In this historic 1971 debate, two of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers discuss whether there is such a thing as innate human nature. In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world’s leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by Dutch philosopher Fons Elders to debate an age-old question: Is there such a thing as “innate” human nature independent of our experiences and external influences? The resulting dialogue is one of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers. Above all, their discussion serves as a concise introduction to their two opposing theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault), soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviorism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for justice in the realm of politics. In addition to the debate itself, this volume features a newly written introduction by noted Foucault scholar John Rajchman and includes substantial additional texts by Chomsky and Foucault. “[Chomsky is] arguably the most important intellectual alive.” ―The New York Times “Foucault . . . leaves no reader untouched or unchanged.” ―Edward Said

"Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy through careful analyses of works by ancient thinkers. As with his published writings, Strauss’s seminars devoted to specific philosophers were notoriously dense, accessible only to graduate students and scholars with a good command of the subject. In 1965, however, Strauss offered an introductory course on political philosophy at the University of Chicago. Using a conversational style, he sought to make political philosophy, as well as his own ideas and methods, understandable to those with little background on the subject. Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy brings together the lectures that comprise Strauss’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy.” Strauss begins by emphasizing the importance of political philosophy in determining the common good of society and critically examining the two most powerful contemporary challenges to the possibility of using political theory to learn about and develop the best political order: positivism and historicism. In seeking the common good, classical political philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did not distinguish between political philosophy and political science. Today, however, political philosophy must contend with the contemporary belief that it is impossible to know what the good society really is. Strauss emphasizes the need to study the history of political philosophy to see whether the changes in the understanding of nature and conceptions of justice that gradually led people to believe that it is not possible to determine what the best political society is are either necessary or valid. In doing so, he ranges across the entire history of political philosophy, providing a valuable, thematically coherent foundation, including explications of many canonical thinkers, such as Auguste Comte and Immanuel Kant, about whom Strauss did not write extensively in his published writings." -- Jacket.

Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the term "stereotype" in the modern psychological meaning, and critiquing media and democracy in his newspaper column and several books, most notably his 1922 book Public Opinion.

Theodore H. White's landmark Making of the President series revolutionized American political journalism, investing his subject with both epic scope and a fresh frankness about backroom political strategy that was unlike anything that had come before. In this second volume of his groundbreaking series, White offers an intimate chronicle of the 1964 campaign for the White House, from the earthshaking tragedy of President Kennedy's assassination through the battle for power between Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater, whose candidacy paved the way for the modern conservative movement. White reports from within both campaigns, bringing to life a turbulent year in America's history and a furious contest between two tough and seasoned political pros.

A powerfully moving biography of JFK by one of his closest friends and advisors. Sorensen's work was first published in 1965 when the wounds caused by the assassination had barely time to heal. It has remained a classic and is indispensable for an evaluation of Kennedy and his place in history.

"Karl Marx" is Isaiah Berlin's account of the life and ideas of the author of "Das Kapital". It provides an introduction to the traditional Marx - his personality and ideas as they were understood by those who, in his name, made the revolution that shook the world.

A major figure in Israeli politics chronicles his long career and his fervent belief in Zionism, recounting how he left Poland to join the Jewish underground of Palestine, spent years in the Mossad, and became Prime Minister. 12,500 first printing.

The key to becoming a millionaire republican is to do the opposite of what the masses do. These counterintuitive rules show how to harness the current political, business, and social winds to create a unique plan for success.

In Liberty and the News Walter Lippmann offers us a stern warning about the importance of reliable news to the survival of a healthy democracy. He railed against bad journalism and drove home the point that the general public must be able to ascertain the truth or democracy is doomed. Walter Lippmann was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the father of modern journalism.

Never HIGHLIGHT a Book Again! Includes all testable terms, concepts, persons, places, and events. Cram101 Just the FACTS101 studyguides gives all of the outlines, highlights, and quizzes for your textbook with optional online comprehensive practice tests. Only Cram101 is Textbook Specific. Accompanies: 9780393912098. This item is printed on demand.

A landmark dissenting opinion arguing against the death penalty. Does the death penalty violate the Constitution? In Against the Death Penalty , Justice Stephen Breyer argues that it does; that it is carried out unfairly and inconsistently and, thus, violates the ban on ""cruel and unusual punishments"" specified by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Today’s administration of the death penalty,” Breyer writes, involves three fundamental constitutional defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty’s penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United States have abandoned its use.” This volume contains Breyer's dissent in the case of Glossip v. Gross , which involved an unsuccessful challenge to Oklahoma's use of a lethal-injection drug because it might cause severe pain. Justice Breyer's legal citations have been edited to make them understandable to a general audience, but the text retains the full force of his powerful argument that the time has come for the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutionality of the death penalty. Breyer was joined in his dissent from the bench by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their passionate argument has been cited by many legal experts including fellow Justice Antonin Scalia as signaling an eventual Court ruling striking down the death penalty. A similar dissent in 1963 by Breyer's mentor, Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, helped set the stage for a later ruling, imposing what turned out to be a four-year moratorium on executions.

"American values are quite complex," writes Seymour Martin Lipset, "particularly because of paradoxes within our culture that permit pernicious and beneficial social phenomena to arise simultaneously from the same basic beliefs."Born out of revolution, the United States has always considered itself an exceptional country of citizens unified by an allegiance to a common set of ideals, individualism, anti-statism, populism, and egalitarianism. This ideology, Professor Lipset observes, defines the limits of political debate in the United States and shapes our society.American Exceptionalism explains why socialism has never taken hold in the United States, why Americans are resistant to absolute quotas as a way to integrate blacks and other minorities, and why American religion and foreign policy have a moralistic, crusading streak.

This is the story of a 30 year, one-man war. The author confesses his bias - in favor of labor, in friendship with Lewis, but he manages to present Lewis convincingly, with his complicated personality, his inconsistencies, his dynamic power, his ruthless use of any means to his end. He traces the steps by which he reached the peak from the pits of Illinois mines. He tells how he created C.I.O. in protest over the limitations of A.F. of L.; of how he secured his own U.M.W. even at the cost of dictatorship. He goes behind the scenes for his breaks with Green, with Murray, with Roosevelt. But the end-all is gains for his miners - in pay, in safety, in security. Brilliant analysis, an unflaggingly interesting chapter in American labor, it provides an interesting insight into a fascinating part of American history. It's a reminder of what unions did achieve and it is a contrast to the comparative powerless of unions these days.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Fifty years after Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking book The Other America , in which he chronicled the lives of people excluded from the Age of Affluence, poverty in America is back with a vengeance. It is made up of both the long-term chronically poor and new working poor—the tens of millions of victims of a broken economy and an ever more dysfunctional political system. In many ways, for the majority of Americans, financial insecurity has become the new norm. The American Way of Poverty shines a light on this travesty. Sasha Abramsky brings the effects of economic inequality out of the shadows and, ultimately, suggests ways for moving toward a fairer and more equitable social contract. Exploring everything from housing policy to wage protections and affordable higher education, Abramsky lays out a panoramic blueprint for a reinvigorated political process that, in turn, will pave the way for a renewed War on Poverty. It is, Harrington believed, a moral outrage that in a country as wealthy as America, so many people could be so poor. Written in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, in an era of grotesque economic extremes, The American Way of Poverty brings that same powerful indignation to the topic.

The United States has survived clueless presidential administrations before. But no matter how enormous the crisis -- the Great Depression, Vietnam, Watergate, Monica Lewinsky's thong -- America's always come out looking like, well, America. This time, however, something's different. Things aren't just screwed up; they're f&# $d up beyond all recognition. Wel-come to F.U.B.A.R., a hilarious and scathing satire of the American Right's bad behavior, by the creators of Air America's Majority Report. If you're a liberal who's somehow not panicked over the state of our Union, or if you're a Republican who's just having voter's remorse, or if you think what's happening to the country is just politics as usual, F.U.B.A.R. will open your eyes to our current national nightmare. With completely unfair and unbalanced analysis, authors Sam Seder and Stephen Sherrill take readers on a whirlwind tour of what's left of the United States, exposing the truth about the Right's blueprint for total domination -- over your money, your mind, your sex life, and even your place in the afterlife (yes, they have a plan for that, too). Along the way, they'll answer your most pressing questions, like: I'm gay. Can I still be a Republican? Do I need to own my own congressman, or is a time share okay? Is New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman's mustache, in fact, the sign of the Beast? I thought we ran the media. What happened? Finally, Seder and Sherrill offer a helpful and hopeful vision for a future that remarkably doesn't look like a cross between the Matrix and Mayberry. F.U.B.A.R. is the wake-up call America has been waiting to receive -- and it will probably be wiretapped.

“Brilliantly illustrates the immense and disarming power of changing course and driving not toward division, but toward civility and mutual respect.” -- Ms . magazine As a progressive commentator on Fox News and now CNN, Sally Kohn has made a career out of bridging intractable political differences. In this age of dangerous partisan resentment and rising bigotry, she decided to investigate hate itself--to better consider how we can stop it. With her trademark humor and humanity, Kohn introduces us to leading researchers and scientists who are exploring the evolutionary and cultural roots of hate. She travels to Rwanda, to the Middle East, and across the United States, talking with former terrorists and reformed white supremacists, and even sitting down with some of her own Twitter trolls. What she discovers is surprising: All of us harbor hate but the powerful acknowledgment that we are all in this together can lead us out of the wilderness. The opposite of hate is connection .

"After decades in California, screenwriter, novelist, and columnist Roger L. Simon and his family joined the many who have left the increasingly leftist, woke blue states for red states. Simon calls those making this journey American Refugees, not dissimilar in their struggles and achievements, "yearning to breathe free," to those who came from foreign lands in previous generations. Focusing on his new home of Tennessee, but dipping into other red states, the author chronicles the often surprising results of this mass migration over recent years for himself and others. When, contrary to predictions, the former blue-state refugees proved to be more reliably constitutionalist, more red, than a good number of red state residents and most of their political leaders, a near-fatal friction developed. In a compelling and sometimes humorous narrative that draws on his prize-winning novelist roots, Simon shows the way for these now two red state sides-the newcomers and the old timers- to unite and save the fast-disappearing American republic from within"--

A visionary reporter, novelist, essayist and critic, Renata Adler is one of our most renowned and unmissable literary figures. But she is first and foremost a journalist. This collection of her her non-fiction showcases her rigorous journalistic voice in twenty-one pieces that are concerned with, in her words, misrepresentation, coercion, and abuse of public process - and, to a degree, the journalist's role in it. With a brilliant literary and legal mind, Adler parses power by analysing language: of courts, of journalists, of political figures, of the man on the street. In doing so, she unravels the tangled narratives that pass for the resolution of scandal and finds the threads that others miss. In these essays, Adler draws on Toward a Radical Middle (a selection of her earliest New Yorker pieces), A Year in the Dark (her film reviews), and Canaries in the Mineshaft (a selection of essays on politics and media), as well as uncollected work from the past two decades.