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Happiness Is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment
by Cuong LuStop chasing happiness and reconnect to the meaning of each moment through this practical guide, told through vignettes of life training as a Buddhist monk under world-renowned spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh. We spend so much time in pursuit of happiness—trying to purchase it, experience it, meditate our way toward it—but happiness is elusive and doesn&’t last. According to the teachings of the Buddha, Cuong Lu writes, &“Suffering is not a problem to be solved. It is a truth to be recognized.&” Happiness Is Overrated invites us to look deeply at the truths in our lives—not glossing over or denying our suffering—and to focus on the meaning and value already within us. Each chapter of Happiness Is Overrated shares a lesson drawn from Buddhist psychology, accessible for all readers. Short practices at the end of each of the 30 short chapters help readers apply the teachings on their own. Happiness Is Overrated helps us get in touch with our true selves and our true minds, through meditation and mindfulness practices that include paying attention to the breath, observing our minds, connecting with our hearts, practicing &“interbeing&” with others and the Earth, and more.
Happiness, Justice, and Freedom: The Moral and Political Philosophy of John Stuart Mill
by Fred R. BergerThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.
The Happiness Philosophers: The Lives and Works of the Great Utilitarians
by Bart SchultzA colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other foundersIn The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism—one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two centuries.Best known for arguing that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong," utilitarianism was developed by the radical philosophers, critics, and social reformers William Godwin (the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley), Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart and Harriet Taylor Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. Together, they had a profound influence on nineteenth-century reforms, in areas ranging from law, politics, and economics to morals, education, and women's rights. Their work transformed life in ways we take for granted today. Bentham even advocated the decriminalization of same-sex acts, decades before the cause was taken up by other activists. As Bertrand Russell wrote about Bentham in the late 1920s, "There can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the people living in England in the latter part of last century were happier than they would have been if he had never lived." Yet in part because of its misleading name and the caricatures popularized by figures as varied as Dickens, Marx, and Foucault, utilitarianism is sometimes still dismissed as cold, calculating, inhuman, and simplistic.By revealing the fascinating human sides of the remarkable pioneers of utilitarianism, The Happiness Philosophers provides a richer understanding and appreciation of their philosophical and political perspectives—one that also helps explain why utilitarianism is experiencing a renaissance today and is again being used to tackle some of the world's most serious problems.
The Happiness Project, Tenth Anniversary Edition: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
by Gretchen Rubin#1 New York Times Bestseller“An enlightening, laugh-aloud read. . . . Filled with open, honest glimpses into [Rubin’s] real life, woven together with constant doses of humor.”—Christian Science MonitorGretchen Rubin’s year-long experiment to discover how to create true happiness. Drawing on cutting-edge science, classical philosophy, and real-world examples, Rubin delivers an engaging, eminently relatable chronicle of transformation. This special 10th Anniversary edition features a Conversation with Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project Stories, a guide to creating your own happiness project, a list of dozens of free resources, and more.Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.In this lively and compelling account—now updated with new material by the author—Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.This updated edition includes:An extensive new interview with the authorStories of other people’s life-changing happiness projectsA resource guide to the dozens of free resources created for readersThe Happiness Project ManifestoAn excerpt from Rubin’s bestselling book The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too)
Happiness Studies: An Introduction
by Tal Ben-ShaharIn this book, Tal Ben-Shahar introduces a new interdisciplinary field of study that is dedicated to exploring happiness. The study of happiness ought not be left to psychologists alone. Philosophers, theologians, biologists, economists, and scholars from other disciplines have explored ways of attaining happiness, and to do justice to this important pursuit, we ought to listen to their words and experiment with their prescriptions. Not only does the field of happiness studies embrace different disciplines, it also approaches happiness as a multifaceted and multidimensional variable that includes five parts which form the acronym SPIRE:Spiritual wellbeingPhysical wellbeingIntellectual wellbeingRelational wellbeingEmotional wellbeing This book addresses each of these elements of happiness, explains them, and addresses practical ways for their cultivation.
Happiness—Concept, Measurement and Promotion
by Yew-Kwang NgThis open access book defines happiness intuitively and explores several common conceptual mistakes with regard to happiness. It then moves on to address topical issues including, but not limited to, whether money can buy you happiness, why happiness is ultimately the only thing of intrinsic value, and the various factors important for happiness. It also presents a more reliable and interpersonally comparable method for measuring happiness and discusses twelve factors, from A to L, that are crucial for individual happiness: attitude, balance, confidence, dignity, engagement, family/friends, gratitude, health, ideals, joyfulness, kindness and love. Further, it examines important public policy considerations, taking into account recent advances in economics, the environmental sciences, and happiness studies. Novel issues discussed include: an environmentally responsible happy nation index to supplement GDP, the East Asian happiness gap, a case for stimulating pleasure centres of the brain, and an argument for higher public spending.
Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine
by Derren BrownThe Sunday Times Bestseller'Really brilliant and just crammed with wisdom and insight. It will genuinely make a difference to me and the way I think about myself.' Stephen Fry___Everyone says they want to be happy. But that's much more easily said than done. What does being happy actually mean? And how do you even know when you feel it?In Happy Derren Brown explores changing concepts of happiness - from the surprisingly modern wisdom of the Stoics and Epicureans in classical times right up until today, when the self-help industry has attempted to claim happiness as its own. He shows how many of self-help's suggested routes to happiness and success - such as positive thinking, self-belief and setting goals - can be disastrous to follow and, indeed, actually cause anxiety.Happy aims to reclaim happiness and to enable us to appreciate the good things in life, in all their transient glory. By taking control of the stories we tell ourselves, by remembering that 'everything's fine' even when it might not feel that way, we can allow ourselves to flourish and to live more happily.___What readers are saying: ***** 'Immensely positive and life-affirming'***** 'This is the blue print to a good life'***** 'Thought provoking and potentially life-changing.'
The Happy Afterlife of Ludwig W.: The People that Made Wittgensteinʼs Books and Turned Him into the Worldʼs Most Popular Philosopher (Beiträge zur Praxeologie / Contributions to Praxeology)
by Christian ErbacherThis book tells a great philosophical tale. The backstory of this tale is simple: the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein published only one philosophical book during his lifetime: theTractatus Logico-Philosophicus. He left the lion’s share of his philosophical writings to posterity in the form of unpublished manuscripts and typescripts amounting to more than 18,000 pages. In his will, Wittgenstein entrusted three of his former students – Elizabeth Anscombe, Rush Rhees and Georg Henrik von Wright – with the task of publishing from his writings what they thought fit. During the subsequent decades, these literary heirs edited the volumes that the learned world has come to know as the influential works of Wittgenstein. Now, the essays in this book tell about Wittgenstein’s literary heirs in their ambition to publish the writings of their beloved teacher. This history of the posthumous publication processes for Wittgenstein’s writings will extinguish the genius cult that still exists in some historiographies of philosophy. This cult is partly responsible for the impression that great philosophical works fall from the window of an ivory tower, in completed form, printed and bound, just in order to hit and inspire the next genius philosopher walking by. In actual fact, in the history of philosophy, there are a number of cases in which it takes the great philosophers’ pupils and followers to bring their teachers’ thought into a publishable form. Indeed, this is how literary tradition of Western philosophy begins. In the case of Wittgenstein’s writings, this book opens, at least to some extent, the black box of the discipulary production processes of the making of a classic philosopher.
Happy Apocalypse: A History of Technological Risk
by Jean-Baptiste FressozHow risk, disasters and pollution were managed and made acceptable during the Industrial RevolutionBeing environmentally conscious is not nearly as modern as we imagine. As a mode of thinking it goes back hundreds of years. Yet we typically imagine ourselves among the first to grasp the impact humanity has on the environment. Hence there is a fashion for green confessions and mea culpas.But the notion of a contemporary ecological awakening leads to political impasse. It erases a long history of environmental destruction. Furthermore, by focusing on our present virtues, it overlooks the struggles from which our perspective arose.In response, Happy Apocalypse plunges us into the heart of controversies that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around factories, machines, vaccines and railways. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz demonstrates how risk was conceived, managed, distributed and erased to facilitate industrialization. He explores how clinical expertise around 1800 allowed vaccination to be presented as completely benign, how the polluter-pays principle emerged in the nineteenth century to legitimize the chemical industry, how safety norms were invented to secure industrial capital and how criticisms and objections were silenced or overcome to establish technological modernity.Societies of the past did not inadvertently alter their environments on a massive scale. Nor did they disregard the consequences of their decisions. They seriously considered them, sometimes with dread. The history recounted in this book is not one of a sudden awakening but a process of modernising environmental disinhibition.
The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education
by Steven HarrisonThe author of The Shimmering World proposes allowing children to follow their own educational path, thus enabling their curiosity to fuel their learning. In this thought-provoking new book, bestselling author Steven Harrison ventures far outside the box of traditional thinking about education. His radical proposal? Children naturally want to learn, he asserts, so let them direct their own education in democratic learning communities where they can interact seamlessly with their neighborhoods, their towns, and the world at large. Most learning systems apply external motivation through grades, rankings, teacher direction, and approval. The Happy Child suggests that a self-motivated child who is interdependent within a community can develop the full human potential to live a creative and fulfilling life. Harrison focuses on the integration of the whole child, the learning environment, and the non-coercive spirit of curiosity-driven education. Part social-critic, part humanistic visionary, Harrison not only focuses on a reorientation of education, but the possibility of rethinking our families, communities and workplaces, and ultimately what gives our children, and all of us, real happiness. Harrison adds his voice to those of A. S. Neil, John Holt, and John Gatto, all who believe that contemporary schools can never be reformed sufficiently, but must be abandoned entirely for something new and vital to emerge. Praise for The Happy Child &“A clarion call for our culture to wise up and re-think what education—and the soul of a child—are really all about. Steven Harrison offers us something sorely lacking in today&’s educational policy: a vision of true human potential and a practical philosophy for attaining it. Read this book and envision possibility.&” —Jane M. Healy, Ph, author of Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children&’s Minds &“Harrison's hard-biting social critique of the plight children and education are in should wake us up to our atrocious treatment of our young, that we might actually address their critical needs rather than simply ignoring them as usual.&” —Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg &“Such a nobly simple idea, that the true purpose of education should be happiness, and so clearly reasoned.&” —Chris Mercogliano, author of Making It Up As We Go Along
Happy Dog, Happy You: A positive guide to a joyful relationship with your dog
by Verity HardcastleWant to raise a calm, happy and fulfilled dog?Award-winning groomer, TV personality and experienced dog handler Verity Hardcastle has compiled everything you need to know in this comprehensive dog-care manual: from choosing a breed, to practical diet and nutrition tips and knowing what to buy, to behaviour training and exercise advice... everything you need to fill life with fun and create a joyful friendship with your dog. With a positive focus on mindfulness and wellbeing, Verity shares her expertise as a dog handler and reiki practitioner to help encourage a calm daily routine - this book includes mindful tips and techniques you can try at home or out on walks together. You will also discover how to communicate effectively with your dog, and learn beautiful bonding activities such as massage, meditation and 'doga' (or dog yoga) to build a warm and loving environment in which you can both thrive.This is a must-have for anyone who wants to forge a lasting bond with their four-legged friend. Make both your life and your pooch's happier than ever before! 'If you're considering getting a dog; or have one already and need some advice, this is a great book, full of useful, interesting and practical tips!' - Julian Norton, aka The Yorkshire Vet, veterinary surgeon and author 'If you want to know all about your pooch - fetch this. Inspiring, warm and practical guide to cohabiting with your canine.' - Russell Kane, comedian 'This book is full of practical, heartfelt advice for both new and experienced dog owners. Dogs have long been human's best friend and this book helps us to benefit even more from this relationship. Your furry friend will thank you!' - The Reverend Canon Kate Bottley
Happy Dog, Happy You: A positive guide to a joyful relationship with your dog
by Verity HardcastleWant to raise a calm, happy and fulfilled dog?Award-winning groomer, TV personality and experienced dog handler Verity Hardcastle has compiled everything you need to know in this comprehensive dog-care manual: from choosing a breed, to practical diet and nutrition tips and knowing what to buy, to behaviour training and exercise advice... everything you need to fill life with fun and create a joyful friendship with your dog. With a positive focus on mindfulness and wellbeing, Verity shares her expertise as a dog handler and reiki practitioner to help encourage a calm daily routine - this book includes mindful tips and techniques you can try at home or out on walks together. You will also discover how to communicate effectively with your dog, and learn beautiful bonding activities such as massage, meditation and 'doga' (or dog yoga) to build a warm and loving environment in which you can both thrive.This is a must-have for anyone who wants to forge a lasting bond with their four-legged friend. Make both your life and your pooch's happier than ever before! 'If you're considering getting a dog; or have one already and need some advice, this is a great book, full of useful, interesting and practical tips!' - Julian Norton, aka The Yorkshire Vet, veterinary surgeon and author 'If you want to know all about your pooch - fetch this. Inspiring, warm and practical guide to cohabiting with your canine.' - Russell Kane, comedian 'This book is full of practical, heartfelt advice for both new and experienced dog owners. Dogs have long been human's best friend and this book helps us to benefit even more from this relationship. Your furry friend will thank you!' - The Reverend Canon Kate Bottley
Happy Lies: How a Movement You (Probably) Never Heard Of Shaped Our Self-Obsessed World
by Melissa DoughertyIn this groundbreaking book, popular apologist Melissa Dougherty helps us understand how our society got to be so toxically subjective, why endless positivity is inherently destructive, and how we can live with faithful truth and genuine love in these self-obsessed times.Melissa Dougherty skillfully diagnoses the issue and provides the cure: the authentic and life-giving truth of the Christian worldview. - Wesley HuffHave you ever wondered how we ended up in a world where personal feelings could become the authority for reality? Or why so many of us are on a relentless pursuit for happiness yet somehow feel more exhausted and sadder than ever? You're not alone.Melissa deftly traces the roots of today's social chaos back to a little-known (but very influential) 1800s philosophy known as New Thought. A former follower of its teachings, Melissa provides clarity and compassion mixed with a dash of loving snark as she exposes New Thought's deceptions and its many concerning tendrils within the church and our "self-help" culture.You'll be shocked, grieved, and encouraged as you learn:How you can experience true freedom, hope, and peace instead of the world's counterfeitsHow an anti-God ideology so easily hijacked Christian-sounding ideasWhy thinking positively is entirely different from the unbiblical and burdensome "positive thought" movementWhy fake "authenticity" short-circuits real redemptionHow understanding the New Thought mindset can help us share our faith more effectively Uncover a dangerous ideology that nearly everyone has met, yet few of us can name, in order to better understand our culture and joyfully live faithful to the gospel that is so much better than our world's Happy Lies.
The Happy Life
by David MaloufBy Australia's greatest contemporary author, an elegant, succinct meditation on what makes for a happy life. ;-)"Happiness surely is among the simplest of human emotions and the most spontaneous," says David Malouf. But what exactly are we looking for when we chase happiness? At this particular moment in history, privileged, industrialized nations have lessened much of what makes us unhappy: widespread poverty, illness, famine. Yet we are still unfulfilled, turning increasingly to yoga, church, Match.com, drugs, clinical therapy and retail therapy. What is at the root of our collective stress, and how can we find our way to contentment? Drawing on mythology, philosophy, art and literature, Malouf traces our conception of happiness throughout history, distilling centuries of thought into a lucid narrative. He discusses the creation myths of ancient Greece and the philosophical schools of Athens, analyzes Thomas Jefferson's revolutionary declaration that "the pursuit of happiness" is a right, explores the celebration of sensual delight in Rembrandt and Rubens and offers a perceptive take on a modern society growing larger and more impersonal. With wisdom and insight, Malouf investigates that simplest, most spontaneous of feelings and urges us to do the same.
Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
by Gabriel Richardson LearGabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy.
Happy Moments: How to Create Experiences You’ll Remember for a Lifetime
by Meik Wiking'Meik's new book will change the way you think' Dr Rangan Chatterjee___________________________________________________________________________From the same author that brought us The Little Book of Hygge, this book reveals the secret to filling your life with happy moments, and how to remember them for ever.Happy memories don't have to be reserved for big life events. Drawing on global surveys, behavioural science experiments and data gathered by The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik is here to show how we can we can turn ordinary experiences into something extraordinary.Whether it's eating dinner at the table rather than in front of the TV, exploring a new part of your neighbourhood, or planning how you're going to celebrate your small wins, this book will help you find the magic in the every day, and create memories you will cherish forever.PRE-ORDER THE HYGGE HOME, THE NEW BOOK FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE BOOK OF HYGGE
Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire
by Joel MarksThis book challenges the widespread assumption that the ethical life and society must be moral in any objective sense. In his previous works, Marks has rejected both the existence of such a morality and the need to maintain verbal, attitudinal, practical, and institutional remnants of belief in it. This book develops these ideas further, with emphasis on constructing a positive alternative. Calling it "desirism", Marks illustrates what life and the world would be like if we lived in accordance with our rational desires rather than the dictates of any actual or pretend morality, neither overlaying our desires with moral sanction nor attempting to override them with moral strictures. Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire also argues that atheism thereby becomes more plausible than the so-called New Atheism that attempts to give up God and yet retain morality.
A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why it Failed
by David BarberBy the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year later, SDS splintered into warring factions and ceased to exist. SDS's development and its dissolution grew directly out of the organization's relations with the black freedom movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging struggle for women's liberation. For a moment, young white people could comprehend their world in new and revolutionary ways. But New Leftists did not respond as a tabula rasa. On the contrary, these young people's consciousnesses, their culture, their identities had arisen out of a history which, for hundreds of years, had privileged white over black, men over women, and America over the rest of the world. Such a history could not help but distort the vision and practice of these activists, good intentions notwithstanding. A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed traces these activists in their relation to other movements and demonstrates that the New Left's dissolution flowed directly from SDS's failure to break with traditional American notions of race, sex, and empire.
The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left
by Stuart HallStuart Hall's writings on the political impact of Margaret Thatcher have established him as the most prescient and insightful analyst of contemporary ConservatismCollected here for the first time with a new introduction, these essays show how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. Hall's critical approach is elaborated here in essays on the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of 'regressive modernization'.The Hard Road to Renewal is as concerned with elaborating a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.
Hard Work in New Jobs
by Ursula Holtgrewe Vassil Kirov Monique RamioulThis book investigates hard work and new and expanding jobs in Europe. The interrelationship between the labour market and welfare regimes, and quality of work and life is played out at many levels: the institutional; the organizational level of the company and its customers or clients; and the level of everyday life at the workplace and beyond it.
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality
by Brad WarnerThis is not your typical Zen book. Brad Warner, a young punk who grew up to be a Zen master, spares no one. This bold new approach to the "Why?" of Zen Buddhism is as strongly grounded in the tradition of Zen as it is utterly revolutionary. Warner's voice is hilarious, and he calls on the wisdom of everyone from punk and pop culture icons to the Buddha himself to make sure his points come through loud and clear. As it prods readers to question everything, Hardcore Zen is both an approach and a departure, leaving behind the soft and lyrical for the gritty and stark perspective of a new generation. The subtitle says it all: there has never been a book like this.
The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency
by John DickersonFrom the veteran political journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent, a deep dive into the history, evolution, and current state of the American presidency—and how we can make the job less impossible and more productive. <P><P>magine you have just been elected president. You are now commander-in-chief, chief executive, chief diplomat, chief legislator, chief of party, chief voice of the people, first responder, chief priest, and world leader. You’re expected to fulfill your campaign promises, but you&’re also expected to solve the urgent crises of the day. What’s on your to-do list? Where would you even start? What shocks aren’t you thinking about? <P><P>The American presidency is in trouble. It has become overburdened, misunderstood, almost impossible to do. “The problems in the job unfolded before Donald Trump was elected, and the challenges of governing today will confront his successors,” writes John Dickerson. After all, the founders never intended for our system of checks and balances to have one superior Chief Magistrate, with Congress demoted to “the little brother who can’t keep up.” <P><P>In this eye-opening book, John Dickerson writes about presidents in history such a Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Eisenhower, and and in contemporary times, from LBJ and Reagan and Bush, Obama, and Trump, to show how a complex job has been done, and why we need to reevaluate how we view the presidency, how we choose our presidents, and what we expect from them once they are in office. Think of the presidential campaign as a job interview. Are we asking the right questions? Are we looking for good campaigners, or good presidents? Once a candidate gets the job, what can they do to thrive? <P><P> Drawing on research and interviews with current and former White House staffers, Dickerson defines what the job of president actually entails, identifies the things that only the president can do, and analyzes how presidents in history have managed the burden. What qualities make for a good president? Who did it well? Why did Bill Clinton call the White House “the crown jewel in the American penal system”? <P><P>The presidency is a job of surprises with high stakes, requiring vision, management skill, and an even temperament. Ultimately, in order to evaluate candidates properly for the job, we need to adjust our expectations, and be more realistic about the goals, the requirements, and the limitations of the office. As Dickerson writes, “Americans need their president to succeed, but the presidency is set up for failure. It doesn&’t have to be.” <P><P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Hardest Problem: God, Evil and Suffering
by Rupert ShorttHow can a supposedly all-powerful and all-loving God permit evil and suffering on a grand scale?The question has assailed people across cultures at least as far back as the biblical Book of Job. To sceptics, it forms clinching evidence that all talk of providence is childish -- or even a dangerous delusion. Writing clearly and concisely but avoiding simplistic answers, Rupert Shortt argues that belief in a divine Creator is intellectually robust, despite apparent signs to the contrary. Having cleared the ground, he goes on to show how a Christian understanding, in particular, points the way forward through terrain where raw feelings, intellectual inquiry and the toughest trials of the spirit often overlap.The Hardest Problem takes its place alongside the work of C. S. Lewis as an essential guide to one of life's deepest dilemmas for a new generation of readers.
The Hardest Problem: God, Evil and Suffering
by Rupert ShorttHow can a supposedly all-powerful and all-loving God permit evil and suffering on a grand scale?The question has assailed people across cultures at least as far back as the biblical Book of Job. To sceptics, it forms clinching evidence that all talk of providence is childish -- or even a dangerous delusion. Writing clearly and concisely but avoiding simplistic answers, Rupert Shortt argues that belief in a divine Creator is intellectually robust, despite apparent signs to the contrary. Having cleared the ground, he goes on to show how a Christian understanding, in particular, points the way forward through terrain where raw feeling, intellectual inquiry and the toughest trials of the spirit often overlap.The Hardest Problem takes its place alongside the work of C. S. Lewis as an essential guide to one of life's deepest dilemmas for a new generation of readers.
Hardship and Happiness
by Lucius Annaeus SenecaLucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and advisor to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection helps restore Seneca--whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson--to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. Hardship and Happiness collects a range of essays intended to instruct, from consolations--works that offer comfort to someone who has suffered a personal loss--to pieces on how to achieve happiness or tranquility in the face of a difficult world. Expertly translated, the essays will be read and used by undergraduate philosophy students and experienced scholars alike.