Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was a major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment whose thought was, in many respects, original and distinctive. This book is a study of his ideas and of the intellectual forces that shaped them. Though somewhat overlooked in the nineteenth century, Ferguson was rescued from obscurity in the first half of the twentieth century by scholars interested in the origins of sociology and early critiques of modernity. Ferguson’s interest in the mechanics of social life and especially social change led him to many groundbreaking insights. In fact, he is sometimes identified as the 'Father of Modern Sociology'. In addition to exploring whether or not he merits this title, this study examines the whole of Ferguson’s thought as a system and includes his moral and faculty psychology, historiography, theology, politics and social science. Ferguson is distinguished by his deep appreciation of the complexity of the human condition; his study of society is based on the belief that it is not only reason, but the unseen, unplanned, sub-rational and visceral forces that keep the human universe in motion. Ferguson’s appreciation of this fact, and his ability to make social science of it, is his major achievement.

Once at the corner of the study of politics, emotions have receded into the shadows, with no place in the rationalistic, structural and organisational models that dominate academic political analysis. These essays reverse the trend.

A critical study which discusses passion and community as the central structures of feeling in tragic realism, tracing their origins in Stendhal, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and explaining their contemporary eclipse in Western society.

Maxine Greene is the most important philosopher of education in the United States today. The author of Teacher as Stranger (1973), Landscapes of Learning (1978), Dialectic of Freedom (1988), and Releasing the Imagination (1995), Greene has influenced tens of thousands of teachers in North America as well as her colleagues in philosophy of education, teacher education, and curriculum studies. While widely cited, Greene has not - until now - been the subject of sustained scholarly analysis and investigation. William F. Pinar has organized a systematic study of Greene's contribution from several points of view: studies of the four books; studies of the intellectual and aesthetic influences upon her theory; and her influence on the various specializations within the broad field of education: the teaching of English, arts education, philosophy of education, curriculum studies, religious education, cognitive theory, and theory of teaching. The book opens and concludes with Maxine Greene's own autobiographical statements.

Winner of the 2017 APA William James Book Award The concept of passion is one we regularly use to describe our interests, and yet there is no broad theory that can explain the development and consequences of passion for activities across people's lives. In The Psychology of Passion, Robert J. Vallerand presents the first such theory, providing a complete presentation of the Dualistic Model of Passion and the empirical evidence that supports it. Vallerand conceives of two types of passion: harmonious passion, which remains under the person's control, and obsessive passion, which controls the person. While the first typically leads to adaptive behaviors, the obsessive form of passion leads to less adaptive and, at times, maladaptive behaviors. Vallerand highlights the effects of these two types of passion on a number of psychological phenomena, such as cognition, emotions, performance, relationships, aggression, and violence. He also discusses the development of passion and reviews a range of literature on passion for activities.