Book picks similar to
The War We Are In by James Burnham
philosophy
polit
_jburnham
anthropology
Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us
Avi Tuschman - 2013
It shows how political orientations across space and time arise from three clusters of measurable personality traits. These clusters entail opposing attitudes toward tribalism, inequality, and differing perceptions of human nature. Together, these traits are by far the most powerful cause of left-right voting, even leading people to regularly vote against their economic interests. As this book explains, our political personalities also influence our likely choice of a mate, and shape society's larger reproductive patterns. Most importantly of all, it tells the evolutionary stories of these crucial personality traits, which stem from epic biological conflicts. Based on dozens of exciting new insights from primatology, genetics, neuroscience, and anthropology, this groundbreaking work brings core concepts to life through current news stories and personalities. For instance, readers will meet Glenn Beck and Hugo Chavez and come to understand the underlying evolutionary forces they represent. By blending serious research with relevant contemporary examples, Our Political Nature casts important light onto the ideological clashes that so dangerously divide and imperil our world today.
SAS Operation Storm: Nine men against four hundred
Roger Cole - 2011
The tipping point, Mirbat, South Oman, 19 July 1972 is one of the least-known yet most crucial battles of modern times. If the SAS had been defeated at Mirbat, the Russian and Chinese plan for a communist foothold in the Middle East would have succeeded, with catastrophic consequences for the oil-hungry West. OPERATION STORM is a page-turning account of courage and resilience. Mirbat was a battle fought and won by nine SAS soldiers and a similar number of brave local people - some as young as ten years old - outnumbered by at least twenty-five to one. Roger Cole, one of the SAS soldiers who took part, and writer Richard Belfield have interviewed every SAS survivor who fought in the battle from the beginning to the end - the first time every single one of them has revealed their experience. OPERATION STORM is a classic story of bravery against impossible odds, minute by minute, bullet by bullet.
The Organization Man
William H. Whyte - 1956
During the height of the Eisenhower administration, corporations appeared to provide a blissful answer to postwar life with the marketing of new technologies--television, affordable cars, space travel, fast food--and lifestyles, such as carefully planned suburban communities centered around the nuclear family. William H. Whyte found this phenomenon alarming.As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status.Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.
The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War
Yagyu Munenori
The work of Yagyῡ Munenori from 1632 concerns martial arts and military science. It is translated by Thomas Cleary and can be found tucked behind Miyamoto Musashi‘s “the Book of five rings” from 1643. Both these texts analyse conflict between two men armed with swords and scale this up bigger battles. These important treaties on swordsmanship, and have been taken as giving lessons on life in general.
The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology
Ernst H. Kantorowicz - 1957
In The King's Two Bodies, Kantorowicz traces the historical problem posed by the King's two bodies--the body politic and the body natural--back to the Middle Ages and demonstrates, by placing the concept in its proper setting of medieval thought and political theory, how the early-modern Western monarchies gradually began to develop a political theology.?The king's natural body has physical attributes, suffers, and dies, naturally, as do all humans; but the king's other body, the spiritual body, transcends the earthly and serves as a symbol of his office as majesty with the divine right to rule. The notion of the two bodies allowed for the continuity of monarchy even when the monarch died, as summed up in the formulation The king is dead. Long live the king.Bringing together liturgical works, images, and polemical material, The King's Two Bodies explores the long Christian past behind this political theology. It provides a subtle history of how commonwealths developed symbolic means for establishing their sovereignty and, with such means, began to establish early forms of the nation-state.Kantorowicz fled Nazi Germany in 1938, after refusing to sign a Nazi loyalty oath, and settled in the United States. While teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, he once again refused to sign an oath of allegiance, this one designed to identify Communist Party sympathizers. He was dismissed as a result of the controversy and moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he remained for the rest of his life, and where he wrote The King's Two Bodies.
Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990-1992
Charles Tilly - 1990
Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of state development resolving in today's national state.
A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline
Hans-Hermann Hoppe - 2015
Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe skillfully weaves history, sociology, ethics, and Misesian praxeology to present an alternative — and highly challenging — view of human economic development over the ages.As always, Dr. Hoppe addresses the fundamental questions as only he can. How do family and social bonds develop? Why is the concept of private property so vitally important to human flourishing? What made the leap from a Malthusian subsistence society to an industrial society possible? How did we devolve from aristocracy to monarchy to social democratic welfare states? And how did modern central governments become the all-powerful rulers over nearly every aspect of our lives?Dr. Hoppe examines and answers all of these often thorny questions without resorting to platitudes or bowdlerized history. This is Hoppe at his best: calmly and methodically skewering sacred cows.
Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism
Russell Kirk - 1957
Originally titled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Conservatism, this little book was essentially a popular version of The Conservative Mind. Now, a century after its author’s birth, this neglected gem has been recovered. It remains what Kirk intended it to be: an accessible introduction to conservative ideas, especially for the young. With a new title and an introduction by the eminent intellectual historian Wilfred M. McClay, Russell Kirk’s Concise Guide to Conservatism arrives with uncanny timing. The movement that Kirk defined in 1953 is today so contested and fragmented that no one seems able to say with confidence what conservatism means. This book, as fresh and prophetic as the day it was published sixty years ago, is a reminder that no one can match Russell Kirk in engaging people’s minds and imaginations—an indispensable task in reviving our civilization.
The Beria Papers
Alan Williams - 1973
He was Stalin’s closest henchman. At one time he had a million armed men under his direct personal command. He was a sadist and a mass murderer. And he was also a vicious rapist with a compulsive appetite for young girls. This is possible: Beria may have kept a private diary in which he lovingly recorded his sexual activities, his murders, various scandals involving men now highly placed in the Soviet hierarchy — and the true facts of Stalin’s death. This is certain: The publication of Beria’s diary would cause the greatest political scandal the world has ever known — and set off a deadly manhunt for those responsible for its release … The private diaries of Beria — Stalin’s notorious chief of secret police — are a lurid, shattering indictment of Russian political methods and contain a new account of what really happened at Stalin’s death. They confirm Beria as one of the greatest human monsters of our time, both in his personal life and in his political manipulations of top Soviet politicians, some of whom are in power today. The Beria Papers are sold to an American publisher for three million dollars. On publication they are an immediate, sensational bestseller. They cause panic in Moscow and outrage everywhere — even in the upper echelons of the U.S. government, where there is fear that such revelations will create a dangerous precedent in smear campaigns against world leaders. So the world’s two most powerful secret services — the Soviet KGB and the American CIA — are ordered to track down the book’s origin. Their investigations range from New York to Washington, to London, Moscow, Munich, Budapest, Vienna and finally to a small island in the Indian Ocean where the activities of the two secret agencies come horrifically together. But can The Beria Papers possibly be a hoax? Praise for The Beria Papers: ‘Intriguing and gripping … compulsively exciting’ -
Sunday Express
‘Both exciting and really convincing … fascinating. Part adventure, part thriller, part a documentary of might-have-been history, The Beria Papers is the best thing of its kind for a long time.’ -
Sunday Times
‘The most interesting and original thriller since The Odessa File … a sharp and intelligent thriller that cries out for filming.’ -
Daily Mail
‘Intriguing and gripping … not merely compulsively exciting entertainment, it is also so well researched and the background appears so absolutely authentic that the whole fantastic story could just be true.’ -
Sunday Express
Alan Emlyn Williams(born 1935) is an ex-foreign correspondent, novelist and writer of thrillers. He was educated at Stowe, Grenoble and Heidelberg Universities, and at King's College, Cambridge where he graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in modern languages. His father was the actor and writer Emlyn Williams.
The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies Charles Darwin
Benjamin Wiker - 2009
Instructive and illuminating, The Darwin Myth casts aside Darwinism's politically correct veneer and offers a critical, scientific analysis of Darwin's life and his history–changing theory.
Born to Hate Reborn to Love: A Spiritual Odyssey from Head to Heart
Klaus Kenneth - 2001
Repelled and repulsed by those who ostensibly represented the Christian faith in his juvenescence, Klaus Kenneth naturally looked elsewhere for the solution to his lonely and tortured existence. In his sincere search for escape from rejection and abuse, Klaus found himself on an odyssey that took him around the world several times, lured him into a vortex of pleasure and power, and initiated him into the great philosophies and religious traditions of our times. Having tried it all, and reaching the very brink of the abyss of despair and the desire for nonexistence, Klaus encounters the One whom he had never thought to look for, the One that he had always discounted: the great I AM, the God of Love and healing, the God of regeneration and eternal life.Klaus KennethKlaus Kenneth was born in a small village west of Prague (Czech Republic), and lives with his wife in Switzerland. In addition to German, his mother tongue, he is fluent in English and French. Desirous to share his remarkable story, Klaus spends most of his time on tour in Europe and the USA, bearing witness to his unexpected discovery of Hope and Love.Published here for the first time in English, Born to Hate, Reborn to Love is already a best seller in several other languages.
Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory
Paul A. Erickson - 2001
The readings have broad anthropological appeal, emphasizing cultural anthropology in the North American and European traditions.Thematic coverage begins with nineteenth-century foundations and forerunners, before moving on to the early and mid-twentieth century when anthropology comes of age. The last section looks at numerous late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-centurydevelopments in anthropological theory, including feminist anthropology, postmodernity, medical anthropology, and globalization. "
The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians
Caleb Carr - 2002
Carr’s authoritative exploration demonstrates that the practice of terrorism, employed by national armies as well as extremists since the days of ancient Rome, is ultimately self-defeating. Far from prompting submission, it stiffens enemy resolve and never leads to long-lasting success.Controversial on its initial publication in 2002, The Lessons of Terror has been repeatedly validated by subsequent events. Carr’s analysis of individual terrorist acts, and particularly of the history of the Middle East conflict, is fundamental to a deep understanding of the roots of terrorism as well as the steps and reforms that must be taken if the continuing threat of terrorist behavior is to be met effectively today and, finally, eradicated tomorrow.
Titanic: True Stories of her Passengers, Crew and Legacy
Nicola Pierce - 2018
On board were: writers, artists, honeymooners, sportsmen, priests, reverends, fashion designers, aristocrats, millionaires, children, crew and emigrants looking for a better life.This book tells of their lives, and shines the spotlight on:
Some of the great ship’s surprising treasures
Her fêted voyage from Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard
The fascinating museums devoted to her memory, including Titanic Belfast
The iconic music and movies
Her winged and four-legged passengers
The sister ships of Olympic and Britannic
Tales of heroism
Theories surrounding Titanic’s fatal collision
The lifeboats and just how close the SS Californian was on that tragic night
How Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and the inquiries viewed events
These stories and much more lie inside.