This title examines the secularization of political theory during the European Enlightenment and the ramifications for current debates. "The Secular Contract" seeks to defend the European Enlightenment's secularization of political philosophy by promoting an understanding of Enlightenment secular liberalism and extending it to contemporary issues. The work proposes that the Enlightenment united the secularizing trends that occurred at the time across all areas of knowledge into a "secular contract" for modern politics. It argues that this was a normatively valuable enterprise whose aims and arguments need to be recovered today, especially in light of the challenges faced by the West, including fundamentalist Christianity in the US and radical Islam in Europe. Looking at the works of many thinkers, such as Hobbes, Jefferson, Madison, Rousseau, the book then shifts to the present day to argue for a different liberalism, as suggested by such contemporary thinkers as William Galston or Stephen Macedo. An engaging read, "The Secular Contract" will appeal to anyone interested in political theory and the history of ideas.

Years ago, they fled the lake house. Now, the brothers have returned. Three brothers return to the family cottage by the lake where, more than two decades earlier, a catastrophe changed the course of their lives. Now, they are here to scatter their mother's ashes - young men, estranged but bound together by the history that defines them. Their lives have been spent competing for their father's favour and their mother's love, in a household more like a minefield than a home. What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces? The Survivors is a suspenseful, haunting novel about three brothers and their reckoning with the events of one disputed, disastrous summer.

A train races through a saturated summer landscape. The characters in this novel are all traveling to Malma Station, and neither they nor the reader know how their fates are intertwined.

On board the train to Malma Station are a married couple in crisis, a single dad and his young daughter, and a woman searching for the answer to a mystery her mother left behind. The enigmatic Harriet, the controlling Oskar, and the searching Yana - each of these characters carries within them the scars of what has come before.

Malma Station traces the crooked lines of family and history and shows how memories morph to take new shape, postulating that perhaps the past is actually what we can change, rather than the future. The narrative builds like a train hurtling through time, each chapter a separate car hooking into the next.

Malma Station is at once an enchanting and gut-wrenching novel about family secrets and injustices passed on through generations - and a suspenseful hunt for a truth with the power to change everything.

On board the train to Malma Station are a married couple in crisis, a single dad and his young daughter, and a woman searching for the answer to a mystery her mother left behind. The enigmatic Harriet, the controlling Oskar, and the searching Yana - each of these characters carries within them the scars of what has come before. Malma Station traces the crooked lines of family and history and shows how memories morph to take new shape, postulating that perhaps the past is actually what we can change, rather than the future. The narrative builds like a train hurtling through time, each chapter a separate car hooking into the next. Malma Station is at once an enchanting and gut-wrenching novel about family secrets and injustices passed on through generations - and a suspenseful hunt for a truth with the power to change everything.

'You'll cry for these brothers: for the men they became, for the boys they were, for the innocence they lost. Alex Schulman will take you deep into an emotional labyrinth' Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove Years ago, they fled the lake house. Now, the brothers have returned. Three brothers return to the family cottage by the lake where, more than two decades earlier, a catastrophe changed the course of their lives. Now, they are here to scatter their mother's ashes - young men, estranged but bound together by the history that defines them. Their lives have been spent competing for their father's favour and their mother's love, in a household more like a minefield than a home. What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces? The Survivors is a suspenseful, haunting novel about three brothers and their reckoning with the events of one disputed, disastrous summer.

Benjamin sees the shape of his two brothers trying to kill each other. It's no worthy finale, but perhaps it's also no surprise. How else had they expected this to end?

Three brothers return to the family cottage by the lake where, more than two decades earlier, a catastrophe changed the course of their lives. Now, they are here to scatter their mother's ashes.

Benjamin, the middle son, drives the three of them down the old gravel road to the house, through a familiar landscape but also through time. Here they are as boys, tanned legs and hungry eyes, children left to themselves by remote parents; here they are as young men, estranged but bound together by the history that defines them, their lives spent competing for their father's favour and their mother's love in a household more like a minefield than a home. In the intervening years, Benjamin has grown increasingly untethered from reality, frozen in place as life carries on around him. And between the three brothers hums a dangerous current.

What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces?

The Survivors is the tale of a family falling apart and a chronicle of a mind unravelling in the wake of a tragedy, both a coming-of-age novel and a reckoning with a deeply buried past. Written with singular elegance and the drive of a suspense novel, its ending will leave you marvelling at what the best fiction can achieve.

The Secular Contract seeks to defend the European Enlightenment's secularization of political philosophy by promoting an understanding of Enlightenment secular liberalism and extending it to contemporary issues. The work proposes that the Enlightenment united the secularizing trends that occurred at the time across all areas of knowledge into a "secular contract" for modern politics. It argues that this was a normatively valuable enterprise whose aims and arguments need to be recovered today, especially in light of the challenges faced by the West, including fundamentalist Christianity in the US and radical Islam in Europe. Looking at the works of many thinkers, such as Hobbes, Jefferson, Madison, Rousseau, the book then shifts to the present day to argue for a different liberalism, as suggested by such contemporary thinkers as William Galston or Stephen Macedo. An engaging read, The Secular Contract will appeal to anyone interested in political theory and the history of ideas.