Spheres of Awareness: Wilberian Integral Approaches to Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, and Art moves toward building a new and more comprehensive theory of literature, philosophy, psychology, and art. The extremely popular work of Ken Wilber unites the best of both western and eastern thought and affirms that the stages of consciousness, more refined than that of the reasoning mind, do exist. These stages culminate in awareness of Spirit, or what Buddhism has called Emptiness....

What caused the world’s great republics to fall—and what their fate reveals about the dangers facing modern democracies todayIn this timely book, distinguished historian Thomas Madden explores the people, events, and factors that led to the collapse of some of the world’s most enduring republics—from Carthage to Rome to Venice and beyond—and examines the worrying lessons these failures hold for the United States and other democracies today.The Fall of R...

它，曾是凱撒之城，也曾是蘇丹之都，千百年來屹立在歐亞的十字路口上，看盡成王敗寇、世事滄桑湯瑪士．麥登是個說書人，本書將細說從頭自西元前七世紀希臘時代建城直到二十一世紀的現代土耳其，橫跨近三千個歲月的伊斯坦堡千年史【專文導讀】倫敦大學國王學院博士、中興大學歷史系助理教授│范姜士璁　　歷史上從未有其他城市長久位處世界舞台的核心，擔當諸多偉大帝國與多元文化之都。在本書中，讀者將親眼目睹改變世界歷史的男男女女，包括亞歷山大大帝、君士坦丁大帝、狄奧多拉皇后、征服者穆罕默德二世、蘇萊曼大帝及現代土耳其國父凱末爾。此外讀者也將見證雄偉的狄奧多西城牆、裝飾華美的聖索菲亞大教堂，以及三千年來伊斯坦堡的改變與重生。　　正如其橫跨歐、亞的地理位置，伊斯坦堡永遠在諸多兩極中來回擺盪，是東西文明的交會點與戰場：歐洲與亞洲、希臘文化與波斯文化、東羅馬與西羅馬、羅馬公教與希臘正教、基督教與伊斯蘭教。千年中它曾是帝國榮耀之都，但也曾數度淪為罪惡淵藪之城；它曾擁有基督教世界堡壘之稱的狄奧多西城牆，但也曾數度遭外敵或內...

《榮耀之城．伊斯坦堡》姊妹作喜愛羅傑．克勞利《財富之城》的讀者，千萬不能錯過的威尼斯全史「中古歐洲三部曲」作者拉爾斯．布朗沃思評價：「（麥登）是位不世出的天才，一位可以把故事說得扣人心弦的嚴謹學者」現代資本主義的發源地、民主共和國家的先行者在大航海時代來臨之前，地中海世界的唯一霸主──威尼斯共和國　　西元五世紀，威尼斯人逃離入侵義大利本土的日耳曼蠻族，在亞得里亞海潟湖間進行捕魚貿易，開始構築他們心目中的一方世外樂土。一七九七年，拿破崙攻下威尼斯，為連綿一百二十位總督、千餘年的共和國歷史劃下句點。　　在這長達一千五百年的歷史中，這群來自羅馬的亡國難民，在一片泥濘荒蕪的潟湖沙洲上，奠定了現代資本主義經濟的基礎，也建立起人類史上存在最久的共和體制，更是獨領地中海風騷數百年的一方之霸。這份偉業在威尼斯方言中，可稱之為「海上帝國」（Stato da Mar）。　　《威尼斯共和國》是數十年來第一本從地中海史的宏觀角度，描寫威尼斯一千五百年史的通俗歷史作品。本書作者同時也是美國聖路易大學...

An extraordinary chronicle of Venice, its people, and its grandeurThomas Madden’s majestic, sprawling history of Venice is the first full portrait of the city in English in almost thirty years. Using long-buried archival material and a wealth of newly translated documents, Madden weaves a spellbinding story of a place and its people, tracing an arc from the city’s humble origins as a lagoon refuge to its apex as a vast maritime empire and Renaissance epicenter to i...

An acclaimed historian offers an optimistic view of the future of the United States in the light of Roman historyMaybe the end of the American ascendancy is not upon us. Maybe the U.S. will continue to dominate the world for centuries. Now award-winning historian Thomas Madden delivers an optimistic view of our nation's future.Madden shows that the power of the ancient Roman republic and the U.S. was built on trust between allies, not the conquest of enemie...

This short book, written by medieval historian Thomas Madden, offers a fresh perspective on the Crusades. He refutes the commonly held belief that the Crusades are the reason for the current tensions between Islam and the West and that Catholics are to blame for starting them in the first place. Closing the gap between historical understanding and popular perception, Madden shows that it's not the Crusades that led to the conflict between the Muslim Middle East and the West, but the artifi...

For more than two millennia Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across at the shores of Asia. The history of this city—known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul—is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location blessed it as a center for trade but also made it a target of every empire in history, from Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, to the Romans and later the Ottomans....

What is the relationship between the medieval crusades and the problems of the modern Middle East? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of Muslim jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas F. Madden offers a brilliant and compelling narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance. Placing all of the major crusades within their medieval social, economic, religious, and intellectual environments, Madden explores the uniquely medieval world that led untold thousands to...

Entrusting the apostles to continue the work he had started by instructing them to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit . . .," Jesus kindled the fires of a new religion in a world largely dominated by polytheism, cult leader worship, and mysticism. In the first century of its existence, Christianity was both welcomed and vilified throughout the Roman Empire. Many of Christianity's original adherents were mar...

Winner of the 2005 Otto Grundler Award, the International Congress on Medieval StudiesBetween the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Venice transformed itself from a struggling merchant commune to a powerful maritime empire that would shape events in the Mediterranean for the next four hundred years. In this magisterial new book on medieval Venice, Thomas F. Madden traces the city-state's extraordinary rise through the life of Enrico Dandolo (c. 1107–1205), who ruled Venice as doge...

This audiobook narrated by Thomas Madden reveals what caused the world's great republics to fall—and what their fate tells us about the dangers facing modern democracies todayIn this timely book, distinguished historian Thomas Madden explores the people, events, and factors that led to the collapse of some of the world's most enduring republics—from Carthage to Rome to Venice and beyond—and examines the worrying lessons these failures hold for the United States and ...