Author: Charles Wilkins File Type: epub Longlisted for the 2013 Charles Taylor Prize The dramatic and hilarious story of risk and survival, as well as the importance of our connections to the planet, on a human-powered journey across the ocean. It was to be an expedition like no othera run across the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados aboard an experimental rowboat. There would be no support vessel, no stored water, no sails or motor. The boats crew of sixteen included several veterans of U.S. college rowing, a number of triathletes, a woman who had rowed both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and a scrawny sexagenarian looking for a last great challengeour chronicler, Charles Wilkins. When he joined the expedition, Wilkins had never swung an oar in earnest. Accompanied by a devoted crew of misadventurers, Wilkins takes the reader along for seven weeks of rationed food, extreme sleep deprivation, and life-threatening seasas well as sharks, whales, and an ever-disintegrating boat. Little Ship of Fools is a rich and fascinating story of courage, community, the importance of risk in our lives, and the resilience and depth of the human spirit. **

Author: Simon Critchley File Type: pdf How does one write an experimental ABC, an impossible theory that would deal with a series of phenomena, concepts, places, sensations, persons, and moods? A para-philosophy? Returning to a once-abandoned project of fragmented thoughts where the authors voice moves from the serious to the pathetic, to the absurd, to the cynical, Simon Critchleys ABC of Impossibility finds new life in the form of this small encyclopedic and aphoristic text where the reader bears witness to the slow emergence of an attempt at a poetic ontology. ABC of Impossibility is a unique undertaking that reexamines the poetic site of the fragment as thought. Following a heritage of fragmented, aphoristic thinkers including Pascal, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Pessoa, Critchley revitalizes a para-philosophical thinking that can only be uttered by way of another. As he declares in the opening pages, In writing this, I promise to tell the truth, but not to be myself. **About the Author Simon Critchley is Hans Jonas Professor at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of numerous philosophical and experimental works including The Faith of the Faithless, The Book of Dead Philosophers, and most recently,Bowie. He is moderator of The Stone, a philosophy column in the New York Times, to which he is a frequent contributor.

Author: Noah Horowitz File Type: epub Art today is defined by its relationship to money as never before. Prices have been driven to unprecedented heights, conventional boundaries within the art world have collapsed, and artists think ever more strategically about how to advance their careers. Art is no longer simply made, but packaged, sold, and branded. In Art of the Deal, Noah Horowitz exposes the inner workings of the contemporary art market, explaining how this unique economy came to be, how it works, and where its headed. In a new postscript, Horowitz reflects on the evolution of the trade since the books original release in 2011, shining light on the markets continued ascent as well as its most urgent challenges. **htmlReview Art of the Deal is a crucial book on art and finance.--Blake Gopnik, *Daily Beast* [T]he precision and lucidity with which Mr. Horowitz describes the commercialization of art should garner appeal for his book across a broad swath of market participants. For the rest of us, it is an enjoyable glimpse into the opaque corners of the art community.--Benjamin R. Mandel, *Journal of Cultural Economics* Horowitz has provided readers with a very thorough and wide-ranging analysis of the contemporary art market that brings an unprecedented complexity to this discussion. His synthesis of the literature on the topic is sophisticated yet lucid and the book is exceptionally well researched, supported by countless citations.--John Zarobell, *Tabula Quarterly* I thoroughly enjoyed this critical account of the global contemporary art economy Noah Horowitz has a real understanding of the inner workings of the market. The fact that he chose to focus on video and experiential art renders his account unique and gives even the seasoned reader interesting insights.--Thaddaeus Ropac, *Art Newspaper* One welcome aspect of the book is that its avoids to a degree but not entirely the usual cast and plot lines because of its focus on the relative undermined areas on immaterial art genres in the first two essays. The books discussion of video and experiential art is interesting. The discussion of the minutiae of this world of performances, installations, action and social interaction and their ancillary elements, content ownership and the rise of the collectors box will add greatly to the readers ability to appear learned on a suitable social occasion.--Satyajit Das, *naked capitalism* From the Back Cover In recent decades, the world of contemporary art has developed into a global business. To fully grasp how this has changed the art world and our relationship to art, we need a thorough analysis of the financial forces involved. The best place to start is this groundbreaking study by Noah Horowitz, which, leaving the common chitchat about art and money to others, takes the discussion to a more fundamental level.--Daniel Birnbaum, director, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and curator of the 2009 Venice Biennale Calmly, trenchantly, Horowitz examines the intricate relationship between the contemporary art market and the value of its objects. This book will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to know how the art market works and what tomorrows art economy might look like.--Alexander Alberro, Barnard College, Columbia University Art of the Deal is cogently argued, thoroughly researched, and richly documented. It is also, to my knowledge, highly original, and not only in its subject matter--giving a textured financial analysis of contemporary art, in all its market manifestations--but in the rigor of its financial analysis. I dont know of another book like it in the field.--James Cuno, president and director, Art Institute of Chicago This book is extremely stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable. Horowitz brings deep insight to his analysis, and he weaves in beautiful historical examples. His discussion of front- and backroom business by dealers, loss leaders, and profit makers is telling. Think about the art world using his concepts. Your views will change.--Richard J. Zeckhauser, Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Universityhtml

Author: John M. Merriman File Type: pdf Distinguished historian John Merriman maintains that the Age of Modern Terror began in Paris on February 12, 1894, when anarchist Emile Henry set off a bomb in the Cafe Terminus, killing one and wounding twenty French citizens. The true story of the circumstances that led a young radical to commit a cold-blooded act of violence against innocent civilians makes for riveting reading, shedding new light on the terrorist mindset and on the subsequent worldwide rise of anarchism by deed. Merrimans fascinating study of modern historys first terrorists, emboldened by the invention of dynamite, reveals much about the terror of today.**From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Those who think of terrorism as an inexplicable evil produced by an alien culture will have their eyes opened by this fascinating study of 19th-century anarchist terrorists. Yale historian Merriman (History of Modern Europe) tells the story of Emile Henry, a well-educated young man from a politically radical family who tossed a bomb into a crowded Paris cafe in 1894. In Merrimans portrait, Henry emerges as an understandable, if not sympathetic, figurea sensitive dreamer whose outrage at the misery of the poor curdled into a fanatical hatred of bourgeois society. He found a home in Europes percolating anarchist movement, whose adherents celebrated a cult of revolutionary violence and sang hymns to Lady Dynamite their bombings and assassinations set off a wave of panic and police repression. Merrimans account frames an illuminating study of working-class radicalism in belle epoque France and its bitter conflict with the establishment in an age when class warfare was no metaphor. Its also an absorbing true crime story, with Dostoyevskian overtones, about high ideals that motivate desperate acts. Photos. (Feb. 12) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Booklist A notable scholar of French history, Merriman recounts an episode of terrorism in 1890s Paris that plumbs the motivations of one particular bomber. He was Emile Henry, who at age20 rejected a potential career in the French army and embraced anarchism. In his narrative, Merriman brings forth biographical elements about Henryhis father was active in the Paris Commune, bloodily suppressed in an all-out 1871 class warthat illuminate his adoption of a radical outlook. Of an intellectual cast of mind, Henry read anarchist classics by Pyotr Kropotkin, novels by Emile Zola, and volunteered for anarchist newspapers. Anarchisms issue of the day was whether workers liberation would come by revolutionary word or revolutionary deed in this debate, Henry came down on the side of deeds, galvanized, Merriman suggests, by two anarchists who went unflinchingly to the guillotine for their bombings. Reconstructing Henrys own attacks, Merriman allies a forensic eye with the texture of Paris de la belle epoque, ably renders Henrys personality, and implicitly invites comparison of his with the mind-sets of contemporary terrorists. --Gilbert Taylor