In this, his most comprehensive and accessible study of influence, Bloom leads readers through the labyrinthine paths which link the writers and critics who have informed and inspired him for so many years.

Taking inspiration from Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists and Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence, this book elucidates the theory and practice of a selected group of key Japanese architects by situating them within a wider cultural context of art, technology, literature, and politics. Illustrated with rarely seen images and interspersed with previously untranslated texts, the book uses biographical profiles and comparative analyses to trace the evolution of spatial, aesthetic, and behavioral concepts in Japanese architecture over the postwar decades. In particular, the political activism of architects in the 1960s and the social criticism of architects in the 1970s provide a vital source of inspiration for the protean creativity of the Japanese architectural world today.

The book remains a central work of criticism for all students of literature.

DIVAnatomy of Design dissects fifty examples of graphic design piece by piece, revealing an array of influences and inspirations. These pieces represent contemporary artifacts that are well conceived, finely crafted, and filled with hidden treasures. Some are overtly complex. Others are so simple that it is hard to believe there’s a storehouse of inspiration hidden underneath. The selections include all kinds of design work including posters, packages, and more. Each exhibit is selected for its ubiquity, thematic import, and aesthetic significance, and every page shows howgreat work is derived from various inspirational and physical sources, some well-known, some unknown./div

Provocative and timely: a pioneering neurocriminologist introduces the latest biological research into the causes of--and potential cures for--criminal behavior. With an 8-page full-color insert, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this is his most succinct and powerful statement on the topic, an exhibit A in how he came to wear that designation proudly. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well being. This gives a succinct account of Rothbard’s view of the state. Following Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock, Rothbard regards the state as a predatory entity. It does not produce anything but rather steals resources from those engaged in production. In applying this view to American history, Rothbard makes use of the work of John C. Calhoun How can an organization of this type sustain itself? It must engage in propaganda to induce popular support for its policies. Court intellectuals play a key role here, and Rothbard cites as an example of ideological mystification the work of the influential legal theorist Charles Black, Jr., on the way the Supreme Court has become a revered institution.

Here at last is a comprehensive introduction to the career of America's leading intellectual. The Anatomy of Bloom surveys Harold Bloom's life as a literary critic, exploring all of his books in chronological order, to reveal that his work, and especially his classic The Anxiety of Influence, is best understood as an expression of reprobate American Protestantism and yet haunted by a Jewish fascination with the Holocaust. Heys traces Bloom's intellectual development from his formative years spent as a poor second-generation immigrant in the Bronx to his later eminence as an international literary phenomenon. He argues that, as the quintessential living embodiment of the American dream, Bloom's career-path deconstructs the very foundations of American Protestantism.