Thursday, October 31, 2019
Socrates' Concepts in Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words
Socrates' Concepts in Philosophy - Essay Example If, for example, one talks about justice, then it has to be defined according to its own nature and not according to the nature of the person who upholds it, for justice is the ruler of the person. Similarly, in Gorgias, Socrates asks Polus â€Å"if anyone, whether he be a tyrant or a rhetorician, kills another†¦he may be said to do what seems best to him?†and to which the latter answers affirmatively (Plato, Gorgias). The dialectic then develops into the part where Socrates places himself in the position of a criminal but this time Polus refuses and claims that it is not good because there will be punishment. Moreover, when asked by Socrates what principle upon which his definitions of evil and good lie, Polus simply answers, â€Å"I would rather, Socrates, that you should answer as well as ask that question (Plato, Gorgias). Thus, Socrates finally exposes the weakness of the arguments of the Sophists, both moral realism, and relativism. In Phaedo, Socrates successfully emphasized that the psyche is â€Å"the essence of happiness†and a â€Å"combination of what we think of as mind and soul,†which means that the psyche is the seat of both intellectual and moral personhood (â€Å"Socrates†). In Phaedo, Socrates tells Simmias that the philosopher â€Å"would like, as far as he can, to be quit of the body and turn to the soul†and that â€Å"death†is the â€Å"very separation and release of the soul from the body†(Plato, Phaedo). The way Socrates defended the soul and its immortality to Cebes and Simmias in Phaedo somehow convinced them of the validity of the existence.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
A poetic form for philosophical contemplation Essay Example for Free
A poetic form for philosophical contemplation Essay ‘The Ode is used as a poetic form for philosophical contemplation. ’ Compare two odes by Keats in the light of this observation Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale were written in May 1819, a time in Keats’ life which he devoted entirely to poetry. Both of these poems contemplate the poet’s approaching death, using stimuli of what is on the face of a Grecian vase and the song of a nightingale. There are differences and similarities between the two poems, and both will be looked at in the essay. Both of the above poems are odes. An ode is a form of poetry about emotion. First used by the Romans and Greeks, the form was revived in England in the 17th century. The form was popular among the English Romantic poets. A typical verse of an ode consists of a quatrain with a rhyme structure of ABAB and a sestet with a rhyme structure of CDECDE. However, Keats tended to be more liberal with his rhyme structures in his odes. Keats was born in 1795 and was the last born of the English romantic poets He became interested in poetry through his secondary school headmaster, who introduced him to Renaissance poetry and so the ode. Both of his parents died before he turned fifteen, so he became familiar with loss at an early age. His most famous sets of poems were his odes and these were written as Keats’ tuberculosis worsened in 1819. He died in 1821. There are two main themes in Keats’ odes: beauty and death. It is obvious beauty is looked at intently in Ode on a Grecian Urn, as the urn seems to tell the poet in the second to last line: ‘â€Å"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,†’. Keats firstly tries to tell the reader what the urn’s figures think of beauty. They see happiness in beauty, as they are in ‘wild ecstasy’ to be with ‘fair’ women and listen to ‘pipes and timbrels’. Because they will be youthful forever, Keats tells them this is ‘all ye need to know’, as ignorance is bliss. Beauty is also looked at in Ode to a Nightingale The nightingale is similar to the urn’s individuals, because it is able is to ‘quite forget’ the horror of old age and can forever fly free above ‘hungry generations’ of people. Unlike the Urn, its ‘plaintive anthem fades’ without actually helping the author in any way.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
An Outpost of Progress Analysis
An Outpost of Progress Analysis Joseph Conrad whose original name was JÃ ³zef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, born in Berdichev, Poland (currently Ukraine) on the 3 December, 1857 to a writer and a translator, Apollo Korzeniowski , who encouraged him to read widely in Polish and French. His mother Ewelina Korzeniowska, died of tuberculosis and soon after his father, Apollo leaving him orphaned at the age of eleven. At the age of sixteen he abandoned Poland and for the next four years he enlisted as a sailor in merchant ships, he also joined the British Merchant Navy and received British citizenship in 1886 changing his name to Joseph Conrad. He died in England on 3 August, 1924 of a heart attack. Joseph Conrad is considered one of the greatest novelists in the English literaty history. His life, filled with adventures was the biggest inspiration for the developing of his novels and stories, his political conspiracy works as an inspiration in his novel The Arrow of Gold and his travel to the coast of Venezuela gave him enough material to write Nostromo, considered by most of his critics as a masterpiece. Conrad had the ability to change the perception and the emotions of the reader, reading his works is easy to feel loneliness, fear, mystery and many other things that he cared to preserve in all his works. He can create a universe in which the main character must fight to survive against the dark forces of nature or the evil part of human behavior. These characteristics can describe the literary work of Conrad especially when he refers to the occidental civilization where he tries to show the obscurity of the colonized countries that existed in the mid nineteenth century, like in his novel The Heart of Darkness. Conrad travelled to the Congo Free State as an ambition of his childhood in 1889, filled with illusions and hopes, but instead of that he returned to Europe with an emotional trauma of the atrocities that he witnessed there. These experiences served as inspiration to write Heart of Darkness and An Outpost of Progress. This essay is intended to show the criticism to the idea of progress in the short story An Outpost of Progress in which we can notice the depression, the disappointment and pessimism that Conrad had towards the society in the nineteenth century. The story is about two white men, lazy and incompetents, Kayerts y Carlier who took over a trading station in Central Africa, their job is simple; supervise the collection of ivory in the station. The director of the company, whom was aware of the uselessness of those: Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me such specimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build new storehouses and fences, and construct a landing-stage. I bet nothing will be done! They wont know how to begin. I always thought the station on this river useless, and they just fit the station! Instead of that the director trusted in the will of Makola, a nigger from Sierra Leona who called himself Henry Price who ends up doing all the work. The two white men are unable to do any job, even the simplest task like try to learn the native language and communicate with the others in order to have more people to trust in case of an emergency or explore the surrounding areas. Instead of that they simply stay at the station, doing nothing, just reading the old books that the previous man in charge of the station had, and they convince them to bring to those lands the civilization and progress! To grapple effectually with even purely material problems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage than people generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfitted for such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because of its strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them all independent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; and forbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition of being machines. Without creativity, without initiative, without intelligence and with a false set of values there cannot be progress, these two were just the opposite of this, they were a waste of a society that needed to get rid of them in order to progress. This type of people who are not capable to take care themselves without help from others. The days passed by until one day Makola made a trade, he trades the life of the Indians for a big piece of ivory. The lack of moral values and the effects of an African form of capitalism led the white men to a psychological process that ends up tragically. Gabola, the only friend of the white inepts, knowing the situation decided to not to take violent measures, he decided to cut the supply of food, they only source that they had. They, sick, confused and demoralized, drinking a cup o coffee started to argue and started a riot because Kayerts denied to give to Carlier a little sugar to sweeten the coffee. That fight finished with the tragical death of Carlier. After the fight Kayerts in his loneliness start to think about what he had done and decided to kill himself, soon after the managing director arrives and the first thing he sees is the crucified body of Kayerts. They are faulty machines of a society that accustomed their members to not to think, to not fend for themselves, they were taught by a superior to obey orders that they forget the most basic thing of being a human. They lack of human instinct until one of them in a fit of madness and illness decides to kill the other in self defense and then find out that the other was unarmed. The new power of Kayerts started to rise, the new wave of thoughts rushing through his head may woke up a glimmer of intelligence in one way but more incompetent and coward that he already was in the other. But it was too late for him, he started to feel fear, thinking about heaven, the rules and the progress of real society was calling to him: Progress was calling to Kayerts from the river. Progress and civilization and all the virtues. Society was calling to its accomplished child to come, to be taken care of, to be instructed, to be judged, to be condemned; it called him to return to that rubbish heap from which he had wandered away, so that justice could be done. In An Outpost of Progress, Conrad refers with a little of mockery and irony to the idea of progression civilization and the progression through Christianity that is celebrated by the Queen Victoria and through Europe. For example; Conrad uses one of the symbols of Christianity, the cross and points out at the beginning of the story: There was also another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched the construction of this outpost of progress. And when Kayerts commit suicide and the end of the story: He had evidently climbed the grave, which was high and narrow, and after tying the end of the strap to the arm, had swung himself off. His toes were only a couple of inches above the ground; his arms hung stiffly down; he seemed to be standing rigidly at attention, but with one purple cheek playfully posed on the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was putting out a swollen tongue at his Managing Director. Conrads irony is clear, the crooked direction of the cross means that Christianity is useless and irrelevant in a place with different cultures and beliefs, in the hostile African jungle. Also the cross as a symbol of redemption and as a symbol of peace, the opportunity to reborn and eternal life makes Kayerts in his impotence of a though of his own to commit suicide. For Conrad Christianity makes no sense of progress for other civilizations, this is because it is filled with violence, moral failures and economic opportunism as we know the colonization movement in history of mankind, they were filled with bloodshed and unnecessary slaughter of innocent people. Also the political wave of that time with mixed points of view between the socialism and the capitalism as It sees when Makola traded the Indians for a piece of ivory, the material goods as a exchange of human lives. Maybe this is what Conrad saw when he arrived in Congo all his hopes in humankind were lost and that fake sound of progress suddenly appeared when he returned to Europe, seeing the reality of the two faces of the coin, one nation in prosperity and the other paying the price.
Friday, October 25, 2019
Surrealism and Salvador Dali Essay -- Art Artists
Surrealism and Salvador Dali      Surrealism is defined as an art style developed in the 1920's in Europe, characterized by using the subconscious as a source of creativity to liberate pictorial subjects and ideas. Surrealist paintings often depict unexpected or irrational objects in an atmosphere or fantasy , creating a dreamlike scenario ( www.progressiveart.com 2004). The word Surrealism was created in 1917 by the writer Guillaune Apollinaire. He used it to describe two instances of artistic innovation ( Bradley 6). In 1924, in the Manifeste du Surrealisme which launched the surrealist movement, the writer Andre Brenton and his friend Philippe Soupault adopted the word,â€Å"baptized by the name of Surrealism the new mode of expression which we had at our disposal and which we wished to pass on to our friends.†Brenton adopted the word Surrealism to describe the                                                        2 literary and artistic practice of himself and his â€Å"friends.†Some examples of Surrealist art are; M.C. Escher’s â€Å"Drawing Hands,†Salvador Dali’s â€Å"The Persistence of Memory,†(1931) , and Salvador Dali’s â€Å"Remorse.†(1931)      One of Dali’s more famous paintings, â€Å"The Persistence of Memory,†was first shown June 1931 at The Pierre Cole Gallery in Paris. Essentially the soft watches demonstrate that one aspect of the paranoiac critical method is it’s capacity to link objects to qualities normally associated with other, completely different , elements .Dali painted the setting first, a deserted landscape at Port Lligat where he and Gala had bought a fisherman’s hut the previous summer. in the foreground the self-portrait motif reappears in the form of a foetus abandoned on a beach. This refers to Dali’s professed memories of intrauterine life and suggests the trauma of birth. A watch sagging across the foetus and another hanging from a plinth evoke the feelings of timelessness associated with the experience or pre- birth. The title of the painting thus refers to prenatal memories and it’s subject is â€Å"the horrible traumatism of birth by which we are expunged from paradise†. The title                                                        3 also refers to Gala’s response when Dali asked her whether in three years ti... ....salvadordalimuseum.org/ All material displayed or broadcasted from this website are under strict copyright regulations.  © Copyright 2002 - The Salvador Dalà Museum - All Rights Reserved. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/dali.html Text from "ART20, The Thames and Hudson Multimedia Dictionary of Modern Art.†Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge Grolier Inc. Danbury Connecticut, 1993 . issue #18. Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge Grolier Inc. Danbury Connecticut, 1993 . vol. 1 issue #5. Etherington-Smith, Meredith The Persistence of Memory: A Biography of Dali. N.Y. , Da Capo Press, 1995.                                                                                                     13 Andrews, Wayne The Surrealist Parade N.Y. , New Directions Publishing Corp. , 1988.                                                   Bradley, Fiona Surrealism Cambridge university Press. United Kingdom, 1997. Waldes, Teresa Great Modern Masters Dali Harry n Abrams inc Publishers. Spain, 1994. Stich, Sildra Anxious Visions Abbeville Publishers. N.Y., 1990. WWW.NYTIMES.COM copyright 2005. WWW.ProgressiveArt.COM copyright 2005.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Osama Bin Laden Research Paper
Osama Bal Laden; the mastermind of 9/11 Christian Hanker December 21 , 2012 World History Period 1 Osama Bin Laden changed the world on September 1 1, 2012, when he orchestrated the 911 1 bombings on the world Trade center in New York City. He has also formulated many other attacks including the October 2000 attack on the US Cole, and attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dark sees Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 (Encyclopedia of World 1).Osama Bin Laden had a negative Influence on societies, economies, and religion throughout the world because of his actions in masterminding many radical terrorist attacks, and because he created and ended al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden had a dramatic effect not only on the society of the United States but also worldwide. These radical attacks have resulted in changes to the way society conducts business, travel, Immigration, and most Importantly, how people view and trust each other. Simply put, it has in many ways resulted in a drastic change to m any people's behavior.The attacks of 9/1 1 resulted in increased security exponentially. After these attacks, airport security was amplified. Other security measures were Implemented such as every time someone flies they are required to undergo body scanning; they have to remove shoes and belts, and all liquids over three point four ounces must be packed in checked luggage Monsoon 13). All these measures are now enforced to ensure maximum safety and security in airports. Instead of being able to breeze through the airport and board their flight, people are required to be there two hours early. Which has become a necessary inconvenience and a time consuming practice. After the 9/11 attacks, people were very hesitant to fly because they were afraid. To help ease the anxiety of flying and perform the safety sys precautions, the Nun deed t States created the Transportation Security Administration. The TTS hired over 50,000 people to work in airports across the country and have found to date over fifty million prohibited items, 5,000 of them being firearms Monsoon 7-10). Since Osama Bin Alden's various attacks, some airlines like Canada 3000 and Swiss Air were on the verge of going bankrupt.To counteract this, the airlines crammed more seats in their airplanes, cut the complimentary food service, and reduced flights Monsoon 22). This inconveniences the passengers because there s less space and comfort on board and with less flights, not everyone may get a seat on their flight. Osama Bin Laden had a direct impact on the way we travel, has put anxiety in the minds of innocent people wanting or needing to travel on an airplane, and caused changes in the way commercial airlines conduct businesses.Osama Bin Laden has affected society worldwide through the lives lost in 9/1 1 and America's war on terrorism. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the many deaths that occurred as a result of his terrorist attacks. In the wake of 9/1 1, approximately 3000 people died (Newspape rs 1). This not only affected the people that died, but also the people that love them, witnessed their death, their neighbors, the community around them, and also the world. An enormous amount of grief was felt throughout the world and many societies were humbled.Another way Osama Bin Laden has impacted society is the number of troops, particularly American, that have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight in the war on terrorism. Approximately 70,000 troops were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan (Encyclopedia of World 23). This affected both their own lives and also their loved ones, not knowing if they are alive, outing a great amount of fear in millions of people's lives worldwide. The cost of the war on terrorism has not only been human lives.Governments across the world have had to fund the increased deployments and make revisions in their budgets for the future. Finally, there has been a large death toll incurred by innocent Muslims living in both America and on the battlefiel d. In retaliation to the 9/11 bombings, many Americans discriminated against Muslim Americans and many cases resulted in violence. Muslim lives have been lost fighting for AY-Qaeda and innocent civilians eave died, being caught in the middle of this war. Osama Bin Laden is responsible for changing society and the lives of many Americans, troops and his own followers.Osama Bin Laden left his mark on society by his role in inflicting terror into the hearts and minds of people worldwide. What is so frightening about terrorism is that it could happen anywhere and anytime. Bin Laden used this advantage of mystery to plant the seed of fear into people's minds worldwide. In October 2001, according to a Gallup poll, forty six percent of Americans said terrorism was America's biggest problem (Grief 47). This shows that Osama Bin Laden has had an enormous and lasting influence on the way Americans think and why they may do certain things.Osama Bin Laden had such a great influence on Americans and their minds that the CIA released a bounty worth $25 million for Bin Laden. New York City authorities put posters up around New York City showing again how much the capture of Osama Bin Laden was worth to America and how much he had affected society. This is evidenced in figure one, showing that officials want Bin Laden dead or alive. Osama Bin Laden destroyed billions of people's peace of mind worldwide. The 9/1 1 attacks were carried out in conditions of everyday life, which was in essence using the element to surprise as a weapon.What is more terrifying is that he managed to install his people into our communities. These terrorists lived amongst us until Osama Bin Laden gave his orders. This effectively created a feeling of mistrust and paranoia after the 9/1 1 attacks. It certainly had a great impact on the state of mind of many Americans. Osama Bin Laden impacted society by influencing the modification of the security systems, being responsible for killing thousands of peo ple, and outing terror in millions of people's minds worldwide.While Osama Bin Laden had an extraordinary influence on how people around the world feel and behave he also had a negative impact on America's economy. One way Bin Laden left his mark on the United States economy is that his actions caused the United States to spend billions of dollars for the military, defense, and security sectors. In the years of 2006-2008, military spending increased by $540 million to supply weapons and transportation to fight the war on terror and to deploy troops into Pakistan and Afghanistan to find Bin Laden (Griffin 17).This huge expense would not have been incurred if Bin Laden had not executed the attack on the World Trade Centre. These funds could have been spent on other things, like paying off the national debt or providing better education and healthcare for American citizens. Not only did Bin Laden cause the United States spend unnecessary money on finding him, but he also affected socie ty by redistributing $540 million of potential funding which could have been used in improvements in society. This money was spent on defense and the security sectors.All three of these divisions boosted the United States debt to $14. Trillion (Burger 8). Osama Bin Laden cost the United States lots of resources, money, and time in the search for their peace of mind. Osama Bin Alden's actions have caused friction amongst Middle Eastern and western countries, raising the prices of odds from these nations, in particular oil. After the 9/1 1 attacks, the unhealthy relationship between Islamic countries and America made Muslims reluctant to trade, resulting in an increase in the oil price. Before 9/1 1, oil prices were $1. 3, per gallon but they have increased to a current price of $3. 65 per gallon (Mille 16). Obviously, with the price of gas skyrocketing by over $2 after 9/1 1, resources have become very expensive to obtain and has put many Americans in difficulties financially because it is a huge increase that has to be accounted for. Other resources such as gold have experienced price increases. At the time of the 9/1 1 bombings, gold was priced at $271. 5 per ounce however it is now very expensive, rising to $1821 per ounce (Mille 13-14).The price of gold after 9/11 has risen over 600%, while the American dollar has lost one third of its value. Since the 9/1 1 attacks, he increased price of many plentiful goods within the Middle East has made it more difficult for people to pay for them. Another way Bin Laden affected The United State's economy is due to his role in planning the destruction caused which resulted in the reparations the insurance companies owed, and the time and money spent cleaning the devastation.Firstly, in the attacks that killed over 3,000 people, it cost an estimated $1. 5 billion to clear the devastation where the World Trade Centre stood (Gaffing 13). This cost in clearing the remains, moving it and disposing of it was a large expense w hich otherwise would have been used on other necessary expenditure such as education or roads. These funds were spent on an event that could not have been predicted or budgeted for. The cost to America can also be accounted in for the time to thousands to workers and the tort to volunteers.Another way this incident affected the economy is in the insurance claims that were owed to millions of people. These insurance claims include life insurance, auto insurance, and property insurance. The combination of lives lost and damage of properties led to and estimated $40 billion price tag in insurance claims (Gaffing 7). This huge toll on insurance companies made many companies bankrupt, and if not bankrupt, premiums became very expensive for people wanting to purchase insurance.The cost of disposing and clearing the site where the World Trade Centre stood and the insurance claims incurred after the attack crippled the economy, especially that of New York City. After the attacks of 9/1 1, m any other struggles within the United States economy arose. One example of this is that the unemployment rate in the United States almost doubled. Prior to 9/1 1, the unemployment rate was four point nine percent but soon after, the unemployment rate rose to nine point one percent Mille 7-8).As a result of the terrorist attacks over 600,000 Jobs were lost, 226,000 of them in the travel industry (Mille 7-8). This huge cut of workers left many people struggling to survive, becoming homeless, and relying on welfare or other sorts of government aide to survive. With a large demand for supplies to aid homeless people, this increased the United States debt even further, setting the debt deeper by the millions. Thousands of small businesses were destroyed by the wreckage in New York City, from the collapse of the World Trade Centre and financially.Approximately 18,000 small businesses in lower Manhattan, particularly around the site of World Trade Centre, were either physically destroyed b y flying debris or financially crushed without income to offset the costs to repair their shops (Gaffing 8). These small businesses were particularly hurt because they did not have large cash reserves or other stores to make sure they were earning money. Instead, they were out of business for six weeks while repairs were being made in lower Manhattan.This lead to the large amount of unemployment that occurred and also left many people bankrupt. The attacks of 9/1 1 that Osama Bin Laden formulated had a demoralizing toll on America's economy by increasing unemployment, destroying small businesses, skyrocketing the prices of goods and forcing America to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure safety and to find the man behind all the chaos and devastation. Osama Bin Laden was a very influential person and he used his power to change his religion for the worse.One way that he did this is that he encouraged a violent form of Islam called Salamis. With his extreme wealth, inheriti ng $300 million at age thirteen when his father died (Encyclopedia of World 4), ND power, he has influenced millions of Muslims to adopt his ideas and beliefs that encouraged violence. In Osama Bin Laden â€Å"Jihad against Jews and Crusaders†, Osama Bin Laden encourages Muslims worldwide that it is their duty religiously to kill all Americans and their allies whenever possible (bin laden, Osama).Bin Laden promoted a very extremist form of Islam and was able to spread it throughout the Muslim world. He proposed to kill other people because they were of a different religion and belief, even though they may be innocent of any religious hate crimes. He executed these attacks in many different ways, including bombings, assassinations, and cyber attacks (AY Qaeda 2). This added to his repertoire as being very dangerous and helped his followers strive for their mission of the Jihad.He was very intolerant to other religions and wanted others to tallow in his pate Laden changed views about religion and religious tolerance worldwide by increasing the stereotypes towards Middle Eastern or Islamic people being terrorists. Many forms of violence against Muslims or people with dark skin and dark hair occurred after 9/1 1 in retaliation for the attack. Osama Bin Laden therefore negatively affected religion, because innocent Muslims are being discriminated against because of Bin Laden attacks. Osama Bin Laden had a huge negative influence on religion, the economy, and society worldwide.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
A Review of Intelligence for an Age of Terror (Treverton, 2009).
Introduction This book by Treverton (2009) is argued here to be a vitally important area of work that looks specifically at the way in which the use of intelligence has naturally had to change as a result of modern society. Interestingly, although there is a clear aim not to apportion blame specifically for the recent atrocities, the author indicates that he feels there is a link between the United States and their flawed approach to intelligence and the high profile terror attacks that have taken place in the US. Significantly, the author is very careful not to apportion blame or finger point and maintains a balanced and critical approach when trying to establish a link and to look at the role of intelligence. Main Arguments Presented In this book, the author actually goes on to break down the failures, in order to try to identify the impact that the specific shortcomings are having on the magnitude and nature of the target of the threats. He recognises in this analysis that, in many cases, the intelligence approaches are enshrined in the Cold War security approaches of looking at the organisation and the tactical decisions of the intelligence offerings, rather than focusing on the actual threats that are being faced in the current climate (Riley et al 2005). One of the main aspects of the book which provides added value to the information that is being presented is that, although the author spends time identifying the failings, he also spends some considerable time looking at the way in which the changes he suggests could be implemented, in practice. As a professional with experience in the field, this shows and adds considerable value to what would otherwise be a potentially academic discussion. In order to achieve this, the author takes a very pragmatic view, with the initial stage being to look at the nature of the risks that are looking at being targeted from intelligence operations. He states that recognising the threats is the first step towards then being able to r ecognise the way these should be handled. It is this pragmatic approach which looks at both the practical reality and the academic study that makes this book so informative in the area of intelligence being used in the terror context. The author follows themes and after identifying them he then goes on to look at how intelligence should be reformed to deal with the modern challenges. In order to identify the best way to deal with intelligence and to look at the reform of intelligence culture, there is a need first to consider the actual route of the threat and where it emanates from. One underlying argument and theme which is presented by the author here and which adds particular value to the discussion, in the opinion of the reviewer, is to look at the role of the nation state as being at the root of the changing dynamic. For example, during the Cold War, the focus of terror attacks was typically nation states and as such the intelligence gathering focussed on these entities. As ti me has passed, the nation states have become much more than simply target areas. Nation states can often offer a great deal of information that adds to the knowledge and understanding of the general issues of intelligence. Increasingly however in the modern context, the non-state actors play a vitally important role and it is argued by the author here that much of the role of the modern intelligence officer is to look at understanding the distinctions and various nuances that exist within these non-state actors, in such a way that their own motivation and actions can be better understood (p.141) Linked to this thread of discussion and again a vitally important aspect of the role of intelligence is that there are considerably more individuals, groups and entities that are involved in the area of intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism. With this increased number of people involved, the author places a great deal of focus on the idea that, whilst agencies may well have the technol ogy to share information, they do not necessarily have the appropriate policies in place and therefore the underlying policies need to be reviewed, if modern challenges are going to be dealt with. As an overall position, the author maintains that there needs to be a reasonable means of supplying information across all relevant actors and to ensure that the information which is being presented is relevant and measured, so that the correct people can react quickly and appropriately. By focusing on some of the practical difficulties faced in the current climate, it is argued here that the author gains a much higher degree of legitimacy than other academic analyses in this area may achieve; in particular, the author recognises that it is necessary to take a balance between the need to improve security, but also to provide privacy and security for individuals’ information (Snowden, 2002). He notes that paying attention to legality and legitimacy is in fact increasingly important t o the anti-terror efforts and that there then needs to be a total review of the policies associated with anti-terror activities as the main way of managing and combating such issues. He supports this by suggesting that factors such as encouraging intelligence authorities to create a method whereby they can share information with other entities in a constructive and balanced manner is as important, if not more so, than the actual intelligence itself. Conclusions On balance, it is argued that this book presents an interesting and well informed opinion on the modern challenges facing the intelligence industry. By being an author who has practical experience in this area, it is suggested that this allows the text to gain legitimacy and also to take a more rounded view of the challenges being faced. Finally, providing practical and well backed up suggestions for the future means that this text presents real value to the area of intelligence and counter terrorist activities. It is concluded, therefore, that this is a well-balanced and informative text that fills a gap within the current understanding of the intelligence industry. Reference Riley et al., (2005) State and Local Intelligence in the War on Terrorism, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation Snowden, D (2002) Complex Acts of Knowing: Paradox and Descriptive Self-Awareness, Journal of Knowledge Management, Special Issue, September. Treverton, G. (2009). Intelligence for an Age of Terror. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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