Palmerston, he evoked an era of gunboat diplomacy. WHy? Because he understood the British empire rested on its ability to deter aggression and his gutsy vindictive nature of sending the royal navy anywhere it took to protect the honor of England. With the exception of churchill, Palmerston was a great defender of empire, uniquly british. THis is a must read for anyone wanting to understand how America should be acting in the face of terror. Palmerston was the ultimate pre-emptionist.

The quaintly punctuated title of Cardinal Newman's first novel, LOSS AND GAIN; OR, THE STORY OF A CONVERT says much. Nineteenth Century England abounded in conversion novels and Newman's stands head and shoulders above all the rest. That, at least, was the opinion of Harvard history professor Robert Lee Wolff in his monumental 1977 GAINS AND LOSSES: NOVELS OF FAITH AND DOUBT IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND.
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John Henry Newman (1801-1890) deserves a far wider non-specialist readership than he now enjoys. Once England hung on his every word: whether sermon, philosophy, church history, poetry, apologetics, satire or controversy. He does not lack for professional readers who take up formidable masterpieces such as APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY, ARIANS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY or A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.
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LOSS AND GAIN may well be the easiest and best place for non-specialists to begin with myriad-minded John Henry Newman. It is a novel about Oxford and fleshes out Newman's belief that students form their deepest convictions from their discussions with one another and not from teachers. It is also a novel very much like a Platonic dialog that presents and wrestles with various theories of why intelligent young men are either content to stay with their inherited personal faith or are moved to seek another.
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LOSS AND GAIN covers six years in the life of Charles Reding (pronounced READing) and his interactions with family, teachers, tutors and fellow students of various Oxford University colleges about which of the Christian denominations and trends in England of the 1840s had greatest claim to be taken seriously and to teach the truth. Problems debated are perennial since the Reformation: is there a visible church? Does it have authority to teach definitively? What is faith? What is reason's role in reaching faith? Who needs a Pope?
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A tutor's systematic lectures on the 39 Articles of the established Church of England, interpreted by the hero as mere 16th Century "articles of peace," a doctrinal hodgepodge of Roman Catholicism, Zwingli, Luther and Calvin, leaves an increasingly troubled Reding shaken in his inherited trust in his clergyman father's simple faith in the Church of England. Some of his Anglo-Catholic friends play at re-establishing Catholic practices without the Roman Catholic beliefs behind them. Others move towards rationalism and Unitarianism. Others yet are caught up in the emotional but action-oriented and society-transforming Evangelicalism of the age.
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In the end Charles (like Newman after a 12 year struggle) opted to become Roman Catholic, thereby losing his right to take an Oxford degree, and alienating friends and family alike. He gained, he judged, truth and peace.
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The debates of Oxford in the 1840s go on today in America and elsewhere. Recently converted himself to the Church of Rome, Newman pokes fun at the frequent shallowness and selfish career seeking that an Establishment of (the wrong) religion inevitably promotes. He also lovingly enlivens a bygone time at Oxford University where until very recently he had himself been the foremost leader of the Oxford Movement to reform the Church of England in a Catholic but non-Papal direction. Had he persuaded in TRACTS FOR THE TIMES # 90 even one Anglican bishop of the correctness of his Catholic interpretation of the 39 Articles, very likely neither Newman nor hundreds of others would have so suddenly gone over to Rome.
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The book has color, humor, religious insight and respect for individual consciences. Charles Reding exemplifies Newman's belief that God leads each person of good will at an individual, unforced, respectful pace from his or her inherited religion toward ever closer union with Himself. He who first tastes Newman through reading LOSS AND GAIN will not be disappointed and will reach out for more and more of his works, both verse and prose.

Un libro muy excelente que ayudara a los padres a entender la necesidad de ayudar a nuestros hijos a formar un caracter balanceado. Ayuda a los hijos a tener una resposibilidad propia ante sus padres,amistades,escuela,y toda autoridad sobre ellos;y ante todo tener propio control de sus vidas. Lo recomiendo a todos padres,y a todo aquel personaje que trata con niños. Una excelente herramienta para nuestra sociedad de hoy dia.

This is an excellent collection of essays from one of the most careful philosophers in America today. I highly recommend this, as well as Mind and World.

This collection of articles is essential reading nowdays for philosophy students. McDowell is such a careful and important philosopher. Here are his articles on ancient philosophy, and his work on Wittgenstein (Rule-Following, meaning, etc...). Also, collected here are his articles on ethics and practical reasoning: "Noncognitivism and Rule-following," which is essential reading material. I highly recommend this colelction (now in paperback finally).

I hated this book at first. It was asking me to do the impossible, forgive past hurts. As I worked through the book, my heart began to soften up. This was a very useful tool in my recovery. I cannot say I ever enjoyed the book, but it served it's purpose of helping me sort out my anger and unforgiveness.

John Hedgeoce's amazing eye has captured the essence of Henry Moore's work. It is so difficult to reduce the size and shape of such monumental work to paper but for those of us who do not own one we can share them on a daily basis by way of this superb work.

John Elder is a genius! The spirituality of Emerson's "Nature" is a perfect compliment to the deep philosophical naturalism of Thoreau's work. It just came in the mail an hour or so and i can't put it down! I'm going to reccomend it to all of my friends.

It is obvious that the present day photographer, John Dugdale, has been greatly influenced by the 19th century Transcendentalist writer, Henry David Thoreau. In this superb book of Dugdale's photographs and selections from Thoreau's journals, it is as if the writings were done specifically for the images, not over 100 years previously.

Dugdale has, for many years, been one of my favorite photographers. He uses a process for printing his photographs called cyanotype which was invented during the time that Thoreau lived and worked. The wonderful elegance and simplicity of his subjects and images fits perfectly with Thoreau's philosophies of life. Dugdale, because of HIV, is 80% blind, but, somehow, uses what sight he has combined with a pure spirituality and sight beyond the physical to create images of rare beauty.

So, we see a single rose alongside these words of Thoreau: "Love is the burden of all Nature's odes..." A still-life of flowers, two birds, which may be made of milk glass, and a human hand are viewed with Thoreau's "Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer...;" a solitary man with one hand against an old, tall tree by a pond and a field are perfect for Thoreau's "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each..." And perhaps most moving of all, part of the back of a nude man is used with Thoreau's "My life was ecstasy. In youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction..."

The book begins with two short, wonderfully written appreciations of the artists by Frank Crocitto.

This collection is magnificent beyond any contemporary words. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.