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  Hannah Arendt - Totalitarianism...

  Hector Davidson

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  Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century, has had a profound impact on the way we understand totalitarianism, democracy, and the human condition. Born in 1906 in Germany, Arendt lived through the upheavals of the First and Second World Wars, the rise of totalitarian regimes, and the Holocaust. Her personal experiences, as well as her academic training, shaped her insightful reflections on the nature of political power, authority, and the dangers of mass society. 
  Arendt's legacy is complex and multifaceted. She is perhaps best known for her analysis of totalitarianism, particularly in her seminal work The Origins of Totalitarianism. In this text, she examined the roots of Nazi and Stalinist regimes, exploring how the breakdown of traditional political structures and the rise of mass movements created fertile ground for totalitarian rule. Her investigation into the mechanisms of such regimes, including their use of propaganda, terror, and ideology, continues to offer valuable insights into the nature of authoritarianism. 
  Equally important to Arendt's work is her exploration of the human condition and the role of politics in public life. In The Human Condition, she distinguished between labor, work, and action, highlighting the significance of active participation in political life as a means of realizing human freedom. For Arendt, politics was not simply a matter of governance or power struggles; it was a space in which individuals could engage in meaningful dialogue, debate, and action, thereby affirming their identity as free and equal citizens.

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  Tough Crowd - How I made and...

  Graham Linehan

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  Having cut his teeth in music journalism, Graham Linehan became the finest sitcom writer of his generation. He captured the comedy zeitgeist not just as the co-creator of Father Ted but also with The IT Crowd and Black Books, winning five Baftas and a lifetime achievement award. Then his life took an unexpected turn. When he championed an unfashionable cause, TV commissioners no longer returned his emails, showbiz pals lost his number and his marriage collapsed. In an emotionally charged memoir that is by turns hilarious and harrowing, he lets us into the secrets of the writing room and colourfully describes the high-octane atmosphere of a sitcom set. But he also berates an industry where there was no one to stand by his side when he needed help. Bruised but not beaten, he explains why he chose the hill of women and girls' rights to die on - and why, despite the hardship of cancellation, he's not coming down from it any time soon.

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  The Prince of los Cocuyos - A...

  Richard Blanco

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  A poignant, hilarious, and inspiring memoir from the first Latino and gay Presidential Inaugural Poet, which explores his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities. 
   
   
   
  Richard Blanco's childhood and adolescence were experienced between two imaginary worlds: his parents' nostalgic world of 1950s Cuba and his imagined America, the country he saw on reruns of The Brady Bunch and Leave it to Beaver—an "exotic" life he yearned for as much as he yearned to see "la patria." 
   
   
   
  A prismatic and lyrical narrative rich with the colors, sounds, smells, and textures of Miami, Richard Blanco's personal narrative is a resonant account of how he discovered his authentic self and ultimately, a deeper understanding of what it means to be American. His is a singular yet universal story that beautifully illuminates the experience of "becoming"; how we are shaped by experiences, memories, and our complex stories: the humor, love, yearning, and tenderness that define a life.

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  This Wheel's on Fire - Levon...

  Levon Helm, Stephen Davies

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  The singer and drummer of the Band details, in this book, the history of one of the most influential groups of the 1960s. While their music evoked a Southern mythology with their beautifully crafted, image-rich songs, only their Arkansan drummer, Levon Helm, was the genuine article. This updated edition of his life story includes a new epilogue that covers the last dozen years of his life. From the cotton fields to Woodstock and from seeing Sonny Boy Williamson and Elvis Presley to playing for President Clinton, This Wheel's on Fire replays the tumultuous life of Levon Helm in his own unforgettable folksy drawl.

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  Choosing Family - A Memoir of...

  Francesca T. Royster

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  A brilliant literary memoir of chosen family and chosen heritage, told against the backdrop of Chicago’s North and South Sides. 
   
  As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties. Choosing Family chronicles this journey to motherhood while examining the messiness and complexity of adoption and parenthood from a Black, queer, and feminist perspective. Royster also explores her memories of the matriarchs of her childhood and the homes these women created in Chicago’s South Side—itself a dynamic character in the memoir—where “family” was fluid, inclusive, and not necessarily defined by marriage or other socially recognized contracts. 
      
  Calling upon the work of some of her favorite queer thinkers, including José Esteban Muñoz and Audre Lorde, Royster interweaves her experiences and memories with queer and gender theory to argue that many Black families, certainly her own, have historically had a “queer” attitude toward family: configurations that sit outside the white normative experience and are the richer for their flexibility and generosity of spirit. A powerful, genre-bending memoir of family, identity, and acceptance, Choosing Family, ultimately, is about joy—about claiming the joy that society did not intend to assign to you, or to those like you.

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  Jefferson An Autobiography In...

  Thomas Jefferson

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  Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams and as the first United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration of Independence. As a Virginia legislator, he drafted a state law for religious freedom. He served as the second Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. In 1785, Jefferson was appointed the United States Minister to France, and subsequently, the nation's first secretary of state under President George Washington from 1790 to 1793. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System. With Madison, he anonymously wrote the provocative Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 and 1799, which sought to strengthen states' rights by nullifying the federal Alien and Sedition Acts.As president, Jefferson pursued the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. Starting in 1803, Jefferson promoted a western expansionist policy, organizing the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the nation's claimed land area. To make room for settlement, Jefferson began the process of Indian tribal removal from the newly acquired territory. As a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces.

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