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Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America
by AnonymousFirst edition of this book listed the author as Anonymous, later editions identify the author as Michael Scheuer.
Through Prison Bars: The Lives and Labours of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry
by William H. RenderA fascinating look—first published in 1894—at two philanthropists known as the &“Prisoner&’s Friends&” and the early history of prison reform. Prisons in England were once dark, inhumane places lacking any regulations. The facilities were poorly managed and unsanitary, and prisoners were treated like animals. One man and one woman, the &“Prisoner&’s Friends,&” sought to change that. Through Prison Bars is an in-depth account of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry and their work in the prison reform movement in Great Britain and Europe that began in the eighteenth century and continued into the nineteenth. Author William H. Render explores their childhoods and family lives, deeply spiritual backgrounds—Howard was a Calvinist while Fry was a dedicated Quaker—and early days in prison philanthropy, as well as what motivated them to get involved in the first place: Howard&’s early days as the high sheriff of Bedfordshire and Fry&’s visit to the women&’s prison at Newgate in London. Neither Howard nor Fry stopped their work with just one jail. They dedicated their lives to serving God and man, and their stories have the power to inspire similar dedication in generations to come.
Through Thin and Thick (Globalization and Human Rights)
by Ángel R. OquendoThe book launches with examples, concrete cases, or political confrontations to explain how to conceive the safeguards at stake. It portrays these as embodying principles requiring particular actions and the implementation of policies. For instance, free speech demands permitting seemingly offensive expression plus promoting a diverse and open public debate. The work scrutinizes specific guaranties, such as those pertaining to asylum, citizenship, abortion, due process, self-determination, or the environment. It presents them as engendering problems peculiar to them. Next, the discussion dissects how precepts, like human rights and democracy, may contingently clash despite their overall commensurability. Finally, it underscores the interconnection of negative, substantive, and national entitlements with their positive, procedural, and international counterparts. Throughout, ruminations on the following questions unfold: How may courts and governments respectively contribute to actualizing the liberties at issue? How do these bear upon social justice? How may ideologically opposed states nonetheless collaborate on them?
Through Time and the City: Notes on Rome
by Kristi Cheramie Antonella De MichelisThrough Time and the City: Notes on Rome offers a new approach to exploring cities. Using Rome as a guide, the book follows familiar sites, geographies, and characters in search of their role within a larger narrative that includes the environmental processes required to generate enough space and material for the city, the emergent ecologies to which its buildings play host, and the social patterns its various structures help to organize. Through Time and the City argues that Rome is made and unmade by an endlessly evolving chorus that has, for better or worse, gained geological legitimacy; that the city absorbs and emits countless artifacts in its search for collective identity; that the city is a platform for the constant staging of negotiations between agents (humans, buildings, plants, animals, pathogens, goods, waste, water) that drive and are driven by the entanglements of climate and culture. This book provides textual and visual frameworks for identifying the material traces, emergent patterns, or speculated futures that expose a city as inseparable from its capacity to change.
Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America's Image Abroad
by Martha Bayles&“How the vulgarization of American popular culture has distorted the image of the United States for millions of people around the world.&”—Francis Fukuyama,New York Times bestselling author What does the world admire most about America? Science, technology, higher education, consumer goods—but not, it seems, freedom and democracy. Indeed, these ideals are in global retreat, for reasons ranging from ill-conceived foreign policy to the financial crisis and the sophisticated propaganda of modern authoritarians. Another reason, explored for the first time in this pathbreaking book, is the distorted picture of freedom and democracy found in America's cultural exports. In interviews with thoughtful observers in eleven countries, Martha Bayles heard many objections to the violence and vulgarity pervading today&’s popular culture. But she also heard a deeper complaint: namely, that America no longer shares the best of itself. Tracing this change to the end of the Cold War, Bayles shows how public diplomacy was scaled back, and in-your-face entertainment became America&’s de facto ambassador. This book focuses on the present and recent past, but its perspective is deeply rooted in American history, culture, religion, and political thought. At its heart is an affirmation of a certain ethos—of hope for human freedom tempered with prudence about human nature—that is truly the aspect of America most admired by others. And its author&’s purpose is less to find fault than to help chart a positive path for the future. &“An extremely intelligent mix of reporting, analysis, and policy prescription.&”—Robert Asahina, author of Just Americans &“Informative, witty, and thought-provoking.&”—Peter L. Berger, author of Invitation to Sociology
Through an Artist's Eyes: The Dehumanization and Racialization of Jews and Political Dissidents During the Third Reich
by Willa M. JohnsonThis book offers visual, social-historical analyses of paintings and drawings of the renowned German Communist artist Karl Schwesig. It follows the course of Schwesig’s internments, but is dedicated primarily to the plight of foreign Jewish persons and Christians (of Jewish descent) who were interned at Camps Saint-Cyprien, Gurs, and Noé in the French free zone. The artworks created by Schwesig provide the themes investigated in each chapter. The works describe the dehumanizing treatment that contributed to and characterized the racialization of foreign Jewish and “mixed-race” persons in France’s free zone and the attempted elimination of political dissidents. The volume includes color plates.
Through the Arc of the Rain Forest
by Percival Everett Karen Tei YamashitaYamashita “blends the . . . surrealism of Garcia Marquez, bizarre science fiction . . . à la Stanislaw Lem, and a gift for satirizing . . . that recalls Heller of Catch-22” (Publishers Weekly). This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one’s earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they each have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological— that destroy the rain forest and all birds of Brazil. “Fluid and poetic as well as terrifying.” —New York Times Book Review “Dazzling . . . A seamless mixture of magic realism, satire and futuristic fiction.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Impressive . . . A flight of fancy through a dreamlike Brazil.” —Village Voice “Surreal and misty, sweeping from one high-voltage scene to another.” —LA Weekly “Amuses and frightens at the same time.” —Newsday “Incisive and funny, this book yanks our chains and makes us see the absurdity that rules our world.” —Booklist (starred review) “Expansive and ambitious . . . Incredible and complicated.” —Library Journal
Through the Eyes of Children: Quotes from Childhood Interrupted by War in Ukraine, Illustrated by Artists
by Voices of Charitable FoundationA heartrending and beautiful trilingual book that gives voice to the children of war-torn Ukraine, interspersed with moving works of art.What is it like to be a child living in a country under siege—or living in a foreign city or land far from everything you have known and loved? In this moving and unforgettable book, Ukraine’s children speak out about growing up in amid the violence, terror, and death of war. Through the Eyes of Children is a collection of children’s quotes paired with evocative color artwork. Each quote appears in Cyrillic, transliterated Ukrainian, and English, making the book a tool for both language learning and language preservation.Each copy sold funds a week’s mental health assistance for a Ukrainian child.
Through the Global Lens: An Introduction to Social Sciences
by Michael J. StradaThrough the Global Lens uses a global perspective to analyze human affairs. This text looks at each of the six social sciences (sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, psychology, and geography), and uses case studies, feature film analyses, maps, and photos to highlight important historical events and concepts throughout.
Through the Grapevine: Socially Transmitted Information and Distorted Democracy (Chicago Studies in American Politics)
by Taylor N. CarlsonAn enlightening examination of what it means when Americans rely on family and friends to stay on top of politics. Accurate information is at the heart of democratic functioning. For decades, researchers interested in how information is disseminated have focused on mass media, but the reality is that many Americans today do not learn about politics from direct engagement with the news. Rather, about one-third of Americans learn chiefly from information shared by their peers in conversation or on social media. How does this socially transmitted information differ from that communicated by traditional media? What are the consequences for political attitudes and behavior? Drawing on evidence from experiments, surveys, and social media, Taylor N. Carlson finds that, as information flows first from the media then person to person, it becomes sparse, more biased, less accurate, and more mobilizing. The result is what Carlson calls distorted democracy. Although socially transmitted information does not necessarily render democracy dysfunctional, Through the Grapevine shows how it contributes to a public that is at once underinformed, polarized, and engaged.
Through the History of the Cold War
by John LukacsIn September 1952, John Lukacs, then a young and unknown historian, wrote George Kennan (1904-2005), the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, asking one of the nation's best-known diplomats what he thought of Lukacs's own views on Kennan's widely debated idea of containing rather than militarily confronting the Soviet Union. A month later, to Lukacs's surprise, he received a personal reply from Kennan.So began an exchange of letters that would continue for more than fifty years. Lukacs would go on to become one of America's most distinguished and prolific diplomatic historians, while Kennan, who would retire from public life to begin a new career as Pulitzer Prize-winning author, would become revered as the man whose strategy of containment led to a peaceful end to the Cold War. Their letters, collected here for the first time, capture the writing and thinking of two of the country's most important voices on America's role and place in world affairs. From the division of Europe into East and West after World War II to its unification as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and from the war in Vietnam to the threat of nuclear annihilation and the fate of democracy in America and the world, this book provides an insider's tour of the issues and pivotal events that defined the Cold War.The correspondence also charts the growth and development of an intellectual and personal friendship that was intense, devoted, and honest. As Kennan later wrote Lukacs in letter, "perceptive, understanding, and constructive criticism is . . . as I see it, in itself a form of creative philosophical thought." It is a belief to which both men subscribed and that they both practiced.Presented with an introduction by Lukacs, the letters in Through the History of the Cold War reveal new dimensions to Kennan's thinking about America and its future, and illuminate the political--and spiritual--philosophies that the two authors shared as they wrote about a world transformed by war and by the clash of ideologies that defined the twentieth century.
Through the Looking Glass: Iran and Its Foreign Relations
by Anu SharmaThis book analyses Iran’s foreign policy in order to better assess its relations with India and the factors that are propelling the two nations closer. In a region susceptible to power plays, how far can India-Iran partnership go? This book will be of interest to scholars of International Relations, Iranian Politics and Iranian Foreign Policy. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Through the Moral Maze: Searching for Absolute Values in a Pluralistic World
by Robert Kane"On the ... issue of our pluralistic age -- whether we can continue to believe in absolute value -- Robert Kane has written the most helpful discussion I know. It is clear, cogent, and above all, convincing". -- Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions
Through the Morgue Door: One Woman’s Story of Survival and Saving Children in German-Occupied Paris (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)
by Colette Brull-Ulmann Jean-Christophe PortesIn 1934, at the age of fourteen, Colette Brull-Ulmann knew that she wanted to become a pediatrician. By the age of twenty-one, she was in her second year of studying medicine. By 1942, Brull-Ulman and her family had become registered Jews under the ever-increasing statutes against them enacted by Petain’s government. Her father had been arrested and interned at the Drancy detention camp and Brull-Ulman had become an intern at the Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital in Paris where Jewish physicians were allowed to practice and Jewish patients could go for treatment.Under Claire Heyman, a charismatic social worker who was a leader of the hospital’s secret escape network, Brull-Ulmann began working tirelessly to rescue Jewish children treated at the Rothschild. Her devotion to the protection of children, her bravery, and her imperviousness in the face of the deadly injustices of the Holocaust were always evident—whether smuggling children to safety through the Paris streets in the dead of night or defying officers and doctors who frighteningly held her fate in their hands. Ultimately, Brull-Ulmann was forced to flee the Rothschild in 1943, when she joined her father’s resistance network, gathering and delivering information for De Gaulle’s secret intelligence agency until the Liberation in 1945.In 1970, Brull-Ulmann finally became a licensed pediatrician. But after the war, like so many others, she sought to bury her memories. It wasn’t until decades later when she finally started to speak publicly—not only about her own work and survival, but about the one child who affected her most deeply. Originally published in French in 2017, Brull-Ulmann’s memoir fearlessly illustrates the horrors of Jewish life under the German Occupation and casts light on the heretofore unknown story of the Rothschild Hospital during this period. But most of all, it chronicles the life of a truly exceptional and courageous woman for whom not acting was never an option.
Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation
by Steve VogelIn a rousing account of one of the critical turning points in American history, Through the Perilous Fight tells the gripping story of the burning of Washington and the improbable last stand at Baltimore that helped save the nation and inspired its National Anthem. In the summer of 1814, the United States of America teetered on the brink of disaster. The war it had declared against Great Britain two years earlier appeared headed toward inglorious American defeat. The young nation's most implacable nemesis, the ruthless British Admiral George Cockburn, launched an invasion of Washington in a daring attempt to decapitate the government and crush the American spirit. The British succeeded spectacularly, burning down most of the city's landmarks--including the White House and the Capitol--and driving President James Madison from the area. As looters ransacked federal buildings and panic gripped the citizens of Washington, beleaguered American forces were forced to regroup for a last-ditch defense of Baltimore. The outcome of that "perilous fight" would help change the outcome of the war--and with it, the fate of the fledgling American republic. In a fast-paced, character-driven narrative, Steve Vogel tells the story of this titanic struggle from the perspective of both sides. Like an epic novel, Through the Perilous Fight abounds with heroes, villains, and astounding feats of derring-do. The vindictive Cockburn emerges from these pages as a pioneer in the art of total warfare, ordering his men to "knock down, burn, and destroy" everything in their path. While President Madison dithers on how to protect the capital, Secretary of State James Monroe personally organizes the American defenses, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, a prominent Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key embarks on a mission of mercy to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. His journey will place him with the British fleet during the climactic Battle for Baltimore, and culminate in the creation of one of the most enduring compositions in the annals of patriotic song: "The Star-Spangled Banner." Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the burning of Washington was a devastating national tragedy that ultimately united America and renewed its sense of purpose. Through the Perilous Fight combines bravura storytelling with brilliantly rendered character sketches to recreate the thrilling six-week period when Americans rallied from the ashes to overcome their oldest adversary--and win themselves a new birth of freedom.Advance praise for Through the Perilous Fight "Vogel . . . superbly dramatizes a campaign whose legacy is 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' both the anthem and the flag for which it stands, today displayed in Washington."--Booklist "The experienced author knows how to write about the military and its human and martial conflicts. . . . A swift, vibrant account of the accidents, intricacies and insanities of war."--Kirkus Reviews"Very fine storytelling, impeccably researched . . . Through the Perilous Fight brings to life the fraught events of 1814 with compelling and convincing vigor."--Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army at Dawn "Before 9/11 was 1814--the year the enemy burned the nation's capital. Steve Vogel gives a splendid account, fast-paced and detailed, of the uncertainty, the peril, and the valor of those days."--Richard Brookhiser, author of James MadisonFrom the Hardcover edition.
Throw Them All Out
by Peter SchweizerPoliticians often come into office with relatively modest assets. As investors, they regularly beat the market and sometimes beat the most rapacious hedge funds. Even without making stock trades, they often retire rich. How do they do it?Billionaires and hedge fund managers often make well-timed investment decisions that anticipate events in Washington. How do they do it?When such former politicians and federal appointees as Al Gore, Dan Quayle, and Madeleine Albright decide to launch investment funds, wealthy clients sign up. Why?Welcome to the insidious world of crony capitalism.Cronyism exists not so much as outright bribery, using suitcases full of cash, but rather in accepted insider routes to wealth: Members of Congress trade stocks based on privileged information. They insert earmarks into bills to improve their own real estate holdings. Campaign contributors receive billions in federal grants. Nobody goes to jail.Crony capitalism transcends party lines and has become a big business hidden in plain sight. Using personal financial information, government databases, and a team of indefatigable researchers, Peter Schweizer shines a light into the darkest corners of the system -- and offers ways to overcome it. It is time to clean house.
Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Wou
by Peter SchweizerTHE BOOK WASHINGTON DOES NOT WANT YOU TO READHow is it that politicians often enter office with relatively modest assets, but then, as investors, regularly beat the stock market and sometimes beat the most rapacious hedge funds? How did some members of Congress know to dump their stock holdings just in time to escape the effects of the 2008 financial meltdown? And how is it that billionaires and hedge fund managers often make well-timed investment decisions that anticipate events in Washington? In this powerfully argued book, Peter Schweizer blows the lid off Washington's epidemic of "honest graft." He exposes a secret world where members of Congress insert earmarks into bills to improve their own real-estate holdings, and campaign contributors receive billions in federal grants. Nobody goes to jail. Throw Them All Out casts light into the darkest corners of the political system -- and offers ways to clean house."Throw Them All Out is filled with stories of petty theft and so-called 'honest graft' . . . Unsparingly bipartisan in [its] criticism of Washington . . . Mr. Schweizer has performed a valuable service to his country." -- Washington Times
Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Wou
by Peter SchweizerTHE BOOK WASHINGTON DOES NOT WANT YOU TO READHow is it that politicians often enter office with relatively modest assets, but then, as investors, regularly beat the stock market and sometimes beat the most rapacious hedge funds? How did some members of Congress know to dump their stock holdings just in time to escape the effects of the 2008 financial meltdown? And how is it that billionaires and hedge fund managers often make well-timed investment decisions that anticipate events in Washington? In this powerfully argued book, Peter Schweizer blows the lid off Washington’s epidemic of “honest graft.” He exposes a secret world where members of Congress insert earmarks into bills to improve their own real-estate holdings, and campaign contributors receive billions in federal grants. Nobody goes to jail. Throw Them All Out casts light into the darkest corners of the political system — and offers ways to clean house."Throw Them All Out is filled with stories of petty theft and so-called 'honest graft' . . . Unsparingly bipartisan in [its] criticism of Washington . . . Mr. Schweizer has performed a valuable service to his country." — Washington Times
Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Wou
by Peter SchweizerTHE BOOK WASHINGTON DOES NOT WANT YOU TO READHow is it that politicians often enter office with relatively modest assets, but then, as investors, regularly beat the stock market and sometimes beat the most rapacious hedge funds? How did some members of Congress know to dump their stock holdings just in time to escape the effects of the 2008 financial meltdown? And how is it that billionaires and hedge fund managers often make well-timed investment decisions that anticipate events in Washington? In this powerfully argued book, Peter Schweizer blows the lid off Washington’s epidemic of “honest graft.” He exposes a secret world where members of Congress insert earmarks into bills to improve their own real-estate holdings, and campaign contributors receive billions in federal grants. Nobody goes to jail. Throw Them All Out casts light into the darkest corners of the political system — and offers ways to clean house."Throw Them All Out is filled with stories of petty theft and so-called 'honest graft' . . . Unsparingly bipartisan in [its] criticism of Washington . . . Mr. Schweizer has performed a valuable service to his country." — Washington Times
Throwing Stones at the Moon
by Sibylla Brodzinsky Max SchoeningFor nearly five decades, Colombia has been embroiled in internal armed conflict among guerrilla groups, paramilitary militias, and the country's own military. Civilians in Colombia have to make their lives despite the threat of torture, kidnapping, and large-scale massacres-and more than four million have had to flee their homes. The oral histories in Throwing Stones at the Moon describe the most widespread of Colombia's human rights crises: forced displacement. Speakers recount life before displacement, the reasons for their flight, and their struggle to rebuild their lives. Among the narrators:JULIA, a hospital union leader whose fight against corruption led to a brutal attempt on her life. In 2009, assassins tracked her to her home and stabbed her seven times in the face and chest. Since the attack, Julia has undergone eight facial reconstructive surgeries, and continues to live in hiding.DANNY, who at eighteen joined a right-wing paramilitary's enormous training camp in the Eastern Plains of Colombia. Initially lured by the promise of quick money, Danny soon realized his mistake and escaped to Ecuador. He describes his harrowing escape and his struggle to survive as a refugee with two young children to support.
Throwing The Emperor From His Horse: Portrait Of A Village Leader In China, 1923-1995
by Peter J SeyboltThis engaging book sketches an intimate portrait of the life of Wang Fucheng, an illiterate peasant who served for thirty years as Communist party secretary of an impoverished village on the north China plain. Based on conversations over a seven-year period (1987 - 1994) between Wang Fucheng and Peter Seybolt, the book unfolds as a continuous first
Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and the Problem of Contingency (Just Ideas)
by Thomas Claviez and Viola MarchiMore than a purely philosophical problem, straddling the ambivalent terrain between necessity and impossibility, contingency has become the very horizon of everyday life. Often used as a synonym for the precariousness of working conditions under neoliberalism, for the unknown threats posed by terrorism, or for the uncertain future of the planet itself, contingency needs to be calculated and controlled in the name of the protection of life. The overcoming of contingency is not only called upon to justify questionable mechanisms of political control; it serves as a central legitimating factor for Enlightenment itself. In this volume, nine major philosophers and theorists address a range of questions around contingency and moral philosophy. How can we rethink contingency in its creative aspects, outside the dominant rhetoric of risk and dangerous exposure? What is the status of contingency—as the unnecessary and law-defying—in or for ethics? What would an alternative “ethics of contingency”—one that does not simply attempt to sublate it out of existence—look like?The volume tackles the problem contingency has always posed to both ethical theory and dialectics: that of difference itself, in the difficult mediation between the particular and the universal, same and other, the contingent singularity of the event and the necessary generality of the norms and laws.From deconstruction to feminism to ecological thought, some of today’s most influential thinkers reshape many of the most debated concepts in moral philosophy: difference, agency, community, and life itself.Contributors: Étienne Balibar, Rosi Braidotti, Thomas Claviez, Drucilla Cornell, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Viola Marchi, Michael Naas, Cary Wolfe, Slavoj Žižek
Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader
by P. J. O'RourkeAn essential collection of career-spanning writings by the political satirist and #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Parliament of Whores. From his early pieces for the National Lampoon, through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone&’s International Affairs editor in the 1980s and 1990s, and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis, P. J. O&’Rourke has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane prose, a gonzo Republican attitude, and a rare ability to make you laugh out loud. Christopher Buckley once described his work as &“S. J. Perelman on acid.&” Thrown Under the Omnibus brings together his funniest, most outrageous, most controversial, and most loved pieces in the definitive O&’Rourke reader. Handpicked and introduced by the humorist himself, Thrown Under the Omnibus is the essential O&’Rourke anthology. &“The funniest writer in America.&” —The Wall Street Journal
Thrust: A Novel
by Lidia YuknavitchTHRUST IS:&“Epic.&” –The New York Times &“A triumph.&” —Elle &“Stunningly beautiful.&” —The Daily Beast &“Both of the moment and utterly timeless.&” —Chicago Review of Books &“A book to take in wide-eyed.&” —Rebecca MakkaiNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER BY TIME, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, ELLE, THE DAILY BEAST, BUSTLE, LITHUB, and GIZMODOAs rising waters—and an encroaching police state—endanger her life and family, a girl with the gifts of a "carrier" travels through water and time to rescue vulnerable figures from the margins of historyLidia Yuknavitch has an unmatched gift for capturing stories of people on the margins—vulnerable humans leading lives of challenge and transcendence. Now, Yuknavitch offers an imaginative masterpiece: the story of Laisvė, a motherless girl from the late 21st century who is learning her power as a carrier, a person who can harness the power of meaningful objects to carry her through time. Sifting through the detritus of a fallen city known as the Brook, she discovers a talisman that will mysteriously connect her with a series of characters from the past two centuries: a French sculptor; a woman of the American underworld; a dictator's daughter; an accused murderer; and a squad of laborers at work on a national monument. Through intricately braided storylines, Laisvė must dodge enforcement raids and find her way to the present day, and then, finally, to the early days of her imperfect country, to forge a connection that might save their lives--and their shared dream of freedom. A dazzling novel of body, spirit, and survival, Thrust will leave no reader unchanged.
Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism
by Gregory CraneThucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is the earliest surviving realist text in the European tradition. As an account of the Peloponnesian War, it is famous both as an analysis of power politics and as a classic of political realism. From the opening speeches, Thucydides' Athenians emerge as a new and frightening source of power, motivated by self-interest and oblivious to the rules and shared values under which the Greeks had operated for centuries. Gregory Crane demonstrates how Thucydides' history brilliantly analyzes both the power and the dramatic weaknesses of realist thought. The tragedy of Thucydides' history emerges from the ultimate failure of the Athenian project. The new morality of the imperialists proved as conflicted as the old; history shows that their values were unstable and self-destructive. Thucydides' history ends with the recounting of an intellectual stalemate that, a century later, motivated Plato's greatest work. Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity includes a thought-provoking discussion questioning currently held ideas of political realism and its limits. Crane's sophisticated claim for the continuing usefulness of the political examples of the classical past will appeal to anyone interested in the conflict between the exercise of political power and the preservation of human freedom and dignity.