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For generations the discoveries of science tended to challenge the very existence of God. Templeton makes a striking argument for just the opposite point of view. He goes to the writings of many of the world's leading scientific thinkers—as diverse in background as Albert Einstein and Teilhard de Chardin—and discovers them in awe of the universe, perceiving the hand of Divine mystery at work.

The Humble Approach teaches that man can discover and comprehend only a few of the infinite aspects of God's nature, never enough to form a comprehensive theology. The humble approach may be a science still in its infancy, but it seeks to develop a way of knowing God appropriate to His greatness and our littleness.

The anniversary edition of this groundbreaking book features a new preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a new introduction from Heather Dill, the director of the Templeton Prize. It also includes an updated list of the past winners of the Templeton Prize. 

"The Huron River . . . was called 'Cos-scut-e-nong Sebee'. . . . [It] is a beautiful, transparent stream, passing alternatively through rich bottoms, openings, plains, and sloping woodlands, covered with heavy timber."
---History of Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1881

The Huron River---stretching 130 miles through three counties---has inspired numerous writers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contained here is a collection of new poems, essays, and stories, accompanied by maps, photographs, and illustrations that celebrate the Huron River. Over twenty locally and nationally known literary figures, including Alice Fulton and Charles Baxter, have contributed to this volume. In addition, the work of biologists, naturalists, and even an arche-ologist have been included to give a richer sense of the physical and cultural environment.

Each of these writers reminds us that our lives are more intertwined with the river and its watershed than we might think. The Huron River opens with these words: "Watersheds are the oldest and most durable markers of place. . . . These boundaries affect our lives by defining our natural environment, not only its topography but its soils, its plant and animal life, and to some extent its weather. The water that sustains most of us is the water that flows through our local watershed."

And the river's strength is wondrous unto itself. "The water will always be there, and it will always find its way down," writer Gary Snyder tells us. The river is sometimes visible, sometimes not; yet it "is alive and well under the city streets, running in giant culverts."

John Knott is Professor of English, University of Michigan. After working as a bookseller for twenty years, Keith Taylor now teaches writing part-time for the University of Michigan and works as a freelance writer.

When The Impact of Global Warming on Texas was first published in 1995, it discussed climate change as a likely future phenomenon, predicted by scientific studies. This entirely rewritten second edition presents evidence that early climate change impacts can now be observed and identifies the threats climate change will pose to Texas through the year 2050. It also offers the hopeful message that corrective action, if taken now, can avert unmanageable consequences.

The book begins with a discussion of climate science and modeling and the information that can be derived from these sources for Texas. The authors follow this with an analysis of actual climate trends in the various Texas climate regions, including a predicted rise in temperatures of 5.4 degrees F (plus or minus 1.8 F) by the end of the century. This could lead to less rainfall and higher evaporation, especially in regions that are already dry. Other important effects include possible changes in El Niño (climate variability) patterns and hurricane behaviors. Taking into account projected population growth, subsequent chapters explore likely trends with respect to water availability, coastal impacts, and biodiversity.

The authors then look at the issues from a policy perspective, focusing on Texas's importance to the national economy as an energy producer, particularly of oil and gas. They recommend that Texas develop its own climate change policy to serve the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy independence, ensuring regional security, and improving management of water, air, land, and wildlife.

This provocative volume, one of the most important interpretive works on the philosophical thought of the Renaissance, has long been regarded as a classic in its field.  Ernst Cassirer here examines the changes brewing in the early stages of the Renaissance, tracing the interdependence of philosophy, language, art, and science; the newfound recognition of individual consciousness; and the great thinkers of the period—from da Vinci and Galileo to Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy discusses the importance of fifteenth-century philosopher Nicholas Cusanus, the concepts of freedom and necessity, and the subject-object problem in Renaissance thought.

“This fluent translation of a scholarly and penetrating original leaves little impression of an attempt to show that a ‘spirit of the age’ or ‘spiritual essence of the time’ unifies and expresses itself in all aspects of society or culture.”—Philosophy

Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714-74), a woman artist and scientist, surmounted meager origins and limited formal education to become one of the most acclaimed anatomical sculptors of the Enlightenment. The Lady Anatomist tells the story of her arresting life and times, in light of the intertwined histories of science, gender, and art that complicated her rise to fame in the eighteenth century.

Examining the details of Morandi’s remarkable life, Rebecca Messbarger traces her intellectual trajectory from provincial artist to internationally renowned anatomical wax modeler for the University of Bologna’s famous medical school. Placing Morandi’s work within its cultural and historical context, as well as in line with the Italian tradition of anatomical studies and design, Messbarger uncovers the messages contained within Morandi’s wax inscriptions, part complex theories of the body and part poetry. Widely appealing to those with an interest in the tangled histories of art and the body, and including lavish, full-color reproductions of Morandi’s work, The Lady Anatomist is a sophisticated biography of a true visionary.

A witty and humble tribute to the sometimes profane, sometimes profound world of waiting tables

During a year on sabbatical from his university position, Matthew Batt realized he needed money—fast—and it just so happened that one of the biggest breweries in the Midwest was launching a restaurant and looking to hire. So it was that the forty-something tenured professor found himself waiting tables at a high-end restaurant situated in a Minneapolis brewery. And loving it.

Telling the story of Batt’s early work in restaurants, from a red sauce joint possibly run by the mob to an ill-conceived fusion concept eatery, The Last Supper Club then details his experiences at the fine dining restaurant, a job that continued well past his sabbatical—that lasted, in fact, right up to the restaurant’s sudden and unceremonious closing three years later, shortly after it was named one of the best restaurants in the country by Food & Wine.

Batt’s memoir conveys the challenge—and the satisfaction—of meeting the demands of a frenzied kitchen and an equally expectant crowd. Through training mishaps, disastrous encounters with confused diners, struggles to keep pace with far more experienced coworkers, mandatory memorizations of laundry lists of obscure ingredients, and the stress of balancing responsibilities at home and at work, The Last Supper Club reveals the ups and downs of a waiter’s workday and offers an insightful perspective on what makes a job good, bad, or great. For Batt, this job turns out to be considerably more fun, and possibly more rewarding, than his academic career, and his insider’s view of waiting tables extols the significance of our food and the places where we gather to enjoy it—or serve it.

Told with sharp humor, humility, and a keen sense of what matters, The Last Supper Club is an ode to life in a high-pressure restaurant, the relationships that get you to the night’s close, and finding yourself through—or perhaps because of—the chaos of it all.