Author: Eugene Lyons
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412817608
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696
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Book Description
This is a story of belief, disillusionment and atonement. Long identified with leftist causes, the journalist Eugene Lyons was by background and sentiment predisposed to early support of the Russian Revolution. A "friendly correspondent," he was one of a coterie of foreign journalists permitted into the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era because their desire to serve the revolution was thought to outweigh their desire to serve the truth. Lyons first went to the Soviet Union in 1927, and spent six years there. He was there as Stalin consolidated his power, through collectivization and its consequences, as the cultural and technical intelligentsia succumbed to the secret police, and as the mechanisms of terror were honed. As Ellen Frankel Paul notes in her major new introduction to this edition, "It was this murderous reality that Stalin's censors worked so assiduously to camouflage, corralling foreign correspondents as their often willing allies." Lyons was one of those allies. Assignment in "Utopia "describes why he refused to see the obvious, the forces that kept him from writing the truth, and the tortuous path he traveled in liberating himself. His story helps us understand how so many who were in a position to know were so silent for so long. In addition, it is a document, by an on-the-scene journalist, of major events in the critical period of the first Five-Year Plan. As Ellen Frankel Paul notes in her major new introduction to this new edition, Assignment in "Utopia "is particularly timely. The system it dissects in such devastating detail is in the process of being rejected throughout Eastern Europe and is under challenge in the Soviet Union itself. The book lends insight into the "political pilgrim" phenomenon described by Paul Hollander, in which visitors celebrate terrorist regimes, seemingly oblivious to their destructive force. The book is valuable for those interested in the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union, those interested in radical regimes and political change, as well as those interested in better understanding current events in Europe. It will also be useful for the tough questions it poses about journalistic ethics.
Author: Thomas More
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8027303583
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 105
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Book Description
Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.
Author: David Graeber
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612193757
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.
Author: Frank Dikötter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635573807
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of China After Mao, a sweeping and timely study of twentieth-century dictators and the development of the modern cult of personality. No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikötter examines the cults and propaganda surrounding twentieth-century dictators, from Hitler and Stalin to Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. These men were the founders of modern dictatorships, and they learned from each other and from history to build their regimes and maintain their public images. Their dictatorships, in turn, have influenced leaders in the twenty-first century, including Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Xi Jinping. Using a breadth of archival research and his characteristic in-depth analysis, Dikötter offers a stunning portrait of dictatorship, a guide to the cult of personality, and a map for exposing the lies dictators tell to build and maintain their regimes.
Author: Anna Reid
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541603494
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
“A beautifully written evocation of Ukraine's brutal past and its shaky efforts to construct a better future.”—Financial Times Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols invaded from the east, and for the next seven centuries, Ukraine was split between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russia's wars with Sweden in the eighteenth, the Civil War of 1918-1920, and under Nazi occupation. Ukraine finally won independence in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bigger than France and a populous as Britain, it has the potential to become one of the most powerful states in Europe. In this finely written and penetrating book, Anna Reid combines research and her own experiences to chart Ukraine's tragic past. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi labor camps, she reveals the layers of myth and propaganda that wrap this divided land. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal mines of the Russian-speaking Donbass, from the Galician shtetlech to the Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraine's struggle to build itself a national identity, and identity that faces up to a bloody past, and embraces all the peoples within its borders.
Author: Bruce Frohnen
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497651573
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1355
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Book Description
“A must-own title.” —National Review Online American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference volume to cover what is surely the most influential political and intellectual movement of the past half century. More than fifteen years in the making—and more than half a million words in length—this informative and entertaining encyclopedia contains substantive entries on those persons, events, organizations, and concepts of major importance to postwar American conservatism. Its contributors include iconic patriarchs of the conservative and libertarian movements, celebrated scholars, well-known authors, and influential movement activists and leaders. Ranging from “abortion” to “Zoll, Donald Atwell,” and written from viewpoints as various as those which have informed the postwar conservative movement itself, the encyclopedia’s more than 600 entries will orient readers of all kinds to the people and ideas that have given shape to contemporary American conservatism. This long-awaited volume is not to be missed.
Author: Kelly J. Evans
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350338206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Witnessing Stalin's Justice brings together contemporary American reactions to the Moscow show trials and analyses them to understand their impact on US-Soviet relations. Held between 1936 and 1938, the show trials made false charges such as espionage, sabotage and counter-revolutionary plotting at the behest of the exiled Leon Trotsky to condemn the veteran Party leaders who had founded the Communist Party and led the Russian Revolution. Using eyewitness accounts by American diplomats and foreign correspondents for the American press as well as official US government sources, this book highlights the wildly different reactions seen from liberals, radicals, intellectuals and mainstream media. Evans and Welch show how fractures of opinion ran through every level of US society and divided political groups, especially between the American Communist party and other left-wing organisations. Covering the closed trials of the Soviet military, the Soviet anti-foreigner campaign and the Dewey Commission as well as the show trials themselves, Witnessing Stalin's Justice uncovers and brings together American reactions to the Soviet Union's Great Purge.
Author: Tim Tzouliadis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440637032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578
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Book Description
“Gripping and important . . . an extremely impressive book.” —Noel Malcolm, Telegraph (London) A remarkable piece of forgotten history- the never-before-told story of Americans lured to Soviet Russia by the promise of jobs and better lives, only to meet tragic ends In 1934, a photograph was taken of a baseball team. These two rows of young men look like any group of American ballplayers, except perhaps for the Russian lettering on their jerseys. The players have left their homeland and the Great Depression in search of a better life in Stalinist Russia, but instead they will meet tragic and, until now, forgotten fates. Within four years, most of them will be arrested alongside untold numbers of other Americans. Some will be executed. Others will be sent to "corrective labor" camps where they will be worked to death. This book is the story of lives-the forsaken who died and those who survived. Based on groundbreaking research, The Forsaken is the story of Americans whose dreams were shattered and lives lost in Stalinist Russia.
Author: Sarah Gendron
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000029956
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
The Co-opting of Education by Extremist Factions: Professing Hate is a study of the ways in which various extremist groups have appropriated education for social manipulation in order to gain political power, and, in some cases, to incite violence. It is a detailed exploration of case studies representing both a wide range of situational differences (time, place, and political orientation) and experiential similarities. To examine a broad scope of circumstances, this book explores various types of rule (from National Socialism to communism to capitalism) from around the world (Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America) and spans time periods from the mid-twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. With the purpose of allowing these diverse situations to dialogue with one another, this study explores each country in its own right as well as in relation to others, ultimately demonstrating the extent to which they influenced one another.
Author: Masha Karp
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788317149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
For those living in the Soviet Union, Orwell's masterpieces, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, were not dystopias, but accurate depictions of reality. Here, the Orwell scholar and expert on Russian politics, Masha Karp – Russian Features Editor at the BBC World Service for over a decade – explores how Orwell's work was received in Russia, when it percolated into the country even under censorship. Suggesting a new approach to the controversial 'Orwell's list' of 1949, Karp puts into context the articles and letters written by Orwell at the time. She sheds light on how the ideas of totalitarianism exposed in Orwell's writing took root in Russia and, in doing so, helps us to understand the contemporary political reality. As Vladimir Putin's actions continue to shock the West, it is clear we are witnessing the next transformation of totalitarianism, as predicted and described by Orwell. Now, over 70 years after Orwell's death, his writing, at least as far as Russia is concerned, remains as timely and urgent as it has ever been.
