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Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt's portrayal of the terrible consequences of blind obedience, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil contains an introduction by Amos Elon in Penguin Classics. Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi SS 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 commenting on the controversy that arose over her book. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative - a meticulous and unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was for many years University Professor of Political Philosophy in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and a Visiting Fellow of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is also the author of Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Revolution, and Between Past and Future. If you enjoyed Eichmann in Jerusalem, you might like Elie Wiesel's Night, available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Deals with the greatest problem of our time ... the problem of the human being within a modern totalitarian system'Bruno Bettelheim, The New Republic 'A profound and documented analysis ... Bound to stir our minds and trouble our consciences'Chicago TribuneISBN: 0143039881
Publication Date: 2006
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The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt In this text, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems are identified as diminishing human agency and political freedom - the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions. This edition contains an expanded index and an introduction that analyzes the text's argument and its present relevance.ISBN: 0226025985
Publication Date: 1998
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Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle Focus Philosophical Library's edition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is a lucid and useful translation of one of Aristotle's major works for the student of undergraduate philosophy, as well as for the general reader interested in the major works of western civilization. This edition includes notes and a glossary, intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Aristotle's immediate audience. Focus Philosophical Library books are distinguished by their commitment to faithful, clear, and consistent translations of texts and the rich world part and parcel of those texts.ISBN: 1585100358
Publication Date: 2002
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Politics by Aristotle; H. Rackham (Translator) Aristotle, great Greek philosopher, researcher, reasoner, and writer, born at Stagirus in 384 BCE, was the son of Nicomachus, a physician, and Phaestis. He studied under Plato at Athens and taught there (367âe"47); subsequently he spent three years at the court of a former pupil, Hermeias, in Asia Minor and at this time married Pythias, one of Hermeiasâe(tm)s relations. After some time at Mitylene, in 343âe"2 he was appointed by King Philip of Macedon to be tutor of his teen-aged son Alexander. After Philipâe(tm)s death in 336, Aristotle became head of his own school (of âeoePeripateticsâe#157;), the Lyceum at Athens. Because of anti-Macedonian feeling there after Alexanderâe(tm)s death in 323, he withdrew to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322.Nearly all the works Aristotle prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as follows:I. Practical: Nicomachean Ethics; Great Ethics (Magna Moralia); Eudemian Ethics; Politics; Oeconomica (on the good of the family); Virtues and Vices. II. Logical: Categories; On Interpretation; Analytics (Prior and Posterior); On Sophistical Refutations; Topica. III. Physical: Twenty-six works (some suspect) including astronomy, generation and destruction, the senses, memory, sleep, dreams, life, facts about animals, etc. IV. Metaphysics: on being as being. V. On Art: Art of Rhetoric and Poetics. VI. Other works including the Athenian Constitution; more works also of doubtful authorship. VII. Fragments of various works such as dialogues on philosophy and literature; and of treatises on rhetoric, politics and metaphysics.The Loeb Classical Library® edition of Aristotle is in twenty-three volumes.ISBN: 0674992911
Publication Date: 1932
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Confessions by Saint Augustine 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 renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother Monica had taught him during his childhood. Now, Henry Chadwick, an eminent scholar of early Christianity, has given us the first new English translation in thirty years of this classic spiritual journey. Chadwick renders the details of Augustine's conversion in clear, modern English. We witness the future saint's fascination with astrology and with the Manichees, and then follow him through scepticism and disillusion with pagan myths until he finally reaches Christian faith. There are brilliant philosophical musings about Platonism and the nature of God, and touching portraits of Augustine's beloved mother, of St. Ambrose of Milan, and of other early Christians like Victorinus, who gave up a distinguished career as a rhetorician to adopt the orthodox faith. Augustine's concerns are often strikingly contemporary, yet his work contains many references and allusions that are easily understood only with background information about the ancient social and intellectual setting. To make The Confessions accessible to contemporary readers, Chadwick provides the most complete and informative notes of any recent translation, and includes an introduction to establish the context. The religious and philosophical value of The Confessions is unquestionable--now modern readers will have easier access to St. Augustine's deeply personal meditations. Chadwick's lucid translation and helpful introduction clear the way for a new experience of this classic.ISBN: 0192817795
Publication Date: 1991
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Foe by J. M. Coetzee With the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians and The Master of Petersburg, J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe--and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, and that of the enigmatic man who has become her rescuer, companion, master and sometimes lover: Cruso. Cruso is dead, and his manservant, Friday, is incapable of speech. As she tries to relate the truth about him, the ambitious Barton cannot help turning Cruso into her invention. For as narrated by Foe--as by Coetzee himself--the stories we thought we knew acquire depths that are at once treacherous, elegant, and unexpectedly moving.ISBN: 014009623X
Publication Date: 1988
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The Analects by Confucius; Raymond Dawson (Translator) Few individuals have shaped their country's civilization more profoundly than the Master Kong, better-known as Confucius (551-479 BC). His sayings and those of his disciples form the foundation of a distinct social, ethical, and intellectual system. They have retained their freshness and vigor throughout the two and a half millennia of their currency, and are still admired even in today's China. This lively new translation offers clear explanatory notes by one of the foremost scholars of classical Chinese, providing an ideal introduction to the Analects for readers who have no previous knowledge of the Chinese language and philosophical traditions. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.ISBN: 9780199540617
Publication Date: 2008
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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick "The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world." --John Brunner THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . . Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time. By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans. Emigrées to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in. Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results. "[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from." --Paul Williams, Rolling StoneISBN: 0345404475
Publication Date: 1996
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The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du BoisISBN: 9780486280417
Publication Date: 1994
In this founding work in the literature of black protest, Du Bois eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy would only serve to perpetuate black oppression.
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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.ISBN: 9780679732761
Publication Date: 1995
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The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison by Ralph Ellison In this collection of essays and interviews, Ellison writes of literature and folklore, jazz and black culture, and the nature and quality of lives that black Americans lead. This volume includes the critically acclaimed works Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986).ISBN: 0679601767
Publication Date: 1995
Kevin's Selections
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Five Smooth Stones by Ann Fairbairn This gripping bestseller, first published in 1966, has continued to captivate readers with its wide-ranging yet intimate portrait of an America sundered by racial conflict. David Champlin is a black man born into poverty in Depression-era New Orleans who makes his way up the ladder of success, only to sacrifice everything to lead his people in the civil rights movement. Sara Kent is the white girl who loves David from the moment she first sees him, and who struggles against his belief that a marriage for them would be wrong in the violent world he has to confront. And the #147;five smooth stones” are those the biblical David carried against Goliath. By the time this novel comes to its climax of horror, bloodshed, and hope, readers will be convinced that its enduring popularity is fully justified.ISBN: 9781556528156
Publication Date: 2009
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Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein Here at last is the complete, uncut version of Heinlein's all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a classic in a few short years. It is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, the man from Mars who taught humankind grokking and water-sharing. And love.ISBN: 9780441788385
Publication Date: 1991
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Theogony and Works and Days by Hesiod Hesiod, who lived in Boetia in the late eighth century BC, is one of the oldest known, and possibly the oldest of Greek poets. His Theogony contains a systematic genealogy of the gods from the beginning of the world and an account of the struggles of the Titans. In contrast, Works and Days is a compendium of moral and practical advice on husbandry, and throws unique and fascinating light on archaic Greek society. As well as offering the earliest known sources for the myths of Pandora, Prometheus and the Golden Age, Hesiod's poetry provides a valuable account of the ethics and superstitions of the society in which he lived. Unlike Homer, Hesiod writes about himself and his family, and he stands out as the first personality in European literature. This new translation, by a leading expert on the Hesiodic poems combines accuracy with readability. It is accompanied by an introduction and explanatory notes.ISBN: 9780199538317
Publication Date: 2009
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Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse; Basil Creighton (Translator) With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, Hesse's best-known and most autobiographical work is one of literature's most poetic evocations of the soul's journey to liberation Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meets a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine. The tale of the Steppenwolf culminates in the surreal Magic Theater-For Madmen Only!Originally published in English in 1929, Steppenwolf 's wisdom continues to speak to our souls and marks it as a classic of modern literature.ISBN: 0312278675
Publication Date: 2002
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The Odyssey by Homer If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once the timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savour, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' introduction. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.ISBN: 0140268863
Publication Date: 1997
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Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson "Green Mansions" by W. H. Hudson tells the story of Abel, a young wealthy Venezuelan who flees Caracas for political reasons and soon finds himself in the uncharted forests of the Guyana jungle. There Abel meets the mysterious Rima the Bird Girl. As Abel chases after his secret admirer, she leads him further and further into her invisible trap of love. Then the secret begins to unfold. The language of "Green Mansions" is exquisite, and the book will be especially intriguing to anyone with an interest in nature, for it is not only a wonderful love story, but also a vivid description of the Venezuelan rain forest and its indigenous people. Readers who have read Rand Johnson's "Arcadia Falls - A Fable" will find interesting parallels here, as Hudson presents a moving and mysterious romance against a backdrop of great natural beauty. Books as rich as "Green Mansions" need to be savored, like good wine. The story flows naturally and poetically. Though written over a hundred years ago, it doesn't seem at all dated. The plot and the pacing are superb, and Hudson's storytelling is particularly fascinating. Written with rich and moving prose, "Green Mansions" is a truly absorbing book.ISBN: 9781451536140
Publication Date: 2010
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Middle Passage by Charles R. Johnson In 1830, seeking to escape an unwanted marriage, Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave, becomes a stowaway aboard The Republic, unaware that the ship is a slave clipper bound for West Africa.ISBN: 0689119682
Publication Date: 1990
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Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen "Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable."-Alice Walker "A tantalizing mix of moral fable and sensuous colorful narrative, exploring female sexuality and racial solidarity."-Women's Studies International Forum Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the 1920s and shed a bright light on the social world of the black bourgeoisie. The novels' greatest appeal and achievement, however, is not sociological, but psychological. As noted in the editor's comprehensive introduction, Larsen takes the theme of psychic dualism, so popular in Harlem Renaissance fiction, to a higher and more complex level, displaying a sophisticated understanding and penetrating analysis of black female psychology.ISBN: 0813511690
Publication Date: 1986
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The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters - his fiancée Isabel whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.ISBN: 1400034205
Publication Date: 2003
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Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories by Herman Melville 'Billy Budd, Sailor,' a classic confrontation between good and evil, is the story of an innocent young man unable to defend himself from wrongful accusations. Other selections include 'Bartleby,' 'The Piazza,' 'The Encantadas,' 'The Bell-Tower,' 'Benito Cereno,' 'The Paradise of Bachelors,' and 'The Tartarus of Maids.'ISBN: 0140390537
Publication Date: 1986
Kevin's Selections
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Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison brings the genius of a master writer to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Her goal, she states at the outset, is to "put forth an argument for extending the study of American literature...draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography and use that map to open as much space for discovery, intellectual adventure, and close exploration as did the original charting of the New World--without the mandate for conquest." Author of Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and other vivid portrayals of black American experience, Morrison ponders the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic. Her compelling point is that the central characteristics of American literature individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell--are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence. Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a daring perspective that is sure to alter conventional notions about American literature. She considers Willa Cather and the impact of race on concept and plot; turns to Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville to examine the black force that figures so significantly in the literature of early America; and discusses the implications of the Africanist presence at the heart of Huckleberry Finn. A final chapter on Ernest Hemingway is a brilliant exposition of the racial subtext that glimmers beneath the surface plots of his fiction. Written with the artistic vision that has earned her a preeminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark will be avidly read by Morrison admirers as well as by students, critics, and scholars of American literature.ISBN: 0674673778
Publication Date: 1992
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The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of Wagner by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was Nietzsche's first book. Its youthful faults were exposed by Nietzsche in the brilliant "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" which he added to the new edition of 1886. But the book, whatever its excesses, remains one of the most relevant statements on tragedy ever penned. It exploded the conception of Greek culture that was prevalent down through the Victorian era, and it sounded themes developed in the twentieth century by classicists, existentialists, psychoanalysts, and others. The Case of Wagner (1888) was one Nietzsche's last books, and his wittiest. In attitude and style it is diametrically opposed to The Birth of Tragedy. Both works transcend their ostensible subjects and deal with art and culture, as well as the problems of the modern age generally. Each book in itself gives us an inadequate idea of its author; together, they furnish a striking image of Nietzsche's thought. The distinguished new translations by Walter Kaufmann superbly reflect in English Nietzsche's idiom and the vitality of his style. Professor Kaufmann has also furnished running footnote commentaries, relevant passages from Nietzsche's correspondence, a bibliography, and, for the first time in any edition, an extensive index to each book.ISBN: 9780394703695
Publication Date: 1967
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Phaedo by Plato; David Gallop (Translator) The Phaedo is acknowledged to be one of Plato's masterpieces, showing him both as a philosopher and as a dramatist at the height of his powers. For its moving account of the execution of Socrates, the Phaedo ranks among the supreme literary achievements of antiquity. It is also a document crucial to the understanding of many ideas deeply ingrained in western culture, and provides one of the best introductions to Plato's thought. This new edition is eminently suitable for readers new to Plato, offering a readable translation which is accessible without the aid of a commentary and assumes no prior knowledge of the ancient Greek world or language.ISBN: 0192839535
Publication Date: 1999
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Plato by Plató; Tom Griffith (Translator) This is a completely new translation of one of the great works of Western political thought. In addition to Tom Griffith's vivid, dignified and accurate rendition of Plato's text, this edition is suitable for students at all levels. It contains an introduction that assesses the cultural background to the Republic, its place within political philosophy, and its general argument; succinct notes in the text; an analytical summary of content; a full glossary of proper names; a chronology of important events; and a guide to further reading.ISBN: 0521481732
Publication Date: 2000
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The King Must Die by Mary Renault The story of the mythical hero Theseus, slayer of monsters, abductor of princesses and king of Athens. He emerges from these pages as a clearly defined personality; brave, aggressive and quick. The core of the story is Theseus' Cretan adventure.ISBN: 0394751043
Publication Date: 1988
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The Last Days of Louisiana Red by Ishmael Reed "The Last Days of Louisiana Red blends paradox, hyperbole, understatement and signifyin' so expertly you can almost hear a droll black voice telling the tales as you read it."-The New RepublicISBN: 0394491882
Publication Date: 1974
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Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit What does it mean to be out walking in the world, whether in a landscape or a metropolis, on a pilgrimage or a protest march? In Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit draws together many histories--of anatomical evolution and city design, of treadmills and labyrinths, of walking clubs and sexual mores--to create a portrait of the range of possibilities for this most basic act. Arguing that walking as history means walking for pleasure and for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit homes in on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Greece to the poets of the Romantic Age, from the perambulations of the Surrealists to the ascents of mountaineers.The first general history of walking, Solnit's book finds a profound relationship between walking and thinking, walking and culture, and argues for the necessity of preserving the time and space in which to walk in an ever-more automobile-dependent and accelerated world. With delightful profiles of some of the most significant walkers in history and fiction--from Wordsworth to Gary Snyder, from Rousseau to Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, from Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet to Andre Breton's Nadja--Wanderlust offers a provocative examination of the interplay between the body, the imaginatiISBN: 0670882097
Publication Date: 2000
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Oedipus the King by Sophocles Available for the first time as an independent work, David Grene's legendary translation of Oedipus the King renders Sophocles' Greek into cogent, vivid, and poetic English for a new generation to savor. Over the years, Grene and Lattimore's Complete Greek Tragedies have been the preferred choice of millions of readers-for personal libraries, individual study, and classroom use. This new, stand-alone edition of Sophocles' searing tale of jealousy, rage, and revenge will continue the tradition of the University of Chicago Press's classic series. Praise for David Grene and Richmond Lattimore's Complete Greek Tragedies "This is it. No qualifications. Go out and buy it everybody."-Kenneth Rexroth, Nation "The translations deliberately avoid the highly wrought and affectedly poetic; their idiom is contemporary. . . . They have life and speed and suppleness of phrase."-Times Education SupplementISBN: 0226307921
Publication Date: 2012
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Walden or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau's masterwork, Walden, is a collection of his reflections on life and society. His simple but profound musings--as well as Civil Disobedience, his protest against the government's interference with civil liberty--have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature.ISBN: 0451529456
Publication Date: 2004
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Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington Born in a Virginia slave hut, Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) rose to become the most influential spokesman for African-Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, he describes events in a remarkable life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide recognition for his many accomplishments.ISBN: 0486287386
Publication Date: 1995
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Native Son by Richard Wright The tragic life of a black youth named Bigger Thomas who was raised in a Chicago slum.ISBN: 006083756X
Publication Date: 2005
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