I would like to preface this study with an example taken from what couldperhaps be termed the “Great Global Vortex” of the twenty-first century: theinternet. On YouTube, we can find two short clips, each starring an imposingand controversial figure in the history of British art and literature. The firstis a less than minute long newsreel clip from 1938 in which British modernistpainter, wri…
Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game, and an inner game. The outer game is played against an external opponent to overcome external obstacles and to reach an external goal. Mas- - taring this game is the subject of many books offering instructions: on how to swing a racket, club or bat, and how to position arms, legs or torso to achieve the best results. But for some reason, …
There are one hundred kinds of Chinese silence: the silence of unknown grandfathers; the silence of borrowed Buddha and rebranded Confucius; the silence of alluring stereotypes and exotic reticence. These poems make those silences heard. Writing back to an “orientalist” tradition that has defined modern American poetry, these 100 Chinese silences unmask the imagined Asias of American litera…
For more than 20 years I have practiced nursing, first in oncology services, then in palliative care. As a teacher and psychotherapist for the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to continue working with nursing students in palliative care and psychi-atric services, as well as to supervise nursing teams. An ethicist by training, I belong to an ethics committee in a neuropsychiatric hospit…
The aim of this book is to explain, carefully but not technically, the differences between advanced, research-level mathematics, and the sort of mathematics we learn at school. The most fundamental differences are philosophical, and readers of this book will emerge with a clearer understanding of paradoxical-sounding concepts such as infinity, curved space, and imaginary numbers. The first few …
This book is a concise narrative of Byzantine history from the time of Constantine the Great (AD 306) to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
In 221 B.C. the First Emperor of Qin unified what would become the heart of a Chinese empire whose major features would endure for two millennia. In the first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, Lewis highlights the key challenges facing the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity.
"The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire—a millennium and a half in the making—was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet an…
In a brisk revisionist history, William Rowe challenges the standard narrative of Qing China as a decadent, inward-looking state that failed to keep pace with the modern West. The Great Qing was the second major Chinese empire ruled by foreigners. Three strong Manchu emperors worked diligently to secure an alliance with the conquered Ming gentry, though many of their social edicts—especial…