FOOT SOLDIER IN THE CULTURE WARS

FOOT SOLDIER IN THE CULTURE WARS PDF Author: Tony Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781922449627
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Tony Thomas's new essays pulverise "woke" causes including climate doomism; the Aboriginal industry; and the ABC's bias. While society goes mad with political correctness, Tony gives sanity and laughter a chance. He probes the outer reaches of woke-ism for absurdities beyond satire. Who else but Tony would record that Melbourne University's green brigade imported a guest expert on "tree humping"? Tony also focuses on great Aboriginal questions of the day, like "Who gets to be an Elder?" Can you be a younger Elder and why are 80% of Elders worried about other Elders' bona fides? As for who gets to be an Aborigine, one of 85,000 recent "new identifiers" discovered her Aboriginality by talking to her chooks. Tony is not just a political tragic. In wide-ranging essays he writes about Australia's greatest spy - a persuasive middle-aged housewife in Adelaide with baby-blue eyes. He writes how at 20 he was taught German by a literary scholar who then was sentenced to hang for murder. And he describes how 5000 Perth citizens armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns went on a man-hunt in a pine plantation in 1963 -- with police approval. Tony gives you a feast of far-fetched facts, and as always, it's with a sly smile. I have known Tony for over 40 years. These essays reflect his meticulous research, attention to detail and, above all, his passionate condemnation of all the lies, hypocrisy, smugness and groupthink that demean our public policy debate. -- John Stone, Federal Treasury Secretary 1979-84, National Party Senator 1987-90: Some authors proffer mindfulness, a calming and sombre page or two from which to fall quietly into slumber. If you're looking for such inert writing, drop this volume like a hot cake. For here the indefatigable Tony Thomas again introduces his readers to a wild, colourful, convulsive world of eccentrics, of argumentation, of strange and sometimes strikingly uncongenial places and cultures, as he persists in his restless everyman quest for answers to his endless questions. -- Rowan Callick OBE, China expert and an Australian Journalist of the Year There is only one Tony Thomas, a fact for which peddlers of cant, snout-troughing catastropharians and the ABC - but I repeat myself - must daily rejoice. -- Roger Franklin, editor of Quadrant Online.

FOOT SOLDIER IN THE CULTURE WARS

FOOT SOLDIER IN THE CULTURE WARS PDF Author: Tony Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781922449627
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book Here

Book Description
Tony Thomas's new essays pulverise "woke" causes including climate doomism; the Aboriginal industry; and the ABC's bias. While society goes mad with political correctness, Tony gives sanity and laughter a chance. He probes the outer reaches of woke-ism for absurdities beyond satire. Who else but Tony would record that Melbourne University's green brigade imported a guest expert on "tree humping"? Tony also focuses on great Aboriginal questions of the day, like "Who gets to be an Elder?" Can you be a younger Elder and why are 80% of Elders worried about other Elders' bona fides? As for who gets to be an Aborigine, one of 85,000 recent "new identifiers" discovered her Aboriginality by talking to her chooks. Tony is not just a political tragic. In wide-ranging essays he writes about Australia's greatest spy - a persuasive middle-aged housewife in Adelaide with baby-blue eyes. He writes how at 20 he was taught German by a literary scholar who then was sentenced to hang for murder. And he describes how 5000 Perth citizens armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns went on a man-hunt in a pine plantation in 1963 -- with police approval. Tony gives you a feast of far-fetched facts, and as always, it's with a sly smile. I have known Tony for over 40 years. These essays reflect his meticulous research, attention to detail and, above all, his passionate condemnation of all the lies, hypocrisy, smugness and groupthink that demean our public policy debate. -- John Stone, Federal Treasury Secretary 1979-84, National Party Senator 1987-90: Some authors proffer mindfulness, a calming and sombre page or two from which to fall quietly into slumber. If you're looking for such inert writing, drop this volume like a hot cake. For here the indefatigable Tony Thomas again introduces his readers to a wild, colourful, convulsive world of eccentrics, of argumentation, of strange and sometimes strikingly uncongenial places and cultures, as he persists in his restless everyman quest for answers to his endless questions. -- Rowan Callick OBE, China expert and an Australian Journalist of the Year There is only one Tony Thomas, a fact for which peddlers of cant, snout-troughing catastropharians and the ABC - but I repeat myself - must daily rejoice. -- Roger Franklin, editor of Quadrant Online.

Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians

Napoleonic Foot Soldiers and Civilians PDF Author: Rafe Blaufarb
Publisher: Macmillan Higher Education
ISBN: 1319242723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
By highlighting the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, this volume by Rafe Blaufarb and Claudia Liebeskind presents a broad view of the Napoleonic Wars not found in typical military histories. The introduction recounts the key events of the wars and how they marked a shift in the modern notion of “total war” and provides necessary political and military background on the issues of recruitment and evasion, the military community, combat and its aftermath, the homefront, and demobilization. The rich collection of memoirs, letters, and popular engravings -- from familiar sources such as German infantryman Jakob Walter to an account of a French woman canteen worker -- offers contrasting voices, some offered here in English for the first time. These documents and images explore core civil-military interactions, including foraging, plunder, sexuality, violence, eating, religion, and commerce. Headnotes to the documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support.

The Warrior Image

The Warrior Image PDF Author: Andrew J. Huebner
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807868213
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Images of war saturated American culture between the 1940s and the 1970s, as U.S. troops marched off to battle in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Exploring representations of servicemen in the popular press, government propaganda, museum exhibits, literature, film, and television, Andrew Huebner traces the evolution of a storied American icon--the combat soldier. Huebner challenges the pervasive assumption that Vietnam brought drastic changes in portrayals of the American warrior, with the jaded serviceman of the 1960s and 1970s shown in stark contrast to the patriotic citizen-soldier of World War II. In fact, Huebner shows, cracks began to appear in sentimental images of the military late in World War II and were particularly apparent during the Korean conflict. Journalists, filmmakers, novelists, and poets increasingly portrayed the steep costs of combat, depicting soldiers who were harmed rather than hardened by war, isolated from rather than supported by their military leadership and American society. Across all three wars, Huebner argues, the warrior image conveyed a growing cynicism about armed conflict, the federal government, and Cold War militarization.

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried PDF Author: Tim O'Brien
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547420293
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Culture Wars

Culture Wars PDF Author: Roger Chapman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317473507
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 2878

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Book Description
The term "culture wars" refers to the political and sociological polarisation that has characterised American society the past several decades. This new edition provides an enlightening and comprehensive A-to-Z ready reference, now with supporting primary documents, on major topics of contemporary importance for students, teachers, and the general reader. It aims to promote understanding and clarification on pertinent topics that too often are not adequately explained or discussed in a balanced context. With approximately 640 entries plus more than 120 primary documents supporting both sides of key issues, this is a unique and defining work, indispensable to informed discussions of the most timely and critical issues facing America today.

Carnage and Culture

Carnage and Culture PDF Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307425185
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Examining nine landmark battles from ancient to modern times--from Salamis, where outnumbered Greeks devastated the slave army of Xerxes, to Cortes’s conquest of Mexico to the Tet offensive--Victor Davis Hanson explains why the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any fighting forces in the world. Looking beyond popular explanations such as geography or superior technology, Hanson argues that it is in fact Western culture and values–the tradition of dissent, the value placed on inventiveness and adaptation, the concept of citizenship–which have consistently produced superior arms and soldiers. Offering riveting battle narratives and a balanced perspective that avoids simple triumphalism, Carnage and Culture demonstrates how armies cannot be separated from the cultures that produce them and explains why an army produced by a free culture will always have the advantage.

The Scar That Binds

The Scar That Binds PDF Author: Keith Beattie
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814798691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In The Scar That Binds, Keith Beattie examines the central metaphors of the Vietnam War and their manifestations in American culture and life. Blending history and cultural criticism in a lucid style, this provocative book discusses an ideology of unity that has emerged through widespread rhetorical and cultural references to the war. A critique of this ideology reveals three dominant themes structured in a range of texts: the "wound," "the voice" of the Vietnam veteran, and "home." The analysis of each theme draws on a range of sources, including film, memoir, poetry, written and oral history, journalism, and political speeches.

The Good Soldiers

The Good Soldiers PDF Author: David Finkel
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
ISBN: 1429952717
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. "Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

Culture Wars

Culture Wars PDF Author: Christopher Clark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139439901
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Across nineteenth-century Europe, the emergence of constitutional and democratic nation-states was accompanied by intense conflict between Catholics and anticlerical forces. At its peak, this conflict touched virtually every sphere of social life: schools, universities, the press, marriage and gender relations, burial rites, associational culture, the control of public space, folk memory and the symbols of nationhood. In short, these conflicts were 'culture wars', in which the values and collective practices of modern life were at stake. These 'culture wars' have generally been seen as a chapter in the history of specific nation-states. Yet it has recently become increasingly clear that the Europe of the mid- and later nineteenth century should also be seen as a common politico-cultural space. This book breaks with the conventional approach by setting developments in specific states within an all-European and comparative context, offering a fresh and revealing perspective on one of modernity's formative conflicts.

The Other Face of Battle

The Other Face of Battle PDF Author: Wayne E. Lee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190920645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Taking its title from The Face of Battle, John Keegan's canonical book on the nature of warfare, The Other Face of Battle illuminates the American experience of fighting in "irregular" and "intercultural" wars over the centuries. Sometimes known as "forgotten" wars, in part because they lackedtriumphant clarity, they are the focus of the book. David Preston, David Silbey, and Anthony Carlson focus on, respectively, the Battle of Monongahela (1755), the Battle of Manila (1898), and the Battle of Makuan, Afghanistan (2020) - conflicts in which American soldiers were forced to engage in"irregular" warfare, confronting an enemy entirely alien to them. This enemy rejected the Western conventions of warfare and defined success and failure - victory and defeat - in entirely different ways. Symmetry of any kind is lost. Here was not ennobling engagement but atrocity, unanticipatedinsurgencies, and strategic stalemate.War is always hell. These wars, however, profoundly undermined any sense of purpose or proportion. Nightmarish and existentially bewildering, they nonetheless characterize how Americans have experienced combat and what its effects have been. They are therefore worth comparing for what they hold incommon as well as what they reveal about our attitude toward war itself. The Other Face of Battle reminds us that "irregular" or "asymmetrical" warfare is now not the exception but the rule. Understanding its roots seems more crucial than ever.