Bøger udgivet af Hero

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."Douglass cultivated himself to such an extent that the listeners of his lectures doubted if his narratives were true. His autobiography is both a compelling tale of a slave and a contribution to the public discourse on slavery. His language is poetic and precise honed in its simplicity as if something artificially put together but immensely natural at the same time. Opening this book is opening the door into Douglass's consciousness and tracking his inner journey of finding himself in the world: a story of his childhood and youth - a long and laborious path to freedom. Douglass talks about the explicit punishments and tortures that slaves were exposed to. Despite the suffering, he emphasises the power of self-education and continuous resistance that pushes one to fight their predicament. The publication of this book was such an unprecedented event that the author had to leave the US for Europe for about two years. The fact that Douglass's experience and meditations were issued in print gave him a wider audience, not restricting dissemination of his beliefs to those who could physically come to his public speeches.

"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."The Prince is generally labelled as a cynical and overly pragmatic account of gaining and retaining political power. It is a significant deviation from the righteous meditations of Plato and Aristotle, which emphasise the goodness of human nature. Living in a harsh political climate, Machiavelli devised a more practical and true-to-life guide for leaders who cannot possibly be always good and just. For instance, he talks among other things about the importance to inflict pain all at once but distribute the rewards available gradually and in limited amounts. Besides, the idea that 'the ends justify the means' had never been featured in literature so prominently and openly before. Far-fetched at first glance, Machiavelli's insights after some analysis starts making practical sense when every state and society need to maintain one thing - stability.Although not idealistic, the text is undeniably valid as we can easily track the Prince's features in the best and the worst political leaders of the previous century who are united by the amount of power they were able to exerts - from political heroes such as Churchill and JFK to fascist and communist dictators. In the modern world, The Prince is a viable manual of conduct more than ever with the intense demand for competitiveness not only in the political but equally in business and other spheres.The text is also famous for being written in the vernacular rather than in classical Latin. What might surprise modern readers is that, actually, this peculiarity halted the text's dissemination across Europe as most translations were still done from Latin. The text nevertheless has reached its audience and become one of the most recognizable and accessible reads on politics and leadership.