Even as he descended into near-total deafness, Ludwig van Beethoven created masterpieces that became cornerstones of classical music.Historical Dictionary of Beethoven provides a fresh and much-needed account of what is now known about Beethoven's life, works, and cultural context, presented in a format that makes access easily accessible.It contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section contains cross...

Using his background in political theory and philosophical anthropology, Barry Cooper is the first political scientist to propose new interpretations of some of the most famous extant Paleolithic art and artifacts in Paleolithic Politics. This book is inspired by Eric Voegelin, one of the major political scientists of the last century, who developed an interest in the very early symbolism associated with the caves and rock shelters of the Upper Paleolithic, but never finished his ...

In New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism, Barry Cooper applies the insights of Eric Voegelin to the phenomenon of modern terrorism. Cooper points out that the chief omission from most contemporary studies of terrorism is an analysis of the “spiritual motivation” that is central to the actions of terrorists today. When spiritual elements are discussed in conventional literature, they are grouped under the opaque term religion. A more conceptually adeq...

Christianity Explored gives people time and space to discover the best news they've ever heard!Over seven interactive sessions, as they explore Mark's Gospel, people find out who Jesus is, what he achieved, and what it means for us today.The structure of each session is simple: a short Bible study, a short video and a discussion with the chance to ponder the big questions of life.The course is very flexible. You can use it one-to-one, or in larger groups, i...

If half of the homes in your community were destroyed by a natural disaster, there would be a national outcry for help.Divorce destroys over half of todays marriages ripping families apart and destroying homes on a daily basis. If divorce were a virus, it would be past epidemic state and would approach pandemic levels. What are we doing about it?How can we stop the epidemic of divorce?This book provides you with practical steps to strengthen and support the immune s...

If natural law arguments struggle to gain traction in contemporary moral and political discourse, could it be because we moderns do not share the understanding of nature on which that language was developed? Building on the work of important thinkers of the last half-century, including Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, John Finnis, and Bernard Lonergan, the essays in Concepts of Nature compare and contrast classical, medieval, and modern conceptions of nature in order to better understand how an...

This is the revised version of the best-selling Christianity Explored book, written by Rico Tice and Barry Cooper, is a jargon-free introduction to Christianity.Drawing from the book of Mark in the Bible the book explores who Jesus was, what his aims were, and what it means to follow him.Concise, entertaining and honest, it's an ideal book for anyone with little or no experience of Christianity. It can be used to encourage people to join a Christianity Explored...

Influenced by Kojève's interpretation of Hegel as well as his direct political experience of the second world war, Maurice Merleau-Ponty abandoned the religious and philosophical position he had assumed in the 1930s and turned to Marxism. This is the first critical study of the French philosopher's political ideas and the context in which they evolved.In its origin and its development, Merleau-Ponty's political thought expressed a subtle dialectic between ongoing political events a...

History ended, according to Hegel according to Kojève, with the establishment and proliferation in Europe of states organized along Napoleonic lines: rational, bureaucratic, homogenous, atheist. This state lives in some tension with the popular slogan that helped give it birth: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. But there is now also totalitarianism – the only new kind of regime, according to Arendt, created since the national state. Man is now in charge of nature, technology, and society; muc...

Social work practice with children, young people and families is complex, highly skilled - and fascinating. Writing about social work increasingly acknowledges the complexities and uncertainties of practice but rarely features the voice of the social worker themselves. This book takes a different approach, that of Critical Best Practice: a constructive, realistic and strengths-based approach that takes as its starting point the telling and analysing of in depth stories about 'live' practic...

Beethoven’s piano sonatas are a cornerstone of the piano repertoire and favourites of both the concert hall and recording studio. The sonatas have been the subject of much scholarship, but no single study gives an adequate account of the processes by which these sonatas were composed and published. With source materials such as sketches and correspondence increasingly available, the time is ripe for a close study of the history of these works. Barry Cooper, who in 2007 produced a new editi...

The Bible makes big claims for itself. But do those claims stand up? Aren't the stories just legends? Hasn't the information been corrupted over time? Isn't the Bible full of mistakes? And isn't it culturally outdated? In this absorbing little book, Barry Cooper explores these questions - and many others - with warmth, wit and integrity.