Description Explores Enlightenment optimism about the perfectibility of mankind by looking at efforts to educate and “civilize” children. Chapters consider reactions to so-called “wild children”; utopian pedagogical schemes (including efforts to apply Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, […]
Tag Archives: revolution
The Guillotine and the Terror
Description A very original if somewhat disturbing book on the imaginary of the French Revolution. Arasse, a historian of art, discusses the stories that were created about and around the guillotine. He shows how the […]
Alimut Elohit: Shnei Hiburim al Elohim ve Asson[Divine Violence: Two Essays on God and Disaster]
Description Ophir, an Israeli philosopher, examines the connection between God and disasters. From the bible and through much of western history, disasters were seen as caused in some manner by God’s will. Ophir examines this […]
Death and the Maiden
Description A play written by the Argentine-Chilean playwrite and activist, Ariel Dorfman. It tells the story of a woman confronting the man who allegedly took part in her torture under the previous, dictatorial regime. The […]
Gothic Fiction and the Invention of Terrorism: the Politics and Aesthetics of Fear in the Age of the Reign of Terror
Description Crawford offers a new take on the rise of the Gothic in the late 18th century. Most interpretations see the gothic as a reaction to the upheavals of the revolutionary era. The new realities […]
Man and Society in Calamity: the Effects of War, Revolution, Famine, and Pestilence upon the Human Mind, Behavior, Social Organization, and Cultural Life
Description This is a new edition of a book published originally in 1942 by one of the founders of American sociology, Pitrim Sorokin. At the time the book fell under the radar and it remains […]