Building Open Societies [antikvár]

THE goal of George Soros's philanthropy is to transform closed societies into open ones and to protect and expand the values of existing open societies. To this end, he has over the last decade established the Soros foundations network, a decentralized association of nonprofit organizations that share this common mission. These organizations work to achieve their goal by funding and operating an array of activities dealing with the arts and culture broadly defined; the strengthening of civil society; economic reform; education at all levels and in diverse subject areas; human rights; legal reform and public administration; media and communications, including publishing, electronic communication, and support for libraries; and public health.About Open SocietyAt the most fundamental, philosophical level, the concept of open society is based on the recognition that people act on imperfect knowledge and that no one is in possession of the ultimate truth. In practice, an open society is characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and minority opinions; the division of power; and a market economy. Broadly speaking, open society is a way to describe the positive aspects of democracy. The term "open society" was popularized by the philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book Open Society and Its Enemies.About the FounderGeorge Soros is the chairman of the Soros Fund Management, a private investment management firm. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He emigrated in 1947 to England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics, and in 1956 to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through his investment activities. In addition to writing many articles on the political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Soros is the author of The Alchemy of Finance (1987), Opening the Soviet System (1990), Underwriting Democracy (1991), and Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (1995). Soros's most recent writings, two articles in the Atlantic Monthly discussing the failures of the global capitalist system, were syndicated in publications around the world. Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research, Oxford University, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale