A work first published in English in 1951, Waiting on God forms the best possible introduction to the work of Simone Weil, for it brings us into direct contact with this amazing personality, at once so pure, so ardent, so utterly sincere, yet normally so reserved that only her closest friends guessed the secrets of her inner life. The first part of the book concerns her letters written to the Reverend Father Perrin, O.P., who befriended her at Marseilles and, the only priest she knew, became her intimate friend. The second part of the book concerns essays and reflections on such subjects as education, human affliction and the love of God, prayer, and forms of the implicit love of God.

Many contemporary philosophers assume that, before one can discuss prayer, the question of whether there is a God or not must be settled. In this title, first published in 1965, D. Z. Phillips argues that to understand prayer is to understand what is meant by the reality of God. Beginning by placing the problem of prayer within a philosophical context, Phillips goes on to discuss such topics as prayer and the concept of talking, prayer and dependence, superstition and the concept of community. This is a fascinating reissue that will be of particular value to students with an interest in the philosophy of religion, prayer and religious studies more generally.

A work first published in English in 1951, Waiting on God forms the best possible introduction to the work of Simone Weil, for it brings us into direct contact with this amazing personality, at once so pure, so ardent, so utterly sincere, yet normally so reserved that only her closest friends guessed the secrets of her inner life. The first part of the book concerns her letters written to the Reverend Father Perrin, O.P., who befriended her at Marseilles and, the only priest she knew, became her intimate friend. The second part of the book concerns essays and reflections on such subjects as education, human affliction and the love of God, prayer, and forms of the implicit love of God.

Simone Weil — philosopher, trade union militant, factory worker — developed a penetrating critique of Marxism and a powerful political philosophy which serves an alternative both to liberalism and to Marxism. In A Truer Liberty, originally published in 1989, Blum and Seidler show how Simone Weil’s philosophy sought to place political action on a firmly moral basis. The dignity of the manual worker became the standard for political institutions and movements. Weil criticized Marxism for its confidence in progress and revolution and its attendant illusory belief that history is on the side of the proletariat. Blum and Seidler relate Weil’s work to influential trends in political philosophy today, from analytic Marxism to central traditions within liberal thought. The authors stress the importance of Weil’s work for understanding liberation theology, Catholic radicalism, and, more generally, social movements against oppression which are closely tied to religion and spirituality.

Since the Second World War, we have witnessed exciting, often confusing developments in the British theatre. This book, first published in 1976, presents an enlightening, objective history of the many facets of post-war British theatre and a fresh interpretation of theatre itself. The remarkable and profound changes which have taken place during this period range from the style and content of plays, through methods of acting, to shapes of theatres and the organisational habits of managers. Two national theatres have been brought almost simultaneously into existence; while at the other end of the financial scale, the fringe and pub theatres have kicked their way into vigorous life. The theatre in Britain has been one of the post-war success stories, to judge by its international renown and its mixture of experimental vitality and polished experience. In this book Elsom presents an approach to the problems of criticism and appreciation which range beyond those of literary analysis.

This book argues that Simone Weil’s short life (1909–1943) is best understood as deeply invested in and engaged with the world around her, which she knew she would leave behind sooner rather than later if she took risks on the side of the oppressed. To present Weil first and foremost as a political philosopher, Benjamin Davis places her work in conversation with feminist philosophy, decolonial philosophy, and Marxism. Against the backdrop of Weil’s commitments, Davis reads Weil into debates in contemporary Critical Theory. He argues that in the battles of today, we need to reconnect with Simone Weil’s ethical and political imagination, which offers a critique of oppression as part of a deeper attention to the world.

This book provides original descriptive accounts of two schools of thought in the philosophy of beauty: the 20th-century “Anti-Aesthetic” movement and the 21st-century “Beauty Revival” movement. It also includes a positive defence of beauty as a lived experience extrapolated from Beauty-Revival position. Beauty was traditionally understood in the broadest sense as a notion that engages our sense perception and embraces everything evoked by that perception, including mental products and affective states. This book constructs and places in parallel with one another the Anti-Aesthetic and Beauty-Revival movements. In the author’s view, Anti-Aestheticism is devoted to a decisive negation of beauty—denying its importance as a philosophical notion and its significance as a lived experience. It suggests that beauty is a merely sensual experience, which can be used, at best, as a distraction from justice and, at worst, as an instrument of evil. Alternatively, the Beauty-Revival movement advances arguments for beauty as an experience that extends primarily to sensual experience, but which also calls forth mental products and cognitive and affective states evoked by that experience. After reconstructing these two positions, the author elaborates on the notion of beauty as a lived experience through three key moments which occur in the process of our experiencing beautiful objects. These moments are (a) the conditions that constitute an experience of beauty, (b) the attitudinal features most likely to lead to the experience of beauty, and (c) the results of the experience of beauty. The Revival of Beauty will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in aesthetics, history of philosophy, and art history.

Contemporary criticism of Donne has tended to ignore the historical culture and ideology that conditioned his writings, reinforcing the traditionally accepted model of the poet as a humanist of ethical, cultural and political individualism. In this title, first published in 1986, Thomas Docherty challenges this with a more rigorously theoretical reading of Donne, particularly in relation to the specific culture of the late Renaissance in Europe. Docherty locates Donne’s poetry at the crux of the various scientific, legal, domestic and rhetorical discourses that surrounded and informed it. With a broadly post-structuralist approach, this reissue will benefit literature students with an interest in the wider study and context of John Donne’s work.

The recapture of Jerusalem, the siege of acre, the fall of Tripoli, the effect in Baghdad of events in Syria; these and other happenings were faithfully recorded by Arab historians during the two centuries of the Crusades. First published in English in 1969, this book presents 'the other side' of the Holy War, offering the first English translation of contemporary Arab accounts of the fighting between Muslim and Christian. Extracts are drawn from seventeen different authors encompassing a multitude of sources: The general histories of the Muslim world, The chronicles of cities, regions and their dynasties Contemporary biographies and records of famous deeds. Overall, this book gives a sweeping and stimulating view of the Crusades seen through Arab eyes.