Inspired by Michel Foucault's The Order of Things, this book tells a story about epochal change in the modern world. Like Foucault, Nicholas Onuf is concerned with how we moderns think about ourselves and our world, but in this book he emphasizes the conceptual links in the ways we think, talk, get things done, conduct ourselves, and run societies, from age to age. As with his previous work, Onuf emphasizes the "rules for rule" that have solidified over time through repeated behaviors that work themselves out into a system of social uniformity and hierarchy. Rules set out who is a member of society, establish goals, provide opportunities to act, and dictate who sits on top -- in other words, what any political society looks like in a particular time and place. This book looks at the political society that has evolved since the Renaissance, or what might be called "the modern world," in order to consider what is yet to come. Onuf argues that modernity, although consisting of a succession of epochs or ages separated by great ruptures, has continued to change within the confines of a "mightie frame" (a turn of phrase he borrows from John Milton). Epoch by epoch, this frame has linked the limits of our knowledge, à la Michel Foucault, to conditions of rule, and it points to a plausible ethics for what comes next. But unlike Foucault, Onuf argues that modernism marked an end to societal and political transitions, and that we have entered a period during which established conditions of rule are likely to be reinforced -- and the mighty frame will grow ever mightier.

This book brings together thirteen of Nicholas Onuf’s previously published yet rarely cited essays. They address topics that Onuf has puzzled over for decades, including the problem of materiality in social construction, epochal change in the modern world, and the power of language.

Self and City in the Thought of Saint Augustine explores the analogy between the self and political society in the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. This analogy is an important theme in the history of political thought. Attempts have been made to understand the state by examining the soul (since Plato), the body (as in medieval theories of the body politic) and the person (surviving to this day in such concepts as international legal personality). This book aims to reinstate the Augustinian part of the story. It argues that Augustine develops three analogies between self and city, as a society ordered by love: self-love in the case of the Earthly City; divided but improving love in the Pilgrim City; and love of others and of God in the City of God. It supplies thereby an overview of Augustine’s intellectual ‘system’ as it touches upon theology, psychology and anthropology, as well as politics, and also provides a new interpretation of Augustine’s important definition of the republic.

This meticulously edited religious collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Scripture: Bible First Clement Second Clement Didache Epistle of Barnabas Shepherd of Hermas The Infancy Gospel of Thomas Apocalypse of Peter History: History of the Christian Church (Philip Schaff) Creeds of Christendom (Philip Schaff) Philosophy of Religion: The Confessions of St. Augustine (St. Augustine) On the Incarnation (Athanasius of Alexandria) On the Soul and the Resurrection (Gregory of Nyssa) On the Holy Spirit (Basil the Great) Pastoral Care (Pope Gregory I) An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (John of Damascus) Summa Theologica (Saint Thomas Aquinas) The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis) A Treatise on Christian Liberty (Martin Luther) The Interior Castle (St. Teresa of Ávila) The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) The Age of Reason (Thomas Paine) The Natural History of Religion (David Hume) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (David Hume) The Religious Affections (Jonathan Edwards) The Essence of Christianity (Ludwig Feuerbach) Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche) All of Grace (Charles Spurgeon) Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness (Andrew Murray) Orthodoxy (Chesterton) The Everlasting Man (Chesterton) The Sovereignty of God (Arthur Pink) The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Tolstoy) Religious Fiction: Divine Comedy (Dante) Paradise Lost (John Milton) The Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan) Zadig (Voltaire) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Lew Wallace) Quo Vadis (Henryk Sienkiewicz) In His Steps (Charles M. Sheldon) The Story of the Other Wise Man (Henry Van Dyke) The Ball and the Cross (Chesterton) The Enchanted Barn (Grace Livingston Hill) The Grand Inquisitor (Dostoevsky Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Goethe) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche) Spirituality: The Conduct of Life (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Lessons in Truth (H. Emilie Cady) As a Man Thinketh (James Allen) Thoughts are Things (Prentice Mulford) The Game of Life and How to Play It (Florence Scovel Shinn)