The authors reclaim the historical origins of still-evolving attitudes about the Indian myth in precolonial pictorial and literary sources. Essential for the initial European invention of the American Indian were both the scriptural precedent of the Edenic Earthly Paradise, itself often placed in India on medieval maps, and the equally ancient idea of the Noble Savage. The authors document the establishment of psychological boundaries between Europeans and their subject "New Peoples," and how the Europeans' New World was interpreted in light of Christian prophecy. They also reveal that long before Columbus's discovery, Europeans had attached the same conventional imagery to a host of non-European "Primitive Others." The authors examine the explorers' chronicles to show just how they wrote about, and sometimes pictured, a strange new world unfolding its wonders after 1492.
Brief Candles (1930), Aldous Huxley's fifth collection of short fiction, consists of the following four short stories: "Chawdron" "The Rest Cure" "The Claxtons" "After the Fireworks" Brief Candles takes its title from a line in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, from Macbeth's famous soliloquy: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
This classic novel of a perfectly engineered society is “one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the twentieth century” (The Wall Street Journal). Half a millennium from now, in the World State, the watchword is that every one belongs to every one else. No matter what class of human you are bred to be—from the intellectual Alphas to the Epsilons who provide the manual labor—you are a part of the efficient, well-oiled whole. You are nourished, secure, and blissfully serene thanks to the freely distributed drug called soma. And while sex is strongly encouraged, the old way of procreation is forbidden, eliminating even the pains of childbirth. But when a man and woman journey beyond these confines to where the “savages” reside, and bring back two outsiders, the cracks begin to show. Named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century by the Modern Library, Brave New World is one of the first truly dystopian novels. Influenced by the historic events of Huxley’s era yet as relevant today as ever, it is a remarkable depiction of the conflict between progress and the human spirit. “Chilling. . . . That he gave us the dark side of genetic engineering in 1932 is amazing.” —Providence Journal-Bulletin “It is a frightening experience, indeed, to discover how much of his satirical prediction of a distant future became reality in so short a time.” —The New York Times Book Review
The pandemic has encompassed and infested every aspect of our lives – our health, our institutions, our relationships with other countries, our perception of our leaders, our planet and our future. We innocently fell headlong into lockdowns and the ensuing pandemonium unaware of just how pervasively it would shatter the fragility of our daily lifestyles and expose our strengths and weaknesses. The series of 4 books covers not just the immediate catastrophic impact but also the longer-term corollaries of the pandemic. It is not intended to be a ‘specialist’ analysis of just one aspect of the virus but provides a layman’s perspective of the ramifications and interconnections that emanated from the crisis. I began documenting events - in part to fill in the time during our enforced confinement - and have continued recording events for nearly 3 years, as more and more unforeseen facets of the pandemic materialised on an almost daily basis. This particular book concentrates on the immediate impact the virus had on our lives.
Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our perfect society achieved peace and stability through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs. You can be happy too. All you need to do is take your Soma pills. Discover the brave new world of Aldous Huxley's classic novel, written in 1932, which prophesied a society which expects maximum pleasure and accepts complete surveillance - no matter what the cost.
Animal cloning has developed quickly since the birth of Dolly the sheep. Yet many of the first questions to be raised still need to be answered. What do Dolly and her fellow mouse, cow, pig, goat and monkey clones mean for science? And for society? Why do so many people respond so fearfully to cloning? What are the ethical issues raised by cloning animals, and in the future, humans? How are the makers of public policy coping with the stunning fact that an entire animal can be reconstructed from a single adult cell? And that humans might well be next? The Cloning Source Book addresses all of these questions in a way that is unique in the cloning literature, by grounding what is effectively an interdisciplinary conversation in solid science. In the first section of the book, the key scientists responsible for the early and crucial developments in cloning speak to us directly, and other scientists evaluate and comment on these developments. The second section explores the context of cloning and includes sociological, mythological, and historical perspectives on science, ethics, and policy. The authors also examine the media's treatment of the Dolly story and its aftermath, both in the United States and in Britain. The third section, on ethics, contains a broad range of papers written by some of the major commentators in the field. The fourth section addresses legal and policy issues. It features individual and collective contributions by those who have actually shaped public policy on reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning, and similarly contentious bioethical issues in the United States, Britain, and the European Union. Animal cloning continues for agricultural and medicinal purposes, the latter in combination with transgenics. Human cloning for therapeutic purposes has recently been made legal in Britain. The goal is to produce an early embryo and then derive stem cells that are immunologically matched to the donor. Two human reproductive cloning projects have been announced, and there are almost certainly others about which we know nothing. Sooner or later a cloned human will be born. Many lessons can be learned from the cloning experience. Most importantly, there needs to be a public conversation about the permissible uses of new and morally murky technologies. Scientists, journalists, ethicists and policy makers all have roles to play, but cutting-edge science is everybody's business. The Cloning Sourcebook provides the tools required for us to participate in shaping our own futures.
Native American loanwords are a crucial, though little acknowledged, part of the English language. This book shows how the more than one-thousand current loanwords were adopted and demonstrates how the changing relationships between Indians and European settlers can be traced in the rate of loanword borrowing and the kinds of words adopted. Appalachian: from the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, from the Muskogean name of the Apalachee tribe of Florida Moose: Eastern Abenaki mos; Papoose: Narragansett papoos, child; Squash: Narragansett askutasquash; Texas: from a Caddo word, meaning "friends" or "allies."
Times change, but life in the theatre remains the same: chaotic, sometimes brutal, but often euphoric, too. AND AWAY WE GO jumps through time from backstage in ancient Athens to a rehearsal at the Globe, from Versailles’ Royal Theatre to the first reading of a new play by Chekhov—with an unlikely stop in Coral Gables and the American premiere of Waiting for Godot along the way.
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
