{"id":2087,"date":"2012-01-11T10:19:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T14:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=2087"},"modified":"2017-09-27T12:43:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T16:43:29","slug":"top-5-books-that-i-read-in-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2012\/01\/11\/top-5-books-that-i-read-in-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 Books that I Read in 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello and welcome to 2012; here is a list of my 5 favorite books that I read in 2011:<\/p>\n

5.\u00c2\u00a0 The Monument<\/em> by Kanan Makiya.\u00c2\u00a0 I wrote a previous post on Saddam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s victory arch, the subject of this book.\u00c2\u00a0 I had read one other book by Makiya, The Republic of Fear<\/em>, about Ba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122athist Iraq under Saddam.\u00c2\u00a0 Makiya is a political dissident from Iraq and was forced to publish under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil until recently.\u00c2\u00a0 From reading The Republic of Fear<\/em>, it was no mystery to me that The Monument <\/em>would largely center on the nature of Saddam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unique brand of pan-Arab fascism, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect it to have the level of art historical writing or image theory that it does.\u00c2\u00a0 I rarely read anything relating to Middle Eastern art, but Makiya applies the history surrounding it and Western art theory to the creation and interpretation of the victory arch, which makes it wholly relatable.<\/p>\n

4.\u00c2\u00a0 The Silence of the Sea<\/em> by Vercors. This was the first fiction novel I have read in awhile; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very short and only takes a couple of hours to read.\u00c2\u00a0 It was written in 1942, right at the height of the Nazi\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s occupation of France.\u00c2\u00a0 It details the forced quartering (like, housing, not tearing apart by the limbs) of a German officer in the country house of and older French man and his young, female niece.\u00c2\u00a0 It explores the definition of <\/p>\n

william hill uk online casino bonus and promotions toponlinecasinobonus.co.uk<\/a> williamhill uk online casino bonus code <\/div>\n

resistance, and the extent and moral limits of inaction.\u00c2\u00a0 The old man and his niece choose to resist the occupation by ignoring the presence of the German officer, despite very human temptations.\u00c2\u00a0 The beauty of The Silence of the Sea<\/em> is that it has no direct answer as to what constitutes resistance; for Vercors, inaction is not necessarily passive support as many condemnations of civilians under Nazi occupation seem to muddle up.<\/p>\n

3.\u00c2\u00a0 Marianne into Battle<\/em> by Maurice Agulhon.\u00c2\u00a0 This book chronicles the history of the French female allegory for liberty, named Marianne.\u00c2\u00a0 Agulhon engagingly chronicles how Marianne arose out of the 1789 revolution and quickly became a propagandist tool into the 5th<\/sup> Republic.\u00c2\u00a0 If you are interested in the small details of history then I certainly recommend this book.<\/p>\n

2.\u00c2\u00a0 Eye Scream<\/em> by Henry Rollins.\u00c2\u00a0 I actually read this in high school, but I reread it this past year and got way more out of it the second time around.\u00c2\u00a0 Henry Rollins, former singer\/yeller for Black Flag and consummate angry person, has been more known in recent years for his spoken word than hardcore punk.\u00c2\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, Eye Scream<\/em> is violent, sociopathic, and wonderfully lyrical.\u00c2\u00a0 Rollins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aggressive intensity is mirrored only by the sadly honest clarity of his worldview.\u00c2\u00a0 I love this guy so much, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably write a whole column on him soon.<\/p>\n

1.\u00c2\u00a0 Inside the Third Reich<\/em> by Albert Speer.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the memoirs of Speer, who was Hitler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chief architect and the Minister of Armaments for the Nazis.\u00c2\u00a0 It was secretly written mainly on scraps of toilet paper while he was serving a 20 year sentence imposed at Nuremburg.\u00c2\u00a0 When it comes to Nazi \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcconfessions,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 they typically seem to be Eichmann-like, saccharine and dishonest, apologies, with no real remorse.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Speer isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t begging for forgiveness in his memoirs, but accepts responsibility for the role he played.\u00c2\u00a0 He isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t slobbering with excuses of brain washing or having no other choice, but instead treats his readers like adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello and welcome to 2012; here is a list of my 5 favorite books that I read in 2011: 5.\u00c2\u00a0 The Monument by Kanan Makiya.\u00c2\u00a0 I wrote a previous post on Saddam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s victory arch, the subject of this book.\u00c2\u00a0 I had read one other book by Makiya, The Republic of Fear, about Ba\u00e2\u20ac\u2122athist Iraq under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2087"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8450,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions\/8450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}