Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: polemic

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  The End of Faith

  Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

  by Sam Harris

  Natalie Angier wrote in The New York Times: " The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say." This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a... (more)
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  How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World

  by Francis Wheen

  An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen's Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004's most talked about books. In 1979 two events occurred that would shape the next twenty-five years. In Britain, an era of weary consensualist politics was displaced by the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, whose ambition was to reassert 'Victorian... (more)
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  Failed States

  The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

  by Noam Chomsky

  “It’s hard to imagine any American reading this book and not seeing his country in a new, and deeply troubling, light.”— The New York Times Book Review The United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against “failed states” around the globe. In this much-anticipated follow-up to his international bestseller Hegemony or Survival , Noam Chomsky turns the tables, showing how the United... (more)
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  Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security

  by Michael Savage

  The host of one of the most followed conservative talk radio programs and number 1 bestselling author - takes on President Obama's socialist agenda, his Chicago-style strong-arm tactics, and his Lenin-like complex, showing how conservatives can save America from Obama's assault on the middle-class. In "Trickle Up Poverty", Michael Savage says a revolution is brewing. Americans are boiling mad over the way Congress... (more)
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  The Cult of the Amateur

  How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture

  by Andrew Keen

  Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen... (more)
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  Party of One

  The Loners' Manifesto

  by Anneli S. Rufus

  Isaac Newton. Michelangelo. Anne Rice. Barry Bonds. Haruki Murakami. They and countless others belong to a subculture that will never join hands, a group whose voices, by nature, will never form a chorus. They are loners—and they have at least one thing in common: They keep to themselves. And they like it that way. Self-reliant, each loner swims alone through a social world—a world of teams, troops and... (more)
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  Future Shock

  by Alvin Toffler

  Examines the effects of rapid industrial and technological changes upon the individual, the family, and society.
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  Deterring Democracy

  by Noam Chomsky

  From World War II until the 1980s, the United States reigned supreme as both the economic and the military leader of the world. The major shifts in global politics that came about with the dismantling of the Eastern bloc have left the United States unchallenged as the preeminent military power, but American economic might has declined drastically in the face of competition, first from Germany and Japan ad more... (more)
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  9-11

  by Noam Chomsky

  Noam Chomsky comments on terrorism, U.S. foreign policy, Osama bin Laden, and the long-term implications of America’s military response.
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  Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology: Expanded Second Edition

  by Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand

  Today man's mind is under attack by all the leading schools of philosophy. We are told that we cannot trust our senses, that logic is arbitrary, that concepts have no basis in reality. Ayn Rand opposes that torrent of nihilism, and she provides the alternative in this eloquent presentation of the essential nature--and power--of man's conceptual faculty. She offers a startlingly original solution to the problem... (more)
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  A Room of One's Own

  by Virginia Woolf

  Originally published in 1929, A Room of One's Own eloquently states Woolf's conviction that in order to create works of genius, women must be freed from financial obligations and social restrictions.
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  The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of... (more)
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  What's God Got to Do with It?

  Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State

  by Robert Green Ingersoll

  Robert Ingersoll (1833—1899) is one of the great lost figures in United States history, all but forgotten at just the time America needs him most. An outspoken and unapologetic agnostic, fervent champion of the separation of church and state, and tireless advocate of the rights of women and African Americans, he drew enormous audiences in the late nineteenth century with his lectures on “freethought.” His admirers... (more)
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  Somebody's Gotta Say It

  by Neal Boortz

  I've come to the conclusion that roughly 50 percent of the adults in this country are simply too ignorant and functionally incompetent to be living in a free society. You might think I'm off base, but every day around half the people in this country go out of their way to prove me right. --from Somebody's Gotta Say It Think you've got it all figured out? Think again. Neal Boortz--the... (more)
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  Why I Am Not a Muslim

  by Ibn Warraq

  Those who practice the Muslim faith have resisted examinations of their religion. They are extremely guarded about their religion, and what they consider blasphemous acts by sceptical Muslims and non-Muslims alike has only served to pique the world's curiosity. This critical examination reveals an unflattering picture of the faith and its practitioners. Nevertheless, it is the truth, something that has either been... (more)
• Why I Am Not a HinduIiaiah

  

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  Why I Am Not a Hindu

  by K. Ilaiah

  '<In our childhood> all of us, the Dalitbahujans of India never heard the word 'Hindu' -- not as a word, nor as the name of a culture, nor as the name of the religion.' This is one of the provocative statements from the author who identifies himself as a dalitbahujan, a member of the 'exploited and suppressed majority' of Indians. Writing with passionate anger laced with sarcasm on the situation in India... (more)
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  Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought: Translation Series

  Ornament and Crime

  Selected Essays

  by Adolf Loos, Adolf Opel

  Contains thirty-six original essays by the celebrated Viennese architect, Adolf Loos (1870-1933). Most deal with questions of design in a wide range of areas, from architecture and furniture, to clothes and jewellery, pottery, plumbing, and printing; others are polemics on craft education and training, and on design in general. Loos, the great cultural reformer and moralist in the history of European architecture... (more)
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  Economic Philosophy

  by Joan Robinson

  "Economics has always been partly a vehicle" for the ruling ideology of each period as well as partly a method of scientific investigation. It limps along with one foot in untested hypotheses and the other in untestable slogans. Here our task is to sort out as best we may this mixture of ideology and science." With these provocative words, Joan Robinson introduces this lively and iconoclastic book. "In what... (more)
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  The Future of Reputation

  Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

  by Daniel J. Solove

  Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally... (more)
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  The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace At Last

  by Bernard Avishai

  Political economist Bernard Avishai has been writing and thinking about Israel since moving there to volunteer during the 1967 War. now he synthesizes his years of study and searching into a short, urgent polemic that posits that the country must become a more complete democracy if it has any chance for a peaceful future. He explores the connection between Israel’s democratic crisis and the problems besetting the... (more)