Orwells Ghosts, Laura Beers
Orwells Ghosts, Laura Beers
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
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Orwell's Ghosts
Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century

Author: Laura Beers

Narrator: Tanya Eby

Unabridged: 6 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/11/2024


Synopsis

For the seventy-fifth anniversary of 1984, Laura Beers explores George Orwell's still-radical ideas and why they are critical today.

George Orwell devoted his career to exposing social injustice and political duplicity, urging his readers to face hard truths about Western society and politics. Now, the uncanny parallels between the interwar era and our own—rising inequality, censorship, and challenges to traditional social hierarchies—make his writing even more of the moment. In Orwell's Ghosts, historian Laura Beers considers Orwell's full body of work—his six novels, three nonfiction works, as well as his brilliant essays—to examine what "Orwellian" means and to take it out of the hands of political pundits. She explores how Orwell's writing on free speech addresses the proliferation of "fake news," highlights his vivid critiques of capitalism, and, in contrast, analyzes his failure to understand feminism. Timely, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking, Orwell's Ghosts investigates how the writings of a lionized champion of truth and freedom can help us face the crises of modernity.

About Laura Beers

Laura Beers is an award-winning author. She attended Brigham Young University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in construction management. She can't sing, doesn't dance, and loves naps.
Besides being a full-time homemaker to her three kids, she loves waterskiing, hiking, and drinking Dr. Pepper. She was born and raised in Southern California, but she now resides in South Carolina.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathryne on July 15, 2024

This was an outstanding analysis of Orwell's writing and thought that skillfully ties it to its own historical context and to its continued relevance today. Beers' understanding of the complexity of Orwell's positions is presented to her readers clearly and with an even-handedness that Orwell himsel......more

Goodreads review by Pranjal on July 19, 2024

Laura Beers takes a comprehensive look at Orwell. She does what "experts" find so hard to do when evaluating personalities and their ideas - be nuanced. She discusses the multitudes which Orwell had and uses his extensive writings to understand the person and contextualise him better. I'd only known......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on November 09, 2024

Required reading for anyone interested in or a lver of Orwell's writings.......more

Goodreads review by Dan on August 30, 2024

Once again I crossed paths with people who steered me to wonderful books, some early on. There is great delight in reading a book at age, say, 14, while steeped in ignorance and innocence, and then, 15 years on, reading it again. In George Orwell's case, several other books of his were read between......more

Goodreads review by ids on August 15, 2024

"Orwell is justly admired for his grasp of the essential truth that tyranny is incompatible with liberty. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship, he taught us, whether it be a dictatorship of the left or of the right, or the white man's burden of imperial dictatorship. Writing in 1946,......more