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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
This title tells the story of how the transition to democracy in
South Africa enfranchised blacks politically but without raising
most of them from poverty. It shows in detail how the continuing
strength of the white establishment forces the leaders of the
African National Congress (ANC) to compromise plans for full
political and economic transformation. Deferring the economic
transformation, the new dispensation nurtures a small black elite.
The new elite absorbs the economic interests of the established
white elites while continuing to share racial identities with the
majority of their countrymen, muffling the divisions between rich
whites and poor blacks, thus ensuring political stability in the
new South Africa. Although democratic South Africa is officially
"non-racial," the title shows that racial solidarities continue to
play a role in the country's political economy. Ironically, racial
identities, which ultimately proved the undoing of apartheid, have
come to the rescue of contemporary democratic capitalism. The
author explains how and why racial solidarities are being revamped,
focusing particularly on the role of black economic empowerment,
the black bourgeoisie, and how calls to represent the identities of
black South Africans are having the effect of substituting the
racial interests of black elites for the economic interests of the
black poor.
Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. When he leaves
his lucrative law career for a foreign correspondent post in a
Portuguese backwater with a homegrown terrorist movement, Edgar
recognizes Barrington Saddler, the disappeared reporter he's
replacing, as the larger-than-life character he longs to emulate.
Yet all is not as it appears. Os Soldados Ousados de Barba--"The
Daring Soldiers of Barba" --have been blowing up the rest of the
world for years in order to win independence for a province so
dismal and backward that you couldn't give the rathole away. So
why, with Barrington vanished, do incidents claimed by the "SOB"
suddenly dry up? A droll, playful novel, The New Republic addresses
terrorism with a deft, tongue-in- cheek touch while also pressing a
more intimate question: What makes particular people so magnetic,
while the rest of us inspire a shrug?
The Roosevelts is a brilliant and controversial account of twentieth-century American political culture as seen through the lens of its preeminent political dynasty. Peter Collier shows how Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, along with their descendants, scrambled to define the direction that American politics would take. The Oyster Bay clan, influenced by the flamboyant Teddy, was extroverted, eccentric, tradition-bound, and family-oriented. They represented an age of American innocence that would be replaced by Franklin's Hyde Park Roosevelts, who were aloof and cold yet individualistic and progressive. Drawing on extensive interviews and brimming with trenchant anecdotes, this historical portrait casts new light on the pivotal events and personalities that shaped the Roosevelt legacy -- from Eleanor's often brutal relationship with her children and Theodore Jr.'s undoing in the 1924 New York gubernatorial race, to the heroism of Teddy's sons during both World Wars and FDR's loveless marriage. The Roosevelts is history at its most penetrating, a crucial work that illuminates the foundations of contemporary, American politics.
In "We Learn Nothing," satirical cartoonist Tim Kreider turns his
funny, brutally honest eye to the dark truths of the human
condition, asking big questions about human-sized problems: What if
you survive a brush with death and it doesn't change you? Why do we
fall in love with people we don't even like? How do you react when
someone you've known for years unexpectedly changes genders?
With a perfect combination of humor and pathos, these essays,
peppered with Kreider's signature cartoons, leave us with newfound
wisdom and a unique prism through which to examine our own chaotic
journeys through life. These are the conversations you have only
with best friends or total strangers, late at night over drinks,
near closing time.
This edition also includes the sensationally popular essay "The
Busy Trap," as seen in the "New York Times."
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Know Your Place
(Hardcover)
Justin R Phillips; Foreword by David P. Gushee
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The Internet stock bubble wasn't just about goggle-eyed day traderstrying to get rich on the Nasdaq and goateed twenty-five-year-olds playing wannabe Bill Gates. It was also about an America that believed it had discovered the secret of eternal prosperity: it said something about all of us, and what we thought about ourselves, as the twenty-first century dawned. John Cassidy's Dot.con brings this tumultuous episode to life. Moving from the Cold War Pentagon to Silicon Valley to Wall Street and into the homes of millions of Americans, Cassidy tells the story of the great boom and bust in an authoritative and entertaining narrative. Featuring all the iconic figures of the Internet era -- Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Alan Greenspan, and many others -- and with a new Afterword on the aftermath of the bust, Dot.con is a panoramic and stirring account of human greed and gullibility.
The belief that Native Americans might belong to the fabled "lost
tribes of Israel"-Israelites driven from their homeland around 740
BCE-took hold among Anglo-Americans and Indigenous peoples in the
United States during its first half century. In Lost Tribes Found,
Matthew W. Dougherty explores what this idea can tell us about
religious nationalism in early America. Some white Protestants,
Mormons, American Jews, and Indigenous people constructed
nationalist narratives around the then-popular idea of "Israelite
Indians." Although these were minority viewpoints, they reveal that
the story of religion and nationalism in the early United States
was more complicated and wide-ranging than studies of American
"chosen-ness" or "manifest destiny" suggest. Telling stories about
Israelite Indians, Dougherty argues, allowed members of specific
communities to understand the expanding United States, to envision
its transformation, and to propose competing forms of sovereignty.
In these stories both settler and Indigenous intellectuals found
biblical explanations for the American empire and its stark racial
hierarchy. Lost Tribes Found goes beyond the legal and political
structure of the nineteenth-century U.S. empire. In showing how the
trope of the Israelite Indian appealed to the emotions that bound
together both nations and religious groups, the book adds a new
dimension and complexity to our understanding of the history and
underlying narratives of early America.
From legal expert and veteran author Bryan Garner comes a unique,
intimate, and compelling memoir of his friendship with the late
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. For almost thirty years,
Antonin Scalia was arguably the most influential and controversial
Justice on the United States Supreme Court. His dynamic and witty
writing devoted to the Constitution has influenced an entire
generation of judges. Based on his reputation for using scathing
language to criticize liberal court decisions, many people presumed
Scalia to be gruff and irascible. But to those who knew him as
"Nino," he was characterized by his warmth, charm, devotion, fierce
intelligence, and loyalty. Bryan Garner's friendship with Justice
Scalia was instigated by celebrated writer David Foster Wallace and
strengthened over their shared love of language. Despite their
differing viewpoints on everything from gun control to the use of
contractions, their literary and personal relationship flourished.
Justice Scalia even officiated at Garner's wedding. In this
humorous, touching, and surprisingly action-packed memoir, Garner
gives a firsthand insight into the mind, habits, and faith of one
of the most famous and misunderstood judges in the world.
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