Making Sense of Tyranny

Making Sense of Tyranny

Author: Simon Tormey

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780719036415

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Totalitarianism remains a central concept in political theory, as relevant today as it was in the time of Hitler and Stalin. This book tries to resolve the long-running debates about what totalitarianism is or was, how the term can be applied, and what the future of the concept might be.


Making Sense of Tyranny

Making Sense of Tyranny

Author: Simon Tormey

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780719036415

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Totalitarianism remains a central concept in political theory, as relevant today as it was in the time of Hitler and Stalin. This book tries to resolve the long-running debates about what totalitarianism is or was, how the term can be applied, and what the future of the concept might be.


The Tyranny of Merit

The Tyranny of Merit

Author: Michael J. Sandel

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0374720991

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A Times Literary Supplement’s Book of the Year 2020 A New Statesman's Best Book of 2020 A Bloomberg's Best Book of 2020 A Guardian Best Book About Ideas of 2020 The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good? These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that "you can make it if you try". The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. World-renowned philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success--more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. The Tyranny of Merit points us toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good.


The Red Prince

The Red Prince

Author: Timothy Snyder

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2008-06-03

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0465012477

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Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress. He could handle a saber, a pistol, a rudder, or a golf club; he handled women by necessity and men for pleasure. He spoke the Italian of his archduchess mother, the German of his archduke father, the English of his British royal friends, the Polish of the country his father wished to rule, and the Ukrainian of the land Wilhelm wished to rule himself. In this exhilarating narrative history, prize-winning historian Timothy D. Snyder offers an indelible portrait of an aristocrat whose life personifies the wrenching upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, as the rule of empire gave way to the new politics of nationalism. Coming of age during the First World War, Wilhelm repudiated his family to fight alongside Ukrainian peasants in hopes that he would become their king. When this dream collapsed he became, by turns, an ally of German imperialists, a notorious French lover, an angry Austrian monarchist, a calm opponent of Hitler, and a British spy against Stalin. Played out in Europe's glittering capitals and bloody battlefields, in extravagant ski resorts and dank prison cells, The Red Prince captures an extraordinary moment in the history of Europe, in which the old order of the past was giving way to an undefined future-and in which everything, including identity itself, seemed up for grabs.


On Tyranny

On Tyranny

Author: Timothy Snyder

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2017-02-28

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 0804190127

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.


The Tyranny of the Ideal

The Tyranny of the Ideal

Author: Gerald Gaus

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0691183422

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In his provocative new book, The Tyranny of the Ideal, Gerald Gaus lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. Gaus shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. He argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, Gaus points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. Gaus defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, The Tyranny of the Ideal rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.


Tyrants

Tyrants

Author: Waller R. Newell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-03-29

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1107083052

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A history of tyranny from Achilles to today's jihadists, this volume shows why tyrannical temptation is a permanent danger.


Tyranny from Plato to Trump

Tyranny from Plato to Trump

Author: Andrew Fiala

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-15

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1538160498

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Power grabs, partisan stand-offs, propaganda, and riots make for tantalizing fiction, but what do we do when that drama becomes a reality all around us? For a country founded as an escape from British tyranny, the United States seems to have devolved into a land where tyrants rise to power, sycophants blindly follow, and the entire nation suffers. As ancient Greek philosophers warned us, chaotic tragedy unfolds in the absence of reason, and the only cure is a return to wisdom and virtue. America’s founding fathers knew this lesson all too well and dreamed of an enlightened citizenry guided by better-than-ideological dictators. Using contemporary events to illuminate universal human weaknesses, Andrew Fiala charts the perennial history of tyrannical takeovers and the masses who support them and ultimately suffer under their rule. Ultimately, Fiala also points to a solution. Knowing the cyclical nature of tyranny, we can build safeguards against our worst inclinations and keep alive the freedoms our founding fathers envisioned for this nation.


The Tyranny of Science

The Tyranny of Science

Author: Paul K. Feyerabend

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2011-05-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780745651897

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Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping tale: the story of the rise of rationalism in Ancient Greece that eventually led to the entrenchment of a mythical ‘scientific worldview’. In this wide-ranging and accessible book Feyerabend challenges some modern myths about science, including the myth that ‘science is successful’. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. Far from solving the pressing problems of our age, such as war and poverty, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities, at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful. Objectivity and generality are based on abstraction, and as such, they come at a high price. For abstraction drives a wedge between our thoughts and our experience, resulting in the degeneration of both. Theoreticians, as opposed to practitioners, tend to impose a tyranny on the concepts they use, abstracting away from the subjective experience that makes life meaningful. Feyerabend concludes by arguing that practical experience is a better guide to reality than any theory, by itself, ever could be, and he stresses that there is no tyranny that cannot be resisted, even if it is exerted with the best possible intentions. Provocative and iconoclastic, The Tyranny of Science is one of Feyerabend’s last books and one of his best. It will be widely read by everyone interested in the role that science has played, and continues to play, in the shaping of the modern world.


The Tyranny of Experts

The Tyranny of Experts

Author: William Easterly

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-03-04

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0465080901

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In this "bracingly iconoclastic” book (New York Times Book Review), a renowned economics scholar breaks down the fight to end global poverty and the rights that poor individuals have had taken away for generations. In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly examines our failing efforts to fight global poverty, and argues that the "expert approved" top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for decades of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, postcolonial dictators, and US and UK foreign policymakers seeking autocratic allies. Demonstrating how our traditional antipoverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving poverty, Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development. In this masterful work, Easterly reveals the fundamental errors inherent in our traditional approach and offers new principles for Western agencies and developing countries alike: principles that, because they are predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, have the power to end global poverty once and for all.