This highly readable new collection of thirty pieces by Michael Oakeshott, almost all of which are previously unpublished, covers every decade of his intellectual career, and adds significantly to his contributions to the philosophy of historical understanding and political philosophy, as well as to the philosophy of education and aesthetics. The essays were intended mostly for lectures or seminars, and are consequently in an informal style that will be accessible to new readers as well as to those already well acquainted with Oakeshott's works. Early pieces include a long essay 'On the Relations of Philosophy, Poetry, and Reality', and Oakeshott's comments on 'The Cambridge School of Political Science' through which he himself had passed as an undergraduate. The collection also reproduces a substantial wartime essay 'On Peace with Germany'. There are two new essays on the philosophy of education, and the essay which gives the work its title, 'What is History?', is just one of over half a dozen discussions of the nature of historical knowledge. Oakeshott's later sceptical, 'hermeneutic', thought is also well represented by pieces such as 'What is Political Theory?' and 'The Emergence of the History of Thought.' Reviews of books by English and European contemporaries such as Butterfield, Hayek, Voegelin, and Arendt also help to place him in context more clearly than before. The book will be indispensable for all Oakeshott's readers, no matter which area of his thought concerns them most.

Taking a unique look at how Britain survived the bombing of its major cities, 'The Blitz, A Very Peculiar History' tells a story of blackouts, Bletchley Park and bravery during the darkest (literally) period of World War II. From Dunkirk to Dad's Army, explore the many ways in which Britain tried to foil the incoming bomber planes, featuring quirky stories and fascinating trivia about this period of history. Were German paratroopers really dropped disguised as nuns? Find out the answer to this question and many more even more bizarre ones throughout the course of this amazing tale of sacrifice and survival in the face of adversity.

Are you prepared, either as an atheist or a religious believer, to have your ideas of God, the self, other people, the body, the soul, spirituality, and faith challenged in an unexpected and original way? Here is a book that moves out from under and away from the received notions of those ponderous topics, whether or not you believe in the divine. The author is a confessed atheist but one who rejects the approach of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray and the rest when they depart from their justifiable criticisms of the historical record of the established creeds and endeavour to rubbish what faith could actually be. The book takes its origin from an exploration of the idea of an avatar; the writing of it was stimulated by seeing the Cameron film, though it subjects that film itself to an assessment of its hidden assumptions. The book finally arrives at specific recommendations for our time, ones to which the argument of the book has been directed throughout.

Dragged from the deepest, darkest depths of the 'Very Peculiar History' vaults, this book collects tales of terror, morbid myths and frightening facts that will chill you witless. Introduced by everyone's favourite bloodsucker, Count Dracula, 'Vampires: A Very Peculiar History' features the origin of vampire-like creatures and a biological and mythological look at human blood (including the best places to bite if you were a vampire!) alongside tales of the real-life vampires that may have inspired the first vampire stories. It includes advice on how to spot a vampire as well as how to become one! Even vampires of film, graphic novel and manga get a taste of the action! Don't be scared, be prepared...with 'Vampires, A Very Peculiar History'!

This volume examines historical and contemporary engagements of anarchism and literary production. Anarchists have used literary production to express opposition to values and relations characterizing advanced capitalist (and socialist) societies while also expressing key aspects of the alternative values and institutions proposed within anarchism. Among favoured themes are anarchist critiques of corporatization, prisons and patriarchal relations as well as explorations of developing anarchist perspectives on revolution, ecology, polysexuality and mutual aid. A key component of anarchist perspectives is the belief that means and ends must correspond. Thus in anarchist literature as in anarchist politics, a radical approach to form is as important as content. Anarchist literature joins other critical approaches to creative production in attempting to break down divisions between readers and writer, audience and artist, encouraging all to become active participants in the creative process.

Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) made his reputation as a political philosopher, but for a long time it seemed as if he had little interest in politics before 1945. His major pre-war work, Experience and its Modes (1933) was an examination of the nature of philosophy and its relation to other forms of thought that made almost no mention of politics. However, it has become increasingly clear that this initial judgment was misleading. A posthumous collection of early essays, Religion, Politics, and the Moral Life (1993), proved that political philosophy was a lifelong concern. Nevertheless, the belief that Oakeshott was relatively uninterested in politics, at least in the 1920s, has persisted. This volume dispels that notion for good. It contains two previously unpublished works, a manuscript entitled 'A Discussion of some Matters preliminary to the Study of Political Philosophy', and the first version of a course of lectures on 'The Philosophical Approach to Politics' that Oakeshott gave between 1928 and 1930. These works establish that politics was a central concern in the first decade of his intellectual career, and show beyond any doubt that the ideas of Experience and its Modes actually grew out of Oakeshott's prior philosophical interest in politics.

The book explores the role of leisure in modern life. It was written in the belief that leisure sets us apart as a species, that what is "e;useless"e; by commercial standards is probably the best thing we have going for us, and that leisure is under attack, in high danger of being lost, and has been for some time (since at least the end of the Second World War). The source of the problem is the ascendancy of the economic imperative, the subordination of the science of means (philosophy) by the science of ends (economics). The book argues that our leisurely impulse has been so squandered that boredom is now a significant problem in modern life. The essays canvass the distinctive contributions of art, science and religion, and provide a synthetic account of these three forces driving human culture. Although the book covers the science/religion question, this book differs from others on the science/religion debate in that it connects the traditional discussion to questions of economics and social policy. It takes an innovative approach in weaving the fundamentals of human life (art, science, economics and so on) into one fabric, namely, leisure.

To call someone a reactionary is to insult them and to end any argument. There is no possible rejoinder: no one could possibly wish to be a reactionary. But what if one were to gratefully accept the label? What would it mean to wilfully and honestly be a reactionary? Referencing thinkers as diverse as Burke, de Maistre, Guenon, Ratzinger, Scruton and the Prince of Wales this book considers the nature of reaction as a justified response to modernity and the constant call for change. Reaction is shown to take two distinct forms: first, as a rejection of progress and a defence of traditional culture and values; and second, as a common sense disquiet and distaste towards elites. These are seen as entirely valid responses to the failure of modernity. 'Reaction' presents an original and thoughtful critique of modernity and a defence of tradition. It will be of interest to anyone concerned that we are heading too far and too quickly in the wrong direction.

Something has gone deeply wrong with the university - too deeply wrong to be put right by any merely bureaucratic means. What's wrong is, simply, that our official idea of education, the idea that inspires all government policies and 'initiatives', is itself uneducated. With the growing emphasis in higher education on training in supposedly useful skills, has the very ethos of the university been subverted? And does this more utilitarian university succeed in adding to the national wealth, the basis on which politicians justify the large public expenditure on the higher education system? Should we get our idea of a university from politicians and bureaucrats or from J.H. Newman, Jane Austen and Socrates?The New Idea of a University is an entertaining and highly readable defence of the philosophy of liberal arts education and an attack on the sham that has been substituted for it. It is sure to scandalize all the friends of the present establishment and be cheered elsewhere.

Plan for six weeks of learning covering all six areas of learning and development of the EYFS through the topic of weather. The Planning for Learning series is a series of topic books written around the Early Years Foundation Stage designed to make planning easy. This book takes you through six weeks of activities on the theme of the weather. Each activity is linked to a specific Early Learning Goal, and the book contains a skills overview so that practitioners can keep track of which areas of learning and development they are promoting. This book also includes a photocopiable page to give to parents with ideas for them to get involved with their children's topic, as well as ideas for bringing the six weeks of learning together. The weekly themes in this book include: wet weather, sunny weather and everything in between.

Plan for six weeks of learning covering all six areas of learning and development of the EYFS through the topic of the environment. The Planning for Learning series is a series of topic books written around the Early Years Foundation Stage designed to make planning easy. This book takes you through six weeks of activities on the theme of the environment. Each activity is linked to a specific Early Learning Goal, and the book contains a skills overview so that practitioners can keep track of which areas of learning and development they are promoting. This book also includes a photocopiable page to give to parents with ideas for them to get involved with their children's topic, as well as ideas for bringing the six weeks of learning together. The weekly themes in this book include: helping children explore their own environment, early knowledge of how to look after the environment; helping children to clean up after themselves; and different environments, including rainforests and deserts.

Politics is a noble, but also a dirty, business. To gain election - and retain office - in a democratic system, politicians are frequently compelled to be dishonest. They engage in benevolent lying because obstruction by stupid voters will otherwise stop them advancing the national interest as they see it.'So claims the author of this eye-opening book, which straddles politics, philosophy, morality and economics. Alex Rubner's own background as an economist advising policy-makers gives authority to his words and a personal dimension to his illustrations.

Machiavelli almost succeeded in removing morality from European politics and, indeed, since his day it has sometimes been assumed that morality and politics are separate. Ryder argues that the time has come for public policies to be seen to be based upon moral objectives. Politicians should be expected routinely to justify their policies with open moral argument.In Part I, Ryder sketches an overview of contemporary political philosophy as it relates to the moral basis for politics, and Part 2 suggests a way of putting morality back into politics, along with a clearer emphasis upon scientific evidence.

Known today mainly as a teacher of Adam Smith (1723-90) and an influence on David Hume (1711-76), Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was a first-rate thinker whose work deserves study on its own merit. While his most important contribution to the history of ideas was likely his theory of an innate sense of morality, Hutcheson also wrote on a wide variety of other subjects, including art, psychology, law, politics, economics, metaphysics, and logic. Spanning his entire literary career, this collection brings together selections from Hutcheson's greater and lesser known works, including his youthful "e;Thoughts"e; (1725) on Thomas Hobbes' (1588-1679) egoistic theory of laughter.

This innovative and flexible series of five books, is specifically designed to support and develop a child's personal, social and emotional wellbeing through stories and poems with links to PSED in the EYFS, the Citizenship and PSHE curriculum in KS1 and the SEAL programme

Кра?на стр?мко летить у пр?рву: моторошна криза охоплю? вс? царини людського життя. Псевдовчен? наполегливо пропагують: мислення – це ?люз?я, пошук будь-якого сенсу – абсурд, ? зрештою уряд оголошу? моратор?й на розум. Талано- вит? п?дпри?мц? безсл?дно зникають, кидаючи сво? виробництво напризволяще або знищуючи його. Головн? геро? роману – Да?н? Та??арт ? Генк Р?арден – в?дчайдушно намагаються в?двернути катастрофу. Да?н? переконана, що в кра?н? з’явився та?м- ничий Руйн?вник, ц?ль якого – крах економ?ки ? тотальна деградац?я людей. Ж?нка не покида? над?? в?дтворити досконалий двигун, але перспективний молодий нау- ковець, який погодився допомогти ?й, в?дмовля?ться працювати на благо нев?глас?в. Да?н? не хоче в?дмовлятися в?д свого задуму, тож ?де на зустр?ч з? знев?реним до- сл?дником, а в дороз? знайомиться з волоцюгою. Свого часу в?н працював там, де й зародилося ?чисте зло?, яке зараз пожира? кра?ну… Друга частина роману м?стить блискуч? св?тоглядн? монологи, вкладен? в уста Франциско Д’Анкон?? та Генка Р?ардена.

In 1888 a client, Mary Morstan, comes with two puzzles for Holmes. The first is the disappearance of her father Captain Arthur Morstan in December 1878 and the second is that she has received 6 pearls in the mail from an anonymous benefactor once a year since 1882, since she answered an anonymous newspaper query inquiring for her. With the last pearl she has received a letter remarking that she has been a wronged woman and asks for meeting. Holmes takes the case and soon discovers that Major Sholto — Morstan's only friend who had denied seeing Morstan — had died in 1882 and that within a short span of time Mary began to receive the pearls, implying a connection. The only clue Mary can give Holmes is a map of a fortress with the names of Jonathan Small and three Sikhs, who are named Dost Akbar, Abdullah Khan, and Mahomet Singh. Holmes, Watson, and Mary meet Thaddeus Sholto, the son of the late Major Sholto and Capt Morstan's Army friend who has sent her the pearls. Thaddeus remarks that his father had a paranoid fear of one-legged men and confirms that Mary's father had seen the Major the night he died. That night, in a quarrel about an Agra Treasure, Morstan — who was in weak health — suffered a heart attack. Not wanting to bring attention to the object of the quarrel to public notice, Sholto disposed of the body and hid the treasure. However his own health became worse when he received a letter from India. Dying, he called his two sons and confessed to Morstan's death and was about to divulge the location of the treasure when he suddenly cried "Keep him out!". The puzzled sons glimpsed a face in the window but the only trace was a single footstep in the dirt. On their father's body is a note reading "The Sign of Four". Both brothers quarreled over whether a legacy should be left to Mary Morstan and Thaddeus left his brother Bartholomew, taking a chaplet and sending its pearls to Mary. The reason he sent the letter is that Bartholomew has found the treasure and possibly Thaddeus and Mary might confront him for a division of it. Bartholomew is found dead in his home from a poison dart and the treasure is missing. While the police wrongly take Thaddeus in as a suspect Holmes deduces that there are two persons involved in the murder: a one-legged man, Jonathan Small, as well as another "small" accomplice. He traces them to a boat landing where Small has hired a launch named the Aurora. With the help of his Baker Street Irregulars and his own disguise Holmes traces the launch. In a Police launch Holmes and Watson chase the Aurora and capture it but in the process end up killing the "small" companion after he attempts to kill Holmes with a poisoned dart shot from a blow-pipe. Small tries to escape but is captured. However the iron treasure box is empty; Small claims to have dumped the treasure over the side during the chase.

The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey in Victorian England, and identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator.In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks. The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing butterflies in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is a novel by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on 4 November (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on. Short Summary: Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty")—the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to an alternative world. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up. Upon leaving the house (where it had been a cold, snowy night), she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a "flower that can move about." Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is now human-sized, and who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds. This is a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction, which makes them the most "agile" of pieces. The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares, like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. This is a reference to the chess rule of Promotion. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, thus acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move.

In “True Ghost Stories,” Mr. Carrington presents a number of startling cases of this character; but they are not the ordinary “ghost stories”—based on pure fiction, and having no foundation in reality. Here we have a well-arranged collection of incidents, all thoroughly investigated and vouched for, and the testimony obtained first-hand and corroborated by others. The chapter on “Haunted Houses” is particularly striking. The first chapter deals with the interesting question, “What is a Ghost?” and attempts to answer this question in the light of the latest scientific theories which have been advanced to explain these supernatural happenings and visitants. It is a book of absorbing interest, and cannot fail to grip and hold the attention of every reader—no matter whether he be a student of these questions, or one merely in search of hair-raising anecdotes and stories. He will find them here a-plenty! The following little book endeavors to bring together a number of “ghost stories” of the more startling and dramatic type,—but stories, nevertheless, which seem to be well authenticated; and which have been obtained, in most instances, at first hand, from the original witnesses; and often contain corroborative testimony from others who also experienced the ghostly phenomena. Some of these incidents, indeed, rise to the dignity of scientific evidence; others are less well authenticated cases,—but interesting for all that. These have been grouped in various Chapters, according to their evidential value. Chapters II. and III. contain well-evidenced cases, some of which have been taken from the Proceedings and Journals of the Society for Psychical Research (S. P. R.), or from Phantasms of the Living, or from other scientific books, in which narratives of this character receive serious consideration. Chapter V., on the contrary, contains a number of incidents which,—striking and dramatic as they are,—cannot be included in the two earlier Chapters, as presenting real evidence of Ghosts; but are published rather as startling and interesting ghost stories. Chapter IV., devoted to “Haunted Houses,” contains brief accounts of the most famous Haunted Houses, and of the phenomena which have been witnessed within them. Appendix A gives a list of a few of the important “Historical Ghosts,” Appendix B describes the “Phantom Armies” lately seen by the Allied troops in France—while Appendix C lists a number of books of Ghost Stories which the interested reader may care to peruse. A short Glossary, at the beginning of the book, explains the meaning of certain terms used,—which are not, perhaps, ordinarily met with in books of this character. In the Introductory Chapter, I have endeavored to explain, very briefly, the nature and character of Ghosts; what they are; and the various scientific theories which have been brought forward, of late years, to explain Ghosts. I hope that this may prove of interest to the reader; in case it does not do so, he is invited to “skip” directly to Chapter II., which begins our account of “True Ghost Stories.” I wish to express my thanks in this place to the Council of the English S. P. R. for special permission to quote and to summarize several striking cases here reproduced; also to Miss Estelle Stead, for permission to utilize several cases previously printed at length in Mr. Wm. T. Stead’s collections of Ghost Stories. H. C. [Author]

The War of the Worlds is a military science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. It first appeared in serialized form in 1897, published simultaneously in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. The first appearance in book form was published by William Heinemann of London in 1898. It is the first-person narrative of the adventures of an unnamed protagonist and his brother in Surrey and London as Earth is invaded by Martians. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. The War of the Worlds has two parts, Book One: The Coming of the Martians and Book Two: The Earth under the Martians. The narrator, a philosophically-inclined author, struggles to return to his wife while seeing the Martians lay waste to southern England. Book One also imparts the experience of his brother, also unnamed, who describes events in the capital and escapes the Martians by boarding a ship near Tillingham, on the Essex coast. The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British Imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears and prejudices. At the time of publication it was classified as a scientific romance, like his earlier novel The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never gone out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert Hutchings Goddard. Plot SummaryYet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.— H. G. Wells (1898), The War of the Worlds The Coming of the MartiansThe narrative opens in an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, near the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oily brown skin," "the size, perhaps, of a bear," with "two large dark-coloured eyes," and a lipless "V-shaped mouth" surrounded by "Gorgon groups of tentacles." The narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous." They briefly emerge, have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. Military forces arrive that night to surround the common, including Maxim guns. The population of Woking and the surrounding villages are reassured by the presence of the military. A tense day begins, with much anticipation of military action by the narrator.