Download or read book America as an Ordinary Country written by Richard Rosecrance and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the possibilities for peace are to be increased in the next generation, America should change its role in world affairs from dominant superpower to ordinary country. That is the conclusion reached by ten distinguished specialists, five of them writing from abroad, as they reflect on recent U.S. foreign policy and survey its prospects. Ranging over crucial issues in military affairs, in the political sphere, and in the field of economics, their essays point out errors and misjudgments of the past and offer realistic, thought-provoking recommendations for the future.
Download or read book An Ordinary Country written by Neville Alexander and published by University of Kwazulu Natal Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa disputes the notion of a "miracle" transition in this country. It argues that the new South Africa had to happen in the way it did because of the specific history of the country and the players involved. While it identifies some of the turning points at which critical choices were made by local and international forces, it shows why, in retrospect, the known decisions were made rather than other possible ones. Alexander explores a range of issues in post-apartheid South Africa including national identity and the rainbow nation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the role and status of language, showing the volatility, the tentativeness, and the fluidity of the situation that is evolving. In looking ahead at probable developments, An Ordinary Country predicts that South Africa will develop, or stagnate, as a "normal" bourgeois democratic social formation for the next generation, at least until the inevitable alternatives to the prevailing system of political economy regain their credibility.
Download or read book Out of the Ordinary written by Marc Stears and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a major British political thinker and activist, a passionate case that both the left and right have lost their faith in ordinary people and must learn to find it again. This is an age of polarization. It’s us vs. them. The battle lines are clear, and compromise is surrender. As Out of the Ordinary reminds us, we have been here before. From the 1920s to the 1950s, in a world transformed by revolution and war, extreme ideologies of left and right fueled utopian hopes and dystopian fears. In response, Marc Stears writes, a group of British writers, artists, photographers, and filmmakers showed a way out. These men and women, including J. B. Priestley, George Orwell, Barbara Jones, Dylan Thomas, Laurie Lee, and Bill Brandt, had no formal connection to one another. But they each worked to forge a politics that resisted the empty idealisms and totalizing abstractions of their time. Instead they were convinced that people going about their daily lives possess all the insight, virtue, and determination required to build a good society. In poems, novels, essays, films, paintings, and photographs, they gave witness to everyday people’s ability to overcome the supposedly insoluble contradictions between tradition and progress, patriotism and diversity, rights and duties, nationalism and internationalism, conservatism and radicalism. It was this humble vision that animated the great Festival of Britain in 1951 and put everyday citizens at the heart of a new vision of national regeneration. A leading political theorist and a veteran of British politics, Stears writes with unusual passion and clarity about the achievements of these apostles of the ordinary. They helped Britain through an age of crisis. Their ideas might do so again, in the United Kingdom and beyond.
Download or read book Country of My Skull written by Antjie Krog and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited. The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country--one of spectacular beauty and promise--come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors? To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors. Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha's extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey. Country of My Skull captures the complexity of the Truth Commission's work. The narrative is often traumatic, vivid, and provocative. Krog's powerful prose lures the reader actively and inventively through a mosaic of insights, impressions, and secret themes. This compelling tale is Antjie Krog's profound literary account of the mending of a country that was in colossal need of change.
Download or read book My Own Country written by Abraham Verghese and published by BookRags. This book was released on 1998 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Democracy in Modern Europe written by Jussi Kurunmäki and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of the most influential ideas in modern European history, democracy has fundamentally reshaped not only the landscape of governance, but also social and political thought throughout the world. Democracy in Modern Europe surveys the conceptual history of democracy in modern Europe, from the Industrial Revolutions of the nineteenth century through both world wars and the rise of welfare states to the present era of the European Union. Exploring individual countries as well as regional dynamics, this volume comprises a tightly organized, comprehensive, and thoroughly up-to-date exploration of a foundational issue in European political and intellectual history.
Download or read book Poland in the Modern World written by Brian Porter-Szücs and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-03-17 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poland in the Modern World presents a history of the country from the late nineteenth century to the present, incorporating new perspectives from social and cultural history and positioning it in a broad global context Challenges traditional accounts Poland that tend to focus on national, political history, emphasizing the country's 'exceptionalism'. Presents a lively, multi-dimensional story, balancing coverage of high politics with discussion of social, cultural and economic changes, and their effects on individuals’ daily lives. Explores both the regional diversity within Poland and the country’s place within Europe and the wider world. Provides a new interpretive framework for understanding key historical events in Poland’s modern history, including the experiences of World War II and the postwar communist era.
Download or read book One Day written by Gene Weingarten and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years”—Slate On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling. One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.
Download or read book Coming Into the Country written by John McPhee and published by . This book was released on 2015-07 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plunge into the wild climate of unknown Alaska in this riveting travel account.
Download or read book The American Exception Volume 1 written by Frank J. Lechner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines what makes the United States an exceptional society, what impact it has had abroad, and why these issues have mattered to Americans. With historical and comparative evidence, Frank J. Lechner describes the distinctive path of American institutions and tracks changes in the country’s national identity in order to assess claims about America’s ‘exceptional’ qualities. The book analyzes several focal points of exceptionalist thinking about America, including the importance of US Constitution and the American sense of mission, and explores several aspects of America’s distinctive global impact; for example, in economics and film. In addition to discussing the distinctive global impact of the US, this first volume delves into religion, law, and sports.
Download or read book Journal of an Ordinary Grief written by Mahmoud Darwish and published by Archipelago. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2011 PEN Translation Prize A collection of autobiographical essays by one of the greatest poets to come from Palestine. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in the roots and ramifications of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Muhawi's own prose and meticulous footnotes are impeccable. An inspired and scholarly piece of research. —Words Without Borders “Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance,” writes Mahmoud Darwish. In these probing essays, Darwish, a voice of the Palestinian people and one of the most transcendent poets of his generation, interrogates the experience of occupation and the meaning of liberation. Calling upon myth, memory, and language, these essays delve into the poet’s experience of house arrest, his encounters with Israeli interrogators, and the periods he spent in prison. Meditative, lyrical, and rhythmic—Darwish gives absence a vital presence in these linked essays. Journal is a moving and intimate account of the loss of homeland and, for many, of life inside the porous walls of occupation—no ordinary grief.
Download or read book Putin Country written by Anne Garrels and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Portrait of the mid-size city of Chelyabinsk and how it is faring in the new Russia"--
Download or read book An Ordinary Man written by Paul Rusesabagina and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-04-06 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable autobiography of the globally-recognized human rights champion whose heroism inspired the film Hotel Rwanda “Fascinating…your book is called An Ordinary Man, yet you took on an extraordinary feat with courage, determination, and diplomacy.” – Oprah, O, The Oprah Magazine As Rwanda was thrown into chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In An Ordinary Man, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the 100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his “guests” and a hideous death, and recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and activist.
Download or read book An Ordinary Indian written by D. P. Soni and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2011 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incidences narrated here are faced by the common man in India in his day-to-day routine life.He does not have time to react to it. His "no reaction" attitude eventually became known to the perpetrators of the atrocities. His distress, agonies, worries are overshadowed behind his efforts to survive. he is at the receiving end in most of cases. The medical professionals, bureaucrats, politicians, advocates, judiciary, NGOs, social workers, traders, MNCs and others all trying to derive any kind of benefits from him. But his trust in human beings is intact even though he faces various atrocities, his faith still not shaken. His conflicts are usually with other common man or with the other categories of people who knowingly or unknowingly create favorable or unfavorable situation for him.Usually unaware of the strategies hatched out against him, he is a darling of the political system before elections and an ignored one thereafter. He watches the things taking shape, understand their meanings, aware of their repercussions but waits for others to take lead before reacting.Here no imaginary characters narrated, just to give it tale form some changes are made to relate them and convert to tale form.
Download or read book Country Musings written by Connie Petersen and published by Xlibris. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Notes on a Foreign Country written by Suzy Hansen and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Named a Best Book of the Year by New York Magazine and The Progressive "A deeply honest and brave portrait of of an individual sensibility reckoning with her country's violent role in the world." —Hisham Matar, The New York Times Book Review In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul. Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naïve sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country—and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline. It would take leaving her home to discover what she came to think of as the two Americas: the country and its people, and the experience of American power around the world. She came to understand that anti-Americanism is not a violent pathology. It is, Hansen writes, “a broken heart . . . A one-hundred-year-old relationship.” Blending memoir, journalism, and history, and deeply attuned to the voices of those she met on her travels, Notes on a Foreign Country is a moving reflection on America’s place in the world. It is a powerful journey of self-discovery and revelation—a profound reckoning with what it means to be American in a moment of grave national and global turmoil.
Download or read book The ramblings of an ordinary country bloke written by Leslie Raymund Hill and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
