The Irish novel has had a distinguished history. It spans suchdiverse authors as James Joyce, George Moore, Maria Edgeworth, BramStoker, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Lady Morgan, John Banville,and others. Yet it has until now received less critical attentionthan Irish poetry and drama. This volume covers three hundred yearsof Irish achievement in fiction, with essays on key genres, themes,and authors. It provides critiques of individual works, accounts ofimportant novelists, and histories of sub-genres and alliednarrative forms, establishing significant social and politicalcontexts for dozens of novels. The varied perspectives and emphasesby more than a dozen critics and literary historians ensure thatthe Irish novel receives due tribute for its colour, variety andlinguistic verve. Each chapter features recommended furtherreading. This is the perfect overview for students of the Irishnovel from the romances of the seventeenth century to the presentday.

Each Cambridge Companion to a philosophical figure is made upof specially commissioned essays by an international team ofscholars, providing students and non-specialists with anintroduction to a major philosopher. The series aims to dispel theintimidation that readers may feel when faced with the work of achallenging thinker. David Hume is now considered one of the mostimportant philosophers of the Western world. Although best knownfor his contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, andphilosophy of religion, Hume also influenced developments in thephilosophy of mind, psychology, ethics, political and economictheory, political and social history, and aesthetic theory. Thefifteen essays in this volume address all aspects of Hume"sthought. The picture of him that emerges is that of a thinker who,though often critical to the point of skepticism, was nonethelessable to build on that skepticism a constructive, viable, andprofoundly important view of the world. Also included in thisvolume are Hume

This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship,addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on ContinentalEuropean theories of state and legal systems as it was at home.This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from boththe Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newlycommissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in atopic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure ofLeviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics,metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. Collectively theyshowcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines boththe context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating thedegree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition ofEuropean humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows thatHobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a traditionof reflection on political theory and governance that is stillalive, both in Europe and in the diaspora.

Anthony Trollope was among the most prolific, popular, andrichly diverse writers of the mid-Victorian period, withforty-seven novels and a variety of other writings to his name.Both a serial and series writer whose novels traversed Ireland,England, Australia and New Zealand, and genres from realism toscience fiction, Trollope also published criticism, short fiction,travel writing and biography. The Cambridge Companion to AnthonyTrollope provides a state-of-the-field review of criticalperspectives on his work, with the volume's sixteen essaysaddressing Trollope's biography, autobiography, canonical fiction,short stories and travel writing, as well as surveying diversetopics including gender, sexuality, vulgarity, and the law.

From tours of historic parks,buildings,and gardens to tips on after-hours clubs,neighborhood eateries,and charming hotels,and charming hotels,here's an up-close look at over 100 must-see attractions that make the city by the bay unique. 101 Great Choices:San Francisco presents the city at ists best-but leaves the choices up to you.From the Golden Bridge,Coit Tower,and Alcatraz to the shopper's meccas of Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf to the sweetest dungeness crab at Swan's Oyster Depot,San Francisco and all its magnificent diversions are offered up for your pleasure in this one-of-a-kind guide.

Societies function on the basis of rules. These rules, ratherlike the rules of the road, coordinate the activities ofindividuals who have a variety of goals and purposes. Whether therules work well or ill, and how they can be made to work better, isa matter of major concern. Appropriately interpreted, the workingof social rules is also the central subject matter of modernpolitical economy. This book is about rules - what they are, howthey work, and how they can be properly analysed. The authors'objective is to understand the workings of alternative politicalinstitutions so that choices among such institutions (rules) can bemore fully informed. Thus, broadly defined, the methodology ofconstitutional political economy is the subject matter of TheReason of Rules. The authors have examined how rules for politicalorder work, how such rules might be chosen, and how normativecriteria for such choices might be established.

Designed as a celebration of the film, this lavishly illustrated paperback edition is an exclusive behind-the-scenes guide featuring full-color photos of the cast, locations, and sets, as well as storyboards, interviews, details of the special effects, and much more.

In this wide-ranging inside view of the history and practiceof conducting, analysis and advice comes directly from workingconductors, including Sir Charles Mackerras on opera, BramwellTovey on being an Artistic Director, Martyn Brabbins on modernmusic, Leon Botstein on programming and Vance George on choralconducting, and from those who work closely with conductors: aleading violinist describes working as a soloist with Stokowski,Ormandy and Barbirolli, while Solti and Abbado's studio producerexplains orchestral recording, and one of the world's most powerfulmanagers tells all. The book includes advice on how to conductdifferent types of groups (choral, opera, symphony, early music)and provides a substantial history of conducting as a study ofnational traditions. It is an unusually honest book about asecretive industry and managers, artistic directors, soloists,players and conductors openly discuss their different perspectivesfor the first time.

Beautifully illustrated with 75 photographs in full color, The Robert Pattinson Album by Paul Stenning is a breathtaking visual biography of one of the world’s most talked-about young actors. The hugely successful vampire romance Twilight was a box-office phenomenon, and Robert is that smash-hit film’s breakout star. In the space of a few short years, the twenty-two-year-old Londoner has gone from amateur stage performer to full-blown Hollywood idol, and his staggering ascent is already the stuff of legend. The public first took notice when Robert appeared in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire but the role that would change his life forever was that of charismatic teenage vampire Edward Cullen in Twilight, the film adapted from author Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling book series.

Which plays are included under the heading 'Shakespeare's lastplays', and when does Shakespeare's 'last' period begin? What ismeant by a 'late play', and what are the benefits in defining playsin this way? Reflecting the recent growth of interest in latestudies, and recognising the gaps in accessible scholarship on thisarea, leading international Shakespeare scholars address these andmany other questions. The essays locate Shakespeare's last plays –single and co-authored – in the period of their composition,consider the significant characteristics of their Jacobean context,and explore the rich afterlives, on stage, in print and other mediaof The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Pericles, The TwoNoble Kinsmen and Henry VIII. The volume opens with a historicaltimeline that places the plays in the contexts of contemporarypolitical events, theatrical events, other cultural milestones,Shakespeare's life and that of his playing company, the King'sMen.

The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather offers thirteen originalessays by leading scholars of a major American modernist novelist.Willa Cather's luminous prose is 'easy' to read yet surprisinglydifficult to understand. The essays collected here aretheoretically informed but accessibly written and cover the fullrange of Cather's career, including most of her twelve novels andseveral of her short stories. The essays situate Cather's work in abroad range of critical, cultural, and literary contexts, and theintroduction explores current trends in Cather scholarship as wellas the author's place in contemporary culture. With a detailedchronology and a guide to further reading, the volume offersstudents and teachers a fresh and thorough sense of the author ofMy ?ntonia, The Professor's House, and Death Comes for theArchbishop.

In "Neither Here nor There" Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student 20 years before. Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

Charles Darwin’s masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity.nnIn The Greatest Show on Earth Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of ‘Intelligent Design’ and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the ‘time clocks’ of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to co

The philosophy of Immanuel Kant is thewatershed of modern thought, which irrevocably changed thelandscape of the field and prepared the way for all the significantphilosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.This 2006 volume, which complements The Cambridge Companion toKant, covers every aspect of Kant's philosophy, with a particularfocus on his moral and political philosophy. It also providesdetailed coverage of Kant's historical context and of the enormousimpact and influence that his work has had on the subsequenthistory of philosophy. The bibliography also offers extensive andorganized coverage of both classical and recent books on Kant. Thisvolume thus provides the broadest and deepest introductioncurrently available on Kant and his place in modern philosophy,making accessible the philosophical enterprise of Kant to thosecoming to his work for the first time.

The Cambridge Companion to Mozart paints a rounded yetfocussed picture of one of the most revered artists of all time.Bringing the most recent scholarship into the public arena, thisvolume bridges the gap between scholarly and popular images of thecomposer, enhancing the readers' appreciation of Mozart and hisextraordinary output, regardless of their prior knowledge of themusic. Part I situates Mozart in the context of lateeighteenth-century musical environments and aesthetic trends thatplayed a pivotal role in his artistic development and examines hismethods of composition. Part II surveys Mozart's works in all ofthe genres in which he excelled and Part III looks at the receptionof the composer and his music since his death. Part IV offersinsight into Mozart's career as a performer as well as theoreticaland practical perspectives on historically informed performances ofhis music.

The story of "In America" is inspired by the emigration toAmerica in 1876 of Helena Modrzejewska, Poland's most celebratedactress, accompanied by her husband, Count Karol Chlapowski, herfifteen-year-old son, Rudolf, the young journalist and futureauthor of "Quo Vadis", Henryk Sienkiewicz, and a few friends; theirbrief sojourn in Anaheim, California; and, Modrzejewska'ssubsequent triumphant career on the American stage under the nameHelena Modjeska.

This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture.

Shakespeare's history plays, as fresh today as when they werewritten, are based upon the assumption that time is not simply adestroyer but a preserver, and that 'examples past' might enable usto understand the present and anticipate the future. This livelystudy examines the continuing tradition of Shakespeare's historyplays in stage and film productions as well as giving an account ofthe critical debate on these plays. Following two introductorychapters giving essential background on the genre, the Englishhistory plays are discussed in turn, bringing out the distinctivecharacteristics of each play: the three early Henry VI plays; theperennial stage favourite Richard III; King John; Richard II; HenryIV 1 and 2, famous for the character of Falstaff; Henry V, which istreated very differently in the film versions by Olivier andBranagh; and Henry VIII. An invaluable introduction to thesefascinating and complex plays.

In 1959 C. P. Snow delivered his now-famous Rede Lecture, "TheTwo Cultures," a reflection on the academy based on the premisethat intellectual life was divided into two cultures: the arts andhumanities on one side and science on the other. Since then, athird culture, generally termed "social science" and comprised offields such as sociology, political science, economics, psychology,and anthropology, has emerged. Jerome Kagan"s book describes theassumptions, vocabulary, and contributions of each of thesecultures and argues that the meanings of many of the concepts usedby each culture are unique to it and do not apply to the othersbecause the source of evidence for the term is special. The textsummarizes the contributions of the social sciences and humanitiesto our understanding of human nature and questions the popularbelief that biological processes are the main determinant ofvariation in human behavior.

If you knew you only had a short time to live, what would you do?In September 2007, computer science professor Randy Pausch delivered a traditional last lecture called 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'. Ironically , it really was his last lecture, as this youthful, energetic and cheerful man had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had only months to live.Randy's inspirational lecture about the joy of life -- his legacy to his three young children -- has become an internet and publishing phenomenon.The Last Lecture has sold over 5 million copies Lecture There's a reason why it has -- open this book and find out. It could change the way you live your life.