Author: Tobias Kelly
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473581834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
A ground-breaking new study brings us a very different picture of the Second World War, asking fundamental questions about ethical commitments Accounts of the Second World War usually involve tales of bravery in battle, or stoicism on the home front, as the British public stood together against Fascism. However, the war looks very different when seen through the eyes of the 60,000 conscientious objectors who refused to take up arms and whose stories, unlike those of the First World War, have been almost entirely forgotten. Tobias Kelly invites us to spend the war five of these individuals: Roy Ridgway, a factory clerk from Liverpool; Tom Burns, a teacher from east London; Stella St John, who trained as a vet and ended up in jail; Ronald Duncan, who set up a collective farm; and Fred Urquhart, a working-class Scottish socialist and writer. We meet many more objectors along the way -- people both determined and torn -- and travel from Finland to Syria, India to rural England, Edinburgh to Trinidad. Although conscientious objectors were often criticised and scorned, figures such as Winston Churchill and the Archbishop of Canterbury supported their right to object, at least in principle, suggesting that liberty of conscience was one of the freedoms the nation was fighting for. And their rich cultural and moral legacy -- of humanitarianism and human rights, from Amnesty International and Oxfam to the US civil rights movement -- can still be felt all around us. The personal and political struggles carefully and vividly collected in this book tell us a great deal about personal and collective freedom, conviction and faith, war and peace, and pose questions just as relevant today: Does conscience make us free? Where does it take us? And what are the costs of going there? '[An] excellent book' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A moving tribute' - SPECTATOR
Battles of Conscience
Author: Tobias Kelly
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473581834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
A ground-breaking new study brings us a very different picture of the Second World War, asking fundamental questions about ethical commitments Accounts of the Second World War usually involve tales of bravery in battle, or stoicism on the home front, as the British public stood together against Fascism. However, the war looks very different when seen through the eyes of the 60,000 conscientious objectors who refused to take up arms and whose stories, unlike those of the First World War, have been almost entirely forgotten. Tobias Kelly invites us to spend the war five of these individuals: Roy Ridgway, a factory clerk from Liverpool; Tom Burns, a teacher from east London; Stella St John, who trained as a vet and ended up in jail; Ronald Duncan, who set up a collective farm; and Fred Urquhart, a working-class Scottish socialist and writer. We meet many more objectors along the way -- people both determined and torn -- and travel from Finland to Syria, India to rural England, Edinburgh to Trinidad. Although conscientious objectors were often criticised and scorned, figures such as Winston Churchill and the Archbishop of Canterbury supported their right to object, at least in principle, suggesting that liberty of conscience was one of the freedoms the nation was fighting for. And their rich cultural and moral legacy -- of humanitarianism and human rights, from Amnesty International and Oxfam to the US civil rights movement -- can still be felt all around us. The personal and political struggles carefully and vividly collected in this book tell us a great deal about personal and collective freedom, conviction and faith, war and peace, and pose questions just as relevant today: Does conscience make us free? Where does it take us? And what are the costs of going there? '[An] excellent book' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A moving tribute' - SPECTATOR
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473581834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
A ground-breaking new study brings us a very different picture of the Second World War, asking fundamental questions about ethical commitments Accounts of the Second World War usually involve tales of bravery in battle, or stoicism on the home front, as the British public stood together against Fascism. However, the war looks very different when seen through the eyes of the 60,000 conscientious objectors who refused to take up arms and whose stories, unlike those of the First World War, have been almost entirely forgotten. Tobias Kelly invites us to spend the war five of these individuals: Roy Ridgway, a factory clerk from Liverpool; Tom Burns, a teacher from east London; Stella St John, who trained as a vet and ended up in jail; Ronald Duncan, who set up a collective farm; and Fred Urquhart, a working-class Scottish socialist and writer. We meet many more objectors along the way -- people both determined and torn -- and travel from Finland to Syria, India to rural England, Edinburgh to Trinidad. Although conscientious objectors were often criticised and scorned, figures such as Winston Churchill and the Archbishop of Canterbury supported their right to object, at least in principle, suggesting that liberty of conscience was one of the freedoms the nation was fighting for. And their rich cultural and moral legacy -- of humanitarianism and human rights, from Amnesty International and Oxfam to the US civil rights movement -- can still be felt all around us. The personal and political struggles carefully and vividly collected in this book tell us a great deal about personal and collective freedom, conviction and faith, war and peace, and pose questions just as relevant today: Does conscience make us free? Where does it take us? And what are the costs of going there? '[An] excellent book' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A moving tribute' - SPECTATOR
Conscience
Author: Louisa Thomas
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101515309
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
Norman Thomas and his brothers' upbringing prepared them for a life of service-but their calls to conscience threatened to tear them apart Conscience is Louisa Thomas's beautifully written account of the remarkable Thomas brothers at the turn of the twentieth century. At a time of trial, each brother struggled to understand his obligation to his country, family, and faith. Centered around the story of the eldest, Norman Thomas (later the six-time Socialist candidate for president), the book explores the difficult decisions the four brothers faced with the advent of World War I. Sons of a Presbyterian minister and grandsons of missionaries, they shared a rigorous moral upbringing, a Princeton education, and a faith in the era's spirit of hope. Two became soldiers. Ralph enlisted right away, heeding President Woodrow Wilson's call to fight for freedom. A captain in the Army Corps of Engineers, he was ultimately wounded in France. Arthur, the youngest, was less certain about the righteousness of the cause but sensitive to his obligation as a citizen-and like so many men eager to have a chance to prove himself. The other two were pacifists. Evan became a conscientious objector, protesting conscription; when the truce was signed on November 11, 1918, he was in solitary confinement. Norman left his ministry in the tenements of East Harlem, New York, and began down the course he would follow for the rest of his life, fighting for civil liberties, social justice, and greater equality, and against violence as a method of change. Conscience reveals the tension among responsibilities, beliefs, and desires, between ideas and actions-and, sometimes, between brothers. Conscience moves from the gothic buildings of Princeton to the tenements of New York City, from the West Wing of the White House to the battlefields of France, tracking how four young men navigated a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. A Thomas family member herself (Norman was Louisa's great grandfather), Thomas proposes that there is something we might recover from the brothers' debates about conscience: a way of talking about personal liberty and social obligation, about being true to oneself and to one another.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101515309
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381
Book Description
Norman Thomas and his brothers' upbringing prepared them for a life of service-but their calls to conscience threatened to tear them apart Conscience is Louisa Thomas's beautifully written account of the remarkable Thomas brothers at the turn of the twentieth century. At a time of trial, each brother struggled to understand his obligation to his country, family, and faith. Centered around the story of the eldest, Norman Thomas (later the six-time Socialist candidate for president), the book explores the difficult decisions the four brothers faced with the advent of World War I. Sons of a Presbyterian minister and grandsons of missionaries, they shared a rigorous moral upbringing, a Princeton education, and a faith in the era's spirit of hope. Two became soldiers. Ralph enlisted right away, heeding President Woodrow Wilson's call to fight for freedom. A captain in the Army Corps of Engineers, he was ultimately wounded in France. Arthur, the youngest, was less certain about the righteousness of the cause but sensitive to his obligation as a citizen-and like so many men eager to have a chance to prove himself. The other two were pacifists. Evan became a conscientious objector, protesting conscription; when the truce was signed on November 11, 1918, he was in solitary confinement. Norman left his ministry in the tenements of East Harlem, New York, and began down the course he would follow for the rest of his life, fighting for civil liberties, social justice, and greater equality, and against violence as a method of change. Conscience reveals the tension among responsibilities, beliefs, and desires, between ideas and actions-and, sometimes, between brothers. Conscience moves from the gothic buildings of Princeton to the tenements of New York City, from the West Wing of the White House to the battlefields of France, tracking how four young men navigated a period of great uncertainty and upheaval. A Thomas family member herself (Norman was Louisa's great grandfather), Thomas proposes that there is something we might recover from the brothers' debates about conscience: a way of talking about personal liberty and social obligation, about being true to oneself and to one another.
Shocking the Conscience
Author: Simeon Booker
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617037893
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
An unforgettable chronicle from a groundbreaking journalist who covered Emmett Till's murder, the Little Rock Nine, and ten US presidents
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617037893
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Book Description
An unforgettable chronicle from a groundbreaking journalist who covered Emmett Till's murder, the Little Rock Nine, and ten US presidents
The Nazi Conscience
Author: Claudia Koonz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674011724
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Koonz’s latest work reveals how racial popularizers developed the infrastructure and rationale for genocide during the so-called normal years before World War II. Challenging conventional assumptions about Hitler, Koonz locates the source of his charisma not in his summons to hate, but in his appeal to the collective virtue of his people, the Volk.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674011724
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
Koonz’s latest work reveals how racial popularizers developed the infrastructure and rationale for genocide during the so-called normal years before World War II. Challenging conventional assumptions about Hitler, Koonz locates the source of his charisma not in his summons to hate, but in his appeal to the collective virtue of his people, the Volk.
God and Government
Author: Rev. Barry W. Lynn
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1633880257
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
A central player in every major church-state-separation battle for decades, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn understands the complexities of this divisive issue like few others. As a long-time activist, a civil rights lawyer, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, he offers a unique perspective and a wealth of experience on church-state controversies. In this lively book, he has compiled his writings from various sources to explore in depth the many ways religious extremists have attempted to erode individual liberties. The topics range from publicly-promoted prayer to efforts to undermine public education and replace it with taxpayer-subsidized vouchers for religious schools, interfering with end-of-life and reproductive rights, censorship, and belligerence directed against nonbelievers and minorities. Lynn concludes that the ultimate goal of these extremist forces—consisting mainly of the Protestant Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy—is the creation of a corporate theocracy, a decidedly undemocratic system of government in which nonconservative Christians, along with humanist, feminists, and the LGBTQ community, are relegated to second-class status in America.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1633880257
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
A central player in every major church-state-separation battle for decades, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn understands the complexities of this divisive issue like few others. As a long-time activist, a civil rights lawyer, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, he offers a unique perspective and a wealth of experience on church-state controversies. In this lively book, he has compiled his writings from various sources to explore in depth the many ways religious extremists have attempted to erode individual liberties. The topics range from publicly-promoted prayer to efforts to undermine public education and replace it with taxpayer-subsidized vouchers for religious schools, interfering with end-of-life and reproductive rights, censorship, and belligerence directed against nonbelievers and minorities. Lynn concludes that the ultimate goal of these extremist forces—consisting mainly of the Protestant Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy—is the creation of a corporate theocracy, a decidedly undemocratic system of government in which nonconservative Christians, along with humanist, feminists, and the LGBTQ community, are relegated to second-class status in America.
Black Edelweiss
Author: Johann Voss
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
When a 20-year old Waffen-SS veteran of two years' combat against the Soviets and Americans is confronted with the awful, undeniable truth of the Holocaust, he must reconcile it with his pride in his comrades' battlefield sacrifices. The author served in SS Mountain Infantry Regiment 11 Reinhard Heydrich, part of 6th SS Mountain Division Nord. The book is mostly an account of his extensive combat service against the Soviets in northern Karelia and Finland, with a shorter section describing combat against the Americans in the Vosges and in the Saar-Moselle triangle. Voss reflects on the totality of his wartime experiences, from the origins of his reasons for enlisting in the Waffen-SS to his experiences in US captivity. The result is a compelling and honest account.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
When a 20-year old Waffen-SS veteran of two years' combat against the Soviets and Americans is confronted with the awful, undeniable truth of the Holocaust, he must reconcile it with his pride in his comrades' battlefield sacrifices. The author served in SS Mountain Infantry Regiment 11 Reinhard Heydrich, part of 6th SS Mountain Division Nord. The book is mostly an account of his extensive combat service against the Soviets in northern Karelia and Finland, with a shorter section describing combat against the Americans in the Vosges and in the Saar-Moselle triangle. Voss reflects on the totality of his wartime experiences, from the origins of his reasons for enlisting in the Waffen-SS to his experiences in US captivity. The result is a compelling and honest account.
The Conscience Wars
Author: Michel Rosenfeld
Publisher:
ISBN: 1107173302
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 515
Book Description
Explores the multifaceted debate on the interconnection between conscientious objections, religious liberty, and the equality of women and sexual minorities.
Publisher:
ISBN: 1107173302
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 515
Book Description
Explores the multifaceted debate on the interconnection between conscientious objections, religious liberty, and the equality of women and sexual minorities.
Baptist Battles
Author: Nancy Tatom Ammerman
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813515571
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Since 1979 Southern Baptists have been noisily struggling to agree on symbols, beliefs, and practices as they attempt to make sense of their changing social world. Nancy Ammerman has carefully documented their struggle. She tells the story of the Baptist reversal from a moderate to a fundamentalist outlook and speculates on the future of the denomination. Ammerman places change among the Southern Baptists in the context of the cultural and economic changes that have transformed the South from its rural past into an urbanizing, culturally diverse region. Not only did the South change; Southern Baptists did as well. Reflecting this diversity, the Southern Baptist bureaucracy was relatively progressive. During the 1960s and 1970s, moderate sentiments prevailed, while fundamentalists remained on the margins. These two were, however, becoming increasingly divergent in what they considered important about being a Baptist, in their views about the Bible, in their attitudes on the origination of women, on Christian morals, and on national politics. Late in the 1970s, a fundamentalist coalition emerged, followed by unsuccessful efforts by moderates to oppose it. The battles escalated until 1985, when 45,000 Baptists gathered in Dallas to decide between contending presidential candidates. That dramatic event illustrated the extent to which organized political resources were determining the course of the conflict. Ammerman studies these strategies and resources as well. Examining how this tension affected Baptists, Ammerman begins with case studies of the change it is producing in Baptist agencies. But she also brings us back to the local churches and individual believers who are renegotiating their relationships within their denomination. She asks whether the denomination's polity can accommodate an increasingly diverse group of Baptists, of whether the only way dissidents can have a voice is through schism.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813515571
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
Since 1979 Southern Baptists have been noisily struggling to agree on symbols, beliefs, and practices as they attempt to make sense of their changing social world. Nancy Ammerman has carefully documented their struggle. She tells the story of the Baptist reversal from a moderate to a fundamentalist outlook and speculates on the future of the denomination. Ammerman places change among the Southern Baptists in the context of the cultural and economic changes that have transformed the South from its rural past into an urbanizing, culturally diverse region. Not only did the South change; Southern Baptists did as well. Reflecting this diversity, the Southern Baptist bureaucracy was relatively progressive. During the 1960s and 1970s, moderate sentiments prevailed, while fundamentalists remained on the margins. These two were, however, becoming increasingly divergent in what they considered important about being a Baptist, in their views about the Bible, in their attitudes on the origination of women, on Christian morals, and on national politics. Late in the 1970s, a fundamentalist coalition emerged, followed by unsuccessful efforts by moderates to oppose it. The battles escalated until 1985, when 45,000 Baptists gathered in Dallas to decide between contending presidential candidates. That dramatic event illustrated the extent to which organized political resources were determining the course of the conflict. Ammerman studies these strategies and resources as well. Examining how this tension affected Baptists, Ammerman begins with case studies of the change it is producing in Baptist agencies. But she also brings us back to the local churches and individual believers who are renegotiating their relationships within their denomination. She asks whether the denomination's polity can accommodate an increasingly diverse group of Baptists, of whether the only way dissidents can have a voice is through schism.
Crisis of Conscience
Author: Tom Mueller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698405102
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 610
Book Description
"A call to arms and to action, for anyone with a conscience, anyone alarmed about the decline of our democracy." — New York Times-bestselling author Wendell Potter "Powerful...His extensively reported tales of individual whistleblowers and their often cruel fates are compelling...They reveal what it can mean to live in an age of fraud." — The Washington Post "Tom Mueller's authoritative and timely book reveals what drives a few brave souls to expose and denounce specific cases of corruption. He describes the structural decay that plagues many of our most powerful institutions, putting democracy itself in danger." —George Soros A David-and-Goliath story for our times: the riveting account of the heroes who are fighting a rising tide of wrongdoing by the powerful, and showing us the path forward. We live in a period of sweeping corruption -- and a golden age of whistleblowing. Over the past few decades, principled insiders who expose wrongdoing have gained unprecedented legal and social stature, emerging as the government's best weapon against corporate misconduct--and the citizenry's best defense against government gone bad. Whistleblowers force us to confront fundamental questions about the balance between free speech and state secrecy, and between individual morality and corporate power. In Crisis of Conscience, Tom Mueller traces the rise of whistleblowing through a series of riveting cases drawn from the worlds of healthcare and other businesses, Wall Street, and Washington. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than two hundred whistleblowers and the trailblazing lawyers who arm them for battle--plus politicians, intelligence analysts, government watchdogs, cognitive scientists, and other experts--Mueller anatomizes what inspires some to speak out while the rest of us become complicit in our silence. Whistleblowers, we come to see, are the freethinking, outspoken citizens for whom our republic was conceived. And they are the models we must emulate if our democracy is to survive.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698405102
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 610
Book Description
"A call to arms and to action, for anyone with a conscience, anyone alarmed about the decline of our democracy." — New York Times-bestselling author Wendell Potter "Powerful...His extensively reported tales of individual whistleblowers and their often cruel fates are compelling...They reveal what it can mean to live in an age of fraud." — The Washington Post "Tom Mueller's authoritative and timely book reveals what drives a few brave souls to expose and denounce specific cases of corruption. He describes the structural decay that plagues many of our most powerful institutions, putting democracy itself in danger." —George Soros A David-and-Goliath story for our times: the riveting account of the heroes who are fighting a rising tide of wrongdoing by the powerful, and showing us the path forward. We live in a period of sweeping corruption -- and a golden age of whistleblowing. Over the past few decades, principled insiders who expose wrongdoing have gained unprecedented legal and social stature, emerging as the government's best weapon against corporate misconduct--and the citizenry's best defense against government gone bad. Whistleblowers force us to confront fundamental questions about the balance between free speech and state secrecy, and between individual morality and corporate power. In Crisis of Conscience, Tom Mueller traces the rise of whistleblowing through a series of riveting cases drawn from the worlds of healthcare and other businesses, Wall Street, and Washington. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than two hundred whistleblowers and the trailblazing lawyers who arm them for battle--plus politicians, intelligence analysts, government watchdogs, cognitive scientists, and other experts--Mueller anatomizes what inspires some to speak out while the rest of us become complicit in our silence. Whistleblowers, we come to see, are the freethinking, outspoken citizens for whom our republic was conceived. And they are the models we must emulate if our democracy is to survive.
Voices of Conscience
Author: Nicole Reinhardt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198703686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
Voices of Conscience analyzes how the link between politics and conscience was articulated and shaped throughout the seventeenth century by confessors who acted as counsellors to monarchs. Against the backdrop of the momentous intellectual, theological, and political shifts that marked this period, the study examines comparatively how the ethical challenges of political action were confronted in Spain and France and how questions of conscience became a major argument in the hegemonic struggle between the two competing Catholic powers. As Nicole Reinhardt demonstrates, 'counsel of conscience' was not a peripheral feature of early-modern political culture, but fundamental for the definition of politics and conscience. Tracing the rise and fall of confessors as counsellors reveals the parallel transformation of both, approaching a historical understanding of the modernisation of politics with the idea of an 'individual conscience' at its heart. Placed at the junction of norms and practices, royal confessors, directly or in oblique reflection, shaped the ways in which the royal conscience was identified and scrutinized. By the same token, the royal confessors' expertise and activities remained a source of anxiety and conflict that triggered wide debate on the relationship between State and Church, religion and politics. The notion of 'counsel of conscience', of which this book provides the first in-depth analysis, allows the reader to re-examine and challenge fundamental historical paradigms such as the emergence of 'absolutism', individualisation, and the division of public and private. Putting theological concepts and religious dimensions back into political theory and practice sheds new light, not only on the importance of counselling for early modern statecraft, but also on the reconfiguration of the normative frameworks underlying it.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198703686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
Voices of Conscience analyzes how the link between politics and conscience was articulated and shaped throughout the seventeenth century by confessors who acted as counsellors to monarchs. Against the backdrop of the momentous intellectual, theological, and political shifts that marked this period, the study examines comparatively how the ethical challenges of political action were confronted in Spain and France and how questions of conscience became a major argument in the hegemonic struggle between the two competing Catholic powers. As Nicole Reinhardt demonstrates, 'counsel of conscience' was not a peripheral feature of early-modern political culture, but fundamental for the definition of politics and conscience. Tracing the rise and fall of confessors as counsellors reveals the parallel transformation of both, approaching a historical understanding of the modernisation of politics with the idea of an 'individual conscience' at its heart. Placed at the junction of norms and practices, royal confessors, directly or in oblique reflection, shaped the ways in which the royal conscience was identified and scrutinized. By the same token, the royal confessors' expertise and activities remained a source of anxiety and conflict that triggered wide debate on the relationship between State and Church, religion and politics. The notion of 'counsel of conscience', of which this book provides the first in-depth analysis, allows the reader to re-examine and challenge fundamental historical paradigms such as the emergence of 'absolutism', individualisation, and the division of public and private. Putting theological concepts and religious dimensions back into political theory and practice sheds new light, not only on the importance of counselling for early modern statecraft, but also on the reconfiguration of the normative frameworks underlying it.