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Kafka's last trial (not yet concluded...)

2010-09-28T06:15:00.000-04:00

Kafka’s Last Trial
By ELIF BATUMAN
The New York Times, September 22, 2010

During his lifetime, Franz Kafka burned an estimated 90 percent of his work. After his death at age 41, in 1924, a letter was discovered in his desk in Prague, addressed to his friend Max Brod. “Dearest Max,” it began. “My last request: Everything I leave behind me . . . in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.” Less than two months later, Brod, disregarding Kafka’s request, signed an agreement to prepare a posthumous edition of Kafka’s unpublished novels. “The Trial” came out in 1925, followed by “The Castle” (1926) and “Amerika” (1927). In 1939, carrying a suitcase stuffed with Kafka’s papers, Brod set out for Palestine on the last train to leave Prague, five minutes before the Nazis closed the Czech border. Thanks largely to Brod’s efforts, Kafka’s slim, enigmatic corpus was gradually recognized as one of the great monuments of 20th-century literature.

The contents of Brod’s suitcase, meanwhile, became subject to more than 50 years of legal wrangling. While about two-thirds of the Kafka estate eventually found its way to Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the remainder — believed to comprise drawings, travel diaries, letters and drafts — stayed in Brod’s possession until his death in Israel in 1968, when it passed to his secretary and presumed lover, Esther Hoffe. After Hoffe’s death in late 2007, at age 101, the National Library of Israel challenged the legality of her will, which bequeaths the materials to her two septuagenarian daughters, Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler. The library is claiming a right to the papers under the terms of Brod’s will. The case has dragged on for more than two years. If the court finds in the sisters’ favor, they will be free to follow Eva’s stated plan to sell some or all of the papers to the German Literature Archive in Marbach. They will also be free to keep whatever they don’t sell in their multiple Swiss and Israeli bank vaults and in the Tel Aviv apartment that Eva shares with an untold number of cats.

The situation has repeatedly been called Kafkaesque, reflecting, perhaps, the strangeness of the idea that Kafka can be anyone’s private property. Isn’t that what Brod demonstrated, when he disregarded Kafka’s last testament: that Kafka’s works weren’t even Kafka’s private property but, rather, belonged to humanity?

In May, I attended a session at the Tel Aviv district courthouse, dealing with the fate of the papers. Heading to the courtroom, I found myself in a small and dilapidated elevator with flickering fluorescent lights and a stated maximum occupancy of four people. I was reminded of “The Trial,” the novel that opens with the unexplained arrest of Josef K. by a mysterious court that turns out to have its offices in attics all over Prague, running its course somehow separately from the normal criminal-justice system. Half-expecting the elevator to deposit me in the upper stories of a low-income residential building, I emerged instead into a standard municipal-looking hallway with faux-marble floors. Black-robed lawyers paced around, carrying laptops or giant file folders tucked under their arms; many dragged still more files behind them in black wheeled suitcases.

Some minutes later, a barely perceptible charge in the air signaled the arrival of the sisters. Ruth, with her white sneakers, pearl earrings and short, bleached hair, looked like somebody’s grandmother (which she is). Eva, a former El Al employee who was by all accounts a great beauty in her youth, was dressed entirely in black, with a black plastic clip holding back her long auburn hair. Ruth wore a white shoulder bag, while Eva carried a plastic Iams bag with a paw-print logo.

Of five rows of wooden benches in the courtroom, the first three were occupied by more than a dozen lawyers: two lawyers for the National Library; a representative of the Israeli government office that is responsible for estate hearings; and five court-appointed executors: three representing Esther Hoffe’s will (which the National Library considers irrelevant to the case) and two representing Brod’s estate (which the sisters’ attorneys consider essentially irrelevant to the case). The German Literature Archive in Marbach, which has supposedly offered an undisclosed sum for the papers (said to be worth millions), was also represented by Israeli counsel. Ruth’s lawyer and Eva’s three lawyers rounded out the crowd. It’s impressive that the sisters had between them four lawyers, although, to put things in perspective, Josef K. at one point meets a defendant who has six. When he informs K. that he is negotiating with a seventh, K. asks why anyone should need so many lawyers. The defendant grimly replies, “I need them all.”

The events leading up to the hearing that day were set into motion many decades earlier. In Prague in the 1930s, Brod, a passionate Zionist, began mentioning plans to deposit the Kafka papers in the library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his and Kafka’s mutual friend Hugo Bergmann was then librarian and rector. Brod renewed these plans after his emigration to Palestine in 1939, but somehow nothing ever came of them, and the papers passed to Esther Hoffe. In 1988, Hoffe made headlines by auctioning the manuscript of “The Trial” for nearly $2 million; it ended up at the German Literature Archive. Philip Roth characterized this outcome as “yet another lurid Kafkaesque irony” that was being “perpetrated on 20th-century Western culture,” observing not only that Kafka was not German but also that his three sisters perished in Nazi death camps.

In later years, Hoffe engaged in negotiations to place the Kafka papers — as well as the rest of the Brod estate, which includes Brod’s voluminous diaries and correspondence with countless German-Jewish intellectual luminaries — at the archive in Marbach. Nevertheless, at the time of her death, no transaction had been completed. The bulk of the collection remained divided among an apartment on Spinoza Street in central Tel Aviv and 10 safe-deposit boxes in Tel Aviv and Zurich. It is unclear how much of Brod’s estate is still housed in the Spinoza Street apartment, which is currently inhabited by Eva Hoffe and between 40 and 100 cats. Eva’s neighbors, as well as members of the international scholarly community, have expressed concern regarding the effects of these cats on their surroundings. More than once, municipal authorities have removed some of the animals from the premises, but the missing cats always seem to be replaced.

In 2008, when the sisters tried to probate their mother’s will, they were opposed by the National Library. The library contends that Brod left the Kafka papers to Esther Hoffe as an executor rather than as a beneficiary, meaning that, after Hoffe’s death, the papers reverted to the Brod estate. Brod’s will, dated 1961, specifies that his literary estate be placed “with the library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Municipal Library in Tel Aviv or another public archive in Israel or abroad.” The Municipal Library in Tel Aviv has renounced any claim to the estate, making the Hebrew University Library — today, the National Library of Israel — the only claimant specifically named by Brod.

The National Library’s argument is complicated by Brod’s so-called gift letter of 1952. The most crucial and enigmatic document in the case, it appears to give all of the Kafka papers outright, during Brod’s lifetime, to Esther Hoffe. The sisters presented the court with a two-page photocopy of this letter. The National Library, however, produced a photocopy of a four-page version of the letter, of which the two missing middle pages appear to clarify the limitations of Brod’s gift. When the court ordered a forensic examination, the sisters were unable to produce the original letter.

Last year, the court decided to grant the National Library’s request that the papers in the sisters’ possession be inventoried: some evidence suggests that the vaults contain further documentation clarifying Brod’s intentions for the papers. The sisters appealed the decision, maintaining that the state has no right to search private property for documents whose existence can’t be proven beforehand. The hearing I attended was to determine the outcome of their appeal.

Eva and Ruth, who fled Nazi-occupied Prague as children, are elusive figures who keep out of the public eye. The fact that they are represented by separate counsel reflects Eva’s greater investment in the case. While Ruth married and left home, Eva lived with their mother, and with the papers, for 40 years. Her attorney Oded Hacohen characterizes Eva’s relationship to the manuscripts as “almost biological.” “For her,” he told me, “intruding on those safe-deposits is like a rape.” (When asked whether Eva had used the word “rape” herself, Hacohen looked a bit tired. “Many times,” he said.)

As long as Esther Hoffe’s will is debated, Eva and Ruth are unable to touch any part of their inheritance, which includes more than $1 million in cash. According to Hacohen, the money is a Holocaust compensation from the German government. The National Library argues that the sum could just as easily represent the proceeds from the sale of “The Trial,” which the library considers to have been a violation of Brod’s will. Eva, who claims to live in direst poverty, has unsuccessfully petitioned for a partial probate, which would have released the money before a decision was reached about the papers.

The hearing I attended brought no good news for the sisters. Their appeal was overruled that day by the district court, and again the next month by the Supreme Court. In late July, one safe-deposit box in Tel Aviv and all four Zurich vaults were inventoried. Witnesses in Tel Aviv reported seeing Eva run into the bank after the lawyers shouting: “It’s mine! It’s mine!” Eva also somehow turned up at the bank in Zurich but wasn’t allowed into the vault.

Five of the safe-deposit boxes in Tel Aviv initially resisted inspection. Some of the keys obtained after strenuous negotiations with Eva turned out not to match the locks. By now, most of the boxes have been opened. According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the banks have already yielded “a huge amount” of original Kafka material, including notebooks and the manuscript of a previously published short story. The specific contents, including any documents that might illuminate the question of ownership, will be made public once everything has been cataloged — a process estimated to last another month. In the meantime, the world continues to wait.

Kafka's life passed almost entirely within the space of a few city blocks in Prague, where he was born in 1883, attended school and university and, as an adult, lived with his parents and worked in an insurance agency. Kafka and Brod met in 1902, at Charles University, where both were studying law. Brod was 18 — one year younger than Kafka — but already a literary sensation. According to Brod’s biography of Kafka, the two met at a lecture Brod gave on Schopenhauer, during which Kafka objected to Brod’s characterization of Nietzsche as a fraud. Walking home together afterward, they discussed their favorite writers. Brod praised a passage from the story “Purple Death” in which Gustav Meyrink “compared butterflies to great opened-out books of magic.” Kafka, who took no stock in magic butterflies, countered with a phrase from Hugo von Hoffmansthal: “the smell of damp flags in a hall.” Having uttered these words, he fell into a profound silence that left a great impression on Brod.

For years, Brod had no idea that Kafka also did a bit of writing in his free time. Nonetheless, he began right away to commit Kafka’s utterances to his diary, starting with “Talk comes straight out of his mouth like a walking stick” (an observation about an over-assertive classmate). In 1905, Kafka showed Brod his story “Description of a Struggle.” Brod directly adopted a lifelong mission “to bring Kafka’s works before the public.” (An uncannily perspicacious talent-spotter, Brod also brought early recognition to Jaroslav Hasek and Leos Janacek.) In a Berlin weekly in 1907, Brod named a handful of contemporary authors maintaining the “exalted standards” of German literature: Franz Blei, Heinrich Mann, Frank Wedekind, Meyrink and Kafka. The first four were big names of the time; Kafka had yet to publish a single word. After much prodding by Brod, Kafka began publishing literary sketches in 1908, which were collected in a book in 1913.

In most respects, Brod and Kafka could not have been more different. An extrovert, Zionist, womanizer, novelist, poet, critic, composer and constitutional optimist, Brod had a tremendous capacity for survival. In his biography of Kafka, Ernst Pawel recounts how Brod, having been given a diagnosis at age 4 of a life-threatening spinal curvature, was sent to a miracle healer in the Black Forest, “a shoemaker by trade, who built him a monstrous harness into which he was strapped day and night.” Brod spent an entire year in the care of this shoemaker, emerging with a permanent hunchbacklike deformity, which did not impede him in a lifelong series of overlapping relationships with attractive blondes.

Kafka, tall, dark and broodingly handsome, had fewer and more anguished relations with women. From an early age, he was deeply concerned with his health, clothes and personal hygiene. (“The afternoons I spent on my hair,” a 1912 diary entry reads.) He practiced vegetarianism, “Fletcherizing” (a system of chewing each bite for several minutes), “Müllerizing” (an exercise regimen) and various natural healing programs. He worried about dandruff and constipation to an extent that occasionally exasperated even Brod (“for instance, in Lugano, when he refused to take any laxative . . . but ruined the days for me with his moanings”). He wasn’t a good decision maker, and he didn’t have good luck. After years of complaining about his job at the insurance office, he finally worked up the nerve to mail his parents a letter saying that he was going to move to Berlin and write for a living — less than a week before the outbreak of World War I, which obliged him to stay in Prague. In 1917, he was given a diagnosis of tuberculosis. In 1921, he told Brod that his last testament would consist of “a request to you to burn everything.” Brod promptly replied that he would do no such thing: his main justification, in later years, for overriding Kafka’s wishes.

In 1923, Kafka met Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old runaway from a conservative Hasidic family in Galicia. She was his last and happiest love. The six-foot-tall Kafka at that point weighed 118 pounds. The couple lived for some months in a rental room in Berlin but moved in 1924 to a sanitarium in the Austrian town of Kierling, where Kafka, unable to eat, drink or speak, edited the proofs of his story “The Hunger Artist” and eventually died in Dora’s arms, having published, in his lifetime, fewer than 450 pages.

Kafka studies now proliferate at a rate inversely proportional to that of Kafka’s own production: according to a recent estimate, a new book on his work has been published every 10 days for the past 14 years. Brod, in his 84 years on this planet, published 83 books, most of them now out of print.

In his role in Kafka’s estate, Brod presents the paradox of a radically un-Kafkaesque protagonist in a Kafkaesque plot. This was a recurring theme in their friendship. After graduating from law school, Brod, already a published author, allowed himself to be convinced by Kafka’s thesis that “breadwinning and the art of writing must be kept absolutely apart” and took a job in the post office. Brod later bitterly regretted “the hundreds of joyless hours” squandered in offices by himself and the author of “The Trial.”

Four years after Kafka’s death, Brod published a novel, “The Enchanted Kingdom of Love,” featuring a moribund, Kafka-like character called Richard Garta: “a saint of our day” whose brother turns up on a kibbutz in Eastern Galilee and unmasks Richard, posthumously, as a fervent Zionist. In 1937, Brod wrote his biography of Kafka, which, alongside genuinely brilliant insights into Kafka’s life and work, also quotes wholesale from the descriptions of Richard Garta in “The Enchanted Kingdom,” advancing the thesis that Kafka was, if not “a perfect saint,” then still “on the road to becoming one,” and that his most seemingly ambiguous literary works are essentially religious treatments of the transcendental homelessness of European Jewry.

Brod’s biography of Kafka was not well received. According to Walter Benjamin, it testifies to a “lack of any deep understanding of Kafka’s life,” one great riddle of which is, indeed, Kafka’s choice of such a philistine for a best friend. “I will never get to the bottom of the Brod mystery,” Milan Kundera writes, marveling that Brod was astute enough to preserve Kafka’s novels for posterity, yet capable of doing so in such sentimental, vulgar and politically tendentious books. The received image of Brod in Kafka studies is a well-meaning hack who displayed extraordinary prescience, energy and selflessness in the promotion of his more talented friend, about whom, however, he understood nothing and whose dying wishes he was thus able to ignore.

The truth is more complicated. Although the loss, within a few years, of both Kafka and Europe could easily have driven Brod to despair, he instead resolved to transform it into the foundation for a new future, adopting a lifelong determination to fuse his two favorite causes — Kafka and Zionism — into a single, future-bearing entity. Kafka’s life and work became a uniform and inherently meaningful body, in which every last detail had the same supreme importance: in the “22 years of our unclouded friendship,” Brod recalled, “I never once threw away the smallest scrap of paper that came from him, no, not even a postcard.” Whatever Brod thought that Kafka was going to do for mankind, it was definitely something huge. “If humanity would only better understand what has been presented to it in the person and work of Kafka,” Brod writes, “it would undoubtedly be in a quite different position.”

Pinning his hopes of a new world order onto Kafka’s oeuvre — onto, that is, a collection of abstruse literary fiction, mostly dealing with the lives of Prague white-collar workers and animals — Brod was following a dream logic common to Kafka’s own characters. In “Amerika,” Karl believes that he can “have a direct effect upon his American environment” by playing the piano in a certain way; Josephine the Mouse Singer believes that when the Mouse Folk “are in a bad way politically or economically, her singing” will save them. In 1941, Brod published an extraordinary column in the Hebrew paper Davar, recounting his arrival in Palestine with “only one plan” rising from a “mist of many obscure thoughts”: “to act for the memory of my friend Franz Kafka in this country that he missed.” (According to Brod, only Kafka’s “sickness and sudden death prevented his immigration.”) Having transported Kafka’s manuscripts by train and ship to the soil of Zion, Brod had already found a few fellow thinkers “for whom Kafka is more than any other modern writer — he is the 20th-century Job.” Once they had fulfilled their true purpose — namely, the establishment of a Kafka archive and a Kafka club in Palestine — “the Hitler era, the era of destruction” would be followed by an age of “the infinite creation in the spirit of Kafka,” “a good era for humanity, and for Judaism, which has again professed salvation to the peoples by one of its finest sons.”

Kafka’s actual relationship to Zionism and Jewish culture was, like his relationship to most things, highly ambivalent. (In 1922, Kafka compiled a list of things he had failed at, including piano, languages, gardening, Zionism and anti-Zionism.) Although Brod’s attempts to convert Kafka to Zionism were a source of tension in the early years of their friendship, Kafka grew increasingly sympathetic to the cause. As early as 1912, he discussed a journey to Palestine with Felice Bauer, a dictating-machine representative with whom he was to pursue a long, anguished, mainly epistolary romance. (The two were twice engaged to be married before separating in 1917.) In 1918, Kafka drew up his vision of an early kibbutz. The only nourishment would be bread, dates and water; notably, in light of recent developments, there would be no legal courts: “Palestine needs earth,” Kafka wrote, “but it does not need lawyers.”

Kafka’s plans to move to Palestine grew more concrete only as their fulfillment grew less likely. He began studying Hebrew in 1921. According to his teacher, Puah Ben-Tovim, “he already knew he was dying” and seemed to regard their lessons “as a kind of miracle cure,” preparing “long lists of words he wanted to know”; rendered speechless by coughing, he would implore his teacher “with those huge dark eyes of his to stay for one more word, and another, and yet another.” In 1923, Ben-Tovim visited Kafka and Dora Diamant in Berlin. She found them living in bohemian squalor, reading to each other in Hebrew and fantasizing about opening a restaurant in Tel Aviv, where Diamant would work in the kitchen and Kafka would wait on tables. “Dora didn’t know how to cook, and he would have been hopeless as a waiter,” Ben-Tovim observed. Then again, “in those days most restaurants in Tel Aviv were run by couples just like them.” Ben-Tovim left one of Kafka’s Hebrew notebooks in the National Library, where I saw it this spring: a long list of those words from which Kafka expected such miracles: “tuberculosis,” “to languish,” “sorrow,” “affliction,” “genius,” “pestilence,” “belt.”

Brod's interpretation of Kafka as a Zionist manqué is now on trial: if not, technically, in the court of law, then certainly in the court of public opinion. “Why does Kafka belong here?” asks Mark Gelber, a literature professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “Because the Zionist enterprise was important to him.” Gelber told me he considers Kafka’s animal stories to participate in a Zionist discourse, from which “Kafka removes the particularist markers, erases the particularist traces.” (This lack of “particularist markers” makes Kafka particularly susceptible to different interpretations and ascriptions: those same animal stories caused Elias Canetti to call Kafka “the only essentially Chinese writer to be found in the West.”) Many European critics — for example, Reiner Stach, Kafka’s most recent and thorough biographer — object to the view of Kafka as “a Zionist or a religious author.” “The fact that specifically Jewish experiences are reflected in his works does not — as Brod believed — make him the protagonist of a ‘Jewish’ literature,” Stach told me. Rather, “Kafka’s oeuvre stands in the context of European literary modernity, and his texts are among the foundational documents of this modernity.”

In a perfect world, Kafka could be both engaged with a specifically Jewish discourse and a foundational author of European modernity. As Brod himself observes of “The Castle,” a “specifically Jewish interpretation goes hand in hand with what is common to humanity, without either excluding or even disturbing the other.” But an original manuscript can be in only one place at a time. The choice between Israel and Germany could not be more symbolically fraught.

For the proponents of Marbach, the debate is really about storage conditions. “In Israel there is no place to keep the papers so well as in Germany,” Eva Hoffe has stated; Stach corroborates that “scholars everywhere outside of Israel are in agreement” that the papers would be better off in Marbach. Anyway, Marbach already has “The Trial,” and it would be more convenient for scholars to have everything in one place. In hopes of securing the cooperation of the National Library, Marbach has proposed to grant Israeli scholars priority access to the collection and to lend the papers to Jerusalem for a temporary exhibit.

But in a battle between expediency and ideals, the two sides are speaking different languages. Otto Dov Kulka, an emeritus professor of history specializing in the situation of Jews during the Third Reich, describes the claim that Israel doesn’t have the resources to take care of the papers as “outrageous and hypocritical.” I spoke with Kulka in his office at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where I found him editing a document titled, in an enormous font legible from across the room, “Between the Periphery and the Metropolis of Death.” A diminutive, dynamic figure in his 70s, wearing ergonomic sandals and a short-sleeved khaki shirt that exposed a five-digit number tattooed on his forearm, he repeatedly jumped up from his chair to retrieve books from the shelves that towered above us.

Kulka produced and read aloud from a long list of German-Jewish intellectuals whose papers are in the National Library: Albert Einstein, Stefan Zweig, Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin, Else Lasker-Schüler, Martin Buber. “We are taking care of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and we will take care of Kafka,” he said. “They say the papers will be safer in Germany, the Germans will take very good care of them. Well, the Germans don’t have a very good history of taking care of Kafka’s things. They didn’t take good care of his sisters.” He fell silent. “I was together with Kafka’s sister Ottla,” he added, in a conversational tone.

“Oh, really?” I said, not understanding what he meant.

“Yes,” he said, smiling vaguely. “In Theresienstadt, before she was murdered.” Kulka, 9 years old at the time, never spoke to Ottla but described her as a kind and selfless person, who voluntarily escorted a group of Jewish orphans from Bialystok to Auschwitz.

Oded Hacohen, Eva Hoffe’s attorney, maintains that “moral positions” about Germany are irrelevant to the case. “People ask me, ‘Don’t you care that those manuscripts could end up in Germany?’ ” he said. “I care much more that those Holocaust refugees cannot pay their electricity bills here in Israel.”

Brod met his future secretary Esther Hoffe and her husband, Otto, shortly after his arrival in Tel Aviv. After Brod’s wife died in 1942, he and the Hoffes became extremely close. “Our home was his home; he didn’t have another one,” Esther told a reporter for Ha’aretz in 1968. Esther had an office in Brod’s apartment. She and Otto and Max took vacations together in Switzerland. Although acquaintances of Brod described the relationship as a “ménage à trois,” Eva has denied that her mother and Brod were romantically involved. The relationship will presumably be illuminated in Brod’s diaries, which are believed to be in one of the vaults.

The opening of the safe-deposit boxes might also elucidate the central mystery in this case: given Brod’s evident intention for the papers to end up in an archive, why did he make them a gift to a private individual? And why did he choose an individual who proved capable of hanging onto them for 40 years?

Brod’s surviving acquaintances at the Hebrew University, including Otto Dov Kulka, are convinced that the 1952 gift letter, in which he seemingly bequeathed the papers to Esther, has been altered and that Brod never wavered in his intention for Kafka’s work to remain in Israel. They maintain that the vaults will yield proof that Brod changed his will in later years to name a new executor: Felix Weltsch, a Zionist and philosopher who worked at the Jerusalem library. (Brod mentions this change in a 1964 letter to Weltsch, but the codicil has never been found.)

Reiner Stach, Kafka’s biographer, sees things differently. He maintains that Brod was torn between Marbach, with its impressive facilities, and the library in Jerusalem, where so many of his friends worked. Unable to announce that he was leaving Kafka’s papers to “the country of the perpetrators,” as Stach puts it, Brod left Hoffe to play the bad cop. Stach also suggests that although Brod didn’t wish to profit financially from Kafka, he might have wanted to compensate Hoffe for her long years of secretarial work by allowing her to sell the materials to a well-financed institute.

Etgar Keret, a best-selling Israeli short-story writer who considers Kafka to be his greatest influence, proposes that Brod had no idea that Hoffe would sit on the papers for so long. “Half of us are married to people who say, ‘I’m just going to buy a pack of cigarettes,’ and never return,” he told me. “I think this is the literary version of that, with this Hoffe chick.” Keret characterizes Brod as “a good judge of texts, for sure, but a very bad judge of human characters.” If Brod could see what was happening now, Keret says, he would be “horrified.” Kafka, on the other hand, might be O.K. with it: “The next best thing to having your stuff burned, if you’re ambivalent, is giving it to some guy who gives it to some lady who gives it to her daughters who keep it in an apartment full of cats, right?”

Kafka wasn’t the only ambivalent one. Some part of Brod clearly wasn’t ready to let the papers out of the vaults. Most scholars agree that Brod was reluctant to give up his control over Kafka’s image. Materials in the estate will probably testify to the friends’ visits to prostitutes — which Brod excised from his edition of Kafka’s diaries — or to Kafka’s occasional anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic comments, like the wish he once expressed “to stuff all Jews (myself included) into a drawer of a laundry basket.” Furthermore, Brod’s view of Kafka as the savior of mankind made the papers a huge, life-consuming responsibility, which Brod himself must occasionally have wished to stuff into the drawer of a laundry basket. Everything was at stake — the memory of Kafka, the fate of world literature, the future of Israel — and nobody could be trusted.

Meir Heller, an attorney for the National Library, told me he believes that Brod turned to Hoffe when, in his old age, he began to suspect everyone else of distorting his friend’s legacy. “She was wiping him, she was making his food,” Heller said. “He thought, I can trust her.” He describes Brod’s school of interpretation of Kafka as a “sect” into which only true believers were permitted. Heller mentioned a 1957 letter from Brod to Hoffe, specifying that, after Esther’s death, the Kafka papers should pass to one of Brod’s friends (although her daughters would still receive royalties from their publication); in later years Brod periodically returned to this letter, adding and subtracting the names of those he considered trustworthy. The publisher Klaus Wagenbach was there for a while, but Brod crossed him out after Wagenbach published a Kafka biography that Brod didn’t like.

Heller’s recurring metaphor for the papers comes from “The Lord of the Rings.” “You remember the ‘precious’?” he said, alluding to the magic ring that causes its possessor to guard it obsessively. “That’s how it is. Whoever touches these papers — it distorts their vision.”

One afternoon during my stay in Tel Aviv, I headed to Spinoza Street on the off-chance that Eva Hoffe was home and felt like talking to the press. I was accompanied by Avi Steinberg, an American writer living at the time in Jerusalem. I had become acquainted with Steinberg two months earlier, when he mailed me the galleys of a memoir he wrote about his experiences as a prison librarian. In subsequent correspondence, I mentioned my impending Kafkaesque assignment to report on a “Kafka archive kept for decades in a cat-infested Tel Aviv flat,” confessing to some apprehensions that I would be unable to locate the apartment. Steinberg promptly replied that the address was 23 Spinoza Street, that he had recently rung the doorbell himself but had no answer and that “last week in court, Eva Hoffe’s sweater was covered in animal hairs, possibly originating from a cat or cats.”

Walking through the city center, we discussed the mystery of Kafka’s testament. Steinberg saw in Kafka’s cryptic letter to Brod another version of the parable of Abraham and Isaac. (Kafka wrote several retellings of this story in 1921, the same year he first mentioned to Brod that he wanted his work to be burned.) Kafka, Steinberg suggested, wanted to prove that he was ready to incinerate the child of his creation, simultaneously knowing and not knowing that Brod would step in and play the role of the angel.

“The thing is,” Steinberg said, “we only have Brod’s word for any of this. What if Kafka never even told him to burn his stuff? Has anyone ever seen that letter? What if this is all some big idea Brod had?”

Similarly paranoid thoughts cross the mind of nearly everyone who studies Kafka. At a certain point you realize that everything — even the picture of Brod as a good-natured busybody who ignored Kafka’s wishes — comes from Brod himself. “Don’t write this down — I don’t want to be the laughingstock of the academic community,” one scholar told me, having ventured the idea that Brod himself had composed all of Kafka’s writings and, alarmed by their strangeness, attributed them to a reclusive friend who worked at an insurance office.

Spinoza Street is in a quiet residential neighborhood lined by flat-roofed stucco buildings. The dingy off-pink stucco facade of No. 23 was partly obscured by a tree with enormous glossy leaves that were apparently being eaten away by something. Parked under the tree were a broken shopping cart and an old bicycle. Behind a large protruding window, enclosed by two layers of metal grillwork, lay an indistinct heap of cats. Some commotion involving a blackbird took place in one of the trees, causing six or so cats to look up in unison, elongating their necks. The breeze turned. A terrible smell wafted toward us.

The smell was stronger inside the building. We knocked on Hoffe’s door several times. Someone or something was moving inside, but nobody answered. Steinberg, who has a mild cat allergy, began sneezing. The sneezes echoed terrifyingly in the empty stairwell.

Back in the yard, we squinted in the hazy sunlight. Two cats staggered out of a rhododendron bush, looking drunk. I kept remembering a line from “The Trial”: “The wooden steps explained nothing, no matter how long one stared at them.” Having taken the precaution of bringing some cat toys with me, I began waving an artificial mouse at a gray kitten I had just noticed under the shopping cart. After some hesitation, the kitten ran out from under the shopping cart and pounced on the mouse, then scooped it up with its little white paws and bounced it off its chest.

What would Brod have made of it all? The situation struck me as enormously sad. It was sad that Esther had gotten so terribly old and died, and that Eva, the beautiful girl whom Brod once taught to play the piano, was now making French headlines as the “cat woman septuagénaire” who guards Kafka’s papers amid “feline miasmas and angora toxoplasmosis.” Ostensibly trying to defend her privacy and financial interests, Eva was plagued at all hours by journalists, while presumably racking up a fortune in legal fees. Nor would Brod conceivably have been delighted that Kafka’s papers had generated decades of acrimony and become the playthings of lawyers. He might have felt gratified by his friend’s extraordinary fame; but it was thanks to that very fame, which Brod himself both predicted and created, that Kafka didn’t belong to Brod anymore. Brod always knew that he couldn’t hold on to Kafka forever, but he never really faced up to it, and this was the result.

The more I learned about the papers’ stormy history, the more convincing I found the “Lord of the Rings” analogy invoked by Meir Heller, the attorney for the National Library. Brod really does seem to have regarded Kafka’s work as “one ring to rule them all.” Ever since he brought it to Israel, it has been guarded with a secrecy and fanaticism unusual even within the contentious world of literary estates.

The first conflict over Kafka’s papers arose in the 1930s between Brod and Salman Schocken, a former department-store magnate who took over the publication of Kafka’s works in 1933. During the war, Schocken continued to publish Kafka from Palestine and, later, New York, but retained the original manuscripts at his library in Jerusalem. Several sources confirm a fraught letter exchange between the two, with Brod demanding the return of certain manuscripts. In 1956, Schocken moved the papers in his possession to Zurich. The Zurich papers were eventually acquired for the Bodleian Library at Oxford through the offices of Sir Malcolm Pasley, an Oxford Germanist and a friend of Kafka’s great-nephew Michael Steiner.

Esther Hoffe was notorious for her elusiveness regarding the papers that she inherited from Brod. According to Der Spiegel, she backed out of a plan to lend “The Trial” to a Kafka exhibition in Paris because she didn’t get a personal phone call from the French president. Later a German publisher reportedly paid her a five-digit sum for the rights to Brod’s diaries, but she never produced the goods.

In 1974, at the request of the Israeli State Archives, an Israeli court reviewed Hoffe’s claim to the Brod estate. The judge ruled that she could do whatever she wanted with the papers during her lifetime. The following year, Hoffe was arrested at the Tel Aviv airport on suspicion of smuggling Kafka manuscripts abroad without first leaving copies with the State Archives (a stipulation of the Israeli Archives Law of 1955). A search of her luggage yielded photocopies of letters written by Kafka and, reportedly, originals of Brod’s diaries. (An estimated 22 letters and 10 postcards from Kafka to Brod were sold the previous year, presumably by Hoffe, in private sales in Germany.)

Hoffe was released. Soon after, an archivist from the State Archives came to Spinoza Street and, in the presence of Esther, Eva and an attorney, tried to inventory the estate. The archivist reported finding more than 50 feet of files, including originals of Brod’s diaries, letters to Brod from Kafka and letters to Brod and Kafka from unspecified “personages.” Most of the files, however, consisted of photocopies. When asked about the originals, Hoffe’s attorney, according to the archivist, “hesitated for a moment, then said that the material is not here,” adding that he, the lawyer, “always counseled to leave a photocopy in Israel, in compliance with the Archives Law.”

The incompleteness of the inventory leaves many questions about the contents of the estate. The answers may well be in a more thorough catalog compiled in the ’80s by a philologist named Bernhard Echte, now the publisher of Nimbus Books in Switzerland. Copies of Echte’s inventory, which lists some 20,000 pages of material, are closely guarded. Heller has been trying vainly to get one for years.

Echte, the rare scholar whose brush with the Kafka papers doesn’t seem to have injured his sense for the magic of literary discovery, is also the only interviewee in this story who described Esther Hoffe with genuine warmth. Echte told me in an e-mail interview that Hoffe “really tried to fulfill Max Brod’s will because she admired and loved Max Brod like a young girl (and I liked her very much for it).” Although her preference for “books with a good and interesting story” led her to find Kafka “strange,” Echte said, she nonetheless recognized Kafka’s importance to world literature and was prevented only by old age from placing the papers at Marbach. Echte fondly recalled “all the discoveries we made — Mrs. Hoffe and me.” Inside “quite a normal folder” for example, they found “two or three sheets of paper with Kafka’s last notes from Kierling,” the sanitarium where Kafka died. In Zurich, they unearthed a letter that Kafka sent to Brod in 1910, enclosing two birthday gifts: “a small stone,” still in the envelope, and “a damaged book” — which turned up two years later at Spinoza Street and proved to be a novel by Robert Walser. Other treasures that Echte described to me included a copy of “Tristan Tzara’s ‘Première Aventure Céleste de M. Antipyrine,’ the first Dada publication, with a personal dedication of the author to Kafka. Imagine that!”

What else is in the vaults? Most experts agree that the estate is unlikely to contain any unknown major work by Kafka. On the other hand, Kafka often embedded lapidary parables and short-short stories in his letters and diaries. Brod published everything he saw fit, but Peter Fenves, a literature professor at Northwestern University, speculates that there might still be some “literary gems” left: “Perhaps a story like ‘Jackals and Arabs,’ which I can imagine Brod would have suppressed” if Kafka hadn’t published it himself. (In this fable, a European traveler is informed by some jackals — sometimes interpreted as a caricature of Jews — that they have been waiting for generations for him to slit the throats of their unclean enemies, the Arabs.)

The estate is of great interest not only to literary scholars but also to historians and biographers. Reiner Stach, who has already published Volumes 2 and 3 in his three-volume life of Kafka, told me that he has been waiting for years for the vaults to divulge materials necessary for Volume 1: an early notebook by Brod “that is said to contain ‘a good deal about Kafka’ ”; Brod’s unpublished diary from 1909; and letters from Kafka’s hitherto unknown “early friends.”

Kathi Diamant — Dora Diamant’s biographer and the founder of the San Diego-based Kafka Project, which in 2000 discovered Kafka’s old hairbrush at a kibbutz in Jezreel Valley — is eagerly awaiting the release from the vaults of 70 letters written by Dora to Brod. In one letter, Dora, to whom Kathi says she may or may not be related, confesses to having burned at Kafka’s request a number of his manuscripts, perhaps including an unpublished story about a blood-libel case in Kiev. But Dora also saved 20 notebooks and 35 letters, which were seized from her apartment by the Gestapo in 1933. Kathi says that information from the Brod correspondence may help her track down these materials, possibly to a sealed archive in Poland. Both Kathi and Zvi Diamant, Dora’s last living nephew, repeatedly tried to contact Esther Hoffe about the letters: “She refused to help and hung up,” Kathi recalled.

On my last night in Tel Aviv I found myself back at Spinoza Street, to meet the filmmaker Sagi Bornstein, who is working on a documentary about the Kafka case. We met at the end of the block, just as dark was falling. Bornstein, wearing a striped knit cap and a lapel button that said simply “K” (the gift of Dutch Kafkologists), was accompanied by two crew members and a medium-size dog named Babylon Fighter. We sat on a public bench, and Bornstein fitted me with a microphone. His crew filmed our conversation from the other side of the street, where they appeared to be standing in some bushes.

Bornstein was considering two titles for his film: “Kafka’s Last Story,” referring to Kafka’s will, and “Kafka’s Egg,” referring, he said, to “an Easter egg, or the egg of Columbus.”

“It’s something that everyone is trying to solve — but in the end, it’s only an egg,” Bornstein explained. He talked about his experiences shooting in Marbach, Prague, Berlin and Kierling, and about his fruitless efforts to interview Eva Hoffe. “I feel pretty sorry for her,” he said. “I think I understand her pretty well. It’s her life, and she doesn’t owe a report to anyone. Still, the story doesn’t belong only to her. She accidentally got into a story that’s bigger than all of us together.” He fell silent. A girl passed on a bicycle. Babylon Fighter, who does not wear a leash, seemed inclined to follow her, but Bornstein dissuaded him with a stern clicking noise. “So,” he said, turning to me. “You want to go knock on her door?”

I didn’t, frankly, but a job is a job. The crew emerged from the bushes, and we all headed back up Spinoza Street. The lights were on, although it was now past 10 p.m. Bornstein walked me to the door, standing away from the peephole; if she saw him, he said, she wouldn’t open the door.

“I don’t think she’s going to open the door anyway,” I said — accurately, as it turned out. We could hear voices inside. “She’s on the phone,” Bornstein said. Back outside, he speed-dialed Eva’s lawyer Oded Hacohen on his iPhone, and they spoke for some minutes. A large moth circled over our heads in the light of a streetlamp, its wings flapping like some great opened-up book of magic.

“We’ve been having the same conversation for a year,” Bornstein said, hanging up. “He just says we can’t talk to her now. He doesn’t say ‘never’ — just ‘not now.’ It’s ‘Before the Law.’ It’s the exact same thing.”

Bornstein was alluding to the famous parable in “The Trial” about a man who comes before the law but is turned away by the doorkeeper. The man asks if he will be allowed to enter later. “It’s possible, but not now,” says the doorkeeper, explaining that he is only the first in a series of increasingly powerful and terrifying doorkeepers (“The mere sight of the third is more than even I can bear”). The man sits next to the entrance for hours, days, years, waiting to be admitted to the law. In his dying breath, he asks the guard a question: Since the law is open to everyone, why has nobody else approached it in all these years? “This entrance was meant solely for you,” the guard says. “I’m going to go and shut it now.” Like many of Kafka’s stories, it carries the dreamlike impact of a great revelation, while nonetheless not making much immediately apparent sense.

Bornstein gave me a lift home on his moped, together with Babylon Fighter and a substantial amount of video equipment. As we whizzed through traffic and a pedestrian mall, narrowly missing a fateful encounter with a young man sprawled on a sheet and claiming to be the Messiah, I reflected on “Before the Law” — specifically, on the feelings the man projects onto the doorkeeper. “Over the many years,” Kafka writes, “the man observes the doorkeeper almost incessantly. He forgets the other doorkeepers and this first one seems to him the only obstacle to his admittance to the Law.”

Who is Eva Hoffe if not the doorkeeper, the one whom we observe incessantly, who seems to us the only obstacle to our understanding of Kafka? But in fact, beyond Eva lies a series of doorkeepers, most notably Brod, who has been reproached with everything under the sun: with making Kafka a saint, with refusing to burn his papers, with hiding the papers that he refused to burn, with writing such dreadful novels and, overall, with his general inescapability. And then, when we get past Brod, it’s only to face the most powerful doorkeeper of all, Kafka himself.

“With Kafka, people go crazy about getting the original manuscript — not a photocopy, not a facsimile,” Meir Heller once remarked to me. “With most writers, once there’s a copy, nobody cares.” We fetishize the original manuscripts, because they seem to offer some access to a definitive Kafka — a Kafka beyond Brod. But this, too, is an illusion. The manuscripts aren’t definitive, because definitiveness, for better or worse, is the product of deadlines and editors and publishers: things Kafka either went out of his way not to have or ended up not having because of bad luck, tuberculosis and the First World War. When Kafka did prepare manuscripts for publication, he spent much time correcting mistakes and decoding his own abbreviations, sometimes even enlisting Brod’s help; one critic thus speculates that “Brod’s version might, in the end, look more like what Kafka would have published” than the most meticulous German scholarly editions. Maybe there is no Kafka beyond Brod.

Nonetheless, like the man in the parable, we ultimately come back to our faith in the law. In the coming weeks, a court-appointed group will finish inventorying the remaining boxes, as well as the contents of the Spinoza Street apartment. It’s only a matter of time before the list is made public and most of the materials find their way to one archive or another. The last doorkeeper out of the way, we’ll be as close to Kafka as we’re ever going to get.

Elif Batuman is the author of “The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them.”

Open Library: uma biblioteca virtual

2010-07-29T09:55:00.002-04:00

Uma biblioteca virtual de livros de autor, modificados e atualizados pelo autor.

Open Library

Um exemplo: meu livro Formação da Diplomacia Econômica no Brasil

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil 1 edition
By Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Cover of: Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil by Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
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About the Book

The best and most complete historical analysis of economic diplomacy of Brazil during Empire (19th century).
Subjects
Commerce, Foreign economic relations, History
Places
Brazil
Times
19th century
There is only 1 edition record, so we'll show it here. Add another?
Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil
as relações econômicas internacionais no Império
Paulo Roberto de Almeida.
Published 2001 by Editora SENAC Sã̃o Paulo, Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão in São Paulo, SP, [Brasília, Brazil] .
Written in Portuguese.
Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [645]-659) and index.
"Trabalhos do autor"--P. 659-660.
Classifications
Dewey Decimal Class
337.81
Library of Congress
HF1513 .A493 2001
The Physical Object
Pagination
675 p. ;
Number of pages
675
ID Numbers
Open Library
OL3608679M
ISBN 10
8573592109, 8587480219
LC Control Number
2002354263
Goodreads
4015471
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{{Citation |publisher = Editora SENAC Sã̃o Paulo |isbn = 8573592109 |publication-place = São Paulo, SP |title = Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil |url = http://openlibrary.org/books/OL3608679M/Formação_da_diplomacia_econômica_no_Brasil |author = Paulo Roberto de Almeida |publication-date = 2001 |id = 8573592109 }}
History Created December 9, 2009 · 6

Livro na praca, uma bobagem - Janer Cristaldo

2010-05-26T11:55:00.001-04:00

LIVRO NÃO SE LIBERTA
Janer Cristaldo
Domingo, Maio 23, 2010

A idéia nasceu de um projeto americano, o Book Crossing – lemos no Estadão de hoje –. Você deixa um livro em qualquer lugar público: um banco de praça, um café, um cinema. Caso encontre um exemplar, pega, lê e depois passa adiante. E, assim, de mão em mão, o livro vai circulando. O Book Crossing ganhou fôlego em mais de cem países, até no Brasil.

O projeto não tem sentido. Livro bom não largamos na rua. Livro bom fica em nossa biblioteca. Mesmo que, desprendidos, comprássemos um Dostoievski ou Cervantes para entregá-lo aos pobres, quem garante que quem o encontra vai lê-lo? Por outro lado, digamos que você tenha, por alguma razão, livros horrorosos em sua casa e deles quer livrar-se. Ora, você não presta nenhum serviço a alguém fornecendo-lhe um livro ruim.

Idéia de jerico. Livro não se lê ao acaso. É algo que procuramos. Uma livraria pode nos oferecer milhares de livros e nenhum deles nos interessa. Se você oferece um livro a quem não lê, de nada adianta oferecê-lo. Quem não lê pode estar na biblioteca mais rica do mundo. Só vai se sentir entediado. Livro é para quem lê. Para quem não lê, de nada serve.

Subservientes a toda idéia besta que vem de fora, um grupo de cariocas decidiu ampliar a corrente e criou o Livro de Rua. O movimento não só deixa livros em lugares públicos, como também instala as "bibliotecas da liberdade" em lugares carentes. "O Book Crossing é uma ótima idéia, mas os livros acabam só circulando em áreas mais nobres, onde as pessoas têm acesso a livrarias e bibliotecas. Acaba sendo um grande clube do livro", diz Pedro Gerolimich, de 28 anos, um dos idealizadores do Livro de Rua. "Queremos democratizar o acesso à leitura".

Bibliotecas da liberdade é nome que soa bem. Mas mesmo nas “áreas mais nobres, onde as pessoas têm acesso a livrarias e bibliotecas”, há muita gente que não lê. Neste nosso mundo audiovisual, leitor é minoria. Ora, quem chegou à idade adulta sem ler é pessoa perdida para a leitura. Sem falar que ler não é critério de cultura. O mundo está cheio de gente lendo Harry Potter, Paulo Coelho, Stephen King, Zíbia Gasparetto e – cá entre nós – esta gente ganharia mais se não soubesse ler. O analfabeto não deixa de ter uma grande vantagem. Está fora do alcance da má literatura.

Nas "bibliotecas da liberdade" não há burocracia – diz o jornal –. Qualquer pessoa pode levar quantos livros quiser. Não precisa mostrar documento de identidade nem fazer cadastro. Ninguém é obrigado a devolver os exemplares. O único compromisso é passar o livro adiante ou deixar em lugar público. O lema do projeto é a "libertação" dos livros.

Muito biscateiro vai adorar o projeto. O quilo de papel sempre rende alguns trocados. A tal de libertação dos livros é delírio de quem não lê. De livro bom não nos libertamos. Eles são nossos eternos prisioneiros. Há livros que condenei à prisão perpétua, jamais sairão de minhas estantes. Para amigos muito próximos, até pode ser. Mas cada vez que um deles sai aqui de casa, me sinto como uma mãe cujo filho foi escalado para combater no Iraque.

Tenho também os livros horrorosos. São aqueles que fui obrigado a ler quando lecionei na universidade. Já pensei em doá-los. Mas dar livro ruim é colaborar com o avanço da estupidez. Não quero ser responsável por isso. Qualquer dia ainda os repasso a catadores de papel. Tenho certeza de que não irão lê-los.

"O livro serve para que as pessoas possam ler e não para ficar em uma estante. Ele tem de circular. Já libertamos 5 mil livros em quase dois anos", diz Gerolimich. A maioria foi parar nas cinco bibliotecas montadas pelo grupo. Três na Baixada Fluminense, um bolsão de miséria no entorno do Rio, duas em Belo Horizonte. E já há planos para chegar também a São Paulo e Brasília. As bibliotecas são instaladas em lugares como lan houses e postos de saúde. "A gente leva o livro onde as pessoas estão por outro motivo. Mas, quando dão de cara com os livros, elas acabam pegando. Queremos que elas adquiram o hábito da leitura".

Não é assim. Isto é visão de quem não lê. Livros servem para formar bibliotecas. São a nossa memória. Em minhas estantes, conservo livros da época universitária. Todos devidamente sublinhados, o que inclusive me serve para rever a mim mesmo nos dias de jovem. Sou leitor que não gosta nem de livro emprestado. Se gosto do livro, vou querer sublinhar. Não posso fazer isso em livro que não é meu. Da mesma forma, quando alguém me pede livro que me dói emprestar, tomo uma providência elementar: compro o livro e o dou de presente.

Gerolimich fala em bibliotecas montadas pelo grupo. Ora, bibliotecas custam dinheiro. Metro quadrado não se encontra de graça. Duvido que os libertadores as custeiem de seu bolso. O movimento dos tais de libertadores de livros me soa a ONGs que vivem de dinheiro do contribuinte.

- Enviado por Janer @ 10:16 PM

45) Escritos sobre escritos...: um estimulo a escritores aprendizes (como eu)

2010-04-26T08:24:00.005-04:00

Sobre o ato de escrever:

- Toda pessoa tem o direito de dizer o que ela acha ser verdadeiro, e qualquer outra tem o direito de atacá-la por esta boa razão.
Samuel Johnson

- O talento, não está em escrever uma página, está em escrever trezentas.
Jules Renard

- Escrever, é uma relação de amor consigo mesmo, com as coisas, os momentos e as pesssoas. Escrever, é como viver uma vida paralela à sua vida de cada dia; é o vaso purificador da alma e de seus movimentos.
Louise Portal

- Escrever é também uma maneira de falar sem ser interrompido.
Jules Renard.

- Escrever: a única maneira de emocionar alguém sem ser perturbado por uma face.
Jean Rostand

- Custou-me quinze anos para descobrir que eu não tinha talento para escrever. Infelizmente, não consegui parar, eu já tinha me tornado famoso.
Robert Benchley

- A História será indulgente comigo, porque eu tenho a intenção de escrevê-la.
Winston Churchill

- Para escrevcer não se deve ser muito inteligente, é preciso ser um idiota resplandecente.
Antonio Lobo Antunes

- A ecrita tem isto de misterioso: ela fala.
Paul Claudel

- A ecrita é uma aventura. No começo é um jogo, depois é uma amante, em seguida é um mestre, e aí se torna um tirano.
Winston Churchill

- A única ecrita válida é aquela que a gente inventa... É isto que torna as coisas reais.
Ernest Hemingway

44) Doando livros

2010-01-30T12:27:00.000-04:00

Enquanto Godot não chega...
Viegas Fernandes da Costa

... cai-me à mesa uma edição do caderno de Cultura do Zero Hora de 21 de novembro de 2009. Na capa, Itálico Marcon. Nunca tinha ouvido falar! Segundo Luiz Antônio Araujo, o autor da reportagem, Marcon é (ou era, haja visto os últimos eventos) o segundo maior bibliófilo do Brasil. Perde (perdia), apenas para Delfim Netto, este sim o maior juntador de livros brasileiro. Claro, falamos aqui dos maiores bibliófilos considerando o número de títulos que possuem sob sua guarda, e não a qualidade e raridade dos mesmos. Não importa! Marcon virou meu herói dado seu desprendimento! Sua biblioteca atulhava três apartamentos em Porto Alegre, livros adquiridos durante seus setenta anos de vida. Apartamentos que agora estão esvaziados de tanto papel e verbo. Itálico Marcon simplesmente resolveu doar 180 mil volumes da sua coleção para um projeto chamado “Banco de Livros”, que tem o apoio de Luis Fernando Veríssimo. O objetivo do “Banco de Livros” é montar acervos em comunidades carentes.

Fico aqui pensando na dimensão do gesto. Todo bibliogâmico sabe dos ciúmes que um livro (ou toda uma biblioteca) pode provocar. Diria até que os livros nos chantageiam emocionalmente, atiçam-nos a libido, oferecem-se às nossas mãos, olhos, bocas, e depois nos põem escravos de si. Imploram cuidados, atenção permanente, frágeis e melindrosos que são. Mas sem tergiversações, dizia do gesto, da dimensão do gesto de Itálico Marcon.

“Não foi o primeiro a fazê-lo”, Pode argumentar alguém. “Está aí José Mindlin, que doou sua rica biblioteca à USP”. “É diferente”, responderei. Ainda que também bastante admirável a atitude de Mindlin, há uma diferença substancial entre o gesto deste e o de Marcon. Mindlin doou sua biblioteca a uma única instituição universitária, e o fez cercado de exigências. Justo, claro. Bibliogâmico que é, quer ver seus livros bem preservados, tratados com o zelo de que nunca se viram privados. Além disso, Mindlin constitui um monumento à sua memória na medida em que entrega uma coleção que preservará seu nome e ficará reunida em um único espaço. As gerações futuras saberão que aqueles livros foram reunidos por uma figura lendária, chamada José Mindlin, que dedicou boa parte da sua vida caçando pelo mundo livros únicos. Não neguemos, a imortalidade é boa paga ao desprendimento de Mindlin. Já no caso de Itálico Marcon, o desprendimento se dá em outro nível.

Ao doar os 180 mil volumes da sua biblioteca particular ao projeto “Banco de Livros”, Marcon pulveriza sua coleção e dissolve a possibilidade de transformar seu gesto em ato monumental. Fica, claro, o registro da doação na imprensa e nas comendas que certamente receberá, porém o “lugar de memória” físico, acessível por corpos humanos não virtuais, este não existirá. É como o sujeito cujo cadáver sepultamos no mar. A lápide de uma sepultura é sempre a garantia de uma certa imortalidade, ainda que efêmera; de um certo estar no mundo, ainda que ausente. E é justamente esse sepultamento no mar, essa entrega de uma biblioteca, razão de ser de toda uma vida, para que se pulverize e chegue, de fato, às mãos de leitores anônimos e espalhados pela periferia portoalegrense, que torna a doação de Marcon tão significativa e magnânima.

Que sejam lidos, entretanto, os livros doados, e não se percam, nas obscuras prateleiras da burocracia ou em bibliotecas ora suntuosamente inauguradas e futuramente abandonadas e esquecidas, os livros mofados destinados à reciclagem. É isto o mínimo que podemos devolver a Marcon.

* Viegas Fernandes da Costa, autor de "Sob a luz do farol" (2005) e "De espantalhos e pedras também se faz um poema" (2008). Mantém o blog http://viegasdacosta.blogspot.com . Permitida a reprodução, desde que citado o autor e o texto mantido na íntegra.

43) Novo livro PRA: Maquiavel revisitado

2009-12-24T12:20:00.001-04:00

Tenho o prazer de informar sobre a publicação de meu mais recente livro:

O Moderno Príncipe (Maquiavel revisitado)
Rio de Janeiro: Freitas Bastos, edição eletrônica, 2009, 191p.;ISBN: 978-85-99960-99-8; R$ 12,00 ;
link para aquisição online:
http://freitasbas.lojatemporaria.com/o-moderno-principe.html

Outras informações sobre o livro no seguinte link:
http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2009/12/1591-novo-livro-pra-o-moderno-principe.html

42) Livro sobre a atividade de Inteligencia

2009-07-29T13:45:00.000-04:00

Atividade de Inteligência

Será lançado no próximo dia 19 de agosto, às 18h30, na Biblioteca do Senado Federal, o livro “Atividade de Inteligência e Legislação Correlata”, do professor e consultor legislativo Joanisval Brito Gonçalves.
Editado pela Impetus, a publicação é parte da série “Inteligência, Segurança e Direito”.

Entende-se por inteligência, de acordo com o art. 2o da Lei nº 9.883, que criou a Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (ABIN), “a atividade que objetiva a obtenção, análise e disseminação de conhecimentos, dentro e fora do território nacional, sobre fatos e situações de imediata ou potencial influência sobre o processo decisório e a ação governamental e sobre a salvaguarda e a segurança da sociedade e do Estado”.

A obra pretende discutir o que vem a ser realmente inteligência. É o mesmo que espionagem? Então, o que vem a ser espionagem? Há outros tipos de inteligência além daquela realizada por espiões? E informações, é a mesma coisa? Qual o objetivo da inteligência? A quem ela serve ou deve servir? E a contrainteligência?

Essas são algumas das perguntas que o autor se propõe responder.

De acordo com a editora, a função precípua do livro é remover alguns véus sobre essa atividade tão misteriosa.

O objetivo é apresentar os aspectos básicos da inteligência, como seu conceito – ou as diversas maneiras como é conceituada –, suas funções, as várias modalidades de inteligência, os meios de obtenção de dados, o processo de produção de conhecimento, e os princípios que a norteiam.

Também é apresentada a legislação brasileira sobre atividade de inteligência, a qual, de forma pioneira, é comentada.

O autor apresenta fundamentos teóricos sobre a inteligência (conceitos, escopo, classificações, funções e fontes), e complementa a obra, com comentários sobre a principal legislação que rege o Sistema Brasileiro de Inteligência (SISBIN).

A obra conta com prefácio do ministro-chefe do Gabinete de Segurança Institucional (GSI) da Presidência da República, General-de-Exército Jorge Armando Felix.

Joanisval Brito Gonçalves foi oficial de inteligência (então denominado analista de informações) da Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) e, atualmente, é consultor legislativo do Senado.

Entre outras atividades, atua no assessoramento da Comissão Mista de Controle das Atividades de Inteligência do Congresso Nacional.

É doutor em Relações Internacionais, pela Universidade de Brasília (UnB), professor universitário e integrante de diversas associações internacionais e brasileiras no campo da inteligência.

41) O Brasil e o GATT, Rogerio de Souza Farias

2009-07-28T14:00:00.002-04:00

Tendo feito parte da banca de mestrado que aprovou a dissertação do Rogerio, só posso recomendar o livro que dela resultou.

O Brasil e o GATT - (1973-1993) - Unidades Decisórias e Política Externa
Rogério de Souza Farias
Curitiba: Juruá Editora, 2009, 218 pgs.
Coleção Relações Internacionais
ISBN: 978853622546-3

Indice:
Capítulo 1
O(S) PROCESSO(S) DECISÓRIO(S) DA PARTICIPAÇÃO BRASILEIRA NO GATT
• Unidade Decisória
• Único ou Múltiplos Atores?
• Especialização Funcional em Grupos Decisórios
• Divisão de Tarefas e Constrangimentos ao Itamaraty
• Negociações no GATT – Impactos no Processo Decisório Doméstico
• Intensidade Percepcional, Contexto e Fatores Domésticos
• Tipologias de Processo Decisório

Capítulo 2
A DIPLOMACIA DA DERROGAÇÃO OU A ARTE DA EXCLUSÃO
• Negociações Tarifárias no GATT
• Renegociação do Waiver e Rodada Tóquio
• Rodada Uruguai

Capítulo 3
OS LIMITES DA PROMOÇÃO COMERCIAL
• Um Modelo Complementar: a Dependência Competitiva das Exportações
• A Formulação da Posição Externa Brasileira no Contencioso dos Subsídios
• Tentativas de Controle do Poder de Coordenação

Capítulo 4
O BRASIL E AS NEGOCIAÇÕES AGRÍCOLAS DA RODADA URUGUAI
• Um Panorama da Posição Brasileira nas Negociações Agrícolas da Rodada Uruguai
• Modelo de Desenvolvimento Econômico

CURRÍCULO DO AUTOR
Rogério de Souza Farias é Bacharel e Mestre em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade de Brasília (UnB); instituição onde desenvolve os seus estudos de doutoramento, com tese sobre o Brasil e o sistema multilateral de comércio. É autor de artigos sobre a ação brasileira do Brasil em foros multilaterais publicados no Brasil e no exterior. É colaborador do Boletim Meridiano 47 e de Mundorama – Iniciativa de Divulgação Científica em Relações Internacionais da Universidade de Brasília, e membro do Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa sobre as Relações Internacionais do Brasil Contemporâneo do Instituto de Relações Internacionais da UnB. É Especialista em Políticas Públicas e Gestão Governamental, atualmente lotado no Ministério do Desenvolvimento, Indústria e Comércio Exterior (MDIC).

Coleção Relações Internacionais
A expansão do ensino de relações internacionais, nos níveis de graduação e pós-graduação, tem sido exponencial nos últimos anos.
A Coleção Relações Internacionais, lançamento da Juruá Editora, tem o propósito de prover estudantes, professores e profissionais da área com o conhecimento que resulta da expansão das pesquisas nas Universidades brasileiras.
O apoio do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico-CNPq, por meio do projeto integrado de pesquisa “Parcerias Estratégicas do Brasil: a construção do conceito e as experiências em curso”, financiado com recursos do Edital Renato Archer de fomento do estudo das relações internacionais e sediado na Universidade de Brasília, encontra-se na origem dessa iniciativa.
A Coleção Relações Internacionais reúne estudos originais resultantes de dissertações e teses selecionadas, em razão de sua originalidade e relevância, nas Universidades que mantêm programas de pós-graduação, bem como obras coletivas ou individuais especialmente focadas nas parcerias operadas pelo Brasil junto a países europeus e emergentes, objetos a que se volta o Renato Archer da UnB.
Em razão do elevado número de lançamentos que a Coleção programou, pretende ser ela instrumento indispensável a todos os que manuseiam o conhecimento atualizado das relações internacionais, seja com o propósito acadêmico, seja com o fim de tomar decisões nas esferas política e social, pública e privada, que engendram o modelo brasileiro de inserção internacional e sua dinâmica operacional.
O espírito que norteia as publicações da Coleção coincide com o espírito de isenção, objetividade, clareza e funcionalidade que preside os estudos nas Universidades. Desse modo, põe-se o conhecimento a serviço dos atores que dele fazem uso para equipar-se de expertise com que possam alcançar interesses externos da nação ou de seus segmentos sociais, bem como reagir e equilibrar-se diante de interesses que outros países buscam realizar no Brasil.

Outros livros na mesma coleção:
As Relações Entre o Brasil e a América Central – Um século de afinidades eletivas, solidariedade e convergência (1906-2010), de Carlos Federico Domínguez Ávila
Relações Brasil-Argentina – A Construção do Entendimento (1958-1986) , de Carlos Eduardo Vidigal
O Horizonte Regional do Brasil – Integração e Construção da América do Sul, de Leandro Freitas Couto
O Pragmatismo do Petróleo – As Relações entre o Brasil e o Iraque , de Seme Taleb Fares
Opinião Pública e Política Exterior do Brasil – 1961-1964 , de Tânia Maria Pechir Gomes Manzur
O Universalismo e os Seus Descontentes – A Política Exterior do Brasil no Governo Figueiredo (de 1979 a 1985), de Túlio Sérgio Henriques Ferreira

Informações adicionais sobre a Coleção podem ser obtidas neste link.

40) Fim da Guerra: livro em frances de Thierry Garcin

2009-07-22T12:09:00.000-04:00

Acaba de sair a segunda edição deste livro essencial para se compreender as consequências geopolíticas do final da Guerra Fria: Les Grandes Questions Internationales depuis la Chute du Mur de Berlin (Paris: Economica, 2009, 512 p.).
Seu autor, Thierry Garcin, jornalista na Radio France Internationale, é doutor em Ciências Políticas pel Universidade de Paris (Sorbonne-Paris I), pesquisador associado em Paris-V e na Universidade do Québec em Montreal (UQAM) e é professor em Paris-I, Paris-III e no Centre d'Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques (CEDS), ademais de conferencista em diversas instituições de ensino, entre elas a prestigiosa Sciences-Po.

Sommaire
INTRODUCTION

Première partie
LES BOULEVERSEMENTS INTERNATIONAUX DE 1989-1991
ET LEURS CONSÉQUENCES
A) La chute des régimes communistes à l’Est
B) L’unification de l’Allemagne
C) La mort de l’Union soviétique et la renaissance de la Russie
D) Le conflit du Golfe

Deuxième partie
LES ÉTATS-UNIS, UNIQUE SUPERPUISSANCE
A) Les attributs classiques de la puissance
B) Une superpuissance renouvelée puis déconsidérée
C) Les mandats Clinton en politique étrangère
D) Les mandats Bush fils en politique étrangère
E) La nouvelle ère Obama

Troisième partie
LES GRANDS FACTEURS DE DÉSTABILISATION
A) La multiplication des conflits identitaires
B) Le désordre institutionnel
C) Les revendications religieuses dans les luttes politiques
D) Migrations et mouvements de population

Quatrième partie
LES TENTATIVES DE RECOMPOSITION RÉGIONALE
A) La fragilité des processus de paix
B) Le renforcement des intégrations économiques
C) De nouvelles puissances émergentes
D) Les aléas de l’Union européenne

Cinquième partie
LA DÉFENSE DANS LES RAPPORTS DE FORCE INTERNATIONAUX
A) Les conséquences de la fin des rapports Est-Ouest
B) Les organisations de défense occidentales
C) La multiplication des actions extérieures

Sixième partie
LE RÔLE DES ORGANISATIONS INTERNATIONALES
A) La réactivation et les faiblesses des Nations unies (ONU)
B) Les organisations régionales : le cas de l’Afrique

Septième partie
BALKANISATION VERSUS MONDIALISATION
A) Les conséquences politiques de la balkanisation
B) Les conséquences politiques de la mondialisation

CONCLUSION

Preço: 33 euros
E-mail: infos@economica.fr

39) Kindle, nao um livro, mas um leitor de livros...

2009-07-02T14:31:00.001-04:00

The Kindle DX: Bigger, but With a Lot of Footnotes
By DAVID POGUE
The New York Times Circuits, July 2, 2009

From a reviewer's perspective, the Amazon Kindle is one of the weirdest, most polarizing gadgets ever to come down the pike. I mean, people who love it, love it. People who don't get it, *really* don't get it.

If you weren't thrilled by the regular Kindle, then the new, supersized Kindle DX isn't going to change your mind.

The Kindle is, of course, the world's most popular electronic book reader. As a wise man once wrote: "A couple of factors made the Kindle a modest hit when it debuted in November 2007. First, it incorporated a screen made by E-Ink that looks amazingly close to ink on paper. Unlike a laptop or an iPhone, the screen is not illuminated, so there's no glare, no eyestrain -- and no battery consumption. You use power only when you actually turn the page, causing millions of black particles to realign.

Continue reading...

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"The other Kindle breakthrough was its wireless connection. Thanks to Sprint's cellular Internet service, the Kindle is always online: indoors, outdoors, miles from the nearest Wi-Fi hot spot. This sort of service costs $60 a month for laptops, but Amazon pays the Kindle's wireless bill, in hopes that you'll buy e-books spontaneously."

(All right, it wasn't some wise man; *I* wrote all that.)

A new Kindle came in February, called the Kindle 2, featuring a few small enhancements: "The new, square plastic joystick is homely and stiff, but it gets the job done. Turning pages on the Kindle is a tad faster now. The screen shows 16 shades of gray now, not four, so photos look sharper; you can also zoom in and rotate them.

"The Kindle will also read aloud to you through its tiny stereo speakers or headphone jack, and even turn the pages as it goes. The Kindle's male and female voices are very good, but nobody will mistake them for the voices of humans, let alone the professionals who record audiobooks.

"The Kindle catalog is bigger, too; 230,000 books are available [UPDATE: now 300,000]. New York Times bestsellers are $10 each, which is less than the hardcover editions. Older books run $3 to $6. That said, Amazon is still a long way from its 'any book, any time' goal...You can have any of 30 newspapers, including this one, wirelessly beamed to your Kindle each morning ($10 to $14 a month) -- minus ads, comics and crosswords. Magazines (22 so far, $1.50 to $3 monthly) and blogs ($2 a month) can arrive automatically, too. Finally, you can send Word, text, PDF and JPEG documents to the Kindle using its private e-mail address for 10 cents each. Or transfer them over a USB cable for nothing."

The Kindle DX is pretty much the same thing--just bigger. It's about 8 by 10.5 inches (the regular Kindle is 5.3 by 8), with a screen that's 9.7 inches diagonal (versus 6), about the size of a paperback book. (The DX also weighs twice as much.)

The larger screen size was developed in anticipation of what could be e-books' killer apps: textbooks and newspapers. All those graphics, diagrams and formatting elements will do a heck of a lot better on this decently sized screen. But even regular books and documents are more pleasant to read on the DX, since you can read over twice as much before you have to turn the page.

There are a couple of other tiny enhancements. For example, there's a tilt sensor inside, like the iPhone's, so when you rotate the DX 90 degrees, the text of your book rotates, too, creating a widescreen effect.

In fact, you can even turn the thing upside-down, and the text dutifully flips to remain upright. On the DX, the Next Page button is on the right side only (on the regular Kindle, there's one on each margin). That's a bummer for lefties and even righties who like to read as they walk along, carrying the Kindle in the left hand and hitting Next Page with their thumbs. Now, turning the DX upside-down is the only way to put Next Page near your left thumb (although, of course, now all the button names are upside-down, too).

I'm a little baffled by the auto-rotate feature, actually. As any reading expert can tell you, reading is much more comfortable and efficient when the columns are narrow--that's why newspapers use columns. So making the text, and your eye, slog across the entire landscape-orientation, double-wide screen is certainly not an improvement.

The rotating feature must be intended to handle PDF documents, which the DX now opens without your having to convert them. Since you can't zoom into or scroll PDFs, rotating 90 degrees is the only way you have to magnify them, if only slightly. But in that infrequent case, a menu option or button would have done the trick. As it is now, the text flops 90 degrees accidentally far too easily--as you set the Kindle down on something, for example.

The DX also holds more books than the regular Kindle: 3,500 instead of 1,500. That oughta do it.

The other element is the price: $490. Yikes. Once the e-textbook era dawns, those long-suffering student vertebrae might find that a bargain. But in the meantime, well, jeez. You can get a 37-inch LCD hi-def TV for that kind of money.

So--like I say: polarizing. The Kindle DX offers a wildly successful, immersive, satisfying, portable reading experience. There are, however, an awful lot of footnotes.

Visit David Pogue on the Web at DavidPogue.com »

38) Mercado de Armas dos EUA

2009-07-02T13:23:00.000-04:00

A indústria de armas jamais perde um tiro
Financial Times, 02/07/2009

Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy
Dennis A. Henigan.
Potomac Books, 256 páginas

Não se deixe enganar pelo título. "Lethal Logic" soa como uma polêmica antiarmamentista, o mais novo disparo na batalha sem fim sobre o direito dos americanos de andarem armados. Em parte é, mas o livro oferece muito mais. Analisado sob a perspectiva de negócios, disseca o gênio de marketing de uma indústria que movimenta mercadorias apesar de seu mercado estar saturado e do amplo apoio a restrições mais duras sobre as vendas de seus produtos. Qualquer pessoa interessada em fabricação, vendas a varejo, ou na interação da cultura, psicologia e comércio, pode aprender lições valiosas aqui.

Enquanto a maior parte das empresas luta contra a recessão, fabricantes e comerciantes de armas continuam a acumular bons resultados. "Lethal Logic" explica: a indústria de armas descobriu, há décadas, como capitalizar sobre a adversidade.

Veja as condições atuais. O país elegeu um democrata liberal para a Casa Branca e colocou seu partido no comando do Congresso. O aumento do controle de armas pareceria o resultado provável dessa mudança em relação aos oito anos que os Republicanos passaram no poder. Uma série de incidentes com armas nesta primavera americana - incluindo os assassinatos de um médico que praticava abortos em Wichita e de um guarda do Holocaust Memorial Museum em Washington - vem revigorando o apoio perene e disseminado a restrições às armas de fogo. Em pesquisas, a grande maioria das pessoas consultadas, por exemplo, afirmam ser a favor de maior supervisão das feiras de armas, onde marginais e malucos podem se armar sem passar por uma análise de seus antecedentes criminais.

Mas, em vez de desencorajar o comércio de armas, esse clima desencadeou um frenesi de compras. Fabricantes como Smith & Wesson e Sturm Ruger vêm divulgando crescimento de dois dígitos nas vendas. Os comerciantes afirmam que não conseguem manter as prateleiras cheias. O principal motivo da corrida para o aumento dos arsenais domésticos é que, sempre que o setor percebe uma ameaça de maior regulamentação, convence os clientes de longa data a comprarem mais uma arma - só para se prevenir.

"Acreditamos que o governo Obama tentará tornar as leis sobre armas mais restritivas neste país", disse à Reuters um porta-voz da National Rifle Association (NRA). Em uma reação em cadeia, os comerciantes de armas repetem a mensagem. "Trata-se de medo, ansiedade e 'pegue-os enquanto você pode'", disse ao jornal "The Patriot Ledger" o proprietário da M&M Plimouth Bay Outfitter, uma loja de armas de Plymouth, Massachusetts. Fuzis AR-15 e outros rifles de estilo militar vêm sendo as peças mais vendidas pela M&M.

Conforme observa Dennis Henigan, autor de "Lethal Logic" e defensor de longa data do controle de armas, que faz parte do Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, o impacto de Obama é a história se repetindo. Antes de o presidente Bill Clinton sancionar em 1994 a legislação que restringiu a comercialização de rifles como o AR-15, as vendas das "armas de assalto" dispararam. Depois, os fabricantes de armas fazem mudanças cosméticas em seus rifles de assalto e os continuam vendendo.

Henigan explica que uma série de slogans - que ele chama de "lógica do adesivo de para-choque" vêm estimulando as vendas de armas ao longo dos anos. Um simples indício de uma maior regulamentação produz alertas da NRA para "o caminho perigoso em direção a mais restrições draconianas às armas e, em última instância, em direção ao confisco de todas as armas", observa Henigan. Eis como o presidente da NRA, Wayne LaPierre, classifica os períodos de espera antes de os compradores receberem suas armas: "Algumas pessoas chamam de 'o nariz do camelo entrando na tenda'; eu chamo de 'pé na porta', mas independentemente do que você diga, dá na mesma - é o primeiro passo."

Outros clássicos do repertório da indústria das armas: "Uma sociedade armada é uma sociedade educada", "Quando as armas forem consideradas fora-da-lei, apenas os fora-da-lei andarão armados", e a mãe de todos, "As armas não matam pessoas; pessoas matam pessoas".

Henigan demonstra como o negócio de armas emprega essas mensagens, junto com ativismo, para manter os políticos na linha. Se você subtrai o conteúdo ideológico, essas frases de efeito podem ser vistas como uma inspirada campanha de marketing.

Um dos atributos mais impressionantes da indústria de armas de fogo é que ela sempre pode vender novos produtos. Os americanos já possuem mais de 200 milhões de armas, que durariam gerações se mantidas de maneira correta. Mesmo assim, os donos de armas estão comprando armas substitutas, muito embora o governo Obama até agora tenha desapontado os defensores do controle de armas ao evitar a questão.

Sejam quais forem seus pontos de vista sobre armas, a relação delas com o crime e o significado da Segunda Emenda da Constituição americana, "Lethal Logic" tem algo importante a ensinar: uma mensagem consistente e apaixonada cultiva a lealdade do cliente.

37) Site da USP disponibiliza 3 mil livros

2009-06-29T14:14:00.000-04:00

A Reitoria da USP lançou na semana passada um site que disponibiliza 3000 livros para download – as obras estão no endereço www.brasiliana.usp.br.
Entre os títulos, estão livros raros, documentos históricos, manuscritos e imagens que são parte do acervo da Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin, doada à universidade.
Há planos de aumentar o catálogo para 25 mil títulos e incluir primeiras edições de Machado de Assis e de Hans Staden.

36) Livro sobre a utopia tecnologica

2009-04-29T23:29:00.002-04:00

Ciência Hoje On-line: A utopia tecnológica

Livro resgata origens da internet para combater a velha ideia de um futuro pautado pela técnica
Jornal da Ciência e-mail, 29.04.2009

O futuro que imaginávamos há 45 anos é similar ao que antevemos hoje: povoado por robôs, foguetes e computadores.

Instigado pelos motivos que levaram à permanência de elementos da utopia tecnológica por tanto tempo no imaginário ocidental, o cientista social Richard Barbrook escreveu um livro em que resgata as origens da internet à luz dessa reflexão.

Leia a resenha de "Futuros imaginários" na CH On-line, que tem conteúdo exclusivo atualizado diariamente: http://cienciahoje.uol.com.br/143830

A utopia tecnológica
Livro resgata origens da internet para combater a velha ideia de um futuro pautado pela técnica

Na Feira Mundial de Nova York de 1964, um garoto de 7 anos se extasiava com a inteligência artificial e os foguetes espaciais que os Estados Unidos lhe prometiam para um futuro próximo. Hoje, 45 anos depois, parte daquele cenário se concretizou, mas a tecnologia continua ditando as cartas das nossas visões de futuro. Nas projeções para as próximas décadas, continuamos a enxergar a conquista interplanetária e uma presença cada vez maior de robôs — e, agora, atribuímos um papel central para a internet, considerada uma ferramenta para a revolução da sociedade. Não é estranho pensar que o futuro de 45 anos atrás é tão semelhante ao de hoje?

Essa reflexão levou o garoto do parágrafo acima — chamado Richard Barbrook — a escrever o livro Futuros imaginários: das máquinas pensantes à aldeia global, que acaba de ser lançado no Brasil e está disponível para download. Instigado pelos motivos que levaram à permanência de elementos da utopia tecnológica por mais de 40 anos no imaginário ocidental, Barbrook — hoje professor da Universidade de Westminster (Inglaterra) — e foi às origens da ferramenta que deu aos Estados Unidos o controle sobre o futuro: a internet.

Nos 15 capítulos que compõem o livro, o cientista social britânico resgata de maneira fluida e instigante eventos históricos, tendências sociais e avanços tecnológicos que culminaram com o advento da internet. A partir da análise desses fatores, o autor busca explicar os interesses por trás da permanência do futuro tecnológico utópico que há décadas pauta nosso imaginário.

Embora de cunho majoritariamente histórico, Futuros imaginários não se prende ao didatismo de livros de história convencionais, pois sua linha de pensamento mais livre torna a análise de Barbrook rica em profundidade e perspectivas. Um conhecimento básico da história mundial recente — principalmente da Guerra Fria — é importante para que o leitor aproveite toda a riqueza de informações que o livro pode oferecer.

Controlar o presente pelo futuro
De acordo com Barbrook, a internet não nasceu de um acaso histórico do desenvolvimento tecnológico, nem foi idealizada originalmente pelos norte-americanos. Surpresos? “Sob o governo de Nikita Khrushchev [entre 1953 e 1964], um grupo de reformistas subiu ao poder na União Soviética e, liderado pelo acadêmico Axel Berg, teve a ideia de usar a cibernética como forma de reavivar os ideais originais da Revolução Russa”, conta o autor à CH On-line, de passagem pelo Rio de Janeiro para lançar seu livro. “Além disso, também viram na rede de computadores uma forma de discutir assuntos que eram tabus no governo de Stálin, como economia, genética, psicologia e sociologia.”

Jogo entre os enxadristas Boris Spassky, da União Soviética, e Bobby Fischer, dos Estados Unidos, no campeonato mundial de xadrez de 1972. A disputa refletiu a rivalidade entre os dois países no âmbito da Guerra Fria — episódio histórico central no surgimento da internet (ilustração de Alex Veness para a edição original de Futuros imaginários).
No entanto, embora a União Soviética tenha idealizado internet antes dos americanos, foram eles que a criaram de fato. Como os russos já haviam lançado o primeiro satélite espacial, os Estados Unidos teriam que tornar a internet realidade para estar à frente da corrida e atingir a hegemonia intelectual. “A ideia de um comunismo cibernético soviético foi tomada e transformada em ideologia norte-americana”, sintetiza Barbrook.

Portanto, assim como os outros artefatos tecnológicos apresentados como futurísticos durante a Guerra Fria, a internet foi criada para fins militares. “Tanto americanos quanto soviéticos queriam criar um sistema de comunicação que sobrevivesse a uma guerra nuclear”, conta o autor. A partir daí, argumenta ele, os Estados Unidos passaram a controlar o futuro — e o presente —, exportando-o para onde sua influência pudesse alcançar.

Um futuro mais humano
Para Barbrook, é importante perceber que, mesmo criada para fins militares, a internet é hoje utilizada de inúmeras formas contrárias ao seu objetivo inicial. São essas múltiplas facetas que impedem que seja conferido à internet um caráter prioritariamente neoliberal — como prenunciava o grande crescimento das empresas “ponto-com” na década de 1990 — ou cibercomunista, com o compartilhamento irrestrito e produção de informações, arquivos e ideias.

Assim, o argumento final de Barbrook em seu livro é que os futuros imaginários nos quais acreditamos há 45 anos precisam ser reformulados, pois se baseiam numa utopia tecnológica. “A internet é uma ferramenta útil, não uma tecnologia redentora”, defende ele. “Damos poder demais à tecnologia, e assim ignoramos que nós mesmos somos seus criadores e podemos intervir no futuro como quisermos.” Para o autor, esse fetichismo tecnológico deve ser combatido.

O futuro para Barbrook, portanto, deve se pautar não pela tecnologia, mas pelos seres humanos. “Só poderemos fazer algo concreto a respeito do futuro quando tomarmos consciência de que ele pode ser diferente do que aquilo que nos é oferecido.”

Futuros imaginários: das máquinas pensantes à aldeia global
Richard Barbrook
São Paulo, 2009, Peirópolis
448 páginas – R$ 58,00
Tel: (11) 3816-0699
O livro também está disponível para download em formato PDF:
http://futurosimaginarios.midiatatica.info/futuros_imaginarios.pdf

Isabela Fraga
Ciência Hoje On-line
28/04/2009

34) Uma 'pequena' bibliografia para leitura e notas

2009-04-28T01:41:00.002-04:00

A lista abaixo é antiga, muito antiga. Eu a elaborei entre o final de 1971 e o início de 1972, para leituras sistemáticas e notas completas, o que obviamente não fiz. Mas li muitos deles, e completei vários cadernos de leituras, conforme post já colocado neste mesmo blog; ver: 17) Meus cadernos de leitura (1971-1983); neste link.
Fica o registro...

Bibliographie
[Programa de estudos, organizado sob forma de lista de leituras no campo das ciências sociais]

* indica as obras próprias

I. ANTHROPOLOGIE
A. Anthropologie et Ethnologie

1. Poirier, J. (ed) Ethnologie Générale *
2. Maus, M. Sociologie et Anthropologie
3. -- Essais de Sociologie *
4. -- Manuel d’Ethnographie *
5. Malinowski, B. La Sexualité et sa Repression dans les Sociétés Primitives *
6. -- Une Théorie Scientifique de la Culture *
7. -- Trois Essais sur la Vie Sociale des Primitifs
8. -- The Dynamics of Culture Change
9. -- Argonautes du Pacifique Occidental
10. -- La Vie Sexuelle des Sauvages du Nord-Ouest de la Mélanesie
11. Kardiner, A. L’Individu dans sa Société
12. -- et Preble, E. Introduction à l’Ethnologie *
13. Herskovits, M.J. Les Bases de l’Anthropologie Culturelle *
14. Dunn, L.C. et Dobzhansky, T. Heredity, Race and Society
15. Mead, M. Continuities in Cultural Evolution
16. -- (ed) Cultural Patterns and Technical Change
17. Lévi-Strauss, C. Le Totémisme Aujourd’hui
18. -- Tristes Tropiques
19. Lévy-Bruhl La Mythologie Primitive
20. Linton, R. The Man
21. -- Le Fondement Culturel de la Personnalité
22. Cazeneuve, J. L’Ethnologie *
23. Shapiro, H. Race Mixture
24. Bastide, R. Anthropologie Appliquée *
25. Sapir, E. Anthropologie *
26. Darwin, C.R. Théorie de l’Evolution
27. Morgan, L.H. Ancienty Society
28. Engels, F. L’Origine de la Famille, de la Propriété Privée et de l’Etat *
29. Childe, G. De la Pré-histoire à l’Histoire *
30. Chamla, M.C. L’Anthropologie Biologique
31. Shalins, M. (ed) Evolution and Culture
32. Lowie, R. Traité de Sociologie Primitive *
33. -- Histoire de l’Ethnologie Classique *
34. Harroy, J.-P. Economie des Peuples sans Machinisme *
35. Maquet, J. Pouvoir et Société en Afrique *
36. Davidson, B. Les Africains: introduction a l’Histoire d’une Culture *
37. Ribeiro, D. O Processo Civilizatório *
38. -- As Américas e a Civilização *
39. -- Os Indios e a Civilização *
40. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Anthropologie Sociale
41. -- La Religion des Primitifs
42. Desroche, H. Sociologies Religieuses
43. Roheim, G. Magie et Schizofrenie
44. Redfield, R. Peasant Society and Culture
45. White, L. The Science of Culture
46. -- The Evolution of Culture: the development of civilization to the Fall of Rome
47. Wittfogel, K. Oriental Despotism: a comparative study of total power
48. Terray, E. Le Marxisme devant les Sociétés Primitives
49. Lanternari, V. Les Mouvements Religieux des Peuples Opprimés
50. Muhlmann, W.E. Messianismes Révolutionnaires du Tiers Monde
51. Queiroz, M.I.P.de Réforme et Révolution dans les sociétés Traditionnelles
52. Harris, M. Patterns of Race in the Americas
53. Steward, J.H. et Faron, L.C. Native Peoples of South America
54. Kroeber, A.L. Cultural and Native Areas of Native South America
55. Fanon, F. Peau Noire, Masques Blancs *

B. Linguistique
56. Martinet, A. Elements de Linguistique Générale *
57. -- La Linguistique Synchronique
58. Sapir, E. Le Langage
59. Benveniste, E. Problèmes de Linguistique Générale
60. Wartburg et Ulmann Problèmes et Méthodes de la Linguistique
61. Chomsky, N. Le Langage et la Pensée
62. Vendryes, J. Le Langage
63. Lefebvre, H. Le Langage et la Société
64. Cohen, M. Matériaux pour une Sociologie du Langage
65. Schaff, A. Introduction à la Sémantique
66. -- Langage et Connaissance

II. SOCIOLOGIE
A. Théorie Sociologique

67. Spencer, H. Principles of Sociology
68. Weber, M. Economie et Société
69. -- L’Ethique Protestante et l’Esprit du Capitalisme
70. -- Le Savant et le Politique *
71. Freyer, H. Introduction à la Sociologie
72. Adorno et Horkheimer La Société
73. Durkheim, E. De la Division du Travail Social
74. -- Les Règles de la Méthode Sociologique
75. -- Les Formes Elémentaires de la Vie Religieuse
76. Parsons, T. The Social System
77. Merton, R.K. Social Theory and Social Structure
78. Moore, W. Economy and Society
79. Dahrendorf, R. Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society
80. Cornu, R. et Lagneau, J. Hierarchie et Classes Sociales *
81. Ossowski, S. Class Structure in the Social Consciousness
82. Mendras, H. Elements de Sociologie
83. Bouthol, G. Les Structures Sociologiques
84. -- Histoire de la Sociologie
85. Balandier, G. Sociologie des Mutations
86. -- (ed) Perspectives de la Sociologie Contemporaine`
87. Gurvitch, G. La Vocation Actuelle de la Sociologie
88. Duverger, M. Sociologie Politique *
89. Bottomore, T.B. and Rubel, M. Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy *
90. Morin, E. et alii Marxisme et Sociologie
91. Mills, C.W. The Sociological Imagination *
92. -- The Power Elite *
93. -- White Collar
94. -- and Gerth, H. Character and Social Structure
95. Cardoso, F.H. e Ianni, O. (ed) Homem e Sociedade *
96. Cazeneuve, J. Sociologie de Marcel Mauss
97. Ortega y Gasset, J. La Révolte des Masses
98. Rocher, G. Introduction à la Sociologie Générale *
99. Duvignaud, J. Introduction à la Sociologie *
100. Janne, H. Le Système Social *
101. Aron, R. Les Etapes de la Pensée Sociologique *
102. -- Dix-Huit Leçons sur la Société Industrielle *
103. -- La Lutte de Classes *
104. -- Démocratie et Totalitarisme *
105. -- Dimensions de la Conscience Historique
106. -- L’Opium des Intelectuels *

B. Sociologie et Développement

107. Touraine, A. Essais de Sociologie du Développement
108. Moore, W. Les Changements Sociaux
109. Hagen, E. On the Theory of Social Change
110. Germani, G. Politique et Société
111. Chombart de Lawe, P.H. (ed) Aspirations et Transformations Sociales
112. Calvez, J.-Y. Aspects Politiques et sociaux des Pays enVoie de Développement
113. Costa Pinto, A. Sociologia e Desenvolvimento *
114. -- La Sociologia del Cambio y el Cambio de la Sociologia
115. Aldana, R.L. Dialectica del Subdesarrollo *
116. Jaguaribe, H. Desenvolvimento Econômico e Desenvolvimento Político *
117. Silberstein, E. Dialectica, Economia y Desarrollo *
118. Baran, P. The Political Economy of Growth *
119. Clairmont, F. Le Libéralisme Economique et les Pays Sous-développés
120. Stavenhagen, R. Les Classes Sociales dans les Sociétés Agraires *

III. ECONOMIE
A. Economie Politique

121. Turgot Ecrits Economiques
122. Malthus Principes d’Economie Politique *
123. Say, J.-B. Cours d’Economie Politique
124. Quesnay, F. Tableau Economique
125. Ricardo, D. Principes d’Economie Politique et de l’Impôt *
126. Marx, K. Contribution à la Critique de l’Economie Politique *
127. -- Fondements de la Critique de l’Economie Politique (Grundrisse) *
128. -- Le Capital *
129. Hilferding, R. Le Capital Financier
130. Luxembourg, R. Introduction à l’Economie Politique *
131. -- L’Accumulation de Capital *
132. Lénine, V.I. L’Impérialisme, Stade Suprême du Capitalisme *
133. Boukharine, N. L’Economie Mondiale et l’Impérialisme
134. -- L’Economie Politique du Rentier
135. Marchal, A. Systèmes et Structures Economiques
136. Veblen, T. Théorie de la Classe de Loisir *
137. Keynes, J.M. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
138. Robinson, J. An Essay on Marxian Economics *
139. Sweezy, P.M. The Theory of Capitalist Development *
140. -- and Baran, P. The Monopoly Capital *
141. Dobb, M. Studies in the Development of Capitalism *
142. Galbraith, J.K. The Affluent Society
143. -- The New Industrial State *
144. Mandel, E. Traité d’Economie Marxiste *
145. Lange, O. Moderna Economia Política *
146. Leontyev, L. A Short Course of Political Economy *
147. Rivière, M. Economie Bourgeoise et Pensée Technocratique *
148. Godelier, M. Rationalité et Irrationalité en Economie *
149. Bettelheim, C. Calcul Economique et Formes de Propriété *
150. Nagel, J. Genèse, Contenu et Prolongements de la Notion de Réproduction du Capital selon Karl Marx, Boisguillebert, Quesnay, Leontyev *
151. Samuelson, P. Economics *
152. Latouche, R. Les Origines de l’Economie Occidentale
153. Pirenne, H. Histoire Economique et Sociale du Moyen Age
154. Huizinga, P. Le Déclin du Moyen Age
155. Leon, P. Economies et Sociétés Pré-Industrielles *
156. Zubritsky, Y et alii A Short History of Pre-capitalist Societies *
157. Cipolla, C.M. Histoire Economique de la Population Mondiale
158. Morgan, E.V. A History of Money
159. Sée, H. Les Origines du Capitalisme Moderne
160. Schumpeter, J.A. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy *
161. Varga, E. Twentieth Century Capitalism *
162. -- Politico-Economic Problems of Capitalism *
163. Delilez, J.P. Les Monopoles: essai sur le Capital Financier et l’Accumulation Monopoliste
164. Brooman, F.S. Macroeconomics *

B. Economie et Développement

165. Bauner, P.T. and Yamey, B.S. The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries
166. Baran, P. The Political Economy of Growth *
167. Furtado, C. Théorie du Développement Economique *
168. Myint, H. The Economics of Developing Countries *
169. Albertini, J.-M. Les Mécanismes du Sous-développement *
170. Falkowski Les Problèmes de la Croissance du Tiers Monde
171. Palloix, C. Problèmes de Croissance en Economie Ouverte
172. Aldana, R.L. Dialectica del Subdesarrollo *
173. Silberstein, E. Dialectica, Economia y Desarrollo
174. Feinstein, C.H. Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth
175. Moussa, P. Les Nations Prolétaires
176. Gendarme, R. La Pauvreté des Nations
177. Clairmont, F. Le Libéralisme Economique et les Pays Sous-développés
178. Dobb, M. Croissance Economique et Sous-développement
179. Nurkse, R. Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries
180. Myrdal, G. Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Countries
181. -- Le Défi du Monde Pauvre *
182. Zimmerman, J.L. Poor Lands, Rich Lands: the widening gap *
183. Hirschmann, A.O. Stratégie du Développement Economique
184. Clark, C. Les Conditions du Progrès Economique
185. Hoselitz, B.F. (ed) Sociological Factors in Economic Development
186. -- (ed) Théories de la Croissance Economique
187. Rostow, W.W. The Stages of Economic Growth: a non-communist manifesto
188. Viana, C.B. Dinâmica do Desenvolvimento Econômico *
189. Costa Pinto, A. Desenvolvimento Econômico e Transição Social
190. -- e Bazzanella, W. Implicações Sociais do Desenvolvimento Econômico
191. Jaguaribe, H. Desenvolvimento Econômico e Desenvolvimento Político *
192. Akkache, A. Capitaux Etrangers et Libération Economique *
193. Amin, S. L’Accumulation à l’Echelle Mondiale *
194. Emmanuel, A. L’Echange Inégal *
195. Granier, R. Rythmes de Croissance et Inégalités Internationales de Développement
196. Perroux, F. L’Economie des Jeunes Nations
197. Makalou, O. L’Equilibre Budgétaire dans les Pays en Voie de Développement
198. Morrisson, C. La Répartition des Revenus dans les Pays du Tiers-Monde
199. Bairoch, P. Révolution Industrielle et Sous-Développement
200. -- Diagnostic de l’Evolution Economique du Tiers-Monde
201. -- Le Tiers-Monde dans l’Impasse *
202. Bhagwati, J. L’Economie des Pays Sous-Développés
203. Borel, P. Les Trois Révolutions du Développement
204. Lacoste, Y. Géographie du Sous-Développement

C. Planification et Economie Socialiste

205. Sorokin, G. La Planificación de la Economie de la URSS *
206. Dumont et Mazoyer Développement et Socialisme
207. Bettelheim, C. Problèmes Théoriques et Pratiques de la Planification *
208. -- Planification et Croissance Accélérée *
209. -- La Transition vers l’Economie Socialiste *
210. -- , Charrière, J. et Marchisio, H. La Construction du Socialisme en Chine *
211. Brus, W. Problèmes Généraux du Fonctionnement de l’Economie Socialiste *
212. Lewis, W.A. The Principles of Economic Planning *
213. Efimov, A y Anchiskin A. La Planificación Económica *
214. -- Economia, Gestión, Plan *
215. Dobrowski, C. Les Pays Sous-Développés au Seuil de la Planification
216. Lange, O. Quelques Problèmes de Planification dans les Pays Sous-Développés

IV. POLITIQUE
A. Théorie Politique

217. Macchiavel, N. Le Prince *
218. Montesquieu De l’Esprit des Lois
219. Rousseau, J.-J. Du Contrat Social
220. Parkinson, C.N. L’Evolution de la Pensée Politique
221. Mosca, G. et Bouthoul G. Histoire des Doctrines Politiques
222. Bouthoul G. Sociologie de la Politique
223. Barrington Moore Jr. Les Origines Sociales de la Dictature et de la Démocratie
224. Vachet, A. L’Idéologie Libérale
225. Poulantzas, N. Pouvoir Politique et Classes Sociales *
226. Duverger, M. Introduction à la Politique
227. -- Sociologie Politique
228. -- Institutions Politiques et Droit Constitutionnel *
229. -- Evolution des Structures de l’Etat
230. Sorokin, P. Sociology of Revolutions *
231. Cobban, A. Dictatorship: its History and Theory
232. Reuter, P. Droit International Public
233. Tocqueville, A. De la Démocratie en Amérique
234. Bottomore, T.B. Critique de la Société
235. -- The Elites and Society *
236. Lerner, D. and Lasswell H.D. The Revolutionary Elites
237. -- (ed) The Policy Sciences
238. Marx, K. Le Dix-Huit Brumaire de Louis Bonaparte *
239. Lénine, V.I. L’Etat et la Révolution *
240. Malaparte, C. Technique du Coup d’Etat
241. Gorz, A. Réforme et Révolution
242. Pasunakis, E. La Théorie Générale du Droit et le Marxisme *
243. Lefebvre, H. et Craipear, Y. Les Marxistes et la Notion de l’Etat *

B. Politique et Développement

244. Coleman, J.S. The Politics of Developing Areas
245. Shil, E. Political Development in New States
246. Bosc, R. Le Tiers Monde dans la Politique Internationale
247. Calvez, J.-Y. Aspects Politiques et Sociaux des Pays en Voie de Développement
248. Germani, G. Politique et Société
249. Jaguaribe, H. Desenvolvimento Econômico e Desenvolvimento Político *
250. Johnson, J.J. Political Change: emergence of the middle sectors in Latin America *
251. Baechler, J. Les Phénomènes Révolutionnaires

V. MARXISME
A. Le Marxisme

252. Hegel, W.F. Principes de Philosophie du Droit
253. -- Leçons sur la Philosophie de l’Histoire *
254. Feuerbach, L. Critique de la Philosophie Hégelienne
255. -- L’Essence du Christianisme
256. -- Thèses Préliminaires à la Réforme de la Philosphie
257. Marx, K. Critique de la Philosophie du Droit de Hegel *
258. -- Manuscrits de 1844 *
259. -- Misère de la Philosophie *
260. -- Travail Salarié et Capital *
261. -- Les Luttes de Classes en France (1848-1850) *
262. -- Le Dix-Huit Brumaire de Louis Bonaparte *
263. -- Contribution à la Critique de l’Economie Politique *
264. -- Fondements de la Critique de l’Economie Politique (Grundrisse) *
265. -- Salaire, Prix et Profit *
266. -- Le Capital *
267. -- La Guerre Civile en France *
268. Marx, K. et Engels, F. La Sainte Famille
269. -- L’Idéologie Allemande *
270. -- Manifeste du Parti Communiste *
271. -- Critique des Programmes de Gotha et Erfurt *
272. Engels, F. La Situation de la Classe Laborieuses en Angleterre
273. -- La Guerre Paysanne en Allemagne *
274. -- Révolution et Contre-Révolution en Allemagne *
275. -- La Question du Logement *
276. -- Anti-Dühring *
277. -- Socialisme Utopique et Socialisme Scientifique *
278. -- Le Rôle de la Violence dans l’Histoire *
279. -- Dialectique de la Nature *
280. -- L’Origine de la Famille, de la Propriété Privée et de l’Etat *
281. -- Ludwig Feuerbach et la Fin de la Philosophie Classique Allemande *
282. Lénine, V.I. Les Amis du Peuple *
283. -- Tâches de Social-Démocrates Russes *
284. -- Le Développement du Capitalisme en Russie *
285. -- Que Faire ? *
286. -- Un Pas en Avant, Deux Pas en Arrière *
287. -- Matérialisme et Empiro-Criticisme *
288. -- L’Impérialisme, Stade Suprême du Capitalisme *
289. -- L’Etat et la Révolution *
290. -- La Catastrophe Imminente et les Moyens de la Conjurer *
291. -- La Révoltion Prolétarienne et le Rénégat Kautsky *
292. -- Deux Tactiques de la Social-Démocratie *
293. -- La Maladie Infantile du Communisme: le Gauchisme *
294. Trotsky, L. Terrorisme et Communisme *
295. -- La Révoltion Permanente *
296. -- Histoire de la Révolution Russe *
297. -- Lénine
298. -- Les Crimes de Staline
299. -- La Révolution Trahie *
300. -- L’Ecole Stalinienne de Falsification
301. -- Ma Vie
302. Boukharine, N. L’Economie Mondiale et l’Impérialisme
303. -- L’Economie Politique de la Période de Transition
304. -- L’Economie Politique du Rentiers
305. -- Théorie du Matérialisme Historique
306. -- et Préobajenski, E. L’ABC du Communisme
307. Préobajenski, E. Anarchisme eet Communisme
308. -- La Nouvelle Economie
309. Luxembourg, R. Réforme ou Révolution *
310. -- Centralisme et Démocratie
311. -- Introduction à l’Economie Politique *
312. -- L’Accumulation du Capital *
313. -- La Crise de la Social-Démocratie
314. -- La Révolution Russe *
315. Staline, J. Le Marxisme et la Question Natinale
316. -- Les Principes du Léninisme
317. -- Le Communisme et la Russie *
318. -- Le Matérialisme Dialectique et le Matérialisme Historique
319. -- Les Problèmes Economiques du Socialisme en URSS
320. Gramsci, A. Le Matérialisme Historique et la Philosophie de Benedetto Croce
321. -- Les Intellectuels et l’Organisation de la Culture
322. -- Notes sur Macchiavel, la Politique et l’Etat Moderne
323. -- Littérature et Vie Nationale
324. Lukacs, G. Histoire et Conscience de Classe
325. -- Lénine
326. -- Existentialisme ou Marxisme
327. -- La Destruction de la Raison
328. Bravo, G.M. Les Socialistes avant Marx
329. Garaudy, R. La Pensée de Hegel
330. Arvon, H. Ludwig Feuerbach ou la Transformation du Sacré
331. -- Michel Bakounine *
332. Guérin, D. L’Anarchisme
333. -- Ni Dieu, ni Maître: anthologie de l’anarchisme
334. Angels, P. Edouard Bernstein et l’Evolution du Socialisme Allemand
335. Badia, G. Les Spartakistes
336. Proudhon, P.-J. Philosophie de la Misère *
337. Bakounine, M. L’Etat et l’Anarchie
338. Blanc, L. L’Organisation du Travail
339. Lassale, F. Lettres Sociales
340. Bebel, A. La Femme dans le Passé, le Présent et l’Avenir
341. Lafargue, P. Le Communisme et l’Evolution Economique
342. -- Le Droit à la Paresse *
343. Plekhanov, G. Essai sur le Développement de la Conception Moniste de l’Histoire *
344. Labriola, A. Essai sur la Conception Matérialiste de l’Histoire
345. Kautsky, K. La Question Agraire
346. Bernstein, E. Socialisme Théorique et Social-Démocratie Pratique *
347. Rubel, M. Pages de Karl Marx
348. Lefebvre, H. et Guterman, N. Marx, Oeuvres Choisies *

B. Sur le Marxisme

349. Lowy, M. La Théorie de la Révolution chez le Jeune Marx *
350. Lefebvre, H. Pour Connaître la Pensée de Karl Marx *
351. -- Problèmes Actuels du Marxisme
352. -- La Pensée de Lénine
353. Kucinem O. et alii Les Principes du Marxisme-Léninisme
354. Schaff, A. Le Marxisme et l’Individu
355. Piettre, A. Marx et Marxisme
356. Bigo, P. Marxisme et Humanisme
357. Ansart, H. Marx et l’Anarchisme
358. Desroche, H. Marxisme et Religions
359. Sebag, L. Marxisme et Structuralisme
360. Mandel, E. La Formation de la Pensée Economique de Karl Marx *
361. Calvez, J.-Y. La Pensée de Karl Marx *
362. Althusser, L. Pour Marx *
363. -- et alii Lire le Capital *
364. Botigelli, E. La Genèse du Socialisme Scientifique
365. Goldmann, L. Marxisme et Sciences Humaines *
366. Rosental, M. Les Problèmes de la Dialectique dans le Capital de Marx
367. Morin, E. et alii Marxisme et Sociologie
368. Avineri, S. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx *
369. Aron, R. Marxismes Imaginaires
370. Riazanov, D. Marx, l’Homme et Penseur Révolutionnaire
371. Marcuse, H. Le Marxisme Soviétique
372. Politzer, G. Principes Elémentaires de Philosophie *
373. Garaudy, R. Marxisme du XX Siècle
374. -- Karl Marx
375. Berlin, I. Karl Marx: sa vie et son oeuvre
376. Afanasiev, V. Marxist Philosophy *
377. Cornu, A. Karl Marx et F. Engels, leur vie et leur oeuvre
378. Fischer, L. Lénine
379. Fröhlich, P. Rosa Luxembourg
380. Deutscher, I. Trotsky *
381. -- Staline *

VI. NAZI-FASCISME

382. Milza, P. Fascismes et Idéologies Révolutionnaires en Europe (1919-1945)
383. Paris, R. Histoire du Fascisme en Italie
384. Berstein, S. et Milza, P. L’Italie Fasciste
385. Shirer, W.P. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
386. Guérin, D. La Peste Brune *
387. -- Fascisme et Grand Capital *
388. Bettelheim, C. L’Economie Allemande sous le Nazisme *
389. Poulantzas, N. Fascisme et Dictature: la III Internationale face au Fascisme *
390. Neumann, F. The Democratic and the Authoritarian State
391. Castellan, G. L’Allemagne deWeimar, 1918-1933
392. Nenni, P. Vingt Ans de Fascismes
393. Friedlander, S. L’Antisemitisme Nazi *
394. Richards, L. Nazisme et Littérature *

VII. IMPERIALISME ET TIERS MONDE
A. Le Système Mondial

395. Marx, K. and Engels, F. On Colonialism *
396. Lénine, V.I. L’Impérialisme, Stade Suprême du Capitalisme *
397. Boukharine, N. L’Economie Mondiale et l’Impérialisme
398. Varga, E. Problemas Fundamentales de la Economia y de la Politica del Imperialismo *
399. Vajrushev, V. La Politica Colonial del Imperialismo en el Postguerra *
400. Luraghi, R. Ascesa e Tramonto del Colonialismo *
401. Struzz-Hupe, R. and Hazard, H.N. (eds) The Idea of Colonialism
402. Williams, E. Capitalism and Slavery *
403. Gang, P. y Reiche, R. Modelos de la Revolución Colonial
404. Callello, H. Ideologia y Neocolonialismo
405. Magdoff, H. The Age of Imperialism *
406. Caputo, O. y Pizarro, R. Imperialismo, Dependencia y Relaciones Internacionales
407. Jalée, P. Le Pillage du Tiers-Monde *
408. -- Le Tiers Monde dans l’Economie Mondiale *
409. -- L’Impérialisme en 1970 *
410. -- Le Tiers-Monde en Chiffres *
411. Lacoste, Y. Géographie du Sous-Développement
412. Fanon, F. Les Damnés de la Terre *
413. Thayer, G. The War Business
414. Barber, W.F. International Security and Military Power
415. Schoell, F.L. Histoire des Etats-Unis
416. Julien, C. L’Empire Américain *
417. Monteiro, S. Como Atua o Imperialismo Ianque *
418. Horowitz, I.L. The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot
419. Schram, S. et Carrère, H. Le Marxisme et l’Asie, 1853-1964
420. Chesneaux, J. L’Asie Orientale aux XIX et XXe siècles
421. -- et Lust, J. Introduction aux Etudes de Histoire Contemporaine de Chine
422. Garaudy, R. Le Problème Chinois
423. Doan, T. L’Edification d’une Economie Nationale Indépendante au Vietnam *
424. Lê Châu Le Vietnam Socialiste: une economie en transition *
425. Sung, K.I. La Edificación de la Economia Socialista en la Republica Popular Democratica de Corea *

B. L’Afrique

426. Cornevin, R. Histoire de l’Afrique *
427. Deschamps, H. (ed) Histoire Générale de l’Afrique Noire
428. Boschere, G. Autopsie de la Colonisation
429. -- Perspectives de la Décolonisation
430. Grimal, H. La Décolonisation
431. Berstein, S. La Décolonisation et ses Problèmes
432. Benot, Y. L’Idéologie des Indépendances Africaines
433. Merle, M. L’Afrique Noire Contemporaine
434. Kamarck, A.M. The Economics of African Development
435. Herskovits, M.J. and Harwitz, M. Economic Transition in Africa
436. Robinson, E.A.G. Economic Development for Africa South of the Sahara
437. Hunter, G. The New Societies of Tropical Africa
438. Afana, O. L’Economie de l’Ouest Africain
439. Lloyd, P. (ed) The New Elites of Tropical Africa
440. Ziegler, J. Sociologie de la Nouvelle Afrique *
441. Balandier, G. Sociologie Actuelle de l’Afrique Noire
442. N’Krumah, K. Africa Must Unite
443. -- Neo-colonialism, the last stage of Imperialism *
444. Laroui, A. L’Histoire du Maghreb
445. -- L’Idéologie Arabe Contemporaine *
446. Comhaire-Sylvain, S. et J. Le Nouveau Dossier Afrique *

C. L’Amérique Latine

447. Furtado, C. Formação Eeconômica da América Latina *
448. -- Subdesenvolvimento e Estagnação na América Latina *
449. -- Les Etats-Unis et le Sous-Développement de l’Amérique Latine *
450. Lambert, J. L’Amérique Latine, structures sociales et institutions politiques *
451. Léon, P. Economies et Sociétés de l’Amérique Latine *
452. Cardoso, F.H. Sociologie du Développement en Amérique Latine *
453. -- Política e Desenvolvimento em Sociedades Dependentes: Ideologias do empresariado industrial argentino e brasileiro *
454. -- et Falletto, E. Dependência e Desenvolvimento na América Latina *
455. Zeitlin, M. and Petras, J. Latin America, Reform or Revolution ? *
456. Birou, A. Forces Paysannes et Politiques Agraires en Amérique Latine *
457. Herzog, J.S. La Révolution Mexicaine
458. Casanova P.G. La Démocratie au Mexique *
459. Liewen, E. Arms and Politics in Latin America
460. -- Generals vs Presidents *
461. Munro, D.G. The Latin America Republics: a History
462. Alexander, R. Organized Labor in Latin America *
463. Edelman, A.T. Latin America: government and politics
464. Horowitz, I.L., Castro, J. de and Gerassi J. (eds) Latin America Radicalism
465. Veliz, C. The Politics of Conformity in Latin America
466. -- (ed) Latin America and the Caribbean
467. Romeo, C. Les Classes Sociales in Latin America
468. Frank, A.G. Capitalisme et Sous-Développement en Amérique Latine *
469. -- Le Développement du Sous-Développement: l’Amérique Latine *
470. -- Lumpen-bourgeoisie et Lumpen-développement *
471. Jaguaribe, H. Problemas do Desenvolvimento Latino-Americano *
472. Madariaga, S. de L’Empire Espagnol d’ Amérique
473. Hearing, C.H. The Spanish Empire in America
474. Atkinson, W.-C. Histoire d’Espagne et du Portugal
475. Beneyto, J. Historia Social de España y de Hispanoamerica
476. Bagu, S. Estructura Social de la Colonia
477. Alexander, R. Today’s Latin America
478. Beals, C. L’Amérique Latine: monde en révolution
479. Adams, R.N. et alii Social Changes in Latin America Today *
480. Pedrosa, M. A Opção Imperialista *
481. Huberman, L., Sweezy, P. et alii Où Va l’Amérique Latine ?
482. Niedergang, M. Les 20 Amériques Latines
483. CEPAL Problemas y Perspectivas del Desarrollo Industrial Latinoamericano *
484. Johnson, J.J. Political Change: emergence of the middle sectors in Latin America *
485. -- The Military and Society in Latin America *
486. -- et alii The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries *
487. Cunil, L’Amérique Andine
488. Hargons, S. Les Oubliés des Andes
489. Mariategui, J.C. Sept Essais d’Interprétation de la Réalité Péruvienne *
490. Borricaud, F. Pouvoir et Société dans le Pérou Contemporain *
491. Villanueva, V. Nueva Mentalidad Militar en el Peru ? *
492. Pumaruna-Letts, R. Pérou: révolution socialiste ou caricature de révolution ? *
493. Melaffe, R. La Esclavitud en Hispanoamerica
494. Mörner, M. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America *
495. Tannenbaum, F. Slave and citizen: the negro in the Americas
496. Comas, J. Ensaios sobre el Indigenismo
497. Ballesteros y Cabrois, M. y Suarez, J.U. El Indigenismo Americano
498. Fell, E.M. El Indigenismo
499. Ribeiro, D. As Américas e a Civilização *
500. Kroeber, A.L. Cultural and Natural Areas of Native South America
501. Romanova, Z. A Expansão Econômica dos Estados Unidos na América Latina *
502. Alba, V. El Militarismo: ensayo sobre un fenomeno politico-social iberoamericano

C. Le Brésil

503. Sodré, N.W. Formação Histórica do Brasil *
504. -- Introdução à Revolução Brasileira *
505. -- História Militar do Brasil *
506. -- História da Burguesia Brasileira *
507. Furtado, C. Formação Econômica do Brasil *
508. -- Um Projeto para o Brasil *
509. -- (ed) Brasil, Tempos Modernos *
510. Prado Jr., C. História Econômica do Brasil *
511. -- Evolução Política do Brasil
512. -- Formação do Brasil Contemporâneo *
513. -- A Revolução Brasileira *
514. Fernandes, F. A Integração do Negro à Sociedade de Classes
515. -- Sociedade de Classes e Subdesenvolvimento *
516. Ianni, O. Industrialização e Desenvolvimento Social no Brasil
517. -- O Colapso do Populismo no Brasil *
518. -- As Metamorfoses do Escravo
519. Singer, P. Desenvolvimento e Crise *
520. -- Dinâmica Populacional e Desenvolvimento
521. Cardoso, F.H. Capitalismo e Escravidão no Brasil Meridional
522. Buarque de Holanda, S. Raízes do Brasil
523. Basbaum, L. Historia Sincera da República *
524. Freyre, G. Casa Grande e Senzala
525. Viotti, E. Da Senzala à Colônia
526. Wagley, C. Races and Class in Brazil
527. Carneiro, E. Ladinos e Crioulos
528. Lambert, J. Le Brésil
529. Bastide, R. Sociologie du Brésil
530. Mota, C.G. (ed) Brasil em Perspectiva *
531. Pedrosa, M. A Opção Brasileira *
532. Arraes, M. Le Brésil, le peuple et le pouvoir *
533. Luz, N.V. A Luta pela Industrialização do Brasil
534. Pereira, L. Trabalho e Desenvolvimento no Brasil *
535. Martins, L. Industrialização, Burguesia Nacional e Desenvolvimento *
536. Rodrigues, L.M. Conflito Industrial e Sindicalismo no Brasil *
537. Viana, C.R. Estratégia do Desenvolvimento Brasileiro *
538. Guilherme, W. Introdução ao Estudo das Contradições Sociais no Brasil *
539. Chacon, V. História das Idéias Socialistas no Brasil *
540. Vinhas, M. Estudos sobre o Proletariado Brasileiro *
541. -- Problemas Agário-Camponeses do Brasil *
542. Melo, C. Os Ciclos Econômicos no Brasil *
543. Bandecchi, B. Origem do Latifúndio no Brasil *
544. Schilling, P.R. Brasil de los Latifundistas *
545. Guimarães, A.P. Quatro Séculos de Latifúndio *
546. -- Inflação e Monopólio no Brasil *
547. Cline, W. Economical Consequences of Land Reform in Brazil *
548. Andrade, M.C. A Terra e o Homem no Nordeste *
549. Juilão, F. Cambao (Le Joug): la face cachée du Brésil
550. Le Lannou, M. Le Brésil *
551. Monbeig, P. Le Brésil
552. Sampaio, A. Brasil: sínteses da evolução social *
553. Rodrigues, J.H. Modern History of Brazil
554. Graham, R. Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850-1914
555. Pereira, O.D. Ferro e Independência *
556. Ferreira, P. Capitais Estrangeiros e Dívida Externa do Brasil *
557. Tejo, L. Brasil, Potência Frustrada *
558. Simonsen, M.H. Brasil 2001 *

[Bruxelas, dezembro 1971-janeiro 1972, 19 pp.]
[Relação de Trabalhos n° 010]

33) Cem notáveis livros de 2008

2008-12-08T07:25:00.002-04:00

Holiday Books: 100 Notable Books of 2008
The New York Times Book Review, December 7, 2008

The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since Dec. 2, 2007, when we published our previous Notables list.

Fiction & Poetry
AMERICAN WIFE. By Curtis Sittenfeld. (Random House, $26.) The life of this novel’s heroine — a first lady who comes to realize, at the height of the Iraq war, that she has compromised her youthful ideals — is conspicuously modeled on that of Laura Bush.

ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. By Rivka Galchen. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) The psychiatrist-narrator of this brainy, whimsical first novel believes that his beautiful, much-younger Argentine wife has been replaced by an exact double.

BASS CATHEDRAL. By Nathaniel Mackey. (New Directions, paper, $16.95.) Mackey’s fictive world is an insular one of musicians composing, playing and talking jazz in the private language of their art.

BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN. By Charles Bock. (Random House, $25.) This bravura first novel, set against a corruptly compelling Las Vegas landscape, revolves around the disappearance of a surly 12-year-old boy.

BEIJING COMA. By Ma Jian. Translated by Flora Drew. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.50.) Ma’s novel, an important political statement, looks at China through the life of a dissident paralyzed at Tiananmen Square.

A BETTER ANGEL: Stories. By Chris Adrian. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) For Adrian — who is both a pediatrician and a divinity student — illness and a heightened spiritual state are closely related conditions.

BLACK FLIES. By Shannon Burke. (Soft Skull, paper, $14.95.) A rookie paramedic in New York City is overwhelmed by the horrors of his job in this arresting, confrontational novel, informed by Burke’s five years of experience on city ambulances.

THE BLUE STAR. By Tony Earley. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) The caring, thoughtful hero of Earley’s engrossing first novel, “Jim the Boy,” is now 17 and confronting not only the eternal turmoil of love, but also venality and the frightening calls of duty and war.

THE BOAT. By Nam Le. (Knopf, $22.95.) In the opening story of Le’s first collection, a blocked writer succumbs to the easy temptations of “ethnic lit.”

BREATH. By Tim Winton. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Surfing offers this darkly exhilarating novel’s protagonist an escape from a drab Australian town.

DANGEROUS LAUGHTER: Thirteen Stories. By Steven Millhauser. (Knopf, $24.) In his latest collection, Millhauser advances his chosen themes — the slippery self, the power of hysterical young people — with even more confidence and power than before.

DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES. By Jonathan Miles. (Houghton Mifflin, $22.) Miles’s fine first novel takes the form of a letter from a stranded traveler, his life a compilation of regrets, who uses the time to digress on an impressive array of cultural issues, large and small.

DIARY OF A BAD YEAR. By J. M. Coetzee. (Viking, $24.95.) Coetzee follows the late career of one Señor C, who, like Coetzee himself, is a South African writer transplanted to Australia and the author of a novel titled “Waiting for the Barbarians.”

DICTATION: A Quartet. By Cynthia Ozick. (Houghton Mifflin, $24.) In the title story of this expertly turned collection, Henry James and Joseph Conrad embody Ozick’s polarity of art and ardor.

ELEGY: Poems. By Mary Jo Bang. (Graywolf, $20.) Grief is converted into art in this bleak, forthright collection, centered on the death of the poet’s son.

THE ENGLISH MAJOR. By Jim Harrison. (Grove, $24.) A 60-year-old cherry farmer and former English teacher — an inversion of the classic Harrison hero — sets out on a trip west after being dumped by his wife.

FANON. By John Edgar Wideman. (Houghton Mifflin, $24.) Wideman’s novel — raw and astringent, yet with a high literary polish — explores the life of the psychiatrist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon.

THE FINDER. By Colin Harrison. (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A New York thriller, played out against the nasty world of global capitalism.

FINE JUST THE WAY IT IS: Wyoming Stories 3 . By Annie Proulx. (Scribner, $25.) These rich, bleak stories offer an American West in which the natural elements are murderous and folks aren’t much better.

THE GOOD THIEF . By Hannah Tinti. (Dial, $25.) In Tinti’s first novel, set in mid-19th-century New England, a con man teaches an orphan the art of the lie.

HALF OF THE WORLD IN LIGHT: New and Selected Poems. By Juan Felipe Herrera. (University of Arizona, paper, $24.95.) Herrera, known for portrayals of Chicano life, is unpredictable and wildly inventive.

HIS ILLEGAL SELF. By Peter Carey. (Knopf, $25.) In this enthralling novel, a boy goes underground with a defiant hippie indulging her maternal urge.

HOME. By Marilynne Robinson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Revisiting the events of her novel “Gilead” from another perspective, Robinson has written an anguished pastoral, at once bitter and joyful.

INDIGNATION. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) Marcus Messner is a sophomore at a small, conservative Ohio college at the time of the Korean War. The novel he narrates, like Roth’s last two, is ruthlessly economical and relentlessly deathbound.

THE LAZARUS PROJECT. By Aleksandar Hemon. (Riverhead, $24.95.) This novel’s despairing immigrant protagonist becomes intrigued with the real-life killing of a presumed anarchist in Chicago in 1908.

LEGEND OF A SUICIDE. By David Vann. (University of Massachusetts, $24.95.) In his first story collection, Vann leads the reader to vital places while exorcizing demons born from the suicide of his father.

LIFE CLASS. By Pat Barker. (Doubleday, $23.95.) Barker’s new novel, about a group of British artists overtaken by World War I, concentrates more on the turmoil of love than on the trauma of war.

LUSH LIFE. By Richard Price. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Chandler — and Bellow, too — peeps out from Price’s novel, in which an aspiring writer cum restaurant manager, mugged in the gentrifying Lower East Side of Manhattan, himself becomes a suspect.

A MERCY. By Toni Morrison. (Knopf, $23.95.) Summoning voices from the 17th century, Morrison performs her deepest excavation yet into America’s history and exhumes the country’s twin original sins: the importation of African slaves and the near extermination of Native Americans.

MODERN LIFE: Poems . By Matthea Harvey. (Graywolf, paper, $14.) Harvey is willing to take risks, and her reward is that richest, rarest thing, genuine poetry.

A MOST WANTED MAN . By John le Carré. (Scribner, $28.) This powerful novel, centered on a half-Russian, half-Chechen, half-crazy fugitive in Germany, swims with operatives whose desperation to avert another 9/11 provokes a slow-burning fire in every line.

MY REVOLUTIONS. By Hari Kunzru. (Dutton, $25.95.) Kunzru’s third novel is an extraordinary autumnal depiction of a failed ’60s radical.

NETHERLAND. By Joseph O’Neill. (Pantheon, $23.95.) In the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction yet about post-9/11 New York and London, the game of cricket provides solace to a man whose family disintegrates after the attacks.

OPAL SUNSET: Selected Poems, 1958-2008. By Clive James. (Norton, $25.95.) James, a staunch formalist, is firmly situated in the sociable, plain-spoken tradition that runs from Auden through Larkin.

THE OTHER. By David Guterson. (Knopf, $24.95.) In this novel from the author of “Snow Falling on Cedars,” a schoolteacher nourishes a friendship with a privileged recluse.

OUR STORY BEGINS: New and Selected Stories. By Tobias Wolff. (Knopf, $26.95.) Some of Wolff’s best work is concentrated here, revealing his gift for evoking the breadth of American experience.

THE ROAD HOME. By Rose Tremain. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) A widowed Russian emigrant, fearfully navigating the strange city of London, learns that his home village is about to be inundated.

THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF. By Victor Pelevin. Translated by Andrew Bromfield. (Viking, $25.95.) A supernatural call girl narrates Pelevin’s satirical allegory of post-Soviet, post-9/11 Russia.

THE SCHOOL ON HEART’S CONTENT ROAD. By Carolyn Chute. (Atlantic Monthly, $24.) In Chute’s first novel in nearly 10 years, disparate characters cluster around an off-the-grid communal settlement.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: A New Verse Translation. By Simon Armitage. (Norton, $25.95.) One of the eerie, exuberant joys of Middle English poetry, in an alliterative rendering that captures the original’s drive, dialect and landscape.

SLEEPING IT OFF IN RAPID CITY: Poems, New and Selected. By August Kleinzahler. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Kleinzahler seeks the true heart of places, whether repellent, beautiful or both at once.

TELEX FROM CUBA. By Rachel Kushner. (Scribner, $25.) In this multilayered first novel, international drifters try to bury pasts that include murder, adultery and neurotic meltdown, even as the Castro brothers gather revolutionaries in the hills.

2666. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, cloth and paper, $30.) The five autonomous sections of this posthumously published novel interlock to form an astonishing whole, a supreme capstone to Bolaño’s vaulting ambition.

UNACCUSTOMED EARTH. By Jhumpa Lahiri. (Knopf, $25.) In eight sensitive stories, Lahiri evokes the anxiety, excitement and transformations felt by Bengali immigrants and their American children.

THE UNFORTUNATES. By B. S. Johnson. (New Directions, $24.95.) This novel, first published in 1969, dovetails theme (the accidents of memory) with eccentric form (unbound chapters to be read in any order).

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? By Kate Atkinson. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) Jackson Brodie, the hero of Atkinson’s previous literary thrillers, takes the case of a mother and baby who suddenly disappear.

THE WIDOWS OF EASTWICK. By John Updike. (Knopf, $24.95.) In this ingenious sequel to “The Witches of Eastwick,” the three title characters, old ladies now, renew their sisterhood, return to their old hometown and contrive to atone for past crimes.

YESTERDAY’S WEATHER. By Anne Enright. (Grove, $24.) Working-class Irish characters grapple with love, marriage, confusion and yearning in Enright’s varied, if somewhat disenchanted, stories.

Nonfiction
AMERICAN LION: Andrew Jackson in the White House . By Jon Meacham. (Random House, $30.) Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, discerns a democratic dignity in the seventh president’s populism.

ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency. By Barton Gellman. (Penguin Press, $27.95.) An engrossing portrait of Dick Cheney as a master political manipulator.

BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA: The Biography of a Cause. By Tom Gjelten. (Viking, $27.95.) An NPR correspondent paints a vivid portrait of the anti-Castro clan behind the liquor empire.

THE BIG SORT: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. By Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing. (Houghton Mifflin, $25.) A journalist and a statistician see political dangers in the country’s increasing tendency to separate into solipsistic blocs.

BLOOD MATTERS: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene. By Masha Gessen. (Harcourt, $25.) Hard choices followed Gessen’s discovery that she carries a dangerous genetic mutation.

CAPITOL MEN: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen. By Philip Dray. (Houghton Mifflin, $30.) A collective biography of the pioneers of black political involvement.

THE CHALLENGE: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power. By Jonathan Mahler. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) An objective, thorough study of a landmark case for Guantánamo detainees.

CHAMPLAIN’S DREAM. By David Hackett Fischer. (Simon & Schuster, $40.) Fischer argues that France’s North American colonial success was attributable largely to one remarkable man, Samuel de Champlain.

CHASING THE FLAME: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. By Samantha Power. (Penguin Press, $32.95.) Vieira de Mello, who was killed in Iraq in 2003, embodied both the idealism and the limitations of the United Nations, which he served long and loyally.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE. An American Life: A Biography. By Elisabeth Bumiller. (Random House, $27.95.) A New York Times reporter casts a keen eye on Rice’s tenure as a policy maker, her close ties to George Bush, and her personal and professional past.

THE DARK SIDE: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. By Jane Mayer. (Doubleday, $27.50.) A New Yorker writer recounts the emergence of the widespread use of torture as a central tool in the fight against terrorism.

DELTA BLUES: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music. By Ted Gioia. (Norton, $27.95.) Gioia’s survey balances the story of the music with that of its reception.

DESCARTES’ BONES: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason. By Russell Shorto. (Doubleday, $26.) Shorto’s smart, elegant study turns the early separation of Descartes’s skull from the rest of his remains into an irresistible metaphor.

DREAMS AND SHADOWS: The Future of the Middle East. By Robin Wright. (Penguin Press, $26.95.) This fluent and intelligent book describes the struggles of people from Morocco to Iran to reform or replace long-entrenched national regimes.

THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. By Leonard Mlodinow. (Pantheon, $24.95.) This breezy crash course intersperses probabilistic mind-benders with profiles of theorists.

AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION: A Memoir. By Elizabeth McCracken. (Little, Brown, $19.99.) An unstinting account of the novelist’s emotions after the stillbirth of her first child.

FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China. By Leslie T. Chang. (Spiegel & Grau, $26.) Chang’s engrossing account delves deeply into the lives of young migrant workers in southern China.

THE FOREVER WAR. By Dexter Filkins. (Knopf, $25.) Filkins, a New York Times reporter who was embedded with American troops during the attack on Falluja, has written an account of the Iraq war in the tradition of Michael Herr’s “Dispatches.”

FREEDOM’S BATTLE: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. By Gary J. Bass. (Knopf, $35.) Bass’s book is both a history and an argument for military interventions as a tool of international justice today.

A GREAT IDEA AT THE TIME: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books. By Alex Beam. (PublicAffairs, $24.95.) The minds behind a curious project that continues to exert a hold in some quarters.

HALLELUJAH JUNCTION: Composing an American Life. By John Adams. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Adams’s wry, smart memoir stands with books by Hector Berlioz and Louis Armstrong among the most readably incisive autobiographies of major musical figures.

THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO: An American Family. By Annette Gordon-Reed. (Norton, $35.) Gordon-Reed continues her study of the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America. By Thomas L. Friedman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.95.) The Times columnist turns his attention to possible business-friendly solutions to global warming.

THE HOUSE AT SUGAR BEACH: In Search of a Lost African Childhood. By Helene Cooper. (Simon & Schuster, $25.) Cooper, a New York Times reporter who fled a warring Liberia as a child, returned to confront the ghosts of her past — and to look for a lost sister.

HOW FICTION WORKS. By James Wood. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) Concentrating on the art of the novel, the New Yorker critic presents a compact, erudite vade mecum with acute observations on individual passages and authors.

MORAL CLARITY: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists. By Susan Neiman. (Harcourt, $27.) Neiman champions Enlightenment values with no hint of oversimplification, dogmatism or misplaced piety.

THE NIGHT OF THE GUN: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own. By David Carr. (Simon & Schuster, $26.) Carr, a New York Times culture reporter, sifts through his drug- and alcohol-addicted past.

NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. By Rick Perlstein. (Scribner, $37.50.) Perlstein’s compulsively readable study holds that Nixon’s divisive and enduring legacy is the “notion that there are two kinds of Americans.”

NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF. By Julian Barnes. (Knopf, $24.95.) With no faith in an afterlife, why should an agnostic fear death? On this simple question, Barnes hangs an elegant memoir and meditation, full of a novelist’s affection for the characters who wander in and out.

NUREYEV: The Life. By Julie Kavanagh. (Pantheon, $37.50.) The son of Soviet Tatars could never get enough of anything — space, applause, money, sex — but he attracted an audience of millions to the art form he mastered.

PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. By Mark Harris. (Penguin Press, $27.95.) The best-picture nominees of 1967 were a collage of America’s psyche, and more.

THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD. By Fareed Zakaria. (Norton, $25.95.) This relentlessly intelligent examination of power focuses less on American decline than on the rise of China, trailed by India.

PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. By Dan Ariely. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.95.) Moving comfortably from the lab to broad social questions to his own life, an M.I.T. economist pokes holes in conventional market theory.

THE RACE CARD: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. By Richard Thompson Ford. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Ford vivisects every sacred cow in “post-racist” America.

RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. By Max Hastings. (Knopf, $35.) In this masterly account, Hastings describes Japanese madness eliciting American ruthlessness in the Pacific Theater.

A SECULAR AGE. By Charles Taylor. (Belknap/Harvard University, $39.95.) A philosophy professor thinks our era has been too quick to dismiss religious faith.

SHAKESPEARE’S WIFE. By Germaine Greer. (Harper/HarperCollins, $26.95.) With a polemicist’s vision and a scholar’s patience, Greer sets out to rescue Ann Hathaway from layers of biographical fantasy.

THE SUPERORGANISM: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies. By Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson. (Norton, $55.) The central conceit of this astonishing study is that an insect colony is a single animal raised to a higher level.

TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. By Linda Robinson. (PublicAffairs, $27.95.) A probing, conscientious account of strategy and tactics in post-surge Iraq.

THE TEN-CENT PLAGUE: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. By David Hajdu. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) A worthy history of the midcentury crusade against the comics industry.

THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT: The Rise of the Neocons. By Jacob Heilbrunn. (Doubleday, $26.) A journalist traces the neoconservative movement from its origins at the City College of New York in the 1940s.

THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: Death and the American Civil War. By Drew Gilpin Faust. (Knopf, $27.95.) The lasting impact of the war’s immense loss of life is the subject of this extraordinary account by Harvard’s president.

THE THREE OF US: A Family Story. By Julia Blackburn. (Pantheon, $26.) Searingly and unflinchingly, Blackburn describes an appalling upbringing at the hands of her catastrophically unfit parents.

THRUMPTON HALL: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House. By Miranda Seymour. (Harper/HarperCollins, $24.95.) Seymour’s odd and oddly affecting book instantly catapults her father into the front rank of impossible and eccentric English parents.

TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us). By Tom Vanderbilt. (Knopf, $24.95.) A surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of the human beings behind the steering wheels.

THE TRILLION DOLLAR MELTDOWN: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash. By Charles R. Morris. (PublicAffairs, $22.95.) How we got into the mess we’re in, explained briefly and brilliantly.

A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE: Rediscovering the New World. By Tony Horwitz. (Holt, $27.50.) An accessible popular history of early America, with plenty of self-tutoring and colorful reporting.

WAKING GIANT: America in the Age of Jackson. By David S. Reynolds. (Harper/HarperCollins, $29.95.) Reynolds excels at depicting the cultural, social and intellectual currents that buffeted the nation.

WHILE THEY SLEPT: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family. By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $25.) Harrison’s account brings moral clarity to the dark fate of the family of Jody Gilley, who was 16 when she survived a rampage by her brother in 1984.

WHITE HEAT: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. By Brenda Wineapple. (Knopf, $27.95.) The hitherto elusive Higginson was the poet’s chosen reader, admirer and advocate.

THE WILD PLACES. By Robert Macfarlane. (Penguin, paper, $15.) Macfarlane’s unorthodox British landscapes are furrowed with human histories and haunted by literary prophets.

THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul. By Patrick French. (Knopf, $30.) French has created a monument fully worthy of its subject, elucidating the enduring but painfully asymmetrical love triangle at the core of Naipaul’s life and work.

33) Literalmente submergido por livros...

2008-11-19T18:17:00.002-04:00

Tudo o que voce puder imaginar em matéria de livros, e até um pouco mais, está aqui:

Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php)
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

Percorri apenas como teste o sistema, buscando livros sobre o Brasil (em inglês, portanto com z) e sobre história econômica, e o volume de material livremente disponível é incomensurável.
Pode-se downloadar (perdão pelo neologismo, mas acho que este verbo já está consagrado, como deletar, e talvez googlelizar) os livros em diversos formatos: html, texto, pdf, djvu, etc.
Pode-se escolher apenas textos, ou qualquer outro tipo de suporte, pode-se também ficar nas bibliotecas americanas, ou ir para outros ambientes.
Deve dar indigestão aos muito fanáticos por livros, como eu...

Vejam o que figura na seção textos, busca de livros por kew-words:
* Printable Books
* Additional Collections
* Allen County Public Library
* American Libraries
* Ant Texts
* Arpanet
* Biblioteca Ludwig von Mises, Universidad Francisco Marroquín
* Biodiversity Heritage Library
* Birney Anti-Slavery Collection
* Books from Microfilm
* Boston College Libraries
* Boston College Library
* Boston Public Library
* Brandeis University Libraries
* Brandeis University Library
* Brown University Library
* Buddha Books
* CARLI
* California Academy of Sciences
* California Digital Library
* California Eagle [microform]
* California Fish and Game
* Canadian Libraries
* Canadiana.org
* Carleton University Library
* Caven Library, Knox College
* Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Library
* Children's Library
* Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
* Columbia University Libraries
* Computer History Museum
* Cook Books and Home Economics
* Dance Manuals
* Dickens Journals Online
* Duke University Libraries
* E.J. Pratt Library
* Earth Sciences University of Toronto
* Emmanuel College Library, Victoria University
* European Libraries
* Google books
* Harvard University
* Havergal College
* Independence Seaport Museum
* Internet Archive Books
* Italian Comedies
* James Birney Collection of Anti-Slavery Pamphlets
* John W. Graham Library, Trinity College
* Johns Hopkins University Historic Dissertations
* Library and Archives Canada
* Lycoming College
* MBLWHOI Library
* MIT Libraries
* McMaster University
* Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador
* Microsoft
* Million Book Project
* Missouri Botanical Garden
* Montana State Government Publications
* Montana State Library
* Music - University of Toronto
* NTIS Microfilm
* National Institute for Newman Studies
* National Library of Australia
* Natural History Museum Library, London
* New York Public Library
* Newspapers
* North Carolina State University Libraries
* Northeastern University Libraries
* O'Reilly
* OISE/UT Library
* Octavo
* Open Content Alliance
* Open Library Data
* Open Source Books
* Oxfam
* PALINET
* PIMS - University of Toronto
* Pacifica Radio Archives
* Prelinger Library
* Princeton Theological Seminary
* Project Gutenberg
* Reels of Microfilm
* Regional Oral History Office
* Regis College Library
* Research Library, Getty Research Institute
* Ryerson University
* Saint Mary's College of California
* San Francisco Public Library
* Sloan Foundation
* Smithsonian
* St. Mary's College of Maryland
* State Library of Massachusetts
* Telegu collection digitized by SVK
* Test books from California
* Test books from Canada
* Text Archive
* The Bancroft Library
* The Beat Within Magazine
* The Boston College Libraries
* The Boston Library Consortium
* The Burstein Alice in Wonderland Collection
* The Charles E. Young Research Library Special Collections
* The Christian Radical
* The John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library
* The Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries
* The Legislative Assembly of Ontario Collection
* The Library of Congress
* The Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University
* The New York Botanical Garden
* The San Francisco Public Library
* The Spanish Language Library
* The University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library
* Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
* Toronto Public Library
* Tufts University
* Tufts University Libraries
* UCLA Librarian
* US Government Documents
* Unica: Rare Books from UIUC
* Univ. of Mass Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library
* Universal Library
* University of Alberta Libraries
* University of California Libraries
* University of Chicago
* University of Connecticut Libraries
* University of Guelph
* University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
* University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
* University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
* University of Massachusetts, Boston
* University of Michigan Books
* University of New Hampshire Library
* University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
* University of Ottawa
* University of Pittsburgh Library System
* University of Toronto
* University of Toronto - Gerstein Science Information Centre
* University of Toronto - John M Kelly Library
* University of Toronto - Robarts Library
* University of Toronto Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library
* University of Toronto Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
* Wellesley College Library
* West Virginia University Libraries
* Williams College Library
* World Health Organization
* Yahoo!
* Yiddish Books
* independent texts
* lefevre
* the Marucs Lucero

32) Livro sobre o Brasil do AI-5 (Itamaraty, por PRA)

2008-10-27T16:24:00.004-04:00

Um novo livro na praça, do qual fui convidado a participar (sem conhecer os demais capitulos, devo dizer), hesitei muito em aceitar e acabei aceitando.
Abaixo uma informacao sumaria sobre o livro e seu lançamento, no dia 4 de novembro de 2008, no Rio de Janeiro.

Livro:
Tempo negro, temperatura sufocante: o Brasil do AI-5
Organizadores:
Oswaldo Munteal Filho, Adriano de Freixo e Jacqueline Ventapane Freitas
Rio de Janeiro: Editora da PUC-Rio e Editora Contraponto, 2008

Apresentação:
O livro é uma coletânea de artigos que discutem os impactos do Ato Institucional n. 5, decretado em 13 de dezembro de 1968, e que se tornou o mais violento dos atos institucionais. Isto ocorreu não por ele apresentar novidades em termos de seu autoritarismo, mas por consolidar o arbítrio através de medidas como a suspensão da garantia do habeas corpus - até então, uma possível defesa do cidadão - e por não ter prazo de validade como aqueles que o precederam. Porém, mais que o ato em si, este livro busca analisar os aspectos que envolviam a sociedade e o Estado naqueles anos de violência institucional, nos seus diversos campos. Os textos - que abordam a questões como a Historiografia sobre o período, Itamaraty, Forças Armadas, Administração Pública, Movimento Operário, a violência no Campo, Igrejas cristãs, Cultura, Imprensa e Economia, além de uma longa introdução escrita por Jacqueline Ventapane e do Adriano de Freixo dando um panorama geral daqueles anos - são de autoria de especialistas vinculados à diversas instituições de ensino e pesquisa de todo o Brasil. Dentre os autores podemos citar Francisco Falcon, Paulo Roberto de Almeida, Shiguenoli Myamoto, Juliana Bertazzo, Oswaldo Munteal Filho, Octavio Pieranti, Paulo Emilio Martins, Tahis Kronemberger, Antonio Luigi Negro, Fernando Vieira, Álvaro Senra, Lyndon Santos, Adelia Miglievich, Ricardo Mendes, Victor Gentilli, José Macarini. Além destes, o livro se encerra com um texto do Professor José Luis Fiori, que procura repensar o processo de construção nacional nas últimas décadas do século XX, a partir da análise do pensamento de Celso Furtado sobre um projeto econômico nacional "atropelado pelas transformações mundiais que se aprofundaram a partir da década de 1970 e interrompidas pelas políticas e reformas liberais levadas a cabo pelos governos brasileiros da década de 1990'

Da orelha, por Gisele Cittadino:
"Nós, brasileiros, reconstruímos o Estado de Direito, agora Democrático, no país. Comemoramos, em 2008, os 20 anos da promulgação de Constituição Cidadã, que converteu todos os direitos de Declaração da ONU em direitos legais no Brasil. O processo de reconstrução da democracia brasileira não teria sido possível se não fôssemos capazes de superar de forma duradoura o autoritarismo e nos comprometer com a liberdade. Ao longo dessa trajetória, tem sido necessário, cada vez mais, enfrentar as nossas próprias tradições. Não há como consolidar a democracia no país se não nos distanciarmos reflexivamente de nosso próprio passado. Precisamos olhar criticamente nossa história, suas revoluções "pelo alto", seus múltiplos episódios de violência institucional, e seus macanismos de exclusão e discriminação.
Tempo negro, temperatura sufocante - Estado e sociedade no Brasil do AI-5 é um livro que, sem dúvida, nos permite sentir orgulho por termos nos reapropriado do espaço público da política; mas, especialmente, trata-se de um texto que nos ajuda nessa importante tarefa de refletir criticamente sobre um tempo de dor, asfixia e desesperança.
Ao longo dos seus capítulos, verificamos como a violência institucional do estado autoritário que se instala no Brasil a partir de 1964 atuou sobre a cultura, a imprensa, as escolas, as universidades públicas, o governo e a administração, o mundo da economia e do trabalho, o campo e a cidade. Com a construção desse mosaico, Tempo negro temperatura sufocante representa não apenas uma chave interpretativa do passado recente, como facilita a necessária e perene tarefa de definir como dar prosseguimento à nossa própria história."

Lançamento:
Terça-feira, 4 de novembro de 2008, 19hs
Livraria Odeon - Praça Floriano, 7 - Rio de Janeiro
Cinelândia (Mezzanino no Cinema Odeon Petrobras)

31) Politica Externa Brasileira

2008-10-26T22:37:00.001-04:00

A pedidos, estou postando novamente esta resenha:

A diplomacia brasileira vista da academia

Henrique Altermani de Oliveira:
Política Externa Brasileira
(São Paulo: Editora Saraiva, 2005, 292 p.; ISBN: 85-02-05192-X)

Os cursos de relações internacionais têm apresentado, no Brasil, um crescimento exponencial, empurrados pela globalização, o que lhes dá certo charme intelectual, mas embalados, também, pelo movimento antiglobalizador, o que garante espaço na mídia. Muitos perecerão, por excesso de oferta e inadequação de seu conteúdo às necessidades reais do mercado nessa área. Mas a febre provocou o surgimento de bons livros, entre os quais se destaca o de Demétrio Magnoli (Relações internacionais: teoria e história; Saraiva, 2004) e, da mesma editora, este do coordenador de pós-graduação em relações internacionais da PUC-SP, Henrique Altemani. Trata-se de um pequeno grande livro, pois que, em menos de 300 páginas, consegue a proeza de resumir mais de um século de política externa republicana e vários outros argumentos sobre a natureza do processo diplomático no Brasil, com domínio quase completo das fontes de referência documental e um conhecimento preciso sobre as motivações políticas internas do Itamaraty, de certa forma surpreendente em um observador externo.
Trata-se de obra essencialmente didática, com inúmeras transcrições de autores consagrados na literatura, muitas referências de rodapé e uma organização tão sintética quanto precisa. Depois de um capítulo introdutório sobre o conceito de política externa – no qual são examinados o processo decisório nessa área e o funcionamento do Itamaraty –, o sete capítulos sucessivos abordam as diversas etapas históricas de desenvolvimento da política externa brasileira, a saber: 2: De Rio Branco à Segunda Guerra Mundial (com resumo da política externa no Império e uma análise da “americanização” da diplomacia pelo Barão); 3: Do Contexto Sub-regional à Constituição do Sistema Interamericano (basicamente a diplomacia dos governos Dutra e Vargas); 4: A Operação Panamericana e a Política Externa Independente (primeira iniciativa multilateral, de âmbito regional, que antecede ao atual esforço de liderança na América do Sul, e tentativa de escapar das malhas do Império); 5: A Política Externa dos Governos Militares (incluindo o projeto do Brasil “grande potência”); 6: A Universalização da Política Externa Brasileira (com a “diversificação de dependências” e a retomada do relacionamento com a América Latina, ainda no regime militar); 7: A Política Externa na Nova República (discussão da mudança ou continuidade da diplomacia nos governos da redemocratização e abordagem do importante processo de integração bilateral com a Argentina) e, finalmente, 8: A Política Externa no Pós-Guerra Fria (de Fernando Collor a Lula, passando por Itamar Franco e Fernando Henrique Cardoso, que gostava de ser o seu próprio chanceler).
O autor exibe pleno domínio dos temas e problemas da diplomacia brasileira em cada época, mas o excesso de transcrições de outros estudiosos pode deixar a impressão de alguma hesitação em expor seus próprios argumentos ou em fazer julgamentos sobre os aspectos positivos ou negativos das grandes escolhas estratégicas feitas em momentos cruciais das nossas relações exteriores. A discussão sobre os elementos de mudança ou as características de permanência da política externa brasileira, por exemplo, ocorre duas vezes no decorrer do livro, no contexto da redemocratização dos anos 1980 – que não alterou substancialmente os fundamentos da política externa – e na recente fase de liberalização econômica da era Collor-FH, quando ocorre um certo afastamento do perfil terceiro-mundista da nossa diplomacia e aumenta a ênfase na integração sub-regional. Ainda assim, Altemani considera que os traços principais da política externa brasileira foram mantidos, mesmo se com matizes diferenciados em relação aos primeiros exercícios de “política externa independente” (dos governos Quadros-Goulart).
Embora alguns autores citados por Altemani indiquem a subserviência do governo Collor aos ditames dos EUA, ele indica o consenso em vários outros estudiosos de que “o País necessitava efetivar determinados ajustes no seu processo de inserção, tendo em vista tanto as mudanças estruturais (em termos de alterações no sistema internacional) quanto às conjunturais” (p. 242). Na fase mais recente, alguns acadêmicos citados pelo autor preferem condenar a política externa dos anos FHC como “alinhada” ou constituída mais de retórica do que de substância, num suposto contraste com a ofensiva regional e terceiro-mundista do governo que lhe sucedeu, que seria “desenvolvimentista” em lugar de “subserviente”. Altemani confirma, contudo, que as grandes linhas da diplomacia brasileira têm sido preservadas em sua substância, com inevitáveis adaptações de estilo, e representam “expectativas e estratégias em desenvolvimento nos governos anteriores” (p. 264).
Paulo Roberto de Almeida (www.pralmeida.org) [1451: Bordeaux-Bilbao, 21.07.05]
Publicada, com cortes, na revista
Desafios do Desenvolvimento
(Ano 2, nº 14, setembro 2005, p. 71; link: http://www.desafios.org.br/index.php?Edicao=14&pagina=canais&secao=estante&idCanal=272).

30) 110 Books you should read...

2008-04-08T12:21:00.002-04:00

110 best books: The perfect library
Last Updated: 6 April 2008

CLASSICS
POETRY
LITERARY FICTION
ROMANTIC FICTION
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
SCI-FI
CRIME
BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD
HISTORY
LIVES

From classics and sci-fi to poetry, biographies and books that changed the world… we present the ultimate reading list. Illustrations by David Juniper

CLASSICS

The Illiad and The Odyssey
Homer
Set during the Trojan War, The Iliad combines battle scenes with a debate about heroism; Odysseus' thwarted attempts to return to Ithaca when the war ends form The Odyssey. Its symbolic evocation of human life as an epic journey homewards has inspired everything from James Joyce's Ulysses to the Coen brothers' film, O Brother Where Art Thou?.

The Barchester Chronicles
Anthony Trollope
A story set in a fictional cathedral town about the squabbles and power struggles of the clergy? It doesn't sound promising, but Trollope's sparklingly satirical novels are among the best-loved books of all time.

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Heroine meets hero and hates him. Is charmed by a cad. A family crisis – caused by the cad – is resolved by the hero. The heroine sees him for what he really is and realises (after visiting his enormous house) that she loves him. The plot has been endlessly borrowed, but few authors have written anything as witty or profound as Pride and Prejudice.

Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift
Swift's scathing satire shows humans at their worst: whether diminished (in Lilliput) or grossly magnified (in Brobdingnag). Our capacity for self-delusion – personified by the absurdly pompous Gulliver – makes this darkest of novels very funny.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Cruelty, hypocrisy, dashed hopes: Jane Eyre faces them all, yet her individuality triumphs. Her relationship with Rochester has such emotional power that it's hard to believe these characters never lived.

War and Peace
Tolstoy
Tolstoy's masterpiece is so enormous even the author said it couldn't be described as a novel. But the characters of Andrei, Pierre and Natasha – and the tragic and unexpected way their lives intersect – grip you for all 1,400 pages.

David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
David's journey to adulthood is filled with difficult choices – and a huge cast of characters, from the treacherous Steerforth to the comical Mr Micawber.

Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
'"I'm no Angel," answered Miss Rebecca. And to tell the truth, she was not.' Whether we should judge the cunning, amoral Becky Sharp – or the hypocritical society she inhabits – is the question.

Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
Flaubert's finely crafted novel tells the story of Emma, a bored provincial wife who comforts herself with shopping and affairs. It doesn't end well.

Middlemarch
George Eliot
Dorothea wastes her youth on a creepy, elderly scholar. Lydgate marries the beautiful but self-absorbed Rosamund. George Eliot's characters make terrible mistakes, but we never lose empathy with them.

POETRY

Sonnets
Shakespeare
Shakespeare's sonnets contain some of poetry's most iconic lines – and a mysterious insight into his personal life.

Divine Comedy
Dante
Dante Alighieri's epic tale of one man's journey into the afterlife is considered Italy's finest literary export.

Canterbury Tales
Chaucer
These humorous tales about fictional pilgrims made an important contribution to English literature at a time when court poetry was written in either Anglo-Norman or Latin.

The Prelude
William Wordsworth
This posthumously published work is both an autobiographical journey and a fragment of history from the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years.

Odes
John Keats
Littered with sensuous descriptions of nature's beauty, Keats's odes also pose profound philosophical questions.

The Waste Land
T. S. Eliot
Eliot's vision of dystopia became a literary landmark, and introduced new techniques to the modern poet. He remains one of the defining figures of 20th-century poetry.

Paradise Lost
John Milton
Since its publication in 1667, Milton's 12-book English epic – in which he sets out to 'justify the ways of God to men' – has been considered a classic.

Songs of Innocence and Experience
William Blake
Blake's short poems are simple in rhythm and rhyme, but sophisticated in meaning. Written during a time of political turmoil, they embody his radical sympathies and anti-dualist ideas.

Collected Poems
W. B. Yeats
Considered a driving force in the revival of Irish literature, Yeats fruitfully engages the topics of youth, love, nature, art and war.

Collected Poems
Ted Hughes
Although Hughes was a colossal presence among the English literary landscape – his work often draws upon the forbidding Yorkshire countryside of his youth – his personal life had a tendency to overshadow his talent.

LITERARY FICTION

The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James
James's mastery of psychology has never been more elegantly expressed nor more gripping than in his tale of Isabel Archer, a young American in search of her destiny, and Gilbert Osmond, the ultimate cold fish and one of literature's most repellent villains.

A la recherche du temps perdu
Proust
A novel whose every sentence can be a struggle to finish may sound forbidding, but this masterpiece of modernity, taking us into every nook and cranny of the narrator's fascinating mind, is worth all the effort.

Ulysses
James Joyce
Banned in Britain and America for its depiction of female masturbation, Joyce's Ulysses takes its scatological stand at the pinnacle of modernist literature. Lyrical and witty, its stream-of-consciousness narration deters many, but makes enraptured enthusiasts of others.

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway
A sparse, masculine, world-weary meditation on death, ideology and the savagery of war in general, and the Spanish civil war in particular.

Sword of Honour trilogy
Evelyn Waugh
A poignant, ironic study of the disintegration of aristocratic values in the face of blank bureaucracy and Second World War butchery, Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender are Waugh's crowning achievements.

The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Muriel Spark
Comic, satirical and ineffably odd, Spark's fifth novel introduces Dougal Douglas, ghost-writer, researcher, mysterious figure of Satanic magnetism and mayhem, to the upper working-class/ lower middle-class milieu of Peckham.

Rabbit series
John Updike
We first meet Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom in Rabbit, Run, as a boorish, unhappy former basketball jock who runs from (and to) his pregnant wife. The novels that follow cover 30 years and make up the great study of American manhood.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
The greatest moment in magical realist fiction, García Márquez's passionate, humorous history of Macondo and its founding family, the Buendías, has the seductive power of myth.

Beloved
Toni Morrison
Morrison brought to life a version of the slave narrative that has become a classic. Her tour de force of guilt, abandonment and revenge plays out against the background of pre-emancipation American life.

The Human Stain
Philip Roth
Roth's brilliant, angry dissection of race, disgrace and hypocrisy in Clinton-Lewinsky era America brings to a close his grand and meticulous American trilogy (American Pastoral, I Married a Communist).

ROMANTIC FICTION

Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier
Cornish estate owner Maximilian de Winter's second wife – also the nameless narrator – is haunted by the housekeeper's oppressive worship of her predecessor, Rebecca. A masterful tale of suspense.
Rebecca: the narrator is haunted by the housekeeper's worship of her predecessor

Le Morte D'Arthur
Thomas Malory
Malory's yarn explores the possibility that chivalry is best revealed by a knight's loyalty to his fellow knights, and not simply his devotion to a woman.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Choderlos de Laclos
Paris in the 18th century: the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont concoct a scheme of seduction to entrap members of the aristocracy. Their roguish machinations lead to their climactic undoing.

I, Claudius
Robert Graves
An invented autobiographical account of Claudius, the fourth emperor of ancient Rome. Graves draws upon the historical texts of Tacitus and Suetonius to write Claudius's story after claiming a visitation from the ancient ruler in his dreams.

Alexander Trilogy
Mary Renault
Renault transports readers to Ancient Greece in a historical trilogy that presents the life and legacy of Alexander the Great in a humanising fictional portrait.

Master and Commander
Patrick O'Brian
Set during the Napoleonic Wars, O'Brian's books journey the seas with Commander Aubrey and his crew aboard HMS Sophie. The novel follows Aubrey's convincing and complex friendship with Maturin, the ship's surgeon, as they fight enemies and storms.

Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell
Scarlett O'Hara manipulates her way through the American civil war. This selfish, but gutsy heroine idealises the unattainable Ashley before realising her love for her third husband, Rhett, who dismisses her with, 'My dear, I don't give a damn.'

Dr Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
Yuri Zhivago loves two women, his wife, Tonya, and the captivating Lara. Pasternak juxtaposes romance with the stark brutality of the Russian civil war in this extraordinary historical epic.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy
Disgraced by an illegitimate child, Tess is tainted with shame and guilt, which destroys her marriage to Angel Clare. She emerges as a tragic heroine, incapable of escaping the hypocrisy of Victorian society.

The Plantagenet Saga
Jean Plaidy
A collection of novels inspired by the Plantagenet dynasty. Jean Plaidy is one of the many noms de plume of Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert, the celebrated historical fiction writer, who died in 1993.

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Swallows and Amazons
Arthur Ransome
Four children sail to Wildcat Island, where they encounter a rival camping party then join forces to hunt treasure. Robinson Crusoe meets The Famous Five in a tale of sailing and ginger beer.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy discover the land of Narnia and the malevolent White Witch. The novel uses Christian iconography in Aslan's dramatic sacrifice and resurrection. Edmund's transition from self-interested schoolboy to heroic young man is also resonantly spiritual.

The Lord of the Rings
J.R. R. Tolkien
Frodo and friends journey to Mordor to destroy the ring, making the young Hobbit one of the greatest fictional heroes of all time. More than 100million copies have been sold of the trilogy that brought fantasy to a mainstream literary audience.

His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman
Will is a boy from Oxford. Lyra is a girl from Oxford in a parallel world. Together they have an epic adventure spanning parallel universes. The trilogy has inspired criticism for being heretical – Pullman himself declared the books were about 'killing God'.

Babar
Jean de Brunhoff
Babar brings clothes and cars (and Madame) from Paris to his African kingdom. With his family and the wise Cornelius by his side, Babar protects his land from the Rhino King Rataxes. The big, beautiful books are enriched by Brunhoff's wonderful illustrations.

The Railway Children
E. Nesbit
Nesbit's classic, made famous by the 1970 film, tells of how Bobby, Phyllis and Pete, missing their beloved father, adapt to a poverty-stricken life in the country, helped by Mr Perks, the Old Gentleman, and by waving to the train.
The Railway Children: the children adapt to a poverty-stricken life helped by waving to trains

Winnie-the-Pooh
A.A. Milne
The Silly Old Bear, with his friends in Hundred Acre Wood, is more than a British institution. A.A. Milne created a life philosophy with the trials, triumphs and tiddley-poms of the honey-loving, always kind-hearted Pooh.

Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling
The boy wizard's dealings with the forces of adolescence and evil have sold more than 350million books in 65 languages. The Harry Potter phenomenon has its detractors, but the success of special 'grown-up' covers, allowing commuters to read Rowling without shame, tells its own tale.

The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
Lonely and miserable trying to clean his hole, Mole ventures outside. He meets Ratty, Toad and Badger, and embarks on a new life defending Toad Hall from the weasels, protecting Toad from himself and messing about in boats.

Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson
The piratical coming of age of Jim Hawkins, who discovers a map of Treasure Island among an old sea captain's possessions – and then follows it. Parrots, 'pieces of eight' and the lovable, but morally ambiguous Long John Silver.

SCI-FI

Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
The great genius of Shelley's novel has often been overwhelmed by images of schlocky bolt-necked 'Frankensteins'. Brought to life by Dr Victor Frankenstein, Shelley's creature is part gothic monster, part Romantic hero.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne
Among the deep-sea volcanoes, shoals of swirling fish, giant squid and sharks, Captain Nemo steers the Nautilus. Nemo is the renegade scientist par excellence, a man madly inventive in his quest for revenge.

The Time Machine
H.G. Wells
A seminal work of dystopian fiction, Wells's tale of the voyages of the Time Traveller in the distant future (AD802,701) is also a cracking adventure story.

Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Ignorance is far from bliss in Huxley's terrible vision of a future of rampant consumerism, worthless free love, routine drug use and cultural passivity.

1984
George Orwell
So persuasive and chilling was the world summoned up here that 'Orwellian' has entered the language as shorthand for government control. Chilling, wry and romantic, it is above all a passionate cry for freedom.
1984: chilling, wry and romantic, Orwell's novel is a passionate cry for freedom

The Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham
Shifty Soviets and the clipped vernacular make this a Fifties horror story. But as humans cope with disasters (mass blinding by meteor shower; ruthless walking, flesh-eating plants) the tale becomes taut, terrifying, and far from ridiculous.

Foundation
Isaac Asimov
'Great Galaxy!' It is not for literary brilliance that one approaches the first in the Foundation series, but rather for the sweeping grandeur of Asimov's epic universe-wide tale of the decline and fall of empires. Once you've finished this, 14 novels and countless more short stories await.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke
The first in Clarke's quartet was written as a novel and, in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, as a film script. As the Discovery One mission drifts towards Saturn, Clarke creates the embodiment of the perils of computer technology, HAL9000.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick
Dick's masterpiece questions what it is that distinguishes us as human, as we follow Rick Deckard on his mission to 'retire' recalcitrant androids. Spawned Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Neuromancer
William Gibson
A violent slab of cyberpunk sci-fi, in which techie activities (artificial intelligence, hacking, virtual reality) are married with a grimy, anarchic, slangy sensibility, and a cast of hustlers, hackers and junkies trying to make sense of a world ruled by corporations.

CRIME

The Talented Mr Ripley
Patricia Highsmith
Tom Ripley is one of 20th-century literature's most disturbingly fascinating characters: a suave, charming serial killer, who's utterly amoral in his pursuit of la dolce vita.

The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett
A tale of greed and deceit that's also the archetypal work of 20th-century detective fiction: complete with flawed hero (Sam Spade), femme fatale and a convoluted plot that unravels grippingly.
The Maltese Falcon: a tale of greed and deceit, complete with flawed hero and femme fatale

The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It's one of literature's most wonderful ironies that Conan Doyle himself became a spiritualist so soon after creating the most famously rational character in all literature.

The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
His oeuvre may be small, but with the help of long-time protagonist PI Philip Marlowe – who appears here for the first time – Chandler helped define the genres of detective fiction and, later, film noir.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
John le Carré
Le Carré, master of the Cold War novel, follows British spymaster George Smiley as he tries to uncover a Moscow mole, and faces his KGB nemesis, Karla.

Red Dragon
Thomas Harris
Hannibal Lecter's second literary appearance sees him called upon by old FBI chum (and near-victim) Will Graham, to help solve the case of the serially morbid 'Tooth Fairy'.

Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
From Istanbul to London, Hercule Poirot's little grey cells rattle away to improbable effect as he untangles the mystery of the life and violent death of a sinister passenger.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's blackly ingenious tale of brutal murder in 19th-century Paris establishes C. Auguste Dupin, a man of 'peculiar analytic ability', as the model for pretty much every intellectual detective to come.

The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins
A sensational 19th-century epistolary tale of women in peril adds one of the most charismatic, refined and straightforwardly fat villains to the pantheon.

Killshot
Elmore Leonard
Leonard is known for his pithy dialogue and freaky characters. Here he manages to create a sweatily suspenseful thriller, with a married couple as the unexpected heroes.

BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Das Kapital
Karl Marx
His thinking may not be as popular as it was in the Sixties and Seventies, but it's as relevant. The cardinal critique of the capitalist system.

The Rights of Man
Tom Paine
Written during the heady days of the French Revolution, Paine's pamphlet - by introducing the concept of human rights - remains one of modern democracy's fundamental texts.

The Social Contract
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
'Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.' How are we to reconcile our individual rights and freedoms with living in a society?

Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
This treatise looked to the new country's flourishing democracy in the early 19th century and the progressive model it offered 'old' Europe.

On War
Carl von Clausewitz
The first, and probably still foremost, treatise on the art of modern warfare. The Prussian general looked beyond the battlefield to war's place in the broader political context.

The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli
Written during his exile from the Florentine Republic, Machiavelli's bible of realpolitik offers the ultimate mandate for those (still-too-many) politicians who value keeping power above dispensing justice.
The Prince: the ultimate mandate for politicians who value power above justice

Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes's call for rule by an absolute sovereign may not sound too progressive, but it was based on the then-groundbreaking belief that all men are naturally equal.

On the Interpretation of Dreams
Sigmund Freud
Drawing on his own dreams, plus those of his patients, Freud asserted that dreams – by tapping into our unconscious – held the key to understanding what makes us tick.

On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
No other book has so transformed how we look at the natural world and mankind's origins.

L'Encyclopédie
Diderot, et al
Subtitled 'A Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts', with contributions by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot and others, the 35-volume encyclopedia was the ultimate document of Enlightenment thought.

BOOKS THAT CHANGED YOUR WORLD

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M. Pirsig
Pirsig's feel-good memoir about a father-son motorcycle trip across America became the biggest-selling philosophy book of all time.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: a feel-good memoir that became the biggest-selling philosophy book of all time

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
Bach's fable about a dreamy seagull called Jonathan, who seeks to soar above the ideology of his flock, became a New Age classic, and is dedicated to the 'real seagull in all of us'.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Originally broadcast on Radio 4, this quotable comedy about a hapless Englishman and his alien friend proved that sci-fi could be clever and funny.

The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell uses everything from teenage smoking to Sesame Street to show how one person's small idea, or way of thinking, can spark a social epidemic.

The Beauty Myth
Naomi Wolf
Wolf, the controversial American feminist (and teenage victim of anorexia), argues that women's insecurities stem from society's demands on them either to be beautiful or face judgment.

How to Cook
Delia Smith
The cookery queen's series is credited with teaching culinary delinquents how to prepare good wholesome food from scratch. Her latest book, How to Cheat at Cooking, does the opposite.

A Year in Provence
Peter Mayle
For those who've dreamt of leaving it all to live in the South of France, expat Peter Mayle's diary offers a dose of reality, from unexpected snowfalls to an algae-coated swimming pool.

A Child Called 'It'
Dave Pelzer
Pelzer's graphic account of his abusive childhood topped the bestseller lists worldwide. Since then, he's had to fight off accusations of embellishment and fantasy from family members.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Lynne Truss
In an attempt to stamp out poor punctuation, Truss compiled a lively and useful account for all those in doubt about how to use an apostrophe.

Schott's Original Miscellany
Ben Schott
Dip into Schott's compendium of trivia and impress your friends with such questions as, 'Do you know who makes the Queen's pork sausages?' The answer: Musks of Newmarket.

HISTORY

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon
Compressing 13 turbulent centuries into one epic narrative, this is often labelled the first 'modern' history book. Gibbon fell back on sociology, rather than superstition, to explain Rome's demise.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
Winston Churchill
Taking us from Caesar's 55BC invasion to the Boer War's end in 1902, Churchill's four-volume saga makes the proud, but now-unfashionable, connection between speaking English and bearing 'the torch of Freedom'.

A History of the Crusades
Steven Runciman
Still the landmark account of the Crusades, Byzantine scholar Runciman's work broke with centuries of Western tradition, claiming the crusading invaders were guilty of a 'long act of intolerance in the name of God'.

The Histories
Herodotus
Ostensibly about Greece's defeat of the invading Persians in the 5th century BC, it blends fact, hearsay, legend and myth to tell tales of life in and around Ancient Greece.

The History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides
Famously fastidious over the reliability of his data and sources, Thucydides – with this detailed study of the 25-year struggle between Athens and Sparta – set the template for every historian after him.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T. E. Lawrence
Lawrence of Arabia's fascinating, self-mythologising account of how he united a string of Arab tribes and successfully led them to rebellion against their Ottoman overlords.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Compiled at King Alfred's behest in the AD890s, this is the earliest-known history of England written in old English. It's also the oldest history of any European country in a vernacular language.

A People's Tragedy
Orlando Figes
Figes charts the Russian Revolution in stark detail, telling the tale of 'ordinary people' and boldly concluding that they 'weren't the victims of the Revolution but protagonists in its tragedy'.

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution
Simon Schama
Before he was on television, Prof Schama offered 948 pages of proof that there was more to the French Revolution than fraternity, equality and eating cake.

The Origins of the Second World War
A.J.P. Taylor
Was Hitler all that bad? Wasn't he just an opportunist who took advantage of Anglo-French dithering and appeasement? The label 'iconoclastic' applies to few historians so well as it does to Taylor.

LIVES

Confessions
St Augustine
In probably the first autobiography in Western literature, the Church Father recounts his life-journey from sinner to saint, from the boy who stole pears from a neighbour's tree to the articulator of key Christian doctrines.

Lives of the Caesars
Suetonius
Charting the lives of Julius Caesar, Augustus and the 10 subsequent Roman emperors, with scandalous tales of imperial decadence, vice and lunacy.

Lives of the Artists
Vasari
The history of Italian Renaissance art, as told through the biographies of its heavyweight practitioners.

If This is a Man
Primo Levi
His background as an industrial chemist from Turin may not sound remarkable, but Levi's poised account of his hell-on-earth experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz undoubtedly is.

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
Siegfried Sassoon
He's best known for his anti-war poems, but Sassoon was also once popular for his semi-autobiographical trilogy of novels, of which this was the first.

Eminent Victorians
Lytton Strachey
Strachey didn't do hagiography. His unflattering biographical essays on major Victorian figures debunked the myth of Victorian pre-eminence.

A Life of Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell

A biography of the intriguing Jane Eyre author, by her friend and fellow-novelist, Gaskell. One of the definitive 'tortured genius' biographies.

Goodbye to All That
Robert Graves
A friend of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Graves was another Englishman to write unsparingly about the horrors of trench warfare.

The Life of Dr Johnson
Boswell
He's one of English literature's all-time heavyweights, but most of what we know about Samuel Johnson, the man, comes from his friend Boswell's hearty anecdotal biog.

Diaries
Alan Clark
The late Tory MP was not one to get bogged down in matters of policy. His indiscreet memoirs detailed countless extra-marital affairs and character assassinations of colleagues.

29) Livros PRA na Biblioteca do Itamaraty

2008-03-19T16:06:00.003-04:00

Alguns livros e publicações minhas na Biblioteca Antonio Francisco Azeredo da Silveira, do Ministério das Relacoes Exteriores, no Anexo II (Bolo de Noiva), atrás do Palácio Itamaraty, Brasilia:

Actos diplomáticos do Brasil : tratados do período colonial e vários documentos desde 1943 / 1997 - Livros - Acervo 13856
OLIVEIRA, José Manoel Cardoso de; ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Actos diplomáticos do Brasil: tratados do período colonial e vários documentos desde 1943. Brasília: Senado Federal, 1997. 2 v. (Coleção Memória Brasileira)
Número de Chamada: 341.24(81) O48

Brasil dos brasilianistas: um guia dos estudos sobre o Brasil nos Estados Unidos, 1945-2000, O / 2002 - Livros - Acervo 16873
BARBOSA, Rubens Antonio; EAKIN, Marshall C.; ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O Brasil dos brasilianistas: um guia dos estudos sobre o Brasil nos Estados Unidos, 1945-2000. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002. 512 p. ISBN 852190441X
Número de Chamada: 94 (81) B823b

Brasil e a Alca: seminário, O - Artigos - Acervo 3449
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O Brasil e a Alca: seminário. o Brasil e a Alca : Seminário, Brasília, DF ,
Número de Chamada: 339.92(7/8) S471o
[Anais do Seminário] O Brasil e a ALCA : / 2002 - Livros - Acervo 3448
SEMINÁRIO O BRASIL E A ALCA, 2001. Brasília; CINTRA, Marcos; CARDIM, Carlos Henrique (Org.). Anais ... Brasília: Câmara dos Deputados; Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais, 2002 508 p. (Série ação parlamentar ;n. 174) ISBN 85-7365-188-1
Número de Chamada: 339.923(7/8) S471o

Brasil e o multilateralismo econômico, O / 1999 - Livros - Acervo 27567
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O Brasil e o multilateralismo econômico. Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 1999. 328 p. (Coleção Direito e Comércio Internacional) ISBN 85-7348-093-9
Número de Chamada: 382.14 A447bm

Brasil e o multilateralismo econômico, O / 1999 - Livros - Acervo 302
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O Brasil e o multilateralismo econômico. Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 1999. 328 p. ISBN 85-7348-093-9
Número de Chamada: 339.5(81) A447b

Brasil no cenário internacional, O / 2000 - Livros - Acervo 49252
PANNUNZIO, Antonio Carlos.; SATO, Eiiti; ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de; GONÇALVES, Reinaldo; LOHBAUER, Christian. O Brasil no cenário internacional. São Paulo: Fundação Konrad Adenauer, 2000. 96 p. (Cadernos Adenauer ;2) ISBN 85-85535-94-6
Número de Chamada: 327(81) P187bc

Classes sociales et pouvoir politique au Bresil : une étude sur les fondements méthodologiques et empiriques de la Révolution Bourgeoise / 1984 - Livros - Acervo 11228
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Classes sociales et pouvoir politique au Bresil: une étude sur les fondements méthodologiques et empiriques de la Révolution Bourgeoise. Bruxelles: Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1984. 2 v.
Número de Chamada: 323.32(81) A447cs

Convergência macroeconômica Brasil-Argentina : regimes alternativos e fragilidade externa, A / 2005 - Livros - Acervo 3881
ENGE, Leonardo de Almeida Carneiro; ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. A convergência macroeconômica Brasil-Argentina: regimes alternativos e fragilidade externa. Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2005. 164 p. (Coleção Rio Branco ) ISBN 8576310481
Número de Chamada: 330.101.541 E57

Estudo das relações internacionais : um diálogo entre a diplomacia e a academia, O - [2. ed.] / 2006 - Livros - Acervo 3981
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O estudo das relações internacionais: um diálogo entre a diplomacia e a academia. [2. ed.] Brasília: LGE Ed., 2006. 385 p. ISBN 8586022233
Número de Chamada: 327(81) A447es 2. ed.

Estudo das relações internacionais do Brasil, O / 1999 - Livros - Acervo 1201
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O estudo das relações internacionais do Brasil. São Paulo: Unimarco, 1999. 299 p. ISBN 85-86022-23-3
Número de Chamada: 327(81)(09) A447e

Estudo das relações internacionais, O / 1999 - Livros - Acervo 3980
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O estudo das relações internacionais. São Paulo: Unimarco, 1999. 299 p. ISBN 8586022233
Número de Chamada: 327(81) A447

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil : as relações econômicas internacionais no Império / 1998 - Livros - Acervo 1287
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no Império. Brasília 1998. 468 p.
Número de Chamada: 339.9(81) A447f

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil : as relações econômicas internacionais no Império / 1998 - Livros - Acervo 16899
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no Império. Brasília: Edição do Autor, 1998. 468 p.
Número de Chamada: 330.322.14(81) A447fd

Formação da diplomacia econômica no brasil : as relações econômicas internacionais no Império / 2001 - Livros - Acervo 50227
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no Império. São Paulo: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2001. 675 p. ISBN 85-7359-210-9
Número de Chamada: SERE 341.7:339.9(81) A447fd

Formação da diplomacia econômica no brasil : as relações econômicas internacionais no império / 2001 - Livros - Acervo 1288
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no império. São Paulo: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2001. 675 p. ISBN 8573592109
Número de Chamada: 339.9(81) A447f

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil : relações econômicas internacionais no império - 2. ed. / 2005 - Livros - Acervo 22744
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil: relações econômicas internacionais no império. 2. ed. São Paulo: Senac, Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2005. 675 p. ISBN 85-7359-210-9
Número de Chamada: 327 A447fd 2. ed.

Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil : relações econômicas internacionais no império / 2001 - Livros - Acervo 3316
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Formação da diplomacia econômica no Brasil: relações econômicas internacionais no império. São Paulo: Senac, Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2001. 675 p. ISBN 8573592109
Número de Chamada: 327 A447fd

Grande mudança : conseqüências econômicas da transição política no Brasil, A / 2003 - Livros - Acervo 1419
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. A Grande mudança: conseqüências econômicas da transição política no Brasil. São Paulo: Códex, 2003. 199 p. ISBN 85-7594-005-8
Número de Chamada: 32(81) A447a

Mercosud : un marché commun pour l'Amérique du Sud, Le / 2000 - Livros - Acervo 20262
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Le mercosud: un marché commun pour l'Amérique du Sud. Paris: Harmattan, 2000. 158 p. (Recherches Amériques Latines, série Brésil) ISBN 2-7384-9350-5
Número de Chamada: 337.91(8) A447me

Mercosul : fundamentos e perspectivas - 2 ed. / 1998 - Livros - Acervo 2019
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Mercosul: fundamentos e perspectivas. 2 ed. São Paulo: LTr, 1998. 159 p. ISBN 85-7322-548-3
Número de Chamada: 339.92(8) A447m

Mercosul : fundamentos e perspectivas / 1998 - Livros - Acervo 19874
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Mercosul: fundamentos e perspectivas. São Paulo: LTr, 1998. 159 p.
Número de Chamada: 337.91(7/8) A447mf

Mercosul : legislação e textos básicos - 2. ed / 1996 - Livros - Acervo 3590
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Mercosul: legislação e textos básicos. 2. ed Brasília: Ministério das Relações Exteriores, 1996. 234 p
Número de Chamada: 339.92(8) M556me 2. ed.

Mercosul : legislação e textos básicos / 1992 - Livros - Acervo 3588
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Mercosul: legislação e textos básicos. Brasília: Ministério das Relações Exteriores, 1992. 116 p
Número de Chamada: 339.92(8) M556me

Mercosul : textos básicos - Livros - Acervo 20067
MERCOSUL: textos básicos. Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, [1992]. 166 p. (Coleção Integração Regional ; 1)
Número de Chamada: 339.923(8) M556mt

Mercosul : textos básicos / 1992 - Livros - Acervo 44003
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Mercosul: textos básicos. Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 1992. 166 p. (Coleção Integração Regional ; 1)
Número de Chamada: R 339.923(8) M556mt

Mercosul no contexto regional e internacional, O / 1993 - Livros - Acervo 50205
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O mercosul no contexto regional e internacional. São Paulo: Aduaneiras, 1993. 204 p. ISBN 857129098-9
Número de Chamada: SERE 339.923(8) A447mc

Mercosul no contexto regional e internacional, O / 1993 - Livros - Acervo 19966
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O mercosul no contexto regional e internacional. São Paulo: Aduaneiras, 1993. 204 p.
Número de Chamada: 339.923(8) A447mc

Moderno Príncipe : Maquiavel revisitado, O / 2007 - Livros - Acervo 51385
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. O moderno Príncipe: Maquiavel revisitado. Brasília: Edição do Autor, 2007. 166 p.
Número de Chamada: 32 A447m

Parlamento e política externa : ensaios sobre o sistema político e as relações internacionais / 1996 - Livros - Acervo 18800
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Parlamento e política externa: ensaios sobre o sistema político e as relações internacionais. Brasília: [S. n.], 1996. 278 p.
Número de Chamada: 327(81) A447pp

Partidos políticos e política externa / 1986 - Livros - Acervo 14989
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Partidos políticos e política externa. Brasília: Senado Federal, 1986. p.
Número de Chamada: 329(81) A447pp

Partidos políticos e política externa / 1986 - Livros - Acervo 50359
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Partidos políticos e política externa. Brasília: Senado Federal, 1986. p.
Número de Chamada: SERE FOL 329(81) A447pp

Política da política externa : os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais do Brasil, 1930-1990, A / 1993 - Livros - Acervo 18667
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. A política da política externa: os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais do Brasil, 1930-1990. Brasília: Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais, 1993. 85 f.
Número de Chamada: 327(81)(09) A447pp

Política da política externa : os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais, 1930-1990, A / 1993 - Livros - Acervo 2385
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. A Política da política externa: os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais, 1930-1990. Brasília: Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais, 1993. 85 p.
Número de Chamada: 327:329(81) A447p

Política da política externa. Os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais do Brasil : 1930-1990, A / 1993 - Livros - Acervo 50943
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. A política da política externa. Os partidos políticos nas relações internacionais do Brasil: 1930-1990. Brasília: Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais, 1993. 85 f.
Número de Chamada: SERE 327:329(81) A447pp

Política externa e relações internacionais do Brasil : uma seleção de leituras / 1996 - Livros - Acervo 2419
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Política externa e relações internacionais do Brasil: uma seleção de leituras. Brasília 1996. 241 p.
Número de Chamada: 327(81) A447p

Política externa e relações internacionais do Brasil: uma seleção de leitura. / 1996 - Livros - Acervo 4599
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Política externa e relações internacionais do Brasil: uma seleção de leitura. Brasília: [s. n.], 1996. 241 f
Número de Chamada: 33.9.923 A447p

Primeiros anos do século XXI : o Brasil e as relações internacionais contemporâneas, Os / 2002 - Livros - Acervo 2493
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Os Primeiros anos do século XXI: o Brasil e as relações internacionais contemporâneas. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002. 283 p. ISBN 85-219-0435-5
Número de Chamada: 327"20" A447o
Primeiros anos do século xxi : o Brasil e as relaçoes internacionais contemporâneas, Os / 2002 - Livros - Acervo 4014

ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Os primeiros anos do século xxi: o Brasil e as relaçoes internacionais contemporâneas. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2002. 283 p. ISBN 8521904355
Número de Chamada: 327 A447

Relações Brasil-Estados Unidos: assimetrias e convergências / 2006 - Livros - Acervo 17708
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de; BARBOSA, Rubens Antonio. Relações Brasil-Estados Unidos: assimetrias e convergências. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006. 297 p. ISBN 850205385X
Número de Chamada: 327(81:73) R382rb

Relações internacionais contemporâneas : da construção do mundo liberal à globalização, de 1815 a nossos dias / 1997 - Livros - Acervo 3834
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de; DÖPCKE, Wolfgang; SARAIVA, José Flávio Sombra. Relações internacionais contemporâneas: da construção do mundo liberal à globalização, de 1815 a nossos dias. Brasília: Paralelo 15, 1997. 397 p. (Relações Internacionais e Política) ISBN 8586315052
Número de Chamada: 327 R382

Relações internacionais contemporâneas: da construção do mundo liberal à globalização : de 1815 a nossos dias / 1997 - Livros - Acervo 2634
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de; DÖPCKE, Wolfgang; SARAIVA, José Flávio Sombra. Relações internacionais contemporâneas: da construção do mundo liberal à globalização: de 1815 a nossos dias. Brasília: Paralelo 15, 1997. 398 p. (Relações Internacionais e Política) ISBN 85-86315-05-2
Número de Chamada: 327"19" S343r

Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil : dos descobrimentos à globalização / 1994 - Livros - Acervo 14997
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil: dos descobrimentos à globalização. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 1994. 359 p. (Coleção relações internacionais e integração ) ISBN 8570257384
Número de Chamada: 327(81)"1500/1998" A447ri

Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil : dos descobrimentos à globalização / 1998 - Livros - Acervo 2642
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil: dos descobrimentos à globalização. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 1998. 359 p. (Coleção relações internacionais e integração ) ISBN 85-7025-455-5
Número de Chamada: 327(81)(09) A447r

Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil : história e sociologia da diplomacia brasileira - 2 ed. / 2004 - Livros - Acervo 2643
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil: história e sociologia da diplomacia brasileira. 2 ed. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2004. 438 p. (Coleção relações internacionais e integração ) ISBN 85-7025-738-4
Número de Chamada: 327(81)(09) A447r

Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil : história e sociologia da diplomacia brasileira - 2. ed. / 2004 - Livros - Acervo 13811
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil: história e sociologia da diplomacia brasileira. 2. ed. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2004. 438 p. (Coleção relações internacionais e integração ) ISBN 8570257384
Número de Chamada: 327(81) A447ri 2. ed.

Velhos e novos manifestos : o socialismo na era da globalização / 1999 - Livros - Acervo 3101
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Velhos e novos manifestos: o socialismo na era da globalização. São Paulo: Juarez de Oliveira, 1999. 95 p. ISBN 85-7444
Número de Chamada: 321.74 A447vn

Vivendo com livros / 1994 - Livros - Acervo 11595
ALMEIDA, Paulo Roberto de. Vivendo com livros. Paris: Maíra, 1994. 406 p.
Número de Chamada: 327 A447vl

28) Livros digitais online, economia e politica

2008-02-10T02:05:00.001-04:00

O Hispanic American Center for Economic Research (Hacer) apresenta, em sua biblioteca digital online, uma vasta colecao de livros classicos, de economia, de politica e de historia, a vasta maioria em espanhol, mas alguns em ingles e um ou outro em portugues (como "O Caminho da Servidao", de Hayek), que podem interessar alguns da lista.
Transcrevo abaixo a lista completa de titulos disponiveis atualmente, organizados pelo nome de familia do autor, com o link inicial de acesso, para consulta e download dos titulos que interessarem eventualmente a alguns dos leitores.
-------------
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

BIBLIOTECA HACER

Link: http://www.hacer.org/library.php
Acesso 10.02.2008

The HACER Online Library is devoted to advancing the study of economics, markets, and liberty. It offers a unique combination of resources for students, teachers, researchers, and aficionados of free market ideas.

"Que otros se jacten de las paginas que han escrito;
a mi me enorgullecen las que he leido" Jorge L. Borges

Online Books:

* Alberdi, Juan Bautista
- Bases y puntos de partida para la organizacion nacional (Spanish)
- El Crimen de la Guerra (Spanish)
- Fragmento preliminar al estudio del derecho (Spanish)
- La Omnipotencia del Estado (Spanish)
- Palabras de un Ausente (Spanish)
- Peregrinacion de luz del dia en America (Spanish)
- Reflexiones Historicas I (Spanish)
- Reflexiones Historicas II (Spanish)
- Reflexiones Historicas III (Spanish)
- Sistema economico y rentistico de la Constitucion de 1853 (Spanish)
- Tobias o la Carcel a Vela (Spanish)
- Viajes y descripciones (Spanish)

* Aguinis, Marcos
- El Atroz Encanto de ser Argentinos (Spanish)

* Ancicar, Manuel
- Alpha's Pilgrimage (Spanish)

* Arias King, Fredo
- Transiciones: La Experiencia de Europa del Este (Spanish)

* Arocha, Modesto
- Chistes de Cuba sobre la revolucion (Spanish)

* Bailey, Norman
- The Strategic Plan that Won the Cold War

* Bastiat, Frederic
- The Law (Spanish)
- Government (Spanish)
- Justicia y fraternidad (Spanish)
- Propiedad y ley (Spanish)
- Petition of candlestickmakers (Spanish)
- El recaudador de impuestos (Spanish)
- What is Seen and What is Not Seen (Spanish)

* Bernaldo de Quiros, Lorenzo
- El Modelo Economico Español 1996-2004: Una revolucion silenciosa (Spanish)

* Blum, Roberto
- De la Politica Mexicana y sus Medios (Spanish)

* Blundell, John
- En el Combate de las Ideas No se Pueden Tomar Atajos (Spanish)

* Boragina, Gabriel
- La Credulidad (Spanish)

* Borges, Jorge Luis
- El Aleph (Spanish)
- Ficciones (Spanish)
- Seleccion de Poesia (Spanish)

* Carranza, Octavio
- Populist Regimes of Argentina (Spanish)

* Cieslik, Thomas (Editor)
- Beyond the Wall: Perspectives and Proposals on Migration (English/Spanish)
- La globalizacion: Retos y oportunidades para Mexico (Spanish)

* Damm Arnal, Arturo
- Como vencer los obstaculos hacia un mundo globalizado sin fronteras? Argumentos en favor de la globalizacion (Spanish)

* Fernandez, Jose Joaquin
- Causa de la Inflacion, Cierre del Banco Central y Dolarizacion en Costa Rica (Spanish)

* Garcia, Valeriano
- Para entender la Economia Politica (y la politica economica)

* Garcia Gaspar, Eduardo
- Ideas en Economia, Politica y Cultura (Spanish)

* Garcia Perez, Jorge Luis
- Boitel Vive: Testimonio desde el actual presidio politico Cubano (Spanish)

* Guissarri, Adrian
- La Argentina Informal (Spanish)

* Hayek, Friedrich A.
- The Road to Serfdom (Condensed version)
- The Road to Serfdom (Portuguese)

* Hazlitt, Henry
- Economics in One Lesson
- Economics in One Lesson (Spanish)
- Economics in One Lesson (Portuguese)

* Hidalgo, Juan Carlos (Editor)
- Libre Comercio en las Americas (Spanish)

* Lambsdorff, Otto Graf
- Libertad: El Mejor Remedio contra la Pobreza (Spanish)

* Lazzari, Gustavo (Editor)
- Heroes de la Libertad (Spanish)
- Politicas Liberales Exitosas (Spanish)

* Luders, Rudolf
- Estado y Economia en America Latina: Por un Govierno Efectivo en la Epoca Actual (Spanish)

* Mercado, Tomas de
- Treatise on Markets and Contracts (Spanish)

* Menger, Carl
- Principles of Economics
- Principles of Economics (Spanish)

* Mises, Ludwig
- Bureaucracy
- Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
- Politica Economica: Pensamientos para hoy y para el futuro (Spanish)
- The Anticapitalistic Mentality

* Montaner, Carlos Alberto
- 200 Años de gringos
- Cuba: Claves para una conciencia en crisis
- Cuba: Un siglo de doloroso aprendizaje
- Como y porque termino el comunismo
- De la literatura como una forma de urticaria
- El ojo del ciclon
- Perromundo (Spanish)
- La agonia de America
- Las raices torcidas de America Latina
- La Trama (Spanish)
- Libertad: La clave de la prosperidad
- Los combatientes
- Los Latinoamericanos y la Cultura Occidental (Spanish)
- No perdamos tambien el Siglo XXI
- Twisted Roots (English)
- Viaje al corazon de Cuba
- Vispera del final: Fidel Castro y la revolucion Cubana

* Muller-Groeling, Hubertus
- La dimension social de la politica liberal (Spanish)

* Nolla, Eduardo (Editor)
- Alexis de Tocqueville: Libertad, Igualdad, Despotismo (Spanish)

* Norberg, Johan
- La Globalizacion y los Pobres (Spanish)

* Ñaupari, Hector
- Paginas Libertarias (Spanish)
- Rosa de los vientos (Spanish)

* Orwell, George
- 1984 (Spanish)
- Los escritores y Leviatan - Matar un elefante (Spanish)
- Rebelion en la Granja (Spanish)

* Palmer, Tom
- Globalizacion y Cultura: Homogeneidad, Diversidad, Identidad y Libertad (Spanish)

* Pardo Rueda, Rafael
- Los Derechos Humanos y la Guerra contra el Narcotrafico y el Terrorismo: Una Perspectiva Latinoamericana (Spanish)

* Piñera, Jose
- El Cascabel al Gato (Spanish)
- El exito de Chile: Reflexiones para Mexico y America Latina (Spanish)
- Libertad, libertad mis amigos (Spanish)

* Pipes, Richard
- Propiedad y libertad: La piedra angular de la sociedad civil (Spanish)

* Puerta, Ricardo
- Corrupcion en Cuba y como Combatirla: Una Auditoria Social (Spanish)

* Read, Leonard
- I, a pencil (Spanish)

* Rojas, Mauricio
- Historia de la crisis argentina (Spanish)
- Mitos del Milenio: El fin del trabajo y otros profetas del Apocalipsis (Spanish)
- Suecia despues del modelo Sueco: Del estado benefactor al estado posibilitador (Spanish)
- Sweden after the Swedish Model: From Tutorial State to Enabling State (English)
- The Sorrows of Carmencita: Argentina's Crisis in a Historical Perspective (English)

* Rojas, Ricardo
- El uso de las herramientas del analisis economico en el proceso penal: El caso "pico" (Spanish)
- El Sr. Robinson (Spanish)
- Los Derechos Fundamentales y el Orden Juridico e Institucional en Cuba (Spanish)

* Rothbard, Murray
- Algunas teorias alternativas sobre la Libertad (Spanish)

* Ruiz, Fernando
- Otra grieta en la pared: Informes y testimonios de la nueva prensa Cubana (Spanish)

* Sabino, Carlos
- Guatemala: Dos paradojas y una incognita (Spanish)
- Desarrollo y calidad de vida (Spanish)

* Salvia, Gabriel (editor)
- La Experiencia Chilena: Consensos para el Desarrollo - Compilacion de Autores Varios - (Spanish)

* Samper, Miguel
- Colombian Politics' Vices (Spanish)

* Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino
- Facundo

* Say, Jean Baptiste
- Treatise of Political Economy - Book 1 (Spanish)
- Treatise of Political Economy - Book 2 (Spanish)

* Schroder, Peter
- Political Strategies (Spanish)

* Segerfeldt, Fredrik
- Agua a la Venta: Como la Empresa Privada y el Mercado pueden resolver la Crisis Mundial del Agua (Spanish)

* Simonetta, Martin (Editor)
- Heroes de la Libertad (Spanish)
- Politicas Liberales Exitosas (Spanish)

* Stevens, Philip
- Libre Comercio para Mejor Salud (Spanish)

* Tooley, James
- Podria la globalizacion de la educacion beneficiar a los pobres? (Spanish)

* Vargas Llosa, Alvaro
- Latin American Liberalism: A Mirage? (English)

* Vargas Llosa, Mario
- El Paraiso en la Otra Esquina (Spanish)
- El Pez en el Agua (Spanish)
- Historia de Mayta (Spanish)
- La Casa Verde (Spanish)
- La Ciudad y Los Perros (Spanish)
- La Fiesta del Chivo (Spanish)
- La Orgia Perpetua / Flaubert y 'Madame Bovary' (Spanish)
- La Verdad de las Mentiras: Ensayos sobre Literatura (Spanish)
- Lituma en Los Andes (Spanish)
- Los Cuadernos de Don Rigoberto (Spanish)
- Los Jefes (Spanish)
- Pantaleon y las Visitadoras (Spanish)

* Vinelli, Andres (Editor)
- La Nueva Propuesta: Discursos, Articulos y Declaraciones de Ricardo Lopez Murphy (2001-2004) (Spanish)

* Weber, Max
- El politico y el Cientifico (Spanish)

* Zanotti, Gabriel
- El Humanismo del Futuro: Ensayo Filosofico-Politico (Spanish)

* Constitution of the United States of America (Spanish)

Online Brief Publications:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N Ñ O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
* Acton, Lord
- Historia de la Libertad en la Antiguedad (Spanish)
- Historia de la Libertad en la Cristianidad (Spanish)

* Alberdi, Juan Bautista
- Ideas para presidir a la confección del curso de filosofía contemporánea (Spanish)
- La generación presente a la faz de la generación pasada (Spanish)
- Ley de Vagos (Spanish)
- Predicar en desiertos (Spanish)
- Reacción contra el españolismo (Spanish)
- Reflexiones sobre mi encuentro con el general don Jose de San Martin (Spanish)

* Aguinis, Marcos
- A Marrano on Trial (English)
- Assault on Paradise (English)
- El Arca de los Libros Prohibidos (Spanish)
- El Placer de la Venganza (Spanish)
- Incorregibles Argentinos (Spanish)
- Kirchner Furioso (Spanish)
- Peron: El Arquetipo (Spanish)

* Aquino, Tomas de
- Escritos politicos de Santo Tomas de Aquino (Spanish)

* Arana, Horacio de
- La Teoria Austriaca del Ciclo Economico y la Crisis Argentina de 2001 (Spanish)

* Bastiat, Frederic
- A los artesanos y a los obreros (Spanish)
- Carestia y Baratura (Spanish)
- Cuento Chino (Spanish)
- El robo por medio de las primas (Spanish)
- Fisiologia de la expoliacion (Spanish)
- Libertad como competencia (Spanish)
- Las dos hachas (Spanish)

* Bauer, Peter
- De la Subsistencia al Intercambio (Spanish)
- El Desprecio de la Realidad (Spanish)
- Remembranza de Estudios Pasados: Volviendo sobre los Primeros Pasos (Spanish)

* Becker, Gary
- La naturaleza de la competencia (Spanish)

* Beltran, Lucas
- El Padre Juan de Mariana (Spanish)

* Benegas, Jose
- XXI Century Human Rights (Spanish)
- Incompatibilidades entre Justicia e Igualdad y los procedimientos para lograrga
- La Corte Penal Internationales: consideraciones criticas sobre sus antedentes y su regulacion actual
- Thomas Szasz: Redencion, locura y disidencia
- Who's Ayn Rand? (Spanish)

* Benegas Lynch, Alberto (Jr.)
- Bienes publicos, externalidades y Free-riders (Spanish)
- La educacion en una Sociedad Libre (Spanish)
- Nacionalismo: Cultura de la Incultura (Spanish)
- Reflexiones sobre la propuesta monetaria de Hayek (Spanish)
- Introduccion al 'lenguaje' posmoderno (Spanish)

* Biglione, Eneas A.
- U.S. Immigation Reform: Situation and Challenges of the Current Political Debate (Spanish)
- The Nature and Future of the Latin American Populism (Spanish)

* Blasco Garma, Enrique
- Riqueza, Conocimiento y Derechos Individuales (Spanish)

* Boehm-Bawerk, Eugene
- Una Contradiccion no Resuelta en el Sistema Economico Marxista (Spanish)

* Burke, Edmund
- Seleccion de escritos politicos (Spanish)

* Buchanan, James
- Apatia del contribuyente, inercia institucional y crecimiento economico (Spanish)
- La deuda publica y la formacion de capital (Spanish)
- Mi Peregrinaje Intelectual (Spanish)
- Pueden los Estados Benefactores en democracia sobrevivir a las crisis financieras? (Spanish)
- Que deberian hacer los economistas? (Spanish)

* Caballero Argaez, Carlos
- Economia y Politica Monetario (Spanish)

* Cachanosky, Juan Carlos
- La escuela austriaca de economia (Spanish)

* Clavijo Vergara, Sergio
- Fallos y Fallas Economicas de las Altas Cortes: El Caso de Colombia (Spanish)
- Comentarios sobre dolarizacion (Spanish)
- Banca Central y Coordinacion Macroeconomica (Spanish)
- Reflexiones sobre Politica Monetaria e "Inflacion Objetivo" en Colombia (Spanish)

* Coase, Ronald
- El Mercado de los Bienes y el Mercado de las Ideas (Spanish)
- El Problema del Costo Social (Spanish)

* Coronel, Gustavo
- Corruption, Mismanagement and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela

* Covernton, Guillermo
-Algunas Consideraciones Acerca del Crecimiento, la Estabilidad y el Rol de la Actividad Privada en Cuestiones Monetarias

* Chafuen, Alejandro A.
- Economic Growth and Welfare in Catholic Thinking
- Global Migration: A Free-Market Perspective (Spanish)
- Justicia distributiva en la escolastica tardia (Spanish)
- La economia y la filosofia de la libertad (Spanish)
- Libre comercio en las Americas: El liderazgo de los paises pequeños y la etica de un continente (Spanish)

* Chelminski, Vladimir
- Educación Frente al Dilema del Lucro (Spanish)

* De Soto, Hernando
- Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Spanish)
- Sector informal, economia popular y mercados abiertos (Spanish)
- Porque importa la economia informal? (Spanish)

* Donges, Juergen
- Europa ante la Globalización Económica (Spanish)

* Epstein, Richard
- Fundamentos de la Libertad de Expresion (Spanish)

* Friedman, Milton
- El Verdadero Almuerzo Gratuito: Mercados y Propiedad Privada (Spanish)
- La Tirania de los Controles (Spanish)

* Fukuyama, Francis
- Foreign Policy: The Gap between the US and Its Allies (Spanish)

* Gallo, Ezequiel
- Hayek y la investigacion historica (Spanish)
- Notas sobre el liberalismo clasico (Spanish)

* Garcia, Valeriano
- Why Does the World Hate the USA?: A Politically Incorrect Approach (English)

* Garcia Hamilton, Jose Ignacio
- Calidad Institucional en la Argentina (Spanish)
- Dollarization: Would it have Prevented the Argentine Crisis? (Spanish)
- Historial Reflections on the Splendor and Decline of Argentina (English)
- Reflexiones históricas sobre el esplendor y la decadencia de Argentina (Spanish)

* Ghersi, Enrique
- Economia de la Corrupcion (Spanish)

* Hayek, Friedrich A.
- Derecho y Ley (Spanish)
- Dos Paginas de Ficcion (Spanish)
- El Atavismo de la Justicia Social (Spanish)
- El Elemento Moral en la Libre Empresa (Spanish)
- El Mensaje de Adam Smith en el Lenguaje Actual (Spanish)
- El Uso del Conocimiento en la Sociedad (Spanish)
- Gobierno Democratico y Actividad Economica (Spanish)
- Historia Economica y Pensamiento Politico (Spanish)
- Individualismo: el Verdadero y el Falso (Spanish)
- La Competencia como Proceso de Descubrimiento (Spanish)
- La Libertad Bajo la Ley (Spanish)
- La Libertad y el Sistema Economico (Spanish)
- La Pretension del Conocimiento (Spanish)
- La Solucion "Competitiva" para el Socialismo (Spanish)
- La Teoria de los Fenomenos Complejos (Spanish)
- Libertad Economica y Gobierno Representativo (Spanish)
- Los Errores del Constructivismo (Spanish)
- Los Fundamentos Eticos de una Sociedad Libre (Spanish)
- Los Origenes de la Libertad, la Propiedad y la Justicia (Spanish)
- Los Principios de un Orden Social Liberal (Spanish)
- Perspectivas de Precios, Disturbios Monetarios y Mala Orientación de las Inversiones (Spanish)

* Herrera-Vaillant, Antonio
- Bolivar Empresario: También Víctima de la Inseguridad Jurídica (Spanish)

* Huerta de Soto, Jesus
- A Proposito del Proceso de Unificacion Monetaria en Europa (Spanish)
- La escuela austriaca moderna frente a la neoclasica (Spanish)

* Hoyos Maldonado, Daniel
- El Rol de las Expectativas y las Instituciones en los Modelos Economicos Austriacos (Spanish)

* Johnson, Paul
- Existe una base moral para el capitalismo? (Spanish)

* Kalmanovitz, Salomon
- El modelo antiliberal colombiano (Spanish)
- Instituciones colombianas en el Siglo XX (Spanish)
- La Independencia del Banco Central y la democracia en America latina (Spanish)

* Kirzner, Israel
- El empresario (Spanish)
- La Escuela Austriaca de Economia: Presente y Futuro (Spanish)

* Krause, Martin
- La desobediencia argentina (Spanish)

* Larroulet, Cristian
- Efectos de un programa de privatizaciones: el caso de Chile 1985-1989 (Spanish)
- Reflexion en torno al estado empresario en Chile (Spanish)
- Sector informal, economia popular y mercados abiertos (Spanish)

* Leonov, Nikolai
- Soviet Intelligence in Latin America During the Corld War
- La Inteligencia Sovietica en America Latina durante la Guerra Fria

* Locke, John
- Carta de la Tolerancia (Spanish)

* Menger, Carl
- El origen del dinero (Spanish)
- Economia y bienestar economico (Spanish)
- Principios de Economia Politica (Spanish)

* Mises, Ludwig
- El Calculo Economico en el Sistema Socialista (Spanish)
- Los objetivos inmediatos de la educacion economica (Spanish)
- Relativismo epistemologico en las ciencias de la accion humana (Spanish)
- Socialismos y pseudosocialismos (Spanish)
- Utilidad y Perdida (Spanish)

* Molina, Luis de
- La Teoria del Justo Precio (Spanish)

* Montaner, Carlos Alberto
- Was Fidel Good for Cuba? A Debate with Ignacio Ramonet
- Cuba: año 2020 (Spanish)
- Desconstruyendo a Fidel (Spanish)
- El nacionalismo y la naturaleza humana (Spanish)
- El reñidero intelectual: la revolucion cubana y sus ultimos alabarderos (Spanish)
- La libertad economica y sus enemigos: falacias y paradojas (Spanish)
- Venezuela: Del tercermundisto a la modernidad (Spanish)

* Moron, Eduardo (Editor)
- Peru: Tratado de Libre Comercio con los Estados Unidos (Spanish)
- Dolarizar la economia peruana: Riesgos y oportunidades (Spanish)

* North, Douglas
- Que queremos decir cuando hablamos de Racionalidad? (Spanish)
- Instituciones, Ideologias y Desempeno Economico (Spanish)

* Novak, Michael
- Ocho Argumentos sobre la Moralidad del Mercado (Spanish)
- La Crisis de la Social Democracia (Spanish)
- Las Deficiencias Culturales del Capitalismo (Spanish)
- Las Virtudes de la Empresa: Reflexiones sobre la Comunidad y la Persona (Spanish)
- Pensamiento Social Catolico e Instituciones Liberales (Spanish)

* O'Driscoll, Gerald P.
- Derechos de Propiedad: La Clave del Desarrollo Economico (Spanish)

* Popper, Karl
- En busca de una teoria racional de la tradicion (Spanish)
- Tolerancia y Responsabilidad Intelectual (Spanish)

* Piña Ortiz, Edgar
- Desarrollo Sustentable: Aportaciones de la Escuela Austriaca de Economia (Spanish)

* Piñera, Jose
- How We Privatized Social Security In Chile (English)

* Posner, Richard
- Maximizacion de la Riqueza y tort law: Una investigacion filosofica (Spanish)

* Rand, Ayn
- Himno de Ayn Rand (Spanish)

* Ravier, Adrian
- La Globalizacion y la Paz: Una Vision Hayekiana (Spanish)

* Read, Leonard
- Ejercicios de fe e imaginacion (Spanish)

* Reagan, Ronald
- Ronald Reagan Address at the Brandenburg Gate
- Discurso en la puerta de Bradenmburgo (Spanish)
- Discurso de Investidura (Spanish)

* Richman, Sheldom
- Del comunismo de guerra a la NEP: el camino desde la servidumbre (Spanish)

* Robinson, Joan
- La bella y la bestia (Spanish)

* Rodriguez Braun, Carlos
- Elogio del Mercado (Spanish)

* Rojas, Ricardo
- El derecho desde la perspectiva de la Escuela Austriaca de Economia: La vision de Friedrich A. Von Hayek (Spanish)
- Ayn Rand y Karl Popper sobre el conocimiento: ¿Es posible encontrar un punto de conexion? (Spanish)
- Objetivismo: Ayn Rand y los fundamentos filosoficos del capitalismo (Spanish)

* Ropke, Wilhelm
- Estado benefactor e inflacion cronica (Spanish)

* Rothbard, Murray
- El impuesto al consumo: una critica (Spanish)
- Algunas teorias alternativas sobre la libertad (Spanish)

* Sabino, Carlos
- Los fracasos de nuestra America (Spanish)

* Santa Cruz, Lucia
- Interview with Milton Friedman on the 'Latin American Perestroika' (Spanish)

* Sennholz, Hans F.
- Economic Doctrines of Islam

* Sirico, Robert A.
- Towards a Free and Virtuous Society (Spanish)

* Schumpeter, Joshep
- Sobre el imperialismo (Spanish)

* Smith, Vera
- El desarrollo de la banca central en inglaterra y el sistema escoces (Spanish)

* Stoetzer, O. Carlos
- Scholastic Roots of the American Constitution (Spanish)

* Stewart, Rigoberto
- Costa Rica: Estimacion de los Costos del Mercantilismo en el CAFTA-DR (Spanish)

* Stuart Mill, John
- On Liberty (Spanish)

* Tapia, Jose Luis
- La Empresarialidad: Como Afecta la Ideologia? (Spanish)

* Termes, Rafael
- La Tradicion Hispana de la Libertad (Spanish)

* Tullock, Gordon
- La Fundamentacion de la redistribucion (Spanish)
- Votacion y sistemas electorales (Spanish)

* Vargas Llosa, Alvaro
- The Individualist Legacy in Latin America

* Vargas Llosa, Mario
- Abajo la Ley de Gravedad! (Spanish)
- Cabrera Infante (Spanish)
- Conversacion en la Catedral (Spanish)
- Dos Amigos (Spanish)
- El elefante y la cultura (Spanish)
- El hombre que sabia demasiado (Spanish)
- El Regreso del Idiota (Spanish)
- El Reportero y el Escribidor (Spanish)
- Entrevista a Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish)
- Jorge Amado en el Paraiso (Spanish)
- La odisea de Flora Tristan (Spanish)
- Lituma en los Andes (Spanish)
- Reportaje: Israel / Palestina: Paz o Guerra Santa? (Spanish)
- Porque fracasa America Latina? (English)
- Que significa ser liberal? (English)
- El Regreso del Idiota (Spanish)
- The culture of liberty (English)
- Why does Latin America fail? (English)

* Zanotti, Gabriel
- Como ser liberal Clasico en America Latina y no morir en el intento (Spanish)
- Doctrina social de la iglesia y sistemas economicos (Spanish)
- El Futuro de la Escuela Austriaca de Economia (Spanish)
- Hayek y la Filosofia Cristiana (Spanish)
- Ludwig Von Mises y la filosofia cristiana (Spanish)
- Nueva introduccion a la escuela austrica de economia (Spanish)
- Persona humana y libertad (Spanish)

27) Bibliotecas do mundo

2007-11-17T18:26:00.001-04:00

BIBLIOTECAS DO MUNDO

Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana - biblioteca que possui um arquivo secreto: bav.vatican.va

Biblioteca Central - localize os livros das bibliotecas da UFRGS: www.biblioteca.ufrgs.br

Biblioteca del Congreso - item Expo Virtual mostra alguns tesouros dessa biblioteca argentina: www.bcnbib.gov.ar

Biblioteca Digital Andina - Bolívia, Colômbia, Equador e Peru estão representados: www.comunidadandina.org/bda

Biblioteca Digital de Obras Raras - livros completos digitalizados, como um de Lavoisier editado no século 19: www.obrasraras.usp.br

Biblioteca do Hospital do Câncer - índice desse acervo especializado em oncologia: www.hcanc.org.br/outrasinfs/biblio/biblio1.html

Biblioteca do Senado Federal - sistema de busca nos 150 mil títulos da biblioteca: www.senado.gov.br/biblioteca

Biblioteca Mário de Andrade - acervo, eventos e história da principal biblioteca de São Paulo: www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/mariodeandrade

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal - apresenta páginas especiais com reproduções relacionadas a Eça de Queirós e a Giuseppe Verdi, entre outros: www.bn.pt

Biblioteca Nacional de España - entre as exposições virtuais, uma interessante coleção cartográfica do século 16 ao 19: www.bne.es

Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina - biblioteca, mapoteca e fototeca: www.bibnal.edu.ar

Biblioteca Nacional de Maestros - biblioteca argentina voltada para a comunidade educativa: www.bnm.me.gov.ar

Biblioteca Nacional del Perú - alguns livros eletrônicos, mapas e imagens: www.binape.gob.pe

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma - expõe detalhes de obras antigas de seu catálogo: www.bncrm.librari.beniculturali.it

Biblioteca Româneasca - textos em romeno e dados sobre autores do país: biblioteca.euroweb.ro

Biblioteca Virtual Galega - textos em língua galega, parecida com o português: bvg.udc.es

Bibliotheca Alexandrina - conheça a instituição criada à sombra da famosa biblioteca, que sumiu há mais de 1.600 anos: www.bibalex.org/website

California Digital Library - imagens e e-livros oferecidos pela Universidade da Califórnia: californiadigitallibrary.org

Celtic Digital Library - história e literatura celtas: celtdigital.org

Círculo Psicanalítico de Minas Gerais - acervo especializado em psicanálise: www.cpmg.org.br/n_biblioteca.asp

Cornell Library Digital Collections - compilações variadas, sobre agricultura e matemática, por exemplo: moa.cit.cornell.edu

Corpus of Electronic Texts - história, literatura e política irlandesas: www.ucc.ie/celt

Crime Library - histórias reais de criminosos, espiões e terroristas: www.crimelibrary.com

Educ.ar Biblioteca Digital - em espanhol, apresenta livros e revistas de "todas as disciplinas": www.educ.ar/educar/superior/biblioteca_digital

Gallica - Bibliothèque Numérique - volumes da Biblioteca Nacional da França digitalizados: gallica.bnf.fr

Human Rights Library - mais de 14 mil documentos relacionados aos direitos humanos: www1.umn.edu/humanrts

IDRC Library - textos e imagens desse centro de estudos do desenvolvimento internacional: www.idrc.ca/library

Internet Ancient History Sourcebook - página dedicada à difusão de documentos da Antiguidade: www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html

Internet Archive - guarda páginas da Internet em seus diversos estágios de evolução: www.archive.org

Internet Public Library - indica páginas em que se podem ler documentos sobre áreas específicas do conhecimento: www.ipl.org

John F. Kennedy Library - sobre o presidente americano John F. Kennedy, morto em 1963: www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary

LibDex - índice para localizar mais de 18 mil bibliotecas do mundo todo e seus sites: www.libdex.com

Lib-web-cats - enumera bibliotecas de mais de 60 países, mas o foco são os EUA e o Canadá: www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats

Libweb - outro site de busca de instituições, com 6.600 links de 115 países: sunsite.Berkeley.edu/Libweb

Mosteiro São Geraldo - livros e periódicos sobre história e literatura húngara, filosofia, teologia e religião: www.msg.org.br

National Library of Australia - divulga periódicos australianos da década de 1840: www.nla.gov.au

Oxford Digital Library - centraliza acesso a projetos digitais das bibliotecas da Universidade de Oxford: www.odl.ox.ac.uk

Perseus Digital Library - dedicado a estudos sobre os gregos e romanos antigos: www.perseus.tufts.edu

Servei de Biblioteques - bibliotecas da Universidade Autônoma de Barcelona: www.bib.uab.es

The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives - recém-lançado, site promete divulgar 5 milhões de fotos aéreas da Segunda Guerra Mundial: www.evidenceincamera.co.uk

The British Library - além de busca no catálogo, tem coleções virtuais separadas por região geográfica: www.bl.uk

The Digital Library - diversas coleções temáticas, como a de escritoras negras americanas do século 19: digital.nypl.org

The Digital South Asia Library - periódicos, fotos e estatísticas que contam a história do Sul da Ásia: dsal.uchicago.edu

The Huntington - grande quantidade de obras raras em arte e botânica: www.huntington.org

The Math Forum - textos que se propõem a auxiliar no ensino da matemática: mathforum.org/library

The New Zealand Digital Library - destaque para os arquivos sobre questões humanitárias: www.sadl.uleth.ca/nz/cgi-bin/library

Treasures of Keyo University - um dos destaques é a reprodução da Bíblia de Gutenberg: www.humi.keio.ac.jp/treasures

Unesco Libraries Portal - informações sobre bibliotecas e projetos voltados para a preservação da memória: www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_bib

UOL Biblioteca - dicionários, guias de turismo e especiais noticiosos: www.uol.com.br/bibliot

UT Library Online - possui uma ampla coleção de mapas: www.lib.utexas.edu

Bibliotecas virtuais

Alexandria Virtual - acervo variado, de literatura a humor: www.alexandriavirtual.com.br

Bartleby.com - importantes textos, como os 70 volumes da "Harvard Classics" e a obra completa de Shakespeare: www.bartleby.com

Bibliomania - 2.000 textos clássicos e guias de estudo em inglês: www.bibliomania.com

Biblioteca dei Classici Italiani - literatura italiana, dos "duecento" aos "novecento": www.fausernet.novara.it/fauser/biblio

Biblioteca Electrónica Cristiana - teologia e humanidades vistas por religiosos: www.multimedios.org

Biblioteca Virtual do Estudante Brasileiro - especializada em literatura em língua portuguesa: www.bibvirt.futuro.usp.br

Biblioteca Virtual - Literatura - pretende reunir grandes obras literárias: www.biblio.com.br

Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes - cultura hispano-americana: www.cervantesvirtual.com

Biblioteca Virtual Universal - textos infanto-juvenis, literários e técnicos: www.biblioteca.org.ar

Contos Completos de Machado de Assis - mais de 200 contos de Machado de Assis: www.uol.com.br/machadodeassis

Cultvox - serviço que oferece alguns e-livros gratuitamente e vende outros: www.cultvox.com.br

Dearreader.com - clube virtual que envia por e-mail trechos de livros: www.dearreader.com

eBooksbrasil - livros eletrônicos gratuitos em diversos formatos: www.ebooksbrasil.com

iGLer - acesso rápido a duas centenas de obras literárias em português: www.ig.com.br/paginas/novoigler/download.html

International Children's Digital Library - pretende oferecer e-livros infantis em cem línguas: www.icdlbooks.org

IntraText - textos completos em diversas línguas, entre elas o latim: www.intratext.com

Jornal da Poesia - importante acervo de poesia em língua portuguesa, com textos de mais de 3.000 autores: www.secrel.com.br/jpoesia

Net eBook Library - biblioteca virtual com parte do acervo restrito a assinantes do site: netlibrary.net

Nuovo Rinascimento - especializado em documentos do Renascimento italiano: www.nuovorinascimento.org/n-rinasc/homepage.htm

Online Literature Library - pequena coleção para ler diretamente no navegador: www.literature.org

Progetto Manuzio - textos em italiano para download, incluindo óperas: www.liberliber.it/biblioteca

Project Gutenberg - mantido por voluntários, importante site com obras integrais disponíveis gratuitamente: www.gutenberg.net

Proyecto Biblioteca Digital Argentina - obras consideradas representativas da literatura argentina: www.biblioteca.clarin.com

Livros eletrônicos em italiano - compatíveis com o programa Microsoft Reader: www.romanzieri.com

26) O amigo dos livros, quando eles eram manuscritos...

2007-11-07T23:25:00.000-04:00

Título: Philobiblon ou O Amigo do Livro
Autor: Marcelo Cid (trad.)
ISBN: 978-85-7480-368-5
Ateliê Editorial

Resumo: Ricardo de Bury (1281-1345) estudou em Oxford e fez-se beneditino. Ligado à corte, foi tutor do Príncipe Eduardo de Windsor, que seria Eduardo III, sob cujo reinado serviu em vários ofícios de importância, na administração e na diplomacia. Em 1333 é elevado a Bispo de Durham, depois Chanceler (1334) e Tesoureiro (1336) da Inglaterra.
Foi grande apreciador de livros, dedicando todo o tempo de que dispunha, assim também os recursos que a posição lhe propiciava, aos livros e aos manuscritos, seja como colecionador seja como protetor dos estudiosos.
Apesar de Ricardo de Bury sair-se bem em cada uma das missões diplomáticas que lhe foram confiadas, em Philobiblon evidencia-se que seu coração e seu espírito eram de fato dedicados aos livros. Consta que tinha biblioteca maior do que as de todos os outros bispos da Inglaterra somadas. Sua paixão pelos livros é a razão de ser deste "grande livrinho", o que se sente a cada passo da leitura de suas cândidas palavras.
Philobiblon ou O Amigo do Livro foi escrito há mais de seis e meio séculos, quando os livros eram todos manuscritos e em pergaminho, quase sempre encadernados com capas de madeira. Para o autor os livros são "o repositório da sabedoria, que supera todas as riquezas, e perpetuadores da memória: sem eles não haveria a história; por isso, e por serem nossos mestres, merecem a honra e o amor". Palavras admiráveis, que nos fazem ainda hoje refletir.

Marcelo Cid é diplomata, com formação em latim pela USP. Publicou Borges Centenário e uma tradução do De Dialectica, de Santo Agostinho.

Medidas: 12 x 18 cm
Páginas: 256
Edição: 1ª
Ano: 2007
Assunto: Bibliofilia
Encadernação: Brochura
R$ 35,00
Código: 960

===========

Uma outra edição do mesmo livro:

Código: 748
Título: Philobiblon
Autor: Richard de Bury
ISBN: 85-7480-256-5

Resumo: Escrito em 1344, pelo reverendo Richard de Bury, ex-bispo de Durhan e chanceler do rei inglês Eduardo III, Philobiblon é o primeiro título da coleção O Prazer do Livro, da Ateliê Editorial. O nome da obra já enseja os principais objetivos dessa coleção: divulgar o amor pelos livros e publicar textos que tenham como tema livros que falam de livros: como Livro - Verbete da Enciclopédia de Diderot e O Inferno do Bibliófilo, os próximos lançamentos.
Nesta obra, o autor, imbuído de espírito religioso comum à época, em seu prólogo diz: "Este tratado purificará de todo excesso nosso amor aos livros, mostrará o alcance de nossos desvelos e aclarará as particularidades de nosso trabalho". Dessa forma, o autor que só viu sua obra publicada aos 56 anos e um ano antes de morrer, dá conselhos válidos até hoje, quase sete séculos depois, como, por exemplo, sobre o modo que os livros devem ser tratados para que não se deteriorem ou como deve ser a normatização de empréstimos em bibliotecas.
Em suma, é uma obra imprescindível que trata do amor pelos livros tanto no que se refere ao seu conteúdo quanto ao próprio objeto. Amor tal que fez com que o autor abrisse mão de prazeres seculares e se preocupasse somente com a produção de bons títulos e com o futuro dessa arte.

Medidas: 10 x 15 cm
Páginas: 184
Edição: 1ª
Ano: 2005
Assunto: Col. O Prazer do Livro, Livros sobre livros
Encadernação: Capa dura
R$ 27,00

25) Adeus às esmolas: uma história do desenvolvimento

2007-10-31T13:24:00.000-04:00

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
Gregory Clark
Princeton University Press, July 13, 2007

Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
The Malthusian Trap: Economic Life to 1800
2. The Logic of the Malthusian Economy
3. Material Living Standards
5. Life Expectancy
6. Malthus and Darwin: Survival of the Richest
7. Technological Advance
8. Institutions
9. The Emergence of Modern Man
The Industrial Revolution
10. Modern Growth: the Wealth of Nations
11. The Problem of the Industrial Revolution
12. The English Industrial Revolution,1760-1860
13. Why England? Why not China, Japan or India?
14. Social Consequences
The Great Divergence
15. The Great Divergence: World Growth since 1800
16. The Proximate Sources of Divergence
17. Why Isn’t the Whole World Developed?
18. Conclusion: Strange New World
Technical Appendix
References

24) LIvros de Viagem: o leitor como turista...

2007-09-25T16:52:00.001-04:00

O viés americano (e absolutamente anglófono) é inevitável, mas pelo menos se trata de uma seleção não excludente...

THE 86 GREATEST TRAVEL BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Concierge.com, published September 2007
Chosen by a literary all-star jury that included: Monica Ali; Vikram Chandra; Jared Diamond; Peter Mayle; John McPhee; Francine Prose; Paul Theroux; Gore Vidal; and more.

Along the Ganges
Ilija Trojanow (2006)
An emigrant from Cold War Bulgaria now living in Cape Town, Trojanow brings a pan-religious enthusiasm to his writings on Asia, and in his journey from the Ganges's source to the chaotic cities along its course, he treats the river and its Hindu devotees with fascination, respect, and an eye for detail. Nominated by Nuruddin Farah (Haus Publishers, $20).

Arabian Sands
Wilfred Thesiger (1959)
Born in Ethiopia to a British diplomat, the writer-explorer was disenchanted with the West and spent five years traveling among the bedouins of southern Arabia, detailing their disappearing way of life. For his dedication and his eloquence, Paul Theroux puts him "on my classics list" (Penguin, $15).

An Area of Darkness
V. S. Naipaul (1965)
This is old-school Naipaul-the Subcontinental chronicle that made his name and expertly defined the India of the early sixties (even the writer's former protégé turned nemesis Paul Theroux confesses admiration). Linh Dinh calls it "penetrating, taut, and funny," with the caveat that "the only flaw with Naipaul is the fact that he does not drink alcohol, which curtails his access to many social situations" (Vintage, $14).

As They Were
M.F.K. Fisher (1982)
Peter Mayle, who has credited the brilliant food writer's Provence books with inspiring him to first visit the region, nonetheless recommends the book that comes closest to being Fisher's complete memoir. "She has the rare gift of letting the reader know exactly what it was like to see what she saw, hear what she heard, taste what she tasted, and feel what she felt," says Mayle. "A book not to be missed" (Vintage, $14).

A Barbarian in Asia
Henri Michaux (1933)
For those who would have liked to imagine Rimbaud as a reporter, the louche French poet Michaux might make the perfect guide to the East in the thirties. John Wray calls the book "hilarious, bizarre, and wildly self-indulgent"-not always a bad thing. "He was apparently hell-bent on alienating half the planet, or at least those parts he traveled through. Not to be read by anyone looking to get a feel for what life is like in India, China, or Japan" (New Directions, $15).

The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer
Eric Hansen (2004)
From Manhattan to the Maldives, the Riviera to Vanuatu, Hansen has been everywhere and swallowed it all whole-as this dizzying collection proves. His stint as a volunteer in Mother Teresa's Calcutta poorhouse is a highlight. "The stories he spins are full of humor and savvy," says Julia Alvarez. "These are perfect-pitch stories, mischievous, daring-perfect for the armchair traveler who wouldn't dare" (Vintage, $14).

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
Lawrence Durrell (1957)
What begins as a romantic Peter Mayle-style romp quickly becomes something much deeper, says Robert D. Kaplan: "a study of, among other things, how frustrated young men turn to violence on 'an agricultural island being urbanized too quickly.' The perfect blend of travel and informed reportage. While The Alexandria Quartet made Durrell famous, this is the better work" (out-of-print).

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Rebecca West (1942)
The writer's chronicle of Yugoslavia on the eve of World War II enjoyed a boost in popularity when that country finally dissolved a half-century later. Robert D. Kaplan calls it "a sprawling world unto itself-an encyclopedic inventory of Yugoslavia and a near-scholarly thesis on Byzantine archaeology, pagan folklore, Christian and Islamic philosophy, and the nineteenth-century origins of fascism and terrorism. It all unfolds with the meticulous intricacy of an expert seamstress." Also nominated by Francine Prose and John Wray (Penguin, $25).

Blue Highways
William Least Heat-Moon (1982)
Impelled by the loss of his job and his wife, Least Heat-Moon set off in a van he christened Ghost Dancing to cross the country along its back roads. "There's a real honesty to the authorial voice, as well as tact," says Peter Hessler. "He lets us know where he's coming from, and then he steps back and allows the places and people to carry the book." Also nominated by Erik Larson (Back Bay, $16).

Captain John Smith: Writings (2007)
The Jamestown founder's journals and other primary accounts of the colony were collected on the four hundredth anniversary of its creation. Matthew Sharpe, author of the surrealist novel Jamestown, says that "if one were to use modern categories, his accounts might be said to include travelogue, memoir, ethnography, cartography, zoology and botany, military history, and a bit of James Frey-style fiction. He's part of America's DNA" (Library of America, $45).

Chasing the Monsoon
Alexander Frater (1993)
The ultimate foul-weather traveler, Frater crosses India during its summer monsoon. Akhil Sharma feels "there is a joy to his quest-whether interviewing Saudi tourists who come to India to be pounded by the rain or while discussing how exactly to bury a body when the ground is basically mud-that turns what could be a series of set pieces into a great and loving adventure" (out-of-print).

Chasing the Sea
Tom Bissell (2003)
Memoir, travelogue, and cultural history mix in the young writer's tale of his journey to post-Soviet central Asia's rapidly disappearing Aral Sea. Then there's his idea of doing penance for dropping out of the Peace Corps, and for failing to live up to such literary forefathers as Paul Theroux. "It's so many things," says Stephen Elliott, "but the travelogue is what gives it narrative momentum." Also nominated by Stewart O'Nan (Pantheon, $15).

Cross Country
Robert Sullivan (2006)
Claiming to have traveled cross-country 27 times, Sullivan finds a fresh approach to a travel-writing staple by making part of his subject the history of the road-trip genre itself. "Sullivan's books are like Borges's story 'The Aleph,'" says Matthew Sharpe. "He presents you with a little chunk of something that doesn't look like anything and shows you how the world is contained in it" (Bloomsbury, $15).

Dark Star Safari
Paul Theroux (2003)
Stephen Elliott prefers this cantankerous account of an overland journey-from Cairo to Capetown via canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, and more-to other Theroux books that tread more familiar ground. "It was a fun way for me to learn about a lot," says Elliott. "It's a cynical book, but it really makes you want to take that journey" (Mariner, $15).

Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)
What Tom McCarthy treasures most about this landmark outsider document of American mores, and what makes it a travel book, are "his impressions of the land itself as something dark, brooding, and inscrutable." Jennifer Egan adds, "His observations still resonate-in part as a measure of how much we've changed. He wrote, 'What an admirable position of the New World, that man has yet no enemies but himself.' Imagine" (Penguin, $10).

Down and Out in Paris and London
George Orwell (1933)
Written while Orwell struggled to survive in Paris, this is no Lost Generation reverie-which is what Adrienne Miller loves about it. "It's the gritty, squalid Paris of the poor, one of the least romanticized visions of it ever put on paper," she says. "After you read it, you'll never be able to eat in a St-Germain bistro without thinking of young Orwell toiling away miserably in the kitchen" (Harcourt, $14).

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff
Rosemary Mahoney (2007)
The novelist's allusive account-contrasting her lonely rowboat ride with the sumptuous Nile journeys made by Flaubert and Florence Nightingale-just came out in July. But Jan Morris raves about reading it in galleys. "It's the sort of title that usually makes me reach for the wastepaper basket," she says. But she's glad she didn't, "because it is utterly frank; sometimes rather scary; often extremely witty, brave, and revealing in its generalizations; and above all essentially kind" (Little, Brown; $24).

The Emperor
Ryszard Kapuściński (1978; translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand)
As Haile Selassie's regime in Ethiopia collapsed in 1974, the intrepid Polish journalist interviewed various functionaries and compiled a complete (if composite) picture of that mysterious kingdom, right down to the emperor's dog, which had a habit of peeing on the shoes of dignitaries. "As scathing and witty and sharp-eyed a portrait of autocracy as there is in print," says Jim Shepard (Vintage, $13).

Endurance
Alfred Lansing (1959)
The Jon Krakauer of his day, Lansing gave shape and understated precision to the story of Ernest Shackleton's white-knuckle escape from Antarctica in 1915 after his boat had become locked in ice. Mary Karr says it "reminds me how ill-advised all travel is, and why it's best to stay at home in warm pajamas with a book" (Carroll & Graf, $15).

Eothen
Alexander William Kinglake (1844)
The writer whom Winston Churchill recommended for lessons in prose style gives a subtly self-mocking account of his travels in the Middle East. "It's in many ways the portrait of a considerably dislikable young man, a colonial type who takes a superior air toward the locals he meets," says Jonathan Raban. "Edward Said utterly detested it, but I think he deliberately misread it and didn't catch the irony" (Adamant, $24).

"Exterminate All the Brutes"
Sven Lindqvist(1996)
A Saharan travel diary tracing the routes of British colonial forces becomes an oddly suspenseful meditation on atrocities and genocide, drawing a line from African imperialism to the Holocaust. "The travel writing and historical analysis are equally haunting," says Monica Ali (New Press, $15).

Farthest North: The Voyage and Exploration of the Fram, 1893-1896
Fridtjof Nansen (1898)
The author, a scientist who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was also bold (or crazy) enough to try to reach the North Pole by getting his boat stuck in ice and drifting north. It didn't work, and he was found a year later, alive and farther north than anyone had ever been. "One of the great works of Arctic exploration," says Akhil Sharma. "Despite the hair-raising story, there are many charming details" (Interlink, $30).

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S. Thompson (1972)
Thompson's exuberant, drug-fueled twist on New Journalism reaches its apotheosis in an account aptly subtitled "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream." "I think it's the first book that ever made me laugh out loud," says Francine Prose. "It's travel as hallucinatory nightmare, a mode of travel that I think is underreported" (Vintage, $13).

The Fearful Void
Geoffrey Moorhouse (1974)
Hoping to recover from a failing marriage, Moorhouse sets out to cross the Sahara on foot and by camel, from west to east. He fails there, too, but "it's the failures that make the book so riveting and so humane," says Jim Crace. Paul Theroux admires its "fortitude and fine writing" (out-of-print).

From a Chinese City
Gontran De Poncins (1957; translated by Bernard Frechtman)
A Frenchman's portrait of Cholon, a Chinese section of Saigon, in the 1950s is "very vivid and true," according to Linh Dinh, who spent two years there himself as a child. "His Cholon is a 24/7 Rabelaisian carnival where every door is flung open, where privacy and its attendant brooding are not tolerated, where laughing strangers lean on you in the theater" (out-of-print).

Great Plains
Ian Frazier (1989)
The deadpan novelist's circuitous 25,000-mile drive through the heartland-with stops at the site of the Clutter mass murder and Sitting Bull's cabin-is a popular favorite. "Great Plains has an excruciatingly satisfying molecular approach," says Robert Sullivan. "You see the infinity of the wide stretching center of the country through its small and dusty museum-remembered particulars." Luis Alberto Urrea calls it "a haiku master's journey through perception, both inward and outward." Also nominated by John McPhee and Stewart O'Nan (Picador, $14).

The Great Railway Bazaar
Paul Theroux (1975)
Some travel writers prefer to hoof it or take a boat. But in this, his first travel book, Theroux proves himself a train man. As he goes from London to Tokyo-mostly by rail-his main subjects are the passengers he meets. "It's the perfect travel book," says Peter Hessler. "There's a simple idea behind the journey, but an incredible range of landscapes and people. The book has a wonderful sense of freedom-not at all the feel of a project undertaken to fulfill a book contract" (Mariner, $15).

Hindoo Holiday
J. R. Ackerley (1932)
Holiday is the British colonialist's clearly embellished account of his service as secretary to the Maharaja Sahib of Chhokrapur, an eccentric with a retinue of male lovers. Evelyn Waugh praised Ackerley's "high literary skill." Uzodinma Iweala agrees, adding that it's "totally hilarious and also sad, because you hear firsthand how relations are colored by colonialism" (New York Review of Books Classics, $14).

The Histories
Herodotus (circa 440 b.c.)
This history, may well be the first. As ever after, it's written by the winners, and the Greeks come off well in war with the Persians (recently retold in the film 300). But there is so much more, notes Robert D. Kaplan: "Natural history, geography, and comparative anthropology. Because of Herodotus, history is, in spirit, a verb: 'to find out for yourself.' Along with Joseph Conrad, he is our greatest foreign correspondent" (Prometheus, $16).

The Impossible Country
Brian Hall (1994)
One of the last American journalists allowed into Yugoslavia before its collapse, Hall captures its deterioration with intimate portraits of religious and ethnic tribes. Geraldine Brooks calls this "one of the finest travel books ever written. The journey he makes is unique in that it describes places and ways of being that ceased to be almost the moment he left them behind. The writing is exquisite" (Godine, $24).

In a Sunburned Country
Bill Bryson (2000)
The David Sedaris of travel writing makes Australia, home to some of the oddest and most dangerous of earth's creatures, endlessly entertaining. "I love it," says Erik Larson, "first because it made me laugh out loud and second because I read it the week after 9/11, when I sorely needed some cheering up. It did the job" (Broadway, $15).

India: A Million Mutinies Now
V. S. Naipaul (1991)
At least according to Akhil Sharma, "the last of Naipaul's trilogy of nonfiction works on India is also his greatest." It might have to do with the country's progress, by this point in the writer's life, toward throwing off the bonds of religion and caste. "The book combines great psychological depth with a painterly eye," says Sharma. "Probably more than any book about India, this one gives the reader a sense of place" (out-of-print).

The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain (1869)
Journeying through Europe to the Holy Land with some hilariously insular fellow Americans, Twain mocks both tourist and native, sometimes subtly but always mercilessly. "It's a book you laugh out loud at," says Robert Sullivan, "and that eventually-in the description of coffee with a guy the vigilantes have deemed a no-good killer and will soon hang-makes you see that America is a dark place, a place we have to be careful about" (Modern Library, $14).

In Patagonia
Bruce Chatwin (1977)
Chatwin's meandering masterpiece about visiting the arid South American plains in search of a mythical brontosaurus relic-and finding instead a lonely haven of European refugees-scored nominations from six writers. Peter Hessler says, "It's hard to figure out how the thing is structured and how it holds together so well." Anthony Doerr loves its "pewter-colored distances and lonesome winds and apocrypha. It is about the unseen, the unknowable, about remoteness itself." Also nominated by Jennifer Egan, John McPhee, Adrienne Miller, and Francine Prose (Penguin, $15).

In the Country of Country
Nicholas Dawidoff (1997)
This series of biographies of country musicians (Merle Haggard, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, and others) becomes a travel memoir almost accidentally, as the writer hits America's back roads and small towns in search of the genre's origins as well as the roots he feels are being discarded in country's rush into the slick mainstream. "The story of country music," says Jim Shepard, "and the country that created it" (Vintage, $16).

In Trouble Again
Redmond O'Hanlon (1988)
Before setting off deep into the Amazon to meet and "party" with the Yanomami, reputedly the most violent tribe on earth, the author has to find a companion. His warning about a dreadfully invasive parasite doesn't help make his case. "It's a great book because it raises the stakes so high," says Francine Prose. "Nothing bad ever happens to him, but you're on the edge from the very beginning." There's depth, too, as Luis Alberto Urrea attests: "All of his books are beautiful in a subtly apocalyptic way" (Vintage, $14).

Iron & Silk
Mark Salzman (1986)
A common expat experience-teaching English abroad-becomes fodder for a book of unusual scope and point of view, capturing the confusion of a China transitioning from Maoist directives to capitalist imperatives. "It's a personal book," says Geraldine Brooks, "but Salzman's self is in the narrative to help us see the Chinese rather than for the purpose of poking at his own psyche, which I find tedious in many travel narratives" (Vintage, $13).

I See by My Outfit
Peter S. Beagle (1965)
Before becoming a science-fiction writer (The Last Unicorn), Beagle brought his strange perspective to a bizarre cross-country journey via scooter. It was the first travel book Luis Alberto Urrea ever picked up-back when he was a kid stuck in San Diego. "He's a honey-voiced storyteller; an old-line, deep-thinking liberal," he says. "It's a very special book. You can really see it as a precursor to Ian Frazier's Great Plains" (Centro, $15).

The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
America's bicentennial brought renewed interest in completing a definitive edition of these seminal American diaries, which Gary Moulton edited into 13 volumes supplemented with notes and maps. For Luis Alberto Urrea, it was the birth of "the big road book-a classic American writing form." Since then, "we've always had this burning urge." Also nominated by John McPhee (University of Nebraska, $25).

Journey to Portugal
José Saramago (1981)
The Nobel Prize-winning novelist's early work doesn't take him far afield; instead, he digs deep, unearthing the bones of a country too often considered an afterthought. His use of the third person remains a strange choice, but the book was an important guide for Monica Ali, who set a recent novel here. "Not always a smooth read," she says, "but it's drenched in so much history and culture that it's an essential read" (Harcourt, $17).

Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians
George Catlin (1841)
Interspersed with Catlin's own illustrations of the Native Americans he met, documented, and mythologized, this is a culture's advance epitaph. "I know that the literal truth of his accounts has been questioned," says Graham Robb, "but he says memorable things about the West, and especially about the frontier zone of filth and degradation that precedes civilization" (Kessinger, $56).

Letters from Egypt: A Journey on the Nile, 1849-1850
Florence Nightingale (1854; published 1987)
Traveling upriver, the future nurse wrote copious letters to family and friends-finally published more than a century later. "I was astonished when I read it," says Rosemary Mahoney. "I know the name doesn't conjure big laughs or big adventure, but this book has both. She was incredibly well-traveled and erudite, had a wicked sense of humor, and was a truly gifted writer. A very valuable look at Egypt at the dawn of tourism there" (Parkway, $19).

Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain (1883)
The Old Man has infused most of Twain's writing, but here is his distillation of what it means to him. It does extra duty as a cultural history, a memoir of his steamboat days, and an early taste of the stories and influences that would inform his greatest fiction. "I've always loved Twain's descriptions of the river," says Peter Hessler, "as well as the way he portrays a way of life that is gone" (Penguin, $10).

London Perceived
V. S. Pritchett (1962)
The novelist, critic, and traveler wrote books on Spain, New York, and Dublin, but Darin Strauss's favorite "may be his strangest": this insider's guide for visitors. It contains what Strauss considers the single best paragraph describing London (comparing it to "the sight of a heavy sea from a rowing boat"). "His stock on the literary-fame index has taken a fall in the past few years," Strauss laments, "but Pritchett wrote some of the best travel books of the twentieth century" (Godine, $20).

The Long Walk
Slavomir Rawicz (1956)
Unlike most writers-adventurers with a bit of a death wish-Rawicz crossed from Yakutsk, Siberia, to British India on foot with six others because he had no choice: They were escaping from a brutal Stalin-era gulag during World War II, and they endured inhuman suffering along the way. Sebastian Junger, who wrote the introduction for a recent edition, calls it "devastating" and "one of the great books of the century" (Lyons Press, $17).

The Lycian Shore
Freya Stark (1956)
Other Stark adventure books are more popular (like the suddenly timely Baghdad Sketches), but Colin Thubron prefers this slim, deliberative story about sailing off the coast of Turkey in the manner of the ancient traders. "She was attempting an imaginative study of the cultural origins of the West," but in an intuitive way, forsaking scholarship for experience. It's all rendered with "a poignant lyricism that would now be almost impossible to reproduce," says Thubron (out-of-print).

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
Suketu Mehta (2004)
An Indian-American returns to the city of his youth and finds it an unrecognizable megalopolis in this Pulitzer Prize-nominated compendium of stories. "An absolutely terrific work," says Akhil Sharma. "Organized around the industries that give Mumbai its reputation-movies, gangsters, prostitutes, and the highest of high finance-the book seems to answer any question one might have." For instance, you'll find out that hit men are terribly paid; one of the coterie asks to use Mehta's shower because he has no running water at home (Vintage, $16).

The Muses Are Heard
Truman Capote (1956)
A decade before In Cold Blood, the legendary writer followed an American theater troupe to the Soviet Union, where they were putting on Porgy and Bess. Peter Hessler likes the mildly satirical portrait "for the way it depicts a group journey. It's interesting there aren't more travel books like this. Capote had the perfect vehicle with that book" (out-of-print).

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches
Matsuo Basho (1694)
In 1689, the master of the haiku walked through northern Japan for several months, inspired by his devotion to Zen Buddhism. His diary "has much to teach us now," says Julia Alvarez. "He traveled light, kept his eyes open, wrote concise and vivid portraits, and, lacking a camera, when a scene was totally overwhelming he left off the prose and punctuated the moment with a haiku" (Penguin, $13).

News from Tartary
Peter Fleming (1936)
Ian Fleming's brother was in many ways his alter ego. He writes with understatement of crossing on foot from Peking to Kashmir with a Bond-girlish Swedish woman he doesn't much like. "He was a journalist, so it's very pacey," says Colin Thubron. What makes it a classic is Fleming's irony and restraint. "He was making little of it," says Thubron, "while Ian Fleming was making a lot of what little he did" (Birlinn Ltd., $16).

The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt (1987)
Eberhardt's story is reason enough to read these collected memoirs: Born in Geneva in 1877, she moved with her mother to Algeria, converted to Islam, and lived her life as a man. She had many friends, lovers, and enemies, and died in a mysterious desert flood at age 27. Lynne Tillman says that the diaries "contain extraordinary descriptions of the land she sees and the people she meets" (Interlink, $13).

No Mercy: A Journey into the Heart of the Congo
Redmond O'Hanlon (1997)
What is it about travel writers and mythic dinosaurs? One such beast, said to live in an extremely shallow lake, entices the comedian of errors into a realm of forbidding swamps, leopards, and crazed soldiers. "Along with laughing at the misadventures," says Akhil Sharma, "there is the deep relief that at least one isn't stupid enough to try this." It encouraged Tom Bissell, though, who calls it "the book that made me want to be a travel writer." Also nominated by Monica Ali and Jim Shepard (Vintage, $16).

Notes from the Century Before
Edward Hoagland (1969)
A prolific essayist favored by novelists from Updike on down, Hoagland spent three months in the wilds of British Columbia and produced a rich, contemplative portrait. To Robert Sullivan, the book "feels as clear-watered and pristine as British Columbia was in 1966, the last Western frontier of the North American continent" (Modern Library, $14).

Old Glory
Jonathan Raban (1981)
The British writer pilots a 16-foot aluminum motorboat along the Mississippi. What he finds is much less bucolic than what he read about in Huckleberry Finn at age seven, but that only helps make Old Glory, as Akhil Sharma puts it, "one of the essential travel books about America. Along with the dangers of tugboats and running aground, the book captures the psychological workings of the small towns on the river" (Vintage, $15).

The Pillars of Hercules
Paul Theroux (1995)
Touring a well-worn patch of the world-the Mediterranean coast-Theroux came up with fresh insights by roaming with no itinerary, hitting villages and stretches of beach untouched by tourist and travel writer alike. "A great book," says Linh Dinh, who warns that "going for memorable characterizations, he sometimes oversimplifies" but is often dead-on, as in: "Since arriving in Albania, I had not seen a straight line" (Ballantine, $16).

The Pine Barrens
John McPhee (1968)
For a writer who makes botany and geology transcendent, New Jersey's forgotten and sparsely populated wilderness-"what is even now a secret place," says Robert Sullivan-is a perfect fit. "I guess that most people would not think of McPhee as a travel writer," says Peter Hessler. "But he should be included in a broader definition of a genre that is interested in place and movement" (FSG, $11).

The Places in Between
Rory Stewart (2006)
Rarely does a timely travel book attain classic status as quickly as Stewart's has. The journalist had the luck (good and bad) of wandering through Afghanistan weeks after the Taliban was deposed. "Stewart's clipped, terse style belongs to a bygone era," says Tom Bissell, "but his sensibility is entirely modern." His books, Peter Hessler adds, "come out of a deeper commitment to his subjects than we have traditionally seen in travel literature. I think this is where the genre is going." Also nominated by Stephen Elliott (Harcourt, $14).

Riding the Iron Rooster
Paul Theroux (1988)
Of all Theroux's works, this vast survey of late-eighties China impressed Rosemary Mahoney most. Reading it just after living there, she "was amazed by how accurate and intimate a picture it is. He was also "very prescient about the whole Tiananmen event. Theroux gets a lot of criticism for his opinions, for not always writing about the beautiful. But he's writing about the truth" (Mariner, $16).

The Rings of Saturn
W. G. Sebald (1998)
"All right, this book gets shelved with fiction," Matthew Sharpe concedes, but he wasn't the only one to argue that the writer's walk through the eastern coast of England is a breakthrough in travel writing. "Nothing beats Sebald's descriptions of these small towns and the people there," says Uzodinma Iweala. Sharpe says, "It is melancholy and weirdly funny on occasion and contains striking insights, like the one about how the history of humans is the history of combustion" (New Directions, $16).

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
Winston Churchill (1899)
The young would-be prime minister's work is a travel book masquerading as triumphalist military history. "Here is geography the way it was supposed to have been taught," says Robert D. Kaplan. "Churchill proves the point that travel writing at its best offers a technique for discussing other, more serious subjects in an interesting narrative format" (BiblioBazaar, $15).

The Road to Oxiana
Robert Byron (1937)
Byron's eclectic, architecture-obsessed quest to find this ancient land in Afghanistan is credited with perfecting what would become the faux-casual tone of modern travel writing. Jonathan Raban calls it "a work of fantastic craft and artifice and calculation, though it pretends to be just scribbled off on the spur of the moment." It has, says Colin Thubron, "the most exact and poetic descriptions of Afghan and Iranian architecture. Some of these buildings are gone and just live through Byron's descriptions." Also nominated by Tom Bissell (Oxford University Press, $15).

Rome and a Villa
Eleanor Clark (1952)
Clark came to Rome on a Guggenheim fellowship to write a novel. Instead, says Anthony Doerr, "she walked, she looked, and she unleashed her tremendous intelligence. The result is...intimate, explosive, swimming with memory." Jim Shepard cites the book's middle section, about Hadrian's ancient villa, as "the best meditation I've ever read on a work of art situated in its place and culture" (Zoland, $18).

Roughing It
Mark Twain (1872)
The ironist made this journey west between 1861 and 1865 along with his brother, the secretary of the Nevada Territory. Twain had enlisted on the Confederate side in the Civil War but quickly defected. "Somewhere back east, a war is happening," says Jonathan Raban. "At the back of the book, there is the hum and buzz of the war from which Twain is on the run, and it sort of darkens a splendid ironic comedy" (Penguin, $7).

Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia
Peter Theroux (1990)
Paul Theroux's brother also wrote a great travel book, but his is a slow burner, not a whirlwind tour. It begins as a search for a vanished Lebanese imam but focuses more on understanding Saudi culture from within. "Theroux actually lived and worked in Saudi Arabia," says Geraldine Brooks, "and is therefore able to riff mercilessly on the inadequacies of most writing by Western blow-ins who purport to understand that most inscrutable country. It's hilarious and chilling by turns" (Norton, $14).

Sea and Sardinia
D. H. Lawrence (1921)
A nine-day visit to the island spawned the author's most memorable nonfiction work. "Lawrence brings his hallucinatory skills to every mile of the journey," says Anthony Doerr. "The sunbaked towns; the sparkling, forlorn sea; the wildness and humanity of the island. Lawrence never stops paying attention, and in his prose everything-sunlight, a steamship, a vegetable market-becomes ecstatic" (Penguin, $15).

Shah of Shahs
Ryszard Kapuściński (1982; translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand)
What always separated the journalist from other foreign correspondents (aside from his eloquence and his liberties with the facts) was his deep engagement with history. In Iran around the time of the shah's overthrow, he does the job of documenting the revolution's chaos and its many ironies (e.g., it was originally led by democrats) but also gives bountiful context to an earth-shattering event that still resonates today. Nominated by Tom Bissell (Vintage, $13).

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
Eric Newby (1958)
Actually, a very long one. The self-effacing adventurer's first book describes his unsuccessful attempt to climb a remote 19,800-foot peak in northeastern Afghanistan. At the time, he was a fashion buyer with no mountaineering experience-apart from a trip to some rocky Welsh countryside. "Consistently hilarious," says Akhil Sharma, "the book is also about a turning point in history, right before all the bitterness that we see today set in" (Lonely Planet, $13).

Siren Land
Norman Douglas (1911)
Long before escaping to Italy became the thing everyone did, wrote about, and parodied, Austrian-born Englishman Douglas documented the experience beautifully-particularly in this survey of the Naples region. "It's just one of the great works of travel writing," says Gore Vidal, who made the same move. "He was a superb writer. If you really want to see how these things should be written, read this" (out-of-print).

Skating to Antarctica
Jenny Diski (1997)
Perhaps echoing Moby-Dick, Diski begins with a lyrical description of whiteness, which summons her time in a mental hospital and fuels her odd passion for the icy continent. Of course she decides to go there. "It's very beautiful and very funny," says Francine Prose, "and she also does a marvelous job of capturing the people on the trip with her. Of all the travel writers around today, she's my absolute favorite" (HarperPerennial, $14).

Slowly Down the Ganges
Eric Newby (1966)
Newby, whose understatement extended to his book titles, had to travel a good distance overland along the river when his rowboat ran aground 200 yards from the starting point. Rosemary Mahoney calls it a "very funny story with just the right mix of history and personal interactions with the locals. His portrait of his sometimes skeptical and often deadpan wife is superb. As a rower, I loved this one" (Lonely Planet, $15).

The Songlines
Bruce Chatwin (1987)
The narrative, which begins with a trip to the Outback, soon breaks for new territory, using Aboriginal song as a metaphor for the evolution of human culture-about which Chatwin has strange, beautiful theories. "After reading this book, you will be convinced that the land you step on, whether at home or abroad, is alive with stories which we need to respect and listen for," says Julia Alvarez, who frequently gives it to traveling friends. Also nominated by Peter Hessler (Penguin, $15).

Southern Baroque Art
Sacheverell Sitwell (1924)
The art critic, baron, and literary scion wrote this survey of the art that arose in the seventeenth century in such creative cauldrons as Lecce, Italy-criticism as imaginative travel. "Some of us are really turned on by good writing-and we're not turned on very often, I can tell you," says Gore Vidal-this being one of his rare examples (Kessinger, $32).

Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue
Paul Bowles (1963)
Not long after settling in Tangier, the visionary novelist was charged with recording obscure Moroccan music for the Library of Congress and came away with a series of essays that Francine Prose considers "as dispassionate and odd and beautifully written as his fiction." Lynne Tillman sees Bowles as "an unreconstructed Orientalist to his death," but adds that "his appreciation of Moroccan music and literature was deep and genuine" (HarperPerennial, $14).

A Time of Gifts
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1977)
This is book one of a planned trilogy about the writer's journey on foot from Holland to Istanbul in 1933-the concluding part has not yet been published and Fermor is over 90. No matter, says Colin Thubron: This volume is perfect. "His notes were stolen, but he did the whole thing from memory," Thubron says. That makes it "more natural, looser in a way" than the second volume, but never careless. "It's very Mandarin, a rich sort of prose" (New York Review of Books Classics, $17).

To a Distant Island
James McConkey (1984)
One of Stewart O'Nan's favorites is a very unusual kind of travel book. Having moved to Florence in flight from his depression, the author writes a speculative but deeply researched account of Chekhov's mysterious journey to the remote prison colony on Sakhalin Island in 1890 (Paul Dry Books, $15).

Travels in Arabia Deserta
Charles M. Doughty (1888)
Readers might be better served by a modern distillation of this nearly 1,200-page study of life with the desert nomads in the 1870s-put to paper decades later. The ornate style makes Doughty a must-read despite his Victorian attitude toward non-Christians. He was beloved in his day, too. "England was considered rather dull in the twenties and thirties," says Colin Thubron. "This feeling of excitement was all abroad" (Dover, $18).

Travels in the Interior of Africa
Mungo Park (1799)
The Scottish explorer who "discovered" the Niger River (and drowned in it a decade later) wrote this perennially popular log of his journey. "An iconic work," says Peter Godwin, "and probably the best description of pre-colonial life in Africa. It has inspired a host of writers from Hemingway to T. C. Boyle" (Kessinger, $16).

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (circa 1355)
There's a good chance this medieval Englishman's journey to Egypt and the Holy Land was entirely fabricated, but it was widely influential in its day and remains, according to Uzodinma Iweala, a "great point of departure for anybody interested in the history of travel writing." Tom Bissell, who recently discovered it, is "deeply ashamed I did not know of it earlier. It is a wonderfully funny, exciting, and profoundly weird account of a pre-modern consciousness at play in what was then an unimaginably huge world" (Dover, $10).

Travels Through France and Italy
Tobias Smollett (1766)
The Scottish author left for southern climes in his middle age and, as Peter Mayle says, "found so much to offend him that he wrote a wonderfully pithy and cantankerous book. He epitomizes a particular kind of English traveler-critical, superior, and deeply suspicious of foreign food and foreign ways. His views on garlic are particularly scathing" (Kessinger, $22).

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
R. L. Stevenson (1879)
The author of classic swashbucklers was also a crack travel writer, as in this ass-assisted journey-which, according to Graham Robb, "gives one of the very few accurate views of remote France, not seen through a coach or a train window." Jim Crace thinks credit is due to Stevenson's trusty donkey, Modestine: "It's not where you go. It's the company you keep" (Kessinger, $29).

Travels with Myself and Another
Martha Gellhorn (1978)
Gellhorn's husband Ernest Hemingway is the unnamed "another" in this collection of essays from the intrepid and savvy traveler, but Rosemary Mahoney recommends it for a section in which she treks alone through Africa. "This is an inspired piece of writing with some beautiful characterizations," says Mahoney, "witty, political, vivid, and thoroughly enjoyable" (Tarcher, $16).

Two Towns in Provence
M.F.K. Fisher (1983)
This collection of two separate pieces-a sixties portrait of Aix-en-Province and a late-seventies look at Marseille-works for the contrasts they evoke. "Fisher wrote about food and cooking, yes," says Rosemary Mahoney, "but she also beautifully wrote about the places she visited. She had an almost mysterious ability to convey the mood of a place in just a few simple sentences" (Vintage, $17).

A View of the World
Norman Lewis (1986)
Peter Godwin recommends "anything" by this midcentury traveler-"deservedly recognized by Graham Greene as one of the best writers of the twentieth century"-but says this compilation of 20 pieces spanning 30 years is an excellent place to start. As great a journalist as he was a writer, Lewis manages an interview with an executioner for Castro and a report on the genocide of Brazilian Indians (out-of-print).

West with the Night
Beryl Markham (1942)
A bush pilot and the first person to fly solo, east to west, across the Atlantic, Markham writes vividly about her discoveries, explorations, and narrow escapes. "Hemingway called this 'a bloody wonderful book,'" says Peter Mayle, "and so it is." Recent evidence that her husband may have written it casts doubt on her legacy but not on the power of her story (North Point, $15).

The Worst Journey in the World
Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1922)
The adventurer's retelling, from inside the expedition, of Captain Scott's disastrous last attempt to reach the South Pole (made more so by Roald Amundsen's arrival there a month earlier) is "justifiably famous-and well named," says Jim Shepard. Paul Theroux considers it a classic because he is "partial to travel books where a certain amount of difficulty is involved." Also nominated by Mary Karr (Narrative Press, $30).

Wrong About Japan
Peter Carey (2004)
The novelist's account is as much about the generation gap as it is about the disorientation of travel. Carey's inability to grasp Japanese pop culture is magnified by his 12-year-old son's easy embrace of it. "There's this subgenre of books that are much more faithful to what's often the real experience of travel," explains Francine Prose, "which is that you don't understand a thing of what you see" (Vintage, $12).

The Methodology
So many great travel books. How to choose? We asked 45 of our favorite writers for their favorite nonfiction travel titles-the ones that changed the way they considered a certain culture or place or people, that inspired them both to write and to get out into the world themselves. Their nominations-everything from Hunter S. Thompson's 1972 acid trip Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Herodotus's 440 b.c. Histories-follow, all of them passionately endorsed and beloved.
The original date of publication follows the title; the current publisher and the price follow each entry.

Here, our all-star literary jury:
André Aciman, Monica Ali, Julia Alvarez, Tom Bissell, Geraldine Brooks, Vikram Chandra, Jim Crace, Jared Diamond, Linh Dinh, Anthony Doerr, Jennifer Egan, Stephen Elliott, Nuruddin Farah, Nell Freudenberger, Peter Godwin, Peter Hessler, Uzodinma Iweala, Sebastian Junger, Robert D. Kaplan, Mary Karr, Erik Larson, Rosemary Mahoney, Peter Mayle, Tom McCarthy, John McPhee, Adrienne Miller, Jan Morris, Stewart O'Nan, Francine Prose, Jonathan Raban, Graham Robb, Akhil Sharma, Matthew Sharpe, Jim Shepard, Darin Strauss, Robert Sullivan, Manil Suri, Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, Lynne Tillman, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gore Vidal, Sean Wilsey, John Wray, and Lawrence Wright.

Published in September 2007. Prices and other information were accurate at press time, but are subject to change. Please confirm details with individual establishments before planning your trip.
Concierge.com (c) 2007 CondéNet Inc. All rights reserved.

23) Francisco Rogido: um escritor de qualidade...

2007-08-18T18:06:00.000-04:00

Francisco Rogido trabalha na Biblioteca do Congresso-EUA. Já teve contos publicados em algumas revistas literárias, dentre elas na Revista Cult. No momento, está concluindo seu primeiro livro de micro-contos de título provisório “O Inferno é Aqui”.
Alimenta um blog, chamado "Ilusão da Semelhança" (Contentemo-nos com a ilusão da semelhança, porém, em verdade lhe digo, que o interesse da vida onde sempre esteve foi nas diferenças), no qual coloca suas leituras e observações sobre o mundo como ele é (como diria Nelson Rodrigues).

Abaixo uma amostra de um dos seus muitos mini-contos:

Sem ar
Nos olhos do rosto aquilino, olheiras de um bistre ligeiro, pesavam as horas da noite. Ao dormir, Judith, sonhada por Claudina, sonhou com uma melodia de Bártok. Quando chegara à terceira, das sete portas misteriosas, foi perdendo os sentidos ao dar-se conta de que seus dentes caiam pobres e mal cheirosos no chão. Ao levar suas mãos à boca, num misto de pavor e incoerência, não dá falta deles. Mas de pronto um novo choque. Judith ( ou seria Claudina? ) percebe que as jóias da recamara estavam manchadas de sangue desconfiando já quase sem forças que não chegaria a despertar mesmo que Vieira de Castro afrouxasse suas mãos e a deixasse respirar.

Visite o blog Ilusão da semelhança.

22) Sites sobre livros e afins

2007-07-25T12:45:00.000-04:00

Vale a pena uma visita ao Escritório de Livros, um manancial de boas leituras e links úteis.

Desejando encontrar algum livro, visite a Estante Virtual, um portal para vários sebos.

21) Mario Vargas Llosa, um contador de historias...

2007-06-23T14:08:00.000-04:00

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW

Storyteller
The famous novelist on politics, and how writing can change the course of history.
BY EMILY PARKER
The Wall Street Journal, Saturday, June 23, 2007

LIMA, Peru--"This is a story that often repeated itself," Mario Vargas Llosa says. "If a father was a businessman, he was a man who had to be complicit with the dictatorship. It was the only way to prosper, right? And what happens is that the son discovers it, the son is young, restless, idealistic, believes in justice and liberty, and he finds out that his vile father is serving a dictatorship that assassinates, incarcerates, censors and is corrupted to the bone."

Mr. Vargas Llosa could have plucked this scenario from his personal recollections of living under dictatorial rule in Peru. But he tells this story to make a more universal point: Dictatorships poison everything in their grasp, from political institutions right down to relationships between fathers and sons.

When I meet Mr. Vargas Llosa in his home in Lima, I am not surprised to find that the world-famous novelist is a natural storyteller. He speaks to me in Spanish, gripping his black-rimmed glasses in his hand and occasionally waving them around for emphasis.

Mr. Vargas Llosa's bold ideas and expressive language may make him one of Latin America's finest writers--"Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," "The Time of the Hero" and "Conversation in the Cathedral" are just a few of his classic works--but those same traits didn't necessarily serve him well at the polls. After running for president of Peru in 1990 and losing to Alberto Fujimori, Mr. Vargas Llosa decided to devote his full attention to writing. He now lives in Lima for about three months of the year, spending the rest of his time in Europe.

"I am not going to participate in professional politics again," he says. And he doesn't have to. Mr. Vargas Llosa has found an effective way to expose the destructive nature of dictatorships, while underscoring the importance of individual liberty and free will. He just picks up his pen. "Words are acts," he says, echoing Jean-Paul Sartre. "Through writing, one can change history."

During the 1990 presidential campaign Mr. Varga Llosa emphasized the need for a market economy, privatization, free trade, and above all, the dissemination of private property. He didn't exactly receive a welcome reception. "It was a very different era, because to speak of private property, private enterprise, the market--it was sacrilegious," he says. "I was fairly vulnerable in that campaign," he continues, "because I didn't lie. I said exactly what we were going to do. It was a question of principle and also . . . I thought it would be impossible to do liberal, radical reforms without having the mandate to do them."

Now, almost 20 years later, the landscape looks very different. Mr. Vargas Llosa explains that he was propelled into politics when then-president Alan García, at the time a socialist and a populist, attempted to nationalize the banks. Today he is running the country again, but "now, the same Alan García is the champion of capitalism in Peru!" Mr. Vargas Llosa laughs merrily. "It's funny, no?"

He is relatively upbeat about Latin America today: "I'm not as pessimistic as others who believe that Latin America has returned to the time of populism, leftism." The region has its problems, to be sure, one major one coming from Caracas in the form of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But according to Mr. Vargas Llosa, perhaps what is most remarkable is what Mr. Chávez has not been able to do.

"We have a big problem with Chávez," Mr. Vargas Llosa admits. "He's a demagogue and a 19th century socialist. He is a destabilizing force for democracy in Latin America, but what he thought would be so easy hasn't been so easy. There has been a lot of resistance."

One of Mr. Chávez's major errors was his refusal last month to renew the license of popular Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV. "International hostility was enormous," Mr. Vargas Llosa notes. "For me, most important was that the protests in Venezuela were very strong, in particular the sectors that were once very sympathetic to him, for example the students in the Central University of Venezuela, not only the students in the private universities."

It is such infringements of free speech that highlight why in places like Latin America, reading a good novel can be much more than just a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. "I think in countries where basic problems are still unresolved, where a society remains so traumatized by deep conflicts--as in Latin America or in Third World countries in general--the novel is not only a form of entertainment, but it substitutes for something that these societies are not accustomed to seeing--information, for example," Mr. Vargas Llosa says. "If you live in a country where there is nothing comparable to free information, often literature becomes the only way to be more or less informed about what's going on." Literature can also be a form of resistance, perhaps the only way to express discontent in the absence of political parties.

This all sounds true enough, but in a dictatorship, wouldn't literature be censored as well? "In undeveloped countries, censorship doesn't reach that point of subtlety, as it did in Spain for example," Mr. Vargas Llosa explains. "Because in undeveloped countries, the dictators are, well, functioning illiterates that don't think that literature can be dangerous."

To give one example, Mr. Vargas Llosa's first novel, "The Time of the Hero," about life at a military school in Lima, was burned publicly in Peru by a military dictatorship in the 1960s. But the authorities apparently didn't find the book enough of a political threat to ban it outright, and in the end it was Mr. Vargas Llosa who reaped the benefits of the public burning. "It became a best seller!" He exclaims, laughing.

There is another disturbing current in Mr. Vargas Llosa's work that is less often discussed--mistreatment of women, ranging from disrespect to outright violence. The abuses are particularly horrifying in "The Feast of the Goat," a novel based on the life of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who terrorized the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961. Mr. Vargas Llosa describes traveling to the Dominican Republic and being stunned to hear stories of peasants offering their own daughters as "gifts" to the lustful tyrant. Trujillo and his sons, he tells me, could abuse any woman of any social class with absolute impunity. The situation in the Dominican Republic, which he refers to as a "laboratory of horrors," may have tended toward the extreme, but it underscores a larger trend: "The woman is almost always the first victim of a dictatorship."

Mr. Vargas Llosa discovered that this phenomenon was hardly limited to Latin America. "I went to Iraq after the invasion," he tells me. "When I heard stories about the sons of Saddam Hussein, it seemed like I was in the Dominican Republic, hearing stories about the sons of Trujillo! That women would be taken from the street, put in automobiles and simply presented like objects. . . . The phenomenon was very similar, even with such different cultures and religions." He concludes: "Brutality takes the same form in dictatorial regimes."

Did this mean that Mr. Vargas Llosa supported the invasion of Iraq? "I was against it at the beginning," he says. But then he went to Iraq and heard accounts of life under Saddam Hussein. "Because there has been so much opposition to the war, already one forgets that this was one of the most monstrous dictatorships that humanity has ever seen, comparable to that of Hitler, or Stalin." He changed his mind about the invasion: "Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt."

Mr. Vargas Llosa's broad, visceral hatred of dictatorships in part stems from personal experience, in particular growing up in 1950s Peru under the dictatorship of Manuel Odría. "All the political parties were prohibited, there was strict censorship of radio and the press," he explains. "The university had many professors in exile and many student prisoners . . . this is the atmosphere in which a boy of my generation entered adulthood."

This period is the backdrop for "Conversation in the Cathedral," which Mr. Vargas Llosa said would be the work that he would rescue from a fire. The brilliant, four-volume novel rarely addresses Odría directly, rather zooming in on relationships between ordinary Peruvians from all levels of society. With unembellished prose, Mr. Vargas Llosa plunges you right into the heart of a nation without hope. "It's a novel in which I wanted to show what I lived through in through in those years, how the dictatorship didn't limit itself to censorship or prohibiting political life, no!" Mr. Vargas Llosa tells me. "The dictatorship created a system that impregnated every act of life."

And herein lies the power of Mr. Vargas Llosa's work: He finds that tyranny takes its toll in places we hadn't even thought to look. As for the value of freedom, perhaps he puts it best in "The Feast of the Goat": "It must be nice. Your cup of coffee or glass of rum must taste better, the smoke of your cigar, a swim in the ocean on a hot day, the movie you see on Saturday, the merengue on the radio, everything must leave a more pleasurable sensation in your body and spirit when you had what Trujillo had taken away from Dominicans 31 years ago: free will."

We begin to wrap up our interview. We both drink red wine. A room nearby houses Mr. Vargas Llosa's private library--I notice that some of the volumes are bound in leather. He tells me that there are more than 18,000 books. His collection is clearly a point of pride, but it is also a tangible representation of his belief in the power of words. Or as he would say it: "I think that literature has the important effect of creating free, independent, critical citizens who cannot be manipulated."

Ms. Parker is an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal.

20) Barao do Rio Branco, por Rubens Ricupero

2007-06-23T14:06:00.000-04:00

Um vencedor     

O texto a seguir integra o livro Barão do Rio Branco: Uma Biografia Fotográfica, da Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, vinculada ao Itamaraty:
 Por Rubens Ricupero*   

Quando Gelson Fonseca, então presidente da Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão. me pediu para escrever esta introdução, perguntei-lhe se desejava uma síntese da vida ou um estudo analítico da obra de Rio Branco. Sua resposta foi: "Procure mostrar por que o Barão é importante, o que justifica sua relevância ainda agora."
Interpretei a orientação como sendo algo a meio caminho entre o relato da vida e o exame da obra. Ou melhor, o esforço para mostrar como uma é inseparável da outra, como no fundo, a obra se confunde com a vida.
Só assim, creio, se poderia explicar ao leitor de hoje as razões da permanência e da validade dos resultados de uma política exterior concebida e executada quase cem anos atrás.
Não se trata, portanto, de tentar duplicar com palavras o que o livro vai mostrar pela imagem fotográfica. Quem tiver apetite para mais, poderá recorrer a uma das biografias relativamente recentes como a de Álvaro Lins e Luiz Viana Filho, capazes de atender plenamente à curiosidade acerca dos pormenores da origem familiar ou as vicissitudes da existência de Rio Branco.
Não se visa, tampouco, no outro extremo, a compor, com rigor acadêmico e abundância de citações, um estudo erudito e seco das idéias e do trabalho diplomático que trazem a marca do grande Chanceler.
Antes, o ideal seria ir desdobrando aos olhos do leitor, pari passu com as numerosas fotografias que lhe documentam a vida, as etapas de crescimento e maturação do pensamento e das ações de Rio Branco. Como nem tudo nessa trajetória foi passível de registro fotográfico, teremos de ir um pouco além das legendas que decifram a imagem, a fim de dar conta da articulação e do encadeamento entre a vida e a obra.
Dizer o porquê da fama persistente do Barão parece tarefa enganadoramente fácil. Como, porém, evitar a sensação do já visto e ouvido numa história contada dezenas, centenas de vezes? De que forma convencer o cético leitor atual, correspondente ao "ouvinte agudo" e sem fé temido pelo Padre Vieira, de que alguma coisa de antes da Semana de Arte Moderna de 22 possa ter valor, apesar do envoltório em linguagem e estilo tão contrastantes com o nosso gosto? De que modo seria possível, num livro destinado a celebrar os 150 anos do nascimento do segundo Rio Branco, fugir aos clichês e lugares-comuns, recusar, sobretudo quando se é diplomata de carreira, seja a atitude apologética e triunfalista dos escritores do passado, seja o impulso iconoclasta nascido da antipatia pela personalidade ou as idéias daquele a quem é dedicada a obra?
Não obstante a falsa aparência que atribuía ao Barão uma imagem unidimensional, descomplicada, sólida e de um bloco inteiro, na prática as coisas eram mais complexas. Manuel de Oliveira Lima, que o conheceu bem e o julgou sem indulgência, dizia que sua inteligência era banhada de luz mas sua alma tinha refolhos (no artigo original, os dois elementos são citados em ordem inversa)¹.
De fato, há muito de inesperado, até de paradoxal no destino de um homem que passaria os primeiros 50 dos seus 66 anos em quase obscuridade para, de repente, conquistar uma das notoriedades mais duradouras da História brasileira.
Ele desmente nisso algumas idéias engenhosas mas que, ao menos no seu caso, não resistem à prova dos fatos. Em uma de suas entrevistas, Tom Jobim afirmava que, para dar certo, Brasil precisava aprender a gostar dos vencedores. Em lugar de teimar em torcer por Garrincha, por exemplo, o brasileiro tinha afinal de começar a gostar de Pelé.
Ora, o Barão foi um vencedor por excelência, tardio se quiserem, mas certeiro e infalível. Uma vez descoberto o caminho do sucesso, dele nunca mais se desviou. Arbitragem das Missões, do Amapá, a solução para o Acre, a Terceira Conferência Americana no Rio, o Caso Panther com a Alemanha ou do telegrama número 9 com a Argentina, o primeiro cardeal sul-americano destinado ao Rio de Janeiro, tudo que tocava, virava ouro. Não é à toa que um povo humilhado e abatido pela inflação do Encilhamento e pelas atrocidades sem precedentes dos tempos de Floriano, dos degolamentos e execuções sumárias da Rebelião Federalista, pelo massacre de Canudos, já sob Prudente de Moraes, a suspeita perturbadora de que, em fim de contas, não éramos muito distintos das republiquetas sul-americanas, que o Segundo Império não fora a regra mas a exceção, que esse povo se agarrasse às vitórias de Rio Branco como anos mais tarde lançaria mão das glórias esportivas para restituir-se um pouco de auto-estima.
Essa gratidão pelas vitórias, a população começou a tributar-lhe ainda em vida, com a recepção que reservou ao seu regresso ao Rio de Janeiro para tornar-se ministro em dezembro de 1902, após 15 anos de ausência do Brasil e 26 anos de residência no estrangeiro. Foi uma das mais impressionantes manifestações de rua jamais testemunhadas pela Capital Federal, cujos cidadãos continuaram, nos anos seguintes, a multiplicar sinais de respeito e veneração ao conterrâneo Juca Paranhos, como se pode ver nas fotos onde populares se descobrem na Avenida Central à passagem de sua imponente figura, impecavelmente coberta de cartola naquele distante verão carioca.
Quase uma década mais tarde, o enterro no Caju, também num dia de verão de fevereiro de 1912, foi igualmente retratado pelos contemporâneos como consagração comovedora e sem precedentes.
Nada, no fundo, anunciava essa glória intensa, a popularidade maior que a do velho Visconde, seu pai e antigo Presidente do Conselho, naquele que havia sido discreto estudante de Direito, promotor inconstante, fugaz professor de História e Geografia do Brasil do Colégio Pedro II, deputado sem distinção nem entusiasmo, apagado funcionário consular em Liverpool.
É interessante, a esse respeito, o contraste entre o Barão e seus dois grandes contemporâneos, Joaquim Nabuco e Rui Barbosa. Ambos experimentaram o reconhecimento e a fama muito mais cedo, Nabuco como jovem e brilhante deputado e chefe abolicionista, promessa segura de um dia superar o pai a quem dedicou "Um Estadista do Império". Rui, já célebre e festejado durante a monarquia, seria o Ministro da Fazenda do Governo Provisório e o principal criador da Constituição republicana. Coincidentemente, em e outro, em momentos diferentes, apresentaram ao público brasileiro o desconhecido Rio Branco, Rui no consagrador artigo que ocupou toda a primeira página do "Diário de Notícias" de 14 de outubro de 1889, acerca dos capítulos sobre o Brasil da Grande Encyclopédie. Muito tempo mais tarde, o Barão reconhecia em discurso na casa de Rui Barbosa:
"Quando eu era ainda no estrangeiro um ignorado estudante das coisas pátrias e propagandista humilde e muitas vezes anônimo dos progressos da nossa terra e dos feitos honrosos de nossos compatriotas, foi o conselheiro Rui Barbosa quem, no jornal e com seu brilho costumeiro, chamou a atenção para estes meus pobres trabalhos e tornou conhecida entre nós a minha dedicação à pátria"².
Da mesma forma, coube ao amigo Nabuco reapresentá-lo no editorial escrito para o "Jornal do Comércio" de 9 de fevereiro de 1895, onde nota, a fim de festejar o êxito no caso das Missões:
"O Barão do Rio Branco, pode-se dizer, era até ontem muito mais conhecido em nosso país pelo reflexo do nome paterno do que pelo que ele mesmo já tinha feito."
Quis o destino que os três homenageados seguissem trajetos distintos. Na República, Nabuco nunca mais alcançaria na vida pública e no país a influência e o renome que tivera no Império. Não chegou nunca a ser Ministro das Relações Exteriores, apesar do esforço de Rio Branco em convencer Rodrigues Alves de que o grande abolicionista faria um melhor ministro do que ele. Na questão dos limites com a Guiana Inglesa não teve a mesma sorte que favoreceu o colega nos arbitramentos das Missões e do Amapá. O melhor que ficou de Nabuco foi sua pregação social, seus inigualáveis discursos e livros. O que veio depois, a partir de 1902, apesar do brilho diplomático da atuação em Londres e Washington, deixa a impressão de um finale em tom menor, de um doce crepúsculo.
Rui Barbosa, por seu lado, nunca adormeceu o temperamento de lutador e a permanente disponibilidade para o sacrifício pelas causas nobres. Como lembrou Oswald de Andrade no belíssimo e curto discurso publicado na Obra Seleta de Rui Barbosa sob o título "Rui e a Árvore da Liberdade", Rui esteve sempre pronto, como a semente do Evangelho, a morrer pelo dia seguinte do Brasil³. Candidato perene a purificar e melhorar as instituições e os costumes públicos, Rui foi continuamente repelido pelo poder que desejava reformar, convertendo-se no símbolo mais puro do profeta em nossa História, voz que desperta as consciências mas fadada à incompreensão e à derrota, o grande perdedor pelo Brasil.
Em contraste, a trajetória do Barão, após um começo obscuro e vacilante, seguiu, sem contratempos nem recuos, uma linha ascendente límpida e invariável. Como disse Constâncio Alves:
"Ele saiu da penumbra para a glória, como um rio que, depois de um curso subterrâneo, inesperadamente desenrolasse à luz do sol uma corrente já majestosa."
Na ascensão gradual mas segura e sem recaídas, no final en beauté, a morte no seu gabinete de trabalho, ainda ministro, ele se assemelha mais a outro grande sobrevivente do Império: Rodrigues Alves, falecido anos depois de uma presidência vitoriosa, às vésperas de tomar posse do segundo mandato presidencial para o qual havia sido eleito.
É tempo, pois, de indagar por que as coisas se passaram dessa forma e não de outra, qual a mistura de "virtú" e de "fortuna" que ajudam a entender o êxito tardio mas duradouro dessa vida cujo início, século e meio atrás, queremos celebrar.
Notas:
¹ Manuel de Oliveira Lima, O Barão do Rio Branco, in Obra Seleta, Ed. Instituto Nacional do Livro, 1a. ed., p. 299; Rio de Janeiro.
² Original no Arquivo do Itamaraty, apud Alvaro Lins, Rio Branco, 2a. ed., p.132.
³ In Obra Seleta de Rui Barbosa, Ed. Aguilar.

*Rubens Ricupero é diplomata de carreira desde 1961, exerceu, dentre outras, as funções de assessor internacional do presidente eleito Tancredo Neves (1984/1985); assessor especial do Presidente da República (governo José Sarney) (1985/1987); representante permanente do Brasil junto aos órgãos da ONU sediados em Genebra (1987-1991); e embaixador nos Estados Unidos(1991-1993). Foi ministro da Fazenda de 30 de março a 6 de setembro de 1994, durante o período de implantação do Plano Real.

19) Reescrevendo o passado soviéetico: novos livros de história

2007-06-21T22:41:00.000-04:00

Parece que é difícil a vida de quem pretende escrever livros de história na nova Rússia. Depois da abertura dos anos 1990, uma regressão pode ser detectada no país. Abaixo, transcrevo matéria do jornal francês Le Figaro:

Ces manuels d'histoire contemporaine qui n'arrêtent pas de changer
De notre envoyée spéciale à Moscou
Laure Mandeville
Le Figaro, le 02 août 2007

Le président Poutine veut de nouveaux livres d'enseignement « qui rendent les jeunes fiers de leur pays ».

DES MANUELS scolaires, Igor Doloutski en a écrit sept en douze ans. Sept rééditions d'un premier jet sorti en 1989, dans l'euphorie de la révolution démocratique russe. À l'époque, ce professeur d'histoire de collège à l'allure d'éternel adolescent, croyait dur comme fer à l'avènement de la démocratie russe et à la vérité historique. Né en 1954 à Port-Arthur d'un père militaire soviétique, il s'était fait remarquer dès le début des années 1970 par son esprit rebelle, en lançant un journal étudiant, Mamlet, qui dénonçait « ce qu'il y avait de pourri au royaume des mammouths ».

En pleine stagnation brejnévienne, l'université Lomonossov avait expulsé ce « mauvais esprit ». C'est donc avec grand espoir que le rebelle Doloutski avait accueilli la perestroïka dans les années 1980. Jetant aux orties l'histoire marxiste-léniniste, il s'était lancé dans l'aventure de l'écriture d'une nouvelle Histoire russe.

Le résultat était étonnant d'engagement impertinent et de pédagogie novatrice. Igor Doloutski y racontait l'occupation « moyenâgeuse des pays Baltes ». « Comprends-tu mieux à présent le sentiment des Lettons, des Estoniens, des Lituaniens et des Polonais vis-à-vis des Russes ? », pouvait-on y lire, dans un paragraphe réservé à la réflexion autonome des élèves. Dans la version du manuel parue en 1998, il ajouta un chapitre sur la première guerre de Tchétchénie, « une honte pour la Russie ».

Recommandation ministérielle

Jusqu'en 2003 curieusement, personne ne vint lui chercher noise, malgré l'arrivée aux affaires de Vladimir Poutine et le déclenchement d'une nouvelle guerre russo-tchétchène. Mais un beau jour, une commission du ministère de l'Éducation mit le nez dans le manuel version 2001 et y découvrit avec horreur deux citations du politicien libéral Grigori Iavlinski, qui soulignait que la Russie risquait d'évoluer vers un « régime autoritaire ». « Penses-tu que Iavlinski a eu raison de penser cela ? », interrogeait le manuel iconoclaste. Un mois plus tard, le livre de Doloutski perdait la recommandation que le ministère accorde chaque année à une dizaine de manuels scolaires.

« Notre État ne peut pas écrire l'histoire de ses crimes »

Puis en 2004, le ministère remarqua le chapitre consacré à l'occupation balte et annonça l'interdiction du manuel. « Je l'utilise toujours dans mes cours, comme 10 % du corps enseignant, tandis que 8 % continuent d'utiliser des manuels soviétiques », affirme Doloutski en souriant. Le reste des professeurs a basculé sur les manuels mis en circulation sous Poutine, qui mentionnent les crimes du communisme, mais de manière quelque peu édulcorée. « On en revient à une histoire dominée par l'État. Comme notre État fonctionne hors du cadre du droit, il ne peut pas écrire l'histoire de ses crimes. Alors il les occulte en parlant de victoires », regrette Doloutski.

Rencontrant récemment des spécialistes de sciences humaines, Vladimir Poutine a cloué au pilori « tous ces manuels écrits par des historiens avec des bourses étrangères », accusant leurs auteurs « d'avoir dansé au son de la polka » de sponsors occidentaux. « Nous avons besoin de nouveaux manuels, qui rendent les jeunes fiers de leur pays », a dit le président. Leonid Poliakov, ancien professeur de marxisme-léninisme choisi pour écrire un nouveau manuel, a promis d'oeuvrer à « l'éducation national-patriotique » des élèves.

Dans son collège de banlieue, Igor Doloutski continue de développer l'esprit critique de ses élèves. Mais il est pessimiste. Il y a quelques jours, la forte en thème de la classe a présenté un exposé sur la politique étrangère de Poutine. Reprenant ce que « martèle la télévision chaque jour, elle a expliqué que la Russie était entourée d'ennemis, s'inquiète le professeur. Je lui ai demandé des exemples. Elle n'en a pas trouvé. Mais que se passera-t-il quand plus personne ne la contredira ? »

18) Um livro para canibais...

2007-06-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

Nova edição do livro de Hans Staden
Duas viagens de 1557

Hans Staden: Warhaftige Historia. Zwei Reisen nach Brasilien, (1548-1555) / Historia de duas viagens ao Brasil, kritische Ausgabe / edição crítica: Franz Obermeier, Kiel: Westensee-Verlag, 2007.

ISBN: 978393136870X Price: 59,-Euro

Hans Staden's travel book is the first book about Brazil to be published in Europe in 1557. With its ethnological contents in the second part and a developped iconography mainly depicting Tupinamba anthropophagy it is a major source for 16th century Brazil.

The new edition gives a facsimile of the original from 1557, a Portuguese translation with introduction and a commentary and a new German version.

To order contact:
WESTENSEE-VERLAG, Dorfstr. 57, D-24802 Groß Vollstedt
order@westensee-verlag.de
Tel. 04305/1565

No Brasil o livro pode comprar-se no Instituto Martius-Staden.

Contact to the author.

17) Meus cadernos de leitura (1971-1983)

2007-06-11T22:29:00.001-04:00

"Exilado" na Bélgica, a partir de 1971, comecei a tomar notas de minhas leituras em cadernos especialmente adquiridos com esse objetivo. Divididos tematicamente, eles compilam pequenos resumos, transcrições parciais, avaliações críticas sobre os livros que considerei mais relevantes. Nem todos me pertenciam, ao contrário: as notas foram feitas, justamente, porque a maior parte eram leituras de biblioteca. Essas notas me serviram até o momento de redigir minha tese de doutoramente e por isso, a maior parte das "resenhas" se estende apenas até 1983, aproximadamente.
Estamos falando aqui de uma era pré-computador e até pré-máquina de escrever.
Abaixo, uma seleção dessas leituras, com lacunas intermediárias correspondendo a livros menos importantes.

Relação temática de obras anotadas
(9 cadernos de notas de leitura; Transcrição parcial)

Caderno 1: Antropologia
1. Meillassoux, Claude: Anthropologie Economique des Gouro de Côte d’Ivoire (Paris: Mouton, 1964) [leitura e notas: dezembro 1971]
4. Terray, Emmanuel: Le Marxisme Devant les Sociétés Primitives (Paris: F. Maspéro, 1969) [dezembro 1971]
6. Dalton, George and Bohannan, Paul: Markets in Africa (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1962; Introduction, pp. 1-26) [dezembro 1971]
7. Godelier, Maurice: Rationalité et Irrationalité en Économie (Paris: F. Maspéro, 1971) [janeiro 1972]
22. Vansina, Jean: Le Royaume Kuba (Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, 1964)
24. de Heusch, Luc: Le Rwanda et la Civilisation Inter-Lacustre (Bruxelles: Institut de sociologie, 1966) [Junho 1973]
27. Dumont, Louis: Homo Hierarchicus: essai sur le système de castes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970, 446 pp.) [Junho 1973]
33. Desroche, Henri: Socialismes et Sociologie Religieuse (Paris: Cujas, 1965)
36. Lévi-Strauss, Claude: Tristes Tropiques (Paris: Plon, 1955)
37. Prado Jr., Caio: Estruturalismo de Lévi-Strauss; Marxismo de Althusser (SãoPaulo: Brasiliense, 1971, 108 pp.)
40. Forde, Daryll and Douglas, Mary: “Primitive Economics” in Dalton, George (ed): Tribal and Peasant Economics: readings in economic anthropology (Garden City, N.Y.: The Natural History Press, 1967)
42. Bohannan, Paul and Laura: Tiv Economy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968) [dezembro 1972]
43. Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. et Forde, Daryll (eds): Systèmes Familiaux et Matrimoniaux en Afrique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953)
45. Gurvitch, Georges: Le concept de Classes Sociales (Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, 1954)

Caderno 2: Marxismo
1. Marx, Karl: La Question Juive (1843) (Paris: Union Générale d’Éditions, 1971) [03.72]
2. Marx, Karl: Contribution à la Critique de la Philosophie du Droit de Hegel (1843) (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1971) [abril 1972]
4. Marx, Karl: Critique de la Philosophie de l’État de Hegel (1841-42) (Paris: Alfred Costes Éditeur, 1948; trad. J. Molitor; in Oeuvres Complètes de Karl Marx, IV) [junho 1972]
5. Marcuse, Herbert: Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the rise of social theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941, 432 pp) [Göteborg, setembro 1972]
7. Marcuse, Herbert: Raison et Révolution: Hegel et la naissance de la théorie sociale (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1968; trad. Robert Castel) [Bruxelas: outubro 1972]
8. Marcuse, Herbert: Ragione e Rivoluzione: Hegel e il sorgere de la “teoria sociale” (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1966) [Milão: 1974]
9. Marcuse, Herbert: Razão e Revolução: Hegel e o Advento da Teoria Social (2a. ed.; Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1978; trad. Marília Barroso) [Brasília: julho 1985]
10. Lukacs, Georg: Histoire et Conscience de Classe (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1960; trad. Kostas Axelos et Jacqueline Bois) [Bruxelas: 1972]
11. Sereni, Emilio; “Da Marx a Lenin: la categoria di formazione economico-sociale”, Critica Marxista (n° 4, 1970, pp. 29-79)
14. “Godelier, Maurice: “Come definire una formazione economico-sociale ? L’esempio degli Inca”, Critica Marxista (n° 10, n° 1, gennaio-febbraio 1972, pp. 81-89)
17. Parain, Ch.: “Comment caractériser un mode de production?”, La Pensée (137, 1967)
18. Goussault, Yves: “Modes de production et développement des formations agraires”, Tiers Monde (XVII, n° 52, octobre-décembre 1972) [leitura: Bruxelas: 1973]

Caderno 3: Problemas Agrários e Campesinato
1. Shanin, Theodor (ed): Peasants and Peasant Societies, selected readings (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971, 448 pp.) [leitura e notas: outubro 1973]
2. James, Preston E.: “Brazilian Agricultural Development” in Kuznets, Simon; Moore,Wilbert E.; Spengler, Joseph J.: Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1955), pp. 78-101 [leitura e notas: 28.10.73]
3. Nicholls, William H.: “The transformation of Agriculture in a Presently semi-industrialized country: the case of Brazil” in Erik Thorbecke (ed), The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969) [11-12.11.73]
4. Landsberger,, Henry A. (ed): Latin American Peasant Movements (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1969) [American Library of Brussels: 12.11.73]
6. Facó, Rui: Cangaceiros e Fanáticos: gênese e lutas (3a. ed., Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1972) [leitura: novembro 1973; notas: dezembro 1973/março 1974]
7. Engels, Friedrich: La Guerre des Paysans (Paris: Alfred Costes, 1936, pp. 163-331; avec La Campagne Constitutionnelle en Allemagne; trad.: Bracke) [notas: março/abril 1974]
8. Hobsbawn, Eric J.: Les Primitifs de la révolte dans l’Europe Moderne (Primitive Rebels) (Paris: Fayard, 1966; trad. Reginald Laars) [leitura e notas: abril 1974]
9. Chilcote, Ronald H. (ed): Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil: comparative studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972) [leitura e notas: 7-9 maio 1974]
11. Oberg, Lalervo: “The marginal peasant in Rural Brazil”, American Anthropologist (vol. 67, 1965, pp. 1417-1427) [notas: 1972-73; releitura: 16.02.87]
12. Normano, J. F.: Brazil: a study of economic types (Chapell Hill: The Univeersity of North Carolina Press, 1935, xii+254 pp) [notas: 1973-74]

Caderno 4: História/Sociologia
1. Barraclough, Geoffrey: Une Introduction à l’Histoire Contemporaine (Paris: Stock, 1967; trad. de Introduction to Contemporary History, para Anne Laurens) [notas: maio 1972]
2. Neumann, Franz: The Democratic and the Authoritarian State: essays in a political and legal theory (Glenco, Ill.: The Free Press, 1957) [notas: dezembro 1972/janeiro 1973]
3. Gerth, H.H. and Wright Mills, C.: From Max Weber: essays in sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946) [leitura e notas: dezembro 1972
5. Genovese, Eugene D.: Économie Politique de l’Esclavage (Paris: François Maspero, 1968) [leitura e notas: novembro 1974]
8. Gurfield, Mitchell: Class structure and Political Power in COlonial Brazil: an interpretative essay in historical sociology ([New York:] New School for Social Research, Ph. D. 1975) [leitura e notas: 13 e 14 de julho de 1981]
10. Lucchini, Riccard: Sociologie du Fascisme (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1973) [leitura e notas: 23 julho 1981]
12. Dreifuss, René Armand, 1964: A Conquista do Estado: ação política, poder e golpe de classe (Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes, 1981); original em inglês: tese Glasgow University [leitura e notas: fins de julho-3 agosto 1981]
14. Ponteil, Felix: Les Classes Bourgeoises et l’Avènement de la Démocratie, 1815-1914 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1968) [notas detalhadas (pp. 86 a109): 28.01 a 10.02.82]
15. Fernandes, Florestan: A Revolução Burguesa no Brasil (2a. ed., Rio de Janeiro; Zahar, 1976) [notas: caps 1 a 6 neste caderno; concluídas no caderno 6; 22.04.82]

Caderno 5: Brasil 1
2. Jaguaribe, Hélio: Problemas do Desenvolvimento Latino-Americano: Estudos de Política (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1967), [novembro 1972].
3. Jaguaribe, Hélio: Desenvolvimento Econômico e Desenvolvimento Político (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1969), [novembro 1972].
4. Furtado, Celso (org), “Brésil, Temps Modernes”, Les Temps Modernes (octobre 1967), diversos artigos; [novembro 1972].
7. Ianni, Octavio: O Colapso do Populismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1968); [novembro 1972].
8. Ianni, Octavio: Estado e Planejamento Econômico no Brasil, 1930-1970 (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1971); [novembro 1972].
9. Ribeiro, Darcy: Propuestas acerca del subdesarrollo: Brasil como problema (Montevideo: Libros de la Pupila, 1969); [dezembro 1972]
10. Brandão Lopes, Juarez Rubens: Desenvolvimento e Mudança Social: formação da sociedade urbano-industrial no Brasil (São Paulo: Nacional/EDUSP, 1968) [12.1972]
12. Rodrigues, José Honório: Conciliação e Reforma no Brasil: um desafio histórico-político (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1965); [leitura e notas: 3-5.01.73].
13. Prado Jr. Caio: Evolução Política do Brasil e outros estudos (4a. ed., São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1963) [primeira quinzena de janeiro de 1973].
14. Furtado, Celso: Dialética do Desenvolvimento (Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Fundo de Cultura, 1964) [primeira leitura: 1966; leituras e notas: dezembro 1972]
16. Brandão Lopes, Juarez Rubens: Sociedade Industrial no Brasil (São Paulo: Difusão Européia do Livro, 1964) [leitura e notas: janeiro 1973]
18. Denis, Pierre: Le Brésil au XXe. siècle (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1928; 1a. éd: 1909, 312 pp.); [31 julho 1973]
22. Baklanoff, Eric N.: “External Factors in the Economic Development of Brazil’s Heartland: the Center-South, 1850-1930” in Baklanoff, Eric N. (ed), The Shaping of Modern Brazil (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969, pp. 19-35) [l11.73]
24. Rodrigues, José A.: Sindicato e Desenvolvimento no Brasil (São Paulo: Difusão Européia do Livro, 1968, 216 p.) [leitura e notas: dezembro 1973/janeiro 1974]
26. Furtado, Celso: “O modelo brasileiro”, Argumento (n° 3, janeiro 1974, pp. 25-35) [leitura e notas: 18 fevereiro 1974]

Caderno 6: Brasil 2
1. Cadernos CEBRAP 16: Crescimento Populacional (histórico e atual) e componentes do crescimento (fecundidade e migrações) (São Paulo; CEBRAP, 1974) [notas: 26.05.74]
2. Cadernos CEBRAP 15: Composição da População Brasileira (São Paulo: CEBRAP, 1973)
3. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique: “O ‘modelo brasileiro’ de desenvolvimento”, Debate e Crítica (n° 1, julho-dezembro 1973, pp. 18-47) [outubro 1974]
4. Bresser Pereira, Luiz Carlos: Desenvolvimento e Crise no Brasil (São Paulo: Ed. Brasiliense, 1970, 214 pp.: 1a. ed: 1969) [leitura, notas: julho-dezembro 1975]
7. Fernandes, Florestan: A Revolução Burguesa no Brasil (7° e último capítulo) [releitura e notas: 22 abril a 2 de maio 1982]
9. Dulles, John W. F.: Brazilian Communism, 1935-1945: Repression during World Upheaval (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983, 289 p.) [maio 1985]

Caderno 7: Brasil 3
1. Simonsen, Mario Henrique e Campos, Roberto de Oliveira: A nova economia brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editora, 1974) [leitura e notas: 4 fevereiro 1975]
3. Vieira Pinto, Alvaro: Ideologia e Desenvolvimento Nacional (4a. ed., Rio de Janeiro: ISEB, 1960; 1a. ed.: 1956, 56 pp.) [5 fevereiro 1975]
4. Skidmore, Thomas E.: Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: an experiment in democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967) [fevereiro-março 1975]
5. Bernard, Jean-Pierre et alii: Tableau des Partis Politiques en Amérique du Sud (Paris: Armand Colin, 1969; Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, cahiers 171) “Brésil”, Silas Cerqueira, pp. 105-156 [30-31 janeiro 1976]
9. Stepan, Alfred (ed): Authoritarian Brazil: origins, policies and future (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973) [MRE: 1982]
10. Fiechter, Georges-André: Le Régime ‘Modernisateur’ du Brésil, 1964-1972 (Leyden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1972) [MRE: 1982]
11. Freire, Felisbelo (1858-1916): História Constitucional da República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil, tomo I (Brasília: Ed. da UnB, 1983) [leitura: agosto-setembro 1985]
17. Melo Franco, Afonso Arinos: Algumas Instituições Políticas no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos (Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 1975) [16.02.87, MRE]
20. Furtado, Celso: A Economia Brasileira; contribuição à análise de seu desenvolvimento (Rio de Janeiro: Editora A Noite, 1954) [notas: Porto Alegre: 25.12.90]
21. Stepan, Alfred: The Military in Politics: changing patterns in Brazil (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971, 311 pp.) [leitura e notas avulsas: meados 1975]
22. Revista Conjuntura Econômica:
Ano II, n° 4, abril 1948: Estudo especial: “A Conjuntura no Brasil desde 1822”
Ano II, n° 5, maio 1948: Estudo especial: “Os ciclos na economia brasileira, 1822-1947”
Ano II, n° 8, agosto 1948: Estudo especial: “A Situação monetária internacional e a paridade do cruzeiro” [Leitura e Notas: Porto Alegre, 25.12.90]
23. Almeida, Paulo Roberto de, Idéologie et Politique dans le Développement Brésilien, 1945-1964 (Bruxelles: Université Libre de Bruxelles, mémoire de licence, 1976, mimeo) [resumo e notas em português: Montevidéu: 30.12.90]

Caderno 8: História Social
1. Carone, Edgard: A República Velha, instituições e classes sociais (São Paulo: Difel, 1970) [leitura e notas: 22-23 janeiro 1979]
2. Linhares, Herminio: Contribuição à História das Lutas Operárias no Brasil (2a. ed., São Paulo: Alfa-Omega, 1977) [30-31 janeiro 1979]
3. John W. F. Dulles: Anarquistas e Comunistas no Brasil, 1900-1935 (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1977, trad. Cesar Parreiras Horta) [22.03 a 08.04.79]
4. Pinheiro, Paulo Sérgio de M. S.: Política e Trabalho no Brasil, dos anos vinte a 1930 (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1975) [leitura e notas: 12-14 abril 1979]
5. Fausto, Boris: Trabalho Urbano e Conflito Social, 1890-1920 (São Paulo: Difel, 1976) [leitura e notas: 17 abril-1° de maio 1979]
6. Gay da Cunha, José: Um Brasileiro na Guerra Espanhola (Porto Alegre: Globo, 1946) [leitura e notas: 20-24 junho 1979]
7. Thomas, Hugh: The Spanish Civil War (3rd ed;, enlarged; Harmondswort: Penguin, 1977) [agosto/setembro 1979]
8. Maram, Sheldon Leslie: Anarquistas, Imigrantes e o Movimento Operário Brasileiro, 1890-1920 (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1979; trad. José Eduardo R. Moretzsohn) [setembro 1979]

Caderno 9: Resenhas de Livros/Notas Bibliográficas
1. Boorstin, Daniel, J. The discoverers (New York: Random House, 1983)
3. Gellner, Ernst: Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983)
15. Jaguaribe, Hélio: Desenvolvimento Político (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1975)
21. Berlin, Isahiah: Against the Current (London: Oxford University Press, 1969)
27. Braudel, Fernand: Aftertoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1979)
34. Frank, André Gunder: World Accumulation, 1492-1789 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978)
36. Robert, John: Revolution and Improvement, the Western World, 1775-1847 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1976)
41. Sombart, Werner: El Apogeo del Capitalismo (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura, 1946, 2 vols)
45. Arendt, Hannah: On Revolutions (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979)
53. Topik, Steven: “State autonomy in Economic Policy: Brazil’s experience, 1822-1930”,, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs (26, 4, november 1984, 449-476) [leitura: Biblioteca da Câmara dos Deputados, maio de 1985]
74. Veliz, Claudio: The Centralist Tradition in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980)
76. Jessop, Bob: Social Order, Reform or Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1972) [Zurich: 1982: SozialArchiv]
80. Vallier, Ivan (ed): Comparative Methods in Sociology:: essays on trends and applications (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) [MRE: julho 1985]
83. Braudel, Fernand (ed), Conjoncture Économique, Structures Sociales: hommage à Ernest Labrousse (Paris/La Haye: Mouton, 1974) [Bibliothèque de l’Alliance Française, Belgrado, 1983]
86. Roberts, Geoffrey K.: What is Comparative Politics? (London: Macmillan, 1972) [MRE: 7-8.04.86]
94. Atkins, G. Pope: Latin America in the International Political System (New York: The Free Press, 1977)
106. Struve, Walter: Elites against Democracy: leadership ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890-1933 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973)
109. Marseille, Jacques: Empire Colonial et Capitalisme Français: histoire d’un divorce (Paris: Albin Michel, 1984)

[Transcrição efetuada em Paris: 16.12.94]

16) Desvios do racismo brasileiro (às avessas...)

2007-05-30T17:51:00.000-04:00

Peter Fry, Yvonne Maggie, Marcos Chor Maio, Simone Monteiro e Ricardo Ventura Santos, (organizadores):
Divisões Perigosas: Políticas Raciais no Brasil Contemporâneo
Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2007

Prefácio - Bolívar Lamounier
Preâmbulo - Bila Sorj, José Carlos Miranda e Yvonne Maggie
Apresentação - Os organizadores

Parte 1: Raça, Ciência e História
1.Tortuosos caminhos - César Benjamim
2.Receita para uma humanidade desracializada - Sérgio Pena
3.Ciências, bruxas e raças - Sérgio Pena
4.História da África - Para quê? - Wilson Trajano Filho
5.Histórias mal contadas - José Roberto Pinto de Góes
6.Abolição da abolição - Demétrio Magnoli
7.O diálogo entre Nina Rodrigues e Juliano Moreira: do racismo ao anti-racismo - Ana Teresa A. Venancio
8.Roquette-Pinto e o anti-racismo no Brasil - Dominichi Miranda Sá e Nisia Trindade Lima (inverter)
9.Racismo à moda americana - Ronaldo Vainfas
10.Da atualidade de Gilberto Freyre - Manolo Garcia Florentino
11.O branco da consciência negra - José de Souza Martins

Parte 2: Quem é Negro no Brasil?
1. Das estatísticas de cor ao estatuto da raça - Simon Schwartzman
2. Genocídio racial estatístico - José Murilo de Carvalho
3. Pardos - Demétrio Magnoli
4.O Brasil não é bicolor - Carlos Lessa
5.Aprendizes de feiticeiro - George Zahur
6.Ministério da classificação racial - Demétrio Magnoli
7.Excesso de cor - Isabel Lustosa

Parte 3: Educação
1.Eles deveriam pedir desculpas, de joelhos - Sidney Goldenzon
2.Introduzindo o racismo - Peter Fry
3.Cotas e racismo - Ricardo Ventura Santos e Marcos Chor Maio
4.Cotas nas universidades públicas - José Goldemberg e Eunice Durham
5.As cotas raciais na universidade - Luis Nassif
6.O pomo da discórdia: sobre as cotas raciais e o debate na UERJ - Francisco Carlos Palomanes Martinho
7.Cotas e raciologia contemporânea - Ricardo Ventura Santos
8.Debate sobre cotas no Cebrap - Simon Schwartzman
9.O racismo vira lei - José Roberto Pinto de Góes

Parte 4: Saúde
1.Por uma história da saúde e da doença do escravo no Brasil - Ângela Pôrto
2.Que aumento é esse? - Peter Fry
3.Afrodescendentes - Demétrio Magnoli
4.Sobre cor/raça e Aids no Brasil - Claudia Travassos
5.Duas histórias representativas - Yvonne Maggie
6.O SUS é racista? - Marcos Chor Maio, Simone Monteiro e Paulo Henrique Almeida Rodrigues
7.AfroAtitude: a fabricação de uma identidade racial? Simone Monteiro

Parte 5: Raça em Tudo?
1.A racialização do Brasil - Mário Maestri
2.Quando nem todos os cidadãos são pardos - Ricardo Cavalcanti-Schiel
3.Memória, vitimização e o futuro do Brasil - Bernardo Sorj
4.Política social de alto risco - Peter Fry e Yvonne Maggie
5.Constituição do racismo - Demétrio Magnoli
6.Um Brasil de cotas raciais? - Marcos Chor Maio e Ricardo Ventura Santos
7.O Estatuto da Igualdade Racial: uma questão de princípio - Mônica Grin
8.Somos todos irmãos - Ferreira Gullar
9.Movimento negro: combater ou capitular? - Roque Ferreira
10.Um estatuto para dividir e cotas para iludir - José Carlos Miranda
11.A reflexão que vale a pena ser feita: contra as cotas raciais - José Roberto F. Militão
12.Pode-se criar uma cisão racial - Uma entrevista com Peter Fry

Apêndices
1) Carta Pública ao Congresso Nacional: Todos têm direitos iguais na República Democrática (2006)
2) Racialização das políticas sociais: mais olhares críticos

15) Einstein, relativamente livresco...

2007-05-28T17:34:00.001-04:00

The New York Review of Books,
Volume 54, Number 10 · June 14, 2007

Review
The Other Einstein
By Lee Smolin

BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THIS REVIEW
Einstein: His Life and Universe
by Walter Isaacson
Simon and Schuster, 675 pp., $32.00

Einstein: A Biography
by Jürgen Neffe, translated from the German by Shelley Frisch
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 461 pp., $30.00

'Subtle Is the Lord': The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein
by Abraham Pais
Oxford University Press,552 pp., $22.00 (paper)

The Private Lives of Albert Einstein
by Roger Highfield andPaul Carter
St. Martin's,376 pp., $18.95 (paper)

Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance
by Dennis Overbye
Penguin, 416 pp., $15.00 (paper)

Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time
by Peter Galison
Norton, 389 pp., $14.95 (paper)

Einstein on Politics
edited by David Rowe and Robert Schulmann
Princeton University Press, 560 pp., $29.95

Einstein on Race and Racism
by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor
Rutgers University Press, 206 pp., $17.95

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein
by Albert Einstein
Princeton University Press, ten volumes, 4,252 pp., $50.00 each

1.
Why more books on Albert Einstein? Two years ago we marked the Year of Physics, celebrating the centenary of his great 1905 papers, including those on special relativity and the particle theory of light. There is already a definitive scientific biography, published by Abraham Pais in 1982. That Einstein had an interesting personal life, with many entanglements with women and at least one extramarital child, has not been news since Roger Highfield and Paul Carter's The Private Lives of Albert Einstein and Dennis Overbye's Einstein in Love, published in 1994 and 2000, respectively. His private letters continue to come to light, but do they really add anything to the portrait of Einstein's character drawn so perceptively by Overbye?

In his new book, Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson explains that

studying Einstein can be worthwhile [because] it helps us remain in touch with that childlike capacity for wonder...as the sagas of [science's] heroes reminds us.... These traits are...vital for this new century of globalization, in which our success will depend on our creativity....

As he elaborates in a recent interview with Thomas Friedman, "If we are going to have any advantage over China, it is because we nurture rebellious, imaginative free thinkers, rather than try to control expression."[1]

Noble sentiments, and certainly sufficient justification for continuing to promulgate uplifting myths about science and its heroes. But what does this have to do with the actual character and life of the real person who happened to be the most important physicist of the last two hundred years? There is no doubt that any attempt to understand who Einstein actually was and what he actually did is hampered by a smokescreen that was created by his executors, his colleagues, his biographers, and perhaps even Einstein himself. The myth of Einstein presents us with an elderly sage, a clownish proto-hippy with long hair, no socks, and a bumbling, otherworldly manner. As Isaacson writes it:

Adding to his aura was his simple humanity. His inner security was tempered by the humility that comes from being awed by nature. He could be detached and aloof from those close to him, but toward mankind in general he exuded a true kindness and gentle compassion.

This certainly describes a role that the older Einstein might plausibly have chosen to play as a defense against the onslaught of fame and responsibility. But what Isaacson is describing is a role, not a human being. Who was the person behind that role, and what were his reasons for playing the endearing sage?

Of the new books, Jürgen Neffe's Einstein: A Biography is the liveliest. It was a big success in Germany and one can see why. His prose is lively and the unconventional organization of his book, by theme rather than chronology, with asides about current science, tells an engaging version of Einstein's story. Neffe is not afraid to speculate on the personality of the man behind the myth, even if not all his hypotheses are convincing. At the same time Neffe also tells the heroic story of the scholars hired by the Einstein Papers Project to catalog and publish Einstein's collected papers as they struggled with, sued, and cajoled the executors and family to get the access to the letters and documents they needed to do their job.
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The project was launched in 1986 under the joint sponsorship of Princeton University Press and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As Neffe explains, the executors, Otto Nathan and Helen Dukas,

made life difficult for anyone who tried to gain access to the approximately 42,000 items in the archives.... Hence it was not surprising that important papers vanished.... It is uncertain how many documents were removed from Einstein's estate after his death. There is no doubt, however, that documents casting Einstein in an unfavorable light, at least in the opinion of his trustees, were eliminated.

As a result, the efforts of the scholars associated with the Einstein Papers Project—which is now based at the California Institute of Technology—have only recently begun to yield a mature understanding of Einstein's character and his work. Anyone who really wants to get to know Einstein can do no better than immerse themselves in the books and papers coming out of the Einstein Papers Project, which has so far published ten volumes of correspondence and writings spanning the period from Einstein's youth up to 1920.

Less ambitious readers who want an introduction to Einstein's story, taking into account all the latest discoveries of letters and organized in a conventional chronological format, will find Isaacson's workmanlike biography well worth reading. But I found his clearly written account marred by unconvincing attempts to reassure us that we need not be overly concerned by Einstein's rough edges. For example, Isaacson takes pains to assure us that Einstein's criticisms of quantum mechanics, which led to his dissenting from the theory that most of his colleagues thought was the greatest advance of the period, have since been resolved, an assertion that will surprise many scientists who continue to debate and study the issues.

Isaacson also assures us that Einstein's worries about McCarthyism were "overstated" because "as it turned out, American democracy righted itself, as it always has.... Einstein was not used to self-righting systems...and did not fully appreciate how resilient America's democracy and its nurturing of individual liberty could be." Why does Isaacson feel he has to assure us that we don't need to take his subject's political views too seriously?

2.
The problem any biographer faces is that Einstein scholarship is still digging itself out of decades of mythmaking. While it is possible to extract a picture of a real person from the recent books, it takes some work, as the writers themselves still seem too much in awe and accept too easily the sanitized and domesticated version of the fierce and unruly spirit who was the greatest scientist in living memory. To untangle the person from the myth we can begin with the parts of the myth—both personal and scientific—that are inconsistent and incredible.

First the young Einstein, the one who actually made the great discoveries we associate with his name, is nothing like the mellow sage described during his Princeton years. He was seen by his contemporaries as arrogant, intolerant of authority, charismatic, good-looking, manipulative, and avidly engaged in his relationships with women, his children, his friendships, his music. One of his classmates described him as follows:

Sure of himself, his gray felt hat pushed back on his thick, black hair, he strode energetically up and down in a rapid, I might almost say, crazy, tempo of a restless spirit which carries a whole world in itself. Nothing escaped the sharp gaze of his bright brown eyes. Whoever approached him immediately came under the spell of his superior personality. A sarcastic curl of his rather full mouth with the protruding lower lip did not encourage philistines to fraternize with him. Unhampered by convention, his attitude towards the world was that of the laughing philosopher, and his witty mockery pitilessly lashed any conceit or pose.

David Reichinstein, a young physical chemist who knew Einstein in Zurich, wrote that "Einstein can express a strong dislike, and can fly into a passion, becoming intolerant and even unjust." Einstein, in a rare written attempt at introspection, referred to his "hypersensitivity masquerading as indifference."

The young Einstein's contempt toward anyone in authority was strongly expressed and likely hurt his career. After an exchange with Paul Drude in which the unknown student tried, unsuccessfully, to point out an error in the professor's work, he wrote,

It is such manifest proof of the wretchedness of its author that no further comment by me is necessary. From now on I'll no longer turn to such people, and will instead attack them mercilessly in the journals, as they deserve.

The question that needs to be answered, although none of the biographers do so, is how this arrogant, charismatic revolutionary turned into the otherworldly sage who was said to be an "emblem...of the mature and reflective human being." The man who was once seen as childish became admired for being childlike. How did this happen? Had Einstein become resigned after facing political and personal tragedies, or was his new character, as Overbye and Neffe both suspect, at least partly an act? "Einstein the lonely genius," as Neffe writes, "was partly a creation of his own making."

Peter Bergmann, a physicist who collaborated with Einstein at Princeton, used to recount Einstein's reaction to their walk being interrupted once more by a stranger wanting to meet the great man. Einstein chatted amiably but when the person left he remarked, "Well, the elephant has gone through his paces again."

Evidence that Einstein's otherworldliness was at least partly a conscious strategy is to be found in a letter of spring 1915 to his good friend Heinrich Zangger, a doctor he had met in Bern, in which he explained how he kept his cool when his colleagues and friends in 1915 Berlin became fervid about pursuing war:

I always fare the best with my innocuousness, which is up to 20 percent conscious. This is easily attained when you're indifferent to the feelings of your dear fellow humans—but you are never as indifferent to them as they deserve.

Then he explained what was really important to him: "I live completely withdrawn and yet I'm not lonely, thanks to the kind care of a cousin [his lover Elsa] who was the one who drew me to Berlin."

Einstein's letters show that in fact he was capable of considerable sensitivity to the feelings of other people. Here, in a letter quoted by Isaacson, is how he resolved a difficult conflict with the great mathematician David Hilbert over who should get credit for the equations of general relativity in December 1915:

There has been a certain ill-feeling between us, the cause of which I do not want to analyze. I have struggled against the feeling of bitterness attached to it, with complete success. I think of you again with unmixed geniality and ask you to try to do the same with me. It is a shame when two real fellows who have extricated themselves somewhat from this shabby world do not afford each other mutual pleasure.

And here he is in 1911, again in letters quoted by Isaacson, writing to Marie Curie to express support for her during a scandal caused by disclosures of a relationship with a married man:

Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number himself among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages among us as you....

A possible clue to Einstein's character is an evident gulf between how women saw him and how men saw him. The men in his life, his friends and his sons, complained of his detachment. "For all his kindness, sociability and love of humanity," the physicist Max Born wrote, "he was nevertheless totally detached from his environment and the human beings included in it." But women saw in him "masculine good looks of the type that played havoc at the turn of the Century.... The lower half of his face might have belonged to a sensualist who found plenty of reasons to love life." And there is plenty of evidence, from the stories of affairs lasting into old age and the letters between him and his women, that women continued to find him attractive.

Throughout his life, in fact, we see how important women were to him. His first marriage in 1903 to Mileva Maric´, a Serbian mathematician, began as a partnership between fellow students and soulmates. He risked a great deal for it, including his relationship with his parents. When it went bad, he might have stayed for the benefit of their children, but he gave it all up for a new love, that of his cousin Elsa Einstein. This cost him dearly in his relationships with his sons, as he wrote to Elsa:

I have carried these children around innumerable times day and night, taken them out in their pram, played with them, romped around and joked with them. They used to shout with joy when I came; the little one cheered even now, because he was still too small to grasp the situation. Now they will be gone forever, and their image of their father is being spoiled.

What he gained by this sacrifice was not just a life with Elsa, but a household of women, starting with Elsa's two grown daughters—one of whom he apparently also proposed to. A decade later he added Helen Dukas, who became not only his personal assistant but a member of his household. In later years this circle of women came to include also his beloved sister Maja who, along with one of Elsa's daughters, left her husband to live out her life with Einstein. But this household of women was not enough for him, for it seems Elsa did not interfere with his having many friendships— erotic or not—with women in Berlin.

Perhaps the stories of Einstein and others point to a kind of man who is most comfortable and engaged when in the company of women. Reading about his relations with them, we can ask whether there is an erotic component to some kinds of scientific and mathematical creativity.

This possibility challenges the stereotype that scientists and mathematicians tend to be nerds, out of touch with their bodies. Perhaps the notion that scientists are people of unworldly detachment is accepted uncritically because it supports the ancient idea that the mind and body are distinct entities. Some would prefer the myth of Stephen Hawking, who may seem to be a man with no body to speak of, in touch with only the universe (with his necessary support from a team of nurses and students hardly mentioned), than to think too much about Einstein seducing Berlin socialites in his sailboat, or Erwin Schrödinger inventing quantum mechanics during an erotic weekend with a lover and later showing up in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize with both his wife and his mistress.

3.
The discrepancies in the myth of Einstein are important, not so much for their own sake but because they point to contradictions in the perception of his scientific legacy held by laypeople and scientists alike. Corresponding to the apparent contradictions between the character of the young and the old Einstein, and between the detached sage and the man deeply involved with women, we can find in much of the recent writing two scientists called Einstein. The early Einstein, according to legend, was brash and revolutionary. His thinking was closely tied to experimental science and engineering practice. It was intuitive, centered on a search for general principles, and done with a light hand that employed the bare minimum of mathematics.

Moreover, as Peter Galison convincingly shows in his 2003 book, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time, the young Einstein developed his science while being closely involved with the technology of his time. Einstein's father and uncle were high-tech entrepreneurs, which in those days meant they took part in the electrification of cities. In the patent office he dealt every day with cutting-edge technology, and some of it had to do with the issue of defining time and establishing simultaneity. The problem of synchronizing clocks in distant places, leading to a definition of simultaneous time, is central to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity. From Galison we learn that the same problem was crucial for coordinating railway timetables and more generally for the establishment of national and global systems of time, and that Einstein likely examined patents relevant to this problem in his work in the Swiss patent office.

Einstein's later work, beginning in the early 1920s, was very different. It was an almost random search through catalogs of inelegant mathematical formulas, in the vain hope of discovering a unification of the different physical forces, including both gravity and the fundamental particles. I agree with Neffe that this work was "lacking something that had previously served him well on two occasions: a principle.... It also lacked any empirical foundation." According to Banesh Hoffman, one of his assistants, "The search was not so much a search as a groping in the gloom of a mathematical jungle inadequately lit by physical intuition." The ever-acerbic physicist Wolfgang Pauli wrote to him in 1929: "All that is left...is to congratulate you (or had I better say 'express... condolences'?) on your having gone over to the pure mathematicians."

It is true that many mathematicians and physicists do their best work when young. But in Einstein's later work we see something much more extreme than the usual falling off. It is as if Thelonious Monk or John Coltrane turned into an obscure twelve-tone composer. How did the greatest physicist since Newton turn into a failed player of mathematical games? All the biographers ask this question; none gives an answer that seems remotely plausible to me as a working scientist.

The key issue in the assessment of Einstein's later years is his conviction that quantum mechanics could not be correct. Although in 1905 he had been the first to identify the need for a new quantum physics, he dissented strongly from the view that our understanding of quantum phenomena was put in final form by the invention of quantum mechanics in 1926 and 1927. In particular, he argued that quantum mechanics, while making predictions that agreed with experiments, could only provide an incomplete and approximate description of phenomena at the level of the atom. His objection was partly based on the fact that quantum mechanics gives only statistical predictions for many experiments, and partly on the fact that it gives no physical picture of precisely what occurs in individual atomic processes. For him then, quantum mechanics was at best a provisional step on the way to the right theory of atomic physics. A major motivation for his search for a unified field theory was his belief that it might lead to that correct theory. He was not alone; among the inventors of quantum physics, Louis de Broglie, Erwin Schrödinger, and others shared his skepticism about the theory.

As Freeman Dyson has described in these pages, Einstein was a leader of a generation of revolutionaries, every one of whom "had a crazy theory that he thought would be the key to understanding everything."[2] Like some of his fellow European refugees, such as Kurt Gödel, Einstein represented an older, philosophical approach to science that was based on attempts to think radically about the foundations of reality such as the nature of space, time, and causality. In America, however, he found a new generation of conservatives, among whom Dyson numbers himself. As Dyson saw it,

The old revolutionaries...believed that physics needed another revolution as profound as the quantum revolution.... Young people like me saw all these famous old men making fools of themselves, and so we became conservatives.

They were conservative because they thought the revolution was over and their task was to develop the applications of quantum physics, which they took to be the prime legacy of the revolution. "The physical ideas were basically correct," Dyson wrote. His contemporaries

did not need to start another revolution. They only needed to take the existing physical theories and clean up the details. I helped them with the later stages of the cleanup. The result of our efforts was the modern theory of quantum electrodynamics, the theory that accurately describes the way atoms and radiation behave.

But for Einstein and others, who did not accept quantum mechanics, the revolution was not yet over. By the time Einstein moved to Princeton in 1933, he had already parted ways with most of his colleagues. As a result, although all the subsequent developments of twentieth-century physics were entirely based on Einstein's early work, it can also be said that Einstein left very little legacy from his work at Princeton within the scientific community. His later views were for the most part not taken seriously, and those who followed him and worked with him during that period did not flourish. Indeed, his most important contribution of all, general relativity—which he had developed between 1909 and 1915, following his early work on special relativity—was mostly ignored from the 1930s to the 1960s as physics focused on the rapidly expanding sphere of applications of the quantum theory.

By the time Newton died the Royal Society was filled with Newtonians. But after Einstein's death in 1955, to be an Einsteinian was to be in a decidedly marginalized position in the physics world, if by Einsteinian one meant someone who agreed with Einstein's strongest convictions and consequently approached physics in the same style he did. The big question that any assessment of Einstein's later period then hinges on is whether Einstein's later views were correct or not. The least that can be said is that there is an entire field now devoted to questions raised by the counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics called the foundations of quantum mechanics. Most experts agree that the questions raised by Einstein have not been resolved, and a fair fraction of them suspect that in the end Einstein's view that quantum mechanics is just a step on the way to the right theory will turn out to have been correct.

Nonetheless, for most of Einstein's biographers, who have been either nonphysicists or, like Pais, particle physicists firmly in the dominant quantum theory camp, the question is closed. To them one of very greatest scientists in history was completely wrong about the truth of a theory whose development he initiated. Isaacson asks, "So what made Einstein cede the revolutionary road to younger radicals and spin into a defensive crouch?" The simple truth is that Einstein ceded nothing because he had well-thought-out and principled objections to the quantum theory.

4.
Paradoxically, it appears that the myth of Einstein may have diminished the influence he might have had. To understand how and why this happened, we should ask who benefited by the diminishment of Einstein's legacy from that of the greatest scientist of the last two centuries to the gentle and wise clown of popular imagination.

First of all, his executors stood to benefit. They saw their role as establishing the legacy of one of history's greatest scientists. But the man himself was an embarrassment. Politically he had supported causes such as socialism, pacifism, and racial justice that were considered—in the America of 1955, when he died—on the fringe or worse. He was well known and admired as a Zionist, but the truth was more complicated. He was in favor of a homeland for Jewish refugees, but, in a statement many Zionists would have opposed, he also wrote to Chaim Weizmann in 1929 that "should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing from our 20,000 years of suffering." When he turned down the offer of the presidency of Israel in 1953 he said, "My relationship with the Jewish people has become my strongest human tie." But he also told his step-daughter Margot, "Were I to be president I would have to say to the Israeli people things they would not like to hear."

Einstein's political engagements were an embarrassment even for the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, who had taken great pains to recruit the famous scientist to Princeton. He took to opening Einstein's mail and turning down invitations— including an invitation to visit the Roosevelts in the White House— without even consulting the man to whom they were addressed. Einstein had to threaten to resign from the institute to get access to his mail.

Einstein's unruly Bohemian personal life was also an embarrassment, to which the executors, as Neffe notes, responded by destroying documents and restricting access. The executors even went to court to block Einstein's son from publishing letters between his parents that had been passed down to him from his mother. The result was that key facts about Einstein's messy personal life were hidden from view before those letters finally came into the hands of scholars in the last few years.

In fact, what is in these letters is far from producing the scandal that the executors may have feared. What stands out instead is banal; his two marriages were not very different from those of many creative people today. How many marry their college soulmates only to have the relationship collapse in the face of diverging careers and the pressures of raising children? How many have weathered a difficult divorce without writing some angry letters that they would not want to see published?

Einstein's scientific colleagues had even more to gain by the establishment of a myth that left him honored but unheeded. During his years as a professor and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute at the University of Berlin up to 1933, Einstein was a formidable obstacle to those who sought to establish quantum mechanics as the unquestioned paradigm for the new physics. This was so because his arguments were the hardest to answer and because of his unquestioned status as the dominant intellectual figure of twentieth-century science, holder of a prestigious chair in what was at the time the capital of science.

But once Einstein moved to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton he was no longer seen as a leading figure among scientists. His dissent from quantum mechanics and his entire philosophical approach to scientific research was an embarrassment to his younger American colleagues. While they may have been happy to have the old master as a trophy of America's and their own dominance, they were not very interested in what Einstein might have to teach them about how to do science. And indeed, Einstein showed little interest in the discoveries they were most excited about, perhaps because they were expressed in the language of quantum mechanics, which he did not believe. The solution was to elevate Einstein to the status of a sage, a Yoda of Princeton, after which it would not be necessary to take him seriously. Indeed, apart from two or three assistants and some fellow refugees, few others in Princeton—even those who worked on relativity or quantum theory—ever had serious talks with him.

Einstein knew what was going on. In 1949 he wrote to Max Born,

I am generally regarded as a sort of petrified object. I find this role not too distasteful, as it corresponds very well with my temperament.... I...do not take myself nor the doings of the masses seriously, am not ashamed of my weaknesses and vices, and naturally take things as they come with equanimity and humor.

Indeed, Einstein also had something to gain by the propagation of a myth. Knowing that he had done the greatest science of the last two centuries, and aware of being the lifelong European Bohemian rebel that he was, can we imagine him descending into the pit of American academic politics and contending for a legacy measured in chairs held by students and collaborators? This indifference, however, infuriated some of the followers of relativity theory. The great astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar told me that he held a lifelong grudge against Einstein for having, in his view, abandoned relativity theory and those who studied it, resulting in the subject and its followers being pushed to the fringes of physics for decades. Einstein was mainly interested in being left alone, to live his own kind of life, have his affairs and entanglements, and pursue his lifelong search for truth—a search that began and ended outside the academic establishment and indeed never fit comfortably within it.

But Einstein was famous, as no scientist has been before or since, so his every move was under scrutiny. And, in view of the tragedies that had driven him to give up his European home and move to America, we can imagine he felt compelled to continue to use his fame to speak out for principles and causes he believed in. But he was in a new country where his socialism and pacifism were widely seen as un-American. Perhaps playing the part of the lovable sage was a conscious solution to these problems; it is even possible to imagine that he borrowed something from his friend Charlie Chaplin, who also hid unpopular leftist views behind the famous image of a clown. This not only protected his privacy and excused his apparent irresponsibility, it gave him an unassailable position from which to continue to support causes then unpopular in America.

The myth describes Einstein as politically naive, but there is little evidence for that in two recent books on his political activities: Einstein on Politics, a collection of his writings, and Einstein on Race and Racism, an account of his friendships with Paul Robeson and members of Princeton's African-American community. He was always as anti-Communist as he was socialist, and did not fall into the common trap of letting his support for good causes be exploited. He was flexible and engaged. He understood the Nazi threat earlier than many and as soon as he did he stopped supporting pacifists. His writings show that in politics as in science he had the ability to speak directly to the heart of the matter. In 1946 Einstein visited Lincoln University, a historically black institution in Pennsylvania, and was quoted as saying:

There is a separation of colored people from white people in this country. This separation is not a disease of colored people. It is a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it.

5.
In politics, it seems that Einstein was called naive for thoughts that we now understand to have been ahead of his time. Could the same have been true of his later science?

For science, the question to be answered is the paradox of Einstein's failed last years. I would suggest that the resolution of the paradox is that Einstein's dissent from quantum mechanics and immersion in the search for a unified field theory were not failures but anticipations. After all, even if many string theorists would disagree with Einstein about the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, much of what goes on in string theory these days looks a lot like what Einstein was doing in his Princeton years, which was trying to find new mathematics that might extend general relativity to a unification of all the forces and particles in nature.

Many of the avenues Einstein and his collaborators explored between the 1920s and the 1950s, for instance, such as the possibility of a higher number of dimensions, are now integral parts of string theory. Perhaps Einstein's turn from analysis of physical principles to mathematical speculations was not just a foible; perhaps, in the absence of any relevant physical experiments, it was the only way forward. Or perhaps Einstein's goal of complete unification can only be achieved by someone with the audacity and courage to disdain the mainstream and return to the physical, intuitive, and mathematically unsophisticated methodology of the young Einstein. The answers to such questions are still to come.

It is also disappointing that none of the biographers mention the writings that lead John Stachel, the founding editor of the Einstein Papers project, to speak of "the other Einstein." These writings look beyond his struggles with the unified field theory to "the other possibility [which] leads in my opinion to a renunciation of the space-time continuum, and to a purely algebraic physics." What Einstein is saying is that the smoothness of space is an illusion and the fundamental description of space will be in terms of algebra and not geometry. As Einstein wrote in a letter to the physicist H.S. Joachim:

An algebraic theory of physics is affected with just the inverted advantages and weaknesses [of prevailing ideas], aside from the fact that no one has been able to propose a possible logical schema for such a theory. It would be especially difficult to derive something like a spatio-temporal quasi-order from such a schema. I cannot imagine how the axiomatic framework of such a physics would appear, and I don't like it when one talks about it in dark apostrophies. But I hold it entirely possible that the development will lead there....

Remarkably, this is precisely where most current work on unifying quantum mechanics with general relativity, apart from string theory, has led. Non-commutative geometry, spin foam models, loop quantum gravity, quantum causal histories, and others are each based on such an algebraic framework for spacetime. Between string theory and such approaches, the later Einstein appears to have anticipated much of contemporary research aiming to bring together and close the great revolutions he began.

But it also must be admitted that none of these approaches have, after great effort, succeeded in leading to either physical experiments or to complete theories that have the ring of truth that Einstein's early theories have. A growing number of us engaged in this work believe that Dyson and his contemporaries declared the revolution over too soon, and that to finish the job Einstein started we will have to return to his preoccupations with the foundations of our understanding of space, time, matter, and the quantum.

As for Einstein's dissent from quantum mechanics, there remains the stubborn fact that a significant proportion of those who have thought the matter through find themselves in agreement with Einstein that quantum mechanics must be understood as an incomplete approximation to a very different theory. Here also, no final judgment can be made until the scientific problems are resolved. But it is remarkable that Einstein's last significant paper on quantum mechanics, written with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen in 1935—well into his alleged deterioration—is more and more central for our understanding of quantum mechanics. This paper is built around a critical argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics; but its lasting significance is that it is the first paper to clearly identify a feature of quantum physics we now call entanglement.

According to quantum mechanics, once two systems have interacted they must from that point on be considered a single system, with joint properties, even if they fly far apart from each other and remain widely separated. This remarkable aspect of quantum physics—unappreciated before that paper—has become the basis of a quest for new technologies, called quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum cryptography, which, during the next decades, may transform our world as much as the electrical technologies Einstein's father and uncle pioneered.[3] Should this happen, one can imagine that Einstein—whose revolution in science went hand in hand with his work in the patent office, observing the transformation of science into technology—would have been proud.
Notes

[1] "China Needs An Einstein. So Do We." The New York Times, April 27, 2007.

[2] "The World on a String," The New York Review, May 13, 2004.

[3] See David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality (Viking, 1997), and George Johnson, A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer (Knopf, 2003).

14) Roberto Mangabeira Unger: Free Trade Reimagined

2007-05-20T21:00:00.000-04:00

O mais recente livro de Roberto Mangabeira Unger:
Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007)

Apresentação do autor:
This book will be published by Princeton University Press in October 2007. It works out the economic implications, as well as the implications for economics, of the social theory developed in my Politics books and of the philosophical program advanced in "The Self Awakened." It represents the counterpart in political economy to the arguments of "What Should Legal Analysis Become?" about law. I see it as one more move in a campaign to free social thought from its embrace of superstition and its subservience to fate.

The book takes as its point of departure a discussion of the doctrine of free trade on the basis of comparative advantage -- the most characteristic teaching of economics. A substantive theme in the work is the way in which the activities we have learned how to repeat (and thus to express in formulas, embodied in machines) are best related to the activities we do not yet know how to repeat.
Here is a form of the division of labor -- in the workplace or in the world as a whole -- contrasting to Adam Smith's pin factory and to Henry Ford's assembly line. A methodological theme is the development of a practice of economics supporting a more intimate bond among analysis, explanation, and proposal than the economics inaugurated by the marginalism of the late nineteenth century allows.

Índice do livro:
FREE TRADE REIMAGINED: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics
Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Themes and scope of this book 2
Chapter One - Troubles: The Enigmas of Free Trade, Familiar problems, disturbing solutions, 8
The history of free trade and protection: subversive lessons, 16
The authority of free trade doctrine: reasons amounting to objections, 20

Chapter Two - Troubles: The Incompleteness of Comparative Advantage, 26
The doctrine of comparative advantage, 26
Incompleteness: indeterminacy resulting from failure to justify unique assignments of comparative advantage, 29
Incompleteness: confusion produced by uncertainty about the limits of our power to shape comparative advantage, 37
Incompleteness: embarrassment in the assumption of the division of the world into sovereign states, 45
Beyond incompleteness: the sham similarity between post-marginalist economics and physics, 52
Condemned to eternal infancy: implications of the method inaugurated by marginalism, 57
A note relating ideas in this book to the dominant tradition of thinking about comparative advantage, 65

Chapter Three - Ideas, 77
In search of a point of view, 77
Specialization and discovery: when competition inhibits self-transformation, 77
Politics over economics: when restraints on trade imply no surrender to special interests or costly dogmas, 81
Order and revision: when free trade strengthens the capacity for self-transformation, 87
Alternative free trade, alternative globalizations: the market liberated from the doctrine of the market, 90
The division of labor reimagined and remade: from the pin factory to the factory of innovation, 95
A central conception: mind against context, 101

Chapter Four - Theses, 111
Nature of these theses, 111
The thesis of relative advantage, 111
The thesis of politics over economics, 139
The thesis of self-revision, 152

Chapter Five - Proposals, 167
From an analysis to a program, 167
The world trade regime and its reconstruction, 168
Free trade reformed: the reconciliation of alternatives, 180
Free trade reformed: experimenting with the forms of the market economy, 186
Free trade reformed: free movement of things and money chastened, free movement of people and ideas enhanced, 194
Free trade reformed: from wage slavery to free labor, 199
THE TROUBLES OF FREE TRADE AND THE OPPORTUNITIES OF ECONOMICS, 214

13) Stefan Zweig, quase entre nos...

2007-04-12T21:24:00.000-04:00

Estou lendo a excelente biografia de Stefan Zweig por Alberto Dines: Morte no Paraíso: a tragédia de Stefan Zweig (3a. ed.; Rio de Janeiro, Rocco, 2004), sobre a qual pretendo escrever assim que terminar sua leitura, prazeirosíssima para todos aqueles que apreciam a alta cultura.
O Autor me escreveu a propósito de um museu que está sendo formado na antiga casa onde Zweig passou seus últimos meses no Brasil, e onde se suicidou, em Petrópolis, dedicado à literatura do exílio (que já virou gênero literário).
Transcrevo aqui uma mensagem dele em 12 de abril de 2007, em resposta a cumprimentos que lhe fiz pela excelência de sua pesquisa biográfica:

"Paulo Roberto, meu caro, vou pedir à minha secretária para scanear a foto da edição alemã onde estou assinalado [PRA: um garoto de oito anos, na escola udaica do Rio de Janeiro]. Existe sim uma Sociedade Internacional Stefan Zweig com sede em Salzburg, Áustria. Mas são, com o perdão da palavra, uns babacas. Morrem de ciúmes, ficaram despeitadíssimos quando souberam que conseguimos comprar a casa onde Zweig viveu em Petrópolis para lá fazer um pequeno museu. Um ano depois, criaram uma entidade parecida mas com uma diferença -- a casa onde Zweig morou em Salzburg continua propriedade privada, onde moram os descendentes daqueles que a compraram em 1936/7. O meu livro foi generosamente recebido na Alemanha, na Áustria não saiu uma única resenha.

O nosso pequeno museu (cujas obras começarão dentro de um par de meses) pretende abarcar o que hoje se chama de Exilliteratur (a literatura do exílio, hoje uma disciplina acadêmica). Vieram para o Brasil muitos artistas, intelectuais, cientistas. Pretendemos recolher material sobre eles (alguns estão mencionados no meu livro). Será um Museu do Exílio favorecido pelo fato de localizar-se na rua Gonçalves Dias.

A zweiguiana internacional está sendo trabalhada há, pelo menos, duas décadas por um germanista americano da Universidade de Notre Dame (Randolph Klawiter, a quem menciono profusamente). Ela já editou o primeiro volume com quase mil páginas, depois saiu um Adendo com 800 e agora está envolvido na preparação do segundo adendo. Um louco, procuro ajudá-lo.

A "Casa Stefan Zweig" de Petrópolis terá um site (que já está sendo montado) onde pretendemos oferecer uma cronologia da sua vida, das principais obras, perfil biográfico, fotos, etc.etc.

Abração
Dines"

12) O bibliofilo aprendiz

2007-03-22T22:05:00.000-04:00

Capitulo "Colecionar o quê?", do livro de Rubens Borba de Moraes, O Bibliófilo Aprendiz (Casa da Palavra, 2007)

É aos psicanalistas que se deve perguntar por que se coleciona. Só eles sabem descobrir quais os motivos inconfessáveis e escabrosos que levam um burguês pacato e morigerado a praticar atos perfeitamente simples e morais.

Não resta dúvida que o dom de colecionar é uma compensação para algum complexo. Em muitos casos é simplesmente um complexo de fuga, uma “Pasárgada” que ajuda a suportar guerras, inflações, desejos frustrados ou simplesmente uma mulher tagarela. Compensá-los, escrevendo poemas, pintando, esculpindo ou colecionando ainda é a melhor terapêutica que pode haver.
Há gente que coleciona selos, discos de fonógrafo, botões de fardas, soldadinhos de chumbo, figurinhas de toda sorte, e até caixas de fósforos. Tutancâmon colecionava bengalas e as queria tanto que foi enterrado com elas. Don Giovanni, mulheres. Chegou a possuir mille e tre, mille e tre… como se canta na ópera.
Não há coleção tola e ridícula quando feita com arte, gosto e conhecimento. Vi, há anos, exposta num museu, uma coleção particular de carteiras de cigarros. Essa coleção tinha sido feita com tal gosto, tal arte, que a gente se esquecia que aquelas lindas figurinhas, aqueles desenhos pitorescos e divertidos tinham sido feitos para proteger cigarros. A carteira de cigarros desaparecia, sobrando somente a obra de arte popular, o documento de uma época. Um historiador de arte ou um sociólogo poderia escrever um livro apaixonante, graças a esses documentos colhidos por um colecionador.
Colecionar é uma arte. Como toda arte, é preciso que esteja combinada com o conhecimento, com o métier, para se tornar uma verdadeira criação. Muita gente pensa que colecionar é um passatempo de rico. Engano: que o diga o nosso colecionador de carteiras de cigarros.
Toda gente compra livros uma vez ou outra. Comprar livros, hoje em dia, é uma necessidade. É indispensável em certas profissões. No entanto, uma minoria somente coleciona livros. É porque nem todos têm a sorte de possuir o dom da bibliofilia ou, se quiserem, os complexos necessários para se tornarem bibliófilos.
Colecionar livros não é uma ocupação mais cara que a de comprar casualmente um ou outro romance para se ler em viagem. Depende do gênero que se quer colecionar. Imprimem-se, todos os anos, milhões de livros no mundo. Da descoberta do prelo até hoje imprimiram-se outros tantos milhões. Não é, por conseguinte, por falta de material que se deixa de colecionar. Mas, justamente essa pletora é que torna difícil a escolha. É preciso, portanto, escolher com muito critério qual o gênero de livro que se quer colecionar. Nunca um bom colecionador deve ir comprando o que lhe agrada no momento. Se assim fizer, chegará, no fim de alguns anos, a ter uma vasta livraria sobre os assuntos mais diversos, obras dos autores mais variados, edições das mais disparatadas, mas nunca uma coleção digna de um bibliófilo. Terá formado um acervo de biblioteca pública, quando muito.
Há, digamos, para facilitar, dois rumos a seguir: ou escolher o assunto ou escolher as obras de um determinado autor como objetivo de uma coleção. Mas, que assunto, que autores? Não é possível aconselhar. É uma questão de gosto e de conhecimento. Deve-se escolher o assunto de que mais se gosta ou mais se entenda; o autor que mais agrada. Mas, cuidado, nem toda onça é tapete, não escolha um assunto vasto demais ou um autor antigo, cujas obras têm milhares de edições. O senso da medida é indispensável. O saber restringir o objetivo de uma coleção é a única possibilidade que se tem de formar uma verdadeira biblioteca particular e não um bricabraque de livros.
Não se deve escolher um assunto ou um autor, cujas obras estejam acima das possibilidades financeiras do colecionador. Há assuntos caros. Há autores, cujas obras nas edições procuradas custam verdadeiras fortunas.
O prazer de colecionar, a emoção de encontrar um livro procurado há anos, a volúpia de completar as obras de um autor, é, para o milionário que paga uma fortuna por um livro, a mesma do pobretão que encontra num sebo o volume sonhado.
O primeiro passo a dar, portanto, quando se decide colecionar livros é planejar a coleção que pretende fazer. É preciso estudar o assunto. Conhecê-lo bem. Saber o caminho a seguir. Quanto mais erudito for o colecionador, mais probabilidades terá de formar uma biblioteca de valor.
Não se deve colecionar com o intuito de ganhar dinheiro. Comprar livros com a intenção de vendê-los mais tarde com lucro não é próprio de bibliófilo, mas de livreiro. Um amigo meu, bibliófilo apaixonado, resolveu abrir uma livraria. Parecia-lhe que era esse o melhor meio de aumentar sua biblioteca com pouco dispêndio. Ora, aconteceu-lhe que as boas compras que fazia, ficava com elas. Só punha à venda o que não lhe interessava ou lhe parecia muito caro. Em pouco tempo a loja do livreiro colecionador tornou-se cheia de verdadeiro rebotalho. Ninguém queria esse refugo e, antes de ir à falência, o comerciante inexperiente tratou de vender a livraria. Outro conhecido meu, livreiro estabelecido, resolveu colecionar livros sobre um autor de sua predileção. Reuniu, em alguns anos, uma excelente coleção de todos os livros desse autor, em primeiras edições. Esse conjunto magnífico ficou valendo muito bom dinheiro, dinheiro que fazia falta para movimentar sua casa comercial. Acabou vendendo a coleção, para continuar a ser livreiro.
Colecionador e livreiro são coisas diferentes. São raríssimos os exemplos de quem tenha misturado as duas coisas com sucesso. O Dr. Rosenbach o fez, mas ele era conhecido como o Napoleão dos livreiros.
O colecionador que deseja fazer negócio e labora nesse sentido acaba quase sempre perdendo. O amor ao lucro é nefasto aos bibliófilos. O prazer de formar uma bela coleção é uma recompensa suficiente. É verdade que, se ele tiver critério e gosto, acabará formando um conjunto que valerá muito mais do que gastou. Será a recompensa material pela sua arte e ciência.
Vamos a um caso concreto. Suponhamos que um médico queira colecionar livros sobre medicina. Nada mais apropriado, nada mais legítimo e mais bem escolhido para um médico. Os médicos são muito dados à bibliofilia. Há muita sociedade de médicos bibliófilos. Acontece que o assunto é vastíssimo, verdadeiramente inesgotável. A National Library of Medicine dos Estados Unidos contém centenas de milhares de livros e está muito longe, mas muito longe, de possuir uma coleção completa. Aliás, não está na cogitação de nenhuma biblioteca médica a intenção utópica de possuir tudo que se publicou sobre medicina no mundo, nem sequer ter tudo quanto se publica atualmente sobre esse vasto assunto.
O médico que desejar colecionar livros sobre medicina deverá, portanto, logo no início, escolher ou um ramo da medicina ou uma época na história da medicina. Poderá, por exemplo, escolher os livros sobre a sífilis, assunto, aliás, muito procurado, que contém obras muito raras e bastante caras. Ou, então, os livros antigos sobre anatomia. Muitos desses livros são ilustrados com gravuras belíssimas e alguns são extremamente raros.
Ou, ainda, os livros que marcaram época na história da medicina.
Para médicos brasileiros, há um assunto apaixonante: os primeiros livros de medicina brasileira. Livros sobre medicina dos tempos coloniais há poucos, uns doze ou quinze que eu saiba. Alguns como, por exemplo, o Tratado único da constituição pestilencial de Pernambuco, escrito por João Ferreira da Rosa, impresso em Lisboa em 1694. É nesse livro que aparece a primeira observação, a descrição clara e inconfundível da febre amarela. Ferreira da Rosa fez a observação em Pernambuco. É, pois, um desses livros que marcam época. Todo livro que cita pela primeira vez um fato importante, marca uma data na História, tem um valor bibliográfico universal, é procurado e se torna geralmente raro. Esse Tratado único da constituição pestilencial de Pernambuco (que título magnífico!) tem uma outra particularidade: é raríssimo. Não se conhecem mais que uns poucos exemplares mas, tenho para mim, que deve haver mais alguns desconhecidos dos bibliófilos. Procurem-nos, portanto, os colecionadores!
Nem todos os livros de medicina antiga brasileira são tão desanimadoramente raros. As Notícias do que he o achaque do bicho, escrito por “Miguel Dias Pimenta, Familiar do S. Officio e residente no Arrecife de Pernambuco” , impresso em Lisboa em 1707, é outro livro célebre que descreve uma moléstia muito comum no Brasil colonial. Pimenta não era médico. Nascido em Portugal, foi para Recife tentar fortuna. Com quinze anos era caixeiro e quando publicou as Notícias já era comerciante abastado. Há quem suponha que comprava barato escravos doentes, atacados de “achaque do bicho”, tratava-os de acordo com o método que inventara e revendia-os, curados, por muito bom dinheiro. Não era mau homem o mascate enriquecido. Negociar em escravos era um negócio tão limpo quanto qualquer outro naquele tempo. Possuía até um certo senso de humanidade, tanto assim que resolveu divulgar o método que inventara para curar o “bicho”. Diz ele que publicava o livro “por zelo da caridade proximal... para que todos se possam curar por si”. O que admira não é a “caridade proximal” de Pimenta, tão rara naquela época, mas que conseguisse curar alguém com os remédios que preconizava. O “achaque do bicho” era moléstia freqüente no Brasil e em Angola até o século XIX, e muitos livros de Medicina descrevem o mal e receitam remédios. Parece que era uma espécie de retite gangrenosa, agravada por toda sorte de complicações devidas à falta de higiene corporal. O doente chegava a “criar bichos” e daí o nome da moléstia.
A obra de Pimenta é um livro de medicina escrito por um leigo, baseado em observações e prática. Daí seu valor todo especial. Acresce que é um livro extremamente raro, uma verdadeira jóia brasiliana.
Já que estou citando livros de medicina antiga do Brasil, não posso deixar de mencionar um dos mais interessantes, o Governo de mineiros, de autoria de João Antonio Mendes, impresso em Lisboa em 1770. É um manual de medicina prática, caseira, escrito para os que viviam em Minas Gerais, “distantes de professores seis, oito, dez e mais legoas padecendo por esta cauza os seus domesticos e escravos queixas, que pela dilação dos remedios se fazem incuraveis, e as mais das vezes mortaes”. João Antônio Mendes era “cirurgiam e anatomico aprovado” e exerceu a medicina nas Minas por longos anos. Outro livro curiosíssimo, escrito também por um médico que clinicava em Minas, é o Erario mineral, de Luís Gomes Ferreira, impresso em Lisboa em 1735. É um livro interessantíssimo, cheio de detalhes curiosos sobre a vida que levavam os mineradores. Grande livro é o Erario mineral, e raríssimo!
Há outros: a Prodigiosa lagoa descuberta nas Congonhas das Minas do Sabará, impresso em Lisboa em 1749, sem o nome de autor, mas de autoria de João Cardoso de Miranda, o Trattado único das bexigas, e sarampo, por Romão Mõssia Reinhipo (o médico Simão Pinheiro Morão), o primeiro livro de medicina brasileira, impresso em Lisboa 1683, e mais alguns outros. Mas dessa época (século XVII e XVIII) não existem, como já disse, mais do que uma dúzia de livros de medicina brasileira, sem contar as teses dos médicos brasileiros que se formaram em Montpellier, em Coimbra e Edimburgo. São todos muito raros, mas nenhum bibliófilo, mesmo principiante, perde a esperança de obter uma peça dessa raridade. E faz muito bem, porque a sorte é um elemento com o qual se deve contar.
Nem todos os livros de medicina brasileira são tão raros como os que citei. Os que foram publicados na Bahia e no Rio de Janeiro, em princípios do século XIX, embora sejam bastante raros, encontram-se de vez em quando. Muitos desses livros são traduções de obras européias, feitas por médicos brasileiros. Quando se fundaram as Escolas de Medicina da Bahia e do Rio de Janeiro houve necessidade de manuais para os alunos. Diversos professores traduziram, então, os livros clássicos franceses e ingleses, usados nas faculdades de Paris e Edimburgo. Essas traduções são, muitas vezes, anotadas pelos clínicos nacionais, com observações feitas no Brasil, o que as torna mais valiosas cientificamente. As traduções de Bichat, Fourcroy, Cabanis, Richerand, Maunoir e outros médicos estrangeiros estão entre os primeiros livros de medicina impressos no Brasil. Mais valiosas, talvez, são as obras originais dos médicos brasileiros, os livros de José Maria Bomtempo, Luís de Santa Ana Gomes, Domingos Ribeiro Guimarães Peixoto, e tantos outros, sem falar nas obras do Dr. Melo Franco, publicadas anteriormente em Lisboa. Nem todas as obras desse famoso médico mineiro são difíceis de achar, mas a Medicina theologica é um livro muito raro e muito curioso. Um psicanalista, lendo-o com atenção, encontraria nas suas páginas as teorias de Freud em germe. Melo Franco foi um precursor em muita matéria médica e o nosso primeiro pediatra. Publicou, em 1790, um Tratado da educação fysica dos meninos.
Como se vê, não faltam livros de medicina brasileira para formar uma belíssima coleção. A dificuldade de se obter as obras publicadas nos tempos coloniais não deve desanimar. O assunto não é, ainda, muito procurado. Uma boa coleção de medicina antiga brasileira seria (digo seria porque não conheço presentemente nenhuma verdadeiramente rica) uma obra digna dos maiores louvores e de um valor incalculável.
Há outros assuntos pouco explorados em bibliofilia brasileira, onde um colecionador ativo poderia empregar sua erudição e faro. Por que não colecionar os primeiros impressos produzidos nos diferentes estados e cidades do Brasil? É um assunto pouco explorado, onde há um vasto campo para pesquisa e muita descoberta a fazer. Outro assunto tentador seria colecionar os livros sobre escravidão ou sobre imigração ou, ainda, as primeiras edições dos escritores de uma escola literária. Digo de uma ou duas escolas literárias, porque ambicionar possuir todas as primeiras edições de obras literárias brasileiras seria uma ambição napoleônica.
O leitor já deve ter percebido que sou francamente partidário das pequenas coleções, da restrição do âmbito de uma coleção. De fato, hoje em dia não é possível um particular formar uma grande biblioteca sobre um assunto geral. Embora possua muito dinheiro, tempo e conhecimento do assunto, a concorrência que sofre das bibliotecas públicas, dos outros colecionadores que procuram as mesmas obras há mais tempo que ele, é um obstáculo muito difícil de vencer. É preciso ter sempre em mente que o número de exemplares de um livro é limitado. Muitos e muitos livros não existem mais no mercado, todos os exemplares já estão nas bibliotecas dos governos e nunca mais serão vendidos. É preciso saber que não se compra o que se quer, mas o que se pode comprar e o que aparece à venda. Já é, portanto, uma limitação com a qual o colecionador deve contar. Há livros que nunca mais aparecerão à venda. Um exemplo entre mil é o que aconteceu com a Historia da provincia Sãcta Cruz a que vulgarmete chamamos Brasil feita por Pero de Magalhaes de Gandavo, impressa em Lisboa em 1576. Dessa obra clássica, o primeiro livro sobre o Brasil escrito em português, existiam sete exemplares no mundo, todos em bibliotecas públicas da Europa e dos Estados Unidos. Em 1946 apareceu um oitavo exemplar. Oferecia-o à venda o famoso livreiro Rosenbach. Essas ocasiões são das tais que não se perdem. Agora, já, ou nunca mais! Como responsável pela direção da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio, naquele tempo, eu não podia deixar escapar essa ocasião única de enriquecer o Brasil com um exemplar de um dos livros mais importantes sobre nosso país. Comprei esse exemplar perfeito da tiragem mais rara, da qual só existem dois outros. Assim procedi, embora a Nacional já possuísse um Gandavo com as margens cortadas rente ao texto, bichado e encadernado num volume com outros folhetos. O Brasil merece possuir um belo exemplar de um dos monumentos de sua cultura. Muitos me criticaram acerbamente. “Sabeis quão má gente é a da Índia...”. Exemplos como esse aparecem a toda hora. Os livros raros vão sumindo do mercado. A ciência de colecionar consiste em saber quais os livros que estão desaparecendo e em comprá-los na hora certa. Muitas vezes é preciso coragem para pagar o preço pedido, mas sem coragem nada se faz na vida, nem uma biblioteca. Voltemos ao caso das pequenas coleções sobre um assunto determinado, preferivelmente às coleções gerais.
Na minha opinião, o que é digno de admirar é um conjunto de livros homogêneo. O que é apreciável numa biblioteca particular não é o número de livros caros que contém. A existência de livros raros no meio de uma porção de outros, sobre assuntos inteiramente diferentes, faz a gente lembrar muito mais o que falta na coleção do que aquilo que existe. Colecionar não é juntar livros. O que é difícil, o que torna a bibliofilia um divertimento, um hobby apaixonante, é justamente a procura do que lhe falta. É o prazer em encontrar o exemplar desejado. Pouco importa o preço que se pagou por esse prazer. Pode ser uma pequena fortuna ou alguns cruzeiros. Comprar livros raros e caros, a torto e a direito, está no alcance de qualquer pessoa com dinheiro no bolso.
Para se formar uma coleção homogênea sobre um assunto ou um autor é preciso ciência, conhecer a vida do autor, saber quando, onde publicou seus livros. É preciso toda uma soma de conhecimentos, uma verdadeira erudição, às vezes. É aí que está a diferença entre o verdadeiro bibliófilo e o mero comprador de livros. O verdadeiro bibliófilo sabe o que compra e por que compra. Às vezes tem a santa ingenuidade de crer que o livreiro não sabe o que está vendendo e não soube marcar o preço. Doce ilusão que logo perde. Os bons livreiros possuem três virtudes: o faro para descobrir, o talento para comprar barato e a fé em poder vender caro. O bibliófilo deve ter somente coragem para pagar e saber o que e por que está comprando.

11) Minhas resenhas mais recentes...

2007-03-13T09:15:00.000-04:00

Algumas das resenhas de livros mais recentes...

1727. “A arte de atirar nos próprios pés”, Brasília, 23 fevereiro 2007, 2 p. Resenha de João Luiz Roth: Por Que Não Crescemos como outros Países?: Custo Brasil (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006, 194 p.) Revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 4, nº 32, março 2007, p.; link).

1726. “Comércio e diplomacia: história e atualidade”, Brasília, 22 fevereiro 2007, 2 p. Resenha de Demétrio Magnoli e Carlos Serapião Jr.: Comércio Exterior e negociações internacionais: teoria e prática (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006, 378 p.). Revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 4, nº 32, março 2007, p.; link).

1721. “Fronteiras da sociedade global”, Brasília, 11 fevereiro 2007, 5 p. Resenha de Eduardo Felipe P. Matias, A Humanidade e suas Fronteiras: do Estado soberano à sociedade global (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2005, 556 p; ISBN: 85-219-0763-X). Publicado em formato digital no site do Observatório da Imprensa (ano 11, nº 421; 20/02/2007; ISSN: 1519-7670; link).

1711. “Futuro preterido?: Zweig e um projeto para o Brasil”, Brasília, 26 janeiro 2007, 2 p. Resenha de João Paulo dos Reis Velloso e Roberto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque (coords.): Brasil, um país do futuro? (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio, 2006, 154 p.; R$ 31,00) e Projeto de Brasil: opções de país, opções de desenvolvimento (idem, 222 p., R$ 38,00). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: IPEA-PNUD, ano 4, nr. 31, fevereiro 2007; link).

1697. “O seu, o meu, o nosso dinheiro...”, Brasília, 17 dezembro 2006, 4 p. Resenha de Marcos Mendes (org.): Gasto Público Eficiente: 91 propostas para o desenvolvimento do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, Instituto Fernand Braudel, 2006, 475 p. ISBN: 85-7475-128-6). Feita versão reduzida, sob o título de “Manual da boa gastança”, para a revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (n. 30, janeiro 2007; p. 62; link).

1695. “O Bunker Voador: a aventura eletrizante do Plano Real”, Brasília, 10 dezembro 2006, 4 p. Resenha de Guilherme Fiuza: 3.000 dias no bunker: um plano na cabeça e um país na mão (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2006, 331 p.; ISBN: 85-01-07342-3). Enviado à Revista de Economia e Relações internacionais (FAAP-SP). Publicado no blog Book Reviews em 11.12.2006). Republicado, com uma inserção publicitária sobre o debate de lançamento em Brasília (em 13.12.06, na Livraria Leitura, do Pátio Brasil Shopping), no blog NoMínimo, em 12.12.2006 (link).

1687. “A produção do conhecimento nas sociedades contemporâneas: a concentração e as desigualdades são inevitáveis?”, Brasília, 25 novembro 2006, 11 p. Nova resenha de Fernando Antonio Ferreira de Barros: A tendência concentradora da produção de conhecimento no mundo contemporâneo (Brasília: Paralelo 15 – Abipti, 2005, 307 p.), aproveitando algumas idéias da primeira (1536). Parcerias Estratégicas (Brasília: CGEE; nº 23, dezembro 2006; ISSN: 1413-9375; p. 435-446; link).

1680. “Uma venerável, mas ainda jovem, senhora: a USP aos 70 anos”, Brasília, 5 novembro 2006, 5 p. Resenha de Shozo Motoyama (org.), USP 70 anos: Imagens de uma história vivida (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2006, 704 p.). Feita versão resumida, sob o título “Uma Senhorita aos 70 anos”, para a revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 29, dezembro 2006, p. ; link).

1679. “Sucessores bem sucedidos?: um balanço realista (e completo) da diplomacia na era militar”, Brasília, 4 novembro 2006, 6 p. Resenha de Fernando de Mello Barreto: Os Sucessores do Barão, 2: relações exteriores do Brasil, 1964-1985 (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2006, 519 p.; ISBN: 85-7753-004-3). Revista Política Externa (São Paulo: ). Versão resumida publicada, sob o título de “Diplomacia durante a ditadura”, na revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 29, dezembro 2006, p. ; link).

1675. “Prata da Casa, Boletim ADB 2006-4”, Brasília, 23 outubro 2006, 2 p. Notas sobre os livros: Fernando de Mello Barreto: Os Sucessores do Barão, 2: relações exteriores do Brasil, 1964-1985 (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2006, 519 p.); Paulo Roberto de Almeida: O estudo das relações internacionais do Brasil: um diálogo entre a diplomacia e a academia (Brasília: LGE Editora, 2006, 388 p.); Vasco Mariz (org.): Brasil-França: relações históricas no período colonial (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército Editora, 2006, 196 p.); Armindo Branco Mendes Cadaxa: No Jardim de Inverno (Nova Friburgo: Ars Fluminensis, 2006, 74 p.); para o Boletim ADB (ano XIII, nº 55, out-dez 2006; ISSN: 0104-8503; p. 28-29; link).

1674. “Os divergentes convergem, mesmo contra a vontade...”, Brasília, 23 outubro 2006, 2 p. Resenha do livro de Gustavo H. B. Franco: Crônicas da convergência: ensaios sobre temas já não tão polêmicos (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2006, 598 p.). Publicado em formato resumido em Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: ano 3, nr. 28, novembro 2006, p. 63; link). Publicado, na versão original, no site do autor (link).

1673. “Personagens com idéias, ainda que tardias”, Brasília, 22 outubro 2006, 2 p. Resenha do livro de Francisco C. Weffort: Formação do Pensamento Político Brasileiro: idéias e personagens (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 2006, 360 p.). Publicado em formato resumido em Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: ano 3, nr. 28, novembro 2006, p. 62; link).

1664. “O imperador americano das PPPs”, Brasília, 20 setembro 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Charles A. Gauld: Farquhar, o último titã: um empreendedor americano na América Latina (São Paulo: Editora de Cultura, 2006, 520 p.). Publicada em formato resumido e revisto na revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 27, outubro 2006, p. ?; link).

1656. “Um ‘padreco’ diabólico”, Brasília, 27 agosto 2006, 1 p. Hamilton Almeida: Padre Landell de Moura: um herói sem glória; o brasileiro que inventou o rádio, a TV, o teletipo... (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2006, 319 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 26, setembro 2006, p. ; link).

1655. “Anatomia do Leviatã econômico”, Brasília, 26 agosto 2006, 2 p. Resenha de: Ciro Biderman e Paulo Arvate (orgs.), Economia do Setor Público no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2004, 560 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 26, setembro 2006, p. ; link).

1641. “Do leão britânico para a águia americana?”, Brasília, 25 julho 2006. 2 p. Nova resenha, resumida, do livro de Eugênio Vargas Garcia: Entre América e Europa: a política externa brasileira na década de 1920 (Brasília: Editora da Universidade de Brasília; Funag, 2006, 672 p.; ISBN: 85-230-0854-3), para a revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: ano 3, nº 25, 2006, p. 62; link).

1639. “Sob a sombra da águia?: a diplomacia brasileira no início do declínio britânico”, Brasília, 20 julho 2006, 4 p. Nova resenha de Eugênio Vargas Garcia: Entre América e Europa: a política externa brasileira na década de 1920 (Brasília: Editora da Universidade de Brasília; Funag, 2006, 672 p.; ISBN: 85-230-0854-3). Para publicação na revista Política Externa (São Paulo: vol. ?, nº ?, 2006, pp. ).

1638. “Não falta oportunidade para crises...”, Brasília, 18 julho 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Antonio Corrêa de Lacerda (org.), Crise e oportunidade: o Brasil e o cenário internacional (São Paulo: Lazuli, 2006, 328 p.). Revista Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: ano 3, nº 25, 2006, p. 63; link).

1618. “A economia, em centímetros quadrados...”, Brasília, 16 junho 2006, 4 p. Resenha de Paulo Sandroni: Dicionário de Economia do século XXI (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2005, 905 p.; ISBN: 85-01-07228-1). Publicado na Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: IPEA-PNUD. Ano 3, nº 24, julho 2006, p. 54-55; link). Revisto e ampliado e publicado sob o título “A economia, explicada aos jornalistas (e outros curiosos)” no Observatório da Imprensa (Ano 11, nº 388, de 4/07/2006; ISSN: 1519-7670; link).

1602. “Um manual para superar a letargia econômica brasileira”, Brasília, 14 maio 2006, 3 p. Resenha de Armando Castelar Pinheiro e Fabio Giambiagi: Rompendo o marasmo: a retomada do desenvolvimento no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2006, 312 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 23, junho 2006, pp. 62-63; link).

1601. “Educação e desenvolvimento: como o Brasil vem falhando nos dois lados”, Brasília, 12 maio 2006, 5 p. Resenha ampliada de Gustavo Ioschpe: A ignorância custa um mundo: o valor da educação no desenvolvimento do Brasil (São Paulo: Francis, 2004, 234 p.), objeto do trabalho nº 1537. Revista de Economia e Relações Internacionais (São Paulo: FAAP; vol. 5, nº 9, julho 2006, p. 139-142, ISSN: 1677-4973; link).

1583. “Reeducando juízes “heterodoxos” em economia”, Brasília, 21 abril 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Armando Castelar Pinheiro e Jairo Saddi: Direito, Economia e Mercados (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2005, 553 p.; ISBN: 85-352-1528-X). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 23, junho 2006, p. 63; link).

1582. “Entre a América e a Europa: a política externa do Brasil nos anos 1920”, Brasília, 21 abril 2006, 3 p. Resenha de Eugênio Vargas Garcia: Entre América e Europa: a política externa brasileira na década de 1920 (Brasília: Editora da Universidade de Brasília; Funag, 2006, 672 p.; ISBN: 85-230-0854-3). Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (Brasília: ano 49, nº 1, 2006, p. 222-224).

1578. “A ordem mundial, para principiantes”, Brasília, 14 abril 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Henrique Altemani de Oliveira e Antonio Carlos Lessa (orgs.), Política Internacional Contemporânea: mundo em transformação (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2006, 115 p.). Feita versão resumida de 1 p. Publicado, sob o título de “A nova ordem, para iniciantes”, em Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 22, maio de 2006, p. 63; link).

1575. “Greenspan: uma fraude ex-post?”, Brasília, 12 abril 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Ravi Batra: Greenspan: a fraude (Ribeirão Preto, SP: Novo Conceito Editora, 2006, 410 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (ano 3, nº 22, maio de 2006, p. 62; link)

1562. “Caminhos da convergência na globalização”, Brasília, 19 de março de 2006, 8 p. Apresentação ao livro de Leonardo de Almeida Carneiro Enge: A Convergência Macroeconômica Brasil-Argentina: regimes alternativos e fragilidade externa (Brasília: IRBr, 2006; ISBN: 85-7631-048-1). Colocado no blog Book Reviews, post nº 32 (link). Reproduzido no blog Relnet, em 08.01.2007 (link).

1551. “Desconstruindo Estados (ma non troppo...)”, Brasília, 12 fevereiro 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Francis Fukuyama: Construção de Estados: governo e organização no século XXI (Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2005, 168 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (??). Blog Book Reviews nº 31 (link).

1539. “A arte da resenha (para uso de aprendizes, neófitos e outros amantes de livros)”, Brasília, 24 janeiro 2006, 5 p. Elementos centrais de uma boa resenha de livros. No Blog Book Reviews (link).

1537. “A educação é cara?; experimente a ignorância...”, Brasília, 22 janeiro 2006, 3 p. Resenha de Gustavo Ioschpe: A ignorância custa um mundo: o valor da educação no desenvolvimento do Brasil (São Paulo: Francis, 2004, 234 p.). Feita versão resumida sob o título “Reforma do ensino no Brasil”. Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: IPEA-PNUD, ano 3, nº 20, março de 2006, p. 62). Colocado no blog “Book Reviews”, sob nº 29 (link). Expandido a pedido de Roberto Macedo para a revista de Relações internacionais e Economia (trabalho nº 1601).

1536. “Monopólio do saber?”, Brasília, 18 janeiro 2006, 2 p. Resenha de Fernando Antonio Ferreira de Barros: A tendência concentradora da produção de conhecimento no mundo contemporâneo (Brasília: Paralelo 15 – Abipti, 2005, 307 p.). Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Ano 3, nº 19, fevereiro 2006, p. 79). Colocado no blog “Book Reviews” nº 30 (link). Feita resenha ampliada sob nr. 1687.

1534. “Fábulas fabulosas, a preço de custo...”, Brasília, 16 janeiro 2006, 3 p. Resenha de Eliana Cardoso: Fábulas Econômicas (São Paulo: Financial Times – Prentice Hall, 2006, 306 p.). Feita versão resumida em 2 p. Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Ano 3, nº 19, fevereiro 2006, p. 78; link).

1479. “Conexões entre direito e desenvolvimento”, Brasília, 9 outubro 2005, 2 p. Resenha de Welber Barral (org), Direito e Desenvolvimento: Análise da ordem jurídica brasileira sob a ótica do desenvolvimento (São Paulo: Editora Singular, 2005, p. 360). Publicado em Desafios do Desenvolvimento (Brasília: IPEA-PNUD, ano 2, nº 16, novembro 2005; p. 61; link).