World Literature — Knigausa Bookstore: Russian Books

The Descent of Man

Sun, 19 May 2024 20:35:03 +0000

In The Descent of Man Darwin addresses many of the issues raised by his notorious Origin of Species: finding in the traits and instincts of animals the origins of the mental abilities of humans, of language, of our social structures and our moral capacities, he attempts to show that there is no clear dividing line between animals and humans. Most importantly, he accounts for what Victorians called the ‘races’ of mankind by means of what he calls sexual selection. This book presents a full explanation of Darwin’s ideas about sexual selection, including his belief that many important characteristics of human beings and animals have emerged in response to competition for mates.This was a controversial work. Yet Darwin tried hard to avoid being branded as a radical revolutionary. He is steeped in Victorian sensibilities regarding gender and cultural differences: he sees human civilization as a move from barbarous savagery to modern gentlefolk, and women as more emotional and less intellectual than men, thus providing a biological basis for the social assumptions and prejudices of the day. The Descent of Man played a major role in the emergence of social Darwinism.This complete version of the first edition gives the modern reader an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with Darwin’s proposals, launched in the midst of continuing controversy over On the Origin of Species.Janet Browne is the author of the prize-winning biography, Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Семь столпов мудрости

Sat, 18 May 2024 13:06:03 +0000

As Angus Calder states in his introduction to this edition, ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom is one of the major statements about the fighting experience of the First World War’. Lawrence’s younger brothers, Frank and Will, had been killed on the Western Front in 1915. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, written between 1919 and 1926, tells of the vastly different campaign against the Turks in the Middle East — one which encompasses gross acts of cruelty and revenge and ends in a welter of stink and corpses in the disgusting ‘hospital’ in Damascus. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is no Boys Own Paper tale of Imperial triumph, but a complex work of high literary aspiration which stands in the tradition of Melville and Dostoevsky, and alongside the writings of Yeats, Eliot and Joyce.

Prophet

Sat, 18 May 2024 13:00:03 +0000

The Prophet represents the acme of Kahlil Gibran’s achievement. Writing in English, Gibran adopted the tone and cadence of King James I’s Bible, fusing his personalised Christian philosophy with a spirit and oriental wisdom that derives from the richly mixed influences of his native Lebanon. His language has a breath-taking beauty.Before returning to his birthplace, Almustafa, the ‘prophet’, is asked for guidance by the people of Orphalese. His words, redolent with love and understanding, call for universal unity, and affirm Gibran’s certainty of the correlated nature of all existence, and of reincarnation.The Prophet has never lost its immediate appeal and has become a ubiquitous touchstone of spiritual literature.

Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (TPB)

Sat, 18 May 2024 12:00:03 +0000

Книга полностью на английском языке.A collection of Oscar Wildess many varied works. These include the tender fairy stories he wrote for his children, his novels, many of which shocked and outraged many readers of his day, plays which were enormously successful and continue to be so, and poems and essays.

Art of War & The Book of Lord Shang

Sat, 18 May 2024 11:48:03 +0000

Translated by Yuan Shibing and J.J.L.Duyvendak. With introductions by Robert Wilkinson. The two political classics in this book are the product of a time of intense turmoil in Chinese history. Dating from the Period of the Warring States (403-221BC), they anticipate Machiavelli’s The Prince by nearly 2000 years. The Art of War is the best known of a considerable body of Chinese works on the subject. It analyses the nature of war, and reveals how victory may be ensured. The Book of Lord Shang is a political treatise for the instruction of rulers. These texts are anything but armchair strategy or ivory-tower speculation. They are serious, urgent and practical responses to the desperate situations in which they were written. They have been immensely influential both inside and outside China.

Poems and Sonnets (Shakespeare)

Sat, 20 May 2023 11:41:41 +0000

Shakespeare’s sonnets have an intensity of both feeling and meaning unmatched in English sonnet form. They divide into two parts; the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a fair youth for whom the poet has an obsessive love and the second chronicles his love for the notorious ‘Dark Lady’.In addition to the sonnets, this volume includes Shakespeare’s two lengthy narrative poems on classical themes, The Rape of Lucrece which looks forward to the dark imagery of Macbeth, and Venus and Adonis which mixes ribaldry and tragedy in unique Shakespearean manner. The Phoenix and the Turtle is a beautiful metaphysical and allegorical short elegy, and takes its place with Shakespeare’s better-known poetry.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 10:31:03 +0000

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published between 1776 and 1788, is the undisputed masterpiece of English historical writing which can only perish with the language itself. Its length alone is a measure of its monumental quality: seventy-one chapters, of which twenty-eight appear in full in this edition.With style, learning and wit, Gibbon takes the reader through the history of Europe from the second century AD to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 — an enthralling account by ‘the greatest of the historians of the Enlightenment’.This edition includes Gibbon’s footnotes and quotations, here translated for the first time, together with brief explanatory comments, a precis of the chapters not included, 16 maps, a glossary, and a list of emperors.