The Passion Of Joschka Fischer

Described as 'One of America's best exponents of recent intellectual history' by The Economist, Berman uses the case of a famous - and notorious - German politician in a dazzling dissection of radical left politics then and now. In light of the international reactions to some photographs of Joschka in a fight published in 2001, noteably what the French newspaper Liberation called 'The Trial of the Generation of 68', he launches a crucial question for Western democracies today: was the violence-tinged radicalism in America and Europe in 1968 a force for social good or ill?

The author of the best-selling Terror and Liberalism on the rise to power of the generation of 1968. The student uprisings of 1968 erupted not only in America but also across Europe, expressing a distinct generational attitude about politics, the corrupt nature of democratic capitalism, and the evil of military interventions. Yet, thirty-five years later, many in that radical generation had come into conventional positions of power: among them Bill Clinton (who reportedly stayed up all night reading this book) and Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Germany. During a 1970s street protest, Fischer was photographed beating a cop to the ground; during the 1990s, he was supporting Clinton in a NATO-led military intervention in the Balkans. Here Paul Berman, "one of America's best exponents of recent intellectual history" (The Economist), masterfully traces the intellectual and moral evolution of an impassioned generation—and gives an acute analysis of what it means to go to war in the name of democracy and human rights.

Joschka Fischer evolved from a 1960s radical to become one of the first elected Greens in the 1980s, then later Germany's foreign minister. Beginning in the ruins of postwar Germany, this volume offers both a biography of Fischer and an alternative history of postwar Germany.

Explores the moral earnestness and confusions of the baby boom generation and offers commentary on ideological evolution

He calls for a "new radicalism" and a "liberal American interventionism" to promote democratic values throughout the world - a vigorous new politics of American liberalism."--BOOK JACKET.

Twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie—and writers around the world instinctively rallied to Rushdie’s defense. Today, according to writer Paul Berman, “Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class”—an ever-growing group of sharp-tongued critics of Islamist extremism, especially critics from Muslim backgrounds, who survive only because of pseudonyms and police protection. And yet, instead of being applauded, the Rushdies of today (people like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq) often find themselves dismissed as “strident” or as no better than fundamentalist themselves, and contrasted unfavorably with representatives of the Islamist movement who falsely claim to be “moderates.” How did this happen? In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman—“one of America’s leading public intellectuals” (Foreign Affairs)—conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West’s best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence. Berman’s investigation of the history and nature of the Islamist movement includes some surprising revelations. In examining Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, he shows the rise of an immense and often violent worldview, elements of which survives today in the brigades of al-Qaeda and Hamas. Berman also unearths the shocking story of al-Banna’s associate, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who collaborated personally with Adolf Hitler to incite Arab support of the Nazis’ North African campaign. Echoes of the Grand Mufti’s Nazified Islam can be heard among the followers of al-Banna even today. In a gripping and stylish narrative Berman also shows the legacy of these political traditions, most importantly by focusing on a single philosopher, who happens to be Hassan al-Banna’s grandson, Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan—a figure widely celebrated in the West as a “moderate” despite his troubling ties to the Islamist movement. Looking closely into what Ramadan has actually written and said, Berman contrasts the reality of Ramadan with his image in the press. In doing so, THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS sheds light on a number of modern issues—on the massively reinvigorated anti-Semitism of our own time, on a newly fashionable turn against women’s rights, and on the difficulties we have in discussing terrorism—and presents a stunning commentary about the modern media’s peculiar inability to detect and analyze some of the most dangerous ideas in contemporary society.

Siegi Moos, an anti-Nazi and active member of the German Communist Party, escaped Germany in 1933 and, exiled in Britain, sought another route to the transformation of capitalism. This biography charts Siegi’s life, starting in Germany when he witnessed the Bavarian uprisings of 1918/19 and moving to the later rise of the extreme right. We follow his progress in Berlin as a committed Communist and an active anti-Nazi in the well-organised Red Front, before much of the German Communist party (KPD) took the Nazis seriously, and his deep involvement in the Free Thinkers and in agit-prop theatre. The book also describes Siegi’s life as an exile: the loss of family, comrades, his first language and ultimately his earlier political beliefs. Against a background of the loneliness of exile, the political and the personal became indissolubly intertwined when Siegi’s wife, Lotte, had a relationship with an Irish/Soviet spy. Lastly, we look into Siegi’s time as a research worker at the prestigious Oxford Institute of Statistics at Oxford University from 1938, becoming an economic advisor under the Labour Prime Minister, Wilson, 1966-1970, and how, finally, after retirement, he returned to writing.

Warfare Since the Second World War presents a wealth of analysis and data about one of the most pressing questions of our time: why does war continue to plague us fifty years after World War II? This book argues that the nature of war has shifted from inter-state conflicts toward internal conflicts, above all civil war. Low-intensity conflict helps explain the constant increase in wars over the last fifty years and makes it probable this trend will continue. Gantzel and Schwinghammer argue that modern warfare reflects a continuation of the nation-state-building process begun in nineteenth-century Europe.In their analysis, economic modernization and social integration destroy traditional relations and create instability in the developing world. While these forces were successfully harnessed by the modern state in Europe and North America, economic and political globalization make a similar resolution considerably more complex. In addition to their insightful analysis, the authors provide a detailed list of all wars fought from 1945 to 1995. The authors' lucid explanatory commentaries are accompanied by lists, tables, and charts. In addition to a detailed war register, upon which all statistical data and analyses for the volume are based, there are appendices with directories useful for locating specific wars, as well as several supplementary lists. An afterword brings the reader closer to the world situation as we conclude the twentieth century; including the impact of political developments in Eastern Europe.Beyond its historical dimension, this book offers a policy-relevant empirical demonstration of the ongoing increase in internal (civil) wars and addresses the inability of modern society to prevent this scourge. Warfare Since the Second World War is an indispensable resource for anyone concerned with issues of war and peace, development, and the future of international relations.