Wonderland

Wonderland PDF Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509837299
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
"Everyone knows the old saying "necessity is the mother of invention," but if you do a paternity test on many of the modern world's most important ideas or institutions, you will find, invariably, that leisure and play were involved in the conception as well." Most history books don't concern themselves with delight. History is the serious business of war, treaties, governments and monarchs. This is a different kind of history book. Steven Johnson argues that if you want to understand how we got to now, you have to understand pleasure and play. A staggering amount of the landscape of modern life is populated by environments and technology designed to entertain and delight us. Here history of popular entertainment, arguing that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Throughout history, he locates the cutting edge of innovation wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused.He introduces us to the colorful innovators of leisure: the explorers, proprietors, showmen, and artists who changed the trajectory of history with their luxurious wares, exotic meals, taverns, gambling tables, and magic shows.

Wonderland

Wonderland PDF Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509837299
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
"Everyone knows the old saying "necessity is the mother of invention," but if you do a paternity test on many of the modern world's most important ideas or institutions, you will find, invariably, that leisure and play were involved in the conception as well." Most history books don't concern themselves with delight. History is the serious business of war, treaties, governments and monarchs. This is a different kind of history book. Steven Johnson argues that if you want to understand how we got to now, you have to understand pleasure and play. A staggering amount of the landscape of modern life is populated by environments and technology designed to entertain and delight us. Here history of popular entertainment, arguing that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Throughout history, he locates the cutting edge of innovation wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused.He introduces us to the colorful innovators of leisure: the explorers, proprietors, showmen, and artists who changed the trajectory of history with their luxurious wares, exotic meals, taverns, gambling tables, and magic shows.

The Play of the World

The Play of the World PDF Author: James S. Hans
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description


Power Play

Power Play PDF Author: Asi Burak
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250089344
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
“An insider’s view of the good things that can emerge from being glued to a screen. . . . A solid piece of pop-culture/business journalism.” —Kirkus Reviews The phenomenal growth of gaming has inspired plenty of hand-wringing since its inception—from the press, politicians, parents, and everyone else concerned with its effect on our brains, bodies, and hearts. But what if games could be good, not only for individuals but for the world? In Power Play, Asi Burak and Laura Parker explore how video games are now pioneering innovative social change around the world. As the former executive director and now chairman of Games for Change, Asi Burak has spent the last ten years supporting and promoting the use of video games for social good, in collaboration with leading organizations like the White House, NASA, World Bank, and The United Nations. The games for change movement has introduced millions of players to meaningful experiences around everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the US Constitution. Power Play looks to the future of games as a global movement. Asi Burak and Laura Parker profile the luminaries behind some of the movement’s most iconic games, including former Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O’Connor and Pulitzer Prize–winning authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. They also explore the promise of virtual reality to address social and political issues with unprecedented immersion, and see what the next generation of game makers have in store for the future.

Play as Symbol of the World

Play as Symbol of the World PDF Author: Eugen Fink
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253021170
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Eugen Fink is considered one of the clearest interpreters of phenomenology and was the preferred conversational partner of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In Play as Symbol of the World, Fink offers an original phenomenology of play as he attempts to understand the world through the experience of play. He affirms the philosophical significance of play, why it is more than idle amusement, and reflects on the movement from "child's play" to "cosmic play." Well-known for its nontechnical, literary style, this skillful translation by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner invites engagement with Fink's philosophy of play and related writings on sports, festivals, and ancient cult practices.

Games of the World

Games of the World PDF Author: Frederic V. Grunfeld
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description


The Greatest Play in the History of the World

The Greatest Play in the History of the World PDF Author: Ian Kershaw
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350089664
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
What is it that you would want to be preserved for eternity? A man wakes in the middle of the night to discover that the world has stopped. Through the crack in his bedroom curtains he can see no signs of life at all...other than a light in the house opposite where a woman in an oversized Bowie T-shirt stands, looking back at him. The Greatest Play in the History of the World is a beautifully constructed love story, set on Preston Road and also in space and in time. Presented as a monologue for one actor, it asks profound questions with deepest sincerity whilst simultaneously balancing the human quest for meaningful connections. This edition was published to coincide with the play's run at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in summer 2018 starring Julie Hesmondhalgh.

The World Book Encyclopedia

The World Book Encyclopedia PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
An encyclopedia designed especially to meet the needs of elementary, junior high, and senior high school students.

The World in Play

The World in Play PDF Author: Timothy B. Husband
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588396088
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
In the late Middle Ages and early modern times, card playing was widely enjoyed at all levels of society. The playing cards in this engaging volume are unique works of art that illuminate the transition from late medieval to early modern Europe, a period of tumultuous social, artistic, economic, and religious change. Included are the most important luxury decks of hand-painted European playing cards that have survived, as well as a selection of hand-colored woodblock cards, engraved cards, and tarot packs. The casts of characters they illustrate range from royals to commoners. Many feature animals such as falcons and hounds, while other portray such diverse objects as acorns, helmets, or coins. This is the only study of its kind in English and the only one in a generation in any language. The insightful narrative by Timothy B. Husband discusses the significance of playing cards in the secular art of the period and also recounts the varied stories they tell, conjuring the customs and facts of life of the time. Little is known abut the games played with these cards, but as Husband notes: "The playing out of a hand of cards can be seen as a microcosmic reflection of the ever-changing world around us—a world in play—a view that the creators of the cards under discussion here would seem to have shared.

Wonder of the World

Wonder of the World PDF Author: David Lindsay-Abaire
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN: 9780822218630
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
THE STORY: Nothing will prepare you for the dirty little secret Cass discovers in her husband's sweater drawer. It is so shocking that our heroine has no choice but to flee to the honeymoon capital of the world in a frantic search for the life she

The Play World

The Play World PDF Author: Patricia Anne Simpson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271087404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The Play World chronicles the history and evolution of the concept of play as a universal part of childhood. Examining texts and toys coming out of Europe between 1631 and 1914, Patricia Anne Simpson argues that German material, literary, and pedagogical cultures were central to the construction of the modern ideas and realities of play and childhood in the transatlantic world. With attention to the details of toy manufacturing and marketing, Simpson considers prescriptive texts about how children should play, treat their possessions, and experience adventure in the scientific exploration of distant geographies. She illuminates the role of toys—among them a mechanical guillotine, yo-yos, hybridized dolls, and circus figures—as agents of history. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws from postcolonial, childhood, and migration studies, she makes the case that these texts and toys transfer the world of play into a space in which model childhoods are imagined and enacted as German. With chapters on the Protestant play ethic, enlightened parenting, Goethe as an advocate of play, colonial fantasies, children’s almanacs, ethnographic play, and an empire of toys, Simpson’s argument follows a compelling path toward understanding the reproduction of religious, gendered, ethnic, racial, national, and imperial identities, emanating from German-speaking Europe, that collectively construct a global imaginary. This foundational and deeply original study connects German-speaking communities across the Atlantic as they collectively engender the epistemology of the play world. It will be of particular interest to German studies scholars whose research crosses the Atlantic.