The Narrow Edge
The Narrow Edge

Author: Deborah Cramer

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0300185197

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Thousands of ravenous tiny shorebirds race along the water's edge of Delaware Bay, feasting on pin-sized horseshoe-crab eggs. Fueled by millions of eggs, the migrating red knots fly on. When they arrive at last in their arctic breeding grounds, they will have completed a near-miraculous 9,000-mile journey that began in Tierra del Fuego. Deborah Cramer followed these knots, whose numbers have declined by 75 percent, on their extraordinary odyssey from one end of the earth to the other—from an isolated beach at the tip of South America all the way to the icy tundra. In her firsthand account, she explores how diminishing a single stopover can compromise the birds' entire journey, and how the loss of horseshoe crabs—ancient animals that come ashore but once a year—threatens not only the survival of red knots but also human well-being: the unparalleled ability of horseshoe-crab blood to detect harmful bacteria in vaccines, medical devices, and intravenous drugs safeguards human health. Cramer offers unique insight into how, on an increasingly fragile and congested shore, the lives of red knots, horseshoe crabs, and humans are intertwined. She eloquently portrays the tenacity of small birds and the courage of many people who, bird by bird and beach by beach, keep red knots flying.

A Modern Utopia
A Modern Utopia

Author: H. G. Wells

Publisher: tredition

Published: 2022-05-03

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 3347637275

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A Modern Utopia - H. G. Wells - A Modern Utopia is a dystopian book by H. G. Wells. In his preface, Wells says that A Modern Utopia would be the last of a series of volumes on social problems. This book is a tale of two travelers who fall into a space-warp and suddenly find themselves upon a Utopian Earth controlled by a single World Government. It is told to us by a sketchily described character known only as the Owner of the Voice. Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is sometimes called the "father of science fiction. During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction", while American writer Charles Fort referred to him as a "wild talent". Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption per work – dubbed "Wells's law" – leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 as "O Realist of the Fantastic!". His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), which was his first novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and the military science fiction The War in the Air (1907). Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

The Journey of Utopia
The Journey of Utopia

Author: Pablo Campos Calvo-Sotelo

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 9781594545153

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In 1927, a group of advisors of King Alfonso XIII of Spain set off a journey to the United States. Their aim was to study the American University as a model for the design of the new University City in Madrid. Using the reconstruction of this cultural event as a guiding thread metaphor, the purpose of the Research Project is to study the roots and historical transformations that the University Space has experimented since its origins, under the impulse of Utopia, making special emphasis in its relation to the City. It will focus on the evolution of essential architectural models, beginning from its medieval germ in Europe: the exodus of the 'seed' of its embodied soul (the quadrangle) to the New World, the birth and diversification of the new model (campus) and, finally, in the early twentieth century, the 'return trip' to Europe of the modern idea, and the prolific heritage that it has generated in the contemporary University since then, from the point of view of the cultural connection between the Unites States and Europe.

Living Like Nomads
Living Like Nomads

Author: Fausto Butta

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2015-09-04

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1443881597

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Despite the vast amount of research on Italian anarchism conducted over the last forty years, little is known about the history of Milanese anarchists. Living Like Nomads: The Milanese Anarchist Movement Before Fascism illuminates anarchist ideas, practices and militants in Milan during the two decades before the rise of fascism. It tells the fascinating stories of some Italian anarchists at the beginning of the twentieth century, and sheds light on their lifestyle, political campaigns and ideological debates. Living Like Nomads examines anarchist thought, particularly the relationship between theories of individualism and communist anarchism. It engages with masters of this school of philosophy such as Bakunin, Malatesta, Stirner and Kropotkin. By detailing the lives of unknown anarchists, it reveals the pivotal role played by anarchists – and anarchism – within the eclectic Italian Left. Milanese anarchists produced exciting initiatives and captivating ideological debates. While they did not cause a revolution in Milan, their importance cannot be overlooked. Anarchists in Milan gave birth to the first non-denominational modern school, campaigned against militarism, engaged with the labour movement, and published extensively. No other anarchist movement has published as much as Milanese anarchists did. While such anarchists did not prevent the rise of fascism in Italy, they were the first instance of anti-fascist resistance when they stood up against the violence of Mussolini’s black shirts after the First World War. Given anarchism’s principles of individual freedom, social justice and equality, this insightful study of the troubled history of anarchist movements contributes to a greater understanding of the modern Left.

Reimagining Democracy
Reimagining Democracy

Author: Davide Cadeddu

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-03-02

Total Pages: 91

ISBN-13: 1461432588

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In the journal articles, historiographical essays, and numerous references to the political thought of Adriano Olivetti, the term constantly used to characterize his thinking is ‘utopia’. It is from this word, or rather, the misuse of this word, where one can begin to shed light on Olivettian political thinking. The term ‘utopia’, which has come to designate an entire vein of political literature, has also entered into common usage to define an impossible project, a wide-eyed dream; and a ‘utopian’ is that individual who longs for abstract projects instead of concrete ideas. It would be unproductive to resort to the diverse arguments of Firpo, of Mannheim, or of Bloch, of the philosophers of the Frankfurt School or others, since, as Giovanni Sartori has observed, after the word ceases to exist – where utopia is understood to mean impossibility – the impossibilities still remain. So, precisely because the literature on the political thought of Olivetti appears to suffer greatly from ‘empirical’ influences, it seems necessary to confront the complexities of his presumed utopianism with a methodological approach. This book investigates the inherent ‘impossibilities’, if they indeed exist, in the political thought of Olivetti. It also seeks to understand, as a result, if the Olivettian ideal is lacking in any true consistency, since it is secluded from an adequate analysis of historical reality, or if it is, rather, an idealism which does not lose sight of reality, in an attempt to overturn it as the basis for a plausible global vision. This book will be of interests to students and scholars in history, political economy and philosophy.

Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States from Futurism to Arte Povera
Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States from Futurism to Arte Povera

Author: Raffaele Bedarida

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-06-28

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1000595803

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This volume explores how Italian institutions, dealers, critics, and artists constructed a modern national identity for Italy by exporting – literally and figuratively – contemporary art to the United States in key moments between 1929 and 1969. From artist Fortunato Depero opening his Futurist House in New York City to critic Germano Celant launching Arte Povera in the United States, Raffaele Bedarida examines the thick web of individuals and cultural environments beyond the two more canonical movements that shaped this project. By interrogating standard narratives of Italian Fascist propaganda on the one hand and American Cold War imperialism on the other, this book establishes a more nuanced transnational approach. The central thesis is that, beyond the immediate aims of political propaganda and conquering a new market for Italian art, these art exhibitions, publications, and the critical discourse aimed at American audiences all reflected back on their makers: they forced and helped Italians define their own modernity in relation to the world’s new dominant cultural and economic power. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, social history, exhibition history, and Italian studies.