Shifting perspective from the thematic approach of intellectual history to a more eclectic cultural criticism, Nash introduces a refreshing means to understanding both the figures of the wild man and the citizen of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century.

Madness, murder and obsession: a stylishly original and fantastical collection of stories from an iconic Japanese writer A collection of the 7 essential Akutagawa short stories, in a vivid and elegant translation – the perfect introduction to this master of prose “A born short-story writer. . . one never tires of reading and re-reading his best works” – Haruki Murukami From a nobleman's court, to the garden of paradise, to a lantern festival in Tokyo, these 7 shrot stories offer dazzling glimpses into moments of madness, murder and obsession. A talented yet spiteful painter is given over to depravity in pursuit of artistic brilliance. In the depth of hell, a robber spies a single spider's thread being lowered towards him. When a body is found in an isolated bamboo grove, a kaleidoscopic account of violence and desire begins to unfold. These are short stories from an unparalleled master of the form. Sublimely crafted and stylishly original, Akutagawa's writing is shot through with a fantastical sensibility. This collection, in a vivid translation by Bryan Karetnyk, brings together the most essential works from this iconic Japanese writer. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: outstanding classic storytelling from around the world, in a stylishly original series design. From newly rediscovered gems to fresh translations of the world’s greatest authors, this series includes such authors as Stefan Zweig, Hermann Hesse, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and Gaito Gazdanov.

Thaddeus Golas is a lazy man. Laziness keeps him from believing that enlightenment demands effort, discipline, strict diet, non-smoking and other evidences of virtue. He found a way to enlighten himself - and you - with two sentences. The first is We are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other. The second? The universe is made of one kind of entity; each one is alive, each determines the course of his own existence. If you remember this, that's all you really need to know to understand this book. Originally published in 1972, and in print for 15 years, THE LAZY MAN'S GUIDE TO ENLIGHTNMENT teaches you, amongst other things, how to feel good.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

Language is integral to our social being. But what is the status of those who stand outside of language? The mentally disabled, "wild" children, people with autism and other neurological disorders, as well as animals, infants, angels, and artificial intelligences, have all engaged with language from a position at its borders. In the intricate verbal constructions of modern literature, the "disarticulate", those at the edges of language, have, paradoxically, played essential, defining roles. Drawing on the disarticulate figures in modern fictional works such as Billy Budd, The Sound and the Fury, Nightwood, White Noise, and The Echo Maker, among others, the author shows in this study how these characters mark sites at which aesthetic, philosophical, ethical, political, medical, and scientific discourses converge. It is also the place of the greatest ethical tension, as society confronts the needs and desires of the least of its brothers. Here the author argues that the disarticulate is that which is unaccountable in the discourses of modernity and thus stands as an alternative to the prevailing social order. Using literary history and theory, as well as disability and trauma theory, he examines how these disarticulate figures reveal modernity's anxieties in terms of how it constructs its others. -- From publisher's website.

CD-ROM includes: Demonstration version of PowerQuest's PartitionMagic software -- Version of LaTeX for multiple OSs -- Filesystem drivers for many OSs -- GNU utilities and tools -- GUI utilities for Windows and OS/2 -- XFree86 for OS/2 -- VNC for Windows, Linux, and OS/2 -- VMware for Linux and Windows NT.

"The Enlightenment has been represented in radically opposing ways: on the one hand, as the throwing off of the chains of superstition, custom, and usurped authority; on the other hand, in the Romantic period, but also more recently, as what Michel Foucault termed "the great confinement," in which "mind-forged manacles" imprison the free and irrational spirit. The debate about the "Enlightenment project" remains a topical one, which can still arouse fierce passions. This collection of essays by distinguished scholars from various disciplines addresses the central question: "Was Enlightenment a force for emancipation?" Their responses, working from within, and frequently across the disciplinary lines of history, political science, economics, music, literature, aesthetics, art history, and film, reveal unsuspected connections and divergences even between well-known figures and texts. In their turn, the essays suggest the need for further inquiry in areas that turn out to be very far from closed. The volume considers major writings in unusual juxtaposition; highlights new figures of importance; and demonstrates familiar texts to embody strange implications."--Publisher's website.