This reading of Milton juxtaposes the poet's theology and Freud's account of the Oedipus complex in ways that yield both new understanding of Milton and a model for psychoanalytic interpretation of literature. The book ranges widely through the art and life of Milton, including extensive discussions of his theological irregularities and the significance, medical and symbolic, he assigned to his blindness. Kerrigan analyzes the oedipal aspect of Milton's religion; examines the nature of the Miltonic godhead; studies Milton's analogies linking human, angelic, and cosmic bodies; and explores Milton's symbolism of home. In a commanding demonstration, Kerrigan delineates how the great epic and the psyche of its author bestow meaning on each other.

Joe Kaye was an American poet, philosopher, schoolteacher, and author of 11 books. Born in New York City, Joe taught in New York, Hawaii, and Michigan. In Hawaii, he started writing and by the age of 25 he published his first manuscript. He later moved to Michigan and then to Wisconsin, where he developed a tumor which began to give him delusions. His delusions led him to construct a giant labyrinth on a tropical island. He also had an obsession with looking for a message he believed he had left for himself in a past life, in the form of a poem, song, or story. He went insane with paranoia and believed the karma police were coming to take him away. He also became obsessed with cheating death, practicing a religion called Voodoo Botany, believing it would make him a god. On a late night talk show, he made a prophecy about the extinction of the human race. He was sent to rest at Fennimore Place Institute. The maze was never finished. He died broke and penniless. What most books wont tell you about the life of Joe Kaye, The False Prophet of Fennimore Place, is that before he thought he might be the reincarnation of Mark Twain, and after he thought he was the reincarnation of Jim Morrison, he thought he might have been a very strange science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. During the time Joe Kaye believed he might have been Philip K. Dick, he wrote a novel called Blind Savior,in whichhe not only attempted to blend all major religions (Hindu/Jewish/Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Taoist) into one, but also attempted to say all major religions were started by the same person reincarnated again and again. He buried the story in an unknown location. The world was not ready.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of 1491 and 1493—an incisive portrait of the two little-known twentieth-century scientists, Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, whose diametrically opposed views shaped our ideas about the environment, laying the groundwork for how people in the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow's world. In forty years, Earth's population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups--Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose! The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation. Innovate! was Borlaug's cry. Only in that way can everyone win! Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to assess the four great challenges humanity faces--food, water, energy, climate change--grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author's insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.

A compilation of the first 4 episodes of the Blind Prophet comic book series in a single volume, as a graphic novel.

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight. “[A] thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy." —The New Yorker There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil). Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history. A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the world.