How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of ideas about life and death has to be, like this book, a history of curiosity.” Lepore starts that history with the story of a seventeenth-century Englishman who had the idea that all life begins with an egg and ends it with an American who, in the 1970s, began freezing the dead. In between, life got longer, the stages of life multiplied, and matters of life and death moved from the library to the laboratory, from the humanities to the sciences. Lately, debates about life and death have determined the course of American politics. Each of these debates has a history. Investigating the surprising origins of the stuff of everyday life—from board games to breast pumps—Lepore argues that the age of discovery, Darwin, and the Space Age turned ideas about life on earth topsy-turvy. “New worlds were found,” she writes, and “old paradises were lost.” As much a meditation on the present as an excavation of the past, The Mansion of Happiness is delightful, learned, and altogether beguiling.

    In The Thing Itself, Todd attempts to discover for himself a new way of thinking by asking the simple question: What is true in ourselves and the world around us? With an exquisite eye for detail and an inquisitive spirit, Todd launches into an involving and elegantly crafted investigation of what makes an authentically lived life. As he focuses on an array of exchanges with people, objects, places, and ideas?from the banal to the emotionally poignant?Todd shows us that there?s a great distance between what we can touch, feel, and see, and what interactions mean in our lives. Mining a rich and multifaceted store of modern philosophy and personal experiences, he inches closer to seeing himself and the world through a clearer set of eyes. Engaging and readable, The Thing Itself offers unexpected insights into the very human search for meaning in our lives.

    As it is, the political problem remains unsolved. Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. Democratic republics can no more dispense with national idols than monarchies with public functionaries. Government presents only one problem: the discovery of a trustworthy anthropometric method.

    Bringing together a range of core texts into one volume, this acclaimed anthology offers the definitive resource in culture, media, and communication.A fully revised new edition of the bestselling anthology in this dynamic and multidisciplinary field New contributions include essays from Althusser through to Henry Jenkins, and a completely new section on Globalization and Social Movements Retains important emphasis on the giant thinkers and "makers" of the field: Gramsci on hegemony; Althusser on ideology; Horkheimer and Adorno on the culture industry; Raymond Williams on Marxist cultural theory; Habermas on the public sphere; McLuhan on media; Chomsky on propaganda; hooks and Mulvey on the subjects of visual pleasure and oppositional gazes Features a substantial critical introduction, short section introductions and full bibliographic citations

    An entertaining, insightful history of the men who've held the office, from the division between Jefferson and Hamilton through Bill Clinton's campaign for national health care.

    By embracing four fundamental premises and putting into practice the author's many helpful and practical suggestions, you'll acquire the skills and insights necessary for turning around even the most troublesome relationship. What you need to keep in mind is that: (1) nothing in your life happens randomly and your difficulties have a deeper purpose; (2) frustration and even emotional pain are as necessary for your personal and spiritual growth as love and joy; (3) transforming enmity and completing unfinished business may be the most important skills you can learn in life; and (4) when you make an effort to work on your inner self, your outer relationships will be transformed.        This groundbreaking book draws upon state-of-the-art psychological principles and timeless spiritual practices from all traditions. Filled with enlightening exercises and entertaining stories, Thank You for Being Such a Pain will forever change the way you see the difficult people in your life . . . as well as the way you see yourself.

    It is both witness and tribute to the late theory of mind—the so-called structural theory, with its stress on aggression, indeed the death drive, as the pitiless adversary of eros.Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death and first published in German in 1929. In it he states his views on the broad question of man's place in the world, a place Freud defines in terms of ceaseless conflict between the individual's quest for freedom and society's demand for conformity.Freud's theme is that what works for civilization doesn't necessarily work for man. Man, by nature aggressive and egotistical, seeks self-satisfaction. But culture inhibits his instinctual drives. The result is a pervasive and familiar guilt.Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.

    Describes the principles of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic associated with Japanese tea ceremonies and based on the belief that true beauty comes from imperfection and incompletion, through text and photographs.

    Chomsky contrasts the classical liberal, libertarian socialist, state socialist, and state capitalist world views and then defends a libertarian socialist vision as "the proper and natural extension . . . of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society."In his stirring conclusion Chomsky argues, "We have today the technical and material resources to meet man’s animal needs.We have not developed the cultural and moral resources or the democratic forms of social organization that make possible the humane and rational use of our material wealth and power.Conceivably, the classical liberal ideals as expressed and developed in their libertarian socialist form are achievable. But if so, only by a popular revolutionary movement, rooted in wide strata of the population and committed to the elimination of repressive and authoritarian institutions, state and private. To create such a movement is a challenge we face and must meet if there is to be an escape from contemporary barbarism."

    But it's also frequently written off as incomprehensible. Using a conversational, accessible style, Patrick Meaney (director of GRANT MORRISON: TALKING WITH GODS) opens up THE INVISIBLES through in-depth analysis that makes sense of the series's complicated ideas, fractured chronology, and delirious blend of fiction and reality. Meaney also explores how the series's fictional conspiracy theories fare in the wake of 9/11 and the War on Terror. The book includes an extensive interview with Grant Morrison and an introduction by Timothy Callahan (author of GRANT MORRISON: THE EARLY YEARS). From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    Along the way, he also addressed Batman with his multi-layered ARKHAM ASYLUM and his literary "Gothic" storyline. Callahan examines all five works in detail, drawing out their evolving themes and exploring Morrison's sometimes difficult texts in plain language. Rounding out the volume: an exclusive interview with Morrison, a foreword by popular comics writer Jason Aaron, and an appendix addressing Morrison's even earlier, shorter work. From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http: //Sequart.org

    From the lively music of West Africa, to the rich culinary traditions of Muslims in Northwest China, to the thrill of a hunt in Alaska, this collection is a treasure trove of diverse places and cultures, providing the comfort, excitement, and joy of feeling elsewhere. THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING 2021 INCLUDES KIESE MAKEBA LAYMON • LESLIE JAMISON • BILL BUFORD •  JON LEE ANDERSON • MEGHAN DAUM LIGAYA MISHAN • PAUL THEROUX and others

    Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, PropagandaA seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

    Content is the first collection of Doctorow’s infamous articles, essays, and polemics.Here’s why Microsoft should stop treating its customers as criminals (through relentless digital-rights management); how America chose copyright and Happy Meal toys over jobs; why Facebook is taking a faceplant; how Wikipedia is a poor cousin of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; and, of course, why free e-books kick ass.Accessible to geeks and noobs (if you’re not sure what that means, it’s you) alike, Content is a must-have compilation from Cory Doctorow, who will be glad to take you along for the ride as he effortlessly surfs the zeitgeist.

    As listeners have grown increasingly eclectic and adventurous in their tastes, The Wire has emerged as the most authoritative source on modern music.In Undercurrents some of the best music writers of our time uncover the hidden wiring of the past century's most influential music. Ian Penman discusses how the microphone transformed the human voice and made phantom presences of great singers such as Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, and Brian Wilson. Christoph Cox demonstrates how the pioneers of live electronic music, the West Coast ensemble Sonic Arts Union, redefined virtuosity for the electronic age. Philip Smith and Peter Shapiro examine Harry Smith's Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music, which led to a massive reappraisal of musical values that went far beyond the folk music revival.Music explored in Undercurrents ranges through avant rock, jazz, hiphop, electronica, global music, and contemporary "classical."