Mystic Bourgeoisie Books
These books (most of them anyway) were listed on the Mystic Bourgeoisie blog.
This collection contains 704 books and was last updated on 24 September 2006. It was generated (semi-)automatically by Bookpedia.
You can thank the publishers and (in some cases) reviewers for the crappy formatting and execrable spelling in many of the Summary sections -- which are pulled directly off Amazon, not written by me. I am not endorsing all these books -- not by a long shot. Some are extremely valuable resources. Some are here precisely because they're utter crap. It is left as an exercise for the reader to decide which are which.
Although this is a wholly legitimate page -- let no one say otherwise! -- all of us here at Mystic Bourgeoisie would still like to thank The Search Engines!
Author: Philip Cushman
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Release: 1996
Summary: A fascinating, entertaining book. I cannot recommend Cushman highly enough! It is truly disappointing that book has been overlooked by the discipline of psychology. However, the reasons it has been are obvious once you read it. Cushman details how psychology ignores its basic assumptions (e.g., about the self, the nature of understanding) and consequently perpetuates the problems it seeks to alleviate. This is a central point -- psychology is elevating a notion of self (i.e., the empty self) that is only filled by psychotherapy, not "cured". For those who are willing to reflect on how the profession is influenced by moral presuppositions, and political and economic factors - this is a must read. Moreover - Cushman offers solutions. For those who know of this book -- it is a hidden classic.
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Release: 1996
Summary: A fascinating, entertaining book. I cannot recommend Cushman highly enough! It is truly disappointing that book has been overlooked by the discipline of psychology. However, the reasons it has been are obvious once you read it. Cushman details how psychology ignores its basic assumptions (e.g., about the self, the nature of understanding) and consequently perpetuates the problems it seeks to alleviate. This is a central point -- psychology is elevating a notion of self (i.e., the empty self) that is only filled by psychotherapy, not "cured". For those who are willing to reflect on how the profession is influenced by moral presuppositions, and political and economic factors - this is a must read. Moreover - Cushman offers solutions. For those who know of this book -- it is a hidden classic.
Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2006
Summary: Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of "The Selfish Gene". Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.
Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or "memes", which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. "--Rob Lightner"
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2006
Summary: Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of "The Selfish Gene". Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.
Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or "memes", which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. "--Rob Lightner"
Author: Terry Eagleton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2005
Summary: Brimming with lively wit and penetrating insight, Holy Terror offers a profound and timely investigation of the idea of terror, drawing upon political, philosophical, literary, and theological sources to trace a genealogy from the ancient world to the present day.
Famed critic Terry Eagleton offers here a metaphysics of terror with a serious historical perspective. Writing with remarkable clarity and persuasiveness, Eagleton examines a concept whose cultural impact predates 9/11 by millennia. From its earliest manifestations in rite and ritual, through
its rebirth as a political idea with the French Revolution, to the 'War on Terror' of today, terror has been regarded with both horror and fascination. Eagleton examines the duality of the sacred (both life-giving and death-dealing) and relates it, via current and past ideas of freedom, to the idea
of terror itself. Stretching from the cult of Dionysus to the thought of Jacques Lacan, the book sheds light into ideas of God, freedom, the sublime, and the unconscious. It also examines the problem of evil, and devotes a concluding chapter to the idea of tragic sacrifice and the scapegoat.
Written by one of the world's foremost cultural critics, Holy Terror is a provocative and ambitious examination of one of the most urgent issues of our time.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2005
Summary: Brimming with lively wit and penetrating insight, Holy Terror offers a profound and timely investigation of the idea of terror, drawing upon political, philosophical, literary, and theological sources to trace a genealogy from the ancient world to the present day.
Famed critic Terry Eagleton offers here a metaphysics of terror with a serious historical perspective. Writing with remarkable clarity and persuasiveness, Eagleton examines a concept whose cultural impact predates 9/11 by millennia. From its earliest manifestations in rite and ritual, through
its rebirth as a political idea with the French Revolution, to the 'War on Terror' of today, terror has been regarded with both horror and fascination. Eagleton examines the duality of the sacred (both life-giving and death-dealing) and relates it, via current and past ideas of freedom, to the idea
of terror itself. Stretching from the cult of Dionysus to the thought of Jacques Lacan, the book sheds light into ideas of God, freedom, the sublime, and the unconscious. It also examines the problem of evil, and devotes a concluding chapter to the idea of tragic sacrifice and the scapegoat.
Written by one of the world's foremost cultural critics, Holy Terror is a provocative and ambitious examination of one of the most urgent issues of our time.
Author: Sinead Garrigan Mattar
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: What is the relevance of the Irish Revival to modernism? Why did Yeats's vision of a theatre for Ireland take a ritual form? What was so incendiary about J. M. Synge's vision of the Irish peasantry? These are among the questions that Garrigan Mattar seeks to answer by exploring the primitivism
of the Irish Revival in relation to comparative science.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: What is the relevance of the Irish Revival to modernism? Why did Yeats's vision of a theatre for Ireland take a ritual form? What was so incendiary about J. M. Synge's vision of the Irish peasantry? These are among the questions that Garrigan Mattar seeks to answer by exploring the primitivism
of the Irish Revival in relation to comparative science.
Author: Roger Luckhurst
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: The belief in telepathy is still widely held and yet it remains much disputed by scientists. Roger Luckhurst explores the origins of the term in the late nineteenth century. Telepathy mixed physical and mental sciences, new technologies and old superstitions, and it fascinated many famous
people in the late Victorian era: Sigmund Freud, Thomas Huxley, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Oscar Wilde. This is an exciting and accessible study, written for general readers as much as scholars and students.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: The belief in telepathy is still widely held and yet it remains much disputed by scientists. Roger Luckhurst explores the origins of the term in the late nineteenth century. Telepathy mixed physical and mental sciences, new technologies and old superstitions, and it fascinated many famous
people in the late Victorian era: Sigmund Freud, Thomas Huxley, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Oscar Wilde. This is an exciting and accessible study, written for general readers as much as scholars and students.
Author: R. A. Fisher
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: This is the definitive edition of R.A. Fisher's classic work--probably the best known book in evolutionary biology after Darwin's Origin of Species. The book was the first attempt to assess and explain Darwin's evolutionary theories in terms of genetic evolution. Based on the original 1930
edition, the book incorporates the many changes Fisher made for the second edition as well as unpublished material taken from Fisher's own copy.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: This is the definitive edition of R.A. Fisher's classic work--probably the best known book in evolutionary biology after Darwin's Origin of Species. The book was the first attempt to assess and explain Darwin's evolutionary theories in terms of genetic evolution. Based on the original 1930
edition, the book incorporates the many changes Fisher made for the second edition as well as unpublished material taken from Fisher's own copy.
Author: Keith Hitchins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1994
Summary: This latest volume in the acclaimed Oxford History of Modern Europe series looks at the collapse of Communist power which has once again focused attention on the processes of nation-building in central and eastern Europe. In this comprehensive study, Keith Hitchins focuses on how Rumania's
political and intellectual elites attempted to establish an independent state before the advent of Communist rule in 1947. It traces the efforts of the country's leaders to create the institutions of a modern state, to "Europeanize" without losing national identity, and to find ways of preserving
independence in the international political and economic order dominated by the great powers. In his study, Hitchins emphasizes how Rumania's past history is essential to a clear understanding of its complex present and future.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1994
Summary: This latest volume in the acclaimed Oxford History of Modern Europe series looks at the collapse of Communist power which has once again focused attention on the processes of nation-building in central and eastern Europe. In this comprehensive study, Keith Hitchins focuses on how Rumania's
political and intellectual elites attempted to establish an independent state before the advent of Communist rule in 1947. It traces the efforts of the country's leaders to create the institutions of a modern state, to "Europeanize" without losing national identity, and to find ways of preserving
independence in the international political and economic order dominated by the great powers. In his study, Hitchins emphasizes how Rumania's past history is essential to a clear understanding of its complex present and future.
Author: Angelique Richardson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century is a fascinating, lucid, and controversial study of the centrality of eugenic debate to the Victorians. Reappraising the operation of social and sexual power in Victorian society and fiction, it makes a radical contribution to English studies,
nineteenth-century and gender studies, and the history of science.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century is a fascinating, lucid, and controversial study of the centrality of eugenic debate to the Victorians. Reappraising the operation of social and sexual power in Victorian society and fiction, it makes a radical contribution to English studies,
nineteenth-century and gender studies, and the history of science.
Author: Lorne Dawson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1998
Summary: Long the focus of controversy, cults,--what sociologists prefer to call new religious movements--have been studied by scholars for years. Yet little of this information has made its way into public awareness. Comprehending Cults is a comprehensive and balanced overview which synthesizes and
assesses the results of thirty years of research into new religious movements by historians, sociologists, and psychologists of religion. Organized in terms of seven of the most commonly asked questions about cults (Why did they emerge? Who joins them and why? Why do some become violent?) the book
clarifies the issues at stake, seeking to replace prejudice and speculation with reliable insights into the nature of cult activity.
Comprehending Cults examines the history and theory of the development of new religious movements as well as the factors, both social and economic, which determine their success. The book explores particular issues and factions in new religious movements including discussions on Scientology and
other initiatory groups; Hare Krishna and other Indian-based religious groups; new religious movements and violence; the Unification Church; coercive conversion controversy (deprogramming); the Satanism scare; women and religious movements; and the future of religion.
Written in an easy-to-read yet detailed manner, Comprehending Cults provides an excellent introduction to the study of new religious phenomena, one equally suited to general readers, students, and scholars.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1998
Summary: Long the focus of controversy, cults,--what sociologists prefer to call new religious movements--have been studied by scholars for years. Yet little of this information has made its way into public awareness. Comprehending Cults is a comprehensive and balanced overview which synthesizes and
assesses the results of thirty years of research into new religious movements by historians, sociologists, and psychologists of religion. Organized in terms of seven of the most commonly asked questions about cults (Why did they emerge? Who joins them and why? Why do some become violent?) the book
clarifies the issues at stake, seeking to replace prejudice and speculation with reliable insights into the nature of cult activity.
Comprehending Cults examines the history and theory of the development of new religious movements as well as the factors, both social and economic, which determine their success. The book explores particular issues and factions in new religious movements including discussions on Scientology and
other initiatory groups; Hare Krishna and other Indian-based religious groups; new religious movements and violence; the Unification Church; coercive conversion controversy (deprogramming); the Satanism scare; women and religious movements; and the future of religion.
Written in an easy-to-read yet detailed manner, Comprehending Cults provides an excellent introduction to the study of new religious phenomena, one equally suited to general readers, students, and scholars.
Author: Christopher Partridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: From Christian Science and the Jehovah's Witnesses to Soka Gakkai, Wicca, and Falun Gong, the last century and a half has seen an unprecedented growth of new religious movements, sects, and alternative spiritualities.
New Religions offers an authoritative and lavishly illustrated guide to more than two hundred of these wildly varied groups and movements. The volume is organized according to an entirely new method of classification, which associates movements, sects, and spiritualities with the religious
traditions from which they arose. Rastafarianism, for example, is shown to have its roots in Christianity, while Bahai is an offshoot of Islam. Included are both long-established groups like the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Hutterites and more recent movements like Santeria, the Unification
Church, and ISKCON (the "Hare Krishnas"). In addition to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Indian Religions, and the Religions of East Asia, sections are devoted to movements and groups inspired by Indigenous and Pagan Traditions, and by Western Esoteric and New Age Traditions.
Particularly fascinating is the discussion of the religious offspring of Modern Western Culture, including Scientology, UFO-based groups (such as the Raelians), and even the worship of celebrities like Elvis and Princess Diana. Each entry clearly and concisely explains the history, beliefs and
practices, and status in the world today of the movement or group in question. Special entries highlight broad topics such as New Religions in China as well as intriguing subjects such as Cargo Cults, Martial Arts, Astrology, and Feng Shui.
Written by specialists, New Religions is a fascinating and colorful guide to the bewildering array of religious and spiritual options available to the modern seeker.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: From Christian Science and the Jehovah's Witnesses to Soka Gakkai, Wicca, and Falun Gong, the last century and a half has seen an unprecedented growth of new religious movements, sects, and alternative spiritualities.
New Religions offers an authoritative and lavishly illustrated guide to more than two hundred of these wildly varied groups and movements. The volume is organized according to an entirely new method of classification, which associates movements, sects, and spiritualities with the religious
traditions from which they arose. Rastafarianism, for example, is shown to have its roots in Christianity, while Bahai is an offshoot of Islam. Included are both long-established groups like the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Hutterites and more recent movements like Santeria, the Unification
Church, and ISKCON (the "Hare Krishnas"). In addition to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Indian Religions, and the Religions of East Asia, sections are devoted to movements and groups inspired by Indigenous and Pagan Traditions, and by Western Esoteric and New Age Traditions.
Particularly fascinating is the discussion of the religious offspring of Modern Western Culture, including Scientology, UFO-based groups (such as the Raelians), and even the worship of celebrities like Elvis and Princess Diana. Each entry clearly and concisely explains the history, beliefs and
practices, and status in the world today of the movement or group in question. Special entries highlight broad topics such as New Religions in China as well as intriguing subjects such as Cargo Cults, Martial Arts, Astrology, and Feng Shui.
Written by specialists, New Religions is a fascinating and colorful guide to the bewildering array of religious and spiritual options available to the modern seeker.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of American cultural history--Kevin Starr's monumental Americans and the California Dream--Embattled Dreams is a peerless work of cultural history following California in the years surrounding World War II.
During the 1940s California ascended to a new, more powerful role in the nation. Starr describes the vast expansion of the war industry and California's role as the "arsenal of democracy" (especially the significant part women played in the aviation industry). He examines the politics of the
state: Earl Warren as the dominant political figure, the anti-Communist movement and "red baiting," and the early career of Richard Nixon. He also looks at culture, ranging from Hollywood to the counterculture, to film noir and detective stories. And he illuminates the harassment of Japanese
immigrants and the shameful treatment of other minorities, especially Hispanics and blacks.
In Embattled Dreams, Starr again provides a spellbinding account of the Golden State, narrating California's transformation from a regional power to a dominant economic, social, and cultural force.
"With a novelist's eye for the telling detail, and a historian's grasp of the sweep of grand events.... [Starr's] got it all down.... I read the book with absorbed admiration."--Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War
"The scope of Starr's scholarship is breathtaking."--Atlantic Monthly
"A magnificent accomplishment."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Brilliant and epic social and cultural history."--Business Week
"Ebullient, nuanced, interdisciplinary history of the grandest kind."--San Francisco Chronicle
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of American cultural history--Kevin Starr's monumental Americans and the California Dream--Embattled Dreams is a peerless work of cultural history following California in the years surrounding World War II.
During the 1940s California ascended to a new, more powerful role in the nation. Starr describes the vast expansion of the war industry and California's role as the "arsenal of democracy" (especially the significant part women played in the aviation industry). He examines the politics of the
state: Earl Warren as the dominant political figure, the anti-Communist movement and "red baiting," and the early career of Richard Nixon. He also looks at culture, ranging from Hollywood to the counterculture, to film noir and detective stories. And he illuminates the harassment of Japanese
immigrants and the shameful treatment of other minorities, especially Hispanics and blacks.
In Embattled Dreams, Starr again provides a spellbinding account of the Golden State, narrating California's transformation from a regional power to a dominant economic, social, and cultural force.
"With a novelist's eye for the telling detail, and a historian's grasp of the sweep of grand events.... [Starr's] got it all down.... I read the book with absorbed admiration."--Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War
"The scope of Starr's scholarship is breathtaking."--Atlantic Monthly
"A magnificent accomplishment."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Brilliant and epic social and cultural history."--Business Week
"Ebullient, nuanced, interdisciplinary history of the grandest kind."--San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Christopher Peterson, Martin Seligman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: "Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character
a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most
effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and
measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees.
Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to
its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: "Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character
a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most
effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and
measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees.
Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to
its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.
Author: Jonathan Petropoulos
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2006
Summary: The link between Hitler's Third Reich and European royalty has gone largely unexplored due to the secrecy surrounding royal families. Now, in Royals and the Reich, Jonathan Petropoulos uses unprecedented access to royal archives to tell the fascinating story of the Princes of Hesse and the
important role they played in the Nazi regime.
Princes Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassel, great-grandsons of Queen Victoria of England, had been humiliated by defeat in WWI and, like much of the German aristocracy, feared the social unrest wrought by the ineffectual Weimar Republic. Petropoulos shows how the princes, lured by prominent
positions in the Nazi regime and highly susceptible to nationalist appeals, became enthusiastic supporters of Hitler. Prince Philipp, son-in-law to the King of Italy, became the highest-ranking prince in the Nazi state and developed a close personal relationship with Hitler and Hermann Goring.
Prince Christoph was a prominent SS officer and head of one of the most important intelligence agencies in the Third Reich. In return, the princes made the Nazis socially acceptable to wealthy, high-society patrons. Prince Philipp even introduced Goring to Mussolini at a critical stage in the Nazi
Party's development and later served as a liaison between Hitler and the Italian dictator.
Permitted access to Hessen family private papers and the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, Petropoulos follows the story of the House of Hesse through to its tragic denouement--the princes' betrayal and persecution by an increasingly paranoid Hitler and prosecution and denazification by the
Allies. Royals and the Reich is a startling and unique portrait of the vanished world of prewar aristocrats and a royal family caught in one of the most tumultuous periods in history.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2006
Summary: The link between Hitler's Third Reich and European royalty has gone largely unexplored due to the secrecy surrounding royal families. Now, in Royals and the Reich, Jonathan Petropoulos uses unprecedented access to royal archives to tell the fascinating story of the Princes of Hesse and the
important role they played in the Nazi regime.
Princes Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassel, great-grandsons of Queen Victoria of England, had been humiliated by defeat in WWI and, like much of the German aristocracy, feared the social unrest wrought by the ineffectual Weimar Republic. Petropoulos shows how the princes, lured by prominent
positions in the Nazi regime and highly susceptible to nationalist appeals, became enthusiastic supporters of Hitler. Prince Philipp, son-in-law to the King of Italy, became the highest-ranking prince in the Nazi state and developed a close personal relationship with Hitler and Hermann Goring.
Prince Christoph was a prominent SS officer and head of one of the most important intelligence agencies in the Third Reich. In return, the princes made the Nazis socially acceptable to wealthy, high-society patrons. Prince Philipp even introduced Goring to Mussolini at a critical stage in the Nazi
Party's development and later served as a liaison between Hitler and the Italian dictator.
Permitted access to Hessen family private papers and the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, Petropoulos follows the story of the House of Hesse through to its tragic denouement--the princes' betrayal and persecution by an increasingly paranoid Hitler and prosecution and denazification by the
Allies. Royals and the Reich is a startling and unique portrait of the vanished world of prewar aristocrats and a royal family caught in one of the most tumultuous periods in history.
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: In books such as Mystics and Messiahs, Hidden Gospels, and The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins has established himself as a leading commentator on religion and society. Now, in Dream Catchers, Jenkins offers a brilliant account of the changing mainstream attitudes towards Native American
spirituality, once seen as degraded spectacle, now hailed as New Age salvation.
While early Americans had nothing but contempt for Indian religions, deploring them as loathsome devil worship and snake dancing, white Americans today respect and admire Native spirituality. In this book, Jenkins charts this remarkable change, highlighting the complex history of white
American attitudes towards Native religions from colonial times to the present. Jenkins ranges widely, considering everything from the 19th-century American obsession with "Hebrew Indians" and Lost Tribes, to the early 20th-century cult of the Maya as bearers of the wisdom of ancient Atlantis, to
films like Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves. He looks at the popularity of the Carlos Castaneda books, the writings of Lynn Andrews, and the influential works of Frank Waters, and he explores the New Age paraphernalia found in places like Sedona, Arizona, including dream-catchers, crystals,
medicine bags, and Native-themed Tarot cards. Jenkins examines the controversial New Age appropriation of Native sacred places; notes that many "white Indians" see mainstream society as religiously empty; and asks why a government founded on religious freedom tried to eradicate native religions in
the last century--and what this says about how we define religion.
An engrossing account of our changing attitudes towards Native spirituality, Dream Catchers offers a fascinating introduction to one of the more interesting aspects of contemporary American religion.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: In books such as Mystics and Messiahs, Hidden Gospels, and The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins has established himself as a leading commentator on religion and society. Now, in Dream Catchers, Jenkins offers a brilliant account of the changing mainstream attitudes towards Native American
spirituality, once seen as degraded spectacle, now hailed as New Age salvation.
While early Americans had nothing but contempt for Indian religions, deploring them as loathsome devil worship and snake dancing, white Americans today respect and admire Native spirituality. In this book, Jenkins charts this remarkable change, highlighting the complex history of white
American attitudes towards Native religions from colonial times to the present. Jenkins ranges widely, considering everything from the 19th-century American obsession with "Hebrew Indians" and Lost Tribes, to the early 20th-century cult of the Maya as bearers of the wisdom of ancient Atlantis, to
films like Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves. He looks at the popularity of the Carlos Castaneda books, the writings of Lynn Andrews, and the influential works of Frank Waters, and he explores the New Age paraphernalia found in places like Sedona, Arizona, including dream-catchers, crystals,
medicine bags, and Native-themed Tarot cards. Jenkins examines the controversial New Age appropriation of Native sacred places; notes that many "white Indians" see mainstream society as religiously empty; and asks why a government founded on religious freedom tried to eradicate native religions in
the last century--and what this says about how we define religion.
An engrossing account of our changing attitudes towards Native spirituality, Dream Catchers offers a fascinating introduction to one of the more interesting aspects of contemporary American religion.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: The late 1930s and early 1940s introduced to California culture some of the features that still characterize it today, at least in the view of outsiders to the Golden State: surfing, drive-in movie theaters, barbecues, motels, polo shirts, and recreational vehicles. The period brought equally enduring but less superficial changes, too: advances and setbacks alike in race relations, resource management, urban development, and transportation. Kevin Starr continues his multivolume history of California with this deeply learned, always fascinating account of California at the dawn of the modern age, with a cast of characters ranging from the Native American hermit Fig Tree John to violinist Yehudi Menuhin and hardboiled-fiction master Raymond Chandler.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: The late 1930s and early 1940s introduced to California culture some of the features that still characterize it today, at least in the view of outsiders to the Golden State: surfing, drive-in movie theaters, barbecues, motels, polo shirts, and recreational vehicles. The period brought equally enduring but less superficial changes, too: advances and setbacks alike in race relations, resource management, urban development, and transportation. Kevin Starr continues his multivolume history of California with this deeply learned, always fascinating account of California at the dawn of the modern age, with a cast of characters ranging from the Native American hermit Fig Tree John to violinist Yehudi Menuhin and hardboiled-fiction master Raymond Chandler.
Author: Mark Sedgwick
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: The first history of Traditionalism, an important yet surprisingly little-known twentieth-century anti-modern movement. Comprising a number of often secret but sometimes very influential religious groups in the West and in the Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical politics in
Europe and the development of the field of religious studies in the United States.
In the nineteenth century, at a time when progressive intellectuals had lost faith in Christianity's ability to deliver religious and spiritual truth, the West discovered non-Western religious writings. From these beginnings grew Traditionalism, emerging from the occultist milieu of late
nineteenth-century France, and fed by the widespread loss of faith in progress that followed the First World War. Working first in Paris and then in Cairo, the French writer Rene Guenon rejected modernity as a dark age, and sought to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy-- the central religious
truths behind all the major world religions --largely on the basis of his reading of Hindu religious texts.
A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to Guenon's call with attempts to put theory into practice. Some attempted without success to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalism finally provided the
ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and at the end of the twentieth century began to enter the debate in the Islamic world about the desirable relationship between Islam and modernity
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2004
Summary: The first history of Traditionalism, an important yet surprisingly little-known twentieth-century anti-modern movement. Comprising a number of often secret but sometimes very influential religious groups in the West and in the Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical politics in
Europe and the development of the field of religious studies in the United States.
In the nineteenth century, at a time when progressive intellectuals had lost faith in Christianity's ability to deliver religious and spiritual truth, the West discovered non-Western religious writings. From these beginnings grew Traditionalism, emerging from the occultist milieu of late
nineteenth-century France, and fed by the widespread loss of faith in progress that followed the First World War. Working first in Paris and then in Cairo, the French writer Rene Guenon rejected modernity as a dark age, and sought to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy-- the central religious
truths behind all the major world religions --largely on the basis of his reading of Hindu religious texts.
A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to Guenon's call with attempts to put theory into practice. Some attempted without success to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalism finally provided the
ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and at the end of the twentieth century began to enter the debate in the Islamic world about the desirable relationship between Islam and modernity
Author: Robert Jean Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: The eighth edition of Campbell's Psychiatric Dictionary continues to pursure its goal of keeping the reader abreast of new development in psychiatry.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2003
Summary: The eighth edition of Campbell's Psychiatric Dictionary continues to pursure its goal of keeping the reader abreast of new development in psychiatry.
Author: Jonathan Freedman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: From the beginning of modern intellectual history to the culture wars of the present day, the experience of assimilating Jews and the idiom of "culture" have been fundamentally intertwined with each other. Freedman's book begins by looking at images of the stereotypical Jew in the literary
culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century England and America, and then considers the efforts on the part of Jewish critics and intellectuals to counter this image in the public sphere. It explores the unexpected parallels and ironic reversals between a cultural dispensation that had ambivalent
responses to Jews and Jews who became exponents of that very tradition.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: From the beginning of modern intellectual history to the culture wars of the present day, the experience of assimilating Jews and the idiom of "culture" have been fundamentally intertwined with each other. Freedman's book begins by looking at images of the stereotypical Jew in the literary
culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century England and America, and then considers the efforts on the part of Jewish critics and intellectuals to counter this image in the public sphere. It explores the unexpected parallels and ironic reversals between a cultural dispensation that had ambivalent
responses to Jews and Jews who became exponents of that very tradition.
Author: Stefan Kuhl
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: When Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1924, he held up a foreign law as a model for his program of racial purification: The U.S. Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which prohibited the immigration of those with hereditary illnesses and entire ethnic groups. When the Nazis took power in 1933,
they installed a program of eugenics--the attempted "improvement" of the population through forced sterilization and marriage controls--that consciously drew on the U.S. example. By then, many American states had long had compulsory sterilization laws for "defectives," upheld by the Supreme Court
in 1927. Small wonder that the Nazi laws led one eugenics activist in Virginia to complain, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."
In The Nazi Connection, Stefan Kuhl uncovers the ties between the American eugenics movement and the Nazi program of racial hygiene, showing that many American scientists actively supported Hitler's policies. After introducing us to the recently resurgent problem of scientific racism, Kuhl
carefully recounts the history of the eugenics movement, both in the United States and internationally, demonstrating how widely the idea of sterilization as a genetic control had become accepted by the early twentieth century. From the first, the American eugenicists led the way with radical
ideas. Their influence led to sterilization laws in dozens of states--laws which were studied, and praised, by the German racial hygienists. With the rise of Hitler, the Germans enacted compulsory sterilization laws partly based on the U.S. experience, and American eugenists took pride in their
influence on Nazi policies. Kuhl recreates astonishing scenes of American eugenicists travelling to Germany to study the new laws, publishing scholarly articles lionizing the Nazi eugenics program, and proudly comparing personal notes from Hitler thanking them for their books. Even after the
outbreak of war, he writes, the American eugenicists frowned upon Hitler's totalitarian government, but not his sterilization laws. So deep was the failure to recognize the connection between eugenics and Hitler's genocidal policies, that a prominent liberal Jewish eugenicist who had been forced to
flee Germany found it fit to grumble that the Nazis "took over our entire plan of eugenic measures."
By 1945, when the murderous nature of the Nazi government was made perfectly clear, the American eugenicists sought to downplay the close connections between themselves and the German program. Some of them, in fact, had sought to distance themselves from Hitler even before the war. But
Stefan Kuhl's deeply documented book provides a devastating indictment of the influence--and aid--provided by American scientists for the most comprehensive attempt to enforce racial purity in world history.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2002
Summary: When Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1924, he held up a foreign law as a model for his program of racial purification: The U.S. Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which prohibited the immigration of those with hereditary illnesses and entire ethnic groups. When the Nazis took power in 1933,
they installed a program of eugenics--the attempted "improvement" of the population through forced sterilization and marriage controls--that consciously drew on the U.S. example. By then, many American states had long had compulsory sterilization laws for "defectives," upheld by the Supreme Court
in 1927. Small wonder that the Nazi laws led one eugenics activist in Virginia to complain, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."
In The Nazi Connection, Stefan Kuhl uncovers the ties between the American eugenics movement and the Nazi program of racial hygiene, showing that many American scientists actively supported Hitler's policies. After introducing us to the recently resurgent problem of scientific racism, Kuhl
carefully recounts the history of the eugenics movement, both in the United States and internationally, demonstrating how widely the idea of sterilization as a genetic control had become accepted by the early twentieth century. From the first, the American eugenicists led the way with radical
ideas. Their influence led to sterilization laws in dozens of states--laws which were studied, and praised, by the German racial hygienists. With the rise of Hitler, the Germans enacted compulsory sterilization laws partly based on the U.S. experience, and American eugenists took pride in their
influence on Nazi policies. Kuhl recreates astonishing scenes of American eugenicists travelling to Germany to study the new laws, publishing scholarly articles lionizing the Nazi eugenics program, and proudly comparing personal notes from Hitler thanking them for their books. Even after the
outbreak of war, he writes, the American eugenicists frowned upon Hitler's totalitarian government, but not his sterilization laws. So deep was the failure to recognize the connection between eugenics and Hitler's genocidal policies, that a prominent liberal Jewish eugenicist who had been forced to
flee Germany found it fit to grumble that the Nazis "took over our entire plan of eugenic measures."
By 1945, when the murderous nature of the Nazi government was made perfectly clear, the American eugenicists sought to downplay the close connections between themselves and the German program. Some of them, in fact, had sought to distance themselves from Hitler even before the war. But
Stefan Kuhl's deeply documented book provides a devastating indictment of the influence--and aid--provided by American scientists for the most comprehensive attempt to enforce racial purity in world history.
Author: Robert C. Fuller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2001
Summary: Nearly 40% of all Americans have no connection with organized religion. Yet many of these people, even though they might never step inside a house of worship, live profoundly spiritual lives. But what is the nature and value of unchurched spirituality in America? Is it a recent phenomenon, a
New Age fad that will soon fade, or a long-standing and essential aspect of the American experience?
In Spiritual But Not Religious, Robert Fuller offers fascinating answers to these questions. He shows that alternative spiritual practices have a long and rich history in America, dating back to the colonial period, when church membership rarely exceeded 17% and interest in astrology,
numerology, magic, and witchcraft ran high. Fuller traces such unchurched traditions into the mid-nineteenth century, when Americans responded enthusiastically to new philosophies such as Swedenborgianism, Transcendentalism, and mesmerism, right up to the current interest in meditation, channeling,
divination, and a host of other unconventional spiritual practices. Throughout, Fuller argues that far from the flighty and narcissistic dilettantes they are often made out to be, unchurched spiritual seekers embrace a mature and dynamic set of basic beliefs. They focus on inner sources of
spirituality and on this world rather than the afterlife; they believe in the accessibility of God and in the mind's untapped powers; they see a fundamental unity between science and religion and an equality between genders and races; and they are more willing to test their beliefs and change them
when they prove untenable.
Timely, sweeping in its scope, and informed by a clear historical understanding, Spiritual But Not Religious offers fresh perspective on the growing numbers of Americans who find their spirituality outside the church.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2001
Summary: Nearly 40% of all Americans have no connection with organized religion. Yet many of these people, even though they might never step inside a house of worship, live profoundly spiritual lives. But what is the nature and value of unchurched spirituality in America? Is it a recent phenomenon, a
New Age fad that will soon fade, or a long-standing and essential aspect of the American experience?
In Spiritual But Not Religious, Robert Fuller offers fascinating answers to these questions. He shows that alternative spiritual practices have a long and rich history in America, dating back to the colonial period, when church membership rarely exceeded 17% and interest in astrology,
numerology, magic, and witchcraft ran high. Fuller traces such unchurched traditions into the mid-nineteenth century, when Americans responded enthusiastically to new philosophies such as Swedenborgianism, Transcendentalism, and mesmerism, right up to the current interest in meditation, channeling,
divination, and a host of other unconventional spiritual practices. Throughout, Fuller argues that far from the flighty and narcissistic dilettantes they are often made out to be, unchurched spiritual seekers embrace a mature and dynamic set of basic beliefs. They focus on inner sources of
spirituality and on this world rather than the afterlife; they believe in the accessibility of God and in the mind's untapped powers; they see a fundamental unity between science and religion and an equality between genders and races; and they are more willing to test their beliefs and change them
when they prove untenable.
Timely, sweeping in its scope, and informed by a clear historical understanding, Spiritual But Not Religious offers fresh perspective on the growing numbers of Americans who find their spirituality outside the church.
Author: Karma-Glin-Pa, Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: The Tibetan Book of the Dead is one of the texts that, according to legend, Padma-Sambhava was compelled to hide during his visit to Tibet in the late 8th century. The guru hid his books in stones, lakes, and pillars because the Tibetans of that day and age were somehow unprepared for their
teachings. Now, in the form of the ever-popular Tibetan Book of the Dead, these teachings are constantly being discovered and rediscovered by Western readers of many different backgrounds--a phenomenon which began in 1927 with Oxford's first edition of Dr. Evans-Wentz's landmark volume. While it is
traditionally used as a mortuary text, to be read or recited in the presence of a dead or dying person, this book--which relates the whole experience of death and rebirth in three intermediate states of being--was originally understood as a guide not only for the dead but also for the living. As a
contribution to the science of death and dying--not to mention the belief in life after death, or the belief in rebirth--The Tibetan Book of the Dead is unique among the sacred texts of the world, for its socio-cultural influence in this regard is without comparison.
This fourth edition features a new foreword, afterword, and suggested further reading list by Donald S. Lopez, author of Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Lopez traces the whole history of the late Evans-Wentz's three earlier editions of this book, fully considering the work of
contributors to previous editions (C. G. Jung among them), the sections that were added by Evans-Wentz along the way, the questions surrounding the book's translation, and finally the volume's profound importance in engendering both popular and academic interest in the religion and culture of Tibet.
Another key theme that Lopez addresses is the changing nature of this book's audience--from the prewar theosophists to the beat poets to the hippies to contemporary exponents of the hospice movement--and what these audiences have found (or sought) in its very old pages.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: The Tibetan Book of the Dead is one of the texts that, according to legend, Padma-Sambhava was compelled to hide during his visit to Tibet in the late 8th century. The guru hid his books in stones, lakes, and pillars because the Tibetans of that day and age were somehow unprepared for their
teachings. Now, in the form of the ever-popular Tibetan Book of the Dead, these teachings are constantly being discovered and rediscovered by Western readers of many different backgrounds--a phenomenon which began in 1927 with Oxford's first edition of Dr. Evans-Wentz's landmark volume. While it is
traditionally used as a mortuary text, to be read or recited in the presence of a dead or dying person, this book--which relates the whole experience of death and rebirth in three intermediate states of being--was originally understood as a guide not only for the dead but also for the living. As a
contribution to the science of death and dying--not to mention the belief in life after death, or the belief in rebirth--The Tibetan Book of the Dead is unique among the sacred texts of the world, for its socio-cultural influence in this regard is without comparison.
This fourth edition features a new foreword, afterword, and suggested further reading list by Donald S. Lopez, author of Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Lopez traces the whole history of the late Evans-Wentz's three earlier editions of this book, fully considering the work of
contributors to previous editions (C. G. Jung among them), the sections that were added by Evans-Wentz along the way, the questions surrounding the book's translation, and finally the volume's profound importance in engendering both popular and academic interest in the religion and culture of Tibet.
Another key theme that Lopez addresses is the changing nature of this book's audience--from the prewar theosophists to the beat poets to the hippies to contemporary exponents of the hospice movement--and what these audiences have found (or sought) in its very old pages.
Author: Joel Myerson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: The transcendentalist movement is generally recognized to be the first major watershed in American literary and intellectual history. Pioneered by Emerson, Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott (among others), Transcendentalism provided a springboard for the first
distinctly American forays into intellectual culture: religion and religious reform, philosophy, literature, ecology, and spiritualism. This new collection, edited by eminent American literature scholar Joel Myerson, is the first anthology of the period to appear in over fifty years.
Transcendentalism: A Reader draws together in their entirety the essential writings of the Transcendentalist group during its most active period, 1836-1844. It includes the major publications of the Dial, the writings on democratic and social reform, the early poetry, nature writings, and all of
Emerson's major essays, as well as an informative introduction and annotations by Myerson.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 2000
Summary: The transcendentalist movement is generally recognized to be the first major watershed in American literary and intellectual history. Pioneered by Emerson, Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott (among others), Transcendentalism provided a springboard for the first
distinctly American forays into intellectual culture: religion and religious reform, philosophy, literature, ecology, and spiritualism. This new collection, edited by eminent American literature scholar Joel Myerson, is the first anthology of the period to appear in over fifty years.
Transcendentalism: A Reader draws together in their entirety the essential writings of the Transcendentalist group during its most active period, 1836-1844. It includes the major publications of the Dial, the writings on democratic and social reform, the early poetry, nature writings, and all of
Emerson's major essays, as well as an informative introduction and annotations by Myerson.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1997
Summary: The Great Depression struck California hard, just as it did countless other states and nations. It also helped remake California, writes Kevin Starr in this fourth installment of his multivolume history of the state. The Depression brought a massive influx of hopeful refugees to California from elsewhere in the United States, including 300,000 new agricultural workers--the people of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath". These newcomers worked in the fields and stores for fifteen cents an hour while Hollywood made movies about their lot, Woody Guthrie sang songs about them, and union organizers tried hard to make a labor-based revolution. The fortunes of these "Okies" is just one of the sweeping topics that Starr, a fine writer and imaginative chronicler, takes on in this book.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1997
Summary: The Great Depression struck California hard, just as it did countless other states and nations. It also helped remake California, writes Kevin Starr in this fourth installment of his multivolume history of the state. The Depression brought a massive influx of hopeful refugees to California from elsewhere in the United States, including 300,000 new agricultural workers--the people of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath". These newcomers worked in the fields and stores for fifteen cents an hour while Hollywood made movies about their lot, Woody Guthrie sang songs about them, and union organizers tried hard to make a labor-based revolution. The fortunes of these "Okies" is just one of the sweeping topics that Starr, a fine writer and imaginative chronicler, takes on in this book.
Author: Thomas F. Gossett
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1997
Summary: When Thomas Gossett's Race: The History of an Idea in America appeared in 1963, it explored the impact of race theory on American letters in a way that anticipated the investigation of race and culture being conducted today. Bold, rigorous, and broad in scope, Gossett's book quickly
established itself as a critical resource to younger scholars seeking a candid, theoretically sophisticated treatment of race in American cultural history.
Here, reprinted without change, is Gossett's classic study, making available to a new generation of scholars a lucid, accessibly written volume that ranges from colonial race theory and its European antecedents, through eighteenth- and nineteenth- century race pseudoscience, to the racialist
dimension of American thought and literature emerging against backgrounds such as Anglo- Saxonism, westward expansion, Social Darwinism, xenophobia, World War I, and modern racial theory.
Featuring a new afterword by the author, an introduction by series editors Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Arnold Rampersad, and a bibliographic essay by Maghan Keita, this indispensable book, whose first edition helped change the way scholars discussed race, will richly reward scholars of American
Studies, American Literature, and African-American Studies.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1997
Summary: When Thomas Gossett's Race: The History of an Idea in America appeared in 1963, it explored the impact of race theory on American letters in a way that anticipated the investigation of race and culture being conducted today. Bold, rigorous, and broad in scope, Gossett's book quickly
established itself as a critical resource to younger scholars seeking a candid, theoretically sophisticated treatment of race in American cultural history.
Here, reprinted without change, is Gossett's classic study, making available to a new generation of scholars a lucid, accessibly written volume that ranges from colonial race theory and its European antecedents, through eighteenth- and nineteenth- century race pseudoscience, to the racialist
dimension of American thought and literature emerging against backgrounds such as Anglo- Saxonism, westward expansion, Social Darwinism, xenophobia, World War I, and modern racial theory.
Featuring a new afterword by the author, an introduction by series editors Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Arnold Rampersad, and a bibliographic essay by Maghan Keita, this indispensable book, whose first edition helped change the way scholars discussed race, will richly reward scholars of American
Studies, American Literature, and African-American Studies.
Author: David E. Stannard
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1993
Summary: For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the U.S. Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that
time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the
history of the world.
Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally
out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their
populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the
centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue to wage--against the New World's original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that is sure to create much controversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same
ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1993
Summary: For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the U.S. Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that
time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the
history of the world.
Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally
out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their
populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the
centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue to wage--against the New World's original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that is sure to create much controversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same
ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate.
Author: Henry Louis Gates
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1993
Summary: Multiculturalism. It has been the subject of cover stories in Time and Newsweek, as well as numerous articles in newspapers and magazines around America. It has sparked heated jeremiads by George Will, Dinesh D'Sousa, and Roger Kimball. It moved William F. Buckley to rail against Stanley Fish
and Catherine Stimpson on "Firing Line." It is arguably the most hotly debated topic in America today--and justly so. For whether one speaks of tensions between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights, or violent mass protests against Moscow in ethnic republics such as Armenia, or outright
war between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia, it is clear that the clash of cultures is a worldwide problem, deeply felt, passionately expressed, always on the verge of violent explosion. Problems of this magnitude inevitably frame the discussion of "multiculturalism" and "cultural
diversity" in the American classroom as well.
In Loose Canons, one of America's leading literary and cultural critics, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., offers a broad, illuminating look at this highly contentious issue. Gates agrees that our world is deeply divided by nationalism, racism, and sexism, and argues that the only way to transcend
these divisions--to forge a civic culture that respects both differences and similarities--is through education that respects both the diversity and commonalities of human culture. His is a plea for cultural and intercultural understanding. (You can't understand the world, he observes, if you
exclude 90 percent of the world's cultural heritage.) We feel his ideas most strongly voiced in the concluding essay in the volume, "Trading on the Margin." Avoiding the stridency of both the Right and the Left, Gates concludes that the society we have made simply won't survive without the values of
tolerance, and cultural tolerance comes to nothing without cultural understanding.
Henry Louis Gates is one of the most visible and outspoken figures on the academic scene, the subject of a cover story in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and a major profile in The Boston Globe, and a much sought-after commentator. And as one of America's foremost advocates of
African-American Studies (he is head of the department at Harvard), he has reflected upon the varied meanings of multiculturalism throughout his professional career, long before it became a national controversy. What we find in these pages, then, is the fruit of years of reflection on culture,
racism, and the "American identity," and a deep commitment to broadening the literary and cultural horizons of all Americans.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1993
Summary: Multiculturalism. It has been the subject of cover stories in Time and Newsweek, as well as numerous articles in newspapers and magazines around America. It has sparked heated jeremiads by George Will, Dinesh D'Sousa, and Roger Kimball. It moved William F. Buckley to rail against Stanley Fish
and Catherine Stimpson on "Firing Line." It is arguably the most hotly debated topic in America today--and justly so. For whether one speaks of tensions between Hasidim and African-Americans in Crown Heights, or violent mass protests against Moscow in ethnic republics such as Armenia, or outright
war between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia, it is clear that the clash of cultures is a worldwide problem, deeply felt, passionately expressed, always on the verge of violent explosion. Problems of this magnitude inevitably frame the discussion of "multiculturalism" and "cultural
diversity" in the American classroom as well.
In Loose Canons, one of America's leading literary and cultural critics, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., offers a broad, illuminating look at this highly contentious issue. Gates agrees that our world is deeply divided by nationalism, racism, and sexism, and argues that the only way to transcend
these divisions--to forge a civic culture that respects both differences and similarities--is through education that respects both the diversity and commonalities of human culture. His is a plea for cultural and intercultural understanding. (You can't understand the world, he observes, if you
exclude 90 percent of the world's cultural heritage.) We feel his ideas most strongly voiced in the concluding essay in the volume, "Trading on the Margin." Avoiding the stridency of both the Right and the Left, Gates concludes that the society we have made simply won't survive without the values of
tolerance, and cultural tolerance comes to nothing without cultural understanding.
Henry Louis Gates is one of the most visible and outspoken figures on the academic scene, the subject of a cover story in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and a major profile in The Boston Globe, and a much sought-after commentator. And as one of America's foremost advocates of
African-American Studies (he is head of the department at Harvard), he has reflected upon the varied meanings of multiculturalism throughout his professional career, long before it became a national controversy. What we find in these pages, then, is the fruit of years of reflection on culture,
racism, and the "American identity," and a deep commitment to broadening the literary and cultural horizons of all Americans.
Author: Ian K. Steele
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1995
Summary: In 1513, only a few years before Cortes conquered the Aztec empire, Juan Ponce de Leon and three shiploads of conquistadores landed just south of what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish adventurers, however, were quickly driven away by the Timucua people; further landings were
similarly defeated by the extraordinary archers of the Calusa, who ultimately took the lives of Hernandez de Cordoba and Ponce de Leon himself. Clearly, the European experience in North America would be a far cry from their swift victories over the Aztecs and Incas.
A panoramic history of the numerous European invasions of North America, this book paints a dramatic new portrait of the centuries of warfare that shook the continent. From the defeat of Ponce de Leon in 1513 to a negotiated peace with the British in 1765, Steele's fascinating account destroys
the old image of technologically advanced Europeans overrunning primitive savages, and reveals how Amerindians rose to the challenge of each successive invasion with martial and diplomatic skill. In war after war, the Amerindians and Europeans battled in a precarious balance, adapting each other's
technology and tactics and seeking each other out as allies and supply sources for food and weapons. Steele follows the experience of the Spanish at San Agustin, the English at Jamestown and Plymouth, the French at Quebec, and the Dutch at Albany, revealing the vast range of Amerindian strategies
for coping with the invaders.
The conflicts that erupted with the European arrival have long been distorted by myth and self-congratulatory folklore. Warpaths offers students of American history and Native American studies a startling new look at this pivotal era, combining social, cultural, and military history to provide
a more nuanced portrait of the violence that gave birth to modern North America.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1995
Summary: In 1513, only a few years before Cortes conquered the Aztec empire, Juan Ponce de Leon and three shiploads of conquistadores landed just south of what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish adventurers, however, were quickly driven away by the Timucua people; further landings were
similarly defeated by the extraordinary archers of the Calusa, who ultimately took the lives of Hernandez de Cordoba and Ponce de Leon himself. Clearly, the European experience in North America would be a far cry from their swift victories over the Aztecs and Incas.
A panoramic history of the numerous European invasions of North America, this book paints a dramatic new portrait of the centuries of warfare that shook the continent. From the defeat of Ponce de Leon in 1513 to a negotiated peace with the British in 1765, Steele's fascinating account destroys
the old image of technologically advanced Europeans overrunning primitive savages, and reveals how Amerindians rose to the challenge of each successive invasion with martial and diplomatic skill. In war after war, the Amerindians and Europeans battled in a precarious balance, adapting each other's
technology and tactics and seeking each other out as allies and supply sources for food and weapons. Steele follows the experience of the Spanish at San Agustin, the English at Jamestown and Plymouth, the French at Quebec, and the Dutch at Albany, revealing the vast range of Amerindian strategies
for coping with the invaders.
The conflicts that erupted with the European arrival have long been distorted by myth and self-congratulatory folklore. Warpaths offers students of American history and Native American studies a startling new look at this pivotal era, combining social, cultural, and military history to provide
a more nuanced portrait of the violence that gave birth to modern North America.
Author: Christopher Peterson, Steven F. Maier, Martin E. P. Seligman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1995
Summary: When experience with uncontrollable events gives rise to the expectation that events in the future will also elude control, disruptions in motivation, emotion, and learning may ensue. "Learned helplessness" refers to the problems that arise in the wake of uncontrollability. First described
in the 1960s among laboratory animals, learned helplessness has since been applied to a variety of human problems entailing inappropriate passivity and demoralization. While learned helplessness is best known as an explanation of depression, studies with both people and animals have mapped out the
cognitive and biological aspects. The present volume, written by some of the most widely recognized leaders in the field, summarizes and integrates the theory, research, and application of learned helplessness. Each line of work is evaluated critically in terms of what is and is not known, and
future directions are sketched. More generally, psychiatrists and psychologists in various specialties will be interested in the book's argument that a theory emphasizing personal control is of particular interest in the here and now, as individuality and control are such salient cultural
topics.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1995
Summary: When experience with uncontrollable events gives rise to the expectation that events in the future will also elude control, disruptions in motivation, emotion, and learning may ensue. "Learned helplessness" refers to the problems that arise in the wake of uncontrollability. First described
in the 1960s among laboratory animals, learned helplessness has since been applied to a variety of human problems entailing inappropriate passivity and demoralization. While learned helplessness is best known as an explanation of depression, studies with both people and animals have mapped out the
cognitive and biological aspects. The present volume, written by some of the most widely recognized leaders in the field, summarizes and integrates the theory, research, and application of learned helplessness. Each line of work is evaluated critically in terms of what is and is not known, and
future directions are sketched. More generally, psychiatrists and psychologists in various specialties will be interested in the book's argument that a theory emphasizing personal control is of particular interest in the here and now, as individuality and control are such salient cultural
topics.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: California seems to have been the source of almost every cultural trend that defines modern America--often in contradictory ways. Consider the waves of conservative and progressive politics, self-love and selflessness, sushi and Big Macs, great literature, and banal films. "Inventing the Dream" traces this extraordinary state through the early years of the 20th century, when Americans began to flock westward and Los Angeles grew from a town of 50,000 to a large city of 320,000 in justa couple of decades. By 1926, Starr writes, Hollywood was the United States' fifth-largest industry, grossing $1.5 billion a year and accounting for 90 percent of the world's films--and, of course, changing the values of whole cultures. This is a fine work of historical reconstruction, joining Starr's other well-regarded works of Californiana.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: California seems to have been the source of almost every cultural trend that defines modern America--often in contradictory ways. Consider the waves of conservative and progressive politics, self-love and selflessness, sushi and Big Macs, great literature, and banal films. "Inventing the Dream" traces this extraordinary state through the early years of the 20th century, when Americans began to flock westward and Los Angeles grew from a town of 50,000 to a large city of 320,000 in justa couple of decades. By 1926, Starr writes, Hollywood was the United States' fifth-largest industry, grossing $1.5 billion a year and accounting for 90 percent of the world's films--and, of course, changing the values of whole cultures. This is a fine work of historical reconstruction, joining Starr's other well-regarded works of Californiana.
Author: Kevin Starr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: Part Two Of Two Parts
The emergence of California as a regional civilization in the late nineteenth century was far more than a dramatic and colorful chapter in American history. Probing the inner experience of California's formative years, Starr blends fact and historical vision with striking metaphor to re-create the nature of the California dream and reveal its significance as a social, psychological and symbolic enterprise. Commemorative in approach, this totally engaging work shows how the land and the people interacted to form a distinct and fascinating culture. While dramatizing the debate over what California was and what it should be, Starr also exposes the fallacies and contradictions inherent in the dream itself. All the ferment of the state's history is presented here as the citizens themselves lived through it.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: Part Two Of Two Parts
The emergence of California as a regional civilization in the late nineteenth century was far more than a dramatic and colorful chapter in American history. Probing the inner experience of California's formative years, Starr blends fact and historical vision with striking metaphor to re-create the nature of the California dream and reveal its significance as a social, psychological and symbolic enterprise. Commemorative in approach, this totally engaging work shows how the land and the people interacted to form a distinct and fascinating culture. While dramatizing the debate over what California was and what it should be, Starr also exposes the fallacies and contradictions inherent in the dream itself. All the ferment of the state's history is presented here as the citizens themselves lived through it.
Author: David F. Noble
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: Focusing on the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry--the heart of the modern industrial economy--this is a provocative study of how automation has assumed a critical role in America. David Noble argues that industrial automation--more than merely a technological
advance--is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how
engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1986
Summary: Focusing on the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry--the heart of the modern industrial economy--this is a provocative study of how automation has assumed a critical role in America. David Noble argues that industrial automation--more than merely a technological
advance--is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how
engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.
Author: Max Weber, H.H. Gerth, C. Wright Mills
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1958
Summary: Introducing the student to the work of a great sociologist, this book opens with a comprehensive biographical essay on Weber's life and work and includes his essays on science and politics, power, religion, and social structures.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1958
Summary: Introducing the student to the work of a great sociologist, this book opens with a comprehensive biographical essay on Weber's life and work and includes his essays on science and politics, power, religion, and social structures.
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: Crossley-Holland--the widely acclaimed translator of Old English texts--introduces the Anglo-Saxons through their chronicles, laws, letters, charters, and poetry, with many of the greatest surviving poems printed in their entirety.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: Crossley-Holland--the widely acclaimed translator of Old English texts--introduces the Anglo-Saxons through their chronicles, laws, letters, charters, and poetry, with many of the greatest surviving poems printed in their entirety.
Author: George Du Maurier, Dennis Denisoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: First published in 1894, the story of the diva Trilby O'Ferrall and her mentor, Svengali, has entered the mythology of that period alongside Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. Immensely popular for years, the novel led to a hit play, a series of popular films, Trilby products from hats to
ice-cream, and streets in Florida named after characters in the book. The setting reflects Du Maurier's bohemian years as an art student in Paris before he went to London to make a career in journalism. A celebrated caricaturist for Punch magazine, Du Maurier's drawings for the novel--of which his
most significant are included here--form a large part of its appeal.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: First published in 1894, the story of the diva Trilby O'Ferrall and her mentor, Svengali, has entered the mythology of that period alongside Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. Immensely popular for years, the novel led to a hit play, a series of popular films, Trilby products from hats to
ice-cream, and streets in Florida named after characters in the book. The setting reflects Du Maurier's bohemian years as an art student in Paris before he went to London to make a career in journalism. A celebrated caricaturist for Punch magazine, Du Maurier's drawings for the novel--of which his
most significant are included here--form a large part of its appeal.
Author: Tacitus
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: Cornelius Tacitus, Rome's greatest historian and the last great writer of classical Latin prose, produced his first two books in AD 98, after the assination of the Emperor Domitian ended fifteen years of enforced silence. Much of Agricola, which is the biography of Tacitus' late father-in-law
Julius Agricola, is devoted to Britain and its people, since Agricola's claim to fame was that as governor for seven years he had completed the conquest of Britain, begun four decades earlier. Germany provides an account of Rome's most dangerous enemies, the Germans, and is the only surviving
example of an ethnographic study from the ancient world. Each book in its way has had immense influence on our perception of Rome and the northern barbarians. This edition reflects recent research in Roman-British and Roman-German history and includes newly discovered evidence on Tacitus' early
career.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Release: 1999
Summary: Cornelius Tacitus, Rome's greatest historian and the last great writer of classical Latin prose, produced his first two books in AD 98, after the assination of the Emperor Domitian ended fifteen years of enforced silence. Much of Agricola, which is the biography of Tacitus' late father-in-law
Julius Agricola, is devoted to Britain and its people, since Agricola's claim to fame was that as governor for seven years he had completed the conquest of Britain, begun four decades earlier. Germany provides an account of Rome's most dangerous enemies, the Germans, and is the only surviving
example of an ethnographic study from the ancient world. Each book in its way has had immense influence on our perception of Rome and the northern barbarians. This edition reflects recent research in Roman-British and Roman-German history and includes newly discovered evidence on Tacitus' early
career.
Author: Hannah Arendt
Publisher: Harvest Books
Release: 1973
Summary: Generally regarded as the definitive work on totalitarianism, this book is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political movements. Arendt was one of the first to recognize that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were two sides of the same coin rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. “With the Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt emerges as the most original and profound-therefore the most valuable-political theoretician of our times” (New Leader). Index.
Publisher: Harvest Books
Release: 1973
Summary: Generally regarded as the definitive work on totalitarianism, this book is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political movements. Arendt was one of the first to recognize that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were two sides of the same coin rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. “With the Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt emerges as the most original and profound-therefore the most valuable-political theoretician of our times” (New Leader). Index.
Author: C. G. Jung
Publisher: Harvest/HBJ Book
Release: 1955
Summary: A very insightful and meaningful book, 11 intriguing essays in 244 pages. Jung is a deeper thinker, and I think not reductive like Freud and Adler tended to be. He makes no claim to dogmatism or absolutes. Jung really hits on the psyche and transcends the borders of rational intelligence into areas of the unconscious expressions in symbolism and images.
I am going to argue against another reviewer here that gave this book 4 stars as being outdated. When I look at the present collective societal structure and current cultural pattern apart from the minority of advanced individuals, I can see the postmodern man has regressed far from the modern man of the 1930's in search of a soul. Of course there as been advances individually, but on a collective level; fundamentalism, religious literalism, nationalism, patriotism and one-sided thinking This has grown in major proportions as opposed to the other way around and it is far more serious than most even realize and patterns after historical events of very similiar nature.
The first essay on dream-analysis hits on the idea that dreams are very hard to interpret and suggests that understanding the circumstances and conditions of the conscious life is significant in relation to the dreams of the unconscious life.
On the problems of psychotherapy, Jung relates four stages of analytical psychology, the confessional, explanation, education and transformation
"The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form - an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other." p. 61
The essay on the personality types is short, non-exhaustive and briefly relates Jung's ideas of the introvert, the extrovert and the 4 basic types consisting of those persons who are thinkers, feelers, sensory and intuitive.
In his essay on the stages of life, Jung ventures beyond childhood into early adulthood and the expansion of the self into sexual desires and masculine and feminine traits and how after somewhere in the 40's there begins a contraction of the self where men may acquire more feminine traits and women more masculine. In the second half of life less is needed to educate his conscious will but more aim towards the inner being, until old age where one leaves the rational self and retreats into the psyche as children yet in a different sense.
Jung acknowledges the validity of Freud and Adler and their valuable contributions, yet Jung sees Freud's sexual reduction to all neurosis as limiting, as well as Adler's will to power over inferiority as the sole cause. Both views have proven themselves as valid in many cases, yet Jung finds there is far much more levels in what he calls "value intensities," which underlie many complexes.
Jung also briefly goes into the archaic man's interpretation of all chance events having external meanings and causes, or as causal occurrences and the contrast of the modern man's ability to see the majority of chance and unexplainable events as the human imagination, as the perception of the human. Also the same ability of assumptions in the archaic man, can be seen in the modern who uses science as the foundation over the supernatural.
Jung's essay on psychology and literature is my favorite essay. It hits on something I both think of and am affected by almost every day. I found this entirely meaningful and very much profound. In this he writes of two types of writers; those that explain all they write of and those that have visions where their writing is obscure and needs the psychologist to read into. It is those visionaries that are the most inspiring. Here there exists those as in The Shepherd of Hermas, in Dante, in the second part of Faust, in Nietzsche's Dionysian exuberance, in Wagner's Nihelungenriing, in Spitteler's Olympischer Fruhling, in the poetry of William Blake, in the lpnerotomachia of the monk Francesco Colonna, and in Jacob Boehme's philosophic and poetic stammerings.
Jung speaks of the human intuition that points to things that are unknown and hidden, and by our very nature are secret and that throughout human history this unfathomable primordial source of creative experience been expressed in images, as in the sun-wheel, in attempting to point to this. The artist and poet will resort to mythology and images which only appear to occur in dreams, cases of insanity, narcotic states and eclipses of consciousness.
"A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says; "you ought," or "this is the truth." It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions." p. 171
I really can't even begin to touch on all the vital, significant and soul inspiring information that is loaded in the pages of this book and I think as I try I am taking away from what's written far better than what I'll ever write. I recommend this book.
Publisher: Harvest/HBJ Book
Release: 1955
Summary: A very insightful and meaningful book, 11 intriguing essays in 244 pages. Jung is a deeper thinker, and I think not reductive like Freud and Adler tended to be. He makes no claim to dogmatism or absolutes. Jung really hits on the psyche and transcends the borders of rational intelligence into areas of the unconscious expressions in symbolism and images.
I am going to argue against another reviewer here that gave this book 4 stars as being outdated. When I look at the present collective societal structure and current cultural pattern apart from the minority of advanced individuals, I can see the postmodern man has regressed far from the modern man of the 1930's in search of a soul. Of course there as been advances individually, but on a collective level; fundamentalism, religious literalism, nationalism, patriotism and one-sided thinking This has grown in major proportions as opposed to the other way around and it is far more serious than most even realize and patterns after historical events of very similiar nature.
The first essay on dream-analysis hits on the idea that dreams are very hard to interpret and suggests that understanding the circumstances and conditions of the conscious life is significant in relation to the dreams of the unconscious life.
On the problems of psychotherapy, Jung relates four stages of analytical psychology, the confessional, explanation, education and transformation
"The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form - an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other." p. 61
The essay on the personality types is short, non-exhaustive and briefly relates Jung's ideas of the introvert, the extrovert and the 4 basic types consisting of those persons who are thinkers, feelers, sensory and intuitive.
In his essay on the stages of life, Jung ventures beyond childhood into early adulthood and the expansion of the self into sexual desires and masculine and feminine traits and how after somewhere in the 40's there begins a contraction of the self where men may acquire more feminine traits and women more masculine. In the second half of life less is needed to educate his conscious will but more aim towards the inner being, until old age where one leaves the rational self and retreats into the psyche as children yet in a different sense.
Jung acknowledges the validity of Freud and Adler and their valuable contributions, yet Jung sees Freud's sexual reduction to all neurosis as limiting, as well as Adler's will to power over inferiority as the sole cause. Both views have proven themselves as valid in many cases, yet Jung finds there is far much more levels in what he calls "value intensities," which underlie many complexes.
Jung also briefly goes into the archaic man's interpretation of all chance events having external meanings and causes, or as causal occurrences and the contrast of the modern man's ability to see the majority of chance and unexplainable events as the human imagination, as the perception of the human. Also the same ability of assumptions in the archaic man, can be seen in the modern who uses science as the foundation over the supernatural.
Jung's essay on psychology and literature is my favorite essay. It hits on something I both think of and am affected by almost every day. I found this entirely meaningful and very much profound. In this he writes of two types of writers; those that explain all they write of and those that have visions where their writing is obscure and needs the psychologist to read into. It is those visionaries that are the most inspiring. Here there exists those as in The Shepherd of Hermas, in Dante, in the second part of Faust, in Nietzsche's Dionysian exuberance, in Wagner's Nihelungenriing, in Spitteler's Olympischer Fruhling, in the poetry of William Blake, in the lpnerotomachia of the monk Francesco Colonna, and in Jacob Boehme's philosophic and poetic stammerings.
Jung speaks of the human intuition that points to things that are unknown and hidden, and by our very nature are secret and that throughout human history this unfathomable primordial source of creative experience been expressed in images, as in the sun-wheel, in attempting to point to this. The artist and poet will resort to mythology and images which only appear to occur in dreams, cases of insanity, narcotic states and eclipses of consciousness.
"A great work of art is like a dream; for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says; "you ought," or "this is the truth." It presents an image in much the same way as nature allows a plant to grow, and we must draw our own conclusions." p. 171
I really can't even begin to touch on all the vital, significant and soul inspiring information that is loaded in the pages of this book and I think as I try I am taking away from what's written far better than what I'll ever write. I recommend this book.
Author: Laurens Van Der Post
Publisher: Harvest Books
Release: 1977
Summary: An account of the author’s grueling, but ultimately successful, journey in 1957, through Africa’s remote, primitive Kalahari Desert, in search of the legendary Bushmen, the hunters who pray to the great hunters in the sky.
Publisher: Harvest Books
Release: 1977
Summary: An account of the author’s grueling, but ultimately successful, journey in 1957, through Africa’s remote, primitive Kalahari Desert, in search of the legendary Bushmen, the hunters who pray to the great hunters in the sky.
Author: Virginia Woolf, Anne Oliver Bell
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 1979
Summary: "The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume One: 1915-1919" was truly magnificent. I never was so interested in every day, mundane goings-on as I was while reading this diary. As a journal keeper, I was in awe over the way she expressed her thoughts and explained her day(s). I've never read anything by her, but in reading this has really sparked my interest. Editor Oliver Bell put much time and hard work into this book, but I found the footnotes on the bottom of the pages bothersome, and it took me a while to get used to them being there. If you're interested in Virginia Woolf, then read her diary. I recommend.
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 1979
Summary: "The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume One: 1915-1919" was truly magnificent. I never was so interested in every day, mundane goings-on as I was while reading this diary. As a journal keeper, I was in awe over the way she expressed her thoughts and explained her day(s). I've never read anything by her, but in reading this has really sparked my interest. Editor Oliver Bell put much time and hard work into this book, but I found the footnotes on the bottom of the pages bothersome, and it took me a while to get used to them being there. If you're interested in Virginia Woolf, then read her diary. I recommend.
Author: Haynes Johnson
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 2005
Summary: For five long years in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-Communist crusade dominated the American scene, terrified politicians, and destroyed the lives of thousands of our citizens. In this masterful history, Haynes Johnson re-creates that time of crisis-of President Eisenhower, who hated McCarthy but would not attack him; of the Republican senators who cynically used McCarthy to win their own elections; of Edward R. Murrow, whose courageous TV broadcast began McCarthy's downfall; and of mild-mannered lawyer Joseph Welch, who finally shamed McCarthy into silence.
Johnson tells this monumental story through the lens of its relevance to our own time, when fear again affects American behavior and attitudes, for he believes now, as then, that our civil liberties, our Constitution, and our nation are at stake as we confront the ever more difficult task of balancing the need for national security with that of personal liberty.
Compelling narrative history, insightful political commentary, and intimate personal remembrance combine to make The Age of Anxiety a vitally important book for our time.
"Extremism-and the suspicion and hatred it engenders-may be Joe McCarthy's most lasting legacy . . . For these and other reasons, while McCarthy and the leading players of his time- Truman and Acheson, Eisenhower and Nixon, the Kennedy brothers and LBJ, Cohn and Schine, Stalin and Mao-have long since passed from the scene, McCarthyism remains a story without an end". -f rom the book.
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 2005
Summary: For five long years in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-Communist crusade dominated the American scene, terrified politicians, and destroyed the lives of thousands of our citizens. In this masterful history, Haynes Johnson re-creates that time of crisis-of President Eisenhower, who hated McCarthy but would not attack him; of the Republican senators who cynically used McCarthy to win their own elections; of Edward R. Murrow, whose courageous TV broadcast began McCarthy's downfall; and of mild-mannered lawyer Joseph Welch, who finally shamed McCarthy into silence.
Johnson tells this monumental story through the lens of its relevance to our own time, when fear again affects American behavior and attitudes, for he believes now, as then, that our civil liberties, our Constitution, and our nation are at stake as we confront the ever more difficult task of balancing the need for national security with that of personal liberty.
Compelling narrative history, insightful political commentary, and intimate personal remembrance combine to make The Age of Anxiety a vitally important book for our time.
"Extremism-and the suspicion and hatred it engenders-may be Joe McCarthy's most lasting legacy . . . For these and other reasons, while McCarthy and the leading players of his time- Truman and Acheson, Eisenhower and Nixon, the Kennedy brothers and LBJ, Cohn and Schine, Stalin and Mao-have long since passed from the scene, McCarthyism remains a story without an end". -f rom the book.
Author: Robert Greenfield
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 2006
Summary: To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra, and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. A charismatic and brilliant psychologist, Leary became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s while teaching at Harvard, where he not only encouraged but instituted their experimental use among students and faculty. What began as research into human consciousness turned into a mission to alter consciousness itself. Leary transformed himself from serious social scientist into counterculture shaman, embodying the idealism and the hedonism of an age of revolutionary change.
Timothy Leary is the first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America.
Publisher: Harcourt
Release: 2006
Summary: To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra, and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. A charismatic and brilliant psychologist, Leary became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s while teaching at Harvard, where he not only encouraged but instituted their experimental use among students and faculty. What began as research into human consciousness turned into a mission to alter consciousness itself. Leary transformed himself from serious social scientist into counterculture shaman, embodying the idealism and the hedonism of an age of revolutionary change.
Timothy Leary is the first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America.
Author: Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: Complex, ambitious, disquieting, and ultimately hopeful, "Multitude" is the work of a couple of writers and thinkers who dare to address the great issues of our time from a truly alternative perspective. The sequel to 2001's equally bold and demanding "Empire" continues in the vein of the earlier tome. Where "Empire"'s central premise was that the time of nation-state power grabs was passing as a new global order made up of "a new form of sovereignty" consisting of corporations, global-wide institutions, and other command centers is in ascendancy, "Multitude" focuses on the masses within the empire, except that, where academics Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are concerned, this body is defined by its diversity rather than its commonalities. The challenge for the multitude in this new era is "for the social multiplicity to manage to communicate and act in common while remaining internally different." One may already be rereading that last sentence. Indeed, "Empire" isn't breezy reading. But for those aren't afraid of wadding into a knotty philosophical and political discourse of uncommon breadth, "Multitude" offers many rewards. "--Steven Stolder"
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: Complex, ambitious, disquieting, and ultimately hopeful, "Multitude" is the work of a couple of writers and thinkers who dare to address the great issues of our time from a truly alternative perspective. The sequel to 2001's equally bold and demanding "Empire" continues in the vein of the earlier tome. Where "Empire"'s central premise was that the time of nation-state power grabs was passing as a new global order made up of "a new form of sovereignty" consisting of corporations, global-wide institutions, and other command centers is in ascendancy, "Multitude" focuses on the masses within the empire, except that, where academics Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are concerned, this body is defined by its diversity rather than its commonalities. The challenge for the multitude in this new era is "for the social multiplicity to manage to communicate and act in common while remaining internally different." One may already be rereading that last sentence. Indeed, "Empire" isn't breezy reading. But for those aren't afraid of wadding into a knotty philosophical and political discourse of uncommon breadth, "Multitude" offers many rewards. "--Steven Stolder"
Author: Richard J. Evans
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world's most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. "The Coming of the Third Reich" is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world's most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. "The Coming of the Third Reich" is a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.
Author: Sigmund Freud
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 2003
Summary: Freud was fascinated by the mysteries of creativity and the imagination. The groundbreaking works that comprise "The Uncanny" present some of his most influential explorations of the mind. In these pieces Freud investigates the vivid but seemingly trivial childhood memories that often "screen" deeply uncomfortable desires; the links between literature and daydreaming; and our intensely mixed feelings about things we experience as "uncanny." Also included is Freud's celebrated study of Leonardo Da Vinci-his first exercise in psychobiography.
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 2003
Summary: Freud was fascinated by the mysteries of creativity and the imagination. The groundbreaking works that comprise "The Uncanny" present some of his most influential explorations of the mind. In these pieces Freud investigates the vivid but seemingly trivial childhood memories that often "screen" deeply uncomfortable desires; the links between literature and daydreaming; and our intensely mixed feelings about things we experience as "uncanny." Also included is Freud's celebrated study of Leonardo Da Vinci-his first exercise in psychobiography.
Author: Armand Marie Leroi
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, "Mutants" gives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic code and the captivating people whose bodies have revealed it—a French convent girl who found herself changing sex at puberty; children who, echoing Homer's Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; one family, whose bodies were entirely covered with hair, was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations and gave Darwin one of his keenest insights into heredity. This elegant, humane, and engaging book “captures what we know of the development of what makes us human” ("Nature").
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2005
Summary: Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, "Mutants" gives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic code and the captivating people whose bodies have revealed it—a French convent girl who found herself changing sex at puberty; children who, echoing Homer's Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; one family, whose bodies were entirely covered with hair, was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations and gave Darwin one of his keenest insights into heredity. This elegant, humane, and engaging book “captures what we know of the development of what makes us human” ("Nature").
Author: Adam Zamoyski
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2001
Summary: In "Holy Madness", Adam Zamoyski has written a history of revolutions, and of the romantic and sometimes ridiculous revolutionaries who inspired them. But because revolution was so ubiquitous an activity in the 19th century, what he has actually produced is a comprehensive account of Western civilization from 1776 to 1871. Inspired by the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789), the whole of Europe, and large portions of the rest of the world, was regularly convulsed by the urge to fashion Utopia on Earth. Zamoyski manages to flesh out these events with well-chosen detail and a fine sense of the touching comic-heroics they often entailed, as well as the bloodletting and the horror. As a historian of Poland, Zamoyski untangles the many uprisings in Eastern Europe with particular aplomb, but his account of France is also adept, with a vivid portrayal of the idealism of the Paris Commune, overthrown in 1871.
"Holy Madness" advances a particular argument: that the century of revolutionary upheaval was the direct result of the waning of religion as a universal human-value system. Post-Enlightenment men and women turned to the ecstasies of patriotism and revolution to fill the void left by belief in God, hoping to construct a paradise on Earth rather than wait for one in heaven. According to this thesis, revolution was a new theology: "The theology may have been shaky, but the new religion did have a god. That god was the sovereign nation, whose service was the highest calling, as countless revolutionary catechisms pointed out." It's an ingenious line, worked through thoroughly, although it doesn't explain everything--for instance, why Britain was almost entirely free of revolutionary upset during the same period. But this is thought-provoking and well-made historical writing. "--Adam Roberts, Amazon.co.uk"
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 2001
Summary: In "Holy Madness", Adam Zamoyski has written a history of revolutions, and of the romantic and sometimes ridiculous revolutionaries who inspired them. But because revolution was so ubiquitous an activity in the 19th century, what he has actually produced is a comprehensive account of Western civilization from 1776 to 1871. Inspired by the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789), the whole of Europe, and large portions of the rest of the world, was regularly convulsed by the urge to fashion Utopia on Earth. Zamoyski manages to flesh out these events with well-chosen detail and a fine sense of the touching comic-heroics they often entailed, as well as the bloodletting and the horror. As a historian of Poland, Zamoyski untangles the many uprisings in Eastern Europe with particular aplomb, but his account of France is also adept, with a vivid portrayal of the idealism of the Paris Commune, overthrown in 1871.
"Holy Madness" advances a particular argument: that the century of revolutionary upheaval was the direct result of the waning of religion as a universal human-value system. Post-Enlightenment men and women turned to the ecstasies of patriotism and revolution to fill the void left by belief in God, hoping to construct a paradise on Earth rather than wait for one in heaven. According to this thesis, revolution was a new theology: "The theology may have been shaky, but the new religion did have a god. That god was the sovereign nation, whose service was the highest calling, as countless revolutionary catechisms pointed out." It's an ingenious line, worked through thoroughly, although it doesn't explain everything--for instance, why Britain was almost entirely free of revolutionary upset during the same period. But this is thought-provoking and well-made historical writing. "--Adam Roberts, Amazon.co.uk"
Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1962
Summary: The eighteen chapters of "The Bhagavad Gita" (c. 500 b.c.), the glory of Sanskrit literature, encompass the whole spiritual struggle of a human soul. Its three central themes-love, light, and life-arise from the symphonic vision of God in all things and of all things in God.
Translated by Juan Mascaró
Introduction by Simon Brodbeck
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1962
Summary: The eighteen chapters of "The Bhagavad Gita" (c. 500 b.c.), the glory of Sanskrit literature, encompass the whole spiritual struggle of a human soul. Its three central themes-love, light, and life-arise from the symphonic vision of God in all things and of all things in God.
Translated by Juan Mascaró
Introduction by Simon Brodbeck
Author: Jean Ziegler
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1999
Summary: At what price neutrality? For the 50 years following World War II, Switzerland has maintained that whatever collaboration it may have engaged in with Nazi Germany was undertaken in hopes of avoiding invasion. Recently, however, foreign governments and the families of Holocaust victims have begun to take an interest in the fate of the many millions of dollars' worth of Jewish gold, works of art, and money that disappeared into numbered Swiss bank accounts during the war, never to be seen again. In "The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead", Swiss professor and parliamentarian Jean Ziegler provides a provocative, damning portrait of the Swiss banking community and his fellow countrymen. According to Ziegler, the global financial power that Switzerland now wields is the direct result of the Nazi plunder laundered in Swiss banks, a result that the Swiss people have accepted without guilt or question. It's not surprising that Ziegler's book is controversial in his own country; the Swiss people are understandably reluctant to accept the complicity of their government in funding Hitler's war effort. What "is" disturbing is the Swiss government's continued attempts to obstruct open discussion of the past. "The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead" will certainly make official denials a little bit harder to swallow.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1999
Summary: At what price neutrality? For the 50 years following World War II, Switzerland has maintained that whatever collaboration it may have engaged in with Nazi Germany was undertaken in hopes of avoiding invasion. Recently, however, foreign governments and the families of Holocaust victims have begun to take an interest in the fate of the many millions of dollars' worth of Jewish gold, works of art, and money that disappeared into numbered Swiss bank accounts during the war, never to be seen again. In "The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead", Swiss professor and parliamentarian Jean Ziegler provides a provocative, damning portrait of the Swiss banking community and his fellow countrymen. According to Ziegler, the global financial power that Switzerland now wields is the direct result of the Nazi plunder laundered in Swiss banks, a result that the Swiss people have accepted without guilt or question. It's not surprising that Ziegler's book is controversial in his own country; the Swiss people are understandably reluctant to accept the complicity of their government in funding Hitler's war effort. What "is" disturbing is the Swiss government's continued attempts to obstruct open discussion of the past. "The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead" will certainly make official denials a little bit harder to swallow.
Author: Dennis Covington
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1996
Summary: "Salvation on Sand Mountain" is a story of snake handling and strychnine drinking, of faith healing and speaking in tongues. It is also the story of one man's search for his roots--and, in the end, of his spiritual renewal. Writer Dennis Covington came to this ecstatic form of Christianity as a reporter covering a sensational murder case; Glen Summerford, pastor of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following, had been accused of attempting to kill his wife with rattlesnakes. There, in a courtroom filled with journalists and gawking spectators, Covington felt the pull of a spirituality that was to dominate his life for the next several years. Attending Summerford's church out of curiosity, he soon forged close friendships with some of the worshippers, began attending snake-handling services throughout the South, and eventually took up snakes himself.
With subject matter this lurid, "Salvation on Sand Mountain" could have been a Southern-fried curiosity and little more. Covington goes far deeper. Tracing the snake handlers' roots in regional history, in the deep spiritual alienation of mountain people from the secular modern world they have so recently joined, Covington is more than just sympathetic to the snake handlers; in a profound way, he considers himself one of them. His reasoning is sometimes flawed--when he attempts to find snake handlers in his own family's past, for instance, the result is belabored and unconvincing--but there's no doubt that Covington's heart is in the right place. He's also not without his own brand of sly gallows humor, as in this conversation with the elderly Gracie McAllister: "She'd swore she'd never handle rattlesnakes in July again. She'd been bit the previous two Julys. 'I decided I'd just handle fire and drink strychnine that night,' she said. "Good idea", I thought. It always pays to be on the safe side."
Covington eventually breaks with the snake handlers, but comes away from the experience a changed man. "Knowing where you come from is one thing, but it's suicide to stay there," he writes. An American Book Award winner and finalist for the National Book Award, "Salvation on Sand Mountain" is a nuanced, compassionate portrait of an unforgettable spiritual journey. "--Mary Park"
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1996
Summary: "Salvation on Sand Mountain" is a story of snake handling and strychnine drinking, of faith healing and speaking in tongues. It is also the story of one man's search for his roots--and, in the end, of his spiritual renewal. Writer Dennis Covington came to this ecstatic form of Christianity as a reporter covering a sensational murder case; Glen Summerford, pastor of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following, had been accused of attempting to kill his wife with rattlesnakes. There, in a courtroom filled with journalists and gawking spectators, Covington felt the pull of a spirituality that was to dominate his life for the next several years. Attending Summerford's church out of curiosity, he soon forged close friendships with some of the worshippers, began attending snake-handling services throughout the South, and eventually took up snakes himself.
With subject matter this lurid, "Salvation on Sand Mountain" could have been a Southern-fried curiosity and little more. Covington goes far deeper. Tracing the snake handlers' roots in regional history, in the deep spiritual alienation of mountain people from the secular modern world they have so recently joined, Covington is more than just sympathetic to the snake handlers; in a profound way, he considers himself one of them. His reasoning is sometimes flawed--when he attempts to find snake handlers in his own family's past, for instance, the result is belabored and unconvincing--but there's no doubt that Covington's heart is in the right place. He's also not without his own brand of sly gallows humor, as in this conversation with the elderly Gracie McAllister: "She'd swore she'd never handle rattlesnakes in July again. She'd been bit the previous two Julys. 'I decided I'd just handle fire and drink strychnine that night,' she said. "Good idea", I thought. It always pays to be on the safe side."
Covington eventually breaks with the snake handlers, but comes away from the experience a changed man. "Knowing where you come from is one thing, but it's suicide to stay there," he writes. An American Book Award winner and finalist for the National Book Award, "Salvation on Sand Mountain" is a nuanced, compassionate portrait of an unforgettable spiritual journey. "--Mary Park"
Author: G. I. Gurdjieff
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1999
Summary: Begun in 1934, this final volume of Gurdjieff's trilogy, "All and Everything", is a primary source for Gurdjieff's ideas, methods, and biography. Gurdjieff offers guidance to his "community of seekers," through a selection of talks given in 1930, autobiographical material crucial to understanding his ideas, and the incomplete essay "The Outer and Inner World of Man." Available for the first time in paperback, this is the ultimate piece of Gurdjieff's work that his numerous followers have been waiting for.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1999
Summary: Begun in 1934, this final volume of Gurdjieff's trilogy, "All and Everything", is a primary source for Gurdjieff's ideas, methods, and biography. Gurdjieff offers guidance to his "community of seekers," through a selection of talks given in 1930, autobiographical material crucial to understanding his ideas, and the incomplete essay "The Outer and Inner World of Man." Available for the first time in paperback, this is the ultimate piece of Gurdjieff's work that his numerous followers have been waiting for.
Author: Michael Murphy
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1997
Summary: Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy's divine meditation on the royal and ancient game defied categorization when it was first published in 1972, and it still does. Instantly hailed as a classic, "Golf in the Kingdom" is an altogether unique confluence of fiction, philosophy, myth, mysticism, enchantment, and golf instruction. The central character is a wily Scotsman named Shivas Irons, a golf professional by vocation and a shaman by design, whom Murphy, as participant in his own novel, meets in 1956 on the links of Burningbush, in Fife. The story of their round of golf together culminates in a wild night of whiskey and wisdom where, as Shivas demonstrates how the swing reflects the soul, their golf quite literally takes on a metaphysical glow. The events alter not only Murphy's game, but they also radically alter his mind and inner vision; it's truly unforgettable. For a golfer, Murphy's masterpiece is as essential as a set of clubs.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1997
Summary: Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy's divine meditation on the royal and ancient game defied categorization when it was first published in 1972, and it still does. Instantly hailed as a classic, "Golf in the Kingdom" is an altogether unique confluence of fiction, philosophy, myth, mysticism, enchantment, and golf instruction. The central character is a wily Scotsman named Shivas Irons, a golf professional by vocation and a shaman by design, whom Murphy, as participant in his own novel, meets in 1956 on the links of Burningbush, in Fife. The story of their round of golf together culminates in a wild night of whiskey and wisdom where, as Shivas demonstrates how the swing reflects the soul, their golf quite literally takes on a metaphysical glow. The events alter not only Murphy's game, but they also radically alter his mind and inner vision; it's truly unforgettable. For a golfer, Murphy's masterpiece is as essential as a set of clubs.
Author: Abraham H. Maslow
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1994
Summary: Maslow makes a good distinction between the peakers and the non-peakers and makes an excellent connection between this and organized religion. His use of the term "non-peakers" is not to refer to people who do not have peak experiences, for he believes that every one has peak experiences but he uses this terminology to refer to a person who is afraid of peak experiences The purpose of organized religion for him is to communicate peak experiences to non-peakers. His position tend to advance personal revelation over dogmatic revelations. The question he leaves unanswered is how personal revelations can be verified or validated? I believe organized religion will help in confirming peak experiences. If not, what most people might call peak experiences might just be neurosis.
He also advances a religious pluralism that will accommodate every person, both the atheist and the believer. Maslow gives us good insights into peak experiences and helps us to appreciate more these experiences. His book is interesting to read and easy to follow. I enjoyed reading the book.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1994
Summary: Maslow makes a good distinction between the peakers and the non-peakers and makes an excellent connection between this and organized religion. His use of the term "non-peakers" is not to refer to people who do not have peak experiences, for he believes that every one has peak experiences but he uses this terminology to refer to a person who is afraid of peak experiences The purpose of organized religion for him is to communicate peak experiences to non-peakers. His position tend to advance personal revelation over dogmatic revelations. The question he leaves unanswered is how personal revelations can be verified or validated? I believe organized religion will help in confirming peak experiences. If not, what most people might call peak experiences might just be neurosis.
He also advances a religious pluralism that will accommodate every person, both the atheist and the believer. Maslow gives us good insights into peak experiences and helps us to appreciate more these experiences. His book is interesting to read and easy to follow. I enjoyed reading the book.
Author: Abraham H. Maslow
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1993
Summary: ....about the possibilities of becoming fully human. This was one of the books that inspired me to study psychology. An eminently sane look at the "higher reaches" from the psychologist who dared to wonder why we study sickness but not health.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1993
Summary: ....about the possibilities of becoming fully human. This was one of the books that inspired me to study psychology. An eminently sane look at the "higher reaches" from the psychologist who dared to wonder why we study sickness but not health.
Author: Jules Cashford, Anne Baring
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1993
Summary: Simply put, this is one of the best books out there on the Many-Named Goddess. The two authors spent over ten years researching and writing this book and it shows. The book traces the evolution of the Divine Feminine from Inanna, to Ishtar, to Isis, to Gaia, to Athena, to Aphrodite, to Cybele, to Sophia and more. Excellent resource for both experts and amateurs.
As for the blissfully ignorant reviewer who states that matriarchical cultures are feminist pseudo-history, I challenge them to find one reputable scholar/archaeologist who believes otherwise. (By 'reputable scholar/archaeologist' I mean someone who isn't going to try to convince me that God made the world in six literal days...)
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1993
Summary: Simply put, this is one of the best books out there on the Many-Named Goddess. The two authors spent over ten years researching and writing this book and it shows. The book traces the evolution of the Divine Feminine from Inanna, to Ishtar, to Isis, to Gaia, to Athena, to Aphrodite, to Cybele, to Sophia and more. Excellent resource for both experts and amateurs.
As for the blissfully ignorant reviewer who states that matriarchical cultures are feminist pseudo-history, I challenge them to find one reputable scholar/archaeologist who believes otherwise. (By 'reputable scholar/archaeologist' I mean someone who isn't going to try to convince me that God made the world in six literal days...)
Author: Thomas Pynchon
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1995
Summary: Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, "Gravity's Rainbow", refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.
Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany.
That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.
Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. "Gravity's Rainbow" uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. "--Tim Appelo"
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1995
Summary: Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, "Gravity's Rainbow", refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky.
Slothrop's father was an unwitting part of the cosmic doublecross. To provide for the boy's future Harvard education, he took cash from the mad German scientist Laszlo Jamf, who performed Pavlovian experiments on the infant Tyrone. Laszlo invented Imipolex G, a new plastic useful in rocket insulation, and conditioned Tyrone's privates to respond to its presence. Now the grown-up Tyrone helplessly senses the Imipolex G in incoming V-2s, and his military superiors are investigating him. Soon he is on the run from legions of bizarre enemies through the phantasmagoric horrors of Germany.
That's just the Imipolex G tip of the shrieking vehicle that is Pynchon's book. It's pretty much impossible to follow a standard plot; one must have faith that each manic episode is connected with the great plot to blow up the world with the ultimate rocket. There is not one story, but a proliferation of characters (Pirate Prentice, Teddy Bloat, Tantivy Mucker-Maffick, Saure Bummer, and more) and events that tantalize the reader with suggestions of vast patterns only just past our comprehension. You will enjoy Pynchon's cartoon inferno far more if you consult Steven Weisenburger's brief companion to the novel, which sorts out Pynchon's blizzard of references to science, history, high culture, and the lowest of jokes. Rest easy: there really is a simple reason why Kekulé von Stradonitz's dream about a serpent biting its tail (which solved the structure of the benzene molecule) belongs in the same novel as the comic-book-hero Plastic Man.
Pynchon doesn't want you to rest easy with solved mysteries, though. "Gravity's Rainbow" uses beautiful prose to induce an altered state of consciousness, a buzz. It's a trip, and it will last. "--Tim Appelo"
Author: Hannah Arendt
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1994
Summary: While living in Argentina in 1960, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped and smuggled to Israel where he was put on trial for crimes against humanity. The "New Yorker" magazine sent Hannah Arendt to cover the trial. While covering the technical aspects of the trial, Arendt also explored the wider themes inherent in the trial, such as the nature of justice, the behavior of the Jewish leadership during the Nazi Régime, and, most controversially, the nature of Evil itself.
Far from being evil incarnate, as the prosecution painted Eichmann, Arendt maintains that he was an average man, a petty bureaucrat interested only in furthering his career, and the evil he did came from the seductive power of the totalitarian state and an unthinking adherence to the Nazi cause. Indeed, Eichmann's only defense during the trial was "I was just following orders."
Arendt's analysis of the seductive nature of evil is a disturbing one. We would like to think that anyone who would perpetrate such horror on the world is different from us, and that such atrocities are rarities in our world. But the history of groups such as the Jews, Kurds, Bosnians, and Native Americans, to name but a few, seems to suggest that such evil is all too commonplace. In revealing Eichmann as the pedestrian little man that he was, Arendt shows us that the veneer of civilization is a thin one indeed.
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Release: 1994
Summary: While living in Argentina in 1960, Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped and smuggled to Israel where he was put on trial for crimes against humanity. The "New Yorker" magazine sent Hannah Arendt to cover the trial. While covering the technical aspects of the trial, Arendt also explored the wider themes inherent in the trial, such as the nature of justice, the behavior of the Jewish leadership during the Nazi Régime, and, most controversially, the nature of Evil itself.
Far from being evil incarnate, as the prosecution painted Eichmann, Arendt maintains that he was an average man, a petty bureaucrat interested only in furthering his career, and the evil he did came from the seductive power of the totalitarian state and an unthinking adherence to the Nazi cause. Indeed, Eichmann's only defense during the trial was "I was just following orders."
Arendt's analysis of the seductive nature of evil is a disturbing one. We would like to think that anyone who would perpetrate such horror on the world is different from us, and that such atrocities are rarities in our world. But the history of groups such as the Jews, Kurds, Bosnians, and Native Americans, to name but a few, seems to suggest that such evil is all too commonplace. In revealing Eichmann as the pedestrian little man that he was, Arendt shows us that the veneer of civilization is a thin one indeed.
Author: Jack Kerouac
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1992
Summary: Kerouac's Big Sur, written after his mega-success with On The Road, could be argued as a very dark, depressing read. On the contrary, I found it very revealing about one of my favorite writers, and his frame of mind at the time.
Given the opportunity to seclude himself from his friends, fame, and drinking to excess in the cabin of a friend, Kerouac sinks into a sort of paranoia and anxiety, and finally gives in to his impulse to return to 'civilization'....and then proceeds to invite a group back to the cabin, leading him to realize that his most recent affair was with a girl he didn't actually love.
The most fascinating aspect of this novel, to me, is not the horrific volume of drinking Kerouac does at this stage of his life, but in the fact that though he was put off by his fame, and being dubbed 'the King of the Beats', and at being hounded by ardent fans who wanted to merely be in his presence...he couldn't stand the isolation.
Also of interest to me was the 'honesty' he put into his feelings about the actions of his fans...they say 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery', but Kerouac seemed to think just the opposite...and all but told his fans/readers to 'get a life' in several passages of the book. Those in his industry, who rely so heavily on fan-support rarely ever are so vocal about their distaste for those same fans, without a severely negative impact on their sales.
An excellent read, though if you are looking for 'uplifting', spiritually awakening wisdom from the 'king of the beats', look elsewhere. This book is a downward spiral into the darker recesses of Kerouac's alcohol-induced delirium.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1992
Summary: Kerouac's Big Sur, written after his mega-success with On The Road, could be argued as a very dark, depressing read. On the contrary, I found it very revealing about one of my favorite writers, and his frame of mind at the time.
Given the opportunity to seclude himself from his friends, fame, and drinking to excess in the cabin of a friend, Kerouac sinks into a sort of paranoia and anxiety, and finally gives in to his impulse to return to 'civilization'....and then proceeds to invite a group back to the cabin, leading him to realize that his most recent affair was with a girl he didn't actually love.
The most fascinating aspect of this novel, to me, is not the horrific volume of drinking Kerouac does at this stage of his life, but in the fact that though he was put off by his fame, and being dubbed 'the King of the Beats', and at being hounded by ardent fans who wanted to merely be in his presence...he couldn't stand the isolation.
Also of interest to me was the 'honesty' he put into his feelings about the actions of his fans...they say 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery', but Kerouac seemed to think just the opposite...and all but told his fans/readers to 'get a life' in several passages of the book. Those in his industry, who rely so heavily on fan-support rarely ever are so vocal about their distaste for those same fans, without a severely negative impact on their sales.
An excellent read, though if you are looking for 'uplifting', spiritually awakening wisdom from the 'king of the beats', look elsewhere. This book is a downward spiral into the darker recesses of Kerouac's alcohol-induced delirium.
Author: Carl G. Jung
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1976
Summary: This is a fascinating book on Jungian thought and his psychological concepts. If you avoid being intimidated by the size of the book, and you methodically go through each page from the beginning to the end, you will grasp the extent and depth of Jung's intellect and ideas.
The word "archetype" is used by Jung to describe the concept of the strong unseen influences that result in predictable psychological states. He describes an archetype as psychic in form where instinct and conditioned behaviour can be observed in the behaviour of people. This can be observed in religious symbols, fairytales and stories.
Jung describes the existence of three layered psyche consisting of the conscious or active part of the mind, the personal unconscious, that is thinking over which we have little or no control and the collective unconscious, which he describes as animal-instinctive mental activity. The collective unconscious tells us that people are the same at the lowest, biological levels.
The book is a must read for those people who want a deeper understanding of their existence and some tools to help them explore the unknown. I recommend reading Jung's works and then compare and contrast them with that of Freud, who uses a different style. Reading these contrasting works should enable one to have a fuller appreciation of their existence.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1976
Summary: This is a fascinating book on Jungian thought and his psychological concepts. If you avoid being intimidated by the size of the book, and you methodically go through each page from the beginning to the end, you will grasp the extent and depth of Jung's intellect and ideas.
The word "archetype" is used by Jung to describe the concept of the strong unseen influences that result in predictable psychological states. He describes an archetype as psychic in form where instinct and conditioned behaviour can be observed in the behaviour of people. This can be observed in religious symbols, fairytales and stories.
Jung describes the existence of three layered psyche consisting of the conscious or active part of the mind, the personal unconscious, that is thinking over which we have little or no control and the collective unconscious, which he describes as animal-instinctive mental activity. The collective unconscious tells us that people are the same at the lowest, biological levels.
The book is a must read for those people who want a deeper understanding of their existence and some tools to help them explore the unknown. I recommend reading Jung's works and then compare and contrast them with that of Freud, who uses a different style. Reading these contrasting works should enable one to have a fuller appreciation of their existence.
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1977
Summary: Frederick Nietzsche writes with a force and passion rarely found amongst philosophers. His ability to coherently place his powerful and ranging intellect onto paper is simply amazing.
I recommend this collection for any and everyone who is not afraid to have their convictions tried and tested. Particularly if your of a Christian or liberal persuasion. Nietzsche damns, despises and condemns most of the values modern Western nations possess, including, democracy, equality, social justice, pity for the poor and unfortunate etc. I recommend starting with Twilight of the Idols as Nietzsche swiftly and passionately summarizes his values here. After reading Twilight of the Idols you will have laid a solid foundation to read the rest of the collection. This compendium may irritate, offend, or anger you, but be assured you will never be bored.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1977
Summary: Frederick Nietzsche writes with a force and passion rarely found amongst philosophers. His ability to coherently place his powerful and ranging intellect onto paper is simply amazing.
I recommend this collection for any and everyone who is not afraid to have their convictions tried and tested. Particularly if your of a Christian or liberal persuasion. Nietzsche damns, despises and condemns most of the values modern Western nations possess, including, democracy, equality, social justice, pity for the poor and unfortunate etc. I recommend starting with Twilight of the Idols as Nietzsche swiftly and passionately summarizes his values here. After reading Twilight of the Idols you will have laid a solid foundation to read the rest of the collection. This compendium may irritate, offend, or anger you, but be assured you will never be bored.
Author: James Campbell
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1991
Summary: I recently used this text in a graduate course on the early Middle Ages. I like it because it does several things really well -- most of what is written about the period tends to focus on the period after Alfred the Great because historians are rightly dependent upon written sources that become relatively more plentiful in the later period. This text draws on archaeology really nicely and gives a lot of good visuals. The sidebar discussions of things like estimating the populations of medieval cities are really nice jumping off points for discussion. The book does gloss over several ongoing historiographical debates and becomes, I think, problematically idiosyncratic for the eleventh century. It also lacks discussion of some important issues such as institutional and military history (which is hard to write about in an engaging fashion) and women's history. I wouldn't use it in an undergrad course without a lot of supplementation.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1991
Summary: I recently used this text in a graduate course on the early Middle Ages. I like it because it does several things really well -- most of what is written about the period tends to focus on the period after Alfred the Great because historians are rightly dependent upon written sources that become relatively more plentiful in the later period. This text draws on archaeology really nicely and gives a lot of good visuals. The sidebar discussions of things like estimating the populations of medieval cities are really nice jumping off points for discussion. The book does gloss over several ongoing historiographical debates and becomes, I think, problematically idiosyncratic for the eleventh century. It also lacks discussion of some important issues such as institutional and military history (which is hard to write about in an engaging fashion) and women's history. I wouldn't use it in an undergrad course without a lot of supplementation.
Author: Scott Rice
Publisher: Penguin USA (P)
Release: 1984
Summary: It was a hot and dusty night (for you see, dear review reader, I live in a desert, where the nocturnal temperatures sometimes do not go below 90 degrees -- that is in the height of summer, as when I began this humorous tome I am reviewing) when I sat down to read the submissions of frustrated Victorian 'wannabees' who have more time on their hands than American Vice Presidents (present times excluded, of course) to dish out poorly conceived sentences modeled on that paragon of forgotten 19th Century literature, Bulwer-Lytton, whose flowery prose brings to mind the brain of soap opera producers who don't know when to stop; and neither did I, because this book was so darn funny, I almost wet myself -- therefore, I highly recommend it as a pleasant diversion better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- and that's saying a lot.
Publisher: Penguin USA (P)
Release: 1984
Summary: It was a hot and dusty night (for you see, dear review reader, I live in a desert, where the nocturnal temperatures sometimes do not go below 90 degrees -- that is in the height of summer, as when I began this humorous tome I am reviewing) when I sat down to read the submissions of frustrated Victorian 'wannabees' who have more time on their hands than American Vice Presidents (present times excluded, of course) to dish out poorly conceived sentences modeled on that paragon of forgotten 19th Century literature, Bulwer-Lytton, whose flowery prose brings to mind the brain of soap opera producers who don't know when to stop; and neither did I, because this book was so darn funny, I almost wet myself -- therefore, I highly recommend it as a pleasant diversion better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- and that's saying a lot.
Author: Jack Kerouac
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1971
Summary: One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, "The Dharma Bums" is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan.
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release: 1971
Summary: One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, "The Dharma Bums" is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan.
Author: Nancy Ashley
Publisher: Prentice Hall Trade
Release: 1984
Summary:
Publisher: Prentice Hall Trade
Release: 1984
Summary:
Author: Edward Hoffman
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill
Release: 1999
Summary: "...a solid history of uniquely American intellectual tradition..."--Kirkus Reviews. "...a fascinating and useful study."--The Los Angeles Times. "...a great deal for those seeking greater insight...."--Psychology Today. "Maslow laid the foundation for the human side of management. All students of and particpants in the human community, especially the management and organization of work, should read this seminal biography."--Warren Bennis. Recognized as one of the greatest influences on contemporary psychology, Abraham Maslow created the seminal concepts of team-decision and management, self-actualization and higher motivation. This edition of the critically acclaimed 1988 classic fully captures the renewed popularity of Maslow's business applications--what they are, what they mean, and why.
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill
Release: 1999
Summary: "...a solid history of uniquely American intellectual tradition..."--Kirkus Reviews. "...a fascinating and useful study."--The Los Angeles Times. "...a great deal for those seeking greater insight...."--Psychology Today. "Maslow laid the foundation for the human side of management. All students of and particpants in the human community, especially the management and organization of work, should read this seminal biography."--Warren Bennis. Recognized as one of the greatest influences on contemporary psychology, Abraham Maslow created the seminal concepts of team-decision and management, self-actualization and higher motivation. This edition of the critically acclaimed 1988 classic fully captures the renewed popularity of Maslow's business applications--what they are, what they mean, and why.
Author: Morris N. Eagle
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill
Release: 1984
Summary:
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill
Release: 1984
Summary:
Author: Charles T. Tart
Publisher: Harper
Release: 1990
Summary: This selection stirred my couriousity and sparked my interest in finding the ultimate reality. We are all on a quest man. A quest to reveal what we lies in our thoughtless minds. An informational and enjoyable read.
Publisher: Harper
Release: 1990
Summary: This selection stirred my couriousity and sparked my interest in finding the ultimate reality. We are all on a quest man. A quest to reveal what we lies in our thoughtless minds. An informational and enjoyable read.
Author: Huston Smith
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: "The World's Religions", by Huston Smith, has been a standard introduction to its eponymous subject since its first publication in 1958. Smith writes humbly, forswearing judgment on the validity of world religions. His introduction asks, "How does it all sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? ... We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. Such listening defines the purpose of this book." His criteria for inclusion and analysis of religions in this book are "relevance to the modern mind" and "universality," and his interest in each religion is more concerned with its principles than its context. Therefore, he avoids cataloging the horrors and crimes of which religions have been accused, and he attempts to show each "at their best." Yet "The World's Religions" is no pollyannaish romp: "It is about religion alive," Huston writes. "It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungles, peaks, and deserts of the human spirit. The call is to confront reality." And by translating the voices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, and Judaism, among others, Smith has amplified the divine call for generations of readers. "--Michael Joseph Gross"
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: "The World's Religions", by Huston Smith, has been a standard introduction to its eponymous subject since its first publication in 1958. Smith writes humbly, forswearing judgment on the validity of world religions. His introduction asks, "How does it all sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? ... We cannot know. All we can do is try to listen carefully and with full attention to each voice in turn as it addresses the divine. Such listening defines the purpose of this book." His criteria for inclusion and analysis of religions in this book are "relevance to the modern mind" and "universality," and his interest in each religion is more concerned with its principles than its context. Therefore, he avoids cataloging the horrors and crimes of which religions have been accused, and he attempts to show each "at their best." Yet "The World's Religions" is no pollyannaish romp: "It is about religion alive," Huston writes. "It calls the soul to the highest adventure it can undertake, a proposed journey across the jungles, peaks, and deserts of the human spirit. The call is to confront reality." And by translating the voices of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, and Judaism, among others, Smith has amplified the divine call for generations of readers. "--Michael Joseph Gross"
Author: Marija Gimbutas
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release: 1994
Summary: For all those who are interested in a learned and well documented alternative view on the prehistory of Europe - the best you can do is to read this work! Gimbutas was one of the worlds leading archaeologists and even her opponents had to admit that virtually no one could match her encyclopaedic archaeological knowledge. Then she started to argue that there has been a prehistoric matrifocal culture in Europe where the Goddess were worshipped and suddenly she was quite mariginalized in the academic community. Of cource no on denied her outstanding archaelogical knowledge but she was suddenly not politically correct in this male dominated community. If you read this powerful book you realize why. This book presents the essence of Gimbutas life long research and her final conclusions.
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release: 1994
Summary: For all those who are interested in a learned and well documented alternative view on the prehistory of Europe - the best you can do is to read this work! Gimbutas was one of the worlds leading archaeologists and even her opponents had to admit that virtually no one could match her encyclopaedic archaeological knowledge. Then she started to argue that there has been a prehistoric matrifocal culture in Europe where the Goddess were worshipped and suddenly she was quite mariginalized in the academic community. Of cource no on denied her outstanding archaelogical knowledge but she was suddenly not politically correct in this male dominated community. If you read this powerful book you realize why. This book presents the essence of Gimbutas life long research and her final conclusions.
Author: Huston Smith
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1992
Summary:
This classic companion to "The World's Religions" articulates the remarkable unity that underlies the world's religious traditions
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1992
Summary:
This classic companion to "The World's Religions" articulates the remarkable unity that underlies the world's religious traditions
Author: Robert Moore, Douglas Gillette
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: Arguing that mature masculinity is not abusive or domineering, but generative, creative, and empowering of the self and others, Moore and Gillette provide a Jungian introduction to the psychological foundations of a mature, authentic, and revitalized masculinity.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: Arguing that mature masculinity is not abusive or domineering, but generative, creative, and empowering of the self and others, Moore and Gillette provide a Jungian introduction to the psychological foundations of a mature, authentic, and revitalized masculinity.
Author: Michael Harner
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1990
Summary:
The phenomenal bestseller, with more than 500,000 copies sold worldwide, now with a new epilogue from the author--"The Chalice and the Blade" has inspired a generation of women and men to envision a truly egalitarian society by exploring the legacy of the peaceful, goddess-worshipping cultures from our prehistoric past.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1990
Summary:
The phenomenal bestseller, with more than 500,000 copies sold worldwide, now with a new epilogue from the author--"The Chalice and the Blade" has inspired a generation of women and men to envision a truly egalitarian society by exploring the legacy of the peaceful, goddess-worshipping cultures from our prehistoric past.
Author: Riane Eisler
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1988
Summary: Some books are like revelations, they open the spirit to unimaginable possibilities. "The Chalice and the Blade" is one of those magnificent key books that can transform us and...initiate fundamental changes in the world. With the most passionate eloquence, Riane Eisler proves that the dream of peace is not an impossible utopia. -- Isabelle Allende, author of The House of the Spirits
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1988
Summary: Some books are like revelations, they open the spirit to unimaginable possibilities. "The Chalice and the Blade" is one of those magnificent key books that can transform us and...initiate fundamental changes in the world. With the most passionate eloquence, Riane Eisler proves that the dream of peace is not an impossible utopia. -- Isabelle Allende, author of The House of the Spirits
Author: Riane Eisler
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1996
Summary: Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence--and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1996
Summary: Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence--and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.
Author: Heinz Ansbacher, Rowena R Ansbacher
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 1964
Summary: Taking into account the immense importance of Adler, as one of the pivotal trinity (alongside Freud and Jung) of the psychoanalytical movement, add to that the lack of the mans actual writings in any bookstore's psychology bookshelf, or for that matter the popularization and somewhat cheapening of Adlerian concepts into today's pop jargon of psychobabble without going to the man's actual writings and you have a strong case why this book is a fine selection and the best of it's kind in it's treatment on the mans philosophy with solid commentary by the authors/compilers prefacing within it's historical context the actual text.
Approaching Adler is at times a difficult task as is reading Jung or for that matter any analytical philosopher/psychologist but the reward is immeasurable since the purpose of mining nuggets is not the purpose but what needs to be the goal is capturing the essence of the man's evolution and the contributions he made to the mental health profession with his keen understanding of instinct,teleolgy,the often misinterpreted notions of power,inferiority all within a framework of the individual psychology attributed to him IE: the social assimilation of the individual within the world of his making despite whatever limitations are inherent from birth,upbringing and the outside world in itself.
Understanding where Freud,Jung and Adler coalesce and separate is a worthy endeavor as this book clearly offers a full exposition and depth of Adler as a segue into the roots of these men and what they accomplished in their day and whose contributions remain invaluable today despite the obvious shift away from traditional psychoanalysis.
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 1964
Summary: Taking into account the immense importance of Adler, as one of the pivotal trinity (alongside Freud and Jung) of the psychoanalytical movement, add to that the lack of the mans actual writings in any bookstore's psychology bookshelf, or for that matter the popularization and somewhat cheapening of Adlerian concepts into today's pop jargon of psychobabble without going to the man's actual writings and you have a strong case why this book is a fine selection and the best of it's kind in it's treatment on the mans philosophy with solid commentary by the authors/compilers prefacing within it's historical context the actual text.
Approaching Adler is at times a difficult task as is reading Jung or for that matter any analytical philosopher/psychologist but the reward is immeasurable since the purpose of mining nuggets is not the purpose but what needs to be the goal is capturing the essence of the man's evolution and the contributions he made to the mental health profession with his keen understanding of instinct,teleolgy,the often misinterpreted notions of power,inferiority all within a framework of the individual psychology attributed to him IE: the social assimilation of the individual within the world of his making despite whatever limitations are inherent from birth,upbringing and the outside world in itself.
Understanding where Freud,Jung and Adler coalesce and separate is a worthy endeavor as this book clearly offers a full exposition and depth of Adler as a segue into the roots of these men and what they accomplished in their day and whose contributions remain invaluable today despite the obvious shift away from traditional psychoanalysis.
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 2000
Summary:
The English writer Christopher Isherwood settled in California in 1939 and spent the war years working in Hollywood film studios, teaching English to European refugees, and converting to Hinduism. By the time the war ended, he realized he was not cut out to be a monk. With his self-imposed wartime vigil behind him, he careened into a life of frantic socializing, increasing dissipation, anxiety, and, eventually, despair. For nearly a half decade he all but ceased to write fiction and even abandoned his lifelong habit of keeping a diary.
This is Isherwood's own account, reconstructed from datebooks, letters, and memory nearly thirty years later, of his experience during those missing years: his activities in Santa Monica, and also in New York and London, just after the war. Begun in 1971, in a postsixties atmosphere of liberation, "Lost Years" includes explicit details of his romantic and sexual relationships during the 1940s and unveils a hidden and sometimes shocking way of life shared with friends and acquaintances--many of whom were well-known artists, actors, and film-makers. Not until the 1951 Broadway success of "I Am a Camera," adapted from his Berlin stories, did Isherwood begin to reclaim control of his talents and of his future.
Isherwood never prepared "Lost years" for publication because he rapidly became caught up in writing the book that established him as a hero of gay liberation, "Christopher and His Kind."
With unpolished directness, and with insight and wit, "Lost Years" shows how Isherwood developed his private recollections into the unique mixture of personal mythology and social history that characterizes much of his best work. This surprising and important memoir also highlights his determination to track down even the most elusive and unappealing aspects of his past in order to understand and honestly portray himself, both as a writer and as a human being.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 2000
Summary:
The English writer Christopher Isherwood settled in California in 1939 and spent the war years working in Hollywood film studios, teaching English to European refugees, and converting to Hinduism. By the time the war ended, he realized he was not cut out to be a monk. With his self-imposed wartime vigil behind him, he careened into a life of frantic socializing, increasing dissipation, anxiety, and, eventually, despair. For nearly a half decade he all but ceased to write fiction and even abandoned his lifelong habit of keeping a diary.
This is Isherwood's own account, reconstructed from datebooks, letters, and memory nearly thirty years later, of his experience during those missing years: his activities in Santa Monica, and also in New York and London, just after the war. Begun in 1971, in a postsixties atmosphere of liberation, "Lost Years" includes explicit details of his romantic and sexual relationships during the 1940s and unveils a hidden and sometimes shocking way of life shared with friends and acquaintances--many of whom were well-known artists, actors, and film-makers. Not until the 1951 Broadway success of "I Am a Camera," adapted from his Berlin stories, did Isherwood begin to reclaim control of his talents and of his future.
Isherwood never prepared "Lost years" for publication because he rapidly became caught up in writing the book that established him as a hero of gay liberation, "Christopher and His Kind."
With unpolished directness, and with insight and wit, "Lost Years" shows how Isherwood developed his private recollections into the unique mixture of personal mythology and social history that characterizes much of his best work. This surprising and important memoir also highlights his determination to track down even the most elusive and unappealing aspects of his past in order to understand and honestly portray himself, both as a writer and as a human being.
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 1997
Summary: Christopher Isherwood is noted for his novels and autobiographical writings, especially The Berlin Stories (the basis for the film, Cabaret) and Christopher and His Kind. But Isherwood put at least as much of his genius in his "Diaries" as he did in his writings intended for immediate publication. The first volume follows Isherwood as he emigrates from England to the United States where he became a Hollywood scriptwriter. This volume continues with his lifelong affair with Don Bachardy to his establishment as a major writer in the early 1960s. Isherwood's "Diaries" are beautifully written, gossipy, and indispensable for anyone who cares about writing, the creative process, and gay history.
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 1997
Summary: Christopher Isherwood is noted for his novels and autobiographical writings, especially The Berlin Stories (the basis for the film, Cabaret) and Christopher and His Kind. But Isherwood put at least as much of his genius in his "Diaries" as he did in his writings intended for immediate publication. The first volume follows Isherwood as he emigrates from England to the United States where he became a Hollywood scriptwriter. This volume continues with his lifelong affair with Don Bachardy to his establishment as a major writer in the early 1960s. Isherwood's "Diaries" are beautifully written, gossipy, and indispensable for anyone who cares about writing, the creative process, and gay history.
Author: Wayne W. Dyer
Publisher: HarperTorch
Release: 1999
Summary:
From the inspirational leader and author of the international bestsellers "Your Sacred Self" and the classic "Your Erroneous Zones" comes this mind-awakening guidebook for making your desires reality.
Based on ancient principles and spiritual practices, "Manifest Your Destiny "introduces the Nine Spiritual Principles that will help you overcome the barriers--both within and around you--that prevent you from getting what you want, including:
Developing spiritual awareness
Trusting yourself
Reconnecting to your environment
Attracting your desires
Accepting your own worthiness
Practicing unconditional love
Meditating to unlock the power within you
Letting go of demands
Filled with warmth and insight, this invaluable book will help you achieve your goals--and take you to a level higher than you've ever dreamed.
Publisher: HarperTorch
Release: 1999
Summary:
From the inspirational leader and author of the international bestsellers "Your Sacred Self" and the classic "Your Erroneous Zones" comes this mind-awakening guidebook for making your desires reality.
Based on ancient principles and spiritual practices, "Manifest Your Destiny "introduces the Nine Spiritual Principles that will help you overcome the barriers--both within and around you--that prevent you from getting what you want, including:
Developing spiritual awareness
Trusting yourself
Reconnecting to your environment
Attracting your desires
Accepting your own worthiness
Practicing unconditional love
Meditating to unlock the power within you
Letting go of demands
Filled with warmth and insight, this invaluable book will help you achieve your goals--and take you to a level higher than you've ever dreamed.
Author: Hans J. Massaquoi
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 2001
Summary:
This is a story of the unexpected. In "Destined to Witness", Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir -- an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer's spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door -- or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic,, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi's account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence.
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 2001
Summary:
This is a story of the unexpected. In "Destined to Witness", Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir -- an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer's spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door -- or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic,, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi's account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence.
Author: Wayne W. Dyer
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 2003
Summary:
In "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem", bestselling author Wayne W. Dyer offers compelling testimony on the power of love, harmony, and service. When confronted with a problem, be it ill health, financial worries, or relationship difficulties, we often depend on intellect to solve it. But in this inspiring book, Dyer shows us that there is an omnipotent spiritual force at our fingertips that contains the solution to our problems. Drawing from the various spiritual traditions, especially from the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, Dyer helps us unplug from the material world and awaken to the divine within.
The first part of the book provides the essential foundation for spiritual problem solving, drawing from the wisdom of Patanjali, a Yogi mystic; the second half focuses on the legacy of Saint Francis. Dyer offers specific practical applications for applying the teachings of these wise men to everyday problems, including affirmations, writing exercises, and guided meditations.
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 2003
Summary:
In "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem", bestselling author Wayne W. Dyer offers compelling testimony on the power of love, harmony, and service. When confronted with a problem, be it ill health, financial worries, or relationship difficulties, we often depend on intellect to solve it. But in this inspiring book, Dyer shows us that there is an omnipotent spiritual force at our fingertips that contains the solution to our problems. Drawing from the various spiritual traditions, especially from the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, Dyer helps us unplug from the material world and awaken to the divine within.
The first part of the book provides the essential foundation for spiritual problem solving, drawing from the wisdom of Patanjali, a Yogi mystic; the second half focuses on the legacy of Saint Francis. Dyer offers specific practical applications for applying the teachings of these wise men to everyday problems, including affirmations, writing exercises, and guided meditations.
Author: Wayne W. Dyer
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1998
Summary: Change your life using Wayne W. Dyer's astonishing Nine Spiritual Principles:
Are the decisions and actions in your life controlled by your ego? Do you have an ever-present need to defend yourself? See "The First Principle."
Do you inherently trust yourself and your decisions? Are you weighed down with troubles or unresolved issues in your life? See "The Second Principle."
Do you feel out of touch with your environment? Are your days more often out of synch than in? See "The Third Principle."
Do you have limits in your life that prevent you from making changes or achieving your highest goals? See "The Fourth Principle."
Do you love what you do, and do what you love, in life? Are you constrained by feelings of unworthiness? See "The Fifth Principle."
Is your day filled with high energy and the feeling that "everything is going my way"? Or do you experience frustration or anger? See "The Sixth Principle."
How would your life change after learning to attract what you want -- peace or love, job advancement or monetary fortune? See "The Seventh Principle."
Do you believe that the universe operates randomly? Are you impatient waiting for good things to happen? See "The Eighth Principle."
Do you complain, find fault or take for granted more than you appreciate your life? See "The Ninth Principle."
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1998
Summary: Change your life using Wayne W. Dyer's astonishing Nine Spiritual Principles:
Are the decisions and actions in your life controlled by your ego? Do you have an ever-present need to defend yourself? See "The First Principle."
Do you inherently trust yourself and your decisions? Are you weighed down with troubles or unresolved issues in your life? See "The Second Principle."
Do you feel out of touch with your environment? Are your days more often out of synch than in? See "The Third Principle."
Do you have limits in your life that prevent you from making changes or achieving your highest goals? See "The Fourth Principle."
Do you love what you do, and do what you love, in life? Are you constrained by feelings of unworthiness? See "The Fifth Principle."
Is your day filled with high energy and the feeling that "everything is going my way"? Or do you experience frustration or anger? See "The Sixth Principle."
How would your life change after learning to attract what you want -- peace or love, job advancement or monetary fortune? See "The Seventh Principle."
Do you believe that the universe operates randomly? Are you impatient waiting for good things to happen? See "The Eighth Principle."
Do you complain, find fault or take for granted more than you appreciate your life? See "The Ninth Principle."
Author: Marianne Williamson
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1996
Summary:
Back by popular demand -- and newly updated by the author -- the mega-bestselling spiritual guide in which Marianne Williamson shares her reflections on "A Course in Miracles" and her insights on the application of love in the search for inner peace.
Williamson reveals how we each can become a miracle worker by accepting God and by the expression of love in our daily lives. Whether psychic pain is in the area of relationships, career, or health, she shows us how love is a potent force, the key to inner peace, and how by practicing love we can make our own lives more fulfilling while creating a more peaceful and loving world for our children.
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1996
Summary:
Back by popular demand -- and newly updated by the author -- the mega-bestselling spiritual guide in which Marianne Williamson shares her reflections on "A Course in Miracles" and her insights on the application of love in the search for inner peace.
Williamson reveals how we each can become a miracle worker by accepting God and by the expression of love in our daily lives. Whether psychic pain is in the area of relationships, career, or health, she shows us how love is a potent force, the key to inner peace, and how by practicing love we can make our own lives more fulfilling while creating a more peaceful and loving world for our children.
Author: Michael Talbot
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 1992
Summary:
Today nearly everyone is familiar with holograms, three-dimensional images projected into space with the aid of a laser. Now, two of the world's most eminent thinkers -- University of London physicists David Bohm, a former protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, one of the architects of our modern understanding of the brain -- believe that the universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. This remarkable new way of looking at the universe explains now only many of the unsolved puzzles of physics, but also such mysterious occurrences as telepathy, out-of-body and near death experiences, "lucid" dreams, and even religious and mystical experiences such as feelings of cosmic unity and miraculous healings.
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 1992
Summary:
Today nearly everyone is familiar with holograms, three-dimensional images projected into space with the aid of a laser. Now, two of the world's most eminent thinkers -- University of London physicists David Bohm, a former protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, one of the architects of our modern understanding of the brain -- believe that the universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. This remarkable new way of looking at the universe explains now only many of the unsolved puzzles of physics, but also such mysterious occurrences as telepathy, out-of-body and near death experiences, "lucid" dreams, and even religious and mystical experiences such as feelings of cosmic unity and miraculous healings.
Author: Thomas Moore
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1994
Summary: "Care of the Soul" is considered to be one of the best primers for soul work ever written. Thomas Moore, an internationally renowned theologian and former Catholic monk, offers a philosophy for living that involves accepting our humanity rather than struggling to transcend it. By nurturing the soul in everyday life, Moore shows how to cultivate dignity, peace, and depth of character. For example, in addressing the importance of daily rituals he writes, "Ritual maintains the world's holiness. As in a dream a small object may assume significance, so in a life that is animated by ritual there are no insignificant things." This is the eloquence that helped reintroduce the sacred into everyday language and contemporary values.
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release: 1994
Summary: "Care of the Soul" is considered to be one of the best primers for soul work ever written. Thomas Moore, an internationally renowned theologian and former Catholic monk, offers a philosophy for living that involves accepting our humanity rather than struggling to transcend it. By nurturing the soul in everyday life, Moore shows how to cultivate dignity, peace, and depth of character. For example, in addressing the importance of daily rituals he writes, "Ritual maintains the world's holiness. As in a dream a small object may assume significance, so in a life that is animated by ritual there are no insignificant things." This is the eloquence that helped reintroduce the sacred into everyday language and contemporary values.
Author: Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
Publisher: Perennial
Release: 1975
Summary: A spiritual treasure for every religion bookshelf. De Chardin, geologist and priest, probes the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration and the fruit of his own inner life. "Extraordinary."--Karl Stern
Publisher: Perennial
Release: 1975
Summary: A spiritual treasure for every religion bookshelf. De Chardin, geologist and priest, probes the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration and the fruit of his own inner life. "Extraordinary."--Karl Stern
Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Perennial
Release: 1990
Summary: "Both an anthology and an interpretation of the supreme mystics, East and West. . . . A magnificent achievement."--Rufus M. Jones "In his absorption and other-worldliness, he soars clear out of sight."--"The New Yorker"
Publisher: Perennial
Release: 1990
Summary: "Both an anthology and an interpretation of the supreme mystics, East and West. . . . A magnificent achievement."--Rufus M. Jones "In his absorption and other-worldliness, he soars clear out of sight."--"The New Yorker"
Author: Marianne Williamson
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 2006
Summary:
Every Change Is a Challenge to Become Who We Really Are
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 2006
Summary:
Every Change Is a Challenge to Become Who We Really Are
Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2005
Summary:
The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future -- of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.
Following Brave New World is the nonfiction work Brave New World Revisited, first published in 1958. It is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with the prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2005
Summary:
The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future -- of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.
Following Brave New World is the nonfiction work Brave New World Revisited, first published in 1958. It is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with the prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.
Author: American Academy Of Religion
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1995
Summary: Led by general editor Jonathan Z. Smith, a team drawn from the American Academy of Religion has collected more than 3,200 entries written by 327 leading experts from around the world and across the theological and religious spectrum. The exceptional editorial team includes associate editor William Scott Green and area editors Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Gary L. Ebersole, Malcom David Eckel, Sam D. Gill, Alfred Hiltebeitel, Richard C. Martin, Carole A. Myscofski, Jacob Neusner, and Hans H. Penner.Designed for the general reader, this highly accessible resource addresses everything from the great living traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism to the very latest new religions. Diverse topics -- from the experience of women in Islam to the troublesome realities of religion and violence -- are covered with compelling facts and figures, eloquent prose, and riveting accuracy.Have You Ever WonderedWhat draws a person to alternative religious traditions? And what exactly is a "cult"?What are the branches on the Jewish Chanukah menorah symbolize? And why bitter herbs are eaten at Passover?Why children color eggs at Easter time? What a tree has to do with Christmas?Why is there such a debate over the ordination of women in the Catholic Church?If organized religion is necessary for a fulfilled humankind? How it all began, anyway?All these questions and much, much more are answered in this essential and powerful new tool: The "HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion" -- the definitive guide to understanding religion today.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1995
Summary: Led by general editor Jonathan Z. Smith, a team drawn from the American Academy of Religion has collected more than 3,200 entries written by 327 leading experts from around the world and across the theological and religious spectrum. The exceptional editorial team includes associate editor William Scott Green and area editors Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Gary L. Ebersole, Malcom David Eckel, Sam D. Gill, Alfred Hiltebeitel, Richard C. Martin, Carole A. Myscofski, Jacob Neusner, and Hans H. Penner.Designed for the general reader, this highly accessible resource addresses everything from the great living traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism to the very latest new religions. Diverse topics -- from the experience of women in Islam to the troublesome realities of religion and violence -- are covered with compelling facts and figures, eloquent prose, and riveting accuracy.Have You Ever WonderedWhat draws a person to alternative religious traditions? And what exactly is a "cult"?What are the branches on the Jewish Chanukah menorah symbolize? And why bitter herbs are eaten at Passover?Why children color eggs at Easter time? What a tree has to do with Christmas?Why is there such a debate over the ordination of women in the Catholic Church?If organized religion is necessary for a fulfilled humankind? How it all began, anyway?All these questions and much, much more are answered in this essential and powerful new tool: The "HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion" -- the definitive guide to understanding religion today.
Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1962
Summary:
One of the most important philosophical works of our time -- a work that has had tremendous influence on philosophy, literature, and psychology, and has literally changed the intellectual map of the modern world.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1962
Summary:
One of the most important philosophical works of our time -- a work that has had tremendous influence on philosophy, literature, and psychology, and has literally changed the intellectual map of the modern world.
Author: Mircea Eliade, Ioan P. Culianu, Hillary S. Wiesner
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: This guide to the world's religions, past and present, distills Eliade's three-volume "History of Religious Ideas" and sixteen-volume "Encyclopedia of Religion" into one up-to-date and accessible volume.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 1991
Summary: This guide to the world's religions, past and present, distills Eliade's three-volume "History of Religious Ideas" and sixteen-volume "Encyclopedia of Religion" into one up-to-date and accessible volume.
Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2004
Summary: Sometimes a writer has to revisit the classics, and here we find that "gonzo journalism"--gutsy first-person accounts wherein the author is part of the story--didn't originate with Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. Aldous Huxley took some mescaline and wrote about it some 10 or 12 years earlier than those others. The book he came up with is part bemused essay and part mystical treatise--"suchness" is everywhere to be found while under the influence. This is a good example of essay writing, journal keeping, and the value of controversy--always--in one's work.
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2004
Summary: Sometimes a writer has to revisit the classics, and here we find that "gonzo journalism"--gutsy first-person accounts wherein the author is part of the story--didn't originate with Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. Aldous Huxley took some mescaline and wrote about it some 10 or 12 years earlier than those others. The book he came up with is part bemused essay and part mystical treatise--"suchness" is everywhere to be found while under the influence. This is a good example of essay writing, journal keeping, and the value of controversy--always--in one's work.
Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2004
Summary:
The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as "The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds." With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Release: 2004
Summary:
The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as "The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds." With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.
Author: Leigh Schmidt
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 2005
Summary:
Yoga classes and Zen meditation, New Age seminars and holistic workshops, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and books by Deepak Chopra -- all are part of the religious experimentation that has surprisingly deep roots in American history. In fact, they represent only the most recent flowerings of a unique form of spirituality. By tracing our spiritual heritage along its many colorful highways and eccentric byways, Restless Souls profiles a rich spirituality that is distinctively American.
Since the 1960s, our expanded and enhanced spiritual explorations have changed us from a nation of church goers into a culture of seekers. But the American fascination with mystical experience and churchless spirituality goes back much further than the psychedelic era. In Restless Souls, historian Leigh Schmidt deftly traces this American romance with the interior life from the likes of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson to television host Oprah Winfrey, from poet Walt Whitman to Senator Barak Obama, from questing psychologist William James to Zen basketball coach Phil Jackson. We're taken from pioneer Johnny Appleseed to translator of Sufi poetry Coleman Barks, from theosophist Madame Blavatsky to meditation guru Ram Dass, and then to many more.
This book places the most recent spiritual upsurge in the context of a broader cultural and intellectual history. In contrast to prevailing fears about the conservative influence of religion in America, Restless Souls depicts a vibrantly open American spirituality and serves as a timely reminder of the ample religious resources of the liberal tradition.
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Release: 2005
Summary:
Yoga classes and Zen meditation, New Age seminars and holistic workshops, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and books by Deepak Chopra -- all are part of the religious experimentation that has surprisingly deep roots in American history. In fact, they represent only the most recent flowerings of a unique form of spirituality. By tracing our spiritual heritage along its many colorful highways and eccentric byways, Restless Souls profiles a rich spirituality that is distinctively American.
Since the 1960s, our expanded and enhanced spiritual explorations have changed us from a nation of church goers into a culture of seekers. But the American fascination with mystical experience and churchless spirituality goes back much further than the psychedelic era. In Restless Souls, historian Leigh Schmidt deftly traces this American romance with the interior life from the likes of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson to television host Oprah Winfrey, from poet Walt Whitman to Senator Barak Obama, from questing psychologist William James to Zen basketball coach Phil Jackson. We're taken from pioneer Johnny Appleseed to translator of Sufi poetry Coleman Barks, from theosophist Madame Blavatsky to meditation guru Ram Dass, and then to many more.
This book places the most recent spiritual upsurge in the context of a broader cultural and intellectual history. In contrast to prevailing fears about the conservative influence of religion in America, Restless Souls depicts a vibrantly open American spirituality and serves as a timely reminder of the ample religious resources of the liberal tradition.
Author: Samantha Power
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 2003
Summary: During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. "--Shawn Carkonen"
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release: 2003
Summary: During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. "--Shawn Carkonen"
Author: Abraham Harold Maslow
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release: 1987
Summary: The book's title and author intrigued me in the first place. I'd heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs in college. Usually, about half a page or so was dedicated to it in general college psychology textbooks. What a disservice! Dipping one's big toe in the swimming pool is not the same as plunging into it. This book deserves to be plunged into, marked up, highlighted, commented on, thought about, and discussed. It is brilliant, original, fascinating, and readable. I'm not sure how to say it because there is so much, but I would say that what makes it especially unique is its study of psychologically healthy people (Maslow calls them self-actualizing people). This book will turn your brain on. I am not a technically/medically trained person. It took time to read trough Motivation and Personality, mostly because I wanted to stop and think about what it was saying. It's not a rush through kind of book. This book, as well as Dr. Peck's "People of Lie," exposed a whole new layer of the world I live in. I believe it fine tunes perceptions and make one so much more aware and alive.
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release: 1987
Summary: The book's title and author intrigued me in the first place. I'd heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs in college. Usually, about half a page or so was dedicated to it in general college psychology textbooks. What a disservice! Dipping one's big toe in the swimming pool is not the same as plunging into it. This book deserves to be plunged into, marked up, highlighted, commented on, thought about, and discussed. It is brilliant, original, fascinating, and readable. I'm not sure how to say it because there is so much, but I would say that what makes it especially unique is its study of psychologically healthy people (Maslow calls them self-actualizing people). This book will turn your brain on. I am not a technically/medically trained person. It took time to read trough Motivation and Personality, mostly because I wanted to stop and think about what it was saying. It's not a rush through kind of book. This book, as well as Dr. Peck's "People of Lie," exposed a whole new layer of the world I live in. I believe it fine tunes perceptions and make one so much more aware and alive.
Author: Abraham Harold, Ed. Maslow
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 1959
Summary:
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release: 1959
Summary:
Author: George W., Jr. Stocking
Publisher: Free Press
Release: 1991
Summary: Stocking's "Victorian Anthropolgy" proves that there was life before Darwin. The book begins with an overview of anthropological theories, both in England and in Europe, and examines how political influences determined which of these were accepted by English scholars. Fixed firmly in the context of Victorian England, Stocking clearly shows the extent to which anthropological treatises influenced not only scientific thought but also social policy. An informative and enlightening book, "Victorian Anthropology" would be particularly useful to students of British cultural and/or anthropological history.
Publisher: Free Press
Release: 1991
Summary: Stocking's "Victorian Anthropolgy" proves that there was life before Darwin. The book begins with an overview of anthropological theories, both in England and in Europe, and examines how political influences determined which of these were accepted by English scholars. Fixed firmly in the context of Victorian England, Stocking clearly shows the extent to which anthropological treatises influenced not only scientific thought but also social policy. An informative and enlightening book, "Victorian Anthropology" would be particularly useful to students of British cultural and/or anthropological history.
Author: E. Franklin Frazier
Publisher: Free Press
Release: 1965
Summary: "When it was first published in 1957, Black Bourgeoisie was simultaneously revered and reviled because it cast a critical eye on one of the cornerstones of the black American community--its middle class. In the 1950s, before the recent burgeoning of the black middle class, Frazier identified the problems that occur in the aftermath of 'black-flight' from the inner cities and black communities of the rural South. The book's relevance has only increased as over the years the divide between increasingly prosperous middle-class blacks and their increasingly desperate 'underclass' brethren has grown into an almost uncrossable chasm. ý By tracing the evolution of the black bourgeoisie, from the segregated South to the integrated North, Frazier shows how the blacks who comprised the middle class have lost their cohesion by moving out of black communities and attempting to integrate white communities. The result of this integration 'is an anomalous bourgeois class with no identity, built on self-sustaining myths of black business and society, silently undermined by a collective, debilitating inferiority complex.' Frazier hoped to dispel the image of blacks as having thrown off the psychological and economical ravages of slavery to become economically powerful, because according to Frazier, it was a lie that was damaging the community. ý Frazier, chairman of the Department of Sociology at Howard University and president of the International Society for the Scientific Study of Race Relations, hoped that Black Bourgeoisie would impel blacks to make changes that would empower their community. For the most part, those hoped-for changes have not occurred. Nevertheless, today, as many black people are calling into question the very existence and relevance of an autonomous 'black community,' his book offers a fascinating perspective on the costs of that community's dissolution."--Sacred Fire
Publisher: Free Press
Release: 1965
Summary: "When it was first published in 1957, Black Bourgeoisie was simultaneously revered and reviled because it cast a critical eye on one of the cornerstones of the black American community--its middle class. In the 1950s, before the recent burgeoning of the black middle class, Frazier identified the problems that occur in the aftermath of 'black-flight' from the inner cities and black communities of the rural South. The book's relevance has only increased as over the years the divide between increasingly prosperous middle-class blacks and their increasingly desperate 'underclass' brethren has grown into an almost uncrossable chasm. ý By tracing the evolution of the black bourgeoisie, from the segregated South to the integrated North, Frazier shows how the blacks who comprised the middle class have lost their cohesion by moving out of black communities and attempting to integrate white communities. The result of this integration 'is an anomalous bourgeois class with no identity, built on self-sustaining myths of black business and society, silently undermined by a collective, debilitating inferiority complex.' Frazier hoped to dispel the image of blacks as having thrown off the psychological and economical ravages of slavery to become economically powerful, because according to Frazier, it was a lie that was damaging the community. ý Frazier, chairman of the Department of Sociology at Howard University and president of the International Society for the Scientific Study of Race Relations, hoped that Black Bourgeoisie would impel blacks to make changes that would empower their community. For the most part, those hoped-for changes have not occurred. Nevertheless, today, as many black people are calling into question the very existence and relevance of an autonomous 'black community,' his book offers a fascinating perspective on the costs of that community's dissolution."--Sacred Fire
Author: Fiona Horne
Publisher: Thorsons
Release: 2001
Summary: Have a magickal makeover with this charming day by day guide from the bestselling author Fiona Horne.
Publisher: Thorsons
Release: 2001
Summary: Have a magickal makeover with this charming day by day guide from the bestselling author Fiona Horne.
Author: Fiona Horne
Publisher: Thorsons
Release: 2002
Summary: In this book, the beautiful Fiona Horne reveals the intimate secrets and know-how of her spiritual calling, including the daily business of being a modern Witch at home, work, and play.
Publisher: Thorsons
Release: 2002
Summary: In this book, the beautiful Fiona Horne reveals the intimate secrets and know-how of her spiritual calling, including the daily business of being a modern Witch at home, work, and play.
Author: Christopher Partridge
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 2003
Summary:
In France, a UFO group known as the Raelian Movement works to create the first Embassy welcoming extra terrestrials from space, claiming that the world is the work of an alien people who built it from DNA. The Aetherius Society of Great Britain claims to receive cosmic transmissions from space intelligences, offering the chance to listen to online recordings of a spoken transmission from Jesus Christ. In San Diego, March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate group commit mass suicide at the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet, believing that heavenly beings on a UFO wait there to gather them into the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no doubt that the spectre of the UFO, as popularised by shows such as The X-Files, has brought an astonishing and often apocalyptic slant to the motley face of modern religious practice. But what motivates the fantastical and occasionally sinister beliefs of UFO worshippers? Why are people apparently so keen to believe that the truth really is 'out there'? Does the image of the extra-terrestrial ever inspire love, or rather fundamentalism, instability and violence?
"UFO" "Religions" is an essential introduction to UFO-based belief throughout the Western world. Composed entirely of readable new articles by leading international scholars, it critically examines some of the most fascinating issues surrounding UFO worship - abduction narratives, UFO-based interpretations of Biblical and other religions, the growth of pseudo-sciences purporting to explain UFOs and extra-terrestrials, and the responses of the core scientific community to such claims. Focusing on contemporary global UFO groups including the Raelian Movement, Heaven's Gate, Australia's Ashtar Command network, Unarius and the Ansaaru Allah Community, it combines sociological, psychological and anthropological perspectives to give a clear profile of modern UFO societies, controversies and beliefs.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 2003
Summary:
In France, a UFO group known as the Raelian Movement works to create the first Embassy welcoming extra terrestrials from space, claiming that the world is the work of an alien people who built it from DNA. The Aetherius Society of Great Britain claims to receive cosmic transmissions from space intelligences, offering the chance to listen to online recordings of a spoken transmission from Jesus Christ. In San Diego, March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate group commit mass suicide at the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet, believing that heavenly beings on a UFO wait there to gather them into the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no doubt that the spectre of the UFO, as popularised by shows such as The X-Files, has brought an astonishing and often apocalyptic slant to the motley face of modern religious practice. But what motivates the fantastical and occasionally sinister beliefs of UFO worshippers? Why are people apparently so keen to believe that the truth really is 'out there'? Does the image of the extra-terrestrial ever inspire love, or rather fundamentalism, instability and violence?
"UFO" "Religions" is an essential introduction to UFO-based belief throughout the Western world. Composed entirely of readable new articles by leading international scholars, it critically examines some of the most fascinating issues surrounding UFO worship - abduction narratives, UFO-based interpretations of Biblical and other religions, the growth of pseudo-sciences purporting to explain UFOs and extra-terrestrials, and the responses of the core scientific community to such claims. Focusing on contemporary global UFO groups including the Raelian Movement, Heaven's Gate, Australia's Ashtar Command network, Unarius and the Ansaaru Allah Community, it combines sociological, psychological and anthropological perspectives to give a clear profile of modern UFO societies, controversies and beliefs.
Author: S. Wellbeloved
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 2002
Summary:
This title offers clear definitions of Gurdjieff's teaching terms, placing him within the political, geographical and cultural context of his time. Entries look at diverse aspects of his work, including: possible sources in religious, theosophical, occult, esoteric and literary traditions; the integral relationships between different aspects of the teaching; its internal contradictions and subversive aspects; the derivation of Gurdjieff's cosmological laws and Ennegram; and the receptive form of "new work" teaching introduced by Jeanne de Salzmann. An accessible and cross-referenced A-Z guidebook, this is a useful companion for both the newcomer and those more versed in Gurdjieff's thought and teachings.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 2002
Summary:
This title offers clear definitions of Gurdjieff's teaching terms, placing him within the political, geographical and cultural context of his time. Entries look at diverse aspects of his work, including: possible sources in religious, theosophical, occult, esoteric and literary traditions; the integral relationships between different aspects of the teaching; its internal contradictions and subversive aspects; the derivation of Gurdjieff's cosmological laws and Ennegram; and the receptive form of "new work" teaching introduced by Jeanne de Salzmann. An accessible and cross-referenced A-Z guidebook, this is a useful companion for both the newcomer and those more versed in Gurdjieff's thought and teachings.
Author: S. Sutcliffe
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Release: 2003
Summary:
Children of the New Age, a pioneering history of the New Age phenomenon, combines original ethnographic research with rare archival material to give a definitive overview of New Age belief and practice from the 1930s to the present day. It chronicles the development of alternative spirituality from embryonic beginnings to a universal trend: from its inception within the underground enclaves of Rosicrucians, occultists and Alice Bailey's neo-theosophists to its modern-day incursion into mainstream political, musical and artistic culture. But this is also a distinctly critical history. New Age culture, says Steven J. Sutcliffe, is notoriously variegated and hotly contested, exposed to competing strands of revelation and apocalypse. Caught between the hippy explosion and the doomsday scenarios of millennial Christianity and UFO groups, it has been the preserve both of extreme religious individualists and of humanistic countercultures lauding the Edenic perfection of this worldly existence. At stake in its history are controversial questions of value, and of its perceived status as a discrete and unified "movement." Supported by firsthand accounts of the author's adventures in counterculture, including firewalking, spiritual healing workshops and life within a Findhorn communitiy, and by archival correspondence and publications recovering "lost" history of alternative spirituality during the 1950s and 1960s; this is a thoughtful and colorful survey of the trends and controversies that accompany the concept of New Age. It calls for a fresh understanding of New Age as an emergent and fragmented form of folk idiom, complete with its own revealing loyalties and fractures; not a unified "movement" or "new religion", but a diffuse cultural force reflecting ever-shifting currents of popular sentiment.
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Release: 2003
Summary:
Children of the New Age, a pioneering history of the New Age phenomenon, combines original ethnographic research with rare archival material to give a definitive overview of New Age belief and practice from the 1930s to the present day. It chronicles the development of alternative spirituality from embryonic beginnings to a universal trend: from its inception within the underground enclaves of Rosicrucians, occultists and Alice Bailey's neo-theosophists to its modern-day incursion into mainstream political, musical and artistic culture. But this is also a distinctly critical history. New Age culture, says Steven J. Sutcliffe, is notoriously variegated and hotly contested, exposed to competing strands of revelation and apocalypse. Caught between the hippy explosion and the doomsday scenarios of millennial Christianity and UFO groups, it has been the preserve both of extreme religious individualists and of humanistic countercultures lauding the Edenic perfection of this worldly existence. At stake in its history are controversial questions of value, and of its perceived status as a discrete and unified "movement." Supported by firsthand accounts of the author's adventures in counterculture, including firewalking, spiritual healing workshops and life within a Findhorn communitiy, and by archival correspondence and publications recovering "lost" history of alternative spirituality during the 1950s and 1960s; this is a thoughtful and colorful survey of the trends and controversies that accompany the concept of New Age. It calls for a fresh understanding of New Age as an emergent and fragmented form of folk idiom, complete with its own revealing loyalties and fractures; not a unified "movement" or "new religion", but a diffuse cultural force reflecting ever-shifting currents of popular sentiment.
Author: Paul Bishop
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
"Jung in Contexts" is a unique collection of the most important essays on Carl Jung and analytical psychology over the past two decades. Paul Bishop's comprehensive introduction traces the growth and development of analytical psychology and its institutions. The essays which follow place Jung's life and work in three important contexts: historical, literary and intellectual.
Contributors explore diverse issues such as Jung's attitude towards National Socialism and his reading of E.T.A. Hoffman. His work is also viewed in terms of the traditions of German and French thought which influenced him. This compilation is an indispensable introduction for all those interested in Jung.
Contributors: Paul Bishop, Stanley Grossman, Pete A.Y. Gunter, John Haule, James L. Jarrett, John Kerr, Richard Noll, and Sonu Shamdasani.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
"Jung in Contexts" is a unique collection of the most important essays on Carl Jung and analytical psychology over the past two decades. Paul Bishop's comprehensive introduction traces the growth and development of analytical psychology and its institutions. The essays which follow place Jung's life and work in three important contexts: historical, literary and intellectual.
Contributors explore diverse issues such as Jung's attitude towards National Socialism and his reading of E.T.A. Hoffman. His work is also viewed in terms of the traditions of German and French thought which influenced him. This compilation is an indispensable introduction for all those interested in Jung.
Contributors: Paul Bishop, Stanley Grossman, Pete A.Y. Gunter, John Haule, James L. Jarrett, John Kerr, Richard Noll, and Sonu Shamdasani.
Author: Richard King
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
"Orientalism and Religion" offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
"Orientalism and Religion" offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.
Author: Bryan Wilson
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
This collection explores the modern phenomena of new religions, and the relationship these religions have with various social institutions.
The essays discuss the relevance of various religious movements such as Hare Krishna, Jesus People and Wicca, and show the relationship between those religions and economics, law media, mental health, women and other traditional religious institutions. "New Religious Movements" provides a balanced overview of the scope of influence and complexity of new religions.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1999
Summary:
This collection explores the modern phenomena of new religions, and the relationship these religions have with various social institutions.
The essays discuss the relevance of various religious movements such as Hare Krishna, Jesus People and Wicca, and show the relationship between those religions and economics, law media, mental health, women and other traditional religious institutions. "New Religious Movements" provides a balanced overview of the scope of influence and complexity of new religions.
Author: C. G. Jung
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1996
Summary:
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1996
Summary:
Author: E. J. Lowe
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1995
Summary:
"Locke on Human Understanding," is a comprehensive introduction to John Locke's major work, "Essay Concerning Human Understanding". Locke's "Essay" remains a key work in many philosophical fields, notably in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophies of mind and language. In addition, Locke is often referred to as the first English empiricist. Knowledge of this influential work and figure is essential to Enlightenment thought.
E. J. Lowe's approach enables students to effectively study the "Essay" by placing Locke's life and works in their intellectual and historical context. The book provides a critical examination of the leading themes in the "Essay", illuminating the main lines in Locke's thinking. Such topics include innate ideas, perception, primary and secondary qualities, personal identity, free will, action and language. Finally, E. J. Lowe examines the comtemporary work being done on this highly influential English philosopher.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1995
Summary:
"Locke on Human Understanding," is a comprehensive introduction to John Locke's major work, "Essay Concerning Human Understanding". Locke's "Essay" remains a key work in many philosophical fields, notably in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophies of mind and language. In addition, Locke is often referred to as the first English empiricist. Knowledge of this influential work and figure is essential to Enlightenment thought.
E. J. Lowe's approach enables students to effectively study the "Essay" by placing Locke's life and works in their intellectual and historical context. The book provides a critical examination of the leading themes in the "Essay", illuminating the main lines in Locke's thinking. Such topics include innate ideas, perception, primary and secondary qualities, personal identity, free will, action and language. Finally, E. J. Lowe examines the comtemporary work being done on this highly influential English philosopher.
Author: Richard Dyer
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1997
Summary:
White people are not simply or singularly white, yet they are called white. What does this mean in today's world where notions of race and racial representation continually reveal their complexity? Although many studies have examined the racial imagery of people of color, whiteness remains an invisible position; an absence against which other ethnicities are defined. In "White" , Richard Dyer looks beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness and reveals the importance of analyzing images of white people. He traces the representation of whiteness in Western visual culture, focusing on photography, fine art, cinema, television and advertising. Dyer begins by situating white imagery in the context of Christianity, "race" and colonialism and explores the significance of using the term "white." In fascinating case studies, he shows the construction of whiteness in the technology of photography and film as part of a wider "culture of light", discusses heroic white masculinity in muscle-man action cinema, from Tarzan and Hercules to Conan and Rambo, and analyzes the stifling role of white women in end-of-empire fictions like "Jewel in the Crown". Finally, Dyer traces the troublesome associations of whiteness with death in horror movies and cult dystopian films such as "Blade Runner" and the "Aliens" trilogy. Richly illustrated with 69 black and white images and 16 pages of color plates, " White" is an innovative and provocative exploration of racial imagery.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1997
Summary:
White people are not simply or singularly white, yet they are called white. What does this mean in today's world where notions of race and racial representation continually reveal their complexity? Although many studies have examined the racial imagery of people of color, whiteness remains an invisible position; an absence against which other ethnicities are defined. In "White" , Richard Dyer looks beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness and reveals the importance of analyzing images of white people. He traces the representation of whiteness in Western visual culture, focusing on photography, fine art, cinema, television and advertising. Dyer begins by situating white imagery in the context of Christianity, "race" and colonialism and explores the significance of using the term "white." In fascinating case studies, he shows the construction of whiteness in the technology of photography and film as part of a wider "culture of light", discusses heroic white masculinity in muscle-man action cinema, from Tarzan and Hercules to Conan and Rambo, and analyzes the stifling role of white women in end-of-empire fictions like "Jewel in the Crown". Finally, Dyer traces the troublesome associations of whiteness with death in horror movies and cult dystopian films such as "Blade Runner" and the "Aliens" trilogy. Richly illustrated with 69 black and white images and 16 pages of color plates, " White" is an innovative and provocative exploration of racial imagery.
Author: Allen Siegel
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1996
Summary:
Heinz Kohut's work represents an important departure from the Freudian tradition of psychoanalysis. As one of the founders of the 'self psychology' movement in America, he had an instrumental role in one of the most important developments in psychoanalysis since Freud. Based his practice on the belief that narcissistic vulnerabilities play a significant part in the suffering that brings people for treatment, Kohut evolved an understanding of the theraputic setting, applicable to both psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. However, as Kohut's works were written predominantly for a psychoanalytic audience, they are often difficult to interpret. Proposing that in order to grasp fully the evolution of Kohut's ideas, one must know something about the man and the milieu in which he lived, Dr. Allen Siegel incorporates biographical detail from Kohut's life to aid in the understanding his works. Also included are examples from Siegel's own practice, illustrating ways in which Kohut's innovative theories can be applied to other forms of treatment.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1996
Summary:
Heinz Kohut's work represents an important departure from the Freudian tradition of psychoanalysis. As one of the founders of the 'self psychology' movement in America, he had an instrumental role in one of the most important developments in psychoanalysis since Freud. Based his practice on the belief that narcissistic vulnerabilities play a significant part in the suffering that brings people for treatment, Kohut evolved an understanding of the theraputic setting, applicable to both psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. However, as Kohut's works were written predominantly for a psychoanalytic audience, they are often difficult to interpret. Proposing that in order to grasp fully the evolution of Kohut's ideas, one must know something about the man and the milieu in which he lived, Dr. Allen Siegel incorporates biographical detail from Kohut's life to aid in the understanding his works. Also included are examples from Siegel's own practice, illustrating ways in which Kohut's innovative theories can be applied to other forms of treatment.
Author: Andrew Samuels
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1993
Summary:
A radical and original study, "The Political Psyche" joins together depth psychology with politics in a way that fully reflects the discoveries made in analysis and therapy. In an attempt to show that an inner journey and a desire to fashion something practical out of passionate political convictions are linked projects, author Andrew Samuels brings an acute psychological perspective to political issues such as the distribution of wealth, the market economy, Third World development, environmentalism, and nationalism--expanding and enhancing our conception of "the political". However, keeping true to his aim of creating a two-way dialogue between depth psychology and politics, Samuels also lays bare the hidden politics of the father, the male body, and men's issues in general.
"The Political Psyche" does not collapse politics and psychology together, nor is Samuels unaware of the troubled relationship of depth psychology to the political events of the century. In the book he presents his acclaimed and cathartic work on Jung, anti-semitism and the Nazis to the wider public.
The text employs a "political" analysis to shed a fascinating light on clinical work. Samuels conducted a large-scale international survey of analysts and psychotherapists concerning what they do when their patients/clients bring overtly political material into the clinical setting. The results, including what the respondents reveal about their own political attitudes, destabilize any preconceived notions about the political sensitivity of analysis and psychotherapy.
Publisher: Routledge
Release: 1993
Summary:
A radical and original study, "The Political Psyche" joins together depth psychology with politics in a way that fully reflects the discoveries made in analysis and therapy. In an attempt to show that an inner journey and a desire to fashion something practical out of passionate political convictions are linked projects, author Andrew Samuels brings an acute psychological perspective to political issues such as the distribution of wealth, the market economy, Third World development, environmentalism, and nationalism--expanding and enhancing our conception of "the political". However, keeping true to his aim of creating a two-way dialogue between depth psychology and politics, Samuels also lays bare the hidden politics of the father, the male body, and men's issues in general.
"The Political Psyche" does not collapse politics and psychology together, nor is Samuels unaware of the troubled relationship of depth psychology to the political events of the century. In the book he presents his acclaimed and cathartic work on Jung, anti-semitism and the Nazis to the wider public.
The text employs a "political" analysis to shed a fascinating light on clinical work. Samuels conducted a large-scale international survey of analysts and psychotherapists concerning what they do when their patients/clients bring overtly political material into the clinical setting. The results, including what the respondents reveal about their own political attitudes, destabilize any preconceived notions about the political sensitivity of analysis and psychotherapy.
Author: Madison Grant
Publisher: Ayer Co Pub
Release: 1970
Summary: "The Passing of The Great Race" was one of the racialist books written between 1855 and 1920 that would strongly influence the the National Socialist Party. The first was Gobineau's "The Inequality of The Human Races", the second was Houston Stewart Chamberlain's "The Foundations of The Nineteenth Century", the third was this one, and the fourth was Lothrop Stoddard's "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy". Grant was a lawyer and conservationist who was a firm beleiver in the Old Order, free of Bolshevism and Socialism and centered around an Anglo-Saxon culture. Grant always tried to portray himself as more scientific than romantic racial theorists such as Chamberlain, but his theories actually have little scientific basis. For example, his division of Whites into Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean Races is anchored only on the basis of Nordic Scnadinavians having blonde hair, Alpine Slavs having brown hair, and Mediterranean Italians having black hair. Even worse is Grant's lack of historical basis. He considers the French, Southern Germans, and Poles to be a mix of Teutonic or Celtic Nordic peoples and dark-haired Alpine peoples who invaded Europe from Asia, but there was never any record of Asiatic peoples reaching France or Germany, at least not after the Celtic period. His classifications of Alpine are also very flimsy. He considers Southern Germans to be of Alpine stock, completely ignoring the fact that Southern Germans speak a Teutonic language and often have Teutonic features such as blonde hair and blue eyes. He also considers the Walloons of Belgium to be Alpine, ignoring the fact that they are descendants of the Celtic Belgae, who the Romans clearly described as being tall with blonde and red hair {sounds Nordic to me}. He also claims that the Irish and Welsh have substantial amounts of Mediterranean blood, ignoring the fact that both those peoples are Celtic and often have blonde or red hair. The most puzziling part of this whole thing is how this book became so popular when practicaly everyone is labled as inferior. Grant considers the only pure Nordics to be people with blonde hair and blue eyes, so why did people like Teddy Roosevelt {brunett} endorse it? Grant's book just lacks any spirit. I've read Chamberlain's "Foundations of The Nineteenth Century", and anyone who is of Celtic, Teutonic, or Slavic stock and is anti-Semitic will be riled up with the romaticism of the "Germanic" race being in constant battle with the Jews for survival. Anyone who has Celtic, Scandinavian, German, Anglo-Saxon, Polish, or Baltic ancestry is included in this Germanic race, while Grant tends to alienate anyone who isn't a blonde, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon or Swede, even putting the Germans down as inferior. This book should also be compared to Stoddard's "The Rising Tide of Color", which was written four years later. Stoddard also went by the Nordic-Alpine-Mediterranean model, but focused less on this than on the White Race as a whole. Stoddard was a visionary, looking to White issue in the future. While Grant clamored about keeping non-Nordic Russians and Italians out of the country, Stoddard warned that the real dangers are non-White Asians and Negroes. Grant's book has little relevance to today's issues, as practically every White American is a German-Irish-Polish-Italian mix. Stoddard, however, saw that all Whites had to band together against the "rising tide of color".
Publisher: Ayer Co Pub
Release: 1970
Summary: "The Passing of The Great Race" was one of the racialist books written between 1855 and 1920 that would strongly influence the the National Socialist Party. The first was Gobineau's "The Inequality of The Human Races", the second was Houston Stewart Chamberlain's "The Foundations of The Nineteenth Century", the third was this one, and the fourth was Lothrop Stoddard's "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy". Grant was a lawyer and conservationist who was a firm beleiver in the Old Order, free of Bolshevism and Socialism and centered around an Anglo-Saxon culture. Grant always tried to portray himself as more scientific than romantic racial theorists such as Chamberlain, but his theories actually have little scientific basis. For example, his division of Whites into Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean Races is anchored only on the basis of Nordic Scnadinavians having blonde hair, Alpine Slavs having brown hair, and Mediterranean Italians having black hair. Even worse is Grant's lack of historical basis. He considers the French, Southern Germans, and Poles to be a mix of Teutonic or Celtic Nordic peoples and dark-haired Alpine peoples who invaded Europe from Asia, but there was never any record of Asiatic peoples reaching France or Germany, at least not after the Celtic period. His classifications of Alpine are also very flimsy. He considers Southern Germans to be of Alpine stock, completely ignoring the fact that Southern Germans speak a Teutonic language and often have Teutonic features such as blonde hair and blue eyes. He also considers the Walloons of Belgium to be Alpine, ignoring the fact that they are descendants of the Celtic Belgae, who the Romans clearly described as being tall with blonde and red hair {sounds Nordic to me}. He also claims that the Irish and Welsh have substantial amounts of Mediterranean blood, ignoring the fact that both those peoples are Celtic and often have blonde or red hair. The most puzziling part of this whole thing is how this book became so popular when practicaly everyone is labled as inferior. Grant considers the only pure Nordics to be people with blonde hair and blue eyes, so why did people like Teddy Roosevelt {brunett} endorse it? Grant's book just lacks any spirit. I've read Chamberlain's "Foundations of The Nineteenth Century", and anyone who is of Celtic, Teutonic, or Slavic stock and is anti-Semitic will be riled up with the romaticism of the "Germanic" race being in constant battle with the Jews for survival. Anyone who has Celtic, Scandinavian, German, Anglo-Saxon, Polish, or Baltic ancestry is included in this Germanic race, while Grant tends to alienate anyone who isn't a blonde, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon or Swede, even putting the Germans down as inferior. This book should also be compared to Stoddard's "The Rising Tide of Color", which was written four years later. Stoddard also went by the Nordic-Alpine-Mediterranean model, but focused less on this than on the White Race as a whole. Stoddard was a visionary, looking to White issue in the future. While Grant clamored about keeping non-Nordic Russians and Italians out of the country, Stoddard warned that the real dangers are non-White Asians and Negroes. Grant's book has little relevance to today's issues, as practically every White American is a German-Irish-Polish-Italian mix. Stoddard, however, saw that all Whites had to band together against the "rising tide of color".
Author: Maureen Dowd
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Release: 2005
Summary: She may be smart, incisive, witty, and keenly observant but with the release of "Are Men Necessary?"--a series of pithy (some might say piqued) ruminations on the sexes--Maureen Dowd will never, ever be championed by guys. Not that she cares. Even those who seek to avoid her columns in the august pages of "The New York Times" are certain to stumble over her invective in syndication. Dowd, it often seems, is everywhere. So those seeking even more via this book should be warned: "Are Men Necessary?" not only asks the eponymous question; it seeks to answer it with myriad examples (some convincing, some not) drawn from the "Toronto Star" to Kenneth Starr, from "Cosmopolitan" to Condoleezza Rice. You can bet a lot of folks aren't going to relish the answer.
With hands on hips and eyes wide open, Dowd surveys gender relations in contemporary settings such as the workplace, the White House, the mall, and the media, comparing and contrasting as she goes. And while her secondary sources are endless--and, let's face it, the subject of gender inequality is not exactly new--Dowd manages to produce a fair share of bons mots. To wit, this pearl on the subject of plastic surgery and men: "I have yet to see a man come out of cosmetic surgery without looking transformed into some permanently astonished lesbian version of himself," Dowd quotes a source as saying. "It's terrifying. My friend's father had just his eyes done by the best, most highly sought-after cosmetic surgeon in New York City. And he doesn't look refreshed or well rested. He looks like he's being stabbed to death by invisible people." Dowd's generously dispersed anecdotes, though seldom as funny, are equally readable. In the end, though, one wishes "Are Men Necessary?" went beyond simply grocery listing examples of sexual disparity to offer concrete suggestions for change. Then again, maybe that's too great a task even for a woman like Dowd. "--Kim Hughes"
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Release: 2005
Summary: She may be smart, incisive, witty, and keenly observant but with the release of "Are Men Necessary?"--a series of pithy (some might say piqued) ruminations on the sexes--Maureen Dowd will never, ever be championed by guys. Not that she cares. Even those who seek to avoid her columns in the august pages of "The New York Times" are certain to stumble over her invective in syndication. Dowd, it often seems, is everywhere. So those seeking even more via this book should be warned: "Are Men Necessary?" not only asks the eponymous question; it seeks to answer it with myriad examples (some convincing, some not) drawn from the "Toronto Star" to Kenneth Starr, from "Cosmopolitan" to Condoleezza Rice. You can bet a lot of folks aren't going to relish the answer.
With hands on hips and eyes wide open, Dowd surveys gender relations in contemporary settings such as the workplace, the White House, the mall, and the media, comparing and contrasting as she goes. And while her secondary sources are endless--and, let's face it, the subject of gender inequality is not exactly new--Dowd manages to produce a fair share of bons mots. To wit, this pearl on the subject of plastic surgery and men: "I have yet to see a man come out of cosmetic surgery without looking transformed into some permanently astonished lesbian version of himself," Dowd quotes a source as saying. "It's terrifying. My friend's father had just his eyes done by the best, most highly sought-after cosmetic surgeon in New York City. And he doesn't look refreshed or well rested. He looks like he's being stabbed to death by invisible people." Dowd's generously dispersed anecdotes, though seldom as funny, are equally readable. In the end, though, one wishes "Are Men Necessary?" went beyond simply grocery listing examples of sexual disparity to offer concrete suggestions for change. Then again, maybe that's too great a task even for a woman like Dowd. "--Kim Hughes"
Author: Modris Eksteins
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release: 2000
Summary: Dazzling in its originality, witty and perceptive in unearthing patterns of behavior that history has erased, RITES OF SPRING probes the origins, the impact, and the aftermath of World War I -- from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War," as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point . . . for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places." In this "bold and fertile book" (Atlantic Monthly), Eksteins goes on to chart the seismic shifts in human consciousness brought about by this great cataclysm through the lives and words of ordinary people, works of literature, and such events as Lindbergh's transatlantic flight and the publication of the first modern bestseller, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. RITES OF SPRING is a remarkable and rare work, a cultural history that redefines the way we look at our past and toward our future.
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release: 2000
Summary: Dazzling in its originality, witty and perceptive in unearthing patterns of behavior that history has erased, RITES OF SPRING probes the origins, the impact, and the aftermath of World War I -- from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War," as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point . . . for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places." In this "bold and fertile book" (Atlantic Monthly), Eksteins goes on to chart the seismic shifts in human consciousness brought about by this great cataclysm through the lives and words of ordinary people, works of literature, and such events as Lindbergh's transatlantic flight and the publication of the first modern bestseller, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. RITES OF SPRING is a remarkable and rare work, a cultural history that redefines the way we look at our past and toward our future.
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release: 1998
Summary: The angry ranting of an obscure, small-party politician, the first volume of "Mein Kampf" was virtually ignored when it was originally published in 1925. Likewise the second volume, which appeared in 1926. The book details Hitler's childhood, the "betrayal" of Germany in World War I, the desire for revenge against France, the need for "lebensraum" for the German people, and the means by which the National Socialist party can gain power. It also includes Hitler's racist agenda and his glorification of the "Aryan" race. The few outside the Nazi party who read it dismissed it as nonsense, not believing that anyone could--or would--carry out its radical, terrorist programs. As Hitler and the Nazis gained power, first party members and then the general public were pressured to buy the book. By the time Hitler became chancellor of the Third Reich in 1933, the book stood atop the German bestseller lists. Had the book been taken seriously when it was first published, perhaps the 20th century would have been very different.
Beyond the anger, hatred, bigotry, and self-aggrandizing, "Mein Kampf" is saddled with tortured prose, meandering narrative, and tangled metaphors (one person was described as "a thorn in the eyes of venal officials"). That said, it is an incredibly important book. It is foolish to think that the Holocaust could not happen again, especially if World War II and its horrors are forgotten. As an Amazon.com reader has pointed out, "If you want to learn about why the Holocaust happened, you can't avoid reading the words of the man who was most responsible for it happening." "Mein Kampf", therefore, must be read as a reminder that evil can all too easily grow. "--Sunny Delaney"
Publisher: Mariner Books
Release: 1998
Summary: The angry ranting of an obscure, small-party politician, the first volume of "Mein Kampf" was virtually ignored when it was originally published in 1925. Likewise the second volume, which appeared in 1926. The book details Hitler's childhood, the "betrayal" of Germany in World War I, the desire for revenge against France, the need for "lebensraum" for the German people, and the means by which the National Socialist party can gain power. It also includes Hitler's racist agenda and his glorification of the "Aryan" race. The few outside the Nazi party who read it dismissed it as nonsense, not believing that anyone could--or would--carry out its radical, terrorist programs. As Hitler and the Nazis gained power, first party members and then the general public were pressured to buy the book. By the time Hitler became chancellor of the Third Reich in 1933, the book stood atop the German bestseller lists. Had the book been taken seriously when it was first published, perhaps the 20th century would have been very different.
Beyond the anger, hatred, bigotry, and self-aggrandizing, "Mein Kampf" is saddled with tortured prose, meandering narrative, and tangled metaphors (one person was described as "a thorn in the eyes of venal officials"). That said, it is an incredibly important book. It is foolish to think that the Holocaust could not happen again, especially if World War II and its horrors are forgotten. As an Amazon.com reader has pointed out, "If you want to learn about why the Holocaust happened, you can't avoid reading the words of the man who was most responsible for it happening." "Mein Kampf", therefore, must be read as a reminder that evil can all too easily grow. "--Sunny Delaney"
Author: Edward W. Said
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1979
Summary: The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University,examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1979
Summary: The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University,examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.
Author: Robert F. Berkhofer
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1979
Summary: Robert Berkhofer writes in his excellent book (The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present), the discourse of "Indian-ness" is a Euro-American construction. Indigenous peoples of the Americas did not think of themselves as belonging to some unified group of "Indians" or "Native Americans." That was a Columbus invention and like they say, the rest is history. Conversely, aboriginal peoples deemed themselves Dineh (Navajo) or Nuche (Utes), but certainly not "Indians." The category of "Indian" is an error of geography.
The Euro-American construction of a pan-Indian concept and "lumping" all tribes together led to tragedy on a grand scale. Some children from one group (or tribe) would steal a couple of cows from a wagon train. A few days later, miles down the trail, other "Indians" might appear. The white pioneers would shoot in retribution for the theft - firing at people who had nothing to do with it, and indeed, at people who might well have been glad to join in a raid against the tribe that had committed the theft. The lack of complexity is something the dominant White Euro-American culture had been prepared for is one of Berkhofers arguments. Berkhofer presents his case and does this with a list of examples and scholarly deftness to make it obvious and easy to relate to.
The problem was ignorance but more importantly, it was based upon an agenda of Otherness. "They" are not like "Us". "They" are a threat to "Us". "We" need to make them good Americans. We don't really understand "Them" what is there to understand. The conception of Indian changes over time a classic example of an Episteme. Indicating that the conception of the "Indian" was really more an indication of how the White population saw themselves. The effects of oversimplification, lumping and misplaced sense of nationalism (which was really "Individualism") resulted in what was almost a complete physical destruction of not a cultural one. The white conception of "Indians" is racism, pure and simple - lumping together the large and very diverse peoples on the continent. Berhofer takes us there. For more information also see Celluloid Indian by Kilpatrick (also available on Amazon.com). Be prepared to see things in a different way.
Miguel Llora
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1979
Summary: Robert Berkhofer writes in his excellent book (The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present), the discourse of "Indian-ness" is a Euro-American construction. Indigenous peoples of the Americas did not think of themselves as belonging to some unified group of "Indians" or "Native Americans." That was a Columbus invention and like they say, the rest is history. Conversely, aboriginal peoples deemed themselves Dineh (Navajo) or Nuche (Utes), but certainly not "Indians." The category of "Indian" is an error of geography.
The Euro-American construction of a pan-Indian concept and "lumping" all tribes together led to tragedy on a grand scale. Some children from one group (or tribe) would steal a couple of cows from a wagon train. A few days later, miles down the trail, other "Indians" might appear. The white pioneers would shoot in retribution for the theft - firing at people who had nothing to do with it, and indeed, at people who might well have been glad to join in a raid against the tribe that had committed the theft. The lack of complexity is something the dominant White Euro-American culture had been prepared for is one of Berkhofers arguments. Berkhofer presents his case and does this with a list of examples and scholarly deftness to make it obvious and easy to relate to.
The problem was ignorance but more importantly, it was based upon an agenda of Otherness. "They" are not like "Us". "They" are a threat to "Us". "We" need to make them good Americans. We don't really understand "Them" what is there to understand. The conception of Indian changes over time a classic example of an Episteme. Indicating that the conception of the "Indian" was really more an indication of how the White population saw themselves. The effects of oversimplification, lumping and misplaced sense of nationalism (which was really "Individualism") resulted in what was almost a complete physical destruction of not a cultural one. The white conception of "Indians" is racism, pure and simple - lumping together the large and very diverse peoples on the continent. Berhofer takes us there. For more information also see Celluloid Indian by Kilpatrick (also available on Amazon.com). Be prepared to see things in a different way.
Miguel Llora
Author: Laurens Van Der Post
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1976
Summary: After World War II, still in uniform and having been in a Japanese POW camp, Van der Post arrived in Zurich where his wife was studying with Carl Jung's mistress, Toni Wolff. Van der Post met Jung and an unlikely friendship ensued, based at first on a common love of Africa (van der Post's native continent.) The book explores Jung the man with rich doses of Van der Post's own narrative and subjectivity. It is unusually vivid, non-analytic, yet deep. The era of the end of the War and emerging Cold War helps set Jung in a meaningful context. Van der Post resonates powerfully with Jung's emphasis on dreams, which seems surprising in a man of action, but the depth he achieves in exploring some of Jung's well-known dreams is rewarding. He also catches some of the man's faults and foibles, so the tone, while idealizing on the whole, has a convincing precision of detail. The two men, author and subject, share a deep passion for the religious (as well as similar Reformed roots) and so the reader is drawn into a passionate dialogue about good and evil, God, the collective unconscious, war, racism, and other fascinating themes of Jung's work. Van der Post illuminates Jung's work without getting into the scholarly or pedantic mode, and brings the world of Jung's time to bear on our understanding of the man and his work. In addition to Jung, other members of the Zurich coterie are portrayed with spirited appreciation. Highly recommended.
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1976
Summary: After World War II, still in uniform and having been in a Japanese POW camp, Van der Post arrived in Zurich where his wife was studying with Carl Jung's mistress, Toni Wolff. Van der Post met Jung and an unlikely friendship ensued, based at first on a common love of Africa (van der Post's native continent.) The book explores Jung the man with rich doses of Van der Post's own narrative and subjectivity. It is unusually vivid, non-analytic, yet deep. The era of the end of the War and emerging Cold War helps set Jung in a meaningful context. Van der Post resonates powerfully with Jung's emphasis on dreams, which seems surprising in a man of action, but the depth he achieves in exploring some of Jung's well-known dreams is rewarding. He also catches some of the man's faults and foibles, so the tone, while idealizing on the whole, has a convincing precision of detail. The two men, author and subject, share a deep passion for the religious (as well as similar Reformed roots) and so the reader is drawn into a passionate dialogue about good and evil, God, the collective unconscious, war, racism, and other fascinating themes of Jung's work. Van der Post illuminates Jung's work without getting into the scholarly or pedantic mode, and brings the world of Jung's time to bear on our understanding of the man and his work. In addition to Jung, other members of the Zurich coterie are portrayed with spirited appreciation. Highly recommended.
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1968
Summary: Represents a selection from Nietzche's notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others.
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 1968
Summary: Represents a selection from Nietzche's notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others.
Author: Bram Stoker
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1997
Summary: "Dracula" is one of the few horror books to be honored by inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition series. (The others are "Frankenstein," "The Turn of the Screw," "Heart of Darkness," "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and "The Metamorphosis.") This 100th-anniversary edition includes not only the complete authoritative text of the novel with illuminating footnotes, but also four contextual essays, five reviews from the time of publication, five articles on dramatic and film variations, and seven selections from literary and academic criticism. Nina Auerbach of the University of Pennsylvania (author of "Our Vampires, Ourselves") and horror scholar David J. Skal (author of "Hollywood Gothic", "The Monster Show", and "Screams of Reason") are the editors of the volume. Especially fascinating are excerpts from materials that Bram Stoker consulted in his research for the book, and his working papers over the several years he was composing it. The selection of criticism includes essays on how "Dracula" deals with female sexuality, gender inversion, homoerotic elements, and Victorian fears of "reverse colonization" by politically turbulent Transylvania.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1997
Summary: "Dracula" is one of the few horror books to be honored by inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition series. (The others are "Frankenstein," "The Turn of the Screw," "Heart of Darkness," "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and "The Metamorphosis.") This 100th-anniversary edition includes not only the complete authoritative text of the novel with illuminating footnotes, but also four contextual essays, five reviews from the time of publication, five articles on dramatic and film variations, and seven selections from literary and academic criticism. Nina Auerbach of the University of Pennsylvania (author of "Our Vampires, Ourselves") and horror scholar David J. Skal (author of "Hollywood Gothic", "The Monster Show", and "Screams of Reason") are the editors of the volume. Especially fascinating are excerpts from materials that Bram Stoker consulted in his research for the book, and his working papers over the several years he was composing it. The selection of criticism includes essays on how "Dracula" deals with female sexuality, gender inversion, homoerotic elements, and Victorian fears of "reverse colonization" by politically turbulent Transylvania.
Author: T. R. Malthus
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2003
Summary: While millions face hunger, malnutrition, and starvation, the world's population is increasing by over 225,000 people per day, 80 million per year. In many countries, supplies of food and water are inadequate to support the population, so the world falls deeper and deeper into what economists call the "Malthusian trap," named for the writer whose work, more than any other, brought attention to the population dilemma. Philip Appleman's comprehensive introduction to Thomas Robert Malthus' seminal 1798 work traces the evolution of Malthus' idea and its validity through following generations.
The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations and excerpts from the revised edition (1803). Key eighteenth-century influences on Malthus are reprinted, including one by Benjamin Franklin.
Nine major assessments from the nineteenth century are reprinted, including—new to the Second Edition—those of Frances Pace and Harriet Martineau.
Contemporary commentary ranges widely through many schools of thought, from Lester R. Brown, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and Garrett Hardin to Julian Simon and Pope Paul VI. All but one of the twenty-four selections are new to the Second Edition.
About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2003
Summary: While millions face hunger, malnutrition, and starvation, the world's population is increasing by over 225,000 people per day, 80 million per year. In many countries, supplies of food and water are inadequate to support the population, so the world falls deeper and deeper into what economists call the "Malthusian trap," named for the writer whose work, more than any other, brought attention to the population dilemma. Philip Appleman's comprehensive introduction to Thomas Robert Malthus' seminal 1798 work traces the evolution of Malthus' idea and its validity through following generations.
The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations and excerpts from the revised edition (1803). Key eighteenth-century influences on Malthus are reprinted, including one by Benjamin Franklin.
Nine major assessments from the nineteenth century are reprinted, including—new to the Second Edition—those of Frances Pace and Harriet Martineau.
Contemporary commentary ranges widely through many schools of thought, from Lester R. Brown, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and Garrett Hardin to Julian Simon and Pope Paul VI. All but one of the twenty-four selections are new to the Second Edition.
About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.
Author: Jill Freedman, Gene Combs
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1996
Summary: Narrative Therapy by Jill Freedman & Gene Combs is perhaps one of the best theraputic books I have read. As an author and human services worker, I am always looking for titles that will help me assist client's with their needs. That said, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to work through problems such as depression, anger and societal connections. I highly recommend this book - the authors did a great job!
---
John D. Moore, MS, CADC
Author of Confusing Love with Obsession
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1996
Summary: Narrative Therapy by Jill Freedman & Gene Combs is perhaps one of the best theraputic books I have read. As an author and human services worker, I am always looking for titles that will help me assist client's with their needs. That said, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to work through problems such as depression, anger and societal connections. I highly recommend this book - the authors did a great job!
---
John D. Moore, MS, CADC
Author of Confusing Love with Obsession
Author: Peter Gay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Author: Peter Gay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Author: Peter Gay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: In uncovering the roots of modernism, a master historian shows us a hidden side of the Victorian era, the role of the bourgeois as reactionaries, revolutionaries, and middle-of-the-roaders in the passage of high culture toward modernism. "In the Victorian decades, the name bourgeois was at once a term of reproach and a source of self-respect." So Peter Gay opens his newest and perhaps most surprising work. For the Victorians we meet in this volume are not the stodgy, complacent characters of drawing-room comedy. They are instead a varied crowd, from the capitalists in the top tier of the bourgeoisie eager to be recognized as gentlemen or, better yet, dubbed as nobility to those at the bottom of the pile, the clerks and craftsmen mortally afraid of sinking into the mass of the proletariat. What they share is an anxiety, driven by their concern to advance up the social pyramid or at least to maintain the status they have achieved. Some of the individuals in this richly peopled narrative turn on their own class, none more bitterly than Gustave Flaubert; others celebrate their success, whether in Manchester or in Munich, by sponsoring symphony orchestras or establishing museums; still others become cultural hunters and gatherers, turning their newly acquired fortunes to the private accumulation of art, ranging from the "safe" works of the old masters to the daring innovations of the Impressionists. The stage is thus set for the explosion of modernism accompanied by an inevitable reaction against the subversive avant-garde of artists, composers, and writers as varied as Cezanne, Picasso, Stravinsky, Shaw, Ibsen, and Zola. No one reading this concluding volume of Peter Gay's magnificent revaluation of the nineteenth century will ever again use the term Victorian as a synonym for dull.
Pleasure Wars is the fifth and final volume in The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Peter Gay's searching inquiry into the ideas and sensibilities that dominated nineteenth-century culture. Richard Sennett, referring to the series as a whole, wrote that Peter Gay's "magisterial portrait of the Victorian bourgeoisie makes the past make emotional sense."
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1999
Summary: In uncovering the roots of modernism, a master historian shows us a hidden side of the Victorian era, the role of the bourgeois as reactionaries, revolutionaries, and middle-of-the-roaders in the passage of high culture toward modernism. "In the Victorian decades, the name bourgeois was at once a term of reproach and a source of self-respect." So Peter Gay opens his newest and perhaps most surprising work. For the Victorians we meet in this volume are not the stodgy, complacent characters of drawing-room comedy. They are instead a varied crowd, from the capitalists in the top tier of the bourgeoisie eager to be recognized as gentlemen or, better yet, dubbed as nobility to those at the bottom of the pile, the clerks and craftsmen mortally afraid of sinking into the mass of the proletariat. What they share is an anxiety, driven by their concern to advance up the social pyramid or at least to maintain the status they have achieved. Some of the individuals in this richly peopled narrative turn on their own class, none more bitterly than Gustave Flaubert; others celebrate their success, whether in Manchester or in Munich, by sponsoring symphony orchestras or establishing museums; still others become cultural hunters and gatherers, turning their newly acquired fortunes to the private accumulation of art, ranging from the "safe" works of the old masters to the daring innovations of the Impressionists. The stage is thus set for the explosion of modernism accompanied by an inevitable reaction against the subversive avant-garde of artists, composers, and writers as varied as Cezanne, Picasso, Stravinsky, Shaw, Ibsen, and Zola. No one reading this concluding volume of Peter Gay's magnificent revaluation of the nineteenth century will ever again use the term Victorian as a synonym for dull.
Pleasure Wars is the fifth and final volume in The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Peter Gay's searching inquiry into the ideas and sensibilities that dominated nineteenth-century culture. Richard Sennett, referring to the series as a whole, wrote that Peter Gay's "magisterial portrait of the Victorian bourgeoisie makes the past make emotional sense."
Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1997
Summary: Around the turn of the century, the American liberal tradition made a major shift away from politics. The new radicals were more interested in the reform of education, culture, and sexual mores. Through vivid biographies, Christopher Lasch chronicles these social reformers from Jane Addams, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Lincoln Steffens to Norman Mailer and Dwight MacDonald.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1997
Summary: Around the turn of the century, the American liberal tradition made a major shift away from politics. The new radicals were more interested in the reform of education, culture, and sexual mores. Through vivid biographies, Christopher Lasch chronicles these social reformers from Jane Addams, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Lincoln Steffens to Norman Mailer and Dwight MacDonald.
Author: Peter Gay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1996
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1996
Summary: Education of the Senses, the first volume of Peter Gay's The Bourgeois Experience, was hailed as "a subtle, elegant, profound and prodigiously researched book" (Washington Post Book World), "the most learned, as well as the wittiest, survey of human sexuality ever to be published" (The New
York Times). In this, the second volume, Gay continues his eloquent, psychoanalytically informed exploration of the lives of the Victorian middle classes. Whereas Education of the Senses focused on Victorians' sexual behavior and attitudes, The Tender Passion concentrates on their notions of love.
Gay argues that, contrary to popular belief, Victorians were able to know love in its most exalted sense. "Freud was only summing up the current wisdom," he writes, "when he observed that 'a completely normal attitude in love' requires the uniting of 'two currents,' the 'tender and sensual.'"
Beginning with the stories of two young men, one English and one German, Gay proceeds to a wide-ranging inquiry into the ideal and real meaning of love for the Victorians. Based on a vast amount of material--including philosophical treatises, medical texts, letters, diaries, works of fiction,
and art--the book explores such topics as homosexual love, class differences in the perception of love, and the diversion of love in music and religion. There are also fascinating insights into the lives of eminent 19th-century figures, including Dickens, Stendhal, Balzac, Wagner, and Beatrice Webb.
A work of remarkable erudition and analytical sophistication, The Tender Passion is an impressive addition to "one of the major historical enterprises of the decade" (The New York Review of Books).
Author: Peter Gay
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1993
Summary: [...] This five volume history of the victorian bourgeois follows a freudian schematic: the first volume dealt with love, the second with sex, and this volume with agression.
This book was my favorite of the three I've read so far. Gay picks apart the Victorian penchant for cloaked agression with admirable scholastic fortitude. His discussion of Foucault's theory of prisons is a high light for this entire five volume set.
His critique of what he calls the "social control" theorists is that they fail to take into account the ability of the powerful to delude themselves into thinking they are doing the right thing, even when they are most assuredly not.
Why stop here? Only two more volumes to go...
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1993
Summary: [...] This five volume history of the victorian bourgeois follows a freudian schematic: the first volume dealt with love, the second with sex, and this volume with agression.
This book was my favorite of the three I've read so far. Gay picks apart the Victorian penchant for cloaked agression with admirable scholastic fortitude. His discussion of Foucault's theory of prisons is a high light for this entire five volume set.
His critique of what he calls the "social control" theorists is that they fail to take into account the ability of the powerful to delude themselves into thinking they are doing the right thing, even when they are most assuredly not.
Why stop here? Only two more volumes to go...
Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1991
Summary: When "The Culture of Narcissism" was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissim Revisited."
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1991
Summary: When "The Culture of Narcissism" was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissim Revisited."
Author: Will Eisner, Umberto Eco
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2005
Summary: A work more disturbing than fiction from "the father of graphic novels" ("New York Times").
Will Eisner, the great American master of comics, has undertaken what he regards as his most powerful work yet. "The Plot" examines the outrageous fabrication of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which purports to be the actual blueprint by Jewish leaders to take over the world. Hatched as an anti-Semitic plot by the tsar's secret police to deflect widespread criticism of the government, the "Protocols", first published in 1905, succeeded beyond the propagandistic ambitions of its originators; the lie became an internationally accepted truth. Presenting a pageant of historical figures including Tsar Nicholas II, Henry Ford, and Adolf Hitler, Eisner exposes the twisted history of the "Protocols" from nineteenth-century Russia to modern-day Klan members to Islamic fundamentalists. "The Plot" unravels one of the most devastating hoaxes of the twentieth century.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2005
Summary: A work more disturbing than fiction from "the father of graphic novels" ("New York Times").
Will Eisner, the great American master of comics, has undertaken what he regards as his most powerful work yet. "The Plot" examines the outrageous fabrication of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which purports to be the actual blueprint by Jewish leaders to take over the world. Hatched as an anti-Semitic plot by the tsar's secret police to deflect widespread criticism of the government, the "Protocols", first published in 1905, succeeded beyond the propagandistic ambitions of its originators; the lie became an internationally accepted truth. Presenting a pageant of historical figures including Tsar Nicholas II, Henry Ford, and Adolf Hitler, Eisner exposes the twisted history of the "Protocols" from nineteenth-century Russia to modern-day Klan members to Islamic fundamentalists. "The Plot" unravels one of the most devastating hoaxes of the twentieth century.
Author: Roy Porter
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2000
Summary: Traditionally, "The Enlightenment" has been associated with France, America, and Scotland rather than Britain, which, strangely enough, is thought not to have had an Enlightenment to speak of. Roy Porter effectively upsets this view in "Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World". Porter's general concern is with "the interplay of activists, ideas, and society," and to this end he examines innovations in social, political, scientific, psychological, and theological discourse. The key figures (the "enlightened thinkers") read like a "Who's Who" of the 17th and 18th centuries--Newton, Locke, Bernard de Mandeville, Erasmus Darwin, Priestley, Paine, Bentham, and Britain's "premier enlightenment couple" Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, as well as the men who helped popularize and disseminate their ideas, such as Addison, Steele, Defoe, Pope, and Sterne. The book is peppered with brilliant quotes, and although it covers such vast ground in a rapid and sometimes breathless manner, Porter just about manages to hold it all together.
While returning the Enlightenment to Britain, Porter also provides a persuasive general defense of the movement against its Foucauldian, feminist, and/or postmodern critics who still "paint it black." It was perpetually dismissed as "anything from superficial and intellectually naïve to a conspiracy of dead white men in periwigs [who] provide the intellectual foundation for Western imperialism," and one of the book's strengths is that after reading it, one finds it hard to understand how these "critiques" gained such influence in intellectual circles. The major shortcoming of the book--as Porter is well aware--is that "too many themes receive short measure": literature and the arts, political debate, the forging of nationalism, and more. Several chapters, if not all, deserved book-length treatment, making this work of nearly 500 pages seem quite short. But if "Enlightenment" leaves the reader unsatisfied, it is in the best possible way--one would have liked to hear more from Porter rather than less. Word has it he's already planning an encore. "--Larry Brown, Amazon.co.uk"
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 2000
Summary: Traditionally, "The Enlightenment" has been associated with France, America, and Scotland rather than Britain, which, strangely enough, is thought not to have had an Enlightenment to speak of. Roy Porter effectively upsets this view in "Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World". Porter's general concern is with "the interplay of activists, ideas, and society," and to this end he examines innovations in social, political, scientific, psychological, and theological discourse. The key figures (the "enlightened thinkers") read like a "Who's Who" of the 17th and 18th centuries--Newton, Locke, Bernard de Mandeville, Erasmus Darwin, Priestley, Paine, Bentham, and Britain's "premier enlightenment couple" Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, as well as the men who helped popularize and disseminate their ideas, such as Addison, Steele, Defoe, Pope, and Sterne. The book is peppered with brilliant quotes, and although it covers such vast ground in a rapid and sometimes breathless manner, Porter just about manages to hold it all together.
While returning the Enlightenment to Britain, Porter also provides a persuasive general defense of the movement against its Foucauldian, feminist, and/or postmodern critics who still "paint it black." It was perpetually dismissed as "anything from superficial and intellectually naïve to a conspiracy of dead white men in periwigs [who] provide the intellectual foundation for Western imperialism," and one of the book's strengths is that after reading it, one finds it hard to understand how these "critiques" gained such influence in intellectual circles. The major shortcoming of the book--as Porter is well aware--is that "too many themes receive short measure": literature and the arts, political debate, the forging of nationalism, and more. Several chapters, if not all, deserved book-length treatment, making this work of nearly 500 pages seem quite short. But if "Enlightenment" leaves the reader unsatisfied, it is in the best possible way--one would have liked to hear more from Porter rather than less. Word has it he's already planning an encore. "--Larry Brown, Amazon.co.uk"
Author: Sigmund Freud, James Strachey
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1989
Summary: Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: "The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud" under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.
Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work—along with a note on the individual volume—by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release: 1989
Summary: Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: "The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud" under the general editorship of James Strachey. Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.
Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work—along with a note on the individual volume—by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.
Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: DoubleDay
Release: 2003
Summary: With "The Da Vinci Code," Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown ("Angels and Demons") has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. "The Da Vinci Code" is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. "--Jeremy Pugh"
Publisher: DoubleDay
Release: 2003
Summary: With "The Da Vinci Code," Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoteria culled from 2,000 years of Western history.
A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle. The duo become both suspects and detectives searching for not only Neveu's grandfather's murderer but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England, and history itself. Brown ("Angels and Demons") has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. "The Da Vinci Code" is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. "--Jeremy Pugh"
Author: Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers
Publisher: Anchor
Release: 1991
Summary: Among his many gifts, Joseph Campbell's most impressive was the unique ability to take a contemporary situation, such as the murder and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, and help us understand its impact in the context of ancient mythology. Herein lies the power of "The Power of Myth", showing how humans are apt to create and live out the themes of mythology. Based on a six-part PBS television series hosted by Bill Moyers, this classic is especially compelling because of its engaging question-and-answer format, creating an easy, conversational approach to complicated and esoteric topics. For example, when discussing the mythology of heroes, Campbell and Moyers smoothly segue from the Sumerian sky goddess Inanna to "Star Wars"' mercenary-turned-hero, Han Solo. Most impressive is Campbell's encyclopedic knowledge of myths, demonstrated in his ability to recall the details and archetypes of almost any story, from any point and history, and translate it into a lesson for spiritual living in the here and now. "--Gail Hudson"
Publisher: Anchor
Release: 1991
Summary: Among his many gifts, Joseph Campbell's most impressive was the unique ability to take a contemporary situation, such as the murder and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, and help us understand its impact in the context of ancient mythology. Herein lies the power of "The Power of Myth", showing how humans are apt to create and live out the themes of mythology. Based on a six-part PBS television series hosted by Bill Moyers, this classic is especially compelling because of its engaging question-and-answer format, creating an easy, conversational approach to complicated and esoteric topics. For example, when discussing the mythology of heroes, Campbell and Moyers smoothly segue from the Sumerian sky goddess Inanna to "Star Wars"' mercenary-turned-hero, Han Solo. Most impressive is Campbell's encyclopedic knowledge of myths, demonstrated in his ability to recall the details and archetypes of almost any story, from any point and history, and translate it into a lesson for spiritual living in the here and now. "--Gail Hudson"
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: The Dial Press
Release: 1998
Summary: This collection of Vonnegut's short masterpieces share his audacious sense of humor and extraordinary creative vision.
Publisher: The Dial Press
Release: 1998
Summary: This collection of Vonnegut's short masterpieces share his audacious sense of humor and extraordinary creative vision.
Author: Zecharia Sitchin
Publisher: Harper
Release: 1999
Summary: Zecharia Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series is based on the premise that mythology is not physiologically based, psychologically metaphorical, or culturally allegorical but rather the repository of ancient memories, and that the Bible ought to be read as a historical scientific document. While the debate regarding the origins of myth is far from conclusive, and the dangers of assuming that the subjectivity of the reader/researcher will not intervene are obvious, Stitchin "is" an expert in ancient language and history. While the reader may scoff at his unfortunately characteristic long leaps of logic resulting in conclusions (such as that gods from outer space destroyed a spaceport on the Sinai Peninsula four millennia ago), he does present some compelling ideas not easily ignored. The series, of which this is the third volume, deserves a read by those fascinated with the search for the origins of humankind who don't mind spending time separating wheat from chaff. "--P. Randall Cohan"
Publisher: Harper
Release: 1999
Summary: Zecharia Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series is based on the premise that mythology is not physiologically based, psychologically metaphorical, or culturally allegorical but rather the repository of ancient memories, and that the Bible ought to be read as a historical scientific document. While the debate regarding the origins of myth is far from conclusive, and the dangers of assuming that the subjectivity of the reader/researcher will not intervene are obvious, Stitchin "is" an expert in ancient language and history. While the reader may scoff at his unfortunately characteristic long leaps of logic resulting in conclusions (such as that gods from outer space destroyed a spaceport on the Sinai Peninsula four millennia ago), he does present some compelling ideas not easily ignored. The series, of which this is the third volume, deserves a read by those fascinated with the search for the origins of humankind who don't mind spending time separating wheat from chaff. "--P. Randall Cohan"
Author: Randall Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 2003
Summary: "Nigger" is Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy's ornate, lively monograph on what he calls the "paradigmatic" racial slur in the English language. A neutral noun in the 17th century, "nigger" had, by 1830, become an "influential" insult. Kennedy traces the word's history in literature, song, film, politics, sports, everyday speech, and the courtroom. He also discusses its plastic, contradictory, and volatile place in contemporary American society. Should it be eradicated from dictionaries and the language? Should it be, somehow, regulated? What is the significance of its emergence among some blacks as a term with "undertones of warmth and good will"? Do blacks have a historical right to its use or does that place the term under a "protectionist pall"? With courage and grave measure Kennedy has, in effect, created a forum for discussion of the word he calls a "reminder of the ironies and dilemmas, the tragedies and glories, of the American experience." "--H. O'Billovitch"
Publisher: Vintage
Release: 2003
Summary: "Nigger" is Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy's ornate, lively monograph on what he calls the "paradigmatic" racial slur in the English language. A neutral noun in the 17th century, "nigger" had, by 1830, become an "influential" insult. Kennedy traces the word's history in literature, song, film, politics, sports, everyday speech, and the courtroom. He also discusses its plastic, contradictory, and volatile place in contemporary American society. Should it be eradicated from dictionaries and the language? Should it be, somehow, regulated? What is the significance of its emergence among some blacks as a term with "undertones of warmth and good will"? Do blacks have a historical right to its use or does that place the term under a "protectionist pall"? With courage and grave measure Kennedy has, in effect, created a forum for discussion of the word he calls a "reminder of the ironies and dilemmas, the tragedies and glories, of the American experience." "--H. O'Billovitch"
Author: Harry Bruinius
Publisher: Knopf
Release: 2006
Summary: In "Better for All the World," Harry Bruinius charts the little-known history of eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans.
Bruinius tells the stories of Emma and Carrie Buck, two women trapped in poverty and caught up in a new scientific quest for racial purity. "Buck v. Bell" became a test case brought before the Supreme Court, which voted 8–1 to make sterilization a constitutionally valid way for the state to prevent anyone deemed “unfit” from having children.
The court’s majority opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “It is better for all the world,” Holmes wrote, “if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Eugenicists believed that the human race must begin to take control not just of human reproduction, but of ethnic intermingling. With the natural and objective methods of science they hoped to breed only the biologically best of the races and prevent the propagation of the worst. The result: marriage restriction, anti-miscegenation, and immigration laws.
In "Better for All the World," Harry Bruinius shows how reformers across the nation transformed haphazard, locally run systems of charity and welfare—mostly church handouts and town asylums—into government-run systems of welfare that aspired to make America a place where social and moral purity could reign, free from the “hereditary defectives” of the past.
Those who supported the programs included Theodore Roosevelt; Margaret Sanger; Alexander Graham Bell; the heads of the Harriman, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations; and scholars from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
Bruinius writes how many of the leaders of the eugenics movement were New England Protestants who used an evangelical tone that harked back to their Puritan forebears, and who proclaimed their goal to keep the “American stock” pure by excising the causes of immoral behavior.
Drawing on personal letters, diaries, and documents never before used, the author writes of the three scientists who developed the theories and practices of eugenics: Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who coined the word “eugenics” to describe the science of better breeding; Charles Davenport, the first influential eugenic thinker in America, professor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, direct descendant of Reverend John Davenport, the founder of the city of New Haven; and Harry Laughlin, Davenport’s protégé, the nation’s foremost expert in eugenic sterilization and also a leader in the movement to stop the tide of immigrants coming to this country.
The author makes clear how America’s quest for racial purity influenced Nazi Germany: one of its first laws, the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, followed the work of California’s Human Betterment Foundation and Harry Laughlin’s Model Law. In less than two years, more than 150,000 German citizens were sterilized, preparing the way for the genocide to come. In 1936, the Nazi regime awarded Laughlin an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University for his contributions to “racial hygiene.” During the Nuremberg Trials, the Allied prosecutors were doubtful they could convict Nazi doctors of “crimes against humanity”—since those accused had carried out acts based on theories of eugenics that had been practiced for decades in the United States.
Publisher: Knopf
Release: 2006
Summary: In "Better for All the World," Harry Bruinius charts the little-known history of eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans.
Bruinius tells the stories of Emma and Carrie Buck, two women trapped in poverty and caught up in a new scientific quest for racial purity. "Buck v. Bell" became a test case brought before the Supreme Court, which voted 8–1 to make sterilization a constitutionally valid way for the state to prevent anyone deemed “unfit” from having children.
The court’s majority opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “It is better for all the world,” Holmes wrote, “if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Eugenicists believed that the human race must begin to take control not just of human reproduction, but of ethnic intermingling. With the natural and objective methods of science they hoped to breed only the biologically best of the races and prevent the propagation of the worst. The result: marriage restriction, anti-miscegenation, and immigration laws.
In "Better for All the World," Harry Bruinius shows how reformers across the nation transformed haphazard, locally run systems of charity and welfare—mostly church handouts and town asylums—into government-run systems of welfare that aspired to make America a place where social and moral purity could reign, free from the “hereditary defectives” of the past.
Those who supported the programs included Theodore Roosevelt; Margaret Sanger; Alexander Graham Bell; the heads of the Harriman, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations; and scholars from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
Bruinius writes how many of the leaders of the eugenics movement were New England Protestants who used an evangelical tone that harked back to their Puritan forebears, and who proclaimed their goal to keep the “American stock” pure by excising the causes of immoral behavior.
Drawing on personal letters, diaries, and documents never before used, the author writes of the three scientists who developed the theories and practices of eugenics: Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, who coined the word “eugenics” to describe the science of better breeding; Charles Davenport, the first influential eugenic thinker in America, professor at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, direct descendant of Reverend John Davenport, the founder of the city of New Haven; and Harry Laughlin, Davenport’s protégé, the nation’s foremost expert in eugenic sterilization and also a leader in the movement to stop the tide of immigrants coming to this country.
The author makes clear how America’s quest for racial purity influenced Nazi Germany: one of its first laws, the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, followed the work of California’s Human Betterment Foundation and Harry Laughlin’s Model Law. In less than two years, more than 150,000 German citizens were sterilized, preparing the way for the genocide to come. In 1936, the Nazi regime awarded Laughlin an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University for his contributions to “racial hygiene.” During the Nuremberg Trials, the Allied prosecutors were doubtful they could convict Nazi doctors of “crimes against humanity”—since those accused had carried out acts based on theories of eugenics that had been practiced for decades in the United States.
Author: Sharon Gannon, David Life
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 2002
Summary: "The long-awaited," "complete guide to the popular, vigorous American method of yoga that is deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and scriptures
"
“In this day and age of health and fitness trends, it is assuring to know that Sharon and David encourage their students to draw inspiration from the classical texts of Yoga and timeless scriptural sources. What I appreciate so much about David and Sharon is how they help their Yoga students to understand and appreciate the wisdom of all the great saints and jivamuktas who have contributed to raising consciousness. Ultimately, it is Self-Realization, that is the true goal of Yoga.”
–SRI SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA
Creators of the extremely popular Jivamukti Yoga method and cofounders of the New York City studios where it is taught, Sharon Gannon and David Life present their unique style of yoga for the first time in book form. As they explain their intensely physical and spiritual system of flowing postures, they provide inspiring expert instruction to guide you in your practice.
Unlike many books about yoga, "Jivamukti Yoga" focuses not only on the physical postures but also on how they evolved–the origins of the practices in yoga’s ancient sacred texts and five-thousand-year-old traditions–the psychotherapeutic benefits that accrue with a steady practice, and the spiritual power that is set free when energy flows throughout the mind and body. Jivamukti Yoga, which means “soul liberation,” guides your body and soul into spiritual freedom, physical strength, peace of mind, better health, and Self-realization–the ultimate goal of any practice. Gannon and Life help you understand each of the practices that comprise the yoga path to enlightenment:
AHIMSA–"The Way of Compassion": choosing nonviolence, respecting all life, practicing vegetarianism, living free of prejudice
ASANA–"The Way of Connection to the Earth": postures and sequences, breathing, transforming energy, understanding the bandhas
KARMA–"The Way of Action": creating good karma, giving thanks
NADAM–"The Way of Sacred Music": appreciating the sacred sounds of yoga
MEDITATION–"The Way of the Witness": how to sit still and move inward
BHAKTI–"The Way of Devotion to God": living with love, grace, and peace
Whatever yoga you practice, "Jivamukti Yoga" will help you to strengthen and deepen that practice and lead you onto a path of spiritual clarity and self-discovery.
“If there is only one book you read about the practice of Yoga, this should be the one. Sharon and David are deeply dedicated students and teachers of Yoga who have the rare capacity to translate their profound understanding to the reader. This book is for anyone who wishes to find transformation through Yoga. I’m grateful for their work and teaching.”
–STEPHAN RECHTSCHAFFEN, MD
Co-founder & CEO, Omega Institute
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 2002
Summary: "The long-awaited," "complete guide to the popular, vigorous American method of yoga that is deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and scriptures
"
“In this day and age of health and fitness trends, it is assuring to know that Sharon and David encourage their students to draw inspiration from the classical texts of Yoga and timeless scriptural sources. What I appreciate so much about David and Sharon is how they help their Yoga students to understand and appreciate the wisdom of all the great saints and jivamuktas who have contributed to raising consciousness. Ultimately, it is Self-Realization, that is the true goal of Yoga.”
–SRI SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA
Creators of the extremely popular Jivamukti Yoga method and cofounders of the New York City studios where it is taught, Sharon Gannon and David Life present their unique style of yoga for the first time in book form. As they explain their intensely physical and spiritual system of flowing postures, they provide inspiring expert instruction to guide you in your practice.
Unlike many books about yoga, "Jivamukti Yoga" focuses not only on the physical postures but also on how they evolved–the origins of the practices in yoga’s ancient sacred texts and five-thousand-year-old traditions–the psychotherapeutic benefits that accrue with a steady practice, and the spiritual power that is set free when energy flows throughout the mind and body. Jivamukti Yoga, which means “soul liberation,” guides your body and soul into spiritual freedom, physical strength, peace of mind, better health, and Self-realization–the ultimate goal of any practice. Gannon and Life help you understand each of the practices that comprise the yoga path to enlightenment:
AHIMSA–"The Way of Compassion": choosing nonviolence, respecting all life, practicing vegetarianism, living free of prejudice
ASANA–"The Way of Connection to the Earth": postures and sequences, breathing, transforming energy, understanding the bandhas
KARMA–"The Way of Action": creating good karma, giving thanks
NADAM–"The Way of Sacred Music": appreciating the sacred sounds of yoga
MEDITATION–"The Way of the Witness": how to sit still and move inward
BHAKTI–"The Way of Devotion to God": living with love, grace, and peace
Whatever yoga you practice, "Jivamukti Yoga" will help you to strengthen and deepen that practice and lead you onto a path of spiritual clarity and self-discovery.
“If there is only one book you read about the practice of Yoga, this should be the one. Sharon and David are deeply dedicated students and teachers of Yoga who have the rare capacity to translate their profound understanding to the reader. This book is for anyone who wishes to find transformation through Yoga. I’m grateful for their work and teaching.”
–STEPHAN RECHTSCHAFFEN, MD
Co-founder & CEO, Omega Institute
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 1990
Summary: "As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance."
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Three clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over....
Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 1990
Summary: "As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance."
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Three clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over....
Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.
Author: Hyemeyohsts Storm
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 1985
Summary: A heartbreaking story of victory, defeat, and of a spiritual search in a profane world, this is the story of Night Bear and his people. It is the tale of the land they cherish and the lives they hold sacred, lived until the enemy can no longer be stopped, and the dead have few left to weep for them.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release: 1985
Summary: A heartbreaking story of victory, defeat, and of a spiritual search in a profane world, this is the story of Night Bear and his people. It is the tale of the land they cherish and the lives they hold sacred, lived until the enemy can no longer be stopped, and the dead have few left to weep for them.
Author: Angelique Richardson
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Release: 2002
Summary: A cultural icon of the "fin de siècle", the New Woman was not one figure, but several. In the guise of a bicycling, cigarette-smoking Amazon, the New Woman romped through the pages of "Punch" and popular fiction; as a neurasthenic victim of social oppression, she suffered in the pages of New Woman novels such as Sarah Grand's hugely successful" The Heavenly Twins". "The New Woman in Fiction and Fact" marks a radically new departure in 19th century scholarship to explore the polyvocal nature of the late Victorian debates around gender, motherhood, class, race and imperialism which converged in the name of the New Woman.
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Release: 2002
Summary: A cultural icon of the "fin de siècle", the New Woman was not one figure, but several. In the guise of a bicycling, cigarette-smoking Amazon, the New Woman romped through the pages of "Punch" and popular fiction; as a neurasthenic victim of social oppression, she suffered in the pages of New Woman novels such as Sarah Grand's hugely successful" The Heavenly Twins". "The New Woman in Fiction and Fact" marks a radically new departure in 19th century scholarship to explore the polyvocal nature of the late Victorian debates around gender, motherhood, class, race and imperialism which converged in the name of the New Woman.
Author: E. A. Swingrover
Publisher: Longman
Release: 2003
Summary: "The Counterculture Reader" provides a fascinating look at American culture in the 60's". This brief collection of readings presents an engaging and informed overview of the counterculture movement, challenging students to understand “what happened and why.” Brief apparatus helps individuals read and write more thoughtfully about the idea of counterculture and think critically about its effects on contemporary culture. Individuals interested in reading selections about the counterculture movement of the 1960's. Swingrover The_Counterculture_Reader SMP Page 1 of 1
Publisher: Longman
Release: 2003
Summary: "The Counterculture Reader" provides a fascinating look at American culture in the 60's". This brief collection of readings presents an engaging and informed overview of the counterculture movement, challenging students to understand “what happened and why.” Brief apparatus helps individuals read and write more thoughtfully about the idea of counterculture and think critically about its effects on contemporary culture. Individuals interested in reading selections about the counterculture movement of the 1960's. Swingrover The_Counterculture_Reader SMP Page 1 of 1
Author: William Sears, Martha Sears, Robert Sears, James Sears
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release: 2003
Summary: In their excellent (and hefty) resource guide, "The Baby Book," attachment parenting specialists William Sears and Martha Sears have provided new parents with their approach to every aspect of baby care basics, from newborns to toddlers. Attachment parenting is a gentle, reasonable approach to parenting that stresses bonding with your baby, responding to her cues, breastfeeding, "wearing" your baby, and sharing sleep with your child. For those parents who worry about negative effects of this attention, the Sears say, "Spoiling is what happens when you leave something (or some person) alone on the shelf--it spoils."
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release: 2003
Summary: In their excellent (and hefty) resource guide, "The Baby Book," attachment parenting specialists William Sears and Martha Sears have provided new parents with their approach to every aspect of baby care basics, from newborns to toddlers. Attachment parenting is a gentle, reasonable approach to parenting that stresses bonding with your baby, responding to her cues, breastfeeding, "wearing" your baby, and sharing sleep with your child. For those parents who worry about negative effects of this attention, the Sears say, "Spoiling is what happens when you leave something (or some person) alone on the shelf--it spoils."
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release: 2002
Summary: "The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.
For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.
Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues", or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, "The Tipping Point" is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name. "--Ron Hogan"
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release: 2002
Summary: "The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.
For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.
Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues", or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, "The Tipping Point" is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name. "--Ron Hogan"
Author: Deirdre Bair
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release: 2004
Summary: Deirdre Bair has written about some of the most influential figures in 20th century culture-Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Anas Nin. Now she turns her expert eye to the one person whose teachings and writings are the most influential of all: psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The founder of analytical psychology, Jung became the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1910. Jung had a professional relationship with Sigmund Freud until he broke with the elder father of psychoanalysis over his emphasis on infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex.As Freud's influence has waned over the years, Jung's ideas-the collective unconscious, the archetypal myths underpinning all societies, synchronicity, 'new age' spirituality, and much more-have achieved an overwhelming ascendancy.Bair addresses the myths about Jung-accusations that he was an anti-Semite and a misogynist, and that he falsified data-with evidence from his own writings and from those of his colleagues and former patients. The result is a groundbreaking and accessible work that promises to be the definitive life of Carl Jung.
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Release: 2004
Summary: Deirdre Bair has written about some of the most influential figures in 20th century culture-Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Anas Nin. Now she turns her expert eye to the one person whose teachings and writings are the most influential of all: psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The founder of analytical psychology, Jung became the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1910. Jung had a professional relationship with Sigmund Freud until he broke with the elder father of psychoanalysis over his emphasis on infantile sexuality and the Oedipus complex.As Freud's influence has waned over the years, Jung's ideas-the collective unconscious, the archetypal myths underpinning all societies, synchronicity, 'new age' spirituality, and much more-have achieved an overwhelming ascendancy.Bair addresses the myths about Jung-accusations that he was an anti-Semite and a misogynist, and that he falsified data-with evidence from his own writings and from those of his colleagues and former patients. The result is a groundbreaking and accessible work that promises to be the definitive life of Carl Jung.
Author: Ruth Clifford Engs
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Eugenics--the theory that we can improve future generations of humans through selective breeding--was one of the most controversial movements of the early 20th century. Often tied to racist beliefs and nativist desires to limit immigration, the eugenics movement attracted some of the most prominent scientists and social reformers of the day. This encyclopedia brings into one place concise descriptions of the leading figures, organizations, events, legislation, publications, concepts, and terms of this vitally important period historical movement. Although focused on the United States during the heyday of the movement, the encyclopedia includes material on international event as well as connections to important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, "family balancing," and the possibility of human cloning.
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Eugenics--the theory that we can improve future generations of humans through selective breeding--was one of the most controversial movements of the early 20th century. Often tied to racist beliefs and nativist desires to limit immigration, the eugenics movement attracted some of the most prominent scientists and social reformers of the day. This encyclopedia brings into one place concise descriptions of the leading figures, organizations, events, legislation, publications, concepts, and terms of this vitally important period historical movement. Although focused on the United States during the heyday of the movement, the encyclopedia includes material on international event as well as connections to important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, "family balancing," and the possibility of human cloning.
Author:
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Release: 1985
Summary:
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Release: 1985
Summary:
Author: Shadia B. Drury
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Release: 1999
Summary: In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term, and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German Jewish emigré and scholar who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement, a man widely seen as the godfather of the Republican party's failed "Contract With America." Among his students were individuals such as Alan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. Strauss influenced the work of Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and William Kristol, as well as Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Drury delves deeply into Strauss's work at the University of Chicago where he taught his students that, if they truly loved America, they must save her from her fateful enchantment with liberalism. Leo Strauss and the American Right is a fascinating piece of work that anyone interested in understanding our current political situation will want to read.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Release: 1999
Summary: In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term, and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German Jewish emigré and scholar who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement, a man widely seen as the godfather of the Republican party's failed "Contract With America." Among his students were individuals such as Alan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. Strauss influenced the work of Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and William Kristol, as well as Chief Justice Clarence Thomas and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Drury delves deeply into Strauss's work at the University of Chicago where he taught his students that, if they truly loved America, they must save her from her fateful enchantment with liberalism. Leo Strauss and the American Right is a fascinating piece of work that anyone interested in understanding our current political situation will want to read.
Author: Ellis Amburn
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: 1999
Summary: At the heart of Jack Kerouac's hidden life is the conflict between his "homoerotically inclined life and the blustering masculinity" he felt compelled to demonstrate. As a youth in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac was a football hero, brash and rowdy, pursued by the local coeds. But his strongest emotions focused on an artistic high school friend, Sammy Sampas, whose physical advances Jack ultimately rejected and forever mourned. This failure to resolve his emotional and sexual identity set into motion Kerouac's two-headed monster of creativity and self-destruction.
Though his novels depict rampant sexual freedom and distinguish him as a stylistic innovator, Kerouac himself was reined in by the taboos and social constrictions of the 1930s and '40s. Friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and other beat originals helped him indulge the homosexual side of his nature. Yet the internal conflicts raged, and running along with them were Kerouac's Benzedrine and alcohol addictions.
While Amburn's biography is rich with the salacious adventures of hipsterism (trysts with Ginsberg between parked trucks in Greenwich Village; the frenetic cross-country trips immortalized in "On the Road"; the Kerouac Sex List, which tells exactly with whom and how many times), he takes a serious look at the twisted Kerouac psyche. Amburn has a unique vantage point as Kerouac's last editor, and we benefit from their friendship with the confidential details Kerouac supplied during the editing process. Kerouac often insisted that "every word I write is true," but Amburn readers discover a man tortured by the dueling sides of his own divided nature. "--Joan Urban"
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: 1999
Summary: At the heart of Jack Kerouac's hidden life is the conflict between his "homoerotically inclined life and the blustering masculinity" he felt compelled to demonstrate. As a youth in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac was a football hero, brash and rowdy, pursued by the local coeds. But his strongest emotions focused on an artistic high school friend, Sammy Sampas, whose physical advances Jack ultimately rejected and forever mourned. This failure to resolve his emotional and sexual identity set into motion Kerouac's two-headed monster of creativity and self-destruction.
Though his novels depict rampant sexual freedom and distinguish him as a stylistic innovator, Kerouac himself was reined in by the taboos and social constrictions of the 1930s and '40s. Friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and other beat originals helped him indulge the homosexual side of his nature. Yet the internal conflicts raged, and running along with them were Kerouac's Benzedrine and alcohol addictions.
While Amburn's biography is rich with the salacious adventures of hipsterism (trysts with Ginsberg between parked trucks in Greenwich Village; the frenetic cross-country trips immortalized in "On the Road"; the Kerouac Sex List, which tells exactly with whom and how many times), he takes a serious look at the twisted Kerouac psyche. Amburn has a unique vantage point as Kerouac's last editor, and we benefit from their friendship with the confidential details Kerouac supplied during the editing process. Kerouac often insisted that "every word I write is true," but Amburn readers discover a man tortured by the dueling sides of his own divided nature. "--Joan Urban"
Author: D. J. Waldie
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: 1997
Summary: Welcome to Lakewood, California, the world's largest suburb and the subject of an oddly mesmerizing account of its creation by D. J. Waldie. Waldie describes how bean fields were drawn up, sectioned off and divided up--leaving tracts for small houses of similar design. The author changes while the land around him does, in a story of how people make places and, more so, places make people.
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: 1997
Summary: Welcome to Lakewood, California, the world's largest suburb and the subject of an oddly mesmerizing account of its creation by D. J. Waldie. Waldie describes how bean fields were drawn up, sectioned off and divided up--leaving tracts for small houses of similar design. The author changes while the land around him does, in a story of how people make places and, more so, places make people.
Author: Henry James
Publisher: Bedford Books
Release: 1995
Summary: The story starts conventionally enough with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children (a girl and a boy) for some evil purpose. The household staff don't know what she's talking about, the children are evasive when questioned, and the master of the house (the children's uncle) is absent. Why does the young girl claim not to see a perfectly visible woman standing on the far side of the lake? Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid? By leaving the questions unanswered, "The Turn of Screw" generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers.
Publisher: Bedford Books
Release: 1995
Summary: The story starts conventionally enough with friends sharing ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas Eve. One of the guests tells about a governess at a country house plagued by supernatural visitors. But in the hands of Henry James, the master of nuance, this little tale of terror is an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity. Only the young governess can see the ghosts; only she suspects that the previous governess and her lover are controlling the two orphaned children (a girl and a boy) for some evil purpose. The household staff don't know what she's talking about, the children are evasive when questioned, and the master of the house (the children's uncle) is absent. Why does the young girl claim not to see a perfectly visible woman standing on the far side of the lake? Are the children being deceptive, or is the governess being paranoid? By leaving the questions unanswered, "The Turn of Screw" generates spine-tingling anxiety in its mesmerized readers.
Author: Osho
Publisher: Harmony
Release: 2006
Summary: The path to freedom is filled with questions and uncertainty. Is it possible to truly know who we are? Do our lives have a purpose, or are we just accidental? What are we meant to contribute? What are we meant to become, to create, and to share? In "The Book of Understanding", Osho, one of the most provocative thinkers of our time, challenges us to understand our world and ourselves in a new and radical way. The first step toward understanding, he says, is to question and doubt all that we have been taught to believe.
All our lives we’ve been handed so-called truths by countless others—beliefs we learned to accept without reason. It is only in questioning our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices that we can begin to uncover our own unique voice and heal the divisions within us and without.
Once we discover our authentic self, we can embrace all aspects of the human experience—from the earthy, pleasure-loving qualities that characterize Zorba the Greek to the watchful, silent qualities of Gautam the Buddha. We can become whole and live with integrity, able to respond with creativity and compassion to the religious, political, and cultural divides that currently plague our society.
In this groundbreaking work, Osho identifies, loosens, and ultimately helps to untie the knots of fear and misunderstanding that restrict us—leaving us free to discover and create our own individual path to freedom.
Doubt—because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence.
You are not responsible to any nation, to any church, to any God. You are responsible only for one thing, and that is self-knowledge. And the miracle is, if you can fulfill this responsibility, you will be able to fulfill many other responsibilities without any effort. The moment you come to your own being, a revolution happens in your vision. Your whole outlook about life goes through a radical change. You start feeling new responsibilities—not as something to be done, not as duty to be fulfilled, but as a joy to do. —OSHO
Publisher: Harmony
Release: 2006
Summary: The path to freedom is filled with questions and uncertainty. Is it possible to truly know who we are? Do our lives have a purpose, or are we just accidental? What are we meant to contribute? What are we meant to become, to create, and to share? In "The Book of Understanding", Osho, one of the most provocative thinkers of our time, challenges us to understand our world and ourselves in a new and radical way. The first step toward understanding, he says, is to question and doubt all that we have been taught to believe.
All our lives we’ve been handed so-called truths by countless others—beliefs we learned to accept without reason. It is only in questioning our beliefs, assumptions, and prejudices that we can begin to uncover our own unique voice and heal the divisions within us and without.
Once we discover our authentic self, we can embrace all aspects of the human experience—from the earthy, pleasure-loving qualities that characterize Zorba the Greek to the watchful, silent qualities of Gautam the Buddha. We can become whole and live with integrity, able to respond with creativity and compassion to the religious, political, and cultural divides that currently plague our society.
In this groundbreaking work, Osho identifies, loosens, and ultimately helps to untie the knots of fear and misunderstanding that restrict us—leaving us free to discover and create our own individual path to freedom.
Doubt—because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence.
You are not responsible to any nation, to any church, to any God. You are responsible only for one thing, and that is self-knowledge. And the miracle is, if you can fulfill this responsibility, you will be able to fulfill many other responsibilities without any effort. The moment you come to your own being, a revolution happens in your vision. Your whole outlook about life goes through a radical change. You start feeling new responsibilities—not as something to be done, not as duty to be fulfilled, but as a joy to do. —OSHO
Author: David Standish
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Release: 2006
Summary: A remarkable cultural history of what might exist under the Earth's surface—as reflected in mythology, religion, science, literature, and good old crackpottery. Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who also suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the many surprising, marvelous, and just plain weird permutations his ideas have taken over the centuries.Both Edgar Allan Poe and (more famously) Jules Verne picked up the torch in the nineteenth century, the latter with his science fiction epic A Journey to the Center of the Earth. The notion of a hollow earth even inspired a religion at the turn of the twentieth century—Koreshanity, which held not only that the earth was hollow, but also that we're all living on the inside.Utopian novels and adventures abounded at this same time, including L. Frank Baum's hollow earth addition to the Oz series and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar books chronicling a stone-age hollow earth. In the 1940s an enterprising science-fiction magazine editor convinced people that the true origins of flying saucers lay within the hollow earth, relics of an advanced alien civilization. And there are still devout hollow earthers today, some of whom claim there is a New Age utopia lurking beneath the earth's surface, with at least one entrance near Mt. Shasta in California. Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era's relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won't go away.
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Release: 2006
Summary: A remarkable cultural history of what might exist under the Earth's surface—as reflected in mythology, religion, science, literature, and good old crackpottery. Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who also suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the many surprising, marvelous, and just plain weird permutations his ideas have taken over the centuries.Both Edgar Allan Poe and (more famously) Jules Verne picked up the torch in the nineteenth century, the latter with his science fiction epic A Journey to the Center of the Earth. The notion of a hollow earth even inspired a religion at the turn of the twentieth century—Koreshanity, which held not only that the earth was hollow, but also that we're all living on the inside.Utopian novels and adventures abounded at this same time, including L. Frank Baum's hollow earth addition to the Oz series and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar books chronicling a stone-age hollow earth. In the 1940s an enterprising science-fiction magazine editor convinced people that the true origins of flying saucers lay within the hollow earth, relics of an advanced alien civilization. And there are still devout hollow earthers today, some of whom claim there is a New Age utopia lurking beneath the earth's surface, with at least one entrance near Mt. Shasta in California. Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era's relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won't go away.
Author: Anne Norton
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: The teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss (1899–1973) have recently received new attention, as political observers have become aware of the influence Strauss’s students have had in shaping conservative agendas of the Bush administration—including the war on Iraq. This provocative book examines Strauss’s ideas and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers.
Anne Norton, a political theorist trained by some of Strauss’s most famous students, is well equipped to write on Strauss and Straussians. She tells three interwoven narratives: the story of Leo Strauss, a Jewish German-born émigré, who carried European philosophy into a new world; the story of the philosophic lineage that came from Leo Strauss; and the story of how America has been made a moral battleground by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Leon Kass, Carnes Lord, and Irving Kristol—Straussian conservatives committed to an American imperialism they believe will usher in a new world order.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: The teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss (1899–1973) have recently received new attention, as political observers have become aware of the influence Strauss’s students have had in shaping conservative agendas of the Bush administration—including the war on Iraq. This provocative book examines Strauss’s ideas and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers.
Anne Norton, a political theorist trained by some of Strauss’s most famous students, is well equipped to write on Strauss and Straussians. She tells three interwoven narratives: the story of Leo Strauss, a Jewish German-born émigré, who carried European philosophy into a new world; the story of the philosophic lineage that came from Leo Strauss; and the story of how America has been made a moral battleground by the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Leon Kass, Carnes Lord, and Irving Kristol—Straussian conservatives committed to an American imperialism they believe will usher in a new world order.
Author: Mark Oppenheimer
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2003
Summary: What happened to American religion during the cultural revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s? The era has long been associated with the ascendancy of Eastern religions and fringe cults. But in this provocative book, Mark Oppenheimer demonstrates that contrary to conventional wisdom, most Americans did not turn on, tune in, and drop out of mainstream religious groups during the Age of Aquarius. Instead, many Americans brought the counterculture with them to their churches and temples, changing the face of American religion. Introducing us to America's first gay ministers and first female priests, to hippie Jews and folk-singing Catholics, Oppenheimer demonstrates that this was an era of extraordinary religious vitality. Drawing on a rich range of archival material as well as interviews with many of the protagonists, Knocking on Heaven's Door offers a wry and iconoclastic reappraisal of the ways in which the upheavals of the sixties changed America's relationship with God.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2003
Summary: What happened to American religion during the cultural revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s? The era has long been associated with the ascendancy of Eastern religions and fringe cults. But in this provocative book, Mark Oppenheimer demonstrates that contrary to conventional wisdom, most Americans did not turn on, tune in, and drop out of mainstream religious groups during the Age of Aquarius. Instead, many Americans brought the counterculture with them to their churches and temples, changing the face of American religion. Introducing us to America's first gay ministers and first female priests, to hippie Jews and folk-singing Catholics, Oppenheimer demonstrates that this was an era of extraordinary religious vitality. Drawing on a rich range of archival material as well as interviews with many of the protagonists, Knocking on Heaven's Door offers a wry and iconoclastic reappraisal of the ways in which the upheavals of the sixties changed America's relationship with God.
Author: Sydney E. Ahlstrom
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: This classic work, winner of the 1973 National Book Award in Philosophy and Religion and "Christian Century’s "choice "as the Religious Book of the Decade (1979), is now issued with a new chapter by noted religious historian David Hall, who carries the story of American religious history forward to the present day.
Praise for the earlier edition:
“An unusual and praiseworthy book. . . . It takes a modern, almost anthropological view of history, in which worship is a part of a web of culture along with play, love, dress, and language.”—B.A. Weisberger, "Washington Post Book World "
“The most detailed, most polished of the works in its tradition.”—Martin E. Marty, "New York Times Book Review "
“An intellectual delight that one does not so much read as savor.”—"America"
“The definitive one-volume study by the leading authority.”—"Christianity Today"
“No one writing or thinking hereafter about America’s past will be able to ignore Ahlstrom’s magisterial account of the religious element.”—"American Historical Review "
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: This classic work, winner of the 1973 National Book Award in Philosophy and Religion and "Christian Century’s "choice "as the Religious Book of the Decade (1979), is now issued with a new chapter by noted religious historian David Hall, who carries the story of American religious history forward to the present day.
Praise for the earlier edition:
“An unusual and praiseworthy book. . . . It takes a modern, almost anthropological view of history, in which worship is a part of a web of culture along with play, love, dress, and language.”—B.A. Weisberger, "Washington Post Book World "
“The most detailed, most polished of the works in its tradition.”—Martin E. Marty, "New York Times Book Review "
“An intellectual delight that one does not so much read as savor.”—"America"
“The definitive one-volume study by the leading authority.”—"Christianity Today"
“No one writing or thinking hereafter about America’s past will be able to ignore Ahlstrom’s magisterial account of the religious element.”—"American Historical Review "
Author: J. W. Burrow
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: This elegantly written book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the first World War. Distinguished historian J.W. Burrow populates his book with the great thinkers of the age -- among them Mill, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Proust, Flaubert, Wagner and Wilde -- and explores the impact on European intellectual life of such powerful scientific and social concepts as social Darwinism and the unconscious mind.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: This elegantly written book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the first World War. Distinguished historian J.W. Burrow populates his book with the great thinkers of the age -- among them Mill, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Proust, Flaubert, Wagner and Wilde -- and explores the impact on European intellectual life of such powerful scientific and social concepts as social Darwinism and the unconscious mind.
Author: Daniel Pick
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: From the immediate success of George Du Maurier's 1894 book Trilby came a transatlantic sensation of all things Trilby- sausages, hats, candies, even a town in Florida. Trilby has faded now, leaving behind in its wake pervasive lingering traces of Svengali, the dark character who crossed from his role as a charismatic Jewish musician who hypnotised and exploited a young woman, into a cultural icon of all things concealed, sinister, and malignantly persuasive. Using Trilby as the starting point for an exploration of cultural history Pick analyses the Trilby phenomenon, and explores what it was about the themes of the book that resonated so immediately and widely with the deep psychological dreads of fin de siecle society and beyond. Guiding us through the smoke-and-mirrors world of 19th century neurologists and anti-semites, best-selling novelists, Jewish conductors enthralling divas, and political nightmares, Pick unearths representations of Svengali in literature, theatre, film, music and politics to reveal the constituents of post-modern angst. This is a short book, immaculately written, and thick with allusion and revelation.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: From the immediate success of George Du Maurier's 1894 book Trilby came a transatlantic sensation of all things Trilby- sausages, hats, candies, even a town in Florida. Trilby has faded now, leaving behind in its wake pervasive lingering traces of Svengali, the dark character who crossed from his role as a charismatic Jewish musician who hypnotised and exploited a young woman, into a cultural icon of all things concealed, sinister, and malignantly persuasive. Using Trilby as the starting point for an exploration of cultural history Pick analyses the Trilby phenomenon, and explores what it was about the themes of the book that resonated so immediately and widely with the deep psychological dreads of fin de siecle society and beyond. Guiding us through the smoke-and-mirrors world of 19th century neurologists and anti-semites, best-selling novelists, Jewish conductors enthralling divas, and political nightmares, Pick unearths representations of Svengali in literature, theatre, film, music and politics to reveal the constituents of post-modern angst. This is a short book, immaculately written, and thick with allusion and revelation.
Author: Philip J. Deloria
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1999
Summary: This provocative book explores the way non-Indian Americans have appropriated Indian dress and acted out Indian roles since the Boston Tea Party-and the reactions of Indian people to these imitations of their native dress, language, and ritual. The author shows that white ideas about Indians have shaped national identity at different times in American history, and that Indians have been both idealized and villainized, humiliated and empowered, by these imaginings.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1999
Summary: This provocative book explores the way non-Indian Americans have appropriated Indian dress and acted out Indian roles since the Boston Tea Party-and the reactions of Indian people to these imitations of their native dress, language, and ritual. The author shows that white ideas about Indians have shaped national identity at different times in American history, and that Indians have been both idealized and villainized, humiliated and empowered, by these imaginings.
Author: Elzbieta Ettinger
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1997
Summary: This book is the first to tell in detail the story of the passionate and secret love affair between two of the most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Drawing on their previously unknown correspondence, Elzbieta Ettinger describes a relationship that lasted for more than half a century, a relationship that sheds startling light on both individuals.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1997
Summary: This book is the first to tell in detail the story of the passionate and secret love affair between two of the most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Drawing on their previously unknown correspondence, Elzbieta Ettinger describes a relationship that lasted for more than half a century, a relationship that sheds startling light on both individuals.
Author: Robin Winks
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1996
Summary: This highly acclaimed book-now reissued with a new preface-investigates the underlying bonds between the world of the university and the intelligence community. The CIA and its World War II forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, for years recruited primarily from the Ivy League. Robin Winks explains why this happened and introduces a fascinating cast of spy game participants.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1996
Summary: This highly acclaimed book-now reissued with a new preface-investigates the underlying bonds between the world of the university and the intelligence community. The CIA and its World War II forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, for years recruited primarily from the Ivy League. Robin Winks explains why this happened and introduces a fascinating cast of spy game participants.
Author: Matthew Arnold
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1994
Summary: Without the challenging precedent of Culture and Anarchy, literary criticism and sociology in England and the United States would want both purpose and direction. Manifesting the special intelligence of a literary critic of original gifts, Culture and Anarchy is still a living classic. It is addressed to the flexible and the disinterested, to those who are not committed to the findings of their particular discipline, and it assumes in its reader a critical intelligence that will begin its work with the reader himself. Arnold employs a delicate and stringent irony in an examination of the society of his time: a rapidly expanding industrial society, just beginning to accustom itself to the changes in its institutions that the pace of its own development called for. Coming virtually at the end of the decade (1868) and immediately prior to W. E. Forster's Education Act, Culture and Anarchy phrases with a particular cogency the problems that find their centre in the questions: what kind of life do we think individuals in mass societies should be assisted to lead? How may we best ensure that the quality of their living is not impoverished? Arnold applies himself to the detail of his time: to the case of Mr Smith 'who feared he would come to poverty and be eternally lost', to the Reform agitation, to the commercial values that working people were encouraged to respect, and to the limitations of even the best Rationalist intelligence. The degree of local reference is therefore high, but John Dover Wilson's introduction and notes to this edition supply valuable assistance to a reader fresh to the period.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1994
Summary: Without the challenging precedent of Culture and Anarchy, literary criticism and sociology in England and the United States would want both purpose and direction. Manifesting the special intelligence of a literary critic of original gifts, Culture and Anarchy is still a living classic. It is addressed to the flexible and the disinterested, to those who are not committed to the findings of their particular discipline, and it assumes in its reader a critical intelligence that will begin its work with the reader himself. Arnold employs a delicate and stringent irony in an examination of the society of his time: a rapidly expanding industrial society, just beginning to accustom itself to the changes in its institutions that the pace of its own development called for. Coming virtually at the end of the decade (1868) and immediately prior to W. E. Forster's Education Act, Culture and Anarchy phrases with a particular cogency the problems that find their centre in the questions: what kind of life do we think individuals in mass societies should be assisted to lead? How may we best ensure that the quality of their living is not impoverished? Arnold applies himself to the detail of his time: to the case of Mr Smith 'who feared he would come to poverty and be eternally lost', to the Reform agitation, to the commercial values that working people were encouraged to respect, and to the limitations of even the best Rationalist intelligence. The degree of local reference is therefore high, but John Dover Wilson's introduction and notes to this edition supply valuable assistance to a reader fresh to the period.
Author: Adam Crabtree
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: I've been reading on the topic of hypnosis for about 15 years now, both formally and informally as far as education goes. In this book Adam Crabtree has given the best education on the topic I have ever encountered -- so much so, that I realized with some degree of horror how UNeducated I was about the subject, despite all these years of interest and study.
Crabtree does more than just present the yawningly-dull textbook aspect of history here -- HIS book IS an interesting read, despite being so educational. He also presents the personal, social and cultural dynamics that have played out throughout the history of this topic and with the personalities involved. The book gives important attention to the many qualified individuals who studied, practiced and wrote about the topic from Mesmer's era onward. Modern day authors and textbooks that cover the topic of hypnosis and related psychology tend to mostly-ignore anything more than a few decades old, with little more than a mention, as if only "modern" science is important (and there is always the unspoken inference in modern education that Mesmer, despite that he was well credentialed for his day, was some kind of idiot to go on about "magnetic fluid from the stars" and such).
What Crabtree demonstrates by unwinding the tapestry of this history is that by not paying more attention to the history, we have in fact failed to see what got lost in the politically correct shuffle of time, what got ignored in the West's attempt to find answers that could be explained solely by biochemical, and what got rewritten and UNwritten in the history which has been, as always, written by 'the victors' -- in this case, the party-line of Western medicine.
In this book, Crabtree does not once utter the word "chi." Never does he even hint that this "discovery" of Mesmer's MIGHT have been the West's actual discovery of pranic work (chi, or energy) -- attendant with its many variable focuses (some physical, some psychological, etc.) and the resultant confusion that brings for a culture unused to considering those things all part of the same spectrum, and which is trying to nail down a "thing" that it "is". And yet the inclusion of excerpts from the writings of Mesmer and many others in the pre-James Braid days makes it so patently obvious (to ME in any case) that this is what they were talking about that I couldn't help but exclaim out loud. Taken from that perspective (by anybody with a little bit of knowledge about Eastern medicine et al.) the history takes on a new richness and the subject a whole new wonder. This is my take on it though; one can't say that Crabtree ever said any such thing. This is just what I got out of it.
Anyway, the book is an excellent education about hypnosis, its development, the people involved, and the fascinating topic of what it's been used for, how and why and what some of the fascinating results were. Like any good book, it leaves you with as many ideas about questions as it does facts and answers (often about things you never even thought to ask).
I recommend the book highly. It's probably not a general-public book, in the sense that one needs a brain and an attention span to enjoy it -- it's a "serious" book. But for anyone interested in this topic, and especially those educated about it via modern schools, I strongly recommend it. I enjoyed it a great deal.
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: I've been reading on the topic of hypnosis for about 15 years now, both formally and informally as far as education goes. In this book Adam Crabtree has given the best education on the topic I have ever encountered -- so much so, that I realized with some degree of horror how UNeducated I was about the subject, despite all these years of interest and study.
Crabtree does more than just present the yawningly-dull textbook aspect of history here -- HIS book IS an interesting read, despite being so educational. He also presents the personal, social and cultural dynamics that have played out throughout the history of this topic and with the personalities involved. The book gives important attention to the many qualified individuals who studied, practiced and wrote about the topic from Mesmer's era onward. Modern day authors and textbooks that cover the topic of hypnosis and related psychology tend to mostly-ignore anything more than a few decades old, with little more than a mention, as if only "modern" science is important (and there is always the unspoken inference in modern education that Mesmer, despite that he was well credentialed for his day, was some kind of idiot to go on about "magnetic fluid from the stars" and such).
What Crabtree demonstrates by unwinding the tapestry of this history is that by not paying more attention to the history, we have in fact failed to see what got lost in the politically correct shuffle of time, what got ignored in the West's attempt to find answers that could be explained solely by biochemical, and what got rewritten and UNwritten in the history which has been, as always, written by 'the victors' -- in this case, the party-line of Western medicine.
In this book, Crabtree does not once utter the word "chi." Never does he even hint that this "discovery" of Mesmer's MIGHT have been the West's actual discovery of pranic work (chi, or energy) -- attendant with its many variable focuses (some physical, some psychological, etc.) and the resultant confusion that brings for a culture unused to considering those things all part of the same spectrum, and which is trying to nail down a "thing" that it "is". And yet the inclusion of excerpts from the writings of Mesmer and many others in the pre-James Braid days makes it so patently obvious (to ME in any case) that this is what they were talking about that I couldn't help but exclaim out loud. Taken from that perspective (by anybody with a little bit of knowledge about Eastern medicine et al.) the history takes on a new richness and the subject a whole new wonder. This is my take on it though; one can't say that Crabtree ever said any such thing. This is just what I got out of it.
Anyway, the book is an excellent education about hypnosis, its development, the people involved, and the fascinating topic of what it's been used for, how and why and what some of the fascinating results were. Like any good book, it leaves you with as many ideas about questions as it does facts and answers (often about things you never even thought to ask).
I recommend the book highly. It's probably not a general-public book, in the sense that one needs a brain and an attention span to enjoy it -- it's a "serious" book. But for anyone interested in this topic, and especially those educated about it via modern schools, I strongly recommend it. I enjoyed it a great deal.
Author: Sydney E. Ahlstrom
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1974
Summary: This classic work, winner of the 1973 National Book Award in Philosophy and Religion and "Christian Century’s "choice "as the Religious Book of the Decade (1979), is now issued with a new chapter by noted religious historian David Hall, who carries the story of American religious history forward to the present day.
Praise for the earlier edition:
“An unusual and praiseworthy book. . . . It takes a modern, almost anthropological view of history, in which worship is a part of a web of culture along with play, love, dress, and language.”—B.A. Weisberger, "Washington Post Book World "
“The most detailed, most polished of the works in its tradition.”—Martin E. Marty, "New York Times Book Review "
“An intellectual delight that one does not so much read as savor.”—"America"
“The definitive one-volume study by the leading authority.”—"Christianity Today"
“No one writing or thinking hereafter about America’s past will be able to ignore Ahlstrom’s magisterial account of the religious element.”—"American Historical Review "
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release: 1974
Summary: This classic work, winner of the 1973 National Book Award in Philosophy and Religion and "Christian Century’s "choice "as the Religious Book of the Decade (1979), is now issued with a new chapter by noted religious historian David Hall, who carries the story of American religious history forward to the present day.
Praise for the earlier edition:
“An unusual and praiseworthy book. . . . It takes a modern, almost anthropological view of history, in which worship is a part of a web of culture along with play, love, dress, and language.”—B.A. Weisberger, "Washington Post Book World "
“The most detailed, most polished of the works in its tradition.”—Martin E. Marty, "New York Times Book Review "
“An intellectual delight that one does not so much read as savor.”—"America"
“The definitive one-volume study by the leading authority.”—"Christianity Today"
“No one writing or thinking hereafter about America’s past will be able to ignore Ahlstrom’s magisterial account of the religious element.”—"American Historical Review "
Author: Paul Keith Conkin
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Release: 1990
Summary: Coming from a background that is neither of the Restoration Movement, nor of the Holiness movements that came from the Cane Ridge American revival period, I still found this book to be objective and interesting. Conkin, as previously stated by other reviewers, does an excellent job of presenting the materials in a way that is neither flattering, nor insulting to the frontier's people. Instead, he gives rational explanation for why they behave how they do and a peek into the 17th century religious mindset that would prompt the religious exercising. This is a book worth checking out, even according to this 20-something Bible College student.
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Release: 1990
Summary: Coming from a background that is neither of the Restoration Movement, nor of the Holiness movements that came from the Cane Ridge American revival period, I still found this book to be objective and interesting. Conkin, as previously stated by other reviewers, does an excellent job of presenting the materials in a way that is neither flattering, nor insulting to the frontier's people. Instead, he gives rational explanation for why they behave how they do and a peek into the 17th century religious mindset that would prompt the religious exercising. This is a book worth checking out, even according to this 20-something Bible College student.
Author: Alec Maclellan
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Release: 1997
Summary: It's been some years since I read the first edition of this remarkable work. The book starts with a strange adventure I don't want to disclose to coming readers, but it surely is an invitation to embarge on a strange and interesting journey through history and underground tunnels. If you're in for suggestions of other civilisations in the past and the here-and-now, living in underground bases and tunnel-systems, eagerly waiting to visit the sunlitten surface again, then this is the book for you. Although MacLellan describe the various tales rather superficially, it surely can be a first invitation to research further into persons like Nicholas Roerich, Bullwer-Lytton, Ossendowski and other adventurers. It surely was an invitation for me...!
Publisher: Souvenir Press
Release: 1997
Summary: It's been some years since I read the first edition of this remarkable work. The book starts with a strange adventure I don't want to disclose to coming readers, but it surely is an invitation to embarge on a strange and interesting journey through history and underground tunnels. If you're in for suggestions of other civilisations in the past and the here-and-now, living in underground bases and tunnel-systems, eagerly waiting to visit the sunlitten surface again, then this is the book for you. Although MacLellan describe the various tales rather superficially, it surely can be a first invitation to research further into persons like Nicholas Roerich, Bullwer-Lytton, Ossendowski and other adventurers. It surely was an invitation for me...!
Author: Arthur David Kahn
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: As a participant in many of the events he writes about in Experiment in Occupation, Arthur Kahn offers a richly detailed account of the process by which the fight against Nazism came to be transformed into the Cold War. His story reveals how those in the Military Government of Germany who were dedicated to carrying out the war aims promulgated by Roosevelt and Eisenhower for a thorough democratization of Germany were ultimately defeated in their confrontation with powerful elements in the Military Government and in Washington who were more intent upon launching a preemptive war against the Soviet Union than upon the eradication of Nazism and German militarism.
A twenty-three-year-old OSS operative, Arthur Kahn was assigned after D-Day to a psychological warfare unit, where at first he supervised prisoner-of-war interrogations and then served as an editor of intelligence. Instructed to respond to requests from Supreme Headquarters, he drafted proposals for psychological warfare approaches to critical situations at the front only to discover that a SHAEF directive banned calls to the Germans to revolt. Subsequently Kahn served in liaison with the Soviets and during the Battle of the Bulge at Montgomery's British headquarters. For several months before and after VE Day he traveled through the American Zone as an intelligence investigator and wrote a report that led to the dismissal of General George S. Patton as Military Governor of Bavaria. Appointed Chief Editor of Intelligence of the Information Control Division, he produced the most influential intelligence weekly in the American Zone.
Kahn's portrayal of events in postwar Germany provides warnings for current and future American experiments in foreign occupation.
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: As a participant in many of the events he writes about in Experiment in Occupation, Arthur Kahn offers a richly detailed account of the process by which the fight against Nazism came to be transformed into the Cold War. His story reveals how those in the Military Government of Germany who were dedicated to carrying out the war aims promulgated by Roosevelt and Eisenhower for a thorough democratization of Germany were ultimately defeated in their confrontation with powerful elements in the Military Government and in Washington who were more intent upon launching a preemptive war against the Soviet Union than upon the eradication of Nazism and German militarism.
A twenty-three-year-old OSS operative, Arthur Kahn was assigned after D-Day to a psychological warfare unit, where at first he supervised prisoner-of-war interrogations and then served as an editor of intelligence. Instructed to respond to requests from Supreme Headquarters, he drafted proposals for psychological warfare approaches to critical situations at the front only to discover that a SHAEF directive banned calls to the Germans to revolt. Subsequently Kahn served in liaison with the Soviets and during the Battle of the Bulge at Montgomery's British headquarters. For several months before and after VE Day he traveled through the American Zone as an intelligence investigator and wrote a report that led to the dismissal of General George S. Patton as Military Governor of Bavaria. Appointed Chief Editor of Intelligence of the Information Control Division, he produced the most influential intelligence weekly in the American Zone.
Kahn's portrayal of events in postwar Germany provides warnings for current and future American experiments in foreign occupation.
Author: Sarah Lucia Hoagland
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: Sarah Hoagland and Marilyn Frye's new anthology, Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly is a self-proclaimed "open-ended journey" into Daly's philosophy and the very patriarchal canon she resists. Like some of the earlier Re-reading the Canon volumes, which situate women thinkers into a canon crafted to exclude them, this volume (with purposeful irony) places Daly "into the very canon which she herself has argued is a branch of patriarchal religion grounded in the dismemberment of the Goddess, and which her work is dedicated to undermining by means of animating women's possibilities."(2) In the same breath this collection places Daly in a rapidly emerging feminist canon that continues to distance itself from the radical feminism of the 1960s-70s. Viewing Radical Feminism as framework in progress, and not as an eight year experiment that ultimately failed, reveals uncharted territories and new possibilities for projects grounded in Daly's work. This collection takes the first steps into this newly imagined territory. Whether Daly's work changed/saved your life-- or, like me, you never read her closely because the word on the academic streets was that she had nothing serious to offer-this volume will forever change the way you think about one of the most prolific feminist writers of our time. For Daly scholars this anthology is filled with suggestions for new research projects. Daly skeptics will find unexpected interest in the daring and creative applications of her ideas to third wave feminist conversations. In any case, the collection brings together enough innovative re-readings of Daly's work to safely predict a renewed interest in her systematic philosophy, if not a renaissance in Daly scholarship. Dr. Alison Bailey Illinois State University
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Release: 2000
Summary: Sarah Hoagland and Marilyn Frye's new anthology, Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly is a self-proclaimed "open-ended journey" into Daly's philosophy and the very patriarchal canon she resists. Like some of the earlier Re-reading the Canon volumes, which situate women thinkers into a canon crafted to exclude them, this volume (with purposeful irony) places Daly "into the very canon which she herself has argued is a branch of patriarchal religion grounded in the dismemberment of the Goddess, and which her work is dedicated to undermining by means of animating women's possibilities."(2) In the same breath this collection places Daly in a rapidly emerging feminist canon that continues to distance itself from the radical feminism of the 1960s-70s. Viewing Radical Feminism as framework in progress, and not as an eight year experiment that ultimately failed, reveals uncharted territories and new possibilities for projects grounded in Daly's work. This collection takes the first steps into this newly imagined territory. Whether Daly's work changed/saved your life-- or, like me, you never read her closely because the word on the academic streets was that she had nothing serious to offer-this volume will forever change the way you think about one of the most prolific feminist writers of our time. For Daly scholars this anthology is filled with suggestions for new research projects. Daly skeptics will find unexpected interest in the daring and creative applications of her ideas to third wave feminist conversations. In any case, the collection brings together enough innovative re-readings of Daly's work to safely predict a renewed interest in her systematic philosophy, if not a renaissance in Daly scholarship. Dr. Alison Bailey Illinois State University
Author: Edward L. Thorndike
Publisher: The MIT Press
Release: 1974
Summary:
Publisher: The MIT Press
Release: 1974
Summary:
Author: Jeffrey John Kripal
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: "Esalen is on the edge. Located in Big Sur, California, just off Highway 1, Esalen is, geographically speaking, a literal cliff, hanging rather precariously over the Pacific Ocean. The Esselen Indians used the hot mineral springs here as healing baths for centuries before the European settlers arrived. . . . Today the place is adorned with a host of lush organic gardens; mountain streams; a cliffside swimming pool; an occasional Buddha or garden goddess; the same hot springs now embedded in a striking multimillion-dollar stone, cement, and steel spa; and a small collection of meditation huts tucked away in the trees. These are grounds that both constitute the very edge of the American frontier and look due west to see the East. . . ." —from the Introduction
The renowned Esalen Institute, founded in 1962 by Stanford graduates Michael Murphy and Richard Price, was created as a place "where the body can manifest the glories of the spirit." It offered guests a heady mixture of world mythology, hypnosis and psychic research, spiritual healing, sport mysticism, and Tantric eroticism. Among the notables who have spent time at the Institute are Abraham Maslow, Timothy Leary, Paul Tillich, Carlos Castaneda, B. F. Skinner, and former California governor Jerry Brown.
Despite its cultural significance, remarkably little has been written about Esalen itself. In On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture, 11 original essays, plus an afterword by co-founder Murphy, examine the Institute's roots, the place of its beliefs in American religious history, and its influence. This lively volume will fascinate anyone interested in the history of American religion as well as those who regard this remarkable place as the epicenter of the human potential movement.
The contributors are Catherine L. Albanese, Erik Erickson, Robert Fuller, Marion S. Goldman, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Don Hanlon Johnson, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Timothy Miller, Michael Murphy, Glenn W. Shuck, Ann Taves, and Gordon Wheeler.
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: "Esalen is on the edge. Located in Big Sur, California, just off Highway 1, Esalen is, geographically speaking, a literal cliff, hanging rather precariously over the Pacific Ocean. The Esselen Indians used the hot mineral springs here as healing baths for centuries before the European settlers arrived. . . . Today the place is adorned with a host of lush organic gardens; mountain streams; a cliffside swimming pool; an occasional Buddha or garden goddess; the same hot springs now embedded in a striking multimillion-dollar stone, cement, and steel spa; and a small collection of meditation huts tucked away in the trees. These are grounds that both constitute the very edge of the American frontier and look due west to see the East. . . ." —from the Introduction
The renowned Esalen Institute, founded in 1962 by Stanford graduates Michael Murphy and Richard Price, was created as a place "where the body can manifest the glories of the spirit." It offered guests a heady mixture of world mythology, hypnosis and psychic research, spiritual healing, sport mysticism, and Tantric eroticism. Among the notables who have spent time at the Institute are Abraham Maslow, Timothy Leary, Paul Tillich, Carlos Castaneda, B. F. Skinner, and former California governor Jerry Brown.
Despite its cultural significance, remarkably little has been written about Esalen itself. In On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture, 11 original essays, plus an afterword by co-founder Murphy, examine the Institute's roots, the place of its beliefs in American religious history, and its influence. This lively volume will fascinate anyone interested in the history of American religion as well as those who regard this remarkable place as the epicenter of the human potential movement.
The contributors are Catherine L. Albanese, Erik Erickson, Robert Fuller, Marion S. Goldman, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Don Hanlon Johnson, Jeffrey J. Kripal, Timothy Miller, Michael Murphy, Glenn W. Shuck, Ann Taves, and Gordon Wheeler.
Author: Avital Ronell
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 2002
Summary: "There are three things required for happiness: good health, selfishness, and stupidity, and without stupidity the others are useless." -- Gustave Flaubert
There is something about stupidity that is untrackable; it evades our cognitive scanners and turns up as the uncanny double of mastery or intelligence.
The political and social implications of stupidity have been articulated by Marx, Nietzsche, Deleuze, among others. Urgent yet recalcitrant, stupidity provokes a crisis in our understanding of politics, ethics, and psychoanalysis. The dilemma posed by the limited subject involves national identity, masochism and sexual politics, as well as the relation of poetic utterance to the stammer in which it originates. Essentially linked to the philosophical primal scene of stupor, stupidity also points to what has been historically inappropriable, as when Hannah Arendt considers Eichmann in terms not only of the banality but also the stupidity of evil.
Avital Ronell's work studies the fading empire of cognition, modulating stupidity into idiocy, puerility, and the figure of the ridiculous philosopher instituted by Kant. Investigating ignorance, dumbfoundedness, and the limits of reason, Stupidity probes the pervasive practice of theory-bashing and related forms of paranoid aggression. A section on prolonged and debilitating illness pushes the text to an edge of a corporeal hermeneutics, "at the limits of what the body knows and tells."
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 2002
Summary: "There are three things required for happiness: good health, selfishness, and stupidity, and without stupidity the others are useless." -- Gustave Flaubert
There is something about stupidity that is untrackable; it evades our cognitive scanners and turns up as the uncanny double of mastery or intelligence.
The political and social implications of stupidity have been articulated by Marx, Nietzsche, Deleuze, among others. Urgent yet recalcitrant, stupidity provokes a crisis in our understanding of politics, ethics, and psychoanalysis. The dilemma posed by the limited subject involves national identity, masochism and sexual politics, as well as the relation of poetic utterance to the stammer in which it originates. Essentially linked to the philosophical primal scene of stupor, stupidity also points to what has been historically inappropriable, as when Hannah Arendt considers Eichmann in terms not only of the banality but also the stupidity of evil.
Avital Ronell's work studies the fading empire of cognition, modulating stupidity into idiocy, puerility, and the figure of the ridiculous philosopher instituted by Kant. Investigating ignorance, dumbfoundedness, and the limits of reason, Stupidity probes the pervasive practice of theory-bashing and related forms of paranoid aggression. A section on prolonged and debilitating illness pushes the text to an edge of a corporeal hermeneutics, "at the limits of what the body knows and tells."
Author: William H. Tucker
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1996
Summary: I was a student of Dr. Tucker when I purchased this book for a course he taught in 1998. I did not realize then, as I do now, how important it is to understand how the eugenics movement in Germany and the U.S. had a profound effect on the involuntary sterilization of the mentally disabled. I believe the history of the eugenics movement must be reviewed in light of Tipper Gore's recommendations for changes in community mental health care through PACT programs which the National Aliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) is now proposing to state legislators. The PACT model is essentially a biomedical model, with specific social control features, deciding the fate of people with severe mental illnesses. The eugenics movement resulting in the involuntary sterilization of the "feeble minded" for over a half century, is hauntingly resonant of this proposed plan.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1996
Summary: I was a student of Dr. Tucker when I purchased this book for a course he taught in 1998. I did not realize then, as I do now, how important it is to understand how the eugenics movement in Germany and the U.S. had a profound effect on the involuntary sterilization of the mentally disabled. I believe the history of the eugenics movement must be reviewed in light of Tipper Gore's recommendations for changes in community mental health care through PACT programs which the National Aliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) is now proposing to state legislators. The PACT model is essentially a biomedical model, with specific social control features, deciding the fate of people with severe mental illnesses. The eugenics movement resulting in the involuntary sterilization of the "feeble minded" for over a half century, is hauntingly resonant of this proposed plan.
Author: Leon Surette
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1999
Summary: Pound in Purgatory, available now in paperback, overturns all previous explanations of Ezra Pound's anti-Semitism by uncovering its roots in economic and conspiracy theory. Leon Surette demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, Pound was not a life-long anti-Semite and consistently ignored or resisted anti-Semitic comments from his correspondents until after 1931.
From 1931 to 1945 Pound's poetry took a back seat to his activities as an economic reformer and propagandist for the corporate state. Pound believed he had a simple and practical solution for the economic woes of the world brought on by the Great Depression, and he became increasingly preoccupied with capturing political power for the economic reform he envisioned.
As the world spiraled toward war, Pound's program of economic reform foundered and he gradually succumbed to a paranoid belief in a Jewish conspiracy. Through an incisive analysis of Pound's correspondence and writings, much of it previously unexamined, Surette shows how this belief fostered the virulent anti-Semitism that pervades his work--both poetry and prose--from this time forward.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1999
Summary: Pound in Purgatory, available now in paperback, overturns all previous explanations of Ezra Pound's anti-Semitism by uncovering its roots in economic and conspiracy theory. Leon Surette demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, Pound was not a life-long anti-Semite and consistently ignored or resisted anti-Semitic comments from his correspondents until after 1931.
From 1931 to 1945 Pound's poetry took a back seat to his activities as an economic reformer and propagandist for the corporate state. Pound believed he had a simple and practical solution for the economic woes of the world brought on by the Great Depression, and he became increasingly preoccupied with capturing political power for the economic reform he envisioned.
As the world spiraled toward war, Pound's program of economic reform foundered and he gradually succumbed to a paranoid belief in a Jewish conspiracy. Through an incisive analysis of Pound's correspondence and writings, much of it previously unexamined, Surette shows how this belief fostered the virulent anti-Semitism that pervades his work--both poetry and prose--from this time forward.
Author: Allan Chase
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1980
Summary:
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release: 1980
Summary:
Author: Robert Boyers
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2005
Summary:
In these elegant essays, many of them originally written for "The New Republic" and "Harper's", Robert Boyers examines the role of the political imagination in shaping the works of such important contemporary writers as W. G. Sebald and Philip Roth, Nadine Gordimer and Mario Vargas Llosa, Natalia Ginzburg and Pat Barker, J. M. Coetzee and John Updike, V. S. Naipaul and Anita Desai. Occasionally he finds that politics actually figures very little in works that only pretend to be interested in politics. Elsewhere he discovers that certain writers are not equal to the political issues they take on or that their work is fatally compromised by complacency or wishful thinking.
In the main, though, Boyers writes as a lover of great literature who wishes to understand how the best writers do justice to their own political obsessions without suggesting that everything is reducible to politics. Resisting the notion that novels can be effectively translated into ideas or positions, he resists as well the notion that art and politics must be held apart, lest works of fiction somehow be contaminated by their association with "real life" or public issues. The essays offer a combination of close reading, argument, and assessment.
What, Boyers asks, is the relationship between form and substance in a work whose formal properties are particularly striking? Is it reasonable to think of a particular writer as "reactionary" merely because he presents an unflattering portrait of revolutionary activists or because he is less than optimistic about the future of newly independent societies? What is the status of private life in works set in politically tumultuous times? Can the novelist be "responsible" if he consistently refuses to engage the conditions that affect even the intimate lives of his characters?
Such questions inform these essays, which strive to be true to the essential spirit of the works they discuss and to interrogate, as sympathetically as possible, the imagination of writers who negotiate the unstable relationships between society and the individual, art and ideas.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2005
Summary:
In these elegant essays, many of them originally written for "The New Republic" and "Harper's", Robert Boyers examines the role of the political imagination in shaping the works of such important contemporary writers as W. G. Sebald and Philip Roth, Nadine Gordimer and Mario Vargas Llosa, Natalia Ginzburg and Pat Barker, J. M. Coetzee and John Updike, V. S. Naipaul and Anita Desai. Occasionally he finds that politics actually figures very little in works that only pretend to be interested in politics. Elsewhere he discovers that certain writers are not equal to the political issues they take on or that their work is fatally compromised by complacency or wishful thinking.
In the main, though, Boyers writes as a lover of great literature who wishes to understand how the best writers do justice to their own political obsessions without suggesting that everything is reducible to politics. Resisting the notion that novels can be effectively translated into ideas or positions, he resists as well the notion that art and politics must be held apart, lest works of fiction somehow be contaminated by their association with "real life" or public issues. The essays offer a combination of close reading, argument, and assessment.
What, Boyers asks, is the relationship between form and substance in a work whose formal properties are particularly striking? Is it reasonable to think of a particular writer as "reactionary" merely because he presents an unflattering portrait of revolutionary activists or because he is less than optimistic about the future of newly independent societies? What is the status of private life in works set in politically tumultuous times? Can the novelist be "responsible" if he consistently refuses to engage the conditions that affect even the intimate lives of his characters?
Such questions inform these essays, which strive to be true to the essential spirit of the works they discuss and to interrogate, as sympathetically as possible, the imagination of writers who negotiate the unstable relationships between society and the individual, art and ideas.
Author: Andrew Chamberlin Rieser
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2003
Summary:
This book traces the rise and decline of what Theodore Roosevelt once called the "most American thing in America." The Chautauqua movement began in 1874 on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in western New York. More than a college or a summer resort or a religious assembly, it was a composite of all of these -- completely derivative yet brilliantly innovative. For five decades, Chautauqua dominated adult education and reached millions with its summer assemblies, reading clubs, and traveling circuits.
Scholars have long struggled to make sense of Chautauqua's pervasive yet disorganized presence in American life. In this critical study, Andrew Rieser weaves the threads of Chautauqua into a single story and places it at the vital center of "fin de siècle" cultural and political history. Famous for its commitment to democracy, women's rights, and social justice, Chautauqua was nonetheless blind to issues of class and race. How could something that trumpeted democracy be so undemocratic in practice? The answer, Rieser argues, lies in the historical experience of the white, Protestant middle classes, who struggled to reconcile their parochial interests with radically new ideas about social progress and the state. "The Chautauqua Moment" brings color to a colorless demographic and spins a fascinating tale of modern liberalism's ambivalent but enduring cultural legacy.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2003
Summary:
This book traces the rise and decline of what Theodore Roosevelt once called the "most American thing in America." The Chautauqua movement began in 1874 on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in western New York. More than a college or a summer resort or a religious assembly, it was a composite of all of these -- completely derivative yet brilliantly innovative. For five decades, Chautauqua dominated adult education and reached millions with its summer assemblies, reading clubs, and traveling circuits.
Scholars have long struggled to make sense of Chautauqua's pervasive yet disorganized presence in American life. In this critical study, Andrew Rieser weaves the threads of Chautauqua into a single story and places it at the vital center of "fin de siècle" cultural and political history. Famous for its commitment to democracy, women's rights, and social justice, Chautauqua was nonetheless blind to issues of class and race. How could something that trumpeted democracy be so undemocratic in practice? The answer, Rieser argues, lies in the historical experience of the white, Protestant middle classes, who struggled to reconcile their parochial interests with radically new ideas about social progress and the state. "The Chautauqua Moment" brings color to a colorless demographic and spins a fascinating tale of modern liberalism's ambivalent but enduring cultural legacy.
Author: Eva Illouz
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2003
Summary:
Oprah Winfrey is the protagonist of the story to be told here, but this book has broader intentions, begins Eva Illouz in this original examination of how and why this talk show host has become a pervasive symbol in American culture. Unlike studies of talk shows that decry debased cultural standards and impoverished political consciousness, "Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery" asks us to rethink our perceptions of culture in general and popular culture in particular.
At a time when crises of morality, beliefs, value systems, and personal worth dominate both public and private spheres, Oprah's emergence as a cultural form -- the Oprah persona -- becomes clearer, as she successfully reiterates some of our most pressing moral questions. Drawing on nearly one hundred show transcripts; a year and a half of watching the show regularly; and analysis of magazine articles, several biographies,
"O Magazine," Oprah Book Club novels, self-help manuals promoted on the show, and hundreds of discussions on the Oprah Winfrey Web site, Illouz takes the Oprah industry seriously, revealing it to be a multilayered "textual structure" that initiates, stages, and performs narratives of suffering and self-improvement that resonate with a wide audience and challenge traditional models of cultural analysis. This book looks closely at Oprah's method and her message, and in the process reconsiders popular culture and the tools we use to understand it.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release: 2003
Summary:
Oprah Winfrey is the protagonist of the story to be told here, but this book has broader intentions, begins Eva Illouz in this original examination of how and why this talk show host has become a pervasive symbol in American culture. Unlike studies of talk shows that decry debased cultural standards and impoverished political consciousness, "Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery" asks us to rethink our perceptions of culture in general and popular culture in particular.
At a time when crises of morality, beliefs, value systems, and personal worth dominate both public and private spheres, Oprah's emergence as a cultural form -- the Oprah persona -- becomes clearer, as she successfully reiterates some of our most pressing moral questions. Drawing on nearly one hundred show transcripts; a year and a half of watching the show regularly; and analysis of magazine articles, several biographies,
"O Magazine," Oprah Book Club novels, self-help manuals promoted on the show, and hundreds of discussions on the Oprah Winfrey Web site, Illouz takes the Oprah industry seriously, revealing it to be a multilayered "textual structure" that initiates, stages, and performs narratives of suffering and self-improvement that resonate with a wide audience and challenge traditional models of cultural analysis. This book looks closely at Oprah's method and her message, and in the process reconsiders popular culture and the tools we use to understand it.
Author: Alison Winter
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2000
Summary: Across Victorian Britain, apparently reasonable people twisted into bizarre postures, called out in unknown languages, and placidly bore assaults that should have caused unbearable pain all while they were mesmerized. Alison Winter's fascinating cultural history traces the history of mesmerism in Victorian society. "Mesmerized" is both a social history of the age and a lively exploration of the contested territory between science and pseudo-science.
"Dazzling. . . . This splendid book . . . gives us a new form of historical understanding and a model for open and imaginative reading."--James R. Kinkaid, "Boston Globe"
"A landmark in the history of science scholarship."--John Sutherland, "The Independent"
"It is difficult to imagine the documentary side of the story being better done than by Winter's well-researched and generously illustrated study. . . . She is a lively and keen observer; and her book is a pleasure to read purely for its range of material and wealth of detail. . . . Fruitful and suggestive."--Daniel Karlin, "Times Literary Supplement"
"An ambitious, sweeping and fascinating historical study. . . . Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and well-illustrated."--Bernard Lightman, "Washington Times"
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2000
Summary: Across Victorian Britain, apparently reasonable people twisted into bizarre postures, called out in unknown languages, and placidly bore assaults that should have caused unbearable pain all while they were mesmerized. Alison Winter's fascinating cultural history traces the history of mesmerism in Victorian society. "Mesmerized" is both a social history of the age and a lively exploration of the contested territory between science and pseudo-science.
"Dazzling. . . . This splendid book . . . gives us a new form of historical understanding and a model for open and imaginative reading."--James R. Kinkaid, "Boston Globe"
"A landmark in the history of science scholarship."--John Sutherland, "The Independent"
"It is difficult to imagine the documentary side of the story being better done than by Winter's well-researched and generously illustrated study. . . . She is a lively and keen observer; and her book is a pleasure to read purely for its range of material and wealth of detail. . . . Fruitful and suggestive."--Daniel Karlin, "Times Literary Supplement"
"An ambitious, sweeping and fascinating historical study. . . . Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and well-illustrated."--Bernard Lightman, "Washington Times"
Author: Mark C. Taylor
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1998
Summary: A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, one cannot escape the pivotal role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping selves, societies, and cultures.
Following in the very successful tradition of "Critical Terms for Literary Studies" and "Critical Terms for Art History", this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight.
These essays adopt the approach that has won this book's predecessors such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. Moving across Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Native American and Mayan religions, contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression.
The result is an essential reference that will reshape the field of religious studies and transform the way in which religion is understood by scholars from all disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and literary studies.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1998
Summary: A century that began with modernism sweeping across Europe is ending with a remarkable resurgence of religious beliefs and practices throughout the world. Wherever one looks today, from headlines about political turmoil in the Middle East to pop music and videos, one cannot escape the pivotal role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping selves, societies, and cultures.
Following in the very successful tradition of "Critical Terms for Literary Studies" and "Critical Terms for Art History", this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight.
These essays adopt the approach that has won this book's predecessors such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a critical term, explores the issues raised by the term, and puts the term to use in an analysis of a religious work, practice, or event. Moving across Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Native American and Mayan religions, contributors explore terms ranging from experience, territory, and image, to God, sacrifice, and transgression.
The result is an essential reference that will reshape the field of religious studies and transform the way in which religion is understood by scholars from all disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, gender studies, and literary studies.
Author: Steven B. Smith
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2006
Summary: Interest in Leo Strauss is greater now than at any time since his death, mostly because of the purported link between his thought and the political movement known as neoconservatism. Steven B. Smith, though, surprisingly depicts Strauss not as the high priest of neoconservatism but as a friend of liberal democracy—perhaps the best defender democracy has ever had. Moreover, in "Reading Leo Strauss, "Smith shows that Strauss’s defense of liberal democracy was closely connected to his skepticism of both the extreme Left and extreme Right.Smith asserts that this philosophical skepticism defined Strauss’s thought. It was as a skeptic, Smith argues, that Strauss considered the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between reason and revelation—a conflict Strauss dubbed the “theologico-political problem.” Calling this problem “"the" theme of my investigations,” Strauss asked the same fundamental question throughout his life: what is the relation of the political order to revelation in general and Judaism in particular? Smith organizes his book with this question, first addressing Strauss’s views on religion and then examining his thought on philosophical and political issues.In his investigation of these philosophical and political issues, Smith assesses Strauss’s attempt to direct the teaching of political science away from the examination of mass behavior and interest group politics and toward the study of the philosophical principles on which politics are based. With his provocative, lucid essays, Smith goes a long way toward establishing a distinctive form of Straussian liberalism.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2006
Summary: Interest in Leo Strauss is greater now than at any time since his death, mostly because of the purported link between his thought and the political movement known as neoconservatism. Steven B. Smith, though, surprisingly depicts Strauss not as the high priest of neoconservatism but as a friend of liberal democracy—perhaps the best defender democracy has ever had. Moreover, in "Reading Leo Strauss, "Smith shows that Strauss’s defense of liberal democracy was closely connected to his skepticism of both the extreme Left and extreme Right.Smith asserts that this philosophical skepticism defined Strauss’s thought. It was as a skeptic, Smith argues, that Strauss considered the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between reason and revelation—a conflict Strauss dubbed the “theologico-political problem.” Calling this problem “"the" theme of my investigations,” Strauss asked the same fundamental question throughout his life: what is the relation of the political order to revelation in general and Judaism in particular? Smith organizes his book with this question, first addressing Strauss’s views on religion and then examining his thought on philosophical and political issues.In his investigation of these philosophical and political issues, Smith assesses Strauss’s attempt to direct the teaching of political science away from the examination of mass behavior and interest group politics and toward the study of the philosophical principles on which politics are based. With his provocative, lucid essays, Smith goes a long way toward establishing a distinctive form of Straussian liberalism.
Author: Jonathan Z. Smith
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1993
Summary: In "Map Is Not Territory", Jonathan Z. Smith engages previous interpretations of religious texts from late antiquity, critically evaluates the notion of sacred space and time as it is represented in the works of Mircea Eliade, and tackles important problems of methodology.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1993
Summary: In "Map Is Not Territory", Jonathan Z. Smith engages previous interpretations of religious texts from late antiquity, critically evaluates the notion of sacred space and time as it is represented in the works of Mircea Eliade, and tackles important problems of methodology.
Author: John Durham Peters
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Communication plays a vital and unique role in society-often blamed for problems when it breaks down and at the same time heralded as a panacea for human relations. A sweeping history of communication, "Speaking Into the Air" illuminates our expectations of communication as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought.
"This is a most interesting and thought-provoking book. . . . Peters maintains that communication is ultimately unthinkable apart from the task of establishing a kingdom in which people can live together peacefully. Given our condition as mortals, communication remains not primarily a problem of technology, but of power, ethics and art." --Antony Anderson, "New Scientist"
"Guaranteed to alter your thinking about communication. . . . Original, erudite, and beautifully written, this book is a gem." --"Kirkus Reviews"
"Peters writes to reclaim the notion of authenticity in a media-saturated world. It's this ultimate concern that renders his book a brave, colorful exploration of the hydra-headed problems presented by a rapid-fire popular culture." --"Publishers Weekly"
What we have here is a failure-to-communicate book. Funny thing is, it communicates beautifully. . . . "Speaking Into the Air" delivers what superb serious books always do-hours of intellectual challenge as one absorbs the gradually unfolding vision of an erudite, creative author." --Carlin Romano, "Philadelphia Inquirer"
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Communication plays a vital and unique role in society-often blamed for problems when it breaks down and at the same time heralded as a panacea for human relations. A sweeping history of communication, "Speaking Into the Air" illuminates our expectations of communication as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought.
"This is a most interesting and thought-provoking book. . . . Peters maintains that communication is ultimately unthinkable apart from the task of establishing a kingdom in which people can live together peacefully. Given our condition as mortals, communication remains not primarily a problem of technology, but of power, ethics and art." --Antony Anderson, "New Scientist"
"Guaranteed to alter your thinking about communication. . . . Original, erudite, and beautifully written, this book is a gem." --"Kirkus Reviews"
"Peters writes to reclaim the notion of authenticity in a media-saturated world. It's this ultimate concern that renders his book a brave, colorful exploration of the hydra-headed problems presented by a rapid-fire popular culture." --"Publishers Weekly"
What we have here is a failure-to-communicate book. Funny thing is, it communicates beautifully. . . . "Speaking Into the Air" delivers what superb serious books always do-hours of intellectual challenge as one absorbs the gradually unfolding vision of an erudite, creative author." --Carlin Romano, "Philadelphia Inquirer"
Author: Marjorie Perloff
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2003
Summary: Marjorie Perloff's stunning book was one of the first to offer a serious and far-reaching examination of the momentous flourishing of Futurist aesthetics in the European art and literature of the early twentieth century. Offering penetrating considerations of the prose, visual art, poetry, and carefully crafted manifestos of Futurists from Russia to Italy, Perloff reveals the Moment's impulses and operations, tracing its echoes through the years to the work of "postmodern" figures like Roland Barthes. This updated edition, with its new preface, reexamines the Futurist Moment in the light of a new century, in which Futurist aesthetics seem to have steadily more to say to the present.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2003
Summary: Marjorie Perloff's stunning book was one of the first to offer a serious and far-reaching examination of the momentous flourishing of Futurist aesthetics in the European art and literature of the early twentieth century. Offering penetrating considerations of the prose, visual art, poetry, and carefully crafted manifestos of Futurists from Russia to Italy, Perloff reveals the Moment's impulses and operations, tracing its echoes through the years to the work of "postmodern" figures like Roland Barthes. This updated edition, with its new preface, reexamines the Futurist Moment in the light of a new century, in which Futurist aesthetics seem to have steadily more to say to the present.
Author: Alex Owen
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2004
Summary: By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians were seeking rational explanations for the world in which they lived. The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this quintessentially modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, heterodox spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation?
In answering this question for the first time, "The Place of Enchantment" breaks new ground in its consideration of the role of occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and situating it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of the intellectual avant-garde. Carefully placing a serious engagement with esotericism squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality and consciousness, Owen demonstrates how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught in secret and hierarchical magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Through a remarkable blend of theoretical discussion and intellectual history, Owen has produced a work that moves far beyond a consideration of occultists and their world. Bearing directly on our understanding of modernity, her conclusions will force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2004
Summary: By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians were seeking rational explanations for the world in which they lived. The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this quintessentially modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, heterodox spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation?
In answering this question for the first time, "The Place of Enchantment" breaks new ground in its consideration of the role of occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and situating it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of the intellectual avant-garde. Carefully placing a serious engagement with esotericism squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality and consciousness, Owen demonstrates how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught in secret and hierarchical magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Through a remarkable blend of theoretical discussion and intellectual history, Owen has produced a work that moves far beyond a consideration of occultists and their world. Bearing directly on our understanding of modernity, her conclusions will force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture.
Author: Deirdre N. Mccloskey
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2006
Summary: For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scornedthe bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s "The Bourgeois Virtues", a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us.McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. "High Noon", Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. "The Bourgeois Virtues "is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2006
Summary: For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scornedthe bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s "The Bourgeois Virtues", a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us.McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. "High Noon", Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. "The Bourgeois Virtues "is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.
Author: Tomoko Masuzawa
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2005
Summary: The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2005
Summary: The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
Author: Tomoko Masuzawa
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1993
Summary: In this pioneering work of discourse analysis, Tomoko Masuzawa observes that the modern study of religion is peculiarly ambivalent toward the question of origin. Today's historians of religion maintain that they have abandoned speculative quests for the origin of religion; at the same time, they allege that concepts of absolute beginnings are fundamental to religion itself. By renouncing the desire for origins that they claim religious peoples embrace, historians can vicariously participate in the forbidden quest--so it seems--without forfeiting the authority accruing from their objectivist position.
This ambivalence of contemporary scholars echoes their ambivalence toward the ancestral "giants" of the discipline: Durkheim, Müller, and Freud. Masuzawa shows that the speculations of these three men on the origins of religion render the very notion of time and history problematic and contain powerful instruments for dislodging the position of "Western man" as the keeper of knowledge. Her critical rereading of these forefathers is framed by a compelling discussion of the postmodernist subversion of absolute origins in the works of Walter Benjamin and Rosalind Krauss and a comparison of Mircea Eliade and Nancy Munn's accounts of the Australian aboriginal "dreamtime." Engaging a number of critical issues within the burgeoning field of cultural studies, Masuzawa's book will have far-reaching implications not only for religious studies but throughout the human sciences.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1993
Summary: In this pioneering work of discourse analysis, Tomoko Masuzawa observes that the modern study of religion is peculiarly ambivalent toward the question of origin. Today's historians of religion maintain that they have abandoned speculative quests for the origin of religion; at the same time, they allege that concepts of absolute beginnings are fundamental to religion itself. By renouncing the desire for origins that they claim religious peoples embrace, historians can vicariously participate in the forbidden quest--so it seems--without forfeiting the authority accruing from their objectivist position.
This ambivalence of contemporary scholars echoes their ambivalence toward the ancestral "giants" of the discipline: Durkheim, Müller, and Freud. Masuzawa shows that the speculations of these three men on the origins of religion render the very notion of time and history problematic and contain powerful instruments for dislodging the position of "Western man" as the keeper of knowledge. Her critical rereading of these forefathers is framed by a compelling discussion of the postmodernist subversion of absolute origins in the works of Walter Benjamin and Rosalind Krauss and a comparison of Mircea Eliade and Nancy Munn's accounts of the Australian aboriginal "dreamtime." Engaging a number of critical issues within the burgeoning field of cultural studies, Masuzawa's book will have far-reaching implications not only for religious studies but throughout the human sciences.
Author: Martin E. Marty
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1997
Summary: Martin E. Marty argues that religion in twentieth-century America was essentially shaped by its encounter with modernity. In this first volume, he records and explores the diverse ways in which American religion embraced, rejected, or cautiously accepted the modern world.
"Marty writes with the highest standards of scholarship and with his customary stylistic grace. No series of books is likely to tell us as much about the religious condition of our own time as "Modern American Religion."--Robert L. Spaeth, "Minneapolis Star Tribune"
"The wealth of material and depth of insight are beyond reproach. This book will clearly stand as an important meteorological guide to the storm front of modernity as it swept Americans into the twentieth century."--Belden C. Lane, "Review of Religions"
"Whatever one thinks about Marty's theological or philosophical position as a historian, the charm of his friendly circumspective approach to American religious history is irresistible."--John E. Wilson, "Theological Studies"
"Marty attempts to impose historical order on the divergent ways a century of Americans have themselves tried to find order in their worlds. . . . [He] meets the challenge deftly. . . . It is a book relevant to our time. . . . Engages the heart and mind jointly."--Andy Solomon, "Houston Post"
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1997
Summary: Martin E. Marty argues that religion in twentieth-century America was essentially shaped by its encounter with modernity. In this first volume, he records and explores the diverse ways in which American religion embraced, rejected, or cautiously accepted the modern world.
"Marty writes with the highest standards of scholarship and with his customary stylistic grace. No series of books is likely to tell us as much about the religious condition of our own time as "Modern American Religion."--Robert L. Spaeth, "Minneapolis Star Tribune"
"The wealth of material and depth of insight are beyond reproach. This book will clearly stand as an important meteorological guide to the storm front of modernity as it swept Americans into the twentieth century."--Belden C. Lane, "Review of Religions"
"Whatever one thinks about Marty's theological or philosophical position as a historian, the charm of his friendly circumspective approach to American religious history is irresistible."--John E. Wilson, "Theological Studies"
"Marty attempts to impose historical order on the divergent ways a century of Americans have themselves tried to find order in their worlds. . . . [He] meets the challenge deftly. . . . It is a book relevant to our time. . . . Engages the heart and mind jointly."--Andy Solomon, "Houston Post"
Author: Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Over the past century, Buddhism has come to be seen as a world religion, exceeding Christianity in longevity and, according to many, philosophical wisdom. Buddhism has also increasingly been described as strongly ethical, devoted to nonviolence, and dedicated to bringing an end to human suffering. And because it places such a strong emphasis on rational analysis, Buddhism is considered more compatible with science than the other great religions. As such, Buddhism has been embraced in the West, both as an alternative religion and as an alternative "to" religion.
This volume provides a unique introduction to Buddhism by examining categories essential for a nuanced understanding of its traditions. Each of the fifteen essays here shows students how a fundamental term--from "art" to "word--"illuminates the practice of Buddhism, both in traditional Buddhist societies and in the realms of modernity. Apart from "Buddha", the list of terms in this collection deliberately includes none that are intrinsic to the religion. Instead, the contributors explore terms that are important for many fields and that invite interdisciplinary reflection. Through incisive discussions of topics ranging from "practice", "power", and "pedagogy" to "ritual", "history", "sex", and "death", the authors offer new directions for the understanding of Buddhism, taking constructive and sometimes polemical positions in an effort both to demonstrate the shortcomings of assumptions about the religion and the potential power of revisionary approaches.
Following the tradition of "Critical Terms for Religious Studies", this volume is not only an invaluable resource for the classroom but one that belongs on the short list of essential books for anyone seriously interested in Buddhism and Asian religions.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Over the past century, Buddhism has come to be seen as a world religion, exceeding Christianity in longevity and, according to many, philosophical wisdom. Buddhism has also increasingly been described as strongly ethical, devoted to nonviolence, and dedicated to bringing an end to human suffering. And because it places such a strong emphasis on rational analysis, Buddhism is considered more compatible with science than the other great religions. As such, Buddhism has been embraced in the West, both as an alternative religion and as an alternative "to" religion.
This volume provides a unique introduction to Buddhism by examining categories essential for a nuanced understanding of its traditions. Each of the fifteen essays here shows students how a fundamental term--from "art" to "word--"illuminates the practice of Buddhism, both in traditional Buddhist societies and in the realms of modernity. Apart from "Buddha", the list of terms in this collection deliberately includes none that are intrinsic to the religion. Instead, the contributors explore terms that are important for many fields and that invite interdisciplinary reflection. Through incisive discussions of topics ranging from "practice", "power", and "pedagogy" to "ritual", "history", "sex", and "death", the authors offer new directions for the understanding of Buddhism, taking constructive and sometimes polemical positions in an effort both to demonstrate the shortcomings of assumptions about the religion and the potential power of revisionary approaches.
Following the tradition of "Critical Terms for Religious Studies", this volume is not only an invaluable resource for the classroom but one that belongs on the short list of essential books for anyone seriously interested in Buddhism and Asian religions.
Author: Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1999
Summary: "Prisoners of Shangri-La" is a provocative analysis of the romance of Tibet, a romance that, even as it is invoked by Tibetan lamas living in exile, ultimately imprisons those who seek the goal of Tibetan independence from Chinese occupation.
"Lopez lifts the veil on America's romantic vision of Tibet to reveal a country and a spiritual history more complex and less ideal than popular perceptions allow. . . . Lively and engaging, Lopez's book raises important questions about how Eastern religions are often co-opted, assimilated and misunderstood by Western culture."--"Publishers Weekly"
"Proceeding with care and precision, Lopez reveals the extent to which scholars have behaved like intellectual colonialists. . . . Someone had to burst the bubble of pop Tibetology, and few could have done it as resoundingly as Lopez."--"Booklist"
"Fascinating. . . [A] provocative exploration. Lopez conveys the full dizziness of the Western encounter with Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism."--Fred Pheil, "Tricycle: The Buddhist Review"
"A timely and courageous exploration. . . . [Lopez's] book will sharpen the terms of the debate over what the Tibetans and their observers can or should be doing about the place and the idea of Tibet. And that alone is what will give us all back our Shambhala."--Jonathan Spence, "Lingua Franca Book Review"
"Lopez's most important theme is that we should be wary of the idea . . . that Tibet has what the West lacks, that if we were only to look there we would find the answers to our problems. Lopez's book shows that, on the contrary, when the West has looked at Tibet, all that it has seen is a distorted reflection of itself."--Ben Jackson, "Times Higher Education Supplement"
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1999
Summary: "Prisoners of Shangri-La" is a provocative analysis of the romance of Tibet, a romance that, even as it is invoked by Tibetan lamas living in exile, ultimately imprisons those who seek the goal of Tibetan independence from Chinese occupation.
"Lopez lifts the veil on America's romantic vision of Tibet to reveal a country and a spiritual history more complex and less ideal than popular perceptions allow. . . . Lively and engaging, Lopez's book raises important questions about how Eastern religions are often co-opted, assimilated and misunderstood by Western culture."--"Publishers Weekly"
"Proceeding with care and precision, Lopez reveals the extent to which scholars have behaved like intellectual colonialists. . . . Someone had to burst the bubble of pop Tibetology, and few could have done it as resoundingly as Lopez."--"Booklist"
"Fascinating. . . [A] provocative exploration. Lopez conveys the full dizziness of the Western encounter with Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism."--Fred Pheil, "Tricycle: The Buddhist Review"
"A timely and courageous exploration. . . . [Lopez's] book will sharpen the terms of the debate over what the Tibetans and their observers can or should be doing about the place and the idea of Tibet. And that alone is what will give us all back our Shambhala."--Jonathan Spence, "Lingua Franca Book Review"
"Lopez's most important theme is that we should be wary of the idea . . . that Tibet has what the West lacks, that if we were only to look there we would find the answers to our problems. Lopez's book shows that, on the contrary, when the West has looked at Tibet, all that it has seen is a distorted reflection of itself."--Ben Jackson, "Times Higher Education Supplement"
Author: Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1995
Summary: "Curators of the Buddha" is the first critical history of the study of Buddhism in the West and the first work to bring the insights of colonial and postcolonial cultural studies to bear on this field.
After an overview of the origins of Buddhist studies in the early nineteenth century, the essays focus on important "curators of the Buddha," such as Aurel Stein, D. T. Suzuki, and Carl Jung, who, as they created and maintained the discipline, played a significant role in disseminating knowledge about Buddhism in the West. The essays bring to life many of the important but unexamined social, political, and cultural conditions that have shaped the course of Buddhist studies for more than a century--and have frequently distorted the understanding of a complex set of traditions. Contributors Charles Hallisey, Gustavo Benavides, Stanley Abe, Luis Gómez, Robert Sharf, and Donald Lopez challenge some of the most enduring ideas in Buddhist studies: that Zen Buddhism is, above all, an experience; that Tibetan Buddhism is polluted, or pristine; that the Buddha image is of Greek or Roman origin; that the classical text supersedes the vernacular, as the manuscript supersedes the informant; and many others.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1995
Summary: "Curators of the Buddha" is the first critical history of the study of Buddhism in the West and the first work to bring the insights of colonial and postcolonial cultural studies to bear on this field.
After an overview of the origins of Buddhist studies in the early nineteenth century, the essays focus on important "curators of the Buddha," such as Aurel Stein, D. T. Suzuki, and Carl Jung, who, as they created and maintained the discipline, played a significant role in disseminating knowledge about Buddhism in the West. The essays bring to life many of the important but unexamined social, political, and cultural conditions that have shaped the course of Buddhist studies for more than a century--and have frequently distorted the understanding of a complex set of traditions. Contributors Charles Hallisey, Gustavo Benavides, Stanley Abe, Luis Gómez, Robert Sharf, and Donald Lopez challenge some of the most enduring ideas in Buddhist studies: that Zen Buddhism is, above all, an experience; that Tibetan Buddhism is polluted, or pristine; that the Buddha image is of Greek or Roman origin; that the classical text supersedes the vernacular, as the manuscript supersedes the informant; and many others.
Author: Michael Hau
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2003
Summary: From the 1890s to the 1930s, a growing number of Germans began to scrutinize and discipline their bodies in a utopian search for perfect health and beauty. Some became vegetarians, nudists, or bodybuilders, while others turned to alternative medicine or eugenics. In "The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany", Michael Hau demonstrates why so many men and women were drawn to these life reform movements and examines their tremendous impact on German society and medicine.
Hau argues that the obsession with personal health and fitness was often rooted in anxieties over professional and economic success, as well as fears that modern industrialized civilization was causing Germany and its people to degenerate. He also examines how different social groups gave different meanings to the same hygienic practices and aesthetic ideals. What results is a penetrating look at class formation in pre-Nazi Germany that will interest historians of Europe and medicine and scholars of culture and gender.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 2003
Summary: From the 1890s to the 1930s, a growing number of Germans began to scrutinize and discipline their bodies in a utopian search for perfect health and beauty. Some became vegetarians, nudists, or bodybuilders, while others turned to alternative medicine or eugenics. In "The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany", Michael Hau demonstrates why so many men and women were drawn to these life reform movements and examines their tremendous impact on German society and medicine.
Hau argues that the obsession with personal health and fitness was often rooted in anxieties over professional and economic success, as well as fears that modern industrialized civilization was causing Germany and its people to degenerate. He also examines how different social groups gave different meanings to the same hygienic practices and aesthetic ideals. What results is a penetrating look at class formation in pre-Nazi Germany that will interest historians of Europe and medicine and scholars of culture and gender.
Author: Luc Ferry
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1995
Summary: Is ecology in the process of becoming the object of our contemporary passions, in the same way that Fascism was in the 30s, or Communism under Stalin? In "The New Ecological Order", Luc Ferry offers a penetrating critique of the ideological roots of the "Deep Ecology" movement spreading throughout Germany, France, and the United States.
Traditional ecological movements, or "democratic ecology," seek to protect the environment of human societies; they are pragmatic and reformist. But another movement has become the refuge both of nostalgic counterrevolutionaries and of leftist illusions. This is "deep ecology." Its followers go beyond practical critiques of human greed and waste: they call into question the very possibility of human coexistence with nature. The human species is no longer at the center of the world, but subject to a new god called Nature. For these purists, man can only soil the harmony of the universe. In order to secure natural equilibrium, the only solution is to grant rights to animals, to trees, and to rocks.
Ferry launches his critique by examining early European legal cases concerning the status and rights of animals, including a few notorious cases where animals were brought to trial, found guilty, and publicly hanged. He then demonstrates that German Romanticism embraced certain key ideas of the deep ecology movement concerning the protection of animals and the environment. Later adopted by the Nazis, many of these ideas point to a profoundly antihumanistic component of deep ecology that is compatible with totalitarianism.
Ferry shows how deep ecology casts aside all the gains of human autonomy since the Enlightenment. He deciphers the philosophical and political assumptions of a movement that threatens to infantalize human society by preying on the fear of the authority of a new theological-political order. Far from denying our "duty in relation to nature," "The New Ecological Order" offers a bracing caution--against the dangers of environmental claims and, more important, against the threat to democracy contained in the deep ecology doctrine when pushed to its extreme.
"A book of intellectual power, full of insights, invention, and not without temerity, from one of the best political philosophers today."--"Le Figaro"
"Few books have analyzed in depth this phenomenon of the ecological movement as the most recent book by Luc Ferry has done. . . . It is a book that absolutely must be read."--"Le Point"
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1995
Summary: Is ecology in the process of becoming the object of our contemporary passions, in the same way that Fascism was in the 30s, or Communism under Stalin? In "The New Ecological Order", Luc Ferry offers a penetrating critique of the ideological roots of the "Deep Ecology" movement spreading throughout Germany, France, and the United States.
Traditional ecological movements, or "democratic ecology," seek to protect the environment of human societies; they are pragmatic and reformist. But another movement has become the refuge both of nostalgic counterrevolutionaries and of leftist illusions. This is "deep ecology." Its followers go beyond practical critiques of human greed and waste: they call into question the very possibility of human coexistence with nature. The human species is no longer at the center of the world, but subject to a new god called Nature. For these purists, man can only soil the harmony of the universe. In order to secure natural equilibrium, the only solution is to grant rights to animals, to trees, and to rocks.
Ferry launches his critique by examining early European legal cases concerning the status and rights of animals, including a few notorious cases where animals were brought to trial, found guilty, and publicly hanged. He then demonstrates that German Romanticism embraced certain key ideas of the deep ecology movement concerning the protection of animals and the environment. Later adopted by the Nazis, many of these ideas point to a profoundly antihumanistic component of deep ecology that is compatible with totalitarianism.
Ferry shows how deep ecology casts aside all the gains of human autonomy since the Enlightenment. He deciphers the philosophical and political assumptions of a movement that threatens to infantalize human society by preying on the fear of the authority of a new theological-political order. Far from denying our "duty in relation to nature," "The New Ecological Order" offers a bracing caution--against the dangers of environmental claims and, more important, against the threat to democracy contained in the deep ecology doctrine when pushed to its extreme.
"A book of intellectual power, full of insights, invention, and not without temerity, from one of the best political philosophers today."--"Le Figaro"
"Few books have analyzed in depth this phenomenon of the ecological movement as the most recent book by Luc Ferry has done. . . . It is a book that absolutely must be read."--"Le Point"
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1990
Summary: "Journal I" is a story of revewal--of the new life that began for Mircea Eliade in the fall of 1945 when he became an expatriate. Eliade came to Paris virtually empty-handed, following the death of his first wife and the Soviet takeover of Romania, which made him a "persona non grata "there. He had left half a lifetime in Romania: his parents, whom he never saw again; his library; unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, including the journal notebooks prior to 1940; an academic career; and" Zalmoxis", the journal of religious studies he founded.
During the lean years in Paris Eliade lived and worked in small, cold rooms; prepared meals on a Primus stove; pawned his valuables; and asked friends for loans. Eventually he secured a research stipend from the Bollingen Foundation. His ten years in Paris were among his most productive; the books he wrote during this period brought him worldwide acclaim as a historian of religions. He records his first meetings with Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gershom Scholem, Georges Bataille, André Breton, Raffaele Pettazzoni, and many other scholars and writers.
Eliade also continued to write literary works. Numerous entries describe his five-year struggle with his novel "The Forbidden Forest". Spanning the twelve fateful years from 1936 to 1948, it expresses within a fictional framework the central themes of Eliade's work on religions. Writing the novel was a Herculean task in which Eliade summarized and memorialized his old Romanian life.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1990
Summary: "Journal I" is a story of revewal--of the new life that began for Mircea Eliade in the fall of 1945 when he became an expatriate. Eliade came to Paris virtually empty-handed, following the death of his first wife and the Soviet takeover of Romania, which made him a "persona non grata "there. He had left half a lifetime in Romania: his parents, whom he never saw again; his library; unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, including the journal notebooks prior to 1940; an academic career; and" Zalmoxis", the journal of religious studies he founded.
During the lean years in Paris Eliade lived and worked in small, cold rooms; prepared meals on a Primus stove; pawned his valuables; and asked friends for loans. Eventually he secured a research stipend from the Bollingen Foundation. His ten years in Paris were among his most productive; the books he wrote during this period brought him worldwide acclaim as a historian of religions. He records his first meetings with Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gershom Scholem, Georges Bataille, André Breton, Raffaele Pettazzoni, and many other scholars and writers.
Eliade also continued to write literary works. Numerous entries describe his five-year struggle with his novel "The Forbidden Forest". Spanning the twelve fateful years from 1936 to 1948, it expresses within a fictional framework the central themes of Eliade's work on religions. Writing the novel was a Herculean task in which Eliade summarized and memorialized his old Romanian life.
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1988
Summary: "Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's progression from a mischievous street urchin and literary prodigy, through his various love affairs, a decisive and traumatic Indian sojourn, and active, brilliant participation in pre-World War II Romanian cultural life."--Seymour Cain, "Religious Studies Review "
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1988
Summary: "Here finally are Eliade's memoirs of the first thirty years of his life in Mac Linscott Rickett's crisp and lucid English translation. They present a fascinating account of the early development of a Renaissance talent, expressed in everything from daily and periodical journalism, realistic and fantastic fiction, and general nonfiction works to distinguished contributions to the history of religions. Autobiography follows an apparently amazingly candid report of this remarkable man's progression from a mischievous street urchin and literary prodigy, through his various love affairs, a decisive and traumatic Indian sojourn, and active, brilliant participation in pre-World War II Romanian cultural life."--Seymour Cain, "Religious Studies Review "
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1978
Summary: In the period domoninated by the triumphs of scientific rationalism, how do we account for the extraordinary success of such occult movements as astrology or the revival of witchcraft? From his perspective as a historian of religions, the eminent scholar Mircea Eliade shows that such popular trends develop from archaic roots and periodically resurface in certain myths, symbols, and rituals. In six lucid essays collected for this volume, Eliade reveals the profound religious significance that lies at the heart of many contemporary cultural vogues.
Since all of the essays except the last were originally delivered as lectures, their introductory character and lively oral style make them particularly accessible to the intelligent nonspecialist. Rather than a popularization," Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions" is the fulfillment of Eliade's conviction that the history of religions should be read by the widest possible audience.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1978
Summary: In the period domoninated by the triumphs of scientific rationalism, how do we account for the extraordinary success of such occult movements as astrology or the revival of witchcraft? From his perspective as a historian of religions, the eminent scholar Mircea Eliade shows that such popular trends develop from archaic roots and periodically resurface in certain myths, symbols, and rituals. In six lucid essays collected for this volume, Eliade reveals the profound religious significance that lies at the heart of many contemporary cultural vogues.
Since all of the essays except the last were originally delivered as lectures, their introductory character and lively oral style make them particularly accessible to the intelligent nonspecialist. Rather than a popularization," Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions" is the fulfillment of Eliade's conviction that the history of religions should be read by the widest possible audience.
Author: Ioan P. Culianu, Ioan P. Couliano
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1987
Summary: It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Release: 1987
Summary: It is a widespread prejudice of modern, scientific society that "magic" is merely a ludicrous amalgam of recipes and methods derived from primitive and erroneous notions about nature. "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" challenges this view, providing an in-depth scholarly explanation of the workings of magic and showing that magic continues to exist in an altered form even today. Renaissance magic, according to Ioan Couliano, was a scientifically plausible attempt to manipulate individuals and groups based on a knowledge of motivations, particularly erotic motivations. Its key principle was that everyone (and in a sense everything) could be influenced by appeal to sexual desire. In addition, the magician relied on a profound knowledge of the art of memory to manipulate the imaginations of his subjects. In these respects, Couliano suggests, magic is the precursor of the modern psychological and sociological sciences, and the magician is the distant ancestor of the psychoanalyst and the advertising and publicity agent. In the course of his study, Couliano examines in detail the ideas of such writers as Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola and illuminates many aspects of Renaissance culture, including heresy, medicine, astrology, alchemy, courtly love, the influence of classical mythology, and even the role of fashion in clothing. Just as science gives the present age its ruling myth, so magic gave a ruling myth to the Renaissance. Because magic relied upon the use of images, and images were repressed and banned in the Reformation and subsequent history, magic was replaced by exact science and modern technology and eventually forgotten. Couliano's remarkable scholarship helps us to recover much of its original significance and will interest a wide audience in the humanities and social sciences.
Author: Edward Hoffman
Publisher: Perseus Books
Release: 1997
Summary:
Publisher: Perseus Books
Release: 1997
Summary:
Author: David Bradshaw
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated
Release: 2002
Summary: This concise Companion offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain, focusing on the intellectual and cultural contexts which shaped it.The book consists of twelve chapters written by leading scholars, each spotlighting ideas emanating from a particular field which helped to shape Modernism, including eugenics, primitivism, Freudianism, and Nietzscheanism. Each contributor deals with his or her topic in some depth, but also pays attention to the impact it had on overarching issues. At the same time, the contributors identify contemporary developments in other disciplines, especially art, architecture, music, film, and philosophy, which paralleled developments in poetry, fiction, and drama. Each chapter concludes with a brief guide to further reading.Through reading this Companion, students will gain an understanding of Modernism as a historical and cultural phenomenon, as well as a literary movement.
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated
Release: 2002
Summary: This concise Companion offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain, focusing on the intellectual and cultural contexts which shaped it.The book consists of twelve chapters written by leading scholars, each spotlighting ideas emanating from a particular field which helped to shape Modernism, including eugenics, primitivism, Freudianism, and Nietzscheanism. Each contributor deals with his or her topic in some depth, but also pays attention to the impact it had on overarching issues. At the same time, the contributors identify contemporary developments in other disciplines, especially art, architecture, music, film, and philosophy, which paralleled developments in poetry, fiction, and drama. Each chapter concludes with a brief guide to further reading.Through reading this Companion, students will gain an understanding of Modernism as a historical and cultural phenomenon, as well as a literary movement.
Author: Paul Heelas
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated
Release: 1996
Summary: In his ground-breaking work, Paul Heelas traces the growth and development of the New Age Movement, identifies some of its key characteristics, and provides a critical perspective.This unique and extensively documented volume provides a balanced treatment of New Age "celebration of the self", and situates it within the broader cultural context for the first time. It shows how the New Age is ambivalently related to modernity, offering both a radical spiritual alternative to the mainstream and a celebration of some of the characteristic features of modern life. Heelas thus views the New Age both as an alternative counter-cultural movement and as a spirituality of our times. The volume, with its clarity of form and its critique of conventional opinion, serves as an excellent starting point and mature contribution to the study of contemporary spirituality. This will be a core text for courses on the Sociology of Religion, and should be of enormous interest to all those concerned with the study of culture and the utopian anthropologists of modernity, historians of oppositional movements, theology students, clergy, and New Age activists alike.
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated
Release: 1996
Summary: In his ground-breaking work, Paul Heelas traces the growth and development of the New Age Movement, identifies some of its key characteristics, and provides a critical perspective.This unique and extensively documented volume provides a balanced treatment of New Age "celebration of the self", and situates it within the broader cultural context for the first time. It shows how the New Age is ambivalently related to modernity, offering both a radical spiritual alternative to the mainstream and a celebration of some of the characteristic features of modern life. Heelas thus views the New Age both as an alternative counter-cultural movement and as a spirituality of our times. The volume, with its clarity of form and its critique of conventional opinion, serves as an excellent starting point and mature contribution to the study of contemporary spirituality. This will be a core text for courses on the Sociology of Religion, and should be of enormous interest to all those concerned with the study of culture and the utopian anthropologists of modernity, historians of oppositional movements, theology students, clergy, and New Age activists alike.
Author: David Theo Goldberg
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
Release: 1993
Summary: Racist Culture offers an anti-essentialist and non-reductionist account of racialized discourse and racist expression. Goldberg demonstrates that racial thinking is a function of the transforming categories and conceptions of social subjectivity throughout modernity. He shows that racisms are often not aberrant or irrational but consistent with prevailing social conceptions, particularly of the reasonable and the normal. He shows too how this process is being extended and renewed by categories dominant in present day social sciences: "the West"; "the underclass"; and "the primitive". This normalization of racism reflected in the West mirrors South Africa an its use and conception of space. Goldberg concludes with an extended argument for a pragmatic, antiracist practice.
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
Release: 1993
Summary: Racist Culture offers an anti-essentialist and non-reductionist account of racialized discourse and racist expression. Goldberg demonstrates that racial thinking is a function of the transforming categories and conceptions of social subjectivity throughout modernity. He shows that racisms are often not aberrant or irrational but consistent with prevailing social conceptions, particularly of the reasonable and the normal. He shows too how this process is being extended and renewed by categories dominant in present day social sciences: "the West"; "the underclass"; and "the primitive". This normalization of racism reflected in the West mirrors South Africa an its use and conception of space. Goldberg concludes with an extended argument for a pragmatic, antiracist practice.
Author: Caroline Myss
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 2003
Summary: We all come into this world with "Sacred Contracts," according to bestselling author Caroline Myss. Some know it as a calling. Some see it as a life mission. "In short, a Sacred Contract is an agreement your soul makes before you are born," Myss explains. "You promise to do certain things for yourself, for others, and for divine purposes. Part of the Contract requires that you discover what you are meant to do." Herein lies the rub. Decoding our Sacred Contract requires us to become fluent in the language of symbols and archetypes so that we can interpret dreams, understand the meaning behind "coincidences," and learn to follow our intuition. This is why Myss ("The Anatomy of the Spirit") offers an extensive lesson on helping readers recognize their personal archetypes (we have about 12 of them), such as the Avenger (righteous activists), Networker (journalists, messengers), or Prostitute (someone who "sells out" easily). Myss then goes on to help readers create their own "Chart of Origin" (which profiles your "spiritual DNA"), using the teachings of the chakras and astrology. Part science, part ancient tradition, part magic, this book will gratify readers who are prepared to study the fine print of their Sacred Contracts. "--Gail Hudson"
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 2003
Summary: We all come into this world with "Sacred Contracts," according to bestselling author Caroline Myss. Some know it as a calling. Some see it as a life mission. "In short, a Sacred Contract is an agreement your soul makes before you are born," Myss explains. "You promise to do certain things for yourself, for others, and for divine purposes. Part of the Contract requires that you discover what you are meant to do." Herein lies the rub. Decoding our Sacred Contract requires us to become fluent in the language of symbols and archetypes so that we can interpret dreams, understand the meaning behind "coincidences," and learn to follow our intuition. This is why Myss ("The Anatomy of the Spirit") offers an extensive lesson on helping readers recognize their personal archetypes (we have about 12 of them), such as the Avenger (righteous activists), Networker (journalists, messengers), or Prostitute (someone who "sells out" easily). Myss then goes on to help readers create their own "Chart of Origin" (which profiles your "spiritual DNA"), using the teachings of the chakras and astrology. Part science, part ancient tradition, part magic, this book will gratify readers who are prepared to study the fine print of their Sacred Contracts. "--Gail Hudson"
Author: Paul H. Phd Ray, Sherry Ruth Anderson
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Do you "give a lot of importance to helping other people and bringing out their unique gifts?" Do you "dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and 'making it,' on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods?" Do you "want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life for our country?" If you answered yes to all three of these questions--and at least seven more of the remaining 15 in Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's questionnaire--then you are probably a Cultural Creative.
"Cultural Creative" is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake--not only in the United States, but around the globe.
On the basis of Ray and Anderson's research, about 50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives, a group that includes people of all races, ages, and classes. This subculture could have enormous social and political clout, the authors argue, if only it had any consciousness of itself as a cohesive unit, a society of fellow travelers. The husband and wife team wrote the book "to hold up a mirror" to the members of this vast but diffuse group, to show them they are not alone and that they can reshape society to make it more authentic, compassionate, and engaged. It is an idealistic call for a new agenda for a new millennium. "--I. Crane"
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Do you "give a lot of importance to helping other people and bringing out their unique gifts?" Do you "dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and 'making it,' on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods?" Do you "want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life for our country?" If you answered yes to all three of these questions--and at least seven more of the remaining 15 in Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's questionnaire--then you are probably a Cultural Creative.
"Cultural Creative" is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake--not only in the United States, but around the globe.
On the basis of Ray and Anderson's research, about 50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives, a group that includes people of all races, ages, and classes. This subculture could have enormous social and political clout, the authors argue, if only it had any consciousness of itself as a cohesive unit, a society of fellow travelers. The husband and wife team wrote the book "to hold up a mirror" to the members of this vast but diffuse group, to show them they are not alone and that they can reshape society to make it more authentic, compassionate, and engaged. It is an idealistic call for a new agenda for a new millennium. "--I. Crane"
Author: Caroline Myss
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 1997
Summary: What sets "Anatomy of the Spirit" apart is Carolyn Myss's ability to blend diverse religious and spiritual beliefs into a succinct discussion of health and human anatomy. For example, when describing the seven energy fields of the human body, she fuses Christian sacraments with Hindu chakras and the Kabbalah's Tree of Life. Fortunately, Myss is a skilled writer as well as researcher, able to ground her extensive spiritual and religious discussions by using real-life stories and a tight writing style. Those who are squeamish with the notion of biography affecting biology will find this book a struggle (in one chapter, Myss links pancreatic cancer with a man's refusal to unburden his life and start fulfilling his dreams). Many, however, hail Myss for creating a valuable contribution to the ongoing exploration of spirituality and health. "--Gail Hudson"
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release: 1997
Summary: What sets "Anatomy of the Spirit" apart is Carolyn Myss's ability to blend diverse religious and spiritual beliefs into a succinct discussion of health and human anatomy. For example, when describing the seven energy fields of the human body, she fuses Christian sacraments with Hindu chakras and the Kabbalah's Tree of Life. Fortunately, Myss is a skilled writer as well as researcher, able to ground her extensive spiritual and religious discussions by using real-life stories and a tight writing style. Those who are squeamish with the notion of biography affecting biology will find this book a struggle (in one chapter, Myss links pancreatic cancer with a man's refusal to unburden his life and start fulfilling his dreams). Many, however, hail Myss for creating a valuable contribution to the ongoing exploration of spirituality and health. "--Gail Hudson"
Author: Deepak Chopra, M.D. Deepak Chopra
Publisher: Harmony
Release: 2003
Summary: As elegant as his bestselling How to Know God and as practical as his phenomenal The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, this groundbreaking new book from Deepak Chopra contains a dramatic premise: Not only are everyday coincidences meaningful, they actually provide us with glimpses of the field of infinite possibilities that lies at the heart of all things. By gaining access to this wellspring of creation, we can literally rewrite our destinies in any way we wish.
From this realm of pure potential we are connected to everything that exists and everything that is yet to come. “Coincidences” can then be recognized as containing precious clues about particular facets of our lives that require our attention. As you become more aware of coincidences and their meanings, you begin to connect more and more with the underlying field of infinite possibilities. This is when the magic begins. This is when you achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of desire.
At a time when world events may leave us feeling especially insignificant and vulnerable, Deepak Chopra restores our awareness of the awesome powers within us. And through specific principles and exercises he provides the tools with which to create the magnificent, miraculous life that is our birthright.
Publisher: Harmony
Release: 2003
Summary: As elegant as his bestselling How to Know God and as practical as his phenomenal The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, this groundbreaking new book from Deepak Chopra contains a dramatic premise: Not only are everyday coincidences meaningful, they actually provide us with glimpses of the field of infinite possibilities that lies at the heart of all things. By gaining access to this wellspring of creation, we can literally rewrite our destinies in any way we wish.
From this realm of pure potential we are connected to everything that exists and everything that is yet to come. “Coincidences” can then be recognized as containing precious clues about particular facets of our lives that require our attention. As you become more aware of coincidences and their meanings, you begin to connect more and more with the underlying field of infinite possibilities. This is when the magic begins. This is when you achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of desire.
At a time when world events may leave us feeling especially insignificant and vulnerable, Deepak Chopra restores our awareness of the awesome powers within us. And through specific principles and exercises he provides the tools with which to create the magnificent, miraculous life that is our birthright.
Author: Walter Truett Anderson
Publisher: Backinprint.com
Release: 2004
Summary: "The first responsible account of an important, uniquely American happening - worthwhile reading for anyone who wants to piece together the social undercurrents of the '60s"
--Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor
"A charming, gossipy multiple biography of the curious gurus who spawned Esalen . . . a complex story, but a sequential one nonetheless, with feuds and psychic shoot-outs, games of capture the flag and smell the roses."
--Arthur Hough, San Francisco Chronicle
"Upstart Spring tells Esalen's riveting, unfinished story - even-handedly, entertainingly, with sympathy, and yet holding little back."
--David Toolan, Commonwealth
"An absolute delight: brimming with juicy gossip, and as carefully crafted as a page-turner novel. And it has substance, the gift of a therapist who also happens to be a cultural historian with a good eye for the telling meta-detail."
--Sandy McDonald, New Age Journal
"Walt Anderson has the requisite experience, humor, and affection (if not detachment, since Esalen teaches, indeed proves, that detachment is a universal impossibility) to carry off a wonderful account."
--Stewart Brand, Co-Evolution Quarterly
"A wonderful read, consistently entertaining on several levels."
--Michael Rossman, Associate for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter
"A superb wrap-up of a notable influence on our popular culture." --Rita Fink, Pacific Sun
Publisher: Backinprint.com
Release: 2004
Summary: "The first responsible account of an important, uniquely American happening - worthwhile reading for anyone who wants to piece together the social undercurrents of the '60s"
--Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor
"A charming, gossipy multiple biography of the curious gurus who spawned Esalen . . . a complex story, but a sequential one nonetheless, with feuds and psychic shoot-outs, games of capture the flag and smell the roses."
--Arthur Hough, San Francisco Chronicle
"Upstart Spring tells Esalen's riveting, unfinished story - even-handedly, entertainingly, with sympathy, and yet holding little back."
--David Toolan, Commonwealth
"An absolute delight: brimming with juicy gossip, and as carefully crafted as a page-turner novel. And it has substance, the gift of a therapist who also happens to be a cultural historian with a good eye for the telling meta-detail."
--Sandy McDonald, New Age Journal
"Walt Anderson has the requisite experience, humor, and affection (if not detachment, since Esalen teaches, indeed proves, that detachment is a universal impossibility) to carry off a wonderful account."
--Stewart Brand, Co-Evolution Quarterly
"A wonderful read, consistently entertaining on several levels."
--Michael Rossman, Associate for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter
"A superb wrap-up of a notable influence on our popular culture." --Rita Fink, Pacific Sun
Author: Aldous Huxley, David Bradshaw
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Release: 2002
Summary: If you enjoyed Huxley's insights in Brave New world and have an interest in political theory in general, you'll enjoy this book. In this collection of essays and broadcasts Huxley waxes on evereything from childcare to sex to big business to education.
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Release: 2002
Summary: If you enjoyed Huxley's insights in Brave New world and have an interest in political theory in general, you'll enjoy this book. In this collection of essays and broadcasts Huxley waxes on evereything from childcare to sex to big business to education.
Author: Shirley Maclaine
Publisher: Bantam Books
Release: 1983
Summary: This book is a must read for anyone who is looking for more meaning in life. It depicts the author's efforts to become more aware of her spiritual being. She shares the great amount of knowledge she has gained from the many books she has read and the many friends in her life. The portions detailing her affair are important, but are a frustrating detour from the main subject. All in all, it is a wonderful place to start your own spiritual journey.
Publisher: Bantam Books
Release: 1983
Summary: This book is a must read for anyone who is looking for more meaning in life. It depicts the author's efforts to become more aware of her spiritual being. She shares the great amount of knowledge she has gained from the many books she has read and the many friends in her life. The portions detailing her affair are important, but are a frustrating detour from the main subject. All in all, it is a wonderful place to start your own spiritual journey.
Author: Tom Wolfe
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1999
Summary: They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking "On the Road"'s hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's "Many Years from Now" cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy "Magical Mystery Tour" film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life "was" his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.
Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in "Demon Box" are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. "--Tim Appelo"
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1999
Summary: They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But, fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking "On the Road"'s hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician, Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's "Many Years from Now" cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy "Magical Mystery Tour" film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in those years, Kesey's life "was" his work, and Wolfe infinitely multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture moment.
Kesey's theatrical metamorphosis from the distinguished author of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" to the abominable shaman of the "Acid Test" soirees that launched The Grateful Dead required Wolfe's Day-Glo prose account to endure (though Kesey's own musings in "Demon Box" are no slouch either). Even now, Wolfe's book gives what Wolfe clearly got from Kesey: a contact high. "--Tim Appelo"
Author: Tom Wolfe
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1999
Summary: If generals prepare for the last war, the politicians run on yesterday's issues. Never was this truer than in the 1970s. Our elected elite couldn't get a handle on the times.
But Tom Wolfe could. In fact he gave the era its name -- "The Me Decade." And like an artist briskly painting the passing scene, he captured it in stories and essays. This collection includes the best -- "Pornoviolence," "Funky Chic," "The Man Who Always Peaked Too Soon" plus the story for which this collection is named.
"Wolfe sees it fresh and tells it true...great vivacity and intelligence." (The Observer)
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1999
Summary: If generals prepare for the last war, the politicians run on yesterday's issues. Never was this truer than in the 1970s. Our elected elite couldn't get a handle on the times.
But Tom Wolfe could. In fact he gave the era its name -- "The Me Decade." And like an artist briskly painting the passing scene, he captured it in stories and essays. This collection includes the best -- "Pornoviolence," "Funky Chic," "The Man Who Always Peaked Too Soon" plus the story for which this collection is named.
"Wolfe sees it fresh and tells it true...great vivacity and intelligence." (The Observer)
Author: Sam Keen
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1992
Summary: I'm actually writing this first version of my review while still reading the book. Not all ideas Sam Keen conveys are original but the presentation as a whole has been somewhat of an empiphany for me. That is to say, it has given me jarringly lucid insight into who I am as a male and the very predictable patterns I, and many other men fall into. While reading the first five chapters, I was struck at how well I was described.
I am glad Sam Keen had the courage to write on such a controversial yet worthy topic. All men need to read this book and reflect on their female relationships: mother, partner, children, co-workers and friends alike.
I'm not yet sure that simply the awareness of my male tendancies relative to WOMAN will be a solution to faulty relating, but it is certainly a start. Understanding and acting in a less "programmed" manner would be a worthy goal for men who read this book.
Keen's acknowledgement that although we are all human beings, we are profoundly different in our historical roles, cultural roles, socialization, and (naturally) in our physiology, is a simple yet profound truth that needs to be carried in the front our awareness while interacting with the opposite sex.
This is a vital book for men (and women too) in this age of painful gender division and misunderstanding.
Publisher: Bantam
Release: 1992
Summary: I'm actually writing this first version of my review while still reading the book. Not all ideas Sam Keen conveys are original but the presentation as a whole has been somewhat of an empiphany for me. That is to say, it has given me jarringly lucid insight into who I am as a male and the very predictable patterns I, and many other men fall into. While reading the first five chapters, I was struck at how well I was described.
I am glad Sam Keen had the courage to write on such a controversial yet worthy topic. All men need to read this book and reflect on their female relationships: mother, partner, children, co-workers and friends alike.
I'm not yet sure that simply the awareness of my male tendancies relative to WOMAN will be a solution to faulty relating, but it is certainly a start. Understanding and acting in a less "programmed" manner would be a worthy goal for men who read this book.
Keen's acknowledgement that although we are all human beings, we are profoundly different in our historical roles, cultural roles, socialization, and (naturally) in our physiology, is a simple yet profound truth that needs to be carried in the front our awareness while interacting with the opposite sex.
This is a vital book for men (and women too) in this age of painful gender division and misunderstanding.
Author: H.G. Wells
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Release: 1994
Summary: A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before--it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels"), and a bloody tale of horror. Or, as H. G. Wells himself wrote about this story, ""The Island of Dr. Moreau" is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now and then, though I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, and I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." This colorful tale by the author of "The Time Machine", "The Invisible Man", and "The War of the Worlds" lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896.
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Release: 1994
Summary: A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before--it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels"), and a bloody tale of horror. Or, as H. G. Wells himself wrote about this story, ""The Island of Dr. Moreau" is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now and then, though I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, and I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." This colorful tale by the author of "The Time Machine", "The Invisible Man", and "The War of the Worlds" lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896.
Author: Michael Kellogg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: This groundbreaking book examines the overlooked topic of the influence of anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic Russian exiles on Nazism. White émigrés contributed politically, financially, militarily, and ideologically to National Socialism. This work refutes the notion that Nazism developed as a peculiarly German phenomenon: it arose primarily from the cooperation between völkisch (nationalist/racist) Germans and vengeful White émigrés. From 1920-1923, Adolf Hitler collaborated with a conspiratorial far right German-White émigré organization, Aufbau (Reconstruction). Aufbau allied with Nazis to overthrow the German government and Bolshevik rule through terrorism and military-paramilitary schemes. This organization's warnings of the monstrous 'Jewish Bolshevik' peril helped to inspire Hitler to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union and to initiate the mass murder of European Jews. This book uses extensive archival materials from Germany and Russia, including recently declassified documents, and will prove invaluable reading for anyone interested in the international roots of National Socialism.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: This groundbreaking book examines the overlooked topic of the influence of anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic Russian exiles on Nazism. White émigrés contributed politically, financially, militarily, and ideologically to National Socialism. This work refutes the notion that Nazism developed as a peculiarly German phenomenon: it arose primarily from the cooperation between völkisch (nationalist/racist) Germans and vengeful White émigrés. From 1920-1923, Adolf Hitler collaborated with a conspiratorial far right German-White émigré organization, Aufbau (Reconstruction). Aufbau allied with Nazis to overthrow the German government and Bolshevik rule through terrorism and military-paramilitary schemes. This organization's warnings of the monstrous 'Jewish Bolshevik' peril helped to inspire Hitler to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union and to initiate the mass murder of European Jews. This book uses extensive archival materials from Germany and Russia, including recently declassified documents, and will prove invaluable reading for anyone interested in the international roots of National Socialism.
Author: David Howie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2002
Summary: This book is a study of the concept of probability as it has been used and applied across a number of scientific disciplines from genetics to geophysics. Probability has a dual aspect: sometimes it is a numerical ratio; sometimes, in the Bayesian interpretation, a degree of belief. David Howie examines probabilistic theories of scientific knowledge, and asks how, despite being adopted by many scientists and statisticians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Bayesianism was discredited as a theory of scientific inference during the 1920s and 1930s. Through a close examination of a dispute between two British scientists, the author argues that a choice between the two interpretations of probability is not forced by pure logic, or the mathematics of the situation, but depends on the experiences and aims of the individuals involved, and their views of the correct form of scientific inquiry.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2002
Summary: This book is a study of the concept of probability as it has been used and applied across a number of scientific disciplines from genetics to geophysics. Probability has a dual aspect: sometimes it is a numerical ratio; sometimes, in the Bayesian interpretation, a degree of belief. David Howie examines probabilistic theories of scientific knowledge, and asks how, despite being adopted by many scientists and statisticians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Bayesianism was discredited as a theory of scientific inference during the 1920s and 1930s. Through a close examination of a dispute between two British scientists, the author argues that a choice between the two interpretations of probability is not forced by pure logic, or the mathematics of the situation, but depends on the experiences and aims of the individuals involved, and their views of the correct form of scientific inquiry.
Author: Nicola Bown
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: This collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science which explore the diversity of Victorian fascination with the supernatural: ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. These essays demonstrate that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to the "post-Darwinian loss of faith", but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: This collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science which explore the diversity of Victorian fascination with the supernatural: ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. These essays demonstrate that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to the "post-Darwinian loss of faith", but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture.
Author: Donald J. Childs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: In Modernism and Eugenics, Donald Childs reveals how Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and W.B. Yeats believed in eugenics, the science of racial improvement, and adapted this scientific discourse to the language and purposes of the modern imagination. He traces the impact of the eugenics movement on such modernist works as Mrs. Dalloway, The Waste Land, and Yeats's late poetry and early plays. This is an original study of a controversial theme which reveals the centrality of eugenics in the life and work of several major modernist writers.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: In Modernism and Eugenics, Donald Childs reveals how Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and W.B. Yeats believed in eugenics, the science of racial improvement, and adapted this scientific discourse to the language and purposes of the modern imagination. He traces the impact of the eugenics movement on such modernist works as Mrs. Dalloway, The Waste Land, and Yeats's late poetry and early plays. This is an original study of a controversial theme which reveals the centrality of eugenics in the life and work of several major modernist writers.
Author: Jim Sidanius, Felicia Pratto
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: This book suggests that the major forms in intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are essentially derived from the human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. Using social dominance theory, it is presumed that it is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: This book suggests that the major forms in intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are essentially derived from the human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. Using social dominance theory, it is presumed that it is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.
Author: Pamela Thurschwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. She argues that as new technologies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on, they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Making unexpected connections between, for instance, speaking on the telephone and speaking to the dead, she examines how psychical research is reflected in the work of Henry James, George DuMaurier and Oscar Wilde among others.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. She argues that as new technologies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on, they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Making unexpected connections between, for instance, speaking on the telephone and speaking to the dead, she examines how psychical research is reflected in the work of Henry James, George DuMaurier and Oscar Wilde among others.
Author: Deirdre David
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, a series of specially-commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive Guide to Further Reading.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2001
Summary: In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, a series of specially-commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive Guide to Further Reading.
Author: Sahotra Sarkar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1998
Summary: With the advent of the Human Genome Project there have been many claims for the genetic origins of complex human behavior including insanity, criminality, and intelligence. But what does it really mean to call something "genetic"? This is the fundamental question that Sahotra Sarkar's book addresses. This important book clarifies the meaning of the term "genetic," shows how molecular studies have affected genetics, and provides the philosophical background necessary to understand the debates over the Human Genome Project. It will be of particular interest to professionals and students in the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the social studies of science, medicine, and technology.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1998
Summary: With the advent of the Human Genome Project there have been many claims for the genetic origins of complex human behavior including insanity, criminality, and intelligence. But what does it really mean to call something "genetic"? This is the fundamental question that Sahotra Sarkar's book addresses. This important book clarifies the meaning of the term "genetic," shows how molecular studies have affected genetics, and provides the philosophical background necessary to understand the debates over the Human Genome Project. It will be of particular interest to professionals and students in the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the social studies of science, medicine, and technology.
Author: Richard Breitman, Norman J. W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, Robert Wolfe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, this book provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime. As the direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the volume draws upon many documents declassified under this law to reveal what U.S. intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. The work also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the U.S. government and Hitler's former officers.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, this book provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime. As the direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the volume draws upon many documents declassified under this law to reveal what U.S. intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. The work also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the U.S. government and Hitler's former officers.
Author: Richard Steigmann-Gall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite, Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. In contrast, Steigmann-Gall demonstrates that many in the Nazi movement believed the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure. He also explores the struggle the "positive Christians" waged with the party's paganists and demonstrates that this was not just a conflict over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself. Richard Steigmann-Gall is assistant professor of history at Kent Sate University. He earned his BA and MA at the University of Michigan, and PhD at the University of Toronto. He has earned fellowships and awards from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism in Israel, and the Max-Planck Institut fur Geschichte in Göttingen. His research interests include modern Germany, Fascism, and religion and society in Europe, and he has published articles in Central European History, German History, Social History, and Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2004
Summary: Analyzing the previously unexplored religious views of the Nazi elite, Richard Steigmann-Gall argues against the consensus that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it. In contrast, Steigmann-Gall demonstrates that many in the Nazi movement believed the contours of their ideology were based on a Christian understanding of Germany's ills and their cure. He also explores the struggle the "positive Christians" waged with the party's paganists and demonstrates that this was not just a conflict over religion, but over the very meaning of Nazi ideology itself. Richard Steigmann-Gall is assistant professor of history at Kent Sate University. He earned his BA and MA at the University of Michigan, and PhD at the University of Toronto. He has earned fellowships and awards from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism in Israel, and the Max-Planck Institut fur Geschichte in Göttingen. His research interests include modern Germany, Fascism, and religion and society in Europe, and he has published articles in Central European History, German History, Social History, and Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.
Author: James H. Capshew
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1999
Summary: Psychologists on the March argues that the Second World War had a profound impact on the modern psychological profession in America. Before the war, psychology was viewed largely as an academic discipline, drawing its ideology and personnel from the laboratory. Following the war, it was increasingly seen as a source of theory and practice to deal with mental health issues. With the support of the federal government, the field entered a prolonged period of exponential growth that saw major changes in the institutional structure of the field that spread to include the epistemological foundations of psychology. This book is the first sustained study of this important era in American psychology. Moving back and forth between collective and individual levels of analysis, it weaves together the internal politics and demography of psychology in relation to the cultural environment. It is based on extensive archival research and includes extended discussions of the wartime reformation of the American Psychological Association, the role of gender politics, the rise of reflexivity, and the popularization of psychology, among other topics.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1999
Summary: Psychologists on the March argues that the Second World War had a profound impact on the modern psychological profession in America. Before the war, psychology was viewed largely as an academic discipline, drawing its ideology and personnel from the laboratory. Following the war, it was increasingly seen as a source of theory and practice to deal with mental health issues. With the support of the federal government, the field entered a prolonged period of exponential growth that saw major changes in the institutional structure of the field that spread to include the epistemological foundations of psychology. This book is the first sustained study of this important era in American psychology. Moving back and forth between collective and individual levels of analysis, it weaves together the internal politics and demography of psychology in relation to the cultural environment. It is based on extensive archival research and includes extended discussions of the wartime reformation of the American Psychological Association, the role of gender politics, the rise of reflexivity, and the popularization of psychology, among other topics.
Author: Paul Weindling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: Based on a wealth of hitherto neglected archival sources, this study analyzes the origins, social composition and impact of eugenics in the context of the social and political tension of the rapidly industrializing Nazi empire. Until recently, historians of German racism have limited their analysis of the origins of the Holocaust to a handful of völkisch racial ideologies, overlooking the effects of racial ideas on biology, on the rapidly expanding medical profession and on public health services. Historians of medicine and social and political historians of modern Germany will be interested in this important book.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: Based on a wealth of hitherto neglected archival sources, this study analyzes the origins, social composition and impact of eugenics in the context of the social and political tension of the rapidly industrializing Nazi empire. Until recently, historians of German racism have limited their analysis of the origins of the Holocaust to a handful of völkisch racial ideologies, overlooking the effects of racial ideas on biology, on the rapidly expanding medical profession and on public health services. Historians of medicine and social and political historians of modern Germany will be interested in this important book.
Author: Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazi regime in Germany tried to restructure a "class" society along racial lines. This book deals with the ideas and institutions that underpinned this mission, and shows how Nazi policy affected various groups of people, both victims and beneficiaries. The book begins with a serious discussion of the origins of Nazi racial ideology, and then demonstrates the way in which this was translated into official policy. It deals with the systematic persecution not only of the Jews, but also with the fate of lesser-known groups such as Sinti and Roma, the mentally handicapped, the "asocial," and homosexuals.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 1993
Summary: Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazi regime in Germany tried to restructure a "class" society along racial lines. This book deals with the ideas and institutions that underpinned this mission, and shows how Nazi policy affected various groups of people, both victims and beneficiaries. The book begins with a serious discussion of the origins of Nazi racial ideology, and then demonstrates the way in which this was translated into official policy. It deals with the systematic persecution not only of the Jews, but also with the fate of lesser-known groups such as Sinti and Roma, the mentally handicapped, the "asocial," and homosexuals.
Author: Pamela Thurschwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. She argues that as new technologies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on, they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Making unexpected connections between, for instance, speaking on the telephone and speaking to the dead, she examines how psychical research is reflected in the work of Henry James, George DuMaurier and Oscar Wilde among others.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Thurschwell examines the intersection of literary culture, the occult and new technology at the fin-de-siècle. She argues that as new technologies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, began suffusing the public imagination from the mid-nineteenth century on, they seemed to support the claims of spiritualist mediums. Making unexpected connections between, for instance, speaking on the telephone and speaking to the dead, she examines how psychical research is reflected in the work of Henry James, George DuMaurier and Oscar Wilde among others.
Author: Eric Avila
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2006
Summary: Los Angeles pulsed with economic vitality and demographic growth in the decades following World War II. This vividly detailed cultural history of L.A. from 1940 to 1970 traces the rise of a new suburban consciousness adopted by a generation of migrants who abandoned older American cities for Southern California's booming urban region. Eric Avila explores expressions of this new "white identity" in popular culture with provocative discussions of Hollywood and film noir, Dodger Stadium, Disneyland, and L.A.'s renowned freeways. These institutions not only mirrored this new culture of suburban whiteness and helped shape it, but also, as Avila argues, reveal the profound relationship between the increasingly fragmented urban landscape of Los Angeles and the rise of a new political outlook that rejected the tenets of New Deal liberalism and anticipated the emergence of the New Right.
Avila examines disparate manifestations of popular culture in architecture, art, music, and more to illustrate the unfolding urban dynamics of postwar Los Angeles. He also synthesizes important currents of new research in urban history, cultural studies, and critical race theory, weaving a textured narrative about the interplay of space, cultural representation, and identity amid the westward shift of capital and culture in postwar America.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2006
Summary: Los Angeles pulsed with economic vitality and demographic growth in the decades following World War II. This vividly detailed cultural history of L.A. from 1940 to 1970 traces the rise of a new suburban consciousness adopted by a generation of migrants who abandoned older American cities for Southern California's booming urban region. Eric Avila explores expressions of this new "white identity" in popular culture with provocative discussions of Hollywood and film noir, Dodger Stadium, Disneyland, and L.A.'s renowned freeways. These institutions not only mirrored this new culture of suburban whiteness and helped shape it, but also, as Avila argues, reveal the profound relationship between the increasingly fragmented urban landscape of Los Angeles and the rise of a new political outlook that rejected the tenets of New Deal liberalism and anticipated the emergence of the New Right.
Avila examines disparate manifestations of popular culture in architecture, art, music, and more to illustrate the unfolding urban dynamics of postwar Los Angeles. He also synthesizes important currents of new research in urban history, cultural studies, and critical race theory, weaving a textured narrative about the interplay of space, cultural representation, and identity amid the westward shift of capital and culture in postwar America.
Author: Alexandra Stern
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Many people assume that eugenics all but disappeared with the fall of Nazism, but as this sweeping history demonstrates, the idea of better breeding had a wide and surprising reach in the United States throughout the twentieth century. With an original emphasis on the American West, "Eugenic Nation "brings to light many little-known facts--for example, that one-third of the involuntary sterilizations in this country occurred in California between 1909 and 1979--as it explores the influence of eugenics on phenomena as varied as race-based intelligence tests, school segregation, tropical medicine, the Border Patrol, and the environmental movement.
"Eugenic Nation "begins in the 1900s, when influential California eugenicists molded an extensive agenda of better breeding for the rest of the country. The book traces hereditarian theories of sex and gender to the culture of conformity of the 1950s and moves to the 1960s, arguing that the liberation movements of that decade emerged in part as a challenge to policies and practices informed by eugenics.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2005
Summary: Many people assume that eugenics all but disappeared with the fall of Nazism, but as this sweeping history demonstrates, the idea of better breeding had a wide and surprising reach in the United States throughout the twentieth century. With an original emphasis on the American West, "Eugenic Nation "brings to light many little-known facts--for example, that one-third of the involuntary sterilizations in this country occurred in California between 1909 and 1979--as it explores the influence of eugenics on phenomena as varied as race-based intelligence tests, school segregation, tropical medicine, the Border Patrol, and the environmental movement.
"Eugenic Nation "begins in the 1900s, when influential California eugenicists molded an extensive agenda of better breeding for the rest of the country. The book traces hereditarian theories of sex and gender to the culture of conformity of the 1950s and moves to the 1960s, arguing that the liberation movements of that decade emerged in part as a challenge to policies and practices informed by eugenics.
Author: David Morgan
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2005
Summary: "Sacred gaze" denotes any way of seeing that invests its object --an image, a person, a time, a place--with spiritual significance. Drawing from many different fields, David Morgan investigates key aspects of vision and imagery in a variety of religious traditions. His lively, innovative book explores how viewers absorb and process religious imagery and how their experience contributes to the social, intellectual, and perceptual construction of reality. Ranging widely from thirteenth-century Japan and eighteenth-century Tibet to contemporary America, Thailand, and Africa, "The Sacred Gaze "discusses the religious functions of images and the tools viewers use to interpret them. Morgan questions how fear and disgust of images relate to one another and explains how scholars study the long and evolving histories of images as they pass from culture to culture. An intriguing strand of the narrative details how images have helped to shape popular conceptions of gender and masculinity. The opening chapter considers definitions of "visual culture" and how these relate to the traditional practice of art history.
Amply illustrated with more than seventy images from diverse religious traditions, this masterful interdisciplinary study provides a comprehensive and accessible resource for everyone interested in how religious images and visual practice order space and time, communicate with the transcendent, and embody forms of communion with the divine. "The Sacred Gaze "is a vital introduction to the study of the visual culture of religions.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2005
Summary: "Sacred gaze" denotes any way of seeing that invests its object --an image, a person, a time, a place--with spiritual significance. Drawing from many different fields, David Morgan investigates key aspects of vision and imagery in a variety of religious traditions. His lively, innovative book explores how viewers absorb and process religious imagery and how their experience contributes to the social, intellectual, and perceptual construction of reality. Ranging widely from thirteenth-century Japan and eighteenth-century Tibet to contemporary America, Thailand, and Africa, "The Sacred Gaze "discusses the religious functions of images and the tools viewers use to interpret them. Morgan questions how fear and disgust of images relate to one another and explains how scholars study the long and evolving histories of images as they pass from culture to culture. An intriguing strand of the narrative details how images have helped to shape popular conceptions of gender and masculinity. The opening chapter considers definitions of "visual culture" and how these relate to the traditional practice of art history.
Amply illustrated with more than seventy images from diverse religious traditions, this masterful interdisciplinary study provides a comprehensive and accessible resource for everyone interested in how religious images and visual practice order space and time, communicate with the transcendent, and embody forms of communion with the divine. "The Sacred Gaze "is a vital introduction to the study of the visual culture of religions.
Author: Julie Guthman
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2004
Summary: In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2004
Summary: In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.
Author: Kris Fresonke
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2004
Summary: Two centuries after their expedition awoke the nation both to the promise and to the disquiet of the vast territory out west, Lewis and Clark still stir the imagination, and their adventure remains one of the most celebrated and studied chapters in American history. This volume explores the legacy of Lewis and Clark's momentous journey and, on the occasion of its bicentennial, considers the impact of their westward expedition on American culture. Approaching their subject from many different perspectives--literature, history, women's studies, law, medicine, and environmental history, among others--the authors chart shifting attitudes about the explorers and their journals, together creating a compelling, finely detailed picture of the "interdisciplinary intrigue" that has always surrounded Lewis and Clark's accomplishment. This collection is most remarkable for its insights into ongoing debates over the relationships between settler culture and aboriginal peoples, law and land tenure, manifest destiny and westward expansion, as well as over the character of Sacagawea, the expedition's vision of nature, and the interpretation and preservation of the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2004
Summary: Two centuries after their expedition awoke the nation both to the promise and to the disquiet of the vast territory out west, Lewis and Clark still stir the imagination, and their adventure remains one of the most celebrated and studied chapters in American history. This volume explores the legacy of Lewis and Clark's momentous journey and, on the occasion of its bicentennial, considers the impact of their westward expedition on American culture. Approaching their subject from many different perspectives--literature, history, women's studies, law, medicine, and environmental history, among others--the authors chart shifting attitudes about the explorers and their journals, together creating a compelling, finely detailed picture of the "interdisciplinary intrigue" that has always surrounded Lewis and Clark's accomplishment. This collection is most remarkable for its insights into ongoing debates over the relationships between settler culture and aboriginal peoples, law and land tenure, manifest destiny and westward expansion, as well as over the character of Sacagawea, the expedition's vision of nature, and the interpretation and preservation of the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Author: Hugh Urban
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: A complex body of religious practices that spread throughout the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions; a form of spirituality that seemingly combines sexuality, sensual pleasure, and the full range of physical experience with the religious life--Tantra has held a central yet conflicted role within the Western imagination ever since the first "discovery" of Indian religions by European scholars. Always radical, always extremely Other, Tantra has proven a key factor in the imagining of India. This book offers a critical account of how the phenomenon has come to be.
Tracing the complex genealogy of Tantra as a category within the history of religions, Hugh B. Urban reveals how it has been formed through the interplay of popular and scholarly imaginations. Tantra emerges as a product of mirroring and misrepresentation at work between East and West--a dialectical category born out of the ongoing play between Western and Indian minds. Combining historical detail, textual analysis, popular cultural phenomena, and critical theory, this book shows Tantra as a shifting amalgam of fantasies, fears, and wish-fulfillment, at once native and Other, that strikes at the very heart of our constructions of the exotic Orient and the contemporary West.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: A complex body of religious practices that spread throughout the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions; a form of spirituality that seemingly combines sexuality, sensual pleasure, and the full range of physical experience with the religious life--Tantra has held a central yet conflicted role within the Western imagination ever since the first "discovery" of Indian religions by European scholars. Always radical, always extremely Other, Tantra has proven a key factor in the imagining of India. This book offers a critical account of how the phenomenon has come to be.
Tracing the complex genealogy of Tantra as a category within the history of religions, Hugh B. Urban reveals how it has been formed through the interplay of popular and scholarly imaginations. Tantra emerges as a product of mirroring and misrepresentation at work between East and West--a dialectical category born out of the ongoing play between Western and Indian minds. Combining historical detail, textual analysis, popular cultural phenomena, and critical theory, this book shows Tantra as a shifting amalgam of fantasies, fears, and wish-fulfillment, at once native and Other, that strikes at the very heart of our constructions of the exotic Orient and the contemporary West.
Author:
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: "Pathologies of Power" uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.
Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: "Pathologies of Power" uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.
Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering.
Author: Harvey Levenstein
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: In this sweeping history of food and eating in modern America, Harvey Levenstein explores the social, economic, and political factors that have shaped the American diet since 1930.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2003
Summary: In this sweeping history of food and eating in modern America, Harvey Levenstein explores the social, economic, and political factors that have shaped the American diet since 1930.
Author: Kris Fresonke
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2002
Summary: Where did American literature start? The familiar story of Emerson and Thoreau has them setting up shop in Concord, Massachusetts, and determining the course of American writing. "West of Emerson "overhauls this story of origins as it shifts the context for these literary giants from the civilized East to the wide-open spaces of the Louisiana Purchase. Kris Fresonke tracks down the texts by explorers of the far West that informed "Nature, "Emerson's most famous essay, and proceeds to uncover the parodic Western politics at play in classic New England works of Romanticism. Westerns, this book shows, helped create "Easterns."
"West of Emerson "roughs up genteel literary history: Fresonke argues for a fresh mix of American literature, one based on the far reaches of American territory and American literary endeavor. Reading into the record the unexplored writings of Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Stephen Long, and William Emory, Fresonke forges surprising connections between the American West and the American visions emanating from the neighborhood of Walden Pond. These connections open a new view of the politics--and, by way of the notion of "design," the theological lineage--of manifest destiny. Finally, Fresonke's book shows how the cast of the American canon, no less than the direction of American politics, came to depend on what design one placed on the continent.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2002
Summary: Where did American literature start? The familiar story of Emerson and Thoreau has them setting up shop in Concord, Massachusetts, and determining the course of American writing. "West of Emerson "overhauls this story of origins as it shifts the context for these literary giants from the civilized East to the wide-open spaces of the Louisiana Purchase. Kris Fresonke tracks down the texts by explorers of the far West that informed "Nature, "Emerson's most famous essay, and proceeds to uncover the parodic Western politics at play in classic New England works of Romanticism. Westerns, this book shows, helped create "Easterns."
"West of Emerson "roughs up genteel literary history: Fresonke argues for a fresh mix of American literature, one based on the far reaches of American territory and American literary endeavor. Reading into the record the unexplored writings of Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Stephen Long, and William Emory, Fresonke forges surprising connections between the American West and the American visions emanating from the neighborhood of Walden Pond. These connections open a new view of the politics--and, by way of the notion of "design," the theological lineage--of manifest destiny. Finally, Fresonke's book shows how the cast of the American canon, no less than the direction of American politics, came to depend on what design one placed on the continent.
Author: Theodora Kroeber
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2002
Summary: The life story of Ishi, the Yahi Indian, lone survivor of a doomed tribe, is unique in the annals of North American anthropology. For more than forty years, Theodora Kroeber's biography has been sharing this tragic and absorbing drama with readers all over the world.
Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century on the morning of August 29, 1911, when, desperate with hunger and with terror of the white murderers of his family, he was found in the corral of a slaughterhouse near Oroville, California. Finally identified as an Indian by an anthropologist, Ishi was brought to San Francisco by Professor T. T. Waterman and lived there the rest of his life under the care and protection of Alfred Kroeber and the staff of the University of California's Museum of Anthropology. Karl Kroeber adds an informative tribute to the text, describing how the book came to be and how Theodora Kroeber's approach to the project was both a product of her era and of her insight and her empathy.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2002
Summary: The life story of Ishi, the Yahi Indian, lone survivor of a doomed tribe, is unique in the annals of North American anthropology. For more than forty years, Theodora Kroeber's biography has been sharing this tragic and absorbing drama with readers all over the world.
Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century on the morning of August 29, 1911, when, desperate with hunger and with terror of the white murderers of his family, he was found in the corral of a slaughterhouse near Oroville, California. Finally identified as an Indian by an anthropologist, Ishi was brought to San Francisco by Professor T. T. Waterman and lived there the rest of his life under the care and protection of Alfred Kroeber and the staff of the University of California's Museum of Anthropology. Karl Kroeber adds an informative tribute to the text, describing how the book came to be and how Theodora Kroeber's approach to the project was both a product of her era and of her insight and her empathy.
Author: Beryl Satter
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2001
Summary: The New Thought Movement was an enormously popular late nineteenth-century spiritual movement led largely by and for women. Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science is but one example of the fascinating range of these groups, which advocated a belief in mind over matter and espoused women's spiritual ability to purify the world. This work is the first to uncover the cultural implications of New Thought, embedding it in the intellectual traditions of nineteenth-century America, and illuminating its connections with the self-help and New Age enthusiasms of our own fin-de-siècle.
Beryl Satter examines New Thought in all its complexity, presenting along the way a captivating cast of characters. In lively and accessible prose, she introduces the people, the institutions, the texts, and the ideas that comprised the New Thought movement. This fascinating social and intellectual history explores the complex relationships among social reform, alternative religion, medicine, and psychology which persist to this day.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2001
Summary: The New Thought Movement was an enormously popular late nineteenth-century spiritual movement led largely by and for women. Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science is but one example of the fascinating range of these groups, which advocated a belief in mind over matter and espoused women's spiritual ability to purify the world. This work is the first to uncover the cultural implications of New Thought, embedding it in the intellectual traditions of nineteenth-century America, and illuminating its connections with the self-help and New Age enthusiasms of our own fin-de-siècle.
Beryl Satter examines New Thought in all its complexity, presenting along the way a captivating cast of characters. In lively and accessible prose, she introduces the people, the institutions, the texts, and the ideas that comprised the New Thought movement. This fascinating social and intellectual history explores the complex relationships among social reform, alternative religion, medicine, and psychology which persist to this day.
Author: Gray Brechin
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2001
Summary: San Francisco is a city clouded in myth. This urban biography provides an entirely new vision of the city's history, laying bare the inner dynamics of the regional civilization centered in San Francisco. "Imperial San Francisco" examines the far-reaching environmental impact that one city and the elite families that hold power in it have had on the Pacific Basin for over a century and a half. The book provides a literate, myth-shattering interpretation of the hidden costs that the growth of San Francisco has exacted on its surrounding regions, presenting along the way a revolutionary new theory of urban development. Written in a lively, accessible style, the narrative is filled with vivid characters, engrossing stories, and a rich variety of illustrations.
As he uncovers the true costs of building an imperial city, Gray Brechin addresses the dynastic ambitions of frontier oligarchies, the environmental and social effects of the mining industry, the creation of two universities, the choice of imperial architecture to symbolize the aspirations of San Franciscans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, manipulation of public thought by the city's media, and more. He traces the exploitation of both local and distant regions by prominent families--the Hearsts, de Youngs, Spreckelses, and others--who gained wealth and power through mining, control of ranching, water and energy, transportation, real estate, and weapons.
This broad history of San Francisco is a story of greed and ambition on an epic scale. "Imperial San Francisco" incorporates rare period illustrations, personal correspondence, and public statements to show how a little-known power elite has used the city as a tool to increase its own wealth and power. Brechin's story advances a new way of understanding urban history as he traces the links among environment, economy, and technology that led, ultimately, to the creation of the atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race.
"Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000"
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2001
Summary: San Francisco is a city clouded in myth. This urban biography provides an entirely new vision of the city's history, laying bare the inner dynamics of the regional civilization centered in San Francisco. "Imperial San Francisco" examines the far-reaching environmental impact that one city and the elite families that hold power in it have had on the Pacific Basin for over a century and a half. The book provides a literate, myth-shattering interpretation of the hidden costs that the growth of San Francisco has exacted on its surrounding regions, presenting along the way a revolutionary new theory of urban development. Written in a lively, accessible style, the narrative is filled with vivid characters, engrossing stories, and a rich variety of illustrations.
As he uncovers the true costs of building an imperial city, Gray Brechin addresses the dynastic ambitions of frontier oligarchies, the environmental and social effects of the mining industry, the creation of two universities, the choice of imperial architecture to symbolize the aspirations of San Franciscans in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, manipulation of public thought by the city's media, and more. He traces the exploitation of both local and distant regions by prominent families--the Hearsts, de Youngs, Spreckelses, and others--who gained wealth and power through mining, control of ranching, water and energy, transportation, real estate, and weapons.
This broad history of San Francisco is a story of greed and ambition on an epic scale. "Imperial San Francisco" incorporates rare period illustrations, personal correspondence, and public statements to show how a little-known power elite has used the city as a tool to increase its own wealth and power. Brechin's story advances a new way of understanding urban history as he traces the links among environment, economy, and technology that led, ultimately, to the creation of the atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race.
"Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of 2000"
Author: Stephanie Barron, Sheri Bernstein, Ilene Susan Fort
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2000
Summary: This companion volume to the exhibition "Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity,1900-2000" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art offers in-depth, illustrated essays on the making of California culture in the twentieth century. Written by a stellar cast of art historians and scholars in the humanities, the essays look closely at the forces that shaped fine art and material culture in California. The contributors weave their subjects around themes that are central to the milestone exhibition: the California landscape--both the natural and built environments--and the state's cultural and political relationships with Latin America and Asia.
These provocative essays cover topics such as counterculture architecture, Watts Towers, border culture, identity and gender issues, the role of schools in California art, auto tourism, Hollywood, music, Beat culture, politics, literature, photography, and much more. Accessibly written and intellectually engaging, these essays sharpen our understanding of California in the twentieth century and bring together many diverse, yet interrelated, aspects of its art and culture.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2000
Summary: This companion volume to the exhibition "Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity,1900-2000" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art offers in-depth, illustrated essays on the making of California culture in the twentieth century. Written by a stellar cast of art historians and scholars in the humanities, the essays look closely at the forces that shaped fine art and material culture in California. The contributors weave their subjects around themes that are central to the milestone exhibition: the California landscape--both the natural and built environments--and the state's cultural and political relationships with Latin America and Asia.
These provocative essays cover topics such as counterculture architecture, Watts Towers, border culture, identity and gender issues, the role of schools in California art, auto tourism, Hollywood, music, Beat culture, politics, literature, photography, and much more. Accessibly written and intellectually engaging, these essays sharpen our understanding of California in the twentieth century and bring together many diverse, yet interrelated, aspects of its art and culture.
Author: Kimberley C. Patton
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2000
Summary: The first thorough assessment of the field of comparative religion in forty years, this groundbreaking volume surmounts the seemingly intractable division between postmodern scholars who reject the comparative endeavor and those who affirm it. The contributors demonstrate that a broader vision of religion, involving different scales of comparison for different purposes, is both justifiable and necessary.
"A Magic Still Dwells" brings together leading historians of religions from a wide range of backgrounds and vantage points, and draws from traditions as diverse as Indo-European mythology, ancient Greek religion, Judaism, Buddhism, Ndembu ritual, and the spectrum of religions practiced in America. The contributors take seriously the postmodern critique, explain its impact on their work, uphold or reject various premises, and in several cases demonstrate new comparative approaches. Together, the essays represent a state-of-the-art assessment of current issues in the comparative study of religion.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 2000
Summary: The first thorough assessment of the field of comparative religion in forty years, this groundbreaking volume surmounts the seemingly intractable division between postmodern scholars who reject the comparative endeavor and those who affirm it. The contributors demonstrate that a broader vision of religion, involving different scales of comparison for different purposes, is both justifiable and necessary.
"A Magic Still Dwells" brings together leading historians of religions from a wide range of backgrounds and vantage points, and draws from traditions as diverse as Indo-European mythology, ancient Greek religion, Judaism, Buddhism, Ndembu ritual, and the spectrum of religions practiced in America. The contributors take seriously the postmodern critique, explain its impact on their work, uphold or reject various premises, and in several cases demonstrate new comparative approaches. Together, the essays represent a state-of-the-art assessment of current issues in the comparative study of religion.
Author: Anthony Heilbut
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1997
Summary: A brilliant look at the writers, artists, scientists, movie directors, and scholars--ranging from Bertolt Brecht to Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann, and Fritz Lang--who fled Hitler's Germany and how they changed the very fabric of American culture. In a new postscript, Heilbut draws attention to the recent changes in reputation and image that have shaped the reception of the German exiles.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1997
Summary: A brilliant look at the writers, artists, scientists, movie directors, and scholars--ranging from Bertolt Brecht to Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann, and Fritz Lang--who fled Hitler's Germany and how they changed the very fabric of American culture. In a new postscript, Heilbut draws attention to the recent changes in reputation and image that have shaped the reception of the German exiles.
Author: Karl Toepfer
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1997
Summary: "Empire of Ecstasy" offers a novel interpretation of the explosion of German body culture between the two wars--nudism and nude dancing, gymnastics and dance training, dance photography and criticism, and diverse genres of performance from solo dancing to mass movement choirs. Karl Toepfer presents this dynamic subject as a vital and historically unique construction of "modern identity."
The modern body, radiating freedom and power, appeared to Weimar artists and intelligentsia to be the source of a transgressive energy, as well as the sign and manifestation of powerful, mysterious "inner" conditions. Toepfer shows how this view of the modern body sought to extend the aesthetic experience beyond the boundaries imposed by rationalized life and to transcend these limits in search of ecstasy. With the help of much unpublished or long-forgotten archival material (including many little-known photographs), he investigates the process of constructing an "empire" of appropriative impulses toward ecstasy.
Toepfer presents the work of such well-known figures as Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, and Oskar Schlemmer, along with less-known but equally fascinating body culture practitioners. His book is certain to become required reading for historians of dance, body culture, and modernism.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1997
Summary: "Empire of Ecstasy" offers a novel interpretation of the explosion of German body culture between the two wars--nudism and nude dancing, gymnastics and dance training, dance photography and criticism, and diverse genres of performance from solo dancing to mass movement choirs. Karl Toepfer presents this dynamic subject as a vital and historically unique construction of "modern identity."
The modern body, radiating freedom and power, appeared to Weimar artists and intelligentsia to be the source of a transgressive energy, as well as the sign and manifestation of powerful, mysterious "inner" conditions. Toepfer shows how this view of the modern body sought to extend the aesthetic experience beyond the boundaries imposed by rationalized life and to transcend these limits in search of ecstasy. With the help of much unpublished or long-forgotten archival material (including many little-known photographs), he investigates the process of constructing an "empire" of appropriative impulses toward ecstasy.
Toepfer presents the work of such well-known figures as Rudolf Laban, Mary Wigman, and Oskar Schlemmer, along with less-known but equally fascinating body culture practitioners. His book is certain to become required reading for historians of dance, body culture, and modernism.
Author: Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M. Tipton
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1996
Summary: "Habits of the Heart" is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how religion contributes to and detracts from America's common good. An instant classic upon publication in 1985, it was reissued in 1996 with a new introduction describing the book's continuing relevance for a time when the country's racial and class divisions are being continually healed and ripped open again by religious people. "Habits of the Heart" describes the social significance of faiths ranging from "Sheilaism" (practiced by a California nurse named Sheila) to conservative Christianity. It's thoroughly readable, theologically respectful, and academically irreproachable. "--Michael Joseph Gross"
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1996
Summary: "Habits of the Heart" is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how religion contributes to and detracts from America's common good. An instant classic upon publication in 1985, it was reissued in 1996 with a new introduction describing the book's continuing relevance for a time when the country's racial and class divisions are being continually healed and ripped open again by religious people. "Habits of the Heart" describes the social significance of faiths ranging from "Sheilaism" (practiced by a California nurse named Sheila) to conservative Christianity. It's thoroughly readable, theologically respectful, and academically irreproachable. "--Michael Joseph Gross"
Author: Tom&Amp;Aacute;S Almaguer
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1994
Summary: This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and institutionalization of "white supremacy" in the state. Almaguer comparatively assesses the struggles for control of resources, status, and political legitimacy between the European American and the Native American, Mexican, African-American, Chinese, and Japanese populations. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, he weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time.
The U.S. annexation of California in 1848 and the simultaneous discovery of gold sparked rapid and diverse waves of immigration westward, displacing the already established pastoral Mexican society. Almaguer shows how the confrontation between white immigrants and the Mexican "ranchero" and working class populations was also a contestation over racial status in which racialization influenced and was in turn influenced by class position in the changing economic order. Partly because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which granted U.S. citizenship and other rights, parts of the Mexican population were integrated into the emerging Anglo society more easily than other racialized groups. A case study of Ventura County highlights declining political and economic fortunes of the Mexican elite while showing how Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian populations were permanently relegated to the bottom of the class structure as unskilled manual workers.
The fate of the Native American population provides perhaps the most extreme example of white supremacy during the period. Popular conceptions of Native Americans as "uncivilized and "heathen," justified the killing of more than 8,000 men, women, and children between 1848 and 1870. Many survivors were incorporated at the periphery of Anglo society, often as indentured laborers and virtual slaves.
Underpinning the institutional structuring of white supremacy were notions such as "manifest destiny," the inherent good of the capitalist wage-system, and the superiority of Christianity and Euro-American culture, all of which helped to marginalize non white groups in California and justify Anglo-American class dominance. As other racialized groups assumed new roles, Almaguer assesses the complex interplay between economic forces and racial attitudes that simultaneously structured and allocated "group position" in the new social hierarchy.
California remains a contested racial frontier, as political struggles over the rights and opportunities of different groups continue to reverberate along racial lines. "Racial Fault Lines" is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of ethnicity and class in America, and the social construction of "race" in the Far West.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1994
Summary: This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and institutionalization of "white supremacy" in the state. Almaguer comparatively assesses the struggles for control of resources, status, and political legitimacy between the European American and the Native American, Mexican, African-American, Chinese, and Japanese populations. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, he weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time.
The U.S. annexation of California in 1848 and the simultaneous discovery of gold sparked rapid and diverse waves of immigration westward, displacing the already established pastoral Mexican society. Almaguer shows how the confrontation between white immigrants and the Mexican "ranchero" and working class populations was also a contestation over racial status in which racialization influenced and was in turn influenced by class position in the changing economic order. Partly because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which granted U.S. citizenship and other rights, parts of the Mexican population were integrated into the emerging Anglo society more easily than other racialized groups. A case study of Ventura County highlights declining political and economic fortunes of the Mexican elite while showing how Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian populations were permanently relegated to the bottom of the class structure as unskilled manual workers.
The fate of the Native American population provides perhaps the most extreme example of white supremacy during the period. Popular conceptions of Native Americans as "uncivilized and "heathen," justified the killing of more than 8,000 men, women, and children between 1848 and 1870. Many survivors were incorporated at the periphery of Anglo society, often as indentured laborers and virtual slaves.
Underpinning the institutional structuring of white supremacy were notions such as "manifest destiny," the inherent good of the capitalist wage-system, and the superiority of Christianity and Euro-American culture, all of which helped to marginalize non white groups in California and justify Anglo-American class dominance. As other racialized groups assumed new roles, Almaguer assesses the complex interplay between economic forces and racial attitudes that simultaneously structured and allocated "group position" in the new social hierarchy.
California remains a contested racial frontier, as political struggles over the rights and opportunities of different groups continue to reverberate along racial lines. "Racial Fault Lines" is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of ethnicity and class in America, and the social construction of "race" in the Far West.
Author: Robert D. Richardson Jr.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1988
Summary: If you want to get your mind around Thoreau's mind and the more significant facts of his life, buy and read this book. Because the chapters are brief but meaty, and because Richardson's an accomplished prose stylist in his own right, this book is a joy to read and, I have found, is wonderful to come back to periodically, particularly when looking for a great way to spend ten to twenty extra minutes profitably.
Publisher: University of California Press
Release: 1988
Summary: If you want to get your mind around Thoreau's mind and the more significant facts of his life, buy and read this book. Because the chapters are brief but meaty, and because Richardson's an accomplished prose stylist in his own right, this book is a joy to read and, I have found, is wonderful to come back to periodically, particularly when looking for a great way to spend ten to twenty extra minutes profitably.
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Gramercy
Release: 2001
Summary: In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of "The Stand" in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
"The Stand" is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I "love" to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... "The Stand" was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on "The Stand" came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in "The Stand": the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. "--Fiona Webster"
Publisher: Gramercy
Release: 2001
Summary: In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of "The Stand" in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
"The Stand" is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I "love" to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... "The Stand" was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on "The Stand" came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in "The Stand": the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. "--Fiona Webster"
Author: Kurt Selegmann
Publisher: Gramercy
Release: 1997
Summary: From the demons of Mesopotamia to those plaguing our own late-20th-century civilization, this comprehensive primer covers every aspect of magic and the occult since earliest recorded time. Spanning 5,000 years of world history it covers every major civilization and includes sections on alchemy, the Devil, witchcraft, the cabala, astrology, the tarot, the Rosicrucians, Nostradamus, and vampires. Profusely illustrated with nearly 170 black-and-white illustrations.
Publisher: Gramercy
Release: 1997
Summary: From the demons of Mesopotamia to those plaguing our own late-20th-century civilization, this comprehensive primer covers every aspect of magic and the occult since earliest recorded time. Spanning 5,000 years of world history it covers every major civilization and includes sections on alchemy, the Devil, witchcraft, the cabala, astrology, the tarot, the Rosicrucians, Nostradamus, and vampires. Profusely illustrated with nearly 170 black-and-white illustrations.
Author: Stanislav Grof
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 1980
Summary: BEYOND DEATH is a visual feast of worldwide artwork throughout history depicting scenes of the soul's passage into the afterlife and through the trials and tribulations of purgatory or hell into the eventual bliss of paradise. The text and illustrations also apply, to a substantial extent, to the death-and-rebirth process a person typically goes through during psychedlic therapy; there is a tie-in to a lesser extent to near-death experiences, shamanic initiation, and mystical experiences especially as occur in psychosis/schizophrenia.
I have found the pictures inspiring, and the text informative, as over the past fifteen years I've journeyed on my own path (involving safe, legal psychedelic therapy complemented with hyperventilation therapy and other techniques to grow psychospiritually). The paintings in the pages of this book have repeatedly brought me reassurance that the hellish nightmares as well as blissful heavens of my own life are all actually universal, natural experiences that every person may pass through, if not in this life on earth, then in the next.
I highly recommend this gem of a book with its artistic treasures (and complementary text), both for enhancement of one's life now, and preparation and reassurance for the journey that lies at the end of this life.
Other books I enjoy are Stanislav Grof's masterwork BEYOND THE BRAIN: BIRTH, DEATH, AND TRANSENDENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY, the author's conclusions and insights on how birth affects a person throughout their life and how to heal, based on his seventeen years as a pioneering LSD psychotherapist; Sandra Ingerman's SOUL RETRIEVAL: MENDING THE FRAGMENTED SELF, a modern shamanic view of reclaiming one's lost "inner-child" self; Betty Eadie's near-death bestseller EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT; and STORMY SEARCH FOR THE SELF by Christina and Stanislav Grof, telling of her kundlini/alcoholism crisis, and how similar psychospiritual crises can be initiated by UFO/ET encounters, mystical or near-death experiences, awakening of psychic powers or channeling or spirit guides, shamanic "illness," and other events, all unsought and spontaneous--and all often mis-diagnosed as psychosis...yet all can be worked through to positive resolution and a new spiritual-psychological awakening.
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 1980
Summary: BEYOND DEATH is a visual feast of worldwide artwork throughout history depicting scenes of the soul's passage into the afterlife and through the trials and tribulations of purgatory or hell into the eventual bliss of paradise. The text and illustrations also apply, to a substantial extent, to the death-and-rebirth process a person typically goes through during psychedlic therapy; there is a tie-in to a lesser extent to near-death experiences, shamanic initiation, and mystical experiences especially as occur in psychosis/schizophrenia.
I have found the pictures inspiring, and the text informative, as over the past fifteen years I've journeyed on my own path (involving safe, legal psychedelic therapy complemented with hyperventilation therapy and other techniques to grow psychospiritually). The paintings in the pages of this book have repeatedly brought me reassurance that the hellish nightmares as well as blissful heavens of my own life are all actually universal, natural experiences that every person may pass through, if not in this life on earth, then in the next.
I highly recommend this gem of a book with its artistic treasures (and complementary text), both for enhancement of one's life now, and preparation and reassurance for the journey that lies at the end of this life.
Other books I enjoy are Stanislav Grof's masterwork BEYOND THE BRAIN: BIRTH, DEATH, AND TRANSENDENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY, the author's conclusions and insights on how birth affects a person throughout their life and how to heal, based on his seventeen years as a pioneering LSD psychotherapist; Sandra Ingerman's SOUL RETRIEVAL: MENDING THE FRAGMENTED SELF, a modern shamanic view of reclaiming one's lost "inner-child" self; Betty Eadie's near-death bestseller EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT; and STORMY SEARCH FOR THE SELF by Christina and Stanislav Grof, telling of her kundlini/alcoholism crisis, and how similar psychospiritual crises can be initiated by UFO/ET encounters, mystical or near-death experiences, awakening of psychic powers or channeling or spirit guides, shamanic "illness," and other events, all unsought and spontaneous--and all often mis-diagnosed as psychosis...yet all can be worked through to positive resolution and a new spiritual-psychological awakening.
Author: Marija Gimbutas, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 2001
Summary: "The first authoritative work on the ancient goddess culture."—"Boston Globe"
The Goddess is the most potent and persistent feature in the archaeological records of the ancient world, a symbol of the unity of life in nature and the personification of all that was sacred and mysterious on earth.
In this pioneering and provocative volume, Marija Gimbutas resurrects the world of the Goddess-worshipping, earth-centered cultures, bringing ancient matriarchal society vividly to life. She interweaves comparative mythology, early historical sources, linguistics, ethnography, and folklore to demonstrate conclusively that Goddess-worship is at the root of Western civilization. Illustrated with nearly 2,000 symbolic artifacts, Gimbutas' magnum opus is at once a "pictorial script" of the prehistoric Goddess religion and an authoritative work that takes these ancient cultures from the realm of speculation into that of documented fact. Over 500 illustrations.
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 2001
Summary: "The first authoritative work on the ancient goddess culture."—"Boston Globe"
The Goddess is the most potent and persistent feature in the archaeological records of the ancient world, a symbol of the unity of life in nature and the personification of all that was sacred and mysterious on earth.
In this pioneering and provocative volume, Marija Gimbutas resurrects the world of the Goddess-worshipping, earth-centered cultures, bringing ancient matriarchal society vividly to life. She interweaves comparative mythology, early historical sources, linguistics, ethnography, and folklore to demonstrate conclusively that Goddess-worship is at the root of Western civilization. Illustrated with nearly 2,000 symbolic artifacts, Gimbutas' magnum opus is at once a "pictorial script" of the prehistoric Goddess religion and an authoritative work that takes these ancient cultures from the realm of speculation into that of documented fact. Over 500 illustrations.
Author: John F. Michell
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 2001
Summary: "The View Over Atlantis", John Michell's unrivaled introduction to megalithic science, earth mysteries, and the inner meaning of number and measure, was described by Colin Wilson as "one of the great seminal books of our generation—a book which will be argued about for decades to come." Across much of the globe are ancient earthworks and stone monuments built for an unknown purpose. Their shared features suggest that they were originally part of a worldwide system, and John Michell argues that they served the elemental science of the archaic civilization that Plato referred to as Atlantis. In this connection the most significant modern discovery is that of "leys," the mysterious network of straight lines that link the ancient places of Britain and have their counterparts in China, Australia, South America, and elsewhere. John Michell's studies of ancient measures have enabled him to define their exact values. The same units recur in the dimensions of monuments all over the world, from Stonehenge to Teotihuacán, and reveal the builders' knowledge of the size and shape of the spheroidal earth, and with it the outlines of their cosmology. 82 b/w illustrations.
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Release: 2001
Summary: "The View Over Atlantis", John Michell's unrivaled introduction to megalithic science, earth mysteries, and the inner meaning of number and measure, was described by Colin Wilson as "one of the great seminal books of our generation—a book which will be argued about for decades to come." Across much of the globe are ancient earthworks and stone monuments built for an unknown purpose. Their shared features suggest that they were originally part of a worldwide system, and John Michell argues that they served the elemental science of the archaic civilization that Plato referred to as Atlantis. In this connection the most significant modern discovery is that of "leys," the mysterious network of straight lines that link the ancient places of Britain and have their counterparts in China, Australia, South America, and elsewhere. John Michell's studies of ancient measures have enabled him to define their exact values. The same units recur in the dimensions of monuments all over the world, from Stonehenge to Teotihuacán, and reveal the builders' knowledge of the size and shape of the spheroidal earth, and with it the outlines of their cosmology. 82 b/w illustrations.
Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 2004
Summary:
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 2004
Summary:
Author: Arthur Avalon
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 1974
Summary: Written by a leading authority on Shaktic and Tantric thought, this book is considered the prime document for study and application of Kundalini yoga. It probes the philosophical and mythological nature of Kundalini; the esoteric anatomy associated with it; the study of mantras; the chakras, or psychic centers in the human body; the associated yoga and much, much more. Two important Tantric documents are included: The Description of the Six Chakras and Five-fold Footstool.
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 1974
Summary: Written by a leading authority on Shaktic and Tantric thought, this book is considered the prime document for study and application of Kundalini yoga. It probes the philosophical and mythological nature of Kundalini; the esoteric anatomy associated with it; the study of mantras; the chakras, or psychic centers in the human body; the associated yoga and much, much more. Two important Tantric documents are included: The Description of the Six Chakras and Five-fold Footstool.
Author: Emile Grillot De Givry
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 1971
Summary: Incredible amount of information on sorcerers, bonds with the devil, the kabbalah, alchemy, similar topics. 360 illus., mostly unavailable elsewhere.
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 1971
Summary: Incredible amount of information on sorcerers, bonds with the devil, the kabbalah, alchemy, similar topics. 360 illus., mostly unavailable elsewhere.
Author: Tina Marie Campt
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Release: 2003
Summary: It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity.
Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-semitism. She also provides oral history as background for her study, interviewing two Black Germans for the book.
In the end, the author comes face to face with an inevitable question: Is there a relationship between the history of Black Germans and those of other black communities?
The answers to Campt's questions make Other Germans essential reading in the emerging study of what it meant to be black and German in the context of a society that looked at anyone with non-German blood as racially impure at best.
Tina Campt is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at Duke University.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Release: 2003
Summary: It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity.
Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-semitism. She also provides oral history as background for her study, interviewing two Black Germans for the book.
In the end, the author comes face to face with an inevitable question: Is there a relationship between the history of Black Germans and those of other black communities?
The answers to Campt's questions make Other Germans essential reading in the emerging study of what it meant to be black and German in the context of a society that looked at anyone with non-German blood as racially impure at best.
Tina Campt is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at Duke University.
Author: Nancy Vonk, Janet Kestin
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2005
Summary: Advertising is a fantastic industry, but actually getting a job (or even your foot in the door) can seem next to impossible. Whether you're a student or a young professional loaded with questions, this one-of-a-kind guide shows you how to land a job and how to thrive once you're in and the pressure is on.
Authors Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin are seasoned creative directors and longtime creative partners. In Pick Me, these industry leaders answer your toughest ad career questions, like: Is advertising right for me? How do I build a killer portfolio? How do I get an interview with the elusive creative director? Should I accept an unpaid internship? How do I find the right partner? How do I beat creative block? How do I avoid burnout?
Plus, fourteen industry superstars share their insights and explain how they broke into the business. You'll hear from Bob Barrie, Rick Boyko, David Droga, Mark Fenske, Neil French, Sally Hogshead, Mike Hughes, Shane Hutton, Brian Millar, Tom Monahan, Chuck Porter, Bob Scarpelli, Chris Staples, and Lorraine Tao.
Forget the clichés this is advertising as it really is. If you're hell-bent on making it, this informative guide will put you on track for a career in one of the most exciting businesses on the planet.
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2005
Summary: Advertising is a fantastic industry, but actually getting a job (or even your foot in the door) can seem next to impossible. Whether you're a student or a young professional loaded with questions, this one-of-a-kind guide shows you how to land a job and how to thrive once you're in and the pressure is on.
Authors Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin are seasoned creative directors and longtime creative partners. In Pick Me, these industry leaders answer your toughest ad career questions, like: Is advertising right for me? How do I build a killer portfolio? How do I get an interview with the elusive creative director? Should I accept an unpaid internship? How do I find the right partner? How do I beat creative block? How do I avoid burnout?
Plus, fourteen industry superstars share their insights and explain how they broke into the business. You'll hear from Bob Barrie, Rick Boyko, David Droga, Mark Fenske, Neil French, Sally Hogshead, Mike Hughes, Shane Hutton, Brian Millar, Tom Monahan, Chuck Porter, Bob Scarpelli, Chris Staples, and Lorraine Tao.
Forget the clichés this is advertising as it really is. If you're hell-bent on making it, this informative guide will put you on track for a career in one of the most exciting businesses on the planet.
Author: Jon G. Allen
Publisher: Wiley John & Sons Inc
Release: 2001
Summary: Mental, physical, or sexual abuse in close personal relationships commonly results in trauma that is very different from the trauma of accidents, illness, or war. Making creative use of attachment theory to explicate the multifaceted outcomes of trauma, this book provides a powerful conceptual framework and a concise, masterly review of a huge knowledge base. Encyclopedic in scope and scholarly in its up-to-the-minute survey of research findings.
Publisher: Wiley John & Sons Inc
Release: 2001
Summary: Mental, physical, or sexual abuse in close personal relationships commonly results in trauma that is very different from the trauma of accidents, illness, or war. Making creative use of attachment theory to explicate the multifaceted outcomes of trauma, this book provides a powerful conceptual framework and a concise, masterly review of a huge knowledge base. Encyclopedic in scope and scholarly in its up-to-the-minute survey of research findings.
Author: P. Alex Linley
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2004
Summary: A thorough and up-to-date guide to putting positive psychology into practice
From the Foreword: "This volume is the cutting edge of positive psychology and the emblem of its future."
-Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of "Authentic Happiness"
Positive psychology is an exciting new orientation in the field, going beyond psychology's traditional focus on illness and pathology to look at areas like well-being and fulfillment. While the larger question of optimal human functioning is hardly new - Aristotle addressed it in his treatises on eudaimonia - positive psychology offers a common language on this subject to professionals working in a variety of subdisciplines and practices. Applicable in many settings and relevant for individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and societies, positive psychology is a genuinely integrative approach to professional practice.
"Positive Psychology in Practice" fills the need for a broad, comprehensive, and state-of-the-art reference for this burgeoning new perspective. Cutting across traditional lines of thinking in psychology, this resource bridges theory, research, and applications to offer valuable information to a wide range of professionals and students in the social and behavioral sciences.
A group of major international contributors covers: The applied positive psychology perspective Historical and philosophical foundations Values and choices in pursuit of the good life Lifestyle practices for health and well-being Methods and processes for teaching and learning Positive psychology at work The best and most thorough treatment of this cutting-edge discipline, "Positive Psychology in Practice" is an essential resource for understanding this important new theory and applying its principles to all areas of professional practice.
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2004
Summary: A thorough and up-to-date guide to putting positive psychology into practice
From the Foreword: "This volume is the cutting edge of positive psychology and the emblem of its future."
-Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, and author of "Authentic Happiness"
Positive psychology is an exciting new orientation in the field, going beyond psychology's traditional focus on illness and pathology to look at areas like well-being and fulfillment. While the larger question of optimal human functioning is hardly new - Aristotle addressed it in his treatises on eudaimonia - positive psychology offers a common language on this subject to professionals working in a variety of subdisciplines and practices. Applicable in many settings and relevant for individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and societies, positive psychology is a genuinely integrative approach to professional practice.
"Positive Psychology in Practice" fills the need for a broad, comprehensive, and state-of-the-art reference for this burgeoning new perspective. Cutting across traditional lines of thinking in psychology, this resource bridges theory, research, and applications to offer valuable information to a wide range of professionals and students in the social and behavioral sciences.
A group of major international contributors covers: The applied positive psychology perspective Historical and philosophical foundations Values and choices in pursuit of the good life Lifestyle practices for health and well-being Methods and processes for teaching and learning Positive psychology at work The best and most thorough treatment of this cutting-edge discipline, "Positive Psychology in Practice" is an essential resource for understanding this important new theory and applying its principles to all areas of professional practice.
Author: Abraham H. Maslow
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2000
Summary: Includes Original Essays & Letters
"The more evolved and psychologically healthy people get, the more will enlightened management policy be necessary in order to survive in competition and the more handicapped will be an enterprise with an authoritarian policy."-Abraham Maslow
In a world in which each new day brings a new management theory or strategic proposition, the timeless ideas of Abraham Maslow resonate with unimpeachable insight and clarity. Dr. Maslow, the pioneer behind elemental concepts including the hierarchy of needs and the human search for self-actualization, innately understood that the goals and passions that so impact humans in their everyday life could be just as applicable-and his own findings just as valuable-in the work environment.
The Maslow Business Reader collects Maslow's essays and letters for his many devoted adherents, and introduces his published and unpublished works to readers unfamiliar with Maslow's management breakthroughs. From recognizing and warning against management's natural progression to mechanize the human organization to brilliant discussions of human motivation, Dr. Maslow never fails to instantly recognize the heart and soul of each matter and provide direct, across-the-board solutions.
Abraham Maslow's contributions to behavioral science shine on every page. In notes and articles, as well as personal letters to icons B. F. Skinner, John D. Rockefeller II, and others, The Maslow Business Reader provides his outlook on:
* Management and leadership issues such as customer loyalty, entrepreneurship, and the importance of communication
* Ways to build a work environment conducive to creativity, innovation, and maximized individual contributions
* Techniques for finding comfort in change and ambiguity, and using them to spur creativity and innovation
Amid today's impressive technological innovations, business leaders sometimes forget that work is-at its core-a fundamental human endeavor. The Maslow Business Reader reminds us of Dr. Abraham Maslow's towering contribution to the understanding of human behavior and motivation, and how his efforts can lead to a greater understanding of the twenty-first-century workplace-and the workers who call it home.
An important analysis of workplace motivation-from the twentieth century's most influential behavioral expert
Abraham Maslow is renowned-and rightfully so-for his pioneering work on the hierarchy of needs and the human drive for self-actualization. As today's worker increasingly equates professional success with personal satisfaction and fulfillment, Dr. Maslow's words and ideas have become recognized for their wisdom and prescience on performance improvement and management/employee relationships.
The Maslow Business Reader collects Abraham Maslow's most instructive, intuitive thoughts and essays into one important volume. Assembled from the wealth of behavioral research and analysis Dr. Maslow left upon his death in 1970, the enclosed selections reveal a man comfortable with his position in history, tireless in his efforts to better understand what truly makes humans strive to reach their potential, and gifted in his ability to translate the most profound concepts and realities into entertaining, thought-provoking prose.
Abraham Maslow is still regarded as the mod
Publisher: Wiley
Release: 2000
Summary: Includes Original Essays & Letters
"The more evolved and psychologically healthy people get, the more will enlightened management policy be necessary in order to survive in competition and the more handicapped will be an enterprise with an authoritarian policy."-Abraham Maslow
In a world in which each new day brings a new management theory or strategic proposition, the timeless ideas of Abraham Maslow resonate with unimpeachable insight and clarity. Dr. Maslow, the pioneer behind elemental concepts including the hierarchy of needs and the human search for self-actualization, innately understood that the goals and passions that so impact humans in their everyday life could be just as applicable-and his own findings just as valuable-in the work environment.
The Maslow Business Reader collects Maslow's essays and letters for his many devoted adherents, and introduces his published and unpublished works to readers unfamiliar with Maslow's management breakthroughs. From recognizing and warning against management's natural progression to mechanize the human organization to brilliant discussions of human motivation, Dr. Maslow never fails to instantly recognize the heart and soul of each matter and provide direct, across-the-board solutions.
Abraham Maslow's contributions to behavioral science shine on every page. In notes and articles, as well as personal letters to icons B. F. Skinner, John D. Rockefeller II, and others, The Maslow Business Reader provides his outlook on:
* Management and leadership issues such as customer loyalty, entrepreneurship, and the importance of communication
* Ways to build a work environment conducive to creativity, innovation, and maximized individual contributions
* Techniques for finding comfort in change and ambiguity, and using them to spur creativity and innovation
Amid today's impressive technological innovations, business leaders sometimes forget that work is-at its core-a fundamental human endeavor. The Maslow Business Reader reminds us of Dr. Abraham Maslow's towering contribution to the understanding of human behavior and motivation, and how his efforts can lead to a greater understanding of the twenty-first-century workplace-and the workers who call it home.
An important analysis of workplace motivation-from the twentieth century's most influential behavioral expert
Abraham Maslow is renowned-and rightfully so-for his pioneering work on the hierarchy of needs and the human drive for self-actualization. As today's worker increasingly equates professional success with personal satisfaction and fulfillment, Dr. Maslow's words and ideas have become recognized for their wisdom and prescience on performance improvement and management/employee relationships.
The Maslow Business Reader collects Abraham Maslow's most instructive, intuitive thoughts and essays into one important volume. Assembled from the wealth of behavioral research and analysis Dr. Maslow left upon his death in 1970, the enclosed selections reveal a man comfortable with his position in history, tireless in his efforts to better understand what truly makes humans strive to reach their potential, and gifted in his ability to translate the most profound concepts and realities into entertaining, thought-provoking prose.
Abraham Maslow is still regarded as the mod