Bernard Shaw on Politics
George Bernard Shaw, L W Conolly
A collection of critical writings on politics from the Nobel Prize - winning playwright behind Saint Joan and Man and Superman.
The Critical Shaw: On Politics is a comprehensive selection of renowned Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate Bernard Shaw's opinions on a wide range of political movements, ideologies, and events that helped shape the international landscape of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With unwavering conviction, and in many cases openly courting controversy and calumny, Shaw spoke his mind on the big "-isms" of his time: Socialism, Capitalism, Communism, and Fascism. He championed Socialism in its formative years, he condemned all combatants in the First World War, he berated America's embrace of Capitalism, he praised Russia's choice of Communism, he lauded Stalin, he rejected the notion that Hitler was responsible for the Second World War, and he scorned Democracy. Persistently provocative, sometimes outrageous, always the political iconoclast, Shaw's political convictions--as soapbox orator or world-famous pundit--challenge us to face the political issues and dilemmas of our own time with similar rigor and integrity.
The Critical Shaw series brings together, in five volumes and from a wide range of sources, selections from Bernard Shaw's voluminous writings on topics that exercised him for the whole of his professional career: Literature, Music, Politics, Religion, and Theater. The volumes are edited by leading Shaw scholars, and all include an introduction, a chronology of Shaw's life and works, annotated texts, and a bibliography. The series editor is L.W. Conolly, literary adviser to the Shaw Estate and former president of the International Shaw Society.
The Critical Shaw: On Politics is a comprehensive selection of renowned Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate Bernard Shaw's opinions on a wide range of political movements, ideologies, and events that helped shape the international landscape of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With unwavering conviction, and in many cases openly courting controversy and calumny, Shaw spoke his mind on the big "-isms" of his time: Socialism, Capitalism, Communism, and Fascism. He championed Socialism in its formative years, he condemned all combatants in the First World War, he berated America's embrace of Capitalism, he praised Russia's choice of Communism, he lauded Stalin, he rejected the notion that Hitler was responsible for the Second World War, and he scorned Democracy. Persistently provocative, sometimes outrageous, always the political iconoclast, Shaw's political convictions--as soapbox orator or world-famous pundit--challenge us to face the political issues and dilemmas of our own time with similar rigor and integrity.
The Critical Shaw series brings together, in five volumes and from a wide range of sources, selections from Bernard Shaw's voluminous writings on topics that exercised him for the whole of his professional career: Literature, Music, Politics, Religion, and Theater. The volumes are edited by leading Shaw scholars, and all include an introduction, a chronology of Shaw's life and works, annotated texts, and a bibliography. The series editor is L.W. Conolly, literary adviser to the Shaw Estate and former president of the International Shaw Society.
Publisher
RosettaBooks
Publication Date
2/29/2016
ISBN
9780795346903
Pages
310
Categories
About the Author
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama. Over the course of his life he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his plays address prevailing social problems, but each also includes a vein of comedy that makes their stark themes more palatable. In these works Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.
An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.
In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honours, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.
Shaw died at Shaw's Corner, aged 94, from chronic health problems exacerbated by injuries incurred by falling.
An ardent socialist, Shaw was angered by what he perceived to be the exploitation of the working class. He wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.
In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner.
He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). The former for his contributions to literature and the latter for his work on the film "Pygmalion" (adaptation of his play of the same name). Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright, as he had no desire for public honours, but he accepted it at his wife's behest. She considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.
Shaw died at Shaw's Corner, aged 94, from chronic health problems exacerbated by injuries incurred by falling.
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