Catalog Search Results

Founded by Alexander the Great and built by self-styled Greek pharaohs, the city of Alexandria at its height dwarfed both Athens and Rome. It was the marvel of its age, legendary for its vast palaces, safe harbors, and magnificent lighthouse. But it was most famous for the astonishing intellectual efflorescence it fostered and the library it produced. If the European Renaissance was the "rebirth" of Western culture, then Alexandria, Egypt, was its...

Examining the gradual change that has shaped the political, economic, and cultural life of the 20th century, socialist thinker Raymond Williams offers interesting arguments that remain timely for contemporary readers. In this new edition of the classic text, Williams' study of education and the press traces the development of a common language, revealing links between ideas, literary forms, and social history. A groundbreaking analysis with ongoing...

"Spanning a variety of disciplines, from religion, philosophy, and political thought, to cultural criticism, social theory, and the arts, Ideas That Made America: A Brief History shows how ideas have been major forces in American history, driving movements such as transcendentalism, Social Darwinism, conservatism, and postmodernism"-- Provided by publisher.

A cultural history of German ideas and influence, from 1750 to the early twenty-first century, covering figures from philosophy, science, and art; the development of new forms of scholarship, medicine, and engineering; and more, examining how and why the country flourished and its continuing influence on the rest of the world.

"A Dominican-born academic tells the story of how the Great Books transformed his life--and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgroundsWhat is the value of a liberal education? Traditionally characterized by a rigorous engagement with the classics of Western thought and literature, this approach to education is all but extinct in American universities, replaced by flexible distribution requirements and ever-narrower academic specialization....

Jackie accepts an opportunity to host a local radio show where she creates a late-night persona, Miss Dreamsville, and launches a reading group thus sending the conservative and racially segregated town into uproar.

"From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa Maria's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to fantasies projected from without by the West, and viewed as a place to be consumed. It stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years. Its societies were shaped by mass migrations and forced labor from the 16th century onwards, imposed by European or latterly-American imperial...

An invitation to readers from every walk of life to rediscover the impractical splendors of a life of learning In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that...

"Co-Winner of the 2006 Etkind Prize, Best Book by a Western Scholar on Russian Literature/Culture, European University at St. Petersburg" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2002" Joseph Frank is Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literature Emeritus at Stanford University. Previous volumes of Dostoevsky have received the National Book Critics...

"Winner of the 1995 Christian Gauss Award, Phi Beta Kappa" Joseph Frank is Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literature Emeritus at Stanford University. For Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859, Frank won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. In addition to the previous volumes of Dostoevsky, he is the author of Through the...