My Great-Aunt Arizona

Book Description

Arizona was born in a log cabin her papa built. She grew into a tall girl who liked to sing, square-dance, and -- most of all -- read and dream of the faraway places she would visit one day.

Arizona never did make it to those places. Instead she became a teacher, helping generations of children in the one-room schoolhouse which she herself had attended. Gloria Houston's Joyous recounting of her great-aunt Arizona's quiet yet meaningful life reminds us of the magical place a special teacher can hold in our hearts.

Customer Reviews:

Great-Aunt Arizona Is the Best.......2007-09-24

My Great-Aunt Arizona is an excellent book for children and for anyone who is encouraged by a positive message on education.

Gloria Houston's work is wonderful!

Wow. What a Gift This Would Be For a Teacher!.......2006-08-24

Read this book to your kids because it's a great story. Read it because it'll help them appreciate what their teachers do for them. And then, maybe give a copy to their teacher as a gift. This wonderful book is a tribute to those who pour their lives into children who can then go forward with dreams and the ability to do anything.

Amazing Book, Great for Teachers.......2006-03-03

I use this book in both my reading and writing workshops for fifth graders. It's an excellent book that could be useful to 3rd-6th grade students. It's a great example of characterization.

It will go with you in your mind..........2002-10-30

By far, one of my favorite books for children. I love reading it to my babies. The text with the beautiful pictures will go with you in your mind forever...

My Great Aunt Arizona.......2001-01-29

This is a wonderful book. As an elementary teacher I especially enjoy reading it with my students and own a classroom set. It is a beautiful story of a teacher and contains lovely illustrations. It is a sweet depiction of schools and life long ago.

Average customer rating:

My Great-Aunt Arizona
Gloria Houston
Manufacturer: Scholastic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LCEX00

Average customer rating:

My Great-Aunt Arizona
Gloria Houston
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OA7TVY

Average customer rating:

My Great-Aunt Arizona
Gloria Houston; Illustrator-Susan Condie Lamb
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OA7TSW

Average customer rating:

My Great-Aunt Arizona
Gloria Houston
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OF6PJQ

Customer Reviews:

It was awesome!.......2001-03-25

I thought it was a very good book for all ages. It inspired me to get out on the course and make the best of my game! I can't wait for the season to come! Plus, I am a HUGE Tiger Woods fan!

Book Description

In Unlikely Couples, Thomas E. Wartenberg directly challenges the view that narrative cinema inherently supports the dominant social interests by examining the way popular narrative films about "unlikely couples" (a mismatched romantic union viewed as inappropriate due to its class, racial, or gender composition) explore, expose, and criticize societal attitudes, boundaries, and prejudices. The films under consideration--including King Kong, Pygmalion, It Happened One Night, Pretty Woman, White Palace, Some Like It Hot, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Mississippi Masala, Jungle Fever, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Desert Hearts, and The Crying Game--are examined both individually and as a whole to explore tensions in the genre's use of the figure of a transgressive couple to condemn social hierarchy as well as to raise a range of significant philosophic topics.

Customer Reviews:

Very interesting analysis of the subject (Movie Romance).......2000-06-08

This book presents very insightful and interesting analysis of movie romance [in Hoollywood cinema] as means of social criticism. The author based his argument on such examples as "Pretty Woman", "Guess who is coming for dinner", "My Fair Lady" and some other... This book is essential for everyone, who is interested in film studies and cinema criticism.

Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism.(Review) (book review): An article from: Social Theory and Practice

Average customer rating:

Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism.(Review) (book review): An article from: Social Theory and Practice
Kevin W. Sweeney
Manufacturer: Social Theory and Practice-Florida State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Social Theory and Practice, published by Social Theory and Practice-Florida State University on January 1, 2001. The length of the article is 3278 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism.(Review) (book review)
Author: Kevin W. Sweeney
Publication: Social Theory and Practice (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2001
Publisher: Social Theory and Practice-Florida State University
Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Page: 174

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Amazon.com

In Evil Sisters Bram Dijkstra, a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego, has taken on the task of detailing the various threats female sexuality is said to have posed throughout this century. Some of these so-called threats seemed alarming; for example, many leading intellectuals from early in the century believed that women were in pursuit of semen to fulfill their reproductive need. Others blamed war as a female creation. He shows how the link of women to vampires was particularly damaging. An interesting historical look at imagery that crops up in today's society.

Customer Reviews:

WHEN SISTERS BETRAY.......2007-08-18

This is an excellent book , for it depicts the despicable acts of sisters that are out for their own selfish endulgence and have wasted their lives in a pathetic orgy of a lifestyle that was so far from how they were raised. I once had sisters that could be trusted to say and do the right thing but they are deceivers of themselves. I personally have strangers that I trust much more than my own sisters.

My three sisters have all shown their apathy towards their own father and now they all huddle together to deceive and to destroy his security.

Shadow History.......2007-05-02

This fascinating book explores some shadowy aspects of early 20th Century American cultural history...pop Nietzscheism and pop Darwinism combined to make a hideous blend of racism, eugenics, sexism, and very strange biological pseudosciences...this dark part of our intellectual heritage was ignored and forgotten after we saw that it led to Hitler and genocide...to learn about it is to fortify ourselves against its contemporary permutations.

A worthy follow-up to Idols of Perversity.......2001-05-23

Because of his previous study/essays in Idols of Perversity, I grabbed this book almost immediately after it was published. Just like the other book, this one was very insightful about the sort of deep-seated cliches applied to women in the arts - the virgin/whore/child-bride/vamp, etc. After reading it, I sat down and had another look at my own writings and tried to eradicate all those crippling, limiting roles from my female characters. One only wishes that this sort of thoughtful re-examination of female archetypes would be applied to more novels and films especially.

Not nearly as good as -Idols of Perversity_.......1999-12-03

I was mightily entertained by his previous book, -Idols of Perversity-, and had high hopes for this one, which seems much less interesting.

-Idols- introduces us to the images of a number of fascinating academic and Symbolist artists of the 19th century, and makes them interesting by roundly condemning them for various sins against political correctness.

This book tries to do the same; unfortunately, he covers more familiar territory, and deals with works that are far more familiar. Dijkstra's judgmentalism adds spice to the obscure, but to familiar masterpieces it seems like vandalism.

It is not new or insightful to point out, say, that Hemingway was mighty interested in Real Manliness; or that Faulkner had peculiar notions about hereditary degeneration. Mr. Dijkstra does a good job at connecting these features of these works to half-forgotten ideas like Lombroso's physiognomy; but the overall effect is far less striking. Those who want to read Hemingway or Faulkner will not find their interest whetted by the diatribe against their sins against political correctness. Unlike nineteenth century paintings, these familiar books stand on their own.

deliberate digression.......1999-07-11

Here is a book which can best be characterized as an inspired failure. That is no insult: academic literature is rife with works that either don't prove what they set out to prove and thus provoke indipensable rebuttals, or which set out to prove the obvious, and prove it to nobody's startlement or particular satisfaction, but, although their conclusions are unexciting, contrive to retain their currency by virtue of their usefulness as info-mines. Had Casaubon's _Key To All Mythologies_ been published, it might have been of the second type. (_Evil Sisters_ belongs to both categories.) Inspired academic failures are often nifty and in my opinion they are even necessary, since academic life depends on discourse and, in order to maintain discourse, someone always has to take the losing position. Henry Petroski writes books on the importance of failure in design; well, failure is no more expendable in discourse than in design; Dijkstra in _Evil Sisters_ proves as much, intentionally or not.

Dijkstra's main contention, that racist and sexist books, pictures, and films led to the Nazification of Europe, is hooey. Sure, the books, films, and pictures existed, and sure the conquest of Europe by Nazi Germany took place, but that doesn't prove that the one LED TO the other. Events may demonstrably correlate statistically without correlating causally--as I learned in High School Social Studies. If racist pictures and literature abound, and if the Nazification of a continent occurs, isn't it at least as likely that both phenomena are due to some antecedent cause as that one phenomenon impels the other? Sure it is, as high school kids flunk Social Studies tests for failing to realize.

Dijkstra's minor contention, that specific strains of antifeminism, anti-Semitism, and race-baiting were ubiquitous throughout the Western world around the turn of the century and up till World War II, is correct, but it's so indisputably correct that Dijkstra, never a fellow to let a blind alley go unexplored, experiences difficulty choosing among his sources. So much so that one is left wondering why Dijkstra should choose to pick on only certain people: why should he scold Fitzgerald and Hemingway for their unacceptable racial and sexual assumptions when London and Cather beckon as temptingly? Could it be because Fitzgerald and Hemingway are bigger literary game and consequently more fun to bag?

Pretty much anything pop-cultural published around 1909 would be castigated as racist/sexist by today's standards; and, as per usual, the stereotypes perpetuated in the pulps found themselves echoed ("archetypally") in the pages of reputable writers. Dijkstra is spot-on in his observation that the basic difference between a stereotype and an archetype inheres in the reputability of the artist who invokes it. Hence, Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer" has come to be an embarrassment while Willa Cather's blind, instinctually musical, perpetually nodding "small-brained" mulatto pianist in _My Antonia_ is still Art. Unfortunately Dijkstra is not content to make this thouroughly accurate observation only once: he makes it again and again and really, it's too self-evident to need that much repetition.

Again, Dijkstra errs, as I see it, when he attributes to the ubiquitous race-baiting of the early Twentieth century a nasty triumphalism which I don't believe it possessed. The lessons of High School and of the playground are always at hand: secure people do not taunt their neighbors. Still less do they taunt neighbors in relation to whom they believe they are one-up. The people who really run this country, still more this world, "have better things to do than be anti-Semitic" or racist, however devastating their policies may be to given out-groups. The "rasping protofascist tone" of early Twentieth-century literature was always most raucous and most inescapable in the pop-cult pulps, and it trickled UP to the comparatively rarified realms of "high culture" from there. Don't get me wrong, I realize that racism was respectable at the turn of the century even in America, and that it kept right on being respectable until the abhorrent sight of Nazi Germany caused the nations of this world to take stock of themselves. What I DON'T believe is that the currency racial/sexual Theories of Everything gained in the Western world at that time was due to Caucasian self-confidence. Quite the opposite. I believe it was contingent upon a great loss of faith. Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead and and forthwith, though with his tongue in his cheek, proposed Das Volk as a substitute for the Divinity, part-Slavic as he was. What could be more inevitable that that he be followed by disciples who were just as insecure as he was but not as smart, who were dead to irony, and whose toungues were most emphatically NOT in their cheeks? Dijkstra holds Darwin reponsible for a great many things, and of some of these things, in my view, Darwin is innocent. But in one respect Dijkstra is right--Darwin had a profound decentering effect on Western philosophers and pulp writers alike. He was the sensei roshi who taught them that they could no longer believe themselves to be the particualar favorites of God. (As such, he was really only the carrier for Spinoza's bad news, but then nobody ever reads philosophers; natural historians get a lot more airplay.) What could be more natural than that people, deprived of a consoling vision of themselves as favorites of God, should bend every sinew to prove themselves favorites of Nature instead?

This self-proof was a burden that devolved heavily upon the shoulders of Twentieth-century people, which their Nineteenth-century forbears did not wholly share. Nineteenth-century Westerners could most of them still depend upon the love of God, a love which might conceivably be lavished more unstintingly upon some groups than others but which was theoretically illimitable and free to all. Christianity had not yet become--let's not follow Nietzsche and say "dead" but UNFASHIONABLE. Consequently strains of racism and sexism existed in Nineteenth-century popular culture but Nineteenth-century popular culture did not CONSIST of them. Early Twentieth-century popular culture almost did. Dijkstra's previous and far superior book, _Idols of Perversity_, was dedicated to mapping the change. _Idols of Perversity_ is much more interesting than _Evil Sisters_ because it chronicles a FIGHT between ideas, and explores the consequences of the resulting strain in the Nineteenth-century mind. _Evil Sisters_ is comparatively uninteresting because it all takes place after the fact, after the bad guys won.

Still, I'm willing to give Dijkstra an A for Agitation and for Attitude. I like Attitude. Too many academic works are unavailable to the public because they are written in a dull untranslatable jargon seemingly designed to keep readers at bay. Sure, Dijlstra employs jargon, but at least it's his OWN jargon. And why shouldn't one SOUND passionate about those issues concerning which one IS passionate? As for Dijkstra's digressivity: I, too, believe in leaving no stone unturned. I wish merely to suggest that, in the interests of those readers who are interested in getting to the POINT, already, this book could have been cut down by about a third. And some of Dijkstra's verbal formulations are genuinely bizarre. While discussing the Louise Brooks vehicle "Pandora's Box", he writes as follows: "As Lola's blood seeps into the dried boards of civilization..." The dried boards of civilization? Give me a break.

Average customer rating:

Good book, bad directions

Inscrutable game instructions

Feng Shui Game Pack
Rich Craze
Manufacturer: Stewart, Tabori and Chang
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1556706146

Book Description

Feng Shui is a Chinese system which can help us dramatically change the feel of where we live or work and help us to increase our luck, wealth, health, and career - and it works.

The "Feng Shui Game Pack" is designed to introduce you to the principles of Feng Shui in an exciting and fun way. While you play the game you will quickly learn and understand about how energy - or ch'i - flows around your living and working environment and your garden.

How important it is to make sure that those energy flows are uninterrupted and how to go about removing blockages, leading you to a richer and healthier life. The "Feng Shui Game Pack" is designed to be used by everyone from beginners and children to the more experienced. Develop from novice to ch'i master using: The attractively designed board - The 128 accompanying counters - The informative book which explains the principles of Feng Shui and guides you through the game.

Customer Reviews:

Good book, bad directions.......2002-01-11

The book that accompanies the game pack is helpful in describing the principles of Feng Shui. Unfortunately the directions to play the game were really imprecise. So go ahead and read the book, but only play the game if you are willing to make up some of the rules yourself. Prepare yourself for hours of frustration...

Inscrutable game instructions.......1999-11-04

My wife and I bought this game pack to help us plan the mve into a new house. Unfortunately, the instructions seem to be missing some major steps. If anyone has figured out how to play, pls email me at pfr@rousmaniere.com and I would be very gratefyl.

Book Description

Soon after its launch, Ant succeeded in taking the Java world by storm, becoming the most widely used tool for building applications in Java environments. Like most popular technologies, Ant quickly went through a series of early revision cycles. With each new version, more functionality was added, and more complexity was introduced. Ant evolved from a simple-to-learn build tool into a full-fledged testing and deployment environment. Ant: The Definitive Guide has been reworked, revised and expanded upon to reflect this evolution. It documents the new ways that Ant is being applied, as well as the array of optional tasks that Ant supports. In fact, this new second edition covers everything about this extraordinary build management tool from downloading and installing, to using Ant to test code. Here are just of a few of the features you'll find detailed in this comprehensive, must-have guide:

Developing conditional builds, and handling error conditions
Automatically retrieving source code from version control systems
Using Ant with XML files
Using Ant with JavaServer Pages to build Web applications
Using Ant with Enterprise JavaBeans to build enterprise applications

Far exceeding its predecessor in terms of information and detail, Ant: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition is a must-have for Java developers unfamiliar with the latest advancements in Ant technology. With this book at your side, you'll soon be up to speed on the premiere tool for cross-platform development. Author Steve Holzner is an award-winning author who s been writing about Java topics since the language first appeared; his books have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide.

Customer Reviews:

Check out internet instead........2007-05-16

This book is a regurgitation of O'Reilly web material. This book had a real opportunity to discuss Ant internals or at least something that can't be found on tech sites or the software documentation. Project wikis will undoubtedly replace the need for tech books of this sort.

Got Me Going Quickly.......2007-02-06

Web research on Ant revealed a lot of explanations, but they were very hard to understand. And I didn't want to waste time scratching my head. This book explained what Ant is and how it works in an approachable way without insulting my intelligence. The author obviously has a lot of experience in Ant and many of the other technologies it interacts with. While other comments have pointed out that it's not a reference, I can easily get those other details on the internet. This book got me up and running with Ant quickly and painlessly. It contained useful examples that actually worked when I tried to follow them.

The best book on Ant.......2006-10-13

Apache Ant is the primary build tool for Java projects and this book is excellent introduction to it. Although the title is misleading - this is not really a definitive guide (its not really reference book for starters), it is well written and easily understood. If you work through this book from start to finish then I'm confident that you'll come out the other end as an Ant expert.

A Good Introduction, but Only an Introduction.......2006-08-18

This book provides a good enough introduction to Ant, but it only takes you to the point of knowing how to use Ant and not the point of knowing how to use ant on a project of any size. As an introduction it works well. You learn how to get up and running with Ant very early on in the book, and you learn all of the key tasks rather quickly as well. Everything is explained clearly, and it seems reasonably organized. What it lacks is really any explanation of various best practices for using ant, whether on a small program or a large one. For a book of this size, I was surprised at the absence of this info and ultimately I felt that it was only a bit more useful than the free online docs for ant.

Good Place To Start With Ant.......2006-08-16

This book can take you from zero Ant knowledge to being productive in a matter of days. After starting with some simple examples, it builds up the following concepts very well: properties and types, compilation, deployment, testing with JUnit, working with CVS, and Eclipse integration. I skipped chapters 8, 9, 10, and 12 because I did not anticipate a need for them right now. However, if I need to know about web deployments, working with XML docs, optional tasks, and extending Ant I know that this book covers these things too. To get the most out of the book, you need to download ant to your computer along with the example code from the book's web site. It is very easy to modify the code and see how different options for the various tasks work.

Book Description

Historians of ideas, and students of nationalism in particular, have traced the origins of much of our current vocabulary and ways of thinking about the nation back to Johann Gottfried Herder. This volume provides a clear, readable, and reliable translation of Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, supplemented by some of Herder's other important writings on politics and history. The editors' insightful Introduction traces the role of Herder's thought in the evolution of nationalism and highlights its influence on fields such as history, anthropology, and politics. The volume is designed to give English-speaking readers more ready access to the thinker whom Isaiah Berlin called "the father of the related notions of nationalism, historicism, and Volksgeist."

Book Description

The Red Cross was the dream of the Swiss businessman Henri Dunant that grew into the pre-eminent international humanitarian charity. The story begins in 1859, when almost by chance, Dunant witnessed the butchery and lack of care for injured soldiers during the battle of Solferino. Realizing that, although modern warfare meant more, and worse, wounded, medical treatment for the first time could save significant numbers of them, he began a crusade leading to 137 national societies and 250 million members today. Caroline Moorehead, a popular columnist on human rights for the London Independent, is the first writer to be granted wide access to the Red Cross's closed archives in Geneva. Her resulting book engrossingly recounts the Red Cross's full history and the moral dilemmas it has faced from the two World Wars to the post-Cold War conflicts of Somalia, Chechnya, and Bosnia.

Amazon.com

When vacationing Genevan businessman Henri Dunant arrived at the resort community of Solferino, Italy, in June 1859, he certainly did not expect to find the remains of a bloody battle, concluded earlier in the day, between the Austrians and the French. The casualties, over 6,000 of them, horrified Dunant. More shocking were the survivors, left unattended on the bloody battlefield, many of them severely wounded and near death. Overcome by the brutality of the scene before him, Dunant organized and led a team of volunteers that systematically cared for the wounded. Within five years, he and four other prosperous Swiss citizens formed the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded and drafted the first Geneva Convention.

Renamed in 1876 the International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization today comprises 137 national societies and 250 million members. The Committee that governs it, however, has changed little since the 1870s. According to Caroline Moorehead, author of Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross, the power to monitor and criticize all governments of the world remains "in the hands of a small band of co-opted, elderly Swiss lawyers and bankers." While the International Committee has operated staunchly on its self-prescribed principles throughout the 20th century, many of its decisions, actions, and instances of inaction have been ambiguous and seemingly motivated by politics. In Dunant's Dream, Moorehead, a London-based journalist, presents a scrutinizing yet balanced history of the organization. Despite its length, Dunant's Dream makes no attempt to be comprehensive. Instead, Moorehead, her argument supported by unprecedented access to private Red Cross archives in Geneva, analyzes the conflicts, issues, and moral dilemmas from over 130 years of war and natural disasters that have had the most determining effect on the growth of the modern Red Cross. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack

Customer Reviews:

An International Nurse Reviews "Dunant's Dream".......2002-10-05

I am named after my aunt, a Red Cross nurse who was an Army nurse in World War II. I am also a nurse (and also a Red Cross nursing volunteer, although I have never worked full time for the organization), and a former officer in the Navy Nurse Corps. My speciality is international health; my work has taken me to some of the poorest and least developed places in the world. I have seen first-hand the work of the Red Cross in war zones and after natural disasters. I currently work in a human rights organization. I recently visited the ICRC Headquarters in Geneva, along with its spectacular museum.

All this is to say that I bring more than an casual perspective to this book--and it dazzled me. Despite its incredible length, it felt too short. Ms. Moorehead writes lucidly, compassionately, and well. Her research is scholarly, her documentation is meticulous, her compassion and her critical abilities are always evident. She rightfully praises the individual courage of the Red Cross founders and leaders (not only Dunant, the Swiss banker, but the other significant figures in Red Cross history, including the American nurse, Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross and pioneered its role in natural disasters).

But the book is not just an encomium to the good deeds of idealists. Moorehead is frank in her appraisals of the weaknesses and foibles of both the people and the organization itself. She examines the evolving role of the Red Cross, which began as an adjunct to the gentlemanly wars of the 19th century, grew to a worldwide relief agency in the unimaginable horrors of the 20th century and, most recently, has had to become a competitor for the world's glory in humantarian activities.

Most importantly, she examines the historical record and the ethical dilemnas of an organization which was founded on the Swiss principles of neutrality and quiet diplomacy and was then faced with atrocities in its own back yard: she provides a very careful appraisal of the role of the Red Cross during the WWII Holocaust. It is clear that the Red Cross as an organization provided too little aid to the victims of Nazis, gave it too late and perhaps gave it for the wrong reasons--publicity rather than compassion. (A horrendous, but little known, fact is that the physician who was appointed head of the German Red Cross by Hitler was behind the savage medical experimentation done in the camps. He committed suicide before he could be tried as a war criminal).

Nonetheless, Moorehead is unstinting in her admiration for those individual Red Cross delegates whose independent actions were able to save thousands of Jews and others. There were Red Cross delegates who raced along lines of Jews being forcibly marched to their deportation and death, desperately throwing them food and attempting to rescue anyone they could by bribing, cajoling or fooling the guards.

Moorehead depicts the failures and the multitudinous successes of the Red Cross, and includes enough individual tales and humor to make her account extraordinarily readable. Despite its failings in some arenas, I remain an overall admirer of the Red Cross itself, and I am an unabashed admirer of this book. "Dunant's Dream" can be read for its comprehensive and engrossing history, but readers interested in the larger diplomatic and ethical issues of international aid will find it invaluable. Absolutely recommended.

Well Worth the Effort.......2001-11-28

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a hefty seven hundred page epic. However, I found the book spellbinding and finished reading it in less than three weeks time. I would especially recommend DUNANT'S DREAM to those interested in human rights or history. Caroline Morehead is a gifted writer who balances objectivity with revealing glimpses at the men and women who have made the International Committee of the Red Cross the premier human rights and relief agency in the world. I came away from Morehead's book with a clearer understanding of the complex circumstances involving humanitarianism during times of conflict and turmoil. I am sorry that this very worthwhile book is now out of print. However, I am glad that is available in libraries and through "out of print" dealers.

Dunant's Dream War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross

Average customer rating:

Dunant's Dream War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross
Caroline Moorehead
Manufacturer: Harper Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LZVB6Q

Average customer rating:

No mind was ever a tabula rasa

Science and Art Do Meet

Evolutionary Psychology, Art, and Science

The Cosmic Anthropological Principle

An interesting if wordy detail of the "human connection"

The Artful Universe: The Cosmic Source of Human Creativity
John D. Barrow
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Aesthetics | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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PI in the Sky: Counting, Thinking, and Being

The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless

Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits

The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe

Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation

ASIN: 0316082422

Book Description

In this eclectic and entertaining study of the interrelationship between the arts and the sciences, Barrow explains how the landscape of the Universe has influenced the development of philosophy and mythology, and how millions of years of evolutionary history have fashioned our attraction to certain patterns of sound and color. Photos, line drawings.

Customer Reviews:

No mind was ever a tabula rasa.......2005-07-09

John Barrow illuminates in this book the relationship between the sciences and the arts with a new perspective on our emergence in the Universe by means of natural selection.
As the philosopher Victor Zuckerkandl says (quoted in this book): 'Art does not aim at beauty. It uses beauty (or ugliness) to arrive ultimately at knowledge, at truth.' (as science)

Many natural adaptations have given rise to curious by-products, some of which have played a role in determining our aesthetic sense.
Although sometimes very tentative, this rich book sheds an insightful light on more or less hidden links, like
- the connection between the heavenly bodies and the pattern of life on earth (28 days)

- the importance of symmetry: living beings are symmetrical, which is rare for inanimate objects. Also, our evaluation of physical beauty focuses on symmetry.

- size as a key to survival, with the adage 'small is best'. 'The Almighty had an inordinate fondness of beetles.'

- the origin of painting: a natural outgrowth of the fallibility of human memory and the need to communicate. Also, the reason why we like savannah landscapes and not computer paintings because they seem unnatural.

- the Chomsky (innate patterns) / Piaget (blank slate) controversy on the origin of language

- the origin of literature: the craving for social cohesion and well-being met by oral history and stories in which the hearers appear in a leading role. More, 'The pen is mightier than the sword.'

- the origin of dance: a need for frenzied activity or heightened sensibilities in preparation for war, in celebration of fertility or birth or in mourning death. The rhythmic gyrations of primitive dance bind people together.

- the origin of music (the purest form of art): animal mating calls.
John Barrow explains clearly the relationship between music and mathematics as well as theories on mathematics (Platonism, intuitionism, inventionism, formalism) and music (absolutism and referentialism).

This book is an excellent exploration of a vast and very interesting human domain. Not to be missed.

Science and Art Do Meet.......2005-05-17

"Kristor" review "The Cosmic Anthropological Principle" is thoroughly apt, and I've noticed that the book is being supplanted by an "expanded" version, although the description of the expanded version seems identical to this book.

The thesis of this book is quite simple: Science has found that we humans are wired so that certain things in the universe are necessarily that way and could not be otherwise. Because of this "hard wiring" as one commentator observes, the strict methodology of science has just recently began to branch out of its "models" of uniformity and embraced diversity. Meanwhile, the diversity of human creativity, especially as it applies to the arts, has avoided at all costs any semblance of having a "model" by which to judge the universal appeals of so much diversity. It's time that the creative arts started taking a look for "models" into serious view as it evaluates themselves. I think this is a reasonable and defensible thesis against solipsism.

The argument is not an either/or dysjunction, but an and/both conjunction. Science has discovered a number of theories which serve to explain the universe as we know it. It strives to find the common ground on which to evaluate the world as we have come to know it. Conversely, the creative arts and the humanities have avoided, to the extreme, any effort for artists to "conform" to similar models found in nature and described by science. Barrow thinks it is time to reverse this odd peculiarity.

After all, when we evaluate painting or music, for example, we see that certain patterns emerge which give each endeavor a backbone for acceptance or rejection. The archetonics of harmonic cords and pictoral perspectivism require that certain creative arts fulfill these a priori demands, otherwise we regard such works as "distorted" or even worse "contorted." This result is not arbitrary, but developed over years of knowing that representational art must be "three dimensional," not two, and that in music a chord is composed of certain harmonic notes that please the natural disposition of the ear both aesthetically and physiologically.

Barrow illustrates these patterns of proportionality, perspectivism, chordal harmonies, etc., in light that they shed on the acceptability or rejection of certain "given" patterns innate in life. His thesis that the creative arts ought at least entertain the association of these innate given patterns in their evaluation as "works of art," just as science has decreed that the universe itself operates on the principles of certain immutable laws. I found his argument persausive, as one who is endeared more towards the artistic endeavors more than to the scientific ones. Thus, not all that passes itself off a "art" ought to be evaluated on the basis of its diversity, but also on the basis of its conformity to certain aesthetic criteria that are found in nature itself. Thus, many of those artistic endeavors that are meant to shock the observer by their discordance and lack of proportionality are incongruent with certain immutable aesthetic judgments based on nature's inherent designs. Ergo, the creative arts may have a certain degree of freedom to create outside the boundaries of our natural dispositions, but for the most part they must play within certain rules enough of the time in order to constitute pleasing versus unpleasant art. How much of a jump there is between "good" versus "bad" art from these immutable rules is at least partially determined by objective criteria. The question becomes, How much?

As one who is a "conservative" aesthete, I find Barrow's argument more than persuasive. I'm not sure just how conformable a work of art must be to the innate rules of nature before it passes from acceptable to unacceptable. But now that I know there are indeed such naturally innate rules, I am much better able to evaluate, as well as articulate, the creative arts on a more expansive, yet nonetheless "natural" criteria. Barrow's book is an engaging and worthwhile polemic.

Evolutionary Psychology, Art, and Science.......2001-02-13

This is a good book for a beginner, e.g., an undergraduate student in philosophy, psychology, or art. It can provide some solid basic understanding of the issues involved in interpreting and reproducing the world(s) around us. The book's thesis is that we are hard-wired by the process of evolution to interpret the world a certain way and that same process limits the kinds of art and science we are able to create. Those already familiar with this thesis will find little that is new in this book. Also, I was a bit disappointed that the book contained only black and white illustrations, it would seem that the subject matter chosen cries out for some color. The topics covered in the book are diverse and hang together loosely, which can be a challenge to a reader accustomed to a more focused and sustained discussion.

The Cosmic Anthropological Principle.......2000-09-16

Barrow, of course, is with Frank Tipler the author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, which argues that the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the cosmos had to be more or less exactly as they are or life - thus our conscious, self-aware human life - could not have happened.

In The Artful Universe, Barrow explores in great and fascinating detail just exactly how the fine structure of the cosmos bears fruit in the structure of the human body, and in particular the structure of our ideas, preferences, values, aesthetic reactions, ways of thinking; our minds. The primary thrust of this wide-ranging survey is that animal minds and bodies subjected to natural selection are in big trouble if they embody propositions about the world, and therefore about the appropriate way to behave, that are in any important way essentially wrong. He argues that just as the structure of the eye constitutes evidence one way or the other for the correspondence to reality of our ideas about light, so the structure of, e.g., our mathematical faculties constitutes evidence for the mathematical structure of reality.

Barrow is terrifyingly erudite, and a clear, graceful writer. He manages to convey boatloads of highly technical concepts from numerous fields in crystalline arguments accessible to anyone with a basic scientific education. You will learn a ton from this book. You'll work for it - Barrow never condescends - but you will be well rewarded.

An interesting if wordy detail of the "human connection".......1998-12-08

The first half of the book was interesting and kept my interest enough to read every word and scrutinze every example. However, by midway, the author's points became labored and needlessly exhaustive.

I guess it took me about half the book to find out what his general points were going to be. To me the book made connections between the nature of the universe and all things (particularly humans) in it.

I really wanted to closely scrutinize the chapters on sound (I am a musician and scientist). Unfortunately, by that last third of the book, I was too fatigued by the writing style. I ended up reading a few paragraphs in each section and skimming the rest, knowing (or making a logical guess) about the rest of the material. The author's basic points had already been made.

Furthermore, I felt unsatisfied by the author's overall treatment of art (particularly music). I was hoping for something more "insightful." It seems somehow self evident that particular sights and sounds are "appealing" to us given our physiology, evolution and their relationship to the nature of the universe itself. These arguments seem like tautologies; We like what we like because we are who we are. In the end, this isn't very interesting. On the other hand I could plead guilty to expecting too much.

There is more to art and music than meets the direct senses. When you try to explain what is "more" about music, you lose the meaning. Maybe the lesson is to just play the music and let it speak for itself. If the author was trying to make this point (indirectly) it is now very well taken. It's better to explain the beauty of music with selections of Joco Pastorius...

Finally, I thought the book was in places too human centric. Clearly books are intended to be read by humans. But I thought some of the author's points of view bordered on saying human animals were somehow more "important" than others. The universe doesn't make conscious choices to anoint one animal over another. Those evaluations are (too often, unfortunately,) made by us, not nature. Free will does exist.

Given these points, I do think the book was worth reading and might even be suitable for a seminar. I took about 4 days to read the book, but maybe should have taken more time. Anyway, at best, I think this book is worth 3 stars; Not bad, not great, but worth reading and discussing with others.

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THE ARTFUL UNIVERSE: THE COSMIC SOURCE OF HUMAN CREATIVITY
John D. Barrow
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company, 1995
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KP5B18

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Planning, published by American Planning Association on January 1, 1999. The length of the article is 650 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Environmental Groups Buy Timber Lands in Northeast.
Publication: Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 1999
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Page: 19(1)

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