Government Fiction

In this acclaimed Plato masterpiece, you travel back in time to attend an elaborate high society dinner. At this party, you meet Plato's mentor, Socrates, and the comic poet Aristophanes. During the banquet, each of these men is invited to praise Eros, the god of love and desire. You witness them deliver speeches that embody their wisdom and philosophies on love. You hear Socrates' celebrated account of Diotima, the prophetess who taught him that love is the manifestation of human goodness. Finally, you even hear from the famous Alcibiades.

The Prince is a treatise that systematically charts the best strategies for successful governing. It unapologetically places realism above idealism, showing would-be kings how to get what they want while appearing to be generous and honourable, and advocates that the means — cruelty, duplicity and horror —justify the ends of secure monarchical rule. But it can also be read as the work of a secret republican subtly undermining the despotism of the ruling Medici family.

In The Emergency State, leading global affairs commentator David C. Unger reveals the hidden costs of America's obsessive pursuit of absolute national security. In the decades since World War II, presidents from both parties have assumed broad war-making powers never intended by the Constitution and intervened abroad to preserve our credibility rather than our security, while trillions of tax dollars have been diverted from essential domestic needs to the Pentagon. Yet ironically, this pursuit has not just damaged our democracy and undermined our economic strength....

Timothy Cooper's novel, 2020 or My Name Is Jesus Christ and I'm Running for President paints a hilariously envisioned America caught up in presidential politics. In actuality, it tells the prophetic story of the rise of Donald Trump. Here Jesus returns to Earth, only to find himself pitted against his satanic stepbrother, Beelzebub, in a contest for the presidency and for the very soul of America.

The wisdom within these pages has the power to unlock our potential as a species and establish an enduring civilization based on peace, self-ownership, and nonviolence. You, as a free, beautiful, independent human being with inalienable rights, own yourself! You can do what you want with your own body and the product of your labor. All human interactions should be free of force and coercion, and we are free to exercise our rights, limited only by respect for the rights of others. Governments rely on force, and force is a poor substitute for persuasion.

In 2013, Edward Snowden shocked the world when he revealed that the United States government was secretly building a system of mass surveillance with the ability to gaze into the private lives of every person on earth. Phone calls, text messages, emails - nothing was safe from prying eyes. Now the man who risked everything to expose the truth about government spying describes for a new generation how he helped build that system, what motivated him to try to bring it down, and how young people can strive to protect their privacy in the digital age.

Fictional stories have long held an uncanny power over hearts and minds, especially those of young people. In Dangerous Fictions, Lyta Gold traces arguments both historical and contemporary that have labeled fiction as dark, immoral, frightening, or poisonous. Within each she asks: How “dangerous” is fiction, really? And what about it provokes waves of moral panic and even censorship?

With help from her friends - the irascible gray cat Pewter, the wise corgi Tee Tucker, and Tally, the exuberant Jack Russell - Sneaky crisscrosses her home state of Virginia hoping to go where no cat since Socks Clinton has gone: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In the tradition of her heroine, Sojourner Truth, she takes her case to the masses. Journeying from the lair of the red-shouldered hawk to the nest of the tufted titmouse, from a pasture full of curmudgeonly cows to the stately halls of Monticello, the tenacious tiger cat even secures the chattering support of Thomas Jefferson’s mice.

En esta obra Maquiavelo enumera las condiciones que han de caracterizar a un príncipe, entendida esta figura como la cabeza o jefe del Estado. Podemos decir que es un libro práctico, pues pretende dar normas de acción. Intentó el autor teorizar sobre la naturaleza del Estado, sobre la sociedad en que se sustenta y sobre todo en las formas de adquirir y perder el poder y las formas de mantenerse en él.

In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded security firms. Jennifer Government is a Catch-22 for the New World Order, a satire both broad and pointed, deeply funny and disturbingly on-target.

As a young man, Narendra Modi had got into the habit of writing a letter to the Mother Goddess, whom he addressed as jagat janani, every night before going to bed. The topics were varied: there were seething sorrows, fleeting joys, lingering memories. In Modi's writings there was the enthusiasm of a youngster and the passion to usher in change. But every few months, Modi would tear up the pages and consign them to a bonfire. The pages of one diary, dating back to 1986, survived, however.

"When we are happy, we are always good," says Lord Henry, "but when we are good, we are not always happy." Lord Henry’s lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven - even murder - if it can make people laugh at a dinner party. Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Oscar Wilde original by Jill Nevile.

London. December 1981. The IRA is on the attack, a cold war is being waged, another war is just over the horizon, and Stephen Donaldson spends his days listening. When he first joined the Institute, he expected to encounter glamorous, high-risk espionage. Instead he gets the tape-recorded conversations of ancient Communists and ineffectual revolutionaries - until the day he is assigned a new case: the ultra-secret PHOENIX, a suspected internal leak.

Rights of Man presents an impassioned defense of the Enlightenment principles of freedom and equality that Thomas Paine believed would soon sweep the world. He boldly claimed, "From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished. Without consuming...it winds its progress from nation to nation."

Our Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights to document our inalienable rights and to strictly limit the government’s power. These ten amendments are the foundation of American Exceptionalism. Yet, that foundation is quickly eroding. With every new sweeping regulation and invasive policy, the Obama administration is twisting the Bill of Rights and corrupting its true purpose.

We talk about achieving 'LGBTQ+ equality', but around the world, LGBTQ+ people are still suffering discrimination and extreme violence. How do we solve this urgent problem, allowing queer people everywhere the opportunity to thrive? In We Can Do Better Than This, 35 voices explore this question. Through deeply moving stories and provocative new arguments on safety and visibility, dating and gender, care and community, they map new global frontiers in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

¡Un bestseller del New York Times! 2019 ha sido el último gran año para la economía mundial. Durante generaciones, todo se ha ido haciendo más rápido, mejor y más barato. Finalmente, llegamos al punto en que casi cualquier cosa que pudiera desear podría ser enviada a su casa a los pocos días -incluso horas- de haber decidido que la quería.

Старшеклассники превращают обычную московскую школу в отдельное государство со своими законами и валютой — сотками. Помните игру в картонные кружочки, популярную в нулевые? Невзрачный десятиклассник Рыжий выбивается в чемпионы и создает внутри школы мафиозную структуру. На волне успеха он не замечает соперницу — одиннадцатиклассницу Динару. Она под видом активизма на благо учащихся создает свою партию, а вскоре становится полноценным диктатором. Столкновение двух лидеров неизбежно. Кто победит? И что ждет героев во взрослой жизни.

Costretto all'esilio dal duca di Lu, Confucio disse: "Se la mia strada finisce, salirò su una zattera e mi lascerò portare verso il mare". E così Kongzi, settantaseiesimo discendente diretto del grande filosofo, fugge con la moglie incinta e la figlia quando la Squadra della pianificazione familiare entra nel villaggio per sterilizzare con la forza tutte le donne fertili e interrompere le gravidanze di quelle che hanno già un figlio.

D’où vient le jihadisme ? Où va-t-il ? Depuis l’effondrement de Daech en Syrie, ces interrogations semblent avoir disparu du débat public. Certes, les affaires qui émaillent tragiquement l’actualité rappellent que le sujet du terrorisme islamiste est loin d’être réglé. Mais en dehors des attentats, il est urgent de comprendre ce qui a permis au jihadisme de devenir, en l’espace d’une génération, un enjeu politique, sociétal et démocratique de premier plan. Hugo Micheron retrace avec précision ce qu’est le jihadisme depuis 1989, au-delà de la simple menace sécuritaire et du seul cas de la France.