The Prospect of Global History offers a new approach to the study of history, looking at the subject across a greater chronological range and seeking perspectives from sources beyond conventional European narratives.
This study of economic growth in India is both an interpretation of its trajectory since 1950 and an evaluation of its prospects in the near future. It is marked by theoretical integrity, historical perspective, thick description, discriminating use of econometrics, and definitive conclusions. Commencing with a favourable appraisal of the growth record of early independent India and an account of how this advantage was lost, the author proceeds to argue that by now it is more than just delayed liberalizing reforms that stand in the way of sustained double-digit growth rates. The prospects for high long-term growth in India are instead linked to the progress in the areas of agriculture and education, particularly schooling. Further, the author proposes that achieving inclusive growth, currently high on the Indian government's agenda, would be not merely politically rewarding but pivotal to maintaining the dynamism of the economy. The possibility of such an outcome, he shows, is tied more to the state's capacity to govern our public institutions than to its command over resources. To that extent the future of growth in India lies as much in the space of politics.
Never has there been so little need to cook. Yet Michael Symons maintains that to be truly human we need to become better cooks: practical and generous sharers of food.Fueled by James Boswell's definition of humans as cooking animals (for "no beast can cook"), Symons sets out to explore the civilizing role of cooks in history. His wanderings take us to the clay ovens of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean and the bronze cauldrons of ancient China, to fabulous banquets in the temples and courts of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia, to medieval English cookshops and southeast Asian street markets, to palace kitchens, diners, and to modern fast-food eateries.Symons samples conceptions and perceptions of cooks and cooking, from Plato and Descartes to Marx and Virginia Woolf, asking why cooks, despite their vital and central role in sustaining life, have remained in the shadows, unheralded, unregarded, and underappreciated. "People think of meals as occasions where you share food," he notes. "They rarely think of cooks as sharers of food."Considering such notions as the physical and political consequences of sauce, connections between food and love, and cooking as a regulator of clock and calendar, Symons provides a spirited and diverting defense of a cook-centered view of the world.Michael Symons is the author of One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia and The Shared Table.
"Based on journals written in 1991 and 1992, Prospect contains Anne Truitt's luminous reflections on her rich, full life as an artist, mother, grandmother, and teacher. Preparing to confront the unpredictable twilight of life, Truitt charts her fears and triumphs, joys and sadness, her most poignant memories of the past and clearest visions for the future." "In the year of her seventieth birthday, events converge that force Truitt to reevaluate her life. She requests of and receives from her New York gallery a major retrospective of her thirty years of painting and sculpture, thus throwing her work into the public eye. Simultaneously, she is forcibly retired from the tenured position at the University of Maryland, which had granted her professional and financial security. In her introduction Truitt notes, "writing became in the course of the year a relentless exposure of myself to myself." Keenly observant, she faces her own vulnerability and draws knowledge and insight from sources as varied as Cicero, the Antarctic explorers, and her own travels in the Canadian wilderness." "Preparing for the New York retrospective and successive exhibits, Truitt remembers her inspirations, reflects on the development of her artistic methods and goals, and, above all, considers the meaning of both art and an artist's life. At the same time, she records the delights and tragedies that accompany a family's growth. For Truitt, art and life are inexorably joined, and her narrative sings with the colors and surfaces of her celebrated sculpture."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Historical geography has been a major area of activity in recent years. Much of the recent work and research findings have been extremely valuable to historians and archaeologists and as background to the study of contemporary geography. This reissue, first published in 1987, presents an overview of contemporary developments in all the major branches of the discipline. As such it provides a valuable introduction to the subject, a review of the latest state of the art and a pointer to future research directions.
The first comprehensive history of Prospect, Connecticut. The book is abundantly illustrated and provides a fascinating insight into the development of an American town.
Although recent developments suggest that the risks of an escalation in US-China trade tensions have eased, we doubt this will deliver a significant boost to the global economy. We still expect world GDP growth of just 2.5% this year, the weakest since the global financial crisis, after an estimated 2.6% in 2019. But over the past three months, the risks around the forecast now seem less skewed to the downside.
An unprecedented look inside the world of baseball scouting and evaluation from two of the industry's top prospect analysts For the modern Major League team, player evaluation is a complex, multi-pronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment—as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast—the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal. Future Value is a thorough dive into baseball's changing world of talent acquisition and development, a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases, from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It's a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. ?Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of how to watch baseball and see the future.
This book is a history of artificial intelligence, that audacious effort to duplicate in an artifact what we consider to be our most important property—our intelligence. It is an invitation for anybody with an interest in the future of the human race to participate in the inquiry.