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A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte's Early Presidency
by Nicole CuratoWith essays by leading experts in diverse fields, this book offers a penetrating portrait of a volatile administration poised between a troubled past and an uncertain future. This is critical reading for anyone who wishes to understand this perplexing moment in the ever-changing, ever-fascinating politics of the Philippines.
A Duty of Care: Britain Before and After Covid
by Peter HennessyOne of our most celebrated historians shows how we can use the lessons of the past to build a new post-covid society in BritainThe 'duty of care' which the state owes to its citizens is a phrase much used, but what has it actually meant in Britain historically? And what should it mean in the future, once the immediate Covid crisis has passed?In A Duty of Care, Peter Hennessy divides post-war British history into BC (before covid) and AC (after covid). He looks back to Sir William Beveridge's classic identification of the 'five giants' against which society had to battle - want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness - and laid the foundations for the modern welfare state in his wartime report. He examines the steady assault on the giants by successive post-war governments and asks what the comparable giants are now. He lays out the 'road to 2045' with 'a new Beveridge' to build a consensus for post-covid Britain with the ambition and on the scale that was achieved by the first.
A Dying Breed
by Peter HaningtonA SUNDAY TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH'HANINGTON EXCELS... THERE ARE NODS TO LE CARRE, BUT HIS IMPRESSIVE DEBUT IS HIS OWN THING' The Sunday Times'THOUGHTFUL, ATMOSPHERIC AND GRIPPINGLY PLOTTED' Guardian'IMPRESSIVE... HANINGTON HAS TRUE TALENT' The Times'TREMENDOUS' William Boyd'ENTHRALLING' Michael Palin'AMAZINGLY GRIPPING' Melvyn Bragg'A BELTING GOOD READ' A.L. Kennedy'I LOVED EVERY MINUTE IN THIS BOOK'S COMPANY' Fi Glover'A NATURAL STORYTELLER' John Humphrys'DEEPLY INTELLIGENT' Will GompertzKabul, Afghanistan.In a brilliantly plotted contemporary thriller with echoes of Graham Greene and John le Carré, William Carver, a veteran but unpredictable BBC hack, is thrown into the unknown when a bomb goes off killing a local official. Warned off the story from every direction, Carver won't give in until he finds the truth.Patrick, a young producer, is sent out on his first foreign assignment to control the wayward Carver, but as the story unravels it looks like the real story lies between the shadowy corridors of the BBC, the perilous streets of Kabul and the dark chambers of Whitehall.Set in a shadowy world of dubious morality and political treachery, A Dying Breed is a gripping novel about journalism in a time of war, about the struggle to tell the stories that need to be told - even if it is much easier not to.*And William Carver returns in Peter Hanington's new novel, A Single Source - out now*
A Dying Breed: A gripping political thriller split between war-torn Kabul and the shadowy chambers of Whitehall
by Peter HaningtonA SUNDAY TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH'HANINGTON EXCELS... THERE ARE NODS TO LE CARRE, BUT HIS IMPRESSIVE DEBUT IS HIS OWN THING' The Sunday Times'THOUGHTFUL, ATMOSPHERIC AND GRIPPINGLY PLOTTED' Guardian'IMPRESSIVE... HANINGTON HAS TRUE TALENT' The Times'TREMENDOUS' William Boyd'ENTHRALLING' Michael Palin'AMAZINGLY GRIPPING' Melvyn Bragg'A BELTING GOOD READ' A.L. Kennedy'I LOVED EVERY MINUTE IN THIS BOOK'S COMPANY' Fi Glover'A NATURAL STORYTELLER' John Humphrys'DEEPLY INTELLIGENT' Will GompertzKabul, Afghanistan.In a brilliantly plotted contemporary thriller with echoes of Graham Greene and John le Carré, William Carver, a veteran but unpredictable BBC hack, is thrown into the unknown when a bomb goes off killing a local official. Warned off the story from every direction, Carver won't give in until he finds the truth.Patrick, a young producer, is sent out on his first foreign assignment to control the wayward Carver, but as the story unravels it looks like the real story lies between the shadowy corridors of the BBC, the perilous streets of Kabul and the dark chambers of Whitehall.Set in a shadowy world of dubious morality and political treachery, A Dying Breed is a gripping novel about journalism in a time of war, about the struggle to tell the stories that need to be told - even if it is much easier not to.*And William Carver returns in Peter Hanington's A Single Source and A Cursed Place - out now*
A Dying Breed: A gripping political thriller split between war-torn Kabul and the shadowy chambers of Whitehall (William Carver Novels)
by Peter HaningtonA SUNDAY TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH'HANINGTON EXCELS... THERE ARE NODS TO LE CARRE' BUT HIS IMPRESSIVE DEBUT IS HIS OWN THING' The Sunday Times'THOUGHTFUL, ATMOSPHERIC AND GRIPPINGLY PLOTTED' Guardian'IMPRESSIVE... HANINGTON HAS TRUE TALENT' The Times'TREMENDOUS' William Boyd'ENTHRALLING' Michael Palin'AMAZINGLY GRIPPING' Melvyn Bragg'A BELTING GOOD READ' A.L. Kennedy'I LOVED EVERY MINUTE IN THIS BOOK'S COMPANY' Fi Glover'A NATURAL STORYTELLER' John Humphrys'DEEPLY INTELLIGENT' Will GompertzKabul, Afghanistan.In a brilliantly plotted contemporary thriller with echoes of Graham Greene and John le Carré, William Carver, a veteran but unpredictable BBC hack, is thrown into the unknown when a bomb goes off killing a local official. Warned off the story from every direction, Carver won't give in until he finds the truth.Patrick, a young producer, is sent out on his first foreign assignment to control the wayward Carver, but as the story unravels it looks like the real story lies between the shadowy corridors of the BBC, the perilous streets of Kabul and the dark chambers of Whitehall.Set in a shadowy world of dubious morality and political treachery, A Dying Breed is a gripping novel about journalism in a time of war, about the struggle to tell the stories that need to be told - even if it is much easier not to.And William Carver returns in Peter Hanington's new novel, A Single Source - available to pre-order now!(P) 2016 John Murray Press
A Era do Homem-Forte: Como Culto do Líder Ameaça as Democracias em Todo o Mundo
by Gideon RachmanUm retrato global do novo nacionalismo que alerta para a ameaça que os homens-fortes representam para a democracia liberal. Vivemos numa nova era, em que líderes nacionalistas se tornaram um elemento central da política global, surgindo não apenas em regimes políticos autoritários, mas também no coração da democracia liberal. São homens-fortes populistas e conservadores, com pouca tolerância para minorias, dissidentes e imigrantes, que incentivam o culto da personalidade e o desprezo pelo liberalismo e pelas instituições do Estado. O Brexit e a eleição de Donald Trump em 2016 constituem um marco decisivo neste novo nacionalismo, mas esta era teve início no começo do milénio, quando Vladimir Putin assumiu o poder na Rússia. Desde então, homens-fortes ascenderam ao poder em capitais tão diversas como Pequim, Budapeste, Brasília e Washington. Analisando o percurso de líderes como Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson e Jair Bolsonaro, Gideon Rachman, jornalista do Financial Times que entrevistou muitos homens-fortes, procura responder a três perguntas centrais sobre a Era do Homem-Forte: Quando é que a tendência ganhou tração? Quais são as suas principais características? E por que motivo aconteceu? «Gideon Rachman combina o olhar perspicaz de jornalista com uma análise contundente dos fatores que permitiram aos homens-fortes alcançar o poder e mantê-lo.» The Times «Gideon Rachman não é o primeiro a alertar para o apelo do homem-forte, mas o que ele faz com mestria é apontar os elementos comuns do seu governo, os inimigos que partilham, o empenho que demonstram em minar obstáculos institucionais - como os tribunais independentes - e os pontos em comum da sua retórica.» Prospect «Uma análise ampla que descreve as táticas partilhadas dos líderes autoritários.» The New York Times «Um livro brilhante e profundamente alarmante escrito com ritmo, clareza e uma soberba fluência narrativa. Um passeio global imperdível pelo autoritarismo ressurgente.» The Scotsman «Uma análise habilmente escrita sobre a liderança de homens-fortes em todo o mundo e a ameaça que eles representam para a democracia liberal. Baseando-se numa ampla gama de fontes e fornecendo uma perspetiva verdadeiramente global, Rachman explica os instintos, as táticas e os comportamentos comuns que ligam líderes tão diversos como Erdogan, Putin ou Xi Jinping.» Anne Applebaum, autora vencedora do Prémio Pulitzer «Um livro essencial para compreender o atual confronto entre autocracias e democracias.» Catherine Belton, autora de Os Homens de Putin«Quando se trata de dar sentido ao mundo de hoje, Gideon Rachman está num campeonato à parte. Incisivo e objetivo.» Ivan Krastev, autor de O Futuro Por Contar «Oportuno, contundente e inquietante. Uma leitura obrigatória.» Peter Frankopan, autor de As Novas Rotas da Seda «Um relato sagaz e impressionante que oferece uma perspetiva valiosa sobre uma tendência global preocupante: a ascensão da política do homem-forte.» Publishers Weekly «Uma análise eloquente da recente proliferação de déspotas de direita. Uma leitura acessível e extremamente valiosa.» Booklist
A Escravidão nos Dias de Hoje
by Betina Fernandes-Leonard Tyler TaplinUma brecha que revela de forma intrigante a escravidão em nossa sociedade hoje Você talvez pense que escravidão é uma mácula do passado, mas este livro revela claramente que ela ainda é algo muito presente nos dias de hoje. Você verá as várias formas de escravização que existem em nossa sociedade hoje em dia e como as pessoas se tornam escravas. A escravidão de seres humanos está bem debaixo do seu nariz, mas você não consegue ver Você verá como funciona o tráfico humano e por que ele passa totalmente despercebido.
A Europe made of money: the emergence of the European Monetary System
by Emmanuel Mourlon-DruolA Europe Made of Money is a new history of the making of the European Monetary System (EMS), based on extensive archive research. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol highlights two long-term processes in the monetary and economic negotiations in the decade leading up to the founding of the EMS in 1979. The first is a transnational learning process involving a powerful, networked European monetary elite that shaped a habit of cooperation among technocrats. The second stresses the importance of the European Council, which held regular meetings between heads of government beginning in 1974, giving EEC legitimacy to monetary initiatives that had previously involved semisecret and bilateral negotiations. The interaction of these two features changed the EMS from a fairly trivial piece of administrative business to a tremendously important political agreement.The inception of the EMS was greeted as one of the landmark achievements of regional cooperation, a major leap forward in the creation of a unified Europe. Yet Mourlon-Druol's account stresses that the EMS is much more than a success story of financial cooperation. The technical suggestions made by its architects reveal how state elites conceptualized the larger project of integration. And their monetary policy became a marker for the conception of European identity. The unveiling of the EMS, Mourlon-Druol concludes, represented the convergence of material interests and symbolic, identity-based concerns.
A European Crisis: Perspectives on Refugees, Solidarity, and Europe
by Timofey Agarin Nevena NanchevaThis is a book about the crisis of the European integration project as seen from the vantage point of people’s movements across and to the European continent. But why should the issue of refugees or of migration have anything to do with the dynamics of the integration or disintegration of the European Union? If anything, the existing global refugee protection regime was conceived in Europe at about the time when Europe began to integrate: It was seen as a moral imperative in the context of European solidarity and in the face of crisis. How did refugee protection become so controversial as to usher in a crisis of its own? Why do European governments and their peoples see refugees and migrants as the cause of a crisis in and of Europe? Solidarity, legitimacy, democracy, welfare, rights: How has refugee migration undermined European positions on all that has defined EU integration so far? This collection engages with these questions by focusing on the construction of the crisis narrative, offering an insight into distinctly European perspectives on and analyses of political responses to refugees, migration, and economic challenges. The aim of the volume is to provide an empirical and thematic context for understanding the link between refugee migration and the overpowering perception of Europe in crisis.
A European Memory?
by Małgorzata Pakier Bo StråthAn examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe--with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences--was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.
A European Social Union after the Crisis
by Frank Vandenbroucke Catherine Barnard De Baere GeertToday, many people agree that the EU lacks solidarity and needs a social dimension. This debate is not new, but until now the notion of a 'social Europe' remained vague and elusive. To make progress, we need a coherent conception of the reasons behind, and the agenda for, not a 'social Europe', but a new idea: a European Social Union. We must motivate, define, and demarcate an appropriate notion of European solidarity. We must also understand the legal and political obstacles, and how these can be tacked. In short, we need unequivocal answers to questions of why, what, and how: on that basis, we can define a clear-cut normative and institutional concept. That is the remit of this book: it provides an in-depth interdisciplinary examination of the rationale and the feasibility of a European Social Union. Outstanding scholars and top-level practitioners reflect on obstacles and solutions, from an economic, social, philosophical, legal, and political perspective.
A European Space Policy: Past Consolidation, Present Challenges and Future Perspectives (Space Power and Politics)
by Thomas Hoerber Sarah LiebermanThis book builds a bridge between current research in space policy and contemporary European political studies by addressing developments in European space policy and its significance for European integration. It answers questions central to European studies applying them to the burgeoning field of EU space policy and takes an interdisciplinary approach, examining space policy in the light of a range of policy areas including common foreign security policy, technology policy, transport policy and internal market. Using a theoretical framework based around notions of neo-institutionalism to evaluate the evolving nature of space policy in Europe, the book provides clear insights into the development of the sector and the resulting developments made to the European political landscape. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Space policy, EU studies/politics, European Studies/Politics, International Relations, Political Science, History Economics and Security Studies.
A European Youth Revolt: European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements)
by Knud Andresen Bart van der SteenA European Youth Revolt.
A European Youth Revolt: European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s (Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements)
by Bart van der SteenDuring the early 1980s, large parts of Europe were swept with riots and youth revolts. Radicalised young people occupied buildings and clashed with the police in cities such as Zurich, Berlin and Amsterdam, while in Great Britain and France, 'migrant' youths protested fiercely against their underprivileged position and police brutality. Was there a link between the youth revolts in different European cities, and if so, how were they connected and how did they influence each other? These questions are central in this volume. This book covers case studies from countries in both Eastern and Western Europe and focuses not only on political movements such as squatting, but also on political subcultures such as punk, as well as the interaction between them. In doing so, it is the first historical collection with a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective on youth, youth revolts and social movements in the 1980s.
A Fabric of Defeat
by Bryant SimonIn this book, Bryant Simon brings to life the politics of white South Carolina millhands during the first half of the twentieth century. His revealing and moving account explores how this group of southern laborers thought about and participated in politics and public power. Taking a broad view of politics, Simon looks at laborers as they engaged in political activity in many venues--at the polling station, on front porches, and on the shop floor--and examines their political involvement at the local, state, and national levels. He describes the campaign styles and rhetoric of such politicians as Coleman Blease and Olin Johnston (himself a former millhand), who eagerly sought the workers' votes. He draws a detailed picture of mill workers casting ballots, carrying placards, marching on the state capital, writing to lawmakers, and picketing factories. These millhands' politics reflected their public and private thoughts about whiteness and blackness,war and the New Deal, democracy and justice, gender and sexuality, class relations and consumption. Ultimately, the people depicted here are neither romanticized nor dismissed as the stereotypically racist and uneducated "rednecks" found in many accounts of southern politics. Southern workers understood the political and social forces that shaped their lives, argues Simon, and they developedcomplex political strategies to deal with those forces.
A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism (Politics and Society in Modern America #155)
by Judith Stein Nelson LichtensteinHow the Clinton administration betrayed its progressive principles and capitulated to the rightWhen Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he ended twelve years of Republican rule and seemed poised to enact a progressive transformation of the US economy, touching everything from health care to trade to labor relations. Yet by the time he left office, the nation’s economic and social policies had instead lurched dramatically rightward, exacerbating the inequalities so troubling in our own time. This book reveals why Clinton’s expansive agenda was a fabulous failure, and why its demise still haunts us today.Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein show how the administration’s progressive reformers—people like Robert Reich, Ira Magaziner, Laura Tyson, and Joseph Stiglitz—were stymied by a new world of global capitalism that heightened Wall Street influence, undermined domestic manufacturing, and eviscerated the labor movement. Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Al Gore proved champions of this financialized world. Meanwhile, Clinton divided his own party when he relied on Republican votes to overhaul welfare, liberalize trade, and deregulate the banking and telecommunications industries. Even the economic boom Clinton ushered in—which tamed unemployment and sent the stock market soaring in what Alan Blinder and Janet Yellen termed a “fabulous decade”—ended with a series of exploding asset bubbles that his neoliberal economic advisors neither foresaw nor prevented.A Fabulous Failure is a study of ideas in action, some powerfully persuasive, others illusionary and self-defeating. It explains why and how the Clinton presidency’s progressive statecraft floundered in a world where the labor movement was weak, civil rights forces quiescent, and corporate America ever more powerful.
A Failed Empire
by Vladislav M. ZubokIn this widely praised book, Vladislav Zubok argues that Western interpretations of the Cold War have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the twentieth century. Using recently declassified Politburo records, ciphered telegrams, diaries, and taped conversations, among other sources, Zubok offers the first work in English to cover the entire Cold War from the Soviet side. A Failed Empire provides a history quite different from those written by the Western victors. In a new preface for this edition, the author adds to our understanding of today's events in Russia, including who the new players are and how their policies will affect the state of the world in the twenty-first century.
A Failed Vision of Empire: The Collapse of Manifest Destiny, 1845–1872
by Daniel J. BurgeSince the early twentieth century, historians have traditionally defined manifest destiny as the belief that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast. This generation of historians has posed manifest destiny as a unifying ideology of the nineteenth century, one that was popular and pervasive and ultimately fulfilled in the late 1840s when the United States acquired the Pacific Coast. However, the story of manifest destiny was never quite that simple. In A Failed Vision of Empire Daniel J. Burge examines the belief in manifest destiny over the nineteenth century by analyzing contested moments in the continental expansion of the United States, arguing that the ideology was ultimately unsuccessful. By examining speeches, plays, letters, diaries, newspapers, and other sources, Burge reveals how Americans debated the wisdom of expansion, challenged expansionists, and disagreed over what the boundaries of the United States should look like. A Failed Vision of Empire is the first work to capture the messy, complicated, and yet far more compelling story of manifest destiny&’s failure, debunking in the process one of the most pervasive myths of modern American history.
A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression
by Richard A. PosnerThe financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we’ve learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn’t it anticipated so that remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to reverse a slide into a full-blown depression? Why have the responses to date of the government and the economics profession been so lackluster? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it. No previous acquaintance on the part of the reader with macroeconomics or the theory of finance is presupposed. This is a book for intelligent generalists that will interest specialists as well. Among the facts and causes Posner identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the reckless lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fueled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Posner analyzes the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of the cause of the Great Depression: the monetarist—that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus failing to prevent a disastrous deflation—and the Keynesian—that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920s, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more heavily regulated.
A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars
by Jonathan MerrittEvery day, major headlines tell the story of how Christianity is attempting to influence American culture and politics. But statistics show that young Americans are disenchanted with a faith that has become culturally antagonistic and too closely aligned with partisan politics. In this personal yet practical work, Jonathan Merritt uncovers the changing face of American Christianity by uniquely examining the coming of age of a new generation of Christians.Jonathan Merritt illuminates the spiritual ethos of this new generation of believers who engage the world with Christ-centered faith but an un-polarized political perspective. Through personal stories and biblically rooted commentary this scion of a leading evangelical family takes a close, thoughtful look at the changing religious and political environment, addressing such divisive issues as abortion, gay marriage, environmental use and care, race, war, poverty, and the imbalance of world wealth. Through Scripture, the examples of Jesus, and personal defining faith experiences, he distills the essential truths at the core of a Christian faith that is now just coming of age.
A Fantasy of Reason (Routledge Library Editions: Political Science #29)
by Don LockeThis ‘philosophical biography’ gives an account of Godwin’s life and thought, and by setting his thoughts in the context of his life, brings the two into juxtaposition. It relates Godwin’s views on politics and morality, education and religion, freedom and society, to the events of his life, notably the revolution in France and its impact on radicalism and reaction in Britain and the parliamentary reforms of 1832.
A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case that Should Have Changed History
by Joan MellenWorking with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy's murder.Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing Kennedy. A Farewell to Justice reveals that Oswald, no Marxist, was in fact working with both the FBI and the CIA, as well as with US Customs, and that the attempts to sabotage Garrison's investigation reached the highest levels of the US government. Garrison's suspects included CIA-sponsored soldiers of fortune enlisted in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, an anti-Castro Cuban asset, and a young runner for the conspirators, interviewed here for the first time by the author.Building upon Garrison's effort, Mellen uncovers decisive new evidence and clearly establishes the intelligence agencies' roles in both a president's assassination and its cover-up. In this revised edition, to be published in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the president's assassination, the author reveals new sources and recently uncovered documents confirming in greater detail just how involved the CIA was in the events of November 22, 1963. More than one hundred new pages add critical evidence and information into one of the most significant events in human history.
A Farewell to Truth
by Gianni VattimoWith Western cultures becoming more pluralistic, the question of "truth" in politics has become a game of interpretations. Today, we face the demise of the very idea of truth as an objective description of facts, though many have yet to acknowledge that this is changing.Gianni Vattimo explicitly engages with the important consequences for democracy of our changing conception of politics and truth, such as a growing reluctance to ground politics in science, economics, and technology. Yet in Vattimo's conception, a farewell to truth can benefit democracy, exposing the unspoken issues that underlie all objective claims. The end of absolute truth challenges the legitimacy of policies based on perceived objective necessities-protecting the free market, for example, even if it devastates certain groups or classes. Vattimo calls for a truth that is constructed with consensus and a respect for the liberty of all. By taking into account the cultural paradigms of others, a more "truthful" society-freer and more democratic-becomes possible. In this book, Vattimo continues his reinterpretation of Christianity as a religion of charity and hope, freeing society from authoritarian, metaphysical dogmatism. He also extends Nietzsche's "death of God" to the death of an authoritarian God, ushering in a new, postreligious Christianity. He connects the thought of Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, and Karl Popper with surprising results and accommodates modern science more than in his previous work, reconciling its validity with an insistence that knowledge is interpretive. Vattimo's philosophy justifies Western nihilism in its capacity to dispense with absolute truths. Ranging over politics, ethics, religion, and the history of philosophy, his reflections contribute deeply to a modern reconception of God, metaphysics, and the purpose of reality.
A Farther Shore: Ireland's Long Road to Peace
by Gerry AdamsHe’s been imprisoned, shot at, denounced, shunned, and banned, yet Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams remains resolute in his belief that peace is the only viable option for the Irish people. Adams led the oldest revolutionary movement in Ireland on an extraordinary journey from armed insurrection to active participation in government. Now he tells the story of the tumultuous series of events that led to the historic Good Friday Agreement as only he can: with a tireless crusader’s conviction and an insider’s penetrating insight. In vivid detail, Adams describes the harrowing attack on his life, and he offers new details about the peace process. We learn of previously undisclosed talks between republicans and the British government, and of conflicts and surprising alliances between key players. Adams reveals details of his discussions with the IRA leadership and tells how republicans differed, “dissidents” emerged, and the first IRA cessation of violence broke down. He recounts meetings in the Clinton White House, tells what roles Irish-Americans and South Africans played in the process, and describes the secret involvement of those within the Catholic Church. Then—triumphantly—this inspiring story climaxes with the Good Friday Agreement: what was agreed and what was promised. Gerry Adams brings a sense of immediacy to this story of hope in what was long considered an intractable conflict. He conveys the acute tensions of the peace process and the ever-present sense of teetering on the brink of both joyous accomplishment and continued despair. With a sharp eye and sensitive ear for the more humorous foibles of political allies and enemies alike, Adams offers illuminating portraits of the leading characters through cease-fires and standoffs, discussions and confrontations. Among the featured players are John Major, Tony Blair, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jean Kennedy Smith, and Nelson Mandela. As the preeminent republican strategist of his generation, Gerry Adams provides the first comprehensive account of the principles and tactics underpinning modern Irish republicanism. And in a world where peace processes are needed more urgently than ever, A Farther Shore provides a template for conflict resolution.
A Fateful Triangle: Essays on Contemporary Russian, German, and Polish History (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society #184)
by Leonid LuksThe twentieth century began with a deep identity crisis of European parliamentarianism, pluralism, rationalism, individualism, and liberalism―and a following political revolt against the West’s emerging open societies and their ideological foundation. In its radicalism, this upheaval against Western values had far-reaching consequences across the world, the repercussions of which can still be felt today. Germany and Russia formed the center of this insurrection against those ideas and approaches usually associated with the West. Leonid Luks’s essays deal with the various causes and results of these Russian and German anti-Western revolts for twentieth-century Europe. The book also touches upon the development of the peculiar post-Soviet Russian regime that, after the collapse of the USSR, emerged on the ruins of the Bolshevik state that had been established in 1917. What were the determinants of the erosion of the “second” Russian democracy that was briefly established, after the disempowerment of the CPSU in August 1991, until the rise of Vladimir Putin? Further foci of this wide-ranging study include the specific geopolitical trap in which Poland—constrained by its two powerful neighbors—was caught for centuries. Finally, Luks explores the special relationship that all three countries of Central and Eastern Europe’s "fateful triangle" had with Judaism and the Jews.