English Theory

Critical theory emerged in the 1920s from the work of the Frankfurt School, the circle of German-Jewish academics who sought to diagnose—and, if at all possible, cure—the ills of society, particularly fascism and capitalism. In this book, Stephen Eric Bronner provides sketches of leading representatives of the critical tradition (such as George Lukács and Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas) as well as many of its seminal texts and empirical investigations.

Have you ever said good-bye to someone, only to discover that you're both walking in the same direction? Or had your next thought fly out of your brain in the middle of a presentation? Or accidentally liked an old photo on someone's Instagram or Facebook, thus revealing yourself to be a creepy social media stalker? Melissa Dahl, editor of New York magazine's "Science of Us" website, has. After a lifetime of cringing, she became intrigued by awkwardness: a universal but underappreciated emotion.

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.

How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society, and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology - and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life.

Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about 25 years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization.

McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

In this best-selling classic, child psychiatrist and coauthor of The Whole Brain Child, Daniel J. Siegel and early childhood expert Mary Hartzell explore the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way we parent. Illuminating important research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, Siegel and Hartzell explain how the parent-child relationship directly affects brain development, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories to help them raise compassionate and resilient children.

The words we use shape the world we live in - so it matters when we get them wrong. This series, from the creators of the chart-topping Origin Story podcast, sheds much-needed light on the true meanings and surprising stories behind some of our most used and abused political terms.

I hope this email finds you well. Your well-being and personal growth are of the utmost importance to me, as a therapist. As such, I have decided it is in your best interest to continue individual therapy with another practitioner. This is due to the potential for boundaries being crossed between us. Attached is a list of colleagues I would recommend for you.

SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else.

This collection of 11 wide-ranging lectures which appeared originally in 1933, was based on lectures previously given when Jung was in the process of absorbing a considerable period of study of Eastern religions, Gnosticism and other religious sources. It was a time, according to the translator Cary F. Baynes, ‘when the Western world stands on the verge of a spiritual rebirth...after a long period of outward expansion, we are beginning to look inside ourselves once more.’

In Putin’s People, the investigative journalist and former Moscow correspondent Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and the small group of KGB men surrounding him rose to power and looted their country. Delving deep into the workings of Putin’s Kremlin, Belton accesses key inside players to reveal how Putin replaced the freewheeling tycoons of the Yeltsin era with a new generation of loyal oligarchs, who in turn subverted Russia’s economy and legal system and extended the Kremlin's reach into the United States and Europe.

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity; destroyed community; and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme - but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

What does real, saving faith actually entail? The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes the need for repentance from sin and accompanying good works as evidence of true belief. However, as theologian Wayne Grudem argues in this book, the teachings of the Free Grace movement - which deny that good works need to be present in the life of the justified Christian - undermine the Bible's teaching regarding saving faith.

You don't have to be a computer scientist to have discerning conversations about artificial intelligence and technology. We all wonder where we're headed. Even now, technological innovations and machine learning have a daily impact on our lives, and many of us see good reasons to dread the future. Are we doomed to the surveillance society imagined in George Orwell's 1984? Mathematician and philosopher John Lennox believes that there are credible responses to the daunting questions that AI poses.

Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon's masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of listeners. A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world.

Beginning with May 29, 1919, when photographs of the solar eclipse confirmed the truth of Einstein's theory of relativity, Johnson goes on to describe Freudianism, the establishment of the first Marxist state, the chaos of "Old Europe", the Arcadian 20s, and the new forces in China and Japan. Also discussed are Karl Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Castro, Kennedy, Nixon, the '29 crash, the Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the massive conflict of World War II.

The difference between growing your business and going out of business is your ability to think strategically. The problem is, most leaders are stuck in the operational weeds, struggling to find the time to make better strategic decisions. This challenge is only heightened by the rise of AI. While you know AI is the future, current demands leave you with no time to explore its benefits. Meanwhile, your competition is gaining an edge by integrating AI. The time to act is now.