Modern category: 14410 books

The fascinating story of Franklin Roosevelt, the Greatest Generation, and the freedoms they won, is a “stirring, heady dose of American history by a…progressive thinker” (Kirkus Reviews). On January 6, 1941, the Greatest Generation gave voice to its founding principles, the Four Freedoms:...

We have reached that prominent milestone of four centuries since the Pendle Witch trials of 1612. During the period of March to August of that year the number of people accused of witchcraft, and eventually standing trial for their lives, numbered almost two-score. Over half of these unfortunates...

The Imjin War (1592–1598) was a grueling conflict that wreaked havoc on the towns and villages of the Korean Peninsula. The involvement of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean forces, not to mention the regional scope of the war, was the largest the world had seen, and the memory dominated East Asian memory...

A classic of modern religious thought, Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is here presented in Richard Crouter's acclaimed English translation of the 1799 edition, originally published in Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy. Written when its youthful author was deeply...

This accessible and highly readable book is the first full-length biography of Hegel to be published since the largely outdated treatments of the nineteenth century. Althaus draws on new historical material and scholarly sources about the life and times of this most enigmatic and influential of modern...

"On the road to Cairo one may see twenty groups exactly like that of the Holy Family in the pictures of the Flight into Egypt; with only one difference. The man is riding on the ass." "The real mistake of the Muslims is something much more modern in its application than any particular...

An illuminating biography of the great Amsterdam rabbi and celebrated popularizer of Judaism in the seventeenth century Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657) was among the most accomplished and cosmopolitan rabbis of his time, and a pivotal intellectual figure in early modern Jewish history. He...

As an epoch-marking contribution to Natural History in the widest sense, we rank the picture which Darwin gave to the world of the web of life, that is to say, of the inter-relations and linkages in Nature. For the Biology of the individual--if that be not a contradiction in terms--no idea is more...

For Michel Foucault, philosophy was a way of questioning the allegedly necessary truths that underpin the practices and institutions of modern society. He carried this out in a series of deeply original and strikingly controversial studies on the origins of modern medical and social scientific disciplines....

Given the central role played by religion in early-modern Britain, it is perhaps surprising that historians have not always paid close attention to the shifting and nuanced subtleties of terms used in religious controversies. In this collection particular attention is focussed upon two of the most...

An epic true story of treachery, revenge and courage The Indian Mutiny is a real page-turner, an epic story with surprising modern parallels. Fomer army officer-turned-TV scriptwriter, Julian Spilsbury is the ideal author to take us back to the desperate summer of 1857 when thousands of Indian...

"With this profound and magnificent book, drawing on his deep reservoir of thought and expertise in the humanities, James MacGregor Burns takes us into the fire's center. As a 21st-century philosopher, he brings to vivid life the incandescent personalities and ideas that embody the best in Western...

Bertrand Russell ranks as one of the giants of twentieth-century philosophy. Through his books, journalism, correspondence and political activity he exerted a profound influence on modern thought. This companion centers on Russell's contributions to modern philosophy and, therefore, concentrates on...

Edited and with an Introduction by Gordon Marino Basic Writings of Existentialism, unique to the Modern Library, presents the writings of key nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers broadly united by their belief that because life has no inherent meaning humans can discover, we must determine...