Youth in the Middle Ages

Youth in the Middle Ages
P.J.P. Goldberg,Felicity Riddy | 2004-03-18 00:00:00 | York Medieval Press | 152 | World
Moving on from the legacy of Ariès, these essays address evidence for childhood and youth from the sixth century to the sixteenth, but with particular emphasis on later medieval England. The contents include the idea of childhood in the writing of Gregory of Tours, skaldic verse narratives and their implications for the understanding of kingship, Jewish communities of Northern Europe for whom children represented the continuity of a persecuted faith, children in the records of the northern Italian Humiliati, the meaning of romance narratives centred around the departure of the hero or heroine from the natal hearth, the age at which later medieval English youngsters left home, how far they travelled and where they went, literary sources revealing the politicisation of the idea of the child, and the response of young, affluent females to homiletic literature and the iconography of the virgin martyrs in the later middle ages.Contributors: FRANCES E. ANDREWS, HELEN COOPER, P.J.P.GOLDBERG, SIMCHA GOLDIN, EDWARD F. JAMES, JUDITH JESCH, KIM M. PHILLIPS, MIKE TYLER, ROSALYNN VOADEN.

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Flexible Urban Transportation

Flexible Urban Transportation
Jonathan L Gifford | 2003-05-28 00:00:00 | Pergamon | 260 | World
Flexible Urban Transportation is a sweeping reassessment of American highway and transit policy. For the last half-century, this policy has been fixated on planning, designing and constructing the Interstate highway system, and then coping with the creative destruction it wrought.

Aggressive construction of the Interstate divided and destroyed urban communities, and sparked a furious backlash, the "Freeway Revolt". The Interstate also facilitated widespread suburbanization of housing, retail and employment, which in turn gave rise to the tightly integrated, flexible supply chains characteristic of modern industry. American society faces a profound dilemma. The private automobile has never been more popular. The economy depends on highways. But communities are increasingly unwilling to build or expand them.

Making transportation choices with a clear understanding of their consequences - protecting communities, fostering environmental stewardship, and supporting a dynamic and productive economy - is an urgent matter. But the regulations and procedures that govern those choices are severely outdated. And the interests vested in the current stalemate block the way towards serious reform.

This cogent evaluation of how American transportation planning got to where it is today, and its proposal for an adaptive transportation decision-making process, is required reading for those concerned about the problems and prospects of transportation today.

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Women in the Damascus Document (Academia Biblica (Society of Biblical Literature) (Paper))

Women in the Damascus Document (Academia Biblica (Society of Biblical Literature) (Paper))
Cecilia Wassen | 2005-08-31 00:00:00 | Society of Biblical Literature | 257 | World
Women in the Damascus Document offers a fresh look at the nature of the community reflected in the Damascus Document, one of the core documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls. By presenting a close and comprehensive study of the references to women and in-depth analyses of biblically based laws in the document, this work attempts to reconstruct the role of women and attitudes toward women within the community. Highlighting the complex nature of the evidence, the author draws attention to a number of rules that reflect a favorable attitude toward women, but also to instances of a patriarchal stance, especially regarding sexuality. Carefully considering all the evidence, the author argues, in contrast to the opinions of many scholars, that women were full members in the community.

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The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself

The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself
Daniel J. Boorstin | 1983-10-12 00:00:00 | Random House | 747 | World
An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.


From the Trade Paperback edition.
Perhaps the greatest book by one of our greatest historians, The Discoverers is a volume of sweeping range and majestic interpretation. To call it a history of science is an understatement; this is the story of how humankind has come to know the world, however incompletely ("the eternal mystery of the world," Einstein once said, "is its comprehensibility"). Daniel J. Boorstin first describes the liberating concept of time--"the first grand discovery"--and continues through the age of exploration and the advent of the natural and social sciences. The approach is idiosyncratic, with Boorstin lingering over particular figures and accomplishments rather than rushing on to the next set of names and dates. It's also primarily Western, although Boorstin does ask (and answer) several interesting questions: Why didn't the Chinese "discover" Europe and America? Why didn't the Arabs circumnavigate the planet? His thesis about discovery ultimately turns on what he calls "illusions of knowledge." If we think we know something, then we face an obstacle to innovation. The great discoverers, Boorstin shows, dispel the illusions and reveal something new about the world.

Although The Discoverers easily stands on its own, it is technically the first entry in a trilogy that also includes The Creators and The Seekers. An outstanding book--one of the best works of history to be found anywhere. --John J. Miller
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This is the exact book I needed for my class. The condition was great. The wrap around cover was a little torn but that is ok. There was no writing in the book which makes it clear for my own notes.
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A wide-ranging history book on how man's discoveries in the sciences expanded his consciousness, leading to more exploration and thereby further changing and advancing civilizations. Boorstin organizes this vast knowledge from all over the world into a readable history which in the end leaves the reader in absolute awe at how far we've come and wondering how much further can we go. Separated into four Books (Time, The Earth and Seas, Nature, Society) these books are further broken down into section and sub-sections such as Making Time Portable, The Discovery of Asia, Specimen Hunting, and The Lost Arts of Memory.
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Mr. Boorstin's tome is a grand exercise in the epitome of western conceit that would have us believe that the storehouse of human knowledge began with the Greeks, skipped a few civilizations to the Romans and lay dormant until the European "renaissance". Reading this exercise in intellectual laziness would have you believe that the storehouse of human knowledge independently originated from the Greeks and just remained dormant waiting for Europe to wake from it's Medieval slumber to march the species forward again along the path of human enlightenment. This is precisely the type of Western hubris and ignorance laced Orientalism that Edward Said so eloquently discredited. Being a history of "Man the Discoverer" as he puts it in the very first sentence in the book I expected to read a holistic account of mankind's quest to discover the world around him/her. One discovers instead that "Man" in Mr. Boorstin's world doesn't count unless that Man is from the European sub-continent. He dutifully catalogs European progress to enlightenment while almost completely ignoring the contributions of the pre-Greek Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, etc. civilizations that the Greek philosophers built upon as well as to ignore the contributions of the Chinese, Indian, and Islamic civilizations that served as the foundation for the later European Renaissance scientists. The only time he cares to acknowledge Man as other than non-European is to arrogantly and ignorantly ask "why didn't the Arabs or the Chinese think of it". There is no mention either of the independently developed storehouse of knowledge in the Americas. This book truly insults one's intelligence. It wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that Daniel Boorstin was a well educated, highly regarded "historian". If this is the type of racist dribble that can be produced after achieving the supposed apex education that is the Ivy League, I shudder to think of the long term ramifications for the future of the species.
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curious how mankind has come to where it is right now?

read your way through the most influential discovery lines of all time
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I send it is as a gift to a friend in Germany and he was pleased with the service and the book as well. thanks for that.

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Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality and Health , Volume 3 (Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures)

Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, Body, Sexuality and Health , Volume 3 (Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures)
Suad Joseph | 2005-11-30 00:00:00 | Brill Academic Publishers | 588 | World
Volume III of the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, Family, Body, Sexuality, and Health¸ holds 196 articles on 56 topics. It includes articles on aging; the body; breastfeeding; celibacy; child marriage; childhood; courtship; disabilities; food preparation; funerary practices; genital cutting; health policies, practices, and education; poverty; HIV and AIDS; reproduction; incest; love; marriage discourses and practices; reproduction; science; sexual harassment; discourses, education and practices related to sexualities; sports; suicide; and virginity. The articles are organized alphabetically by topic and within topics alphabetically by region. In addition, Volume III includes an extensive bibliography and analysis of over 1,000 doctoral dissertations written on women and Islamic cultures.

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