Essays Social

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Through architecture, ceramics, theatre, food, women, and even toilets, Tanizaki explains the essence of shadows and darkness, and how they are able to augment beauty. He laments the heavy electric lighting of the West and its introduction to Japan, and shows how the artificial, bright, and polished aesthetic of the West contrasts unfavorably with the moody and natural light of the East.

Predicting society’s present addiction to technology, our challenges with data privacy, and the dramatic increase in drug overdoses and depression that have accompanied a technology-induced lack of purpose, The Unabomber’s vision of the future has become our reality. Of course, his means were disgusting and condemnable. But his message is more important than ever. If we want to thrive in an age where automation and artificial intelligence and rapidly making humans obsolete, it is our responsibility to understand and prepare for the technological machine we are up against.

As the 20th century was ending and the millennium approached, a new ethnic category was invented in the South. The Melungeons were born thrashing and squawling into the American consciousness. They were a tri-racial clan hidden away in the hills and hollers of Lower Appalachia with a genetic predisposition to six fingers and Mediterranean diseases and an unsavory reputation for moonshining, counterfeiting and secret cults.

Smart, humorous, and strikingly original essays by one of “America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time.” (Rebecca Traister) In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom - award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed - embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society.

A collection of essays that discusses such issues as the media, immigration, the minimum wage, and multiculturalism.

Between 1821 and 1826, the prolific writer and journalist William Cobbett travelled the countryside of the South of England on foot and horseback. Rural Rides is a fascinating account of his journeys, and depicts a way of life in transition, juxtaposing lyrical descriptions of the countryside with criticism of the poverty of agricultural workers. A man of radical politics who encouraged the rural rising of 1830, Cobbett went on to become MP for Oldham and sought to represent the interests of both industrial and agricultural workers. Above all, Rural Rides celebrates agrarian England.

Bar candidates are required to memorize massive quantities of law, frequently written by some of the the world's best authors—the justices of the United States Supreme Court. Mining the rule of law from complex decisions is no easy feat. Enter this audiobook, a concise, all-encompassing reference to the rules required for passing the bar exam. Sorted by essay topic, this book balances the listing all required elements and keeping it simple, with one goal in mind—compiling all of the necessary rules in a format that is easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to recall.

Laugh till you cry in this new collection of stories from the “Serena Williams of humor writing” (New York Times Book Review) about raising babies and trying to learn how not to be one. Called a “comedic Godsend” by Conan O’Brien, and “the Stephen King of comedy writing” by...

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.

Though best known now for his collection of lively and vivid Parallel Lives from ancient Greece and Rome, Plutarch (c46 CD-120 CE) was, for centuries, more respected for his Moralia, a remarkable and wide-ranging collection of essays and speeches. No fewer than 78 in total, they range over a broad list of topics in which Plutarch observes, dispenses wisdom, admonishes, entertains and informs: covering social issues and politics, manners and religion - in short, life in general.

For most of her youth and early adulthood, Tara Couture had a deep fear of death. When her mother left the house, Tara would beg her to stay, certain that death was right around the corner. As the threat loomed in her mind, distraction in its many forms became her only relief. In her twenties, determined to manifest her long-time dream of owning a farm, Tara worked alongside a cattleman, Richard, whose perspectives on life and death would come to transform her own.

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul". Together with "Nature", these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period.

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.

Intended to be a defense of the Christian religion, Pensées is a penetrating collection of thoughts on faith, reason, and theology. Unfinished at the time of Pascal's death, the book consists of philosophical fragments on the "wretchedness" of man and the controversial schisms of the church at the time. It includes the philosopher's infamous wager encouraging belief over agnosticism, as well as his thoughts on numerous other topics. Endlessly quotable, Pensées overflows with pearls of wisdom, each elusive sentence pregnant with a universe of thought.

This Leibniz collection contains some of the philosopher’s most important works and ideas, spans three decades and illuminates the fascinating intellectual journey undertaken by him in his quest for truth. A prodigious polymath, Leibniz was a mathematician, philosopher, physicist and statesman and engaged with a sweeping range of ideas and disciplines, striving throughout his life to be at the cutting edge of scientific thinking. These Principal Essays are arranged in chronological order.

Inside the Mind of a Visionary: Emerson’s Essays on Life, Nature, and the Human Spirit. Essays, First & Second Series is a collection that encapsulates Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vision of a life lived authentically, in harmony with one's deeper values and the natural world.

“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia.

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.

Thomas Sowell takes aim at a range of legal, social, racial, educational, and economic issues in this latest collection of his controversial, never boring, always thought-provoking essays. From "gun control myths" to "mealy mouth media" to "free lunch medicine," Sowell gets to the heart of the matters we all care about with his characteristically unsparing candor.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and civil servant, made a nine-month journey through the eastern United States. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s evolving politics. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America.