In this first English-language study of popular and scientific responses to tuberculosis in nineteenth-century France, David Barnes provides a much-needed historical perspective on a disease that is making an alarming comeback in the United States and Europe. Barnes argues that French perceptions of the disease—ranging from the early romantic image of a consumptive woman to the later view of a scourge spread by the poor—owed more to the power structures of nineteenth-century society than to medical science. By 1900, the war against tuberculosis had become a war against the dirty habits of the working class. Lucid and original, Barnes's study broadens our understanding of how and why societies assign moral meanings to deadly diseases.
Draws on medical case histories, scientific findings, and personal research by the author to separate myth from fact and debunk a vast array of parental edicts.
A young African American girl is sold away from her mother as a slave, and then later is sold to a Cherokee Indian, but eventually she is bought by a white man who not only sets her free, but adopts her into his family of fifteen children. Based on a true story; includes instructions for making a hollyhock doll.
Since its debut in 1964, Jeopardy! has been one of America’s favorite and longest-running daytime quiz shows. It turns the question-answer format of traditional quiz shows on its head and requires contestants to pose correct questions to answers in selected categories. While mining information and facts from Alchemy to Zoology, Jeopardy!, is a uniquely intellectual, erudite, and challenging daytime television program. Far beyond entertaining its fans with nail-biting contests of knowledge, memory, and speed, it all but requires them to participate. Few people watch Jeopardy! without pressing an invisible button and blurting out questions to their TV screen. Because of this personal and intellectual investment, most Jeopardy! fans are devout. Watching the show is valued as a daily ritual in which genuine intellectual skill and encyclopedic knowledge (as opposed to thin Hollywood depictions such as those in Big Bang Theory or Rain Man) are not only respected and placed in the spotlight, but also rewarded with national prestige and prize winnings. Champion Ken Jennings (who contributes to this volume) has won over three million dollars and remained champion seventy-four times. For those who embrace Jeopardy! as an intellectual oasis in the arid desert of popular culture, it is the geeks who shall inherit the earth. Jeopardy!’s celebration of intellect and forward-thinking is well recognized throughout popular culture and among all age groups. Ken Jennings, Chuck Forrest, and other all-time champions are near celebrities, while the show itself regularly reaches out through special tournaments to different segments of American culture, such as actors and musicians (Celebrity Jeopardy!), high-school and college students (Teen Tournament and College Championship Jeopardy!) and senior citizens (Senior Tournament Jeopardy!). Still, despite its widespread respect and, some might complain, smug self-respect, neither the show nor its fans take themselves too seriously. Jokes about host Alex Trebek’s hair and famous parodies of Jeopardy! on Saturday Night Live are as familiar as Weird Al Yankovic’s MTV-mainstay “I Lost on Jeopardy!” (to the tune of “Our Love’s in Jeopardy”): Don't know what I was thinkin' of, I guess I just wasn't too bright. Well, I sure hope I do better Next weekend on The Price Is Right.
What is the smartest, most celebrated game show of all time? In this insider's guide, discover the rich history of Jeopardy! -- the beloved game show that has shaped our culture and entertained audiences for years. Jeopardy! is a lot of things: record-setting game show, beloved family tradition, and proving ground for many of North America's best and brightest. Nearly four decades into its current edition, Jeopardy! now finds itself facing unprecedented change. This is the chronicle of how the show became a cross-generational touchstone and where it's going next. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS dives deep behind the scenes, with longtime host Alex Trebek talking about his life and legacy and the show's producers and writers explaining how they put together the nightly game. Readers will travel to bar trivia showdowns with the show's biggest winners and training sessions with trivia whizzes prepping for their shot onstage. And they'll discover new tales of the show's most notable moments-like the time the Clue Crew almost slid off a glacier-and learn how celebrity cameos and Saturday Night Live spoofs built a television mainstay. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS looks to the past -- and the future -- to explain what Jeopardy! really is: a tradition unlike any other.
This book is entirely up to date to reflect recent changes in technology and AIS practive. Covers such subjects as EDI, reengineering, neural networks, client/server, computer security, and events accounting.
Welcome to the world of Jeopardy! where obscure information is crucial to survival, vast sums of cash are at stake, and milliseconds can change not just a game but the course of your entire life. Prisoner of Trebekistan is Bob Harris’s hilarious, insightful account of one man’s unlikely epic journey through Jeopardy!, gleefully exploring triumph and failure, the nature of memory, and how knowledge itself can transform you in unpredictable ways—all against the backdrop of the most popular quiz show in history. Bob chronicles his transformation from a struggling stand-up comic who repeatedly fails the Jeopardy! audition test into an elite player competing against the show’s most powerful brains. To get there, he embarks on a series of intense study sessions, using his sense of humor to transform conventional memory skills into a refreshingly playful approach to learning that’s as amusing as it is powerful. What follows is not only a captivating series of high-stakes wins and losses on Jeopardy!, but also a growing appreciation of a borderless world that Bob calls Trebekistan, where a love of learning reigns and the smarter you get the more you realize how much you don’t yet know. Filled with secrets that only a veteran contestant could share—from counterintuitive game strategies to Jedi-like tactics with the Jeopardy! signaling device—Prisoner of Trebekistan also gives you the chance to play along with the actual clues that led to victory or defeat in high-level tournaments, plus candid, moving reflections on how the games affected Bob’s offstage life—and vice versa. Not only an irresistible treat for Jeopardy! fans, Prisoner of Trebekistan is a delight for anyone who loves a rollicking tale that celebrates the unpredictability of life and the sneaky way it has of teaching us the things that really matter.
American Democracy in Jeopardy is about how rapid advances in technology, the internet, and the growth of Cable TV has drawn the attention of viewers looking for a quick and entertaining sound bite to reinforce their political beliefs. This book shows how a person's beliefs are formed and how their beliefs control their actions, and influence what they see, and what they want to hear. The book also demonstrates why people tune into political entertainers with strongly biased and emotionally charged content who serve to reinforce their biased beliefs. Our hope for a thriving American democracy and for the future lies with our children's educational system and the need to focus more on developing critical thinking skills and less on content and in teaching to tests.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A witty, charming, and engaging dive into trivia’s colorful history, from America’s highest-earning game show contestant of all time and host of Jeopardy! “Insightful, informative, and written with a strong dose of humor and humility. . . . I loved this book.”—Will Shortz, crossword editor, The New York Times Ken Jennings is trivia’s undisputed king—and as he traces his rise from anonymous computer programmer to nerd folk icon, he explores his newly conquered kingdom: the world of trivia itself. Trivia, he has found, is centuries older than his childhood obsession with it. Whisking us from the coffeehouses of seventeenth-century London to the Internet age, Jennings chronicles the ups and downs of the trivia fad: the quiz book explosion of the Jazz Age; the rise, fall, and rise again of TV quiz shows; the nostalgic campus trivia of the 1960s; and the 1980s, when Trivial Pursuit® again made it fashionable to be a know-it-all. Jennings also investigates the shadowy demimonde of today’s trivia subculture, guiding us on a tour of trivia across America. He goes head-to-head with the blowhards and diehards of the college quiz-bowl circuit, the slightly soused faithful of the Boston pub trivia scene, and the raucous participants in the annual Q&A marathon in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, “The World’s Largest Trivia Contest.” And, of course, he takes us behind the scenes of his improbable 75-game run on Jeopardy! But above all, Brainiac is a love letter to the useless fact. (Who knew that there’s a crater on Venus named after Laura Ingalls Wilder? Ken Jennings, that’s who.) Engaging and erudite, Brainiac is an irresistible celebration of nostalgia, curiosity, and geeky obsession—in a word, trivia.
Stone Barrington faces down danger on all sides in the latest thriller from perennial fan favorite Stuart Woods. Stone Barrington is settling in for a stretch in New York when he receives news that demands immediate action. An old family matter has unexpectedly resurfaced, and Stone must decamp to the craggy shores of Maine to address the issue head-on. There, Stone finds that a dual-pronged threat is hiding in plain sight among the stately houses and exclusive coastal clubs, and the incursion isn't easily rebuffed. These enemies have friends in high places, funds to spare, and a score to settle with Stone . . . and only the cleverest plot will draw them out into the open. From luxuriously renovated homes to the choppy ocean waters, the pursuit can only lead to an explosive end.
