Some Books about Polemic - Happy Polemic Reading!

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about interpretation and the history of ethics which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both. This is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. The introduction places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience..
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Challenging Authority argues that ordinary people exercise real power in American politics mainly at those extraordinary moments when they rise up in anger and hope; defy the rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives; and, by doing so, disrupt the workings of the institutions in which they are enmeshed. These are the conditions that produce the democratic moments in American political development..
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Who would dream of being against love? No one.

Love is, as everyone knows, a mysterious and all-controlling force, with vast power over our thoughts and life decisions

But is there something a bit worrisome about all this uniformity of opinion? Is this the one subject about which no disagreement will be entertained, about which one truth alone is permissible? Consider that the most powerful organized religions produce the occasional heretic; every ideology has its apostates; even sacred cows find their butchers. Except for love.

Hence the necessity for a polemic against it. A polemic is designed to be the prose equivalent of a small explosive device placed under your E-Z-Boy lounger. It won’t injure you (well not severely); it’s just supposed to shake things up and rattle a few convictions..
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In a series of bold, unsparing polemics, A C Grayling exposes the dangerous unreason he sees at the heart of religious faith and highlights the urgent need we have to reject it in all its forms, without compromise. In its place he argues for a set of values based on reason, reflection, and sympathy, taking his cue from the great ethical tradition of Western philosophy.

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On the Genealogy of Morality contains some of Nietzsche's most disturbing ideas and images: eg the 'slave revolt' in morality, which he claims began with the Jews and has now triumphed, and the 'blond beast' that must erupt, which he claims to find behind all civilisation It is therefore a major source for understanding why 'Nietzschean' ideas are controversial. Further, it is one of Nietzsche's most important books, a work of his maturity that shows him at the height of his powers both as a thinker and as an artist in the presentation of ideas..
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The Case for Bureaucracy persuasively argues that American public servants and administrative institutions are among the best in the world. Contrary to popular stereotypes, they are neither sources of great waste nor a threat to liberty, but social assets of critical value to a functioning democracy. In presenting his case, Goodsell touches on core aspects of public administration while drawing on important, recent events to bring case material and empirical evidence fully up to date.

This new edition incorporates the events of 9/11 to explore their impact on future bureaucratic performance, speaking specifically to the massive reorganization under the new Department of Homeland Security. As well, Goodsell offers a complete assessment of the reinventing government movement and related reforms to show how far bureaucracies have come, while pointing to the challenges they continue to face.

Updating worth highlighting:

• New data on public perceptions of bureaucracy.
• New section on the delegation of policy implementation to contractors and nonprofits.
• New statistics regarding quality-of-life improvements in American society since the 1980s.
• New profiles of real bureaucrats--and citizen interaction with them--giving bureaucracy a human face.
• New material on bureaucratic contributions to the political system that go beyond implementing policy.
• New coverage of the administrative consolidation following 9/11 and competitive outsourcing by the Bush Administration.
• New analysis of current reform proposals focused on market competition and business management practices.
• New proposals for ways to improve bureaucracy.

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The simple question “What is minimalism?” has defied simple answers Artists known as minimalists have distinctively different methods and points of view. This highly readable history of minimalist art shows how artists as diverse as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Anne Truitt came to be designated as minimalists during a series of exhibitions in the 1960s.

“I can think of no book that even undertakes a comparable art historical account—not merely tracing a movement year by year, but showing how the movement’s consciousness of itself emerged.” —Arthur Danto, Times Literary Supplement

“Many skeptics deem the sixties too close for comfort and hence not suitable for an art history in the grand tradition. James Meyer proves them wrong. Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties establishes a historical precision and seriousness that many have thought lacking in the recent wave of writing about postwar American art.”—Christine Mehring, Art Journal

“By far the best account to date of Minimalism’s development and the essential point of departure for all future research on the subject.”—Pepe Karmel, Art in America

Selected by Architects Journal as one of the Books of the Year (2001)

James Meyer is associate professor of art history at Emory University.

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Scott Messing is a good digger. He successfully unearths the cultural politics out of which nouveau classicisme (in German, Klassizitat) began to emerge - not as nostalgia, and long before the Great War... He demonstrates the connections between (neo)classicism and youth culture, (neo)classicism and cultural elitism, (neo)classicism and authoritarianism, (neo)classicism and the politics of exclusion. He knows how (neo)classicism relates to `decadence'. His book, in short, is a breakthrough in culturally informed music historiography. The fact that in five years it has not managed to attract interest commensurate with its deserts...[is largely] the result of some long-standing academic biases. 19TH CENTURY MUSIC [sic] (Richard Taruskin) (US).
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