In 1994 Benjamin R. Barber was invited by President Clinton to participate in a seminar on the future of democratic ideas and ideals. Following their meeting, Barber became an informal consultant to the Clinton White House, working with a president who proved to be an astonishing listener open to a variety of ideas. Barber's experiences were unexpected and enlightening-the most unpredictable being his interactions with the president himself. Barber's meditation on Bill Clinton's tenure in office offers a balanced and complex portrait of the Clinton administration, especially in its relationship to America's intellectual and scholarly community. Barber also identifies the true faultlines of power that future candidates must negotiate if they are to win an election. For this edition, Barber has written a new afterword reflecting on Clinton's "vision" problem, his controversial role in shaping today's Democratic Party, and his efforts to confront the challenges of interdependence and terrorism. He concludes with a provocative assessment of Hillary Clinton as a Democratic primary candidate in the battle for the presidency.

The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House (Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History)

Biographies & Memoirs

BARBER, BENJAMIN

Historical

Columbia University Press

The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House

History

Americas

In this brilliant, controversial, and profoundly original book, Benjamin R. Barber fundamentally alters the terms of the current debate over the value of opportunity in American education, politics, and culture. Barber argues that the fashionable rallying cries of cultural literacy and political correctness completely miss the point of what is wrong with our society. While we fret about "the closing of the American mind" we utterly ignore the closing of American schools. While we worry about Japanese technology, we fail to tap the more fundamental ideological resources on which our country was founded. As Barber argues, the future of America lies not in competition but in education. Education in America can and must embrace both democracy and excellence. Barber demonstrates persuasively that our national story has always comprised an intermingling of diverse, contradictory, often subversive voices. Multiculturalism has, from the very start, defined America. From his gripping portrait of America poised on the brink of unprecedented change, Barber offers a daringly original program for effecting change: for teaching democracy depends not only on the preeminence of education but on a resurgence of true community service. A ringing challenge to the complacency, cynicism, and muddled thinking of our time that will change the way you feel about being an American citizen.

Aristocracy of Everyone

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Ballantine Books

Jihad vs. McWorld is a groundbreaking work, an elegant and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart--and bringing together--the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad vs. McWorld is the term that distinguished writer and political scientist Benjamin R. Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces. In this important new book, he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic for democracy. A work of persuasive originality and penetrating insight, Jihad vs. McWorld holds up a sharp, clear lens to the dangerous chaos of the post-Cold War world. Critics and political leaders have already heralded Benjamin R. Barber's work for its bold vision and moral courage. Jihad vs. McWorld is an essential text for anyone who wants to understand our troubled present and the crisis threatening our future.

Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy

Reference

Random House Publishing Group

Since its appearance twenty years ago, Benjamin R. Barber's Strong Democracy has been one of the primary standards against which political science thinking and writing is measured. Defined as the participation of all of the people in at least some aspects of self-government at least some of the time, Strong Democracy offers liberal society a new way of thinking about and of practicing democracy. Contrary to the commonly held view that an excess of democracy can undo liberal institutions, Barber argues that an excess of liberalism has undermined our democratic institutions and brought about the set of crises we still find ourselves struggling against: cynicism about voting, alienation, privatization, and the growing paralysis of public institutions. In a new preface Barber looks at the past twenty years and restates his argument, which seems, sadly, more pressing than ever.

Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age

Politics & Government

University of California Press

Barber offers a bold lens through which to understand the chaotic events of the post-Cold War world and, in the tradition of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, explains the forces at work, why democracy is under siege, and what the consequences are for citizenship.

Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Crown

Although the conflict and the bloodshed in the name of democracy have given us some our noblest moments, democracy itself remains one of the most flawed, confusing, threatened, and complex of human institutions. By examining the paradoxes and perplexities, The Struggle for Democracy provides a clear understanding of the origin and nature of democracy, including the extraordinary idea of citizenship, the tremendous achievement of free speech, and the enormous power placed in the hands of ordinary men and women. 
 When it was first published in 1989, The Struggle for Democracy, and its attendant documentary series, were acclaimed as groundbreaking and marvelously engaging. Picking up where the first edition left off, this revised edition includes sixteen pages of full-colour photographs and commentary on such monumentally historic events as the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the infamous student demonstrations in Tiannamen Square, and the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union. In an inspiring new introductory chapter, Patrick Watson reflects on the challenges facing world democracy as it enters the new millennium. In a new concluding chapter, Benjamin Barber examines the future of democracy and the impact that globalization and technology will have on both emerging and established democracies.

The Struggle for Democracy

Watson, Patrick

Constitutional Law

Key Porter Books

Be afraid... be very afraid! A natural disaster could strike at any time, right now someone is being kidnapped, and your morning cereal isn't as healthy as you think. Western society is being terrorized by fear. Every form of risk is ever-present, contagious, and needs to be accounted for or immediately eradicated. This safety and security obsession is leaving behind ever-more-visible traces, especially in public space--speed bumps, smoke-free zones, surveillance cameras. This second book in the Group Portraits series again gathers four groups of young and talented designers around a central theme and, in four chapters, explores the various aspects of fear and prevention while considering their impact on contemporary urban space. Text, photography, research and design alternate in a thought-provoking sequence and enlighten the role that architecture plays, or could potentially play, in the culture of fear.

Fear & Space: The View of Young Architects in the Netherlands

Arts & Photography

Architecture

nai010 publishers

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