The Mind in the Making

A roadside mechanic studies a broken car and reasons from how it works. A senator debating the fate of nations, James Harvey Robinson argues, may reach instead for rhetoric, old fears, and partisan feeling.

Writing in the early twentieth century, Robinson asks why scientific thought has transformed our understanding of nature while our ideas about people and society remain bound to inherited beliefs. War, injustice, and political failure, he suggests, cannot be repaired by knowledge and resources alone if those who wield them refuse to question their assumptions. As a historian, he looks to the past not as a parade of remote events but as a way to understand how our convictions took hold—and how they might be changed. What would it take to bring the clear-eyed habits of science to human affairs?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.