What drives the artist to create masterpieces and the scientist to forge breakthrough theories? This is the fundamental question that British psychiatrist Anthony Storr sets out to answer in The Dynamics of Creation. Storr begins by debunking the popular notion that creative people are necessarily motivated by neurosis. Although creativity can spring from a desire for power, wealth, prestige, or sexual conquest, at its deepest level it is an integrative impulse that both nourishes and consoles the human soul. In probing the origins and the consequences of creativity, Storr paints brief, stunningly insightful portraits of an astonishing range of gifted individuals, including Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin, Mozart, Einstein, Kafka, Newton, Balzac, and Wagner. A brilliant synthesis of psychology, biography, cultural analysis, and artistic appreciation. "Rich and rewarding . . . Full of wise and humane understanding." The Economist
The flowering of Gothic architecture depended to a striking extent on the use of drawing as a tool of design. By drawing precise "blueprints" with simple tools such as the compass and straightedge, Gothic draftsmen were able to develop a linearized architecture of unprecedented complexity and sophistication. Examination of their surviving drawings can provide valuable and remarkably intimate information about the Gothic design process. Gothic drawings include compass pricks, uninked construction lines, and other telltale traces of the draftsman's geometrically based working method. The proportions of the drawings, moreover, are those actually intended by the designer, uncompromised by errors introduced in the construction process. All of these features make these drawings ideal subjects for the study of Gothic design practice, but their geometry has to date received little systematic attention. This book offers a new perspective on Gothic architectural creativity. It shows, in a series of rigorous geometrical case studies, how Gothic design evolved over time, in two senses: in the hours of the draftsman's labor, and across the centuries of the late Middle Ages. In each case study, a series of computer graphics show in unprecedented detail how a medieval designer could have developed his architectural concept step by step, using only basic geometrical operations. Taken together, these analyses demonstrate both remarkable methodological continuity across the Gothic era, and the progressive development of new and sophisticated permutations on venerable design themes. This rich tradition ultimately gave way in the Renaissance not because of any inherent problem with Gothic architecture, but because the visual language of Classicism appealed more directly to the pretensions of Humanist princes than the more abstract geometrical order of Gothic design, as the book's final chapter demonstrates.
Academics Writing recounts how academic writing is changing in the contemporary university, transforming what it means to be an academic and how, as a society, we produce academic knowledge. Writing practices are changing as the academic profession itself is reconfigured through new forms of governance and accountability, increasing use of digital resources, and the internationalisation of higher education. Through detailed studies of writing in the daily life of academics in different disciplines and in different institutions, this book explores: the space and time of academic writing; tensions between disciplines and institutions around genres of writing; the diversity of stances adopted towards the tools and technologies of writing, and towards engagement with social media; and the importance of relationships and collaboration with others, in writing and in ongoing learning in a context of constant change. Drawing out implications of the work for academics, university management, professional training, and policy, Academics Writing: The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation is key reading for anyone studying or researching writing, academic support, and development within education and applied linguistics.
Natural disasters bedevil our planet, and each appears to be a unique event. Leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer shows how all disasters are connected. In 2011, there were fourteen natural calamities that each destroyed over a billion dollars’ worth of property in the United States alone. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast and major earthquakes struck in Italy, the Philippines, Iran, and Afghanistan. In the first half of 2013, the awful drumbeat continued—a monster supertornado struck Moore, Oklahoma; a powerful earthquake shook Sichuan, China; a cyclone ravaged Queensland, Australia; massive floods inundated Jakarta, Indonesia; and the largest wildfire ever engulfed a large part of Colorado. Despite these events, we still behave as if natural disasters are outliers. Why else would we continue to build new communities near active volcanoes, on tectonically active faults, on flood plains, and in areas routinely lashed by vicious storms? A famous historian once observed that “civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice.” In the pages of this unique book, leading geologist Susan W. Kieffer provides a primer on most types of natural disasters: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes. By taking us behind the scenes of the underlying geology that causes them, she shows why natural disasters are more common than we realize, and that their impact on us will increase as our growing population crowds us into ever more vulnerable areas. Kieffer describes how natural disasters result from “changes in state” in a geologic system, much as when water turns to steam. By understanding what causes these changes of state, we can begin to understand the dynamics of natural disasters. In the book’s concluding chapter, Kieffer outlines how we might better prepare for, and in some cases prevent, future disasters. She also calls for the creation of an organization, something akin to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but focused on pending natural disasters.
Promoting organizational knowledge is an important consideration for any business looking toward the future. Understanding the dynamics of knowledge-intensive organizations is a crucial first step in establishing a strong knowledge base for any organization. Organizational Knowledge Dynamics: Managing Knowledge Creation, Acquisition, Sharing, and Transformation introduces the idea that organizational knowledge is composed of three knowledge fields: cognitive knowledge, emotional knowledge, and spiritual knowledge. This book is useful for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in knowledge management, intellectual capital, human resources management, change management, and strategic management.
The Census Bureau has recently begun releasing official statistics that measure the movements of firms in and out of business and workers in and out of jobs. The economic analyses in Producer Dynamics exploit this newly available data on establishments, firms, and workers, to address issues in industrial organization, labor, growth, macroeconomics, and international trade. This innovative volume brings together a group of renowned economists to probe topics such as firm dynamics across countries; patterns of employment dynamics; firm dynamics in nonmanufacturing industries such as retail, health services, and agriculture; employer-employee turnover from matched worker/firm data sets; and turnover in international markets. Producer Dynamics will serve as an invaluable reference to economists and policy makers seeking to understand the links between firms and workers, and the sources of economic dynamics, in the age of globalization.
In Act of Creation , Stephen C. Schlesinger tells a pivotal and little-known story of how Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and the new American President, Harry Truman, picked up the pieces of the faltering campaign initiated by Franklin Roosevelt to create a "United Nations." Using secret agents, financial resources, and their unrivaled position of power, they overcame the intrigues of Stalin, the reservations of wartime allies like Winston Churchill, the discontent of smaller states, and a skeptical press corps to found the United Nations. The author reveals how the UN nearly collapsed several times during the conference over questions of which states should have power, who should be admitted, and how authority should be divided among its branches. By shedding new light on leading participants like John Foster Dulles, John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller, and E. B White, Act of Creation provides a fascinating tale of twentieth-century history not to be missed.
First published in 1987, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism demonstrates the nature and role of cultural nationalism as a separate movement in the creation of modern nations. This is done through an intensive study of the modern Irish movements, and in particular the Gaelic revival at the end of the nineteenth century, which makes clear the importance of cultural nationalism as a vision and politics in its own right. The author, by approaching his material as both historian and sociologist, is able to illuminate the Irish case of nationalism by placing it in a broad, comparative perspective, showing how cultural nationalism has often provided those answers to the problems of nation building and the rediscovery of national identity that political nationalism failed to provide. This book will be of interest to all those in the social sciences and history who are concerned with problems of national identity, the uses of history and culture in the creation of modern nations, and the particular case of the development of nationalist movements in Ireland.
"Solitude was seminal in challenging the established belief that "interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness." Indeed, most self-help literature still places relationships at the center of human existence. Lucid and lyrical, Storr's book cites numerous examples of brilliant scholars and artists -- from Beethoven and Kant to Anne Sexton and Beatrix Potter -- to demonstrate that solitude ranks alongside relationships in its impact on an individual's well-being and productivity, as well as on society's progress and health. But solitary activity is essential not only for geniuses, says Storr ; the average person, too, is enriched by spending time alone."--Back cover.
"This important Handbook of Entrepreneurial Dynamics reports on the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED), the most comprehensive scientifically representative study to date of nascent entrepreneurs. The book is unique because the study identified individuals in the process of creating new businesses to understand how, at its very source, people move from considering the option of starting a new business to its actual founding. This has never been done before in the history of entrepreneurship research... I cannot recommend this book more strongly to entrepreneurship scholars and those interested in where entrepreneurs come from and how they move from their initial idea to new venture founding." --Claudia Bird Schoonhoven, University of California, Irvine "This Handbook makes a terrific contribution to understanding entrepreneurship and new business creation. Its 38 chapters report major findings from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED), an unprecedented research program involving more than a hundred researchers from 10 countries. This Handbook is ′must reading′ for anyone interested in entrepreneurship research." --Andrew H. Van de Ven, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota Entrepreneurial activity provides profound positive benefits across an important set of measures of social and economic well-being, much of it concentrated in new economic sectors such as information technology. Yet, even though entrepreneurship has been shown to provide many benefits, it is surprising that there has not been a systematic study of the entrepreneurial process. The Handbook of Entrepreneurial Dynamics: The Process of Business Creation fills this gap by offering theories, ideas, and measures that can be used to explore and understand the factors that encompass and influence the creation of new businesses. The chapters in the handbook provide the rationale for questionnaires used in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). The PSED is a research program that was initiated to provide systematic, reliable, and generalizable data on important features of the new business creation process. The PSED includes information on the proportion and characteristics of the adult population involved in efforts to start businesses, the activities and characteristics that comprise the nature of the business start-up process, and the proportion and characteristics of those business start-up efforts that actually become new businesses. The handbook also describes the PSED data collection process; provides documentation of the interview schedules, codebooks, data preparation and weighting scheme; as well as offers examples of how analyses of PSED data might be conducted. The authors identify specific measures that can be used to operationalize theory as well as provide evidence from the PSED data sets on these measures′ reliability and validity. The Handbook of Entrepreneurial Dynamics is ideal for a sizeable audience, including graduate students, academics, and librarians in schools of business and management who need a comprehensive reference on business creation. In addition, researchers and policy makers at the federal, state, and local level will find this an invaluable reference covering all of the factors involved in new venture formation. Key Features: * Considers categories of data not available prior to the PSED * Includes a comprehensive overview of theories about new business formation * Provides demographics of nascent entrepreneurs * Analyzes the cognitive characteristics of nascent entrepreneurs * Explores all of the processes of new business formation
