A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness. One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred...

"An illuminating work of environmental history that chronicles the great climate crisis of the 1600s, which transformed the social and political fabric of Europe. Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and "frost fairs" were erected on a frozen Thames--with kiosks,...

The most important scientist of the twentieth century and the most important artist had their periods of greatest creativity almost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso as young men examines their greatest creations — Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Einstein's special theory of relativity. Miller shows how these breakthroughs arose not only from within...

This program covers the following topics: the birth of the intellectual; Zola and Proust; the Great War; pacifism and surrealism; the Bolshevik Revolution; the new religion of communism; André Malraux; and the growing signals of terror from Moscow, which go unheeded.

This program covers the following topics: the French Communist Party and anti-Stalinism; the Algerian War; Jean Genet; Franz Fanon; Sartre; and the cause of Third World revolution.

"Follow in the footsteps of much loved authors, discover the landscapes that sparked their imaginations, and learn behind-the-scenes stories in this expanded and completely updated second edition of Novel Destinations. Across more than 500 literary locales in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, experience famous authors' homes, book festivals, literary walking tours, lodgings, restaurants, bars for bibliophiles, and much more."--page 4 of cover....

"More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life--yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment,...

Text and cartoon illustrations introduce the Enlightenment, discussing the writings of Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, and other Western thinkers of the eighteenth century.