Time's Cruel Irony


Book Description

Book Three - The Aryis Chronicles.After many years of war and upheaval, it seemed as if the wounds of the past could finally heal. To begin that process, the Protectorate Authority rushes to crown its heroes. Chief among those to be honored, Daric Konan is quickly promoted to a significant position that places him close to the highest levels within the Protectorate system. Unfortunately for him and his people, the past would once again reach out to plunge them into the violence of war. After sending his friends and new love on a suicide mission through the vortex, Daric leads the Authority forces against an indestructible, alien foe. Facing certain annihilation, a coalition of forces fights savagely while those across the vortex pray for a miracle. The final chapter is just the beginning...




Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity


Book Description

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.







A History of Our Own Times


Book Description










The Times I've Known


Book Description

He was born right at the beginning of the "swinging" 1960s in London, England. His family strive to make ends meet, but for a variety of reasons, a few short years later, they move back to Catholic Ireland with his two Irish parents and one sister. There wasn't much happening in Ireland those days. But tumultuous changes were in the offing as backwoods Ireland was to be transformed into a model of economic and social ideals. In many ways, the author's story reflects these events as both he and his country are carried along by the tidal wave of progression. This tale follows him from Cosmopolitan London to the most rural of Ireland's green pastures, into small towns, and then its capital, Dublin. In this, his first book, he attempts to tell his life's story with not only his country but also the whole wide world as a backdrop to show more clearly the astonishing advancements and the terrible incongruity of mankind as it contrives to kill, maim, and starve each other alongside the destruction of our beautiful planet. And in this, he readily identifies the complex nature of his own character that mirrors in many ways the awful truth about the human condition. It is this duality of his nature that has brought him to this point in his life, to where he stands now today. All of what's contained between these sheets is factual, but the author fervently wishes they weren't. But as with the tidal ebb, life goes on and with it hope. And love.




Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times


Book Description

Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times is a biography by William Stephens. Chrysostom was a vital Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking.