But sometimes the best way to move forward is to look back. Philip Barlag shows us that Julius Caesar is one of the most compelling leaders of the past to study—a man whose approach was surprisingly modern and extraordinarily effective. History is littered with leaders hopelessly out of touch with their people and ruthlessly pursuing their own ambitions or hedonistic whims. But Caesar, who rose from impoverished beginnings, proved by his words and deeds that he never saw himself as being above the average Roman citizen. And he had an amazing ability to generate loyalty, to turn enemies into allies and allies into devoted followers. Barlag uses dramatic and colorful incidents from Caesar's career—being held hostage by pirates, charging headlong alone into enemy lines, pardoning people he knew wanted him dead—to illustrate what Caesar can teach leaders today. Central to Barlag's argument is the distinction between force and power. Caesar avoided using brute force on his followers, understanding that fear never generates genuine loyalty. He exercised a power deeply rooted in his demonstrated personal integrity and his intuitive understanding of people's deepest needs and motivations. His supporters followed him because they wanted to, not because they were compelled to. Over 2,000 years after Caesar's death, this is still the kind of loyalty every leader wants to inspire. Barlag shows how anyone can learn to lead like Caesar.

    They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honourable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy? This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them 'essays', meaning 'attempts' or 'tries'. Into them he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and more than four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment--and in search of themselves. This book, a spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years), relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing (made to speak only Latin), youthful career and sexual adventures, travels, and friendships with the scholar and poet Etienne de La Boétie and with his adopted 'daughter', Marie de Gournay. And as we read, we also meet his readers--who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, 'how to live?'

    Ricks, a dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, whose farsighted vision and inspired action preserved democracy from the threats of authoritarianism, from the left and right alike.Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930s—Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then acting on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north.It's not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930s, democracy was discredited in many circles and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini men we could do business with, if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom—that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940s to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks' masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.

    The author relates his search for spiritual enlightenment in the wilderness under the guidance of an Apache shaman and explores humanity's mystical relationship with nature.

    The author offers an honest account of his battle against inoperable cancer, describing his pain, fear, and anger at the illness and his impending death and his struggle to live life to its fullest.

    Today, according to Professor Phillip Cary, Augustine is recognizable even to non-Christians as the most important Christian writer outside of the Bible. Yet Augustine was also a man-a rhetorician trained in the Roman way whose life and discovery of his calling make for one of the most fascinating stories in the history of religious philosophy. Explore Augustine's Life, Teachings, and Doctrine This course paints a rich and detailed portrait of the life, works, and ideas of this remarkable figure, whose own search for God has profoundly shaped all of Western Christianity. You learn what Augustine taught and why he taught it-and how those teachings and doctrines helped shape the Roman Catholic Church. These lectures are rewarding even if you have no background at all in classical philosophy or Christian theology. This is because Professor Cary, who has taught Villanova's nationally recognized seminars on ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern thought, has organized an entirely self-contained course. Professor Cary (Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Yale University) is a scholar-in-residence at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, where he is director of the Philosophy program and teaches a year-long Great Books seminar. He is author of Augustine's Invention of the Modern Self (Oxford University Press). Professor Cary explains any special religious or philosophical concepts you need to know in order to appreciate Augustine's impact, with real-life examples and analogies that make even the most subtle concepts clear and easy to understand. You'll gain a sense of what Augustine was saying, how his own experiences led him to say it, and how his thoughts fit into the theological, philosophical, and political worlds that swirled around him. Who Was Augustine? A Brief Biography Augustine was born in 354. Early in his life he was inspired by the works of Cicero to devote his life to the pursuit of truth. He started this pursuit as a Rhetorician, then he became a Manichaean, and later a Skeptic. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and Augustine's mother, Monica, were among those instrumental in his conversion to Catholic Christianity in 386. In North Africa he founded a small monastic community and in 391 was elected Bishop of Hippo at a time when people still had some say in who would lead their religious community. From 395 to 430, he served as bishop. He wrote many treatises among which we find the celebrated Confessions, published in 400 as an open letter to his congregation and a prayer to God. His works also include The City of God and On the Trinity. Many of his writings were directed against heresies, particularly Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. He is noted for founding the Western theological tradition and establishing doctrines of the Trinity and Christology. The Life, Works, and Significance of Augustine The course begins with two extremely helpful lectures that help place Augustine in context as both a Church Father (interpreter of the Bible and teacher of Christian doctrine) and philosopher (one who has given us new conceptions of the human heart and its depths). In Lecture 1 you meet Augustine the Roman Christian, one of the Church Fathers responsible for the transition from Bible stories to actual Christian doctrine, a man writing with the end of the Roman Empire at hand. In Lecture 2 you also meet Augustine the Christian Platonist and learn the Platonic concepts-including the idea of a non-bodily, eternal mode of being and the way that concept applies to God-which so deeply influenced him and other religious thinkers of the time. With Augustine's role in-and debt to-these two worlds established, Professor Cary then looks at Augustine's life and legacy in three parts. Part 1: Augustine's Life Lectures 3 through 6 are devoted to a study of Augustine's life. You look at the Confessions, his great spiritual autobiography, written when he was a 45-year-old bishop reflecting on the spiritual path of a questing young man of whom the grown Augustine might not always approve. You examine the Confessions from three angles: The intellectual angle spotlights his passionate search for truth. The emotional angle focuses on the love that drives this search, and the aching sense of loss, grief, and yearning which the Confessions evokes in order to show how love can go wrong.The religious angle explores Augustine's search for truth that leads him to Christ and the Christian life, conceived as a journey toward heaven.The section on Augustine's life ends with a focus on his career as a Christian writer following the period of his life covered by the Confessions, which culminated in his almost 15-year effort to write the 22 books of The City of God. Part II: Augustine's Thought The next series of three lectures explains key concepts of Augustine's thought, all related to his epochal doctrine of grace. You examine how Augustine relates the human qualities of faith and love to the divine gift of grace (Lecture 7); how his doctrine of grace addresses troublesome issues like the origin of evil, original sin, and predestination (Lecture 8); and how he relates the inward gift of grace to the external side of human life in his teachings about signs, words, sacraments, and the Church (Lecture 9). Part III: Augustine's Concept of Persons The final three lectures address Augustine's concept of persons, both human and divine. You look at Augustine's distinctive conception of the human soul as a private inner world (Lecture 10); then his distinctive way of relating his concept of the soul to the doctrine of the Trinity, which is the orthodox Christian conception of God (Lecture 11); and finally his understanding of God's relationship to specific human communities in history, specifically focusing on The City of God (Lecture 12).Great Courses, #611

    

    These are tales of transformation and spiritual growth. They delight and challenge as they express different facets of the Buddhist path to liberation in familiar, yet fresh and engaging, ways. These stories can be reread often, each time supporting new reflec- tions on the spiritual life and the possibility of each person awakening to the kindness, clarity and insight available to all of us. A Monastery Within points to how each person can build an inner home for the awakened life.

    But much more than autobiography, his story is woven with provocative psychological and philosophical commentary, including input from the likes of Lucretius, Freud, and the metal band Napalm Death. A rare style of intellectual but conversational and poignant but humorous makes for a highly accessible and enjoyable read. As the spiritual account winds down, the book transitions into a more rational exploration of the problems associated with religion—and even with spirituality in general. Everyone from outspoken atheists to moderate believers will be engaged, as David is able to critically evaluate spirituality without the hostility so common among modern atheist writers. At the book’s climax, David develops the popular atheist conversation a little deeper by courageously exploring the implications of nihilism: If our deepest fears about the nature of reality were to be true, could we go on? By the end of Optimistic Nihilism, we begin to suspect that we could—and even wonder if a relatively nihilistic perspective paradoxically makes life more precious than any other scheme. A critical must-read for all students of spirituality, psychology, and humanity.

    Now I hear since the Free State came in there is less freedom. The Church has made inroads everywhere, so that we are in fact becoming a bourgeois nation, with the Church supplying our aristocracy, and I do not see much hope for us intellectually. Once the Church is in command she will devour everything.’ -James Joyce in conversation with Arthur Power. This is the first paperback edition of Arthur Power’s unique and fascinating account of his friendship with James Joyce during the 1920s. Power, a young Irishman working as an art critic in Paris, first met Joyce in a Montparnasse dancehall, and the two men maintained a prickly friendship for several years. Power re-creates his conversations with the master, on a remarkable range of topics, literary and otherwise. We read of Joyce’s thoughts on writers past and present: Synge, Ibsen, Hardy, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gide, Proust, T.S. Eliot, Tennyson and Shakespeare. Joyce also speaks of the looming might of America (‘Political influence, yes, but not cultural’); of religion (‘Do you believe in a next life?’ ‘I don’t think much of this life’); and of his own work.

    Uniquely personal view of the Unabomber.

    The books published on the subject are so technical that only a person trained in pure physics and higher mathematics is able to fully understand them. In order to make a popular explanation of this far-reaching theory available, the present book is published.

    REVISED AND RE-EDITED BY FATHER HILARION DUERK, O.F.M.

    Apart from Richards, 'all of us were eighteen years old, though Botham seemed to have lived a bit longer - or at least more vigorously - than the rest.'In this irresistible memoir of a life lived in cricket, Vic Marks returns to the heady days when Richards and Botham were young men yet to unleash their talents on the world stage while he and Roebuck looked on in awe. After the high-octane dramas of Somerset, playing for England was almost an anti-climax for Marks, who became an unlikely all-rounder in the mercurial side of the 1980s. Moving from the dressing room to the press box, with trenchant observations about the modern game along the way, Original Spin is a charmingly wry, shrewdly observed account of a golden age in cricket.

    In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes, everyday examples, and ruminations on history, literature, and more, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions, and equations underpin all our lives. Inspired by the complexity of snowflakes, Anne Boleyn's eleven fingers, or his many siblings, Tammet explores questions such as why time seems to speed up as we age, whether there is such a thing as an average person, and how we can make sense of those we love. Thinking In Numbers will change the way you think about math and fire your imagination to see the world with fresh eyes.