Download or read book The Last Utopia written by Samuel Moyn and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Download or read book Postcards from Ed written by Edward Abbey and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: But hell, I do like to write letters. Much easier than writing books." And write letters Ed Abbey did. In his famous -- or infamous -- 45-year career, Abbey's cards and letters became as legendary as his books for their wit, vitriol, and ability to speak truth to power. Published here for the first time, the letters offer a fascinating, often hilarious glimpse into the mind of one of America's most iconoclastic and beloved authors. No subject was too banal, too arcane, or too deep for Abbey to expound on: sex, cheerleaders, Mormons, Aspen, and the Bond girls are covered as gleefully as Stegner, Dylan, Chomsky, Buddhism, and betrayal. Whether scolding an editor to simplify ("I've had to waste hours erasing that storm of fly-shit on the typescript") or skewering the chicken-hawk proponents of the war in Vietnam, Abbey's righteous indignation gives hope and inspiration to a generation that desperately needs both.
Download or read book Nourished Planet written by Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nourished Planet illustrates what our global food system can be - a collection of the smartest ideas to nourish us all. From urban farmers in Kenya to American doctors to government officials in Egypt, its voices demonstrate how diverse perspectives are coming together to feed the world sustainably.--back cover.
Download or read book Earth First Direct Action Manual written by The Dam Collective and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 300+ pages of diagrams, descriptions of techniques and a comprehensive overview of the role direct action plays in resistance--from planning an action, doing a soft blockade, putting up a treesit or executing a lockdown; to legal and prisoner support, direct action trainings, fun political pranks, and more. The DAM has been compiled and updated by frontline activists from around the US to help spread the knowledge and get these skills farther out in the world.
Download or read book Art on My Mind written by bell hooks and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2025-05-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The canonical work of cultural criticism by the “profoundly influential critic” (Artnet), in a beautiful thirtieth-anniversary edition, featuring a new foreword by esteemed visual artist Mickalene Thomas Called “one of the country’s most influential feminist thinkers” by Artforum, bell hooks and her work have enjoyed a huge resurgence of popularity since her passing in 2021. Her 2018 book All About Love has sold upwards of 700,000 copies, and posthumous tributes have credited her with being “instrumental in cracking open the white, western canon for Black artists” (Artnet). To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of her groundbreaking essay collection Art on My Mind, The New Press will publish a handsome, celebratory edition, featuring a new foreword by Tony-nominated producer and all-around creative phenom Mickalene Thomas and a new cover featuring original photos of bell hooks shot by African American photojournalist Eli Reed. This classic work, which, as the New York Times wrote, “examines the way race, sex and class shape who makes art, how it sells and who values it,” includes what Artforum calls “incisive essays” on the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Isaac Julien, Carrie Mae Weems, and Romare Bearden, among others. Her essays on Black vernacular architecture, representation of the Black male body, and the creative process of women artists, are complemented by conversations with Carrie Mae Weems, Emma Amos, Margo Humphrey, and LaVerne Wells-Bowie, which Kirkus Reviews calls “excellent indeed,” and “a real contribution to our understanding of the situation of black women artists.”
Download or read book Enough written by Roger Thurow and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than thirty years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the ''Green Revolution'' succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every year - most of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse. In the west we think of famine as a natural disaster, brought about by drought; or as the legacy of brutal dictators. But in this powerful investigative narrative, Thurow & Kilman show exactly how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself. As a new generation of activists work to keep famine from spreading, Enough is essential reading on a humanitarian issue of utmost urgency.
Download or read book The Fool s Progress written by Edward Abbey and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1998-08-15 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry Lightcap, a man facing a terminal illness, sets out on a trip across America accompanied only by his dog, Solstice, and discovers the beauty and majesty of the Southwest.
Download or read book History Power Text written by Timothy Neale and published by UTS ePRESS. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History, Power, Text: Cultural Studies and Indigenous Studies is a collection of essays on Indigenous themes published between 1996 and 2013 in the journal known first as UTS Review and now as Cultural Studies Review. This journal opened up a space for new kinds of politics, new styles of writing and new modes of interdisciplinary engagement. History, Power, Text highlights the significance of just one of the exciting interdisciplinary spaces, or meeting points, the journal enabled. ‘Indigenous cultural studies’ is our name for the intersection of cultural studies and Indigenous studies showcased here. This volume republishes key works by academics and writers Katelyn Barney, Jennifer Biddle, Tony Birch, Wendy Brady, Gillian Cowlishaw, Robyn Ferrell, Bronwyn Fredericks, Heather Goodall, Tess Lea, Erin Manning, Richard Martin, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Stephen Muecke, Alison Ravenscroft, Deborah Bird Rose, Lisa Slater, Sonia Smallacombe, Rebe Taylor, Penny van Toorn, Eve Vincent, Irene Watson and Virginia Watson—many of whom have taken this opportunity to write reflections on their work—as well as interviews between Christine Nicholls and painter Kathleen Petyarre, and Anne Brewster and author Kim Scott. The book also features new essays by Birch, Moreton-Robinson and Crystal McKinnon, and a roundtable discussion with former and current journal editors Chris Healy, Stephen Muecke and Katrina Schlunke.
Download or read book Freedom Dreams written by Robin D.G. Kelley and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2002-06-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the twentieth century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of Surrealism, the transformative potential of radical feminism, and of the four-hundred-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. From'the preeminent historian of black popular culture' (Cornel West), an inspiring work on the power of imagination to transform society.
Download or read book The United Nations Peace and Security written by Ramesh Thakur and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-06-08 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preventing humanitarian atrocities is becoming as important for the United Nations as dealing with inter-state war. In this book, Ramesh Thakur examines the transformation in UN operations, analysing its changing role and structure. He asks why, when and how force may be used and argues that the growing gulf between legality and legitimacy is evidence of an eroded sense of international community. He considers the tension between the US, with its capacity to use force and project power, and the UN, as the centre of the international law enforcement system. He asserts the central importance of the rule of law and of a rules-based order focused on the UN as the foundation of a civilised system of international relations. This book will be of interest to students of the UN and international organisations in politics, law and international relations departments, as well as policymakers in the UN and other NGOs.
Download or read book Beyond Holy Russia written by Michael Hughes and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography examines the long life of the traveller and author Stephen Graham. Graham walked across large parts of the Tsarist Empire in the years before 1917, describing his adventures in a series of books and articles that helped to shape attitudes towards Russia in Britain and the United States. In later years he travelled widely across Europe and North America, meeting some of the best known writers of the twentieth century, including H.G.Wells and Ernest Hemingway. Graham also wrote numerous novels and biographies that won him a wide readership on both sides of the Atlantic. This book traces Graham’s career as a world traveller, and provides a rich portrait of English, Russian and American literary life in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines how many aspects of his life and writing coincide with contemporary concerns, including the development of New Age spirituality and the rise of environmental awareness. Beyond Holy Russia is based on extensive research in archives of private papers in Britain and the USA and on the many works of Graham himself. The author describes with admirable tact and clarity Graham’s heterodox and convoluted spiritual quest. The result is a fascinating portrait of a man who was for many years a significant literary figure on both sides of the Atlantic.
Download or read book Extraordinary Birds written by Sandy Stark-McGinnis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven-year-old December knows everything about birds, and everything about getting kicked out of foster homes. All she has of her biological mum is the book she left behind, The Complete Guide to Birds, Volume One, and a photo with a message: 'In flight is where you'll find me.' December knows she's truly a bird, just waiting for the day she transforms and flies away to reunite with her mum. The scar on her back must be where her wings have started to blossom – she just needs to practise and to find the right tree. She has no choice; it's the only story that makes sense. When she's placed with Eleanor, a new foster mum who runs a taxidermy business and volunteers at a wildlife rescue, December begins to see herself and what home means in a new light. But the story she tells herself about her past is what's kept December going this long, and she doesn't know if she can let go of it ... even if changing her story might mean that she can finally find a place where she belongs.
Download or read book The Boat of a Million Years written by Poul Anderson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book and Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist: This epic chronicle of ten immortals over the course of history “succeeds admirably” (The New York Times). The immortals are ten individuals born in antiquity from various cultures. Immune to disease, able to heal themselves from injuries, they will never die of old age—although they can fall victim to catastrophic wounds. They have walked among mortals for millennia, traveling across the world, trying to understand their special gifts while searching for one another in the hope of finding some meaning in a life that may go on forever. Following their individual stories over the course of human history and beyond into a richly imagined future, “one of science fiction’s most revered writers” (USA Today) weaves a broad tapestry that is “ambitious in scope, meticulous in detail, polished in style” (Library Journal).
Download or read book The Myth of the Machine The pentagon of power New explorations new worlds written by Lewis Mumford and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the forces that have shaped modern technology since prehistoric times. Mumford criticizes the modern trend of technology, which emphasizes constant, unrestricted expansion, production, and replacement. He contends that these goals work against technical perfection, durability, social efficiency, and overall human satisfaction. Modern technology fails to produce lasting, quality products by using devices such as consumer credit, installment buying, non-functioning and defective designs, built-in fragility, and frequent superficial "fashion" changes. "Without constant enticement by advertising," he writes, "production would slow down and level off to normal replacement demand. Otherwise many products could reach a plateau of efficient design which would call for only minimal changes from year to year."
Download or read book Seventy nine Short Essays on Design written by Michael Bierut and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut's critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Bierut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut's intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov's Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it truth. In Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, designers and nondesigners alike can share and revel in his insights.
Download or read book Living for Change written by Grace Lee Boggs and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2016-08-03 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one can tell in advance what form a movement will take. Grace Lee Boggs’s fascinating autobiography traces the story of a woman who transcended class and racial boundaries to pursue her passionate belief in a better society. Now with a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley, Living for Change is a sweeping account of a legendary human rights activist whose network included Malcolm X and C. L. R. James. From the end of the 1930s, through the Cold War, the Civil Rights era, and the rise of the Black Panthers to later efforts to rebuild crumbling urban communities, Living for Change is an exhilarating look at a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to social justice.
Download or read book Down the River written by Edward Abbey and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
