Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.

Pax Gandhiana

A psychiatric patient makes a compelling case for his extraterrestrial home in this "gripping . . . touching and suspenseful" novel—now a major motion picture ( Publishers Weekly). Psychiatrist Gene Brewer doesn't have a diagnosis for the mysterious new patient who calls himself "prot" (rhymes with goat). But this strange and likeable man cannot be—as he claims—from the planet K-PAX. Or can he? Prot knows facts about space that confound experts. He soon reveals Dr. Brewer's own deepest pains and most sublime longings. And his tales of K-PAX have other patients competing to go along with him when he heads "home". Now the doctor is racing the clock to find prot's true identity before he loses a man whose "madness" might just save them all . . .

K-Pax

In November, 2001, I was sued, along with almost everyone else connected with the film version of my novel K-PAX, for plagiarizing an Argentinean movie called Man Facing Southeast (the suit was later dismissed). At about the same time, dozens of letters arrived from fans asking where the ideas for the book/film originated. Together, these developments led me to ponder how my difficult life had led me to become a writer, and how I came to write K-PAX in particular. The resulting memoir includes excerpts from unpublished work, and ends with a chapter of advice for other would-be novelists.

Creating K-Pax -Or- Are You Sure You Want to Be a Writer?

Ethnic rebellions continually disrupted the Pax Colonial, Spain?s three-hundred-year rule over the Native peoples of Mexico. Although these uprisings varied considerably in cause, duration, consequences, and scale, they collectively served as a constant source of worry for the Spanish authorities. This meticulously researched volume provides both a valuable overview of Native uprisings in New Spain and a stimulating reevaluation of their significance. Running counter to the prevailing scholarly tendency to emphasize similarities among ethnic revolts, the seven contributors examine episodes of rebellion that are distinguished by their ethnic, geographical, and historical diversity, ranging culturally and geographically across colonial New Spain and spanning the last two centuries of Spanish rule. Unparalleled access to colonial archival sources also enables the writers to more fully consider indigenous perspectives on resistance and explore in greater detail than before the precipitating factors and effects of different forms of protest. A provocative concluding essay balances this line of inquiry by investigating how a shared cultural disposition toward violence in colonial New Spain contributed to the atmosphere of ethnic tension and rebellion.

Native Resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain

Explores places noted for minimal violence, rising life-expectancy, high literacy, and pragmatic compromises on cultural rights, documenting the ways and means that have proven successful in defusing ethnic tensions and maintaining peace.

Pax Ethnica

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