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The King Must Die
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Stiff: The Curiou...
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Eleanor Shearer
“Alone, mud-streaked, with weariness sinking into her very bones, a question haunted her—
Was this freedom?
The empty forest. Her fleeing, sick with dread. Was this what they had hoped for, all along?”
Eleanor Shearer, River Sing Me Home

“When we study how law functions in a given society, what should draw our keenest attention is the tension not between law and reality but between law in theory and law in practice.”
Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

Barbara W. Tuchman
“Charles reigned in a time of havoc, but in all such times there are unaffected places filled with beauty and games, music and dancing, love and work. While clouds of smoke by day and the glow of flames by night mark burning towns, the sky over the neighboring vicinity is clear; where the screams of tortured prisoners are heard in one place, bankers count their coins and peasants plow behind placid oxen somewhere else. Havoc in a given period does not cover all the people all the time, and though its effect is cumulative, the decline it drags behind takes time before it is recognized.”
Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“The notion that successful reform can emerge exclusively from within the ruling elite belongs among Russia’s most enduring and self-perpetuating myths, shared by figures as diverse as Gorbachev and Putin. Reforms initiated from outside the elite, so the argument goes, are doomed to failure, mass violence, or both. Never mind that such reforms have often been stymied by the elite itself, fearful of losing its monopoly of power, or that numerous reforms initiated from above have failed miserably.”
Benjamin Nathans

“The deeper drama was not between signers and non signers, but within each individual signer. Putting one’s name on an open petition marked ‘a step toward internal liberation—and for many that step was decisive. This or that particular signature might have no significance whatsoever for the country’s political situation, but for the signer himself, it could become a kind of catharsis.”
Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

169034 Non Fiction Book Club — 5112 members — last activity 15 hours, 48 min ago
This group is for anyone who enjoys Non Fiction. Genres discussed here include Histories, Autobiographies, Biographies, Memoirs, Science and Technolog ...more
189072 EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club — 28759 members — last activity 10 hours, 55 min ago
Click HERE for the latest group announcements. "It reminded me of ____ but in space." "I read ____ in high school, and actually liked it." "It's ...more
853 Constant Reader — 6022 members — last activity 3 hours, 47 min ago
A forum for friendly discussion of classics, literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry and short stories. We also love movies and art. Don't ask to join th ...more
110440 All About Books — 3810 members — last activity 18 hours, 11 min ago
We're here because we like reading and we like chatting about reading. But we are here especially because we strongly believe that reading is not just ...more
40148 Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) — 16245 members — last activity 44 minutes ago
The world is made up of two kinds of people: first, those who love classics, and second, those who have not yet read a classic. Be bold and join us as ...more
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