Algis valiunas biography of barack
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Left, Right, stall Dickens
Conservatives at present generally cower when bookish criticism turns into civil debate—or hectoring, for say publicly Left meeting the exchange, with loom over obligatory cool down of express poems, plays, and novels to their unspeakable antisemite, sexist, allow class-bound assumptions. When interpretation conversation turns to Physicist Dickens (1812-1870), however, government implicit be an enthusiast of explicit in your right mind unavoidable. Whilst George Writer declared, rejoinder the famed opening decision of his 1939 thesis "Charles Dickens," "Dickens anticipation one tinge those writers who tip well good stealing." Author sets off to let loose Dickens plant the transfix of Socialist bandits who would ring him interrupt "a savage revolutionary" mount Catholic zealots who would canonize him quite destroy his longing. Orwell's Deuce is insensate yet stirring, endlessly unfruitful because hypnotized by picture joys nearby pains heed humanity: "For you jumble only beget if pointed can care." The nearby sentence influence the theme (also celebrated) presents Deuce as a sort loosen prototype realize Orwell himself: "It comment the predispose of a man who is at all times fighting refuse to comply something, who fights note the gaping and critique not panicstricken, the trivial of a man who is generously angry—in other improvise, of a nineteenth
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Business and the Literati
Algis Valiunas
For as long as the culture of business has been an integral part of American life, it has also been frowned upon by important sectors of our society. Among our intellectuals especially, the business world has been the subject of many brutal caricatures, portraying corporations large and small, and the people who run them, as heartless, soulless agents of greed. These caricatures have shaped our implicit understanding of the nature of the business world, so much that they have come to pass for conventional wisdom.
In recent years, one of the clearest expressions of the reigning caricature was that offered by the commencement speaker who addressed the graduating class of Arizona State University in May 2009. Warning the students away from what he described as the familiar American formula for success, the speaker put forward what he took to be the ethic of the business world:
You're taught to chase after all the usual brass rings; you try to be on this "who's who" list or that top 100 list; you chase after the big money and you figure out how big your corner office is; you worry about whether you have a fancy enough title or a fancy enough car. That's the message that's sent each and every day, or has been in our culture for far t
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May 7, 2015
Finest Hour 117, Winter 2002-03
Page 38
By David Freeman
Churchill’s Military Histories: A Rhetorical Study by Algius Valiunas, Rowman and Littlefield, 196 pp. $35, member price $28
Churchill’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy, by Klaus Larres, Yale University Press, 592 pp. $40, member price $30Winston Churchill was a believer in the “Great Man” theory of history: that individuals make a difference. The proof was his performances in World War II and its Cold War aftermath, which are treated here in two heavily academic works.
Given Algis Valiunas’s title, Churchill’s Military Histories: A Rhetorical Study, it is best to explain that this book is not an evaluation of Churchill’s qualities as a military historian. In the 19th century its title might have been A Study of the Written Rhetoric of Sir Winston Churchill as Exhibited in His Military Histories. But one fact the author neglects to mention is that most of Churchill’s books were military histories. Thus Valiunas takes his place alongside Manfred Weidhorn as an evaluator of Churchill the writer.
This book began as a doctoral dissertation, and its appeal will probably be to those with a scholarly interest in literature, political science, and history. Yet Valiu