Over the course of the twentieth century, our understanding of and relationship to whales underwent astonishing changes. With The Sounding of the Whale, D. Graham Burnett tells the fascinating story of the transformation of cetaceans from grotesque monsters, useful only as wallowing kegs of fat and fertilizer, to playful friends of humanity, bellwethers of environmental devastation, and, finally, totems of the counterculture in the Age of Aquarius. A sweeping history, grounded in nearly a decade of research, The Sounding of the Whale tells a remarkable tale of how science, politics, and simple human wonder interwined to transform the way we see these behemoths from below.

The Manchu Qing victory over the Chinese Ming Dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century was one of the most surprising and traumatic developments in China’s long history. In the last year of the Ming, the southwest region of China became the base of operations for the notorious leader Zhang Xianzhong (1605–47), a peasant rebel known as the Yellow Tiger. Zhang’s systematic reign of terror allegedly resulted in the deaths of at least one-sixth of the population of the entire Sichuan province in just two years. The rich surviving source record, however, indicates that much of the destruction took place well after Zhang’s death in 1647 and can be attributed to independent warlords, marauding bandits, the various Ming and Qing armies vying for control of the empire, and natural disasters.
On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger is the first Western study to examine in detail the aftermath of the Qing conquest by focusing on the social and demographic effects of the Ming-Qing transition. By integrating the modern techniques of trauma and memory studies into the military and social history of the transition, Kenneth M. Swope adds a crucial piece to the broader puzzle of dynastic collapse and reconstruction. He also considers the Ming-Qing transition in light of contemporary conflicts around the globe, offering a comparative military history that engages with the universal connections between war and society.

A wide-ranging consideration of early modern Muslim and Christian empires, covering the Iberian, Ottoman, and Mughal worlds, including questions of political economy, images and representations, and historiography.
Empires Between Islam and Christianity, 1500–1800 uses the innovative approach of “connected histories” to address a series of questions regarding the early modern world in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. The period between 1500 and 1800 was one of intense inter-imperial competition involving the Iberians, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the British, and other actors. Rather than understand these imperial entities separately, Sanjay Subrahmanyam reads their archives and texts together to show unexpected connections and refractions. He further proposes, in this set of closely argued studies, that these empires often borrowed from each other, or built their projects with knowledge of other competing visions of empire. The emphasis on connections is also crucial for an understanding of how a variety of genres of imperial and global history writing developed in the early modern world. The book moves creatively between political, economic, intellectual, and cultural themes to suggest a fresh geographical conception for the epoch.

It is a well-known fact that the first of all the commandments of the Buddhist creed is “Thou shalt not kill” but Chinese books contain various passages relating to Buddhist monks who freely indulged in carnage and butchery and took an active part in military expeditions of every description, thus leaving no room for doubt that warfare was an integrate part of their religious profession for centuries. —J. J. M. de Groot, 1891

Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany. But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the �peacock flower� into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.

The book includes fifteen essays and an interview. The essays are grouped in three parts: Mathematics; Mathematics and Physics; and Language, Consciousness, and Book reviews. Most of the essays are about some aspects of epistemology and the history of sciences, mainly mathematics, physics, and the history of language. English translations of some of the essays, originally published in Russian, appear for the first time in this selection. One of them is the introduction to the book Computable and Uncomputable, where the idea of a quantum computer was first proposed in 1980. Another is an essay on the mythological trickster figure, where the evolutionary role of manipulative behavior is discussed in connection with the problem of the origin of human language. With the foreword by Freeman Dyson, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in the philosophy and history of mathematics, physics, and linguistics.

This is a complete translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, containing all of the important suttas ( Discourses of the Buddha ) on such key Buddhist concepts as the Four Noble Truths, dependent origination, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha ranks as one of the most inspiring compilations in the Buddhist canon. Bhikkhu Bodhi's distinguished and precise translation, his insightful introductory materials, and his extensive notes guide the reader through this vast collection of the Buddha's ancient teachings. This is the third title in Wisdom Publications' award-winning Teachings of the Buddha Series, following The Long Discourses of the Buddha and The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Like its two predecessors, and 2005's anthology of Discourses of the Buddha, this volume belongs in the library of every student of Buddhism.

"Simulation," writes Gary Flake in his preface, "becomes a form of experimentation in a universe of theories. The primary purpose of this book is to celebrate this fact."In this book, Gary William Flake develops in depth the simple idea that recurrent rules can produce rich and complicated behaviors. Distinguishing "agents" (e.g., molecules, cells, animals, and species) from their interactions (e.g., chemical reactions, immune system responses, sexual reproduction, and evolution), Flake argues that it is the computational properties of interactions that account for much of what we think of as "beautiful" and "interesting." From this basic thesis, Flake explores what he considers to be today's four most interesting computational topics: fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation.Each of the book's parts can be read independently, enabling even the casual reader to understand and work with the basic equations and programs. Yet the parts are bound together by the theme of the computer as a laboratory and a metaphor for understanding the universe. The inspired reader will experiment further with the ideas presented to create fractal landscapes, chaotic systems, artificial life forms, genetic algorithms, and artificial neural networks.

This first volume of the Getty Conservation Institute's "Readings in Conservation" series presents a comprehensive collection of texts on the conservation of art and architecture. Designed for students of art history as well as conservation, the book consists of 46 texts, many originally published in obscure or foreign journals. The 30 art historians and scholars represented raise questions such as when to restore, what to preserve and how to maintain aesthetic character. Excerpts have been selected from the following books and essays: John Ruskin "The Seven Lamps of Architecture"; Bernard Berenson "Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts"; Clive Bell "The Aesthetic Hypothesis"; Cesare Brandi "Theory of Restoration"; Kenneth Clark "Looking at Pictures"; Erwin Panofsky "The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline"; E.H. Gombrich "Art and Illusion"; Marie Cl. Berducou "The Conservation of Archaeology: and Paul Philipott "Restoration from the Perspective of the Social Sciences".

"Enthralling . . . As fascinating as any novel and more so than most." The New York Times Book Review
The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Bestseller by the author of DREADNOUGHT.
Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, one of the most extraordinary rulers in history. Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, tender and unforgiving, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life in this exceptional biography.

China's extraordinary rise as an economic powerhouse in the past two decades poses a challenge to many long-held assumptions about the relationship between political institutions and economic development. Economic prosperity also was vitally important to the longevity of the Chinese Empire throughout the preindustrial era. Before the eighteenth century, China's economy shared some of the features, such as highly productive agriculture and sophisticated markets, found in the most advanced regions of Europe. But in many respects, from the central importance of irrigated rice farming to family structure, property rights, the status of merchants, the monetary system, and the imperial state's fiscal and economic policies, China's preindustrial economy diverged from the Western path of development. In this comprehensive but accessible study, Richard von Glahn examines the institutional foundations, continuities and discontinuities in China's economic development over three millennia, from the Bronze Age to the early twentieth century.

In Reshaping the Frontier Landscape: Dongchuan in Eighteenth-century Southwest China, Fei HUANG examines the process of reshaping the landscape of Dongchuan, a remote frontier city in Southwest China in the eighteenth century. Rich copper deposits transformed Dongchuan into one of the key outposts of the Qing dynasty, a nexus of encounters between various groups competing for power and space. The frontier landscape bears silent witness to the changes in its people’s daily lives and in their memories and imaginations. The literati, officials, itinerant merchants, commoners and the indigenous people who lived there shaped and reshaped the local landscape by their physical efforts and cultural representations. This book demonstrates how multiple landscape experiences developed among various people in dependencies, conflicts and negotiations in the imperial frontier.

This book presents a great deal of new primary research on a wide range of aspects of early modern East Asia. Focusing primarily on maritime connections, the book explores the importance of international trade networks, the implications of technological dissemination, and the often unforeseen consequences of missionary efforts. It demonstrates the benefi ts of a global history approach, outlining the complex interactions between Western traders and Asian states and entrepreneurs. Overall, the book presents much interesting new material on this complicated and understudied period.

Initially published in 1990, when the "New York Times Book Review" named it one of fourteen "Best Books of the Year," Judith Hemschemeyer's translation of "The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova" is the definitive edition, and has sold over 13,000 copies, making it one of the most successful poetry titles of recent years.This reissued and revised printing features a new biographical essay as well as expanded notes to the poems, both by Roberta Reeder, project editor and author of "Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet" (St. Martin's Press, 1994). Encyclopedic in scope, with more than 800 poems, 100 photographs, a historical chronology, index of first lines, and bibliography. "The Complete Poems" will be the definitive English language collection of Akhmatova for many years to come.

"Funkenstein's powerful essay belongs to that genre of intellectual history which has addressed itself to... the metaphysical foundations of modern science. As such, it is almost exclusively concerned with affinities and tensions between ideas. And traced they are with consummate skill... Liberation from naive conceptions of historical continuity gives Funkenstein leave to concentrate on a finely nuanced exegesis of those philosophers who fall within his purview. The result is a work of discernment and distinction."--J. H. Brooke, The Times Higher Education Supplement

Serving as both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting and as a text on how to interpret social history from the style of pictures in a given historical period, this new edition to Baxandall's pre-eminent scholarly volume examines early Renaissance painting, and explains how the style of painting in any society reflects the visual skills and habits that evolve out of daily life. Renaissance painting, for example, mirrors the experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels. The volume includes discussions of a wide variety of painters, including Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Luca Signorelli, Boccaccio, and countless others. Baxandall also defines and illustrates sixteen concepts used by a contemporary critic of painting, thereby assembling the basic equipment needed to explore fifteenth-century art.
This new second edition includes an appendix that lists the original Latin and Italian texts referred to throughout the book, providing the reader with all the relevant, authentic sources. It also contains an updated bibliography and a new reproduction of a recently restored painting which replaces the original.