Splendor

Ascending to the throne was only the beginning... Now Margaret George, the author of The Confessions of Young Nero, weaves a web of politics and passion, as ancient Rome's most infamous emperor cement

The public sphere, be it the Greek agora or the New York Times op-ed page, is the realm of appearances - not citizenship. Its central event is spectacle - not dialogue. Public dialogue, the mantra of many intellectuals and political commentators, is but a contradiction in terms. Marked by an asymmetry between the few who act and the many who watch, the public sphere can undermine liberal democracy, law, and morality. Inauthenticity, superficiality, and objectification are the very essence of the public sphere. But the public sphere also liberates us from the bondages of private life and fosters an existentially vital aesthetic experience. Reign of Appearances uses a variety of cases to reveal the logic of the public sphere, including homosexuality in Victorian England, the 2008 crash, antisemitism in Europe, confidence in American presidents, communications in social media, special prosecutor investigations, the visibility of African-Americans, violence during the French Revolution, th

?In this book, Lisa Coutras explores the structure and complexity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s narrative theology, synthesizing his Christian worldview with his creative imagination. She illustrates how, withi

The epic New York Times bestselling Civil War era romance by Laurie McBainIN A WORLD BENT ON KEEPING THEM APART, CAN TWO LOST SOULS FIND LOVE?Virginia, 1860. For Leigh Alexandra Travers, life at her f

Written by Joseph L. Henderson, one of the first generation of Jungian analysts, and Dyane N. Sherwood, a practising analyst, this book is a striking and unique contribution to the resurgence of inter

"This beautiful book tells the fascinating story of the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled most of central Europe, Spain, Belgium, and parts of Italy for nearly six hundred years, from the fifteenth throug

Celebrated for his erotically charged allegories with amorous couples entwined in intimate poses, Bartholomeus Spranger (1546?1611) was a leading master of Mannerism, working for influential patrons

What's a file clerk from Cleveland doing with an Oscar nomination? How did a movie about Harvey Pekar win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival? The story begins in 1976, when Harve

Antiques dealer Abby Timberlake Washburn is thrilled when the Mrs. Amelia Shadbark—doyenne of Charleston society—invites her to broker a pricey collection of Lalique glass sculpture. Thes

An astonishing untold story from the nineteenth century—a “riveting…engrossing…‘American Epic’” (The Wall Street Journal) and necessary work of history that

This important work describes how the Imperial German Navy, which had expanded to become one of the great maritime forces in the world, proved, with the exception of its submarines, to be largely inef

Traces the story of the celebrated late-eighth and early ninth caliph from The Thousand and One Nights against a backdrop of Baghdad's cosmopolitan culture and its complex influence on the Byzantine E

Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of SwarthmoreCollege, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath.Ay F

Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of SwarthmoreCollege, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden--to Sylvia Plath. Fo

Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a consideration of the many pressing issues that surround the role of books in contemporary society, such as the willful destruction of books and libraries in Sarajevo, Ti

To understand the Pope's life, you need to understand the rich thought that shaped his life. An in-depth and comprehensive study of the theology of Pope John Paul II by the first American theologian e

Challenging the reigning view of literary historians has been that the May Fourth movement of 1919 marks the division between the traditional and the modern in Chinese literature, this book argues tha