Gutenberg Books


West with the Night
by Beryl Markham
Born in England in 1902, Beryl Markham was taken by her father to East Africa in 1906. She spent her childhood playing with native Maruni children and apprenticing with her father as a trainer and breeder of racehorses. In the 1930's, she became an African bush pilot, and in September 1936, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. She writes about her life and times 		Order Now!
Alexandria Quartet
by Lawernce Durrell

Lawernce Durrell was a British diplomat stationed in Cairo in the period preceding World War II. He crafted tale from the rich variety of life around him; he wrote the same story in four books, each from the point of view of one of the participants. This is an amazing reading experience, in terms of conception, style and story. 		Order Now!
Autobiography of an Idea
by Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan built the first skyscrapers in America. He was the first architect to build steel - structured buildings that were not copies of stone or marble buildings of previous civilizations. He trained Frank Lloyd Wright. Here he writes with suprising feeling and lyricism of his life. 		Order Now!
Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil Postman

The author is professor of communication arts and sciences at New York University. He writes of the three commandments of modern communication: 1)Thou shalt have no pre-requisites, 2)Thou shalt induce no perplexity and 3)Thou shalt avoid exposition. To violate any of these is to lose your audience; but how, then, are we to come to terms with the mysteries and complexities of life around us? 		Order Now!
The Closing of the American Mind
by Allan Bloom

The heart of Professor Bloom's argument is that the university, in a society ruled by public opinion, was to have been an island of intellectual freedom where all views were investigated without restriction. Liberal democracy in its generosity made this possible, but by consenting to play an active or "positive," role in society, the university has become inundated and saturated with the backflow of society's "problems." Preoccupied with questions of Health, Sex, Race, War, academics make their reputations and their fortunes and the university has become society's conceptual warehouse of often harmful influences. Any proposed reforms of liberal education which might bring the university into conflict with the whole of the U.S.A. are unthinkable. Increasingly, the people "inside" are identical in their appetites and motives with the people "outside" the university. This is what I take Bloom to be saying, and if he were making a polemical statement merely it would be easy enough to set aside. What makes it formidably serious is the accurate historical background accompanying the argument. He explains with an admirable command of political theory how all this came to be, how modern democracy originated, what Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and the other philosophers of enlightenment intended, and how their intentions succeeded or failed.

from the Forward by Saul Bellow

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Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
by Jerry Mander

Jerry Mander shows how TV is an integral part of late capitalism.Although it was invented in the 1920's,TV was not put to use until after 1945, to promote the consumer society with advertising and a materialistic lifestyle.Most critics of TV are concerned about program content, but Mander shows that TV by its very nature is detrimental to human well-being.Like modern society as a whole, TV creates artificial experience, causing people to lose touch with their own nature, their true needs, other people and the natural world.TV puts the viewer into a passive hypnotic state.Mander shows how TV implants images in our brain, even against our will.Although nothing on TV is really "real", it tricks our mind into thinking that the pictures portray reality.Negative behaviors such as fighting, killing,rage and hate are very suitable for TV, but gentleness, affection,caring and the like is boring on TV.Mander says you cannot make TV "better", it must be eliminated.This book deserves a wide audience, because Mander gets to the root of what is wrong with television.
by A.Pert@library.usyd.edu.au , online review found at Amazon.com 		Order Now!
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