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Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels schrieben ihr Manifest im Dezember 1847, als Leitfaden fuer die grundsaetzlichen Prinzipien und Praktiken des Kommunismus. Das Manifest sagte ausserdem den Untergang des Kapitalistismus’ voraus. (Zusammenfassung von Gesine)...

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Politics

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Excerpt: Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett.

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Introduction: The Ethics of Aristotle is one half of a single treatise of which his Politics is the other half. Both deal with one and the same subject. This subject is what Aristotle calls in one place the ?philosophy of human affairs;? but more frequently Political or Social Science. In the two works taken together we have their author?s whole theory of human conduct or practical activity, that is, of all human activity which is not directed merely to knowledge or truth. The two parts of this treatise are mutually complementary, but in a literary sense each is independent and self-contained. The proem to the Ethics is an introduction to the whole subject, not merely to the first part; the last chapter of the Ethics points forward to the Politics, and sketches for that part of the treatise the order of enquiry to be pursued (an order which in the actual treatise is not adhered to)....

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Excerpt: A Theologico-Political Treatise: Part Four -- Chapters XVI to XX by Baruch Spinoza, translated by R.H.M. Elwes.

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Excerpt: Philebus by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov. Alexy Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this ?landowner?--for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate--was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance....

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Excerpt: Sophist by Plato, translated by by Benjamin Jowett.

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Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) was, according to Emma Goldman, the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced. Today she is not widely known as a consequence of her short life. De Cleyre was especially influenced by Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and Clarence Darrow. After the hanging of the Haymarket protesters in 1887, she became an anarchist. Till then I believed in the essential justice of the American law of trial by jury, she wrote in an autobiographical essay, After that I never could. She was known as an excellent speaker and writer – in the opinion of biographer Paul Avrich, she was a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist – and as a tireless advocate for the anarchist cause, whose religious zeal, according to Goldman, stamped everything she did. (Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy, Politics, Literature

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Reuben Sachs is a London lawyer whose political aspirations do not include marriage to Judith Quixano, the daughter of a respectable but unexeptional family. But without Reuben, a woman like Judith might have a bleak future in mid-19th century England: a loveless marriage or lifelong dependancy are apparently her only options... A feminist, a Jew, and a lesbian, Amy Levy wrote about Anglo-Jewish cultural mores and the lives of would-be independent women in Victorian society. Levy was as repelled by contemporary literature's occasional paragon (e.g., Daniel Deronda) as by its more frequent anti-Semitic stereotypes. REUBEN SACHS was her attempt at an honest, warts-and-all account of middle class Jewish life in late-19th century London. While many of Levy's contemporaries condemned the book as a shanda fur die goyim (an embarassment), Oscar Wilde wrote: Its directness, its uncompromising truths, its depth of feeling, and above all, its absence of any single superfluous word, make REUBEN SACHS, in some sort, a classic. Amy Levy (1861-1889) was born in London and educated in Brighton and at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her social set incl...

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Fiction

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The “Theses on Feuerbach” are eleven short philosophical notes written by Karl Marx in 1845. They outline a critique of the ideas of Marx’s fellow Young Hegelian philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. The theses form a basis for the activism emphasised by Marx’s work, and this short text is perhaps best know for its ending - a Eureka for revolutionary socialism. The theses were written in 1845, but not published until 1888 (five years after Marx’s death), with slight modifications by Friedrich Engels. The original text was published in 1924. This translation is based on the 1888 version. (Wikipedia/Carl Manchester)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (1872 – 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, political activist and Nobel laureate. He led the British revolt against idealism in the early 1900s and is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this book, written in 1918, he offers his assessment of three competing streams in the thought of the political left: Marxian socialism, anarchism and syndicalism. ( Carl Manchester)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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The Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, in November, 1863, followed a few short months after the roiling, acrid clouds of gun smoke dissipated, leaving a little crossroads town in Pennsylvania heir to the human tragedy of over 7,000 corpses and 21,000 men suffering wounds. It was a most unnatural disaster. On November 19, the chief executive made the trip to the still-dazed, shot-torn community to deliver, almost as an afterthought (for he was not the keynote speaker), an address that clarified his belief that the Negro race should be liberated from their slavery, and that despite the loss of so much blood and life, the Union should hold to the goal of completing this emancipation. That he knew the eyes of the nation would rest of him was evident; this address was the first speech since his inauguration that he prepared in advance. But these carefully crafted words - only 269 of them - became a vital part of our nation's identity, and are a signature to the bedrock of our beliefs....

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics

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The title of the book comes from Luke 17:21. It is a non-fiction work of the famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy. He wrote it after many years of reflexion on Christianity and Jesus. Many subjects are present such as wars, non-violence, misunderstanding by believers of the faith, etc. (Summary by enko)...

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Philosophy, Politics

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Ein klassicher Text des deutschen Liberalismus (Summary by redaer)

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Philosophy, Politics

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Excerpt: Theological Essays and Other Papers: Volume One by Thomas de Quincey.

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Contents ON CHRISTIANITY, AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT..................................4 PROTESTANTISM............................................................................................................... 39 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY ................................ 90 JUDAS ISCARIOT.............................................................................................................. 103 ON HUME?S ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES ........................................................... 124 CASUISTRY ....................................................................................................................... 143 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS..................................................................................... 189...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Who I Was and Who She Was. Oh, while she is still here, it is still all right; I go up and look at her every minute; but tomorrow they will take her away -- and how shall I be left alone? Now she is on the table in the drawing-room, they put two card tables together, the coffin will be here tomorrow -- white, pure white ?gros de Naples? -- but that?s not it?...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Father Ferapont. Alyosha was roused early, before daybreak. Father Zossima woke up feeling very weak, though he wanted to get out of bed and sit up in a chair. His mind was quite clear; his face looked very tired, yet bright and almost joyful. It wore an expression of gaiety, kindness and cordiality. ?Maybe I shall not live through the coming day,? he said to Alyosha. Then he desired to confess and take the sacrament at once. He always confessed to Father Paissy. After taking the communion, the service of extreme unction followed. The monks assembled and the cell was gradually filled up by the inmates of the hermitage. Meantime it was daylight. People began coming from the monastery. After the service was over the elder desired to kiss and take leave of everyone. As the cell was so small the earlier visitors withdrew to make room for others. Alyosha stood beside the elder, who was seated again in his arm-chair. He talked as much as he could. Though his voice was weak, it was fairly steady....

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Excerpt: The Republic by Plato.

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Excerpt: Phaedrus by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett.

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A collection of ten short essays or other short nonfiction works in the public domain read by volunteers.

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Politics, Religion, Philosophy, Science