Are evolution and creation irreconcilably opposed? Is'intelligent design' theory an unhappy compromise? Is there anotherway of approaching the present-day divide between religious andso-called secular views of the origins of life? Jacob Klapwijkoffers a philosophical analysis of the relation of evolutionarybiology to religion, and addresses the question of whether theevolution of life is exclusively a matter of chance or is betterunderstood as including the notion of purpose. Writing from aChristian (Augustinian) point of view, he criticizes creationismand intelligent design theory as well as opposing reductivenaturalism. He offers an alternative to both and an attempt tobridge the gap between them, via the idea of 'emergent evolution'.In this theory the process of evolution has an emergent orinnovative character resulting in a living world of ingenious,multifaceted complexity.

The literature of World War II has emerged as an accomplished,moving, and challenging body of work, produced by writers asdifferent as Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi andErnest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and W. H. Auden. This Companionprovides a comprehensive overview of the international literaturesof the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiencesof the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of itafterwards. It surveys the writing produced in the major combatantnations (Britain and the Commonwealth, the USA, Japan, Germany,France, Italy, and the USSR), and explores its common themes. Withits chronology and guide to further reading, it will be aninvaluable source of information and inspiration for students andscholars of modern literature and war studies.

How did humankind deal with the extreme challenges of the lastIce Age? How have the relatively benign post-Ice Age conditionsaffected the evolution and spread of humanity across the globe? Bysetting our genetic history in the context of climate change duringprehistory, the origin of many features of our modern world areidentified and presented in this illuminating book. It reviews theaspects of our physiology and intellectual development that havebeen influenced by climatic factors, and how features of our lives- diet, language and the domestication of animals - are also theproduct of the climate in which we evolved. In short: climatechange in prehistory has in many ways made us what we are today.Climate Change in Prehistory weaves together studies of the climatewith anthropological, archaeological and historical studies, andwill fascinate all those interested in the effects of climate onhuman development and history.

The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment offers aphilosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century movement thathas been profoundly influential on western culture. A distinguishedteam of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, AdamSmith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Colin Maclaurin and otherScottish thinkers, in fields including philosophy, naturaltheology, economics, anthropology, natural science and law. Inaddition, the contributors relate the Scottish Enlightenment to itshistorical context and assess its impact and legacy in Europe,America and beyond. The result is a comprehensive and accessiblevolume that illuminates the richness, the intellectual variety andthe underlying unity of this important movement. It will be ofinterest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology,literature and the history of ideas.

Ocean of Letters is a remarkable history of imperialism,language, and creolization in the largest African diaspora of theIndian Ocean in the early modern period. Ranging from Madagascar tothe Mascarenes, the Comores, and South Africa, Pier M. Larson shedsnew light on the roles of slavery, emancipation, oceanic travel,Christian missions, and colonial linguistics in the making ofMalagasy-language literacy in the islands of the western IndianOcean. He shows how enslaved and free Malagasy together withcertain European colonists and missionaries promoted the Malagasylanguage, literacy projects and letter writing in the multilingualcolonial societies of the region between the seventeenth andmid-nineteenth centuries. Addressing current debates in the historyof Africa and the African diaspora, slavery, abolition,creolization and the making of modern African literatures, the bookcrosses thematic as well as geo-imperial boundaries and bringsfresh perspectives to Indian Ocean history.

People decide about political parties by taking into accountthe preferences, values, expectations, and perceptions of theirfamily, friends, colleagues, and neighbours. As most people livewith others, members of their households influence each other'spolitical decisions. How and what they think about politics andwhat they do are the outcomes of social processes. Applying variedstatistical models to data from extensive German and Britishhousehold surveys, this book shows that wives and husbandsinfluence each other; young adults influence their parents,especially their mothers. Wives and mothers sit at the centre ofhouseholds: their partisanship influences the partisanship ofeveryone else, and the others affect them. Politics in householdsinteracts with competition among the political parties to sustainbounded partisanship. People ignore one of the major parties andvary their preference of its major rival over time. Electioncampaigns reinforce these choices.

This study of the emergence of machine politics in New YorkCity during the antebellum years sheds light on the origins of asystem that was the characteristic form of government in UnitedStates cities from the mid-nineteenth until well into the twentiethcentury. In contrast to previous explanations that have found theorigins of machine politics in immigrant culture and ethnicconflict, Professor Bridges shows that central elements of thesystem long predated a significant immigrant presence. Her analysisfocuses on two large-scale transformations in the Americanpolitical economy that occurred during these years:industrialization, which reorganized the social order and provokedconflict and change; and the extension of the franchise through theabolition of property barriers, which necessitated theincorporation of 'the many' into political life. It was this uniquecombination of circumstances, the author argues, that provided thecontext for the development of machine politics.

This is a history of the early European middle ages throughthe eyes of women, combining the rich literature of women's historywith original research in the context of mainstream history andtraditional chronology. The book begins at the end of the Romanempire and ends with the start of the long eleventh century, whenwomen and men set out to test the old frontiers of Europe. The bookrecreates the lives of ordinary women but also tells personalstories of individuals. Each chapter also questions an assumptionof medieval historiography, and uses the few documents produced bywomen themselves, along with archaeological evidence, art, and thewritten records of medieval men, to tell of women, theirexperiences and ideas, and their relations with men. It covers thecontinent and its exotic edges, such as Iceland, Ireland, andIberia; looking at women Christian and non-Christian alike.