by Mircea Eliade (1991)
"This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text."--Jacket.
Henri Léandre
Existe-t-il un Dieu, sorte d'être suprême, ou non ? Est-ce Dieu qui a crée l'homme ou l'homme qui a crée Dieu ? Toujours est-il qu'une multitude de dieux a hanté l'imaginaire, les rêves, les passions, les folies des hommes. Ces dieux, chimères ou non, vivent au moins autant que nous vivons avec eux. Que dire de ces chimères ? Si l'on peut se bercer d'amour ou de poésie, pourquoi pas de religion ?
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
This is the only book to deal with classical Islamic cosmology as it was formulated by the Ikhwan al-S'afa al Biruni and Ibn Sina during the tenth and eleventh centuries. These figures influenced all the later centuries of Islamic history and in fact created the cosmological framework within which all later scientific activity in the Islamic world was carried out--the enduring image of the cosmos within which Muslims have lived during the past millennium. Nasr writes from within the Islamic tradition and demonstrates how, based on the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet, the figures treated in this work integrated elements drawn from various ancient schools of philosophy and the sciences. This book is unique in its treatment of classical Islamic cosmology as seen from within the Islamic world-view and provides a key for understanding of traditional Islamic thought. -- Back cover.
George A. Panichas
The immediate and guiding aim of this book is to introduce the contemporary reader to the work and thought of Simone Weil.
Slavoj Žižek
Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In the postmodern world, ideologies of all kinds have been cast in doubt. In this combative new work, renowned theorist Slavoj Žižek takes on the reigning postmodern agenda with a manifesto for several 'lost causes'.