Business and the businessman have had a fundamental place in American society since the inception of the nation. This tenet, the ‘gospel of wealth’, is a central concern in the novels of Theodore Dreiser and his contemporaries. First published in 1987, this study sets this group of writers in their historical context and shows how they elaborated the idea of wealth as an object of quasi-religious quest. What had previously been associated with disease and darkness, avarice and dishonour, now came to emblematise the virtues of thrift, prudence and diligence. The underlying argument is that the dominant group of a society legitimises its power through the appropriation of the vocabulary of religion, and the American business leaders were successful in doing this both in their own practice and through the more insidious medium of art. A detailed analysis, this reissue will be of particular value to students of American literature with an interest in the relationship between linguistic symbols and social order, and historical attitudes towards wealth in literature.

Theodore Dreiser is one of the most penetrating observers of the greatest period of social change the United States ever saw. Writing as America emerged as the world's wealthiest nation, Dreiser chronicled industrial and economic transformation and the birth of consumerism with an unmatched combination of detail, sympathy, and power. The specially commissioned essays collected in this volume are written by a leading team of scholars of American literature and culture. They establish parameters for both scholarly and classroom discussion of Dreiser. This Companion provides fresh perspectives on the frequently read classics, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, as well as on topics of perennial interest, such as Dreiser's representation of the city and his prose style. The volume investigates topics such as his representation of masculinity and femininity, and his treatment of ethnicity. It is the most comprehensive introduction to Dreiser's work available.

How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.

First published in 1979, this is a very welcome reissue of Kathleen Raine's seminal study of William Blake - England’s only prophet. He challenged with extraordinary vigour the premises which now underline much of Western civilization, hitting hard at the ideas of a naive materialist philosophy which, even in his own day, was already eating at the roots of English national life. In his insistence that ‘mental things are alone real’, Blake was ahead of his time. Materialist views are now challenged from various quarters; the depth psychologies of Freud and Jung, the study of Far Easter religion and philosophy, the reappraisal of myth and folk lore, the wealth of psychical research have all prepared the way for an understanding of Blake’s thought. We are ready to acknowledge that in attacking ‘the sickness of Albion’ Blake penetrated to the inner worlds of man and explored them in a way that is quite unique. Dr Raine, who has made a long study of Blake’s sources, presents him as a lonely powerful genius who stands within the spiritual tradition of Sophia Perennis, ‘the Everlasting Gospel’. From the standpoint of this great human Norm, our immediate past described by W.B. Yeats as ‘the three provincial centuries’, is a tragic deviation; catastrophic, as Blake believed, in its spiritual and material consequences. Only now do we possess the necessary knowledge to understand William Blake and the ever-growing number of people who turn to him surely justifies his faith in the eternal truths he strove to communicate.

The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions, basing itself on the presumption that (a) nobody can understand themselves apart from some recognition of their spiritual roots, and (b) that these roots sink deeper into the pages of the Bible than most Westerners realize. Focusing upon that part of the Bible most widely recognized to be its ideological core--that which is called Torah by some, Pentateuch by others--it interprets this "great text" against other "great texts" in its literary-historical environment, including (a) some epic poems from Mesopotamia, (b) some Jewish texts from Syria-Palestine, and (c) some Nazarene parables from the Greek New Testament.