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21) The confessions
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In his own day the dominant personality of the Western Church, Augustine of Hippo today stands as perhaps the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity, and his "Confessions" is one of the great works of Western literature. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the domination of his sexual nature, his...
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In 1803, the great expanse of the Louisiana Purchase was an empty canvas. Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward?and that a ?Voyage of Discovery? would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier?President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide...
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Troilus and Criseyde (c.1385) is an epic poem written by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in Middle English, Troilus and Criseyde is the story of two lovers forced apart by the Greek siege of Troy. Often considered Chaucer's finest work for its structural consistency and completeness, the poem adapts Homer's Iliad and other ancient sources which expand on its tradition to tell a Christian moral tale about the importance of faith and the sacred...
24) The histories
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Widely referred to as the "Father of History", Greek Historian Herodotus lived during the 5th century BC and "The Histories" is generally accepted as the first work of historical literature in Western Civilization. Departing from the ancient Homeric tradition of treating historical subjects as epically romantic figures, Herodotus instead approached his subjects with a systematic method of investigation. "The Histories" of Herodotus describe the important...
25) The inferno
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"Award-winning poet Mary Jo Bang has translated the Inferno at a moment when popular culture is so prevalent that it has even taken Dante, author of the fourteenth-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, and turned him into an action-adventure video game hero. Dante wrote his poem in the vernacular, rather than in literary Latin. Bang has similarly created an idiomatically rich contemporary version that is accessible, musical, and audacious. She?s matched...
26) The Greek myths
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Sixteen favorite Greek myths including adventures of Jason, Theseus, Odysseus, the tales of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun, and King Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold.
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Penguin classics volume L72
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Written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus in 121 AD while he was the personal secretary to emperor Hadrian, "The Twelve Caesars" is a series of twelve biographies of Roman rulers beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian. The tales of Rome's emperors are deeply personal and informative, while also entertaining and often filled with drama. Suetonius included invaluable descriptions of the rulers' public and private lives, physical appearances,...
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With "The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons," readers can explore the one-thousand miles of the Colorado River in its natural state nearly one-hundred and fifty years ago. Legendary explorer John Wesley Powell, accompanied by a crew of close friends and associates, details his travels through the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon at a time when much of the area was unknown to contemporary readers. Starting in Wyoming, the crew travelled...
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Thirty-five years ago, when "searching for America" was not yet the cliche it has since become, Steinbeck hit the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote's steed, the two traveled the country--10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad...
33) The art of war
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"For the first time in any modern language, a female scholar and translator reimagines The Art of War. Sun Tzu's ancient book of strategy and psychology has as much to tell us today as when it was first written 2,500 years ago. In a world forever at odds, his rules for anticipating the motivations and strategies of our competitors never cease to inspire leaders of all kinds. Michael Nylan, in her provocative introduction, sees new and unexpected lessons...
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Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in the New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann...
38) On war
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On War is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, statesmen, and intellectuals. The most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy, Carl von Clausewitz's book...
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"In an age of ferment, following the American and French revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft took prevailing egalitarian principles and dared to apply them to women. Her book is both a sustained argument for emancipation and an attack on a social and an economic system. As Miriam Brody points out in her introduction, subsequent feminists tended to lose sight of her radical objectives. For Mary Wollstonecraft all aspects of women's existence were interrelated,...