The Totalitarian Temptation PDF Download

Author: Jean-François Revel
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Author: Todd Huizinga
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594037906
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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What caused the eurozone debacle and the chaos in Greece? Why has Europe’s migrant crisis spun out of control, over the heads of national governments? Why is Great Britain calling a vote on whether to leave the European Union? Why are established political parties declining across the continent while protest parties rise? All this is part of the whirlwind that EU elites are reaping from their efforts to create a unified Europe without meaningful accountability to average voters. The New Totalitarian Temptation: Global Governance and the Crisis of Democracy in Europe is a must-read if you want to understand how the European Union got to this point and what the European project fundamentally is. This is the first book to identify the essence of the EU in a utopian vision of a supranationally governed world, an aspiration to achieve universal peace through a global legal order. The ambitions of the global governancers are unlimited. They seek to transform not just the world’s political order, but the social order as well—discarding basic truths about human nature and the social importance of tradition in favor of a human rights policy defined by radical autonomy and unfettered individual choice. And the global governance ideology at the heart of the EU is inherently antidemocratic. EU true believers are not swayed by the common sense of voters, nor by reality itself. Because the global governancers aim to transfer core powers of all nations to supranational organizations, the EU is on a collision course with the United States. But the utopian ideas of global governance are taking root here too, even as the European project flames into rancor and turmoil. America and Europe are still cultural cousins; we stand or fall together. The EU can yet be reformed, and a commitment to democratic sovereignty can be renewed on both sides of the Atlantic.

Author:
Publisher: Social Studies
ISBN: 1575963019
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Author: Dave Peterson
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781626378247
Category : Africa, Sub-Saharan
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Disappointment with the ability of democracy to deliver economic rewards in much of Africa - and with the persistence of instability, corruption, and poor governance in democratic regimes - has undermined democracy's appeal for many on the continent. At the same time, many external actors are expressing sympathy for regimes that have demonstrated an ability to impose stability and deliver economic growth, despite the limits placed on their citizens' freedom. In this context, Dave Peterson asks: Is totalitarianism emerging as an acceptable alternative to democracy in Africa? And if so, with what consequences? Peterson draws on extensive research in countries across the continent to thoroughly explore the dilemma of the totalitarian temptation.

Author: Ryszard Legutko
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594039925
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades—and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature. In The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between these two political systems, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet style brutality. Both systems, says Legutko, reduce human nature to that of the common man, who is led to believe himself liberated from the obligations of the past. Both the communist man and the liberal democratic man refuse to admit that there exists anything of value outside the political systems to which they pledged their loyalty. And both systems refuse to undertake any critical examination of their ideological prejudices.

Author: Vladimir Tismaneanu
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789633863039
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This volume gathers authors who wrote important works in the fields of the history of ideologies, the comparative study of dictatorships, and intellectual history. The book is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of the ideological commitments of intellectuals and their relationships with dictatorships during the twentieth century. The contributions focus on turning points or moments of breakage as well as on the continuities. Though its focus is on an East–West comparison in Europe, there are texts also dealing with Latin America, China, and the Middle East giving the book a global outlook. The first part of the book deals with intellectuals' involvement with communist regimes or parties; the second looks at the persistence of utopianism in the trajectory of intellectuals who had been associated earlier in their lives with either communism or fascism; the third tackles intellectuals' role in national imaginations from either the left or the right; and, the fourth ties late twentieth century phenomena to current phenomena such as the persistence of anti-Semitism in the West, the slow erosion of the values upon which the EU is built, the quagmire in Iraq, and China's rise in the post-Cold War era. The collection provides a comprehensive big-picture of intellectual genealogies and dictatorial developments.

Author: Charles Krauthammer
Publisher: Forum Books
ISBN: 1984825496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful collection of the influential columnist’s most important works—featuring rare speeches, a major essay about today’s populist movements and the future of global democracy, and a new preface by the author’s son, Daniel Krauthammer “Charles will be remembered as one of the greatest public intellects of his generation.”—John McCain In his decades of work as America’s preeminent political commentator, whether writing about statecraft and foreign policy or reflecting on more esoteric topics such as baseball, spaceflight and medical ethics, Charles Krauthammer elevated the opinion column to a form of art. This collection features the columns, speeches and unpublished writings that showcase the best of his original thought and his last, enduring words on the state of American politics, the nature of liberal democracy and the course of world history. The book also includes a deeply personal section offering insight into Krauthammer’s beliefs about what mattered most to him: friendship, family and the principles he lived by. The Point of It All is a timely demonstration of what made Charles Krauthammer the most celebrated American columnist and political thinker of his generation, a revealing look at the man behind the words and a lasting testament to his belief that anyone with an open and honest mind can grapple deeply with the most urgent questions in politics and in life.

Author: Jean-François Revel
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594032645
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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An English translation of Jean-Francois Revel's 1999 essay in which he examines the response of French intellectuals to the collapse of Soviet communism in the decade after its end.

Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441189904
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Over the past twenty years, Roger Scruton has been developing a conservative view of human beings, society and culture. The tone of this book is positive and the arguments are recommendations with the aim of convincing the reader that rumours of the death of Western civilisation are greatly exaggerated. Much of our present self doubt, argues Scruton, is brought about by the Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwin encourages us to see human emotion as a reproductive strategy. This is a perspective which Scruton attacks vehemently especially in its modern proponents- Desmond Morris and Richard Dawkins. This the author believes undermines the belief in freedom and the moral imperatives that stem from it.

Author: Jonah Goldberg
Publisher: Crown Forum
ISBN: 0385517696
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist. Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal. Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore. These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.