Book picks similar to
Dame France Gives Birth to a Nation: Regendering the Medieval Body Politic by Daisy Delogu
european-history
gender-studies
nationalism-and-statehood
politics
When Memory Comes
Saul Friedländer - 1978
In 1939, seven-year-old Saul and his family were forced to flee to France, where they lived through the German Occupation, until his parents' ill-fated attempt to flee to Switzerland. They were able to hide their son in a Roman Catholic seminary before being sent to Auschwitz where they were killed. After an imposed religious conversion, young Saul began training for priesthood. The birth of Israel prompted his discovery of his Jewish past and his true identity. Friedländer brings his story movingly to life, shifting between his Israeli present and his European past with grace and restraint. His keen eye spares nothing, not even himself, as he explores the ways in which the loss of his parents, his conversion to Catholicism, and his deep-seated Jewish roots combined to shape him into the man he is today. Friedländer's retrospective view of his journey of grief and self-discovery provides readers with a rare experience: a memoir of feeling with intellectual backbone, in equal measure tender and insightful.
Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing
Marie Hicks - 2017
By 1974, the British computer industry was all but extinct. What happened in the intervening thirty years holds lessons for all postindustrial superpowers. As Britain struggled to use technology to retain its global power, the nation's inability to manage its technical labor force hobbled its transition into the information age.In Programmed Inequality, Marie Hicks explores the story of labor feminization and gendered technocracy that undercut British efforts to computerize. That failure sprang from the government's systematic neglect of its largest trained technical workforce simply because they were women. Women were a hidden engine of growth in high technology from World War II to the 1960s. As computing experienced a gender flip, becoming male-identified in the 1960s and 1970s, labor problems grew into structural ones and gender discrimination caused the nation's largest computer user -- the civil service and sprawling public sector -- to make decisions that were disastrous for the British computer industry and the nation as a whole.Drawing on recently opened government files, personal interviews, and the archives of major British computer companies, Programmed Inequality takes aim at the fiction of technological meritocracy. Hicks explains why, even today, possessing technical skill is not enough to ensure that women will rise to the top in science and technology fields. Programmed Inequality shows how the disappearance of women from the field had grave macroeconomic consequences for Britain, and why the United States risks repeating those errors in the twenty-first century."
Trumping Trudeau: How Donald Trump will change Canada even if Justin Trudeau doesn't know it yet
Ezra Levant - 2017
On everything from carbon taxes to Cuba, Canadian policy is suddenly obsolete. Will Trudeau and his advisors realign themselves with our largest trading partner and ally? Or will Trudeau do what his father did — play the role of anti-American gadfly, to the delight of the Third World but the detriment of Canadians? Ezra Levant, the best-selling author of Ethical Oil and other trouble-making books, is here to say what no-one in the liberal media will: Trudeau vs. Trump is shaping up to be Bambi vs. Godzilla.
With Napoleon in Russia
Armand de Caulaincourt - 1935
Instead of a mere two months the Russian campaign would go on to last over five months. Yet, his army would not be overcome in pitched battle, instead it would be decimated by a vicious Russian winter. Prior to the beginning of the war Armand de Caulaincourt served as French ambassador to St. Petersburg and records within his memoirs how he attempted to dissuade Napoleon from his invasion of this vast country. His warnings were, however, not heeded and he went on to serve with Napoleon throughout the conflict as Grand Écuyer, or Master of the Horse, riding at his leader's side through many of the major battles such as Borodino. Caulaincourt continued with Napoleon through his capture of Moscow and warned his commander against wintering in Russia, but again was not listened to, and so records the disintegration of the once magnificent French army. With Napoleon in Russia is a remarkably intimate portrayal of the brilliant general as he suffered one of his greatest defeats. General Armand de Caulaincourt left Russia with Napoleon in December 1812. After this campaign he continued with his critical support of Napoleon right through until the Battle of Waterloo. After which his name was placed upon a list of those proscribed for arrest and execution, but this stopped by the personal intervention of Tsar Alexander I. During his life he kept numerous records and memoirs, which were eventually compiled and translated by Jean Hanoteau in 1935. Caulaincourt passed away in 1827 and the translator of the work Hanoteau died in 1939. B. H. Liddell Hart cited the work extensively when studying why Hitler's invasion of Russia failed in the twentieth century. Yet it was also a favored reference for many of those German commanders, for example General Günther von Kluge, who General Günther Blumentritt recounted: "I can still see von Kluge trudging through the mud from his sleeping quarters to his office, and standing there before the map with Caulaincourt's book in his hand. That went on day after day."
The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days
Mark Edmundson - 2007
The Nazis hated Sigmund Freud with a particular vehemence: they detested his "soul-destroying glorification of the instinctual life." Here Mark Edmundson traces Hitler and Freud's oddly converging lives, then zeroes in on Freud's last two years, during which, with the help of Marie Bonaparte, he was at last rescued from Vienna and brought safely to London. There he was honored as he never had been during his long, controversial life. At the same time he endured the last of more than thirty operations for cancer of the jaw. Confronting certain death, Freud, in typical fashion, did not let fame make him complacent, but instead wrote his most provocative book, Moses and Monotheism, in which he questioned the legacy of the greatest Jewish leader. Focusing on Freud's last two years, Edmundson is able to probe Freud's ideas about death, and also about the human proclivity to embrace fascism in politics and fundamentalism in religion. Edmundson suggests new and important ways to view Freud's legacy, at a time when these forces are once again shaping world events.
The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol
Carl Schmitt - 1938
First published in 1938, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes used the Enlightenment philosopher’s enduring symbol of the protective Leviathan to address the nature of modern statehood. A work that predicted the demise of the Third Reich and that still holds relevance in today’s security-obsessed society, this volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science. “Carl Schmitt is surely the most controversial German political and legal philosopher of this century. . . . We deal with Schmitt, against all odds, because history stubbornly persists in proving many of his tenets right.”—Perspectives on Political Science “[A] significant contribution. . . . The relation between Hobbes and Schmitt is one of the most important questions surrounding Schmitt: it includes a distinct, though occasionally vacillating, personal identification as well as an association of ideas.”—Telos
FDR and the Jews
Richard Breitman - 2012
Defenders claim that FDR saved millions of potential victims by defeating Nazi Germany. Others revile him as morally indifferent and indict him for keeping America's gates closed to Jewish refugees and failing to bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers.In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In "FDR and the Jews," they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician-compassionate but also pragmatic-struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions. For most of his presidency Roosevelt indeed did little to aid the imperiled Jews of Europe. He put domestic policy priorities ahead of helping Jews and deferred to others' fears of an anti-Semitic backlash. Yet he also acted decisively at times to rescue Jews, often withstanding contrary pressures from his advisers and the American public. Even Jewish citizens who petitioned the president could not agree on how best to aid their co-religionists abroad.Though his actions may seem inadequate in retrospect, the authors bring to light a concerned leader whose efforts on behalf of Jews were far greater than those of any other world figure. His moral position was tempered by the political realities of depression and war, a conflict all too familiar to American politicians in the twenty-first century.
The Imperative of Integration
Elizabeth S. Anderson - 2010
As a signal achievement of that legacy, in 2008, Americans elected their first African American president. Some would argue that we have finally arrived at a postracial America, but The Imperative of Integration indicates otherwise. Elizabeth Anderson demonstrates that, despite progress toward racial equality, African Americans remain disadvantaged on virtually all measures of well-being. Segregation remains a key cause of these problems, and Anderson skillfully shows why racial integration is needed to address these issues. Weaving together extensive social science findings — in economics, sociology, and psychology — with political theory, this book provides a compelling argument for reviving the ideal of racial integration to overcome injustice and inequality, and to build a better democracy.Considering the effects of segregation and integration across multiple social arenas, Anderson exposes the deficiencies of racial views on both the right and the left. She reveals the limitations of conservative explanations for black disadvantage in terms of cultural pathology within the black community and explains why color blindness is morally misguided. Multicultural celebrations of group differences are also not enough to solve our racial problems. Anderson provides a distinctive rationale for affirmative action as a tool for promoting integration, and explores how integration can be practiced beyond affirmative action.Offering an expansive model for practicing political philosophy in close collaboration with the social sciences, this book is a trenchant examination of how racial integration can lead to a more robust and responsive democracy.
Benito Mussolini: A Life From Beginning to End
Hourly History - 2017
Benito Mussolini was a figure that was both revered and dreaded. He climbed the ladder of power rapidly in Italian politics, and he was brought down just as fast. Mussolini wished to stir up a united front of nationalism within his people. But, in the end, the only thing he united was their hatred and contempt for him as a despotic leader. Inside you will read about... ✓ Searching for Destiny ✓ More Socialist than Ever ✓ The Godfather of Fascism ✓ Facing the Slackers and Defeatists ✓ The Seeds of Dictatorship ✓ Creation of the Axis ✓ Friends until the End And much more! There were several twists and turns in the life of Benito Mussolini, and this book will take you through them all. Follow his astonishing rise and his dramatic fall.
The Bomb
Howard Zinn - 2010
Two decades later, he was invited to visit Hiroshima and meet survivors of the atomic attack. In this short and powerful book, Zinn offers his deep personal reflections and political analysis of these events, their consequences, and the profound influence they had in transforming him from an order-taking combat soldier to one of our greatest anti-authoritarian, antiwar historians. This book was finalized just prior to Zinn's passing in January 2010, and is published on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Violette Noziere: A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris
Sarah C. Maza - 2011
Almost immediately Violette’s act of “double parricide” became the most sensational private crime of the French interwar era—discussed and debated so passionately that it was compared to the Dreyfus Affair. Why would the beloved only child of respectable parents do such a thing? To understand the motives behind this crime and the reasons for its extraordinary impact, Sarah Maza delves into the abundant case records, re-creating the daily existence of Parisians whose lives were touched by the affair. This compulsively readable book brilliantly evokes the texture of life in 1930s Paris. It also makes an important argument about French society and culture while proposing new understandings of crime and social class in the years before World War II.
City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London
Judith R. Walkowitz - 1992
Expertly blending social history and cultural criticism, Judith Walkowitz shows how these narratives reveal the complex dramas of power, politics, and sexuality that were being played out in late nineteenth-century Britain, and how they influenced the language of politics, journalism, and fiction.Victorian London was a world where long-standing traditions of class and gender were challenged by a range of public spectacles, mass media scandals, new commercial spaces, and a proliferation of new sexual categories and identities. In the midst of this changing culture, women of many classes challenged the traditional privileges of elite males andasserted their presence in the public domain.An important catalyst in this conflict, argues Walkowitz, was W. T. Stead's widely read 1885 article about child prostitution. Capitalizing on the uproar caused by the piece and the volatile political climate of the time, women spoke of sexual danger, articulating their own grievances against men, inserting themselves into the public discussion of sex to an unprecedented extent, and gaining new entree to public spaces and journalistic practices. The ultimate manifestation of class anxiety and gender antagonism came in 1888 with the tabloid tales of Jack the Ripper. In between, there were quotidien stories of sexual possibility and urban adventure, and Walkowitz examines them all, showing how women were not simply figures in the imaginary landscape of male spectators, but also central actors in the stories of metropolotin life that reverberated in courtrooms, learned journals, drawing rooms, street corners, and in the letters columns of the daily press.A model of cultural history, this ambitious book will stimulate and enlighten readers across a broad range of interests.
Passion of Michel Foucault
James Miller - 1993
It chronicles every stage of Foucault’s personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity.
The Death of Socrates
Emily Wilson - 2007
He did not die by sword or spear, braving all to defend home and country, but as a condemned criminal, swallowing a painless dose of poison. And yet Socrates' death in 399 BCE has figured large in our world ever since, shaping how we think about heroism and celebrity, religion and family life, state control and individual freedom, the distance of intellectual life from daily activity--many of the key coordinates of Western culture. In this book Emily Wilson analyzes the enormous and enduring power the trial and death of Socrates has exerted over the Western imagination.Beginning with the accounts of contemporaries like Aristophanes, Xenophon, and, above all, Plato, the book offers a comprehensive look at the death of Socrates as both a historical event and a controversial cultural ideal. Wilson shows how Socrates' death--more than his character, actions, or philosophical beliefs--has played an essential role in his story. She considers literary, philosophical, and artistic works--by Cicero, Erasmus, Milton, Voltaire, Hegel, and Brecht, among others--that used the death of Socrates to discuss power, politics, religion, the life of the mind, and the good life. As highly readable as it is deeply learned, her book combines vivid descriptions, critical insights, and breadth of research to explore how Socrates' death--especially his seeming ability to control it--has mattered so much, for so long, to so many different people.
The Major Works
Francis Bacon - 2002
Francis Bacon held some of the highest public offices in the land and in his spare time studied natural philosophy and a wide variety of other subjects. His systematic classification of all branches of knowledge became the basis for all later constructions, and his Essays are unsurpassed in their observations on society and human behavior. This extensive anthology includes the major English literary works on which his reputation rests: The Advancement of Learning, The Essays (1625, as well as the earliest version of 1597), and the posthumously published Utopian fable The New Atlantis (1626). In addition it reprints other works which illustrate Bacon's abilities in politics, law, theology, and poetry. A special feature of the edition is its extensive annotation which identifies Bacon's sources and allusions, and elucidates his vocabulary.