{"title":"Bruce S Thornton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"eros-book-bruce-s-thornton-9780813332260","title":"Eros","description":"Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality is a controversial book that lays bare the meanings Greeks gave to sex. Contrary to the romantic idealization of sex dominating our culture, the Greeks saw eros as a powerful force of nature, potentially dangerous and in need of control by society: Eros the Destroyer, not Cupid the Insipid, is what fired the Greek imagination. The destructiveness of eros can be seen in Greek imagery and metaphor, and in their attitudes toward women and homosexuals. Images of love as fire, disease, storms, insanity, and violence-top 40 song clich s for us-locate eros among the unpredictable and deadly forces of nature. The beautiful Aphrodite embodies the alluring danger of sex, and femmes fatales like Pandora and Helen represent the risky charms of female sexuality. And homosexuality typifies for the Greeks the frightening power of an indiscriminate appetite that threatens the stability of culture itself. In Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Seualily, Bruce Thornton offers a uniquely sweeping and comprehensive account of ancient sexuality free of currently fashionable theoretical jargon and pretensions. In its conclusions the book challenges the distortions of much recent scholarship on Greek sexuality. And throughout it links the wary attitudes of the Greeks to our present-day concerns about love, sex, and family. What we see, finally, are the origins of some of our own views as well as a vision of sexuality that is perhaps more honest and mature than our own dangerous illusions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49708203049233,"sku":"CIN0813332265G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52149760721169,"sku":"NLS9780813332260","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53251448144145,"sku":"NIN9780813332260","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813332265.jpg?v=1751296815"},{"product_id":"decline-fall-book-bruce-s-thornton-9781594032066","title":"Decline \u0026 Fall","description":"Once a colossus dominating the globe, Europe today is a doddering convalescent. Sluggish economic growth, high unemployment, an addiction to expensive social welfare entitlements, a dwindling birth-rate among native Europeans, and most important, an increasing Islamic immigrant population chronically underemployed yet demographically prolific--all point to a future in which Europe will be transformed beyond recognition, a shrinking museum culture riddled with ever-expanding Islamist enclaves. Decline and Fall tells the story of this decline by focusing on the larger cultural dysfunctions behind the statistics. The abandonment of the Christian tradition that created the West's most cherished ideals--a radical secularism evident in Europe's indifference to God and church--created a vacuum of belief into which many pseudo-religions have poured. Scientism, fascism, communism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, sheer hedonism-- all have attempted and failed, sometimes bloodily, to provide Europeans with an alternative to Christianity that can show them what is worth living and dying for. Meanwhile a resurgent Islam, feeding off the economic and cultural marginalization of European Muslims, knows all too well not just what is worth dying for, but what is worth killing for. Crippled by fashionable self-loathing and fantasies of multicultural inclusiveness, Europeans have met this threat with capitulation instead of strength, appeasement and apologies instead of the demand that immigrants assimilate. As Decline and Fall shows, Europe's solution to these ills--a larger and more powerful European Union--simply exacerbates the problems, for the EU cannot address the absence of a unifying belief that can spur Europe even to defend itself, let alone to recover its lost grandeur. As these problems worsen, Europe will face an unappetizing choice between two somber destinies: a violent nationalistic or nativist reaction, or, more likely, a long descent into cultural senescence and slow-motion suicide.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49728254443793,"sku":"CIN1594032068G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50161016635665,"sku":"GOR003746906","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50325330002193,"sku":"CIN1594032068VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51752473166097,"sku":"CIN1594032068A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52666430521617,"sku":"NLS9781594032066","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53234651463953,"sku":"GOR014820344","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1594032068.jpg?v=1751452609"},{"product_id":"eros-book-bruce-s-thornton-9780813332253","title":"Eros","description":"Unlike romantic moderns, the Greeks saw Eros as a dangerous force of nature requiring cultural and social controls. Making a wide-reaching survey of Ancient Greek literature, this work provides an examination of the meanings that the Greeks gave to sex.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49864340013329,"sku":"CIN0813332257G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52105709551889,"sku":"CIN0813332257VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813332257.jpg?v=1750786655"},{"product_id":"greek-ways-book-bruce-s-thornton-9781893554573","title":"Greek Ways","description":"In the classics departments of today's universities, Bruce Thornton says, the Greeks are accused of stealing their achievements from black Egyptians, of oppressing their wives and daughters, and of hypocritically speculating about freedom while holding slaves. Most of all, classic Greek culture has come under attack precisely because its glorious achievement, extended into history, is what defines the West and makes it distinct. In Greek Ways, Thornton clears away these misconceptions. Writing with wit and erudition, he discusses in fascinating detail those areas of Greek life - sexuality and sexual roles; slavery and war; philosophy and politics - that some modern critics have made into \"contested sites.\" Perhaps more importantly, he also reclaims the importance of those core ideas the Greeks invented, ideas about human fate and purpose that have shaped the modern world. Nearly seventy years ago, Edith Hamilton published The Greek Way, a book that educated two generations of readers about the debt we owe the handful of city-states that developed \"the spirit of the West\" some 2500 years ago. Bruce Thornton's Greek Ways is for our time what Hamilton's book was for a prior era: a classic inquiry holding up a mirror to Greek culture in which we can see ourselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49895392706833,"sku":"CIN1893554570G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50627089793297,"sku":"CIN1893554570VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52653876773137,"sku":"NGR9781893554573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52686631698705,"sku":"NLS9781893554573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52755991527697,"sku":"NIN9781893554573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1893554570.jpg?v=1751314597"},{"product_id":"humanities-handbook-book-bruce-s-thornton-9780130166647","title":"Humanities Handbook","description":"For undergraduate courses in Introduction to the Humanities, Introduction to Literature, Introduction to Philosophy, and Western Civilization.  This supplementary dictionary of key terms and concepts provides the fundamental historical, philosophical, and critical vocabulary necessary for a complete understanding of interdisciplinary humanities. Its clearly written definitions offer students the background and introduction of ideas that relate to class themes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50344701919505,"sku":"CIN0130166642G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53065810903313,"sku":"CIN0130166642VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0130166642.jpg?v=1751195006"},{"product_id":"plagues-of-the-mind-book-bruce-s-thornton-9781882926893","title":"Plagues of the Mind","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50393963200785,"sku":"CIN1882926897G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51327638208785,"sku":"CIN1882926897A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1882926897.jpg?v=1751314151"},{"product_id":"plagues-of-the-mind-book-bruce-s-thornton-9781882926343","title":"Plagues of the Mind","description":"Classicist Bruce Thornton's Plagues of the Mind is a forceful vindication of the West's tradition of rational, critical inquiry -- a legacy now largely jettisoned in favor of a host of new deities -- environmentalism, feminism, primitivism, New Age, and the cult of the therapeutic among theme.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51726240088337,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51726240776465,"sku":"CIN188292634XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/188292634X.jpg?v=1750835208"},{"product_id":"eros-book-bruce-s-thornton-9780367315511","title":"Eros","description":"Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality is a controversial book that lays bare the meanings Greeks gave to sex. 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Yet these are all the wages of persistent flaws in the idea of the Union itself. Excessive regulations, welfare, and taxes impede economic growth. Centralization of power in Brussels has created a democracy deficit and lessened autonomy and freedom. Populations are shrinking, and unvetted and unassimilated migrants have increased crime and terrorist attacks. All these problems reflect the lack of any unifying set of beliefs and principles that could unite 27 diverse cultures and peoples. 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