Download or read book The World After the War written by Derek Leebaert and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great myths of the twentieth century is that after the Second World War Britain simply relinquished its power and America quickly embraced its worldwide political and military commitments. Instead the two allies improvised an uneasy, shifting partnership for twelve long years while most of western Europe lay in turmoil and Russia grew more aggressive. But in 1957 Washington issued a ‘declaration of independence’ from British authority. It was then that everything changed, and America assumed leadership of the new world order just taking shape. Derek Leebaert spins a riveting global narrative of Britain as the original superpower and shows why the Americans kept believing it to be indispensable. It’s the story of secret ties, diplomatic quarrels and military interventions that casts political giants Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson in a new light. In a volatile world of decolonisation, a uniting Europe and the Suez Crisis, shrewd men in London were leveraging the empire’s long-established resources and influence to maintain their grip on power. The enduring notion of a special relationship, rising tensions with Russia and China, and the sources of much of the world’s turmoil can’t be understood without knowing what really occurred.
Download or read book Grand Improvisation written by Derek Leebaert and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new understanding of the post World War II era, showing what occurred when the British Empire wouldn’t step aside for the rising American superpower—with global insights for today. An enduring myth of the twentieth century is that the United States rapidly became a superpower in the years after World War II, when the British Empire—the greatest in history—was too wounded to maintain a global presence. In fact, Derek Leebaert argues in Grand Improvisation, the idea that a traditionally insular United States suddenly transformed itself into the leader of the free world is illusory, as is the notion that the British colossus was compelled to retreat. The United States and the U.K. had a dozen abrasive years until Washington issued a “declaration of independence” from British influence. Only then did America explicitly assume leadership of the world order just taking shape. Leebaert’s character-driven narrative shows such figures as Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennan in an entirely new light, while unveiling players of at least equal weight on pivotal events. Little unfolded as historians believe: the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; the Korean War; America’s descent into Vietnam. Instead, we see nonstop U.S. improvisation until America finally lost all caution and embraced obligations worldwide, a burden we bear today. Understanding all of this properly is vital to understanding the rise and fall of superpowers, why we’re now skeptical of commitments overseas, how the Middle East plunged into disorder, why Europe is fracturing, what China intends—and the ongoing perils to the U.S. world role.
Download or read book A Great Improvisation written by Stacy Schiff and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2006-01-10 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.
Download or read book The Grand Union written by Wendy Perron and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-03 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Grand Union was a leaderless improvisation group in SoHo in the 1970s that included people who became some of the biggest names in postmodern dance: Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Barbara Dilley, David Gordon, and Douglas Dunn. Together they unleashed a range of improvised forms from peaceful movement explorations to wildly imaginative collective fantasies. This book delves into the "collective genius" of Grand Union and explores their process of deep play. Drawing on hours of archival videotapes, Wendy Perron seeks to understand the ebb and flow of the performances. Includes 65 photographs.
Download or read book The Triumph of Improvisation written by James Wilson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Triumph of Improvisation, James Graham Wilson takes a long view of the end of the Cold War, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Drawing on deep archival research and recently declassified papers, Wilson argues that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended the specter of a nuclear holocaust. Amid ambivalence and uncertainty, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, and George H. W. Bush—and a host of other actors—engaged with adversaries and adapted to a rapidly changing international environment and information age in which global capitalism recovered as command economies failed. Eschewing the notion of a coherent grand strategy to end the Cold War, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of how leaders made choices; some made poor choices while others reacted prudently, imaginatively, and courageously to events they did not foresee. A book about the burdens of responsibility, the obstacles of domestic politics, and the human qualities of leadership, The Triumph of Improvisation concludes with a chapter describing how George H. W. Bush oversaw the construction of a new configuration of power after the fall of the Berlin Wall, one that resolved the fundamental components of the Cold War on Washington’s terms.
Download or read book The Piano Improvisation Handbook written by Carl Humphries and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2009 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Piano Improvisation Handbook" offers a comprehensive overview of the practical skills and theoretical issues involved in mastering all forms of piano improvisation. It explores a wide range of styles, including classical, jazz, rock and blues. Whereas other books on improvisation typically offer little more than models for imitation and exercises for practising, this one adopts an approach specifically designed to encourage and enable independent creative exploration. The book contains a series of graded tutorial sections with musical examples on CD, as well as an extensive introductory section detailing the history of keyboard and piano improvisation, an appendix listing useful scales, chords, voicings and progressions across all keys, a bibliography and a discography. In addition to sections outlining how melody, harmony, rhythm, texture and form work in improvised piano music, there are sections devoted to explaining how ideas can be developed into continuous music and to exploring the process of finding a personal style. A key feature is the distinctive stress the author puts on the interconnectedness of jazz and classical music where improvisation is concerned. This book is best suited to those with at least some prior experience of learning the piano. However, the rudiments of both music theory and piano technique are covered in such a way that it can also serve as an effective basis for a self-sufficient course in creative piano playing.
Download or read book The Improvisation Studies Reader written by Ajay Heble and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improvisation is a performance practice that animates and activates diverse energies of inspiration, critique, and invention. In recent years it has coalesced into an exciting and innovative new field of interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry, becoming a cornerstone of both practical and theoretical approaches to performance. The Improvisation Studies Reader draws together the works of key artists and thinkers from a range of disciplines, including theatre, music, literature, film, and dance. Divided by keywords into eight sections, this book bridges the gaps between these fields. The book includes case studies, exercises, graphic scores and poems in order to produce a teaching and research resource that identifies central themes in improvisation studies. The sections include: Listening Trust/Risk Flow Dissonance Responsibility Liveness Surprise Hope Each section of the Reader is introduced by a newly commissioned think piece by a key figure in the field, which opens up research questions reflecting on the keyword in question. By placing key theoretical and classic texts in conversation with cutting-edge research and artists’ statements, this book answers the urgent questions facing improvising artists and theorists in the mediatized Twenty-First Century.
Download or read book Fantasies of Improvisation written by Dana Andrew Gooley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first history of keyboard improvisation in European music from the time of Beethoven through the later nineteenth century, Dana Gooley's Free Play: Fantasies of Improvisation in Nineteenth-Century Music describes the motives, intentions, and musical styles of the nineteenth century's leading improvisers, and traces the evolution of the performance practice into a glorified ideal.
Download or read book Grand Union written by Zadie Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal! A dazzling collection of short fiction Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. Interleaving eleven completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from The New Yorker and elsewhere, Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us. Nothing is off limits, and everything—when captured by Smith’s brilliant gaze—feels fresh and relevant. Perfectly paced and utterly original, Grand Union highlights the wonders Zadie Smith can do.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance written by Vida L. Midgelow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the dance floor of a tango club to group therapy classes, from ballet to community theatre, improvised dance is everywhere. For some dance artists, improvisation is one of many approaches within the choreographic process. For others, it is a performance form in its own right. And while it has long been practiced, it is only within the last twenty years that dance improvisation has become a topic of critical inquiry. With The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance, dancer, teacher, and editor Vida L. Midgelow provides a cutting-edge volume on dance improvisation in all its facets. Expanding beyond conventional dance frameworks, this handbook looks at the ways that dance improvisation practices reflect our ability to adapt, communicate, and respond to our environment. Throughout the handbook, case studies from a variety of disciplines showcase the role of individual agency and collective relationships in improvisation, not just to dancers but to people of all backgrounds and abilities. In doing so, chapters celebrate all forms of improvisation, and unravel the ways that this kind of movement informs understandings of history, socio-cultural conditions, lived experience, cognition, and technologies.
Download or read book Ghosts of Empire written by Kwasi Kwarteng and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book shows how the later years of the British Empire were characterised by accidental oversights, irresponsible opportunism and uncertain pragmatism.
Download or read book The Big Book of Jazz Piano Improvisation written by Noah Baerman and published by Alfred Music Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Keyboard Workshop book, approved curriculum.
Download or read book Theology as Improvisation written by Nathan Crawford and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Theology as Improvisation, Nathan Crawford reimagines the possibilities for how theology thinks God within a postmodern world. By engaging a number of thinkers in conversation, he navigates the nature of thinking God in a postmodern world.
Download or read book Do Improvise written by Robert Poynton and published by . This book was released on 2022-10-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day we deal with the unplanned and the unexpected, from a broken toaster to losing (or gaining) a major client. Our natural ability to adapt and improvise gets us through. But we feel as if we're winging it, rather than acting with courage and conviction. Robert Poynton teaches his acclaimed method to some of the world's biggest brands and companies. Now, he shows us how these improvisational skills can be applied to the everyday business of work and life. Newly updated, Do Improvise will help you to navigate the obstacles life throws at you, and recognise that uncertainty can be enjoyed, rather than endured. You will: -Become more productive without trying harder -Overcome creative blocks and generate new ideas -Respond fluidly to events beyond your control -Realise that you don't have to know everything Not sure what to do next? Improvise.
Download or read book God at the Improv written by Anthony J. Petrotta and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asking if there is humor in any religious text might seem blasphemous to many readers. Religious texts are there to instruct us, not entertain us. Religious texts are serious works, not frivolous. However, if part of being human entails having a sense of humor, then it would be more surprising indeed for Scripture not to have humor. Humor instructs us as much as it entertains us. God at the Improv seeks to show that being religious and being humorous are not opposites, but actually work in tandem to enhance and enliven our faith and practice.
Download or read book Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siecle Francais A Z 1805 76 written by Pierre Larousse and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 1312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Musical Improvisation and Open Forms in the Age of Beethoven written by Gianmario Borio and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improvisation was a crucial aspect of musical life in Europe from the late eighteenth century through to the middle of the nineteenth, representing a central moment in both public occasions and the private lives of many artists. Composers dedicated themselves to this practice at length while formulating the musical ideas later found at the core of their published works; improvisation was thus closely linked to composition itself. The full extent of this relation can be inferred from both private documents and reviews of concerts featuring improvisations, while these texts also inform us that composers quite often performed in public as both improvisers and interpreters of pieces written by themselves or others. Improvisations presented in concert were distinguished by a remarkable degree of structural organisation and complexity, demonstrating performers’ consolidated abilities in composition as well as their familiarity with the rules for improvising outlined by theoreticians.
