Political theory offers a great variety of interpretive traditions and models. Today, pluralism is the paradigm. But are all approaches equally useful? What are their limits and possibilities? Can we practice them in isolation, or can we combine them? Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory addresses these questions in a refreshing and hands- on manner. It not only models in the abstract, but also tests in practice eight basic schemes of interpretation with wh...

Addressing arguments that comparative philosophy is itself impossible, or that it is indistinguishable from philosophy more generally, this collection challenges myopic understandings of comparative method and encourages a more informed consideration.Bringing together a wide variety of methodological options, it features scholars spread across the globe representing multiple philosophical traditions. From the beginnings of comparative philosophy in the 19th century to present-day p...

This collection seeks to contribute to the many long-standing discussions on modernity, but also and more specifically to the more recent debates over trends to pluralize modernity. These debates are current in many different academic disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, literature and postcolonial studies. Hitherto, most engagements with modernity in the plural have remained conspicuously confined to one or other intra-disciplinary notion of modernities, such as that of Shmuel Eis...

Comparative Philosophy without Borders presents original scholarship by leading contemporary comparative philosophers, each addressing a philosophical issue that transcends the concerns of any one cultural tradition. By critically discussing and weaving together these contributions in terms of their philosophical presuppositions, this cutting-edge volume initiates a more sophisticated, albeit diverse, understanding of doing comparative philosophy. Within a broad conception of the ...

Spymasters is a collection of interviews revealing enlightening perspectives on the covert operations of this powerful, secretive arm of the U.S. government. Here former top-ranking CIA officials shed light on some of the most sensitive issues and practices in American foreign intelligence to date. These men disclose information about:President Harry S. Truman's demands for a centralized intelligence agency and the stubborn resistance of James F. Byrnes, J. Edgar Hoover, and the mil...

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced "a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally" (George Simpson, American Sociological Review ).In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focu...

The renowned psychoanalyst and New York Times –bestselling author of The Art of Loving unites philosophy from the East and West.In 1957, social philosopher and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm invited Daisetz T. Suzuki, the most famous Zen Buddhist master in the Western world, to a seminar at his new home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Their discussion was one of the highlights of Fromm's lif...

Drawing on previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small -- about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived.Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biographer has done in striking a critical balance -- never shying a...

An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful—and secretive—colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers.America’s greatest untold story of espionage history: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. governmen...

Catherine Malabou, Antonio Negri, John D. Caputo, Bruno Bosteels, Mark C. Taylor, and Slavoj Zizek join seven others—including William Desmond, Katrin Pahl, Adrian Johnston, Edith Wyschogrod, and Thomas A. Lewis—to apply Hegel's thought to twenty-first-century philosophy, politics, and religion. Doing away with claims that the evolution of thought and history is at an end, these thinkers safeguard Hegel's innovations against irrelevance and, importantly, reset the distinction of secular an...

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's worldDuring the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brothe...

The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies is both informative and provocative, introducing readers to key debates in the contemporary study of religion and suggesting future research possibilities. A group of distinguished scholars takes up some of the most pressing theoretical questions in the field. What is a 'religious tradition'? How are religious texts read? What takes place when a religious practitioner stands before a representation of gods or goddesses, ghosts, ancestors, saints...