Benjamin Franklin : An American Life Editorial Reviews Benjamin Franklin, writes journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson, was that rare Founding Father who would sooner wink at a passer-by than sit still for a formal portrait. What's more, Isaacson relates in this fluent and entertaining biography, the revolutionary leader represents a political tradition that has been all but forgotten today, one that prizes pragmatism over moralism, religious tolerance over fundamentalist rigidity, and social mobility over class privilege. That broadly democratic sensibility allowed Franklin his contradictions, as Isaacson shows. Though a man of lofty principles, Franklin wasn't shy of using sex to sell the newspapers he edited and published; though far from frivolous, he liked his toys and his mortal pleasures; and though he sometimes gave off a simpleton image, he was a shrewd and even crafty politician. Isaacson doesn't shy from enumerating Franklin s occasional peccadilloes and shortcomings, in keepi

German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 (英语) 平装 内容简介 One of the very few accounts in English of German Idealism, this ambitious work advances and revises our understanding of both the history and the thought of the classical period of German philosophy. As he traces the structure and evolution of Idealism as a doctrine, Frederick Beiser exposes a strong objective, or realist, strain running from Kant to Hegel and identifies the crucial role of the early romantics - Holderlin, Schlegel, and Novalis - as the founders of absolute Idealism. 作者简介 Frederick C. Beiser is Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University. 基本信息 作者：Frederick C. Beiser 出版社: Harvard University Press (2008年4月1日) 平装: 752页 语种： 英语 ISBN: 0674027175 条形码: 9780674027176 商品尺寸: 15.3 x 4.6 x 22.6 cm 商品重量: 989 g ASIN: 0674027175

The Second Curve: Thoughts on Reinventing Society 内容简介 Charles Handy is one of the giants of contemporary thought. His books on management including Understanding Organizations and Gods of Management have changed the way we view business. His work on broader issues and trends such as Beyond Certainty has changed the way we view society. In The Second Curve, Handy builds on a life's work to glimpse into the future and see what challenges and opportunities lie ahead. He looks at current trends in capitalism and asks whether it is a sustainable system. He explores the dangers of a society built on credit. He challenges the myth that remorseless growth is essential. He even asks whether we should rethink our roles in life as students, parents, workers and voters and what the aims of an ideal society of the future should be. Provocative and thoughtful as ever, he sets out the questions we all need to ask ourselves and points us in the direction of some of the a

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk Growing Up: Stories about Growing Up, Meeting Challenges, and Learning from Life Editorial Reviews About the Author Jack Canfield is co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He is a leader in the field of personal transformation and peak performance and is currently CEO of the Canfield Training Group and Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Foundation for Self-Esteem. An internationally renowned corporate trainer and keynote speaker, he lives in Santa Barbara, California. Mark Victor Hansen is a co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Product Details Series: Chicken Soup for the Soul Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul; 1 edition (July 29, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 193509601X ISBN-13: 978-1935096016 Product

Society Of Mind 内容简介 Marvin Minsky -- one of the fathers of computer science and cofounder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT -- gives a revolutionary answer to the age-old question: "How does the mind work?" Minsky brilliantly portrays the mind as a "society" of tiny components that are themselves mindless. Mirroring his theory, Minsky boldly casts The Society of Mind as an intellectual puzzle whose pieces are assembled along the way. Each chapter -- on a self-contained page -- corresponds to a piece in the puzzle. As the pages turn, a unified theory of the mind emerges, like a mosaic. Ingenious, amusing, and easy to read, The Society of Mind is an adventure in imagination. 编辑推荐 For some artificial intelligence researchers, Minsky's book is too far removed from hard science to be useful. For others, the high-level approach of The Society of Mind makes it a gold mine of ideas waiting to be implemented. The author, one of the undisputed

Rejection Proof: How to Beat Fear and Become Invincible 内容简介 Rejection? It's nothing to be afraid of...Maybe you avoid situations where you might be rejected. You don't apply for that dream job. You don't ask for that pay rise. You don't ask that person on a date. But it doesn't have to be that way - the only thing standing between you and your goals...is you. Jia Jiang had allowed his fear of rejection to rule his life. But he decided to take radical action: he quit his job and spent 100 days deliberately seeking out scenarios where he would likely be rejected, from ordering donuts interlinked and iced like the Olympic rings to asking to pilot a light aircraft. And something remarkable happened; Jia not only learned how to cope with rejection but also discovered that even the most outrageous request may be granted - if you ask in the right way. In this infectiously positive book Jia shares what he learned in his 100 Days of Rejection, explaining how to turn a 'no' into a 'ye

History tells us that when you want something clone you turn to a leader: right? Wrong. If you want to make a correct decision or solve a problem, large groups of people are smarter than a few experts. This brilliant and insightful book shows why the conventional wisdom is so wrong and why the theory of the wisdom of crowds has huge implications for how we run our businesses, structure our political systems and organise our society. Shrewd, meticulous and profound, The Wisdom of Crowds will change for ever the way you think about human behaviour. 作者简介： James Surowiecki is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he writes the popular business column, 'The Financial Page'. His work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Wired and Slate. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship,addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on ContinentalEuropean theories of state and legal systems as it was at home.This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from boththe Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newlycommissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in atopic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure ofLeviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics,metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. Collectively theyshowcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines boththe context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating thedegree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition ofEuropean humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows thatHobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a traditionof reflection on political theory and governance that is stillalive, both in Europe and in the diaspora.

This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture.