Links I found interesting for 04-12-2012
- Reenergizing Democracy Promotion
Thomas Carothers reflects on the post-election situation. "Finding ways to encourage autocratic allies to respond more productively to impulses for positive political change in their own societies is not easy given the varied interests at stake, but it is not impossible."
(tags: democratization uspolitics ) - Read it in books
@quarsan praises libraries. And reading.
(tags: books reading ) - Jim Hinch on The Swerve: Why Stephen Greenblatt Is Wrong - And Why It Matters
"The Swerve’s primary achievement is to flatter like-minded readers with a tall tale of enlightened modern values triumphing over a benighted pre-modern past. It’s no accident, I think, that The Swerve’s imagined Middle Ages bears a strong resemblance to America’s present era of superstitious know-nothing-ism... The Swerve presents itself as a work of literary history. But really it is a salvo in the culture wars; an effort to lend an aura of historical inevitability to the idea that religious faith has no place in a modern democratic society."
(tags: atheism religion books ) - A map of non-existent European countries (and how to create your own)
Because 27 EU members is not enough!
(tags: Maps )