With 21 easily accessible, step-by-step meditations, this fully revised resource provides readers with guidance on how to transform their daily lives, fulfill spiritual potential, and find lasting happiness.

National bestselling author and teacher Steve Hagen strips away the cultural and religious jargon surrounding meditation and provides an accessible and thorough manual for newcomers and experienced practitioners alike. Inside you will find: Simple practices to avoid needlessly complicating meditationWhere most of us get stuck in meditation—and how to get unstuckA unique focus on meditation not simply as a spiritual technique, but as a way of living

A genius, a beauty, a leader, and a manipulator, Elizabeth I has fascinated and enthralled her public for centuries. The era that bears her name was the most exciting and dazzling in England's history. Witty, cruel, brave, and cantankerous, Elizabeth fascinated and exasperated her intimates, and when she died in 1603 at the age of seventy, she was at the height of her public popularity. Christopher Hibbert's masterful biography introduces a new generation of readers, aware of the challenges women face in wielding power, to perhaps history's greatest monarch. He has given readers today a reason to appreciate and marvel at one of the most remarkable women who has ever lived.

"[Hibbert] never writes a dull or an incomprehensible page...the details of [this book] are often brilliantly illuminating." (Antonia Fraser)

Here at last is the only up-to-date history of American philosophy, an American counterpart to Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. In this fascinating volume, the eminent historian Bruce Kuklick tells the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States, in the context of intellectual and social change. He sketches the genesis of these intellectual practices in New England Calvinism and the writing of Jonathan Edwards. He discusses theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the origins of collegiate philosophy in the early part of the nineteenth century. We see the development of secular preconceptions and the emergence, after Darwin's writings of the mid-late nineteenth century, of forms of thought hostile to religion. All of the great American thinkers are portrayed and their contributions to philosophy assessed—from Charles Peirce to William James, John Dewey to C. I. Lewis, and Wilfrid Sellars to W. V. Quine. The work brings us right up to date with the first historical treatment of the period after pragmatism, and the fragmentation of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. The author steers a controversial course between the divergent views that historians and philosophers take of the significance of philosophy in recent years.

The Dalai Lama explains the principles of meditation in a practice-oriented format especially suited for Westerners.

Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History

A riveting, original book about the creation of modern American thought.

The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Well Holmes, Jr., future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; William James, the father of modern American psychology; and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. No records were kept. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea — an idea about ideas. This book is the story of that idea.

Holmes, James, and Peirce all believed that ideas are not things "out there" waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent — like knives and forks and microchips — to make their way in the world. They thought that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals — that ideas are social. They do not develop according to some inner logic of their own but are entirely depent — like germs — on their human carriers and environment. And they thought that the survival of any idea deps not on its immutability but on its adaptability.

The Metaphysical Club is written in the spirit of this idea about ideas. It is not a history of philosophy but an absorbing narrative about personalities and social history, a story about America. It begins with the Civil War and s in 1919 with Justice Holmes's dissenting opinion in the case of U.S. v. Abrams-the basis for the constitutional law of free speech. The first four sections of the book focus on Holmes, James, Peirce, and their intellectual heir, John Dewey. The last section discusses some of the fundamental twentieth-century ideas they are associated with. This is a book about a way of thinking that changed American life."

Born in 1850, Quanah Parker belonged to the last generation of Comanches to follow the traditional nomadic life of their ancestors. After the Civil War, the trickle of white settlers encroaching on tribal land in northern Texas suddenly turned into a tidal wave. Within a few short years, the great buffalo herds, a source of food and clothing for the Indians from time immemorial, had been hunted to the verge of extinction in an orgy of greed and destruction. The Indians' cherished way of life was being stolen from them.

Quanah Parker was the fiercest and bravest of the Comanches who fought desperately to preserve their culture. He led his warriors on daring and bloody raids against the white settlers and hunters. He resisted to the last, heading a band of Comanches, the Quahadas, after the majority of the tribe had acquiesced to resettlement on a reservation. But even the Comanches—legendary horsemen of the Plains who had held off Spanish and Mexican expansion for two centuries—could not turn back the massive influx of people and weaponry from the East.

Faced with the bitter choice between extermination or compromise, Quanah stepped off the warpath and sat down at the bargaining table. With remarkable skill, the Comanche warrior adapted to the new challenges he faced, learning English and the art of diplomacy. Working to bridge two very different worlds, he fought endlessly to gain a better deal for his people. As the tribe's elder statesman, Quanah lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C., entertained President Teddy Roosevelt and other dignitaries at his home, invested in the railroad, and enjoyed the honor of having a Texas town named after him.

The Last Comanche Chief is a moving portrayal of this famed leader. His story is an inspiring and compelling chapter in the history of Native Americans and of the American West.

"Truly distinguished. Neeley re-creates the character and achievements of this most significant of all Comanche leaders." —Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull

"An important and probably definitive account of this tremendously significant figure in American history."—The Dallas Morning News

The growing digital photography trend has led many amateur photographers to become professional or at least semi-professional. In addition, there are still many film photographers looking for markets for their work.

New to this edition is information on the portrait and wedding photography business.

With 2,000 market listings, 2008 Photographer's Market is the resource freelance photographers need to find markets for their work. No other book contains as many market listings. Readers will find listing for magazines, newspapers, book publishers, greeting cards companies, stock photo agencies, design firms, galleries, art fairs and contests all over the world. Clearly marked sections and four indexes aid in narrowing down the markets and inspiring articles about successful photographers will give readers real world advice on how to succeed in a business that is always evolving due to technology and changing market trends. This up-to-date information is crucial for anyone wanting to establish themselves as a working photographer.

Everyone loves a good ghost story. Perhaps the human fascination with the supernatural stems from the fact that most of us, at some point in our lives, have experienced something we couldn't quite explain. From a very young age James Van Praagh was aware of a dimension that most of us cannot see, and he has dedicated his life to explaining it to the rest of us. Ghosts Among Us takes us on an incredible journey into the spirit world that brings to light one of our greatest mysteries—what happens to us after we die?

Van Praagh, the New York Times bestselling author and co-executive producer of the CBS series The Ghost Whisperer, shares his knowledge and life experience about ghosts, a subject that can seem to many of us both bizarre and terrifying. But when the world beyond is explained fully by an experienced guide, dismissal and apprehension can be turned into knowledge and inspiration. With incredible true ghost stories and surprising details about how ghosts actively participate in our lives, Van Praagh challenges us to question our perceptions and shows us how we can live more fully through understanding the world of spirits. Including eerily accurate readings, the author's development as a medium, and detailed how-to information, Ghosts Among Us is an all-encompassing guide to the supernatural.