The incomparable Rebecca Solnit, author of more than a dozen acclaimed, prizewinning books of nonfiction including Men Explain Things To Me , brings the same dazzling writing to the essays in The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness ; hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "globally wide-ranging and topically urgent and the Boston Globe as "luminous and precise.". As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit's concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in, from the jungles of the Zapatistas in Mexico to the splendors of the Arctic. This rich collection tours places as diverse as Haiti and Iceland; movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring; an original take on the question of who did Henry David Thoreau's laundry; and a searching look at what the hatred of country music really means. Solnit moves nimbly from Orwell to Elvis, to contemporary urban gardening to 1970s California macramé and punk rock, and on to searing questions about the environment, freedom, family, class, work, and friendship. It's no wonder she's been compared in Bookforum to Susan Sontag and Annie Dillard and in the San Francisco Chronicle to Joan Didion. The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness proves Rebecca Solnit worthy of the accolades and honors she's received. Rarely can a reader find such penetrating critiques of our time and its failures leavened with such generous heapings of hope. Solnit looks back to history and the progress of political movements to find an antidote to despair in what many feel as lost causes. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit's collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Her essays are a beacon for readers looking for alternative ideas in these imperiled times.

The idea that taxpayers should pay reparations to African Americans for the damages of slavery and segregation is quickly becoming a central demand of some civil rights leaders. It has the backing of important black politicians like Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), distinguished black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates and activists like Randall Robinson, who led the successful boycott movement against South Africa a decade ago. The Chicago City Council has overwhelmingly endorsed the concept and municipalities and state governments around the country are considering giving it support. In this well researched and carefully argued book, David Horowitz traces the origins of the reparations movement. He examines the case made by its advocates and concludes that it is "morally questionable and racially incendiary." He notes that only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves; and most Americans living today (white and otherwise) are descended from post-Civil War immigrants who have no lineal connection to slavery at all. More intriguingly, he also points out that the GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African American community the tenth most prosperous "nation" in the world. But this book is more than just an in depth casebook on the hot button issue of reparations. In the hope of initiating a dialogue, Horowitz originally presented a summary of his ideas on this subject in the form of an advertisement that appeared in several college newspapers and was rejected by many more. Editorialists in America's leading papers and several chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union weighed on Horowitz's side. With the assistance of Richard Poe, Horowitz uses the response to the reparations issue to show how the new racial orthodoxy collides with the free speech battle and what its implications are for American education and culture.

From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family's apartment building in Poland--and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows Menachem Kaiser's brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather's former battle to reclaim the family's apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer." A surprise discovery--that his grandfather's cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex--leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance--material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.

In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through.

Howard Engel, an internationally published and award-winning mystery writer, takes dead aim, so to speak, at this fascination we all share, and produces a wonderfully wise and witty social history of the men and women who represent our agents of death, and have done our dirty work over the centuries. 60 photos and line drawings.

I was just following orders. Nazis gave this excuse for committing previously unimaginable atrocities. In trying 22 of the highest Nazi officials at Nuremberg, the Allies established that this was not an acceptable defense and that war crimes would not go unpunished. This anthology details the preparation and conduct of the greatest criminal trial.

Achieving social justice is one of the key challenges facing the world today scholars of political theory have long grappled with issues arising from it however, as the history of ideas shows, the concept itself has undergone much change over the centuries and there is no watertight definition of what ‘justice’ connotes in the contemporary context going beyond the existing frontiers of social justice, this unique volume aims to develop theoretical concepts able to respond to real dilemmas facing society today the author closely examines the classical social contract theory, one of the most widely accepted approaches to social justice in the western tradition she focuses in particular on the ideas of one of the greatest names in contemporary political philosophy, john rawls, whose work developed the theory to new philosophical depths and complexity nussbaum moves in a fresh direction and suggests that there is an inherent limitation within the social contract theory, even in the work of rawls—it is premised on the idea of a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals she demonstrates that it is unable to address questions of social justice between unequal parties instead she goes on to develop a theory of social justice based on the ‘capabilities approach’, which she places generally within the tradition of ‘liberal conceptions’ the author analyses three social issues which could not be resolved, or even really addressed by traditional theories of justice—the problem of achieving justice for persons with physical and mental disability, of extending justice to all citizens of the world, and lastly the problem of doing justice in relation to the treatment of ‘non-human animals’ she helps us to think more clearly about the purpose of political cooperation and the nature of political principles—and to look to a future of greater justice for all

"A stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remained tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." --

In 1988, in what was probably one of the last trials of a Nazi war criminal and the first of such trials to take place in France, Klaus Barbie, the notorious "Butcher of Lyon", was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Yet despite the memories stirred, despite the verdict, to Alain Finkielkraut the trial was a moral failure. In Remembering in Vain, Finkielkraut maintains that the Barbie trial attests to the failure of international society to take responsibility for criminals of state. Trying Barbie not only for actions against Jews but also for actions against the Resistance―actions heretofore considered war crimes, on which the statute of limitations had run out―blurred the definition of crimes against humanity. Finkielkraut finds most disturbing how seriously taken were the arguments of the defence. By manipulating the guilty conscience of the West, Barbie's Vietnamese-French, Congolese, and Algerian lawyers became accusers, disputing the special significance of the Holocaust and portraying nearly everyone as a Nazi―except the former Nazi himself. Finkielkraut points to the ultimate irony of this Third World defense of a Nazi.

"Among the greatest intellectual heroes of modern times, Raphael Lemkin lived an extraordinary life of struggle and hardship, yet altered international law and redefined the world's understanding of group rights. He invented the concept and word "genocide" and propelled the idea into international legal status. An uncommonly creative pioneer in ethical thought, he twice was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although Lemkin died alone and in poverty, he left behind a model for a life of activism, a legacy of major contributions to international law, and--not least--an unpublished autobiography. Presented here for the first time is his own account of his life, from his boyhood on a small farm in Poland with his Jewish parents, to his perilous escape from Nazi Europe, through his arrival in the United States and rise to influence as an academic, thinker, and revered lawyer of international criminal law"--

National Bestseller Fully Updated Ron Suskind’s book promises to be a bracing international thriller – an ensemble of uranium merchants and panicked diplomats, stealthy Jihadist soldiers and CIA operatives, anxious Muslim children and angry world leaders – a diverse cast of players who will define the struggle between hope and fear in the modern era. Suskind will close the Bush years – a period he has helped to define – with a startling glimpse at what America actually faces across the roiling world. In the intelligence and military communities, the overwhelming concern is the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons and the ingredients from which weapons can be composed across a globe exploding with conflict and anti-American fervour. It is a failure of government that we are left with this overwhelming security issue – both domestically, where our security is deeply compromised, and internationally, where we face a host of seen and unseen threats. This book will explode in the middle of an election year with unparalleled disclosures and analysis. The book’s nature and timing will place it at the very centre of the election battle as it enters its final six months. It will be a must-read for anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent.

Robert Eisenman's classic work, Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Sharia, examines how Islamic law, such as Shari law, survived in Palestine and Israel in a pure form perhaps longer than in any other Ottoman successor state. It did this for a variety of reasons, chief among which are the innate conservatism of the British and the inability of the Israelis, particularly in the country's early days, to do much about it. Besides Lebanon and Gaza, only in Israel did those three great monuments of Islamic and Ottoman modernism: the Ottoman Law of Family Rights, the Ottoman Land Code, and the Mecelle-i Akham-i Adliye, survive simultaneously. Author, Robert Eisenman, traces this continuity from Ottoman times in terms understandable to both specialists, lawyers, and laypersons. The anomaly of Islamic laws', such as Sharia law, survival against the backdrop of British legal concepts and renascent Jewish nationalism is delineated completely. Detailed attention is also given to the effect, or non-effect, of such Israeli reforms in Women's Equal Rights Law on the Muslim community and on Islamic law, as well as to the creation of Israeli hybrid laws, such as the Land Law of 1969, and a new Israeli modernism. The situation in Israel today remains more or less the same. In some areas beyond the 1967 Green Lines, where Israeli Law has been applied, it is as described in this book. In others, which have not been annexed or where it has not, Jordanian Law for the most part still obtains.

"Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world. Feldman goes back to the roots of classical Islamic law, under which executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the sharia. That balance was destroyed under Ottoman rule, resulting in the unchecked executive dominance that continues to distort politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims through sharia--but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power. In a new introduction, Feldman discusses developments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and other Muslim-majority countries since the Arab Spring and describes how Islamists must meet the challenge of balance if the new Islamic states are to succeed."--P. [4] of cover.

Treason of the Heart is an account of British people who took up foreign causes. Not mercenaries, then, but ideologues. Almost all were what today we would call radicals or activists, who thought they knew better than whichever bunch of backward or oppressed people it was that they had come to save. Usually they were applying to others what they saw as the benefits of their culture, and so obviously meritorious was their culture that they were prepared to be violent in imposing it. Some genuinely hated their own country, however, and saw themselves promoting abroad the values their own retrograde government was blocking. The book deals with those like Thomas Paine who saw American independence as the surest means to hurt England; the many who hoped to spread the French revolution and then have Napoleon conquer England; historic characters like Lord Byron and Lawrence of Arabia who fought for the causes that brought them glory; finally those who took up Communism or Nazism. Treason of the Heart is nothing less than the tale of intellectuals deluded about the effect of what they are doing and therefore with immediate reference to today's world.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter ii the uses of A king The reason why we trust one man, rather than many, is because one man can negotiate and many men can't. Two masses of people have no way of dealing directly with each other. They have to deal through representatives. It is a pure fiction to speak of negotiations between the United States and Germany. For when you look around to find the "United States" you discover a hundred million people spread over vast territory, with certain common habits, ideas, and loyalties, but nowhere do you find anything called the "United States " which can strike a bargain with "Germany." The American people cannot all seize the same pen and indite a note to sixty-five million people living within the German Empire. They cannot say: We ask for this, but if you will grant that, we'll do so-and-so, and then we'll both be satisfied. Each man may know what he thinks (a tremendous assumption), but what "we the American people" think is one of the most difficult matters in the world to find out. We all try to find it out. The papers print editorial comment from different parts of the country, they interview leaders of opinion, publish letters from correspondents, take straw ballots, and ask questions in the smoking-room of the club, on the street car, and at the quick-lunch counter. They may throw some light on the general reaction to a particular event. But more accurate than this it is hardly possible to be. The "will" and "mind" and "voice" of a great people are not the same thing as the will and mind and voice of a single man. When an individual thinks out a course of action, he goes through a delicate mental operation, a good part of which is unconscious. But a whole people can no more think in unison than it can make love in...

In this important book prominent international human rights lawyer Michael Ratner combines with political journalist Ellen Ray to reveal the truth about the government, the prisoners, and the legal and human issues involved. Features a forward by the Australian lawyer representing David Hicks who is imprisoned there.

Commemorating Morton Deutsch's 95th birthday, this book presents ten major texts by this highly respected social psychologist on war and peace. This second volume presents Deutsch in his role as a leading social science activist on issues of war and peace - writing papers, making speeches and participating in demonstrations. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and being awarded two Distinguished Flying Cross medals, as a psychologist he was determined to work for a more peaceful world. Influenced by Kurt Lewin, who believed that nothing was as practical as a good theory, Deutsch pursued theoretical work on such issues as cooperation-competition, conflict resolution and social justice with regard to issues of war and peace. As President of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Society of Political Psychology, he helped to foster social science efforts to make for a more peaceful world.

In Apollo and Thelma , broadcaster and lawyer Jon Faine shares a yarn that has enthralled him for forty years, taking him from Melbourne's depression-era slums to the isolation of the outback. Apollo and Thelma have been a constant in Jon Faine's life for decades. As a young lawyer, he was captivated by his favourite client, the Mighty Apollo, a legendary strongman and circus star, famous for pulling trams with his teeth and having an elephant stand on him. Apollo's sister, Thelma, on the other hand, ruthless and rugged, had survived decades running solo one of the most remote pubs in the outback until unexpectedly dying, leaving behind a complicated estate. Befriending Apollo and immersing himself in Thelma's estate, Jon is forced to untangle a long line of astonishing stories and episodes in our distant and recent history that keep intersecting with his own. Via the circuitous route of these two larger-than-life characters - alongside a supporting cast of characters from the world of politics, law, literature and media - Jon reflects on their stories and is inevitably forced to rethink his own. Apollo and Thelma is a uniquely Australian story, beautifully told.

Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution is one of the most important additions to the arsenal of marxism. It was first developed by Trotsky in 1904, on the eve of the first Russian Revolution. At that time, all the tendencies of the Russian Social Democracy had the perspective of a bourgeois democratic revolution. Trotsky alone in 1905 put forward the idea that the Russian working class could come to power before the workers of Western Europe. The correctness of Trotsky's theory was brilliantly demonstrated in 1917, when the Bolshevik Party under Lenin and Trotsky led the Russian proletariat to power in the first workers state in the world. However, after the death of Lenin in 1924, the theory of the permanent revolution was subject to a vitriolic onslaught by the stalinist bureaucracy, which had in effect renounced world revolution in favour of "socialism in one country". The attack on the theory came to epitomise the struggle against "Trotskyism". Today, however, with the collapse of Stalinism (and with it "socialism in one country"), Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution has become more relevant than ever. This edition contains an introduction by Alan Woods, editor of marxist.com.