This book traces the trajectory of John J. McDermott's philosophical career through a selection of his essays. Many were originally occasional pieces... and address specific issues in American thought and culture. Together they constitute a mosaic of McDermott's philosophy, showing its roots in an American conception of experience. Though he draws heavily on the thought of William James and the pragmatists, McDermott has his own unique perspective on philosophy and American life. He presents this to the reader in exquisitely crafted prose. Drawing inspiration from American history, from existentialist themes, and from personal experiences, he offers a dramatic consideration of our culture's failures and successes.McDermott crosses disciplinary boundaries to draw on whatever works to help make sense of theissues with which he is dealing-issues rooted in medical practice, political events, pedagogical habits, and the worlds of the arts. His work thus resists simple categorization. It is precisely this that makes his vibrant prose appealing to so many both inside and outside the world of American philosophy.

Philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God have been crucial to Euro-American and South Asian philosophers for over a millennium.... Critical to the history of philosophy in India, were the centuries-long arguments between Buddhist and Hindu philosophers about the existence of a God-like being called Isvara and the religious epistemology used to support them. By focusing on the work of Ratnakirti, one of the last great Buddhist philosophers of India, and his arguments against his Hindu opponents, Parimal G. Patil illuminates South Asian intellectual practices and the nature of philosophy during the final phase of Buddhism in India.Based at the famous university of Vikramasila, Ratnakirti brought the full range of Buddhist philosophical resources to bear on his critique of his Hindu opponents' cosmological/design argument. At stake in his critique was nothing less than the nature of inferential reasoning, the metaphysics of epistemology, and the relevance of philosophy to the practice of religion. In developing a proper comparative approach to the philosophy of religion, Patil transcends the disciplinary boundaries of religious studies, philosophy, and South Asian studies and applies the remarkable work of philosophers like Ratnakirti to contemporary issues in philosophy and religion.

THE EXPLOSIVE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER With all-new excerpts from Richard Clarke's dramatic public testimony, and revealing corroboration from The 9/11... Commission Report From the 9/11 Commission Report: "On the day of the meeting [September 4, 2001], Clarke sent Rice an impassioned personal note. He criticized U.S. counterterrorism efforts past and present. The 'real question' before the principals, he wrote, was 'are we serious about dealing with the al Qida threat?...Is al Qida a big deal?...Decision makers should imagine themselves on a future day when the CSG has not succeeded in stopping al Qida attacks and hundreds of Americans lay dead in several countries, including the US,' Clarke wrote. 'What would those decision makers wish that they had done earlier? That future day could happen at any time.'"

In a series of bold, unsparing polemics, A C Grayling exposes the dangerous unreason he sees at the heart of religious faith and highlights the urgent... need we have to reject it in all its forms, without compromise. In its place he argues for a set of values based on reason, reflection, and sympathy, taking his cue from the great ethical tradition of Western philosophy.

Against All Hope is Armando Valladares' account of over twenty years in Fidel Castro's tropical gulag. Arrested in 1960 for being philosophically and... religiously opposed to communism, Valladares was not released until 1982, by which time he had become one of the world's most celebrated "prisoners of conscience." Interned all those years at the infamous Isla de Pinos prison (from whose windows he watched the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion), Valladares suffered endless days of violence, putrid food and squalid living conditions, while listening to Castro's firing squads eliminating "counter revolutionaries" in the courtyard below his cell. Valladares survived by prayer and by writing poetry whose publication in Europe brought his case to the attention of international figures such as French President Francois Mitterand and to human rights organizations whose constant pressure on the Castro regime finally led to his release.

AGAINST ALL ODDS uses semantic groupings of idioms and interactive activities to help students develop their abilities to speak and understand authentic... English. Every effort has been made to include idioms that students will find useful in their everyday lives and will often encounter in conversation with native English speakers. The number of idioms per chapter has purposely been limited to 15 - 17 so that students can truly acquire them for active use.

This book offers both a wide range of critical perspectives from around the world, and substantial responses to them. It represents the first attempt to... engage in print with the controversies and complexities that have exercised - sometimes painfully - the therapy and counseling world, as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has risen to such cultural prominence as Western governments take a serious interest in the psychological therapies as instruments of public policy-making."Against and For CBT" will be essential reading for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and counselors of each and every approach who are concerned with understanding the phenomenon that is 'CBT and its discontents'. It will be core reading both on IAPT/CBT and contrasting modality training courses that wish to encourage critical engagement with the meaning and cultural context of therapeutic help in the modern world.Professor Andrew Samuels writes: 'This welcome new collection - provides us with many cogent and convincing arguments for, at the very least, questioning the epistemological underpinnings and the methodological validity of the 'evidence-based' ideology in which CBT and its supporters have become accustomed to basking - This splendid new book - promises to open up a crucial and long-overdue dialogue, and introduce the associated 'battle for the soul' of therapy work itself'. Professor Stephen Palmer writes: 'CBT is constantly developing , aquiring and integrating new ideas, many underpinned by research, and adapting to the requirements of the day. Unlike some approaches, it is not moribund, nor held back by dogma. Its commonsense, pragmatic approach will continue to have wide appeal, regardless of how it is viewed within the counseling and psychotherapy professions.

Typically the gains in living standards and political rights of Europeans are presented as flowing from the good graces of industrial capitalism. In... reality, as this book proves, it was the massive, militant struggle of millions of average persons who forced concessions such as the welfare state and free elections to Parliament. Without understanding the revolutionary vision and the pressure it placed on European rulers, it is difficult to understand contemporary society.

“Read it and you will never think of civilization in the same way again.”—Kirkpatrick SaleThis anthology about "the pathology of civilization"... offers insight into how progress and technology have led to emptiness and alienation.

The phrase "teaching for social justice" is often used, but not always explained. What does it really mean to teach for social justice? What are the... implications for anti-oppressive teaching across different areas of the curriculum? Drawing on his own experiences teaching diverse grades and subjects, Kevin Kumashiro examines various aspects of anti-oppressive teaching and learning in six different subject areas. Connecting practice to theory through new pedagogical elements, the revised edition of this bestselling text features: A new and timely preface that considers the possibilities of anti-oppressive teaching and teaching for social justice in the face of increasing pressure from both the Right and the Left to accept neoliberal school reform policies. End of chapter questions that enhance comprehension of arguments, help concretize abstract ideas into classroom practice, and encourage critique. A sampling of print and online resources that will inspire students to further their social justice education The new pedagogical components of the revised edition will offer K-12 teachers and teacher educators the tools they need to teach against their common sense assumptions and continue the evolution of social justice in education.

"The focus of any genuinely new piece of criticism or interpretation must be on the creative act of finding the new, but deconstruction puts the matter... the other way around: its emphasis is on debunking the old. But aside from the fact that this program is inherently uninteresting, it is, in fact, not at all clear that it is possible. . . . [T]he naïvetê of the crowd is deconstruction's very starting point, and its subsequent move is as much an emotional as an intellectual leap to a position that feels different as much in the one way as the other. . . ." --From the book

In Against Empire, Zillah Eisenstein extends her critique of neoliberal globalization. Faced with an aggressive American empire hostage to ideological... extremism and violently promoting the narrowest of interests, she looks to a global anti-war movement to counter US power. Moving beyond the distortions of mainstream history, she detects the silencing of racialized, sex/gendered and classed ways of seeing. Eisenstein insists that the so-called West is as much fiction as reality, while the sexualized black slave trade emerges as an early form of globalization. Plural understandings of feminisms as other-than-western are needed. Black America, India, the Islamic world and Africa envision unique conceptions of what it is to be fully, polyversally, human. Hope for a more peaceful, just and happier world lies, she believes, in the understandings and activism of women today.

While what feels like the entirety of the gay and lesbian movement in unison towards some vague notion of equality, the Against Equality collective has... been quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion. The pocket-sized book of archival texts lays out some of the historical foundations of queer resistance to the gay marriage mainstream alongside more contemporary inter-subjective critiques that deal directly with issues of race, class, gender, citizenship, age, ability, and more. In portable book form, the critical conversations that are happening so readily on the internet will no longer be withheld from those with little to no online access like queer and trans-prisoners, people of low income, rural folks and the technologically challenged.

This landmark anthology, the first of its kind, takes it impulse from the words of Bertolt Brecht: "In these dark times, will there also be singing? /... Yes, there will be singing. / About the dark times."Bearing witness to extremity—whether of war, torture, exile, or repression—the volume encompasses more than 140 poets from five continents, over the span of this century from the Armenian genocide to Tiananmen Square.