Author: Paul Cleveland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972740135
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Individual freedom and liberty are fundamental principles upon which a good society is based. Regrettably, those principles have been under attack for over one hundred years around the globe. The notion that paradise on earth can be achieved by coercive means has led to the spread of tyranny and despotism. Dr. Clarence B. Carson originally explained this truth in his 1978 book, The World in the Grip of an Idea.Proponents of the idea often argue that freedom promotes the worst kind of human behavior and, therefore, must be rejected if moral human action is to prevail. They argue that liberty in general and free enterprise in particular promote jealousy, envy, and greed. In their opinion, life on this planet would be better served if we substituted government control over individual human action. The assumption is that such a collectivization of life would promote the highest level of virtuous living amongst us. But, this assessment is simply wrong. In a 1996 article reflecting on his book, Carson observed:The notion that government is responsible for the material and intellectual well-?being of populaces has great appeal, especially when it is accompanied by actual payments and subsidies from government. Many people become dependent upon government handouts, and even those who are not particularly dependent may lose confidence in their ability to provide for themselves. These feelings, attitudes, and practices are residues from the better part of a century of socialism in its several varieties. They have produced vastly overgrown governments and the politicalization of life. Governments and politicians are the problem, not the solution.Sturdy individuals, stable families, vital communities, limited government, and faith in a transcendent God who provides for us through the natural order and the bounties of nature-these alone can break the grip of the idea. -- Clarence B. Carson, "The World in the Grip of an Idea Revisited," The Freeman, May, 1996.
The Great Utopian Delusion
Author: Paul Cleveland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972740135
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Individual freedom and liberty are fundamental principles upon which a good society is based. Regrettably, those principles have been under attack for over one hundred years around the globe. The notion that paradise on earth can be achieved by coercive means has led to the spread of tyranny and despotism. Dr. Clarence B. Carson originally explained this truth in his 1978 book, The World in the Grip of an Idea.Proponents of the idea often argue that freedom promotes the worst kind of human behavior and, therefore, must be rejected if moral human action is to prevail. They argue that liberty in general and free enterprise in particular promote jealousy, envy, and greed. In their opinion, life on this planet would be better served if we substituted government control over individual human action. The assumption is that such a collectivization of life would promote the highest level of virtuous living amongst us. But, this assessment is simply wrong. In a 1996 article reflecting on his book, Carson observed:The notion that government is responsible for the material and intellectual well-?being of populaces has great appeal, especially when it is accompanied by actual payments and subsidies from government. Many people become dependent upon government handouts, and even those who are not particularly dependent may lose confidence in their ability to provide for themselves. These feelings, attitudes, and practices are residues from the better part of a century of socialism in its several varieties. They have produced vastly overgrown governments and the politicalization of life. Governments and politicians are the problem, not the solution.Sturdy individuals, stable families, vital communities, limited government, and faith in a transcendent God who provides for us through the natural order and the bounties of nature-these alone can break the grip of the idea. -- Clarence B. Carson, "The World in the Grip of an Idea Revisited," The Freeman, May, 1996.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972740135
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Individual freedom and liberty are fundamental principles upon which a good society is based. Regrettably, those principles have been under attack for over one hundred years around the globe. The notion that paradise on earth can be achieved by coercive means has led to the spread of tyranny and despotism. Dr. Clarence B. Carson originally explained this truth in his 1978 book, The World in the Grip of an Idea.Proponents of the idea often argue that freedom promotes the worst kind of human behavior and, therefore, must be rejected if moral human action is to prevail. They argue that liberty in general and free enterprise in particular promote jealousy, envy, and greed. In their opinion, life on this planet would be better served if we substituted government control over individual human action. The assumption is that such a collectivization of life would promote the highest level of virtuous living amongst us. But, this assessment is simply wrong. In a 1996 article reflecting on his book, Carson observed:The notion that government is responsible for the material and intellectual well-?being of populaces has great appeal, especially when it is accompanied by actual payments and subsidies from government. Many people become dependent upon government handouts, and even those who are not particularly dependent may lose confidence in their ability to provide for themselves. These feelings, attitudes, and practices are residues from the better part of a century of socialism in its several varieties. They have produced vastly overgrown governments and the politicalization of life. Governments and politicians are the problem, not the solution.Sturdy individuals, stable families, vital communities, limited government, and faith in a transcendent God who provides for us through the natural order and the bounties of nature-these alone can break the grip of the idea. -- Clarence B. Carson, "The World in the Grip of an Idea Revisited," The Freeman, May, 1996.
The Great Delusion
Author: John J. Mearsheimer
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300234198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America's image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony--the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended--is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300234198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build international institutions. The policy of remaking the world in America's image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has become a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony--the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended--is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad. The Great Delusion is a lucid and compelling work of the first importance for scholars, policymakers, and everyone interested in the future of American foreign policy.
The Great Delusion
Author: Steven Stoll
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429996196
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Endless economic growth rests on a belief in the limitless abundance of the natural world. But when did people begin to believe that societies should—even that they must—expand in wealth indefinitely? In The Great Delusion, the historian and storyteller Steven Stoll weaves past and present together through the life of a strange and brooding nineteenth-century German engineer and technological utopian named John Adolphus Etzler, who pursued universal wealth from the inexhaustible forces of nature: wind, water, and sunlight. The Great Delusion neatly demonstrates that Etzler's fantasy has become our reality and that we continue to live by some of the same economic assumptions that he embraced. Like Etzler, we assume that the transfer of matter from environments into the economy is not bounded by any condition of those environments and that energy for powering our cars and iPods will always exist. Like Etzler, we think of growth as progress, a turn in the meaning of that word that dates to the moment when a soaring productive capacity fused with older ideas about human destiny. The result is economic growth as we know it, not as measured by the gross domestic product but as the expectation that our society depends on continued physical expansion in order to survive.
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429996196
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Endless economic growth rests on a belief in the limitless abundance of the natural world. But when did people begin to believe that societies should—even that they must—expand in wealth indefinitely? In The Great Delusion, the historian and storyteller Steven Stoll weaves past and present together through the life of a strange and brooding nineteenth-century German engineer and technological utopian named John Adolphus Etzler, who pursued universal wealth from the inexhaustible forces of nature: wind, water, and sunlight. The Great Delusion neatly demonstrates that Etzler's fantasy has become our reality and that we continue to live by some of the same economic assumptions that he embraced. Like Etzler, we assume that the transfer of matter from environments into the economy is not bounded by any condition of those environments and that energy for powering our cars and iPods will always exist. Like Etzler, we think of growth as progress, a turn in the meaning of that word that dates to the moment when a soaring productive capacity fused with older ideas about human destiny. The result is economic growth as we know it, not as measured by the gross domestic product but as the expectation that our society depends on continued physical expansion in order to survive.
The Cameron Delusion
Author: Peter Hitchens
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441183027
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
The struggle between the main political parties has been reduced to an unpopularity contest, in which voters hold their noses and sigh as they trudge to the polls. Peter Hitchens explains how and why British politics has sunk to this dreary level - the takeover of the parties and the media by conventional left-wing dogmas which then call themselves 'the centre ground'. The Tory party under David Cameron has become a pale-blue twin of New Labour, offering change without alteration. Hitchens, a former Lobby reporter, examines and mocks the flock mentality of most Westminster journalists, explains how unattributable lunches guide coverage and why so many reporters - once slavish admirers of Labour - now follow the Tory line. This updated edition of Hitchens's The Broken Compass (2009) features a brand new introduction. In an excoriating analysis, Hitchens examines the Tory Party's record in government and opposition, dismissing it as a failure on all fronts but one - the ability to win office without principle. The one thing it certainly isn't is conservative.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441183027
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
The struggle between the main political parties has been reduced to an unpopularity contest, in which voters hold their noses and sigh as they trudge to the polls. Peter Hitchens explains how and why British politics has sunk to this dreary level - the takeover of the parties and the media by conventional left-wing dogmas which then call themselves 'the centre ground'. The Tory party under David Cameron has become a pale-blue twin of New Labour, offering change without alteration. Hitchens, a former Lobby reporter, examines and mocks the flock mentality of most Westminster journalists, explains how unattributable lunches guide coverage and why so many reporters - once slavish admirers of Labour - now follow the Tory line. This updated edition of Hitchens's The Broken Compass (2009) features a brand new introduction. In an excoriating analysis, Hitchens examines the Tory Party's record in government and opposition, dismissing it as a failure on all fronts but one - the ability to win office without principle. The one thing it certainly isn't is conservative.
The Cult of We
Author: Eliot Brown
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593237129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473
Book Description
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593237129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473
Book Description
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.
The Dawkins Delusion?
Author: Alister McGrath
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830868739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath present a reliable assessment of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, famed atheist and scientist, and the many questions this book raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830868739
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath present a reliable assessment of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, famed atheist and scientist, and the many questions this book raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.
Covid-19: The Great Reset
Author: Thierry Malleret
Publisher: ISBN Agentur Schweiz
ISBN: 9782940631124
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
"The Corona crisis and the Need for a Great Reset" is a guide for anyone who wants to understand how COVID-19 disrupted our social and economic systems, and what changes will be needed to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward. Thierry Malleret, founder of the Monthly Barometer, and Klaus Schwab, founder and executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explore what the root causes of these crisis were, and why they lead to a need for a Great Reset.Theirs is a worrying, yet hopeful analysis. COVID-19 has created a great disruptive reset of our global social, economic, and political systems. But the power of human beings lies in being foresighted and having the ingenuity, at least to a certain extent, to take their destiny into their hands and to plan for a better future. This is the purpose of this book: to shake up and to show the deficiencies which were manifest in our global system, even before COVID broke out.
Publisher: ISBN Agentur Schweiz
ISBN: 9782940631124
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
"The Corona crisis and the Need for a Great Reset" is a guide for anyone who wants to understand how COVID-19 disrupted our social and economic systems, and what changes will be needed to create a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable world going forward. Thierry Malleret, founder of the Monthly Barometer, and Klaus Schwab, founder and executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explore what the root causes of these crisis were, and why they lead to a need for a Great Reset.Theirs is a worrying, yet hopeful analysis. COVID-19 has created a great disruptive reset of our global social, economic, and political systems. But the power of human beings lies in being foresighted and having the ingenuity, at least to a certain extent, to take their destiny into their hands and to plan for a better future. This is the purpose of this book: to shake up and to show the deficiencies which were manifest in our global system, even before COVID broke out.
The Dragons of Expectation
Author: Robert Conquest
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393059335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
The publication of The Dragons of Expectation in 2005 reaffirmed Robert Conquest's stature as a leading intellectual and one of the world's great humanists. In the tradition of Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity and George Orwell's Essays, this book brilliantly traces how seductive ideas have come to corrupt modern minds; to often disastrous effects. In what Publishers Weekly called "a frontal assault on the pieties of the left," Conquest masterfully examines how false nostrums have infected academia, politicians, and the public, showing how their reliance on "isms" and the destructive concepts of "People, Nation, and Masses" have resulted in a ruinous cycle of turbulence and war. Including fresh analyses of Russia's October Revolution, World War II, and the Cold War, The Dragons of Expectation is one of the most important contributions to modern thought in recent years.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393059335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286
Book Description
The publication of The Dragons of Expectation in 2005 reaffirmed Robert Conquest's stature as a leading intellectual and one of the world's great humanists. In the tradition of Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity and George Orwell's Essays, this book brilliantly traces how seductive ideas have come to corrupt modern minds; to often disastrous effects. In what Publishers Weekly called "a frontal assault on the pieties of the left," Conquest masterfully examines how false nostrums have infected academia, politicians, and the public, showing how their reliance on "isms" and the destructive concepts of "People, Nation, and Masses" have resulted in a ruinous cycle of turbulence and war. Including fresh analyses of Russia's October Revolution, World War II, and the Cold War, The Dragons of Expectation is one of the most important contributions to modern thought in recent years.
Time of the Quickening
Author: Susan B. Martinez
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439752
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
A guide to the science of prophecy, why so many predictions never come to pass, and the Golden Age ahead • Presents a mathematical means of divining the future, revealed in the Oahspe Bible, using the Egyptian Tables of Destiny, a 12,000-year-old system so exact it can foretell every day of the year • Reveals that we are not headed for Rapture and the Apocalypse but for “the Quickening,” the embryonic stage of a Utopian Age • Examines the cycles of history and explains why many prophecies have not come true Reviewing the cycles of history from biblical times to the present and prophecies of the future from Nostradamus to Edgar Cayce and Jeane Dixon, Susan B. Martinez reveals that our current “time of troubles” is not the beginning of Rapture, the Apocalypse, or Armageddon, but of the embryonic stage of a Utopian Age--the “Quickening” of the human race. Reviving the lost science of prophecy, Martinez explains why so many “great prophecies” have failed and presents the 12,000-year-old Egyptian system of prediction so exact it can foretell every day of the year, a method based not on the planets, astrology, or intuition but on Earth’s magnetic rhythms. Using Earth science, historical research, religious texts, spiritualism, and patterns within the cycles of war and political milestones, she demonstrates that the past is the hidden key to the future and uncovers the prophetic numbers of Earth’s cycles--11, 33, 99, and 363--as set forth in the Egyptian Tables of Destiny, ancient texts brought to light by the 19th-century Oahspe Bible. Explaining how readers can use the Tables of Destiny to make their own predictions of the future, she presents her own forecasts of the risks and costs of technological progress, the destiny of America, the up-and-coming global religion, the truth behind climate change and the cause of earthquakes, and the true life expectancy of planet Earth as well as offering a preview of the Paradigm Shift and Golden Age ahead, a time of global unity and awakening of the soul of the world.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439752
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
A guide to the science of prophecy, why so many predictions never come to pass, and the Golden Age ahead • Presents a mathematical means of divining the future, revealed in the Oahspe Bible, using the Egyptian Tables of Destiny, a 12,000-year-old system so exact it can foretell every day of the year • Reveals that we are not headed for Rapture and the Apocalypse but for “the Quickening,” the embryonic stage of a Utopian Age • Examines the cycles of history and explains why many prophecies have not come true Reviewing the cycles of history from biblical times to the present and prophecies of the future from Nostradamus to Edgar Cayce and Jeane Dixon, Susan B. Martinez reveals that our current “time of troubles” is not the beginning of Rapture, the Apocalypse, or Armageddon, but of the embryonic stage of a Utopian Age--the “Quickening” of the human race. Reviving the lost science of prophecy, Martinez explains why so many “great prophecies” have failed and presents the 12,000-year-old Egyptian system of prediction so exact it can foretell every day of the year, a method based not on the planets, astrology, or intuition but on Earth’s magnetic rhythms. Using Earth science, historical research, religious texts, spiritualism, and patterns within the cycles of war and political milestones, she demonstrates that the past is the hidden key to the future and uncovers the prophetic numbers of Earth’s cycles--11, 33, 99, and 363--as set forth in the Egyptian Tables of Destiny, ancient texts brought to light by the 19th-century Oahspe Bible. Explaining how readers can use the Tables of Destiny to make their own predictions of the future, she presents her own forecasts of the risks and costs of technological progress, the destiny of America, the up-and-coming global religion, the truth behind climate change and the cause of earthquakes, and the true life expectancy of planet Earth as well as offering a preview of the Paradigm Shift and Golden Age ahead, a time of global unity and awakening of the soul of the world.
The Net Delusion
Author: Evgeny Morozov
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391632
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
"The revolution will be Twittered!" declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder -- not easier -- to promote democracy. Buzzwords like "21st-century statecraft" sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that "digital diplomacy" requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy. Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of "Internet freedom" might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391632
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
"The revolution will be Twittered!" declared journalist Andrew Sullivan after protests erupted in Iran in June 2009. Yet for all the talk about the democratizing power of the Internet, regimes in Iran and China are as stable and repressive as ever. In fact, authoritarian governments are effectively using the Internet to suppress free speech, hone their surveillance techniques, disseminate cutting-edge propaganda, and pacify their populations with digital entertainment. Could the recent Western obsession with promoting democracy by digital means backfire? In this spirited book, journalist and social commentator Evgeny Morozov shows that by falling for the supposedly democratizing nature of the Internet, Western do-gooders may have missed how it also entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder -- not easier -- to promote democracy. Buzzwords like "21st-century statecraft" sound good in PowerPoint presentations, but the reality is that "digital diplomacy" requires just as much oversight and consideration as any other kind of diplomacy. Marshaling compelling evidence, Morozov shows why we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of "Internet freedom" might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.