Left to Right: The cultural shift from words to pictures is an in-depth study of the influence digital technology has had on the way we communicate, and the increasingly visual nature of our culture.
“In heavy seas, to stay on course it is indispensable to lean hard left at times, then hard right. The important thing is to have the courage to follow your intellect. Wherever the evidence leads. To the left or to the right.” –Michael Novak Engagingly, writing as if to old friends and foes, Michael Novak shows how Providence (not deliberate choice) placed him in the middle of many crucial events of his time: a month in wartime Vietnam, the student riots of the 1960s, the Reagan revolution, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Bill Clinton's welfare reform, and the struggles for human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also spent fascinating days, sometimes longer, with inspiring leaders like Sargent Shriver, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, Jack Kemp, Václav Havel, President Reagan, Lady Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, who helped shape—and reshape—his political views. Yet through it all, as Novak’s sharply etched memoir shows, his focus on helping the poor and defending universal human rights remained constant; he gradually came to see building small businesses and envy-free democracies as the only realistic way to build free societies. Without economic growth from the bottom up, democracies are not stable. Without protections for liberties of conscience and economic creativity, democracies will fail. Free societies need three liberties in one: economic liberty, political liberty, and liberty of spirit. Novak’s writing throughout is warm, fast paced, and often very beautiful. His narrative power is memorable.
Intellectual biography of Holocaust historian Lucy S. Dawidowicz. From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History is the first comprehensive biography of Dawidowicz (1915–1990), a pioneer historian in the field that is now called Holocaust studies. Dawidowicz was a household name in the postwar years, not only because of her scholarship but also due to her political views. Dawidowicz, like many other New York intellectuals, was a youthful communist, became an FDR democrat midcentury, and later championed neoconservatism. Nancy Sinkoff argues that Dawidowicz’s rightward shift emerged out of living in prewar Poland, watching the Holocaust unfold from New York City, and working with displaced persons in postwar Germany. Based on over forty-five archival collections, From Left to Right chronicles Dawidowicz’s life as a window into the major events and issues of twentieth-century Jewish life.
Following the collapse of communism and the decline of Marxism, some commentators have claimed that we have reached the 'end of history' and that the distinction between Left and Right can be forgotten. In this book - which was a tremendous success in Italy - Norberto Bobbio challenges these views, arguing that the fundamental political distinction between Left and Right, which has shaped the two centuries since the French Revolution, has continuing relevance today. Bobbio explores the grounds of this elusive distinction and argues that Left and Right are ultimately divided by different attitudes to equality. He carefully defines the nature of equality and inequality in relative rather than absolute terms. Left and Right is a timely and persuasively argued account of the basic parameters of political action and debate in the modern world - parameters which have remained constant despite the pace of social change. The book will be widely read and, as in Italy, it will have an impact far beyond the academic domain.
An in-depth look at the political landscape of Saskatchewan from its leftist roots to its shift in recent years to the right of centre. One of the most underreported stories in Canadian politics has been the political and economic transformation of Saskatchewan. The province that was the birthplace of the CCF-NDP and democratic socialism in North America has, over the last fifty years, undergone fundamental change that has altered its identity. It is now seen as the bastion of the centre-right Saskatchewan Party, which has become one of the most dominant provincial political parties in Canada. The story of that transformation, in which the once powerful NDP has been relegated to the political margins, reaches far beyond the province itself and reflects national and global events that have shaped the province over the course of the last half century. Modern Saskatchewan politics have been less about ideology and more about the influence of issues and events since the late 1960s and the lure of populist leaders who speak to an identity rooted in the province's history. Consistent with Saskatchewan's history, From Left to Right presents a blend of populism, a deeply embedded spirit of independence and personal initiative, coupled with communitarian values and the constant search for a better future.
The words "left" and "right" often signal a political divide in debates about topics as diverse as abortion, capital punishment, gun control, social welfare, taxation, immigration, and the environment. Despite claims that political polarization is in decline, its persistence suggests that it is inherent to our society. At the same time, variations in the perception of each side indicate that these labels do not fully capture the reality of ideological disagreement. In Left and Right, Christopher Cochrane traces the origins of this political language to the very nature of ideology. What is ideology, what does it look like, and how does it manifest itself in patterns of political disagreement in Western democracies? Drawing on five decades of evidence from political scientists, including public opinion surveys, elite surveys, and content analysis of political party election platforms, Cochrane employs a new method to analyze the structure and evolution of the left/right divide in twenty-one Western countries since 1945. He then delves into the central argument of the book - that the language of left and right describes a meaningful, perceptible, and quantifiable pattern of political disagreement that has persisted over time and around the world. Calling for an adjustment to the way we view Canadian politics, Left and Right opens a window into the world of political ideologies - a world we see every day, but rarely analyze, define, or agree on.
Learning left from right can be difficult for children. The Left Right book explains how left and right work, and guides children in learning left from right through examples and exercises. The book is a fun way to learn this important concept.
McManus considers evidence from anthropology, particle physics, the history of medicine, and the notebooks of Leonardo to answer questions like: Why are most people right-handed? Why does European writing go from left to right, while Arabic and Hebrew go from right to left? And how do we know that Jack the Ripper was left-handed?
Originally published in 1976, this title deals with the problem of how we tell left from right. The authors argue that the ability to tell left from right depends ultimately on a bodily asymmetry, such as preference for one or the other hand, or dominance of one side of the brain. This has implications for child development, reading disability, navigation, art, and culture.