"In ordinary conversation, including among the "educated," the word "sin" rarely gets mentioned except when one is trying to be coy or facetious. As Thomas Mann once said, "sin" is nowadays "an amusing word used only when one is trying to get a laugh."" "But this small work will interpret sin in its[...]

In this elegantly written (and produced) work, Josef Pieper introduces the reader to an understanding that leisure is nothing less than "an attitude of mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world." Beginning with the Greeks, and through a series of p[...]

"No better guide over the thousand-year period called the Middle Ages could be found than Josef Pieper. In this tour de monde medievale, he moves easily back and forth between the figures and doctrines that made medieval philosophy unique in Western thought. After reflecting on the invidious implica[...]

"Pieper [attempts to] show how death must be seen as an experience of the whole man and is properly to be understood as ?punishment.' When he views man's pilgrim status on earth, Pieper is led to assert that death is an act of human freedom, consistent with Creation and redemption. . . . With his ra[...]

Zentrum unserer Kultur muss die Muße sein, nicht die Arbeit "Ein schmales, aber ein tiefes Buch: eindrucksvoll, ja erschreckend." (New York Times) "Hier ist mit psychologischen und philosophischen Kategorien und der Sprachkraft eines großen Schriftstellers endlich die lange fällige Polemik gege[...]