Autopsy of Revolution

Autopsy of Revolution PDF Author: Jacques Ellul
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1606089773
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
In this significant and very timely book, the author of The Technological Society, The Political Illusion, and Propaganda asks a tremendous question and shows that the answer we give it is decisive for the future of our society: Can we learn from history what revolution really is necessary for our survival? That is, can we distinguish between senseless, ineffectual revolt or rebellion and a genuine revolution that can alter fundamentals? In his basic, closely reasoned way, Jacques Ellul examines past and recent history in light of the current overwhelming preoccupation with revolution, which seems to have become the daily bread of Western man's thoughts and actions, the immediate explanation for every historical movement. Ellul insists on examining the possibility that today we are projecting onto past events a fairly recent and distorted image of revolution. The new image was created by Marx in the nineteenth century, and Ellul questions how long we can continue to live on his legacy. More important, he suggests that Marx may have brought about an abrupt deviation of the necessary revolutionary current and given a false meaning to the word revolution. Is all our talk about Marxian revolution talk about reality, or a way of filling a void with words? Finally, among so many social eddies and agitations, are we today caught up in a really revolutionary movement--or are we being led into blind combat by false lights that in reality are reflections in distorting mirrors? Are we capable of discerning the real Revolution, the needed Revolution? Ellul does not map out a route in detail: he clears paths into the future, making it possible for a route to be found. His masterly book should help to change our thinking, and therefore our future.

Autopsy of Revolution

Autopsy of Revolution PDF Author: Jacques Ellul
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1606089773
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book

Book Description
In this significant and very timely book, the author of The Technological Society, The Political Illusion, and Propaganda asks a tremendous question and shows that the answer we give it is decisive for the future of our society: Can we learn from history what revolution really is necessary for our survival? That is, can we distinguish between senseless, ineffectual revolt or rebellion and a genuine revolution that can alter fundamentals? In his basic, closely reasoned way, Jacques Ellul examines past and recent history in light of the current overwhelming preoccupation with revolution, which seems to have become the daily bread of Western man's thoughts and actions, the immediate explanation for every historical movement. Ellul insists on examining the possibility that today we are projecting onto past events a fairly recent and distorted image of revolution. The new image was created by Marx in the nineteenth century, and Ellul questions how long we can continue to live on his legacy. More important, he suggests that Marx may have brought about an abrupt deviation of the necessary revolutionary current and given a false meaning to the word revolution. Is all our talk about Marxian revolution talk about reality, or a way of filling a void with words? Finally, among so many social eddies and agitations, are we today caught up in a really revolutionary movement--or are we being led into blind combat by false lights that in reality are reflections in distorting mirrors? Are we capable of discerning the real Revolution, the needed Revolution? Ellul does not map out a route in detail: he clears paths into the future, making it possible for a route to be found. His masterly book should help to change our thinking, and therefore our future.

Ideology and Elite Conflicts

Ideology and Elite Conflicts PDF Author: Messay Kebede
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780739137963
Category : Elite
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Why did reasonable demands of Ethiopian masses for change lead not only to the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie, but also to a radical revolution that caused civil wars, economic decline, secession, and ethnic politics, all in the name of socialist equality and freedom? The answer of the book is that elite conflicts over scarce resources promoted mutually exclusive struggles for power, and so mobilized ideologies suitable for zero sum politics, of which radical revolutions are typical expressions.

The Modern Book of the Dead

The Modern Book of the Dead PDF Author: Ptolemy Tompkins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451616538
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
A modern, all-encompassing exploration of what happens after death combines spirituality with philosophy, history, and science, all of which guide readers toward the timeless truth that human consciousness lives on after death.

Detroit

Detroit PDF Author: Charlie LeDuff
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143124463
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
An explosive exposé of America’s lost prosperity by Pulitzer Prize­–winning journalist Charlie LeDuff “One cannot read Mr. LeDuff's amalgam of memoir and reportage and not be shaken by the cold eye he casts on hard truths . . . A little gonzo, a little gumshoe, some gawker, some good-Samaritan—it is hard to ignore reporting like Mr. LeDuff's.” —The Wall Street Journal “Pultizer-Prize-winning journalist LeDuff . . . writes with honesty and compassion about a city that’s destroying itself–and breaking his heart.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A book full of both literary grace and hard-won world-weariness.” —Kirkus Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff searches the ruins of Detroit for clues to his family’s troubled past. Having led us on the way up, Detroit now seems to be leading us on the way down. Once the richest city in America, Detroit is now the nation’s poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age—mass-production, blue-collar jobs, and automobiles—Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, dropouts, and foreclosures. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark, and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses, LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He beats on the doors of union bosses and homeless squatters, powerful businessmen and struggling homeowners and the ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination. Detroit: An American Autopsy is an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer.

Autopsy of a Deceased Church

Autopsy of a Deceased Church PDF Author: Thom S. Rainer
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 143368392X
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Best-selling author of Simple Church and the runaway hit I am a Church Member, Thom Rainer uses his twenty-five years of experience helping churches grow and reverse the trends of decline to expose twelve lessons on how to keep your church alive!

Autopsy For An Empire

Autopsy For An Empire PDF Author: Dmitri Volkogonov
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 841

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Book Description
The late Dmitri Volkogonov emerged in the last decade of his life as the preeminent Russian historian of this century. His crowning achievement is the account of the seven General Secretaries of the Soviet Empire in Autopsy for an Empire, a book that tells the entire history of the Soviet failure. Having utilized his still-unequaled access to the Soviet military archives, Communist Party documents, and secret Presidential Archive, Volkogonov sheds new light on some of the major events of twentieth-century history and the men who shaped them. We witness Lenin’s paranoia about foreigners in Russia, and his creation of a privileged system for top Party members; Stalin’s repression of the nationalities and his singular conduct of foreign policy; the origins and conduct of the Korean War; Kruschev’s relationship with the odious secret service chief, Beria, and his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis; Brezhnev’s vanity and stupidity; a new view of Poland and Solidarity; the ossification of Soviet bureaucracy and the cynicism of the Politburo; and Mikhail Gorbachev’s Leninism and his role in history. By profiling the seven successive Soviet leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, Volkogonov also depicts in painstaking detail the progressive self-destruction of the Leninist system. In his clear-eyed character assessments and political evaluations, lucidly translated and edited by Harold Shukman, Dmitri Volkogonov has once again performed an invaluable service to twentieth-century history.

Autopsy on an Empire

Autopsy on an Empire PDF Author: Jack F. Matlock
Publisher: Random House (NY)
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 874

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Book Description
Matlock, who served in the USSR for most of his career, including as ambassador during the Reagan and Bush administrations, gives this insider's look at the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Glory and Terror

Glory and Terror PDF Author: Antoine de Baecque
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136692088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Glory and Terror is a vivid and often gory history of the darker side of the French Revolution. Through an examination of contemporary visual and literary representations of executions, funerals, processions and ceremonies it brings the often horrific events of the time to life. Honing in on seven real life cases, the author recounts and interprets: * the public autopsy performed on the corpse of Mirabeau * the exhumation and transportation of Voltaire's body to the Pantheon * the public torture, murder and subsequent mutilation of the Princesse de Lamballe * the agonizingly slow death of Robespierre. Anyone who enjoys dazzling cultural history in the vein of Robert Darnton, Carlo Ginzburg and Anthony Grafton will revel in this intelligent and original work.

Romantic Autopsy

Romantic Autopsy PDF Author: Arden Hegele
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192848348
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This book considers a moment at the turn of the nineteenth century, when literature and medicine seemed embattled in rivalry, to find the fields collaborating to develop interpretive analogies that saw literary texts as organic bodies and anatomical features as legible texts.

Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul PDF Author: Jacob E. Van Vleet
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625649142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) was Professor of the History and Sociology of Institutions at the University of Bordeaux. A sociologist, historian, and Protestant lay theologian, Ellul is primarily known for his writings on technology, propaganda, and Christian anarchism. He influenced a wide array of thinkers including Ivan Illich, William Stringfellow, Thomas Merton, Paul Virilio, and Neil Postman. In this book, Jacob Van Vleet and Jacob Marques Rollison guide readers through Ellul’s most influential theological and sociological writings. By understanding Ellul’s primary works, readers will be able to clearly grasp his social theory and theological ethics, profiting from his deep insight and prophetic wisdom.