Economics and the Dreamtime: A Hypothetical History

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The economic significance of Aboriginal culture for the British colonizers of Australia is rarely addressed and, until now, has not been closely studied by an economic historian. This imaginative book presents a concept of a pre-European Aboriginal economy. It shows how an Aboriginal presence over millennia shaped the local environment and responded to it, so that the Aboriginal economy developed into an ordered system of decision-making able to satisfy the wants of the people. The book analyzes the processes which allowed economic control of a country to pass, after more than 60,000 years in Aboriginal hands, into European hands within 60 years of settlement. Professor Butlin's presentation of the contrast between one of the world's most ancient economies and one of its youngest is both illuminating and exciting.

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There are an astonishing variety of election laws across contemporary democratic societies. In Establishing the Rules of the Game, Louis Massicotte, André Blais, and Antoine Yoshinaka provide the first thorough examination of these laws. The study incorporates original data collected from more than sixty democracies around the world, and touches on oft-ignored, yet extremely important, aspects of election laws. The countries covered by the study include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Romania, and the United Kingdom. The authors focus on six dimensions of election laws: the right to vote, the right to be a candidate, the electoral register, the agency in charge of the election, the procedure for casting votes, and the procedure to sort out the winners and losers.

Massicotte, Blais, and Yoshinaka uncover underlying patterns, explaining why certain types of country tend to adopt a given sets of rules. In general, former colonies adopt the same laws as their former mother country. There is also a tendency for established democracies to be more inclusive than non-established ones. The authors point out sociological patterns and review normative and practical arguments for and against each set of rules, providing invaluable information for students of elections and democratic theory as well as election practicioners.

Law and Election Politics: The Rules of the Game

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Law and Election Politics: The Rules of the Game

Manufacturer: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Elections | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1588263290

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Transmembrane signaling is one of the most significant cell biological events in the life and death of cells in general and lymphocytes in particular. Until recently biochemists and biophysicists were not accustomed to thinking of these processes from the side of a high number of complex biochemical events and an equally high number of physical changes at molecular and cellular levels at the same time. Both types of researchers were convinced that their findings are the most decisive, having higher importance than the findings of the other scientist population. Both casts were wrong. Life, even at cellular level, has a number of interacting physical and biochemical mechanisms, which finally build up the creation of an "excited" cell that will respond to particular signals from the outer or inner world.

This book handles both aspects of the signalling events, and in some cases tries to unify our concepts and help understand the signals that govern the life and death of our cells. Not only the understanding, but also the interference (e.g. medication) may depend on the full knowledge of both sides.

These above statements are supported by the application of highly diverse physical and biochemical technologies demonstrated and explained by experts who are pioneers of their particular scientific field.

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This hands-on guide details various experimental techniques used in the study of liquid crystals and other soft-condensed matter systems. Each chapter portrays an important technique used to study and characterize these systems, fully discussing both the capabilities and limitations of each particular method. In addition, the volume also describes general routes used to synthesize liquid crystals, tools to characterize liquid crystal phases, and seeks to show structure property relationships for well known systems. This book will be indispensable for established workers in the field as well as students embarking on liquid crystal research.

Solid State: Nuclear Methods : Methods of Experimental Physics (Experimental Methods in the Physical Sciences)

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Solid State: Nuclear Methods : Methods of Experimental Physics (Experimental Methods in the Physical Sciences)

Manufacturer: Academic Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

Experimental Crystal Physics: Second Edition

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Experimental Crystal Physics: Second Edition
W.A., and BRETON, A. WOOSTER
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000G9UY9C

Theory of absorption spectra of molecular crystals (Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. U.S.S.R)

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Theory of absorption spectra of molecular crystals (Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. U.S.S.R)
A. S Davydov
Manufacturer: Department of Chemistry, University of California
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Crystallography | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007I7TYK

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The next two volumes in the acclaimed Feynman Lectures on Physics audio series deal with the fundamentals of classical and quantum physics. These lectures by the late Richard P. Feynman were originally delivered to his physics students at Caltech and later fashioned by the author into his classic textbook Lectures on Physics.

Volume 9 (Basic Concepts in Classical Physics) contains sections on Time and Distance, Vectors, Characteristics of Force, Space-Time, Rotation in Two Dimensions, and Algebra. Volume 10 (Basic Concepts in Quantum Physics) includes a discussion of Quantum Behavior, The Relation of Wave and Particle Viewpoints, The Dependence of Amplitudes on Time, The Hamilton Matrix, and Operators.

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In the past hundred years, since the publication of Bram Stoker's infamous book, no literary figure has enjoyed a more horrific resiliency than Count Dracula. In film, television, novels, and short stories, he keeps coming back to life, fed by the vital imaginative energies of a world-wide audience that cannot seem to resist his abominable charms. Aristocratic and urbane, deeply erotic and profoundly evil, Dracula's bloodsucking savagery has cast a mesmerizing fascination not only over his victims but over his readers as well. And, as Leonard Wolf suggests, "Vampire fiction...exerts an amazing pull on readers for a reason that we may find disturbing. The blood exchange--the taking of blood by the vampire from his or her victim is, all by itself, felt to be a singularly symbolic event. Symbolic and attractive!" Now, in Blood Thirst: One Hundred Years of Vampire Fiction, Leonard Wolf brings together thirty tales in which vampires of all varieties make their ghastly presence felt--male and female, human and non-human, humorous and heroic--all of them kin to the dreadful bat. From Lafcadio Hearn, Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, Edith Wharton, August Derleth, and Ray Bradbury to such contemporary masters as Anne Rice, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, and Woody Allen, and in settings as diverse as rural New England and outer space, this collection offers readers a dazzling compendium of vampire stories. Wolf organizes the collection into six categories--The Classic Adventure Tale, The Psychic Vampire, The Science Fiction Vampire, The Non-Human Vampire, The Comic Vampire, and The Heroic Vampire--which allows readers to see the many guises Dracula's descendants have assumed and the many ways they can be interpreted. In his penetrating introduction, Wolf argues that such an arrangement enables us to see the evolution of the vampire from an unmitigated evil to a creature we are more likely to identify with. "In a century in which God and Satan have become increasingly irrelevant in the popular arts, there has been an accompanying secularization of the vampire idea. And, as the stories in Blood Thirst will show, sympathy for the vampire has grown as we have become increasingly interested in the workings of the mind." Indeed, the vampire's ability to change over time, to draw into itself such a richness of symbolic meanings, to conjure itself into so many diabolical shapes, may account for the enduring appeal of the literature written about it. Here, then, is a definitive collection for aficionados and novices alike, and whether readers find the vampires who inhabit these pages sympathetic or horrific, psychologically intriguing or spiritually repellent, morbidly seductive or comically absurd, Blood Thirst gives us all something to sink our teeth into.

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Great for the Vampire within .......2007-01-26

Thirty tales of vampire fiction, from the classical blood sucker to science fiction monster to the comic relief. From such great authors as Anne Rice and Stephen King, to interesting choices such as Woody Allen and Hanns Heinz Ewers, and authors I love such as Tanith Lee and Richard Matheson (who are also great), we get a ton of vampire literature. If there is a style of vampire story you like this is the book to get and the best part is if you discover a new author who pushes your buttons you can go find their works. And if they don't push your button you have 29 other stories to make you happy.
Read! Feast! Enjoy!

A must for horror/vampire fans.......2000-04-04

This novel brings together works of so many amazing talented writers: Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Anne Rice, Tanith Lee, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Algernon Blackwood, Joyce Carol Oates...just to name a few! Be on the lookout for "Count Dracula" by Woody Allen; whether you love him or hate him, this short story is a hoot!

This one lets you sink your teeth into some quick, sometimes chilling, sometimes humorous, sometimes just plain weird vampire stories. It will also introduce you to some incredible authors, and I bet you'll race to buy more of their works. Wolf breaks down this collection into categories: The Classic Adventure Tale; The Psychological Vampire; The Science Fiction Vampire; The Non-Human Vampire; The Comic Vampire; and The Heroic Vampire. Horror and vampire fans will recognize some of these stories (King's is an excerpt of SALEM'S LOT) from other novels or collections. But this one is a tasty treat (yes, all puns intended) that I found delightful!

Excellent Collection of Stories.......1998-07-15

I great collection of modern vampire stories. Several of the stories are actually chapters from longer novels, which only entices the reader to read those novels too. Wonderful read, but with the lights on!

Book Description

The Navigation of Feeling critiques recent psychological and anthropological research on emotions. William M. Reddy offers a new theory of emotions and historical change, drawing on research from many academic disciplines. This new theory makes it possible to see how emotions change over time, how emotions have a very important impact on the shape of history, and how different social orders either facilitate emotional life or make it more difficult. This theory is fully explored in a case study of the French Revolution.

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Ambitious, learned, original........2003-06-06

My purpose in writing this review is a little different than usual. Normally I want to give some summary of what the author has written and offer a wee bit of criticism. With William Reddy's The Navigation of Feeling, I plan to take a different tack. I want to try to summarize this book cogently enough so that others want to read it and write their own reviews. This is a book that should be thoroughly discussed on the pages of [Amazon.com] and by more competent reviewers than myself.
Reddy's complex argument is presented in two parts. The first half of the book is a summation of research drawn from cognitive psychology, cultural anthropology, and contemporary philosophy in such a way as to present a new theory of emotions. Reddy's theory is designed to work our way out of the impasse presented by the Cartesian dualism common to cognitive psychology and the postmodernism common to cultural anthropology.
In the section on cognitive psychology, Reddy is trying to establish several points. The first is that the separation of emotions from reasoning simply doesn't hold up in the research. The second point is that emotions are not just simply experienced. They can be monitored, controlled and possibly changed by individuals. Our ability to do this is in itself regulated and somewhat determined by the culture we live in.
These results are supported by what Reddy derives from recent work on emotions in the field of cultural anthropology. Here the predominant theoretical approach is social constructivist. Reddy again wants to emphasize several points. One is that the research indicates that there is tremendous difference in emotional expression from culture to culture although they all seem to draw from the same large pool of possible human emotional expression. The second point, which was original to this reader, is the point that "the ethnographic data routinely contain traces of collective shaping of emotional effort and collective elaboration of emotional ideals"(p.56). When an individual succeeds in living up to these ideals, they are encouraged and admired. Indeed, such successful emotional control may become a source of power for that individual.
So far, what Reddy is presenting is a picture of the emotions as being culturally constructed and circumscribed but also as an area of individual endeavor. In effect cultures create "emotional regimes" that monitor and encourage certain types of emotional expression. Individuals can master their emotions to fit into these regimes through their own efforts and can even over time act in such ways as to change the regimes. How Reddy feels that can occur he explains in the philosophical section of Part 1.
Reddy wants to avoid a postmodernist approach that is based on the signifier/signified relationship. He feels that this leads us to a dead end where all cultures are equally "valid".
Reddy wants to move from Saussure to Quine. Instead of arbitrary signifiers, Reddy wants to use the concept of "translation". Reddy sees the main advantage of this move as being that translation allows us to deal with two qualities of utterances that the signifier idea does not. "...the poststructuralist concept of the sign, because it entails operating with only one code at a time, is by far inferior to ...translation...An utterance occurs not just in the context of a single background code, but also in the presence of material available in many other codes: not just sensory codes...but also procedural codes (p. 321)
Another benefit of the concept of translation is that it restores to the individual that agency, that ability to critique one code because of its lack of fit with the other codes that make up the individual's experience.
Where Reddy feels that this leaves us is with the idea that 1. we can outline a history of the emotional regimes of a culture. This allows us to move beyond the static explanations of emotions offered by anthropology and psychology. It also allows us to deepen our historical understanding by broadening the context of history. It allows us to see one more facet of what was expected of and done by the people that populate our histories.
The second major result of all this is that Reddy feels that his theory allow us to critique and evaluate emotional regimes for how much freedom they allow the members of that culture.
I mentioned above that Reddy's argument was presented in two parts. The second half of the book is Reddy's attempt to offer a case study by applying his theory to the French Revolution. I am totally incompetent to evaluate this portion of the book and so will leave that to other reviewers. However, I did find his theoretical constructs to have explanatory power given what little I know about that period.
Give this book a try. It deserves a far wider popular audience than only one review on [Amazon.com] would indicate. I would compare in ambition and scholarship to Charles Taylor's Sources Of The Self. If you learned from that book (and how could you not?) you will enjoy Reddy's. And even if you do not feel up to writing a review write me and let me know what you think.

Book Description

History tells us a story of ourselves--without it, we lack a language with which to articulate not only where we come from, but in fact who we are.

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Politics of (re)writing history.......2001-12-10

Politics of (re)writing History

POST MODERN ENCOUNTERS: EDWARD SAID AND THE WRITING OF HISTORY
BY SHELLEY WALIA, p 77, [price]
Icon: Cambridge
Allen & Unwin: Australia

Earlier attempts to simplify matters only ended up in excessive and unnecessary scholarship, leaving you all the more bewildered in the labyrinth of postcolonial theory. The task of explaining and clarifying the fundamental concepts had been undertaken by jargonizing it to the highest possible magnitude. But here, in this book, the author goes straight to the crux of post colonial cultural studies by taking up the central most issue of (re)writing history within the context of recent debates on ideology as a system of representation. In an earlier essay, "History and Its Discontents" (Between Truth and History), Shelley Walia had expressed that "traditional practices of writing of history fail to question the conditions of their own making and therefore retard any development of democratizing critical intelligence". Thus it becomes the need of the recent times to challenge the "nature of objectivity, realism, and truth which traditional historians take as their essentials".

The present book, though succinct, proves significant in illuminating the notions and ideas associated with postmodern theories through the kaleidoscopic vision of a great literary and post colonial critic, Edward Said. Walia's concise introductory study examines him in the light of his engagement as writer, teacher, and political activist. Tracing the evolution of Said's thinking over the last thirty years, he draws attention to its conceptual coherence and value as a work-in-progress of cultural and historical critique, thereby emphasizing Said's involvement in public cultural activity and personal commitment to his insistent interrogation of political systems.
"Exile is a universal figure", says George Lamming and no one could apprehend this better than Said who has lived his life as an American as well as a Palestinian. But for Said "exile" is a position of an intellectual critic from where he can question the accepted tenets of society and also unveil the essentialised truths to reveal the quashed realities. How far is history-writing free from prejudices and to what extent does it bring to light disinterested facts is quite debatable. However the author doesn't intend to show that Said, by advocating reinterpretation of history, considered all historical accounts adulterated with political objectives of their writers. He is only trying to elucidate the true aim of these scholars in employment of this practice of history-writing and other cultural forms as a vehicle of subjugation and a hegemonic strategy.

Shelley Walia, brings `History and Literature' on the same platform to emphasize that "no writing is transparent". Applying Derrida's concept of `differance' to historical narratives and literary texts, one can contemplate that there cannot exist a single interpretation and that some meaning is always left out. To corroborate such thoughts, it becomes essential, to carry out a `contrapuntal reading' of seminal texts like Heart of Darkness, Kim and Mansfield Park or Verdi's Aida. Said had endeavored to show the narratives as part of the relationship between culture and empire, emphasizing the fact that the authors are impelled and modeled by their social set up. It has been implanted into our psyches that the West is the only spring of anything and everything that is meaningful and consequential. In other words the non-western regions of the world, by default, do not and cannot be in possession of any history, culture or even dare to think of rectitude. And this is fortified by the science of Orientalism whose critique is studied in this book.

The author further reveals the length to which theorists like Foucault and Gramsci sway Said and his work. The concept of "field" is an elementary organizing principle to Foucault's writing whereby he means the "formal conditions which make the appearance of meaning possible". And Said by conceiving orientalism as a field or a "power-in-space" seems to be gesturing towards the imperial aggrandizement of geographical and psychic space of the colonized. Also crucial to the understanding of Said's work is the relation of power and knowledge whose nexus establishes the codes of society. At the same time Shelley Walia does not omit to speak of the point where Said shifts his track of thought from Foucault's conviction that there is no premeditated design behind western ascendancy. Said rather espouses Gramsci's standpoint regarding the relevance of counter discursive practices and resistance from the subalterns along with his notion of "hegemony". The author writes: "Gramsci's theory of cultural production and critique when applied to Said bring out the relevant issues of social domination and the subversion that takes place continuously to resist any fixed notions of cultural behaviour".
The book which will be of particular interest to the students of literature, history, social and political theory brings the perplexing issues of eurocentrism, universalism, postmodernism, cultural positioning and political affiliations under the microscope of a secular critic. And Said, as a secular critic, desires for a "universal vocabulary" that can give "a greater human scope to what a particular race or nation suffered". Thus the author while bringing out interconnectedness of certain fundamental concepts in postcolonial theoretical practice, draws attention to the inconsistencies within western historical discourse that exposes the ends of ideology. And intellectuals like Said, by subverting ideological reproductions, indulge in revolutionary action.

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The Palestinian poet recounts his decision to leave his country in 1966 to pursue his studies and his subsequent return to his occupied homeland in 1996. 6 x 9

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Insightful historical & personal account of Israeli Occupation .......2006-08-07

This book by Mourid Barghouti captures the spirit of the Palestinian peoples in the poetic glances of one man's journey back to his homeland after exile and during occupation. It is every Palestinian's wish to live, work, play, breathe without the fear of death, torture, constant threats, and imprisonment of the occupation forces. Truly, every Palestinian needs to write their stories for the world to know... as the "Logic of Beings" indicates in this book. My heart goes out to the Palestinian people after reading such a depiction of unthinkable loss, constant uncertainty, and simple wishes of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

displaced person.......2005-11-05

Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti tells of a brief return to the West Bank where he lived as a boy and now may visit only by permission of the Israeli occupation authority. It is a bittersweet homecoming told with a poet's sensibility, emotions reflected in what seem like fragments of free association, as he remembers the years between 1948 and 1967 and notes the many changes that have taken place during his absence, from the growth of Israeli settlements to the impact of liberation politics on a new generation.

Identified as a dissident in the aftermath of 1967, he was expelled from Egypt where he had been a university student, was married and had become a new father. Barghouti has since lived as a displaced person in several different countries, a member of the Palestinian diaspora. He writes of his particular kind of homelessness with poignancy and sharp clarity. Interwoven are accounts of the deaths of friends and his brother Mounif, lost to the dark forces of political strife. Not surprisingly, there is anger, as well, in Barghouti's book. Anyone with an interest in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine would do well to hear him out.

Eloquent personal history that tells the Palestinian story.......2005-09-24

I love this book! I read it first in the original Arabic and was thrilled to discover that Ahdaf Soueif's masterful translation renders the spirit and the language of Barghouti's prose beautifully. This book has fast become my number one recommendation as an introductory book on the Palestinian experience. Barghouti captures the experiences of exile, occupation, and less than optimal "return" as no one has before. I know so many fellow Palestinians who have experienced exactly the range of emotion he describes crossing the bridge from Jordan to the occupied West Bank, or receiving that phone call at night in a foreign country, with relatives scattered across the globe. Barghouti's book humanizes Palestinian life in all its complexity, grief, humor, and presents to the reader in sincere and lucid language. This book is a must read for anyone hoping to understand Palestine and the Palestinians.

I didn't even get the book.......2005-09-03

They refunded my book! And I needed it for school so now I'm in trouble. Why they post an option and then don't give it to you is annoying and harmfull. Oh well serves me right for using online shiping for school books.

My eyes have been opened.......2005-06-04

For a person with little exposure to conflict in the Mid-East, this is a very good book. He mentions a couple of wars that I'd never known about because of my age, which sparked interest. But more than that, his emphasis is on the HUMAN ASPECT of these conflicts, which current affair venues skim over. Barghouti mentions the conflicts and assassinations he's seen and felt through his life only as a backdrop to the way the people he knows and loves have been affected.

This is not a light read. The author addresses emotionally draining topics. But there was a sense of healing through the journey and resolution of the book, and a universal spirituality that unites humanity. It is a very powerful book.

This book was given to me, and I'm very glad because I would never have sought it out on my own. It is a surprising story which tells of pain and loss, and still offers hope.

Memory, inequality, and power: Palestine and the universality of human rights *.: An article from: Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics

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Memory, inequality, and power: Palestine and the universality of human rights *.: An article from: Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics
Edward W. Said
Manufacturer: American University in Cairo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, published by American University in Cairo on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 8904 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: Memory, inequality, and power: Palestine and the universality of human rights *.
Author: Edward W. Said
Publication: Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: American University in Cairo
Issue: 24 Page: 15(21)

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Edward Said and the Writing of History
Shelley Walia
Manufacturer: Totem Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000VVUMYM

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This digital document is an article from Parks & Recreation, published by National Recreation and Park Association on March 1, 2004. The length of the article is 438 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: Bush administration's '05 budget slashes money for parks.(Tip-Off)(George W. Bush)
Publication: Parks & Recreation (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2004
Publisher: National Recreation and Park Association
Volume: 39 Issue: 3 Page: 20(1)

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