Classical Theory

A Tai Chi instructor for over 40 years, Dr. Frank Bisceglia, EdD, explains how to incorporate the mysterious Metaphysical elixir of Yin and Yang into your practice and daily existence.Along with addressing many of the fundamental physical techniques, Dr. Bisceglia reveals how to transform Tai Chi into a unique, fulfilling and worthwhile exercise by incorporating the theories that unite the practical and spiritual elements of this ancient Art. His insightful commentary and inspirational view provide a path for illuminating one’s connection to the universe and the marvel of its’ impact on...

What makes a symphony a masterpiece? Why do certain symphonies continue to move audiences centuries after they were composed? The Anatomy of a Symphony takes you deep into the heart of the greatest orchestral works ever written, unlocking their structure, meaning, and emotional power. From Haydn’s groundbreaking classical forms to Beethoven’s revolutionary intensity, from the rich storytelling of Tchaikovsky to the daring innovations of modern symphonists, this book explores the evolution of the symphony and the genius behind its creation. With clear, engaging explanations, you’ll ...

The forerunner to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion tells the earlier history of Middle-earth, recounting the events of the First and Second Ages, and introducing some of the key characters, such as Galadriel, Elrond, Elendil and the Dark Lord, Sauron. The tales of The Silmarillion are set...

Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three L. A. P. D. detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent...

UNABRIDGED AND AVAILABLE ON AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. This unabridged edition of the text reinstates significant portions of the...

Capitalism has blessed the world with wealth and technological miracles. It has also cursed it with urban slums, powerless workers, and the vicious boom-and-bust economy. If only there were some way to fix the problems of capitalism and keep all its benefits. In 1897, Henry George published his solution to this puzzle, Progress and Poverty. He suggested that, unlike all other taxes, a tax on land doesn't discourage entrepreneurship. A single tax on land can raise the revenues we need to help the poor without destroying the incentive to create wealth.

Albert Einstein described Relativity as a "popular explosion" of his famous theory. Written in 1916, it introduced the lay audience to the remarkable perspective which had overturned theoretical physics. Einstein's genius was to express this perspective in understandable terms.

Listeners to The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena will find her revelations from God as informative - and formative - as those who recognized her sanctity during her life. The universally applicable yet intimately personal messages she received from God are as much for us as they were for Catherine. We can listen to God's communications to his beloved daughter with detached awe or we can receive His messages to us through her writings.

Economics drives the modern world and shapes our lives, but few of us feel we have time to engage with the breadth of ideas in the subject. 50 Economics Classics is the smart person's guide to two centuries of discussion of finance, capitalism, and the global economy. From Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Thomas Piketty's best-seller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here are the great books and seminal ideas, clarified and illuminated for all.

In 1947, British scholar, playwright, and novelist Dorothy Sayers stood in an Oxford hall and delivered a speech that would become a catalyst of the current classical education movement. The Lost Tools of Learning is a flagship address presenting the tools that were given to students in the Middle Ages via the trivium, the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. For perhaps the first time, these trivium subjects were applied by Sayers to students' developmental stages. She also advocates the integration of subjects.

"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate...

Rescuing the subject from dry abstractions, Clare Connors focuses on the real questions that emerge when we read and study literature - such as how we find meaning and how literature relates to its historical context - before exploring the response of theorists. Using selections from works including poetry by Christina Rossetti and Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain, Connors unites theory with practice, revealing how enjoyable it is to think about reading.

120 Famous Easy Piano Songs for Beginners is more than a songbook, it's a step-by-step piano course with lessons and music theory, based on famous tunes and simplified classical pieces. It's perfect for ages 11 and up, and for adults of any age, even without prior musical experience.

Here are three key works by Sigmund Freud which, published in the first decades of the 20th century, underpinned his developing views and had such a dramatic effect on world society. In the uncompromising Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), he declared that 'sexual aberrations' are not limited to the insane but exist in 'normal' people to a greater or lesser degree. The three essays are divided between sexual perversions, childhood sexuality and puberty.

In 1927, classical liberalism, based on a belief in individualism, reason, capitalism, and free trade, was dying, when one of the 20th century's greatest social thinkers wrote this combative and convincing restatement. Nowhere are the key principles of Mises' philosophy better represented than in this timeless work. Mises was a careful and logical theoretician who believed that ideas rule the world, and this especially comes to light in Liberalism.

A Landmark Translation of the Original Renaissance Quadrivium Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was the last great Renaissance polymath—and one of the first global scholars. In the mid-1600s, he published his monumental three-volume work, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, which aimed to decode the ancient world’s symbolic language. This volume contains Kircher’s exploration of the Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy—the four liberal arts of classical education. Drawing on ancient sources from Pythagoras to Plato, Kircher weaves a cosmological vision in which number, form, sound...

In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music, introduces listeners to more than 100 great works, and profiles in depth many significant composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvoxak, and Mahler. He describes all the musical instruments in the orchestra, defines major musical terms, and makes music theory comprehensible for the uninitiated. There are also conversations with important musicians who offer fascinating insights about their art.

Why do we do the things we do, think the thoughts we think, and feel the ways that we feel? Dr. Andrea Bonior has spent more than 15 years in the field of psychology helping people discover "what makes them tick". In her clinical practice, as well as various mental health agencies and counseling centers, she draws upon sound psychological principles to address anxiety disorders and depression, relationship issues, grief and loss, and other issues. As a mental health columnist and public speaker, Dr. Bonior encourages people to fuel their energy by connecting with themselves and cultivating the relationships around them.

Utopia is the name given by Sir Thomas More to an imaginary island in this political work written in 1516. Book I of Utopia, a dialogue, presents a perceptive analysis of contemporary social, economic, and moral ills in England. Book II is a narrative describing a country run according to the ideals of the English humanists, where poverty, crime, injustice, and other ills do not exist.

Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will (1525) is a response to Desiderius Erasmus's "Diatribe on Free Will.’ The work is considered as one of the great masterpieces of the Reformation. Luther writes powerfully about man's depravity and God's sovereignty in his direct style, which combines spirituality and humor. For Luther, the crucial issue was the ability of free will, and the extent to which it is subject to God's sovereignty.