The recognition of animal pain and stress, once controversial, is now acknowledged by legislation in many countries, but there is no formal recognition of animals' ability to feel pleasure. Pleasurable Kingdom is the first book for lay-readers to present new evidence that animals--like humans--enjoy themselves. It debunks the popular perception that life for most is a continuous, grim struggle for survival and the avoidance of pain. Instead it suggests that creatures from birds to baboons feel good thanks to play, sex, touch, food, anticipation, comfort, aesthetics, and more. Combining rigorous evidence, elegant argument and amusing anecdotes, leading animal behavior researcher Jonathan Balcombe proposes that the possibility of positive feelings in creatures other than humans has important ethical ramifications for both science and society.

Nature's Second Kingdom charts the concepts and practices of eighteenth-century discourses on 'vegetality, ' the 'whatever it is' which is peculiar to plants."

What is true faith? In The Power of Kingdom Faith, Dr. Myles Munroe strips away the common errors and misconceptions surrounding faith to reveal the nature, character, and power of true faith, or, Kingdom faith. Kingdom faith trusts not in the promises of God but in the God who promises; seeks not the blessings of God, but the God who blesses. Kingdom faith will always be tested, but because it places its trust in the King of the universe, will always prevail under testing. Kingdom faith, therefore is a triumphant faith that will overcome the world.

An all-inclusive catalogue of the world's living diversity, Five Kingdoms defines and describes the major divisions, or phyla, of nature's five great kingdoms - bacteria, protoctists, animals, fungi, and plants - using a modern classification scheme that is consistent with both the fossil record and molecular data. Generously illustrated and remarkably easy to follow, it not only allows readers to sample the full range of life forms inhabiting our planet but to familiarize themselves with the taxonomic theories by which all organisms' origins and distinctive characteristics are traced and classified.

In a tour-de-force reinterpretation of the Christian tradition, Agamben shows that the Garden of Eden has always served as a symbol for humanity's true nature. What happened to paradise after Adam and Eve were expelled? The question may sound like a theological quibble, or even a joke, but in The Kingdom and the Garden, Giorgio Agamben uses it as a starting point for an investigation of human nature and the prospects for political transformation. In a tour-de-force reinterpretation of the Christian tradition, Agamben shows that the Garden of Eden has always served as a symbol of humanity's true nature. Where earlier theologians viewed the expulsion as temporary, Augustine's doctrine of original sin makes it permanent, reimagining humanity as the paradoxical creature that has been completely alienated from its own nature. From this perspective, there can be no return to paradise, only the hope for the messianic kingdom. Yet there have always been thinkers who rebelled against this idea, and Agamben highlights two major examples. The first is the early medieval philosopher John Scotus Eriugena, who argued for a radical unity of humanity with all living things. The second is Dante, whose vision of the earthly paradise points towards the possibility of genuine human happiness in this world. In place of the messianic kingdom, which has provided the model for modern revolutionary movements, Agamben contends that we should place our hopes for political change in a return to our origins, by reclaiming the earthly paradise.