The Clash of Barbarisms - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Clash of Barbarisms write by Gilbert Achcar. This book was released on 2006. The Clash of Barbarisms available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The London bombings of July 7th, 2005, revived the debates that raged after 9/11. What relation did they bear to the foreign and war policies of the United Kingdom and the United States? Were they symptoms of a "cultural clash" between deep-seated "values" or signs of a social crisis at the root of the ongoing conflict? How should we analyze the present-day emergence of fanatical forms of Islamic fundamentalism? The title of the book alludes to the famous thesis on the "Clash of Civilizations." Achcar develops a counterthesis, namely that the clashes we are witnessing do not oppose civilizations, but their dark sides. Each civilization produces a specific form of barbarism, which tends to take over in periods of crisis. Accordingly, the Bush administration doesn't embody the values of Western civilization nor does Islamic fanaticism of the al-Qa'ida type represent Islamic civilization. The clash between them is a "clash of barbarisms" in which the main culprit remains the most powerful. The war of aggression and occupation in Iraq led to blatant manifestations of Western barbarism, most strikingly epitomized by the torture at Abu Ghraib, and inevitably nurtured fanatical Islamic and other counterbarbarisms.
Clash of Barbarisms
Clash of Barbarisms - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Clash of Barbarisms write by Gilbert Achcar. This book was released on 2015-12-03. Clash of Barbarisms available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "This inquiry into the probable shape of things to come is sober, uncompromising, deeply informed, and full of provocative insights and judicious analyses." Noam Chomsky "The most forceful, most rigorous text that there is to read on this war." Le Monde Diplomatique The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key site of direct U.S. intervention. Two of the most astute analysts of this part of the world are Noam Chomsky, the preeminent critic of U.S. foreign policy, and Gilbert Achcar, a leading specialist of the Middle East who lived in that region for many years. In their new book, Chomsky and Achcar bring a keen understanding of the internal dynamics of the Middle East and of the role of the United States, taking up all the key questions of interest to concerned citizens, including such topics as terrorism, fundamentalism, conspiracies, oil, democracy, self-determination, anti-Semitism, and anti-Arab racism, as well as the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the sources of U.S. foreign policy. This book provides the best readable introduction for all who wish to understand the complex issues related to the Middle East from a perspective dedicated to peace and justice.
Clash of Barbarisms
Clash of Barbarisms - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Clash of Barbarisms write by Gilbert Achcar. This book was released on 2007. Clash of Barbarisms available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Barbarism and Its Discontents
Barbarism and Its Discontents - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Barbarism and Its Discontents write by Maria Boletsi. This book was released on 2013-01-30. Barbarism and Its Discontents available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Barbarism and civilization form one of the oldest and most rigid oppositions in Western history. According to this dichotomy, barbarism functions as the negative standard through which "civilization" fosters its self-definition and superiority by labeling others "barbarians." Since the 1990s, and especially since 9/11, these terms have become increasingly popular in Western political and cultural rhetoric—a rhetoric that divides the world into forces of good and evil. This study intervenes in this recent trend and interrogates contemporary and historical uses of barbarism, arguing that barbarism also has a disruptive, insurgent potential. Boletsi recasts barbarism as a productive concept, finding that it is a common thread in works of literature, art, and theory. By dislodging barbarism from its conventional contexts, this book reclaims barbarism's edge and proposes it as a useful theoretical tool.
The Fear of Barbarians
The Fear of Barbarians - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Fear of Barbarians write by Tzvetan Todorov. This book was released on 2010-10-15. The Fear of Barbarians available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The relationship between Western democracies and Islam, rarely entirely comfortable, has in recent years become increasingly tense. A growing immigrant population and worries about cultural and political assimilation—exacerbated by terrorist attacks in the United States, Europe, and around the world—have provoked reams of commentary from all parts of the political spectrum, a frustrating majority of it hyperbolic or even hysterical. In The Fear of Barbarians, the celebrated intellectual Tzvetan Todorov offers a corrective: a reasoned and often highly personal analysis of the problem, rooted in Enlightenment values yet open to the claims of cultural difference. Drawing on history, anthropology, and politics, and bringing to bear examples ranging from the murder of Theo van Gogh to the French ban on headscarves, Todorov argues that the West must overcome its fear of Islam if it is to avoid betraying the values it claims to protect. True freedom, Todorov explains, requires us to strike a delicate balance between protecting and imposing cultural values, acknowledging the primacy of the law, and yet strenuously protecting minority views that do not interfere with its aims. Adding force to Todorov's arguments is his own experience as a native of communist Bulgaria: his admiration of French civic identity—and Western freedom—is vigorous but non-nativist, an inclusive vision whose very flexibility is its core strength. The record of a penetrating mind grappling with a complicated, multifaceted problem, The Fear of Barbarians is a powerful, important book—a call, not to arms, but to thought.
