Meidias (in Greek Mειδίας; lived 4th century BC), an Athenian of considerable wealth and influence, was a violent and bitter enemy of Demosthenes, the orator. His hostility he first displayed in 361 BC when he broke violently into the house of Demosthenes, with his brother Thrasylochus, to take possession of it,–Thrasylochus having offered, in the case of a trierarchy, to make an exchange of property with Demosthenes, under a private understanding with the guardians of the latter that, if the exchange were effected, the suit then pending against them should be dropped. This led Demosthenes to bring against him an accusation of kakegoria (ie verbal insult), and when Meidias after his condemnation did not fulfil his obligations, Demosthenes brought against him a dike exules (ie a trial for obtaining something already lawfully assigned to the plaintif). Meidias found means to prevent any decision being given far a period of eight years, and at length, in 354 BC, he had an opportunity to take revenge upon Demosthenes, who had in that year voluntarily undertaken the choregia. Meidias not only endeavoured in all possible ways to prevent Demosthenes from dis­charging his office in its proper form; also, their mutual relations were sored more still when Demosthenes attempted to oppose the proposal for sending aid against Callias and Taurosthenes of Chalcis to Plutarch, the tyrant of Eretria, and the friend of Meidias. The breaking point arrived when Meidias attacked Demosthenes with open violence during the celebration of the great Dionysia. Such an act gave Demosthenes a good opportunity for moving a public incrimination against his enemy (353 BC), and on this occasion wrote Against Meidias, still extant, which was never pronounced as the two adversaries found an amicable arrangement under which Demosthenes retired his accusation for thirty minae.

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. This title, which is a collection of essays written by experts on Levinas both in Israel and abroad, presents the main parts of his work: The philosophical writings, the Jewish writings, the Talmudic readings, present topics, and his controversial stances towards certain modern day streams or ideologies such as psychoanalysis. The articles in this book are based on an international conference which took place at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in May 2002 on the philosophy of Emanuel Levinas.

By closely examining the interaction between intellectual and material culture in the period before the Nazis assumed power in Germany, the author comes to the conclusion that, contrary to widely held assumptions, consumer culture in the Weimar period, far from undermining reading, used reading culture to enhance its goods and values. Reading material was marked as a consumer good, while reading as an activity, raising expectations as it did, influenced consumer culture. Consequently, consumption contributed to the diffusion of reading culture, while at the same time a popular reading culture strengthened consumption and its values. Thus the book presents the argument that the Weimar period, characterized as it was by economic hardship and political instability, witnessed a constant widening of the gap between the world of print as a “virtual” area in which the world of symbols and images of the new consumer culture developed, and the daily realities of most social strata. In the German context of the 1920s, this was a fateful and ominous trend.

What goes on under your bed when the lights go out and you're fast asleep? The Spanish best-seller Don’t Look Under The Bed is a novel quite unlike any that you’ve read before. Its impact will be felt by anyone who has ever, at any time in their life, felt afraid to reach out for the glass of water in the middle of the night, who has been unable to force himself to open the cupboard in the dark, or who has needed to leap into bed before something ghastly emerges from under the base to snuff them out. With a motley collection of characters as varied as Vincente Holgado, the foot specialist, as well as his shoes, Elena Rincon, the coroner, together with the widower moccasin, and a younger sister whose dental braces are just adorable, Juan Jose Millas has put together a masterpiece of dark comedy that merges into horror. Beneath an amusing, surreal veneer, we are in a world where footwear can develop their own individual fetishes, and the workings of a toilet cistern take on the aspect of an infernal machine that is predestined to thwart and punish all endeavor. The boundaries of reality fade away in a land where phantom limbs cause more problems than real ones, and where becoming a cripple brings more satisfaction that reaching the pinnacle of a chosen profession. Investigating the paradoxical desire of humanity to retain its own individuality at the same time as searching to fuse itself with a soul mate, Don’t Look Under The Bed never disappoints in its ability to capture our vulnerability and weaknesses from angles that have never been used before, but which immediately are felt to be as fitting and revealing as they are shockingly and amusingly fresh.