Not afraid to tackle provocative topics in American culture, from gun violence and labor policies to terrorism and health care, Michael Moore has earned both applause and invective in his career as a ...documentarian. In such polarizing films as Bowling for Columbine , Fahrenheit 9/11 , and Sicko , Moore has established a unique voice of radical nostalgia for progressivism, and in doing so has become one of the most recognized documentary filmmakers of all time.
In the first in-depth study of Moore’s feature-length documentary films, editors Thomas W. Benson and Brian J. Snee have gathered leading rhetoric scholars to examine the production, rhetorical appeals, and audience reception of these films. Contributors critique the films primarily as modes of public argument and political art. Each essay is devoted to one of Moore’s films and traces in detail how each film invites specific audience responses.
Michael Moore and the Rhetoric of Documentary reveals not only the art, the argument, and the emotional appeals of Moore’s documentaries but also how these films have revolutionized the genre of documentary filmmaking.
This timely book examines how the regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka has used the 'Great Patriotic War' (1941-45) as a key element in state and identity formation in Belarus. The campaign was ...discernible from 2003 and intensified after a rift with Russia that led to a re-examination of the earlier policy of close political and economic partnership. David R. Marples focuses in particular on the years 2009 and 2010, which commemorated two 65th anniversaries: the liberation of Minsk (3 July 1944) and the end of World War II in Europe (9 May 1945). Using a variety of sources, this unique book critically examines the official interpretations of the war from various angles: the initial invasion, occupation, the Partisans, historic sites and monuments, films, documentaries, museums, schools, and public occasions commemorating some of the major events. Relying on first-hand research, including books recommended by the Ministry of Education, state-controlled media and personal visits to the major historic sites and monuments of Belarus, Marples explains and measures the effectiveness of Lukashenka's program. In outlining the main tenets of the state interpretation of the war years, the book highlights the distortions and manipulations of historical evidence as well as the dismissal of alternative versions as 'historical revisionism.' It assesses the successes and weaknesses of the campaign as well as its long term effects and prospects.
After wresting the prime ministership from long-term adversary Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull's term at the Lodge was brutally short. It traversed a soaring electoral honeymoon to the marathon 2016 ...election, to the compromises of a government with the slimmest of majorities and finally death by political sword. Why? Was it collateral damage for a Liberal Party tearing itself apart, or a consequence of the man himself? Born to Rule?, by esteemed journalist Paddy Manning, is the updated bestselling biography of one of Australia's most celebrated overachievers, charting his very public highs and lows in technicolour detail. Based on countless interviews and painstaking research, Born to Rule? charts Turnbull's relentless progression from exclusive Point Piper to Oxford University; from beating the Thatcher government in the Spycatcher trial to losing the referendum on the republic; from defending the late Kerry Packer in a Royal Commission to defending his own role in Australia's biggest corporate collapse. It gives forensic accounts of him striking it rich as co-founder of OzEmail, his spectacular misstep with the Utegate affair, and the hotly contested battle for Wentworth on his grand march towards become prime minister. Turnbull may be out of parliament, but will he ever be out of politics?
The period of 2018-19 threw up political crises in Australia and the United Kingdom that raised circumstances in which the reserve powers of the Queen or the Governor-General might have been ...exercised. This article discusses in depth the 2018 challenge to Prime Minister Turnbull's leadership, including how the Governor-General should have responded if he had been asked to dissolve Parliament in the midst of the challenge or if he had been advised not to appoint Dutton as Prime Minister due to concerns about his eligibility to sit in Parliament. The second part deals with the question of whether royal assent should be refused, upon ministerial advice, to a bill, such as the Medevac Bill in Australia and two Brexit delay bills in the United Kingdom, which were passed against the wishes of the relevant government, including when procedural or non-justiciable constitutional requirements were breached in the passage of the bills. It concludes that the best way of resolving such issues is to resort to the application of fundamental constitutional principles.