Showing results by author "Paul Strathern" in All Categories

Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia - three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man's perceptions - and the course of Western history.   

After narrowly avoiding a firing squad when he was just twenty-eight years old, Dostoevsky never took things lightly. His great novels burst upon the European literary scene like a succession of thunderbolts. His understanding of the darker and more extreme recesses of the human mind cast a forceful light into these areas of experience. The raw psychology and passionate involvement of his books galvanized writers and thinkers as disparate as Nietzsche and Kafka.

A dazzling new history of the world told through the 10 major empires of human civilization. Combining breathtaking scope with masterful narrative control, Paul Strathern traces these connections across four millennia and sheds new light on these major civilizations - from the Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty to the Aztec and Ottoman, through to the most recent and biggest empires: the British, Russo-Soviet, and American.

We see our age as the greatest in human history, filled with seemingly unending originality. Yet such dynamism is not a necessary characteristic of great eras. Among the most long-lasting and stable civilizations was that of medieval Europe. There stasis was achieved, and with it a stability that permitted the development of structured thought and intellectual embellishment of unparalleled degree.

Kierkegaard wasn't really a philosopher in the academic sense. Yet he produced what many people expect of philosophy. His subject was the individual and his or her existence, the "existing being." In Kierkegaard's view, this purely subjective entity lay beyond the reach of reason, logic, philosophical systems, theology, or even "the pretenses of psychology." Nonetheless, it was the source of all these subjects. The branch of philosophy to which Kierkegaard gave birth has come to be known as existentialism.

In Rousseau we encounter a walking ego, naked sensibility. Feeling triumphs over intellectual argument in his works, which are both deeply stirring and deeply inconsistent. Yet while his contemporaries Kant and Hume may have been superior academic philosophers, the sheer power of Rousseau's ideas was unequaled in his time. It was he who encouraged the introduction of both liberty and irrationality into the public domain.

In St. Augustine in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of St. Augustine's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from St. Augustine's work, a brief list of suggested readings for those who wish to delve deeper, and chronologies that place St. Augustine within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Schopenhauer, the "philosopher of pessimism", makes it very plain that he regards the world and our life in it as a bad joke. But if the world is indifferent to our fate, it doesn't thwart us on purpose. The world's facade is supported by what Schopenhauer calls the Universal Will, blind and without purpose. This Will brings on all our misery and suffering; our only hope is to liberate ourselves from its power and from the trappings of individualism and egoism that are at its mercy.

Borges in 90 Minutes offers a concise, expert account of Borges' life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes a list of Borges' chief works, a chronology of his life and times, and recommended reading for those who wish to delve deeper.

A highly sensitive and intelligent child, Virginia Woolf grew up in a large family prone to psychological instability. Throughout her life, she was subject to periods of mental breakdown, yet when she was lucid she was capable of a uniquely perceptive and frank introspection. Under the influence of the Bloomsbury Group and their progressive social attitudes, she became experimental in her life and art, breaking with convention to produce some of the finest and most unique literary works of the 20th century.

From a young age, James Joyce showed a precocious and original intellect and a confidence in his own artistic destiny. He would indeed go on to transform the nature of modern literature, employing a unique stream-of-consciousness technique rich in symbolism and wordplay. Through his art, the Dublin native sought to reveal the radiance and meaning that lurks in the everyday world - "the soul of the commonest object" - evoking a heightened sense of consciousness within the grit of common life.

Latin American literature was never primitive; yet, from its beginnings, it was suffused with a fresh, often childish lyricism. Gabriel Garcia Marquez stands on the shoulders of a great Latin American literary heritage, but he is a modern rarity: a writer with aspirations to high art who also remains hugely popular. For those who fall under his spell, his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the richest literary dreams ever written.

D. H. Lawrence in 90 Minutes offers a concise, expert account of Lawrence's life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes a list of Lawrence's chief works, a chronology of his life and times, and recommended reading for those who wish to delve deeper.

Beckett in 90 Minutes offers a concise, expert account of Beckett's life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes a list of Beckett's chief works, a chronology of his life and times, and recommended reading for those who wish to delve deeper.

Through 10 unique cities, from the founding of ancient capitals to buzzing modern megacities, Paul Strathern explores how urban centres lead civilisation forward, enjoying a moment of glory before passing on the baton. We journey back to discover Babylonian mathematics, Athenian theatre and intellectual debate, and Roman construction that has lasted millennia. We see Constantinople evolve into Istanbul, revolutionary sparks fly in Enlightenment Paris, and the railways, canals and ships that built Imperial London. 

Philosophy has always been dangerous for philosophers; Friedrich Nietzsche made it dangerous for everyone. His ideas presaged a collective madness which was to ravage Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century, drawing a chilling parallel with the insanity that gripped Nietzsche towards the end of his life. His philosophy is one of aphorisms and penetrating psychological insights, his major concept being the Will to Power - a notion that he saw as the basic impulse for all our acts. Viewing Christianity as a subtle perversion of this concept Nietzsche is famous for his pronouncement that ‘God is dead’.

Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642 something happened that transformed the entire culture of Western civilisation. Painting, sculpture and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born or emerge in an entirely new guise. The ideas that broke this mould largely began, and continued to flourish, in the city of Florence in the province of Tuscany.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to a succinct account of the philosophy of Foucault in just one hour. The French philosopher Michel Foucault set about his task rather like a historian. After painstaking research, he concluded that knowledge and power were intimately related throughout history.

John Stuart Mill is remembered today as the leading exponent of Utilitarianism, arguing that our aim in life must be the attainment of pleasure and the minimizing of pain for the majority of people. The principle that lies at the heart of Utilitarianism is "the greatest benefit of the greatest number" - an idea that perhaps seems self-evident today but one that was seen as radical within Mill’s own time. This central idea has become the unspoken founding principle of our modern way of life in the free Western democracies. This audiobook is an expert account of J.S. Mill’s life and philosophical ideas.

Philosophy for busy people. Listen to this succinct account of the philosophy of Plato in just one hour. Plato is still seen by many as the greatest of all philosophers, inspiring many of the finest thinkers through the ages. Indeed, many see all later philosophy as nothing but attempts to answer the questions he raised. He founded the Academy, the world’s first university, in 387 BC and taught that the physical world is not reality but rather a reproduction of the true source.