The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the American Way itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures. Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies — described as laissez-faire with a vengeance — which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad — including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this whole in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history.

Philosophers have an infuriating habit of analysing questions rather than answering them, writes Terry Eagleton, who, in these pages, asks the most important question any of us ever ask, and attempts to answer it. So what is the meaning of life? In this witty, spirited, and stimulating inquiry, Eagleton shows how centuries of thinkers — from Shakespeare and Schopenhauer to Marx, Sartre and Beckett — have tackled the question. Refusing to settle for the bland and boring, Eagleton reveals with a mixture of humour and intellectual rigour how the question has become particularly problematic in modern times. Instead of addressing it head-on, we take refuge from the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with a multitude of different things: from football and sex, to New Age religions and fundamentalism. Many of the readers of this book are likely to be as sceptical of the phrase the meaning of life as they are of Santa Claus, he writes. But Eagleton contends that in a world where we need to find common meanings, it is important that we set about answering the question of all questions; and, in conclusion, he suggests his own answer.

It was the time when the rush for spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches. The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months. The city had become an orgy of gold and women. The Kill (La Curee) is the second volume in Zola's great cycle of twenty novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, and the first to establish Paris — the capital of modernity — as the centre of Zola's narrative world. Conceived as a representation of the uncontrollable appetites unleashed by the Second Empire (1852-70) and the transformation of the city by Baron Haussmann, the novel combines into a single, powerful vision the twin themes of lust for money and lust for pleasure. The all-pervading promiscuity of the new Paris is reflected in the dissolute and frenetic lives of an unscrupulous property speculator, Saccard, his neurotic wife Renee, and her dandified lover, Saccard's son Maxime.

Arms and the man I sing of Troy... So begins one of the greatest works of literature in any language. Written by the Roman poet Virgil more than two thousand years ago, the story of Aeneas' seven-year journey from the ruins of Troy to Italy, where he becomes the founding ancestor of Rome, is a narrative on an epic scale: Aeneas and his companions contend not only with human enemies but with the whim of the gods. His destiny preordained by Jupiter, Aeneas is nevertheless assailed by dangers invoked by the goddess Juno, and by the torments of love, loyalty, and despair. Virgil's supreme achievement is not only to reveal Rome's imperial future for his patron Augustus, but to invest it with both passion and suffering for all those caught up in the fates of others. Frederick Ahl's new translation echoes the Virgilian hexameter in a thrillingly accurate and engaging style. An Introduction by Elaine Fantham, and Ahl's comprehensive notes and invaluable indexed glossary complement the translation.

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war! These words, said to have been uttered by Abraham Lincoln, signal the celebrity of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The first American novel to become an international best-seller, Stowe's novel charts the progress from slavery to freedom of fugitives who escape the chains of American chattel slavery, and of a martyr who transcends all earthly ties. At the middle of the nineteenth-century, the names of its characters — Little Eva, Topsy, Uncle Tom — were renowned. A hundred years later, 'Uncle Tom' still had meaning, but, to Blacks everywhere it had become a curse. This edition firmly locates Uncle Tom's Cabin within the context of African-American writing, the issues of race and the role of women. Its appendices include the most important contemporary African-American literary responses to the glorification of Uncle Tom's Christian resignation as well as excerpts from popular slave narratives, quoted by Stowe in her justification of the dramatization of slavery, Key to Uncles Tom's Cabin.

In my own marriage I paid such a terrible price for sex-ignorance that I feel that knowledge gained at such a cost should be placed at the service of humanity. The book that was to become Married Love grew from Marie Stopes's conviction that the state of modern middle-class marriage was, like her own, desperate, and that the cause of this desperation was sexual unhappiness. She knew her book would probably electrify this country and it remains one of the best known sex manuals ever written. It combines a lyrical evocation of marital love with a no-nonsense and detailed account of sexual intercourse and sexual pleasure that was a sensation when it was published in 1918. Stopes advocated equality in marriage and the importance of women's sexuality and sexual desire, as well as openly supporting birth control. In this edition of Stopes's ground-breaking work, Ross McKibbin's introduction reveals fascinating insights into Stopes and prevailing attitudes to class, religion, science, and above all, sex.

Written in India in the early eighth century AD, Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara became one of the most popular accounts of the Buddhist's spiritual path. The Bodhicaryavatara takes as its subject the profound desire to become a Buddha and save all beings from suffering. The person who enacts such a desire is a Bodhisattva. Santideva not only sets out what the Bodhisattva must do and become, he also invokes the intense feelings of aspiration which underlie such a commitment, using language which has inspired Buddhists in their religious life from his time to the present. Important as a manual of training among Mahayana Buddhists, especially in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the Bodhicaryavatara continues to be used as the basis for teaching by modern Buddhist teachers. This is a new translation from the original language, with detailed annotations explaining allusions and technical references. The Introduction sets Santideva's work in context, and for the first time explain its structure.

Indiana (1831) is an absorbing and vivid romantic novel, set partly in provincial France, partly in Paris, and partly on a tropical island. It tells the story of a beautiful and innocent young woman, married at sixteen to a much older man. She falls passionately in love with a handsome, frivolous neighbour but discovers too late that his idea of love is quite different from her own. It is only after a series of painful experiences that she comes to appreciate the silent devotion of her loyal and protective cousin.

No one can write a man's life except himself. In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence.

These new translations present Plato's remarkable dramatization of the momentous events surrounding the trial of Socrates in 399 BC, on charges of irreligion and corrupting the young. The Euthyphro, Defence of Socrates, and Crito form a dramatic and thematic sequence, raising fundamental questions about the basis of moral, religious, legal, and political obligation. Plato explores these issues with a freshness and directness that have never been surpassed. In the Defence of Socrates, Plato seeks not only to clear his master's name, but also to defend the whole Socratic way of life, and therefore philosophy itself. The result is an oratorical masterpiece. The Euthyphro, an inquiry into the nature of piety, probes the relationship between religion and morality. The Crito discusses the citizen's obligation to the state, in the context of a life-or-death issue confronting Socrates himself — whether or not to escape from prison. David Gallop's Introduction provides a stimulating philosophical and historical analysis of these texts, complemented by useful explanatory notes and an index of names, to make this edition invaluable to readers new to these timeless classics.

He loved all mankind; for fortune prevented him from knowing there were rascals. Oliver Goldsmith's hugely successful novel of 1766 remained for generations one of the most highly regarded and beloved works of eighteenth-century fiction. It depicts the fall and rise of the Primrose family, presided over by the benevolent vicar, the narrator of a fairy-tale plot of impersonation and deception, the abduction of a beautiful heroine and the machinations of an aristocratic villain. By turns comic and sentimental, the novel's popularity owes much to its recognizable depiction of domestic life and loving family relationships. Regarded by some as a straightforward and well-intentioned novel of sentiment, and by others as a satire on the very literary conventions and morality it seems to embody, The Vicar of Wakefield contains, in the figure of the vicar himself, one of the most harmlessly simply and unsophisticated yet also ironically complex narrators ever to appear in English fiction.

My empire is of the imagination. These are the words of Ayesha, the mysterious white queen of a Central African tribe, whose dread title, She-who-must-be-obeyed, testifies to her undying beauty and magical powers; but they serve equally well to describe the hold of her author, Henry Rider Haggard, on generations of readers. Writing at white heat, and in the flush of success after the publication of King Solomon's Mines, Haggard drew again on his knowledge of Africa and of ancient legends, but also on something deeper and more disturbing. To the Englishmen who journey through shipwreck, fever, and cannibals to her hidden realm, She is the goal of a quest bequeathed to them two thousand years before; to Haggard's readers, She is the embodiment of one of the most potent and ambivalent figures of Western mythology, a female who is both monstrous and desirable — and, without question, deadlier than the male.

The story goes that a sow who had delivered a whole litter of piglets loudly accosted a lioness. How many children do you breed? asked the sow. I breed only one, said the lioness, but it is very well bred! The fables of Aesop have become one of the most enduring traditions of European culture, ever since they were first written down nearly two millennia ago. Aesop was reputedly a tongue-tied slave who miraculously received the power of speech; from his legendary storytelling came the collections of prose and verse fables scattered throughout Greek and Roman literature. First published in English by Caxton in 1484, the fables and their morals continue to charm modern readers: who does not know the story of the tortoise and the hare, or the boy who cried wolf? This new translation is the first to represent all the main fable collections in ancient Latin and Greek, arranged according to the fables' contents and themes. It includes 600 fables, many of which come from sources never before translated into English.

Fashion lovers and young historians can discover the amazing stories behind the clothes we wear as we examine the amazing peculiarities of international fashions past and present. Readers will learn about the often ridiculous clothes our ancestors wore such as tighter than tight herringbone corsets or posing tricorne hats, as well as a nod to equally ridiculous fashion influences and personalities of the present day.

It starts with the phone call, late at night. The mysterious boy says he is dying. Dusty doesn't want to get involved — but the boy seems to have a link to the one person who's most important to her. Soon she has been drawn in — and now she has to deal with the other people who are looking for the boy — the violent man and his two sons, and the police too... Yet throughout all this, Dusty senses the presence of a boy who is not dying, a strange elusive boy who can show her what happened to her missing brother and solve the greatest mystery of her life. Where he is, who he is, why he wants to die, she cannot say. Only one thing is certain. Finding him will be dangerous.

Archfiends Basilisk and the Worm have dreamt up a plan so cunning it will strike fear into the heart of the bravest superhero. Combining their dastardly skills, they will infect HERO.COM with a virus potent enough to cripple it and ultimately to destroy Hero HQ. Toby, Lorna, Pete and Emily are tasked to stop them. Hard enough at the best of times, but particularly tricky once Hero.com is on the blink and their superhero powers keep fluctuating. And when Pete is kidnapped and cryogenically frozen by the vile villains, things start going from bad to worse... Another superpowered adventure from a master of pen and plot!

It's a long hot summer. Temperatures are soaring and a strange creature has been spotted on Dartmoor. Connie Lionheart and her friends soon discover that the creature is a chimera. When it attacks Connie, leaving her gravely wounded, Col and Rat must rescue her from hospital: she needs treatment beyond the knowledge of mortals. But a weakened Connie is easy prey for the evil shapeshifter Kullervo. He believes that, finally, the time is ripe for him to seize her Universal power, gather his army of mythical beings, and wipe out humanity. The battle between him and Connie will be a fight to the death. And the prize will be the future of mankind.

Cyrano de Bergerac is a flamboyant character and a skilled swordsman, not in the least afraid of drawing attention to himself in public — for he can be highly amusing, even at his own expense, with jokes about his enormous nose. But he has a weakness: he has fallen in love with his beautiful cousin Roxane, and because of his own appearance is too ashamed to declare his love. Meanwhile Roxane is besotted with a handsome, but foolish young man, Christian, in the same company of guards as Cyrano. Cyrano is devastated by this, and horrified by her request that he should protect the young man and encourage him to write her love letters. Writing letters is something Christian can't do — but Cyrano generously offers to help, even if it means breaking his own heart. Soon Cyrano pours out his feelings in the most romantic letters ever. The question is will Roxane discover the truth? And if she does will it be too late for Cyrano?

The Shepherd family have set off on their usual summer holiday under a cloud of gloom at the predictability of it all. When the car breaks down, they are forced to stay the night at the nearest B&B. To their dismay they find themselves at a place where Christmas comes every day of the year, complete with turkey and Santa Claus. And they discover it's even stranger than that, with the girl in the elf costume, the mysterious Mr Angel and the police seeking a fugitive. Stranded in this bizarre environment, unusual friendships develop and the relationships that have been so set in their ways are turned upside down. Full of comic moments, tension and drama, this is a highly satisfying read.

My quest to find THE ONE starts right now! This year I will utterly not snog random posh boys with congenital acne but will save myself for long-haired creative type with interest in tragicness and with musical potential i.e. Justin Statham. Though am not sure Justin has realized yet that I am THE ONE for him. Maybe he has heard I am rubbish at snogging. I need to learn to snog properly — and fast. Though perhaps I am just generally unlovable. As well as tongue technique issues I have hopelessly untragic relatives and a dog who eats furniture. Plus I am practically a medical midget and my hair is mental. Maybe I should just give up on boys altogether...