Author: Costica Bradatan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674287363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Charming and brilliant.” —Times Literary Supplement “Provocative, stimulating, wise―the book that our success-obsessed age needs to read.”―Tom Holland “Bradatan, a philosopher, writes with elegance and wit, his every thought and sentence slipping smoothly into the next...I was absorbed by Bradatan’s book even—or especially—when I felt uncomfortable with its implications.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times “Bradatan wears his erudition lightly. He is a pleasure to read, and his prose conveys a happy resilience in the face of life’s inevitable contradictions. His lessons in humility remind us that the pursuit of success is often motivated by the dread of failure—and that our attempts to create things are often driven by an avoidance of our mortality.” —Michael S. Roth, Washington Post “Bradatan writes with the same daring, the same interpretive anger that made his subjects notorious in their own day for choosing failure over what their respective worlds counted as success. A gripping read, start to finish.” ―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography Our obsession with success is hard to overlook. Everywhere we compete, rank, and measure. Yet this relentless drive to be the best blinds us to something vitally important: the need to be humble in the face of life’s challenges. In Praise of Failure explores several arenas of failure, from the social and political to the spiritual and biological. Gleefully breaching the boundaries between argument and storytelling, scholarship and spiritual quest, Costica Bradatan mounts his case for failure through the stories of four historical figures who led lives of impact and meaning and assiduously courted failure. Their struggles show that engaging with our limitations can be not just therapeutic but positively transformative.
In Praise of Failure
Author: Costica Bradatan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674287363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Charming and brilliant.” —Times Literary Supplement “Provocative, stimulating, wise―the book that our success-obsessed age needs to read.”―Tom Holland “Bradatan, a philosopher, writes with elegance and wit, his every thought and sentence slipping smoothly into the next...I was absorbed by Bradatan’s book even—or especially—when I felt uncomfortable with its implications.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times “Bradatan wears his erudition lightly. He is a pleasure to read, and his prose conveys a happy resilience in the face of life’s inevitable contradictions. His lessons in humility remind us that the pursuit of success is often motivated by the dread of failure—and that our attempts to create things are often driven by an avoidance of our mortality.” —Michael S. Roth, Washington Post “Bradatan writes with the same daring, the same interpretive anger that made his subjects notorious in their own day for choosing failure over what their respective worlds counted as success. A gripping read, start to finish.” ―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography Our obsession with success is hard to overlook. Everywhere we compete, rank, and measure. Yet this relentless drive to be the best blinds us to something vitally important: the need to be humble in the face of life’s challenges. In Praise of Failure explores several arenas of failure, from the social and political to the spiritual and biological. Gleefully breaching the boundaries between argument and storytelling, scholarship and spiritual quest, Costica Bradatan mounts his case for failure through the stories of four historical figures who led lives of impact and meaning and assiduously courted failure. Their struggles show that engaging with our limitations can be not just therapeutic but positively transformative.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674287363
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Charming and brilliant.” —Times Literary Supplement “Provocative, stimulating, wise―the book that our success-obsessed age needs to read.”―Tom Holland “Bradatan, a philosopher, writes with elegance and wit, his every thought and sentence slipping smoothly into the next...I was absorbed by Bradatan’s book even—or especially—when I felt uncomfortable with its implications.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times “Bradatan wears his erudition lightly. He is a pleasure to read, and his prose conveys a happy resilience in the face of life’s inevitable contradictions. His lessons in humility remind us that the pursuit of success is often motivated by the dread of failure—and that our attempts to create things are often driven by an avoidance of our mortality.” —Michael S. Roth, Washington Post “Bradatan writes with the same daring, the same interpretive anger that made his subjects notorious in their own day for choosing failure over what their respective worlds counted as success. A gripping read, start to finish.” ―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography Our obsession with success is hard to overlook. Everywhere we compete, rank, and measure. Yet this relentless drive to be the best blinds us to something vitally important: the need to be humble in the face of life’s challenges. In Praise of Failure explores several arenas of failure, from the social and political to the spiritual and biological. Gleefully breaching the boundaries between argument and storytelling, scholarship and spiritual quest, Costica Bradatan mounts his case for failure through the stories of four historical figures who led lives of impact and meaning and assiduously courted failure. Their struggles show that engaging with our limitations can be not just therapeutic but positively transformative.
In Praise of Failure
Author: Costică Brădățan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674970470
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Success is all very well, but failure teaches us what is most important: humility. Costica Bradatan tells the stories of four thinkers who, for all their external success, courted failure throughout their years. From Simone Weil to Seneca and Gandhi, the greatest of us made meaningful lives by grasping the epiphanies of failure.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674970470
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Success is all very well, but failure teaches us what is most important: humility. Costica Bradatan tells the stories of four thinkers who, for all their external success, courted failure throughout their years. From Simone Weil to Seneca and Gandhi, the greatest of us made meaningful lives by grasping the epiphanies of failure.
In Praise of Failure
Author: Mark H. Anshel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442251581
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Many of our greatest athletes, scientists, and entertainers failed repeatedly throughout their careers, yet they refused to allow past mistakes stop them from striving for future success. Instead, they turned those so-called failures into opportunities to learn, improve, and eventually earn the achievements they are celebrated for today. Why, then, is failure considered negative in our society? Perhaps failure is not, in fact, something to be avoided, but something to be encouraged. In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life aims to change the way our society defines and perceives what is commonly called “failure.” Mark H. Anshel provides a refreshing, new perspective on how we can embrace failure as part of the process of achieving and succeeding at the highest level. Anshel uses sports psychology in a grounded, easy-to-read manner to examine failure in sports settings, revealing that not only is failure inevitable in an imperfect world, it is essential. He addresses such issues as how to properly promote failure in sport and exercise settings, how errors lead to improvement, ways to constructively cope with failure, and how to help child athletes fail “safely.” In the process, Anshel shows that the highest-performing athletes have one characteristic in common—they learned and improved from apparent setbacks. In Praise of Failure shares stories of professional athletes, business professionals, scholars, and famous inventors who failed repeatedly before attaining their dreams, revealing the integral role failure plays in success. Offering a fresh and exciting take on how to approach the failures we face in life, this bookwill be invaluable for athletes, coaches, exercise and fitness trainers, dieticians, students, and even for the corporate world.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442251581
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Many of our greatest athletes, scientists, and entertainers failed repeatedly throughout their careers, yet they refused to allow past mistakes stop them from striving for future success. Instead, they turned those so-called failures into opportunities to learn, improve, and eventually earn the achievements they are celebrated for today. Why, then, is failure considered negative in our society? Perhaps failure is not, in fact, something to be avoided, but something to be encouraged. In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life aims to change the way our society defines and perceives what is commonly called “failure.” Mark H. Anshel provides a refreshing, new perspective on how we can embrace failure as part of the process of achieving and succeeding at the highest level. Anshel uses sports psychology in a grounded, easy-to-read manner to examine failure in sports settings, revealing that not only is failure inevitable in an imperfect world, it is essential. He addresses such issues as how to properly promote failure in sport and exercise settings, how errors lead to improvement, ways to constructively cope with failure, and how to help child athletes fail “safely.” In the process, Anshel shows that the highest-performing athletes have one characteristic in common—they learned and improved from apparent setbacks. In Praise of Failure shares stories of professional athletes, business professionals, scholars, and famous inventors who failed repeatedly before attaining their dreams, revealing the integral role failure plays in success. Offering a fresh and exciting take on how to approach the failures we face in life, this bookwill be invaluable for athletes, coaches, exercise and fitness trainers, dieticians, students, and even for the corporate world.
The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure
Author: C. D. Rose
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 161219379X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into the literary canon A signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure compiles the biographies of history’s most notable cases of a complete lack of literary success. As such, it is the world’s leading authority on the subject. Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally acknowledged in parts of England as the world’s pre-eminent expert on inexpert writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin. The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive appreciation of history’s least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this historic volume comprise a who’s who of the talentless and deluded, their stories timeless litanies of abject psychosis, misapplication, and delinquency. It is, in short, a treasure.
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 161219379X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into the literary canon A signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure compiles the biographies of history’s most notable cases of a complete lack of literary success. As such, it is the world’s leading authority on the subject. Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally acknowledged in parts of England as the world’s pre-eminent expert on inexpert writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin. The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive appreciation of history’s least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this historic volume comprise a who’s who of the talentless and deluded, their stories timeless litanies of abject psychosis, misapplication, and delinquency. It is, in short, a treasure.
Dying for Ideas
Author: Costica Bradatan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472525825
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
What do Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Jan Patocka have in common? First, they were all faced one day with the most difficult of choices: stay faithful to your ideas and die or renounce them and stay alive. Second, they all chose to die. Their spectacular deaths have become not only an integral part of their biographies, but are also inseparable from their work. A "death for ideas" is a piece of philosophical work in its own right; Socrates may have never written a line, but his death is one of the greatest philosophical best-sellers of all time. Dying for Ideas explores the limit-situation in which philosophers find themselves when the only means of persuasion they can use is their own dying bodies and the public spectacle of their death. The book tells the story of the philosopher's encounter with death as seen from several angles: the tradition of philosophy as an art of living; the body as the site of self-transcending; death as a classical philosophical topic; taming death and self-fashioning; finally, the philosophers' scapegoating and their live performance of a martyr's death, followed by apotheosis and disappearance into myth. While rooted in the history of philosophy, Dying for Ideas is an exercise in breaking disciplinary boundaries. This is a book about Socrates and Heidegger, but also about Gandhi's "fasting unto death" and self-immolation; about Girard and Passolini, and self-fashioning and the art of the essay.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472525825
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
What do Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Jan Patocka have in common? First, they were all faced one day with the most difficult of choices: stay faithful to your ideas and die or renounce them and stay alive. Second, they all chose to die. Their spectacular deaths have become not only an integral part of their biographies, but are also inseparable from their work. A "death for ideas" is a piece of philosophical work in its own right; Socrates may have never written a line, but his death is one of the greatest philosophical best-sellers of all time. Dying for Ideas explores the limit-situation in which philosophers find themselves when the only means of persuasion they can use is their own dying bodies and the public spectacle of their death. The book tells the story of the philosopher's encounter with death as seen from several angles: the tradition of philosophy as an art of living; the body as the site of self-transcending; death as a classical philosophical topic; taming death and self-fashioning; finally, the philosophers' scapegoating and their live performance of a martyr's death, followed by apotheosis and disappearance into myth. While rooted in the history of philosophy, Dying for Ideas is an exercise in breaking disciplinary boundaries. This is a book about Socrates and Heidegger, but also about Gandhi's "fasting unto death" and self-immolation; about Girard and Passolini, and self-fashioning and the art of the essay.
The Gift of Failure
Author: Jessica Lahey
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062299247
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
The New York Times bestselling, groundbreaking manifesto on the critical school years when parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships, and interfere on the playing field. As teacher and writer Jessica Lahey explains, even though these parents see themselves as being highly responsive to their children’s well being, they aren’t giving them the chance to experience failure—or the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems. Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine their education, Lahey reminds us. Teachers don’t just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They teach responsibility, organization, manners, restraint, and foresight—important life skills children carry with them long after they leave the classroom. Providing a path toward solutions, Lahey lays out a blueprint with targeted advice for handling homework, report cards, social dynamics, and sports. Most importantly, she sets forth a plan to help parents learn to step back and embrace their children’s failures. Hard-hitting yet warm and wise, The Gift of Failure is essential reading for parents, educators, and psychologists nationwide who want to help children succeed.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062299247
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
The New York Times bestselling, groundbreaking manifesto on the critical school years when parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults Modern parenting is defined by an unprecedented level of overprotectiveness: parents who rush to school at the whim of a phone call to deliver forgotten assignments, who challenge teachers on report card disappointments, mastermind children’s friendships, and interfere on the playing field. As teacher and writer Jessica Lahey explains, even though these parents see themselves as being highly responsive to their children’s well being, they aren’t giving them the chance to experience failure—or the opportunity to learn to solve their own problems. Overparenting has the potential to ruin a child’s confidence and undermine their education, Lahey reminds us. Teachers don’t just teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They teach responsibility, organization, manners, restraint, and foresight—important life skills children carry with them long after they leave the classroom. Providing a path toward solutions, Lahey lays out a blueprint with targeted advice for handling homework, report cards, social dynamics, and sports. Most importantly, she sets forth a plan to help parents learn to step back and embrace their children’s failures. Hard-hitting yet warm and wise, The Gift of Failure is essential reading for parents, educators, and psychologists nationwide who want to help children succeed.
The Queer Art of Failure
Author: Jack Halberstam
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822350459
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
DIVProminent queer theorist offers a "low theory" of culture knowledge drawn from popular texts and films./div
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822350459
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
DIVProminent queer theorist offers a "low theory" of culture knowledge drawn from popular texts and films./div
On Betrayal
Author: Avishai Margalit
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497395X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
“Seamlessly combines analytic rigor with personal memoir . . . its arguments are drawn from political history . . . Biblical commentary . . . novels and biographies.” (Amélie Rorty, Tufts University) Adultery, treason, and apostasy no longer carry the weight they once did. Yet we constantly see and hear stories of betrayal. Avishai Margalit argues that the tension between the ubiquity of betrayal and the loosening of its hold is a sign of the strain between ethics and morality, between thick and thin human relations. On Betrayal offers a philosophical account of thick human relations?relationships with friends, family, and core communities?through their pathology, betrayal. Judgments of betrayal often shift unreliably. A traitor to one side is a hero to the other. Yet the notion of what it means to betray is remarkably consistent across cultures and eras. Betrayal undermines thick trust, dissolving the glue that holds our most meaningful relationships together. On Betrayal is about ethics: what we owe to the people and groups that give us our sense of belonging. Drawing on literary, historical, and personal sources, Maraglit examines what our thick relationships are and should be and revives the long-discarded notion of fraternity. “Provocative and illuminating.” —Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study “Witty and wise, precise and profound, On Betrayal is an easy but deep read: it sees life as it really is with all its turmoil.” —The Christian Century “The range of Margalit’s examples is astonishing. . . . He is much more knowledgeable about and comfortable with communities (and in communities) than most philosophers are, and so he is very good at recognizing when they go wrong.” —New York Review of Books
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497395X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
“Seamlessly combines analytic rigor with personal memoir . . . its arguments are drawn from political history . . . Biblical commentary . . . novels and biographies.” (Amélie Rorty, Tufts University) Adultery, treason, and apostasy no longer carry the weight they once did. Yet we constantly see and hear stories of betrayal. Avishai Margalit argues that the tension between the ubiquity of betrayal and the loosening of its hold is a sign of the strain between ethics and morality, between thick and thin human relations. On Betrayal offers a philosophical account of thick human relations?relationships with friends, family, and core communities?through their pathology, betrayal. Judgments of betrayal often shift unreliably. A traitor to one side is a hero to the other. Yet the notion of what it means to betray is remarkably consistent across cultures and eras. Betrayal undermines thick trust, dissolving the glue that holds our most meaningful relationships together. On Betrayal is about ethics: what we owe to the people and groups that give us our sense of belonging. Drawing on literary, historical, and personal sources, Maraglit examines what our thick relationships are and should be and revives the long-discarded notion of fraternity. “Provocative and illuminating.” —Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study “Witty and wise, precise and profound, On Betrayal is an easy but deep read: it sees life as it really is with all its turmoil.” —The Christian Century “The range of Margalit’s examples is astonishing. . . . He is much more knowledgeable about and comfortable with communities (and in communities) than most philosophers are, and so he is very good at recognizing when they go wrong.” —New York Review of Books
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
Author: Bertrand Russell
Publisher: Unwin Hyman
ISBN: 9780043040065
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of "In Praise of Idleness," a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. With characteristic clarity and humour, Russell surveys the social and political consequences of his beliefs. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defense of 'useless' knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, " In Praise of Idleness " is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.
Publisher: Unwin Hyman
ISBN: 9780043040065
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of "In Praise of Idleness," a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. With characteristic clarity and humour, Russell surveys the social and political consequences of his beliefs. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defense of 'useless' knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, " In Praise of Idleness " is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.
Born Losers
Author: Scott A. Sandage
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674015104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
What makes somebody a Loser, a person doomed to unfulfilled dreams and humiliation? Nobody is born to lose, and yet failure embodies our worst fears. The Loser is our national bogeyman, and his history over the past two hundred years reveals the dark side of success, how economic striving reshaped the self and soul of America. From colonial days to the Columbine tragedy, Scott Sandage explores how failure evolved from a business loss into a personality deficit, from a career setback to a gauge of our self-worth. From hundreds of private diaries, family letters, business records, and even early credit reports, Sandage reconstructs the dramas of real-life Willy Lomans. He unearths their confessions and denials, foolish hopes and lost faith, sticking places and changing times. Dreamers, suckers, and nobodies come to life in the major scenes of American history, like the Civil War and the approach of big business, showing how the national quest for success remade the individual ordeal of failure. Born Losers is a pioneering work of American cultural history, which connects everyday attitudes and anxieties about failure to lofty ideals of individualism and salesmanship of self. Sandage's storytelling will resonate with all of us as it brings to life forgotten men and women who wrestled with The Loser--the label and the experience--in the days when American capitalism was building a nation of winners.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674015104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
What makes somebody a Loser, a person doomed to unfulfilled dreams and humiliation? Nobody is born to lose, and yet failure embodies our worst fears. The Loser is our national bogeyman, and his history over the past two hundred years reveals the dark side of success, how economic striving reshaped the self and soul of America. From colonial days to the Columbine tragedy, Scott Sandage explores how failure evolved from a business loss into a personality deficit, from a career setback to a gauge of our self-worth. From hundreds of private diaries, family letters, business records, and even early credit reports, Sandage reconstructs the dramas of real-life Willy Lomans. He unearths their confessions and denials, foolish hopes and lost faith, sticking places and changing times. Dreamers, suckers, and nobodies come to life in the major scenes of American history, like the Civil War and the approach of big business, showing how the national quest for success remade the individual ordeal of failure. Born Losers is a pioneering work of American cultural history, which connects everyday attitudes and anxieties about failure to lofty ideals of individualism and salesmanship of self. Sandage's storytelling will resonate with all of us as it brings to life forgotten men and women who wrestled with The Loser--the label and the experience--in the days when American capitalism was building a nation of winners.