Infectious Processes: Knowledge, Discourse, and the Politics of Prions (Science, Technology & Medicine in Modern History)

Infectious Processes: Knowledge, Discourse, and the Politics of Prions (Science, Technology & Medicine in Modern History)
Eve Seguin | 2005-01-15 00:00:00 | Palgrave Macmillan | 289 | History
The BSE or "mad cow disease" crisis is regarded by many as an example of the failure of officials and politicians to handle risk situations. Yet, BSE is also characterized by a unique trait, that is, the infectious agent that causes it. Thus far, no one has paid attention to the fact that BSE and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are allegedly caused by a novel agent--a prion--distinct from all other known infectious agents such as bacteria and viruses. The prion hypothesis was introduced by the American scientist Stanley Prusiner in 1982. It immediately created a controversy among scientists and is still rejected by some. Yet, despite this lack of consensus in the scientific community, Prusiner was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1997. This book analyzes the introduction, reception, development and consequences of the prion hypothesis. It shows that BSE is a unique case not only in virtue of its political mismanagement but also because its infectious agent has created a form of revolution in biology.


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Aristotle's 'Politics': A Reader's Guide

Aristotle's 'Politics': A Reader's Guide
Judith A. Swanson, C. David Corbin | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 | Continuum International Publishing Group | 160 | History
This book presents an accessible introduction to Aristotle's "Politics" - a classic of political theory, widely considered to be the founding text of Western and Greek political science. In the "Politics", Aristotle sets out to discover what is the best form that the state can take. Similar to his mentor Plato, Aristotle considers the form that will produce justice and cultivate the highest human potential; however Aristotle takes a more empirical approach, examining the constitution of existing states and drawing on specific case-studies. In doing so he lays the foundations of modern political science. This Reader's Guide is the ideal companion to this most influential of texts."Continuum Reader's Guides" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to key texts in literature and philosophy. Each book explores the themes, context, criticism and influence of key works, providing a practical introduction to close reading, guiding students towards a thorough understanding of the text. They provide an essential, up-to-date resource, ideal for undergraduate students.
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Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar

Marking Time: The Epic Quest to Invent the Perfect Calendar
Duncan Steel | 2000-01-01 00:00:00 | Wiley | 432 | History
"A calendar is a tool," the historian of science E.J. Bickerman once observed, "which cannot be justified by either logic or astronomy."

Duncan Steel, an English space scientist, extends that argument in Marking Time, a broad-ranging history of the Western calendar--a chronological system that is logical after a fashion, but strangely flawed all the same. Steel begins his account by considering George Washington's dual birthday, which he celebrated as falling on February 11, 1731, but Americans celebrated as February 22, 1732. Both, Steel shows, are correct, the discrepancy owing to a later calendrical reform that parts of the world have yet to catch up to (so that Russia's October Revolution, by non-Russian standards, occurred in November). Steel examines the long history of attempts to give the calendar a basis in astronomical fact, shows how the advent of the railroad brought with it the need for a system of standardized mean time, examines the likeliest dates for the birth and death of Jesus, and plucks countless fascinating oddments from the historical record. He doesn't shy away from advancing controversial ideas, one being that the meridian time of Washington, D.C. may be a more useful world standard than that of Greenwich, England--and not merely for political reasons. Neither is he afraid to use sometimes difficult mathematics to prove his points, giving his book a depth that many other popular studies of the calendar lack.

With the dawning millennium, time is much on our minds. This is a book to satisfy idle curiosity, settle dinner-table arguments, and simply enjoy. --Gregory McNamee
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A History of the Crusades, Volume IV: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States

A History of the Crusades, Volume IV: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States
Kenneth M. Setton, Harry W. Hazard | 1977-01-01 00:00:00 | | 462 | History
The six volumes of A History of the Crusades will stand as the definitive history of the Crusades, spanning five centuries, encompassing Jewish, Moslem, and Christian perspectives, and containing a wealth of information and analysis of the history, politics, economics, and culture of the medieval world.
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Combat Aircraft 062, US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Pacific War

Combat Aircraft 062, US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Pacific War
Louis B. Dorny, Jim Laurier | 2007-10-23 00:00:00 | Osprey Publishing | 96 | History
Osprey Publishing Description:
Deadly in its primary role as a submarine hunter, the PBY Catalina was the scourge of the Imperial Japanese Navy's submarine force. Its amphibious traits also made the aircraft well suited to air-sea rescue, and thousands of Allied airmen were saved from a watery grave by PBY crews. Using personal interviews, war diaries and combat reports combined with original Japanese records and books, Louis B Dorny provides a view on the role of the Catalina from both side of the war. Illustrated with over 80 photographs and colour profiles detailing aircraft markings, this is the definitive history of an insight into the PBY's use by the US Navy and Allied forces in the Pacific during World War 2.

Reviews:

"Besides providing a history of the development of seagoing aircraft, the author describes many of the combat actions in which the PBYs were involve, and the wealth of photos and color illustrations depict the unit markings and other features in fine detail." - WWII History Magazine (August/September 2008)

"Among the most popular Osprey Publishing titles are those in the Combat Aircraft series. Louis B Dorny's book in this series focuses on the role of the PBY Catalina maritime patrol aircraft in the Pacific War. The result is an excellent overall account of this aircraft's career and operations during the Pacific War... This is a perfect example of an Osprey title filling a nice that would probably otherwise be overlooked." - Mark E. Stille, WWII Quarterly (Winter 2008)

"Louis B Dorny's US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Pacific War is the second of two volumes...: each volume packs in vintage black and white photos, history and close-up shots of the plans and each comes packed with statistics and history." - The Bookwatch (December 2007)

"The author has divided the book into the various stages of the war, with a considerable emphasis on the first year of the conflict, when hard pressed PBY units were at their most active... It makes for an excellent addition to the series and I know you will find it to be as interesting a read as I." - Scott Van Aken, modelingmadness.com (December 2007)
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Isolationism

Isolationism
Tom Streissguth, Lora Friedenthal | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 | Chelsea House Publications | 118 | History
The roots of isolationism in the United States can be traced back to the American Revolution. As a young nation, the United States limited its involvement in world affairs, focusing mostly on trade issues. Only when America's vital interests were threatened did the United States react with military force. In the 19th century, it was possible to isolate the country from trouble abroad. The presence of two vast oceans and friendly countries to the north and south protected the United States from invasion. As the United States grew to superpower status after World War II, however, its interests expanded around the world, as did the allies and resources it had to protect. Although the ideal of a self-sufficient country remains, very few political leaders believe in isolationism, as this new title explains.
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Historical Dictionary of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Historical Dictionary of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
P. R. Kumaraswamy | 2006-01-01 00:00:00 | The Scarecrow Press | 413 | History
For more than a century, the conflict between Arabs and Israelis has been a major international problem. One cannot open a newspaper or turn on a television newscast without hearing about violence in the Middle East.

Kumaraswamy, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, has written a brief handbook covering this conflict. A list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, and an introduction providing historical context open the work. The author is careful to present the material objectively, using neutral terms so that readers may draw their own conclusions. The alphabetical entries range in length from one paragraph to five pages. They include people (Mahmoud Abbas, David Ben-Gurion); places (Jerusalem, Russia ); and events (Hindawi affair, Nabi Musa riots ). Political parties (Hezbollah, Likud ); organizations (League of Nations ); and a variety of policies (Oslo Accords, Resolution 242 ) also appear. An extensive bibliography with introductory notes will be very useful for researchers.
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Performances of the Sacred in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

Performances of the Sacred in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
Susanne Rupp | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | | 0 | History
Communities have often shaped themselves around cultural spaces set apart and declared sacred. For this purpose, churches, priests or scholars no less than writers frequently participate in giving sacred figures a local habitation and, sometimes, voice or name. But whatever sites, rites, images or narratives have thus been constructed, they also raise some complex questions: how can the sacred be presented and yet guarded, claimed yet concealed, staged in public and at the same time kept exclusive?
Such questions are pursued here in a variety of English texts historically employed to manifest and manage versions of the sacred. But since their performances inhabit social space, this often functions as a theatrical arena which is also used to stage modes of dissent, difference, sacrifice and sacrilege. In this way, all aspects of social life the family, the nation, the idea of kingship, gender identities, courtly ideals, love making or smoking may become sacralized and buttress claims for power by recourse to a repertoire of religious symbolic forms.
Through critical readings of central texts and authors such as Sir Gawain, Foxe, Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, or Vaughan as well as less canonical examples the Croxton play, Buchanan, Lanyer, Wroth, or the tobacco pamphlets the twelve contributions all engage with the crucial question how, and to what end, performances of the sacred affect, or effect, cultural transformation.
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Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination

Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination
Patricia Springborg | 2005-12-05 00:00:00 | Cambridge University Press | 392 | History
Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist, and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period in many contexts. (She contributed to the British debate over toleration and dissent from the 1690s, which inaugurated the modern secular state.) Patricia Springborg's study recovers the historical and philosophical contexts of her thought. She demonstrates that Astell was not alone in her views but, rather, part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers grappling with the existential problems of a new age.

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Die Historischen Personennamen des Griechischen bis zur Kaiserzeit

Die Historischen Personennamen des Griechischen bis zur Kaiserzeit
Friedrich Bechtel | 2009-09-21 00:00:00 | BiblioLife | 338 | History

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Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New Feminist Library)

Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New Feminist Library)
Christine Stansell,Sharon Thompson | 1983-08-01 00:00:00 | Monthly Review Press | 448 | History

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Crime and Punishment: Essential Primary Sources

Crime and Punishment: Essential Primary Sources
K. Lee Lerner | 2006-01-01 00:00:00 | | 0 | History
Essential Primary Source titles are part of a tenvolume set of books in the Social Issues Primary Sources Collection designed to provide primary source documents on leading social issues of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. International in scope, each volume is devoted to one topic
and contains approximately 150 to 175 documents that will include and discuss speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper articles, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels, essays, songs, and works of art essential to understanding the complexity of the topic.
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Elite 024, The Old Contemptibles

Elite 024, The Old Contemptibles
Michael Barthorp, Pierre Turner | 1989-05-25 00:00:00 | Osprey Publishing | 64 | History
Osprey Publishing Description:
On 19 August 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered General von Kluck, commanding the German First Army, to 'exterminate the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little Army'. The 'Old Contemptibles' adopted the aspersion like a treasured regimental title, their subsequent successes earning them a more accurate evaluation as 'the best trained, best organised and best equipped British Army that ever went forth to war'. This book examines the history, organization and uniforms of the British Expeditionary Force of the early 20th century. The text is accompanied by numerous illustrations, including maps, photographs, and colour plates.
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Technology and American History: A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture

Technology and American History: A Historical Anthology from Technology and Culture
Stephen H. Cutcliffe, Terry S. Reynolds | 1997-09-27 00:00:00 | University of Chicago Press Journals; 1 edition | 448 | History
Technology and American History explores the technological dimension of American life from the birth of American industry in the late eighteenth century to the massive industrial systems of the late-twentieth century. Emphasizing a societal context for technology, this carefully-organized collection demonstrates both the manner in which cultural, political, and economic forces shape innovation, and the ways that technology has influenced society and shaped its values. Individual essays explore the importance of textile manufacturing in American industrialization, the role of the federal government in regulating new modes of transport, the development of interchangeable parts in production, the process of innovation, the notion of technological systems, and the relationship between technological change and work in the factory, on the farm, and in the home. This collection will be extremely useful for faculty and students in undergraduate survey courses in the history of American technology as well as interdisciplinary science, technology and society courses. In addition, general readers will find this collection accessible and engaging.
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Elizabethan England (Costume and Fashion Source Books)

Elizabethan England (Costume and Fashion Source Books)
Kathy Elgin | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 | Chelsea House Publications | 64 | History
Focusing on the Elizabethan era in England, a period from about 1550 to 1603, this title shows various examples of the fascinating clothing worn by everyone from the noblemen and middle classes to the countryfolk and military men. England during the time of Queen Elizabeth I is well-known to students as the time of Shakespearea s plays and other courtly drama. Photographs and illustrations from popular plays and movies show vivid examples of Elizabethan dress, which will assist students who are studying the common costumes and accessories of the time.
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Exemplarity and Mediocrity: The Art of the Average from Bourgeois Tragedy to Realism

Exemplarity and Mediocrity: The Art of the Average from Bourgeois Tragedy to Realism
Paul Fleming | 2008-01-01 00:00:00 | Stanford | 240 | History
Exemplarity and Mediocrity: The Art of the Average from Bourgeois Tragedy to Realism
By Paul Fleming


* Publisher: Stanford University Press
* Number Of Pages: 240
* Publication Date: 2008-12-11
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0804758905
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780804758901



Product Description:

Following Hegel's analysis of art's increasing difficulty to both engage and extricate itself from prosaic reality, Paul Fleming investigates the strategies employed by German literature from 1750 to 1850 for increasingly attuning itself to quotidian life—common heroes, everyday life, non-extraordinary events—while also avoiding all notions of mediocrity. He focuses on three sites of this tension: the average audience (Lessing), the average artist (Goethe and Schiller), and the everyday, or average life (Grillparzer and Stifter).

The book's title, Exemplarity and Mediocrity, describes both a disjunctive and a conjunctive relation. Read disjunctively, modern art must display the "exemplary originality" (Kant) that only genius can provide and is thus fundamentally opposed to mediocrity as that which does not stand out or lacks distinctiveness; in the conjunctive sense, modern art turns to non-exceptional life in order to transform it—without forsaking its commonness—thereby producing exemplary forms of mediocrity that both represent the non-exceptional and, insofar as they stand outside the group they represent, are something other than mediocre.




Summary: How modern art embraces mediocre life without falling prey to it
Rating: 5

"Exemplarity and Mediocrity" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Fleming's book interview ran here as cover feature on July 24, 2009.
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Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700-1930

Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700-1930
Jane Burbank (Editor) | 2007-01-01 00:00:00 | Indiana University Press | 561 | History
"Russian Empire" offers new perspectives on the strategies of imperial rule pursued by rulers, officials, scholars, and subjects of the Russian empire. An international team of scholars explores the connections between Russia's expansion over vast territories occupied by people of many ethnicities, religions, and political experiences and the evolution of imperial administration and vision. The fresh research reflected in this innovative volume reveals the ways in which the realities of sustaining imperial power in a multiethnic, multiconfessional, scattered, and diffuse environment inspired political imaginaries and set limits on what the state could accomplish. Taken together, these rich essays provide important new frameworks for understanding Russia's imperial geography of power.
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The Fall of Britain (History of the Second World War 07)

The Fall of Britain (History of the Second World War 07)
Sir Basil Liddell Hart, Barrie Pitt | 1973-01-01 00:00:00 | Marshall Cavendish | 32 | History
B. H. Liddell Hart's last work as well as his magnum opus, embodies the fruits of twenty years of research and a lifetime of thinking on war. It abounds with controversial judgments, including provocative assertions about the true causes behind France's defeat in 1940, Hitler's failed invasion of Russia, and Japan's stunning victory at Pearl Harbor; the effectiveness of the Allies' strategic bombing of Germany; the questionable necessity of detonating atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and much more. This monumental history is both a crowning achievement and a final summation by one of the greatest military thinkers of the twentieth century.
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Expansionism

Expansionism
Richard, Ph.D. Sauers | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 | Publisher: Chelsea House Publications | 118 | History
Ever since the first European settlers arrived on the east coast of North America, a sense of divine mission—which came to be called "manifest destiny"—prevailed. It was the belief that America's mission was to occupy the continent and spread democracy across the land. In fewer than 100 years, the United States grew from a union of 13 colonies to a continental power, one that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the Pacific. In the 30 years after expanding from sea to sea, the United States became a world power following a brief war with Spain. American territorial expansion is over, but ever since the end of World War II, the American version of the English language, together with American culture, has been steadily spreading around the world. Learn in this new title how expansionism has been a crucial part of U.S. history.
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The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies

The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies
Charlotte Booth | 2007-01-01 00:00:00 | For Dummies | 384 | History
Unravel the history behind of one of the most fascinating ancient civilisations with this engaging, entertaining and educational guide to the ancient Egyptians. With a complete rundown of ancient Egyptian history and culture alongside insights in to the everyday lives of the Egyptians, you’ll discover how they kept themselves entertained, the gory details of mummification, the amazing creation of the pyramids, the deciphering of hieroglyphs and much more.
From the Back Cover
Includes information on key archaeological discoveries
Unravel over 3,000 years of fascinating history

This lively guide walks you through the world of the ancient Egyptians and reveals intriguing insights into their history and culture along the way. Inside you'll find stories of kings and their harems, epic buildings, incredible art, fascinating funerary rites, and mysterious mummies – all helping you to make a connection with this ancient civilisation and the colourful individuals who created it. It's a journey you won't forget!

Egyptian funerary rites and mummification
How to decipher hieroglyphs

The history behind the monuments and the personalities who built them

Important religious and cultural beliefs

Key Egyptologists and archaeological discoveries
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