Growing up as a Caucasian American I was always attracted to the disenfranchised, disempowered and misrepresented peoples of the world. My sense of justice was offended by the philosophy of European superiority, the philosophy that is based upon the idea that a person is basically born into an ethnic caste system of which Europeans where the lords. I started to befriend African Americans very early on, and I became deeply fascinated by their culture. One day an older African-American woman asked me about this, noticing me shying away from playing with white kids. At the time I didn't know how to respond so she scolded me. She told me that I was not 'black' and that I had no business pretending I was. She went on to tell me that I could never identify with what 'black' people experience, because like it or not, I was white. I would always have opportunities that 'blacks' wouldn't. She did have a point, or at least I thought. I went through a serious bout with my identity after that and decided to educate myself on what actually happened to these people. I started with this title, and it led me onto a serious engagement with our country's brutal fascination with chattel slavery.
Frederick Douglass was a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, not too far from Baltimore where I live. His accounts of the treatment of slaves is indeed frightening. It is very important to note that when Frederick was young he was sent to live in Fells Point Maryland as a house slave. The wife of his owner thought it good to teach Frederick the alphabet. After Frederick learned the alphabet the woman showed her husband. He was furious with his wife, and told her that it you teach these 'niggers' to read they will want to know how to write. If they know how to wright, they might start thinking they are equal with white folks. He then ordered her to stop teaching Frederick anything 'that could interfere with his chores'. Unfortunately the damage was already done. Frederick became obsessed with reading and taught himself to read by studying newspapers in the streets and paying white kids to teach him. Slowly we see Frederick, through his own religion convictions, developing a liberation philosophy through education. Knowledge was his key to freedom, and it eventually led to his escape to the North.
One of the key points of this narration is that the slave owners used methods of controlling slaves which are very similar to the tactics employed by the propaganda machine. For instance, Frederick noticed that the slave masters made the slaves drink on holidays and observed them strictly to make certain that all of them spent their 'free' time drunk. They were always on the look-out for slaves that exhibited critical thinking attempting to hold conversations with their fellow slaves about their condition. Reminiscent of the fabled or not Willie Lynch manual on how to make and break a slave, these slave masters certainly knew what they were doing. The institution of slavery was highly developed, almost a science unto itself. Escaping this was the main theme in the first half of Frederick Douglass's autobiography. The second part deals with his efforts to bring slavery to an end all together by raising peoples consciousness to the inhumanities of the practice. I am indebted to Frederick Douglass for bringing me closer to the reality which African Americans live through day in and day out not only in this country, but also in apartheid South Africa. While I believe that the scolding I got was somewhat well deserved, I do believe that consensual integration is part of a God's work. Overall one finds it very difficult to account for all of valuable contributions this work can bring to the human heart. This is one of those books which makes you want to cry, then laugh, then explore new methods of pluralism and equality. Ironically I married an African American sister who teaches at Frederick Douglass Middle School in Baltimore City. She often tells me how the text books are over fifteen years old, and the computer lab even older. Most of the students see no benefit in the public indoctrination system anyway, but when they do go they are met with ancient resources and apathetic teachers. Another clear indication that we have a lot of work to do on this 'American' notion of equality.

This book, written in Douglass' later years, not only lifted my spirits but did a great deal to reestablish my faith in humanity. This was a man who had every opportunity, and reason, to be bitter and/or vengeful. He, instead, chose to fight, with his intellect and his golden tongue, for what he, and others chained in slavery and social subservience, rightfully disserved as a member of our human race. He was a man of conviction and inner strength who taught himself to write with an elegance that I have never seen equaled. I strongly recommend this book.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus according to St. Gertrude. Our Lord chose St. Gertrude to be the Messenger or Herald of Divine Love, and He guided her as she wrote, so that through her He might make known the secrets of His Heart, and thus draw many hearts to Himself. Jesus said to St. Gertrude, "I wish your writings to be for later times a proof of the tenderness of My Heart, and I will make them a source of grace to many souls. While you write, I will keep your heart near to My Heart, and will instill into it, drop by drop, what you are to say." By following these actual words of Our Lord to St. Gertrude in our daily life, a soul will become enriched with incomparable merit, and will be filled, even in this life, with the profound peace and joy which come from loving the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 203pp. PB. Imprimatur.

Just when I thought I knew all the classic spiritual/devotion books this jewel came as a gift to me! It is a must read ranking close to such as "The Story of a Soul," "Introduction to the Devout Life," "Imitation of Christ," et al. May help bring one to know more deeply the Love and Mercy of Jesus whose Heart was pierced for us!

For a period of three decades Raymond Clary was San Francisco's most persistent defender of Golden Gate Park from those who sought to acquire the land for their exclusive use, to put up and expand buildings on the land, and to convert the land into money-making venues. Because his criticisms of park encroachers were caustic, witty and informed, it was to be expected that he incurred the wrath of those he rebuked. While Mr. Clary's sharp and eloquent voice has been stilled, despoilers of Golden Gate Park continue to clamor for buildings, museums, monuments, sports arenas, and facilities for special groups. The park needs defenders like Ray Clary to keep the land open, free and green for future generations. Though his books could benefit from condensation, they provide San Franciscans with instructions in the care of park environments it would be well for them to read and to heed.

The Making of Golden Gate Park is one work which must be a necessary reference; this says not only what a park was, or should be; but how it was set out in the beginning to be that special place in time. An interesting look at what created in sand had became a feature of the landscape of memories. Mr. Clary was a fantastic researcher with greater powers of understanding than even his public knew, envisioning how the park should look way into the future, many planners over the years borrowed his sentiments freely and grafted their public policy onto his outlines. One benefit being the Golden Gate Headlands National Park, an outgrowth of his promotion of open space for city-dwellers idea. Oddly enough, although he was praised by Herb Caen and much was done to preserve open-space, the main concept for conservation of this unique park as a very special and individual place aside from time has been consistantly resisted by every city and county functionary over the last 30-years!

Brown does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the period of late antiquity in this work. He is able to cover the major political, social and philosophical transition of the Roman Empire of the Antonines to the emergence of the Christian Succesor States with clarity, and accuracy. Although this work does not take an indepth look into any of the many subjects that fall in this period, it is an excellent overview, and maintains a level of scholarship that is almost unparalled in a work of this nature. The book is documented to an excellent degree, so that even the most critical reader can see where it is that Brown is comming from. I would recomend this book to anyone from the avid scholar to the most casual reader.

Brown is able to establish the foundations for anyone interested in late antiquity with clarity and scholarly depth that is unparelled in the field. This book, although taking a broad picture of the period, and focusing on a shallow over view, rather than taking an indepth look into any perticular aspect of the period, is still scholarly enough to interest even the most particular historian, but will catch the interest of the beginer also. Browns conclusions are well thought out, and are based on an extensive, and acurate picture of the period. The documentation is incredible, hundreds of documents are quoted, and carefully indexed, in a book under 200 hundred pages, so the most nitpicky readers can see exactly where Brown is comming from. This should be the model for broad view scholarly work, this is truly an excellent work.

This book is well written. Sheaffer documents his sources very well. He brings up a lot of interesting points about the life of Jesus. I would reccommend this book to both christian and nonchristian as a good book to reveal the inconsistencies and falsehoods in the bible. His chapter on Nietzsche and Der Antichrist is informative and instructive as regarding christians as a whole. I think it would benefit people a lot if they read this book with an openmind and took heed of the arguments. Most of his arguments are valid based on the evidence. I know even though most christians don't read anything that challenges their faith it would be instructive for them to read this.

For anyone who wants to take a challenging, intellectually viable look at the creation of Christianity. Many people proclaim to "believe in the Bible" without knowing anything of the Bible's history or of the motivations of those who wrote it. It seems to me that one cannot claim to be a true believer or disbeliever in the stories of the bible without first questioning the validity of the writings contained therein. This book presents an interesting, and well documented theory which accounts for many of the discrepancies in the "synoptic" gospels. It is a pointed reminder that the bible was written by early church beaurocrats - not witnesses to the events of Christ's life

This little book released by New Directions is bright-eyed and youthful, with hardly any of the rancor contained in Saroyan's other tales. Written all before 1940, these short pieces pick you up quickly, drop you in the middle of a bunch of scrappy kids in Fresno/San Fransisco in the depression era, and then take you back home with hardly any jet-lag.

Saroyan goes back in time effortlessly, describing a game of leap-frog (remember that game, where a line of kids crouch on the ground and one kid hops over the whole line and crouches in the front, and then the last kid gets up and hops over the whole line, to infinity...) where a tough boy and a tough girl compete brutally, leaping and crouching, all the way out into the country and to the next town, ending in a bloody brawl. And in "The Messenger", a young boy gets hilariously distracted from his extremely important mission to send a message to the town doctor. Most of the stories are light, funny and non-ironic, but at times the customary Saroyan bile simmers to the top. Like in "The Living and the Dead", where a reluctant young Communist writer, is walking down the road to town, whistling happily, and suddenly "...the whole world, caught in time and space, seemed to me an absurdity, and insanity, and instead of being amused, which would have been philosophical, I was miserable and began to ridicule all the tragic straining of man, living and dead." Like I said, MOST of the stories are light and funny...

What I like most about these is the sense of respect and compassion Saroyan shows his characters, no matter how young, simple or strange they are. He describes their lives like he was there experiencing the same bittersweet mini-tragedies and absurdities simultaneously, right along with them. He uses the vernacular of the day to write the most endearing dialogue ever, bringing these superbly-drawn characters to luminous life. Saroyan's early stories here reflect the same kind of innocent humor and subtlety as the brief output of another American master, Nathaniel West. If you liked "The Day of the Locust" or "Balso Snell", then these little classics will bring you a similarly delightful reading experience. I strongly believe Raymond Carver to be a literary son, or at least nephew, to William Saroyan here in his best form, the short story.

this saroyan collection gathers together some of the stories he wrote while living in san francisco. besides the fact that they are beautiful short stories (one of my favorites: "the mother"), they are all set in san francisco. for a sense of place circa 1930s, a great book. also, the herb caen introduction is a nice addition. makes it a piece of SF literature worth holding onto, i think.

This book, to borrow from the jacket blurb by Arthur Kinney (series editor and founder of Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies), combines the history of ideas with the history of consciousness in early modern Europe. "Engel has produced a groundbreaking study that is boldly original, richly penetrating, and revolutionary in its implications. No student of early modern culture can afford to overlook this extraordinary work."

This "rich and varied work," so termed by Tom Conley (Harvard University, Professor of Romance Languages), makes use of the critical work of Benjamin, Heidegger, Derrida, Baudrillard, and Eliade, to uncover subtleties of design in works ranging from Elizabethan broadsides, to Milton's epic poetry, to the essays of Thomas Browne. And yet, as the Review of English Studies noted, neither the wide range of topics nor the conjunction of old texts and modern critics should be read as merely fashionable gestures towards current academic obsession, "for the closely argued thesis has an overall cogency and a local subtlety."

Basically the book argues that early modern "metaphorics" was essentially mnemonic and emblematic.

George Rousseau in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine wrote: "Engel implies that an aesthetic of mortality lurked beneath the surface of the skin, so to speak, in that fierce world in which the death of the literal body was life's greatest certainty."

This book, to borrow from the jacket blurb by Arthur Kinney (series editor and founder of Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies), combines the history of ideas with the history of consciousness in early modern Europe. "Engel has produced a groundbreaking study that is boldly original, richly penetrating, and revolutionary in its implications. No student of early modern culture can afford to overlook this extraordinary work."

This "rich and varied work," so termed by Tom Conley (Harvard University, Professor of Romance Languages), makes use of the critical work of Benjamin, Heidegger, Derrida, Baudrillard, and Eliade, to uncover subtleties of design in works ranging from Elizabethan broadsides, to Milton's epic poetry, to the essays of Thomas Browne. And yet, as the Review of English Studies noted, neither the wide range of topics nor the conjunction of old texts and modern critics should be read as merely fashionable gestures towards current academic obsession, "for the closely argued thesis has an overall cogency and a local subtlety."

Basically the book argues that early modern "metaphorics" was essentially mnemonic and emblematic.

George Rousseau in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine wrote: "Engel implies that an aesthetic of mortality lurked beneath the surface of the skin, so to speak, in that fierce world in which the death of the literal body was life's greatest certainty."

This is a good introduction to Mark appropriate for all mainstream, non-conservative Protestant laypeople (I'm Lutheran ELCA myself), to be read in addition to - but not instead of - Rhoads et. al's "Mark as Story" and even more accessible than that essential general study.

It's basically a study of Mark focusing on it as the Gospel that's hardest on the disciples, submitting to us that the disciples failed and it's our responsibility to complete their mission and challenging us to finish the story. It also explores the fascinating 1st century background in which the Gospel was written - including the effect that the Jewish War and the destruction of the temple must have had on Mark's community. There are several references to the inadequacy of the RSV of the bible that will start to become dated as more people start using the NRSV, but that's a relatively minor criticism all in all.

An enjoyable read designed for general readers rather than scholars.

The bible is more complex than most people realize or care to admit. This book really goes deep into full meaning from the history of first century Jewish faith. This book is a must. You will never go back and read Mark the same way. This book increased my knowledge and therefore ended up increasing my appreciation of Jesus (And Mark).

This is such a beautiful and wonderful book. The 84 Mahasiddhas
are the founders of Tantric Buddhism. You will find a legend and
a picture with 54 of them. 27 of the pictures are color and
they will knock your socks off! I really love this book. I have
the hardbound edition. It really helps to know what these saints look like. Reading about them all the time can be a little
unimaginative after awhile. But with solid visual images, our lives
become so much more exciting. And the colored paintings are just
great. Buy the book and be well.

Before Tibetan Buddhism, Don Juan, and "New Age" Tantra, there were the 84 founders of the great Tantric Lineages of today. Keith Dowman's version of these tales of awakening, liberation and fulfillment is simply brilliant, as usual. Here Dowman's divine gift for revealing the Heart & Soul of a great teacher's spiritual life is well complimented by the amazing power of Robert Beer's magical images. I mean real power & real magic. I've read most of Dowman's books, but not because they were by him. My respect & appreciation of his work grew out of finding that some of the greatest books (permitting deep insight into the reality of Tibetan Buddhism & Tantra) happen to be by him. This one is as refreshingly readable & exceptionally useful as the rest. Masters of Enchantment is a great example of the "Small is Beautiful" theory of values. It is an old favorite of Asian students & masters. In condensed legends of the greatest tantric yogis & yoginis of ancient India & the Himalayas, Dowman & Beer show us how the divinity of humanity can come to full bloom in one lifetime. These bios of 54 prototypical Tantric Pioneers are elegantly pithy; often mind-blowing, always profoundly moving, and mythically convincing. No doubt, these are the stories of real people, who came from the many walks of "real life." The value of their examples, their hardships, victories, mantras & songs of realization cannot be overestimated. For modern beginners and advanced practitioners, the elixir of [these] wish-granting jewels will foster faith, serene bliss, courage, and perspective. This is a "must have" classic for anyone on the Way to absolute freedom, supreme bliss, crazy wisdom & infinite compassion.

"THE MATHEMATICS OF PLATO'S ACADEMY"
Second Edition
Fowler.

The first impression on receiving this book in your hands is the heavy weight. But this is not only true physically, due to the high quality of the cartridge paper, it is also true intellectually. Thus the second impression reinforces the first. The caliber of the scholarship exhibited in this tome is of the highest order, doing full justice to an investment in so expensive a paper.

Nothing less than the most complete exposition possible of ancient Greek mathematics as taught at the Platonic Academy in Athens, is presented, based on all currently available sources.

The author labors to guide the reader with diagrams, definitions, explanations, cross-references, commentaries and modern mathematical symbols to provide a clear, detailed and thorough account. He even starts from the photographic plates of Greek papyri. This is a major work of scholarship that itself deserves to become a classic; a model of its kind.

Just in case amazon readers accuse me of obsequious flattery, abject servility and distasteful onesidedness, allow me one criticism. The influence of the Ionian philosopher-mathematicians, Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximander and Anaximenes on Plato's Academy is not covered.

A magnificent twenty-one page bibliography testifies to the author's detailed background research, and whets the reader's appetite for further reading.

Finally, three separate indexes show that the author is making every effort to help his reader as much as he can. Could one ask for more ?

Two things are certain if you really want to know what mathematics was done in Plato's Academy, and before Euclid: Your heart will break at the lack of evidence, and you will have to read this book.

Fowler details how thin the surviving evidence is, even for such basics as when Euclid's ELEMENTS were written. Drawing on other careful classicists he demolishes now traditional stories about the Pythagoreans and the irrational, Plato's Academy, even Euclid's own style in the Elements. He shows them coming from heavy interpretations of extremely vague (and often late) sources. Plates in the book show how desperately scanty are the physical remains of any mathematical writing within centuries of Plato's death. Even the first and second century AD leave us only a few scraps of Euclid.

On the positive side, Fowler gives a persuasive account of a method of reciprocal subtraction which he calls "anthyphairesis". It lay within the grasp of Athenian geometers, and suits some remarks Plato makes on mathematics, and suits traditions on geometers Plato knew, and goes far to unify and explain much of Euclid. It was apparently cited by Aristotle (under the name "antanairesis"). Probably, it really was used in the period. It also makes some very pretty geometry. Regular pentagons make a lot of sense anthyphairetically. Anyone trying to read the later books of Euclid, especially books X and XIII, will get tremendous help from this book. Conversely, you can hardly read much of this book without reading Euclid.

The book is not well organized. It spends many pages at a time on mathematical reconstructions that could not possibly have been used by the Greeks, so as to show beyond question that they could not have been. And it probably pushes its point too far. That is what classicists do. They push a point for all it is worth and perhaps more. These flaws are inevitable when you work on such important questions on so little evidence. Fowler assembles enormous amounts of classical textual evidence and later scholarship. He gives some nice mathematics including an appendix on the later arithmetized incarnation of anthyphairetic methods as continued fractions.

If you are determined to ask what math Plato knew and promoted, and what existed before Euclid--and so you are determined to break your heart--then you must read this book.