The author of Ill-Gotten Gains uses philosophy and psychology to examine how human behavior can be questioned under criminal law.Henri plans a trek through the desert. Alphonse, intending to kill Henri, puts poison into his canteen. Gaston also intends to kill Henri but has no idea what Alphonse has been up to. He puncture's Henri's canteen, and Henri dies of thirst. Who has caused Henri's death? Was it Alphonse? Gaston? Or neither?Strange conundrums...

Presents a thought-provoking collection of five essays that explore the purposes and meanings of legal punishment in the United States, both culturally and sociallyFrom the Gospel of Matthew to numerous US Supreme Court justices, many literary and legal sources have observed that how a society metes out punishment reveals core truths about its character. The Punitive Imagination is a collection of essays that engages and contributes to debates about the pu...

Discover a hidden masterpiece from one of history’s greatest writers—now available in its most complete and accessible form. Leo Tolstoy’s Writings for Young Children brings to light Leo Tolstoy’s revolutionary contributions to childhood literacy, a project he considered one of his most significant achievements.BetweenWar and Peaceand Anna Karenina, Tolstoy dedicated himself to the cause of education, opening a school on his Yasnaya Polya...

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever."It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNNOriginally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of tel...

David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in nearly every creative endeavor-now he turns his attention to politics.In recent years, David Mamet realized that the so-called mainstream media outlets he relied on were irredeemably biased, peddling a hypocritical and deeply flawed worldview.In 2008 Mamet wrote a hugely controversial op-ed for the Village Voice, "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'", in which he methodically attacked li...

When The Culture of Narcissism was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century.The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited."

As defender of both the righteous and the questionable, Alan Dershowitz has become perhaps the most famous and outspoken attorney in the land. Whether or not they agree with his legal tactics, most people would agree that he possesses a powerful and profound sense of justice. In this meditation on his profession, Dershowitz writes about life, law, and the opportunities that young lawyers have to do good and do well at the same time. We live in an age of growing dissatisfaction with law as ...

This new edition of a timeless classic demonstrates how the use of clear, rational thinking and logic can win any argument, however emotionally charged the topic in question. It describes the typical flaws of reasoning in argument and shows how language can be used to deceive - and how to avoid being deceived. It will show you how, by learning what is 'straight', rational language, and clear thought, you can disentangle emotionally charged rhetoric and hold your own in any argument or deba...

A lively and accessible guide to understanding rhetoric by the world class English and Law professor and bestselling author of How to Write a Sentence.Ever wonder how gay marriage became accepted over such a short period, after thousands of years of peril? Or how you were dumb enough to get in that last quarrel with your significant other? Or how Donald Trump became the clear front-runner in the Republican presidential primary? Or how millions continue to d...

Is it ever all right to lie? A philosopher looks at lying and deception in public and private life—in government, medicine, law, academia, journalism, in the family and between friends.Lying is a penetrating and thoughtful examination of one of the most pervasive yet little discussed aspects of our public and private lives. Beginning with the moral questions raised about lying since antiquity, Sissela Bok takes up the justifications offered for all kinds o...

J ill Ker Conway, one of our most admired autobiographers--author of The Road from Coorain and True North--looks astutely and with feeling into the modern memoir: the forms and styles it assumes, and the strikingly different ways in which men and women respectively tend to understand and present their lives.In a narrative rich with evocations of memoirists over the centuries--from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and George Sand to W. E. B. Du Bois, Virginia Woolf, Frank McCourt and Katharine ...

“A strange, wondrous, challenging, enriching book….Beautiful and powerful…you will not encounter another book like it.”—National Review onlineIn Digital Barbarism, bestselling novelist Mark Helprin (Winter’s Tale, A Soldier of the Great War) offers a ringing Jeffersonian defense of private property in the age of digital culture, with its degradation of thought and language and collectivist bias against the rights of individual creators. A timely, cogent, and important attac...