by Stéphane Hessel translated by E.C. Belli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2012
Unfocused, and not for the fainthearted, but a clarion call for the like-minded that will perhaps attract the curious as...
An intellectual autobiography by the French activist who wrote Time for Outrage, the pamphlet some claim sparked the Arab Spring.
Now 94, Hessel hopes that the era of nation-states is passing. He fled his own nation during World War II to join Charles de Gaulle's resistance group in London. Returning to France, he was captured by the Nazis and deported to Buchenwald; he survived with help from Eugen Kogon, later a witness against Nazi atrocities. Hessel was one of 12 people who worked for three years to draft the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, published in 1948. Subsequently making a distinguished career in French government, he was inducted into the Légion d'honneur in 2006. In Hessel’s view, the Universal Declaration offers an agenda for the future. Its groundbreaking feature is the assertion that human rights are primary; Hessel and others intended that this would provide the “fundamental value on which the new world would be built.” The sovereignty of governments has “to cede to human rights,” he argues; potential conflicts must be settled rather than fought. Nation-states, products of the Treaty of Westphalia, are driven by two forces: libido possidendi, the lust to own or possess, and libido dominandi, the thirst for power or domination. These imperatives transform leaders into tyrants and citizens into subjects. Hessel buttresses his argument with references to contemporary European philosophers and politicians; he grounds his opposition to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche in the abiding truths of the Greek classics. Reliance on these sorts of sources means that Hessel’s book is very much out of step with the political discourse favored in contemporary America, but he does provide insight into a particular strand of contemporary European thought, rooted in what he calls “indignation” over the selfish, irresponsible behavior of today’s political elites.
Unfocused, and not for the fainthearted, but a clarion call for the like-minded that will perhaps attract the curious as well.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-62087-092-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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