Most contemporary North Americans, as well as many other Westerners, take for granted their conceptions of themselves as individuals with uniquely valuable and complex inner lives -- lives filled with beliefs, imaginings, understandings, and motives that determine their actions and accomplishments. Yet, such psychological conceptions of selfhood are relatively recent, dating mostly from the late eighteenth century. Perhaps more surprisingly, our understandings of ourselves as creatively self-expressive and strategically self-managing are, for the most part, products of twentieth-century...

What is a person? Surprisingly little attention is given to this question in psychology. For much of the past century, psychology has tended to focus on the systematic study of processes rather than on the persons who enact and embody them. In contrast to the reductionist picture of much mainstream theorising, which construes persons as their mental lives, behaviours or neurophysiological particulars, The Psychology of Personhood presents persons as irreducibly embodied and socially situated beings. Placing the study of persons at the centre of psychology, this book presents novel insights on...

At its core, psychology is about persons: their thinking, their problems, the improvement of their lives. The understanding of persons is crucial to the discipline. But according to this provocative new book, between current essentialist theories that rely on biological models, and constructionist approaches based on sociocultural experience, the concept of the person has all but vanished from psychology.

Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency recasts theories of mind, behavior, and self, synthesizing a range of psychologists and philosophers to restore the...

The Civil War has ended-but the killing isn't over-in this intriguing historical murder mystery: "I can't wait to read the next Alphonso Clay book." -RP Dahlke, author of the Dead Red Mysteries April 1865: The Civil War is all but over after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, but there are those who don't want the killing to end. Abraham Lincoln's assassin is still in hiding-but more violence is planned in a conspiracy to destroy the country once and for all. With the nation and countless civilian lives at stake, Col. Alphonso Clay, a master of intrigue and detection who has served...

Amid the tensions of Reconstruction, a Civil War veteran and presidential agent hunts down violent threats and secretive hidden enemies . . . The Civil War ended four years ago-but that doesn't mean that peace rules the land. Confederate veterans have formed a secret organization, the Ku Klux Klan, to fight what they perceive as unjust oppression, violently attacking former slaves and attempting to sabotage the government's authority in the South. To address the danger they pose, President Ulysses S. Grant turns to his most trusted agent: Maj. Alphonso Brutus Clay. The goal is to...

A Union Army captain is tasked with finding a turncoat before more blood is spilled-both on and off the battlefield-in this vivid historical mystery. Tennessee, Autumn 1863: The Confederate Army, after being defeated at Vicksburg, has rallied to a victory at Chickamauga. General Grant is on his way to aid the besieged Northern forces-but a highly placed spy is getting in the way of that mission. One officer has already been murdered to protect the traitor's identity, and if the spy isn't rooted out soon it may be the end for the Army of the Ohio. Grant recruits Cpt. Alphonso Clay...

As Sherman moves toward Atlanta, an agent searches for traitors among the troops in this compelling Civil War thriller . . . When Sherman's army hits a wall of resistance at Kennesaw Mountain in the summer of 1864-despite what seemed to be highly reliable intelligence-he's convinced by one of the Union nurses to call in Maj. Alphonso Clay to hunt for a saboteur. With his scout Ambrose Bierce badly wounded and a general murdered in the midst of battle, he summons Clay, who soon joins him on his march through Georgia. But as Clay investigates the situation-and tries to prevent any...

A man investigating treason is assassinated, and the case must be solved by a "brilliant and haunted Southerner" working for the Union Army (RP Dahlke, author of the Dead Red Mysteries). Cpt. Alphonso Clay had been summoned to meet John Brown-not that John Brown, but a former Boston detective recruited by Abe Lincoln to put his skills to work in the war effort. Brown has now ferreted out treachery among powerful military figures . . . but he's killed before he can meet with Clay. Now Clay's only hope is to decipher Brown's cryptic notes and follow his deductive instincts to solve...