Author: Ronald Aronson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226028033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
As a lifelong radical and political activist, Ronald Aronson accepted an invitation to lecture in South Africa only after two years of deliberation. "Stay Out of Politics," which begins with the moral questions that Aronson confronted in his decision to go, is a reaffirmation of the necessity for majority rule and the abolition of apartheid. Amidst the pressure of widespread talk of an academic boycott of South Africa, Aronson decided to lecture there as a contribution to the struggle for majority rule. He decided to become mobilized as a philosopher and activist by engaging in the effort close at hand rather than settling for a distant and comfortable protest by avoidance. Along with his visa, Aronson was given the following warning by a consular officer: "Stay out of politics!" Believing that philosophy not only has a role to play but that it can, and must, involve itself in the vital social and political issues of our time, Aronson equally discovered that in South Africa politics is everywhere and inescapable. The lectures Aronson delivered focused on the meaning of progress and hope, on the threat—and experience—of disaster today, and on our responsibility to join the struggle for a humane and rational world. Two of the most provocative lectures are included here, the first a discussion of the Holocaust that has direct and intentional applications to the current situation in South Africa. The second lecture, in memory of the assassinated political philosopher Richard Turner, is a sketch of Aronson's philosophy of hope as seen from within the South African context. Despite the limitations of teaching under possible surveillance in a revolutionary situation, Aronson witnessed the social reality of apartheid and heard the voices of its victims. Aronson's love for the South African people motivated him to write this powerful account. He presents a lecturer's tour of South Africa: the experiences that both confirmed his belief in the urgent need for majority rule but also revealed the complexities of the society that seeks to continue apartheid through all reforms; and his philosopher's reflections upon returning to the United States on the irrationality of apartheid and the ambiguities of the struggle to end it. "Stay Out of Politics" is not only a powerful encounter with South Africa today, it is a provocative statement about philosophy—its nature, its tasks, its duty to understand and change the world in which we live.
Author: James A. Baker
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810124890
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 504
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Book Description
White House chief of staff twice over, former secretary of state, past secretary of the treasury, and campaign leader for three different candidates in five successful campaigns—few people have lived and breathed politics as deeply or for as long as James Baker. Now, with candor, down-home Texas storytelling, and more than a few surprises, Baker opens up about his thirty-five years behind the scenes. Beginning in 1975 with the Ford administration, in a job procured for him by friend and tennis partner George H. W. Bush, Baker was in the thick of American politics. He recounts the inside story of Ford’s rejection of Reagan as a running mate in 1976 with the same insight he has into Reagan’s rejection of Ford four years later. When the White House was plunged into turmoil after the Reagan assassination attempt, he was there, and his stories take readers deeper into those chaotic days. Baker was on hand for the George H. W. Bush campaign’s battle over running mate Dan Quayle and, more recently, he was again on the front row as George W. Bush fought it out in Florida. Spellbinding and frank, his stories are the ones between the lines of our history books. In this new edition, Baker also responds for the first time in print to the George W. Bush administration’s reaction to the Iraq Study Group Report, written with his input. Baker is very qualified to comment on the political operation of the current administration, and his new writing for this paperback brings the full weight of his experience to bear.
Author: Ronald Aronson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226028019
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
As a lifelong radical and political activist, Ronald Aronson accepted an invitation to lecture in South Africa only after two years of deliberation. "Stay Out of Politics," which begins with the moral questions that Aronson confronted in his decision to go, is a reaffirmation of the necessity for majority rule and the abolition of apartheid. Amidst the pressure of widespread talk of an academic boycott of South Africa, Aronson decided to lecture there as a contribution to the struggle for majority rule. He decided to become mobilized as a philosopher and activist by engaging in the effort close at hand rather than settling for a distant and comfortable protest by avoidance. Along with his visa, Aronson was given the following warning by a consular officer: "Stay out of politics!" Believing that philosophy not only has a role to play but that it can, and must, involve itself in the vital social and political issues of our time, Aronson equally discovered that in South Africa politics is everywhere and inescapable. The lectures Aronson delivered focused on the meaning of progress and hope, on the threat—and experience—of disaster today, and on our responsibility to join the struggle for a humane and rational world. Two of the most provocative lectures are included here, the first a discussion of the Holocaust that has direct and intentional applications to the current situation in South Africa. The second lecture, in memory of the assassinated political philosopher Richard Turner, is a sketch of Aronson's philosophy of hope as seen from within the South African context. Despite the limitations of teaching under possible surveillance in a revolutionary situation, Aronson witnessed the social reality of apartheid and heard the voices of its victims. Aronson's love for the South African people motivated him to write this powerful account. He presents a lecturer's tour of South Africa: the experiences that both confirmed his belief in the urgent need for majority rule but also revealed the complexities of the society that seeks to continue apartheid through all reforms; and his philosopher's reflections upon returning to the United States on the irrationality of apartheid and the ambiguities of the struggle to end it. "Stay Out of Politics" is not only a powerful encounter with South Africa today, it is a provocative statement about philosophy—its nature, its tasks, its duty to understand and change the world in which we live.
Author: Bill Bishop
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547525192
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478
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Book Description
The award-winning journalist reveals the untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided in this groundbreaking book. Armed with startling demographic data, Bill Bishop demonstrates how Americans have spent decades sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities—not by region or by state, but by city and neighborhood. With ever-increasing specificity, we choose the communities and media that are compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs. The result is a country that has become so ideologically inbred that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away. In The Big Sort, Bishop explores how this phenomenon came to be, and its dire implications for our country. He begins with stories about how we live today and then draws on history, economics, and our changing political landscape to create one of the most compelling big-picture accounts of America in recent memory.
Author: Wendy Brown
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069118805X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
What happens to left and liberal political orientations when faith in progress is broken, when both the sovereign individual and sovereign states seem tenuous, when desire seems as likely to seek punishment as freedom, when all political conviction is revealed as contingent and subjective? Politics Out of History is animated by the question of how we navigate the contemporary political landscape when the traditional compass points of modernity have all but disappeared. Wendy Brown diagnoses a range of contemporary political tendencies--from moralistic high-handedness to low-lying political despair in politics, from the difficulty of formulating political alternatives to reproaches against theory in intellectual life--as the consequence of this disorientation. Politics Out of History also presents a provocative argument for a new approach to thinking about history--one that forsakes the idea that history has a purpose and treats it instead as a way of illuminating openings in the present by, for example, identifying the haunting and constraining effects of past injustices unresolved. Brown also argues for a revitalized relationship between intellectual and political life, one that cultivates the autonomy of each while promoting their interlocutory potential. This book will be essential reading for all who find the trajectories of contemporary liberal democracies bewildering and are willing to engage readings of a range of thinkers--Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, Spinoza, Benjamin, Derrida--to rethink democratic possibility in our time.
Author: Jeanne Safer
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
ISBN: 1785905090
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
We've all been there – the family dinners turned full-fledged political debates, the awkward chat in the kitchen at work, the difficulty of discussing politics on a first date or even at dinner with a long-time partner. Today's divisive climate – and the seemingly neverending circus of Brexit – has made discussion of current events uncomfortable and often uncivil. So, how exactly do we find ways to reach across the aisle to those whose views we find unpalatable? Psychotherapist and lifetime liberal Jeanne Safer hopes to shed some light on the situation. Combining her professional expertise with personal experience gleaned from over forty years of happy marriage to her stalwart conservative husband Richard Brookhiser, as well as a wealth of interviews with politically mixed couples, Safer offers frank advice for salvaging and strengthening relationships strained by political differences. Part relationship guide, part anthropological study, I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics is a helpful and entertaining how-to for anyone who has felt they are walking on eggshells in these increasingly uncertain times.
Author: Gary Jonathan Bass
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400851718
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 435
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Book Description
International justice has become a crucial part of the ongoing political debates about the future of shattered societies like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile. Why do our governments sometimes display such striking idealism in the face of war crimes and atrocities abroad, and at other times cynically abandon the pursuit of international justice altogether? Why today does justice seem so slow to come for war crimes victims in the Balkans? In this book, Gary Bass offers an unprecedented look at the politics behind international war crimes tribunals, combining analysis with investigative reporting and a broad historical perspective. The Nuremberg trials powerfully demonstrated how effective war crimes tribunals can be. But there have been many other important tribunals that have not been as successful, and which have been largely left out of today's debates about international justice. This timely book brings them in, using primary documents to examine the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, World War II, and the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia. Bass explains that bringing war criminals to justice can be a military ordeal, a source of endless legal frustration, as well as a diplomatic nightmare. The book takes readers behind the scenes to see vividly how leaders like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton have wrestled with these agonizing moral dilemmas. The book asks how law and international politics interact, and how power can be made to serve the cause of justice. Bass brings new archival research to bear on such events as the prosecution of the Armenian genocide, presenting surprising episodes that add to the historical record. His sections on the former Yugoslavia tell--with important new discoveries--the secret story of the politicking behind the prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia, drawing on interviews with senior White House officials, key diplomats, and chief prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bass concludes that despite the obstacles, legalistic justice for war criminals is nonetheless worth pursuing. His arguments will interest anyone concerned about human rights and the pursuit of idealism in international politics.
Author: Peter Schweizer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547573146
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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Book Description
Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, discusses the state of government and the depths of its political corruption.
Author: Bernard R. Crick
Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226120645
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Author: Bob Woodward
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982131764
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
Rage is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 international bestselling author of Fear: Trump in the White House, has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. In dramatic detail, Woodward takes readers into the Oval Office as Trump’s head pops up when he is told in January 2020 that the pandemic could reach the scale of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 675,000 Americans. In 17 on-the-record interviews with Woodward over seven volatile months—an utterly vivid window into Trump’s mind—the president provides a self-portrait that is part denial and part combative interchange mixed with surprising moments of doubt as he glimpses the perils in the presidency and what he calls the “dynamite behind every door.” At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump’s responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Revisiting the earliest days of the Trump presidency, Rage reveals how Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats struggled to keep the country safe as the president dismantled any semblance of collegial national security decision making. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 never-seen personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a “fantasy film.” Trump insists to Woodward he will triumph over Covid-19 and the economic calamity. “Don’t worry about it, Bob. Okay?” Trump told the author in July. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to do another book. You’ll find I was right.”
