Free Press paperback

Dr. Becker, theoretician and author of The Birth and Death of Meaning: A Perspective in Psychiatry and Anthropology, combines his philosophic behaviorism with a humanistic version of social psychiatry in an attempt to provide a base for a new science of man -- an interdisciplinary ""man-centered"" science. He draws substantiation for his orientation and theses mainly from Dewey and Allport and emphasizes the social nature of the influences that have molded the ""symbolic animal"" -- man. He offers a detailed non-medical analysis of the nature of schizorenia and depression to show that biologically oriented medical psychiatry must fail in its attempt to understand these so-called ""mental illnesses"" because of its narrowly posited and unhistorical perspective. He sees these ills as results of man's inability to get proper satisfaction from his capacities for symbolization, stemming from society's restrictive habits, culture patterns, inhibited and inhibiting human relations that in various ways undermine, overwhelm or destroy self-esteem. Thus, Becker strikes hard at conventional, even eclectic psychiatry, and with his arguments should stimulate much scholarly praise and rebuttal.

The rise of the Mongol empire under Jenghis Khan and his successors, and its gradual decay. With a concluding chapter on the place of Mongolia in the world today.

The Scholar Adventures chronicles the research behind some of the most exciting and rewarding discoveries of literary scholars. Here are stories of the detective work that uncovered Sir Thomas Malory's long jail record; the dramatic uncovering of the Boswell papers at Malahide Castle; the true facts in the untimely demise of Christopher Marlowe; stories of the Brontës microscopic books of juvenilia; the decipherment of Samuel Pepys' incomparable diary; the forgeries of "rare" works by Browning, Tennyson, Ruskin, Swinburne, and many others. "This book has several of the characteristics of a well-written detective story. Mr. Altick supplies suspense wherever his subject allows it; his characters include brilliant (and occasionally odd) unravelers of riddles as well as some crafty villains; and his style is brisk. Some pessimistic observers insist that there is no such thing as a book which will appeal to both the specialist and the general reader. Mr. Altick has demonstrated how they can be wrong." - The American Historical Review - Back cover.

On Thermonuclear War was controversial when originally published and remains so today. It is iconoclastic, crosses disciplinary boundaries, and finally it is calm and compellingly reasonable. The book was widely read on both sides of the Iron Curtain and the result was serious revision in both Western and Soviet strategy and doctrine. As a result, both sides were better able to avoid disaster during the Cold War.

"In 1893, a young doctoral student was to publish an entirely original work on the nature of labor and production as they were being shaped by the industrial revolution. Emile Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society studies the nature of social solidarity and explores the ties that bind one person to the next in order to hold society together. This revised and updated second edition fluently conveys original arguments for contemporary readers. Leading Durkheim scholar Steve Lukes's new introduction builds upon Lewis Coser's original -- which places the work in its intellectual and historical context and pinpoints its central ideas and arguments -- by focusing on the text's significance for how we ought to think sociologically about some central problems that face us today."--Back cover.