Many people hear the word "buddhism" and they think it is a religion. However, a person of any religion can bring buddhist principles into their life without giving up their religious beliefs.Buddhism is a simple and practical philosophy, practiced by more than 300 million people worldwide, that can make your life better and help you find inner peace and happiness. Buddhism is a way of living your life following a path of spiritual development that leads you to the...

A monumental and exhilarating history of European thought from the end of Antiquity to the beginning of the Enlightenment—500 to 1700 AD—tracing the arc of intellectual history as it evolved, setting the stage for the modern era. With more than 140 illustrations; 90 in full-color.Charles Freeman, lauded historical scholar and author of The Closing of the Western Mind (“A triumph”—The Times [London]), explores the rebirth of Western thought in the ...

A monumental and exhilarating history of European thought, from the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD to the Scientific Revolution thirteen centuries later.The Awakening traces the recovery and refashioning of Europe's classical heritage from the ruins of the Roman Empire. The process of preservation of surviving texts, fragile at first, was strengthened under the Christian empire founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century; later, during the High Middle Ages, universit...

The remarkable story of how Greek-speaking writers and thinkers sustained and developed the intellectual legacy of Classical Greece under the rule of Rome.In 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic; some sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied.However, th...

The conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 368 AD brought a transformation to Christianity and to western civilization, the effects of which we still feel today. Previously, the Roman empire had absorbed and sustained the Greek intellectual tradition which, in the astronomy of Ptolemy, the medicine of Galen and the philosophy of Plotinus, reached new heights. Constantine turned Rome from the relatively open, tolerant and pluralistic civilisation of the Hellenistic world, ...

Greed, revenge, superstition, lust: two friends living on opposite sides of the world discover that the same elements lie at the heart of cultures as diverse as a Papua New Guinea village and the headquarters of the world’s largest software corporation. Software Wizards and Singing Dogs is the second mystery for Bettina, a Computer Science Professor from the University of Tasmania, and Charlie, her American friend.

In AD 381, Theodosius, emperor of the eastern Roman empire, issued a decree in which all his subjects were required to subscribe to a belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This edict defined Christian orthodoxy and brought to an end a lively and wide-ranging debate about the nature of the Godhead; all other interpretations were now declared heretical.Moreover, for the first time in a thousand years of Greco-Roman civilization free thought was unambiguously suppr...

A compelling and fascinating portrait of the continuing intellectual tradition of Greek writers and thinkers in the Age of Rome.In 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic; sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste to the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied. However, the traditions of Greek cultural life would continue to...

A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Constantine's adoption of Christianity on the later Roman world, and on the subsequent development both of Christianity and of Western civilization.When the Emperor Contstantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from...

A monumental and exhilarating history of European thought from the end of Antiquity to the beginning of the Enlightenment—500 to 1700 AD—tracing the arc of intellectual history as it evolved, setting the stage for the modern era.Charles Freeman, lauded historical scholar and author of The Closing of the Western Mind (“A triumph”—The Times [London]), explores the rebirth of Western thought in the centuries that followed the demise of the classical ...

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year * A Southwest Book of the Year “Top Pick”“American history did not begin in the Northeast. It began in the Southwest,’ Parker asserts, in this sweeping history.” —The New YorkerA revelatory work of Southwest history that recenters the American origin story two-thousand miles west of Plymouth Rock, in El Paso, Texas—heart of Indigenous power and resistance, locus of Spanish coloniz...

Social psychologist and Stanford professor Brian Lowery presents a provocative, powerful theory of identity, arguing that there is no essential ""self""—our selves are social creations of those with whom we interact —exploring what that means for who we can be and who we allow others to be.There’s nothing we spend more time with, but understand less, than ourselves. You’ve been with yourself every waking moment of your life. But who—or, rather, what—are you? In...