New Releases by David Gordon

Has there always been only one covenant beginning with God and Abraham and continuing to Moses and Mount Sinai, finally finding its fulfillment in Jesus? Or were there a number of covenants ratified in a certain time and space, each playing different roles in preparation for God's redemptive—and final—work in Christ? T. David Gordon believes it is the latter. First through Paul's Letter to the Galatians and now Paul's Letter to the Romans, Gordon demonstrates how the new covenant in Christ displaced the temporary Christ-anticipating, Israel-threatening, and Gentile-excluding Sinai covenant. In this close examination of the Greek text of Paul's Letter to the Romans, building on his argument in his first book on Galatians, Gordon provides a provocative and fresh interpretation. In this second volume, he suggests that reading Romans as covenant-historical solves many otherwise-insoluble problems in Paul's letter and aids us in understanding Paul's reasoning. Through this paradigm-shifting perspective, readers will see how the covenant God made with Abraham and then with Abraham's descendants at Sinai each played different roles in preparation for God's redemptive—and final—work in Christ. Key Features of Promise, Law, Faith in Romans: Covenant-Historical Reasoning Continued Learn how the new covenant in Christ displaced the temporary Christ-anticipating, Israel-threatening, and Gentile-excluding Sinai covenant. See how reading Romans as covenant-historical solves many otherwise-insoluble problems in Paul's letter and aids us in understanding Paul's reasoning. Through the Greek text of the book of Romans, discover how the covenant God made with Abraham and then with Abraham's descendants at Sinai each played different roles in preparation for God's redemptive—and final—work in Christ. Shift your perspective through a deeper understanding of covenant-historical theology in this fresh look at the book of Romans. T. David Gordon (PhD, Union Theological Seminary) served as professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, where he taught courses for over twenty years in religion, Greek, the humanities, and media ecology. Prior to that, he taught Greek and biblical studies at Gordon-Conwell Seminary for thirteen years, and for nine years he pastored Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Nashua, NH. He has contributed to a number of books and study Bibles and has published scholarly reviews and articles in journals along with popular articles in various periodicals. He is the author of several books, including Promise, Law, Faith: Covenant-Historical Reasoning in Galatians.

For those who wonder what relation actual Tantric practices bear to the "Tantric sex" currently being marketed so successfully in the West, David Gordon White has a simple answer: there is none. Sweeping away centuries of misunderstandings and misrepresentations, White returns to original texts, images, and ritual practices to reconstruct the history of South Asian Tantra from the medieval period to the present day. Kiss of the Yogini focuses on what White identifies as the sole truly distinctive feature of South Asian Tantra: sexualized ritual practices, especially as expressed in the medieval Kaula rites. Such practices centered on the exchange of powerful, transformative sexual fluids between male practitioners and wild female bird and animal spirits known as Yoginis. It was only by "drinking" the sexual fluids of the Yoginis that men could enter the family of the supreme godhead and thereby obtain supernatural powers and transform themselves into gods. By focusing on sexual rituals, White resituates South Asian Tantra, in its precolonial form, at the center of religious, social, and political life, arguing that Tantra was the mainstream, and that in many ways it continues to influence contemporary Hinduism, even if reformist misunderstandings relegate it to a marginal position. Kiss of the Yogini contains White's own translations from over a dozen Tantras that have never before been translated into any European language. It will prove to be the definitive work for persons seeking to understand Tantra and the crucial role it has played in South Asian history, society, culture, and religion.

This book offers an alternative to perspectives of distributive justice which fail to resolve economic inequality and exacerbate social problems by ignoring the real causes of inequality. The main impact of the book is to highlight the importance of self-ownership and private property, showing how market participation advances liberty and prosperity. The idea that we should pay reparations to disadvantaged racial groups as compensation for historical injustice is deeply contested. The debates often focus on the practical implications of paying reparations, but overlook more fundamental questions about the meaning of justice. What is justice? What are the implications of wealth redistribution for individual liberty and the rule of law? This book answers these questions through an analysis of classical liberal perspectives in law, philosophy and economics. The book questions whether economic inequality stems from historical injustice, and explores the wider implications of attempting to create equal outcomes through legislative mandates. The book argues that free markets, resting on libertarian rights, are the best way to help disadvantaged members of society and to create the conditions more likely to advance economic equality. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of economics, law, politics and philosophy.

Lights! Camera! Action! Join a gang of fearless rebels as they embark on the adventure of a lifetime—making a movie! But this isn't any movie. It's the greatest movie of all time, The Ninjas Fight the Killer Sharks at Bikini Beach! It's going to take a lot of moxie to pull this off, but these upstarts are ready. As they go through the process of raising money, writing the script, and shooting the picture, they face many obstacles. There's bad weather, equipment problems, unruly crew members, and a director who might be losing his mind! Will they complete the movie? Nobody said it was going to be easy! But these budding Spielbergs are about to learn the greatest lesson of all! NEVER GIVE UP!

A brilliant cross-cultural interpretation of a key text of yoga philosophy The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali is the foundational text of yoga philosophy, used by millions of yoga practitioners and students worldwide. Written in a question-and-answer format, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali deals with the theory and practice of yoga and the psychological question of the liberation of the soul from attachments. This book is a new rendering into English of the Arabic translation and commentary of this text by the brilliant eleventh-century polymath al-Biruni. Given the many historical variants of the Yoga Sutras, his Kitab Batanjali is important for yoga studies as the earliest translation of the Sanskrit. It is also of unique value as an Arabic text within Islamic studies, given the intellectual and philosophical challenges that faced the medieval Muslim reader when presented with the intricacy of composition, interpretation, and allusion that permeates this translation. An English-only edition.

A richly illustrated tapestry of interwoven studies spanning some six thousand years of history, Dæmons Are Forever is at once a record of archaic contacts and transactions between humans and protean spirit beings—dæmons—and an account of exchanges, among human populations, of the science of spirit beings: dæmonology. Since the time of the Indo-European migrations, and especially following the opening of the Silk Road, a common dæmonological vernacular has been shared among populations ranging from East and South Asia to Northern Europe. In this virtuoso work of historical sleuthing, David Gordon White recovers the trajectories of both the "inner demons" cohabiting the bodies of their human hosts and the "outer dæmons" that those same humans recognized each time they encountered them in their enchanted haunts: sylvan pools, sites of geothermal eruptions, and dark forest groves. Along the way, he invites his readers to reconsider the potential and promise of the historical method in religious studies, suggesting that a "connected histories" approach to Eurasian dæmonology may serve as a model for restoring history to its proper place at the heart of the discipline of the history of religions.

Introducing Joe the Bouncer in "a tour-de-force, ranging from underworld crime to a unique caper and a terrorist plot . . . an outstanding new voice" (Robert Crais, #1 New York Times bestselling author). In David Gordon's diabolically imaginative thriller, The Bouncer, nothing and no one is as expected—from a vial of yellow fragrance to a gangster who moonlights in women's clothes. Joe Brody is just your average Dostoevsky-reading, Harvard-expelled strip club bouncer who has a highly classified military history and whose best friend from Catholic school happens to be head mafioso Gio Caprisi. FBI agent Donna Zamora, the best shot in her class at Quantico, is a single mother stuck at a desk manning the hotline. Their storylines intersect over a tip from a cokehead that leads to a crackdown on Gio's strip joint in Queens and Joe's arrest—just one piece of a city-wide sweep aimed at flushing out anyone who might have a lead on the various terrorists whose photos are hanging on the wall under Most Wanted. Outside the jailhouse, the Fed and the bouncer lock eyes, as Gordon launches them both headlong into a nonstop plot that goes from back-road gun show intervention to high-stakes perfume heist and manages to touch everyone from the CIA to the Flushing Triads. Beneath it all lurks a sinister criminal mastermind whose manipulations could cause chaos on a massively violent scale. "A brilliantly goofy caper novel in the grand tradition of Donald E. Westlake."— The New York Times Book Review "[An] impressive crime novel . . . Gordon's sharply drawn supporting cast adds a nice balance to all the action."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Despoilers of the Golden Empire is a science fiction novelette by Randall Garrett, originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in March 1959 under the pseudonym David Gordon.The story appears to be about an expedition through space to a planet inhabited by a civilized but technologically backward people, whom the expedition conquer. However, in the last line it is revealed to be anything but that.

There is music in metaphors, in the chords of individual perception played upon the patterns of human experience."Therapeutic metaphors" (stories intended to address a specific personal need) provide a depth of association and potential for insight that is often not available through more direct approaches. Metaphors do this by creating a shared language between therapist and client (or between co-workers, or between friends), a shared world within which communication about a problem and how to resolve it becomes easier and more impactful. Furthermore, once created, that metaphorical world can become one in which the person discovers his or her own resolution to the problem. Like other expressions of art, a metaphor derives its ability to affect and influence us because of its underlying structure. The masterful storyteller thinks in ways that naturally create the parallels, connections, and discoveries that become utterly compelling to the listener. "Therapeutic Metaphors: Helping Others Through the Looking Glass" provides you with that structure, an explicit and practical format for creating impactful stories for change.

"When bullies try to stop the extremely cute animals from building their sand castle they band together to build something bigger and better"--

Life. It wears many different faces throughout time. Sometimes the faces are happy, sometimes sad, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes indifferent. The faces change constantly. The faces are very important. Sometimes they show up to help us grow. Sometimes they are there to teach us a lesson. Sometimes they are there to encourage us. Sometimes they punish us for bad deeds we do and reward us for the good we do. Sometimes, the faces are gorgeous, sometimes, not so much.. The faces make life what it is. Love comes in many forms. It can be a newborn baby, a fresh springtime rain, a cute little puppy dog, or many different forms. It could be the birds chirping at a park or a raging waterfall. There are many different variations of love as well, for example you could say "I love my jeans and I love my wife. Love is constant. It is everywhere. It is all around you, you just may not recognize what it is. When life and love come together, you get faces of the waterfall. Then theres the Light. The omnipotent, all-seeing, all-knowing Light. The Light holds everything together and brings order to a somewhat chaotic world. Some call it a "higher power, some call it The man upstairs, while others, like myself, simply call it God. When life and love get out of whack, the Light brings them together so everything can go on. The Light brightens an otherwise dark world. The poems contained in this book will show the many different faces of life. The lighter side of life and the dark. They will show different forms of love as it comes in many different shapes and sizes. And they will introduce you to the Light of the World as He weaves the threads and brings it all together. I hope you enjoy each and every poem in the book. Thanks for your support.

Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today.

American Despots

Amazing low sale price in defense of authentic freedom as versus the presidency that betrayed it!

Everyone seems to agree that brutal dictators and despotic rulers deserve scorn and worse. But why have historians been so willing to overlook the despotic actions of the United States' own presidents? You can scour libraries from one end to the other and encounter precious few criticisms of America's worst despots.

The founders imagined that the president would be a collegial leader with precious little power who constantly faced the threat of impeachment. Today, however, the president orders thousands of young men and women to danger and death in foreign lands, rubber stamps regulations that throw enterprises into upheaval, controls the composition of the powerful Federal Reserve, and manages the priorities millions of swarms of bureaucrats that vex the citizenry in every way.

It is not too much of a stretch to say that the president embodies the Leviathan state as we know it. Or, more precisely, it is not an individual president so much as the very institution of the presidency that has been the major impediment of liberty. The presidency as the founders imagined it has been displaced by democratically ratified serial despotism. And, for that reason, it must be stopped.

Every American president seems to strive to make the historians' A-list by doing big and dramatic things—wars, occupations, massive programs, tyrannies large and small—in hopes of being considered among the "greats" such as Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. They always imagine themselves as honored by future generations: the worse their crimes, the more the accolades.

Well, the free ride ends with Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom, edited by John Denson.

This remarkable volume (825 pages including index and bibliography) is the first full-scale revision of the official history of the U.S. executive state. It traces the progression of power exercised by American presidents from the early American Republic up to the eventual reality of the power-hungry Caesars which later appear as president in American history. Contributors examine the usual judgments of the historical profession to show the ugly side of supposed presidential greatness.

The mission inherent in this undertaking is to determine how the presidency degenerated into the office of American Caesar. Did the character of the man who held the office corrupt it, or did the power of the office, as it evolved, corrupt the man? Or was it a combination of the two? Was there too much latent power in the original creation of the office as the Anti-Federalists claimed? Or was the power externally created and added to the position by corrupt or misguided men?

There's never been a better guide to everything awful about American presidents. No, you won't get the civics text approach of see no evil. Essay after essay details depredations that will shock you, and wonder how American liberty could have ever survived in light of the rule of these people.

Contributors include George Bittlingmayer, John V. Denson, Marshall L. DeRosa, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Lowell Gallaway, Richard M. Gamble, David Gordon, Paul Gottfried, Randall G. Holcombe, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Michael Levin, Yuri N. Maltsev, William Marina, Ralph Raico, Joseph Salerno, Barry Simpson, Joseph Stromberg, H. Arthur Scott Trask, Richard Vedder, and Clyde Wilson.

Jack Truck and his best friend Dump Truck Dan are spending the day doing their favorite thing... Smashing and Crashing throughout the whole town! Along the way the meet up with their friends and give us a rollicking tour! But when a mysterious shadow falls and a strange voice calls, is the duo in trouble? Or has a new friend come to town to join in all the smashing fun.

Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga’s origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga’s practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.

In this hard-hitting study of political power, award-winning journalist David Gordon studies the political downfall of Ian Paisley and his son and shines an uncompromising light on Northern Ireland's political elite. Ian Paisley, firebrand Ulster Protestant preacher and politician, spent forty years denouncing compromise as treachery. Then, in March 2007, he agreed a power-sharing pack with Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Provisional IRA. The historic deal earned him plaudits from around the world and the top job in Northern Ireland's new devolved administration. His beloved son Ian Junior took up a ministerial post by his side. Yet within a year, this proud family dynasty had crumbled and collapsed. First Ian Junior resigned as a minister, after months of controversy over his links to a property developer. Then Paisley himself announced his retirement — despite having made repeated pledges to serve a full four years in office. In this fantastic work of investigative journalism, award-winning journalist David Gordon pinpoints the structural flaws in the House of Paisley and exposes the murky underworld of Northern Irish politics. Editorial Reviews 'David Gordon ... in a fine piece of investigative journalism, doggedly following his nose, taking advantage of freedom of information, and with good contacts in the DUP and Free Presbyterian Church (FPC), seeks to explain why Ian Paisley fell at what appeared to be the moment of triumph.' Maurice Hayes, Belfast Telegraph 'David Gordon details where the storm came from and why it was so damaging to father and son in The Fall of the House of Paisley. While some readers will — to be blunt — enjoy reliving the difficulties faced by such a pair of individuals, there's more to Gordon's fine book than schadenfreude.' William Scholes, Irish News 'Gordon's account is as sharp as a blade, cutting deep into the murky world of Stormont.' Fachtna Kelly and Julian Fleming, Sunday Business Post Agenda The Fall of the House of Paisley: Contents Introduction Chronology - Welcome to the House of Fun - The Ghost of Paisley Past - With God on our Side - Dodgy Foundations - Causeway for Concern - Junior in Bother - Senior in Bother - Land Deal Lobbying - Out with the Old - St Andrews Bombshell - Other People's Money - Surprise in Dromore - All Fall Down - Legacy Matters - Life after PaisleyNotes

Sock and Mitten are both lost singles in a city full of pairs. Mitten is a left without her right. Sock is neither left nor right, but he knows how she feels. They set off on an adventure to find their other halves. But what they find instead is something much, much better: each other.

Offers information on reproductive medicine. This handbook includes tables, figures and flowcharts.

A new, updated edition of a popular book on the history, science, and engineering of bicycles. The bicycle is almost unique among human-powered machines in that it uses human muscles in a near-optimum way. This new edition of the bible of bicycle builders and bicyclists provides just about everything you could want to know about the history of bicycles, how human beings propel them, what makes them go faster, and what keeps them from going even faster. The scientific and engineering information is of interest not only to designers and builders of bicycles and other human-powered vehicles but also to competitive cyclists, bicycle commuters, and recreational cyclists. The third edition begins with a brief history of bicycles and bicycling that demolishes many widespread myths. This edition includes information on recent experiments and achievements in human-powered transportation, including the "ultimate human- powered vehicle," in which a supine rider in a streamlined enclosure steers by looking at a television screen connected to a small camera in the nose, reaching speeds of around 80 miles per hour. It contains completely new chapters on aerodynamics, unusual human-powered machines for use on land and in water and air, human physiology, and the future of bicycling. This edition also provides updated information on rolling drag, transmission of power from rider to wheels, braking, heat management, steering and stability, power and speed, and materials. It contains many new illustrations.

This book is focused on recent research into developing lower-cost fluorinated polymers for use in the commercial polymer industry.

As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra.

This book examines the heroic spirit of French industrial capitalism prior to World War I, and the role certain industrialists played in ensuring the success and stability of the country's economic and political order. It focuses in particular on the success of innovative manufacturers in France's chief industrial centers, the Nord, Loire, and Lorraine, where failing industrialists were saved through the introduction of new manufacturing techniques. It was only when Socialists abandoned revolutionary aims that they were able to successfully compete against their ^Iprogressiste^R rivals. Democratic politics forced the evolution of political life away from confrontation between capitalist and anti-capitalist parties.

Beginning in the fifth century A.D., various Indian mystics began to innovate a body of techniques with which to render themselves immortal. These people called themselves Siddhas, a term formerly reserved for a class of demigods, revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike, who were known to inhabit mountaintops or the atmospheric regions. Over the following five to eight hundred years, three types of Hindu Siddha orders emerged, each with its own specialized body of practice. These were the Siddha Kaula, whose adherents sought bodily immortality through erotico-mystical practices; the Rasa Siddhas, medieval India's alchemists, who sought to transmute their flesh-and-blood bodies into immortal bodies through the ingestion of the mineral equivalents of the sexual fluids of the god Siva and his consort, the Goddess; and the Nath Siddhas, whose practice of hatha yoga projected the sexual and laboratory practices of the Siddha Kaula and Rasa Siddhas upon the internal grid of the subtle body. For India's medieval Siddhas, these three conjoined types of practice led directly to bodily immortality, supernatural powers, and self-divinization; in a word, to the exalted status of the semidivine Siddhas of the older popular cults. In The Alchemical Body, David Gordon White excavates and centers within its broader Indian context this lost tradition of the medieval Siddhas. Working from a body of previously unexplored alchemical sources, he demonstrates for the first time that the medieval disciplines of Hindu alchemy and hatha yoga were practiced by one and the same people, and that they can only be understood when viewed together. Human sexual fluids and the structures of the subtle body aremicrocosmic equivalents of the substances and apparatus manipulated by the alchemist in his laboratory. With these insights, White opens the way to a new and more comprehensive understanding of the entire sweep of medieval Indian mysticism, within the broader context of south Asian Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. This book is an essential reference for anyone interested in Indian yoga, alchemy, and the medieval beginnings of science.

"This is the first comprehensive book ever written about human-powered vehicles (HPVs). Filled with 180 impressive photographs, detailed drawings, and tables, Human Powered Vehicles explains the history of HPVs, offers practical insights into their design, and considers future possibilities of human-powered travel." "Allan V. Abbott and David Gordon Wilson, HPV designers and former presidents of the International Human Powered Vehicle Association, have assembled a list of contributors representing a who's who of leaders in human-powered vehicles. They review the development of human-powered water, land, and air vehicles, focusing on the innovations that have significantly improved performance in recent years." "Inside this book, you'll find applications of human power in history; a discussion of all major factors that enhance or limit the performance of the "human engine"; design issues for rowing shells, hydrofoils, bicycles, human-powered aircraft, and other HPVs; descriptions of famous human-powered vehicles, such as the Gossamer Condor; and an examination of the economic and environmental advantages of human-powered travel." "A fascinating read for bicyclists, inventors, hobbyists, and sports enthusiasts, this book is also an excellent human factors reference for sports medicine and exercise science professionals."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"An impressive and important cross-cultural study that has vast implications for history, religion, anthropology, folklore, and other fields. . . . Remarkably wide-ranging and extremely well-documented, it covers (among much else) the following: medieval Christian legends such as the 14th-century Ethiopian Gadla Hawaryat (Contendings of the Apostles) that had their roots in Parthian Gnosticism and Manichaeism; dog-stars (especially Sirius), dog-days, and canine psychopomps in the ancient and Hellenistic world; the cynocephalic hordes of the ancient geographers; the legend of Prester John; Visvamitra and the Svapacas ("Dog-Cookers"); the Dog Rong ("warlike barbarians") during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods; the nochoy ghajar (Mongolian for "Dog Country") of the Khitans; the Panju myth of the Southern Man and Yao "barbarians" from chapter 116 of the History of the Latter Han and variants in a series of later texts; and the importance of dogs in ancient Chinese burial rites. . . . Extremely well-researched and highly significant."—Victor H. Mair, Asian Folklore Studies