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Power and the Idealists

Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath

Paul Berman author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:WW Norton & Co

Published:18th May '07

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Power and the Idealists cover

"Paul Berman's widely reviewed Terror and Liberalism (ISBN 978 0 393 32555 3) was praised by George Walden in The Sunday Telegraph as "the best book I have read on Muslim fundamentalism and what to do about it"."

The author of the best-selling Terror and Liberalism on the rise to power of the generation of 1968.

The student uprisings of 1968 erupted not only in America but also across Europe, expressing a distinct generational attitude about politics, the corrupt nature of democratic capitalism, and the evil of military interventions. Yet, decades later, many in that radical generation had come into conventional positions of power: among them Bill Clinton (who reportedly stayed up all night reading this book) and Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Germany. During a 1970s street protest, Fischer was photographed beating a cop to the ground; during the 1990s, he was supporting Clinton in a NATO-led military intervention in the Balkans.

Here Paul Berman, "one of America's best exponents of recent intellectual history" (The Economist), masterfully traces the intellectual and moral evolution of an impassioned generation—and gives an acute analysis of what it means to go to war in the name of democracy and human rights.

"Remarkable." -- Johann Hari - New York Times Book Review
"Illuminating." -- Derek Chollet - Washington Post
"The best extended political essay I have ever read…More than a contribution to the modern history of ideas, it is a work of art." -- Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Huê 1968

ISBN: 9780393330212

Dimensions: 188mm x 112mm x 23mm

Weight: 336g

348 pages