Search results for ""author rath"

Focusing on artwork by Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, and Piero Manzoni, Jaleh Mansoor demonstrates and reveals how abstract painting, especially the monochrome, broke with fascist-associated futurism and functioned as an index of social transition in postwar Italy. Mansoor refuses to read the singularly striking formal and procedural violence of Fontana's slit canvasses, Burri's burnt and exploded plastics, and Manzoni's "achromes" as metaphors of traumatic memories of World War II. Rather, she locates the motivation for this violence in the history of the medium of painting and in the economic history of postwar Italy. Reconfiguring the relationship between politics and aesthetics, Mansoor illuminates how the monochrome's reemergence reflected Fontana, Burri, and Manzoni's aesthetic and political critique of the Marshall Plan's economic warfare and growing American hegemony. It also anticipated the struggles in Italy's factories, classrooms, and streets that gave rise to Autonomia in the 1960s. Marshall Plan Modernism refigures our understanding of modernist painting as a project about labor and the geopolitics of postwar reconstruction during the Italian Miracle.

Read more less

Attempting to bridge the gap between specialised scholarship in the humanistic disciplines and an interdisciplinary project of cultural analysis, Mieke Bal has written an intellectual travel guide that charts the course 'beyond' cultural studies. As with any guide, it can be used in a number of ways and the reader can follow or willfully ignore any of the paths it maps or signposts. Bal's focus for this book is the idea that interdisciplinarity in the humanities - necessary, exciting, serious - must seek its heuristic and methodological basis in concepts rather than its methods. Concepts are not grids to put over an object. The counterpart of any given concept is the cultural text or work or 'thing' that constitutes the object of analysis. No concept is meaningful for cultural analysis unless it helps us to understand the object better on its own terms. Bal offers the reader a sustained theoretical reflection on how to 'do' cultural analysis through a tentative practice of doing just that. This offers a concrete practice to theoretical constructs, and allows the proposed method more accessibility.

Read more less

'I charge you, Sir Alan Dale, with administering my death. At the end of the game, I would rather die by your hand than any other' England rebels War rages across the land. In the wake of Magna Carta, King John's treachery is revealed and the barons have risen against him once more. Fighting with them is the Earl of Locksley - the former outlaw Robin Hood - and his right-hand man Sir Alan Dale. France invades When the French enter the fray, with the cruel White Count leading the charge, Robin and Alan must decide where their loyalties lie: with those who would destroy the king and seize his realm or with the beloved land of their birth. A hero who will live for ever Fate is inexorable and Death waits for us all. Or does it? Can Robin Hood pull off his greatest ever trick and cheat the Grim Reaper one last time just as England needs him most?

Read more less

Thea Osborne, accompanied by her beloved spaniel Hepzie, has had her fair share of unfortunate occurrences while house-sitting, and her new assignment for the mysterious Yvonne Parker is no exception. The isolated and somewhat unsettling village of Snowshill, has Thea on edge as soon as she arrives, and Hyacinth House - her new, rather cluttered home - does nothing to dispel such feelings. Soon enough, her intuition in this case proves to be right, and once again Thea becomes entangled in another horrifying murder. Stevie Horsfall, a mischievous child from the village is found brutally strangled outside Hyacinth House, with his eccentric mother Gudrun as the prime suspect. Believing in Gudrun's innocence, Thea, alongside Sonia Gladwin and her friend Drew Slocombe, work together to uncover a sinister plot, where seemingly separate lives are intertwined with secretive and strange relationships. This malicious web of suspects leads Thea through the lives of the villagers and their secrets, to London and beyond.

Read more less

Leslie Ludy, popular writer and speaker, has a powerful message for today’s single adults. Through personal experience and in interaction with thousands of young women over the past fourteen years, she has found that most Christian young women fall into one of two categories: those who are discontent and unfulfilled, constantly searching for the “right one,” and those who are consumed by a passionate romance with Jesus Christ and are living joyful, satisfied lives. Her desire is to help readers move toward the totally surrendered and fulfilling experience rather than one of striving and disappointment.Leslie shares firsthand stories and testimonials of modern–day single women who may sometimes struggle with loneliness and personal desires but who, in following God’s plan for them, have discovered a deeper delight, purpose and true joy in their lives. Sacred Singleness gives every single woman the inspiration to live counter to the culture and find amazing opportunity in this sacred season.

Read more less

'For anyone who is fascinated by the phenomenon of religion, this is a deeply interesting book.' Mary Warnock Although we can all give meaning to our lives by trying to live well, is there some given meaning to be discovered? Science cannot answer this question, and philosophical arguments leave the issue open. The monotheistic religions claim that the meaning has been revealed to us, and Christians see this is above all in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Described by Rowan Williams as 'that rarity, a Christian public intellectual', Richard Harries considers the Christian claim in the context of an in-depth discussion of the nature of evil and how this is to be reconciled with a just and loving God. Drawing on a wide range of modern literature, he argues that belief in the resurrection and hope in the face of death is fundamental to faith, and suggests that while there is no final intellectual answer to the problem of evil, we must all, believer and nonbeliever alike, protest against the world and seek to change it, rather than accept it as it is.

Read more less

It is a fact universally acknowledged that the British are obsessed with the weather. This is not surprising as no country in the world has such unpredictable weather, with such power to rule people's lives. THE WRONG KIND OF SNOW is the complete daily companion to this national phenomenon. From the Spanish Armada to the invention of the windscreen wiper, each of the 365 entries beautifully illustrates a day in the weird and wonderful history of the British and their weather. 31 January: The Big Freeze of 1963 brings the FA Cup competition to a halt: every football pitch in Britain is frozen: the third round takes 66 days to complete: the Pools Panel is formed as a result. 9 February: British Rail blames the 'Wrong Kind of Snow'. It was a journalist's phrase, but on this day in 1991 it stuck to the beleagured BR like flesh to ice. 15 July: The exceptionally hot and steamy summer of 1858 caused the Great Stink of London, resulting in the building of London's sewage system, still in use today. On the same day in 1930, rainfall in Yorkshire was so heavy that the Whitby lifeboat makes a rescue two miles inland.10 September: A violent storm rather than British sea power defeats the Spanish Armada in 1588. Had the weather held and the fleet reached home, it would have been hailed as a Spanish triumph. Four centuries later, bad light and rain stop play at the Oval . . . And much much more.

Read more less

Jeffrey Hunt’s Meade and Lee After Gettysburg: The Forgotten Final Stage of the Gettysburg Campaign, from Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House, July 14-31, 1863 exposes for Civil War readers what has been hiding in plain sight for 150 years: The Gettysburg Campaign did not end at the banks of the Potomac on July 14, but deep in central Virginia two weeks later along the line of the Rappahannock. Contrary to popular belief, once Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped across the swollen Potomac back to Virginia the Lincoln administration pressed George Meade to cross quickly in pursuit—and he did. Rather than follow in Lee’s wake, however, Meade moved south on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in a cat-and-mouse game to outthink his enemy and capture the strategic gaps penetrating the high wooded terrain. Doing so would trap Lee in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley and potentially bring about the decisive victory that had eluded Union arms north of the Potomac. The two weeks that followed was a grand chess match with everything at stake—high drama filled with hard marching, cavalry charges, heavy skirmishing, and set-piece fighting that threatened to escalate into a major engagement with the potential to end the war in the Eastern Theater. Throughout, one thing remains clear: Union soldiers from private to general continued to fear the lethality of Lee’s army. Meade and Lee After Gettysburg, the first of three volumes on the campaigns waged between the two adversaries from July 14 through the end of 1863, relies on Official Records, regimental histories, letters, newspapers, and other sources to provide a day-by-day account of this fascinating highstakes affair. The vivid prose, coupled with original maps and outstanding photographs, offers a significant contribution to Civil War literature. Thanks to Hunt these important two weeks—until now overshadowed by the battle of Gettysburg and almost completely ignored by writers of Civil War history—have finally gotten the attention they have long deserved. Readers will never view the Gettysburg Campaign the same way.

Read more less

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan were the two most powerful men in America, perhaps the world. As the nation’s preeminent financier, Morgan presided over an elemental shift in American business, away from family-owned companies and toward modern corporations of unparalleled size and influence. As president, Theodore Roosevelt expanded the power of that office to an unprecedented degree, seeking to rein in those corporations and to rebalance their interests with those of workers, consumers, and society at large. Overpowering figures and titanic personalities, Roosevelt and Morgan could easily have become sworn enemies. And when they have been considered together (never before at book length), they have generally been portrayed as battling colossi, the great trust builder versus the original trustbuster. But their long association was far more complex than that, and even mutually beneficial. Despite their many differences in temperament and philosophy, Roosevelt and Morgan had much in common—social class, an unstinting Victorian moralism, a drive for power, a need for order, and a genuine (though not purely altruistic) concern for the welfare of the nation. Working this common ground, the premier progressive and the quintessential capitalist were able to accomplish what neither could have achieved alone—including, more than once, averting national disaster. In the process they also changed forever the way that government and business worked together. An Unlikely Trust is the story of the uneasy but fruitful collaboration between Theodore Roosevelt and Pierpont Morgan. It is also the story of how government and business evolved from a relationship of laissez-faire to the active regulation that we know today. And it is an account of how, despite all that has changed in America over the past century, so much remains the same, including the growing divide between rich and poor; the tangled bonds uniting politicians and business leaders; and the pervasive feeling that government is working for the special interests rather than for the people. Not least of all, it is the story of how citizens with vastly disparate outlooks and interests managed to come together for the good of their common country.

Read more less

When Pippa Dunn,adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that "culture clash" has layers of meaning she'd never imagined. Meet The English American, a fabulously funny, deeply poignant debut novel that sprang from Larkin's autobiographical one-woman show of the same name. In many ways, Pippa Dunn is very English: she eats Marmite on toast, knows how to make a proper cup of tea, has attended a posh English boarding school, and finds it entirely familiar to discuss the crossword rather than exchange any cross words over dinner with her proper English family. Yet Pippa -- creative, disheveled, and impulsive to the core -- has always felt different from her perfectly poised, smartly coiffed sister and steady, practical parents, whose pastimes include Scottish dancing, gardening, and watching cricket. When Pippa learns at age twenty-eight that her birth parents are from the American South, she feels that lifelong questions have been answered. She meets her birth mother, an untidy, artistic, free-spirited redhead, and her birth father, a charismatic (and politically involved) businessman in Washington, D.C.; and she moves to America to be near them. At the same time, she relies on the guidance of a young man with whom she feels a mysterious connection; a man who discovered his own estranged father and who, like her birth parents, seems to understand her in a way that no one in her life has done before. Pippa feels she has found her "self" and everything she thought she wanted. But has she? Caught between two opposing cultures, two sets of parents, and two completely different men, Pippa is plunged into hilarious, heart-wrenching chaos. The birth father she adores turns out to be involved in neoconservative activities she hates; the mesmerizing mother who once abandoned her now refuses to let her go. And the man of her fantasies may be just that... With an authentic adopted heroine at its center, Larkin's compulsively readable first novel unearths universal truths about love, identity, and family with wit, warmth, and heart.

Read more less

This collection explores the fragile territory between remembering and forgetting, both as an individual experience and in the life of a society. If in the end all is subject to “time’s slow bleed”, these poems enact the capacity of the imagination “to pass through ancient walls” and to reorder failures long gone in time into more hopeful connections. Poems recreate those childhood moments when physical presences, such as the “great house” at Drax Hall provoke the “beginning of poetry”, the searching for what is “hidden in the dark”, and thence to a grasp of the history that society would rather forget. For while forgetting is human, the collection also explores how amnesia can be cultivated in society as a means of hiding the sources of contemporary privilege and economic power. Poems such as “Canvas” (about the images from English and American magazines that patch up the hangings in an old woman’s “tumbledown dwelling”) not only picture children “tiptoe at the rim of the world” but, without needing to say it, show those children as far more familiar with Garbo’s “bright blue eyes/ and shiny red lipstick” than with the history and meaning of Drax Hall. If there are echoes of Walcott’s poem where “all in compassion ends”, Phillips is no less compassionate, but much readier to see “History’s wound still bleeding / to its last drop” – a wound extending down to a powerful poem in memory of George Floyd. If the collection calls out “Speak, stones, bear witness!”, poems also pay tribute to those who in the rural village memorialised the lives of the unconsidered poor, who, like the village historian, Miss Lewis, speaks across the years into contemporary urban life “to remind me who I am”. Esther Phillips’ poems are always lucid and musical; they gain a rewarding complexity from being part of the collection’s careful architecture that offers a richly nuanced inner dialogue about the meaning of experience in time. Not least powerful in this conversation are the sequence of poems about Barbadian childhoods, poems of grace, humour and insight. When Barbados chose Esther Phillips as its first poet laureate it knew what it was doing: electing a poet who could speak truth, who could challenge and console her nation – and all of us.

Read more less

Between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth century more than 15,000 Londoners suffered sudden violent deaths. In the early modern period, accidental and 'disorderly' deaths - from drowning, falls, stabbing, shooting, fires, explosions, suffocation, and animals and vehicles, among others - were a regular feature of urban life. Between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries more than 15,000 Londoners suffered sudden violent deaths. While this figure includes around 3,000 who were murdered or committed suicide, the vast majority of fatalities resulted from accidents. In the early modern period, accidental and 'disorderly' deaths - from drowning, falls, stabbing, shooting, fires, explosions, suffocation, animals and vehicles, among other causes - were a regular feature ofurban life and left a significant mark in the archival records of the period. This book provides the first substantive critical study of the early modern accident, revealing and chronicling the lives - and deaths - of hundreds of otherwise unknown Londoners. Drawing on the weekly London Bills of Mortality, parish burial registers, newspapers and other related documents, it examines accidents and other forms of violent death in the city with a view tounderstanding who among its residents encountered such events, how the bureaucracy recorded and elaborated their circumstances and why they did so, and what practical responses might follow. Through a systematic review of the character of accidents, medical and social interventions, and changing attitudes toward the regulation of hazards across the metropolis, it establishes the historical significance of the accident and shows how, as the eighteenth century progressed, providential explanations gave way to a more rational viewpoint that saw certain accident events as threats to be managed rather than misfortunes to be explained. Additionally, the book explores how knowledge of such incidents was transformed to become a recurring cultural trope in oral, textual and visual narratives of metropolitan life, thereby opening a window to the way in which sudden death and violent injury was understood by early modern mentalities. CRAIG SPENCE is Senior Lecturer in History at Bishop Grosseteste University.

Read more less

In the timber plantations in northeastern South Africa, laborers work long hours among tall, swaying lines of eucalypts, on land once theirs. In 2008, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, timber corporations distributed hot cooked meals as a nutrition intervention to bolster falling productivity and profits. But life and sustenance are about much more than calories and machinic bodies. What is at stake is the nurturing of capacity across all domains of life—physical, relational, cosmological—in the form of amandla. An Nguni word meaning power, strength or capacity, amandla organizes ordinary concerns with one’s abilities to earn a wage, to strengthen one’s body, and to take care of others; it describes the potency of medicines and sexual vitality; and it captures a history of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle for freedom. The ordinary actions coordinated by and directed at amandla do not obscure the wounding effects of plantation labor or the long history of racial oppression, but rather form the basis of what the Algerian artist Kader Attia calls repair. In this captivating ethnography, Cousins examines how amandla, as the primary material of the work of repair, anchors ordinary scenes of living and working in and around the plantations. As a space of exploitation that enables the global paper and packaging industry to extract labor power, the plantation depends on the availability of creative action in ordinary life to capitalize on bodily capacity. The Work of Repair is a fine-grained exploration of the relationships between laborers in the timber plantations of KwaZulu-Natal, and the historical decompositions and reinventions of the milieu of those livelihoods and lives. Offering a fresh approach to the existential, ethical and political stakes of ethnography from and of late liberal South Africa, the book attends to urgent questions of postapartheid life: the fate of employment; the role of the state in providing welfare and access to treatment; the regulation of popular curatives; the queering of kinship; and the future of custom and its territories. Through detailed descriptions, Cousins explicates the important and fragile techniques that constitute the work of repair: the effort to augment one’s capacity in a way that draws on, acknowledges, and reimagines the wounds of history, keeping open the possibility of a future through and with others.

Read more less

A provocative, must-read investigation that both appreciates the importance of—and punctures the hype around—big-time contemporary American athletics In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live quality—impervious to DVR, evoking ancient religious rites—makes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisier—from hot take journalism formats to the creeping infestation of advertising to social media celebrity schemes. More importantly, sports are sold as an oasis of community to a nation deeply divided: They are escapist, apolitical, the only tie that binds. In fact, precisely because they appear allegedly “above politics,” sports are able to smuggle potent messages about inequality, patriotism, labor, and race to massive audiences. And as the wider culture works through shifting gender roles and masculine power, those anxieties are also found in the experiences of female sports journalists, athletes, and fans, and through the coverage of violence by and against male bodies. Sports, rather than being the one thing everyone can agree on, perfectly encapsulate the roiling tensions of modern American life. Michael Serazio maps and critiques the cultural production of today’s lucrative, ubiquitous sports landscape. Through dozens of in-depth interviews with leaders in sports media and journalism, as well as in the business and marketing of sports, The Power of Sports goes behind the scenes and tells a story of technological disruption, commercial greed, economic disparity, military hawkishness, and ideals of manhood. In the end, despite what our myths of escapism suggest, Serazio holds up a mirror to sports and reveals the lived realities of the nation staring back at us.

Read more less

Do you love bright, geometric quilt designs but wonder how to get such sharp points and accurate piecing? English paper piecing is the answer and this collection shows you how to sew your own patchwork projects even if you've never made a quilt before. English paper piecing (EPP) is a traditional patchwork technique which uses hexagon-shaped paper templates which are pieced together by hand sewing rather than machine piecing. This process of hand piecing is both mindful and calming and the fact that it doesn't rely on a sewing machine makes EPP the perfect 'sofa sewing' project that can be done while relaxing in front of your favourite TV show or while socialising with friends. Jenny Jackson is an expert in EPP and has been demonstrating the technique and showcasing her patterns on TV craft channels and magazines for a number of years. She has created this collection of techniques and patterns for modern EPP projects for the home including some really striking, large quilts. Jenny holds your hand through the EPP process so, even if you've never tried it before, you can complete projects to be proud of. Even if you already have some experience with EPP, Jenny shares her tips and tricks for quicker and sharper results so you can improve your skills. There are 18 projects for the home in a variety of sizes so you can build up to a full-sized quilt but you can also dip in and out of some smaller projects such as coasters, wall hangings and cushions while you hone your skills. The projects include repeats of EPP patterns and blocks as well as how to use EPP blocks and rosettes as applique within quilts and other projects. It's not just about the hexagon either: Jenny's geometric designs feature 20 different paper pieced templates including diamonds, octagons and even curved shapes for really exciting results. These sheets can be photocopied to give you multiple templates, fast. You can even flex your own creative muscle with the colouring pages included for every project so you can experiment with your own colour combinations to make your own unique designs.

Read more less

A captivating biography of two famous women whose sons, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt, would change the course of the 20th century—by award-winning historian Charlotte Gray. Born into upper class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano and Jennie Jerome refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicentre of political power on two continents. In the mid-19th century, the British Empire was at its height, France’s Second Empire flourished and the industrial vigour of the USA was catapulting the republic towards the Gilded Age. Sara and Jennie, raised with privilege but subject to the constraints of women’s roles at the time, learned how to take control of their destinies, Sara in the prosperous Hudson Valley and Jennie in the glittering world of Imperial London. Yet their personalities and choices were dramatically different. A vivacious extrovert, Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, rising politician and scion of a noble British family. Her deft social and political manoeuvrings helped not only her mercurial husband but, once she was widowed, her ambitious son, Winston. By contrast, deeply conventional Sara Delano married a man as old as her father. But once widowed, she made Franklin, her only child, the focus of her existence. Thanks in large part to her financial support and to her guidance, Franklin acquired the skills he needed to become a successful politician.Set against one hundred years of history, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is a study in loyalty and resilience. Gray argues that Jennie and Sara are too often presented as lesser figures rather than two remarkable individuals who were key in shaping the characters of the sons who adored them, and preparing them for leadership on the world stage. A masterful biographer and acclaimed historian, Charlotte Gray breathes new life into Sara and Jennie. Impeccably researched and filled with intriguing social insights, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons offers a fascinating and fulsome portrait of how leaders are not just born but made.

Read more less

This book is a critical account of the history, evolution and challenges of higher education in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, with important reflections on other systems, notably those in the US, UK, Korea and Japan. In addition to hardware and software, it introduces the concept of "Soulware" in global higher education and analyses its importance for internationalization and the pursuit of excellence. In an age where robots and artificial intelligence are impacting our jobs and our daily lives, its critical analysis and insightful reflections provide considerable value for a range of global stakeholders interested in higher education reform to nurture talent and promote innovation to prepare students for an unpredictable future. "Professor Kuo’s perspective provides considerable value for a range of global stakeholders both in the east and the west. As American universities awake to the realization that the demand for higher education is an increasingly global phenomena, his contribution could not be more timely."Mike Crow, PhD President, Arizona State University "Way Kuo advances a powerful historical argument for the means to achieve excellence in Asian universities. His recipe is bold leadership, combining excellence in teaching and research, and embracing the lessons of western university successes and failures. A superb combination of history and forward thinking."Michael Kotlikoff, VMD, PhD Provost, Cornell University "Way’s book is not just about the past or the present. Rather, it offers useful insights into the future. In an age where robots and artificial intelligence are impacting our jobs and our daily lives, he introduces the concept of “soulware” and analyzes its importance for higher education."G. P. “Bud” Peterson, PhD President, Georgia Institute of Technology "Differing from their Western counterparts, Chinese universities will demonstrate their own cultural characteristics. In this regard, Professor Kuo’s book offers us many valuable insights." Yong Qiu, PhD President, Tsinghua University, Beijing "Wisdom is the ultimate goal of higher education. It is the illumination of that wisdom among audiences, English-speaking or Chinese-speaking, to which Way Kuo’s book hopes to kindle a spark." Frank H. Shu, PhD President, 2002-06, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, and University Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and San Diego

Read more less

This book simultaneously tells a story—or rather, stories—and a history. The stories are those of Greek Leftists as paradigmatic figures of abjection, given that between 1929 and 1974 tens of thousands of Greek dissidents were detained and tortured in prisons, places of exile, and concentration camps. They were sometimes held for decades, in subhuman conditions of toil and deprivation. The history is that of how the Greek Left was constituted by the Greek state as a zone of danger. Legislation put in place in the early twentieth century postulated this zone. Once the zone was created, there was always the possibility—which came to be a horrific reality after the Greek Civil War of 1946 to 1949—that the state would populate it with its own citizens. Indeed, the Greek state started to do so in 1929, by identifying ever-increasing numbers of citizens as “Leftists” and persecuting them with means extending from indefinite detention to execution. In a striking departure from conventional treatments, Neni Panourgiá places the Civil War in a larger historical context, within ruptures that have marked Greek society for centuries. She begins the story in 1929, when the Greek state set up numerous exile camps on isolated islands in the Greek archipelago. The legal justification for these camps drew upon laws reaching back to 1871—originally directed at controlling “brigands”—that allowed the death penalty for those accused and the banishment of their family members and anyone helping to conceal them. She ends with the 2004 trial of the Revolutionary Organization 17 November. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Panourgiá uses ethnographic interviews, archival material, unpublished personal narratives, and memoirs of political prisoners and dissidents to piece together the various microhistories of a generation, stories that reveal how the modern Greek citizen was created as a fraught political subject. Her book does more than give voice to feelings and experiences suppressed for decades. It establishes a history for the notion of indefinite detention that appeared as a legal innovation with the Bush administration. Part of its roots, Panourgiá shows, lie in the laboratory that Greece provided for neo-colonialism after the Truman Doctrine and under the Marshall Plan.

Read more less

Women’s Experimental Cinema provides lively introductions to the work of fifteen avant-garde women filmmakers, some of whom worked as early as the 1950s and many of whom are still working today. In each essay in this collection, a leading film scholar considers a single filmmaker, supplying biographical information, analyzing various influences on her work, examining the development of her corpus, and interpreting a significant number of individual films. The essays rescue the work of critically neglected but influential women filmmakers for teaching, further study, and, hopefully, restoration and preservation. Just as importantly, they enrich the understanding of feminism in cinema and expand the terrain of film history, particularly the history of the American avant-garde.The contributors examine the work of Marie Menken, Joyce Wieland, Gunvor Nelson, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Rubin, Amy Greenfield, Barbara Hammer, Chick Strand, Marjorie Keller, Leslie Thornton, Abigail Child, Peggy Ahwesh, Su Friedrich, and Cheryl Dunye. The essays highlight the diversity in these filmmakers’ forms and methods, covering topics such as how Menken used film as a way to rethink the transition from abstract expressionism to Pop Art in the 1950s and 1960s, how Rubin both objectified the body and investigated the filmic apparatus that enabled that objectification in her film Christmas on Earth (1963), and how Dunye uses film to explore her own identity as a black lesbian artist. At the same time, the essays reveal commonalities, including a tendency toward documentary rather than fiction and a commitment to nonhierarchical, collaborative production practices. The volume’s final essay focuses explicitly on teaching women’s experimental films, addressing logistical concerns (how to acquire the films and secure proper viewing spaces) and extending the range of the book by suggesting alternative films for classroom use.Contributors. Paul Arthur, Robin Blaetz, Noël Carroll, Janet Cutler, Mary Ann Doane, Robert A. Haller, Chris Holmlund, Chuck Kleinhans, Scott MacDonald, Kathleen McHugh, Ara Osterweil, Maria Pramaggiore, Melissa Ragona, Kathryn Ramey, M. M. Serra, Maureen Turim, William C. Wees

Read more less

Arguing that pop music turns on moments rather than movements, the essays in Listen Again pinpoint magic moments from a century of pop eclecticism, looking at artists who fall between genre lines, songs that sponge up influences from everywhere, and studio accidents with unforeseen consequences. Listen Again collects some of the finest presentations from the celebrated Experience Music Project Pop Conference, where journalists, musicians, academics, and other culturemongers come together once each year to stretch the boundaries of pop music culture, criticism, and scholarship.Building a history of pop music out of unexpected instances, critics and musicians delve into topics from the early-twentieth-century black performer Bert Williams’s use of blackface, to the invention of the Delta blues category by a forgotten record collector named James McKune, to an ER cast member’s performance as the Germs’ front man Darby Crash at a Germs reunion show. Cuban music historian Ned Sublette zeroes in on the signature riff of the garage-band staple “Louie, Louie.” David Thomas of the pioneering punk band Pere Ubu honors one of his forebears: Ghoulardi, a late-night monster-movie host on Cleveland-area TV in the 1960s. Benjamin Melendez discusses playing in a band, the Ghetto Brothers, that Latinized the Beatles, while leading a South Bronx gang, also called the Ghetto Brothers. Michaelangelo Matos traces the lineage of the hip-hop sample “Apache” to a Burt Lancaster film. Whether reflecting on the ringing freedom of an E chord or the significance of Bill Tate, who performed once in 1981 as Buddy Holocaust and was never heard from again, the essays reveal why Robert Christgau, a founder of rock criticism, has called the EMP Pop Conference “the best thing that’s ever happened to serious consideration of pop music.”Contributors. David Brackett, Franklin Bruno, Daphne Carr, Henry Chalfant, Jeff Chang, Drew Daniel, Robert Fink, Holly George-Warren, Lavinia Greenlaw, Marybeth Hamilton, Jason King, Josh Kun, W. T. Lhamon, Jr., Greil Marcus, Michaelangelo Matos, Benjamin Melendez, Mark Anthony Neal, Ned Sublette, David Thomas, Steve Waksman, Eric Weisbard

Read more less

Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Liberia, Somalia, Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Cambodia -- all provide bloody evidence that civil wars continue to have a powerful impact on the international scene. Because they tear at the very fabric of a society and pit countryman against countryman, civil wars are often the most brutal and difficult to extinguish -- witness the American Revolution. And yet, civil wars do inevitably end. England is no longer criss-crossed by warring armies representing York and Lancaster or King and Parliament. The French no longer kill one another over the divine right of kings. Argentines seem reconciled to living in a single state, rather than several. The ideologies of the Spanish Civil War now seem largely irrelevant. And the possibility of Southern secession is an issue long-buried in the American past. The question then begs itself: how do people who have been killing one another with considerable enthusiasm and success come together to form a common government? How can individuals and factions work together, politically and economically, with others who have killed their friends, parents, children and lovers? How are armed societies disarmed? What effect does a total military victory have on a lasting peace? In sum, how are civil societies constructed from civil violence and chaos? This is the central concern of Stopping the Killing. In this highly original and much needed volume, a distinguished group of experts on civil wars discuss both specific conflicts and broader theoretical issues. Individual chapters examine civil wars in Colombia, the Sudan, Yemen, America, Greece, and Nigeria, and analyze the causes of peace, the relationship between the battlefield and the negotiating table, and issues of settlement. An introduction and conclusion by the editor unify the volume. Contributors include: Jonathan Hartlyn (Univ. of North Carolina), Caroline Hartzell (Univ. of California, Davis), Jane E. Holl (U.S. Military Academy), John Iatrides (Southern Connecticut State University), James O'Connell (University of Bradford), Donald Rothchild (Univ. of California, Davis), Stephen John Stedman (Johns Hopkins Univ.), Robert Harrison Wagner (Univ. of Texas, Austin), Harvey Waterman (Rutgers Univ.), Manfred Wenner (Northern Illinois Univ.), and I. William Zartman (Johns Hopkins Univ.).

Read more less

This second edition of the foundational textbook An Introduction to Applied Linguistics provides a state-of-the-art account of contemporary applied linguistics. The kinds of language problems of interest to applied linguists are discussed and a distinction drawn between the different research approach taken by theoretical linguists and by applied linguists to what seem to be the same problems. Professor Davies describes a variety of projects which illustrate the interests of the field and highlight the marriage it offers between practical experience and theoretical understanding. The increasing emphasis of applied linguistics on ethicality is linked to the growth of professionalism and to the concern for accountability, manifested in the widening emphasis on critical stances. This, Davies argues, is at its most acute in the tension between giving advice as the outcome of research and taking political action in order to change a situation which, it is claimed, needs ameliorisation. This dilemma is not confined to applied linguistics and may now be endemic in the applied disciplines. The book has been updated throughout and provides an excellent introduction to the problems and issues that arise in the practice of applied linguistics. Key Features: *Surveys current issues in applied linguistics, including the concept of the Native Speaker and the development of World Englishes *Examines the influence of linguistics, cognitive science and philosophy on applied linguistics and makes a contrast with educational linguistics *Proposes that a key issue for the profession will increasingly be the tension between advice and action *Suggests that applied linguistics is a theorising rather than a theoretical discipline. Feedback on the first edition: 'Alan Davies' introductory text forcefully re-echoes the famous Edinburgh series in applied linguistics, which he contributed to in a major way.' Applied Linguistics 'Every discipline coming of age needs to reflect on its origins, its history, its conflicts, in order to gain a better understanding of its identity and its long term objectives. Alan Davies, one of the founding fathers of applied linguistics, is the ideal person for this soul-searching exercise ...Introduction to Applied Linguistics is obligatory reading for students and researchers in applied linguistics, for language professionals and for anyone interested in the link between linguistics and applied linguistics. ' Modern Language Review

Read more less

Hannah Arendt's rich and varied political thought is more influential today than ever before, due in part to the collapse of communism and the need for ideas that move beyond the old ideologies of the Cold War. As Dana Villa shows, however, Arendt's thought is often poorly understood, both because of its complexity and because her fame has made it easy for critics to write about what she is reputed to have said rather than what she actually wrote. Villa sets out to change that here, explaining clearly, carefully, and forcefully Arendt's major contributions to our understanding of politics, modernity, and the nature of political evil in our century. Villa begins by focusing on some of the most controversial aspects of Arendt's political thought. He shows that Arendt's famous idea of the banality of evil--inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann--does not, as some have maintained, lessen the guilt of war criminals by suggesting that they are mere cogs in a bureaucratic machine. He examines what she meant when she wrote that terror was the essence of totalitarianism, explaining that she believed Nazi and Soviet terror served above all to reinforce the totalitarian idea that humans are expendable units, subordinate to the all-determining laws of Nature or History. Villa clarifies the personal and philosophical relationship between Arendt and Heidegger, showing how her work drew on his thought while providing a firm repudiation of Heidegger's political idiocy under the Nazis. Less controversially, but as importantly, Villa also engages with Arendt's ideas about the relationship between political thought and political action. He explores her views about the roles of theatricality, philosophical reflection, and public-spiritedness in political life. And he explores what relationship, if any, Arendt saw between totalitarianism and the "great tradition" of Western political thought. Throughout, Villa shows how Arendt's ideas illuminate contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and democracy and how they deepen our understanding of philosophers ranging from Socrates and Plato to Habermas and Leo Strauss. Direct, lucid, and powerfully argued, this is a much-needed analysis of the central ideas of one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

Read more less

Meryl Streep is the most celebrated actress of our time. She's a chameleon who disappears fully into each character she plays. She never tackles the same role twice. Instead, she leverages her rarified platform to channel a range of tough, complicated women--Margaret Thatcher, Karen Silkwood, the Anna Wintour avatar Miranda Priestly--rather than limit herself to marginal roles for which other actresses must settle: Supportive Wife. Supportive Mother. Supportive Yet Utterly Disposable Love Interest to the Leading Man. Streep will have none of that.The once-awkward, frizzy-haired suburban teen blossomed into a rising ingénue who quickly made a name on stage at Vassar College and the Yale School of Drama, where she pursued prestigious theater degrees. She came of age during the women's movement of the Sixties and Seventies, and has worn her activism on her sleeve even when it was unfashionable. When she reached 40, the age when many leading ladies in Hollywood fully transition to those "supportive" roles, Streep plunged forward, taking her pick of parts that interested her and winning a pile of awards along the way. She's broken records with 21 Oscar nominations, winning Best Actress twice for Sophie's Choice and The Iron Lady and Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer. Meanwhile, she remained an unlikely box-office draw, her clout even managing to grow with age: The Devil Wears Prada, starring Streep as a brilliant and sadistic magazine editrix, scored $125 million worldwide. Her next film, Mary Poppins Returns, with Emily Blunt and Lin Manuel Miranda, is poised for bigger success.Queen Meryl will pay tribute to the fearless icon, documenting all of her accents, Oscars, highs, lows, friendships, and feuds. It will also explore her "off-brand" forays into action-adventure (The River Wild) and musicals (Mamma Mia!), and how she managed to do a lot with a little, and sneak her feminism into each character. In the spirit of Notorious RBG and The Tao of Bill Murray, two bestsellers as nontraditional as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bill Murray, Queen Merylwill transmit joy in homage to its allegedly serious subject.

Read more less

The Haribana style was created in May 2020 in the mid of the global pandemic when the supply of fresh flowers and other materials was limited in Singapore. Used to making flamboyant designs with an abundance of flowers, the material shortage forced floral designer Harijanto Setiawan to drastically rethink his design style and to come up with a fresh way to create high-quality and impactful designs using the least number of materials as possible. One could argue that the pandemic was a blessing in disguise for Harijanto, as it rekindled his passion for floristry and allowed him to reinvent himself and show another aspect of his personality as a designer – away from the extravagance everyone was used to. It allowed him to go back to his roots as an architect. While Harijanto’s imagination was still limitless, the realisation of his ideas had to be within the reality of the pandemic. A grass leaf and a single flower are enough to create a Haribana piece, a highly architectural design statement with a single flower as focal point. The name Haribana hints at Ikebana – even though these designs cannot officially be classified as ‘Ikebana’, as even the most free-spirited Ikebana schools objected to this. Haribana therefore is Harijanto’s own interpretation of ‘some sort of Ikebana’ married with an architectural style and approach. Haribana pieces incorporate architectural concepts such as structure, balance, shape, line, color, texture, rhythm and harmony into floral art, as if the two are destined for each other, rather than forced upon. Steel grass stalks can be seen as the load bearing structures in architecture: the steel reinforcements and the concrete. The greenery is shaped to create the base structure, a filigree facade against which a single flower can shine. Haribana is suitable for any designer who wants to explore and understand how architecture can be translated through flowers. Haribana has been well received and it is Harijanto Setiawan’s hope that it will fill a unique void in floristry and develop into a specific style that is adapted worldwide. This book contains 65 stunning Haribana pieces designed by the master himself.

Read more less

This book explores the ways in which five female radical novelists of the 1790s—Elizabeth Inchbald, Eliza Fenwick, Mary Hays, Charlotte Smith, and Mary Wollstonecraft—attempted to use the components of private life to work toward widespread social reform. These writers depict the conjugal family as the site for a potential reformation of the prejudices and flaws of the biological family. The biological family in the radical novels of female writers is fraught with problems: greed and selfishness pervert the relationships between siblings, and neglect and ignorance characterize the parenting received by the heroines. Additionally, the radical novelists, responding to representations of biological families as inherently restrictive for unmarried women, develop the notion of marriage to a certain type of man as a social duty. Marriage between two properly sensible people who have both cultivated their reason and understanding and who can live together as equals, sharing domestic responsibilities, is shown to be an ideal with the power to create social change. Positioning their depictions of marriage in opposition to earlier feminist depictions of female utopian societies, the female radical novelists of the 1790s strive to depict relationships between men and women that are characterized by cooperation, individual autonomy, and equality. What is most important about these depictions is their ultimate failure. Most of the female radical novelists find such marriages nearly impossible to conceptualize. Marriage, for many of the female radical novelists, was an institution they perceived as inextricably related to (male) concerns about property and inescapably patriarchal under the marriage laws of late eighteenth-century British society. Unions between two worthy individuals outside the boundaries of marriage are shown in the female radical novels to be equally problematic: sex inevitably is the basis for such unions, yet sex leaves women vulnerable to exploitation by men. Rather than the triumph, therefore, of what comes to be in these novels the male-associated values of property and power through marriage, the female radical novels end by suggesting an alternative community, one that will shelter those members of society who are most frequently exploited in male attempts to accumulate this property and power: women, servants, and children.

Read more less

Discover the stories behind Jane Goodall’s visionary approach to community-led conservation. You know of Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees and her lifelong career advocating for environmental justice. But just as transformative is her work empowering local communities that live on the edge of human settlement to act to protect their natural resources—or to risk losing them forever. Local Voices, Local Choices: The Tacare Approach to Community-Led Conservation is the story of the Jane Goodall Institute’s holistic approach to conservation, which puts the local people in charge of preserving their surrounding ecosystems. Rather than conservationists leading the effort and imposing their solutions, local communities that live in the affected regions make their own decisions. Working with science and technology and with the support of conservationists, these communities grow to understand their human impact on the environment. By choosing to adopt sustainable livelihoods, they decide their own path into the future, finding ways to balance their environmental impact with their communities’ needs. Story by story, Local Voices, Local Choices brings readers into the diverse perspectives behind this approach to community-driven conservation—not only those of JGI staff and program partners but also, and equally, those of the local people who lead these initiatives. Read about: The origins of the Tacare approach, originally designed as a 1994 reforestation project with an abbreviation pronounced “ta-CAR-reh” A retired village member keeping the knowledge of medicinal plants alive in his community Spiritual and cultural story-holders who are vital to the recording and preservation of their traditional ecological knowledge Local people participating as forest monitors, village health workers, beekeepers, small-business owners, and educators of the next generation Former poachers turned advocates for sustainable land management Written for conservationists, fans of Jane Goodall, and readers interested in environmental issues, Local Voices, Local Choices is a vibrant expression of Jane Goodall’s vision and her hope that the Tacare approach will be understood and adopted wherever there is a need for genuine community-driven conservation. Local voices matter, and their choices can make all the difference for generations to come.

Read more less

'One of the best business books I've read in years.' BILL GATES THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 _____________________________The CEO of Disney, one of Time's most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life.Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger-think global-and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.Fourteen years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era.In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he's learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including:Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming. Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale. Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them.'Bob Iger has not only lived up to ninety-six years of groundbreaking history but has moved the Disney brand far beyond anyone's expectations, and he has done it with grace and audacity. This books shows you how that happened.' STEVEN SPIELBERG

Read more less

Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places. Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a darkened ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, coexistence, and depth, while never forgetting to eat lunch, his favorite meal. "O'Hara speaks directly across the decades to our hopes and fears and especially our delights; his lines are as intimate as a telephone call. Few books of his era show less age." --Dwight Garner, New York Times "As collections go, none brings...quality to the fore more than the thirty-seven Lunch Poems, published in 1964 by City Lights." --Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review "What O'Hara is getting at is a sense of the evanescence, and the power, of great art, that inextricable contradiction -- that what makes it moving and transcendent is precisely our knowledge that it will pass away. This is the ethos at the center of "Lunch Poems": not the informal or the conversational for their own sake but rather in the service of something more intentional, more connective, more engaged." --David L. Ulin, Los Angeles TImes "The collection broadcasts snark, exuberance, lonely earnestness, and minute-by-minute autobiography to a wide, vague audience--much like today's Twitter and Facebook feeds." --Micah Mattix, The Atlantic Among the most significant post-war American poets, Frank O'Hara grew up in Grafton, MA, graduating from Harvard in 1950. After earning an MA at Michigan in 1951, O'Hara moved to New York, where he began working for the Museum of Modern Art and writing for Art News. By 1960, he was named Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions at MOMA. Along with John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and Barbara Guest, he is considered an original member of the New York School. Though he died in a tragic accident in 1966, recent references to O'Hara on TV shows like Mad Men or Thurston Moore's new single evidence our culture's continuing fascination with this innovative poet.

Read more less

The French political philosopher Raymond Aron once observed that the twentieth century "could have been Germany's century." In 1900, the country was Europe's preeminent power, its material strength and strident militaristic ethos apparently balanced by a vital culture and extraordinary scientific achievement. It was poised to achieve greatness. In Einstein's German World, the eminent historian Fritz Stern explores the ambiguous promise of Germany before Hitler, as well as its horrifying decline into moral nihilism under Nazi rule, and aspects of its remarkable recovery since World War II. He does so by gracefully blending history and biography in a sequence of finely drawn studies of Germany's great scientists and of German-Jewish relations before and during Hitler's regime. Stern's central chapter traces the complex friendship of Albert Einstein and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fritz Haber, contrasting their responses to German life and to their Jewish heritage. Haber, a convert to Christianity and a firm German patriot until the rise of the Nazis; Einstein, a committed internationalist and pacifist, and a proud though secular Jew. Other chapters, also based on new archival sources, consider the turbulent and interrelated careers of the physicist Max Planck, an austere and powerful figure who helped to make Berlin a happy, productive place for Einstein and other legendary scientists; of Paul Ehrlich, the founder of chemotherapy; of Walther Rathenau, the German-Jewish industrialist and statesman tragically assassinated in 1922; and of Chaim Weizmann, chemist, Zionist, and first president of Israel, whose close relations with his German colleagues is here for the first time recounted. Stern examines the still controversial way that historians have dealt with World War I and Germans have dealt with their nation's defeat, and he analyzes the conflicts over the interpretations of Germany's past that persist to this day. He also writes movingly about the psychic cost of Germany's reunification in 1990, the reconciliation between Germany and Poland, and the challenges and prospects facing Germany today. At once historical and personal, provocative and accessible, Einstein's German World illuminates the issues that made Germany's and Europe's past and present so important in a tumultuous century of creativity and violence.

Read more less

The ideal travel companion, full of insider advice on what to see and do, plus detailed itineraries and comprehensive maps for exploring this vibrant city.Tour the museums and galleries on museum mile, visit the world's largest model railway at Miniatur Wunderland or spend the day boating on the Alster: everything you need to know is clearly laid out within colour-coded chapters. Discover the best of Hamburg with this indispensable travel guide.Inside DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Hamburg:- Over 30 colour maps, including a large-scale pull-out map of the city and a transport map, help you navigate with ease- Simple layout makes it easy to find the information you need- Comprehensive tours and itineraries of Hamburg, designed for every interest and budget- Illustrations and floorplans show in detail the Rathaus, Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Maritime Museum, HafenCity, Cap San Diego and more- Colour photographs of Hamburg's historic sights, museums, churches, parks, busy port and more- Detailed chapters, with area maps, cover Old Town, New Town, Port and Speicherstadt, St Pauli, Altona, Around the Alster and sights beyond the city centre- Historical and cultural context gives you a richer travel experience: learn about the city's history, architecture, museums and galleries, parks and gardens, media, famous residents and the festivals that take place throughout the year- Essential travel tips: our expert choices of where to stay, eat, shop and sightsee, plus useful phrases, visa and health information DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Hamburg is a detailed, easy-to-use guide designed to help you get the most from your visit to Hamburg.DK Eyewitness: winner of the Top Guidebook Series in the Wanderlust Reader Travel Awards 2017. "No other guide whets your appetite quite like this one" - The IndependentWant to explore more of Germany? Try our DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Germany.About DK Eyewitness Travel: DK's highly visual Eyewitness guides show you what others only tell you, with easy-to-read maps, tips, and tours to inform and enrich your holiday. DK is the world's leading illustrated reference publisher, producing beautifully designed books for adults and children in over 120 countries.

Read more less

‘A truly excellent account’ British Wildlife Beetles are arguably the most diverse organisms in the world, with nearly half a million beetle species described and catalogued in our museums, more than any other type of living thing. This astonishing species diversity is matched by a similar diversity in shape, form, size, life history, ecology, physiology and behaviour. Beetles occur everywhere, and do everything. And yet they form a clearly discrete insect group, typically characterised by their attractively compact form, with flight wings folded neatly under smooth hard wing-cases. Almost anyone could recognise a beetle, indeed many are intimately associated with human society. Groups like ladybirds are familiar to us from a very young age. Large stag beetles and handsome chafers are celebrated for their imposing size and bright colours. The sacred scarabs of the ancient Egyptians were given iconic, if not god-like, status and even though the exact religious meanings may be fading after three millennia, their bewitching jewellery and monumental statuary inspire us still. Despite this ancient and easy familiarity with beetles, the Coleoptera remains tainted by the notion that it is a ‘difficult’ group of insects. The traditional routes into studying British natural history, through birdwatching, butterfly-collecting and pressing wild flowers, now extend to studying dragonflies, bumblebees, grasshoppers, moths, hoverflies and even shieldbugs. These are on the verge of becoming popular groups, but beetles remain the preserve of the expert, or so it seems. So many British beetles are easy to find and easy to identify by the non-expert, but that bewildering background diversity, and the daunting numbers of species in the Coleoptera as a whole, have been enough to dissuade many a potential coleopterist from grasping the nettle and getting stuck in. Richard Jones’ groundbreaking New Naturalist volume on beetles encourages those enthusiasts who would otherwise be put off by the, to date, rather technical literature that has dominated the field, providing a comprehensive natural history of this fascinating and beautiful group of insects.

Read more less

In 2023, one hundred years have passed from the dissolution of the Great Northern Railway. Formed in the mid-1840s, the company was instrumental in connecting London with the eastern half of England, the North East and Scotland. Later, the GNR made inroads into other parts of the country, such as Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire. The GNR successfully served the population for nearly a century and was able to innovate in several areas, with developments in locomotive design, carriage construction and services offered. The Glorious Years of the GNR presents several of these areas of the company using over 250 superb black-and-white images, coupled with interesting and informative captions. Boasting several world-renowned engineers, the locomotives of Archibald Sturrock, Patrick Stirling, H.A. Ivatt and H.N. Gresley (later Sir) are featured in various scenes from across the GNR’s network. The company’s coaching stock is also presented, ranging from E.F. Howlden’s six-wheelers to 12-wheel clerestory vehicles and Gresley’s articulated suburban and main line trains. Arguably, Doncaster was the most important place on the GNR, therefore a focus has been placed on the town’s workshops. A number of interesting scenes are included showing the workforce, construction of the Crimpsall Repair Shop, as well as women war workers during the Great War. A small section is dedicated to the GNR’s stations, which ranged from the grand terminus at King’s Cross to humble buildings serving small villages. A number of these have been lost subsequently. Often with staff posing happily for the camera, the stations recall a time when a high standard of service was expected and offered rather than the cost saving and utilitarian facilities of the present. In an era before the motor car, when the world was horse-drawn and steam powered, the GNR was part of a ‘golden age’ of British history. The centenary of the company’s demise provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on this distant, yet great period. A superb edition with over 250 outstanding photographs and thoroughly researched, informative captions. Beautifully produced in hardback with rare and previously unseen images

Read more less

Glenn Armstrong, `The Millionaire Maker’, is probably the only man in the UK who has helped 71 people (and counting) become property millionaires through his tried and tested strategy developed over the past decade. Glenn’s desire to share his success and create a legion of potential property competitors is both unusual and impressive. Glenn Armstrong guides his mentees through a specific programme that helps them go from £0 to hundreds of thousands, and then to become a millionaire in five years... You don’t need to be rich to become a property millionaire! Glenn Armstrong is a self-taught property guru, and succeeding through his own mistakes has helped him identify what works and what doesn't when it comes to the property business. Incredibly, he's happy to share these secrets to success with anyone who will listen, pay attention, and work hard. Glenn's love of teaching is clear, and he writes as he talks - without pretension or smarm. He is no-nonsense and straight to the point. Glenn's new book – You Too Can Become A Property Millionaire - is just one more piece in his legacy jigsaw. He wants to share all he has learned and pass it on to the property investors and developers of the future. His new book is packed full of incredible pearls of wisdom for any budding entrepreneur - not just for those interested in property. Glenn shares inspiring stories about his entrepreneurial career over the decades, from setting up a video rental empire in his 20s to becoming a cabbie after he lost his first million and rather than `just’ waiting for the work to come to him, he put in an extra 30 hours per week to buy a car to hire out to fellow cabbies on an ingenious rent-to-buy scheme. Glenn offers time management tips, motivation, and ideas for success that are applicable for all entrepreneurs. He is really open about what has worked for him, as well as the hurdles he’s had to jump over. Never settling for the status quo, Glenn always seeks to be more creative and innovative, to earn more, succeed, thrive and not just survive in business. Glenn Armstrong is a brilliant example of how anyone with drive, motivation and who is fearless of proper hard graft, can succeed in today's competitive business world!

Read more less

The Sunday Times bestseller from international bestseller John Grisham.'Grisham at his passionate best' - Daily MailHe was framed for murder.Now he needs a miracle. 22 years ago Quincy Miller was sentenced to life without parole. He was accused of killing Keith Russo, a lawyer in a small Florida town. But there were no reliable witnesses and little motive. Just the fact that Russo had botched Quincy's divorce case, that Quincy was black in a largely all-white town and that a blood-splattered torch was found in the boot of Quincy's car. A torch he swore was planted. A torch that was conveniently destroyed in a fire just before his trial.The lack of evidence made no difference to judge or jury. In the eyes of the law Quincy was guilty and, no matter how often he protested his innocence, his punishment was life in prison.Finally, after 22 years, comes Quincy's one and only chance of freedom. An innocence lawyer and minister, Cullen Post, takes on his case. Post has exonerated eight men in the last ten years. He intends to make Quincy the next.But there were powerful and ruthless people behind Russo's murder. They prefer that an innocent man dies in jail rather than one of them. There's one way to guarantee that. They killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they'll kill another without a second thought.Praise for John Grisham's THE GUARDIANS:'A canny and engrossing blend of two types of Grisham novel: enough of the familiar formula of a single lawsuit in a single town, mixed with a more picaresque and multistranded approach that has the significant advantage of taking in a wider swathe of America' - The Sunday Times'Delivered with all his signature easy, flowing style. A past master at the art of deft characterisation and the skilful delivery of hair-raising crescendos, Grisham makes this a deceptively easy read' - Irish Independent'This is typical Grisham: speedy, gripping, very good at conveying the complexities of the law in a digestible way' - Sunday Express'Speedy and gripping' - Daily Mirror 350+ million copies, 45 languages, 9 blockbuster films:NO ONE WRITES DRAMA LIKE JOHN GRISHAM

Read more less

An estimated forty million people in the United States regularly practice yoga, and as an industry it generates over nine billion dollars annually. A major reason for its popularity is its promise of mental and physical well-being: yoga and meditation are thought to be spiritual paths to self-improvement. Yoga is also widely practiced in prisons, another large business in the United States. Prisons in all fifty states offer yoga and meditation as a form of rehabilitation. But critics argue that such practices can also have disempowering effects, due to their emphasis on acceptance, non-judgment, and non-reaction. If the root of suffering is in the mind, as the philosophy behind yoga and meditation suggests, then injustice (including mass incarceration) may be reduced to a mental state requiring coping techniques rather than a more critical mindset. Others insist that yoga can heighten people's attention to structural violence, hierarchy, racism, and inequity. In fact, some of history's most radical activists, including M.K. Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh, traced their ethical and political commitments to their grounding in yogic or meditative traditions. Yoga and meditation programs no doubt offer crucial respite for those who are incarcerated, but what sort of political effects do they have? Do they reinforce the neoliberal logic of mass incarceration which emphasizes individual choices, or can they assist marginalized people in navigating systemic injustice? Drawing on collaborations with incarcerated practitioners, interviews with volunteers and formerly incarcerated practitioners, and her own fieldwork with organizations offering yoga/meditation classes inside prisons, Farah Godrej examines both the promises and pitfalls of yoga and meditation. Freedom Inside? reveals the ways in which incarcerated persons have used yogic practices to resist the dehumanizing effects of prisons, and to heighten their awareness of institutional racism and mass incarceration among poor people and people of color. Godrej argues that while these practices could unwittingly exacerbate systemic forms of inequity and injustice, they also serve as resources for challenging such injustice, whether internally (via the realm of belief) or externally (through action). A combination of ethnography and political theory, Freedom Inside? reimagines the concept of "resistance" in a way that considers people's interior lives as a crucial arena for liberation.

Read more less

Climate variability and human management strategies on crop stands were major factors that frequently affected agricultural yields among indigenous populations from central Mexico. This work seeks to model food production in ancient Tepeaca, a Late Postclassic (AD 1325-1521) and Early Colonial (16th century) state level-polity settled on the central highlands of Puebla, by applying a model that recognizes the presence of two independent and interconnected forms of food production: subsistence agriculture and institutional agriculture. Crop stands within this region depended heavily on rainfed conditions, a form of agriculture that often generates unstable interannual fluctuations in yields. Archaeology acknowledges the effects of such variations on the economy of households and institutions, but attention has been largely put on estimating average productivity values over long periods rather than focusing on interannual divergences. Such instability of agricultural production was recorded among modern Tepeaca’s agriculturalists through an ethnographic survey. This crucial information, along with archaeological data and local 16th century historical sources, is used for modeling the effects of climate variability among prehispanic populations and serves to better comprehend the organization of past agrarian structures, tribute systems and land tenure organization at the household and regional levels.

Read more less

“I would rather have this book published than anything that has ever been written about me,” Theodore Roosevelt said to his editor shortly before TR’s death in January 1919. Alas , Roosevelt was never to see publication of the collection, which went on to become an instant bestseller that was reprinted six times between September and November 1919. Most of the letters in this book were written by Theodore Roosevelt to his children over a period of over a dozen years, from their early childhood through maturity. Indeed, long before they were able to read he sent them what they called “picture letters,” with crude drawings of his own in illustration of the written text, drawings precisely adapted to the childish imagination and intelligence. From the youngest to the oldest, Roosevelt always wrote to them as equals. He was always their playmate and “boon companion,” whether they were toddling infants or youths standing at the threshold of life. The letters are filled with fatherly advice, delicious humor, and anecdotes about the domestic life of a President and his family. Of course, animals are always at center stage, whether it’s describing the funeral for a beloved pet rabbit, or a pig that TR has chosen to name Maude.

Read more less

Internationally recognized for its superior scholarship, Modern Fiction Studies was one of the first journals to publish articles on postcolonial studies. Since postcolonialism's inception, scholars have defined, clarified, and enriched its conceptions and theoretical development in the pages of MFS. This anthology collects the best and most important articles on postcolonial literary studies published in MFS in the past thirty years. Postcolonial Literary Studies brings together groundbreaking scholarship focusing on significant works of fiction by such writers as Chinua Achebe, J. M. Coetzee, Jamaica Kincaid, V. S. Naipaul, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and more. The essays feature ideas that helped shape the discipline from its earliest stages to the present and represent some of the finest examples of literary, theoretical, historical, and cultural criticism. With its focus on literary figures and texts, rather than solely on theory, this volume fills a significant gap in the fields of postcolonialism, global studies, and literary criticism in general. This rich collection of essays by the field's leading scholars will prove indispensable to instructors and students across a broad spectrum of humanistic studies. It not only highlights the development and transformation of postcolonial literary study but also, by mapping out new directions of study, considers its continual significance and expansion.

Read more less

While the United States was founded on abstract principles of certain "unalienable rights," its legal traditions are based in British common law, a fact long decried by progressive reformers. Common law, the complaint goes, ignores abstract rights principles in favor of tradition, effectively denying equality to large segments of the population. The nineteenth-century women's rights movement embraced this argument, claiming that common law rules of property and married women's status were at odds with the nation's commitment to equality. Conventional wisdom suggests that this tactic helped pave the way for voting rights and better jobs. In Constitutional Context, Kathleen S. Sullivan presents a fresh perspective. In revisiting the era's congressional debates, state legislation, judicial opinions, news accounts, and work of political activists, Sullivan finds that the argument for universal, abstract rights was not the only, or best, path available for social change. Rather than erecting a new paradigm of absolute rights, she argues, women's rights activists unwittingly undermined common law's ability to redress grievances, contributing heavily to the social, cultural, and political stagnation that characterizes the place of women and the movement today. A challenging and thoughtful study of what is commonly thought of as an era of progress, Constitutional Context provides the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding and interpretation of constitutional law.

Read more less

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION A schoolgirl catches the eye of the future leader of Nazi Germany. An aspiring playwright writes to a convicted serial killer, seeking inspiration. A pair of childhood sweethearts reunite to commit rape and murder. A devoted Mormon wife follows her husband into the wilderness after he declares himself a prophet. The twelve stories in The Love of a Bad Man imagine the lives of real women, all of whom were the lovers, wives, or mistresses of various ‘bad’ men in history. Beautifully observed, fascinating, and at times horrifying, the stories interrogate power, the nature of obsession, and the lengths some women will go to for the men they love. PRAISE FOR LAURA ELIZABETH WOOLLETT ‘Like Helen Garner, Laura Woollett is impelled to explore the darkest corners of the human heart, the savage cognitive distortions of love; to understand and empathise with the monstrous, rather than to instinctively recoil or judge … Woollett's pitch-perfect command of narrative voice, period, and psychology creates 12 tales to fascinate and unnerve.’ The Age ‘The Love of a Bad Man imagines the inner lives of historical figures who committed crimes all in the name of love … The stories treat death with a gothic inevitability and explore human darkness with a light touch.’ The Guardian

Read more less

The time has come for us to stop thinking about illnesses like cancer as something the body 'gets' or 'has' but rather to think of them as something the body does. In this landmark work, leading researcher and physician Dr David Agus takes readers on a journey to decode the mystery of health and the human body. For decades we've tried to whittle down our understanding of the body to a fine point - a mutation, a germ, a deficiency or a number. But this has led us astray from a fundamental basic understanding of our bodies as systems. The End of Illness presents a system's view of the body, urging readers to begin viewing their total health as a complex network of processes that cannot be explained by any single pathway or focal point. In many instances, it does us no good to try and understand a certain disease; we just need to control it, much like an air traffic controller manages planes without knowing how to actually fly one. This radically different perspective on health will not only change how we care for ourselves, but also the next generation of treatments, and cures. The book also shows readers how to personalize their self-care; much of the advice is surprisingly simple and affordable - such as wearing good shoes and eating lunch at the same time every day.

Read more less

Paolo Cherchi Usai provides a comprehensive introduction to the study, research and preservation of silent cinema from its heyday in the early 20th century to its present day flourishing. He traces the history of the moving image in its formative years, from Edison’s and Lumière’s first experiments to the dawn of ‘talkies’; provides a clear guide to the basics of silent film technology; introduces the technical and creative roles involved in its production, and presents silent cinema as a performance event, rather than a passive viewing experience. This new, greatly expanded edition takes the reader on a new journey, exploring silent cinema in the broader context of technology, culture, and society, from the invention of celluloid film and its related machinery to film studios, laboratories, theatres and audiences. Among the people involved in the creation of a new art form were filmmakers, actors and writers, but also engineers, entrepreneurs, and projectionists. Their collective efforts, and the struggle to preserve their creative work by archives and museums, are interwoven in a compelling story covering three centuries of media history, from the magic lantern to the reinvention of silent cinema in digital form. The new edition also includes comprehensive resource information for the study, research, preservation and exhibition of silent cinema.

Read more less

This book is an original study of the challenge of implementing sustainable development in Western democracies. It highlights the obstacles which sustainable development presents for strategic governance and critically examines how these problems can best be overcome in a variety of different political contexts.The renowned international contributors, including leading policy experts, try to identify the forms of governance necessary to realize the functions of sustainable development. With the help of detailed case studies, they document and analyze specific governance mechanisms for pursuing and achieving this aim. They move on to offer clearly formulated conclusions on the relationship between the demands of sustainable development and the current norms and practices of Western democracy. The book also raises the fundamental question of whether change can ever be achieved if the overriding goal of development is not firmly stated as 'sustainability' rather than 'business as usual'.This book offers a balanced focus on the difficulties and successes of promoting sustainable development through strategic governance. It will be of particular relevance to those interested in the institutional mechanisms of governance and policy implementation. The book will also appeal to scholars and students of political science, organizational studies and business administration, and policymakers and NGOs directly involved in the task of implementing sustainable development.

Read more less

Since it was established as a discipline in 1991, knowledge management has contributed significantly to our understanding of how firms can achieve competitive advantage. To build a foundation for competitive advantage, however, a company must first consider knowledge management as a strategic asset. It must truly grasp how knowledge management can be utilized to build the future of the company. Here Jon-Arild Johannessen examines the history of knowledge management in order to highlight the contributions that the discipline can make to twenty-first-century strategic challenges. Through a series of case studies, Johannessen delves into the relations between knowledge management, organizational learning, innovation, and internal training in order to show how they can help firms gain sustainable competitive advantage. Using systemic thinking, a new way of looking at knowledge management, Johannessen focuses on how organizations can use their data to think about how to create their own futures rather than simply to adapt to what others have created—how they can go beyond red ocean and even blue ocean theories in order to create their own oceans of possibility. For the new perspective it offers on the biggest contemporary strategic challenges in business, Knowledge Management as a Strategic Asset is essential reading for managers, researchers, and anyone interested in the cutting edge of strategic thinking.

Read more less

How afforestation reveals the often-concealed politics between humans and plantsIn Plant Life, Rosetta S. Elkin explores the procedures of afforestation, the large-scale planting of trees in otherwise treeless environments, including grasslands, prairies, and drylands. Elkin reveals that planting a tree can either be one of the ultimate offerings to thriving on this planet, or one of the most extreme perversions of human agency over it. Using three supracontinental case studies—scientific forestry in the American prairies, colonial control in Africa’s Sahelian grasslands, and Chinese efforts to control and administer territory—Elkin explores the political implications of plant life as a tool of environmentalism. By exposing the human tendency to fix or solve environmental matters by exploiting other organisms, this work exposes the relationship between human and plant life, revealing that afforestation is not an ecological act: rather, it is deliberately political and distressingly social. Plant Life ultimately reveals that afforestation cannot offset deforestation, an important distinction that sheds light on current environmental trends that suggest we can plant our way out of climate change. By radicalizing what conservation protects and by framing plants in their total aliveness, Elkin shows that there are many kinds of life—not just our own—to consider when advancing environmental policy.

Read more less

A rich, narrative exploration of the ways love defies, survives, thrives, and dies as lovers contend with US immigration policy. For mixed-citizenship couples, getting married is the easy part. The US Supreme Court has confirmed the universal civil right to marry, guaranteeing every couple's ability to wed. But the Supreme Court has denied that this right to marriage includes married couples' right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on US soil, creating a challenge for mixed-citizenship couples whose individual-level rights do not translate to family-level protections. While US citizens can extend legal inclusion to their spouses through family reunification, they must prove their worthiness and the worthiness of their love before their relationship will be officially recognized by the state. In Unauthorized Love, Jane López offers a comprehensive, critical look at US family reunification law and its consequences as experienced by 56 mixed-citizenship American couples. These couples' stories––of integration and alienation, of opportunity and inequality, of hope and despair––make tangible the consequences of current US immigration laws that tend to favor Whiteness, wealth, and heteronormativity, as well as the individual rather than the family unit, in awarding membership and official belonging. In examining the experiences of couples struggling to negotiate intimacy under the constraints of immigration policy, López argues for a rethinking of citizenship as a family affair.

Read more less

Recently, many critics have questioned the idea of universal citizenship by pointing to the racial, class, and gendered exclusions on which the notion of universality rests. Rather than jettison the idea of universal citizenship, however, R. Andrés Guzmán builds on these critiques to reaffirm it especially within the fields of Latina/o and ethnic studies. Beyond conceptualizing citizenship as an outcome of recognition and admittance by the nation-state—in a negotiation for the right to have rights—he asserts that, insofar as universal citizenship entails a forceful entrance into the political from the latter’s foundational exclusions, it emerges at the limits of legality and illegality via a process that exceeds identitarian capture.Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and philosopher Alain Badiou’s notion of “generic politics,” Guzmán advances his argument through close analyses of various literary, cultural, and legal texts that foreground contention over the limits of political belonging. These include the French Revolution, responses to Arizona’s H.B. 2281, the 2006 immigrant rights protests in the United States, the writings of Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, Frantz Fanon’s account of Algeria’s anticolonial struggle, and more. In each case, Guzmán traces the advent of the “citizen” as a collective subject made up of anyone who seeks to radically transform the organizational coordinates of the place in which she or he lives.

Read more less