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Measuring the New World
Measuring the New World
Safier, Neil
¥247.21
Prior to 1735, South America was terra incognita to many Europeans.?But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the earth at the Equator. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission's participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a "e;sacred fire"e; passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to observers in South America.By taking an innovative interdisciplinary look at the traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, this book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, as well as specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.?
Hard Road West
Hard Road West
Meldahl, Keith Heyer
¥141.26
In 1848 news of the discovery of gold in California triggered an enormous wave of emigration toward the Pacific. Lured by the promise of riches, thousands of settlers left behind the forests, rain, and fertile soil of the eastern United States in favor of the rough-hewn lands of the American West. The dramatic terrain they struggled to cross is so familiar to us now that it is hard to imagine how frightening-even godforsaken-its sheer rock faces and barren deserts seemed to our forebears.?Hard Road West brings their perspective vividly to life, weaving together the epic overland journey of the covered wagon trains and the compelling story of the landscape they encountered. Taking readers along the 2,000-mile California Trail, Keith Meldahl uses the diaries and letters of the settlers themselves-as well as the countless hours he has spent following the trail-to reveal how the geology and geography of the West directly affected our nation's westward expansion. He guides us through a corrugated landscape of sawtooth mountains, following the meager streams that served as lifelines through an arid land, all the way to California itself, where colliding tectonic plates created breathtaking scenery and planted the gold that lured travelers west in the first place.?"e;Alternates seamlessly between vivid accounts of the 19th-century journey and lucid explanations of the geological events that shaped the landscape traveled. . . . The reader comes away with both an appreciation for the arduous cross-continental wagon journey and an understanding of the events that created such a vast and difficult landscape."e;-Library Journal?"e;[Meldahl] draws on his professional knowledge to explain the geology of the West, showing how centuries of geological activity had a direct effect on the routes taken by the travelers. . . . Meldahl provides a novel account of the largest overland migration since the Crusades."e;-Science News
After the Ice Age
After the Ice Age
Pielou, E. C.
¥147.15
The fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Antarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today."e;One of the best scientific books published in the last ten years."e;-Ottowa Journal"e;A valuable new synthesis of facts and ideas about climate, geography, and life during the past 20,000 years. More important, the book conveys an intimate appreciation of the rich variety of nature through time."e;-S. David Webb,Science
Recalculating
Recalculating
Bernstein, Charles
¥147.15
Long anticipated, Recalculating is Charles Bernstein's first full-length collection of new poems in seven years. As a result of this lengthy time under construction, the scope, scale, and stylistic variation of the poems far surpasses Bernstein's previous work. Together, the poems of Recalculating take readers on a journey through the history and poetics of the decades since the end of the Cold War as seen through the lens of social and personal turbulence and tragedy.?The collection's title, the now-familiar GPS expression, suggests a change in direction due to a mistaken or unexpected turn. For Bernstein, formal invention is a necessary swerve in the midst of difficulty. As in all his work since the 1970s, he makes palpable the idea that radically new structures, appropriated forms, an aversion to received ideas and conventions, political engagement, and syntactic novelty will open the doors of perception to exuberance and resonance, from giddiness to pleasure to grief. But at the same time he cautions, with typical deflationary ardor, "e;The pen is tinier than the sword."e; In these poems, Bernstein makes good on his claim that "e;the poetry is not in speaking to the dead but listening to the dead."e;?In doing so, Recalculating incorporates translations and adaptations of Baudelaire, Cole Porter, Mandelstam, and Paul Celan, as well as several tributes to writers crucial to Bernstein's work and a set of epigrammatic verse essays that combine poetics with wry observation, caustic satire, and aesthetic slapstick.?Formally stunning and emotionally charged, Recalculating makes the familiar strange-and in a startling way, makes the strange familiar. Into these poems, brimming with sonic and rhythmic intensity, philosophical wit, and multiple personae, life events intrude, breaking down any easy distinction between artifice and the real. With works that range from elegy to comedy, conceptual to metrical, expressionist to ambient, uproarious to procedural, aphoristic to lyric, Bernstein has created a journey through the dark striated by bolts of imaginative invention and pure delight.?
Instructions for American Servicemen in France during World War II
Instructions for American Servicemen in France during World War II
United States Army
¥100.06
"e;You are about to play a personal part in pushing the Germans out of France. Whatever part you take-rifleman, hospital orderly, mechanic, pilot, clerk, gunner, truck driver-you will be an essential factor in a great effort."e;?As American soldiers fanned out from their beachhead in Normandy in June of 1944 and began the liberation of France, every soldier carried that reminder in his kit. A compact trove of knowledge and reassurance, Instructions for American Servicemen in France during World War II was issued to soldiers just before they embarked for France to help them understand both why they were going and what they'd find when they got there. After lying unseen in Army archives for decades, this remarkable guide is now available in a new facsimile edition that reproduces the full text and illustrations of the original along with a new introduction by Rick Atkinson setting the book in context. Written in a straightforward, personal tone, the pamphlet is equal parts guidebook, cultural snapshot, and propaganda piece. A central aim is to dispel any prejudices American soldiers may have about the French-especially relating to their quick capitulation in 1940. Warning soldiers that the defeat "e;is a raw spot which the Nazis have been riding"e; since the occupation began, Instructions is careful to highlight France's long historical role as a major U.S. ally. Following that is a brief, fascinating sketch of the French character ("e;The French are mentally quick;"e; "e;Rich or poor, they are economical"e;) and stark reminders of the deprivation the French have endured under occupation. Yet an air of reassuring confidence pervades the final section of the pamphlet, which reads like a straightforward tourists' guide to Paris and the provinces-like a promise of better days to come once the soldiers complete their mission.Written by anonymous War Department staffers to meet the urgent needs of the moment, with no thought of its historical value, Instructionsfor American Servicemen in France during World War II nevertheless brings to vivid life the closing years of World War II-when optimism was growing, but a long, demanding road still lay ahead.
Everyday Technology
Everyday Technology
Arnold, David
¥147.15
In 1909 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, on his way back to South Africa from London, wrote his now celebrated tract Hind Swaraj, laying out his vision for the future of India and famously rejecting the technological innovations of Western civilization. Despite his protestations, Western technology endured and helped to make India one of the leading economies in our globalized world. Few would question the dominant role that technology plays in modern life, but to fully understand how India first advanced into technological modernity, argues David Arnold, we must consider the technology of the everyday.?Everyday Technology is a pioneering account of how small machines and consumer goods that originated in Europe and North America became objects of everyday use in India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than investigate "e;big"e; technologies such as railways and irrigation projects, Arnold examines the assimilation and appropriation of bicycles, rice mills, sewing machines, and typewriters in India, and follows their impact on the ways in which people worked and traveled, the clothes they wore, and the kind of food they ate. But the effects of these machines were not limited to the daily rituals of Indian society, and Arnold demonstrates how such small-scale technologies became integral to new ways of thinking about class, race, and gender, as well as about the politics of colonial rule and Indian nationhood.?Arnold's fascinating book offers new perspectives on the globalization of modern technologies and shows us that to truly understand what modernity became, we need to look at the everyday experiences of people in all walks of life, taking stock of how they repurposed small technologies to reinvent their world and themselves.
Sounds of Capitalism
Sounds of Capitalism
Taylor, Timothy D.
¥206.01
From the early days of radio through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more to sell goods and establish brand identities. And since the 1920s, songs originally written for commercials have become popular songs, and songs written for a popular audience have become irrevocably associated with specific brands and products. Today, musicians move flexibly between the music and advertising worlds, while the line between commercial messages and popular music has become increasingly blurred.Timothy D. Taylor tracks the use of music in American advertising for nearly a century, from variety shows like The Clicquot Club Eskimos to the rise of the jingle, the postwar upsurge in consumerism, and the more complete fusion of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and after. The Sounds of Capitalism is the first book to tell truly the history of music used in advertising in the United States and is an original contribution to this little-studied part of our cultural history. ?
Fragments and Assemblages
Fragments and Assemblages
Bahr, Arthur
¥223.67
In Fragments and Assemblages, Arthur Bahr expands the ways in which we interpret medieval manu*s, examining the formal characteristics of both physical manu*s and literary works. Specifically, Bahr argues that manu* compilations from fourteenth-century London reward interpretation as both assemblages and fragments: as meaningfully constructed objects whose forms and textual contents shed light on the city's literary, social, and political cultures, but also as artifacts whose physical fragmentation invites forms of literary criticism that were unintended by their medieval makers. Such compilations are not simply repositories of data to be used for the reconstruction of the distant past; their physical forms reward literary and aesthetic analysis in their own right. The compilations analyzed reflect the full vibrancy of fourteenth-century London's literary cultures: the multilingual codices of Edwardian civil servant Andrew Horn and Ricardian poet John Gower, the famous Auchinleck manu* of texts in Middle English, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. By reading these compilations as both formal shapes and historical occurrences, Bahr uncovers neglected literary histories specific to the time and place of their production. The book offers a less empiricist way of interpreting the relationship between textual and physical form that will be of interest to a wide range of literary critics and manu* scholars.
War's Waste
War's Waste
Linker, Beth
¥229.55
With US soldiers stationed around the world and engaged in multiple conflicts, Americans will be forced for the foreseeable future to come to terms with those permanently disabled in battle.?At the moment, we accept rehabilitation as the proper social and cultural response to the wounded, swiftly returning injured combatants to their civilian lives. But this was not always the case, as Beth Linker reveals in her provocative new book, War's Waste.?Linker explains how, before entering World War I, the United States sought a way to avoid the enormous cost of providing injured soldiers with pensions, which it had done since the Revolutionary War. Emboldened by their faith in the new social and medical sciences, reformers pushed rehabilitation as a means to "e;rebuild"e; disabled soldiers, relieving the nation of a monetary burden and easing the decision to enter the Great War. Linker's narrative moves from the professional development of orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists to the curative workshops, or hospital spaces where disabled soldiers learned how to repair automobiles as well as their own artificial limbs. The story culminates in the postwar establishment of the Veterans Administration, one of the greatest legacies to come out of the First World War.
Wittgenstein's Ladder
Wittgenstein's Ladder
Perloff, Marjorie
¥241.33
Marjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "e;philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry,"e; Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "e;poet."e; What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal."e;This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.-Linda Munk, American Literature"e;[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."e;-Linda Voris, Boston Review"e;Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."e;-David Clippinger, Chicago Review"e;Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."e;-Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance
Romantic Machine
Romantic Machine
Tresch, John
¥247.21
In the years immediately following Napoleon's defeat, French thinkers in all fields set their minds to the problem of how to recover from the long upheavals that had been set into motion by the French Revolution. Many challenged the Enlightenment's emphasis on mechanics and questioned the rising power of machines, seeking a return to the organic unity of an earlier age and triggering the artistic and philosophical movement of romanticism. Previous scholars have viewed romanticism and industrialization in opposition, but in this groundbreaking volume John Tresch reveals how thoroughly entwined science and the arts were in early nineteenth-century France and how they worked together to unite a fractured society.Focusing on a set of celebrated technologies, including steam engines, electromagnetic and geophysical instruments, early photography, and mass-scale printing, Tresch looks at how new conceptions of energy, instrumentality, and association fueled such diverse developments as fantastic literature, popular astronomy, grand opera, positivism, utopian socialism, and the Revolution of 1848. He shows that those who attempted to fuse organicism and mechanism in various ways, including Alexander von Humboldt and Auguste Comte, charted a road not taken that resonates today.Essential reading for historians of science, intellectual and cultural historians of Europe, and literary and art historians, The Romantic Machine is poised to profoundly alter our understanding of the scientific and cultural landscape of the early nineteenth century.
Lost Second Book of Aristotle's &quote;Poetics&quote;
Lost Second Book of Aristotle's &quote;Poetics&quote;
Watson, Walter
¥247.21
Of all the writings on theory and aesthetics-ancient, medieval, or modern-the most important is indisputably Aristotle's Poetics, the first philosophical treatise to propound a theory of literature. In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that he will speak of comedy-but there is no further mention of comedy. Aristotle writes also that he will address catharsis and an analysis of what is funny. But he does not actually address any of those ideas. The surviving Poetics is incomplete.Until today. Here, Walter Watson offers a new interpretation of the lost second book of Aristotle's Poetics. Based on Richard Janko's philological reconstruction of the epitome, a summary first recovered in 1839 and hotly contested thereafter, Watson mounts a compelling philosophical argument that places the statements of this summary of the Aristotelian text in their true context. Watson renders lucid and complete explanations of Aristotle's ideas about catharsis, comedy, and a summary account of the different types of poetry, ideas that influenced not only Cicero's theory of the ridiculous, but also Freud's theory of jokes, humor, and the comic.Finally, more than two millennia after it was first written, and after five hundred years of scrutiny, Aristotle's Poetics is more complete than ever before. Here, at last, Aristotle's lost second book is found again.
Baroque Science
Baroque Science
Gal, Ofer
¥247.21
In Baroque Science, Ofer Gal and Raz Chen-Morris present a radically new perspective on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. Instead of celebrating the triumph of reason and rationality, they study the paradoxes and anxieties that stemmed from the New Science and the intellectual compromises that shaped it and enabled its spectacular success.?Gal and Chen-Morris show how the protagonists of the new mathematical natural philosophy grasped at the very far and very small by entrusting observation to the mediation of artificial instruments, and how they justified this mediation by naturalizing and denigrating the human senses. They show how the physical-mathematical ordering of heavens and earth demanded obscure and spurious mathematical procedures, replacing the divine harmonies of the late Renaissance with an assemblage of isolated, contingent laws and approximated constants.Finally, they show how the new savants, forced to contend that reason is hopelessly estranged from its surrounding world and that nature is irreducibly complex, turned to the passions to provide an alternative, naturalized foundation for their epistemology and ethics.?Enforcing order in the face of threatening chaos, blurring the boundaries of the natural and the artificial, and mobilizing the passions in the service of objective knowledge, the New Science, Gal and Chen-Morris reveal, is a Baroque phenomenon: deeply entrenched in and crucially formative of the culture of its time.
Red Queen
Red Queen
Aveyard, Victoria
¥72.71
Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard's sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king's palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood—those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard—a growing Red rebellion—even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.
Omega City
Omega City
Peterfreund, Diana
¥38.72
The first middle grade novel in an exciting new series from acclaimed author Diana Peterfreund, perfect for fans of The Goonies and The City of Ember.Gillian Seagret doesn't listen to people who say her father's a crackpot. His conspiracy theories about the lost technology of Cold War–era rocket scientist Dr. Aloysius Underberg may have cost him his job and forced them to move to the middle of nowhere, but Gillian knows he's right and plans to prove it.When she discovers a missing page from Dr. Underberg's diary in her father's mess of an office, she thinks she's found a big piece of the puzzle—a space-themed riddle promising to lead to Dr. Underberg's greatest invention. Enlisting the help of her skeptical younger brother, Eric, her best friend, Savannah, and Howard, their NASA-obsessed schoolmate, Gillian sets off on a journey into the ruins of Omega City, a vast doomsday bunker deep inside the earth,.But they aren't alone inside its dark and flooded halls. For while Gillian wants to save her dad's reputation by bringing Dr. Underberg's secrets to light, there are others who will stop at nothing to make sure they stay buried . . . forever.
The Swap
The Swap
Shull, Megan
¥44.25
This smart and funny twist on Freaky Friday is perfect for fans of Wendy Mass, Jerry Spinelli, and Jon Scieszka.With one random wish, Jack and Ellie are living life in each other's shoes. He's her. And she's him. ELLIE assumed popular guys didn't worry about body image, being perfect, or talking to girls, but acting like you're cool with everything is tougher than it looks.JACK thought girls had it easy—no fights with bullies, no demanding dads, no power plays—but facing mean girls at sleepovers and getting grilled about your period is way harder than taking a hit to the face at sports practice.Now they're dealing with each other's middle school dramas—locker room teasing, cliques, video game battles, bra shopping, and a slew of hilariously awkward moments—until they hopefully switch back! Told in both Jack's and Ellie's voices, The Swap offers a fresh and honest take on tween friendship, all while exploring more serious themes of family, loss, empathy, and what it really means to be yourself. And as Jon Scieszka says, it's "seriously, truly, fearlessly funny!"
Archie Greene and the Magician's Secret
Archie Greene and the Magician's Secret
Everest, D. D.
¥39.24
D. D. Everest's magical middle grade debut, filled with enchanted books and mysterious activity, is sure to captivate readers. Open this book . . . if you dare to face what awaits you inside!On his twelfth birthday, Archie Greene receives a mysterious package containing an ancient book in a language he doesn't recognize. The gift leads him to a family he didn't know he had and a world he never knew existed.With the help of his cousins, Bramble and Thistle, Archie tries to unravel the mystery behind his book, but he begins to realize that his gift is something more powerful than he could have imagined. And the only thing more perilous than its contents is being its owner. The book waited four hundred years for Archie Greene. Now Archie must discover why.
Paddington Abroad
Paddington Abroad
Bond, Michael
¥33.18
When the Browns go on holiday to France, Paddington is put in charge of the "eyetinnery." But even with the whole trip planned down to the last marmalade sandwich, somehow Paddington takes the family off the beaten path on a voyage no one could forget. With Paddington in charge, one should always plan on a little bit of adventure!First published in 1961, Paddington Abroad is the fourth novel by Michael Bond chronicling the adventures of this classic character. Paddington has warmed the hearts of generations of readers with his earnest good intentions and humorous misadventures. This brand-new edition of the classic novel contains the original text by Michael Bond and illustrations by Peggy Fortnum.
Paddington Helps Out
Paddington Helps Out
Bond, Michael
¥33.63
Paddington Bear loves to lend a paw. From taking a saw to Mr. Curry's kitchen table to extinguishing a surprise flambé, each time Paddington helps out, things tend to get messier before they improve. But with his special tool kit, playful wits, and just a little bit of marmalade, Paddington can take any day and make it extraordinary!First published in 1960, Paddington Helps Out is the third novel by Michael Bond chronicling the adventures of this classic character. Paddington has warmed the hearts of generations of readers with his earnest good intentions and humorous misadventures. This brand-new paper-over-board edition of the classic novel contains the original text by Michael Bond and illustrations by Peggy Fortnum.
The Dyerville Tales
The Dyerville Tales
Kozlowsky, M. P.
¥96.50
"Kozlowsky deftly intertwines imagination and adventure with sobering realities; while the story arc itself engrosses and the grandfather's fairy tale–like quest enchants, he underpins the novel with an unceasing melancholy that remembers the human heart, its pain, and its need for hope."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)M. P. Kozlowsky's The Dyerville Tales is a powerfully imaginative middle grade novel that blurs the line between fairy tale and reality. Vince Elgin is an orphan, having lost his mother and father in a fire when he was young. With only a senile grandfather he barely knows to call family, Vince was interned in a group home, dreaming that his father, whose body was never found, might one day return for him. When a letter arrives, telling Vince his grandfather has passed away, he is convinced that if his father is still alive, he'll find him at the funeral. He strikes out for the small town of Dyerville, carrying only one thing with him: his grandfather's journal. The journal tells a fantastical story of witches and giants and magic, one that can't be true. But as Vince reads on, he finds that his very real adventure may have more in common with his grandfather's than he ever could have known.
Exquisite Captive
Exquisite Captive
Demetrios, Heather
¥55.33
For fans of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series and Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy comes the first book in the Dark Caravan Cycle, a modern fantasy-adventure trilogy about a gorgeous, fierce eighteen-year-old jinni who is pitted against two magnetic adversaries, both of whom want her—and need her—to make their wishes come true.Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Now in hiding on the dark caravan—the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command—she’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle. Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to release Nalia from her master so she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle . . . and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him.