Incorporating both new and now-classic essays, this book sets the vocal works of Modest Musorgsky in a fully detailed cultural, political, and historical context. From this perspective Richard Taruskin revises fundamentally the composer's historical and artistic image, in particular debunking the century-old dogmas of Vladimir Stasov, Musorgsky's first biographer. Here the author offers a complete explanation of the revision of the opera Boris Godunov, compares it to contemporaneous operas by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, advances a revisionary characterization of Khovanshchina as an aristocratic tragedy informed by a pessimistic view of history, discusses Musorgsky's use of folklore, and, focusing on Sorochintsi Fair, brings to a climax his refutation of Musorgsky as a protorevolutionary populist. The epilogue is a survey of revisionary productions of Musorgsky's works at home during the Gorbachev era.--From publisher's description.

A distinguished historian, Harvard professor, and White House adviser looks back on his own life and on the tumultuous twentieth century. Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the U.S. Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly forty years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. In this engrossing book, the eminent historian remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary political events.From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers penetrating observations as well as fascinating portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded.

This volume consists of more than twenty articles by Richard H. Popkin on the history of modern philosophy, written between 1980 and 1990, including several not published before this. The topics covered in these studies range over religious and theological influences in modern philosophy, further material in the history of scepticism dealing with Hobbes, Henry More and Pascal, as well as Moritz Schlick, new findings about Spinoza, pre-Adamism, Ralph Cudworth, Isaac Newton's religious views, 18th century racism, and the liberalism of Condorcet.

For most of its history, the American gay movement has been part of the democratic Left. Gay liberation's founders were Communists, and its activist core is still overwhelmingly progressive. But in recent years, a more affluent group of gay men has begun to make its mark. Though they are a minority in the queer community (which includes people of all races, classes and genders), conservatives have become the loudest gay voices in the mainstream media. With their withering contempt for feminism and radical politics, these 'gayocons' are changing the movement's public image. Unless their rise is met by a persuasive critique, they may also alter its heart and soul. Homocons offers such a critique. It describes how the gay Right agenda differs from the one the queer community has long embraced. Never abandoning its analysis of the complex relationship between homosexuals and liberal society, the book examines the conflict between liberationists and assimilationists that has raged since the Stonewall era, and explores how political success tipped the balance and facilitated the rise of the gay Right. Finally this book offers an alternative to gay conservatism grounded in queer humanism, a distinct sensibility that has been a major force in progressive thought for more than a century.

This easy-to-read and must-read short book represents a small collection of valuable and interesting information, arguments and contra-arguments for the existence of God. It is recommended for both skeptics and those who want to strengthen their faith in God. Atheists who want to find out the truth are also welcomed to read it, and especially those who are ready to change their world-view and beliefs if they encounter new facts and strong evidence for the opposite views. After reading it, you will have an elementary knowledge about the question of God, the purpose of life, the world origin, and the whole humankind history. You will possess a basic theological education necessary for everyone interested in vital questions about life and death. You may not agree with the arguments presented in the book, nevertheless, you will surely gain useful knowledge and acquire new information about your own life. There are six main scientific arguments presented in the book for the existence of God. All of them are explained in a very simple and understandable manner, providing answers to all fundamental questions people have been asking themselves during the past centuries. The basic outline of six major logical arguments for the existence of God will help you find the most important Words you were looking for your whole life...

Interweaving history, criticism, and biography, this book is the first to present the relations among six great founders of modern literature.

"Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, immigrated from his shtetl in Lithuania to the United States in 1894 after his father secured a job as a rabbi in Washington, D.C. A poor, Yiddish-speaking newcomer navigating a racially segregated and antisemitic America, young Jolson dreamed of becoming a star, and he did. Thanks to his immense talent and his knack for assimilating into new environments, by the time he reached his twenties he was the most famous and highly paid entertainer in America, making almost $5,000 a week at a time when the average American made $800 a year. Jolson's public adoration and widespread acceptance as a star marked the beginning of an enriching cultural transformation, a moment when the American mind opened up to ethnic and racial differences, widening the gap of acceptability. And yet Jolson himself, despite being ferociously ambitious and gigantically talented, was crippled by insecurity, often nervous to the point of collapse, prisoner to his many vices. Through Jolson, Bernstein simultaneously breaks open the history and legacy of the cultural sensation The Jazz Singer. Not only was The Jazz Singer the first feature length film with synchronized music and dialogue, but it was also taboo smashing in its content: The Jazz Singer is all about Jews, Orthodox and otherwise. Bernstein expounds on the making of The Jazz Singer, what the film meant then and now, introducing the many individuals involved in its production, including Samson Raphaelson, a young Jewish writer whose short story was the basis for the movie; the four Warner brothers who made a fortune off it; and George Jessel, Jolson's rival and the star of Raphaelson's stage adaptation of his short story. In the background emerges a picture of old Hollywood in the Roaring Twenties: cutthroat and greedy yet visionary and progressive. And while The Jazz Singer represented the future in many ways, it also dredged up the worst of the past, including Jolson's use of blackface, common at the time. At once a tale of the Judaizing of American culture and an acknowledgment of the challenges to come, Only in America is a glistening examination of a man at the center of a watershed moment in the arts"--

Practical Chess Openings is a basic openings book covering all the major openings, in alphabetical order. At the beginning of each section is a general description of the opening and its history, including the names of famous players who played it. The opening lines are in Descriptive Notation and are arranged in columns from the most popular to the least popular. Nowadays chess grandmasters do not study opening books. Instead they work with computer databases with millions of games in them, and then run them through chess analysis programs like Fritz, Houdini and Rybka, searching for new ideas and for flaws in their rival grandmaster's analysis. Amateur chess players cannot compete against this. We must just play for the enjoyment of the game without any hope of ever making grandmaster status. Having a book with the latest most up to date lines is of no added value. A serviceable, shorter and highly readable book like Fine's “Practical Chess Openings” is just as good and perhaps even better than a new book crammed with all the latest stuff.

Originally published in 1926, this book describes the varieties of potato prevalent in the UK in the early twentieth century. Salaman also examines the environmental and genetic forces 'which control the production of these varieties, their behaviour and their ultimate destiny'. Several plates illustrating points of variety, such as leaves and flowers, are also provided. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of the potato in the UK.

This publication focuses on an aspect of Rebecca Horn's extraordinarily diverse oeuvre that plays an important role in the formal constitution of her large sculptures and installations - the relationship between the work of art and its architectural setting. The book presents a selection ranging from works of the 1980s to sculptures and installations realized in 2005. In the early Measure Box (1970) and Rooms meet in mirrors (1974/75a) the human body is the measure of spatial perception. In the installation entitled Concert in Reverse (1987), the artist works in a building with a dubious political background - the "Zwinger," where countless people were tortured during the Nazi regime - exploring its history and creating a place of remembrance. In Moon Mirror (2003), a work installed in Pollenca, the artist creates a column of air between a fountain constructed with mirrors and an eddy of light beneath the dome of the convent church. At the point at which the Orient and the Occident meet, the moon is captured as a "vehicle of human vision and expressions." The viewer descends into the depths of the fountain and transcends his own horizon in order to survey the heavens anew. -- Dustjacket.

Winter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, and the perfect novel for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and all those fascinated by the Mitford sisters. Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, the discovery of a photograph of Daphne sends her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago. A dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal, Winter Games is powerful novel of innocent lives caught up in the march of history. 'Johnson has a brilliant eye for the telling specifics . . . She is a natural comic writer and has a breezy, Mitfordian tone that makes you laugh at the same time as wincing in recognition . . . To write an entertaining romp set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany is a tricky feat to pull off. Yet Johnson has done it - and done it in style' Observer 'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard 'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail 'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph 'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red 'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times 'The Jane Austen of W11' Scotsman Rachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries , Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.

Though competition occupies a prominent place in the history of economic thought, among economists today there is still a limited, and sometimes contradictory, understanding of its impact. In Competition and Growth , Philippe Aghion and Rachel Griffith offer the first serious attempt to provide a unified and coherent account of the effect competition policy and deregulated entry has on economic growth. The book takes the form of a dialogue between an applied theorist calling on "Schumpeterian growth" models and a microeconometrician employing new techniques to gauge competition and entry. In each chapter, theoretical models are systematically confronted with empirical data, which either invalidates the models or suggests changes in the modeling strategy. Aghion and Griffith note a fundamental divorce between theorists and empiricists who previously worked on these questions. On one hand, existing models in industrial organization or new growth economics all predict a negative effect of competition on innovation and growth: namely, that competition is bad for growth because it reduces the monopoly rents that reward successful innovators. On the other hand, common wisdom and recent empirical studies point to a positive effect of competition on productivity growth. To reconcile theory and evidence, the authors distinguish between pre- and post-innovation rents, and propose that innovation may be a way to escape competition, an idea that they confront with microeconomic data. The book's detailed analysis should aid scholars and policy makers in understanding how the benefits of tougher competition can be achieved while at the same time mitigating the negative effects competition and imitation may have on some sectors or industries.

Format Hardcover Subject 20th Century American History Economic Aspects General Miscellaneous Economic Conditions in the United States American Colonial History General Miscellaneous 19th Century American History Economic Aspects 18th Century American History Ge Publisher Palgrave Macmillan

In Decoding the Past, Peter Loewenberg has collected eleven of his brilliant essays on psychohistory, a discipline that has emerged from the synthesis of traditional historical analysis and clinical psychoanalysis. He surveys this relatively new field--its methods and its problems--to show the special contributions that psychoanalysis can make to history. He then further explores the psychohistorical method by applying it to studies of personality, cultures, groups, and mass movements, demonstrating that psychohistory offers one of the most powerful of interpretive approaches to history. Decoding the Past is an impressive study that demonstrates the range of Loewenberg's own work in history and psychoanalysis and the full promise of an important and innovative methodology for others. His new essay takes up many of the criticisms and concerns raised about the method of psychohistory, and offers a cogent defense for its continued usage.

This book documents the history of pi from the dawn of mathematical time to the present. The story of pi reflects the most seminal, the most serious, and sometimes the most whimsical aspects of mathematics. Much significant mathematics originates with pi, and many great mathematicians have contributed to this story's unfolding. Mathematicians and historians of mathematics will find this book indispensable. Teachers at every level can find here ample resources for anything from individual talks and student projects to special topics courses.

The travels of Pedro de Cieza de Léon, A.D. 1532-50, contained in the first part of his Chronicle of Peru, a classical book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Lecture I The Early History of Fermat's Last Theorem.- 1 The Problem.- 2 Early Attempts.- 3 Kummer's Monumental Theorem.- 4 Regular Primes.- 5 Kummer's Work on Irregular Prime Exponents.- 6 Other Relevant Results.- 7 The Golden Medal and the Wolfskehl Prize.- Lecture II Recent Results.- 1 Stating the Results.- 2 Explanations.- Lecture III B.K. = Before Kummer.- 1 The Pythagorean Equation.- 2 The Biquadratic Equation.- 3 The Cubic Equation.- 4 The Quintic Equation.- 5 Fermat's Equation of Degree Seven.- Lecture IV The Naïve Approach.- 1 The Relations of Barlow and Abel.- 2 Sophie Germain.- 3 Congruences.- 4 Wendt's Theorem.- 5 Abel's Conjecture.- 6 Fermat's Equation with Even Exponent.- 7 Odds and Ends.- Lecture V Kummer's Monument.- 1 A Justification of Kummer's Method.- 2 Basic Facts about the Arithmetic of Cyclotomic Fields.- 3 Kummer's Main Theorem.- Lecture VI Regular Primes.- 1 The Class Number of Cyclotomic Fields.- 2 Bernoulli Numbers and Kummer's Regularity Criterion.- 3 Various Arithmetic Properties of Bernoulli Numbers.- 4 The Abundance of Irregular Primes.- 5 Computation of Irregular Primes.- Lecture VII Kummer Exits.- 1 The Periods of the Cyclotomic Equation.- 2 The Jacobi Cyclotomic Function.- 3 On the Generation of the Class Group of the Cyclotomic Field.- 4 Kummer's Congruences.- 5 Kummer's Theorem for a Class of Irregular Primes.- 6 Computations of the Class Number.- Lecture VIII After Kummer, a New Light.- 1 The Congruences of Mirimanoff.- 2 The Theorem of Krasner.- 3 The Theorems of Wieferich and Mirimanoff.- 4 Fermat's Theorem and the Mersenne Primes.- 5 Summation Criteria.- 6 Fermat Quotient Criteria.- Lecture IX The Power of Class Field Theory.- 1 The Power Residue Symbol.- 2 Kummer Extensions.- 3 The Main Theorems of Furtwängler.- 4 The Method of Singular Integers.- 5 Hasse.- 6 The p-Rank of the Class Group of the Cyclotomic Field.- 7 Criteria of p-Divisibility of the Class Number.- 8 Properly and Improperly Irregular Cyclotomic Fields.- Lecture X Fresh Efforts.- 1 Fermat's Last Theorem Is True for Every Prime Exponent Less Than 125000.- 2 Euler Numbers and Fermat's Theorem.- 3 The First Case Is True for Infinitely Many Pairwise Relatively Prime Exponents.- 4 Connections between Elliptic Curves and Fermat's Theorem.- 5 Iwasawa's Theory.- 6 The Fermat Function Field.- 7 Mordell's Conjecture.- 8 The Logicians.- Lecture XI Estimates.- 1 Elementary (and Not So Elementary) Estimates.- 2 Estimates Based on the Criteria Involving Fermat Quotients.- 3 Thue, Roth, Siegel and Baker.- 4 Applications of the New Methods.- Lecture XII Fermat's Congruence.- 1 Fermat's Theorem over Prime Fields.- 2 The Local Fermat's Theorem.- 3 The Problem Modulo a Prime-Power.- Lecture XIII Variations and Fugue on a Theme.- 1 Variation I (In the Tone of Polynomial Functions).- 2 Variation II (In the Tone of Entire Functions).- 3 Variation III (In the Theta Tone).- 4 Variation IV (In the Tone of Differential Equations).- 5 Variation V (Giocoso).- 6 Variation VI (In the Negative Tone).- 7 Variation VII (In the Ordinal Tone).- 8 Variation VIII (In a Nonassociative Tone).- 9 Variation IX (In the Matrix Tone).- 10 Fugue (In the Quadratic Tone).- Epilogue.- Index of Names.

Jewish women's exclusion from the public domains of religious and civil life has been reflected in their near absence in the master narratives of the East European Jewish past. As a result, the study of Jewish women in eastern Europe is still in its infancy. The fundamental task of historians to construct women as historical subjects, 'as a focus of inquiry, a subject of the story, an agent of the narrative', has only recently begun. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the study of Jewish women's experiences in Eastern Europe. The volume is edited by Paula Hyman of Yale University, a leading figure in Jewish women's history in the United States, and by ChaeRan Freeze of Brandeis University, author of a prize-winning study on Jewish divorce in nineteenth-century Russia. Their Introduction provides a much-needed historiographic survey that summarizes the major work in the field and highlights the lacunae. Their contributors, following this lead, have attempted to go beyond mere description of what women experienced to explore how gender constructed distinct experiences, identities, and meanings. In seeking to recover lost achievements and voices and place them into a broader analytical framework, this volume is an important first step in the rethinking of east European Jewish history with the aid of new insights gleaned from the research on gender. As in earlier volumes of Polin, substantial space is given, in 'New Views', to recent research in other areas of Polish-Jewish studies, and there is a book review section.

This book contains the first English translations of The Origin of the Moral Sensations and Psychological Observations, the two most important works by the German philosopher Paul Rée. These essays present Rée’s moral philosophy, which influenced the ideas of his close friend Friedrich Nietzsche considerably. Nietzsche scholars have often incorrectly attributed to him arguments and ideas that are Rée’s and have failed to detect responses to Rée’s works in Nietzsche’s writings. Rée’s thinking combined two strands: a pessimistic conception of human nature, presented in the French moralists’ aphoristic style that would become a mainstay of Nietzsche’s own writings, and a theory of morality derived from Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Rée’s moral Darwinism was a central factor prompting Nietzsche to write On the Genealogy of Morals and the groundwork for much of today’s “evolutionary ethics.” In an illuminating critical introduction, Robin Small examines Rée’s life and work, locating his application of evolutionary concepts to morality within a broader history of Darwinism while exploring Rée’s theoretical and personal relationship with Nietzsche. In placing Nietzsche in his intellectual and social context, Small profoundly challenges the myth of Nietzsche as a solitary thinker.

According to Paul Robeson, Jr., the controversy about multiculturalism is in fact a profound ideological struggle over the values of our national culture. More than a question of the politics of race and gender, the debate is about whether melting-pot culture, the foundation of American life, should be replaced by a mosaic culture incorporating the values of the diverse groups that make up America's population. Robeson contends that the melting pot image has not worked for Blacks, who are excluded by definition from the blended culture of the ethnic American dream. Basing his argument in part on a rejection of the idea of radical individualism, the author suggests that the absence of a concept of group rights in American history places Blacks at a disadvantage. Radical individualism, as a philosophy, rejects the premise of civil rights for groups, which in modern parlance is termed "group tyranny." Robeson attacks mainstream American culture itself in a series of interrelated essays on his father (Paul Robeson), Clarence Thomas, liberals and conservatives, cultural diversity in the workplace, gender and minorities, Blacks and Jews, the Black middle class, and the university. What is needed, Robeson contends, is a new understanding of the nature of a culture of diversity - one that also celebrates Blacks, women, and other presently marginalized groups as visible and distinct actors.