Our new publications this week include: The Cambridge Companion to The City in Literature, edited by Kevin McNamara (University of Houston-Clear Lake), which examines everything from the myths and legends that fashioned the identities of ancient city-states to the diversity of literary performance in contemporary cities around the world. It is currently on offer at 30% discount as part of our promotion on Companions. The End of Socialism by James Otteson (Wake Forest University), examines socialism from the perspectives of both moral philosophy and economic theory. He examines the exact nature of the practical difficulties socialism faces, which turn out to be greater than one might initially suppose, and then asks whether the moral ideals it champions - equality, fairness, and community - are important enough to warrant attempts to overcome these difficulties nonetheless, especially in light of the alleged moral failings of capitalism. The result is an examination of the end of socialism, both in the sense of the moral goals it proposes and in the results of its unfolding logic. James Otteson is a very rare beast: he combines profound understanding with crystal-clear writing. This book is a devastating elucidation of the practical and theoretical difficulties that have caused the repeated failure of all systems of centralized planning, and socialism in particular. Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist Descendancy by David Fitzpatrick (Trinity College Dublin) looks at Protestant loss of power and self-confidence in Ireland since 1795. David Fitzpatrick brings his hallmark qualities of rigour, lucidity and imagination to these essays, brilliantly illuminating a neglected theme through important new evidence and careful exegesis. This collection will confirm his standing as one of the most gifted, original and influential historians of modern Ireland. Alvin Jackson, University of Edinburgh The Key Texts of Political Philosophy by Thomas Pangle (The University of Texas at Austin) and Timothy Burns (Baylor University). This book introduces readers to analytical interpretation of seminal writings and thinkers in the history of political thought, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Marx, and Nietzsche. Chronologically arranged, each chapter in the book is devoted to the work of a single thinker. The selected texts together engage with 2000 years of debate on fundamental questions including: what is the purpose of political life? What is justice? What is a right? Do human beings have rights? What kinds of human virtues are there and which regimes best promote them? The difficulty of accessing the texts included in this volume is the result not only of their subtlety but also of the dramatic change in everyday life. The authors shed light on the texts vocabulary and complexities of thought and help students understand and weigh the various interpretations of each philosophers thought. Virtuous Violence by Alan Page Fisk (UCLA) and Tage Shakti Rai (Northwestern University) What motivates violence? How can good and compassionate people hurt and kill others or themselves? Why are people much more likely to kill or assault people they know well, rather than strangers? This provocative and radical book shows that people mostly commit violence because they genuinely feel that it is the morally right thing to do. In perpetrators minds, violence may be the morally necessary and proper way to regulate social relationships according to cultural precepts, precedents, and prototypes. These moral motivations apply equally to the violence of the heroes of the Iliad, to parents smacking their child, and to many modern murders and everyday acts of violence. Virtuous Violence presents a wide-ranging exploration of violence across different cultures and historical eras, demonstrating how people feel obligated to violently create, sustain, end, and honor social relationships in order to make them right, according to morally motivated cultural ideals. With its wealth of eye-opening ethnographic and historical comparisons and its contrarian but well-argued analyses, this book is a fascinating exploration of violence and a major contribution to our understanding of the human condition. Steven Pinker (official) Probability: The Classical Limit Theorems by Henry McKean (New York University). Probability theory has been extraordinarily successful at describing a variety of phenomena, from the behaviour of gases to the transmission of messages, and is, besides, a powerful tool with applications throughout mathematics. At its heart are a number of concepts familiar in one guise or another to many: Gauss bell-shaped curve, the law of averages, and so on, concepts that crop up in so many settings they are in some sense universal. This universality is predicted by probability theory to a remarkable degree. This book explains that theory and investigates its ramifications. Assuming a good working knowledge of basic analysis, real and complex, the author maps out a route from basic probability, via random walks, Brownian motion, the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem, to aspects of ergodic theorems, equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, communication over a noisy channel, and random matrices. Numerous examples and exercises enrich the text. The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists by James Warren (University of Cambridge) Human lives are full of pleasures and pains. And humans are creatures that are able to think: to learn, understand, remember and recall, plan and anticipate. Ancient philosophers were interested in both of these facts and, what is more, were interested in how these two facts are related to one another. There appear to be, after all, pleasures and pains associated with learning and inquiring, recollecting and anticipating. We enjoy finding something out. We are pained to discover that a belief we hold is false. We can think back and enjoy or be upset by recalling past events. And we can plan for and enjoy imagining pleasures yet to come. This book is about what Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Cyrenaics had to say about these relationships between pleasure and reason. Art in the Hellenistic World by Andrew Stewart (UC Berkeley) This introductory textbook on Hellenistic Art is thematically organized, spanning the three centuries from Alexander to Augustus, and ranging geographically from Italy to India and the Black Sea to Nubia. The book examines key monuments of Hellenistic art in relation to the great political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of the time. It is illustrated with 170 photographs (mostly in color, and many never before published) and contextualized through excerpts from Hellenistic literature and inscriptions.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 12:02:38 +0000
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