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  Democracy Lives in Darkness -...

  Emily Van Duyn

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  In Democracy Lives in Darkness, Emily Van Duyn discovers and follows a secret political organization of progressive women in a conservative community in rural Texas. Its members met in secret to protect themselves from retaliation by their conservative neighbors, friends, and family. They discussed immigrant rights, women's reproductive rights, racism, and intolerance of those of different racial/ethnic and cultural backgrounds in their community. Democracy Lives in Darkness is about this group: their daily lives, their choices, and ultimately, their incubation. But it is also about what led them to meet in secret—the political prejudice and hostility that marginalizes and makes people afraid, and the growing political, social, and geographic cleavages that now make even mainstream dissent dangerous.Van Duyn asks why mainstream partisans feel the need to hide their political beliefs from others, why they feel afraid of those from the opposite party, how they stay politically engaged in secret, and how this can transform them and their communities. Van Duyn challenges the assumption that the United States is a liberal democracy where ideas can be expressed freely and publicly. Rather, she suggests that democracy in the United States may exist in darkness, but, more optimistically, that it uses this darkness to move forward.

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  The Politics of Obedience - A...

  Etienne de la Botie

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  In this seminal work of political philosophy, Boetie asks one of the most obvious questions of political theory: why is it that a minority of rulers can remain in power over a majority of subjects who pay all the taxes? 
  The answer might be quite surprising to us all. The conclusion is that the people tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. 
  Liberty is the natural condition of the people. Servitude, however, is fostered when people are raised in subjection. People are trained to adore rulers. While freedom is forgotten by many, there are always some who will never submit. 
  What is the answer then? 
  The author brilliantly and obviously outlines these points in the pages that follow in a way that is illuminating and also simple. It is we who enslave ourselves at the beck and call of 'authority'. Enjoy this classic work that roots sovereignty into philosophy and demonstrates how simply the tides can change.

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  Unknown London

  Walter George Bell

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  Herein you will find much concerning those things which everybody knows about, but nobody knows — the things you have known about since childhood, and have been content to leave them at that, knowing little of what they are and still less where they are to be found. I have dealt mostly with the big things that London has in its keeping, such as the Domesday Book (can you tell me off-hand where it is to be seen ?); with the Confessor's Shrine (of the crowds who enter Westminster Abbey there is a big leaven who do not even know that it is there); with the massive fragments of London's Roman Wall that still survive; with that spot in Smithfield where martyrs burnt and English history was made; with the Duke of Suffolk's head and its dramatic story; with our Roman baths; with London Stone and odd others. … The City of London — the innermost "square mile" — is the richest ground for historical associations in all our world Empire, and the greater pity, therefore, that it should be unknown. (Summary from the author’s Preface, 1919.)

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  United Nation - The case for...

  Frank Connolly

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  One hundred years after the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition, after thirty years of Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit, the debate on Irish unity has intensified. But what could a united country look like and what would it mean for people north and south of the border?
  Considering health, education, the economy, cultural identity and the arts, constitutional change and international relations, award-winning journalist Frank Connolly asks whether a united Ireland could create a viable, vibrant new country.
  With contributions from President Michael D. Higgins, Paula Meehan, David McWilliams, Linda Ervine, Christy Moore, Mary Lou McDonald, Ian Marshall and Brian Keenan, United Nation is a timely look at the case for integrating Ireland.

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  Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks

  Jean de La Fontaine

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  Several of La Fontaine's fables, translated into English by W. T. Larned. (Summary by bge1234)

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  The Spy's Son - The True Story...

  Bryan Denson

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  The true account of the Nicholsons, the father and son who sold national secrets to Russia. “One of the strangest spy stories in American history” (Robert Lindsey, author of The Falcon and the Snowman).   Investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the riveting story of the father and son co-conspirators who betrayed the United States.   Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA’s top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA’s clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids. But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia’s foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents.   In 1997, Nicholson became the highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. But his duplicity didn’t stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to be heroic and to make his father proud.   “Filled with fascinating details of the cloak-and-dagger techniques of KGB and CIA operatives, double agents, and spy catchers . . . A poignant and painful tale of family love, loyalty, manipulation and betrayal.” —The Oregonian

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