Political Doctrines Books - Page 23

Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand

Benjamin Carter Hett

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (the transcription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition.
When the Nazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-class inmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story was ultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism."
The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933. [in sidebar] Winner of the 2007 Fraenkel Prize for outstanding work of contemporary history, in manuscript. To be published throughout the world.

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

Lin Piao

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Comrade Mao Tse-tung is the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era. He has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism with genius, creatively and comprehensively, and has brought it to a higher and completely new stage.

Mao Tse-tung's thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory. It is a powerful ideological weapon for opposing imperialism and for opposing revisionism and dogmatism. Mao Tse-tung's thought is the guiding principle for all the work of the Party, the army and the country.

Therefore, the most fundamental task in our Party's political and ideological work is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it and to persist in using it to command every field of activity. The broad masses of the workers, peasants and soldiers and the broad ranks of the revolutionary cadres and the intellectuals should really master Mao Tse-tung's thought; they should all study Chairman Mao's writings, follow his teachings, act according to his instructions and be his good fighters.

In studying the works of Chairman Mao, one should have specific problems in mind, study and apply his works in a creative way, combine study with application, first study what must be urgently applied so as to get quick results, and strive hard to apply what one is studying. In order really to master Mao Tse-tung's thought, it is essential to study many of Chairman Mao's basic concepts over and over again, and it is best to memorize important statements and study and apply them repeatedly. The newspapers should regularly carry quotations from Chairman Mao relevant to current issues for readers to study and apply.

The experience of the broad masses in their creative study and application of Chairman Mao's works in the last few years has proved that to study selected quotations from Chairman Mao with specific problems in mind is a good way to learn Mao Tse-tung's thought, a method conducive to quick results.

We have compiled Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung in order to help the broad masses learn Mao Tse-tung's thought more effectively. In organizing their study, units should select passages that are relevant to the situation, their tasks, the current thinking of their personnel, and the state of their work.

In our great motherland, a new era is emerging in which the workers, peasants and soldiers are grasping Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought. Once Mao Tse-tung's thought is grasped by the broad masses, it becomes an inexhaustible source of strength and a spiritual atom bomb of infinite power. The large-scale publication of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a vital measure for enabling the broad masses to grasp Mao Tse-tung's thought and for promoting the revolutionization of our people's thinking. It is our hope that all comrades will learn earnestly and diligently, bring about a new nation-wide high tide in the creative study and application of Chairman Mao's works, and, under the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, strive to build our country into a great socialist state with modern agriculture, modern industry, modern science and culture and modern national defence!

Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life

Theodor W. Adorno

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

a damp, dark mine of of thought, with a few sparkling gems 3 out of 5 stars.
12 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Adorno is a sort of Nabokov of the armchair left: elitist, haughty, immaculately cultured, cynical and despairing, and capable of penetrating aphorisms and sparkling metaphors.

This collection of brief meditations on life and culture under late capitalism is maddening, provocative, illuminating, opaque, invigorating, and dour-- and often all of these on the same page.

Adorno is a writer capable of keen insights and exquisite turns of phrase, and the book contains a half dozen aphorisms that will stay with me. But reading Adorno fruitfully requires a lot of prereading: references to Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzche, Goethe and lesser figures of German philosophy and literature are tossed around with little hand-holding. In the end, his arcane cultural references and dour, despairing worldview cast doubts in my mind whether his books are worth the trouble.

His insights into the more subtle mechanisms of domination and comformity that pervade our society are important, but are rendered with greater clarity by writers such as Gramsci, Reich, P. Goodman, Debord, Chomsky, Marcuse, and Postman, writers who align themselves more closely with social struggles to resist these forms of oppression and thus have a more measured, hopeful view of the possibilities for reconstituting society along humane lines.

Ultimately, Adorno offers no way out of the morass, only criticism of those who seek it. His outlook of despair and non-involvement serves only to justify his elitist, impotent musings on esthetics and philosophy, and offers little instruction for resistance. Perhaps this is why his writings are so avidly championed in graduate programs in the humanities. His followers would do well to take heed of the warning Adorno himself ran afoul of:

"He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest." (MM 6)

Editorial Review:

A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece.

Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It

Peter G. Peterson

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Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Analysis -- Wrong Conclusions 3 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Before writing my review, I read many of the others and Robert Steele's is best. I agree with him in many particulars, especially since the situation has worsened dramatically in the four years since the first edition was published. Everyone should purchase this book.

Both of author Peterson's twin towers of deficit worsened since 2004. The federal budget deficit became dramatically redder; however, the politicians attempt to spin the numbers as percentages and counting or not counting various segments or overlooking contingent liabilities. One is reminded how our dependence on foreign oil went over 50% in 1978 (Oil & Gas Journal 1978 Annual Report), whereas our politicians managed to cook the books for almost another 20 years before having to admit domestic sources accounted for less than half of our crude oil consumption.

The 2007 trade deficit for the US was 791 billion (The Economist, Pocket World in Figures), almost nine times that of the second place finisher, Spain, at 83 billion. Only eleven nations ran a deficit of over 10 billion. Japan, Germany and China ran by far the three largest surpluses, and it must be remembered that only China enjoys significant natural resources of those three.

But even more telling than those two deficits, is the velocity with which dollars are being repatriated to the US through the purchase of public debt, American corporations, and American land and resources, one of the aspects of the problem skipped over by Peterson. In the 1980s, the Japanese manipulated Congress with a heavy hand based on their control of Federal short term paper, but now they have been joined by Germany, China and Saudi Arabia. Take a look at www.economyincrisis.org for a breakdown in the two trillon that has come in to establish control over American industry since 1978.

So what do our feckless politicians do? Apply misdirection and misdirection. Politics is a game of mirrors and doubletalk. Keep the public focused on abortion, gay rights and other minor issues so the anointed can get elected one more time. And of course, they talk about health when they mean health insurance, and offer nothing to affect the critical situation in Social Security and Medicare. If I hear one more politician talk about a "social security trust fund" I'm going to barf.

So why don't I give this book five stars? Because the author offers a few palliatives that he says will solve the major problems. So the reader can be justly shocked by the facts, but feel comforted when he goes to bed believing that there is and will be a solution. We can't scare the American public too much, can we? And we need to confiscate their guns before they rise up in rebellion.

So what is the solution? There isn't one, just a resolution. That will probably be a division of the US into at least five countries, none of which will assume a dime of the US debt, and all of which will re-organize their entitlement programs on a pay-as-you-go basis. Some may even nationalize or confiscate corporations and resources without compensation to their former owners. Yes, Virginia, these is a Santa Claus, but he's the Grinch. So mode it be.

Those of us unfortunate enough to experience this cataclysm in the mid-21st century will look back at the 20th as America's golden age. But no one, certainly not our politicians or author Peterson, will tell us this. I guess we simply aren't ready for the bad news that we're all emperors without any clothes.

Editorial Review:

The national bestseller, described by Tom Brokaw as the “wake-up call we cannot ignore,” with a new preface by the author Acclaimed by all sides of the political spectrum, Peter Peterson's Running on Empty not only traces the deterioration of America’s finances but offers solutions. This national bestseller is required reading for everyone concerned with America’s long-term economic survival. In clear and concise prose, Peterson offers America not only a vision but the practical steps by which to ensure our children’s economic future. Running on Empty is not only a warning, it is also a manifesto calling for the next administration to finally confront a deep and disturbing problem that politicians of all parties have insisted on ignoring for too long.

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

book-the communist manifesto 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I ordered this book for my son, a college student who needed it as a'supplemet' for his course on Sociology.

Never have so many extrapolated so much out of so little. 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A concept born in a simpler time used as an excuse for many things from Socialism to controlled capitalism. As with any pivotal work one should read it for his/her self. There is always the chance of misinterpretation by an individual, but if you do not read this then you are just accepting someone's word anyway.
This is more than an economics book it is a way of life. It sounds good on paper but makes a lot of assumptions. Instead of worrying about workability, look at the logic that is built on assumptions of that time (written, in 1848). Add this to your library.

You can pick a side (pro or con) and make a stand if you like; but look at the size of this book and realize that many people will just use the title and build their own case. You will have read the real thing. And be sure to balance it with. "The Capitalist Manifesto" by Louis O. Kelso

The Capitalist Manifesto

Editorial Review:

The Communist Manifesto is the classic work by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels that founded the idea of a communist type government. This publication has been used widely in political science courses and by individuals studying comparative government and various forms of political movements. The Communist Manifesto is highly recommended for those interested in learning about communism and those who are fans of the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return to Democracy

Thom Hartmann

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Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The ideology of Jefferson was right for then and right for now. 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

What Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom Hartmann

This is yet another fantastic book by Thom Hartmann. This book is an exploration of the values and priorities or ideology of one of the most remarkable people in the founding of the U.S. Citing a 20 volume set of the complete writings of Thomas Jefferson printed in 1900 that Hartmann found in the carriage house attic of the last house he purchased in Vermont Hartmann explains what the values of Jefferson were, what type of democracy he envisioned in the forming of the constitution and bill of rights and that these are exactly what have been eroded so systematically that we are indeed in danger of losing our democracy. Hartmann being Hartmann has also referenced many of that books that the Founders were reading at the time which is also crucial to understanding how Jefferson's opinions were formed. He also shows that the same forces that caused Jefferson's/our democracy to rise up and form this nation in order that we the people are protected from tyranny and serfdom by and to the very wealthy are alive, stronger than ever, and threatening our liberty, democracy, and freedom to have both in a very real way. He does this by comparing current events and Jefferson's writings on these dilemmas in his day. A great read for and fans of Jefferson, Hartmann, democracy, liberty, and freedom but also if you don't know that much about those guys that founded our nation and all that stuff but you'd like to know more without like being bored to tears by dense inaccessible history tomes. The key to democracy is an informed electorate, this book is an inspiring way to inform your self.

Editorial Review:

Today, some 80 nations can be described as fully democratic. Yet in numerous countries around the world, democracy has failed or is tottering, and in the United States its principles are increasingly under siege from corporate and other forces.

In What Would Jefferson Do? Thom Hartmann shows why democracy is not an aberration in human history but the oldest, most resilient, and most universal form of government, with roots in nature itself. He traces the history of democracy in the United States, identifies the most prevalent myths about it, and offers an inspiring yet realistic plan for transforming the political landscape and reviving Jefferson’s dream before it is too late.

What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation

Charles Murray

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Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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"In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the American Founders created a society based on the belief that human happiness is intimately connected with personal freedom and responsibility. A few people, of whom I am one, think that the Founders' insights are as true today as they were two centuries ago. We believe that human happiness requires freedom, and freedom requires limited government. Limited government means a very small one, shorn of almost all of the apparatus we have come to take for granted during the last sixty years.

Most people are baffled by such views. Don't we realize that this is post-industrial America, not Jefferson's agrarian society? This book tries to explain how we can believe the less government, the better. It contains no footnotes. It has no tables and but a single graph. My purpose is to explain a way of looking at the world." --Charles Murray, from the Introduction

The twin pillars of the nation created by America's Founders were strict limits on the power of central government and strict protections of individual rights. Now, at the close of the twentieth century, that state is gone--and Charles Murray wants to bring it back. In What It Means to Be a Libertarian, he offers a radical blueprint for overhauling our dysfunctional government and replacing it with a system that fosters human happiness because it safeguards human freedom.

Most Americans, Murray argues, have reluctantly come to accept that a sprawling, costly, and intrusive government is an inevitable part of modern life. What It Means to Be a Libertarian encourages each of us to liberate ourselves from ingrained ideas of what government is and consider instead what it ought to be. Imagine, for example, a federal government that is not just smaller, but small, with an executive branch reduced to the White House and trimmed-down departments of state, defense, justice, and environmental protection. Imagine a federal code stripped of all but a handful of regulations and a Congress so limited in power that it spends only a few months of each year in session. Imagine a society in which the government's role is once again to prevent people from initiating the use of force, leaving them otherwise free, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement."

In this very personal book, Charles Murray paints a vivid portrait of life in a genuinely free society. He explains why limited government would lead to greater individual fulfillment, more vital communities, and a richer culture. He shows why such a society would have stronger families, fewer poor people, and would care for the less fortunate far better than does the society we havenow.

Writing in the tradition of the Revolutionary pamphleteers, Charles Murray has crafted a brilliant treatise that presents a clear, workable alternative to our
current government. Without footnotes, in plain language, What It Means to Be a Libertarian returns to the truths our Founders held to be self-evident
and applies them, justly and compassionately, to this country's most urgent social and political problems.

The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party

David Horowitz, Richard Poe

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Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

America is under attack. Its institutions and values are under daily assault. But the principal culprits are not foreign terrorists. They are influential and powerful Americans secretly stirring up disunion and disloyalty in the shifting shadows of the Democratic Party. New York Times best-selling authors David Horowitz and Richard Poe (both former radicals) weave together riveting history, investigative reporting, and cutting political analysis to help expose and explain:

• The Shadow Party's plan to rewrite the US Constitution.
• How the Shadow Party overthrows foreign governments--and why it may attempt to use the same methods here.
• The vast network of private think tanks, foundations, unions, stealth PACs, and other front groups through which the Shadow Party operates in America.
• The network's voluminous contributions to the Democrats, which totaled more than $300 million in the 2004 elections, and its growing influence over the party's message and policy.
• The politicians on both sides of the aisle who have exchanged political favors with George Soros and his "government-in-the-wings."
• The Shadow Party's efforts to conceal its radical agenda behind the "moderate" pose of Hillary Clinton and other public figures.
• The radical network's plan to seize power in 2008.

The Coming of the Third Reich

Richard J. Evans

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Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Interesting Beginning 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I've read my share of WWII history books and this one has a different slant. I also have the sequel of this book and I'm currently awaiting the final volume. This book as well as the sequel can be used as a stand alone reference depending on how deep you want to go into the subject.

Mr. Evans goes into detail in this volume starting at the beginning of Germany and going foward so that you can have a better understanding in to what lead Germany down the path it took.

If you know nothing about the third reich or WWII Germany then this book is a great start.

Editorial Review:

There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian’s art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.

The Age of Reason (Great Books in Philosophy)

Thomas Paine

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Paine defended God's reputation 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Given the vitriol with which Christians have denounced Thomas Paine for more than 200 years, one may be under the impression, as I was, that he was an atheist. He was generally denounced as such, and Theodore Roosevelt's reference to him as a "filthy little atheist" was not atypical. But upon actually reading this famous tome of his, I discovered he was in fact a devout man of God. It was only Christianity and other organized religions he had a problem with, and he explains why.

Paine was a creationist who believed nature is God's primary revelation of himself to humankind. In this revelation are all the tools we need, to understand, to behave, to treat others with respect and kindness, to stand in awe of the creator and worship him. Thomas Paine did not appreciate anyone belittling God by suggesting he behaved as "revealed" in those old writings of men who did dastardly things and then justified their behaviors by claiming God told them to do it! Paine could see that the biblical God was created by men the same way they created all the other pagan gods of the day. (Christianity was not the first to have a virgin birth, resurrections and blood sacrifices.)

With no written description of God, and only the creation to go on, Paine was in the uncommon position of actually having to think for himself about what God must be like, what he expects of us, how we should behave. Thinking is work, but like most work, it can be invigorating and rewarding--written descriptions are severely limiting, confined to the words used, while one's imagination is limitless. (Similarly, the more literally one takes something, the more limited its application.) Paine loved observing and imagining what God must be like; he wasn't limited to the feeble, misguided words of ancients.

Those of us conditioned to getting our description of God through written material might at first think Paine to be at a great disadvantage. How silly, we are tempted to think, to imagine our understanding of God could be complete merely by looking around us. How could we possibly figure out that God wants us to have slaves, keep the Ten Commandments, offer sacrifices, flatter him more on Sunday (or is it Saturday?) and burn witches--all merely by observing nature? Then it dawns on us, and wow! If we believe God is good, then without these writings our imagination about his goodness is limitless. Throughout our lives, no matter how much we mature and grow in understanding, at any given moment we push the limits of God's goodness to the extremes of our imagination--never fully comprehending it, only approaching it. We are filled with awe and we are drawn to emulate that goodness. How silly all this stuff about a touchy biblical god who throws his weight around killing people at the drop of a pin if they don't offer the right sacrifice begins to look!

Thus Thomas Paine was offended by the pettiness and absurdities of man-made religion. By observing God directly, he did not find himself in the awkward position of having to create excuses for God's supposed evil behaviors, his weird pagan-like fascination with blood sacrifices, his horrible temper or his morbid fascination with punishment--like stoning unruly kids to death, striking people dead for small infractions and imposing the death the penalty for every human being's mistakes, misdeeds or mere failures to flatter him (to say nothing of torturing them to death by endless fire). Paine wasn't saddled with the burden of explaining why the deity he worships doesn't want women in pulpits or gays in love. He's not stuck with having to defend fantastic promises that are (let's be honest) never kept, and prophecies never really fulfilled. Ironically, the only thing he ever had to defend was God's reputation--which Bible writers had dragged through the mud by attributing their own wicked pursuits to God.

Paine's respect and adoration for God was pure, unadulterated by human contraption. In other words, he worshipped God without all the baggage. And all the while, Christians called him an atheist for not helping them carry theirs.

It's worth noting that Thomas Paine's contemplation of God was not some kind of nebulous feel-good meditation. He was moved to action. In addition to defending God's reputation, Paine personally worked to end slavery, particularly with his 1775 essay, "African Slavery in America." That makes Paine a better person than the biblical God, and not by a little; I mean, God isn't even neutral on slavery, he encourages it (emphatically and repeatedly, according to the Bible). And, of course, while Paine worked to end slavery, his biggest obstacle was Christians who defended the practice on clear biblical grounds. They got their understanding of God through a written description, while Paine got an entirely different understanding of God merely by contemplating God's real revelation, the creation.

Would Paine still believe in God today? Who knows? When he died, Charles Darwin was but a four-month-old baby. In that day, there simply was no plausible explanation for the origin of species.* Nearly everyone, including Paine, chalked it all up to God--the source of all things existing. Things of mystery have always been affairs of the gods.

*(It is a common misconception among Christians that evolution attempts to explain the origin of life, but it does not.)

But for the fact that Paine was not an atheist, one might consider The Age of Reason a foreshadowing of today's popular works by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and others. They and Paine all easily demonstrate how the writings that eventually got voted into the canon that is our present-day Bible could not possibly be a revelation from God. But unlike the others, Paine's purpose was to defend God, not doubt his existence.

This book affords an additional plus. We get a fascinating glimpse of Paine's life and times in the 18th century, 200+ years ago. I was especially interested in his arrest over the nature of his writings. And while this review is an overview, Paine's meticulous tribute to "the age of reason" is a thing of real substance--you'll find detailed arguments not routinely employed by today's writers. You'll also get a more balanced view of deism than we usually get from Christians, who typically misrepresent it as a message of gloom and doom (God created us and then just "abandoned" us). The founding fathers of the United States were more deist than anything else, and thus not Christian, contrary to popular belief.

Editorial Review:

Thomas Paine, defender of freedom, independence, and rational common sense during America's turbulent revolutionary period, offers insights into religion which ring sharply true more than two centuries later. This unabridged edition of "The Age of Reason" sets forth Paine's provocative observations on the place of religion in society.