The Pursuit Of Pleasure

But just as there have been suspicions of the dangers of pleasure, there have also been its supporters who assert its vital and joyful centrality to human experience. The Pursuit of Pleasure favors an agnostic approach borrowed from natural science."--BOOK JACKET.

From ancient times to the present day, Iranian social, political, and economic life has been dramatically influenced by psychoactive agents. This book looks at the stimulants that, as put by a longtime resident of seventeenth-century Iran, Raphaël du Mans, provided Iranians with damagh, gave them a "kick," got them into a good mood. By tracing their historical trajectory and the role they played in early modern Iranian society (1500-1900), Rudi Matthee takes a major step in extending contemporary debates on the role of drugs and stimulants in shaping the modern West. At once panoramic and richly detailed, The Pursuit of Pleasure examines both the intoxicants known since ancient times--wine and opiates--and the stimulants introduced later--tobacco, coffee, and tea--from multiple angles. It brings together production, commerce, and consumption to reveal the forces behind the spread and popularity of these consumables, showing how Iranians adapted them to their own needs and tastes and integrated them into their everyday lives. Matthee further employs psychoactive substances as a portal for a set of broader issues in Iranian history--most notably, the tension between religious and secular leadership. Faced with reality, Iran's Shi`i ulama turned a blind eye to drug use as long as it stayed indoors and did not threaten the social order. Much of this flexibility remains visible underneath the uncompromising exterior of the current Islamic Republic.

The Pursuit of Pleasure presents the figures of the rambler and the cyprian, the Eighteenth Century precursors to the Parisian flGneur and prostitute. The urban spaces traced by these figures were the clubs, sporting venues, operas, assembly rooms, streets and arcades of central London.Drawing on critical theory, geography and philosophy, The Pursuit of Pleasure extends and critiques the discipline of architectural history from a feminist perspective. The gendering of public space is considered to be a complex and shifting series of moves and looks between men and women, constructed and represented through spatial and social relations of consumption, display and exchange.Illustrated with contemporary prints and drawings, The Pursuit of Pleasure is an extraordinarily rich analysis of the gendered issues of public space at the birth of the modern metropolis.

This important book unveils how the pleasure principle has taken humanity hostage to the powers of branding and consumerism, steering our most basic desires. Radically re-evaluating the notion of pleasure and arguing for a deep societal change, it shows the way to a new humanist culture.

Pleasure is biologically desirable and good for physical and mental health. In The Pursuit of Pleasure, Lionel Tiger explores this aspect of human nature by focusing on the origins and forms of pleasure. Medical science has perfected a host of often astonishingly impressive methods for preventing, alleviating, or recovering from pain. Its opposite, pleasure, has not had such a well-funded and fully justified constituency. In fact, those committed to the understanding and pursuit of pleasure, are rarely accorded respect and a sense of significance. People have objected to the notion of pleasure for a variety of reasons. The most complex derive from religious convictions that the most morally admirable human life is marked by abstemiousness, suffering, even martyrdom. There is also a corresponding fear that people may pursue pleasure too avidly and with too strong a sense of entitlement, and the world's work will not get done. But just as there have been suspicions of the dangers of pleasure, there have also been its supporters who assert its vital and joyful centrality to human experience. The Pursuit of Pleasure favors an agnostic approach borrowed from natural science. In lively, witty, and eminently readable prose, Tiger identifies major forms of pleasure and explores their variations, now and in the past. Pleasure, says Tiger, is not a luxury but an evolutionary entitlement that deserves to be taken seriously. As we acknowledge our need for enjoyment, we understand the need to establish balance in our lives-our need for the pursuit of pleasure.

Shopping Around investigates the issues of contemporary popular narrative, feminine pleasure, and consumer culture, viewing the permutations of the feminine subject as a textual construction evolved through everyday life. A wide spectrum of texts are examined, exposing the fact that women "read" within a complex and conflicted cultural arena characterized by a significant intertextuality that multiply defines "femininity." Shopping Around raises these issues in the context of everyday cultural practices such as applying make-up, reading magazines, watching television, and working-out, providing a unique introduction to postmodern feminist and cultural theory.

What do women want? The same thing men were promised in the Declaration of Independence: happiness, or at least the freedom to pursue it. For women, though, pursuing happiness is a complicated endeavor, and if you head out into America and talk to women one-on-one, as Jill Filipovic has done, you'll see that happiness is indelibly shaped by the constraints of gender, the expectations of feminine sacrifice, and the myriad ways that womanhood itself differs along lines of race, class, location, and identity. In The H-Spot, Filipovic argues that the main obstacle standing in-between women and happiness is a rigged system. In this world of unfinished feminism, men have long been able to "have it all" because of free female labor, while the bar of achievement for women has only gotten higher. Never before have women at every economic level had to work so much (whether it's to be an accomplished white-collar employee or just make ends meet). Never before have the standards of feminine perfection been so high. And never before have the requirements for being a "good mother" been so extreme. If our laws and policies made women's happiness and fulfillment a goal in and of itself, Filipovic contends, many of our country's most contentious political issues -- from reproductive rights to equal pay to welfare spending -- would swiftly be resolved. Filipovic argues that it is more important than ever to prioritize women's happiness-and that doing so will make men's lives better, too. Here, she provides an outline for a feminist movement we all need and a blueprint for how policy, laws, and society can deliver on the promise of the pursuit of happiness for all.

Over the past 10 years, the Claremont Review of Books has become one of the preeminent conservative magazines in the United States, offering bold arguments for a reinvigorated conservatism that draws upon the timeless principles of the American Founding and applies them to the moral and political problems we face today. With essays by the likes of William F. Buckley, Jr., Christopher Hitchens, Richard Brookheiser, James Q. Wilson, Allen C. Guelzo, Victor Davis Hanson, Ross Douthat, and many others, this collection surveys the range of issues addressed in the Claremont Review of Books first decade, from the conservative critique of American progressivism to foreign policy, politics, history, and culture. Liberally illustrated with art director Elliot Banfield's popular cartoons, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness provides the magazine's many devotees with a treasured keepsake of a tumultuous decade and will be of interest to all those who care about American politics and culture. Among the contributors are Hadley Arkes, Martha Bayles, the late William F. Buckley, Jr., Paul Cantor, James Ceaser, Joseph Epstein, Christopher Flannery, Harvey Mansfield, Wilfred McClay, Cheryl Miller, the late Jaroslav Pelikan, Joseph Tartakovsky, Michael Uhlmann, Algis Valiunas, William Voegeli, and the late James Q. Wilson.