
The Trouble with History
Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution
Adam Michnik(Author)
Irena Grudzinska-Gross(Editor)
Yale University Press
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-0-300-21262-4 (ISBN)
Description
A brilliant meditation on politics, morality, and history from one of the most courageous and controversial authors of our age Renowned Eastern European author Adam Michnik was jailed for more than six years by the communist regime in Poland for his dissident activities. He was an outspoken voice for democracy in the world divided by the Iron Curtain and has remained so to the present day. In this thoughtful and provocative work, the man the Financial Times named "one of the 20 most influential journalists in the world" strips fundamentalism of its religious component and examines it purely as a secular political phenomenon. Comparing modern-day Poland with postrevolutionary France, Michnik offers a stinging critique of the ideological "virus of fundamentalism" often shared by emerging democracies: the belief that, by using techniques of intimidating public opinion, a state governed by "sinless individuals" armed with a doctrine of the only correct means of organizing human relations can build a world without sin.
Michnik employs deep historical analysis and keen political observation in his insightful five-point philosophical meditation on morality in public life, ingeniously expounding on history, religion, moral thought, and the present political climate in his native country and throughout Europe.
Michnik employs deep historical analysis and keen political observation in his insightful five-point philosophical meditation on morality in public life, ingeniously expounding on history, religion, moral thought, and the present political climate in his native country and throughout Europe.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-300-21262-4 (9780300212624)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Adam Michnik is editor-in-chief of the Warsaw daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. He is a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, the Imre Nagy Award, and the Goethe Prize, among many other honors. Irena Grudzinska Gross teaches East European literature at Princeton University.
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Foreword
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