You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In the first postmodern, genealogical history of social work, this book identifies common practices of a particular era to inform the description of a cultural and philosophical framework that allows the reader to "step inside the shoes" of people from that era and understand the practices through their eyes. These insights are then utilized to promote moral reflection of current practices of social welfare and hopefully avoid moral lapses that may arise from our present biases of understanding.
This book applies the general theory of critical rationalism in order to develop a new sociology of the open society, in general, and a new analysis of the transition from a closed society to an open society in particular. It presents a criticism of Karl Popper’s analysis of human action for opening up a closed society, followed by a critical study of the mainstream sociology to show how justificational models of knowledge and rational action have prevented sociology from addressing the contribution of human action to social change. This book provides new sociologies of closed and open societies. It argues that in the closed society "a low level" of critical rationality is activated by peo...
Those who study Romania must confront the theoretical challenges posed by a country that is undergoing a profound transformation from a repressive totalitarianism regime to a hazy and as yet unrealized democratic government. The most comprehensive survey of Romanian politics and society ever published abroad, this volume represents an effort to collect and analyze data on the complex problems of Romania's past and its transition into an uncertain future. Henry F. Carey has brought together the world's leading scholars on Romania to discuss key aspects of the country's sites of conflict in a groundbreaking work that includes six resident Romanian authors who rarely publish in the global academic press. Romania since 1989 is must for anyone seeking either a basic understanding or a sophisticated analysis of contemporary Romania. The book is also an invaluable resource for those who study the economies and governments of other countries in transition, as it presents an ideal case study with lessons that can be applied elsewhere.
"This volume provides a new perspective on the continuing debate about how liberalism should be defined and what it means in countries with an established parliamentary system, particularly in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe." "Contributors come from both sides of the former Iron Curtain and they highlight the richness and diversity of liberalism and discuss different perceptions of liberal thinking in the East and West in the postmodern world."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
A landmark defense of democracy that has been hailed as one of the most important books of the twentieth century One of the most important books of the twentieth century, The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. An immediate sensation when it was first published, Karl Popper’s monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right. Tracing the roots of an authoritarian tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel, Popper argues that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics. In a new foreword, George Soros, who was a student of Popper, describes the “revelation” of first reading the book and how it helped inspire his philanthropic Open Society Foundations.
These essays rethink the nature of Stalinism and Nazism and establish a new methodology for viewing their histories that goes well beyond outdated twentieth-century models of totalitarianism, ideology, and personality. They offer a new understanding of the intertwined trajectories of socialism and nationalism in European and global history.
A study of how forced exile from 1930s Germany informed the scholarship of four German-speaking, Jewish intellectuals.
Multilingualism is a crucial if often unrecognized marker of new European identities. In this collection of essays, we observe how a plurilinguist and pluricultural political entity practices and theorizes multilingualism. We ask which types of multilingualism are defined, encouraged or discouraged at the level of official policies, but also at the level of communities. We look at speakers of hegemonic or minority languages, at travellers and long-term migrants or their children, and analyse how their conversations are represented in official documents, visual art, cinema, literature and popular culture. The volume is divided into two parts that focus respectively on “Multilingual Europe...
Doing Environmental Ethics explains how we may transform our fossil-fuel-burning economy, which continues to intensify our ecological crisis, into a circular and ecological economy. The text resists political corruption and personal greed by gleaning ethical insights from our philosophical and religious cultures and by embracing the scientific Gaia hypothesis for the Earth. Its reasoning ascribes intrinsic worth to uplifting duties and rights as well as inspiring virtues and relationships, and tests applying these values by predicting the likely consequences of acting on them. It affirms all life has value for itself, and that human life also values reasoning and feelings and being ethical. ...