Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843). So viel Anfang war noch nie, in
Poems. English and German. Selected verses edited, introduced,
and translated by Michael Hamburger. London/Dover NH: Anvil Press
Poetry, 1986.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). Brave, New World. New York: Modern
Library, 1946, 1956
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). Noted for inventing, among other
things, the phonograph and the incandescent bulb.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922). Inventor of the graphophone.
He is credited with inventing the telephone and took out the
patent on it.
Otto Nicklaus Otto (1832-1891). Inventor of the four-stroke
engine applied in the automotive industry.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943). Inventor of the electric alternator.
Lev Nikolaievich Tolstoy (1828-1910). War and Peace. Trans.
Louise and Aylmer Maude. New York: Oxford University Press,
1965. This is a translation of Voina i Mir, published in Moscow
at the Tipografia T. Ros, 1868.
The Declaration of Independence was approved by a group
delegates from the American colonies in July, 1776, with the
expressed aim of declaring the thirteen colonies independent of
England.
Signed at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, after much
dispute over representation, the Constitution of the United
States of America entered into effect once all thirteen states
ratified it. Its major significance derives from its
ascertainment of an effective alternative to monarchy. The system
of checks and balances contained in the Constitution is meant to
preserve any one branch of government from assuming absolute
authority.
The Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen was approved by
the French National Assembly on August 26, 1789 and declares the
right of individuals to be represented, equality among citizens,
and freedom of religion, speech, and the press. The ideals of
the French Revolution inspired many other political movements on
the continent.
Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in a year of many
popular uprisings all over Europe against conservative
monarchies, the Communist Manifesto of 1848 expresses the
political program of a revolutionary movement: workers of the
world united, leading the way to a classless society. The
Romantic impetus of the Manifesto and its new messianic tone was
of a different tenor from the attempts to implement the program
in Russia and later on Eastern Europe, China, and Korea.
Married...with Children: A situation comedy at the borderline
between satire and vulgarity, presenting a couple, Al and Peggy
Bundy, and their teenage children, Kelly and Bud, in life-like
situations at the fringes of the consumer society.
Born in 1918, Alexander Solzhenitsyn became known as a writer in
the context of the post-Stalin era. His books, A Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovitch (1962), The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975),
The Oak and the Calf (1980), testify to the many aspects of
Stalin's dictatorship. In 1974, after publishing Gulag
Archipelago (about life in Soviet prison camps), the writer was
exiled from his homeland. He returned to Russia in 1990.
Yevgeni Alexandrovich Yevtushenko: A rhetorical poet in the
tradition of Mayakovsky's poetry for the masses. During the
communist regime, he took it upon himself to celebrate the
official party line, as well as to poeticallly unveil less
savory events and abusive practices. His poetry is still the best
way to know the poet and the passionate human being. See also
Yevtushenko's Reader. Trans. Robin Milner-Gulland. New York:
E.P. Dutton, 1972.
Dimitri Dimitrevich Shostakovich (1906-1975): For a very long
time the official composer of the Soviet Union. After his death,
it became clear how deeply critical he was of a reality he seemed
to endorse. He created his harmonic idiom by modifying the
harmonic system of classical Russian music. See also Gunter
Wolter. Dimitri Shostakovitch: eine sowjetische Tragödie.
Frankfurt/Main, New York: P. Lang, 1991.
There is no good definition of Samizdat, the illegal publishing
movement of the former Soviet Block and China. Nevertheless, the
power of the printed word-often primitively presented and always
in limited, original editions-remains exemplary testimony to the
many forces at work in societies where authoritarian rules are
applied to the benefit of the political power in place. From a
large number of books on various aspects of Samizdat, the
following titles can be referenced:
Samizdat. Register of Documents (English edition). Munich:
Samizdat Archive Association. From 1977.
Ferdinand J. M. Feldbrugge. Samizdat and Political Dissent in the
Soviet Union. Leyden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1975.
Claude Widor. The Samizdat Press in China's Provinces,
1979-1981. Stanford CA: Hoover Institution, Stanford University,
1987.
Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989). His life can be summed up in John
Sweeney's statement: "In Ceausescu's Romania, madness was
enthroned, sanity a disease" cf. The Life and Evil Times of
Nicolae Ceausescu, London: Hutchinson, 1991, p. 105.
Berlin Wall. Erected in August, 1961, the wall divided East and
West Berlin. Over the years, it became the symbol of political
oppression. Hundreds of people were killed in their attempt to
escape to freedom. The political events in East Europe of Fall,
1989 led to destruction of the wall, a symbolic step in the not
so easy process of German reunification. See also: J. Ruhle, G.
Holzweissig. 13 August 1961: die Mauer von Berlin (Hrsg von I.
Spittman). Köln: Edition Deutschland Archiv, 1981.
Red. B. Beier, U. Heckel, G. Richter.9 November 1989: der Tag der
Deutschen. Hamburg: Carlsen, 1989.
John Borneman. After the Wall: East Meets West in the New Berlin.
New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Political unrest, due to intense resentment of the Soviet
occupation, and economic hardship led to the creation of an
independent labor union, the Solidarnosc (Solidarity) in 1980. In
1981, nationwide strikes brought Poland to a standstill. Martial
law was imposed and Solidarity was banned in 1982 after dramatic
confrontations at the Gdansk shipyards. Reinstated in 1989,
Solidarity became a major political factor in the formation of
the new, non-communist government.
Massimo d'Azeglio (1798-1866): I miei ricordi. A cura di Alberto
M. Ghisalberti. Torino: Einaudi, 1971.
Germany has a rather tortuous history behind its unification.
After the peace of Westphalia (1648) ending the Thirty Years'
War, a sharp division between Catholic and Protestant states
arose. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo (1815), the German
Confederation (led by Austria) prepared the path towards future
unification. In 1850, the attempt to form a central government
was blocked, to be resuscitated after the Franco-Prussian War
(1870-1871). On his defeat of Ludwig II of Bavaria, the Prussian
Wilhelm I became the first emperor of a unified Germany in 1871,
and Bismarck his first chancellor.
Prepared by Garibaldi's conquest of the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies (1860), the creation of the Kingdom of Italy by Victor
Emmanuelle (1861) ended with the seizure of Rome (1870) from the
control of the Vatican. Italy became a republic in 1946.
The establishments of various Arab states is a testimony to the
many forces at work in the Arab world. The victory of the
Allies in World War 1 brought about the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire. Modern Turkey was established in 1920, ruled
initially by a Sultan, becoming a republic in 1923 under the
presidency of Kamal Atatürk. At around the same time, Syria
(including Lebanon) fell under the mandate of the French League
of Nations. Lebanon became a separate state in 1926. Iraq was
established as a kingdom in 1921, falling under the same status
as Syria within the British League of Nations. Saudi Arabia was
created in 1932, and Jordan became an independent kingdom in
1946. The history of national definition and sovereignty in the
Middle East is far from being closed.
For information on the Ustasha organization in Croatia, see
Cubric Milan's book Ustasa hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija,
Beograd: Idavacka Kuca Kujizevne Novine, 1990.
Chetniks (in Serbia), see A Dictionary of Yugoslav Political and
Economic Terminology (cf. Andrlic Vlasta, Rjecnik terminologije
jugoslavenskog politicko-ekonomskog sistema, published in 1985,
Zagreb: Informator). The reality of the breakdown of the country
that used to be Yugoslavia is but one of the testimonies of
change that renders words and the literate use of language
meaningless.
Omae Kenichi. The Borderless World. Power and Strategy in the
Interlinked World Economy. New York: Harper Business, 1990.
Isaiah Berlin. The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Chapters in the
History of Ideas. London: John Murray, 1990.
Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). Author of Crime and
Punishment (Prestuplenie i nakazanie), Trans. David McDuff,
Harmondsworth: Viking, 1991.
Toqueville noticed that "...scarcely any question arises in the
United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject
of judicial debate.... As most public men are, or have been,
legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and the
technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the
country.... The language of the law becomes, in some measure, a
vulgar tongue" cf. Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America.
Gary Chapman. Time to Cast Aside Political Apathy in Favor of
Creating a New Vision for America, in Los Angeles Times, Aug.
19, 1996, p. D3.
Edward Brent (writing as Earl Babble). Electronic Communication
and Sociology: Looking Backward, Thinking Ahead, in American
Sociologist, 27, Apr. 1, 1996, pp. 4-24.
"Theirs not to reason why"
A professional description of the initial strike in the Gulf War
gives the following account: "In the blitz that launched Desert
Storm, Apache and special forces helicopters first took out two
early warning radar stations. This opened a corridor for 22
F-15E aircraft following in single file to hit Scud sites in
western Iraq. Also, 12 stealth F-117A fighters, benefiting from
Compass Call and EF-111 long-distance jamming, hit targets in
Baghdad, including a phone exchange and a center controlling air
defenses. Other such underground centers were hit in the south.
Tomahawk missiles took out power plants. All this occurred
within 20 minutes.
"About 40 minutes into the assault, a second wave of strike
'packages' of other aircraft, including 20 F-117As, attacked.
They were guided by AWACs (airborne warning and control systems)
crafts, which had been orbiting within a range of Iraqi radar
for months. Coalition forces flew 2399 sorties the first day,
losing only three planes." cf. John A. Adam, Warfare in the
information age, in IEEE Spectrum, September, 1991, p. 27.
One more detail: "The architects of the huge raid are the Central
Commander, Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, and Brigadier
General C. Glosson, an electrical engineer by training. For
months they have overseen complete war games and rehearsed
precision bombing in the Arabian expanse," p. 26.
Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Trans. Thomas Cleary. Boston & London:
Shambala Dragon Editions,1988.
"Military action is important to the nation-it is the ground of
death and life, the path of survival and destruction, so it is
imperative to examine it" p. 41.
"Speed is the most important in war," Epaminondas of Thebes.
Battle of Leuctra, 371 BCE.
Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891). Geschichte des
deutsch-französischen Krieges von 1870-1871. The Franco-German
War of 1870-1871. Trans. Clara Bell and Henry W. Fischer. New
York: H. Fertig, 1988. Reprint of the version published in New
York by Harper in 1892.
Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831).Vom Kriege. Michael Howard and
Peter Paret, Editors. On War. Princeton NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1976.
Theodor Heuss (1884-1963). Theodor Heuss über Staat und Kirche.
Frankfurt/Main: P. Lang, 1986.
C. W. Groetsch. Tartaglia's Inverse Problem in a Resistive
Medium, in The American Mathematical Monthly, 103:7, 1996, pp.
546-551.
Roland Barthes. Leçon, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1978.
The book is based on the lecture delivered at the inauguration of
the Chair of Literary Semiology at the Collège de France on
January 7, 1977.
"But Language-the performance of a language system-is neither
reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist, for
fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech."
Alan Mathison Turing (1913-1954). British mathematician, one of
the inventors of the programmable computer. During World War 2,
Turing worked at the British Foreign Office, helping crack the
German secret military code.
William Aspray and Arthur Burks, Editors. Papers of John von
Neumann on Computing and Computer Theory. Cambridge MA: MIT
Press; Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers, 1987. Charles Babbage
Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing, Vol. 12.
John Condry, TV: Live from the Battlefield, in IEEE Spectrum,
September, 1991.
Regarding the role of imagery and how it effectively replaces the
written word, the following example is relevant: An Israeli
visiting Arizona talked to his daughter in Tel Aviv while
simultaneously watching the news on the Cable News Network
(CNN). The reporter stated that a Scud missile had been launched
at Tel Aviv, and the father informed the daughter, who sought
protection in a shelter. "This is what television has become
since its initial adoption 40 years ago...The world is becoming a
global village, as educator Marshall McLuhan predicted it would.
Imagery is its language" p. 47.
Darrell Bott. Maintaining Language Proficiency, in Military
Intelligence, 21, 1995, p. 12.
Charles M. Herzfeld. Information Technology: A Retro- and
Pro-spective. Lecture presented at the Battelle Information
Technology Summit. Columbus OH, 10 August 1995. Published in
Proceedings of the DTIC/Battelle Information Technology SummIT.
Linda Reinberg, In the Field: the Language of the Vietnam War,
New York: Facts of File, 1991.
The strategic defense initiative (SDI) was focused upon
developing anti-missile and anti-satellite technologies and
programs. A multi-layered, multi-technology approach to ballistic
missile defense (BMD) meant to intercept offensive nuclear
weapons after they had been launched by aggressors. The system
consisted of the so-called target acquisition (search and
detection of an offensive object); tracking (determination of
the trajectory of the offensive object); discrimination
(distinguishing of missiles and warheads from decoys or chaff);
interception (accurate pointing and firing to ensure destruction
of the offensive object). The critical components are computer
programs and the lasers designed to focus a beam on the target's
surface, heating it to the point of structural failure.
The Pentagon. Critical Technologies Plan, March, 1990.
Restructuring the U.S. Military, a report by a joint task force
of the Committee for National Security and The Defense Budget
Project. Obviously, the post-Cold War momentum provided many
arguments for new plans for a scaled down, but highly
technological, defense. The new circumstances created by the end
of the Cold War require strategies for conversion of industries
that until recently depended entirely upon the needs and desires
of the military.
The Interactive Future: Individual, Community, and Society in the
Age of the Web
Elaine Morgan. Falling Apart: The Rise and Decline of Urban
Civilisation. London: Souvenir Press, 1976.
David Clark. Urban Decline. London/New York: Routledge, 1989.
Katharine L. Bradbury. Urban Decline and the Future of American
Cities. Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1982.
Hegel's theory of state derives from his philosophy of history.
Civil society affords individuals opportunities for freedom. But
since the state is the final guarantor, it accordingly has
priority over the individual; cf. Philosophy of Right, T.B.
Knox, Editor. London, 1973.
E.A. Wrigley and David Souden, Editors. Thomas Robert Malthus. An
Essay On the Principle of Population, 1798, in The Works of
Thomas Robert Malthus. London: W. Pickering, 1986.
"Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio" (p. 9).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Philosopher of the French
Enlightenment. In Du Contract Social, he stated the law of
inverse proportion between population and political freedom (cf.
Book 3, chapter 1, Paris: Livre de Poche, 1978. Also in Social
Contract. Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Sir Ernest
Barker, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
Bernard Rubin & Associates. Big Business and the Mass Media.
Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1977.
Craig E. Aronoff, Editor. Business and the Media. Santa Monica
CA: Goodyear Publishing Corp., 1979.
David Finn. The Business-Media Relationship: Countering
Misconceptions and Distrust. New York: Amacom, 1981.
Observations made by media scholars give at least a quantitative
testimony to many facets of the business of media. Ed Shiller,
in Managing the Media (Toronto: Bedford House Publishing Corp.,
1989) states "The media are everywhere and they are interested
in everything" (p. 13).
A. Kent MacDougall (Ninety Seconds to Tell It All. Big Business
and the News Media, Homewood IL: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1981) observed
that "To communicate with the American public, companies must
first communicate with the media" (p. 43). Interestingly enough,
they reach huge audiences by using the rent free public
airwaves. Consequently, as the author shows, the news media shine
by any measure of profitability. According to Forbes magazine's
annual study of profits, broadcasting and publishing companies
led all industry groups in return on stockholder's equity and
capital in recent years. Specialized publications also keep
track of the profitability of the media.
Study of Media and Markets, a service of Simmons Market Research
Bureau, Inc., makes available standard marketing information.
Communications Industry Forecasts, brought out by Veronis, Suhler
& Asso. of New York, gives a detailed financial status of the
entire communication industry (radio, television, magazines,
entertainment media, recorded music, advertising, promotion).
J.H. Cassing and S.L. Husted, Editors. Capital, Technology, and
Labor in the New Global Economy. Washington DC: American
Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1988.
Raymond Vernon. Exploring the Global Economy: Emerging Issues in
Trade and Investment. Cambridge: Center for International
Affairs, Harvard University Press, 1985.
Stephen Gill. The Global Political Economy: Perspectives,
Problems, and Policies. New York: Harvester, 1988.
Gene Grossman. Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.
Facts for Action (periodical). Boston: Oxfam America, from 1982.
John Clark. For Richer or Poorer: An Oxfam Report on Western
Connections with World Hunger. Oxford: Oxfam, 1986.
J.G. Donders, Editor. Bread Broken: An Action Report on the Food
Crisis in Africa. Eldoret, Kenya: Gaba Publications, AMECEA
Pastoral Institute, 1984.
In his study Eighteenth Brumaire, (1852), Karl Marx described
bureaucracy as a "semi-autonomous power standing partly above
class-divided society, exploiting all its members alike."
Harvey Wheeler. Democracy in a Revolutionary Era. Santa Barbara:
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1970.
Wheeler defineds bureaucracy as "a vast organism with an
assortment of specialized, departmentalized tentacles for coping
with the different kinds of reality it may encounter" (pp.
99-100).
Max Weber. Essay in Sociology. Edited and translated by H.H.
Gerth and C. Wright Mills. London: Oxford University Press,
1946.
In this classical theory of bureaucracy, the author saw its
roots in the cultural traditions of Western rationalism. As
such, it is characterized by impersonal relations, hierarchy, and
specialization.
R. Chackerian, G. Abcarian. Bureaucratic Power in Society.
Chicago: Nelson Hall, Inc., 1984.
B.C. Smith. Bureaucracy and Political Power. Brighton: Wheatsheaf
Books, Ltd., 1988.
The author argues that "Bureaucracy is a political phenomenon"
(p. ix), not a mere administrative occurrence.
Eva Etzioni-Halevy. Bureaucracy and Democracy. A Political
Dilemma. London/Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.
George C. Roche. America by the Throat: The Stranglehold of
Federal Bureaucracy. Old Greenwich CT: Devin Adair, 1983.
Eugene Lewis. American Politics in a Bureaucratic Age: Citizens,
Constituents, Clients, and Victims. Cambridge MA: Winthrop
Publishers, 1977.
Michael Hanben and Ronda Hanben. Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet. A Netbook.
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106, June, 1996
Michael J. A. Howe, The Strange Feats of Idiots Savants, in
Fragments of Genius, London/New York: Routledge, 1989.
"'Idiots savants' is the term that has most frequently been used
to designate mentally handicapped individuals who are capable of
outstanding achievements at particular tasks" (p. 5). He also
mentions alternative labels: talented imbecile, parament,
talented ament, retarded savant, schizophrenic savant, autistic
savant. Among the examples he gives: A 14-year old Chinese who
could give the exact page for any Chinese character in a
400-page dictionary; a 23-year old woman hardly able to speak
(her mental age was assessed at 2 years, 9 months), with no
musical instruction, who could play on the piano a piece of
music that a person around her might hum or play; a subject who
knew all distances between towns in the USA and could list all
hotels and number of rooms available; a person who knew Abraham
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address but could not, after weeks of
classes on the subject, say who Lincoln was or what the speech
means.
In The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (1920), Henry Adams
presented a logarithmic curve of the acceleration of history. In
1909, Adams noted that between 1800 and 1900, the speed of events
increased 1,000 times.
Gerard Piel. The Acceleration of History. New York: A.A. Knopf,
1972.
Nicolas Rashevsky. Looking at History through Mathematics.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968.
End of
The Civilization of Illiteracy, by Mihai Nadin
(C) Mihai Nadin 1997