Descriere: In this new collection of essays, Wendell Berry continues his work as one of America's most necessary social commentators. With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems which face us as we near the end of the twentieth century.
Berry begins the title essay with the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings as an example of a "process that has been well established and well respected for at least two hundred years--the process . . . of community disintegration." Community, a "locally understood interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature," bound by trust and affection, is "being destroyed by the desires and ambitions of both private and public life which for want of the intervention of community interests, are also destroying one another."
He then moves on to elucidate connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. Berry forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is "still the strongest force now operating in our society." As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a "rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products," buying into the very economic system which is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.
Throughout the book Berry asks, What is appropriate? What is worth conserving from our past and preserving in our present? What is it to be human and truly connected to others? What does it mean to be free?
Autori: Wendell Berry | Editura: Pantheon Books | Anul aparitiei: 1994 | ISBN: 9780679756514 | Numar de pagini: 208 | Categorie: Politics
Craig Kielburger
"Craig has become a Pied Piper, inspiring students in hundreds of schools across the United States and Canada to join his crusade." -- New York Times Here is the dramatic and moving story of one child's transformation from a normal, middle-class kid from the suburbs to an activist, fighting against child labor on the world stage of international human rights. Making headlines around the globe, Graig Keilburger and his organization, Free the Children, which he founded at the age of twelve, have brought unprecedented attention to the worldwide abuse of children's rights. Free the Children is a passionate and astounding story and a moving testament to the power that children and young adults have to change the world, as witnessed through the achievements of one remarkable young man.
Stephen F. Hayes
Cheney: The Untold Story of the Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President in American History
During a forty-year career in politics, Vice President Dick Cheney has been involved in some of the most consequential decisions in recent American history. He was one of a few select advisers in the room when President Gerald Ford decided to declare an end to the Vietnam War. Nearly thirty years later, from the presidential bunker below the White House in the moments immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he helped shape the response: America's global war on terror. Yet for all of his influence, the world knows very little about Dick Cheney. The most powerful vice president in U.S. history has also been the most secretive and guarded of all public officials. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" Cheney asked rhetorically in 2004. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."Now, in Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President, New York Times bestselling author and Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen F. Hayes offers readers a groundbreaking view into the world of this most enigmatic man. Having had exclusive access to Cheney himself, Hayes draws upon hundreds of interviews with the vice ...
Stephen L. Carter
Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy
Something horrible has happened to civility. We can no longer hold political discussions without screaming at each other, so our democracy is dying. We can no longer look at strangers without suspicion and even hostility, so our social life is dying. We can no longer hold public conversation about morality without trading vicious accusations, so our moral life is dying. All the skills of living a common life-what Alexis de Tocqueville called -the etiquette of democracy'-are collapsing around us, and nobody seems to know how to shore them up again.aStephen L. Carter, author of the bestsellerThe Culture of Disbelief, argues that civility is disintegrating because we have forgotten the obligations we owe to each other, and are awash instead in a sea of self-indulgence. Neither liberals nor conservatives can help us much, Carter explains, because each political movement, in a different way, exemplifies what has become the principal value of modern America: that what matters most is not the needs or hopes of others, but simply getting what we want.aTaking inspiration from the Abolitionist sermons of the nineteenth century, Carter proposes to rebuild our public and private lives around ...