Reading for Battle
Battle Readings is a regularly updated compilation of articles, essays, and opinion pieces relevant to the themes of the Battle of Ideas.
Choose a theme from the listing on the left to narrow your search, or view all readings.
Liberty & Law
The Blunkett Tapes: My Life in the Bear Pit
Originally recorded onto tape and now transcribed into a full narrative, with the addition of David Blunkett's contemporary reflections on the political events of the past nine years, "The Blunkett Tapes" are a rigorously honest self-portrait as well as an astonishingly cogent and intimate insight into New Labour's years in power, the personalities, the triumphs and the debates.
David Blunkett, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 15 October 2006
Want to talk? First show me your credentials
Deference to academic expertise stifles the freedom to question and debate
Roy Harris, Times Higher Education Supplement, 28 September 2006
Deference to academic expertise stifles the freedom to question and debate
Roy Harris, Times Higher Education Supplement, 28 September 2006
Life, liberty and politics after 9/11
spiked survey, 7 September 2006
spiked survey, 7 September 2006
Happy to let someone tell you what to think?
The right to question and test received wisdom is one that is increasingly ignored as universities compel academics to abide by New Labour-like principles
Dennis Hayes, THES, 27 July 2006
The right to question and test received wisdom is one that is increasingly ignored as universities compel academics to abide by New Labour-like principles
Dennis Hayes, THES, 27 July 2006
Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites
American security services fund research in to the mass harvesting of information that people post about themselves on social networks
New Scientist, 8 June 2006
American security services fund research in to the mass harvesting of information that people post about themselves on social networks
New Scientist, 8 June 2006
The Freedom to Ridicule Religion – and Deny the Holocaust
If it’s not absolute, it’s not free speech
Peter Singer, Council for Secular Humanism, 31 May 2006
If it’s not absolute, it’s not free speech
Peter Singer, Council for Secular Humanism, 31 May 2006
I'm ready to rip up Human Rights Act, declares Cameron
"In too many cases it has become close to impossible to deport foreign nationals that may pose a threat to the UK. It is wrong to undermine public safety by allowing the human rights of dangerous criminals to fly in the face of common sense."
Graeme Wilson, Daily Telegraph, 13 May 2006
Myspace and control
On Myspace, interaction between users is effectively eliminating the lines between personal communication and advertising
Fred Scharmen, sevenisfive.net, 30 April 2006
On Myspace, interaction between users is effectively eliminating the lines between personal communication and advertising
Fred Scharmen, sevenisfive.net, 30 April 2006
What's the point of the social sciences?
"If you'd rather not have your prejudices challenged, stay away from the Battle of Ideas."
Nigel Warburton, senior lecturer, philosophy, Open University; author, Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction
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