Free access to 'The Sacred History of Being' in your Local Library

The Sacred History of Being is now available  free to libraries, and library distributors (as of February 6, 2018)

What this means is that libraries can make as many copies as they like available to library users.

For the past few months copies have been accessible free of charge in the six legal deposit libraries in Britain and Ireland (British Library, London, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, etc). These copies can only be accessed singly, and in the library reading room. This change means that copies of The Sacred History of Being will be available for loan from any library that wishes to hold the book. Anywhere.

If you want to access the book from a local library, you can request that they obtain a copy. When you make your request, you can point out that copies are available free of charge, with the exception of the library distributor Overdrive, which does not distribute books at zero cost (purchase from them will cost $1.99). If there is a demand for the book, there is very little reason for your local library not to get hold of a copy for you.

eBook loans are usually issued with some kind of DRM (Digital Rights Management) software attached to the book. What this means is that the copy you have borrowed will cease to function after the standard loan period, usually around two weeks, depending on where you are. But you can re-order the book from your library as many times as you like. And for free.

If you want a permanent copy of the book, without any DRM associated with it, the book is available commercially from the principal distributor Smashwords, or from Barnes & Noble, Itunes, Blio, and a host of other eBook suppliers, with the exception of Amazon. The cost is usually around $7.99, but the price varies a little from bookseller to bookseller.

The Sacred History of Being has been in the Smashwords bestseller lists for History and Philosophy a number of times in the past two years. The book is published by the Anshar Press. The main distributor is Smashwords. ISBN: 9781311760678

Chapter List for The Sacred History of Being

This is the full chapter list for the edition of The Sacred History of Being, published on November 2, 2015. There is also a set of Reviewer Notes, which provides details about the narrative of the book. 

Preface.

Part One.

A Sense of the Past.
How old is Philosophy?
The Arrival of the Idea of Being.
The West and the Other.
The Golem.
Change and what is Permanent.
The Ontological Argument.
The Ontological Argument in Anselm.
The Ontological Argument in Descartes.
The Nature of Reality in Berkeley.
Hume and Kant on Reality.
The End of the Ontological Argument.

Part Two.

The Sweet Song of Swans.
The Academy.
The Platonic Theory of Being.
Plato’s Theory of Vision.
The Paradox of Knowledge.
Eleven attributes of Being.
Pythagoras and Totality.
Solon in the court of Croesus.
The Complexion of the Dead.
Being in Homer.

Part Three.

Ocean and the Limit of Existence.
Creation.
The Fifty names of Marduk.
The Idea of Being in Israel.
Understanding Creation as a Sacred Tree.
Being, Kabbalah, and the Assyrian Sacred Tree.
The Making and the Renewal of the Gods.
The Ritual sequence and its purpose.
The Nineveh ritual.
The Babylonian ritual.
Finding the Name of the Sacred Tree.
Postscript.

Appendices.

Thomas Taylor on the Ineffable principle.
Oannes and the Instruction of Mankind.
Ashurbanipal on the exercise of Kingship.
Select Bibliography.
Abbreviations

Available Full Chapters

The first five chapters of the book, plus the preface, are available to read in full, by following the links below. A further chapter from part one, which discusses George Berkeley's understanding of the Nature of Reality, and two chapters from part three, 'Ocean and the Limit of Existence', and  'The Idea of Being in Israel', are also available to read in full. Plus one of the appendices, which discusses the Babylonian account of the first sages, and man's acquisition of knowledge. 

Preface

Part One

A sense of the past
How old is Philosophy?
The Arrival of the idea of Being
The West and the Other
The Golem
Change and what is permanent
Recurring Questions
The Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument in Anselm
The Ontological Argument in Descartes
The Nature of Reality in Berkeley
Hume and Kant on Reality

....

Part Three

Ocean and the Limit of Existence
The Idea of Being in Israel

....

 Appendices

Oannes and the Instruction of Mankind

[Page updated, January 10, 2019]

Library Access!

My current ebooks Understanding Ancient Thought, The Sacred History of Being, and J.G. Frazer and the Platonic Theory of Being, have been uploaded to the British Library via their portal for electronic legal deposit.

In the near future, these books will appear in the various electronic catalogues of legal deposit libraries in the British Isles  - The British Library, The National Library of Wales, The National Library of Scotland, Trinity College Dublin,  Cambridge University Library. and The Bodleian Library in Oxford. Subsequently, details of these books will be available from the catalogue aggregators WorldCat and Copac.  OCLC's WorldCat is the place to go to find which local institutions have copies of books you want to consult

These books will be available to consult free in these institutions, if you can visit one of them and register as a user. They will not be available for loan of course, but many students will  be able to access them without having to buy a copy.

TY, August 31, 2017.


As of September 6, 2017, the books are listed in the main catalogue of the British Library. Search on 'Yaeger, Thomas'. The listings will spill out to the other catalogues in the British Isles in due course. Below is a screenshot of the result of the search.

TY, September 6, 2017

As of September 12, my books are also listed in the catalogues of the National Library of Scotland (search by title), The Bodleian Library in Oxford, Cambridge University Library (via iDiscover search) ,  and the Copac, and WorldCat catalogues (search on Anshar Press).

TY, September 12, 2017

As of September 19, my books are listed at Trinity College Dublin Library (search by title). 

TY, September 19, 2017