we can in a world shot through with contingency, there exists some order, invisible to us, whose logic we transgress at our peril." Academic freedom and cultural pluralism are just two of their legacies, and they are linchpins of democracy in a nonideological age, says Menand.
A book like this is necessarily idiosyncratic, yet at the same time this one is sweeping. It presents an accessible survey of intellectual life from roughly the end of the Civil War to the start of the cold war. Dozens of figures receive fascinating thumbnail sketches, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin to Jane Addams and Eugene Debs. The result is a grand portrait of an age that will appeal to anyone with even a modest interest in the history of philosophy and ideas. --John Miller [via]
No Way to Treat a First Lady: A Novelby Christopher BuckleyISBN 0375758755 (0-375-75875-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolutionby Francis FukuyamaISBN 0312421710 (0-312-42171-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution'Book summary:Maybe we have a future after all: Our Posthuman Future is political historian Francis Fukuyama's reconsideration of his 1989 announcement that history had reached an end. He claims that science, particularly genome studies, offers radical changes, possibly more profound than anything since the development of language, in the way we think about human nature. He makes his case thoroughly and eloquently, rarely dipping into philosophical or critical jargon and consistently maintaining an informal tone.
Fukuyama is deeply concerned about the erosion of the foundations of liberal democracy under pressure from new concepts of humans and human rights, and most readers will find some room for agreement. Ultimately, he argues for strong international regulation of human biotechnology and thoughtfully disposes of the most compelling counterarguments. While readers might not agree that we're at risk of creating Huxley's Brave New World, it's hard to deny that things are changing quickly and that perhaps we ought to consider the changes before they're irrevocable. --Rob Lightner [via]
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Plato's Parmenidesby Plato, R.E. AllenISBN 0300066163 (0-300-06616-3)
Hardcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Plato's Parmenides'Book summary:Among Plato's later dialogues, the Parmenides is one of the most significant. Not only a document of profound philosophical importance in its own right, it also contributes to the understanding of Platonic dialogues that followed it, and it exhibits the foundations of the physics and ontology that Aristotle offered in his Physics and Metaphysics VII.
In this book, R. E. Allen provides a superb translation of the Parmenides along with a structural analysis that procedes on the assumption that formal elements, logical and dramatic, are important to its interpretation and that the argument of the Parmenides is aporetic, a statement of metaphysical perplexities. Allen has revised his original translation of and commentary on the Parmenides, which were published in 1983 to great acclaim. [via]
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Politics in England: An Interpretation for the 1980sby Richard RoseISBN 0316756415 (0-316-75641-5)
Hardcover, Little, Brown
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Politics in England: Persistence and Changeby Richard RoseISBN 0316756474 (0-316-75647-4)
Softcover, Little, Brown
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Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Danceby Harvey Arden, Leonard PeltierISBN 0312203543 (0-312-20354-3)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance'Book summary:Edited by Harvey Arden, with an Introduction by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and a Preface by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
In 1977, Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents. He has affirmed his innocence ever sincehis case was made fully and famously in Peter Matthiessen's bestselling In the Spirit of Crazy Horseand many remain convinced he was wrongly convicted. This wise and unsettling book, both memoir and manifesto, chronicles his life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Invoking the Sun Dance, in which pain leads one to a transcendent reality, Peltier explores his suffering and the insights it has borne him. He also locates his experience within the history of the American Indian peoples and their struggles to overcome the federal government's injustices.
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Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Danceby Leonard PeltierISBN 0312263805 (0-312-26380-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance'Book summary:Edited by Harvey Arden, with an Introduction by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and a Preface by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
In 1977, Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents. He has affirmed his innocence ever since--his case was made fully and famously in Peter Matthiessen's bestselling In the Spirit of Crazy Horse--and many remain convinced he was wrongly convicted. Prison Writings is a wise and unsettling book, both memoir and manifesto, chronicling his life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Invoking the Sun Dance, in which pain leads one to a transcendent reality, Peltier explores his suffering and the insights it has borne him. He also locates his experience within the history of the American Indian peoples and their struggles to overcome the federal government's injustices. [via]
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Reagan's Americaby Garry WillsISBN 0385182864 (0-385-18286-4)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reagan's America'Book summary:Ronald Reagan achieved magical accord with the American people, attuning them to his moral vision of a nation made up of optimistic individualists, tough yet God-fearing, blessed with a special destiny. In Reagan's America, Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Garry Wills seeks to understand Reagan's appeal through understanding his audience, the Americans who found in him everything they wanted to believe about themselves. An authoritative biography and a fascinating cultural history, Reagan's America reveals how this savvy, charismatic leader restored a nation's fading sense of innocence and faith in itself.[via]More editions of Reagan's America:
Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bushby Fred BarnesISBN 0307336506 (0-307-33650-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Regarding the Pain of Othersby Susan SontagISBN 0312422199 (0-312-42219-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Regarding the Pain of Others'Book summary:A brilliant, clear-eyed new consideration of the visual representation of violence in our culture--its ubiquity, meanings, and effects[via]
Watching the evening news offers constant evidence of atrocity--a daily commonplace in our "society of spectacle." But are viewers inured -or incited--to violence by the daily depiction of cruelty and horror? Is the viewer's perception of reality eroded by the universal availability of imagery intended to shock?
In her first full-scale investigation of the role of imagery in our culture since her now-classic book On Photography defined the terms of the debate twenty-five years ago, Susan Sontag cuts through circular arguments about how pictures can inspire dissent or foster violence as she takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity--from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of blacks in the South, and Dachau and Auschwitz to contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and New York City on September 11, 2001.
As John Berger wrote when On Photography was first published, "All future discussions or analysis of the role of photography in the affluent mass-media societies is now bound to begin with her book." Sontag's new book, a startling reappraisal of the intersection of "information", "news," "art," and politics in the contemporary depiction of war and disaster, will be equally essential. It will forever alter our thinking about the uses and meanings of images in our world.More editions of Regarding the Pain of Others:
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Republic and Other Worksby PlatoISBN 0385094973 (0-385-09497-3)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Republic and Other Works'Book summary:A compilation of the essential works of Plato in one paperback volume: The Republic, The Symposium, Parmenides, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. [via]
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Right Reasonby William F. BuckleyISBN 0316114448 (0-316-11444-8)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About Itby Peter PetersonISBN 0312424620 (0-312-42462-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Running On Empty: How The Democratic And Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future And What Americans Can Do About It'Book summary:The national bestseller, described by Tom Brokaw as the wake-up call we cannot ignore, with a new preface by the author[via]
Acclaimed by all sides of the political spectrum, Peter Peterson's Running on Empty not only traces the deterioration of Americas finances but offers solutions. This national bestseller is required reading for everyone concerned with Americas long-term economic survival. In clear and concise prose, Peterson offers America not only a vision but the practical steps by which to ensure our childrens economic future. Running on Empty is not only a warning, it is also a manifesto calling for the next administration to finally confront a deep and disturbing problem that politicians of all parties have insisted on ignoring for too long.More editions of Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It:
- Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It: ISBN 0374252874 (0-374-25287-4)
Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux - Running On Empty: How The Democratic And Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future And What Americans Can Do About It: ISBN 0312424620 (0-312-42462-0)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
- Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It: ISBN 0374252874 (0-374-25287-4)
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Safire's Political Dictionaryby William SafireISBN 0345283937 (0-345-28393-7)
Softcover, Smithmark Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Safire's Political Dictionary'Book summary:Legendary language guru, author of more than twenty-five books, and Pulitzer-prize winning political columnist, William Safire is perhaps best known for his weekly "On Language" column for the New York Times. From slang to spin, Safire has for nearly four decades, shown us how the English language is a living, breathing and ever-evolving organism, that should never, ever be taken at face value. This is particularly true of the political jargon cast out by politicians, pundits, and the press. When Safire catches these colorful and slippery specimens of "polingo" in his lexicographer's net, his probing reveals them to be as curious and revealing of our historical past as our present. Want to know what the politicians are really saying, or trying to say? Then check out the newly revised edition of Safire's Political Dictionary--a magnum opus of U.S. political terminology. In it, Safire shares with readers his expert dissection of politico-speak to uncover its deeper meanings and broader significance. This fully updated reference volume is essential and highly entertaining reading for voters of all persuasions and just about anyone interested in American political culture. --Lauren Nemroff
Questions for William Safire
Amazon.com: What was your purpose in writing Safire's Political Dictionary? What do you hope that readers will gain from exploring the shallows and depths of American political vocabulary? Safire: This is a language that can inspire or inflame. Goal number one is to help anyone watching or listening to the cut and thrust of political debate to catch the hidden nuances--the code words and dog-whistle politics that manipulate emotions. Goal Two: to provide readers with accurate, anecdotal definitions of earmark, murder board, robo call, slow-walk. The deepest purpose of this longterm love of my literary life (see alliteration) is to allow the voter to experience and enjoy the historical resonance of the latest slogans, the roots of our awful smears, the thoughtful talking pointsand stirring hoopla.
Amazon.com: Striped-pants diplomacy, lame duck, salami tactics, stalking horse, bedsheet ballot, and hail of dead cats. Why does the sphere of politics seem to produce some of the most robust and colorful language? You've even added a new term to our lexicon for political language: "polingo". Or is there also something particular about American English that lends itself to inventive turns of phrase, neologisms and catchy clichés?
Safire: A would-be leader or political journalist has to seize our attention with word-pictures that uplift or infuriate. "Leaving under a cloud" cant compare with the metaphor of "in a hail of dead cats". American English delights in the transfer of sports terms to politics: that stalking horse is brother to the party wheelhorse as pols engage in horse-trading--but that dark horse can bolt and the front-runner may not be a shoo-in. (I learned that last word from a racetrack cop: when a group of corrupt jockeys form a pool to wager on a long shot, they hold back their mounts and "shoo in" the nag they bet on, which is why the term in politics means "sure winner".)
American presidents and their writers reach for those memorable metaphors. Lincoln, the best presidential writer, took a militant phrase suggested to him on the eve of Civil War--"the guardian angel of our nation"--and seeking to conciliate the South, changed it to "the better angels of our nature". When you know that, as I discovered when researching this book, you better appreciate the subtlety and poetry of his First Inaugural.
Amazon.com: Do you think it possible to write a truly objective political dictionary? Or did you find yourself imposing checks and balances?
Safire: Of course its possible if youre willing to knock yourself out to be bipartisan. Not nonpartisan, which is colorless, nor partisan, which is slanted, and not even postpartisan, which I slipped in at the last moment before the Oxford printer snatched my final draft--a nice coinage taking over from above politics and is being applied to the Obama campaign.
I was for three decades a lonely writer on the right on the op-ed page of the New York Times, and in this dictionary, whenever modesty afflicts me, I cite as a source "a vituperative right-wing scandalmonger", a sort of nom de plume. However, in this determinedly down-the-middle dictionary, for every bleeding heart, knee-jerk, double-domed liberal, there is a mossback, troglodyte, hidebound conservative, as well as a contingent of me-too, mainstream, opportunist centrists.
Even within some entries, the reader will find colorful antonyms: the scholarly etymology of moonbat, born as an epithet hooting at leftists in 1999 and popularized two years later on the libertarian website Samizdata, gets fair and balanced treatment by my straight-faced analysis of wingnut, an updating of the 1960s"right-wing nut" used in a 1999 interview with website muckraker Matt Drudge.
Amazon.com: Which politicians were the most enjoyable to research and write about for this new edition? Have any documents or speech recordings come to light that significantly changed your perception of a particular historical figure or period since you last revised the dictionary back in 1993?
Safire: In the past century, nobody tops the two Roosevelts for colorful and historic coinages. President Theodore Roosevelt minted bully pulpit and big stick, still in active use today, swung lunatic fringe from the fashion world to politics and borrowed boxing's hat in the ring; Teddy also popularized weasel words, pussyfooting, parlor pink and mollycoddle. FDR more than matched his cousin: arsenal of democracy, four freedoms, rendezvous with destiny (based on the poet Alan Seeger's "rendezvous with death") were only the beginning; because I had the chance to interview FDR speechwriters Samuel Rosenman and Raymond Moley forty years ago, readers today can get some insight into the origins of New Deal, nothing to fear but fear itself, and day of infamy. (Speechwriters, even those of us with a passion for anonymity, dont always agree on credit.)
Say what you like about Nixon (silent majority, lift of a driving dream, workfare) but the Watergate scandal that ended his administration spawned the Golden Age of Political Coinage: cover-up, Deep Throat, deep-six, enemies list, firestorm, plumbers, smoking gun, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind--the list goes on and the phrases are in current use.
Reagan gave us evil empire, make my day, morning in America, there you go again and was slammed with sleaze factor and amiable dunce). The elder Bush had read my lips, line in the sand, thousand points of light, kinder and gentler nation and was hit with wimp factor, out of the loop and voodoo economics.
Bill Clinton had Comeback Kid, triangulation, war room and was attacked with Hillarycare, Whitewater, and the lingo of Monicagate. The younger Bush --- Dubya--started with compassionate conservative, faith-based, and the soft bigotry of low expectations but was soon embroiled in the war on terror, axis of evil, regime change, freedom agenda, misunderestimate, stay the course, and surge.
In answer to your question, I enjoyed it all.
Amazon.com: Out of nearly 550,000 words, do you have any particular favorites? Is there a word or phrase from the first edition, published forty years ago, that has regrettably fallen out of favor, but really merits resurrection?
Safire: I get a kick out of the proverbs of politics and present my collection of about fifty of them with pride. The older ones include Woodrow Wilson's Never murder a man who's committing suicide. And I found the origin to Fiorello LaGuardia's Ticker tape aint spaghetti. But here are a couple with follow-up kickers: Don't get mad, get even was attributed to the Kennedy clan, but its corollary is more profound: Don't get mad, don't get even, just get elected--THEN get even. Attributed to Harry Truman is the uncharacteristically cynical If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. Its recent corollary, by Don Rumsfeld and revealed in this dictionary, is Better make it a small dog, because it may turn on you also.
Lost phrases? We live in an era of frenetic activity, which is too often is a substitute for steady action. In the 18th century, Sir James Mackintosh, famed for disciplined inaction, topped himself with masterly inactivity. In our time, George Shultz, Reagans Treasury Secretary, gave that a modern imperative: Dont just do something, stand there..
Amazon.com: You call this dictionary your "labor of love." How do you feel about passing the baton off to a new editor when it comes time to work on the next edition?
Safire: A political lexicographer gets a secret thrill out of discovering the origin of a phrase that, but for his digging, might disappear into the mists of Newsweek. Sometimes you just stumble across it like one of the princes of Serendip: an example is selling candidates like soap, which never had a demonstrable printed "attestation". But looking for the origin of Oval Office, I stumbled across it in the Times archives: put forward by a supporter of a general for president in 1920. Col. William Proctor, scion of the Ivory Soap family, was the demonstrable coiner. A minor triumph, but mine own.
More important to this work was the result of a "fishhook"--a query placed in my Times Magazine "On Language" column for the coiner of "Social Security is the third rail of American politics--touch it and you die." Henry Hubbard of Newsweek and Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe agreed on the anonymous source: the late Kirk O'Donnell, an aide to Speaker Tip O'Neill, who used it to both journalists in 1984. Whew! The coiner's widow sent me a lovely, sentimental letter of thanks, which I suppose has no place in a dictionary, but I put it in anyway because my name is in this dictionary's title.
I hope the editor of the 2018 edition of this hefty volume is making notes about the election of '08, parsing Barack Obama's speeches ("Fired up! Ready to go!") and Hillary Clinton's debate ripostes and John McCain's adoption of FDR's warm my friends as his salutation. This work, like the language it covers, is great fun and never finished.
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Shadow Of The Giantby Orson Scott CardISBN 0312857586 (0-312-85758-6)
Hardcover, Tor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shadow Of The Giant'Book summary:Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang, and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them, and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.[via]
For Earth was at war - a terrible war with an inscrutable alien enemy. A war that humanity was near to losing. But the long distances of interstellar space has given hope to the defenders of Earth - they had time to train military geniuses up from childhood, forging them into an irresistible force in the high-orbital facility called the Battle School. That story is told in two books, the beloved classic ENDER'S GAME, and its parallel, ENDER'S SHADOW.
Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School, but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand, Since then he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family - something he has never known - but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies - old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth. To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.More editions of Shadow Of The Giant:
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Shall We Tell the President?by Jeffrey ArcherISBN 0340230282 (0-340-23028-2)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shall We Tell the President?'Book summary:Driven by ambition, Florentyna Rosnovski--daughter of a hotel baron and daughter-in-law of his bitterest rival--relinquishes her inheritance to marry the man she loves, builds her own business empire, and ultimately pursues the U.S. presidency. Reprint. [via]
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Slouching Towards Bethlehemby Joan DidionISBN 0374521727 (0-374-52172-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'Book summary:Universally acclaimed when it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has become a modern classic. More than any other book of its time, this collection captures the mood of 1960s America, especially the center of its counterculture, California. These essays, keynoted by an extraordinary report on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, all reflect that, in one way or another, things are falling apart, "the center cannot hold." An incisive look at contemporary American life, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been admired for several decades as a stylistic masterpiece.[via]
Contents:
I. LIFE STYLES IN THE GOLDEN LAND
Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream
John Wayne: A Love Song
Where the Kissing Never Stops
Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)
7000 Romaine, Los Angeles 38
California Dreaming
Marrying Absurd
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
II. PERSONALS
On Keeping a Notebook
On Self-Respect
I Can't Get That Monster out of My Mind
On Morality
On Going Home
III. SEVEN PLACES OF THE MIND
Notes from a Native Daughter
Letter from Paradise, 21° 19' N., 157° 52' W
Rock of Ages
The Seacoast of Despair
Guaymas, Sonora
Los Angeles Notebook
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The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Pointby Haynes Johnson, David S. BroderISBN 0316111457 (0-316-11145-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point'Book summary:Taking as an example the Clinton health care reform initiative, the authors show how a policy that aimed to please everyone ended by satisfying no one due to pressure groups, political gamesmanship and the inertia of the American 'system'. [via]
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Traveling Merciesby Anne LamottISBN 0375409173 (0-375-40917-3)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Tune in Tomorrowby Tom TomorrowISBN 0312113447 (0-312-11344-7)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faithby Jon KrakauerISBN 0375432213 (0-375-43221-3)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith'Book summary:Under the Banner of Heaven is a riveting read. The Lafferty boys were brought up in a squeaky clean All-American family. So what made two of them follow revelations from God to slit the throat of their ex-beauty queen sister-in-law and her infant daughter? The problem was that they got involved in the fundamentalist, survivalist wing of the Mormon Church.
Author Jon Krakauer expertly jumps from the immediate horror of the Lafferty boys to the context of Mormonism and the wider questions of religious violence. In the process we are taken on a house of horrors ride through the badlands of fundamentalist Mormon religion. Krakauer introduces us to red necks with more than 30 "wives"--many who were "married" in their early teens. It's a story of fraud, child abuse, incest, physical violence and spiritual and emotional rape at a deep level.
The contemporary story is lurid and shocking, but as Krakauer relates the picaresque story of Joseph Smith--the founder of the Mormon religion--you realise that present day fundamentalist Mormons are far closer to their founder in spirit and behaviour than the more squeaky clean manifestations of modern Mormonism. This well researched and tightly written account gives a great potted history of Mormonism and illuminates the psychotic fringes of religious mentality. In doing so it reveals the wild dangers of spiritual free wheeling and the need for caution and restraint in religion. --Dwight Longenecker [via]
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The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Partyby Philip GouldISBN 0349111774 (0-349-11177-4)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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What a Party!: My Life Among Democrats Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators And Other Wild Animalsby Steve Kettmann, Terry McauliffeISBN 0312357877 (0-312-35787-7)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Societyby Theodore RoszakISBN 0385027281 (0-385-02728-1)
Hardcover, Doubleday
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Why Globalization Worksby Martin WolfISBN 0300107773 (0-300-10777-3)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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