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This collection comprises recordings of seven historic speeches given to the UK House of Lords between 1641 and 1945. Readings are of speeches origninally given by the 1st Earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth), the 1st Earl of Chatham (William Pitt the Elder), the 6th Baron Byron (the poet Lord Byron), the 1st Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), the 3rd Earl of Lucan (George Lord Bingham) and the 3rd Earl Russell (the philosopher Bertrand Russell). (Summary by Carl Manchester)...

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History, Politics

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The Masque of Anarchy was Shelley's response to the Peterloo massacre at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, where 18 died and hundreds were injured, after Hussars charged into a rally for parliamentary reform. Written in Italy in 1819, the poem was not published until 1832, ten years after Shelley's death. This reading is from the first published edition with the addition of three words that were inserted in full only in later additions ('Eldon' in Stanza IV and 'Bible' and 'Sidmouth' in Stanza VI). The poem is preceded by Leigh Hunt's preface to the 1932 edition and followed by Harry Buxton Forman's 1887 lecture on the poem to the Shelley Society. (Summary by Phil Benson)...

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Poetry, Politics

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This is the second collection of speeches given in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The collection comprises recordings of 14 historic speeches given to the UK House of Commons between 1766 and 1956. Readings are of speeches origninally given by parliamentarians including William Pitt the Elder, John Stuart Mill, Dadabhai Naoroji, Lady Astor, Stanley Baldwin, Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn. (Summary by Carl Manchester)...

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History, Politics

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Inheritors, (1921) by American dramatist Susan Glaspell concerns the legacy of an idealistic farmer who wills his highly coveted midwest farmland to the establishment of a college (Act I.) Forty years later, when his granddaughter stands up for the rights of Hindu nationals to protest at the college her grandfather founded, she jeopardizes funding for the college itself and sets herself against her own uncle, president of the institution's trustees (Acts II & III.) Ultimately, she defies her family's wishes, and as a consequence is bound for prison herself (Act IV.) The play was a stirring defense of free speech and an individual's ability to stand for his or her own ideal during a time of aggressive anti-Communist politics in the US. Inheritors was first performed at Provincetown Playhouse in 1922, the last of Glaspell's plays presented there. It has been revived in New York City by Mirror Repertory in 1983 and Metropolitan Playhouse in 2005....

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Play, Politics

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Originally published in 1873, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today is the only novel Twain co-wrote (C.D. Warner was a good friend and neighbor of the Clemens family in Hartford, and the collaboration sprang from their wive's challenge and encouragement). The title, The Gilded Age became synonymous with graft, materialism and corruption in public life, which are well represented in this work. Like others of his works, this one reflects truths about American Society that remain pertinent today. Many of the characters and incidents that occur in the Gilded Age had their real-life origins in Clemens relatives and history, a fact which he revealed in his newly published (2011) Autobiography. (Introduction by John Greenman & Wikipedia)...

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Fiction, Politics, Satire

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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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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 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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The History of the Thirty Years War is a five volume work, which followed his very successful History of the Revolt of the Netherlands. Written for a wider audience than Revolt, it is a vivid history, colored by Schiller’s own interest in the question of human freedom and his rationalist optimism. Volume 1 covers the background of the war, through the Battle of Prague in late 1620. (Introduction by Alan Winterrowd)...

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History, Politics

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John Henry Mackays Buch „Die Anarchisten“ ist überwiegend biographisch gefärbt und basiert auf eigenen Erlebnissen. Anhand zweier Charaktere mit unterschiedlichen philosophischen Grundsätzen, wobei einer der beiden sein Alter Ego darstellt, illustriert er das Wesen sowohl des individualistischen Anarchismus‘ als auch des Kommunismus‘ seiner Zeit. Auban, Mackays Alter Ego, wird nicht nur mit den Widrigkeiten in einer Bewegung, die sich zwar anarchistisch nennt, aber mit seinen individualistischen Grundsätzen nicht konform geht, sondern auch mit der zunehmenden Entfremdung seines Freundes Trupp gegenüber, der ein glühender Anhänger der kommunistischen Arbeiterbewegung ist, konfrontiert. Obschon ein philosophisches Buch, liest sich „Die Anarchisten“ stellenweise wie ein Roman, was nicht nur der konfliktreichen Situation, sondern auch der sprachlichen Fähigkeiten Mackays geschuldet ist. Ferner hatte dieses Werk einen nicht zu verachtenden Einfluß auf die europäische Arbeiterbewegung, der bis dato Mackays Gedanken, die überwiegend der individualanarchistischen Bewegung in Amerika entsprangen, ausgesprochen fremd war. So wurde das Buch na...

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Politics, Literature

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9/11 Commission Report, formally titled Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (informally sometimes known as the 9/11 Commission or the Kean/Zelikow Commission) at the request of the President of the United States and Congress. The commission convened on November 26, 2002 (441 days after the attack) and their final report was issued on July 22, 2004...

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History, Politics

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volunteers bring you 26 recordings of The Disagreeable Man by Sir W. S. Gilbert. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for June 10, 2012. The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique topsy-turvy style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert's childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations Bab. Nothing else quite like the Ballads has ever been produced in the English language. They contain both satire and nonsense, as well as a great deal of utter absurdity. The Ballads were read aloud at private dinner-parties, public banquets and even i...

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Humor, Politics, Satire, Poetry

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This is a concise yet thorough explanation of what might happen to our world in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The myriad of potential effects will be global and wide-spread. (Summary by Allyson Hester)...

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Politics, Essay/Short nonfiction, Science

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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

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Maria W. Stewart was America's first black woman political writer. Between 1831 and 1833, she gave four speeches on the topics of slavery and women's rights. Meditations From The Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart —published in 1879, shortly before her death—is a collection of those speeches as well as her memoir, some meditations and prayers. They are political, poetical and sermon all at the same time; but in the mileu in which she lectured, they were a critically important part of the abolitionist movement years before the contributions of others such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. Her speeches and essays espoused a return to Christian values and morality, but also proposed fundamental changes in gender roles in the midst of tremendous public opposition to the rights of blacks and of women. (Introduction by James K. White)...

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Memoirs, Politics, Poetry, Religion

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This is volume 5, chapter 25 of a series of books written by the Baron Macaulay (1800-1859) and published after his death. To quote from the preface - 'I HAVE thought it right to publish that portion of the continuation of the History of England which was fairly transcribed and revised by Lord Macaulay. It is given to the world precisely as it was left: no connecting link has been added; no reference verified; no authority sought for or examined. It would indeed have been possible, with the help I might have obtained from his friends, to have supplied much that is wanting; but I preferred, and I believe the public will prefer, that the last thoughts of the great mind passed away from among us should be preserved sacred from any touch but his own. Besides the revised manuscript, a few pages containing the first rough sketch of the last two months of William's reign are all that is left. From this I have with some difficulty deciphered the account of the death of William. No attempt has been made to join it on to the preceding part, or to supply the corrections which would have been given by the improving hand of the author. But, impe...

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History, Politics

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While claiming to be historical papers on the causes of the United States Civil War, the author indulges in some Slavery Apologetics. An interesting view from a southern lady on what caused the war and why the south was the underdog. (Summary by FNH)...

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History, Politics

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How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890) was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City’s upper and middle class....

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History, Politics