After her beloved dad got addicted to right-wing talk radio and Fox News, Jen Senko feared he would never be the same again... Frank Senko had always known how to have a good time. Despite growing up in a poverty-stricken family during the Depression and having to fight his way to middle-class status as an adult, he tended to look on the bright side. But after a job change forced Frank to begin a long car commute every day, his daughter Jen noticed changes in his personality and beliefs. Long hours on the road listening to talk radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh sucked her father into a suspicion-laden worldview dominated by conspiracy theories, fake news, and rants about the "coastal elite" and "libtards" trying to destroy America. Over the course of a few years, Jen's dad went from a nonpolitical, open-minded Democrat to a radical, angry, and intolerant right-wing devotee who became a stranger to those closest to him. As politics began to take precedence over everything else in her father's life, Jen was mystified. What happened to her dad? Was there anything she could do to help? And, most importantly, would he ever be his lovable self again? Jen began the search for answers, and found them... as well stories from countless other families like her own. Based on the award-winning documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad uncovers the alarming right-wing strategy to wield the media as a weapon against our very democracy. Jen's story shows us how Fox News and other ultra-conservative media outlets are reshaping the way millions of Americans view the world, and encourages us to fight back.

Trouble in the Tribe explores the increasingly contentious place of Israel in the American Jewish community. In a fundamental shift, growing numbers of American Jews have become less willing to unquestioningly support Israel and more willing to publicly criticize its government. More than ever before, American Jews are arguing about Israeli policies, and many, especially younger ones, are becoming uncomfortable with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Dov Waxman argues that Israel is fast becoming a source of disunity for American Jewry, and that a new era of American Jewish conflict over Israel is replacing the old era of solidarity. Drawing on a wealth of in-depth interviews with American Jewish leaders and activists, Waxman shows why Israel has become such a divisive issue among American Jews. He delves into the American Jewish debate about Israel, examining the impact that the conflict over Israel is having on Jewish communities, national Jewish organizations, and on the pro-Israel lobby. Waxman sets this conflict in the context of broader cultural, political, institutional, and demographic changes happening in the American Jewish community. He offers a nuanced and balanced account of how this conflict over Israel has developed and what it means for the future of American Jewish politics. Israel used to bring American Jews together. Now it is driving them apart. Trouble in the Tribe explains why.

By turns radical, uncertain, ambitious and autocratic, Mikhail Gorbachev and his bid to reform the Soviet Union have shaped the contemporary world. This concise and lively book provides an introduction to the man and his times, setting them in the context of a decaying and ramshackle empire and an ideology long since betrayed by its professed followers. Drawing on the latest memoirs and scholarship, this book follows Gorbachev's increasingly desperate attempts to control the forces he unleashed and hold together a state whose days were over.

This is the first survey of Unionism, the ideology of most of the rulers of the United Kingdom for the last 300 years. Because it was taken so much for granted, it has never been properly studied. Now that we stand in the twilight of Unionism, it is possible to see it as it casts its long shadow over British and imperial history since 1707.
The book looks at all the crucial moments in the history of Unionism. In 1707, the parliaments and (more important) executives of England and Scotland were united. During the 18th century, although not immediately after 1707, that union blossomed and brought benefits to both parties. It facilitated the first and second British Empires. The Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800-01 was formally similar but behaviourally quite different. It was probably doomed from the start when George III refused to accept Catholic Emancipation. Nevertheless, no leading British politician heeded the Irish clamour for Home Rule until Gladstone in 1886. That cataclysmic year has determined the shape of British and Irish politics ever since. Having refused to concede Irish Home Rule through the heyday of primordial Unionism from 1886 to 1920, British politicians had to accept Irish independence in 1921, whereupon primordial Unionism fell apart except in Northern Ireland. Twentieth-century Unionism has been instrumental - valuing the Union for its consequences, not because it was intrinsically good.
As Unionism was inextricably tied up with the British Empire, it nevertheless remained as a strong but unexamined theme until the end of Empire. The unionist parties (Conservative and Labour) responded to the upsurge of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, and of violence in Northern Ireland, in the light of their mostly unexamined unionism in the 1960s. With the departure from politics of the last Unionists (Enoch Powell and John Major), British politics is now subtly but profoundly different.

Equal opportunity is a powerful idea, and one with extremely broad appeal in contemporary politics, political theory, and law. But what does it mean? On close examination, the most attractive existing conceptions of equal opportunity turn out to be impossible to achieve in practice, or even in theory. As long as families are free to raise their children differently, no two people's opportunities will be equal; nor is it possible to disentangle someone's abilities or talents from her background advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, given different abilities and disabilities, different people need different opportunities, confounding most ways of imagining what counts as "equal." This book proposes an entirely new way of thinking about the project of equal opportunity. Instead of focusing on the chimera of literal equalization, we ought to work to broaden the range of opportunities open to people at every stage in life. We can achieve this in part by loosening the bottlenecks that constrain access to opportunities-the narrow places through which people must pass in order to pursue many life paths that open out on the other side. A bottleneck might be a test like the SAT, a credential requirement like a college degree, or a skill like speaking English. It might be membership in a favored caste or racial group. Bottlenecks are part of the opportunity structure of every society. But their severity varies. By loosening them, we can build a more open and pluralistic opportunity structure in which people have more of a chance, throughout their lives, to pursue paths they choose for themselves-rather than those dictated by limited opportunities. This book develops this idea and other elements of opportunity pluralism, then applies this approach to several contemporary egalitarian policy problems: class and access to education, workplace flexibility and work/family conflict, and antidiscrimination law.

What do classical elitists like Pareto and Mosca have in common with Marxists like Labriola and Gramsci? In this collection of essays, Joseph Femia argues that all four thinkers are united by the 'worldly humanism' they inherited from Machiavelli. Their distinctively Italian hostility to the metaphysical abstractions of natural law and Christian theology accounted for similarities in their thought that are obscured by the familiar terminology of 'left' and 'right'. The collection includes critical essays on each of the four thinkers, as well as an introductory chapter on their links with Machiavelli.

This book is about the metamorphosis of national ideology in Ba'thist Iraq. By "ideology" the reference is to a very broad sense of the term, closer to a "collection of political proposals...somewhat intellectualistic" than to a comprehensive world view or an interpretation of history fully, systematically and rigorously thought out, presented and elaborated. Speeches by leading politicans, historiography and the writings of intellectuals in regard to Iraq's political community, are considered here as ideology, even if these ideas do not constitute a complete "politico-social programme".;This book is an attempt to follow and analyze the change in the Ba'th party's perception and representation of Iraq as a political community. By resurrecting and imbuing with great national significance elements previously rejected, ignored or downplayed in Ba'th ideology such as territory, race and local pre-Islamic and pre-Arab historical epochs, the Ba'th regime of Iraq has sought to re-shape the collective identification of its countrymen. In several cases, this reshaping took the form of re-enforcing and fully legitimizing an already existing identification that hitherto the party had looked

Psychologist, H. John Lyke, and author of "What Would Our Founding Fathers Say?," asks the question:

"At the end of this century, will the United States still be a world leader or will we continue to be an inferior caricature of what we once were or, even worse, will we have become another fallen empire? Put another way, will the dreams and promises of Americans for their country continue to become unattainable?"

This book offers political straight talk about today's issues between the right and the left by looking through the eyes of the patriots who wrote the plans for our fledging nation. Are we following that plan? What was between the lines that our representatives seem to have forgotten? What was expected of the citizenry that the rest of us are neglecting to do? Lyke provides a clear and impassioned plea to get back to basics. And he shows us, in this treatise of some substance, why the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights were written, and why those superb documents continue to stand the test of time.

Lyke believes he has provided the bipartisan political formula necessary for his children and grandchildren, as well as his fellow Americans living in this country, to be able to live their lives with dignity, respect and a sense of purpose and pride of accomplishment - in a way not possible in the world of politics today.

ANTHONY L. HALL takes aim at the global events of 2013 with a unique and refreshing perspective. Here are some of the topics he addresses: Public outrage over NSA spying"There's no rationalizing their outrage over the NSA monitoring their promiscuous and indiscriminate footprints (online and via telephone). For, evidently, these nincompoops think it's okay for Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook, and others to spy on them to sell them stuff, but not okay for the NSA to do so to keep them safe."National praise NBA player Jason Collins got for coming out"His courageous stand is somewhat undermined by the fact that he waited to take it on his way out of the league."

Women who'd rather pose nude than be caught without makeup

"Who would've thought the liberation inherent in the sexual revolution and feminist movement would devolve into a self-abnegating farce where women themselves consider it a 'brave decision' to go out in public without makeup?"

Mediterranean Sea becoming a graveyard for Africans migrants

"I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women, and children) are risking their lives, practically every day, to subjugate themselves to the paternal mercies of their former colonial masters in Europe."

Pope rebuking church for neglecting poor

"Nothing indicates how far mainstream Christians have backslidden quite like the pope's good old-fashioned religion being hailed as revolutionary."

World paying tribute to Nelson Mandela

"As you see the most powerful people in the world falling all over themselves to sing Mandela's praises in the coming days, bear in mind that the people Mandela himself loved and admired most (outside of family members) are old comrades--most of whom you will never see on TV or social media."

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2019 Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020 'If you have even the slightest interest in Orwell or in the development of our culture, you should not miss this engrossing, enlightening book.' John Carey, Sunday Times George Orwell's last novel has become one of the iconic narratives of the modern world. Its ideas have become part of the language - from 'Big Brother' to the 'Thought Police', 'Doublethink', and 'Newspeak' - and seem ever more relevant in the era of 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. The cultural influence of 1984 can be observed in some of the most notable creations of the past seventy years, from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, from Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta to David Bowie's Diamond Dogs - and from the launch of Apple Mac to the reality TV landmark, Big Brother. In this remarkable and original book. Dorian Lynskey investigates the influences that came together in the writing of 1984 from Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War and war-time London to his book's roots in utopian and dystopian fiction. He explores the phenomenon that the novel became on publication and the changing ways in which it has been read over the decades since. 2019 marks the seventieth anniversary of the publication of what is arguably Orwell's masterpiece, while the year 1984 itself is now as distant from us as it was from Orwell on publication day. The Ministry of Truth is a fascinating examination of one of the most significant works of modern English literature. It describes how history can inform fiction and how fiction can influence history.

In recent years, the English School or international society approach to International Relations has risen to prominence because its theories and concepts seem able to help us explain some of the most complex and seemingly paradoxical features of contemporary world politics. In doing so, the approach has attracted a variety of criticisms from both ends of the political spectrum. Some argue that the claim that states form an international society is premature in an era of terror where power politics and the use of force have returned to the fore. Others insist that international society's state-centrism make it an inherently conservative approach unable to address many of the world's most pressing problems. International Society and its Critics provides the first in-depth study of the English School approach to International Relations from a variety of different theoretical and practical perspectives. Sixteen leading scholars from three continents critically evaluate the School's contribution to the study of international theory and history; consider its relationship with a variety of alternative perspectives including international political economy, feminism, environmentalism, and critical security studies; and assess how the approach can help us to make sense of the big issues of the day such as terrorism, the management of cultural difference, global governance, the ethics of coercion, and the role of international law. They find that whilst the concept of international society helps to shed light on many of the important tensions in world politics, much work still needs to be done. In particular, the approach needs to broaden its empirical scope to incorporate more of the issues and actors that shape global politics; draw upon other theoretical traditions to improve its explanations of change in world politics; and recognize the complex and multi-layered nature of the contemporary world.

The Lega Nord, one of the most important right-wing populist parties in Western Europe, is the focus of this well researched look into Italian regional politics. The author links the Lega Nord's rise to the socio-economic development of the north over the south in Italy and the political process which created a voting block in the south. This led the north of Italy to see "Rome" as a predatory entity, drawing resources and impeding progress in the north to support the south. The author examines this process and explores the implications it produces for the whole of Europe.

In this collection, innovative and eminent social and policy analysts, including Colin Crouch, Anna Coote, Grahame Thompson and Ted Benton, challenge the failing but still dominant ideology and policies of neo-liberalism. The editors synthesise contributors' ideas into a revised framework for social democracy; rooted in feminism, environmentalism, democratic equality and market accountability to civil society. This constructive and stimulating collection will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for transformative political, economic and social policies.

Define and rule focuses on the turn in late nineteenth-century colonial statecraft when Britain abandoned the attempt to eradicate difference between conqueror and conquered and introduced a new idea of governance, as the definition and management of difference. Mahmood Mamdani explores how lines were drawn between settler and native as distinct political identities, and between natives according to tribe. Out of that colonial experience issued a modern language of pluralism and difference. A mid-nineteenth-century crisis of empire attracted the attention of British intellectuals and led to a reconception of the colonial mission, and to reforms in India, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The new politics, inspired by Sir Henry Maine, established that natives were bound by geography and custom, rather than history and law, and made this the basis of administrative practice. Maine's theories were later translated into "native administration" in the African colonies. Mamdani takes the case of Sudan to demonstrate how colonial law established tribal identity as the basis for determining access to land and political power, and follows this law's legacy to contemporary Darfur. He considers the intellectualand political dimensions of African movements toward decolonization by focusing on two key fi gures: the Nigerian historian Yusuf Bala Usman, who argued for an alternative to colonial historiography, and Tanzania's first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who realized that colonialism's political logic was legal and administrative, not military, and could be dismantled through nonviolent reforms.

Federalism and Regionalism in Western Europe seeks to clarify the relevance, problems and consequences of operating federal systems of government in Western Europe. It discusses the institutional features of federalism and regionalism and brings in recent insights from the viewpoint of neo-institutional scholarship. Rather than providing a case-by-case approach, the book offers a thematic analysis of federalism and regionalism. In addition, the book also analyzes and explains varieties in the allocation of resources, in the political decision-making process and in the policy content and problem-solving capacity of West-European federal and regional states.

This book examines the response to right-wing extremism in the US from both the government and non-governmental organisations. It provides a detailed portrait of the contemporary extreme right in the US including interviews with several of the movement's leading figures from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Militias, American Renaissance and the White Aryan Resistance. The author also explains how the activities of these racist groups have been curbed due to the campaigning efforts of anti-racist and anti-fascist watchdogs who have helped to shape and influence government policy.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203563212

This in-depth examination looks at African American women's navigation of the interlocking obstacles of race and gender specifically within the political arena. Conflict: African American Women and the New Dilemma of Race and Gender Politics offers a provocative examination of an increasingly important voting bloc, one that impacted the 2008 election and whose loyalties will have far-reaching implications for future contests. This fascinating study is three-pronged. It explores the conflicts African American women experience in prioritizing race over gender, offers data-backed analysis of the substantial power of this bloc to influence elections, and looks at the ways in which the very existence of that influence impacts the political and social empowerment of this dual-identity population. As background to the present-day story, the book surveys the history of African American females in elective office in the United States, as well as their roles in the Women's Suffrage and Civil Rights movements. The first work to undertake a study of African American women in this expansive political context, this important volume will help readers assess where African American women have been, where they are now, and what their roles might be in the future. Quotes from African American women about their dual-identity conflicts A bibliography

This collection of essays breaks new ground by providing an unparalleled snapshot of new work in political philosophy. The book brings together up-and-coming scholars from across the globe using such diverse methodologies as critical theory and social choice theory, historical analysis and conceptual analysis. The volume demonstrates the vibrancy of contemporary political theorizing not only when treating perennial topics-democracy, equality, legitimacy, liberty, patriotism, political freedom, rationality-but also when revivifying topics briefly out of favor-human needs, ideology, judgment, political aesthetics-and tackling topics more recently put on the agenda-citizenship, collective agency, cultural contexts, feminism, identity, multiculturalism, social suffering, subjectivity.

With the "Tangentopoli" corruption scandals of the early 1990s, Italy is purported recently to have experienced a period of political change comparable to the period immediately following World War II. This latter being the socio-political environment in which the concept of "impegno" - political commitment - in literature became current, this work asks whether an equivalent moment of constitutional crisis in the 1990s has had a comparable impact on perceptions of the role of the writer and of literature in Italian society. This volume traces the development of "impegno" (political commitment) in post-war Italian prose literature using the metaphor of fragmentation: the monolithic notion of commitment to an overarching political agenda has splintered, facilitating a fragmentary attention to specific issues.Part One examines the early "impegno" debate through the critical works of Vittorini, Calvino and Pasolini, tracing it forward into the 1960s and 1970s. The remaining three parts study in detail the "fragments of impegno" offered by contemporary authors - Tabucchi, Ramondino, De Carlo, Tondelli, Ballestra, and African immigrant writers, including Fazel, Melliti and Methnani. This range of authors and texts illustrates the ways in which socio-political issues are explicitly or implicitly addressed, represented, or embedded in contemporary Italian literature.

This book examines the impact of states and their policies on visual art. States shape the role of art and artists in society, influence the development of audiences, support artistic work, and even affect the very nature of artistic production. The book contrasts developments in the United States with art policies in Britain and in the social democratic states of Norway and Sweden. In addition, it analyzes revealing transitions - the changes brought about in East Germany after unification and the experiences of artists who left the Soviet Union for the west. The result is a significant contribution to the sociology and the political economy of art.

Around 18 million young Chinese people were sent to the countryside between 1966 and 1976 as part of the Cultural Revolution. In this collection of interviews with former Red Guards, members of the first generation to be born under Chairman Mao talk frankly about the dramatic changes which have occurred in China since 1980. In discussing the impact these changes have had on their own lives, the former revolutionaries give a direct insight into how ex-Maoists view contemporary China, revealing an attitude perhaps more critical than that of most Western commentators. These memoirs tell the very personal stories of how people from all walks of life were affected by both the cultural revolution and Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. They cover subjects as diverse as marriage and divorce, the privatization of industry, family relationships, universities and the stock market.

Communism's collapse both prompted and was accelerated by the long-anticipated reunification of Germany. What were the political and social undercurrents that led to the abrupt collapse of East Germany? What problems have arisen since reunification? Clearly, communism has left a cultural and political void that begs to be assessed.

Laurence McFalls here offers a full understanding of communism's collapse, providing an explanation for the cultural conflicts and the identity crisis that have afflicted Germany since reunification. Testing the validity of the common theories of Eastern European collapse, the work criticizes these systemic explanations of East Germany's demise for failing to take into account the motivations of ordinary citizens who, McFalls asserts, ultimately toppled the regime. To answer the question who overthrew Honecker?, McFalls has interviewed over 200 East Germans, identifying the primary players who brought about the East German revolution of 1989.

In his in-depth examination of the artificial German state, McFalls exposes the historical, economic, social, and political legacy of communism. challenging and provocative, "Communism's Collapse, Democracy's Demise?" will be of interest to a broad scope of scholars of sociology, historians, political philosophers, and political scientiests.

How and why should hope play a key role in a twenty-first century democratic politics?
Alan Mittleman offers a philosophical exploration of the theme, contending that a modern construction of hope as an emotion is deficient. He revives the medieval understanding of hope as a virtue, reconstructing this in a contemporary philosophical idiom. In this framework, hope is less a spontaneous reaction than it is a choice against despair; a decision to live with confidence and expectation, based on a rational assessment of possibility and a faith in the underlying goodness of life.
In cultures shaped by biblical teaching, hope is thought praiseworthy. Mittleman explores the religious origins of the concept of hope in the Hebrew Scriptures, New Testament, rabbinic literature and Augustine. He traces the roots of both the praise of hope, in Jewish and Christian thought, and the criticism of hope in Greco-Roman thought and in the tradition of philosophical pessimism. Arguing on behalf of a straightened, sober form of hope, he relates hope-as-a-virtue to the tasks of democratic citizenship. Without diminishing the wisdom found in tragedy, a strong argument emerges in favour of hope as a way of taking responsibility for the world. Drawing on insights from scriptural and classical texts, philosophers, and theologians - ancient and modern, Mittleman builds a compelling case for placing hope at the centre of democratic political systems.