Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began.

    In 1972 the Hamburg State Court acquitted Walter Becker, the German chief of police in the Polish city of Starachowice, of war crimes committed against Jews. Thirty years before, Becker had been responsible for liquidating the nearby Jewish ghetto, sending nearly 4,000 Jews to their deaths at Treblinka and 1,600 to slave-labor factories. The shocking acquittal, delivered despite the incriminating eyewitness testimony of survivors, drives this author’s inquiry. Drawing on the rich testimony of survivors of the Starachowice slave-labor camps, Christopher R. Browning examines the experiences and survival strategies of the Jewish prisoners and the policies and personnel of the Nazi guard. From the killings in the market square in 1942 through the succession of brutal camp regimes, there are stories of heroism, of corruption and retribution, of desperate choices forced on husbands and wives, parents and children. In the end, the ties of family and neighbor are the sinews of survival. 10 photos.

    fought to be cured of anorexia nervosa. But as the diary she kept shows, a widespread lack of understanding about eating disorders and scattergun treatment programs make the battle almost insurmountable . . . a sorrow to read."--The New York Times"Patients' voices can all too easily be forgotten in the world of mental health care, but Jenny's voice rings strong. Through this earnest and captivating exposure, her father succeeds in keeping her story alive."--David B. Herzog, M.D., president and founder of the Harvard Eating Disorders Center

    From the grisly investigations showcased on highly rated television shows like CSI to the bestselling mysteries that revolve around forensic science, medical examiners have never been so visible—or compelling. They, and they alone, solve the riddle of suspicious death and the existential questions that come with it. Why did someone die? Could it have been prevented? Should someone be held accountable? What are the implications of ruling a death a suicide, a homicide, or an accident? Can medical examiners unmask the perfect crime?Postmortem goes deep inside the world of medical examiners to uncover the intricate web of social, legal, and moral issues in which they operate. Stefan Timmermans spent years in a medical examiner’s office following cases, interviewing examiners, and watching autopsies. While he relates fascinating cases here, he is also more broadly interested in the cultural authority and responsibilities that come with being a medical examiner. How medical examiners speak to the living on behalf of the dead is Timmermans’s subject, revealed here in the day-to-day lives of the examiners themselves.“Postmortem is a wake-up call to forensic pathology. . . .This book should be viewed as provocative, rather than threatening, and should be a stimulus for important discussions and action by the forensic pathology community.”—Journal of the American Medical Association

    In Cornel West's hands issues of race and freedom are inextricably tied to questions of philosophy and, above all, to a belief in the power of the human spirit.

    In this magisterial book, Hans Belting traces the longhistory of the sacral image and its changing role in European culture.Likeness and Presence looks at the beliefs, superstitions, hopes,and fears that come into play as people handle and respond to sacredimages, and presents a compelling interpretation of the place of theimage in Western history."A rarity within its genre—an art-historical analysis of iconographywhich is itself iconoclastic. . . . One of the most intellectuallyexciting and historically grounded interpretations of Christianiconography." —Graham Howes, Times Literary Supplement"Likeness and Presence offers the best source to survey the facts ofwhat European Christians put in their churches. . . . An impressivelydetailed contextual analysis of medieval objects." —Robin Cormack,New York Times Book Review"I cannot begin to describe the richness or the imaginative grandeur ofHans Belting's book. . . . It is a work that anyone interested in art,or in the history of thought about art, should regard as urgent reading.It is a tremendous achievement."—Arthur C. Danto, New Republic

    He worked with some of Canada's most dangerous and notorious prisoners, including Paul Bernardo and Tyrone Conn. He dealt with escapes, lockdowns, prisoner murders, prisoner suicides, and a riot. But he also arranged ice-hockey games in a maximum-security institution, sat in a darkened gym watching movies with three hundred inmates, took parolees sightseeing, and consoled victims of violent crimes. He has managed cellblocks, been a parole officer, and investigated staff corruption.Clark takes readers down inside a range of prisons, from the minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution to the Kingston Regional Treatment Centre for mentally ill prisoners and the notorious (and now closed) maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary. In Down Inside, he challenges head-on the popular belief that a "tough-on-crime" approach makes prisons and communities safer, arguing instead for humane treatment and rehabilitation. Wading into the controversy about long-term solitary confinement, Clark draws from his own experience managing solitary-confinement units to continue the discussion begun by the headline-making Ashley Smith case and to join the chorus of voices calling for an end to the abuse of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons.

    What police found there was an incredible nightmare made real. Four young women had been held captive--some for four months--half-naked and chained. They had been tortured, starved, and repeatedly raped. But more grotesque discoveries lay in the kitchen: human limbs frozen, a torso burned to cinders, an empty pot suspiciously scorched...This is not a story for the faint-hearted. Cellar of Horror is a shocking true account of the self-proclaimed minister with a long history of mental illness, who preyed upon the susceptible and the retarded in a bizarre plan to create his own "baby factory." It is a macabre web spun around money, power, and religion, tangled with courtroom drama and lawyers' tactics, sure to send a chill into your very soul.

    He has confronted, interviewed and researched dozens of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, and James Earl Ray - for a landmark study to understand their motives. To get inside their minds. He is Special Agent John Douglas, the model for law enforcement legend Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris's thrillers Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, and the man who ushered in a new age in behavorial science and criminal profiling. Recently retired after twenty-five years of service, John Douglas can finally tell his unique and compelling story.

    But was he violent? In March 1976, Ted Bundy was convicted of the aggravated kidnapping of a young woman near Salt Lake City, Utah. Bundy had not been accused or convicted of any violent crime except this one. No one knew then how many women Bundy had murdered, and many thought him incapable of doing so.Dr Al Carlisle was part of the 90-Day Diagnostic team at the Utah State Prison when Bundy was sent there after the trial. Dr. Carlisle’s assignment was specific: Determine to the best of his ability, without being biased by any of the reports previously done, whether Ted Bundy had a violent personality. The judge would use this information in deciding whether Bundy should serve time or be released on probation.In Violent Mind: The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy, Dr Carlisle takes the reader step by step through this previously unpublished evaluation process, and shows how he concluded that Bundy had the capacity to commit aggravated kidnapping, and perhaps much worse.Many books have been written about Bundy, but rarely have we had the opportunity to understand the inner workings of his mind. Violent Mind contains never before seen interviews with Ted Bundy and those who knew him, including a letter Bundy wrote to Dr Carlisle that has been locked away for more than 40 years.

    This is the extraordinary true story of the most prolific serial killer the nation had ever seen -- a case involving more than forty-nine female victims, two decades of intense investigative work...and one unrelenting killer who not only attended Ann Rule's book signings but lived less than a mile away from her home.

    Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long eighteenth century,” from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.Any account of the Enlightenment must be in large part a history of ideas. But Robertson argues that it is not solely a philosophical movement; the Enlightenment saw the publication of the Encyclopédie, which is not only a historical and philosophical compendium, but also an illustrated guide to all sorts of contemporary machinery, handicrafts, and trades aimed to improve people’s lives in immediate and practical ways. Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against specific evils such as capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot with ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. Robertson gives due attention to philosophical and theological debates, but also looks to literature, music, and the visual arts as prominent means of conveying enlightenment ideas.In seeking to correct one-sided views of the Enlightenment, Robertson ultimately puts forward his own. He does not reduce this transformative period to a formula, but instead makes the claim that indeed the Enlightenment was an attempt to increase human happiness, and to claim that happiness was possible in this world, without needing any compensatory belief in a better one beyond the grave.

    Soon young Rodney followed in Dad's stumbling steps, beginning a lifetime of alcohol abuse.King had been drinking the night of March 3, 1991, when he engaged in a high-speed chase with the LAPD, who finally pulled him over. What happened next shocked the nation. A group of officers brutally beat King with their metal batons, Tasered and kicked him into submission--all caught on videotape by a nearby resident. The infamous Rodney King Incident was born when this first instance of citizen surveillance revealed a shocking moment of police brutality, a horrific scene that stunned and riveted the nation via the evening news. Racial tensions long smoldering in L.A. ignited into a firestorm thirteen months later when four white officers were acquitted by a mostly white jury. Los Angeles was engulfed in flames as people rioted in the streets. More than fifty people were dead, hundreds were hospitalized, and countless homes and businesses were destroyed.King's plaintive question, "Can we all just get along?" became a sincere but haunting plea for reconciliation that reflected the heartbreak and despair caused by America's racial discord in the early 1990s.While Rodney King is now an icon, he is by no means an angel. King has had run-ins with the law and continues a lifelong struggle with alcohol addiction. But King refuses to be bitter about the crippling emotional and physical damage that was inflicted upon him that night in 1991. While this nation has made strides during those twenty years to heal, so has Rodney King, and his inspiring story can teach us all lessons about forgiveness, redemption, and renewal, both as individuals and as a nation.

    Yet, David Wootton argues, from the fifth century BC until the 1930s, doctors actually did more harm than good. In this controversial new account of the history of medicine, he asks just how much good it has done us over the years, and how much harm it continues to do today.

    It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century. Although Holmes is just as famous now as he was in 1895, this deep analysis of contemporary materials makes clear how much of the previously known story came from reporters who were nowhere near the action, a dangerously unqualified new police chief, and lies invented by Holmes himself.