What is a grimoire? The word has a familiar ring to many people, particularly as a consequence of such popular television dramas as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. But few people are sure exactly what it means. Put simply, grimoires are books of spells that were first recorded in the Ancient Middle East and which have developed and spread across much of the Western Hemisphere and beyond over the ensuing millennia. At their most benign, they contain charms and remedies for natural and supernatural ailments and advice on contacting spirits to help find treasures and protect from evil. But at their most sinister they provide instructions on how to manipulate people for corrupt purposes and, worst of all, to call up and make a pact with the Devil. Both types have proven remarkably resilient and adaptable and retain much of their relevance and fascination to this day. But the grimoire represents much more than just magic.To understand the history of grimoires is to understand the spread of Christianity, the development of early science, the cultural influence of the print revolution, the growth of literacy, the impact of colonialism, and the expansion of western cultures across the oceans. As this book richly demonstrates, the history of grimoires illuminates many of the most important developments in European history over the last two thousand years.

"The Greek magical papyri" is a collection of magical spells and formulas, hymns, and rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, dating from the second century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Containing a fresh translation of the Greek papyri, as well as Coptic and Demotic texts, this new translation has been brought up to date and is now the most comprehensive collection of this literature, and the first ever in English.
The Greek Magical Papyri in Transition is an invaluable resource for scholars in a wide variety of fields, from the history of religions to the classical languages and literatures, and it will fascinate those with a general interest in the occult and the history of magic.
"One of the major achievements of classical and related scholarship over the last decade."--Ioan P. Culianu, Journal for the Study of Judaism
"The enormous value of this new volume lies in the fact that these texts will now be available to a much wider audience of readers, including historians or religion, anthropologists, and psychologists."--John G. Gager, Journal of Religion
"[This book] shows care, skill and zest. . . . Any worker in the field will welcome this sterling performance."--Peter Parsons, Times Literary Supplement

Description
Combining a thorough introduction to the work of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Italian social theorist Vilfredo Pareto with a highly readable English translation of Pareto's last monograph "Generalizations," originally published in 1920, this work illustrates how and why democratic forms of government undergo decay and are eventually reinvigorated. More than any other social scientist of his generation, Pareto offers a well-developed, articulate, and compelling theory of change based on a Newtonian vision of science and an engineering model of social equilibrium.
This dynamic involves a shifting balance among the countervailing forces of centralization and decentralization of power, economic expansion and contraction, and liberalism versus traditionalism in public sentiment. By 1920, Pareto had developed a scheme for predicting shifts in magnitude of these forces and subsequent change in the character of society. This book will be of interest to students, teachers, or general readers interested in political science, sociology and late-nineteenth/ early-twentieth century social theory.
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was a pioneer in the field of econometrics, but gained fame, most of it posthumous, through his contributions to sociology and political science. Though often claimed by activist-rightist groups and a contributor to fascist thinking, he avoided alignment with any political movement.

《社会物理学系列第5号:社会物理学:社会治理》作为新型的交叉学科，具有重要的理论价值和应用前景，可以为国内外社会物理学研究进行科学比较。