Résultats Éditeur "SNR Audio" dans Sciences sociales et politiques

When Ralph Waldo Emerson published his seminal essay on self-reliance in 1841, the United States was still reeling from the effects of a calamitous financial collapse four years earlier. His positive vision for the power of individualism and personal responsibility was issued in a climate of panic and uncertainty, at a time when the values of society and humanity were shifting. Emerson’s call to independence remains as relevant and energizing as ever.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) is one of the most famous Roman philosophers. Instrumental in guiding the Roman Empire under emperor Nero, Seneca influenced him from a young age with his Stoic principles. Later in life, he wrote Letters from a Stoic, detailing these principles in full. Seneca’s letters read like a diary or a handbook of philosophical meditations. Often beginning with observations on daily life, the letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy, such as the contempt of death, the value of friendship, and virtue as the supreme good.

For centuries, Stoicism was the unofficial religion of the Roman world. The stress on endurance, self-restraint, and power of the will to withstand calamity can often seem cold-hearted. It is Epictetus, a lame former slave exiled by Emperor Domitian, who offers the most precise and humane version of Stoic ideals. The Discourses, assembled by his pupil Arrian, catch him in action, publicly setting out his views on ethical dilemmas. Enchiridion, or Manual, is a distillation of his teachings and an essential manual for those seeking contentment.

In the third volume of Capital, Marx asserts that - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, public authorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers an inspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalism will culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form of society.

The Communist Manifesto contains the seeds of Marx's more comprehensive philosophy, which continues to inspire influential economic, political, social, and literary theories. But the Manifesto is most valuable as an historical document, one that led to the greatest political upheaveals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the establishment of the Communist governments that until recently ruled half the globe.

The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history. Capital rapidly acquired readership throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the working class'. This volume also contains the vital discussion of commodity - the cornerstone to Marx's theories. This audiobook is expertly read by Audie award-winning narrator, Malk Williams, and translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. It is edited by Friedrich Engels.

The Inevitable Revolution is an essay about abolishing the law of violence and replacing it with the law of love. It is a text on civil disobedience, pacifism, and anarchism, and it is Tolstoy's last non-fiction work detailing his final opinions on political, economic, and religious issues. In it, he criticizes prisons, parliaments, wars, conscription, capitalism, theft, revolutionary violence, and taxes, and praises Christianity's message of love as the solution to these problems; although he also recognizes the law of love in other religions.

In the course of this essay, Tolstoy attempts to find answers to the greatest questions of philosophy through science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and the opinions of his fellow novelists. Finding no workable solution in any of these, Tolstoy recognizes the deep religious convictions of ordinary people as containing the key to true answers. The first attempt at its publication took place in 1882, but Tolstoy's work was removed from the journal by the Orthodox Church. The text was later published in Geneva in 1884 and in Russia as late as 1906.

Leo Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These culminated in What Is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire, and even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned and iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good; for the improvement of humankind.

More than 2,500 years ago, a Chinese commander, Master Sun—or Sun-tzu—collected together his precepts on generalship to form the kernel of one of the most famous military treatises of all time. Our understanding of strategic warfare that comes out of his writings has yet to be surpassed. Eschewing conventional courage and military might as primary deciding factors, The Art of War is characterised by a profoundly enlightened emphasis on moderation, imagination, good morale and scrupulous forward planning.

First published in 1931 by The Adelphi, this essay describes the execution of a criminal during Orwell's time in Burma. Britain ruled over Burma for 62 years (1824-86), during which three Anglo-Burmese Wars were fought and Britain incorporated it into its Indian Empire. Britain administered Burma as an Indian province until 1937, when it became a separate, self-governing colony. Burma declared independence in 1948.

In April 1945, as Hitler’s Third Reich was unravelling, George Orwell published 'Anti-Semitism in Britain'. The short essay sketches the contours of British anti-Semitism, an essentially non-virulent, though a tenaciously pervasive, societal attitude that ran deep and cut across class and ideological differences.

During The Blitz of 1941, as Nazi bombers flew overhead, George Orwell penned this stirring analysis of England and its people. Whilst not shying away from the difficulties of the nation, and the fractuous nature of its divisions, Orwell places a premium on the country's ability to come together in a time of crisis and protect its democratic values, even in the most dire of circumstances.

Published a mere two and a half months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Orwell’s 'You and the Atomic Bomb' is notable as one of the first efforts to divine the social and political implications of a new weapon of previously unimaginable power. Its fame arises from Orwell’s coinage of a new term for the permanent standoff the bomb would foster between two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union: the 'cold war'.

Shooting an Elephant describes the experience of the English narrator, possibly Orwell himself, called upon to shoot an aggressive elephant while working as a police officer in Burma. Because the locals expect him to do the job, he does so against his better judgment, his anguish increased by the elephant's slow and painful death. The story is regarded as a metaphor for colonialism as a whole, and for Orwell's view that 'when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys'.

George Orwell's moving reflections on the English character and his passionate belief in the need for political change. 'The Lion and the Unicorn' was written in London during the worst period of the Blitz. It is vintage Orwell, a dynamic outline of his belief in socialism, patriotism and an English revolution. His fullest political statement, it has been described as 'one of the most moving and incisive portraits of the English character' and is as relevant now as it ever has been.

In this insightful and politically powerful essay, Orwell attempts to evaluate non-violence as a method of political leverage outside of the unique circumstances in which Gandhi successfully deployed his method. He discusses the particular context that gave Satyagraha political force: the struggle for national self-determination in colonial India, and looks to Gandhi’s method as a reference for what he feels is a necessary discussion of alternative methods of political resistance.

In this essay, Orwell describes his personal journey to becoming a writer and offers some important motives for writing. Moving from his experience of writing his first completed poems to trying his hand at short stories, to finding fame as a fully fledged writer, Orwell discusses the importance of writing, his continuous technique and sets out some important motives for becoming a writer yourself.

From the impoverished districts of Paris to the streets of London, Orwell recounts his experiences on the bottom rung in some of Paris’ most famous kitchens, his time on the streets of London with a colourful cast of characters and offers biting social commentary on everything from accommodation and privilege to diet and language. Part memoir, part social commentary, Down and Out in Paris and London is a sobering analysis of poverty and society in two of the world’s wealthiest cities.

In this essay, Orwell discusses the notion of nationalism and argues that it causes people to disregard common sense and become more ignorant towards factuality. Orwell shows his concern for the social state of Europe, and in a broader sense, the entire world, due to an increasing amount of influence of nationalistic sentiment occurring throughout a large number of countries.