{"title":"William Ian Miller","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the insightful works of William Ian Miller, exploring themes of disgust, courage, and the complexities of human emotions. A thought-provoking journey through the darker corners of the human experience.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"losing-it-book-william-ian-miller-9780300171013","title":"Losing it","description":"From the author of The Anatomy of Disgust, a wickedly funny, effortlessly erudite essay on the horrors of old age, past and present","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49523005587729,"sku":"GOR005642926","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49611431903505,"sku":"GOR011436322","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50198584459537,"sku":"CIN0300171013G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300171013.jpg?v=1750876496"},{"product_id":"eye-for-an-eye-book-william-ian-miller-9780521856805","title":"Eye for an Eye","description":"This book is a historical and philosophical meditation on paying back and buying back, that is, it is about retaliation and redemption. It takes the law of the talion - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - seriously. In its biblical formulation that law states the value of my eye in terms of your eye, the value of your teeth in terms of my teeth. Eyes and teeth become units of valuation. But the talion doesn't stop there. It seems to demand that eyes, teeth, and lives are also to provide the means of payment. Bodies and body parts, it seems, have a just claim to being not just money, but the first and precisest of money substances. In its highly original way, the book offers a theory of justice, not an airy theory though. It is about getting even in a toughminded, unsentimental, but respectful way. And finds that much of what we take to be justice, honor, and respect for persons requires, at its core, measuring and measuring up.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581189628177,"sku":"GOR007540186","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50096441983249,"sku":"CIN0521856809G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51087836512529,"sku":"CIN0521856809VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52687341519121,"sku":"NLS9780521856805","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521856809.jpg?v=1751073015"},{"product_id":"losing-it-book-william-ian-miller-9780300188233","title":"Losing It","description":"Covering issues that range from retirement rituals and the art of complaining to vengeance strategies and going out in style, the author gives us a more candid way of thinking about growing old and how the indignities of aging might be experienced without entirely 'losing it'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49610133045521,"sku":"GOR005107849","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50468370481425,"sku":"CIN0300188234G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52527134507281,"sku":"GOR004260375","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300188234.jpg?v=1750876517"},{"product_id":"faking-it-book-william-ian-miller-9780521613705","title":"Faking It","description":"This book is about the intrusive fear that we may not be what we appear to be, or worse, that we may be only what we appear to be and nothing more. It is concerned with the worry of being exposed as frauds in our profession, cads in our love lives, as less than virtuously motivated actors when we are being agreeable, charitable, or decent. Why do we so often mistrust the motives of our own deeds, thinking them fake, though the beneficiary of them gives us full credit? Much of this book deals with that self-tormenting self-consciousness. It is about roles and identity, discussing our engagement in the roles we play, our doubts about our identities amidst this flux of roles, and thus about anxieties of authenticity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49622347186449,"sku":"GOR012632573","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49661615210769,"sku":"GOR005158899","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50198578725137,"sku":"CIN0521613701VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50357301346577,"sku":"CIN0521613701G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52418220654865,"sku":"CIN0521613701A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52661284077841,"sku":"NLS9780521613705","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52735587320081,"sku":"NIN9780521613705","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521613701.jpg?v=1750698000"},{"product_id":"mystery-of-courage-book-william-ian-miller-9780674003071","title":"The Mystery of Courage","description":"An analysis of the definition of courage and the mystery of bravery. This book utilizes soldiers' memoirs, heroic and romantic literature and philosophical discussions to analyze the link between courage and fear and expose the role of courage in generating anxieties of manhood and masculinity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49639041859857,"sku":"GOR006533511","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50355269566737,"sku":"CIN0674003071G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416054169873,"sku":"CIN0674003071VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674003071.jpg?v=1751393263"},{"product_id":"faking-it-book-william-ian-miller-9780521830188","title":"Faking It","description":"This book is about the intrusive fear that we may not be what we appear to be, or worse, that we may be only what we appear to be and nothing more. It is concerned with the worry of being exposed as frauds in our profession, cads in our love lives, as less than virtuously motivated actors when we are being agreeable, charitable, or decent. Why do we so often mistrust the motives of our own deeds, thinking them fake, though the beneficiary of them gives us full credit? Much of this book deals with that self-tormenting self-consciousness. It is about roles and identity, discussing our engagement in the roles we play, our doubts about our identities amidst this flux of roles, and thus about anxieties of authenticity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49651061358865,"sku":"GOR004219677","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50354260967697,"sku":"CIN0521830184A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51287615766801,"sku":"GOR002092727","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51734510895377,"sku":"CIN0521830184G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52587293606161,"sku":"NLS9780521830188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53348110336273,"sku":"GOR014865176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521830184.jpg?v=1751428277"},{"product_id":"anatomy-of-disgust-book-william-ian-miller-9780674031555","title":"The Anatomy of Disgust","description":"William Miller embarks on an alluring journey into the world of disgust, showing how it brings order and meaning to our lives even as it horrifies and revolts us. Our notion of the self, intimately dependent as it is on our response to the excretions and secretions of our bodies, depends on it. Cultural identities have frequent recourse to its boundary-policing powers. Love depends on overcoming it, while the pleasure of sex comes in large measure from the titillating violation of disgust prohibitions. Imagine aesthetics without disgust for tastelessness and vulgarity; imagine morality without disgust for evil, hypocrisy, stupidity, and cruelty.  Miller details our anxious relation to basic life processes: eating, excreting, fornicating, decaying, and dying. But disgust pushes beyond the flesh to vivify the larger social order with the idiom it commandeers from the sights, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds of fleshly physicality. Disgust and contempt, Miller argues, play crucial political roles in creating and maintaining social hierarchy. Democracy depends less on respect for persons than on an equal distribution of contempt. Disgust, however, signals dangerous division. The high's belief that the low actually smell bad, or are sources of pollution, seriously threatens democracy.  Miller argues that disgust is deeply grounded in our ambivalence to life: it distresses us that the fair is so fragile, so easily reduced to foulness, and that the foul may seem more than passing fair in certain slants of light. When we are disgusted, we are attempting to set bounds, to keep chaos at bay. Of course we fail. But, as Miller points out, our failure is hardly an occasion for despair, for disgust also helps to animate the world, and to make it a dangerous, magical, and exciting place.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49727268552977,"sku":"NGR9780674031555","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50046905680145,"sku":"CIN0674031555G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50047599739153,"sku":"GOR006337058","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51852599132433,"sku":"CIN0674031555VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674031555.jpg?v=1751437919"},{"product_id":"bloodtaking-and-peacemaking-book-william-ian-miller-9780226526805","title":"Bloodtaking and Peacemaking","description":"This work seeks to delve beneath the chaos and brutality of the Norse world to discover a complex interplay of ordering and disordering impulses. William Miller's readings of ancient Iceland's sagas and extensive legal code aim to reconstruct and illuminate the society that produced them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49763570647313,"sku":"GOR009020055","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50256849469713,"sku":"CIN0226526801G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226526801.jpg?v=1751164251"},{"product_id":"humiliation-book-william-ian-miller-9780801481178","title":"Humiliation","description":"How do we feel when our friend turns up with a holiday present and we have nothing ready to give in exchange? What lies behind our small social panics and the maneuvers we use, to avoid losing face? Recognizing how much we care about how others see us, this wise and witty book tackles the complex subject of humiliation and the emotions that keep us going as self-respecting social actors.   William Ian Miller writes astutely about a host of homely and seemingly banal social occasions and shows us what is buried behind them. In his view, our lives are permeated with sometimes merely uncomfortable, sometimes hair-raising rituals of shame and humiliation. Take the unwanted dinner invitation, the exchange of valentines in grade school, or the \"diabolically ingenious invention of the bridal registry.\" Readers will have no trouble recognizing the social situations he finds indicative of our often perilous dealings with each other.   Educated as a literary critic and philologist, by profession a historian of medieval Iceland, by employment a law professor, Miller ranges comfortably beyond his areas of formal expertise to talk about emotions across time and culture. His scenarios are based on incidents from his own college town and from the Iceland of the sagas. He also makes incursions into the emotional worlds represented in the Middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and in some of the works of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and others. Indeed, one theme that gradually becomes specific is how meaning travels from one culture to another. Ancient codes of honor, he insists, still function in contemporary American life.   Some of Miller's narratives are unsettling, and he acknowledges that a certain ironical misanthropy may run through his discussions. But he succeeds in cutting through a mountain of pretensions to entertain and enlighten us.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49927125991697,"sku":"CIN0801481171G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50766892400913,"sku":"GOR002637340","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801481171.jpg?v=1758967200"},{"product_id":"anatomy-of-disgust-book-william-ian-miller-9780674031548","title":"The Anatomy of Disgust","description":"Does disgust bring order and meaning to lives? Does it help to animate the world, and make it a more dangerous, magical and exciting place? The author analyzes the world of disgust and makes these points, arguing that disgust and contempt play roles in creating and maintaining social hierarchy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49994772971793,"sku":"CIN0674031547G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50259162464529,"sku":"GOR004166953","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50972464054545,"sku":"CIN0674031547VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674031547.jpg?v=1751198782"},{"product_id":"eye-for-an-eye-book-william-ian-miller-9780521704670","title":"Eye for an Eye","description":"This book is a historical and philosophical meditation on paying back and buying back, that is, it is about retaliation and redemption. It takes the law of the talion - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - seriously. In its biblical formulation that law states the value of my eye in terms of your eye, the value of your teeth in terms of my teeth. Eyes and teeth become units of valuation. But the talion doesn't stop there. It seems to demand that eyes, teeth, and lives are also to provide the means of payment. Bodies and body parts, it seems, have a just claim to being not just money, but the first and precisest of money substances. In its highly original way, the book offers a theory of justice, not an airy theory though. It is about getting even in a toughminded, unsentimental, but respectful way. And finds that much of what we take to be justice, honor, and respect for persons requires, at its core, measuring and measuring up.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50356065009937,"sku":"CIN0521704677G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52103989362961,"sku":"CIN0521704677VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52666838286609,"sku":"NLS9780521704670","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521704677.jpg?v=1751008231"},{"product_id":"bloodtaking-and-peacemaking-book-william-ian-miller-9780226526799","title":"Bloodtaking and Peacemaking","description":"Dubbed by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e as one of the most sought-after legal academics in the county, William Ian Miller presents the arcane worlds of the Old Norse studies in a way sure to attract the interest of a wide range of readers. \u003ci\u003eBloodtaking and Peacemaking\u003c\/i\u003e delves beneath the chaos and brutality of the Norse world to discover a complex interplay of ordering and disordering impulses. Miller's unique and engaging readings of ancient Iceland's sagas and extensive legal code reconstruct and illuminate the society that produced them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePeople in the saga world negotiated a maze of violent possibility, with strategies that frequently put life and limb in the balance. But there was a paradox in striking the balance--one could not get even without going one better. Miller shows how blood vengeance, law, and peacemaking were inextricably bound together in the feuding process. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book offers fascinating insights into the politics of a stateless society, its methods of social control, and the role that a uniquely sophisticated and self-conscious law played in the construction of Icelandic society. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIlluminating.--Rory McTurk, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn impressive achievement in ethnohistory; it is an amalgam of historical research with legal and anthropological interpretation. What is more, and rarer, is that it is a pleasure to read due to the inclusion of narrative case material from the sagas themselves.--Dan Bauer, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Interdisciplinary History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50808457068817,"sku":"GOR014080401","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51411690357009,"sku":"CIN0226526798VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226526798.jpg?v=1751259459"},{"product_id":"hrafnkel-or-the-ambiguities-book-william-ian-miller-9780192855817","title":"Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities","description":"William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. Hrafnkel tells of a fairly simple feud in which a man rises, falls, and rises again with a vengeance, so to speak. The saga deals with complex issues with finely layered irony: who can one justifiably hit, when, and by what means? It does this with cool nuance, also taking on matters of torture and pain-infliction as a means of generating fellow-feeling. How does one measure pain and humiliation so as to get even, to get back to equal? People are forced to set prices on things we tell ourselves soporifically are priceless, such as esteem, dignity, life itself. Morality no less than legal remedy involves price-setting. This book flies in the face of all the previous critical literature which, with very few exceptions, imposes simplistic readings on the saga. A translation of the saga is provided as an appendix.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50999763796241,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999766614289,"sku":"NIN9780192855817","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0192855816.jpg?v=1751005422"},{"product_id":"hrafnkel-or-the-ambiguities-book-william-ian-miller-9780198793038","title":"Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities","description":"William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. Hrafnkel tells of a fairly simple feud in which a man rises, falls, and rises again with a vengeance, so to speak. The saga deals with complex issues with finely layered irony: who can one justifiably hit, when, and by what means? It does this with cool nuance, also taking on matters of torture and pain-infliction as a means of generating fellow-feeling. How does one measure pain and humiliation so as to get even, to get back to equal? People are forced to set prices on things we tell ourselves soporifically are priceless, such as esteem, dignity, life itself. Morality no less than legal remedy involves price-setting. This book flies in the face of all the previous critical literature which, with very few exceptions, imposes simplistic readings on the saga. A translation of the saga is provided as an appendix.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52406103703825,"sku":"NLS9780198793038","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53222505971985,"sku":"NIN9780198793038","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780198793038.jpg?v=1758768566"},{"product_id":"why-is-your-axe-bloody-book-william-ian-miller-9780198768920","title":"'Why is your axe bloody?'","description":"A reader's guide and a companion to this complex and great saga, a classic of world literature, comparable to the greatest in any language. 'Why is your axe bloody?' provides what, in effect, is a graduated course in the saga.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52692997505297,"sku":"CIN0198768923G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780198768920.jpg?v=1762344295"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-william-ian-miller.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}