For some people life begins only after death; for others, life is a shifting journey toward a better place. As a kid, I dreamed of becoming a priest, and as a young adult, I lived for a few years in a consecrated community in Florence, Italy.1 Those years joyfully, and painfully, transformed my relation-ship with the Catholic Church. They helped me distinguish the in…
With hot spots such as lively Phuket Town and the sprawling Patong beach resort, this guide allows you to discover the best of everything Thailand's biggest island has to offer. Five easy-to-follow itineraries explore the city's most interesting areas—from beautiful karst islands to idyllic bays—while reviews of the best hotels, restaurants, and nightlife in Phuket help you plan your perfec…
Materials are probably more deep-seated in our culture than most of us realize. Transportation, housing, clothing, communication, recreation, and food production virtually every segment of our everyday lives is influenced to one degree or another by materials. Historically, the development and advancement of socities have been intimately tied to the members's ability to produce and manipulate m…
In many countries, the political backlash against neoliberalism has mainly been a retreat from democracy, with a decline in independence of the judiciary and the monetary authorities, increased control of the media, and manipulation of elections for purposes of authoritarian control. The economic dynamics and the impact of neoliberalism, i.e. deregulation and liberalized markets, is just one ca…
William Sharp was born on September 12, 1855, at 4 Garthland Place in Paisley, Scotland. He was the oldest in a family of five daughters and three sons. His father, David Galbreath Sharp, was a partner in a mercantile house, and his mother, Katherine Brooks, was the daughter of the Swedish Vice Consul in Glasgow. Sharp spent the summers of his chi…
Saburo Hasegawa’s suddenly high-profile work and ideas resonated in a mid-twen-tieth-century American art world that had been largely leveled and restructured by the turmoil of World War II and its geopolitical aftermath. Modernist players and an existential ethos from Europe as well as philosophies from Asia eventually supplanted American scene regionalist artists and figurative and …
Anyone undertaking a long-term historical study of any particular field of human activity is confronted with the difficulty that the contents and boundaries of that field are inevitably fluid and change over time. The historical study of science is no exception to this. Is it possible to conceptualize science broadly enough to include what has traditionally been considered sci…
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…
The significance of Garranes lies partly in the date of Lisnacaheragh, believed to have been built in the fifth century AD. That is early in the history of the Irish ringfort, the origins of which remain unclear. The evidence of specialist craftworking in metal, glass and enamel from Lisnacaheragh testifies to the importance of the site. The dis…
Effective volcanic crisis communication is afundamental component of the concepts of miti-gation, disaster management, and disaster riskreduction. As part of this communication pro-cess, a number of tools have emerged that areregularly employed in volcanic crises that assistin the structure and formulation of communica-tive processes. This chapter focuses on four vitallessons learnt from key cr…