Can books still make history? They used to. This seemed particularly true in the ’60s, when Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Michael Harrington’s The Other America and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique launched, respectively, the environmental movement, the war on poverty and the women’s movement. Of course, back then, presidents read books. (President Kennedy had his Science Advisory Committee read Silent Spring… return to article
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Reader Comments (5)Page 1 of 1 pagesHuman history is filled with war. From the very beginning. Primates also engage in “warfare”. It is in our DNA.
While there have been many “small” wars since WWII, there has also been relative peace. This was at least in part to the development of the superpowers.
Is it a concern that medieval states like Iran and Korea are developing very powerful modern weapons and delivery systems? What should be the US response if N Korea was to launch a nuclear strike against a US city? I imagine that most N Koreans are just people trying to get by, but their “leadership” is, well, nuts. I think it is clear who would pay for the sins of that particular madman.
One gets to choose between doing nothing and doing something. Neither may be all that palatable, but choices will be made. I have no illusions that the choices are easy to make. . . .
Posted by wolf on Jun 22, 2006 at 2:59 PM A very interesting proposal regarding the two books that could “make history.” I love for this to be a possibility but the political structure of the U.S. is overdetermined by militarism. Yet, militarism derives its ontological mechanism from the ideological ground that supports it. Almost every institutional sphere of social life, - the goverment, schools, the workplace, the media - are all shaped by authoritarianism and repression. These forces all share the common use of force - military or otherwise - to stifle dissent and freedom of expression.
if a book is to make history today, it will need to articulate the discursive links between the various realms of our social life and to expose the systematic forms of repression, oppression, and violence that characterize the current authoritarian order.
Posted by Epistrophy on Jun 22, 2006 at 6:31 PM Wolf, to paraphrase you—
I imagine that most North Americans are just people trying to get by, but their “leadership” is well, nuts.
Posted by frog on Jun 23, 2006 at 11:03 PM frog - well, perhaps you are on the right track. While US leaders are mediocre, the leadership in other parts of the world is really cause for concern. N Korea and Iran with nukes and delivery systems seems to be a valid cause for concern for the world at large. Furthermore their leaders make the western leaders look like statesmen.
The world is getting smaller, advanced technologies have spread to parts of the world that they don’t belong. The entire developed world is to blame for this problem. It very well may take the entire developed world, working together, to avert a major, earth shattering,. accident or war.
Of course, doing nothing gives us the advantage, perhaps, of less culpability for the future. Plus lower taxes right now, Yippee!
Posted by wolf on Jun 26, 2006 at 2:36 PM WOLFY
leaders all over are mediocre.
Like us, but often even more so.
The idea that they must somehow be wiser, more informed, than the rest of us is carefully inculcated, but a careful look at their words and actions often proves otherwise.
Causes for concern are “manufactured “, but I TRY to choose when and where to be concerned, not as decided by them. You’ve been TOLD to worry about Korea, Iran, and now you do ?
The Iranian guy’s speeches are systematically mistranslated ,, and then the bullshit is repeated, propagated . Bullshit !
If you read rabbit over at “stolen elections’ details on Iranian overtures to the US in 2003, rejected out of hand.
Their move then was more “statesmanlike” than anything, ever, we have seen from bushblair.
Where did the “zero” come from, al’gebr, the crankshaft in your car ?
Posted by frog on Jun 26, 2006 at 8:07 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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