Volume I Selection Of Chapters
Volume 2
Volume 3
Utilizing the lessons of history, Céline on Fire addresses the struggle of democracy in the modern world. Minister of Public Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels said, “One of the most ridiculous aspects of democracy will always remain . . . the fact that it has offered to its mortal enemies the means by which to destroy it.”
In our time, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has imprisoned the leader of the opposition Aleksei Navalny and a Russian court has defined Navalny’s political movement as an extremist network, leaving those who oppose Putin vulnerable to suppression, arrest, and banned from running for public office. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has silenced Klubrádió, one of the last radio stations not under control of the government. In Myanmar, a military coup has replaced elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has signed a law banning journalists from reporting on mass protests, resulting in every leading journalist in Belarus being forced into exile or imprisoned.
Access to voting is being limited in Georgia, Arizona, and Texas. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1964, “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.” To date, the governors of Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas have signed legislation banning the teaching of slavery and systemic discrimination against Black and Indian Americans. Using visual images, my book explores the relations between the United States and the world, revealing the good and bad of American history.
Freedom House Report documents the democratic recession with more countries moving away from democracy than are moving towards democracy. Autocratic forces and hyper-nationalism are flourishing in Hungary, Poland, Brazil, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and in our own country as well. Authoritarian leaders are imprisoning, torturing, and murdering activists. The violence that occurred in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, reminds us that we can’t take our democracy for granted. The artists and thinkers of Céline show us that without a free press and a transparent electoral process, a democracy cannot survive.
Through many years of designing for films like Steven Spielberg’s The Goonies and Universal Studio’s Battlestar Galactica, I have polished my visual techniques for telling a story. Rather than telling history chronologically within a specific time period, the book overcomes the trend to Balkanize history, by connecting ideas, political theories, and the fine arts across the centuries from ancient history to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and 19th and 20th centuries. An argument for cultural pluralism, Celine says that the lack of tolerance is one of the gravest dangers to which our overpopulated planet is imperiled. For an example of how the visuals work, Volume II, Chapter 28 records the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the 1921 African American genocide in Tulsa Oklahoma. Céline maintains that if we examine the causes of war, despotism, and genocide, we can find a healthier way forward for the human race.
In our time, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has imprisoned the leader of the opposition Aleksei Navalny and a Russian court has defined Navalny’s political movement as an extremist network, leaving those who oppose Putin vulnerable to suppression, arrest, and banned from running for public office. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has silenced Klubrádió, one of the last radio stations not under control of the government. In Myanmar, a military coup has replaced elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has signed a law banning journalists from reporting on mass protests, resulting in every leading journalist in Belarus being forced into exile or imprisoned.
Access to voting is being limited in Georgia, Arizona, and Texas. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1964, “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.” To date, the governors of Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas have signed legislation banning the teaching of slavery and systemic discrimination against Black and Indian Americans. Using visual images, my book explores the relations between the United States and the world, revealing the good and bad of American history.
Freedom House Report documents the democratic recession with more countries moving away from democracy than are moving towards democracy. Autocratic forces and hyper-nationalism are flourishing in Hungary, Poland, Brazil, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and in our own country as well. Authoritarian leaders are imprisoning, torturing, and murdering activists. The violence that occurred in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, reminds us that we can’t take our democracy for granted. The artists and thinkers of Céline show us that without a free press and a transparent electoral process, a democracy cannot survive.
Through many years of designing for films like Steven Spielberg’s The Goonies and Universal Studio’s Battlestar Galactica, I have polished my visual techniques for telling a story. Rather than telling history chronologically within a specific time period, the book overcomes the trend to Balkanize history, by connecting ideas, political theories, and the fine arts across the centuries from ancient history to the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and 19th and 20th centuries. An argument for cultural pluralism, Celine says that the lack of tolerance is one of the gravest dangers to which our overpopulated planet is imperiled. For an example of how the visuals work, Volume II, Chapter 28 records the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the 1921 African American genocide in Tulsa Oklahoma. Céline maintains that if we examine the causes of war, despotism, and genocide, we can find a healthier way forward for the human race.