The Phenomenology of Spirit is both one of Hegel's most widely read books and one of his most obscure. The book is the most detailed commentary on Hegel's work available. It develops an independent philosophical account of the general theory of knowledge, culture, and history presented in the Phenomenology. In a clear and straightforward style, Terry Pinkard reconstructs Hegel's theoretical philosophy and shows its connection to ethical and political theory. He sets the work in a historical context and shows the contemporary relevance of Hegel's thought for European and Anglo-American philosophers. The principal audience for the book is teachers and students of philosophy, but the great interest in Hegel's work and the clarity of Pinkard's exposition ensure that historians of ideas, political scientists, and literary theorists will also read it.

This accessible textbook provides a clear and practical introduction to phonology, the study of sound patterns in language. Designed for students with only a basic knowledge of linguistics, it teaches in a step-by-step fashion the logical techniques of phonological analysis and the fundamental theories that underpin it. Through over sixty graded exercises, students are encouraged to make their own analyses of phonological patterns and processes, based on extensive data and problems sets from a wide variety of languages. Introducing Phonology equips students with the essential analytical skills needed for further study in the field, such as how to think critically and discover generalizations about data, how to formulate hypotheses, and how to test them. Providing a solid foundation in both the theory and practice of phonology, it is set to become the leading text for any introductory course, and will be invaluable to all students beginning to study the discipline.
• Accessibly written, assuming no prior knowledge of phonology or phonetics • Equips students with the essential analytical skills needed for further study in phonology • Contains over sixty graded exercises based on a variety of data, with further exercises, useful links and password protected solutions on the accompanying web site
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Contents
1. What is phonology?;
2. Phonetic transcriptions;
3. Allophonic relations;
4. Underlying representations;
5. Interacting processes;
6. Feature theory;
7. Doing an analysis;
8. Phonological typology and naturalness;
9. Abstractness and psychological reality;
10. Nonlinear representations.
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Reviews
‘An excellent introduction to phonology. Difficult ideas are presented in an accessible manner - a plus for any textbook. It covers a variety of interesting phonological facts from typologically different languages. Using this text will acquaint students with the essence of theoretical concepts and phonological analyses.’ Shosuke Haraguchi, Meikai University
‘This book is a godsend for those of us in search for an introduction to phonology … Odden provides the entire package of tools and raw materials that the student needs.’ Lee Bickmore, Program in Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Albany University
‘Odden‘s book stands out among phonology textbooks thanks to its focus on data and analysis. … Students of phonology and phonetics would benefit … and will find … some explanations that are clearly better than those available elsewhere.‘ Times Higher Education Supplement

Review
"Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy is the crowning achievement of three decades of research on the origins, evolution, and consequences of human values. Bold in its theorizing, pathbreaking in its methods, breathtaking in its empirical scope, and stunning in its findings, this book is one of the most important social science works ever produced on the relationship between values, development, and political regimes. Inglehart and Welzel make a compelling case for viewing development as the expansion of human autonomy and choice, and for political freedom and democracy as the consequence of economic development and cultural change. Anyone who thinks modernization theory is dead will have to grapple with the powerful logic of their evidence and argument."
-Larry Diamond, Stanford University
"This book is a landmark in the study of political culture and democratization. It will polarize opinion, provoking both strong acclaim and fierce critique. For this work presents powerful evidence contradicting several major schools of thought in the social sciences. It will be debated and cited now, and in years to come."
-Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris
"Inglehart and Welzel's book is a tour de force. Its comprehensive theory of how social modernization shapes human development makes a major contribution to our understanding of political development. This theory is tested by a rich analysis of peopleas opinions and values from all four waves of the World Values Survey--an unprecedented social science resource that covers 85 percent of the world's population. They conclude that social modernization shapes the human condition in predictable ways, and that the cultural consequences of modernization are a major force driving democratization. Culture matters--in nurturing the conditions for democracy to develop and in shaping the workings of the democratic process."
-Russell J. Dalton, University of California, Irvine
"Good books raise important questions after they have answered other important ones. Readers interested in political culture research and its contribution to understanding democratization processes will profit greatly from this book and, in addition, they will become acquainted with a professionally managed large-scale survey research project that offers many opportunities for further research."
-Franz Urban Pappi, Universitat Mannheim, American Journal of Sociology
Product Description
This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behavior. These changes are roughly predictable because they can be interpreted on the basis of a revised version of modernization theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85% of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernization is a process of human development, in which economic development triggers cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely.

Many of the fundamental questions in social science entail an examination of the role played by social institutions. Why do we have so many social institutions? Why do they take one form in one society and quite different ones in others? In what ways do these institutions develop? When and why do they change? Institutions and Social Conflict addresses these questions in two ways. First it offers a thorough critique of a wide range of theories of institutional change, from the classical accounts of Smith, Hume, Marx and Weber to the contemporary approaches of evolutionary theory, the theory of social conventions and the new institutionalism. Secondly, it develops a new theory of institutional change that emphasises the distributional consequences of social institutions. The emergence of institutions is explained as a by-product of distributional conflict in which asymmetries of power in a society generate institutional solutions to conflicts.

In this far-ranging and innovative study Christopher Berry explores the meanings and ramifications of the idea of luxury. Insights from political theory, philosophy and intellectual history are utilised in a sophisticated conceptual analysis that is complemented by a series of specific historical investigations. Dr Berry suggests that the value attached to luxury is a crucial component in any society's self-understanding, and shows how luxury has changed from being essentially a negative term, threatening social virtue, to a guileless ploy supporting consumption. His analytic focus upon the interplay between the notions of need and desire suggests that luxuries fall into four categories - sustenance, shelter, clothing and leisure - and these are exemplified in sources as diverse as classical philosophy and contemporary advertising.

Contrary to prevailing opinion, the roots of modern science were planted in the ancient and medieval worlds long before the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Indeed, that revolution would have been inconceivable without the cumulative antecedent efforts of three great civilizations: Greek, Islamic, and Latin. With the scientific riches it derived by translation from Greco-Islamic sources in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Christian Latin civilization of Western Europe began the last leg of the intellectual journey that culminated in a scientific revolution that transformed the world. The factors that produced this unique achievement are found in the way Christianity developed in the West, and in the invention of the university in 1200. A reference for historians of science or those interested in medieval history, this volume illustrates the developments and discoveries that culminated in the Scientific Revolution.

Yoga, tantra and other forms of Asian meditation are practised in modernized forms throughout the world today, but most introductions to Hinduism or Buddhism tell only part of the story of how they developed. This book is an interpretation of the history of Indic religions up to around 1200 CE, with particular focus on the development of yogic and tantric traditions. It assesses how much we really know about this period, and asks what sense we can make of the evolution of yogic and tantric practices, which were to become such central and important features of the Indic religious scene. Its originality lies in seeking to understand these traditions in terms of the total social and religious context of South Asian society during this period, including the religious practices of the general population with their close engagement with family, gender, economic life and other pragmatic concerns.
Features
• Explores the origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, yoga and tantra within an open-minded but critical perspective
• Gives full weight to the grounding of the more esoteric and abstruse aspects of Indic religious life
• Gives a balanced treatment of the evolution of the three major religious traditions foregrounding their common features and close connections

We live in a new age for statistical inference, where modern scientific technology such as microarrays and fMRI machines routinely produce thousands and sometimes millions of parallel data sets, each with its own estimation or testing problem. Doing thousands of problems at once is more than repeated application of classical methods. Taking an empirical Bayes approach, Bradley Efron, inventor of the bootstrap, shows how information accrues across problems in a way that combines Bayesian and frequentist ideas. Estimation, testing and prediction blend in this framework, producing opportunities for new methodologies of increased power. New difficulties also arise, easily leading to flawed inferences. This book takes a careful look at both the promise and pitfalls of large-scale statistical inference, with particular attention to false discovery rates, the most successful of the new statistical techniques. Emphasis is on the inferential ideas underlying technical developments, illustrated using a large number of real examples.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/regional-history-after-1500/early-china-social-and-cultural-history?format=PB#bookPeople
'Early China' refers to the period from the beginning of human history in China to the end of the Han Dynasty in AD 220. The roots of modern Chinese society and culture are all to be found in this formative period of Chinese civilization. Li Feng's new critical interpretation draws on the most recent scholarship and archaeological discoveries from the past thirty years. This fluent and engaging overview of early Chinese civilization explores key topics including the origins of the written language, the rise of the state, the Shang and Zhou religions, bureaucracy, law and governance, the evolving nature of war, the creation of empire, the changing image of art, and the philosophical search for social order. Beautifully illustrated with a wide range of new images, this book is essential reading for all those wanting to know more about the foundations of Chinese history and civilization.

In the West ideas about Chinese medicine are commonly associated with traditional therapies and ancient practices which have survived, unchanging, since time immemorial. Originally published in 2001, this volume, edited by Elizabeth Hsu, demonstrates that this is far from the reality. In a series of pioneering case-studies, twelve contributors, from a range of disciplines, explore the history of Chinese medicine and the transformations that have taken place from the fourth century BC onwards. Topics of discussion cover diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, pharmacotherapy, the creation of new genres of medical writing and schools of doctrine. This interdisciplinary volume will be of value to anyone with an interest in the various aspects of Chinese medicine.

In ancient China, the preparation of food and the offering up of food as a religious sacrifice were intimately connected with models of sagehood and ideas of self-cultivation and morality. Drawing on received and newly excavated written sources, Roel Sterckx's book explores how this vibrant culture influenced the ways in which the early Chinese explained the workings of the human senses, and the role of sensory experience in communicating with the spirit world. The book, which begins with a survey of dietary culture from the Zhou to the Han and offers some intriguing insights into the ritual preparation of food - some butchers and cooks were highly regarded and would rise to positions of influence as a result of their culinary skills - and the sacrificial ceremony itself. As a major contribution to the study of early China and to the development of philosophical thought, the book will be essential reading for students of the period, and for anyone interested in ritual and religion in the ancient world.

This volume offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of a complex and varied body of ideas over a period of more than one thousand years. A work of both synthesis and assessment, The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought presents the results of several decades of critical scholarship in the field, and reflects in its breadth of enquiry precisely that diversity of focus that characterized the medieval sense of the "political," preoccupied with universality at some levels, and with almost minute particularity at others. Among the vital questions explored by the distinguished team of contributors are the nature of authority, of justice, of property; the problem of legitimacy, of allegiance, of resistance to the powers that be; the character and functions of law, and the role of custom in maintaining a social structure.
Review
"...the book successfully brings together a rich and varied synthesis of current scholarship on medieval political ideas. It furnishes a benchmark by which subsequent work on these topics will inevitably be measured." James A. Brundage, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.

Adopting new and much more comprehensive concepts of both power and politics, The Retreat of the State develops a theoretical framework to show who really governs the world economy. It goes on to explore some of the non-state authorities, from mafias to the Big Six accounting firms and international bureaucrats, whose power over who gets what in the world encroaches on that of national governments. The book is a signpost, pointing to some promising new directions for the future development of research and teaching in international political economy. Its originality and scope make The Retreat of the State of great importance for scholars and students of international relations, business and management.

What is a just political order? What does justice require of us? These are perennial questions of political philosophy. John Rawls, generally acknowledged to be one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century, answered them in a way that has drawn widespread attention, not only from political philosophers, but from political scientists, economists, those in the field of public policy, and experts in jurisprudence. It is not only academics who have been inspired by Rawls' ideas; they have also influenced the theory of government and continue to play a role in actual public political debates. This introduction outlines Rawls' work on the theory of justice. Focusing on Rawls' own writings, from his first publication in 1951 to his final ones some fifty years later, Percy B. Lehning demonstrates how and why they can be considered as one consistent and coherent body of work.

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.