Why Are We at War? PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Why Are We at War? PDF full book. Access full book title Why Are We at War? by Norman Mailer. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Norman Mailer
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812986024
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Get Book
Book Description
Beginning with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer has repeatedly told the truth about war. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the gravity of the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to die. First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration’s words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: “Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered. . . . To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad.” Praise for Why Are We at War? “We’re overloaded with information these days, some of it possibly true. Mailer offers a provocative—and persuasive—cultural and intellectual frame.”—Newsweek “[Mailer] still has the stamina to churn out hard-hitting criticism.”—Los Angeles Times “Penetrating . . . There’s plenty of irreverent wit and fresh thinking on display.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . thoughtful . . . Why Are We at War? pulls no punches.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post
Author: Norman Mailer
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812986024
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Get Book
Book Description
Beginning with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer has repeatedly told the truth about war. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the gravity of the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to die. First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration’s words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: “Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered. . . . To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad.” Praise for Why Are We at War? “We’re overloaded with information these days, some of it possibly true. Mailer offers a provocative—and persuasive—cultural and intellectual frame.”—Newsweek “[Mailer] still has the stamina to churn out hard-hitting criticism.”—Los Angeles Times “Penetrating . . . There’s plenty of irreverent wit and fresh thinking on display.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . thoughtful . . . Why Are We at War? pulls no punches.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram Praise for Norman Mailer “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker “Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure.”—The Washington Post “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati Post
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Get Book
Book Description
Author: John A. Vasquez
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442212659
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Get Book
Book Description
What Do We Know about War? reviews the research on causes of war and the conditions of peace over the past forty-five years. Leading scholars explore the critical roles of territorial disputes, alliances, arms races, rivalry, and nuclear weapons in bringing about war as well as the factors promoting peace, including democracy, norms, stable borders, and capitalist economies. Considering what has been learned about the causes of war and the conditions of peace in the ten years since the publication of the first edition, this invaluable text offers an accessible and up-to-date overview of current knowledge and an agenda for future research. Contributions by: Brett V. Benson, Paul F. Diehl, Colin Flint, Daniel S. Geller, Douglas M. Gibler, Gary Goertz, Paul R. Hensel, Choong-Nam Kang, Jack S. Levy, Zeev Maoz, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Michael Mousseau, Karen Rasler, Susan G. Sample, William R. Thompson, Brandon Valeriano, John A. Vasquez, and Peter Wallensteen.
Author: Philip Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226763919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Get Book
Book Description
Why did America invade Iraq? Why do nations choose to fight certain wars and not others? How do we bring ourselves to believe that the sacrifice of our troops is acceptable? For most, the answers to these questions are tied to struggles for power or resources and the machinations of particular interest groups. Philip Smith argues that this realist answer to the age-old "why war?" question is insufficient. Instead, Smith suggests that every war has its roots in the ways we tell and interpret stories. Comprised of case studies of the War in Iraq, the Gulf War, and the Suez Crisis, Why War? decodes the cultural logic of the narratives that justify military action. Each nation, Smith argues, makes use of binary codes—good and evil, sacred and profane, rational and irrational, to name a few. These codes, in the hands of political leaders, activists, and the media, are deployed within four different types of narratives—mundane, tragic, romantic, or apocalyptic. With this cultural system, Smith is able to radically recast our "war stories" and show how nations can have vastly different understandings of crises as each identifies the relevant protagonists and antagonists, objects of struggle, and threats and dangers. The large-scale sacrifice of human lives necessary in modern war, according to Smith, requires an apocalyptic vision of world events. In the case of the War in Iraq, for example, he argues that the United States and Britain replicated a narrative of impending global doom from the Gulf War. But in their apocalyptic account they mistakenly made the now seemingly toothless Saddam Hussein once again a symbol of evil by writing him into the story alongside al Qaeda, resulting in the war's contestation in the United States, Britain, and abroad. Offering an innovative approach to understanding how major wars are packaged, sold, and understood, Why War? will be applauded by anyone with an interest in military history, political science, cultural studies, and communication.
Author: Simon Garfield
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0091903874
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Get Book
Book Description
Includes portions of the diaries of: Pam Ashford, Christopher Tomlin, Tilly Rice, Eileen Potter, and Maggie Joy Blunt.
Author: Robert B. Westbrook
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588343707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Get Book
Book Description
Why We Fought is a timely and provocative analysis that examines why Americans really chose to sacrifice and commit themselves to World War II. Unlike other depictions of the patriotic “greatest generation,” Westbrook argues that, strictly speaking, Americans in World War II were not instructed to fight, work, or die for their country—above all, they were moved by private obligations. Finding political theory in places such as pin-ups of Betty Grable, he contends that more often than not Americans were urged to wage war as fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, lovers, sons, daughters, and consumers, not as citizens. The thinness of their own citizenship contrasted sharply with the thicker political culture of the Japanese, which was regarded with condescending contempt and even occasionally wistful respect. Why We Fought is a profound and skillful assessment of America's complex political beliefs and the peculiarities of its patriotism. While examining the history of American beliefs about war and citizenship, Westbrook casts a larger light on what it means to be an American, to be patriotic, and to willingly go to war.
Author: Rosa Brooks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476777861
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book
Book Description
Inside secure command centers, military officials make life and death decisions-- but the Pentagon also offers food courts, banks, drugstores, florists, and chocolate shops. It is rather symbolic of the way that the U.S. military has become our one-stop-shopping solution to global problems. Brooks traces this seismic shift in how America wages war, and provides a rallying cry for action as we undermine the values and rules that keep our world from sliding toward chaos.
Author: Dominic Tierney
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803243960
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book
Book Description
Americans love war. We’ve never run from a fight. Our triumphs from the American Revolution to World War II define who we are as a nation and a people. Americans hate war. Our leaders rush us into conflicts without knowing the facts or understanding the consequences. Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan define who we are as a nation and a people. How We Fight explores the extraordinary double-mindedness with which Americans approach war and articulates the opposing perspectives that have governed our responses throughout history: the “crusade” tradition, or our love of grand quests to defend democratic values and overthrow tyrants; and the “quagmire” tradition, or our resistance to the work of nation-building and its inevitable cost in dollars and American lives. How can one nation be so split? Studying conflicts from the Civil War to the present, Dominic Tierney uncovers the secret history of American foreign policy and provides a frank and insightful look at how Americans respond to the ultimate challenge. And he shows how U.S. military ventures can succeed. His innovative model for tackling the challenges of modern war suggests the possibility of enduring victory in Afghanistan and elsewhere by rediscovering a lost American warrior tradition.
Author: Christopher Coker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197644228
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Get Book
Book Description
What are humanity's biological origins? What are the mechanisms, including culture, that continue to drive it? What is the history that has allowed it to evolve over time? And what are its functions--how does it survive and thrive by exploiting the features that define it as a species? These are the four questions of the Tinbergen Method for explaining animal behavior, developed by the Nobel Prizewinning Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen. This book contends that applying this method to war--which is unique to humans--can help us better understand why conflict is so resilient. Christopher Coker explores these four questions of our past and present, and looks at our post-human future, assessing how far scientific advances in gene-editing, robotics and AI systems will de-center human agency. He concludes that we won't witness war's end until it has exhausted its evolutionary possibilities--meaning that, well into the future, war is likely to remain what Thucydides first called it: 'the human thing'. From the Ancients to Artificial Intelligence, Why War? is an exhilarating tour d'horizon of humankind's propensity to warfare and its behavioral underpinnings, offering new ways of thinking about our species' unique and deadly preoccupation.
Author: Margaret MacMillan
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984856146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Get Book
Book Description
Is peace an aberration? The New York Times bestselling author of Paris 1919 offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW “Margaret MacMillan has produced another seminal work. . . . She is right that we must, more than ever, think about war. And she has shown us how in this brilliant, elegantly written book.”—H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war—organized violence—comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity’s history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity. Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control? Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, MacMillan reveals the many faces of war—the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.
