Political Awakenings: Conversations with History

Harry Kreisler

In this thoughtful and inspiring series of interviews, twenty of the world’s most influential writers, thinkers and activists reflect on formative experiences that shaped their own political commitments.

For Noam Chomsky it was handing out the Daily Mirror as a kid at his uncle’s New York newsstand and becoming part of a buzzing intellectual and political hub for European immigrants. Human rights Nobel Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi and her husband signed their own legal contract to restore equality to their marriage after the Iranian Revolution effectively erased the rights of women.

A young Tariq Ali bet a friend that he could work the Vietnam War into every answer on his final exams at Oxford. Distinguished academic and ex-CIA man Chalmers Johnson changed his political position much later in life to become a trenchant critic of American imperialism.

Visit the Conversations with History blog.

Praise for Political Awakenings:

An inspiring collection of people committed to making a better world and succeeding against all odds.

AUSTRALIAN OPTIONS MAGAZINE

 

Political Awakenings takes giant strides towards answering Machiavelli’s 500-year-old political question about whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The 20 interviewees in this book show that the world is in dire need of a little bit of thoughtfulness and inspiration and a great deal of wisdom.

JOSH ROSNER, CANBERRA TIMES

Book details

PUBLICATION DATE: 2011
FORMAT: Paperback
EXTENT: 304 pages (ed.)
SIZE: 235 x 155 mm
ISBN: 9781742582894
RIGHTS: Australia and New Zealand
CATEGORY: Out of Print,