You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Critical Imagination is a study of metaphor, imaginativeness, and criticism of the arts. Since the eighteenth century, many philosophers have argued that appreciating art is rewarding because it involves responding imaginatively to a work. Literary works can be interpreted in many ways; architecture can be seen as stately, meditative, or forbidding; and sensitive descriptions of art are often colourful metaphors: music can 'shimmer', prose can be 'perfumed', and a painter's colouring can be 'effervescent'. Engaging with art, like creating it, seems to offer great scope for imagination. Hume, Kant, Oscar Wilde, Roger Scruton, and others have defended variations on this attractive idea. In...
None
"A smoothly written and well-balanced piece of history. [three dots] Nelson's portrayal of Grant as a Scotsman and soldier is the common thread that runs throughout the book, keeping everything in perspective and providing the reader with a readily accessible and fascinating narrative."--Philander D. Chase, editor of The Papers of George Washington, University of Virginia Though Major General James Grant's name appears in many early histories of Florida, he has been remembered primarily for one speech he delivered in Parliament in 1775 that disparaged American military might. In this first full-scale biography of him, Nelson establishes Grant as an intelligent participant in the political an...
Sir James Grant of Grant was one of the leaders of the 'Age of Improvement', overseeing agricultural advances and even town planning when he established the village of Grantown on Spey. During the famine of 1782/3 Sir James' initiative kept the population from starving by importing grain, largely at his own expense.
This story of James Grant, his family and the class they belong to is not of our time. That class still exists and its prosperity is unabated. But its position in the American national psyche is greatly diminished, its glitter dulled by the passage of time - and a change in the mores of society as a whole. But I have written it because I believe the foibles of the human heart and its redeeming strengths possess a universality which overcomes the angst of changing times. I have set the stage in an unfamiliar time to mine. Whether my characters that stride upon that cluttered stage would remain credible in a stark, modern setting, I cannot judge. I had no one in particular in mind in devising them. They are as the ghosts that populate our dreams - a compendium of hints and reflections of those who have crossed our consciousness in the ill-remembered past.
Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
A biography of the revolutionary, founding father, and second president of the United States explores his origins as a son of Massachusetts who crafted himself into an uncompromisingly ethical politician and social reformer.
Jim Grant was Executive Director of UNICEF from 1980 to 1995, during which period he launched a worldwide child survival and development revolution. The practical result was that by 1995, 25 million children were alive who would otherwise have died, with millions more living with better health and nutrition. This volume contains eight articles by Jim Grant's close colleagues which draw out the lessons of Grant's vision and leadership, which have relevance in many other contexts