A collection of nineteen stories from the middle period of Henry James's writing career features some of his most famous works examining the relationship between the United States and Europe, including the classic "Daisy Miller" and the satiric "Lady Barbarina."

A gathering of seventeen of the classic short stories of Henry James, covering the middle period of his career, contains some of his greatest writing, including the novella "The Aspern Papers" and the unforgettable supernatural story "Sir Edmund Orne."

Ideals of democratic participation and rational self-government have long informed modern political theory. As a recent elaboration of these ideals, the concept of deliberative democracy is based on the principle that legitimate democracy issues from the public deliberation of citizens. This remarkably fruitful concept has spawned investigations along a number of lines. Areas of inquiry include the nature and value of deliberation, the feasibility and desirability of consensus on contentious issues, the implications of institutional complexity and cultural diversity for democratic decision making, and the significance of voting and majority rule in deliberative arrangements.

The anthology opens with four key essays—by Jon Elster, Jurgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, and John Rawls—that helped establish the current inquiry into deliberative models of democracy. The nine essays that follow represent the latest efforts of leading democratic theorists to tackle various problems of deliberative democracy. All the contributions address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens. Although the authors approach the topic of deliberation from different perspectives, they all aim to provide a theoretical basis for a more robust democratic practice.

Contributors: James Bohman, Thomas Christiano, Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, David Estlund, Gerald F. Gaus, Jurgen Habermas, James Johnson, Jack Knight, Frank I. Michelman, John Rawls, Henry S. Richardson, Iris Marion Young.

Preeminent American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) rejected Hegelian idealism for the pragmatism of William James.

In this collection of informal, highly readable essays, originally published between 1897 and 1909, Dewey articulates his now classic philosophical concepts of knowledge and truth and the nature of reality. Here Dewey introduces his scientific method and uses critical intelligence to reject the traditional ways of viewing philosophical discourse. Knowledge cannot be divorced from experience; it is gradually acquired through interaction with nature. Philosophy, therefore, has to be regarded as itself a method of knowledge and not as a repository of disembodied, pre-existing absolute truths.

The 21 stories in Complete Stories 1892-1898 represent James at the peak of his storytelling powers. Among them are "The Turn of the Screw," one of his most popular works, a terrifying exercise in psychological horror centering on the corruption of childhood innocence; "The Real Thing," a playful consideration of the illusions of art and the paradoxes of authenticity; "The Figure in the Carpet," "The Death of the Lion," and "The Middle Years," three very different expositions of the mysteries of authorship, embodying some of James's most profound insights into the nature of his own art; "The Altar of the Dead," a somber, ultimately wrenching meditation on the relation of the living to the dead; and "In the Cage," an extended evocation of the inner life of a young woman trapped in a dehumanizing job at a postal-and-telegraph office.

An expertly edited, fine edition of James's stories from the end of his career collects thirty-one tales, including the fantasies "The Great Good Place" and "The Jolly Corner," along with "The Beast in the Jungle."

James Naismith was teaching physical education at the Young Men's Christian Association Training College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and felt discouraged because calisthenics and gymnastics didn't engage his students. What was needed was an indoor wintertime game that combined recreation and competition. One evening he worked out the fundamentals of a game that would quickly catch on. Two peach half-bushel baskets gave the name to the brand new sport in late 1891.
Basketball: Its Origin and Development was written by the inventor himself, who was inspired purely by the joy of play. Naismith, born in northern Ontario in 1861, gave up the ministry to preach clean living through sport. He describes Duck on the Rock, a game from his Canadian childhood, the creative reasoning behind his basket game, the eventual refinement of rules and development of equipment, the spread of amateur and professional teams throughout the world, and the growth of women's basketball (at first banned to male spectators because the players wore bloomers). Naismith lived long enough to see basketball included in the Olympics in 1936. Three years later he died, after nearly forty years as head of the physical education department at the University of Kansas.
This book, originally published in 1941, carries a new introduction by William J. Baker, a professor of history at the University of Maine, Orono.

An introductory modern physics textbook covering topics in a comprehensible manner, with enough interesting detail. Core material is covered in the first nine chapters, and is followed by special topics. Material marked "Challenging," is not ordinarily covered in a first modern physics course. Problems follow each chapter, with the more difficult ones marked. Many examples with solutions and illustrations, and eight pages of color plates are included. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Shows and describes historic homes in New Orleans

William James, a member of America's most illustrious intellectual family, is widely acclaimed as the country's foremost philosopher, the first of its psychologists, and a champion of religious pluralism. As the apostle of pragmatism, his influence on American thought is as strong now as it has ever been. James's emphasis on the creative power of faith, will, and action, his opening up of philosophy to the fresh air of ordinary experience, his fascination with alternative forms of belief and states of consciousness, and his impatience with dogmas of any kind--all make him a defender of individual experience, and earn him a place beside Emerson and Whitman as an exponent of American democratic culture.
In this volume are the brilliant, engagingly written works of James's early and middle years. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy advances the liberating argument that each of us has the right to believe in hypotheses that are not susceptible to proof and that such beliefs might actually change the world. The conversational style of these essays reflects their origin in public lectures, as well as James's conviction that truth can be discovered as much in the course of everyday life as in the activities of science or of philosophical speculation.
Talks to Teachers and to Students, also drawn from lectures, helped transform the emerging science of education. Here James applies his new psychology to classroom theory and conduct, especially for the primary grades. This immensely influential book has never gone out of print. It emphasizes the role in learning of instinct, play, and habit, along with the importance of engaging the voluntary interests of students. James's warm and sympathetic nature informs his treatment of children, who can best be taught by those who respect the child's autonomy and who avoid what he calls "hammering in."
Psychology: Briefer Course is far more than a shortened version of his monumental Principles of Psychology. It significantly revises parts of the earlier work and adds important new materials. (Students liked to call the longer book "James" and the shorter one "Jimmy".) James's new psychology moved away from discussions of the soul, morality, and logic, and focused instead on instinct, will, and the importance of action and habit. Passages comparing human consciousness to "a wonderful stream" inspired the "stream of consciousness" in the future work of Joyce, Woolf, and Gertrude Stein, a student of James's at Harvard.
"Human Immortality," which defends the possibility of life after death, and eight more of James's most important essays round out this second volume devoted to a writer who was called by John Dewey "almost a Columbus of the inner world."

Enter the fascinating world of the Condomble regions of Brazil, where interaction between spirits and human is considered an everyday occurrence. Jim Wafer uncovers the social life, rituals, folklore, and engaging personalities of the villagers of Jacari, among whom trances, sorcery, and spirit possession demonstrate the coexistence of different kinds of reality.

This ethnography is intriguing not only because of the originality of its approach to the more enigmatic aspects of another culture but also because it uses insights gained from participation in that culture to reflect on the paradoxes inherent in the writer's own culture, and in the human condition in general.