A World Of Their Own Making

Discusses ritual events we regard as family traditions and how they must be open to perpetual revision so we can satisfy our human needs and changing circumstances.

As a teenager in a working-class English town, Jack Buckby found himself at the center of the biggest nationalist movement in modern British history. Looking for a political group that championed working people concerned about mass immigration, he stumbled into a world of anti-Semitism, racist paranoia, and extreme-right violence and terrorism. Through those experiences, Jack explains how both the left and the right fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be “far right” and why young men are becoming radicalized across the Western world. Through a three-pronged attack carried out by the media, negligent politicians, and far-left ideologues, the white working class is being backed into a corner and forced to either be quiet, or get radical.

There no longer seems any point to criticizing the internet. We indulge in the latest doom-mongering about the evils of social media-on social media. We scroll through routine complaints about the deterioration of our attention spans. We resign ourselves to hating the internet even as we spend much of our waking lives with it. Yet our unthinking surrender to its effects-to the ways it recasts our aims and desires-is itself digital technology's most powerful achievement. A Web of Our Own Making examines how online practices are reshaping our lives outside our notice. Barba-Kay argues that digital technology is a 'natural technology'-a technology so intuitive as to conceal the extent to which it transforms our attention. He shows how and why this technology is reconfiguring knowledge, culture, politics, aesthetics, and theology. The digital revolution is primarily taking place not in Silicon Valley but within each of us.

In Monsters of Our Own Making, Marina Warner explores the dark realm where ogres devour children and bogeymen haunt the night. She considers the enduring presence and popularity of male figures of terror, establishing their origins in mythology and their current relation to ideas about sexuality and power, youth and age.

A bewitching and authoritative historical overview of magic in the British Isles, from the ancient peoples of Britain to the rich and cosmopolitan landscape of contemporary paganism. “An absolute must for anyone interested in the development of paganism in the modern world. I cannot recommend this book enough.”—Janet Farrar, coauthor of A Witches’ Bible “At last, we have a history of British Paganism written from the inside, by somebody who not only has a good knowledge of the sources, but explicitly understands how Pagans and magicians think.”—Ronald Hutton, author of The Triumph of the Moon and The Witch What do we mean by “paganism”—druids, witches, and occult rituals? Healing charms and forbidden knowledge? Miracles of Our Own Making is a historical overview of pagan magic in the British Isles, from the ancient peoples of Britain to the rich and cosmopolitan landscape of contemporary paganism. Exploring the beliefs of the druids, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings, as well as Elizabethan Court alchemy and witch trials, we encounter grimoires, ceremonial magic, and the Romantic revival of arcane deities. The influential and well-known—the Golden Dawn, Wicca, and figures such as Aleister Crowley—are considered alongside the everyday “cunning folk” who formed the magical fabric of previous centuries. Ranging widely across literature, art, science, and beyond, Liz Williams debunks many of the prevailing myths surrounding magical practice, past and present, while offering a rigorously researched and highly accessible account of what it means to be a pagan today.

"One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century."—Time magazine, on the Fairyland series Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn't . . . then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday. With exquisite illustrations by acclaimed artist Ana Juan, Fairyland lives up to the sensation it created when author Catherynne M. Valente first posted it online. For readers of all ages who love the charm of Alice in Wonderland and the soul of The Golden Compass, here is a reading experience unto itself: unforgettable, and so very beautiful. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Fiction title for 2011.

Several states are virtually bankrupt, including California and New York, with others fast approaching that status. In Tragedies of Our Own Making, West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely distills the insights of a lifetime spent dealing with our nation's worst social problems. "Twenty years as a judge, " he writes, "has convinced me that state government fiscal crises, deteriorating schools, declining living standards among the old blue-collar class, and our rising crime rate are all strangely interrelated." His overriding conclusion? Problems including colossal Medicaid costs, savagery in the streets, and the falling relative wage rate of half our workforce all relate to a disintegrating family structure. All public agencies - welfare, the courts, public health, education - "are crumbling under the burden of acting as a surrogate family." In presenting a brilliant fiscal analysis of social insurance predicated on personal responsibility, Neely argues that "we are going broke because we are allowing excessive losses to be triggered through carelessness. Millions of children are being born to school-age girls and to parents who will needlessly divorce, making those children uncared for and insecure. Illegitimacy and divorce are to social insurance what leaving a pot of oil on a burning stove is to fire insurance." Neely paints a vivid picture of the "actuarial limits" of our ability to rescue people from the consequences of their own actions. He offers a two-part solution to the core problems of divorce and illegitimacy. First, Neely calls for a massive, government-financed media campaign aimed at educating the public on the financial and psychological costs of divorce toadults and children. He also presents a comprehensive and politically acceptable approach to improved birth control.

Witty, savvy, incisive, and entertaining short essays on the culture, mores, and practices of higher education.