PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

(H/B) How to Stop a Conspiracy
An energetic new translation of an ancient Roman masterpiece about a failed coup led by a corrupt and charismatic politician. In 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the city and murder its leading politicians. The attempted coup culminated with the unmasking of the conspirators in the Senate, a stormy debate that led to their execution...
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(H/B) HOW TO SAY NO
An entertaining and enlightening collection of ancient writings about the philosophers who advocated simple living and rejected unthinking conformity The Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who stood athwart the flood of society's material excess, unexamined conventions, and even norms of politeness and thundered "No!" Diogenes, the most famous Cynic, wasn't shy about literally extending his middle finger to the world, expressing mock surprise that "most people go crazy over a finger." When asked why he was called Diogenes the Dog, he r...
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(H/B) How to Have a Life
A vibrant new translation of Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life," a pointed reminder to make the most of our time. Who doesn't worry sometimes that smart phones, the Internet, and TV are robbing us of time and preventing us from having a life? How can we make the most of our time on earth? In the first century AD, the Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger offered one of the most famous answers to that question in his essay "On the Shortness of Life"―a work that has more to teach us today than ever before. In How to Have a Life, James Romm p...
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(H/B) How to Die
Timeless wisdom on death and dying from the celebrated Stoic philosopher Seneca. "It takes an entire lifetime to learn how to die," wrote the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD). He counseled readers to "study death always," and took his own advice, returning to the subject again and again in all his writings, yet he never treated it in a complete work. How to Die gathers in one volume, for the first time, Seneca's remarkable meditations on death and dying. Edited and translated by James S. Romm, How to Die reveals a provocativ...
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(H/B) How to Give
Timeless wisdom on generosity and gratitude from the great Stoic philosopher Seneca. To give and receive well may be the most human thing you can do-but it is also the closest you can come to divinity. So argues the great Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BCE-65 CE) in his longest and most searching moral treatise, "On Benefits" (De Beneficiis). James Romm's splendid new translation of essential selections from this work conveys the heart of Seneca's argument that generosity and gratitude are among the most important of all virtues. For Sen...
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(H/B) How to Be a Farmer
A delightful anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings celebrating country living-ranging from a philosophy of compost to hymns to the gods of agriculture. Whether you farm or garden, live in the country or long to move there, or simply enjoy an occasional rural retreat, you will be delighted by this cornucopia of writings about living and working on the land, harvested from the fertile fields of ancient Greek and Roman literature. An inspiring antidote to the digital age, How to Be a Farmer evokes the beauty and bounty of nature wit...
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(H/B) How to Care about Animals
How to Care about Animals is a fascinating menagerie of passages from classical literature about animals and the lives we share with them. Drawing on ancient writers from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher has gathered a healthy litter of selections that reveal some of the ways Greeks and Romans thought about everything from lions, bears, and wolves to birds, octopuses, and snails-and that might inspire us to rethink our own relationships with our fellow creatures. Presented in lively new translations, with the original text...
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(H/B) How to Lose Yourself
Inviting new translations of classical Buddhist texts about why the self is an illusion-and why giving it up can free us from suffering From self-realization and self-promotion to self-help and the selfie, the modern world encourages us to be self-obsessed. We are even told that finding ourselves is the key to happiness. Better to lose yourself! More than 2,500 years ago, the Buddha argued that the self is an illusion-and that our belief in it is the cause of most, if not all, of our suffering. How to Lose Yourself presents lively, accessi...
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(H/B) How to Talk about Love
Explore the nature of love in this charming new translation of selections from Plato's great dramatic work, the Symposium. What is love? In poetry, songs, fiction, movies, psychology, and philosophy, love has been described, admired, lamented, and dissected in endless ways. Is love based on physical attraction? Does it bring out our better selves? How does it relate to sex? Is love divine? Plato's Symposium is one of the oldest, most influential, and most profound explorations of such questions―it is even the source of the idea of "Platoni...
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(H/B) How to Be Queer
The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations. Filled with enthralling stories, this anthology invites readers of all sexualities and identities to explore writings that describe many kinds of erotic encounters and feelings, and that e...
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(H/B) How to Tell a Story
An inviting and highly readable new translation of Aristotle's complete Poetics―the first and best introduction to the art of writing and understanding stories. Aristotle's Poetics is the most important book ever written for writers and readers of stories―whether novels, short fiction, plays, screenplays, or nonfiction. Aristotle was the first to identify the keys to plot, character, audience perception, tragic pleasure, and dozens of other critical points of good storytelling. Despite being written more than 2,000 years ago, the Poetics r...
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(H/B) How to Innovate
What we can learn about fostering innovation and creative thinking from some of the most inventive people of all times-the ancient Greeks. When it comes to innovation and creative thinking, we are still catching up with the ancient Greeks. Between 800 and 300 BCE, they changed the world with astonishing inventions-democracy, the alphabet, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathematical proof, rational medicine, coins, architectural canons, drama, lifelike sculpture, and competitive athletics. None of this happened by accident. Recognizing the ...
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(H/B) How to Focus
How you can learn to focus like a monk without living like one. Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advi...
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(H/B) HOW TO TELL A JOKE
Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome's greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity's funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him "the stand-up Consul." How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero's essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilia...
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(H/B) How to Run a Country
Timeless political wisdom from ancient history's greatest statesman. Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest statesman and orator, was elected to the Roman Republic's highest office at a time when his beloved country was threatened by power-hungry politicians, dire economic troubles, foreign turmoil, and political parties that refused to work together. Sound familiar? Cicero's letters, speeches, and other writings are filled with timeless wisdom and practical insight about how to solve these and other problems of leadership and politics. How to Run...
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(H/B) How to Grow Old
Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the second half of life the best part of all--and why you might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was. Filled with timeless wisdom and practical guidance, Cicero's brief, charming classic--written in 44 BC and originally titled On Old Age--has delighted...
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(H/B) HOW TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND
Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived. While content in daily life to go along with things as they appear to be, Sextus advocated-and provided a set of techniques to achieve-a radical suspension ...
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(H/B) How to Win an Argument
All of us are faced countless times with the challenge of persuading others, whether we're trying to win a trivial argument with a friend or convince our coworkers about an important decision. Instead of relying on untrained instinct--and often floundering or failing as a result--we'd win more arguments if we learned the timeless art of verbal persuasion, rhetoric. How to Win an Argument gathers the rhetorical wisdom of Cicero, ancient Rome's greatest orator, from across his works and combines it with passages from his legal and political...
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(H/B) How to Grieve
An engaging new translation of a timeless masterpiece about coping with the death of a loved one. In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech―not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero's Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech. Drawing on the full...
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(P/B) How to Be Free
A superb new edition of Epictetus's famed handbook on Stoicism―translated by one of the world's leading authorities on Stoic philosophy. Born a slave, the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD) taught that mental freedom is supreme, since it can liberate one anywhere, even in a prison. In How to Be Free, A. A. Long―one of the world's leading authorities on Stoicism and a pioneer in its remarkable contemporary revival―provides a superb new edition of Epictetus's celebrated guide to the Stoic philosophy of life (the Encheiridion) a...
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