Author: Perrin Selcer File Type: pdf In the wake of the Second World War, internationalists identified science as both the cause of and the solution to world crisis. Unless civilization learned to control the unprecedented powers science had unleashed, global catastrophe was imminent. But the internationalists found hope in the idea of world government. In The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment, Perrin Selcer argues that the metaphor of Spaceship Earththe idea of the planet as a single interconnected systemexemplifies this moment, when a mix of anxiety and hope inspired visions of world community and the proliferation of international institutions.Selcer tells the story of how the United Nations built the international knowledge infrastructure that made the global-scale environment visible. Experts affiliated with UN agencies helped make the globalas in global population, global climate, and global economyan object in need of governance. Selcer traces how UN programs such as UNESCOs Arid Lands Project, the production of a soil map of the world, and plans for a global environmental-monitoring system fell short of utopian ambitions to cultivate world citizens but did produce an international community of experts with influential connections to national governments. He shows how events and personalities, cultures and ecologies, bureaucracies and ideologies, decolonization and the Cold War interacted to make global knowledge. A major contribution to global history, environmental history, and the history of development, this book relocates the origins of planetary environmentalism in the postwar politics of scale.**ReviewPerrin Selcer shows the persistent attempts by UN-related researchers to produce global citizenship. In the process, he shows convincingly, a global epistemic community was created. Impressively researched, The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment is highly original. An authoritative study. (Alison Bashford, author of Global Population History, Geopolitics and Life on Earth) The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment reveals the hidden history of international societys formative ideas. Before NGOs, before a world community could have moral weight, there had to be a theory of reform that was both widely shared and planetary in scale. Selcer shows how foundational beliefs of globalismdevelopment, conservation, world citizenship, localism, the biosphereoriginated among an international community of scientists and activists seeking answers for aggression, disease, and scarcity. Along the way are vivid portraits of iconic thinkers, such as Margaret Mead, Gunnar Myrdal, George Kennan, who often formed unexpected alliances. An absorbing, thoroughly detailed account. (Nick Cullather, Indiana University, Bloomington) Selcers path-breaking study provides an original and thought-provoking account of the origins of global environmentalism within the world of mid-twentieth-century internationalism and its associated movements. His work brims with novel and important insights that will reshape scholarship in international history, environmental history, and the history of science. (Jessica Wang, University of British Columbia) About the Author Perrin Selcer is an assistant professor in the History Department and Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan.

Author: M. Yuki File Type: pdf Translated from Japanese, this study exposes English-language scholars to the complexities of the relationship between food, culture, the environment, and literature in Japan. Yuki explores the systems of value surrounding food as expressed in four popular Japanese female writers Ishimure Michiko, Taguchi Randy, Morisaki Kazue, and Nashiki Kaho. **Review A fascinating study of the frequently fraught relationships among food, literature, the environment, and modernity, Yuki Masamis Foodscapes of Contemporary Japanese Women Writers is an innovative contribution to the growing body of writing on Japanese literature and the environment. The books distinctive format, combining pioneering analyzes of creative work by Ishimure Michiko, Taguchi Randy, Morisaki Kazue, and Nashiki Kaho with transcripts of interviews with these key environmentally engaged writers, thus bringing to the table multiple voices, offers a bounty of resources for scholars and enthusiasts of Japan, Japanese literature and culture, food studies, and ecocriticism alike. - Karen L. Thornber, Professor of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, USA A fine example of fourth-wave ecocriticism in its focus on both the discourse and the material nature of food, Masamis book also reminds me of Ishimures own work in its multidimensional, many-voiced texture. Readers will appreciate how the book so gracefully, so lightly, introduces Japanese environmental history, food culture, gendered experience, and ideas of sustainability - in addition to sharing the words and ideas of several major contemporary writers. This work also shows the evolution of Yukis scholarship from soundscapes to foodscapes. - Scott Slovic, Professor of English, University of Idaho, USA and co-editor of Numbers and Nerves Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data Yuki Masami has written a nuanced book that theorizes cultures of eating. It is based on her probing interviews with key contemporary women writers in Japan. Foodways, women writing, Japan it engages at all three of those levels. It provides new approaches to talk about foodways in Japan and also offers new vocabulary for thinking globally on a range of ecocritical issues. - Doug Slaymaker, Professor of Japanese, University of Kentucky, USA Around the Hearth of Modernity is a work of profound sympathy, critical intelligence, and ethical engagement that explores four contemporary Japanese women writers as they reflect on their lifelong relationship to food, writing, politics, and the daily practice of living. With an innovative structure that interweaves oral interviews and interpretive essays, Yukis elegant study is a model of ecocritical practice at its best, theoretically sophisticated yet accessible to the general reader. A major contribution to environmental and food studies, this book is a must read for all of us who wish to understand our often ambivalent relationship to food and the natural world that sustains us. - David T. Bialock, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Southern California, USA About the Author Author Yuki Masami Masami Yuki is a Professor in the Foreign Language Institute at Kanazawa University, Japan. Translated by Michael Berman Michael Berman is a graduate student in the Department of Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

Author: Alaric Searle File Type: pdf This book charts the history of armoured warfare from the first use of the tank in 1916 right through to the 21st century, adopting military, political and global perspectives. Alaric Searle explores the origins of the tank, the part it played in the First World War and its contribution to the outcome of the war. He considers its role as a tool of propaganda, the military controversies of the interwar period and the employment of armoured forces in all the major theatres in the Second World War. Since the First World War, major and medium-sized powers have invested heavily in armoured forces. Searle looks at the conduct of mechanised warfare in Korea, Indo-China and Vietnam, and during conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli Wars and the Gulf Wars. Armoured Warfare adopts a global perspective, providing the most comprehensive survey of the history of the subject currently available. With a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, it is an ideal companion for those studying armoured warfare, modern military history and war studies. **Review [An] excellent international history of armored warfare, utilizing both secondary and primary source material Searle provides a comprehensive introduction to the use of the tank in modern war and how its application has evolved over time. Summing Up Highly recommended. General collections upper-division undergraduates and above. - CHOICE Armoured Warfare is a smashing success. Even beyond its utility as a classroom text, [it] has much to offer the scholar or the specialist. a book like Armoured Warfare can serve as an indispensable reintroduction to the subject. - Robert Citino in History Reviews of New Books Armoured Warfare is a worthwhile addition to any military library... It has a global perspective and provides a history of the tank, and it is an ideal companion for those studying armored warfare, modern military history, and war studies. - Military Review About the Author Alaric Searle is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Salford, UK.

Author: Simon Singh File Type: pdf In his first book since the bestselling Fermats Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known secrecy.Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the worlds most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it.It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is. This edition does not include illustrations.The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum CryptographyFrom the best-selling author of Fermats Last Theorem, The Code Book is a history of mans urge to uncover the secrets of codes, from Egyptian puzzles to modern day computer encryptions.As in Fermats Last Theorem, Simon Singh brings life to an anstonishing story of puzzles, codes, languages and riddles that reveals mans continual pursuit to disguise and uncover, and to work out the secret languages of others.Codes have influenced events throughout history, both in the stories of those who make them and those who break them. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes in a continuing history of cryptography. In addition to stories of intrigue and warfare, Simon Singh also investigates other codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and most tantalisingly, the Beale ciphers, an unbroken code that could hold the key to a $20 million treasure. Its known as the science of secrecy. Cryptography the encoding and decoding of private information. And it is historys most fascinating story of intrigue and cunning. From Julius Caesar and his Caesar Cipher to the code used by Mary Queen of Scots and her conspiracy to the use of the Engima machine during the Second World War, Simon Singh follows the evolution of secret writing. Accessible, compelling, and timely, this international bestseller, now adapted for young people, is sure to make readers see the pastand the futurein a whole new way.Amazon.com ReviewCalling upon accounts of political intrigue and tales of life and death, author Simon Singh tells historys most fascinating story of deception and cunning the science of cryptography--the encoding and decoding of private information. Based on The Code Book The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, this version has been abridged and slightly simplified for a younger audience. None of the appeal for curious problem-solving minds has been lost, though. From Julius Caesar to the 10th-century Arabs from Mary Queen of Scots to Alice and Bob from the Germans Enigma machine to the Navajo code talkers in World War II, Singh traces the use of code to protect--and betray--secrecy. Moving right into the present, he describes how the Information Age has provided a whole new set of challenges for cryptographers. How private are your e-mail communications? How secure is sending your credit card information over the Internet? And how much secrecy will the government tolerate? Complex but highly accessible, The Code Book will make readers see the past--and the future--in a whole new light. (Ages 14 and older) From Publishers WeeklySimon Singh breaks down cryptic messages for the teenage set in The Code Book How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It, an adaptation of his bestselling adult title The Code Book The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptology. He covers actual instances of codebreaking, from its role in the plan to execute Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Navajo code talkers of WWII.