Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today.

    This monumental collection compiles history's greatest written works, from the ancient classics to more recent masterpieces. Great Books of the Western World contains 517 works from 130 of the most renowned minds throughout history. Volumes 1 and 2 comprise the Syntopicon®, a unique guide that enables you to investigate a particular idea and compare the perspectives of different authors. The Syntopicon organizes thirty centuries of thought into 102 Great Ideas, subsequently divided into topics and subtopics to effectively explore the different viewpoints over time. Authoritative, accurate, and complete, this collection represents the essential core of the Western literary canon

    Understand where many have failed, and live the truth that makes us free. Looking to obtain an advanced degree in Education? Gain fresh insight into the source of all learning and knowledge. Great instruction for those who teach others or for personal development. The book, Education, is a must read for any serious student of life.

    Now in its new Sixth Edition, the book continues to help readers develop their problem-solving skills with an extensive variety of highly interesting problems related to engineering design. In the new edition, more than 50% of the homework problems are new. There are also many new sample problems. To help readers build necessary visualization and problem-solving skills, the book strongly emphasizes drawing free-body diagrams--the most important skill needed to solve mechanics problems.

    It illustrates both the cohesiveness of the relatively few fundamental ideas in this area and the great variety of problems these ideas solve. All of the problems address principles and procedures inherent in the design and anlysis of engineering structures and mechanical systems, with many of the problems referring explicitly to design considerations.

    Now Schaeffer’s pioneering work—at once a journal of his experiments in sound composition and a treatise on the raison d’être of “concrete music”—is available for the first time in English translation. Schaeffer’s theories have had a profound influence on composers working with technology. However, they extend beyond the confines of the studio and are applicable to many areas of contemporary musical thought, such as defining an ‘instrument’ and classifying sounds. Schaeffer has also become increasingly relevant to DJs and hip-hop producers as well as sound-based media artists. This unique book is essential for anyone interested in contemporary musicology or media history.

    . . . You will make out intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so exact and compact, so full of knots and links, with colours so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man." — Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hiberniae, ca. 1185.Gerald of Wales wrote his ecstatic description of what is most probably the Book of Kells 800 years ago, some 300 years after the work appeared. It remains the best description; he felt and conveyed the Book's power, the mystery that made it even then unique among early medieval manuscripts. While clearly subject to international influence (Celtic, British, Norman; possibly Italian, Byzantine, and Coptic), the Book of Kells' painters and scribes illumined their work with a purely idiosyncratic beauty. The Book of Kells is more an icon than a typical evangelistary; indeed, the Saint Jerome text of the gospels is frequently corrupt or carelessly rendered, so intent were the artists on their ornament and iconography. One may still see the glorious ornament on display at Trinity College, Dublin; a more accessible version is this, newly reproduced from a rare facsimile edition. Thirty-two full-page, full-color plates have been selected and painstakingly printed to retain the ineffable handpainted impression of the original leaves. All the full-page decorations, portraits, and illustrations are included, as well as a representative sampling of the textual leaves, in their graceful Insular (half-uncial) calligraphy, interspersed and initialed with an imaginative, fanciful, and even humorous bestiary of lions, lambs, eagles, otters, cats, dragons, birds, fish, and snakes; strange men are seen in the cross-armed Osiris position, entwined in lion's tails, snakes, vines, and peacock feathers. The interlacing and spiraling follow the Insular tradition; in botanical ornament the Book stands apart from that school. The illustrations include vital specimens of Western art: the first image of the Virgin and Child in a Western manuscript, and numerous early representations of the Apocalyptic visionary symbols of the Evangelists; symbols that lost their eeriness in later, diluted form, but that in the Book of Kells, according to one scholar, "retain their wild, unearthly quality. They are perhaps the most striking element in the decoration of the Book." Perusers of this Book, casual and serious students of art, religion, or Western culture, will echo Giraldus, who wrote: "For my part, the oftener I see the book, and the more carefully I study it, the more I am lost in ever fresh amazement, and I see more and more wonders in the book."

    The work is divided into three broad divisions of the natural course of cultural development in Ancient India: (1) From the prehistoric age to 600 B.C., (2) From 600 B.C. to 300 A.D., (3) From 300 A.D. to 1200 A.D.The work describes the political, economic, religious and cultural conditions of the country, the expansionist activities, the colonisation schemes of her rulers in the Far East. Political theories and administrative organizations are also discussed but more stress has been laid on the religious, literary and cultural aspects of Ancient India.Among the more important additions may be mentioned the chapters on the prehistoric age, including the Indus Valley Civilization, more detailed account of the ancient republican clans and the various medieval local dynasties, specially those of the south and the development of art and colonisation. Important changes, though much less extensive, have been made in chapters dealing with political theory and administrative system, as well as social and economic condition and an entirely new section on coins has been added. Considerable other modifications and rearrangements, involving re-grouping of chapters, have been made and more copious footnotes and fuller bibliography have been added for the guidance of advanced students.The book is of a more advanced type. It would meet the needs not only of general readers but also of earnest students who require a thorough grasp of the essential facts and features before taking up specialized study in any branch of the subject. It would also fulfil requirements of the candidates for competitive examinations in which Ancient Indian History and culture is a prescribed subject.