Bookpedia : Library WWWisdom : Author : G

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Summary: Sophie's World was my first introduction to the work of Jostein Gaarder. It is a book that had me captivated from the very first page right through to the last! Gaarder very cleverly combines two elements which result in a both informative and totally gripping story. Firstly the book provides the reader with a 'beginners guide' to philosophy which introduces all the major philosophical ideas and concepts from Socrates through to current day Existentialism and 'New Age' thinking. It gives an insight into all those names you have heard but knew nothing about! Combined with this, Gaarder manages to weave an exciting story about fourteen year old Sophie which holds the reader entranced not least because of the unexpected twists as the story unfolds. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, learnt a great deal and it is a book I could read several times over and still learn something new.

Summary: Drawing on a wide range of studies of Italian migrants to a dozen different countries, Donna Gabaccia puts the modern Italian diaspora in historical context, charting the emergence of this one regionally fragmented diaspora as a nationally conscious cultural group. Italy's Many Diasporas provides an overview, examining the social, cultural, and economic integration of Italian migrants. It explores their complex yet distinctive identity and their relationship with their homeland."--Jacket.

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Summary: Guida pratica allo scrivere e al parlare corretto

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Summary: A photographic record of Great Britain from 1856 to 1956

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Summary: This book is a pleasure to read, is crammed with original ideas and accessible explanations and offers a comprehensive insight into the economic landscape which simply makes a lot of sense. It is a particular joy that Galbraith does not stop at the traditional limits of economic discourse -- whenever he needs to stray into a related subject in order to construct a complete and persuasive explanation then he does so competently and without hesitation.
However, I would also like to mention the relationship between this book and "The New Industrial State" (NIS) which Galbraith wrote some years later. The NIS clearly covers much the same ground, whilst incorporating the further development and refinement of Galbraith's thoughts over the following decade. As a result, the NIS has a broader scope and offers a more complete picture of a modern (as of 1970ish) industrial economy -- but is also a little less accessible and undoubtedly a "heavier" read. If you have read and enjoyed "The Affluent Society", then the NIS would be an excellent next step, in which the ideas presented here are refined and expanded, but "The Affluent Society" is a great place to start.

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Summary: This isn't just another rant about the evils of the corporations. It's a very cool and sharp analysis that's worth buying, reading, and re-reading just for the chapter on the imperatives of technology.

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Summary: William Gilbert, On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
William Harvey, On the Circulation of the Blood
William Harvey, On the Generation of Animals

Summary: Oil Paintings in the Collection at the Museum of London

Summary: This book (actually called systemantics) is marvellous. It provides a hugely entertaining account of why "the system" is forever failing us. The author has a wonderful collection of real-life stories with which to illustrate how so often we "just don't get it" as far as systems are concerned.

Summary: Racconti arabi raccolti da Antoine Galland

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Summary: This lively and authoritative survey by an internationally famous physicist offers captivating perspectives on the origins of the galaxies, stars, chemical elements, and planetary systems. Illustrated with diagrams and the author's own drawings, it explains complex concepts in a simple manner. "Fascinating." — "San Francisco Chronicle." 40 figures." "1961 edition.

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Summary: Essays on Urban Problems and Solutions

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Summary: Gardner's book is very well written. Although I am a layman in the psychological field, it was easy for me to understand the book. The empirical method Gardner used, is good in this respect. Intelligence is far more complicated than IQ-rating suggests. Gardner puts some very relevant question marks to IQ-testing. In my opinion IQ-rating is a cultural phenomenon. It measures aspects of intelligence that are most relevant in our Western world: logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligence. Culture is changing and more attention is given to other intelligence, e.g. interpersonal intelligence. Recently we bought for our children the software game LEGO Island. I was surprised to read that in this game the results of the Harvard Project Zero on multiple intelligence were used. Every character in this game is outstanding in one of the seven intelligences Gardners describes in his book.

Summary: This is a very readable, very complete introduction/history to the thinking, questions and issues underlying cognitive science from its philosophical origins. It pulls many threads together to give a cohesive and complementary account of the development of the fields involved in cognitive science in a way that garners a strong feel for the field for those new to it, and that will grant new insights to those well acquainted with the field.

Summary: Mr. Garder's book is one which makes us laugh at our gullibility. Since this book was up-dated on 1956, much of the information is about old crackpot theories, like Flat-earth cults, or medical cults. It is, however, a true account of contemporary quackery and fringe science, since many of the theories and motivations of the truly eccentric, and sometimes downright fraudulent types, can still be found among many of today's highly popular personalities who, using mass media and their own appeal, continue this trend to advertize oddball ideas and pseudoscience as truths, without allowing any type of validation or independent scrutiny.
We tend to believe we are somewhat safe from eccentrics trying to force their weird theories upon us or our children. We are not. Take the case of Dianetics, which is discussed in Mr. Gardner's book at the time it was just appearing and being promoted by Science Fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It did to the stablished psychiatric community what Afrocentrism is doing to qualified and professional history research.
It also presents a strong argument in favor of strict, closedly suppervised experimentation for validating new scientific theories, especially when those theories deal with human emotional problems or capabilities (like Repressed Memory and ESP). Probably most tragic for a scientist is discovering he has been deluding himself pursuing validation for his pet theory. He willingly falsifies data or ignores results in orther for his research to come out just right, conforming to his hypothesis. Also, this book emphazises the use of double-blind tests in highly difficult human research, as in the case of Dr. Rhine's ESP studies.
It comes with a word of warning to us all: scientific illiteracy IS dangerous. And even if certain crackpot scientific theories do us no harm, the same cannot be said about medical cults, which CAN cause early death for treatable diseases. Psychology is also a target for these fringe cults, and the trend is getting worse today as we see a lot of new "therapies" being advertised on TV. These so-called therapies can do harm to an individual's emotional well-being (it is my opinion, though, that even psychology rests on very dubious foundations, and is still more a "witch doctor" profession than real science, simply because the empirical data needed is found on "case studies", which yield very subjective results.)
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the contemporary history of scientific frauds, quackery and eccentricities. It is very well written, and very amusing. Martin Gardner still writes and colaborates closely with "Skeptic Magazzine". Francisco Torres Laredo, Tx. USA

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Summary: Cucina per le vacanze
Cucina per primavera-estate
Cucina per piatti freddi
Cucina per piatti rapidi
Cucina per autunno-inverno
Cucina per la dieta

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Summary: Parte Prima: Dalla fondazione al declino della Repubblica, di Aurelio Bernardi
Parte Seconda: L'Impero Romano, di Albino Garzetti

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Summary: John Taylor Gatto's analysis of government schooling as being a form of controlling and suppressing the masses is spot on.
I decided to home educate my kids because I didn't want school to get in the way of their education. Schools don't actually serve individuals very well at all....all they do is provide a steady supply of compliant, conformist, disempowered clone worker consumerists. They do not nurture individuality, critical thinking, love and compassion, but instead cause divisions by creating a kind of caste system where every child quickly learns their place in the pyramid, only to rise to the top by trampling on others and surrendering to rules designed to persecute anyone who deviates from conformity and obedience to the system.
If you think kids should be allowed to grow up and learn in a way that is free from any political agenda, and that the purpose of education is surely not just to raise little conformist consumers to keep the economic machine marching on, then this book is for you. Schools really aren't doing the job they are supposed to do, so maybe it's time we took things into our own hands and those of the children themselves. Kids are often way too smart for school and being held back by idiotic policies and beaurocracy and so on. Search your feelings - you know it's true!

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Summary: Sous le soleil écrasant du Sud italien, le sang des Scorta transmet, de père en fils, l'orgueil indomptable, la démence et la rage de vivre de ceux qui, seuls, défient un destin retors. Prs l'auteur de La Mort du roi Tsongor (prix Goncourt des lycéens 2002, prix des Libraires 2003).
Un homme avance sur sa mule dans un paysage pétrifié de chaleur, sous l'implacable soleil des Pouilles, en direction du minuscule village de Montepuccio, où il vient assouvir, au risque d'y perdre la vie, son désir et sa vengeance. Ses fautes de jeunesse - vols, violences, crimes de toutes sortes -, il les a payées de dix-sept ans de prison. Désormais libre, il entend bien, de gré ou de force, faire sienne une femme que dans sa jeunesse il convoitait.
De cette vengeance - on pourrait même dire : de cette scène primitive - va surgir la lignée des Scorta, une famille de "pouilleux" marqués par l'opprobre et la faute originelle, mais qui peu à peu, sur quatre générations, parvient à subsister, à planter ses racines dans un sol fruste, à saisir sa chance, transmettre ses valeurs et s'accorder aux beautés de sa terre natale
L'histoire de la famille Scorta se déroule sur un siècle (1870 à nos jours). Elle prend le double aspect d'un récit "objectif" et linéaire eue viennent scander les soliloques d'un des personnages, Carmela, vieillarde qui, avant de perdre la mémoire, se hâte de confier à l'ancien curé de Montepuccio ce qu'elle n'a pu encore raconter à personne : son voyage à New York avec ses frères, la création du bureau de tabac de Montepuccio, et plus largement sa vision subjective de l'aventure des Scorta.
Car ce roman puissamment sudiste et solaire n'est nullement, au sens où on l'entend couramment, une "saga familiale". Marqué par la force de la parole, par la sincérité des personnages, par l'humilité et l'obstination des gens simples, par la recherche et la connaissance des joies élémentaires, le nouveau livre de Laurent Gaudé entrelace les destins comme les voix d'un hymne étincelant d'humanisme.

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Summary: Vladimir Medem’s Marxist Analysis of the National Question, 1903-1920

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Summary: How did a small, concentrated pocket of lower Manhattan come to have such enormous influence in national and world affairs? In this wide-ranging volume, economic historian Charles Geisst answers this question as he provides the first history of Wall Street, ranging from the loose association of traders meeting on New York sidewalks and coffee houses in the late 18th century, to the modern billion-dollar computer-driven colossus of today. Geisst's narrative traces several themes--the move of industry and business westward in the early 19th century, the rise of the great Robber Barons, the influence of the securities market on incredible growth of industry, and the gradual increase in government involvement in Wall Street--and also features a look at the some of Wall Street's most colorful and ruthless wheeler dealers.
Wall Street is at once a chronicle of the street itself, from the days when the wall was merely a defensive barricade built by Peter Stuyvesant, and in a broader sense it is an engaging economic history of the United States, a tale of profits and losses, endlessly enterprising spirits, and the role Wall Street played in helping America become the most powerful economy in the world.

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Summary: The Reappropriation of Development Through Financial Self-reliance

Summary: From one of the architects of the new science of simplicity and complexity comes a highly personal, unifying vision of the natural world. As a theoretical physicist, Murray Gell-Mann has explored nature at its most fundamental level. His achievements include the 1969 Nobel Prize for work leading up to his discovery of the quark - the basic building block of all atomic nuclei throughout the universe. But Gell-Mann is a man of many intellectual passions, with lifelong interests in fields that seek to understand existence at its most complex: natural history, biological evolution, the history of language, and the study of creative thinking.These seemingly disparate pursuits come together in Gell-Mann's current work at the Santa Fe Institute, where scientists are investigating the similarities and differences among complex adaptive systems - systems that learn or evolve by utilizing acquired information. They include a child learning his or her native language, a strain of bacteria becoming resistant to an antibiotic, the scientific community testing new theories, or an artist implementing a creative idea. The Quark and the Jaguar is Gell-Mann's own story of finding the connections between the basic laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world. The simple: a quark inside an atom. The complex: a jaguar prowling its jungle territory in the night. Exploring the relationship between them becomes a series of exciting intellectual adventures.

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Summary: For the great philosopher, Ernest Gellner, nationalism (the principle which maintains that homogeneity of culture is the basic social and political bond) is an offspring of Romanticism, which was a reaction against the Enlightenment and the coldness of Reason.
For the Romantics, man was made by his roots, by his cultural specificity, and not by (universal) reason. Translated into politics, this means the congruence between the political and the ethnic unit, or a `nation-state'.
Nationalism appears only in the third stage of the evolution of mankind, in the scientific/industrial society (after foraging and agriculture).
Scientifically, it was heavily boosted by Darwinism and its theory of biological diversification.
Philosophically, it was aided by `Protestant-type' religion, where every man is a priest in direct contact with his God. The Protestants translated the Holy Scriptures into the vernacular, which became the `national' language of all civil servants (the bureaucracy).
Nationalism has been one of the cardinal reasons of all the bloodshed in the world in the last two centuries (`Men have been impartial in their hate'). Therefore, Ernest Gellner stresses rightly that mankind needs supranational and super-ethnic authorities in order to prevent further disasters.
This book is a must read for all those interested in the history of mankind.

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Summary: Illustrating varieties of experience in the lives of the illustrious and the obscure

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Summary: LUIS AUGUSTO GARCIA GUERERO of the Camilista Union -- National Liberation Army (UCELN) remembers Torres' life and work, and reflects on their significance to the ongoing liberation struggle of the people of Colombia and all of Latin America.
Consideration of the presence and role of Father Camilo Torres in the Colombian guerilla forces involves not only consideration of his personal trajectory, but also evaluation of his thinking and political and revolutionary actions in the context of the birth of the National Liberation Army (ELN), which he joined as a combatant. The ELN was, among other things, the first guerilla organisation to count Christians in the ranks of its fighters. Camilo Torres formed the United Front in January 1965, at the same time as the ELN, which had been formed in July 1964, came to public attention in the mountains of Santander. From that time Camilo and the ELN formed part of the same history, and the same commitment to struggle to the death, if necessary, for the liberation of the poorest classes.
Camilo was born in Santa Fé de Bogotá on February 3, 1929. From a very young age he expressed his intention to study for the priesthood. In 1954, after being ordained, he went to Belgium to study sociology at the University of Lovaina. On his return to Colombia five years later, he discovered the complex problems affecting Colombia and immersed himself in them. His contact with ordinary people, and his respect for them and their achievements, quickly led him to become an important leader of the people's movement. He was convinced that only through unity could the acquisition of power be achieved, and it was from this perspective that, along with other leaders of the people's movement, he formed the United Front. The front very quickly became part of the life of the poor classes of Colombia.
Camilo's ideas were constantly developing, and he began to stress the need for unity between Marxists and Christians to achieve the common objective of making revolution so as to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty and give clothes to the naked. Camilo used to say, "Why should we debate amongst ourselves whether the soul is mortal or immortal, when we both know that hunger is mortal?" He called on Christians to live up to the moral and ethical demands of their faith, contending, "Revolution is not only permitted for Christians, but obligatory". He once described the objectives of the United Front movement in the following way: "Our principal work is to organise the non-aligned majority of the poor classes, who don't belong to any political party, into a program and a line of action that will lead us toward the taking of power by, and for, the poor". The work of the front gave meaning to its slogans, "For the unity of the people forever", and "For the taking of power by the people forever."
Camilo realised that the corrupt political class of Colombia would not develop policies beneficial to the people, nor hand over power to them, and that it fell to the people to take power for themselves. In early 1965, Camilo began to have contact with the National Liberation Army because he shared the principles and objectives of this emerging guerilla movement. Later that year, in an open letter to the Colombian people, he wrote, "I have joined the ELN because in it I find the ideals of the United Front, and the desire for, and existence of, a unity of the base, a campesino base, without differences of religion or traditional parties. The ELN will not lay down its arms until power is totally in the hands of the people." The progressive radicalisation of Camilo, the repression against the United Front and the imprisonment of its members all hastened his joining the guerillas in the mountains. His life was under threat from the oligarchy, who feared him because they saw his leadership and ideas questioning the structures of repression and creating consciousness amongst broad sectors of the poor classes.
On October 18, 1965, he joined the ELN as an ordinary combatant. He expressed his wish to be considered as just another soldier in a letter to the leadership of the ELN. He wrote, "Be sure that with God's help I will put aside all other considerations, except the good of the revolution, in whatever role I am assigned. I don't aspire to be a leader, just to serve up to the ultimate consequences." He remained true to these words until his death.
In his difficult life as a guerilla, he happily performed his duties, rejecting any privileges offered him on the basis of his priesthood and history within the people's movement. Teaching campesinos to read, he shared with them the little food they could offer him and came to understand and share their needs. It was his strong desire to serve that led him to ask to participate in political-military actions. He was refused several times because of the risks involved. Nevertheless, he continued to ask, and eventually was allowed to form part of a column that was to carry out an ambush of army troops and attempt to seize their weaponry. On February 15, 1966, in Patio Cemento in the department of Santander, Camilo died in combat.
The presence of Camilo, and his contribution to the development of the popular movement, despite his tragically early death, began a process of opening up spaces for Christians and gaining their commitment to the people's struggle. Consciousness of the continent's revolutionary history inspired Christians to collaborate in the transformation of reality. Through his actions Camilo Torres showed a path that would be taken by many Christian and non-Christian revolutionaries. It is a path which stresses the decisiveness of people's participation in revolution, and gives the example of personal commitment up to death, if necessary. Our guerilla commander Camilo Torres was convinced of the need to work with the masses. He used to say, "No-one can be truly revolutionary if he doesn't trust in the values of the people". Camilo personifies a liberation project in which men and women are guided by revolution as the unique option for transforming love for humanity into an effective reality. His actions and his thinking are permanent invitations to struggle, "so that the next generation of Colombians will not be slaves". Like Camilo, other priests also joined the liberation struggle as guerillas in the ELN. Among them were Fathers Domingo Laín, Antonio Jiménez, Diego Cristóbal Uribe and the commander in chief of the UCELN, Father Manuel Pérez Martínez. The example of these committed Christian revolutionaries has sown Camilo's seeds throughout Latin America. His influence continues to live in the struggle of our peoples, transcending Colombia's borders and opening new paths for revolutionary struggle and the social activity of the poorest classes. His thoughts and actions remain valid today in our struggle to liberate ourselves from the deadly exploitation and submission that capitalism engenders.

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Summary: The evolution of Israel into an aggressively nationalitistic, paramilitary and essentially undemocratic nation has, in Maxim Ghilan's opinion, destroyed any immediate hopes of lasting peace. Here, in a powerful, thought-provoking book, he charts the events leading up to the birth of the state in 1948, discusses its political and social development and analyses what constitutes 'Jewish identity'. No one can solve the current deadlock overnight, nevertheless, in his view, unless the international Jewish question can be separated from the Middle East there is little hope for a workable solution.

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Summary: Reflections on Invention in the Arts and Sciences

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