When precisely did the ideas, symbols and metaphors of patriarchy take hold of Western civilization? When were women, so central to the creation of society, moved on to the sidelines? Where is the evidence to support the notion that male dominance over women is a natural state of things? Gerda Lerner's radical review of Western civilization shows that male dominance over women ...(展开全部)

Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

In these widely praised essays, Calvino reflects on literature as process, the great narrative game in the course of which writer and reader are challenged to understand the world. Calvino himself made the selection of pieces to be included in this volume. Translated by Patrick Creagh. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

What is literature? What is the quality in a text that leads a reader to call it 'literary'? What is the 'certain way' of reading that calls into being the literary potential of a text? Why have we been unable to definitively answer these questions, and where does that leave us? Derek Attridge argues that the impossibility of definition leaves us at a beginning. From the point ...(展开全部)

Maurice Blanchot, the eminent literary and cultural critic, has had a vast influence on contemporary French writers - among them are Jean Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida. From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness. "The Space of Literature", first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of B...(展开全部)

What is literature? What is the quality in a text that leads a reader to call it 'literary'? What is the 'certain way' of reading that calls into being the literary potential of a text? Why have we been unable to definitively answer these questions, and where does that leave us? Derek Attridge argues that the impossibility of definition leaves us at a beginning. From the point ...(展开全部)

The Iliad and Beowulf provide rich sources of historical information. The novels of Henry Fielding and Henry James may be instructive in the art of moral living. Some go further and argue that Emile Zola and Harriet Beecher Stowe played a part in ameliorating the lives of those existing in harsh circumstances. However, as Derek Attridge argues in this outstanding and acclaimed ...(展开全部)

In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sell...(展开全部)