Edited by Maik Fielitz and Nick Thurston

How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?How have digital tools and networks transformed the far rights strategies and transnational prospects? This volume presents a unique critical survey of the online and offline tactics, symbols and platforms that are strategically remixed by contemporary far-right groups in Europe and the US. It features thirteen accessible essays by an international range of expert scholars, policy advisors and activists who offer informed answers to a number of urgent practical and theoretical questions: How and why has the internet emboldened extreme nationalisms? What counter-cultural approaches should civil societies develop in response?

Bielefeld, Germany:  transcript Verlag, 2019. 210p.

 Edited by Joanna Sondel-Cedarmas and Francesco Berti

The Right-Wing Critique of Europe analyses the opposition to the European Union from a variety of right-wing organisations in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In recent years, opposition to the processes of globalisation and the programme of closer European integration, understood as a threat to the sovereignty of individual member states, has led to an intensification of Eurosceptic sentiments on the Old Continent. The results of the European parliamentary elections in 2014 and 2019, the Brexit referendum and electoral results in different European countries are all testament to the considerable growth of radical populist-nationalist and conservative-sovereignist movements and parties. The common idea that binds these groups, both in Western Europe and in Central and Eastern Europe, is a hostile attitude towards the idea of (an ever-more integrated) united Europe. These parties reject not only the project of building a European federation, but also the current model of the European Union and the values underlying its attitudes. They are united by their criticism of EU policies, in particular those concerning security, emigration, multiculturalism, gender equality and the rights of minorities, as well as economic liberalism and the common currency. However, this criticism manifests itself with varying degrees of intensity, and not all parties fit the classic definition of Euroscepticism but instead represent its mild form, Eurorealism. The authors bring together reflections on the organic and complex critique of the European Union, its policies and cultural and ideological character. The book provides a comparative analysis of this criticism at the transnational level. This book will be of interest to researchers of European politics, the radical right and Euroscepticism.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 290p.

By Samuel P. Huntington

From the Preface: “In the summer of 1993 the journal Foreign Affairs published an article of mine titled “The Clash of Civilizations?”. That article, according to the Foreign Affairs editors, stirred up more discussion in three years than any other article they had published since the 1940s. It certainly stirred up more debate in three years than anything else I have written. The responses and comments on it have come from every continent and scores of countries. People were variously impressed, intrigued, outraged, frightened, and perplexed by my argument that the central and most dangerous dimension of the emerging global politics would be conflict between groups from differing civilizations. Whatever else it did, the article struck a nerve in people of every civilization.

Given the interest in, misrepresentation of, and controversy over the article, it seemed desirable for me to explore further the issues it raised. One construc­tive way of posing a question is to state an hypothesis. The article, which had a generally ignored question mark in its title, was an effort to do that. This book is intended to provide a fuller, deeper, and more thoroughly documented answer to the articles question…”

NY. Touchstone. 1996. 350p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Stanford University. Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

From the document: "Welcome to the sixth edition of the AI [artificial intelligence] Index Report! This year, the report introduces more original data than any previous edition, including a new chapter on AI public opinion, a more thorough technical performance chapter, original analysis about large language and multimodal models, detailed trends in global AI legislation records, a study of the environmental impact of AI systems, and more. The AI Index Report tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes data related to artificial intelligence. Our mission is to provide unbiased, rigorously vetted, broadly sourced data in order for policymakers, researchers, executives, journalists, and the general public to develop a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the complex field of AI. The report aims to be the world's most credible and authoritative source for data and insights about AI."

Stanford University. 2023. 386p.

By United States. Public Health Service. Office Of The Surgeon General

From the document: "As this advisory has shown, fulfilling connections are a critical and often underappreciated contributor to individual and population health and longevity, safety, prosperity, and well-being. On the other hand, social disconnection contributes to many poor health outcomes, and even to premature death. Sadly, around 50% of adults in the U.S. reported being lonely in recent years -- and that was even before COVID-19 separated so many of us from our friends, loved ones, and support systems. Our bonds with others and our community are also part of this equation. Research has shown that more connected communities enjoy higher levels of well-being. The converse is also true. How do we put this important information to practical use in our society? What actionable steps can we take to enhance social connection so that we can all enjoy its benefits? A National Strategy to Advance Social Connection is the critical next step to catalyze action essential to our nation's health, safety, and prosperity. The strategy includes six foundational pillars and a series of key recommendations, organized according to stakeholder group, to support a whole-of-society approach to advancing social connection. Individuals and organizations can use this framework to propel the critical work of reversing these worrisome trends and strengthening social connection and community."

United States. Public Health Service. Office of the Surgeon General. 2023.

By United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency

From the document: "I am pleased to share the 2023 Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program and Policy Guide (HMA Guide) as FEMA's updated comprehensive policy handbook to govern mitigation grant programs. This document replaces the 2015 HMA Guidance and HMA Guidance Addendum. Since the last update and publication, many developments have impacted our mitigation grant programs. They include the passage of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018; the rollout of a new hazard mitigation grant program--Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC); significantly increased funding and accessibility to mitigation programs via the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act of 2021; and prioritization of new resilience concepts to accelerate and advance mitigation investment, such as those outlined in the National Mitigation Investment Strategy and FEMA's Building Codes Strategy. [...] FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant programs provide funding for actions that address risks to and reduce disaster suffering from events like wildfires, drought, extreme heat, hurricanes, earthquakes and flooding. The updated HMA Guide provides helpful information for state, local, tribal and territorial governments seeking to successfully navigate the application and grant lifecycle processes. And with the unprecedented funding that has been made available for mitigation over the past few years, it has never been more important to reduce the barriers to accessing these grant dollars and get them into the right hands for the most impactful mitigation projects."

Washington DC. United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 2023. 623p.

By United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency

From the document: "This Nuclear Detonation Response Guidance: Planning for the First 72 Hours (herein, 'the 72-Hour Nuclear Response Guidance') delineates Missions and Tactics that should be executed by first responders, emergency managers, and other state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) response organizations during the first minutes, hours, and days following a nuclear detonation in or near their jurisdiction. The document includes guidance on how to protect the lives of first responders and the public, develop a common operating picture, establish a coordinated multi-jurisdictional response, and prepare for the integration of support arriving from other jurisdictions, states, and federal agencies across the country. This guidance is intended to be implemented by the jurisdiction(s) where a detonation occurs, as well as those surrounding jurisdictions that are less affected and will mobilize to provide support."

United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 2023. 104p.

By Williams, Heather J.; Mcculloch, Caitlin

From the document: "This Perspective serves as a preliminary examination of the many roles and the complex intersection of Truth Decay and national security; in it, we examine how eroding confidence in facts and fact-finding institutions can affect U.S. national security. In addition to framing these intersections, we examine whether Truth Decay's role in national security has changed over time and the impact of the changing definition of 'national security.' [...] This work is intended to serve multiple purposes. The first is understanding: to better explain the broad impacts of Truth Decay on American national security. The second is to frame future research: both to highlight areas where gaps exist and future research could be most fruitful and to provide a framework for how that work would connect to the overarching strategic question. The third is response: to suggest what actors are best positioned to address Truth Decay in national security and potential mitigating initiatives. It is our hope that this work will demonstrate the importance of improving our understanding of Truth Decay in national security and combating the national security vulnerabilities it creates."

RAND Corporation. 2023. 43p.

Listen, Little Man! is a great physician's quiet talk to each one of us, the average human being, the Little Man. Written in 1946 in answer to the gossip and defamation that plagued his remarkable career, it tells how Reich watched, at first naively, then with amazement, and finally with horror, at what the Little Man does to himself; how he suffers and rebels; how he esteems his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he gains power as a "representative of the people," he misuses this power and makes it crueler than the power it has supplanted.

Reich has us to look honestly at ourselves and to assume responsibility for our lives and for the great untapped potential that lies in the depth of human nature.By Wilhelm Reich

NY. Noonday Press. 1974. 138p.

“What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society.”—The Guardian
  
“Our psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is limitless.”
 
Since our inception, humanity has looked to dreams for guidance. But what are they? How can we understand them? And how can we use them to shape our lives? There is perhaps no one more equipped to answer these questions than the legendary psychologist Carl G. Jung. It is in his life’s work that the unconscious mind comes to be understood as an expansive, rich world just as vital and true a part of the mind as the conscious, and it is in our dreams—those personal, integral expressions of our deepest selves—that it communicates itself to us. A seminal text written explicitly for the general reader, Man and His Symbolsis a guide to understanding the symbols in our dreams and using that knowledge to build fuller, more receptive lives. 

Full of fascinating case studies and examples pulled from philosophy, history, myth, fairy tales, and more, this groundbreaking work—profusely illustrated with hundreds of visual examples—offers invaluable insight into the symbols we dream that demand understanding, why we seek meaning at all, and how these very symbols affect our lives. By illuminating the means to examine our prejudices, interpret psychological meanings, break free of our influences, and recenter our individuality, Man and His Symbols proves to be—decades after its conception—a revelatory, absorbing, and relevant experience.By Carl G. Jung and M. L. . von Fra nz , Joseph . L. Henderson , Jolande Jacobi, Aniela Jafé

NY. Dell Publishing. 1964. 416p.

By George Gaylord Simpson

A world-famous scientist answers the fundamental questions concerning the changes in the course of the history of life and considers human aims, values, and duties in the light of the nature of man and his place in the history of life.
"The clearest and soundest exposition of the meaning of evolution that has yet been written."―Ashley Montagu, Isis

New Haven And London. Yale University Press, 1949. 373p.

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics--as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies. Illustrations.By Robert Wright.

NY. Vintage. 1994. 398p.

By William H. Whyte

Regarded as one of the most important sociological and business commentaries of modern times, The Organization Man developed the first thorough description of the impact of mass organization on American society. During the height of the Eisenhower administration, corporations appeared to provide a blissful answer to postwar life with the marketing of new technologies—television, affordable cars, space travel, fast food—and lifestyles, such as carefully planned suburban communities centered around the nuclear family. William H. Whyte found this phenomenon alarming.

As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status.

Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.

NY. Penguin. 1956. 387p.

In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he traces the devastating progress of the plague through the streets of London. Here we see a city transformed: some of its streets suspiciously empty, some—with crosses on their doors—overwhelmingly full of the sounds and smells of human suffering. And every living citizen he meets has a horrifying story that demands to be heard.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.By Daniel Defoe. Introduction by Anthony Burgess.

NY. London. Penguin. 1722.

Translated, Edited, And With An Introduction By Kurth. Wolff

Georg Simmel rejected the organicist theories of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer and German historical tradition. He believed that society is an intricate web of multiple relations between individuals who are in constant interaction. He introduced the term sociation to describe and analyze particular forms of human interaction and their crystallization in-group characteristics. He emphasized the study of forms of interaction and this approach gave impetus to the rise of formal sociology. Georg Simmel's concept of social types was complementary to his concept of social forms. He used the example of 'The Stranger' to explain his social type, which is someone who has a particular place in society within the social group that the person has entered. Simmel stressed both the connection as well as the tensions between the individual and society, arguing that an individual is both a product of society and the link in all-social processes that take place in society. His dialectical approach brings out the dynamic interlink ages as well as conflicts that exist between social units in a society. Georg Simmel argued that conflict is an essential and complementary aspect of consensus or harmony in society. He made a distinction between social appearances and social realities, and argued that in pre-modern societies the relationships of subordination and superordination between master and servant, between employer and employee involved the total personalities of individuals. In capitalist modern society, the concept of freedom emerges and the domination of employer on employee, master on servant becomes partial. In modern societies, individualism emerges in societies with an elaborate division of labor and a number of intersecting social circles, but human beings are surrounded by objects that put constraint on them and dominate their individual needs and desires. Simmel warned that in modern societies, individuals will be frozen into social functions and the price of the objective perfection of the world will be the atrophy of the human soul.

New York Collier-Macmillan. 1950. 496p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Thomas C. Schelling

A series of closely interrelated essays on game theory, this book deals with an area in which progress has been least satisfactory—the situations where there is a common interest as well as conflict between adversaries: negotiations, war and threats of war, criminal deterrence, extortion, tacit bargaining. It proposes enlightening similarities between, for instance, maneuvering in limited war and in a traffic jam; deterring the Russians and one's own children; the modern strategy of terror and the ancient institution of hostages.

London. Oxford University Press. 1960. 301p.

By Willam McDougall

"Until the later decades of the nineteenth century, psychology continued to concern itself almost exclusively with the mind of man conceived in an abstract fashion, not as the mind of any particular individual, but as the mind of a representative individual considered in abstraction from his social settings as something given to our contemplation fully formed and complete..."

William McDougall was an early 20th century psychologist who wrote a number of highly influential textbooks, and was particularly important in the development of the theory of instinct and of social psychology in the English-speaking world. He was an opponent of behaviourism and stands somewhat outside the mainstream of the development of Anglo-American psychological thought in the first half of the 20th century; but his work was very well known and respected among lay people.Group Psychology itself consists properly of two parts, that which is concerned to discover the most general principles of group life, and that which applies these principles to the study of particular kinds and examples of group life. The former is logically prior to the second; though in practice it is hardly possible to keep them wholly apart. The present volume is concerned chiefly with the former branch. Only when the general principles of group life have been applied to the understanding of particular societies, of nations and the manifold system of groups within the nation, will it be possible for Social Psychology to return upon the individual life and give of it an adequate account in all its concrete fullness.

NY. G. P. Putnam. 1920. 423p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Shashi Tharoor

For more than four decades after gaining independence, PBI – India, with its massive size and population, staggering poverty and slow rate of growth, was associated with the plodding, somnolent elephant, comfortably resting on its achievements of centuries gone by. Then in the early 1990s the elephant seemed to wake up from its slumber and slowly begin to change—until today, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, some have begun to see it morphing into a tiger. As PBI – India turns sixty, Shashi Tharoor, novelist and essayist, reminds us of the paradox that is PBI – India, the elephant that is becoming a tiger: with the highest number of billionaires in Asia, it still has the largest number of people living amid poverty and neglect, and more children who have not seen the inside of a schoolroom than any other country.

So what does the twenty-first century hold for PBI – India? Will it bring the strength of the tiger and the size of an elephant to bear upon the PBI – World? Or will it remain an elephant at heart? In more than sixty essays organized thematically into six parts, Shashi Tharoor analyses the forces that have made twenty-first century PBI – India—and could yet unmake it. He discusses the country’s transformation in his characteristic lucid prose, writing with passion and engagement on a broad range of subjects, from the very notion of ‘PBI – Indianness’ in a pluralist society to the evolution of the once sleeping giant into a PBI – World leader in the realms of science and technology; from the men and women who make up his PBI – India—Gandhi and Nehru and the less obvious Ramanujan and Krishna Menon—to an eclectic array of PBI – Indian experiences and realities, virtual and spiritual, political and filmi. The book is leavened with whimsical and witty pieces on cricket, Bollywood and the national penchant for holidays, and topped off with an A to Z glossary on PBI – Indianness, written with tongue firmly in cheek.

Diverting and instructive as ever, artfully combining hard facts and statistics with personal opinions and observations, Tharoor offers a fresh, insightful look at this timeless and fast-changing society, emphasizing that PBI – India must rise above the past if it is to conquer the future.

NY. Arcade. 2007.. 498p.

By V. S. Naipaul

Returning to India--the subject of his acclaimed "An Area of Darkness"--in 1975, Naipaul produced this concise masterpiece of journalism and cultural analysis, a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by repeated foreign invasions and immured in a mythic vision of its past. In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi's "Emergency," V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left one hundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of India. Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians--from a supercilious prince to an engineer constructing housing for Bombay's homeless--Naipaul captures a vast, mysterious, and agonized continent inaccessible to foreigners and barely visible to its own people. He sees both the burgeoning space program and the 5,000 volunteers chanting mantras to purify a defiled temple; the feudal village autocrat and the Naxalite revolutionaries who combined Maoist rhetoric with ritual murder. Relentless in its vision, thrilling in the keenness of its prose, India: A Wounded Civilization is a work of astonishing insight and candor.

NY. Vintage. 1976. 161p.

By Sophy Roberts

From acclaimed journalist Sophy Roberts, a journey through one of the harshest landscapes on earth―where music reveals the deep humanity and the rich history of Siberia

Siberia’s story is traditionally one of exiles, penal colonies and unmarked graves. Yet there is another tale to tell.

Dotted throughout this remote land are pianos―grand instruments created during the boom years of the nineteenth century, as well as humble, Soviet-made uprights that found their way into equally modest homes. They tell the story of how, ever since entering Russian culture under the westernizing influence of Catherine the Great, piano music has run through the country like blood.

How these pianos traveled into this snow-bound wilderness in the first place is testament to noble acts of fortitude by governors, adventurers and exiles. Siberian pianos have accomplished extraordinary feats, from the instrument that Maria Volkonsky, wife of an exiled Decembrist revolutionary, used to spread music east of the Urals, to those that brought reprieve to the Soviet Gulag. That these instruments might still exist in such a hostile landscape is remarkable. That they are still capable of making music in far-flung villages is nothing less than a miracle.

The Lost Pianos of Siberia is largely a story of music in this fascinating place, fol-lowing Roberts on a three-year adventure as she tracks a number of different instruments to find one whose history is definitively Siberian. Her journey reveals a desolate land inhabited by wild tigers and deeply shaped by its dark history, yet one that is also profoundly beautiful―and peppered with pianos.

NY. Grove Press. 2020. 410p.