Jorn Utzon: The Sydney Opera House (Electa Architecture)

Customer Reviews:

Evedince of the unfullfilled genius of a man with vision.......1999-09-27

This book is full of excellent photographs and provides enough evidence of the unfullfilled genius of Jorn Utzon, who was prevented from completing his magnificent building concept.This was acheived by the reportings of an ignorant press, and political pressures brought about by some smalltime polititian, who wanted to exploit the costs of this wonder, and bring himself to the forefront, as the saviour of public money! It is unbeleivable today, that such treatment could be given to a man with such vision as Utzon displayed in his drawings. If costs were all that counted in buildings - we would never had seen York Minster, for example.

The people of Australia are today proud of this building, but it is only a shadow of what Utzon had in mind. Ah well, its only money!

kiwoong kim.......1999-06-25

university architectur

Sydney Opera House: Sydney, Australia, 1957-73 (Global architecture ; 54)

Average customer rating:

Sydney Opera House: Sydney, Australia, 1957-73 (Global architecture ; 54)
Jørn Utzon
Manufacturer: A.D.A. Edita
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

Sydney National Opera House
Jorn Utzon
Manufacturer: s.n
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007K6RB4

Utzon and the Sydney Opera House;: Statement in the public interest

Average customer rating:

Utzon and the Sydney Opera House;: Statement in the public interest
Elias Duek-Cohen
Manufacturer: Morgan Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The eye, the retina, and the entire visual pathway are concerned with an organism's interaction with the world of light. A large fraction of that interaction is determined by contrast in the light signal. This book is the first to focus on the importance of image contrast to vision, including the neural basis for the extremely high sensitivity of human observers to contrast.

The seventeen contributions present current research in visual signal processing, in the retina and central pathways, and in the study of contrast sensitivity in humans. The field is surveyed from fundamental processes in receptor outer segments all the way to human perceptual processes that use information from visual contrast for reading and form discriminations. Possible clinical implications are taken up in the latter chapters of the book and theoretical implications are discussed throughout.

Robert Shapley is Spencer Professor of Science and Director of the Center for Neural Science at New York University. Dominic Man-Kit Lam is Director of the Center for Biotechnology and Professor of Biotechnology, Cell Biology, and Ophthalmology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Sections and Contributors:
I. Retinal Processing of Visual Signals. G. L. Fain and M. Carter Cornwall. Peter MacLeish. David Copenhagen, Scott Mittman, W. Rowland Taylor, and Don R. Dixon. Malcolm Slaughter and Ning Tian. Ken-ichi Naka and Hiroko, Sakai.
II. Retinal Ganglion Cells. J. B. Troy. Robert Shapley, Ehud Kaplan, and Keith Purpura. R. W. Rodieck, R. K. Brening, and M. Watanabe. Christina Enroth-Cugell.
III. Central Visual Pathways. Ehud Kaplan, Pratik Mukherjee, and Robert Shapley. Peter Lennie. A. B. Bonds. Karen DeValois and Russell DeValois.
IV. Human Contrast Sensitivity and Clinical Applications. J. G. Robson. G. E. Legge. Robert F. Hess. D. M. Regan.

The Contrast: Manners, Morals, and Authority in the Early American Republic

Average customer rating:

The Contrast: Manners, Morals, and Authority in the Early American Republic
Cynthia Kierner
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

United States | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0814747930
Release Date: 2007-04-01

Book Description

"This powerful and lively package of primary materials and historical context will demonstrate how historical 'forces' play themselves out on the ground. Kierner's collection offers a fresh lens on a new world struggling into being and will inspire teachers and students of all ages alike."
—Catherine Allgor, author of A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation

“The Contrast makes a real contribution to the existing scholarship on this period, it has great appeal for classroom use, and it puts back in print an amusing play that is instrumental in understanding critical issues in the new nation. The play `The Contrast' centers on gender roles, relations, and expectations, mocking the gender stereotypes of the day and is a rich source for understanding a host of political and social issues in the Early Republic. It is funny—even to a modern audience—and replete with literary references.”
—Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, author of Ladies and Gentlemen on Display: Planter Society at the Virginia Springs, 1790-1860

“I can think of no other text of the period that lays out the drive toward transparency more clearly or denigrates coquettes and libertines more entertainingly. The play is a pivotal piece of American cultural history.”
—Norma Basch, author of Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians

"The Contrast", which premiered at New York City's John Street Theater in 1787, was the first American play performed in public by a professional theater company. The play, written by New England-born, Harvard-educated, Royall Tyler was timely, funny, and extremely popular. When the play appeared in print in 1790, George Washington himself appeared at the head of its list of hundreds of subscribers.

Reprinted here with annotated footnotes by historian Cynthia A. Kierner, Tyler's play explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. Did the American colonists' rejection of monarchy in 1776 mean they should abolish all European social traditions and hierarchies? What sorts of etiquette, amusements, and fashions were appropriate and beneficial? Most important, to be a nation, did Americans need to distinguish themselves from Europeans -- and, if so, how?

Tyler was not the only American pondering these questions, and Kierner situates the play in its broader historical and cultural contexts. An extensive introduction provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building. The book also features a section with selections from contemporary letters, essays, novels, conduct books, and public documents, which debate issues of the era.

A Life of Contrasts: The Autobiography of Diana Mitford Mosley

Average customer rating:

How she thinks
Diana Mosley and the Other Side of World War 2
dreadful judgement

A Life of Contrasts: The Autobiography of Diana Mitford Mosley
Diana Mitford Mosley
Manufacturer: Times Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

ASIN: 0812907582

Customer Reviews:

How she thinks.......2005-10-04

Reading Diana Mitford Mosley's self-serving autobiography was a fascinating exercise.

First of all, I have to say, none of her children were in prison with her.

As for 18B, she has a point, but. Great Britain is not the first democratic government to imprison people without a trial in wartime. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the US during the civil war and the US, to its eternal discredit, rounded up all Japanese-Americans and simply interned them during WW2. (And let's not even talk about George Bush!) The fact is, the Mosleys and other Fascists fared far better in British prisons than opponents of the Fascists in Germany and Italy and lived to tell the tale.

I've often wondered how people living in a democracy could justify their support of Fascism. Diana Mosley typically engages in special pleading e.g. "Not allowing free travel is one of the typical features of socialism everywhere." ch. 20 p. 218, "A Life of Contrasts". Well okay, but if the Jews in Europe had been permitted free travel, six million of them wouldn't have been gassed and incinerated. It's not as if Fascists or Nazis permitted free travel for gypsies, socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses or political opponents either.

As the guardian of her adored Mosley's shrine, she works hard to burnish his place in history. She does this by simply gliding over or omitting uncomfortable or ugly facts. Ditto with the facts surrounding the behavior of her sister Unity. (the Communist Jessica adored Unity too and was also at pains to glide over her behavior, particularly after Unity's unsuccessful and permanently debilitating suicide attempt).

Diana also glosses over the routine anti-semitism and bigotry that pervade the upper class world she comes from and inhabits her entire life, as well as Mosley's record on the subject. She does include, tellingly, some "throwaway" anti-semitic remarks that occur along the line.

She simply has a gargantuan sense of entitlement which seems to be the common feature of many of the aristocratic friends she talks about. She tells one story during which her son and two other men "hide" so that she can flag down a stray motorist to help her change a flat tire. They didn't know how to do it. Allegedly. She admits to being embarrassed when they appear prematurely before the job was completed. I guess it's salutory to watch the lower classes "work." It's just so typical of those in her world.

Her sister Nancy, in a letter to a family friend (Mrs. "Ham") much-quoted in the world of Mitfordania, basically says that if one is an aristocrat, one fears Communists; if one is a Jew, one fears Nazis, but as for the ideologies themselves, both Communists and Nazis are both fiends, a salient point to my mind.

The Mitfords provided copy and entertainment for an entire generation. How could one family produce so many brainy and diverse individuals? There are biographies about and books by Jessica, Unity, Nancy, Diana and Deborah (who is the last surviving sibling as well as the Duchess of Devonshire and who was, at one time, Kathleen Kennedy's sister-in-law). Jessica was a civil rights activist and communist who wrote The American Way of Death.

What a fascinating bunch. Diana was considered the most beautiful and amusing and she is, in fact, an excellent writer although hardly in a league with Jessica or Nancy. Even Jessica who didn't talk to her for most of their entire adult lives says that she adored her as a child.

Getting into her mind was a worthwhile exercise. It was helpful for an understanding, not just of her, but of the thinking of the times and much of her "set." Even after Germany's defeat, her own brother (another British Fascist with a sterling war record) couldn't bring himself to be part of the occupying force in his beloved Germany and insisted on going to the CBI theater where he was killed in Burma.

She takes pains to defend Mosley's arguments against going to war with Germany. The British and French got into the war to defend Poland against Hitler's aggression and, in the end, the Soviets swallowed Poland and the British lost their empire anyway which, to her mind, was the main argument for NOT going to war against Germany. She doesn't realize or acknowledge or deal with the argument that if Hitler had been allowed to continue unopposed, Britain would probably have not only lost their empire, but their island as well, nor has she anything to say about the morality of a philosophy that condemns people to death simply because of who they are.

Typically, although MM mentions her friend Hitler's humor and charm or that of the Duke of Windsor, she fails to come up with even a single convincing example of what she's talking about. But she is well within her rights to point out the admiration Hitler and Mussolini evoked early in their careers from even people like Churchill. They weren't always pariahs. Many politicians and other people came to see and speak with them and were admirers of the early German and Italian economic "miracles."

Ultimately MM's loyalty to her Mosley is her one outstanding characteristic, overriding all other considerations. She is not always "wrong" in her facts although her interpretations are necessarily self-serving. She indignantly points out Communist atrocities and even some committed by the Allies, but can't allow herself to concede the truths almost universally acknowledged by everyone else about the vast scope of the atrocities and genocide committed by her friend Hitler and the Axis.

As a character study, this book is extremely worthwhile. As an accurate historical memoir less so, except as a barometer of the thinking of Fascist sympathizers. For those who wonder "What COULD they have been thinking?" Here it is.

Diana Mosley and the Other Side of World War 2.......2000-04-02

To give you an idea of how politically persuasive this book is, I loaned it to a gentleman who served as a ground mechanic for the RAF throughout the Battle of Britain, a long time admirer of Winston Churchill. After he had carefully read every page he said: "It's a good read. There's just one question I have, though: How could the British government have put a lady like that in prison during the war, and with her baby?" The man who said this was my father. And I replied: "Dad, the British government passed something called 18B at the outbreak of war. It gave them the power to put anyone in jail that opposed the war, even someone with as much integrity, class, and beauty as the extraordinary Diana Mosley." Read the book yourself, it is about the other side of World War 2, but it also speaks of how nationalism is obsolete and gives a very good argument for believing that Europeanism is the wave of the future.

dreadful judgement.......1999-06-18

I found this a very interesting and entertaining book. Lady Mosley was obviously a cultivated and delightful woman to know. However, this was one of the most disturbing books that I have read. The most interesting part of the book of course, was her description of the meetings with Hitler and Goering. After all we know about the horrers that these two perpetrated she still refers to them in almost fawning terms. When she comments on Hitlers beautiful hands and hair, really this is too much for me. I do not have a problem with her prewar views but an intelligent and cultivated person as she was must surely have better judgement than this.

She and her husband Sir Oswald constantly bemoan the fate the fate of the dreadful lot of the British working man prior to 1939 yet they always had the money to either buy a new castle or a down market mansion.

I heard Sir Oswald speak in the 1950's and would agree that other than Churchill he was one of the most accomplished speaker that I have heard. However, Churchill was quite correct to intern both of the Mosleys as to gether with the Duke of Windsor the trio would have made an excellant Nazi governement in waiting.

In spite of this she did have some interesting observations. She was rightly annoyed when her loyalty was questioned by Herbert Morrison who bravely spent WW1 in an orchard. And her comment that Britain was willing to go to war in 1939 to save Poland yet happily traded it to Russia in 1945 at Yalta

Book Description

Southern Africa’s coast is the meeting place of two ocean giants – the Benguela current of the Atlantic Ocean and the Agulhas of the Indian Ocean. They clash fiercely at the continent’s southern tip, dividing the region into two contrasting marine ecosystems that rank among the richest, most biologically diverse and oceanographically complex on the planet. The waters of the west coast are fed by the Benguela, a cold current that accounts for the enormous volume of marine life found here, while those of the east coast – warmed by the Agulhas current – are noted for their huge variety of life forms. Currents of Contrast – Life in Southern Africa’s Two Oceans first introduces the realm of the Benguela, where you will encounter the ocean’s ultimate predator, the great white shark. Here, the nutrient-rich waters wash over rocky reefs, and vast kelp forests thrive, providing food for diverse animals and plants, among them Cape clawless otters. In the realm of the Agulhas, you can explore the Knysna estuary and its most charismatic inhabitant, the Knysna seahorse. Follow the sardine run on the east coast and witness the suite of predators that feasts on this silver cornucopia.

Paul, Moses and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture on 2 Corinthians 3 (Paternoster Biblical Monographs) (Paternoster Biblical Monographs)

Average customer rating:

Interesting, but dry and dangerous
Highly Insightful!

Paul, Moses and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture on 2 Corinthians 3 (Paternoster Biblical Monographs) (Paternoster Biblical Monographs)
Scott Hafemann
Manufacturer: Paternoster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1842273175

Book Description

An exegetical study of the call of Moses, the second giving of the Law, the new covenant, Paul's self-understanding as an apostle, and the prophetic understanding of the history of Israel.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, but dry and dangerous.......2005-04-20

This book is an interesting and original way of looking at Paul's view of the Law, Israel, and Redemption through 2 Corinthians 3. Hafemann's thesis is that contrary to the traditional Protestant understanding of 2 Cor. 3 or the "law/grace" dichotomy, Paul wrote 2 Cor. 3 to tell the Corinthians that Israel could not obey the Mosaic Law and obtain salvation because their hearts were "veiled" or hardened. According to Hafemann, Paul did not oppose the Law, but opposed the Law without the Spirit. The reason why many Israelites throughout history were unregenerate is because they lack the Spirit to obey the law as it was meant to be. Many reject Christ and stumble because they want to pursue righteousness through the Law outside of Christ. However, the New Covenant doesn't go against the Law or change it, but provides the Spirit to New Covenant believers so that they can fulfill the demands of the Law and be saved on the Last Judgment. The practical implications of the author's thesis is alarming. This view downgrades the sacrificial work of Christ and undermines justification by faith alone. It is not surprising that Hafemann follows suit with his predecessor Peter Stuhlmacher. Stuhlmacher (who was taught by E. Kasemann) follows the "forensic/transformative" view of righteousness (as does Hafemann), rather than the purely forensic view held by Luther, Calvin and the Reformers. The view held by Kasemann, Stuhlmacher, and Hafemann is a compromise between traditional Protestant and Roman Catholic soteriology. This is very dangerous and can undermine the Reformation. In many places throughout the book, Hafemann does indeed say that we must obey the Law in order to be saved on the Last Judgment. Traditional Protestants say that we are already justified in Christ and that our stand at the Last Judgment is for that truth to be ratified apart from our works (however, works do define what degree of glory we will possess in the future kingdom as in 1 Cor. 3:10-15). Unfortunately, many within the "Protestant/Evangelical" tradition have been snared into this new view on Paul and justification. Recent works by Fuller and Garlington reveal where modern evangelicals are plummeting towards. Sola Fide is losing out these days because of these new trends. Also, Hafemann's work is hard to read. Many people will have to pay close attention to every word the author uses to understand what he is trying to say. This book is more geared towards seminarians doing their doctoral thesis. Finally, I would also suggest that people learn Biblical Greek and modern German before reading this book.

Highly Insightful!.......2001-02-25

Scott Hafemann has done an excellent job in presenting a correct understanding of the Spirit/letter contrast in 2 Corinthians 3. The conclusion that he reaches has implications for a whole understanding of the Old Testament and the its relation to the New Testament. The essential message is this... The law was not inherently "bad" or oppression to the people of Israel. The problem resided with the people themselves. Only a remnant were true followers of Yahweh. For this faithful remnant, who had the Spirit operating in their lives, the law was good (cf. Psalm 119, et al). But for those without the Spirit (the majority of Israel), the law was simply "letter", and a burden. They did not want to keep it, nor could they. Seeing this helps us to understand both "good" and "bad" statements about the law in the NT writings.

Customer Reviews:

Very good (but concise) handbook. Recommend!.......1999-12-10

This book describes most (all?) of the known techniques of optical contrast enhancement in light microscopy. Enough information to fully understand the methods and at least some of their applications. I'd like more details, but concede that it gives enough. Strongly recommended!

Average customer rating:

Drawn in color: African contrasts
Noni Jabavu
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Africa | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007DMOYA

Gems from the Coral Islands: Or Incidents of contrast between savage and Christian life in the South Sea islanders

Average customer rating:

Gems from the Coral Islands: Or Incidents of contrast between savage and Christian life in the South Sea islanders
William Wyatt Gill
Manufacturer: Elliot Stock
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books