The Library is
where you will find a selection of recommended reading materials hand
picked based upon helpful consumer feedback. Thanks, consumer, for
helping us screw.. um.. I mean, help... you!
Communism .
Marxism .
Socialism .
Anarchism
Revolutionaries .
Cookbooks .
Fiction .
Liberal
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Books
about Communism
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Che
Guevara :a revolutionary life by
Jon
Lee Anderson
Publisher's note: "After World War II, as the
postcolonial world exploded in independence movements and armed
insurrections, there emerged a handsome, dashing champion of the poor and
dispossessed, an Argentine doctor named Che Guevara. Che's dream was an epic
one: to unite Latin America and the rest of the developing world through
armed revolution and to end once and for all the poverty and injustice
he saw there."
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The
Complete Idiot's Guide to Communism by
Rodney
P. Carlisle
James Crabtree's review: "This book discusses, in a
general way, Communism and its place in the 20th century. As such, it
does a very good job, giving the reader an idea of who was who, the
relevence of certain ideas, historical context,
etc..."
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A
Documentary History of Communism and the World: From Revolution to
Collapse by
Robert
V. Daniels
Daniels in NY Review of Books: "The present work has
been deliberately focused on the subject of Communist thought and
doctrine, for reason of its commanding importance, its relative uniformity
within the Communist scheme of things, and the appropriateness of the
documentary approach to its elucidation. We will be primarily concerned
with the evolution of top-level guiding ideas, policies and intentions
among the Communists."
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Books about Marxism
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Communist Manifesto by
Karl
Marx and
Friedrich
Engels
Publisher's Note: "After some four years of
collaboration Marx and Engels produced this account of their conception of
Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property
or a state. The Manifesto claims that the increasing exploitation of
industrial workers will produce a global economic crisis, leading to a
revolution in which Capitalism is overthrown by the new working class.
This vision of Communism provided the theoretical basis of the political
systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives
of millions throughout most of the last century."
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Books about
Socialism
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ABCs
of Soviet Socialism by
James
R. Millar
From GWU Web Page: "Previously, Professor Millar was
Director of International Programs/Studies and Professor of Economics
at the University of Illinois. He was a Wilson Fellow and a Guggenheim
Fellow. He received his B.A. from the University of Texas and his Ph.D.
from Cornell University. Professor Millar teaches undergraduate and
graduate courses on Soviet and Post-Soviet economics"
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Books about
Anarchism
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Anarchy
by
John
Cage
Synopsis: "That government is best which governs not at
all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of
government which they will have." This quote from Henry David Thoreau's Essay on
Civil Disobedience is one of thirty quotations from which John Cage
created Anarchy, a book-length lecture comprising twenty mesostic poems.
Composed with the aid of a computer program to simulate the coin toss of
the I Ching, Anarchy draws on the writings of many serious anarchists
including Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin, and Mario Malatesta, not so
much making arguments for anarchism as "brushing information against
information, " giving the very words new combinations that de-familiarize
and re-energize them. Now widely available for the first time, Anarchy
marks the culmination of Cage's work as a poet, composer and as a thinker
about contemporary society.
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Twenty-First
Century Anarchism: Unorthodox Ideas for the New Millennium by
Jon
Purkis
Annotation: "Among the dozen topics are social welfare,
popular culture in 1990s Britain, Fredy Perlman and the literature of
subversion, transport and consumerism, the curse of the drinking
classes, and 21st-century sex."
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Revolutionaries
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Motorcycle
Diaries by
Che
Guevara
Publisher's note: "In January 1952, two young men from
Buenos Aires set out to explore South America on an ancient Norton
motorbike. The journey would last six months and would take them thousands
of miles, all the way up from Argentina to Venezuela. En route there
would be disasters and discoveries, high drama, low comedy, fights,
parties and a lot of serious drinking. They would meet an extraordinary
range of people: native Indians and copper miners, lepers, police,
wanderers and tourists. They would become stowaways, firemen and football
coaches; they would join in a strike. They would sometimes fall in love, and
frequently fall off the motorbike."
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Stalin:
The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from
Russia's Secret Archives by
Edvard
Radzinsky
Publisher's note: "From the author of The Last Tsar,
the first full-scale life of Stalin to have what no previous biography
has entirely gotten hold of: the facts. Granted privileged access to
Russia's secret archives, Edvard Radzinsky paints a picture of the Soviet
strongman as more calculating, ruthless, and blood-crazed than has ever
been described or imagined. Stalin was a man for whom power was all,
terror a useful weapon, and deceit a constant
companion."
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John
Cage: Composed in America by
Marjorie
Perloff
From Booklist: "The late John Cage began his career in
the late 1930s as an experimental composer whose prepared piano and
percussion works established him as a master of rhythm and sonority. After
1950, his music became ever more conceptually daring, including
individual pieces ranging from the notorious, silent piano composition, 4:33,
to works created by using star charts, street maps, and the I Ching as
compositional tools. His writings became popular enough that he is
today recognized as a great experimental writer. His collaborations with
choreographer Merce Cunningham helped establish a new style of ballet.
Through such work, he became crucial in the international avant-garde and
influenced several generations of composers, writers, and artists. This
volume's contents, derived from presentations made at a Stanford
conference held shortly before Cage's death in 1992, pay tribute to Cage the
"polyartist." They include Cage's last major writing, "Overpopulation
and Art," and 10 essays by well-regarded humanities scholars. John
Shreffler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of
this title."
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Why
Orwell Matters by
Christopher
Hitchens
Publisher's note: "In this brilliant and contemplative
biographical essay, Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the
achievement, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George
Orwell. The result is the perfect convergence of two kindred spirits.
Hitchens has long regarded Orwell as a mentor and model, and in true
emulative and contrarian style, he is both adulatory and aggressive,
sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and as
problem."
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Cookbooks with good pancake recipes
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The
Good Enough to Eat Breakfast Cookbook by
Carrie
Levin
The line-up: Pancakes and Blintzes, Pancakes, 4-Grain
Pancakes, The Diner Stack, Apple Pancake with Apple-Raisin Topping,
Protein Pancakes, Blueberry Pancakes, Banana-Walnut Pancakes, Peter Paul
Pancakes, Stephanie's Swedish Pancakes, Buckwheat Pancakes!
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Fiction inspired by
Communism
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Looking
Backward by
Edward
Bellamy
Slosh says: "One of his close relations wrote the
pledge of allegiance, originally as a bit of socialist propaganda. That was
before the 'under god' days. The main point then was 'liberty and
justice for all'."
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Ecotopia:
The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston by
Ernest
Callenbach
Publisher's note: "...the skeptical Weston is by
turns impressed, horrified, and overwhelmed by Ecotopia's strange
practices: employee ownership of farms and businesses, the twenty-hour work
week, the fanatical elimination of pollution, "mini-cities" that defeat
overcrowding, devotion to trees bordering on worship, a woman-dominated
government, and bloody, ritual war games."
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The
Book of Laughter and Forgetting by
Milan
Kundera
Publisher's note: " Rich in its stories, characters,
and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel
that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the
late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its
historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different
aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and
emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and
experienced."
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Farewell
Party by
Milan
Kundera
An anonymous reviewer writes: "Milan Kundera is one of
the writers and intellectuals closely affiliated with Alexander
Dubcek's, Prague Spring, that failed attempt to create a safe haven for
"socialism with a human face." Soviet tanks ended The Prague Spring before it
could really begin in 1968.... Kundera, who was unrepentant, suffered
exclusion from the writer's union, loss of his teaching post at the
Prague Film School, denial of a passport and the banning of his plays--and
that was just the beginning.... In The Farewell Party, we have a
contemporary Czech novel washed in the atmosphere of a French or Viennese
turn-of-the-century farce. At a health spa and fertility clinic, only a
short, four-hour drive from an unnamed European capital, barren but
hopeless ladies splash in the mineral waters, hoping against hope for the
miracle that will infuse them with new life. Infusion does arrive, in
the form of the Mad Scientist, Dr. Skreta, and the book takes on the
character of mindless erotic frolic on a gaudily bedecked
stage."
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Pinko Liberal
Books
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Stupid
White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! by
Michael
Moore
Publisher's note: "More social commentary from famously
glib liberal Michael Moore, director of Roger & Me. His unique takes on
politicians, businessmen, and other power players who have put us in
the mess we in are delivered in his oh-my-gosh! wiseguy style. Targets
here include George W. Bush and the people around him, Bill Clinton, the
Supreme Court, the media, and, ultimately,
mediocrity."
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9-11
by
Noam
Chomsky
Publisher's note: "In 9-11 Noam Chomsky dissects the
root causes of the September 11th catastrophe, the historical precedents
for it, and the possible outcomes as the United States responds with
its 'new war on terrorism.'"
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You
Are Being Lied to: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion,
Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths by
Russ
Kick
Publisher's note: "'You Are Being Lied To' acts as a
battering ram against the distortions, myths, and outright lies that have
been shoved down our throats by the government, the media, corporations,
organized religion, the scientific establishment, and others who want
to keep the truth from us."
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