Bøger af Mark Poynter

Beatnik is a bohemian memoir set in the city of Durban in 1990. M. J. Poynter is a young college student immersed in the vibrant world of performing arts. Under the bright lights of the theatre the author spends his time designing sets and writing poetry. But offstage his carefree life as a beatnik is about to end.Nelson Mandela has just been released from prison and South Africa is on the cusp of political change. Set in a coastal city overlooking the Indian Ocean, Beatnik follows the exploits of four young students who see the need for political reform but who fear the prospect of an ANC government.Told through a series of amusing anecdotes, the author provides an insightful commentary of political events, captures the pop culture of the 1990's, and provides a creative outlet for some of his poems. Set against a backdrop of township violence and instability, M. J. Poynter recollects the final years of apartheid and the end of white minority rule.

The New Cold War is an extended (18,000 word) essay examining the effects and consequences that increased military competition and preparedness would have on US-Soviet relations from 1979-1988.When President Reagan entered office in 1981 he set out an ambitious military programme designed to "roll-back" the Soviet Union and re-establish the U.S. as a world leading superpower. Reagan's foreign policy was set on a strongly held ideological belief of renewed antagonism with the USSR characteristic to that of 1950's anti-communism. In maintaining that the Russians were intent on achieving world domination by any means possible, Reagan described the Soviet Union as being "the focus of evil in the modern world".The Reagan administration's anti-Soviet rhetoric combined with its reckless talk of limited nuclear war signified a shift in U.S. policy from maintaining a nuclear deterrent to preparing for a nuclear conflict. In residing over the largest peacetime re-armament programme in U.S. history, Reagan's military build-up would include a new generation of strategic weapons. With intense military competition and fears of a first-strike, the New Cold War was characterised by an increased emphasis on the likelihood of war and the need for preparation against a possible Soviet attack.

Middleburg is a coming of age memoir recollecting the author's childhood experiences of growing up in a small town in apartheid South Africa. M. J. Poynter provides a scathing attack of the apartheid regime as seen from the perspective of an English immigrant who finds himself growing up in a culture of conflicting values. The novel breaks new ground in terms of providing an examination of oppression from the perspective of a white minority. Here the instruments of apartheid are viewed from the experiences of someone who is not segregated in terms of race but who is excluded by nationality and culture. Told through a series of amusing anecdotes the novel documents many of the events taking place in South Africa during the 1980's and provides an insightful observation of the popular culture relating to that period. His recollection of events captures a sense of morbid nostalgia in which themes of horror are contrasted with images of the comic and the bizarre. Set against a backdrop of brutal oppression this "rites of passage" demonstrates how the human spirit can at least find the resolve to laugh in the face of adversity!

Having a strong culture of caring for the environment is a byword for a healthy society. However, it can go too far, and in highly urbanised Australia where most live remote from nature, decades of alarmist environmental campaigning has fostered a misguided conservation culture that lacks perspective, is intolerant of human resource use, and sees environmental protection in overly simplistic terms.According to this culture, forests are only ever protected when contained in large national parks or other forms of landscape reservation which are popularly presented as a vacant idyll that will magically restore itself to a natural, pre-European state. Unfortunately, this misconception ignores: 1) the extent to which forests have already been changed by unnatural fire regimes and the introduction of an array of feral and noxious pests; 2) the role played by active human intervention in managing these problems; and 3) the extent to which this management is associated with renewable resource use that generates wealth, requires access, and employs workforces.After several decades of acquiescence to this misguided conservation culture, Australia, which has been a world leader in integrating sensitive, renewable forest use and active management with high standards of environmental care, is progressively losing these skills.This book examines our conservation culture and how it has attained a political-correctness which has permeated the most influential areas of society with damaging consequences, not least for the environment itself.