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The Spy Novels of John Le Carre

Balancing Ethics and Politics

  • Book
  • © 1999

Overview

Authors:
  1. Myron J. Aronoff
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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 1-13

  3. George Smiley: Liberal Sentiment and Skeptical Balance

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 15-38

  4. Ambiguous Moralism: Loyalty and Betrayal

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 39-59

  5. Skepticism: Balancing Dreams and Realities

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 61-88

  6. Balancing Means and Ends: The Limits of Raison d’État

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 89-111

  7. The Ambiguity of Human Nature: Motives and Personality

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 113-137

  8. Bureaucratic Politics: Domestic and International

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 139-161

  9. The Culture and Craft of Espionage

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 163-184

  10. Fiction and the Real World of Espionage

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 185-200

  11. Learning to Live with Ambiguity: Balancing Ethical and Political Imperatives

    • Myron J. Aronoff
    Pages 201-214

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 215-316
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Keywords

About this book

Using espionage as a metaphor for politics, John le Carré explores the dilemmas that confront individuals and governments as they act during and in the aftermath of the Cold War. His unforgettable characters struggle to maintain personal and professional integrity while facing conflicting personal, institutional, and ideological loyalties. In The Spy Novels of John le Carré , author Myron Aronoff interprets the ambiguous ethical and political implications of the work of John le Carré, revealing him to be one of the most important political writers of our time. Aronoff shows how through his writing, le Carré poses the difficult question of to what extent are western governments justified in pursuing raison d'état without undermining the very democratic freedoms that they claim to defend. He also draws parallels between the self-parody of le Carré and that of the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Jan Steen, and explains how it expresses a unique form of ambiguous moralism. In this volume Aronoff relates le Carré's fictional world to the real world of espionage, and demonstrates the need to balance the imperatives of ethics and politics in regard to some of the most pressing issues facing the world today.

Reviews

'...very comprehensive, thorough, and thoughtful analysis.' - Raymond L. Garthoff, Political Science

'Spy Novels is superb when it sticks to analysing LeCarre's works as both literature and metaphors for politics.' - John M. Shaw, War, Literature and the Arts

About the author

MYRON J. ARONOFF is Professor of Anthropology and Political Science at Rutgers University. He is the author of Israeli Visions and Divisions: Cultural Change and Political Conflict.

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