Author: Sherman Hollar File Type: pdf The iconic pyramids and striking hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt are but a limited representation of the resplendent culture that once inhabited the Nile Valley. The ancient Egyptians developed sophisticated societies and belief systems, bestowing the world with plenitudes in the way of intellectual and cultural achievement. The vibrance of the ancient Egyptian lifefrom the dynasties to the massesare captured in this volume, which also explores the political and social development of the region.

Author: Jennifer Birkett File Type: pdf Since his death in 1989, it has become difficult to imagine that Samuel Beckett was once a virtually unknown writer. Born in 1906 into a respectable middle-class family in a Dublin suburb, he came late to fame in the early 1950s with the ground-breaking play, Waiting for Godot. Since Godot, Becketts writings have been translated, published, and staged throughout the world. This highly accessible and original account offers a new opportunity to engage with a towering figure of Irish and world literature. The book offers a systematic overview of Samuel Becketts best-known and most popular work - in poetry, drama, prose, radio, and television - along with his more difficult pieces. Original close readings explore his transformative work on language and form. For Beckett, life was a matter of doing time, while writing was a way of undoing it. In the process, writers, audiences, and readers enter into a different understanding of how it is to be human.

Author: Bryan S. Rennie File Type: pdf Reconstructing Eliade is a concept-by-concept analysis of the thought of Mircea Eliade and a re-evaluation of his analysis of religion. It illustrates how a thorough familiarity with Eliades work can produce an interpretation of his thought as systematic, coherent, and fully rational. Part One provides an analysis of the terms of Eliades understanding of religion - hierophany, the sacred and the dialectic of the sacred and profane, homo religiosus, myths and symbols - and thus of the meaning of religion implied throughout his work. Part Two inspects various problems which arise in light of this analysis, particularly relativism and the role of commitment. Part Three applies this analysis to certain problems - religion in the modern world and Eliades unfinished analysis of the modern, the postmodern phenomenon, implicit religion, and various related problems in the study of religion. Far from being outmoded and inadequate, Eliades thought is suggested to be fertile ground for the reconception of religious realities in the contemporary world.

Author: Isaiah Berlin File Type: pdf In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance of dissenters in the history of ideas--among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, Berlin brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times--and still challenge conventional wisdom.In a new foreword to this corrected edition, which also includes a new appendix of letters in which Berlin discusses and further illuminates some of its topics, noted essayist Mark Lilla argues that Berlins decision to give up a philosophy fellowship and become a historian of ideas represented not an abandonment of philosophy but a decision to do philosophy by other, perhaps better, means. His instinct told him, Lilla writes, that you learn more about an idea as an idea when you know something about its genesis and understand why certain people found it compelling and were spurred to action by it. This collection of fascinating intellectual portraits is a rich demonstration of that belief.** In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance of dissenters in the history of ideas--among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, Berlin brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times--and still challenge conventional wisdom.In a new foreword to this corrected edition, which also includes a new appendix of letters in which Berlin discusses and further illuminates some of its topics, noted essayist Mark Lilla argues that Berlins decision to give up a philosophy fellowship and become a historian of ideas represented not an abandonment of philosophy but a decision to do philosophy by other, perhaps better, means. His instinct told him, Lilla writes, that you learn more about an idea as an idea when you know something about its genesis and understand why certain people found it compelling and were spurred to action by it. This collection of fascinating intellectual portraits is a rich demonstration of that belief.**