You will love this self-help manual by the wise writer Seneca. Learn how to be a firm and tough "wise man," and disregard other people's comments and insults. This informative and engaging how-to book tells all about Stoicism.

A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces the original best and brightest, leaders whose outsized personalities and actions brought order to postwar chaos: Averell Harriman, the freewheeling diplomat and Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and Stalin; Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than General Marshall; George Kennan, self-cast outsider and intellectual darling of the Washington elite; Robert Lovett, assistant secretary of war, undersecretary of state, and secretary of defense throughout the formative years of the Cold War; John McCloy, one of the nation's most influential private citizens; and Charles Bohlen, adroit diplomat and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Seneca (c. 4 BC - AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist.In this essay, Seneca wonders why, when a providence exists, any misfortunes befall good men.Extract:Why do many things turn out badly for good men? Why, no evil can befall a good man; contraries cannot combine. Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from the clouds, such a number of medicinal springs, do not alter the taste of the sea, indeed, do not so much as soften it, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of a brave man; for the mind of a brave man maintains its balance and throws its own complexion over all that takes place, because it is more powerful than any external circumstances.

The Dialogues were an important medium for the spreading of Greek philosophical theories to the Roman world and to subsequent ages. This selection is of complete, not excerpted, dialogues. The commentary concentrates on subject matter and the philosophical ideas informing the treatises, though help is also given where needed on grammatical and lexical points. The four chosen dialogues give a fair idea of the range of Seneca's philosophical interests and of his didactic techniques. This is the first serious commentary in English on any of Seneca's Dialogues since Duff (1915). Latin text with facing translation, commentary and notes.

In The Security Principle, French philosopher Frdric Gros takes a historical approach to the concept of "security", looking at its evolution from the Stoics to the social network. With lucidity and rigour, Gros's approach is fourfold, looking at security as a mental state, as developed by the Greeks; as an objective situation and absence of all danger, as prevailed in the Middle Ages; as guaranteed by the nation state and its trio of judiciary, police and military; and finally "biosecurity", control, regulation and protection in the flux of contemporary society. In this deeply thought-provoking account, Gros's exploration of security shines a light both on its past meanings as well as its present uses, exposing the contemporary abuses of security and the pervasiveness of it in everyday life in the Global North.

Seneca's Dialogues?as his epistolary essays have traditionally been known? capture the full range of the Roman thinker's philosophical interests, in particular Stoicism and his unique interpretation of it. Seneca's writings on subjects such as the shortness of life, anger, tranquility of mind, and consolations for grief on the loss of a loved one, are strikingly applicable to our modern world. The Complete Dialogues are collected here: On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae), Of a Happy Life (De Vita Beata), Of Providence (De Providentia), On the Firmness of the Wise Man (De Constantia Sapientis), Of Anger (De Ira), Of Leisure (De Otio), Of Peace of Mind (De Tranquillitate Animi) and Of Clemency (De Clementia).