Author: Charles Kurzman Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674039834 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would remain on the throne for the foreseeable future: This was the firm conclusion of a top-secret CIA analysis issued in October 1978. One hundred days later the shah--despite his massive military, fearsome security police, and superpower support was overthrown by a popular and largely peaceful revolution. But the CIA was not alone in its myopia, as Charles Kurzman reveals in this penetrating work; Iranians themselves, except for a tiny minority, considered a revolution inconceivable until it actually occurred. Revisiting the circumstances surrounding the fall of the shah, Kurzman offers rare insight into the nature and evolution of the Iranian revolution and into the ultimate unpredictability of protest movements in general. As one Iranian recalls, The future was up in the air. Through interviews and eyewitness accounts, declassified security documents and underground pamphlets, Kurzman documents the overwhelming sense of confusion that gripped pre-revolutionary Iran, and that characterizes major protest movements. His book provides a striking picture of the chaotic conditions under which Iranians acted, participating in protest only when they expected others to do so too, the process approaching critical mass in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. Only when large numbers of Iranians began to think the unthinkable, in the words of the U.S. ambassador, did revolutionary expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A corrective to 20-20 hindsight, this book reveals shortcomings of analyses that make the Iranian revolution or any major protest movement seem inevitable in retrospect.
Author: Charles Kurzman Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674039834 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
The shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, would remain on the throne for the foreseeable future: This was the firm conclusion of a top-secret CIA analysis issued in October 1978. One hundred days later the shah--despite his massive military, fearsome security police, and superpower support was overthrown by a popular and largely peaceful revolution. But the CIA was not alone in its myopia, as Charles Kurzman reveals in this penetrating work; Iranians themselves, except for a tiny minority, considered a revolution inconceivable until it actually occurred. Revisiting the circumstances surrounding the fall of the shah, Kurzman offers rare insight into the nature and evolution of the Iranian revolution and into the ultimate unpredictability of protest movements in general. As one Iranian recalls, The future was up in the air. Through interviews and eyewitness accounts, declassified security documents and underground pamphlets, Kurzman documents the overwhelming sense of confusion that gripped pre-revolutionary Iran, and that characterizes major protest movements. His book provides a striking picture of the chaotic conditions under which Iranians acted, participating in protest only when they expected others to do so too, the process approaching critical mass in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. Only when large numbers of Iranians began to think the unthinkable, in the words of the U.S. ambassador, did revolutionary expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A corrective to 20-20 hindsight, this book reveals shortcomings of analyses that make the Iranian revolution or any major protest movement seem inevitable in retrospect.
Author: Warren Montag Publisher: Verso ISBN: 9781859840009 Category : Church and state Languages : en Pages : 198
Book Description
No major figure of the English Augustan period has generated stronger and more contradictory views than Jonathan Swift. Scourge of the Whig ascendancy in his own day, vilified by the Victorians, celebrated by Yeats, he has in recent years become a significant bone of contention for prominent figures on the left like E.P. Thompson and Perry Anderson. In this highly original and subtle new study, Warren Montag situates Swift in relation to the ideological and political currents of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries--in particular to what Montag perspicaciously identifies as the long crisis of the British state. Swift's perspective, he argues, was determined less by his personality or psychology than by his position as an Anglican cleric. The church, an instrument of the Tudor and Stuart absolutist state, lapsed into institutional and ideological crisis after the Stuart's fall. In Montag's view, Swift's writings were a defense of this increasingly indefensible institution. Swift employed satire because only in the negative representations of this literary form could the now effectively 'unthinkable' doctrines of the Church be made to appear. Opening with a historical survey of the crisis of English absolutism and the Anglican Church, Montag then gives a definitive account of the specific conflicts in philosophy against which Swift's Anglican orthodoxy was aligned. Detailed examinations of Swift's two prose masterpieces, A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels, follow. Historically and philosophically informed, The Unthinkable Swift contributes not only to our understanding of a seminal figure in English literary history but also to the study of historical ideologies, in particular the once dominant religious tradition at the dawn of the first modern capitalist state.
Author: Charles C. Lemert Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317250443 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
In the eloquent style for which he has become famous, Charles Lemert writes of social theory as no one else. Thinking the Unthinkable is offered as text for instruction, yet it defies the prevailing assumption that social theory is a method for clarifying the facts of social life. Lemert shows how social theory began late in the 19th century as a struggle to come to terms with the failure of modern reason to solve the social problems created by the capitalist world-system. Since then, social theory has developed through twists and turns to think and rethink this Unthinkable. Hence the surprising innovations of recent years-postmodern, queer, postcolonial, third-wave feminist, risk theories, among others arising in the wake of globalization. Once again, Lemert has made the difficult clear in a book that students and other readers will treasure and keep.
Author: Amanda Ripley Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1409069354 Category : Self-Help Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
It was 8.46 a.m. on 9/11 when Elia Zedeño, who had worked in the World Trade Center for twenty-one years, heard a booming explosion and felt the building lurch violently to the south. She grabbed her desk, taking her feet off the floor, and screamed, 'What's happening?' How would you react to a disaster? Would you be paralysed with fear? Would you panic and lose control? Or might you suddenly discover hidden strengths in yourself? In The Unthinkable, award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates some of the most harrowing catastrophes in history in order to piece together exactly how we react in a crisis. Through compelling interviews with survivors and experts she uncovers our instinctive reactions, shows how primitive parts of our brains take over when we're put under pressure, and demonstrates that we can, in fact, train ourselves to do better. We all have a 'disaster personality' that reveals itself at moments of crisis. In The Unthinkable you can become acquainted with yours.Who knows? One day, understanding how it works may save your life.
Author: Raymond Creed Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 1907910018 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 136
Book Description
'Facing the Unthinkable' anticipates the strong emotions that may be expressed by many Jewish people at the time of Israel's public recognition of the true Messiah. Near total despair will suddenly change to exuberant joy. It uses a scriptural, interactive liturgy which assumes that both the nation of Israel and the whole of humanity itself may well be on the brink of annihilation before this unique recognition takes place. God will allow such horrendous suffering to occur in order to break human resistance to His divine will and to highlight the futility of any attempt by Man himself to create a New World Order.It breaks new ground by using a creative liturgy exploring the spiritual and psychological processes which may possibly be experienced by a surviving remnant of Jewish people when they recognize the true Messiah.This book will be of particular interest to members of the Messianic Jewish Community and to any Christians with an interest in Israel and Bible Prophecy,
Author: Peter René Lavoy Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 9780801487040 Category : Weapons of mass destruction Languages : en Pages : 592
Book Description
The proliferation of chemical, biologial and nuclear weapons is now the single most serious security concern for governments around the world. This text compares how organisations shape the way leaders intend to employ these armaments.
Author: Ivo H. Daalder Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 113523597X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
Rethinking the Unthinkable examines the future direction of nuclear arms control in the post-Cold War security environment. Believing that the new environment requires a radical rethinking of the purpose and role of nuclear weapons in international politics, the contributors address many fundamental issues influencing further US, Russian and European nuclear arms reductions. This volume is a product of the Project on Rethinking Arms Control, sponsored by the Center for International and Security Studies in Maryland.
Author: Carol Rittner Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313019045 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
In the last half century, ways of thinking about the Holocaust have changed somewhat dramatically. In this volume, noted scholars reflect on how their own thinking about the Holocaust has changed over the years. In their personal stories they confront the questions that the Holocaust has raised for them and explore how these questions have been evolving. Contributors include John T. Pawlikowski, Richard L. Rubenstein, Michael Berenbaum, and Eva Fleischner.
Author: Ryan Craig Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 184943512X Category : Drama Languages : en Pages : 36
Book Description
Antigone makes everything OK. Gives me hope. I’m utterly devoted to her. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if she weren’t here. What could a play written 2,500 years ago possibly mean today? Ryan Craig’s new adaptation of Sophocles’ famous tragedy captures the passion, danger and moral deadlock of the story of Greece’s most famous teenager. Set in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, Antigone fights for what she believes is right. What would you do?
Author: Charles Kurzman
Author: Charles Kurzman
Author: Warren Montag
Author: Charles C. Lemert
Author: Amanda Ripley
Author: Raymond Creed
Author: Peter René Lavoy
Author: Ivo H. Daalder
Author: Carol Rittner
Author: United States Fire Administration
Author: Ryan Craig