Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World


Deirdre Nansen McCloskey - 2010
    It is how China and India began to embrace neoliberal ideas of economics and attributed a sense of dignity and liberty to the bourgeoisie they had denied for so long. The result was an explosion in economic growth and proof that economic change depends less on foreign trade, investment, or material causes, and a whole lot more on ideas and what people believe.Or so says Deirdre N. McCloskey in Bourgeois Dignity, a fiercely contrarian history that wages a similar argument about economics in the West. Here she turns her attention to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to reconsider the birth of the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism. According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets and innovations, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. During this time, talk of private property, commerce, and even the bourgeoisie itself radically altered, becoming far more approving and flying in the face of prejudices several millennia old. The wealth of nations, then, didn’t grow so dramatically because of economic factors: it grew because rhetoric about markets and free enterprise finally became enthusiastic and encouraging of their inherent dignity.An utterly fascinating sequel to her critically acclaimed book The Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity is a feast of intellectual riches from one of our most spirited and ambitious historians—a work that will forever change our understanding of how the power of persuasion shapes our economic lives.

The History of England, from the Accession of James II - Volume 1


Thomas Babington Macaulay - 1848
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology


Donald PreziosiMieke Bal - 1998
    Since the foundation of the modern discipline of art history in Germany in the late eighteenth century, debates about art and its histories have intensified. Historians, philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists among others have changed our notions of what art history has been, is, and might be. The Art of Art History is a unique guide to understanding art history through a critical reading of the field's most innovative and influential texts over the past two centuries. Each section focuses on a key issue: aesthetics, style, history as an art, iconography and semiology, gender, modernity and postmodernity, deconstruction and museology. More than thirty readings from writers as diverse as Winckelmann, Kant, Gombrich, Warburg, Panofsky, Heidegger, Lisa Tickner, Meyer Schapiro, Jacques Derrida, Mary Kelly, Michel Foucault, Rosalind Krauss, Louis Marin, Margaret Iversen, and Nestor Canclini are brought together, and Donald Preziosi's introductions to each topic provide background information, bibliographies, and critical elucidations of the issues at stake. His own concluding essay is an important and original contribution to scholarship in the field.Contents:Art history : making the visible legible by Donald PreziosiReflections on the imitation of Greek works in painting and sculpture by Johann Joachim WinckelmannWinckelmann divided : mourning the death of art history by Whitney DavisPatterns of intention by Michael BaxandallWhat is enlightenment? ; The critique of judgement by Immanuel KantPhilosophy of fine art by G.W.F. HegelPrinciples of art history by Heinrich Wölfflin"Form," nineteenth-century metaphysics, and the problem of art historical description by David SummersStyle by Meyer SchapiroStyle by Ernst GombrichLeading characteristics of the late Roman "Kunstwollen" by Alois RieglImages from the region of the Pueblo Indians of North America by Aby WarburgWarburg's concept of "Kulturwissenschaft" and its meaning for aesthetics by Edgar WindRetrieving Warburg's tradition by Margaret IversenSemiotics and iconography by Hubert DamischSemiotics and art history : a discussion of context and senders by Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson"Et in Arcadia ego" : Poussin and the elegiac tradition by E. PanofskyToward a theory of reading in the visual arts : Poussin's "The Arcadian shepherds" by Louis MarinSculpture in the expanded field by Rosalind KraussWhat is an author? by Michel FoucaultThe allegorical impulse : toward a theory of postmodernism by Craig OwensMapping the postmodern by Andreas HuyssenThe art historical canon : sins of omission by Nanette SalomonSexuality andbyin representation : five British artists by Lisa TicknerNo essential femininity by Mary Kelly and Paul SmithPostfeminism, feminist pleasures, and embodied theories of art by Amelia JonesThe temptation of new perspectives by Stephen MelvilleThe origin of the work of art by Martin HeideggerThe still life as a personal object : a note on Heidegger and van Gogh by Meyer SchapiroRestitutions of the truth in pointing ["pointure"] by Jacques DerridaOrientalism and the exhibitionary order by Timothy MitchellThe art museum as ritual by Carol DuncanInventing the "postcolonial" : hybridity and constituency in contemporary curating by Annie E. CoombesRemaking passports : visual thought in the debate on multiculturalism by Néstor García CancliniThe art of art history by Donald Preziosi

Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts


Grafton Tanner - 2016
    Vaporwave is an infant musical micro-genre that foregrounds the horror of electronic media's ability to appear - as media theorist Jeffrey Sconce terms it - "haunted."Experimental musicians such as INTERNET CLUB and MACINTOSH PLUS manipulate Muzak and commercial music to undermine the commodification of nostalgia in the age of global capitalism while accentuating the uncanny properties of electronic music production.Babbling Corpse reveals vaporwave's many intersections with politics, media theory, and our present fascination with uncanny, co(s)mic horror. The book is aimed at those interested in global capitalism's effect on art, musical raids on mainstream "indie" and popular music, and anyone intrigued by the changing relationship between art and commerce.

Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies


David Bentley Hart - 2009
    David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’ misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.

The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide


Seth Lipsky - 2009
    But what if you want a delightfully quick, witty, and readable reference that, in one compact volume, places the document and its clauses into context? You're out of luck--until now. Written by Seth Lipsky, described in the Boston Globe as "a legendary figure in contemporary journalism," The Citizen's Constitution draws on the writings of the Founders, case law from our greatest judges, and current events in more than 300 illuminating annotations. Lipsky provides a no-nonsense, entertaining, and learned guide to the fundamental questions surrounding the document that governs how we govern our country. Every American should know the Constitution. Rarely has it glinted so brightly.

The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media


John Brookshire Thompson - 1995
    He argues that the development of communication media has transformed the spatial and temporal constitution of social life, creating new forms of action and interaction which are no longer linked to the sharing of a common locale. The consequences of this transformation are far-reaching and impinge on many aspects of our lives, from the most intimate aspects of personal experience and self-formation to the changing nature of power and visibility in the public domain.Combining breadth of vision with sensitivity to detail, this book situates the study of the media where it belongs: among a set of disciplines concerned with the emergence, development and structural characteristics of modern societies and their futures.

On the Way to Language


Martin Heidegger - 1959
    These essays reveal how one of the most profound philosophers of our century relates language to his earlier and continuing preoccupation with the nature of Being and himan being.One the Way to Language enable readers to understand how central language became to Heidegger's analysis of the nature of Being. On the Way to Language demonstrates that an interest in the meaning of language is one of the strongest bonds between analytic philosophy and Heidegger. It is an ideal source for studying his sustained interest in the problems and possibilities of human language and brilliantly underscores the originality and range of his thinking.

The Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali: A New Translation and Commentary


Georg Feuerstein - 1979
    The translation and commentary provided here by Georg Feuerstein are outstanding for their accessibility and their insight into the essential meaning of this ancient and complex text. A scholar of international renown who has studied and practiced yoga since the age of fourteen, Feuerstein also brings to The Yoga-Sutra of Patañjali his experience as a professional indologist. His faithful and informed rendering of the aphorisms (sutras) is based on extensive personal research into the Sanskrit sources. Each word is explained so that the entire text becomes readily available to the western reader and student of yoga.

The Practice of Everyday Life


Michel de Certeau - 1980
    In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature in analytic philosophy, linguistics, sociology, semiology, and anthropology--to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.

Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master


Thomas Merton - 1992
    The selections, which are substantial in length, provide a generous sampling of Merton's vast output. +

النازية في ضوء علم النفس


C.G. Jung - 1946
    Extracted from Volumes 10 & 16 of the Collected Works: "Wotan""The Fight with the Shadow""Psychotherapy Today""Psychotherapy & a Philosophy of Life" "After the Catastrophe"Epilogue

Scivias


Hildegard von Bingen
    This work contains the 26 visions of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who was the first of the great German mystics, as well as a poet and a prophet, a physician and a political moralist.

Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before


Jean M. Twenge - 2006
    In this provocative new book, headline-making psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge explores why the young people she calls "Generation Me" -- those born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s -- are tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious.Herself a member of Generation Me, Dr. Twenge uses findings from the largest intergenerational research study ever conducted -- with data from 1.3 million respondents spanning six decades -- to reveal how profoundly different today's young adults are. Here are the often shocking truths about this generation, including dramatic differences in sexual behavior, as well as controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole. Her often humorous, eyebrow-raising stories about real people vividly bring to life the hopes and dreams, disappointments and challenges of Generation Me.GenMe has created a profound shift in the American character, changing what it means to be an individual in today's society. The collision of this generation's entitled self-focus and today's competitive marketplace will create one of the most daunting challenges of the new century. Engaging, controversial, prescriptive, funny, "Generation Me" will give Boomers new insight into their offspring, and help those in their teens, 20s, and 30s finally make sense of themselves and their goals and find their road to happiness.

Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith


Richard C. Carrier - 2011
    Richard Carrier, world renowned philosopher and historian, explains the four reasons he does not accept the Christian religion, describing four facts of the world that, had they been different, he would believe. He is brief, clear, and down to earth, covering the whole topic in under ninety pages of easy-to-read explanation. Those four reasons are God's silence, God's inaction, the lack of evidence, and the way the universe looks exactly like a godless universe would, and not at all like a Christian universe would, even down to its very structure. Dr. Carrier addresses all the usual replies to these claims, in ways you might not have heard before, relying on his wide experience in debating and studying these issues all over the world for more than fifteen years. A perfect book to introduce yourself, or your friends, to why fewer educated people are embracing Christianity than ever before. Ideal for handing out to door-to-door missionaries.