In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy. Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.
From the bestselling author of the acclaimed Chaos and Genius comes a thoughtful and provocative exploration of the big ideas of the modern era: Information, communication, and information theory. Acclaimed science writer James Gleick presents an eye-opening vision of how our relationship to information has transformed the very nature of human consciousness. A fascinating intellectual journey through the history of communication and information, from the language of Africa’s talking drums to the invention of written alphabets; from the electronic transmission of code to the origins of information theory, into the new information age and the current deluge of news, tweets, images, and blogs. Along the way, Gleick profiles key innovators, including Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Samuel Morse, and Claude Shannon, and reveals how our understanding of information is transforming not only how we look at the world, but how we live. A New York Times Notable Book A Los Angeles Times and Cleveland Plain Dealer Best Book of the Year Winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
This book contains some of the best cartoons of the last few years from the pages of Grapevine magazine, dealing with meetings, sponsorship, dating and marriage, character defects and more
Superb general account.' Times Literary Supplement The story of the history of Western astrology begins with the philosophers of Greece in the 5th century BC. To the magic and stargazing of Egypt the Greeks added numerology, geometryand rational thought. The philosophy of Plato and later of the Stoics made astrology respectable, and by the time Ptolemy wrote his textbook the Tetrabiblos, in the second century AD, the main lines of astrological practice as it is known today had already been laid down. In future centuries astrology shifted to Islam only to return to the West in medieval times where it flourished until the shift of ideas during the Renaissance.
Western civilization is the Utopia of a better and higher life on Earth. The globalization of neo-liberalism proves that this project has failed. The paradigm of «Critical Theory of Patriarchy» explains this failure and discusses alternatives. By confronting the central civilizations in history, the egalitarian, life-oriented matriarchal one, and the hierarchical, nature and life dominating, hostile patriarchal one, we see that 5000 years of patriarchy have «replaced» matriarchies and nature itself by a «progressive» counter-world of «capital». This transformation characterizes «capitalist patriarchy» including «socialism». Its demise is due to the «alchemical» destruction of the world's resources, thought of, theologically legitimized and fetishized as «creation». This violence is not recognized. Elites have, instead, begun with a new «military alchemy», treating the whole Planet as weapon of mass destruction. Hence, the «Planetary Movement for Mother Earth».
This book is a critical resource for understanding the relationship between gender, social policy and women’s activism in Latin America, with specific reference to Chile. Latin America’s mother-centered kinship system makes it an ideal field in which to study motherhood and maternalism—the ways in which motherhood becomes a public policy issue. As maternalism embraces and enhances gender differences, it has been criticized for deepening gender inequalities. Yet invoking motherhood continues to offer an effective strategy for advancing women’s living conditions and rights, and for women themselves to be present in the public sphere. In analyzing these important relationships, the contributors to this volume discuss maternal health, sexual and reproductive rights, labor programs, paid employment, women miners’ unionization, housing policies, environmental suffering, and LGBTQ intimate partner violence.
TRANSLATOR' S INTRODUCTION We would like to begin by thanking Doshu Ueshiba Kisshomaru and the Aikikai Foundation for making this family treasure available for publication. We also wish to express our appreciation to those teachers who gave their invaluable help in explaining difficult passages. Due to the historical nature of this work certain difficulties arose, especially in deciding to what degree we should try to produce clear and precise English. Any precise translation could easily become a personal translation, limiting the contents and range of the translator's individual understanding at this particular point in his or her training. Therefore, after consulting some of the highest Sensei in Aikido and other arts it was decided to strive for a translation that would both preserve the simplicity of the original expression and at the same time leave open to the reader at least the possibility of coming up with the broad set of ideas and associations indicated in the Japanese. This book appeared in 1933 and is the first published account of O-Sensei's art. Although not actually written down by him, it is a transcription of lectures and explanations which was later reviewed by the founder and approved as a teacher's manual. The political and historical context of the times should be kept in mind. No attempt has been made to edit the text. The original copy has O-Sensei's title which was simply "Budo Renshu", i.e. "Budo Training". Later the second Doshu annotated this with the word "Aikido". The Dojo decided on using the original name here despite the fact that most Japanese copies are entitled Aikijujutsu Ogi", or "The Secrets of Aikijujutsu". The latter is actually an interpretive heading used by the copyists. The original was hand-written and illustrated. Later this was copied out several times, using tracing paper to reproduce the illustrations. During this process errors easily crept in. By comparing various copies, most of the poems could be deciphered despite their flowerly writing style. However only a few of the tracing mistakes have been corrected here. In other cases the terms 'left' and 'right' had been reversed. This seems to be the result of confusing Nage's point of view Uke's. In this edition these obvious errors have been corrected to match the illustrations. The poems presented the biggest problems. Much effort was spent to offer the reader a translation which presents as closely as possible the same degree of lee- ay for interpretation, insight and error, as appears in the original. Two versions are offered. One reflects the 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic structure of five line, Japanese Waka poetry. Each line in English contains the same groups of words found in the corresponding line of Japanese. The second attempt is to put the poem into a somewhat clearer English syntax. Another interesting point about the poems is that not all of them are original compositions of O-Sensei. At least a few can be traced to other martial traditions. Please note that the parentheses indicate the insertion, for your reference, of a Japanese word used in the text for the preceding English word (except for a few cases in the technique section where O-Sensei used parentheses in the original). Square brackets are the translator's insertions for the sake of the English. By simply deleting the sections enclosed by them, they allow readers to refer to O-Sensei's exact words, if they choose to do so. Although not for the beginner, it is hoped that access to this historically important text will be useful in understanding Aikido and its origins for those who have taken Budo as their 'Way'. Larry E. Bieri Seiko Mabuchi
In Laura Restrepo's stunning novel, a feud between two Colombian drug families escalates into a bloody, high-stakes war that will leave no one in its path untouched. The Barragáns and the Monsalves are rival clans, each steeped in wealth and power, each subject only to laws of their own making. The similarities end there. While the Barragáns, headed by the brutal Nando, remain tied to the ancient traditions, the Monsalves grapple with whether or not to follow Mani, their charismatic and conflicted leader, into a modern age in which even fewer rules apply. As both clans ponder the profits they might reap from an expanding global cocaine trade, Nando and Mani are faced with the consequences of their violent pasts--and forced, by their disillusioned women and the prices on their heads, to reckon with the possibility that nothing will be left once all their bullets have found their targets. Rife with sensual detail, this epic story of lust, betrayal, and revenge is as timeless as interfamily conflict and as immediate as today's news.
