The most significant conquest of the twentieth century may well have been the triumph of American consumer society over Europe's bourgeois civilization. It is this little-understood but world-shaking campaign that unfolds in Irresistible Empire, Victoria de Grazia's brilliant account of how the American standard of living defeated the European way of life and achieved the global cultural hegemony that is both its great strength and its key weakness today. </p>
De Grazia describes how, as America's market empire advanced with confidence through Europe, spreading consumer-oriented capitalism, all alternative strategies fell before it--first the bourgeois lifestyle, then the Third Reich's command consumption, and finally the grand experiment of Soviet-style socialist planning. Tracing the peculiar alliance that arrayed New World salesmanship, statecraft, and standardized goods against the Old World's values of status, craft, and good taste, Victoria de Grazia follows the United States' market-driven imperialism through a vivid series of cross-Atlantic incursions by the great inventions of American consumer society. We see Rotarians from Duluth in the company of the high bourgeoisie of Dresden; working-class spectators in ramshackle French theaters conversing with Garbo and Bogart; Stetson-hatted entrepreneurs from Kansas in the midst of fussy Milanese shoppers; and, against the backdrop of Rome's Spanish Steps and Paris's Opera Comique, Fast Food in a showdown with advocates for Slow Food. Demonstrating the intricacies of America's advance, de Grazia offers an intimate and historical dimension to debates over America's exercise of soft power and the process known as Americanization. She raises provocative questions about the quality of the good life, democracy, and peace that issue from the vaunted victory of mass consumer culture. </p>

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredible, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits -- just behind a Raman airlock door.

Einstein's theory of general relativity opens the door to other universes, and weird universes at that: universes that allow time travel, universes where you can see the back of your head, universes that spin and bounce or multiply without limit. The Book of Universes gives us a stunning tour of these potential universes, introducing us along the way to the brilliant physicists and mathematicians who first revealed their startling possibilities. John D. Barrow explains the latest discoveries and ideas that physics and astronomy have to offer about our own universe, showing how these findings lead to the concept of the "multiverse" the Universe of all possible universes. New ideas force us to confront the possibility that our visible universe is a tiny region, governed by its own laws, within a Multiverse containing all the strange universes that could be an idea that is among the most exciting and revolutionary in all of modern science.

Markov chains are central to the understanding of random processes. This is not only because they pervade the applications of random processes, but also because one can calculate explicitly many quantities of interest. This textbook, aimed at advanced undergraduate or MSc students with some background in basic probability theory, focuses on Markov chains and quickly develops a coherent and rigorous theory whilst showing also how actually to apply it. Both discrete-time and continuous-time chains are studied. A distinguishing feature is an introduction to more advanced topics such as martingales and potentials in the established context of Markov chains. There are applications to simulation, economics, optimal control, genetics, queues and many other topics, and exercises and examples drawn both from theory and practice. It will therefore be an ideal text either for elementary courses on random processes or those that are more oriented towards applications.

An astonishing work of cultural criticism, this book is widely recognized as a brilliant and devastating challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion, and psychoanalysis. In its scope and itnerest it can be compared with Freud's "Totem and Taboo, the subtext Girard refutes with polemic daring, vast erudition, and a persuasiveness that leaves the reader compelled to respond, one way or another. This is the single fullest summation of Girard's ideas to date, the book by which they will stand or fall. In a dialogue with two psychiatrists (Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort), Girard probes an encyclopedic array of topics, ranging across the entire spectrum of anthropology, psychoanalysis, and cultural production. Girard's point o departure is what he calles "mimesis," the conflict that arises when human rivals compete to differentiate themselves from each other, yet succeed only in becoming more and more alike. At certain points in the life of a society, according to Girard, this mimetic conflict erupts into a crisis in which all difference dissolves in indiscriminate violence. In primitive societies, such crises were resolved by the "scapegoating mechanism," in which the community, en masse, turned on an unpremeditated victim. The repression of this collective murder and its repetition in ritual sacrifice then formed the foundations of both religion and the restored social order. How does Christianity, at once the most "sacrificial" of religions and a faith with a non-violent ideology, fit into this scheme? Girard grants Freud's point, in "Totem and Taboo, that Christianity is similar to primitive religion, but only to refute Freud--if Christ is sacrificed, Girard argues, it is not becuase God willed it, but becaus ehuman beings "wanted it. The book is not merely, or perhaps not mainly, biblical exegesis, for within its scope fall some of the most vexing problems of social history--the paradox that violance has social efficacy, the function of the scapegoat, the mechanism of anti-semitism.

与荷马、柏拉图直接对话
踏上西方文明殿堂的阶梯
[ 编辑推荐 ]
久经打磨 本书是作者近十年在中国高校开设古希腊语基础课程所使用的教材，根据教学效果和反馈反复修订而成，编排合理，重难点突出。
结构清晰 本书从字母与发音讲起，在学生熟悉古希腊字母书写方法后，是一目了然的语法表，然后是对语法规则的详细讲解。学生可以在学习过程中背诵和查阅语法表，巩固记忆。紧随其后是精选的24篇文献片段，学生可以通过阅读增加词汇量，熟悉语法使用规则。
内容丰富 书中的语法例句采用希、英、汉三语并列对照，方便学生理解学习。课文选取范围广阔，包括历史、哲学、悲剧、寓言、《新约》等诸多领域，大体可以呈现希腊世界的精神文化生活。附录小词典给出动词的将来时、不定过去时和完成时。
[ 内容简介 ]
本书由作者多年使用的古希腊语教学讲稿整理而成。
本教程主要提供基本的语法知识和词汇，内容循序渐进，从基本的字母和发音讲起，然后列出语法总表，再分别讲解语法细则。课文部分摘选了涵括文、史、哲、宗教诸多领域的段落，有助于学生巩固语法知识和了解希腊文化。书中还设有大量语法练习和翻译作业，书后给出参考答案，另有一部重要词汇的小词典，方便学生查阅记忆。
[ 推荐语 ]
希腊群岛呵，美丽的希腊群岛！火热的萨弗在这里唱过恋歌；在这里，战争与和平的艺术并兴，狄洛斯崛起，阿波罗跃出海面！
——拜伦勋爵，《哀希腊》
如果不了解西方的古典文明，我们未必能透彻了解西方的现代文明；没有透彻了解西方的整个文明形态，也不会通透理解和把握中华文明的精神处境及其未来命运。
——刘小枫

中国首部拉丁语原始文献选集
本书以上个世纪初在中国广泛使用的一部拉丁语入门教程为蓝本，经作者十余年使用教学并根据学生反馈进行改编，使之更加符合当代中国学生学习拉丁语的习惯，突出了学习重点和难点，是一部优秀的拉丁语入门教材。
本教程分为两部：语法篇和文献篇。本书为文献篇，收录了不同作者三十余篇作品的选段，时间横跨千余年，内容包括文、史、哲、法学、宗教等领域。选文都配以英文翻译作为对照参考，有助于学生掌握拉丁语的语法结构。书后还附有作者多年来收集的一份将汉语成语翻译成拉丁语的学生优秀习作，以及一份拉丁语翻译练习。
读者在系统学习了语法篇后，可通过此文选巩固语法知识，锻炼语感，熟悉拉丁语文化。
士生今日，不通欧洲任一国语言文字者，几不可以人类齿。而欧洲各国语学，皆导源拉丁。虽已通其一，固亦不可不补习拉丁，而先习拉丁然后及其他，则事半功倍，而学益有根底焉。 ——梁启超
……无奈孑民先生（蔡元培）执意要学，说拉丁文欧洲各国语文之根本，各国语言多源于拉丁，西洋一切古代文化，若果不通拉丁语文，那就无从了解。——马相伯

中国学生学习拉丁语最佳零基础入门教材
本书以上个世纪初在中国广泛使用的一部拉丁语入门教程为蓝本，经作者十余年使用教学并根据学生反馈进行改编，使之更加符合当代中国学生学习拉丁语的习惯，突出了学习重点和难点，是一部优秀的拉丁语入门教材。
本教程分为两部：语法篇和文献篇。本书为语法篇，由浅及深地讲解了字母、发音、各种类型的词、语法，包含了拉丁语的基本文法知识。章节设置合理，结构清晰，利于学生学习掌握。书后还附有一份词汇表，包括最常用的488个单词及其复合词，不啻于一部小型的拉汉词典，便于学生查阅和记忆。
掌握了本册中的拉丁语基础知识，读者可以尝试阅读本教程的文献篇，那里提供了数十部拉丁语经典的阅读资料，涵盖文、史、哲、法律、宗教等领域。读者不仅可以通过阅读这些文献检验自己的学习成果，更可进一步深入了解拉丁语文化。
我爱那轻柔的拉丁语变种，像女人的吻一样令人融化。——拜伦勋爵，《贝波》
我会让他们都学英语，然后让聪明孩子去学拉丁语作为一种荣誉，学希腊语作为一种嘉赏。——温斯顿·丘吉尔，《我的早年生活》

"Technical and Military Imperatives: A Radar History of World War II" is a coherent account of the history of radar in the second World War. Although many books have been written on the early days of radar and its role in the war, this book is by far the most comprehensive, covering ground, air, and sea operations in all theaters of World War II. The author manages to synthesize a vast amount of material in a highly readable, informative, and enjoyable way. Of special interest is extensive new material about the development and use of radar by Germany, Japan, Russia, and Great British. The story is told without undue technical complexity, so that the book is accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike.