Virtuous Waters
Virtuous Waters

Author: Casey Walsh

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2018-04-20

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0520291735

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"Virtuous Waters is the first study of mineral waters and bathing in Mexico. It traces the evolving ideas about these waters, from European contact to the present, in order to shed new light on human-environment relations in the modern world. Our relation to water is among the most urgent of global issues, as increasing scarcity and pollution threaten food shortages, deteriorating public health, and the collapse of aquatic ecosystems. Drawing on ideas from political ecology, the author brings together an analysis of the shifts in the concept of water and a material history of environments, infrastructures, and bathing. The book analyzes a range of issues concerning complex "water cultures" that have formed around Mexican groundwaters over time and suggests that this understanding might also help us comprehend and confront the water crisis that is coming to a head in the twenty-first century"--Provided by publisher.

Replenish
Replenish

Author: Sandra Postel

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1610917901

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"Nothing is more important to life than water, and no one knows water better than Sandra Postel. Replenish is a wise, sobering, but ultimately hopeful book." --Elizabeth Kolbert "Remarkable." --New York Times Book Review "Clear-eyed treatise...Postel makes her case eloquently." --Booklist, starred review "An informative, purposeful argument." --Kirkus We spend billions of dollars on irrigation, dams, sanitation plants, and other feats of engineering to control water for our own prosperity. What if the answer was not control, but replenishment? Sandra Postel takes readers around the world to explore water projects that work with, rather than against, nature's rhythms. Forest rehabilitation is safeguarding drinking water, farmers are planting cover crops to reduce polluted runoff, and "sponge cities" are capturing rainwater to curb urban flooding. Postel argues that efforts like these will be essential as we adjust to a hotter, wilder climate. Will we continue to fight the water cycle, endangering ourselves and the planet, or recognize our place in it and take advantage of the inherent services nature offers?

The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean
The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean

Author: Confucius

Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 1605206431

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Notable not only for its comprehensiveness but also for its inclusion of the Chinese pictograms, this complete text of the *Analects* of the greatest philosopher of Chinese history is a must-own volume for any student of Confucius (551Bi479 Be. From the disposition of a land's rulers to the value of prayer, the thoughts of Confucius have powerfully shaped the moral life and political structures of Asian nations, and influenced the direction of the Western world as well. Here, Legge offers an enlightening introduction to the *Analects,* copious notes that place the sayings in cultural context, and much more assistance for the lay reader in understanding the depth of Confucius' wisdom. This three-in-one volume, originally published in this form in 1893, also includes *The Great Learning,* the Confucian illustration of illustrious virtue, and *The Doctrine of the Mean,* the thinker's explication of the path of duty. Scottish scholar JAMES LEGGE (1815-1897) was the first professor of Chinese language and literature at Oxford University, serving from 1876 to 1897. Among his many books are The Life and Teaching of Confucius (1867), The Religions of China (1880), and the 50-volume Sacred Books of the East (1879-1891).

The Petrine Instauration
The Petrine Instauration

Author: Robert Collis

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-12-16

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9004224394

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Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of Western esotericism and religious studies on the importance of millenarian thought in Early Modern Europe, this study provides an innovative re-examination of Peter the Great’s Court in early eighteenth-century Russia.

The Architecture of Bathing
The Architecture of Bathing

Author: Christie Pearson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0262044218

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A celebration of communal bathing—swimming pools, saunas, beaches, ritual baths, sweat lodges, and more—viewed through the lens of architecture and landscape. We enter the public pool, the sauna, or the beach with a heightened awareness of our bodies and the bodies of others. The phenomenology of bathing opens all of our senses toward the physical world entwined with the social, while the history of bathing is one of shared space, in both natural and built environments. In The Architecture of Bathing, Christie Pearson offers a unique examination of communal bathing and its history from the perspective of architecture and landscape. Engagingly written and richly illustrated, with more than 260 illustrations, many in color, The Architecture of Bathing offers a celebration of spaces in which public and private, sacred and profane, ritual and habitual, pure and impure, nature and culture commingle. Pearson takes a wide-ranging view of her subject, drawing on architecture, art, and literary works. Each chapter is structured around an architectural typology and explores an accompanying theme—for example, tub, sensuality; river, flow; waterfall, rejuvenation; and banya, immersion. Offering examples, introducing relevant theory, and recounting personal experiences, Pearson effortlessly combines a practitioner's zest with astonishing erudition. As she examines these forms, we see that they are inextricable from landscapes, bodily practices, and cultural production. Looking more closely, we experience architecture itself as an immersive material and social space, embedded inthe interdependent environmental and cultural fabric of our world.

Making Virtuous Daughters and Wives
Making Virtuous Daughters and Wives

Author: June McDaniel

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 0791487652

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Exploring the folk religion of India and the role of girls and women within it, author June McDaniel focuses on the brata (vrata) ritual in which moral lessons are taught and goddesses are revealed. Bratas are performed to gain such goals as a healthy family, a good husband, and a happy life. They are also performed so that the performers (bratinis) develop such virtues as devotion, humility, and compassion.This book presents data from fieldwork, along with brata stories, songs, poems, and ritual activities. It discusses Bengali folk religion, offers an example of ritual worship in folk Hinduism, and surveys a variety of bratas. The author analyzes the similarities and differences among these rituals in low-caste village life and in high-caste Hindu tradition, and notes that the development of these rituals involves a form of continuing divine revelation with women as the primary transmitters. Bratas act to maintain traditional Hindu values, but also emphasize the power of women, whose virtues can save their husbands from hell worlds and their families from disasters.