Christopher Harding – författare

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Japan Story written and read by Christopher Harding.This is a fresh and surprising account of Japan''s culture from the ''opening up'' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present.It is told through the eyes of people who greeted this change not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan''s modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress. We encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were ''dark blossoms'': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new structures of mainstream Japan.''How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it ... Masterly.'' Neil MacGregor

Brought to you by Penguin. Chris Harding''s enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan''s long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place.For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.© Christopher Harding 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

This comprehensive volume explores histories and modern reworkings of the ideas of mind, soul and consciousness in South Asia.

It focuses on the burgeoning ‘psy-disciplines’ – psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy – and their links with religion, science, philosophy, and modern notions of the mystical and spiritual, not just in South Asia, but around the world. The authors explore the global flows of ideas that gathered pace during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including: the idea(s) of self within ‘Hindu modernities’; the history of relativity of consciousness in Jaina epistemology; Jungian critiques of Cartesian rationalism; Islamic reform vis-à-vis Sufi mysticism; and the re-examination and invocations of key strands of the fields of ‘Indian philosophy’ and the ‘psy-disciplines’ in modern India. Together these chapters stoke a critical engagement with existing conceptual boundaries and categories of mind, soul, consciousness, and body-mind relationship in modern Asian and European spiritual and intellectual traditions.

This book will interest scholars and students of cross-cultural philosophy, intellectual history, history of religion, religious studies, and history of the mind sciences. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal South Asian History and Culture.

This comprehensive volume explores histories and modern reworkings of the ideas of mind, soul and consciousness in South Asia.

It focuses on the burgeoning ‘psy-disciplines’ – psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy – and their links with religion, science, philosophy, and modern notions of the mystical and spiritual, not just in South Asia, but around the world. The authors explore the global flows of ideas that gathered pace during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including: the idea(s) of self within ‘Hindu modernities’; the history of relativity of consciousness in Jaina epistemology; Jungian critiques of Cartesian rationalism; Islamic reform vis-à-vis Sufi mysticism; and the re-examination and invocations of key strands of the fields of ‘Indian philosophy’ and the ‘psy-disciplines’ in modern India. Together these chapters stoke a critical engagement with existing conceptual boundaries and categories of mind, soul, consciousness, and body-mind relationship in modern Asian and European spiritual and intellectual traditions.

This book will interest scholars and students of cross-cultural philosophy, intellectual history, history of religion, religious studies, and history of the mind sciences. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal South Asian History and Culture.

First published in 1989, Punishment examines the practice of punishment, not simply as a typical sanction employed by the state but as a pervasive feature of social organisation in both past and contemporary societies. With depth and rigour, they consider penal practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, such as the family, kinship and tribal groupings, small communities, educational institutions, the workplace and the commercial environment, criminal organisations, and the wider international community, as well as that of the state. In this way they widen the scope of the debate about the use of punishment as an instrument of human organisation, presenting different perspectives on the phenomenon of punishment and questioning the boundaries between different disciplines – juridical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and historical – within which the subject has been considered in the past. This book will be of interest to students and teachers of history, sociology, criminology, law, philosophy and psychology.

First published in 1989, Punishment examines the practice of punishment, not simply as a typical sanction employed by the state but as a pervasive feature of social organisation in both past and contemporary societies. With depth and rigour, they consider penal practice in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, such as the family, kinship and tribal groupings, small communities, educational institutions, the workplace and the commercial environment, criminal organisations, and the wider international community, as well as that of the state. In this way they widen the scope of the debate about the use of punishment as an instrument of human organisation, presenting different perspectives on the phenomenon of punishment and questioning the boundaries between different disciplines – juridical, philosophical, sociological, psychological and historical – within which the subject has been considered in the past. This book will be of interest to students and teachers of history, sociology, criminology, law, philosophy and psychology.

Originally published in 1985, Imprisonment in England and Wales is an account of the changing functions and conditions of imprisonment in England and Wales from the Medieval period to the present day. It is designed both as a text for students and teachers of history, law and social science and as an introduction to the subject for more general readers and is one of the few attempts to provide an overall view of the institution of imprisonment in this country over a period of several centuries. The authors have made use of original sources and other research to provide an accessible account of the subject, combining essential factual detail with an analysis of the use of imprisonment. It is therefore particularly of interest to those approaching the subject for the first time and is also intended to provide guidance for further research into particular areas of the subject.

The authors draw upon their respective knowledge of four main periods to show how imprisonment has performed a number of different functions: the punishment and reform of convicted offenders, the coercion of debtors, the custody of persons awaiting trial and more generally the containment of society’s undesirables. At the same time, the institution of imprisonment is put into the context of wider social, political and economic forces, and related to the development of an increasingly centralised and incursive system of criminal law, as well as to the use and disuse of other forms of punishment and legal control. This discussion is supported by an account of the characteristics of prisons, the problems of administration and the implementation of penal and reformative policy.

Originally published in 1985, Imprisonment in England and Wales is an account of the changing functions and conditions of imprisonment in England and Wales from the Medieval period to the present day. It is designed both as a text for students and teachers of history, law and social science and as an introduction to the subject for more general readers and is one of the few attempts to provide an overall view of the institution of imprisonment in this country over a period of several centuries. The authors have made use of original sources and other research to provide an accessible account of the subject, combining essential factual detail with an analysis of the use of imprisonment. It is therefore particularly of interest to those approaching the subject for the first time and is also intended to provide guidance for further research into particular areas of the subject.

The authors draw upon their respective knowledge of four main periods to show how imprisonment has performed a number of different functions: the punishment and reform of convicted offenders, the coercion of debtors, the custody of persons awaiting trial and more generally the containment of society’s undesirables. At the same time, the institution of imprisonment is put into the context of wider social, political and economic forces, and related to the development of an increasingly centralised and incursive system of criminal law, as well as to the use and disuse of other forms of punishment and legal control. This discussion is supported by an account of the characteristics of prisons, the problems of administration and the implementation of penal and reformative policy.