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Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933–1939
by Wolfgang SchivelbuschFrom a world-renowned cultural historian, an original look at the hidden commonalities among Fascism, Nazism, and the New DealToday Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals" to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state's authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt's fireside chats and Mussolini's radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state.Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe's most tyrannical regimes.
Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof
by Alisa SolomonA sparkling and eye-opening history of the Broadway musical that changed the worldIn the half-century since its premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had an astonishing global impact. Beloved by audiences the world over, performed from rural high schools to grand state theaters, Fiddler is a supremely potent cultural landmark.In a history as captivating as its subject, award-winning drama critic Alisa Solomon traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America. It is a story of the theater, following Tevye from his humble appearance on the New York Yiddish stage, through his adoption by leftist dramatists as a symbol of oppression, to his Broadway debut in one of the last big book musicals, and his ultimate destination—a major Hollywood picture.Solomon reveals how the show spoke to the deepest conflicts and desires of its time: the fraying of tradition, generational tension, the loss of roots. Audiences everywhere found in Fiddler immediate resonance and a usable past, whether in Warsaw, where it unlocked the taboo subject of Jewish history, or in Tokyo, where the producer asked how Americans could understand a story that is "so Japanese."Rich, entertaining, and original, Wonder of Wonders reveals the surprising and enduring legacy of a show about tradition that itself became a tradition.Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.
Louisa Meets Bear: Stories
by Lisa GornickWhen Louisa and Bear meet at Princeton in 1975, sparks fly. Louisa is the sexually adventurous daughter of a geneticist, Bear the volatile son of a plumber. They dive headfirst into a passionate affair that will alter the course of their lives, changing how they define themselves in the years and relationships that follow. Lisa Gornick's Louisa Meets Bear is a gripping novel in interconnected stories from an author whose work "starts off like a brush fire and then engulfs and burns with fury" (The Huffington Post).Reading Louisa Meets Bear is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, as we uncover the subtle and startling connections between new characters and the star-crossed lovers. We meet a daughter who stabs her mother when she learns the truth about her father, a wife who sees herself clearly after finding a man dead on her office floor, a mother who discovers a girl in her teenage son's bed. Each character is striking, each rendered with Gornick's trademark sympathy and psychological acuity. We follow them over the course of a half century, from San Francisco to New York City and from Guatemala to Venice, through pregnancies, tragedies, and revelations, until we return to Louisa and Bear.With flawed and deeply human characters, and piercing insight into the lives of women, Louisa Meets Bear grapples with whether we can--or can't--choose how and whom we love.
Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing That Changed the Course of Civil Rights
by Doug Jones Greg TrumanThe story of the decades-long fight to bring justice to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, culminating in Sen. Doug Jones' prosecution of the last living bombers. On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. The blast killed four young girls and injured twenty-two others. The FBI suspected four particularly radical Ku Klux Klan members. Yet due to reluctant witnesses, a lack of physical evidence, and pervasive racial prejudice the case was closed without any indictments.But as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously expressed it, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Years later, Alabama Attorney General William Baxley reopened the case, ultimately convicting one of the bombers in 1977. Another suspect passed away in 1994, and US Attorney Doug Jones tried and convicted the final two in 2001 and 2002, representing the correction of an outrageous miscarriage of justice nearly forty years in the making. Jones himself went on to win election as Alabama’s first Democratic Senator since 1992 in a dramatic race against Republican challenger Roy Moore.Bending Toward Justice is a dramatic and compulsively readable account of a key moment in our long national struggle for equality, related by an author who played a major role in these events. A distinguished work of legal and personal history, the book is destined to take its place as a canonical civil rights history.
Every Anxious Wave: A Novel
by Mo DaviauGood guy Karl Bender is a thirty-something bar owner whose life lacks love and meaning. When he stumbles upon a time-travelling worm hole in his closet, Karl and his best friend Wayne develop a side business selling access to people who want to travel back in time to listen to their favorite bands. It's a pretty ingenious plan, until Karl, intending to send Wayne to 1980, transports him back to 980 instead. Though Wayne sends texts extolling the quality of life in tenth century "Mannahatta," Karl is distraught that he can't bring his friend back.Enter brilliant, prickly, overweight astrophysicist, Lena Geduldig. Karl and Lena's connection is immediate. While they work on getting Wayne back, Karl and Lena fall in love -- with time travel, and each other. Unable to resist meddling with the past, Karl and Lena bounce around time. When Lena ultimately prevents her own long-ago rape, she alters the course of her life and threatens her future with Karl. A high-spirited and engaging novel, EVERY ANXIOUS WAVE plays ball with the big questions of where we would go and who we would become if we could rewrite our pasts, as well as how to hold on to love across time.
The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe
by Paula FoxIn this elegant and affecting companion to her "extraordinary" memoir, Borrowed Finery, a young writer flings herself into a Europe ravaged by the Second World War (The Boston Globe) In 1946, Paula Fox walked up the gangplank of a partly reconverted Liberty with the classic American hope of finding experience—or perhaps salvation—in Europe. She was twenty-two years old, and would spend the next year moving among the ruins of London, Warsaw, Paris, Prague, Madrid, and other cities as a stringer for a small British news service. In this lucid, affecting memoir, Fox describes her movements across Europe's scrambled borders: unplanned trips to empty castles and ruined cathedrals, a stint in bombed-out Warsaw in the midst of the Communist election takeovers, and nights spent in apartments here and there with distant relatives, friends of friends, and in shabby pensions with little heat, each place echoing with the horrors of the war. A young woman alone, with neither a plan nor a reliable paycheck, Fox made her way with the rest of Europe as the continent rebuilt and rediscovered itself among the ruins. Long revered as a novelist, Fox won over a new generation of readers with her previous memoir, Borrowed Finery. Now, with The Coldest Winter, she recounts another chapter of a life seemingly filled with stories—a rare, unsentimental glimpse of the world as seen by a writer at the beginning of an illustrious career.
Fearsome Fauna: A Field Guide to the Creatures That Live in You
by Roger M. KnutsonHypochondriacs beware-- would you believe the nastiest creatures in the known universe live inside our bodies? Not content to just find a home and produce offspring in our internal space, parasites will drink our blood, eat our cells, and infest our muscles. There is very little that can be said in their favor, with perhaps one exception-- they are truly fascinating!Fearsome Fauna is a wickedly amusing and startlingly informative look into the secret world of these fascinating creatures. Perhaps the greatest biological success story of all time (there are more kinds of parasites than insects), parasites have found homes in the vast majority of people on earth and have learned to live in their environment without destroying it (usually). For readers who would like to meet these hardworking beasts-- or learn how to avoid them-- Fearsome Fauna tells you everything you always wanted to know about parasites but were too disgusted or terrified to ask.
The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by Sonia ShahIn recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names—and opened their pocketbooks—in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren't we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we've known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we've invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria's jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.
Prefecture D: Four Novellas Set in the World of Six Four
by Hideo YokoyamaA collection of tense thrilllers, each centered on a mystery and the unfortunate officer tasked with solving it, set in the world of Hideo Yokoyama's bestselling Six Four.Four novellas: Each taking place in 1998. SEASON OF SHADOWS"The force could lose face . . . I want you to fix this." Personnel's Futawatari receives a horrifying memo forcing him to investigate the behavior of a legendary detective with unfinished business.CRY OF THE EARTH"It's too easy to kill a man with a rumor." Shinto of Internal Affairs receives an anonymous tip-off alleging a station chief is visiting the red-light district—a warning he soon learns is a red herring.BLACK LINES"It was supposed to be her special day." Section Chief Nanao, responsible for the force's forty-nine female officers, is alarmed to learn her star pupil has not reported for duty and is believed to be missing.BRIEFCASE"We need to know what he's going to ask." On the eve of a routine debate, Political Liaison Tsuge learns a wronged politician is preparing his revenge. He must now quickly dig up dirt to silence him.Prefecture D continues Hideo Yokoyama's exploration of the themes of obsession, saving face, office politics, and interdepartmental conflicts. Placing everyday characters between a rock and a hard place and then dialing up the pressure, he blends and balances the very Japanese with the very accessible, to spectacular effect.
Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer
by Philip FuriaSkylark is the story of the tormented but glorious life and career of Johnny Mercer, and the first biography of this enormously popular and influential lyricist. Raised in Savannah, Mercer brought a quintessentially southern style to both his life in New York and to his lyrics, which often evoked the landscapes and mood of his youth ("Moon River", "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening"). Mercer also absorbed the music of southern blacks--the lullabies his nurse sang to him as a baby and the spirituals that poured out of Savannah's churches-and that cool smooth lyrical style informed some of his greatest songs, such as "That Old Black Magic".Part of a golden guild whose members included Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, Mercer took Hollywood by storm in the midst of the Great Depression. Putting words to some of the most famous tunes of the time, he wrote one hit after another, from "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" to "Jeepers Creepers" and "Hooray for Hollywood." But it was also in Hollywood that Mercer's dark underside emerged. Sober, he was a kind, generous and at times even noble southern gentleman; when he drank, Mercer tore into friends and strangers alike with vicious abuse. Mercer's wife Ginger, whom he'd bested Bing Crosby to win, suffered the cruelest attacks; Mercer would even improvise cutting lyrics about her at parties.During World War II, Mercer served as Americas's troubadour, turning out such uplifting songs as "My Shining Hour" and "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive." He also helped create Capitol Records, the first major West Coast recording company, where he discovered many talented singers, including Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. During this period, he also began an intense affair with Judy Garland, which rekindled time and again for the rest of their lives. Although they never found happiness together, Garland became Mercer's muse and inspired some of his most sensuous and heartbreaking lyrics: "Blues in the Night," "One for My Baby," and "Come Rain or Come Shine."Mercer amassed a catalog of over a thousand songs and during some years had a song in the Top Ten every week of the year--the songwriting equivalent of Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak--but was plagued by a sense of failure and bitterness over the big Broadway hit that seemed forever out of reach.Based on scores of interviews with friends, family and colleagues, and drawing extensively on Johnny Mercer's letters, papers and his unpublished autobiography, Skylark is an important book about one of the great and dramatic characters in 20th century popular music.
Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man
by Dalton FuryThe New York Times bestseller Kill Bin Laden is an explosive first-hand account of a Delta Force commando's hunt for the world's most wanted man. The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—an operation of such magnitude that it couldn't be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America's supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force. Told by senior ranking military officer Dalton Fury, this is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed account of these warriors in battle.
Betsy Ross and the Making of America
by Marla R. MillerA richly woven biography of the beloved patriot Betsy Ross, and an enthralling portrait of everyday life in Revolutionary War-era PhiladelphiaBetsy Ross and the Making of America is the first comprehensively researched and elegantly written biography of one of America's most captivating figures of the Revolutionary War. Drawing on new sources and bringing a fresh, keen eye to the fabled creation of "the first flag," Marla R. Miller thoroughly reconstructs the life behind the legend. This authoritative work provides a close look at the famous seamstress while shedding new light on the lives of the artisan families who peopled the young nation and crafted its tools, ships, and homes.Betsy Ross occupies a sacred place in the American consciousness, and Miller's winning narrative finally does her justice. This history of the ordinary craftspeople of the Revolutionary War and their most famous representative will be the definitive volume for years to come.
Pushing Murder: A Clara Gamadge Mystery (The Clara Gamadge Mysteries)
by Eleanor BoylanClara Gamadge's latest adventure finds the white-haired sleuth in the hospital, at Christmas of all times, a victim of a bad hors d'oevre consumed at the opening of a friend's new mystery book shop, Pushing Murder, in Greenwich Village. A poisoning attempt at the hospital, however, convinces Clara and her family that the mishap at the party was no accident, but attempted murder! Who could possibly want to kill Clara, and why? She hasn't been involved in anycases for quite some time, so the murder attempts must mean she's been drawn into a new case without her knowledge. She suspects that someone will need her services in the near future.Sure enough, an old friend suddenly appears on the scene seeking Clara's help, and a web of ancient deceptions and green ensnares both women, involving them in a deadly game of extortion and murder.As Clara's family, including her charming yet irascible cousin Sadd, rallies to protect both women, Clara directs the investigation from her hospital bed. To her sorrow, however, she finds that the spirit of Christmas is proof against only the chill and is not strong enough to protect them all from the malice of one ambitions man.
Yukon Alone: The World's Toughest Adventure Race
by John BalzarIn the tradition of Into the Wild, John Balzar's Yukon Alone is a story of daring and determination in one of nature's harshest, loneliest, and most beautiful places.The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race is among the most challenging and dangerous of all the organized sporting events in the world. Every February, a handful of hardy souls sps over two weeks racing sleds pulled by fourteen dogs over 1,023 miles of frozen rivers, icy mountain passes, and spruce forests as big as entire states. It's not unusual for the temperature to drop to 40-below or for the night to be seventeen hours long.Why would anyone want to run this race? To find out, John Balzar moved to Alaska months before The Quest began and he spent time in the homes of many of the mushers. Balzar then spent many days and nights on the trail, and the result is a book that not only treats us to a vivid day-by-day account of the grueling race itself but also offers an insightful look at the men and women who have moved to this rugged and beautiful place, often leaving behind comfortable houses and jobs in the lower forty-eight states for the sense of exhilaration they find in their new lives. Readers will also be fascinated by Balzar's account of what goes into the training and care of the majestic dogs who pull the sleds and whose courage, strength, and devotion make them the true heroes of this story. For anyone captivated by the wild north country, this riveting tale of courage and adventure will inspire and entertain.
Warriors 3 (Warriors Anthologies)
by Diana Gabaldon Robin HobbFrom George R. R. Martin's Introduction to Warriors: "People have been telling stories about warriors for as long as they have been telling stories. Since Homer first sang the wrath of Achilles and the ancient Sumerians set down their tales of Gilgamesh, warriors, soldiers, and fighters have fascinated us; they are a part of every culture, every literary tradition, every genre. All Quiet on the Western Front, From Here to Eternity, and The Red Badge of Courage have become part of our literary canon, taught in classrooms all around the country and the world. Our contributors make up an all-star lineup of award-winning and bestselling writers, representing a dozen different publishers and as many genres. We asked each of them for the same thing—a story about a warrior. Some chose to write in the genre they're best known for. Some decided to try something different. You will find warriors of every shape, size, and color in these pages, warriors from every epoch of human history, from yesterday and today and tomorrow, and from worlds that never were. Some of the stories will make you sad, some will make you laugh, and many will keep you on the edge of your seat." The stories in the third mass market volume of this book are:Introduction: Stories of the Spinner Rack, by George R. R. MartinThe Triumph, by Robin HobbSoldierin', by Joe R. LansdaleClean Slate, by Lawrence BlockThe Girls from Avenger, by Carrie VaughnThe Pit, by James RollinsMy Name is Legion, by David MorrellThe Custom of the Army, by Diana GabaldonMany of these writers are bestsellers. All of them are storytellers of the highest quality. Together they make a volume of unforgettable reading.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
How About Never—Is Never Good for You?: My Life in Cartoons
by Bob MankoffMemoir in cartoons by the longtime cartoon editor of The New YorkerPeople tell Bob Mankoff that as the cartoon editor of The New Yorker he has the best job in the world. Never one to beat around the bush, he explains to us, in the opening of this singular, delightfully eccentric book, that because he is also a cartoonist at the magazine he actually has two of the best jobs in the world. With the help of myriad images and his funniest, most beloved cartoons, he traces his love of the craft all the way back to his childhood, when he started doing funny drawings at the age of eight. After meeting his mother, we follow his unlikely stints as a high-school basketball star, draft dodger, and sociology grad student. Though Mankoff abandoned the study of psychology in the seventies to become a cartoonist, he recently realized that the field he abandoned could help him better understand the field he was in, and here he takes up the psychology of cartooning, analyzing why some cartoons make us laugh and others don't. He allows us into the hallowed halls of The New Yorker to show us the soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation, giving us a detailed look not only at his own work, but that of the other talented cartoonists who keep us laughing week after week. For desert, he reveals the secrets to winning the magazine's caption contest. Throughout How About Never--Is Never Good for You?, we see his commitment to the motto "Anything worth saying is worth saying funny."
Bringing Down the Mob: The War Against the American Mafia
by Thomas ReppettoThe riveting, often bloody account of how the fifty-year attack by the federal government virtually extinguished the nation's most powerful crime syndicateIn the critically acclaimed American Mafia, Thomas Reppetto narrated the ferocious ascendancy of organized crime in America. In this fascinating sequel, he follows the mob from its peak into a shadowy period of decline as the government, no longer able to deny its existence, made subduing the Mafia a matter of national priority.Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience to tell the stories of the Mafia's twentieth-century leadership, showing how men such as Sam Giancana and John Gotti became household names. Crusaders like Robert Kennedy led concerted—if sometimes sporadic—attacks against organized crime. As the battles between the feds and the Mafia moved from the streets to the courtrooms, Reppetto describes how it came to resemble a conflict between sovereign powers.In direct, shoot-from-the-hip prose, Reppetto chronicles a turning point in American Mafia history, and offers the provocative theory that, given the right formula of connections and shrewd business, a new generation of multinational criminals may be poised to take up the Mafia's mantle.
Universal Love: Stories
by Alexander WeinsteinA hypnotic collection of speculative fiction about compassion, love, and human resilience in the technological hyper-age, from Alexander Weinstein, author of Children of the New World. Universal Love welcomes readers to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to the drowned city they call home. A daughter gets to know her dead mother's hologram better than she ever knew her living mother. And, at a time when unpleasant memories can be erased, a man undergoes electronic surgery to have his depression, and his past, forever removed. In an age when technology offers the easiest cures for loneliness, the characters within these stories must wrestle with what it means to stay human in an increasingly cybernetic future, and how love can endure even the most alluring upgrades. In the vein of Weinstein’s critically-acclaimed first collection, Universal Love is a visionary book, written with one foot in the real world and one stepping bravely into the future.
Ian McKellen: A Biography
by Garry O'ConnorThe definitive biography of Sir Ian McKellen from an acclaimed biographer In 2001, Ian McKellen put on the robe and pointed hat of a wizard named Gandalf and won a place in the hearts of Tolkien fans worldwide. Though his role in the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings introduced him to a new audience, McKellen had a thriving career a lifetime before his visit to Middle Earth. He made his West End acting debut in 1964 in James Saunders’s A Scent of Flowers, but it was in 1980 that he took Broadway by storm when he played Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s Tony-Award-winning play Amadeus.He has starred in over four hundred plays and films and he is that rare character: a celebrity whose distinguished political and social service has transcended his international fame to reach beyond the stage and screen. The breadth of his career—professional, personal and political—has been truly staggering: Macbeth (opposite Judi Dench), Iago, King Lear, Chekhov’s Sorin in The Seagull and Becket’s tramp Estragon (opposite Patrick Stewart) in Waiting for Godot. Add to all this his tireless political activism in the cause of gay equality and you have a veritable phenomenon. Garry O’Connor’s Ian McKellen: A Biography probes the heart of the actor, recreating his greatest stage roles and exploring his personal life. Ian McKellen will show readers what makes a great actor tick. His life story has been a constantly developing drama and this biography is the next chapter.
Operator and Matrix Theory, Function Spaces, and Applications: International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications 2022, Kraków, Poland (Operator Theory: Advances and Applications #295)
by Marek Ptak Hugo J. Woerdeman Michał WojtylakThis volume features presentations from the International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications that was held in Kraków, Poland, September 6-10, 2022. The volume reflects the wide interests of the participants and contains original research papers in the active areas of Operator Theory. These interests include weighted Hardy spaces, geometry of Banach spaces, dilations of the tetrablock contractions, Toeplitz and Hankel operators, symplectic Dirac operator, pseudodifferential and differential operators, singular integral operators, non-commutative probability, quasi multipliers, Hilbert transform, small rank perturbations, spectral constants, Banach-Lie groupoids, reproducing kernels, and the Kippenhahn curve. The volume includes contributions by a number of the world's leading experts and can therefore be used as an introduction to the currently active research areas in operator theory.
Ratings als Steuerungsinstrument von Unternehmen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung
by Christian StrangaliesIn diesem Open-Access-Buch wird mit Hilfe einer systemtheoretischen Perspektive untersucht, wie Nachhaltigkeitsratings zu einer sinnvollen Gesellschaft beitragen. In einer grundlegenden Einführung in die Systemtheorie wird erklärt, wie die Selbsterhaltung von sozialen Systemen durch neuen Sinn ermöglicht wird, der auf weiteren Sinn verweist. Daraufhin wird die Notwendigkeit einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung der Gesellschaft systemtheoretisch dargestellt, indem ein pathologisches Wirtschaftssystem beschrieben wird, das die eigene Umwelt zerstört und dadurch immer weniger sinnvolle Anschlussoperationen findet, die weiteren Sinn ermöglichen. Zudem wird erläutert, wie aus systemtheoretischer Sicht ein nachhaltiges Wirtschaftssystem operiert. Es wird ausgeführt, wie durch eine begrenzte Reflexion neuer Sinn für das Wirtschaftssystem erzeugt wird, der im Einklang steht mit den gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten und somit die wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Selbsterhaltung langfristig sicherstellt. Anhand von Nachhaltigkeitsratings wird dann ein konkretes Beispiel angeführt, wie Entscheidungen mit einer begrenzten Reflexion in Unternehmen zu einer solchen sinnvollen Ökonomie beitragen.
Child Development Within Contexts: Cultural-Historical Research and Educational Practice (Early Childhood Research and Education: An Inter-theoretical Focus #6)
by Nikolai Veresov Sarika Kewalramani Junqian MaThis book examines the pedagogical encounters within children's ecological and socio-cultural historical contexts, and aspects of playful learning and development within these contexts. It addresses research and practices varying across learning contexts, providing easily adaptable exemplary practices leading to children's positive learning and development. The book offers a unified general cultural-historical theoretical model for exploring new contexts at different stages of children's learning and development. It suggests studying contexts as a source of development, as social situations of development. It analyzes play, early learning and the transition from play to school learning. It also explores the role of teachers and parents in supporting the development of executive functions, digital literacy, creative inquiries, problem solving and creativity as necessary and important prerequisites of children's school academic achievements. This volume contributes to the discourse on how children's learning is shaped in the 21st century era. It equips educators and parents with new and effective methods of creating developing contexts in their daily practice and to fully utilize the developing potential of existing contexts.
Multiplicity of Time Scales in Complex Systems: Challenges for Sciences and Communication II (Mathematics Online First Collections)
by Bernhelm Booß-Bavnbek Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen Katherine Richardson Oriol Vallès CodinaNote to the interested reader to have a look at the companion to this volume Challenges for Sciences and Communication I | ISBN: 978-3-031-28048-1.This highly interdisciplinary volume brings together a carefully curated set of case studies examining complex systems with multiple time scales (MTS) across a variety of fields: materials science, epidemiology, cell physiology, mathematics, climatology, energy transition planning, ecology, economics, sociology, history, and cultural studies. The book addresses the vast diversity of interacting processes underlying the behaviour of different complex systems, highlighting the multiplicity of characteristic time scales that are a common feature of many and showcases a rich variety of methodologies across disciplinary boundaries. Self-organizing, out-of-equilibrium, ever-evolving systems are ubiquitous in the natural and social world. Examples include the climate, ecosystems, living cells, epidemics, the human brain, and many socio-economic systems across history. Their dynamical behaviour poses great challenges in the pressing context of the climate crisis, since they may involve nonlinearities, feedback loops, and the emergence of spatial-temporal patterns, portrayed by resilience or instability, plasticity or rigidity; bifurcations, thresholds and tipping points; burst-in excitation or slow relaxation, and worlds of other asymptotic behaviour, hysteresis, and resistance to change. Chapters can be read individually by the reader with special interest in such behaviours of particular complex systems or in specific disciplinary perspectives. Read together, however, the case studies, opinion pieces, and meta-studies on MTS systems presented and analysed here combine to give the reader insights that are more than the sum of the book’s individual chapters, as surprising similarities become apparent in seemingly disparate and unconnected systems. MTS systems call into question naïve perceptionsof time and complexity, moving beyond conventional ways of description, analysis, understanding, modelling, numerical prediction, and prescription of the world around us. This edited collection presents new ways of forecasting, introduces new means of control, and – perhaps as the most demanding task – it singles out a sustainable description of an MTS system under observation, offering a more nuanced interpretation of the floods of quantitative data and images made available by high- and low-frequency measurement tools in our unprecedented era of information flows.
And I Saw Sequences of Petals and Leaves: My Life as the One They Call Fibonacci
by Daniele C. StruppaIn this captivating historical novel, Daniele Struppa skillfully weaves a fictional autobiography, bringing Fibonacci to life with vivid details of his upbringing and adult years in Medieval Europe. As we explore the historical context of Fibonacci's time, we delve into the intriguing aspects of a bygone era, painting a compelling picture of a man whose contributions to mathematics continue to resonate today. From his groundbreaking work on congruent numbers to the famous numerical sequence that bears his name, the author invites readers to imagine the creative sparks that ignited Fibonacci's mathematical innovations. When historical evidence is elusive, accuracy and passion are seamlessly combined, offering plausible scenarios grounded in documented facts. A meticulously crafted apparatus of notes distinguishes fact from fiction, providing readers with a clear guide to navigate this enthralling reconstruction of Fibonacci's life. Step into the medieval world ofLeonardo Fibonacci, one of the most celebrated mathematicians in history, and discover the man behind the mathematical genius. Mathematicians and curious readers alike will appreciate the allure of Fibonacci's mathematical brilliance.
Academic Success in Online Programs: A Resource for College Students (Springer Texts in Education)
by Jacqueline S. StephenThis book provides higher education students with a comprehensive resource to assist them in their academic persistence in an online course or program. It addresses a wide selection of topics emphasizing a myriad of factors that impact a student’s persistence, and ultimate success, in an online program or course. The book helps students to gain insight into the skills, knowledge, and attributes needed to succeed in the autonomous nature of an online learning environment. Thus, this book helps students to proactively engage in activities to prepare for online learning. Information presented in each chapter is drawn from theory and recent research centered on persistence of online students in higher education. It incorporates hands-on practical activities to promote application of theory and research, and encourages students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities through the use of reflective and thought-provoking activities. Hence, this book provides online students with an up-to-date resource they can use to develop an awareness of their readiness and preparedness for online learning. Additionally, this book equips students with information and strategies aimed at helping them to address gaps in their skills and knowledge that may present them with barriers to academic success. The content of this book is aligned with widely used student learning outcomes and objectives of first-year student seminar courses and orientation programs for graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in online programs. Furthermore, it is deliberately organized and structured to support an online student’s academic journey as they navigate the online learning environment. As such, these features make it an ideal book for use by students, instructors, and academic advisors or college and university academic support staff.