Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century

Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Laura Beers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324075090
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
For the 75th anniversary of 1984, Laura Beers explores George Orwell’s still-radical ideas and why they are critical today. George Orwell dedicated his career to exposing social injustice and political duplicity, urging his readers to face hard truths about Western society and politics. Now, the uncanny parallels between the interwar era and our own—rising inequality, censorship, and challenges to traditional social hierarchies—make his writing even more of the moment. Invocations of Orwell and his classic dystopian novel 1984 have reached new heights, with both sides of the political spectrum embracing the rhetoric of Orwellianism. In Orwell’s Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell’s full body of work—his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system—to examine what “Orwellian” truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell’s writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of “fake news” and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism and the oppressive nature of the British Empire, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism. Timely, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking, Orwell’s Ghosts investigates how the writings of a lionized champion of truth and freedom can help us face the crises of modernity.

Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century

Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Laura Beers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324075090
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
For the 75th anniversary of 1984, Laura Beers explores George Orwell’s still-radical ideas and why they are critical today. George Orwell dedicated his career to exposing social injustice and political duplicity, urging his readers to face hard truths about Western society and politics. Now, the uncanny parallels between the interwar era and our own—rising inequality, censorship, and challenges to traditional social hierarchies—make his writing even more of the moment. Invocations of Orwell and his classic dystopian novel 1984 have reached new heights, with both sides of the political spectrum embracing the rhetoric of Orwellianism. In Orwell’s Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell’s full body of work—his six novels, three nonfiction works, and brilliant essays on politics, language, and the class system—to examine what “Orwellian” truly means and reveal the misconstrued thinker in all his complexity. She explores how Orwell’s writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of “fake news” and the emergence of cancel culture, highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism and the oppressive nature of the British Empire, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism. Timely, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking, Orwell’s Ghosts investigates how the writings of a lionized champion of truth and freedom can help us face the crises of modernity.

Blue-Eyed Boy

Blue-Eyed Boy PDF Author: Robert Timberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143127594
Category : Burns and scalds
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
From journalist Robert Timberg, a memoir of the struggle to reclaim his life after being severely burned as a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. In January 1967, Robert Timberg was a short-timer, counting down the days until his combat tour ended. He had thirteen days to go when his vehicle struck a Viet Cong land mine, resulting in third-degree burns of his face and much of his body. He survived, barely, then began the arduous battle back, determined to build a new life and make it matter. Remarkable as was his return to health--he endured no less than thirty-five operations--perhaps more remarkable was his decision to reinvent himself as a journalist, one of the most public of professions. Blue-Eyed Boy is a gripping, occasionally comic account of what it took for an ambitious man, aware of his frightful appearance but hungry for meaning and accomplishment, to master a new craft amid the pitying stares and shocked reactions of many he encountered on a daily basis. Timberg was at the top of his game as White House correspondent for The Baltimore Sun when suddenly his work brought his life full circle: the Iran-Contra scandal broke. At its heart were three fellow Naval Academy graduates and Vietnam-era veterans. Timberg's coverage of that story resulted in his first book, The Nightingale's Song, a powerful work of narrative nonfiction that follows the three academy graduates most deeply involved in Iran-Contra--Oliver North among them--as well as two other well-known Navy men, John McCain and James Webb, from the academy through Vietnam and into the Reagan years. In Blue-Eyed Boy, Timberg relates how he came to know these five men and how their stories helped him understand the ways the Vietnam War and the furor that swirled around it continue to haunt the nation, even now, nearly four decades after its dismal conclusion. Timberg is no saint, and he has traveled a hard and often bitter road.

Ida B. the Queen

Ida B. the Queen PDF Author: Michelle Duster
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982129824
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
Journalist. Suffragist. Antilynching crusader. In 1862, Ida B. Wells was born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 2020, she won a Pulitzer Prize. Ida B. Wells committed herself to the needs of those who did not have power. In the eyes of the FBI, this made her a “dangerous negro agitator.” In the annals of history, it makes her an icon. Ida B. the Queen tells the awe-inspiring story of an pioneering woman who was often overlooked and underestimated—a woman who refused to exit a train car meant for white passengers; a woman brought to light the horrors of lynching in America; a woman who cofounded the NAACP. Written by Wells’s great-granddaughter Michelle Duster, this “warm remembrance of a civil rights icon” (Kirkus Reviews) is a unique visual celebration of Wells’s life, and of the Black experience. A century after her death, Wells’s genius is being celebrated in popular culture by politicians, through song, public artwork, and landmarks. Like her contemporaries Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, Wells left an indelible mark on history—one that can still be felt today. As America confronts the unfinished business of systemic racism, Ida B. the Queen pays tribute to a transformational leader and reminds us of the power we all hold to smash the status quo.

Searching for John Hughes

Searching for John Hughes PDF Author: Jason Diamond
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006242484X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
Searching for John Hughes is Jason Diamond’s hilarious memoir of growing up obsessed with the iconic filmmaker’s movies. From the outrageous, raunchy antics in National Lampoon’s Vacation to the teenage angst in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to the insanely clever and unforgettable Home Alone, Jason Diamond could not get enough of John Hughes’ films. So, he set off on a years-long delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to write a biography of his favorite filmmaker, despite having no qualifications, training, background, platform, or direction. In Searching for John Hughes, Jason tells how a Jewish kid from a broken home in a Chicago suburb—sometimes homeless, always restless—found comfort and connection in the likewise broken lives in the suburban Chicago of John Hughes’ oeuvre. He moved to New York to become a writer of a book he had no business writing. In the meantime, he brewed coffee and guarded cupcake cafes. All the while, he watched John Hughes movies religiously. Though his original biography of Hughes has long since been abandoned, Jason has discovered he is a writer through and through. And the adversity of going for broke has now been transformed into wisdom. Or, at least, a really, really good story. In other words, this is a memoir of growing up. One part big dream, one part big failure, one part John Hughes movies, one part Chicago, and one part New York. It’s a story of what comes after the “Go for it!” part of the command to young creatives to pursue their dreams—no matter how absurd they might seem at first.

Incarnations

Incarnations PDF Author: Sunil Khilnani
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 9385990950
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 551

Get Book Here

Book Description
For all of India’s myths, stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world’s largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars and corporate titans—some famous, some unjustly forgotten—bring feeling, wry humour and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.

Orwell On Truth

Orwell On Truth PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1328508714
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the course of his career, George Orwell wrote about many things, but no matter what he wrote the goal was to get at the fundamental truths of the world. He had no place for dissemblers, liars, conmen, or frauds, and he made his feelings well-known. In Orwell on Truth, excerpts from across Orwell’s career show how his writing and worldview developed over the decades, profoundly shaped by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and further by World War II and the rise of totalitarian states. In a world that seems increasingly like one of Orwell’s dystopias, a willingness to speak truth to power is more important than ever. With Orwell on Truth, readers get a collection of both powerful quotes and the context for them.

Sinister Silence: Tulsa's Black Wall Street Legacy

Sinister Silence: Tulsa's Black Wall Street Legacy PDF Author: Douglas London
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a historical novel about the worst race riot of the twentieth century in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is also the story of how a high school history teacher in 2017 decides how to turn this event into a lesson for his classes and his adolescent son. The state of Oklahoma has mandated that the riots be taught in all American History classes and he takes on this responsibility reluctantly, considering the seventy five years of silence that have reigned over the riots occurrence.

The Ministry of Truth

The Ministry of Truth PDF Author: Dorian Lynskey
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385544065
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Rich and compelling. . .Lynskey’s account of the reach of 1984 is revelatory.” --George Packer, The Atlantic An authoritative, wide-ranging, and incredibly timely history of 1984--its literary sources, its composition by Orwell, its deep and lasting effect on the Cold War, and its vast influence throughout world culture at every level, from high to pop. 1984 isn't just a novel; it's a key to understanding the modern world. George Orwell's final work is a treasure chest of ideas and memes--Big Brother, the Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, 2+2=5--that gain potency with every year. Particularly in 2016, when the election of Donald Trump made it a bestseller ("Ministry of Alternative Facts," anyone?). Its influence has morphed endlessly into novels (The Handmaid's Tale), films (Brazil), television shows (V for Vendetta), rock albums (Diamond Dogs), commercials (Apple), even reality TV (Big Brother). The Ministry of Truth is the first book that fully examines the epochal and cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Great Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that far from subsiding, have only grown over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains history.

The Man He Became

The Man He Became PDF Author: James Tobin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451698674
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion, and myth—Franklin Roosevelt’s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House. In 1921, at the age of thirty-nine, Roosevelt was the brightest young star in the Democratic Party. One day he was racing his children around their summer home. Two days later he could not stand up. Hopes of a quick recovery faded fast. “He’s through,” said allies and enemies alike. Even his family and close friends misjudged their man, as they and the nation would learn in time. With a painstaking reexamination of original documents, James Tobin uncovers the twisted chain of accidents that left FDR paralyzed; he reveals how polio recast Roosevelt’s fateful partnership with his wife, Eleanor; and he shows that FDR’s true victory was not over paralysis but over the ancient stigma attached to the disabled. Tobin also explodes the conventional wisdom of recent years—that FDR deceived the public about his condition. In fact, Roosevelt and his chief aide, Louis Howe, understood that only by displaying himself as a man who had come back from a knockout punch could FDR erase the perception that had followed him from childhood—that he was a pampered, too smooth pretty boy without the strength to lead the nation. As Tobin persuasively argues, FDR became president less in spite of polio than because of polio. The Man He Became affirms that true character emerges only in crisis and that in the shaping of this great American leader character was all.

Red Ellen

Red Ellen PDF Author: Laura Beers
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674971523
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 569

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1908 Ellen Wilkinson, a fiery adolescent from a working-class family in Manchester, was “the only girl who talks in school debates.” By midcentury, Wilkinson had helped found Britain’s Communist Party, earned a seat in Parliament, and become a renowned advocate for the poor and dispossessed at home and abroad. She was one of the first female delegates to the United Nations, and she played a central role in Britain’s postwar Labour government. In Laura Beers’s account of Wilkinson’s remarkable life, we have a richly detailed portrait of a time when Left-leaning British men and women from a range of backgrounds sought to reshape domestic, imperial, and international affairs. Wilkinson is best remembered as the leader of the Jarrow Crusade, the 300-mile march of two hundred unemployed shipwrights and steelworkers to petition the British government for assistance. But this was just one small part of Red Ellen’s larger transnational fight for social justice. She was involved in a range of campaigns, from the quest for official recognition of the Spanish Republican government, to the fight for Indian independence, to the effort to smuggle Jewish refugees out of Germany. During Wilkinson’s lifetime, many British radicals viewed themselves as members of an international socialist community, and some, like her, became involved in socialist, feminist, and pacifist movements that spanned the globe. By focusing on the extent to which Wilkinson’s activism transcended Britain’s borders, Red Ellen adjusts our perception of the British Left in the early twentieth century.