The War in the Air, 1914-1994
The War in the Air, 1914-1994

Author: Alan Stephens

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13:

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This book contains the proceedings of a conference held by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in Canberra in 1994. Since its publication by the RAAF's Air Power Studies Center in that year, the book has become a widely used reference at universities, military academies, and other educational institutions around the world. The application of aerospace power has seen significant developments since 1994, most notably through American-led operations in Central Europe and continuing technological advances with weapons, uninhabited vehicles, space-based systems, and information systems. But notwithstanding those developments and the passing of six years, the value of this anthology of airpower in the twentieth century seems undiminished.

Fashionable Nonsense
Fashionable Nonsense

Author: Alan Sokal

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1466862408

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In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in Social Text--an influential academic journal of cultural studies--touting the deep similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern philosophy. Soon thereafter, the essay was revealed as a brilliant parody, a catalog of nonsense written in the cutting-edge but impenetrable lingo of postmodern theorists. The event sparked a furious debate in academic circles and made the headlines of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, Sokal and his fellow physicist Jean Bricmont expand from where the hoax left off. In a delightfully witty and clear voice, the two thoughtfully and thoroughly dismantle the pseudo-scientific writings of some of the most fashionable French and American intellectuals. More generally, they challenge the widespread notion that scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions.

Marihuana
Marihuana

Author: E.L. Abel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1489921893

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Of all the plants men have ever grown, none has been praised and denounced as often as marihuana (Cannabis sativa). Throughout the ages, marihuana has been extolled as one of man's greatest benefactors and cursed as one of his greatest scourges. Marihuana is undoubtedly a herb that has been many things to many people. Armies and navies have used it to make war, men and women to make love. Hunters and fishermen have snared the most ferocious creatures, from the tiger to the shark, in its herculean weave. Fashion designers have dressed the most elegant women in its supple knit. Hangmen have snapped the necks of thieves and murderers with its fiber. Obstetricians have eased the pain of childbirth with its leaves. Farmers have crushed its seeds and used the oil within to light their lamps. Mourners have thrown its seeds into blazing fires and have had their sorrow transformed into blissful ecstasy by the fumes that filled the air. Marihuana has been known by many names: hemp, hashish, dagga, bhang, loco weed, grass-the list is endless. Formally christened Cannabis sativa in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, marihuana is one of nature's hardiest specimens. It needs little care to thrive. One need not talk to it, sing to it, or play soothing tranquil Brahms lullabies to coax it to grow. It is as vigorous as a weed. It is ubiquitous. It fluorishes under nearly every possible climatic condition.

A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs in America
A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs in America

Author: Marilyn Rouvelas

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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"A clear and comprehensive guide to the religious and secular life of the Greek-American community," including naming a baby, planning a baptism, observing name days, baking communion bread, buying popular Greek music, what to say (in Greek) on special occasions, and much more.

The Musical Work of Nadia Boulanger
The Musical Work of Nadia Boulanger

Author: Jeanice Brooks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-04-25

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1107328314

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Nadia Boulanger - composer, critic, impresario and the most famous composition teacher of the twentieth century - was also a performer of international repute. Her concerts and recordings with her vocal ensemble introduced audiences on both sides of the Atlantic to unfamiliar historical works and new compositions. This book considers how gender shaped the possibilities that marked Boulanger's performing career, tracing her meteoric rise as a conductor in the 1930s to origins in the classroom and the salon. Brooks investigates Boulanger's promotion of structurally motivated performance styles, showing how her ideas on performance of historical repertory and new music relate to her teaching of music analysis and music history. The book explores the way in which Boulanger's musical practice relied upon her understanding of the historically transcendent masterwork, in which musical form and meaning are ideally joined, and shows how her ideas relate to broader currents in French aesthetics and culture.

The Great Deformation
The Great Deformation

Author: David Stockman

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 768

ISBN-13: 1586489135

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A New York Times bestseller The Great Deformation is a searing look at Washington's craven response to the recent myriad of financial crises and fiscal cliffs. It counters conventional wisdom with an eighty-year revisionist history of how the American state -- especially the Federal Reserve -- has fallen prey to the politics of crony capitalism and the ideologies of fiscal stimulus, monetary central planning, and financial bailouts. These forces have left the public sector teetering on the edge of political dysfunction and fiscal collapse and have caused America's private enterprise foundation to morph into a speculative casino that swindles the masses and enriches the few. Defying right- and left-wing boxes, David Stockman provides a catalogue of corrupters and defenders of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and free markets. The former includes Franklin Roosevelt, who fathered crony capitalism; Richard Nixon, who destroyed national financial discipline and the Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar; Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke, who fostered our present scourge of bubble finance and addiction to debt and speculation; George W. Bush, who repudiated fiscal rectitude and ballooned the warfare state via senseless wars; and Barack Obama, who revived failed Keynesian "borrow and spend" policies that have driven the national debt to perilous heights. By contrast, the book also traces a parade of statesmen who championed balanced budgets and financial market discipline including Carter Glass, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Simon, Paul Volcker, Bill Clinton, and Sheila Bair. Stockman's analysis skewers Keynesian spenders and GOP tax-cutters alike, showing how they converged to bloat the welfare state, perpetuate the military-industrial complex, and deplete the revenue base -- even as the Fed's massive money printing allowed politicians to enjoy "deficits without tears." But these policies have also fueled new financial bubbles and favored Wall Street with cheap money and rigged stock and bond markets, while crushing Main Street savers and punishing family budgets with soaring food and energy costs. The Great Deformation explains how we got here and why these warped, crony capitalist policies are an epochal threat to free market prosperity and American political democracy.