Available in a new digital edition with reflowable text suitable for e-readers William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life is a new biography of the great father of British Romanticism. It is new in several ways, most notably in the way it approaches the life of the poet. Paying its proper respect to the classic lives of Wordsworth by Mary Moorman and Stephen Gill, it attempts to tell the story of the life through a more rigorous reading of key and representative works of the poet, through careful blending of life and poetry. Wordsworth offers the story of the literariness of the poet's life - childhood and adolescence in the Lake District, education at Cambridge, love and political radicalism in France, the long period of residence in Grasmere and Rydal, celebrity, and national and international recognition. Its reading of the poems, in tune with current theoretical practice, offers a sense of the continuities in Wordsworth's career as it moves away from familiar theories of a Golden Decade of creativity and a period of long decline. The book also works closely and rigorously with Wordsworth's poetry as a method of dramatizing the essentially poetic character of the poet's life.

"Aspiring thinkers require a stage for their performance and an audience to help give their actions distinction and meaning. To be made durable and influential, their charismatic stories have to be framed by supporting ideals, practices, and institutions. Although the biographies of the Empire's most famous thinkers have a comfortable platform in modern Russia's printed record, scholars have yet to explore fully the intimate context surrounding their activities in the early nineteenth century. There is, as a result, a certain homeless quality to our understandings of Imperial Russian culture, which this history of one extremely productive home will help us correct."—from The House in the Garden The House in the Garden explores the role played by domesticity in the making of Imperial Russian intellectual traditions. It tells the story of the Bakunins, a distinguished noble family who in 1779 chose to abandon their home in St. Petersburg for a rustic manor house in central Russia's Tver Province. At the time, the Russian government was encouraging its elite subjects to see their private lives as a forum for the representation of imperial virtues and norms. Drawing on the family's vast archive, Randolph describes the Bakunins' attempts to live up to this ideal and to convert their new home, Priamukhino, into an example of modern civilization. In particular, Randolph shows how the Bakunin home fostered the development of a group of charismatic young students from Moscow University, who in the 1830s sought to use their experiences at Priamukhino to reimagine themselves as agents of Russia's enlightenment. Some of the story Randolph tells is familiar to historians. The anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, whose early philosophical evolution Randolph describes, was born at Priamukhino, while the radical critic Vissarion Belinsky claimed to have been transformed by his experiences there. When Tom Stoppard sought to portray the spiritual history of the Russian intelligentia in his trilogy, The Coast of Utopia, he chose Priamukhino as the scene for act 1. Yet Randolph's research allows us to watch this drama from a radically different perspective. It shows how the culture of Russian Idealism—so long presumed to be a product of alienation—actually relied on the support provided by the cult of distinction that the Russian government had built around noble homes. It also allows us to see the other actors and agents of private life—and most notably, the Bakunin women—as participants in the creation of modern Russian social thought. The result is a work that revises our understanding of Russian intellectual history while also contributing to the histories of women, gender, private life, and memory in nineteenth-century Russia.

Boni and Alice are the co-authors of “Your Happy Marriage: 27 Lessons Learned from 27 Years of Married Life.” They wrote this journal of their married life in their desire to share their poignant and personal experiences, practical insights, and Christian principles for those engaged or already married. Boni and Alice are hopeful that the 27 lessons they share will help provide a renewed impetus as couples navigate through the joyful and rough-and-tumble terrains of that greatest adventure of all human loves called Marriage.

Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's Talk of Love is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behavior in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with Middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of love: Talk of Love is also a compelling study of how much culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.

Mary Anne Oliver develops an alternate to 'celibate' religious practices, drawing from the experience of couples and diverse sources in the Christian tradition. This work explores the dynamics of conjugal love.

In God's Own Party, Daniel K. Williams presents the first comprehensive history of the Christian Right, uncovering how evangelicals came to see the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could reclaim America as a Christian nation.

Just another book for singles? No! The Right Guy for the Right Girl emphasizes the state of your heart, not your marital status. It is not about finding the right woman, but about being the right man. In response to the wildly successful Lady in Waiting book, The Right Guy for the Right Girl is full of answers to questions all men have regarding relationships. It nudges you closer to God, while acknowledging longings you have to be loved and cherished by a woman. Life-changing qualities thoroughly discussed and biblically supported include:· Reckless abandonment · Faith · Virtue · Purity · Security The ten qualities focused on throughout The Right Guy for the Right Girl will not only enhance your relationship with your heavenly Lover, but also guide you as a single man, guard you while you date, support you in marriage, and comfort you if you become widowed or divorced.

Sociology gives us the tools we need to understand our life and the lives of the people around us. It reveals that our commonsense view of the world isn't always right, and enables us to find out what actually shapes our experiences. In this widely used and very readable introductory text, Judith Bessant and Rob Watts show us how to develop a sociological perspective on what is happening in Australia today. Rapid and far-reaching social changes are taking place which affect us all: globalisation is impacting on our economy and culture; technological developments increase the pace of life; and many people worry about the decline of traditional values and about environmental and personal security. Using a sociological perspective we can explain why different groups of people experience these changes as exciting, unsettling or devastating. Sociology Australia is structured around six key questions: * What is sociology? * Who are we and how do we come to be who we are? * How do we know the world in which we live? * Can we make our lives as we want them? * Who makes the decisions that shape our society? * What changes are taking place in Australia today? Sociology Australia is an ideal introduction to the discipline of sociology and to the dynamics of Australian society today. This third edition of Sociology Australia has been substantially revised and updated, and includes new chapters on religion, education and sustainability.