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Voordrachten over het schrijverschap.

Brieven, autobiografisch getinte schetsen, verhalen en bespiegelingen over erotiek, God, schrijverschap en dood.

The prohibition of alcohol in the USA was a notorious fiasco.
The War on Drugs has been a deadly failure.
Bans on alternative nicotine products keep people smoking cigarettes.
Attempts to suppress legal highs result in more drugs hitting the market.
Prohibition doesn't work but the world is filled with prohibitionists. Why?

Christopher Snowdon's new history of prohibitions is a panoramic study of how bans begin, who instigates them and why they fail. It is a story of moral panics, vested interests and popular hysteria, driven by people who believe that utopia is only ever one ban away.

Includes: The campaign for alcohol prohibition in the USA
The worldwide ban on opium and the dawn of the War on Drugs
The curious case of the European Union's ban on oral tobacco (snus)
The 1920s crusade to suppress drinking worldwide
The prohibition of Ecstasy and the rise of designer drugs
The enduring appeal of prohibitionist policies today

"The new Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary Prohibition is a five-and-a-half-hour missed opportunity to demonstrate why bans on substances are doomed from the start. Fortunately, for those who want to understand the irresistible lure of all types of prohibitions, there is Christopher Snowdon's The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition Since 1800. Although Snowdon's comprehensive history will never reach as many people as the PBS series, The Art of Suppression makes the case that Burns seems to go out of his way to avoid: that prohibition of products that people desire, whether alcohol a century ago or Ecstasy today, is bound to fail miserably.
It is easy now, as Ken Burns has masterfully done, to ridicule the prohibition of alcohol. But Snowdon does the heavy lifting of catching modern-day Carrie Nations in the act. Despite a long history of failure, the public always seems ready to enlist in prohibitionist campaigns, perhaps believing, as Snowdon puts it, that "utopia is only ever one ban away." - Jeff Stier, Reason magazine

"In masterfully charting the history of the prohibitionists' war on pleasurable substances, in highlighting their endless failures to impose restrictions on the public, in exposing their dodgy use of statistics and 'evidence bases' to disguise moral arguments, and in emphasising the ability of us as individuals to exercise our capacity for self-restraint and personal responsibility, Snowdon does all of us determined to challenge the contemporary prohibitionist movement a great service." - Patrick Hayes, Spiked

"When the law cuts off one avenue of pleasure, new sources are invariably found," as Snowdon puts it. If there is any great demand for a certain product, be it food, drink, drugs or sex, then the risks of purveying it are met by colossal rewards. The Art of Suppression is full of great facts - its description of opium-addicted Britain before the wars is particularly memorable. But its real impact is its pithy denunciation of the prohibitionist cause. It ends with a modest proposal for a more practical and tolerant approach to drugs of all kinds. In his modesty Snowdon does not hold much hope for implementation. But this book must make that goal more likely." - Tom Miers, author of Democracy and the Fall of the West

First published in 1985, Habits of the Heart continues to be one of the most discussed interpretations of modern American society, a quest for a democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions. In a new preface the authors relate the arguments of the book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.

Verslag van onderzoek naar, geschiedenis van en inzichten in de (zelfgekozen) dood.

De Nederlandse schrijver doet verslag van zijn wandelingen in een kleurrijk en sociaal verdeeld Parijs.

Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love is one of the funniest, sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written.

'He was the great love of her life you know.'
'Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly, 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.'

Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and let's not even mention the mysteries of sex, Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the hunt for the ideal lover. But finding the perfect match is much harder than any of the sisters had ever dreamed. Linda is first courted by a Tory MP and then becomes embroiled with a handsome but humourless communist, before she risks everything on a chance at real, head-over-heels love in war-torn Paris . . .

'Peerless' Zoe Heller

Analyse van het 'oorlogsritme' in Europa tussen 1480 en 1945, waaruit zou zijn af te leiden dat een volgende wereldoorlog onvermijdelijk is, tenzij we tijdig ingrijpen.

In this book, Victor Turner is concerned with various kinds of social actions and how they relate to, and come to acquire meaning through, metaphors and paradigms in their actors' minds; how in certain circumstances new forms, new metaphors, new paradigms are generated. To describe and clarify these processes, he ranges widely in history and geography: from ancient society through the medieval period to modern revolutions, and over India, Africa, Europe, China, and Meso-America.

Two chapters, which illustrate religious paradigms and political action, explore in detail the confrontation between Henry II and Thomas Becket and between Hidalgo, the Mexican liberator, and his former friends. Other essays deal with long-term religious processes, such as the Christian pilgrimage in Europe and the emergence of anti-caste movements in India. Finally, he directs his attention to other social phenomena such as transitional and marginal groups, hippies, and dissident religious sects, showing that in the very process of dying they give rise to new forms of social structure or revitalized versions of the old order.

A timeless classic that should be on every book-lover's 'must read' list. First published in 1971, 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD has never been out of print.

Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres.

With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order.

"A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." —Science

For at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian, poet and lover, his story never leaves us. He may be myth, but his lyre still sounds, entrancing everything that hears it: animals, trees, water, stones, and men. In this extraordinary work Ann Wroe goes in search of Orpheus, from the forests where he walked and the mountains where he worshipped to the artefacts, texts and philosophies built up round him. She traces the man, and the power he represents, through the myriad versions of a fantastical life: his birth in Thrace, his studies in Egypt, his voyage with the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece, his love for Eurydice and journey to Hades, and his terrible death. We see him tantalising Cicero and Plato, and breathing new music into Gluck and Monteverdi; occupying the mind of Jung and the surreal dreams of Cocteau; scandalising the Fathers of the early Church; and, filling Rilke with poems like a whirlwind. He emerges as not simply another mythical figure but the force of creation itself, singing the song of light out of darkness and life out of death.

The Enlightenment Process describes the process of enlightenment as the gradual realization of our most subtle dimension of unified, all-pervasive consciousness. It also explains how we uncover our authentic selfhood and embodiment at the same time as we arrive at our spiritual oneness with other people, the world, and cosmos.Using a set of simple but effective meditational and physical exercises for "subtle self" work, Judith Blackstone clearly and expertly indicates the way in which we can deepen our spiritual awareness, develop our capacity for contact with other people, and reconnect with the world. Her lifetime of experience in depth-psychology, bodywork, and Kundalini yoga gives this book a distinctive authority and clarity.

This revised and expanded version of The Enlightenment Process is an invaluable guide that will lead readers in navigating the confusing or conflicting teachings on enlightenment. It does this by giving a more comprehensive description of the enlightened state. Anyone who has already started on the spiritual path or has a background in psychotherapy will be able to appreciate The Enlightenment Process more fully as it is a significant contribution to our understanding of the more advanced stages of personal growth. Included in the book are 18 practical exercises that will assist readers on this path to self-awareness.

No matter how long it's been since you've dreamed it...
No matter how "unrealistic" it seems...
Your impossible dream may not be impossible anymore.

If you've been waiting for a job that rewards you with more than a  paycheck...or for the perfect moment to take that "long-lost" dream off  hold...it's time to stop waiting and start creating a life you can truly  love!

In this life altering follow-up to the sensational New York Times Bestseller  I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, Barbara Sher shows you how  to break free from a career that doesn't cut it...tailor-make a meaningful,  rewarding life to your personal specifications...and create a foundation for  a success that's strong enough to support your heart's desire.  With wisdom and warm reassurance, this step-by-step guide to personal and professional  fulfillment teaches you the practical strategies you need to make your  "impossible" dreams possible, reachable, and real.

Discover:

How to use "outcome thinking" to plot a positive path to your lifelong goal
What your favorite childhood pastimes tell you about what it takes to be a happy adult
How to use your natural curiosity, talents, and resources to turn your thinking--and your luck--around
Why one-size careers do NOT fit all
Foolproof techniques for leaping over the hurdles between you and your dream
How to do what you love and love what you do for the rest of your life!1997).

Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason was, in fact, very far from that; that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world, and that these philosophers "demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials." In a new foreword, Johnson Kent Wright looks at the book's continuing relevance within the context of current discussion about the Enlightenment.

"Will remain a classic--a beautifully finished literary product."--Charles A. Beard, American Historical Review

"The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers remains one of the most distinctive American contributions to the historical literature on the Enlightenment. . . . [It] is likely to beguile and provoke readers for a long time to come."--Johnson Kent Wright, from the foreword

Renaissance Configurations is a ground-breaking collection of essays on the structures and strategies of Early Modern culture - as embodied in issues of gender, sexuality and politics - by a group of critics from the new generation of Early Modern specialists. The essays focus on the relations of public and private, of verbal and spatial, of textual and material, reading and re-reading texts, both canonical and non-canonical, with a textual and historical rigour often considered lacking in work with theoretical premises. The collection as a whole offers a clear sense of the direction to be taken by Early Modern studies over the next decade.

Een kamerhuurder vertoont verontrustende trekjes, die Jack the Ripper in gedachten roepen.

Een jongeman verlaat in verwarde toestand zijn huis om zich in het volle leven te storten.