WorldView Good Reads: Off the Press for October 2017
Published: October 31, 2017
Here are good reads from around the globe that have caught our attention.
Maya Angelou’s electrifying poem “Still I Rise," written nearly 40 years ago, feels absolutely current, somehow prescient given the divisions and challenges that abound. Angelou’s defiant optimism remains a beacon for agents of social change everywhere. This video, which showcases the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, is a celebration of that optimism, and a call to remember the power of persistence.
Bret Stephens, columnist for The New York Times, argues that disagreement “is the most vital ingredient of any decent society.” When someone says “I agree,” Stephens writes, those words “may be the basis of every community.” But Stephens challenges us to realize that when someone says “I disagree,” “these are the words that define our individuality, give us our freedom, enjoin our tolerance, enlarge our perspectives, seize our attention, energize our progress, make our democracies real, and give hope and courage to oppressed people everywhere.” And the problem, as Stephens sees it, is that we’re failing at the task.
What China’s Changing Vocabulary Reveals About its Future
Chinese leaders lay out their plans in speeches dense with jargon and slogans. But the words they choose, and how they choose different terms over time, can be deeply revealing. Read how China’s leader, Xi Jinping, used key terms in his report to the 2017 Communist Party Congress, how that compares with his predecessors’ words, and what that tells us about Xi’s plans for his country’s future.
What Americans Think About America First
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been polling Americans about their views on foreign policy for more than four decades. This year’s survey is an illuminating portrait of what Americans from across the country think about America’s role in the world. The results are often surprising.
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