Essays Books

Book SynopsisSet around a small family farm on the edge of a bog, a few miles from the river Shannon, Minor Monuments is a collection of essays unfolding from the landscape of the Irish midlands. Taking in the physical and philosophical power of sound and music, and the effects of Alzheimer's disease on a family, Ian Maleney questions the nature of home, memory and the complex nature of belonging. A thought-provoking and quietly devastating meditation on family and loss, and with echoes of Tim Robinson and Tara Westover, Minor Monuments is a beautiful and unique literary experience.Trade ReviewSALLY ROONEY 'Minor Monuments is a beautiful, touching, and extraordinarily intelligent book. I loved every page.’ FINTAN O’TOOLE ‘Minor Monuments is beautifully poised between the vivid recollection of experience and subtle reflections on the nature of memory itself. Ian Maleney writes with both a poetic serenity and a startling immediacy, a combination as rare as it is absorbing.’ EMILIE PINE ‘Honest, thoughtful, ambitious - a portrait of the essayist as a young man.’ LISA MCINERNEY ‘Minor Monuments is brilliant, pulsing with intellect and insight, with each observation composed so beautifully as to be deeply moving. This is the kind of book that changes its reader.’ KEVIN BARRY ‘These essays are thoughtful, precise, beautifully controlled, and with a nicely wry humour helping us along the way - this is an extremely fine debut.’

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Book SynopsisLast Words by Phillip Adams is a captivating collection of essays from a masterful storyteller and cultural commentator.

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Book SynopsisA New York Times Books New & Noteworthy book • A Most-Anticipated Book from BookPage, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Paperback Paris • Glowing reviews and features in Garden & Gun, CNN Philippines, Chapter16, Kirkus Reviews, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and more This fierce collection celebrates the incredible diversity in the contemporary South by featuring essays by twenty-one of the finest young writers of color living and working in the region today, who all address a central question: Who is welcome? Kiese Laymon navigates the racial politics of publishing while recording his audiobook in Mississippi. Regina Bradley moves to Indiana and grapples with a landscape devoid of her Southern cultural touchstones, like Popeyes and OutKast. Aruni Kashyap apartment hunts in Athens and encounters a minefield of invasive questions. Frederick McKindra delves into the particularly Southern history of Beyonce's black majorettes. Assembled by editor and essayist Cinelle Barnes, essays in A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South acknowledge that from the DMV to the college basketball court to doctors’ offices, there are no shortage of places of tension in the American South. Urgent, necessary, funny, and poignant, these essays from new and established voices confront the complexities of the South's relationship with race, uncovering the particular difficulties and profound joys of being a Southerner in the 21st century.Trade ReviewA Measure of Belonging challenges the idea of a monolithic Southern culture." --New York Times Book Review "The South on exhibit here does feel new: polygot, multiracial, small-c catholic, urbanized, unwilling to accomodate or overlook the past but instead primed to confront it head-on, and keen to sift the South's virtues--lovingly--from its flaws." --Garden & Gun "Sharp and witty, this collection shows that there are many different ways to live, breathe, thrive and be a person who belongs in the South." --Bookpage, starred review "Cinelle Barnes has compiled the most diverse portrayal of the contemporary South I've read to date. These beautifully-written, clear-eyed essays present the American South through the eyes of its black and brown voices and expand the reader's view of belonging to or hailing from the region. I love this collection and its depictions complicate the South in ways that mainstream America sometimes refuses to believe about our ugly/beautiful South. A Measure of Belonging is a major contribution to the canon of Southern literature and each of the writers give of themselves fully. It is a book for our times. Welcome to the 21st century!" --Crystal Wilkinson, author of The Birds of Opulence "Totally engaging, this informing, thought-provoking collection is valuable for its vision of a South that is not monolithic."--Publishers Weekly "Across the collection, the writers push against the limits of what we think we know about the South." --Kirkus Reviews "A Measure of Belonging is a stark reminder that, behind the draping magnolias and weeping willows, the south has a loaded history, the effects of which still ripple through today’s society. Cinelle Barnes's anthology is but one call to awareness, a call to artful rebellion." --NewPagesTable of ContentsOsayi Endolyn (Atlanta, GA) Soniah Kamal (Atlanta, GA) Jennifer Hope Choi (Charleston, SC) Kiese Laymon (Oxford, MS) Devi Laskar (Atlanta, GA) M. Evelina Galang (Miami, FL) Tiana Clark (Nashville, TN) Latria Graham (Spartanburg, SC) Aruni Kashyap (Athens, GA) Minda Honey (Louisville, KY) Regina Bradley (Kennesaw, GA) Natalia Sylvester (Austin, TX) Christena Cleveland (San Francisco, CA) Nichole Perkins (Brooklyn, NY) Ivelisse Rodriguez (Whitsett, NC) Gary Jackson (Charleston, SC) Frederick McKendra (Little Rock, AR) Toni Jensen (Fayetteville, AR) Diana Cejas (Durham, NC)

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Book SynopsisA collection of personal essays examining relationships, whiteness, and masculinity. Nicholas Ward’s debut essay collection, All Who Belong May Enter, centers on self-exploration and cultural critique. These deeply personal essays examine whiteness, masculinity, and a Midwest upbringing through tales of sporting events, parties, posh (and not-so-posh) restaurant jobs, and the many relationships built and lost along the way. With a storyteller’s spirit, Ward recounts and evaluates the privilege of his upbringing with acumen and vulnerability. Ward’s profound affection for his friends, family, lovers, pets, and particularly for his chosen home, Chicago, shines through. This collection offers readers hope for healing that comes through greater understanding and inquiry into one’s self, relationships, and culture. Through these essays, Ward acknowledges his position within whiteness and masculinity, and he continuously holds himself and the society around him accountable. All Who Belong May Enter was selected by Jaquira Díaz as the winner of the 2020 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize. Trade Review“Well observed and curious, these essays will appeal to readers who, like Ward, are sensitive to inequality but unsure how to combat it.” * Publishers Weekly *“In All Who Belong May Enter, Ward thoughtfully and honestly interrogates aspects of masculinity and how it affects his relationships and how he moves through the world. He expands his personal story to explore how gentrification has changed cities like Detroit and Chicago, considering white silence and complicity. An introspective, beautifully written work.” -- Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls

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Book SynopsisSatirical yet prophetical advertisements for imaginary new products, influential to Marcel Duchamp and Francis PicabiaOriginally published in book form in 1916, this volume of French author Gaston de Pawlowski's (18741933) writings, New Inventions and the Latest Innovations, collects the humorist's fictional columns mocking his era's burgeoning consumerism and growing faith in science. From anti-slip soap, gut rests and the pocket-sized yardstick to repurposed spittoons, nasal vacuums, electric oysters and musicographical revolvers, Pawlowski offers a far-sighted critique of technological gadgetry and a cynical promise to remove discomfort from every facet of life, even as World War I raged on and technology was unleashing new horrors onto humanity.Pawlowski's humorous cultural critique and tongue-in-cheek celebration of uselessness and futility bears relevance for today, as technology remains the hoped-for answer to our increasingly troubled human

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy, Pussycats, & Porn is a series of essays, blog posts, and stories surveying more than a decade of poignant journalistic accounts from internationally recognized writer, actor, and pornographer Stoya.Stoya provides crucial examinations of systemic biases toward sex workers and how sexuality is reflected in society. She often points her journalistic lens inward, providing us with personal, illustriously detailed stories of her life, her collaborators, and ow she has built a flourishing media haven in the face of a culture that is still learning how to handle public discourses on sex work.Trade Review“She casually drops one-liners that could be essays in themselves.” —James Reith, The Guardian

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Book SynopsisFollowing the acclaimed Dunce, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes Mary Ruefle’s latest prose publication The Book.True to its bold title, The Book affirms Mary Ruefle’s legacy as (dubbed by Publishers Weekly) “the patron saint of childhood and the everyday.” With the same curiosity found in Madness, Rack, and Honey and My Private Property, Ruefle’s prose here feels both omniscient and especially intimate. “It seems I believe in a bygone world though I no longer live there,” she writes. “Will I continue to read about all that is dusty?” In the spirit of friendship, Ruefle generously invites us to query ourselves as readers and thinkers in a world that will eventually endure without us.Trade ReviewStraightforward in form, comic and companionable in tone, blessed with the Martian gift of seeing the strange in the ordinary and vice-versa... —Joel Brouwer, PoetryRuefle’s speakers muse in a very deliberate, declarative syntax in a lot of universalities, generalities, and absolutes, speaking often for all of us. —Adrien Blevins, PloughsharesFor more than thirty years, she has freshened American poetry by humbly glorifying both the inner life and the outward experience. —Rodney Jones, Poetry Society of America[She is] a poet of visionary imagination, abiding sensitivity, and melancholy humor. —Publishers WeeklyRuefle is the Poet Laureate of the City of Ideas — surreal and lyrical and deeply moving at the same time. — Michael Klein, Los Angeles Review of BooksThey record small moments with sweeping scope, moments in which the speed of thought seems to outpace real time. –– Elisa Gabbert, The New York TimesTable of ContentsUntitledThe PhotographPixieThe Wrapped BookNettlesThe BarkNopeWe Need To Talk About Ice CreamThe CandyHouse HuntingA Lesson In HistoryMy Life As A ScholarThe CashewMy Memory of A Story by Lydia DavisI Read Years Ago And Never ForgotThe StagehandThe TreesWhat Happens When You DieThe Cloud BeatersThe TranslatorGolden CrumbsLove StoryThe WindThe ColorThe PerkThe Heart, What Is It?I Dream Of JungLucky DragonMy Dying FriendDear FriendsLetter To Elizabeth BishopThe GablesAffordable VacationAn American HaikuTeeth Of NoonThe EffusiveThe NovelThe BookChilly ObservationThe Plum And The Devil

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Book SynopsisA compilation of 16 rigorous, eccentric essays commissioned by the German founder of psychophysics The original 1824 German publication of Stapelia Mixta united a bevy of eccentric proposals, meditations and displays of consciously excessive learning that strove for an unusual clarity of absurdity, which was the hallmark of the pseudonymous author Dr. Mises. Aiming for a broader reading audience, it was titled after a flower, but one of such a stench as to guarantee originality. And such was the originality of these semiserious flights of excess that came under the cover of Dr. Mises, who wrote on everything from landscaping to the spiritual lives of plants and heavenly bodies while also conducting pioneering research in optics and experimental psychology.The 16 essays of this collection include discussions of dancing, drugs, immortality, perception and psychology. These increasingly inventive essays start with a relatively digestible Encomium of the Belly before developing into a complicated, prepataphysical exploration of Spatial Symbolism.Dr. Mises was the pen name of the founder of psychophysics, Gustav Theodor Fechner (180187), an alter ego he adopted for his more speculative and satirical writing.Erik Butler is a researcher at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.

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Book SynopsisAged 15 and on track to be an Olympic gymnast, Lucia Osborne-Crowley was violently raped on a night out. The injuries she sustained that evening ended her gymnastics career, and eventually manifested in life-long chronic illnesses, which medical professionals now believe can be caused by untreated trauma. In a brilliantly researched and deeply affecting essay, Osborne-Crowley invites the reader to her on decade-long journey to recovery: from the immediate aftermath of the assault, through years of misdiagnosis, to the solace and strength she found in writers like Elena Ferrante. The author’s investigations reveal profound societal failures – of law, justice, education and the healthcare system. An essential contribution to the field of literature on assault and trauma, I Choose Elena argues that it is only through empathy than we can begin to address the self-perpetuating cycle of sexual violence.Trade ReviewMention of the book in ‘Women essayists shift the rules and boundaries in the literary world’ https://www.ft.com/content/e8126aec-b1e3-11e9-bec9-fdcab53d6959 * Financial Times *Review: I Choose Elena by Lucia Osborne-Crowley ‘a thoroughly researched and deeply affecting essay . . . In the age of #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein allegations this essay is an essential contribution to the field of literature on assault and trauma’ https://thefountain.scot/reviews/2019/09/review-i-choose-elena-by-lucia-osborne-crowley/ -- Keira Brown * The Fountain *‘How Bibliotherapy Helped Me To Deal With Trauma’ ‘There is nothing more comforting than having someone bear witness to your suffering. It is the only thing, I believe, that allows us to feel pain instead of trying to escape from it. It is knowing the writer has felt how you feel, and has done the kindness of putting it into words.’ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-bibliotherapy-helped-me-to-deal-with-trauma-ptwdfhhln * The Sunday Times *‘Write what you want to forget’ ‘Honesty is why I started. So I have accepted the fact that this story is imperfect, that people might try to destroy me in the details. It will not be an easy ending, or a pleasant one, but it will be, for the first time, one that I have chosen.’ http://bookanista.com/write-forget/ * Bookanista.com *‘Love After Abuse’ ‘What I have been able to do is accept the truth of my intimate self. I know now that she is bloodied and broken, and perhaps damaged beyond repair. But I am trying, and will keep trying, because whoever was buried under the weight of abuse is worth fighting for.’ https://granta.com/love-after-abuse/ * Granta.com *‘The Paradox of Dependence’ ‘To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. I will not be the cool girl, the dream girl, the crane-wife, because she is a lie. She is a straw-woman in a field full of hungry ravens, and I am done with her. She’s not worth it, and neither is he.’ https://meanjin.com.au/blog/the-paradox-of-dependence/ * Meanjin Quarterly *‘Two years on, the literature of #MeToo is coming of age’ ‘A masterful examination of trauma and finding solace in literature.’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/14/literature-metoo-writing-power-gender-relations-men * Guardian *‘A Cure of One’s Own’ ‘In the past couple of years more than a dozen books have been published by women about women’s pain conditions … including Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s I Choose Elena’ https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2019/11/womens-chronic-illness-pain-conditions-endometriosis-vaginismus-vulvodynia-literature -- Imogen West-Knights * New Statesmen *‘Frozen’ ‘For anyone who has ever doubted a rape story, demanding, “Why did you wait so long before you told anyone?”, Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s short memoir is essential reading.’ https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/i-choose-elena-by-lucia-osborne-crowley-book-review-terri-apter/ -- Terri Apter * The TLS *‘Is it messed up?’ ‘On the surface, I Choose Elena is an exploration of trauma – of the debilitating and disabling physical and mental impact of the author’s rape as a teenager. The way trauma can turn your body against you; the way you think you can outrun or ignore it, but you never can.’ Summer Issue -- Alice Wickenden * Brixton Review of Books *‘It is a ground breaking approach to discussing issues that we know are so often hidden’ https://twitter.com/SLTNorfolk/status/1339189801195630592 -- Sonia (manager) * Sue Lambert Trust *CRÍTICA A DOS VOCES DE ‘ELIJO A ELENA’, DE LUCÍA OSBORNE- CROWLEY (Joint review of I Choose Elena) Tensi: ‘Todo esto lo cuenta en este libro, que huye de eufemismos y cuenta la realidad sin matices, quizás por eso se debe leer sosegadamente, pues el dolor se puede palpar muy adentro.’ (All of this is recounted in this book, which shuns euphemisms and tells reality without nuances, perhaps this is why one should read it gently, because one can feel the pain deep inside.’ Miriam: ‘Yo elijo a Lucía. Ella me ha liberado. Me ha ayudado a encontrarme.’ (I choose Lucia. She has freed me. She has helped me find myself.’ https://lecturafilia.com/2020/12/21/critica-a-dos-voces-de-elijo-a-elena-de-lucia-osborne-crowley/ -- Tensi Gesteira and Miriam Beizana * Lecturafilia *Shameful: Women who write about their pain suffer a double shaming: once for getting injured, twice for their act of self-exposure ‘In her memoir I Choose Elena (2019), Lucia Osborne-Crowley gives a moving account of a violent sexual assault she underwent as a teenager, and its ensuing aftermath in the form of chronic physical illness.’ https://aeon.co/essays/shame-heaps-upon-shame-in-womens-memoirs-of-suffering -- Katherine Angel * Aeon *

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Book SynopsisHow is art criticism to be understood within an expanding artistic field? A look at its history and its manifestations within globalized conditions shows the variety of the genre, of the criteria and of the styles of writing. This reader is an attempt to bring a diverse range of art-critical voices and perspectives into conversation with each other, with texts from the 18th century to the present. The editors Beate Söntgen and Julia Voss have invited colleagues from various geographical and intellectual backgrounds to present and discuss the art critics of their choice, choosing one example from their respective bodies of work to comment upon. How have these writers approached art criticism? Which styles do they employ? What makes them extraordinary? What can we learn from their writings today, and why is it important in its contemporary context? Texts by: Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, Denis Diderot, Takashi Kashima, Patrick Mudekereza, Annemarie Sauzeau-Boetti, Bertha Zuckerkandl and many more Comments by: Juli Carson, Yuriko Furuhata, Isabelle Graw, Angela Harutyunyan, Monica Juneja, Wolfgang Kemp, Florencia Malbran, Yvette Mutumba, Azu Nwagbogu, Sarah Wilson and many more

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisRobert Lynd's collection of memories, The Book of This and That, is a deliberate compilation of his numerous essay thoughts, skillfully condensed right into a single on hand volume, designed to be low cost for readers of every age. The memories within this anthology captivate with a mix of fascination and quiet attraction, a few unfolding in ways that surprise and others lightly drawing readers into their narratives. Regarded as a classic, this book stands as a repository of Lynd's profound ideas, seamlessly woven collectively for readers to explore. This version of The Book of This and That now not only preserves the timeless essence of Lynd's reflections but additionally introduces a present day contact with an attention grabbing new cowl and a professionally typeset manuscript. The cautious presentation complements the clarity of the gathering, making it inviting for a contemporary target market. Whether readers searching for intriguing testimonies or concept-provoking insights, Lynd's paintings on this edition promises a literary adventure that spans generations, offering something for anybody and reaffirming its repute as a classic for readers to cherish.

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Book SynopsisThis is the third volume of a series of the new translation of the Chinese classical novel generally known as The Water Margin. In this volume, the company of outlaws on Mount Liang continues to grow — a butcher, a blacksmith, a public executioner, a petty thief… and the usual generals defecting from the government forces. Lu Zhishen, the Flowery Monk, and his companions from Twin Dragon Peak reappear and finally join the company, uniting two important strands of the story. Some episodes are relatively light: a tiger is stolen, an innkeeper's favourite rooster is illicitly eaten, Iron Ox is lowered to the bottom of a well and nearly gets forgotten. But in general the mood is darker. The naked bodies of a lecherous wife is carved up, an innocent child is mercilessly dispatched to gain a reluctant recruit. Chao Gai, the leader on Mount Liang, is killed in battle. Song Jiang replaces him, but for how long can he control his unruly forces? Despite the attraction of the life on the marshes, with its rootless freedom and rough code of honour, we are not to forget how the story was launched, when 108 Demon Princes were released in a black cloud. This series of new translation by John and Alex Dent-Young is also the first English translation of the 120-chapter version of The Water Margin. The translators have made the English translation as readable to English readers as possible by finding meaningful equivalents for many local terms and proverbial expressions, while aiming to retain some flavour of other times and customs. Readers in the West, even with no specialized knowledge of Chinese, will certainly enjoy the stories and characters presented in the novel.

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Book SynopsisFanny Fern dominated the New York literary scene in the 1850s, garnering both esteem and, occasionally, derision for her witty and acerbic newspaper columns and literary criticism; her semi-autobiographical novel Ruth Hall, which traces the rise of an intelligent and determined young woman from poverty to prestige through her pursuit of a writing career, was one of America's most significant early bestsellers. Fern's use of informal, vibrantly conversational prose and her abundant colloquialisms marked an important shift in the established literary conventions of nineteenth-century fiction and journalism. This compact edition collects some of Fern's most frequently taught journalism much of which focuses on the changing roles of women in nineteenth-century America along with excerpts from Ruth Hall.This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts.Trade ReviewComments on The Broadview Anthology of American Literature“The expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature.” — Hester Blum, Penn State University“The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike.” — Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University“So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come.” — Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College “The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display.” — Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University “Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways.” — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison“a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be.” — Michael C. Cohen, UCLA “The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is an instructor’s dream for introducing students to the diversity and complexity of American literature.” — Venetria K. Patton, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign“I am eager to teach with this anthology! It aligns with cutting-edge research through its selections, its introductions, and explanatory notes, and the texts are supplemented with primary documents that encourage teachers and students to think critically and dynamically.” — Koritha Mitchell, The Ohio State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionFanny Fern: Selected Writings Hints to Young Wives (1852) Thanksgiving Story (1853) A Practical Bluestocking (1853) Soliloquy of a Housemaid (1853) Critics (1853) Mrs. Adolphus Sporting the 'Blue Stocking' (1854) from Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1854) Fern's New York Ledger review of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 10 May 1856 Male Criticism on Ladies' Books (1857) A Law More Nice than Just (1858) Independence (1859) The Working-Girls of New York (1868) In Context Contemporary Reviews of Fanny Fern's Work Fern Leaves and Leaves of Grass

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Book SynopsisDiscover Henry David Thoreau’s two inspiring masterworks in one combined, exquisite edition from Union Square & Co.’s Signature Gilded Editions series! The stunning combinedWalden and “Civil Disobedience” special edition features sprayed edges, color end pages, a built-in ribbon bookmark, and embossed foil cover. The beautiful design and attention to detail set this special edition book apart, whether you’re reading for the first time or building a library of your favorite classic literature books.  “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — “Economy,” Walden   “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” —“Civil Disobedience”   Henry David Thoreau reflects on life, politics, and society in these two inspiring masterworks: Walden and 'Civil Disobedience.' In 1845, Thoreau moved to a cabin that he built with his own hands along the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Shedding the trivial ties that he felt bound much of humanity, Thoreau drew both physical and mental inspiration from the land, and he pursued truth in the quiet of nature. In Walden, he explains how separating oneself from the world of men can fully awaken the sleeping self. Thoreau holds fast to the notion that you have not truly existed until you adopt such a lifestyle—and only then can you reenter society as an enlightened being. These simple but profound musings—as well as 'Civil Disobedience,' his protest of the government's interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and his love of nature. More than a century and a half later, his message is timelier than ever.  

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Book SynopsisA major collection of essays and interviews from an iconic 20th-century philosopher in five volumes, now all available together in paperback. Roland Barthes was a restless, protean thinker. A constant innovator—often as a daring smuggler of ideas from one discipline to another—he first gained an audience with his pithy essays on mass culture and then went on to produce some of the most suggestive and stimulating cultural criticism of the late twentieth century, including Empire of Signs, The Pleasure of the Text, and Camera Lucida. In 1976, this one-time structuralist outsider was elected to a chair at France’s preeminent Collège de France, where he chose to style himself as a professor of literary semiology until his death in 1980. The greater part of Barthes’s published writings has been available to a French audience since 2002, but now, translator Chris Turner presents a collection of essays, interviews, prefaces, book reviews, and other journalistic material for the first time in English and divided into five themed volumes. Volume three, Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, consists of his writing on literature, covering his peers and influences, writers in French and other languages, contemporary and historical writers, and world literature. Trade Review"Given the diversity of these pieces in terms of history and content, it is crucial that the translator has made a good job of briefly contextualizing all the pieces and that the translations understand, especially in relation to the gendering that operates in the French language and to some of the more recondite references, that the renderings into English need, periodically, the helping-hand of an attuned and scholarly – that is experienced – editor and translator of Barthes." * H-France Review *Table of ContentsPre-Novels Recovering the Unburies Treasure (On Popular Poetry) The Man-Eater (On Zola’s Nana) Maupassant and the Physics of Misfortune The Cathedrals of Novels (On Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame of Paris) Round Table Discussions New Pathways of Literary Criticism in France A Personal Statement on Robbe-Grillet The Two Sociologies of the Novel Alain Girard: ‘The Diary’ Parallel Lives Pleasure in Language Edoardo Sanguineti Preface (to Ecyclopédie Bordas, Volume VIII) Preface (to Jacques Prévert, Fatras) Argument and Prospectus: A Letter to Philippe Roger Preface (to Ecyclopédie Bordas, Volume IX) Interview-Preface to Littérature occidentale From Them to Us ‘It All Comes Together’ Masculine, Feminine, Neuter

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Book SynopsisInto the Mèlée probes the mercurial relationship between culture and politics through versatile critical writing on Conrad, Orwell, Sartre, Raymond Williams and Roberto Schwarz, among others. The ‘mèlée’ that Romain Rolland wrote to deplore was the Great War of 1914. The phrase gained general currency as a call to cultural service beyond the pressures of everyday political and social strife, a vocation ‘above the fray’. Francis Mulhern writes in the contrary belief that there is no social location corresponding to this desire, strong and appealing though it may be. Into the Mèlée opens with questions of nationality, from F. R. Leavis’s efforts to assert an English literary subject to Tom Nairn’s political vision of England and Scotland ‘after Britain’. Other essays concern intellectuals and, in one way or another, the politics of revolution and counterrevolution, from Burke to the present. The

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Book SynopsisThe Best American Magazine Writing 2021 presents outstanding journalism and commentary that reckon with urgent topics, including COVID-19 and entrenched racial inequality.Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Clara Jeffery, editor in chief, Mother JonesAcknowledgments, by Sid Holt, chief executive, American Society of Magazine EditorsThe Plague Year, by Lawrence WrightThe Black American Amputation Epidemic, by Lizzie PresserThe Disappeared, by Aura BogadoGlobal Inequality and the Corona Shock, by Adam ToozeThe Limits of Telecommuting, by Margaret O’MaraRebuilding Solidarity in a Broken World, by Eric KlinenbergThe Election That Could Break America, by Barton GellmanThe Collaborators, by Anne ApplebaumEditor’s Letter, by Ta-Nehisi CoatesWitness and Respair, by Jesmyn WardThe Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd, by Aymann IsmailWhose Streets?, by Samantha MichaelsThe Trayvon Generation, by Elizabeth AlexanderExcerpts From “Marie Claire’s Guide to Protecting Yourself Online”, by Edited by Megan DiTrolioGraham Court: The Gilded Age Rental, by Matthew SedaccaOne Fifth: The Downtown Co-op of All Downtown Co-ops, by Matthew SedaccaLadies of the Good Dead and On Immolation and On Doulas, by Aisha Sabatini SloanThe Patriot Slave, by Farah PetersonThe Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic, by Sam AndersonMichael Jordan: A History of Flight, by Wright ThompsonTwelve Minutes and a Life, by Mitchell S. JacksonThe Whale Mother, by Susan ChoiPermissionsList of Contributors

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Book SynopsisThe Fiction of Narrative traces the arc and evolution of White's field-defining thought and will become standard reading for students and scholars of historiography, the theory of history, and literary studies.Trade ReviewThe book will interest scholars from an array of disciplines... Recommended. ChoiceTable of ContentsEditor's NotePrefaceEditor's IntroductionAcknowledgments1. Collingwood and Toynbee: Transitions in English Historical Thought2. Religion, Culture, and Western Civilization in Christopher Dawson's Idea of History3. The Abiding Relevance of Croce's Idea of History4. Romanticism, Historicism, and Realism: Toward a Period Concept for Early Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History5. The Tasks of Intellectual History6. The Culture of Criticism: Gombrich, Auerbach, Popper7. The Structure of Historical Narrative8. What Is a Historical System?9. The Politics of Contemporary Philosophy of History10. The Problem of Change in Literary History11. The Problem of Style in Realistic Representation: Marx and Flaubert12. The Discourse of History13. Vico and Structuralist/Poststructuralist Thought14. The Interpretation of Texts15. Historical Pluralism and Pantextualism16. The "Nineteenth Century" as Chronotope17. Ideology and Counterideology in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism18. Writing in the Middle Voice19. Northrop Frye's Place in Contemporary Cultural Studies20. Storytelling: Historical and Ideological21. The Suppression of Rhetoric in the Nineteenth Century22. Postmodernism and Textual Anxieties23. Guilty of History? The longue durée of Paul RicoeurNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisToibin's remarkable insights provide scholars, students, and general readers a fresh encounter with James's well-known texts.Trade ReviewThe book does not disappoint. The essays may be incidental-reviews, introductions, lectures-but each conveys a sense of Toibin's deep engagement with his subject and his writer's way with words. Irish Times 2010 Anyone interested in Toibin's process of transforming the life of James into a novel of immense subtlety should look carefully at a recent volume of essays. -- Jay Parini Chronicle of Higher EducationTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Susan M. GriffinChapter 1. Henry James in Ireland: A FootnoteChapter 2. The Haunting of Lamb HouseChapter 3. A More Elaborate Web: Becoming Henry JamesChapter 4. Pure Evil: "The Turn of the Screw"Chapter 5. The Lessons of the MasterChapter 6. Henry James's New YorkChapter 7. A Death, a Book, an Apartment: The Portrait of a LadyChapter 8. Reflective BiographyChapter 9. A Bundle of LettersChapter 10. All a Novelist NeedsChapter 11. The Later JamesesAfterword: SilenceIndex

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Book SynopsisThe third in a series of annual anthologies produced by the American Examples workshop. In the latest volume from this innovative academic project, ten topically and methodologically diverse scholars vividly reimagine the meaning and applications of American religious history.Trade ReviewAmerican Examples seeks nothing less than to shake the founding assumptions of American religious history. What happens, these contributors ask, if we approach our archives not with the question of how they fit into a broader historical narrative but ask instead: what does this tell us about 'religion' or 'America'? What does the field look like if we foreground the religious studies focus of J. Z. Smith rather than the normative assumptions of narrative history? This volume offers a timely, provocative contribution to the field and will be sure to inspire debate!" - Anthony Petro, author of After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion

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Book SynopsisAs popular Instagram poet and artist Morgan Harper Nichols shares glimpses of her story in How Far You Have Come, she inspires us to reframe the stories we tell ourselves so we can see through our own brokenness to the beauty inside.

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Book SynopsisMinor works by Xenophon (ca. 430–ca. 354 BC) include Hiero, a dialogue on government; Agesilaus, in praise of that king; Constitution of Lacedaemon, on the Spartan system; Ways and Means, on the finances of Athens; a manual of Horsemanship. The Constitution of the Athenians, though not by Xenophon, is an interesting document on Athenian politics.

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Book SynopsisPliny the Elder produced in his Natural History a vast compendium of Roman knowledge. Topics included are the mathematics and metrology of the universe; world geography and ethnography; human anthropology and physiology; zoology; botany, agriculture, and horticulture; medicine; minerals, fine arts, and gemstones.

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Book SynopsisThe Rhetorica ad Herrenium was traditionally attributed to Cicero (106–43 BC), and reflects, as does Cicero’s De Inventione, Hellenistic rhetorical teaching. But most recent editors attribute it to an unknown author.

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays in which the author writes of her own upbringing, her human and literary antecedents, and also dwells on lives and poems. The book includes writings on T.S. Eliot, George Oppen, Sylvia Plath, Robinson Jeffers, Wallace Stevens, and John Berryman.

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Book Synopsis''The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.''Matthew Arnold''s famous series of essays, which were first published in book form under the title Culture and Anarchy in 1869, debate important questions about the nature of culture and society that are as relevant now as they have ever been. Arnold seeks to find out ''what culture really is, what good it can do, what is our own special need of it'' in an age of rapid social change and increasing mechanization. He contrasts culture, ''the study of perfection'', with anarchy, the mood of unrest and uncertainty that pervaded mid-Victorian England. How can individuals be educated, not indoctrinated, and what is the role of the state in disseminating ''sweetness and light''? This edition reproduces the original book version and enables readers to appreciate its immediate historical context as well as the reasons for its continued importance today, in the face of the challenges of multi-culturalism and post-modernism. ABOUT THE SERIE

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Book SynopsisIn an updated edition of his hugely successful student introduction to English literature from 1100 to 1500, J. A. Burrow takes account of scholarly developments in the the field, most notably devoting a final chapter to the impact of historicism on medieval studies. Full of information and stimulating ideas, and a pleasure to read, Burrow''s book deals with circumstances of composition and reception, the main genres, ''modes of meaning'' (allegory etc.), and medieval literature''s afterlife in modern times. It shows that the literature of authors such as Chaucer, Gower, and Langland is more readily accessible than usually imagined, and well worth reading too. By placing medieval writers in their historical context - the four centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Renaissance - Professor Burrow explains not only how they wrote, but why.Trade ReviewThis book is the most effective introduction to Middle English literature that I know. It is everywhere alert to the ways that modern literary sensibilities need to be adjusted in order to appreciate the medieval norm, and Burrow combines astonishing learning with a pedagogical shrewdness that always picks out just the telling passage or focusing cultural fact. This second edition adds a great deal of new and equally important material to a work that had already become a classic in its own right. * Christopher Cannon, Girton College, Cambridge *Table of Contents1. The period and the literature ; 2. Writers, audiences, and readers ; 3. Major genres ; 4. Modes of meaning ; 5. The afterlife of Middle English literature ; Notes ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisLibrary of History is in three parts: mythical history to the Trojan War; history to Alexander’s death (323 BC); history to 54 BC. Books 1–5 and 11–20 survive complete, the rest in fragments.

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Book SynopsisIn letters to his friend Atticus, Cicero (106–43 BC) reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother, and vividly depicts a momentous period in Roman history, marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic.

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Book SynopsisPlutarch (ca. AD 45–120) wrote on many subjects. His extant works other than the Parallel Lives are varied, about sixty in number, and known as the Moralia (Moral Essays). They reflect his philosophy about living a good life, and provide a treasury of information concerning Greco-Roman society, traditions, ideals, ethics, and religion.

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Book SynopsisThis unique collection brings together the finest poetry and prose on the Nakba by Palestinian writers over the last seventy years.Trade Review`In this crucial anthology, Palestine's greatest classic and contemporary writers use the poetry and rigour of their words to delineate both the trauma of the past and the continuities of exile, oppression and resistance.' Molly Crabapple; `An essential collection of vital voices ... Palestinian literature and thought are defiantly alive and pushing boundaries in fiction, poetry, memoir and reportage.' Bidisha; `This anthology brilliantly brings together seminal writings on the Nakba. It will be of interest to students of literature as well as those wishing to learn about Palestine for a long time to come.' Yasir Suleiman, University of Cambridge and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies; `This collection sings of more than just suffering - remembrance and beauty, too.' Fatima Bhutto;`A Map of Absence is a remarkable collection of some of the finest examples of [Palestinian] literature ... It is the details hidden in each piece of writing - occasionally hopeful, often heartbreaking - that lend this collection its personality.' The National; `Core questions are addressed throughout: injustice, memory, resistance, longing for peace and a normal life, and especially return to the homeland ... A Map of Absence has the makings of becoming a classic, due to its documentation of a seminal event and the beauty and intensity of the writing. In the words of Atef Alshaer, "Nowhere has the voice of Palestine resonated more powerfully than in the literature of Palestinians".' The Jordan Times; `A Map of Absence< is a tribute to the power and elegance of the Arabic language and to the sensitivity of the editor. Some of the contributors write in English but most are beautifully translated from the original Arabic. Above all, the book is a reminder of the suffering and bravery of many of today's refugees in their fight to find a new identity and deal with the fact that they can never forget their home, their land and the identity they have lost.' 7D News; `Throughout this book, it is the human experience that stands out, elsewhere discarded to make space for the politics that have disrupted and ruptured Palestinian lives.' Middle East Monitor

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Book SynopsisAfter personal inquiry and study of hearsay and other evidence, Herodotus (born ca. 484 BC) gives us in his famous history of warfare between the Greeks and the Persians a not uncritical estimate of the best that he could find.

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Book SynopsisThis first volume shows that even as a young man Walter Benjamin possessed astonishing intellectual range and depth. His topics here include poetry and fiction, drama, philosophy, history, religion, love, violence, morality, mythology, painting, and much more.Trade ReviewFor many readers, [Benjamin's]…scrupulous attention to detail, this sense that everything can be made to speak, explains [his] force as a writer. His hermeneutic skill is nowhere more evident than in his essay on Goethe's Elective Affinities, the most important previously untranslated article included here. He confronts the novel from several perspectives, using it to illuminate the institution of marriage, the morality of love, and the project of artistic creation. At the same time, the essay offers a powerful—and frankly mystical—image of criticism itself… Esoteric much of the work is, but its originality inspires. If cultural studies is headed back to basics, Benjamin's luminous musings are a rewarding place to start. -- James Surowiecki * Lingua Franca *To encounter Benjamin's piece ['The Life of Students'] is like overhearing the opening notes of one of the most intellectually compelling friendships of our century. It is greatly to the credit of Harvard University Press to have made the text finally available to English-speaking readers. In general, the editors of this volume have made an exemplary choice of what to include, and when their projected multi-volume section is complete, it will constitute the most important compilation of Benjamin's writings outside the mammoth German Collected Works. -- Michael André Bernstein * New Republic *[A] splendid new edition of Benjamin's own Selected Writings. * Times Higher Education Supplement *[T]he publication of an ambitious new edition of Benjamin's selected writings [is] a genuinely exciting event. In place of a limited selection of Benjamin's more immediately accessible pieces, American readers now have the chance to wander the full range of his work, and to gain a real sense of the often contradictory but always provocative combination of philosophy, criticism, and cultural history that it offers. -- James Surowiecki * Boston Phoenix *Benjamin has gradually emerged as a major presence in 20th-century letters. This reputation rests on his extraordinary and highly idiosyncratic gift for original and far-reaching insights. It was his ambition to become Germany's leading literary critic, a status that many no doubt would be inclined to award him posthumously… Benjamin is sometimes misunderstood, since only certain parts of his overall output have come into view here. The 65 pieces collected in this excellent first volume of the new Harvard Benjamin should help clarify the larger picture as well as deepen and enliven the discussion. -- Steve Dowden * Washington Times *A glance at the Table of Contents of Selected Writings—he writes on language, time, colors, children's books, love, violence, messianism—shows us at once Benjamin's provocativeness and his infinite variety. The two longest pieces, both from the early twenties and neither translated till now, are his doctoral thesis, 'The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism,' and his long essay on Goethe's late novel, Elective Affinities… [The latter] is an exemplary piece of lit crit, brilliantly analyzing the book's layers, motifs, symbols and subtexts…Benjamin's reverent feeling for tradition gives weight to his radical readings of tradition. Both essays could be an inspiration to people doing cultural studies today. -- Marshall Berman * The Nation *[Walter Benjamin] is no less than a major enrichment and revision of the image of Walter Benjamin's criticism in the English-speaking world. -- Tyrus Miller * American Book Review *Today, the presence of Walter Benjamin is invoked in aesthetics, in political philosophy, in the theory of literature and of film, in linguistics and theology… [T]his [is a] sumptuous first volume of [his] Selected Writings… [T]here is more to this feast of a book than demanding gravity. The look at 'Old Forgotten Children's Books' is an arch delight. The sketch of 'Naples' (1925) anticipates the vital part the Mediterranean was to play in Benjamin's search for inexpensive nirvanas. The brief entry on 'Love and Related Matters' of 1920 speculates on the coming sexual revolution… Throughout Walter Benjamin, the prodigality of suggestion haunts one. -- George Steiner * The Observer *Selected Writings, Volume I increases our understanding of this most important of writers exponentially. There is nothing like Benjamin, and I can hardly imagine a more rewarding book being published this year. -- David Wheatley * The Irish Times *The appeal of Benjamin's writing, according to Terry Eagleton, lies in the way it 'manages marvellously to combine…[Marxist] 'aesthetics' with the entrancing esotericism of the Kabbala.'… Benjamin is admired not in spite of but because of his arcane syntax, murky vocabulary, and buried meanings… You have to seek the truth in Benjamin's writings, if you have the patience, and not treat them as conveying knowledge. There is an awful lot of husk to burn in the process, but the theory of truth, if true, explains the obscurity. -- Arthur C. Danto * Artforum *Bullock and Jennings's Selected Writings series offers and opportunity to reevaluate Benjamin within the context of rhetoric, from a wider body of documents than previously available… This first volume of the Selected Writings gives scholars of rhetoric a critical mass of text (from notebook jottings, to student writings and early published works, to Benjamin's dissertation) from which to evaluate Benjamin's work. From this new vantage point, we might identify his potential contribution to rhetorical theory through his writing on communication, the philosophy of language, aesthetics and the political. In some cases, Bullock and Jennings's new edition resonates with and reiterates themes found in the canonical anthologies. In other cases, we are exposed to a Benjamin not previously seen in English… There are key insights here, especially in these times when the Critical Theory project which has driven the study of mass communication comes into rhetorical studies… Benjamin reminds us that to embrace and preserve the true fragment exceeds the condemnation of the system, of the whole. -- David Beard * Quarterly Journal of Speech *A cause for excitement among literary essayists and critics: Walter Benjamin's scattered works are at last being translated and collected in a carefully edited edition… Most of his writings—including some of his most extraordinary accomplishments—have never been translated. The loss for American readers is substantial. At long last…a three-volume, chronologically organized edition of the essays, memoirs, reviews, aphorisms, fragments, and other short forms is being issued… The overall quality of the translations is high… And in Benjamin's case, this is no mean accomplishment… His peculiar gift was…for lightning flashes of sudden, precise, and idiosyncratic illumination. The translators have supplied useful (though relatively sparing) explanatory notes, and the editors have appended a narrative chronology of Benjamin's life through 1926… This new Benjamin set will be the standard work. * Kirkus Reviews *Readers new to Benjamin will find this a welcome introduction to a challenging but rewarding writer. Those already familiar with his work will be grateful to be reminded, once again, of the wisdom of his maxim, 'all the decisive blows are struck left-handed.' -- Graham McCann * Financial Times *[W]ith the advent of this volume…Benjamin's bold and invigorating philosophy of literature will reach a broader audience and truly make its power felt. Here are Benjamin's earliest writings, the youthful efforts of an emerging aesthetic theorist already in command of a vast wealth of material and unafraid to voice strong and controversial opinions about everything from children's books to Goethe, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, and such concepts as perception, the philosophy of history, and theories of knowledge and the imagination. * Booklist *Harvard's systematic presentation of the work of German cultural critic Benjamin has proved a revelation. * Publishers Weekly *Wherever [Benjamin] turned his incisive gaze…the clarity of morning's first light shines forth. -- Haim Chertok * Jerusalem Post *Table of ContentsMetaphysics of Youth, 1913-1919 "Experience" The Metaphysics of Youth Two Poems by Friedrich Holderlin The Life of Students Aphorisms on Imagination and Color A Child's View of Color Socrates Trauerspiel and Tragedy The Role of Language in Traucrspiel and Tragedy On Language as Such and on the Language of Man Theses on the Problem of Identity Dostoevsky's The Idiot Painting and the Graphic Arts Painting, or Signs and Marks The Ground of Intentional Immediacy The Object: Triangle Perception Is Reading On Perception Comments on Gundolf's Goethe On the Program of the Coming Philosophy Stifter Every Unlimited Condition of the Will Types of History The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism Fate and Character Analogy and Relationship The Paradox of the Cretan The Currently Effective Messianic Elements Angelus Novus, 1920-1926 The Theory of Criticism Categories of Aesthetics On Semblance World and Time According to the Theory of Duns Scotus On Love and Related Matters The Right to Use Force The Medium through Which Works of Art Continue to Influence Later Ages Critique of Violence The Task of the Translator Notes for a Study of the Beauty of Colored Illustrations in Children's Books Riddle and Mystery Outline for a Habilitation Thesis Language and Logic (I-III) Theory of Knowledge Truth and Truths / Knowledge and Elements of Knowledge Imagination Beauty and Semblance The Philosophy of History of the Late Romantics and the Historical School The Meaning of Time in the Moral Universe Capitalism as Religion Announcement of the Journal Angelus Novus Goethe's Elective Affinities Baudelaire (II, III) Calderon's El Mayor Monstruo, Los Celos and Hebbel's Herades und Mariamne Letter to Florens Christian Rang Stages of Intention Outline of the Psychophysical Problem Even the Sacramental Migrates into Myth On the Topic of Individual Disciplines and Philosophy "Old Forgotten Children's Books" Naples Curriculum Vitae (I) Reflections on Humboldt Review of Bernoulli's Bachofen Johann Peter Hehel (I): On the Centenary of His Death Johann Peter Hebel (II): A Picture Puzzle for the Centenary of His Death A Glimpse into the World of Children's Books One-Way Street A Note on the Texts Chronology, 1892-1926 Index

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Book SynopsisThe Road to Wigan Pier is Orwell's 1937 study of poverty and working-class life in northern England.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography Chronology The Road to Wigan Pier Appendix: Photographs Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisStealing Horses presents arguably the finest considerations yet of the origins of the First World War. Breaking with accounts which focus on the actions of a single state or the final countdown to hostilities, Paul W. Schroeder describes the systemic crisis engulfing the Great Powers. They were more interested in colonial plunder overseas ('stealing horses to great applause', in the old Spanish adage) than the traditional statecraft of European peace-making. Preserving the balance of power required preserving all the essential actors in it, including a tottering Austria-Hungary. This the British in particular failed to recognise. The Central Powers may have started the War but that does not mean they in any real sense caused it. In the end Schroeder recalls the verdict of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: 'All are punished'.Stealing Horses includes appraisals of Niall Ferguson and A. J. P. Taylor, and an extensive unpublished final paper re-thinking the First World War as 'the last 18th-century war'.With an Introduction by Perry Anderson.

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