Man of Straw


Book Description

First published in 1918, Man of Straw is a sharp indictment of the Wilhelmine regime and a chilling warning against the joint elevation of militarism and commercial values. The 'Man of Straw' is Diederich Hessling, embodiment of the corrupt society in which he moves; his brutish progression through life forms the central theme of the book.




The Straw Men


Book Description

Sarah Becker is the fifth girl to be abducted by a homicidal maniac. Judging from the state of the bodies that have been found, her long hair will be hacked off and she will be tortured. She has about a week to live.




Straw


Book Description

First there was Spoon. Then came Chopsticks. Now the last... Straw! The final entry in a trio of favorite "punny" tales reminds readers to savor life's little pleasures, from beloved bestselling and award-winning author Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Straw has always had a great thirst for being first, slurping up anything in sight and rushing straight to the finish in every situation. But when his speedy streak gets the best of him, it takes a friend to show Straw how to take his time and drink in the amazing world around him. A companion to Spoon and Chopsticks, this warm and wise story--packed with the clever puns synonymous with this popular series--celebrates the joys of slowing down. Don't miss these other titles in the Spoon series: Spoon and Chopsticks




Last Man Standing


Book Description

As a small boy in Epping Forest, Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britain's Lord Chancellor. As one of five children of divorced parents, he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school, but spent his holidays as a plumbers' mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years and 11 days in government, including long and influential spells as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how he got there. His memoirs offer a unique insight into the complex, sometimes self-serving but always fascinating world of British politics and reveals the toll that high office takes, but , more importantly, the enormous satisfaction and extraordinary privilege of serving both your constituents and your country. Straw’s has been a very public life, but he reveals the private face, too and offers readers a vivid and authoritative insight into the Blair/Brown era and, indeed, the last forty years of British politics.




A Piece of Straw


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Straw for the Fire


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Interpreting Straw Man Argumentation


Book Description

This book shows how research in linguistic pragmatics, philosophy of language, and rhetoric can be connected through argumentation to analyze a recognizably common strategy used in political and everyday conversation, namely the distortion of another’s words in an argumentative exchange. Straw man argumentation refers to the modification of a position by misquoting, misreporting or wrenching the original speaker’s statements from their context in order to attack them more easily or more effectively. Through 63 examples taken from different contexts (including political and forensic discourses and dialogs) and 20 legal cases, the book analyzes the explicit and implicit types of straw man, shows how to assess the correctness of a quote or a report, and illustrates the arguments that can be used for supporting an interpretation and defending against a distortion. The tools of argumentation theory, a discipline aimed at investigating the uses of arguments by combining insights from pragmatics, logic, and communication, are applied to provide an original account of interpretation and reporting, and to describe and illustrate tactics and procedures that can be used and implemented for practical purposes.. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of political communication, communication in general, argumentation theory, rhetoric and pragmatics, as well as to people working in public speech, speech writing, and discourse analysis.




A Manual for Creating Atheists


Book Description

For thousands of years, the faithful have honed proselytizing strategies and talked people into believing the truth of one holy book or another. Indeed, the faithful often view converting others as an obligation of their faith—and are trained from an early age to spread their unique brand of religion. The result is a world broken in large part by unquestioned faith. As an urgently needed counter to this tried-and-true tradition of religious evangelism, A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith—but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than 20 years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason.




Methods of Argumentation


Book Description

This book, written by a leading expert, and based on the latest research, shows how to apply methods of argumentation to a range of examples.




Straw Into Gold


Book Description

As they are pursued by greedy villains, two boys on a quest to save innocent lives meet the banished queen whose son was stolen by Rumpelstiltskin eleven years earlier, and she provides much more than the answer they seek.




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