The transmission of knowledge lies at the heart ofcivilization. In the ancient world, science drew life from twosources. Master artisans honed their practical wisdom and passed iton from one generation to the next. Elsewhere, philosophers, sages,and divines engaged in debate and lent increasingly complex form tohuman thought. These two traditions--technique and theory--haveserved ever since as the vessels of knowledge and of humanexperience itself. The University , written in a concise, readable style bydistinguished scholars drawn from a wide range of disciplines,brings us the events, the people, the cities, and the institutionsthat gave shape to this vast and absorbing story. The closingsection opens our eyes to fascinating prospects, and makes a robustcontribution to the discussion on the challenges and uncertaintiesfaced by universities today.

Hailed on publication in 1957 as "probably the only book published this year that will outlive the century," this is a brilliant of the idea that there are fixed laws in history and that human beings are able to predict them.

The title is just the first of many startling asides, observations and insights that fill this guide to Hollywood on the Lacanian psychoanalyst’s couch. Zizek introduces the ideas of Jacques Lacan through the medium of American film, taking his examples from over 100 years of cinema, from Charlie Chaplin to The Matrix and referencing along the way such figures as Lenin and Hegel, Michel Foucault and Jesus Christ. Enjoy Your Symptom! is a thrilling guide to cinema and psychoanalysis from a thinker who is perhaps the last standing giant of cultural theory in the twenty-first century.

The fifty most important speeches of all time: their context,history, and meaning for our world The speeches remembered by history are rarely remembered incontext; but it was almost always the context, not the speechitself, that made each address so significant. Terry Golway hasselected fifty speeches that changed the world through the sheerpower of their oratory. From Moses to Mandela and others fromacross time and around the world, Golway's selections are eachilluminated with an insightful essay setting the speech squarely inits historical contexts and detailing its impact and consequences.In doing so, Golway allows us to fully understand their importanceand effect. Including speeches from Jesus, Mohammed, Cicero, Pericles,Cromwell, Washington, Pope Urban II, John Winthrop, Kennedy,Emperor Hirohito, Barbara Jordan, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev,Robespierre, Patrick Henry, Queen Elizabeth I, Reagan, Mandela,FDR, Hitler, Churchill, Barack Obama and many more, this book is anhistoric achievement.

Since its publication twenty years ago, J. M. Roberts'smonumental History of the World has remained the "unrivaled WorldHistory of our day" (A. J. P. Taylor), selling more than a quarterof a million copies worldwide. Now in an equally masterfulperformance, Roberts displays his consummate skills of expositionin telling the tale of the European continent, from its Neolithicorigins and early civilizations of the Aegean to the advent of thetwenty-first century. A sweeping and entertaining history, ThePenguin History of Europe comprehensively traces the development ofEuropean identity over the course of thousands of years, rangingacross empires and religions, economics, science, and the arts.Roberts's astute and lucid analyses of the disparate spheres oflearning that have shaped European civilization and ourunderstanding of it make The Penguin History of Europe a remarkablejourney through the last two centuries.

This classic remains one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history.

The true story of the friendship-and rivalry-among thegreatest American generals of World War II. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George S.Patton, and General Omar Bradley engineered Allied victory inEurope. But they also shared an intricate web of relationshipsgoing back decades, complicated by shifting allegiances, jealousy,insecurity, and ambition. For the first time in such detail, the relationships betweenthese three legendary fighting men are explored, showcasing thepersonal side of life at the summit of raw, violent power duringWorld War II.

In An Army at Dawn - winner of the Pulitzer Prize - RickAtkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of theAllied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of the Battle, hefollows the strengthening American and British armies as theyinvade Sicily in July 1943 and then, mile by bloody mile, fighttheir way north. The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain;in fact, Roosevelt, Churchill and their military advisors engagedin heated debate about whether an invasion of the so-called softunderbelly of Europe was even a good idea. But once underway, thecommitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despitethe agonizingly high price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, andMonte Cassino were particularly difficult and lethal, yet as themonths passed, the Allied forces continued to push the Germans upthe Italian peninsula. And with the liberation of Rome in June1944, ultimate victory at last began to seem inevitable. Drawing onan astonishing array of primary source material, written with greatd

Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent andambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is thefate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteencenturies - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that ledto its disastrous collapse. Here, in volumes one and two, Gibboncharts the vast extent and constitution of the Empire from thereign of Augustus to 395 ad. And in a controversial critique, heexamines the early Church, with fascinating accounts of the firstChristian and last pagan emperors, Constantine and Julian.

The Marines? march up to Baghdad, Sherman?s trail of destructionin Georgia, an army of Missouri volunteers trekking across theGreat Plains to Mexico?this wide-ranging and imaginative book tellsfor the first time the story of how American armies from the sandsof Iraq to the halls of the Montezuma have followed figuratively inthe footsteps of the original Anabasis, the famous Greek march intothe interior of Asia made by Xenophon and the Ten Thousand in 400BC. Starting with the Iraq War, Tim Rood turns back to the conquest ofthe American West and to the Civil War, showing how one of the mostfamous episodes in classical antiquity was first appropriated inthe name of military expansion, and then used to expressconflicting responses to the most controversial campaign of theCivil War. Allusions to Xenophon in speeches, newspaper reports,and military memoirs are throughout read against Xenophon?s ownstory.

The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the ThirdReich is a story of courage and enduring triumph, of calamity andmiscalculation. In this first volume of the Liberation Trilogy,Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand theultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the greatdrama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. Beginningwith the daring amphibious invasion in November 1942, An Army atDawn follows the British and American armies as they fight theFrench in Morocco and Algeria, and then take on the Germans andItalians in Tunisia. Battle by battle, an inexperienced andsometimes poorly led army gradually becomes a superb fightingforce. Central to the tale are the extraordinary but falliblecommanders who come to dominate the battlefield: Eisenhower,Patton, Bradley, Montgomery and Rommel.

The remarkable life of Alexander the Great, one of thegreatest military geniuses of all time, vividly told by one of theworld's leading exp erts in Greek history. With all theintensity, insight, and narrative drive that made The Spartans sucha hit with critics and readers, Paul Cartledge's Alexander theGreat: glowingly illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander(356-323 BC), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, andfounder of a new world order. Cartledge, the distinguished scholarand historian long acknowledged as the leading internationalauthority on ancient Sparta and Greece, brilliantly evokesAlexander's remarkable political and military accomplishments,leads us along the geographical path of his victorious armies, andcompellingly charting the tremendous field of this warrior hero'sinfluence. Alexander's legacy has had an astounding impact onmilitary tacticians, scholars, and statesmen—in his own lifetimeand in ours. In various countries and at various times he has beenseen as

A visual journey through 3,000 years of naval warfare-now inpaperback! From the clash of galleys in Ancient Greece to deadlyencounters between nuclear-powered submarines in the 20th century,explore every aspect of the story of naval warfare on, under, andabove the sea.

Amazon.com Review From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short Historyof Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figuredit out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson useshundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews withluminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him,who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, toappreciate how we have used science to understand the smallestparticles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With hisdistinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. ThoughA Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and coversthe same material as every science book before it, it readssomething like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without aplot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age ofour planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped intolarger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself."Bryson chats with experts like Ri

For the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, The Library ofAmerica re-issues the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant and WilliamTecumseh Sherman in a handsome, newly designed case. An ailingGrant wrote his Personal Memoirs to secure his family'sfuture. In doing so, the Civil War's greatest general won himself aunique place in American letters. John Keegan has called it"perhaps the most revelatory autobiography of high command to existin any language." The Library of America's edition of Grant's Memoirs includes 175 of his letters to Lincoln, Sherman, andhis wife, Julia, among others. Hailed as a prophet of modern warand condemned as a harbinger of modern barbarism, William T.Sherman is the most controversial general of the Civil War. "War iscruelty, and you cannot refine it," he wrote in fury to theConfederate mayor of Atlanta, and his memoir is filled with dozensof such wartime exchanges and a fascinating account of the famousmarch through Georgia and the Carolinas.

Robert Greene’s first two groundbreaking guides, The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, espouse profound, timeless lessons from events in history to help readers vanquish an enemy or ensnare an unsuspecting victim. Now, with The 33 Strategies of War, Greene has crafted an important new addition to this ruthlessly unique series. Structured in Greene’s trademark style, The 33 Strategies of War is a brilliant distillation of the strategies of battle that can help us gain mastery in the modern world. It is the I Ching of conflict, the contemporary companion to Sun-tzu’s Art of War.

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empirecompresses thirteen turbulent centuries into an epic narrative shotthrough with insight, irony and incisive character analysis.Sceptical about Christianity, sympathetic to the barbarian invadersand the Byzantine Empire, constantly aware of how political leadersoften achieve the exact opposite of what they intend, Gibbon wasboth alert to the broad pattern of events and significant revealingdetails.

As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than onGeorge Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americansduring World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on thedangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced fromJosef Stalin.

‘A precious book….a work that is in the highest degree pedagogical which stands above the conflicts of parties and opinion’ – Albert Einstein Remains unchallenged as the perfect introduction to its subject ... exactly the kind of philosophy that most people would like to read, but which only Russell could possibly have written. - Ray Monk, University of Southampton, UK Beautiful and luminous prose, not merely classically clear but scrupulously honest. - Isaiah Berlin It is a witty birds-eye view of the main figures in Western thought enlivened by references to the personalities and quirks of the thinkers themselves. - The Week A great philosophers lucid and magisterial look at the history of his own subject, wonderfully readable and enlightening. - The Observer Now in a special gift edition, and featuring a brand new foreword by Anthony Gottlieb, this is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the works of significant philosophers throughout the ages and a definitive must-have title tha

In the first two volumes of his bestselling LiberationTrilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalitionfought through North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory.Now he tells the most dramatic story of all - the titanic battlefor Western Europe. D-Day marked the commencement of the Europeanwar's final campaign, and Atkinson's riveting account of that boldgamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. Thebrutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disasterthat was Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, andfinally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich - all thesehistoric events and more come alive with a wealth of new materialand a mesmerizing cast of characters. With the stirring finalvolume of this monumental trilogy, Rick Atkinson's remarkableaccomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitivechronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preservedfreedom in the West.

本书以中国历代都城演进轨迹作为背景，全面论述了北京的产生、变迁及其规划建设的特点。内容涉猎北京城的历史地理背景、早期城邑以及作为国家都城的北京城的状况、明清北京城规划的特色和故宫规划的艺术成就；论述了北京城规划匠意的本源、基石、重要依据和制约因素。并深入探究城市天际线、平面布局、城市脊梁、故宫规划建筑的艺术成就、靠前外规划大师的评价等，进而又探索了它的文化渊源。全书论述有据，格局严谨，对研究北京城的规划和建设有一定的借鉴作用。

From the host of NPR's Morning Edition, a deeply reportedportrait of Karachi, Pakistan, a city that illuminates the perilsand possibilities of rapidly growing metropolises all around theworld. In recent decades, the world has seen an unprecedented shift ofpeople from the countryside into cities. As Steve Inskeep so aptlyputs it, we are now living in the age of the "instant city," whennew megacities can emerge practically overnight, creating a host ofunique pressures surrounding land use, energy, housing, and theenvironment. In his first book, the co-host of Morning Editionexplores how this epic migration has transformed one of the world'smost intriguing instant cities: Karachi, Pakistan. Karachi has exploded from a colonial port town of 350,000 in 1941to a sprawling metropolis of at least 13 million today. As thebooming commercial center of Pakistan, Karachi is perhaps thelargest city whose stability is a vital security concern of theUnited States, and yet it is a place that Americans have

Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent andambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is thefate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteencenturies - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that ledto its disastrous collapse. Here, in volumes three and four, Gibbonvividly recounts the waves of barbarian invaders under commanderssuch as Alaric and Attila, who overran and eventually destroyed theWest. He then turns his gaze to events in the East, where even theachievements of the Byzantine emperor Justinian and the campaignsof the brilliant military leader Belisarius could not conceal thefundamental weaknesses of their empire.

Produced with the Smithsonian Institution and released inconjunction with the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, The Civil War is the definitive visual history to one of themost defining moments in our country's history. Comprehensivetimelines, revealing first-person accounts by soldiers andcivilians, key political and military leaders, as well asexaminations of broader topics, such as transportation, theeconomy, and the treatment of wounded soldiers, make The CivilWar a must-have for anyone interested in the history of theCivil War.

The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road to Serfdom was first published.