January Classic of the Month: Recipe for a Happy Life

In the spirit of new resolutions and making ourselves better in the new year, Cosimo is thrilled to offer Recipe for a Happy Life by Margaret of Navarre as our Classic of the Month for January.

In the year 1500, Queen Margaret of Navarre wrote her "recipe for a happy life," which includes ingredients such as patience, pastimes, repose and peace, pleasant memory and hope, and love's magic drops. Picking up these themes, Marie West King has selected passages from literature that expand on Queen Margaret's suggestions. Represented are Ralph Waldo Emerson ("A day for toil, an hour for sport"), George Washington ("Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience"), Plato ("Self conquest is the greatest of victories"), and William Shakespeare ("Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain").

Readers will find that this simple recipe still stands the test of time, even now in 2017. We hope all of you live a happier life in the new year!

September Book of the Month: Democracy and Education

In celebration of the new school year, Cosimo is excited to present Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey as its Book of the Month.

John Dewey was one of the most influential figures in the education movement of the early 20th
century. This 1916 volume presents his profoundly revolutionary ideas about how best to teach young minds to be vigorous citizens of a truly democratic society. Reconciling classic philosophies of Rousseau and Plato with the needs and demands of the modern world, Dewey emphasizes critical thinking, problem solving, and learning through practical applications of complex concepts. His efforts were with one goal in mind: to create an integrated, holistic approach to the educational process.

Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education is available in ebook and paperback at leading online bookstores, including Amazon (paperback).


About the Author:

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooling during the first half of the 20th century in the USA.

Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience, nature, art, logic, inquiry, democracy, and ethics.