Modern Politics

What do aliens, dying planets, ancient pyramids, quantum weirdness, gender politics and sandal design have in common? They all find a place in this wildly entertaining exploration of the questions most of us think about but rarely say out loud. From the baffling to the brilliant, the hilarious to the haunting, Random Curiosities takes you on a freewheeling ride through the strange chaos of human thought. Broken down into essay style chapters on random ideas (that the author somehow manages to link!) relating to humanity and the world around us, this isn’t a book with neat answers.

"The Joyful Wisdom", written in 1882, just before "Zarathustra", is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the essentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen to light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth and kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty psychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is the creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life.

The modern understanding of what it means to be stoical is never showing any form of outward emotion regardless of all circumstances, good or bad, and indeed not having any emotions whatsoever. The entire species of the Vulcans in the popular science fiction franchise Star Trek exemplifies the popular definition. But it's easy to recognize an absence of outward emotion as not necessarily being a good thing.

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept - the mind - emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine but fully neither.

What is love? In poetry, songs, fiction, movies, psychology, and philosophy, love has been described, admired, lamented, and dissected in endless ways. Is love based on physical attraction? Does it bring out our better selves? How does it relate to sex? Is love divine? Plato's Symposium is one of the oldest, most influential, and most profound explorations of such questions—it is even the source of the idea of "Platonic love."

In Harry Potter and Philosophy, 17 philosophical experts unlock some of Hogwarts' secret panels and uncover surprising insights that are enlightening both for wizards and the most discerning muggles. You don't need a diploma in arithmacy, the friendship of a hippogriff, or even a Hogwarts Library card to discover amazing and arcane secrets in the labyrinthine world of Harry Potter.

Historian Doug Rossinow examines how the cooperation and the creative tension between left-wing radicals and liberal reformers advanced many of the most important political values of the 20th century, including free speech, freedom of conscience, and racial equality. Visions of Progress chronicles the broad alliances of radical and liberal figures who were driven by a particular concept of social progress - a transformative vision in which the country would become fundamentally more democratic.

Are you drowning in information but starving for truth? Fact-Finding in the Fake News Era is your practical, non-partisan roadmap for a world where facts and fiction blur. Within weeks, these evidence-based methods become second nature.

The Conservative Collection reinforces fundamental holdings of the Right. A strong, free, and thriving America requires us to value our founding principles and apply them in a modern world. Yet constant assaults on the very philosophies that birthed American exceptionalism jeopardize our sustained superiority. It therefore falls upon conservatives to reenergize, inform, and strengthen the citizenry with the truths and successes stemming from conservatism. We need a strong America, one which will continue to be the home of liberty and prosperity.

Two thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and children reportedly took their own lives rather than surrender to the Roman army. This dramatic event, which took place on top of Masada, a barren and windswept mountain overlooking the Dead Sea, spawned a powerful story of Jewish resistance that came to symbolize the embattled modern State of Israel. Jodi Magness, an archaeologist who has excavated at Masada, explains what happened there, how we know it, and how recent developments might change understandings of the story.

This book shares two true stories that show how medicine can change a person’s life in very different ways—and how the difference often comes down to whether someone is truly listened to. The first story is about a young child whose life took a sudden turn after a medical accident. Instead of finding ways to help him heal, doctors decided to follow their own idea about what would be “best,” without asking or giving him a choice. They changed his body and told his parents to raise him in a completely different identity. As he grew up, nothing felt right.

The good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity - a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of well-being and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life.

The mixed population is the fastest-growing group in the UK today, but the mainstream conversation around mixedness is stilted, repetitive and often problematic. At a time when ethnically ambiguous models fill our Instagram feeds and our high street shop windows, and when children of interracial relationships are lauded as heralding in the dawn of a post-racial utopia, journalist Natalie Morris takes a deep dive into what it really means to be mixed in Britain today.

Contained here in this volume are two of the most influential works of philosophy ever written, Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy.

Die liebliche Bestie Mensch verliert jedesmal, wie es scheint, die gute Laune, wenn sie gut denkt...

Francis I (1494-1547) was inconstant, amorous, hotheaded and flawed. Yet he was also arguably the most significant king that France ever had. This is his story. A contemporary of Henry VIII of England, Francis saw himself as the first Renaissance king, a man who was the exemplar of courtly and civilised behaviour throughout Europe. A courageous and heroic warrior, he was also a keen aesthete, an accomplished diplomat and an energetic ruler who turned his country into a force to be reckoned with.

「バーチャル世界」で格差を埋める人々が急増「パラサイト・シングル」「希望格差」「婚活」などの言葉を世に出した、稀代の社会学者による現代日本社会の実像私の分析は楽観的なものではない。

For a Dollar and a Dream shows how, in an era of stagnant upward mobility, millions of Americans turned to the lottery as their only chance at achieving the American Dream. Gamblers were not the only ones who bet on betting. As voters revolted against higher taxes in the late twentieth century, states saw legalized gambling as a panacea, a way of generating revenue without cutting services or raising taxes. Alongside stories of winners and losers, Jonathan Cohen charts the untold history of the nation's lottery system, revealing how players and policymakers alike got hooked.

On the morning of July 16, 1964, a white police officer in New York City shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell. Two nights later, a peaceful demonstration in Harlem degenerated into violent protests. During the next week, thousands of rioters looted stores from Brooklyn to Rochester and pelted police with bottles and rocks. Michael W. Flamm draws on personal interviews and delves into the archives to move briskly from the streets of New York, where black activists like Bayard Rustin tried in vain to restore peace, to the corridors of the White House.

The first definitive exploration of the changing role of the twenty-first-century First Lady, painting a comprehensive portrait of Jill Biden—from a White House correspondent for The New York Times.