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Harvest book volume HB244
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In recent years, The Origins of Totalitarianism has become essential reading as we grapple with the rise of autocrats and tyrannical thought across the globe. The book begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Hannah Arendt then explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing...
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With "Hope in the Dark," Rebecca Solnit makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable,...
3) Leviathan
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The renowned work by the English political philosopher examines the structure of society and legitimate government, arguing for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
""During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre." Written during the turmoil of the English Civil War, Leviathan is an ambitious and highly original work of political philosophy. Claiming that...
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SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT (ANNOTATED EDITION) - BY JOHN LOCKE
"The Problems of Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell explores fundamental questions concerning human knowledge and the nature of reality. Russell examines topics such as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, and the limits of philosophical knowledge. He also delves into the concepts of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by...
5) On liberty
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Mill's famous argument for a liberal, tolerant, pluralistic, democratic political and social philosophy. Appendices include comments by influential contemporaries and reviews from the press of Mill's time.
6) A warning
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An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital. -- dust jacket
7) The prince
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Need to seize a country? Have enemies you must destroy? In this handbook for despots and tyrants, the Renaissance statesman Machiavelli sets forth how to accomplish this and more, while avoiding the awkwardness of becoming generally hated and despised. "Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be...
9) The Utopia
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First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it...
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Here's something true for almost every American. The democracy you live in today is different, completely different, than the democracy born into. Since 1980, the number of Americans legally barred from voting has more than doubled. Since the 1990s, odds of living in a competitive Congressional district have fallen by more than half. In the twenty-first century alone, the amount of money spent on Washington lobbying has increased by more than 100...
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In this powerful work, John Stuart Mill sets forth representative government as the most sensible compromise between unreflective rule by the masses and the self-indulgence of the few. The reader of this volume senses that Mill is being pulled in opposing directions: steadfastly committed to majority rule with minority rights while at the same time being just enough of an aristocrat to believe that the masses need exemplars to emulate. This edition...
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"A progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo that has enriched millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the working class, and a blueprint for what transformational change would actually look like. It's OK to be angry about capitalism. Reflecting on our turbulent times, Senator Bernie Sanders takes on the billionaire class and speaks blunt truths about our country's failure to address the destructive nature of a system that is...
13) Common sense
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"Common Sense," which contained the first demand for complete independence for the American colonies, sold 100,000 copies in less than three months. No other book in the United States has had such a quick or large sale relative to population. The pamphlet was highly influential in swinging the tide of popular opinion toward a clean break with the mother country."
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""America's political system isn't broken. The truth is scarier: it's working exactly as designed. In this book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us -- and how we are polarizing it -- with disastrous results. "The American political system -- which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president -- is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face," writes political analyst...
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The American Left is pushing a big lie right now: that President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and conservatives are a fascist threat. That threat is so grave, the Left tells us, that it justifies violent 'anti-fascist' protests, the shouting down of conservative speakers, and demands (that started even before he was sworn in) for the impeachment and assassination of the democratically elected president of the United States. But this is actually...
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"Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power, widely known as a relentless advocate for promoting human rights, has been heralded by President Barack Obama as one of America's "foremost thinkers on foreign policy." In her memoir, Power offers an urgent response to the question "What can one person do?"--and a call for a clearer eye, a kinder heart, and a more open and civil hand in our politics and daily lives."--Publisher's description.
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"Notes on Democracy" by enormously influential journalist and cultural critic H. L. Mencken is an incisive and astonishingly timely critique of democracy. Mencken is not opposed to democracy but in his powerful, unabashed polemic, he calls out its inherent and unavoidable fragility. His bracing realism reminds us that naive faith in the inevitable triumph of democracy over all other forms of government is a dangerous delusion, and warns that democracy...
18) The Republic
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"The Republic is Plato's masterwork. It was written 2,400 years ago and remains one of the most widely read books in the world, famous for both the richness of its ideas and the virtuosity of its writing. Presented as a dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and various interlocutors, it is an exhortation to study philosophy, inviting its readers to reflect on the choices we must make if we are to live the best life available to us. This complex,...
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Great books of the Western world (1990) volume 36
Works volume 2
Modern library of the world's best books
Harvard classics volume 10
Works volume 2
Modern library of the world's best books
Harvard classics volume 10
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Political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government. Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations' supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation's wealth should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity...
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In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont spent nine months in the U.S. studying American prisons on behalf of the French government. They investigated not just the prison system but indeed every aspect of American public and private life - the political, economic, religious, cultural, and above all the social life of the young nation. From Tocqueville's copious notes came Democracy in America. This English-only edition of Democracy in...
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