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The book is arguably the first comprehensive collection of essays on Michael Polanyi’s social, political philosophy. The essays combine philosophical…
and historical approaches to show Polanyi’s social thought in the context of his epistemology and philosophy of science as well as the 20th century intellectual history. This volume appeals to specialists in Michael Polanyi’s philosophy, political philosophers who are interested in the 20th century political thought, mainly conservative-liberal political tradition. Furthermore it appeals to scholars focusing on the intersections between epistemology and political philosophy.Human Minds and Cultures
By Sanjit Chakraborty. 2024
This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a…
multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the striking pursuit of envisaging human minds and cultures as an essential appraisal of philosophy and the social sciences. The book hinges on a theoretical understanding of the indispensable liaison between the dichotomy of minds and objectivity residing in semantic-ontological conjectures. The ethnographic sense of cultures confines the scope of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societalsemiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures. Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures.Admiral Nimitz: The Commander of the Pacific Ocean Theater
By Brayton Harris. 2012
The biography of legendary admiral Chester W. Nimitz, master military strategist and visionary of submarine operations.Chester Nimitz was an admiral's…
Admiral, considered by many to be the greatest naval leader of the last century. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz assembled the forces, selected the leaders, and - as commander of all U.S. and Allied air, land, and sea forces in the Pacific Ocean - led the charge one island at a time, one battle at a time, toward victory. A brilliant strategist, he astounded contemporaries by achieving military victories against fantastic odds, outpacing more flamboyant luminaries like General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral "Bull" Halsey. And he was there to accept, on behalf of the United States, the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship USS Missouri in August 1945. In this first biography in over three decades, Brayton Harris uses long-overlooked files and recently declassified documents to bring to life one of America's greatest wartime heroes.Gregg Herken's Brotherhood of the Bomb is the fascinating story of the men who founded the nuclear age, fully told…
for the first timeThe story of the twentieth century is largely the story of the power of science and technology. Within that story is the incredible tale of the human conflict between Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller-the scientists most responsible for the advent of weapons of mass destruction.How did science-and its practitioners-enlisted in the service of the state during the Second World War, become a slave to its patron during the Cold War? The story of these three men, builders of the bombs, is fundamentally about loyalty-to country, to science, and to each other-and about the wrenching choices that had to be made when these allegiances came into conflict.Gregg Herken gives us the behind-the-scenes account based upon a decade of research, interviews, and newly released Freedom of Information Act and Russian documents. Brotherhood of the Bomb is a vital slice of American history told authoritatively-and grippingly-for the first time.Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War
By Xenophon. 2006
Cyrus, a great Persian leader, was so widely and memorably respected that a hundred years later, Xenophon of Athens wrote…
this admiring book about the greatest leader of his era. Larry Hedrick's Introduction describes Cyrus and his times.Among his many achievements, this great leader of wisdom and virtue founded and extended the Persian Empire; conquered Babylon; freed 40,000 Jews from captivity; wrote mankind's first human rights charter; and ruled over those he had conquered with respect and benevolence.According to historian Will Durant, Cyrus the Great's military enemies knew that he was lenient, and they did not fight him with that desperate courage which men show when their only choice is "to kill or die." As a result the Iranians regarded him as "The Father," the Babylonians as "The Liberator," the Greeks as the "Law-Giver," and the Jews as the "Anointed of the Lord."By freshening the voice, style and diction of Cyrus, Larry Hedrick has created a more contemporary Cyrus. A new generation of readers, including business executives and managers, military officers, and government officials, can now learn about and benefit from Cyrus the Great's extraordinary achievements, which exceeded all other leaders' throughout antiquity.The Scariest Place in the World: A Marine Returns to North Korea
By James Brady. 2005
A memoir from the New York Times bestselling author of Warning of War and Marines of Autumn, James Brady's The…
Scariest Place in the World. Half a century after he fought there as a young lieutenant of Marines, James Brady returns to the brooding Korean ridgelines and mountains to sound taps for a generation. It's been years since Brady first wrote of Korea in The Coldest War, drawing raves from Walter Cronkite and The New York Times, which called it "a superb personal memoir of the way it was." In the spring of 2003, Brady and Pulitzer Prize–winning combat photographer Eddie Adams flew in Black Hawk choppers and trekked the Demilitarized Zone where it meanders into North Korea, interviewing four-star generals and bunking in with tough U.S. recon troops, in Brady's words, "raw meat on the point of a sharpened stick." Brady recalls that first time on bloody Hill 749, the men who died there, what happened to the Marines who lived to make it home, and experiences yet again the emotional pull of a lifelong love affair with the Corps in which they all served. Brady summons up the past and illuminates the present, be it the Korea of "the forgotten war," the Yanks who fought there long ago, or today's soldiers standing wary sentinel over "the scariest place in the world." The result is uplifting, inspiring, often heartbreaking, and this Brady memoir proves as powerful as his first.Mirror of God: Christian Faith as Spiritual Practice
By James W. Jones. 2003
What are the benefits of being a spiritual person? This is the question that James Jones explores in his newest…
book, The Mirror of God. Jones contends that true religious belief is not a passive process and that one must work hard towards believing in God through acts such as prayer, meditation and communal worship. He explores the boundaries between psychotherapy and religious practice, looks at what Christians might learn from Buddhists and shows their effects on the body and mind. Jones is a psychologist as well as a professor of religion and, ultimately, he provides a blueprint for worship that's smart, effective and grounded in the real lives we all live.Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature
By Alva Noë. 2015
A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselvesIn his new book, Strange…
Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.The Slaves' Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812
By Gene Allen Smith. 2013
A sweeping and original look at American slavery in the early nineteenth century that reveals the gamble slaves had to…
take to surviveImages of American slavery conjure up cotton plantations and African American slaves locked in bondage until the Civil War. Yet early on in the nineteenth century the state of slavery was very different, and the political vicissitudes of the young nation offered diverse possibilities to slaves. In the century's first two decades, the nation waged war against Britain, Spain, and various Indian tribes. Slaves played a role in the military operations, and the different sides viewed them as a potential source of manpower. While surprising numbers did assist the Americans, the wars created opportunities for slaves to find freedom among the Redcoats, the Spaniards, or the Indians. Author Gene Allen Smith draws on a decade of original research and his curatorial work at the Fort Worth Museum in this fascinating and original narrative history. The way the young nation responded sealed the fate of slaves for the next half century until the Civil War. This drama sheds light on an extraordinary yet little known chapter in the dark saga of American history.The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism (Routledge Studies in Epistemology)
By Melanie Altanian. 2024
The injustice of genocide denial is commonly understood as a violation of the dignity of victims, survivors, and their descendants,…
and further described as an assault on truth and memory. This book rethinks the normative relationship between dignity, truth, and memory in relation to genocide denial by adopting the framework of epistemic injustice.This framework performs two functions. First, it introduces constructive normative vocabulary into genocide scholarship through which we can gain a better understanding of the normative impacts of genocide denial when it is institutionalized and systematic. Second, it develops and enriches current scholarship on epistemic injustice with a further, underexplored case study. Genocide denialism is relevant for political and social epistemology, as it presents a substantive epistemic practice that distorts normativity and social reality in ways that maintain domination. This generates pervasive ignorance that makes denial rather than recognition of genocide appear as the morally and epistemically right thing to do. By focusing on the prominent case of Turkey’s denialism of the Armenian genocide, the book shows the serious consequences of this kind of epistemic injustice for the victim group and society as a whole.The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism will appeal to students and scholars working in social, political, and applied epistemology, social and political philosophy, genocide studies, Armenian studies, and memory studies.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Any third party material in this book is not included in the OA Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Please direct any permissions enquiries to the original rightsholder.Funded by: Swiss National Science FoundationUncommon Valor: The Medal of Honor and the Warriors Who Earned It in Afghanistan and Iraq
By Dwight Jon Zimmerman, John D. Gresham. 2010
Uncommon Valor from Dwight Jon Zimmerman and John D. Gresham presents a fascinating look at six of our bravest soldiers…
and the highest military decoration awarded in this country.Since the Vietnam War ended in 1973, the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest award for valor, has been presented to only eight men for their actions "above and beyond the call of duty." Six of the eight were young men who had fought in the current war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. All of these medals were awarded posthumously, as all had made the choice to give their lives so that their comrades might live. Uncommon Valor answers the searing question of who these six young soldiers were, and dramatically details how they found themselves in life-or-death situations, and why they responded as they did. For the first time, this book also provides a comprehensive history of the Medal of Honor itself—one marred by controversies, scandals, and theft. Using an extraordinary range of sources, including interviews with family members and friends, teammates and superiors in the military, personal letters, blogs posted within hours of events, personal and official videos and newly declassified documents, Uncommon Valor is a compelling and important work that recounts incredible acts of heroism and lays bare the ultimate sacrifice of our bravest soldiers.Grant: A Biography (Great Generals Series)
By John Mosier. 2006
Grant: A Biography tells of the extraordinary life and legacy of one of America's most ingenious military mindsA modest and…
unassuming man, Grant never lost a battle, leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy during the Civil War, ultimately becoming President of the reunited states. Grant revolutionized military warfare by creating new leadership tactics by integrating new technologies in classical military strategy. In this compelling biography, John Mosier reveals the man behind the military legend, showing how Grant's creativity and genius off the battlefield shaped him into one of our nation's greatest military leaders.Warrior Police: Rolling with America's Military Police in the World's Trouble Spots
By Gordon Cucullu, Chris Fontana. 2011
For the first time ever, author Gordon Cucullu gives readers an explosive inside look at modern military police units and…
their role in defending our freedom.America has been at war on several fronts since the 9/11 attack. While public attention has focused on Marines, conventional Army units, and Special Operations Forces, a lion's share of the war-fighting has been done, under media radar, by Military Police units. These squad and platoon-sized units patrol dangerous urban streets, build up local police units to improve neighborhood stability, and conduct civic action missions. On many occasions they have rushed into a vicious firefight to come to the assistance of infantry units in desperate straits. They keep villages Taliban-free, monitor balloting sites, and interdict drug shipments. In detention centers at Camp Bucha, Iraq, Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, Cuba they guard some of the most dangerous terrorists in history.The story is told by the soldiers themselves, recounting what they have seen and experienced, along with historical context and first-hand field observations by the author team who were provided with unique inside access. Warrior Police takes readers into the bloody streets of Iraq, the dangerous back-country of Afghanistan, and wherever our Military Police are needed.I You We Them, Vol. 1: Walking into the World of the Desk Killer (I You We Them)
By Dan Gretton. 2019
A Washington Post notable nonfiction book of 2020"I You We Them is a uniquely gripping journey around the landscapes of…
mass murder." --Philippe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against HumanityA Spectator (UK) Best Book of 2019A landmark historical investigation into crimes against humanity and the nature of evilVast and revelatory, Dan Gretton’s I You We Them is an unprecedented study of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity: the “desk killers” who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the modern era. From Albert Speer’s complicity in Nazi barbarism to Royal Dutch Shell’s role in the murders of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and the rest of the Ogoni Nine, Gretton probes the depths of the figure “who, by giving orders, uses paper or a phone or a computer to kill, instead of a gun.”Over the past twenty years, Gretton has interviewed survivors and perpetrators, and pored over archives and thousands of pages of testimony. His insight into the psychology of the desk killer is contextualized by the journey he took to penetrate it. Woven into the narrative are his contemplative interludes—perspectives gleaned during walks in the woods, reminiscences about a lost love, and considerations of timeless moral conundrums. The result is a genre-bending work steeped as much in personal reflection as it is in literature and historical and psychological illumination.A synthesis of history, reportage, and memoir, I You We Them is the first volume of a groundbreaking journal of discovery that bears witness to and reckons with the largest and most pressing questions before humanity.Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession
By Marjorie Garber. 2020
What is “character”?Since at least Aristotle’s time, philosophers, theologians, moralists, artists, and scientists have pondered the enigma of human character.…
In its oldest usage, “character” derives from a word for engraving or stamping, yet over time, it has come to mean a moral idea, a type, a literary persona, and a physical or physiological manifestation observable in works of art and scientific experiments. It is an essential term in drama and the focus of self-help books. In Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession, Marjorie Garber points out that character seems more relevant than ever today, omnipresent in discussions of politics, ethics, gender, morality, and the psyche. References to character flaws, character issues, and character assassination and allegations of “bad” and “good” character are inescapable in the media and in contemporary political debates. What connection does “character” in this moral or ethical sense have with the concept of a character in a novel or a play? Do our notions about fictional characters catalyze our ideas about moral character? Can character be “formed” or taught in schools, in scouting, in the home? From Plutarch to John Stuart Mill, from Shakespeare to Darwin, from Theophrastus to Freud, from nineteenth-century phrenology to twenty-first-century brain scans, the search for the sources and components of human character still preoccupies us. Today, with the meaning and the value of this term in question, no issue is more important, and no topic more vital, surprising, and fascinating. With her distinctive verve, humor, and vast erudition, Marjorie Garber explores the stakes of these conflations, confusions, and heritages, from ancient Greece to the present day.The New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden is an explosive first-hand account of a Delta Force commando's hunt for…
the world's most wanted man. The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—an operation of such magnitude that it couldn't be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America's supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force. Told by senior ranking military officer Dalton Fury, this is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed account of these warriors in battle.Soldiers First: Duty, Honor, Country, and Football at West Point
By Joe Drape. 2012
In Soldiers First, bestselling author Joe Drape reveals the unique pressures and expectations that make a year of Army football…
so much more than just a tally of wins and losses.The football team at the U.S. Military Academy is not like other college football teams. At other schools, athletes are catered to and coddled at every turn. At West Point, they carry the same arduous load as their fellow cadets, shouldering an Ivy League–caliber education and year-round military training. After graduation they are not going to the NFL but to danger zones halfway around the world. These young men are not just football players, they are soldiers first.New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape takes us inside the world of Army football, as the Black Knights and their third-year coach, Rich Ellerson, seek to turn around a program that had recently fallen on hard times, with the goal to beat Navy and "sing last" at the Army-Navy game in December. The 2011 season would prove a true test of the players' mettle and perseverance.Drawing on his extensive and unfettered access to the players and the coaching staff, Drape introduces us to this special group of young men and their achievements on and off the field. Anchoring the narrative and the team are five key players: quarterback Trent Steelman, the most gifted athlete; linebacker Steve Erzinger, who once questioned his place at West Point but has become a true leader; Andrew Rodriguez, the son of a general and the top scholar-athlete; Max Jenkins, the backup quarterback and the second-in-command of the Corps of Cadets; and Larry Dixon, a talented first-year running back. Together with Coach Ellerson, his staff, and West Point's officers and instructors, they and their teammates embrace the demands made on them and learn crucial lessons that will resonate throughout their lives—and ours.Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill
By Richard M. Ketchum. 1974
Richard M. Ketchum recounts the early developments of the American Revolution in Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill.Boston, 1775:…
A town occupied by General Thomas Gage's redcoats and groaning with Tory refugees from the Massachusetts countryside. Besieged for two months by a rabble in arms, the British decided to break out of town. American spies discovered their plans, and on the night of June 16, 1775, a thousand rebels marched out onto Charlestown peninsula and began digging a redoubt (not on Bunker Hill, which they had been ordered to fortify, but on Breeds Hill, well within cannon shot of the British batteries and ships). At daybreak, HMS Lively began firing. It was the opening round of a battle that saw unbelievable heroism and tragic blunders on both sides (a battle that marked a point of no return for England and her colonies), the beginning of the Revolutionary War.Dogs Who Serve: Incredible Stories of Our Canine Military Heroes
By Lisa Rogak. 2016
Military Working Dogs have played a vital role in the United States armed forces throughout history. This book is a…
celebration of their contributions to our nation. In Dogs Who Serve, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Rogak profiles these heroic dogs and their handlers in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and even the Coast Guard. She chronicles their path to service, from puppyhood to training, then through their career in the field and on to retirement and adoption. And she showcases them in vivid, full-color photographs that capture the devotion and respect that these amazing canines, their devoted handlers, and fellow soldiers share for one another.A tribute to America's Military Working Dogs, as well as others serving around the globe, Dogs Who Serve is a heartwarming collection for dog lovers everywhere.The fascinating story of how New England Federalists threatened to dissolve the Union by making a separate peace with England…
during the War of 1812. Many people would be surprised to learn that the struggle between Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party defined--and jeopardized--the political life of the early American republic. Richard Buel Jr.'s America on the Brink looks at why the Federalists, who worked so hard to consolidate the federal government before 1800, went to great lengths to subvert it after Jefferson's election. In addition to taking the side of the British in the diplomatic dance before the war, the Federalists did everything they could to impede the prosecution of the war, even threatening the Madison Administration with a separate peace for New England in 1814. Readers fascinated by the world of the Founding Fathers will come away from this riveting account with a new appreciation for how close the new nation came to falling apart almost fifty years before the Civil War.