Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Civilization [Hardcover]

Alexander Rüstow (Author), Salvator Attanasio (Translator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (December 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691053049
• ISBN-13: 978-0691053042
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Zinn's History!, January 11, 2006

By 

Robert A. Williams "libertarian" (Oberlin, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Civilization (Hardcover)

Alexander Rustow was a sociology professor at Heidelberg University in Germany. He lived through Hitler's nightmare and was a leading opponent of the Nazis. When Rustow originally wrote this history in his native German language, he filled three volumes. In his reputation of writing history, he was Germany's version of our William Appleman Williams or our Howard Zinn. He wrote "I affirm freedom and reject domination, I affirm humaneness and reject barbarism, I affirm peace and reject violence. The pairs of opposites are the great poles between which the drama of human history is enacted".

His research led him to uncover the root of what ails mankind and by assuming the role of a self-conscious "pathologist", he sought the origins for the Nazi horrors of the twentieth century. His discovery was not a popular one in his time. He learned that the root of conquest and domination was the establishment of the state. In other words, government is the problem - not the solution. During the twentieth century, too many people were dreaming about a welfare state that would take care of their needs or a warfare state that could do the same, both by robbing from Peter to pay Paul.

Rustow's book is able to lay out the historical development of domination in a easy-to-understand drama. Libertarians, true conservatives, progressives, and others concerned about the global corporatists and the neocons who rape the Bill of Rights while they bomb and kill our global neighbors would benefit from reading this one-volume condensation of Rustow's history.