D'autres livres qui pourraient vous intéresser

• 

  Blowing up Ukraine - The Return...

  Yuri Felshtinsky, Michael Stanchev

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Presciently researched before the invasion of Ukraine, Blowing up Ukraine is the first comprehensive investigation into the lethal methods Russia has used since 1999 to take over Ukraine – culminating in full-blown unprovoked war in 2022 and mounting atrocities. In this chilling, riveting and alarming narrative the authors cite ample evidence, draw historical analogies, and marshal sources that are new, little known, or anonymous by necessity.Over twenty years, Vladimir Putin skilfully manipulated Ukraine's self-serving politicians and oligarchs, only to be thwarted time and again by peaceful revolutions of ordinary Ukrainians – the Maidan – against government corruption and being pushed into Russia's arms. As Putin became obsessed with conquering Ukraine, Blowing up Ukraine shows how the Kremlin has become a threat to global stability and Ukraine is almost certain to be the first battleground of World War III if the West is not careful to take a stance

  Voir livre

• 

  Governing by Fake News

  Jacques Baud

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  What are Islamic State is seeking to create a civil war in France; that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons; that Vladimir Putin is trying to destabilise our democracies; that terrorism has struck France, not for what it does, but for what it is; that the genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 victims?... Literally none, but these assertions are enough to establish the foreign policy of Western countries. The author, a former agent of the Swiss strategic intelligence service, reviews the main contemporary conflicts that Western countries have managed with fake news over the last thirty years. Jacques Baud, a colonel, chemical and nuclear weapons expert, trained in counter-terrorism and counter-guerrilla warfare, designed the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) and its Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA). In the service of the United Nations, he served as Chief of Doctrine for Peacekeeping Operations in New York, and was engaged in Africa. In NATO, he led the fight against the proliferation of small arms. He is the author of several books on intelligence, asymmetric warfare and terrorism. 
  This audiobook is read by a synthesized voice.

  Voir livre

• 

  How States Die - Membership and...

  Douglas Lemke

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  When states die, there are massive consequences. Somalia's death in 1991 created a safe haven for criminal non-state actors and has unsettled the Horn of Africa for decades. When the Iraqi state was dismantled in 2003, a similar set of consequences plagued the Middle East and the international system more broadly.In How States Die, Douglas Lemke provides an analysis of this phenomenon by reconceptualizing the definitions of the state and state death. A state exists, according to Lemke, whenever a set of state-like political entities exercise control over a populated territory. This includes both sovereign states and "territorial contenders," which lack formal diplomatic recognition. Conceiving statehood in this way vastly increases the population of states that have experienced state death, which casts new light on the phenomenon. This increased range not only expands the list of ways states can die; it also provides insights into whether diplomatic recognition is associated with longer life and shows that state strength is not related to state death. Similarly, in contrast to the conventional wisdom, victories in conflict do not coincide with longer state survival. State death is one of the central questions within international relations, and Lemke's reformulation of what a state is will transform our understanding of how and why these deaths happen.

  Voir livre

• 

  Henry David Thoreau: On The Duty...

  Henry David Thoreau

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "That government is best which governs least" is the famous opening line of this essay. The slavery crisis inflamed New England in the 1840s and 1850s. The environment became especially tense after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. A lifelong abolitionist, Thoreau delivered an impassioned speech which would later become Civil Disobedience in 1848, just months after leaving Walden Pond. The speech dealt with slavery, but at the same time excoriated American imperialism, particularly the Mexican–American War. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also.

  Voir livre

• 

  The Postmodern Predicament -...

  Bruce Ackerman

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Human beings have taken one thing for granted since our earliest days: we are bodily creatures dealing with one another on a face-to-face basis. The internet has shattered this fundamental feature of human existence. We are suddenly living our lives in two worlds at once—shifting endlessly from virtual to physical reality as we reach out to others. 
   
   
   
  Worse yet, we are developing different personal identities in our two worlds. We say and do things in virtual reality that flatly contradict our face-to-face commitments to family, friends, and fellow-workers—and vice versa. The Postmodern Predicament explores these dilemmas at each phase of the life cycle, beginning at the moment a young child picks up a cell phone. 
   
   
   
  The existentialist tradition of the twentieth century provides a precious perspective on our postmodern dilemmas. Thinkers and doers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre considered the fragmentation of modern life as a central source of contemporary anxieties. Like them, Ackerman views the challenges of the internet age as a political, no less than personal, problem—and proposes concrete reforms that that could mobilize broad-based support for democracy against demagogic assaults on its very foundations.

  Voir livre

• 

  Thomas Paine: Common Sense -...

  Thomas Paine

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in Boston. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. 
  Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of whether or not to seek independence was the central issue of the day. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. Forgoing the philosophical and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, he structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".

  Voir livre