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The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans--and How We Can Fix It
by Dorothy A. BrownA groundbreaking exposé of racism in the American taxation system from a law professor and expert on tax policy&“Important reading for those who want to understand how inequality is built into the bedrock of American society, and what a more equitable future might look like.&”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an AntiracistDorothy A. Brown became a tax lawyer to get away from race. As a young black girl growing up in the South Bronx, she&’d seen how racism limited the lives of her family and neighbors. Her law school classes offered a refreshing contrast: Tax law was about numbers, and the only color that mattered was green. But when Brown sat down to prepare tax returns for her parents, she found something strange: James and Dottie Brown, a plumber and a nurse, seemed to be paying an unusually high percentage of their income in taxes. When Brown became a law professor, she set out to understand why.In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown draws on decades of cross-disciplinary research to show that tax law isn&’t as color-blind as she&’d once believed. She takes us into her adopted city of Atlanta, introducing us to families across the economic spectrum whose stories demonstrate how American tax law rewards the preferences and practices of white people while pushing black people further behind. From attending college to getting married to buying a home, black Americans find themselves at a financial disadvantage compared to their white peers. The results are an ever-increasing wealth gap and more black families shut out of the American dream.Solving the problem will require a wholesale rethinking of America&’s tax code. But it will also require both black and white Americans to make different choices. This urgent, actionable book points the way forward.
The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle Over American History
by Matt BraunAmericans have always put the past to political ends. The Union laid claim to the Revolution--so did the Confederacy. Civil rights leaders said they were the true sons of liberty--so did Southern segregationists. This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation's founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to "take back America." Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a wry and bemused look at American history according to the far right, from the "rant heard round the world," which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board's adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independence--the real one, that is. Lepore traces the roots of the far right's reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party's Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past--a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty--a yearning for an America that never was. The Whites of Their Eyes reveals that the far right has embraced a narrative about America's founding that is not only a fable but is also, finally, a variety of fundamentalism--anti-intellectual, anti-historical, and dangerously anti-pluralist.
The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History (The Public Square #16)
by Jill LeporeFrom acclaimed bestselling historian Jill Lepore, the story of the American historical mythology embraced by the far rightAmericans have always put the past to political ends. The Union laid claim to the Revolution—so did the Confederacy. Civil rights leaders said they were the true sons of liberty—so did Southern segregationists. This book tells the story of the centuries-long struggle over the meaning of the nation's founding, including the battle waged by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians to "take back America."Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, offers a careful and concerned look at American history according to the far right, from the "rant heard round the world," which launched the Tea Party, to the Texas School Board's adoption of a social-studies curriculum that teaches that the United States was established as a Christian nation. Along the way, she provides rare insight into the eighteenth-century struggle for independencea history of the Revolution, from the archives. Lepore traces the roots of the far right's reactionary history to the bicentennial in the 1970s, when no one could agree on what story a divided nation should tell about its unruly beginnings. Behind the Tea Party's Revolution, she argues, lies a nostalgic and even heartbreaking yearning for an imagined past—a time less troubled by ambiguity, strife, and uncertainty—a yearning for an America that never was.The Whites of Their Eyes reveals that the far right has embraced a narrative about America's founding that is not only a fable but is also, finally, a variety of fundamentalism—anti-intellectual, antihistorical, and dangerously antipluralist.In a new afterword, Lepore addresses both the recent shift in Tea Party rhetoric from the Revolution to the Constitution and the diminished role of scholars as political commentators over the last half century of public debate.
The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics
by Kathryn McgarrRobert S. Strauss was for many decades the quintessential Democratic power broker. Born to a poor Jewish family in West Texas, he founded the law firm that became Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and?while forever changing the nature of the Washington law firm?worked as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, special trade representative, ambassador to the Soviet Union and then Russia, and an advisor to presidents. As former first lady Barbara Bush wrote of Strauss in her memoir: ?He is absolutely the most amazing politician. He is everybodyOCOs friend and, if he chooses, could sell you the paper off your own wall. OCO But it isnOCOt the positions Strauss held that make his story fascinating; it is what he represented about the culture of Washington in his day. He was a master of the art of knowing everyone who mattered and getting things done. Based on exclusive access to Strauss, The Whole Damn Deal brings to life a vanished epoch of working behind the scenes, political deal making, and successful bipartisanship in Washington.
The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it
by Alice Procter"Probing, jargon-free and written with the pace of a detective story... [Procter] dissects western museum culture with such forensic fury that it might be difficult for the reader ever to view those institutions in the same way again. " Financial Times 'A smart, accessible and brilliantly structured work that encourages readers to go beyond the grand architecture of cultural institutions and see the problematic colonial histories behind them.' - Sumaya Kassim Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall?How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today.The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.
The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it
by Alice Procter"Probing, jargon-free and written with the pace of a detective story... [Procter] dissects western museum culture with such forensic fury that it might be difficult for the reader ever to view those institutions in the same way again. " Financial Times 'A smart, accessible and brilliantly structured work that encourages readers to go beyond the grand architecture of cultural institutions and see the problematic colonial histories behind them.' - Sumaya Kassim Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall?How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today.The Whole Pictureis a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.
The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums & why we need to talk about it
by Alice ProcterShould museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall?How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a guide for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon. The audiobook is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans; and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today.The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.(p) 2019 Octopus Publishing Group
The Whole Truth (A Shaw Series #1)
by David BaldacciA powerful defense contractor, a reluctant intelligence agent, and an ambitious journalist race to contain and control an international crisis that could destroy the world in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller."Dick, I need a war."Nicolas Creel is a man on a mission. He heads up the world's largest defense contractor, The Ares Corporation. Dick Pender is the man Creel retains to "perception manage" his company to even more riches by manipulating international conflicts. But Creel may have an even grander plan in mind.Shaw, a man with no first name and a truly unique past, has a different agenda. Reluctantly doing the bidding of a secret multi-national intelligence agency, he travels the globe to keep it safe and at peace.Desperate to get back to the top of her profession, Katie James gets the break of a lifetime: the chance to interview the sole survivor of a massacre that has left every nation stunned.In David Baldacci's first international thriller, these characters face a catastrophic threat that could change the world as we know it.
The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left
by Todd Gitlin"The whole world is watching!" chanted the demonstrators in the Chicago streets in 1968, as the TV cameras beamed images of police cracking heads into homes everywhere. In this classic book, originally published in 1980, acclaimed media critic Todd Gitlin first scrutinizes major news coverage in the early days of the antiwar movement. Drawing on his own experiences (he was president of the Students for a Democratic Society in 1963-64) and on interviews with key activists and news reporters, he shows in detail how the media first ignore new political developments, then select and emphasize aspects of the story that treat movements as oddities. He then demonstrates how the media glare made leaders into celebrities and estranged them from their movement base; how it inflated the importance of revolutionary rhetoric, destabilizing the movement, then promoted "moderate" alternatives--all the while spreading the antiwar message. Finally, Gitlin draws together a theory of news coverage as a form of anti-democratic social management--which he sees at work also in media treatment of the anti-nuclear and other later movements. <P><P>Updated for 2003 with a new preface, The Whole World Is Watching is a subtle and sensitive book, true to the passions and ironic reversals of its subject, and filled with provocative insights that apply to the media's relationship with all activist movements.
The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War (Cold War International History Project)
by Robert Edelman Christopher YoungIn the Cold War era, the confrontation between capitalism and communism played out not only in military, diplomatic, and political contexts, but also in the realm of culture—and perhaps nowhere more so than the cultural phenomenon of sports, where the symbolic capital of athletic endeavor held up a mirror to the global contest for the sympathies of citizens worldwide. The Whole World Was Watching examines Cold War rivalries through the lens of sporting activities and competitions across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the U.S. The essays in this volume consider sport as a vital sphere for understanding the complex geopolitics and cultural politics of the time, not just in terms of commerce and celebrity, but also with respect to shifting notions of race, class, and gender. Including contributions from an international lineup of historians, this volume suggests that the analysis of sport provides a valuable lens for understanding both how individuals experienced the Cold War in their daily lives, and how sports culture in turn influenced politics and diplomatic relations.
The Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II
by Karen DolbyA charming collection of quotes and anecdotes celebrating the incomparable Queen of EnglandWhen we think of the queen, we probably picture a serious, dignified personage complete with majestic hat and matching handbag. But The Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II reveals a side of the monarch the public rarely sees, her healthy sense of humor: sometimes silly, sometimes sarcastic—and occasionally unintentional (to guitar legend Eric Clapton: “Have you been playing long?”)!This is a delightful celebration of the queen’s humor revealed through her own words on topics from family and travel to pets and hobbies, as well as stories from the royal household of Britain’s longest-serving monarch. In addition to the queen, other royals get in their two cents, including the famously filterless Prince Philip and the acerbic Princess Margaret, as well as Prince Charles and Princess Anne.
The Wide-Awake Princess
by Katherine PatersonIn this amusing, eloquently told story, created by Katherine Paterson specifically for artist Vladimir Vagin to illustrate with his beautifully detailed watercolors, there was born a wise little princess who was different from everyone else. Miranda had been granted the gift of being wide awake all her waking hours. Thus, unlike those before her, she was able to see that the peasants of the kingdom were overworked and starving while the nobles lived in selfish luxury. Miranda, with confidence and determination, forms an innovative plan to help her people overcome their oppression, and in the process reveals the power of words to vanquish ignorance and bring about change.
The Widening Circle of Genocide: Genocide - A Critical Bibliographic Review (Genocide Studies #Vol. 3)
by Israel W. CharnyThe Widening Circle of Genocide, the third volume of an award-winning series, combines an encyclopedic summary of knowledge of the subject with annotated citations of literature in each field of study. It includes contributions by R.J. Rummel, Leonard Glick, Vahakn Dadrian, Rosanne Klass, Martin Van Bruinessen, James Dunn, Gabrielle Tyrnauer, Robert Krell, George Kent, Samuel Totten, and a foreword by Irving Louis Horowitz.This volume presents scholarship on a variety of topics, including: Germany's records of the Armenian genocide; little-known cases of contemporary genocide in Afghanistan, East Timor, and of the Kurds; a provocative new interpretation of the psychic scarring of Holocaust survivors; and nongovernmental organizations that have undertaken the beginnings of scholarship on the worldwide problems of genocide. The Widening Circle of Genocide embodies reverence for human life; its goal is the search for new means to prevent genocide.This work is distinguished by its excellence, originality, and depth of its scholarship. The first volume was selected by the American Library Association for its list of "Outstanding Academic Books of 1988-89." It is both compelling reading and an invaluable tool for scholars and students who wish to pursue specific fields of study of genocide. It will also be of interest to political scientists, historians, psychologists, and religion scholars.
The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington
by Martha SaxtonAn insightful biography of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of our nation's fatherThe Widow Washington is the first life of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington’s mother, based on archival sources. Her son’s biographers have, for the most part, painted her as self-centered and crude, a trial and an obstacle to her oldest child. But the records tell a very different story. Mary Ball, the daughter of a wealthy planter and a formerly indentured servant, was orphaned young and grew up working hard, practicing frugality and piety. Stepping into Virginia’s upper class, she married an older man, the planter Augustine Washington, with whom she had five children before his death eleven years later. As a widow deprived of most of her late husband’s properties, Mary struggled to raise her children, but managed to secure them places among Virginia’s elite. In her later years, she and her wealthy son George had a contentious relationship, often disagreeing over money, with George dismissing as imaginary her fears of poverty and helplessness.Yet Mary Ball Washington had a greater impact on George than mothers of that time and place usually had on their sons. George did not have the wealth or freedom to enjoy the indulged adolescence typical of young men among the planter class. Mary’s demanding mothering imbued him with many of the moral and religious principles by which he lived. The two were strikingly similar, though the commanding demeanor, persistence, athleticism, penny-pinching, and irascibility that they shared have served the memory of the country’s father immeasurably better than that of his mother. Martha Saxton’s The Widow Washington is a necessary and deeply insightful corrective, telling the story of Mary’s long, arduous life on its own terms, and not treating her as her son’s satellite.
The Wife Stalker: A Novel
by Liv ConstantineSoon to be an original movie on Lifetime, premiering March 29!The bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish—a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick—returns with a psychological thriller, filled with chilling serpentine twists, about a woman fighting to hold onto the only family she’s ever loved—and how far she’ll go to preserve it.Named one of the most anticipated thrillers of the year by Goodreads, Bustle, SheReads, and Library Journal; A LibraryReads pick of the month Breezing into the upscale seaside paradise of Westport, Connecticut, gorgeous thirtysomething Piper Reynard sets down roots, opening a rehab and wellness space and joining a local yacht club. When she meets Leo Drakos, a handsome, successful lawyer, the wedding ring on his finger is the only thing she doesn’t like about him. Yet as Piper well knows, no marriage is permanent.Meanwhile, Joanna has been waiting patiently for Leo, the charismatic man she fell in love with all those years ago, to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though she’s thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self, paying attention again to Evie and Stelli, the children they both love beyond measure, Joanna is shocked to discover that it’s not her loving support that’s sparked his renewed happiness—it’s something else.Piper. Leo has fallen head over heels for the flaky, New Age-y newcomer, and unrepentant and resolute, he’s more than willing to leave Joanna behind, along with everything they’ve built. Of course, he assures her, she can still see the children.Joanna is devastated—and determined to find something, anything, to use against this woman who has stolen her life and her true love. As she digs deeper into Piper’s past, Joanna begins to unearth disturbing secrets . . . but when she confides to her therapist that she fears for the lives of her ex-husband and children, her concerns are dismissed as paranoia. Can she find the proof she needs in time to save them?
The WikiLeaks Paradigm: Paradoxes and Revelations
by Stephen M. MarmuraWikiLeaks poses a unique challenge to state and commercial institutions. This book considers the whistleblower platform’s ongoing importance, focusing on the informational and communicative paradoxes it faces, and the shifting strategies it has adopted over time. Attention to these matters provides insight into the nature of the contemporary networked, post-truth media environment, and the types of factors likely to affect the success of activist groups today. Chapter 1 introduces WikiLeaks’ significance as a novel expression of counterpower, outlining the disclosures marking its career. Chapters 2 through 4 address the dilemmas confronting WikiLeaks in its attempts to engage the public with and without the cooperation of mainstream news organizations. Chapter 5 appraises how WikiLeaks has adjusted its strategies to take better advantage of a densely populated and globally networked media environment within the larger context of an ongoing political legitimation crisis. Chapter 6 extends this analysis to the case of Russiagate.
The Wild Adventure of Jasper Renn
by Kady CrossIn this companion novella to The Girl with the Iron Touch, American cowboy Jasper Renn finds himself in a situation his lightning-fast skills cannot rescue him from...After surviving a triumph-turned-tragedy in New York City, Jasper is determined to secure a happier future with his gifted band of friends. So when the group's mechanical genius Emily is abducted, he'll plunge into England's darkest places to rescue her....But his old flame Wildcat is turning London town upside down to find her missing sister, and Jasper finds the attraction between himself and the fierce beauty as tempting and dangerous as ever. Their trail leads deep into the city's most unusual circus. Soon, Jasper will find his loyalties-and future-tested more than he could ever imagine....And don't miss Jasper's continuing exploits in The Girl with the Iron Touch by Kady Cross, available now from Harlequin TEEN.
The Wild Colonial Boy: A Novel
by James HynesAfter years of violence, a tense calm pervades Northern Ireland, soon to be broken by Jimmy Coogan, an IRA veteran gone renegade. Jimmy has stolen ten pounds of plastic explosive, intending to destroy the parliamentary ambitions of the IRA leadership. Into Jimmy's turbulent world come two young Americans: Brian, vain, ironic, but well-meaning; and Clare, a beautiful, earnest college student. In Ireland on an errand for his Irish Republican family in Detroit, Brian is recruited to Jimmy's bloody mission by his cousin Maire, Coogan's sharp-tongued wife. Soon they are all drawn into the unforgiving labyrinth of modern terrorism, borne toward a horrific and fatal climax in James Hynes's thrilling TheWild Colonial Boy
The Wild East: Crime and Lawlessness in Post-communist Russia
by Viktor SergeevThis analysis of the corruption and violent crime in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, asks how it is possible to label and control certain behaviours as deviant in a context where the legal and moral-ethical norms of a collapsed regime have been discredited but not replaced.
The Wild Oats Project: One Woman's Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost
by Robin RinaldiWhat if for just one year you let desire call the shots?The project was simple: Robin Rinaldi, a successful magazine journalist, would move into a San Francisco apartment, join a dating site, and get laid. Never mind that she already owned a beautiful flat a few blocks away, that she was forty-four, or that she was married to a man she'd been in love with for eighteen years. What followed—a year of abandon, heartbreak, and unexpected revelation—is the topic of this riveting memoir, The Wild Oats Project.Monogamous and sexually cautious her entire adult life, Rinaldi never planned on an open marriage—her priority as she approached midlife was to start a family. But when her husband insisted on a vasectomy, something snapped. If I'm not going to have children, she told herself, then I'm going to have lovers. During the week, she would live alone, seduce men (and women), attend erotic workshops, and have wall-banging sex. On the weekends, she would go home and be a wife. Her marriage provided safety and love, but she also needed passion, and she was willing to go outside her marriage to find it.At a time when the bestseller lists are topped by books about eroticism and the shifting roles of women, this brave, brutally honest memoir explores how our sexuality defines us, how it relates to maternal longing, and how we must walk the line between loving others and staying true to ourselves. Like the most searing memoirs, The Wild Oats Project challenges our sensibilities, yielding truths that we all can recognize but that few would dare write down.
The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots (Young Royals)
by Carolyn MeyerMary Stuart was just five years old when she was sent to France to be raised alongsideher future husband. But when the frail young king dies, eighteen-year-old Mary isstripped of her title as Queen of France and set adrift in the harsh world, alone.Determined to reign over what is rightfully hers, Mary returns to Scotland. Hopingthat a husband will help her secure the coveted English throne, she marries again,but the love and security she longs for elude her. Instead, the fiery young queen findsherself embroiled in a murder scandal that could cost her the crown. And her attemptsto bargain with her formidable "sister queen," Elizabeth I of England, could cost herher very life.
The Wild Scent of Mastranto Flowers
by Franklin A. Díaz LárezThe Aroma of Mastranto takes place in 2012, and is the story of twelve-year-old Ana’s trip back to Venezuela, where she was born. She had moved to Spain with her parents when she was a baby, and now is revisiting her native country for the first time. As Ana travels through Venezuela with her father, we read the letters she writes to a school friend telling her impressions of a divided, politicized society split by inequality and ravaged by insecurity and food scarcity, and her dismay at the idolatry of Simón Bolivar, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez that she observes. Ana’s trip is, most of all, a journey back into her own family history. When they visit the site where decades earlier a brutal massacre of Venezuelan guerrilla fighters took place, her father tells her how those same events scarred his family with violence and dysfunction that lasted for a generation, leaving none of them untouched. This book contains scenes of extreme violence and cruelty, including disturbing sexual violence, and may not be suitable for all readers.
The Wild and the Toxic: American Environmentalism and the Politics of Health
by Jennifer ThomsonHealth figures centrally in late twentieth-century environmental activism. There are many competing claims about the health of ecosystems, the health of the planet, and the health of humans, yet there is little agreement among the likes of D.C. lobbyists, grassroots organizers, eco-anarchist collectives, and science-based advocacy organizations about whose health matters most, or what health even means. In this book, Jennifer Thomson untangles the complex web of political, social, and intellectual developments that gave rise to the multiplicity of claims and concerns about environmental health. Thomson traces four strands of activism from the 1970s to the present: the environmental lobby, environmental justice groups, radical environmentalism and bioregionalism, and climate justice activism. By focusing on health, environmentalists were empowered to intervene in the rise of neoliberalism, the erosion of the regulatory state, and the decimation of mass-based progressive politics. Yet, as this book reveals, an individualist definition of health ultimately won out over more communal understandings. Considering this turn from collective solidarity toward individual health helps explain the near paralysis of collective action in the face of planetary disaster.
The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature
by Benjamin HaleMost of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers -- embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of it. But, asks Benjamin Hale in this provocative book, what about tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, bird flu, killer asteroids? They are nature, too.For years, environmentalists have insisted that nature is fundamentally good. In The Wild and the Wicked, Benjamin Hale adopts the opposite position -- that much of the time nature can be bad -- in order to show that even if nature is cruel, we still need to be environmentally conscientious. Hale argues that environmentalists needn't feel compelled to defend the value of nature, or even to adopt the attitudes of tree-hugging nature lovers. We can acknowledge nature's indifference and periodic hostility. Deftly weaving anecdote and philosophy, he shows that we don't need to love nature to be green. What really ought to be driving our environmentalism is our humanity, not nature's value.Hale argues that our unique burden as human beings is that we can act for reasons, good or bad. He claims that we should be environmentalists because environmentalism is right, because we humans have the capacity to be better than nature. As humans, we fail to live up to our moral potential if we act as brutally as nature. Hale argues that despite nature's indifference to the plight of humanity, humanity cannot be indifferent to the plight of nature.
The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Benjamin HaleA brief foray into a moral thicket, exploring why we should protect nature despite tsunamis, malaria, bird flu, cancer, killer asteroids, and tofu.Most of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers—embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of it. But, asks Benjamin Hale in this provocative book, what about tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, bird flu, killer asteroids? They are nature, too.For years, environmentalists have insisted that nature is fundamentally good. In The Wild and the Wicked, Benjamin Hale adopts the opposite position—that much of the time nature can be bad—in order to show that even if nature is cruel, we still need to be environmentally conscientious. Hale argues that environmentalists needn't feel compelled to defend the value of nature, or even to adopt the attitudes of tree-hugging nature lovers. We can acknowledge nature's indifference and periodic hostility. Deftly weaving anecdote and philosophy, he shows that we don't need to love nature to be green. What really ought to be driving our environmentalism is our humanity, not nature's value.Hale argues that our unique burden as human beings is that we can act for reasons, good or bad. He claims that we should be environmentalists because environmentalism is right, because we humans have the capacity to be better than nature. As humans, we fail to live up to our moral potential if we act as brutally as nature. Hale argues that despite nature's indifference to the plight of humanity, humanity cannot be indifferent to the plight of nature.