Religion & politics

Showing all 2 resultsSorted by latest

  • Reason, Carnival and Honour

    £22.00

    What free speech really means is hotly contested. Is it increasingly under attack in our democracies; or is it being weaponized by the powerful? These debates don’t just happen in the news: they divide families, strain relationships. This is because, anthropologist Matei Candea shows, arguments about free speech are not just about abstract principles: they question what it means to be a good person, to have empathy and courage. They involve fears for the future and longings for the past – and they demand that you pick a side, right now! Deploying the power of anthropology, this book outlines three visions of free speech – Reason, or civil rational debate; Carnival, or the right to be outrageous; and Honour, the duty to stand by one’s word. Sometimes supporting each other and sometimes at odds, they entail very different understandings of what language is and does, of what it means to be free.

    Add to basketDone

  • How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs

    £16.99

    When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against the Turks. The British supported the Arabs’ fight for an independent state and sent an intelligence officer, T.E. Lawrence, to join Prince Faisal, leader of the Arab army and a descendant of the Prophet. In October 1918, Faisal, Lawrence and the Arabs victoriously entered Damascus, where they declared a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal won the support of President Woodrow Wilson, who sent an American commission to Syria to survey the political aspirations of its people. However, other Entente leaders at Paris – and later San Remo – schemed against the Arab democracy, which they saw as a threat to their colonial rule.

    Read moreDone