Family feuds

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Tariq Ali

"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the October 1917 uprising, is one of the most misunderstood leaders of the twentieth century. In his own time, there were many, even among his enemies, who acknowledged the full magnitude of his intellectual and political achievements. But his legacy has been lost in misinterpretation; he is worshipped but rarely read. On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Tariq Ali explores the two major influences on Lenin's thoughtthe turbulent history of Tsarist Russia and the birth of the international labour movementand explains how Lenin confronted dilemmas that still cast a shadow over the present. Is terrorism ever a viable strategy? Is support for imperial wars ever justified? Can politics be made without a party? Was the seizure of power in 1917 morally justified? Should he have parted company from his wife and lived with his lover? In The Dilemmas of Lenin, Ali provides an insightful portrait of Lenin's deepest preoccupations and underlines the clarity and vigour of his theoretical and political formulations. He concludes with an affecting account of Lenin's last two years, when he realized that 'we knew nothing' and insisted that the revolution had to be renewed lest it wither and die."--Publisher information.

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Silvestra Mariniello and Paul A. Bové

Gendered Agents, edited by Silvestra Mariniello and Paul A. Bove, presents essays by influential feminist theorists who challenge traditional Western epistemology and suggest new directions for feminism. By examining both literary and historical discourses, such critics as Gayatri Spivak, Hortense Spillers, and Lauren Berlant assess questions of sexuality, ethics, race, psychoanalysis, subjectivity, and identity.

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Peter Alexander Meyers

In 'Abandoned to Ourselves', Peter Alexander Myers shows how the centrepiece of the Enlightenment - society as the symbol of collective human life and as the fundamental domain of human practice - was primarily composed and animated by its most ambivalent figure: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

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John Kenneth White

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency marked a conclusive end to the Reagan era, writes John Kenneth White in Barack Obama's America. Reagan symbolized a 1950s and 1960s America, largely white and suburban, with married couples and kids at home, who attended church more often than not. Obama's election marked a new era, the author writes. Whites will be a minority by 2042. Marriage is at an all-time low. Cohabitation has increased from a half-million couples in 1960 to more than 5 million in 2000 to even more this year. Gay marriages and civil unions are redefining what it means to be a family. And organized religions are suffering, even as Americans continue to think of themselves as a religious people. Obama's inauguration was a defining moment in the political destiny of this country, based largely on demographic shifts, as described in Barack Obama's America.