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Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

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Guide to  reviewed titles featured on this page, grouped by themes:

Recent Selected Reviews: 2010

  1. Photographing Fashion by Richard Lester (Antique Collectors' Club, Ltd) For almost forty years, one of Britain's most important photographic archives has remained unseen. Commissioned for the Sunday Times under the legendary editorship of Ernestine Carter, the hundreds of images include some of the finest photo-shoots of the sixties. More

  2. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino Volume 8  by Marsilio Ficino, edited, translated by Clement Salaman (Shepheard-Walwyn)

    This volume casts a new light on Marsilio Ficino, an extraordinary Renaissance man. Sometimes he has been thought of as an ivory-tower philosopher, who retired from the hurly-burly of life to contemplate God in the seclusion of his academy. It is true that he was a man of devotion; but when the need was there he could be a highly effective man of action. We see him using his significant influence in Florence and beyond to defend his philosophy against opposition from the Church. In this he was successful.

    The collected letters were first printed in Venice in 1495. This may have been because the fundamentalist priest Savonarola and the party opposed to the Medici, Ficino's patrons, were then powerful in Florence - Lorenzo's son and heir, Piero, had been expelled the previous year. Some material that would have been in this book on chronological grounds may also have been excluded for the same reason. This material has been included here in the Appendix together with some letters to Ficino and prefaces added to his work published at this time. More

  3. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience by Patrick McNamara (Cambridge University Press) Recent technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionized our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in psychology and anthropology posit evolutionary explanations for the ubiquity and persistence of religious beliefs and the reports of religious experiences across human cultures, while gesturing toward physical bases for these behaviors. What is missing from this literature is a strong voice speaking to these behavioral and social scientists - as well as to the intellectually curious in the religious studies community - from the perspective of a brain scientist. More

  4. Athanasius Kirchers Theatre of the World: The Life and Work of the Last Man to Search for Universal Knowledge by Joscelyn Godwin (Inner Traditions) Linguist, archaeologist, and exceptional scholar, Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was the last true Renaissance man.  By profession a Jesuit priest, he made himself an authority on almost every subject under the sun.  To Kircher the entire world was a glorious manifestation of God, and his exploration was both a scientific quest and a religious experience.  His works on Egyptology (he is credited with being the first Egyptologist), music, optics, magnetism, geology, and comparative religion were the definitive tests of their time--and yet they represent only a part of his vast range of knowledge.  A Christian Hermeticist in the mold of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, his work also examined alchemy, the Kabbalah, and the Egyptian Mystery tradition exemplified by Hermes Trismegistus.  Kircher was the first to map ocean currents; the first to offer a comprehensive theory of vulcanism; the first to compile an encyclopedia on China, a dictionary of Coptic, a book dedicated solely to acoustics; the first to construct a machine for coding messages and another for composing music.  His museum in Rome was among the most famous "cabinets of curiosities," visited by everybody in the intellectual world. More

  5. Handbook of Optics Third Edition, 5 Volume Set by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional) The most comprehensive and up-to-date optics resource available

    Prepared under the auspices of the Optical Society of America, the five carefully architected and cross-referenced volumes of the Handbook of Optics, Third Edition, contain everything a student, scientist, or engineer requires to actively work in the field. From the design of complex optical systems to world-class research and development methods, this definitive publication provides unparalleled access to the fundamentals of the discipline and its greatest minds.

    Individual chapters are written by the world's most renowned experts who explain, illustrate, and solve the entire field of optics. Each volume contains a complete chapter listing for the entire Handbook, extensive chapter glossaries, and a wealth of references. This pioneering work offers unprecedented coverage of optics data, techniques, and applications.

    • Volume I covers geometrical and physical optics, polarized light, components, and instruments.
    • Volume II covers design, fabrications, testing, sources, detectors, radiometry, and photometry.
    • Volume III, all in full color, covers vision and vision optics.
    • Volume IV covers optical properties of materials, nonlinear optics, and quantum optics.
    • Volume V covers atmospheric optics, modulators, fiber optics, and x-ray and neutron optics.
      more

  6. The Orpehus Myth and the Powers of Music by Vladimir Marchenkov (Interplay: Music in Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Pendragon) examines the key turning points in the history of the Orpheus myth as factors that shaped, and continues to shape, our conceptions of music's powers. From its beginnings in archaic Antiquity to the latest major opera based on it, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been used by poets, philosophers, and musicians to express an increasingly complex set of ideas about what music can do. The study follows three threads in the myth's history: changes in form, cultural status, and the resulting visions of the powers of song.
    The most spectacular change in form is the role played by Eurydice who evolves from a generic, voiceless type into a rich music-philosophical symbol. Equally fascinating is the entangled issue of Orpheus's success and failure. In terms of cultural status, the story remains a genuine myth—even alongside its non-mythical forms—until the early modern period. Modernity problematizes the existence of myth but its mythophobia becomes a symptom of its own profound irrationality. Accordingly, the powers of music evolve from mythic omnipotence to screaming contradictions that demand, but fail to achieve, resolution. From Monteverdi and Striggio-to Birtwistle and Zinovieff, composers and librettists turn to Orpheus and Eurydice to express their sense of music's place in human existence. The undulating tapestry of their strikingly diverse answers points to the need to rethink, once again, the fundamentals of our musical culture.     More

  7. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume I: The Middle Ages through The Eighteenth Century Fourth Edition, edited by David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar (Pearson Education)
    Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume II, The Romantics to the 20th Century and Beyond Fourth Edition, edited by David Damrosch, Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Christopher Baswell, and Clare Carroll (Pearson Education) With its first edition, The Longman Anthology of British Literature created a new paradigm for anthologies. Responding to major shifts in literary studies over the past thirty years, it became the first collection to pay detailed attention to the contexts within which these classic works of British literature were created and to highlight the full cultural diversity of the British isles. For the first time, canonical authors mingled with newly visible writers; English accents were heard next to Anglo-Norman, Welsh, and Scottish ones; female and male voices were set in dialogue; literature from the British Isles was integrated with post-colonial writing; and major works were complemented with shorter pieces and "perspectives" groupings that brought literary, social, cultural, and historical issues vividly to life. More

  8. The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon: From an Original Talismanic Grimoire in Full Color by Ebenezer Sibley and Frederick Hockley by Joseph H Peterson (Ibis) The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon is one of several notebooks from the estate of Ebenezer Sibley, transcribed under the direction of Frederic Hockley (1808-1885). Sibley was a prominent physician and an influential author, who complemented his scientific studies with writings on the “deeper truths” including magic, astrology, alchemy, and hypnotherapy. Both Sibley and Hockley were major inspirations in the occult revival of the past two centuries, influencing A.E. Waite, S.L. Mathers, Aleister Crowley, as well as the Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian, and Masonic movements. This collection reflects Sibley’s teachings on the practical use of celestial influences and harmonies. The Clavis contains clear and systematic instructions for constructing magical tools and pentacles for many practical purposes. It includes eight separate magical texts: The Mysterious Ring, Experiments of the Spirits, Birto, Vassago, Agares, Bealpharos, The Wheel of Wisdom, and the Complete Book of Magic Science. The manuscript reproduced here is the most accurate and complete known, very beautifully and carefully written complete with extraordinary hand-colored seals and colored handwritten text. 282 color pages with a color fold-out and a huge index. More

  9. William Blake and Religion: A New Critical View by Magnus Ankarsjö (McFarland) Over the last ten years the field of Blake studies has profited from new discoveries about Blake's life and work. This book examines the effect that Blake's mother's recently discovered Moravianism has had on our understanding of his poetry, and gives special attention to Moravianism and Swedenborgianism and their relation to his sexual politics. This is accomplished by a close reading of Blake's poetry, which examines in detail the subjects of religion, sex, and the attempted colonization of Africa by a Swedenborgian utopian group. More

    Blake’s Margins: An Interpretive Study of the Annotations by Hazard Adam (McFarland) Known for his prophetic and imaginative works of poetry, painting, and printmaking, William Blake was also a prolific reader and annotator of other writers' works. This is the first work of criticism to consider Blake's annotations in their entirety, and it covers such topics as art, poetry, theology, madness and philosophy, as well as the authors Lavater, Swedenborg, Bacon, Spurzheim, Berkeley, and Wordsworth, among others. More

  10. Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah by Brian Ogren (Studies in Jewish History and Culture: Brill Academic) Metempsychosis was a prominent element in Renaissance conceptualizations of the human being, the universe, and the place of the human person in the universe. A variety concepts emerged in debates about metempsychosis: human to human reincarnation, human to vegetal, human to animal, and human to angelic transmigration. As a complex and changing doctrine, metempsychosis gives us a well-placed window for viewing the complex and dynamic contours of Jewish thought in late fifteenth century Italy; as such, it enables us to evaluate Jewish thought in relation to non-Jewish Italian developments. This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish and its Christian dimensions. More

  11. The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor: The Trickster as Interpreter by Ruthann Knechel Johansen (University Alabama Press) "Johansen... goes a long way toward unlocking the diverse strategies employed by O'Connor. Her thoroughgoing knowledge of O'Connor's work is always impressive. It's a lively time for O'Conner criticism, and Johansen is certainly one of O'Connor's more lively readers." - South Atlantic Review "I recommend the book to readers interested in the trickster, and those who know and love O'Connor's fiction enough to relish new insights.... Johansen has earned her place in the ranks of those who continue to delight in O'Connor's fiction, to delight in attempts to explain its power over us, and to take pleasure in the certainty that her fiction will continue to elude our explanations." - Text and Performance Quarterly
    Examines the structural elements and narrative methods Flannery O'Connor employs "to create her fictional landscape." Focuses on her use of the archetypal trickster as "a likely guide through [her] landscape and interpreter of her narrative secret."  More

  12. One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet  by Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa and Derek F. Maher (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library: Brill Academic Publishers) DRAWING ON A VAST ARRAY OF HISTORICAL AND biographical sources, this volume elaborates Tibetan political history, arguing that Tibet has long been an independent nation, and that the 195o incursion by the Chinese was an invasion of a sovereign country. The author situates Tibet's relations with a series of Chinese, Manchurian, and Mongolian empires in terms of the preceptor-patron relationship, an essentially religious connection in which Tibetan religious figures offered spiritual instruction to the contemporaneous emperor or other militarily powerful figure in exchange for protection and religious patronage. Simultaneously, this volume serves as an introduction to many aspects of Tibetan culture, society, and especially religion. The book includes a compendium of biographies of the most significant figures in Tibet's past. More

  13. Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an As Literature and Culture  by Roberta Sterman Sabbath (Biblical Interpretation Series: Brill Academic) Contemporary sacred text scholarship has been stimulated by a number of intersecting trends: a surging interest in religion, sacred texts, and inspirational issues; burgeoning developments in and applications of literary theories; intensifying academic focus on diverse cultures whether for education or scholarship. Although much has been written individually about Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an, no collection combines an examination of all three. Sacred Tropes interweaves Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an essays. Contributors collectively and also often individually use mixed literary approaches instead of the older single theory strategy. Appropriate for classroom or research, the essays utilize a variety of literary theoretical lenses including environmental, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalytic, ideological, economic, historicism, law, and rhetorical criticisms through which to examine these sacred works. More

  14. I Ching: The Symbolic Life by Stephen Karcher PhD. (BookSurge) By far the most user friendly intuitive adaptation of this ancient oracle to the functions of divination rather than the museum of past cultures. Karcher has worked with this book some intimately that the poetic liberties  he takes with the Chinese letter will well substantiated by the spirit of the oracle itself.  Of the many editions available this one is easy to use and likely to bring one into the dao of its message.

    I Ching or the Classic of Change is the world's oldest and most sophisticated system of wisdom divination, source of much of the east's philosophy and culture. It focuses on the part the individual plays in change and transformation. When we experience ourselves as a victim of the changes in our lives and our world, we feel isolated, frightened and angry. When we become a part of the deep dialogue Change represents, we feel connected to the basic creative energy that shapes the world we live in, living in accord with the Way or Dao. I Ching: The Symbolic Life gives you direct access to this dialogue through the myth and ritual world Change uses to model the course of the Symbolic Life. Developed through many years of scholarship and research and grounded in practical use, it can make Change a part of your daily life. It explains and presents the age-old symbols of I Ching in a step by step way that lets you use the images directly and intuitively. You do not really learn something, you experience something that is capable of working a profound transformation of your thought.

    Stephen Karcher, Ph.D., is one of today's most creative and controversial writers I and practitioners in the field of Yijing studies, divination and myth. He is an internationally recognized scholar, translator and initiated diviner, teaching and lecturing on the Yijing and other divination systems in the US, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland and South Africa. As Research Director of the Eranos Foundation in Ascona, Switzerland (1988-1996), he pioneered a depth psychological approach to divination. A prolific author, he has published many books and articles in the field of comparative mythology, divination, depth psychology and religious experience. He "liberates meanings ... that have been missing from our understanding for a couple of thousand years ... revealing a whole new landscape of interpretation that makes previous translations feel cramped by comparison." Stephen lives in Ojai, California. More

  15. A History of the Book in America: Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America edited by David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, MIchael Schudson, David D. Hall (The University of North Carolina Press) The fifth volume of A History of the Book in America addresses the economic, social, and cultural shifts affecting print culture from World War II to the present. During this period factors such as the expansion of government, the growth of higher education, the climate of the Cold War, globalization, and the development of multimedia and digital technologies influenced the patterns of consolidation and diversification established earlier.
    The thirty-three contributors to the volume explore the evolution of the publishing industry and the business of bookselling. The histories of government publishing, law and policy, the periodical press, literary criticism, and reading--in settings such as schools, libraries, book clubs, self-help programs, and collectors' societies--receive imaginative scrutiny as well. The Enduring Book demonstrates that the corporate consolidations of the last half-century have left space for the independent publisher, that multiplicity continues to define American print culture, and that even in the digital age, the book endures.  More

  16. The Tao of Wu by The RZA (Riverside) The RZA is hip-hop's resident genius and philosopher king, a singular artist who refuses to be defined only by the genre of music that he himself revolutionized, both musically and commercially. The Tao of Wu , his second book, tells the story of his rise from the projects of Staten Island to hip-hop megastar, and offers up the wisdom he built up along the way. In an entertaining and elucidating blend of hip-hop lyrics, parables, meditations, and urban experiences, the book spells out a spiritual code that draws from Buddhism, the Bible, Bruce Lee, and Krishna, all refracted through his unique life experiences. Presented as a series of lessons, The Tao of Wu  is a spiritual memoir such as the world has never seen before, and will surely never see again—and one that is all the more inspiring for its genuine and abiding wisdom. More

  17. Expectations of the End: A Comparative Traditio-Historical Study of Eschatological, Apocalyptic and Messianic Ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament by Albert L. A. Hogeterpon (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah: Brill Academic Publishers)  Since a fuller range of Qumran sectarian and not clearly sectarian texts and recensions has recently become available to us, its implications for the comparative study of eschatological, apocalyptic and messianic ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament need to be explored anew. 'This book situates eschatological ideas in Qumran literature between biblical tradition and developments in late Second Temple Judaism and examines how the Qumran evidence on eschatology, resurrection, apocalypticism, and messianism illuminates Palestinian, Jewish settings of emerging Christianity. The present study challenges previous dichotomies between realized and futuristic eschatology, wisdom and apocalypticism and provides many new insights into intra-Jewish dimensions to eschatological ideas in Palestinian Judaism and in the early Jesus-movement. More

  18. Tradition and Modernity by Chen Lai, translated by Edmund Ryden (Brill's Humanities in China Library Volume 3: Brill Academic Publishers) The question for twentieth-century China has been the integration of tradition and modernity. In this collection of essays written over a period of twenty years (1987-2006), Chen Lai reflects on the question in an informative and original way. He reads behind the political slogans and engages with the thought both of Max Weber, Talcott Parsons, and western sociology, and representative Chinese thinkers, notably Feng Youlan and Liang Shuming. While the focus is on China, the book also appeals to anyone interested in this fascinating question of how to modernize whilst retaining the positive values of tradition. Chen Lai's unique and balanced grasp of society marks him out as the foremost thinker in China on this topic today. More

  19. Theophany: The Appearing of God According to the Writings of Johannes Scottus Eriugena by Hilary Anne-Marie Mooney (Beitrage Zur Historischen Theologie, 146: Mohr Siebeck) Hilary Anne-Marie Mooney's study is based on the new critical edition of Eriugena's Periphyseon and analyzes Eriugena as a biblically rooted theologian. The author presents the notion of "theophany", the appearing of God, as the key to understanding Eriugena's system as a whole. The theophanic structure inherent in all Eriugena's accounts of divine revealing possesses an impressive coherence.  She focuses on the creative impulses which he draws from Scripture and she investigates the influence of theological and philosophical thinkers of the first six Christian centuries on Eriugena. The author considers those passages of Eriugena's writings in which the precise term `theophany' is used as well as other passages in which the term does not occur but which are nonetheless imbued with the 'notion' of a theophanic appearing of God. In her study the author maintains that a theophanic structure characterized by four recurring facets may be unearthed in Eriugena's theology of the revealing of God. More

  20. HdO Early Chinese Religion: Shang Through Han (1250 BC-220 AD) edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section Four, China: Brill Academic Publishers) Together, and for the first time in any language, the 24 essays gathered in these volumes provide a composite picture of the history of religion in ancient China from the emergence of writing ca. 125o BC to the collapse of the first major imperial dynasty in 220 AD. It is a multifaceted tale of changing gods and rituals that includes the
    emergence of a form of "secular humanism" that doubts the existence of the gods and the efficacy of ritual and of an imperial orthodoxy that founds its legitimacy on a distinction between licit and illicit sacrifices. Written by specialists in a variety of disciplines, the essays cover such subjects as divination and cosmology, exorcism and medicine, ethics and self-cultivation, mythology, taboos, sacrifice, shamanism, burial practices, iconography and political philosophy.
    Produced under the aegis of the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations chinos, japonaise et tibétaine (UMR
    8155) and the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris). More

  21. The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss by Steven B. Smith (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)  The essays contained in this volume attempt to canvass the wide range of Strauss's interests. Although Strauss's writings typically took the form of the commentary — a form to which he gave very high philosophical expression — I have preferred to avoid reprising his often dense and detailed interpretations of specific figures within the tradition (Plato, Maimonides, Hobbes, Nietzsche) and to focus instead on the general themes or problems that these writings are intended to illustrate. I believe this approach follows Strauss's own method that always regarded his case studies in the history of ideas as the best means of stimulating awareness of the "fundamental" or "permanent" problems of philosophy. This approach should give readers a sense of the scope and breadth of the problems that Strauss felt it important to address. More

  22. The Cultures of Maimonideanism: New Approaches to the History of Jewish Thought  by James T. Robinson(Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy: Brill Academic) In the history of Jewish thought, no individual scholar has exercised more influence than Maimonides (1138-1204)—philosopher and physician, legal scholar and communal leader. This collection of papers, originating at the 2007 EAJS colloquium, places primary emphasis on this influence—not on Maimonides himself, but on the many movements he inspired. Using Maimonideanism as an interpretive lens, the authors of this volume—representing a variety of fields and disciplines—develop new approaches to and fresh perspectives on the peculiar dynamic of Judaism and philosophy. Focusing on social and cultural processes as well as philosophical ideas and arguments, they point toward an original reconceptualization of Jewish thought.

    James T. Robinson, Ph.D. (2002) in Near Eastern Language and Civilizations, Harvard University, is assistant professor of the History of Judaism at the University of Chicago, The Divinity School. He has written extensively on medieval Jewish philosophy and exegesis, including Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes: The Book of the Soul of Man  by James T. Robinson (Texts & Studies in Medieval & Early Modern Judaism: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). More

  23. Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong kha pa by Thomas Cattoi (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 7: Gorgias Press) [978-1-59333-970-8] The purpose of this work is to explore the points of contact, as well as the differences, between the distinct notions of divine embodiment developed by Maximos the Confessor (580-662), one of the greatest Greek Fathers, and Tsong kha pa (1357-1419), perhaps the most important thinker in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. Both authors develop a spiritual theology where natural contemplation and the practice of the virtues are invested with a transformative value and are construed as a response to a cosmic intelligence, which sustains the universe, but also becomes manifest in history. The Christocentric vision of Maximos, which refines and completes the Chalcedonian paradigm, and the Buddhological reflection of Tsong kha pa, which compounds centuries of Mahayana speculation on the Buddha bodies, share an appreciation for the propedeutic value of the created order, in all its variety and difference. At the same time, the two systems rest on divergent presuppositions as to the ontological nature of the cosmos and the ultimate value of individual identity.  More

  24. Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide by James R. Lewis and Sarah M. Lewis ( Cambridge University Press) Schism (from the Greek "to split") refers to a group that breaks away from another, usually larger organization and forms a new organization. Though the term is typically confined to religious schisms, it can be extended to other kinds of breakaway groups. Because schisms emerge out of controversies, the term has negative connotations. Though they are an important component of many analyses, schisms in general have not been subjected to systematic analysis.
    This volume provides the first book-length study of religious schisms as a general phenomenon. Some chapters examine specific case studies while others provide surveys of the history of schisms within larger religious traditions, such as Islam and Buddhism. Other chapters are more theoretically focused. Examples are drawn from a wide variety of different traditions and geographical areas, from early Mediterranean Christianity to modern Japanese new religions, and from the Jehovah's Witnesses to Neopagans.     More

  25. Ibn Arabî - Time and Cosmology by Mohamed Haj Yousef (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East: Routledge) is the first comprehensive attempt to explain Ibn ‘Arabî’s distinctive view of time and its role in the process of creating the cosmos and its relation with the Creator. By comparing this original view with modern theories of physics and cosmology, Mohamed Haj Yousef constructs a new cosmological model that may deepen and extend our understanding of the world, while potentially solving some of the drawbacks in the current models such as the historical Zeno's paradoxes of motion and the recent Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (EPR) that underlines the discrepancies between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. More

  26. Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 6 volumes by Pierre F. Tiako (Premier Reference Source:Information Science Reference) Numerous technological advancements have overwhelmingly redesigned and improved countless aspects of computer software applications, creating tools and functions that greatly benefit its users.

    Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 6 volumescontains an impressive collection of over 30o authoritative contributions from top influential experts in the field of software applications. This six-volume compilation includes articles by over 40o prominent international scholars in topic areas such as autonomic computing, operating system architectures, and open source software technologies and applications. Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications presents libraries with an excellent addition to their academic collection. More
  27. Late Antique Epistemology: Other Ways to Truth edited by Stephen Clark, Panayiota Vassilopoulou (Palgrave Macmillan)  explores the techniques used by late antique philosophers to discuss truth. Non-rational ways to discover truth, or to  reform the soul, have usually been thought inferior to the philosophically approved techniques of rational argument, suitable for the less philosophically inclined, for children, savages or the uneducated. Religious rituals, oracles, erotic passion, madness may all have served to waken courage or remind us of realities obscured by everyday concerns. What is unusual in the late antique classical philosophers is that these techniques were reckoned as reliable as reasoned argument, or better still. Late twentieth century commentators have offered psychological explanations of this turn, but only recently has it been accepted that there might also have been philosophical explanations, and that the later antique philosophers were not necessarily deluded. More
  28. Max Weber by Joachim Radkau (Polity) Max Weber (1864-1920) is recognized throughout the world as the most important classic thinker in the social sciences — there is simply no one else who has been more influential. The affinity between capitalism and Protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world, the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalization and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as offsprings of leadership, the 'disenchantment' of the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism: all these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber's thinking.
    When Joachim Radkau's biography appeared in Germany in 2005 it caused a sensation. Based on an abundance of previously unknown sources and richly embedded in the German history of the time, this is the first fully comprehensive biography of Max Weber ever to appear. Radkau brings out, in a way that no one has ever done before, the intimate interrelations between Weber's thought and his life experience. He presents detailed revelations about the great enigmas of Weber's life: his suffering and erotic experiences, his fears and his desires, his creative power and his methods of work, as well as his religious experience and his relation to nature and to death. By understanding the great drama of his life, we discover a new Max Weber, until now unknown in many respects, and, at the same time, we gain a new appreciation of his work.
    This book will become the standard work on the life of Max Weber. It will be indispensable to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and will appeal to a wide readership interested in knowing more about the life of one of the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century. More

Art

Photographing Fashion by Richard Lester (Antique Collectors' Club, Ltd) For almost forty years, one of Britain's most important photographic archives has remained unseen. Commissioned for the Sunday Times under the legendary editorship of Ernestine Carter, the hundreds of images include some of the finest photo-shoots of the sixties. More

Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Vol. 1 by Jan Tholenaar, Alston W. Purvis, and Cees De Jong (Taschen)

Type-Vol.2: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles by Alston W Purvis, Cees De Jong, (Taschen) (Second volume not seen) offers a novel overview of typeface design, exploring the most beautiful and remarkable examples of font catalogs from the history of publishing, with a special emphasis on the period from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, when color catalogs were at their height. Taken from a Dutch collection, this exuberant selection traverses the evolution of the printed letter in all its various incarnations via exquisitely designed catalogs displaying not only type specimens in roman, italic, bold, semi-bold, narrow, and broad, but also characters, borders, ornaments, initial letters and decorations as well as often spectacular examples of the use of the letters. The Victorian fonts, sumptuous and sometimes unbelievably outrageous, are accorded a prominent place in this book. In addition to lead letters, examples from lithography and letters by window-dressers, inscription carvers, and calligraphers are also displayed and described. Featuring works by type designers including: William Caslon, Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Eric Gill, Jan van Krimpen, Paul Renner, Jan Tschichold, A. M. Cassandre, Aldo Novarese, Adrian Frutiger. More

Peter Greenaway: Leonardo's Last Supper (Italian/ English Edition) by Peter Greenaway, Franco Laera (Charta/Change Performing Arts) Since 2006, iconoclastic British filmmaker Peter Greenaway has been engaged in a project to reinvigorate some of the most iconic paintings in the history of art in an attempt to get people to look at them again in a new way. Using audio and projectors, Greenaway barrages the selected paintings with imagery, cinema, poetry and special effects. More View pdf sample pages

On the Human Being: International Photography: 1900-1950 / De Lo Humano Fotografia Internacional, 1900-1950 edited by Ute Eskildsen, essays by Florian Ebner, Ramon Esparza, Christiane Kuhlmann, and Sofia Diez (Turner; Bilingual edition) Featuring work by Cecil Beaton, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Avedon, Man Ray, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko and dozens more of the most outstanding photographers of the twentieth century, this deluxe set is broken into two volumes, each sold separately, that jointly analyze photography as an artistic medium from 1900 to 2000-paying particular attention to the myriad ways that human beings have been portrayed across the years. The first volume collects 114 black-and-white images by the leading photographers and avant-garde artists of the era spanning from 1900-1950. The second features 100 more images, also in black-and-white, that span from 1950-2000. Both volumes are edited by the renowned curator and scholar of historical photography, Ute Eskildsen, who has directed the development of the Photographic Department at the Museum Folkwang, Essen since 1979.

On the Human Being International Photography, 1950-2000 / De Lo Humano Fotografia Internacional, 1950-2000 edited by Ute Eskildsen and Alberto Martin (Turner; Bilingual edition) In his study of photography and the unconscious, Serge Tisseron quotes the following sentence from Walter Benjamin's "Short History of Photography": "At the beginning of photography, no one dared to look at the faces on the plate for too long. They thought those faces were also able to see them." Tisseron goes on to wonder whether we have ever really overcome that illusion. Implicit in this question is the inevitable existence in every portrait photo of a close and powerful bond between the viewer and the subject or subjects appearing therein. This offers a fine definition of the importance, persistence and evolution of that photographic genre over time. That evolution is also largely influenced by a third element that plays a fundamental role in the determinant set of transfers occurring in every portrait: the artist, with his positions and strategies. Portraiture—perhaps photography's epitomic genre—is built on the basis of multiple dialogs between photographer and model, photographer and viewer; and model and viewer. And if there is a period in which the implications and consequences of these complex relations were pushed to the limit, it is the second half of the twentieth century. This is especially evident in photographers" conscious attitude toward their capacity to influence this play of transactions, thus modifying and questioning established roles. More

Interludes and Early Modern Society: Studies in Gender, Power and Theatricality edited by Peter Happé, Wim Hüsken (Ludus: Rodopi)  The essays in this collection, contributed by an internationally distinguished group of scholars, bring up to date many aspects of the criticism of the English Interludes. The development of these plays was a significant part of the history of the growth of English drama in the sixteenth century to the extent that they may be regarded as its main stream. Arising by means of a felicitous combination of the development of printing and the growth of a professional theatre, plays of this type quickly became a forum for the presentation and exploration of many contemporary themes. They became a useful means of disseminating a wide variety of opinions and public concerns as well as exhibiting at times the intellectual brilliance of the Renaissance. The essays here are concentrated upon power, particularly in its religious and political aspects, gender and theatricality. The political and religious upheavals of the Reformation under the Tudor monarchy form a background as well as a focus at times. In particular the position of women in sixteenth-century society is examined in essays on several plays. There is also discussion of the development of theatrical techniques as playwrights worked closely with small acting companies to reach a wide audience ranging from the royal court to the common streets. This was achieved, as a number of essays make clear, through a variety of entertaining theatrical devices. More

New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts for the Digital Age by Steven Heller (Watson-Guptill) Retro is the new modern. And nowhere is that fact more evident than in typography, which today uses vintage type in ads, book and magazine design, movies, and everywhere words convey meaning. Viewers may not even realize that the type itself conveys mood, information, and a sense of style, but graphic designers know the power of vintage type. Now the world’s foremost historian of graphic design presents New Vintage Type, a remarkable rethinking and rediscovery of old and classic typefaces for today’s modern needs. Hundreds of amazing, astounding, and obscure examples from around the world are gathered here, organized into five historically and stylistically grouped sections: the Victorian Age, the Woodtype Era, Art Deco Style, Modern Movement, and the Eccentric Movement. With hundreds of lively and one-of-a-kind examples, plus informed, intriguing text, New Vintage Type is the graphic designer’s guide to choosing and using vintage type for maximum impact. More

Manet, Baudelaire and Photography Book 1 & Manet, Baudelaire and Photography Book 2 by Larry Leroy Ligo (Edwin Mellen Press) Professor Ligo s defense and illustration of his claim that Manet s work represents an intelligent and active attempt to embody the modernist aesthetic of his friend, the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire, makes for absorbing reading. Well aware of the many reasons why Baudelaire may not have been either willing or able to write a full-length essay on Manet in the years 1863-1866 when he knew him best (hard years for Baudelaire, who would die in 1867 and who had lived in Brussels since 1864, in a desperate search for funds and publishers), Professor Ligo fills in the background details both on the friendship between the two men and the artistic life of the times. There are fascinating parallels between specific works by the two artists (Baudelaire’s essay on Wagner s "Tannhauser", for instance, seen in tandem with Manet s "D’jeuner sur l herbe" and particularly interesting arguments about photography and the place of the crowd for both Baudelaire and Manet. Dr. Ligo makes a strong and well-documented case for his conviction that Manet consciously decided to take up the challenge to contemporary painters that Baudelaire sets down in his famous and influential essay, “The Painter of Modern Life”. There is much here for scholars of both Baudelaire and Manet (the parallels enable us to see each in a different light) and for the general reader interested in impressionism, the influence of photography and/or aesthetics more broadly. More

Cézanne in Provence edited by Philip Conisbee and Denis Coutagne (Yale University Press) It was in Paris, not Provence, that Cézanne's art history was made. The centre of the artworld has since been shifted from Paris by the rise of America, but power relations between periphery and centre prevail. The major exhibition that gave rise to this catalogue (available in English and French) would not have been possible without the power of the centre, Washington's National Gallery of Art. The Musée Granet in Aix was thereby able to offer a blockbuster show as a major tourist magnet for the Midi during summer 2006, when the Jas de Bouffan opened to the public. All this is part of a project, 'Cézanne 2006', backed by various development agencies. What is represented for cultural tourism is 'Cézanne's Provence', a short-circuit of nature and painter in which the genius loci of the Aixois landscape supposedly formed Cézanne's approach and the art then forged how we came to see this terrain. More

Music

The Orpehus Myth and the Powers of Music by Vladimir Marchenkov (Interplay: Music in Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Pendragon) examines the key turning points in the history of the Orpheus myth as factors that shaped, and continues to shape, our conceptions of music's powers. From its beginnings in archaic Antiquity to the latest major opera based on it, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been used by poets, philosophers, and musicians to express an increasingly complex set of ideas about what music can do. The study follows three threads in the myth's history: changes in form, cultural status, and the resulting visions of the powers of song.
The most spectacular change in form is the role played by Eurydice who evolves from a generic, voiceless type into a rich music-philosophical symbol. Equally fascinating is the entangled issue of Orpheus's success and failure. In terms of cultural status, the story remains a genuine myth—even alongside its non-mythical forms—until the early modern period. Modernity problematizes the existence of myth but its mythophobia becomes a symptom of its own profound irrationality. Accordingly, the powers of music evolve from mythic omnipotence to screaming contradictions that demand, but fail to achieve, resolution. From Monteverdi and Striggio-to Birtwistle and Zinovieff, composers and librettists turn to Orpheus and Eurydice to express their sense of music's place in human existence. The undulating tapestry of their strikingly diverse answers points to the need to rethink, once again, the fundamentals of our musical culture. More

Beethoven's Orpheus Concerto: The Fourth Piano Concerto in Its Cultural Context by Owen Jander (North American Beethoven Studies: Pendragon) Beethoven composed his Fourth Piano Concerto in Vienna in the years 1803-06. In that period there was an unusually keen interest in the Orpheus legend; and so it is not surprising to learn that all three movements ... were undeclaredly—or better described, secretly—based on that famous story." So begins Owen Jander's Beethoven's "Orpheus" Concerto: The Fourth Piano Concerto in its Cultural Context. In this fascinating and controversial book, the author maintains—echoing the interpretation first suggested by Adolph Berhard Marx in 1859—that the three movements are based on the Classical versions of the Orpheus legend by Virgil and Ovid. Jander tells us the full story—from the opening phrase of the first movement to the last measure of the finale—of how the Orpheus legend informs every note of Beethoven's music. More

Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong , includes audio CD by Gene Henry Anderson and Michael J. Budds (CMS Sourcebooks in American Music: Pendragon Press) Between 1925 and 1928 the Hot Five the incomparable Louis Armstrong and four seasoned practitioners of the burgeoning jazz style recorded fifty-five performances in Chicago for the OKeh label. Oddly enough, the quintet immortalized on vinyl with recent technology rarely performed as a unit in local nightspots. And yet, like other music now regarded as especially historic, their work in the studio summarized approaches of the past and set standards for the future.
Remarkable both for popularity among the members of the public and for influence on contemporary musicians, these recordings helped make "Satchmo" a familiar household name and ultimately its bearer an adored public figure. They showcased Armstrong's genius, notably his leadership in transforming the practice of jazz as an ensemble improvisation into jazz as the art of the improvising soloist.
In his study Professor Anderson-for the first time-provides a detailed account of the origins of this pioneering enterprise, relates individual pieces to existing copyright deposits, and contextualizes the music by offering a reliable timeline of Armstrong's professional activities during these years. All fifty-five pieces, moreover, are described in informed commentary. More

Philosophy

Erotic Wisdom: Philosophy and Intermediacy in Plato's Symposium by Gary Alan Scott and William A. Welton (SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy)  Wisdom provides a careful reading of one of Plato's most beloved dialogues, the Symposium, which explores the nature and scope of human desire (erôs). Gary Alan Scott and William A. Welton engage all of the dialogue's major themes, devoting special attention to illuminating Plato's conception of philosophy. In the Symposium, Plato situates philosophy in an intermediate (metaxu) position—between need and resource, ignorance and knowledge—showing how the very lack of what one desires can become a guiding form of contact with the objects of human desire. The authors examine the concept of intermediacy in relation both to Platonic metaphysics and to Plato's moral psychology, arguing that philosophy, for Plato, is properly understood as a kind of "being in-between," as the love of wisdom (philosophia) rather than the possession of it. More

The Minds of the Moderns: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Philosophy of Mind by Janice Thomas (McGill-Queens) Taking Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley and Hume in turn, Janice Thomas presents an authoritative and critical assessment of each of these canonical thinkers' views of the notion of mind. The book examines each philosopher's position on five key topics: the metaphysical character of minds and mental states; the nature and scope of introspection and self-knowledge; the nature of consciousness; the problem of mental causation; and the nature of representation and intentionality. The exposition and discussion of their positions is informed by present-day debates in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology, enabling the reader to get a clear sense of the importance of these philosophers' ideas, many of which continue to define our current notions of the mental.

Time and again, philosophers return to the great early modern rationalist and empiricist thinkers for instruction and inspiration. Those working on the philosophy of mind are no exception and Janice Thomas makes clear that earlier philosophers have much to offer contemporary debates. More

The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism edited by John Greco (Oxford University Press) In the history of philosophical thought, few themes loom as large as skepticism. Skepticism has been the most visible and important part of debates about knowledge. Skepticism at its most basic questions our cognitive achievements and challenges our ability to obtain reliable knowledge, casting doubt on our attempts to seek and understand the truth about everything from ethics to other minds, religious belief, and even the underlying structure of matter and reality. Since Descartes, the defense of knowledge against skepticism has been one of the primary tasks not just of epistemology but philosophy itself. features twenty-six newly commissioned chapters by top figures in the field. Part One contains articles explaining important kinds of skeptical reasoning. Part Two focuses on responses to skeptical arguments. Part Three concentrates on important contemporary issues revolving around skepticism. As the first volume of its kind, the articles make significant contributions to the debate on skepticism. More

When Philosophers Rule: Ficino on Plato's Republic, Laws & Epinomis (Commentaries by Ficino on Plato's Writing) Translation by Arthur Farndell (Shepheard-Walwyn) Marsillio Ficino of Florence (1433-99) was one of the most influential thinkers of the Renaissance. He put before society a new ideal of human nature, emphasising its divine potential. As teacher and guide to a remarkable circle of men, he made a vital contribution to changes that were taking place in European thought. For Ficino, the writings of Plato provided the key to the most important knowledge for mankind, knowledge of God and the soul. It was the absorption of this knowledge that proved so important to Ficino, to his circle, and to later writers and artists. As a young man, Ficino had been directed by Cosimo de’ Medici towards the study of Plato in the original Greek. Later he formed a close connection with Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici, under whom Florence achieved its age of brilliance. Gathered round Ficino and Lorenzo were such men as Landino, Bembo, Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola. The ideas they discussed became central to the work of Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, and many other writers and artists. Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, - no, nor the human race, as I believe, - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Republic, Book V, 473D With these words Plato expressed his ideal form of government. Often dismissed as unrealisable, they have appealed down the ages to men of goodwill. Having translated all of the Dialogues from Greek into Latin, at the request of his Medici patrons, Ficino was asked to prepare summaries by Lorenzo de’ Medici, the de facto ruler of the republic of Florence, who aspired to be the kind of enlightened ruler Plato described. More

Late Antique Epistemology: Other Ways to Truth edited by Stephen Clark, Panayiota Vassilopoulou (Palgrave Macmillan)  explores the techniques used by late antique philosophers to discuss truth. Non-rational ways to discover truth, or to  reform the soul, have usually been thought inferior to the philosophically approved techniques of rational argument, suitable for the less philosophically inclined, for children, savages or the uneducated. Religious rituals, oracles, erotic passion, madness may all have served to waken courage or remind us of realities obscured by everyday concerns. What is unusual in the late antique classical philosophers is that these techniques were reckoned as reliable as reasoned argument, or better still. Late twentieth century commentators have offered psychological explanations of this turn, but only recently has it been accepted that there might also have been philosophical explanations, and that the later antique philosophers were not necessarily deluded. More

Mind That Abides: Panpsychism in the new millennium by David Skrbina (Advances in Consciousness Research: John Benjamns Publishing Company) Panpsychism is the view that all things, living and nonliving, possess some mind like quality. It stands in sharp contrast to the traditional notion of mind as the property of humans and (perhaps) a few select ‘higher animals’. Though surprising at first glance, panpsychism has a long and noble history in both Western and Eastern thought. Overlooked by analytical, materialist philosophy for most of the 20th century, it is now experiencing a renaissance of sorts in several areas of inquiry. A number of recent books - including Skrbina’s Panpsychism in the West (2005: MIT) and Strawson et al’s Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2006: Imprint Academic) - have established panpsychism as respectable and viable. Mind That Abides builds on these works. It takes panpsychism to be a plausible theory of mind and then moves forward to work out the philosophical, psychological and ethical implications. With 17 contributors from a variety of fields, this book promises to mark a wholesale change in our philosophical outlook. More

Cahiers: Notebooks (Volume 3) by Paul Valery, chief editor and translations by Brian Stimpson, translations by (Peter Lang)  This volume explores the parameters of mind in its affective and intellectual limits. As always Valéry circles against the common drift seeking a personal and sometimes downright idiosyncratic basis for experience as his own. As in the previous two volumes this is the best representation of his notebooks in English.
The Cahiers/Notebooks of Paul Valery are a unique form of writing. They reveal Valery as one of the most radical and creative minds of the twentieth century, encompassing a wide range of investigation into all spheres of human activity. His work explores the arts, the sciences, philosophy, history and politics, investigating linguistic, psychological and social issues, all linked to the central questions, relentlessly posed: 'what is the human mind and how does it work?’, 'what is the potential of thought and what are its limits?' But we encounter here too, Valery the writer: exploratory, fragmentary texts undermine the boundaries between analysis and creativity, between theory and practice. Neither journal nor diary, eluding the traditional genres of writing, the Notebooks offer lyrical passages, writing of extreme beauty, prose poems of extraordinary descriptive power alongside theoretical considerations of poetics, ironic aphorisms and the mast abstract kind of analysis. The concerns and the insights that occupied Valery's inner voyages over more than 50 years remain as relevant as ever for the contemporary reader: for the Self that is his principal subject is at once singular and universal.

Cahiers: Notebooks (Volume 1) by Paul Valery, chief editor and translations by Brian Stimpson, translations by Paul Gifford, Sian Miles, and Robert Pickering (Peter Lang)

Cahiers: Notebooks (Volume 2) by Paul Valery, chief editor and translations by Brian Stimpson, translations by Rachel Killick, Robert Pickering, Norma Rinsler, Stephen Romer, and Brian Stimpson (Peter Lang)

Cahiers: Notebooks (Volume 3) by Paul Valery, chief editor and translations by Brian Stimpson, translations by (Peter Lang) More 

A Companion to Hume by Elizabeth S. Radcliffe (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy: Wiley-Blackwell)  David Hume's public life as a philosopher and an intellectual began with the publica­tion of the first two books of A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739 when he was only 28 years old. The third book appeared a year later. Although scarce notice was taken of his work at the time, Hume's approach to philosophy was revolutionary. In his Introduction to the Treatise and in the abstract of that work, Hume compares his invest­igations to that of some recent writers who had been applying the new methods of the seventeenth-century natural philosopher, Francis Bacon, to "the science of man." Bacon recognized the proper roles of observation and reason in the study of natural phenomena, and he was among the first to formulate a method of inquiry designed to guard against fallacious reasoning due to social and personal biases. Bacon is regarded as one of the important contributors to the development of the modern scientific method. Like­wise, Hume adopts an empirical approach to his study of human nature — but with results dramatically different from those near-contemporaries, John Locke and Francis Hutcheson, whom he cites as allies in this method. More

Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy: From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank edited by James E. Montgomery (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta: Peeters) The final sentence of the last scholarly work by Professor Richard M. Frank to have been published runs:
Ontology and logic are not separable the one from the other.

This remarkable statement concludes an incisive and authoritative exposition of the term hukm, plural ahkäm, in the writings of the classical Ash`arite masters, the architects of the formal theological system posterior to the eponym's death in 324/935 and prior to the floruit of al-Ghazali. It forms one panel of a triptych of remarkable surveys of Ash`arite ontology, stemming from the final stages of Professor Frank's professional career, the others being The As'arite Ontology: I. Primary Entities, and The Non-Existent and the Possible in Classical Ash'arite Teaching. These works are characterized by scrupulosity in the recording of source references, subtlety and ingenuity in the exposition of ideas, and an astonishing sensitivity to the systematic implications and supple delimitations of Classical Arabic as a formal language for the speculative exploration of existence. Taken together they represent one of the most sustained endeavors to-date by any scholar to penetrate the formidable formalism of this system, predicated upon a reluctance to establish philosophical reasoning as an autonomous principle of theological speculation, a reluctance inherited from al-Ash'ari's refusal to commit himself on a number of questions or to subject the godhead to an over-reductive analysis. More

The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies by Thomas McEvilley (Allworth Press) This unparalleled study of early Eastern and Western philosophy challenges every existing belief about the foundations of Western civilization. Spanning thirty years of intensive research, this book proves what many scholars could not explain: that today’s Western world must be considered the product of both Greek and Indian thought—Western and Eastern philosophies.

Thomas McEvilley explores how trade, imperialism, and migration currents allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece, and the ancient Near East. This groundbreaking reference will stir relentless debate among philosophers, art historians, and students.  More

Husserl's Phenomenology: Knowledge, Objectivity And Others by Kevin Hermberg (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy: Continuum International Publishing Group) fills a gap in previous Husserl scholarship by offering a treatment of the problems of intersubjectivity and empathy that goes beyond their mere possibility to explore the questions of whether and how empathy contributes to the attainment of knowledge. Hermberg focuses his investigation on Husserl's introductions to phenomenology (Ideas, Cartesian Meditations, and The Crisis of the European Sciences) and offers a new look at both Husserl's epistemology and his position in the Western philosophical tradition.  

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was one of the most important and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. One would be justified in calling Husserl both the last great representative of classical modern philosophy and the transition by which a new philosophical world came into being. The list of thinkers who claim Husserl as influential to their work is impressive and includes leading figures from every "school" of contemporary Continental philosophy as well as many "analytical" philosophers. Husserl achieved this influence in spite of his texts, which are notoriously difficult and with which he was rarely completely satisfied. So dissatisfied was he that he offered three separate texts labeled "introduction" to phenomenology. In this book Hermberg offers an examination of the interplay between empathy and knowledge as presented in the introductions published by Husserl. Those three introductions are: Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Springer) which first appeared in German in the 1913 inaugural issue of Jahrbuch fur Philosophie and Phenomenologische Forschung; Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology (Springer) which is an outgrowth of a set of lectures which was given in Paris in 1929 and published in French in 1931; and The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy (Northwestern University Press) which was written between 1934 and 1937 but of which only the first two parts were published during his lifetime. (More)

Being and Event by Alain Badiou, translated by Oliver Feltham (Continuum International Publishing Group) Being and Event is the greatest work of Alain Badiou, France's most important living philosopher. Long-awaited in translation, Being and Event makes available to an English-speaking readership Badiou's groundbreaking work on set theory - the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. The book makes the scope and aim of Badiou's whole philosophical project clear, enabling full comprehension of Badiou's significance for contemporary philosophy. Badiou draws upon and is fully engaged with the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards; Being and Event deals with such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, Heidegger and Lacan.

This wide-ranging book is organized in a careful, precise and novel manner, reflecting the philosophical rigor of Badiou's thought. Unlike many contemporary Continental philosophers, Badiou -- who is also a novelist and dramatist - writes lucidly and cogently, making his work far more accessible and engaging than much philosophy, and actually a pleasure to read. This English language edition includes a new preface, written by Badiou himself, especially for this translation. More

The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek (Short Circuits: The MIT Press) is his most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism. More

Hegel's Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit by Kenneth R. Westphal (Hackett Publishing Company) I Hegel's Phenomenology is notoriously challenging, in form and struc­ture as well as in content. His apparent ambitions in the Phenomenology and his highly unusual presentation have often made it difficult to relate it to more familiar philosophical views and issues. Hegel demands much of his readers. At the beginning of a chapter or subsection, for example, Hegel states a philosophical view often to argue (by indirect proof or re­ductio ad absurdum) against that view, though sometimes only to argue against a defective account or justification of that view. Precisely what view he criticizes can at times be difficult to determine, often because he states some essential points of an historical philosopher's view without men­tioning whose view it is. Hegel unfortunately tends to refer to passages from the history of philosophy the way Medieval philosophers referred to Aristotle. They would write "the philosopher says ... ," expecting, and knowing they could expect. the reader to know exactly which passage from which work of Aristotle's was being quoted or paraphrased. Hegel, however, only rarely mentions his frequent paraphrasing or quotation—though his use of such references should not have misfired nearly so often as it has. More

Five Metaphysical Paradoxes by Howard P. Kainz (Aquinas Lecture: Marquette University Press) Excerpt: In the Oxford English Dictionary, the first meaning of "paradox" is given as "a statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief:' But this is paradox in the widest possible sense—similar to the way we use and overuse the word, "oxymoron," to indicate things or states of affairs that we simply consider contradictory. For example, a Democrat might say that compassionate conservative" is an oxymoron, a Republican might say the same thing about a "pro-life liberal"—in both cases with the meaning that such phrases are obviously self-contradictory. But strictly speaking, an oxymoron is something that sounds contradictory but is true—as, for example, the familiar literary expressions,"a deafening silence: "living death", "lonely crowd," or the descriptions by Shakespeare's Romeo of romantic passion as "cold fire," "feather of lead" and "sick health." More

Politics

Toward a New Framework for Peaceful Settlement of China's Territorial and Boundary Disputes by Junwu Pan (Brill) This book provides a precious chance to take legal perspectives of China's territorial and boundary disputes against the new background of China's increasingly integrating itself into global economic, political and legal systems. Based on international law and China's new policy, the author examines the possibility of using the third party, which is notably missing in China's international engagement, to settle China's territorial and boundary disputes. This book pinpoints the problems and opportunities China is confronting in its attitude to international law and inter-national courts and tribunals. In the light of international law, especially of norms and principles used by the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals, the author creatively proposes a new framework for settlement of China's territorial and boundary disputes. The author is a promising young scholars specializing in China's territorial and boundary issues. More

Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Growing Threat by Gary Ackerman (Editor), Jeremy Tamsett (CRC)  Written for professionals, academics, and policymakers working at the forefront of counterterrorism efforts, Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction is an authoritative and comprehensive work addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands ofjihadists, both historically and looking toward the future threat environment. Providing insight on one of the foremost security issues of the 21st century, this seminal resource effectively:

  • Documents current trends in the ideology, strategy, and tactics of jihadists as these relate to WMD
  • Includes a section devoted to jihadist involvement with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons
  • Explores the role of intelligence, law enforcement, and policymakers in anticipating, deterring, and mitigating WMD attacks
  • Provides an overview of nonproliferation policies designed to keep WMD out of the hands of jihadists
  • Conducts a groundbreaking quantitative empirical analysis of jihadist behavior Elicits leading experts' estimates of the future WMD threat from jihadists

Leading international experts clearly differentiate between peaceful Muslims and jihadists, exploring how jihadists translate their extreme and violent ideology into strategy. They also focus on WMD target selection and the spread of WMD knowledge in jihadist communities. Devoid of sensationalism, this multidimensional evaluation adds a heightened level of sophistication to our understanding of the prospects for and nature of jihadist WMD terrorism. More

What Is a Just Peace? Edited by Pierre Allan, Alexis Keller (Oxford University Press) Just War has attracted considerable attention. The words peace and justice are often used together. Surprisingly, however, little conceptual thinking has gone into what constitutes a Just Peace. This book, which includes some of the world's leading scholars, debates and develops the concept of Just Peace. The problem with the idea of a Just Peace is that striving for justice may imply a Just War. In other words, peace and justice clash at times. Therefore, one often starts from a given view of what constitutes justice, but this a priori approach leads - especially when imposed from the outside - straight into discord. This book presents conflicting viewpoints on this question from political, historical, and legal perspectives as well as from a policy perspective. The book also argues that Just Peace should be defined as a process resting on four necessary and sufficient conditions: thin recognition whereby the other is accepted as autonomous; thick recognition whereby identities need to be accounted for; renouncement, requiring significant sacrifices from all parties; and finally, rule, the objectification of a Just Peace by a "text" requiring a common language respecting the identities of each, and defining their rights and duties. This approach based on a language-oriented process amongst directly concerned parties, goes beyond liberal and culturalist perspectives. Throughout the process, negotiators need to build a novel shared reality as well as a new common language allowing for an enduring harmony between previously clashing peoples. It challenges a liberal view of peace founded on norms claiming universal scope. The liberal conception has difficulty in solving conflicts such as civil wars characterized typically by fundamental disagreements between different communities. Cultures make demands that are identity-defining, and some of these defy the "cultural neutrality" that is one of the foundations of liberalism. Therefore, the concept of Just Peace cannot be solved within the liberal tradition.

As Just War has attracted considerable attention for centuries, the words peace and justice have been, and are still, often used together. While an old doctrine of Just War exists, surprisingly little conceptual thinking has gone into what constitutes a peace that is a just one. This book debates this problématique and develops the concept of a Just Peace. More

Sentencing: A Reference Handbook by Dean Champion, Mildred Vasan (Contemporary World Issues: ABC-CLIO) examines the sentencing process in detail. The initial chapter on history and development defines sentencing and its goals. Sentencing is the application of one or more punishments / sanctions following a criminal conviction. These punishments include fines and / or incarceration, or placement under the super­vision of probation officers. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 restated a number of sentencing objectives that have guided sentencing judges in their leniency or harshness toward convicted defendants. More

Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition edited by Mitch Earleywine (Oxford University Press) Marijuana use continues to attract interest and fuel controversy. Big, green pot leaves have adorned the covers of Time, National Review, and Forbes. Almost 100 million Americans have tried marijuana at least once. Groups such as The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana (NORML) and The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) have tens of thousands of members. Polls suggest that 70-80% of Americans support medicinal marijuana. At least 11 U.S. states have experimented with decriminalization and medical marijuana laws, with new initiatives appearing each year. Meanwhile, other groups such as Partnership for a Drug Free America and Mothers Against Drugs protest legalization. Clearly, debate about marijuana policy shows no sign of abating. More

Guide to U.S. Elections 5th Edition 2 volumes (CQ Press) In Volume One, part one examines the evolution of the U.S. electoral system and includes material on the franchise and voting rights. It also explores the impact of major post–World War II political issues. Part two examines the evolution of campaign finance, traces the development of political parties, profiles major and minor parties, and discusses the historical significance of southern primaries. Part three features an overview and chronology of presidential elections along with information and data on presidential primaries, nominating conventions, popular and electoral voting, and the Electoral College. More

Guide To Political Campaigns In America by Paul S. Herrnson (CQ Press) is the first complete resource for scholarly and practical insight into every important aspect of political campaigns and campaign activities. Campaigns are a critical part of the political process in the United States, and this unique volume provides students, researchers, scholars, and others interested in campaigns and politics with a broad foundation of knowledge about the history of campaigns and the issues, people, processes, and types and levels of races involved. More

Religion

The Neuroscience of Religious Experience by Patrick McNamara (Cambridge University Press) Recent technical advances in the life and medical sciences have revolutionized our understanding of the brain, while the emerging disciplines of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience continue to reveal the connections of the higher cognitive functions and emotional states associated with religious experience to underlying brain states. At the same time, a host of developing theories in psychology and anthropology posit evolutionary explanations for the ubiquity and persistence of religious beliefs and the reports of religious experiences across human cultures, while gesturing toward physical bases for these behaviors. What is missing from this literature is a strong voice speaking to these behavioral and social scientists - as well as to the intellectually curious in the religious studies community - from the perspective of a brain scientist. More

Divine Contingency: Theologies of Divine Embodiment in Maximos the Confessor and Tsong kha pa by Thomas Cattoi (Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 7: Gorgias Press) [978-1-59333-970-8] The purpose of this work is to explore the points of contact, as well as the differences, between the distinct notions of divine embodiment developed by Maximos the Confessor (580-662), one of the greatest Greek Fathers, and Tsong kha pa (1357-1419), perhaps the most important thinker in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. Both authors develop a spiritual theology where natural contemplation and the practice of the virtues are invested with a transformative value and are construed as a response to a cosmic intelligence, which sustains the universe, but also becomes manifest in history. The Christocentric vision of Maximos, which refines and completes the Chalcedonian paradigm, and the Buddhological reflection of Tsong kha pa, which compounds centuries of Mahayana speculation on the Buddha bodies, share an appreciation for the propedeutic value of the created order, in all its variety and difference. At the same time, the two systems rest on divergent presuppositions as to the ontological nature of the cosmos and the ultimate value of individual identity.  More

Ancient Greek Divination by Sarah Iles Johnston (Wiley-Blackwell) offers a broad yet detailed treatment of the attempts by ancient Greeks to seek the counsel of the gods. The first English-language survey of Greek divinatory methods, the book includes in-depth discussions of oracles, wandering diviners, do-it-yourself methods of foretelling the future, magical divinatory techniques, and much more. Author Sarah Iles Johnston provides essential facts on each method and highlights its social and cultural significance, effectively illustrating how the study of divination illuminates the mentalities of ancient Greek religions and society.

The volume is illustrated and contains a chapter-by-chapter bibliography. Combining current scholarship with a lively and accessible style of writing, Ancient Greek Divination takes a new look at a phenomenon that was central to the lives of the Ancient Greeks.  More 

Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology Edited by Günther Oestmann, / H. Darrel Rutkin, / Kocku von Stuckrad (Walter de Gruyter) examines the specific role of horoscopic astrology in Western culture from antiquity to the nineteenth century. Focusing on the public appearance of astrological rhetoric, the essays break new ground for a better understanding of the function of horoscopes in public discourse. The volume's three parts address the use of imperial horoscopes in late antiquity, the transformation of doctrines and rhetorics in Islamic medieval contexts, and the important status of astrology in early modern Europe. The combination of in-depth historical studies and methodological considerations results in an important contribution to religious and cultural studies.

Kant und Swedenborg: Zugänge zu einem umstrittenen Verhältnis by Friedemann Herausgeber v. Stengel (Max Niemeyer Verlag) Kant as the leading representative of the philosophical enlightenment and the seer Swedenborg, regarded as the father of modern esotericism, would appear at first sight to be two diametrically opposed 18th century figures. At the same time, Swedenborg was one of the few authors to whom Kant dedicated a work of his own – the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Since then, controversy has surrounded Swedenborg’s significance for Kant’s philosophical biography and the history of his works. In the present volume, philosophers, religious scholars, theologians and literary scholars from six countries present their – far from consensual – interpretations of the relationship between Kant’s critical philosophy and Swedenborg’s “visionary realism”.

Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses edited, translated and corrected by Joseph Peterson (Ibis Press) the publisher blurb says: For people interested in folk magic.

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, arguably one of the most popular magick books ever published, contains two secret apocrypha ascribed to Moses, perhaps pseudepigraphically. The book consists of a collection of texts, which claim to explain the magick Moses used to win the biblical magick contest with the Egyptian priest-magicians, part the Red Sea, and perform other miraculous feats. It includes instruction in the form of invocations, magick words, and seals for calling upon the angels to affect worldly ends, from the sublime (calling down a plague of locusts and frogs upon your enemy) to the mundane (getting more money).

Many manuscripts and printed pamphlet versions circulated in Germany in the 1800s, and an English translation by Johann Scheible first appeared in New York in 1880 that had not been corrected or re-edited until now. In creating this restored, corrected edition, Joseph Peterson drew on Scheible's final edition of the text and his original sources. It will be of great interest to those who have suffered through prior editions and anyone looking for a traditional source of Western magick.

  • Used in various modern traditions of American folk magick, from Pennsylvania Dutch hexmeisters and contemporary eclectic magicians, to voodoo practitioners and African American root workers.
  • Updated or fresh translations from original German, Latin, and Hebrew sources and restoration of censored or left out passages in earlier editions and 35 pages of text never before translated.
  • Describes the biblical magick ascribed to Moses and its application.
  • Extensively illustrated with over 100 magical seals, signs, and sigils.

The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism: Sacred Practices and Spiritual Marriage by Arthur Versluis  (Destiny Books) Beginning with the ancient Greek Mystery traditions, Gnosticism, and the practices in early Christianity, Arthur Versluis uncovers the secret line of Western sexual mysticism that, like the Tantra of the East, seeks transcendence or union with God through sexually charged practices. Throughout antiquity, and right into the present day, sexuality has played an important, if largely hidden, role in religious traditions and practices. This includes not only Christian but also kabbalistic, hermetic, and alchemical currents of sexual mysticism, many discussed together here for the first time. More

Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Jeffrey J. Kripal (Aries: Brill Academic) From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.  More

Orgasm and the West: A History of Pleasure from the 16th Century to the Present by Robert Muchembled (Paperback) Does the orgasm have a history? An almost incommunicable individual emotion, yet also a cultural reality, the orgasm is part of our collective experience and also something separate from it. Its history is that of the hidden body, of forbidden desires, of flesh constrained by taboos and morality.

In this major new book, Robert Muchembled uncovers a fascinating history of sexual pleasure and the repression of pleasure that lies at the heart of Western civilization. Contrary to Foucault, he argues that a powerful repression of the carnal appetites was established at the very heart of our civilization around the middle of the sixteenth century, and that it only really lost ground in the 1960s. Producing a fundamental tension between the libido of each individual and collective ideals, it was a process that constantly promoted a powerful labour of sublimation throughout this long period, under the successive cultural covers of religion, philosophy and the laws of the capitalist market. The coercive system laid down in the seventeenth century formed the basis for alternate cycles of liberation and constraint, whose fluctuations were fundamental to the general dynamism of the West because they created the need to compensate for the mental disequilibrium they caused. More

Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom by Andy Letcher (Ecco) Is Santa Claus really a magic mushroom in disguise? Was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a thinly veiled psychedelic mushroom odyssey? Did mushroom tea kick-start ancient Greek philosophy?

Much stranger than the fictions it has inspired, the world of the magic mushroom is a place where shamans and hippies rub shoulders with psychiatrists, poets and international bankers. The magic mushroom was rediscovered only fifty years ago but has accumulated all sorts of folktales and urban legends along the way. In this timely and definitive study, Andy Letcher strips away the myths to get at the true story of how hallucinogenic mushrooms, once shunned in the West as the most pernicious of poisons, came to be the illicit drug of choice. More 

Asian Religions

I Ching: The Symbolic Life by Stephen Karcher PhD. (BookSurge) By far the most user friendly intuitive adaptation of this ancient oracle to the functions of divination rather than the museum of past cultures. Karcher has worked with this book some intimately that the poetic liberties  he takes with the Chinese letter will well substantiated by the spirit of the oracle itself.  Of the many editions available this one is easy to use and likely to bring one into the dao of its message.

I Ching or the Classic of Change is the world's oldest and most sophisticated system of wisdom divination, source of much of the east's philosophy and culture. It focuses on the part the individual plays in change and transformation. When we experience ourselves as a victim of the changes in our lives and our world, we feel isolated, frightened and angry. When we become a part of the deep dialogue Change represents, we feel connected to the basic creative energy that shapes the world we live in, living in accord with the Way or Dao. I Ching: The Symbolic Life gives you direct access to this dialogue through the myth and ritual world Change uses to model the course of the Symbolic Life. Developed through many years of scholarship and research and grounded in practical use, it can make Change a part of your daily life. It explains and presents the age-old symbols of I Ching in a step by step way that lets you use the images directly and intuitively. You do not really learn something, you experience something that is capable of working a profound transformation of your thought.

Stephen Karcher, Ph.D., is one of today's most creative and controversial writers I and practitioners in the field of Yijing studies, divination and myth. He is an internationally recognized scholar, translator and initiated diviner, teaching and lecturing on the Yijing and other divination systems in the US, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland and South Africa. As Research Director of the Eranos Foundation in Ascona, Switzerland (1988-1996), he pioneered a depth psychological approach to divination. A prolific author, he has published many books and articles in the field of comparative mythology, divination, depth psychology and religious experience. He "liberates meanings ... that have been missing from our understanding for a couple of thousand years ... revealing a whole new landscape of interpretation that makes previous translations feel cramped by comparison." Stephen lives in Ojai, California. More

One Hundred Thousand Moons: An Advanced Political History of Tibet  by Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa and Derek F. Maher (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library: Brill Academic Publishers) DRAWING ON A VAST ARRAY OF HISTORICAL AND biographical sources, this volume elaborates Tibetan political history, arguing that Tibet has long been an independent nation, and that the 195o incursion by the Chinese was an invasion of a sovereign country. The author situates Tibet's relations with a series of Chinese, Manchurian, and Mongolian empires in terms of the preceptor-patron relationship, an essentially religious connection in which Tibetan religious figures offered spiritual instruction to the contemporaneous emperor or other militarily powerful figure in exchange for protection and religious patronage. Simultaneously, this volume serves as an introduction to many aspects of Tibetan culture, society, and especially religion. The book includes a compendium of biographies of the most significant figures in Tibet's past. More

HdO Early Chinese Religion: Shang Through Han (1250 BC-220 AD) edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section Four, China: Brill Academic Publishers) Together, and for the first time in any language, the 24 essays gathered in these volumes provide a composite picture of the history of religion in ancient China from the emergence of writing ca. 125o BC to the collapse of the first major imperial dynasty in 220 AD. It is a multifaceted tale of changing gods and rituals that includes the
emergence of a form of "secular humanism" that doubts the existence of the gods and the efficacy of ritual and of an imperial orthodoxy that founds its legitimacy on a distinction between licit and illicit sacrifices. Written by specialists in a variety of disciplines, the essays cover such subjects as divination and cosmology, exorcism and medicine, ethics and self-cultivation, mythology, taboos, sacrifice, shamanism, burial practices, iconography and political philosophy.
Produced under the aegis of the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations chinos, japonaise et tibétaine (UMR
8155) and the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris). More

Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China by David Faure (Stanford, 2007)] summarizes twenty years of the author's work in historical anthropology and documents his argument that in China, ritual provided the social glue that law provided in the West. The book offers a readable history of the special lineage institutions for which south China has been noted and argues that these institutions fostered the mechanisms that enabled south China to be absorbed into the imperial Chinese state--first, by introducing rituals that were acceptable to the state, and second, by providing mechanisms that made group ownership of property feasible and hence made it possible to pool capital for land reclamation projects important to the state. Just as taxation, defense, and recognition came together with the emergence of powerful lineages in the sixteenth century, their disintegration in the late nineteenth century signaled the beginnings of a new Chinese state. More

Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722-453 B.C.E by Yuri Pines (722-453 BCE) (Honolulu, 2002).  This ambitious work focuses on the world of Chinese thought during the Chunqiu (Springs and Autumns) period (722-451 B.C.E.), the two and a half centuries directly preceding and partly overlapping the time of Confucius, China's single most influential thinker. Ideas developed by Chunqiu statesmen and thinkers formed the intellectual milieu of Confucius and his disciples and contributed directly to the intellectual flowering of the Zhanguo (Warring States) era (453-221 B.C.E.), the formative period of the Chinese intellectual tradition. This study is the first attempt to systematically reconstruct major intellectual trends in pre-Confucian China. More

Text and Ritual in Early China edited by Martin Kern (University of Washington Press) Leading scholars of ancient Chinese history, literature, religion, and archaeology consider the presence and use of texts in religious and political ritual. Through balanced attention to both the received literary tradition and the wide range of recently excavated artefacts, manuscripts, and inscriptions, their combined efforts reveal the rich and multilayered interplay of textual composition and ritual performance. More

Divine Knowledge: Buddhist Mathematics According to Antoine Mostaert's Manual of Mongolian Astrology and Divination by Brian G. Baumann (Brill's Inner Asian Library: Brill Academic Publishers) In an original and compelling examination of traditional mathematics, this comprehensive study of the anonymous; Manual of Mongolian Astrology and Divination (published by A. Mostaert in 1969) takes on the fundamental problem of the post‑enlightenment categorization of knowledge, in particular the inherently problematic realms of religion and science, as well as their subsets, medicine, ritual, and magic. In the process of elucidating the rhetoric and logic shaping this manual the author reveals not only the intertwined intellectual history of Eurasia from Greece to China but also dismantles many of the discourses that have shaped its modern interpretations. More

Enlightened Rainbows: The Life and Works of Shardza Tashi Gyeltsen by Jean-Luc Achard (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library: Brill Academic) Shar rdza Rin po the (hereafter Shardza Rinpoche) is one of the most famous Bon po masters of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He is of course particularly well-known because of his realization of the Rainbow Body ('ja' lus) which he manifested at the end of his life in 1934. But he was not only a fully accomplished practitioner of rDzogs chen and Tantras — which would appear to be much sufficient in itself : he was also a highly talented scholar whose expertise em­braced all the fields of Bon spiritual knowledge. His works have consequently greatly influenced most of the modern masters of Bon, even if some voices appear here and there in a discordant tone. The detailed study of these works clearly demonstrates that their author had an unequalled mastery of Bon teachings and that he has initiated specific traditions that are definitely his own innovations. His spiritual heritage is preciously kept alive in both Eternal Bon and New Bon traditions, in India and in Tibet (and to a lesser extent in some Western countries). More

Iconoclasm and Iconoclash edited by Willem Van Asselt, Paul Van Geest, Daniela Muller, Theo Salemink (Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series: Brill) A first difference introduced and explored in this volume that between (1) iconoclash and (2) iconoclasm. While it is clear that they are integrally and these studies aim at covering both themes, it is useful to distinguish carefully between them. More

The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions by Mark Juergensmeyer (Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology: Oxford University Press) is a reference for understanding world religious societies in their contemporary global diversity. Comprising 60 essays, the volume focuses on communities rather than beliefs, symbols, or rites. It is organized into six sections corresponding to the major living religious traditions: the Indic cultural region, the Buddhist/Confucian, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim regions, and the African cultural region. In each section an introductory essay discusses the social development of that religious tradition historically. The other essays cover the basic social facts, the community’s size, location, organizational and pilgrimage centers, authority figures, patterns of governance, major subgroups and schisms, as well as issues regarding boundary maintenance, political involvement, role in providing cultural identity, and encounters with modernity. Communities in the diaspora and at the periphery are covered, as well as the central geographic regions of the religious traditions. Thus, for example, Islamic communities in Asia and the United States are included along with Islamic societies in the Middle East. The contributors are leading scholars of world religions, many of whom are also members of the communities they study. The essays are written to be informative and accessible to the educated public, and to be respectful of the viewpoints of the communities analyzed. More

An Introductory Dictionary of Theology & Religious Studies edited by Orlando Espin, James B. Nickoloff (Liturgical Press) Students enrolled in undergraduate theology and religious studies courses are frequently confronted with the daunting task of mastering new and unfamiliar terminology. While some textbooks include glossaries to aid the introductory student, many educators assign classroom texts that assume students' prior knowledge of key terms. Having ready access to a wide variety of definitions in a single, compact volume is especially important in our multicultural and religiously plural world. Spanning the gamut from "Aaron" to "Zwingli," this dictionary includes nearly 3,000 entries written by about sixty authors, all of whom are specialists in their various theological and religious disciplines. The editors have designed the dictionary especially to aid the introductory-level student with instant access to definitions of terms likely to be encountered in--but not to substitute for--classroom presentations or reading assignments. Designed as a supplement for student coursework, An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies is also a useful resource for catechesis or religious education, for those pursuing interfaith or interreligious dialogue, and for those whose duties require communication with persons from diverse religious traditions.
This well designed and useful guide to words and terms in religious studies offers a balanced and reasonably thorough introductory definitions to current topics in religious studies. The book is especially good in presenting catholic topics but it also offers germane definitions of other Christian confessions and the major world religions. The entries do not recognize the new religions or esoteric religious history or topics. I would assume a second edition would include metaphysical and occult trends in religious studies. I believe this reference work, which is offered at a modest price, belongs in all public community libraries as well as high school and college libraries where religion is likely part of the curriculum.  More

Atheism

Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life edited by Louise M. Antony (Oxford University Press) Atheists are frequently demonized as arrogant intellectuals, antagonistic to religion, devoid of moral sentiments, advocates of an "anything goes" lifestyle. Now, in this revealing volume, nineteen leading philosophers open a window on the inner life of atheism, shattering these common stereotypes as they reveal how they came to turn away from religious belief. These highly engaging personal essays capture the marvelous diversity to be found among atheists, providing a portrait that will surprise most readers. Many of the authors, for example, express great affection for particular religious traditions, even as they explain why they cannot, in good conscience, embrace them. None of the contributors dismiss religious belief as stupid or primitive, and several even express regret that they cannot, or can no longer, believe. Perhaps more important, in these reflective pieces, they offer fresh insight into some of the oldest and most difficult problems facing the human mind and spirit. For instance, if God is dead, is everything permitted? Philosophers without Gods demonstrates convincingly, with arguments that date back to Plato, that morality is independent of the existence of God. Indeed, every writer in this volume adamantly affirms the objectivity of right and wrong. Moreover, they contend that secular life can provide rewards as great and as rich as religious life. A naturalistic understanding of the human condition presents a set of challenges--to pursue our goals without illusions, to act morally without hope of reward--challenges that can impart a lasting value to finite and fragile human lives. Collectively, these essays highlight the richness of atheistic belief--not only as a valid alternative to religion, but as a profoundly fulfilling and moral way of life. More

Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Bruce E. Hunsberger, Bob Altemeyer (Prometheus Books) Hunsberger is one of the few researchers to look deeply into the soul (or should I say mind?) of an atheist, and what his studies show will be both pleasing and disturbing to nonbelievers and believers alike. The authors descriptions and conclusions are clear, brief and to the point. More

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Comte-Sponville (Author), translated by Nancy Huston (Viking) Can we do without religion? Can we have ethics without God? Is there such thing as “atheist spirituality”? In this powerful book, the internationally bestselling author André Comte-Sponville presents a philosophical exploration of atheism—and comes to some startling conclusions. According to Comte-Sponville, we have allowed the concept of spirituality to become intertwined with religion, and thus have lost touch with the nature of a true spiritual existence. In order to change this, however, we need not reject the ancient traditions and values that are part of our heritage; rather, we must rethink our relationship to these values and ask ourselves whether their significance comes from the existence of a higher power or simply the human need to connect to one another and the universe. Comte-Sponville offers rigorous, reasoned arguments that take both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions into account, and through his clear, concise, and often humorous prose, he offers a convincing treatise on a new form of spiritual life. More

The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief edited by Tom Flynn, Foreword by Richard Dawkins (Prometheus Books) Successor to the highly acclaimed Encyclopedia of Unbelief (1985), edited by the late Gordon Stein, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America’s fastest growing minority: those who live without religion.

As in the previous edition, this work does more to define a necessary cognitive and social critique of religion that is couched in a naturalistic avowal of culminative, demonstratable scientific enquiry and skepticism toward magical characterizations of transcendental aspirations. Personally I feel this critical stance toward religions should show greater tolerance for the innate conservatism of human longing for certainty and consolation. By taking a concerted secular stance against all religion, the importance of unbelief is marginalized in the very areas where its critique is likely to thrive.  For instance the Society of Evangelical Agnostics, which for 12 short years starting in 1975, united well over 1000 agnostics in a loose fellowship around Huxley's understanding of the meaning of agnosticism, and other such initiatives.

All-new articles by the field’s foremost scholars describe and explain every aspect of atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, secularism, and religious skepticism. Topics include morality without religion, unbelief in the historicity of Jesus, critiques of intelligent design theory, unbelief and sexual values, and summaries of the state of unbelief around the world. More than 130 respected scholars and activists worldwide served on the editorial advisory board and over 100 authoritative contributors have written in excess of 500 entries.

In addition to covering developments since the publication of the original edition, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief includes a larger number of biographical entries and much-expanded coverage of the linkages between unbelief and social reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the labor movement, woman suffrage, anarchism, sex radicalism, and second-wave feminism.

Unfortunately the volume does not cover the arts or major poets and writers many of whom deal extensively with implications of unbelief in their work. The poet Philip Larkin or John Asbury to name a few, even William Blake can be read as a satirist rather than a prophet. Also, Ayn Rand merits an entry (and rightly so), but she was surely not a novelist of the literary caliber of George Eliot. And yet Eliot fails to win an entry of her own (she is mentioned, briefly, in the article on British Literature and Unbelief). Likewise, Emily Dickinson gets only the briefest mention in the "American Literature and Unbelief" article, but receives no in-depth treatment. I'm sorry, but George Eliot and Emily Dickinson deserve far more space in such an encyclopedia than Steve Allen.

In terms of energy and entertainment value, the editor also made what I would regard as some fatal decisions. He decided not to include stand-alone entries concerning still-living non-believers, and he decided not to include internet references or contemporary atheist groups. This constitutes just pure timidity and laziness on his part. The effect of this is to give the volume the feeling of having been written in the 1980s, and not the 21st century. It thus gives off a dusty, historical, and non-contemporary feel. It is stupifying to open up a book purporting itself to be a "new" encyclopedia of unbelief, and being unable to find an entry for, say, "the flying spaghetti monster," or "richard dawkins." And even though there is an article on atheist periodicals, there is nothing on atheists on the internet. And even though you can find articles on literature and non-belief, somehow you can look far and wide for anything on film or contemporary pop culture and unbelief. in other words, this 21st century "new" encyclopedia has missed the dominant art medium of our times (film), the dominant communication vehicle of our times (the internet), and the dominant cultural phenomenon of our times (capitalist pop culture). Non-belief is represented in all these spaces in ways interesting for academic study, and yet they are not included in a purportedly contemporary encyclopedia.

My advice to the editor of future volumes: don't just listen to, or solicit articles from, academics over fifty. Spice it up. How about an entry by or about that fire-breathing atheist, Camille Paglia? She'd set some old geezers' knickers aflame if you set her loose on an entry titled, "sex and non-belief."

The major religions are covered with some credibility except for the egregious entry on unbelief in Buddhism which totally ignores the radical critique of Nagarjuna that has an antimetaphysical discernment in its long tradition. Eventually trends in the sciences and philosophy needs to be considered within the frames of unbelief; and the entry on unbelief and the neglect of social and behavioral sciences to investigate it as a cultural and social phenomena hopefully may prod many a graduate student research project.

Unbelief is an important social and cultural style of diffidence toward totalizing ideologies and dogmas that attempt encapsulate and dampen the brash realization that we know only a little something about how the world works. Unbelief attempts us to allocate our resources toward social and political, environmental schemes that will maximize our efforts to the greater good of all. As such becoming aware of the necessity of unbelief within all thinking styles is an important prospectus, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief continues us in that necessary direction.

The distinguished contributors—philosophers, scientists, scholars, and Nobel Prize laureates—include Robert Alley, Joe Barnhart, David Berman, Sir Hermann Bondi, Vern L. Bullough, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dennett, Paul Edwards, Barbara Ehrenreich, Antony Flew, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Peter Hare, Van Harvey, Susan Jacoby, Paul Kurtz, Richard Leakey, Gerd Lüdemann, Michael Martin, Martin E. Marty, Kai Nielsen, Steven Pinker, Robert M. Price, Richard Rorty, John R. Searle, Peter Singer, Ibn Warraq, Steven Weinberg, George A. Wells, David Tribe, Sherwin Wine, and many others.

With a foreword by evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins, this unparalleled reference work provides comprehensive knowledge about unbelief in its many varieties and manifestations. More

Religion Past And Present: Encyclopedia of Theology And Religion (Complete 10 volume set)

Religion Past & Present: A-Bhu: Encyclopedia of Theology and Religion by Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning, Bernd Janowski, Eberhard Jungel (Religion Past and Present: Brill Academic Publishers) At this time I’ve only seen the first volume, but this eventually 10 volume set offers a very fundamental  survey of Christian religious thought with a reasonable representation of Jewish and Islamic influences. The volumes do not represent Eastern religious traditions except in a once over lightly fashion. I have included the subject areas because it best describes the strengths of this reference book which is in its theological considerations of major religious themes as institutionally defined primarily by Christian dogmatics, secondarily considered is the Jewish tradition, with some nods to the Islamic especially in its historical modes.  There are articles on the major non-Western religions but for the most part none are representative or integrated into the theological discussions that the reference chronicles. Perhaps some future edition, where comparative theologies have wrangled with the nature of Buddha and the divine, the paramitas and virtues, the nature of prayer, the rise of Pentecostalism and other features of our global religious outlook. For individual volume coverage see More

World Religions, 5th edition by Warren Matthews (Wadsworth Publishing) Presenting both the histories and the prevalent worldviews of the major world religions, Matthews' WORLD RELIGIONS methodically introduces students to the richness and diversity of these traditions. The "Worldview" sections in particular make this textbook the most helpful textbook when it comes to comparative analyses of the religions. In these sections students can see how the different religions understand a common set of ten human concerns that are fundamental to all religions. Furthermore, this text combines insightful, engaging prose with maps, photographs, timelines, excerpts from sacred texts, and other helpful pedagogical aids, to employ a scholarly approach that neither shields students from current research nor encumbers them with it. Students are encouraged, individually and collectively, to pursue their own dialogues with the voices and nuances of these religions. MoMore

Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya: The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, Translated from the Original Maya Text edited, translated by Allen J. Christenson (University of Okalahoma Press) Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, is not only the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, it is also an extraordinary document of the human imagination. It begins with the deeds of Mayan gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the Mayan lords who founded the Quiché kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. Originally written in Mayan hieroglyphs, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet in the sixteenth century. The poetic edition of Dennis Tedlock's unabridged, widely praised translation includes new notes and commentary, newly translated passages, newly deciphered hieroglyphs, and over forty new illustrations. Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition Of The Mayan Book Of The Dawn Of Life by Dennis Tedlock (Touchstone) still has the poetic panash if not the up–to-the-minute variants based on recent scholarship   The Popol Vuh is the most important example of Maya literature to have survived the Spanish conquest. It is also one of the world's great creation accounts, comparable to the beauty and power of Genesis.  More

Soul, Psyche, Brain: New Directions in the Study of Religion and Brain-Mind Science edited by Kelly Bulkeley (Palgrave) is a collection of essays that address the relationships between neuroscience, religion and human nature. The book highlights some startling new developments in neuroscience that have many people rethinking spirituality, the mind-body connection, and cognition in general. Soul, Psyche, Brain explores questions like: What are the neurological effects of meditation and prayer? How does the mind develop psychological and spiritual self-awareness? And what are the practical implications of brain-mind science for religious faith and moral reasoning? More

Theorizing Rituals: Classical Topics, Theoretical Approaches, Analytical Concepts edited by Jens Kreinath, Joannes Augustinus Maria Snoek, Michael Stausberg (Numen Book Series: Brill Academic Publishers) Volume one of Theorizing Rituals assembles 34 leading scholars from various countries and disciplines working within this field. The authors review main methodological and meta-theoretical problems (part I) followed by some of the classical issues (part II). Further chapters discuss main approaches to theorizing rituals (part III) and explore some key analytical concepts for theorizing rituals (part IV). The volume is provided with extensive indices. More

When Rituals Go Wrong: Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual by Ute Hüsken (Numen Book: Brill Academic Publishers) The present volume is dedicated entirely to the investigation of the implications and effects of breaking ritual rules, of failed performances and of the extinction of ritual systems.
While rituals are often seen as infallible mechanisms which 'work' irrespective of the individual motivations of the performers, it is clearly visible here that rituals can fail, and that improper performances are a cause for concern. These essays break new ground in their respective fields, and the comparative analysis of rituals that go wrong introduces new perspectives to ritual studies. As the first book-length study on ritual mistakes and failure, this volume begins to fill a significant gap in the existing literature. Contributors include: Claus Ambos, Christiane Brosius, Johanna Buss, Burckhard Dücker, Christoph Emmrich, Brigitta Hauser-Schãublin, Maren Hoffmeister, Ute HUsken, Brigitte Merz, Axel Michaels, Karin Polit, Michael Rudolph, Edward L. Schieffelin, Jan A.M. Snoek, Eftychia Stavrianopoulou, and Jan Weinhold. More

Religion Without Belief: Contemporary Allegory and the Search for Postmodern Faith by Jean Ellen Petrolle (State University of New York Press) In our present cultural moment, when God is supposed to be dead and metaphysical speculation unfashionable, why does postmodern fiction--in a variety of genres--make such frequent use of the ancient rhetorical form of allegory? In Religion Without Belief, Jean Ellen Petrolle argues that contrary to popular understandings of postmodernism as an irreligious and amoral climate, postmodern allegory remains deeply engaged in the quest for religious insight. Examining a range of films and novels, this book shows that postmodern fiction, despite its posturing about the unverifiable nature of truth and reality, routinely offers theological and cosmological speculation. Works considered include virtual-reality films such as The Matrix and The Truman Show, avant-garde films, and Amerindian and feminist novels. More

The Higher Self in Christopher Brennan's Poems: Esotericism, Romanticism, Symbolism by Katherine Barnes (Aries: Brill Academic) Many critics contend that Christopher Brennan is Australia's most important scholar and poet. Because his poetry was often written in a more obscure fashion, he never received the recognition that scholars of world literature believe he deserved. Poems 1913 is considered his most important work, and it is on the basis of that collection that Brennan's writing is considered some of the finest poetry produced before the start of World War I.  More

Judaism

Traditions of Maimonideanism  by Carlos Fraenkel (IJS Studies in Judaica: Brill Academic) The goal of the present volume is to shed light on a number of traditions of Maimonideanism that have hitherto little been explored. Maimonides (1138-1204) was the most important medieval Jewish philosopher and also made lasting contributions to many other fields. The essays in the first part examine aspects of his work in medicine, Jewish law, and liturgy. The essays in the second part look at how Maimonides was read, misread, and creatively reinvented in a wide range of contexts in the East and in the West—from medieval Cairo to Crown Heights in Brooklyn. Written by a group of leading scholars, the essays illustrate the breadth of Maimonides' work, and the fascinating history of its reception from the thirteenth century to the present. More

The Cultures of Maimonideanism  by James T. Robinson(Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy: Brill Academic) In the history of Jewish thought, no individual scholar has exercised more influence than Maimonides (1138-1204)—philosopher and physician, legal scholar and communal leader. This collection of papers, originating at the 2007 EAJS colloquium, places primary emphasis on this influence—not on Maimonides himself, but on the many movements he inspired. Using Maimonideanism as an interpretive lens, the authors of this volume—representing a variety of fields and disciplines—develop new approaches to and fresh perspectives on the peculiar dynamic of Judaism and philosophy. Focusing on social and cultural processes as well as philosophical ideas and arguments, they point toward an original reconceptualization of Jewish thought. More

Jewish World Around the New Testament: Collected Essays I (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament) by Richard Bauckham (Mohr Siebeck) This is a collection of twenty-four essays first published by Richard Bauckham between 1976 and 2008, some of which have been updated for this volume. Many aspects of the literature and thought of early Judaism are covered. There are discussions of 'the parting of the ways' between early Judaism and early Christianity and of the relevance of early Jewish literature for the study of the New Testament. Other essays throw light on specific aspects or texts of early Christianity by relating them to their early Jewish context. These include studies of the delay of the parousia, the restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts, and the use of Latin names by Paul and other Jews in the early Christian movement. The essays in this volume result from the author's conviction, throughout his career, that the New Testament texts can only be under-stood adequately through wide-ranging and detailed study of the Judaism of the late Second Temple period. More

The Land of the Body: Studies in Philo's Representation of Egypt by Sarah J. K. Pearce (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament: Mohr Siebeck) presents the first extended study of the representation of Egypt in the writings of Philo of Alexandria. Philo is a crucial witness, not only to the experiences of the Jews of Alexandria, but to the world of early Roman Egypt in general.

As historians of Roman Alexandria and Egypt are well aware, we have access to very few voices from inside the country in this era; Philo is the best we have. As a commentator on Jewish Scripture, Philo is also one of the most valuable sources for the interpretation of Egypt in the Pentateuch. He not only writes very extensively on this subject, but he does so in ways that are remarkable for their originality when compared with the surviving literature of ancient Judaism. More

Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy edited by Francesca Alesse (Studies in Philo of Alexandria: Brill) The essays collected in this volume focus on the role played by the philosophy of the Hellenistic, or post-Aristotelian age (from the school of the successors of Aristotle, Theophrastus and other Peripatetics, Epicurus, Sceptical Academy and Stoicism, to neo-Pythagorenism and the schools of Antiochus and Eudorus) in Philo of Alexandria’s works.
Despite many authoritative studies on Philo's vision of Greek philosophy as an exegetical tool in allegorizing the Scripture, there is not such a comprehensive overview in Philo’s treatises that takes in account both the progress achieved in the recent interpretation of Hellenistic philosophy and analysis of ancient doxographical literature.  More

Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: A Close Reading of Sippurey Ma'asiyot by Marianne Schleicher (Numen Book Series: Brill Academic Publishers) Until 1806, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810) disseminated his thoughts on redemption through homilies. In 1806, however, Nahman chose the genre of tales as an additional and innovative means of religious discourse. An academic close reading of all of the tales, known as Sippurey Ma'asiyot, has not yet been undertaken. As the first comprehensive scholarly work on the whole selection of tales and contrary to previous scholarship, this book does not reduce the tales to biographical expressions of Nahman's tormented soul and messianic aspirations. Instead, it treats them as religious literature where the concept of "intertextuality" is considered essential to explain how Nahman defines his theology of redemption and invites his listeners and readers to appropriate his religious world-view. More

Wrestling with God: Jewish Theological Responses during and after the Holocaust edited by Steven T. Katz, Shlomo Biderman, Gershon Greenberg (Oxford University Press) (Paperback) this volume presents a wide-ranging, extremely diverse selection of Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust. It is the most complete anthology of its kind, bringing togeth­er for the first time a large sample of ultra-orthodox sources produced during the war and Just after its end, translated from the Hebrew and Yiddish; a substantial selection of essays, originally written in Hebrew, by Israeli thinkers; and a broad sampling of works by Amencan and European philosophers and theologians. These diverse selections represent virtually every significant theological position that has been articulated by a Jewish thinker in response to the Holocaust. More

The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism by Dana Evan Kaplan (Cambridge Companions to Religion: Cambridge University Press) provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the most important and interesting historical and contemporary facets of Judaism in America. The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism is a comprehensive survey that attempts to cover Judaism as a religion in the United States rather than Jewishness as an ethnicity in this country. The title of this volume thus requires a word of explanation. In popular usage today, Judaism usually implies a broad sociological approach to the subject of Jewish life and culture, while the term Jewish religion suggests a more specific concern with beliefs and practices that are somehow associated with a supernatural reality. Although this collection uses the more general term in its title, its focus is on American Jewish religious phenomena. It is, however, an appropriate title, I believe, because the volume's essays describe a quite inclusive Jewish religious experience in America. This includes aspects that frequently have been neglected or ignored or are understood as outside the purview of religion by a largely Christian America, which sometimes draws different and more impenetrable boundaries between the sacred and the secular. Understanding the subject in such broad terms, one can see that Jewish religion in America means much more than just religious ritual or belief. Contributors also discuss the sociology, psychology, theology, and history of American Judaism. A number of essays concentrate on the culture of American Judaism, including musical, artistic, and literary expressions. Morea>

Rereading the Mishnah: A New Approach to Ancient Jewish Texts by Judith Hauptman (Texts & Studies in Ancient Judaism: Paul Mohr Verlag) An important historical reworking of the development of the tradition.

There are two main arguments to this volume. The first is that not only are individual passages of the Mishnah based on individual, parallel passages of the Tosefta, but even entire chapters of the Mishnah are based on entire chapters of the Tosefta. If one were to line up all the Tosefta paragraphs that give rise to Mishnah paragraphs, they would join together to form a vast net­work. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that there existed an ordered collection of tannaitic passages that preceded the Mishnah and served as one of its sources. That collection was the Tosefta. More 

Samuel David Luzzatto, Prolegomena to a Grammar of the Hebrew Language by Aaron D. Rubin (Gorgias Press) is primarily an annotated translation of a little-known Italian work about Hebrew grammar by Luzzatto. First published in 1836, Prolegomeni ad una grammatica ragionata della lingua ebraica, is perhaps the most important grammatical work of the influential Italian scholar, Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865). Never reprinted, and never before fully translated, this long inaccessible work has become almost unknown. This book, which was intended to serve as an introduction to a comprehensive grammar of Hebrew, treats the history of Hebrew in a variety of ways. Luzzatto begins with a history of Hebrew scholarship, from Talmudic times through the early nineteenth century, including both Jewish and Christian grammarians. Following this wide-ranging survey, which has yet to be superseded, is a brief history of the Hebrew language itself, from its origins to its later manifestations. The remainder of the book is comprised of chapters on various linguistic phenomena of both Hebrew and Aramaic. Among the subjects treated are the nature of the Hebrew and Aramaic vowels (including Syriac), the development of the pointing tradition, and an important treatment of the accentual system. In each of its various chapters, the book is replete with information and innovative insight that is still valuable to the modern scholar. Moreover, in addition to the translation and copious annotations, the translator has added an appendix containing biographical sketches of the roughly 275 Hebrew scholars mentioned by Luzzatto. The book will be of great use to anyone interested in the Hebrew language and its fascinating history. More

The Song of Songs: A Philological Analysis of the Hebrew Book by P. W. T. Stoop-van Paridon (Ancient Near Eastern Studies: Peeters) Since time immemorial the Song of Songs (SofS) has been a source of amazement and inspiration. The countless translations and interpretations of this book differ strongly from each other. Does the Hebrew text indeed justify this? To answer this question, an unprejudiced philological analysis is necessary that keeps strictly to the text, which does justice to the context, and approaches the book intrinsically as rationally as possible. More

Kabbalah

A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar by Melila Hellner-Eshed (Stanford University Press) In the Zohar, the jewel in the crown of Jewish mystical literature, the verse "A river flows from Eden to water the garden" (Genesis 2:10) symbolizes the river of divine plenty that unceasingly flows from the depths of divinity into the garden of reality.

Hellner-Eshed's book investigates the flow of this river in the world of the Zoharic heroes, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his disciples, as they embark upon their wondrous spiritual adventures. By focusing on the Zohar's language of mystical experience and its unique features, the author is able to provide remarkable scholarly insight into the mystical dimensions of the Zohar, namely the human quest for an enhanced experience of the living presence of the divine and the Zohar's great call to awaken human consciousness. More

Sefer Yesira by A. Peter Hayman (Hardcover, Mohr Siebeck) This the first comprehensive critical edition of a text which was a fundamental influence on Jewish thought in the medieval period and has continued to fascinate scholars and students of Judaism to the present day. It was initially understood to be a philosophical text which had descended by oral tradition from Abraham himself. It purports to tell us how God created the world using the ten sefiroth (the Spirit of the living God, air, water and fire, and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet). With its English translation of the three earliest recensions and its commentary on the variant early texts of the work, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the growth and emergence of the Jewish mystical movement. There are four appendices setting out what parts of the text are attested in each of the manuscripts and in what order, a hypothetical reconstructed text and the text of the tenth century Vatican scroll of Sefer Yesira with the probable added material underlined. More

Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah by Brian Ogren (Studies in Jewish History and Culture: Brill Academic) Metempsychosis was a prominent element in Renaissance conceptualizations of the human being, the universe, and the place of the human person in the universe. A variety concepts emerged in debates about metempsychosis: human to human reincarnation, human to vegetal, human to animal, and human to angelic transmigration. As a complex and changing doctrine, metempsychosis gives us a well-placed window for viewing the complex and dynamic contours of Jewish thought in late fifteenth century Italy; as such, it enables us to evaluate Jewish thought in relation to non-Jewish Italian developments. This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish and its Christian dimensions. More

The Origins of Jewish Mysticism by Peter Schafer (Princeton University Press) Release date September 2010

The Origins of Jewish Mysticism von Peter Schäfer (Mohr Siebeck) June 2009 This book provides the reader for the first time with a history of pre-kabbalistic Jewish mysticism. It covers a wide range of quite diverse literatures, from the biblical book of Ezekiel to the ascent apocalypses, the Qumran literature, Philo, Rabbinic literature, and finally the Hekhalot literature, which constitutes the first full-fledged mystical movement in late antiquity (Merkavah mysticism). Instead of imposing on these different literatures a preconceived notion of "mysticism," Peter Schafer offers a close reading of the key texts and asks what they wish to convey about the age-old human desire to get close to and communicate with God.
The author of this book has dedicated much of his scholarly life to the history of Jewish mysticism. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism summarizes his views in an accessible way, directed at specialists as well as at a broader audience. More 

Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Discourse and Its Others by Olav Hammer, Kocku Von Stuckrad (Aries Book Series: Brill Academic) In its historical development from late antiquity to the present, western esotericism has repeatedly been the issue of polemical discourse. This volume engages the polemical structures that underlie both the identities within and the controversy about esoteric currents in European history. From Jewish and Christian kabbalah through heretical discourse and interconfessional polemics in early modernity to the legitimization of esoteric identity in modern culture, the 12 chapters, accompanied by an editors' introduction, provide a cornucopia of relevant cases that are interpreted in a framework of polemical discourse and 'Othering'. This volume sheds new light on the ultimately polemical structure of western esotericism and thus opens new vistas for further research into esoteric discourse. More

Like Angels on Jacob's Ladder: Abraham Abulafia, the Franciscans, and Joachimism by Harvey J. Hames (State University of New York Press: SUNY) explores the career of Abraham Abulafia (ca. 1240-1291), self-proclaimed Messiah and founder of the school of ecstatic Kabbalah. Active in southern Italy and Sicily where Franciscans had adopted the apocalyptic teachings of Joachim of Fiore, Abulafia believed the end of days was approaching and saw himself as chosen by God to reveal the Divine truth. He appropriated Joachite ideas, fusing them with his own revelations, to create an apocalyptic and messianic scenario that he was certain would attract his Jewish contemporaries and hoped would also convince Christians. From his focus on the centrality of the Tetragrammaton (the four letter ineffable Divine name) to the date of the expected redemption in 1290 and the coming together of Jews and Gentiles in the inclusiveness of the new age, Abulafia's engagement with the apocalyptic teachings of some of his Franciscan contemporaries enriched his own worldview. Though his messianic claims were a result of his revelatory experiences and hermeneutical reading of the Torah, they were, to no small extent, dependent on his historical circumstances and acculturation.  More

The Art of Conversion: Christianity and Kabbalah in the Thirteenth Century by Harvey J. Hames (Medieval Mediterranean: Brill Academic) discusses Ramon Llull (ca. 1232-1316), the Christian missionary, philosopher and mystic, his relations with Jewish contemporaries, and how he integrated Jewish mystical teachings (Kabbalah) into his thought system so as to persuade the Jews to convert. Issues dealt with include Llull's attitude towards the Jews, his knowledge of Kabbalah, his theories regarding the Trinity and Incarnation (the Art), and the impact of his ideas on the Jewish community. The book challenges conventional scholarly opinion regarding Christian knowledge of contemporary Jewish thought and questions the assumption that Christians did not know or use Kabbalah before the Renaissance. Further, it suggests that Lull was well aware of ongoing intellectual and religious controversies within the Jewish community, as well as being the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate Kabbalah as a tool for conversion. For a recent piece of scholarship Hames has done much to revise and clarify interreligious esoteric relationships and influences of Christian monasticism upon the formation of Kabbalah and vice versa. The story is just becoming known and is likely to suggest more surprises in the future.
Ramon Llull lived an interreligious vision, where he took instruction in Sufism and mystical Kabbalah. In his epoch making Book of Lover and Beloved her writes:
“Two lovers met. One of them revealed his beloved and the other understood him.
The question arose as to which of the two was nearer his beloved, and my answer to this the lover had knowledge of the demonstration of the Trinity. More

Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: A Close Reading of Sippurey Ma'asiyot by Marianne Schleicher (Numen Book Series: Brill Academic Publishers) Until 1806, Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1810) disseminated his thoughts on redemption through homilies. In 1806, however, Nahman chose the genre of tales as an additional and innovative means of religious discourse. An academic close reading of all of the tales, known as Sippurey Ma'asiyot, has not yet been undertaken. As the first comprehensive scholarly work on the whole selection of tales and contrary to previous scholarship, this book does not reduce the tales to biographical expressions of Nahman's tormented soul and messianic aspirations. Instead, it treats them as religious literature where the concept of "intertextuality" is considered essential to explain how Nahman defines his theology of redemption and invites his listeners and readers to appropriate his religious world-view.  More

Man and Theogony in the Lurianic Cabala by Daphne Freedman (Gorgias Press) After the establishment of the Zoharic corpus amongst leading rabbis, no major changes took place in Jewish esoterism until the middle of the 16th century, when in Safed (in Upper Galilee, Palestine; present-day Zefat, Israel) a religious centre of extreme importance for Judaism was established, which was mainly inspired by teachers coming from families expelled from Spain. Until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and during the two generations that followed it, the Kabbalistic literary output had certainly been abundant, in Spain till the expulsion as well as in Italy and the Middle East; but it was primarily a matter of systematizing or even popularizing the Zohar or of extending the speculation already developed in the 13th century; there were also some attempts at reconciling philosophy and Kabbala. It should be noted that even the traditionalist theologians adopted a careful and rather reserved attitude toward Kabbala.  More

Likutei Amarim Tanya in Hebrew and English by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (Kehot Publication Society) Because the Tanya is considered a 'written Torah'  by Chabad Hassidim it requires, in every generation, an 'oral Torah' to accompany it and to serve as an usher and guide. Written by the great Hasidic master Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in the late eighteenth century, the Tanya is considered to be one of the most extraordinary books of moral teachings ever written.  More

Opening the Tanya: Discovering the Moral and Mystical Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah by Adin Steinsaltz (Jossey-Bass) is a groundbreaking book that offers a definitive introduction, explanation, and commentary upon the Tanya. For more than two hundred years, the Tanya has been studied by those who know of its insight and wisdom with the devotion and the intensity usually associated with the Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. Now internationally acclaimed author, scholar, and teacher Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has written an illuminating and inspiring introduction to the Tanya. Opening the Tanya offers an overview of the Tanya’s broad philosophical and spiritual messages as well as point-by-point commentary on the text itself. More

Learning From the Tanya : Volume Two in the Definitive Commentary on the Moral and Mystical Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah by Adin Steinsaltz (Jossey-Bass) offers a key for unlocking the mysteries of one of the most extraordinary books of moral teachings ever written. A seminal document in the study of Kabbalah, the Tanya explores and solves the dilemmas of the human soul by arriving at the root causes of its struggles. Though it is a classic Jewish spiritual text, the Tanya and its commentary take a broad and comprehensive approach that is neither specific to Judaism nor tied to a particular personality type or time or point of view. The internationally celebrated Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, who has dedicated his life to the study, teaching, and writing of books that explain Jewish scripture, religious practice, spirituality, and mysticism to Jews and non-Jews throughout the world, is the author of this explanation and line-by-line commentary on the Tanya. As relevant today as it was two hundred years ago, the Tanya helps us to understand the many thousands of complexities, doubts, and drives within us as a single basic problem—the struggle between our Godly soul and our animal soul. More

Gnosticism

Echoes from the Gnosis: 100th Anniversary Edition of the Spiritual Classics by G.R.S. Mead edited by John Algeo, introduction Robert Gilbert, Commentary by Stephan Hoeller (Quest Books) Long before the mid-twentieth-century discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, G. R. S. Mead had translated ancient Gnostic texts. Here in one book is the entire collection of his eleven volumes first published between 1906 and 1908, including "The Hymn of Jesus" and "The Wedding Song of Wisdom."
Each Gnostic text has added historical background, source information, literary comment, and spiritual interpretation. Mead, who devoted his life to esoteric studies and was a pioneer in the Gnostic revival, uniquely understood the complex symbolism of his subject. The reader may be surprised to learn that some of these texts were originally not books, but instead initiatory mystery rituals.
Editor John Algeo preserves Mead's own inspired language. To enhance the texts for today's readers, the volume includes new explanatory essays by contemporary Gnostic Stephan Hoeller and a biography by Robert Gilbert, a world authority on Mead. More

The Voudon Gnostic Workbook by Michael Bertiaux ( Expanded Edition) (Weiser Books) A long-awaited new edition of the seminal text on the spiritual system that is a convergence of Gnosticism and Haitian voodoo, The Voudon Gnostic Workbook, is a singular sacred work that is comprehensive in scope--from "how to be a lucky Hoodoo" to how magick and voodoo intersect energetically, to esoteric time travel. Complete with charts and graphs and instructive interdimensional physics, The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is an "object of desire" among students of the occult. Michael Bertiaux is an occult practitioner and instructor in the Chicago area who developed a large following based on his voodoo-infused Gnostic teachings. 
 The The Voudon Gnostic Workbook presents the teachings of a Franco-Haitian esoteric and theurgical society known as "La Couleuvre Noire" (The Black Snake), which by reason of their tradition is believed by its members to be a society derived from an adept who died in Leogane, Haiti, in 1774. This tradition also entails teachings derived from African mysticism and spiritism, as these teachings were developed in two hundred years of occult work and casework practice in esotericism and a type of psychology within Haitian culture and the wider Voudon diaspora, which grew out of the occult practices of the members of this order. More

Gnostic Revisions of Genesis Stories And Early Jesus Traditions by Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (Nag Hammadi & Manichaean Studies: Brill Academic) argues that the intellectuals behind early Gnostic revisions of Genesis stories were second-century Christians with an ideological background in Greek-Hellenistic philosophy, who adopted and reinterpreted biblical narrative materials with a view to exposing the inferiority of the creator-God of Genesis and the ignorance of those Christians who continued to worship this God. It also discusses controversies between Gnostic and early orthodox Christians about the person and the mission of Jesus Christ. More

The Gospel Of Mary: Beyond A Gnostic And A Biblical Mary Magdalene by Esther A. De Boer (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series: T. & T. Clark Publishers) Two basic viewpoints are usually distinguished in recent scholarly work on the Biblical and Gnostic Mary Magdalene: (1) Gnostic authors have constructed a Gnostic Mary Magdalene using the biblical portrait of her as a vehicle for Gnostic teaching, and, (2) biblical authors neglected the important role of Mary Magdalene, of which Gnostic authors preserved evidence. In addition, on the one hand the Gnostic Mary Magdalene is valued as a female apostolic leader, as an advocate of women and of egalitarian discipleship, and as a revealer of Gnostic insights. On the other hand, scholars point to the specific dualism, and the subsequently negative female imagery in Gnostic writings, and reject a positive evaluation of the Gnostic Mary Magdalene. More

Alternative Christs by Olav Hammer(Cambridge University Press) The lack of reliable biographical data on Jesus Christ has left his life open to radical interpretations. This book explores the views of Gnostics, Manicheans, and Muslims as well as less well-known traditions and individuals, without taking sides in any theological arguments.
Few, if any, individuals have had such a profound influence on Western culture as Jesus, even though not a single detail of his life or teaching can be confirmed with certainty. This lack of reliable biographical data has left his life open to broad interpretation. Jesus, gnostic and apocryphal sources insist, never truly died on the cross since he was a divine being, whose human frame was an illusion. Muslim sources affirm that Jesus was a prophet of God and will return at the end of time. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels formulated racial theories in which Jesus was a redeemer for Aryans only, while the Renaissance polymath Guillaume Postel was convinced that Christ had returned as a Venetian woman. This book explores these and other views without taking sides in any theological arguments and presents research on a variety of alternative Christologies. More 

Magic

The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon: From an Original Talismanic Grimoire in Full Color by Ebenezer Sibley and Frederick Hockley by Joseph H Peterson (Ibis) The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon is one of several notebooks from the estate of Ebenezer Sibley, transcribed under the direction of Frederic Hockley (1808-1885). Sibley was a prominent physician and an influential author, who complemented his scientific studies with writings on the “deeper truths” including magic, astrology, alchemy, and hypnotherapy. Both Sibley and Hockley were major inspirations in the occult revival of the past two centuries, influencing A.E. Waite, S.L. Mathers, Aleister Crowley, as well as the Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian, and Masonic movements. This collection reflects Sibley’s teachings on the practical use of celestial influences and harmonies. The Clavis contains clear and systematic instructions for constructing magical tools and pentacles for many practical purposes. It includes eight separate magical texts: The Mysterious Ring, Experiments of the Spirits, Birto, Vassago, Agares, Bealpharos, The Wheel of Wisdom, and the Complete Book of Magic Science. The manuscript reproduced here is the most accurate and complete known, very beautifully and carefully written complete with extraordinary hand-colored seals and colored handwritten text. 282 color pages with a color fold-out and a huge index. More

Christianity

The Feminine Personification of Wisdom: A Study of Homer's Penelope, Cappadocian Macrina, Boethius' Philosophia and Dante's Beatrice by Wendy Elgersma Helleman (Edwin Mellen Press) examines the attribution of abstract values to women by analyzing four characters spanning literary genres and more that 2000 years. Penelope, Macrina, Philosophia, and Beatrice are connected by their contribution to the theme of wisdom through their use of reason against passion. Feminine personification of reason and wisdom makes its own contribution as antidote to traditional understanding of 'feminine' as 'emotional' or 'irrational'. This book examines allegorical personification of Sophia, or wisdom, in ancient and medieval philosophy and literature, examining four feminine figures who personify wisdom. The first is Penelope of Homeric epic, weaving and unraveling to forestall her suitors; the tale is interpreted allegorically by Cynics and Stoics to discuss the place of logic in philosophy. The second example, Macrina, sister of Gregory of Nyssa, is less obviously allegorical. But Gregory depicts her as an embodiment of wisdom using the theme, 'reason against passion'. Boethius' Philosophia is portrayed as the lady who consoles as she reminds the prisoner of divine reason ruling the world. And finally, Dante's Beatrice, his muse, teacher and guide in achieving the beatific vision. Contemporary recognition of allegory as rhetorical technique supports appreciation of Dante's skill in depicting Beatrice as Lady Wisdom. More

Theophany: The Appearing of God According to the Writings of Johannes Scottus Eriugena by Hilary Anne-Marie Mooney (Beitrage Zur Historischen Theologie, 146: Mohr Siebeck) Hilary Anne-Marie Mooney's study is based on the new critical edition of Eriugena's Periphyseon and analyzes Eriugena as a biblically rooted theologian. The author presents the notion of "theophany", the appearing of God, as the key to understanding Eriugena's system as a whole. The theophanic structure inherent in all Eriugena's accounts of divine revealing possesses an impressive coherence.  She focuses on the creative impulses which he draws from Scripture and she investigates the influence of theological and philosophical thinkers of the first six Christian centuries on Eriugena. The author considers those passages of Eriugena's writings in which the precise term `theophany' is used as well as other passages in which the term does not occur but which are nonetheless imbued with the 'notion' of a theophanic appearing of God. In her study the author maintains that a theophanic structure characterized by four recurring facets may be unearthed in Eriugena's theology of the revealing of God. More

Christ in Postmodern Philosophy: Gianni Vattimo, Rene Girard, and Slavoj Zizek by Frederiek Depoortere (T&T Clark) (Hardcover) offers an investigation into the Christological ideas of three contemporary thinkers: Slavoj Zizek, Gianni Vattimo and Rene Girard.

The present book offers an investigation into the Christological reflections found in the work of three contemporary thinkers, namely Gianni Vattimo, Rene Girard and Slavoj Zizek. It is one of the results of my doctoral research, which began in October 2003 and which intended to compare and evaluate from a theological perspective the work of a number of contemporary continental philosophers who had recently made a so-called 'turn to religion' and to monotheism in particular. The original project text mentioned the names of John D. Caputo, Richard Kearney, Gianni Vattimo, Merold Westphal and Slavoj Zizek. My first exploratory study of these philosophers suggested to me that they can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of Caputo, Kearney and Westphal. In the wake of Heidegger's announcement of the end of onto-theology and inspired by both Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, they search for a post-metaphysical God, a God who is often indicated as tout autre (wholly other). Zizek, on the other hand, does not belong to this group. First, he clearly has another source of inspiration: not Heidegger, Levinas or Derrida, but Lacan and the great thinkers of German Idealism (Kant, Schelling and Hegel). Moreover, he does not aim at tracing a post-metaphysical God. His 'turn' to Christianity is a result of his concern to 'save' the achievements of modernity from fundamentalism as well as from postmodern relativism and religious obscurantism. Vattimo, finally, is a go-between. His sources (mainly Nietzsche and Heidegger) seem to indicate that he aligns with the first group. Like Caputo, Kearney and Westphal, Vattimo is also searching for the God who comes after metaphysics, but, as we shall see in due course, he explicitly rejects the wholly other God defended by them. With Zizek, furthermore, Vattimo shares the attention for the event of the incarnation and the conviction that the incarnation amounts to the end of God's transcendence. Both thinkers also defend the uniqueness of Christianity vis-a-vis natural religiosity. In this way, they seem to share at least some affinity with the views of Rene Girard, who has also defended the uniqueness of Christianity and claims that the latter broke away from the violent transcendence of the natural religions. In what follows, we will investigate the Christological ideas of these three contemporary thinkers, focusing on the topics of the relation between transcendence and the event of the incarnation on the one hand, and the topic of the uniqueness of Christianity on the other. More

The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 4, Christianity in Western Europe, c.1100-c.1500 edited by Miri Rubin and Walter Simons (Cambridge University Press) During the early middle ages, Europe developed complex and varied Christian cultures, and from about 1100 secular rulers, competing factions and inspired individuals continued to engender a diverse and ever-changing mix within Christian society. This volume explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. The clergy of this period initiated new approaches to the role of priests, bishops and popes, and developed an ambitious project to instruct the laity. For lay people, the practices of parish religion were central, but many sought additional ways to enrich their lives as Christians. Impulses towards reform and renewal periodically swept across Europe, led by charismatic preachers and supported by secular rulers. This book provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.  More

Book of All Saints by Adrienne von Speyr (Ignatius Press) Adrienne von Speyr, a renowned mystic and spiritual writer from Switzerland, was received into the Catholic Church at the age of 38 by one of the theological giants of the 20th century, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, on the Feast of All Saints, 1940. Balthasar became her spiritual director and confessor until her death in 1967, during which time Adrienne was favored with many gifts of authentic mystical prayer. Balthasar considered one of the central characteristics of Adrienne's prayer to be her transparency to the inspirations she received from God, along with a deep personal communion with the saints.  More

Meister Eckhart: An Asian Perspective by Hee-Sung Keel (Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs: Peeters Publishers) Meister Eckhart (1260?-1328) is undoubtedly the most important thinker in the West for drawing the spiritual heritage of Christian mysticism close to the monistic spirit that infuses so much of Asian religious thought. His vision of the unio mystica of God and the soul as a perfect unity goes far beyond the conventional mysticism of love that was dominant before him. Eckhart's "mysticism of unity," a bold and revolutionary affirmation of a perfect divine-human unity realized in the ground of the soul, as well as the mysti­cal atheism it gave rise to, inspired a wealth of profound spiritual insights that continue to challenge the reader of his sermons today. More

The Mass: The Presence of the Sacrifice of the Cross by Charles Cardinal Journet (St. Augustines Press) Charles Journet, the great Swiss theologian and cardinal of the Church, first wrote this work on the Mass over forty years ago; yet his ever-ancient-ever-new insights into the sacrificial nature of the Mass are most needed today, when this aspect of the sacrament is so often misunderstood or neglected.
The Mass is the "unbloody presence of the one unique bloody sacrifice of the Cross." This is the fundamental principle upon which Journet develops his theology of the Mass. Guided by the teachings of the Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Magisterium of the Church, and supported by his own rich spiri­tual life, Journet plumbs the depths of this unfathomable Mystery and presents It to the reader with a clarity rarely equaled. More

Queer Theology: Rethinking the Western Body edited by Gerard Loughlin (Wiley-Blackwell) (Paperback) Queer Theology makes an important contribution to public debate about Christianity and sex. This remarkable collection of essays reconceptualizes the body and its desires, enlarging the meaning of sexuality for the good of the churches.
Written by some of the most able and insightful of Anglo-American scholars, established and up-coming, and from a variety of academic and religious backgrounds, the book shows how western bodies are queerer than often thought, and that the same is true of the God who elicits and tutors their desires.  More

The History of Theology II: The Middle Ages edited by Giulio D'Onofrio, translated by Matthew J. O'Connell (History of Theology: Liturgical Press) At last, a thorough, balanced, and readable history of medieval theology for nonspecialist readers! This is that book we so often ask for and so seldom get: written by a scholar for everyone to read. Giulio D’Onofrio, a historian of philosophy and theology, uses his deep and broad-ranging knowledge of the thought of the scholars (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) of the Middle Ages to describe in a thoroughly readable style the development of ideas from the beginnings of what can rightly be called Western culture to the Renaissance and the eve of the Reformation. No longer can medieval theology be regarded as merely Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure with appendages fore and aft. This book is a page-turner, as readers are continually invited to join scholars and mystics of another age in the perennial pursuit of “faith seeking understanding.” More

Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future by John J. DiIulio Jr. (Wildavsky Forum: University of California Press) By 2006 the electoral and public policy victories conservative religious groups had achieved began to energize those who were uncomfortable with the emphasis on such issues as abortion and same-gender marriage at the expense of what were considered more pressing concerns, including poverty, affordable health care, and global warming. Many moderate and liberal Christians who opposed the Bush administration's policies, such as the Iraq war and budget cuts for social welfare programs, began to organize, forming such groups as Faith in Public Life, Catholic Alliance for the Common Good, and Faithful America. More

Mainline Christians and U.S. Public Policy: A Reference Handbook by Glenn Utter (Contemporary World Issues: ABC-CLIO) This reference work offers an overview of eight major mainline Protestant denominations along with the Catholic Church in the United States and the value positions they promote in the public arena, emphasizing the differences as well as similarities among them. The book presents these churches' historical development from colonial times to the present; the dominant values held by the leadership, clergy, and lay members; their social mis­sions; and their efforts to influence public opinion and public policy on several social, economic, and political issues. An exami­nation of the conversations, disagreements, and interest conflicts within each denomination provides insight into how value positions and the relationship between the denominations and the larger world have developed. More

A Good Life in a World Made Good: Albert Eustace Haydon, 1880-1975 by Creighton Peden (American Liberal Religious Thought: Peter Lang Publishing) Creighton Peden is a scholar of 19th and 20th century, liberal theology who, for this book, was able to draw upon previously unavailable original sources - lectures, notes, and radio broadcasts. When it comes to research, understanding, and appreciation of the topic, Peden is without peer. A Good Life in a World Made Good: Albert Eustace Haydon, 1880-1975, chronicles Haydon’s journey from evangelical Christian to religious humanism - pausing along the way to engage world religions. Always faithful in the pursuit of truth, Haydon was equally interested in the development of human character. No theologian, preacher, or student of American religious thought could fail to benefit from reading this intellectual biography. More

The Spirituality of the Christian East, A Systematic Handbook, Volume One by Tomás Spidlík SJ; translated by Anthony P. Gythiel (Cistercian Publications) Prayer: The Spirituality of the Christian East, Volume 2 by Tomás Spidlík SJ, translated by Anthony P. Gythiel Cistercian Publications) Professor-emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute at Rome, Tomas Spidlík dedicated his scholarly life to studying and teaching the theology and spirituality of the Christian East in the hope of reconciling Eastern and Western Christian traditions. In this encyclopaedic overview of Eastern spiritual teaching he has created a bridge by which Western Christians may pass over centuries of misunderstanding and obliviousness. This second volume on Eastern Christian spirituality amplifies in depth the final two chapters of the earlier The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook. Like Cassian in writing his Conferences, Cardinal Spidlík does not advocate any particular pattern of prayer, but sets out faithfully to collect and share the teachings of generations of eastern monks and spiritual writers. More

Jean Gerson And the Last Medieval Reformation by Brian Patrick McGuire (Hardcover) (Pennsylvania State University Press) One of the problems of dividing our history into epochs, such as ancient, medieval, Renaissance and Reformation; is that these great divisions of time cast a shadow on transitional people who belong to their place in history without the prescience of future history's flow. Jean Gerson, the major French religious reformer, educator, and theologian who lived between the 14th and 15th century is such a transitional figure.  McGuire's intensive biography and study of Gerson, the first since 1929, provides a rich overview of the life and times of this visionary scholar by giving a summary account of his writings that were very influential on Luther and to a lesser extent, Calvin in the generation after Gerson’s death.  Gerson played an important role in attempts to heal the Great Schism which culminated in the Council of Constance (1414 – 1418) More

A Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians edited by Patrick Carey, Joseph Lienhard (Hendrickson) (hardcover) The last 20 centuries of Christian history have witnessed the emergence of numerous theological traditions. This reference provides alphabetically arranged entries for more than 450 Christian theologians. Included are entries for those individuals whose work was primarily in systematic and spiritual theology, or who were church historians chiefly concerned with theological matters. Whenever possible, each entry provides basic biographical information, a brief account of the theologian's education and career, and a summary of the person's most important contributions to theology. The entries end with bibliographies of primary and secondary sources, while the volume concludes with a selected, general bibliography. More

Theological Milton: Deity, Discourse And Heresy in the Miltonic Canon by Michael Lieb (Medieval & Renaissance Literary Studies Duquesne University Press) In lively, forceful, and at times witty language, Michael Lieb has written an illuminating study of the figure of God as a literary character in the writings of John Milton. Milton's God has always been a provocative and controversial figure, and Lieb offers a fresh way to look at the relationship between the language of theology and the language of poetry in Milton's works. He draws into the discussion previous authors on the subjectPatrides, Hunter, Kelley, Empson, Danielson, Rumrich and others—resulting in a dynamic debate about Milton's multifarious God. By stressing God's multivalent qualities, Theological Milton offers an innovative perspective on the darker side of the divinity. Lieb allows us to see a Miltonic God of hate as well as a God of love, a God who is a destroyer as well as a creator. Lieb directly confronts the more troubling faces of God in a manner richly informed by Milton's own theology. Against the theoretical framework for the idea of addressing God as a distinctly literary figure, Lieb presents Milton in the historical milieu prior to and contemporaneous with his works. More

Islam

Ibn Arabî - Time and Cosmology by Mohamed Haj Yousef (Culture and Civilization in the Middle East: Routledge) is the first comprehensive attempt to explain Ibn Arabî’s distinctive view of time and its role in the process of creating the cosmos and its relation with the Creator. By comparing this original view with modern theories of physics and cosmology, Mohamed Haj Yousef constructs a new cosmological model that may deepen and extend our understanding of the world, while potentially solving some of the drawbacks in the current models such as the historical Zeno's paradoxes of motion and the recent Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (EPR) that underlines the discrepancies between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. More

Martin Luther and Islam: A Study in Sixteenth-Century Polemics and Apologetics by Adam S. Francisco (The History of Christian-Muslim Relations: Brill) The Ottoman assault upon Vienna in 1529 sent shockwaves through­out Germany. Although the Habsburg army had successfully thwarted the attack, according to eyewitness accounts some 30,000 people in sur­rounding towns and villages had either been killed or taken back to Istanbul for sale in the slave market.' What was perhaps more unsettling, at least to those who were perceptive of the ideological motivation behind the siege, was the determination of Sultan Suleyman (1520­1566) and his Muslim Turkish army to 'conquer the infidel lands for Islam.'2 In response to the threat, and after reading what he considered the best description of Ottoman religion and culture Georgius de Hungaria's Tractatus de moribus, condictionibus et nequicia Turcorum (1481) Martin Luther (1483-1546) wrote, 'Since we now have the Turk and his religion at our very doorstep our people must be warned lest, either moved by the splendour of the Turkish religion and the exter­nal appearances of their customs or displeased by the meagre display of our own faith or the deformity of our customs, they deny their Christ and follow Muhammad. Assessing the nature of Ottoman religion and culture, and the threat that it posed to Christians. More

The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society by Walter G. Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli (Duke University Press) (Hardcover) "The Age of Beloveds is a treasure and a masterpiece. With breathtakingly extensive original research, it is beautifully written, in a style both inviting and impressive. It is the fruit of a lifetime's project to add Ottoman literature to the canons of world literature." -Victoria Holbrook, author of The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance.
The Age of Beloveds offers a rich introduction to early-modern Ottoman culture through a study of its beautiful lyric love poetry. At the same time, it suggests provocative cross-cultural parallels in the sociology and spirituality of love in Europe—from Istanbul to London—during the long sixteenth century. Walter G. Andrews and Mehmet Kalpakli provide a generous sampling of translations of Ottoman poems, many of which have never appeared in English, along with informative and inspired close readings. The authors explain that the flourishing of Ottoman power and culture during the "Turkish Renaissance" manifested itself, to some degree, as an "age of beloveds," in which young men became the focal points for the desire and attention of powerful officeholders and artists as well as the inspiration for a rich literature of love.
The authors show that the "age of beloveds" was not just an Ottoman, eastern European, or Islamic phenomenon. It extended into western Europe as well, pervading the cultures of Venice, Florence, Rome, and London during the same period. Andrews and Kalpakli contend that in an age dominated by absolute rulers and troubled by war, cultural change, and religious upheaval, the attachments of dependent courtiers and the longings of anxious commoners aroused an intense interest in love and the beloved. The Age of Beloveds reveals new commonalities in the cultural-history of two worlds long seen as radically different.  More

Beauty And Love by Seyh Galip and Victoria Rowe Holbrook (MLA Texts and Translations: Modern Language Association) Companion volume in Turkish: Husn u Ask by Seyh Galip and Victoria Rowe Holbrook (MLA Texts and Translations: Modern Language Association) Holbrook's brilliant translation of the greatest Turkish romance brings Galip's dramatic imagery alive while making ingenious use of Ottoman mete for the first time in English. Her introduction is the finest brief treatment of Islamic mysticism in existence. Her profound knowledge of Sufism clarifies the philosophical vocabulary of the tale, and her modernized spelling of the text breaks with transliteration tradition to to make her work accessible to all readers of Turkish—Orhan Pamuk
Likewise her translation may well aid in the revival of appreciation of Ottoman poetics and the mysticism of love. The girl Beauty and the boy Love are betrothed to each other as children. But Beauty violates the custom of the tribe by falling in love with him, and Love must undergo the trials of a journey to the Land of the Heart to prove himself worthy—a journey to realization of both his and Beauty's true nature. More

God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult And the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad by Charles Allen (Da Capo Press) An important study of the little-known history of the Wahhabi, a fundamentalist Islamic tribe whose teachings influence today's extreme Islamic terrorists, including the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. More

Al-Hidayah: The Guide: A Classical Manual of Hanafi Law - VOLUME 1 by Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, translated by Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee (Amal Press) The Hidayah represents the refined, distilled and authentic version of a legal tradition developed over many centuries. It presents the corpus of Hanafi law in its approved and preferred form and forges an organic link with the other schools of law.  There is no book that can match the power of al-Hidayah as a teaching manual. Education in Islamic law is not complete without this book. More

The Reflective Heart : Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' by James Winston Morris (Fons Vitae) For centuries Ibn ‘Arabi has been considered the “Greatest Master” of Islamic spiritual teaching, but Western readers have only recently had access to his greatest writings. This introduction to Ibn ‘Arabi’s Meccan Illuminations highlights the mysticism and realization of Sufi spiritual life, providing an intellectually penetrating look without requiring specialized knowledge. The development of several key themes and modes of reflection in Ibn ‘Arabi’s spiritual teachings are explored as are the gradually unfolding meanings that distinguish this important classical text of Sufi practice. More

Ibn Arabi by William Chittick (Makers of the Muslim World: Oneworld Publications) Bulent Rauf, the inspiration behind the British esoteric school Beshara, was often quoted as saying  Muhyi ad-Din Ibn Arabi is not so much a person as a meaning.  William Chittick who is easily the foremost interpreter of the greatest Sheik in America, and who has written two massive studies of ibn Arabi, seems to come into agreement with Bulent.  Muhyi ad-Din Ibn Arabi is an encyclopedic writer, whose contribution to the mystical meaning of Islam and the Qur'an is as central to Islam as the theology of Thomas Aquinas is foundational for Western Catholicism.  However unlike Thomas Aquinas, Muhyi ad-Din Ibn Arabi has never known such entrenched institutional support.  In fact, about a century after his death, the central tenets of his writings were subtly and effectively vilified and misrepresented by Ibn Taymiyya,  the spiritual godfather of all literalistic and fundamentalist, authoritarian and even terrorist forms of Islam. More

Encyclopedia of the Qur'an - Set Volumes 1-5 plus Index Volume edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Brill Academic) The Qur'ān is the primary religious text for one-sixth of the world’s population. Understood by Muslims to contain God's own words, it has been an object of reverence and of intense study for centuries. The thousands of volumes that Muslim scholars have devoted to qur'ānic interpretation and to the linguistic, rhetorical and narrative analysis of the text are sufficient to create entire libraries of qur'ānic studies.
Drawing upon a rich scholarly heritage, Brill's Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān (EQ) combines alphabetically-arranged articles about the contents of the Qur'ān. It is an encyclopaedic dictionary of qur'ānic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history and exegesis extended with essays on the most important themes and subjects within qur'ānic studies. With nearly 1000 entries in 5 volumes, the EQ is the first comprehensive, multi-volume reference work on the Qur'ān to appear in a Western language. More

Buddhism

The Inner Science of Buddhist Practice: Vasubandhu's Summary of the Five Heaps with Commentary by Sthiramati  by Artemus B. Engle (The Tsadra Foundation Series: Snow Lion) is a lucid explanation of the Buddhist concepts of mind and mental factors, especially the skandhas that cohere to create a sense of permanence and a sense of self.. The introduction explains how a better understanding of Buddhist terminology and concepts can enhance spiritual practice, especially that of the teaching system known as the Stages of the Path. This book expertly delineates the system of classical Buddhist psychology. More 

Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition by Douglas S. Duckworth (SUNY, State University of New York Press) Mipam ('u mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846-1912) is one of the most prolific thinkers in the history of Tibet and is a key figure in the Nyingma tradition of Buddhism. His works continue to be widely studied in the Tibetan cultural region and beyond. This book provides an in-depth account of Mipam's view, drawing on a wide range of his works and offering several new translations. Douglas S. Duckworth shows how a dialectic of presence and absence permeates Mipam's writings on the Middle Way and Buddha-nature. More

Buddhist Manuscript Cultures: Knowledge, Ritual and Art edited by Stephen C. Berkwitz, Juliane Schober, Claudia Brown (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism: Routledge) Buddhist Manuscript Cultures explores how religious and cultural practices in premodern Asia were shaped by literary and artistic traditions as well as by Buddhist material culture. This study of Buddhist texts focuses on the significance of their material forms rather than their doctrinal contents, and examines how and why they were made.
Collectively, the book offers cross-cultural and comparative insights into the transmission of Buddhist knowledge and the use of texts and images as ritual objects in the artistic and aesthetic traditions of Buddhist cultures. Drawing on case studies from India, Gandhara, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Mongolia, China and Nepal, the chapters included investigate the range of interests and values associated with producing and using written texts, and the roles manuscripts and images play in the transmission of Buddhist texts and in fostering devotion among Buddhist communities.  More 

Buddhism Beyond the Monastery: Tantric Practices and their Performers in Tibet and the Himalayas, PIATS 2003 edited by Sarah Jacoby, Antonio Terrone, Charles Ramble  (Brill Academic)  Excerpt: Tibetan religions, including Buddhism and Bon, have been profoundly shaped by the institutional influence of monasticism—the congregation of ordained monks and nuns who support a sole religious tradition according to a cenobitic (communal), eremitic (isolated), or peripatetic (itinerant) lifestyle. Although Tibetan tradition claims that monasticism was established in the ninth century with the ordination of the first monastic community at Bsam yas monastery in southern Tibet, the full emergence and development of large-scale monasticism appeared only in the eleventh century with the emergence of the Sa skya school and the foundation of their monastery in Tsang. Buddhist monasticism is widely popular not only in Tibetan society, but also in the culturally akin societies along the Himalayan belt. More

The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature by John Whalen-Bridge and Gary Storhoff (SUNY Series in Buddhism and American Culture: State University of New Your Press) States as a spiritually dead society, Beat writers and others have shaped how Buddhism has been presented to and perceived by a North American audience. Contributors to this volume explore how Asian influences have been adapted to American desires in literary works and at Buddhist poetics, or how Buddhist practices emerge in literary works. Starting with early aesthetic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, made famous but also distorted by Ezra Pound, the book moves on to the countercultural voices associated with the Beat movement and its friends and heirs such as Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Giorno, Waldman, and Whalen. The volume also considers the work of contemporary American writers of color influenced by Buddhism, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Charles Johnson, and Lan Cao. An interview with Kingston is included. More

Buddhist Scriptures as Literature: Sacred Rhetoric and the Uses of Theory by Ralph Flores (SUNY: State University of New Your Press) Buddhist Scriptures as Literature explores the drama, lyricism, and compelling storylines in Buddhist sacred writings, while illustrating how rhetoric and ideology are at work in shaping readers' reactions. Ralph Flores argues that the Buddha's life story itself follows an archetypal quest-romance pattern: regal surroundings are abandoned and the ensuing feats are heroic. The story can be read as an epic, but it also has a comic plot: confusions and trials until the Prince becomes utterly selfless, having found his true element--nirvana. Making use of contemporary literary theory, Flores offers new readings of texts such as the Nikayas, the Dhammapada, the Heart Sutra, Zen koans, Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Understanding these works as literature deepens our sense of the unfolding of their teachings, of their exuberant histories, and of their relevance for contemporary life. More

Buddhism and Empire: The Political and Religious Culture of Early Tibet by Michael L. Walter (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library: Brill Academic) This book convincingly reassesses the role of political institutions in the introduction of Buddhism under the Tibetan Empire (c. 620-842), showing how relationships formed in the Imperial period underlie many of the unique characteristics of traditional Tibetan Buddhism. Taking original sources as a point of departure, the author persuasively argues that later sources hitherto used for the history of early Tibetan Buddhism in fact project later ideas backward, thus distorting our view of its enculturation.
Following the pattern of Buddhism’s spread elsewhere in Asia, the early Tibetan imperial court realized how useful normative Buddhist concepts were.
This work clearly shows that, while some beliefs and practices per se changed after the Tibetan Empire, the model of socio-political-religious leadership developed in that earlier period survived its demise and still constitutes a significant element in contemporary Tibetan Buddhist religious culture. More

The Library of Tibetan Classics 

Spanning more than a millennium, the literature in The Library of Tibetan Classics will eventually encompass thirty-two volumes covering such diverse fields as philosophy, psychology, spiritual practices, and ethics, as well as poetry, linguistics, plays, history, and classical Tibetan medicine. Each translated volume will include an introductory essay, annotation, and a comprehensive glossary. This unprecedented, thirty-two volume series—conceived in appearance and importance to be much like The Harvard Classics Five-Foot Shelf of Books—will be executed in close consultation with senior Tibetan masters from all major schools of the Tibetan tradition, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems: A Tibetan Study of Asian Religious Thought (Library of Tibetan Classics) by Nyima Chokyi Thuken, Roger Jackson, and Geshe Lhundub Sopa (Wisdom) The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems: A Tibetan Study of Asian Religious Thought (Library of Tibetan Classics) byThuken Chökyi Nyima (1737–1802) Translated by Geshe Lhundub Sopa et al. Edited by Roger Jackson  (Wisdom)  The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems (Grub mtha’ shel gyi me long), by Thuken Losang Chökyi Nyima (1737–1802) is probably the widest-ranging account of religious philosophies ever written in premodern Tibet. Thuken was a cosmopolitan Buddhist monk from Amdo, Mongol by heritage, Tibetan in education, and equally comfortable in a central Tibetan monastery or at the imperial court in Beijing. Like most texts on philosophical systems, his Crystal Mirror covers the major schools of India, both non-Buddhist and Buddhist, but then goes on to discuss in detail the entire range of Tibetan traditions as well, with separate chapters on the Nyingma, Kadam, Kagyü, Shijé, Sakya, Jonang, Geluk, and Bön. Not resting there, Thuken goes on to describe the major traditions of China—Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist—as well as those of Mongolia, Khotan, and Shambhala. The Crystal Mirror is unusual, too, in its concern not just to describe and analyze doctrines, but to trace the historical development of the various traditions. In evaluating philosophical systems, Thuken does favor his own Geluk school, but he treats the views of other traditions with considerable sympathy and respect as well—sometimes even defending them against criticisms from his own tradition. All this makes the Crystal Mirror an eloquent, erudite, and informative textbook on the religious history and philosophical systems of an array of Asian cultures—and provides evidence that serious and sympathetic study of the history of religions has not been a monopoly of Western scholarship. More

The Book of Kadam: The Core Texts (Library of Tibetan Classics) by Thupten Jinpa (Wisdom) More

Taking the Result as the Path: Core Teachings of the Sakya Lamdre Tradition (Library of Tibetan Classics) by Cyrus Stearns (Wisdom)

Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kalachakra Tantra (Library of Tibetan Classics) by Khedrup Norsang Gyatso (Wisdom)

Mind Training: The Great Collection (Library of Tibetan Classics) by Thupten Jinpa (Wisdom)

 

Basic Teachings of the Buddha by Buddha and Glenn Wallis (Modern Library Classics: Modern Library) In Basic Teachings of the Buddha, Glenn Wallis selects sixteen essential dialogues drawn from more than five thousand Pali-dialect suttas of the Buddhist canon. The result is a vibrant introductory guide to studying Buddhist thought, applying its principles to everyday life, and gaining a deeper understanding of Buddhist themes in modern literature. Focusing on the most crucial topics for today’s readers, Wallis presents writings that address modern psychological, religious, ethical, and philosophical concerns. This practical, inspiring, and engaging volume provides an overview of the history of Buddhism and an illuminating analysis of the core writings that personalizes the suttas for each reader.

This little book manages to introduce the general sweep of Buddhisms, while focusing upon a select number of suttas that typify for us the most germane aspects of Buddha’s basic teaching. Wallis also provides guidance in how to read critically these archaic-in-style dialogues. Useful and well-focused introductory study belongs on a short list for supplementary texts to religions of the world. More

Great Perfection: The Outer and Inner Preliminaries by Dzogchen Rinpoche, with an introduction by Dzogchen Ponlop, translated by Cortland Dahl (Heart Essence Series: Snow Lion) In the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, the Great Perfection is consid­ered the most profound and direct path to enlightenment. The instructions of this tradition present a spiritual shortcut – a direct approach that cuts through confusion and lays bare the mind's true nature of luminous purity. For centuries, these teachings have been taught and practiced in secret by the great adepts of the Buddhist tradition. More

Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet by Matthew Kapstein, Brandon Dotson (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library: Brill) Early medieval Tibet remains one of the most challenging fields in Tibetan Studies overall, wherein numerous mysteries remain. The six contributions comprising the present collection shed light on major topics in history, literature and religion.

The study of the rise and institutions of the Tibetan empire of the seventh to ninth centuries, and of the continuing development of Tibetan civilization during the obscure period that followed, have aroused growing interest among scholars of Inner Asia in recent decades. The six contributions presented here represent refinements in substance and method characterizing current work in this area. A chapter by Brandon Dotson provides a new perspective on law and divination under the empire, while the post-imperial international relations of the Tsong kha kingdom are analyzed by Bianca Horlemann. In "The History of the Cycle of Birth and Death", Yoshiro Imaeda's investigation of a Dunhuang narrative appears in a revised edition, in English for the first time. The problem of oral transmission in relation to the Tibetan Dunhuang texts is then taken up in the contribution of Sam van Schaik. In the final section, Matthew Kapstein and Carmen Meinert consider aspects of Chinese Buddhism in their relation to religious developments in Tibet. More

The Spread of Buddhism edited by Ann Heirman, Stephan Peter Bumbacher (Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch Der Orientalistik: Brill) In no region of the world Buddhism can be seen as a unified doctrinal system. It rather consists of a multitude of different ideas, practices and behaviours. Geographical, social, political, economic, philosophical, religious, and also linguistic factors all played their role in its development and spread, but this role was different from region to region. Based on up-to-date research, this book aims at unraveling the complex factors that shaped the presence of particular forms of Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India. The result is a fascinating view on the mechanisms that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in regions such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea. More

The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon Religion by Donatella Rossi (Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy: Snow Lion Publications) provides some comparison and historical information concerning Bön Dzogchen vs. Buddhist (Nyingma) Dzogchen (similar to that of the erudite scholar Samten Karmay, offering more conceptual context as well as direct translations of two entire Bön Dzogchen texts: "The Twelve Little Tantras" (which is very reminiscent of Nyingma Dzogchen) and "The View which is like the Lion's Roar" (that seems to have some variations but still much in common with Buddhist Dzogchen). It also contains considerable excerpts from "The Lamp that Clarifies the View." These are lovely works though rather concise and advanced-not for a beginner. The book includes both Tibetan and English texts in one verse per page (with opposite pages in the different languages). Thus most pages take up only about half a full page. Still, it is not light reading, but worth contemplating at length, because of the close readings and critical translations.  More

The Practice of Dzogchen by Longchen Rabjam, Translated by Tulku Thondup (Snow Lion) As one of the most comprehensive works on the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, this work describes the religious and scriptural context of Dzogchen tradition followed by a basic primer on Dzogchen practice and experience.

This book contains an anthology of the writings of Longchen Rabjam (1308‑1363) on Dzogpa Chenpo (mahasandhi). The translations are preceded by a detailed introduction based strictly on the scriptures and traditional interpretations of the innermost esoteric aspect of Buddhism.

The teachings of Dzogpa Chenpo (or Dzogchen), the Great Perfection, are the innermost esoteric Buddhist training preserved and practiced to this day by the followers of the Nyingma school of Tibet. The main emphasis of Dzogpa Chenpo is to attain and perfect the realization of the true nature of the mind, the Intrinsic Awareness, which is the Buddha Mind or Buddha‑essence. Thereby one attains and perfects the realization of the true nature of all phenomenal existents, all of which are the same in their essence. More

Hinduism & Buddhism

The Teachings of the Odd-Eyed One: A Study and Translation of the Virupaksapancasika, With the Commentary of Vidyacakravartin (S U N Y Series in Hindu Studies) by David Peter Lawrence (State University of New York Press) book offers the first published translation of the contemplative manual Virupaksapancasika written circa the twelfth century CE, and the commentary on it, Vivrti by Vidyacakravartin. These late works from the Pratyabhijna tradition of monistic and tantric Kashmiri Saiva philosophy focus on means to deindividualize and disclose the primordial, divine essential natures of the human ego and body-sense.

David Peter Lawrence situates these writings in their medieval, South Asian religious and intellectual contexts. He goes on to engage Pratyabhijna philosophical psychology in dialogue with Western religious and psychoanalytic conceptions of identity and "narcissism," and also demonstrates the Saiva tradition's strong concern with ethics. The richly annotated translation and glossary illuminate the texts for all readers. More

Sarasvati Riverine Goddess of Knowledge: From the Manuscript-Carrying Vina-player to the Weapon-Wielding by Catherine Ludvik Defender of the Dharma (Brill's Indological Library: Brill) The name Sarasvati evokes images of the beautiful vina-playing goddess of knowledge and recalls an ancient river that is now believed to flow underground, meeting the Ganga and the Yamuna at the sacred confluence of Triveni at Prayaga/Allahabad.' The fair Sarasvati embodies beauty, music, flowing water, but above all knowledge, and, as the presiding deity of knowledge, the goddess has been worshipped on a pan-Indian scale among Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists alike. More

Temple Consecration Rituals in Ancient India: Text and Archaeology by Anna A. Slaczka (Brill's Indological Library: Brill) The principal aim of this book is to study three important construction rituals of the Hindu tradition: the laying of the first stones, the placing of the consecration deposit and the placing of the crowning bricks. These rituals are described in numerous Sanskrit texts on architecture and religion, which date from ca. 7th  to 16th centuries CE.' It is therefore hardly surprising that the present study is based mainly on textual sources. The chief source is the Kasyapasilpa, a South Indian treatise on art and architecture and ritual, written in Sanskrit, usually dated 11th- 12th century CE. Three chapters from the Kasyapasilpa, which deal with the three construction rituals mentioned above, have been critically edited, translated and provided with a commentary. For this purpose, unpublished manuscripts of the Kasyapasilpa were collected in various Southern Indian libraries. In order to place the three chapters of the Kasyapasilpa in a broader context, the descriptions of the construction rituals given by cognate texts, some of them still unpublished, have also been studied. More

Bible

 

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint by T. Muraoka (Peeters) This complete lexicon supercedes its two earlier editions (1993; 2002). - The entire Septuagint, including the apocrypha, is covered. - For the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Judges the so-called Antiochene edition is fully covered in addition to the data as found in the standard edition by Rahlfs. - Also fully covered are the two versions of Tobit, Esther, and Daniel. - Based on the critically established Gottingen edition where it is available. If not, Rahlfs's edition is used. - For close to 60% of a total of 9,550 headwords all the passages occurring in the LXX are either quoted or mentioned. - A fully fledged lexicon, not a glossary merely listing translation equivalents in English. - Senses defined. - Important lexicographical data such as synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, distinction between literal and figurative, combinations with prepositions, noun cases, syntagmatic information such as what kind of direct or indirect objects a given verb takes, what kind of nouns a given adjective is used with, and much more information abundantly presented and illustrated with quotes, mostly translated. - High-frequency lexemes such as prepositions and conjunctions fully analysed. - Data on contemporary Koine and Jewish Greek including the New Testament taken into account. - Morphological information provided: various tenses of verbs, genitive forms of nouns etc. - Substantive references to the current scientific literature. An indispensable tool for students of the Septuagint, the New Testament, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Greek language. More

Septuagint and Reception by Johann Cook (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum: Brill Academic) A new association for the study of the Septuagint was formed in South Africa recently. The present collection is a compilation of papers delivered at the first conference of this association, as well as other contributions. The volume addresses issues touching on the Septuagint in the broad sense of the word. This includes the Old Greek text (Daniel, Proverbs, Psalms and Lamentations) as well as the reception of the LXX (NT, Augustine and Jerome, etc.). A few contributions that may be regarded as miscellanea are nevertheless related to matters Septuagintal (Aristeas, Peshitta, Eunochos). All those interested in the Septuagint, its reception history and later reception, the ancient versions (Peshitta), hermeneutics, as well as philologists and theologians. More

Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an As Literature and Culture  by Roberta Sterman Sabbath (Biblical Interpretation Series: Brill Academic) Contemporary sacred text scholarship has been stimulated by a number of intersecting trends: a surging interest in religion, sacred texts, and inspirational issues; burgeoning developments in and applications of literary theories; intensifying academic focus on diverse cultures whether for education or scholarship. Although much has been written individually about Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an, no collection combines an examination of all three. Sacred Tropes interweaves Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an essays. Contributors collectively and also often individually use mixed literary approaches instead of the older single theory strategy. Appropriate for classroom or research, the essays utilize a variety of literary theoretical lenses including environmental, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalytic, ideological, economic, historicism, law, and rhetorical criticisms through which to examine these sacred works. More

William Robertson Smith: His Life, His Work & His Times  by Bernhard Maier (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament: Mohr Siebeck) Bernhard Maier presents a new biography of William Robertson Smith (1846-1894), a champion of Old Testament criticism who is also regarded as a pioneer in social anthropology, the sociology of religions and the comparative study of religions.

William Robertson Smith (1846-1894) was successively the embattled champion of the emergent "higher criticism" as applied to the Old Testament, chief editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. Today he is acknowledged to have been a pioneering figure in both social anthropology and the study of comparative religion, deeply influencing the thinking of J. G. Frazer, Emile Durkheim and Sigmund Freud. The first full-length biography of Robertson Smith to be published for almost a hundred years, this text makes use of hitherto unknown material preserved by the Smith family and draws upon the extensive range of correspondence between Smith and such scholars as Albrecht Ritschl, Paul de Lagarde, Julius Wellhausen, Abraham Kuenen and Theodor Nöldeke. Adopting an interdisciplinary and international approach, the biography locates and defines the place of this remarkable polymath within the context of Free Church Calvinism, the Scottish Enlightenment and 19th century German Protestant theology. More

Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: First Series The Fundamental Institutions by W. Robertson Smith (Kessinger Publishing) reprint of the 1894 edition: Smith studies the primitive religions of the Semitic peoples, viewed in relation to other ancient religions and to the spiritual religion of the Old Testament and of Christianity. Contents: Introduction: The Subject and the Method of Enquiry; The Nature of the Religious Community, and the Relation of the Gods to their Worshippers; The Relations of the Gods to Natural Things-Holy Places-The Jinn; Holy Places in their Relation to Man; Sanctuaries, Natural and Artificial-Holy Waters, Trees, Caves, and Stones; Sacrifice-Preliminary Survey; First-Fruits, Tithes, and Sacrificial Meals; The Original Significance of Animal Sacrifice; The Sacramental Efficacy of Animal Sacrifice, and Cognate Acts of Ritual-The Blood Covenant-Blood and Hair Offerings; The Development of Sacrificial Ritual-Fire-Sacrifices and Piacula; and Sacrificial Gifts and Piacular Sacrifices-The Special Ideas Involved in the Latter.

Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (Second and Third Series) by William Robertson Smith and John Day(The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies: Sheffield Academic Press) The outstanding nineteenth-century biblical scholar and Semitist William Robertson Smith gave three courses of Burnett Lectures on the Religion of the Semites at Aberdeen just over a century ago. The first series, published in 1889 (2nd edn, 1894), has long been a classic work. The second and third series were never published, owing to the author's ill health; however, the manuscript of them still exists in the Cambridge University Library and was recently discovered by John Day, who has produced this edited version of the work to commemorate the centenary of Smith's death. The Lectures, which constitute a work of considerable Semitic and Classical learning, are on the following subjects: Feasts, Priests and the Priestly Oracle, Prophecy and Divination, Semitic Polytheism and Cosmogony. Dr Day has written an Introduction, which evaluates the work and includes nineteenth-century press reports of the Lectures. More 

The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament by Christopher Rowl, Christopher R.A. Morray-Jones (Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Volume 12: Brill Academic) This book brings together the perspectives of apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism to illuminate aspects of New Testament theology. The first part begins with a consideration of the mystical character of apocalypticism and then uses the Book of Revelation and the development of views about the heavenly mediator figure of Enoch to explore the importance of apocalypticism in the Gospels and Acts, the Pauline Letters and finally the key theological themes in the later books of the New Testament. The second and third parts explore the character of early Jewish mysticism by taking important themes in the early Jewish mystical texts such as the Temple and the Divine Body to demonstrate the relevance of this material to New Testament interpretation. More

Expectations of the End: A Comparative Traditio-Historical Study of Eschatological, Apocalyptic and Messianic Ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament by Albert L. A. Hogeterpon (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah: Brill Academic Publishers)  Since a fuller range of Qumran sectarian and not clearly sectarian texts and recensions has recently become available to us, its implications for the comparative study of eschatological, apocalyptic and messianic ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament need to be explored anew. 'This book situates eschatological ideas in Qumran literature between biblical tradition and developments in late Second Temple Judaism and examines how the Qumran evidence on eschatology, resurrection, apocalypticism, and messianism illuminates Palestinian, Jewish settings of emerging Christianity. The present study challenges previous dichotomies between realized and futuristic eschatology, wisdom and apocalypticism and provides many new insights into intra-Jewish dimensions to eschatological ideas in Palestinian Judaism and in the early Jesus-movement. More

Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: To 1700 (Brill's Series in Church History) by Scott H. Mandelbrote and Jitse M. Van Der Meer (Brill Academic)

Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: 1700-present (Brill's Series in Church History) by Scott H. Mandelbrote and Jitse M. Van Der Meer (Brill Academic) 

The four companion volumes of Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions contribute to a contextual evaluation of the mutual influences between scriptural exegesis and hermeneutics on the one hand and practices or techniques of interpretation in natural philosophy and the natural sciences on the other. We seek to raise the low profile this theme has had both in the history of science and in the history of biblical interpretation. Furthermore, questions about the interpretation of scripture continue to be provoked by current theological reflection on scientific theories. We also seek to provide a historical context for renewed reflection on the role of the hermeneutics of scripture in the development of theological doctrines that interact with the natural sciences.

Contributors are Peter Barker, Paul M. Blowers, James J. Bono, Pamela Bright, William E. Carroll, Kathleen M. Crowther, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Carlos Fraenkel, Miguel A. Granada, Peter Harrison, Kenneth J. Howell, Eric Jorink, Kerry V. Magruder, Scott Mandelbrote, Charlotte Methuen, Robert G. Morrison, Richard J. Oosterhoff, Volker R. Remmert, T.M. Rudaysky, Stephen D. Snobelen, Jitse M. van der Meer, and Rienk H. Vermij. More

Right Chorale: Studies in Biblical Law & Interpretation (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament) by Bernard M. Levinson(Mohr Siebeck) This book presents twelve selected investigations of textual composition, interpretation, revision, and transmission. With these studies, Bernard Levinson draws upon the literary forebears of biblical law in cuneiform literature and its reinterpretation in the Second Temple period to provide the horizon of ancient Israelite legal exegesis. The volume makes a sustained argument about the nature of textuality in ancient Israel: Israelite scribes were sophisticated readers, authors, and thinkers who were conscious of their place in literary and intellectual history, even as they sought to renew and transform their cultural patrimony in significant ways. The studies explore the connections between law and narrative, show the close connections between Deuteronomy and the Neo-Assyrian loyalty oath tradition, address the literary relationship of Deuteronomy and the Covenant Code, reflect upon important questions of methodology, and explore the contributions of the Bible to later western intellectual history. The volume offers essential reading for an understanding of the Pentateuch and biblical law. More

Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies edited by Roland Boer (Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies: Brill Academic Publishers) offers a meeting between genre theory in biblical studies and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, who continues to be immensely influential in literary criticism. Here Bakhtin comes face to face with a central area of biblical studies: the question of genre. The essays range from general discussions of genre through the reading of specific biblical texts to an engagement with Toni Morrison and the Bible. The contributors are John Anderson, Roland Boer, Martin J. Buss, Judy Fentress-Williams, Christopher Fuller, Barbara Green, Bula Maddison, Carleen Mandolfo, Christine Mitchell, Carol A. Newsom, David M. Valeta, and Michael Vines. More

Deliver Us from Evil: Interpreting the Redemption from the Power of Satan in New Testament Theology (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 216) by Richard H. Bell (Mohr Siebeck)

Richard H. Bell develops a theory of myth which does justice not only to the world of 'narrative' but also to the mysteries of the 'physical world'. He does this by building on the phenomenal distinction as introduced by Kant and further developed by Schopenhauer. He then applies the resulting theory of myth to two seemingly disparate examples of redemption from Satan found in the New Testament: first, the exorcisms of Jesus; secondly, the redemption of the human being from the power of Satan through the cross and resurrection of Christ as found in the Pauline tradition and in the letter to the Hebrews. Then the author makes an attempt to relate these two forms of redemption to each other and to draw some conclusions as to how these myths of deliverance from Satan can be considered true. This can lead not only to an enrichment of New Testament Theology but also to a greater understanding of the world in which we live.

The fundamental question addressed in this book is how the redemption of the human being from Satan in New Testament theology is to be interpreted. I now wish to make a number of concluding comments, first of a "theological and scientific" nature and then of a "pastoral" nature. More

"My Words Are Lovely": Studies in the Rhetoric of the Psalms by Robert L. Foster and David M.  Howard Jr. (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies: T & T Clark) As the authors of The Postmodern Bible end their chapter on rhetorical criticism, they write, "The jury is still out, therefore, on just how successful and profitable the application of rhetorical theory has become in the rebirth of rhetorical criticism in biblical interpretation."' Part of their concern is the seemingly uncritical adaptation of various rhetorical theories without the interpreters' awareness of their own rhetorical situation and aims and how these influence the use of rhetorical theories. More

Orientalism, Aramaic and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation by Robert J. Wilkinson (Studies in the History of Christian Thought: Brill) shows how the first edition of the Syriac New Testament illustrates how Syriac and other Oriental languages were received in the West by Catholic Kabbalistic scholars. The contribution of Egidio da Viterbo and Guillaume Postel is emphasised.
Focusing upon the extraordinary circumstances of the production of the editio princeps of the Syriac New Testament in 1555 and establishing a reliable history of that edition, this book offers an new account of the origin of Syriac studies in Europe and a fresh evaluation of Catholic Orientalism in the sixteenth century. The reception of Syriac into the West is shown to have been characterised, under the influence of Egidio da Viterbo and Postel, by a Christian Kabbalistic worldview which also determined the reception of other Oriental languages. More
The companion volume The Kabbalistic Scholars of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible by Robert J. Wilkinson (Studies in the History of Christian Thought: Brill) places the Syriac New Testament in the Antwerp Polyglot within a new appreciation of sixteenth century Catholic Syriac and Oriental scholarship. The Spanish antecedents of the Polyglot and the role of Montano in its production are evaluated before the focus is turned upon the Northern Scholars who prepared the Syriac edition. Their motivation is shown, particularly in the case of Guillaume Postel, to derive from both Christian kabbalah and an insistent eschatological timetable. The principles of Christian kabbalah found in the Polyglot are then shown to be characteristic also of Guy Lefevre de la Boderie's 1584 Paris edition of the Syriac New Testament dedicated to Henri III.
The Antwerp Polyglot Bible is one of the great monuments of sixteenth-century typographic and scholarly achievement. It is surprising then that it lacks a worthy treatment in depth in any language, though there are several important works and articles that provide essential orientation. Predictably much of the secondary literature has been produced either around the Plantin Museum in Antwerp or in Spain. With significant exceptions the earlier Spanish work tended to be celebratory and patriotic as Spanish scholars have in the past shown themselves eager to claim the Antwerp Polyglot, or the Biblia Regia, as the culmination of the great Spanish tradition begun at Alcalá, and to see Montano, the Spanish king's project director, very much as the channel through which the tradition was transmitted to Antwerp. Things look somewhat different from Belgium where the magnificent resources of the Plantin Museum and specifically Plantin's correspondence have enabled scholars to produce fundamental works of scholarship and to emphasise the contribution of North European scholars to the project. More 

Faithfulness and the Purpose of Hebrews: A Social Identity Approach by Matthew J. Marohl (Princeton Theological Monograph Series: Pickwick Publications) Why was Hebrews written? What was the purpose of the text? The discussion of the purpose of Hebrews is traditionally connected to the discussion of the identity and social context of the addressees. In other words, it is often assumed that to answer why Hebrews was written, it must first be established to whom Hebrews was written. Herein lies a problem for modern readers of the text. There is little, if any, consensus regarding the identity of the addressees. And there is little, if any, consensus re­garding the purpose of Hebrews. While most still hold to the ‘traditional view,’ that the addressees were ‘Jewish Christians’ in danger of falling back into ‘Judaism,’ a growing number of interpreters have concluded that nothing can be known regarding the identity of the addressees.
The aim of Faithfulness and the Purpose of Hebrews is to provide answers to these questions by employing that branch of social psychology known as social identity theory. More

Q: A Reconstruction and Commentary by Harry T. Fleddermann (Biblical Tools and Studies: Peeters) The first major commentary on the Sayings Source Q, the fruit of a lifelong intensive research on Q, the volume serves as a thorough introduction to the field of Q. studies. Fleddermann's commentary is written in critical dialogue with past and current scholarship and includes a substantial introduction and general treatment of all critical issus in Q studies because of its thoroughness in citation and measured new ones of its conclusions and summaries of arguments. This is the first volume in the new series 'Biblical Tools and Studies', edited by G. Van Belle, J. Verheyden, and B. Doyle. More

Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon edited by Todd Klutz (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series: T. & T. Clark Publishers) (Hardcover) The category `magic', long used to signify an allegedly substantive type of activity distinguishable from `religion', has nearly been dismantled by recent theoretical developments in religious studies. While recognizing and at times reinforcing those developments, the essays in this collection show that there is still much to be learned about the cultural context of early Judaism and Christianity by analyzing ancient sources which either use `magic' as a label for deviant religiosity or valorize behavior of a broadly magicoreligious variety. Through sustained engagement with texts ranging from Exodus 7-9 and 18 to the Testament of Solomon and Sefer ha-Razim, this volume focuses on materials that challenge the familiar boundaries between miracle, magic and medicine; yet it also heightens awareness of the way unsuspecting use of a sick sign (e.g. `magic') can impede critical understanding of texts and their respective contexts of reception. More

Admonition And Curse: The Ancient Near Eastern Treaty/Covenant Form as a Problem in Inter-Cultural Relationships by Noel Weeks (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series: T. & T. Clark Publishers) In the history of scholarship focus changes from decade to decade. Topics become popular: topics fade from popularity. The reasons for such changes are complex and outside of the main interests of this work. What is significant is that they may fade from view before there has been a definitive resolution, or the resolution reached may be faulty. Yet who wants to return to an old, tired and exhausted topic? More

Science

Handbook of Optics Third Edition, 5 Volume Set by Optical Society of America (McGraw-Hill Professional) The most comprehensive and up-to-date optics resource available

Prepared under the auspices of the Optical Society of America, the five carefully architected and cross-referenced volumes of the Handbook of Optics, Third Edition, contain everything a student, scientist, or engineer requires to actively work in the field. From the design of complex optical systems to world-class research and development methods, this definitive publication provides unparalleled access to the fundamentals of the discipline and its greatest minds.

Individual chapters are written by the world's most renowned experts who explain, illustrate, and solve the entire field of optics. Each volume contains a complete chapter listing for the entire Handbook, extensive chapter glossaries, and a wealth of references. This pioneering work offers unprecedented coverage of optics data, techniques, and applications.

  • Volume I covers geometrical and physical optics, polarized light, components, and instruments.
  • Volume II covers design, fabrications, testing, sources, detectors, radiometry, and photometry.
  • Volume III, all in full color, covers vision and vision optics.
  • Volume IV covers optical properties of materials, nonlinear optics, and quantum optics.
  • Volume V covers atmospheric optics, modulators, fiber optics, and x-ray and neutron optics.
    more
Advances in Biological and Chemical Terrorism Countermeasures  edited by Ronald J. Kendall, Steven M. Presley, Galen P. Austin, Philip N. Smith  (CRC)  Drawing heavily on the findings and conclusions from research conducted through the Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. National Program for Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats (operated through The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University and partially funded through the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command), this critical work provides perspectives, policies, and procedures to assist the United States and other nations to counter or prevent current and emerging terrorist threats.
  • An up-to-date assessment of the technologies and strategies established to defend against this kind of attack, Advances in Biological and Chemical Terrorism Countermeasures—
  • Focuses on modeling, simulation, and visualization; environmental protection; personal protection and therapeutics; and the mechanistic and toxic effects of weapons
  • Discusses the relationship between risk and vulnerability to establish a measure of threat
  • Examines the manner of threat agent dispersal through the environment
  • Explores the development of sensors and the use of phage display for detection and therapeutic intervention
  • Provides an overview of recognized threats and their toxic effects
  • Calls on leading researchers to present their own findings as well as their expert opinions and recommendations
  • Supplements the material with a 16-page color insert

Heavily referenced, this science-based work is an excellent tool to assist military and homeland security personnel and first responders to improve their ability to develop and implement countermeasures to the potential biological and chemical threat agents that continue to emerge. More

Biologically Inspired Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games by Darryl Charles, Colin Fyfe, Daniel Livingstone, Stephen Mcglinchey (IGI Publishing) Computer games are often played by a human player against an artificial intelligence software entity. In order to truly respond in a human-like manner, the artificial intelligence in games must be adaptive, or respond as a human player would as he/she learns to play a game. Biologically Inspired Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games reviews several strands of modern artificial intelligence, including supervised and unsupervised artificial neural networks; evolutionary algorithms; artificial immune systems, swarms, and shows using case studies for each to display how they may be applied to computer games. This book spans the divide which currently exists between the academic research community working with advanced artificial intelligence techniques and the games programming community which must create and release new, robust, and interesting games on strict deadlines, thereby creating an invaluable collection supporting both technological research and the gaming industry. More

Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives by Jeffrey Howard (A K Peters Ltd) This book is intended for a broad range of audiences, all of whom can take something useful from each of its sections.

  • As a bridge-building text, it belongs in the toolkits of both humanities scholars and independent designers.
  • New media researchers can benefit from the analysis and modi­fication of the theories of quest narratives.

Humanities scholars and professors, such as literature teachers wanting to bring computer-assisted instruction into their class­room in an innovative way, can benefit from the book's combination of literature, games, and practical classroom exercises. Such professors might consider using this book in a class on the relationship between narratives and games, where it would work well as a practical and accessible textbook. This book includes many tutorials and exercises for use with the Aurora Toolset, which can be purchased with the role-playing game Neverwinter Nights for fifteen dollars or less. More

Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541): Essential Theoretical Writings edited, introduced, translated by Andrew Weeks (Aries Book Series: Brill) The daunting writings of Paracelsus—the second largest 16th-century body of writings in German after Luther's—contributed to medicine, natural science, alchemy, philosophy, theology, and esoteric tradition. This volume provides a critical edition of essential writings from the authoritative 1589 Huser Paracelsus alongside new English translations and commentary on the sources and context of the full corpus. The Essential Theoretical Writings incorporate topics ranging from metaphyics, cosmology, faith, religious conflict, magic, gender, and education, to the processes of nature, disease and medication, female and male sufferings, and cures of body and soul. Properly contextualized, these treatises yield rich extracts of Renaissance and Reformation culture, soundings of 16th-century life, and keys to an influential but poorly understood early modern intellectual tradition. This work will supersede all other translations into English and lays an admirable foundation for future balanced and depth studies of Paracelsus.
Andrew Weeks is Professor of German at Illinois State University, with a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois, has published intellectual biographies of Jacob Boehme, Paracelsus, Valentin Weigel, a history of German mysticism, and translations of Weigel's writings. He is well qualified to help in the reform of this pivotal figure standing between tradition and the innovations of science.  More

Technology

Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything ~ Gordon Bell, Jim Gemmell (Dutton) What if you could remember everything? Soon, if you choose, you will be able to conveniently and affordably record your whole life in minute detail. You would have Total Recall. Authors Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell draw on experience from their MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research to explain the benefits to come from an earth-shaking and inevitable increase in electronic memories. In 1998 they began using Bell, a luminary in the computer world, as a test case, attempting to digitally record as much of his life as possible. Photos, letters, and memorabilia were scanned. Everything he did on his computer was captured. He wore an automatic camera, an arm-strap that logged his bio-metrics, and began recording telephone calls. This experiment, and the system created to support it, put them at the center of a movement studying the creation and enjoyment of e-memories. More

Smart Clothes and Wearable Technology by J. Mccann and D. Bryson(Woodhead Publishing in Textiles)  Smart clothes and wearable technology is a unique and essential reference source for researchers, designers and engineers developing textiles and clothing products in this cross-disciplinary area. It will also be beneficial for those in the healthcare industry and academics researching textiles, fashion and design.

A comprehensive review of the technologies and materials available for the design and production of smart clothing, this book goes beyond the basics to provide a comprehensive overview of the wearer’s requirements. After assessing the design and materials available for smart clothing and wearable technology, the book covers the design process from fiber selection through to product developments in digital print technology. It then examines the general requirements, types of technologies available, and manufacturing methods. The coverage includes developments in fabric joining and graphic communications.  More

Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 6 volumes contains an impressive collection of over 30o authoritative contributions from top influential experts in the field of software applications. This six-volume compilation includes articles by over 40o prominent international scholars in topic areas such as autonomic computing, operating system architectures, and open source software technologies and applications. Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications presents libraries with an excellent addition to their academic collection. More 

Agent Technologies and Web Engineering: Applications and Systems edited by Ghazi Alkhatib (Editor), David Rine (Advances in Information Technology and Web Engineering Book: Information Science Reference)

Perpetual Access: US $295.00
Print + Perpetual Access: $390.00

In recent years, the emerging field of agent technologies has become mainstream in Web engineering. With constant field devel0pments and updates, a reference source is needed that reflects the increased scope of agent technology application domains and development practices and tools.

Agent Technologies and Web Engineering: Applications and Systems presents the latest tools and applications addressing critical issues involved with information technology and Web engineering research. Covering topics such as next-generation networks, XML query processing, and Semantic Web services, this book provides cutting-edge research for practitioners and academicians involved in agent technology and Web engineering fields.

This essential publication is for all academic and research libraries, as well as all those interested in the latest research and issues in information technology and web engineering. Researchers, educators, project managers, software developers, and students will also benefit from this state-of-the-art reference. More

Handbook of Algorithms for Physical Design Automation edited by Charles J. Alpert , Dinesh P. Mehta, Sachin S. Sapatnekar(Auerbach Publications, CRC Press) The physical design flow of any project depends upon the size of the design, the technology, the number of designers, the clock frequency, and the time to do the design. As technology advances and design-styles change, physical design flows are constantly reinvented as traditional phases are removed and new ones are added to accommodate changes in technology. More

Connecting People with Technology: Issues in Professional Communication Edited by George F. Hayhoe and Helen M. Grady (Baywood) explores five important areas where technology affects society, and suggests ways in which human communication can facilitate the use of that technology.  Usability has become a foundational discipline in technical and professional communication that grows out of our rhetorical roots, which emphasize purpose and audience. As our appreciation of audience has grown beyond engineers and scientists to lay users of technology, our appreciation of the diversity of those audiences in terms of age, geography, and other factors has similarly expanded.  More

Mathematics

Elementary Statistics in Social Research (11th Edition) by Jack A. Levin (Author), James Alan Fox (Author), David R. Forde (MySocKit Series: Allyn and Bacon) The Eleventh Edition of Elementary Statistics in Social Research provides an introduction to statistics for students in sociology and related fields, including political science, criminal justice, and social work. This book is not intended to be a comprehensive reference for statistical methods. On the contrary, our first and foremost objective has always been to provide an accessible introduction for a broad range of students, particularly those who may not have a strong background in mathematics. More

Handbook of Granular Computing by Witold Pedrycz, Andrzej Skowron, and Vladik Kreinovich (Wiley) Although the notion is a relatively recent one, the notions and principles of Granular Computing (GrC) have appeared in a different guise in many related fields including granularity in Artificial Intelligence, interval computing, cluster analysis, quotient space theory and many others. Recent years have witnessed a renewed and expanding interest in the topic as it begins to play a key role in bioinformatics, e-commerce, machine learning, security, data mining and wireless mobile computing when it comes to the issues of effectiveness, robustness and uncertainty.  More

Bayesian Methods: A Social and Behavioral Sciences Approach, Second Edition by Jeff Gill (Statistics in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: Chapman and Hall/CRC) The first edition helped pave the way for Bayesian approaches to become more prominent in social science methodology. While the focus remains on practical modeling and basic theory as well as on intuitive explanations and derivations without skipping steps, this second edition incorporates the latest methodology and recent changes in software offerings. More

Artificial Intelligence with Uncertainty by Deyi Li, Yi Du (Chapman & Hall/CRC) The information deluge currently assaulting us in the 21st century is having profound impact on our lifestyles and how we work. We must constantly separate trustworthy and required information from the massive amount of data we encounter each day. Through mathematical theories, models, and experiment. computations, Artificial Intelligence with Uncertainty explores the uncertainties of knowledge and intelligence that occur during the cognitive processes of human beings. The authors focus on the importance of natural language—the carrier of knowledge and intelligence—for artificial intelligence (Al) study. More

Monte Carlo Methods For Applied Scientists by Ivan T. Dimov (World Scientific Publishing Company) Stochastic optimization refers to the minimization (or maximization) of a function in the presence of randomness in the optimization process. The randomness may be present as either noise in measurements or Monte Carlo randomness in the search procedure, or both. The study of random geometric structures. Stochastic geometry leads to modelling and analysis tools such as Monte Carlo methods.
Common methods of stochastic optimization include direct search methods (such as the Nelder-Mead method), stochastic approximation, stochastic programming, and miscellaneous methods such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms.  

The Monte Carlo method is inherently parallel and the extensive and rapid development in parallel computers, computational clusters and grids has resulted in renewed and increasing interest in this method. At the same time there has been an expansion in the application areas and the method is now widely used in many important areas of science including nuclear and semiconductor physics, statistical mechanics and heat and mass transfer. More

Physics

An Introduction to Materials Science by Wenceslao Gonzalez-Vinas, Hector L. Mancini (Princeton University Press) Textbook that shows how the emergence of materials science is leading the way in technical innovation. Useful for anyone wanting to get a sense of the field. Materials science has undergone a revolutionary transformation in the past two decades. It is an interdisciplinary field that has grown out of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering departments. In this book, González-Viñas and Mancini provide an introduction to the field, one that emphasizes a qualitative understanding of the subject, rather than an intensely mathematical one. More

Understanding Solids: The Science of Materials by Richard J. D. Tilley (John Wiley & Sons) (Paperback) is a modern introduction to the structures and properties of solids. Taking an integrated approach, designed to appeal to both science and engineering students, the book develops an understanding of the origin of both physical and chemical properties of solids from a foundation of chemical bonding, which leads naturally to an appreciation of the ways in which atoms can aggregate and so generate solid structures.  More

Chemistry

Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, Eighth Edition edited by don Green, Robert Perry, M. Susan Lewis (Chemical Engineers Handbook: McGraw Hill) First published in 1934, Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook has equipped generations of engineers and chemists with an expert source of chemical engineering information and data. Now updated to reflect the latest technology and processes of the new millennium, the Eighth Edition of this classic guide provides unsurpassed coverage of every aspect of chemical engineering-from fundamental principles to chemical processes and equipment to new computer applications. More

CRC Handbook Of Thermodynamic Data Of Polymer Solutions At Elevated Pressures by Christian Wohlfarth (CRC Press) This handbook provides the only complete collection of high-pressure thermodynamic data pertaining to polymer solutions at elevated pressures to date — all critical data for understanding the physical nature of these mixtures and applicable to a number of industrial and laboratory processes in polymer science, physical chemistry, chemical engineering, and biotechnology. More

Elementorganic Monomers: Technology, Properties, Applications by L. M. Khananashvili, O. V. Mukbaniani, G. E. Zaikov (New Concepts in Polymer Science: Brill Academic Publishers) The chemical industry in our country and abroad is rapidly developing. It is only natural that the young industry of elementorganic monomers, oligomers and polymers should develop at the same rate. The numerous valuable and sometimes unique properties of these substances account for their wide application in various industries, households, medicine and cutting-edge technologies. That is why contemporary industry produces more than 500 types of silicone monomers, oligomers and polymers, to say nothing of other elementorganic compounds. The synthesis of these elementorganic compounds is based on many different reactions. More

Handbook of Physical-Chemical Properties and Environmental Fate for Organic Chemicals, Second Edition edited by Donald Mackay (CRC) The Handbook of Physical-Chemical Properties and Environmental Fate for Organic Chemicals, Second Edition is a massive 4 volume essential reference for university libraries, regulatory agencies, consultants, and industry professionals, particularly those concerned with chemical synthesis, emissions, fate, persistence, long-range transport, bioaccumulation, exposure, and biological effects of chemicals in the environment. The handbook contains physical-chemical property data on over 1200 chemicals of environmental concern. It offers approximately 30 percent new and updated information from previous edition. An enhancement to this new edition is the inclusion of measured temperature-dependent data for selected physical-chemical properties. Transport and transformation processes are key for determining how humans and other organisms are exposed to chemicals. These processes are largely controlled by the chemicals' physical-chemical properties. This new edition of the Handbook of Physical-Chemical Properties and Environmental Fate for Organic Chemicals is a comprehensive series in four volumes that serves as a reference source for environmentally relevant physical-chemical property data of numerous groups of chemical substances. More

Ecology

Water: A Way of Life:  Sustainable Water Management in a Cultural Context by A.J.M. (Lida) Schelwald-van Der Kley, Linda Reijerkerk (CRC Press) How to make water management projects more successful and sustainable? How is it that large infrastructural water works often encounter opposition? Is it perhaps, among other things, the lack of attention for the cultural context? These and other intriguing questions are dealt with in this book. The authors, having 20 years of experience on water and sanitation in an international context, have investigated the relationship between water and culture world-wide in order to find new keys to successful and sustainable water management.

This book is based on extensive research and is intended to form a cultural road towards new sustainable water management practices. Water: A Way of Life takes the reader on a water journey through time and across the world's continents. Along the way it explains the past and present ways in which different cultures around the world, both traditional and modern, view and manage water in response to the distinct environment they inhabit. As beliefs and values are at the heart of any culture, it also highlights the views of the main world religions on water and its use. A better understanding of cultural water beliefs and practices may lead to new concepts for future sustainable water management — from flood management to water supply, sanitation and irrigation management. More

The Functional Assessment of Wetland Ecosystems: Towards Evaluation of Ecosystem Services, includes CD edited by Edward Maltby, U Digby, C Baker (CRC Press)  Wetlands perform functions that deliver benefits to society, often referred to as ecosystem services. These ecosystem services include water supply, flood regulation, water purification, climate regulation, biodiversity, agriculture (e.g. grazing land), and amenity. A functional approach to wetland assessment enables a holistic view to be taken of the wide range of services that wetlands can provide. The functional assessment procedures (FAPs) in this volume translate best available scientific knowledge into reasonable predictions of how component parts of wetlands function in different landscape contexts. They can be used to indicate the potential and priorities for management options in areas such as flood control, pollution reduction and biodiversity conservation.
Functional assessment enables the user to predict the functioning of a wetland area without the need for comprehensive and expensive empirical research. The FAPs therefore provide a methodology that can be used by both experts and non-experts to assess wetland functioning relatively rapidly. The volume includes an electronic version of the FAPs on CD which automates aspects of the assessment once the initial recording stage is completed. It is anticipated that the FAPs will be used by a range of individuals or organisations concerned with wetland management who wish to gain a better understanding of the processes, functions, services or benefits and potential of the wetlands for which they have responsibility. More 

United States West Coast: An Environmental History by Adam Sowards, series editor: Mark Stoll (Nature and Human Societies: ABC-CLIO) From Native people's skilled use of fire and plants to the California Gold Rush to ongoing efforts to provide Southern California with sufficient water, the North American West Coast has long been a region where humankind has nurtured, battled, and exploited the environment. This groundbreaking volume explores the interplay of ecology, economy, and culture throughout the history of this rich and abundant region, examining the ways its residents and their institutions both influence and are affected by the ecological systems in which they live. More

Social Science

Metonymy and Metaphor in Grammar edited by Klaus-Uwe Panther, Linda Thornburg, Antonio Barcelona (Human Cognitive Processing: John Benjamins Publishing Company) Figurative language has been regarded traditionally as situated outside the realm of grammar. However, with the advent of Cognitive Linguistics, metonymy and metaphor are now recognized as being not only ornamental rhetorical tropes but fundamental figures of thought that shape, to a considerable extent, the conceptual structure of languages.

The present volume goes even beyond this insight to propose that grammar itself is metonymical in nature (Langacker) and that conceptual metonymy and metaphor leave their imprints on lexicogrammatical structure. This thesis is developed and substantiated for a wide array of languages and lexicogrammatical phenomena, such as word class meaning and word formation, case and aspect, proper names and noun phrases, predicate and clause constructions, and other metonymically and metaphorically motivated grammatical meanings and forms. The volume should be of interest to scholars and students in cognitive and functional linguistics, in particular, conceptual metonymy and metaphor theory, cognitive typology, and pragmatics. More

Police and Human Rights: A Manual for Teachers and Resource Persons and for Participants in Human Rights Programmes  by Ralph Crawshaw (Raoul Wallenberg Institute Professional Guides to Human Rights:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers/Brill Academic) This publication is a human rights teaching manual for teachers and resource persons who are proficient in the craft and profession of policing as practitioners, or learned in that field as educators or academics. It is also a reference manual for police officials participating in programmes based on the manual, and a continuing source of reference for them when they have completed a programme. The teaching manual has been prepared for use as a valuable resource in an educational process which should enable and require police officials to consider how they are to carry out their functions in an effective, lawful and humane manner. Policing is one of the means by and through which governments either meet, or fail to meet, their obligations under international law to protect the human rights of people within the jurisdiction of states they govern.

This manual is offered as a contribution towards the realisable ideal of securing protection and promotion of human rights by and through policing. More

 

Localizing the Moral Sense: Neuroscience and the Search for the Cerebral Seat of Morality, 1800-1930 by Jan Verplaetse (Springer) Due to the current revolution in brain research the search for the "moral brain" became a serious endeavour. Nowadays, neural circuits that are indispensable for moral and social behaviour are discovered and the brains of psychopaths and criminals - the classical anti-heroes of morality - are scanned with curiosity, even enthusiasm.
How revolutionary this current research might be, the quest for a localisable ethical centre or moral organ is far from new The moral brain was a recurrent theme in the works of neuroscientists during the 19th and 20th century. From the phrenology era to the encephalitis pandemic in the 1920s a wide range of European and American scientists (neurologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists and criminologists) speculated about and discussed the location of a moral sense in the human cortex. More

Concepts of the Self 2nd edition by Anthony Elliott (Key Concepts:  Polity Press) The chapters that follow are designed to introduce students to concepts and theories of the self within the social sciences. The book aims to examine critically the ideas, concepts and theories of the self that are used in social analysis while also discussing key areas in which such approaches have produced elucidation of the experience of self-identity, selfhood and personal identity. More

Max Weber by Joachim Radkau (Polity) Max Weber (1864-1920) is recognized throughout the world as the most important classic thinker in the social sciences — there is simply no one else who has been more influential. The affinity between capitalism and Protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world, the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalization and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as offsprings of leadership, the 'disenchantment' of the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism: all these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber's thinking.
When Joachim Radkau's biography appeared in Germany in 2005 it caused a sensation. Based on an abundance of previously unknown sources and richly embedded in the German history of the time, this is the first fully comprehensive biography of Max Weber ever to appear. Radkau brings out, in a way that no one has ever done before, the intimate interrelations between Weber's thought and his life experience. He presents detailed revelations about the great enigmas of Weber's life: his suffering and erotic experiences, his fears and his desires, his creative power and his methods of work, as well as his religious experience and his relation to nature and to death. By understanding the great drama of his life, we discover a new Max Weber, until now unknown in many respects, and, at the same time, we gain a new appreciation of his work.
This book will become the standard work on the life of Max Weber. It will be indispensable to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and will appeal to a wide readership interested in knowing more about the life of one of the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century. More 

Tacit Knowledge in Organizational Learning/a> by Peter Busch (IGI Publishing) Understanding the complexity of tactic knowledge has become increasingly important to the enhancement of organizational flow. This book aims to advocate the need for human factor consideration from a (tactic) knowledge capital point of view.  More

Foucault, Psychology and the Analytics of Power by Derek Hook (Critical Theory and Practice in Psychology and the Human Sciences: Palgrave Macmillan) As neglected as the topic of Foucault and psychology has been - especially so, given the content of Foucault's earliest published work,' and in view of his training and practice in the realm of clinical psychology  - it is not completely novel. Nikolas Rose's (1991, 1996a) seminal studies of the Psy-complex and British psychology usefully extends Foucault's critique of psychology – aspects of which Hook revisits in the following chapter — although these studies cannot be described as didactic, or as offering easy access to a variety of Foucauldian frames of analysis. May's (1993) Between Genealogy and Epistemology does, admittedly, discuss the relation between aspects of Foucault's thought and psychology; once again, however, this treatment does not lend itself to practical application. His predominant focus, moreover, is on Foucault's earlier archaeological writings; it is the later genealogical work between the mid and late 1970s that I, by contrast, believe holds the most potential both for the critique of psychology and for analytical innovation. On the other hand, a book like Kendall and Wickham's (1998) Using Foucault's Methods, which does hope to introduce a series of Foucauldian frameworks for analysis in a user-friendly way, lacks the theoretical depth and historical complexity that grounds Foucault's work, and that lends it much of its characteristic urgency. My position, in contrast to such an approach, is that Foucault's methods cannot be simply detached from the political and philosophical concerns that Foucault had with interrogating the human science disciplines themselves. The aim of this book is thus to introduce both of these methodological and politico-historical preoccupations together, to put Foucault's genealogical writings to work as a means of critically re-conceptualizing aspects of psychological knowledge and practice, first and, correspondingly, as a means of grounding a set of radical research methods, second. More

Encyclopedia of Communities of Practice in Information And Knowledge Management edited by Steve Clarke, Elayne Coakes (Idea Group Publishing) is the leading reference source for dynamic and innovative research in the field of communities of practice (CoPs) in information and knowledge management. With knowledge management work on the increase, this single volume encyclopedia provides a comprehensive, critical, and descriptive examination of all facets of CoPs, and includes 550 terms and definitions as well as 1,950 references to additional research. More than 120 researchers from over 20 countries provide in-depth coverage of conceptual and practical issues as well as topics regarding learning, leadership, ethics, social, intellectual, rewards, and language challenges.  More

Cross-cultural Communication: Perspectives in Theory and Practice by Thomas L. Warren (Baywood) is a collection of essays that examines how practitioners can improve the acceptance of their documentation when communicating to cultures other than their own. The essays begin by examining the cross-cultural issues relating to quality in documentation. From there, the essays look at examples of common documents, analyzing them from several perspectives. Specifically, the author uses communication theories (such as Bernstein's Elaborated and Restricted Code theory and Marwell and Schmidt's Compliance-Gaining theory) to show how documents used by readers who are not native speakers of English can be written and organized to increase their effectiveness. The principal assumption about how practitioners create their documents is that, while large organizations can afford to write, translate, and then localize, small- to medium-size organizations produce many documents that are used directly by people in other cultures-often without translating and localizing. More

Washing the Brain - Metaphor and Hidden Ideology by Andrew Goatly (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture: John Benjamins Publishing) What is meant by the notoriously vague term 'ideology'? Defining this could take a whole book, so Goatly provisionally adopts van Dijk's definition and description in Ideol­ogy: "the basis of the social representations shared by members of a group. This means that ideologies allow people, as group members, to organise the multitude of social beliefs about what is the case, good or bad, right or wrong, for them and to act accordingly.” One major determinant of these social representations will be "the material and symbolic interests of the group ... power over other groups (or resistance against the domination by other groups) may have a central role and hence function as a major condition and purpose for the development of ideologies". This emphasis on power is central to my use of the term, and, for brevity's sake one might adopt Thompson's definition "meaning in the service of power". More

Understanding Social Problems by Linda A. Mooney, David Knox, Caroline Schacht (Wadsworth Publishing) This is a comprehensive mid-level paperback text that takes a theoretically balanced, student-centered approach to social problems. The text progresses from a micro- to macro-level of analysis, focusing first on such problems as illness and health care, drugs and alcohol, and family problems and then broadening to the larger issues of poverty and inequality, population growth, environmental problems, and conflict around the world. The social problem in each chapter is framed in a global as well as U.S. context. In every chapter, the three major theoretical perspectives are applied to the social problem under discussion, and the consequences of the problem, as well as alternative solutions, are explored. Pedagogical features such as The Human Side and Self and Society enable students to grasp how social problems affect the lives of individuals and apply their understanding of social problems to their own lives. More

The Emerging Practice of the International Criminal Court editied by Carsten Stahn, Goran Sluiter  (Legal Aspects of International Organization: Brill Academic) The International Criminal Court is at a crossroads. In 1998, the Court was still a fiction. A decade later, it has become operational and faces its first challenges as a judicial institution. This volume examines this transition. It analyses the first jurisprudence and policies of the Court. It provides a systematic survey of the emerging law and practice in four main areas: the relationship of the Court to domestic jurisdictions, prosecutorial policy and practice, the treatment of the Court's applicable law and the shaping of its procedure. It revisits major themes, such as jurisdiction, complementarity, cooperation, prosecutorial discretion, modes of liability, pre-trial, trial and appeals procedure and the treatment of victims and witnesses, as well as their criticisms. It also explores some of challenges and potential avenues for future reform. More

Policing & Criminology

Bad Men Do what Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior by Robert I. Simon (American Psychiatric Publishing) Dr. Simon has upgraded his classic volume on "The Dark Side of Human Behavior" with new chapters, new insights and a clear understanding of the thin line holding good men from acting on inner impulses. His illustrations and case examples shed new light on the work he has done in forensic psychiatry. This book, as most of Dr. Simon's book, is a must read for the serious student of human behavior. More

Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques, Third Edition by Stuart H. James, Jon J. Nordby Ph.D (CRC ) reaches beyond the scope of other introductory texts to provide a powerful reference for professionals and students alike. The new edition of this perennial bestseller covers a range of fundamental topics essential to modern forensic investigation and includes the technical detail needed to understand the breadth of the science. Featuring contributions from top experts in the field discussing their own cases, this volume delves into all aspects of investigation, both out in the field and in the lab, providing vocabulary, investigation protocols, and laboratory procedures, while also explaining the roles of forensic scientists and pathologists. It covers firearm examination, forensic DNA, footwear and tire track evidence, and bloodstain patterns, as well as vehicular accident reconstruction, forensic engineering, and cybercrime. More than 400 photographs, most in color, provide significant insight while still being appropriate for students. More

Forensic Human Identification: An Introduction edited by Tim Thompson, Sue Black (CRC Press) In philosophy, "identity" is whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type. "Identification," therefore, is the act of establishing that identity. In the 17th century, John Locke proposed his tabula rasa (blank slate) philosophy, which concluded that the newborn child is without identity and that it is entirely defined by society and circumstances after birth. While this may have some basis for discussion in the worlds of metaphysics, psychology, and social anthropology it has restricted relevance in the worlds of disaster-victim identification, biometrics, and forensic science. It is, however, true to say that, although many of our parameters of biological identity may be acquired after birth (tattoos, trauma, disease, dental intervention, etc.), many are biologically inherent and established in the period between conception and birth (DNA profile, sex, fingerprints, blood group, etc.). More

Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty by Judith W. Kay (Polemics: Rowman and Littlefield) (Paperback) goes beyond the hype and statistics to examine Americans' deep-seated beliefs about crime and punishment. She argues that Americans share a counter-productive idea of justice--that punishment corrects bad behavior, suffering pays for wrong deeds, and victims' desire for revenge is natural and inevitable. Drawing on interviews with both victims and inmates, Kay shows how this belief harms perpetrators, victims, and society and calls for a new narrative that recognizes the humanity in all of us. More

Criminal Responsibility by Victor Tadros (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice: Oxford University Press) considers the proper nature and scope of criminal responsibility in the light of its institutional and political role. Tadros begins by providing a general account of criminal responsibility which is based on the relationship between the action that the defendant has performed and his or her character. He then moves on to reconsider some of the central doctrines of criminal responsibility in the light of that account. More

Perspectives on Violence and Violent Death Edited by Robert G. Stevenson and Gerry R. Cox (Baywood) examines violence. It looks at the nature and types of violence, the causes of violence, and the emotional wake left by violent episodes. In the twentieth century, the world experienced two world wars and countless other wars. Many millions died violent deaths from murder, death squads, purges, riots, revolutions, ethnic cleansing, rape, robbery, domestic violence, suicide, gang violence, terrorist acts, genocide, and in many other ways. As we entered the twenty-first century, we experienced 9/11, the Red Lake School deaths, suicide bombers, and more mass death brought about by the actions of governments, revolutionaries, terrorists, and still more wars. The need to better understand violence, both lethal and non-lethal, to become aware of the many forms of violence, and to learn how to survive in the aftermath of violent death are the focus of Perspectives on Violence and Violent Death. More

Defining Crimes: Essays on the Special Part of the Criminal Law edited by R.A. Duff, Stuart Green (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice: Oxford University Press) This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part'—the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part, which usually receives much more theoretical attention. More

Law

International Law Between Universalism and Fragmentation: Festschrift in Honour of Gerhard Hafner edited by Isabelle Buffard, James Crawford, Alain Pellet, Stephan Wittich (Brill Academic Publishers) This Festschrift is published on the occasion of Gerhard Hafner's 65th birthday and his retirement as a professor at the University of Vienna. It assembles a great number of renowned friends and colleagues in international law honouring Gerhard Hafner's outstanding career as scholar, diplomat, legal adviser and arbitrator. The diversity of areas selected for this Festschrift reflects the generalist approach of Gerhard Hafner towards international law. Among the topics on which his contribution was particularly influential are the fragmentation of international law, the law of State immunity and international criminal law, which feature prominently in the Festschrift. Other areas covered are the theory of international law (including sources), basic principles of international law, codification of international law, subjects of international law, international dispute settlement, the law of the sea and international environmental law, human rights and humanitarian law and the law of the European Union.  More

The Genocide Convention: The Travaux Preparatoires (The Travaux Preparatoires of Multilateral Treaties) by Hirad Abtahi and Phillipa Webb (Brill Academic Publishers) This work gathers together for the first time in a single publication the records of the multitude of meetings which, in the context of the newly established United Nations, led to the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. This work will enable academics and practitioners easy access to the Genocide Convention's travaux preparatoires - an endeavour that has until now proven extremely difficult. This work will be of paramount importance for the international adjudication of the crime of genocide insofar as recourse to the 'general rule of interpretation' and the 'supplementary means of interpretation' under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is concerned.
Hirad Abtahi, diplome d'etudes approfondies in international law, is the first Legal Adviser to the International Criminal Court's Presidency. He was formerly legal officer in the Milosevi trial, at the UN International Criminal Tribunal. He has lectured and published in English, French and Persian. Philippa Webb, BA(Hons)/LLB (UNSW), LLM (Yale), is Special Assistant to President Rosalyn Higgins and Legal Officer of the International Court of Justice. She was formerly Associate Legal Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.  More

Personal Freedom Through Human Rights Law?:  Autonomy, Identity and Integrity Under the European Convention on Human Rights by Jill Marshall (International Studies in Human Rights: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers / Brill Academic)  "Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights" provides a right to respect for one's private life. The European Court of Human Rights has interpreted this provision broadly to include a right to personal autonomy, identity and integrity. The book examines these concepts by interconnecting case law from the Court with the philosophical debates, including those in feminism, in four parts: personal freedom and human rights law; privacy and personal autonomy; personal identity; and bodily and moral integrity. The author notes, through her analysis of the Court's case law, that different versions of freedom are evident in the jurisprudence, including one which may restrict human freedom rather than enhance it through human rights law. This book will be invaluable to scholars of the Court, human rights and issues of the self.  More

Marshall also wrote Humanity, Freedom And Feminism (Applied Legal Philosophy: Ashgate): While some feminists seek to use ideas of the 'universal human subject' to include women, others argue that such ideas are intrinsically masculine and exclude the feminine. This book analyzes and critiques 'second wave' feminists who discuss how philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes and Kant regard human beings and their capacities. The author suggests adopting an inclusive universal concept of the human being, drawn from ideas of positive liberty from the liberal tradition, Hegelian ideas of the formation of the free human being in society, and care ethics. The book links this theoretical perspective to international human rights and humanitarian law, drawing together areas of theory usually presented separately. These include the liberal theory of the individual (particularly individual freedom, feminist critiques and theories of subjectivity), globalization and global identity issues and the theory of human rights law, with the focus resting on human subjectivity and ethics. While the focus is on Anglo-American jurisprudence, this is combined with continental philosophy, international human rights issues and a Yugoslav war crimes case study. 
Marshall also wrote Gender and the Law: Contemporary Issues and Trends (Routledge Cavendish) Providing an essential reference point for undergraduates and postgraduates studying gender and the law, this book covers areas such as feminist jurisprudence, family law and motherhood, criminal law and international humanitarian and human rights law. Current themes including personal autonomy, liberal neutrality, identity politics and essentialism are explored.
But rather than being a purely descriptive black letter textbook the book provides scholarly analysis by references to themes, trends and theoretical perspectives in contemporary legal developments. The key strengths and weaknesses involved in highlighting gender in the law are investigated, with each chapter showing whether gender impacts on the relevant area of law, and how it does so. Primary and secondary source materials are interpreted from different perspectives to clarify trends and forecast future developments. Through this analysis the book helps the reader to critically evaluate for themselves the issues, and to obtain a more critical view of the relevant areas of law. 

Business

Intellectual Property & Competitive Strategies in 21st Century Second Edition by Shahid Alikhan and R. A. Mashelkar (Wolters Kluwer) It is scarcely five years since the first edition of this book, a milestone in the strategy-oriented approach to intellectual property at the global level, appeared and was quickly and widely welcomed as virtually an intellectual property agenda for the 21st century.' This second edition includes a judicious update of the original data and analysis in light of the significant movement forward that has taken place over the past few years in many of the critical areas that shape competitive strategies in the use of IP rights. The authors have lost none of their conviction of the necessity to enhance awareness of the techno-economic effects of intellectual property rights protection on enterprise competitiveness and national growth and development. More 

Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications edited by In Lee, Western Illinois University, USA (Information Science Reference) Perpetual Access:  Print + Perpetual Access: Over the course of a few short years, electronic business has advanced from a buzzword to a thriving new channel for the delivery of goods and services and the mediation of financial transactions, shaping the destiny of numerous contemporary enterprises and significantly affecting entire economies worldwide. The rapid pace of advancement and change driven by e-commerce technologies, and the larger fiscal, economic, and sociological implications, have created a need for authoritative research to enhance the grasp of the academic, commercial, and consumer sectors on the full range of opportunities, issues, and challenges.

Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications enhances libraries worldwide through top research compilations from international authors in the field of e-business. This indispensable, 4-volume set contains crucial articles in topic areas such as e-commerce technologies, online marketing, social networking, and virtual business communities. Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications provides libraries with unsurpassed explorations, theories, and applications of e-business as a necessary addition to any library collection. More

Feminism

Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader by Elizabeth Hackett, Sally Haslanger (Oxford University Press) "What is sexist oppression?" "What should be done about it?" Organized around these questions, Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader provides an overview of theoretical feminist writing about the quest for gender justice. Incorporating both classic and cutting-edge material, the reader takes into account the full diversity of women, highlighting the effects of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and religion on women's experience. More

Listening to the Silences: Women And War edited by Helen Durham, Tracey Gurd (International Humanitarian Law: Brill Academic) Challenging the perception that women are exclusively the victims, the caregivers or the passive supporters of men in times of armed conflict, Listening to the Silences: Women and War exposes the reader to a diversity of women’s voices. These voices, both personal and academic, demonstrate that women are increasingly taking on less ‘traditional’ roles during war, and that these roles are multifaceted, complicated and sometimes contradictory. More

Archaeology

Handbook Of Archaeological Methods edited by Herbert D. G. Maschner, Christopher Chippindale (Altamira Press) comprises 37 articles by leading archaeologists on the key methods used by archaeologists in the field, in analysis, in theory building, and in managing cultural resources. The book is destined to become the key reference work for archaeologists and their advanced students on contemporary archaeological methods. More

Archaeology In Practice: A Student Guide To Archaeological Analyses by Jane Balme, Alistair Paterson (Blackwell Publishing Professional) (Paperback) This volume is intended for archaeology students who are learning how to analyze archaeological materials. For many years, we have been involved in teaching university courses in field and laboratory techniques in archaeology. Over a cup of coffee during one of these courses, we were bemoaning the fact that, although there are many books on field methods (especially excavation techniques), much less is available on archaeological analysis techniques beyond the introductory first-year archaeology level. What we wanted was a series of essays that showed students how different kinds of archaeological materials are used to answer research questions. In our experience, students are more likely to understand this link when they learn from archaeologists who are talking about their own research problems and how they solved them. It brings a sense of immediacy to the work that makes it much more fun for them to read. Thus, to remedy the problem of the lack of such materials for students to read, we decided to assemble a collection of essays by experts on archaeological analysis. More

Philosophy of Science

Athanasius Kirchers Theatre of the World: The Life and Work of the Last Man to Search for Universal Knowledge by Joscelyn Godwin (Inner Traditions) Linguist, archaeologist, and exceptional scholar, Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was the last true Renaissance man.  By profession a Jesuit priest, he made himself an authority on almost every subject under the sun.  To Kircher the entire world was a glorious manifestation of God, and his exploration was both a scientific quest and a religious experience.  His works on Egyptology (he is credited with being the first Egyptologist), music, optics, magnetism, geology, and comparative religion were the definitive tests of their time--and yet they represent only a part of his vast range of knowledge.  A Christian Hermeticist in the mold of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, his work also examined alchemy, the Kabbalah, and the Egyptian Mystery tradition exemplified by Hermes Trismegistus.  Kircher was the first to map ocean currents; the first to offer a comprehensive theory of vulcanism; the first to compile an encyclopedia on China, a dictionary of Coptic, a book dedicated solely to acoustics; the first to construct a machine for coding messages and another for composing music.  His museum in Rome was among the most famous "cabinets of curiosities," visited by everybody in the intellectual world. More

Time for Aristotle by Ursula Coope (Oxford Aristotle Studies: Oxford University Press) What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different? Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics. In the first book in English exclusively devoted to this discussion, Ursula Coope argues that Aristotle sees time as a universal order within which all changes are related to each other. This interpretation enables her to explain two striking Aristotelian claims: that the now is like a moving thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind. More

Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science by Christopher Hitchcock (Contemporary Debates in Philosophy: Blackwell) Teachers: Has this ever happened to you? You arc teaching a philosophy class that covers a number of different topics. You want to spend a week or so on, let's say, sci­entific realism. Naturally, you want to provide the students with some accessible read­ings on the subject. Moreover, you want to choose readings from both realists and anti-realists, partly so that the students will see both sides of the issue, and partly to give the students a glimpse of philosophers engaging in debate with one another. What you end up with, however, are readings that end up talking past one another: no two authors agree on what scientific realism is, so the realists are defending views that the anti-realists are not attacking. The students come away confused, and without any sense of the constructive value of debate. More

After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies edited by Glenn M. Schwartz, John J. Nichols (University of Arizona Press) From the Euphrates Valley to the southern Peruvian Andes, early complex societies have risen and fallen, but in some cases they have also been reborn. Prior archaeological investigation of these societies has focused primarily on emergence and collapse. After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies is the first book-length work to examine the question of how and why early complex urban societies have reappeared after periods of decentralization and collapse. More

Life Science

Thinking about Life: The history and philosophy of biology and other sciences by Paul S. Agutter, Denys N. Wheatley (Springer) This is a “popular science” book, designed as a sequel to our About Life: Concepts in Modern Biology by Paul S. Agutter and Denys N. Wheatley(Springer), which uses modern biological knowledge to tackle the question: "What distinguishes living organisms from the non-living world?" In the first few chapters, the authors draw on recent advances in cell and molecular biology to develop an account of the "living state" that applies to all organisms, but only to organisms. Subsequent chapters use this account to explore questions about evolution, the origin of life and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Towards the end of the book the authors consider human evolution, intelligence and the extent to which our species can be regarded as biologically unique. About Life: Concepts in Modern Biology is written as far as possible in non-technical language; all scientific terms are explained straightforwardly when they are introduced. It is aimed at the general, non-specialist reader, but the novel approach that it takes to general issues in biology will also interest students of the life sciences. Indeed, no specialist knowledge is required. Thinking about Life: The history and philosophy of biology and other sciences briefly surveys the nature of science and its emergence in post-Renaissance Europe, and investigates the similarities and differences between biology and other sciences. Major topics in the philosophy of biology (e.g. evolutionary theory, vitalism/mechanism, reductionism/holism, spontaneous generation) are considered in a little more detail. More

Handbook of Nutrition and Food, Second Edition edited by Carolyn D. Berdanier, Johanna Dwyer, Elaine B. Feldman (CRC) Covering an incredible range of information from basic biochemistry, to population studies, to nutrition intervention, and medical concerns, Handbook of Nutrition and Food, Second Edition is an indispensable reference for any professional library. Significantly revised and updated, this second edition of the bestselling original welcomes contributions from several new authors, including Elaine B. Feldman and Johanna Dwyer, all notable leaders in nutritional science. Retaining the high level of scientific research, accessible language, and attention to detail of the original, this new edition reflects the changes and developments of the past six years in nutrition research by adding 12 new chapters and tripling the number of referential web addresses. More

Food Processing Handbook by James G. Brennan (Wiley-VCH) focusing on the technology involved, this handbook describes the principles as well as the equipment used and the changes – physical, chemical, microbiological and organoleptic – that occur during food preservation. In doing so the text covers in detail such techniques as post-harvest handling, thermal processing, evaporation and dehydration, freezing, irradiation, high pressure processing, emerging technologies, baking, extrusion, frying and packaging. In addition current concerns about the safety of processed foods and control of food processes are addressed, as are the impact of processing on the environment and separation and conversion operations widely used in the food industry.
Scientists and engineers involved in food manufacture, research and development in both industry and academia will benefit greatly from the contents as will students studying food related topics at undergradu­ate and postgraduate levels. More

Cheese Problems Solved edited by P. McSweeny (CRC) Cheese is a unique food product which requires a significant amount of scientific knowledge to be produced successfully. However, due to the many complex and inter-related changes which occur during cheese manufacture and ripening, it is still not possible to guarantee the production of premium quality cheese. Written by an international team of renowned contributors, Cheese problems solved provides responses to around 200 of the most frequently asked questions about cheese and the cheesemaking process, in a unique and practical question-and-answer format. Opening chapters concentrate on queries regarding the preparation of cheesemilk, the conversion of milk to curd, the ripening process, pathogens, cheese analysis and the nutritional aspects of cheese, among other issues. The latter part of the book discusses particular types of cheeses including Cheddar, Grana-type cheeses, Mozzarella, Blue, Swiss and Dutch cheeses, to name but a few. More

Meaningful Scents Around the World: Olfactory, Chemical, Biological, and Cultural Considerations by Roman Kaiser (Wiley-VCH) In recent years, our knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of olfaction has grown enormously, accompanied by a growing appreciation of scent. This is reflected in the fact that the 2004 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for discoveries of 'Odorant Receptors and the Organization of the Olfactory System'. This book naturally supports such developments, and takes the reader on a fascinating fragrant journey around the world to some of the exciting places the author has visited during his 30 years of olfactory research. Following an introductory section to the world of natural scents, including their biological meaning and history, the fragrance and flavor chemist, Roman Kaiser, who is renowned for his 'headspace' analytical technique, revisits some memorable scents. In doing so, he leads us to such exotic places as Lower Amazonia, Papua New Guinea, India, and many rain-forest biotopes in his quest for new molecules and new scent concepts, showing us along the way how a scent like tatami can be linked to culture. The third and final section describes the analysis of the compositions of the presented scents. More

Plant by Janet Martinelli (DK) From cultivating plants that are on the international endangered list or already extinct in the wild, to avoiding invasive species, gardeners can play a vital role in conservation. A groundbreaking reference for both plant enthusiasts and gardeners, Plant is a new-generation encyclopedia designed to provide environmental and horticultural information so that gardeners can make the right decisions about what to grow in their gardens. The planet is poised on the brink of a modern extinction episode, says Janet Marinelli, editor-in-chief of the new book PLANT, "that would rival anything in evolutionary history, including the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago." Marinelli explained, "If current trends continue, two-thirds of all plant species will disappear before the end of the 21st century — more than 55 percent of conifers, 52 percent of cycads, 38 percent of cacti, about a third of all members of the lily family, and almost all 800 orchid species are at risk for extinction in the coming decades." But the good news is that "as gardeners, we can play a very personal and important role in the survival of these beautiful and fascinating creatures." More

Biology of Floral Scent edited by Natalia Dudareva, Eran Pichersky (CRC) The first book of its kind, Biology of Floral Scent provides comprehensive coverage of state-of-the-art floral scent research. This book explores the major aspects of floral scent biology including its function and significance for plants and pollinators, composition, enzymology, evolution, and commercial aspects. It employs a modern approach that incorporates molecular biology, enzymology, chemistry, entomology, genetic engineering, and functional genomics. By combining literature on plant reproduction into a single volume, this text provides an easy reference for plant biologists, natural products chemists, cell and molecular biologists, ecologists, and entomologists. More

Litchi and Longan: Botany, Production and Uses edited by C. M. Menzel , G. K. Waite (CABI Publishing) Litchi (lychee) and the related fruit longan are grown extensively in China and South-East Asia, as well as in Australia, Florida (USA), Southern Europe and Southern Africa. This book represents the only comprehensive, balanced and internationally focused publication on these fruit. It covers all aspects of production, from taxonomy and breeding, to propagation, flowering and fruit set, to diseases, pests and postharvest storage and processing. Written by leading scientists from Australia, China, India, Israel, Thailand and the USA, the book represents the standard work on its subject. As the fruit are imported to many developed countries, the book will be of interest to a wide audience. More

Prions by Claudio Soto (CRC) offers a well-organized overview of prion-related diseases. It reviews the symptoms, epidemiology, and neuropathology of the disease, and focuses on the idea that TSEs result from a novel mechanism involving transmission by replication of the misfolding of a single protein. The author, a renowned innovator in the area of neurodegenerative diseases, examines the structure, conversion, and mechanism of prion propagation and details its cellular biology. He also looks at other diseases that display folding aberrations, considers how common such aberrations are, and speculates on the impact of prions on broader areas of biology, public health, and biotechnological strategies. More

Medicine

The Human Amygdala by Paul J. Whalen and Elizabeth A. Phelps (Guilford)Building on pioneering animal studies, and making use of new, noninvasive techniques for studying the human brain, research on the human amygdala has blossomed in recent years. This comprehensive book brings together leading authorities to review the latest knowledge on the amygdala and its involvement in psychological function and dysfunction. It is a state-of-the-art reference for all researchers and practitioners interested in brain—behavior relationships. More

Clinical Malignant Hematology by Mikkael A. Sekeres, Matt Kalacyio, Brian Bolwell (McGraw-Hill Just the Facts: McGraw-Hill Professional) The only comprehensive guide to the clinical management of hematologic and lymphatic cancers.
Filling an unmet need in the clinical literature, this commanding, just-in-time reference sheds light on the full spectrum of cancers in the blood, bone marrow, and lymphatic system (leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma). Clinical Malignant Hematology is edited by staff members from the renowned Taussig Cancer Center at the Cleveland Clinic, which has pioneered some of the most important clinical discoveries and treatment trends in recent years. More

Fundamentals of Nuclear Pharmacy, 5th Edition by Gopal B. Saha (Springer-Verlag) Upon publication of the First Edition, Fundamentals of Nuclear Pharmacy emerged as the standard text and reference in nuclear medicine. Generously supplemented with charts, tables, and more than 100 illustrations, the revised Fifth Edition of this classic text has been thoroughly updated by judiciously replacing obsolete sections with new, cutting-edge material. Each chapter provides the reader with well-delineated descriptions of the subject matter from the basic atomic structure to the clinical uses of radiopharmaceuticals. Previous editions were highly acclaimed for their clarity and accuracy since Dr. Saha sets new standards for making complex theoretical concepts readily understandable for students and practitioners in nuclear pharmacy and nuclear medicine. More

Food and Nutrients in Disease Management by Ingrid Kohlstadt (CRC) Food and nutrients are the original medicine and the shoulders on which modern medicine stands. But in recent decades, food and medicine have taken divergent paths and the natural healing properties of food have been diminished in the wake of modern technical progress. With contributions from highly regarded experts who work on the frontlines of disease management, Food and Nutrients in Disease Management effectively brings food back into the clinical arena and helps physicians put food and nutrients back on the prescription pad.  More

Psychology

Multiple Intelligences Around the World edited by Jie-Qi Chen, Sean Moran, Howard Gardner (Jossey-Bass) Since its introduction in 1983, Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences (MI) theory has become a touchstone of education. Embracing a wide array of human talents that significantly contribute to our intellectual and cultural life, MI theory offers a broader definition of intelligence than is measured by standard IQ tests.

MI theory supports and celebrates the diversity of children's strengths in school and other learning environments. Now, more than a quarter of a century later, Multiple Intelligences Around the World draws upon a select group of MI practitioners to show how Gardner's theory is applied in the international arena. In this dynamic book, the contributors-representing countries such as China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, Norway, Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, Romania, Turkey, Argentina, Columbia, and the United States-share thoughtful stories and strategies of educational innovation.

Multiple Intelligences Around the World's cross-cultural discussions provide a valuable resource for teachers and administrators who are working with diverse student populations. In addition, the experiences of exam-driven countries like China and Japan will prove instructive to professionals faced with the task of improving both teaching and test scores.

This important book addresses a number of key questions including: How have different educational settings implemented MI? How does an educational idea created in one cultural milieu travel and take root in highly diverse educational soils? And, what universal lessons can be drawn from these experiences?  More

Understanding Consciousness: Second Edition by Max Velmans (Routledge) provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years.  More

Memory by Alan Baddeley,Michael W, Eysenck, Michael C. Anderson  (Paperback) People seem to be intrigued by memory, and by its sometimes spectacular failure in (for example) people with amnesia. However, students of memory sometimes fail to retain this fascination. The reason is clear: in order to study memory we must carry out carefully-designed experiments, which can seem boring even when they are exciting science. Fortunately, we now know enough about memory to relate laboratory studies to the world beyond. In other words, our scientific knowledge of memory and how it works can help us to explain those aspects of memory that most people find of greatest interest. This book presents a thorough, accessible and appealing overview of the field, written with students in mind, by some of the world's leading researchers. It starts with a brief overview and explanation of the scientific approach to memory before going on to discuss the basic characteristics of the various memory systems and how they work. Summaries of short-term and working memory are followed by chapters on learning, the role of organization in memory, the ways in which our knowledge of the world is stored, retrieval, and on intentional and motivated forgetting. The latter half of the book involves the broader application of our basic understanding of memory, with chapters on autobiographical memory, amnesia, and on memory in childhood and aging. After chapters discussing eyewitness testimony and prospective memory, a final chapter addresses an issue of great importance to students - how to improve your memory. Each chapter of the book is written by one of the three authors, an approach which takes full advantage of their individual expertise, style and personality. This enhances students' enjoyment of the book, allowing them to share the authors' own fascination with human memory. More

 

Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation by Keith Markman, Julie A. Suhr, William M. P. Klein (Psychology Press) Editors Overview:  Since the early 1980s, researchers have been examining fascinating questions regarding the nature of mental simulation: the act of imagination and the generation of alternative realities. Some researchers have focused on what happens in the brain when an individual is mentally simulating an action or forming a mental image, whereas others have focused on the consequences of mental simulation processes for affect, motivation, and behavior.

The purpose of gathering these essays is to achieve a novel and stimulating integration of work on imagination and mental simulation from a variety of perspectives. It is our hope that such a mul-tidisciplinary volume will encourage an exchange of ideas that will benefit psychology. Although a number of excellent volumes have recently been published that examine the role of time perspective in decision making and social psychology more generally (e.g. Loewenstein, Read, & Baumeister, 2003; Sanna & Chang, 2006), we have elected to cut an even wider swath. Thus, the present volume includes chapters on mental representation; simulated movement and its relationship with actual motor movement; visual imagery; and how individuals use mental simulation to infer the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. Our goal is to forward the notion that a wide range of mental simulation phenomena share a commonality of underlying processes. To so, we have invited neuro-scientists, developmental psychologists, cognitive psychologists, social psychologists, and clinical psychologists to unite under the same umbrella. By the end of this book, it should be clear that men-tal simulation is associated with a multifaceted but well-integrated array of biological, neurological, psychological, and social processes. More

Mental States: Volume 1: Evolution, function, nature; Volume 2: Language and cognitive structure (set) by Andrea C. Schalley and Drew Khlentzos (Studies in Language Companion Series: John Benjamins Publishing) Collecting the work of linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, artificial intelligence researchers and philosophers this volume presents a richly varied picture of the nature and function of mental states. Starting from questions about the cognitive capacities of the early hominin homo floresiensis, the essays proceed to the role mental representations play in guiding the behaviour of simple organisms and robots, thence to the question of which features of its environment the human brain represents and the extent to which complex cognitive skills such as language acquisition and comprehension are impaired when the brain lacks certain important neural structures. Other papers explore topics ranging from nativism to the presumed constancy of categorization across signed and spoken languages, from the formal representation of metaphor, actions and vague language to philosophical questions about conceptual schemes and colours. Anyone interested in mental states will find much to reward them in this fine volume. More

Affect Imagery Consciousness: Volume I: The Positive Affects and Volume II: The Negative Affects;
Affect Imagery Consciousness: Volume III: The Negative Affects: Anger and Fear and Volume IV: Cognition: Duplication and Transformation of Information by Silvan S. Tomkins (Springer Publishing Company) From Prologue by Donald L. Nathanson, MD Founding Executive Director Emeritus,  The writings that have become this massive masterwork consumed him from the mid-1950s through the end of his life in 1991. Knowing it was his "lifework," Tomkins conflated "life" and "work," reifying the superstition that its completion would equal death and refusing to release for publication long-completed material. He knew the risks associated with this obsessive, neurotic behavior, and the results were as bad as predicted. The first two volumes of Affect Imagery Consciousness (AIC) were released in 1962 and 1963, Volume III in 1991 shortly before he succumbed to a particularly virulent strain of small cell lymphoma, and Volume IV a year after his death. Only one vendor, the Joseph Fox Bookshop of Philadelphia, maintained the entire set in stock and handled the needs of scholars all over the world for it as well as the other books written by Tomkins group.
This last book contains Tomkins's understanding of neocortical cognition, ideas that are even now exciting, but until this current publication of his work as a single supervolume, almost nobody has read it. The bulk of his audience had died along with the enthusiasm generated by his ideas. Big science is now more a matter of big machines and unifocal discoveries as the basis for pars pro toto reasoning than big ideas based on the assembly and analysis of all that is known. Tomkins ignored nothing from any science past or present that might lead him toward a more certain understanding of the mind. Every idea, every theory deserved attention if only because significant observations can loiter in blind alleys. This present publication of the entire set as what we have come to call a supervolume has been made possible by a grant from the 1675 Foundation, which has taken special interest in The Silvan S. Tomkins Institute’s work to encourage the study and research of Tomkins masterwork. By allowing the Tomkins Institute to underwrite this publication and act as co-publisher, the new management of Springer Publishing Company has been able to make Affect Imagery Consciousness both affordable and accessible to a large audience. More

Emotions: Their Rationality & Consistency by Marion Ledwig (Peter Lang Publishing) stands in the tradition of current emotion theorists, such as Elster, Damasio, de Sousa, Greenspan, Nussbaum, and Solomon, who advance the rationality of the emotions. Yet this book goes beyond their accounts, for it not only defends the view that emotions can be termed rational, but also considers in which different senses emotions can be termed rational. Besides discussing whether emotional intelligence and emotional consistency are forms of emotional rationality, this book makes clear how far this view on the rationality of the emotions can be generalized: whether it can, for instance, be generalized to computers having rational emotions and whether emotional responses to art can be considered to be rational. This book draws not only on knowledge from neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind, but also on evolutionary theory and developmental psychology, to substantiate its position. More

Rational Animals? edited by Susan Hurley, Matthew Nudds (Oxford University Press) Are any nonhuman animals rational? What issues are we raising when we ask this question? Are there different kinds or levels of rationality, some of which fall short of full human rationality? Should any behaviour by nonhuman animals be regarded as rational? What kinds of tasks can animals successfully perform? From what kinds of processes does their behaviour result, and do they count as rational processes? Is it useful or theoretically justified to raise questions about the rationality of animals at all? Should we be interested in whether they are rational? Why does it matter? More

Neuropsychology: Clinical and Experimental Foundations by Lorin Elias, Deborah Saucier (Allyn & Bacon) Combining a unique organizational approach with an engaging writing style, Neuropsychology: Clinical and Experimental Foundations offers a comprehensive and reader-friendly introduction to the functions of the brain. Chapters take a functional perspective, weaving together discussions on intact and dysfunctional systems. Lorin Elias and Deborah Saucier address critical issues in the field, including neuroanatomy, sensation and perception, memory, and emotion. The text also incorporates helpful pedagogical features, including Real World and Current Controversy boxes as well as self-tests and internal previews and reviews, all of which are valuable tools for teaching and learning. Thorough and up-to-date, Neuropsychology: Clinical and Experimental Foundations is the ideal text to introduce students to the dynamic workings of the brain. More

Ecrits: A Selection by Jacques Lacan, translated by Bruce Fink (W.W. Norton & Company) The experience of reading Lacan can be difficult for some, if not most of us; his work requires us to be active in our comprehension and imagination. For many years there has only been one translation of this important work, which has hampered Lacan's introduction to the Anglophone world. We now have a new translation and splendid it is! It does not give instant access to Lacan and the book still needs "active" reading, but it certainly helps. This modern translation - worked on by three people close to the work of Lacan - is fully annotated and referenced to give the reader a complete entry into the work as composed at the time (a hermeneutics of Lacan, perhaps?). We have many books about the work of this important psychoanalyst and thinker - but eventually the desire comes to read his original work and this translation certainly allows, supports and encourages this. This translation of the Ecrits will prove valuable for many years to come. More

Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy  edited by Len Sperry, Edward P. Shafranske (American Psychological Association) Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy is the first book to critically and coherently survey how spirituality can be incorporated into a range of psychotherapeutic approaches, including psychoanalytic, cognitive—behavioral, humanistic, interpersonal, transpersonal, and others. Volume editors Len Sperry and Edward P. Shafranske, both well recognized as outstanding scholars, bring together a stellar group of contributors to describe the theoretical and clinical basis for their approaches and to illustrate their clinical application. A uniform structure across chapters and an integrative final chapter allow for easy comparison of the approaches. The volume editors examine current and future issues as well as the legacy of the psychoanalytic and Jungian foundations of spiritually oriented psychotherapy. This volume demonstrates the utility and accessibility of examining the spiritual dimension in therapy. It is likely to become a vital resource for the experienced clinician and the standard text for graduate programs in clinical, counseling, and consulting psychology and clinical social work. More

Handbook Of Spirituality And Worldview In Clinical Practice by Allan M. Josephson, John R. Peteet (American Psychiatric Association) Unlike works that focus primarily on spiritual experience, this clearly written volume focuses on worldview - the cognitive aspects of belief - and how it affects the behavior of both patient and clinician. Also unlike other works, this remarkable volume summarizes assessment, formulation, and treatment principles, using powerful case vignettes to illustrate how these principles can be applied to any individual of any faith or "non-faith," including practical clinical information on major faith traditions and on the secular (i.e., atheist/agnostic) worldview. This refreshing text sheds much-needed light on an area too often obscure to many clinicians. Because it bridges several disciplines in a novel way, this thought-provoking volume will find a diverse audience among mental health care students, educators, and professionals everywhere concerned with religious and spiritual aspects of their patients' lives. More

Gods of the Word: Archetypes in the Consonants by Margaret Magnus (Truman State University Press) “In 1993, as part of a computer project I was working on, I found myself reading an English dictionary and dividing all the words into prefixes, suffixes and roots. I had read studies in linguists which suggested that the initial consonants of a word had a set of meanings, and the remaining rhyming part also had a set of meanings. One 'sense' of 'str-' is linearity: string, strip, stripe, street, etc. And one sense of '-ap' is flat: cap, flap, lap, map, etc. If you put them together, you get a flat line: 'strap'. The idea fascinated me, and since I was marking all these words anyway, I decided to keep an eye out for these classes which have similar meaning and pronunciation both. It turns out that it is possible by means of a series of repeatable experiments to show that certain meanings hang out with certain phonemes and others do not. More

The Greatest Dictionary ever Produced in America, Easily a Rival of the OED.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia edited by William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin Smith (Gorgias Historical Dictionaries 1: Gorgias Press) 12 volumes From the 1889–1910 edition: 978-1-59333-375-1 comprises twelve volumes, including over 500,000 defined terms, and two volumes of concise encyclopedic entries. The Century Dictionary contains full, accurate, and clear definitions, and its many supporting quotations are chosen to illustrate, where helpful, the typical uses of a word or its specific sense. Whitney, who is still regarded as the greatest American linguist of his time, gathered together a remarkable staff of general and specialist editors, which included many luminaries of American scholarship, to compile this beautiful dictionary. More

History

Statecraft and Classical Learning: The Rituals of Zhou in East Asian History edited by Benjamin A. Elman (Editor), Martin A. Kern  (Studies in the History of Chinese Texts: Brill Academic Publishers)  Statecraft and Classical Learning is devoted to the Rituals of Zhou, one of the ancient Chinese Classics. In addition to its canonical stature in classical learning, the massive text was of unique significance to the pre-modern statecraft of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam where it served as the classical paradigm for government structure and was often invoked in movements of political reform. The present volume, with contributions from twelve leading North American, European, and East Asian scholars, is the first in any language to illuminate the Rituals in both dimensions. It presents a multifaceted and fascinating picture of the life of the text from its inception some two millennia ago to its modern political and scholarly discourse. More

Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context by Robert Cummings Neville (SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture: State University of New York Press) develops the author's thesis that contemporary philosophy has much to gain by shaping itself through important themes of the Chinese philosophical traditions, especially the themes of ritual and deference. Neville here offers a broad and detailed interpretation of the relevance of Confucianism and Daoism to contemporary issues. The discussion includes analyses of classical Confucian and Daoist texts, especially those of Xunzi and Laozi, and of the current scene of English-speaking philosophy advancing Chinese themes. The book also reflects on the nature of comparative philosophy as such, and the role that comparative philosophy has in the ongoing contemporary engagement with globalization, the clash of cultures, and scientific transformations of the worldviews of diverse civilizations. Neville stresses the importance of deferring to the integrity of cultures while still submitting them to normative analysis and criticism. More

A History of the Book in America: Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America edited by David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, MIchael Schudson, David D. Hall (The University of North Carolina Press) The fifth volume of A History of the Book in America addresses the economic, social, and cultural shifts affecting print culture from World War II to the present. During this period factors such as the expansion of government, the growth of higher education, the climate of the Cold War, globalization, and the development of multimedia and digital technologies influenced the patterns of consolidation and diversification established earlier.
The thirty-three contributors to the volume explore the evolution of the publishing industry and the business of bookselling. The histories of government publishing, law and policy, the periodical press, literary criticism, and reading--in settings such as schools, libraries, book clubs, self-help programs, and collectors' societies--receive imaginative scrutiny as well. The Enduring Book demonstrates that the corporate consolidations of the last half-century have left space for the independent publisher, that multiplicity continues to define American print culture, and that even in the digital age, the book endures.  More

The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss (New World Library) Evolution, Science, Religion, Literature, War, Politics, Medicine, and Survival — How Dreams Drive the Human Adventure

What do the first major oil discovery in Kuwait, Mark Twain’s fiction, and Harriet Tubman’s success conducting slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad have in common? They were all experienced first in dreams.  More

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography by Stanley Plumly (paper) (WW Norton), National Book Award finalist Stanley Plumly traces the period in Keats' life referred to by the poet himself in a heart-rending letter as his "posthumous existence" —from 1818, and the long walking tour in the cold Northern British isles with Charles Armitage Brown that led both to Keats' meeting with the woman to whom he became secretly engaged, Fanny Brawne, and to the first outward manifestation of Keats' terminal illness (a prolonged sore throat), to the poet's death in 1821, after a desperate six months hoping for recovery in the more hospitable climate of Rome, sharing a room there with his comrade and de facto nurse cum biographer, the painter Joseph Severn.

In addition to chronicling Keats' final days, Plumly pays particular attention to how remembrance of Keats has gradually evolved and the tortured arguments among his posthumous supporters about how to appropriately memorialize him. He gives due attention to the familiar tragedies of Keats' late life — a lingering sense that has family had some genetic curse after both his mother and brother Tom died of consumption; the jarringly negative reviews of Keats' major debut poem Endymion in establishment journals like the Quarterly Review; Keats' secret, forever unconsummated engagement to Fanny Brawne; the increasingly sporadic support of most of his friends as his condition worsened; the mismanagement of his inheritance by family members and the tight purse strings of a controlling trustee; and the persistent, exacerbating misdiagnoses of Keats' illness by six successive physicians. More 

The Narrative Secret of Flannery O'Connor: The Trickster as Interpreter by Ruthann Knechel Johansen (University Alabama Press) "Johansen... goes a long way toward unlocking the diverse strategies employed by O'Connor. Her thoroughgoing knowledge of O'Connor's work is always impressive. It's a lively time for O'Conner criticism, and Johansen is certainly one of O'Connor's more lively readers." - South Atlantic Review "I recommend the book to readers interested in the trickster, and those who know and love O'Connor's fiction enough to relish new insights.... Johansen has earned her place in the ranks of those who continue to delight in O'Connor's fiction, to delight in attempts to explain its power over us, and to take pleasure in the certainty that her fiction will continue to elude our explanations." - Text and Performance Quarterly
Examines the structural elements and narrative methods Flannery O'Connor employs "to create her fictional landscape." Focuses on her use of the archetypal trickster as "a likely guide through [her] landscape and interpreter of her narrative secret."  More

Lighter Side

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo, translated by Don Bartlett (Harper) Gripping and surprising, Nemesis is a nail-biting thriller from one of the biggest stars in crime fiction.

Grainy closed-circuit television footage shows a man walking into an Oslo bank and putting a gun to a cashier's head. He tells the young woman to count to twenty-five. When the robber doesn't get his money in time, the cashier is executed, and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace. Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case.  More

The Canterbury Tales (Modern Library) by Geoffrey Chaucer, John Miles Foley, and Burton Raffel (Modern Library: Random House) It would be impossible to overstate the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A work with one metaphorical foot planted in the Florentine Renaissance literary tradition of Boccaccio’s Decameron and the other in works ranging from John Bunyan, Voltaire, and Mark Twain to the popular entertainments of our own time, The Canterbury Tales stands astride the cultures of Great Britain and America, and much of Europe, like a benign colossus.
The Canterbury Tales (original-spelling Middle English edition) by Geoffrey Chaucer and Jill Mann (Penguin Classics)
Beyond its importance as a cultural touchstone and literary work of unvarnished genius, Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny–an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for generations of readers. Chaucer has gathered twenty-nine of literature’s most indelible archetypes–from the exalted Knight to the bawdy Wife to the besotted Miller to the humble Plowman–in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of late-medieval English society and both informs and expands our discourse on the human condition. More

The Norton Introduction to Literature, Media Edition (Includes: 2 audio CDs and one DVD-ROM) edited by Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, Kelly K. Mays (W. W. Norton) offers a balanced selection of classic and contemporary stories, poems, and plays in a brief and affordable format. Designed to accommodate a wide range of teaching styles and needs, this inviting introduction includes helpful annotation and pedagogy, student writing samples, and rich multimedia resources. More

Remember when reading a story to your children at night was a comforting settling-in ritual for child and parent? The practice continued in our household, well-beyond the childhood years into early adolescence and even as part of regular holiday gatherings of adults by introducing more complex serial tales from world literature such as The Journey to the West, a Chinese Buddhist romance about the fantastical adventures of monk Tripitaka to India to bring back Buddhist scriptures. He is accompanied by trickster Monkey and others who both help and hinder the monk on his pilgrimage (See the one volume abridged edition entitled The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of The Journey to the West by Anthony C. Yu.) Likewise The Thousand and One Nights in one of its less shortened versions, as in Robert Burton’s burlesque language also can be useful as a bridge into adult literature of great depth and linguistic versatility such as James Joyce’s Ulysses or The Man without Qualities by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil. With the addition of poetry, our family has become open to reading aloud and appreciative listening, an impromptu auditory performing cast where each in turn as was their wont to share snippets of literature aloud, with lively discussion ensuing about the nuance of narrative art and the power of spoken language to evoke thought and sway feelings.

We are happy to introduce a new resource  for the informed imagination the unabridged translation from the Urdu of the Islamic epic of fantasy, romance and war:

The Adventures of Amir Hamza (Dastan-e Amir Hamza)–compiled and written down in Urdu by Ghalib Lakhnavi, enlarged and augmented in Urdu by Abdullah Bilgrami, introduction by Hamid Dabashi, translated by Musharraf Farooqi (Modern Library) In the tradition of such beloved classics as The Thousand and One Nights and the Persian Shahnameh, here is the first unabridged English translation of a major Indo-Persian epic, The Adventures of Amir Hamza–a panoramic tale of magic and passion, and a classic hero’s odyssey that has captivated much of the world.

This Islamic saga dates back hundreds of years, perhaps to as early as the seventh century, when oral narratives of the deeds of the prophet Muhammad’s uncle Amir Hamza spread through Arabia, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent, expanding into a marvelous chronicle of warriors, kings, tricksters, fairies, courtesans, and magical creatures. The definitive one-volume Urdu text by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami appeared toward the end of the nineteenth century, but English translations of this text have always been censored and abridged–until now.

In Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s faithful rendition, The Adventures of Amir Hamza is captured with all its colorful action, ribaldry, and fantastic elements intact. Here is the spellbinding story of Amir Hamza, the adventurer who loves Mehr-Nigar, the daughter of the Persian emperor, Naushervan. Traveling to exotic lands in the service of his emperor, Amir Hamza defeats many enemies, loves many women, and converts hundreds of infidels to the True Faith of Islam before finding his way back to his first love. Guided by a Merlin-like clairvoyant called Buzurjmehr, protected by legendary prophets, and accompanied by his loyal friend, the ingenious trickster Amar Ayyar, Amir Hamza rides his devoted winged demon-steed, Ashqar, into combat against a marvelous array of opponents, from the deadly demon, Sufaid Dev, to his own rebellious sons.

Appreciated as the seminal Islamic epic or enjoyed as a sweeping tale as rich and inventive as Homer’s epic sagas, The Adventures of Amir Hamza is an extraordinary creation and a true literary treasure. More

“The Indo-Islamic Dastan-e Amir Hamza is a rip-roaring, bawdy, magical journey into the fantastic life and exploits of Amir Hamza, the paternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad....the story is reminiscent of the tales of Homer and King Arthur and The Arabian Nights. Farooqi's unexpurgated and unabridged English translation from the Urdu is masterful….Destined to become a classic.” – Library Journal

Circumference of Darkness by Jack Henderson (Bantam) In 1993, a legendary hacker known only as 'phr33k" outlined a far-fetched plan for the ultimate terrorist attack, in a members-only online chat room. Eight years later, he awoke on September 11, 2001 to see the World Trade Center in flames and his casual brainstorm materializing into a murderous reality.  More

Essays

The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society by Walter G. Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli (Duke University Press) (Hardcover)

"The Age of Beloveds is a treasure and a masterpiece. With breathtakingly extensive original research, it is beautifully written, in a style both inviting and impressive. It is the fruit of a lifetime's project to add Ottoman literature to the canons of world literature." -Victoria Holbrook, author of The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance

The Age of Beloveds offers a rich introduction to early-modern Ottoman culture through a study of its beautiful lyric love poetry. At the same time, it suggests provocative cross-cultural parallels in the sociology and spirituality of love in Europe—from Istanbul to London—during the long sixteenth century. Walter G. Andrews and Mehmet Kalpakli provide a generous sampling of translations of Ottoman poems, many of which have never appeared in English, along with informative and inspired close readings. The authors explain that the flourishing of Ottoman power and culture during the "Turkish Renaissance" manifested itself, to some degree, as an "age of beloveds," in which young men became the focal points for the desire and attention of powerful officeholders and artists as well as the inspiration for a rich literature of love. More

Literature

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume I: The Middle Ages through The Eighteenth Century Fourth Edition, edited by David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar (Pearson Education)
Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume II, The Romantics to the 20th Century and Beyond Fourth Edition,edited by David Damrosch, Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Christopher Baswell, and Clare Carroll (Pearson Education) With its first edition, The Longman Anthology of British Literature created a new paradigm for anthologies. Responding to major shifts in literary studies over the past thirty years, it became the first collection to pay detailed attention to the contexts within which these classic works of British literature were created and to highlight the full cultural diversity of the British isles. For the first time, canonical authors mingled with newly visible writers; English accents were heard next to Anglo-Norman, Welsh, and Scottish ones; female and male voices were set in dialogue; literature from the British Isles was integrated with post-colonial writing; and major works were complemented with shorter pieces and "perspectives" groupings that brought literary, social, cultural, and historical issues vividly to life. More

Poetry

Poetry and Language Writing: Objective and Surreal by David Arnold (Liverpool University Press) It has been variously labelled 'Language poetry', 'Language writing', `L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing' (after the magazine that ran from 1978 to 1981) and `Language-centred writing'. It has been variously defined as non-referential or of diminished reference, as textual poetry or a critique of expressivism, as a reaction against the 'workshop' poetry enshrined in creative writing departments across the United States. It has been variously described as non-academic, theory conscious, avant-garde, postmodern and oppositional. It has been placed according to its geographical positions, on east or west coasts of the United States; its venues in small magazines, independent presses and performance spaces; and its descent from historical precursors, be they the Objectivists, the composers-by-field of the Black Mountain school, the Russian Constructivists or American modernism a la William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein. Indeed, one of the few statements that can be made about it with little qualification is that 'it' has both fostered and endured a crisis in representation more or less since it first became visible in the 1970s.In this timely volume, David Arnold not only provides a means for coming to terms with this influential mode of writing and its ongoing crisis of representation but also reassesses the complex relationship between language poetry and surrealism, through discussion of some of late twentieth-century’s most innovative poets, including Charles Bernstein, Susan Howe, Michael Palmer, and Barrett Watten More

William Blake and Religion: A New Critical View by Magnus Ankarsjö (McFarland) Over the last ten years the field of Blake studies has profited from new discoveries about Blake's life and work. This book examines the effect that Blake's mother's recently discovered Moravianism has had on our understanding of his poetry, and gives special attention to Moravianism and Swedenborgianism and their relation to his sexual politics. This is accomplished by a close reading of Blake's poetry, which examines in detail the subjects of religion, sex, and the attempted colonization of Africa by a Swedenborgian utopian group. More

Blake’s Margins: An Interpretive Study of the Annotations by Hazard Adam (McFarland) Known for his prophetic and imaginative works of poetry, painting, and printmaking, William Blake was also a prolific reader and annotator of other writers' works. This is the first work of criticism to consider Blake's annotations in their entirety, and it covers such topics as art, poetry, theology, madness and philosophy, as well as the authors Lavater, Swedenborg, Bacon, Spurzheim, Berkeley, and Wordsworth, among others. More

Poetry, consciousness and community by Christopher (Kit) Kelen (Consciousness, Literature & the Arts: Rodopi) The process of poetry has importantly intuitive aspects and poetry embodies an ambivalence towards consciousness and towards those activities of thought in which it is constituted. It was ability to favour doubt over the productions of the rational mind that led Keats to associate poetry with his 'negative capability'. Consciousness is - like poetry - a floating signifier, a term of wide reference, and with a range of implications in the various disciplinary contexts in which it finds currency. Poetry, consciousness and community is about these abstractions, about their reflexive relationships in process, and about how these relationships matter to the world today and to worlds to come.
This book is interested in the nature of poetic, as opposed to other, thought; it is interested in the critical application of these forms of thought to each others' productions, and in how poetic thought might or might not be subject to its own regime. Poetry - as practice of testing the limits of language - entails a reflexive goal: that of understanding the journey in words made possible for, and by, the poem. Poetic meaning and truth are revealed between languages (likewise between genres, between texts, between subjects); it is in this inter-subjective and inter-cultural space that the limits of language (and so of conceivable worlds) are found. More 




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