Books about Neutrality from Amazon.com

Critical praise for the original edition: "[The Myth of Religious Neutrality] is very well written It is clear and informative There is excellent work on recognizing deficient theories in terms of logical inconsistency, self-referential incoherence, self-assumptive incoherence, and self-performative incoherence. [Clouser’s] case studies point out clearly the uproven presuppositions behind many so-called 'rationalist' theories about various aspects of reality." —Review of Metaphysics

"[S]ignificant and challenging. . . . Clouser’s book makes the case that all theorizing inevitably involves religious beliefs. Clouser’s analysis of religion is rich and insightful. . . . [He] articulates a fundamental theme that both modernist and post-modernist thinkers need to recognize: that intellectual activity is deeply and inescapably religious." —Calvin Theological Journal

"This book can be warmly commended. It treats important issues in a clear and energetic way and it is a genuine attempt to break some new ground in the philosophy of religion." —Religious Studies

Written for undergraduates, the educated layperson, and scholars in fields other than philosophy, The Myth of Religious Neutrality offers a radical reinterpretation of the general relations between religion, science, and philosophy. This new edition has been completely revised and updated by the author..
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Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian presents essays that relate to neutrality in librarianship in a philosophical or practical sense, and sometimes both. They are a selection of essays originally published in Progressive Librarian, the journal of the Progressive Librarians Guild, presented in the chronological order of their appearance there. These essays, some by academics and some by passionate practitioners, offer a set of critiques of the notion of neutrality as it governs professional activity, focusing on the importance of meaningful engagement in the social sphere..
Price: $17.11 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A fascinating and enlightening explanation of the dilemma Switzerland found itself in during the 1930's and 1940's." (Publishers Weekly).
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Robert May offers an imaginative new approach to antebellum America's notorious "filibusters"--the adventurers who organized or participated in private military attacks on nations with which the United States was formally at peace. Condemned abroad as pirates, the filibusters were often celebrated at home as heroes who epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny. May explains the romantic, mercenary, ideological, and psychological desires that drove thousands of men to join filibustering expeditions; how they were financed; and why the U.S. government had little success in curtailing them. He also reveals the legacy of anti-Americanism that filibustering generated in Latin America, where people regarded the attackers much the way we look upon international terrorists today..
Price: $21.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

While surrounded by the Axis powers in World War II, Switzerland remained democratic and, unlike most of Europe, never succumbed to the siren songs and threats of the Nazi goliath

This book tells the story with emphasis on two voices rarely heard. One voice is that of scores of Swiss who lived in those dark years, told through oral history. They mobilized to defend the country, labored on the farms, and helped refugees. The other voice is that of Nazi Intelligence, those who spied on the Swiss and planned subversion and invasion. Exhaustive documents from the German military archives reveals a chilling rendition of attack plans which would be dissuaded in part by Switzerland's armed populace and Alpine defenses.

Laced with unique maps and photos, the book is organized into four units. The first, A War of Words and Nerves, depicts how the Swiss mobilized an active "spiritual defense" of their country. Chapters describe jokes and slurs the Swiss devised to characterize the "Nazi pigs," the use of the press and cabaret as weapons against totalitarianism, and the role of Swiss newsreels in building the spirit of resistance. German prewar subversion plans are also revealed.

The second unit, To Resist to the Death, concerns military preparations. Swiss soldiers recall an epoch when every day could have been "the day" when all hell would break lose and they would meet the enemy. Blitzkrieg plans against Switzerland devised by the German Wehrmacht in 1940 are described in detail. Switzerland was an armed camp with countless fortifications, against which the Axis could have attempted access with extreme costs in blood. In Switzerland, Jews -- like all other citizens -- were in arms, and Jewish officers served in the highest levels of the Swiss army.

Struggle for Survival: Food, Fuel and Fear, the third unit, presents oral histories of daily life during the war with its shortages, alarms, and rumors. The role of women in the military and the economy are probed. A chapter on the refugee crisis investigates whether Swiss officials played a role in Germany's adoption of the "J" stamp on Jewish passports, how Switzerland became a lifeboat for refugees, and how asylum policies were liberalized as the persecution of Jews escalated.

Espionage and Subversion, the fourth and final unit, covers strategic issues and intelligence activities. German attack plans and bickering in the Gestapo about who would rule a conquered Switzerland persisted. One chapter focuses on Davos, where the Swiss struggled against a Fifth Column and which became a safe haven for American airmen whose crippled bombers made it to Swiss territory. The last chapter profiles Switzerland as America's window on the Reich -- how Allen Dulles and his OSS spied on the Nazis, at times with help from Swiss Intelligence.

Halbrook's other books include the award-winning Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II, which was published in five languages.
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This important book takes a critical look at conflict resolution (mediation, arbitration, and other forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution). The author asks What's wrong with conflict resolution? Why aren't more individuals and organizations using conflict resolution whenever they have a problem? Why doesn't the public know more about it? What are the limits of conflict resolution? When is conflict resolution not the best way to find a solution? When has conflict resolution been misused and why? How can conflict resolution practitioners understand their correct role and do a better job? Mayer is the author of bestselling book The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution ( 0-7879-5019-X). .
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In Objectivity Is Not Neutrality, Thomas L. Haskell argues for a moderate historicism that acknowledges the force of perspective and reaffirms the pluralistic practices of a liberal democratic society -- even while upholding time-honored distinctions between fact and fiction, scholarship and propaganda, right and might. Haskell addresses questions that will interest philosophers and literary theorists no less than historians, exploring topics ranging from the productivity of slave labor to the cultural concomitants of capitalism, from John Stuart Mill's youthful "mental crisis" to the cognitive preconditions that set the stage for antislavery and other humanitarian reforms after 1750. He traces the surprisingly short history of the word responsibility, which turns out to be no older than the United States. He examines the reasons for the rising authority of professional experts in nineteenth-century America. And he wonders whether the epistemological radicalism of recent years leaves us with any adequate basis for justifying human rights -- rights of academic freedom, for example, or the right not to be tortured.

Written by a thoughtful critic of the historical profession, Objectivity Is Not Neutrality calls upon historians to think deeply about the nature of historical explanation and to acknowledge more fully than ever before the theoretical dimension of their work.

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This book is about one of the great, dark secrets of World War II: neutral Switzerland shot down U.S. aircraft entering Swiss airspace and imprisoned the survivors in internment camps, detaining more than one thousand American flyers between 1943 and the war’s end. While conditions at the camps were adequate and humane for internees who obeyed their captors’ orders, the experience was very different for those who attempted to escape. They were held in special penitentiary camps in conditions as bad as those in some prisoner-of-war camps in Nazi Germany. Ironically, the Geneva Accords at the time did not apply to prisoners held in neutral countries, so better treatment could not be demanded. When the war ended in Europe, sixty-one Americans lay buried in a small village cemetery near Bern.

Details of this little-known episode are brought to light for the first time by Cathryn Prince, who tells what happened and examines the argument that the Swiss used to justify their policy. She shows that while the Swiss claimed it satisfied international law, they applied the law in a grossly unfair manner. No German airmen were interned, and Nazi aircraft were allowed to land unharmed at Swiss airfields to refuel. The author draws on first-person accounts and unpublished sources, including interviews with eyewitnesses and surviving American prisoners, and documents held by the Swiss government and the U.S. Air Force. Although these events have been briefly alluded to in other books, this work is the first to present the story in full. 272 pages. 23 photographs. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Hardcover. 6 X 9 inches..
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When the world descended into war in 1939, few European countries remained neutral; but of those that did, none provoked more controversy than Ireland.

Despite Winston Churchill's best efforts to the contrary, the Irish premier Eamon de Valera stuck determinedly to Ireland's right to remain outside a conflict in which it had no enemies. Accusations of betrayal and hypocrisy poisoned the media; legends of Nazi spies roaming the country depicted Ireland as a haven for Hitler's friends. Where previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, That Neutral Island mines deeper layers of experience. Sean O'Faolain, Kate O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Flann O'Brien and Louis MacNeice are a handful of writers whose stories, letters, and diaries illuminate this small country as it suffered rationing, censorship, the threat of invasion, and a strange detachment from the war.

Clair Wills brings to life the atmosphere of a country forced largely to do without modern technology. She describes the work of those who recovered the bodies of British sailors and airmen from the sea. She unearths the motivations of thousands who left to join the British forces. And she shows how ordinary people struggled to make sense of the Nazi threat through the lens of antagonism to Britain, the former colonial power. She acutely targets the sleight-of-hand that hovers around the Irish definition of "neutrality."

(20070909).
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