An invaluable guide for both casual opera fans and aficionados, 100 Great Operas is perhaps the most comprehensive and enjoyable volume of opera stories ever written. ,From La Traviata to A??da, from Carmen to Don Giovanni, here are the plots of the world???s best-loved operas, told in an engaging, picturesque, and readable manner. Written by noted opera authority Henry W. Simon, this distinctive reference book contains act-by-act descriptions of 100 operatic works ranging from the historic early seventeenth century masterpieces of Monteverdi to the modern classics of Gian-Carlo Menotti.,In addition to highlighting the most important aspects of each opera, the author discusses the main characters, the famous turnings of plot, and the most significant arias. Here, too, is a wealth of anecdotes concerning literary background, past performances and stars, and production problems of the great operas.
In a wonderful synthesis of science, history, and imagination, Gino Segr??, an internationally renowned theoretical physicist, embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of how the fundamental scientific concept of temperature is bound up with the very essence of both life and matter. Why is the internal temperature of most mammals fixed near 98.6??? How do geologists use temperature to track the history of our planet? Why is the quest for absolute zero and its quantum mechanical significance the key to understanding superconductivity? And what can we learn from neutrinos, the subatomic “messages from the sun” that may hold the key to understanding the birth-and death-of our solar system? In answering these and hundreds of other temperature-sensitive questions, Segr?? presents an uncanny view of the world around us.
More than two hundred extracts from literature, biographies, memoirs, reportage, and poetry introduce the giants of science and explore the impact of science on the world.
A History of Economic Theory offers a comprehensive account of the builders and building blocks of modern mainstream economics. Jurg Niehans shows how the analytical tools used by economists have evolved from the eighteenth century to the present. Niehans first surveys the development of classical economics from the scholastic and mercantilist traditions to Marx. He then follows the progress of marginalist economics from Thunen to Fischer. In the book’s final section, he describes economic theory in the model-building era from Pigou and Keynes to Rational Expectations.,Building his story around the economists themselves, Niehans presents a pantheon of economic theory. It includes the famous from Smith and Riccardo to Samuelson and Friedman, as well as detailed discussions of lesser-known figures who have nevertheless made classic contributions. For each theorist Niehans offers a biographical sketch followed by a description, interpretation, and critical assessment of his work. With the current revival of interest in the history of economics, economists will find A History of Economic Theory not only a rich source of information but also a challenging analysis of the dynamics of scientific progress.
On 3/8/1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Its mission was “to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas” & unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. When it returned in 10/1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political & economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings. Most records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in China’s long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus & had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. Also concealed was how the Chinese colonized America before the Europeans & transplanted in America & other countries the principal economic crops that have fed & clothed the world.,Unveiling incontrovertible evidence of these astonishing voyages, “1421” rewrites our understanding of history. Our knowledge of world exploration as it’s been commonly accepted for centuries must now be reconceived due to this landmark work of historical investigation.
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.,Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man???s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
This book collects works from contemporary medical journals, historical werewolf trials, medieval texts on lycanthropy, philosophy about werewolves, and some of the seminal werewolf fiction. , presents an overall examination of the history of the werewolf in Western culture, medicine, myth, and literature.
A new edition of the best-selling work from one of the most forward-thinking and important philosophers of our time.,Join one of the greatest contemporary philosophers on a breathtaking tour of time and the Kosmos???from the Big Bang right up to the eve of the twenty-first century. This accessible and entertaining summary of Ken Wilber???s great ideas has been expanding minds now for two decades, providing a kind of unified field theory of the universe and, along the way, treating a host of issues related to that universe, from gender roles, to multiculturalism, to environmentalism, and even the meaning of the Internet. This special anniversary edition contains as an afterword a dialogue between the author and Lana Wachowski, the award-winning writer-director of the Matrix film trilogy, in which we???re offered an intimate glimpse into the evolution of Ken???s thinking and where he stands today. A Brief History of Everything may well be the best introduction to the thought of this man who has been called the ???Einstein of Consciousness??? (John White).
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“A wonderful, splendid book???a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future.” ???Howard Fast,With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools???with its emphasis on great men in high places???to focus on the street, the home and the workplace.,Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History of the United States is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of???and in the words of???America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles???the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality???were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.,Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
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“A wonderful, splendid book???a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future.” ???Howard Fast,With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools???with its emphasis on great men in high places???to focus on the street, the home and the workplace.,Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History of the United States is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of???and in the words of???America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles???the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality???were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.,Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
