Book Description
Generally regarded as the definitive work on totalitarianism, this book is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political movements. Arendt was one of the first to recognize that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were two sides of the same coin rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. “With the Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt emerges as the most original and profound-therefore the most valuable-political theoretician of our times” (New Leader). Index.
Customer Reviews:
Got Time?.......2007-03-08
There's no question Arendt is brilliant and inspired, but I should read the Arendt for Dummies or choose a shorter book. I began to read this volume, which covers Origins of Antisemetisim and Origins of Imperialism also, and got bogged down, so I began skimming. Definitely important stuff in there, and I did glean information that was new to me, but in the end I shelved the book because it is too long. Choose it if you are "studying", not just an inquiring person.
More relevant than ever.......2006-12-24
Though this book was written in the 1950s, there is much in it that is relevant to politics as we know it today. In the wake of the disinformation we now know to be the basis for the debacle of the current war, some of the statements made by Arendt regarding totalitarian regimes sound a very loud warning bell. A case in point:
"Totalitarian politics....use and abuse their own ideologies and political elements until the basis of factual reality, from which the ideologies derived their strength...have all but disappeared."
There is a disturbing similarity between the refusal of some of our government officials to admit their mistakes and the description of some of the methods used by totalitarian leaders to manipulate facts and discernible reality in order to produce outcomes they have previously predicted. Totalitarian leaders never admit to error. If the reader finds no other relevance in this book but that, it will have been time well spent.
A Book to be read now.......2006-08-08
I'll keep this simple: look at what is going on in the US, in the MId-East, in China. If that doesn't alarm you, you need to read this book even more carefully than the rest of us, as Histaory is about to repeat itself because our xenophobia knows no limits. This is as critical today as it was when Arendt wrote it.
A real classic.......2006-03-24
This is a must read for anyone interested in understanding popular history, values, and structures of modern western society, and how they relate to modern political power in the twentieth and twenty-first century. It challenges many values that are often taken for granted in national and international power play and politics. The Origins of Totalitarianism will remains relevant to current events, and a warning to those who advocate change without taking into account the mistakes committed by our forbearer. This book explains in detail the dangers to liberal democracy that the scourge of racism has been and could be again. On a darker note it could also be used as blueprint by those who wish to abuse power. A true classic.
At first glance one could be drawn into making close parallels between modern Pan Islamist movements and the Pan European movements of the twentieth century, but the analysis would be far from complete. The Pan European movements where primarily tribal in nature, where as the Osama's Pan Islamist movement forms a superset without full integration of racial components. The dangers and the cold bureaucratic cauculas are similar, however Islam spans many races and cultures. Race therefore cannot form the primary glue required to hold it together. Also Islamist movements are not progressive, they are reactionary in nature. On the other hand close parallels can be drawn to the Pan Slavic movement with regards to Saddam's Iraqi nationalistic movement. Osama's concept of Pan Islam differs in many ways from Stalin's or Hitler's base, the primarily glue is religious ideology and fear, not race or nationalism. Furthermore his ideology is not anywhere close to being shared by the masses within Islamic countries, and as a result terrorism is a requirement from start, not so much against the west, but against moderate elements or differing sects within the countries where this movement thrives. This is not to say that they do not use terrorism in all of it's traditional roles. Euro style nationalism is counter productive to the Pan Islamist movement, and one of it's objectives is to break down nationalism. In short if one must make parallels, they can be made to the books third section and Osama's Islamist movement operations, but only very weak correlation to sections one and two.
This book is written in a way that requires the reader to work hard, but it is worth the effort.
A Frightening Warning about Mass Man and "Virtue" of Thoughtlessness.......2006-01-16
Haannah Arendt's THE ORIGINS OF TOTAITARIANISM(TOT)is both a thoughtful book and a frightening view of both the background of totalitarianism as well as the practical application of this political phenomena. The reader should realize this book requires time and careful thought to appreciate the book's importance.
The first section of the book deals with antisemitism which Miss Arendt argues was a cornerstone of later totalitarianism. She argues that the gradual development of mass culture and mass politics resulted in targeting and scapegoating any target minority such as Jews. She explains that antisemitism was a gradual political movement that exploded in the late 19th and especially in the 20th century. A different thesis could have been presented, but thus far this is the best one this reviewer has read.
Part two of the book explains how imperialism and racism merged especailly during the Age of Nationalism. Religious discord was replaced by sociological and political theories that not only extolled nation but also race and blood. This section deals with these two concepts both in Western Europe and Eastern Europe. One must remember that persecution of Jews was particulary lethal in Eastern Europe between World War I and World War II and espeically during The Second World War.
Part three of the book is the best section of THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM. If readers have difficutly with sections one and two of this book, they owe it to themselves to at least read section three.
Miss Arendt makes a frightening assessment that the liquidation (mass murder of people of race or class) was not so much personal vendetta as these mass murders were bureaucratic operations that were done as a matter of political policy and "normal" bureaucratic operations. She warns readers that totalitarian leaders changed enemies almost weekly. In other words, those who were innocent one time were "enemies of the state or people" later. In other words, totalitarian leaders never never exhausted their enemies' lists and kept the masses alert for supposed enemies regardless of the rapid changes in those designated for mass murder. One quote that should alert thoughtful readers is, "The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any." The serious implication is that totalitarian leaders suspect that thoughtlessness is a virtue which benefits the leaders of the mass political movements. The fact is that once innocent people were arrested, they were "non-persons" whose memories were altered and then forgotten.
This book is a serious warning to anyone who takes pride in individual liberties and appreciates individual achievement regardless of their religious convictions or ancestry. Miss Arendt is clear that totalitarian leaders do not recognize talent except as talented individuals may threaten their arrogant self importance.
Readers would do well to also read Orwell's 1984 and Hoffer's THE TRUE BELIEVER to have a better grasp of THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM. This reviewer highly recommends this book with the reservation that this book is not "light reading."
Book Description
What forces lead to democracy's creation? Why does it sometimes consolidate only to collapse at other times? Written by two of the foremost authorities on this subject in the world, this volume develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. It revolutionizes scholarship on the factors underlying government and popular movements toward democracy or dictatorship. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Their book, the subject of a four-day seminar at Harvard's Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, was also the basis for the Walras-Bowley lecture at the joint meetings of the European Economic Association and Econometric Society in 2003 and is the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal.
Download Description
This book develops a framework for analyzing the creation and consolidation of democracy. Different social groups prefer different political institutions because of the way they allocate political power and resources. Thus democracy is preferred by the majority of citizens, but opposed by elites. Dictatorship nevertheless is not stable when citizens can threaten social disorder and revolution. In response, when the costs of repression are sufficiently high and promises of concessions are not credible, elites may be forced to create democracy. By democratizing, elites credibly transfer political power to the citizens, ensuring social stability. Democracy consolidates when elites do not have strong incentives to overthrow it. These processes depend on the strength of civil society, the structure of political institutions, the nature of political and economic crises, the level of economic inequality, the structure of the economy, and the form and extent of globalization.
Customer Reviews:
A beginning.......2006-10-04
My opinion on this book lies some where between the two already presented. The application of economics and game theory to this problem is most definitely original and is the greatest achievement of the book. It is a tribute to the authors that such a simple model that so ruthless applies Occam's razor can explain so much, however the work is flawed it simply does not reflect reality. The reasons behind democratisations are more complex than this model, as powerful as it is, can reflect. This book and the model developed within should be viewed as beginning which other works can develop and expand upon. I have no doubt that economists will continue to contibute to this field with more advanced and better models. For this reason alone political scientists and historians should not ignore this text, but rather accept it for what it is a new way of looking at an old problem.
Wielding Occam's Razor.......2006-02-28
Economists are turning their focus of inquiry to subjects that were once the exclusive preserve of their colleagues in other social sciences--history, sociology, and political science. The title of this book, "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," appears to have been deliberately, even provocatively, chosen for contrast with its famous predecessor, "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," by the sociologist Barrington Moore. It is as if the economists are saying, "You've had your go. It is now our turn."
One thing follows when economists have a go: Occam's razor is wielded ruthlessly. Occam's razor is the principle associated with a medieval Franciscan monk, William of Ockham, which extols simplicity over complexity: in his words, "plurality should not be posited without necessity." This has, over time, become an important principle in distinguishing good from less-good science, useful from less-useful descriptions of reality.
Acemoglu and Robinson take this cut-the-chaff exhortation to heart. A few simple and sharp answers are provided even for the complex and difficult questions that are at the heart of the book: why and how does democracy arise? Why and how does democracy take root in some places at some times, while making only cameo appearances in others?
Acemoglu and Robinson daringly reduce the determinants of democratization to three or perhaps four: the level of inequality in society; the structure of the economy (i.e. whether it is predominantly agrarian or otherwise); the kind of assets owned by the elites; and the extent of globalization.
It is remarkable how many historical experiences-in Latin America, Europe, and Africa-- can be explained by the simple theory put forward by the authors. For example, Argentina's frequent lurching between various forms democracy and autocracy follow neatly from the high levels of inequality, which made the elites very resistant to democratization and the consequent redistribution of wealth away from them that political change would entail.
To be sure, the fit between theory and the historical experience is not perfect, and the authors are candid about this. Some of the cases that the book does not discuss-India's ability to maintain democracy in the face of overwhelming odds, for example--have traditionally defied easy explanation, even for political scientists. And there are surely cases where non-economic factors such as ideology, individuals (leaders), randomness, and unintended consequence, have had a significant role in determining the path of political development. For example, if Sir Sewoosagur Ramgoolam, Mauritius' first Prime Minister, had responded to the referendum before independence by entrenching the majority Hindus rather than assuaging the minority by guaranteeing minimal political participation for the latter, Mauritius might well have been like the archetypal, strife-ridden, ethnically divided African country rather than a durable democracy.
A quibble about the book's structure. While there are considerable rewards to reading the book, patience and deft maneuvering through the thicket of mathematics, are required to reap them. The authors could have demarcated more clearly the Greek from the English to allow the mathematically challenged to obtain the benefits in one continuous flow. That way, the book could have been more accessible to the curious generalist in addition to being a required reference for the specialist.
But these minor shortcomings are ultimately swamped by, and are perhaps even the unavoidable consequence of, the sheer ambitiousness of the effort: nothing less than to provide a simple and unified explanation of democracy. And here's the additional bonus, the theory can be taken to the data, and even falsified. So, the skeptics and the naysayers can have their go, and refute or validate. Either way, inquiry will be furthered and the stock of knowledge enriched. The most memorable rendition of Occam's razor is due to Einstein: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." The book certainly meets that standard.
Interesting but ..........2006-01-24
This substantial work provides a useful review of the relevant literature, and outlines the simple but powerful idea that the political impact of different types of assets [land, labor or capital] and the costs of repression rather than democratization are key influences on the process of democratization or political repression. This approach has however already been spelt out more succinctly by Carles Boix.
But unfortunately much of the book's approach is fundamentally flawed when the authors then proceed to put their ideas into models based on game theory. They rapidly lose sight of the old reality check - 'garbage in, garbage out'. No model however neatly laid out will tell us much if the initial premise is flawed, and many of the theories here are too simplified to be anything beyond a classroom exercise. The whole book is based on Median Voter Theory [MVT} - but even many distinguished scholars in this field like Alberto Alesina have been pointing out for years that MVT has never been shown to hold true in real life complexities.
Some other key ideas are simply not addressed - the importance of fiscal bargaining, usually to fund foreign wars, as the origins of democracy is dismissed in one sentence, and yet is the best documented source of democratization - see major works by Charles Tilly and Robert Bates.
Other more specific technical detail - such as the ratio of voters to taxpayers, or the ratio of public employees to taxpayers, are not outlined let alone explained and yet clearly have great impact on the topic. Broad generalizations about elites are simply inadequate -- many elites are much more than the 'rich'; and even the authors admit they have no explanation for their argument on the likelihood of military coups that the military, presumably recruited from the broad mass of the population, would choose to side with either elites or taxpayers because of future tax rates. In real life complex bureaucratic incentive structures often turn the 'agents' into the 'principals' and they then doubly benefit from also being future pensioners of the state -- recent attention paid to intergenerational accounting implications of taxation do not figure here either.
Even more distrurbing, the authors have nothing to say on the conflicts of interests between the 'elite sub-groups' of taxpayers and bondholders -- yet scholars such as Dornbusch & Draghi {Public Debt Management: Cambridge 1990] have shown that taxation to pay government debts to bondholders was profoundly regressive throughout the 19th century -- the very period of democratization outlined in this book: so how did that happen?
Furthermore some of the history is also wrong - widening of the franchise in 1832 in Britain was intended as a way to give the vote to existing taxpayers, not vice versa.
The authors have overlooked many stimulating classics in this field - e.g. Sydney Buxton's major work 'Finance and Politics' from 1888.
Most irritatingly the book is littered with reference to the authors' claims to originality for their work in various 'important findings' -- but when did such conclusions cease to be the prerogative of the reader?
Book Description
The only book of its kind, The New Inquisitions is an exhilarating investigation into the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. Arthur Versluis unveils the connections between heretic hunting in early and medieval Christianity, and the emergence of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. He shows how secular political thinkers in the nineteenth century inaugurated a tradition of defending the Inquisition, and how Inquisition-style heretic-hunting later manifested across the spectrum of twentieth-century totalitarianism. An exceptionally wide-ranging work, The New Inquisitions begins with early Christianity, and traces heretic-hunting as a phenomenon through the middle ages and right into the twentieth century, showing how the same inquisitional modes of thought recur both on the political Left and on the political Right.
Customer Reviews:
BEFORE PETER DRUCKER BECAME A CELEBRITY.......2007-10-05
When you read The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram and Drucker's earlies writings like this one - both ignored by every single one of the USA Washington and UK London regimes, one has to wonder what the world would now have been like, if both Drucker and Milgram had been taken seriously.
The future of the managerial cadre is poised on the brink and Blanckenberg & Blanckenberg teach both Drucker and Milgram in all our training seminars at One Big Idea Consulting Limited NZ. At the same time we introduce managers to Karl Popper reminding them that Popper shaped his thinking in New Zealand before settling in London Bounds of Freedom: Popper, Liberty and Ecological Rationality (Series in the Philosophy of Karl R. Popper and Critical Rationalism, 16) (Series in the Philosophy of Ka)
Managerial success is much more than how to make a quick buck
in a fast-moving global era. Drucker, Milgram and Popper were aware of this.
The Philosophy Behind Totalitariansim.......2006-11-10
This book was published in 1939 by a person who was in Germany when Hitler took over. This is the fourth book I have read by Peter F. Drucker and is the most difficult to understand; but if you studied philosophy in college, you should like it. The causes of totalitarianism are complex, and he deals with them in great detail. He also compares and contrasts Fascism and Communism. (They are more similar than I had assumed.) Even though he does not discuss Islamic extremism, this book also gave me insight on what going on in that movement.
First book of Peter Drucker.......2005-08-10
The first book in English written by Peter Drucker. This paperback reprint includes a new preface written by the author. As it was published more than sixty years ago, some of the contents are unavoidably outdated. Being a collector of Drucker's works, I heartily welcome this reprint.
A great book.......2002-04-30
I've been a fan of Druckers for many years but did not get around to reading his first book until very recently.
This is not the usual Drucker fare, though fellow readers will recognize his reach and style. In this book Peter Drucker attempts nothing less than to explain what Totalitarianism (particularly Facism and Nazism) are about. And I think he largely succeeds.
But the subject is 60 years ago, so why buy it now? Because the book also explains much of what is going on today. The alienation many of us feel, the deadening effects of globalization on our economic and inner lives is echoed in this book. Why do Palestinians blow themselves up and Austrians and Frenchmen vote for Haider and Le Pen?
Because capitalism fails to satisfy identity and equality needs. Not just income equality but status equality. Many of Drucker's later books attempt to solve some of capitalism's legitimacy and equality deficiencies, but globalism has rolled back much of the progress which has been made.
well thought out.......2000-04-23
I appreciate the orderly fashion in which the information is presented. It is refreshing to have a tremendous amount of information organized in such a way that you can tackle it according to your priorities.
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To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships
MacGregor Knox
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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To the Threshold of Power is the first volume of a two-part work that seeks to explain the origins and dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist dictatorships. It lays a foundation for understanding the Nazi and Fascist regimes â from their respective seizures of power in 1922 and 1933 to global war, genocide, and common ruin â through parallel investigations of Italian and German society, institutions, and national myths; the supreme test of the First World War; and the post-1918 struggles from which the Fascist and National Socialist movements emerged. It emphasizes two principal sources of movement: the nationalist mythology of the intellectuals and the institutional culture and agendas of the two armies, especially the Imperial German Army and its Reichswehr successor. The bookâs climax is the cataclysm of 1914â18 and the rise and triumph of militarily organized radical nationalist movements â Mussoliniâs Fasci di combattimento and Hitlerâs National Socialist German Workersâ Party â dedicated to the perpetuation of the war and the overthrow of the post-1918 world order.
Book Description
In the final volume, Arendt focuses on the two genuine forms of the totalitarian state in history-the dictatorships of Bolshevism after 1930 and of National Socialism after 1938. Index.
Customer Reviews:
Way Too Much Zen.......2000-10-01
This book was written at a time when the great power of the world were well on the way to becoming so openly nukers that little corners of the world, and individuals, especially, might be disregarded with impunity by whatever powers wanted to destroy them for their own purposes. What is truly frightening about this situation is the realization that any excuse, race, use of illegal drugs, possession of weapons, sleeping in the Chinese embassy on the night of May 7, 1999, having a sinful Messiah for a minister, putting kids in daycare in a federal building, etc., might end up being considered a deadly mistake if those who have high-powered explosives are working in a system which will allow them to blame one of their enemies for the tragedy which will be the subject of the news.
I happened to be reading a book on the KGB before I started reading this, and the situation at the time of the death of Stalin, then Beria, seems to fall in the sense of how this book claims that individuals don't matter to the system. Once Stalin was dead, having served Stalin was of no benefit to Beria. When Stalin was ruler, it was dangerous for anyone to get more votes than Stalin, as Kirov did shortly before his death. The denunciations of Stalin which followed Stalin's death did not end the practices which Stalin had been denounced for engaging in, any more than the attempt to impeach an America president in 1999 prevented any American from lying about his private life under oath forever after.
Long after this book was written, the political system in the Soviet Union started to allow a broader selection of candidates, and Sakharov was the most popular politician in the Soviet Union at the time of his death from a heart attack. Sakharov had been an inventor of a sandwich design hydrogen bomb, which was first successfuly tested by dropping it from an airplane on November 22, 1955, a mere 8 years before an American president died under more suspicious circumstances, possibly related to his support for a ban on such tests.
I haven't forgotten that someone posted a message after I had reviewed a book which didn't discuss any nuclear weapons whatever. This shows what kind of thing can happen when a person who reads a lot gets involved with those whose totalitarianism expects more respect than I happen to believe that any media deserve at the moment. Not everything that I have written has been posted, and it might be easiest for me to complain about family values totalitarianism. No one would think that the things which are done are limited to those acts which could be printed in a family newspaper, but the media can use family values as an excuse to ignore the most upsetting stories. Reviews of books are not supposed to get too personal, but sometimes the subject matter of the account makes any attempt to comprehend what is in the book offensive. In my own case, I tried to review a book by Gennifer Flowers called PASSION AND BETRAYAL in which the personal is covered by a little black nightie, but not for long. This might be personally embarrassing for the author and a friend of hers, but the danger that some form of totalianism might be criticized in that book would hardly occur to anyone who did not know about the episode when her neighbor with the video camera was getting beat up by guys who kept asking, "Where's the tape?"
A rationale that explains the horrors of totalitarianism........1997-10-19
Hannah Arendt describes totalitarianism as a system of total domination based on a combination of propaganda and terror. She bases it primarily on a policy of keeping the population off balance by systematically arresting and executing members that it decides are "objectively guilty" because of their religion, their economic status, or other arbitrarily selected criteria. She draws a distinction between merely authoritarian and totalitariam regimes based on the arbitrariness of the selection process of its victims. The victims in totalitarian regimes bear no relationship to concerns of security; rather they are based upon some such ideological foundation as race or social status.
Book Description
This is the first detailed and definitive study of the development and initial success of fascism as it originated in Italy right after the First World War.
Customer Reviews:
An Important text for the study of (one aspect of) Fascism.......2007-04-06
This book contains Giovanni Gentile's programmatic essay "Origins and Doctrine of Fascism" as well as excerpts from other works and a short introduction by the editor, A.J. Gregor. Entitled by Mussolini himself as "the Philosopher of Fascism", Gentile is highly important to the study of Fascism, especially if you are interested in Fascist ideological theory rather than political practice (though Gentile served also as the Italian minister of education). Although the "Origins and Doctrine" is meant to be a popular essay, it is reflects the thought of a philosopher.
The literature on Fascism today is mostly very judgmental - against Fascism. This, of course, is legitimate, but if you want to truly understand it, you have no other choice but turn to the original writings of the fascist thinkers themselves. In this respect, the very publication of their writings in English is a great contribution to such an understanding, especially for people (like myself) who do not read Italian.
Fascist philosophy was based on two different sources: On the one hand there is the conservative 19th century Hegelian philosophy, and on the other hand there are the post-romantic challenges of the late 19th century philosophies, that challenged the moral conventions of the European civilization. The latter were influenced by thinkers like Nietzsche, Sorel and maybe Bergson. (I know that today they try to present Nietzsche as a proto-existentialist, but if you read him literally you see that to a great extent he also was a proto-fascist). While it is the second trend that makes Fascism an intriguing challenge even to our day, Gentile is clearly a representative of the first one. He keeps trying to convince the reader that Fascism is the true continuation on the classical Italian liberal Nationalism of Mazzini. I will give an example: Gentile does not criticize Freedom face to face, as some of the radicals did, but adopts the good old Platonic concept of "true freedom", stating that Man actually attains his freedom through the restricting of freedom. Actually, in this case Gentile shares the common modernist values with the liberals and the socialists, but differs on the ways to achieve them. As Gregor notes in his introduction, democrats often treat the Marxists as partners who shared the same values with them but betrayed them; they never treat Fascists in the same way, because they conceive them as brutes who never shared the same values. (I don't know to whom he was referring, but S. Zizek wrote it explicitly). Gregor says that Gentile shows that this treatment has been based on a misconception of Fascist theory. While he is wrong in respect to the second trend, he is right in respect to the first one, and certainly in respect to Gentile.
I would give this book 5 stars, but I gave it only 4 for two main reasons: (a) As I said, Gentile is not the most intriguing fascist author; (b) the price is unreasonable: a paperback booklet of about 100 pages, and they demand about 30 bucks for it. With all due respect, that is not a fair pricing.
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Los Origenes Del Totalitarismo/ The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt
Manufacturer: Alianza (Buenos Aires, AR)
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Binding: Paperback
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Customer Reviews:
The Optimistic Jew.......2007-08-31
This elegantly written work contrasts liberal democracy (individual in the center) with totalitarian democracy (state in the center). It charts the development of totalitarian democracy in Europe since the 18th century. I prefer the term Majoritarian democracy because it is more inclusive and therefore more useful. Stalinism, Maoism and Fascism are the totalitarian version of majoritarianism. Western European democracies have Majoritarian tendencies, while the English speaking world - especially the US - is dominated by the constitutional imperative.
Understanding this enabled me to understand another dissonance I had with Israeli society. In America, my birthplace, democracy means that government engages in activities that cannot be handled efficiently by civil society. In Israel, following the continental tradition, democracy meant government involved in all aspects of social life. Today, Israel, like Europe, has come closer to the American view of individual vs. society but its Majoritarian tendencies are still evident. I discuss this in great detail in my own book "The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century".Talmon's book is a wonderful companion piece to Fareed Zakaria's book "The Future of Freedom", although its style is heavily academic.
Books:
- The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
- The Shi'is of Iraq
- The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
- The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process (Nation Books)
- The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy
- The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- The Wretched of the Earth
- They Just Don't Get It: How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety--and What You Can Do About It
- This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future
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