International Education

All the tips and techniques Fuller discovered during his overseas career: Organized, simplified, and presented here to facilitate your language acquisition. Whether learning in a class or on your own, Secrets of Learning a Foreign Language will be your guide to success, allowing you to discover the joy of communicating within a different culture. His humorous anecdotes and cultural insights will enrich your experience.

When American sociologist C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination was first published in 1959, it provoked much hostile reaction. This was understandable: the book was a hard-hitting attack on how sociology was practiced - and on a number of leading sociologists. Mills was a fierce critic of both modern capitalism and Soviet-style authoritarianism, and argued that the sociology profession failed to look at how people's problems are connected to the structures of the society in which they live.

In his 1807 work Phenomenology of Spirit, G. W. F. Hegel introduced the world to his philosophical system. His most influential work - and the culmination of the German Idealist movement begun in the late 18th century as a response to the works of Immanuel Kant - the book remains one of the undisputed classics of Western thought.

Northern Irish academic, novelist, and broadcaster C. S. Lewis' 1943 philosophical work The Abolition of Man is subtitled Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools. It is about the power of education to shape the minds of individuals and improve society (or harm it, if badly done), and encompasses everything from the scientific worldview at the time to philosophical arguments about right and wrong.

Do we need the rules of religion in order to be good people? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant tackles this question in his 1793 text Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. More than 200 years later, it is still a key text in the shaping of Western religious thought, as well as Kant's most direct discussion of religious themes. Kant tries to look at religious practices in relation to the Enlightenment movement and its firmly held beliefs in the power of reason and personal liberty.

What is history? In his 2001 book In Defence of History, British historian Richard J. Evans debates the very nature of the subject. Certain thinkers known as postmodernists consider history to be not very far removed from a work of fiction, something based on a scholar's own interpretation of the past. Evans, however, argues that historians do not have free reign. Rather, they are constrained and enabled by the nature of the surviving evidence.

Social capital - the relationships between people that allow communities to function well - has long been recognized as the grease that oils the wheels of society. It facilitates trust, creates bonds among neighbors, and even helps boost employment. In his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, American sociologist Robert Putnam argues that Americans have become disconnected from one another and from the institutions of their common life and investigates the consequences of this change.

A professor at Harvard Business School, Kotter spent years coaching organizations - large and small; successful, less successful, and nearly bankrupt - through their own change processes. Some worked; others didn't. Distilling wisdom from these experiences, Kotter identifies eight common mistakes managers make implementing change. He then uses them to propose an eight-stage model that he argues can lead to successful organizational transformation.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks' 1985 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat challenges the impersonal approach doctors took to patient care and paved the way for a new literary genre: popular science. At the time of its publication, neurologists and physicians relied mainly on clinical studies and their own expertise to set the course of treatment. Sacks found this inhumane and developed a very different approach, clearly demonstrated in The Man Who Mistook His Wife.

The General Theory of the Translation Company condenses decades of combined experience in an easily digestible and entertaining format. Just like this back-of-the-book-summary, it does not provide all the answers. It teaches us how to ask better questions and to have more meaningful conversations about language services.

We often forget that between the US president and all assailants stands a proud, largely unseen force. They protect democracy by defending the president. And, though the Secret Service has been known for its dedication and perfection in the face of unfathomable difficulties, it is now in grave danger. Zero Fail (2021) follows the decline through decades, leadership changes, and game-changing global events.

Get the main key insights from this summary of Moisés Naím’s The End of Power in just a short listen.

Listen to the voices of a selected group of Latin American leaders share how they emerged and grew. Learn from their stories. Living in Latin America as a foreigner means you have experienced awkward moments and bewildering misunderstandings. All leaders are influenced by their culture.

Reflections on the Revolution in France may read like an exercise in political theory. But when it was first published in 1790, Edmund Burke was fighting a real political battle. Burke saw that the Enlightenment ideas that had inspired radical political change in France the year before were beginning to take root in England. He wanted to discredit these dangerous thoughts before they sparked a revolution in his own country.

In his 2005 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (also subtitled How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive), author and multifaceted US scholar Jared M. Diamond clearly identifies five major factors that he says determine the success or failure of all human societies in all periods of history. Having first asked why societies collapse, Diamond explores various examples of failed societies, from the Norsemen of Scandinavia, who colonized Greenland in the early 10th century, to the 18th-century inhabitants of Easter Island.

Famous as an accomplished poet, T. S. Eliot was also the author of some highly important literary criticism. First published in 1920, The Sacred Wood collects 13 of Eliot's early critical essays. He intended them to be a statement of his principles for literary achievement. These concepts - and the works that Eliot wrote after setting out his principles - inspired many major poets of the twentieth century. Some wanted to imitate him, while many others looked to disagree with him.

Arguing first that what might be termed a morally good action is one that increases the general sum of happiness in the world, Mill then says that general principles of justice should be based on this idea. Therefore, in life, there is no conflict between what is just and what is morally right. Mill published Utilitarianism toward the end of a lifetime spent as a moral philosopher, political activist, and social reformer.

According to Aristotle, the ultimate human good is eudaimonia, an ancient Greek word that can be translated as happiness, or flourishing. Eudaimonia comes from a life of virtuous (or good) action. Virtues such as justice, restraint, and practical wisdom cannot simply be taught - they must be developed over time by cultivating virtuous habits. The making of virtuous choices can be developed by using practical wisdom and by recognizing the desirable middle ground between extremes of human behavior.

Because the potential returns appear to be greater in poorer countries than in the developed world, modern economic theory implies that rich countries should continually invest in poor countries until returns balance out. In fact, this doesn't happen. Economist Robert E. Lucas Jr. asks why in his groundbreaking 1990 article, "Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?" The question has become known as the Lucas paradox. Lucas analyzes this, focusing especially on the role of human capital.

Examining 1,200 years of history from the foundation of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire to the beheading of King Charles I in England is in itself a mammoth undertaking. But it is the issues explored by German American historian Ernst H. Kantorowicz in his 1957 study The King's Two Bodies that have had a profound effect on the way academics think about the study of history.