Search results for ""Author Alfred""

A pioneer in the field of Russian and Soviet studies in the West, Alfred J. Rieber's five decade career has focused on increasing our understanding of the Russian Empire from Peter the Great to the coming of the First World War. The Imperial Russian Project is a collection of Rieber's lifetime of work, focusing on three interconnected themes of this time period: the role of reform in the process of state building, the interaction of state and social movements, and alternative visions of economic development. This volume contains Rieber's previously published, classic essays, edited and updated, as well as newly written works that together provide a well-integrated framework for reflection on this topic. Rieber argues that Russia's style of autocratic governance not only reflected the personalities of the rulers but also the challenges of overcoming economic backwardness in a society lacking common citizenship and a cohesive ruling class. The Imperial Russian Project reveals how during the nineteenth century the tsar was obliged to operate within a changing and more complex world, reducing his options and restricting his freedom of action.

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A Companion to the American Short Story traces the development of this versatile literary genre over the past two centuries. Written by leading critics in the field, and edited by two major scholars, it explores a wide range of writers, from Edgar Allen Poe and Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, and Charles Chesnutt at the end of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth the focus is on such important Modern writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Wright before moving into the contemporary period with essays on Raymond Carver, Saul Bellow, and Denise Chávez. Contributions with a broader focus address groups of multiethnic, Asian, and Jewish writers. All the essays set the short story in context, focusing on the interaction of cultural forces and aesthetic principles. The Companion takes account of cutting edge approaches to literary studies and contributes to the ongoing redefinition of the American canon, embracing genres such as ghost and detective fiction, cycles of interrelated short fiction, and comic, social and political stories. The volume also reflects the diverse communities that have adopted this literary form and made it their own, featuring entries on a variety of feminist and multicultural traditions. This volume presents an important new consideration of the role of the short story in the literary history of American literature.

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How can a scientifically-minded person approach the healings and miracles of the Gospels, including such events as the raising of Lazarus and the Resurrection itself? Emil Bock rediscovers the works of Christ without minimizing the difficulties. He brings together historical records and the geographical background of the Gospels, all the while keeping sight of their spiritual wisdom.Bock considers the Gospel of John to give the most precise record of the events of Christ's three year ministry, as well as being the Gospel with the deepest esoteric significance. This profound study reveals a new understanding of Jesus' incarnation on earth.

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“Insightful, instructive, and definitely worth the read.”—Greg Andres, Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada“As someone who has been teaching a course on space exploration for many years and has visited most of NASA’s space centers, I have found plenty of new and valuable material in To a Distant Day. . . . I recommend the book to all who wish to know more about the conditions, people, and discoveries between 1890 and 1960 that led to the space age.”—Pangratios Papacosta, Physics Today Although the dream of flying is as old as the human imagination, the notion of rocketing into space may have originated with Chinese gunpowder experiments during the Middle Ages. Rockets as both weapons and entertainment are examined in this engaging history of how human beings acquired the ability to catapult themselves into space.Chris Gainor’s irresistible narrative introduces us to pioneers such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and Hermann Oberth, who pointed the way to the cosmos by generating the earliest wave of international enthusiasm for space exploration. It shows us German engineer Wernher von Braun creating the V-2, the first large rocket, which, though opening the door to space, failed utterly as the “wonder weapon” it was meant to be. From there Gainor follows the space race to the Soviet Union and the United States, giving us a close look at the competitive hysteria that led to Sputnik, satellites, space probes, and—finally—human flight into space in 1961. As much a story of cultural ambition and personal destiny as of scientific progress and technological history, To a Distant Day offers a complete and thoroughly compelling account of humanity’s determined efforts—sometimes poignant, sometimes amazing, sometimes mad—to leave the earth behind.

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One name above all others has become associated with walking in the Lake District: Alfred Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955– 66, has become the definitive guidebook. Wainwright’ s meticulously hand-drawn maps, diagrams and drawings take walkers up the 214 principal hills and mountains of the Lake District, describing the main routes of ascent from different starting points, as well as lesser-known variants, showing the summit viewpoint panoramas and the ridge routes that can be made to create longer walks. Every page combines words and illustrations to present the routes in a way that is original, visually appealing and easy to follow. This new edition of Wainwright’ s Walking Guide to the Lake District Fells has been comprehensively revised. Paths, maps, diagrams and route descriptions have been checked and corrected throughout. These revisions have been undertaken by writer and designer Clive Hutchby, author of The Wainwright Companion. The Eastern Fells, Book One of Wainwright’ s Walking Guides, covers the area north of Ambleside, between Ullswater and Thirlmere, and includes the ascents of popular fells such as Helvellyn, Catstycam, Fairfield and Red Screes.

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In Cultures of Forgery, leading literary studies and cultural studies scholars examine the double meaning of the word "forge"-to create or to form, on the one hand, and to make falsely, on the other.

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Humanistic Values from Academic Community Perspective is authored by a range of international experts with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives and provides a collection of ideas, examples and solutions on Humanistic Values in Academia, implementation and problems that occur in this area of consideration.This volume is a result of numerous discussions within the academic members to incorporate humanistic values like dignity, integrity, care, human rights etc. into our conduct composed of all the academic levels, beginning with students through staff, faculty and administration.Authors and contributors of this book assume the importance and crucial role of values in managing contemporary organizations emphasizing the fact that the oldest organizations managed by core values are not the globally known and acknowledged business corporation but the institutions like churches, armies and the universities. Numerous institutions of higher education are proud of their core values and present them to their employees, students, and stakeholders.The book is divided into four parts: I Introduction, II Humanistic values from academic perspective, III Humanistic values from student / faculty perspective and part IV Humanistic values from educational administrative perspective. We sincerely hope that the chapters presented in this volume will open new horizons for the understanding of humanistic values in academia and simultaneously it will provide inspiration and encouragement for further research in this area of study.

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One name above all others has become associated with walking in the Lake District: Alfred Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955–66, has become the definitive guidebook. Wainwright’s meticulously hand-drawn maps, diagrams and drawings take you up the 214 principal hills and mountains of the Lake District, describing the main routes of ascent from different starting points, as well as lesser-known variants, showing the summit viewpoint panoramas and the ridge routes that can be made to create longer walks. The Northern Fells, Book Five of Wainwright’s Walking Guide, covers an area that encompasses both the gentler gradients of the Uldale and Caldbeck Fells and the spectacular mountains of Skiddaw and Blencathra. This new edition has been comprehensively revised by writer and designer Clive Hutchby, author of The Wainwright Companion. Paths, maps, diagrams and route descriptions have been checked and corrected throughout in this new portable, pocket-sized flexibound format that can easily be packed and carried in a walker’s rucksack.

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One name above all others has become associated with walking in the Lake District: A. Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955–66, has become the definitive guidebook. Wainwright’s meticulously hand-drawn maps, diagrams and drawings take you up the 214 principal hills and mountains of the Lake District, describing the main routes of ascent from different starting points, as well as lesser-known variants, showing the summit viewpoint panoramas and the ridge routes that can be made to create longer walks. The Western Fells, Book Seven of Wainwright’s Walking Guide, covers Great Gable and the High Stile and Pillar ranges, overlooking the Ennerdale, Cocker and Wasdale valleys.

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A landmark in American literature, presented in its complete and unexpurgated version. Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. In this restored version, the truly revolutionary nature of Sister Carrie is made fully evident.

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The Contemporary Global Economy provides a lively overview of recent turbulence in the world economy, focusing on the dynamics of globalization since the 1980s. It explains the main drivers of economic change and how we are able to discern their effects in the world today. A lucid and balanced survey, based on extensive research in data and documents, accessible to the non-specialist Written by a renowned specialist in international economic relations with academic and government credentials Offers clear and engaging explanations of the main motors of economic change and how we are able to discern their effects in the world today The author assumes little knowledge of economic theory or financial markets Identifies the challenges for sustainable recovery and economic growth in the years ahead

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In this masterful experiment in truly comparative literary criticism, Alfred J. Mac Adam establishes Latin America's place in the Western literary tradition. By juxtaposing Latin American and Anglo-American texts, he shows how Latin American literature has gone beyond the context of Hispanic letters to borrow from, exploit, and finally extend the Western tradition. Mac Adam describes the changes that have taken place in Latin American literature since the time of Modernismo (roughly 1880-1920), when Spanish American writers tried to update their literary language by imitating foreign, mostly French, literature. Since then, as he demonstrates, Latin American writing has achieved a pioneering status by means of a different kind of imitation—parody—whereby it gives back to the former centers of Western culture their own writing, now distorted and reshaped into something new.

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Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization, a study of an important horticultural Plains Indian tribe, synthesizes the rich material Alfred W. Bowers recorded in the early 1930s from the last generation of Hidatsas who lived in the historic village of Like-a-Fishhook. This documentary record of their nineteenth-century lifeways is now a classic in American ethnography. The book is distinguished for its presentation of extensive personal and ritual narratives that allow Hidatsa elders to articulate directly their conceptions of traditional culture. It combines archeological and ethnographic approaches to reconstruct a Hidatsa culture history that is shaped by a concern for cultural detail stemming from the American ethnographic tradition of Franz Boas. At the same time, its concern for the understanding of social structure reflects the influence of the British structural-functional approach of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. The most comprehensive account ever published on the Hidatsas, it is of enduring value and interest.

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A giant of the discipline of biogeography and co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace was the most famous naturalist in the world when he died in 1913. To mark the centennial of Wallace's death, James Costa offers an elegant edition of the "Species Notebook" of 1855-1859, which Wallace kept during his legendary expedition in peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia, and western New Guinea. Presented in facsimile with text transcription and annotations, this never-before-published document provides a new window into the travels, personal trials, and scientific genius of the co-discoverer of natural selection.In one section, headed "Note for Organic Law of Change"--an extended critique of geologist Charles Lyell's anti-evolutionary arguments--Wallace sketches a book he would never write, owing to the unexpected events of 1858. In that year he sent to Charles Darwin an essay announcing his discovery of the mechanism for species change: natural selection. Darwin's friends Lyell and the botanist Joseph Hooker proposed a "delicate arrangement": a joint reading at the Linnean Society of his essay with Darwin's earlier private writings on the subject. Darwin would publish On the Origin of Species in 1859, to much acclaim; pre-empted, Wallace's first book on evolution waited two decades, but by then he had abandoned his original concept.On the Organic Law of Change realizes in spirit the project Wallace left unfinished, and asserts his stature as not only a founder of biogeography and the preeminent tropical biologist of his day but as Darwin's equal among the pioneers of evolution.

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Did you grow up thinking math is boring? It's time to reconsider. This book will teach you everything you ever wondered about numbers-and more. How and why did human beings first start using numbers at the dawn of history? Would numbers exist if we Homo sapiens weren't around to discover them? What's so special about weird numbers like pi and the Fibonacci sequence? What about rational, irrational, real, and imaginary numbers? Why do we need them? Two veteran math educators explain it all in ways even the most math phobic will find appealing and understandable. You'll never look at those squiggles on your calculator the same again.

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The fate of democratic governments throughout the world is a topic of growing concern. The crises of modern history, from the Machtegreifung by Hitler through the downfall of the Allende government in Chile, have caused many to suspect an inevitable downfall of democracies. In a systematic review of the political experiences of Latin American and European democratic nations, these original, thought-provoking books propose a significant new comparative framework for understanding the dynamics of political change and the conditions necessary for democratic stability.

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The fate of democratic governments throughout the world is a topic of growing concern. The crises of modern history, from the Machtergreifung by Hitler through the downfall of democracies. In a systematic review of the political experiences of Latin American and European democratic nations, these original, thought-provoking books propose a significant new comparative framework for understanding the dynamics of political change and the conditions necessary for democratic stability.

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In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets in our literature.Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the sixth of eleven children of a clergyman. After a childhood marked by trauma, he went up to Cambridge in 1828, where he met Arthur Hallam, whose premature death had a lasting influence on Tennyson's life and writing. His two volumes of Poems (1842) established him as the leading poet of his generation, and of the Victorian period. He was created Poet Laureate in 1850 and in 1883 accepted a peerage.

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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.

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Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) stood simultaneously in the camps of philosophy and sociology, and his writings constitute the framework of a sociology based on phenomenological considerations. Schutz's basic contributions issue from a critical synthesis of Husserl's phenomenology and Weber's sociology of understanding. He proceeds on the basis of the irreducible souce of all human knowledge in the immediate experiences of the conscious, alert, and active individual. In this volume Helmut Wagner has selected and skillfully correlated various passages both from Schutz's book The Phenomenology of the Social World and from his scattered papers and essays.

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The story of a house and two sisters, Howards End is also a subtle meditation on national, sexual and social identities. Half German by birth and middle-class English by upbringing, Helen and Margaret Schlegel struggle to come to terms with the problems of their inheritance in Edwardian England. If the contrasting temperaments of the heroines often recall Sense and Sensibility, the comparison with Jane Austen is fully justified by the power of Forster’s irony and the brilliance of his wit.

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'The reference list is excellent. This is a worthwhile (though 'niche') book that will be attractive to a particular sector of the general reading public interested in mathematical riddles and puzzles. Professional educators might well employ it in integrated learning settings. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.'CHOICEImmerse yourself in the fascinating world of geometry and spatial ability — either individually or in small groups, either as challenges or play problems! Here are four reasons why you should work with this book:This book offers a very unique opportunity to enhance your spatial ability, your mathematical competence, and your logical thinking. The authors arranged 45 problems — including more than 120 tasks — in a well-balanced order, which have been tested with a variety of populations.

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"This book explores settler colonial genocides in a global perspective and over the long durée. It does so systematically and compellingly, as it investigates how settler colonial expansion at times created conditions for genocidal violence, and the ways in which genocide was at times perpetrated on settler colonial frontiers. This volume will prove invaluable to teachers and students of imperialism, colonialism, and human rights."—Lorenzo Veracini, Swinburne University of Technology, and author of The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea

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"This book explores settler colonial genocides in a global perspective and over the long durée. It does so systematically and compellingly, as it investigates how settler colonial expansion at times created conditions for genocidal violence, and the ways in which genocide was at times perpetrated on settler colonial frontiers. This volume will prove invaluable to teachers and students of imperialism, colonialism, and human rights."—Lorenzo Veracini, Swinburne University of Technology, and author of The World Turned Inside Out: Settler Colonialism as a Political Idea

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"This rich and engaging book looks at instances of sanctified violence, the holy wars related to religion. It covers it all, from ancient to present day, including examples of warfare among Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists, as well as Christians, Jews and Muslims. It is a comprehensive and readable overview that provides a lively introduction to the subject of holy war in its broadest sense—as ‘sanctified violence’ in the service of a god or ideology. It is certain to be a useful companion in the classroom, and a boon to anyone fascinated by the dark attraction of religion and violence." —Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California, Santa BarbaraContents:Introduction: What Is Holy War? Chapter 1: Holy Wars in Mythic Time, Holy Wars as Metaphor, Holy Wars as Ritual Chapter 2: Holy Wars of Conquest in the Name of a Deity Chapter 3: Holy Wars in Defense of the Sacred Chapter 4: Holy Wars in Anticipation of the Millennium Epilogue: Holy Wars Today and TomorrowAlso included are a description of the Critical Themes in World History series, Preface, index, and suggestions for further reading.

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"Seven Myths of the Crusades' rebuttal of the persistent and multifarious misconceptions associated with topics including the First Crusade, anti-Judaism and the Crusades, the crusader states, the Children's Crusade, the Templars and past and present Islamic-Christian relations proves, once and for all, that real history is far more fascinating than conspiracy theories, pseudo-history and myth-mongering. This book is a powerful witness to the dangers of the misappropriation and misinterpretation of the past and the false parallels so often drawn between the crusades and later historical events ranging from nineteenth-century colonialism to the protest movements of the 1960s to the events of 9/11. This volume's authors have venerable track records in teaching and researching the crusading movement, and anyone curious about the crusades would do well to start here." —Jessalynn Bird, Dominican University, co-Editor of Crusade and Christendom

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This is a book about ecology, environment, nature, and the misleading information that plagues the discussions of these topics. It is easy-to-read, fun, and doesn't have to be read all at once; you can pick it up for five or ten minutes, get one idea out of it, put it down, and come back for other five or ten minutes some other time. It's light reading about very difficult subjects, such as: is trying to save every single species necessarily a good thing? Is life really all that fragile? Is undisturbed nature the normal state of things? and twenty-three more insightful essays.

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Tennyson had a life-long interest in the legend of King Arthur and after the huge success of his poem 'Morte d'Arthur' he built on the theme with this series of twelve poems, written in two periods of intense creativity over nearly twenty years. Idylls of the King traces the story of Arthur's rule, from his first encounter with Guinevere and the quest for the Holy Grail to the adultery of his Queen with Launcelot and the King's death in a final battle that spells the ruin of his kingdom. Told with lyrical and dreamlike eloquence, Tennyson's depiction of the Round Table reflects a longing for a past age of valour and chivalry. And in his depiction of King Arthur he created a hero imbued with the values of the Victorian age - one who embodies the highest ideals of manhood and kingship.

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A Companion to American Legal History presents a compilation of the most recent writings from leading scholars on American legal history from the colonial era through the late twentieth century. Presents up-to-date research describing the key debates in American legal history Reflects the current state of American legal history research and points readers in the direction of future research Represents an ideal companion for graduate and law students seeking an introduction to the field, the key questions, and future research ideas

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Provides the tools needed to explore the incredible complexities of the earth's soils Now in its Second Edition, this highly acclaimed text fully equips readers with the skills and knowledge needed to analyze soil and correctly interpret the results. Due to the highly complex nature of soil, the author carefully explains why unusual results are routinely obtained during soil analyses, including the occurrence of methane in soil under oxidative conditions. The text also assists readers in developing their own analytical techniques in order to analyze particular samples or test for particular compounds or properties. The Second Edition of Introduction to Soil Chemistry features four new chapters. Moreover, the entire text has been thoroughly updated and revised. It begins with a review of the history of soil chemistry, introducing fundamental concepts that apply to all soils. Next, the text explores: Basic soil characteristics, horizonation, texture, clay, air, water, solids, organic matter, organisms, and fundamental chemical concepts essential to soil chemistry Tested and proven sampling techniques for soil analysis that provide reliable analytical results Basic soil measurement techniques and extraction procedures Instrumentation to isolate and identify soil chemicals, including plant nutrients and contaminants Detailed examples and figures throughout the text help readers successfully perform soil sampling and analytical methods as well as better understand soil's chemical characteristics. At the end of each chapter, a bibliography and list of references lead to additional resources to explore individual topics in greater depth. Each chapter also offers problem sets, encouraging readers to put their newfound skills into practice. Reflecting the latest research findings and best practices, the Second Edition of Introduction to Soil Chemistry is ideal for both students and soil chemists who want to explore the incredible complexities of the earth's soils.

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The Pythagorean theorem may be the best-known equation in mathematics. Its origins reach back to the beginnings of civilization, and today every student continues to study it. What most nonmathematicians don't understand or appreciate is why this simply stated theorem has fascinated countless generations. In this entertaining and informative book, a veteran math educator makes the importance of the Pythagorean theorem delightfully clear. He begins with a brief history of Pythagoras and the early use of his theorem by the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, and Chinese, who used it intuitively long before Pythagoras's name was attached to it. He then shows the many ingenious ways in which the theorem has been proved visually using highly imaginative diagrams. Some of these go back to ancient mathematicians; others are comparatively recent proofs, including one by the twentieth president of the United States, James A. Garfield. After demonstrating some curious applications of the theorem, the author then explores the Pythagorean triples, pointing out the many hidden surprises of the three numbers that can represent the sides of the right triangle (e.g, 3, 4, 5 and 5, 12, 13). And many will truly amaze the reader. He then turns to the "Pythagorean means" (the arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means). By comparing their magnitudes in a variety of ways, he gives the reader a true appreciation for these mathematical concepts. The final two chapters view the Pythagorean theorem from an artistic point of view - namely, how Pythagoras's work manifests itself in music and how the Pythagorean theorem can influence fractals. The author's lucid presentation and gift for conveying the significance of this key equation to those with little math background will inform, entertain, and inspire the reader, once again demonstrating the power and beauty of mathematics!

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Of all the extraordinary Victorian travelogues, The Malay Archipelago has a fair claim to be the greatest - both as a beautiful, alarming, vivid and gripping account of some eight years' travel across the entire Malay world - from Singapore to the western edges of New Guinea - and as the record of a great mind. As Wallace, often under conditions of terrible hardship and sickness, battles through jungles, lives with headhunters, and collects beetles, butterflies and birds-of-paradise, he makes discoveries about the workings of biology that have shaped our view of the world ever since.

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As Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign, Alfred Lord Tennyson's spellbinding poetry epitomized the Victorian age, and Selected Poems is edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Ricks.'Into the jaw of DeathInto the mouth of HellRode the six hundred'The works in this volume trace nearly sixty years in the literary career of one of the nineteenth century's greatest poets, and show the wide variety of poetic forms he mastered. This selection gives some of Tennyson's most famous works in full, including Maud, depicting a tragic love affair, and In Memoriam, a profound tribute to his dearest friend. Excerpts from Idylls of the King show a lifelong passion for Arthurian legend, also seen in the dream-like The Lady of Shalot and in Morte d'Arthur. Other works respond to contemporary events, such as Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, written in Tennyson's official role as Poet Laureate, or the patriotic Charge of the Light Brigade, while Locksley Hall provides a Utopian vision of the future, and the late poem Crossing the Bar is a haunting meditation on his own mortality.In his introduction, Christopher Ricks discusses aspects of Tennyson's life and works, his revisions of his poems, and his friendship with Arthur Hallam. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading and notes.Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, the sixth of eleven children. His first important book, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, was published in 1830, and was not a critical success, but his two volumes of Poems, 1842, which contain some of his finest work, established him as the leading poet of his generation.If you enjoyed Selected Poems, you might like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, also available in Penguin Classics.'He had the finest ear of any English poet since Milton'T.S. Eliot

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This second volume of passages gathered from the leading monks and teachers of the Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhist teaching focuses on religious practice. Extending from the foundational texts and first interpreters in the 4th century, to Rennyo in the 15th century, Professor Bloom's selections trace the development of Shin Buddhist teaching from monastic visualization practices to the widely popular path to salvation through faith in, and recitation of, the name of Amida Buddha. Volume 2 features a foreword by Kenneth K. Tanaka and an introduction by renowned scholar and editor, Alfred Bloom, whose selected passages have been arranged topically for easy reference on issues of Pure Land teaching. The key interpreters featured are the Seven Great Teachers from India, China, and Japan (Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu; T'an-luan, Tao-ch'o, Shan-tao; Genshin, Honen), selected as doctrinal authorities by Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Japanese Pure Land sect.

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This book is an anthology of passages gathered from the leading monks and teachers of the Pure Land, or Shin, school of Buddhist teaching. Extending from the foundational texts and first interpreters in the 4th century, to Rennyo in the15th century, Professor Bloom's selections trace the development of Shin Buddhist teaching from monastic visualization practices to the widely popular path to salvation through faith in, and recitation of, the name of Amida Buddha. The collection features a foreword by Kenneth K. Tanaka and an insightful introduction by renowned scholar and editor, Alfred Bloom, whose selected passages have been arranged topically for easy reference on issues of Pure Land teaching. The key interpreters featured are the Seven Great Teachers from India, China, and Japan (Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu; T'an-luan, Tao-ch'o, Shan-tao; Genshin, Honen), selected as doctrinal authorities by Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Japanese Pure Land sect.

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Sandy soils cover approximately 900 million ha worldwide, and there are extensive areas of sandy soils under cultivation. Most sandy soils have high water permeability, low water-holding capacity, low ability to retain and exchange nutrients, weakly developed soil structure and they may be prone to erosion by wind. As irrigation is required for obtaining good crop yields, there is a risk of substantial leaching of nutrients and pesticides, and ground water depletion. Due to global pressure on land resources, marginal soils such as sandy soils are taken into production or cultivated more intensely. Sandy soils – as a group of soils with specific characteristics and ecological limitations – have received limited research attention. This books presents the main papers from the Global Conference on Sandy Soils which was held in June 2023 in Madison, USA. This book focuses on novel and exciting aspects of research on sandy soils which is presented into three sections: Distribution and Assessment, Soil Carbon and Soil Health, and Water and the Environment. It presents a global glimpse on what recent progress has been in the study of sandy soil and their properties and management.

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This is a new English translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law, found in Questions 90–108 of the First Part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. In fact, it is the only free-standing English translation of the entire Treatise, which includes both a general account of law (Questions 90–92) and also specific treatments of what St. Thomas identifies as the five kinds of law: the eternal law (Question 93), the natural law (Question 94), human law (Questions 95–97), the Old Law (Questions 98–105), and the New Law (Questions 106–108). All other extant editions of Treatise on Law stop with the human law, and are thus approximately one-third the size of the full Treatise. St. Thomas’s account of law is firmly embedded within a general moral theory that begins with a rich conception of human flourishing, i.e., the good for human beings (Questions 1–5). This good consists, first and foremost, in our ultimate and intimate union with the Persons of the Blessed Trinity – a union that in our present state we can grasp intellectively and pursue affectively only with God’s supernatural assistance. It is within this framework that we order our loves and pursue the more proximate goals they open up to us as human beings in this life. Given the appropriate goals, the next question is how we can get from where we are, in the grips of the consequences of Original Sin, to where we want to be. The answer is: by means of (a) human actions that are good, i.e., rightly ordered toward our ultimate end and (b) the habits that these actions either engender or flow from. In analyzing human actions (Questions 6–21) and their relation to the passions (Questions 22–48), St. Thomas gives a general account of what he calls the ‘intrinsic principles’ of human actions and their associated habits – both virtues (Questions 49–70) and vices (Questions 71–89). It is only then that he turns to what he calls the ‘extrinsic principles’ of good human actions, viz., law (Questions 90–108) and grace (Questions 109–114). According to St. Thomas, law, far from supplanting virtue as a basic principle of action, serves as an independent principle of action that complements virtue and is itself capable of being factored into practical deliberation. The reason is that all of God’s precepts, prohibitions, and punishments are aimed at promoting the good of the whole universe and, more particularly, the good for human beings, both individually and within the various forms of social life. Because of this, law serves as both a restraint on bad actions and a spur to good action, i.e., a restraint on actions that take us away from virtue and genuine human flourishing and a spur to actions that promote virtue and flourishing. There are many benefits of having the whole treatise rather than just the first few questions, as has been the standard practice in previous editions of the Treatise on Law. To mention just a few of these benefits, the question on the moral precepts of the Old Law (question 100) helps to illuminate in many different ways the earlier questions on natural law and human law (questions 94–97). Again, the questions on the ceremonial and judicial precepts of the Old Law (questions 101–105) demon-strate in depth the symbiotic relationship that St. Thomas takes to obtain between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The questions on the New Law provide an introduction to the Christian way of life that will be described in incomparable detail in the Second Part of the Second Part, the bulk of which is structured around the treatment of the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues.

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