Polity press jul 2018 (34 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - At the start of 1987, Primo Levi took part in a remarkable series of conversations about his early life with a friend and fellow writer, Giovanni Tesio. This book is the result of those meetings, originally intended to be the basis for an authorized biography and published here in English for the first time.In a densely packed dialogue, Levi responds to Tesio's tactful and never too insistent questions with a watchful readiness and candour, breaking through the reserve of his public persona to allow a more intimate self to emerge. Following the thread of memory, he lucidly discusses his family, his childhood, his education during the Fascist period, his adolescent friendships, his reading, his shyness and his passion for mountaineering, and recounts his wartime experience as a partisan and the terrible price it exacted from him and his comrades. Though we glimpse his later life as a writer, the story breaks off just before his deportation to Auschwitz owing to his sudden death.In The Last Interview, Levi the man, the witness, the chemist and the writer all unite to offer us a story which is also a window onto history. These conversations shed new light on Levi's life and will appeal to the many readers of this most eloquent witness to the horrors of the Holocaust.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Modern societies set limits, on everything from how fast motorists can drive to how much waste factory owners can dump in our rivers. But incomes in our deeply unequal world have no limits. Could capping top incomes tackle rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches In this engaging book, leading analyst Sam Pizzigati details how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a 'maximum wage' could be both economically viable and politically practical. He shows how, building on local initiatives, governments could use their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios across the board.The ultimate goal That ought to be, Pizzigati argues, a world without a super rich. He explains why we need to create that world -- and how we could speed its creation.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - During the age of empire, European and American colonists perpetrated one of history's most monstrous crimes: slavery. Millions of Africans were subjected to forced abduction, misery and death as part of the brutal Atlantic slave trade. However, since the perpetrators are long dead, should current generations make reparation for this historic injustice In this book, Janna Thompson uses three case studies - France's treatment of Haiti, Britain's role in the African slave trade, and the plight of African Americans - to address these questions. She makes a nuanced case for the necessity of reparations, but argues that the exact form they take should vary from case to case, depending on factors both principled and practical.This engaging book is a highly readable introduction to the issues for students and general readers grappling with the complexities of reparative justice and our responsibility for the darkest aspects of our past.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In this important new book, Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi take a fresh look at the big questions surrounding the peculiar social form known as 'capitalism,' upending many of our commonly held assumptions about what capitalism is and how to subject it to critique. They show how, throughout its history, various regimes of capitalism have relied on a series of institutional separations between economy and polity, production and social reproduction, and human and non-human nature, periodically readjusting the boundaries between these domains in response to crises and upheavals. They consider how these 'boundary struggles' offer a key to understanding capitalism's contradictions and the multiple forms of conflict to which it gives rise.What emerges is a renewed crisis critique of capitalism which puts our present conjuncture into broader perspective, along with sharp diagnoses of the recent resurgence of right-wing populism and what would be required of a viable Left alternative. This major new book by two leading critical theorists will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the nature and future of capitalism and with the key questions of progressive politics today. …

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This revised edition of Kimberly Hutchings's best-selling textbook provides an accessible introduction to the field of Global Ethics for students of politics, international relations and globalization. It offers an overview and assessment of key perspectives in Global Ethics and their implications for substantive moral issues in global politics. These include the morality of state and non-state violence, the obligations of rich to poor in a globalizing world, and the scope and nature of international human rights. The second edition contains expanded coverage of pressing contemporary issues relating to migration, changes in the technologies of war, and the global environment.Hutchings's excellent book helps non-specialist students to understand the assumptions underpinning different moral traditions, and enables them to formulate their own views on how to approach moral judgement and prescription - essential in a world which, though it is shared by all, possesses massive cultural differences and inequalities of power.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Human rights have fallen on hard times, yet they are more necessary than ever. People all over the world - from Amazonian villages to Iranian prisons - need human rights to gain recognition, campaign for justice, and save lives. But how can we secure a brighter future for human rights What changes are required to confront the regime's weaknesses and emerging global challenges In this cutting-edge analysis, Alison Brysk sets out a pragmatic reformist agenda for human rights in the twenty-first century. Tracing problems and solutions through contemporary case studies - the plight of refugees, declining democracies such as Mexico and Turkey, the expansion of women's rights, new norms for indigenous peoples, and rights regression in the USA - she shows that the dynamic strength of human rights lies in their evolving political practice. This distinctive vision demands that we build upon the gains of the human rights regime to construct new pathways which address historic rights gaps, from citizenship to security, from environmental protection to resurgent nationalism, and to globalization itself.Drawing on the author's extensive experience as a leading human rights scholar and activist, The Future of Human Rights offers a broad and authoritative guide to the big questions in global human rights governance today.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Global climate change poses an unprecedented challenge for governments across the world. Small wonder that many experts question whether democracies have the ability to cope with the causes and long-term consequences of a changing climate. Some even argue that authoritarian regimes are better equipped to make the tough choices required to tackle the climate crisis.In this incisive book, Daniel Fiorino challenges the assumptions and evidence offered by sceptics of democracy and its capacity to handle climate change. Democracies, he explains, typically enjoy higher levels of environmental performance and produce greater innovation in technology, policy, and climate governance than autocracies. Rather than less democracy, Fiorino calls for a more accountable and responsive politics that will provide democratically-elected governments with the enhanced capacity for collective action on climate and other environmental issues.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Popular protest in China has been widespread and prevalent. Why do people protest and how are such demonstrations handled by the authorities Could they ultimately imperil China's political system In this book, Teresa Wright analyzes the array of protests that have swept China in the post-Mao period. Exploring popular contention through a range of different groups - from farmers to factory workers, urban homeowners to environmentalists, nationalists to dissidents, ethnic minorities to Hong Kong residents, Wright shows that - with the exception of the latter - popular protest has achieved adequate government responses to the public's most serious grievances.Yet Wright cautions that this may not last forever. For Chinese citizens that engage in protest often suffer serious emotional and physical costs. As a result, they have developed an unhealthy relationship with the regime. In this context, Xi Jinping's recent efforts to restrict public expression may backfire - leading to an explosive dynamic that may threaten the political stability that China's ruling elites so desire.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book is a radical plea for the centrality of experience in the social and human sciences. Lash argues that a large part of the output of the social sciences today is still shaped by assumptions stemming from positivism, in contrast to the tradition of interpretative social enquiry pioneered by Max Weber. These assumptions are particularly central to economics, with its emphasis on homo economicus, the utility-maximizing actor, but they have infiltrated the other social sciences too.Lash argues for a social sciences based not in positivism's utilitarian a priori but instead in the a posteriori of grounded and embedded subjective experience. His wide-ranging account starts from considerations of ancient experience via Aristotle's technics, continues through a politics of Hannah Arendt's 'a posteriori' public sphere and concludes with the contemporary - with technological experience, on the one hand, and with Chinese post-ontological thought, in which the 'ten thousand things' themselves are doing the experiencing, on the other.This original book by a leading social and cultural theorist will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, cultural studies and throughout the social sciences.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Amid a devastating economic crisis, two tragic events coming from the outside - the wave of immigration and Islamic terrorism - have radically changed the profile and significance of the space we call Europe. Given a paradigm leap of this sort, philosophical reflection is in a position to exert its creative power more than other types of knowledge. But this can only happen if it is able to go beyond its own lexical boundaries, by turning its gaze outside itself.Here the leading Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito looks at how various strands of German, French, and Italian thought have achieved this outward turn and successfully captured international attention by breaking with the language of early nineteenth-century crisis philosophies. When analyzed from this novel perspective, the great texts of Adorno, Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, as well as works by the latest Italian thinkers, are cast in a new light. From the relationship and tension between them, reconstructed here with extraordinary theoretical sensitivity, a form of thought can arise that is equal to the challenges faced by Europe today.This erudite and wide-ranging analysis of European thought in the light of the crises facing the continent today will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy, critical theory, and beyond.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - What do we know of the emotional life of the Middle Ages Though a long-neglected subject, a multitude of sources - spiritual and secular literature, iconography, chronicles, as well as theological and medical works - provide clues to the central role emotions played in medieval society.In this work, historians Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy delve into a rich variety of texts and images to reveal the many and nuanced experiences of emotion during the Middle Ages - from the demonstrative shame of a saint to a nobleman's fear of embarrassment, from the enthusiasm of a crusading band to the fear of a town threatened by the approach of war or plague. Boquet and Nagy show how these outbursts of joy and pain, while universal expressions, must be understood within the specific context of medieval society. During the Middle Ages, a Christian model of affectivity was formed in the 'laboratory' of the monasteries, one which gradually seeped into wider society, interacting with the sensibilities of courtly culture and other forms of expression.Bouqet and Nagy bring a thousand years of history to life, demonstrating how the study of emotions in medieval society can also allow us to understand better our own social outlooks and customs.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other - the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches Using research conducted on three continents and engaging in critical dialogue with Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life, and politics of life.In the conditions of refugees and asylum seekers, in the light of mortality statistics and death benefits, and via a genealogical and ethnographical inquiry, the moral economy of life reveals troubling tensions in the way contemporary societies treat human beings. Once the pieces of this anthropological composition are assembled, like in Georges Perec's jigsaw puzzle, an image appears: that of unequal lives.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Employment relations in advanced, post-industrial democracies have become increasingly insecure and uncertain as the risks associated with work are being shifted from employers and governments to workers.Arne L. Kalleberg examines the impact of the liberalization of labor markets and welfare systems on the growth of precarious work and job insecurity for indicators of well-being such as economic insecurity, the transition to adulthood, family formation, and happiness, in six advanced capitalist democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Denmark. This insightful cross-national analysis demonstrates how active labor market policies and generous social welfare systems can help to protect workers and give employers latitude as they seek to adapt to the rise of national and global competition and the rapidity of sweeping technological changes. Such policies thereby form elements of a new social contract that offers the potential for addressing many of the major challenges resulting from the rise of precarious work.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - At the start of 1987, Primo Levi took part in a remarkable series of conversations about his early life with a friend and fellow writer, Giovanni Tesio. This book is the result of those meetings, originally intended to be the basis for an authorized biography and published here in English for the first time.In a densely packed dialogue, Levi responds to Tesio's tactful and never too insistent questions with a watchful readiness and candour, breaking through the reserve of his public persona to allow a more intimate self to emerge. Following the thread of memory, he lucidly discusses his family, his childhood, his education during the Fascist period, his adolescent friendships, his reading, his shyness and his passion for mountaineering, and recounts his wartime experience as a partisan and the terrible price it exacted from him and his comrades. Though we glimpse his later life as a writer, the story breaks off just before his deportation to Auschwitz owing to his sudden death.In The Last Interview, Levi the man, the witness, the chemist and the writer all unite to offer us a story which is also a window onto history. These conversations shed new light on Levi's life and will appeal to the many readers of this most eloquent witness to the horrors of the Holocaust.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Few figures are more crucial to understanding the upheavals of our contemporary era than Karl Polanyi. In a world riven by social and economic crises, from rising inequality to the decay of democratic institutions and profound technological disruption, Polanyi's path-breaking account of the dynamics of market capitalism and his defence of society and nature against the dangerous tendencies of the market capitalist system are more relevant than ever.This book brings together Polanyi's most important articles and essays to give a unique selection of his essential shorter writings, mixing classic texts with significant but previously little-known pieces. It highlights the coherence and richness of Polanyi's theoretical and political approach, making it indispensable for understanding his overarching intellectual contribution. The volume includes his interwar writings, which deal with the world economic crisis and the socialist alternative to conservative and fascist developments; his reflection on political theory and the international situation after the war; and his comparative studies of economic institutions. Polanyi's political writings are complemented and supported by the critique of economic determinism and what he termed 'our obsolete market mentality'.This book is an invaluable companion to Polanyi's masterpiece, The Great Transformation, and an essential resource for students and scholars of political economy, sociology, history and political philosophy.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European and American colonists perpetrated one of history's most monstrous crimes: slavery. Millions of Africans were forcibly abducted from their homes and subjected to misery, humiliation and death as part of the brutal Atlantic slave trade. However, given that those who perpetrated and profited from slavery are long dead, should reparation be made for this historic injustice Should current generations pay for the crimes of their forebears If so, how In this book, Janna Thompson illuminates this debate with skill and clarity. She uses three case studies - France's treatment of Haiti, Britain's role in the African slave trade, and the plight of African Americans - to address these questions in an accessible and engaging fashion. She makes a nuanced case for the necessity of reparations, but argues that the exact form they take should vary from case to case, depending on a whole range of factors, both principled and practical.This engaging book is a concise and highly readable introduction to the issues for students of political theory and philosophy, and anyone who wishes to grapple with the complexities of reparative justice and our responsibility for the darkest aspects of our past.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Modern societies set limits, on everything from how fast motorists can drive to how much waste factory owners can dump in our rivers. But incomes in our deeply unequal world have no limits. Could capping top incomes tackle rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches In this engaging book, leading analyst Sam Pizzigati details how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a 'maximum wage' could be both economically viable and politically practical. He shows how, building on local initiatives, governments could use their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios across the board.The ultimate goal That ought to be, Pizzigati argues, a world without a super rich. He explains why we need to create that world -- and how we could speed its creation.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Global climate change poses an unprecedented challenge for governments across the world. Small wonder that many experts question whether democracies have the ability to cope with the causes and long-term consequences of a changing climate. Some even argue that authoritarian regimes are better equipped to make the tough choices required to tackle the climate crisis.In this incisive book, Daniel Fiorino challenges the assumptions and evidence offered by sceptics of democracy and its capacity to handle climate change. Democracies, he explains, typically enjoy higher levels of environmental performance and produce greater innovation in technology, policy, and climate governance than autocracies. Rather than less democracy, Fiorino calls for a more accountable and responsive politics that will provide democratically-elected governments with the enhanced capacity for collective action on climate and other environmental issues.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - States claim the right to choose who can come to their country. They put up barriers and expose migrants to deadly journeys. Those who survive are labelled 'illegal' and find themselves vulnerable and unrepresented. The international state system advantages the lucky few born in rich countries and locks others into poor and often repressive ones.In this book, Christopher Bertram skilfully weaves a lucid exposition of the debates in political philosophy with original insights to argue that migration controls must be justifiable to everyone, including would-be and actual immigrants. Until justice prevails, states have no credible right to exclude and no-one is obliged to obey their immigration rules.Bertram's analysis powerfully cuts through the fog of political rhetoric that obscures this controversial topic. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the politics and ethics of migration.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Since 2012, hundreds of men and women have left Western countries to join jihadist groups fighting in Syria. Many are still there, many have been killed, but some have chosen to return to their countries of origin. French Journalist David Thomson met some of those who came back. Bilel, Yassin, Zoubeir, Lena, each has a different profile and story. Some have returned disgusted by the violence of the Syrian battlefields, or the terrorist attacks that have struck across Europe; they try to become forgotten, living under extreme surveillance. Others return seriously wounded or psychologically destroyed. Others still are in jail, a breeding ground for broader radicalization. And some have come back to continue to carry out jihad in Europe. In utmost secrecy, David Thomson gathered their testimonies and recounts them in this remarkable and revealing book.With ISIS losing ground on all fronts, the steady flow of jihadists returning to Europe represents one of the greatest challenges facing countries across the continent. This nuanced analysis of the social, religious, political, familial and psychological factors that push people to violent extremism is more necessary now than ever. It will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand how we might address this threat.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Politics is the process by which communities collectively decide to pursue certain courses of action. It is, as such, always a matter of judgment. Courses of action are chosen at least in part because they are somehow adjudged better than the alternatives, and this has given rise to a great deal of speculation about the ways in which we determine the relative merits of proposed laws and policies. What exactly is good judgment in politics What are the characteristics of people who judge especially well How is good judgment acquired and how can we recognize it in others Peter Steinberger addresses such questions by considering a variety of important developments in the history of political thought - ancient, modern and contemporary - introducing readers to important and on-going debates about the idea of prudence or practical wisdom as it functions, or should function, in the realm of public affairs. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of political theory, the history of political thought, and political ethics.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - How can we think of life in its dual expression, matter and experience, the living and the lived Philosophers and, more recently, social scientists have offered multiple answers to this question, often privileging one expression or the other - the biological or the biographical. But is it possible to conceive of them together and thus reconcile naturalist and humanist approaches Using research conducted on three continents and engaging in critical dialogue with Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Foucault, Didier Fassin attempts to do so by developing three concepts: forms of life, ethics of life, and politics of life.In the conditions of refugees and asylum seekers, in the light of mortality statistics and death benefits, and via a genealogical and ethnographical inquiry, the moral economy of life reveals troubling tensions in the way contemporary societies treat human beings. Once the pieces of this anthropological composition are assembled, like in Georges Perec's jigsaw puzzle, an image appears: that of unequal lives.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Popular protest in China has been widespread and prevalent. Why do people protest and how are such demonstrations handled by the authorities Could they ultimately imperil China's political system In this book, Teresa Wright analyzes the array of protests that have swept China in the post-Mao period. Exploring popular contention through a range of different groups - from farmers to factory workers, urban homeowners to environmentalists, nationalists to dissidents, ethnic minorities to Hong Kong residents, Wright shows that - with the exception of the latter - popular protest has achieved adequate government responses to the public's most serious grievances.Yet Wright cautions that this may not last forever. For Chinese citizens that engage in protest often suffer serious emotional and physical costs. As a result, they have developed an unhealthy relationship with the regime. In this context, Xi Jinping's recent efforts to restrict public expression may backfire - leading to an explosive dynamic that may threaten the political stability that China's ruling elites so desire.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - There is widespread concern today about the 'radicalization' of young muslim men, and the deprived areas of Western cities are believed to have become breeding grounds of home-grown extremism. But how do young Muslims growing up in the cities of the West really live This book takes us beyond the rhetoric and into the housing estates on the outskirts of Paris to meet Adama, Radouane, Hassan, Tarik, Marley, and a shadowy figure whose name suddenly and brutally became known to the world at the time of the Charlie Hebdo shootings: Amédy Coulibaly. Seeing Amédy through the eyes of close friends and other young Muslim men in the neighbourhoods where they grew up, Fabien Truong uncovers a network of competing loyalties and maps the road these youths take to resolve the conflicts they face: becoming Muslim. For these young men, Islam stands, often alone, as a resource, a gateway - as if it were the last route to 'escape' without betrayal and to 'fight' in a meaningful and noble way.Becoming Muslim does not necessarily lead to the radicalized 'other'. It is more like a long-distance race, a powerful reconversion of the self that allows for introspection and change. But it can also lead to a belligerent presentation of the self that transforms a dead-end into a call to arms.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - We have long been told that corporations rule the world, their interests seemingly taking precedence over states and their citizens. Yet, while states, civil society, and international organizations are well drawn in terms of their institutions, ideologies, and functions, the world's global corporations are often more simply sketched as mechanisms of profit maximization.In this book, John Mikler re-casts global corporations as political actors with complex identities and strategies. Debunking the idea of global corporations as exclusively profit-driven entities, he shows how they seek not only to drive or modify the agendas of states but to govern in their own right. He also explains why we need to re-territorialize global corporations as political actors that reflect and project the political power of the states and regions from which they hail.We know the global corporations' names, we know where they are headquartered, and we know where they invest and operate. Economic processes are increasingly produced by the control they possess, the relationships they have, the leverage they employ, the strategic decisions they make, and the discourses they create to enhance acceptance of their interests. This book represents a call to study how they do so, rather than making assumptions based on theoretical abstractions.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book is a radical plea for the centrality of experience in the social and human sciences. Lash argues that a large part of the output of the social sciences today is still shaped by assumptions stemming from positivism, in contrast to the tradition of interpretative social enquiry pioneered by Max Weber. These assumptions are particularly central to economics, with its emphasis on homo economicus, the utility-maximizing actor, but they have infiltrated the other social sciences too.Lash argues for a social sciences based not in positivism's utilitarian a priori but instead in the a posteriori of grounded and embedded subjective experience. His wide-ranging account starts from considerations of ancient experience via Aristotle's technics, continues through a politics of Hannah Arendt's 'a posteriori' public sphere and concludes with the contemporary - with technological experience, on the one hand, and with Chinese post-ontological thought, in which the 'ten thousand things' themselves are doing the experiencing, on the other.This original book by a leading social and cultural theorist will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, cultural studies and throughout the social sciences.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Amid a devastating economic crisis, two tragic events coming from the outside - the wave of immigration and Islamic terrorism - have radically changed the profile and significance of the space we call Europe. Given a paradigm leap of this sort, philosophical reflection is in a position to exert its creative power more than other types of knowledge. But this can only happen if it is able to go beyond its own lexical boundaries, by turning its gaze outside itself.Here the leading Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito looks at how various strands of German, French, and Italian thought have achieved this outward turn and successfully captured international attention by breaking with the language of early nineteenth-century crisis philosophies. When analyzed from this novel perspective, the great texts of Adorno, Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze, as well as works by the latest Italian thinkers, are cast in a new light. From the relationship and tension between them, reconstructed here with extraordinary theoretical sensitivity, a form of thought can arise that is equal to the challenges faced by Europe today.This erudite and wide-ranging analysis of European thought in the light of the crises facing the continent today will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy, critical theory, and beyond.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Few figures are more crucial to understanding the upheavals of our contemporary era than Karl Polanyi. In a world riven by social and economic crises, from rising inequality to the decay of democratic institutions and profound technological disruption, Polanyi's path-breaking account of the dynamics of market capitalism and his defence of society and nature against the dangerous tendencies of the market capitalist system are more relevant than ever.This book brings together Polanyi's most important articles and essays to give a unique selection of his essential shorter writings, mixing classic texts with significant but previously little-known pieces. It highlights the coherence and richness of Polanyi's theoretical and political approach, making it indispensable for understanding his overarching intellectual contribution. The volume includes his interwar writings, which deal with the world economic crisis and the socialist alternative to conservative and fascist developments; his reflection on political theory and the international situation after the war; and his comparative studies of economic institutions. Polanyi's political writings are complemented and supported by the critique of economic determinism and what he termed 'our obsolete market mentality'.This book is an invaluable companion to Polanyi's masterpiece, The Great Transformation, and an essential resource for students and scholars of political economy, sociology, history and political philosophy.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - What do we know of the emotional life of the Middle Ages Though a long-neglected subject, a multitude of sources - spiritual and secular literature, iconography, chronicles, as well as theological and medical works - provide clues to the central role emotions played in medieval society.In this work, historians Damien Boquet and Piroska Nagy delve into a rich variety of texts and images to reveal the many and nuanced experiences of emotion during the Middle Ages - from the demonstrative shame of a saint to a nobleman's fear of embarrassment, from the enthusiasm of a crusading band to the fear of a town threatened by the approach of war or plague. Boquet and Nagy show how these outbursts of joy and pain, while universal expressions, must be understood within the specific context of medieval society. During the Middle Ages, a Christian model of affectivity was formed in the 'laboratory' of the monasteries, one which gradually seeped into wider society, interacting with the sensibilities of courtly culture and other forms of expression.Bouqet and Nagy bring a thousand years of history to life, demonstrating how the study of emotions in medieval society can also allow us to understand better our own social outlooks and customs.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Recently there has been an extraordinary international revival of interest in Hannah Arendt. She was extremely perceptive about the dark tendencies in contemporary life that continue to plague us. She developed a concept of politics and public freedom that serves as a critical standard for judging what is wrong with politics today.Richard J. Bernstein argues that Arendt should be read today because her penetrating insights help us to think about both the darkness of our times and the sources of illumination. He explores her thinking about statelessness and refugees; the right to have rights; her critique of Zionism; the meaning of the banality of evil; the complex relations between truth, lying, power, and violence; the tradition of the revolutionary spirit; and the urgent need for each of us to assume responsibility for our political lives.This short and very readable book will be of great interest to anyone who wants to understand the forces that are shaping our world today.…