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Author: T'ien-hsin Chu
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511817
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 237
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Book Description
Chu T'ien-hsin's The Old Capital is a brilliant evocation of Taiwan's literature of nostalgia and remembrance. The novel is centered on the question, "Is it possible that none of your memories count?" and explores the reliability of remembrances and the thin line that separates fact from fantasy. Comprised of four thematically linked stories and a novella, The Old Capital focuses on the cultural and psychological realities of contemporary Taiwan. The stories are narrated by individuals who share an aching nostalgia for a time long past. Strolling through modern Taipei, they return to the lost, imperfect memories called forth by the smells and sensations of their city, and try to reconcile themselves to their rapidly changing world. The novella is built on the memories and recollections of a woman trying to make sense of herself and her homeland. After a trip to Kyoto to meet with a friend, she returns to Taipei, where, having been mistaken for a Japanese tourist, she revisits the sites of her youth using a Japanese colonial map of the city. Seeing Taipei anew, the narrator confronts the complex nature of her identity, embodied in the contrast between a serene and preserved Kyoto and a thoroughly modernized and chaotic Taipei. The growing angst of these narrators reflects a deeper anxiety over the legacy of Japan and America in Taiwan. The titles of the stories themselves-"Death in Venice," "Man of La Mancha," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Hungarian Water"-reveal the strong currents of influence that run throughout the collection and shape the content and texture of the writing. In his meticulous translation, Howard Goldblatt captures the casual, intimate feel of Chu T'ien-hsin's writing while also maintaining its multiple layers of meaning. An intertextual masterpiece, The Old Capital is a moving and highly sensual meditation on the elasticity of memory and its power to shape personal identity.
Author: T'ien-hsin Chu
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511817
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Get Book Here
Book Description
Chu T'ien-hsin's The Old Capital is a brilliant evocation of Taiwan's literature of nostalgia and remembrance. The novel is centered on the question, "Is it possible that none of your memories count?" and explores the reliability of remembrances and the thin line that separates fact from fantasy. Comprised of four thematically linked stories and a novella, The Old Capital focuses on the cultural and psychological realities of contemporary Taiwan. The stories are narrated by individuals who share an aching nostalgia for a time long past. Strolling through modern Taipei, they return to the lost, imperfect memories called forth by the smells and sensations of their city, and try to reconcile themselves to their rapidly changing world. The novella is built on the memories and recollections of a woman trying to make sense of herself and her homeland. After a trip to Kyoto to meet with a friend, she returns to Taipei, where, having been mistaken for a Japanese tourist, she revisits the sites of her youth using a Japanese colonial map of the city. Seeing Taipei anew, the narrator confronts the complex nature of her identity, embodied in the contrast between a serene and preserved Kyoto and a thoroughly modernized and chaotic Taipei. The growing angst of these narrators reflects a deeper anxiety over the legacy of Japan and America in Taiwan. The titles of the stories themselves-"Death in Venice," "Man of La Mancha," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Hungarian Water"-reveal the strong currents of influence that run throughout the collection and shape the content and texture of the writing. In his meticulous translation, Howard Goldblatt captures the casual, intimate feel of Chu T'ien-hsin's writing while also maintaining its multiple layers of meaning. An intertextual masterpiece, The Old Capital is a moving and highly sensual meditation on the elasticity of memory and its power to shape personal identity.
Author: Robert Menasse
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631495720
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
“A dark comedy of manners packed with urgency” (H. W. Vail, Vanity Fair), The Capital is an instant classic of world literature. A highly inventive novel of ideas written in the rich European tradition, The Capital transports readers to the cobblestoned streets of twenty-first-century Brussels. Chosen as the European Union’s symbolic capital in 1958, this elusive setting has never been examined so intricately in literature. Translated with "zest, pace and wit" (Spectator) by Jamie Bulloch, Robert Menasse's The Capital plays out the effects of a fiercely nationalistic “union.” Recalling the Balzacian conceit of assembling a vast parade of characters whose lives conspire to form a driving central plot, Menasse adapts this technique with modern sensibility to reveal the hastily assembled capital in all of its eccentricities. We meet, among others, Fenia Xenopoulou, a Greek Cypriot recently “promoted” to the Directorate-General for Culture. When tasked with revamping the boring image of the European Commission with the Big Jubilee Project, she endorses her Austrian assistant Martin Sussman’s idea to proclaim Auschwitz as its birthplace—of course, to the horror of the other nation states. Meanwhile, Inspector Émile Brunfaut attempts to solve a gritty murder being suppressed at the highest level; Matek, a Polish hitman who regrets having never become a priest, scrambles after taking out the wrong man; and outraged pig farmers protest trade restrictions as a brave escapee squeals through the streets. These narratives and more are masterfully woven, revealing the absurdities—and real dangers—of a fracturing Europe. A tour de force from one of Austria’s most esteemed novelists, The Capital is a mordantly funny and piercingly urgent saga of the European Union, and an aerial feat of sublime world literature.
Author: William Holden Hutton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Istanbul (Turkey)
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
Author: Alan Marzilli
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438105940
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Piketty
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674979850
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 817
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Book Description
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.
Author: Matthew Stavros
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824847849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Kyoto was Japan’s political and cultural capital for more than a millennium before the dawn of the modern era. Until about the fifteenth century, it was also among the world’s largest cities and, as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, it was a place where the political, artistic, and religious currents of Asia coalesced and flourished. Despite these and many other traits that make Kyoto a place of both Japanese and world historical significance, the physical appearance of the premodern city remains largely unknown. Through a synthesis of textual, pictorial, and archeological sources, this work attempts to shed light on Kyoto’s premodern urban landscape with the aim of opening up new ways of thinking about key aspects of premodern Japanese history. The book begins with an examination of Kyoto’s highly idealized urban plan (adapted from Chinese models in the eighth century) and the reasons behind its eventual failure. The formation of the suburbs of Kamigyō and Shimogyō is compared to the creation of large exurban temple-palace complexes by retired emperors from the late eleventh century. Each, it is argued, was a material manifestation of the advancement of privatized power that inspired a medieval discourse aimed at excluding “outsiders.” By examining this discourse, a case is made that medieval power holders, despite growing autonomy, continued to see the emperor and classical state system as the ultimate sources of political legitimacy. This sentiment was shared by the leaders of the Ashikaga shogunate, who established their headquarters in Kyoto in 1336. The narrative examines how these warrior leaders interacted with the capital’s urban landscape, revealing a surprising degree of deference to classical building protocols and urban codes. Remaining chapters look at the dramatic changes that took place during the Age of Warring States (1467–1580s) and Kyoto’s postwar revitalization under the leadership of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Nobunaga’s construction of Nijō Castle in 1569 transformed Kyoto’s fundamental character and, as Japan’s first castle town, it set an example soon replicated throughout the archipelago. In closing, the book explores how Hideyoshi—like so many before him, yet with much greater zeal—used monumentalism to co-opt and leverage the authority of Kyoto’s traditional institutions. Richly illustrated with original maps and diagrams, Kyoto is a panoramic examination of space and architecture spanning eight centuries. It narrates a history of Japan’s premodern capital relevant to the fields of institutional history, material culture, art and architectural history, religion, and urban planning. Students and scholars of Japan will be introduced to new ways of thinking about old historical problems while readers interested in the cities and architecture of East Asia and beyond will benefit from a novel approach that synthesizes a wide variety of sources. For more on Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital, visit www.kyotohistory.com.
Author: Henry Cousens
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bijapur
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
Author: John H. Martin
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462906354
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 876
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Book Description
Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital and modern-day center of tourism and traditional culture, is one of the world's most beautiful and historic cities. Founded nearly 1,300 years ago and undamaged by the war, Kyoto today is the home of over 1,600 Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines, countless national treasures and 17 World Heritage sites, including the famed Golden Pavilion, Nijo Castle and Kiyomizu Temple. This book presents 29 easy-to-follow walking tours through Kyoto's history, its many unique districts and scenic areas full of charm and character. You'll discover not only the most renowned sites, such as the Silver Pavilion, the rock garden at Ryoan-ji Temple and the garden of the Heian Shrine, but also little-known areas off the beaten track. Much more than a guidebook, this volume tells the historical and cultural story of Kyoto's great monuments. The colorful tales, fascinating facts, larger-than-life characters and grand events that shaped the city and Japan at large will enthrall every reader. This updated and greatly expanded guide features over 100 color photos, full-color maps that trace each route and detailed diagrams of many individual sites.
Author: Thomas Piketty
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674245083
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1105
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Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system. Thomas Piketty’s bestselling Capital in the Twenty-First Century galvanized global debate about inequality. In this audacious follow-up, Piketty challenges us to revolutionize how we think about politics, ideology, and history. He exposes the ideas that have sustained inequality for the past millennium, reveals why the shallow politics of right and left are failing us today, and outlines the structure of a fairer economic system. Our economy, Piketty observes, is not a natural fact. Markets, profits, and capital are all historical constructs that depend on choices. Piketty explores the material and ideological interactions of conflicting social groups that have given us slavery, serfdom, colonialism, communism, and hypercapitalism, shaping the lives of billions. He concludes that the great driver of human progress over the centuries has been the struggle for equality and education and not, as often argued, the assertion of property rights or the pursuit of stability. The new era of extreme inequality that has derailed that progress since the 1980s, he shows, is partly a reaction against communism, but it is also the fruit of ignorance, intellectual specialization, and our drift toward the dead-end politics of identity. Once we understand this, we can begin to envision a more balanced approach to economics and politics. Piketty argues for a new “participatory” socialism, a system founded on an ideology of equality, social property, education, and the sharing of knowledge and power. Capital and Ideology is destined to be one of the indispensable books of our time, a work that will not only help us understand the world, but that will change it.
Author: Eric A. Hanushek
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026254895X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
A rigorous, pathbreaking analysis demonstrating that a country's prosperity is directly related in the long run to the skills of its population. In this book Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann make a simple, central claim, developed with rigorous theoretical and empirical support: knowledge is the key to a country's development. Of course, every country acknowledges the importance of developing human capital, but Hanushek and Woessmann argue that message has become distorted, with politicians and researchers concentrating not on valued skills but on proxies for them. The common focus is on school attainment, although time in school provides a very misleading picture of how skills enter into development. Hanushek and Woessmann contend that the cognitive skills of the population—which they term the “knowledge capital” of a nation—are essential to long-run prosperity. Hanushek and Woessmann subject their hypotheses about the relationship between cognitive skills (as consistently measured by international student assessments) and economic growth to a series of tests, including alternate specifications, different subsets of countries, and econometric analysis of causal interpretations. They find that their main results are remarkably robust, and equally applicable to developing and developed countries. They demonstrate, for example, that the “Latin American growth puzzle” and the “East Asian miracle” can be explained by these regions' knowledge capital. Turning to the policy implications of their argument, they call for an education system that develops effective accountability, promotes choice and competition, and provides direct rewards for good performance.
