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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Fears and Symbols
An Introduction to the Study of Western Civilization

Elemér Hankiss, Director of the Institute of Sociology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Fears and Symbols provides a panoramic view of civilization and is written in a lively and informative style that will have wide-ranging appeal. Containing a wealth of facts, Hankiss' landmark study is based on the central role fear and anxiety has played as the organizing motives of human existence and social life.

Hankiss argues that existential insecurity has been a major factor in the generation of civilizations; it may have been more important than factors and forces proposed by mainstream theories of civilization. Hankiss covers a plethora of subjects by which he explains that, in order to mitigate fear, human beings and communities have surrounded themselves - not only with the walls of their houses and cities, with instruments and weapons, laws and institutions, but also - with the protective spheres of symbols: myths and religions, values and belief systems, ideas and scientific theories, moral and practical rules of behaviour, and a wide range of everyday rituals and trivialities. Hankiss pays particular attention to the role of symbols and symbolic systems in contemporary societies.

Fears and Symbols is an encyclopedic study that will be of interest not only across all levels of study, covering many disciplines but will also appeal to the general reader.

 

Contents

Introduction. 1. Fear and the social sciences Fear; Sociology; Anthropology, Psychology 2. The world of Symbols Strategies; Symbols, myths, civilizations; Collapse and regeneration 3. An alien world? The world; Human beings; The four jungles; The experience of the alien world 4. The garden of Eden The myth of the peryphery; Consecration; Paradise; The garden 5. The image of the world The house; The city; The temple and the cathedral; Caos and cosmos today 6. The moral universe Amulets and sacraments; Rationalization; Satan; The transformation of evil 7. The world of guilt Guilt; The religion of guilt; The philosophy of guilt; The politics of guilt; The psychology of guilt; An innocent society? 8. The rational world Two faces of rationality; Reason and meaning; Reason and morality; Reason and uncertainty 9. The world of beauty Art; Tragedies 10. The world of play Homo ludens; Soccer; Play as world symbol 11. The world of jokes Jokes and laughter; The comic destruction of reality 12. The world of trivialities 13. Symbols and civilization.

2000
380 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-06-0 cloth $55.95 / €47.95 / £34.95
ISBN 978-963-9241-07-0 paperback $24.95 / €19.95 / £14.00

 

 

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