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Tristan's Shadow
Tristan's Shadow
Daub, Adrian
¥370.82
Das Rheingold, Die Walkre, and Siegfried. Parsifal. Tristan und Isolde. Both revered and reviled, Richard Wagner conceived some of the nineteenth century's most influential operas-and created some of the most indelible characters ever to grace the stage. But over the course of his polarizing career, Wagner also composed volumes of essays and pamphlets, some on topics seemingly quite distant from the opera house. His influential concept of Gesamtkunstwerk-the "e;total work of art"e;-famously and controversially offered a way to unify the different media of an opera into a coherent whole. Less well known, however, are Wagner's strange theories on sexuality-like his ideas about erotic acoustics and the metaphysics of sexual difference. Drawing on the discourses of psychoanalysis, evolutionary biology, and other emerging fields of study that informed Wagner's thinking, Adrian Daub traces the dual influence of Gesamtkunstwerk and eroticism from their classic expressions in Tristan und Isolde into the work of the generation of composers that followed, including Zemlinsky, d'Albert, Schreker, and Strauss. For decades after Wagner's death, Daub writes, these composers continued to grapple with his ideas and with his overwhelming legacy, trying in vain to write their way out from Tristan's shadow.
Open Mind
Open Mind
Cohen-Cole, Jamie
¥370.82
The Open Mind chronicles the development and promulgation of a scientific vision of the rational, creative, and autonomous self, demonstrating how this self became a defining feature of Cold War culture. Jamie Cohen-Cole illustrates how from 1945 to 1965 policy makers and social critics used the idea of an open-minded human nature to advance centrist politics. They reshaped intellectual culture and instigated nationwide educational reform that promoted more open, and indeed more human, minds. The new field of cognitive science was central to this project, as it used popular support for open-mindedness to overthrow the then-dominant behaviorist view that the mind either could not be studied scientifically or did not exist. Cognitive science also underwrote the political implications of the open mind by treating it as the essential feature of human nature. ?While the open mind unified America in the first two decades after World War II, between 1965 and 1975 battles over the open mind fractured American culture as the ties between political centrism and the scientific account of human nature began to unravel. During the late 1960s, feminists and the New Left repurposed Cold War era psychological tools to redefine open-mindedness as a characteristic of left-wing politics. As a result, once-liberal intellectuals became neoconservative, and in the early 1970s, struggles against open-mindedness gave energy and purpose to the right wing.
Victorian Scientific Naturalism
Victorian Scientific Naturalism
Bernard Lightman and Gowan Dawson
¥370.82
Victorian Scientific Naturalism examines the secular creeds of the generation of intellectuals who, in the wake of The Origin of Species, wrested cultural authority from the old Anglican establishment while installing themselves as a new professional scientific elite. These scientific naturalists-led by biologists, physicists, and mathematicians such as William Kingdon Clifford, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Tyndall-sought to persuade both the state and the public that scientists, not theologians, should be granted cultural authority, since their expertise gave them special insight into society, politics, and even ethics.?In Victorian Scientific Naturalism, Gowan Dawson and Bernard Lightman bring together new essays by leading historians of science and literary critics that recall these scientific naturalists, in light of recent scholarship that has tended to sideline them, and that reevaluate their place in the broader landscape of nineteenth-century Britain. Ranging in topic from daring climbing expeditions in the Alps to the maintenance of aristocratic protocols of conduct at Kew Gardens, these essays offer a series of new perspectives on Victorian scientific naturalism-as well as its subsequent incarnations in the early twentieth century-that together provide an innovative understanding of the movement centering on the issues of community, identity, and continuity.
Heidegger's Confessions
Heidegger's Confessions
Coyne, Ryan
¥370.82
Although Martin Heidegger is nearly as notorious as Friedrich Nietzsche for embracing the death of God, the philosopher himself acknowledged that Christianity accompanied him at every stage of his career. In Heidegger's Confessions, Ryan Coyne isolates a crucially important player in this story: Saint Augustine. Uncovering the significance of Saint Augustine in Heidegger's philosophy, he details the complex and conflicted ways in which Heidegger paradoxically sought to define himself against the Christian tradition while at the same time making use of its resources.?Coyne first examines the role of Augustine in Heidegger's early period and the development of his magnum opus, Being and Time. He then goes on to show that Heidegger owed an abiding debt to Augustine even following his own rise as a secular philosopher, tracing his early encounters with theological texts through to his late thoughts and writings. Bringing a fresh and unexpected perspective to bear on Heidegger's profoundly influential critique of modern metaphysics, Coyne traces a larger lineage between religious and theological discourse and continental philosophy.
Gravity's Ghost
Gravity's Ghost
Collins, Harry
¥353.16
In theory, at least, gravitational waves do exist. We are constantly bathed in gravitational radiation, which is generated when stars explode or collide and a portion of their mass becomes energy that ripples out like a disturbance on the surface of a serene pond. But unfortunately no gravitational wave has ever been directly detected even though the search has lasted more than forty years.As the leading chronicler of the search for gravitational waves, Harry Collins has been right there with the scientists since the start. The result of his unprecedented access to the front lines of physical science is Gravity's Ghost, a thrilling chronicle of high-stakes research and cutting-edge discovery. Here, Collins reveals that scientific discovery and nondiscovery can turn on scientific traditions and rivalries, that ideal statistical analysis rests on impossible procedures and unattainable knowledge, and that fact in one place is baseless assumption in another.?He also argues that sciences like gravitational wave detection, in exemplifying how the intractable is to be handled, can offer scientific leadership a moral beacon for the twenty-first century. In the end, Gravity's Ghost shows that discoveries are the denouements of dramatic scientific mysteries.
Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy
Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy
Eden, Kathy
¥353.16
In 1345, when Petrarch recovered a lost collection of letters from Cicero to his best friend Atticus, he discovered an intimate Cicero, a man very different from either the well-known orator of the Roman forum or the measured spokesman for the ancient schools of philosophy. It was Petrarch's encounter with this previously unknown Cicero and his letters that Kathy Eden argues fundamentally changed the way Europeans from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries were expected to read and write.The Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy explores the way ancient epistolary theory and practice were understood and imitated in the European Renaissance.Eden draws chiefly upon Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca-but also upon Plato, Demetrius, Quintilian, and many others-to show how the classical genre of the "e;familiar"e; letter emerged centuries later in the intimate styles of Petrarch, Erasmus, and Montaigne. Along the way, she reveals how the complex concept of intimacy in the Renaissance-leveraging the legal, affective, and stylistic dimensions of its prehistory in antiquity-pervades the literary production and reception of the period and sets the course for much that is modern in the literature of subsequent centuries. Eden's important study will interest students and scholars in a number of areas, including classical, Renaissance, and early modern studies; comparative literature; and the history of reading, rhetoric, and writing.
Shape of Life
Shape of Life
Raff, Rudolf A.
¥329.62
Rudolf Raff is recognized as a pioneer in evolutionary developmental biology. In their 1983 book, Embryos, Genes, and Evolution, Raff and co-author Thomas Kaufman proposed a synthesis of developmental and evolutionary biology. In The Shape of Life, Raff analyzes the rise of this new experimental discipline and lays out new research questions, hypotheses, and approaches to guide its development.Raff uses the evolution of animal body plans to exemplify the interplay between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary patterns. Animal body plans emerged half a billion years ago. Evolution within these body plans during this span of time has resulted in the tremendous diversity of living animal forms.Raff argues for an integrated approach to the study of the intertwined roles of development and evolution involving phylogenetic, comparative, and functional biology. This new synthesis will interest not only scientists working in these areas, but also paleontologists, zoologists, morphologists, molecular biologists, and geneticists.
Deconstructing Dignity
Deconstructing Dignity
Shershow, Scott Cutler
¥311.96
The right-to-die debate has gone on for centuries, playing out most recently as a spectacle of protest surrounding figures such as Terry Schiavo. In?Deconstructing Dignity, Scott Cutler Shershow offers a powerful new way of thinking about it philosophically. Focusing on the concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life, he employs Derridean deconstruction to uncover self-contradictory and damaging assumptions that underlie both sides of the debate.Shershow examines texts from Cicero's?De Officiis?to Kant's?Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals?to court decisions and religious declarations. Through them he reveals how arguments both supporting and denying the right to die undermine their own unconditional concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life with a hidden conditional logic, one often tied to practical economic concerns and the scarcity or unequal distribution of medical resources. He goes on to examine the exceptional case of self-sacrifice, closing with a vision of a society-one whose conditions we are far from meeting-in which the debate can finally be resolved. A sophisticated analysis of a heated topic,?Deconstructing Dignity?is also a masterful example of deconstructionist methods at work.?
Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution
Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution
Thompson, John N.
¥311.96
Coevolution-reciprocal evolutionary change in interacting species driven by natural selection-is one of the most important ecological and genetic processes organizing the earth's biodiversity: most plants and animals require coevolved interactions with other species to survive and reproduce. The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution analyzes how the biology of species provides the raw material for long-term coevolution, evaluates how local coadaptation forms the basic module of coevolutionary change, and explores how the coevolutionary process reshapes locally coevolving interactions across the earth's constantly changing landscapes.Picking up where his influential The Coevolutionary Process left off, John N. Thompsonsynthesizes the state of a rapidly developing science that integrates approaches from evolutionary ecology, population genetics, phylogeography, systematics, evolutionary biochemistry and physiology, and molecular biology. Using models, data, and hypotheses to develop a complete conceptual framework, Thompson also draws on examples from a wide range of taxa and environments, illustrating the expanding breadth and depth of research in coevolutionary biology.
Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy
Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy
Laugier, Sandra
¥288.41
Sandra Laugier has long been a key liaison between American and European philosophical thought, responsible for bringing American philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Stanley Cavell to French readers-but until now her books have never been published in English. Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy rights that wrong with a topic perfect for English-language readers: the idea of analytic philosophy.?Focused on clarity and logical argument, analytic philosophy has dominated the discipline in the United States, Australia, and Britain over the past one hundred years, and it is often seen as a unified, coherent, and inevitable advancement. Laugier questions this assumption, rethinking the very grounds that drove analytic philosophy to develop and uncovering its inherent tensions and confusions. Drawing on J. L. Austin and the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, she argues for the solution provided by ordinary language philosophy-a philosophy that trusts and utilizes the everyday use of language and the clarity of meaning it provides-and in doing so offers a major contribution to the philosophy of language and twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy as a whole.
Virtue Is Knowledge
Virtue Is Knowledge
Pangle, Lorraine Smith
¥288.41
The relation between virtue and knowledge is at the heart of the Socratic view of human excellence, but it also points to a central puzzle of the Platonic dialogues: Can Socrates be serious in his claims that human excellence is constituted by one virtue, that vice is merely the result of ignorance, and that the correct response to crime is therefore not punishment but educationOr are these assertions mere rhetorical ploys by a notoriously complex thinker?Lorraine Smith Pangle traces the argument for the primacy of virtue and the power of knowledge throughout the five dialogues that feature them most prominently-the Apology, Gorgias, Protagoras, Meno, and Laws-and reveals the truth at the core of these seemingly strange claims. She argues that Socrates was more aware of the complex causes of human action and of the power of irrational passions than a cursory reading might suggest. Pangle's perceptive analyses reveal that many of Socrates's teachings in fact explore the factors that make it difficult for humans to be the rational creatures that he at first seems to claim. Also critical to Pangle's reading is her emphasis on the political dimensions of the dialogues. Underlying many of the paradoxes, she shows, is a distinction between philosophic and civic virtue that is critical to understanding them.Ultimately, Pangle offers a radically unconventional way of reading Socrates's views of human excellence: Virtue is not knowledge in any ordinary sense, but true virtue is nothing other than wisdom.
Seeing Like a Rover
Seeing Like a Rover
Vertesi, Janet
¥288.41
In the years since the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and Opportunity first began transmitting images from the surface of Mars, we have become familiar with the harsh, rocky, rusty-red Martian landscape. But those images are much less straightforward than they may seem to a layperson: each one is the result of a complicated set of decisions and processes involving the large team behind the Rovers.With Seeing Like a Rover, Janet Vertesi takes us behind the scenes to reveal the work that goes into creating our knowledge of Mars. Every photograph that the Rovers take, she shows, must be processed, manipulated, and interpreted-and all that comes after team members negotiate with each other about what they should even be taking photographs of in the first place. Vertesi's account of the inspiringly successful Rover project reveals science in action, a world where digital processing uncovers scientific truths, where images are used to craft consensus, and where team members develop an uncanny intimacy with the sensory apparatus of a robot that is millions of miles away. Ultimately, Vertesi shows, every image taken by the Mars Rovers is not merely a picture of Mars-it's a portrait of the whole Rover team, as well.
The Way of Serenity
The Way of Serenity
Morris, Jonathan
¥95.39
Father Jonathan Morris, Fox News religion analyst, bestselling author, and parish priest, has seen firsthand how easily our day-to-day lives are consumed with anxiety and stress as we focus on our failures and troubles, while peace feels unattainable. When he re-discovered the Serenity Prayer, he realized that this little prayer can be, in fact, a powerful roadmap for our spiritual journey toward God. As he began to share this prayer with others, he saw that living these simple lines became a source of profound peace and happiness: Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,The courage to change the things I can,And the wisdom to know the difference. For years a mainstay of recovery programs, this prayer has proven it can change lives. What's more, through it we all can find comfort and support, including an active collaboration with God's grace as he works alongside us to grant the serenity we seek. Unpacking the prayer phrase by phrase, Father Jonathan shows how we can gain a deeper spiritual understanding by practicing its message. Through powerful personal stories, illuminating historical anecdotes, and biblical passages that show us God's plan for our lives, The Way of Serenity will help us grow closer to God and find serenity, regardless of our circumstances.Join Father Jonathan and the many others who have made this prayer an integral part of their lives, and find lasting peace and happiness today.
D-Day: History in an Hour
D-Day: History in an Hour
Rupert Colley
¥18.05
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. Midnight, Tuesday 6 June 1944: the beginning of D-Day, the operation to invade Nazi-occupied Western Europe and initiate the final phase of World War II. A vast undertaking, it involved 12,000 aircraft and an amphibious assault of almost 7,000 vessels. 160,000 troops would cross the English Channel during Operation Overlord, paving the way for more than three million allied troops to enter France by the end of August 1944. Forces from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Free French and Poland all heavily participated, alongside contingents from Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway, They capitalised on the element of surprise achieved due to bad weather and the success of Operation Bodyguard – a feat of massive deception to convince Hitler that the landings would hit Pas-de-Calais. In just over a year, the war would be won. ‘D-Day: History in an Hour’ is the story of how the largest military operation in history had been planned, practised and executed. Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…
Birds of South America:Passerines (Collins Field Guide)
Birds of South America:Passerines (Collins Field Guide)
Ber Van Perlo
¥294.79
Recommended for viewing on a colour tablet. South America has long been known for its bountiful flora and fauna. The richness in bird life has attracted visitors from all over the world and has helped to make South America an increasingly popular wildlife tourist spot. This major new field guide to the birds of South America covers all the passerines (perching birds), with all plumages for each species illustrated, including males, females and juveniles. The text gives information on key identification features, habitat, and songs and calls. Beautiful artwork featured across 195 colour plates appears opposite the relevant text for quick and easy reference. Distribution maps are included, showing where each species can be found and how common it is, to further aid identification.
The Chronicles of Downton Abbey (Official Series 3 TV tie-in)
The Chronicles of Downton Abbey (Official Series 3 TV tie-in)
Jessica Fellowes,Matthew Sturgis
¥147.35
The official companion to all three seasons. The Great War has ended, but Downton Abbey is far from peaceful… A changing world has brought new challenges and new guests. Inside the walls of the Great House there is more intrigue, rivalry and romance than ever. The Chronicles of Downton Abbey take you deep into the lives of the Crawleys, their servants, lovers, friends and guests. So wander the crowded servants' quarters and peek into luxurious bed chambers. Go beneath the surface, and experience every aspect of their lives – from daily routines, dressing tables and treasure chests to their most secret hopes and fears. This definitive book explores the lives of every important member of the Downton estate. Focusing on each character individually, it examines their motivations, their actions and the inspirations behind them. An evocative source of story and background, it will take you even deeper into the secret, beating heart of the house.
The Cracking Code Book
The Cracking Code Book
Simon Singh
¥53.56
How to make it, break it, hack it, crack it. The secret history of codes and code breaking. Simon Singh’s best-selling title The Code Book now re-issued for the young-adult market. The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography. Simon Singh brings life to an amazing story of puzzles, codes, languages and riddles – revealing the continual pursuit to disguise and uncover, and to work out the secret languages of others. Codes have influenced events throughout history, both in the stories of those who make them and those who break them. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes in a continuing history of cryptography. In addition to stories of intrigue and warfare, Simon Singh also investigates other codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and most tantalisingly, the Beale ciphers, an unbroken code that could hold the key to a $20 million treasure.
World War One:History in an Hour
World War One:History in an Hour
Rupert Colley
¥18.05
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. The ‘Great War’, from July 1914 to November 1918, was without parallel. It brought to an end four dynasties, ignited revolution, and forged new nations. It introduced killing on an unprecedented scale, costing an estimated nine million lives. It was the war that destroyed any notion of romance or chivalry in battle; it pulled in combatants from nations across the globe and shattered them, body and mind. The War involved all of the world’s great powers – the Central Powers, dominated by Germany and Austria-Hungary; the Triple Entente, lead by Britain, France and Russia; and America. World War One: History in an Hour explains the unprecedented battles on land, sea and in the air and describes the Home Front, espionage, and the politics behind them. This, for the first time in history, was ‘total war’. Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…
The Siege of Leningrad:History in an Hour
The Siege of Leningrad:History in an Hour
Rupert Colley
¥18.05
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest sieges in history and it inflicted some of the worst civilian casualties of World War Two. When Hitler declared his intention to obliterate the key city of Leningrad on 22 September 1941, he could not have foreseen the grim determination of its citizens. Over the course of 900 days, the city resisted the Germans pounding at its gates. Its survival contributed to the defeat of Nazism. But the price was heavy – over 1 million died in Leningrad from German bombs and artillery, or from disease, the cold or starvation. In its suffering Leningrad became a source of symbolic national pride, of good conquering evil. The story of the siege is one of heroic resistance and stoical survival but it also one of unimaginable suffering and extreme deprivation. THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD: HISTORY IN AN HOUR is essential reading for all history lovers. Know your stuff: read about the Siege of Leningrad in just one hour.
The Sugar Girls - Joan’s Story
The Sugar Girls - Joan’s Story
Duncan Barrett,Nuala Calvi
¥18.74
This is Joan’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace - it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. ‘Joan had joined Tate & Lyle expressly for the social life, and she was determined to make the most of it. She could see that her old friend Peggy already had an established group of her own among the sugar girls, so she set about building a new set of friends. It wasn’t difficult for Joan, whose cheerful self-confidence, natural chattiness and naughty sense of humour acted as a magnet to those around her.’ In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate & Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked This is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness, providing a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female. Includes Joan’s own personal photographs of life as a sugar girl.
A Book of Voyages
A Book of Voyages
Patrick O’Brian
¥69.26
Never previously published in this country, A Book of Voyages presents writings by various travelers, annotated and introduced by Patrick O Brian. Most are taken from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; O Brian felt that, unlike Elizabethan or Victorian accounts, these writings were relatively unknown in our time. On her journey through the Crimea, Lady Craven witnesses barbaric entertainments in the court of the Tartar Khan. John Bell tells us of his day s hunting with the Manchu emperor in 1721 outside Peking. An English woman in Madras gives us a detailed de*ion of the extraordinary costume and body decoration of a high-born Indian woman, wife of a nabob. These and other selections are glimpses of a world, now gone forever, that few readers would ever see for themselves. They are also quite possibly the inspiration for the travels and adventures of O Brian s own fictional heroes Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin."
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