The more than fifty articles, essays, and reviews in this volume, collected here for the first time, were published by William James over a span of some twenty-five years. The record of a sustained interest in phenomena of a highly controversial nature, they make it amply clear that James's work in psychical research was not an eccentric hobby but a serious and sympathetic concern. James was broad-minded in his approach but tough-minded in his demand that investigations be conducted in rigorous scientific terms. He hoped his study of psychic phenomena would strengthen the philosophy of an open-ended, pluralistic universe that he was formulating during the same period, and he looked forward to the new horizons for human experience that a successful outcome of his research would create.
Robert A. McDermott, in his Introduction, discusses the relation of these essays to James's other work in philosophy, psychology, and religion.
The twenty-nine articles, essays, and reviews in this volume, collected here for the first time, were published by William James over a long span of years, from 1878 (twelve years prior to The Principles of Psychology) to 1906. Some are theoretical; others examine specific psychological phenomena or report the results of experiments James had conducted.
Written for the most part for a scholarly rather than a popular audience, they exhibit James's characteristic lucidity and persuasiveness, and they reveal the roots and development of his view on a wide range of psychological issues. As William R. Woodward notes in his Introduction, these essays "bring the reader closer to James's sources, thereby illuminating his indebtedness to tradition as well as his creative departure from it."
Essays in Religion and Morality brings together a dozen papers of varying length to these two themes so crucial to the life and thought of William James. Reflections on the two subjects permeate, first, James's presentation of his father's Literary Remains; second, his writings on human immortality and the relation between reason and faith; third, his two memorial pieces, one on Robert Gould Shaw and the other on Emerson; fourth, his consideration of the energies and powers of human life; and last, his writings on the possibilities of peace, especially as found in his famous essay "The Moral Equivalent of War."
These speeches and essays were written over a period of twenty-four years. The fact that James did not collect and publish them himself in a single volume does not reflect on their intrinsic worth or on their importance in James's philosophical work, since they include some of the best known and most influential of his writings. All the essays, throughout their varied subject matter, are consistently and characteristically Jamesian in the freshness of their attack on the problems and failings of humankind and in their steady faith in human powers.
These three elegant essays develop principles central to the understanding of the diverse ways in which imperfect information affects the distribution of resources, incentives, and the evaluation of economic policy. The first concerns the special role that information plays in the allocation process when it is possible to improve accuracy through private investment. The common practice of hiring “experts” whose information is presumably much better than their clients' is analyzed. Issues of cooperative behavior when potential group members possess diverse pieces of information are addressed. Emphasis is placed on the adaptation of the “core” concept from game theory to the resource allocation model with differential information.
The second essay deals with the extent to which agents can influence the random events they face. This is known as moral hazard, and in its presence there is a potential inefficiency in the economic system. Two special models are studied: the role of moral hazard in a monetary economy, and the role of an outside adjudicatory agency that has the power to enforce fines and compensation.
The final essay discusses the problem of certainty equivalence in economic policy. Conditions under which a full stochastic optimization can be calculated by solving a related, much simpler “certainty equivalence” problem are developed. The reduction in the complexity of calculation involved is very great compared with the potential loss of efficiency.
Charles Lamb, one of the most engaging personal essayists of all time, began publishing his unforgettable, entertaining Elia essays in the London Magazine in 1820; they were so immediately popular that a book-length collection was published in 1823. Inventing the persona of “Elia” allowed Lamb to be shockingly honest and to gain a playful distance for self-examination. The resulting essays touch upon a wide range of compelling subjects from the deliciously humorous “Dissertation upon Roast Pig” to the poignantly reflective “New Year's Eve.” Yet collectively they also comprise a fascinating personal memoir, veiled under the pseudonymous disguise of Elia. Now back in print with a new foreword by the distinguished personal essayist Phillip Lopate and with useful annotations, Essays of Elia will provide a delicious stylistic treat for all readers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Kazin observes in his Introduction, “was a great writer who turned the essay into a form all his own.” His celebrated essays—the twelve published in Essays: First Series (1841) and eight in Essays: Second Series (1844)—are here presented for the first time in an authoritative one-volume edition, which incorporates all the changes and corrections Emerson made after their initial publication.
The text is reproduced from the second and third volumes of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a critical edition which draws on the vast body of Emerson scholarship of the last half century. Alfred R. Ferguson was founding editor of the edition, followed by Joseph Slater (until 1996).
G. E. M. Anscombe's Intention, firmly established the philosophy of action as a distinctive field of inquiry. Donald Davidson called this 94-page book "the most important treatment of action since Aristotle." But until quite recently, few scholars recognized the magnitude of Anscombe's philosophical achievement. This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe's work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original philosophers.
Born in 1919, Anscombe studied at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, where she later held a research fellowship. In 1941 she married philosopher Peter Geach, with whom she had seven children. A close friend of Wittgenstein, in 1946 she joined Oxford's Somerville College and spent the next twenty-four years there before being appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge that Wittgenstein had held. She died in 2001 after her long career as a highly regarded analytic philosopher.
This volume brings together fresh interpretations of Intention written by some of today's leading philosophers of action. It will enlighten Anscombe's readers who struggle with concepts they find puzzling or obscure, while providing a bracing corrective to doubts about Intention's significance and the gravity of what is at stake.
Eighteen essays by leading scholars in English, speech communication, education, and philosophy explore the vitality of the classical rhetorical tradition and its influence on both contemporary discourse studies and the teaching of writing.
Some of the essays investigate theoretical and historical issues. Others show the bearing of classical rhetoric on contemporary problems in composition, thus blending theory and practice. Common to the varied approaches and viewpoints expressed in this volume is one central theme: the 20th-century revival of rhetoric entails a recovery of the classical tradition, with its marriage of a rich and fully articulated theory with an equally efficacious practice. A preface demonstrates the contribution of Edward P. J.Corbett to the 20th-century revival, and a last chapter includes a bibliography of his works.
The essays in this book, written over a span of some twenty years but updated for this publication, discuss episodes of mass murder that are often considered instances of genocide: the large-scale killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I, the near-extinction of North America’s Indian population, the vicious persecution of the “Roma” or Gypsies under the Nazi regime. But in line with Article II of the Genocide Convention of 1948, Lewy stresses the crucial importance of looking closely at the intent of the perpetrators. In contrast to the Holocaust, the killers in the atrocities mentioned above did not seek to destroy an entire people, and so, these three large-scale killings do not deserve the label of genocide.
Lewy argues that affirming the distinctiveness of the Holocaust does not deny, downgrade, or trivialize the suffering of other people. The crimes against the Ottoman Armenians, the American Indians, and the Gypsies—even if they did not reach the threshold of genocide—involved horrendous suffering and a massive loss of life. The genocides of Cambodia and Rwanda that took place in the second half of the twentieth century remind us that man’s inhumanity to man can take many forms and is not the special prerogative of any particular group. The last essay of the collection deals with the complications of humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide. As the recent support of the Libyan rebels by NATO demonstrates, the issues raised here remain topical and controversial.
Osip Mandel'stam is coming to be recognized as one of the major poets of our century. He is also one of the most enigmatic. Kiril Taranovsky's erudite knowledge of Russian poetry and his mastery of textual analysis are here combined to produce the most successful interpretation of Mandel'stam's verse yet published.
Individual poems are read on three levels: the text itself; the historical and poetic context of the poem; and its “subtext,” the motifs, images, and patterns Mandel'stam appropriates for his own purposes from the work of other writers. Verses analyzed are quoted in the original. The author demonstrates how the meaning and imagery of the poems relate to a context of personal experience and poetic tradition. In this discussion he draws on his extensive comprehension of European traditions; yet his revelation of literary connections never obscures the linguistic expressiveness and imagistic vividness of Mandel'stam's work. By correlating the text and a suggested subtext he isolates a specific procedure in Mandel'stam and also a fundamental principle in modern poetry. Thus his contribution is to the broader theory of poetics as well as to specific study of this one great poet.
Throughout his career Arthur Darby Nock (1902-1963) made unique and lasting contributions to classical scholarship and the history of religion, especially to the study of ancient religion, magic, and the relation of paganism to early Christianity and Judaism. Nock's genius showed itself early: endowed with a prodigious memory and an unerring linguistic skill, he combined speed and accuracy in reading and a delight in the discovery, ordering and establishment of facts. At the age of twenty he was made annual reviewer of Latin literature for The Year's Work in Classical Studies; and at twenty-four he produced an important edition of a fourth-century Greek text, Sallustius On the Gods and the Universe, which included a translation and a masterly introduction.
At twenty-seven, having come to the United States from England the year before, Nock was appointed Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard University. In his early thirties he wrote two books, Conversion--an imaginative and exacting study of religious currents in the Hellenistic and Roman world--and St. Paul.
Mainly, however, A. D. Nock poured his immense learning into articles and reviews, which heretofore have been scattered through many different journals. Representing a formidable range of learning, these essays deal for the most part with historical evidence (from all sources, including papyri, inscriptions, and coins) of the beliefs, superstitions, and religious practices of ordinary people. Nock saw the essence of religion not only in philosophy ortheology, but in piety and cult, in the practices and the expressions of the common man. His unusual combination of genius and common sense allowed him to treat the actual manifestations of religious sentiment without condescension.
For this edition of Arthur Darby Nock's writings, Zeph Stewart has garnered a substantial selection of Nock's most important essays and has indexed and cross-referenced them as well.
Throughout his career Arthur Darby Nock (1902-1963) made unique and lasting contributions to classical scholarship and the history of religion, especially to the study of ancient religion, magic, and the relation of paganism to early Christianity and Judaism. Nock's genius showed itself early: endowed with a prodigious memory and an unerring linguistic skill, he combined speed and accuracy in reading and a delight in the discovery, ordering and establishment of facts. At the age of twenty he was made annual reviewer of Latin literature for The Year's Work in Classical Studies; and at twenty-four he produced an important edition of a fourth-century Greek text, Sallustius On the Gods and the Universe, which included a translation and a masterly introduction.
At twenty-seven, having come to the United States from England the year before, Nock was appointed Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard University. In his early thirties he wrote two books, Conversion--an imaginative and exacting study of religious currents in the Hellenistic and Roman world--and St. Paul.
Mainly, however, A. D. Nock poured his immense learning into articles and reviews, which heretofore have been scattered through many different journals. Representing a formidable range of learning, these essays deal for the most part with historical evidence (from all sources, including papyri, inscriptions, and coins) of the beliefs, superstitions, and religious practices of ordinary people. Nock saw the essence of religion not only in philosophy ortheology, but in piety and cult, in the practices and the expressions of the common man. His unusual combination of genius and common sense allowed him to treat the actual manifestations of religious sentiment without condescension.
For this edition of Arthur Darby Nock's writings, Zeph Stewart has garnered a substantial selection of Nock's most important essays and has indexed and cross-referenced them as well.
Essays on Scandinavian History examines important aspects of the history of Sweden and its Nordic neighbors between the later eighteenth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Historian H. Arnold Barton has selected thirteen of the numerous essays he has published over the past forty years on the history of Scandinavia.
This is a companion volume to Barton's The Old Country and the New, an essay collection on Swedish emigration and the Swedes in America. Included here are studies of the special significance of the eighteenth century in Sweden's history and culture, the relationship of King Gustaf III to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the impact of the American Revolution in Sweden, and Gustaf III's ambitions in the East Baltic region. Also detailed are the king's early reaction to the French Revolution and his efforts to organize a European coalition to crush it, a reassessment of the reign and internal reforms of Gustaf IV Adolf, and the Swedish succession crises of 1809 and 1810.
In addition, Barton examines the increasing tension between the Pan-Scandinavian movement and the rising Finnish national movement. He deals with the historians of the Danish Agrarian Reforms of 1784-1814, parallel developments in Finland and Norway between 1808 and 1917, the discovery of Norway abroad, Swedish national romanticism, and Sweden's transition from a warfare state to a welfare state, now exemplifying the rational and humane ideals of the twentieth century.
Essays on Scandinavian History highlights important topics in the history of the Scandinavian region, which has remained all too little known outside the Nordic lands themselves, while also offering broader perspectives on Europe since the mid-eighteenth century. Twelve keyed-to-text illustrations, a bibliography of Barton's publications on Scandinavian history, essay endnotes, and an index augment this work.
Emory Kemp is the founder and director of the Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology at West Virginia University, where he also served as a chair and professor of civil engineering and a professor of history. This collection of essays encompasses over fifty years of his research in the field of the history of technology.
Within these twelve essays, Kemp describes and analyzes nineteenth century improvements in building materials such as iron, steel, and cement; roads and bridges, especially the evolution of the suspension bridge; canals and navigable rivers, including the Ohio River and its tributaries; and water supply systems. As one of the few practicing American engineers who also researches and writes as an academic, Kemp adds an important historical context to his work by focusing not only on the construction of a structure but also on the analytical science that heralds a structure’s design and development.
In the sub-field of world history, there has been a surprising paucity of thinking and writing about how to approach and conceptualize the long twentieth century from the 1870s through the early 2000s. The historiographic essays collected in Essays on Twentieth Century History will go a long way to filling that lacuna.
Each contribution covers a key theme and one or more critical sub-fields in twentieth century global history. Chapters address migration patterns, the impact of world wars, transformations in gender and urbanization, as well as environmental transitions. All are written by leading historians in each of the sub-fields represented, and each is intended to provide an introduction to the literature, key themes, and debates that have proliferated around the more recent historical experience of humanity.
A foray into to the complexities of statecraft and leadership in medieval India.
Kamandaki’s Nītisāra, or The Essence of Politics, redefined the field of political thought in early medieval India and became one of the most influential works in the genre across South and Southeast Asia. It was likely written during or shortly after the Gupta Empire (c. 325–550 CE) and enjoyed wide popularity for nearly a millennium.
An elegant introduction to the intricacies of statecraft, The Essence of Politics encompasses virtually all aspects of elite social life, making it indispensable for generals, spies, ministers, and other members of the royal court, especially poets writing about war and conquest. Addressed directly to the king, its lessons range from the finer points of military strategy and economic policy to the moral qualities of effective rulers. Kamandaki anchors political practice in intellectual and spiritual discipline. His model of leadership, based on self-control and personal cultivation, is as relevant today as it was in its own time.
The Sanskrit text, presented here in the Devanagari script, accompanies a new English prose translation.
In the face of global financial problems and stressed government budgets, the ability of private philanthropy to step in and help solve public problems—and support vital private institutions as well—has perhaps never been more important. But how can donors be sure their contributions will be effective? And how can fundraisers make their case for support in a way that is compelling and productive?
With The Essence of Strategic Giving, Peter Frumkin distills the lessons of his comprehensive, award-winning study, Strategic Giving, into a concise, practical guide for everyone involved in private philanthropy, from donors to managers of nonprofits to fund-raisers. He defines five critical challenges that all donors must address if their philanthropy is to amount to more than indiscriminate charity, including being aware of the time frame that guides a gift, specifying the intended impact being pursued, and recognizing how a donation fits with a donor’s own identity and style. Acknowledging and understanding these fundamental, strategic aspects of giving, Frumkin argues, will help ensure philanthropy that more effectively achieves its aims—and at the same time builds a lasting relationship between donors and the institutions they support.
As the next generation of donors wrestle with the challenge of effectively distributing what Andrew Carnegie called “surplus wealth,” Frumkin’s road map will be an indispensible resource for years to come.
For the first time, the most important quotations of the great conservationist Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, are gathered in one volume. From conservation education to wildlife ecology, from wilderness protection to soil and water conservation, the writings of Aldo Leopold continue to have profound influence on those seeking to understand the earth and its care. Leopold biographer Curt Meine and noted conservation biologist Richard Knight have assembled this comprehensive collection of quotations from Leopold’s extensive and diverse writings, selected and organized to capture the richness and depth of the North American conservation movement.
Prominent biologists, conservationists, historians, and philosophers provide introductory commentaries describing Leopold’s contributions in varied fields and reflecting upon the significance of his work today.
Contributors:
J. Baird Callicott
David Ehrenfeld
Susan L. Flader
Eric T. Freyfogle
Wes Jackson
Paul W. Johnson
Joni L. Kinsey
Richard L. Knight
Gary K. Meffe
Curt Meine
Gary Paul Nabhan
Richard Nelson
Bryan G. Norton
David W. Orr
Edwin P. Pister
Donald Snow
Stanley A. Temple
Jack Ward Thomas
Charles Wilkinson
Terry Tempest Williams
Donald Worster
Joy B. Zedler
On one occasion Roberts defended the traditional Mormon view of the godhead—perfected men who “eat, drink … and procreate” as exalted mortals; another time he seemed less comfortable imposing limitations on a God who cannot be fixed to a single location, for whom Jesus was a mortal incarnation, and for whom the term “trinity” seemed more eloquent than the “presidency of heaven.”
His most famous and penetrating analysis focused on the Book of Mormon. In this collection Roberts discusses the mode of its translation, while stopping short of saying that God, who speaks to humans in their own language, could have authored the inconsistent grammar that appeared luminously in Joseph Smith’s seer stone. Instead he credits this to Smith’s own linguistic contribution, thereby preserving for God a fitting transcendence. Later Roberts went so far as to question the Book of Mormon’s historicity.
A final example of Roberts’s complexity: He proclaimed in public the perfect unity and harmony found at church conferences, but he privately castigated his colleagues for what he considered to be obstinance. He once asked what additional, irrational proposal “may occur to some genius” in the Quorum of the Twelve.
A paradox still, this feisty president of the church’s Seventies continues to provoke mixed and heated feelings, as expressed by a Scottish immigrant working in the First Presidency’s office who one day said to Roberts: “Aye, mon, the frankness of it. How dare you do it, mon?” But for those who are sincere and secure in their faith, Roberts can provide a delightfully rewarding journey. Consider just the following four, short excerpts from this compilation—two are originally from Roberts’s published works and two are from his personal letters:
“It is not given to mortal man always to walk upon that plane where the sunlight of God’s inspiration is playing upon him. Sometimes the servants of God speak merely from their human knowledge, influenced by passions; influenced by the interests of men, and by anger, and vexation. When they so speak, that is not likely to be the word of God. In any event it must be allowed by us that many unwise things were said in times past that did not possess the value of scripture, or anything like it; and it was not revelation.”
“What has become, in the church, of the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed? Will it be enough to say that the consent of the governed can come later when nominations have been made by leaders? The procedure may be so, and the quorums thus ignored may silently submit, and the matter going on in a dull, gray, and sullen manner; but you will have no esprit de corps in the quorums; and young men of active minds will grow restive. Why not regard them as having some judgment, and right to have a voice in nominating those with whom they are to work?”
“So I say that when the churches turn to secular government to enforce religious doctrines and discipline, they abandon their legitimate sphere and enter one wholly repugnant to their principles. When churches thus abandon their confidence in the power of truth, they play havoc with their own authority.”
“My dear Bishop Nibley, let me commend you for the delicacy with which you can tell the poor ‘theorist’ to ‘get off the earth.’ I know not if you were born with such delicacy or have acquired it, but in either event it challenges one’s admiration. You write that ‘You (myself) are a theorist, while he (Senator-Apostle Smoot) is needed and has a place in the economy of things.’ That is decidedly good. There is but one thing more you could have suggested to my advantage; you might have indicated the particular location in oblivion where you would be willing for me to sit.”
Brigham Henry Roberts was born in England in 1857. Among his other achievements, he was president of the LDS First Quorum of Seventy and Assistant Church Historian. His numerous books include: (historical) A Comprehensive History of the Church, Joseph Smith: The Prophet-Teacher, The Life of John Taylor, Outlines of Ecclesiastical History, and (theological) A New Witness for God, the Mormon Doctrine of Deity, and the Seventy’s Course in Theology—all of which are considered authoritative, and for which Roberts earned the epithet, “Defender of the Faith.” He died in 1933.
Self-educated and preoccupied with the day-to-day business of his widespread empire, Young rarely found time to read. But he delivered hundreds of lively, extemporaneous sermons which blended common sense with theological speculation. Such homespun treatises carried an immediacy that was absent from the philosophically-oriented studies of his ecclesiastical colleague Orson Pratt, though, at the same time, Young’s speeches could be unfocused and contradictory.
Several of the more controversial teachings that Young promulgated—Adam-as-God, divine omniscience, and blood atonement—have sparked considerable debate since they were first uttered more than one hundred years ago. “Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise,” he once asked, “when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?”
Other favorite topics were the “personality of God,” “election and reprobation,” and “the resurrection.” His sermons usually begin in a chatty way: “I remarked last Sunday that I had not felt much like preaching,” or “When I contemplate the subject of salvation, and rise before a congregation to speak upon that all-important matter, it has been but a few times in my life that I could see a beginning point to it, or a stopping place.” Readers will find themselves drawn into the rhythm of Young’s rhetoric in the same way as his original hearers were.
Essential Demographic Methods brings to readers the full range of ideas and skills of demographic analysis that lie at the core of social sciences and public health. Classroom tested over many years, filled with fresh data and examples, this approachable text is tailored to the needs of beginners, advanced students, and researchers alike. An award-winning teacher and eminent demographer, Kenneth Wachter uses themes from the individual lifecourse, history, and global change to convey the meaning of concepts such as exponential growth, cohorts and periods, lifetables, population projection, proportional hazards, parity, marity, migration flows, and stable populations. The presentation is carefully paced and accessible to readers with knowledge of high-school algebra. Each chapter contains original problem sets and worked examples.
From the most basic concepts and measures to developments in spatial demography and hazard modeling at the research frontier, Essential Demographic Methods brings out the wider appeal of demography in its connections across the sciences and humanities. It is a lively, compact guide for understanding quantitative population analysis in the social and biological world.
Babel was born in 1894 into multicultural Odessa’s thriving Jewish community. Working as a journalist, he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War, and accompanied the Cossack horsemen of the Red Cavalry during the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, distilling these experiences into his fiction. Vinokur highlights Babel’s “horrified hopefulness” and “doleful and bespectacled Jewish comedy” in the face of the bloody conflicts that plagued his generation.
On the centenary of the revolution that toppled the Romanov tsars, Babel’s fictions continue to absorb and fascinate contemporary readers interested in eastern European and Jewish literature as well as the history and politics of the twentieth century.
For more than a decade, The Graying of America has helped thousands of middle-aged and senior citizens find their way through the thickets and thorns of growing old. Now greatly revised and expanded to include information gleaned from studies of the past five years, this third edition has been retitled to stress its ongoing purpose: conveying a wealth of commonsense information for general readers in nontechnical language.
The book is a storehouse of concise, useful information on the effects of aging on health, the mind, and behavior. Its 588 entries (including 172 new and 150 substantially revised) cover a broad spectrum of topics—from adjusting to retirement to grandparenting, sleep disorders to Alzheimer’s disease. All are directed to the average reader; all stress successful aging and how to accomplish it.
New entries cover such topics as the incidence and causes of frailty, the cognitive benefits of diversified activity, and findings of the Women’s Health Initiative. There is new information on matters like the effects of untreated hearing impairment on spouses and the impact of insufficient exposure to sunlight on sleep, plus new insight into what to look for in searching for a quality nursing home for a loved one.
Also included are results of recent studies on interventions that help to reduce age-related declines in mental and physical health, among them revelations that reports on age-related declines in memory have been skewed by testing errors. And with memory a concern for seniors fearful of declining mental agility, the book tells how to bypass memory problems—such as how to remember where you parked your car—and how physical exercise and challenging mental games can help reduce the risk of dementia. Other “how to avoid” entries offer ways to protect against eye fatigue in computer use, hip fractures when falling, and back injuries while lifting heavy objects.
No other book is so specifically geared to the challenges of how to reduce or even eliminate many of the problems associated with growing old. Aging in the Twenty-First Century can help seniors come to grips with their own aging process—and help younger adults understand what is happening to older family members.
The Essential Ian McHarg brings together a series of short essays that reveal the full range of Ian McHarg's thoughts on design and nature. Adapted from the comprehensive book of his work, To Heal the Earth, these carefully selected essays provide an ideal reader for undergraduate and graduate students in planning and landscape architecture.
The Essential Isocrates is a comprehensive introduction to Isocrates, one of ancient Greece’s foremost orators. Jon D. Mikalson presents Isocrates largely in his own words, with original English translations of selections of his writings on his life and times and on morality, religion, philosophy, rhetoric, education, political theory, and Greek and Athenian history. In Mikalson’s treatment, Isocrates receives his due not only as a major thinker but as one whose work has resonated across time, influencing even modern education practices and theory.
Isocrates wrote extensively about Athens in the fourth century BCE and before, and his speeches, letters, and essays provide a trove of insights concerning the intellectual, political, and social currents of his time. Mikalson details what we know about Isocrates’s long, eventful, and complicated life, and much can be gleaned on the personal level from his own writings, as Isocrates was one of the most introspective authors of the Classical Period. By collecting the most representative and important passages of Isocrates’s writings, arranging them topically, and placing them in historical context, The Essential Isocrates invites general and expert readers alike to engage with one of antiquity’s most compelling men of ideas.
This was not the first time that Talmage had been of service to his church. As a geology professor, he was consulted about underground ventilation options for the Salt Lake Tabernacle and about the scientific evidence for organic evolution, which he cautiously promoted. At the church president’s request, Talmage also delivered a series of lectures on church theology which would form the basis for his later influential books.
Not that Talmage was unaccustomed to controversy. When his book, The Articles of Faith, first appeared, he was accused of “apostasy” and narrowly escaped church sanction. When he read from an advance text of Jesus the Christ in general conference, some leaders objected to the doctrinal content and had the offending paragraphs excised from the published conference proceedings.
Scholars have noted that much of Talmage’s work reflects the thinking of his day, particularly in his reliance on Frederick Farrar’s Life of Christ and in his portrayal of a so-called “Victorian Jesus.” But as James P. Harris observes, Talmage also “supplemented the biblical narrative with modern revelation” and produced “a source of information and inspiration to church members worldwide.”
The Essential James E. Talmage includes some of the apostle’s lesser-known works. For Talmage’s more popular writings, the editor has included relevant diary entries and material omitted from later editions. Readers will appreciate the process by which these seminal works were produced and the character of the man who composed them.
Previous, popular editions of Smith’s speeches and writings have edited out the extemporaneous complexities, as well as any deviations from present-day doctrines. Recent academic publications, for their part, have too often camouflaged the text in scholarly apparata. By contrast, this volume brings together a sampling of the prophet’s thinking from New York to Illinois in a complete, unabridged form, utilizing the earliest known sources, without excessive footnoting or commentary. No attempt is made to harmonize disparate, conflicting ideas. Readers can trace the developing, revelatory unfolding of ideas for themselves. They can also enjoy the text without reference to any interpretative agenda. In other words, The Essential Joseph Smith is readable and reliable. Bracketed material and punctuation are added where needed, but the text otherwise speaks for itself. These are Joseph Smith’s own words, his most essential messages.
The first collection of lectures and sermons that Charlotte Perkins Gilman delivered in the first four years of her career
The last decades have seen a resurgence of interest in Charlotte Perkins Gilman, now considered among the most important thinkers in US history. She is best known for fiction—such as the classic short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” (1892)—and nonfiction, including her manifesto Women and Economics (1898), a work of intersectional sociology avant la lettre. Nevertheless, as a young writer, Gilman made her living delivering lectures. One cannot know Gilman without some knowledge of this body of lectures; this book fills that critical gap in Gilman scholarship.
Since the recovery of Charlotte Perkins Gilman began in the late 1960s and continued with the republication of “The Yellow Wall-Paper” in the 1970s, her image in cultural memory has been increasingly celebrated. Andrew J. Ball presents here fifty previously unpublished texts. They trace the development of Gilman’s thoughts on diverse subjects like gender, education, labor, science, theology, and politics—forming an intellectual diary of her growth.
These lectures are not just a testament to Gilman’s personal evolution, but also a crucial contribution to the foundations of American sociology and philosophy. The Essential Lectures of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1890–1894 marks a historic moment, unveiling the hidden genius of Gilman's oratory legacy.
The leading feminist intellectual of her day, Margaret Fuller has been remembered for her groundbreaking work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which recharted the gender roles of nineteenth-century men and women. In this new collection, the full range of her literary career is represented from her earliest poetry to her final dispatch from revolutionary Italy. For the first time, the complete texts of Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Summer on the Lakes are printed together, along with generous selections from Fuller's Dial essays, New York essays, Italian dispatches, and unpublished journals. Special features are the complete text of Fuller's famous "Autobiographical Romance" (never before reprinted in its entirety) and nineteen of her poems, edited from her manuscripts. All of Fuller's major texts are completely annotated, with special attention to her literary and historical sources, as well as her knowledge of American Indian culture, mythology, and the Bible
Jeffrey Steele's introduction provides an important revision of Fuller's biography and literary career, tracing the growth of her feminism and her development into one of America's preeminent social critics. No other writer of Fuller's day could match the range of her experience. Growing up in the world of Boston intellectuals, she was the close friend of the Alcotts, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. But she also traveled adventurously to the western frontier, canoed down rapids with Chippewa Indians, visited the outcast and the poor in New York's institutions and prisons, and experienced the rigors of war during the bombardment of Rome. As a whole, this anthology provides the material to understand one of the most fascinating nineteenth-century American women writers.
Like nearly every area of scholarly inquiry today, the biological sciences are broken into increasingly narrow fields and subfields, its practitioners divided into ecologists, evolutionary biologists, taxonomists, paleontologists, and much more. But all these splintered pieces have their origins in the larger field of natural history—and in this era where climate change and relentless population growth are irrevocably altering the world around us, perhaps it’s time to step back and take a new, fresh look at the larger picture.
The Essential Naturalist offers exactly that: a wide-ranging, eclectic collection of writings from more than eight centuries of observations of the natural world, from Leeuwenhoek to E. O. Wilson, from von Humboldt to Rachel Carson. Featuring commentaries by practicing scientists that offer personal accounts of the importance of the long tradition of natural history writing to their current research, the volume serves simultaneously as an overview of the field’s long history and as an inspirational starting point for new explorations, for trained scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike.
Born in Henderson, New York, Pratt was a contemporary of Joseph Smith, who, like his successor Brigham Young, often depended on Pratt’s rhetorical skills and scientific eclecticism in presenting the Mormon message to the outside world. Since Pratt was a member of the leading Quorum of Twelve Apostles, many of his works were published in pamphlet form for proselytizing purposes. His rudimentary mathematical talents were also relied on to help navigate the first party of pioneers to the Great Salt Lake Valley. He was the first Mormon to enter the valley—three days before Young.
A stubborn and fiercely independent intellectual, Pratt also clashed with Smith over polygamy and with Young over the nature of God and the origin of the soul. Their arguments eventually led Young in 1875 to demote him within the quorum, reducing his chances of succeeding to the church presidency. Pratt suffered from diabetes, and his final years were plagued by illness. He died in Utah at the age of seventy. Nevertheless, his influence has continued.
Pratt was the first to write and publish an account of Smith’s famous “first vision,” and he authored one of the earliest confessions of Mormon doctrine, which Smith later used in composing his own “Articles of Faith.” Pratt edited the Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, The New York Messenger, The Seer, and The Prophetic Almanac, the latter consisting of astrological observations, folk wisdom, theological essays, and one of the first LDS statements that humans could become gods.
Pratt’s most controversial speculation was that atoms, then thought to be indestructible and indivisible, were intelligent, self-conscious, sentient, self-propelled particles which bonded together to form colonies in the shape of plants, minerals, animals, humans, and gods, and which were tutored over time in the “great school of the universe.” His writing was thus a unique blend of biblical and pseudo-scientific philosophy. Twentieth-century reprints of his works have tended to overlook his more controversial ideas and emphasized the less radical ones. In the present compilation, care has been taken to remain faithful to the originals, leaving nothing out.
Best known for his fiery apologetic writings such as A Voice of Warning (1837), Key to the Science of Theology (1855), and for his autobiography which was published posthumously in 1874 by his son, who wrote most of it, Pratt nevertheless defined Mormon doctrine and theology for much of the nineteenth century. He was killed in 1857 in Arkansas by the estranged husband of one of his polygamous wives. The husband, an outsider, did not share Pratt’s and other Mormons’ contempt for civil authority over marriage.
The Essential Swedenborg summarizes in modern terms the basic features of the theology put forward by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), scientist, inventor, statesman, philosopher, and theologian.
The startling concepts of the “Northern Plato” caused the orthodox clergy of the time to consider him a heretic. For more than two hundred years, however, Swedenborg has inspired many of the world’s greatest intellects and contributors to modern culture—Balzac, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Blake, Emerson, Henry James, Sr., Czeslaw Milosz, and Yates among them—with a visionary belief system for all people, regardless of background, that emphasizes good works, personal responsibility, and one’s inner connection to divine love.
This edition provides new translations of selections from Swedenborg’s works on some of his key theological topics, including use, charity, life after death, the destiny of humanity, and divine providence.
The Essential Tagore showcases the genius of India’s Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel Laureate and possibly the most prolific and diverse serious writer the world has ever known.
Marking the 150th anniversary of Tagore’s birth, this ambitious collection—the largest single volume of his work available in English—attempts to represent his extraordinary achievements in ten genres: poetry, songs, autobiographical works, letters, travel writings, prose, novels, short stories, humorous pieces, and plays. In addition to the newest translations in the modern idiom, it includes a sampling of works originally composed in English, his translations of his own works, three poems omitted from the published version of the English Gitanjali, and examples of his artwork.
Tagore’s writings are notable for their variety and innovation. His Sonar Tari signaled a distinctive turn toward the symbolic in Bengali poetry. “The Lord of Life,” from his collection Chitra, created controversy around his very personal concept of religion. Chokher Bali marked a decisive moment in the history of the Bengali novel because of the way it delved into the minds of men and women. The skits in Vyangakautuk mocked upper-class pretensions. Prose pieces such as “The Problem and the Cure” were lauded by nationalists, who also sang Tagore’s patriotic songs.
Translations for this volume were contributed by Tagore specialists and writers of international stature, including Amitav Ghosh, Amit Chaudhuri, and Sunetra Gupta.
In that spirit of plurality, contributors to this volume identify an important theoretical or methodological problem and present an argument regarding its solution. They also provide a critical evaluation of the current state of archaeological method and theory, illustrating that such recurrent issues as the role of agency and the importance of social considerations in the formation of archaeological research dominate current theoretical development.
By presenting both the range of important questions and a variety of answers, this volume contributes to the 'essential tension' that will further the growth of archaeological theory.
A collection of creative writing and art about COVID-19 at the onset of the pandemic by people from vulnerable populations.
Bringing together artwork, creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Essential Voices shares the perspectives of people from vulnerable populations as they were affected by COVID-19 in 2020, before the release of the vaccine. The pieces in this volume represent a range of writers and artists, some from international locations, whose work may be less likely to be seen because of race, ethnicity, or current legal status. Contributors include individuals who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, or seniors; those who are immunocompromised or undocumented; those working in medicine, food service, factories, and sanitation; and parents who were unable to work from home, along with individuals who were being held in correctional facilities or facing mental health concerns. This multigenre collection preserves the history of the pandemic by documenting and publishing these essential voices.
Essential Voices will be of interest to readers who want to consider the diverse lived experiences of people during the pandemic when outcomes were most uncertain. It will also be useful for teachers, students, activists, and policy makers in a variety of settings, including government, hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, colleges, art schools, and secondary schools.
What does it mean to live a good life?
The major scriptures of the world, various schools of philosophical thought, storytellers, scientists, artists, and historians have all offered answers to this question. Surprisingly, these answers are common among nearly all sources. Famed investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton called these commonalities the “laws of life.”
Templeton gathers the best of these teachings in The Essential Worldwide Laws of Life. This handsome volume shows readers of all ages, from all parts of the world, how to make their lives more joyous and useful by learning the universal truths that transcend time and culture.
Each law is presented in an essay format, with stories, commentary, and quotations to illustrate its importance. The material is designed to inspire the reader to put these laws into practice and to enjoy the rewarding life that will result.
Contributors. M. M. Bakhtin, John Barth, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, John Brenkman, Peter Brooks, Catherine Burgass, Seymour Chatman, J. Yellowlees Douglas, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Wendy B. Faris, Barbara Foley, E. M. Forster, Joseph Frank, Joanne S. Frye, William H. Gass, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Gérard Genette, Ursula K. Heise, Michael J. Hoffman, Linda Hutcheon, Henry James, Susan S. Lanser, Helen Lock, Georg Lukács, Patrick D. Murphy, Ruth Ronen, Joseph Tabbi, Jon Thiem, Tzvetan Todorov, Virginia Woolf
Selections from: M. M. Bakhtin, John Barth, Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth, Peter Brooks, Seymour Chatman, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Suzanne C. Ferguson, Barbara Foley, E. M. Forster, Joseph Frank, William Freedman, Norman Friedman, Joanne S. Frye, William H. Gass, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Gérard Genette, J. Arthur Honeywell, Linda Hutcheon, Henry James, Susan S. Lanser, Mitchell A. Leaska, George Levine, David Lodge, Georg Lukács, Gerald Prince, Patrocinio P. Schweickart, Tzvetan Todorov, Lionel Trilling, and Virginia Woolf
Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800 focuses on the end of the 1790s, when, in rapid succession, George Washington died, the federal government moved to Washington, D.C., and the election of 1800 put Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party in charge of the federal government.
Establishing Congress dispels the myths and misinformation that surround the federal government’s move to Washington and demonstrates that the election of 1800 changed American party politics forever, establishing the success of the American experiment in government and completing the founding of the Republic. It also contends that the lame-duck session of Congress had far-reaching implications for the governance of the District of Columbia. Later chapters examine aspects of the political iconography of the Capitol—one illuminating Jefferson’s role in turning the building into a temple for the legislature and an instrument for nation-building, another analyzing the fascinating decades-long debate over whether to bury George Washington in the Capitol.
The book considers as well the political implications of social life in early Washington, examining the political lobbying by Washington women within a social context and detailing the social and political life in the city’s homes, hotels, boardinghouses, and eating messes. Establishing Congress is an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in these pivotal moments in American history.
Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800 focuses on the end of the 1790s, when, in rapid succession, George Washington died, the federal government moved to Washington, D.C., and the election of 1800 put Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party in charge of the federal government.
Establishing Congress dispels the myths and misinformation that surround the federal government’s move to Washington and demonstrates that the election of 1800 changed American party politics forever, establishing the success of the American experiment in government and completing the founding of the Republic. It also contends that the lame-duck session of Congress had far-reaching implications for the governance of the District of Columbia. Later chapters examine aspects of the political iconography of the Capitol—one illuminating Jefferson’s role in turning the building into a temple for the legislature and an instrument for nation-building, another analyzing the fascinating decades-long debate over whether to bury George Washington in the Capitol.
The book considers as well the political implications of social life in early Washington, examining the political lobbying by Washington women within a social context and detailing the social and political life in the city’s homes, hotels, boardinghouses, and eating messes. Establishing Congress is an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in these pivotal moments in American history.
This comprehensive history of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest and most significant general organization of scientists in America, provides a unique window on the development of science in the United States during the past 150 years.
The Establishment of Science in America traces the evolution of the role of scientists in American society, public attitudes toward science, and the changing dimensions of the sponsorship of science and its participants. The essays by three distinguished authors connect the AAAS history to issues of continuing importance in American history, such as the integration of women and minority groups into mainstream professions and the role of expert knowledge in a democratic society.
The volume divides the history of the AAAS into three parts: Creating a Forum for Science in the Nineteenth Century; Promoting Science in a New Century: The Middle Years of the AAAS; and Shifting Science from People to Programs: AAAS in the Postwar Years.
Interdisciplinary essays on Manuela Infante’s award-winning play explore the relationship between critical plant studies and performance art in the Anthropocene
Since its first staging in 2016, Estado Vegetal, Manuela Infante’s riveting piece of experimental performance art, has expanded philosophical thinking into a fully-fledged artistic inquiry of nonanthropocentric being. Through Infante’s polyvocal monologue, acted with impetus by Marcela Salinas, plants are charged with an agency capable of uprooting culturally grounded conceptions of the world in the face of incommensurable trauma and loss.
This first book dedicated to Infante’s plant-focused performance features eight essays by scholars, poets, and artists whose practices draw from research fields as disparate as new materialism, anthropogenic feminism, queer studies, and speculative realism. Including an interview with Infante, the full playscript, and stills from the performance, Estado Vegetal: Performance and Plant-Thinking reveals the roles that plants in art can play in productively reconfiguring human–nonhuman relations within current anthropogenic perspectives.
Infante’s performance is a perfect case study and reference point for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of plant-thinking through alternative and experimental avenues. Furthermore, this book is at once a critical plant studies primer and an artistic problematization of the philosophical questions that have been central to the latest multidisciplinary discussions on plant-being.
Contributors: Maaike Bleeker, Utrecht U; Lucy Cotter, Portland State U; Prudence Gibson, UNSW Sydney; Michael Marder, U of the Basque Country; Dawn Sanders, U of Gothenburg; Catriona Sandilands, York U; Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem, colectivo LASTESIS; Mandy-Suzanne Wong.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press