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万本电子书0元读

Brown in the Windy City
Brown in the Windy City
Fernandez, Lilia
¥247.21
Brown in the Windy City?is the first history to examine the migration and settlement of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in postwar Chicago. Lilia Fernndez reveals how the two populations arrived in Chicago in the midst of tremendous social and economic change and, in spite of declining industrial employment and massive urban renewal projects, managed to carve out a geographic and racial place in one of America's great cities. Through their experiences in the city's central neighborhoods over the course of these three decades, Fernndez demonstrates how Mexicans and Puerto Ricans collectively articulated a distinct racial position in Chicago, one that was flexible and fluid, neither black nor white.?
Four Last Songs
Four Last Songs
Hutcheon, Linda
¥247.21
Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties as their audience's expectations are at a peak. In?Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue via the late works of some of the world's greatest composers.Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Richard Strauss (1864-1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908-92), and Benjamin Britten (1913-76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal unique responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi's?Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated Richard Wagner's influence by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive?Capriccio, a "e;life review"e; of opera and his own legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen at the age of seventy-five finished?his only opera,?Saint Franois d'Assise, which marked the pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffering from heart problems, refused surgery until he had completed his masterpiece,?Death in Venice. For all four composers, age, far from sapping their creative power, provided impetus for some of their best accomplishments.With its deft treatment of these composers' final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges-and opportunities-that present themselves as artists grow older.
Romantic Things
Romantic Things
Jacobus, Mary
¥247.21
Our thoughts are shaped as much by what things make of us as by what we make of them. Lyric poetry is especially concerned with things and their relationship to thought, sense, and understanding. In Romantic Things, Mary Jacobus explores the world of objects and phenomena in nature as expressed in Romantic poetry alongside the theme of sentience and sensory deprivation in literature and art.?Jacobus discusses objects and attributes that test our perceptions and preoccupy both Romantic poetry and modern philosophy. John Clare, John Constable, Rainer Maria Rilke, W. G. Sebald, and Gerhard Richter make appearances around the central figure of William Wordsworth as Jacobus explores trees, rocks, clouds, breath, sleep, deafness, and blindness in their work. While she thinks through these things, she is assisted by the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Helping us think more deeply about things that are at once visible and invisible, seen and unseen, felt and unfeeling, Romantic Things opens our eyes to what has been previously overlooked in lyric and Romantic poetry.
Socrates and the Jews
Socrates and the Jews
Leonard, Miriam
¥247.21
"e;What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"e; Asked by the early Christian Tertullian, the question was vigorously debated in the nineteenth century. While classics dominated the intellectual life of Europe, Christianity still prevailed and conflicts raged between the religious and the secular. Taking on the question of how the glories of the classical world could be reconciled with the Bible, Socrates and the Jews explains how Judaism played a vital role in defining modern philhellenism.Exploring the tension between Hebraism and Hellenism, Miriam Leonard gracefully probes the philosophical tradition behind the development of classical philology and considers how the conflict became a preoccupation for the leading thinkers of modernity, including Matthew Arnold, Moses Mendelssohn, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. For each, she shows how the contrast between classical and biblical traditions is central to writings about rationalism, political subjectivity, and progress. Illustrating how the encounter between Athens and Jerusalem became a lightning rod for intellectual concerns, this book is a sophisticated addition to the history of ideas.
Honest Courtesan
Honest Courtesan
Rosenthal, Margaret F.
¥241.33
The Venetian courtesan has long captured the imagination as a female symbol of sexual license, elegance, beauty, and unruliness. What then to make of the cortigiana onesta-the honest courtesan who recast virtue as intellectual integrity and offered wit and refinement in return for patronage and a place in public lifeVeronica Franco (1546-1591) was such a woman, a writer and citizen of Venice, whose published poems and familiar letters offer rich testimony to the complexity of the honest courtesan's position.Margaret F. Rosenthal draws a compelling portrait of Veronica Franco in her cultural social, and economic world. Rosenthal reveals in Franco's writing a passionate support of defenseless women, strong convictions about inequality, and, in the eroticized language of her epistolary verses, the seductive political nature of all poetic contests. It is Veronica Franco's insight into the power conflicts between men and women-and her awareness of the threat she posed to her male contemporaries-that makes her literary works and her dealings with Venetian intellectuals so pertinent today.Combining the resources of biography, history, literary theory, and cultural criticism, this sophisticated interdisciplinary work presents an eloquent and often moving account of one woman's life as an act of self-creation and as a complex response to social forces and cultural conditions."e;A book . . . pleasurably redolent of Venice in the 16th-century. Rosenthal gives a vivid sense of a world of salons and coteries, of intricate networks of family and patronage, and of literary exchanges both intellectual and erotic."e;-Helen Hackett, Times Higher Education SupplementThe Honest Courtesan is the basis for the film Dangerous Beauty (1998) directed by Marshall Herskovitz. (The film was re-titled The Honest Courtesan for release in the UK and Europe in 1999.)
Fiela's Child
Fiela's Child
Matthee, Dalene
¥241.33
Set in nineteenth-century rural Africa, Fiela's Child tells the gripping story of Fiela Komoetie and a white, three-year old child, Benjamin, whom she finds crying on her doorstep. For nine years Fiela raises Benjamin as one of her own children. But when census takers discover Benjamin, they send him to an illiterate white family of woodcutters who claim him as their son. What follows is Benjamin's search for his identity and the fundamental changes affecting the white and black families who claim him."e;Everything a novel can be: convincing, thought-provoking, upsetting, unforgettable, and timeless."e;-Grace Ingoldby, New Statesman"e;Fiela's Child is a parade that broadens and humanizes our understanding of the conflicts still affecting South Africa today."e;-Francis Levy, New York Times Book Review"e;A powerful creation of time and place with dark threads of destiny and oppression and its roots in the almost Biblical soil of a storyteller's art."e;-Christopher Wordsworth, The Guardian"e;The characters in the novel live and breathe; and the landscape is so brightly painted that the trees, birds, elephants, and rivers of old South Africa are characters themselves. A book not to miss."e;-Kirkus Reviews
Making Gray Gold
Making Gray Gold
Diamond, Timothy
¥241.33
This first hand report on the work of nurses and other caregivers in a nursing home is set powerfully in the context of wider political, economic, and cultural forces that shape and constrain the quality of care for America's elderly. Diamond demonstrates in a compelling way the price that business-as-usual policies extract from the elderly as well as those whose work it is to care for them.In a society in which some two million people live in 16,000 nursing homes, with their numbers escalating daily, this thought-provoking work demands immediate and widespread attention."e;[An] unnerving portrait of what it's like to work and live in a nursing home. . . . By giving voice to so many unheard residents and workers Diamond has performed an important service for us all."e;-Diane Cole, New York Newsday"e;With Making Gray Gold, Timothy Diamond describes the commodification of long-term care in the most vivid representation in a decade of round-the-clock institutional life. . . . A personal addition to the troublingly impersonal national debate over healthcare reform."e;-Madonna Harrington Meyer, Contemporary Sociology
Insurgent Democracy
Insurgent Democracy
Lansing, Michael J.
¥294.30
In 1915, western farmers mounted one of the most significant challenges to party politics America has seen: the Nonpartisan League, which sought to empower citizens and restrain corporate influence. Before its collapse in the 1920s, the League counted over 250,000 paying members, spread to thirteen states and two Canadian provinces, controlled North Dakota's state government, and birthed new farmer-labor alliances. Yet today it is all but forgotten, neglected even by scholars.Michael J. Lansing aims to change that. Insurgent Democracy offers a new look at the Nonpartisan League and a new way to understand its rise and fall in the United States and Canada. Lansing argues that, rather than a spasm of populist rage that inevitably burned itself out, the story of the League is in fact an instructive example of how popular movements can create lasting change. Depicting the League as a transnational response to economic inequity, Lansing not only resurrects its story of citizen activism, but also allows us to see its potential to inform contemporary movements.
Planters, Merchants, and Slaves
Planters, Merchants, and Slaves
Burnard, Trevor
¥294.30
As with any enterprise involving violence and lots of money, running a plantation in early British America was a serious and brutal enterprise. Beyond resources and weapons, a plantation required a significant force of cruel and rapacious men-men who, as Trevor Burnard sees it, lacked any better options for making money. In the contentious Planters, Merchants, and Slaves, Burnard argues that white men did not choose to develop and maintain the plantation system out of virulent racism or sadism, but rather out of economic logic because-to speak bluntly-it worked.These economically successful and ethically monstrous plantations required racial divisions to exist, but their successes were always measured in gold, rather than skin or blood. Burnard argues that the best example of plantations functioning as intended is not those found in the fractious and poor North American colonies, but those in their booming and integrated commercial hub, Jamaica. Sure to be controversial, this book is a major intervention in the scholarship on slavery, economic development, and political power in early British America, mounting a powerful and original argument that boldly challenges historical orthodoxy.
What Did the Romans Know?
What Did the Romans Know?
Lehoux, Daryn
¥229.55
What did the Romans know about their worldQuite a lot, as Daryn Lehoux makes clear in this fascinating and much-needed contribution to the history and philosophy of ancient science. Lehoux contends that even though many of the Romans' views about the natural world have no place in modern science-the umbrella-footed monsters and dog-headed people that roamed the earth and the stars that foretold human destinies-their claims turn out not to be so radically different from our own.?Lehoux draws upon a wide range of sources from what is unquestionably the most prolific period of ancient science, from the first century BC to the second century AD. He begins with Cicero's theologico-philosophical trilogy On the Nature of the Gods, On Divination, and On Fate, illustrating how Cicero's engagement with nature is closely related to his concerns in politics, religion, and law. Lehoux then guides readers through highly technical works by Galen and Ptolemy, as well as the more philosophically oriented physics and cosmologies of Lucretius, Plutarch, and Seneca, all the while exploring the complex interrelationships between the objects of scientific inquiry and the norms, processes, and structures of that inquiry. This includes not only the tools and methods the Romans used to investigate nature, but also the Romans' cultural, intellectual, political, and religious perspectives. Lehoux concludes by sketching a methodology that uses the historical material he has carefully explained to directly engage the philosophical questions of incommensurability, realism, and relativism.?By situating Roman arguments about the natural world in their larger philosophical, political, and rhetorical contexts, What Did the Romans Knowdemonstrates that the Romans had sophisticated and novel approaches to nature, approaches that were empirically rigorous, philosophically rich, and epistemologically complex.
Nut Country
Nut Country
Miller, Edward H.
¥147.15
On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, "e;We're heading into nut country today."e; That day's events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism-and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party's divisive but effective "e;Southern Strategy,"e; the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller's captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.
Ecology of Place
Ecology of Place
Ian Billick and Mary V. Price
¥447.34
Ecologists can spend a lifetime researching a small patch of the earth, studying the interactions between organisms and the environment, and exploring the roles those interactions play in determining distribution, abundance, and evolutionary change. With so few ecologists and so many systems to study, generalizations are essential. But how do you extrapolate knowledge about a well-studied area and apply it elsewhere?Through a range of original essays written by eminent ecologists and naturalists, The Ecology of Place explores how place-focused research yields exportable general knowledge as well as practical local knowledge, and how society can facilitate ecological understanding by investing in field sites, place-centered databases, interdisciplinary collaborations, and field-oriented education programs that emphasize natural history. This unique patchwork of case-study narratives, philosophical musings, and historical analyses is tied together with commentaries from editors Ian Billick and Mary Price that develop and synthesize common threads. The result is a unique volume rich with all-too-rare insights into how science is actually done, as told by scientists themselves.
Scientific Babel
Scientific Babel
Gordin, Michael D.
¥147.15
English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn't always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time-until the rise of English in the twentieth century.?So how did we get from there to hereHow did French, German, Latin, Russian, and even Esperanto give way to EnglishAnd what can we reconstruct of the experience of doing science in the polyglot pastWith Scientific Babel, Michael D. Gordin resurrects that lost world, in part through an ingenious mechanism: the pages of his highly readable narrative account teem with footnotes-not offering background information, but presenting quoted material in its original language. The result is stunning: as we read about the rise and fall of languages, driven by politics, war, economics, and institutions, we actually see it happen in the ever-changing web of multilingual examples. The history of science, and of English as its dominant language, comes to life, and brings with it a new understanding not only of the frictions generated by a scientific community that spoke in many often mutually unintelligible voices, but also of the possibilities of the polyglot, and the losses that the dominance of English entails.?Few historians of science write as well as Gordin, and Scientific Babel reveals his incredible command of the literature, language, and intellectual essence of science past and present. No reader who takes this linguistic journey with him will be disappointed.
Black New Orleans, 1860-1880
Black New Orleans, 1860-1880
Blassingame, John W.
¥282.53
Reissued for the first time in over thirty years, Black New Orleans explores the twenty-year period in which the city's black population more than doubled. Meticulously researched and replete with archival illustrations from newspapers and rare periodicals, John W. Blassingame's groundbreaking history offers a unique look at the economic and social life of black people in New Orleans during Reconstruction. Not a conventional political treatment, Blassingame's history instead emphasizes the educational, religious, cultural, and economic activities of African Americans during the late nineteenth century."e;Blending historical and sociological perspectives, and drawing with skill and imagination upon a variety of sources, [Blassingame] offers fresh insights into an oft-studied period of Southern history. . . .In both time and place the author has chosen an extraordinarily revealing vantage point from which to view his subject.?"e;-Neil R. McMillen, American Historical Review
Why Unicorn Drinks
Why Unicorn Drinks
Moss, C. W.
¥83.03
Unicorns are just like us. They have problems, stresses, and like to blow off some steam. Author and illustrator C. W. Moss explores the inner psyche of the single-horned in Why Unicorn Drinks . A follow-up to Unicorn Being a Jerk , this volume of 67 four-color illustrations and captions gives readers a glimpse into the sad reality of life as a mythical creature, and reveals what drives Unicorn to the bottle. As fans of Moss' online comic undoubtedly know, Why Unicorn Drinks pours a double-shot of laughter and irreverence. You'll never look at a unicorn the same way again.
What Happens in Scotland
What Happens in Scotland
McQuiston, Jennifer
¥41.46
She Woke Up Married When Lady Georgette Thorold awoke she saw . . . her corset hanging from the armoire . . . a very handsome, very naked Scotsman lying beside her . . . and a wedding ring on her finger! Before the attractive stranger can tell her his name, Georgette does the only sensible thing she runs for it. Little does she know, James MacKenzie isn't clear on what happened the night before either. All he knows is that his money is missing and the stunning woman who just ran from the room is either his wife or a thief . . . or possibly both. What happens in Scotland when two complete strangers fall madly, deeply in love?
John Clare
John Clare
R.S Attack
¥24.44
John Clare (1793-1864) was born at a time of great social upheaval, just months after the beheading of Louis XVI and the outbreak of war with France which was to last till the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. He also lived through the upheavals of the land enclosure movement and agricultural revolution which changed the face of the countryside and the way of life in rural England. His father was a farm worker who managed to pay for his son’s schooling, though this was cut short as conditions worsened, but at least Clare had by then learnt to read and write so he could continue his own education, reading whatever books he could lay his hands on. At the age of sixteen he witnessed the social dislocation caused by the local enclosure Act and observed how the landscape was gradually transformed. Drawing on Clare’s writing, this extensively researched study gives the modern reader an appreciation of the divisive effects of these policies. Structured chronologically, this exploration of John Clare’s life highlights the socio-economic and environmental aspects of his observations and includes his reports on an insidious revolution taking place in the English countryside. Parliament, dominated by landowners, authorised the enclosure of large tracts of common land by private acts without considering the effect on those who had enjoyed rights of use and pasturage for centuries. Land enclosures, and the improved agricultural techniques which this permitted, was important in increasing food production at a time when the population of England was growing rapidly. While additional work was initially provided for agricultural labourers in the fencing and walling needed, this was temporary. The introduction of new, labour-saving machinery further reduced the opportunities for work. Insufficient attention, the author argues, has been given to the consequences. Those driven out of their homes in the country were left with no option but to migrate to the towns and sell their labour to whoever would pay for it. In effect, land enclosure created a market in land; landlessness created a market in labour. These are the foundations of our modern market economy. The author asserts that the harshness of the early years of the industrial revolution were the product of land enclosure which the welfare state has to some extent mitigated, although at the cost of creating a dependency culture in contrast to the sturdy independence of Clare’s parents’ generation of farm workers.
Sketches Sartorial, Tonsorial and the Like
Sketches Sartorial, Tonsorial and the Like
St Claire Bullock
¥24.44
St Claire Bullock - a Professor of Philosophy, no less - in the intervals between pondering the great questions of life, turned his hand to penning light verse in the manner of Hilaire Belloc, Ogden Nash and Edward Lear. In rhyming couplets these wry and witty poems ponder the foibles and vanities of mortals. Some of these are captured in pen and ink drawings which caricature the subject of the poems. Each character is given an amusing name, beginning with Master Cecil Abercorn, through Clarence Castle, Serena Huff, The Marchioness of Mal de Mer, Major Houghton Reid and Thomas Tinkham Tattersall to Roland Washburn White. There are 70 poems in all of which 10 are illustrated. The illustration on the front cover relates to Rupert Ashe: 'The greatest pride of Rupert Ashe was his luxuriant moustache. He took great care to keep it groomed, And even, with restraint, perfumed. He brushed it upward every day, and it made such a grand display, that people who were not the wiser, imagined that he was the Kaiser.'
William Morrow
William Morrow
Kyle, Chris
¥166.09
NOW A BLOCKBUSTER MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD NOMINATED FOR SIX ACADEMY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE A celebration of the remarkable life and legacy of fallen American hero Chris Kyle This commemorative memorial edition of Kyle bestselling memoir features the full text of American Sniper , plus more than eighty pages of remembrances by those whose lives he touched personally including his wife, Taya; his parents, brother, and children; Marcus Luttrell and other fellow Navy SEALs; veterans and wounded warriors; lifelong friends; and many others. He was the top American sniper of all time, called the legend by his Navy SEAL brothers, and a hero by those he served on the home front . . . From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the greatest war memoirs of all time. A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war of twice being shot, and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends. American Sniper also honors Kyle fellow warriors, who raised hell on and off the battlefield. And in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyle wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their marriage and children, as well as on Chris. Adrenaline-charged and deeply personal, American Sniper is a thrilling eyewitness account of service and sacrifice that only one man could tell.
Until I Say Good-Bye
Until I Say Good-Bye
Spencer-Wendel, Susan
¥83.03
In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) Lou Gehrig disease an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining. Susan decided to live that year with joy. She quit her job as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress. She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working. However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts how could it not bebut it is filled with Susan optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile. From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel unforgettable gift to her loved ones a heartfelt record of their final experiences together but an offering to all of us: a reminder that every day is better when it is lived with joy.
Writings from The New Yorker 1925-1976
Writings from The New Yorker 1925-1976
White, E. B.
¥88.56
A delightful, witty, spirited collection of short pieces and essays by the inimitable E. B. White.