Clyde N Wilson - Böcker

John C. Calhoun was a major actor in the political history of nineteenth-century America. His dramatic career will always be of interest. However, Calhoun is equally important as a political thinker who continues to elicit widespread interest from the most diverse points of the ideological spectrum. The Essential Calhoun presents a full-fledged selection of speeches and writings taken from the entire forty-year span of Calhoun's public career and from many varieties of occasions, public and private. For the first time, it is possible to appreciate Calhoun fully and to consider his thought within the compass of a single volume.Calhoun is known to posterity as the premier defender of the Old South and slavery and as the theorist of the concurrent majority. His contemporaries knew him as much else, including a political economist and foreign policy authority. As the range of writings shows, he was a valuable and often prophetic commentator.Calhoun's thought testifies to a deep and abiding concern with moral and ethical issues that confront a government resting on the consent of the people. The fundamental question with which he wrestles in all his works is how to achieve and maintain a proper balance between power and liberty in a democratic society. By providing the most representative compendium of his thought, The Essential Calhoun invites the reader to engage in this exercise of applying the moral imagination realistically to the public business of America. Historians, American studies specialists, economists, and political scientists will find this volume indispensible.

Published in 1981, Why the South Will Survive is an intense self-examination of the South at a critical moment in its history. All of the contributors take pride in being southerners and regard their region as a national asset. While agreeing that the South has changed, they do not agree that it has become more like the rest of America or that it has lost its essential distinctiveness. Examining many aspects of the South—religion, manners, family life, localism, literature, politics, rural life, and urbanization—these essays acknowledge the power and relevance of the Agrarian tradition and argue that the South can still provide a model and touchstone for the nation.Contributors: Don Anderson, M. E. Bradford, Cleanth Brooks, Thomas Fleming, Samuel T. Francis, George Garrett, William C. Havard, Hamilton C. Horton Jr., Thomas H. Landess, Andrew Lytle, Marion Montgomery, John Shelton Reed, George C. Rogers Jr., David B. Sentelle, Clyde N. Wilson.

John C. Calhoun was a major actor in the political history of nineteenth-century America. His dramatic career will always be of interest. However, Calhoun is equally important as a political thinker who continues to elicit widespread interest from the most diverse points of the ideological spectrum. The Essential Calhoun presents a full-fledged selection of speeches and writings taken from the entire forty-year span of Calhoun's public career and from many varieties of occasions, public and private. For the first time, it is possible to appreciate Calhoun fully and to consider his thought within the compass of a single volume.Calhoun is known to posterity as the premier defender of the Old South and slavery and as the theorist of the concurrent majority. His contemporaries knew him as much else, including a political economist and foreign policy authority. As the range of writings shows, he was a valuable and often prophetic commentator.Calhoun's thought testifies to a deep and abiding concern with moral and ethical issues that confront a government resting on the consent of the people. The fundamental question with which he wrestles in all his works is how to achieve and maintain a proper balance between power and liberty in a democratic society. By providing the most representative compendium of his thought, The Essential Calhoun invites the reader to engage in this exercise of applying the moral imagination realistically to the public business of America. Historians, American studies specialists, economists, and political scientists will find this volume indispensible.

In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part played by biological and social scientific information in ethical judgment and moral action using psychological, anthropological, and economic materials as well as historical studies. Edel suggests that many controversies in ethical theory have emerged because different ethical theories made different scientific assumptions. In the almost forty years since his book was first published, life has become more complex and technological change has accelerated, bringing changes to our morality and ethical theory as well as our conduct. If anything, his observations are even more pertinent, compelling us to examine the empirical core of ethical statements.Edel maintains that since our knowledge of social life and history is constantly growing, moral theories and ethical judgments ought to embody the best knowledge available at any point in tune. However, because all knowledge and belief is only probable, there is never absolute certainty but only what Edel calls residual indeterminacy in human life and knowledge due to complexity and change.Edel lists four factors that form the basis for moral decisions: universal needs (food); perennial aspirations (friendships); central necessary conditions (job security); and critical contingent factors under special circumstances (land reform in a landholder-ruled society). In his new introduction, Edel applies those factors to the present day, discussing societal changes over the past forty years, such as the number of women in the workforce, the impact of the civil rights movement, and the fact that isolationism as a national policy is no longer feasible. Ethical Judgment is a recognized classic hi the modern study of ethical theory. It will be valuable reading for sociologists, historians, and all scholars interested in the study of ethics and American culture.

A new generation of ruthless pragmatists carves a parallel state across Mexico and Central America. Most powerful among them is Los Zetas, ruled over by Heriberto Lazcano, known as The Executioner. Lazcano and his men have forced a tectonic shift among drug trafficking organizations in the Americas, forever altering how criminal business is conducted in the Western Hemisphere. This narrative brings an unprecedented level of detail in describing how Los Zetas became Mexico's most diabolical criminal organization.Criminals control networks of police, politician, and businessmen spanning the American continent. The Mexican government is losing its "war on drugs," despite the military, technical, and intelligence resources provided by its northern neighbor. Subcontracted street gangs operate in hundreds of US cities, purchasing weapons, delivering product, executing targeted foes, and bribing the US Border Patrol.Despite suffering severe losses that would cripple any major corporation, Los Zetas continues to operate internationally in criminal markets. Many of the poor and destitute across the region cooperate with Los Zetas, sometimes for money, often because of coercion.

Los Zetas represent a new generation of ruthless, sadistic pragmatists in Mexico and Central America who are impelling a tectonic shift among drug trafficking organizations in the Americas. Mexico's marines have taken down the cartel's top leaders; nevertheless, these capos and their desperados have forever altered how criminal business is conducted in the Western Hemisphere. This narrative brings an unprecedented level of detail in describing how Los Zetas became Mexico's most diabolical criminal organization before suffering severe losses.In their heyday, Los Zetas controlled networks of American police, politicians, judges, and businessmen. The Mexican government is losing its "war on drugs," despite the military, technical, and intelligence resources provided by its northern neighbor. Subcontracted street gangs operate in hundreds of US cities, purchasing weapons, delivering product, executing targeted foes, and bribing the US Border Patrol. Despite crippling losses Los Zetas still dominate Nuevo Laredo, the major portal for legal and illegal bilateral commerce. They also work hand-in-glove with the underworld in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, as well as with gangs like the Maras Salvatruchas.

In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part played by biological and social scientific information in ethical judgment and moral action using psychological, anthropological, and economic materials as well as historical studies. Edel suggests that many controversies in ethical theory have emerged because different ethical theories made different scientific assumptions. In the almost forty years since his book was first published, life has become more complex and technological change has accelerated, bringing changes to our morality and ethical theory as well as our conduct. If anything, his observations are even more pertinent, compelling us to examine the empirical core of ethical statements.Edel maintains that since our knowledge of social life and history is constantly growing, moral theories and ethical judgments ought to embody the best knowledge available at any point in tune. However, because all knowledge and belief is only probable, there is never absolute certainty but only what Edel calls residual indeterminacy in human life and knowledge due to complexity and change.Edel lists four factors that form the basis for moral decisions: universal needs (food); perennial aspirations (friendships); central necessary conditions (job security); and critical contingent factors under special circumstances (land reform in a landholder-ruled society). In his new introduction, Edel applies those factors to the present day, discussing societal changes over the past forty years, such as the number of women in the workforce, the impact of the civil rights movement, and the fact that isolationism as a national policy is no longer feasible. Ethical Judgment is a recognized classic hi the modern study of ethical theory. It will be valuable reading for sociologists, historians, and all scholars interested in the study of ethics and American culture.