Joseph Girzone wrote his parable in 1983 and published it himself with neither accompanying fanfare nor expectation of the extraordinary effect it would have on people around the world. With only word-of-mouth for advertising, and by virtue of its siniple message of love, "Joshua" became an internat[...]

This book examines how English writers from the Elizabethan period to the Restoration transformed and contested the ancient ideal of the virtuous mean. As early modern authors learned at grammar school and university, Aristotle and other classical thinkers praised 'golden means' balanced between ext[...]

Since it was first published in 1995, "Photonic Crystals" has remained the definitive text for both undergraduates and researchers on photonic band-gap materials and their use in controlling the propagation of light. This newly expanded and revised edition covers the latest developments in the field[...]

Pessimism claims an impressive following - from Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, to Freud, Camus, and Foucault. Yet 'pessimist' remains a term of abuse - an accusation of a bad attitude - or the diagnosis of an unhappy psychological state. Pessimism is thought of as an exclusively negative sta[...]

Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest - and, until recently, among the least understood - cosmic events in the universe. Discovered by chance during the cold war, these evanescent high-energy explosions confounded astronomers for decades. But a rapid series of startling breakthroughs beginning in 1997 [...]

Why did Greek tragedy and "the tragic" come to be seen as essential to conceptions of modernity? And how has this belief affected modern understandings of Greek drama? In Genealogy of the Tragic, Joshua Billings answers these and related questions by tracing the emergence of the modern theory of the[...]

Joshua Slocum's epic solo voyage around the world in 1895 in the 37 foot sloop Spray stands as one of the greatest sea adventures of all time. It remains one of the major feats of singlehanded voyaging, and has since been the inspiration for the many who have gone to sea in small boats. Starting fro[...]

A riveting look at the scientific roots of male violence.. In The Dark Side of Man, Michael Ghiglieri, a biologist and protg of Jane Goodall, takes on one of the most highly charged debates in modern science: the biological roots of bad behavior. Beginning with rape, and moving on to murder, war, a[...]

Parents will welcome Brazelton's uniquely empathetic, wise, and helpful approach to this inevitable and often trying issue. Toilet training is a job for the child and not the parent, and by trying to force the issue or even encourage too hard, parents can set the stage for trouble. By "listening to [...]

An expert in the field of paranormal research offers a user-friendly handbook on the art and science of ghost hunting, explaining how to identify different types of entities, understand how spirits interact with the living world, document ghostly activity, create a ghostbusting kit, set up a researc[...]

YouTube is one of the most well-known and widely discussed sites of participatory media in the contemporary online environment, and it is the first genuinely mass-popular platform for user-created video. In this timely and comprehensive introduction to how YouTube is being used and why it matters, B[...]

Experimental philosophy uses experimental research methods from psychology and cognitive science in order to investigate both philosophical and metaphilosophical questions. It explores philosophical questions about the nature of the psychological world - the very structure or meaning of our concepts[...]