The Unbearable Burden Of History Era Of Abnormalization

Politics and Suicide argues that whilst the historical lineage of suicidal politics is recognised, the fundamental significance of autodestruction to the political remains under examined. It contends that practices like suicide-bombing do not simply embody a strange or abnormal ‘suicidal’ articulation of the political, but rather, that the existence of suicidal politics tells us something fundamental about the political as such and thinking about political violence more broadly. Recent world events have emphatically shown our need for tools with which to develop better understandings of the politics of suicide. Through the exploration of several arresting case-studies, including the ‘Kamikaze’ bombers of World War Two, Jan Palach’s self-immolation in 1969, Cold War nuclear deterrence, and the suicide-terrorist attacks of 9/11 Michelsen asks how we might talk of a political suicide in any of these contexts. The book charts how political processes ‘go suicidal’, and asks how we might still consider them to be political in such a case. It investigates how suicide can function as ‘politics’. A strong contribution to the fields of philosophy and international relations theory, this work will also be of interest to students and scholars of political theory and terrorism & political violence.

Presents the post-war Czech literary developments within the cultural and political context. This book provides information about the English-language translations from Czech literature, and the circumstances in which these translations came about. It gives biographical and bibliographical details about various post-war Czech writers.

Most entries of this revised edition are new as so much has been recently published on Czech affairs. All aspects of the country are covered in selective, critical annotations of pre-eminently English-language publications, making this an invaluale reference work for scholars, students and the general reader alike.