Passion and Cunning
and Other Essays
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Conor Cruise O'Brien's brilliant and hugely controversial 1965 essay on the political convictions of W. B. Yeats is the title-piece for this superb 1988 collection of pieces on politics, religion, nationalism and terrorism.
'O'Brien is a man of strong views, and he writes with verve and wit. Agree with him or not, one reads him with enjoyment.' Foreign Affairs
'[Passion and Cunning] displays once again [O'Brien's] wonderful range of talents: a beautiful command of the language, gentle wit and coruscating satire, shrewd political judgment and a raking critical power. O'Brien is, moreover, a critic against all-comers, his spiky guns pointing in all directions: woe betide anyone incautious enough to presume that O'Brien is on their 'side'. . . O'Brien believes in all manner of good causes, but his own independence is finally what he cares about most.' R. W. Johnson, London Review of Books
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this provocative, wide-ranging collection, O'Brien ( Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism ) answers those who have accused him of being unduly harsh toward the Pope, betraying the anti-apartheid movement, contributing to campus disorders in South Africa and harboring ``anti-anti-Communist political passions'' (this last from neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz). O'Brien is certainly not an admirer of John Paul II (see ``God and Man in Nicaragua''), going so far as to suggest that lay Catholics pay more attention to the Pope's attractive appearance than to his teachings. The title piece, published in 1965, is still the subject of controversy, containing what one scholar called ``probably the most offensive remark in the entire canon of Yeats criticism.'' The essay is about the Irish poet's politics, with particular reference to his attitude toward German fascism; O'Brien clarifies his stand in the introduction. Other pieces in the collection discuss apartheid, terrorism, press freedom, the Irish Republican Army, and the ambiguous nature of anti-Americanism in Nicaragua.
