Managing Monsters

Managing Monsters PDF Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409028704
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
In early 1994 Marina Warner delivered the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC. In a series of six lectures, she takes areas of contemporary concern and relates them to stories from mythology and fairy tale which continue to grip the modern imagination. She analyses the fury about single mothers and the anxiety about masculinity in the light of ideals about male heroism and control; the current despair about children and the loss of childhood innocence; the changing attitude of myths about wild men and beasts and the undertow of racism which is expressed in myths about savages and cannibals. The last lecture, on home, brings the themes together to examine ideas about who we are and where we belong, with reference to the British nation and its way of telling its own history. Using a range of examples from video games to Turner's paintings, from popular films to Keats, Marina Warner interweaves her critique of fantasy, dream and prejudice.

Managing Monsters

Managing Monsters PDF Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409028704
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book Here

Book Description
In early 1994 Marina Warner delivered the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC. In a series of six lectures, she takes areas of contemporary concern and relates them to stories from mythology and fairy tale which continue to grip the modern imagination. She analyses the fury about single mothers and the anxiety about masculinity in the light of ideals about male heroism and control; the current despair about children and the loss of childhood innocence; the changing attitude of myths about wild men and beasts and the undertow of racism which is expressed in myths about savages and cannibals. The last lecture, on home, brings the themes together to examine ideas about who we are and where we belong, with reference to the British nation and its way of telling its own history. Using a range of examples from video games to Turner's paintings, from popular films to Keats, Marina Warner interweaves her critique of fantasy, dream and prejudice.

The Myth of the Strong Leader

The Myth of the Strong Leader PDF Author: Archie Brown
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465080979
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
From one of the world's preeminent political historians, a magisterial study of political leadership around the world from the advent of parliamentary democracy to the age of Obama. All too frequently, leadership is reduced to a simple dichotomy: the strong versus the weak. Yet, there are myriad ways to exercise effective political leadership -- as well as different ways to fail. We blame our leaders for economic downfalls and praise them for vital social reforms, but rarely do we question what makes some leaders successful while others falter. In this magisterial and wide-ranging survey of political leadership over the past hundred years, renowned Oxford politics professor Archie Brown challenges the widespread belief that strong leaders -- meaning those who dominate their colleagues and the policy-making process -- are the most successful and admirable. In reality, only a minority of political leaders will truly make a lasting difference. Though we tend to dismiss more collegial styles of leadership as weak, it is often the most cooperative leaders who have the greatest impact. Drawing on extensive research and decades of political analysis and experience, Brown illuminates the achievements, failures and foibles of a broad array of twentieth century politicians. Whether speaking of redefining leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Margaret Thatcher, who expanded the limits of what was politically possible during their time in power, or the even rarer transformational leaders who played a decisive role in bringing about systemic change -- Charles de Gaulle, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela, among them -- Brown challenges our commonly held beliefs about political efficacy and strength. Overturning many of our assumptions about the twentieth century's most important figures, Brown's conclusions are both original and enlightening. The Myth of the Strong Leader compels us to reassess the leaders who have shaped our world - and to reconsider how we should choose and evaluate those who will lead us into the future.

Great Myths of Our Time and Other Stories

Great Myths of Our Time and Other Stories PDF Author: David Stevens
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description


Wrong and Dangerous

Wrong and Dangerous PDF Author: Garrett Epps
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442216786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The primary purpose of the United States Constitution is to limit Congress. There is no separation of church and state. The Second Amendment allows citizens to threaten the government. These are just a few of the myths about our constitution peddled by the Far Right—a toxic coalition of Fox News talking heads, radio hosts, angry “patriot” groups, and power-hungry Tea Party politicians. Well-funded, loud, and unscrupulous, they are trying to do to America’s founding document what they have done to global warming and evolution—wipe out the facts and substitute partisan myth. In the process, they seek to cripple the right of We the People to govern ourselves. In Wrong and Dangerous, legal scholar Garrett Epps provides the tools needed to fight back against the flood of constitutional nonsense. In terms every citizen can understand, he tackles ten of the most prevalent myths, providing a clear grasp of the Constitution and the government it established.

Myths America Lives By

Myths America Lives By PDF Author: Richard T. Hughes
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation's promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.

Six Myths of Our Time

Six Myths of Our Time PDF Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679759247
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Is Jurassic Park a work of covert misogynist propaganda? Does romanticizing childhood lead to abusing children? What secret correspondence links Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to video games and Shakespeare's Caliban to Hannibal Lecter? in what ways do our culture's most hallowed legends inform the current debates over single mothers, the men's movement, and animal rights? In these six dazzlingly intelligent and provocative essays, the distinguished English novelist and critic Marina Warner weaves classical mythology, pop culture, and today's headlines into a potent work of cultural criticism that is both unsettling and entertaining. Ranging from Medeato Thelma and Louise and from myths of cannibalism to the politics of rape, Six Myths of Our Time is at once a celebration of the enduring power of fable and a welcome antidote to its more virulent manifestations in our public life.

We Need New Stories

We Need New Stories PDF Author: Nesrine Malik
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9781474610421
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
It is becoming clear that the old frames of reference are not working, that the narratives used for decades to stave off progressive causes are being exposed as falsehoods. Six myths have taken hold, ones which are at odds with our lived experience and in urgent need of revision. Has freedom of speech become a cover for promoting prejudice? Has the concept of political correctness been weaponised to avoid ceding space to those excluded from power? Does white identity politics pose an urgent danger? These are some of the questions at the centre of Nesrine Malik's radical and compelling analysis that challenges us to find new narrators whose stories can fill the void and unite us behind a shared vision.

The Myth of Political Correctness

The Myth of Political Correctness PDF Author: John K. Wilson
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822317135
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The classics of Western culture are out, not being taught, replaced by second-rate and Third World texts. White males are a victimized minority on campuses across the country, thanks to affirmative action. Speech codes have silenced anyone who won't toe the liberal line. Feminists, wielding their brand of sexual correctness, have taken over. These are among the prevalent myths about higher education that John K. Wilson explodes. The phrase "political correctness" is on everyone's lips, on radio and television, and in newspapers and magazines. The phenomenon itself, however, has been deceptively described. Wilson steps into the nation's favorite cultural fray to reveal that many of the most widely publicized anecdotes about PC are in fact more myth than reality. Based on his own experience as a student and in-depth research, he shows what's really going on beneath the hysteria and alarmism about political correctness and finds that the most disturbing examples of thought policing on campus have come from the right. The image of the college campus as a gulag of left-wing totalitarianism is false, argues Wilson, created largely through the exaggeration of deceptive stories by conservatives who hypocritically seek to silence their political opponents. Many of today's most controversial topics are here: multiculturalism, reverse discrimination, speech codes, date rape, and sexual harassment. So are the well-recognized protagonists in the debate: Dinesh D'Souza, William Bennett, and Lynne Cheney, among others. In lively fashion and in meticulous detail, Wilson compares fact to fiction and lays one myth after another to rest, revealing the double standard that allows "conservative correctness" on college campuses to go unchallenged.

Myths of Modernity

Myths of Modernity PDF Author: Elizabeth Dore
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 082238762X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
In Myths of Modernity, Elizabeth Dore rethinks Nicaragua’s transition to capitalism. Arguing against the idea that the country’s capitalist transformation was ushered in by the coffee boom that extended from 1870 to 1930, she maintains that coffee growing gave rise to systems of landowning and labor exploitation that impeded rather than promoted capitalist development. Dore places gender at the forefront of her analysis, which demonstrates that patriarchy was the organizing principle of the coffee economy’s debt-peonage system until the 1950s. She examines the gendered dynamics of daily life in Diriomo, a township in Nicaragua’s Granada region, tracing the history of the town’s Indian community from its inception in the colonial era to its demise in the early twentieth century. Dore seamlessly combines archival research, oral history, and an innovative theoretical approach that unites political economy with social history. She recovers the bygone voices of peons, planters, and local officials within documents such as labor contracts, court records, and official correspondence. She juxtaposes these historical perspectives with those of contemporary peasants, landowners, activists, and politicians who share memories passed down to the present. The reconceptualization of the coffee economy that Dore elaborates has far-reaching implications. The Sandinistas mistakenly believed, she contends, that Nicaraguan capitalism was mature and ripe for socialist revolution, and after their victory in 1979 that belief led them to alienate many peasants by ignoring their demands for land. Thus, the Sandinistas’ myths of modernity contributed to their downfall.

Great American Hypocrites

Great American Hypocrites PDF Author: Glenn Greenwald
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307410315
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A takedown of the GOP’s deceitful propaganda machine from the blogger of Salon’s Unclaimed Territory and the author of the New York Times bestsellers How Would a Patriot Act? and A Tragic Legacy. Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man. For example: Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man. Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career. Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe. Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure. Myth: Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited government. Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course. The first book to dissect the Republican Cult of Personality and leave it openly exposed in its unabashed, shameful depravity, Great American Hypocrites is a deeply necessary call-out to Democrats to attack the GOP with their competitor’s very own weapons. Praise for Great American Hypocrites “Intelligent, insightful.” —Daily Kos “Glenn Greenwald has done it again.” —Alan Colmes “Glenn Greenwald is a treasure.” —BuzzFlash