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CEU Press books are distributed also in digital version. See the top 20 e-sales from 2005 till June 2008.

Bestsellers on two tracks. Five titles figure both among traditional and digital top 20: A Cardboard Castle, A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements, Russian Foreign Policy, Ascensions on High, and Ideologies and National Identities.

"A sharp, thoughtful, graciously written study, based on impressive research in the archives of the French and Italian parties, as well as East German records, for insights into Soviet actions. The book does not change the overall understanding of the positions and roles of the two parties, but it adds much rich detail and subtlety. Summing up: highly recommended". – Choice on Which Socialism, Whose Détente?

"The four case studies provide substantial grist for those interested in generalizations about successful state building. Furthermore, specialists should find the cross-country comparisons on the development of tax regimes interesting. Summing up: recommended." – Choice on State-Building

"Filled with new information and original ideas and offering intriguing incentives for further research, this well-edited volume is not only a remarkable edition to the literature on European eugenics but provides invaluable insights into the broader currents of intellectual life in central and southeast Europe.” – Slavic Review on Blood and Homeland

Both From Solidarity to Martial Law and Islam and Tolerance in Wider Europe are highly recommended by Choice.

In the past few years Carleton University, as well as the Universities of Kansas and Maryland have excelled in adopting CEU Press books for courses. Our most popular titles were Prague Tales, A Life Under Russian Serfdom and Between Past and Future.

"This is the book that I wish someone had given me the day I arrived in Prague" – Prague Post on From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Svejk





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ASCENSIONS ON HIGH IN JEWISH MYSTICISM
Pillars, Lines, Ladders

Moshe Idel teaches at the Hebrew University, and senior researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem.

Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the architectural images of the ascent, like the resort to images of pillars, lines, and ladders.

After surveying the variety of scholarly approaches to religion, the author also offers what he proposes as an eclectic approach, and a perspectivist one. The latter recommends to examine religious phenomena from a variety of perspectives. The author investigates the specific issue of the pillar in Jewish mysticism by comparing it to the archaic resort to pillars recurring in rural societies.

Given the fact that the ascent of the soul and pillars constituted the concerns of two main Romanian scholars of religion, Ioan P. Culianu and Mircea Eliade, Idel resorts to their views, and in the Concluding Remarks analyzes the emergence of Eliade's vision of Judaism on the basis of neglected sources.

Contents

Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1: On Diverse Forms of Living Ascent on High in Jewish Sources; Chapter 2: On Cosmic Pillars in Jewish Sources; Chapter 3: The Eschatological Pillar of the Souls in Zoharic Literature; Chapter 4: Psychanodia and Metamorphoses of Pillars in Eighteenth-Century Hasidism; Chapter 5: The Neoplatonic Path for Dead Souls: Medieval Philosophy, Kabbalah and Renaissance; Concluding Remarks; Name Index; Subject Index

"His control of literature is impressive, and his proposal is suggestive. Throughout, Idel shows mastery of a very wide range of primarz and secondary sources. Summing up: recommended." - Choice

2005
224 pages
ISBN 978-963-7326-02-8 cloth $41.95 / €35.95 / £24.95
ISBN 978-963-7326-03-5 paperback $21.95 / €18.95 / £12.95

 

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