EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Search for Modern China

Download or read book The Search for Modern China written by Jonathan D. Spence and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.

Book Cartier and Islamic Art

Download or read book Cartier and Islamic Art written by Heather Ecker and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sumptuous exploration of the ways in which the Islamic arts have inspired the famous jewelry house Cartier, this book accompanies a major exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Louis Cartier (1875–1942), the grandson of Cartier founder Louis-François, was an impassioned collector and patron of the arts. He was particularly entranced by Islamic arts, especially Persian book arts: their geometric shapes, color combinations, and motifs are apparent in Cartier jewelry to this day. Louis’s younger brother Jacques—an expert in precious stones—traveled to India and the Persian Gulf in 1911 and 1912 to experience the culture and bring home treasures of the Middle East: natural pearls. This was the pivotal moment when the dialogue between these two worlds opened up, eventually blossoming into a beautiful relationship that has lasted for decades. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and the Dallas Museum of Art, Cartier and Islamic Arts delves into the Cartier archives to trace the story of Louis Cartier’s love of Islamic art and the ways in which he incorporated the Islamic world’s stylized motifs into Cartier’s jewelry. Dazzling photographs are accompanied by in-depth texts from a raft of distinguished scholars of both Islam and the decorative arts.

Book Fragments of the Present

Download or read book Fragments of the Present written by Philip Taylor and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores in anthropological terms the cultural identity of the people of the Vietnamese South since the Vietnam War ended. The author describes southern Vietnam's postwar history, the impact of political and economic changes, policies towards music and popular culture, shifts in state ideology, and the contrasting fortunes of urban and rural communities. Philip Taylor spent a considerable time in a Mekong delta village undertaking ethnographic research into rural cultural identity. He describes the villagers' view of history and their sense of present decline, contrasting this with state and urban interpretations of the southern region's "modernity" over the same period.

Book Modernity and the Unmaking of Men

Download or read book Modernity and the Unmaking of Men written by Violeta Schubert and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-08-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to the renewed emphasis on the significance of village studies, this book focuses on aging bachelorhood as a site of intolerable angst when faced with rural depopulation and social precarity. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Macedonian society, the book explores the intersections between modernity, kinship and gender. It argues that as a critical consequence of demographic rupture, changing values and societal shifts, aging bachelorhood illuminates and challenges conceptualizations of performativity and social presence.

Book What is Modernity

    Book Details:
  • Author : Yoshimi Takeuchi
  • Publisher : Columbia University Press
  • Release : 2005
  • ISBN : 9780231133272
  • Pages : 204 pages

Download or read book What is Modernity written by Yoshimi Takeuchi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yoshimi questioned the very nature of thought, arguing that thinking is less a subjective act than an opening to alterity. His works were central in drawing Japanese attention to the problems inherent in Western colonialism & to the cultural importance of Asia.

Book Shanghai Reflections

    Book Details:
  • Author : Mario Gandelsonas
  • Publisher : Princeton Architectural Press
  • Release : 2002
  • ISBN : 9781568983264
  • Pages : 236 pages

Download or read book Shanghai Reflections written by Mario Gandelsonas and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Student projects sponsored by Princeton, Hong Kong, and Tongji universities and reviewed by critics.

Book Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm

Download or read book Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm written by Kai-wing Chow and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008-04-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When did China make the decisive turn from tradition to modernity? For decades, the received wisdom would have pointed to the May Fourth movement, with its titanic battles between the champions of iconoclasm and the traditionalists, and its shift to more populist forms of politics. A growing body of recent research has, however, called into question how decisive the turn was, when it happened, and what relation the resulting modernity bore to the agendas of people who might have considered themselves representatives of such an iconoclastic movement. Having thus explicitly or implicitly 'decentered' the May Fourth, such research (augmented by contributions in the present volume) leaves us with the task of accounting for the shape Chinese modernity took, as the product of dialogues and debates between, and the interplay of, a variety of actors and trends, both within and (certainly no less importantly) without the May Fourth camp.

Book Class  Individualization and Late Modernity

Download or read book Class Individualization and Late Modernity written by W. Atkinson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-10-13 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book puts to the test the prominent claim that social class has declined in importance in an era of affluence, choice and the waning of tradition. Arguing against this view, this study vividly uncovers the multiple ways in which class stubbornly persists.

Book Expectations of Modernity

Download or read book Expectations of Modernity written by James Ferguson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999-10-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once lauded as the wave of the African future, Zambia's economic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s was fueled by the export of copper and other primary materials. Since the mid-1970s, however, the urban economy has rapidly deteriorated, leaving workers scrambling to get by. Expectations of Modernity explores the social and cultural responses to this prolonged period of sharp economic decline. Focusing on the experiences of mineworkers in the Copperbelt region, James Ferguson traces the failure of standard narratives of urbanization and social change to make sense of the Copperbelt's recent history. He instead develops alternative analytic tools appropriate for an "ethnography of decline." Ferguson shows how the Zambian copper workers understand their own experience of social, cultural, and economic "advance" and "decline." Ferguson's ethnographic study transports us into their lives—the dynamics of their relations with family and friends, as well as copper companies and government agencies. Theoretically sophisticated and vividly written, Expectations of Modernity will appeal not only to those interested in Africa today, but to anyone contemplating the illusory successes of today's globalizing economy.

Book In Search of Modernity

Download or read book In Search of Modernity written by Hadijah Rahmat and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Nine Lives

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Dalrymple
  • Publisher : A&C Black
  • Release : 2010-06-07
  • ISBN : 1408801248
  • Pages : 305 pages

Download or read book Nine Lives written by William Dalrymple and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-06-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. LONGLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE

Book Metrics of Modernity

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sarah-Neel Smith
  • Publisher : Univ of California Press
  • Release : 2022-02
  • ISBN : 0520383419
  • Pages : 227 pages

Download or read book Metrics of Modernity written by Sarah-Neel Smith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : art and development : a new framework for postwar art -- The semiperipheral art gallery : Gallery Maya, Istanbul -- Democratic abstractions : Bülent Ecevit on art and politics -- "The first coup in the Turkish art world" : the Developing Turkey competition of 1954 -- The artist as agent of development : Füreya Koral between Turkey and the United States, 1955-1958 -- Conclusion : building Istanbul modern : art and development in a twenty-first-century museum.

Book The God of Modernity

Download or read book The God of Modernity written by Josep R. Llobera and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-09 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an integrated framework for explaining how nationalism has become one of the most powerful ideologies of modern times. Starting with a consideration of the medieval roots of the nation, the author goes on to examine the various approaches and structural theories which have been used to explain the development of nationalism. In so doing, he highlights the key role of cultural and political influences, as well as the impact of the French Revolution and its aftermath. Clearly written with concise, self-contained chapters, this book will be of interest to undergraduates taking a range of social science and history courses as well as specialist readers.

Book Overcoming Tradition And Modernity

Download or read book Overcoming Tradition And Modernity written by Robert D. Lee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Authenticity” has begun to rival “development” as a key to understanding the political aspirations of the Islamic world. Almost everywhere modernity has laid waste to tradition, those habits and practices deemed to be timeless and true. Imperialism carried European notions of progress into Muslim-dominated parts of the globe, and subsequently Muslims themselves espoused Western practices, techniques, and philosophies. Regimes calling themselves liberal, socialist, and Arab nationalist all embraced modernity as their principal objective. Most of these regimes failed to create the promised better lives their citizens desired. Moreover, ordinary Muslims felt despair as modernity ripped apart families, exposed youngsters to the materialism and hedonism of Western entertainments, heightened social expectations, and undermined religious belief. Even though tradition has proved itself incapable of staving off modernity, the promises and premises of modern development literature have been called into question. Where is the truth around which Muslims can rally? Does modernity require a rejection of tradition? Does the embrace of Islamic ideas necessitate turning away from modernity? Robert D. Lee explores these compelling questions by presenting four contemporary Muslim writers—Muhammad Iqbal, Sayyid Qutb, ‘Ali Shari’ati, and Mohammed Arkoun—all of whom have refused to bow to such a dichotomy of modernity and tradition. This study examines their efforts, deeply influenced by European thinking, to find a truth beyond tradition and modernity—an “authentic” understanding of Islam upon which Muslims can build a future. All four thinkers believe such an authentic understanding can serve as the foundation for a new politics. Lee argues, however, that each of these versions of authenticity suffers shortcomings and falters in its efforts to move from the particularity of culture onto a grander scale of political organization appropriate for the modern world.

Book Autos and Progress

Download or read book Autos and Progress written by Joel Wolfe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autos and Progress reinterprets twentieth-century Brazilian history through automobiles, using them as a window for understanding the nation's struggle for modernity in the face of its massive geographical size, weak central government, and dependence on agricultural exports. Among the topics Wolfe touches upon are the first sports cars and elite consumerism; intellectuals' embrace of cars as the key for transformation and unification of Brazil; Henry Ford's building of a company town in the Brazilian jungle; the creation of a transportation infrastructure; democratization and consumer culture; auto workers and their creation of a national political party; and the economic and environmental impact of autos on Brazil. This focus on Brazilians' fascination with automobiles and their reliance on auto production and consumption as keys to their economic and social transformation, explains how Brazil--which enshrined its belief in science and technology in its national slogan of Order and Progress--has differentiated itself from other Latin American nations. Autos and Progress engages key issues in Brazil around the meaning and role of race in society and also addresses several classic debates in Brazilian studies about the nature of Brazil's great size and diversity and how they shaped state-making.

Book Techniques of the Observer

Download or read book Techniques of the Observer written by Jonathan Crary and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1992-02-25 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the Observer provides a dramatically new perspective on the visual culture of the nineteenth century, reassessing problems of both visual modernism and social modernity. This analysis of the historical formation of the observer is a compelling account of the prehistory of the society of the spectacle. In Techniques of the Observer Jonathan Crary provides a dramatically new perspective on the visual culture of the nineteenth century, reassessing problems of both visual modernism and social modernity. Inverting conventional approaches, Crary considers the problem of visuality not through the study of art works and images, but by analyzing the historical construction of the observer. He insists that the problems of vision are inseparable from the operation of social power and examines how, beginning in the 1820s, the observer became the site of new discourses and practices that situated vision within the body as a physiological event. Alongside the sudden appearance of physiological optics, Crary points out, theories and models of "subjective vision" were developed that gave the observer a new autonomy and productivity while simultaneously allowing new forms of control and standardization of vision. Crary examines a range of diverse work in philosophy, in the empirical sciences, and in the elements of an emerging mass visual culture. He discusses at length the significance of optical apparatuses such as the stereoscope and of precinematic devices, detailing how they were the product of new physiological knowledge. He also shows how these forms of mass culture, usually labeled as "realist," were in fact based on abstract models of vision, and he suggests that mimetic or perspectival notions of vision and representation were initially abandoned in the first half of the nineteenth century within a variety of powerful institutions and discourses, well before the modernist painting of the 1870s and 1880s.

Book Revolt Against Modernity

Download or read book Revolt Against Modernity written by Ted V. McAllister and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 1996-01-22 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss are two of the most provocative and durable political philosophers of this century. Ted McAllister's superbly written study provides the first comprehensive comparison of their thought and its profound influence on contemporary American conservatism. Since the appearance in the 1950s of Strauss's Natural Right and History and Voegelin's Order and History, conservatives like Russell Kirk, Irving Kristol, and Allan Bloom have increasingly turned to these thinkers to support their attacks on liberalism and the modernist mindset. Like so many conservatives, Strauss and Voegelin rebelled against modernity' amorality-personified by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche-and its promotion of individualism and materialism over communal and spiritual responsibility. While both disdained the reductionist "conservative" label, conservatives nevertheless appropriated their philosophy, in part because it restored theology and classical tradition to the moral core of civil society. For both men, modernity's debilitating disorder revealed surprising and disturbing relations among liberal, communist, and Nazi ideologies. In their eyes, modernity's insidious virus, so apparent in the Nazi and communist regimes, lies incubating within liberal democracy itself. McAllister's thorough reevaluation of Strauss and Voegelin expands our understanding of their thought and restores balance to a literature that has been dominated by political theorists and disciples of Strauss and Voegelin. Neither reverential nor dismissive, he reveals the social, historical, political, and philosophical foundations of their work and effectively decodes their frequently opaque or esoteric thinking. Well written and persuasively argued, McAllister's study will appeal to anyone engaged in the volatile debates over liberalism's demise and conservatism's rise.