God In Us is a radical representation of the Christian faith for the 21st century. Following the example of the Old Testament prophets and the first-century Christians it overturns received ideas about God. God is not an invisible person 'out there' somewhere, but lives in the human heart and mind as 'the sum of all our values and ideals' guiding and inspiring our lives. This new updated edition includes a foreword by Bishop John Shelby Spong and an afterword from the author.

God in Us: A Case for Christian Humanism (Societas)

Religion & Spirituality

Anthony Freeman

Christian Books & Bibles

Societas

The history of the last two hundred years is a story of the immense and relentless growth of the State at the expense of other social institutions. We are now so familiar and accepting of the State's pre-eminence in all things, that few think to question it, and most suppose that democratic endorsement legitimizes it. The aim of this essay is to present a sustained and compelling argument against both presumptions. It contends that the gross imbalance of power in the modern State between ruler and ruled is sorely in need of justification, and that democracy simply masks this need with an illusion of popular sovereignty. Although this is an essay in cultural criticism whose argument should be fully accessible to the general reader, it is written from within the European tradition of political philosophy from Plato to Rawls.

Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism (Societas)

Politics & Social Sciences

Graham, Gordon

Philosophy

Echoing Mahatma Gandhi's comment on Western civilization, Graham Allen thinks the British constitution would be a very good idea ― a clear constitution providing real power to the British people and their elected representatives. In The Last Prime Minister he showed the British people how they had acquired an executive presidency by stealth. It was the first-ever attempt to codify the Prime Minister's powers, many hidden in the mysteries of the royal prerogative. This timely new edition takes in new issues, including Parliament's constitutional impotence over Iraq.

Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the U.K. Presidency (Societas)

History

Allen, Graham

Europe

Consider the following paradox: As the leaders of both of the main British political parties subscribed to the neoconservative doctrine on Iraq, everybody else in the birthplace of parliamentary democracy was effectively disenfranchised. Yet one of the rationales supporting the deployment of UK forces in Iraq was the wish to export democracy to the Middle East. The Emperor would appear to have mislaid his clothes (see Gordon Graham's Case Against the Democratic State). Judging from the lack of ministerial resignations in the wake of the Butler enquiry, Britain is no longer a parliamentary democracy. The classical doctrine of joint and several ministerial responsibility is revealed to be a fiction, and Lord Hailsham's verdict of 'elective dictatorship' is a better assessment of the British constitution. By contrast unelected bodies like the BBC are now far more accountable for their actions. The reason of this paradox is the monopoly power of the ruling party, controlled by the Prime Minister. The UK political party started off as a loose association of like-minded MPs. However, in recent years the tail has been wagging the dog ― politicians now have no alternative but to choose and then fall in line behind a strong leader with the charisma to win elections. This book examines the historical forces that gave rise to the modern political party and questions its role in the post-ideological age. If we all now share the liberal market consensus, then what is the function of the party? Parties in America are a lot weaker, so the book considers Graham Allen's argument to emulate the US system of checks and balances, but concludes that we would be better off reinterpreting our own constitution more literally. When the Chancellor really was a minister of the crown, every line of the budget was meticulously scrutinized. The key to the changes advocated in the book is the replacement of the Victorian ballot-box with a modern system of representation, based on the jury-selection principle.

Party's Over: Blueprint for a Very English Revolution (Societas)

Sutherland, Keith

This book argues that contemporary society in Western democracies is generally misunderstood to be a pyramidal hierarchy dominated either by government or the economy. Neither view is correct. We live in a fundamentally pluralistic society divided into numerous 'modular' social systems each performing different functions; these include politics, public administration, the armed forces, law, economics, religion, education, health and the mass media. Because each is specialized, none of these systems are dominant and there is no overall hierarchy of power. Modernizing societies are therefore structured more like a mosaic than a pyramid. Modernization is the tendency for growth in the adaptive complexity and efficiency of the social systems. Growth in complexity is shaped by selection processes which maintain the functionality of social systems. The best examples are the market economy, science and democratic politics. The process of modernization is both inevitable and, on the whole, desirable: this constitutes the modernization imperative. Therefore, the proper question should not be whether society should modernize, but how.

Modernisation Imperative (Societas)

Charlton, Bruce

Andras, Peter

Sociology

The Liberty Option advances the idea that for compelling moral as well as practical reasons it is the free society -- with the rule of law founded on the principles of private property rights, its complete respect for individual sovereignty and properly limited legal authorities -- not one or another version of statism that serves justice best, is most prosperous and encourages the greatest measure of individual virtue on the part of the citizenry. The work shows why this is so and lays out some of the most crucial implications of the idea. While the book presents a principled approach to politics, it is firmly grounded in the best and most up to date understanding of human community life and history as well as many of its complications, challenges, adversities and prospects.

The Liberty Option

Tibor R. Machan

Democracy is not a universal good, it is a political system, and like all political systems it is open to corruption. The word 'democracy' means ‘rule by the people’, not rule by a simple majority. To achieve rule by all the people, it used to be accepted that as much of civil life should be kept out of party politics as possible. A mixed constitution was one way of achieving this. By absorbing into itself the institutions of civil society, the modern democratic state has become an ever more pervasive ‘tyranny of the majority’ accountable to the electorate only once every few years. The powers it has assumed, together with the powers of corporations, represent a ‘new world order’ that respects neither freedom, the individual, the vulnerable nor, in a true sense, the rule of law.

Democracy, Fascism and the New World Order (Societas)

Mosley, Ivo

On Thursday June 12th 2003, a press release concerning a Cabinet reshuffle declared as a footnote that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished and that a new Supreme Court would replace the House of Lords as the highest court in the United Kingdom. In response to intense criticism of the Government for announcing these judicial reforms without holding any prior debate or consultation, Charles Banner and Alexander Deane have sought the views of several constitutional experts – including judges, leading QCs, legal and political academics, commentators and MPs. This book is the product of their research: citing the interviewees at length, it critically analyses the Government’s proposals and looks at the various alternative models for appointing judges and for a new court of final appeal. The future of the QC system, which the Government has again indicated a desire to abolish, is also discussed in the book.

Off with Their Wigs!: Judicial Revolution in Modern Britain (Societas)

Deane, Alexander

Banner, Charles

Legal Education

Human beings have an evolved but highly adaptable nature. This book sets out to establish a new framework for understanding human nature, from an evolutionary perspective but drawing on existing social sciences. It seeks to explain how human beings can appear to be so malleable in their nature, yet have an inherited set of behavioural instincts. When the founder of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson, made a plea for greater integration of the physical and human sciences in his book Consilience, there was an underlying assumption that the traffic would be mainly one way -- from physical to human science. This book reverses this assumption and draws on a new branch of human sciences, paradoxical systems theory, to reconceptualise some of the most innovative developments from physical sciences -- the related fields of evolutionary psychology, ethology, and behavioural genetics. The new approach is also applied to politics, economic and public policy approaches.

Paradoxical Primate (Societas)

Talbot, Colin

Social Sciences

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Books by Societas

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Societas publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

God in Us: A Case for Christian Humanism (Societas)

Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism (Societas)

Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the U.K. Presidency (Societas)

Party's Over: Blueprint for a Very English Revolution (Societas)

Modernisation Imperative (Societas)

The Liberty Option

Democracy, Fascism and the New World Order (Societas)

Off with Their Wigs!: Judicial Revolution in Modern Britain (Societas)

Paradoxical Primate (Societas)

Party's Over: Blueprint for a Very English Revolution (Societas)