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Author: Eric Chaline
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780234791
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
These days there is only one right answer when someone asks you what you are doing after work. Hitting the gym! With an explosion of apps, clothing, devices, and countless DVDs, fitness has never felt more modern, and the gym is its holy laboratory, alive with machinery, sweat, and dance music. But we are far from the first to pursue bodily perfection—the gymnasium dates back 2,800 years, to the very beginnings of Western civilization. In The Temple of Perfection, Eric Chaline offers the first proper consideration of the gym’s complex, layered history and the influence it has had on the development of Western individualism, society, education, and politics. As Chaline shows, how we take care of our bodies has long been based on a complex mix of spiritual beliefs, moral discipline, and aesthetic ideals that are all entangled with political, social, and sexual power. Today, training in a gym is seen primarily as part of the pursuit of individual fulfillment. As he shows, however, the gym has always had a secondary role in creating men and women who are “fit for purpose”—a notion that has meant a lot of different things throughout history. Chaline surveys the gym’s many incarnations and the ways the individual, the nation-state, the media, and the corporate world have intersected in its steamy confines, sometimes with unintended consequences. He shows that the gym is far more than a factory for superficiality and self-obsession—it is one of the principle battlefields of humanity’s social, sexual, and cultural wars. Exploring the gym’s history from a multitude of perspectives, Chaline concludes by looking toward its future as it struggles to redefine itself in a world in thrall to quick fixes—such as plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals—meant to attain the gym’s ultimate promises: physical fitness and beauty.
Author: Eric Chaline
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780234791
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Get Book Here
Book Description
These days there is only one right answer when someone asks you what you are doing after work. Hitting the gym! With an explosion of apps, clothing, devices, and countless DVDs, fitness has never felt more modern, and the gym is its holy laboratory, alive with machinery, sweat, and dance music. But we are far from the first to pursue bodily perfection—the gymnasium dates back 2,800 years, to the very beginnings of Western civilization. In The Temple of Perfection, Eric Chaline offers the first proper consideration of the gym’s complex, layered history and the influence it has had on the development of Western individualism, society, education, and politics. As Chaline shows, how we take care of our bodies has long been based on a complex mix of spiritual beliefs, moral discipline, and aesthetic ideals that are all entangled with political, social, and sexual power. Today, training in a gym is seen primarily as part of the pursuit of individual fulfillment. As he shows, however, the gym has always had a secondary role in creating men and women who are “fit for purpose”—a notion that has meant a lot of different things throughout history. Chaline surveys the gym’s many incarnations and the ways the individual, the nation-state, the media, and the corporate world have intersected in its steamy confines, sometimes with unintended consequences. He shows that the gym is far more than a factory for superficiality and self-obsession—it is one of the principle battlefields of humanity’s social, sexual, and cultural wars. Exploring the gym’s history from a multitude of perspectives, Chaline concludes by looking toward its future as it struggles to redefine itself in a world in thrall to quick fixes—such as plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals—meant to attain the gym’s ultimate promises: physical fitness and beauty.
Author: Russell Marion Nelson
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
ISBN: 9781573454056
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Author: His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Publisher: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
ISBN: 9171498257
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
In February 1969 Srila Prabhupada gave a series of lectures on the yoga system as it is discussed in the sixth and eighth chapters of the Bhagavad-gita. The Path of Perfection is a collection of these talks. The perfect life - the life that achieves the goal of yoga - is dynamic and full of activity, Srila Prabhupada says. It connects us with the Supreme Spirit in straightforward, practical ways and resonates with truth. These absorbing talks show us how the Gita's timeless teachings can help us walk the path of perfection.
Author: Eric Chaline
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780238908
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
What could be better than diving into cool water on a hot day? In this enormously enjoyable and informative history of swimming, Eric Chaline sums up this most summery of moments with one phrase: pleasure beckons at the water’s edge. Strokes of Genius traces the history of swimming from the first civilizations to its current worldwide popularity as a sport, fitness pastime, and leisure activity. Chaline explores swimming’s role in ritual, early trade and manufacturing, warfare, and medicine, before describing its transformation in the early modern period into a leisure activity and a competitive sport—the necessary precursors that have made it the most common physical pastime in the developed world. The book celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming—attributes that Chaline argues could have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Swimming, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to train the body and quiet the mind, is also a means of spiritual awakening—a personal journey of discovery. Swimming has attained the status of a cultural marker, denoting eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration, and excellence. Strokes of Genius shows that there is not a single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge, and remerge. Chaline argues that swimming will become particularly important as we look toward a warmer future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.
Author: Rachel Pollack
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905572090
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
An award-winning fantasy author and leading authority on the tarot brings together a collection of provocative insights, meditations, and stories that offers a fresh interpretation of tarot cards and the spiritual truths they reveal. Original.
Author: Catherine Despeux
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900438345X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
Catherine Despeux’s book Taoism and Self Knowledge is a study of the Internal Alchemical text "Chart for the Cultivation of Perfection." It begins with an analysis of pictographic and symbolic representation of the body in early Taoism after which the author examines different extant versions of the "Chart" as it was transmitted among Quanzhen groups in the Qing dynasty. The book is comprised of four main parts: the principal parts of the body and their nomenclature in Internal Alchemy, the spirits in the human body, and the alchemical processes and procedures used in thunder rituals and self-cultivation. This is a revised, expanded edition of the original French edition Taoïsme et connaissance de soi. La carte de la culture de la perfection (Xiuzhen tu) Paris, 2012.
Author: Nathaniel Comfort
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300188870
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues that cast troublesome shadows over these fields./divDIV DIVKeeping his focus on America, science historian Nathaniel Comfort introduces the community of scientists, physicians, and public health workers who have contributed to the development of medical genetics from the nineteenth century to today. He argues that medical genetics is closely related to eugenics, and indeed the two cannot be fully understood separately. He also carefully examines how the desire to relieve suffering and to improve ourselves genetically, though noble, may be subverted. History makes clear that as patients and consumers we must take ownership of genetic medicine, using it intelligently, knowledgeably, and skeptically, lest pernicious interests trump our own./div
Author: John M. Lundquist
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313017557
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
As war and terrorism continue to rage over the Holy Land, the Temple of Jerusalem, arguably the most famous sacred structure in world history, looms in the background as a symbol of past glory, a place of religious worship, and a site to be contended over and coveted. This book offers a general history of the meaning, importance, and significance of the Temple of Jerusalem, in both the religious and the political arena. It begins with the construction of the Temple, its destruction in 587 B.C.E., its reconstruction in 516 B.C.E., the vast enlargement during the time of the Idumean King Herod, around 20 B.C.E., its final destruction in 70 C.E., and its dynamic and abundant afterlife as the leading influence in the construction of Jewish synagogues, Christian cathedrals, and Islamic mosques. But the Temple has also been at the center of much political and religious controversy, and Lundquist explores the issues and conflicts that have erupted over this sacred place, considers the meaning and importance of the Temple to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, from ancient times to the present, and concludes with a careful consideration of the continuing religious and political tensions. On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount (also called Al-Haram As-Sharif) in Jerusalem, igniting what has come to be known as the second intifada. But why would such a visit to a religious site set off such a string of violent responses that continue to this day? The answer lies in the history of the Temple of Jerusalem, which once, indeed twice, stood in the spot known today as the Temple Mount (to Jews) and the Dome of the Rock (to Muslims). A holy place to three of the world's main religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—the Temple of Jerusalem is, arguably, the most famous sacred structure in world history and figures prominently in Apocalyptic writings. Yet, it is almost entirely absent, in all its phases, from the archaeological record, as the sacred nature of the site prohibits any excavation.
Author: Yukio Mishima
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099285673
Category : Arson
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Bringing together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religious life and the history of Japan, this novel is based on an actual incident, the burning of a celebrated temple. The novel is a meditation on the state of Japan in the post-war period.
Author: Gary A. Anderson
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664226992
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
A careful examination of the earliest biblical interpretations of Genesis considers such topics as human destiny, the Creation, sexuality, sin, and forgiveness, from the perspectives of both Judaism and Christianity.
