Download or read book The Untold Story of the Talking Book written by Matthew Rubery and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of audiobooks, from entertainment & rehabilitation for blinded World War I soldiers to a twenty-first-century competitive industry. Histories of the book often move straight from the codex to the digital screen. Left out of that familiar account are nearly 150 years of audio recordings. Recounting the fascinating history of audio-recorded literature, Matthew Rubery traces the path of innovation from Edison’s recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for his tinfoil phonograph in 1877, to the first novel-length talking books made for blinded World War I veterans, to today’s billion-dollar audiobook industry. The Untold Story of the Talking Book focuses on the social impact of audiobooks, not just the technological history, in telling a story of surprising and impassioned conflicts: from controversies over which books the Library of Congress selected to become talking books—yes to Kipling, no to Flaubert—to debates about what defines a reader. Delving into the vexed relationship between spoken and printed texts, Rubery argues that storytelling can be just as engaging with the ears as with the eyes, and that audiobooks deserve to be taken seriously. They are not mere derivatives of printed books but their own form of entertainment. We have come a long way from the era of sound recorded on wax cylinders, when people imagined one day hearing entire novels on mini-phonographs tucked inside their hats. Rubery tells the untold story of this incredible evolution and, in doing so, breaks from convention by treating audiobooks as a distinctively modern art form that has profoundly influenced the way we read. Praise for The Untold Story of the Talking Book “If audiobooks are relatively new to your world, you might wonder where they came from and where they’re going. And for general fans of the intersection of culture and technology, The Untold Story of the Talking Book is a fascinating read.” —Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times “[Rubery] explores 150 years of the audio format with an imminently accessible style, touching upon a wide range of interconnected topics . . . Through careful investigation of the co-development of formats within the publishing industry, Rubery shines a light on overlooked pioneers of audio . . . Rubery’s work succeeds in providing evidence to ‘move beyond the reductive debate’ on whether audiobooks really count as reading, and establishes the format’s rightful place in the literary family.” —Mary Burkey, Booklist (starred review)
Download or read book Talking Nets written by James A. Anderson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000-02-28 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprising tales from the scientists who first learned how to use computers to understand the workings of the human brain. Since World War II, a group of scientists has been attempting to understand the human nervous system and to build computer systems that emulate the brain's abilities. Many of the early workers in this field of neural networks came from cybernetics; others came from neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, psychology, even economics. In this collection of interviews, those who helped to shape the field share their childhood memories, their influences, how they became interested in neural networks, and what they see as its future. The subjects tell stories that have been told, referred to, whispered about, and imagined throughout the history of the field. Together, the interviews form a Rashomon-like web of reality. Some of the mythic people responsible for the foundations of modern brain theory and cybernetics, such as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Frank Rosenblatt, appear prominently in the recollections. The interviewees agree about some things and disagree about more. Together, they tell the story of how science is actually done, including the false starts, and the Darwinian struggle for jobs, resources, and reputation. Although some of the interviews contain technical material, there is no actual mathematics in the book. Contributors James A. Anderson, Michael Arbib, Gail Carpenter, Leon Cooper, Jack Cowan, Walter Freeman, Stephen Grossberg, Robert Hecht-Neilsen, Geoffrey Hinton, Teuvo Kohonen, Bart Kosko, Jerome Lettvin, Carver Mead, David Rumelhart, Terry Sejnowski, Paul Werbos, Bernard Widrow
Download or read book Talking History written by Joan Haigh and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 150 years of world-changing speeches
Download or read book Talking History written by Romila Thapar and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of candid conversations, Romila Thapar, a widely read, discussed, and cited historian of our times, muses on a range of issues that impact history writing in modern India. Apart from exploring Thapar’s far-reaching influence as an authority on the history of early India, Talking History examines themes such as the function of a historian, the centrality of historical research and evidence, oriental despotism, the ongoing conflict with religious fundamentalists, and the polymorphous structure of Hinduism. Anecdotal and vibrant, each of these accounts reveals a rare understanding of history as a dialogue between the past and the present. The latest book in the series of Ramin Jahanbegloo’s interviews with prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought, Talking History traces Romila Thapar’s journey as a historian and a public intellectual, and gives an insight into the ideas that have shaped her work.
Download or read book What We Talk About When We Talk About Books written by Leah Price and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reports of the death of reading are greatly exaggerated Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the curiosity to look beyond the day's news, the willingness to be alone. The shelves of the world's great libraries, though, tell a more complicated story. Examining the wear and tear on the books that they contain, English professor Leah Price finds scant evidence that a golden age of reading ever existed. From the dawn of mass literacy to the invention of the paperback, most readers already skimmed and multitasked. Print-era doctors even forbade the very same silent absorption now recommended as a cure for electronic addictions. The evidence that books are dying proves even scarcer. In encounters with librarians, booksellers and activists who are reinventing old ways of reading, Price offers fresh hope to bibliophiles and literature lovers alike. Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, 2020
Download or read book Talking American History written by Ron Briley and published by Sunstone Press. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an alternative to encyclopedic textbooks that confirm Henry Ford’s complaint that the study of history is just “one damned thing after another,” it provides an informal and conversational narrative history of the American experience from the Colonial period to the present day. Above all, history is a story, and the story of America is a complicated and contested tale. Rather than simply the exceptionalism of a shining city upon a hill, the American saga includes a dark stain of prejudice and nativism still present within the national fabric. Beginning with the assault upon Native lands and culture along with the introduction of racial slavery, patterns of exploitation and greed fostering gender, racial, and class inequality are an essential part of America’s story. Themes of prejudice and inequality, however, are offset by the promise of social justice and an egalitarian America outlined by Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Seneca Falls Declaration of Principles, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s The Four Freedoms, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” oratory. While considering topics such as Presidential leadership, Talking American History emphasizes the efforts of American reformers, dreamers, freedom fighters, dissenters, radicals, and workers to move the nation toward the democratic promise laid out in its founding documents. The framework is a traditional political history narrative told from a progressive perspective. This is an interpretation with which not all readers will agree, but the intention is to facilitate dialogue and debate that are imperative for the survival of American democracy.
Download or read book Talking about Naval History written by John B. Hattendorf and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2011 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT ON THIS PRINT PRODUCT-- OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price Twenty essays selected from the writings of John B. Hattendorf, Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the U.S. Naval War College, between 2001 and 2009. They represent a wide historical perspective that ranges across nearly four centuries of maritime history. A number of these pieces have been published previously but have appeared in other languages and in other countries, where they may not have come to the attention of an American naval reading audience. This collection is divided into parts that deal with four major themes: the broad field of maritime history; general naval history, with specific focus on the classical age of sail, from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815; the wide scope of American naval history from 1775 to the end of the twentieth century; and finally, the realm of naval theory and its relationship to naval historical studies. They are reprinted, with only minor alterations, as they originally appeared. This work may appeal to general history readers, scholarly and general adult readers of history especially naval and maritime, plus students pursuing coursework in military science degree programs. Other related products: Fundamentals of War Gaming --Print Paperback format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00299-1 --Print Hardcover format can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00269-0 Nineteen-Gun Salute: Case Studies of Operational, Strategic, and Diplomatic Naval Leadership During the 20th and Early 21st Centuries can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00252-5 Digesting History: The U.S. Naval War College, the Lessons of World War Two, and Future Naval Warfare, 1945-1947 -- Print Paperback format is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00255-0 --ePub format is available here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-300-00040-2 -- ePub is also available from Apple iBookstore, BarnesandNoble.com, Books on Board eBookstore, Diesel eBookstore, Google Play eBookstore, Overdrive, Powell's eBookstore -- Please use ISBN: 9781884733864 to search for this product within these platforms. Naval War College Illustrated History and Guide can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00265-7 Other products produced by the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-046-00265-7
Download or read book Nebraska History Moments written by David L. Bristow and published by History Nebraska. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each page of this book uses a photo or artifact to tell a true story about the past, drawing from the extensive collections of History Nebraska.
Download or read book Talking to Strangers written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers and why they often go wrong—now with a new afterword by the author. A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn’t true? Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
Download or read book White Trash written by Nancy Isenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller, with a new preface from the author “This estimable book rides into the summer doldrums like rural electrification. . . . It deals in the truths that matter.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “White Trash will change the way we think about our past and present.” —T. J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Custer’s Trials In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg, co-author of The Problem of Democracy, takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters that put Trump in the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.
Download or read book If Walls Could Talk written by Lucy Worsley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces and BBC Television series including Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey and Six Wives with Lucy Worsley, available on Netflix. “Worsley is a thoughtful, charming, often hilarious guide to life as it was lived, from the mundane to the esoteric.” -The Boston Globe Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two “dirty centuries”? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit? In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen, covering the history of each room and exploring what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove-from sauce stirring to breast-feeding, teeth cleaning to masturbating, getting dressed to getting married-providing a compelling account of how the four rooms of the home have evolved from medieval times to today, charting revolutionary changes in society.
Download or read book The Information written by James Gleick and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of the acclaimed Chaos and Genius comes a thoughtful and provocative exploration of the big ideas of the modern era: Information, communication, and information theory. Acclaimed science writer James Gleick presents an eye-opening vision of how our relationship to information has transformed the very nature of human consciousness. A fascinating intellectual journey through the history of communication and information, from the language of Africa’s talking drums to the invention of written alphabets; from the electronic transmission of code to the origins of information theory, into the new information age and the current deluge of news, tweets, images, and blogs. Along the way, Gleick profiles key innovators, including Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Samuel Morse, and Claude Shannon, and reveals how our understanding of information is transforming not only how we look at the world, but how we live. A New York Times Notable Book A Los Angeles Times and Cleveland Plain Dealer Best Book of the Year Winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Download or read book Firepower written by Paul Lockhart and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How military technology has transformed the world The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era. Across this period, improvements in firepower shaped the evolving art of war. For centuries, weaponry had remained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army. That all changed around 1870, when the cost of investing in increasingly complicated technology soon meant that only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture advanced weaponry, while other countries fell behind. Going beyond the battlefield, Firepower ultimately reveals how changes in weapons technology reshaped human history.
Download or read book Talking to the Other Side written by Todd Jay Leonard and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its birth in 1848, Spiritualism as a religion, science, and philosophy has experienced great highs and lows. At the center of this purely American-made modern-religious movement are "mediums"--the people who are able to communicate, in some way, with spirit entities that are no longer on the earth plane. Based on three years of on-site investigation, and a plethora of data and research collected on the modern Spiritualist movement in America, Talking to the Other Side focuses upon the ethno-religious aspects of the religion, mediumship, and the mediums themselves. The first four chapters offer an expansive review of the history of religion in America, mediumship, and the Spiritualist movement. Chapters 5-7 comprise the research and data that were compiled and analyzed based on fieldwork analysis, a comprehensive questionnaire, personal interviews, and published literature on the topic of Spiritualism and mediumship. According to Spiritualist mediums, "people don't die, bodies do." Talking to the Other Side offers a contemporary look into the lives and backgrounds of the mediums who bridge this world and the Spirit world, connecting those who have passed over with those they left behind.
Download or read book Ages of American Capitalism written by Jonathan Levy and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era to the present—and argues that we’ve reached a turning point that will define the era ahead. “A monumental achievement, sure to become a classic.”—Zachary D. Carter, author of The Price of Peace In this ambitious single-volume history of the United States, economic historian Jonathan Levy reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages and how the country’s economic evolution is inseparable from the nature of American life itself. The Age of Commerce spans the colonial era through the outbreak of the Civil War, and the Age of Capital traces the lasting impact of the industrial revolution. The volatility of the Age of Capital ultimately led to the Great Depression, which sparked the Age of Control, during which the government took on a more active role in the economy, and finally, in the Age of Chaos, deregulation and the growth of the finance industry created a booming economy for some but also striking inequalities and a lack of oversight that led directly to the crash of 2008. In Ages of American Capitalism, Levy proves that capitalism in the United States has never been just one thing. Instead, it has morphed through the country’s history—and it’s likely changing again right now. “A stunning accomplishment . . . an indispensable guide to understanding American history—and what’s happening in today’s economy.”—Christian Science Monitor “The best one-volume history of American capitalism.”—Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton
Download or read book I Hear America Talking written by Stuart Berg Flexner and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1979 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book SPQR A History of Ancient Rome written by Mary Beard and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus Reviews Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide Selection A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A sweeping, "magisterial" history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists shows why Rome remains "relevant to people many centuries later" (Atlantic). In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.
