Jedediah Purdy calls For Common Things his "letter of love for the world's possibilities." Indeed, these pages--which garnered a flurry of attention among readers and in the media--constitute a passionate and persuasive testament to the value of political, social, and community reengagement. Drawing on a wide range of literary and cultural influences--from the writings of Montaigne and Thoreau to the recent popularity of empty entertainment and breathless chroniclers of the technological age--Purdy raises potent questions about our stewardship of civic values. Most important, Purdy offers us an engaging, honest, and bracing reminder of what is crucial to the healing and betterment of society, and impels us to consider all that we hold in common.

Concerned with the trendy, technocratic, and at times sophistical character of contemporary education at all levels, both public and private, the authors of this collection seek to reinvigorate a Thomistic approach to education appropriate to the problems of our day. With its main inspiration taken from the work of Jacques Maritain, especially his 1943 Education at the Crossroads, the volume presents a trenchant critique of the "privacies" of contemporary education, with its emphasis upon the conventional and useful. At the same time, the essays present the outlines of the proper alternative, an education which helps students draw out from themselves the desire for truths which transcend the contingencies of culture and utility. Such an education seeks to guide students to "the common things" available to all human beings. The essays uphold an account of man's intellectual and affective capacities which understands these capacities as naturally ordered to truth. The essays approach the task in different but complementary ways: in critiques of contemporary theories of education, in speculative accounts of knowledge and learning, in applications of theory to specific institutional settings, and in discussions of the political contexts governing modern education. In this rich variety of ways, the essays in The Common Things not only point the way back to the crossroads Maritain spoke of fifty years ago; they go on to indicate something of the landscape along the road not taken by contemporary education. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Daniel McInerny is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas/Center for Thomistic Studies in Houston, Texas. THE CONTRIBUTORS: In addition to the editor, the contributors to the volume are: Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., Romanus Cessario, O.P., Charles Dechert, Donald DeMarco, Curtis L. Hancock, Gregory J. Kerr, Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Robert Lauder, Herbert I. London, Robert J. McLaughlin, Daniel McInerny, John M. Palms, Jerome Meric Pessagno, Ernest S. Pierucci, Alice Ramos, Mario Ramos-Reyes, Walter Raubicheck, Peter A. Redpath, Gregory M. Reichberg, James V. Schall, S.J., Francis Slade, Michael W. Strasser, and Henk E. S. Woldring. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "These essays are a considerable addition to Thomistic thought about education."--Review of Metaphysics

What are the relationships between the books we read and the communities we share? Common Things explores how transatlantic romance revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth century influenced—and were influenced by—emerging modern systems of community. Drawing on the work of Washington Irving, Henry Mackenzie, Thomas Jefferson, James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Montgomery Bird, and Charles Brockden Brown, the book shows how romance promotes a distinctive aesthetics of belonging—a mode of being in common tied to new qualities of the singular. Each chapter focuses on one of these common things—the stain of race, the “property” of personhood, ruined feelings, the genre of a text, and the event of history—and examines how these peculiar qualities work to sustain the coherence of our modern common places. In the work of Horace Walpole and Edgar Allan Poe, the book further uncovers an important— and never more timely—alternative aesthetic practice that reimagines community as an open and fugitive process rather than as a collection of common things.

From hand tools to holidays to weapons to washing machines, "An Uncommon History of Common Things" features hundreds of colorful illustrations, timelines, sidebars, and more as it explores just about every subject under the sun. Who knew that indoor plumbing has been around for 4,600 years, but punctuation, capital letters, and the handy spaces between written words only date back to the Dark Ages? Or that ancient soldiers baked a kind of pizza on their shields--when they weren't busy flying kites to frighten their foes? Every page of this quirky compendium catalogs something fascinating, surprising, or serendipitous. A lively, incomparably browsable read for history buffs, pop culture lovers, and anyone who relishes the odd and extraordinary details hidden in the everyday, it will inform, amuse, astonish--and alter the way you think about the clever creatures we call humans.

“[A] perfectly orchestrated girl-who-cried-wolf thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review A dark, utterly compulsive novel about what happens when the warped imagination of a teenage girl turns into reality… When fifteen-year-old Yasmin—obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers—sees a sinister man watching Alice Taylor from the school fence, she becomes convinced he’s planning to take her. After all, who wouldn’t want the popular and perfect Alice? Then Yasmin realizes if she can find out who he is before he acts, she’ll be the only one who can tell the police, save Alice and become Alice’s heroine. But as Yasmin discovers more about this man, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn’t need Alice after all… And then Alice vanishes.

Presents the stories behind the origins of various everyday objects and consumer products, covering items ranging from clothing and tools to housing and games, complemented by informative timelines and sidebars.

A cultural catalog of everyday things rapidly turning into rarities—from landlines to laugh tracks. So many things have disappeared from our day-to-day world, or are on the verge of vanishing. Some we may already think of as ancient relics, like typewriters (and their accompanying bottles of correction fluid). Others seem like they were here just yesterday, like boom boxes and CDs. We may feel fond nostalgia for certain items of yore: encyclopedias, newspapers, lighthouses. Other items, like MSG, not so much. But as the pace of change keeps accelerating, it’s worth taking a moment to mark the passing of the objects of our lives, from passbooks and pay phones to secretaries and skate keys. And to reflect on certain endangered phenomena that may be worth trying to hold on to—like privacy, or cash. This thoughtful alphabetized compendium invites us to take a look at the many things, ideas, and behaviors that have gone the way of the subway token—and to reflect on what is ephemeral, and what is truly timeless.