- Table View
- List View
A Nobel Affair: The Correspondence between Alfred Nobel and Sofie Hess
by Erika RummelAlfred Nobel made his name as an inventor and successful entrepreneur and left a legacy as a philanthropist and promoter of learning and social progress. The correspondence between Nobel and his Viennese mistress, Sofie Hess, shines a light on his private life and reveals a personality that differs significantly from his public image. The letters show him as a hypochondriac and workaholic and as a paranoid, jealous, and patriarchal lover. Indeed, the relationship between the aging Alfred Nobel and the carefree, spendthrift Sofie Hess will strike readers as dysfunctional and worthy of Freudian analysis. Erika Rummel’s masterful translation and annotations reveal the value of the letters as commentary on 19th century social mores: the concept of honour and reputation, the life of a "kept" woman, the prevalence of antisemitism, the importance of spas as health resorts and entertainment centres, the position of single mothers, and more generally the material culture of a rich bourgeois gentleman. A Nobel Affair is the first translation into English of the complete correspondence between Alfred Nobel and Sofie Hess.
A Noble Fight: African American Freemasonry and the Struggle for Democracy in America
by Corey D. WalkerA Noble Fight examines the metaphors and meanings behind the African American appropriation of the culture, ritual, and institution of freemasonry in navigating the contested domain of American democracy. Combining cultural and political theory with extensive archival research--including the discovery of a rare collection of nineteenth-century records of an African American Freemason Lodge--Corey D. B. Walker provides an innovative perspective on American politics and society during the long transition from slavery to freedom. With great care and detail, Walker argues that African American freemasonry provides a critical theoretical lens for understanding the distinctive ways African Americans have constructed a radically democratic political imaginary through racial solidarity and political nationalism, forcing us to reconsider much more circumspectly the complex relationship between voluntary associations and democratic politics.
A Normative Theory of the Information Society (Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society)
by Alistair S. DuffThere is a clear need for a systematic, integrative, and rigorous normative theory of the information society. In this book, Duff offers a prescriptive theory to help to guide the academic and policy communities as they debate the future shape of emerging post-industrial, information-based societies. He argues that information policy needs to become anchored in a left-liberal philosophy which foregrounds a feasible permutation of the core ideals of freedom, equality and brotherhood. The information society, if it is to be worth having at all, cannot be allowed to be largely the outcome of the free play of market forces and technological determinism. The social structure, including the information economy, must be subjected to a regulatory axiological system as explicated by some leading proponents of social democracy. This text will be of interest to scholars and students at the cutting edge of information studies, journalism and media, computer science, sociology, politics, philosophy, management and law.
A Notorious Woman: Anne Royall in Jacksonian America
by Elizabeth J. ClappDuring her long career as a public figure in Jacksonian America, Anne Royall was called everything from an "enemy of religion" to a "Jackson man" to a "common scold. " In her search for the source of such strong reactions, Elizabeth Clapp has uncovered the story of a widely read woman of letters who asserted her right to a political voice without regard to her gender. Widowed and in need of a livelihood following a disastrous lawsuit over her husband’s will, Royall decided to earn her living through writing--first as a travel writer, journeying through America to research and sell her books, and later as a journalist and editor. Her language and forcefully expressed opinions provoked people at least as much as did her inflammatory behavior and aggressive marketing tactics. An ardent defender of American liberties, she attacked the agents of evangelical revivals, the Bank of the United States, and corruption in government. Her positions were frequently extreme, directly challenging the would-be shapers of the early republic’s religious and political culture. She made many enemies, but because she also attracted many supporters, she was not easily silenced. The definitive account of a passionate voice when America was inventing itself, A Notorious Woman re-creates a fascinating stage on which women’s roles, evangelical hegemony, and political involvement were all contested.
A Novel Approach to Politics; Introducing Political Science Through Books, Movies, and Popular Culture (4th Edition)
by Douglas A. Van BelleA Novel Approach to Politics turns the conventional textbook wisdom on its head. This is a textbook students want to read. With this new edition, Van Belle brings the book fully up-to-date with recent events, elections, current policy debates, international happenings, and other assorted intergalactic matters. Van Belle adds a wealth of new and recent movies and books to the text, as he illustrates key concepts in political science through examples that captivate students. Employing a wide range of references from 1984 to Game of Thrones to House of Cards, students are given a very solid grounding in institutions, ideology, and economics. The textbook bits and pieces are still there to aid students--chapter objectives, chapter summaries, bolded key terms, and discussion questions. Retained for this edition, ''The Thinkers in Boxes" feature calls out pivotal political philosophers, theorists, and assorted hipsters.
A Nutshell History of North Carolina
by Ben FortsonA concise illustrated history of North Carolina, from its dubious beginnings as a pirate-filled colony to a popular tourist destination.Author and illustrator Ben Fortson presents North Carolina&’s history in the form of off-the-wall anecdotes, poignant insights and sublimely silly illustrations. Take a hilarious look at Daniel Boone&’s larger-than-life Carolina personality. Peruse an uproarious account of the Andrew Jackson birthplace controversy or politically astute commentary on the power of tobacco in the state. Fortson takes readers on a side-splitting and educational ride through the annals of Tar Heel State history.&“This will be the most fun North Carolina history book you will ever read, and it will have many students across the state wishing it were part of the curriculum. . . . Ben Fortson travels from the state&’s piratical beginnings to its growth as the &“The New &“Old North State&”&” via 2015. Told and illustrated in a series of humorous and entertaining vignettes, Fortson shows a flair for the funny—and education.&” —Mountain Times
A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan
by Aaron GerowMichigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies No. 64 Kinugasa Teinosuke's 1926 film, A Page of Madness (Kurutta ichipeiji), is celebrated as one of the masterpieces of silent cinema. It was an independently produced, experimental, avant-garde work from Japan whose brilliant use of cinematic technique was equal to if not superior to that of contemporary European cinema. Those studying Japan, focusing on the central involvement of such writers as Yokomitsu Riichi and the Nobel Prize winner Kawabata Yasunari, have seen it as a pillar of the close relationship in the Taisho era between film and artistic modernism, as well as a marker of the uniqueness of prewar Japanese film culture. But is this film really what it seems to be? Using meticulous research on the film's production, distribution, exhibition, and reception, as well as close analysis of the film's shooting script and shooting notes recently made available, Aaron Gerow draws a new picture of this complex work, one revealing a film divided between experiment and convention, modernism and melodrama, the image and the word, cinema and literature, conflicts that play out in the story and structure of the film and its context. These different versions of A Page of Madness were developed at the time in varying interpretations of a film fundamentally about differing perceptions and conflicting worlds, and ironically realized in the fact that the film that exists today is not the one originally released. Including a detailed analysis of the film and translations of contemporary reviews and shooting notes for scenes missing from the current print, Gerow's book offers provocative insight into the fascinating film A Page of Madness was--and still is--and into the struggles over this work that tried to articulate the place of cinema in Japanese society and modernity.
A Pair of Silk Stockings (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories)
by Kate ChopinKnown for her vivid portrayals of Creole life in Louisiana, Kate Chopin (1851-1904) wrote, during her brief literary career, poignant and perceptive stories about the emotional lives of women. Bypassing many of the conventions of 19th-century realism, she won praise for her realistic portraits of the inhabitants of bayou and urban areas. This collection of nine stories contains one of her most famous works, "Désirée's Baby" -- a haunting and ironic tale of miscegenation. Additional stories include "Madame Célestin's Divorce," "A Gentleman of Bayou Téche" and "At the 'Cadian Ball," from Bayou Folk; "A Respectable Woman," "A Night in Acadie" and Azélie" from A Night in Acadie; "The Dream of an Hour" and the title story. Written with grace, delicate humor and a keen understanding of the human -- especially the female -- psyche, these stories are a superb introduction to an important American writer whose literary career was cut short by the harsh criticism directed at her novel The Awakening (1899).
A Palmetto Boy: Civil War–Era Diaries and Letters of James Adams Tillman
by Bobbie Swearingen SmithThese diaries and family letters reveals the experiences of Senator Benjamin Tillman’s brother as a Confederate captain during and after the Civil War.Though the Tillman family of Edgefield, South Carolina, is important to Palmetto State history, James Adams Tillman never became a politician like his famous brothers Ben and George. Instead, at the age of twenty-four, James died from injuries sustained during the Civil War. Now, in this collection of diary entries and family letters, James’s story is finally told. Edited by Bobbie Swearingen Smith, this collection offers a significant historical record of the Civil War era as experienced by a member of this prominent South Carolina family.At nineteen, Tillman enlisted with the Twenty-fourth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry of Edgefield. He served on the coastal defenses south of Charleston and fought in both battles of Secessionville, as well as at Chickamauga, where he was wounded. Under the command of General Johnston in Tennessee and North Carolina, Tillman retreated from General Sherman’s advance. At the war’s end, Tillman wrote about the onset of Reconstruction and those he saw as descending on South Carolina to profit from the defeated South.A Palmetto Boy shares both the immediacy of Tillman’s thoughts from the war front and his contemplative expressions of those experiences for his family on the home front. Tillman’s personal narrative adds another layer to our understanding of the historical significance of the Tillman family and offers a compelling firsthand account of the motivations and actions of a young South Carolinian at war.
A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture
by Wu DingmingA Panoramic View of Chinese Culture is an accessible introduction to the beautiful, vibrant world of Chinese customs, history, and civilization. Written for English speakers, with simplified Chinese translations of key words, the text invites students of China and the Chinese language to engage with the text in new and interesting ways. Covering everything from history, philosophy, and religion, to sports, cuisine, and medicine, A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture covers a vast array of topics with elegance and ease.
A Panoramic View of the Song Dynasty Through the Lens of Shipbuilding Industry
by Chunyan HuangThis book examines the impact of shipbuilding on the society of the Song Dynasty from multiple perspectives and points out the positive contribution of ancient manufacture industry to social development at that time. It explores some virgin territories and presents strong originality, such as the inland navigation methods in the Song Dynasty, the system of gods and goddesses in the aquatic world, and the defense system of the Yangtze River and the sea in the Southern Song Dynasty. It includes the markets in the coastal areas, the perception and imagery of the sea, the maritime disasters and rescues, the river courses and sea warfare, and the management of private ships in the Song Dynasty. On top of that, it provides fresh analysis and new perspectives on some issues that have been studied, such as Lisheng, shapes and sizes of ships, and vehicles and ships in the Song Dynasty.
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
by Rebecca SolnitWhy is it that in the aftermath of a disaster, people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? Award-winning author Solnit explores this phenomena, looking at major calamities from the past 100 years.
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
by Rebecca Solnit"The freshest, deepest, most optimistic account of human nature I've come across in years. " -Bill McKibben The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster's grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local. .
A Paradise of Small Houses: The Evolution, Devolution, and Potential Rebirth of Urban Housing
by Max PodemskiFrom the Haitian-style &“shotgun&” houses of the 19th century to the lavish high-rises of the 21st century, a walk through the streets of America&’s neighborhoods that reveals the rich history—and future—of urban housingThe Philadelphia row house. The New York tenement. The Boston triple-decker. Every American city has its own iconic housing style, structures that have been home to generations of families and are symbols of identity and pride. Max Podemski, an urban planner for the city of Los Angeles and lifelong architecture buff, has spent his career in and around these buildings. Deftly combining his years of experience with extensive research, Podemski walks the reader through the history of our dwelling spaces—and offers a blueprint for how time-tested urban planning models can help us build the homes the United States so desperately needs.In A Paradise of Small Houses, Podemski charts how these dwellings have evolved over the centuries according to the geography, climate, population, and culture of each city. He introduces the reader to styles like Chicago&’s prefabricated workers cottages and LA&’s car-friendly dingbats, illuminating the human stories behind each city&’s iconic housing type. Through it all, Podemski interrogates the American values that have equated home ownership with success and led to the US housing crisis, asking, &“How can we look to the past to build the homes, neighborhoods, and cities of the future that our communities deserve?&”
A Paradox of Honor: Hopes and Perspectives of Muslim-American Women (Researching Social Psychology)
by Richard W. Sears Tayeba Shaikh Jennifer M. OssegeBased on original interviews of 22 Muslim-American women of South Asian descent on the topics of honor and honor killings, this book examines honor and culture, and their intersections with power, tradition, gender, family, and religion. Additionally, it incorporates an autoethnographic approach describing the author’s journey to Pakistan to create a personal narrative throughout. This volume offers a unique perspective that allows for informed exploration and description of Muslim-American women’s attitudes and beliefs surrounding the practice of killing women and girls in order to regain family honor.
A Partisan's Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust
by Faye SchulmanThe author tells her unforgettable story of heroism, hardship, and resistance. She was an ordinary teenager when the Nazis invaded her town on the Russian-Polish border. She had a large, loving family, good friends, and neighbours, most of whom were lost soon after the horrors of the Holocaust began. But she survived, and the photographs she took testify to her experiences and the persecution she witnessed. Decorated for heroism, Schulman uses her biography to tell an extraordinary story not just of survival, but of struggle and resistance against oppression. She talks about escaping from the Nazis, finding a partisan unit and proving her worth. The photographs she took speak eloquently of her experience of surviving for years in the woods with the partisans. There she learned to nurse the ill and wounded, and took up arms against those who had decimated her world.
A Party for Lazarus: Six Generations of Ancestral Devotion in a Cuban Town
by Todd Ramón OchoaA Party for Lazarus is the story of a Cuban family, six generations removed from slavery, struggling to honor its ancestors amid changing fortunes and a crumbling state. This intimate intergenerational account centers on an annual feast celebrating ancestors and orisás—the life-changing spirits at the heart of Black Atlantic religious life. Based on twenty years of fieldwork, Todd Ramón Ochoa’s masterful ethnography shows how orisá praise and everyday life have changed in revolutionary Cuba over two decades of economic hardship.
A Passage To Africa
by George AlagiahAs a five-year-old, George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana - the first African country to attain independence from the British Empire. A PASSAGE TO AFRICA is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose and with a fine eye for detail Alagiah's viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder with which he recounts his first impressions of Africa and the affection with which he dresses his stories of his early family life. A sense of possibility lingers, even though the book is full of uncomfortable truths. It is a book neatly balanced on his integrity and sense of obligation in his role as a writer and reporter. The shock of recognition is always there, but it is the personal element that gives A PASSAGE TO AFRICA its originality. Africa becomes not only a group of nations or a vast continent, but an epic of individual pride and suffering.
A Passage To Africa
by George AlagiahAs a five-year-old, George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana - the first African country to attain independence from the British Empire. A PASSAGE TO AFRICA is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose and with a fine eye for detail Alagiah's viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder with which he recounts his first impressions of Africa and the affection with which he dresses his stories of his early family life. A sense of possibility lingers, even though the book is full of uncomfortable truths. It is a book neatly balanced on his integrity and sense of obligation in his role as a writer and reporter. The shock of recognition is always there, but it is the personal element that gives A PASSAGE TO AFRICA its originality. Africa becomes not only a group of nations or a vast continent, but an epic of individual pride and suffering.
A Passage to Anthropology: Between Experience and Theory
by Kirsten HastrupThe postmodernist critique of Objectivism, Realism and Essentialism has somewhat shattered the foundations of anthropology, seriously questioning the legitimacy of studying others. By confronting the critique and turning it into a vital part of the anthropological debate, A Passage to Anthropology provides a rigorous discussion of central theoretical problems in anthropology that will find a readership in the social sciences and the humanities. It makes the case for a renewed and invigorated scholarly anthropology with extensive reference to recent anthropological debates in Europe and the US, as well as to new developments in linguistic theory and, especially, newer American philosophy.Although the style of the work is mainly theoretical, the author illustrates the points by referring to her own fieldwork conducted in Iceland. A Passage to Anthropology will be of interest to students in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies.
A Passion for Society
by Arthur Kleinman Iain WilkinsonWhat does human suffering mean for society? And how has this meaning changed from the past to the present? In what ways does "the problem of suffering" serve to inspire us to care for others? How does our response to suffering reveal our moral and social conditions? In this trenchant work, Arthur Kleinman--a renowned figure in medical anthropology--and Iain Wilkinson, an award-winning sociologist, team up to offer some answers to these profound questions.A Passion for Society investigates the historical development and current state of social science with a focus on how this development has been shaped in response to problems of social suffering. Following a line of criticism offered by key social theorists and cultural commentators who themselves were unhappy with the professionalization of social science, Wilkinson and Kleinman provide a critical commentary on how studies of society have moved from an original concern with social suffering and its amelioration to dispassionate inquiries. The authors demonstrate how social action through caring for others is revitalizing and remaking the discipline of social science, and they examine the potential for achieving greater understanding though a moral commitment to the practice of care for others. In this deeply considered work, Wilkinson and Kleinman argue for an engaged social science that connects critical thought with social action, that seeks to learn through caregiving, and that operates with a commitment to establish and sustain humane forms of society.
A Passion for Space: Adventures of a Pioneering Female NASA Flight Controller (Springer Praxis Books)
by Marianne J. DysonMarianne J. Dyson recounts for us a time when women were making the first inroads into space flight control, a previously male-dominated profession. The story begins with the inspiration of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and follows the challenges of pursuing a science career as a woman in the 70s and 80s, when it was far from an easy path. <p><p>Dyson relates the first five space shuttle flights from the personal perspective of mission planning and operations in Houston at the Johnson Space Center, based almost exclusively on original sources such as journals and NASA weekly activity reports. The book's historical details about astronaut and flight controller training exemplify both the humorous and serious aspects of space operations up through the Challenger disaster, including the almost unknown fire in Mission Control during STS-5 that nearly caused an emergency entry of the shuttle. <p><p>From an insider with a unique perspective and credentials to match, this a must-read for anyone interested in the workings of NASA during one of its busiest and defining times, and the challenges faced by women pursuing scientific careers.
A Passion for the Past
by Ivor Noël HumeIvor Noël Hume has devoted his life to uncovering countless lives that came before him. In A Passion for the Past the world-renowned archaeologist turns to his own life, sharing with the reader a story that begins amid the bombed-out rubble of post-World War II London and ends on North Carolina's Roanoke Island, where the history of British America began. Weaving the personal with the professional, this is the chronicle of an extraordinary life steered by coincidence scarcely believable even as fiction.Born into the good life of pre-Depression England, Noël Hume was a child of the 1930s who had his silver spoon abruptly snatched away when the war began. By its end he was enduring a period of Dickensian poverty and clinging to aspirations of becoming a playwright. Instead, he found himself collecting antiquities from the shore of the river Thames and, stumbling upon this new passion, becoming an "accidental" archaeologist.From those beginnings emerged a career that led Noël Hume into the depths of Roman London and, later, to Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg, where for thirty-five years he directed its department of archaeology. His discovery of nearby Martin's Hundred and its massacred inhabitants is perhaps Noël Hume's best-known achievement, but as these chapters relate, it was hardly his last, his pursuit of the past taking him to such exotic destinations as Egypt, Jamaica, Haiti, and to shipwrecks in Bermuda.When the author began his career, historical archaeology did not exist as an academic discipline. It fell to Noël Hume's books, lectures, and television presentations to help bring it to the forefront of his profession, where it stands today. This story of a life, and a career, unlike any other reveals to us how the previously unimagined can come to seem beautifully inevitable.
A Passionate Engagement: A Memoir
by Ken HarveyThis is a love story and a story of political activism. Ken Harvey reveals his own experience of coming out as a gay man, of meeting and falling in love with the man who would become his husband, and of growing into a social and political activist. As the book progresses, the reader moves with Harvey from outside observer to inside participant of the political struggle for same-sex marriage.
A Passover Haggadah: Go Forth and Learn
by Rabbi David SilberHebrew and English text with new commentary and essays. Rabbi Silber has given us two books in one: the Haggadah itself, in English and Hebrew, with his seder commentary and a collection of essays that provide close readings of the classic biblical and rabbinic texts that inform Seder-night ritual and narration. Both parts work beautifully together to illuminate the central themes of Passover: peoplehood, Covenant, our relationship to ritual, God’s presence in history, and other important issues that resonate with us all. Just as midrash attempts to bridge the gap between ancient text and contemporary meaning, Rabbi Silber’s Haggadah provides new sources of insight that deepen the Passover experience for today’s readers.