Author: Anthony Everitt File Type: epub All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.John AdamsHe squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Romes most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesars dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny. Anthony Everitts biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politicswhere Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one anothers sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the storiesabout dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so onmake the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.On CiceroHe taught us how to think.VoltaireI tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man. Edward GibbonWho was Cicero a great speaker or a demagogue? Fidel CastroFrom the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklyUsing Ciceros letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome. Against this backdrop, he offers a lively chronicle of Ciceros life. Best known as Romes finest orator and rhetorician, Cicero (103 -43 B.C.) situated himself at the center of Roman politics. By the time he was 30, Cicero became a Roman senator, and 10 years later he was consul. Opposing Julius Caesar and his attempt to form a new Roman government, Cicero remained a thorn in Caesars side until the emperors assassination. Cicero supported Pompeys attempts during Caesars reign to bring Rome back to republicanism. Along the way, Cicero put down conspiracies, won acquittal for a man convicted of parricide, challenged the dictator Sulla with powerful rhetoric about the decadence of Sullas regime and wrote philosophical treatises. Everitt deftly shows how Cicero used his oratorical skills to argue circles around his opponents. More important, Everitt portrays Cicero as a man born at the wrong time. While Cicero vainly tried to find better men to run government and better laws to keep them in order, Republican Rome was falling down around him, never to return to the glory of Ciceros youth. A first-rate complement to Elizabeth Rawsons Cicero or T.N. Mitchells monumental two-volume biography, Everitts first book is a brilliant study that captures Ciceros internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes. Maps. (On sale June 11) 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalEveritts first book is a good read that anyone interested in ancient Rome will enjoy. It is also the first one-volume life of the Roman leader in 25 years. To create a work that flowed and was therefore more colorful for the lay reader, Everitt, the former secretary-general of the Arts Council for Great Britain, has taken liberties when describing a person or a place that may annoy scholars. Yet reading this book is an excellent way to understand the players of the period and the culture that produced them. Bloody, articulate, erudite, sexist, slave-owning-Cicero and his circle were all that, but Everitt is careful to recognize that the orator was a product of his age. This is not strictly a political history Everitt scrutinizes Roman society in discussing events of the orators life and, when describing Ciceros marriage, acquaints the reader with various aspects of that institution and the home of the era. Throughout, he is willing to admit when the evidence for a theory is weak and when he is extrapolating from the assumptions of scholars. Recommended for public and undergraduate collections.Clay Williams, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author: Suzanne O'Dea Schenken File Type: pdf This book is a comprehensive compendium of biographies of leading women in U.S. politics, past and present, and an examination of the wide range of womens movements. With this illustrated reference work, you can explore American womens path to political power and social equality from the struggle for the right to vote and the abolition of slavery to the first African American woman in the U.S. Senate and beyond. With an emphasis on modern pioneers from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds such as Madeleine Albright, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Shirley Chisholm, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Winona LaDuke, and Patsy Mink, From suffrage to the Senate covers the individuals, organizations, movements, publications, milestones, legislative victories, and court cases that have changed the face of American politics. This book also traces the political heritage of the abolition, labor, suffrage, temperance, and reproductive rights movements.

Author: Ken Binmore File Type: pdf ReviewKen Binmore is an outstanding exponent of game theory. His many books are written in a delightfully fresh and engaging style, as is this one. Enjoy!--Robert Aumann, Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, 2005Delightfully written and thoroughly revised, this long-awaited intellectual child of Ken Binmores Fun and Games retains the solid foundation of the original while expanding to cover an impressive array of new ideas. It stands out among game theory texts in explaining not only how to do game theory, but when and why to do it. It is the ideal place to learn game theory for the first time or to gain a fresh perspective on ideas that a careers work have made familiar. --Larry Samuelson, University of WisconsinOne of the worlds leading game theorists explains the subject with sparkle and wit. He challenges the reader to think deeply about strategic rationality without becoming esoteric, and shows how the theory illuminates down-to-earth topics like gambling, auctions, business competition, and game show contests. A gem of a book written by a master. --Peyton Young, Scott and Barbara Black Professor of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, and Professor of Economics, University of OxfordAbout the AuthorKen Binmore is a mathematician-turned-economist who has devoted his life to the theory of games and its applications in economics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and moral philosophy. He is well known for his part in designing the telecom auction that raised $35 billion for the British taxpayer, but his major research contributions are to the theory of bargaining and its testing in the laboratory. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of 12 books and some 90 research papers. He is Emeritus Professor of Economics at University College London.

Author: Hannah Johnson File Type: pdf Of all the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucers Prioresss Tale, in which a young schoolboy is murdered by Jews for singing a song in praise of the Virgin Mary, poses a problem to contemporary readers because of the antisemitism of the story it tells. Both the Tales antisemitism and its Chaucerianismits fitness or aptness as part of the Chaucerian canonare significant topics of reflection for modern readers, who worry about the Tales ethical implications as well as Chaucers own implications. Over the past fifty years, scholars have asked Is the antisemitism in the tale that of the Prioress? Or of Chaucer the pilgrim? Or of Chaucer the author? Or, indeed, whether one ought to discuss antisemitism in the Prioresss Tale at all, considering the potential anachronism of expecting medieval texts to conform to contemporary ideologies. The Critics and the Prioress responds to a critical stalemate between the demands of ethics and the entailments of methodology. The book addresses key moments in criticism of the Prioresss Taleparticularly those that stage an encounter between historicism and ethicsin order to interrogate these critical impasses while suggesting new modes for future encounters. It is an effort to identify, engage, and reframe some significantand perennially repeatedarguments staked out in this criticism, such as the roles of gender, aesthetics, source studies, and the appropriate relationship between ethics and historicism. The Critics and the Prioress will be an essential resource for Chaucer scholars researching as well as teaching the Prioresss Tale. Scholars and students of Middle English literature and medieval culture more generally will also be interested in this books rigorous analysis of contemporary scholarly approaches to expressions of antisemitism in Chaucers England. **