Few would question the truism that humankind is the crowning achievement of evolution; that the defining thrust of life's history yields progress over time from the primitive and simple to the more advanced and complex; that the disappearance of .400 hitting in baseball is a fact to be bemoaned; or that identifying an existing trend can be helpful in making important life decis...(展开全部)

Gould shows why a more accurate way of understanding our world is to look at a given subject within its own context, to see it as a part of a spectrum of variation and then to reconceptualize trends as expansion or contraction of this "full house" of variation, and not as the progress or degeneration of an average value, or single thing.

“Peter Szendy offers a subtle, persuasive, and unprecedented account of the time of reading and its scene of address, one that is as archaic as it is contemporary. When we read, are we listening to a voice or being read to? If it is not a private and monologic exercise, how do we understand the populated scene of reading? What reads when we read, and how does reading push and p...(展开全部)

Melancholia is wrongly condemned as a condition of withdrawal and despair that alienates its sufferer from community. Countering that misconception, A Politics of Melancholia reclaims an understanding of melancholia not as an affliction in need of a remedy but as an affirmative stance toward decay and ruination in political life, and restores the melancholic figure—by turns inv...(展开全部)

Melancholia is wrongly condemned as a condition of withdrawal and despair that alienates its sufferer from community. Countering that misconception, A Politics of Melancholia reclaims an understanding of melancholia not as an affliction in need of a remedy but as an affirmative stance toward decay and ruination in political life, and restores the melancholic figure—by turns inv...(展开全部)

约翰·麦克莱兰(John S.McClelland)，英国政治学家，曾在英美几所大学执教，著有《西方政治思想史》、《群众与暴民：从柏拉图到卡内蒂》、《法国的右派》等。其《西方政治思想史》已推出中文简、繁两种版本，在中国知识界、思想界享有盛誉。

约翰·麦克莱兰(John S.McClelland)，英国政治学家，曾在英美几所大学执教，著有《西方政治思想史》、《群众与暴民：从柏拉图到卡内蒂》、《法国的右派》等。其《西方政治思想史》已推出中文简、繁两种版本，在中国知识界、思想界享有盛誉。

戴维•格雷斯（David Gress），丹麦著名历史学家。1998年出版著作《西方的敌与我：从柏拉图到北约》，全面检视西方的身份认同与宏大叙事，并因此闻名于西方学术界。 格雷斯先后在斯坦福大学胡佛研究所、剑桥大学冈维尔与凯斯学院担任研究员或访问学者，并在丹麦奥胡斯大学、美国波士顿大学讲授西方文明史与古典文化，期间，对国际战略、美国外交政策、北欧政治等均深有研究；目前担任丹麦国际事务研究所研究员、美国费城外交事务研究所美国与西方研究中心主任，同时也是著名智库——丹麦政策研究中心的高级研究员；持续关注西方政治哲学、西方繁荣的起源、当代史、政治文化等，发表、出版了相关论文与著作。

An in-depth intellectual history of the Western idea and a passionate defense of its importance to America's future, "From Plato to NATO" is the first book to make sense of the legacy of the West at a time when it is facing its greatest challenges. Readers of Francis Fukuyama, John Gray, Samuel Huntington, and other analysts of the dilemmas of Western nations in the twenty-firs...(展开全部)