The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior

Author: Paul Strathern
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553906895
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia—three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man’s perceptions—and the course of Western history. In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence as the ultimate prize. Machiavelli, the consummate political manipulator, attempted to placate the savage Borgia by volunteering Leonardo to be Borgia’s chief military engineer. That autumn, the three men embarked together on a brief, perilous, and fateful journey through the mountains, remote villages, and hill towns of the Italian Romagna—the details of which were revealed in Machiavelli’s frequent dispatches and Leonardo’s meticulous notebooks. Superbly written and thoroughly researched, The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior is a work of narrative genius—whose subject is the nature of genius itself.

On the Warrior's Path, Second Edition

Author: Daniele Bolelli
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1556439482
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
An entertaining and insightful history of martial arts and the role of the warrior, drawing on pop culture, philosophy, mythology, religion, and spirituality The urge to forge one’s character by fighting, in daily life as well as on the mat, appeals to something deep within us. More than a collection of fighting techniques, martial arts constitute a path to developing body, spirit, and awareness. On the Warrior’s Path connects the martial arts with this larger perspective, merging subtle philosophies with no-holds-barred competition, Nietzsche with Bruce Lee, radical Taoism and Buddhism with the Star Wars Trilogy, traditional martial arts with basketball and American Indian culture. At the center of all these phenomena is the warrior. Though this archetype seems to manifest contradictory values, author Daniele Bolelli describes the heart of this tension: how the training of martial technique leads to a renunciation of violence, and how overcoming fear leads to a unique freedom. Aimed at students at any level or tradition of martial arts but also accessible to the armchair warrior, On the Warrior’s Path brings fresh insights to why martial arts remains an enduring and widespread art and discipline. Two new chapters in this second edition focus on spirituality in the martial arts and the author’s personal journey in the field.

The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior

Author: Paul Strathern
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1845951212
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
Details the incidental convergence of three of Renaissance Italy's most brilliant minds. This title follows Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia through the mountains, remote villages and hill towns of the Italian Romagna. It is an account of what happened in one short season in 1502.

Mendeleyev's Dream

Author: Paul Strathern
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643131680
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
**One of Bill Gates' Top Five Book Recommendations* The wondrous and illuminating story of humankind's quest to discover the fundamentals of chemistry, culminating in Mendeleyev's dream of the Periodic Table. In 1869 Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev was puzzling over a way to bring order to the fledgling science of chemistry. Wearied by the effort, he fell asleep at his desk. What he dreamed would fundamentally change the way we see the world.Framing this history is the life story of the nineteenth-century Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev, who fell asleep at his desk and awoke after conceiving the periodic table in a dream-the template upon which modern chemistry is founded and the formulation of which marked chemistry's coming of age as a science. From ancient philosophy through medieval alchemy to the splitting of the atom, this is the true story of the birth of chemistry and the role of one man's dream. In this elegant, erudite, and entertaining book, Paul Strathern unravels the quixotic history of chemistry through the quest for the elements.

The Warrior Within

Author: John Little
Publisher: Chartwell Books
ISBN: 0785834443
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
A synthesis of Eastern and Western ways, Bruce Lee's personal philosophy is presented in The Warrior Within. Life affirming secrets are just ahead.

The Florentines

Author: Paul Strathern
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643137336
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
A sweeping and magisterial four-hundred-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance. Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born—or emerge in an entirely new guise. The ideas that broke this mold began, and continued to flourish, in the city of Florence in northern central Italy. These ideas, which placed an increasing emphasis on the development of our common humanity—rather than other-worldly spirituality—coalesced in what came to be known as humanism. This philosophy and its new ideas would eventually spread across Italy, yet wherever they took hold they would retain an element essential to their origin. And as they spread further across Europe, this element would remain. Transformations of human culture throughout western history have remained indelibly stamped by their origins. The Reformation would always retain something of central and northern Germany. The Industrial Revolution soon outgrew its British origins, yet also retained something of its original template. Closer to the present, the IT revolution that began in Silicon Valley remains indelibly colored by its Californian origins. Paul Strathern shows how Florence, and the Florentines themselves, played a similarly unique and transformative role in the Renaissance.

Warrior of Light

Author: Colleen Messina
Publisher: Summit University Press
ISBN: 0922729794
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Book Description
As a boy in Russia, Nicholas Roerich was captivated by a traveler's stories about Rigden Djapo, ruler of the mystical Himalayan kingdom of Shamballa. These ancient legends told of a time of trouble to come, when Rigden Djapo would assemble his warriors of light and fight a victorious battle over all darkness. Then an era of peace would begin. When Nicholas grew up, he fulfilled his dream of exploring Asia and becoming a warrior of light. In the 1920s, he led a five-year trek through Central Asia over many of the world's most dangerous mountain passes. While on the journey, he worked on several hundred paintings despite overwhelming obstacles. During his lifetime, he completed about seven thousand works of art. Not only was Nicholas Roerich a courageous explorer and a talented artist, but he was also a world leader in many professions. He was a scientist, he wrote 30 books and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to preserve cultural institutions and landmarks during wartime. Twenty-one nations signed a treaty pledging to protect museums, universities, cathedrals and libraries that flew the Banner of Peace that Nicholas had designed. Warrior of Light tells the fascinating story of the remarkable boy who grew up to be a world-famous artist, explorer, author, scientist, philosopher and peacemaker.

Sophie's World

Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466804270
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 599

Book Description
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover

Author: Robert Moore
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062322982
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Book Description
The bestselling, widely heralded, Jungian introduction to the psychological foundation of a mature, authentic, and revitalized masculinity. Redefining age-old concepts of masculinity, Jungian analysts Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette make the argument that mature masculinity is not abusive or domineering, but generative, creative, and empowering of the self and others. Moore and Gillette clearly define the four mature male archetypes that stand out through myth and literature across history: the king (the energy of just and creative ordering), the warrior (the energy of aggressive but nonviolent action), the magician (the energy of initiation and transformation), and the lover (the energy that connects one to others and the world), as well as the four immature patterns that interfere with masculine potential (divine child, oedipal child, trickster and hero). King, Warrior, Magician, Lover is an exploratory journey that will help men and women reimagine and deepen their understanding of the masculine psyche.

The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist

Author: Kate Fullagar
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300249276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
A portrait of empire through the biographies of a Native American, a Pacific Islander, and the British artist who painted them both Three interconnected eighteenth-century lives offer a fresh account of the British Empire and its intrusion into Indigenous societies. This engaging history brings together the stories of Joshua Reynolds and two Indigenous men, the Cherokee Ostenaco and the Raiatean Mai. Fullagar uncovers the life of Ostenaco, tracing his emergence as a warrior, his engagement with colonists through war and peace, and his eventual rejection of imperial politics during the American Revolution. She delves into the story of Mai, his confrontation with conquest and displacement, his voyage to London on Cook’s imperial expedition, and his return home with a burning ambition to right past wrongs. Woven throughout is a new history of Reynolds, growing up in Devon near a key port in England, becoming a portraitist of empire, rising to the top of Britain’s art world and yet remaining ambivalent about his nation’s expansionist trajectory.