"The Sacred Mushroom Seeker" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

This book is really impressive. It is a gorgeously bound book with some incredible images and drawings. If you have some interest in the "Pride of Baltimore" or just love tall ships, you'll love this book.

In these overlooked early stories, the great German Novelist Thomas Mann, best know for his novella Death in Venice, and his massive novel, Magic Mountain (set in Switzerland), experiments with the character of the sensitive (sometimes sickly) artist skittering on the outskirts, or being powerfully pulled in, to romantic and philosophical infatuation. Said to mark the introduction of psychology into romantic fiction, the stories (such as Fallen, 1898, and The Will to Happiness, 1896) were written in the so-called Gay Nineties (the 1890s)--the decade which took with it Oscar Wilde and Friedrich Nietzsche. In these short stories Mann is playful but works with a precociously masterful touch. His themes are romance, deception, and the limitations of previous literary convention. In one story a desirable actress turns out to be a prostitute, in another a homely woman admired for her mind turns down the artist after he changes his about her desirability,and in perhaps the most powerful story, a most desirable spouse is revealed to be the exact opposite--perhaps. Nietzsche's preoccupation with surfaces, the infinite artistic allure of deception, and the gulf separating the outside world from that of the human mind are deftly handled in these early stories by an acknowledged master of the fictional form.

For fans of both Spider-Man and the X-Men, this isn't one you want to miss! From Spidey's first encounter with the original five X-Men to his later adventures with the other members of the team, this has it all, and then some. Written with a great sense of humor and the characters, this is a real keeper!

Peter Gay Style in History (1974, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., paperback edn., 1988)

Peter Gay is one of our preeminent authorities about cultural history, and professionals historians in all fields can learn much from both the substance and style of his oeuvre. In particular, this thin book, principally essays about the style of four renowned historians of earlier times - Edward Gibbon (1737-94), Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886), Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59), and Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97) - is a treasury of observations about the historian's craft. According to Gay, "style" means both the literary devices employed by the historian, as well as his or her "tone of voice." Gay addresses both, and more, while cautioning that the historian is "under pressure to become a stylist while remaining a scientist."

The back cover states that this book is a "guide to the proper reading of Gibbon, Ranke, Macaulay, and Burckhardt," but I found it more descriptive than prescriptive. Indeed, Gay expressly intended these essays to stimulate "debate over the definition of history." According to Gay, style is a function of both nature and nurture. It is "in part a gift of talent," but it also can be learned. For the aspiring historian who looks to Gay's four masters for guidance, many of his observations are profound. For instance, in discussing the belief of both Gibbon and Tacitus, the Roman historian who was one of Gibbon's principal sources, that "the supreme task of the historian [is] to probe historical actors to their depth," Gay concludes: "The chief use of the historian's penetration...[is] to dig beneath appearance to reality." Gay reports that Gibbon imagined himself, like Tacitus, to be a philosophical historian. (Gibbon believed that "the philosopher is a man who has conquered prejudices and given the critical spirit free play.") With regard to style, Gibbon employed a large arsenal of literary device, and Gay praises him for using irony, observing that, in Gibbon's writing, "gravity and levity coexisted without strain." Gay describes as "stunning" the economy with which Ranke wrote and praises his gifts of "speed, color, variety, freshness of diction, and superb control." According to Gay, Ranke believed that "self-imposed discipline alone brings excellence to all art." For instance, the one-sentence paragraph was one of Ranke's trademarks. Ranke is often credited with being the father of "scientific history," but, as Gay notes, Ranke approached his craft "as a branch of the storytelling art." In championing scientific history, Ranke extolled "the systematizing of research, the withdrawal of ego from presentation, the unremitting effort of objectivity, the submission of results to critical public scrutiny." Indeed, according to Gay: "Ranke's contribution to historical science...lay in his exalted view of documents." Furthermore, Gay offers the insight that Ranke "recognized that history is a progressive discipline." Ranke claimed "his own work was superior to that of his predecessors," but he also recognized that his greatest achievements eventually would be superseded by more modern scholarship. In contrast to Ranke's economic style, Gay subtitles his chapter on Macaulay "Intellectual Voluptuary" (borrowing the phrase from Macaulay, himself). Gay reports that Macaulay has been criticized as "verbose, artificial, and overemphatic," and Gay acknowledges other faults including "rhetorical self-indulgence," and "a failure of restraint and of taste." But these criticisms did not prevent Macaulay from becoming a member of "England's intellectual aristocracy." According to Gay, expansiveness and anxiety were the "essential qualities that make up Macaulay's temper and inform Macaulay's style." In discussing Burckhardt, Gay notes that the "historian's choice of subject...is a deeply emotional affair." According to Gay, in Burckhardt's masterpiece, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, his "personal voice is...highly audible and wholly apologetic," and his judgments are "cool." Gay notes that The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a "work of diligent research and meticulous construction." Burckhardt's used irony sparingly in comparison with Gbbon, but Burckhardt's the section entitled "The State as a Work of Art," is, as Gay observes correctly, in fact "an animated chamber of horrors." For Burckhardt, Gay concludes: "Style...is the bridge to substance." To Burckhardt, according to Gay, poetry and history - as art and science - are "allies, almost inseparable twins."

This book is not, strictly speaking, comparative intellectual biography, but are there any similarities in the subjects of Gay's essays? Gay defines "modern times" as beginning in the 1890s, and, of the four historians whose style he studies, three - Gibbon, Ranke, and Macaulay - died in the pre-modern era, and Burckhardt survived only into its first decade. In addition, I must raise one additional issue: Gibbon, Macaulay, and Burckhardt were lifelong bachelors, and Ranke did not marry until he was 48. Are we to view this as mere coincidence? I don't think so. As the author of a superb biography of Sigmund Freud, I am surprised that Gay did not devote at least a few lines of insight, in addition to his remark that Gibbon sought to hide a "professional bachelor's conflicts," to the tantalizing fact that three of the four great historian-stylists he studies never married and the other was well into middle age when he did so. Gay clearly believes that style matters in the writing of history, but I believe at least one succinct rule is clear: When in doubt, leave the stylistic flourish out. This leads me to this point: I cannot recommend Gay more enthusiastically because he is both a great historian and a wonderful stylist, which is remarkable for the fact that German, not English, was his native language. As an introduction to his writings, I suggest Gay's My German Question : Growing Up in Nazi Berlin, in which moments of humor leaven penetrating personal recollections of coming of age early in the era of Hitler's tyranny. After Gay's memoirs, the general reader may want to tackle some of his scholarly books, such as the biographies of Mozart and Freud, his superb studies of the Enlightenment, or this wonderful book, Style in History. And a few may even be motivated to read (or re-read) Gibbon, Ranke, Macaulay, and Burckhardt.

Prof. Kreeft does a masterful job taking a very difficult subject and reducing it into manageable pieces. The Angelic Doctor can be a bit daunting when approached directly; this book gives a helpful mix of direct quotes and clear commentary. It reminded me of a college course given by a great teacher

This is a fantastic book, and I'm absolutely amazed that it is out of print. McCormack is a lawyer-turned-businessman, who built a business from scratch that placed him on the FORBES 400. So if there's a businessman who knows legal matters enough to help the average businessman, he's it. He gives advice I don't think you'd find anywhere else, and gives it in a very readable and often entertaining form. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

It seems all but impossible that we need yet another anthology of Thomas Jefferson. Even so, this calm, judicious selection by Peter S. Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia and one of the leading Jefferson scholars of our time, fills a gap in the literature and may well be recommended as a superb beginning place to understand Jefferson and his place in history.

Onuf's focus is on Jefferson as a political thinker and actor, and his expert choices of passages from Jefferson's writings highlight the main contours of Jefferson's thought as it stayed constant and as it changed over time. His selections span the full range of Jefferson's political career -- from hsi first major pamphlet "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" (1774), to his drafting of the Declaration of Independence and his work on the revision of Virginia's laws in the late 1770s, to his painful two terms as governor (1779-1781), to his writing of NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, to his diplomatic service in France (1784-1789), to his unhappy years as Secretary of State (1789-1793) and Vice President (1797-1801), to his Presidency (1801-1809), and finally his struggles with the roles of senior statesman, ex-President, educational reformer, and sage (1809-1826). Onuf does not shrink from examining the contradictions that loom large in Jefferson's words and deeds. His lucid and enlightening introduction draws on a major article he did in 1993, "The Scholars' Jefferson," revised and updated to take account of more recent scholarship.

Two gaps only mar this fine book. One is its lack of a chronology for those who are unfamiliar with Jefferson's life and career, and the other is its lack of an index. Perhaps these deficiencies can be remedied in future editions of this fine, valuable, and otherwise highly useful volume.

-- R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School

I really liked this book. Rather than being your standard coffee table oversized hardcover (which is a lot of what you find these days about architecture) this book presents a serious and fascinating discussion about architecture and the modern world. Their new approach, looking at three clients, puts the architects in a new light, offering greater depth and understanding of what it takes to build a modern monument. Anyone with a more than cursory interest in architecture would certainly enjoy and learn from this book.