The Torment of Secrecy

The Torment of Secrecy PDF Author: Edward Shils
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1461720605
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Edward Shils's The Torment of Secrecy is one of the few minor classics to emerge from the cold war years of anticommunism and McCarthyism in the United States. Mr. Shils's "torment" is not only that of the individual caught up in loyalty and security procedures; it is also the torment of the accuser and judge. This essay in sociological analysis and political philosophy considers the cold war preoccupation with espionage, sabotage, and subversion at home, assessing the magnitude of such threats and contrasting it to the agitation—by lawmakers, investigators, and administrators—so wildly directed against the "enemy." Mr. Shils's examination of a recurring American characteristic is as timely as ever. "Brief...lucid... brilliant."—American Political Science Review. "A fine, sophisticated analysis of American social metabolism."—New Republic. "An excitingly lucid and intelligent work on a subject of staggering importance...the social preconditions of political democracy."—Social Forces.

The Torment of Secrecy

The Torment of Secrecy PDF Author: Edward Shils
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1461720605
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Edward Shils's The Torment of Secrecy is one of the few minor classics to emerge from the cold war years of anticommunism and McCarthyism in the United States. Mr. Shils's "torment" is not only that of the individual caught up in loyalty and security procedures; it is also the torment of the accuser and judge. This essay in sociological analysis and political philosophy considers the cold war preoccupation with espionage, sabotage, and subversion at home, assessing the magnitude of such threats and contrasting it to the agitation—by lawmakers, investigators, and administrators—so wildly directed against the "enemy." Mr. Shils's examination of a recurring American characteristic is as timely as ever. "Brief...lucid... brilliant."—American Political Science Review. "A fine, sophisticated analysis of American social metabolism."—New Republic. "An excitingly lucid and intelligent work on a subject of staggering importance...the social preconditions of political democracy."—Social Forces.

Secrecy

Secrecy PDF Author: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300080797
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Traces the development of secrecy as a government policy over the twentieth century and its adverse effects on Cold War policy making

A Fragment of a Sociological Autobiography

A Fragment of a Sociological Autobiography PDF Author: Edward Shils
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412809126
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Edward Shils was one of the giants of sociological theory in the period after World War II. In this autobiography, written three years before his death in 1995 and never before published, Shils reflects on the remarkable range of his life's work and activities, including founding and editing the journal Minerva, being a central figure in the Congress of Cultural Freedom, serving as a founding member of the editorial board of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and being a member of the International Council on the Future of the University. Shils recognizes that a unity of concern runs through his many theoretical writings and activities. Early in his life the concern was expressed as understanding the character of consensus. During the last fifteen years of his life, he refined his understanding of consensus through investigation of the nature of "collective self-consciousness." That concern was the structure and character of the moral order of a society, and, in particular, liberal, democratic society. Accompanying the autobiography are two unpublished essays, "Society, Collective Self-Consciousness and Collective Self-Consciousnesses" and "Collective Self-Consciousness and Rational Choice," two areas of intellectual concern discussed in the autobiography. The book contains fascinating discussion of many of the people Shils knew throughout his illustrious career: Robert Park, Louis Wirth, Talcott Parsons, Karl Mannheim, Michael Polanyi, Audrey Richards, Karl Popper, Robert Merton, and many others. The volume represents Shils' final formulations on the character of society and its moral order. As such, it is a most important contribution both to the history of the social sciences in the twentieth century and to sociological theory.

Torment of Secrecy

Torment of Secrecy PDF Author: Edward Shils
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description


Report of the Commission of Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy

Report of the Commission of Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy PDF Author: Fred Thompson
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 0788181122
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Hearing of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs to review the final report of the recommendations of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Witnesses: Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jesse Helms; Rep. Lee Hamilton and Larry Combest; David Wise, author and journalist, Wash., D.C.; Lawrence Eagleburger, Former Secretary of State; and Alden V. Munson, Sr., Litton Industries, Inc. Also includes questions and answers submitted by Sen. Levin to the Commission.

Government Secrecy

Government Secrecy PDF Author: Susan Maret
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 085724390X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
Divided into six sections, this title examines Government secrecy (GS) in a variety of contexts, including comparative examination of government control of information, new definitions, categories, censorship, ethics, and secrecy's relationship with freedom of information and transparency.

Secrecy and Science

Secrecy and Science PDF Author: Brian Balmer
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 140943057X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
Drawing on classical sociological writing on secrecy by Simmel, Merton and Shils Secrecy and Science draws on recently declassified documents to investigate significant episodes in the history of biological and chemical warfare. At the same time, it draws on more contemporary perspectives in science and technology studies that understand knowledge and social order as co-produced within heterogeneous networks of 'things and people' in order to develop a theoretical set of arguments about how the relationship between secrecy and science might be understood.

Lords of Secrecy

Lords of Secrecy PDF Author: Scott Horton
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568584881
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Forty years ago, a majority of Americans were highly engaged in issues of war and peace. Whether to go to war or keep out of conflicts was a vital question at the heart of the country's vibrant, if fractious, democracy. But American political consciousness has drifted. In the last decade, America has gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, while pursuing a new kind of warfare in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Pakistan. National security issues have increasingly faded from the political agenda, due in part to the growth of government secrecy. In lucid and chilling detail, journalist and lawyer Scott Horton shows how secrecy has changed the way America functions. Executive decisions about war and peace are increasingly made by autonomous, self-directing, and unaccountable national security elites. Secrecy is justified as part of a bargain under which the state promises to keep the people safe from its enemies, but in fact allows excesses, mistakes, and crimes to go unchecked. Bureaucracies use secrets to conceal their mistakes and advance their power in government, invariable at the expense of the rights of the people. Never before have the American people had so little information concerning the wars waged in their name, nor has Congress exercised so little oversight over the war effort. American democracy is in deep trouble. Lords of Secrecy explores the most important national security debates of our time, including the legal and moral issues surrounding the turn to private security contractors, the sweeping surveillance methods of intelligence agencies, and the use of robotic weapons such as drones. Horton looks at the legal edifice upon which these decisions are based and discusses approaches to rolling back the flood of secrets that is engulfing America today. Whistleblowers, but also Congress, the public, and the media, play a vital role in this process. As the ancient Greeks recognized, too much secrecy changes the nature of the state itself, transforming a democracy into something else. Horton reminds us that dealing with the country's national security concerns is both a right and a responsibility of a free citizenry, something that has always sat at the heart of any democracy that earns the name.

Secrecy

Secrecy PDF Author: Daniel P. Moynihan
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 0788146858
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This is the highly controversial & much-publicized report that proposed changes for improving classification & declassification practices of the U.S. Government to protect the nation's secrets while still ensuring that the public has access to information on government operations. Explores the historical roots of current practices, the consequences for both the dissemination of information to the public & the sharing of info. within the Federal Government, the functioning of the bureaucracy that protects government secrets, the effort to promote greater accountability, & the various costs associated with protecting secrets & reducing secrecy. Charts & tables.

Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy

Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy PDF Author: United States. Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : National security
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description