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In recent years, the field of cognitive psychology has begun to explore the rootedness of rational thinking in subrational inspiration, insight, or instinct—a kind of prediscursive hunch that leaps ahead and guides rational thought before the reasoning human being is even aware of it. In The Music of Reason, Michael Davis shows that this "musical" quality of thinking is something that leading philosophers have long been aware of and explored with great depth and subtlety. Focusing on the work of three thinkers traditionally viewed as among the most poetic of philosophers—Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Plato—Davis reveals the complex and profound ways in which they each plumbed the depths of ...
"Never have the American people been lonelier, unhappier, or more in need of a swift reactionary kick in the pants. There is a better way to live--a way tested by history, a way that fulfills the deepest needs of the human spirit, and a way that promotes the pursuit of true happiness. That way is the reactionary way. In this irrepressibly provocative book, Michael Warren Davis shows you how to unleash your inner reactionary and enjoy life as God intended it. In The Reactionary Mind, you'll learn: Why medieval serfs were probably happier than you are; Why we should look back fondly on the Inquisition; Why all "news" is fake news; How "conservatives" become "adagio progressives""--Provided by the publisher
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It is all worse than we think. It is even worse than Mike Davis, for whom "every day is judgment day" (The Nation), could have imagined. The contributions to this volume are explorations of what Davis-in typical wry fashion-once referred to as the field of "disaster studies." Collectively, they show how our "disaster imaginary" has been rendered inadequate by the existing order's ability to feed off and coopt our resistance to it. Contemporary mass protests are now subsumed as instances of an established, profitable politics of rage. Geopolitical conflict poses not as a threat to hegemonic power but rather serves the interests of a global market which capitalizes on lucrative, permanent war....
The garrotters who terrified London in 1862, the Irish Fenians who carried our terrorist bombings in London, and the gangs who dominated parts of the East End in the early years of the twentieth century all used violence to achieve their ends. "Hard Men" is a survey of the changing pattern of violent behavior, public and private, in England over two hundred and fifty years. People in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were certainly more tolerant of domestic violence and rough communal sports and celebrations than their grandchildren. Contentious public meetings, notably elections, could end in serious injuries; the state and the police exercised control by violent means where they deemed it necessary; and there were of course violent crimes committed by men, women and children. While the practice of violence reflected changes in society and attitudes, it is difficult to point to a golden age in the past without it.
Histories of the US sixties invariably focus on New York City, but Los Angeles was an epicenter of that decade's political and social earthquake. L.A. was a launchpad for Black Power-where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation-and home to the Chicano walkouts and Moratorium, as well as birthplace of 'Asian America' as a political identity, base of the antiwar movement, and of course, centre of California counterculture. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research, scores of interviews with principal figures of the 1960s movements, and personal histories (both Davis and Wiener are native Los Angelenos). Following on from Davis's award-winning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a fascinating historical corrective, delivered in scintillating and fiercely elegant prose.
The spectre of revolution and the nature of radicalism in Britain from the late eighteenth century through to the age of the Chartists has for some time engaged the interest of scholars and been the topic of much debate. This book honours one of the subject's most renowned and respected historians, Professor Malcolm I. Thomis. In a collection distinguished by its formidable range of contributors, a series of stimulating essays explores and re-examines the threats and ideas of revolution and the byzantine networks and character of British radical culture in the turbulent and intriguing years between 1775 and 1848.
Recounts the story of Los Angeles. He tells a tale of greed, manipulation, power and prejudice that has made Los Angeles one of the most cosmopolitan and most class-divided cities in the United States.
In often dreamlike peregrinations around his home towns of Liverpool, London and New York Andy Merrifield reflects on what cities mean to us and how they shape the way we think. As he wanders, Merrifield’s reveries circle questions: Can we talk about cities in the absolute, discovering their essence beneath the particulars? Is it possible truly to love or hate a city, to experience it carnally or viscerally? Might we find true love in the city? Merrifield does find love in the city: with his future wife, whom he takes on a date to see his hero Spalding Gray’s “It’s a Slippery Slope” at London’s South Bank and soon after moves in with, to a tiny place in Bloomsbury where they cele...
This book reflects on popular politics in Britain during the turbulent period of industrialization, focusing on how political meanings were produced and sustained. It is also a spirited series of responses to the changing terrain of historical studies. It takes as its starting point the goal of defining a middle ground between E. P. Thompson’s concept of cultural materialism and the postmodern view of culture as a system of signs and codes (with emphasis on the linguistic grounding of experience). The first part of the book evaluates and critiques the work of two of the most influential proponents of the linguistic turn in British historical writing: Gareth Stedman Jones and Patrick Joyce. The second part contains four case studies: the first two treating British political culture in the age of the French Revolution, the third dealing with the role of space in historical reasoning, and the fourth assessing the role of gentleman leaders within popular movements.