Power: A New Social Analysis

لا تستطيع ان تخالف رسل في ما يقوله وما يتناوله في كتبه عادة لان طريقته العقلانية والمنطقية لا يدعان لك مجال لذلك, الكتاب صغير الحجم كبير القيمة وممتع لضربه امثلة تمس حياتنا المعاصرة واعتقد ان اي شخص وان اختلفت عقيدته السياسية لن يخبرك بان الكتاب مهم حتى وان كان قد كتب منتصف القرن الماضي . موضوع الحرية الفردية وسلطة الدول هي من المواضيع الحية والمهمة في وقتنا الحاضر ونحن نلمس هذه الاهمية من الاحداث التي تدور show more حولنا في العالم ولو كان رسل لايزال بيننا اليوم لذكر في كتابه التعدي السافر على حريتنا نحن والاجيال القادمة بسبب عدم انصياع الحكومات لاتخاذ مواقف حازمة لتجنب كارثة المناخ او حرب عالمية اخرى مدمرة او حتى ازمة اقتصادية قريبة . ان ادراك حدود حرياتنا وكذلك حقوقنا سيجنبنا الكثير من المتاعب وسيخدم البشرية خدمة عظمى. show less

Despite its promises, "Power" isn't really a new analysis of anything, but it is an interesting, and sometimes bracing, meander through the subject. Russell was writing at a particularly tense point in history -- the Second World War was coming on, but hadn't broken out yet -- and so it's not surprising that many of his arguments tend to revolve around what some might term "statism." Still, it's nice to hear from a twentieth-century thinker not in thrall to either Marxism of free-market absolutism, and the author often focuses on some of the emotional or crypto-religious dimensions of power that these philosophies often gloss over as too subjective or unserious for study. Even if you're not inclined to agree with Russell, however, this show more one is, for a book its type, a surprisingly entertaining read. Reading this one, you can imagine sitting around with the author -- whose intellectual breadth was hugely impressive -- as he expounded what he saw as the basic rules of the power game and illustrated them with examples from the ancient Greeks to the present day. For that reason alone, readers interested in Russell's intellectual background and thought process will likely find a lot to to gnaw on here. For everyone else, "Power" is an interesting lecture in book form, given by a lecturer with an exquisitely lively and organized mind. show less

After two years of reading a chapter every now and again I have finally finished. It's a slow book. The concepts are big, and trying to get your head around them requires you to read, stop, slow down, think, reread. But once you learn to accept that this is going to take a while, its magic really does start to show.

As does it's magical humour, which amazingly had me laughing loudly and scribbling down quotes to share.

12/11/21