Book picks similar to
Modern Alchemy: Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory by Mark Morrisson
alchemy
occult
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Ecocriticism
Greg Garrard - 2004
Greg Garrard's animated and accessible volume traces the development of the movement and explores the concepts which have most occupied ecocritics, including:* pollution* wilderness* apocalypse* dwelling* animals* earth.Featuring an invaluable glossary of terms and suggestions for further reading, this is the first student-friendly introduction to one of the newest and most exciting trends in literary and cultural studies.
The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion
Daniel McCoy - 2016
As you’d expect from Daniel McCoy, the creator of the enduringly popular website Norse Mythology for Smart People, it’s written to scholarly standards, but in a simple, clear, and entertaining style that’s easy to understand and a pleasure to read. It includes gripping retellings of no less than 34 epic Norse myths – more than any other book in the field – while also providing an equally comprehensive overview of the fascinating Viking religion of which Norse mythology was a part. You’ll learn about the Vikings’ gods and goddesses, their concept of fate, their views on the afterlife, their moral code, how they thought the universe was structured, how they practiced their religion, the role that magic played in their lives, and much more. With its inclusion of the latest groundbreaking research in the field, The Viking Spirit is the ultimate introduction to the timeless splendor of Norse mythology and religion for the 21st Century.
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
Walter Scott - 1830
G. Lockhart, who worked for a publishing firm. The book proved popular and Scott was paid six hundred pounds, which he desperately needed (despite his success as a novelist, Scott was almost ruined when the Ballantyne publishing firm, where he was a partner, went bankrupt in 1826).Letters was written when educated society believed itself in enlightened times due to advances in modern science. The book, however, revealed that all social classes still held beliefs in ghosts, witches, warlocks, fairies, elves, diabolism, the occult, and even werewolves. Sourcing from prior sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on demonology along with contemporary accounts from England, Europe, and North America (Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi, for one), Scott's discourses on the psychological, religious, physical, and preternatural explanations for these beliefs are essential reading for acolytes of the dark and macabre; the letters dealing with witch hunts, trials (Letters Eight and Nine), and torture are morbidly compelling.Scott was neither fully pro-rational modernity nor totally anti-superstitious past, as his skepticism of one of the "new" sciences (skullology, as he calls it) is made clear in a private letter to a friend. Thus, Letters is both a personal and intellectual examination of conflicting belief systems, when popular science began to challenge superstition in earnest.
George Washington: First Guardian Of American Liberty
Michael Crawley - 2016
But where did he get his military experience? Why was picked to take command of the army? Why was he the only American president ever to be elected unanimously (twice!), and did he really chop down that cherry tree as a kid?In this book entitled George Washington: First Guardian of American Liberty by author Michael Crawley, you'll follow the course of George Washington's life, from his birth at Ferry Farm in Virginia in 1732, to his death at his Mount Vernon estate in 1799. You'll learn how his early fame as a hero of the French and Indian War, and his illustrious marriage to a wealthy widow, led to this farm boy becoming one of the most important men in Virginia, a delegate at the Continental Congress where the Founders of America gathered to decide the nation's fate. The first guardian of American liberty looks serene in his portraits, but he didn't always rise above the fray. Washington fought for what he believed in, and his political convictions shocked contemporaries like Thomas Jefferson. Do you know what kind of country George Washington wanted America to be?
Summary of White Fragility: Why It's so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism By Robin DiAngelo and Michael Eric Dyson: Key Takeaways & Analysis Included
Ninja Reads - 2019
In a quick, easy read, you can take the main principles from White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism! The phrase “white fragility” has grown into a term that many people have accepted and referenced when talking about the defensiveness and discomfort a white person feels when talking about race. The term, originally coined in a 2011 article by Robin DiAngelo, is now used in various articles, books, TV shows, and more. Although it’s commonly heard, not many people truly understand what it means. That’s why Robin DiAngelo wrote the book entitled White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. DiAngelo is an author, former professor, and lecturer with a PhD in Multicultural Education from the University of Washington in Seattle. For more than 20 years, she’s focused on racial justice and whiteness studies. Her book on white fragility is a culmination of everything she’s learned from her personal experiences, her studies, and her interactions with white people and people of color. Her book aims to create a dialogue about race despite the white fragility that Americans feel when confronted with that topic. The book, published in 2018, has gained strong reviews because it explores race in-depth and attempts to break down those walls that white people have built in order to protect themselves from acknowledging their race and the benefits it gives them in life. The book debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List. DiAngelo is the two-time winner of the Student’s Choice Award for Educator of the Year at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. Aside from her White Fragility book, DiAngelo has numerous other publications and books under her belt. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism is the #1 bestseller in the discrimination & racism category on Amazon. That’s because it’s a useful tool that can be used in classrooms, discussions, lectures, and more. For those not in an academic setting, it’s also simply just a book that people from all different cultures can learn from, as it aims to teach us all how we got to this point in society, why we have the racial biases we do, and how we can overcome white fragility in order to have meaningful relationships with people of color.
Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments
Isaac Asimov - 1968
In doing so Asimov illuminates the Bible's many obscure and mysterious passages, producing a valuable text for anyone interested in religion and history.
Truth and Method
Hans-Georg Gadamer - 1960
An astonishing synthesis of literary criticism, philosophy, theology, the theory of law and classical scholarship, it is undoubtedly one of the most important texts in twentieth century philosophy. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to "present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent."
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Andrés Duany - 2000
This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.
Metaphors We Live By
George Lakoff - 1980
Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by", metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.
Pakistan: A Modern History
Ian Talbot - 1999
There is a need at the time of Pakistan's golden jubilee for it to be taken seriously in its own right as a country of 130 million people. It is in reality a complex plural society which although greatly shaped by the colonial inheritance and circumstances of its birth is also experiencing rapid change. The author's approach breaks down stereotypes and assists in answering the vexed question of why democracy has succeeded in India, while Pakistan has been subject to long periods of authoritarianism during its five decades of existence.
Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game
David Wangerin - 2006
David Wangerin's humorous and thorough book tells the story of American soccer's long struggle from the brief promise of the 1920's, through the euphoric highs and extravagant follies of the North American Soccer League, to today's hard-won acceptance.
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
Marina Warner - 1994
Why are storytellers so often women, and how does that affect the status of fairy tales? Are they a source of wisdom or a misleading temptation to indulge in romancing?
Rhetorics of Fantasy
Farah Mendlesohn - 2008
Utilizing nearly two hundred examples of modern fantasy, author Farah Mendlesohn uses this system to explore how fiction writers construct their fantastic worlds. Mendlesohn posits four categories of fantasy--portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal--that arise out of the relationship of the protagonist to the fantasy world. Using these sets, Mendlesohn argues that the author's stylistic decisions are then shaped by the inescapably political demands of the category in which they choose to write. Each chapter covers at least twenty books in detail, ranging from nineteenth-century fantasy and horror to extensive coverage of some of the best books in the contemporary field. Offering a wide-ranging discussion and penetrating comparative analysis, Rhetorics of Fantasy will excite fans and provide a wealth of material for scholarly and classroom discussion.Includes discussion of works by over 100 authors, including Lloyd Alexander, Peter Beagle, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Crowley, Stephen R. Donaldson, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis, Gregory Maguire, Robin McKinley, China Mieville, Suniti Namjoshi, Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Sheri S. Tepper, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tad Williams
Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography
Dominic Streatfeild - 2001
To tell the story of the twentieth century without reference to this drug and its contribution is to miss a vital and fascinating strand of social history. Streatfeild examines the story of cocaine from its first medical uses to the worldwide chaos it causes today. His research takes him from the arcane reaches of the British Library to the isolation cells of America's most secure prisons; from the crackhouses of New York to the jungles of Bolivia and Colombia.
Grimoire of the Thorn-Blooded Witch: Mastering the Five Arts of Old World Witchery
Raven Grimassi - 2014
In it he shares profound Craft teachings that will transform your relationship with magick, and your work as a Witch. I wish I'd had access to this treasure earlier on my path."--Christopher Penczak, cofounder of the Temple of Witchcraft and author of the Plant Spirit FamiliarFor the first time in more than a decade, Grimassi introduces readers to a new system of witchcraft, one that draws upon the old ways and the old days. Rich with spells, rituals, and detailed illustrations of plant spirits, Grimassi dares readers to take the path that leads deep into the darkened woods--to traverse upon the Thorned Path.Meet the entities that dwell within the organic memory of the earth, the devas, the deities, the magical life force that lies within the wooded glen. Learn to work with these spirits, and use their wisdom to transform your life and your practice.