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 D. M. Carter, "Why Athens?: A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics" English | ISBN: 0199562326 | 2011 | 496 pages | PDF | 4 MB This collection of fourteen essays and six short responses reconsiders Greek tragedy as a reflection of Athenian political culture. The contributors try to avoid making the controversial assumption that the politics of tragedy were of simple relevance to the Athenian democracy. Instead, they look for other ways to explain the Athenianness of tragedy. These include: the polyphonic discourse of tragedy; the presentation of Athens in some plays (and the representation of foreigners too); tragedy as an Athenian form of choral performance; and the ways in which family matters are presented, for example marriage alliances or inheritance law. Why Athens? opens up important new ways of considering tragedy as a political art form.  What Is Thought? By Eric B. Baum 2006 | 475 Pages | ISBN: 0262025485 | PDF | 3 MB Although I spent very considerable time with this book, I conclude it is ultimately a failure in that it never addresses its title question. From the first, Baum asserts "the mind is a computer program," and therefore thought is the execution of a computer program. But he proves his statement by assertion, never by investigating how the mind's functioning is adequately described as a computer program. I would have been more convinced if he ever discussed how a computer program would debug itself. Analogizing with training of a neural net is not sufficient. He would have to explain how a program decided not to be a neural network, but rather .... but here his entire methodology breaks down. He would need a conceptual framework not borrowed from computer science, but from psychology, or philosophy, or metaphysics, or even poetry. But these disciplines are of course "non-rigorous," as is the functioning of mind. Another startling flaw in his argument is his devotion to Occam's razor, and how he elaborates this point. He asserts that observations that a dependent variable is linearly related to its independent variable is a compact description of reality, and therefore captures semantics, bridges the gap between observation and semantics. But the real question is, what is the agent that determines the linearity? The answer I offer is thought, human intelligence, mind. He has not done anything for the fundamental question of epistemology.  P. H. Matthews, "What Graeco-Roman Grammar Was About" English | ISBN: 0198830114 | 2019 | 256 pages | PDF | 1423 KB This book explains how the grammarians of the Graeco-Romance world perceived the nature and structure of the languages they taught. The volume focuses primarily on the early centuries AD, a time when the Roman Empire was at its peak; in this period, a grammarian not only had a secure place in the ancient system of education, but could take for granted an established technical understanding of language. By delineating what that ancient model of grammar was, P. H. Matthews highlights both those aspects that have persisted to this day and seem reassuringly familiar, such as 'parts of speech', as well as those aspects that are wholly dissimilar to our present understanding of grammar and language. The volume is written to be accessible to students of linguistics from undergraduate level upwards, and assumes no knowledge of Latin or Ancient Greek.  Mark Philip Bradley, "Vietnam at War" English | ISBN: 0192803492 | 2009 | 233 pages | PDF | 2 MB For many Westerners, the Vietnam War summons images of American soldiers patrolling rice paddies, battling an elusive enemy as helicopters circle overhead. But there were, in fact, many Vietnam wars-an anti-colonial war with France, a cold war turned hot with the United States, a civil war between North and South Vietnam and among southern Vietnamese, a revolutionary war of ideas over the vision that should guide Vietnamese society into the postcolonial future, and a postwar war of memory. This book explores the complex ways in which the Vietnamese themselves have made sense of those conflicts.  Steven Frye, "Understanding Cormac McCarthy " English | ISBN: 1570038392 | 2009 | 240 pages | PDF | 1013 KB Named by Harold Bloom as one of the most significant American novelists of our time, Cormac McCarthy has been honored with the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for The Road, and the coveted MacArthur Fellowship. Steven Frye offers a comprehensive treatment of McCarthy's fiction to date, dealing with the author's aesthetic and thematic concerns, his philosophical and religious influences, and his participation in Western literary traditions.  The World's Oldest Cookbook: Illustrated By Alex Raponi English | ASIN : B08KLWPTP4 | 2020 | 191 pages | EPUB | 6.6 MB
 Cornelis A. van Minnen, "The U.S. South and Europe: Transatlantic Relations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries " English | ISBN: 081314308X | 2013 | 316 pages | PDF | 2 MB The U.S. South is a distinctive political and cultural force―not only in the eyes of Americans, but also in the estimation of many Europeans. The region played a distinctive role as a major agricultural center and the source of much of the wealth in early America, but it has also served as a catalyst for the nation's only civil war, and later, as a battleground in violent civil rights conflicts. Once considered isolated and benighted by the international community, the South has recently evoked considerable interest among popular audiences and academic observers on both sides of the Atlantic.  The True History of Chocolate, 3rd Edition by Sophie D. Coe, Michael D. Coe English | July 30th, 2015 | ISBN: 0500294747 | 338 pages | True EPUB | 52.50 MB "A beautifully written . . . and illustrated history of the Food of the Gods, from the Olmecs to present-day developments."-ChocolatierThis delightful tale of one of the world's favorite foods draws on botany, archaeology, and culinary history to present a complete and accurate history of chocolate.  Dan Hicks, "The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies " English | ISBN: 0199218714 | 2010 | 792 pages | PDF | 6 MB The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies introduces and reviews current thinking in the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies. Drawing together approaches from archaeology, anthropology, geography, and Science and Technology Studies, through twenty-eight specially commissioned essays by leading international researchers, the volume explores contemporary issues and debates in a series of themed sections - Disciplinary Perspectives, Material Practices, Objects and Humans, Landscapes and the Built Environment, and Studying Particular Things. From Coca-Cola, chimpanzees, artworks, and ceramics, to museums, cities, human bodies, and magical objects, the Handbook is an essential resource for anyone with an interest in materiality and the place of material things in human life, both past and present. A comprehensive bibliography enhances its usefulness both as a research tool and as a classroom text.  Michael Brumbaugh, "The New Politics of Olympos: Kingship in Kallimachos' Hymns" English | ISBN: 0190059265 | 2019 | 320 pages | PDF | 2 MB The New Politics of Olympos explores the dynamics of praise, power, and persuasion in Kallimachos' hymns, detailing how they simultaneously substantiate and interrogate the radically new phenomenon of Hellenistic kingship taking shape during Kallimachos' lifetime. Long before the Ptolemies invested vast treasure in establishing Alexandria as the center of Hellenic culture and learning, tyrants such as Peisistratos and Hieron recognized the value of poetry in advancing their political agendas. Plato, too, saw the vast power inherent in poetry, and famously advocated either censoring it (Republic) or harnessing it (Laws) for the good of the political community. As Xenophon notes in his Hieron and Pindar demonstrates in his politically charged epinikian hymns, wielding poetry's power entails a complex negotiation between the poet, the audience, and political leaders. Kallimachos' poetic medium for engaging in this dynamic, the hymn, had for centuries served as an unparalleled vehicle for negotiating with the super-powerful. |
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