![]() ![]() Looking at animal behaviour that appears to require some thought - tool-making, territoriality, counting, language (or at least sounds), pairbonding - Peter Watson moves on to the apeman and the development of simple ideas such as cooking, the earliest language, the emergence of family life. The book begins over a million years ago with a discussion of how the earliest ideas might have originated. In this hugely ambitious and exciting book Peter Watson tells the history of ideas from prehistory to the present day, leading to a new way of telling the history of the world. A highly ambitious and lucid history of ideas from the very earliest times to the present day. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() Gerstenfeld was a board member of one of Israel's largest companies, the Israel Corporation and several other Israeli companies. ![]() He was an academic reserve officer in the Israeli Army (IDF). There he became the managing director of an economic consultancy firm partly owned by Israel's then-largest bank Bank leumi. In 1964 he moved to Paris where he became Europe's first financial analyst specializing in the pharmaceutical industry. in environmental studies at Amsterdam University. He has a high school teaching degree in Jewish studies from the Dutch Jewish seminary. He also studied economics at what is nowadays Erasmus university in Rotterdam. Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam where he obtained a master's degree in organic chemistry at Amsterdam University. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Erika VanDam, RoscoeBooks, Chicago, IL Summer 2019 Reading Group Indie Next List I LOVED The Immortalists, and if there's any justice in bookselling, this book will find the massive audience it so deserves.” ![]() Apart from raising the obvious question (would you want to know the date of your death?), Benjamin brilliantly explores how family members can be both close to and distant from one another, and ponders the point at which our actions cease to matter and fate steps in. We follow the Gold siblings both separately and together over the next four decades and see how these revelations affect their choices, their behavior, and their relationships with one another. “In 1969, four siblings visit a fortune teller, who tells each child the date of their death. ![]() ![]() ![]() ‘A slightly drunken collaboration of Franz Kline and Hans Hofmann, with a few asides from Jackson Pollock, and a splash or two from Adolf Gottlieb’ - Alfred Frankenstein In Beijing from the late 1920s, he was viewed as the ‘southern counterpart of Pu Xinyu in shan shui painting, Qi Baishi in flower and bird painting, and Xu Cao in figure painting’ - and in 1944, his copies of Buddhist wall paintings from the caves at Mogao and Yulin prompted the establishment of what is now the Dunhuang Research Academy.Īfter leaving his homeland in 1949, Zhang eventually settled in Brazil, then California, and finally Taiwan. He went on to study first textile dyeing in Kyoto, then traditional painting under Zeng Xi (1861-1930) and Li Ruiqing (1867-1920) in Shanghai, where he began to emulate traditionalist masters such as Shitao (1642-1707), Tang Yin (1470-1523) and Chen Hongshou (1598-1652). Zhang had a colourful youth: born into an artistic family in Sichuan in 1899, he was captured by bandits at 17 and spent a brief period as a monk. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() He shows a brisk impatience with the tradition that likes to pretend that English spelling is senseless. He does so with great brevity and clarity, starting with the first Christian missionaries jerry-rigging the Roman alphabet to make sense of Anglo-Saxon vocables (that buzzing noise made with the tongue and the top teeth: how are we going to spell " that"?) right up to the likelihood that the internet's unending babble of "rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb" will, within a decade, more likely be "rubarb rubarb rubarb". In the history of English spelling, though, we can trace a whole series of purposive, thought-through and often ingenious practical decisions – made over the years by scribes, compositors and lexicographers – whose net result is a complete flaming boggins.Ĭrystal sets out to explain how these decisions were made and why, and why the results after hundreds of years are so messy and confusing. ![]() In evolution, a series of random variations gives rise to something that appears orderly and designed. As the linguist David Crystal's new book demonstrates with some panache, almost exactly the opposite took place. W e quite often talk, colloquially, about the written language having "evolved". ![]() ![]() ![]() But at a party under a full moon, Becca learns that they also have a big secret. At first glance, Marley, Arianna, and Mandy are perfect. To her surprise, she’s immediately adopted by the most popular girls in school. ![]() When Becca transfers to a high school in an elite San Francisco suburb, she’s worried she’s not going to fit in. When the new girl is invited to join her high school’s most popular clique, she can’t believe her luck-and she can’t believe their secret, either. An IndieBound Bestseller “ Squad is a fast-paced and feminist horror story for every girl who’s ever felt like prey, and asks how far a girl should go to hunt the hunters.”-Laura Ruby, author of National Book Award Finalist Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All “ Squad is a story fitted with the sharpest teeth that chomps down on the patriarchy, and I adored it with my entire vicious heart."-Chloe Gong, author of New York Times–bestselling These Violent Delights Pretty Little Liars meets Teen Wolf in this sharply funny, and patriarchy-smashing graphic novel from author Maggie Tokuda-Hall and artist Lisa Sterle. ![]() ![]() ![]() Alexander Neumüller at the University of Cambridge, who worked on the project, says the experimental update has been a technological success, achieving a “staggering” reduction in electricity consumption. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has published comprehensive data on bitcoin’s energy use over the past four years and has now released similar data for Ethereum. ![]() But in September 2022, Ethereum switched to a new technique called “proof of stake” during a period of change known as the Merge. This process uses vast amounts of electricity. Like bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum used to rely on “proof of work” to secure its network, meaning that computers performed huge numbers of calculations to “mine” new currency and verify transactions. ![]() But experts say there is little appetite for such a change among users of bitcoin, the largest digital currency, which has no central body to steer development. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has successfully slashed its emissions by 99.99 per cent after an unprecedented experiment to ditch power-hungry mining in favour of a new approach, according to researchers. Ethereum is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency ![]() ![]() Just a block south of Baum's home, Humboldt Boulevard cut a swath through the lush greenery of Humboldt Park, twisting and turning -imagine it at night, in the glow of street lamps not unlike his famous yellow brick road. ![]() ![]() Built as part of the city's park and boulevard system for the 1893 World's Fair Exhibition, the avenue was lined by majestic homes that suggested the new American prosperity. ![]() Though his original home has been razed and subsidized townhomes now exist on that corner (only a modest marker serves as a reminder), at the time Baum was alive, Humboldt Boulevard was a splendorous thoroughfare. Trapped on a pedestal of admiration, Baum became the Wizard incarnate: Wanting very much to do other things but too good-natured (and sometimes too broke) to turn away his fans.īaum wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" while living in Chicago at 1667 N. The success of the original "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" book was so overwhelming that every time Baum tried to put an end to the 14 sequels that followed it, legions of children would write him feverish letters that would drive him back to his writing desk. ![]() ![]() ![]() Niamh Gallagher at the University of CambridgeĮnda Delaney at the University of Edinburgh Professor of Modern History and School Director of Research at the University of EdinburghĬormac Ó Gráda at University College Dublin ![]() University Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at the University of Cambridge Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics at University College Dublin Its principal tenant is Margaret Vaughan." The poor inhabitants said they would be thankful if the landlord would leave them there, and the Almighty would spare their lives. 29, 1849, showing a scalp or shelter, "a hole, surrounded by pools, and three sides of the scalp were dripping with water, which ran in small streams over the floor and out by the entrance. The image above is from The Illustrated London News, Dec. What was it about the laws, attitudes and responses that made this one so devastating? There had been famines before, but not on this scale. It is estimated that one million people died from disease or starvation after the blight and another two million left the country within the decade. ![]() Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland. ![]() ![]() ![]() She was strongly influenced by Grimms' Fairy Tales and Charles Perrault's work, as well as local folklore and Norse mythology. Both families had turbulent histories and a tradition of strong women, kitchen gardening, storytelling, folklore and cookery. Her first language was French, which caused divisions between her English family, where nobody spoke French, and her French family, where nobody spoke English. Both of her parents were teachers of modern languages and literature at a local grammar school. Harris was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, to an English father and a French mother. Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris OBE FRSL (born 3 July 1964) is an English-French author, best known for her novel Chocolat (1999), which was adapted the following year for the film Chocolat. Recorded December 2011 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Woman's Hour ![]() |