吴晓波企业史套装9册，包含《激荡十年，水大鱼大》、《激荡三十年》、《跌荡一百年》、《浩荡两千年》、《历代经济变革得失》、《大败局》等。 《激荡十年，水大鱼大》简介：“对于过往的十年，如果用一个词汇来形容，您的答案是什么？”当我将这个问题抛给北京大学国家发展研究院的周其仁教授时，这位善于用简洁的表述把深刻的真相披露出来的教授，回答说：“水大鱼大！” 的确是水大鱼大。 急速扩容的经济规模和不断升级的消费能力，如同一个恣意泛滥的大水，它在焦虑地寻找疆域的边界，而被猛烈冲击的部分，则同样焦虑地承受着衍变的压力和不适。它既体现在各社会阶层之间的冲突、各利益集团之间的矛盾与妥协，同时，也体现在中国与美国、日本、欧盟，以及周遭邻国之间的政治及经济关系。 大水之中，必有大鱼。 在这十年当中，中国公司的体量发生了巨大的变化，在世界500强的名单中，中国公司的数量从35家增加到了115家，其中，有四家进入到前十大的行列中。在互联网及电子消费类公司中，腾讯和*的市值分别增加了15倍和70倍，闯进全球前十大市值公司之列，在智能手机领域，有四家中国公司进入前六强，而在传统的冰箱、空调和电视机市场上，中国公司的产能均为全球。在排名前十大的全球房地产公司中，中国公司占到了7家。全球资产规模*的前四大银行都是中国的。 中国的商业投资界发生了基础设施级别的巨变，以互联网为基础性平台的生态被视为新的世界，它以更高的效率和新的消费者互动关系，重构了商业的基本逻辑，在十年时间里，中国人的信息获取、社交、购物、日常服务以及金融支付等方式都发生了令人难以置信的改变。 因此，这个十年，是中国水大鱼大的十年，风云激荡的十年。这十年的变化，对很多人来说，可能更甚于之前的三十年。在这本《激荡十年，水大鱼大》之中，我们将跟随作者的笔触，再次经历这改变了每个人的十年。 《激荡三十年》（上下）简介：尽管任何一段历史都有它不可替代的独特性，可是，1978年－2008年的中国，却是不可能重复的。在一个拥有13亿人口的大国里，僵化的计划经济体制日渐瓦解了，一群小人物把中国变成了一个巨大的试验场，它在众目睽睽之下，以不可逆转的姿态向商业社会转轨。 本书作者没有用传统的教科书或历史书的方式来写作这部著作，而是站在民间的角度，以真切而激扬的写作手法描绘了中国企业在改革开放年代走向市场、走向世界的成长、发展之路。改革开放初期汹涌的商品大潮；国营企业、民营企业、外资企业，这三种力量此消彼长、互相博弈的曲折发展；整个社会的躁动和不安……整部书稿中都体现得极为真切和实在。作者用激扬的文字再现出人们在历史创造中的激情、喜悦、呐喊、苦恼和悲愤。 作者不是将一些事件、人物孤立地展现在读者面前，他笔下的历史是可以触摸的，是可以被感知的，它充满了血肉、运动和偶然性。他把人物和事件放在一个国际和国内的政策、社会和当时的现实这样的大背景中，以整体和个别相结合的描述手法，将一部中国企业的曲折发展历程清晰地呈现在读者面前。 过去的三十年是如此的辉煌，特别对于沉默了百年的中华民族，它承载了太多人的光荣与梦想，它是几乎一代人共同成长的全部记忆。 《跌荡一百年》是继《激荡三十年》之后，吴晓波溯流而上，再写中国企业100年。了解中国百年崛起，这是一部不容错过的史诗般作品。上卷叙述1870～1937年的中国企业变革。作者希望从历史中找到答案：当今中国企业家的成长基因及精神素质是怎么形成的？它是三十年的产物，还是应该放在一个更为悠长的历史宽度中进行审视？在三十年乃至百年的中国进步史上，企业家阶层到底扮演了一个怎样的角色？从曾国藩、李鸿章、盛宣怀、郑观应，到张謇、荣家兄弟、孔宋家族，寻找中国商业进步的血脉基因。作者从一个特殊角度记录中国企业的发展历史，既有文献价值，又有生动故事……，洋溢着理想主义的光芒、英雄主义的魅力和浪漫主义的情怀！ 下卷，重新梳理了1938～1977年的中国企业史和商业变革。作者按照编年体的形式记述了中国抗日战争时期、抗日战争胜利以后、解放战争时期以及新中国成立后，直至中国改革开放时期之前40年的中国商业史。作者试图在这些特定的历史背景下探寻中国商业人物和企业的成长基因、精神素质以及发展脉搏。在悠长的历史宽度中如何审视中国的商业发展？在百年的中国进步史上，企业家阶层到底扮演了一个怎样的角色？ 《浩荡两千年》是吴晓波历代经济变革得失的后一卷。中国的工商文明为什么早慧而晚熟？中国的商人阶层在社会进步中到底扮演了怎样的角色？中国的政商关系为何如此僵硬而对立？中国的市场经济体制终将以怎样的方式全面建成？在公元前7世纪到1869年长达两千多年的时间跨度里，著名财经作家吴晓波继续前两部作品的研究主题，再次探寻国家与资本、政府与商人阶层之间的关系，并试图寻找出这些事关当代的问题的答案。作者的写作表明，在高度专制的中央集权制度下，政府与工商阶层的对立、紧张关系，贯穿于两千余年的帝国时期。两千余年来，国家机器对商业的控制、干扰及盘剥，是阻碍工商文明发展的重要因素，长达两千多年的中国企业史，归根到底是一部政商博弈史。在《浩荡两千年：中国企业公元前7世纪-1869年》一书中，以上问题有的已找到了答案，有的则还在大雾中徘徊。 《历代经济变革得失》简介：两千七百年前，春秋时期的管仲改制变法，使得齐国一跃成为霸主，傲视群雄；公元1069年，王安石在宋神宗的支持下推行新法，一时国库充实，北宋积贫积弱的局面为之缓解；公元1978年，邓小平开始实施改革开放政策，百年积弱的中国经济再度崛起，重回强国之列。在两千多年的时间里，中国经历了十数次重大的经济变革，每一次变革，都顺应社会发展而发生，也都对历史进程产生了重大影响。而今，新的社会发展又提出了继续变革的要求。 本书是作者近年来研究中国经济变革史的集大成之作，对中国历史上十数次重大经济变革的种种措施和实践作了系统的概述和比照，指明因革演变，坦陈利害得失，既高屋建瓴地总括了中国式改革的历史脉络，又剖析了隐藏在历代经济变革中的内在逻辑与规律。辩驳得失，以史为鉴，实不失为一部简明的“中国经济史”。 《大败局》简介：一个个国内曾经为著名的企业，突然在它们“花样年华”的日子里灰飞烟灭，轰然倒下，这背后，是怎样的故事？又是怎样的成败教训？ 两册《大败局》，记录了过去20年间发生在中国企业界的、著名的19起失败案例，记录了一个时代所有的光荣、梦想与悲哀，并旨在探寻“中国式企业失败”的基因。 《大败局Ⅰ》、《大败局Ⅱ》曾分别于2001年、2007年出版，以令人耳目一新的写作模式，开创了公司案例写作的新时代，在国内引起强烈反响，被评为“影响中国商业界的二十本图书”之一，被北大、中欧、复旦、浙大等多家国内知名的MBA教学机构选为学员的图书，被誉为“关于中国企业失败的MBA式教案”，畅销十年，国内累计销量突破百万，并输出了中文繁体字版、日文版、韩文版等多个语种版本。《大败局》（十周年纪念版）则新增了原书涉及企业和企业家的*后续故事。 十年过后，我们在往前冲的时候，也许该回头看看曾经的失败，因为，“所有商业上的兴衰都如出一辙”。曾经的这些有尊严的失败者，他们以自己的失败为代价，为我们留下了值得深思与珍藏的经验。

l  在人工智能崛起的当下，你希望看到一个什么样的未来？当超越人类智慧的人工智能出现时，人类将何去何从？你是否希望我们创造出能自我设计的生命3.0，并把它散播到宇宙各处？人工智能时代，生而为人的意义究竟是什么？在《生命3.0》中，麻省理工学院物理系终身教授、未来生命研究所创始人迈克斯·泰格马克将带领我们参与这个时代*重要的对话。 《生命3.0》一书中，作者迈克斯·泰格马克对人类的终极未来行了全方位的畅想，从我们能活到的近未来穿行至1万年乃至10 亿年及其以后，从可见的智能潜不可见的意识，重新定义了“生命”“智能”“目标”“意识”，并澄清了常见的对人工智能的误解，将帮你构建起应对人工智能时代动态的全新思维框架，抓住人类与人工智能共生演化的焦。

Among the best-known and most prolific French women writers of the sixteenth century, Madeleine (1520-87) and Catherine (1542-87) des Roches were celebrated not only for their uncommonly strong mother-daughter bond but also for their bold assertion of poetic authority for women in the realm of belles lettres. The Dames des Roches excelled in a variety of genres, including poetry, Latin and Italian translations, correspondence, prose dialogues, pastoral drama, and tragicomedy; collected in From Mother and Daughter are selections from their celebrated oeuvre, suffused with an engaging and enduring feminist consciousness. Madeleine and Catherine spent their entire lives in civil war-torn Poitiers, where a siege of the city, vandalism, and desecration of churches fueled their political and religious commentary. Members of an elite literary circle that would inspire salon culture during the next century, the Dames des Roches addressed the issues of the day, including the ravages of religious civil wars, the weak monarchy, education for women, marriage and the family, violence against women, and the status of women intellectuals. Through their collaborative engagement in shared public discourse, both mother and daughter were models of moral, political, and literary agency.

It has been more than twelve years since this project began．This book draws upon seventeen months of fieldwork conducted in Tokyo between summer 1997 and fall 2001 followed by frequent research visits in the years that followed．Research and writing were supported by the American Bar Foundation, a Howard Fellowship, an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, a residential fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, and research grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Japan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities．During that time, I held visiting positions at the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law, the Department of Anthropology at Keio University, and the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo．I am grateful to each of these institutions for their hospitality, and in particular to professors Yoshiko Terao, Satoshi Tanahashi, and Yuji Genda, respectively, for making each of these affiliations possible.

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born, but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge. How do these beliefs affect the way the Beng rear their children?In this unique and engaging ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb explores how religious ideology affects every aspect of Beng childrearing practices-from bathing infants to protecting them from disease to teaching them how to crawl and walk-and how widespread poverty limits these practices. A mother of two, Gottlieb includes moving discussions of how her experiences among the Beng changed the way she saw her own parenting. Throughout the book she also draws telling comparisons between Beng and Euro-American parenting, bringing home just how deeply culture matters to the way we all rear our children.All parents and anyone interested in the place of culture in the lives of infants, and vice versa, will enjoy The Afterlife Is Where We Come From."e;This wonderfully reflective text should provide the impetus for formulating research possibilities about infancy and toddlerhood for this century."e; - Caren J. Frost, Medical Anthropology Quarterly?"e;Alma Gottlieb's careful and thought-provoking account of infancy sheds spectacular light upon a much neglected topic. . . . [It] makes a strong case for the central place of babies in anthropological accounts of religion. ?Gottlieb's remarkably rich account, delivered after a long and reflective period of gestation, deserves a wide audience across a range of disciplines."e;-Anthony Simpson, Critique of Anthropology?

The first public orphanage in America, the Charleston Orphan House saw to the welfare and education of thousands of children from poor white families in the urban South. From wealthy benefactors to the families who sought its assistance to the artisans and merchants who relied on its charges as apprentices, the Orphan House was a critical component of the city's social fabric. By bringing together white citizens from all levels of society, it also played a powerful political role in maintaining the prevailing social order.?John E. Murray tells the story of the Charleston Orphan House for the first time through the words of those who lived there or had family members who did. Through their letters and petitions, the book follows the families from the events and decisions that led them to the Charleston Orphan House through the children's time spent there to, in a few cases, their later adult lives. What these accounts reveal are families struggling to maintain ties after catastrophic loss and to preserve bonds with children who no longer lived under their roofs.?An intimate glimpse into the lives of the white poor in early American history, The Charleston Orphan House is moreover an illuminating look at social welfare provision in the antebellum South.

In Man Is by Nature a Political Animal, Peter K. Hatemi and Rose McDermott bring together a diverse group of contributors to examine the ways in which evolutionary theory and biological research are increasingly informing analyses of political behavior. Focusing on the theoretical, methodological, and empirical frameworks of a variety of biological approaches to political attitudes and preferences, the authors consider a wide range of topics, including the comparative basis of political behavior, the utility of formal modeling informed by evolutionary theory, the genetic bases of attitudes and behaviors, psychophysiological methods and research, and the wealth of insight generated by recent research on the human brain. Through this approach, the book reveals the biological bases of many previously unexplained variances within the extant models of political behavior.?The diversity of methods discussed and variety of issues examined here will make this book of great interest to students and scholars seeking a comprehensive overview of this emerging approach to the study of politics and behavior.

In a brilliant, definitive history of one of the most significant and controversial medical events of modern times, award-winning historian Michael Bliss brings to light a bizarre clash of scientific personalities. When F. G. Banting and J. J. R. Macleod won the 1923 Nobel Prize for discovering and isolating insulin, Banting immediately announced that he was dividing his share of the prize with his young associate, C. H. Best. Macleod divided his share with a fourth member of the team, J. B. Collip. For the next sixty years medical opinion was intensely divided over the allotment of credit for the discovery of insulin. In resolving this controversy, Bliss also offers a wealth of new detail on such subjects as the treatment of diabetes before insulin and the life-and-death struggle to manufacture insulin.

For many years Chicago's looming large-scale housing projects defined the city, and their demolition and redevelopment-via the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation-has been perhaps the most startling change in the city's urban landscape in the last twenty years. The Plan, which reflects a broader policy effort to remake public housing in cities across the country, seeks to deconcentrate poverty by transforming high-poverty public housing complexes into mixed-income developments and thereby integrating once-isolated public housing residents into the social and economic fabric of the city. But is the Plan an ambitious example of urban regeneration or a not-so-veiled effort at gentrification?In the most thorough examination of mixed-income public housing redevelopment to date, Robert J. Chaskin and Mark L. Joseph draw on five years of field research, in-depth interviews, and volumes of data to demonstrate that while considerable progress has been made in transforming the complexes physically, the integrationist goals of the policy have not been met. They provide a highly textured investigation into what it takes to design, finance, build, and populate a mixed-income development, and they illuminate the many challenges and limitations of the policy as a solution to urban poverty. Timely and relevant, Chaskin and Joseph's findings raise concerns about the increased privatization of housing for the poor while providing a wide range of recommendations for a better way forward.

Although the subject of federally mandated Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) has been extensively debated, we actually do not know much about what takes place when they convene. The story of how IRBs work today is a story about their past as well as their present, and Behind Closed Doors is the first book to meld firsthand observations of IRB meetings with the history of how rules for the treatment of human subjects were formalized in the United States in the decades after World War II.?Drawing on extensive archival sources, Laura Stark reconstructs the daily lives of scientists, lawyers, administrators, and research subjects working-and "e;warring"e;-on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, where they first wrote the rules for the treatment of human subjects. Stark argues that the model of group deliberation that gradually crystallized during this period reflected contemporary legal and medical conceptions of what it meant to be human, what political rights human subjects deserved, and which stakeholders were best suited to decide. She then explains how the historical contingencies that shaped rules for the treatment of human subjects in the postwar era guide decision making today-within hospitals, universities, health departments, and other institutions in the United States and across the globe. Meticulously researched and gracefully argued, Behind Closed Doors will be essential reading for sociologists and historians of science and medicine, as well as policy makers and IRB administrators.

The act of interrogation, and the debate over its use, pervades our culture, whether through fictionalized depictions in movies and television or discussions of real-life interrogations on the news. But despite daily mentions of the practice in the media, there is a lack of informed commentary on its moral implications. Moving beyond the narrow focus on torture that has characterized most work on the subject, An Ethics of Interrogation is the first book to fully address this complex issue.In this important new examination of a controversial subject, Michael Skerker confronts a host of philosophical and legal issues, from the right to privacy and the privilege against compelled self-incrimination to prisoner rights and the legal consequences of different modes of interrogation for both domestic criminal and foreign terror suspects. These topics raise serious questions about the morality of keeping secrets as well as the rights of suspected terrorists and insurgents. Thoughtful consideration of these subjects leads Skerker to specific policy recommendations for law enforcement, military, and intelligence professionals.

Allan H. Meltzer's monumental history of the Federal Reserve System tells the story of one of America's most influential but least understood public institutions. This first volume covers the period from the Federal Reserve's founding in 1913 through the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of 1951, which marked the beginning of a larger and greatly changed institution.To understand why the Federal Reserve acted as it did at key points in its history, Meltzer draws on meeting minutes, correspondence, and other internal documents (many made public only during the 1970s) to trace the reasoning behind its policy decisions. He explains, for instance, why the Federal Reserve remained passive throughout most of the economic decline that led to the Great Depression, and how the Board's actions helped to produce the deep recession of 1937 and 1938. He also highlights the impact on the institution of individuals such as Benjamin Strong, governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the 1920s, who played a key role in the adoption of a more active monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Meltzer also examines the influence the Federal Reserve has had on international affairs, from attempts to build a new international financial system in the 1920s to the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 that established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the failure of the London Economic Conference of 1933.Written by one of the world's leading economists, this magisterial biography of the Federal Reserve and the people who helped shape it will interest economists, central bankers, historians, political scientists, policymakers, and anyone seeking a deep understanding of the institution that controls America's purse strings."e;It was 'an unprecedented orgy of extravagance, a mania for speculation, overextended business in nearly all lines and in every section of the country.' An Alan Greenspan rumination about the irrational exuberance of the late 1990sTry the 1920 annual report of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. . . . To understand why the Fed acted as it did-at these critical moments and many others-would require years of study, poring over letters, the minutes of meetings and internal Fed documents. Such a task would naturally deter most scholars of economic history but not, thank goodness, Allan Meltzer."e;-Wall Street Journal"e;A seminal work that anyone interested in the inner workings of the U. S. central bank should read. A work that scholars will mine for years to come."e;-John M. Berry, Washington Post"e;An exceptionally clear story about why, as the ideas that actually informed policy evolved, things sometimes went well and sometimes went badly. . . . One can only hope that we do not have to wait too long for the second installment."e;-David Laidler, Journal of Economic Literature"e;A thorough narrative history of a high order. Meltzer's analysis is persuasive and acute. His work will stand for a generation as the benchmark history of the world's most powerful economic institution. It is an impressive, even awe-inspiring achievement."e;-Sir Howard Davies, Times Higher Education Supplement

In this new edition, Arthur Fine looks at Einstein's philosophy of science and develops his own views on realism. A new Afterword discusses the reaction to Fine's own theory."e;What really led Einstein . . . to renounce the new quantum orderFor those interested in this question, this book is compulsory reading."e;-Harvey R. Brown, American Journal of Physics"e;Fine has successfully combined a historical account of Einstein's philosophical views on quantum mechanics and a discussion of some of the philosophical problems associated with the interpretation of quantum theory with a discussion of some of the contemporary questions concerning realism and antirealism. . . . Clear, thoughtful, [and] well-written."e;-Allan Franklin, Annals of Science"e;Attempts, from Einstein's published works and unpublished correspondence, to piece together a coherent picture of 'Einstein realism.' Especially illuminating are the letters between Einstein and fellow realist Schrdinger, as the latter was composing his famous 'Schrdinger-Cat' paper."e;-Nick Herbert, New Scientist"e;Beautifully clear. . . . Fine's analysis is penetrating, his own results original and important. . . . The book is a splendid combination of new ways to think about quantum mechanics, about realism, and about Einstein's views of both."e;-Nancy Cartwright, Isis

Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life?The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught.?Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue.ContributorsEric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin-MadisonAndrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University BloomingtonPaul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications CommissionJanice H. Laurence, Temple UniversityLois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeePedro L. Rodrguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in AdministrationJohn Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

In the years since the end of apartheid, South Africans have enjoyed a progressive constitution, considerable access to social services for the poor and sick, and a booming economy that has made their nation into one of the wealthiest on the continent. At the same time, South Africa experiences extremely unequal income distribution, and its citizens suffer the highest prevalence of HIV in the world. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has noted, "e;AIDS is South Africa's new apartheid."e;In Ancestors and Antiretrovirals, Claire Laurier Decoteau backs up Tutu's assertion with powerful arguments about how this came to pass. Decoteau traces the historical shifts in health policy after apartheid and describes their effects, detailing, in particular, the changing relationship between biomedical and indigenous health care, both at the national and the local level. Decoteau tells this story from the perspective of those living with and dying from AIDS in Johannesburg's squatter camps. At the same time, she exposes the complex and often contradictory ways that the South African government has failed to balance the demands of neoliberal capital with the considerable health needs of its population.

The German-American relationship was special long before the Cold War; it was rooted not simply in political actions, but also long-term traditions of cultural exchange that date back to the nineteenth century. Between 1850 and 1910, the United States was a rising star in the international arena, and several European nations sought to strengthen their ties to the republic by championing their own cultures in America. While France capitalized on its art and Britain on its social ties and literature, Germany promoted its particular breed of classical music.Delving into a treasure trove of archives that document cross-cultural interactions between America and Germany, Jessica Gienow-Hecht retraces these efforts to export culture as an instrument of nongovernmental diplomacy, paying particular attention to the role of conductors, and uncovers the remarkable history of the musician as a cultural symbol of German cosmopolitanism. Considered sexually attractive and emotionally expressive, German players and conductors acted as an army of informal ambassadors for their home country, and Gienow-Hecht argues that their popularity in the United States paved the way for an emotional elective affinity that survived broken treaties and several wars and continues to the present.

Frozen mammals of the Ice Age, preserved for millennia in the tundra, have been a source of fascination and mystery since their first discovery over two centuries ago. These mummies, their ecology, and their preservation are the subject of this compelling book by paleontologist Dale Guthrie. The 1979 find of a frozen, extinct steppe bison in an Alaskan gold mine allowed him to undertake the first scientific excavation of an Ice Age mummy in North America and to test theories about these enigmatic frozen fauna.The 36,000-year-old bison mummy, coated with blue mineral crystals, was dubbed "e;Blue Babe."e; Guthrie conveys the excitement of its excavation and shows how he made use of evidence from living animals, other Pleistocene mummies, Paleolithic art, and geological data. With photographs and scores?of detailed drawings, he takes the reader through the excavation and subsequent detective work, analyzing the animal's carcass and its surroundings, the circumstances of its death, its appearance in life, the landscape it inhabited, and the processes of preservation by freezing. His examination shows that Blue Babe died in early winter, falling prey to lions that inhabited the Arctic during the Pleistocene era.Guthrie uses information gleaned from his study of Blue Babe to provide a broad picture of bison evolutionary history and ecology, including speculations on the interactions of bison and Ice Age peoples. His de*ion of the Mammoth Steppe as a cold, dry, grassy plain is based on an entirely new way of reading the fossil record.

Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred-warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called "e;The Great."e; Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply-etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.

The comparative physiology of seemingly disparate organisms often serves as a surprising pathway to biological enlightenment. How appropriate, then, that Robert Elsner sheds new light on the remarkable physiology of diving seals through comparison with members of our own species on quests toward enlightenment: meditating yogis.As Elsner reveals, survival in extreme conditions such as those faced by seals is often not about running for cover or coming up for air, but rather about working within the confines of an environment and suppressing normal bodily function. Animals in this withdrawn state display reduced resting metabolic rates and are temporarily less dependent upon customary levels of oxygen. For diving seals-creatures especially well-adapted to prolonged submergence in the ocean's cold depths-such periods of rest lengthen dive endurance. But while human divers share modest, brief adjustments of suppressed metabolism with diving seals, it is the practiced response achieved during deep meditation that is characterized by metabolic rates well below normal levels, sometimes even approaching those of non-exercising diving seals. And the comparison does not end here: hibernating animals, infants during birth, near-drowning victims, and clams at low tide all also display similarly reduced metabolisms.By investigating these states-and the regulatory functions that help maintain them-across a range of species, Elsner offers suggestive insight into the linked biology of survival and well-being.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, competing scholarly communities sought to define a Spain that was, at least officially, entirely Christian, even if many suspected that newer converts from Islam and Judaism were Christian in name only. Unlike previous books on conversion in early modern Spain, however, Parables of Coercion focuses not on the experience of the converts themselves, but rather on how questions surrounding conversion drove religious reform and scholarly innovation.In its careful examination of how Spanish authors transformed the history of scholarship through debate about forced religious conversion, Parables of Coercion makes us rethink what we mean by tolerance and intolerance, and shows that debates about forced conversion and assimilation were also disputes over the methods and practices that demarcated one scholarly discipline from another.

For West Papua and its people, the promise of sovereignty has never been realized, despite a long and fraught struggle for independence from Indonesia. In Laughing at Leviathan, Danilyn Rutherford examines this struggle through a series of interlocking essays that drive at the core meaning of sovereignty itself-how it is fueled, formed, and even thwarted by pivotal but often overlooked players: those that make up an audience. Whether these players are citizens, missionaries, competing governmental powers, nongovernmental organizations, or the international community at large, Rutherford shows how a complex interplay of various observers is key to the establishment and understanding of the sovereign nation-state.?Drawing on a wide array of sources, from YouTube videos to Dutch propaganda to her own fieldwork observations, Rutherford draws the history of Indonesia, empire, and postcolonial nation-building into a powerful examination of performance and power. Ultimately she revises Thomas Hobbes, painting a picture of the Leviathan not as a coherent body but a fragmented one distributed across a wide range of both real and imagined spectators. In doing so, she offers an important new approach to the understanding of political struggle.