Book Description
Surveys find that over 80 percent of Americans agree with the goals of the environmental movement. Sadly, most Americans admit to doing little more than basic recycling when it comes to acting on that disposition. What is the reason for this great divide between environmental sentiment in this country and individual actions? Author and environmental consultant Crissy Trask seeks to answer this question-and solve the disparity-with a new book that makes it easy to be an environmentalist, no matter how busy or hectic your lifestyle. This is a day to day guide with simple, practical suggestions that anyone can put into action, like:
Customer Reviews:
Good Intro to Green Living.......2007-08-11
This book is smaller than many, which makes it pallatable to those who might want to dip their toe into the eco-pool. It has straightforward language, resource pages, short chapters and simple (occasionally humorous) illustrations.
The easy method of tracking actions that you can take gives you a sense of satisfaction as you check through what you are already doing, and what you can consider adding to your daily/weekly/monthly routines. Throughout certain areas of the chapters, there are three boxes next to some action items. The box farthest to the right signifies that this is an action that you would like to try, target or experiment with. Checking the middle box signifies that you are in the process of working on implementing it in your lifestyle. The left most and final box allows you to rate your success with that action on a scale of 1 to 5. For those of us who like lists and to see what we're doing, filling up this book with checks and numbers gives a sense that I can see that I'm making a difference.
Great gift for a hard to shop for person who has everything...
easy being green.......2007-07-28
type too small
horrible reading
I really wanted to send it back -still do
poorly written!
Green is good.......2007-07-20
Excellent book on how to become more environmentally and health conscious while saving money at the same time.
really cool book.......2007-01-06
this book is a fun read. it is very concise and well organized, so it makes for a good coffee table item.
Well, the info is good, but widely available without this book.......2006-11-03
If you need to have almost all the ideas for ways YOU can reduce your ecological damage of your lifestyle all in one easy to read place -- or know someone who you think is open to being greener but unaware of all the big and little changes one can fairly easily make, this might be a book for you.
If you've been paying attention to ecological, green, and sustainability issues for years there's not much point in this book. All the info in it is widely available on the 'net and other sources free.
Book Description
First published in 1951, Shamanism soon became the standard work in the study of this mysterious and fascinating phenomenon. Writing as the founder of the modern study of the history of religion, Romanian émigré--scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) surveys the practice of Shamanism over two and a half millennia of human history, moving from the Shamanic traditions of Siberia and Central Asia--where Shamanism was first observed--to North and South America, Indonesia, Tibet, China, and beyond. In this authoritative survey, Eliade illuminates the magico-religious life of societies that give primacy of place to the figure of the Shaman--at once magician and medicine man, healer and miracle-doer, priest, mystic, and poet. Synthesizing the approaches of psychology, sociology, and ethnology, Shamanism will remain for years to come the reference book of choice for those intrigued by this practice.
Customer Reviews:
Quite A Good Academic Material.......2007-06-27
Shamanism of Mircea Eliade was quite a good academic material that enlightened everyone who wished to understand about this subject. Full of explanations about why archaic peoples did shamanizing.
Horrible.......2007-02-13
As a shaman myself I was appalled when I began reading this book only to discover that entheogens--THE VERY SOLE FOUNDATION FOR SHAMANISM ITSELF--are not mentioned once--not once. Somehow this book is 600 pages of information about shamanism while not informing the reader of its actual basis. What a blunder that this is supposed to be a definitive textbook on this religion and some poor people have read this book and considered themselves learned in shamanism. It needs to be taken off the shelf.
academic, repetitive.......2007-01-03
Eliade brings a scientist's detachment and skepticism to this broad work on ubiquitous Shamanic practices and techniques; but, he lacks the framework of James's radical empiricism, which might be a more useful approach. I would prefer that the subject be treated with the openness of Benny Shannon's "Antipodes of Mind." But, it is what it is, the product of the 1950s, and an outstanding specimen of that era. A profitable read, although unnecessarily repetitive, in my opinion. Eliade could have condensed this into 200 pages. I don't like diarrhea of the mouth.
Foundational Reference Work On Cross-Cultural Shamanic Wisdom And Practice.......2006-05-24
Mircea Eliade's foundational work 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' is a massive 648 page resource work that was first published in '51. Now some fifty-five years later it's still the authoritative reference work on the history, beliefs and practices of shamanic cultures.
By the way, just in case you were initially attracted by the subtitle 'Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' let me warn you, it's not that kind of book. Or if you're looking for some entertaining reading the likes of Carlos Castaneda filled with vivid, exotic first-hand accounts of interaction with the spirits you'll be disappointed. This is a scholarly reference work designed for serious students in sociology, anthropology, psychology and the history of religion. There's nothing exciting here, unless you find knowledge something to get excited about.
So if you're serious about the subject of shamanic magical practices and beliefs than this is a must own volume for your library. However when it comes time to read it be sure to have a very large glass of water close at hand. It's as dry and dusty a read as you'll ever find.
Ian Myles Slater on Fifty Years and Still Going Strong.......2003-09-24
I agree whole-heartedly with the many earlier reviewers who have praised this extraordinary book. However, it has given rise to some controversies, and prospective purchasers might as well be aware of them. Given the richness of the volume, I consider them minor, but a chorus of praise invites disappointment.
First of all, the original French edition was in 1951 (and was one of the author's post-war works apparently not written in his native Romanian). The revised and updated English translation (the fine work of Willard Trask) first appeared in the Bollingen series in 1964. Princeton University Press issued the Bollingen edition in paperback in 1972, and this appears to be the version currently in print. Hence, it is, obviously, more than a little out of date bibliographically. Some people are troubled by this, but there is no way the book could have been expanded to deal with the explosion of research and publications which followed its appearance (although about two hundred titles, mainly post-1948, were added to the 1964 bibliography and notes). Just be aware that it may not mention something important.
[Since this review was originally posted, the MYTHOS edition for which it was written has been replaced by a new Princeton printing (January 2004), with a preface by Wendy Doniger, describing the book's importance and limitations with clarity and considerable authority. (She is the Mircea Eliade Distingiushed Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago.)]
Also because of the book's age, Eliade still used terms and ideas which were common in European scholarship in the first half of the century, but have been largely abandoned since, and in some cases never made much of an impression on the English-speaking scholarly world. He takes for granted the ancient Babylonian origin of several ideas about the cosmos, some of which the "Pan-Babylonian" school seems to have been reading into ancient texts. This has some importance for his attempts to trace the diffusion and relative ages of certain ideas. He also uses (and doesn't really define) cultural descriptions like "Palaeo-Arctic" which originated in anthropological theories current in the 1920s. This is where the age of the book really is important to keep in mind.
Of more importance are some of his working assumptions about the nature of Shamanism. Correctly observing that the word entered western European languages from Russian, which had borrowed it from Siberian tribes, he tends to regard the reindeer-herders of the Eurasian sub-Arctic as the model of "true" shamanism, in relation to which other, similar, phenomena, are to be classed. This is reasonable, but, as he sometimes suggests, the Siberian forms have a complex history of their own, and cannot be taken as primitive. It should also be kept in mind than the assumption that reindeer herding was an early precursor of full domestication has been challenged. If it is a secondary imitation of southern pastoral systems, the pristinely archaic nature of the cultures based on it cannot be taken for granted, and their internal history is not independent either.
Because many Siberian forms involve elaborate physical (and sometimes verbal) gymnastics, culminating in a trance state, while others consist only in a trance state, often chemically induced, he treats the latter as secondary (and "degenerate") offshoots. It is easier to see the difficult and complex form being simplified than it is to see a pure trance developing into a demanding theatrical display, but it is not demonstrable. However, Eliade did not intend it as a contribution to later debates over psychedelic drugs, even if it has been read as such. (Eliade doesn't help matters by citing as corroboration for his view the widespread claim that in the "good old days" shamans didn't just dance their flights to the otherworld, they were seen flying through the air!) A very different view is suggested Gordon Wasson's studies of the Vedic Soma, which he relates to the use of fly agaric mushrooms as an intoxicant by the reindeer-herders Eliade invokes for the opposite purpose. In I.M. Lewis' several studies of ecstatic religions he rather brusquely dismisses Eliade's position; one would have hoped for a fuller response.
Finally, Eliade treats out-of-body experiences ("Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy") as definitive of shamanism, and spirit-possession as a side issue. However, possession experiences do seem to be central in several cultures which are commonly described as shamanist, and the distinction may be more important to Eliade's need to limit the material than to anything else.
I would also add that Eliade's copious material on shamanic initiation experiences bears a striking resemblance to some accounts of extra-terrestrial abductions and medical experiments. How did Fox Mulder miss this?
Amazon.com
This translation of Giacomo Casanova's epic memoir was first published in a multi-volume set more than 25 years ago, but this new paperback edition makes Casanova's story accessible to the general reader. Thankfully, the great Venetian adventurer's memoirs can finally be read as they were written, without the bowdlerizing that plagued them for two centuries. While Casanova is most notorious for his womanizing, his memoirs are also remarkable as they give a top-to-bottom view of European life in the 18th century. Johns Hopkins University Press has done a handsome job, packaging the entire story in six double volumes. And, in keeping with the spirit of the author, it's worth mentioning that a 17th-century painting of lounging nude woman spans across the spines of the set when they're arranged on the shelf.
Book Description
The name of Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt (1725-98), is now synonymous with amorous exploits, and there are plenty of these, vividly narrated, in his memoirs. But Casanova was not just an energetic lover. In his time he was a diplomat, businessman, trainee priest, traveler, prisoner, magician, confidence man, gambler, professional entertainer, and charlatan. He financed business projects, organized lotteries, wrote opera libretti, and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written.
Casanova explored to the full all the possibilities eighteenth-century Venice offered by way of love and profit before being imprisoned, escaping from jail, and fleeing from the city to begin travels that took him across Europe. In Moscow and London, Berlin and Constantinople, he met the famous men and women of his time—Catherine the Great, Voltaire, Louis XV, Rousseau—and recorded his encounters for the memoirs he wrote in retirement at the end of his life.
History of My Life is by turns touching, thrilling, wonderfully comic, and quite irresistible. The present edition, which includes approximately one third of Casanova's enormous (and unfinished) book, contains all his major adventures and all his greatest affairs of the heart.
Customer Reviews:
good reading.......2007-06-27
My introduction to Casanova was in Paris of the sixties as a young Canadian student at the Sorbonne. At that time, Tante Ivette, the general's wife was imposing a rule of high morals in Paris. Not all books were always available, even on the Left Bank. However, one day while meandering through the Librairie Joseph Gibert on Boulevard St. Michel, I found there a Hachette Collection du Flambeau edition of a' Histoire de ma vie par Jacques Casanova'. Needless to say, I was in ecstasy, but knowing the rules, also a bit sheepish. I took it to checkout and put it in front of the salesclerk. He looked at the book then gave me a stare of wild amazement.I believed I was to be shipped out straight to French Guianna's Cayenne Islands. Monsieur, je ne peux pas vous permettre d'acheter. I interrupted with a quick snap in english " but I am Canadian". A brief 'bon' was all I heard and the book was mine. I highly recommend Casanova to every man. To read it is to have an education in the humanities of the highest order. There is no one like him to introduce the pre revolutionary 18th century to the reader. In our times, most will know him as the complete seducer of women. Almost right. He loved woman, as women loved him. Above all and in all, he was a true gentleman. Read him then and know his charm. Out of learning evil is not bred, nor virtue found in all who are unread.
The Giacomo Casanova Autobiography.......2007-05-13
The History of My life by G. Casanova is a massive undertaking. More than 1000 pages of small print on very thin paper. Difficult to hold, impossible to travel with, but some great excercise for those in need of arm work.
The romantic conquests are nonstop (he seems to specialize in sisters) and it is sometimes difficult to believe this isn't retrospective wishful thinking on the part of an older Mr Casanova.
The strength of the book is its wonderful look at 18th Century Italy, and other places, and its descriptions of both the well-appointed and Everyman. If you have some time on your hands, perhaps snow bound in a frozen cabin and needing either a jump-start on your sex life or a wish for a good look into a fanciful life that took place 300 years ago, this book is for you.
Caution -- this volume is an abridged version.......2007-02-14
The Everyman's Library edition of Casanova is abridged from the original, and the Amazon.com description does not note the fact.
Incredible, Insightful, Captivating...there is NO excuse for not giving this a try.......2005-12-06
I started the abridged version in French, and kept thinking..."this *can't* be Casanova's writing; it's clunky, far from eloquent, and lacks style." Thankfully I was right. Though I downloaded the free version from project gutenberg (just do a google search), I was *so* impressed by this translation that I bought the hardcopy anyway.
All historical notes and translation notes aside, the content is fantastic. Casanova's philosophical musings are always interesting, whether you agree with them or not; his writing is that of one of the most intelligent, witty, and confidently masculine men I've ever had the pleasure of reading. What struck me most of all was his radically different mindset, which those who would call him "a seducer!! ahh!" would rather ignore. His success (if you can call it just that) with women was simply another byproduct of his way of thinking, which no doubt is the most interesting thing about Casanova.
This is one of the most personal autobiographies I've ever read. If anything can get you into this guy's head, it's this collection. Be warned, though...(it takes Casanova quite a few pages to issue this warning) the book is intended to be read by people who've already had ample failure and success; the story you might discuss at age 80 in a circle of people who remember exactly as you do what it was like to grow up whenever you grew up. It's honest, insightful, and gives away a whole lot of things that are best learned by experience.
Not that I agree with Casanova's disclaimer; I'm just fine reading it now. However, it's in there and it's only honest to make sure others know.
There's not much more to say. This autobiography is simply fantastic, and should keep me occupied for at least a few years.
Giacomo Casanova as a Product.......2005-10-30
(...)
Giacomo Casanova seduced 116 women and detailed his adventures in a massive autobiography written in the eighteenth century. He is the most famous womanizer in the world, a spy, a diplomat, an opera librettist, a mathematician, a poet, a cleric, a fugitive, a librarian, a gambler (he created the business of lottery), a magic practitioner conversant with the Jewish Kabbalah.
He spoke French, Italian, Latin, Greek and English. He translated Iliada in Italian He did not speak German, yet he spent the last fourteen years of his life in the Dax Palace of Count Waldstein in Bohemia. "The world greatest lover" as an old man was sexually impotent, and a broken dreamer. The servants of Count Waldstein made him suffer indignities, like using pages of his books as toilet paper. He had only the pleasure of remembering, which brought at the same time grief. German poet J.W. Goethe visited him
Casanova deeply believed in God and his faith sustained him. He never participated in an orgy and believed that pleasure should received and given equally. His publishers, Brockhaus, ironically were German, the only major language Casanova did not speak . He wrote 4554 pages in French, not Italian which was his native tongue. He died before he finished his memoirs in 1798, just as the nineteenth century was about to step in.
From now on, Casanova became an unending series of products. In 1821, a heavily edited German version was published for the puritan German audience. The German censorship raised difficulties.
French editions copied the German version. Brockhaus published in 1832 a French Edition, but French Censorship was even harsher than the German. So the French edition was published in Brussels, Belgium..
These editions even had text added that Casanova never wrote. Casanova was not recollecting his life. He was re-living it. So the original manuscript was withheld for more than 160 years. The final , original Casanova was published in February 1960. The American edition was published between 1966 and 1971 , an original translation of Willard Trask. The paper back edition is from John Hopkins University Press.
In age of Viagra and Howard Stern, Giacomo Casanova image is benign. He had the elegance to practice the true sexual emotional adventure, which is claimed by voluptuous ED (Erectile Dysfunctional) drug companies, Casanova was not a chemical automated button. He was witty conversationalist, a man with magic and an encyclopaedic mind.
Giacomo Casanova's 116 women record in 1700's pales in comparison to Bill Wyman, who claimed he slept with 2000 women during his time with the Rolling Stones.
[Casanova] is superior to all other erotic writers because of his pleasure in news, gossip, in... the whole personality of his mistresses. (V.S. Pritchet)
A search on Amazon.com for Casanova yielded 1,063 books, 131 videos, and among other , one software title: Casanova: The Duel of the Black Rose . It is a video game published in February 2005
The time has come for the software Casanovas. We can call a grid architecture or an Operating System or a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application, Casanova. No software is perfect. As it goes through release after release, it aims at a perfection that will never achieve.
As Casanova himself writes, unabridged and in the original manuscript:
My ill fortune nor less than my good proved to me that both in this physical world and in the moral world good comes from evil and evil comes from good.... The one thing necessary is courage, for strength without confidence is useless.
Book Description
A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.
A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote Mimesis, publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, Mimesis is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
Customer Reviews:
defining work of western literary criticism.......2007-01-09
this book is excellent and one of its kind, erich auerbach commanded a veritably deep understanding of philology and languages which he used to cunning effect in analysing various works, e.g. gregory of tours' "history of the franks." there he informed us that bishop gregory's latin was something midway between roman latin and early vernacular french, somewhat crude and grammatically obfuscated. auerbach was a lot more alert to the dynamics of cultural and language change than was his contemporary ernst robert curtius, the latter was held back (i suspect by his aristocratic background) from appreciating the fact that many tectonic shifts of culture start from the bottom-up -- this auerbach took great pains to demonstrate, e.g. in the very first chapter when he compared the odyssey to the hebrew bible. curtius' view was a static, fossilized one, consisting of a select circle of literary greats convening together "in the mind" and influencing world-history. auerbach's view was more egalitarian and generous toward those works which might not be "rightfully" called literary (e.g. works that fail to satisfy the classical rules of rhetoric, as stipulated in curtius' ELLMA) -- to this category belong the nibelungenlied and other germanic epics. one walks away from "Mimesis" feeling considerably enriched by Auerbach's insights into languages and different Weltanschauungen and not least of all by his pervasive spirit of humanism.
Starting point.......2006-11-19
When one starts to study western literature, and puts all of his effort to an neverending task of unravelling mysteries of European literature, one has sooner or later stumble upon this book. Sooner the better. Auerbachs work is on of the most influential works in comparative sciences of literature, it spans for Homer to Virginia Woolf, covering large variety of authors and styles. Main point in the books is recurrence of "realism" troughout the entire history of literature. "Realism" here stands for platonic and aristotelian term of "mimesis" which is, roughly said, (and as the title indicates) manner of representation of reality.
This was one of the greatest, and on the other hand, most disputed theory. Question of style related to function and age where it emerged are unanswered up till these days and will remain so in quite a few years to come.
But I am not here to debate about the contents of this book. I am here simply to note that, no matter if you agree or not with Auerbach, Mimesis is fundamental piece of work that has to be read if you are even thinking of spending your life buried inside books and start to think in a manner of literary criticism. Together with Ernest R. Curtiuses "European literature and middle ages" it stand highly above the average piece of work that you can stumble upon.
You don't have to be particularly educated for this one. It can be read on many levels and with many kinds of understanding, considering of your education, but never diminishing its value, allways offering you some more to look upon, and some new perspective to think about.
And if you are aware that this book was written in Istambul, almost without any secondary literature avaliable, admiration for this work may only go higher.
Not for the timid.......2006-11-10
This is easily the most challenging work on comparative literature - or
literary criticism - I have ever encountered. It is not so much the
translation from German that makes for heavy going, the concepts
are novel and the scope of the author's knowledge is intimidating .
Having said that, you will never look at a novel quite in the same
way having read Mimesis. Well worth you time and effort.
The history of how Reality is presented in Western Literature.......2006-06-18
'Mimesis' is arguably the most important piece of Literary Criticism written in the twentieth century. Auerbach's opening chapter 'Odysseus Scar' in which he compares Chapter 19 of the 'Odyssey' with the Akeda , Chapter 22.1 of Genesis is the foundation from which he goes on to read the whole history of Representation in Western Literature. In that first chapter he contrasts the clearness and descriptive richness, the surface brilliance of the 'Odyssey' with the enigmatic, fragmented, deep- backgrounded mysterious narrative of 'Genesis'. These two basic 'Western' texts are used to provide a reading of the theory of representation in Western literature that spans its whole historical span.
"Revealing the system of conventions that produce "a lifelike illusion of some 'real' world outside the text by processes of selection, exclusion, description, and manners of addressing the reader," Auerbach sets up conclusions about how literature, the world, and literature's place in the world were understood in each work and historical period." ( Wikipedia)
Auerbach reads from the Bible and Odysseus through the great works of Western Literature down to the masterworks of his own day.
He wrote this book in Istanbul when in exile from Nazi Germany. He lacked many of the sources he might have used, and thus concentrated more on providing a close reading of the great works he discusses.
an elegant classic.......2005-10-22
The first essay in Mimesis, 'Odyessus' Scar' is a brilliant, clear statment about the origins of what we define as Western civilization. Auerbach does not speak to our post-colonial times, but he does speak for the heritage that both binds and divides us. His writing and thinking are superb, clear, masterful.
Book Description
This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.
Customer Reviews:
Human Destiny as the Product of Consciousness.......2005-10-01
Somewhere on the cover, or in the preface, or even in the introductions to other of his many profound works in the field of comparative religious studies, one will find Eliade's famous counsel: "I consider it the most significant of my books; and when asked in what order they should be read, I always recommend beginning with The Myth of the Eternal Return." One of the enduring monuments of twentieth century academic writing, The Myth of the Eternal Return expounds Eliade's seminal ruminations on the advent of the nuclear, or post-modern era - the naissance of our capacity for apocalyptic self-annihilation - an attempt to demonstrate in analyzable terms the relation between the foundations of the contemporary psyche to the seemingly adventitious madness which actively anticipates (and even militates in favor of) an end-time, an Armageddon, a Judgment Day, if you will. Eliade thus asks the arch-question: "What can protect us from the terror of history?"
The discussion is framed within a comparison between what Eliade deems as the distinctive difference between the ancient and modern, the archaic (or primitive) and contemporary world-view. The modern envisions reality as a series of events which fulminate in a linear, progressive history - a history which had a beginning and will have an end. The ancient experiences reality as an endless, cyclic repetition of primordial acts. "... the life of archaic man (a life reduced to the repetition of archetypal acts, that is, to categories and not to events, to the unceasing rehearsal of the same primordial myths) although it takes place in time, does not bear the burden of time, does not record time's irreversibility; in other words, completely ignores what is especially characteristic and decisive in a consciousness of time. Like the mystic, like the religious man in general, the primitive lives in a continual present. (And it is in this sense that the religious man may be said to be a `primitive'; he repeats the gestures of another and, through this repetition, lives always in an atemporal present.)"
Eliade points to the centrality of the lunar cycle in the mythological fabric woven from this perspective, which, to a degree, envelops our own world-view, however linear and eschatologically determinate. "The phases of the moon - appearance, increase, wane, disappearance, followed by reappearance after three nights of darkness - have played an immense part in the elaboration of cyclical concepts. We find analogous concepts especially in the archaic apocalypses and anthropogonies; deluge or flood puts an end to an exhausted and sinful humanity, and a new regenerated humanity is born, usually from a mythical `ancestor' who escaped the catastrophe, or from a lunar animal." Regeneration of humanity is thus always implied in its destruction. In the natural imaging, like the seasons, we assure ourselves, fall and dissolution are ever succeeded by renewal. "... just as the disappearance of the moon is never final, since it is necessarily followed by a new moon, the disappearance of man is not final either; in particular, even the disappearance of an entire humanity ... is never total ..." As the modern (historical) cultures translate this concept, "this optimism can be reduced to a consciousness of the normality of the cyclical catastrophe, to the certainty that it has a meaning and, above all, that it is never final... In the `lunar perspective', the death of the individual and the periodic death of humanity are necessary, even as the three days of darkness preceding the `rebirth' of the moon are necessary. The death of the individual and the death of humanity are alike necessary for their regeneration ... what predominates in all these cosmico-mythological lunar conceptions is the cyclical occurrence of what has been before, in a word, eternal return."
Due to the fact that the modern, predominantly Western model, of consciousness, primarily informed by Hebraic/Christian-Greek (teleological) influences, perceives time as a matrix for linear progress toward eschatological fulfillment, an end (and Eliade does not hesitate to analyze with his usual acumen - and here one must highlight the amazing passage where he claims that the concept of `ekpyrosis', the destruction of the world by fire, originates in early Iranian mythology - how Islam developed within this eschatological framework), we are forced to confront what he terms "the terror of history", the assertion (often stated by zealots of various stripes as fact) that human history, itself, must end. Recognition of this shift in human consciousness, from the archaic celebration of the repetition of nativity to the modern obsession with the limitation of mortality yields enormous explanatory power. In the face of the nuclear option, we must seriously consider how far such concepts as "resurrection", "rebirth" have tangible reality, not merely a traditionally assigned or contemplatively evoked meaning, but value as real states of affairs.
"Since the `invention' of faith, in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word (= for God all is possible), the man who has left the horizon of archetypes and repetition can no longer defend himself against that terror except through the idea of God . . . Any other situation of modern man leads, in the end, to despair. It is a despair provoked not by his own human existentiality, but by his presence in a historical universe in which almost the whole of mankind lives prey to a continual terror (even if not always conscious of it) . . .
In this respect, Christianity incontestably proves to be the religion of `fallen man': and to the extent to which modern man is irremediably identified with history and progress, and to which history and progress are a fall, both implying the final abandonment of the paradise of archetypes and repetition." These are the words with which the book concludes. If all that we are is the product of all that has been thought, they deserve the closest sort of reading by every thinking being. For the final abandonment, in the fine sense and print, means no less than the final abandonment of planet earth and the evolutionary project of humanity in full.
Book Description
The growing interest in commercial RF applications and high-frequency engineering has triggered a scramble for fundamental design and analysis information, which until now has been largely scattered in the literature and often hard to find. This expertly compiled resource gives microwave engineers instant one-stop access to a vast range of essential source material in a single convenient volume. Over 100 classic papers provide definitive treatment of design, analysis, and applications of ferrite/powdered iron circuits, RF transformers, power splitters, power combiners and directional couplers, all organized for ready reference. Engineers quickly find proven techniques, design solutions, and core data for the full range of HF components — from toroidal-wound inductors, multielement transmission lines, and broadband balun transformers, to hybrid power dividers and directional channel-separation filters.
What's more, this one-of-a-kind encyclopedic guide features current, context-providing introductions and commentary that help engineers evaluate the various possible solutions to design challenges they face, plus informative reviews of next-generation technology. Certain to become a reference "Bible", this volume brings together a wealth of fundamental information critical to the work of all professionals in the field.
Customer Reviews:
first class collection.......2006-03-05
This is a collection of reprints of famous magazine and journal articles about passive devices used in RF designs that are hard to find. It is arranged in sections with a summary preceding the reprints.
The classic papers vary in clearness. The ones from trade magazines are short on theory but very practical for designers. The ones from scientific journals are very compactly written and may be hard to follow by some engineers.
Book Description
Cultural Diversity and Families: Expanding Perspectives breaks new ground by investigating how concepts of cultural diversity have shaped the study of families from theoretical and applied perspectives. Authors Bahira Sherif Trask and Raeann R. Hamon move the dialogue about culturally diverse families to a new level by topically discussing the issues affecting culturally diverse families rather than organizing the information by racial and or ethnic groups.
Key Features:
- Investigates the impact of cultural diversity on the study of families: In order to transcend simplistic categorizations that have juxtaposed White families in opposition to families of color and vice versa, this book delineates the increasing cultural diversity of American families and examines the impact of these demographic changes for the social sciences.
- Emphasizes the full range of cultural aspects: The book consciously emphasizes cultural aspects, not just ethnicity, but also socioeconomic status, gender, religion, etc. over racial impacts on family life so as not to reinforce the myth that race is a biological truth. By sharing unique family experiences across groups, the book enhances understanding, directs future family research, and serves these families through responsive policy and practice.
- Offers more coverage of culturally diverse families than any other text: Divided into three parts, this comprehensive text first sets the stage of historical, current, and projected demographic trends pertaining to American families; explores issues facing culturally diverse families from a thematic perspective; and discusses of the impact of cultural diversity for family theory, research, service delivery, and public policy.
Intended Audience:
This is an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as Families in a Multicultural Society, Ethnic Minority Families, and Cultural Diversity in American Families in the departments of Human Development & Family Studies, Sociology, and Family Social Work.
Book Description
Organizing data from cultures the world over, Eliade lays out the basic patterns of initiation: group puberty rituals, entrance into secret cults, shamanic instruction, individual visions, and heroic rites of passage. The vast information, assembled so beautifully, transcends usual scholarship. Eliade affirms the greater experience in all initiations--the indissoluable ties between humans and the cosmos of gods, spirits, animals, ancestors, and nature.
Customer Reviews:
Ian Myles Slater on: Transitions and Rituals.......2004-12-07
This little book is a translation of a series of half a dozen lectures, with endnotes providing documentation. The history and bibliography are a little tricky. "Patterns of Initiation: The Haskell Lectures of 1956" were delivered at the University of Chicago by Mircea Eliade, a Romanian exile who had been recruited from the Sorbonne to help build up the University's Comparative Religion department. The lectures were composed in French, Eliade's main second language, and the English translation by Willard Trask was published in 1958, by Harvill Press, London, and Harper & Brothers, New York, as "Birth and Rebirth." (I have reviewed the Harper edition, used copies of which are sometimes available through Amazon: the full title, as given there, is "Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human Culture," in The Library of Religion and Culture series.)
The present title, "Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth," was introduced with the Harper Torchbook paperback edition of 1965. (The publisher had meanwhile become Harper & Row; and today is included in HarperCollins.) There was a Harper College Division reprinting in 1980. The current edition, from Spring Publications, has a new Foreword (by Michael Meade), but seems to be otherwise identical.
Meanwhile, a rather different French edition ("a rehandling of the material") had been published as "Naissances mystiques. Essai sur quelques types d'initiation" (Paris, 1959). (That makes three versions and four titles, if you've lost count. And a variety of textually identical editions of the English-language version.)
Eliade (1907-1986) remained connected to the University of Chicago for pretty much the rest of his life. Although from an institutional point of view he wasn't quite the well-organized driving force that had been desired, he continued to produce interesting and exciting work, not all of which has aged equally well. (For a short account of Eliade's life, work, and an evaluation of his place in the twentieth century, see "The Politics of Myth: A Study of C.G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell," by Robert S. Ellwood.)
"Rites and Symbols" is one of a large number of small works by Eliade which stand alongside such monuments of scholarship as "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy," and "Yoga: Immortality and Freedom," and the attempted summation of his views in the three completed volumes of his "History of Religious Ideas."
The material it contains makes it something of a companion to "Shamanism" in particular, giving a more universal context to the initiatory experiences and rituals described there. It deals with ritual responses to "changes of status" in traditional societies, from the commonly recognized "Rites of Passage" (as delineated in Arnold van Gennep's classic book of that name), such as Birth, Adult-hood, and Death, to cultural constructs, such as entry into secret societies, or the company of Gods and Ancestors.
The original lecture-series title, "Patterns of Initiation," is in some ways the best, suggesting at once that Eliade is focusing on recurring themes, rather than unique instances. The more poetic titles, at least of the English-language version, may have been used because a translation of an earlier work had been published already as "Patterns in Comparative Religion."
I think that it remains useful, although according to the classicist Fritz Graf it "remains as superficial as it is dogmatic" ("Magic in the Ancient World," page 264, note 15). I would call it, rather, schematic, concise, and sometimes poorly argued. The documentation, although now obviously rather dated, often is more impressive than the slender body of quotations Eliade provides in his survey of a vast number of times and places. There are also some minor problems with the translation; probably inevitably, with the number of languages involved, in Eliade's own mind as well as the source materials he was using.
I'm not about to give up my aging copy of the Harper Torchbook edition; but Spring Publications deserves gratitude for bringing the book back into print.
A classic on the subject of initiation.......1999-05-04
Anyone planning a initiation into manhood (or woman hood) or rite of passage should know about this book. It is number one most referenced source of information on initiation in traditional cultures. No one can say they understand the legacy of initiation in primative or traditional cultures without reading this book.
Although it is a academic quality work it is very readable. The layman should have no problem understanding it. My only complaint about this book is that I wish it were longer.
Book Description
This is the true story of a little piece of 8mm film made in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy visited Dallas, Texas. Abraham Zapruder's 26-second home movie captured in horrific clarity the public murder of the President. His six-foot long filmstrip soon became one of the most monetarily valuable artifacts in world history, and arguably "the most historic film ever shot." Zapruder's film and its subsequent study and interpretation by government investigations, the mass media and thousands of assassination buffs, is a controversial and convoluted tale. Richard Trask puts the film's significance into a readable context and displays how this small slice of historic reality has become the image by which the Kennedy assassination will forever be remembered.
Customer Reviews:
As Satisfying An Experience As You Will Find, Period!.......2006-05-16
I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Von Pein's extremely comprehensive review. If you are into the photographic and film record of the Kennedy Assassination, as I am, than Mr. Trask's published works will satisfy your desire for an in-depth analysis of the major photos and films taken during the November 21st-November 22nd period of time. All three of his books are worth the investment for the wealth of photos they contain and the analysis of those photos.
As to NATIONAL NIGHTMARE, I liken it to that first cup of cold water after a long run. It is satisfying and quenches the thirst. Mr. Trask approaches the history of the film and his analysis of it with no agenda. He is not out to change anyone's mind as to "who dun it," unlike David R. Wrone, who does a good job of describing the history of the film in THE ZAPRUDER FILM: REFRAMING JFK'S ASSASSINATION, but then goes off into the wacky world of Zapruder film tampering by unknown conspirators. I consider myself a historian, an as such, am much more impressed with Mr. Trask's objective approach to his subject. One gets the impression that he discounts the conspiracy theories in favor of the Warren Commission findings, but it serves as an undercurrent, not as a presumptious raison d'etre for the existence of the book. Mr. Trask simply presents the photographic record in wonderful detail, leaving the theories for the reader to muddle over.
This is really an extaordinary book, and my hope is the Mr. Trask (I hope you're reading this, sir) publishes a book of all 400+ frames of the Zapruder film in the largest, clearest, most colorful format that technology can provide and takes a page to analyze each frame of the film. One frame per page accompanied by a page of analysis would amount to a holy grail of sorts for me and no doubt for all those who understand the importance of analyzing the history of November 22, 1963 through the numerous photographs and films taken on that day.
Another First-Rate Effort By Mr. Trask .... All You Could Ever Want To Know About The Zapruder Film Is In Here.......2006-01-15
I love reading Richard Trask's books about the JFK assassination; and this one, published in late October 2005, is certainly no exception. It's very informative and definitely a worthy addition to anyone's collection of written materials surrounding the shocking murder of President John Kennedy in November of 1963.
"National Nightmare On Six Feet Of Film: Mr. Zapruder's Home Movie And The Murder Of President Kennedy" is a softcover volume containing 392 pages packed with just about every conceivable piece of information revolving around the infamous 26-second color motion-picture film taken by Dallas dress manufacturer Abraham Zapruder on November 22, 1963, which is a film which shows, in all its morbid detail, the assassination of an American President in broad daylight on a city street in Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Trask details the full history of the film and provides a good deal of background and biographical information on Mr. Zapruder, an ordinary Dallas businessman, born in Russia, who, by pure happenstance and coincidence, turned out to be the amateur filmmaker whose name will forever be associated with the death of JFK.
But, if it weren't for the prodding of his secretary, Lillian Rogers (who encouraged Zapruder to go back home and retrieve his 8mm Bell-&-Howell movie camera shortly before the President's motorcade arrived in Dealey Plaza), that brief and awful 26 seconds in history would probably have never been captured through Mr. Zapruder's lens.
Like Richard Trask's other books on the JFK assassination which focus attention on the photographic aspect of the tragedy, the text of "National Nightmare" is ever-readable, easily-understood, and refreshingly-non-biased when it comes to taking a "Conspiracy vs. No Conspiracy" position by the author. Mr. Trask lays out the facts and leaves it at that.
This book's endnotes/footnotes are all positioned at the back of the book in one separate section, so as to not clutter up the main text of the volume. (So keeping two bookmarks handy is recommended, because a lot of interesting info can be gleaned from some of these endnotes too.)
One big surprise to this writer when perusing this book was seeing a COLOR version of the Robert Croft photograph printed on Page 67 (within a 16-page spread of mostly all-color photos and Zapruder Film frames). I had never seen the Croft picture in color previously. And it's an excellent-quality print of that famous amateur photo that I found in this volume, too. The picture is needle-sharp and the color is virtually perfect.
The Croft photo, by the way, depicts the President's limousine on Elm Street, just after the car has made its sharp left turn from Houston Street in front of the Texas School Book Depository. It was taken at a point equivalent to Zapruder frame #161 (per this book's text and captions), which is just about the time the first gunshot was being fired in Dealey Plaza.
Other highly-recommended publications authored by Richard B. Trask (centering on the photography of President Kennedy's assassination) ..... "Pictures Of The Pain" (1994) and "That Day In Dallas" (1998). The latter is a condensed version of the former, focusing attention on just three of the photographers who took pictures in Dallas on the day JFK was killed (Cecil Stoughton, James Altgens, and Jim Murray).*
* = Although condensed into a smaller number of pages than that of its predecessor "POTP", "That Day In Dallas" does contain "revised and enlarged" material throughout its limited number of chapters. And the specific photographs represented within that volume are unrivaled in their clarity and quality of physical presentation, in this writer's personal opinion.
I truly enjoyed both of those books, and was very glad to see "That Day In Dallas" come out a few years after "POTP", because "That Day" provides a larger-print format for many excellent-quality assassination-related photographs, including several pictures you're not likely to see in any other book on the subject.
As a companion piece to "National Nightmare", I would also recommend highly the MPI Home Video DVD "Image Of An Assassination: A New Look At The Zapruder Film" (released in the summer of 1998), which contains four "digital" versions of the entire 26-second Zapruder Film in various formats, including "zoomed-in" variants and a previously-unseen "Widescreen" version of the movie, which includes the imagery between the "sprocket holes" from Mr. Zapruder's "camera original" film.
That DVD also contains some valuable and collectible "bonus" video programming, including interviews with Zapruder associates, as well as the March 1975 "Good Night America" program (hosted by Geraldo Rivera), during which U.S. audiences first saw the horrifying images of Mr. Zapruder's movie. The DVD also has a crystal-clear video copy of the Live interview that Abraham Zapruder gave on WFAA-TV just hours after he had filmed the assassination.
Many of the above-mentioned items from that "Image Of An Assassination" DVD are also referenced by Mr. Trask throughout the well-written pages of "National Nightmare".
---------------
In "National Nightmare On Six Feet Of Film", Richard Trask has admirably filled in yet another in a seemingly-never-ending series of pieces of subject matter that comprise the wide and varied fabric that form the mosaic of literature covering the topic of the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Nowhere can be found a more detailed and fact-based history of Abraham Zapruder's historic film than that which resides within these 392 pages.
Average customer rating:
- An absolute must for anyone involved with linguistics!
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A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics
R. L. Trask
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Dictionaries & Thesauruses
| Reference
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Grammar
| Words & Language
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Linguistics
| Words & Language
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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ASIN: 0415086280 |
Book Description
This dictionary of grammatical terms covers both current and traditional terminology in syntax and morphology. It includes descriptive terms, the major theoretical concepts of the most influential grammatical frameworks, and the chief terms from mathematical and computational linguistics. It contains over 1500 entries, providing definitions and examples, pronunciations, the earliest sources of terms and suggestions for further reading, and recommendations about competing and conflicting usages. The book focuses on non-theory-bound descriptive terms, which will remain current for some years.
Customer Reviews:
An absolute must for anyone involved with linguistics!.......1999-09-10
Whether you are a linguist, or a person simply trying to make headway understanding an article that uses linguistic terminology (e.g., all those J.R.R. Tolkien fanatics who discover Appendices E and F in The Lord of the Rings and suddenly want to read everything they can get their hands on about Finnish and Welsh grammar but wouldn't know a allative from an allosaurus!) this book's for you. What's best about it, is not only does it give terminology utilized for non-Indo-European languages, but I found it was a great way to get a crash course in some of the latter-day schools of grammar that have erupted through the breaches in the once-solid wall of the stale, sterile, and limited Chomskian paradigm. My only complaint: the book, in addition to simply describing terms, should give more examples and contextual illustrations from actual languages.
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- It's Never Done That Before
- It's not fair, Jeremy Spencer's parents let him stay up all night!: A Guide to the Tougher Parts of Parenting
- Jack London : Novels and Stories : Call of the Wild / White Fang / The Sea-Wolf / Klondike and Other Stories (Library of America)
- Jane Austen's Letters
- Jesus Calling
- Jude: A Pilgrimage to the Saint of Last Resort
- Just Your Type: Create the Relationship You've Always Wanted Using the Secrets of Personality Type
- Kalooki Nights: A Novel
- Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction
- Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
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