Joseph Conrad And Terrorism Today

"Drawing extensively on contemporary research in Terrorism Studies, Joyce Wexler sheds new light on Conrad's understanding of the complications and contradictions of this controversial topic. She convincingly demonstrates that many of the disputes about how to read his works reflect disagreements about terrorism-and that more often than not Conrad was right, and his critics wrong. Teachers and students will find this a useful book for many reasons-for the information it provides about Terrorism Studies, for the perspectives it offers on Conrad's relevance for issues of contemporary concern, for Wexler's thorough, up-to-date accounts of the Conrad criticism, and for her sensible, detailed readings of often-taught texts." --Paul Armstrong, Professor of English, Brown University, USA This book explores how the anarchist fiction of Joseph Conrad can help us understand terrorism today. Conrad undermines the popular view that terrorists are fanatics. He portrays anarchists and police as counterparts driven by the human desires for autonomy and affiliation, the need to control their own lives and to be part of a group. Postcritique encourages readers to consider the accuracy of such information, and research in Terrorism Studies confirms Conrad's insights: his characters are more realistic and his political stance is more hopeful than critics have recognized. Joyce Wexler is Professor Emerita of English at Loyola University Chicago, USA. She is President of the Joseph Conrad Society of America. Her publications include Joseph Conrad and Postcritique (co-edited with Jay Parker), Violence Without God, Who Paid for Modernism, and Laura Riding's Pursuit of Truth.

This book looks at the inception, composition, and 1907 publication of The Secret Agent, one of Joseph Conrad’s most highly regarded political novels and a core text of literary modernism. David Mulry examines the development and revisions of the novel through the stages of the holograph manuscript, first as a short story, then as a serialized sensation fiction in Ridgway’s Militant Weekly for the American market, before it was extensively revised and published in novel form. Presciently anticipating the climate of modern terror, Conrad’s text responds to the failed Greenwich Bombing, the first anarchist atrocity to occur on English soil. This book charts its historical and cultural milieu via press and anarchist accounts of the bombing, to place Conrad foremost among the dynamite fiction of revolutionary anarchism and terrorism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This book explores how the anarchist fiction of Joseph Conrad can help us understand terrorism today. Conrad undermines the popular view that terrorists are fanatics. He portrays anarchists and police as counterparts driven by the human desires for autonomy and affiliation, the need to control their own lives and to be part of a group. Postcritique encourages readers to consider the accuracy of such information, and research in Terrorism Studies confirms Conrad’s insights: his characters are more realistic and his political stance is more hopeful than critics have recognized.

Joseph Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent" is referred to in many places as the prototype of today's political and espionage thrillers. The agent of the title, Mr. Verloc, has grown complacent in his role as an informant to a foreign embassy in London and is pressured by his superiors into pulling off a shocking act of terrorism in order to prove his worth to his colleagues. "The Secret Agent" is mostly about the domestic repercussions that occur when things go badly wrong. Joseph Conrad effectively toys with the reader's expectations, introducing several characters and sets the stage for what appears to be a thriller with political overtones: several people have a vested interest (personally or politically) in the outcome of Mr. Verloc's actions. What "The Secret Agent" does well is give its reader a deliciously tangible sense of the seedy underworld at play in late 19th-century London. Joseph Conrad personifies the mist, funk and squalor of London until the city itself nearly becomes a character in the action. Also, for anyone who maybe knows Conrad for being an obtuse, thick writer (especially if your previous knowledge of him comes from reading "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim"), "The Secret Agent" is refreshingly straight forward.

THE SECRET AGENT JOSEPH CONRAD 1857-1924 Large Print

This carefully crafted ebook: "Under Western Eyes (Unabridged Deluxe Edition)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Under Western Eyes (1911) is a political thriller which takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. de P—, the brutal Minister of State, is assassinated by a team of two, but the bombs used claim the lives of his footman, the first assassin and a number of bystanders. When student Razumov enters his rooms, he finds Victor Haldin, a fellow student who informs him that he was the one who murdered Mr. de P—, but he and his accomplice did not make a proper escape plan. He requests Razumov's help... Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties. He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature. Contents: Under Western Eyes Author's Notes on "Under Western Eyes" Memoirs & Letters: A Personal Record; or Some Reminiscences The Mirror of the Sea Notes on Life & Letters Biography & Critical Essays: Joseph Conrad (A Biography) by Hugh Walpole Joseph Conrad by John Albert Macy A Conrad Miscellany by John Albert Macy Joseph Conrad by Virginia Woolf