Burnt by Democracy

2023-11-30 Social Science

Author : Jacqueline Kennelly
Release : 2023-11-30
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 003/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Burnt by Democracy by : Jacqueline Kennelly

Download or read book Burnt by Democracy written by Jacqueline Kennelly. This book was released on 2023-11-30. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burnt by Democracy traces the political ascendance of neoliberalism and its effects on youth. The book explores democracy and citizenship as described in interviews with over forty young people – ages 16 to 30 – who have either experienced homelessness or identify as an activist, living in five liberal democracies: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Highlighting significant cuts to social and affordable housing, astronomical increases in the costs of higher education, and the transformation and erosion of state benefits systems, Jacqueline Kennelly argues that democracy’s decline is not occurring because young people are apathetic, or focused on informal politics, or unaware of their civic duties. Rather, it is because of collective misunderstanding about how democracy is actually structured, how individuals learn to participate, and how growing wealth inequality has undermined the capacity of those at the bottom to meaningfully advocate for changes that might improve their conditions. Against a vivid and often heart-breaking backdrop of stories from young people struggling to survive and thrive under conditions of ever-expanding state retrenchment and inequality, Burnt by Democracy makes a timely and impassioned plea for protecting and strengthening democracy by truly levelling the playing field for all.

Burning the Books

2020-10-13 Literary Criticism

Author : Richard Ovenden
Release : 2020-10-13
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 207/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Burning the Books by : Richard Ovenden

Download or read book Burning the Books written by Richard Ovenden. This book was released on 2020-10-13. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

Make Your Home Among Strangers

2015-08-04 Fiction

Author : Jennine Capó Crucet
Release : 2015-08-04
Genre : Fiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 666/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Make Your Home Among Strangers by : Jennine Capó Crucet

Download or read book Make Your Home Among Strangers written by Jennine Capó Crucet. This book was released on 2015-08-04. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young, Cuban-American woman is accepted into an elite college right as her home life unravels.

Democracy and Education

1916 Juvenile Nonfiction

Author : John Dewey
Release : 1916
Genre : Juvenile Nonfiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Democracy and Education by : John Dewey

Download or read book Democracy and Education written by John Dewey. This book was released on 1916. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

The Life and Death of Democracy

2009-06-01 History

Author : John Keane
Release : 2009-06-01
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 602/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Life and Death of Democracy by : John Keane

Download or read book The Life and Death of Democracy written by John Keane. This book was released on 2009-06-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.

Popular eBooks

Burning the Books

Make Your Home Among Strangers

Democracy and Education

The Life and Death of Democracy

You may also like...