The Socialist Impulse

"An exhaustive and detailed overview of all things socialist in twentieth-century Latin America. Ameringer's mastery of the broad literature, as a senior member of the profession and building on decades of careful reading, is clear as he delves into the relevant works in political history, intellectual history, and political science."--W. John Green, Senior Research Fellow, Council on Hemispheric Affairs "Ameringer asks what may be the fundamental question about the twentieth century--the century that was to have been the time of the common man: What happened to the aspirations for betterment that began to be raised in the late nineteenth century and first burst the dam with the Mexican Revolution."--Thomas C. Wright, University of Nevada-Las Vegas During the last century, Latin American countries have had a tendency to adopt a socialist-style government. This region has viewed socialism as a way to overcome poverty, oppression, ignorance, racism, underdevelopment, and foreign domination. Charles Ameringer discusses the vision and reality of the century-long effort in Latin America to embrace socialism as a way to gain economic development and justice. Ameringer's sweeping analysis covers a wide range of countries and decades. He concludes that whatever the variety of socialism attempted in Latin America, none has stood the test of time. By analyzing the socialist movements and governments that evolved, he is able to highlight the events and factors that led to their eventual collapse.

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

Argues that the same impulse for control that governed the Soviet Union is present in the American health care and educational systems and that socialism can never work because of human nature.

"The search for the Promised Land took socialists in diverse directions: revolution, communes and kibbutzim, social democracy, communism, fascism, Third Worldism. But none of these paths led to the prophesied utopia. Nowhere did socialists succeed in creating societies of easy abundance or in midwifing the birth of a "New Man," as their theory promised. Some socialist governments abandoned their grandiose goals and satisfied themselves with making slight modifications to capitalism, while others plowed ahead doggedly, often inducing staggering human catastrophes. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in the 1990s in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls, collapsing regimes and frantic revisions of doctrine."--BOOK JACKET.

Moving west--from Singapore to America, from New York to California--a woman examines the myth of "finding home" even as she comes to terms with its impossibilities.ibilities.

FROST (copy 2): From the John Holmes Library collection.

The Socialist Phenomenon is a powerful survey of socialism and socialist thought from ancient times to the present day. Most assume that socialism and communism began with the writings of Karl Marx, but through his book Shafarevich lays out with amazing clarity that socialism is an evil that has been present in man’s thoughts and actions for thousands of years. In the age of “democratic socialism” and other modern iterations, The Socialist Phenomenon reminds us of the truth about socialism and the dangers that come when societies embrace socialist policies and ideals.