{"title":"Key Issues S","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"origin-of-language-book-roy-harris-jr-9781855064379","title":"The Origin of Language","description":"The \"Key Issues\" series makes available some of the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. Examining the range of contemporary literature - journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets - the series should give the reader an insight into the historical, social and political context in which a key publication or particular topic emerged. Each text has been reset and provided with a new editorial introduction to supply the necessary historical background. Public debate about language in the English-speaking world during the 19th century turned on the issue of how language began. The notion that language was a divine gift to humanity, not shared by lower creatures, was supported by the Biblical accounts of Adam naming the animals and of the Tower of Babel. It was still accepted by leading religious authorities. But this notion was seriously brought into question by the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution. Those who rejected Darwinism ridiculed all attempts to conjure up language out of primitive calls, grunts and ejaculations. No animals, it was pointed out, had yet achieved communication remotely resembling the use of words. On the other side were those who held that it was possible to account for the birth of language rationally as a function of the development of human communicational needs in society. Prominent contributors to the controversy included Max Muller (1823-1900), who held the Chair of Comparative Philology at Oxford University, William Dwight Whitney (1837-1894), Professor of Sanskrit at Yale University, USA, and Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917), who became Oxford's first Professor of Anthropology in 1895.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50258280349969,"sku":"CIN1855064375VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51853118275857,"sku":"GOR008924171","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1855064375.jpg?v=1750768596"},{"product_id":"subjection-of-women-book-andrew-pyle-9781855064089","title":"The Subjection of Women","description":"The \"Key Issues\" series aims to make available the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. These take the form of journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets which provides an insight into the historical relevance and the social and political context in which a publication or particular topic emerged. Each volume brings together bring together some of the key responses to the works. Although written by a man, Mill's \"Subjection of Women\" is often regarded as one of the landmarks of British feminism. He observes that half the population are denied the most elementary legal and political rights. This work is a protest against the injustices of existing British institutions and a plea for political, legal and educational reforms. This volume features a collection of responses to his polemical work, many of them being women intellectuals of the period.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401250574609,"sku":"CIN1855064081G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1855064081.jpg?v=1751379470"},{"product_id":"liberty-book-andrew-pyle-9781855062450","title":"Liberty","description":"John Stuart Mill's \"Liberty\" has outlived most of his other writings and is still relevant to students of politics and philosophy. It provides a source of problems for any would-be liberal political philosophy. Issues concerning the relation between the individual citizen and the state come into focus - e.g. questions about censorship, marital law or religious toleration.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50831042674961,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50831042773265,"sku":"GOR014088938","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1855062453.jpg?v=1751313545"},{"product_id":"on-moral-sentiments-book-john-reeder-qc-9781855065505","title":"On Moral Sentiments","description":"The \"Key Issues\" series aims to make available the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. These take the form of journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets which provides an insight into the historical relevance and the social and political context in which a publication or particular topic emerged. Each volume brings together some of the key responses to the works. This anthology brings together the reactions that greeted the publication of Adam Smith's major philosophical work, \"The Theory of Moral Sentiments\" (1759). Spanning over 100 years of critical responses, the collection includes three different sections: the initial reply from Smith's friends David Hume, Edmund Burke and William Robertson; the opinions put forward by Smith's contemporaries, fellow Scots philosophers such as Lord Kames, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson or Dugald Stewart; and the later 19th-century views expressed by a new generation of philosophers.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51388884091153,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51388884287761,"sku":"GOR014250520","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1855065509.jpg?v=1750724976"},{"product_id":"leviathan-book-g-a-j-rogers-9781855064065","title":"Leviathan","description":"The \"Key Issues\" series aims to make available the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. These take the form of journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets which provides an insight into the historical relevance and the social and political context in which a publication or particular topic emerged. Each volume brings together bring together some of the key responses to the works. Hobbes's \"Leviathan\" first appeared in 1651. The scandal that first attracted attention was its advocacy of unequivocal materialism with its implication of atheism. The second was its total rejection of the traditional justification for the exercise of political power, namely the authority of kingship ordained by a Deity. Third, in its apparently self-centred hedonism it was seen as rejecting all traditional ethical codes. In this collection of contemporary responses to \"Leviathan\", attention is focused on it critics - Hobbes had virtually no defenders - who attacked his moral, political and religious ideas in a series of pamphlets and short books.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52718488912145,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52718489108753,"sku":"GOR014595900","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781855064065.jpg?v=1762947839"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/key-issues-s-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}