At a time when barbarous acts of terrorism are being committed globally and society ponders whether the perpetrators are legitimate religious adherents, Marcus Paul makes an unflinching and counter-cultural examination of some of the worst periods in the Church's history.Were the crusades entirely inexcusable religious wars? Was the Inquisition the bloody and sadistic "Black Legend" of popular imagination? How can we understand the goodness of God after two brutalising world wars?

Born in 1846 in Ireland at the start of the "Great Hunger," James Kinnier Wilson emigrated to Philadelphia to start a new life at seventeen years old.After his life took a dramatic turn, he found himself attending Princeton and then a college in Scotland, where he met Agnes Hately, the talented daughter of a famous figure in the Scottish "Disruption"-the emergence of the Free Church of Scotland.Agnes and James, now newlyweds, crossed the dangerous Atlantic and settled in ru...

The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck provides an overview of the life of Dr. Leo Baeck (1873–1956), a German-Jewish rabbi, theologian, historian and Holocaust survivor, from a psychoanalytic perspective.Paul Marcus approaches Baeck’s life and intellectual/theological contribution as it interfaces with a broadly defined psychoanalysis. This book describes and explains how Baeck maintained the rudiments of his autonomy, integration and humanity while remaining in Nazi...

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights into one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud.Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents, focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this class...

A stunning graphic history of how enslaved Africans on board the Amistad rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom storyFrom the trio of Rediker, Lester, and Buhle comes another graphic "history from below" about the Amistad rebellion of 1839 when 53 enslaved Africans on the slave ship Amistad slipped out of their restraints a...

Psychoanalysis and Toileting is an accessible book that delineates and interprets the psychological meanings of defecating and urinating in everyday life.Paul Marcus’ work gives the clinician an in-depth view of an activity that every patient and practitioner engage in and shows how not dealing with toileting in its wide range of social and practical contexts leaves out a huge aspect of the patient’s everyday experience. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and practice, the...

This book is a most impressive and important study of the presence of the spiritual and the sacred in the writings of the twentieth century French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, offering immense help in understanding Marcel and in seeing the usefulness of his ideas in psychoanalysis.

This book claims that a tragicomic outlook—the kind that echoes in black and gallows humour and the "laughter through tears" of Jewish humour—is the most effective way to manage what Freud called the "harshness" of everyday life.

Psychoanalysis and the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes looks at one of the most profound books in the Hebrew Bible – Ecclesiastes, known as Koheleth in Hebrew – through a psychoanalytic lens.Paul Marcus explores Ecclesiastes’ understanding of the profound and compelling problematics of the human condition and explains how he offers a sensible and feasible attitude toward contemporary life. Comparing Ecclesiastes’ way of looking at life to the Freudian worldview, Marcus suggests wha...

A grim discovery brings disturbing revelations in this chilling ghost story from the phenomenal late Marcus Sedgwick.While mucking about in the ruins of an old farm while on holiday in Yorkshire, James hears strange laughter echoing around the walls. The ghost of a young girl appears to him and urges James to follow her but at first he’s too afraid.When she appears again, this time James follows. But will he be able to face the terrible truth she reveals …?...

In Psychoanalysis, Classic Social Psychology and Moral Living: Let the Conversation Begin, Paul Marcus uniquely draws on psychoanalysis and social psychology to examine what affects the ethical decisions people make in their everyday life.Psychoanalysis traditionally looks at early experiences, concepts and drives which shape how we choose to behave in later life. In contrast, classic social psychology experiments have illustrated how specific situational forces can shape ...

The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering: Flourishing Despite Pain offers a guide to understanding and working with a range of everyday causes of suffering from a psychoanalytic perspective.The book delineates some of the underappreciated, everyday facets of the troubling and challenging psychological experiences associated with love, work, faith, mental anguish, old age, and psychotherapeutic caregiving. Examining both the suffering of the patient and therapist, Paul Ma...