The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles

Book Description

"[A] pungent mix of literary biography, history and international political thriller.... A story steeped in intrigue, duplicity and nefarious figures, all told with...imagination and bold interpretation." (Baltimore Sun)

When John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway went to Spain to witness the Spanish Civil War firsthand, the devastation they met was far from impersonal: As Spain was unraveling thread by thread, so was their friendship. They had arrived in Spain as comrades, leftist writers-in-arms. But when Dos Passos's friend Jose Robles went missing, Dos Passos's search for Robles would eventually take his literary career and his friendship with Hemingway to the breaking point.

"A gripping narrative.... [The Breaking Point] dexterously navigates the political minefields of the era and has the pace and drama of a detective novel. There are many books on writers and the Spanish Civil War. This is one of the most important and original, and one of the very best." (New York Sun) "A definitive account of this defining moment in 20th-century intellectual history." (Weekly Standard)

"What makes The Breaking Point such stampede reading-a kind of Guernica-is precisely Koch's partisanship, a furious choosing of sides in the bloody past, back when history was breaking hearts." (Harper's)

Customer Reviews:

A light page turning thriller with a surprising set of on-line reviews.......2007-01-18

I was thrilled to read this book. As a young man, my first reaction when I read the early Hemingway was literary enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that waned as I matured. I also have been ambivalent about Dos Passos. I was never quite convinced by the official story that Dos Passos' writing got progressively worse as his politics did too. I have read the late Dos Passos and the early Dos Passos. Whatever "changed" about his work to justify condemning the later works to oblivion while keeping the early works in print was lost by me - the late Dos Passos was as good a writer as the early Dos Passos.

This book filled in a lot of gaps and lacunae in my own understanding of Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the 1930s. It should be noted that for many decades there was an official story about Spain, America, and communism in the 1930s. In the official story, the Spanish civil war was a real war fought to win between the leftist republicans (the good guys) and the fascists of Franco (the bad guys) and in the end the bad guys won.

The fall of the Soviet Union has turned the official story on its head, but only for those who have paid attention. Anyone unfamiliar with this change in our historical understanding of the nature of the role of the Soviet-Stalinist machine in the US, Spain, and elsewhere should review the "annals of communism" series published by Yale.

In general Koch makes a good case as a detective, putting forth a plausible hypothesis that fits the the post-soviet facts. Koch's argument is consistent with what we now understand the situation in Spain in 1936 to be. I found nothing Koch says about Hemingway or Dos Passos that is inconsistent with what I already knew about these two and their relationship. And Koch hangs all the facts together in a fun, vulgar, cheap, pot-boiler, pulp fiction style that actually makes it fun.

What I find amazing are the reactions other readers have had to this book on Amazon. They range from the enthusiastic (like me), to those who find Koch's style awful, to those who are upset by either Koch's post-soviet notion of the history of communism, Spain and America in the 1930s or by Koch's depiction of particular people, most notably, Hemingway. Koch is not a bad writer. But he has written this book in a rather crass, tabloid style that, in my mind, fits the material of his story perfectly. Heavily footnoted, academic prose would have suffocated the story Koch is telling. Instead, we get a chummy narrator who cajoles, contradicts himself, back tracks, and then sets the record straight. It is all quite entertaining and easy to read. If you want the footnotes, they are in the back of the book, and should be consulted in due course. As I mention above, some people have difficulty believing that Stalin was able to play the world as we now know he did. Everyone got played. Hemingway the least of them.
As for Koch's depiction of Hemingway, there is nothing outrageously new here for anyone who has ever done any sort of real research into Hemingway. Hemingway changed women like he changed underwear. Hemingway was drunk most of the time. Hemingway had a peculiar moral compass that placed great importance on personal bravado and acts of courage. Hemingway was a politically uncommitted, largely disengaged, and easily influenced by the times. Hemingway had the ego of a rock star. And now we know, Hemingway, like dozens of others of his generation, got played by the Stalinists. Is any of this controversial? And yes, To Have and Have Not was a cut-and-paste job. Who can fault Koch for opining that the book was trash?

For me, Koch's story does what every good piece of non-fiction should do - send me to the end notes to find out what books to read next.

Comintern-agent?.......2006-10-12

A very nice read, with much feeling for the atmosphere of the period. However, Stephen Koch has written a book halfway between fiction and non-fiction, and it is too often unclear where fact ends and fantasy begins. In many cases historical facts are presented incorrect. This is especially problematic where negative qualifications of (at the time) living persons are given without a shade of proof. A small example, is his qualification of Joris Ivens's Dutch cameraman John Fernhout (in the USA known as filmmaker John Ferno) as a 'Comintern-apparatchik' (page 62). On the basis of the available archive material in the Netherlands and the USA there is no reason whatsoever to assume that Fernhout had anything to do with the Comintern. Never in any research about Dutch persons and their connections with the Comintern or Soviet-services did Fernhouts name turn up. He is mainly remembered as, well, Ivens's cameraman, and as the filmmaker in the household of Crownprinces Juliana of Holland during her exile in Canada in Woldwar II. In Stephen Kochs book, Fernhout is just one of many people who are called Comintern agents rather rashly.
The main matter I would like to adress is Stephen Kochs verdict on Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, who is one of the main characters in his book. The author says Ivens was a 'Comintern agent' and 'Comintern apparatchik'. It is fair to admit that Ivens's position was a lot more complicated than that of others. Stephen Koch writes himself that his judgement on Ivens is based on my book 'Living Dangerously. A Biography of Joris Ivens'. But I never used the term 'Comintern agent'.
There is no doubt about the fact that Ivens was a member of the Dutch communist party at the time, and that in the thirties he was in almost permanent contact about his filmwork with communist and Comintern organisations. Unfortunately Stephen Koch does not define what a Comintern agent is, but I would suggest that such an agent was at least
1) Not free to do what he liked. Defecting or disobedient agents were liquidated or called back to Moscow and never heard of again.
2) He would have some serious secret mission.
I have called Ivens a freelance communist. In my view he was one even as a partymember. He was completely loyal to party politics, but nevertheless remained largely independent at an organisational level. The relationship between Ivens and Comintern organisations was one of consultation between two parties rather than one of giving or receiving orders. An obvious exception was his work at Meshrabpom Studios in Moscow - a studio that was part of the Comintern apparatus - where he was an employee before he went to the United States.
As for the secrets, in Spain Ernest Hemingway was fully aware of the fact that Ivens was a card carrying communist. John Dos Passos knew that he was an unconditional admirer of the Soviet Union well before they departed for Europe (Ivens's views were apparent even from his public speeches in the USA). It was clear from the beginning that Joris Ivens would be the director of their film 'Spanish Earth' and would thus have a decisive say.
The secret mission from Moscow that Stephen Koch suggests is: Ivens came to destroy the literary avant-garde of which John Dos Passos was considered the main representative in the US. For this reason Ivens was supposed to stir up contradictions between Hemingway and Dos Passos. This theory is a red line through Stephen Kochs book, but in my view this is mere speculation and hardly realistic. Such a plot would have been contrary to communist policies of the time: every Western artist, modern or old-fashioned, was hailed by the communists as long as he or she sympathized with practical communist policy. In general I don't believe in, and see no proof for, the suggestion that Ivens's doings connected to Hemingway and Dos Passos were concocted on forehand since 1936 or even earlier.

Hollywood will never make a movie of this great story, but somebody should.......2006-09-05

This book is absolutely important for people interested specially in the following topics: Spain, 20th century history, communism, literature (Dos Passos, Hemingway), politics, and modern history in general. It is recommendable for any book reader also because it is masterfully written. Like a detective story, the author has done a tremendous work of investigation.

By the way, this follows Stephen Koch's previous work "Double Lives", which is, I believe, the "intellectual father" of this new book, since they are very related.

There is much to be amazed of, much to learn about, in this story. The role of the Soviet Commintern in world politics and its consequences in our social lives is something that I can't stop being amazed at. How they handled people, propaganda, ideas, and changed evil into good and viceversa in (mostly) everybody's minds deserves more attention from us, the people, so we don't go through the same story again.

There are three contending sides in this political/criminal story: the communists (aka Stalinists) and their servants (propagandists, artists, hit-men), the independents (non-stalinist communists, anarchists, and other revolutionaries), and the vanity fair people (rich, stupid, intellectual and irresponsible fellows who lent their names to one or the other side of the battle that caused the lives of many REAL working-class people. This book is a good incentive to pause and reflect upon the miseries that many irresponsible self-called intellectuals have caused on us, common folk. They never fought, they never risked their lives, but they helped to provoke (and still do) the wars and dictatorships of the 20th century immensely. From Marx (who never met a factory worker in his rascal life) to Picasso, Garcia Marquez, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Hammett, Orwell, even Einstein or Delano Roosevelt, were practically puppets in the hands of the soviet agenda.

Here we have the Stalinists (Commintern) killing thousands of anti-fascists and saying they were fascists, and at the same time pacting with the nazis in Germany in order to share Europe between the two countries. And everybody believed it! But what this book is about is not so much the big picture, but the involvement of some of its most relevant artistic protagonists. We deal here with very personal and human stories.

Jesus was right, you mustn't hate your enemies, you must love them.If you go out looking for enemies, whether it is "the rich" or the "Jews", you may find him where you never thought: in your own side. Robles looked for enemies among the rich in Spain (paradoxically, he was one of them), took sides with those he thought were the "good" side against those he thought were the "fascist" side; well, he got himself his due reward.

Or also:
"Judge not, that you be not judged." Matt. 7:1 (Robles judged wrong)

"They have sown the wind .......2006-08-01

and they shall reap the whirlwind."

"Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles" is Stephen Koch's excellent examination of the destruction of the friendship between American writers Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War served as a crucible on which many relationships (between people and between people and their ideology) were either forged or broken. In the case of Dos Passos and Hemingway once they entered the political whirlwind of the Spanish Civil War that friendship was irretrievably fractured.

It is not well-remembered that, at the height of his fame, Dos Passos was placed on the same pedestal as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. The first two volumes of his masterpiece, the USA Trilogy (42nd Parallel and 1919) had been enormous successes. By the time Volume III, "The Big Money", was released in 1936, Jean-Paul Sartre hailed him as "the greatest writer of our time". Edmund Wilson's review went so far as to claim that Dos Passos was "the first of our writers, with the possible exception of Mark Twain, who has successfully used colloquial American for a novel of the highest artistic seriousness." Dos Passos' literary reputation began to change during the Spanish Civil War. Dos Passos, along with Hemingway and many other literary figures including George Orwell made his way to Spain to assist in the Republican cause. Like Orwell, Dos Passos was deeply affected by the brutal infighting amongst Republican supporters. In the case of Dos Passos, he was deeply distressed by murder of a friend, anarchist and Johns Hopkins Professor Jose Robles, apparently executed by Stalinist cadres for his nonconforming radicalism. Hemingway mocked Dos Passos for his unmanly concern for his friend. Dos Passos reports that he told Hemingway that "the question I keep putting to myself is what's the use of fighting a war for civil liberties, if you destroy civil liberties in the process?" Hemingway replied "civil liberties, [__ _ _ ]. Are you with us or against us?" It is no surprise that Dos Passos' next book was criticized severely. The New Masses magazine referred to it as a "crude piece of Trotskyist agit-prop". Dos Passos never reclaimed the popularity he had achieved with the USA Trilogy.

The Civil War proved to be the point in time during the first half of the 20th-century at which many intellectuals and artists (literary and otherwise) of the left had to face an apparent conflict between their personal sense of morality and their ideology. Until the Civil War the various factions of the European and U.S. left seemed to live together (with the exception of post-revolutionary Russia) in a fractious and far from symbiotic relationship. However the Civil War transformed what had merely been a dysfunctional relationship among various Marxist groups, anarchists, and socialists into one that was physically dangerous and fratricidal. Although Koch's "Breaking Point" focuses on the relationship between Dos Passos and Hemingway (and Dos Passos and Robles) the story also paints a broader picture of a time and place where many intellectuals and artists (literary or otherwise) on the left had to face an apparent conflict between their personal sense of morality and the socio-political imperatives of their ideology. Orwell and Dos Passos resolved this conflict on the side of their personal morality. Others were not so well-inclined. "Breaking Point" paints a vivid picture of the life of the 'intelligentsia' in the crucible that was Spain.

Koch provides the reader with background information on the friendship between Dos Passos and Robles and between Dos Passos and Hemingway. This background also provides the literary and political milieu in which Dos Passos, Hemingway and their contemporaries operated. Koch does not paint a flattering picture of Hemingway. He comes across (rightly I might add) as a raging bully tormented by a lethal combination of arrogance and insecurity. This arrogance and bullying shows up in stark terms once the story moves to Hemingway's and Dos Passos' time in Spain reporting on the War. Dos Passos is confounded and depressed by the murderous political intrigue while Hemingway adopts his typical macho "war is war" posture and doesn't appear to give these horrors a second thought. Hemingway's arrogance and bullying is not news to be sure but it is always worth being reminded that there is no correlation between great talent and a pleasing personality. In fact, to the extent there is a correlation it is just as likely to be an inverse rather than direct one. Dos Passos, though treated better by Koch, does not come across as a hero either. Rather, there seems to be an indecisive, almost Hamlet-like aura to him and his ongoing inability to stand up to Hemingway's verbal and psychological onslaughts. Nevertheless, it is clear that Dos Passos had, like Orwell, a keener, far less naïve eye when it came to the political in-fighting that did as much damage to the Republican cause as Franco (and Hitler's and Mussolini's) bombs. Hemingway was a political naif who had neither the time nor inclination to question Stalin's and the Comintern's murderous intrigues in Spain. In many respect's Hemingway fit Lenin's definition of a "useful idiot" to a t.

"Breaking Point" is an excellent political and literary biography. It is well worth reading.

Two novelists observed by a third.......2006-05-29

Koch is the author of one of the most interesting books of modern criticism, STARGAZER, one of the first books to take Andy Warhol seriously, so in my book he may be forgiven many sins, but THE BREAKING POINT is pretty bad.

As history, who knows? I can't believe all the things he dishes out about the power of the Politburo to enforce the Popular Front and its supposed hegemony of US culture. And his condemnation of the filmmakers who made THE SPANISH EARTH is just unpleasant. Ivens was no Soviet agent, he was a committed documentarian. (That's not to say that THE SPANISH EARTH isn't a boring piece of schlock.) What sets Koch apart from other writers, however, is his incessant banality as a writer, as a stylist. He is incapable of writing a single sentence without committing some go for broke solecism. He will set your teeth on edge from page one, right from the moment you discover that he plans to refer to his two protagonists as "Hem" and "Dos" all through the text, thus stripping them even of the dignity of their names. (Martha Gellhorn becomes "the Girl.")

His rib poking gets painful around page 9 or 10. Yes, Dos Passos is great, but not for the reasons Koch cites. And despite what Koch asserts, without argument, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and THE FIFTH COLUMN are not bad books. They are indeed among the most interesting US novels and plays of the last century. Koch is like a novelist attempting to enliven history with a novelist's little tricks, gleaned from the WRITERS DIGEST. Get right in there, focus on your characters, make them quirky, show what they're drinking and wearing. Imagine their thoughts. Tell us what they're thinking. Make one an angel, the other a devil, that way the reader will be able to distinguish them. Well, I loved STARGAZER but this one's for the birds.

La Ruptura / The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos Y El Asesinato De Jose Robles / Hemingway, Dos Passos and the Assasination of Jose Robles

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La Ruptura / The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos Y El Asesinato De Jose Robles / Hemingway, Dos Passos and the Assasination of Jose Robles
Stephen Koch
Manufacturer: Galaxia Gutenberg
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles.(Book Review) : An article from: The Hemingway Review

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The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles.(Book Review) : An article from: The Hemingway Review
Matthew Stewart
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Hemingway Review, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2005. The length of the article is 1389 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles.(Book Review)
Author: Matthew Stewart
Publication: The Hemingway Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Page: 142(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

To die in Madrid: two American Masters and the Spanish Civil War.(The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles)(Book Review) : An article from: The Weekly Standard

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To die in Madrid: two American Masters and the Spanish Civil War.(The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles)(Book Review) : An article from: The Weekly Standard
Stephen Schwartz
Manufacturer: News America Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000ALUX2O
Release Date: 2005-07-25

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Weekly Standard, published by News America Incorporated on July 4, 2005. The length of the article is 2589 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: To die in Madrid: two American Masters and the Spanish Civil War.(The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles)(Book Review)
Author: Stephen Schwartz
Publication: The Weekly Standard (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 4, 2005
Publisher: News America Incorporated
Volume: 10 Issue: 40 Page: 36(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

The Breaking Point Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles

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The Breaking Point Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles
Koch Stephen
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UESV3O

Customer Reviews:

An excellent snippet of a Larger than life Man.......2007-03-14

I was looking for a comprehensive work of Admiral Lord Nelson and in this work I was disappointed. For the $32 retail price I was expecting more 'meat' to this work. At just over 200 pages the 5 X 7 book size was rather lean upon content. It is however, in itself, an excellent work as it contains many excerpts of his letters to both Family and Colleagues with clarifications and comments as to the situation in which the letters were written and their over-all reflection of the man himself.

It is an excellent reference for 'quotes' and brief insights to the politics and realities of the British Navy during Nelson's service. Comments that reflect truths and feelings felt at one time or another by all sailors and soldiers no matter the Flag being served:

"Government don't care much for us." written by him aboard the famous HMS Victory is a case in point.

If your looking for anything like a comprehensive work on the Man and his life I'd advise another work (They are legion and cited in the Books Bib.) but for a beginning this will suffice.

Lord Nelson!!!.......2006-06-26

Anyone who is interested in research about Lord Nelson and the British Royal Navy will find this book helpful. The author is well qualified and respected. The book is full of many eyewitness accounts of Nelson's apparent wry humour. Anyone wishing to know somewhat type of a man and Admiral Nelson was will find this book helpful. It is excellent, and very affordable.

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Towards a Politics of Friendship

Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education
Danielle S. Allen
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Civics | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Political Science | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0226014673

Book Description

"Don't talk to strangers" is the advice long given to children by parents of all classes and races. Today it has blossomed into a fundamental precept of civic education, reflecting interracial distrust, personal and political alienation, and a profound suspicion of others. In this powerful and eloquent essay, Danielle Allen, a 2002 MacArthur Fellow, takes this maxim back to Little Rock, rooting out the seeds of distrust to replace them with "a citizenship of political friendship."

Returning to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and to the famous photograph of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, being cursed by fellow "citizen" Hazel Bryan, Allen argues that we have yet to complete the transition to political friendship that this moment offered. By combining brief readings of philosophers and political theorists with personal reflections on race politics in Chicago, Allen proposes strikingly practical techniques of citizenship. These tools of political friendship, Allen contends, can help us become more trustworthy to others and overcome the fossilized distrust among us.

Sacrifice is the key concept that bridges citizenship and trust, according to Allen. She uncovers the ordinary, daily sacrifices citizens make to keep democracy working—and offers methods for recognizing and reciprocating those sacrifices. Trenchant, incisive, and ultimately hopeful, Talking to Strangers is nothing less than a manifesto for a revitalized democratic citizenry.

“Allen understands that democracy originates in the subjective dimension of everyday life, and she focuses on what she calls our ‘habit of citizenship’—the ways we often unconsciously regard and interact with fellow citizens. . . . [Her] focus on race is entirely appropriate.”—Nick Bromell, Boston Review

Customer Reviews:

Towards a Politics of Friendship.......2005-01-18

Danielle Allen seems to be everywhere these days. From writing in academic journals such as POLITICAL THEORY to composing magazine pieces for THE NATION and THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR to various media appearances to reading personal works of poetry, Allen has rapidly become one of the leading young scholars in North America. Though young in age, her wisdom transcends any youthful categorizations. I resist labeling Allen a public intellectual as that phrase carries with it the aura of elite narcissism. Against the narcissistic tendency unfortunately prevalent among prominent academics, Allen represents what I call a "people's intellectual." A people's intellectual is an individual determined to take political theory, thought, and engaging ideas to the streets. This commitment to exposing theorists in academia as well as citizens in general to original thought-work is why I and many others are excited about Allen's current endeavors. Toni Morrison, Bonnie Honig, and Earl Shorris correctly point out that Allen is a worldly Rawls who meditates on our most pressing domestic and global questions by composing works that are part how-to-manuals, part political theory, and wholeheartedly possessing the goal of achieving Copernican insight by shifting our gaze regarding how we conceive of issues such as citizenship, race, trust, sacrifice, recognition, cosmopolitanism, and the future of democracy in these dark times.

Allen's first book dealt with the politics of punishing in democratic Athens. In TALKING TO STRANGERS, Allen bridges her expertise in ancient political thought with modern and contemporary political theory in order to address the role and anxieties of citizenship in the wake of the 1954 US Brown v. Board of Education decision. Specters of the late Ralph Waldo Ellison hover around the text as does the thought of thinkers such as Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, and James Baldwin. Interestingly, like Ellison in INVISIBLE MAN, Allen begins her work with a "Prologue." Unlike Ellison's unnamed narrator who reflects from the underground on the question of one's invisibility in society while physically being hyper-visible, Allen writes from above the ground and goes into the messy recent past of America to think about why people who see one another day to day simultaneously distrust one another and refuse to talk to one another in the mode of friends.

Drawing upon the prominent 1957 case of Elizabeth Eckford and school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, the author argues the US was reconstituted at that moment. That moment of reconstitution serves as the foundation upon which the ensuing discussions about distrust, trust, and political friendship occur. For Allen, the dilemmas of race and citizenship should be viewed as issues of distrust and trust. By calling for a "politics of friendship," the author thinks those in the American polity and elsewhere can overcome perennial states of distrust. By building up states of trust, the fabric underneath which democracy rests will be strengthened. We must talk to strangers if we desire truly to work through our most pressing problems. Rejecting the call for talking to strangers as mere utopianism is simply not good enough. Talking to strangers is hard work, and it ironically goes against the advice of "Don't talk to strangers!" given to children by their parents and other adult figures. But the hard work of talking to strangers holds the promise of societal transformation.

So what does this book provide the reader with? I believe Allen's book offers seven major contributions to political theory, critical race theory, and democratic politics: (1) a theory of political friendship; (2) a novel concept of sacrifice; (3) rethinking of the meaning of constitutionalism; (4) original analysis of the benefits and limitations of Habermas's theory of communicative action in terms of trust; (5) brilliant critique of Thomas Hobbes; (6) critique of the police state; and (7) resuscitation of the art of Rhetoric. I do not have the space to explain each of these points. However, I do want to address briefly a selection of them. Sacrifice occupies a central place in the text and in Allen's current theorizing. She contends loss and sacrifice are fundamental to democratic life. Understanding what we must sacrifice to achieve political and social transformation allows us insight into understanding to what extent we must fight to preserve democracy. In Chapter 3, Allen turns to the important debate between political theorist Hannah Arendt and the novelist Ralph Ellison. By describing Ellison's critique of Arendt's position on Little Rock desegregation, Allen highlights the vital role of sacrifice and why one should not separate political and social issues. That chapter is a gem. Allen's discussion of Hobbes in Chapter 6 provides a very unique reading of the English social contract theorist. Hobbes supported the idealization of unanimity and the repudiation of rhetoric in his theory of the Leviathan. Sovereignty for Hobbes rests in the figure of an all powerful Sovereign as opposed to the People. The Sovereign for him settled issues of distrust, not the masses. Allen questions Hobbes's way of imagining the People, yet she recognizes that Hobbes does put forth the question of how to overcome distrust.

This leads me to my last point on the topic of rhetoric. Chapter 10 as well as the Epilogue advance Allen's claim that we must return to the use of the art of rhetoric, an art form repudiated for centuries. Allen's reading of Aristotle's highly neglected text, THE ART OF RHETORIC, delineation of how to use rhetoric to garner heightened trust, and Epilogue discussion in which the reader witnesses the author composing a letter to members of the Faculty Senate of the University she resides in now compel even the skeptic of rhetoric to consider its possible benefits. For those interested in how I have utilized Allen's theorizing on rhetoric for Caribbean political thought, see the end of my 2003 lecture entitled, "Walter Rodney's Heresy" (...)

I shall leave it to you the reader to judge the text for itself. In closing, if you are committed to transforming democracy, then I urge you to pick up this book.

Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since.(Book review): An article from: The Journal of African American History

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Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since.(Book review): An article from: The Journal of African American History
Lorenzo Morris
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Journal of African American History, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1084 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since.(Book review)
Author: Lorenzo Morris
Publication: The Journal of African American History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 91 Issue: 4 Page: 486(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Over recent years, important contributions on the topic of solving various aquifer problems have been presented in numerous papers and reports. The scattered and wide-ranging nature of this information has made finding solutions and best practices difficult. Comprehensive and self-contained, Applied Flow and Solute Transport Modeling in Aquifers compiles the scattered literature on the topic into a single-source reference of the most up-to-date information in the field. Based on Dr. Batu's 20 years of practical experience tackling aquifer problems in a myriad of settings, the book addresses essentially all currently applied aquifer flow and contaminant transport solutions, combines theory with practical applications, covers both analytical and numerical solutions, and includes solutions to real world contaminant transport modeling scenarios. Batu approaches the subject from the practicing consultant's point of view and elucidates the difficulties real world professionals have faced in solving aquifer flow and contamination problems. The author simplifies the necessary theoretical background as much as possible and provides all derivational details of the theoretical background as worked examples. He uses this method to explore how the derivations were generated for those who need to know while allowing others to easily skip them and still benefit and learn from the practical applications of the mathematical approaches. Containing 51 tables and 323 figures, the book covers both the breadth and the depth of currently applied aquifer flow and contaminant transport modeling solutions.

Customer Reviews:

Balancing Theory with Application.......2005-12-31

"Applied Flow and Solute Transport Modeling in Aquifers" by Dr. Batu is a user-friendly compendium unraveling the complexities of analytical and numerical ground water modeling. The power of this book is contained in two attributes: (1) applied examples illustrating nearly each mathematical approach and (2) the optional derivational details for those who thrive on the theoretical backgrounds of those derivations.

Dr. Batu balances theory with application in this book. Although his recent publication, Aquifer Hydraulics: A Comprehensive Guide to Hydrogeologic Data Analysis (Wiley & Sons, 1998) is considered by many to be the "bible" of aquifer hydraulics, the derivations were detailed to the point of exhaustion. This 2005 edition makes the derivations not only understandable but the cases study examples inspire interest to learn them.

Another particular strength of this book is Dr. Batu's ability to summarize and condense the subject matter without the need for secondary references. The Table of Contents is seventeen pages long illustrating that the book contains nearly all - if not all - hydraulic applications to ground water flow and solute transport modeling. However the book not unmanageable in size and detail, in fact it is user-friendly and well organized coupled with motivating the reader to LEARN how to apply the theorical background, not just follow the derivation for theory's sake. Congratulations Dr. Batu on successfully developing the real aquifer hydraulics bible in this edition.

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