Sherwood Forest comes alive in this spirited retelling of the mighty battle that launched the friendship between Robin Hood and Little John. The illustrations are lush with the textures and colors of Sherwood Forest, to which readers are transported in this beguiling version of a long-loved tale.--Booklist. Full color.

Bike Lust roars straight into the world of women bikers and offers us a ride. In this adventure story that is also an insider’s study of an American subculture, Barbara Joans enters as a passenger on the back of a bike, but soon learns to ride her own. As an anthropologist she untangles the rules, rituals, and rites of passage of the biker culture. As a new member of that culture, she struggles to overcome fear, physical weakness, and a tendency to shoot her mouth off—a tendency that very nearly gets her killed. Bike Lust travels a landscape of contradictions. Outlaws still chase freedom on the highway, but so do thousands of riders of all classes, races, and colors. Joans introduces us to the women who ride the rear—the biker chick, the calendar slut straddling the hot engine, the back-seat Betty at the latest rally, or the underage groupie at the local run. But she also gives us the first close look at women who ride in their own right, on their own bikes, as well as a new understanding of changing world of male bikers. These are ordinary women’s lives made extraordinary, adding a dimension of courage to the sport not experienced by males, risking life and limb for a glimpse of the very edge of existence. This community of riders exists as a primal tribute to humanity's lust for freedom.

The much heralded "completion" of the human genome project in the year 2000 raises urgent questions: Do we now have a map of who we are? How will we control the uses of the potentially healing but also likely destructive and highly marketable information genetics brings us? Using her own life as well as her research, Barbara Katz Rothman presents an impassioned defense for the theory that humans are not "ready made from the factory", as one recent popular book on genetics put it, but social beings who grow, mature, and learn who they are.

In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation. Who speaks? Who is silent? Who is seen? Who is absent? These questions focus on how cultures are constructed through pictures and words, how we are seduced into a world of appearances: into a pose of who we are and aren't. On both an emotional and an economic level, images and texts have the power to make us rich or poor. In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation.

More than one in five American children live below the poverty line, a proportion that exceeds that of any other advanced nation. Although large numbers of Western European children live with single or unemployed parents, or belong to disadvantaged minorities, they are better shielded from severe deprivation by carefully designed public assistance programs. Saving Our Children from Poverty describes one of the most successful European systems of assistance for families, that of France, and through comparison with American programs offers a valuable guide to improving our own safety net for children and reforming our dysfunctional welfare system. Saving Our Children from Poverty details the array of benefits available to both high- and low-income families in France. Government-run nursery schools provide free, high-quality care for almost all children between the ages of three and six. Children also receive guaranteed medical care under a national health insurance plan. The French system offers married couples most of the same benefits as single parents, and creates strong incentives to seek and hold jobs rather than remain on welfare. A French single mother who chooses to work still receives substantial income supplements, housing assistance, subsidized health care, and access to public child care facilities. In stark contrast, her American counterpart loses most of her cash benefits if she takes a job and receives no government assistance with child care. Because American policies focus disproportionately on aiding the poorest non-working families, parents forced to rely on low-wage jobs are frequently left without the resources to provide their children with an adequate standard of living. As the public debate on welfare reform continues to rage, ever more American children fall into poverty. Why does the nation remain so unresponsive to their plight? Saving Our Children from Poverty probes the American aversion to national assistance programs, citing the negative attitudes that have seeped into the current political discourse. A lack of faith in the federal government's administrative abilities has bolstered a trend toward decentralization of programs, as well as a growing resistance to taxation. Racial antipathies and a belief that financial support encourages irresponsibility further undermine the development of programs for those in need. Saving Our Children from Poverty illustrates what a nation no wealthier than ours can realistically accomplish and afford, and concludes with a viable blueprint for successfully applying aspects of France's system to the United States.

In For Women Only!, authors Gary Null and Barbara Seaman address women's health both from curative/preventive and historical/contextual perspectives. The first half of the book discusses a wide range of concerns, from addiction and sexual abuse to menopause and mental health, and offers an arsenal of the most effective or promising strategies for preventing, coping with, or curing them. The second half takes an inspirational approach. Drawing on the writings of Sojourner Truth, Angela Davis, Erica Jong, and many others, the book puts women's medicine in perspective, covering topics ranging from the early history of women as healers to contemporary activism, from self-help gynecology and motherhood to women's health in the 21st century. Contributors include Barbara Ehrenreich, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Wolf, and many others.

Matching folio to the legendary singer's album of classic and contemporary Broadway hits, including: The Music of the Night * Luck Be a Lady * Some Enchanted Evening * I Have a Love/One Hand, One Heart * plus 6 more.

(Songbook). Songs of inspiration, interpreted as only Streisand can, are faithfully rendered in the matching songbook to the multi-platinum selling album. Twelve songs, including such classics as "You'll Never Walk Alone," "The Water Is Wide," "Deep River," plus the powerhouse duet with Celine Dion, "Tell Him" in piano/vocal arrangements. Includes color photos and Streisand's own commentary on the songs.

Features 18 songs from the fabulous live millennium New Year's concert event by the incomparable Ms. Streisand, plus her thoughts and reminiscences, and great full-color photos. Includes: Alfie * At the Same Time * Auld Lang Syne * Cry Me a River * Evergreen * Happy Days Are Here Again * I've Dreamed of You * Lover, Come Back to Me * Miss Marmelstein * On a Clear Day * People * Putting It Together * Send in the Clowns * Simple Pleasures * A Sleepin' Bee * Something Wonderful/Being Alive * The Way We Were.

Barnett Newman's writings reveal him to be an impassioned and articulate analyst of art and society who never hesitated to make his views known and always stood by them. To understand Newman's unique place in the culture of the twentieth century, we must know both his paintings and his words--a knowledge made possible by this long-awaited volume. "Barnett Newman [1905-1970] was a thinker who chose to develop his ideas both in painting and in writing. He was also a citizen who made his acts of painting and writing political. And he was an artist."--Richard Schiff, from the Introduction Barnett Newman's writings reveal him to be an impassioned and articulate analyst of art and society who never hesitated to make his views known and always stood by them. To understand Newman's unique place in the culture of the twentieth century, we must know both his paintings and his words--a knowledge made possible by this long-awaited volume. "Barnett Newman [1905-1970] was a thinker who chose to develop his ideas both in painting and in writing. He was also a citizen who made his acts of painting and writing political. And he was an artist."--Richard Schiff, from the Introduction

"The economic growth of South Korea has been a remarkable success story. After the Korean War, the country was one of the poorest economies on the planet; by the twenty-first century, it had become a middle-income country, a member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (the club of advanced economies), and home to some of the world's leading industrial corporations. And yet, many Koreans are less than satisfied with their country's economic performance, given the continuing financial volatility and sluggish growth since the Korean economic crisis of 1997--1998. From Miracle to Maturity offers a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of the growth of the Korean economy, starting with the aggregate sources of growth (growth of the labor force, the stock of capital, and productivity) and then delving deeper into the roles played by structural change, exports, foreign investment, and financial development. The authors provide a detailed examination of the question of whether the Korean economy is now underperforming and ask, if so, what can be done to solve the problem." - Publisher's description.

The implications of capital mobility for growth and stability are some of the most contentious and least understood contemporary issues in economics. In this book, Barry Eichengreen discusses historical, theoretical, empirical, and policy aspects of the effects, both positive and negative, of capital flows. He focuses on the connections between capital flows and crises as well as on those between capital flows and growth. Eichengreen argues that international financial liberalization, like other forms of economic liberalization, can positively affect the efficiency of resource allocation and the rate of economic growth. But analyses of both recent and historical experience also show an undeniable association between capital mobility and crises, especially when domestic institutions are weak and the harmonization of capital account liberalization and other policy reforms is inadequate. In his conclusion, Eichengreen makes suggestions for policy design to maximize the benefits of international financial liberalization while minimizing the risks of financial instability.

" In the last few years, populism--of the right, left, and center varieties--has spread like wildfire throughout the world. The impulse reached its apogee in the United States with the election of Trump, but it was a force in Europe ever since the Great Recession sent the European economy into a prolonged tailspin. In the simplest terms, populism is a political ideology that vilifies economic and political elites and instead lionizes 'the people.' The people, populists of all stripes contend, need to retake power from the unaccountable elites who have left them powerless. And typically, populists' distrust of elites shades into a catchall distrust of trained experts because of their perceived distance from and contempt for 'the people.' Another signature element of populist movements is faith in a savior who can not only speak directly to the people, but also serve as a vessel for the plain people's hopes and dreams. Going back to the 1890s, a series of such saviors have come and gone in the US alone, from William Jennings Bryan to Huey Long to--finally--Donald Trump. In The Populist Temptation, the eminent economic historian Barry Eichengreen focuses on the global resurgence of populism today and places it in a deep context. Alternating between the present and earlier populist waves from modern history, he argues that populists tend to thrive most in the wake of economic downturns, when it is easy to convince the masses of elite malfeasance. Yet while there is more than a grain of truth that bankers, financiers, and 'bought' politicians are responsible for the mess, populists' own solutions tend to be simplistic and economically counterproductive. Moreover, by arguing that the ordinary people are at the mercy of extra-national forces beyond their control--international capital, immigrants, cosmopolitan globalists--populists often degenerate into demagoguery and xenophobia. There is no one solution to addressing the concerns that populists raise, but Eichengreen argues that there is an obvious place to start: shoring up and improving the welfare state so that it is better able to act as a buffer for those who suffer most during economic slumps. For example, America's patchwork welfare state was not well equipped to deal with the economic fallout that attended globalization and the decline of manufacturing in America, and that played no small part in Trump's victory. Lucidly explaining both the appeals and dangers of populism across history, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand not just the populist phenomenon, but more generally the lasting political fallout that follows in the wake of major economic crises. "--

An accessible introduction to string theory, this book provides a detailed and self-contained demonstration of the main concepts involved. The first part deals with basic ideas, reviewing special relativity and electromagnetism while introducing the concept of extra dimensions. D-branes and the classical dynamics of relativistic strings are discussed next, and the quantization of open and closed bosonic strings in the light-cone gauge, along with a brief introduction to superstrings. The second part begins with a detailed study of D-branes followed by string thermodynamics. It discusses possible physical applications, and covers T-duality of open and closed strings, electromagnetic fields on D-branes, Born-Infeld electrodynamics, covariant string quantization, and string interactions

Baruch de Spinoza was one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the 17th century. Rejecting both the mind-body dualism of Descartes and traditional religious views about God and the universe, Spinoza's philosophy was groundbreaking in its radical understanding of the relationship between the human person and the divine, the nature of moral action, and the relativization of the concepts of good and evil. This reissuing of THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA provides the reader with selections from the most important works of Spinoza and shows the daring scope of this visionary philosopher's thought.ABOUT SOPHIAOMNI PRESSThis text is published by SophiaOmni Press. SophiaOmni is an independent press founded by educators to expand the domain of human wisdom. We publish works in the fields of philosophy, religion, and ethics by past and contemporary authors who have something significant to say about the human condition and our continued existence on this fragile planet. Visit us on the web at www.sophiaomni.org.

Four-time Edgar Award-winning author Lawrence Block's definitive essay collection on the art of writing fiction For ten years, crime novelist Lawrence Block funneled his wealth of writing expertise into a monthly column for Writer's Digest. Collected here for the first time are those pieces illuminating the tricks of the authorial trade, from creating vibrant characters and generating seamless plots, to conquering writer's block and experimenting with self-publishing. Filled with wit and insight, The Liar's Bible is a must-read for experts, amateurs, and anyone interested in learning to craft great fiction from one of the field's modern masters. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.

After the irresponsible, ignorant bliss of financial boom, stockbroker Jimmy and his family are forced to confront financial meltdown in this hilarious and deeply pertinent domestic drama.

What makes the English English? Is it their eccentricity, their passionate love (or, indeed, hatred) of Marmite - or is it something less easily defined? Beginning at the top of a muddy Gloucestershire slope at the Coopers Hill cheese-rolling contest and traversing a landscape of lawns and queues, coastlines and sporting arenas, Ben Fogle takes us on a journey through the peculiarly English: a country of wax jackets, cricket, boat races and jellied eels, by way of national treasures such as the shipping forecast, fish and chips and the Wellington boot. Not to mention the Dunkirk spirit of relentless optimism in the face of adversity, be it the heroic failure of Captain Scott's doomed Antarctic expedition, or simply the perennial hope for better weather. The archetypal Englishman - lover of labradors and Land Rovers yet holder of two passports - Ben applauds all things quintessentially English while also paying tribute to the history, culture and ideas adopted with such gusto that they have become part of the fabric of the country. Written with Ben's trademark warmth and wit, this is a light-hearted yet touching tribute to all things English.

Abstract In this chapter we provide an overview of probabilistic logic networks (PLN), including our motivations for developing PLN and the guiding principles underlying PLN. We discuss foundational choices we made, introduce PLN knowledge representation, and briefly introduce inference rules and truth-values. We also place PLN in context with other approaches to uncertain inference. 1.1 Motivations This book presents Probabilistic Logic Networks (PLN), a systematic and pragmatic framework for computationally carrying out uncertain reasoning – r- soning about uncertain data, and/or reasoning involving uncertain conclusions. We begin with a few comments about why we believe this is such an interesting and important domain of investigation. First of all, we hold to a philosophical perspective in which “reasoning” – properly understood – plays a central role in cognitive activity. We realize that other perspectives exist; in particular, logical reasoning is sometimes construed as a special kind of cognition that humans carry out only occasionally, as a deviation from their usual (intuitive, emotional, pragmatic, sensorimotor, etc.) modes of thought. However, we consider this alternative view to be valid only according to a very limited definition of “logic.” Construed properly, we suggest, logical reasoning may be understood as the basic framework underlying all forms of cognition, including those conventionally thought of as illogical and irrational.