History Ebooks

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:18:54 -0500

History Ebooks - Law and Empire in Late Antiquity by Jill Harries. This is the first systematic treatment in English by an historian of the nature, aims and efficacy of public law in late imperial Roman society from the third to the fifth century AD. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, and using the writings of lawyers and legal anthropologists, as well as those of historians, the book offers new interpretations of central questions: What was the law of late antiquity? How efficacious was late Roman law? What were contemporary attitudes to pain, and the function of punishment? Was the judicial system corrupt? How were disputes settled? Law is analysed as an evolving discipline, within a framework of principles by which even the emperor was bound. While law, through its language, was an expression of imperial power, it was also a means of communication between emperor and subject, and was used by citizens, poor as well as rich, to serve their own ends. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=49462

History Ebooks

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:18:12 -0500

History Ebooks - Theatre, Finance and Society in Early Modern England by Theodore B. Leinwand. This innovative study examines emotional responses to socio-economic pressures in early modern England, as they are revealed in plays, historical narratives and biographical accounts of the period. These texts yield fascinating insights into the various, often unpredictable, ways in which people coped with the exigencies of credit, debt, mortgaging and capital ventures. Plays discussed include Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Timon of Athens, Jonson's The Alchemist and Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts. They are paired with writings by and about the finances of the corrupt Earl of Suffolk, the privateer Walter Ralegh, the royal agent Thomas Gresham, theatre entrepreneur James Burbage, and the Lord Treasurer Lionel Cranfield. Leinwand's new readings of these texts reveal a blend of affect and cognition concerning finance that includes nostalgia, anger, contempt, embarrassment, tenacity, bravado and humility. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=118890

History Ebooks

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:17:02 -0500

History Ebooks - Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness by Pierre Keller. In Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness, Pierre Keller examines Kant's theory of self-consciousness and argues that it succeeds in explaining how both subjective and objective experience are possible. Previous interpretations of Kant's theory have held that he treats all self-consciousness as knowledge of objective states of affairs, and also that self-consciousness can be interpreted as knowledge of personal identity. By developing this striking new interpretation Keller is able to argue that transcendental self-consciousness underwrites a general theory of objectivity and subjectivity at the same time. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=47651

History Ebooks

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:54:12 -0500

History Ebooks - Middlemen of the Cameroons Rivers. The Duala people entered the international scene as merchant-brokers for precolonial trade in ivory, slaves and palm products. Under colonial rule they used the advantages gained from earlier riverain trade to develop cocoa plantations and provide their children with exceptional levels of European education. At the same time they came into early conflict with both German and French regimes and played a leading - if ultimately unsuccessful - role in anti-colonial politics. In tracing these changing economic and political roles, this book also examines the growing consciousness of the Duala as an ethnic group and uses their history to shed new light on the history of 'middleman' communities in surrounding regions of West and Central Africa. The authors draw upon a wide range of written and oral sources, including indigenous accounts of the past conflicting with their own findings but illuminate local conceptions of social hierarchy and their relationship to spiritual beliefs. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=56506

History Ebooks

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:53:27 -0500

History Ebooks - The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School by Voula Tsouna. The Cyrenaic school was a fourth-century BC philosophical movement, related both to the Socratic tradition and to Greek Scepticism. In ethics, Cyrenaic hedonism can be seen as one of many attempts made by the associates of Socrates and their followers to endorse his ethical outlook and to explore the implications of his method. In epistemology, there are close philosophical links between the Cyrenaics and the Sceptics, both Pyrrhonists and Academics. There are further links with modern philosophy as well, for the Cyrenaics introduced a form of subjectivism which in some ways preannounces Cartesian views, endorsed by Malebranche and Hume and developed by Kant. This book reconstructs Cyrenaic epistemology, explains how it depends on Cyrenaic hedonism, locates it in the context of ancient debates, and discusses its connections with modern and contemporary epistemological positions. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=98531

History Ebooks

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:52:19 -0500

History Ebooks - Descartes: The World and Other Writings by Reni Descartes. Descartes' The World offers the most comprehensive vision of the nature of the world since Aristotle, and is crucial for an understanding of his later writings, in particular the Meditations and Principles of Philosophy. Above all, it provides an insight into how Descartes conceived of natural philosophy before he started to reformulate his doctrines in terms of a sceptically driven epistemology. Of its two parts, the Treatise on Light introduced the first comprehensive, quantitative version of a mechanistic natural philosophy, supplying a theory of matter, a physical optics, and a cosmology. The Treatise on Man provided the first comprehensive mechanist physiology. This volume also includes translations of material important for an understanding of the work: related sections from the Dioptrics and the Meteors, and the first English translation of the complete text of The Description of the Human Body. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=23819

History Ebooks

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:50:59 -0500

History Ebooks - Giordano Bruno: Cause, Principle and Unity by Giordano Bruno. Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=35903

History Ebooks

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:40:30 -0500

History Ebooks - Peace in the Post-Reformation by John Bossy. Christians are supposed to love their neighbours, including their enemies. This is never easy. When feud and honour are common realities, it is even harder than usual. This book sketches the history of peace-making between people (not countries) as an activity of churches or of Christianity between the Reformation and the eighteenth century. The story is recounted in four countries (Italy, France, Germany, and England) and in several religious settings (including Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Church of England, and Calvinist). Each version is a variation upon a theme: what the author calls a 'moral tradition' which contrasts, as a continuing imperative, with the novelties of theory and practice introduced by the sixteenth-century reformers. In general the topic has much to say about the destinies of Christianity in each country, and more widely, and strikes a chord which will resonate in both the social and the religious history of the West. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=64761

History Ebooks

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:39:47 -0500

History Ebooks - Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century by Joel Kaye. This book provides new perspectives on the ways in which scholastic natural philosophy anticipated and contributed to the emergence of scientific thought. Historians of medieval science have hesitated to step outside the sphere of intellectual culture in their search for factors influencing proto-scientific thought. This book searches for influences both within and beyond university culture, and argues that the transformation of the conceptual model of the natural world c.1260-1380 was strongly influenced by the contemporary rapid monetisation of European society. It analyses the impact of the monetised market place on the most characteristic concern of natural philosophy of the period: its preoccupation with measurement, gradation, and the quantification of qualities. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=27159

History Ebooks

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:38:27 -0500

History Ebooks - Cambridge Companion to Old Eng Lit. This book introduces students to the literature of Anglo-Saxon England, the period from 600 1066, in a collection of fifteen specially commissioned essays. The Companion is aimed at students encountering Old English literature for the first time, who require clear guidance and orientation in an unfamiliar field. The first chapters describe briefly the political, social and ecclesiastical history of the period and how poetry and prose developed and flourished. A succinct account of Old English language provides beginners with a guide to grammar, syntax and vocabulary. Subsequent chapters explore such topics as Germanic legend and heroic ideals, paganism and fatalism, the cult of saints and responses to the Bible. Important prose texts, such as those by Bede, Alfred, Aelfric and Wulfstan, are covered under these thematic headings. Poems such as The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer, The Seafarer and The Dream of the Rood, are discussed in detail, but in association with related texts, in prose as well as poetry. A separate chapter is devoted to Beowulf, but aspects of the poem are also discussed in other chapters. Finally a bibliography lists essential editions, reference works and critical studies. Purchase At: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=14739