Underreported: Book Power
Thursday, June 19, 2008
When Francisco Goldman's book The Art of Political Murder was published in the U.S., it had ripple effects in Guatemala, where the book was used to prove points by warring factions in the country's civil war. Nathaniel Popper has written a new article, "The Novelist and the Murderers," in the July 7th issue of The Nation about how a single book can have a dramatic effect on a country's political climate.
We'd like to hear from you. Has a single book had a dramatic impact on your own political views? Tell us about the book, and why you reacted so strongly to it.
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Comments [3]
Was Castro worse?
"...the three great problems of this century, the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness,..." written on New Year's Day, 1862, by Victor Hugo in the foreword of Les Miserables. I first read it as a high school sophomore, in 1965. He spoke to both my mind and my heart. Every time I read it I am compelled to try to be a better man.
I'd have to go with “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” by Noam Chomsky, and I don't seem to be alone on this one. I can't say for sure that it's for the same reasons, but when a president (Hugo Chavez) pitches a book on the floor of the U.N., after commenting on the sulfurous emanations lingering behind president Bush, you know that it's creating change on the world political scene.
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