Download or read book Inventory of a Life Mislaid An Unreliable Memoir written by Marina Warner and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luminous memoir of post-war childhood, adventure and loss on the banks of the Nile. ‘Wonderful – a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination’ JENNY UGLOW

Download or read book Esmond and Ilia written by Marina Warner and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By one of the finest English writers of our time, a luminous memoir that travels from southern Italy to the banks of the Nile, capturing a lost past both personal and historical. Marina Warner’s father, Esmond, met her mother, Ilia, while serving as an officer in the British Army during the Second World War. As Allied forces fought their way north through Italy, Esmond found himself in the southern town of Bari, where Ilia had grown up, one of four girls of a widowed mother. The Englishman approaching middle age and the twenty-one-year-old Italian were soon married. Before the war had come to an end, Ilia was on her way alone to London to wait for her husband’s return and to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. Ilia begins to learn the world of cricket, riding, canned food, and distant relations she has landed in, while Esmond, in spite of his connections, struggles to support his wife and young daughter. He comes up with the idea of opening a bookshop, a branch of W.H. Smith’s, in Cairo, where he had spent happy times during the North African campaign. In Egypt, however, nationalists are challenging foreign influences, especially British ones, and before long Cairo is on fire. Deeply felt, closely observed, rich with strange lore, Esmond and Ilia is a picture of vanished worlds, a portrait of two people struggling to know each other and themselves, a daughter’s story of trying to come to terms with a past that is both hers and unknowable to her. It is an “unreliable memoir”—what memoir isn’t?—and a lasting work of literature, lyrical, sorrowful, shaped by love and wonder.

Download or read book Wonder Tales written by Marina Warner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Especially for grown-ups, this is a selection of subversive, satirical, and sophisticated fairy tales full of polished wit and prose.

Download or read book Inventory of a Life Mislaid an Unreliable Memoir written by Marina Warner and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2022-03-03 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luminous memoir of post-war childhood, adventure and loss on the banks of the Nile. 'Wonderful - a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination' JENNY UGLOW

Download or read book Travels in West Africa written by Mary H. Kingsley and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 842 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a dutiful Victorian daughter, the author was thirty before being freed (by her parents' deaths) to do as she chose. She went to West Africa in 1893 and again in 1895, to investigate the beliefs and customs of the inland tribes and also to collect zoological specimens. She was appalled by the 'thin veneer of rubbishy white culture' imposed by British officials and was not afraid to say so.

Download or read book Angels Saints written by Eliot Weinberger and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeously illustrated co-publication with Christine Burgin by “one of the world’s great essayists” (The New York Times). With a guide to the illustrations by Mary Wellesley. Angels have soared through Western culture and consciousness from Biblical to contemporary times. But what do we really know about these celestial beings? Where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they communicate and perceive? The celebrated essayist Eliot Weinberger has mined and deconstructed, resurrected and distilled centuries of theology into an awe-inspiring exploration of the heavenly host. From a litany of angelic voices, Weinberger’s lyrical meditation then turns to the earthly counterparts, the saints, their lives retold in a series of vibrant and playful capsule biographies, followed by a glimpse of the afterlife. Threaded throughout Angels & Saints are the glorious illuminated grid poems by the eighteenth-century Benedictine monk Hrabanus Maurus. These astonishingly complex, proto-“concrete” poems are untangled in a lucid afterword by the medieval scholar and historian Mary Wellesley.

Download or read book Deception in War written by Jon Latimer and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2003-04-29 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Trojan Horse to Gulf War subterfuge, this far-reaching military history examines the importance and ingenuity of wartime deception campaigns. The art of military deception is as old as the art of war. This fascinating account of the practice draws on conflicts from around the world and across millennia. The examples stretch from the very beginnings of recorded military history—Pharaoh Ramses II's campaign against the Hittites in 1294 B.C.—to modern times, when technology has placed a stunning array of devices into the arsenals of military commanders. Military historians often underestimate the importance of deception in warfare. This book is the first to fully describe its value. Jon Latimer demonstrates how simple tricks have been devastatingly effective. He also explores how technology has increased the range and subtlety of what is possible—including bogus radio traffic, virtual images, even false smells. Deception in War includes examples from land, sea, and air to show how great commanders have always had, as Winston Churchill put it, that indispensable “element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.”

Download or read book Looking East in Winter written by Rowan Williams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted. Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a 'climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured'. This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope.

Download or read book The Cybernetics Moment written by Ronald R. Kline and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Outstanding Academic Title Cybernetics—the science of communication and control as it applies to machines and to humans—originates from efforts during World War II to build automatic antiaircraft systems. Following the war, this science extended beyond military needs to examine all systems that rely on information and feedback, from the level of the cell to that of society. In The Cybernetics Moment, Ronald R. Kline, a senior historian of technology, examines the intellectual and cultural history of cybernetics and information theory, whose language of “information,” “feedback,” and “control” transformed the idiom of the sciences, hastened the development of information technologies, and laid the conceptual foundation for what we now call the Information Age. Kline argues that, for about twenty years after 1950, the growth of cybernetics and information theory and ever-more-powerful computers produced a utopian information narrative—an enthusiasm for information science that influenced natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, humanists, policymakers, public intellectuals, and journalists, all of whom struggled to come to grips with new relationships between humans and intelligent machines. Kline traces the relationship between the invention of computers and communication systems and the rise, decline, and transformation of cybernetics by analyzing the lives and work of such notables as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Herbert Simon. Ultimately, he reveals the crucial role played by the cybernetics moment—when cybernetics and information theory were seen as universal sciences—in setting the stage for our current preoccupation with information technologies. "Nowhere in the burgeoning secondary literature on cybernetics in the last two decades is there a concise history of cybernetics, the science of communication and control that helped usher in the current information age in America. Nowhere, that is, until now . . . Readers have in The Cybernetics Moment the first authoritative history of American cybernetics."—Information & Culture "[A]n extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics . . . This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about."—Choice "As a whole, the book presents a comprehensive in-depth retrospective analysis of the contribution of the American scientific school to the making, formation, and development of cybernetics and information theory. An unquestionable advantage of the book is the skillful use of numerous bibliographic sources by the author that reflect the scientific, engineering, and social significance of the questions being considered, competition of ideas and developments, and also interrelations between scientists."—Cybernetics and System Analysis "Dr. Kline is perhaps uniquely situated to take on so large and complicated [a] topic as cybernetics . . . Readers unfamiliar with Wiener and his work are well advised to start with this well-written and thorough book. Those who are already familiar will still find much that is new and informative in the thorough research and reasoned interpretations."—IEEE History Center "The most comprehensive intellectual history of cybernetics in Cold War America."—Journal of American History "The book will be most valuable as historical background for the large number of disciplines that were involved in the cybernetics moment: computer science, communications engineering, information theory, and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology."—IEEE Technology and Society Magazine "Ronald Kline’s chronicle of cybernetics certainly does what an excellent history of science should do. It takes you there—to the golden age of a new, exciting field. You will almost smell that cigar."—Second-Order Cybernetics "Kline’s The Cybernetics Moment tracks the rise and fall of the cybernetics movement in more detail than any historical account to date."—Los Angeles Review of Books

Download or read book Forms of Enchantment written by Marina Warner and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2024-03-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of compelling essays by Marina Warner, one of our pre-eminent writers and critics. Art-writing at its most useful should share the dynamism, fluidity and passions of the objects of its enquiry, argues Marina Warner. In this new anthology of some of her most compelling work, she captures the visual experience of the work of several artists - with a notable focus on the inner lives of women - through an exploration of the range of stories and symbols to which they allude. Metamorphosis features vividly in the imagery, stories and media of the art that Warner has chosen to write about: in connection with animals in the work of Louise Bourgeois, for instance; with the Catholicism of Damien Hirst; and with performance as a medium of memory and resistance in the installations of Joan Jonas. Rather than drawing on connoisseurship, the author's approach grows principally out of anthropology and mythology. She argues that art and aesthetics increasingly fulfil a magical social function - a principle that runs through these writings to give the collection a quality that is polemical as well as coherent. With an introductory essay and illustrations throughout, Marina Warner investigates how artists noted for their treatment of disturbing, uncanny material have reached beyond the visible, to express interior states. Truly inspiring, her writing unites the imagination of artist, writer and reader, creating a reading experience parallel to the intrinsic pleasure of looking at art.

Download or read book Stranger Magic written by Marina Warner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-03 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our foremost theorist of myth, fairytale, and folktale explores the magical realm of the imagination where carpets fly and genies grant prophetic wishes. Stranger Magic examines the profound impact of the Arabian Nights on the West, the progressive exoticization of magic, and the growing acceptance of myth and magic in contemporary experience.

Download or read book Ghosts in the Middle Ages written by Jean-Claude Schmitt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-04-28 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating study, Schmitt examines the significance of the widespread belief in ghosts during the Middle Ages and traces the imaginative, political, and religious contexts of these everyday haunts. Ghosts were pitiful or terrifying, usually solitary, creatures who arose from their tombs to haunt their friends and relatives. Including numerous color illustrations of ghosts and their trappings, this book presents a unique and intriguing look at medieval culture. 28 color plates.

Download or read book America and Guerrilla Warfare written by Anthony James Joes and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2004 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami triggered by an underwater earthquake pummeled the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and other countries along the Indian Ocean. With casualties as far away as Africa, the aftermath was overwhelming: ships could be spotted miles inland; cars floated in the ocean; legions of the unidentified deadÑan estimated 225,000Ñwere buried in mass graves; relief organizations struggled to reach rural areas and provide adequate aid for survivors. Shortly after this disaster, researchers from around the world traveled to the regionÕs most devastated areas, observing and documenting the tsunamiÕs impact. The Indian Ocean Tsunami: The Global Response to a Natural Disaster offers the first analysis of the response and recovery effort. Editors Pradyumna P. Karan and S. Subbiah, employing an interdisciplinary approach, have assembled an international team of top geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and political scientists to study the environmental, economic, and political effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The volume includes chapters that address the tsunamiÕs geo-environmental impact on coastal ecosystems and groundwater systems. Other chapters offer sociocultural perspectives on religious power relations in South India and suggest ways to improve government agenciesÕ response systems for natural disasters. A clear and definitive analysis of the second deadliest natural disaster on record, The Indian Ocean Tsunami will be of interest to environmentalists and political scientists alike, as well as to planners and administrators of disaster-preparedness programs.

Download or read book The Reredos of All Souls College Oxford written by Peregrine Horden and published by Ad Ilissum. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pevsner calls it 'marvellous'. Yet the reredos of the fi fteenth-century chapel of All Souls College, Oxford, with its combination of medieval niches and statuary by George Gilbert Scott, has remained one of the unsung glories of both medieval perpendicular architecture and Victorian restoration. Informed by recent scientifi c investigation of its stonework and its surviving medieval polychromy, this volume traces for the fi rst time the entire history of the reredos in its architectural and religious context - from the phases of its medieval and early Tudor construction, through its covering up with a succession of baroque and neoclassical decorative schemes, to its uncovering andrestoration in the 1870s. The book provides a novel and revealing vantage point on the artistic, cultural and ecclesiological history of Britain across four centuries.

Download or read book Dandelions written by Thea Lenarduzzi and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Health and Safety Environment and Quality Audits written by Stephen Asbury and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a step-by-step guide to technical and operational integrity audits which has become invaluable for senior management and auditors alike. This book: Shows practitioners and students how to carry out internal audits to the key international health and safety, environment and quality standards Contains over 20 new case studies, 20 additional A-Factors, and superb new illustrations Includes checklists, forms and practical tips to make learning easier. With the addition of colour, Health and Safety Environment and Quality Audits delivers a powerful and proven approach to auditing business-critical risk areas. It covers each of the aspects that need to be taken into account for a successful risk-based audit to international or company standards and is an important resource for auditors and lead auditors, managers, HSEQ professionals, and others with a critical interest in governance, assurance and organizational improvement. The companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/asbury contains relevant articles, example risk management frameworks, and a video by the author explaining the key aspects of the book.

Download or read book Ireland Since the Famine written by Francis Stewart Leland Lyons and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 1973 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: