Results by title
5 books match the query 'Demise'
Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism
The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and StateJ. Judd Owen
University of Chicago Press, 2001
If liberalism is premised on inclusion, pluralism, and religious neutrality, can the separation of church and state be said to have a unitary and rational foundation? If we accept that there are no self-evident principles of morality or politics, then doesn't any belief in a rational society become a sort of faith? And how can liberalism mediate impartially between various faiths—as it aims to do—if liberalism itself is one of the competing faiths?
J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.
J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.
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The Constitution Besieged
The Rise & Demise of Lochner Era Police Powers JurisprudenceHoward Gillman
Duke University Press, 1993
The Constitution Besieged offers a compelling reinterpretation of one of the most notorious periods in American constitutional history. In the decades following the Civil War, federal and state judges struck down as unconstitutional a great deal of innovative social and economic legislation. Scholars have traditionally viewed this as the work of a conservative judiciary more interested in promoting laissez-faire economics than in interpreting the Constitution. Gillman challenges this scholarly orthodoxy by showing how these judges were in fact observing a long-standing constitutional prohibition against "class legislation." Originally published in cloth by Duke University Press, this book received the 1994 C. Herman Pritchett Award for the "Best Book in the Field of Law and Courts," awarded by the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.
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The Demise of Diversity
Loss and ExtinctionJosef Reichholf
Haus Publishing, 2009
Maintaining the natural diversity of the countless species on Earth is of fundamental importance for the continued existence of life on this planet. Nevertheless, ecosystems are being destroyed, as the cultivation of land for agriculture, industry and housing is intensified and oceans continue to be exploited. The Demise of Diversity: Loss and Extinction deals with biodiversity on this planet and the vital importance of sustaining it—nothing less than the future of life on Earth.
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The Demise of Yugoslavia
A Political MemoirStipe Mesic
Central European University Press, 2004
Formed in the aftermath of WWI, Yugoslavia was founded as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ("three tribes of the same people"). But in the early 1990s, following a series of violent conflicts on Slovenian and Croatian soil, the two republics successfully succeeded from Yugoslavia, which would later be followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. Mesic was member, later head of the Presidency of the Yugoslav Federation from August 1990. His memoir details an intricately woven storyline, which analyzes events, personalities and motivations inside Yugoslavia and its former nations, as well as in the international arena. The narrative is rich with excerpts from Mesic's personal diaries during times of heated conflict and bloodshed. Extensive notes and a short chronology assist the interested reader and scholar in disentangling the complicated plot. After years of relative political passivity, Mesic was elected independent Croatia's second president in 2000, following the death of former President Franjo Tudman.
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Unbecoming Persons
The Rise and Demise of the Modern Moral SelfLadelle McWhorter
University of Chicago Press, 2025
A damning genealogy of modern personhood and a bold vision for a new ethics rooted in belonging rather than individuality.
In the face of ecological crisis, economic injustice, and political violence, the moral demands of being a good person are almost too much to bear. In Unbecoming Persons, Ladelle McWhorter argues that this strain is by design. Our ideas about personhood, she shows, emerged to sustain centuries of colonialism, slavery, and environmental destruction. We must look elsewhere to find our way out.
This history raises a hard question: Should we be persons at all, or might we live a good life without the constraints of individualism or the illusion of autonomy? In seeking an answer, McWhorter pushes back on the notion of our own personhood—our obsession with identity, self-improvement, and salvation—in search of a better way to live together in this world. Although she finds no easy answers, McWhorter ultimately proposes a new ethics that rejects both self-interest and self-sacrifice and embraces perpetual dependence, community, and the Earth
In the face of ecological crisis, economic injustice, and political violence, the moral demands of being a good person are almost too much to bear. In Unbecoming Persons, Ladelle McWhorter argues that this strain is by design. Our ideas about personhood, she shows, emerged to sustain centuries of colonialism, slavery, and environmental destruction. We must look elsewhere to find our way out.
This history raises a hard question: Should we be persons at all, or might we live a good life without the constraints of individualism or the illusion of autonomy? In seeking an answer, McWhorter pushes back on the notion of our own personhood—our obsession with identity, self-improvement, and salvation—in search of a better way to live together in this world. Although she finds no easy answers, McWhorter ultimately proposes a new ethics that rejects both self-interest and self-sacrifice and embraces perpetual dependence, community, and the Earth
[more]