Author: Christina Schwenkel File Type: pdf

Author: Lawrence D. Kritzman File Type: pdf "This is one of the few books on Montaigne that fuses analytical skill with humane awareness of why Montaigne matters."& mdashHarold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale University"In this exhilarating and learned book on Montaigne's essays, Lawrence D. Kritzman contemporizes the great writer. Reading him from today's deconstructive America, Kritzman discovers Montaigne always already deep into a dialogue with Jacques Derrida and psychoanalysis. One cannot but admire this fabulous act of translation."& mdashHlne Cixous"Throughout his career, Lawrence D. Kritzman has demonstrated an intimate knowledge of Montaigne's essays and an engagement with French philosophy and critical theory. The Fabulous Imagination sheds precious new light on one of the founders of modern individualism and on his crucial quest for self-knowledge."& mdashJean Starobinski, professor emeritus of French literature, University of GenevaMichel de Montaignes (1533-1592) Essais was a profound study of human subjectivity. More than three hundred years before the advent of psychoanalysis, Montaigne embarked on a remarkable quest to see and imagine the self from a variety of vantages. Through the questions How shall I live? How can I know myself? he explored the significance of monsters, nightmares, and traumatic memories the fear of impotence the fragility of gender and the act of anticipating and coping with death. In this book, Lawrence D. Kritzman traces Montaignes development of the Western concept of the self. For Montaigne, imagination lies at the core of an internal universe that influences both the body and the mind. Imagination is essential to human experience. Although Montaigne recognized that the imagination can confuse the individual, the fabulous imagination can be curative, enabling the minds I to sustain itself in the face of hardship. Kritzman begins with Montaignes study of the fragility of gender and its relationship to the peripatetic movement of a fabulous imagination. He then follows with the essayists examination of the act of mourning and the power of the imagination to overcome the fear of death. Kritzman concludes with Montaignes views on philosophy, experience, and the connection between self-portraiture, ethics, and oblivion. His reading demonstrates that the minds I, as Montaigne envisioned it, sees by imagining that which is not visible, thus offering an alternative to the logical positivism of our age.

Author: Edward J. Erickson File Type: pdf No critical analysis has ever examined the specific reasons for the Ottoman defeat. Ericksons study fills this gap by studying the operations of the Ottoman Army from October 1912 through July 1913, and by providing a comprehensive explanation of its doctrines and planning procedures. This book is written at an operational level that details every campaign at the level of the army corps. More than 30 maps, numerous orders of battle, and actual Ottoman Army operations orders illustrate how the Turks planned and fought their battles. Of particular note is the inclusion of the only detailed history in English of the Ottoman X Corps Sarkoy amphibious invasion. Also included are definitive appendix about Ottoman military aviation and a summary of the Turks efforts to incorporate the lessons learned from the war into their military structure in 1914. The Ottoman Empire fought the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 against the joint forces of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbiaand was decisively defeated. The Ottoman Army is frequently depicted as a mob of poorly clad, faceless Turks inept in their attempts to fight a modern war. Yet by 1912, the Ottoman Army, which was constructed on the German model, was in many ways more advanced than certain European armies. **Review [E]xceptionally well produced....Erickson fills a gap in the literature with a detailed consideration of the reasons for Ottoman defeat through reviewing operations at a micro level from the perspective of their corps. No one is more qualified than he to undertake such a study....[a]s a campaigns history this volume is hard to fault. It builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended. builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended.-Middle East Journal [C]ontribution Erickson has made in opening up a neglected field of study for historians.-The Journal of Military History [T]his is a critical and balanced analysis that serves two purposes it contributes to the historical reconstruction of the Balkan wars while enhancing the readers understanding of Ottoman military thinking at the outbreak of the First World War, an event that so deeply affected the future of the middle east.-War in History Positive and negative aspects of the Turkish Army and its performance, plus its force structure and doctrine are chronicled, but the inescapable conclusion is that it failed the supreme test on the battlefield. Superbly researched, with excellent maps, informative tables, and descriptive chapter endnotes, Defeat in Detail makes a major contribution to Turkish and Balkan military history.-Military Heritage The book is based on a careful and informed reading of a broad range of secondary sources and official publications in Turkish, English, and German. Ericksons style is direct, practical, dispassionate, and balanced, and his clear structure makes for a detailed but readable account. This significant and welcome contribution to the literature on the Balkan Wars should prove useful for all students of military history.-The International History Review Defeat in Detail succeeds on a major scale to present the first accurate picture ... of the Ottoman Army during the Balkan Wars. Erickson does an excellent job of not only narrating the military engagements of the war, but also of contextualizing the development of Ottoman arms in light of major events in the Balkans ... Defeat in Detail is sure to be a welcome addition to the library of any war buff or those interested in the history of the Balkans at a turbulent and fascinating time.-balkananalysis.com YContribution Erickson has made in opening up a neglected field of study for historians.-The Journal of Military History YThis is a critical and balanced analysis that serves two purposes it contributes to the historical reconstruction of the Balkan wars while enhancing the readers understanding of Ottoman military thinking at the outbreak of the First World War, an event that so deeply affected the future of the middle east.-War in History YExceptionally well produced....Erickson fills a gap in the literature with a detailed consideration of the reasons for Ottoman defeat through reviewing operations at a micro level from the perspective of their corps. No one is more qualified than he to undertake such a study....Yas a campaigns history this volume is hard to fault. It builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended. builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended.-Middle East Journal ?[C]ontribution Erickson has made in opening up a neglected field of study for historians.?-The Journal of Military History ?[T]his is a critical and balanced analysis that serves two purposes it contributes to the historical reconstruction of the Balkan wars while enhancing the readers understanding of Ottoman military thinking at the outbreak of the First World War, an event that so deeply affected the future of the middle east.?-War in History ?Positive and negative aspects of the Turkish Army and its performance, plus its force structure and doctrine are chronicled, but the inescapable conclusion is that it failed the supreme test on the battlefield. Superbly researched, with excellent maps, informative tables, and descriptive chapter endnotes, Defeat in Detail makes a major contribution to Turkish and Balkan military history.?-Military Heritage ?The book is based on a careful and informed reading of a broad range of secondary sources and official publications in Turkish, English, and German. Ericksons style is direct, practical, dispassionate, and balanced, and his clear structure makes for a detailed but readable account. This significant and welcome contribution to the literature on the Balkan Wars should prove useful for all students of military history.?-The International History Review ?Defeat in Detail succeeds on a major scale to present the first accurate picture ... of the Ottoman Army during the Balkan Wars. Erickson does an excellent job of not only narrating the military engagements of the war, but also of contextualizing the development of Ottoman arms in light of major events in the Balkans ... Defeat in Detail is sure to be a welcome addition to the library of any war buff or those interested in the history of the Balkans at a turbulent and fascinating time.?-balkananalysis.com ?[E]xceptionally well produced....Erickson fills a gap in the literature with a detailed consideration of the reasons for Ottoman defeat through reviewing operations at a micro level from the perspective of their corps. No one is more qualified than he to undertake such a study....[a]s a campaigns history this volume is hard to fault. It builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended. builds its case brick by brick, and the sectionalized approach renders it easy to follow. Highly recommended.?-Middle East Journal About the Author EDWARD J. ERICKSON, is the author of Ordered to Die (Praeger, 2000).

Author: Marianne Sommer File Type: pdf Personal genomics services such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com now offer what once was science fiction the ability to sequence and analyze an individuals entire genetic codepromising, in some cases, facts about that individuals ancestry that may have remained otherwise lost. Such services draw on and contribute to the science of human population genetics that attempts to reconstruct the history of humankind, including the origin and movement of specific populations. Is it true, though, that who we are and where we come from is written into the sequence of our genomes? Are genes better documents for determining our histories and identities than fossils or other historical sources? Our interpretation of gene sequences, like our interpretation of other historical evidence, inevitably tells a story laden with political and moral values. Focusing on the work of Henry Fairfield Osborn, Julian Sorell Huxley, and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, and human population genetics, History Within asks how the sciences of human origins, whether through the museum, the zoo, or the genetics lab, have shaped our idea of what it means to be human. How have these biologically based histories influenced our ideas about nature, society, and culture? As Marianne Sommer shows, the stories we tell about bones, organisms, and molecules often change the world. **Review With History Within, Sommer sets out to understand the role of the life sciences over the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the expanding landscapes of public and popular history. Through the works of three key figuresOsborn, Huxley, and Cavalli-Sforzashe analyzes the different ways in which evolutionary theory framed the past of the human species and not just for its own sake, but as the ground upon which moral and political visions for a just society and future would be built. In doing so, she frames the historical narrative in terms of a few key concepts that of phylogenetic memory on the one hand, and the genographic network on the other. History Within is an admirably erudite book, rich in historical detail and expansive in its understanding of the works of these three historically influential figures. (Nadia Abu El-Haj, Barnard College, Columbia University) Sommer carefully examines history and memory, as embodied and expressed in some particular areas of human biology concerned with evolution. With this book, she presents the intriguing notion of a history within and offers much in her deep exploration into the intersections of history, memory, and human evolution. (Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida) History Within offers an ambitious analysis of efforts to construct scientific narratives about human evolution and biological variation over the long twentieth century. Sommer focuses on three distinctive episodes that, when considered together, span more than a century to arrive at our contemporary genomic age. Specifically, she examines the ideas and strategies of three men Henry Fairfield Osborn, Julian Huxley, and Luca Cavalli-Sforza. For Sommer, each serves as a representative of three successive eras of academic efforts to read human history through the evolutionary sciences. Throughout History Within, Sommer presents a multitude of fresh, fascinating materials that show how ideas about history itself have animated thought about what it means to be human. A leader in the emerging field of the history of biological anthropology, Sommer is well positioned to synthesize major themes, and the long period of time covered in the manuscriptmore than 100 yearsprovides new and important contexts for evaluating contemporary attitudes about race and genomics. Sommer has written a rigorous social and intellectual history of the human-oriented life sciences that is sure to be an important contribution to the history of science. (Joanna Radin, Yale University) About the Author Marianne Sommer is professor in the Department of Cultural and Science Studies at the University of Lucerne. She is the author of Bones and Ochre The Curious Afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland.