Confronting the Widening Gyres of the Empire
Confronting the Widening Gyres of the Empire

Author: Chinmay Routray

Publisher: Evincepub Publishing

Published: 2024-09-21

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9363558827

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In the 19th century, European colonialism imposed a hegemonic grip over Africa, profoundly disrupting indigenous societies. Chinua Achebe, a seminal figure in postcolonial literature, embarked on an intentional mission to decolonize the literary canon through his writings, particularly by restoring Igbo culture as a means to counteract colonial legacies. This book offers a critical exploration of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, analysing how colonialism restructures power dynamics within Igbo society and how Achebe as a postcolonial writer reappropriates this power. By employing an interdisciplinary approach, this book analyses the pre-colonial power configurations in Igbo society. It then advances a postcolonial analysis of the colonial usurpation of power from the indigenous Igbo centre, before culminating in an examination of Achebe’s linguistic strategies as a tool for decolonization, aimed at reappropriating power back to the indigenous Igbo centre. This book is an indispensable resource for scholars and researchers of postcolonial literature and is aimed at providing an in-depth understanding of colonial disruption to indigenous societies while simultaneously emphasizing the pivotal role of literature and language in restoring cultural agency to the native context.

The Widening Gyre
The Widening Gyre

Author: Michael R. Johnston

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2019-03-14

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 1787581462

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“The Widening Gyre is the best Space Opera I’ve read in years.” — Cemetery Dance Online The Remembrance War Book 1 Eight hundred years ago, the Zhen Empire discovered a broken human colony ship drifting in the fringes of their space. The Zhen gave the humans a place to live and folded them into their Empire as a client state. But it hasn’t been easy. Not all Zhen were eager to welcome another species into their Empire, and humans have faced persecution. For hundreds of years, human languages and history were outlawed subjects, as the Zhen tried to mold humans into their image. Earth and the cultures it nourished for millennia are forgotten, little more than legends. One of the first humans to be allowed to serve in the Zhen military, Tajen Hunt became a war hero at the Battle of Elkari, the only human to be named an official Hero of the Empire. He was given command of a task force, and sent to do the Empire’s bidding in their war with the enigmatic Tabrans. But when he failed in a crucial mission, causing the deaths of millions of people, he resigned in disgrace and faded into life on the fringes as a lone independent pilot. When Tajen discovers his brother, Daav, has been killed by agents of the Empire, he, his niece, and their newly-hired crew set out to finish his brother’s quest: to find Earth, the legendary homeworld of humanity. What they discover will shatter 800 years of peace in the Empire, and start a war that could be the end of the human race. FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing Independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress

Decline and Fall
Decline and Fall

Author: John Michael Greer

Publisher: New Society Publisher

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1550925571

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The political theorist and author of After Progress examines the future of U.S. dominance on the world stage in this persuasive and provocative book. The decline and fall of America's global empire is the central feature of today's geopolitical landscape. How we respond to this reality will determine much of our future trajectory, with implications that reach far beyond the limits of one nation's borders. In Decline and Fall, John Michael Greer examines the path we’re on and presents a persuasive challenge to the conventional wisdom of empire. Rather than asking if today's American empire should survive, Greer asks whether it can—and goes on to demonstrate that the answer is "no.” After exploring the inevitable consequences of imperial collapse, Decline and Fall proposes a renewal of democratic institutions as the only constructive way forward.

The Novel and the Globalization of Culture
The Novel and the Globalization of Culture

Author: Michael Valdez Moses

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1995-05-25

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0195358287

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Bringing together canonical European authors with authors from the Third World, this book analyzes the emergence of the modern global novel, and the way it mirrors the underlying process of cultural globalization. Through detailed readings of Stendhal, Hardy, Conrad, Achebe, and Vargas Llosa, this study reveals how the spread of Western modernity--materially and culturally--has been shadowed by the destruction of traditional societies. These novels focus on the individual tragedies of those who represent pre-modern ways of life; in the process, offering a corrective to Hegel's abstruse philosophy of history. From rural Victorian England to the Malay Archipelago, and from the Igbo heartland in Africa to the backlands of Brazil, a global narrative unfolds, one where the forces of modernization clash with the defenders of traditional society. Moses contributes to the ongoing debate on Alexandre Kojève and the "end of history", while, at the same time, moving beyond sterile oppositions--canonical versus non-canonical works, formal literary criticism versus political/historical critique. With its new conceptualization of modernity and globalization, this book will interest the literary scholar, cultural critic, social scientist, and political theorist.

Shakespeare and Politics
Shakespeare and Politics

Author: Bruce E. Altschuler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1317252187

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William Shakespeare, more than any other author, was able to capture the essence of human nature in all its manifestations. His political plays offer enduring insights into our humanity, our vanity, our noble and baser drives, what makes us great, and what makes us loathsome. He tells us about ourselves and about our world. This volume gleans valuable lessons from the writings of William Shakespeare and applies them to contemporary politics. Original chapters covering over a dozen different plays take up perennial political themes including power and leadership, corruption and virtue, war and peace, evil and liberty, persuasion and polarization, and empire and global overreach.Features of the text:

The Two Powers
The Two Powers

Author: Brett Edward Whalen

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2019-06-21

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0812250869

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Historians commonly designate the High Middle Ages as the era of the "papal monarchy," when the popes of Rome vied with secular rulers for spiritual and temporal supremacy. Indeed, in many ways the story of the papal monarchy encapsulates that of medieval Europe as often remembered: a time before the modern age, when religious authorities openly clashed with emperors, kings, and princes for political mastery of their world, claiming sovereignty over Christendom, the universal community of Christian kingdoms, churches, and peoples. At no point was this conflict more widespread and dramatic than during the papacies of Gregory IX (1227-1241) and Innocent IV (1243-1254). Their struggles with the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II (1212-1250) echoed in the corridors of power and the court of public opinion, ranging from the battlefields of Italy to the streets of Jerusalem. In The Two Powers, Brett Edward Whalen has written a new history of this combative relationship between the thirteenth-century papacy and empire. Countering the dominant trend of modern historiography, which focuses on Frederick instead of the popes, he redirects our attention to the papal side of the historical equation. By doing so, Whalen highlights the ways in which Gregory and Innocent acted politically and publicly, realizing their priestly sovereignty through the networks of communication, performance, and documentary culture that lay at the unique disposal of the Apostolic See. Covering pivotal decades that included the last major crusades, the birth of the Inquisition, and the unexpected invasion of the Mongols, The Two Powers shows how Gregory and Innocent's battles with Frederick shaped the historical destiny of the thirteenth-century papacy and its role in the public realm of medieval Christendom.

The Dialectics of Music
The Dialectics of Music

Author: Joseph Weiss

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1350174971

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Combining the philosophy and musicology of T.W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Gilles Deleuze, alongside an exploration of the dialectical character of music production, Joseph Weiss exposes the unresolved contradictions of contemporary music. By following the outermost mediations between nature, history, and technology, the book reflects on how advanced music critically responds to the ongoing catastrophe of both the Middle Passage and Auschwitz. Following what the author calls the “categorical imperative” of music, Weiss investigates the significance of a wide range of musical phenomena including the territorialization of the lullaby, the improvisation and sorrow song of the blues and jazz, as well as the cosmological limits of the electroacoustic avant-garde. In the era of commodity production, racialized violence and dispossession, the author defends critical music as a singular index of political possibilities.

The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist
The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist

Author: Kate Fullagar

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0300249276

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A portrait of empire through the biographies of a Native American, a Pacific Islander, and the British artist who painted them both Three interconnected eighteenth-century lives offer a fresh account of the British Empire and its intrusion into Indigenous societies. This engaging history brings together the stories of Joshua Reynolds and two Indigenous men, the Cherokee Ostenaco and the Raiatean Mai. Fullagar uncovers the life of Ostenaco, tracing his emergence as a warrior, his engagement with colonists through war and peace, and his eventual rejection of imperial politics during the American Revolution. She delves into the story of Mai, his confrontation with conquest and displacement, his voyage to London on Cook’s imperial expedition, and his return home with a burning ambition to right past wrongs. Woven throughout is a new history of Reynolds, growing up in Devon near a key port in England, becoming a portraitist of empire, rising to the top of Britain’s art world and yet remaining ambivalent about his nation’s expansionist trajectory.

Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart

Author: Chinua Achebe

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1994-09-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0385474547

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“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.

American Power after 9/11
American Power after 9/11

Author: M. Astrada

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 0230106382

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This study expounds upon the composition, dynamics, and consequences of the post-9/11 global security context by positing the following overarching research question: how has the event of 9/11 further enabled the US to legitimately articulate, disseminate, and implement an absolutist security agenda (ASA) on the world stage?