The Politics of Denial


Book Description

What is the driving force behind the rage of America's white males? Emotion appears to be playing a growing role in politics, as evidenced by vociferous opposition to welfare, abortion, and immigrants, as well as by the rise of the radical Religious Right, antienvironmentalism, and the increasingly neoconservative slant of American public opinion. The Politics of Denial presents a compelling explanation of these phenomena, providing solid empirical evidence for the role of rigid, harsh child-rearing practices in the creation of punitive, authoritarian adult political attitudes. The authors, social psychologists, show how both the political and the public policy processes in the United States are distorted by the unresolved negative emotions (such as fear, anger, and helplessness) that remain from punitive parenting and by the politicians and conservative religious leaders who exploit those emotions. Among the many public figures discussed are Patrick Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, and Billy Graham.




Republic of Denial


Book Description

With wit, clarity, and an eye for offbeat cultural indicators, Janeway examines the full complex of forces that have corroded our press, politics, and public life.




Empire of Guns


Book Description

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE AND SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE By a prize-winning young historian, an authoritative work that reframes the Industrial Revolution, the expansion of British empire, and emergence of industrial capitalism by presenting them as inextricable from the gun trade "A fascinating and important glimpse into how violence fueled the industrial revolution, Priya Satia's book stuns with deep scholarship and sparkling prose."--Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies We have long understood the Industrial Revolution as a triumphant story of innovation and technology. Empire of Guns, a rich and ambitious new book by award-winning historian Priya Satia, upends this conventional wisdom by placing war and Britain's prosperous gun trade at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the state's imperial expansion. Satia brings to life this bustling industrial society with the story of a scandal: Samuel Galton of Birmingham, one of Britain's most prominent gunmakers, has been condemned by his fellow Quakers, who argue that his profession violates the society's pacifist principles. In his fervent self-defense, Galton argues that the state's heavy reliance on industry for all of its war needs means that every member of the British industrial economy is implicated in Britain's near-constant state of war. Empire of Guns uses the story of Galton and the gun trade, from Birmingham to the outermost edges of the British empire, to illuminate the nation's emergence as a global superpower, the roots of the state's role in economic development, and the origins of our era's debates about gun control and the "military-industrial complex" -- that thorny partnership of government, the economy, and the military. Through Satia's eyes, we acquire a radically new understanding of this critical historical moment and all that followed from it. Sweeping in its scope and entirely original in its approach, Empire of Guns is a masterful new work of history -- a rigorous historical argument with a human story at its heart.




The Strategy of Denial


Book Description

Why and how America’s defense strategy must change in light of China’s power and ambition Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America’s goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests. The most informed and in-depth reappraisal of America’s defense strategy in decades, this book outlines a rigorous but practical approach, showing how the United States can prepare to win a war with China that we cannot afford to lose—precisely in order to deter that war from happening.




Pyongyang Republic


Book Description




Empires in the Sun


Book Description

The one hundred year history of how Europe coerced the African continent into its various empires—and the resulting story of how Africa succeeded in decolonization. In this dramatic (and often tragic) story of an era that radically changed the course of world history, Lawrence James investigates how, within one hundred years, Europeans persuaded and coerced Africa into becoming a subordinate part of the modern world. His narrative is laced with the experiences of participants and onlookers and introduces the men and women who, for better or worse, stamped their wills on Africa. The continent was a magnet for the high-minded, the adventurous, the philanthropic, the unscrupulous. Visionary pro-consuls rubbed shoulders with missionaries, explorers, soldiers, big-game hunters, entrepreneurs, and physicians. Between 1830 and 1945, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy and the United States exported their languages, laws, culture, religions, scientific and technical knowledge and economic systems to Africa. The colonial powers imposed administrations designed to bring stability and peace to a continent that appeared to lack both. The justification for occupation was emancipation from slavery—and the common assumption that late nineteenth-century Europe was the summit of civilization. By 1945 a transformed continent was preparing to take charge of its own affairs, a process of decolonization that took a quick twenty years. This magnificent history also pauses to ask: what did not happen and why?




State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III


Book Description

In his unmissable new book Bob Woodward takes the reader on an inside journey from the start of the Iraq War in 2003 right up to the present day, providing a detailed, authoritative account of President Bush's leadership and the struggles among the men and women in the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department. With Bush well into his second term, Woodward breaks new ground, as he has in his thirteen previous international bestsellers, including BUSH AT WAR and PLAN OF ATTACK. Woodward puts the Bush legacy in historical context as he shows this presidency in action in a way that is normally seen only years after a chief executive leaves office. He describes how Bush and his team have attempted to change the way that wars are fought, and put together a re-election campaign while re-inventing their strategy for the invasion and occupation of Iraq over and over again. Here is the behind-the-scenes story of this administration -- meetings, conversations, and memos; conflicts, manoeuvring, and anguish -- as key administration figures provide a full view of the first presidency of the twenty-first century.




Denial of Violence


Book Description

Denial of Violence seeks to decipher the roots of the denial by Turkish and Ottoman officials of acts of violence committed against Armenians. Based on a qualitative analysis of over 300 memoirs published in Turkey from 1789 to 2009, Fatma Müge Göçek analyzes denial as a multilayered process that starts with the advent of systematic modernity in the Ottoman Empire in 1789 and continues to this day in the Turkish Republic.




Holocaust and Genocide Denial


Book Description

This book provides a detailed analysis of one of the most prominent and widespread international phenomena to which criminal justice systems has been applied: the expression of revisionist views relating to mass atrocities and the outright denial of their existence. Denial poses challenges to more than one academic discipline: to historians, the gradual disappearance of the generation of eyewitnesses raises the question of how to keep alive the memory of the events, and the fact that negationism is often offered in the guise of historical 'revisionist scholarship' also means that there is need for the identification of parameters which can be applied to the office of the 'genuine' historian. Legal academics and practitioners as well as political scientists are faced with the difficulty of evaluating methods to deal with denial and must in this regard identify the limits of freedom of speech, but also the need to preserve the rights of victims. Beyond that, the question arises whether the law can ever be an effective option for dealing with revisionist statements and the revisionist movement. In this regard, Holocaust and Genocide Denial: A Contextual Perspective breaks new ground: exploring the background of revisionism, the specific methods devised by individual States to counter this phenomenon, and the rationale for their strategies. Bringing together authors whose expertise relates to the history of the Holocaust, genocide studies, international criminal law and social anthropology, the book offers insights into the history of revisionism and its varying contexts, but also provides a thought-provoking engagement with the challenging questions attached to its treatment in law and politics.




The Madhouse Effect


Book Description

The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars. The Madhouse Effect portrays the intellectual pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the clear evidence that human activity has changed Earth's climate. Toles's cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies. Mann's expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific consensus. The synergy of these two climate science crusaders enlivens the gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books—and may even convert die-hard doubters to the side of sound science.