Commentary Philosophy

The remarkable stories of the world's most famous body parts. All too often, historical figures feel distant and abstract; more myth and legend than real flesh and blood. These stories of bodies and its parts remind us that history's most-loved, and most-hated, were real breathing creatures who inhabited organs and limbs just like us - until they're cut off that is. Medical historian Dr Suzie Edge investigates over 40 cases of how we've used, abused, dug up, displayed, experimented on, and worshipped body parts.

Written between A.D. 413 and 426, The City of God is one of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian thought, a book which is vital to the understanding of modern Western society. Augustine originally intended it to be an apology for Christianity against the accusation that the Church was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire, which had occurred just three years earlier. Indeed, Augustine produced a great amount of evidence to prove that paganism was responsible for this event. However, by the time the work was finished, the book had taken on a larger theme.

Quel que soit le domaine - famille, travail, relations internationales -, et que nous en soyons conscients ou non, nous devons négocier. Or, trop souvent encore, les différents sont "réglés" à l'issue d'une épreuve de force. Résultat, en instaurant un vainqueur et un vaincu, on crée des risques de nouveaux conflits : l'actualité nous en apporte tous les jours des exemples criants.

Early studies of the human brain used a simple method: Wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infectious diseases, horrendous accidents - and see how victims coped. In many cases their survival was miraculous, if puzzling. Observers were amazed by the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed, altering victims' personalities. With the lucid, masterful explanations and razor-sharp wit his fans have come to expect, Kean explores the brain's secret passageways.

Learn to release gifts and talents you never knew you had and how to use them to become hugely successful, happy, and even wealthy. Discover how it is your daily standards and authenticity that determine your success or failure with your goals.

Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the listener a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith; rather, one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

A New York Times Bestseller The world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international...

World Religion as a Context for Our Diversity is a collection of “oral essays” by Dr. Marc Gafni that offers a new “Story of Value” in response to the collapse of a shared global ethos. In many ways, we must reclaim religion as part of this story—not a return to traditional forms of religion but a shared Story of Value as a context for our diversity. At the core of world religion is a universal grammar of value. This grammar of value writes the chapters of a new Story of Value, not as mere conjecture or a constructed narrative, but as a story rooted in the value structure of Reality itself.

In recent years, the theological—and, more specifically, Roman Catholic—question of the supernatural has made an astonishing return from seeming oblivion. David Bentley Hart's You Are Gods presents a series of meditations on the vexed theological question of the relation of nature and supernature. In its merely controversial aspect, the book is intended most directly as a rejection of a certain Thomistic construal of that relation, as well as an argument in favor of a model of nature and supernature at once more Eastern and patristic.

Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

In Commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther expounds Paul's epistle with an insight, power, and depth of emotion which is sorely lacking in modern commentaries. From the very first minute of this book, Luther cuts to the heart of the epistle - the doctrine of justification - in the way that only he can. His bold words and plain-sense interpretations result in a work filled with much of the same force and passion that characterized the epistle itself.

The Mengzi is one of the very greatest works of world literature and philosophy, and it is perhaps the single most influential Confucian text of all time. Of all the Confucian classics, it is also the one most likely to speak to a contemporary audience. The Mengzi contains the dialogues, debates and sayings of Mengzi, a Confucian sage of the fourth century BCE. (He is also known by the Latinization of his name, 'Mencius'.)

For listeners who dream of travel, yearn to get back out on the road, or want to enrich a journey they’re currently on, The Vagabond’s Way explores and celebrates the life-altering essence of travel all year long. Each day of the year features a meditation on an aspect of the journey, anchored by words of wisdom from a variety of thinkers—from Stoic philosopher Seneca and poet Maya Angelou to Trappist monk Thomas Merton and Grover from Sesame Street.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ""Great playwright and filmmaker, DAVID MAMET, just wrote an incredible new book, The Disenlightenment, Politics, Horror, and Entertainment. David is a special man and talent. Get his book, NOW!"" — President Donald Trump One of America's greatest living...

In A Trackless Path renowned translator and teacher Ken McLeod offers a beautiful and evocative translation and commentary of one of the many poems that the 18th century Tibetan mystic Jigmé Lingpa wrote on the practice of Dzogchen, one of the great wisdom traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. McLeod makes this ancient poem relevant and accessible to today's seeker.

Introducing the Fellig edition of Shaar Habitachon (Gate of Trust) from Chovot Halevavot (Duties of the Heart)—the classical and timeless work authored by the eleventh-century Spanish scholar Rabbeinu Bachya ibn Pekuda. Published by Kehot Publication Society in partnership with Chayenu, this exciting new book features the Hebrew text with a new English translation, classical commentary, a fresh infusion of Chasidic and mystical teachings, and bottom line takeaways to help guide the listener.

In 1953, a 27-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison - who suffered from severe epilepsy - received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry’s seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next 60 years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today.

Oxford mathematician and author John Lennox takes a closer look at Hawking's logic regarding what brought the universe into being. In lively, layman's terms, Lennox guides us through the key points in Hawking's arguments - with clear explanations of the latest scientific and philosophical methods and theories - and demonstrates that far from disproving a creator God, they make his existence seem all the more probable.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.