This book consists of three parts, “Background”, “Close-up” and “Perspective”. The first part is a survey of the developments which led to the foundation of the State of Israel. It lays no claim to historical completeness and is written from a specific angle which stresses the part played by irrational forces and emotive bias in history. I am not sure whether this emphasis has not occasionally resulted in over-emphasis—as is almost inevitable when one tries to redress a balance by spot-lighting aspects which are currently neglected. But it was certainly not my intention, by underlining the psychological factor, to deny or minimize the importance of the politico-economic forces. My aim was rather to present, if I may borrow a current medical term, a “psycho-somatic” view of one of the most curious episodes in modern history. The second part, “Close-up”, is meant to give the reader a close and coloured, but not I hope technicoloured, view of the Jewish war and of everyday life in the new State. It opens and ends with extracts from the diary of my last sojourn as a war correspondent in Israel. The emphasis here is on life in the towns, with only occasional glimpses of the collective settlements, since I have given a detailed description of these in an earlier book. The third part, “Perspective”, is an attempt to present to the reader a comprehensive survey of the social and political structure, the cultural trends and future prospects of the Jewish State.

Arthur Koestler, best known for his world-famous novel Darkness at Noon, stands as a cultural beacon in the post-1945 world. Along with Sartre, Camus and Orwell, he helped to shape the ideas of today. This major reassessment, based on groundbreaking and comprehensive research, sets Koestler's life and thoughts against the tumultuous century he chronicled and explores fully for the first time the continuing drama of his private life as a lover, a husband and a Jew. David Cesarani paints an explosive portrait of Koestler that bridges the gulf separating public and private life, contrasting the work of a genius against the backdrop of his tormented soul and brutal private life. In England, Cesarani's revelations led to the removal of Koestler's bust at the University of Edinburgh, so strong were the feelings roused by his dissection of Koestler as a thinker and as a man. A central European Jew born in 1905, Koestler was molded by his times. Uprooted by war and revolution and hounded by prejudice, he struggled to make sense of a world on the edge of apocalypse. His search for meaning, identity and belonging swept him up in the raging ideological torrents of his times -- Zionism, Communism, anti-Communism and both hard scientific and esoteric mystical pursuits -- and culminated in an idiosyncratic and deeply personal ideological position that has confused and eluded critics and commentators. Equally restless in his personal relationships, Koestler made and broke friendships and marriages. His violent affairs with women were legendary, but until now the shocking details of his private life were hidden from view by loyal friends and obscured by the Olympian prose of his autobiographicalwriting. Cesarani is the first to make unrestricted use of Koestler's private papers. He also draws on previously secret documents held by the KGB and FBI, which expose the depth of Koestler's involvement in the Communist Party and, later, his relations with the CIA. Once a Communist, Koestler eventually rejected Marxism and led the intellectual counterattack that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. His speculations on human nature and the future of mankind in the atomic age were stamped upon a generation that lived in the shadow of the bomb. But alongside his brilliance and charm was a darker side, fully plumbed here for the first time, which led ultimately to the tragic dual suicide with his third wife, Cynthia, in 1983. With Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind David Cesarani has ensured Koestler's place in the pantheon of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century as surely as his forceful, provocative and groundbreaking study is guaranteed to reignite the controversy that swirled around Koestler in his life and his death, in his work and his actions.

Reflections on Hanging is a searing indictment of capital punishment, inspired by its author’s own time in the shadow of a firing squad. During the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler was held by the Franco regime as a political prisoner, and condemned to death. He was freed, but only after months of witnessing the fates of less-fortunate inmates. That experience informs every page of the book, which was first published in England in 1956, and followed in 1957 by this American edition. As Koestler ranges across the history of capital punishment in Britain (with a focus on hanging), he looks at notable cases and rulings, and portrays politicians, judges, lawyers, scholars, clergymen, doctors, police, jailers, prisoners, and others involved in the long debate over the justness and effectiveness of the death penalty. In Britain, Reflections on Hanging was part of a concerted, ultimately successful effort to abolish the death penalty. At that time, in the forty-eight United States, capital punishment was sanctioned in forty-two of them, with hanging still practiced in five. This edition includes a preface and afterword written especially for the 1957 American edition. The preface makes the book relevant to readers in the U.S.; the afterword overviews the modern-day history of abolitionist legislation in the British Parliament. Reflections on Hanging is relentless, biting, and unsparing in its details of botched and unjust executions. It is a classic work of advocacy for some of society’s most defenseless members, a critique of capital punishment that is still widely cited, and an enduring work that presaged such contemporary problems as the sensationalism of crime, the wrongful condemnation of the innocent and mentally ill, the callousness of penal systems, and the use of fear to control a citizenry.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The author advances the theory that all creative activities have a basic pattern in common, which he attempts to define.

The author examines recent developments in parapsychological research and explains their implications for physicists