Orwell Politics And Power

This analysis of the distinctive political writings of George Orwell focuses on his concept of political power and its relevance today.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

Offers an examination of ancient, modern, and contemporary political theories and practices in order to develop a more expansive way of conceptualizing memory, how political power influences the presence of the past, and memory'songoing impact on democratic horizons.

'The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs' Biting and timeless reflections on patriotism, prejudice and power, from the man who wrote about his nation better than anyone. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

A critical assessement of the problems of sincerity and truth in politics argues that we should accept hypocrisy as a fact of politics without resigning ourselves to it or embracing it, drawing on the lessons of such thinkers as Hobbes, Mandeville, Jefferson, Bentham, Sigwick, and Orwell.

Author of the masterpieces Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, the nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair, experienced, explored and explained some of the defining political, economic and social traumas of his time – predicaments that have, and will always be, part of Man’s infatuation with power and power politics. Orwell’s experiences of colonial exploitation in Burma, extreme poverty in Paris, London and the industrial North, and the horrors of ideological deceit and betrayal during the Spanish Civil War fashioned his literary persona, his political canon and influenced his vision of a future dystopia. This book explores Orwell’s journey to dystopia, using his major texts as milestones, and also examines the author as a divided self and as a chronicler of his age on a fateful journey to dystopia. Furthermore, it investigates his responses to the use of what he calls ‘force and/or fraud’ in the politics of his time, seeking a new understanding of the tensions and contradictions that characterise his writing. The analyses explain how authoritarian systems and totalitarian regimes manipulate power and employ pretence in order to divide the self and force individuals and society into obedience. The book argues that new insight into Orwell’s political views is gained by investigating Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, where Machiavelli uses the phrase ‘force or fraud’ to encourage totalitarian tactics in running a State. Milestones on the Road to Dystopia: Interpreting George Orwell’s Self-Division in an Era of ‘Force and Fraud’ presents new insights that interpret the close relationship between self-division, paradox and the use of a pseudonym, demonstrating how they help in understanding Orwell’s character, works and the nature of totalitarian politics. Analysing self-division, both as an Orwellian trait and as a totalitarian strategy, and finding a connection with Machiavelli, against the milieu of Orwell’s development as a writer, is an intricate and interrelated topic that has not previously received critical attention, either in its individual parts or as an integrated study. This book establishes an essential template with which to analyse Orwell’s self-division apropos his growing fears of totalitarian power politics, and offers distinct analytical acumens that allow for an updated understanding of Orwell and of his relevance to political thought and the question of ‘common decency’ in twenty-first century literature and politics.

"Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel", often published as "1984", is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated. The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Big Brother, the leader of the Party, enjoys an intense cult of personality despite the fact that he may not even exist. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Outer Party member who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters into a forbidden relationship with a colleague, Julia, and starts to remember what life was like before the Party came to power.