The Human Place in the Cosmos

Summary

Upon Scheler's death in 1928, Martin Heidegger remarked that he was the most important force in philosophy at the time. The Human Place in the Cosmos, the last of the works Scheler completed, is a pivotal piece in the development of his writing as a whole, marking a peculiar shift in his approach and thought. The book is published by Northwestern University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2009 Northwestern University Press (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks

Dangerous Leaders: How and Why Lawyers Must Be Taught to Lead

Summary

Flint, Michigan's water crisis, the New Jersey "Bridgegate" scandal, Enron: All these incidents are examples of various forms of leadership failure. More specifically, each represents marked failures among leaders with legal training. Dangerous Leaders exposes the risks and results of leaving lawyers unprepared to lead. It provides law schools, law students, and the legal profession with the leadership tools and models to build a better foundation of leadership acumen. Anthony C. Thompson draws from his 20 years of experience in global executive education for Fortune 100 companies and his experience as a law professor to chart a path forward for better leadership instruction within the legal academy. Using vivid, real-life case studies, Thompson explores catastrophic political, business, and legal failures that have occurred precisely because of a lapse in leadership from those with legal training. He maintains that these practices are chronic leadership failures that could have been avoided. Thompson proposes a fundamental rethinking of legal education, based upon intersectional leadership, to prepare lawyers to assume the types of roles that our increasingly fast-paced world requires. The book is published by Stanford University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2018 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Transcendence and History

Summary

Transcendence and History is an analysis of what philosopher Eric Voegelin described as “the decisive problem of philosophy”: the dilemma of the discovery of transcendent meaning and the impact of this discovery on human self-understanding. The explicit recognition and symbolization of transcendent meaning originally occurred in a few advanced civilizations worldwide during the first millennium. The world’s major religious and wisdom traditions are built upon the recognition of transcendent meaning, and our own cultural and linguistic heritage has long since absorbed the postcosmological division of reality into the two dimensions of “transcendence” and “immanence”. But the last three centuries in the West have seen a growing resistance to the idea of transcendent meaning; contemporary and “postmodern” interpretations of the human situation — both popular and intellectual — indicate a widespread eclipse of confidence in the truth of transcendence. In Transcendence and History, Glenn Hughes contributes to the understanding of transcendent meaning and the problems associated with it and assists in the philosophical recovery of the legitimacy of the notion of transcendence. Depending primarily on the treatments of transcendence found in the writings of 20th-century philosophers Eric Voegelin and Bernard Lonergan, Hughes explores the historical discovery of transcendent meaning and then examines what it indicates about the structure of history. Hughes’s main focus, however, is on clarifying the problem of transcendence in relation to historical existence. Addressing both layreaders and scholars, Hughes applies the insights and analyses of Voegelin and Lonergan to considerable advantage.

©2003 The Curators of the University of Missouri (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson

Summary

In the summer of 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens of people and abducting close to 400 to sell into slavery in Algiers. Among those taken was the Lutheran minister Reverend Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive and as a traveler across Europe (he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the Icelandic captives who remained behind). He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail - social, political, economic, religious - about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: we witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understanding of God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic text. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. "It is wonderful that finally two scholars have taken the initiative to translate into English this important text." (Kirsten Wolf, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

©2008 Karl Smari Hreinsson and Adam Nichols (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks