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Cleopatra - Duane W. Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Cleopatra - Duane W. Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous--yet more poorly understood--than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller''s authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra''s own writings), and representations in art and coinage produced while she was alive. His compelling portrait of the queen illuminates her prowess as a royal administrator who managed a large and diverse kingdom extending from Asia Minor to the interior of Egypt, as a naval commander who led her own fleet in battle, and as a scholar and supporter of the arts. Even her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius--the source of her reputation as a supreme seductress who drove men to their doom--were carefully crafted state policies: she chose these partners to insure the procreation of successors who would be worthy of her distinguished dynasty. That Cleopatra ultimately lost to her Roman opponents, Roller contends, in no way diminishes her abilities. "Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly....The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from the ''constructed icon'' of popular imagination." --The New York Times Book Review "A rich account of late Ptolemaic culture." --The New Yorker "Offers a superb panorama of the society and culture of late Ptolemaic Egypt, with vivid sketches of the (remarkably vigorous) intellectual life of Cleopatra''s Alexandria and the structural instabilities of the late Ptolemaic state." --Times Literary Supplement "Besides providing a compelling story and breathing fresh air into a heretofore two-dimensional caricature from history, Roller''s ''Cleopatra'' provides an interesting commentary on the attitudes still prevalent towards women who rule." --Christian Science Monitor

DKK 146.00
1

Empire of the Black Sea - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Of Classics Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Empire of the Black Sea - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Of Classics Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

What is commonly called the kingdom of Pontos flourished for over two hundred years in the coastal regions of the Black Sea. At its peak in the early first century BC, it included much of the southern, eastern, and northern littoral, becoming one of the most important Hellenistic dynasties not founded by a successor of Alexander the Great. It also posed one of the greatest challenges to Roman imperial expansion in the east. Not until 63 BC, after many violent clashes, was Rome able to subjugate the kingdom and its last charismatic ruler Mithridates VI.This book provides the first general history, in English, of this important kingdom from its mythic origins in Greek literature (e.g., Jason and the Golden Fleece) to its entanglements with the late Roman Republic. Duane Roller presents its rulers and their complex relationships with the powers of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, most notably Rome. In addition, he includes detailed discussions of Pontos'' cultural achievements--a rich blend of Greek and Persian influences — as well as its political and military successes, especially under Mithridates VI, who proved to be as formidable a foe to Rome as Hannibal. Previous histories of Pontos have focused almost exclusively on the career of its last ruler. Setting that famous reign in its wide historical context, Empire of the Black Sea is an engaging and definitive account of a powerful yet little-known ancient dynasty.

DKK 278.00
1

The Empire of the Black Sea - Duane W. (the Ohio State University) Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Empire of the Black Sea - Duane W. (the Ohio State University) Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

What is commonly called the kingdom of Pontos flourished for over two hundred years in the coastal regions of the Black Sea. At its peak in the early first century BC, it included much of the southern, eastern, and northern littoral, becoming one of the most important Hellenistic dynasties not founded by a successor of Alexander the Great. It also posed one of the greatest challenges to Roman imperial expansion in the east. Not until 63 BC, after many violent clashes, was Rome able to subjugate the kingdom and its last charismatic ruler Mithridates VI.This book provides the first general history, in English, of this important kingdom from its mythic origins in Greek literature (e.g., Jason and the Golden Fleece) to its entanglements with the late Roman Republic. Duane Roller presents its rulers and their complex relationships with the powers of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, most notably Rome. In addition, he includes detailed discussions of Pontos'' cultural achievements--a rich blend of Greek and Persian influences — as well as its political and military successes, especially under Mithridates VI, who proved to be as formidable a foe to Rome as Hannibal. Previous histories of Pontos have focused almost exclusively on the career of its last ruler. Setting that famous reign in its wide historical context, Empire of the Black Sea is an engaging and definitive account of a powerful yet little-known ancient dynasty.

DKK 202.00
1

Cleopatra's Daughter - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Cleopatra's Daughter - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Roman emperor Augustus gave his name to the age he dominated, from the latter half of the first century BC until the second decade of the following century. Yet he shared the age with several royal women who ruled parts of the Mediterranean world, in a symbiotic relationship with Rome. This book is the first detailed portrait of these remarkable women. Previous accounts of the period have centered on Augustus or Rome''s allied kings, with scant attention to the women who ruled as their partners or on their own. The most famous of these is Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra VII of Egypt and her partner, the Roman magistrate Marcus Antonius. Her very survival following Roman victory over her mother''s forces is itself noteworthy but she went on to rule Mauretania (northwest Africa) with her husband for more than twenty years. She even attempted to reconstitute her mother''s legacy in this remote region and, like her mother, was an ardent patron of the arts and scholarship. Other women of note included in this book are Pythodoris of Pontos, who ruled northern Asia Minor for forty years, and Salome of Judaea, the sister of Herod the Great, who, while never queen, exercised significant power for nearly half a century. These and others--Glaphyra of Cappadocia, Dynamis of Bosporos, Abe of Olbe, and Mousa of Parthia-were all part of the interrelated dynasties of the Augustan Age. Their values and attitudes toward rule directly affected the emergent Roman imperial system, and their legacy survived for centuries through their descendants and the goals of the royal women of Rome, such as Livia and Octavia, the wife and sister of Augustus. Assimilating all of the historical and archaeological evidence, Cleopatra''s Daughter recovers these extraordinary women from the dim shadows of the ancient past.

DKK 264.00
1

Cleopatra's Daughter - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Cleopatra's Daughter - Duane W. (professor Emeritus Roller - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Roman emperor Augustus gave his name to the age he dominated, from the latter half of the first century BC until the second decade of the following century. Yet he shared the age with several royal women who ruled parts of the Mediterranean world, in a symbiotic relationship with Rome. This book is the first detailed portrait of these remarkable women. Previous accounts of the period have centered on Augustus or Rome''s allied kings, with scant attention to the women who ruled as their partners or on their own.The most famous of these is Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of the great Cleopatra VII of Egypt and her partner, the Roman magistrate Marcus Antonius. Her very survival following Roman victory over her mother''s forces is itself noteworthy but she went on to rule Mauretania (northwest Africa) with her husband for more than twenty years. She even attempted to reconstitute her mother''s legacy in this remote region and, like her mother, was an ardent patron of the arts and scholarship. Other women of note included in this book are Pythodoris of Pontos, who ruled northern Asia Minor for forty years, and Salome of Judaea, the sister of Herod the Great, who, while never queen, exercised significant power for nearly half a century. These and others -- Glaphyra of Cappadocia, Dynamis of Bosporos, Abe of Olbe, and Mousa of Parthia -- were all part of the interrelated dynasties of the Augustan Age. Their values and attitudes toward rule directly affected the emergent Roman imperial system, and their legacy survived for centuries through their descendants and the goals of the royal women of Rome, such as Livia and Octavia, the wife and sister of Augustus. Assimilating all of the historical and archaeological evidence, Cleopatra''s Daughter recovers these extraordinary women from the dim shadows of the ancient past.

DKK 396.00
1

Sinews of Power - Xu Yi Chong - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Sinews of Power - Xu Yi Chong - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Electricity is a basic requirement for a modern economy, and transmission grids at the center of transition to a low-carbon power system. They are the principal means to integrate large shares of wind and solar power and they are essential to ensuring a secure and reliable electricity supply. Grid companies around the world are struggling to find their niche in this transition. The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) is one of the principal players in this round of global competition. Central state-owned enterprise (SOEs), such as SGCC, continue to hold the ''commanding heights'' of the Chinese economy. Their relationship with the Party-state is crucial to understanding the questions of whether SOEs take orders from, and do the bidding of, the Chinese Communist Party, and how they operate under the state ownership and with a wide range of operational autonomy and expectation that they are profit-maximazing corporations.This book examines the origin, development and expansion of SGCC, the world''s largest utility company and the 7th largest corporation. By telling both the electricity story and the SOE story, it provides insights into the challenges facing the grids and their possible futures. It challenges the orthodox account of Chinese politics that portrays SOEs as little more than puppets, jumping to every demand of the Party-state. It shows that SGCC has been built into a modern corporation by entrepreneurial managers. By extending its operation to four continents, SGCC is now a global player, competing with its peers and also having its input in the future low-carbon electricity system.This book challenges the popular interpretation of Chinese government. Piling detail on detail, it provides a comprehensive picture of Chinese political economy that is both new and utterly convincing.

DKK 956.00
1

Restorative Justice & Responsive Regulation - John Braithwaite - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Everything in Its Right Place - Joseph Almog - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

An Introduction to Grids, Graphs, and Networks - C. Pozrikidis - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

DKK 1170.00
1

The Unfinished Journey - William H. Chafe - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Unfinished Journey - William H. Chafe - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

This popular and classic text chronicles America''s roller-coaster journey through the decades since World War II. Considering both the paradoxes and the possibilities of postwar America, William H. Chafe portrays the significant cultural and political themes that have colored our country''s past and present, including issues of race, class, gender, foreign policy, and economic and social reform. He examines such subjects as the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the origins and the end of the Cold War, the culture of the 1970s, the rise of the New Right, the events of September 11th and their aftermath, and various presidencies.Now thoroughly revised and updated, the seventh edition of The Unfinished Journey combines and reorganizes several chapters. The former Chapter 14, "New Rules, Old Realities," is now divided into two chapters. The new Chapter 14, "An Era of Political Malaise," covers the political history of the 1970s. It is followed by Chapter 15, "A Divided Culture, A Divided Society," which assesses the shifting cultural landscape of the 1970s and the emergence of major fissures in the social system of the nation. The final chapter contains substantial new material on the administration of George W. Bush, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the election of 2008, and the first year of Barack Obama''s presidency. Brilliantly written by a prize-winning historian, The Unfinished Journey, Seventh Edition, is an essential text for all students of recent American history.

DKK 578.00
1

Swinglines - Fernando Benadon - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Swinglines - Fernando Benadon - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The way rhythm is taught in Western classrooms and music lessons is rooted in a centuries-old European approach that favors metric levels within a grand symmetrical grid. Swinglines encourages readers to experience rhythms, even gridded ones, as freewheeling affairs irrespective of the metric hierarchy. At its core, this book is a nuts-and-bolts study of durational comparisons in the context of creative expression. It shows that rhythms traditionally framed as "deviations" and "non-isochronous" have their own identities. They are coherent products of precise musical thought and action. Rather than situating them in the neither-here-nor-there, author Fernando Benadon takes a more inclusive view, one where isochrony and metric grids are shown as particular cases within the universe of musical time. Rhythms that do not readily comply with the metered regime are often regarded as anomalies and deformations. The music explored in this book demonstrates how readily this paradigm vanishes once the frame is flipped from what rhythm is not to what rhythm is. As conceptualized here, swing flattens the temporal field to consider how note values relate to one another by any magnitude, not just the simple ratios of traditional theory. Musical analyses illustrate the book''s concepts with the aid of transcriptions and timing-data visualizations. Variation, tuplets, polymeter, displacement, phrase structure, rhythmic counterpoint, parallel tempos, cyclical patterns, and time signatures are shown to be particular expressions that draw their contours from the swing continuum. They showcase the rich diversity of rhythm and propose ways to reframe how we think about musical time.

DKK 757.00
1

Fanatic - Joe Ungemah - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Fanatic - Joe Ungemah - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Everyone is passionate about something, but not all of us become fanatics. Why and how some people do is a fascinating question with both practical utility and broad implications for our social, emotional, physical, and financial wellbeing. Joe Ungemah explores the psychological motivations behind fanaticism through interviews and direct experience. Falling within the social, physical, cognitive, and emotive psychological domains, these motivations combine to make a particular passion core to someone''s identity. The Social section introduces the power of shared experience and common fandom by profiling science fiction fanatics, as well as considering how some individuals cope with severe hardship and tragedy by throwing themselves into activism or social movements. The Physical section explores the extreme opposites of ultramarathon runners who completely immerse themselves in physical exhaustion and gamers who pursue escapism with the therapeutic and commercial applications of VR. The Cognitive section considers obsessive behaviors and their motivations through the contrasting experiences of collecting and hoarding, as well as the world of innovation and entrepreneurialism. The final section, the Emotive, takes a ride through the world of thrill seekers with roller coaster enthusiasts and extreme sports, and the reward feedback that results from impulse buying. This exploration of fanaticism demystifies the concept and recognizes the benefits it provides. With nearly an unlimited range of topics that could seed fanaticism, Fanatic argues both that we all have the potential to become a fanatic, and that fanaticism should be embraced for its work in creating a sense of purpose and identity, as well as the opportunity for connection it provides.

DKK 296.00
1

Switched On - Albert (professor Emeritus Of Composition Glinsky - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Switched On - Albert (professor Emeritus Of Composition Glinsky - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Moog synthesizer "bent the course of music forever" Rolling Stone declared. Bob Moog, the man who did that bending, was a lovable geek with Einstein hair and pocket protectors. He walked into history in 1964 when his homemade contraption unexpectedly became a sensation---suddenly everyone wanted a Moog. The Beatles, The Doors, The Byrds, and Stevie Wonder discovered his synthesizer, and it came to be featured in seminal film scores including Apocalypse Now and A Clockwork Orange. The Moog''s game-changing sounds saturated 60''s counterculture and burst into the disco party in the 70''s to set off the electronic dance music movement. Bob had singlehandedly founded the synth industry and become a star in the process.But he was also going broke. Imitators copied his technology, the musicians'' union accused him of replacing live players, and Japanese competitors started overtaking his work. He struggled to hang on to his inventions, his business, and his very name. Bob''s story upends our notions of success and wealth, showing that the two don''t always go together.In Switched On, author Albert Glinsky draws on exclusive access to Bob Moog''s personal archives and his probing interviews with Bob''s family and a multitude of associates, for this first complete biography of the man and his work. Switched On takes the reader on a roller coaster ride at turns triumphant, heart-breaking, and frequently laugh out loud absurd---a nuanced trip through the public and private worlds of this legendary inventor who altered the course of music.

DKK 349.00
1

The Traffic Systems of Pompeii - Eric E. Poehler - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Traffic Systems of Pompeii - Eric E. Poehler - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The Traffic Systems of Pompeii is the first sustained examination of the development of road infrastructure in Pompeii--from the archaic age to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE--and its implications for urbanism in the Roman empire. Eric E. Poehler, an authority on Pompeii''s uniquely preserved urban structure, distills over five hundred instances of street-level "wear and tear" to reveal for the first time the rules of the ancient road. Through a thorough, yet lively, investigation of every facet of the infrastructure, from the city''s urban grid and the shape of the streets to the treatment of their surfaces and the individual elements of construction, the intricacies of the Pompeian traffic system and the changes to its operation over time emerge in vivid detail. Though archaeological expertise forms the backbone of this book, its findings have equally important historical and architectural implications. Later chapters probe how the street design and infrastructure affected social roles and hierarchies among property owners in Pompeii, illuminating the economic forces that push and pull upon the shape of urban space. The final chapters set the road system into its broader context as one major infrastructural and administrative artifact of the Roman empire''s deeply urban culture. Where does Pompeii''s system fit within the history of Roman traffic control? Is it unique for its innovation, or only for the preservation that permitted its discovery? Poehler marshals evidence from across the Roman world to examine these questions. His measured and thoroughly researched answers make The Traffic Systems of Pompeii a critical step forward in our understanding of infrastructure in the ancient world.

DKK 370.00
1

AIDS Doctors - Gerald M. Oppenheimer - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

AIDS Doctors - Gerald M. Oppenheimer - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Today, AIDS has been indelibly etched in our consciousness. Yet it was less than twenty years ago that doctors confronted a sudden avalanche of strange, inexplicable, seemingly untreatable conditions that signaled the arrival of a devastating new disease. Bewildered, unprepared, and pushed to the limit of their diagnostic abilities, a select group of courageous physicians nevertheless persevered. This unique collective memoir tells their story. Based on interviews with nearly eighty doctors whose lives and careers have centered on the AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s to the present, this candid, emotionally textured account details the palpable anxiety in the medical profession as it experienced a rapid succession of cases for which there was no clinical history. The physicians interviewed chronicle the roller coaster experiences of hope and despair, as they applied newly developed, often unsuccessful therapies. Yet these physicians who chose to embrace the challenge confronted more than just the sense of therapeutic helplessness in dealing with a disease they could not conquer. They also faced the tough choices inherent in treating a controversial, sexually and intravenously transmitted illness as many colleagues simply walked away. Many describe being gripped by a sense of mission: by the moral imperative to treat the disempowered and despised. Nearly all describe a common purpose, an esprit de corps that bound them together in a terrible yet exhilarating war against an invisible enemy. This extraordinary oral history forms a landmark effort in the understanding of the AIDS crisis. Carefully collected and eloquently told, the doctors'' narratives reveal the tenacity and unquenchable optimism that has paved the way for taming a 20th-century plague.

DKK 334.00
1

Robot - Hans Moravec - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Robot - Hans Moravec - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, predicts robotics expert Hans Moravec. And by 2050, they will have far surpassed us. In this mind-bending new book, Hans Moravec takes the reader on a roller coaster ride packed with such startling predictions. He tells us, for instance, that in the not-too-distant future, an army of robots will displace workers, causing massive, unprecedented unemployment. But then, says Moravec, a period of very comfortable existence will follow, as humans benefit from a fully automated economy. And eventually, as machines evolve far beyond humanity, robots will supplant us. But if Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. We will become our children and live forever. In his provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, Moravec charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine.

DKK 634.00
1

Citizen Explorer - Jared Orsi - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Citizen Explorer - Jared Orsi - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

It was November 1806. The explorers had gone without food for one day, then two. Their leader, not yet thirty, drove on, determined to ascend the great mountain. Waist deep in snow, he reluctantly turned back. But Zebulon Pike had not been defeated. His name remained on the unclimbed peak-and new adventures lay ahead of him and his republic.In Citizen Explorer, historian Jared Orsi provides the first modern biography of this soldier and explorer, who rivaled contemporaries Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Born in 1779, Pike joined the army and served in frontier posts in the Ohio River valley before embarking on a series of astonishing expeditions. He sought the headwaters of the Mississippi and later the sources of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, which led him to Pike''s Peak and capture by Spanish forces. Along the way, he met Aaron Burr and General James Wilkinson; Auguste and Pierre Couteau, patriarchs of St. Louis''s most powerful fur-trading family, who sought to make themselves indispensible to Jefferson''s administration; as well as British fur-traders, Native Americans, and officers of the Spanish empire, all of whom resisted the expansion of the United States. Through Pike''s life, Orsi examines how American nationalism thinned as it stretched west, from the Jeffersonian idealism on the Atlantic to a practical, materialist sensibility on the frontier. Surveying and gathering data, Pike sought to incorporate these distant territories into the republic, to overlay the west with the American map grid; yet he became increasingly dependent for survival on people who had no attachment to the nation he served. He eventually died in that service, in a victorious battle in the War of 1812. Written from an environmental perspective, rich in cultural and political context, Citizen Explorer is a state-of-the-art biography of a remarkable man.

DKK 359.00
1

From the Stage to the Studio - Laurie Scott - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

From the Stage to the Studio - Laurie Scott - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

An expanded, updated, and improved second edition of an essential book for aspiring teacher-musicians.Whether serving on the faculty at a university, maintaining a class of private students, or fulfilling an invitation as guest artist in a master class series, virtually all musicians will teach during their careers. From the Stage to the Studio speaks directly to the performing musician, highlighting the significant advantages of becoming distinguished both as a performer and a pedagogue. Drawing on over sixty years of combined experience, authors Cornelia Watkins and Laurie Scott provide the guidance and information necessary for any musician to translate their individual approach into productive and rewarding teacher-student interactions. Premised on the synergistic relationship between teaching and performing, this book provides a structure for clarifying the essential elements of musical artistry, and connects them to such tangible situations as setting up a studio, teaching a master class, interviewing for a job, judging competitions, and recruiting students. From the Stage to the Studio serves as an essential resource for university studio faculty, music pedagogy teachers, college music majors, and professionals looking to add effective teaching to their artistic repertoire.This second edition provides readers useful tools for understanding current and ever-changing neurological and behavioral studies of music practice. This edition also features best practice recommendations for online teaching in both individual and ensemble settings, as well as new sections featuring financial advice for independent musicians and self-employed studio teachers. Beyond this, the authors have added practical tips on essential writing and language skills for teaching, planning, self-promotion, job applications, and advocacy. They have also revised the book''s discussion of additional training and certification requirements for teaching positions, and provided updated information on professional music teaching associations. Bringing it all together is the second edition''s larger format, ideal for including readers'' written responses, plus a new user-friendly, worksheet-style grid for cross-referencing sequenced instruction with a variety of learning approaches.

DKK 912.00
1

Local Glories - Ann Satterthwaite - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Local Glories - Ann Satterthwaite - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Opera houses were everywhere. Many towns had at least one opera house on Main Street by 1900. Hundreds of theater troupes, opera companies, individual performers, and many sundry entertainers then tred the boards of these halls as new rail lines could bring these troupers to previously isolated hamlets in new and old sections of the country. Five hundred troupes called "Tommers " performed only Uncle Tom''s Cabin. Sarah Bernhardt, Mark Twain, and John Philip Sousa entertained thousands of townspeople as did innumerable minor league magicians, circuses, lecturers, and theater companies. At that time, more people saw live entertainment than at any other period making this the Golden Age for this distinctly American rural institution and the beginning of an era of mass entertainmentThese halls, called "opera houses " to lend a touch of urban sophistication, were often the only large place for public assembly in a town. Aside from cultural events, they served as a public hall for local activities like school graduations, recitations, sports and town meetings, elections, and political rallies and even social dances and roller skating parties. Some were housed in town or city halls, but most were built by local entrepreneurs or committees interested in promoting the town as well as attracting performers. Considered local landmarks, often in distinctive architect-designed buildings, they aroused considerable pride and reinforced town identity.These once-proud halls, however, succumbed in the early twentieth century as radio, movies, and later television and changing tastes made them seem obsolete. Some were demolished, but those that were abandoned to pigeons languished for decades until discovered in the last three decades by stalwart revivers in small towns across the county. The phoenix has indeed arisen.The resuscitation of these opera houses today reflects the timeless quest for cultural inspiration and for communal engagement to counter the anonymity of the virtual world. These revived halls are where "art and community " meet.

DKK 374.00
1

Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors - Charles Weiss - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors - Charles Weiss - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

The American economy faces two deep problems: expanding innovation and raising the rate of quality job creation. Both have roots in a neglected problem: the resistance of Legacy economic sectors to innovation. While the U.S. has focused its polices on breakthrough innovations to create new economic frontiers like information technology and biotechnology, most of its economy is locked into Legacy sectors defended by technological/economic/political/social paradigms that block competition from disruptive innovations that could challenge their models. Americans like to build technology "covered wagons " and take them "out west " to open new innovation frontiers; we don''t head our wagons "back east " to bring innovation to our Legacy sectors. By failing to do so, the economy misses a major opportunity for innovation, which is the bedrock of U.S. competitiveness and its standard of living. Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors uses a new, unifying conceptual framework to identify the shared features underlying structural obstacles to innovation in major Legacy sectors: energy, air and auto transport, the electric power grid, buildings, manufacturing, agriculture, health care delivery and higher education, and develops approaches to understand and transform them. It finds both strengths and obstacles to innovation in the national innovation environments - a new concept that combines the innovation system and the broader innovation context - for a group of Asian and European economies. Manufacturing is a major Legacy sector that presents a particular challenge because it is a critical stage in the innovation process. By increasingly offshoring production, the U.S. is offshoring important parts of its innovation capacity. "Innovate here, produce here, " where the U.S. took all the gains of its strong innovation system at every stage, is being replaced by "innovate here, produce there, " which threatens to lead to "produce there, innovate there. " To bring innovation to Legacy sectors, authors William Bonvillian and Charles Weiss recommend that policymakers focus on all stages of innovation from research through implementation. They should fill institutional gaps in the innovation system and take measures to address structural obstacles to needed disruptive innovations. In the specific case of advanced manufacturing, the production ecosystem can be recreated to reverse "jobless innovation " and add manufacturing-led innovation to the U.S.''s still-strong, research-oriented innovation system.

DKK 784.00
1

City of Light - Jeff Hecht - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

City of Light - Jeff Hecht - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

City of Light tells the story of fiber optics, tracing its transformation from 19th-century parlor trick into the foundation of our global communications network. Written for a broad audience by a journalist who has covered the field for twenty years, the book is a lively account of both the people and the ideas behind this revolutionary technology. The basic concept underlying fiber optics was first explored in the 1840s when researchers used jets of water to guide light in laboratory demonstrations. The idea caught the public eye decades later when it was used to create stunning illuminated fountains at many of the great Victorian exhibitions. The modern version of fiber optics--using flexible glass fibers to transmit light--was discovered independently five times through the first half of the century, and one of its first key applications was the endoscope, which for the first time allowed physicians to look inside the body without surgery. Endoscopes became practical in 1956 when a college undergraduate discovered how to make solid glass fibers with a glass cladding. With the invention of the laser, researchers grew interested in optical communications. While Bell Labs and others tried to send laser beams through the atmosphere or hollow light pipes, a small group at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories looked at guiding light by transparent fibers. Led by Charles K. Kao, they proposed the idea of fiber-optic communications and demonstrated that contrary to what many researchers thought glass could be made clear enough to transmit light over great distances. Following these ideas, Corning Glass Works developed the first low-loss glass fibers in 1970. From this point fiber-optic communications developed rapidly. The first experimental phone links were tested on live telephone traffic in 1977 and within half a dozen years long-distance companies were laying fiber cables for their national backbone systems. In 1988, the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable connected Europe with North America, and now fiber optics are the key element in global communications. The story continues today as fiber optics spread through the communication grid that connects homes and offices, creating huge information pipelines and replacing copper wires. The book concludes with a look at some of the exciting potential developments of this technology.

DKK 343.00
1

Gotham - Edwin G. Burrows - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

Gotham - Edwin G. Burrows - Bog - Oxford University Press Inc - Plusbog.dk

To European explorers, it was Eden, a paradise of waist-high grasses, towering stands of walnut, maple, chestnut, and oak, and forests that teemed with bears, wolves, racoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today it is the city of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and the home of millions of people, who have come from every corner of the nation and the globe.In "Gotham", Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have produced a monumental work of history,on ethat ranges from the Indian tribes that settled in and around the island of Manna-hata, to the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898. Readers will relive the tumultuous early years of New Amsterdam under the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant''s despotic regime, Indian wars, slave resistance and revolt, the Revolutionary War and the defeat of Washington''s army on Brooklyn Heoghts, the destructive seven years of British occupation, New York as the nation''s first capital, the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the Erie Canal and the coming of the railroads, the growth of the city as a port and financial centre, the infamous draft riots of the Civil War, the great flood of immigrants, the rise of mass entertainment such as vaudeville and Coney Island, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the birth of the skyscraper. Here too is a cast of thousands - the rebel Jacob Leisler and the reformer Joanna Bethune; Clement Moore, who saved Greenwich village from the city''s grid street plan; Herman Melville, who painted disillusioned portraits of city life; and Walt Whitman, who hapily celebrated that same life. We meet Boss Tweed and his nemesis, cartoonist Thomas Nast; Emma Goldman and Nellie Bly; Jacob Riis and Horace Greely; police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt; Colonel Waring and his "white angels"(who revolutionised the sanitation department); millionaires John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, August Belmont and William Randolph Hearst; and hundreds more who left their mark on this great city.The events and people who crowd these pages guarantee that this is no mere local history. It is in fact a portrait of the heart and soul of America, and a book that will mesmerise everyone interested in the peaks and valleys of American life as found in the greatest city on earth.

DKK 240.00
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