Amusing Ourselves to Death [.PDF] by
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman." -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman's groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media--from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs--it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. "A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one." -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
Fahrenheit 451 [in print] by
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy by
Savor moments of Zen like never before, with our Senior Philosophical Correspondents The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy is revised, expanded, and updated to probe deeper than ever before the philosophical significance of the quintessential "fake" news show of the 21st century. Features significant revisions and updates from the first 2007 edition Includes discussion of both The Daily Show and its spin-off, The Colbert Report Reveals why and how The Daily Show is philosophically engaging and significant Showcases philosophers at their best, discussing truth, knowledge, reality, and the American Way Faces head on tough and surprisingly funny questions about politics, religion, and power
Search within the book for the title and also for Postman.
Fahrenheit 451 by
This volume in the Critical Insights series presents a variety of new essays on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. A classic novel of dystopian science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 also has been adapted for the theatre, film, television, and radio. Bradbury's swift, poetic, elegiac work tells the story of an America of the not-too-distant future, where books are outlawed, citizens in violation are hustled swiftly away to psychiatric prisons, and the offenders' houses are duly burned by kerosene-wielding "firemen." After all, books-and the thoughts and emotions they bring-are a threat to the fast-paced consumer's paradise of four-wall television rooms, jet cars, and tranquilisers. All the while, however, jet bombers circle ominously in the night, violence is endemic in entertainment and on the streets, families are bleakly loveless, and suicide is commonplace. As disenchanted fireman Guy Montag says, "We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing." First published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is more relevant than ever as reading skills decline and attention spans shorten, electronic entertainment grows more ubiquitous, even addictive, and the world seems to speed up. "There is more than one way to burn a book," said Bradbury in 1979, but Fahrenheit 451 helps lead the way back to true humanity. In this volume, introductory essays situate the novel in its historical and cultural context and also survey its critical reception, while subsequent chapters explore Bradbury's creation and reworking of the story, issues such as memory, love and morality, domesticity, intellectual property and censorship, and the appeal of Fahrenheit 451 in other media. Rounding out the volume is a bibliography of other important critical sources for readers seeking to study the novel and its themes further. Salem's Critical Insights series distils the best of both classic and current literary criticism of the world's most-studied literature. The series focuses on an individual author's entire body of work, on single works of literature or on a literary theme. Edited and written by some of academe's most distinguished literary scholars, Critical Insights provide authoritative, in-depth scholarship suitable for students and teachers alike.
Fahrenheit 451 by
-- Offers a traditional CliffNotes "TM" treatment of a literary novel, with updated and new content. -- Includes Life and Background of the Author, Introduction to the Novel, A Brief Synopsis, List of Characters, Critical Commentaries, Glossaries, Character Analyses, and Critical Essays. -- Enhanced by collaboration with Webster's New World "TM" College Dictionary, which provides authoritative glossary definitions. -- Provides a Character Map, a one-page spread that graphically illustrates the relationships between characters. -- Supplemented by CliffNotes "TM" Review, which reinforces learning with fun and practical activities, and CliffNotes "TM" Resource Center, which provides the reader with additional resources for further study. -- Contains reader-friendly icons for theme, literary device, style & language, and character insight. -- Includes a comprehensive Index.
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