The Terror of the Unforeseen

The Terror of the Unforeseen
Author: Henry Giroux
Publisher: Larb Provocations
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2019
Genre: POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 9781940660493

In a searing takedown of the populist authoritarian vision of America, The Terror of the Unforeseen tackles the resurgence of fascism in the age of Donald Trump's presidency. Through the mendacious exchange of facts for "fake news," Henry A. Giroux examines the language of hatred that activates neoliberal fascism, complete with state-sanctioned racism, casino capitalism, and fear-mongering at federal and local levels. In this "age of disposability," Trump's rhetoric eschews reason and democratic principles in favor of impetuous politics rooted in bigotry, all to injuriously catastrophic effect. Through protests, strikes, and education, Giroux proposes an international social movement that joins together various modes of resistance to illuminate a democratic renewal, and proves himself once again as one of the great public intellectuals of our time.


I is for Infidel

I is for Infidel
Author: Kathy Gannon
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781586484521

Presents a history of Afghanistan and its people, from the Soviet occupation to the present day.


The Terror

The Terror
Author: Dan Simmons
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 798
Release: 2007-03-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0316003883

The "masterfully chilling" novel that inspired the hit AMC series (Entertainment Weekly). The men on board the HMS Terror — part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage — are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in. “The best and most unusual historical novel I have read in years.” —Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe


The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America
Author: Philip Roth
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2004-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0547345313

Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history—the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president—is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. "A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review


Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)
Author: Ed Catmull
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0679644504

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.


Guests of the Ayatollah

Guests of the Ayatollah
Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 710
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1555846084

The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly


Back to Salem

Back to Salem
Author: Alex Marcoux
Publisher: Bella Books
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 159493889X

Jessie Mercer has it all—fame, fortune, and a best-selling novel being made into a major motion picture starring the alluring Taylor Andrews. When disturbing, real-life events begin mimicking the movie's plot, Jessie and Taylor find themselves drawn into a unforeseen web of passion, treachery, and deception that uncovers secrets and betrayals of a distant past. As the terror mounts, Jessie realizes she is the target and must go back—all the way back to Salem, where answers to the mystery unfold—before the evil from the past destroys both of them. Originally published by Alice Street Editions of Haworth Press 2001.


American Nightmare

American Nightmare
Author: Henry A. Giroux
Publisher: City Lights Books
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2018-07-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 087286779X

Are we in the beginning of a new fascist era? As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism? In this provocative collection of essays, Henry Giroux warns of the consequences of doing too little as Trump and the so-called alt-right relentlessly attack critics, journalists, and target the hard-earned civil rights of women, people of color, immigrants, the working class, and low-income Americans. As we face down the frightening reality of living under a system that serves only the interests of the wealthy few, Giroux makes a passionate call for ordinary citizens to organize, educate, and resist by all available means. Praise for American Nightmare: "In this current era of corporate media misdirection and misinformation . . . Henry Giroux is one of the few great political voices of today, with powerful insight into the truth. Dr. Giroux is defiantly explaining, against the grain, what's REALLY going on right now, and doing so quite undeniably. Simply put, the ideas he brings forth are a beacon that need to be seen and heard and understood in order for the world to progress."—Julian Casablancas, lead vocalist for The Strokes "In frightening times like these, what is desperately needed is an informed and wise voice that speaks clearly and with conviction about the situation we are in, and what can be done. Henry Giroux is one of the great public intellectuals of our times, and American Nightmare is exactly the book for people grappling with how to understand the Trump era and how to proceed. This is precisely the book that needs to be shared with friends and acquaintances. It will provoke hard thinking, bring clarity, and stimulate much needed conversation and action."—Robert W. McChesney, co-author of People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy "We have no greater chronicler of these dystopian times. Giroux's critique cuts to the crux of today’s authoritarian crisis, yet his voice remains of one hope that the people may collectively regain control. Even while living though systemic efforts to privatize hope, Giroux’s critique enacts the sort of shared resistance that can effectively challenge authoritarianism. American Nightmare demonstrates how we can resist the normalization of hate, authoritarianism and alienation in Trump’s America. He shows us that not only are we not alone, but we are among a majority who oppose the cruelties of American social policies."—David H. Price, author of Cold War Anthropology: The CIA and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology "At a moment when the news cycle presents the dangers of Trumpian authoritarianism through disjointed and discrete hottakes, Giroux's wide-reaching analysis accounts for our current American nightmare with necessary historical context, and in so doing creates an aperture for resistance more meaningful than a hashtag."—Natasha Lennard, contributing writer for The Intercept, co-editor of Violence: Humans in Dark Times


Literature after 9/11

Literature after 9/11
Author: Ann Keniston
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1135024650

Drawing on trauma theory, genre theory, political theory, and theories of postmodernity, space, and temporality, Literature After 9/11 suggests ways that these often distinct discourses can be recombined and set into dialogue with one another as it explores 9/11’s effects on literature and literature’s attempts to convey 9/11.