Available Now:
Are the Rich Necessary? Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values, by Hunter Lewis
Are the rich necessary? Are the rich compatible with democracy? Should we accept so much inequality in our society? Does the profit system glorify greed?
Lewis addresses these and other provocative questions in a clear, objective and easy-to-follow journey through the great economic arguments of our day. In an always lively point-counterpoint style, he challenges conventional positions on both sides of each issue. Stepping aside from the current economic battle zone, Lewis next lays out the different value systems that guide all our economic choices. By understanding the values embedded in the arguments, we can make better sense of them. Finally, Lewis envisions a completely new approach to the economy that massively expands the charitable or nonprofit sector. These important new ideas could radically change how we think about economic issues, help us transcend the old, sterile quarrels about more or less government control of the economy, and above all bring more hope and help to those who need it. You may pick up this book to understand economics better or to answer some vital questions that affect the way you vote, your job, and your economic future. Either way, you will have to rethink some of your most cherished beliefs.
"I salute Hunter Lewis for his original and stimulating book which concerns itself with subjects of the greatest possible importance and relevance in today's unbalanced world. His ideas for helping the problems we face are radical, thought provoking and should be considered by as many people as possible." - Lord Rothschild (Jacob)
"Hunter Lewis's new book sets out complex issues with clarity, succinctness, and dispassion, and in doing so prompts the reader to question his or her assumptions about the economy and social good. Taking a stance at the end, he then offers a creative approach that could make economies work more equitably and effectively for all." - Kathryn Fuller, Chair of the Board, Ford Foundation
"Hunter Lewis writes persuasive clear prose on subjects of growing current concern. The final chapter, 'Expanding The Non-profit Sector' promises to stimulate even more fresh thinking about how to provide the necessary capital for the sector to achieve its mission. Lewis presents an intriguing and compelling case for "Philanthropism" as an answer to the most contentious values clash of the age.This is a must read for anyone intrigued with the promise of the latest surge in philanthropy and curiosity about the post-Gates importance of foundations." - William W. Dietel, Former President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Chairman, F.B. Heron Foundation, President, Pierson/Lovelace Foundation
Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love, and Strong Coffee Meet, by Herbert Gold
As Herbert Gold says: "...Bohemia is at least a busy café of watchers and waiters, doers and don'ters, thinkers and the heedless, men and women possessed of the need to seize the day or plan the future or regret the past, all stubbornly devoted to demonstrating that life really is what good sense tells us it is not."
Call it the Beat Generation. Call it hippiedom. Call it an alternative life-style to Yuppieville. Whatever its label, Bohemia is still here, never lost, a secret someplace of free spirits, the nation with no capital, no main office, no citizenship board.
"I love this book! It is a fascinating and hilarious magical mystery tour of that unmapped land called Bohemia." - Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides
"Postwar Paris, the San Francisco of Beats and Hippies, these are but a few of the island stops on Herbert Gold's journey?" - Thomas Sanchez, author of Mile Zero and Rabbit Boss
"For Herbert Gold curiosity has been a lifelong unrestrained appetite. He has gone to and fro in the hep, beat, hip world?looking, listening, tasting, translating a bewildering mess of would-be outsiders' wacky dreams and pretenses into comely, shrewd, wonderfully funny stories. He has everybody's number, especially his own; this is cultural autobiography at its personal best." - Geoffrey Wolff, author of The Duke of Deception
Moral Foundations: An Introduction to Ethics, by Alexander Skutch
Alexander Skutch's Moral Foundations, offered by Axios Press in English for the first time, embodies Skutch's lifelong inquiry into the structure of moral relations and the sources of morality. Skutch – world famous naturalist, ornithologist, philosopher and author of over 30 books – believed that in order to build a satisfying moral edifice we need to establish an ample and firm foundation. Moral Foundations brilliantly lays out for the reader the myriad ways in which we are products of "harmonization," a process that unites the crude elements of the world in harmonious patterns. Not only does life depend on the harmonious integration of body and mind, it demands a high degree of concord with the environment in all its aspects. The culmination of Skutch's life's work, Moral Foundations is a tour de force of analysis, research and critical thinking and an important contribution to the study of ethics and philosophy.
Ethics Since 1900, by Mary Warnock
For this edition of her well-established book Mary warnock has made a number of additions, in particular a discussion of Rawl's A Theory of Justice. These bring up to date a well-informed and discriminating account of the main ethical problems discussed in England, the United States, and France, including analyzations of Moore, Prichard, Ayer, Stevenson, Hare, and Sartre.
"In this lively and fascinating book Ms. Warnock tells with an admirable clarity the stroy of the development of English moral philosophy in the twentieth century . . . most attractively written, spontaneous, forthright and unfuzzy." - Times Literary Supplement (London)
Also Available:
A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices that Shape Our Lives, by Hunter Lewis
What personal values are. How we decide about them. What the alternatives are. Seventy-eight value systems featured. Used in classrooms at Harvard and around the world. Praised by educators from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Virginia, Berea College and elsewhere.
"Hunter Lewis . . . has made sense of the conflicting systems of values in this country in these times." - William McPherson, former editor of the Washinton Post Book World, Pulitzer Prize winning critic, author of To the Sargasso Sea and Testing the Current.
"An important book." -HENRY ROSOVSKY, former dean of arts and sciences and currently Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
"Enormously worthwhile....provides a unique way of organizing our thinking about values." - Adele Simmons, president, MacArthur Foundation
"Gives readers a framework with which to clarify their own beliefs and to understand the beliefs of others...helps to make sense of...the diversity of values in our society." - Patricia H. Werhane, Ollson Center for Applied Ethics, The Darden School, University of Virginia
The Beguiling Serpent: A Re-evaluation of Emotions and Values, by Hunter Lewis
The Beguiling Serpent looks at emotions, and emotional values in particular. On one level a sequel to A Question of Values, it is also an excellent introduction to emotions and values, and ideal course material.
"Takes us on a provocative and intriguing journey into the imperfectly understood world of human emotions. More philosophy than science, Hunter Lewis's highly original yet simple framework for observing, understanding, and managing emotions invites reading at one sitting, but reflection long after." - Kathryn S. Fuller, president, World Wildlife Fund
Alexander Skutch: An Appreciation, By Alexander Skutch, Foreword by Dana Gardner, Introduction by Frank Graham, Jr.
In addition to being one of the most prolific nature writers of our time and the world's greatest expert on Central American birds, Alexander Skutch was an inspiring moral philosopher and original thinker in the tradition on Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Alexander Skutch: Selected Writings of an American Naturalist include selections from Skutch's writings spanning his 70 years of contributions to ornithology, travel, nature, and philosophy.
Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language, by Robert Gula
Nonsense is the best compilation and study of verbal logical fallacies available anywhere. It is a handbook of the myriad ways we go about being illogical -- how we deceive others and ourselves, how we think and argue in ways that are disorderly, disorganized, or irrelevant. Nonsense is also a short course in nonmathematical logical thinking, especially important for students of philosophy and economics. A book of remarkable scholarship, Nonsense is unexpectedly relaxed, informal, and accessible.
Alternative Values: The Perenial Debate about Wealth, Power, Fame, Praise, Glory and Physical Pleasure, Edited with an Introduction by Hunter Lewis
Is desire itself desirable? Should we let our desires run unchecked, especially the passionate desires for wealth, fame, praise, power and physical pleasure? Or should we try to eliminate them? Set up as a lively debate between the best thinkers of today and yesterday, Alternative Values offers strong arguments -- some logical, some empirical, some emotional, some deeply and inexpressibly intuitive -- on each side of this debate. An excellent guide for the young (and not so young) who must sort out these issues for themselves, and a wonderful resource for business leaders and public speakers.
The Words of Jesus, Edited by AxiosInstitute.org
The canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, provide not only Jesus' words but also his actions, the context withing which the words are spoken. By presenting Jesus' words without those intervening stories, we can experience Jesus' teachings in a way that is fresh and immediate. When we are confronted directly with a saying in The Words of Jesus, we cannot glide over it as we follow the story; rather, we have the singular opportunity to linger over his words and reflect on their meanings. A valuable teaching tool and research resource in the classroom, The Words of Jesus is a new way to study the foundations of Christianity and is ideal for those who seek an introduction to Jesus' ethical teachings.
The Gita: A New Translation of Hindu Sacred Scripture, Translation and Introduction by Irina N. Gajjar, Sanskrit Illuminations by Navin J. Gajjar
The Bagavad Gita is a treasure of world religious, philosophical, and ethical literature. Part of the larger Mahabharata cycle, it is the most famous part of that great Indian epic.
The story is set on a battlefield with two great armies facing each other. The chief character, Arjuna, is reluctant to fight because the other army is led by family members. Krishna , the earthly manifestation of the God Vishnu, appears as Arjuna's charioteer and provides spiritual and moral guidance that has had a profound influence on both Western and Eastern thought.
This book was Gandhi's personal bible. His life exemplified its ideal of spiritual detachment in the very midst of intense conflict and action. The Gita was also a favorite text of Thoreau, Emerson, and T.S. Eliot.
Dr. Gajjar's new translation in English blank verse captures the spirit of the original without sacrificing clarity. The text is clear, easy to follow, and dramatic, with a glossary to help readers understand unfamiliar names. The accompanying Sanskrit, which appears on the facing page, will not only interest scholars. As drawn by the author's husband, a noted artist, it is exceptionally beautiful and reminds us of both the antiquity and the mystery of this wisdom from the distant past.
Irina Gajjar - linguist, philosopher, scholar, attorney?speaks English, Gujarati, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and French and has studied Sanskrit in India for 10 years. Irina's husband, Navin Gajjar, created the handwritten Sanskrit text and the traditional Indian art motif. The Gajjars live in Mazatlan , Mexico .
"Irina Gajjar has written a clear and contemporary version of one of the most important scriptures of the world's wisdom traditions. The Gita is an important contribution and will help us all to have a deeper insight into the path of enlightenment." – Deepak Chopra
History of Ethics
Volume 1: Graeco-Roman to Early Modern Ethics, by Vernon J. Bourke
History of Ethics is a clear, objective account of the ethical theories of Western philosophy, covering all the important schools of thought from 500 B.C.E. through the 20 th century, and touching on a great variety of thinkers.
Volume One addresses ethical theory from its origins in Greece, 500 B.C.E., to the Neo-Platonism of Rome; Patristic and Medieval theories including the significant Christian and pagan writers of the period as well as those medieval Jewish and Muslim ethicians who had an influence on western thought; a survey of early modern ethical theories such as those of Bruno, Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant.
History of Ethics is a clear, objective account of the ethical theories of Western philosophy, covering all the important schools of thought from 500 B.C.E. through the 20 th century, and touching on a great variety of thinkers.
Volume One addresses ethical theory from its origins in Greece, 500 B.C.E., to the Neo-Platonism of Rome; Patristic and Medieval theories including the significant Christian and pagan writers of the period as well as those medieval Jewish and Muslim ethicians who had an influence on western thought; a survey of early modern ethical theories such as those of Bruno, Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant.
History of Ethics
Volume 2: Modern and Contemporary Ethics, by Vernon J. Bourke
Volume Two continues the modern period with a consideration of the Utilitarian ideas of Hume, German and French theories, and other ethical theories from Marx to Rosenberg . The final section is devoted to such key 20 th century ethical theorists as Dewey, Huxley, Tillich and Sartre; it ends with a chapter on existential and phenomenological ethics.
Vernon J. Bourke (1907-1998) was a professor of philosophy at St. Louis University for 45 years and the author of twenty books.
"It is surely destined to be used as a panoramic guide to the development of Western moral philosophy, from approximately 500 B.C.E. to the present. A clear and comprehensive treatment." – Commonweal
"Dr. Bourke is well known for his writings on ethics and the history of ethics. He has here written a clear and objective account of the ethical theories of Western philosophy." – Theology Digest
"After learnedly surveying Graeco-Roman, patristic and medieval, early modern and modern views, Professor Bourke outlines?with eminent clarity and judicious apportionment of space?contemporary viewpoints, expertly classified as axiological, self-realizing and utilitarian, naturalistic, and existential and phenomenological." – Library Journal
How Much Money Does an Economy Need? Solving the Central Economic Puzzle of Money, Prices, and Jobs, by Hunter Lewis
Why should unemployment exist? Why should people willing and eager to work not be able to find good, fairly paid jobs? Why should families, including children, suffer as a result? And why should even successful economies experience boom/bust cycles, with frantic hiring succeeded by even more desperate lay-offs and unemployment?
Unemployment and boom/bust cycles together are perhaps the greatest unsolved problem of economics. Most economists agree that the problem is connected to money, the way that money comes into being and flows through the economy. Prices also seem to play a large role. Most economists think that stable prices help to keep an economy stable, but not everyone agrees. Some believe that inflation helps create jobs; others that the whole point of the market system is to bring prices down so that goods and services are more affordable.
How Much Money Does an Economy Need? takes a subject that most people find difficult to decipher and makes it easy to understand. Not only easy, but fascinating, with startling insights in every chapter. This book is especially recommended for informed readers and public policy makers who want to get to the bottom of economics so that they can make better choices.
If you have read Lewis's earlier book, Are the Rich Necessary? (Axios Press, September 2007) along with How Much Money Does an Economy Need? , you have become economically literate and will be able to understand and evaluate the key economic issues of your time.
Hunter Lewis is the author of Are The Rich Necessary? Great Economic Arguments and How They Reflect Our Personal Values (Axios Press), The Real World War (Putnam), A Question of Values (HarperCollins), and The Beguiling Serpent (Axios Press), all books about the related fields of economics and values, along with numerous magazine and newspaper articles. A graduate of Harvard University, he co-founded Cambridge Associates, LLC, a global investment firm whose clients include many research universities, charitable organizations, and families. He has served on boards and committees of fifteen not-for-profit organizations, including environmental, teaching, research, and cultural organizations, as well as the World Bank. He lives in Charlottesville , Virginia .
How Much Money Does an Economy Need? is the companion volume to the groundbreaking Are the Rich Necessary?
Praise for Are the Rich Necessary?
A Library Journal "Best Business Books of 2007" Selection
"Great reading for anyone interested in quickly expanding their knowledge of today's political–economic issues." – Publishers Weekly
"Are the Rich Necessary? is both a highly provocative and a highly pleasurable read." – Harry Hurt III, The New York Times
Epicureans and Stoics, Edited by the Axios Institute
Epicureanism and Stoicism occupy a unique place in the history of human thought. They were philosophies, not religions, but they came to take the place of religion for the more educated ancient Greeks and Romans.
They answered questions about ultimate reality, right conduct, and the way for human beings to find meaning and happiness in their lives.
Both philosophies taught, as Shakespeare later put it, that "Nothing is but thinking makes it so." If we want to be happy and productive, we must strengthen and train our willful and wayward minds. There are echoes of the Buddha's Dhammapada, and it is noteworthy that Buddhism too began as a highly empirical philosophy rather than as a religion.
This little book contains some of the greatest wisdom literature of the ages. Everyone, and especially young people, should be familiar with it.
Including passages by:
Epicurus (c.341-270 BCE); Greek philosopher
Lucretius (1st-c BCE); Roman philosopher and poet
Epictetus (c.50-130); freed slave and Greco-Roman philosopher
Marcus Aurelius (121-80); Roman emperor and philosopher
Prospero's Cell, A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu, by Lawrence Durrell
Early in 1937, a young Lawrence Durrell and his new wife took an old fisherman's house on the north end of the Island of Corfu and began to explore the enchanted world that they found. They swam, fished, sailed, harvested olives, savored wine and foods unknown in England, visited sites of interest and beauty, and enjoyed meeting a procession of uniquely colorful locals. This island idyll came to an abrupt end in 1941, as the Germans prepared their invasion of Greece. Durrell was evacuated by sea to Alexandria where he worked for the British government, published a literary journal called "Personal Landscape" and gathered impressions that would eventually take shape as The Alexandria Quartet.
Lawrence Durrell was born of British parents in India in 1912 and died living in France in 1990. He is best known as the author of The Alexandria Quartet, a series of four novels set in Egypt, but wrote many other novels, travel memoirs, poems, plays, and humorous sketches. Prospero's Cell is regarded by many as his masterpiece.
Escape to the Mountain, A Family's Adventures in the Wilderness, by Marcia Bonta
"This place doesn't exist," a visitor once declared. After a mile and a half drive up a primitive road through a dark wooded hollow, he had been amazed to discover the Bontas' sunny open farm right on top of the mountain.
During their first year at the farm, Marcia and her family survived a blizzard, a flood, and a drought.
Her book is a hymn of joy to sledding on moonlit nights in winter, to the arrival of the birds in spring, and to harvesting garden crops in the autumn. She relates the discovery of a family of wild puppies in the barn, a porcupine in the apple tree, a shrew in the laundry bucket, mudpuppies in the well, and opossums on the back porch.
Marcia Bonta was born in 1940 in New Jersey. After graduating from Bucknell University, she began writing numerous articles and books about nature including Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists and her very personal memoir, Escape to the Mountain.
Children of the Sun, A Narrative of "Decadence" in England After 1918, by Martin Green
"Children of the Sun" is Martin Green's term for that brilliant and influential generation of young men who, in the aftermath of World War I, refused to become the fathers, husbands, and heads of households their fathers had been before them. Instead, they cultivated alternative styles of young manhood?the dandy, the rogue, and the naïf?which then became for a time the dominant cultural styles.
Martin Green traces the fate of that gifted generation through the lives of two of its central figures, Harold Acton and Brian Howard, and some forty of their friends, most of whom attained considerable importance in British life, notably, in the arts and letters, but also in the sciences, diplomacy, and politics. Prominent among them are Evelyn Waugh, Randolph Churchill, W. H. Auden, and Christopher Isherwood.
Martin B. Green was born in 1932 in England. He is a professor, writer, playwright, editor and publisher. His numerous books explore psychoanalysis, philosophical non-violence, counter-cultures, and adventure among other topics.
Mr. Market Miscalculates, The Bubble Years and Beyond, by James Grant
Why is America in financial crisis today? This book, better than any to date, explains it all - how we got here, and where we are going. It is brilliantly described in a collection of pieces from Grant's Interest Rate Observer, the Wall Street insider's Bible.
These essays are remarkable for their prescience: two years before subprime mortgages collapsed, the author foresaw that the "risk to house prices lies not with interest rates but with lending standards." Grant tells the unvarnished truth about Wall Street and Washington, yet Mr. Market Miscalculates is infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor.
"Remarkable prescience - infused with the author's generous spirit and rich sense of humor." – Publishers Weekly
"When it comes to writing about complicated matters of business, Jim Grant has no equal." – Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes
"Jim Grant thinks outside the box - Please read him, listen to him." – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
"In the past quarter century, Grant's Interest Rate Observer earned and maintained a place on the 'must read' list of every serious student of markets. Jim Grant's trenchant observations and elegant prose never fail to illuminate and educate....Read, learn and enjoy." – David F. Swenson, Chief Investments Officer, Yale University
(January 2009)
Bitter Lemons, by Lawrence Durrell
Cavafy, 166 Poems, Translated with an Introduction by Alan L. Boegehold
The Big Spenders, The Epic Story of the Rich Rich, the Grandees of America, and the Magnificoes, and How They Spent Their Fortunes, by Lucius Beebe
I've Seen the Best of It, by Joseph Alsop with Adam Platt
