The Collapse of Truth

2020-11-13 Political Science

Author : John Casperson
Release : 2020-11-13
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 596/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Collapse of Truth by : John Casperson

Download or read book The Collapse of Truth written by John Casperson. This book was released on 2020-11-13. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is amid a defining moment that will irrevocably determine the future of the American democratic experiment. In 1787, when the constitution of the United States was adopted, Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government had been fashioned by the Founding Fathers. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The American political system has held a firm grasp on the concept of representational government until now. In Jonathan Swift’s brilliant political satire, Gulliver’s Travels, rope by rope, Gulliver was imprisoned albeit imperceptibly. Now, judge by judge, the judicial system has been co-opted by the right wing, and the Department of Justice is occupied by a king maker. Elections are corrupted beyond measure both by domestic political machinations and foreign influence meddling. The American free press is under attack like never before. This book is an analysis and expose of forces at work that overtly and covertly are propelling America toward an authoritarian fascist state.

The Death of Truth

2019-08-13 Political Science

Author : Michiko Kakutani
Release : 2019-08-13
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 832/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Death of Truth by : Michiko Kakutani

Download or read book The Death of Truth written by Michiko Kakutani. This book was released on 2019-08-13. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America’s retreat from reason We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases. How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? This decline began decades ago, and in The Death of Truth, former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends—originating on both the right and the left—that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant. With remarkable erudition and insight, Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of our current condition and points toward a new path for our truth-challenged times.

The Collapse

2014-10-07 History

Author : Mary Sarotte
Release : 2014-10-07
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 949/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Collapse by : Mary Sarotte

Download or read book The Collapse written by Mary Sarotte. This book was released on 2014-10-07. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.

The Varnished Truth

1994 Family & Relationships

Author : David Nyberg
Release : 1994
Genre : Family & Relationships
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 528/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Varnished Truth by : David Nyberg

Download or read book The Varnished Truth written by David Nyberg. This book was released on 1994. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone says that lying is wrong. But when we say that lying is bad and hurtful and that we would never intentionally tell a lie, are we really deceiving anyone? In this wise and insightful book, David Nyberg exposes the tacit truth underneath our collective pretense and reveals that an occasional lie can be helpful, healthy, creative, and, in some situations, even downright moral. Through familiar and often entertaining examples, Nyberg explores the purposes deception serves, from the social kindness of the white lie to the political ends of diplomacy to the avoidance of pain or unpleasantness. He looks at the lies we tell ourselves as well, and contrary to the scolding of psychologists demonstrates that self-deception is a necessary function of mental health, one of the mind's many weapons against stress, uncertainty, and chaos. Deception is in our nature, Nyberg tells us. In civilization, just as in the wilderness, survival does not favor the fully exposed or conspicuously transparent self. As our minds have evolved, as practical intelligence has become more refined, as we have learned the subtleties of substituting words and symbols for weapons and violence, deception has come to play a central and complex role in social life. The Varnished Truth takes us beyond philosophical speculation and clinical analysis to give a sense of what it really means to tell the truth. As Nyberg lays out the complexities involved in leading a morally decent life, he compels us to see the spectrum of alternatives to telling the truth and telling a clear-cut lie. A life without self-deception would be intolerable and a world of unconditional truth telling unlivable. His argument that deception and self-deception are valuable to both social stability and individual mental health boldly challenges popular theories on deception, including those held by Sissela Bok and Daniel Goleman. Yet while Nyberg argues that we deceive, among other reasons, so that we might not perish of the truth, he also cautions that we deceive carelessly, thoughtlessly, inhumanely, and selfishly at our own peril.

Hillbilly Elegy

2018-05-01 Social Science

Author : J. D. Vance
Release : 2018-05-01
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 257/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Hillbilly Elegy by : J. D. Vance

Download or read book Hillbilly Elegy written by J. D. Vance. This book was released on 2018-05-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IS NOW A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO "You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

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