Showing results by narrator "John Lescault" in All Categories

Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and persue their goals.

A critical examination of economics' past and future and how it needs to change, by one of the most eminent political economists of our time.

This overview of the Bible provides listeners with an aerial view of the landscape of Scripture, scouting the major truths of the promises of God. Originally delivered as sermons by pastor Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., these three studies are now available in one volume. Dever guides listeners to take a step back and look at the Bible from a broader perspective.

Twins Virginia and Tommy Matthews have been on their own since they were orphaned at the age of five, surviving a merciless foster care system by relying on each other. Twelve years later, the world begins to collapse around them as a deadly contagion steadily wipes out entire populations and a devastating world war rages on for the cure. When Tommy is drafted for the war, the twins are faced with a choice: stay and accept their fate of almost certain death or run. Virginia and Tommy flee into the dark night.

Churches committed to following Christ's example want this world changed for the sake of eternity. While the supernatural piece of making that happen goes without saying, how does a body of believers do its part to be in that "sweet spot" where true spiritual transformation occurs?

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and author of the classic The First Three Minutes, Weinberg shares his views on some of the most fundamental and fascinating aspects of physics and the universe. But he does not seclude science behind disciplinary walls or shy away from politics, taking on what he sees as the folly of manned spaceflight, the harms of inequality, and the importance of public goods. His point of view is rationalist, realist, reductionist, and devoutly secularist.

This audiobook contains a broad overview of time travel in science fiction, along with a detailed examination of the philosophical implications of time travel. The emphasis of this book is now on the philosophical and on science fiction, rather than on physics, as in the author’s earlier books on the subject. In that spirit there are, for example, no tech notes filled with algebra, integrals, and differential equations, as there are in the first and second editions of Time Machines.

Christian Wiman explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. Above all, He Held Radical Light is a love letter to poetry, filled with moving, surprising, and sometimes funny encounters with the poets Wiman has known.

One of the world's most important political philosophers, Jon Elster is a leading thinker on reason and rationality and their roles in politics and public life. In this short book, he crystallizes and advances his work, bridging the gap between philosophers who use the idea of reason to assess human behavior from a normative point of view and social scientists who use the idea of rationality to explain behavior.

Over 20 years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. launched the dashing character of Blackford Oakes like a missile over the literary landscape. This newly minted CIA agent - brainy, bold, and complex - began his career by saving the queen of England and quickly took his place in the pantheon of master spies drawn up by Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and John le Carré. Against the backdrop of Cold War intrigue, in this, his 11th outing, Oakes crosses swords with Kim Philby, perhaps the highest ranking in the parade of defectors to the Soviet Union.

In A.D. 64, on the night of July 19, a fire began beneath the stands of Rome’s great stadium, the Circus Maximus. The fire would spread over the coming days to engulf much of the city of Rome. From this calamity, one of the ancient world’s most devastating events, legends grew: that Nero had been responsible for the fire, and fiddled while Rome burned, and that Nero blamed the Christians of Rome, burning them alive in punishment, making them the first recorded martyrs to the Christian faith at Rome.

For over three hundred years, that's what the Hamilton family has called a shrinking swath of farmland in the Appalachian foothills of South Carolina. That's the failing tobacco farm where Walter and Maggie Hamilton choose to raise their three children. Walter has big plans to make the farm more profitable, but his plans are interrupted by World War II and family heartbreak. Walter returns from the war a changed man and finds Maggie, too, has changed, neither of them for the better. But at least their family is together again at...

Written by the officer who became General Longstreet’s most trusted associate, this collection of firsthand accounts, memoirs, and diaries grants the listener an inside view into the workings of the Confederate army staff - the unknown soldiers, the well-known commanders, politicians, nurses, and civilians - relating the events of the Civil War as Lt. Colonel Gilbert Moxley Sorrel experienced it.

For 24 winters, the blond child had been held captive by the Indians. Now rangy, raw-boned Ben Allison set out to heat up a stone-cold trail and bring Amy Johnston home. He was armed with only an old mountain man's map, a cheap gold locket, an ornery pack mule, and his army Colt. It was an impossible mission leading straight into hostile Indian country. Ben was keenly aware that the search for Amy could very well be his own death hunt.

From Pulitzer Prize - winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life - the perfect companion for any lover of books. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace.

Someone is bumping off rock’s wrinkled royalty. After the death of the third aging rock star, lead singer Freddie Finger, astrologer-detective David Lowell takes on the case, scrutinizing suspects’ charts for any clues in the stars that could point to a killer.

A powerful exposé that reveals how “heart-healthy” seed oils have silently sabotaged our health—and how returning to real, natural fats can restore vitality, balance, and truth to the modern diet. For decades, we were told to trade butter for margarine, and lard for “vegetable oil.” We followed the experts’ advice—and paid the price. Chronic inflammation, obesity, heart disease, and fatigue have all skyrocketed since the so-called “healthy oils” took over our kitchens.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Haynes contracted polio when he was four years old and never walked on his own two feet again. Yet he overcame the disease to be a gymnastic champion, ran a business, obtained a doctoral degree with distinction, continues a loving marriage of 48 years and an ongoing career as a spiritual advisor. How did he do it? The 15 life lessons he shares in this autobiographical work reveals how it happened.

When impoverished American sculptor Roderick Hudson creates what is described as a work of genius, he is sent to Rome, where he becomes the talk of the city. But Roderick soon loses his inspiration and falls in love with a woman he'll never be with. Now on a path to self-destruction, can he be saved from himself?

This reunion drew over 55,000 official attendees who descended upon a town of four thousand during the summer of 1913 with the promise of little more than a cot and two blankets, military fare, and the presence of countless adversaries from a horrific war. Most were revisiting a time and place in their personal history that involved acute physical and emotional trauma. Contrary to popular belief, veterans were not motivated to attend by a desire for reconciliation, nor did the Great Reunion produce a general sense of a reunified country.