Search results for ""author gold"
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Breaking History: A White House Memoir
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER#1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER#1 PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY BESTSELLER #1 AMAZON BESTSELLERJared Kushner was one of the most consequential presidential advisers in modern history. For the first time, he recounts what happened behind closed doors during the Trump presidency.Few White House advisors have had such an expansive portfolio or constant access to the president. From his office next to Trump, senior adviser Jared Kushner operated quietly behind the scenes, preferring to leave the turf wars and television sparring to others. Now, Kushner finally tells his story—a fast-paced and surprisingly candid account of how an earnest businessman with no political ambitions found himself pulled into a presidency that no one saw coming. Breaking History takes readers inside debates in the Oval Office, double-crosses at the United Nations, tense meetings in Arab palaces, high-stakes negotiations, and the daily barrage of leaks, false allegations, investigations, and West Wing infighting.A true historical thriller, this book is not your typical political memoir. Kushner details Washington’s intense resistance to change and reveals how he broke through the stalemates of the past. An outsider among outsiders, Kushner was a results-driven executive among beltway power brokers. He questioned old assumptions and delivered unprecedented results on trade, criminal justice reform, production of COVID-19 vaccines, and Middle East peace. His successful negotiation of the Abraham Accords, the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in 50 years, earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.Written by one of the few people by Trump’s side from his trip down the golden escalator to his final departure from Andrews Air Force Base, Breaking History provides the most honest, nuanced, and definitive understanding of a presidency that will be studied for generations.
£13.49
Icon Books Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality
'This is about gob-smacking science at the far end of reason … Take it nice and easy and savour the experience of your mind being blown without recourse to hallucinogens' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this magisterial book, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its core. Quantum theory looks at the very building blocks of our world, the particles and processes without which it could not exist. Yet for 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. Quantum theory is weird. In 1905, Albert Einstein suggested that light was a particle, not a wave, defying a century of experiments. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Erwin Schrodinger's famous dead-and-alive cat are similarly strange. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren't shocked by quantum theory, you didn't really understand it. While "Quantum" sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age, Kumar's centrepiece is the conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. 'Bohr brainwashed a whole generation of physicists into believing that the problem had been solved', lamented the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. But in "Quantum", Kumar brings Einstein back to the centre of the quantum debate. "Quantum" is the essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of brilliant men at its heart.
£12.99
Headline Publishing Group The Princess: The moving new novel about the young Diana
'Touching and distinctive . . . getting beneath the fairytale pomp and glamour' - Rachel Hore 'Fabulous behind-the-scenes royal drama . . . Riveting, revealing, an absolute must-read' - Imogen Edwards-Jones 'This delicate, sometimes wistful story will delight fans of historical fiction and British royalty' - Booklist 'A fresh perspective on a woman whom many people feel they already know' - Library Journal 'Diana is depicted as warm, empathetic and mischievous' - Mail on Sunday, Best New Fiction 'Fascinating' - Woman's Weekly 'Fictionalises Diana's life in riveting and tender detail' - Platinum 'Perfect for fans of The Crown' - Bella 'A compelling read' - Prima 'Scurrilous, funny, sharp, shot through with pathos' - Saga magazine, Pick of the Month 'A super-romantic royal wedding that was nothing like it seemed. Wendy delves beneath the glamour and public persona. Fascinating' - Woman magazine ___________The moving new novel about the young Diana.Diana believes in love. Growing up amid the fallout of her parents' bitter divorce, she takes refuge in romantic novels. She dreams of being rescued by a handsome prince.Prince Charles loves his freedom. He's in no rush to wed, but his family have other ideas. Charles must marry for the future of the Crown.The right girl needs to be found, and fast. She must be young, aristocratic and free of past liaisons.The teenage Diana Spencer is just about the only candidate. Her desperation to be loved dovetails with royal desperation for a bride.But the route to the altar is full of hidden obstacles and people with their own agendas.When she steps from the golden carriage on her wedding day, has Diana's romantic dream come true?Or is it already over?
£14.99
Melbourne University Press Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate Volume 1
The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate covers the period 1901–1929, the period in which the Parliament operated from Melbourne. This first volume provides short articles on Australia's Senators during the first thirty years of the Federal Parliament. These entries place particular emphasis on the events of a Senator's parliamentary experience, contributions to debates, committee work, parliamentary positions as well as ministerial appointments.It provides also a window on the colonial and post-colonial societies in which these ninety-nine Senators and their three Clerks lived and worked. It explains how miners, merchants, constitutionalists, soldiers, printers, trade unionists, adventurers and pastoralists became Senators, and how, in an essentially egalitarian society, they melded together as Australia's first federal parliamentarians. It tells of their work as legislators during a period when Australia was making a unique contribution to democracy itself, and reveals the excitement felt by conservatives and non-conservatives alike as they shaped the beginnings of an Australian nation.The contribution of these Senators to Australian public life was immense. The Federationists, Richard Baker, John Downer, Thomas Playford, Richard O'Connor, James Walker, Henry Dobson, William Trenwith, Simon Fraser, Josiah Symon and William Zeal retain some elemens of notoriety. Others, such as the South Australian farmer, William Russell, or Charles Montague Graham, a tailor on the Western Australian goldfields, were soon forgotten, even in their own time.The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate reveals to a new generation the influence and the significance of men who came from all sides of politics and the social spectrum, and were able parliamentarians and true representatives of the democratic process.This readable and authoritative work of reference will provide readers with a biographical account of all Australian senators, and a history of the Senate since 1901. It makes a scholarly contribution to historical and parliamentary knowledge and fills many gaps in our knowledge of less well-known senators whose careers have not been fully documented before.
£68.21
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC RMS Queen Mary: 101 Questions and Answers About the Great Transatlantic Liner
For 1930s Britain, the Queen Mary was a symbol of hope. Cunard had abandoned construction on what they had planned to be the grandest liner of all time (then known simply as Job 534) in the depths of the Depression. Her half-finished hull sat on the Clyde for years, but when Cunard announced they were going to complete her, it was a sign, perhaps, that the darkest days were over, that the country was emerging from economic disaster and that Britannia would soon rule the waves once again. The Queen Mary would go on to be one of the most famous ships in the world for all the right reasons. The first British ship to be over 1,000 feet in length, launched by her namesake (and for which the Clyde had to be artificially widened to allow such a large ship to pass through), she won the Blue Riband (the record for fastest Atlantic crossing) not once by twice – and when she won it the second time in 1938 she held it until 1952. After wartime service carrying up to 16,000 US troops to Europe at a time, she finally retired to Long Beach, California, in 1967. There she remains, a perfectly preserved reminder of a bygone era, and a celebration of the golden age of the transatlantic liner. In this book David Ellery, maritime historian, TV presenter and documentary maker, answers all the questions you might have about this glorious ship – and ones you might never have thought to ask too. This unique, accessible approach gives a fantastic introduction to the ship to anyone curious about her, but is also very detailed and comprehensive, covering everything from the ship’s design, construction, engineering and interior fittings to her naming, wartime service and more. Packed with archival photographs and other original material, this is a fascinating and illuminating guide to the Queen Mary, looking beneath the sheen of her appointments to explore how her fame is well deserved.
£9.99
Harriman House Publishing Making Your Mark: How I built a fortune from £1.50 and you can too
"Cover me while I cut around that blue Mondeo and ambush the guy in the grey suit.” There are not many successful entrepreneurs who will enthusiastically break off in the middle of a multi-million pound deal to have a huge snowball fight in the car park with their finance director. But then Mark Mills is not just any successful entrepreneur. Whether organising one of his infamous Summer Christmas parties, flying to New York to find a new business idea or staying up all night to celebrate a successful deal, Mark Mills has always believed in the absolute importance of having fun in business. And not just for him, but for his employees, customers and suppliers too. His brilliantly unique approach has more than paid off. Mark’s infectious enthusiasm, relentless energy, can-do approach and spirit of adventure have powered him to the very pinnacle of entrepreneurial success, both in his own businesses and by helping others to do the same in theirs. Over the years he has won countless Entrepreneur of the Year Awards and been asked to give speeches at prestigious events around the world about his achievements. Making Your Mark tells the fascinating and entertaining story of Mark’s extraordinary success in business, from selling broken biscuits at the age of 8, through his early years selling everything from payphones to post boxes, to his outstanding success creating Cardpoint, the cash machine business he founded at the age of 29 which at its peak was valued at £170 million. But just as importantly, it also tells the story of Mark’s disasters along the way, about the times when things went badly wrong and when failure was more often the outcome than success. Along the way Mark shares his unique Golden Rules on how to achieve your own success in business, from learning how to think like an entrepreneur to creating a good business model, from understanding how to build a strong team to learning how to communicate effectively.
£17.09
British Museum Press A Rothschild Renaissance: Treasures from the Waddesdon Bequest
This book presents and explores the Waddesdon Bequest, the name given to the Kunstkammer or cabinet collection of Renaissance treasures which was bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, MP in 1898. The Bequest is named after Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, a fairy tale French chateau built by Baron Ferdinand from 1874 – 83, where the collection was housed during his lifetime. As a major Jewish banking family, the Rothschilds were the greatest collectors of the nineteenth century, seeking not only the finest craftsmanship in their treasures, but also demonstrating great discernment and a keen sense of historical importance in selecting them. Baron Ferdinand’s aim, often working in rivalry with his cousins, was to possess a special room filled with splendid, precious and intricate objects in the tradition of European courts of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was understood at the time that a collection of this quality could never be formed again, given the rarity and expense of the pieces, and the problems of faking and forgery of just this kind of material. The book will unlock the history and romance of this glorious collection through its exploration of some of its greatest treasures and the stories they tell. It will introduce makers and patrons, virtuoso craftsmanship, faking and the history of collecting from the late medieval to modern periods, as told through the objects. Treasures discussed will include masterpieces of goldsmiths’ work in silver; jewellery; hardstones and engraved rock crystal; astonishing microcarvings in boxwood, painted enamel, ceramic and glass; arms and armour and ‘curosities’: exotic treasures incorporating ostrich eggs, Seychelles nut, amber or nautilus shell. Scholarly catalogues have appeared for parts of this splendid collection but this book will open up the Bequest for the general reader. By looking at individual objects in detail, and drawing on new photography and research, the book will enable readers to see and understand the objects in a completely different light.
£27.00
Columbia University Press Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture
Conventional wisdom holds that television was a co-conspirator in the repressions of Cold War America, that it was a facilitator to the blacklist and handmaiden to McCarthyism. But Thomas Doherty argues that, through the influence of television, America actually became a more open and tolerant place. Although many books have been written about this period, Cold War, Cool Medium is the only one to examine it through the lens of television programming. To the unjaded viewership of Cold War America, the television set was not a harbinger of intellectual degradation and moral decay, but a thrilling new household appliance capable of bringing the wonders of the world directly into the home. The "cool medium" permeated the lives of every American, quickly becoming one of the most powerful cultural forces of the twentieth century. While television has frequently been blamed for spurring the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, it was also the national stage upon which America witnessed-and ultimately welcomed-his downfall. In this provocative and nuanced cultural history, Doherty chronicles some of the most fascinating and ideologically charged episodes in television history: the warm-hearted Jewish sitcom The Goldbergs; the subversive threat from I Love Lucy; the sermons of Fulton J. Sheen on Life Is Worth Living; the anticommunist series I Led 3 Lives; the legendary jousts between Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy on See It Now; and the hypnotic, 188-hour political spectacle that was the Army-McCarthy hearings. By rerunning the programs, freezing the frames, and reading between the lines, Cold War, Cool Medium paints a picture of Cold War America that belies many black-and-white cliches. Doherty not only details how the blacklist operated within the television industry but also how the shows themselves struggled to defy it, arguing that television was preprogrammed to reinforce the very freedoms that McCarthyism attempted to curtail.
£25.20
HarperCollins Publishers Cider Country: How an Ancient Craft Became a Way of Life
‘James Crowden is Britain’s best cider writer … Cider Country is the book we’ve all been waiting for.’ Oz Clarke Join James Crowden as he embarks on a journey to distil the ancient origins of cider, uncovering a rich culture and philosophy that has united farmer, maker and drinker for millennia. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 ANDRE SIMON FOOD AND DRINK AWARD Cidermaking has been at the heart of country life for hundreds of years. But the fascinating story of how this drink came into existence and why it became so deeply rooted in the nation’s psyche has never been told. In order to answer these questions, James Crowden traces an elusive history stretching back to the ancient, myth-infused civilisations of the Mediterranean and the wild apple forests of Kazakhstan. Meeting cider experts, farmers and historians, he unearths the surprising story of an apple that travelled from east to west and proved irresistible to everyone who tasted it. Upon its arrival in Britain, monks, pirates and politicians formed a pioneering and evangelical fan base, all seeking the company of a drink that might guide them through uncertain times. But the nation’s love-affair with cider didn’t fully blossom until after the reformation, when the thirst for knowledge about the drink was at its peak. This infatuation with experimentation would lead to remarkable innovations and the creation of a ‘sparkling cider’, a technique that pre-dated Dom Pérignon's champagne by forty years. Turning to the present day, Crowden meets the next generation of cider makers and unearths a unique philosophy that has been shared through the ages. In the face of real challenges, these enterprising cider makers are still finding new ways to produce this golden drink that is enjoyed by so many. Spanning centuries and continents, Cider Country tells the story of our country through the culture, craft and consumption of our most iconic rural drink.
£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain
As mentioned in The Times Travel Book Club 2020Award winning writer Paul Theroux embarks on a journey that, though closer to home than most of his expeditions, uncovers some surprising truths about Britain and the British people in the '80s in The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain. Paul Theroux's round-Britain travelogue is funny, perceptive and 'best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure...'After eleven years living as an American in London, Paul Theroux set out to travel clockwise round the coast and find out what Britain and the British are really like. It was 1982, the summer of the Falklands War, the ideal time, he found, to surprise the British into talking about themselves. The result makes superbly vivid and engaging reading.'A sharp and funny descriptive writer. One of his golden talents, perhaps because he is American and therefore classless in British eyes, is the ability to chat up and get on with all sorts and conditions of British. . . Theroux is a good companion' The Times'Filled with history, insights, landscape, epiphanies, meditations, celebrations and laments' The New York Times'Few of us have seen the entirety of the coast and I for one am grateful to Mr Theroux for making my journey unnecessary. He describes it all brilliantly and honestly' Anthony Burgess, ObserverAmerican travel writer Paul Theroux is known for the rich descriptions of people and places that is often streaked with his distinctive sense of irony; his other non-fiction titles, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Happy Isles of Oceania, Sunrise with Seamonsters, The Tao of Travel, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, The Old Patagonian Express, The Great Railway Bazaar, Dark Star Safari, Fresh-air Fiend, Sir Vidia's Shadow, The Pillars of Hercules, and his novels and collections of short stories, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner The Mosquito Coast are available from Penguin.
£10.99
Simon & Schuster The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End
The visionary behind the bestselling phenomenon The Fourth Turning looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in this startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has. Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly eighty to one hundred years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about twenty years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution. Now, right on schedule, our own fourth turning has arrived. And so Neil Howe has returned with an extraordinary new prediction. What we see all around us—the polarization, the growing threat of civil conflict and global war—will culminate by the early 2030s in a climax that poses great danger and yet also holds great promise, perhaps even bringing on America’s next golden age. Every generation alive today will play a vital role in determining how this crisis is resolved, for good or ill. Illuminating, sobering, yet ultimately empowering, The Fourth Turning Is Here takes you back into history and deep into the collective personality of each living generation to make sense of our current crisis, explore how all of us will be differently affected by the political, social, and economic challenges we’ll face in the decade to come, and reveal how our country, our communities, and our families can best prepare to meet these challenges head-on.
£18.00
Wymer Publishing Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Band
The astonishing run of albums unleashed upon an unsuspecting public within the span of five years created the legend of Alice Cooper that lives on to this day. But we’re talking about the original Alice Cooper group here, a band called that with a lead singer also going by that name. In other words, the legend was built by Vincent “Alice Cooper” Furnier, Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway and “platinum god” Neal Smith. It is all of them working together — along with producer Bob Ezrin — that created the mystique of songs like “I’m Eighteen,” “Is It My Body,” “Desperado,” “Under My Wheels,” “Be My Lover,” “Elected” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” And it is all of them working together — along with crack management in Shep Gordon and Joe Greenberg—that created the shock rock buzz that kept the newspapers full of indignation about this band set out to destroy human civilization. Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Group tells the story in meticulous chronological detail, from the band’s early days in Phoenix as The Spiders, through being broke on the Sunset Strip, followed by a career-reviving relocation to a notorious party house on the outskirts of Pontiac, Michigan. Corroborating the improbable sequence of events is a plethora of stories from the band themselves, who explain how the original Alice Cooper group went from politely ignored pariahs in Los Angeles to international Public Enemies No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Listen to the guys and their good-natured explanations behind the mayhem, and it soon becomes apparent that the ghoulish makeup around the singer’s eyes and the boa constrictor around his neck — not to mention the head-choppings, the hangings and the hard rock — were all served up in good fun. Now it’s time for you, dear reader, to join in the fun and see why Alice Cooper was, for a golden moment in time fully 50 years ago now, the most feared and revered act in all of rock ‘n’ roll.
£16.99
Little, Brown Book Group Heads Up: My Life Story
'Alan's book is like his game: incisive, thoughtful, intelligent and consistently hits the target' Gary Lineker'A brilliant, articulate, thoughtful man with a wonderful sense of humour: Smudge encapsulates all he is and knows in this fantastic book that will capture the hearts of every football fan' Tony Adams'It was different back then, at least through Arsenal eyes. This was a young, exciting team full of hope and desire, led by a manager bristling with ambition . . .'Anfield '89. Copenhagen '94. Two of Arsenal's greatest triumphs in the modern era. Both matches defined by the goal-scoring prowess of one man - Alan 'Smudger' Smith.Smith's rise in football was vertiginous: playing for Alvechurch in the Southern League one year, competing in the top flight twelve months later. His first three years at Leicester were characterized by a successful partnership with Gary Lineker. When Lineker left for Everton, Smith stepped forward as the main goal-getter. It was Smith's move to Highbury, however, that enabled him to become the winner of two Golden Boots and one of the most highly-rated strikers in the game.Honest, insightful and authoritative, Heads Up reveals what it was like forging a career in the tough First Division of old before the glitz of the Premier League took hold; the ins and outs of playing for George Graham and rooming with Gazza; the truth behind Anfield '89; which team could easily have gone on to become the first 'Invincibles' had Chelsea not spoiled it one February afternoon; how the highs of the game can quickly be converted into morale-sapping lows; and how injury really does affect a career.After twenty years of writing for the Daily Telegraph, covering four World Cups, four European Championships and countless club games, Alan Smith has done what few ex-professionals are able to do - describe in his own words what it's really like to play the game . . .'Very enjoyable and typically honest account by my old mate on a fine career' Lee Dixon
£9.99
World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd World Scientific Reference On Handbook Of The Economics Of Wine (In 2 Volumes)
Over the last three decades, wine economics has emerged as a growing field within agricultural economics, but also in other fields such as finance, trade, growth, environmental economics and industrial organization. Wine has a few characteristics that differentiate it from other agricultural commodities, rendering it an interesting topic for economists in general. Fine wine can regularly fetch bottle prices that exceed several thousand dollars. It can be stored a long time and may increase in value with age. Fine wine quality and prices are extraordinarily sensitive to fluctuations in the weather of the year in which the grapes were grown. And wine is an experience good, i.e., its quality cannot be ascertained before consumption. As a result, consumers often rely on 'expert opinion' regarding quality and maturation prospects.This handbook takes a broad approach and familiarizes the reader with the main research strands in wine economics.After a general introduction to wine economics by Karl Storchmann, Volume 1 focuses on the core areas of wine economics. The first papers shed light on the relevance of the vineyard's natural environment for wine quality and prices. 'Predicting the Quality and Prices of Bordeaux Wine' by Orley Ashenfelter is a classic paper and may be the first wine economics publication ever. Ashenfelter shows how weather influences the quality and the price of Bordeaux Grands Crus wine. Since the weather condition of the year when the grapes were grown is known, an econometric analysis may be constructed. It turns out this model outperforms expert opinion, i.e., critical vintage scores. At best, expert opinion reflects public information. The subsequent papers, by Ashenfelter and Storchmann, Gergaud and Ginsburgh, and Cross, Plantinga and Stavins, tackle the terroir question. That is, they examine the relevance of a vineyard's physical characteristics for wine quality and prices, but from various dimensions and with different results. Next, Alston et al. analyze a question of great concern in the California wine industry: the causes and consequences of the rising alcohol content in California wine. Is climate change the culprit?The next chapter presents three papers that apply hedonic price analyses to fine wine. Combris, Lecocq and Visser show that Bordeaux wine market prices are essentially determined by the wines' objective characteristics. Costanigro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer differentiate their hedonic analysis for various market segments. Ali and Nauges incorporate reputational variables into their pricing model and distinguish between short- and long-run price effects.The next section of this volume deals with one of the unique characteristics of wine — its long storage life, which makes it potentially an investment asset. Studying wine's increasing role as an alternative asset class, Sanning et al., Burton and Jacobsen, Masset and Weisskopf, Masset and Henderson, and Fogarty all examine the rate of return to holding wine as well as the related risks. Since these papers analyze different wines and different time periods there is no 'one message.' However, all point out that, while wine may diversify an investor's portfolio, wine's returns do not beat common stock in the long run.The last two chapters examine the role of wine experts. First, Ashenfelter and Quandt revisit the 1976 'Judgment of Paris' and show that aggregating the assessments of several judges should go beyond 'adding points.' Depending on the method employed, the results may vary, and some measure of statistical precision is essential for interpreting the reliability of the results. In two different papers, Cicchetti and Quandt respond to the necessity to provide statistical tools for the assessment of wine tastings.In a seminal paper, Hodgson reports a remarkable field experiment in which similar wines were placed before judges at a major competition. The results have the shocking implication that how medals are awarded at a major California wine fair is not far from being random. Ashton analyzes the performance of professional wine judges and finds little support for the idea that experienced wine judges should be regarded as experts.Do experts scores influence the price of wine? The answer to this question is less obvious then commonly thought since expert opinion oftentimes only repeats public information such as wine quality that results from the weather that produced the wine grapes. Hadj Ali, Lecocq, and Visser as well as Dubois and Nauges find that high critical scores exert only small effects on wine prices. However, Roberts and Reagans show that a high critical exposure reduces the price-quality dispersion of wineries.Lecocq and Visser analyze wine prices and find that 'characteristics that are directly revealed to the consumer upon inspection of the bottle and its label explain the major part of price differences.' Expert opinion and sensory variables appear to play only a minor role. In an experimental setting using two Vickrey auctions, Combris, Lange and Issanchou confirm the leading role of public information, i.e., the label remains a key determinant for champagne prices. In a provocative and widely discussed study drawing on blind tasting results of some 5,000 wines, Goldstein and collaborators find that most consumers prefer less expensive over expensive wine.Finally, Weil examines the value of expert wine descriptions and lets several hundred subjects match the wines and their descriptors. His results suggest that the ability to assign a certain description to the matching wine is more or less random.Volume 2 covers the topics reputation, regulation, auctions, and market organizational. Landon and Smith, Anderson and Schamel, and Schamel analyze the impact of current quality and reputation (i.e., past quality) on wine prices from different regions. Their results suggest that prices are more influenced by reputation than by current quality. Costanigro, McCluskey and Goemans develop a nested framework for jointly examining the effects of product, firm and collective reputation on market prices.The following four papers deal with regulatory issues in the US as well as in Europe. While Riekoff and Sykuta shed light on the politics and economics of the three-tier system of alcohol distribution and the prohibition of direct wine shipments in the US, Deconinck and Swinnen analyze the European planting rights system. The political economy of European wine regulation is then covered by Melonie and Swinnen, before Anderson and Jensen shed light on Europe's complex system of wine industry subsidies.The next chapter is devoted to wine auctions. In three different papers, Fevrier, Roos and Visser, Ashenfelter, and Ginsburgh analyze the effects of specific auction designs on the resulting hammer prices. The papers focus on multi-unit ascending auctions, absentee bidders, and declining price anomalies.The last chapter, supply and organization, is devoted to a wide range of issues. First, Heien illuminates the price formation process in the California winegrape industry. Then, Frick analyzes if and how the separation of ownership and control affects the performance of German wineries.Vink, Kleynhans and Willem Hoffmann introduce us to various models of wine barrel financing, particularly to the Vincorp model employed in South Africa. Galbreath analyzes the role of women in the wine industry. He finds that (1) women are underrepresented and (2) that the presence of a female CEO increases the likelihood of women in winemaker, viticulturist, and marketing roles in that firm. Gokcekus, Hewstone, and Cakal draw on crowdsourced wine evaluations, i.e., Wine Tracker data, and show that private wine assessments are largely influenced by peer scores lending support to the assumption of the presence of a strong herding effect.Mahenc refers to the classic model of information asymmetries and develops a theoretical model highlighting the role of informed buyers in markets that are susceptible to the lemons problem. Lastly, in their paper 'Love or Money?' Scott, Morton and Podolny analyze how the presence of hobby winemakers may distort market outcomes. Hobby winemakers produce higher quality wines, charge higher prices, and enjoy lower financial returns than professional for-profit winemakers. As a result, profit-oriented winemakers are discouraged from locating at the high-quality end of the market.
£455.00
Princeton University Press The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory
From ritual killings to subtle acts of self-denial, the practice and rhetoric of sacrifice has a special centrality in modern American literature. In a compelling interdisciplinary investigation, Susan Mizruchi portrays an episode in American cultural history when the literary movement of realism and the fledgling field of sociology both converged in the belief that sacrifice is basic to sociality. This is a book about the fascination that sacrifice held for writers--principally Herman Melville, Henry James, and W.E.B. Du Bois--and also for those who articulated the main tenets of modern social theory, an inquiry that eventually spans historical events such as public lynchings and the political scapegoating of immigrants a century ago. The execution in Billy Budd Sailor, the death of Du Bois's first-born son in The Souls of Black Folk, Henry James's preoccupation with renunciation and scapegoating, and the self-denying working classes of Norris and Stein all illustrate repeated stagings of sacrificial rituals from a Biblical past. For Mizruchi, the peculiar persistence of this aesthetic construct becomes a guide to a rich theological and social-scientific tradition distinctive to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and including such influential works as Smith's Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, Frazer's Golden Bough, and Ross's Sin and Society. The major features of sacrifice--its original association with spiritual doubt, its function as a form of spiritual economics that sustained divisions between the fortunate and the bereft, and its role in fixing boundaries between aliens and kin--held strong symbolic value for writers struggling to reconcile faith with rationalism, and communal coherence with capitalist expansion. Mizruchi eloquently demonstrates how the conceptual power of sacrifice made it a key mediator of cultural change, from the decline of sympathy and the significance of "race" in an emerging multicultural society to the revival of maternal self-sacrifice.
£46.80
She Writes Press Hold: A Medical Mystery
Sarah Golden and Jackie Larsen promised their partners they were out of the detective business. They declared “game over” after both of them almost lost their lives trying to solve their last medical mystery, and they’re happy with that decision: Sarah has finally allowed love and romance into her life, Jackie’s marriage is solid, and Jackie’s son, Wyatt, is still doing great with his year-old kidney transplant. So when they go on their dream trip to Cuba, they are not looking for trouble. But all their plans go out the window when a desperate plea from a Cuban transplant surgeon puts the duo in serious danger with the Cuban government on the same day the four most prominent immunologists in the world—doctors who were on the verge of solving the huge rejection issues that have plagued the transplant community for over fifty years—are killed in a car accident in Chicago. Soon, Sarah and Jackie find themselves dragged into the bowels of investigating venture capitalists and corporate greed—a terrain they know nothing about. As they uncover suspect clinical trials at major US transplant centers, including Sarah’s, their usual friends Biker Bob and Officer Handsome aren’t able to help them much, but they do receive assistance from an unlikely source: Sergio, who they helped to land in prison in Florida (and who is trying to win back his girlfriend), offers his help from the inside. Sarah and Jackie are armed with smarts, humor, and enough persistence to help them face the white-collared demons of corporate America—but with dangerous players gunning for them and death threats being made against their families, will they be able to solve this mystery before someone else gets hurt?
£14.39
ACC Art Books A Palace in Sicily: A Masterpiece Restored
"A jewel of Baroque architecture, the Castelluccio Palace is the spotlight of a beautiful book retracing its history, its long restoration and its precious ornaments. These photographs reflect the Sicilian Golden Age." —Fanny Guenon des Mesnards, AD France "This monograph is an invitation to visit the Palazzo Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio."—Italian Vogue "A Palace in Sicily: A Masterpiece Restored doesn’t just pull back the curtain on the finished palace, it details the four-year-long process through an elaborate array of photos..." —Architectural Digest, and Yahoo With its sun-drenched sands and Mediterranean waters, Sicily has been a favoured destination of travellers for centuries. History is alive on this island, from ancient accounts of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Normans; to the journals of wealthy young European men embarking on the Grand Tour. This book captures the sun-steeped aesthetic of the island, while detailing the restoration of one of its finest attractions: the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palace. Marquis de Castelluccio was one of the last "servals" or “leopards” of Sicily – wealthy aristocrats who flooded the island with luxury. Following his death, his home fell to ruin. A half-century later, Jean-Louis Remilleux fell in love with this dilapidated 18th-century palace and made it his mission to restore it. Unveiled for the first time in this beautifully illustrated book, the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palazzo is one of the finest testaments to Sicilian architecture and art. Today, lush green palm trees welcome you to the palace’s imposing front façade. Frescoes, arabesques, masks, imitation marble, ceilings and wainscoting have all restored to their former glory, over decades of elaborate work. This book charts the restoration process and celebrates the astonishing end results. It contains an album’s worth of photographs that capture the beauty of this palace beneath the Mediterranean sun.
£36.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd Sovereign of the Seas, 1637: A Reconstruction of the Most Powerful Warship of its Day
Sovereign of the Seas was the most spectacular, extravagant and controversial warship of the early seventeenth century. The ultimate royal prestige project, whose armament was increased by the King's decree to the unheard-of figure of 100 guns, the ship finally cost the equivalent of ten more conventional warships. A significant proportion of this total was spent on her gilded decoration, which gave the ship a unique combination of firepower and visual impact in battle that led her Dutch opponents to dub her the Golden Devil'. The vessel was the poster-child of the notorious Ship Money' tax, raised without parliamentary approval and so unpopular it was a major factor leading to the Civil War in which Charles I lost his sovereignty and his head. In that sense, she was a ship that cost a kingdom. It is unsurprising that such a high-profile ship should be well-documented, but there are no contemporary plans and much of the visual evidence is contradictory. In this book, John McKay sets out to analyse the data and reconstruct the design and appearance of the ship in a degree of detail never previously attempted. The results are presented as a folio of superbly draughted plans, isometric drawings and coloured renderings, covering every aspect of the design from the hull form to the minutiae of sails and rigging. Each section is accompanied by an explanatory text, setting out the rationale for his conclusions, so the book will be of value to historians of the period as well as providing superb reference for any modeller tackling of one of the most popular of all sailing ship subjects.
£53.75
Zephyr Press The Score of the Game
Shcherbina emerged in the early 1980s as the spokesperson for the new, independent Moscow culture. Her work was first published in the official press of the Soviet Union in 1986, and five volumes of her poetry were published in samizdat prior to 1990. Her poetry is now widely published in both established and experimental journals at home and abroad, and has been translated into Dutch, German, French, and English. Shcherbina’s poetry blends the personal with the political, and the source for her material is pulled from classical literature, as well as French and German cultural influences. "Still-Life" Zing—Boom—Snap: drop here and there drop the seed senses the ground like a greedy trap. Whether it needs to fall, it needs to stay put as the uttermost prophetic white grasslet in the air and kafka, with golden inks a crazy engraver writes: "The seed succeeded, conceived immaculate." The seed Zing—Snap—Boom: sets out at random either toward this mother or that mother or swimming orphaned toward a leeside cutter: hurrah, an oasis! hurrah, an oasis! And all of it a mess! Snap—Boom—Zing: my mother's a sun descended from yellow melons, father a boomerang of moons a lunar elk, between them a euclidean parallel: il mirroring il, elle mirroring elle.The seed, mothlike, like trout knocks knocks against the lantern's light locked behind a glass door… Still-life: pitch dark on market day. Tatiana Shcherbina Shcherbina was awarded a Bourse de Création from the French Ministry of Culture. After living abroad for several years in the early 1990s, she returned to Moscow, where she has served as editor-in-chief of the cultural journal Estet (Aesthete) since 1995.
£12.95
Princeton University Press How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It
Dealer banks--that is, large banks that deal in securities and derivatives, such as J. P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs--are of a size and complexity that sharply distinguish them from typical commercial banks. When they fail, as we saw in the global financial crisis, they pose significant risks to our financial system and the world economy. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It examines how these banks collapse and how we can prevent the need to bail them out. In sharp, clinical detail, Darrell Duffie walks readers step-by-step through the mechanics of large-bank failures. He identifies where the cracks first appear when a dealer bank is weakened by severe trading losses, and demonstrates how the bank's relationships with its customers and business partners abruptly change when its solvency is threatened. As others seek to reduce their exposure to the dealer bank, the bank is forced to signal its strength by using up its slim stock of remaining liquid capital. Duffie shows how the key mechanisms in a dealer bank's collapse--such as Lehman Brothers' failure in 2008--derive from special institutional frameworks and regulations that influence the flight of short-term secured creditors, hedge-fund clients, derivatives counterparties, and most devastatingly, the loss of clearing and settlement services. How Big Banks Fail and What to Do about It reveals why today's regulatory and institutional frameworks for mitigating large-bank failures don't address the special risks to our financial system that are posed by dealer banks, and outlines the improvements in regulations and market institutions that are needed to address these systemic risks.
£45.11
Taschen GmbH Dian Hanson’s: The History of Men’s Magazines. Vol. 5: 1970s At the Newsstand
Pubic hair appeared on the American newsstand in 1970 compliments of Penthouse magazine. Within a year it was everywhere, and in 1975 Midwest redneck Larry Flynt parted the hair and made the pink beyond the centerpiece of Hustler. In Northern Europe censorship laws fell like dominos after Berth Milton confronted Swedish parliament with hardcore photos in 1967, asking what it would do if he published them in Private magazine. The answer was nothing. Denmark followed, producing magazines for France as well. England, always lagging, finally got the knickers off, but kept its censorship laws. Japan, long suppressed, found release in bondage magazines like New Roman Porno and SM Select, though pubic hair stayed forbidden. Italy passed a law in 1975 exempting newsstand dealers from responsibility for the content of magazines; much like in Sweden hardcore was suddenly everywhere, while just five years before divorce was illegal. The Pill removed pregnancy fear and couples embraced swinging, the suburban sexual revolution, with swing magazines in the U.S. and Europe helping to hook them up. Behind much of it was politically motivated idealists and oddballs. Peter Wolff and the “Love family” made reader written magazines, bringing publishing power to the people. Al Goldstein challenged American censorship with Screw, while a Texas ad exec tried to keep tasteless hillbilly humor alive with Sex to Sexty. History of Men’s Magazines Volume 5 includes over 600 hair-raising covers and photos from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, the U.S. and more, with the usual inspired text.
£45.00
Taschen GmbH 1920s Berlin
It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich’s rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought. This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin’s Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls; the crowded kinos and flapper fashion; the advances in technology and transport; the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains; the soaring buildings; the cinematic masterworks; and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money. Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Höch's The Journalists; Lotte Jacobi’s Hands on Typewriter; Otto Dix's Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden; Peter Behrens's project of theAlexanderplatz; and Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.
£15.00
Signal Books Ltd Budapest: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination)
The views of Budapest by the River Danube are unparalleled in Europe. On one side, the Buda Hills reach almost to the riverside, with Castle Hill and Gellert Hill offering outstanding panoramas. Pest, linked to Buda by a series of imposing bridges, with its mixture of late nineteenth-century Historicist and early twentieth-century Art Nouveau architecture, is still very much a "turn-of-the-century" city. For more than fifty years prior to the Second World War, Budapest was one of the outstanding cultural capitals of Central Europe, on a par with, and in some ways in advance of Vienna and Prague. Now, no longer "hidden" behind the Iron Curtain, much of that old atmosphere has returned. With its rich and often turbulent history, its unique thermal baths, its excellent public transport system, its street cafes and broad-ranging cultural scene, Budapest is a captivating metropolis, currently being rediscovered as one of the liveliest cities in the region. The city of Danube: Straddling the majestic river, Budapest's location is unique, its architecture stunning; the story of Castle Hill, overlooking the Danube, recalls the birth of the city as well as the sixteenth-century monarch, King Matthias, and Hungary's "golden age" associated with his reign. The city of Fusions: Bartok and Kodaly fused folk and classical; the tradition continues with Budapest's vibrant mixture of live folk, gypsy, klezmer and jazz. The city of the Unknown: Breaking through the barrier of the Hungarian language, often described as impenetrable, presented here are writers and poets deserving international recognition.
£15.00
St Augustine's Press Baseball and Memory – Winning, Losing, and the Remembrance of Things Past
In this historical/philosophical reflection, Lee Congdon writes of the ways in which baseball spurs memory. This is particularly important at a time when many Americans suffer from a form of amnesia that renders them defenseless in the face of concerted efforts to seize possession of the past. “Who controls the past controls the future,” George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four, “who controls the present controls the past.” Baseball can, and does, stand in the way of those whose ambition it is to gain and maintain power by pretending that memory cannot be trusted; what was once thought to be “the past” was merely a fiction that served the interests of a ruling class. This, Congdon argues, is asself-serving as it is untrue. Memory can play tricks on us, but, supported as it often is by confirming evidence, it alone can tell us who we are – and more. When we remember important moments and players from the game’s past, we soon discover that they are inextricably intertwined with particular eras in our common history: Babe Ruth and the Jazz Age, Joe DiMaggio and the country at war, Willie Mays and the 1950s. In often revelatory ways, those eras come alive again, and as a result we gain greater self-understanding, as individuals and as a people. Although he draws upon the entire history of baseball, Congdon focuses primarily on the decade of the 1950s because he believes it to have been the game’s golden age – and a far better time in the nation’s history than Americans have been taught to think. Baseball’s continual invitation to communal remembrance can, he concludes, help us to avoid the fate reserved for those who forget.
£20.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Comfort and Joy: Irresistible Pleasures from a Vegetarian Kitchen
Harper's Bazaar BEST cookbook to buy now Shortlisted for Fortnum & Mason Cookery Writer of the Year - Ravinder Bhogal for work in FT Weekend Magazine --------------- Vegetables are the soul of the kitchen. Comfort and Joy is a fresh take on vegetarian and vegan cooking; not geared towards health or denial but indulging all the senses with a decadent global larder. This is a cookbook of great bounty, promising fortifying curries and stews, the warm embrace of aromatic fried bhajis and rich, satisfying desserts. For Ravinder Bhogal, food should be made and shared with abundance in mind, and this sense of pleasure is conveyed on every page. From Mango and Golden Coin Curry, Shiro Miso Udon Mushroom and Kale Carbonara to Strawberry Falooda Milk Cake, this is food as pursuit of pleasure. Ravinder is one of the best food writers in Britain today, and interwoven throughout these recipes are stories of a life led by the feel-good, life-enhancing power of vegetarian food. Raw, modern and sensual, Comfort and Joy applies Ravinder's creative ingenuity to approachable veg-centric recipes for home cooks. The vegetarian option will never again be relegated to second choice. ------------------ 'Nothing less than the most original cookery writer in Britain today' - Sathnam Sanghera ‘A gorgeous and enticing marriage of styles and flavours that is uniquely Ravinder’s’ - Claudia Roden 'A revelation-you will never look at "the vegetarian option” in the same way after diving into her inventive, bewitching and mouth watering book ' - Meera Syal 'Never has a book been so aptly named. Ravinder Bhogal is a sorceress with vegetables. You’ll find the unexpected and the startling on every page' - Diana Henry
£23.40
University of Minnesota Press Fuel: A Speculative Dictionary
Fuel is an idiosyncratic, speculative dictionary of fuels, real and imagined, historical and futuristic, hopeless and utopian. Drawing on literature, film, and scientific treatises—most produced long before “climate change” was in circulation—Fuel argues for a distinction between energy (a system of power) and fuel (a substance, which can be thought of as “potentiality”) as it endeavors to undo the dream that we can simply switch to renewables and all will be golden.From “Air” to “Zyklon B,” entries in this unusual “dictionary” include Algae, Clathrates, Dilithium, Fleece, Goats, Theology, Whale Oil, and many, many more. The tone of the entries ranges as widely as the topics: from historical anecdotes (the Ford Fiesta “boozemobile”) to eccentric readings of the classics of “energy lit” (Germinal and Oil!); from literary observations (a high octane Odyssey?) to excursions into literary theory. The dictionary draws from an eccentric canon, including works by Jules Verne, George Eliot’s Silas Marner, Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl, and the Tom Cruise vehicle Oblivion, among others. A message from this ambitious project is that energy can be understood as a heterogeneous set of self-mystifying systems or machines that block access to thought as they fascinate us. Fuels emerge as more primal elements that the audience can grasp at various points along the way to consumption/combustion. This dictionary can help scramble our thinking about fuel—not in order to demonize energy and not in order to create a new hierarchy in which certain renewables take over from fossil fuels but instead to open up potential ways of interacting with real and imaginary substances, by wrenching them out of narrative and placing them into an idiosyncratic dictionary to be applied by readers into new narratives.
£21.99
Stanford University Press Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment
This book studies the nature of Venetian rule over the Slavs of Dalmatia during the eighteenth century, focusing on the cultural elaboration of an ideology of empire that was based on a civilizing mission toward the Slavs. The book argues that the Enlightenment within the “Adriatic Empire” of Venice was deeply concerned with exploring the economic and social dimensions of backwardness in Dalmatia, in accordance with the evolving distinction between “Western Europe” and “Eastern Europe” across the continent. It further argues that the primitivism attributed to Dalmatians by the Venetian Enlightenment was fundamental to the European intellectual discovery of the Slavs. The book begins by discussing Venetian literary perspectives on Dalmatia, notably the drama of Carlo Goldoni and the memoirs of Carlo Gozzi. It then studies the work that brought the subject of Dalmatia to the attention of the European Enlightenment: the travel account of the Paduan philosopher Alberto Fortis, which was translated from Italian into English, French, and German. The next two chapters focus on the Dalmatian inland mountain people called the Morlacchi, famous as “savages” throughout Europe in the eighteenth century. The Morlacchi are considered first as a concern of Venetian administration and then in relation to the problem of the “noble savage,” anthropologically studied and poetically celebrated. The book then describes the meeting of these administrative and philosophical discourses concerning Dalmatia during the final decades of the Venetian Republic. It concludes by assessing the legacy of the Venetian Enlightenment for later perspectives on Dalmatia and the South Slavs from Napoleonic Illyria to twentieth-century Yugoslavia.
£104.40
Random House USA Inc Chasing Rainbows (Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go)
An exciting full-color storybook based on the animated series Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go™ on Netflix and Cartoon Network!Thomas the Tank Engine's newest adventures take him to places he never dreamed of! Train-loving boys and girls ages 2 to 5 will love this adorable Little Golden Book based on the Thomas & Friends animated series Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go™ on Netflix and Cartoon Network!As the hero of his own adventure in the Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go™ series, Thomas will be center stage and we will see the world through his young eyes. More playful and relatable than ever before, his competitive spirit will be readily apparent as he strives to be the Number One Tank Engine on Sodor through play, trial and error, and just enjoying being a kid.In the early 1940s, a loving father crafted a small blue wooden train engine for his son, Christopher. The stories that this father, the Reverend W Awdry, made up to accompany the wonderful toy were first published in 1945 and became the basis for the Railway Series, a collection of books about Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends--and the rest is history.The Thomas & Friends characters are now a big extended family of engines and others on the Island of Sodor. They appear not only in books but also in television shows and movies, and as a wide variety of beautifully made toys. The adventures of Thomas and his friends, which are always, ultimately, about friendship, have delighted generations of train-loving boys and girls for more than 70 years and will continue to do so for generations to come.
£6.97
University of California Press Modern Heroism: Essays on D. H. Lawrence, William Empson, and J. R. R. Tolkien
In these three studies, hinging on an unusual theme, Roger Sale examines three very different writers: an impassioned novelist, a wry and witty literary critic, and a donnish teller of apparently old-fashioned romances that have achieved a cult following today. Many people assume that heroism is dead because the heroic styles of past ages no longer exist. Roger Sale contends that this assumption is accompanied by other beliefs that are part of what he calls the Myth of Lost Unity (a variation on the myth of the Golden Age): a sense that the world was once "whole" but in recent centuries has gradually disintegrated; a feeling that the human condition is now lost or alienated or drifting; and a conviction that the proper response to life is resignation, cynicism, or despair. Sale reminds us that Lawrence, Empson, and Tolkien all came to believe in the major features of the Myth of Lost Unity. Each, however, replied to what seemed his—and our fate—and defied the implications of the myth, achieving a community as a badge of that defiance. Sale’s exploration of their separate merits reveals how their heroism made them alike. The strength of Modern Heroism lies in the formidable critical powers Sale exercises in his three variations on its theme. 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.
£72.00
University of California Press The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser
When Theodore Dreiser first published "Sister Carrie" in 1900 it was suppressed for its seamy plot, colloquial language, and immorality - for, as one reviewer put it, its depiction of 'the godless side of American life'. It was a side of life experienced firsthand by Dreiser, whose own circumstances often paralleled those of his characters in the turbulent, turn-of-the-century era of immigrants, black lynchings, ruthless industrialists, violent labor movements, and the New Woman. This masterful critical biography, the first on Dreiser in more than half a century, is the only study to fully weave Dreiser's literary achievement into the context of his life. Jerome Loving gives us a Dreiser for a new generation in a brilliant evocation of a writer who boldly swept away Victorian timidity to open the twentieth century in American literature. Dreiser was a controversial figure in his time, not only because of his literary efforts, which included publication of the brutal and heartbreaking "An American Tragedy" in 1925, but also because of his personal life, which featured numerous sexual liaisons, included membership in the communist party, merited a 180-page FBI file, and ended in Hollywood. "The Last Titan" paints a full portrait of the mature Dreiser between the two world wars - through the roaring twenties, the stock market crash, and the Depression - and describes his contact with important figures from Emma Goldman and H.L. Mencken to two presidents Roosevelt. Tracing Dreiser's literary roots in Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman, Loving has written what will surely become the standard biography of one of America's best novelists.
£32.40
Rizzoli International Publications TV USA: An Atlas for Channel Surfers
For more than 75 years, television shows have used their fictional or real settings as major characters. When you think of shows like Seinfeld, E.R., The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Golden Girls you can t not think of New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Miami (to say nothing of shows like Chicago Hope, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hot in Cleveland, L.A. Law, It s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The King of Queens, LA to Vegas, Sex and the City, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Middle, or even Gilligan s Island. From comedies to dramedies to dramas, every state in the union (and Washington, D.C.) can claim a show (or two or dozens) as their own. TV USA is the first ever fully illustrated atlas of the in-world restaurants, businesses, and notable locations featured in everyone s favourite television shows. In TV USA, readers will embark on a fully illustrated pop culture road trip from sea to televised sea (check local listings for times). Having a medical emergency in Seattle? Rush over to Gray Sloan Memorial Hospital. Owned and operated by its staff of top-notch doctors, this Level-1 Trauma Center is nationally recognized as a top healthcare provider. (Gray s Anatomy); Looking for a cozy inn in Vermont? You can t go wrong with Dick and Joanna Louden s Stratford Inn. (Newhart); Visiting New York? You must stop by Rockefeller Plaza to catch a free taping of TGS with Tracy Jordan. There s never a line, so seats are always available (30 Rock). TV USA is the perfect guided tour for the whole family, without the trauma of having your dad threaten to turn the car around.
£8.98
University of Exeter Press Ramparts of Empire: The Fortifications of Sir William Jervois, Royal Engineer 1821 - 1897
William Jervois was a military engineer who rose to prominence as a result of Lord Palmerston’s extensive programme of fortification against a feared French invasion in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Ramparts of Empire is a detailed and engaging study of his life and works. As the first comprehensive study of this influential Victorian, the bookis an important contribution to military and engineering history as well as to the history of Imperial Britain. The text is richly illustrated with photographs and plans of Jervois’ forts, while supporting appendices provide a mine of supplementary information. This includes a gazetteer of Jervois’ works and documentary evidence of his involvement in plans for a Channel Tunnel and a proposal for attacking the seaboard of the United States. In 1860, Palmerston’s parliament sanctioned the construction of the largest system of fortifications that the British Isles had ever seen, or would ever see again, to defend against a feared French invasion. For William Jervois, then a young major in the Royal Engineers, his appointment as ‘design leader’ of this programme was a major step in a career in fortress construction that would see his work in Britain, the Channel Islands, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda, India, and later, Australia and New Zealand. Timothy Crick makes extensive use of extracts from Jervois’ diaries and illustrations of his fortresses to give the reader a rounded picture of this Royal Engineer’s wide-ranging career. He also captures a real sense of the fears of invasion that prevailed in this period. Throughout the book both the political background and the technical considerations involved in constructing forts and armaments are carefully explored to flesh out the motivations in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of British fort building.
£80.00
Hal Leonard Corporation Top of the Mountain: The Beatles at Shea Stadium 1965
In August 1965, during a sweltering heatwave, 56,000 people traveled by plane, car, bus, ferry, and subway train to pack New York's Shea Stadium on a Sunday evening—not for a baseball game, but for a rock and roll concert. This idea was the crazy dream of concert promoter Sid Bernstein. No rock band had ever played a baseball stadium, and no one believed he could pull it off. But on that glorious night, The Beatles sold out Shea Stadium, shattering all existing box office and attendance records in show business history. Oh, and they also changed the world. Against the backdrop of a remarkably volatile year in our nation's history, Top of the Mountain: The Beatles at Shea Stadium, 1965 delivers all the detail and excitement of Shea and the spirited, curious new generation who would soon claim the decade for its own. Told through first-person interviews and quotes, a unique cast of characters tells the story: celebrities then and celebrities now, writers, agents, producers, photographers, opening act performers, fans, security guards, radio personalities, cameramen, and media—all of whom were part of the night. Caryn Johnson (Whoopi Goldberg) and Steven Lento (Little Steven Van Zandt); future Beatle wives Linda Eastman and Barbara Bach; established stars like Bobby Vinton and Ed Sullivan; and artists hoping one day to equal this success, such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Felix Cavaliere and The Rascals, Marvin Gaye, and more share their memories of this remarkable night in Top of the Mountain.
£27.00
Globe Pequot Press Superheroes!: The History of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon from Ant-Man to Zorro
Superheroes! is the ultimate reference book about the men and women in tights who fight for what’s right and the comic book phenomenon that conquered the world. From their origins in stories created by barely grown men during an era of global war and printed on cheap paper for consumption by children, superheroes have grown into a popular culture whirlwind that has attracted millions of fans and crossed over into every form of media.Encompassing early coming books, indie outliers, and the mammoth fictional universes managed by DC and Marvel, Superheroes! chronicles the rise of a distinctly American invention, the modern-day evolution of the myths and legends of old. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Captain America, X-Men, the Justice League and the Avengers—they all represent our greatest hopes, and sometimes our darkest fantasies. Pop culture expert Brian Solomon tells a story that goes from the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of comic book history right up to the Modern Age of multimillion-dollar Hollywood movies, and beyond. Perhaps no fictional genre has endured and blossomed over the past eighty years the way superheroes have. Learn all about the creators who have brought them to life: artists like Jack Kirby and Jim Lee, writers like Stan Lee and Alan Moore, actors like Christopher Reeve and Robert Downey Jr., and directors like Tim Burton and Joss Whedon. They’re all here, in all their high-flying, eye-zapping, goon-punching glory. Up, up and away!
£17.99
Workman Publishing Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan
Winner, James Beard Award for Best Book of the Year, International (2017) Winner, IACP Award for Best Cookbook of the Year in Culinary Travel (2017) Named a Best Cookbook of the Year by The Boston Globe, Food & Wine, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal “A reason to celebrate . . . a fascinating culinary excursion.” —The New York Times Though the countries in the Persian culinary region are home to diverse religions, cultures, languages, and politics, they are linked by beguiling food traditions and a love for the fresh and the tart. Color and spark come from ripe red pomegranates, golden saffron threads, and the fresh herbs served at every meal. Grilled kebabs, barbari breads, pilafs, and brightly colored condiments are everyday fare, as are rich soup-stews called ash and alluring sweets like rose water pudding and date-nut halvah. Our ambassador to this tasty world is the incomparable Naomi Duguid, who for more than 20 years has been bringing us exceptional recipes and mesmerizing tales from regions seemingly beyond our reach. More than 125 recipes, framed with stories and photographs of people and places, introduce us to a culinary paradise where ancient legends and ruins rub shoulders with new beginnings—where a wealth of history and culinary traditions makes it a compelling place to read about for cooks and travelers and for anyone hankering to experience the food of a wider world.
£27.99
John Wiley & Sons Inc Persian Cooking For Dummies
Taste Real Home-cooked Persian Food for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner The most celebrated Persian chef in America, Najmieh Batmanglij brings you her favorite traditional, healthy Persian dishes, simplified for modern American kitchens. Persian Cooking For Dummies, written for cooks of all skill levels will transform the way you cook. Offering more than 100 recipes, some of which can be made in less than an hour, this book will guide you through the art and craft of one of the world’s oldest, yet least known culinary, traditions in the West. These flavors and aromas are rarely replicated in restaurants, so prepare to be wowed by your own creations as you follow these easy guidelines in the warmth and comfort of your own kitchen. The distinctive herbs, the heavenly aromas of saffron and rose water, and the sweet and sour flavors will impress your guests and delight your family. Prepare kababs, braises, golden-crusted, tah-dig rice dishes, and delicious desserts Learn the tricks and techniques that have been perfected over thousands of years Enjoy the unique aromas and flavors of the food of Iran—right in your own home Learn the history of Persian cooking and access a glossary of Persian culinary terms Many recipes are one page, simple to follow, and take less than an hour to make. Adapted for today’s lifestyle, Persian Cooking For Dummies is perfect for experienced and novice cooks alike. Take a journey through this exotic cuisine and get cooking, with Dummies.
£17.09
The University of Chicago Press The Art of Creative Research: A Field Guide for Writers
All writers conduct research. For some this means poring over records and combing, archives but for many creative writers research happens in the everyday world when they scribble an observation on the subway, when they travel to get the feel for a city, or when they strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger.The Art of Creative Research helps writers take this natural inclination to explore and observe and turn it into a workable and enjoyable research plan. It shows that research shouldn't be seen as a dry, plodding aspect of writing. Instead, it's an art that all writers can master, one that unearths surprises and fuels imagination. This lends authenticity to fiction and poetry as well as nonfiction. Philip Gerard distills the process into fundamental questions: How do you conduct research? And what can you do with the information you gather? He covers both in-person research and work in archives and illustrates how the different types of research can be incorporated into stories, poems, and essays using examples from a wide range of writers in addition to those from his own projects. Throughout, Gerard brings knowledge from his seasoned background into play, drawing on his experiences as a reporter and a writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His enthusiasm for adventure is infectious and will inspire writers to step away from the keyboard and into the world. "Research can take you to that golden intersection where the personal meets the public, the private crosses the universal, where the best literature lives," Gerard writes. With his masterly guidance, anyone can become an expert in artful investigation.
£17.41
Everyman Poems from Greek Antiquity
There is a great deal more to Greek poetry than the Iliad or the Odyssey. Shorter masterpieces abound, and the lyrical and elegiac poems, odes, and epigrams in this volume give an unparalleled sampling of them. Included here are selections from the early Greek poets - from Hesiod, Pindar and Bacchylides, Alcaeus and Sappho; from the later Alexandrian poets Theocritus, Bion, Apollonius of Rhodes, and many more. A whole section is devoted to poems from the celebrated Greek Anthology, which spans a thousand years from the Classical to the Byzantine age, and another to the Anacreontea, the delightful collection of odes on the pleasures of drink, love, and beauty which has been popular for centuries both in the original Greek and in English. Excerpts from somewhat longer poems include Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Homeric Hymn to Mercury' and the hugely entertaining Homeric pastiche 'The Battle of the Frogs and Mice'.Paul Quarrie's selection of English translations draws fruitfully on the work of lesser-known as well as more famous names. In these pages poets jostle with Regius Professors of Greek at Oxbridge, professional writers and translators with enthusiastic amateurs including teachers, librarians, aristocrats, diplomats, civil servants, bankers, soldiers and clergymen. Historically their translations range from anonymous versions produced in Tudor England through the golden age of translation presided over by George Chapman in the seventeenth century, to modern translations by James Michie, Fleur Adcock and Robert Fagles. The editor provides an informative preface, introductions to the Greek Anthology and the Anacreontea, and biographies of translators where bibliographical detail is set off by colourful anecdote.
£12.00
Quercus Publishing This Eden
This Eden is a smart modern-day adventure reminiscent of both the cyber noir novels of William Gibson and the golden age of espionage fiction.'An incredibly fast-paced literary thriller, tricksy & crammed with ideas, beautifully written, occupying its own unique territory somewhere between Graham Greene & William Gibson' Kevin PowerEver felt like you were living in a dystopian tech thriller? That's because you are... Michael is out of his depth. The closest he ever came to working in tech was when he rode a delivery bike for a food app in Vancouver. Yet when his coder girlfriend dies, he is inexplicably headhunted by sinister tech mogul Campbell Fess, who transplants him to Silicon Valley. There, a reluctant female spy named Aoife lures him into the hands of Towse, an enigmatic war-gamer, who tricks them both into joining his quest to save the world, and reality itself, from the deadliest weapon ever invented. Hunted by government agents and corporate goons, manipulated at every turn by the philosophising Towse, Aoife and Michael find themselves in an intercontinental chase which will take them from California to New York, from the forests of Uganda to Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria and Paris, and to a final showdown with the truth in Aoife's native Ireland.Fast-moving, exhilarating and tense, This Eden is both a classic spy novel and speculative fiction for the here and the now. O'Loughlin adapts the propulsive thriller form to create a sharp yet passionate account of a world under mortal threat from cyber-warfare, feral money, runaway technology, and a cynical onslaught on truth itself.
£9.04
Penguin Books Ltd Glint: The dark fantasy TikTok sensation that’s sold over a million copies
THE DARK FANTASY TIKTOK SENSATION AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THAT'S SOLD OVER A MILLION COPIES**PERFECT FOR FANS OF SARAH J. MAAS AND JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT**'Sexy and touching all at the same time . . . and that plot twist, OMG' 5***** Reader Review'Read this series NOW! I felt like I was in the story watching and holding my breath the entire time' 5***** Reader Review_______'I hope you burn so bright that you scorch your Golden King down to ash'After ten years, I have left the grips of one king only to fall into the hands of another.I have fought the terrifying Red Raid Pirates, endured the murder of those I care about, and survived the frozen planes of Orea, only to find myself a prisoner of the army of Fourth Kingdom.Leading the army is Commander Rip, a notorious warrior whose name is whispered in taverns and street corners all over the six kingdoms.But as I get to know him, I realise that the tales of his brutality aren't true.He is something else. He is fae.Part of the powerful and magical people who are said to have abandoned this world entirely three hundred years ago.But here one stands before me. And when he turns his onyx eyes upon me, I fall captive.For an entirely different reason.As his army march towards a battle with the king I once adored, I must decide.Midas or Rip.Loyalty or freedom.In this game of war and love, it's my turn to choose._______'A spectacularly written, engaging, imaginative retelling of the ancient myth of King Midas' 5***** Reader Review'I literally devoured this book in one sitting' 5***** Reader Review
£10.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919 - 1939
Richard Overy's The Morbid Age opens a window onto the creative but anxious period between the First and Second World Wars. British intellectual life between the wars stood at the heart of modernity; it was the golden age of the public intellectual and scientist: Arnold Toynbee, Aldous and Julian Huxley, H. G. Wells, Marie Stopes and a host of others. Yet, as Richard Overy argues, a striking characteristic of so many of the ideas that emerged from this new age - from eugenics to the Freudian unconscious, to modern ideas of pacifism and world government - was the fear that the West was faced a dystopian future of war, economic collapse and racial degeneration. Brilliantly evoking a Britain of BBC radio lectures, public debates, peace demonstrations, pamphleteers, psychoanalysts, anti-fascist volunteers, sex education manuals and science fiction, The Morbid Age reveals a time at once different from, and yet surprisingly similar to, our own. 'History at its best' Economist 'The carefree image of life in Britain between the wars is overturned in this magnificent account' Peter Preston, Observer 'It is hard to imagine anyone recording these times more exactly and more intelligently, or with greater insight and scholarship, than Overy has' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 'With learning, lucidity and wit, The Morbid Age ... brilliantly describes the sense of an inevitably approaching catastrophe' Eric Hobsbawm, London Review of Books Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. His books include Why the Allies Won, Russia's War, The Battle of Britain and The Dictators, which won the Wolfson and the Hessell Tiltman Prizes for history in 2005.
£16.99
Octopus Publishing Group Be a Birder: The joy of birdwatching and how to get started
'He is delight and joy personified' - MARIAN KEYES'Set to become BBC's next David Attenborough' - DAILY MAIL'Brings a little bit of joy to us all' - GUARDIAN Discover the wonderful world of birdwatching with wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin - winner of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing 2022 and presenter of BBC documentary Hamza: Strictly Birds of Prey 'Birds have been with me my entire life - from the colourful weaver birds on the banks of the Nile in Sudan to the magpies of Newcastle, from the roosting peregrine falcons near my parents' house in Northampton to the white-tailed eagles on the west coast of Scotland. I love them. If you take the time to stop and listen, you'll see the world through different eyes. It's all out there, waiting for you to find it. And it might just bring you as much joy as it's brought me.'Journey along with Hamza in Be a Birder as he recounts stories of his birding adventures, and shares tips and tricks to help you get started in birdwatching.In this beautifully illustrated guide, featuring fifty of Hamza's favourite birds, you will learn how to start identifying birds, understand their behaviour and movements, and find even more exciting birds, wherever you are. Starting with the goldfinch in your garden, to tawny owls in woodlands, to the elusive kingfisher near rivers and marshes, you will build your birdwatching confidence and push yourself further afield to find new feathered wonders.Encouraging us all to stop, step outside and listen, Be a Birder is both a practical guide and a joyous celebration of these incredible creatures. Once you start looking for them, and with Hamza as your guide, your world will be forever changed.
£16.99
Fox Chapel Publishing Complete Guide to Bird Carving: 15 Beautiful Beginner-to-Advanced Projects
No matter what kind of carver you are or what difficulty level you’ve reached, bird wood carving is for you! Featuring a compilation of 15 step-by-step projects from Woodcarving Illustrated, Complete Guide to Bird Carving includes easy-to-follow guidance, expert tips, and wood carving patterns for a variety of recognizable birds, including woodpeckers, chickadees, owls, blue herons, goldfinches, and more. From simple whittled songbirds and a comfort bird to realistic hummingbirds and a stylized wren, this must-have project guide features various techniques on how to carve wood birds – such as whittling, relief carving, and power carving – and is perfect for tailoring to your comfort and skill level, from beginner to advanced. Also included are helpful overviews on materials, tools, adding texture, painting, and finishing. Original projects and patterns contributed by well-known and talented carvers in the industry, including Chris Lubkemann, Greg Young, Randy Conner, Sandy Czajka, and others.
£13.49
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy – 2014
A sizable gap exists between the growing demand for entrepreneurship education and our understanding of how best to approach the teaching and learning of entrepreneurship. Based on papers, presentations and workshops that have appeared at the annual United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Conference over the past thirty years, this book offers cutting edge perspectives from expert educators and thought leaders on best practices in teaching entrepreneurship, building curricula and developing educational programs.The book is organized into three sections. The first, a set of research papers exploring a range of important issues in entrepreneurship education, provides a comprehensive outline of the field. This is followed by an overview of award-winning model academic programs in entrepreneurship at five different universities and a collection of real-world examples of teaching innovations, unique approaches to experiential learning and high-impact community engagement initiatives.This detailed and thorough synthesis of leading perspectives on entrepreneurship education will appeal to faculty and administrators in business schools, universities, technical schools and other institutions that include entrepreneurship courses in their curriculum.Contributors: S. Alpi, P. Bessler, A. Borgese, C.G. Brush, B. Burke, E. Cadotte, L. Canning, D.Y. Choi, R. D'Souza, A.F. DeNoble, W. Deutsch, N. Duval-Couetil, M.L. Fernau, M.G. Goldsby, P.G. Greene, E.Grossman, B. Hancock, K. Hmieleski, K. Joos, G. Kamau, J.B. Kaplan, J. Kraft, N. Krueger, D.F. Kuratko, M. Leaman, C. Matthews, D. McDonagh, T. Means, K. Mehta, J. Messing, R.K. Mitchell, N. Miyasaki, K.F. Molkentin, M.H. Morris, H.N. Neck, T. Nelson, J.A Robinson, M. Schindehutte, J.J. Schmidt, W. Schulze, R. Smilor, G. Solomon, J. Strimaitis, J. Thomas, C.-C. Tseng, I. Welpe, M. Wheadon, R.J. White
£46.95
University of Minnesota Press Berlin Replayed: Cinema and Urban Nostalgia in the Postwall Era
Scarred by the Second World War, divided during the Cold War, and turned into a massive construction site in the early postwall years, Berlin has dramatically reinvented itself in the new millennium. Film has served a neglected but important function in this transformation.In Berlin Replayed, Brigitta B. Wagner shows how old and new films set in Berlin created a collective urban nostalgia for the city’s best, most inclusive, and most conciliatory pasts in the face of its renewed purpose as the all-German capital. Exploring films such as Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run, and Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye, Lenin!, the book establishes that these films don’t merely feature the city but actively construct how viewers come to know different Berlins of the past and present. To illustrate how film has repeatedly remade the image of the city, Berlin Replayed focuses on four key periods: the golden 1920s, when the city was a major filmmaking center; the prewall 1950s, when Berlin had two ideologically opposed film industries; the politically transformative late 1980s and early 1990s; and the hyped start of the twenty-first century.By showing how films have helped revive memories of the “good” Berlin and, by extension, the “good” Germany, Berlin Replayed reveals the underappreciated but powerful role film has played in the process of unifying Germany’s historical experience and bridging its physical and political divisions.
£23.99
Cornell University Press Nobody's Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics
Since the turn of the new millennium English-language verse has entered a new historical phase, but explanations vary as to what has actually happened and why. What might constitute a viable avant-garde poetics in the aftermath of such momentous developments as 9/11, globalization, and the financial crisis? Much of this discussion has taken place in ephemeral venues such as blogs, e-zines, public lectures, and conferences. Nobody’s Business is the first book to treat the emergence of Flarf and Conceptual Poetry in a serious way. In his engaging account, Brian M. Reed argues that these movements must be understood in relation to the proliferation of digital communications technologies and their integration into the corporate workplace. Writers such as Andrea Brady, Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith, Danny Snelson, and Rachel Zolf specifically target for criticism the institutions, skill sets, and values that make possible the smooth functioning of a postindustrial, globalized economy. Authorship comes in for particular scrutiny: how does writing a poem differ in any meaningful way from other forms of "content providing"? While often adept at using new technologies, these writers nonetheless choose to explore anachronism, ineptitude, and error as aesthetic and political strategies. The results can appear derivative, tedious, or vulgar; they can also be stirring, compelling, and even sublime. As Reed sees it, this new generation of writers is carrying on the Duchampian practice of generating antiart that both challenges prevalent definitions or art and calls into question the legitimacy of the institutions that define it.
£40.50
Princeton University Press How to Care about Animals: An Ancient Guide to Creatures Great and Small
An entertaining and enlightening anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings on animals—and our vital relationships with themHow to Care about Animals is a fascinating menagerie of passages from classical literature about animals and the lives we share with them. Drawing on ancient writers from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher has gathered a healthy litter of selections that reveal some of the ways Greeks and Romans thought about everything from lions, bears, and wolves to birds, octopuses, and snails—and that might inspire us to rethink our own relationships with our fellow creatures. Presented in lively new translations, with the original texts on facing pages, these pieces are filled with surprises—anticipating but also offering new perspectives on many of our current feelings and ideas about animals.Here, Porphyry makes a compelling argument for vegetarianism and asserts that the just treatment of animals makes us better people; Pliny the Elder praises the virtuosity of songbirds and the virtuousness of elephants; Plutarch has one of Circe’s pigs from the Odyssey make a serio-comic case for the dignity of the beasts of the field; Aristotle puts the study of animals on par with anthropology; we read timeless Aesopian fables, including “The Hen That Laid the Golden Egg” and “The Fox and the Grapes”; and there is much, much more.A Noah’s Ark of a book, How to Care about Animals is guaranteed to charm and inspire anyone who loves animals.
£14.99
Princeton University Press Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security
How professionalization and scholarly “rigor” made social scientists increasingly irrelevant to US national security policyTo mobilize America’s intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post–9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that “we must again embrace eggheads and ideas.” But the gap between national security policymakers and international relations scholars has become a chasm.In Cult of the Irrelevant, Michael Desch traces the history of the relationship between the Beltway and the Ivory Tower from World War I to the present day. Recounting key Golden Age academic strategists such as Thomas Schelling and Walt Rostow, Desch’s narrative shows that social science research became most oriented toward practical problem-solving during times of war and that scholars returned to less relevant work during peacetime. Social science disciplines like political science rewarded work that was methodologically sophisticated over scholarship that engaged with the messy realities of national security policy, and academic culture increasingly turned away from the job of solving real-world problems.In the name of scientific objectivity, academics today frequently engage only in basic research that they hope will somehow trickle down to policymakers. Drawing on the lessons of this history as well as a unique survey of current and former national security policymakers, Desch offers concrete recommendations for scholars who want to shape government work. The result is a rich intellectual history and an essential wake-up call to a field that has lost its way.
£31.50