A long time observer of the human condition, Curtis combines a wry wit with some unexpected opinions, penetrating insights and intensely personal reflections. This book covers a wide range of topics from the mundane to the metaphysical, spun with a sense of humour and wonder. This read has some delightful surprises that will leave you thinking and laughing. You never know what to expect. "For a 'regular guy', the author puts forth some very deep observations and opinions on how to achieve 'extraordinary happiness' in your life. While you may not agree with all of his arguments, you will nevertheless find yourself contemplating some of your own personal convictions." - Walter T. Leps, Ph.D., President, WAI BioProcess Solutions "I know Mike to be a happy guy who is getting happier with age. He has figured some things out that are worth considering to build a happier life for yourself in mind, body, spirit and heart. Mike will help you get closer faster and easier if you experiment with his advice." - Gaye Hanson, Blue Flowing Water Woman

As an introduction to political theory and science, this collection of writings by the great philosophers will be of close interest to general readers. It also serves as a basic textbook for students of government and political theory. Such fundamental concepts as Democracy, the Rule of Law, Justice, Natural Rights, Sovereignty, Citizenship, Power, the State, Revolution, Liberty, Reason, Materialism, Toleration, and the Separation of Church and State are traced from their origins, through their development and changing patterns, to show how they guide political thinking and institutions today.

This carefully selected compilation of the significant writings of the great political philosophers, scientists, and thinkers has long been an invaluable guide to the general reader as well as to the serious student of history, political science, and government. Such essential forces as Revolution, Idealism, and Nationalism are examined in detail and expounded by their leading exponents. Professor Curtis has written running commentary that places the extracts and their authors in the sequence of modern history.

A dictionary of uncommon, doctrinal, and thematic words found in the KJV Bible.

Research in the Biomedical Sciences: Transparent and Reproducible documents the widespread concerns related to reproducibility in biomedical research and provides a best practices guide to effective and transparent hypothesis generation, experimental design, reagent standardization (including validation and authentication), statistical analysis, and data reporting. The book addresses issues in the perceived value of the existing peer review process and calls for the need for improved transparency in data reporting. It reflects new guidelines for publication that include manuscript checklists, replication/reproducibility initiatives, and the potential consequences for the biomedical research community and societal health and well-being if training, mentoring, and funding of new generations of researchers and incentives for publications are not improved. This book offers real world examples, insights, and solutions to provide a thought-provoking and timely resource for all those learning about, or engaged in, performing and supervising research across the biomedical sciences.

Two army buddies (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up after the war and become a successful song-and-dance act. While on a skiing holiday the pair stage a benefit to save an inn run by their old commander, who is beset by financial difficulties resulting from a lack of snow. The title song, `White Christmas', was actually written 12 years earlier for the film `Holiday Inn' and was already a Christmas standard in 1954.

The Third Republic of France was characterized by weak and short-term governments. This book is a study of three writers, Georges Sorel, Maurice Barres, and Charles Maurras, their writings in the years between 1885 and 1914, and their reactions to the deficiencies they saw in the Third Republic and in the system of French democracy. The study begins in 1885 with the appearance of certain new political factors. It ends in 1914 because the three writers had by this time completed their original contributions to the thought of the country, even if not their total impact on France. A relative position of each of these figures in the French political spectrum is deduced from a combination of attitudes toward a number of issues. These include the extent of economic and social reform, centralization of the power of the state, the nature of the parliamentary system, the desirability of political parties, the relation of Church and State, the responsibility of authority, the use of force or coercion, and national power versus international collaboration. Their views span the political spectrum. Sorel, Barres, and Maurras are important not only because they provided the chief ideological weapons for the attack on the regime but also, in a wider context, because they contribute significantly to understanding of a later period of European political history. In their contemporary significance, all three illustrated the various attitudes of the conservative, the .reactionary, and the moralist. The names and parties may have changed but the same ideas continue to impact French politics and western ideology today. This is a key book for an epoch whose importance lingers in current discourse.

Will animosity towards Jews and the State of Israel never end? This book ventures to rectify the misrepresentations, propaganda, obsessions, and falsifications widely disseminated in the media and public discourse, explaining the motivations behind them. The issues Michael Curtis scrutinizes are complicated and controversial, sometimes even baffling, but he reviews them in as objective and rigorous a manner as possible. Curtis divides his arguments into five key areas: political correctness and the obsessive attack on Israel; the surprising and disturbing rise of antisemitism; the Arab world and the Islamist threat; the Palestinian narrative; and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The first section focuses on the censorious attitude toward Israel taken by many in the international community. A second section consists of essays on the increase of contemporary antisemitism in Arab and Muslim countries as well as European democracies. In the third section, the author addresses changes in the Arab world, the threat of Iranian ambitions, the new alliance of Sunni Islamist states, and the growing strength and danger of Islamic fundamentalism and extremist behavior. His fourth section, on the Palestinian Narrative, details the acceptance by many critics of Israel and the international media of the Palestinian narrative of victimhood. Finally, the section on the Israeli Palestinian conflict details the continuing struggle within the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians. This book is a must read for historians, political scientists, Jewish studies scholars, and all those interested in one of the most volatile and controversial regions in the world today.

Trials of those responsible for large-scale state brutality have captured public imagination in several countries. Prosecutors and judges in such cases, says Osiel, rightly aim to shape collective memory. They can do so hi ways successful as public spectacle and consistent with liberal legality. In defending this interpretation, he examines the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, the Eicnmann prosecution, and more recent trials in Argentina and France. Such trials can never summon up a "collective conscience" of moral principles shared by all, he argues. But they can nonetheless contribute to a little-noticed kind of social solidarity. To this end, writes Osiel, we should pay closer attention to the way an experience of administrative massacre is framed within the conventions of competing theatrical genres. Defense counsel will tell the story as a tragedy, while prosecutors will present it as a morality play. The judicial task at such moments is to employ the law to recast the courtroom drama in terms of a "theater of ideas," which engages large questions of collective memory and even national identity. Osiel asserts that principles of liberal morality can be most effectively inculcated in a society traumatized by fratricide when proceedings are conducted in this fashion. The approach Osiel advocates requires courts to confront questions of historical interpretation and moral pedagogy generally regarded as beyond their professional competence. It also raises objections that defendants' rights will be sacrificed, historical understanding distorted, and that the law cannot willfully influence collective memory, at least not when lawyers acknowledge this aim. Osiel responds to all these objections, and others. Lawyers, judges, sociologists, historians, and political theorists will find this a compelling contribution to debates on the meaning and consequences of genocide.

Will animosity towards Jews and the State of Israel never end? This book ventures to rectify the misrepresentations, propaganda, obsessions, and falsifications widely disseminated in the media and public discourse, explaining the motivations behind them. The issues Michael Curtis scrutinizes are complicated and controversial, sometimes even baffling, but he reviews them in as objective and rigorous a manner as possible.

Curtis divides his arguments into five key areas: political correctness and the obsessive attack on Israel; the surprising and disturbing rise of antisemitism; the Arab world and the Islamist threat; the Palestinian narrative; and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The first section focuses on the censorious attitude toward Israel taken by many in the international community. A second section consists of essays on the increase of contemporary antisemitism in Arab and Muslim countries as well as European democracies.

In the third section, the author addresses changes in the Arab world, the threat of Iranian ambitions, the new alliance of Sunni Islamist states, and the growing strength and danger of Islamic fundamentalism and extremist behavior. His fourth section, on the Palestinian Narrative, details the acceptance by many critics of Israel and the international media of the Palestinian narrative of victimhood. Finally, the section on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict details the continuing struggle within the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians. This book is a must read for historians, political scientists, Jewish studies scholars, and all those interested in one of the most volatile and controversial regions in the world today.

Revolutions are melancholy moments in history--brief gasps of hope that emerges from misery and disillusionment. This is true for great revolutions, like 1789 in France or 1917 in Russia, but applies to lesser political upheavals as well. Conflict builds into a state of tense confrontation, like a powder keg. When a spark is thrown, an explosion takes place and the old edifice begins to crumble. People are caught up in an initial mood of elation, but it does not last. Normality catches up.

Why do revolutions occur? In this completely revised edition of The Modern Social Conflict, Ralf Dahrendorf explores the basis and substance of social and class conflict. Ultimately, he finds that conflicts are about enhancing life chances; that is, they concern the options people have within a framework of social linkages, the ties that bind a society, which Dahrendorf calls ligatures. The book offers a concise and accessible account of conflict's contribution to democracies, and how democracies must change if they are to retain their political and social freedom. This new edition takes conflict theory past the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and into the present day.

Upon publication of the original 1988 edition, Stanley Hoffmann stated, "Ralf Dahrendorf is one of the most original and experienced social and political writers of our time. . . . this book] is both a survey of social and political conflict in Western societies from the eighteenth century to the present and a tract for a new 'radical liberalism.'" And Saul Friedlander wrote, "Ralf Dahrendorf has written a compelling book . . . the brilliant contribution of a convinced liberal to the study of conflict within contemporary democratic society."

Original essays by various scholars on the questions of whether there are new forms of antisemitism, whether there has been a resurgence of antisemitism in the current age, and whether critical attitudes towards Zionism or opposition to the State of Israel and its policies have given new impetus to antisemitism. The contributors also examine the complex relationship between the State of Israel and the Jewish community worldwide

The Third Republic of France was characterized by weak and short-term governments. This book is a study of three writers, Georges Sorel, Maurice Barres, and Charles Maurras, their writings in the years between 1885 and 1914, and their reactions to the deficiencies they saw in the Third Republic and in the system of French democracy. The study begins in 1885 with the appearance of certain new political factors. It ends in 1914 because the three writers had by this time completed their original contributions to the thought of the country, even if not their total impact on France.

A relative position of each of these figures in the French political spectrum is deduced from a combination of attitudes toward a number of issues. These include the extent of economic and social reform, centralization of the power of the state, the nature of the parliamentary system, the desirability of political parties, the relation of Church and State, the responsibility of authority, the use of force or coercion, and national power versus international collaboration. Their views span the political spectrum.

Sorel, Barres, and Maurras are important not only because they provided the chief ideological weapons for the attack on the regime but also, in a wider context, because they contribute significantly to understanding of a later period of European political history. In their contemporary significance, all three illustrated the various attitudes of the conservative, the .reactionary, and the moralist. The names and parties may have changed but the same ideas continue to impact French politics and western ideology today. This is a key book for an epoch whose importance lingers in current discourse.

Revolutions are melancholy moments in history--brief gasps of hope that emerges from misery and disillusionment. This is true for great revolutions, like 1789 in France or 1917 in Russia, but applies to lesser political upheavals as well. Conflict builds into a state of tense confrontation, like a powder keg. When a spark is thrown, an explosion takes place and the old edifice begins to crumble. People are caught up in an initial mood of elation, but it does not last. Normality catches up.

Why do revolutions occur? In this completely revised edition of The Modern Social Conflict, Ralf Dahrendorf explores the basis and substance of social and class conflict. Ultimately, he finds that conflicts are about enhancing life chances; that is, they concern the options people have within a framework of social linkages, the ties that bind a society, which Dahrendorf calls ligatures. The book offers a concise and accessible account of conflict's contribution to democracies, and how democracies must change if they are to retain their political and social freedom. This new edition takes conflict theory past the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and into the present day.

Upon publication of the original 1988 edition, Stanley Hoffmann stated, "Ralf Dahrendorf is one of the most original and experienced social and political writers of our time. . . . this book] is both a survey of social and political conflict in Western societies from the eighteenth century to the present and a tract for a new 'radical liberalism.'" And Saul Friedlander wrote, "Ralf Dahrendorf has written a compelling book . . . the brilliant contribution of a convinced liberal to the study of conflict within contemporary democratic society."

Marxism: The Inner Dialogues covers a wide range of basic issues and problems arising from what has been said for, against, and about Marxism. This is a rich and systematic collection of writings by the foremost authorities on the subject in the world. The book provides the most inclusive and lasting analysis of Marxist thought available. Curtis has confronted current problems in Marxist studies in the context of the classic concerns of Western thought.

Trials of those responsible for large-scale state brutality have captured public imagination in several countries. Prosecutors and judges in such cases, says Osiel, rightly aim to shape collective memory. They can do so hi ways successful as public spectacle and consistent with liberal legality. In defending this interpretation, he examines the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, the Eicnmann prosecution, and more recent trials in Argentina and France. Such trials can never summon up a "collective conscience" of moral principles shared by all, he argues. But they can nonetheless contribute to a little-noticed kind of social solidarity.

To this end, writes Osiel, we should pay closer attention to the way an experience of administrative massacre is framed within the conventions of competing theatrical genres. Defense counsel will tell the story as a tragedy, while prosecutors will present it as a morality play. The judicial task at such moments is to employ the law to recast the courtroom drama in terms of a "theater of ideas," which engages large questions of collective memory and even national identity. Osiel asserts that principles of liberal morality can be most effectively inculcated in a society traumatized by fratricide when proceedings are conducted in this fashion.

The approach Osiel advocates requires courts to confront questions of historical interpretation and moral pedagogy generally regarded as beyond their professional competence. It also raises objections that defendants' rights will be sacrificed, historical understanding distorted, and that the law cannot willfully influence collective memory, at least not when lawyers acknowledge this aim. Osiel responds to all these objections, and others. Lawyers, judges, sociologists, historians, and political theorists will find this a compelling contribution to debates on the meaning and consequences of genocide.

This unique and timely collection examines childhood and the child character throughout Stephen King's works, from his early novels and short stories, through film adaptations, to his most recent publications. King's use of child characters within the framework of horror (or of horrific childhood) raises questions about adult expectations of children, childhood, the American family, child agency, and the nature of fear and terror for (or by) children. The ways in which King presents, complicates, challenges, or terrorizes children and notions of childhood provide a unique lens through which to examine American culture, including both adult and social anxieties about children and childhood across the decades of King's works.

Two army buddies (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) team up after the war and become a successful song-and-dance act. While on a skiing holiday the pair stage a benefit to save an inn run by their old commander, who is beset by financial difficulties resulting from a lack of snow. The title song, `White Christmas', was actually written 12 years earlier for the film `Holiday Inn' and was already a Christmas standard in 1954.

The Middle East provides a thematic analysis of major forces and trends in contemporary Middle East and a thorough examination of individual countries in the region. This comprehensive anthology, the first in more than two decades, explores the political environment, religious and ethnic factors, economic factors, the Arab world, the Palestinians and the territories, Israel, the role of the superpowers, and the Middle East's relationship with the rest of the world. Every informed reader will want to consult "The Middle East "to understand this important and complex area of the world.

Contents (partial): William L. Cleveland, "Sources of Arab Nationalism"; Carl Leiden, "Arab Nationalism Today"; Opoku Agyeman, "Pan-Africanism versus Pan-Arabism"; Elbani Hermassi, "The Maghrib and the Middle East Conflict"; Lenore G. Martin, "Boundary Disputes in the Persian Gulf"; Bernard Lewis, "The Return of Islam"; Daniel Pipes, "Understanding Islam in Politics"; Emanuel Gutmann, "Religion and Its Role in National Integration in Israel"; George Moutafakis, "Minorities in the Modern Middle East Societies"; Stuart E. Colie, "The Shiites and the Lebanese Tragedy"; Kenneth J. Arrow, "Energy"; Fred M. Gottheil, "Saudi Arabian Economic Power"; Eliyahu Kanovsky, "Arab Oil Power"; Victor T. Le Vine, "The Arab World in the 1980s"; Bernard Lewis, "Islamic Political Movements"; Raymond N. Habiby and Fariborz Ghavidel, "Khumayni's Islamic Republic"; James P. Jankowski, "Nationalism in Twentieth Century Egypt"; Sheikh R. Ali, "The Iran-Iraq War"; Raymond N. Habiby, "Quadhafi's New Islamic Scientific Socialist Society"; Moshe Aumann, "Land Ownership in Palestine"; Fred M. Gottheil, "Arab Immigration into Pre-State Israel"; Yehoshua Porat, "The Palestinian-Arab Nationalist Movement"; Yonah Alexander, "The Nature of the PLO"; Sammy Smooha and John E. Hofrnan, "Arab-Jewish Coexistence in Israel"; Michael Curtis, "The Evolution of Israeli Politics"; Aaron S. Klieman, "Zionist Diplomacy and Israeli Foreign Policy"; Jay Adams, "Assessing Israel as a 'Strategist Asset'"; Saul B. Cohen, "Jerusalem's Unity and West Bank Autonomy"; Meron Benvenisti, "Postive Thinking in Jerusalem"; Steven L. Spiegel, "Recent American Policy in the Middle East"; Alan Dowty, "U.S. Decision-Making in Middle East Crises"; Michael Curtis, "American Interest and the Middle East"; Aaron Wildavsky, "American's National Interest in Israel"; Adam M. Garfinkle, "U.S. Policy in the Near Term"; James R. Kurth, "U.S. Policy and the West Bank"; Alvin Z. Rubinstein, "The Soviet Union's Imperial Policy in the Middle East"; Michael Curtis, "Africa, Israel, and the Middle East"; Victor T. Le Vine, "The Arabs and Africa"; W. Howard Wriggins, "South Asia and the Gulf"; Roy Licklide, "Arab Oil and Japanese Foreign Policy"; Linda B. Miller, "Western Europe and the Middle East"; Dan V. Segre, "Israel and the Third World."

The Middle East provides a thematic analysis of major forces and trends in contemporary Middle East and a thorough examination of individual countries in the region. This comprehensive anthology, the first in more than two decades, explores the political environment, religious and ethnic factors, economic factors, the Arab world, the Palestinians and the territories, Israel, the role of the superpowers, and the Middle East's relationship with the rest of the world. Every informed reader will want to consult "The Middle East "to understand this important and complex area of the world.

Contents (partial): William L. Cleveland, "Sources of Arab Nationalism"; Carl Leiden, "Arab Nationalism Today"; Opoku Agyeman, "Pan-Africanism versus Pan-Arabism"; Elbani Hermassi, "The Maghrib and the Middle East Conflict"; Lenore G. Martin, "Boundary Disputes in the Persian Gulf"; Bernard Lewis, "The Return of Islam"; Daniel Pipes, "Understanding Islam in Politics"; Emanuel Gutmann, "Religion and Its Role in National Integration in Israel"; George Moutafakis, "Minorities in the Modern Middle East Societies"; Stuart E. Colie, "The Shiites and the Lebanese Tragedy"; Kenneth J. Arrow, "Energy"; Fred M. Gottheil, "Saudi Arabian Economic Power"; Eliyahu Kanovsky, "Arab Oil Power"; Victor T. Le Vine, "The Arab World in the 1980s"; Bernard Lewis, "Islamic Political Movements"; Raymond N. Habiby and Fariborz Ghavidel, "Khumayni's Islamic Republic"; James P. Jankowski, "Nationalism in Twentieth Century Egypt"; Sheikh R. Ali, "The Iran-Iraq War"; Raymond N. Habiby, "Quadhafi's New Islamic Scientific Socialist Society"; Moshe Aumann, "Land Ownership in Palestine"; Fred M. Gottheil, "Arab Immigration into Pre-State Israel"; Yehoshua Porat, "The Palestinian-Arab Nationalist Movement"; Yonah Alexander, "The Nature of the PLO"; Sammy Smooha and John E. Hofrnan, "Arab-Jewish Coexistence in Israel"; Michael Curtis, "The Evolution of Israeli Politics"; Aaron S. Klieman, "Zionist Diplomacy and Israeli Foreign Policy"; Jay Adams, "Assessing Israel as a 'Strategist Asset'"; Saul B. Cohen, "Jerusalem's Unity and West Bank Autonomy"; Meron Benvenisti, "Postive Thinking in Jerusalem"; Steven L. Spiegel, "Recent American Policy in the Middle East"; Alan Dowty, "U.S. Decision-Making in Middle East Crises"; Michael Curtis, "American Interest and the Middle East"; Aaron Wildavsky, "American's National Interest in Israel"; Adam M. Garfinkle, "U.S. Policy in the Near Term"; James R. Kurth, "U.S. Policy and the West Bank"; Alvin Z. Rubinstein, "The Soviet Union's Imperial Policy in the Middle East"; Michael Curtis, "Africa, Israel, and the Middle East"; Victor T. Le Vine, "The Arabs and Africa"; W. Howard Wriggins, "South Asia and the Gulf"; Roy Licklide, "Arab Oil and Japanese Foreign Policy"; Linda B. Miller, "Western Europe and the Middle East"; Dan V. Segre, "Israel and the Third World."

Jefferson's Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion explores the historical processes by which Virginia was transformed from a British colony into a Southern slave state. It focuses on changing conceptualizations of ownership and emphasizes the persistent influence of the English common law on Virginia's postcolonial political culture. The book explains how the traditional characteristics of land tenure became subverted by the dynamic contractual relations of a commercial economy and assesses the political consequences of the law reforms that were necessitated by these developments. Nineteenth-century reforms seeking to reconcile the common law with modern commercial practices embraced new democratic expressions about the economic and political power of labor, and thereby encouraged the idea that slavery was an essential element in sustaining republican government in Virginia. By the 1850s, the ownership of human property had replaced the ownership of land as the distinguishing basis for political power, with tragic consequences for the Old Dominion.

Through an historical analysis of the theme of Oriental despotism, Michael Curtis reveals the complex positive and negative interaction between Europe and the Orient. The book also criticizes the misconception that the Orient was the constant victim of Western imperialism and the view that Westerners cannot comment objectively on Eastern and Muslim societies. The book views the European concept of Oriental despotism as based not on arbitrary prejudicial observation, but rather on perceptions of real processes and behavior in Eastern systems of government. Curtis considers how the concept developed and was expressed in the context of Western political thought and intellectual history, and of the changing realities in the Middle East and India. The book includes discussion of the observations of Western travelers in Muslim countries and analysis of the reflections of seven major thinkers: Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Tocqueville, James and John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Max Weber.

Through an historical analysis of the theme of Oriental despotism, Michael Curtis reveals the complex positive and negative interaction between Europe and the Orient. The book also criticizes the misconception that the Orient was the constant victim of Western imperialism and the view that Westerners cannot comment objectively on Eastern and Muslim societies. The book views the European concept of Oriental despotism as based not on arbitrary prejudicial observation, but rather on perceptions of real processes and behavior in Eastern systems of government. Curtis considers how the concept developed and was expressed in the context of Western political thought and intellectual history, and of the changing realities in the Middle East and India. The book includes discussion of the observations of Western travelers in Muslim countries and analysis of the reflections of seven major thinkers: Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Tocqueville, James and John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Max Weber.

Jefferson's Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion explores the historical processes by which Virginia was transformed from a British colony into a Southern slave state. It focuses on changing conceptualizations of ownership and emphasizes the persistent influence of the English common law on Virginia's postcolonial political culture. The book explains how the traditional characteristics of land tenure became subverted by the dynamic contractual relations of a commercial economy and assesses the political consequences of the law reforms that were necessitated by these developments. Nineteenth-century reforms seeking to reconcile the common law with modern commercial practices embraced new democratic expressions about the economic and political power of labor, and thereby encouraged the idea that slavery was an essential element in sustaining republican government in Virginia. By the 1850s, the ownership of human property had replaced the ownership of land as the distinguishing basis for political power, with tragic consequences for the Old Dominion.