"No sitting federal judge has ever written so trenchant a critique of the federal judiciary as Richard A. Posner does in this, his most confrontational book. He exposes the failures of the institution designed by the founders to check congressional and presidential power and resist its abuse, and offers practical prescriptions for reform"--

On December 5, 2004, the still-developing blogosphere took one of its biggest steps toward mainstream credibility, as Nobel Prize - winning economist Gary S. Becker and renowned jurist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner announced the formation of the Becker-Posner Blog. In no time, the blog had established a wide readership and reputation as a reliable source of lively, thought-provoking commentary on current events, its pithy and profound weekly essays highlighting the value of economic reasoning when applied to unexpected topics. Uncommon Sense gathers the most important and innovative entries from the blog, arranged by topic, along with updates and even reconsiderations when subsequent events have shed new light on a question. Whether it's Posner making the economic case for the legalization of gay marriage, Becker arguing in favor of the sale of human organs for transplant, or even the pair of scholars vigorously disagreeing about the utility of collective punishment, the writing is always clear, the interplay energetic, and the resulting discussion deeply informed and intellectually substantial. To have a single thinker of the stature of a Becker or Posner addressing questions of this nature would make for fascinating reading; to have both, writing and responding to each other, is an exceptionally rare treat. With Uncommon Sense, they invite the adventurous reader to join them on a whirlwind intellectual journey. All they ask is that you leave your preconceptions behind.

Richard Avedon photographed the faces of politics throughout his career, & this text brings together his political portraits. Juxtaposing images of elite government, media & labour officials with counter-cultural activists, writers & artists, & ordinary citizens caught up in debates, it explores a five-decade taxonomy of politics & power.

"This lengthy and detailed collection of original documents provides a basic handbook to the story, significance and problems of the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Although one of the most famous and dramatic episodes in English history, the great revolt of 1381 is still a largely unsolved mystery. Hitherto the original authorities for the history of the rebellion have been allowed to rest in unnecessary obscurity: and it seems due time to restore the Peasants' Revolt to the comments of its participants and observers. These extracts therefore exploit all the available types of evidence for the history of the 1381 Revolt, ranging from the trial records of captured rebels to contemporary poems. Fortunately the great majority of the primary chronicles for the rebellion, as well as a representative selection from surviving governmental and legal archives, can be presented within the covers of one book. With few exceptions these documents have been especially translated from the original Latin or Norman-French texts - almost all of which are difficult of access or out of print. In several cases translations have been made directly from unpublished records in the Public Record Office, London. The Peasants' Revolt has been examined primarily for its own sake; and at the heart of this book lie the various and often contradictory accounts of the outbreak of the rising in Kent and Essex, the rebels entry into London and the final great confrontation between the young Richard I| and Wat Tyler at Smithfield. But considerable attention is paid to the risings in East Anglia and elsewhere in England as well as to the political and social background of the revolt. The suppression and aftermath of the rebellion are also illustrated in detail. Indirectly this collection of documents therefore provides an insight into the economic status and social aspirations of the late mediaeval English peasantry. The work includes detailed chronological tables (the most ambitious yet attempted), a select guide to sources, three maps and a detailed bibliography. The author's introduction discusses the implications of the revolt in general terms and its significance as an early example of a pre-industrial popular movement. A warning is sounded against any too crude a sociology of rebellion; and the book ends with a series of very different and often hilariously misconceived interpretations of the Peasants' Revolt - from Gower and Froissart, Thomas Paine and Robert Southey to Engels and William Morris."-Publisher.

This book is written for the benefit any individual who has been diagnosed as having cancer or who has a friend or relative who has cancer. It will attempt to explain different stages and treatments of the disease as seen through the eyes of one who has gone through it.

Traces the five years during which high-profile business rivals Mirage Resorts and Trump Resorts engaged in an aggressive real-estate battle for control over Atlantic City.

"Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy reportedly said, "If I am elected, I don't want to wake up on the morning of November 9 and have to ask myself, 'What in the world do I do now?'" So before his campaigning ended, he called on Richard E. Neustadt, author of the influential bestseller, Presidential Power, to write a series of memos to plan for the transition into the Presidency." "This volume presents Neustadt's previously unpublished memos to Kennedy along with later memos he wrote for Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton and advice for the next President of the United States. In this volume, the man Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., calls "our most brilliant commentator on the Presidency" reveals for the first time how he came to advise the various Presidents-elect and candidates. In addition, editor Charles O. Jones offers a critical analysis of the memos and an insightful bibliographic essay on the relationship between the Neustadt memos and the transition memos that others have written."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, anthropologists, and filmmakers are drawn to it. Unable to find physical evidence until now, many archaeologists and scholars claim this mass migration is just a story, not history. Others oppose this conclusion, defending the biblical account. Like a detective on an intricate case no one has yet solved, pioneering Bible scholar and bestselling author of Who Wrote the Bible? Richard Elliott Friedman cuts through the noise — the serious studies and the wild theories — merging new findings with new insight. From a spectrum of disciplines, state-of-the-art archeological breakthroughs, and fresh discoveries within scripture, he brings real evidence of a historical basis for the exodus — the history behind the story. The biblical account of millions fleeing Egypt may be an exaggeration, but the exodus itself is not a myth. Friedman does not stop there. Known for his ability to make Bible scholarship accessible to readers, Friedman proceeds to reveal how much is at stake when we explore the historicity of the exodus. The implications, he writes, are monumental. We learn that it became the starting-point of the formation of monotheism, the defining concept of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Moreover, we learn that it precipitated the foundational ethic of loving one's neighbors — including strangers — as oneself. He concludes, the actual exodus was the cradle of global values of compassion and equal rights today"--front flap.

Examines the lives and careers of four distinguished Irish authors and analyzes the connections among them.

Extracts from the Bible a hidden narrative heretofore overlooked, an epic story of love, hate, tyranny, and redemption that was cut up by the Bible's ancient editors.

Based on Truman Capote’s classic novella, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S tells the story of a young Southern-born writer, known to us only as Fred, who becomes infatuated with his Upper East Side neighbor: the beguiling, effervescent beauty Miss Holiday Golightly. As Holly pulls Fred into her world of spontaneous parties and luxury, he finds himself increasingly fascinated with this captivating woman.

This is a wonderfully succinct book which sets forth the history, essence, and methodology of homeopathy. The book is well organized in 5 major sections. There is a very thorough overview of the precepts and tenets of the practice, its historical origins, a detailed and well-covered biography of Samuel Hahnemann and a review of the politics of the allopathy v. homeopathy debate. It is further embellished with copious annotations, an appendix with an actual case history and a very fine reference for homeopathic resources such as organizations, suppliers and other texts covering a variety of related topics. Call it a perfect Homeopathy 101 text if you will, the author makes a very even-handed presentation of the material, including the politics of medicine as they have evolved in the USA over the past century.

This lucid, informal, and very accessible history of Western thought takes the unique approach of interpreting skepticism—i.e., doubts about knowledge claims and the criteria for making such claims—as an important stimulus for the development of philosophy. The authors argue that practically every great thinker from the time of the Greeks to the present has produced theories designed to forestall or refute skepticism: from Plato to Moore and Wittgenstein. The influence of and responses to such 20th-century skeptics as Russell and Derrida are also discussed critically. Popkin and Stroll review each major theory of philosophy chronologically and then further organize these theories into their respective subject areas: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Within each subject area the authors discuss how the skeptical challenge gave rise to new philosophical positions. The volume concludes with an especially interesting debate between the authors on the merits of skepticism today. Stroll thinks that ultimately the doubts expressed by skeptics can be refuted, while Popkin denies this. This is an outstanding introduction to the problems of philosophy by two eminent philosophers with a gift for presenting the history of ideas in a very enjoyable fashion.

Richard J. Bernstein argues that despite the apparent chaotic debates about naturalism, there has recently been a series of powerful arguments that support a version of naturalism that is in the spirit of John Dewey's pragmatic naturalism. After presenting a sketch of Dewey's pragmatic naturalism, he critically examines the works of a variety of thinkers--Robert Brandom, John McDowell, Richard Rorty, Wilfrid Sellars, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Philip Kitcher, Bjorn Ramberg, David Macarthur, Steven Levine, Mark Johnson, Robert Sinclair, Huw Price, and Joseph Rouse--to show how they have contributed analytic finesse to the articulation of Dewey's vision of pragmatic naturalism. As Bernstein shows, Dewey's philosophical legacy is very much alive today in some of the best recent philosophic discussions.Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, New York.

Ever since the Romans, 'Empire' has been a word of power to rulers and theorists of statecraft. It implied much more than 'rule' or 'kingdom': those states which could pretend to the title of Empire thereby compared themselves with Rome, and implied that they were its successors. Professor Koebner's widely ranging book examines the use of the concept in European history from classical times until the early nineteenth century. He begins with the Romans, and analyses the original meanings of the word imperium. He then turns to later uses, in the Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne, and its successors. The main part of the book considers the British Empire, from its uncertain foundation under Henry VIII to the secession of the American colonies - an event which caused a re-examination of the whole nature of the Empire. A final chapter considers the Napoleonic period.