Berthold Auerbach's Spinoza is a historical-biographical novel that dramatizes the intellectual and spiritual formation of Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Jewish philosopher excommunicated from Amsterdam's Sephardic community. Written in a lucid, reflective prose, the book blends documentary seriousness with the moral animation of the Bildungsroman, situating Spinoza's quest for truth amid the tensions of faith, reason, communal authority, and emerging modern philosophy. It belongs...

In 'Spinoza,' Berthold Auerbach delves into the philosophical underpinnings and ethical implications of Baruch Spinoza's thought, addressing the tension between reason and emotion, as well as the nature of divine intelligence. Structured with a blend of narrative and analysis, Auerbach employs a descriptive literary style that illuminates the complexities of Spinoza's ideas while situating them within the broader context of Enlightenment thought. The text examines Spinoza's influence on mo...

Under Cajun Wings is a fictional, inspiring, and triumphant story of the heartfelt tenacity of two young children left to fend fer themselves and survive an unspeakable childhood in the deep, isolated Atchafalaya Swamp of Southern Louisiana.Six-year-old dual protagonists, Daniel and his four-year-old sister Josée, would fish off the deck of their houseboat, kickin their bare feet and splashin each other in the warm, tepid waters. Other days, they would simply play tag runnin and gi...

Threads, the debut short story collection from A.E. Nicholson, covers a world from deserted station platforms to quiet pubs, sandwich shops and newsagents, following the residents of Guide Bridge and East Manchester as they navigate the slow ache and occasional tenderness of the season.Set in the final weeks before Christmas, each story traces a singular thread - of memory, grief, hope, or quiet defiance - and finds unexpected resonance in the textures of everyday life.Firm...

For a time, it seemed that a great storehouse of women’s treasure had been forever lost; the stories of heroines who had awoken to the call to adventure, and faced down challenges, in order to bring the gifts born through their trials into the world. The Heroines Anthology its stories before time began. It travels alongside some of the forgotten women of history, and imagines itself all the way into the unknown territory of our future world. With a focus on reimagining the heroines of lege...

War makes heroes. Power creates enemies. Betrayal changes everything.Set against the brutal backdrop of the Vietnam War and the shadowy world of intelligence operations, The Betrayal follows Captain Bryce Tucker-a legendary Navy SEAL forged in jungle warfare and trained in the darkest corners of the CIA. From the mangrove swamps of Vietnam to the rugged mountains of West Virginia and the sun-drenched Bahamas, Tucker's life becomes a relentless battle again...

In "Spinoza," Berthold Auerbach deftly navigates the intellectual landscape of the 17th century to present a nuanced exploration of the life and philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Auerbach employs a rich narrative style that blends biographical detail with philosophical inquiry, showcasing Spinoza's radical ideas within the context of the Enlightenment. The book engages with critical themes such as rationalism, ethics, and the nature of God, situating Spinoza as both a product of his time and a...

Brings the insights of Integral Theory to the consideration of sex, gender, and sexuality.This volume takes a unique approach to the question of what it is to be a gendered, sexual self in a postmodern world, offering insights informed by the Integral paradigm of theory and practice. With the inquiry into sex, gender, and sexuality having become so broad and diverse within both academia and popular culture, the Integral approach can help sift through and make sense...

The second edition of this bestseller provides a practical and accessible introduction to the main concepts, foundation, and applications of Bayesian networks. This edition contains a new chapter on Bayesian network classifiers and a new section on object-oriented Bayesian networks, along with new applications and case studies. It includes a new section that addresses foundational problems with causal discovery and Markov blanket discovery and a new section that covers methods of evaluatin...

A comprehensive review of dryland climates and their relationship to the physical environment, hydrology, and inhabitants. Chapters are divided into five major sections on background meteorology and climatology; the nature of dryland climates in relation to precipitation and hydrology; the climatology and climate dynamics of the major dryland regions on each continent; and life and change in the world's drylands. It includes key topics such as vegetation, geomorphology, desertification, mi...

By looking backward at the course of great extinctions, a paleontologist sees what the future holds.More than 200 million years ago, a cataclysmic event known as the Permian extinction destroyed more than 90 percent of all species and nearly 97 percent of all living things. Its origins have long been a puzzle for paleontologists. During the 1990s and the early part of this century, a great battle was fought between those who thought that death had come from above and those who thou...

Earth's past is littered with the mysterious and unexplained: the pyramids, Easter Island, Stonehenge, dinosaurs, and the list goes on and on as science looks for clues to decipher these puzzles.One such mystery surrounds the now-extinct creature called the woolly mammoth. Author and meteorologist Michael Oard has studied the mammoth and its equally mysterious time period, the Ice Age, for many years and has come to some fascinating conclusions to help lift the fog engulfing the fac...